by Azaroth | June 5th, 2010
So it was recently suggested that I take some Qs and A them in a spot where they can be read – unlike PhatChat, where the answers scroll off and are lost forever to the dark pit of deleted internet stupidity.
I’ll be taking your questions over the next couple of days here. Initially I wrote that this particular post would be locked to comments because I don’t want a huge and unwieldy blog thread that people have to scan through for answers. Instead, I’ll allow the discussion instead of getting my inbox spammed and I’ll just make a second post in a few days and separate the good Q&A from the general chitchat and trolling.
Awesome! Go!
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What kind of houses will there be?
Will there ever be GM run events via invasions, scavengers etc?
Will this shard offer custom spawns that are not default to the t2a/uor era?
Will there be a duel pits?
Will the crafting system be “enhanced” in anyway?
How long?
Whats the current stance on skill gain and macroing?
Will it be focused towards an adventuring kind of skill gain, I.E. go out and kill stuff
Or will it be macro-friendly.
Only heard a little information regarding some kind of skill scroll, how do these work?
Will you be able to sell items to npcs? (Anti-Tailoring and other forms of non attending money making?)
Is it possible to block against the kriss Client? If so are you going to?
How is Statloss going to be handled if at all. Will the changes to statloss, if any, be for the first server or the second one only?
Is there going to be more then one server? “Classic IPY with or without changes and the “Ipy 3.0″?
If there are two servers, will an RoT type be in place for both?
Will the server be using the oldschool asciitext for item names (a surpassingly accurate katana of power)?
What gump style will be used for crafting/house/guild menues?
examples:
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y158/xavierwer/divGG.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y158/xavierwer/guildgumps.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y158/xavierwer/blacksmith.jpg
Should I be answering these as we go, or saving the SuRpRiSeeEEe for the next post?
both LOL.
So I could leave a bunch of vague-assed answers and then make a clear, concise post for reading material at the beginning of the week?
A lot of the questions have been redundant and some have even been answered already.
I’d rather read a more detailed post later than sort through the comments.
Here’s my contribution:
Have you had the ROT system coded yet? What does it entail? With or without using skill scrolls, how long to you expect it to take a character to reach 7x?
Good stuff!
….
(I’m doing both here. Answering and saving the answer for later.)
I have been thinking for the past week that a Q&A with Az would be the best way to launch the first episode of the IPY radio podcast but I figured that things are so far off that it’s not the right time to start up the engines and whatnot.
Az if you’re interested in using this thread as an aggregator for the content of the Q&A interview format, then let me know. Or the whole radio thing can wait, I only want to start going with it when the times right and ppl r interested in IPY enough to listen to something like a show…
It’s a fine idea, though obviously I’d prefer to be launching a brand new ultra-super-cool ruleset and I think a live Q&A about that would be far more interesting.
I also wouldn’t call anything “far off” if we’re going with the classic shard. Like I’ve said, technically I could launch tomorrow… though there are a few weeks worth of things I’d probably want to get coded. How long that ACTUALLY takes to code, no idea.
How many coders do you currently have working for you? Do you know C# and, if not, why don’t you learn it and start coding stuff yourself? This blog has been going for 9 months and I find it hard to believe you don’t have the most basic systems in place to launch by now unless you don’t do any of the work yourself.
Second, is hosting taken care of or is that another issue that we’ll be waiting on?
“Where is the shard and why are you such a fag, Az?”
+1
+2
i hope we get an answer for this one.
even though tomed is being a dick and asking these things like an asshole, it would be good to know.
How are you going to cater for the RPers & crafters?
What do you think of the whole blue npc/bounty idea and do you think it is feasible? How long do you think it would take for to code such a system? Would there still be time for it to be applied on IPY 2.0?
Q. Which direction did that blue run?
I think things will be a bit different for FB with statloss.
Of course, if you’re actually up for the challenge then I salute you, sir.
I know that the harder it was to be a red, the more enticing it’d be to me personally (as long as I could still pick my targets freely, meaning there was no PK switch or anything).
Q: Will purple pots chain react??
A: Of course they will. Next question.
You made me laugh mazer. But I agree with you as well. Thanks for that.
PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
fuck was i PISSED when this was taken out – and i only used them like 3-4 times.
q: are you going to implement that end game in deciet idea?
q: what will be the boat and housing prices?
q: will skill scrolls have the same drop rate when one is 50 as one is 95?
q: i remember reading something about 8th level spells being uncraftable by scribes and having to be rare drops – true?
q: what is your stand on GM handouts on quests?
q: is recall going to be altered at all? I remember you saying you would like to limit it.
q: no mounts i assume?
q: are dungeons going to be all open with traditional spawns or are you going to close/open a few or alter the spawns so its more exciting/more to do?
q: are any citys going to be closed at launch?
q: are you going to be more strict against racists and morons?
q: you said you didn’t want to to put up a forum — i thought this might be a good idea to improve trade in game/around banks — is this a permanent decision or just for the time being and eventually a forum will be put in?
Not a bad idea actually.
come to think of it it might be good to attract more players… some retards might get on the forum and destroy all conversation making people believe its just a bunch of immature morons that play the shard… and then you have the people that whine about pvp or fake accusations of cheating and it gives a bad vibe as well
Forums are great for the community if they don’t degenerate into a bunch of trolling and crap.
I won’t be policing a forum. Actually, I can’t police a forum because I don’t have the patience required to babysit a bunch of dumbasses who make it their job to appear to the entire world that they have an IQ of about -5.
It’s also really bad form to participate on a forum myself and give trolls a great big target. It only makes things worse.
If I find someone I’m completely comfortable with and I believe they can do the job, there’ll be one. Otherwise… I’m really not sure. I’ll run a beta forum in the meantime. I have no problem with that. But waking up in a cold sweat at 3am wondering how much gay porn is plastered across my forum and how long it’ll take to delete all of it and ban the accounts responsible, and how long it’ll take before they stop proxying in new accounts to keep me awake is.. not fun. In fact, I refuse. So there.
Another solution might be a strictly controlled forum wherein accounts are validated and connected to game accounts. There could be a newbie forum for asking questions, but posts would be held for moderation, no images or BBCode/HTML allowed, so on and so forth.
I mentioned it a while back that UOSA has a pretty good forum setup. One section of boards for trash talk that only registered members can look at. Be lax about what is allowed there (obviously there has to be some limit) and have clear set rules for every other section. It is an effective way to herd all the assholes into one area while keeping everything else fairly clean. If people repeatedly break the rules after coming back from a forum ban, you can take action on their in-game accounts to let them and everyone else know you’re not fucking around.
Q. Are you going to speed up mobs a little to make it more difficult to simply “run” through spawns?
i like this ^^
Are you going to cut out the bottom 1/3 of Sosaria (if thats a thing [the UO world]) where the jungles are because that area is shit?
Will you remove Trinsic because its a fucking waste of space and large enough for 10,000 people that will be inevitably empty?
Will you do something about the fact that when everyone has variable skills pvp is fun but when macroing is available 7x gm vs 7xgm means you only have one option of template because everything else sucks plus dexer vs mage at full 7xgm sucks?
Will you watch the documentary Collapse because it is really eye-opening and entertaining?
Will you delete Nujelm because its another waste of f’ing space that only 3 people will bitch about because they like to be alone at all times on the map?
Will you make more housing options such as buildings that have doors opening to the east to switch things up? How about simple small houses that are 1 or 2 tiles larger on all sides? How about a log cabin that isnt so f’ing strange with a little patio thing and elongated? What about modifying some mechanics so that house fighting can be a legitimate thing instead of simply greifing macroers and noobs?
What would you do if someone named their house sign “Eat a bowl of dicks?”
Will you have static spawns so that people can recall in and kill something and recall out?
Will you encourage massive hoarding of shit and wealth?
Will you allow 1% of the playerbase who happen to know how to macro well or find rares easily that spawn in the same place all the time to buy up 95% of the prime housing spots?
Will you make leather armour at all purposeful?
Will you make different color ore armour be different in any way to make it have a point?
Do you like osso bucco?
That is all.
“Do you like osso bucco?”
He finally asked me out.
Is that a yes? My variant of the reduction sauce is to die for.
Will you be ready for the inevitable backlash that follows when the shard’s pre-release followers realize that it isn’t exactly as they pictured it?
No forum is almost a good idea – but if you could tie forum accounts to in game developed characters then that could be cool. You know, only give a registration key when you reach grandmaster mage or something.
My new question: Private message system in game? That would be nice if there is no forum but maybe a coding issue that would cause further delays.
I like the idea of not handing out keys until gm something or even hitting the skill cap.
Q: What will the vendors have to offer for selling and buying? Will it be easy to get scrolls/regs/arrows/equipment in general?
Q: Are stats going to be hard to gain?
Q: Will stamina lose quickly?
Q: How will healing/bandages work?
I see your point Az about the forum but all that will happen is the players will make an unofficial one that you can’t police AT ALL.
Forum is a central hub for players to gather and discuss server issues, trade goods, recruit for guilds etc etc it’s just essential for an unofficial shard… If players don’t feel they have a place to voice their concerns then they it may cause issues…and as I say, an unofficial IPY shard is likely to be a bigger risk to the shards reputation then an official one.
Just ban image posting…
Well, if people are acting like a bunch of retards on some unofficial forum somewhere, that’s hardly my problem. Also, image posting really isn’t the only concern here.
But we’ll see. If you need a character at 70+ skill or something to post on the main forums and the forum account is tied to your game account, I can see the amount of crap being lessened.
Nevermind. I have this figured out. I have no idea why I didn’t think of it before.
1. Will Blacksmithy be a tough and rewarding skill to GM like it used to be. (Britain forge being a social hub where you would take your equipment to get repaired by reputable Smiths for a tip – loved this aspect of the game), and also a realistic item decay system to support this.
2. Will there be the neon coloured clothes, items and hair that EA introduced making the game look like kirby’s dreamland
3. Will ridiculous mounts like beetles and llamas be in?
4. How hard is it to put back the chest opening animation when you first load UO from the original client back? (Nostalgia) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zSMheo0b-w
I distinctly remember that at brit forge– very good memories about that part of the game. But to replicate that weapons need to have enough value to care repairing instead of just buying a new one and that won’t happen when people know how to get money so easy or if money is easy to get in general. But if it isn’t and weapons are very expensive people won’t use them and risk losing/damaging them so its a catch 22.
Best I could say to make this happen again is to reward actually killing shit over macroing for skills, which would increase demand for weapons. Then make smithy harder again that would increase value of real weapon without severely limiting supply. That would perhaps work towards the aforementioned goal.
5. Will attribute gains for STR/DEX/INT be slow, making character development a long-term goal not a pre-requisite to playing the game?
Bbring back the attribute milestones, i.e for STR,
1. strong enough to use a viking sword
2. strong enough to wear partial plate,
3. strong enough to use a Halbard
4. The ultimate, strong enough to wear full plate.
Q: Max number of connections per IP?
Q: Max number of Accounts tied to One player?
q: are you going to make armor vendors spawn armour to buy? (pls say no)
Q: Should I bring PhatChat back, or did it suck?
Other options are out there, and it wasn’t really important…
I really want to set up vent so theres a real place for instant communication, but I don’t know if it’s practical at this point. Yet.
I’d also say IRC but that is another headache like a forum, so…
IRC is worse in a lot of ways.
PhatChat would never be an official method of “IPY” communication. It was just a little chat window for this blog. For fun, that’s all.
Care to share your solution to the forum dilemma – or is it top secret?
Oh, shit, no. It’s not top secret at all. I’m just about to post something about statloss and I don’t want too many arguments tonight. I’m also downloading Legend of Zela: A Link To The Past on Wii. Or… Secret of Mana. I really can’t decide.
Link to the past…GAME. Actually prefferred it to Orcarina of time. Think I may dust my Wii off and give it a go too (once i get done with Red Dead Redemption)
I’ve beat both those games. Secret of Mana is better. Plus you can have other players play as the alt chars. Both games are long as hell though and they both pretty fun.
They’re both the bomb in different ways. I like SoM better too, but they’re both a couple of the greatest of all time.
SoM is one of the greatest of all time, for sure.
But the 3rd SoM [Seiken Densetsu 3] was translated over and is even better…
my vote would have to go towards link to the past. There is something about zelda games that’s nostalgic like UO.
or you could play some Ninja Golf on Atari 7800 lol
I apologize in advance if some of these questions have already been beaten into the ground and / or answered already. At this point, I’m sure they have been (even the nonsensical ones), but I just don’t feel like reading a 10,000 page novel to find the answers (or, I don’t feel like reading Yaht’s posts again) :). Anyway…
1. Why don’t author names display as capitalized?
2. Will there be med through leather?
3. What is the planned hit chance of melee weapons vs GM wrestling?
4. Do you plan to have a poison tick timer with a predictable first tick?
5. Will debuffs interupt spell cast even if the target already has said debuff?
6. Recast delay: yay or nay? (deal breaker for me)
7. Are katana timers going to work properly with bardiches and hallys? (alot of servers seem to have trouble with screwy delayed katana swings after a hally or bard swing)
8. Do you have any thing finite as far as damage tables? (obviously dependent on whether or not med through leather is in place)
9. Do you have anything finite in place for armor absorbtion calcs?
10 any limit to character / accounts per IP? (I know this has been talked about, but people jsut getting going on here are probably going to want all answers to this type of stuff in one spot).
11. O/C / Factions?
12. Unguarded Trinsic?
13. Can I have a gay multi colored deer mask?
14. If you dump so hard that it protrudes out the top of the water, should it be called “building a dam” or “taking an iceberg”?
Also, Secret of mana sucks. Stop wasting your time and play chrono trigger.
oh, and
15. how thoroughly has (if at all) any mechanic been tested?
Regarding your custom shard, which I have read right is largely based of T2A era, with modifications and corrections, I’d like to ask the following:
Q: Are you going to introduce any new thematically appropriate skills such as Chivalry and Necromancy? Obviously, not as they exist on EA shards, but some variation thereof. I always thought it odd that you couldn’t be something that would give you the title of Paladin or Necromancer in UO, since it was surrounded by Paladin’s and undead…
Q: Are you planning to create your own custom client, with custom graphics? I noticed that in your hiring section, you specifically call for pixel artists. If so, may I suggest you attempt to get a hold of Saphireena of Stratics fame. She’s incredibly talented, and at least formerly passionate about UO.
http://www.andrea.net/uo/
Good luck, and I look forward to seeing what you bring to life!
Have you decided what restrictions you’ll be putting on 3rd party programs/Razor?
Will you be allowing sticky bars/target cycling? What did you decide with regard to sync dumping?
What have you decided regarding stat loss?
What deviations from the original IPY will be a part of the launch? What do you have a definite plan for adding on to that over time? What do you hope that you’ll be able to add, but aren’t sure will be feasible?
Thanks for taking the time to do some Q&A, Az, we all appreciate getting some info.
I’d just like to add a little opinion to the forum topic.
To me, it always seemed to siphon players out of the game. For one thing, it makes the bulletin boards that are already in-game become obsolete. Trade and event coordination also never happen in-game because of the ease of just logging into the forums instead of the game. All this player-interaction is small when considered as itself for each instance but very significant when taken as a whole.
Take a look at any UO server forum, and you’ll see a plethora of sub-forums for guilds, events, server discussion, role playing, guides, etc. For every sub-forum, that’s just another player who isn’t trying to get an reply or answer from within the game. Guild forums? Your guild should have a meeting house or write notes in a book to get in contact with each other. Events? In-game marketing, word of mouth, town criers. Server discussion? Start using inns, or just chat around the bank and get the conversation going within the game, with the people who actually play, and you will even involve those who don’t ever go on the forums and get an actual understanding of who’s playing. Role playing? Well, if you aren’t in the game then you aren’t really role-playing, are you?
I think the benefits of an actual social environment in-game far out-weighs the conveniences of having an easy to surf forum. It may deter some by not being able to catch on without logging in, but I think it would go a long-way to encourage everyone to use the insane amount of resources that are already in-game to communicate that they are more often forgotten or not even aware of.
Will IPY be full loot or have you figured out how ancient full loot is and will allow us to have soulbound items. Maybe Paladins can get more soul bound items?
So, interesting question here.
I don’t know if you’re mocking me in a “I’m so kewl and hardcore oldschool UO” way, but I’ll say this:
I always handicap everything I do by making full loot Super Priority One. Both because I know people will bitch and because I know how good it is for (specifically) UO’s economy. Whether the economy would improve by keeping the people who quit because of it…
In certain places full loot makes little or no sense. For instance, I want to provide something for people to strive for PvE wise – because that’s an area where UO falls down in a serious way. Even if it’s just -really simple- and made for a Classic IPY, something like oldschool hued UO plate sets ‘honed’ to certain dungeons and providing bonuses against monsters in those dungeons, it makes no sense to have a set that’s hard to gather if it’s not even partially exempt from the full loot rule. Nobody even takes vanqs out of their house, and they’re not even really that rare… or that amazing. Oh lawd, +2 over Power. I’ll never use that because it’s so valuable. What if you’re farming a particular set from a Balron spawn deep in Hythloth and the gloves drop at a 1 in 1000 rate? Who is going to spend a month and a half farming a set when they can just go out and PK someone for all the pieces? Is the person who just got PKed for their hard earned PvE set going to go back to farming, or is he just going to throw up his hands and quit?
In a lot of ways, PKs are why we can’t have nice things. If you want PKs and you want a few nice things, you have to make compromises. I wouldn’t likely make the suits blessed, but I’d perhaps make them blessed inside their dungeons. Since they’re farmed there, provide bonuses to the monsters there (absolutely nothing to PvP), take forever to gather, and are blessed only in that dungeon… I’m hoping there’s not too much complaining. Though I imagine there will be, and I hate walking on glass around oldschoolies just because I’m trying to do something to do something that benefits ANYONE other than a PK.
That’s one reason I douched the Paladin post. I don’t want a huge argument, frankly. If and when I decide that’s the route I want to take, it’ll get coded up and go in and you can pretty much cram a remote up your ass if you don’t like it. For instructions, see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YersIyzsOpc
I was mocking some of the questions being asked in a “c’mon guys do we really need to ask that” tone.
Granted a believe full loot is necessary to recapture even a semblance of the atmosphere and feel of old school UO, I can understand how it limits PvE type of players.
If you’re serious about going back on that first law of UO, well that’s a path you’ll have to tread lightly. Blessing the “anti-elemental” armor when in shame might be a decent compromise. I mean, no one wears plate mail anyway if PvP is similar to IPY1 – could even call the stuff the Armor of Shame so there’s no confusion.
I guess it can fit into my vision of a new IPY without making me too uncomfortable, but my question was a joke at the time.
Very witty.
But yeah. We’re all about making long term viability possible here without stepping on too many toes. That’s kinda what you can expect from me.
Your “Armor of Shame” is my “Armor of IPYIsUpForMoreThanSixMonths”, so.
Thoughts on my statloss post, by the way?
I assume negative, given your general predilection – but the negative reactions are the important ones because I’m looking for reasons why it sucks. Negative reactions, if they’re from reasonably intelligent people, are important if you take them for what they are.
We have to find some replacement for statloss that’s not an overcomplicated 78 page system striving for perfection anyway.
…
You know why this IPY project started, though? Funny story.
It was the dream of what UO could be if it were done perfectly.
Reality has been a bitch.
What statloss post?
The one I deleted five minutes after I posted it last night.
Armor of Shame as in the dungeon Shame(ie armor of shame would buff defense vs attacks from elementals), not the vice. Is vice the right word there for opposite of virtue?
I must have missed your stat loss post last night, despite checking this site more then I check my email. If you could repost it I’d love to read it.
I may make negative posts about some of your ideas, but I know why you have them and why you want to make the changes you do, I pretty well blindly trust that you won’t ruin the game in the least. I just need to play the devil’s advocate and defend a niche group that generally doesn’t speak up until development really takes a turn for the worst.
This is quite an interresting idea
Theres some other aspects you can add in here, for say instead of only having the armor blessed in a specefic dungeon you can make it bound to the character, xmlspawner already has this function
where a item gets deleted if worn by another player or even if it
leaves the players direct possesion (only allowed to wear it, have it in the backpack or bank)
So actually minimal amount of scripting is needed there
My suggestion on balancing the use of it would be firstly to
make it count as a much lower AR armor versus another player
not make it count as zero since that would put that player at
a disadvantege.
And secondly to limit the use of it PvM wise the actual armor
piece could take 10x more damage if hit on by any other monster
So it would break really fast vs other monsters instead of being unusable
Good lord I hope things don’t head this direction.
A classic UO ruleset can be sustainable without making PvE players into mindless farming drones.
Armor of shame?… so basically IPY is going down the itemisation route (like a multi-million sub’d MMO I dare not mention) that offer significant bonus over and above standard armor class protection…
What else, sword of dragons bane? Mace of anti-lich? Will these items ONLY have impact PvE or will it also effect attributes and skills abd thus impact PvP? If the items ARE PvE only then it might be something that could work as long as it will not effect PvP balance in any way.
Now, onto the full loot debate. IMO UO without full loot is just not UO and same goes for insurance.
Az, an important point here is that the whole reason why your thinking “hmmm if we add uber 1337 items to the game people won’t risk using them so lets add soulbinding!!11″, this line of thought is flawed because UO wasn’t ever designed to have Uber 1337 items. It’s that simple and I think it would be in danger of messing up the UO classic recipe that got us all hooked in the first place. Somethings i’ll give ya, are a good idea and can be changed for the better but as soon as you start changing core mechanics like Full loot and the balance and dispensibility of items, removing the scenario of “i lost all my shit but no worries I’ll go to Britain and get my GM smith pal to make me some more”, then I think your going down the wrong route.
You’re instictly wanting to appeal to the widest audience, I understand but the danger is the people who soulbound items and item-centric gameplay would appeal to are the theme-park MMO fans who are all off playing the plethora of theme-park MMO’s out there and so wouldn’t ever bother playing IPY…
I just think you should be focusing on the ex UO players who liked UO for UO and not a new generation of players who will never get over the chasm of difference that modern day MMO’s have created between UO and the WOW-clones and so never come to IPY anyway.
If IPY offers a sandbox classic UO feel with some modest improvements, then you offer a unique gameworld for people to play and all the ex UO fans a home.
If IPY offers a “tamed” wow-audience friendly gameworld to get more people in the game with soulbinding on rares, bless deads and item-centric gameplay (powerful rares) then you risk losing the vets, purists and the UO classic fans who i’d say make up the vast majorty of people here.
This post is ridiculous.
Ever been owned by a silver weapon in PvP?
“Instinctively” I appealed to every PvPer and asshat I could with IPY 1. After some thinking, I want to make the shard sustainable and balance the population. That’s not instinct. That’s lurn’in.
Can’t deal with that?
Go check out Darkfall.
I never said WoW and I never said trammel. Read my posts.
With the weapons, and i’m talking hypothetically because i don’t know what your planning, Silver was anti-undead, but it wasn’t over-powered because it was a broad application that modestly increased damage to all undeads. It wasnt an anti-specific creature that nuked it in one hit (hypothetical). If your not going to make the weapon deal significant damage to a creature it is paticularly designed for then whats the point? I just see visions of sword of dragonslaying and I feel it just makes the game more item-centric.
As for Armor, no where is it ridiculous to assume adding rare armors or named armors wouldnt effect PvP, you might already know the answer but I don’t so I asked.
If you cant deal with some constructive feedback and stop the chip on shoulder attitude when someone is trying to say things that you might not agree with then I would folllow your advice… if Darkfall wasn’t shit.
The only person who seems to loathe and hate IPY 1 is you from what I’ve heard. Ok it attracted idiots and you got the shitty end of the stick because it was your shard, but so did the official shards, things wern’t roses their either. As soon as you implement an open PvP system you open the doors to asshats. The two are not mutually exclusive no matter how hard you may try.
nihilus, I hope you are aware that “swords of dragonslaying” have more or less always existed in UO, They’re called slayer weapons.
Yeah when they finally became public and got put in the game. They were an extension though. point is I was just talking about making a sword actually called “dragonslaying” to go along with armour of hyloth or whatever. Just sounds cheesy thats all and I always liked the ambiguous suffix system.
Just to add dragonslaying is a shit example, but if you read my original post Az, I did say magic weapons that impact players attributes or skills and thus WOULD impact PvP are a bad idea, tell me if i’m wrong.
… And if you read my original post, I specifically stated multiple times that those items would have absolutely no impact on PvP.
Word.
I dunno why people don’t have enough faith in Az thathe is capable of successfully exersizing his will.
There’s always such a huge stigma attached to things like UO. It’s usually a result of nostalgic irrationality and comfortable routine. But I’m not really sure.
I just cannot, for the life of me (honestly), understand why people have a problem with someone doing something creative in their work.
It’s very simple; some things change and others stay the same. Just like life.
And Az, you need to accept that “dreams” and “perfection” rarely intersect in “reality” and the notion of chasing after that is simultaneously fleeting and amicable.
PS – in process of setting up a workable live radio that can also play the podcast or other shows. Vent will be working in a day or two details to come.
ok, I may have misunderstood this site, No offense but If we are just here to nod and agree with Az and not offend his experience/knowledge etc etc then I’ll lurk. End of the day, i just want IPY to work like anyone. I might sometimes turn up the heat a little by questioning things and opening up for debate but I fail to see that as a bad thing.
Whenever I think about ways to improve the UO ecosystem, full-resource looting is the double-edged viking sword that eviscerates me pretty much every time.
A large part of what I love most about UO and, ultimately, what makes the experience so memorable to me is highly correlated with being able to absolutely pillage pretty much anything I saw fit. That was immensely satisfying to an angst-filled teenager, and it made the stakes considerably higher even when I wasn’t looting someone’s house or pking someone in the Cove Lich Room. In this sense, the full-loot mechanics were a breath of fresh air in a world where with increasing tendencies to dumb-down, nerf and otherwise diminish anything that we can perceive as savage or unfair. But as the experience played itself out, here is what I think I’ve distilled:
The kind of behavior that benefits most directly from a full-loot environment is not at all sustainable. The strong prey upon the weak until the weak are, through a variety of methods, all but removed from the equation. Bands of pks roam the land, all seeking out some lone character who is blade-spiriting wyverns. Eventually, having eliminated all of the ‘real’ prey, the pks turn on each other. And while in these later stages things are in a way sustainable, they (in my opinion) change the feel of the game.
That said, I would also argue that full-loot does to at least some degree enhance the experience of Johnny Wyvern as well. As I indicated earlier, things are more fun when the stakes are higher, and few games (to my knowledge), put the stakes as high as UO does. The extent to which this is diminished is the extent to which UO loses some of it’s appeal. In other words, it’s more fun, more immersive, just more in general, to cast blade spirits on a predictable-AI glob of pixels when there’s also the chance that, at any moment, you’ll be fighting for your life against some forces of evil, and that you might lose everything you’ve made. It makes the sound of gold hitting your bank account more satisfying, etc.
But as with many things, there is a point where this all just becomes a colossal fucking nightmare. When Johnny Wyvern is forced to eek out some pathetic existence on the fringes of sosaria, servicing lizardmen and slaying ettins in the swamps because every other place is full of wandering bands of what amount to cannibals, he’s probably going to leave. He’s been deprived of a rewarding game experience.
Now, to a point this is fine. I loved the fact that most of my friends who I tried to get into UO quit because it was too unforgiving. I found that awesome. When I was pked, scammed and otherwise violated as a newbie, I actually liked the experience. More specifically, I absolutely hated it at the time but for some reason I pressed onward and I eventually went on to become just as bad as the very people I once despised. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure this kind of development is what accounts for a lot of terrible things that go on in and out of Sosaria. Interesting. Regardless, when I was new and terrified of pks that might rob me of my War Mace of Power, I banded together with other souls who shared my lot in life, and at the very least when a group of pks showed up, if we all ran in different directions some of us were going to make it. We bitched and moaned, but somehow it was great. But if I hadn’t had so many other people to group with, I’m not sure I would have stuck around. So there has to be some considerations for the Johnny Wyverns, I guess that’s what I’m trying to say, because in numbers they can support each other.
Ultimately, I’m not sure that changing the amount a victim can lose when they are pked is going to have a net positive effect. They will lose less, but having less to lose will make it less exciting, and dying over and over is going to suck no matter what. At a certain point, I think PKs are motivated by something that goes deeper than loot, anyway.
So as far as solution space goes, I’m most interested in brainstorming a way of giving some power to the Johnny Wyverns of the world. Some set of tools to enable them to level the playing field against the highly-incentivized PKs. There’s a lot of focus on the literal incentive to PK — the bag of regs, the gold — and I think that does play a role, but like I said earlier, it goes both ways and I think you’re right to tinker with that only as a last resort. More to the point, I think what isn’t talked about has to do with the emotional incentives to PK and otherwise loot, do evil, whatever, and how there really isn’t anything in place to make it exciting to be on the other side of the fence. It’s a very difficult problem, because the rewards for doing ‘bad’ are so plain and tangible, but the rewards of being even a decent person in UO are almost completely ethereal.
I think that whatever solutions are to be worked out, they are going to have to take place in a realm that is going to cause a lot of veterans to squirm in their heavily-padded gaming thrones because almost no attention has been given to this kind of thing in the history of formal UO. That is, what can be done to tip the scales in favor of people trying to get along with each other in some kind of naive harmony? We all know these poor, idealistic fucks are doomed to fail anyway, but I think it is necessary to give them at least distant fighting chance, for everyone’s sake.
Hi Einsacks, thanks for the thoughtful post. It was huge, though, so I’m only going to address the main points, and I’ll try to be very specific.
You said:
A) “The strong prey upon the weak until the weak are, through a variety of methods, all but removed from the equation.”
B) “The full-loot mechanics were a breath of fresh air in a world where with increasing tendencies to dumb-down, nerf and otherwise diminish anything that we can perceive as savage or unfair.”
A: First of all, I’m not entirely sure what you meant by “weak,” but in UO it’s almost impossible to completely marginalize someone. Magic weapons aren’t that big a handicap, neither is magic armor, neither are magic items, neither are potions. In traditional IPY group fighting, the difference in equip between one group and another was virtually marginal. If you’re talking about one group or player outplaying another group or player…that’s why people are interested in playing on this server in the first place. We like competing. If you aren’t interested in competing with other UO players in some capacity, I doubt IPY would draw your interest in the first place.
B: I very much agree with you about the lack of security being a breath of fresh air. Life is unfair, and there’s definitely a way in which it’s refreshing to start over from square one when you make a mistake. In fact, I would say that UO’s encouragement to not become attached to your items has been one of the reasons that it has continued to be appealing. It’s just plain good practice for life to not grow overly attached to the things you have. You take that away and UO loses much of its richness.
“If you aren’t interested in competing with other UO players in some capacity, I doubt IPY would draw your interest in the first place.”
Come on now. Let’s not fall into the “Everyone who plays UO is like me and wants what I want” thing on this blog. We all know better.
There really are different people playing the game. High end elite PvPers are the minority, believe it or not.
It depends what you mean by compete. By compete I mean interact with others, and be willing to take responsibility for accomplishing your goals in the face of other people whose goals conflict with yours.
I’d say that’s pretty fair?
I’d say there are a lot of non-competitive people who play games, as well as play UO.
Fair enough. I honestly hope you’re able to figure out a way to be mindful of the needs and desires of such a diverse population. I realize that sounds a little sarcastic, but I don’t mean it to be. It’s certainly more possible to do so with a system like UO than it is with any other I’m aware of.
“Now, to a point this is fine. I loved the fact that most of my friends who I tried to get into UO quit because it was too unforgiving. I found that awesome.”
Awesome until there’s nobody left playing, of course.
“Ultimately, I’m not sure that changing the amount a victim can lose when they are pked is going to have a net positive effect. They will lose less, but having less to lose will make it less exciting, and dying over and over is going to suck no matter what. At a certain point, I think PKs are motivated by something that goes deeper than loot, anyway.”
Oh, good. Then I can make UO a no-loot game and they’ll still enjoy themselves and not bitch at all.
Look, and no point did I say I’d be changing the amount people lost. You guys should really stop putting words in my mouth.
Look at it this way. How long do you think World of Warcraft would last with full loot?
It’d be dead right now. Or… maybe about as alive as UO is.
I’m not proposing anything other than full loot. I’m just telling you that anything beyond a vanq (and perhaps a vanq too) is totally pointless in UO because you can’t ever take it out of its box and use it. When that’s true, you basically can’t have PvE that goes beyond gold farming for regs and a tower. When you can’t have that, the game’s life is going to be pretty short.
I’m presenting a compromise. A tiny one. If you guys can’t deal with (tiny) compromises and want everything to favour the PK (I’m surprised there was no screaming about statloss on this blog… though I imagine that’s only because it’s so ‘oldschool’ at this point that it’s hard to complain about at this point to oldschoolies. If I suggested a statloss system on this blog that did about the same thing I’m pretty sure you’d all shit a brick.), then I really have no idea how you’ve been reading this blog for eight months and have decided to stick around.
“you’re right to tinker with that only as a last resort.”
How’s five years after the shard got shut down. Is that far enough into ‘last resort’, or? ;)
You guys are the bext at asking questions instead of arguing about buffed items and other such bullshit.
lol well i got more info then asking questions. I learned IPY 2 is gonna be more appealing to the masses then IPY1, and that *may* involve soulbound named PvE items and thus no full loot.
But anyway, Yaht, a giant part of the problem is that what the old school ‘leet” UO player views as perfection is often exactly the same thing that caused other UO shards to fizzle out and die. For those of you who feel the need to cry about new and creative things for a PvE player and need to bitch and call it (insert your more current MMO here), then you fail to realize the following.
Perfection in regards to UO is not synonomous with Any of these things: T2A accuracy, IPY Accuracy, Focused solely on PvP.
If the current concepts being discussed remind you of PvE systems in other such current MMOs, that’s not a bad thing. My opinion: UO was absolutely great for PvP during T2A. UO was terrible for PvE during T2A. Current MMOs are Completely horribad for PvP. Current MMOs are awesome for PvE, and there’s literally millions of people who get their jolies from killing the next ‘leet dragon’ and so forth.
combine and interconnect the good aspects of both the old and the new, and make them thrive off of player interaction. I’m not saying I think there should be unlootable items, but can you imagine how completely bad ass of a game WoW would be if raiding wasn’t separated from the battlegrounds?
“Current MMOs are Completely horribad for PvP. Current MMOs are awesome for PvE, and there’s literally millions of people who get their jolies from killing the next ‘leet dragon’ and so forth.”
Keep in mind current MMOs have an actual staff who are professional, payed, and passionate about creating new monsters to kill. From the sound of it, Az has people are _capable_ of coding.
I have no problem with PvE being messed with, or items being introduced in a circumspect way. I do have a problem with taking advantage of the screwballs who are item-obsessed and turning them into robots roaming the dungeons killing shitty AI air eles so they can get a cloak of the Wind…which will in turn allow them to slay more shitty AI air eles in an hour than before. I remember shit like this on Divinity, and it always bothered me.
All I’m saying is please be careful.
This is more or less what my point was but with less derision. Its a valid point.
These players are playing games to do that.
You need other types of players (like those) in your game. You can’t just have PvPers.
I agree with what you say but what is IPY2 about. Is it about a new experimental shard that merges the classic and the modern MMO’s elements as you describe, or is it a “back to the old days” shard.
Thing is, we still don’t have an answer. Last I heard IPY2 may be launching a Classic shard *looks at poll at top of page*…good thought I was imagining things there for a minute.
Answer: “Classic” won’t meant -exactly- “Classic”. I’ve said that so many times. ;(
Small systems like RoT and Skillscrolls and so on that I feel keep the game up to speed with The Year Of Our Lord 2010 (even just barely) are things that I feel are required.
I don’t just want a macro/pewpewfest again. That’s old.
It is clearly stated that the initial goals of IPY at the onset was to create the ‘perfect’ version of UO. Well, At this stage in the development of gaming, I believe the perfect version of UO to be a hybrid of what was good about UO to begin with, and some adopted mechanics from current games. Perfect UO would pretty much be the same thing as ‘perfect mmo.’
I personally have always played UO because it had the best PvP mechanics and interface of any other mmo ever (at least during T2A), but at this point, I’ve almost entirely opted to abandon my prefered style of play to play a game that is almsot entirely focused on PvE. Why? Because PvE mechanics in UO are boring and dull. They always have been They don’t offer the same incentive as the more current MMOs do for PvE. Though, games like WoW and UO are pretty much polar opposites.
At this point I am of the opinion that, “if I want to PvP I’ll play UO” Though, this is hardly an option because there are zero good active shards, and “if I want to PvE I’ll play WoW.”
UO PvE = stand behind a rock and throw somebladespirits and maybe an EV at a mob. Stand there.. watch it die.. go get gold… repeat. Over.. and over… and over… and over again. That’s a stupid ass fucking game.
PvP in current games = zerg one person with 200 other people and get a point. grind doing this over… and over… and over.. and over again to get a better sword that helps you do this more. That is also a stupid ass fucking game.
Why isn’t there anything that offers good versions of both?
So this is basically my point right here, yeah.
I can’t remember how many times I’ve said the words “… and that’s a stupid game.” on this blog when listing out what UO PvE was.
The more I think about this, we are not brainstorming ideas for IPY 2. We are creating UO 2.
Yep. Be realistic, you douchebags. Let’s just get IPY PvP with some people to play with, and give Az an opportunity to be creative with the things he’s capable of implementing given the limitations he’s under.
He was the one who came up with IPY, which took some pretty incredible vision in the first place. Let’s give him a chance to show us what he’s been brewing for the last half decade.
Pretty much.
In the context of time that earlier reference to Tasos may be fitting! Ahhhaha I kid. Or do I?
All I was saying is that at the end of the day, even with potential players giving input to Az, it’s ultimately his responsibility to provide a medium for the players to use and it’s the players responsibility to have fun with it. Not everything a person expects to see is going to be in game and every dream Az has can’t become a reality.
Agreed.
Az doesnt need to listen to anything we say, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t tell him exactly what we individually think would make a good shard. Yeah, he can’t implement everyones ideas or even any if he doesn’t want to but the “Trust in Az” line just wears a little thin, not because i don’t but just because all things should be questioned as long as it makes a valid point.
Anyone remember the “Jon Romero is gonna make you his bitch” advert for daikatana?
Being skeptical is fine. Talking about overhauling the entire game just de-rails the discussion on an already confusing wordpad commenting format. Let’s just try to keep perspective, since we’re all cooped up together in this little 1/5th of the screen box from the dark ages of the internet.
Exactly, leave it as is. IPY1 with tweaks, ROT/skillscrolls is all I actually want. I actually thought this got de-railed as soon as it came to light that full loot might not be in. I was just a little suprised, tis all.
Azaroth, I just want to say that YOU are the man for bringing back IPY. This is YOUR server so run it how you want. Your last IPY was a success for the most part!
You might remember me and my generosity on the server as Dr Pepper and the “unknowns”. We will be back when the server is up.
/cheers
+1 Stop letting the plebes run the show.
How’s it goin’, Orsi?