The 3 questions could maybe be phrased better but they ARE different. Weighing up percentage of time spent playing Ultima Online on IPY, choose which one would be most applicable to you in reality:

1. PVP e.g 75%+ PVP,
2. PVE and Crafting e.g 45% PVE, 45% Crafting, 10% PVP.
3. An even mix e.g, 33% PvP 33% PvE 33% Crafting.

I’m not asking exclusively what things you will or will not do, simply what percentage of your time played would roughly be allocated to each.

Sheep would pick option 2 and I believe that it will be them that will decide if the server is successful. A UO server without sheep is doomed to fail by its very nature.

My argument against Razor was that it makes the server less Sheep friendly that is all. I understand that yes it CAN be used modestly and to improve specific aspects, but as long as it still leaves room to be abused and effectively make PKíng Sheep even easier then it would be normally then it is going to put off a lot of the Sheep players. I don’t use Sheep as a dorogatory word btw, infact the Sheep players being the Crafting, Social, Roleplaying and PvE community as well as the Prey for PKérs are the heart and soul of UO.

To answer your poll questions, I am all three of those things and more in UO. There is barely anything in UO that I don’t sometimes or often enjoy doing. I like to have a vendor, farm goldz, bank sit, do tournaments, kill oranges, rare collect, roleplay, etc.. As someone who supports the use of Razor I don’t see how it’s a one sided ordeal. I think that your opinion that Razor gives pvpers an advantage that will affect non-pvpers in some negative way is inaccurate. Other than the basics; potion macros, use once agent for para pouches, things like this that you cannot get through your UO client (that people have been using since the beginning of time) what will you actually notice from Razor? Other than the obvious answer “people using efficient macros to build their skills at WBB”. Razor doesn’t = script/automated pvp as some seem to portray themselves to believe. There are very few script/automated type macros that people use (that I know of) through razor, and they really don’t offer much of an advantage over yee of little macros. People can set up macros to cast heal/drink pots/pop pouches/ whatever, but as I’ve said before I don’t believe these are any better than hitting the macro manually. Razor is all about offering convenience that cators to ones personal preference. And I think that it works in a way that doesn’t negatively affect those who choose not to use it. Unless you’re someone who doesn’t use potion/pouch macros in which case as you said in your post, “thats your problem” because really these macros ARE a part of the old school UO experience to many if not most of us. I too played UO without UOA at first, going back to UO without UOA is like going back to a 56k modem, it’s not a fun booster and it’s not beneficial.

Most of the features in razor I don’t even use. I have guildmates that use restock agent to fully equip their characters. This is an example of something offered through razor that is convenient and doesn’t affect anyone else negatively, it simlpy makes UO less tedious for the person that chooses to use it.

I don’t mean to sound like a Razor commercial over and over, it’s just that as someone who uses Razor regularly for pvp and beyond I don’t understand the demonization of the program that some people seem to harbor. Like I said before, if it were possible to remove all 3rd party programs from a server then I honestly wouldn’t have a problem with that. But it’s not, and Razor is the only reasonable UOAssist type program that I know of.

The reason why I didn’t is because your three options are not at all distinct from each other. Individual playstyle, say, I’m going to play to PvP, is not a condradiction of wanting a balance of all playstyles when you look at the server as a whole.

Lets say I want to choose option one because I’m going to play to PvP.. Then I see option three, and am like, “well, I’m personally going to play for pvp, but there should be a balance and appeal to everyone.”

Which one would I pick then?

not only that, but what effect do 3rd party applications used for targetting, streamlining functions, generally, anything that only applies to pvp in UO have to do other playstyles that don’t include pvp?

I fail to see the relevance of a server wide poll regarding which players are doing what, when the third party programs or lack thereof don’t have an impact on everyone.

What kind of player are you? 3 options…

1. Your going be here mainly for PvP and Wars?

2. You just want to relax, socialise, buy property, make money etc?

3. You want a server with a blend of PvE/PvP/Social all on an even basis?

It’s pretty important to identify what players your aiming the server at before making important decisions on the mechanics. Using Razor for example, supporting Razor or encouraging it’s use would attract those who are hardcore PvP players but likely put off people who arn’t hardcore and simply what to relive a Classic UO server with a decent population again.

I would say it’s sheep the server will need and Sheep that are going to be the hardest to attract to the server. I’d guess that 90% of the people posting on here are wolves (I might be wrong). But on a server with just wolves and Razor encouraged, your left with a server like Hybrid (Deathmatch arena) imho which is certainly not what I’m looking for.

Me and a lot of players out there are looking for that Classic UO world back again, not necessarly a clone, but an active, thriving server where PvE, crafting and PvP are all feasable alternatives to the average player (without having to be a 5 times PvP tournament winner from Hybrid). End of the day, if you want fast paced PVP these days in games you can just load up WOW, WAR, Guild Wars, Modern Warfare, Bad Company 2 the list goes on… If your looking for an authentic virtual world, with politics, an in-depth & rewarding crafting system; skills/character development, social mechanics with player housing & boats, a Player driven economy and content ; There’s just nothing out there even now after 13 years that can compete with Ultima Online of old.

So basically in a nutshell, what i’m saying is UO is more then just PvP. ALOT more. And although I think most who play it now do so just for PvP, if you want the server to be different to all the other run of the mill shards out there, PvP should not dictate all your mechanics and policies. Saying Razor is good because it makes PvP more enjoyable, doesn’t mean everyone will agree it’s a good idea because it has a downside too.
Not everyone will PVP to a level where scripts/macro’s or even hotkeys are something they will entertain or be arsed with. You could argue that thats their problem, but it’s a fact and it will put people off if they have to do it to be able to compete.

You likely can’t stop all third party apps like Razor anyway, but the point is the message the server policy sends out is important. If the server openly endorses the use of apps like Razor it’s ultimatly gonna make even more people use it and I think that’s unwise if you want non-hardcore pvp’ers (Sheep/carebears) to be on IPY.

It’s slower, easier to react, slowed down, and gimped. You wouldn’t think something like that makes that big of a difference, but it absolutely does. That difference isn’t really a small nuance. It’s a big difference.

I think it’d be awesome if you just couldn’t target a player’s bar, and could disable the targetting features in razor (with the exception of last target).

Autoswing? Bots that WoW tries to track and ban? People sticking pennies in keyboards in Darkfall?

These are not examples of why autopiloting has become integrated and accepted in MMOs…

Here’s to hoping the alpha/beta testers are up to the task, cheers!

Razor macros can be fairly specific but are limted. For example; one could have a razor macro that auto pops pouches when you get the system message “you are frozen”, drinks heals when your hitpoints reach a set low, drink a cure when you’re poisoned, and so on. All of those are “autopiloting abilities” that really aren’t that fantastic in my opinion. I don’t use any macros like that because for one; it’s super easy to hit your potion/use once agent macro and for two; sometimes I don’t want my pouches to go off instantly and sometimes I don’t want to drink a cure/heal. I could make a million examples of similiar “auto pilot” macros (through razor) that really don’t give much of an advantage to anyone.

Target random enemy/criminal etc… is perhaps the biggest game changing feature (for myself) that razor offers. The funny thing about that is that half or more of the people that I pvp with don’t even use targetting macros (for some reason) and they target just as well or better than me. One of the best duelers I know doesn’t even use last target. Often times it takes more time for me to toggle through my “target random whoever” macro to get a target than it does to just drag the lifebar. These targetting features can also be disabled at least to a certain extent. For example on Divinity the “target CLOSEST player of type” hot keys are disabled. It is only possible to create a “target RANDOM player of type” macro. Which may not seem like a big change but it is. With five oranges on your screen, targetting the one closest to you is far more efficient than scrolling through potentially all of them once or twice. If you really were against these targetting macros I think it is possible to block them entirely (through razor at least) as well. I’m not trying to downplay these features to the point that they aren’t awesome and couldn’t potentially give a small advantage over someone who doesn’t use them, because they are awesome. My point is that razor DOES offer a LOT of “auto pilot” features but none of them are significantly game breaking to anyone who doesn’t use them.

If it were even a possibility to block all of these UOA kind of programs from your server I’d say go for it but allow some kind of program that does the most basic of UOA things like arm/disarm, drink potions, pop para pouches, and similiar hot keys that the UO client either doesn’t offer, or offers an inferior version of. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but blocking all of these programs isn’t even possible, right? In that case what makes the most sense to me is to encourage the use of the most mild version of these programs (arguably Razor) so that people don’t feel as compelled to download one of the less mild programs (ala easyUO) and make the “auto pilot” situation even worse.

And to answer your question: “But if everyone was using the same arm/disarm, would it matter?” It wouldn’t matter in the sense that people would or wouldn’t have an advantage over one another obviously, but the in-game arm/disarm macro is greatly inferior to the razor macro to the point that it’s painful to use. It would actually change pvp (dueling in particular) into something less fluid and more tedious. Half of the time the UO arm/disarm macro doesn’t even work if I remember correctly. Maybe that was just my dialup modem, in any case the in-game arm/disarm macro sucks. It wouldn’t be the end of the UO world if we all had to use it but it also wouldn’t be fun, and I don’t see how it would benefit anything.

I see Razor as the lesser evil of all of the paths you could take. I would even go as far as forcing people to log in through razor as to prevent them from logging in with one of the more advanced UO helpers like “playUO” or whatever it’s called. I already know how you feel about forcing people to use Razor, though, and that’s understandable. Whatever path you do take, I think that you would agree that the best one would be the one that discourages the use of programs and features within them that are “too good”. Clearly peoples opinion of what “too good” is varies, but if you think Razor is bad then I know you don’t want EasyUO and whatever other program on your server. I strongly believe that discouraging the use of more mild programs like Razor will only encourage the use of much less mild programs like EasyUO. Then people really will have an advantage over others because figuring out how to use a script your friend wrote to pop pouches and drink potions is way more complicated than setting your use once agent or your potion macro. On top of that it brings more people into the world of easyUO/whatever else, they will eventually master it, and then you’ll have a server full of EasyUO experts because they didn’t want to use the in-game arm/disarm macro :) I know that’s a doomsday scenario but I think that it’s at least a little bit accurate.

I’m just saying that I could live without them.

In fact, I’d love to live without them.

Making that connection, if I can make an extreme example to illustrate a point, is like if everyone had full one-button instakill PvP scripts that adapted seamlessly to what the other player was doing (well, what the other player was scripting).

Sure, it’d be faster. More convenient. And once everyone got used to it, if you took it out they’d howl for blood because everything would be slower and more complicated and not nearly as convenient.

Doesn’t mean the game just got worse, though.

If everyone used the in game rm disarm feature, sure, it would be even playing field, but that doesn’t mean it’s good. That’s like saying “when precast was removed, it was removed for everyone, so it doesn’t matter.”