Quoted Sakkarah, Good news for us.

[Celuvian]

"Do you have a 'dream project' you'd like to do, if time and resources permitted?"

"My dream project would revolve around RP Towns and RP tools. Frankly, I pretty much have it all laid out in my head. But it would require a lot of engineering, art and design time to make it happen. I would love to give players the real ability of building their own towns with a RTS side to it, where certain buildings and upgrades become available as the town grows in size. Each town would be encouraged (though not obligated) to specialize itself to unlock specific upgrades (i.e. crafter town vs. military vs. maritime). It would have a proper election, taxes, war systems integrated. Instead of everyone camping Luna, I would like to see people congregate to specific player towns when they want specific specialty goods or activities. With that, I would also like to give players a lot more tools to create and run their own events, from oracles to customizable clues and rewards that can be scattered out in the world, even in the depths of a dungeon."

[Hoagie]

I need a change of trousers...

[Freckletip]

How amazing would that be?

[Park Su-mi]

Sounds interesting but sounds like terrible news for us, not good news at all. Pardon my skepticism / cynicism / general party-pooping but think about it.

Encouraging non-RPers out of Luna to come to player towns for quests, events and unique items?

Having EM imposed elections, taxes and "war systems?" Giving the Devs and EMs further opportunity to imprint their own lore and ideologies over the top of our own?

I'm all for EA's continued involvement but they need to open their eyes and learn each server's roleplay history and try to embrace it. I know a lot of people were extremely forgiving and patient with Dawn and Hawke because at least they were trying and I am thankful for that, but I was present at a few of the early events and it was evident they weren't clued in at all.

But while I think it's great that there are Devs still working on the game, you've got to expect them to be even more out of touch with our specific needs than the EMs. 

I hope if they develop it and take the idea on board that it works. Truly. But I also think our communities have worked well for the last decade and all the only thing killing them off is the natural decline of the playerbase, the reason none of us have ever got to grips with RP in WoW or Horizons or AoC and stayed there is because UO is just... perfect as it is.

Sorry to slap a big, whiney TL;DR in the middle of your hopeful thread but stuff like this always worries me more than excites me.

[Linaeus]

It would be good if it was ONLY ROLEPLAYERS that could influence the Towns, but the prospect of some neon blue artifact-laded banksitting Non-RPer having a say in what we do with our town sends chills down my spine.

Thats the biggest issue with the EMs, really. They want to help us, but they aren't allowed to do anything just for us. The best they can do is gear an event towards our values as Roleplayers, and then neglect to publicize it outside of the RP Community. Everything the EMs give us has to clearly benefit/be open to participation by non-Roleplayers as well. Even when we stormed Britain and overthrew Casca, the best the EMs could do was send the blues, Trinsic, Skara, and Vesper to one side and then do an entirely seperate spawn on the other side of the map for BoC and Grd.

Sorry to smash everyones' hopes and prayers for a better UO, but I firmly believe that the game will only improve if the EMs start catering to us again - like they used to in the old days. Otherwise, we're better off going it alone.

More tools to help us run our own events sounds cool, though.

[Celuvian]

Player run towns etc should be governed by a respective guild, say Cove[BoC] had special powers of our Baronship, does not sound like such a bad thing to me.

[Linaeus]

Thats what I said.   

[Celuvian]

Thats what I said.   

I tought it first infidel!

[Kelly Sanderson]

I'd be more concerned about the grief that blues might cause. If they only get certain items from certain towns, I have no doubt that there would be groups of them. They see roleplayers, and all of a sudden the next thing you know, they're following patrols and generally preventing the roleplay.

Towns having specific goods or activities would also take away the central motives we have with different towns. If particular guilds are "controlling" particular roleplaying towns, wouldn't it look absolutely bizarre that us as roleplayers controlling that town are dishing out (most likely) artifacts and strange quests left, right and center? Something that we ban entirely...

I just have so many questions about this concept that would be very hard to answer. They cannot attract the masses (blues who wear arti's) to towns unless these prizes and activities include magical prizes, so I doubt they'd restrict it.

One thing I do think is good is the building up of our own towns, although I don't see where a lot of them can be improved without overloading them. The towns are already built. But the idea itself is a nice one.

[Park Su-mi]

Bottom line is, we're currently holed up nicely in Yew, Cove and Vesper - towns nobody ever vists - and we like it.

If this ever went through it turns our RP sancturies into hotspots into camping grounds for those with no interest in RP. Even if they're not griefers it's still going to affect the atmosphere of what and where we play.

[Keane Wakefield]

One good thing to come out of it would be good advertisement for the RP communities

[Kas Valentine]

I'm with Torrak and Su-mi on this beauty !

S'a fabulous idea in concept but the reality of it as far as I can imagine would be;

"Hoagie can you give us some epics?"
"Buttons, where do we go for the next clue?"
"LOL Cove sucks, Vesper gives much better resources than you do"
"Gating to 18x18, only 500k!"
"Gating to 18x18, only 500k!"
"Gating to 18x18, only 500k!"
/Vas An Nox
/Vas An Nox
"Is this where we come for the event?"
"Have you seen the EM Octiovus?"
"I slept with Hoagie's mum"
"Hurry up with the epics"
"Duel my main"

And so on.

Plenty of "player involvement", if you can call it that, but very little "roleplay".

S'how I see it !

[Hoagie]

"I slept with Hoagie's mum"

This will not be a new claim.

[Celuvian]

"I slept with Hoagie's mum"

This will not be a new claim.

Well somebody must have slept with her....? Am I right or am I right...

[Celuvian]

"I slept with Hoagie's mum"

This will not be a new claim.

Well somebody must have slept with her....? Am I right or am I right...

The quality of this thread is obviously going down, I say lock it:)