f13.net

New expansion announced.  There's the usual crap about new dungeons and critters, but the main points are these:

*  Fucking Elves:  Yeah, they finally caved to the assmonkey boardwhores who think every fantasy setting is Tolkien.  They're adding an elf city called Heartwood, and quests that elfinize an existing character.  Between that and the robots and ninjas of previous expansions, this game is quite possibly the most thematically schizophrenic work ever.

*  No box:  The expansion is supposedly a download only.  Yeah, that's the sound of EA surrendering.  Forget about bringing in new players, the North American market is now just an auxillary to Asia.

*  No graphical upgrade:  See above, regarding this being the "we give up" expansion.

Fuck you in your elven ass, EA.  I'll break down and go play a levelfest where at least the elves are part of a logical overall setting.

You know, when I saw the thread title, I thought "shit, somebody's trying to troll WindupAtheist."  Imagine my surprise!

With the possible exception of most text-MUDs I've played, where you wandered from Generic Fantasy City thru a forest of dryads, thru the village of Springfield full of Simpson's characters, down a cliff full of Pern-ese dragons/dragonriders, to get to the robot's technocity.

I will give you that UO is probably the most schizo world produced for money, by an actual company.

Alkiera

Alkiera, I'm pretty certain you just scared the Spore out of me.

Now you can relate to how most PvPers felt about UO:R and Trammel. Don't like elves? Too bad, that what majority of people like and that what goes in.  Owned, you griefer bad man elf-hater.

I'm enjoying irony of this situation so much that I decided to post here again.

Windup you must be wretched, deeply disturbed and anti-social person in need of therapy for hating beautiful elves. Elves represent beauty and love and your lack of acceptance of it must be clear sign of disturbed individual trying to poison everyone’s life.

Most people likes elves, you should move on to elf-free game and stop griefing everyone by your elf-hating ways. You have no right to dictate people how to play their Drizzit characters. Do you know how many people quit because they couldn’t play elf character? Anti-elf tyranny stops now, you too should adapt to playing samurai robot elf Jesus.

Avatar turning it his grave as we speak.

Look on the bright side - you can always raze those planets you don't like to the ground.

For once, I can't really cut up WUA for what he has said. I too hate how every game "needs" elves.

Personally, I have never played an elven character, due to their overwhelming fagtacularness.

Be a man. Play a human. Tear off Elf ears to make into a stylish necklace.

Oh fuck off, you troll.  I know you still weep to this day over the fact that free-for-all PVP has long passed away onto the trashpile of history, but have you EVER posted anything remotely productive?

Actually, if they are bringing Elves back I would be all for open PVP.  Killing Elves would almost be worth giving EA money. 

<<<

Oh come now, how can you hate that?

Male elves, however, pass the shotgun.

And you know, schild, I hadden't even considered the "Lame-Mud" effect of Spore.  Ow, the pain.  I too remember trips like the one Alkeria described, though Smurfs were more popular than Simpsons on the Muds I visited run by the 'omg i should host a mud that'd be lolzers' types.

If you're looking for a sort of sick thrill, check out this thread:

Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? (http://boards.stratics.com/php-bin/uo/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=5882003&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=31&fpart=2&vc=1&what2=showflat&selv=&vwhich=")

Highlights...


And people call ME a deluded fanboy?  There are some truly pathetic individuals on those boards.  People who own six accounts, travel to these "town hall" developer meetings, and frantically try to shout down everyone who sees the writing on the wall.

People like this.


Jesus, there are no words.  Just imagine this poor EA drone being chased around by some catass-scented moron telling him to make Saturday morning cartoons.  Jesus.  Look, I griped about the robots, but I stuck around.  I grumbled about the ninjas, but I kept playing.  But that's it, this is where I draw the line.

EDIT:  Snarky link name edited in honor of my avatar.

Just want to point out that Ultima used to have elves in it, back in the day you know?

I never used to like you, WUA, but this post just redeemed you in my (tear-stained from laughing) eyes.  Comedy GOLD.

Don't be hasty Jayce. Occasional praise and hate can go hand in hand.

I still say Windup is a ringer created by the admin of these boards.  He pops in, now and then, and says something inflammatory or stupid to keep people angry and entertained and then sods off.  I don't know what this new tactic is, but I'm sure there's some sort of obscure point to it.

Yes, yes... this might be a crap conspiracy theory but I like it.  And I even believe it.  Mostly.

I'm actually Schild.

I knew it!

Or rather, Schild is actually me.

Actually, that makes a lot of sense to me...

You know, most of the time you're an assmonkey. But today, you have indeed turned your assmonkey ways to the good of humanity!

This thread got weird while I was sleeping.

Sleeping.  Yeah, right.

You notice how they never both post AT THE SAME TIME !!!

There is a UO client coming out for the PSP. You heard it here first. Pass it on.

There is not a UO client coming out for PSP. I don't even like UO, but if it were true, I'd have to get it - just so more shit like that comes out on the PSP.

Btw, what makes an elf an elf in UO? 2 more pixels and night vision? Pfah.

The mangina behind the curtain.

Ah. Thanks for clearing that up.

Schild is WindUpAtheist? Well fuck me rotten.

Have you rolled your ninja elf Drizzit character yet? You better get your spot in a line for camping artifact scimitar spawn that drops from a robot quest early to get ready for this expansion.

Well you can start weeping now over the lore-consistent not loot-centric game with strong and involved community revolving around crafting, role playing, PvP or PvE that started dying around UO:R time and was dead by UO:AoS. Some people are more stubborn in coming to terms with death of UO and some slower individuals only catching up to it now.

What's more important is that WUA nearly ripped a whole in the fabric of space and time by calling someone else a troll.

Heh. That was a close one.

Windup has confirmed it and schild has not denied it. 

I've started a decent rumour.  Go me.

I know for a fact that WUA and schild are different people.

schild is much more of a wanker.

Also I can see the IPs of the posts and WUA is a completely different part of the country.

Or so the Germans would have us believe!

Bah!  I can make you see any IP I want you to see.  I have powers.  Maybe schild has powers, too. 

Germans!  There is the link I was looking for to prove my conspiracy theory!  Ta, Reg!

PS  Stop pissing all over my rumours!

What ?

Does smoking and playing DDR count as "a power"?

Oh, please!  I had night terrors about his gigantic feet stomping around on that silly dance mat.  It is obviously made for dainty, little Japanese feet.  Let's not talk about smoking... it's been almost 12 cigaretteless days for me.  I still want one like mad.

(http://web.swedevice.com/sistergeorge/fans/look-a-like_pics/images/JESUS%20BOY-CIGARETTE'99.jpg)

Cigarettes aren't the only thing he smokes.

Is it meant to be Boy George? 

It's some guy who dressed up like Boy George back in his glory days. Unlike his current days.

(http://www.wunderkinder.org/archives/capt.nyr10809301601.theater_boy_george_nyr108.jpe)

(http://www.blogwaybaby.com/Rosie%20and%20Boy%20George.JPG)

Who  (from the 2nd pic) would you sleep with if your life depended on it? These are the questions that try men's souls.

Death would be a sweet release.

That is from his show, Taboo, no?  God... I hope he doesn't walk around in public like that.  The first pic is from his DJ days... This is more like his glory days:(http://www.ambushmag.com/is1898/images/bgeorge.jpg)


It seems he gets stranger with the more drugs he gives up.

I don't think Boy George would sleep with me and I wouldn't sleep with any of those people... or you, either.

WHAT'S GOING ON?? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?!?

What?  You think I, Schild the evil genius, wouldn't cause a different IP to appear for each of my incarnations?  You underestimate my power!  That last one is a line from Star Wars: Episode 3, the finest film of all time according to me, Schild!

Anyway, the robot thing I just kinda shrugged and put aside, because they were confined to one very remote dungeon as soon as the expansion release "fiction" was over.  And the Japanese thing I could very easily have been down for, if it had been done properly.  Why should medieval Europe be the only place in the entire world, right?  Why not medieval Asia?  But it was so ugly and slapdash I just had to groan.  Now this.

You want to know what makes an elf different from a human in UO?  You really want to know?  Elves are fucking BLUE.  Bright fucking BLUE!!!  If ever I believed, surely recent days would have robbed me of my faith.

They're not Blue, they're Green! Adjust your monitor!

(props to Cartoon Network for this one)

Dear God what is that thing?

Obscure Princess Bride reference.

Or maybe Shockeye is in fact also Shild and WUA.

In fact I'm starting to think everyone is schild.

Except me. OR AM I?!

My work in this thread is done.

Wouldn't it be great if it turned out that every poster here at f13 was Schild?  Kinda reminds me of that AARP commercial where the guy clones himself.

You people are FREAKING ME OUT.

Do you think he's on to us, Christov?

Nooo. He's an idiot.

Grr.  Now they're offering large improvements to AI and "hundreds" of quests...  Why did they have to package it with ELVES...

Well, I for one will admit to not being a schizophrenic personality of schild.


I'm much too pretty for that.

In that sociopathic serial killer in the making kind of way.

You're too kind....no really, you are.

Congratulation, you are now full-fledged, card-carrying member with full benefits, unionized sociopath.

I didn't realize before now that it was possible to murder people across the internet.

I'm not sure which one is Boy George.  I think he would be more gentle on my anus, however, than Rosie.  You know, assuming Option Three was death.

Those are not elves.  Those are Smurfs.  Welcome back to FagMUSH v1.5.3!

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20050607/uoelf.htm

Yeah. Just scroll down a bit (edit: and over, and... well.. god damn Japs).

I'm sure my thoughts on this wil be spelled out pretty clearly by the next few posters.

They should add furries next time.

They've had those for years.

At least they aren't highlighting the elf boobies. I guess that's a plus.

Half the dev team has quit in the last month.  Supposedly new devs will be hired, but even the Stratics monkeys seem to smell blood in the water now.

If I wasn't on a "wish I could play UO but it sucks now" trip I'd probably gloat some about being right way back when you decided UO was hot shit all over again. UO was a good game, but "was" is the operative word now. It wasn't trammel that killed it for me, it was when I realised that the development turned from making UO as good as it could be, to grabbing at dollars and wowing the idiots with newer and more rediculous shineys. You mentioned it yourself: the robots, the ninjas, the elves, the artifacts... it's no longer UO, it's a hodge-podge of supposedly cool shit all thrown together with no ryme or reason.

Elves are blue? Holy... shit. And they look so... stupid. I mean, if you're gonna rape a game's corpse like this you should at least do it with style.

One thing that has to be repeated though... this thread IS such deliscous, deliscous irony. I blame Joe for ruining my potential savouring of this moment. May he burn in hell.

Too bad for you.  He just reminded me why I hate UO.

Did you mean: delicious

There's absolutely no vision over there, and there hasn't been for a long time.  There is no coherent strategy.  It's simply a matter of "Hey, time for an expansion!  What do we think is cool this week?"  Whichever developer masterminds a particular clusterfuck is gone by the time the next one is due, and we end up with some other asshat going off in a completely different direction rather than building logically upon what came before.  It's like a roomful of small children trying to make up a story.

"And then, and then there were some ROBOTS!"
"Shut up Timmy, I'm talking now!  Yeah, so then some ninjas came!"
"Yeah, but the ninjas all died when they fought some elves!  Yeah!"

And when they do have a good idea, like the Third Dawn client, they just plain botch it.  God, UO3D was so bad.  So ugly, and it ran so slowly, even after they spent six months closing a really bad memory leak.  An attractive graphical overhaul could have done them so much good, but instead it was just incompetent shit.

Heh. Well spoken.

But Elven robot ninjas are cool!

The only thing better would be lightsabers! Or maybe mutant powers like Wolverine!

Well - my thought is since then both swing for the other team, only Boy George would want sex, so Rosie would be the obvious choice for sleeping with.

Actually I meant peppermint, but your word works too.

Peppermint... mmmm.

Dammit.

Hard to highlight teh boobiez when they are only 2 pixels large.

At this very moment, in an alternate dimension where CoH outsold WoW, our goatee-having dopplegangers are staring in disbelief at screenshots of a UO avatar in neon tights casting Heat Vision at an orc.

You know, that's quite funny - and I got a kick out of it.

But I don't think the problem here is as much copying World of Warcraft, as it is asking random players for their opinions and implementing their suggestions. Having focus groups and asking a random selection of gamers what they want. They don't know, so they come up with some shit. And when one person says "elves", everyone goes "YEAH, ELVES!". "Elves?" becomes a running question and topic at the focus groups now, and invariably, everyone responds "YEAH, ELVES!".

These people haven't been playing UO since 1945. They started in May '04. These people don't understand how a mmog works, they work in retail. These people don't grasp the entire picture and have solid, practical ideas and opinions based on the current landscape of the entire UO project - they've spent the last two months trying to find Jhelom.

Focusing your efforts on elves and such because that's the highest percentage of positive reactions you got from your focus group isn't a good idea. When the fuck is the last time you bought a Big Mac because you thought the commercial with the guy and the old beat up car, with the Justin Timberlake music in the background appealed to you? Well, probably never. A bunch of 18-25 year olds putting check marks by "hip hop" and "don't have much money" doesn't make me hungry, and it sure doesn't make your shitty big macs taste any better.

It all comes back to Azaroth's Golden Rule of MMORPGs #1:

Giving players what they want is the best course of action, NOT ALWAYS.

People don't KNOW what they want. The game isn't their job. If you ask them what they want, they'll invariably respond with something that is shallow, short sighted, and benefits them personally. Or something mush-headed and ridiculous, because they don't HAVE any ideas.

It's YOUR job to create the world, make it sticky, and have enough VISION for others to follow YOU. Not t'other way round.

How undemocratic.  Oh, and true.

I think the Elves are more a "Look we have elves too!" to help hype the expansion.  The majority of the content being added is dungeons, bosses and quests.  Not so easy to hype that.  Well you could hype that, but you can throw elves all over your webpage, or maybe pop a boob out here and there.  They did avoid the "yet another landmass to sprawl houses on" motiff this expansion, which has been proven to be a good seller.  I really do not give a squat about the elves..  Actually thinking on it, I'd rather they had done Orcs, Gargoyles, Juka, Meer, just something else, but in the end, its all just a paper-doll change, and maybe a hue thrown on the avatar.  The other new stuff looks good.

They really gotta work on the ugly and the interface, so they can put the game back on the shelves.  Needs new blood to keep going.

Screenshots out, and the natives are pissed! (http://boards.stratics.com/php-bin/uo/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=5894377&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=31&fpart=1&vc=1&what2=showflat&selv=&vwhich=")

Even the forum whores aren't taking it quietly anymore.  The sad fact is, the graphics in UO have gotten WORSE with time.

I know it's been said too many times before, but all they really need to get back on the map is the exact same game circa the first Tram/Fel split but with modern 3D graphics.  With all the money they've frittered on half-baked half-measures...

Wow you are right, it's like they aren't even trying to obfuscate the tiled nature of the graphics anymore. Heck my GBA RPGs have better graphics than that.

It may have been said a lot but it is wrong. I have tried playing on a player run shard recently and the UO interface is just freaking horrible compared to what is out there now. It is just dated in every way. New graphics wouldn't help.

New graphics wouldn't hurt.  Just something on par with La Pucelle or Tales of Symphonia would prevent much disgust, there is no real need to do 3D.  Sprites that don't warp and backgrounds that don't look like Ultima VII would be pretty effective at this stage.  However, the thing that really made me uninstall it most recently was the fact that I had no idea what the fuck I was supposed to do, and since my last play experience was in early 1998 at best, I spent most of my time avoiding anyone that looked like they could kill me on a whim.  Which, of course, was everyone I met.  It is possible that I could have learned to ignore the fugliness, but some sort of three-minute primer would have helped.  Horizons gives a better newbie experience than UO.  At least I was sure I wasn't going to get ganked in Istaria.

I think that maybe, too, the players have changed since 1997.  I remember the straight-up grinding I did in AC1, and bunny-killing start I got in UO, and wonder how I stuck with it.  I even LIKED AC1 enough to quit UO over it.

Especially now that WoW has raised the bar in terms of setting goals for those who don't know enough about the game to set their own goals, I'm not sure you can get by with the same open-ended virtual world that UO has anymore.  I don't think virtual worlds won't work - I just think that there needs to be something to point the player in the right direction.  A newbie experience, if you will.

So yeah, what Yegolev said.

And, yeah... what Jayce said.  I just want to clarify that I'm not looking for handholding gameplay, just something as simple as a text window saying "Hey, New Dude, get your feet wet doing this, don't go past That Tree until you understand combat, if you want to craft talk to This Guy... now go have fun in the sandbox" would be a damn huge improvement.  I'm not adverse the the general UO concepts (other than unregulated PK), but it looks and is run like a God damned abandonware title.

I'll tell you one thing that has changed with the players since 1997: there aren't any newbies anymore.  From what I can gather, the devs are having a hard time merely with retention.  Time to change tactics.

There were a few attempts at a "newbie experience" in UO in the past. The problem is the more directed the newbie experience the more dependant the player becomes on direction. The moment the direction stops many players feel even more lost or feel that "the content ran out". That said, I agree a "push in the right direction" of some kind is important.

As a whole, I think we need to start defining the different kinds of MMOGs better. I don't think we can continue forward putting all of them in one global category and assuming they are all essentially the same. The player faces very different challenges when playing a "sandbox" versus playing a "game"...which means the developers must attempt account for those challenges. The reason I bring this up here is because "how directed the experience is" is (in my opinion) one of the major defining characteristics that determine what kind of MMOG one is making.

I've seen a few sites list out some ideas for categorizing MMOGs but most of them seem to fall back on the notion that "they are all basically the same." I just don't agree with that. An interesting phenomenon I've noticed is that we've seen an attempt to shift the some of the "sandbox" MMOGs towards more of a "game" MMOG but I am not sure whether that is part of a plan to change the overall style of the MMOG or just attempts to put in designs that have been successful in non-sandbox MMOGs. I do think a sandbox MMOG can be successful, I just think the developers need to realize upfront that sandboxes have unique obstacles that other kinds of MMOGs do not have. At the same time, they also have different opportunities too. This might be a different topic though so I'll drop this so I don't hijack the thread.

I think you are partially right in that MOGs could be different.  In my experience, they end up being terribly similar at the core due to the immutability of the underlying MUD gameplay.  The things that you do to interact with the loot-grind change, but not the beast itself.  UO is a great example in that I approached the game as a simulated world, or sandbox.  I went in with the intention of playing the game my way and interacting with players who were doing their own thing, exploring the world and having fun.  Turns out that a lot of people stayed up really late in December 1997 while I went to bed with my then-fiance.  These people also seemed to enjoy making other people miserable.  Playing once a week wasn't conducive to anything in UO.  It wasn't long before my trips outside town were rewarded with gankings from black-clad, bone-helmeted, spell-weaving PKs.  It's a lot like Tarren Mill when you look at it like that, from behind a grey "you're dead" screen.  There are differences, of course, between UO and WoW, but there are some big-ass similarities, too.  Achievers win, catasses moreso.  So let it be written, so let it be done.

I can't believe I'm still mad about some stupid shit that happened over seven years ago.  Maybe because the same shit really happened in the past few months in WoW.

To keep this somewhat on-track with the topic of UO sucking a donkey dick, I have not been lead to believe that UO has changed signficantly in the core game since 1997.  In fact, 2005 seems to be the year that they stop being a source for inspiration and start feeding off of newer games in some sort of amphisboena of stupidity.

I they wanted to "save" UO they'd have to do a few things first:

- Upgrade the graphics. I can stand them, but there are too many out there who cannot. Also, have ONE client. Kill 2d or 3d, and only support that. 2 clients makes it confusing and I imagine it makes updating the game that much more annoying.
- Make the UI about 10x more intuitive and useful. Nobody should even THINK of buying UOAssist and the map mod. There are other ways at can be improved but start there (ALSO, why is it that the 3d client and the 2d client store things in containers differently? You can always tell when a shop owner uses 3d because ALL THEIR ITEMS ARE STACKED ON EACHOTHER BECAUSE OF THE DISPARITY).
- Make skillups come ALOT faster, and obsolete 8x8 (I swear to god, I will not ever make a "forward one" macro again in my life). That was ok back when everyone was a newbie and the genre was fresh. It is not ok now that everyone has 7xGM (and better, damn power scrolls) and there is so much competition.
- Make death more pleasant... for instance, an indicator on where the closest goddamn NPC that can ress you happens to be would be a nice start.
- Make available ALL vet rewards that improve gameplay to everyone, make all future rewards aethsetic only. Having vets running around with +skill/stat scrolls, horses that never die, and dye tubs that greatly improve the saleability of their items is just not good for a game that wants to attract new players.
- Make the newbie experience more intuitive. I had a friend try it about a year ago and he got to a point where he simply turned the game off until I could come over and show him the ropes almost a week later. If he didn't have me (he wouldn't have even tried it, but I digress) he would simply have given up on the game.
- Do something about urban sprawl... and I don't mean more land. I mean come up with a way to contain the sprawl or move it away from spawns, etc. Everytime I came back I was always shocked and dismayed by the urban sprawl.
- Do something about the current itemisation. It is way way too hard on a new player. Out of all the item drops you get, maybe 0.01 are truly good, and most of those will die when you try to enhance them. That is crazy. Make the disparity on intensity smaller, and weight certain combinations. Get rid of enhancing, or make it 100%. I shouldn't have to gamble the safety of my stupidly rare drop in order make it as good as it can be. Making artifacts easier to get and not needing luck gear at all would be nice also.
- The blessing system is stupid. Seriously, the money is a non-factor to established player and HELL on the new player. Get rid of the entirely IMO, free and automatic blessing for every item. The day of the corpse run should be long gone in Trammel.
- Implement some kind of Bazaar or Auction because it gets uber lame shopping these days in UO. Before you'd hit your favourite shops for things, but what you want now are very specific drops that will be spread out over many many shops. No shop can possibly hope to supply you with everything you need. One time I had to quit looking for resist rings because my mouse hand froze up from hovering over every goddamn ring in every goddamn shop all over trammel and mallas.

Additional Suggestion:

- Remove Fellucia, make a Fellucian shard and let people transfer there (and no, siege is not a viable alternative). Make sure factions work in this server. Seriously, I gave up on playing Fel because there's not enough action. Putting the feluccians all together would solve that.
EDIT: Remove weight from gold, it really is annoying and unnecessary IMO.


Those IMO are the core problems UO has now. Doesn't matter though, if people think elves are going to do anything for UO they sure aren't looking at core problems.

Holy Monkey Ass, Batman!

Can they slap another coat of ugly on that?

My guild has more people who've played less than four months than it has people who've played more.  Only problem is they're already getting bored, and so many old vets are gone.


Tried and failed with UO3D.  There have been persistent rumors of a new upgraded client for at least a year now, but I'm no longer listening.  Even if it were once on the table, EA probably sent it off to join UO:WOOT (or whatever) in the development graveyard.


Indeed.  Having people buy an upgraded interface from a third party is just inexcusable.  Furthermore, people who want to compete without paying extra tend to gravitate toward EasyUO, which may be illegal but is also FREE.


May as well.  I'd bet money that well over 50% of the playerbase is scripting now anyway.  I've met newbs playing their third day who are already GM mages, because vets are tossing LRC suits and EasyUO links to everyone with a young player tag.


This is the one thing on this list they're doing.  Everyone in the game is decked out in the new Tokuno artifacts, and the devs have stated their intention of changing the drop system in Doom, of making arti-level items craftable, etc.


Yeah.  Just poof people to the nearest town healer or whatever, maybe with some rez sickness.


This is something that was talked about, but with devs leaving left and right, we know we're never gonna see it.


Expect much screaming from the professional powerscroll Ebay cartels.. er... I mean PVP guilds.

I think you should stop refering to new players with elite guild buddies as "newbies".  They sound more like a twink variant.  What would you call someone (not to name any names) who installed UO last fall using the original retail CDROM they got as a Christmas present in 1997?  Besides "hacker" because that's a good description of getting that thing to patch up.  Stupid?  Apparently my problem was that I didn't know someone already playing, but I submit that this only proves my point.  If UO is going to get new people playing, they need to make it a little easier to get some traction.

I can't believe I'm fucking posting about God-damned UO.  Eat me, world!

But see, EA has pretty much already admitted that UO is on life support in North America, and any new or serious profit is going to come from the Asian market. And Asians still like Lineage and its derivatives, which are just level treadmill variants of UO.