Welcome to Cove

This thread is meant as an ongoing discussion about the state of our beloved game.
I think it can honestly benefit and enlighten us all as UO players and consequently as BoC players.

So then, how do we think UO has turned out after almost 10 years now? There are some consistent gameplay and world issues people seem to focus on quite often, but how do you think it's lasted? It's grown, but for better or worse?

And what other MMOs have you tried; how do they compare? RP and community doesn't seem to be even nearly as rich in other games as it is on UO, Europa in particular.

Thoughts?

Been playing UO since 2001, so this was before the introduction of magical armour, those times were good. Had a three year break, two breaks actually adding to three years, in which i played WoW (Yes i know :( ) for two years. And i tried a RP server at first, but the complete lack of RP scared me away.

Nothing compares to the game play in UO, the choice to customise your character is great.

Ten years old, and still has the best gameplay. =) UO ftw.

How do we think UO has turned out after almost 10 years now?

I think UO is a distinctly diluted version of what it once was 10 years ago. The game has tried to attract new players with new content too many times. As a result of this we have a lot of conflicting ideas which (in my opinion) taint the original fantasy world. Britannia for me is Ultima Online at it's strongest point and all the worlds we've introduced since then (besides the Lost Lands and possibly Ilshenar) weren't really worthwhile.

The increasing itemisation present before and since Age of Shadows has served to cheapen the originally rewarding PvP/PvE experience. Slowly but surely we've come to the point where you need a suit worth millions in order to compete against other players (and some monsters). This is such a world away from the days when you waded into combat with your platemail and shield.

The economy is also a large part of UO these days, due to the massive influx of new items in the last 10 years there is a huge market for buying and selling. As with the PvP suits your wallet is where it counts now, a purchase costing a million (or at least a couple of hundred thousand) is commonplace.

I could go on for ages like this so I'll try and come to a conclusion. Basically I think we've strayed too far from the original concept of Ultima Online which I interpreted as giving you the chance to play in slighty medieval fantasy world. A world full of wizards, warriors, dragons and bandits.

Of course Trammel played a large part in destroying this but I don't want to get into the whole facet versus facet quagmire. However I will say that the creation of this safe place meant the developers had to find new ways to keep people entertained (hence the avalanche of items). The exodus to Trammel left the people in Felucca concentrating mostly on PvP which in turn led to futher development (and dilution) of that area of the game.

In the words of Joe Pesci in Casino....

"But in the end...we fucked it all up. It should'a been so sweet, too."

How do you think it's lasted?

I think we've lasted so long because of the original depth of the game and the expansion of certain areas. The variety of roles you can play in Britannia is definitely it's strength. You can run a shop, wander the world as a healer, tame animals, tend a farm, be a bold warrior, study the magical, delve into deep dungeons, pick peoples pockets, discover treasure, go sailing and so forth.

I don't need to tell you guys how deep the game is but I definitely think that's fifty percent of what's kept us going.

The other fifty percent is the community and the roleplaying. I haven't been roleplaying as long as you lot but I've enjoyed the community here since I started playing all those years ago. The sheer number of people who will just have a lovely chat with you or stop to help when they notice you're in trouble is just tremendous. S'like the backbone of the already wonderful elements of the game.

The roleplaying I've only discovered personally in the last few years but it's such a rich and rewarding area of the game I'm sure it will continue to satisfy for years to come. When I first started playing I always used to be on the outside looking in as far as roleplaying goes. I'd hang around Deepwater watching all these people playing out their lives and not really understanding what was going on. A friend once explained roleplay to me as...

"You play your character"

And I said.....

"Isn't that what I'm doing now?"

Once I discovered what he meant a whole world of possibilities opened up. It really broadens your horizons and adds a new element to the game which helps to keep it fresh. For me the fact that the roleplay circles tend to exist within the world of a few years ago (GM equipment, simple life, etc) is a dream come true.

It's grown, but for better or worse?

I think we've grown for the worse, I don't think we know what we are anymore. It's very selfish to say and the game would probably have died a death but I'd have been happy if we'd remained at UO Second Age. I sort of feel like a fan of some obscure science fiction series that's suddenly become the most popular thing in the world. The fan no longer wants to be a fan anymore, because everyone else is, but he remains as dedicated as ever albeit somewhat disenfranchised.

What other MMOs have you tried; how do they compare?

Star Wars Galaxes: This was a great game with a great roleplaying community, just as strong as the one we see on Europa. However the game suffered some absolutely terrible patches which ruined the whole thing and caused the majority of players to jump ship. It had just as much depth as UO does when the times were good. Character diversity, intricate crafting system, vibrant enviroment, well balanced classes and so on. Of course having one of UO's former developers (Raph Koster) at the helm helped a lot. ;D

I'd have happily continued playing SWG as my primary online game (I took a UO holiday of a year and half) if they hadn't destroyed it like they did.

World of Warcraft: Another great game but I don't really think you can compare it to Ultima Online. WoW is very much a game on it's own and a very good one at that. I haven't experienced the roleplay myself but a lot of my friends say it's not worth bothering. I personally can't even imagine WoW as a roleplay enviroment due to the nature of the players there, the community isn't much good for the same reasons (besides the friendship you get within guilds). Asking for quest assistance in general chat is as likely to be greeted with "LOL" as it is with actual help.

I recently stopped playing WoW as my primary online game due to the sheer amount of time you have to devote to it (raids, instances, gathering supplies for raids, grinding reputation, saving DKP for items, etc). Having said that the two years I spent on it were extremely rewarding and a whole kodoload of fun.

Asherons Call 2: Heh heh this was a cute game, I only played a trial but it was a right laugh. I was some kind of archer man who would go around getting monsters stuck on terrain and then killing them with arrows for massive chunks of XP. The idea of having destroyed towns and letting the players rebuild them was very noble but I'm not sure how it worked out in the end. I guess it didn't go too well since I have a page on the wall behind me about the day the servers closed.

Planetside: No roleplay at all but god damn the blasting was good. It went downhill with Core Combat and the stupid mech expansion that appeared a while after that, but the original game was good. I remember getting into the beta and podding onto a planet near some "instant action". Watching a Galaxy dropship fly over my head and then land was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.

My apologies for the massive post but I couldn't help replying. :-[

I still love UO immensely, I just think we've taken a lot of wrong turns.

God Kas, get a life! ;) - Good post mate.

Ith's situation is much like mine though. I played UO waaaay back when it first started up for a couple years, then quit when Trammel came into existence. My brother and I had too much fun randomly PKing people every time they left Trinsic to continue playing once that stopped.

So I haven't touched UO for 7+ years until just a few months ago. I thought I'd give it another go and see if the magic was still there. In the meantime, I'd played just about every other MMO brought to market, which all were very shallow except for WoW (the only game since UO to hold my interest for more than a couple months. Not because I wanted to play it, but because in WoW, you HAVE to play it). Even the recent Lord of the Rings Online with it's vast opportunities for RP was very shallow and just a WoW clone at the end of the day.

I was very pleasantly shocked to see after 10 years, UO still has such a rich RP community, much richer than any other game by far. And even with all the newbification and mass-media changes, it still has that UO magic and charm, and I have as much fun as I did when I first played it. I honestly don't feel that the changes have harmed the game itself at all; they've merely just changed the sort of player who plays it now.

No other game can hold a candle to the vast number of things that are possible in UO.

*High fives.*

What we have to fundamentally understand is that UO is now totally in the hands of EA games (after the Origin period). EA games is a company with a passion for making money, rather than quality. It is true that naturally all companies aim to make money, but the size of EA's share of the market shows a real dedication. What this means in terms of UO is that EA games actually has no idea how to make MMORPGs (and thus, how to run UO). Outside of imbecilic sports games and repetitive first person shooters, they really don't know what is what. Therefore, it is natural they're going to run UO as they run all their products - they'll create gimmicky useless expansions like with the Sims series.

Having said this, that makes it sounds all rather hopeless. However, it isn't. What has made UO successful is the dedication of the playerbase to create their own fun environments such as BoC, and the game mechanics allow us to do that. You won't find such strongly organized and moderated guilds in WoW. And this will continue regardless of what happens. In addition the competition fields no strong competitor to the atmosphere UO has. The success of WoW was built on casual gaming, rather than the hardcore fun UO has. Outside of WoW, I've found all other MMORPGs to be almost entirely meritless. City of Heroes was a good example of a game where the novelty wore off extremely quickly.

City of Heroes definitely, that's bang on Oct. I had far more fun (and spent far more time) designing my characters than playing them.

I tried Guild Wars, but the linear gameplay was frustrating and felt like a single player experience you needed about 10 players to actually be able to handle.

Final Fantasy XI is quite possibly THE most terrible game mechanic MMO. That aside, it has so many nice settings, races, fiction, etc. The only problem is you can't actually PLAY it to enjoy these things.

World of Warcraft consumed my 18 months away from UO. It's a great game, mostly. But it's way too big: there is NO sense of community (that I've seen). It's all about getting the best items and beating everyone else, being better than everyone else, rather than joining in with everyone else. Guilds are collections of people that NEED each other for the 20 to 40 man raids, not people who LIKE each other remotely. If you don't play enough, you get kicked out.

UO is piss poor compared to how it USED to be. Like Kas said, you have to have the suits to compete. Skill is worthless, items are everything.
But that's just the content they intend for you to play. The content we make for ourselves, the RP, the house designing, the aspects that rely on the player are beautiful, because we know what we like.
I just hope they fix things, because it's only gotten worse. In a few years, will it be too bad for even RP to survive? I hope not.

I really don't think it's that bad, unless you're a hardcore PVPer. The items only really help in that respect, unless you're trying to compete with everyone to be the richest, or have the most rares. If you make the game into that, it's no better than WoW.

I don't think all the new changes have hindered or changed the core casual fun that UO provides, especially the RP. The changes have really only hindered PVP and PKing at the end of the day.

Heh heh too right, especially the having to play and comments regarding guilds. I was in close contact with a large majority of the players in my WoW guild. My character was a Tauren named Roast and was generally treated in the same way Kas is (figure of fun, never very serious) with one exception....

We spoke to each other on Ventrilo.

Now when you speak to people on a daily basis you tend to form a closer bond than you do through the medium of text, or so it seems. Since I left WoW I've only been contacted by the one or two genuinely nice people within the guild. The world is almost self contained, if you're in WoW you'll have some great friends to do things with but as Arma says, only because they need you.

On a large scale the guild as a whole needs you to make up numbers for raids. The guild I was in was pretty friendly with only a minimum of fighting among members. But other guilds are a lot different, they straight hate one another and exist within it only to acquire loot. I even got kicked from one guild when I went back to UO for a few months. :o

On a smaller scale people need you simply for quests or for instances which are three to five man affairs (depending on the level of the instance). You also find yourself needed for PvP, quests and even resource gathering. People will ask you to make something for you and will be very grateful, after all you've just made their character better.

Arma isn't remotely lying when he says WoW is all about being better than the next guy. It is so bad that even having a particular item on a particular character will garner you abuse from complete strangers.

My character was a hunter, this class damages from range and comes into melee rarely (finishing off targets, trying to get range from attacking players). On my hunter I had a two handed axe called Gorehowl which comes from the end boss of one of the smaller raids. Generally this item would go to a warrior because they can make exceptional use of it and it considerably beefs up their melee moves (99% of their moves basically). For my hunter it just meant I did bigger melee hits on the rare occasions that I do that sort of thing, I also benefited from some statistic boosts.

The warriors on the raid where this dropped did not want the axe (or already had it) and were perfectly happy for me to have it. In the weeks following this raid I have received countless tells from people ranging from "LOL Gorehowl" to fully fledged essays on why my class should not have that weapon (not remotely politely either). I even had one guy stop where he was going, land next to me and say "you shouldn't have that" before flying off laughing.

This is the WoW community in a nutshell. Just visit Thotbot (http://www.thottbot.com/), pick a random epic item and read the player comments if you don't believe it.

My brother started WoW at the same time as me and we were in the same guild. I quit, but he is still playing. He stays in his room almost exclusively playing WoW and only leaves the house to get more dope or cigarettes. As Zoie mentioned this is how the game has to be played, if you stop for say a week you risk falling behind in several things....

• Equipment
• Raid points (which you use within your guild to bid on high profile raid items)
• PvP points
• Resources required for consumables

WoW is designed with the 24 hour player in mind and this is it's main failing.

As Zoie also mentioned I have no life, it may sound harsh coming from my own mouth but it's the truth and I'm comfortable with it. Since about the age of 15 (1996) the internet has played a large part in my daily life. Initially it was the film chat room of AOL, then it was film chat and IM's, then it was UO, then it was other online games and so forth. My social life dropped off somewhere in the middle of the UO years bringing us to the point I'm at now where sitting online is pretty much all I do.

Even despite having all this free time at my disposal I am utterly glad that I no longer devote one minute of it to playing WoW. As I mentioned in my earlier post I really enjoyed building my characters and playing the actual game but all in all s'not a nice corner of the internet in my opinion.

UO is completely different, the community is warm and inviting, even outside of roleplaying circles you'll find players willing to help you out or simply be friends. The world sucks you in and the players keep you there. When I return to UO it's not just the gameplay I return to but the myriad of friendly faces which I've come to know over the years.




Ho yeah !

I always ended up missing these things when I've been on the other online games. I just didn't feel like I belonged, I was playing a game and not exisiting within a world. I play online games because I like to be able to live in a game that continues day after day and Britanna delviers in that respect.

I'll stop now because otherwise I'll just double the size of this already huge post.

One more thing though.....


This is true but PvP shouldn't just be the realm of the hardcore. Without all the crazy artifacts the "average player" would have another area of UO which they can jump into and enjoy without having to tolerate hours of dungeon crawling or cash accumulation. Putting together a suit is also a very singular activity, you tend to do it on your own.

When I first trained Swordsmanship and Tactics I did it in Deepwater Fighting School with at least five other people at any one time. You would spar on one another to gain skill and chat away the hours. This built great bonds with people and led to hunting groups or vigilante gatherings to "go get that damn PK". Now people just buy some gear (or hunt for it), select Yew Moongate and choose a target.

S'a very unfulfilling state of affairs.

(I could have saved myself the bother of writing these two huge posts and just written that last sentence, DOH)

Edit: Sorry just had to add something else. Arma you mentioned that in a few years things could get so bad that even roleplay may struggle to survive. Providing they don't force the KR client on all of us I think we'll be in the clear. If that happens I'll probably still roleplay but that client will drastically reduce my enjoyment of UO.

The thing is pkers make up a large proportion of the game and people like a game that you can be competitive about.  They want to win.  In killing people with great equipment they've won and your the loser because of a number of things.  But thats just typical mentality of people.  For them the taking part is never enough they want something shiney to show for it as well.  Most likely the ones that when they run a race and get less than third place throw a paddy about it.

To me rpers need to be more mature in their thinking about a game, it not only takes a great deal of commitment but imagination, being sympathetic towards other's feelings and want to be involved but let others be involved too. 

I don't think any game can hope to attract enough of these types of people because its a mindset thats needed to create them.  People generally want to pick up a game have fun, feel they've accomplished something by getting the shiney thing and put it back down again till they pick it up again to get an even bigger shiney thing.

I've recently logged into KR again, and thankfully now it can fit to a windowed screen properly but i found it still made my eyes hurt because of the graphics.  Yes things are looking more tidy now.  The deco in my house doesn't look like a pile of crap piled together it looks like it should do, including my bed that at first looked like a heap of cloth, with the polar bear rug hovering on top.  So they are making progress with it, just like when UO was young and new it has things that need to be ironed out and its getting there.

Personally I don't feel there's enough advertisement outside of the USA to draw in new players.  I mean WoW was even played on South Park, how big an advertising endorcement can you get? No longer is UO on the shelves in stores in the UK, but games like WoW, Acherons Call, Guildwars, LOTRO and Archlord are.  People generally walk into a shop to pick up their new game.  To find UO you need to either stumble across the website or maybe a small advertisement on a website showing other games that look alot better.

I hope UO does continue to have a long life, although I'm slowly playing it less and less because of RL which may eventually take over the need to play a game.  Though UO has been more of a social thing to me as my friends have grown up and moved away or gotten lives of their own.  Or maybe as I've become more of a hermit and happier to talk to people at arms length.   :D

Pkers vs Rpers anyone?
http://www.thenoobcomic.com/daily/strip106.html (http://www.thenoobcomic.com/daily/strip106.html)

Iv only been playing UO for about 2 years. I have only ever Rped so i have no idea of the actual game.
I did try and create a decent PvM char to make a little money but i found the whole thing way to expensive with all the insurance and decent kit, so i just said "fuck it" and went back to RP.

I did enjoy RP alot more when i was in CoY, it seemed more deep, the general RP was more fun and you never had a single PvP gimped character (unless it was a special char such as undead) so knowing it was about yours and the players personal skill in fighting just gave the rp pvp element more exciting. The guilds all being around the same place (Yew) was alot of fun becuase there was always someone around on your doorstep to RP with  (this is why i love the moots so much) the guilds were a lot more interwoven. Oh and also the "at least one skill devoted to RP" rule was a genius thing to do.
I only caught the last few months of CoY before it ended but i absolutely loved it.

I played UO for 1 and a half year back at the time with renaissance. I then had a break for about six years, which means i started somewhere at the year 2000.
  Much has happened since then, and it took me quite some time to catch up (i still dont master a few things, and im a complete idiot of tokuno and malas yet).
   I think i have to agree with Kas here, considering the game experience from then to recent date. It was more fun back in that time.
  I remember standing smith at Britain north forge (when a smith was sociated with status, and were mighty),  the heart of Brittannia, Shouting out my services. Arms loring the items (which was needed to see how damaged it was), repair them, and make new sets of armor and swords for a fee.
   I remember being on a T-Hunt finding magic items, which we brought back to
"id fy". If we were lucky, it might have been a Vanquishing Katana, we found (known to be the best sword back then)
  About swords...

Being a swordsman or being a fencer?
 
If i knew about the changes in the game before i made my char, i would have chosen the fencer.
  The fencer was known for their speed in combat. Hitting often and fast, being good against the mages.
   The swordsman was known to somewhat less fast, but instead, he made greater damage and had a bigger variety of swords/axes he could use.
Today, a fencer can make equal or greater amount of damage, as the swordsman can. He has almost the same amount of swords to choose from.
   The "use best weapon skill" on some magic weapons, makes it a bit harder to define templates as well.

One more thing.

The ultimate meeting point in UO before, except the britain forge, was the Britain West bank. But being there now, there arent that many players at the bank, as it used to be.
   Is there a lack of players, or has the people found other meeting points?

with this extra said, i must agree with Kas

*Signed in thick handwriting*

Farfar.

P.s
      I dont like the overpriced ore men in fel. del.  >:(

Ho ho I forgot about that Chaffers !

"Hey developer buddies what shall we implement today...? I know why don't we weaken the thief profession massively while at the same time confusing the area of PvP and making your death to anything expensive. Great idea what will we call it, I know how about insurance."

Why have an avalanche of items if you can't keep them safe from the demon of loss, eh eh...? Dear me.

STORY TIME;

I once went to the Lost Lands in full valorite plate with my favourite power halberd. I was just getting started in my "big hunt" when I died to a wyvern....

Hey, take one in melee back when they didn't look like an explosion in a graphics factory. :-[

Anyway....I don't know if you've ever hunted up by the lighthouse in the Lost Lands but if you have you'll know that there isn't a healer for bloody miles. In the end I went all the way to Papua and then all the way back to my corpse. When I arrived I saw a man run from my corpse and hop into his boat, clearly I'd been looted. I tried talking to him but he was too busy giving orders to the tillerman to get away.

I was pissed !

I'd lost my valorite plate and my power halberd !

Would I have prefered to have been insured to the hilt....? Would I chuff !

Some of the best times I had in UO were when I lost everything and had to go around the provisioners, Britain smith and the mage shop to restock again. Loss of your belongings was a risk you had to take and it built a circle of life kind of deal that I found very rewarding. You never had too much stuff because you'd always lose some through encounters like my wyvern one. You could also gain stuff from killing murderers, or innocent people, and vice versa (they could gain it from you).

To be honest Mondains Legacy has more to answer for in killing my thief (stupid Jack of all Trades gives everyone an innate 20 Detect) but insurance still played a part.

We were better off when we had;

• People able to jump in and get the killing blow to steal karma and fame.
• Universal corpse looting of monsters and players instead of "rights".
• Dismemberment of player corpses

The last one is more of a personal preference, heh heh, but it fits in with the slew of game mechanics that died to the whole "lets protect the player from loss and harm" vibe.

(Look Ma', I can do smaller posts)

Hmm why don't we do that in Cove?

My wife and I used Ventrilo with our raiding guilds in WoW as well, and you're right that it brings everyone much closer together. One of the most fun nights of my life (yes, my life) was when my wife and I nearly had a heartattack laughing ourselves silly at a guild mate's antics on Ventrilo.

It can be a pain in the ass sometimes, especially if you're not in the mood to talk to anyone, but for the most part it's fun and I'm sure it'll bring us all together more.

Well, I've chosen to fool myself into a few things.

Remember UO at its best.. For me anyway..

I only started playing UO when AoS came out, and many people say thats the first major cockup-of-an-expansion for UO, but I think it was still an amazing game in AoS, i remember being in awe of Lord Ulysses hehe and furiously training my blacksmith to compete with the best of the North Forge.. Getting past level 70 was tedious so i left it in the end...

Also, something that was such a small part of UO for most, was a bit part for me, I loved the player-run casinos just on the northern edge of Britain bank. The ideas some people would come up with to get people to play on their casino were a legendary skill outright, i remember earning my first 500k and losing it that week by running a casino.. Anyone who says the house always wins is lying! *Mutter*

Back to fooling myself...

I have a hope that one day, UO could be like that again, ive often thought about getting my dice out and setting up somewhere to gamble, but I honestly dont think that there is any player to player trust anymore, I would have, back in the day, happily passed over a 500k check to a casino owner, because there used to be so much more trust, nowadays i reckon the bugger would tele off... but still, i live in hope, and thats what gets me through, oh... and RP.

I made a thread on the Stratics board about UO and Ventrilo a while ago but I can't seem to find it. I remember listening to some American roleplayer discussing the situation with a Covian on UO Radio. The American used Ventrilo all the time but our spokesman from Cove mentioned that it might be a bit of a distraction from roleplaying in-game.

Similar feelings were voiced on the Stratics thread but a few PvP guilds (non-roleplay) confessed to using it at champion spawns. S'a really good program to use in terms of streamlining your battle instructions and reacting quicker. Hell, it would be a laugh and if yer don't want to chat you can always turn it off (or not come on it in the first place). It wouldn't have to be a requirement like it was for my WoW guild. :D

That UO radio interview was conducted by Veldrin. I do have a ventrilo server, and I have used it in the past for Covian purposes, but I find it to be a distraction really. I'm aware some players here use their own personal conversational tools, but for the guild as a whole, I don't think it would be a good idea. Just like excessive use of party chat isn't a good idea, it merely detracts from the roleplay atmosphere. Perhaps it might be useful for hunting or raiding guilds, but not in a roleplay environment.

I could write down an essay spanning at least 475 pages about this subject but I'll spare you all by not doing so (because A - I am a nice person and B - I am lazy). What I will say is this : even though UO is still many times more diverse than your average "modern" MMORPG, it's lost most of it's thrill. Having to flee from PKs while crafting, always banking important gear, being able to have your weapon stolen in dungeons etc. Corpse runs were a real bihatch but if you got to your stuff in time it was golden! You actually felt like you had accomplished something. Nowadays with bags of sending and item insurance the game has lost some of it's former glory but then again it's a different player base these days. Everyone pisses and moans about the candlyland trammel rulesets, but from my own experience, I am quite glad it's there most of the times. However, I do feel the difficulty slider in UO has been set from Hard to Bloody Easy, which is a shame really. Fun as the game may be, there is no real challenge left in it.

Hmmm, I joined back in like 2000 i think. I had been playing some MMORPGs on MASQUE game site until EA bought them out... and destroyed the games there by closing the mall down.

But I got a FREE UO: Renaissance disk in the mail, and hopping that others from the community i had been in would follow suit, I joined up. I never took into account ultima really is a thousand worlds each with its own peoples etc, etc.  I haven't found a single soul from Games like Battle Tech: Solaris (Precursor to many of the on line MEch Assaults plus it had a Japanese culture and military system in place which was the RP element it had.) Aliens On line (before the Predator got thrown into the mix)

So I came by UO in an odd way i guess. As I entered the world. Trammel had no houses or very few of them, but moongates were opening all over the world from the moonstones... I kept finding myself in felucca, out, in out, in out, and hopefully i landed OUT. I didn't know how to survive yet lol. About a month later I came back fro ma weekend away and houses were everywhere. I think this "expansion" triggered the horrible add-ons that came after.

Well some content has been nice, ninth anniversary in mind. housing stuff too. And I do like the Necromancer and Paladin titles in the RP world, I also LOVE my necromancer, but hes pimped out non RP fashion... so of course I get my rocks off slaying hundreds of things while some warrior barley fends off a small herd. I love my powerful non RP characters as much as my RP.

Hmmm  Alright, wheres UO headed?  If the numbers keep trailing off, and the expansions keep getting more useless and further from the original content of the series (I'm just waiting for Aqueribusses. At which point I shoot my UO disk for target practice and wipe it from my hard drive .....)

Others are right EA doesn't care for quality, they, without much though completely destroyed a website, taking nearly 200K people offline, destroying a comunity of people who played in a world of maybe 5 diffrent games, Battle Tech : solaris, Aliens On line, Godzilla On line, Starship Troopers Battle Space, there was another but I don't remember it... all great games for their times.
I've played wow and was even with a great guild of people who are military/ ex-military mostly and alot of us know each other personally. But once we let in "outsiders" and those of us "personal friends" had less time to play... the guild went to hell, we have all abandoned that guild and started a new one. it is a 24 hour game, but I get my fun in small doses but once I'm the best.... what will I do then? maybe I'll help people.. maybe I'll cancel my subscription who knows. In UO I still haven't managed to get a completely finished template yet, and I've had a warrior for over 4 years now who hasn't finished reaching elder in swords....

Some say that PVP and PKing are all that's affected by the newer items armors and trinkets. We'll I'm also one who enjoys to go into Fel once in awhile just to watch/work. Most of my character, if pitted against someone in the "old" plate suites, would stand a good chance. It seems you just cant walk around in Fel anymore being a GM anything and know you have a certain immunity. People used to be scared to battle the Great Hero, GM Warrior, not its like  you have legendary title and are glorious and have super great stuff on... sadly someone else has one item just better than yours cause your wallet couldn't afford it... and wham he gets a major advantage over you.

I'm glad we have RP. I hope EA sells UO to someone who CARES!! And well, umm I think I've lost my traction.... i miss the "older" days nufff said.

Seriously..? Ventrilo and roleplay?! Get real!

I've been playing UO for quite a while now. I remember running around the old stonekeep chased by mobs of reds. Only to end up chasing them with a even bigger mob of crazed guardsmen. Classic.

Also you used to have REAL sieges back then. Being surrounded inside the keep for most of the evening was not an unusual thing. It really made you roleplay and I miss those days.

But for me everything went down the hill since trammel and even though CoY had some great moments I really started to enjoy RP again with Octiovus and his outrageous idea of a guild. And to be honest, I'm still having allot of fun when I login.

So yes even though Fel only with Cove would've been even better I'm not too bothered by the current state of the game. We make our own game here.

Maybe Cove should expand into Fel... ;)

That's what's keep me playing this game!

Where have you been then . . .  ::) ;D

The game developers made some bad decisions however I'm not bothered about anything else in the game but BoC. As long as BoC stands as its glorious self then who cares?

I started to miss the Old UO feel of pure fel. Thats why i started playing on a free server, UO Gamers Hybrid. It's the closest I get to that old adventurous feel.

You mean 9 year old kids that run around on horses in stupid colour armour :P

Hybrid through back the old UO but the past is the past !

Stupid Color armor was the product of AOS bullcrap. i'm talking about the risk of going out of your house and mining four ore before running for your life back to your house. The past was the best. the present is a waste of 15 dollars.

Then why play if its a waste? I don't get why people constantly moan about the state of the game then still play it.

Agreed! Go away if you don't like it.

UO is still great, and I don't think guilds like BoC could survive in the old days. Imagine how annoying it'd be trying to do an RP event or patrol only to get mowed down and corpse camped by a team of reds. Then you get to spend all night replacing your uniform, yay!

We can do so much more now than we could 9 years ago. It's like wishing you were 15 years old again.

She has a valid point ! Like I said before, the good old times when macing dominated all and people couldn't run 100 screens etc, as there was no focus.

But its the future now everything gets, better or worse .

Its really just like are governments now, they try to do stuff to make the society better but really it turns out, to be worst to some people .

BASICALLY STOP MOANING !  ;D

Well, naturally it'd be harder to role play with the constant fear of reds. But they grew tired more often as there were no item insurance and attacking an organised force would mean they would lose their gear (the really good gear costing more than most people could afford).

We would be an army and naturally assess victory in numbers, the civilians would need to be protected (as they should from bandits and cut-throats) so if anything it would add a bit in the excitement of logging in.

But it would be harder to keep events intact and fun if people ended up coming to destroy it. But then again, we can still get the occasional blue that comes and wrecks whatever we've built.

I'm not saying that it would be better in the old days, but things aren't black and white; some things were better and some weren't. Unless EA games suddenly reverts everything from pre AOS we won't ever find out how this BoC would work in such a climate.

I agree with Kas and Kazuo on all points. Corpse run in Destard anyone? The days of Khae begging for people to recall to Destard to save his equipment (which had to be looted a piece at a time) are long gone.

I think UO took their first bad turn with Trammel. Hell, skinning a rabbit was scary, cause you never knew when a PK would sneak up on you. Then it was Ilsh, which wasn't -that- bad. It could've been done much better though, idea was good. Then AoS, their worst mistake. That's when I quit the first time round.

What would be quite a bold move (and something that would really impress me) is if a next expansion would include a number of fel-ruleset dungeons in Trammel :D

Ofcourse they'd have to be candy assed about it and place huge neon flickering warning signs around it that noobs or people that care about their stuff should not even think about entering those places. But still, a full frontal fel-ruleset dungeon (preferably WITHOUT item insurance) would be awesome!

Without item insurance! Otherwise, I couldn't loot k0rpzez

[/quote]

Agreed! Go away if you don't like it.

UO is still great, and I don't think guilds like BoC could survive in the old days. Imagine how annoying it'd be trying to do an RP event or patrol only to get mowed down and corpse camped by a team of reds. Then you get to spend all night replacing your uniform, yay!

We can do so much more now than we could 9 years ago. It's like wishing you were 15 years old again.
[/quote]


Grd survived in the old days, BoC could too.

Hehe, but didn't Grd have the tendency to end up sieged in SK?=D

Yes. It was great being under constant threat! Hiding and roleplaying under siege while our numbers were low and charging out when we thought we could beat them. Good times..!

and we wouldn't need bandit guilds, we'd have reds! But, back then, exceptional equipment was the standard equipment, which meant we'd be armed with roughly the same

Bloody trinket suits ! >:(

In the unlikely event of EA actually publishing an "old UO" shard, what are the chances of some of the big roleplay folks heading over there...? I mean obviously it wouldn't be exactly like the game used to be since people would be capitalising on all the markets (from house placing to hunting spots) but it would be close enough as far as the mechanics are concerned.

The PvP field would be a little more competitive for a start.

I just never want to train an UO char again!

Pull your finger out Commander, if I'm doing one then you are. :P

Back when factions ruled, and trammel was fiction, moonglow was populated, and fiding a housespot was difficult. That was the time UO was at its best.

I remember some of the first months me and my best friend started playing UO. We did not dare to venture out of moonglow being so scared we would get pked. There was so much thrill and adrinaline pumping through my body. We both got noticed by this guy named Luna, who told us to follow him. We did and he took us to his little small plaster house on the isle, and we stept inside. He put a barrel infront of the door, transformed into a chicken and started pecking us to death!   I Swear! KILLED BY A CHICKEN!

Than my second big adventure was factions. I was so bad at PvP, but the few times I did win I was on such a rush. Those HUGE raids, god I miss those.

And Yes CoY was the best rp community in the history of UO. I mean just the pure thought of seeing Zhedra creeping around the Yew Crypts still gets my heart racing. But who knows, a good community could be brought back some day  ;)

That said, BOC is the best guild I ever had the pleasure to play in. The People, the mindset, and the quality is what keeps me around. I love you BOC!

Mongo scared me shitless. I got hit all alone in the forests once. After that, I killed the shadows. I killed them good.

Skill training on summoned elementals outside Moonglow gates....

BOOYAH !

Cheers mages. ;D

or... vas flam = Dead mongbat. I actually had a GM itemID mage before AoS. Guess who felt a bit bummed.

Trapping a wisp in your house for winner parry gains !

Awwww, such fun. :-*

http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2004/12/ultima_online_r.html

An old article on the state of the game. But like Kazuo, I think Ultima is too easy, perhaps even too easy. Reinstate the Counselors!

Garriott quote from Gamespy interview:

But even today, I wish that things had worked out better with Electronic Arts. It's ironic that the top selling online product at EA, even today, is Ultima Online. We constantly tried to tell them that we understood the online game business and give advice, but the company had a very different agenda. Even the four or five other massively multiplayer games they've launched have flopped compared to Ultima Online.

On the one hand, I feel vindicated that we were giving good advice, but unfortunately there was a substantial disagreement as to the future of online gaming there, and it just wasn't possible to sustain the relationship.

*Ding*

After sitting bored at work for a bit, browsing old UO threads, I figured out what I'd want UO to do! I want EA to make a UO:R server and an UO:3D server (Perhaps more). Then make it possible to x-shard onto one of those servers with any character created before the servers. This would:

- Remove sunglasses
- Remove neon things
- Remove powerscrolls
- Remove stat scrolls
- Get us back to the 100 stat system
- Fix a lot of the PvP issues with ninjitsu, bushido etc (which are skills that will DISSAPEAR)
- No insurance
- No possibility for silly marties or such, only event items!
- No Trammel or such
- Gief back newbiefied daggers!
- Fix crafting
- No private houses. Phooey.
- Return the Factions
- Stat loss
- No beetles

With only a few servers, if it's succesful, it would quickly fill up, so we wouldn't feel so damned lonely in Moonglow, when you're a noob hunting hinds for leather.

Two things I'd want them to keep is the housing rules we've got. I actually like being able to customise my house! The second is elves, with a bit of tweaking, they'd be quite alright!
Problems I can see with this is that the housing price will skyrocket if it's succesful. Another thing is the inflation that MMORPG's get after a while. An idea could be to have gold pay for a "war-effort." This could be rewarded with semi-rares and such.

When this was done I'd love to see these things:
- Implementation of gargoyles
- Possibility of adding certain parts of the other expansions, like perhaps Heartwood or Ilshenar with a Felluca ruleset
- The possibility to dye sandals
- The return of Seers
- Possibility to dye armour
- Remove bronze as a mineable ore


[More to be added]

I like the cut of your mutton Khae ! :D

Don't forget;

• Dismemberment
• Texas law for private houses
• Removal of the Jack of all Trades passive bonus for humans
• Put perma grey status back into the game

Jack of all Trades has to go because at the moment it causes silly problems for thieves. Beforehand you could walk rings around people in stealth and not get revealed. With Jack their 20.0 detect hidden ticks and reveals you when you get close about 90% of the time. The addition of perma grey acts as the thief protection people would be losing with the removal of Jack. Someone stole something from you? Find them and kill them !

Instead of having no private houses just remove the forcefields private houses currently have (and use Texas law as mentioned above). If you're going to tweak elves and keep them in the game then for the love of crumpets please make them look decent and not like some bloke walking around with a dustpan on his head.

Your list looks super sexy so far though, I'd think of some more additions but I have to go out soon. ;)

(PS; I still want a copy of your Blackmoor book, got caught up getting drunk after I went to the shop)

(PPS; You have to admire good old Garriot, the boy was a hero, real shame what happened between him and EA. Anyone fancy giving Tabula Rasa a go...?)

Aye, tweaking the elves is needed! But the idea is alright! As for Blackmoor, just come by and say hello! Is Tabula Rasa any good?

But a few more changes:
- Loot is FFA. Anytime, anywhere!
- Make it more difficult to cast spells, so people can't cast recall from scrolls, i.e. you've got to WALK to the dungeons
- Get back the might, power and vanq weapons! 1,5% increase to neoness is NOT cool!
- ID sticks!
- Charge magic items! How much I loved my boots of invis when PvP'ing!
But I'd also like to see more events, such as the siege of Trinsic and such!

Is there anyone that think these changes would be beneficial for the game, aside from me and Kas?!

Stop asking us.. ask them!! *Points at Game programmers!*

Although I would love these changes, they would not be beneficial for the game.
Why? The playerbase has changed.
Everyone keeps whining about Felucca and the good old days but when it comes down to it, no one wants to play it anymore. Otherwise, why is not everyone playing Siege?

Siege has no recall spells, skills are harder to raise, no item insurance, only the neon is still present.

I say leave things as they are and build a few new (not too much, one or two will do) large siege ruleset dungeons with high end rewards. Perhaps make them work like the old champ spawn area system. You die, you are teleported out and cannot return for 30 minutes - 1 hour. This prevents pks from setting up a base and keeps things fun and challenging for everyone.

Siege isn't enough, I have a 7x GM thief there and rarely play him. While theres no insurance each character was given a personal bless deed or something a while ago and people tend to use that to the best of their ability. Of course the situation there is a lot lot better than it is on normal shards but it's not a whole lot different.

They have the same dungeons, the same crazy weapons and all that sort of thing. The skill system is nice but I actually found RoT better for gaining skills than a normal shard. I just logged in for a while every day, got my assigned amount of points and then logged off to repeat it the next day.

If I had a house there (which I used to have before I closed my second account) James Valentine would probably get a lot more action. Personally I'd prefer an old days shard far more than modern Siege, but yer right, it is a nice change (the community there is fabulous too).