MMO's are currently massively disappointing to an old UO player :(

[kami]

I don't want to totally dismiss your post but nostalgia is a very powerful thing.

Every time I got nostalgic for an old game I absolutely adored, I would play it and be bored within 20 minutes. It's not just graphics either.

I even get nostalgic for the old 2004 WoW but then I realize it's because it was so new and awesome back then. There was also mindless mob grinding, impossible to organize 40man raids, and even if you did it would take all day and you kill maaaybe one boss where 3 or 4 people out of 40 get some loot. Even doing simple dungeons like UBRS was a 4 hour affair. The old PVP system rewarded only gross, life-altering amounts of time spent rather than skill. In modern WoW the quality of life is a lot better, the only thing I would say is the sense of community is gone by making everything cross-realm. I have fond memories of WoW back then but I could never, ever play it like that again.

 

[Nebor]

This^

Working for 50-80 levels towards something and then loosing all your stuff because someone was being a douche is something that'd just make people...well, not wanna play.

You didn't put that much effort into getting any piece of gear in UO. Housing & money were what you strove for.

I think it may be impossible to explain to someone that didn't play.

 

[RavenSEAL]

You didn't put that much effort into getting any piece of gear in UO. Housing & money were what you strove for.

I think it may be impossible to explain to someone that didn't play.

I understand what you're saying, but looking at today's MMOs, that's the standard.

 

[Nebor]

I understand what you're saying, but looking at today's MMOs, that's the standard.

And they're all pretty terrible as a result. I liked Vanguard quite a bit, but it still had quest lines that literally took weeks to obtain certain items. I guess I'm more of an instant gratification gamer.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

Could you break into housing in UO? That'd be cool too, yet something today's MMO player wouldn't accept, I guess.

 

[Nebor]

Could you break into housing in UO? That'd be cool too, yet something today's MMO player wouldn't accept, I guess.

You could initially. You could lockpick the doors on houses. People were not happy about that, so they changed it to where you could only open the door with a key. But the keys were suceptible to being looted off your corpse or stolen by a pick pocket. It was always important not to let people follow you to or from your house. Eventually they made keys stay with you after death IIRC, so they couldn't be looted.

There were also several exploits over the years that allowed people to break into various home types.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

You could initially. You could lockpick the doors on houses. People were not happy about that, so they changed it to where you could only open the door with a key. But the keys were suceptible to being looted off your corpse or stolen by a pick pocket. It was always important not to let people follow you to or from your house. Eventually they made keys stay with you after death IIRC, so they couldn't be looted.

There were also several exploits over the years that allowed people to break into various home types.

Aside from killing the player, what did breaking in allow you to do? Steal, did houses act like a bank?

And...when you logged out in UO did your character leave the world? Something about this makes me wonder that...

 

[Soccerman06]

TRAIN!!!!!!!!!

wait wrong game

 

[Arglebargle]

You could initially. You could lockpick the doors on houses. People were not happy about that, so they changed it to where you could only open the door with a key. But the keys were suceptible to being looted off your corpse or stolen by a pick pocket. It was always important not to let people follow you to or from your house. Eventually they made keys stay with you after death IIRC, so they couldn't be looted.

There were also several exploits over the years that allowed people to break into various home types.

Being the first, they ran into all sorts of unexpected loopholes and exploits, and continued having to redo things right and left.

What's funny is sometimes the nostalgia glow is for the very problems that had the devs tearing their hair out to fix.

 

[Nebor]

Aside from killing the player, what did breaking in allow you to do? Steal, did houses act like a bank?

And...when you logged out in UO did your character leave the world? Something about this makes me wonder that...

You could steal things from their house. Some people stored things at their homes, that way they could access replacement gear and whatnot without going to a town to access their bank. Especially crucial if one of their characters was a murderer (and thus unable to enter towns.)

Your character disappeared from the world when you logged out.

 

[Nebor]

Being the first, they ran into all sorts of unexpected loopholes and exploits, and continued having to redo things right and left.

What's funny is sometimes the nostalgia glow is for the very problems that had the devs tearing their hair out to fix.

Heh, I had a bunny trapped in my house one time, and I was macroing anatomy on it. I come back to my computer to see "you have been disconnected." Check my email and I have a message from a GM saying "I see you're particularly interested in the anatomy of rabbits. Here are some links you may find interesting (rabbit links.) However, please refrain from further studying rabbits in Brittania, as macroing is a bannable offense." :biggrin:

 

[Dumac]

I remember being excited for the future of MMOs when I was younger, but I have given up on them now.

MMOs have gone further and further from the excellent persistent world, instead become a giant instance with teleporting between instances. Not to mention the casualization of all MMO elements, making the game appeal to the least determined of players and removing any consequences at all.

 

[Dumac]

Few people would want to play a game where when they die they lose all their stuff. That is why they are a thing of the past. You should know that by now.

Yes, but I feel death should have at least some consequence, rather than practically nothing as it does in most recent MMOs.

 

[Merad]

I remember being excited for the future of MMOs when I was younger, but I have given up on them now.

MMOs have gone further and further from the excellent persistent world, instead become a giant instance with teleporting between instances. Not to mention the casualization of all MMO elements, making the game appeal to the least determined of players and removing any consequences at all.

A persistent world usually means that the players with the most time to invest end up controlling everything. So as a company needing to make money to survive, the problem is that casual players hold the vast majority of the money. Very few people really want to spend 20+ hrs a week playing an MMO, at least not for the long term.

So how do you balance a persistent world that will appeal to the hardcore element while still allowing more casual players to be competitive?

 

[Dumac]

A persistent world usually means that the players with the most time to invest end up controlling everything. So as a company needing to make money to survive, the problem is that casual players hold the vast majority of the money. Very few people really want to spend 20+ hrs a week playing an MMO, at least not for the long term.

So how do you balance a persistent world that will appeal to the hardcore element while still allowing more casual players to be competitive?

I don't think it means that a persistent worlds is unfair to casual players. I fail to see how you reached that conclusion. I was a relatively casual player in EQ, and I was never bullied or couldn't do anything because hardcore players were in the way.

The players with the most time will just be at the highest end game zones, that require tons of raiding to get to, which isn't even relevant to casual players.

The thing is, if you are a casual player, just don't expect to have the best of the best gear. I wasn't a hardcore player. I rarely raided, and only did the lowest raids of all. To me the small increment in equip quality wasn't worth the extra raiding time. I was happy with that.

 

[Cuda1447]

Speaking of stealing from houses... something that no MMO will have... and you cannot even fathom the awesomeness of it, is an IDOC.


If a house goes more than around 30 days without the owner or allowed friends opening the door, the house collapses due to inactivity. This was to open up real estate for other active players to put up houses.

The real estate was worth money, sometimes big money depending on the location. But oh my god, the loot inside that house was sometimes incredible. The thing is, you didn't know exactly when a house would collapse. It went through stages of decay and you knew a range for each stage. The final stage was maybe 2 days or so.


The result is as the house started to decay further more and more people would be stopping by to check the status of the house. Eventually people were staying. The last day leading up to the collapse is some of the best gaming you can find. 50-100 people, sometimes more, hiding, lurking... running around, waiting. Sometimes stealing or killing others. Sometimes entire guilds would try to swing by and clear out the area minutes before they thought the house would collapse. A very chaotic and tense environment.

THEN IT HAPPENS. That house is gone. All the loot drops to the ground. There is a moment of calm. Everyone chills for just a second as they try to grab as much loot as they can carry, or grab that rare... or maybe place a new house. But that moment is brief. Before you know it the people who got shit were doing their best to get away unnoticed, while the losers are starting to cause chaos attacking everything in sight, attempting to steal the loot from someone else. This could go on for some time as people die with loot on them, come back as soon as possible hoping to retrieve their bodies loot before anyone else can.

Finally its over. You manage to get home with two unknown sacks of goods and a chest with 3 items in it. What's in these sacks and chest though? 3 Items, surely someone is keeping something of value in there if only 3 items are there. You look, its just some garbage mining gear

The bags though, whats in the bags? Potions in one... reagents in the other. Nothing good But wait, what's this. A rune... a rune labeled "my other house" well let's check it out. You show up at this rune location and what do you know, its another house... IN ITS FINAL STAGES OF DECAY. You secretly hope no one knows about this IDOC, as you walk around the edges of the house, hoping to peak in the corners to see what loot could be had.

 

[Nebor]

You left out one of the key facets, Cuda. Once I had some personal stuff going on and couldn't log in for a while. I logged in while MY tower was in the final stages of decay. Well, the sign outside the house makes it pretty clear who the owner is, and people aren't exactly eager to let you stroll up and refresh your house if they've been camping there waiting for it to collapse. I got stomped a couple times before I got some friends together and set off some chaos allowing me the break I needed to sprint up to my doorstep. Energy vortexes eeeeeverywhere!

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

lol, how effective was naked pking in UO?

 

[Nebor]

lol, how effective was naked pking in UO?

Most dedicated PKs just wore a robe (that you were resurrected with after every death) and a bone helmet. Have pre-sorted bags of 50-100 of each reagant in your bank or home, and you're good to go after every death.

 

[Merad]

I don't think it means that a persistent worlds is unfair to casual players. I fail to see how you reached that conclusion. I was a relatively casual player in EQ, and I was never bullied or couldn't do anything because hardcore players were in the way.

I'm talking about persistent worlds where the players shape the world. PvP is inherent to that environment so hardcore players make life much harder for casual ones.

If you're just talking the average PvE setting where the hardcore players spend their time doing gear grind #13981 so they can grind raid #9212, then no, it doesn't really matter there.

 

[Dumac]

I'm talking about persistent worlds where the players shape the world. PvP is inherent to that environment so hardcore players make life much harder for casual ones.

If you're just talking the average PvE setting where the hardcore players spend their time doing gear grind #13981 so they can grind raid #9212, then no, it doesn't really matter there.

PvP is a different story. I dont' think it all has to be instanced though; that is just the easy way out that requires less effort. Instancing everything requires less effort, and that is what people do nowadays.

Personally, I think recent MMO PvP is dumb and bringing down the genre, since it is always terribly unbalanced, flavor of the month builds that are way to gear dependent. Perhaps one day an MMO would do it better. I stick to more regulated e-sports worthy games for PvP.

Some MMOs do PvP in an interesting way (EVE for example). Maybe if more MMOs tried to mix things up, then I would be more favorable towards it.

 

[Nebor]

PvP is a different story. I dont' think it all has to be instanced though; that is just the easy way out that requires less effort. Instancing everything requires less effort, and that is what people do nowadays.

Personally, I think recent MMO PvP is dumb and bringing down the genre, since it is always terribly unbalanced, flavor of the month builds that are way to gear dependent. Perhaps one day an MMO would do it better. I stick to more regulated e-sports worthy games for PvP.

Some MMOs do PvP in an interesting way (EVE for example). Maybe if more MMOs tried to mix things up, then I would be more favorable towards it.

UO did PvP right. It could happen anywhere outside of town, there was no "OP" build, gear didn't decide who won... It was about who was faster, who could think on their feet, who had the better strategy, etc.

I remember using the trick where you could double click a scroll, then use a macro to cast a spell and thus have two spells hit as soon as you click a target. Some people did magic arrow and ebolt, some did ebolt and flamestrike. I was a fan of ebolt and paralyze. Repeat until target is dead, no chance of escape. :biggrin:

 

[BathroomFeeling]

Did armor not show its stats or something? Or it had the same stats and low quality armor would break sooner?

They had stats, but were hidden. Only players with the Item Identification skill could reveal it, but even then they were in the form of descriptions rather than numbers.

Low quality junk didn't compare to crafted items, in terms of durability & whatever attributes it had (defense & damage mainly). Eventually all items disintegrate into dust with long term use, GM crafted items later rather than sooner.

 

[upsdriver]

Speaking of stealing from houses... something that no MMO will have... and you cannot even fathom the awesomeness of it, is an IDOC.


If a house goes more than around 30 days without the owner or allowed friends opening the door, the house collapses due to inactivity. This was to open up real estate for other active players to put up houses.

The real estate was worth money, sometimes big money depending on the location. But oh my god, the loot inside that house was sometimes incredible. The thing is, you didn't know exactly when a house would collapse. It went through stages of decay and you knew a range for each stage. The final stage was maybe 2 days or so.


The result is as the house started to decay further more and more people would be stopping by to check the status of the house. Eventually people were staying. The last day leading up to the collapse is some of the best gaming you can find. 50-100 people, sometimes more, hiding, lurking... running around, waiting. Sometimes stealing or killing others. Sometimes entire guilds would try to swing by and clear out the area minutes before they thought the house would collapse. A very chaotic and tense environment.

THEN IT HAPPENS. That house is gone. All the loot drops to the ground. There is a moment of calm. Everyone chills for just a second as they try to grab as much loot as they can carry, or grab that rare... or maybe place a new house. But that moment is brief. Before you know it the people who got shit were doing their best to get away unnoticed, while the losers are starting to cause chaos attacking everything in sight, attempting to steal the loot from someone else. This could go on for some time as people die with loot on them, come back as soon as possible hoping to retrieve their bodies loot before anyone else can.

Finally its over. You manage to get home with two unknown sacks of goods and a chest with 3 items in it. What's in these sacks and chest though? 3 Items, surely someone is keeping something of value in there if only 3 items are there. You look, its just some garbage mining gear

The bags though, whats in the bags? Potions in one... reagents in the other. Nothing good But wait, what's this. A rune... a rune labeled "my other house" well let's check it out. You show up at this rune location and what do you know, its another house... IN ITS FINAL STAGES OF DECAY. You secretly hope no one knows about this IDOC, as you walk around the edges of the house, hoping to peak in the corners to see what loot could be had.

Sounds like a griefer's paradise. I love it.

 

[rstrohkirch]

I love UO.......

I'm surprised you're not playing on some UO shard.