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

[Merad]

Can you have multiple fleets in different locations and switch between controlling them? Not liking the RTS control system was one reason I didn't go past 2 hours in the trial, lol...

Not instantly. But you can learn a skill that will let you make multiple copies of yourself. So you can place several different bodies around the u
game universe and jump between them every 24 hrs.

 

[Gothgar]

Oh man... I am sure many rued my character back then. I had a bounty of well over a million gold at one point.

That character died, and was never to return to life ever again.

 

[ViviTheMage]

As long as when I PK kids I can steal their stuff.

EVE was really boring, hence why they call it spreadsheets online.

 

[Ns1]

As a pre-carebear UO player who hated on trammel when it was announced, I must say growing up makes you want felucca so much less.

 

[skace]

People make UO sound like it was hell on casual players. But I was extremely young when I played UO and very casual. I didn't understand most of the MMO basics, I wasn't much of a min/maxer, I wasn't reading strategies or figuring out how to Macro (until much, much later). I enjoyed UO because it presented a complete world full of mystery. Towns were not just quest hubs that every single player played through in the same exact fashion. The entire world was open to enjoy the way an MMO should be enjoyed.

Some of the things UO had that was cool for casual players were some amazing trade skilling that had the risk of death always associated with it. I lost about 9/10 encounters with anyone in the wild, but I learned how to run, how to hide, and how to safely tradeskill.

Also, UO had an amazing skill system, did you know you could learn skills just by spectacting other people using them?! Novel concept right?! No one else does it right?! You could get like 15-30 sword skill points just by watching someone else attack a dummy, and then you could improve from there by attacking the dummy yourself. It was an intuitive system of learning.

And while Cuda had a neat story about housing collapses, they weren't all blood baths. As a casual player, I managed to hit a few house rots myself and get 90% of the loot without ever being attacked. It was sort of like winning the megabucks for a casual player.

UO also had one of the best market systems, you could purchase vendors and then set them up anywhere, but mainly at your house (to keep them safe, I assume). So high traffic housing areas were also sort of like plazas, they always had the best vendors and the coolest stuff, and ultimately the people owning these houses would get rich.

Death could be painful, but only if you tried to retrieve what you lost. Sometimes it was worth trying to get back to your body and retrieve your items, other times it was just as easy to say fuck it and go about your business without that body. As long as the player had some intelligence and didn't walk around with 100% of their possessions, it was never an issue.

And really, it wasn't always pk vs pk. There were tons of anti-PKs, which were people who wouldn't kill blues at all, but absolutely loved hunting reds. If a dungeon was full of anti-pks, it was almost safe to hunt there.

Nostalgia is one thing, but UO really did have a lot of things to offer gamers that really has never been re-introduced in the 3d space properly. Nobody, absolutely nobody, has done houses as well either - or fishing - or treasure hunting for that matter (or taming).

 

[Cuda1447]

All excellent points Skace. Especially about the Anti-Pks. The blues outnumbered the reds at least 10-1. So while, if you were off adventuring on your own it was dangerous, if you went to decently populated dungeons, even as a newer player, you were relatively safe. Safety in numbers.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Have any old MMORPG games been set up around the idea of capturing entire cities/sections of the game world? And once captured, for example, the guards of such city will always recognize the members of the faction/guild/etc that currently holds the city as friendly?

Galaxies had some of this -- you could fight for planetary control and the guards at the spaceports would change, depending on which faction (Rebels or Imperials) currently controlled the planet.

You couldn't capture player cities or houses, but you could destroy player bases and that was always a blast.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I had such high hopes for SWG back in the day. More of a playground than an MMO. Too bad SOE borked it so badly and never finished the damn game. Instead of fixing the problems and building on what they had done right, they reinvented the game every year. Tragic, it could have been so incredible.

Now that it is deceased, keep on eye on the SWG EMU. It has taken them a long, long time and they still have quite a bit of work to do, but being able to play with a Pre-CU ruleset is still pretty impressive.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

most PvP nowadays is apparently faction based like TOR is, Empire can only attack Republic, an Empire player can't attack another Empire player.

I had heard (but have not confirmed) that there are PvP battlefields in TOR where you can attack anyone, even someone from your own faction. Still trying to determine if this is true.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

I had heard (but have not confirmed) that there are PvP battlefields in TOR where you can attack anyone, even someone from your own faction. Still trying to determine if this is true.

Supposed to be a zone called Outlaw's Den(I thought). Still, that's kind of like just having an Arena, except it's itemized(you can get gear from it ), the overall pvp is faction based and going to that zone is definitely consensual only pvp.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

So do any of those UO shards have an ok amount of players? I saw the 1k mention but none of those in the link had anywhere near that

 

[ElFenix]

I never played UO but I'm guessing it wasn't that hard to get gear worthy of fighting in? I haven't yet played ToR but at least in EQ, getting high level raid gear takes a long time...each raid encounter would drop like 3 items, and there might be 7-10 raid encounters per expansion that dropped worthy gear, and they'd have a 6-7 day lockout timer. So that's like 21 items per week for a usual raid force of around 50 people who have like 20 item slots per character, and that's not even factoring in loots that rot because they weren't needed/wrong class/ everyone already had one.

there was no raid grind in UO. no raids at all. sure, you might go kill a dragon in the bottom of the deepest dungeon, but that was for fun rather than for grind.

and because you lost all your stuff when you died, and also you could lose stuff just by it breaking, there was a huge player economy. crafters actually mattered.


edit: i think some of you may have played longer than i did. while i kept my sub most of my friends had moved to other games so i wasn't on much leading up to felucca/trammel.



the nice thing i remember about UO is that when the game devs would put in a new fotm, it'd take about 2 days to skill up. no raid grind, no level grind, no item fetishism. awesome.

 

[lozina]

Totally agree.

That's why I haven't really played any MMOS since UO. The only two mentionable ones are Shadowbane which was O.K. because you could fight people freely and the classes were pretty neat, but it had a dreaded XP/gold grinding system.

Then EVE online which is O.K. too but it takes FOREVER to do anything. The game is mostly you sitting there as your ship passes through gates so you can move around to complete a task or chase someone or find someone to fight.

And the system before the whole Trammel or whatever the carebear server was made was better for EVERYONE including the miners and craftsmen and what-not. This is because prior to the server split there was actual danger to doing your craft, as already described. This meant your products would be rarer and hence more expensive and hence more fun to make. Making money is always fun.

THEN the server split with a carebear world and what happened? BOTS and MACROS galore! No one had to worry about being PKed as they let their BOTted character mine ore 24/7 blatantly in front of everyone while the player was off shopping for thongs. Thus crafting materials were dirt cheap and it was boring to craft anything because there was so little reward to it as the market was flooded.

RISK = REWARD!

 

[njdevilsfan87]

I would love to try out a modern UO. Yes, the losing items part of it would be annoying, but that's why you'd train your skills. Every non-PvM (or whatever you'd call non-combat related) skill in a WoW type MMO is so god damn useless. I'd actually like to play a MMO that requires strategy and skill, as opposed to mindless quest grinding and loading up of combos when bossing. I've played WoW and RIFT, and that's exactly what both of those games ended up being to me.

I'm sure a fine balance could be accomplished in such a MMO. Not every single dungeon or resource area should be dangerous, but the ones with better rewards should be. It would give grinders the safe (but much longer) option, and those who are willing to the risk the fast reward option. That would satisfy all imo.

 

[insect9]

I'm on UOSecondAge. Usually around 500 or so people in the evenings. Brings back memories. They've made it as close to T2A rules as they can, which is the time I liked it most.

 

[Genx87]

EVE-Online

The bottom line for better or worse is that most people do not want that type of MMO. EVE tends to have a fanatic fan base but still only has something like 350k subscribers. Compared to the millions playing WoW or SWTOR, that's nothing. Companies are going for what they think will bring them the most profits.

I think you hit the nail on the head. The sandbox open ended game is brutal for people. Even when I played UO out of the gates. I knew it would be a matter of time until something changed. Because it was brutal, even more brutal than EVE. So that makes it a niche product not fit for the masses. The only instance where things were more brutal than UO or EVE was the PVP server in DAOC. There were absolutely no controls for killing. Meaning you could sit in town and kill lowbies all day long.

That said I enjoy EVE and loved the original UO. But I am also thankful EVE has a carebear area that reduces your chances of being ganked.

 

[skace]

EVE has some oddities that make it significantly worse than UO in many ways. First off, there simply isn't as many things to do, unless the game has massively changed since I bought it. Most of the quests were incredibly repeat and there are very few things like fishing or housing in UO. The entire game is relatively simplistic, based around mining, upgrading and killing other players. The intrigue comes from the social warfare, political side as well as map control. But these are all vastly different concepts than UOs world.

In addition, some of the largest PVP mechanics in EVE are pretty silly, such as gate camping. And you don't actually control your ship in EVE, you just orbit things, which makes it less of a control based game and more of ... a very personal strategy game.

I could never group EVE and UO together, both are good but both are vastly different in my mind. Also, EVE has an absolutely terrible skill system (time based) last time I checked.

 

[Gothgar]

Man, UO thinking about it more... reminds me of some fun ass times.

When I first started PKing, I had some bad ass armor, and then wore a death robe over it all. So no one could tell what kind of armor or gear I was wearing.

I had 100 in archery, with my bad ass xbow of bad assery. With spell reflect up, and close to 100 in spell or magic or whatever it was called. We would make macros for our spells, where casting say, energy bolt, which would say Corp Por above your head to make it say something like a healing spell, or summon food or whatever, In Vas Mani. Those are really the only two terms I can remember clearly.

Me and my buddy would run around in dungeons, and steal from people, and that would make you grey to them, rather than blue. Once grey, they could kill you without getting a Murder count on. So people would attack you thinking you were just one of the common thieves, of which there were a SHIT load. Literally bands of people running around carrying nothing at all, except maybe a rune to teleport somewhere, and they would open your bags, steal as much shit as possible then teleport away and drop it in their bank. That was a good living to, but i digress.

We would give just enough incentive for people to attack us, once they attack you, they become grey as well. Then its open season.

Do an energy bolt, which was macro'd to look like a healing spell, then drop the damage on them, kill them off, loot the hell out of their bodies. I remember people used to hide runes and stuff in layers of bags, so it could take a while to sift through all the crap to get to the good stuff hiding in there. Like keys to houses! Or chests within those houses, those were the best finds.

The system was kinda bugged and eventually I became a PKer, where as my name showed as red, I couldn't go into towns or guards would kill me, and anti PK's ran around looking for me all the time. That was some of the scariest moments ever, juking out people chasing you down.

You could never PK too long in one spot, or the horde of anti PKs would show up. Lots of times I could defend myself long enough to get away.

Back then too, it took... 4 or 8 hours of in game time to make a murder go away, and you had no way of getting resurrected if you died while red. I eventually died, and basically had to lay that character to rest forever. Along with his many houses and other loot I had gathered over time.

Man I was a huge dick then, lol.

 

[nickbits]

Did anyone use UOExtreme or Ultimate Freedom? I wrote those.

 

[clok1966]

UO was only fun for the PKs/jerks

<---- jerk

Couldnt be said better.... there is a reason wholesale, no rules PVP isnt in 95% of all MMORPG games.. the ones that tried it have FAILED HARD.. no need to go into names as the "jerks" will claim they where some odd combanation that wasnt true PVP.. the sad fact is wholesale PvP is never going to work in a world where TIME is the #1 thing that promises succes. The few games tha got PvP right and whre more skill based have died as the "jerks" cant win with time and they say its "no fun" and leave when the same treatment they dish out is served to them. most people playing cant sit and level 24/7 and the few who do cant control themselves.. they got nothing better to do then GRIEF.. sitting in your house all day playing already shows you lack social skills (in most cases, not all) and probebly have issues that a game that lets you kill people is not going to help.

PvP in a somewhat fair form will never happen. EVERY PvP game has about 99% of the battels one sided, besides the Leroy Jinkins players.

if you PVP want true challange, grow a set and quit attacking stuff 10 levels lower then you. yes, yes i know.. you never do, just like all gamblers say they win.. sorry casinos would close if that was true, and gankers wouldnt gank if they didnt have easy targets. Having no balls and beating on sombodfy half your level loses its allure when you get spanked a few times.. seen it 1000X .. nothing ever changes there, hence the PvP servers drie up and the PvE servers thrive. YOu can DUEL.. oh wait.. people 10 level lower thant you wont accept, you ahve to fight somebody your level...no fun in that, you will probebly lose.

 

[insect9]

Couldnt be said better.... there is a reason wholesale, no rules PVP isnt in 95% of all MMORPG games.. the ones that tried it have FAILED HARD.. no need to go into names as the "jerks" will claim they where some odd combanation that wasnt true PVP.. the sad fact is wholesale PvP is never going to work in a world where TIME is the #1 thing that promises succes. The few games tha got PvP right and whre more skill based have died as the "jerks" cant win with time and they say its "no fun" and leave when the same treatment they dish out is served to them. most people playing cant sit and level 24/7 and the few who do cant control themselves.. they got nothing better to do then GRIEF.. sitting in your house all day playing already shows you lack social skills (in most cases, not all) and probebly have issues that a game that lets you kill people is not going to help.

PvP in a somewhat fair form will never happen. EVERY PvP game has about 99% of the battels one sided, besides the Leroy Jinkins players.

if you PVP want true challange, grow a set and quit attacking stuff 10 levels lower then you. yes, yes i know.. you never do, just like all gamblers say they win.. sorry casinos would close if that was true, and gankers wouldnt gank if they didnt have easy targets. Having no balls and beating on sombodfy half your level loses its allure when you get spanked a few times.. seen it 1000X .. nothing ever changes there, hence the PvP servers drie up and the PvE servers thrive. YOu can DUEL.. oh wait.. people 10 level lower thant you wont accept, you ahve to fight somebody your level...no fun in that, you will probebly lose.

True, except for the fact that UO wasn't level based. It was skill based. As a PKer, I fought more players with similar skill sets more often than not, and it came down to who was the better player.

Sure, some people liked to grief. There were also a lot of very skilled players that hunted PKers. In the end, from my experience, it was a fun and dangerous game where there were consequences for not being prepared.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

The more I read about UO, the more it seems like dying and losing all your gear is a minimal occurrence, as easy as it is to acquire or even craft new gear.

I do think, however, that PvP servers should have a level range limit. i.e., if the max level is 50, 50 can't attack less than 44. But insofar as people within your range are concerned, zone camping, portal ganking, killing while engaged with NPCs, it's all good.

 

[crownjules]

I don't think EVE is any indication that people don't want the type of game where you risk losing items in PVP. EVE has many different barriers to entry. It's skill system is entirely dependent on time meaning a person starting now will never be close to someone that's played since the beginning. The learning curve is pretty steep. Combat isn't exactly something you can just jump into and have fun with right away. And so on.

Paradox is coming out with an MMO based in colonial times Salem, MA (appropriately it's titled Salem) sometime in Q2 of this year. It features permanent death. From what I've read, anytime you commit a crime (steal, kill, vandalise property, etc) you will leave a clue behind. Not sure the exact mechanics, but that will allow other players to track you down and punish you accordingly. And it's F2P so people won't be afraid to try it out and waste money.

 

[crownjules]

Couldnt be said better.... there is a reason wholesale, no rules PVP isnt in 95&#37; of all MMORPG games.. the ones that tried it have FAILED HARD.. no need to go into names as the "jerks" will claim they where some odd combanation that wasnt true PVP.. the sad fact is wholesale PvP is never going to work in a world where TIME is the #1 thing that promises succes. The few games tha got PvP right and whre more skill based have died as the "jerks" cant win with time and they say its "no fun" and leave when the same treatment they dish out is served to them. most people playing cant sit and level 24/7 and the few who do cant control themselves.. they got nothing better to do then GRIEF.. sitting in your house all day playing already shows you lack social skills (in most cases, not all) and probebly have issues that a game that lets you kill people is not going to help.

PvP in a somewhat fair form will never happen. EVERY PvP game has about 99% of the battels one sided, besides the Leroy Jinkins players.

if you PVP want true challange, grow a set and quit attacking stuff 10 levels lower then you. yes, yes i know.. you never do, just like all gamblers say they win.. sorry casinos would close if that was true, and gankers wouldnt gank if they didnt have easy targets. Having no balls and beating on sombodfy half your level loses its allure when you get spanked a few times.. seen it 1000X .. nothing ever changes there, hence the PvP servers drie up and the PvE servers thrive. YOu can DUEL.. oh wait.. people 10 level lower thant you wont accept, you ahve to fight somebody your level...no fun in that, you will probebly lose.

True. A level grind based MMO will never achieve success with a permadeath system in place. But the WoW/EQ model is not the only one that can be implemented. All it takes is some developer willing to go off the beaten path. And I think there's a growing sentiment in the MMO community that the current model of game is becoming stale and boring.

Plus you are not going to knock WoW off its pedestal by copying it.

 

[Cuda1447]

Man, UO thinking about it more... reminds me of some fun ass times.

When I first started PKing, I had some bad ass armor, and then wore a death robe over it all. So no one could tell what kind of armor or gear I was wearing.

I had 100 in archery, with my bad ass xbow of bad assery. With spell reflect up, and close to 100 in spell or magic or whatever it was called. We would make macros for our spells, where casting say, energy bolt, which would say Corp Por above your head to make it say something like a healing spell, or summon food or whatever, In Vas Mani. Those are really the only two terms I can remember clearly.

Me and my buddy would run around in dungeons, and steal from people, and that would make you grey to them, rather than blue. Once grey, they could kill you without getting a Murder count on. So people would attack you thinking you were just one of the common thieves, of which there were a SHIT load. Literally bands of people running around carrying nothing at all, except maybe a rune to teleport somewhere, and they would open your bags, steal as much shit as possible then teleport away and drop it in their bank. That was a good living to, but i digress.

We would give just enough incentive for people to attack us, once they attack you, they become grey as well. Then its open season.

Do an energy bolt, which was macro'd to look like a healing spell, then drop the damage on them, kill them off, loot the hell out of their bodies. I remember people used to hide runes and stuff in layers of bags, so it could take a while to sift through all the crap to get to the good stuff hiding in there. Like keys to houses! Or chests within those houses, those were the best finds.

The system was kinda bugged and eventually I became a PKer, where as my name showed as red, I couldn't go into towns or guards would kill me, and anti PK's ran around looking for me all the time. That was some of the scariest moments ever, juking out people chasing you down.

You could never PK too long in one spot, or the horde of anti PKs would show up. Lots of times I could defend myself long enough to get away.

Back then too, it took... 4 or 8 hours of in game time to make a murder go away, and you had no way of getting resurrected if you died while red. I eventually died, and basically had to lay that character to rest forever. Along with his many houses and other loot I had gathered over time.

Man I was a huge dick then, lol.

Oh oh! Let's share more UO stories.


So here is what I would do. I was a blue fencing/stealth character. But I lived for loot, oh how I loved loot. I would go to any major dungeon and kill shit with everyone else. But I had a secret agenda, I was watching... waiting. If someone was on the edge of death and running for their lives I would inconspicuously step in their way and attempt to slow them down. If they died I'd immediately hide (it was a skill that made you invisible if successful). I'd way for that monster to target someone else, then I'd loot the blue corpse, which of course turned me grey. Then it was game on. I'd stroll around, grey as can be waiting for some bitches to get tough and attack me. Typically the blues were scared and would only gank, not 1 on 1 you. Which is fine. If I got attacked by a couple of blues I'd run and hide. But remember the 2 minute timer? Yes, I loved that 2 minute timer. I would stay grey to everyone that attacked me for 2 minutes from the last time one of us targeted the other. So I would run just out of distance, run back in, retarget ONE blue player, run away and hide again. I'd wait till everyone else was blue to me and only that one player was grey. Then I'd re-engage, this time in a 1 on 1 situation. No one else could interfere without receiving a count since we were now blue to each other. Of course, sometimes they would heal the other blue, attempting to keep him alive. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.

That was how may days went most days though. I'd stroll around, provoking people to pick fights with me. Thinking they could gank me with their friends, then I'd turn it into a 1 on 1 and proceed to clean up... or sometimes die!

Fun fun!