Obligatory WUA UO post! Game free through the 12th!

[WindupAtheist]

As for the cannon video, that was to show people how firing works.  If I was in real combat I would either have a UOAssist macro hotkeyed to do all that or one of the Enhanced Client built in macros.

"What do you want? A cooldown like WoW? Then you'd just push one button and wait for the cooldown to complete! This cannon system is complex for balance reasons!"

*writes complex macro*
*pushes one button and waits for it to complete*

 

[Xuri]

Ahhh. Good old UO. The only MMORPG I've played where third party commercial software has been necessary to be competitive in player versus player activities.

[jcthebuilder]

Cannon firing is like the iPad, until you've tried it you don't know what you're missing.

[WindupAtheist]

So do you want to explain why pushing one key to fire the cannon and waiting on a cooldown would be WoWlike and stupid, but pushing one key and waiting on a macro is totally awesome?

Or is this just one of those things (like "delays" versus cooldowns and "extra steps" versus tedium) where you belatedly realize that you've just said you hate pancakes but love flapjacks and go all retarded and pretend not to understand the question?

[jcthebuilder]

There is a different between the one button press you propose and having a one key macro. Even if you have the macro, you need to keep your actions free at the appropriate moments in the macro or it will fail. You also must remain standing next to the cannon the entire time or it halts. There is also the advantage of being able to preload every cannon on your ship for quick firing. The way it is now you could potentially solo pirate hunting. If it was programmed as a cooldown that simply would not be possible. As a small bonus the multi-fire system is great for roleplaying.

I see three distinct methods of firing cannons under the current system. You could press the menu buttons for one. The second involves having it all recorded as a single macro. Then there is the third where you could have each cannon action as a separate macro so you could have an easier time casting spells while firing a cannon. If it was press and forget you wouldn't have this flexibility. It would be press button and wait X seconds before you can press it again.

Firing a cannon while taking/healing damage will take practice to handle well. It adds a whole level of ability that isn't tied to skill points, especially in PVP.

[Sheepherder]

Even if you have the macro, you need to keep your actions free at the appropriate moments in the macro or it will fail. You also must remain standing next to the cannon the entire time or it halts. There is also the advantage of being able to preload every cannon on your ship for quick firing.

You're right, that cannot be achieved any other way, we bow to your wisdom.

[5150]

JC runs the UO wiki <snip>. I'm not aware of him being utterly retarded

Next time, do your damn homework!  

[eldaec]

Firing a cannon while taking/healing damage will take practice to handle well. It adds a whole level of ability that isn't tied to skill points, especially in PVP.

Cool, WUA can start measuring his clicks per minute, think of it as starcraft training.

Actually I could just about put up with the four button click fest, but having to fuck with that inventory bag thing along the way because you seemingly can't pile stacks of resources into the cannon would wind me up beyond belief.

[eldaec]

Ahhh. Good old UO. The only MMORPG I've played where third party commercial software has been necessary to be competitive in player versus player activities.

This would also be true of WoW UI mods and a gazillion out of game EVE utilities, except the software is usually free or paid for with in-game currency.

In fact, you use third party comms for just about any serious pvp endevour in every game ever.

[ghost]

As a small bonus the multi-fire system is great for roleplaying.

Well, I don't know about the rest of you guys, but this sold me.   

[eldaec]

Even if you have the macro, you need to keep your actions free at the appropriate moments in the macro or it will fail. You also must remain standing next to the cannon the entire time or it halts. There is also the advantage of being able to preload every cannon on your ship for quick firing.

You're right, that cannot be achieved any other way, we bow to your wisdom.

Wait a minute, are you people suggesting that UO is well served by bringing in (or possibly back) some kind of mechanism to preprepare  a cannon activation system trigger....

Well I never...

[Lantyssa]

Fuck.  I ran out of popcorn.  Don't let anything else happen while I run to the corner store.

[Paelos]

Cannon firing is like the iPad, until you've tried it you don't know what you're missing.

  Make sure to hum a nice English ditty as you go down with the ship, you scurvy dog.

[WindupAtheist]

Wait a minute, are you people suggesting that UO is well served by bringing in (or possibly back) some kind of mechanism to preprepare  a cannon activation system trigger....

Because it's otherwise too cumbersome, halfwits!

Anyway, I'm sure our new buddy is going to come back and try to tell Sheepherder that casting times are some stupid junk from WoW and "pauses while you do something to keep you from moving" are totally different. I don't think he's been exposed to modern MMO lingo anywhere but WoW and thinks it only describes things in that game.

Meanwhile Hawkeye on Stratics is reporting that the saltpeter vendors on his shard are uncamped and stocking a stack of 40 each. Saltpeter is the prime ingredient of gunpowder, and UO vendors restock a greater quantity of an item (in multiples of 20) whenever they're sold out. The only vendors in the game selling a vital resource being at 40 means fucking nobody is doing it, on that shard at least.

Actually I could just about put up with the four button click fest, but having to fuck with that inventory bag thing along the way because you seemingly can't pile stacks of resources into the cannon would wind me up beyond belief.

This.

[Reg]

Is it time to go check Stratics again for your "I told you so!!!11" thread or have they banned you by now?

[WindupAtheist]

Surprisingly my current Stratics account remains unbanned for the time being. I gave up the heavy trolling days ago though. I felt an adequate stink was raised to satisfy my nerd honor, and ultimately yelling at people who don't understand all of the words gets tiresome after a while.

[jcthebuilder]

Meanwhile Hawkeye on Stratics is reporting that the saltpeter vendors on his shard are uncamped and stocking a stack of 40 each. Saltpeter is the prime ingredient of gunpowder, and UO vendors restock a greater quantity of an item (in multiples of 20) whenever they're sold out. The only vendors in the game selling a vital resource being at 40 means fucking nobody is doing it, on that shard at least.

There are up to 2 dozen vendors per shard selling Saltpeter. Each vendor has the capacity to produce 95,904 Saltpeter per day (999 Saltpeter x 15 Minute Restock Time). Each shard has a maximum production capacity of 2,301,696 which turns out to be enough for over 70,000 heavy cannon shots (each takes 30).

Yeah, it sounds like people really don't like the expansion and it couldn't at all indicate enough supply to meet demand.

[sinij]

WUA & PvP don't mix together. Last time I heard he managed to get PKed and looted in Farmville.

As to JC: UO started in 90th with archaic interface and archaic ideas such as vendor camping/stocking, and managed to bring this early-80th gaming legacy firmly into 2010 by hanging on to Very Old Ideas. While every sane gamer would consider it annoyance or bad design, they consider it content. I suppose you can make an argument that camping vendor or making 200 asswipes just so you can play in UO is as much of a content as farming heroics so you have gear to raid in WoW.

JC is simply is not willing to consider that anything but Status Quo is possible and fighting sacrilege here. Misguided, but understandable.

[jcthebuilder]

As to JC: UO started in 90th with archaic interface and archaic ideas such as vendor camping/stocking, and managed to bring this early-80th gaming legacy firmly into 2010 by hanging on to Very Old Ideas. While every sane gamer would consider it annoyance or bad design, they consider it content. I suppose you can make an argument that camping vendor or making 200 asswipes just so you can play in UO is as much of a content as farming heroics so you have gear to raid in WoW.

There is a new method of resource distribution on vendors introduced several years ago. Every vendor can sell an unlimited amount of resources in stacks of 500. Every 1000 resources a vendor sells increases the price of that resource by 1 gold. Every 1000 resource sold back to that vendor reduces the price by 1 gold. Saltpeter was going to use this system.

But Saltpeter was skyrocketing in price from 15 gold to close to 1,000 in the beta test. There wasn't a way to get it other than a vendor. So at the end of beta they had to switch it to the old method.

In the publish a few days away they are adding the ability to mine Saltpeter. So maybe they will also revert it back to the "modern" method of resource vending.

[sinij]

... or they could sell all saltpeter you would ever want, any time, all the time, for fixed price after realizing that shopping for reagents is poor-form "content" ? You have to ask yourself, if this expansion about ship combat or buying saltpeter? If it is about buying saltpeter (or crafting asswipes, but I digress, WUA already covered this in plenty detail) then by all means carry on.

[jcthebuilder]

... or they could sell all saltpeter you would ever want, any time, all the time, for fixed price after realizing that shopping for reagents is poor-form "content" ?

If you don't like player's having control over the economy then you should avoid games such as UO and Eve Online.

By the way the updated publish notes include say they are switching to the modern method of selling Saltpeter. So you will either be able to mine it or purchase it from NPC vendors at an ever increasing cost.

[WindupAtheist]

Comparing vendors slowly inching up their stock of a potentially infinite resource for a fixed price to the player economy in Eve is the worst thing you've said so far.

[jcthebuilder]

There is nothing slow about it. If you buy 5,000 of a resource such as arrows, that increases the price by 10 gold each. Then someone can come in and sell arrows back to the vendor for a nice profit. The system worked so well it was being exploited until they added a selling tax and now you only get 80% of the value. Sort of like how Eve players were committing insurance fraud and artificially depressing mineral prices.

[Sir T]

Artificially depressing mineral prices? I think you have that one wrong. They were artificially inflating mineral prices if anything.

The Hugely rich used to buy up any price that was lower than their agreed price and slam them back on the market at their own minimum price. Since not much high end Minerals made it into empire from 0.0 they could control the price of high end minerals very effectively. And the price of t2 materials was a total monopoly of maybe 10-15 players that made it for pennies and sold it for pounds. (And of course they were using bugs to make the stuff out of thin air) Its gotten a little more mixed up relatively recently of course.

The Mineral price of one mineral, Veldspar, used to have a cap because shuttles were maid of it, and were available in unlimited quantities. SO if prices climbed above that you could buy 100 shuttles, melt them down and sell them to the that buy price.

[Slayerik]

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=19997.0

Here is my recruiting for our own Azaroth's server ( www.inporylem.com ) and an f13/friends guild. It's a freeshard going into Beta soon. This is my invite to you to either try UO for the first time (with the help of some vets) or return to UO for some good PVP and sandbox fun. We had a lot of fun last time with about five f13ers, and I think it would be awesome to be a part of a level playing field, new server (run by someone from here, with good ideas and experience running a shard).

This may be a bit early (as server launch is probably a bit over a month away), but I would really like to get some interest going. I'll be PMing some of the old UO guys as well.

[ghost]

I might be up for that, Slayer, if there are cannons.

[Slayerik]

Actually, Az had added a Pirates feature that is completely different from the craptastic one. We'll see if it is good or not, but you can read about it here:

http://azaroth.org/2010/10/24/10-in-10-yarr-pirates/

[jcthebuilder]

Actually, Az had added a Pirates feature that is completely different from the craptastic one.

lol, way to copy EA expansions. Also taking features such as navigating by mouse. There is no innovation there.

[Slayerik]

No one cares what you think. Go back to Stratics.

[tazelbain]

Ignore them.  They are just jealous of your encyclopedic knowledge of UO.

[jcthebuilder]

It just irks me that Az is trying to play a victim. "Poor me, I have been working my butt off making this new shard and EA swoops in and steals my thunder".

Reality check:

- The developers have been talking about a pirate expansion since Renaissance.
- Mondain's Legacy was a pirate expansion until EA management decided to do something else (the ML build was called High Seas).
- Smooth boat movement benefits everyone, OSI and free shard alike. If High Seas didn't happen boat PVP would continue to suck.

There is nothing really exciting in what is planned for IPY. It is just High Seas with a bit of factions mixed in.


shhhh, No one tell Az that EA is also working on a faction revamp. 

[WindupAtheist]

His ship combat system sounds way better than the EA one.

[Sir T]

I had a read of that article and he has some good ideas in there. I like the way he talks about the economic impacts of ship building. I can imagine people will be begging to pay ransoms to avoid their expensive ships going to the bottom. He was a bit vague on the combat system (but then I don't know UO at all) but it seems more streamlined than the official UO version.

Heh. I'm tempted slay. We'll see.

[jcthebuilder]

The main difference is the EA system does not allow your ship to be destroyed. I don't think the IPY system will be able to survive without changes. Griefers can sail around blowing up every ship they see. What if you just want to go do some fishing? A pirate ship rolls up and you recall. Your ship and everything on it is now gone. It costs next to nothing because the cannons shot explosion potions.

This was already a serious problem on EA Trammel because a bug fix was not applied correctly. Players were going around and scuttling player ships all over just for the fun of it.

[WindupAtheist]

Production UO Trammel players and the likely players of IPY have slightly different expectations regarding what is or is not acceptable. At least you don't need a flowchart to arm your ship and fire the guns.