The Fall and Fall of Ultima Online

Greetings. It is me, Templar, delivering my latest insights in barely readable English.
Twenty minutes ago, as I was taking a shower, I got the idea for my latest article. Here is the idea: the second fall of Ultima Online.

SotA continues to crap itself... just as I've foreseen

Just read the OP post. And the thread. That's what happens when incompetent people try to make a game. People who have no idea whatsoever what the heck they are doing.

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/in-regards-to-the-distracting-nature-of-the-deck-system.25960/

No Country for Old Men

It's an interesting time we live in. Garriot and Starr are back in the industry...(erm, are they really, seeing how they are making yet another facebook game instead of a MMORPG?), Raph too, the other guys from Crowfall, some of them were on the teams that worked on UO, SWG and Shadowbane (and some stupid Wizard 101 or whatever, wtf is this).

Another excellent post from kb on SotA and the state of the mmorpg market

http://shroudunlimited.boards.net/post/2004

All those people who say the time of full loot and open pvp games is gone… Ive said it countless times, they all dont seem to realize..that the more immersion a game provides, the less people ragequit if they get stomped. It is hard to quit when you got your own home you decorated yourself, a guild that cares about you and friends who go to gather mushrooms and reagents with you… and a pet dragon of rare color that took you a month to find and an hour to tame…
games like wow, on the other hand, games that like immersion… they cant hold the player from ragequitting because those games are hollo.… empty..you can only grind there. The pvp is meaningless (if it even has pvp), and the pve is boring.

Probably by Owain:

   If UO PvP was broken, it was broken because the developers tried to cater to everyone, which is pretty much always a bad idea. UO PvP was wildly successful in attracting players that liked open PvP, but the devs did a poor job of separating those who like open PvP from those who did not. They wanted both styles of players, but failed to anticipate that some players would use open PvP as a license to kill everything that moved in the game. It was trivially easy to get away with murder, easy for murderers to escape, and there was no real deterrent for mass murder, so UO was a breeding ground for mass murderers.

On the Armageddon spell from UO

Possibly written by Aheufislhadjk (or whatever his name is)

For further clarification on the Armageddon Spell as it first re~appeared in Ultima Online;

The spell was only a roomer or myth that it could still be possible within UO to cast  
Back in the early computing days, "Back Doors" and hidden things within programs that could be accessed were all the rage in both fiction book as well as in movies and tech talk. During this time in UO a group of game hackers calling themselves "The Knights of Access" appeared and hack attacked any UO player that they felt like doing so to and there were a few other groups of the same styled hacker groups. So the stage was set for such a roomer to spread and be believed by many.
Thus this roomer spread quickly through the shards and gained a following on both sides, those who wished to find everything to be able to cast it, as well as those who wished to stop those that wished to cast it.

I should have created the #Immersion tag, probably :D Heh

I'm also with the pure roleplayers... I cannot enjoy full immersion without roleplay, single player or multiplayer.

So this is not a good start.

Isaiah said: ↑

[quote]Yeah I guess you're probably right. I wanted to play the best players because I wanted to prove myself. I also wanted my rating to improve.

I was ranked in the top 10 for submissions, and I was in the top 25 in ranked match play so I did actually enjoy fighting quality players.

However I still did enjoy the easier matches because they provided a guaranteed win, but now I think about it I did like the higher ranked matches better because I wanted to increase my rating. Regardless I enjoyed winning. So if I won I was happy whether or not it was a good player or a bad player.[/quote]

There's no shame in inflicting suffering on the weak. You don't need to make excuses to look more socially acceptable in the eyes those who are many levels below you.
It is only natural to crave slaughtering of virtual avatars. That's what really good virtual worlds are made of. And made for.

OwainAvatar

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In a thread on zoning into a hex only to find campers, I had a momentary psychotic break and started ranting about looting. I'm feeling much better now, thank you, but rather than hijacking that thread further, I figured a separate thread would be a much better idea.

Shroud of the Avatar is a Role Playing Game, or so I have been told, yet particularly when it comes to looting in PvP, I'm seeing a whole lot of non role playing approaches being advocated.

To me, if I am playing a role playing game, I would like it to be as realistic as possible. This is a big reason why I prefer role playing games that feature PvP. In a multiplayer game, there are...other players. In a realistic medieval setting, some of those would be neutral, some friendly, but outside of protected areas, some would be downright hostile. If I am role playing living in a medieval setting, why would I expect any different?

Not everyone shares that view, and so PvP in SotA is by consent. People who share my views consent to PvP.

Having selected PvP, then we have looting. Again, I would prefer to role play in the most realistic environment possible, so if I am slain in the wilderness, I have every expectation that the bad guys would strip me of everything possible, to include cutting a finger off to get a ring if it doesn't come off easily, and knocking out my gold teeth.

"But NO", some cry. "That wouldn't be nice!!!"

Killing you is OK, but taking your stuff is somehow unreasonable? As role playing approaches go, I find this one to be lacking.

But even that should be permissible in SotA. If that is your definition of role playing, then by all means, play that role.

What should also be permissible is a full loot option in addition to Open PvP, for people who want that role playing experience. That experience involves being in a world where you have to conduct yourself more cautiously and carefully. In a world where people don't just do careless things because, what the heck, death isn't a real threat. It's just a minor inconvenience. In a world that isn't one big foam padded, safety belted, air bagged comfort zone.

I'm not here to tell other people how to role play. I'd just like the opportunity to role play as I see fit, without others trying to tell me how to play MY game.

Author unknown

Oddly enough, I really liked loging on with my Tailor lady on Lake Superior in Moonglow, and craft for a few hours. As I made money (yeah, it was possible to make some even not leaving town at that time in early 98), I started shopping and stated to explore... which was my second most memorable moment. Somehow I made it to the isle of the avatar, and found a spot to place my small house deed... man I was *jumping* all around the computer; my 3rd moment.

Some more rants from SotA's forum

blaquerogue said: ↑

I can vouch for that as well! He is nice. Most of us are, if given half the chance without degradation!  your still my bro, bro!

Thank thee, brethren!

On Immersion

I don't mind getting PKed or being disturbed by whoever. I don't wanna play Hello Kitty and I'm not here on the forums to complain about anything, but I do not see how having to craft arrows/bullets and keeping track of the numbers that you have make this game any more "hardcore". 

It's called immersion. A highly interactive virtual world creates immersion. Immersion makes the game something really worth playing, something memorable. Ask UO and EvE players. Even 16 years after UO died on official servers, they have so many epic stories to tell. Why? Because their game was highly interactive, which allowed for them to create history themselves.

Ammo, reagents, etc are small parts of this immersion. Open PvP and full loot are some bigger parts.

---------------

See? The guy can't even see how keeping track of arrows and bullets makes the game more hardcore. Yet at the same time he tries to convince us he does not want to play Hello Kitty Online. And while I don't have any problems with Hello Kitty, I'm very concerned that mmorpg developers nowadays cater to the loud, hysterical crowd that doesn't even know why a good RPG does not have infinite ammo /arrows/reagents, and doesn't have you run around shoot infinite fireballs out of your ass.

On Trammel and Carebears from InsaneMembrane's forum

Very well said by two members of InsaneMembrane's Site . I'm definitely going to write an article on old Ultima Online (pre-trammel) both in russian and english sometime in the future.
Anyway, visit Insane's site&forum if you want to learn some shocking truths about the Shroud of the Avatar scam and Richard Garriot.

===================

The only problem that needed to be solved about pre trammel was that there were to many lazy, useless, spoon fed sensitive carebears in the world. For me Trammel was the starting point of UO's downfall, pretty much where I lost interest in the game. It went from a hardcore, exciting game to a fag fest with fluff. This topic is one good reason why I don't think RG had much to do with the creation of UO.

Now Raph Koster really disappointed me

It seems that Garriott and Starr were not the only people who didnt survive the process of carebearisation. Raph fockin' Koster was kill too. He is now officially ded to me. Good riddance, thanks for UO tho.

On why Ultima Online was good

Your game is either full PvP or no PvP. Selective PvP = No PvP, just like grimgryphon 's signature states.
When you give carebears a choice, they're always gonna chose the safer server. 

UO was good, because **IT DID NOT GIVE THE CAREBEARS A CHOICE**. It forced them to play by the same rules as everyone. They did not like getting killed, but they enjoyed the game overall, so they learned how to adapt to it, how to get used to it.

Truth is, players need to be HERDED and FORCED to do stuff. If presented with the opportunity, 90% of the playerbase would do NOTHING, just wank their tiny little dicks in front of the West Bank, wearing colourful hats, afking 90% of the time and talking about Netflix 10% of the time.

On Realism

Devoid said: ^

    Unnatural and unrealistic doesn't even apply, it's a game for crying out loud! EVERYTHING is contrived! What one is striving for is a system of checks and balances that can accomadate the different asaects of the game.    Natural and realistic is what you get in the real world, a fantasy game is for escaping (for a time) reality.

Doomgrin said: ↑

And thus ends any hope of a good discussion. Good luck in finding a game to suit your taste.

I've said many times. There is no "discussion". Never was.
There are people with the right idea of how a MMO*RPG* should be handled. Not many but there are. I am one of them.

On Hardcore MMOs

 First of all, there's nothing preventing a popular pre-trammel-style game from existing.
Second, the moderators here don't like it when we use the word "carebear". Instead you should say "Respected fellow PvE player".

Third, many people seem to be out of touch with logic when they try to explain why there can't be a popular hardcore MMORPG again.

 Stealing from NPCs is like having a love affair with your right hand.