by Azaroth | May 25th, 2010
“Like Glengarry Glen Ross?”
Shout out to Kevin Smith, because I know A Couple Of Dicks Sucked (I almost decided to find a job as a film critic just to use that as a title for a review), and that hurt – But Zack and Miri was absolutely fucking hilarious.
But the point here is (and I’m off on a random adventure as usual to start a completely unrelated post, so I apologize – but I haven’t been able to stop laughing at that scene for days) that a Classic Ruleset IPY probably won’t actually be entirely classic.
I’ve more or less decided that I LIKE the ‘compromise’(d?) design (or IPY 2.5 as I’ve been calling it). It’s middle of the road, but that’s probably a good thing. The hardcore classic people can meet with my new age UO hippies and have a good time. Chances are that I can tone things down even further and just release the new content and systems as expansion packs. I wonder if I can compete with Cataclysm if I launch on the same day. I think we’d crush them.
So with that in mind, I think we can talk about what the server should start out with. As far as simple, minor tweaks. Even things we’ve talked about here like skill scrolls.
Would you be in favour of that?
We’re talking about small things – not large systems. Skill scrolls, say, some very small PvP tweaks (and fixes), some stuff that’d head off EUO use, perhaps our altered RoT system – things of that nature, so that everything doesn’t change with an ‘expansion’, and an equal footing is had by all. Besides, I don’t think – if you’re building on one server – that RoT is something you can just ‘slip in’ one day without having a riot on your hands.
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Yo this is great and all, but would you losers please post your daily 50+ comments at a more reasonable time? Like, AFTER 2 pm? When I’m finally awake???
eat shit
See it was almost 2 hours before I was able to respond. A cautionary tale.
Whats up with everyone desperately trying to change the housing rules? They were fine on IPY1. Your house only got looted if you were an idiot and you let someone sneak in, as it should be.
no, most of the time including myself on IPY 1, the houses are broken into through exploits. Since that, Ive never been house looted.
am I the only one that is sick of having 10 tables locked down all over their houses, having to detect hidden 3 times, unlock and relocking those ten tables any time he wants to get anything from his house?
or someone who clearly does not have a life and playing 8-14 hours a day using an exploit to take the shit that Ive accumulated with my measily 10 hours a week that I can get on to play?
I don’t care either way PERSONALLY because if its completely unsecure,then it will be unsecure- whatever, I just won’t store in my house. But if even 1 person quits from having their house looted exploited or not – so that someone who already is accomplished (and probably a griefer) in the game can get a a few K of each reg, that is ridicilious.
Kind of changing the subject, but what about taming. I remember pvping on Pasific and GL and I always enjoyed it when there weren’t a ton of tamers running around with dragons. I can’t remember how the old IPY was with taming, but I’m just curious because later on it seemed there was a large amount of tamers running around with 3 pets.
If someone wants to waste 300 hours played to GM taming, then they can have their 3 dragons that are trumped once anymore than 1 person is fighting them.
Well I think it all depends on how effective they are in the first place, if they can one shot kill people and can tame with relative ease at GM then yes; I would say there will be a generous amount of people playing tamers.
I think taming is a great PvE option and should be. I’m just wondering how taming might effect PvP on the new IPY shard.
Taming was uberhard on IPY, and I believe you could have, at max, 2 dragons. It might have even been one.
i’ve only made a tamer once on a free shard, and ill tell you what… never again. It just too hard and time consuming for me. The rewards are great and a tamer at an idoc with a couple of guildies comes in handy. Its almost worth it, but for me I just dont have the patience no more lol.
BTW heres a great article regarding the rough world ultimate was meant to be by programers preceeding UO:R. A very good read!
http://www.villagevoice.com/2000-02-08/news/bloody-ethics/1
a quote from the article
Britannia’s chief designer Raph Koster puts it, “We’re trying to build a world, not a game.” Jason Bell, Ultima’s senior producer, agrees. “Part of the wonder of the medium, and also the difficulty, is that we in essence have to act as local, state, and federal government, and God,” he says. “From our years of experience, our ethic has really evolved to a light hand.”
I almost named this blog “Playing God Poorly.”
Someone else thought of it first.
so azaroth you planning on opening any custom dungeons/spawns?
PvP fixes – Use spell delays (albeit short)
– No Mounts (unless you want to utilize them for moving purposes… say they start off slow – gain speed when not getting hit by damage)
PvM fixes – Regulate gold. Keep mobs the best money makers but limit the ability for people to farm 50k every 15 min.
– Tamers = ruined economy. Like stated above limit controlled dragons and make the skill extremely hard so only a select dedicated few have a Gm tamer.
– Develop fun spawns or just keep to the classic but throw in some special drops, like a rare crystal ball or necro regs.
Overall Look of the Shard – Pure black… maybe a semi rare?
– Neon clothing, is just a godsend for unpolished shard.
– Don’t rely on gimmicks like football or casinos, etc.
pvp events like footblal and poker like on UOSA was a lot of fun when I played
200k an hour by farming? lol
I loved it when they used to occasionally put up the old lottery stone up on the bank. One time i won 500k from it XD.
When color wars first came out I really enjoyed it, just over all PvP chaos. It would be fun if there was an arena where everyone had the same stats and same equipment and chose from what they have in their backpacks. That way it is not about what you have, or who is more prepared, it is 100% skill.
I think IPY had team matches that were close to the same. It would be interesting to see if something like this would be implemented for events. Or even have a server wide event instead of a small arena. I can only imagine the type of scripting that would take though lol.
Hey Az, if you ever decide to have the occasional CTF game and you wanna make a map for it, hit me up i’ve done some studying on map design and its a big interest of mine ^^. I wont disappoint.
Neon clothes & items need utterly banning from the server. Trashiest thing they ever put in.
just make bless deeds 700k-2mil and problem solved and a nice gold sink.
I played on uosecondage before there were colored blessed items, etc, and with just traditional colors it gets pretty boring.. but hybrid is completley out of hand
lol funny suggestion. You know how sometimes you could get a purple llama, well maybe you could add other rare things from summons for like bs and evs lol. Rare chance of special name or bodyvalue.
Look for the uber rare purple llama++ easter egg!
Relapse and I did it ages ago. I think it’s hilarious. ;)
Honestly I feel like mini-games are the most campy and cheesey thing you could put into the game. Way more so than neons. But then again I think neons are out of place, too.
Mini games, like poker, make me want to just go play real poker. For real money.
Capture the flag just makes me want to play an FPS. For real CTF.
Lottery makes me want to FML. IRL.
Pure black should be, once again, for sanctioned tourny winners, just like before; the only mini-game worth making official.
I think CTF is pretty cool. Just needs to have a little more meaning behind it and be designed to be a bit more fun than “big groups flagged orange to each other!”.
Yeah I understand how you feel, It makes me feel like that if it happens all the time but the rare occasion makes it feel nice. Yeah i also agree FPS>UO when it comes to ctf lol.
zomg idea. The battle of trinsic!! If that could be incorperated that would awesome for ctf like that.
I could see some sort of CTF/King of the hill working *WITHIN THE CONFINES OF THE GAME LORE AND FORMAT*
Like, say, theres a short little blurb about whats going on in Trinsic. Players are on sides. Nuff said.
But the way most servers do it? Where it’s just some fake dungeon that is spawned in the middle of darkness? And theres 80 people there because of 14 rapid-fire Server Admin messages that notified everybody of random blood-red moongates that spawn at every single bank in Sosaria? Yeah. Gay.
you could do it chaos vs order in 1 city and whoever wins the most flag caps wins the city.
but then again.. a lot of scripting would go into this.
Yeah that sounds like a more proper medium. Definitely.
lets bring the fucking shard up. stop dragging tail. this is prime time! NOW IS NOW!
azaroth i hope youre not some kind of negro that thinks this shit is going to put itself online while you stuff’t your face with chicken.
Oh good, azaroth will be happy to know that the population he shut down IPY1 about is trickling back in.
az wants me here to keep turds like you in check. this shit isnt gona be some gooked up uogamers wet dream with crappy ass ideas.
Wow no neon shit. The pure black is fine if it’s reserved for the tourney winners. Not first through fourth but the winners. Bless deeds.. wtf? Maybe for clothes but even then.
Oh and here’s a CTF with Lore for you:
Lord British takes his order force to Trinsic to steal something from Lord Blackthorn. Marshall law is declared in trinsic and all non order/chaos flag grey in the town for the time being. Chaos has to hold the main building in town while order has to take something from it and get back to Britain. Fun times.
fuck you. CTF IS garbage. keep that shit out of my UO
Events like CTF are fun. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with them except for when they are run at times that take away from the actual game. For instance; you’re having the pvp night of your life and you get the server message “random event gate is now open” and just like that your pvp is over. I think that an event schedule put together with some regard to the effect that they will have on the rest of the server while they are running would be perfectly fine.
Trophies acquired from events are a hot commodity on servers like Divinity, UOSA, Hybrid, etc… You can turn in these trophies to get items, I don’t see anything wrong with this as long as the reward items aren’t ridiculous.
Overall I think that events are a good thing. Most people seem to like them and the only complaint you ever hear is that they take away from the actual game, which I agree with. If that issue is looked into events get a thumbs up from me.
I see a few people mentioning mounts so I’ll add that my opinion is that mounts should remain unridable.
Honestly mate. You’re not welcome here. I for one encourage Az to permanently IP ban you right now to save us from your dribble here on out.
agreed.
Are we going to see magic items, such as; magic reflect hats, teleport rings etc?
Also, regarding skill gain little to no gain from vendor npcs or pvp would definitely get more people into the dungeons.
Limited npc money&items should be a must, we want a virtual world here, right?
No ridable horses is always good, specially for people from other parts of the world, like me.
T-hunters can make a killing in uo. Especially given that I am yet to see a server change the spawns points from there Runuo default. A seasoned player run shard vet will have no problem amassing millions within a few weeks.
Looking forward to beta!
Absolutely, 100% please no bless deeds of any kind. This isn’t the theme park MMO that EA turned it into with no risk vs reward.
Bless deeds, neon items/cothing, elves, ninjas, samurai, item-centric gameplay which stats buffs, giant blue bugs and other idiotic mounts just NO.
I’m also not fond of the CTF thing….as a one off launch event or maybe every blue-moon kind of thing sure but not regular..the reason has been stated above, it will detract from the Free-roam sandbox gameplay, players will just do the scripted events for the chance for “trophies” and crap and leave the rest of the world barren…
Also, the more competative you make the shard, the less n00b/sheep friendly it will be. Having leagues and crap just has no place I feel (my personal oppinion) in UO. If I wanna go play CTF or a competative PVP game, ill go load up Modern Warfare 2 or Bad Company or Red Dead Redemption thank you and gloat at my position on the end of round scoreboard.
This is an RPG, let’s not try and make UO into something it never was designed to be and accept it for the gamestyle it was famous for and why we are all here. It can’t be your swiss-army game for all players different preffered gamestyles offering CTF, king of the hill, VIP, Sieging, insta-gib etc. DM/TDM could be argued is already what PvP is about. But trying to bodge in scripted mini-game events will also stretch Az’s dev time take his teams time away from more important things.
Its one thing making a town a PvP ghetto because that in itself is still Sandbox, it lets the players do whatever, I just think the rigid and structured events of CTF et all are utterly alien to the UO format.
Again, just my oppinion.
To add, if you simply would like to see “events” to freshen up the server then that should be done like the old days, with large Orc attacks on Towns (disabling guards) or Undead armies marching across the map. This can all be done within the context of the game format keeping within the RPG atmosphere and doesn’t detract from immersion.
But even these events should be few and far between to make them feel special.
Let’s talk economy now, folks.
Vendors ideally should only sell up to level 3 spells. These should be completely random and not all available from the one vendor, the same should apply to all items. Limited quantities, randomly available. None of this 999 of everything on every vendor.
I know it could be possible to have a much more complicated and dynamic economy system but the coding involved would be massive. I say limited is the way to go.
The selling of rubbish items such as unused scrolls, stones and such should probably be unlimited (to reduce item count & annoyance) albeit at a really weak buy back ie; 1gp. This would allow items of player deemed value to remain in the economy with there own market value.
Player crafted items such as armor or weapons should have a decent value 10%~ above the vendor gear on on sale to npcs and once sold should be available for buy back from the npc for
Well didn’t mean to submit that just yet (damn phone)..
10% above npcmarket value for player crafted items with a 5% increase on buy value once in vendor list. Thus items of value and usefullnesd are recycled into the economy and also acts as a gold sink. A player would still get more money for the items in player to player direct trade.
After further thought possibly removing scrolls from npcs altogether would be the way to go, making them exclusively available from mobs no matter what level. Would make for an interesting start to the shard!
Hot spots revolving around spell scrolls.. ;D
That’s already done. ;)
All scrolls would be annoying for new mages – but I don’t think you can get anything above fifth circle right now except from mobs – and all of the 8th circle summon scrolls are rare drops from specific mobs.
Gotta kill fire eles to get a fire elemental scrolls. Might take you a while, though. A GOOD while.
So now scribes actually have a reasonable purpose at high levels.
Just make sure the various forms of loot are all properly balanced out prior to launch (mib, mobs, t-maps, w/e). Limit how much gold players can make selling to an npc. Maybe make it an hourly limit per player, say 300 gold? Just a thought.
The other huge thing is afk resource gathering. It has to be absolutely clear what the policy is on this and it must be enforced by the staff (and players hopefully).
Limit of gold per player, per hour, wouldn’t work you’d just use different characters. Limited per vendor, maybe, but then you just circle through different vendors. A low value per item wouldn’t make it completely pointless, but it also wouldnt be a huge money maker either.
Loot tables of t-maps need a serious looking at, as well as locations being changed.
Stopping afk resource gathering isn’t hard it would just be a little intrusive IMO, but could work. Staff & player policed afk macroing is near impossible, people will swear black and blue they just didn’t see you etc.
agreed.
everyone knows EUO is banned.
so no warning – just banning people should be the way to go imo.
A three strike system would be better, first ban 12 hours, second 72 hours & and a clear bank and reduced skills. Third strike you’re out with a total IP ban.
Seems like deleting comments leaves this borked.
i borked
I liked the economy of IPY at the beginning. You had to find someone who made spells, and you couldn’t just go out and buy things from vendors, you had to socialize and find someone who could.
I think the economy should run mostly on people. (maybe even taking out selling to vendors) I like how EVE online has their marketing setup to be done this way. I don’t know if this could ever be implemented in UO. Not to mention that it wouldn’t have that old school feeling of UO. Just a thought though.
Economy. I suggest socialism, because I’m lazy and still want to get paid.
What about a further enhanced crafting system. You know more stuff to build, such as those painting canvases but with the whiteboard on them and such things like that which give the early uo feel.
How about rare drops off monsters people would buy and sell that would help stimulate the gold around.
Rare spawns, custom rare spawns always made circulation espically among house decoers.
How about having something like a “secure chest deed” in which one could have One and only One secure chest in there house?
Had an idea, would probably be a lot of work to make it happen but what about having group spawns of monsters in certain dungeons which all spawn together, and actually work together in some way. Eg you could have a group of mobs with a couple of spell casters who would heal and cast buffs on other members of the group etc. They could respawn all at the same time only after the whole group has been killed.
Or high end spell casters could even summon deamons/eles etc. PVM needs to be made more challenging and hunting high end mobs should require team work.
Some stronger spawns other then balrons and AW would be nice itll help re support group pvm. Cause by now we all know how to take things like that out with semi ease. While Tamers can just about solo anything. If we can get some even higher level spawn with maybe like 8-12k drop but the spawn being like 2-3x stronger could make things interesting.
I think we should have trammel and statloss there i said it.
Also i want pink horses who crap rainbow colored shit!!
“Chances are that I can tone things down even further and just release the new content and systems as expansion packs.”
This seemed like a great idea to me initially, but the more I think about it the more skeptical I am. After watching what happened with Divinity – where the server was overhauled to varying degrees every 2-3 months – please be very careful about changing. If you’re not careful, new content can really discourage people from playing the game – obviously most of us aren’t here to play a 12 yr old throwback server because we’re looking for new content.
So, you basically have a firm idea of what the ruleset/systems/content will be, it’s just a matter of which features fit together in terms of balance and whether or not they can be implemented without too much development?
I don’t mean to sound skeptical, just trying to get a clear picture of where the discussion is at. I’m digging this whole idea, looking forward to seeing it in action.
Gold for bounties needs to come from somewhere finite or else the system is infinitely exploitable.
Actually, I think that bounties should be a lesser collateral-effect that makes the existence of bounty hunter npcs coherent.
For example: make it so that the bounty for a given character can only be collected once a week. You can kill the guy fifty times, collect fifty heads but only the first one to sell it in a given week gets the bounty. And when you try to get an already collected bounty the npc announces the name of the character who sold it (records can be kept that could accuse too much bounty collecting from same accounts/IPs if it proves to still be exploitable somehow). Also, set a bounty-cap that isn’t insanely high. And once it is collected, the bounty on a given character goes back to null.
It should be a “bonus” to the player who killed pks, not an incentive to kill them. It’s not about bringing fiery justice to britannia, or any crap of the sort. It’s about getting reds a little bit on their toes, so that new players have a little bit more breathing room.
whiteoleander your name particularly stands out and I don’t remember why…. we may have played together? did I give you my account and we had an inside joke about emilio estavas from mighty ducks?
200th comment omg wtf!!
Hero is like IPY 2.X’s Sensation!
Was Sensation that young kid who sounded like a mouse?
Also random question: Was there a player named
NumberFour on IPY early on?
My character is going to be called NumberWang.
Yes, and Yes.
freshtasting.com/tourneys.htm 3rd pic down
I want to say Number Four was an alt of Aeon Flux… But don’t quote me on that. Super late response, I know.
Well i believe in the philosophical principles of austrian economics. An inflationary system will eventually collapse. What i mean by inflationary system with respect to a game is when a new monster spawns , it spawns with gold automatically that comes from a limitless supply or cache. This system after enough time will cause extreme prices , wipe out the middle class and significantly reduce the value of gold over a period of time. This is why.
If gold from spawning monsters comes from a limitless supply it poses a significant problem with respect to the value of gold. It causes inflation. You see , golds value relative to a vanq sword is determined by the supply and demand of both the sword and the gold itself. Lets just keep it simple and focus on the gold. So in this inflationary system , every time a monster spawns with gold from a limitless supply it in turn inflates the amount of gold in the economy which in turn reduces its value. At first it wont be significant , but after enough time this will cause prices to skyrocket. The problem with this is prices go so high (when actually its just the value of gold dropping) that new players simply cannot afford to pay the inflated prices in order to remain competitive. The only people who will persist and thrive are those who are already rich , while the inflation (its a tax really) will whittle away the savings of the middle and lower class. It will wipe out the middle and lower classes and create an imbalance in gameplay. I could write a book about the complications of this inflationary system where monsters spawn with gold from an invisible and limitless supply , but ill end it there and hope you guys get economics. Now i would like to suggest an idea which should solve this problem.
Its simple really. Start the game from day 1 with a finite reserve from which monsters withdraw gold from when they spawn. Lets say its 5 billion gold. (it can increase relative to the amount of players. If the players online increase , increase the gold. Find a set amount PER PLAYER and keep that as a reserve from which all gold comes) Now every time a monster spawns , with gold , it withdraws that gold from a finite reserve. First thing that pops into peoples mind is “What happens when the reserve runs dry” Well there is a simple solution to that. The money everyone spends on an npc goes directly back into the reserve. If it ever (which it shouldnt) gets to the point where the reserve is running thin other measures could also be taken. For example holding “sales” events. Where items are sold by gms (likely rare and very expensive items) for a short period of time. This is only for the super rich of course. And yes , the money goes back into the reserves. So you have the super rich keeping the value of the dollar strong by getting something they want and in turn redistributing their wealth to the rest of the population. Win win. If both these measures were not enough to keep the reserve from hitting its basement (which it shouldnt. IF done properly the money from npcs alone should be enough to keep it going for YEARS) there could be final measures which could be considered should such an unlikely situation occur. Perhaps a 1% tax on all vendor sales for a period of time to refill the reserves. Of course that sounds bad , but i think its highly unlikely it would ever get to that point. So thats the idea. Keep a finite reserve in place and work the reserve out to a set amount of gold per player (even better would be per account). Lets say its 20m. Now people will SCREAM NOOOOOOO. But you arent getting the economics of it. First off many will be rich and likely have more than their alloted space in the reserve , and many will have FAR less. But the beauty of this system is that if there is only 20m per player in the entire uo world , the free market will balance out. If a finite reserve exists 18×18 lots wont sell for 15m. Not that it wont be incredibly valuable , it will , its just that the value of the gold will be so strong combined with the free market appraisal will render it valuable relative to the supply. You let the market decide supply and demand based upon a finite reserve. It will create a perfect equilibrium in the economy….prices will undulate but as long as the reserve remains fixed prices will balance out and find their equilibrium. Many things will be accessible to all , and some things will still be only for the rich (aka castles) but the kicker as that this all happens without reducing the value of gold. Which also will create a steady price set for any given item. In inflationary systems the price always goes up ……… even if slowly. In a fixed reserve system prices will find a balance and stay there. If a black dye tub costs 20k one week it will cost 20k in 5 years. Thats the mark of a strong economy , not how much an items costs , but how the gold (and hence any given item) retains its value.I cant really go into elaborate detail as to why this will work , either you get it or you dont. If you get it , good. If you dont , think about it for a little while. Its imo the best possible system.
Ps NO POKER!!! NO SELLING GOLD VIA DONATIONS!!!! This will not work!!!! If you do this , you doom yourself from day 1. DONT DO IT. I will quit if you sell gold (poker i am open to , so long as there is a very small tax on winnings which goes back into reserve. Besides its redistribution of wealth , not creation of it). SO DONT SELL GOLD!!! i will not play if you do.
Personally I don’t disagree with the problems you’re pointing out in a closed economic system that is suspect to inflation without a finite set of resources. However the labor is finite due to pop, and as such inflation can be kept in check by requiring gold to be a risk vs reward endeavor. I think, barring swarms of pirates, this is going to occur as long as PKs are a healthy threat in the game. Of course in this game the market efficiency can become almost zero after a long time of unabated powergaming… But this is mostly due to the capability of each player to become wholly self-sustaining if give. The opportunity to powergamer multiple characters or accounts. In my opinion, you can nip the run-off of players breaching the glass ceiling in droves (thus reducing the need for socio-economic interaction) by simply reducing their playable options to 1 or 2 characters total at their disposal. This will not only help induce interaction in the straightforward sense, and thus help stir the economic drink, but it also helps the labor force (and thus the market) be more efficient because each player would be more likely to engage in activities they are most successful at, just like artisans and craftsmen do in the real world. If people were engaging the economy in their most efficient and skilled activities, then the market would be much more efficient and thus help keep the economy on a more reasonable and accurate level. God, I’m good.
^ This is probably the most sound thing I have ever said on this blog [yet] and I just wanted to mention that it should probably be read several times to understand 100%. It’s the best reason for limiting character slots to 1-2 and for limiting account creation via IP + registration. I feel really strongly about market efficiency (in UO) and feel that bulwarking against inflation, powergaming, and total independence in this manner would really help the long-term health of the economy. The one vital key though would be making sure the economy has enough players to establish this co-dependence, otherwise we’d be left in the dark if nonplayers took to a certain economic cog – imagine UO’s economy and world where nobody did SOS so there were no Vanqs, and then no this, no that, etc… That’s the only negative is that it would be very important for all socio-economic ‘niches’ to be filled. But where there’s a buck (or GP) to be made, the opportunity to make money usually leads to the position being filled, or better yet, competed over.
While i dont at all disagree with your notion of limiting accounts/players (actually im all for it) i am going to have to disagree whole heartedly about being able to keep inflation in check. Thats the illusion of an inflationary system , that it can actually be kept in check. Thats just what Allan Greenspan and the Rockafellers want you to think ;o). Simple fact of the matter is that in an inflationary system , every time a new monster spawns everything in the game goes up a very small amount in cost. Its really not avoidable. To say that people wont be pvm’ing much due to risk/reward imo is just………. well , im going to be nice. Its kind of silly and seems oblivious to the irrefutable nature of inflationary system vs finite reserve system (aka gold standard in real life)
You are right , however , about one thing. It will be kept in check for a while. Likely during the first year of the game inflation wont even be noticed. But once people become extremely rich (and especially if there is poker) after that first will i will guarantee you that inflation starts to hit the economy. As its not really a debatable fact that inflationary systems have a steady declination with respect to the value of gold. And hence , prices will always go up despite any attempts to keep it in check. ITs a system doomed to fail, eventually.
meant to write after that first year not “after that will i will……” Damn dyslexia
*i meant to write prices will undulate for the beginning , but will eventually balance out and find their “cost relative to supply”. And it will hold that price , as long as the reserve stays in tact. Arguably forever.
pps If you are insistent upon having a means of income via donations may i suggest something. First off NO GOLD!! Second sell NOTHING that one can get from somewhere in the game. Only unique items. Thirdly make it CHARACTER BINDING. No buying a donation item then selling it for gold. This is the ONLY way you can have donations which do not screw up the economy.
Good observations on donation items. ;)
Vonzer, read this link:
http://www.mine-control.com/zack/uoecon/uoecon.html
Origin tried the closed economy system similar to how you are suggesting and it simply doesn’t work without a few hardcore contingency systems in place which people are not going to like.
It’s great because it allowed cool things like NPC’s selling YOUR crafted bows and weapons to other players…so you see people running round with your crafted stuff more often. Vendors had a finite wallet of gold and only purchased things that they wanted…so they wouldnt buy shit off you that they already had a surplus of that wern’t selling.
What happened? Monsters stopped spawning, players couldn’t sell shit to vendors because they (A) didn’t want your “used underpants of fortitude” or simply had run out of money because players wern’t buying off them and it all broke down. Origin intervened many times and were forced to input more and more gold into the pool manually because it wasn’t returning leaving the economy as planned.
What Origin did not count on was the the hording mentality of players in games. The idea on paper is good that gold comes from a set pool and controls the spawning of monsters. As players kill monsters they take the gold and spend it on NPC, repairs, buying houses even item decay system was integral way of getting money from the system into a drain and back into the gold pool to be recycled and thus allowing more monsters to spawn.
What happened?
Millions of shit tonnes of items/gold sat there in banks and houses inside chests, crates, pouches and backpacks. Players it seems refused to sell shit they would never need and kept things “just in case”. As a result, the pool was never going to be sustained.
If you read that article above, one of the few suggestions was to enforce an item decay on items in bank vaults and houses….Could you imagine the reaction to that?? So of course it never got implemented and the infinite tap of gold system was created instead.
It really is a huge job to implement a good closed enconomic system and one Az wouldn’t relish at the moment i’m sure.
Well i never expected any programmer to take upon the task of instituting a finite reserve system on a free shard :). Im just talking about my utopian delusions here.
Firstly though , it only got to the point where the reserves were depleted because of counterfeiting. Had that problem been solved from the get go this issue may never have come to be. Because the way it was programmed was that whenever gold entered the uo world , through legit means or illegit , the reserves in turn depleted. Because of cheating , a handful of people were able to amass such a ridiculous amount of gold , nearly draining the reserves between them. Were they to correct that problem from day 1 , i dont see the reserves being depleted at all. (besides it doesnt say how much were in the reserves per player).
Secondly is the counter measures. Gold from npc’s alone in a system where there is no alternate means of creating gold (cheating/hacking)would sustain the reserves for a long time. Also , if there is poker (which it sounds like there will be *sigh*) a tax on winning pots wont even be noticed by players. And when you have a good 10-15% of the reserves flowing through the poker tables every day , a tax on that alone should be sufficient in sustaining the reserves and combating inflation.
Lastly were both these measures not to work (which they should if 20m per player is what the reserves are around) I dont think many would object to a lottery system. Once a week have an npc sell tickets for 10-50k and 80% of proceeds go to the winner. If 500 people take part in this per week , coupled with poker tax and npc gold refill , that should be enough to prevent the reserves from running dry. Thats the ideal behind the philosophy , which it states in that article , a perfect cycle of economic distribution. Always going around and around , with no inflation.
If by some freak of nature reason all of these measures fail , there would be a “gm sale”. Where incredibly rare/unique items are sold for gold in limited amounts for an obscene amount. Obviously the intent here is to get gold out of the hands of the rich horders and back into the economy.
I really think this gameplan is feasible , and the only reason origin failed was because of counterfeiting. However despite my dreams of a closed system , i do think no programmer is going to want to embark upon that quest .
ps tell ron paul that closed system economics doesnt work.
besides , arent you a nihilist? What do you care? ;o)
Read the entire paper. My favorite part -
“Eventually, the designers were forced to partially give in to these demands. They changed the shopkeeper code to buy goods such as shirts which were in massive oversupply regardless of the demand. However, to prevent abuse, the shopkeepers will only buy in limited quantities, say 10 an hour, so that players will not be able to write a macro which produces endless shirts and sells them for endless gold.
In order to facilitate these shopkeeper changes, the AI which required the shopkeepers to keep a positive cash flow had to be abandoned. Shopkeepers now effectively print gold in order to pay for the useless goods which are being created by the manufactures. The result is that the improve-by-doing system is inflating the gold supply. However, compared to the hyperinflation which occurred while counterfeiting was possible, the inflation is minimal and goes almost unnoticed.”
Yeah. Word up. I actually Read the first closed economy figure and halfway through it I was like, “No way… this does not work, this is not right at all…” And then I realized it was the ORIGINAL economy when I saw the fixed economy below. Then I realized what they were showing and smiled. Anyways yeah the article is pretty good at showing the problems of pretty much all online game ecos because of how positively abstract and random the motives of players AND the variables of systems can be. So yeah it’s something that needs careful consideration and setup before being let loose, needs consistent monitoring and security measures, and the ability of the designers and Az to ‘fix’ stuff without pissing off the community or ruining stuff in game. Piece of cake…
Also later on one of the more detailed examples of a ‘fix’ was basically the WoW auction house. Hehe, pretty neat, even though it still isn’t a fix for impulse buys or very expensive/rare items or capital goods.
Another ‘fix’ touched on deepening production paths. Gold, pick axe, skill requisite, ore, ingot, (resource sale), goods is a good example of this, yada yada yada… There should be more of this in UO and in the individual non-combat related skills.
Lastly let me just say that the article is, in the year 2010, painfully narrow in scope and positively naive compared to today’s game worlds and the aggregated knowledge of how they operate. It is however blindingly accurate in it’s assumptions of ‘fixes’ and in the assessment of the past and present (at the time) state of the game. I think it’s a fair article that still holds true in many aspects today and surely shows the amazing vision that UO was and how much the overall architecture of the games design has held up over the years. Ultima Online is an absolute monolith in the MMOG world – the original torch bearer, the original game world, the true home of online gaming in it’s purest form. Just look at this articles format and you know you are staggering through the center of the geek storm. Jupiters big spot type shit here people.
IMO the problems which arose from shopkeepers and their gold supply was simply a side effect of the counterfeiting which occurred. If there is a billion at all time in the reserves the issues from shopkeepers ranging in the mere tens of thousands is a mere trivial issue which could easily be overlooked. However because of gold hacks during the early days the reserves were immediately depleted (something which they didnt plan for) And all of a sudden what would have been a trivial issue ranging in the tens of thousands is now incredibly significant because the reserves only has tens of thousands left in it. This is where monsters stopped spawning and whatnot. The issue is not the vendors , the issue was the depleted reserves. And the reserves were depleted because of cheats. Its really impossible to know at this point whether or not it would have worked without the cheats because by the time they solved the counterfeit problem , they abandoned the fixed reserve system for an inflationary one. (something the cheats forced them to do to keep the game open)
On Siege Perilous/Mugen, NPCs doesnt buy items at all from players.
I like this. Not only does it precent the macroing of all kinds, but also it acually FORCE people to trade with eachother.. Meaning the money circulate instead of being created with the problems mentioned.
Too hard on the newbies. IPY 2 will implement both EUO resource scripting detection and alerts to online GMs as well as a shard-wide NPC selling limit.
Which means (before I’m asked), that while IPY had a specific NPC selling limit of X thousand gold, I found this solution was a smaller part of an -actual- reasonable solution that implements this limit shard wide across all NPCs based on account and IP address. This will weed out all but a few power cheaters, and those we’ll deal with individually.
And yes, before I get called an asshole, this is all coded and in.
You can thank Sean for this, who is, frankly, the man.
Final comment:
Yes, I love Siege. I love Siege’s direction, I love what Siege tried to do, I love how Siege was made (one passionate UO developer’s passion project for providing an improved, oldschool, hardcore UO for veterans and for newbies to enjoy a tangible, visceral experience with the greatest game ever made… why isn’t Runesabre the head developer on a new MMO yet?).
However, while I LOVE Siege Perilous, I’m attempting to find solutions that solve many of the same problems (as well as new problems that have crept up in the last 10 years) AND that stay true to oldschool UO and even more allow new players the ability to join without having to bash their fucking heads against a wall of unfairness and ridiculous hardcore gameplay.
It’s easy to say “But you can’t please everyone! Don’t try!”. Sure, but this is IPY. In the freeshard community, I have the same problems as EA does. I have to please everyone, because we’re where it’s at. We’re oldschool, we’re hardcore.. but we also need to be for everyone. Not quite the same situation, but it’s as close as you get.
Plus, I don’t think this is a bad solution. In fact, I think it’s pretty damn nice given the options.
Why would it be a bad situation?
The Situation is way better than what EA got on thier hand.
Because IPY got the possibility to please everyone.. You can do it, aslong as you throw a bone in every direction.
Take a look at EA .. They can’t really please the PvP community anylonger.. They just can’t , and it shows in the number of players. What is left on EA Servers are the community people, the ones that have a passion for the game, and those that these people can attract to the game. I mean, if you are passionate about something, you can get alot of people to be with you, aslong as you are convincing enough, regardless if its good or bad.. World Wars come to mind..
But with IPY, Everyone can PvP . They don’t have to be good, they don’t win always.. but everyone got the oppertunity to pvp, and eventhough it takes alot to be extremely good at it, its there for all levels of skills.. PvP in IPY enviroment will live on its own.
Same with Crafters. on EA servers, Crafters are not what they used to be, as everyone know.. Noone bother, because they (EA) Almost COMPLETELY removed the need for new items, apart for consumeables ofcourse. in the IPY Enviroment it will live on it own, there will be a HUGE Demand for Crafters. The only bone to be thrown to workers, is the promise that resource BOTs will be handled aggresivly. And so they will?
PvE, Will always be ‘worth’ doing. For the magic weapons, for the scrolls etc.. in the IPY Enviroment, where these magics cannot be crafted ( UNLIKE EA ) , it will support itself.. The only ‘bone’ to be thrown to this area, is that you can pve without being guaranteed to be PKd within 30 seconds. With the paladin system, this is being handled.
No, the final part… Roleplayers. I don’t want to hear ” LOLWTF STFU NAB “. Roleplayers are one major part of these passionate people i have been talking about… they bring some major activity to the server, and keep it alive.. Alot of people think that RP guilds and communitys can’t live on servers like this, but thats just pure BS . However, this is where a major bone need to be thrown… Sure, roleplaying communitys should never recieve support *GETTING STARTED* . But once up and running, Seer support is really invaluable.. And with support, i mean the occational quest / storyline with the RP guilds being a part of it.. some town decoration of smaller size, etc.. This is not even needed, but with bones like that, it would blossom . Really.
What did i miss? Nothing really. There is a possibilty to make everyone happy, compared to how the game looks elsewhere.
IPY Got so much potentioal , can be so huge… because it got everything it need to be.. if it just get handled correctly.
And that is why so many people are looking forward to it so much :)
Thanks Sean, whoever you are. ? !!!! ??? …
!!!
Very good.
that is acually exactly the kind of solutions i have tried before, and it worked really well. Atleast the Detection system, however i get the feelings that the one i used was a quite simple system compared to what will be on IPY 2, and not nearly as Automated.
Thumbs up, once again.
Resource BOTs are the worst thing ever on a shard. Ever. I´d take 5 million PKs roaming about anyday.. Well almost, anyway.. or wait, no , Not really ;)
I’d take them, because that’s easier to handle.
EasyUO is the worst thing to ever happen to Ultima Online. Of course the the creators argue it’s somehow a good thing. But that’s untrue, and they’re simply defending a creation and a false idea at this point.
Others defend it because it makes things easier for THEM. Of course most players, when it comes to any game, but especially MMOs, can’t see past their own selfishness to understand what’s good for the health and longevity of the game world they’re enjoying.
The fact that UO has relatively primitive and boring style of doing certain things (… like most MMOs) such as gathering and gaining skill is something that can either be fixed by several millions in investments or by a program that otherwise completely ruins the entire game. Or, you can just accept UO for what it is and play the damn thing.
I spent many, many hours ‘playing the damn thing’ and I loved it.
I absolutely agree.
With one exception, i have never ever felt the need to use EasyUO . It was some time that i can not even remember, when i used it to make a specific item, melt it and remake etc.. But quickly realised that it sucked, and never touched it since.
Nothing that you cannot do with Razor anyway.. and the correct description is, That it ruin the game. Period.
Arra I just want to note for you that Roleplayers were a legitimate section of the IPY 1 population. Sure they were stratified somewhat and weren’t like one giant powerful clan in terms of PvP, but there were RPers off all types. Orcs (and their big clan and “towns”), merchants and their trade groups, townies, adventurers, anti PKs, even some were into guild vs guild and a few PK/PvPers, as well.
Well yes. But that is half of my point.
IPY Got something for everyone, and the possibility to ‘please’ everyone. Its not about ONLY pvp, as alot of people thing, even though Az made it clear that it’s not the case.. Atleast not this time (?) :)
Go go go … *Sits around impatiently and restless*
Coffie anyone ? Sandwich ?
Yeah, the Orcs on IPY had an especially good population.
I hope they weren’t like the UOGamers orcs that only used the RP facade to get seer support for the goal of pking people.
This is the standard formula for orc rp guilds; Join us to gank players.
lol, if you’re complaining about the original orc guild on there that’s a bit weak. They were hilarious, sure all they did was run around pking but they did it on foot on a server with mounts… One of the few things I ever enjoyed playing that server was watching the orc ganks try and pk on foot. They were hilarious.
SHUT DOWN! Lol. No one listens to me in real life when i tell them to take half of their retirement fund and use it to buy gold , i suppose it was naive to assume that anyone would listen to cautions about inflation here …. oh well. At least my psychiatrist says im a winner.
On a serious note though (the above as an attempt at humor…..) just curious as to what time frame you are looking at for an approximated launch? Not pestering you , just curious as to what the window is.