I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but i usually check forums for well thought out intelligent posts about current situations that plague the shard and not 200 posts about "ROFL So-and-so from random guild sucks at 1v1 no pots huck huck huck!!!!111". It appears lately that some of the more intelligent people here have surfaced to voice opinions on the so called issues of this shard, and are scratching the surface of the real issures. so this has inspired me to write up a little essay on the problems i myself find on here.
I'll try to keep this organized as possible, cuz you may see some signs of circular logic. Also for you skimmers, i'll try to bold certain points that i feel are very worthwhile to read.. Anyway, on with the show...
I'll try to break this down into some basic groups. The groups will be based on major aspects of the game we love called Ultima Online.
PVP
I'm going to get this out of the way right now. This isnt yet another rant about PvP, in fact i dont really give 2 shats about it. Im not an anti pvp person by any means, im honestly burnt out on it after so many years, no matter what the ruleset. I've moved on to other aspects of game play that are much more rewarding for me, and im not talking about crafting.
Let me go ahead and make a bold statement to end some myths righ now. This is NOT a PvP shard. If you think that it is then you seriously are kidding yourself, and in fact that mindset is the very poison of this shard. You dont think so? Ok very well, you can have your opinions. But answer me a few quesitons first. Why have there been posts about needing a test center to save faction pvp? Then a week later people polling to take it down to save hybrid pvp? Why are there so many posts in suggestions on how to help pvp out like adding WoW engine rip offs? Why are so many people complaining about not finding any PvP on this shard when they want to? We have duel pits, factions, dungeons, graveyards, crossroads, etc. Its all there. Posts like those dont really reflect a extremely healthy PvP scene do they? Now it may seem like we have a pvp shard, because the tools for anyone to get involved are handed to them.The main tool of that is extremely high skill gain rates. But i will touch on that topic later.
My personal thoughts on this are just leave the shat alone. We dont need some pre-uo:r additions to this shard, or removing things like special blows. Go find one of the 3497829047 other pre-UO:R clone shards, or just jump over to Rebirth for christ sake. I'm tired of seeing 16 year old kids rambling about pre-uo:r pvp being the best PvP. Think about that for a bit... a 16 year old kid in year 2005 was how old in 1999? The UO:R ruleset isnt as broken as you think. So stop asking for everything to be changed cuz you got ganked by a bola. You think the bola is the problem? I mean seriously.
Go ahead and remove the bolas, then 2 weeks later poll a thread to get horses removed cuz people run away too much. Next time something bothers you about PvP, try the tactic yourself, educate yourself on it from both sides and try to find a defense by yourself. Draw you own opinion, not some hand-me-down crap that you read on the forums. Things are getting so skewed by the tweaks here and there it doesnt seem worth bothering with. Thats why i dont really care about PvP. I have a mage i made for dueling and possibly factions. I think he has about 2 hours of play time in at best. I tried it and tbh it doesnt feel right. I had a dexer that i trashed and turned into an axe hybrid pk, its not so much that dmg levels are off or the special blows are too random or not random enough. Its just the general feeling of it all seems wrong. Im not an expert by any means, most of you arent either no matter how much you wish you were; but things just dont seem right. Again thats just my opinion. I wont run around and spam threads to get things changed, but i may support some suggestions that are worthwhile.
One last comment i would like to make about the whole pvp issue is that fact that staff does have a player involvement in it. Im not saying staff changes pvp to meet their liking. They have their own opinion on it as a player, an when they see 6-10 people share that opinion it seems they take it as an invite to make the change. And thats fine because this is their shard and they do what they feel is best for it. I honestly think their personal opinions might cloud judgement ever so slightly. sure those 6-10 people agree with you, but what about the 900+ players that are logged in right now? A poll on the forum has 54 people saying yes to a change and 23 people saying no. Then some players say "OMG LANDSLIDE PATCH IT!" What about the 80ish people in VIP that cant read the forums? Did you stop and ask them? or the other 600 people logged in right now that dont read the forums for whatever reason? Of course not everyone can voice their opinion in a reasonable amount of time for such things but i think there needs to be a bit more communcation for this matter. Not just PvP either. OSI had it right with hosting things like a UOHoC. Sure we have forums but its hard to say if that brilliant idea you read on the forum ever got read by staff because that forum got flooded by people complaining about purple potions. UOHoC was a nice real time Q&A that offered immediate gratification of answers as well as an official response by the leaders. We honestly need something like this soon. We already have IRC servers...anyway i've strayed from the topic.
Enough about PvP..
The main issue as to why UO doesnt feel like UO anymore isnt the swing or spell timers. Its the.. all together now...
COMMUNITY
Im not saying the community is a bunch of idiots or are anti-socials or immature brats. Thats not what i mean by it. Im talking about when you banded together with friends or total strangers to further yourself in the game. That has been totally removed on this shard but there isnt really someone to blame for this issue. Its not the people that play here. Its not the staff. Its just the mentality that melts together and the fact that everyone is too independant. There is valid reason why this is too. Let me explain...
Think back to when you first played UO. It doesnt matter if it was OSI 99 or a sphere shard you tried out last week before coming here. You had a feeling of exploration. Now you've heard this speech before i'm sure. But that wasnt the main difference between then and now. The fact is you depended on other players for one reason or another. It might have been asking how to get to the bank, or trying to find a guild to take you to train up swordsmanship at the BK Wall. Regardless of that, you probably are at a point in your UO career where you feel you know it all. As far as game mechanics that is. And that is something you cant help. You cant forget everything you know about this game. That takes away alot of dependancy on other players though. But certain things that require that dependancy are also taken away that really shouldnt be. Lets explore these.
Skillgain
This really has been a major issue for me lately. I'm like everyone else, i didnt see a reason to put weeks of effort into a few characters to enjoy the game. Was i right when i thought a 7x GM character would help me enjoy the game? Oh yea. Was i right when i thought having that 7x GM in one night would make me happy? Oh man, i was worse than right... i was wrong. You see this is one of those things you cant see coming, so like i said this isnt a staff fault for doing it. There isnt one skill that you need someone else to help you train. And of all the skills, if you need the resources of one of them, you dont need to find someone to help you with it, you just make a character able to do said skill yourself. This is why your economy sucks. End. Of. Story.
Lets do a small scenario shall we? Little Timmy wants to be an axer. Timmy needs to train skills. Timmy only needs to get enough cash to train up magery and resist. He earns this money by escorting NPCs. He casts a few spells on himself through out the night and is in the 90-100 range by sunrise. Timmy needs to train his melee skills now. No BK wall for Timmy though, all he needs to do is log in another account and hack away at his mule til he GMs anat, tactics, LJ, swords, and healing. 2 Hours later Little Timmy is nearly a 7x GM and the only words he has typed are "bank" , " i will take thee", and "vendor buy". Oh and he did say "move you fackign idiot" to the guy blocking the door at the mage shop. Now Timmy needs some PK hunting gear. He doesnt need to hit a dungeon for cash or loot, no sir-re. All he does is logs back into his mule and works on a smithy. Hes got GM mining in about 2 hours of casual mining and is workign up blacksmithy fairly fast so he can make exceptional weapons and armor. He ignores the miners that could make him the things he needs, and just makes it himself since it only takes a few minutes. He gets his armor and weapons and heads to good old brit GY. He sees another blue up there but doesnt approach him cuz he is afraid he is a thief. Then 3 big bad red PKs show up and Timmy attacks them along with the other blue, but he is afraid the blue will abandon him if things go sour. So not to be left behind for a gank Timmy flees first. He never even waited by the gline to see if the other guy needed a res. He hits the inn and logs off to make his tamer. He makes his tamer and gets him to Del by spamming 1000x fora gate at wbb. He finally makes it there and trains up to GM taming and works on his bard skills too. He goes off to clear out a little spot 100 times for enough loot to buy a large 3 story plot. He hunts some more to build up his plot to his dream home, which houses his guild stone he bought. He's the only one in his guild. He the only one that ever saw the inside of his house.
Sound familiar?
That pretty much describes alot of this player base. Now some of those Timmys move on to meet other Timmys and make a huge *** 4 person guild to hunt PKs with, or become PKs themself. But thats about the extent.
All you OSI guys think back to when you had 60 tactics and just hit 70 swords and got PKed. You probably had the same thought everyone did: "Im gonna come back and kill that guy" and some of us had the little addon of "...once i get my skills up" If you didnt have that addon, you probably did after a few futile attempts at revenge. You may have even found other people in your situation to help you in your quest at ridding Sosaria of murderers. Not anymore though. You can bang out that 7x in one night and say "i wish to duel thee" all night til the ctrl+Q falls of your keyboard. Who needs that headache anymore right? Well it wasnt all bad... in fact you probably are thinking about it again right now and how much fun it was. You dont remember the exact swing timer of that PKs hally hitting you but you remember the exact tile you dropped on when you died. You probably show your friends who are new to the game where you died for the first time. SO now tell me whats more important in your subconscience when it comes to the fun of the game.
Am i inside your head yet? Good, lets continue...
You'll notice he never needs anyone's assistance, because he figures he can do it all himself. And its not hard when then gains flow like Niagra Falls. Now this isnt something we can fix, i dont think its fair to just shut down the skill gains, because it wont have a great impact. Maybe longterm impact, but thats a longshot. Its one of those "Oops! Who would have thought?" kind of things you just grin and bare. So lets look at other options...
Dungeons
Block off the entrances to them. Who would miss them? I love the posts about people claiming they own a dungeon and if you show up youll get rolled on. ROFL. of course thats an easy thing to claim when 3-4 people show up daily. And not all at the same time mind you. What fuels the dungeons here? We already established there is no reason to hunt for skill gain. Gold is hella easy to farm via escortees for some fast start up cash, or just jump on Ye Olde Trendy Poker Table on top of WBB. I am an avid card player myself but you wont catch me at a table in game ever. It really has no place here. Maybe open up Ryans table for an event once in awhile, but other than that just get rid of them, or at least the WBB one so other towns get some traffic once in awhile besides the escort runners.
People asked for champ spawns back. I think this is a BEAUTIFUL idea. But without power scrolls what is the draw for this? Well i dont have an answer for you. Maybe it should be discussed in a HoC? *wink wink*. Another small opinion i would say is to totally end the spawn of Vanqs and Powers for 2 months solid, this would help the economy greatly, because no matter if people horde them or not, it removed them from every day PvP and puts value back into them as well as crafted weapons. Of course champs should still drop the perfects but that isnt enough draw alone, and please dont have them drop recolored/renamed sandals. Jesus Christ, please no more sandals.
Now people will have a reason to go to dungeons, and more PvP will take place. People will have to rely on those around them (reds and blues alike) to survive, and who knows, maybe some long term alliances will be made.
Fire up the Naturalist Quest or the Solen Quest. Make the hives more than a beetle spawn. Add in bags of sending or whatever, and dont tell me its trammie and will ruin pvp because A) its just plain wrong and B) that theory is flawed in many ways for many things. Tell me its trammie while you ride your bonded beetle and wear hot pinks sandals that say Fack Trammies. How do you spell irony? U-O-G-A-M-E-R-S
Giving people free skills is one thing but handing them every bit of perfect loot is just overboard. Half the time they dont have to stray far from town to get it either.
Events
When you think of event on UOG:H you think "Tournament". Thats kind of sad actually. I can understand why it is this way to a point. Its alot easier for a staff member to pop on, set up the tourney and fire and forget. Nothing wrong with this at all except thats really the only thing that happens here. Its not a bad thing that we have them, in fact its a very good thing that its well organized. Its a bad thing that its all thats really offered 90% of the time.
Now some staff does do an event other than PvP things, like the maze event and Ryans little 4th of July invasion. I dont agree 100% with how it was done, i mean baiting people into wbb when its 0 Light and no one cast night site and everyoen is lagged cuz of the 40000 fireworks then unleashing Lich Lords and what not on everyone was a little uncalled for. But i did smile when i saw Lord Oaks pop up so i guess no harm no foul. As long as we are on the topic of this past weekends events, i guess i should express my 2 cents on them.
Lets compare on how maybe an OSI-esque way of doing it would be compared to how i witnessed it. Now i wasnt on the whole weekend so i probably missed some things. But i consider myself an avid casual gamer here. Thats means im on once a day at least and usually during EST peak hours until the wee hours of the night. Im guessing this holds true for most people here so dont feel that im too off base.
OSI-esque way of handling festivities for a 4th of July weekend. My guess would be every account that logged in got a fireworks wand. Then maybe a quest took place, something that could be wrapped up in one night, like an annoucement that the savages were invading the orc dungeon. People are invited to come pick a side and help fight. Orc masks and savage paint are NOT handed out here, thus people have to go purchase them from other players or hope some fall during the battle. Then a small prize at the end of the event is given out to both sides' supporters, like a renamed folded cloth that said "Battle for Savage Independence" or something simple like that. Not neon colored either. And not wearable and blessed. Its just a little trinket to remind you of what happened on that day, and when people ask where its fom when they tour your rare museum you have a story to tell them. You develop legend and lore this way. And guess what! people that werent logged in or that didnt directly participate, gues what you got? Jack. Zip. Nothing. Go GM begging and hope a NPC hands you a clue. Then maybe some PvP fights in duel pits after with a trophy.
Now what happened on UOG from what i saw was a bunch of tourneys and the little incident at WBB. Is there anything wrong with that? Not at all. I mean to do something like the above takes some planning and soem ample staff support. And lets be honest if its a holiday, the staff as well as players have lives. And they dont get paid to work like OSI employees did. And then people started smack talking america during the nice thing that was being done for us (i.e.- fireworks display)
Side Note
I just want to take a moment and comment on the whole issue about people getting banned for the anti-american displays. I am American. im also th most unpatriotic person youll meet. I dont think our government sucks, or anything cliche like that. Im just not patriotic at all. But i do reserve respect for people that are. I have family that served past and present like most of you. And if you think spamming "AMERICA SUX" and getting banned is wrong, just remember you insulted someone doing that. That someone is someone that has the balls to fight for something he believes in. You may not but he does. Now im not a person that sucks staff wang, especially not Ryan's. Im not looking to get a free CBD dropped in my bank box, in fact ryan could say "Hey man nice post, your banned" but that doesnt change how i feel abotu him as an admin or a person. In fact i think Kiwi and I have been banned off this website/shard/irc more times since way back during Beta4 days til now more times than i care to count. I do have differences with how Ryan administers the community and shard. I've expresssed them before and taken my lumps for that, but the difference is i understand there comes a time to lay down the guns. And there is a person behind that title of Admin. I may say Ryan the Admin did something i think is wrong or stupid, but thats a different person then Ryan McAdams. So when you get banned for mouthing off to him when you say things that piss him off personally, dont spam every other forum that hes a bad admin, because you didnt tick off the admin, you ticked off the person, its just unfortunate that his access level is higher than yours.
End side note
Continued below...
