Re: I've got a secret...
Yes, this has been the problem ever since people left OSI.
Why do you think OSI were so concerned with macroing? People were up in arms about OSI banning people for macroing evaluating intelligence for 2 weeks in a row so they could GM the damn skill. But macroing sparring/magery, etc, did remove the aspect of the game where there were people had to adventure to have fun. Pre UO:R people were relatively new to the game and EZmacro wasn't perfect. Many people were still adventuring around outside town without perfect characters, doing more than just looking for PvP which they weren't actually contributing to. But sure as hell, macroing has completely demolished the game we used to call UO.
UO:R had a great anti macro code that kept people playing instead of macroing if only for an hour a day, but it had one flaw: trammel. Trammel spun the economy out of control until the point where that guy you taught how to swing a pickaxe 2 months ago was now a multi-millionaire. It also demoted player interaction.
UO can't be saved. Everyone now has grown used to the easy option. It took me a long time to get a grip on this, but the UO truly began to choke with UO:R, and it's not coming back.
One thing I've never liked is the "help I'm stuck option". You can die in a dungeon, "help I'm stuck" and be back at your corpse in less than 5 minutes. I remember a time when dying used to be a time to call help from your friends on ICQ. When gaining skills was about banding together at a bone wall to avoid death.
It would be fun to play on a shard with anti macro code, maybe 3 power hours a day. Where you'd have to compete for the deamon/lich lord spawn so you could GM resist. But I'm not holding my breath.
For the moron who thought he'd owned up logic with "doesnt champ spawn = powerscrolls? go play demise". Think before you open your mouth. Shards are SCRIPTED, the loot on monsters is SCRIPTED. Therefore champ spawn does not mean powerscrolls.