by Azaroth | March 30th, 2010
The previous topic was good. I suggest reading over the comments section for discussion about third party programs, Factions and Order/Chaos wars, and even RoT skillgain and how it might fit into the new IPY.
Two polls that I’d like to collect opinions on. One was something not brought up in that topic, however. Instead, it’s something that I’m re-deciding on based on recent events. And really, something I’d like to see votes on regardless.
The other is RoT. Siege Perilous veterans may recognize the term.
Loading ... Loading ...So you don’t need to dig too far for context on the RoT poll, I’ll repost one of my comments.
A few thoughts:
Now, I like the idea of RoT. In fact, I like the idea so much that I’m giving “Resources over Time” some thought.
However. RoT, while seemingly very functional, is also very unfun. I do remember starting on Siege when it had RoT before the wipe (I have no idea if it had RoT afterward). I remember thinking “Wow, this SUCKS!”.
However, the idea was functional then, and it’s damn functional now. How to catch up is certainly a problem, of course… but I think that if you leave RoT in, people have more connection to that character they built, and will likely stick around longer. Things can be done to ease the curve for genuine newbies without kicking RoT out and making all of the veterans feel ripped off, I think.
Which can be done, mainly, I think because something like dungeon scrolls meshes so very synergistically with a RoT system.
RoT – Benefits actual gameplay, restricts macroing. Automatically. No need for detection or police.
Downfall? I’m playing, I’m not macroing, I want to gain more skills and I’m stuck. This sucks. Even if I go play normally, there’s no skill to be had.
Skill scrolls works here. Perfectly. When you’re done gaining, go jump into a dungeon and look for them as long as you want. Drop rate is pretty low, so nobody is forced to… but if you really want that edge, or even if you just want to put thirty minutes in and try your luck… go ahead.
I also, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I remember RoT being very literal. As in that there was a limit on how often you could gain 0.1 skill – period.
While that sounds good from my chair, I know it doesn’t sound good from yours. Because I sat there and played it as a player, and I hated that shit.
At first glance, I’d suggest a cleaner RoT system with an absolute daily limit on skill gains. Something achievable by the average player (especially at the lower levels), and no point-by-point restriction. You can get on and gain your skill points every day in any way you’d like, though skill gain would still be relatively slow and the gain cap would be fairly low (again, something that gives it purpose… not something that a normal player would never, ever attain). If the maximum daily points are left something like they were in the original system, I’d probably like to add a dragging negative gain modifier to make gains slower as you reached the upper levels of the daily limit. You can call it gain fatigue if you like, but I’d rather do that instead of a straight up time limit on individual skill gains. Mainly because you punish those who want to hit those upper echelons of skill gain (while still allowing it), and all of the more casual players get to gain as normal.
On top of that, you still offer skill scrolls and double skill gain in dungeons, and, hopefully, you watch as the general game becomes more active instead of everyone just macroing to the top.
Now, it’ll backfire if people REFUSE to play the system and aren’t at all interested in UO without autopilot, sure. But that’s okay, really. I’ll take that chance if we’re working toward making a better UO.
I like the idea, I like the thoughts in this thread, and I hope you guys keep posting. Perhaps I’ll hold a RoT poll at some point.
Any chance you can flag people who have not had a skill scroll drop in X number of NPC kills and increase their rate?
You know, cause somea of us are the most unlucky mother fuckers in the world.
Also, those rare random drops make for very very frustrating grind sessions. An extra ten hours for 0.3 skill gain? That’s terrifying.
Also, do skill scrolls scale so that a 0.3 gain scroll gives say, 6.0 points at fifty but 0.3 points at 99?
No, they just drop more often at lower levels.
By the time you’re 99.0, don’t expect a scroll other than a complete luck drop. You can grind it if you want, but don’t bitch at me when you don’t find shit after ten hours of killing liches.
I know what you mean about the drops, though. I’m the same way. When something drops at 20%, it’ll take me 40 tries.
Something that I’ve sort of inferred, maybe without any basis for believing, is that it’ll be possible to go out in the world and really play the game fairly quickly after getting started. I guess there’s sort of two levels of viability that I have in my head:
1) Dungeon viable
You’re able to survive encounters with monsters, and generally profit from visits to dungeons. In my head this happens almost right after logging in for the first time, if you pick the right starting skills, or have a good group of people with you.
2) PvP viable
You’ve got fairly firm handle on the basic skills; 60-70 of ea of the 7 tank skills.
The PvP viable character will usually trump the Dungeon viable character 1v1, but it won’t take more than a brief period as Dungeon viable to become PvP viable.
I’m wondering, what kind of timeline you have in your head, Az?
You forgot cotton picking and crafting
Speaking of crafting would there be a way to get a skill scroll through actions other than killing monsters? For instance if I wanted a mining or blacksmith skill scroll I could get it from looking for ore or if I wanted lumber jacking or carpentry I could get it from chopping wood?
Yup. Same thing. An incentive for being at the computer while you play.
Do you think extensive EUO/Razor mining/LJ macros could be a problem with that? I’d assume unattended resource mining is going to be a no no anyway though. People might still do it though. What about making a random word that you have to type into a gump when you get one while mining resources so the person has to be attended to be able to type that in, like what was done with BoD’s?
Stratics sent me a newsletter email and this was the first thing that caught my eye: http://vboards.stratics.com/showthread.php?t=185375
I guess there’s still a few people hanging around at Stratics, hoping for an EA Classic shard. I have to admit that when I first opened the newsletter, I thought it was official EA news – not just lonely uo vets asking for votes on a poll.
After browsing a couple threads, it looks like a couple of you have already participated in this discussion.
that poll is there because a UO dev said they will be talking about a classic server option in a meeting. He also said that they don’t know if yes or no they will open one, but they are def discussing it
Soooooo basically, they are just now giving serious consideration to an idea that people were demanding like eleven years ago when they could have actually made some money by doing it. Sorry, EA, but we can play this era (or a style based on it) for free now. This idea made way the hell more sense when we didn’t have those options AND there were more of us still interested in this game.. If I have my choice between IPY 2.0, and some EA developed T2A based shard, ran by people who probably have absolutely zero connection to what UO was at that time, and consequently have no idea what is good or bad about those mechanics, I choose IPY 2.0 every single time.
Free shards are that. They are free. They are way more malleable. People who understand the game have voices.
Well you are mostly right I don’t think 14 bucks a month is going to prevent a lot of people from trying it out, it might, but who knows. As much as I perfer Azaroths ideas since they “fix” a lot of the issues that come up in UO I would still give an EA server a shot. Mainly because I’ve wanted one for so long that I wouldn’t let myself miss the oppertunity and secondly because I know it will bring a half decent playerbase and could be fun, for a while anyway.
Anyways, I was playing some UOSA last night and ran into a guild farming in LL’s. It was pretty cool. 1 Bard, 2 Warriors and 2 Mages. All the people who recalled into the LL’s stopped and watched them as they farmed, hell I joined in as did the person I was playing with. It made me think about what is missing from UO. The fact that you use to do stuff in game with other players. The more stuff they added to the game, the easier it got. Why would I farm LL’s with 4 people when I can do it solo? or Solo all of level 1 dest and make 20x the money?
I really think EV is overpowered and needs to be toned down for one. Also, higher end mobs like LL’s Blood Eles, Dragons and PE’s need to be buffed up a bit I think. Really, you shouldnt be able to solo them unless you’re a tamer. Or if you can solo them, it should take you a fair amount of time. Now just 1-2 EV’s.
Goes back to an already discussed topic. If Money and Mobs are harder to farm, more people will be in dungeons doing stuff together. I mean, ask Domu, it was really cool to see and made me realize what I feel has been missing in the game.
They did that in EA’s UO, buffed the high end monsters, now it is kind of dumb because they just two shot you from two screens away if you aren’t careful.
There really is no happy medium with this 2d framework.
As for the poll on stratics.. back in Feb. in the letter from the producer they talked about how they are giving a classic shard some serious thought and will either go forward with it, or put it to rest with a no sometime this year. As far as video game development goes that is a fairly reasonable time line.
Now I don’t have to justify the need or want for a Classic UO shard to this crowd. The main difference between a player run shard and an EA run shard is that you know when you log out tonight you are guarenteed to find your server and character still there in the morning. With player run shards this isn’t always the case. No offense to Az, we all read his farewell we all know the story, and I am not trying to call him out. But we have seen the same before with IPY 1.0. Another reason is corrupt GM’s and officials. Most player run shards give hand outs to friends that play them, and as we have seen again on IPY power can be abused for personal gain.
Now the reason IPY 2.0 is going to be so successful is because Az has recognized these problems and is taking his time to find the proper solution. I honestly believe that for a player run shard to work correctly you need to run it like it was an official server. Meaning no dumb racist character or guild names, discourage the use of profanity and words like rape, or racial slurs by at random picking reports and suspending those accounts. Doesn’t mean you have to get them all, but just the CHANCE of it bringing a penalty will really crack down on the c00l d3wdism.
Now this is getting a bit off topic, and that is not my purpose here, but I will continue to support both IPY 2.0 and a EA Classic Server because I believe that there is room, and a player base, for both to be very successful.
From what I remember, most mobs dispelled EVs almost instantly.
You had to get around the dispel with some clever techniques. Forcing players to party to make any decent coin is bullshit. If you want us to party, add some new content that requires a party but gives like 5x the gold, don’t just buff the regular mobs that most of us rely on to fuel our pvp.
Mobs that are too tough aren’t fun though. Fighting players is fun. PvE pros will play warcraft. Look at what darkfall did with PvE and its one of the bigger obstacles that people have to enjoying that game.
Of course I don’t mind party driven content, but if that’s my only option to make, you know, 10k in two hours… then that sucks and I’m going to stage a protest in Britain.
Ox, are you sure you want everyone to be able to be fully independent, self-sufficient, and isolated?
Most free-shards have enabled people to do that, and it seems like that might be part of the reason they flat-line not long after going up. Activity crashes pretty quickly after the first few months; everyone has touched and experienced every element of the game, and they get bored. (see: IPY, Redemption, Metropolis, Divinity, etc.)
Sult hit it. Player run is player run. “Classic” server rulesets being revamped by EA at this point is literally *comedy*. I’d much rather play UO in a fubu setting rather than EA doing it in a get-rich-quick style (which it would be). EA throwback server would be too gimmicky.
People who homebrew their own stuff like this have barrels more to get out of it. It’s more intimate, it’s more personal; it’s like a small town. And at this point, I’d rather know everybody around town rather than deal with the anonyminity of a giant money-making server for rejected hipsters who farmed orcs near Cove and lie about how they had “20 castles and 5 7xGMs”
I’m honestly amused by EA even considering it. He’ll, I’m amused by EA still hosting p2p UO. In fact I’m totally shocked they haven’t completely dumped the entire source code, shut off the shards, and said “See ya in 5 yrs for UO2 (again).”
Lich Lords, and Deamons dispel evs pretty quickly, Dragons don’t dispel them at all. at least not on UOSA. Also aslong as the LL or Deamon gets deadly poisoned, you can just let it tick away and fire off a few finishing ebolts.
I’m sure there is another way around it, I mean I was farming Destard Level 1 solo killing 3 drakes and a drag at a time every 3-4min with just ev, that’s a little too easy. You’re right though, getting two hit from the far end of the screen isn’t a good fix at all.
I too am surprised with all their money they haven’t made a UO2. I mean they can’t really expect to make a huge profit off UO regardless of what they do.
I’ve got comments about this. But they’ll have to wait.
I’ve been following that poll thread on a stratics for a while. It makes you realise just how much demand there is (after all this time) still for a classic shard, especially if EA are finally taking note. MMORPG.com UO forum also has a classic server demand going and god knows how many other UO forums.
As for IPY vs official Classic shard, I wouldnt get hopes up too much for now considering that EA have barely confirmed it’s go ahead. In honesty, i doubt it will happen but if it did there are pro’s for both IMO.
IPY will be more in touch with the players and changes, content updates probably more frequent if needed. I also think IPY will harbor a more hardcore type of player on average at a higher skill level and knowledge.
Official shard would I think have a larger player base (laziness factor and EA marketing). As mentioned earlier you also have the legally bound assurance that your characters and items are all going to be there in the morning which a free shard can never guarentee. Also, it would attract more sheep.
Cons are that EA’s shard could turn out to be a poor mans classic shard, or worse some sort of mutated hybrid mishmash of old and new features, despite the great efforts put into the threads on Stratics laying out the rulesets and time to base the classic shard on, I would fear that EA will simply not pay attention to this and do what it thinks best. Alot of if’s and but’s currently and not really worth discussing seriously until we get something more substantial from EA.