Proposed Content Schedule for Every Year in Ultima Online

jelinidas

What is a Ultima Broker? 

Urge

jelinidas said:

What is a Ultima Broker? 

Back before the invention of auction safes and at a time when we were limited to having seperate 1mil checks in the bank, players depended on the most upstanding and reputable to broker high value trades between players.

If Player A wanted to sell a house for 500 million. Player B wanted to buy the house. Player B would give the broker the mass gold checks stored in a safe location until it was all accounted for. Then the transaction would be completed. 

The OP here also does RMT as many others do. 

SaulGoodman1

I love how you put all this time and effort into planning all the shit out for the devs and they are so lazy they don't even follow a connect the dots plan on how to make the game better @Mesanna @Kyronix @Bleak

Drakelord

*Update Library/Zoo/Museum/Add New Collections Reward System*  This was something I ask for several times, specially the Zoo, the armor/leather suits have zero head pieces for the suits.  Then the question of the EM's Summons being the same color of Player summons.  I have asked and asked that they do something.  Using the options to alert you of incoming possible attacker by making then purple/pink/blue does not work on the EM's Summons.  It only works on the normal spawn around you at that time, it will not with the EM's summons.

keven2002

I wanted to add another idea to this list (based on the end of the 1st BBQ session).

Sporadic "Invasions" of towns / areas outside of town by high end spawn (crimson dragons / harabingers / black rock infested / etc). Mesanna dropped a handful of these on the BBQ event after the first time slot was over and we had fun working together to kill them. The loot on the crimson dragons was a good amount of items with things like talisman / blight / etc but also some artifact level gear. 

I'd think they should be able to utilize the dynamic style "set and forget" with this type of spawn being generated in certain locations and the loot would just be whatever spawns on the mobs (which is way better than the 1 item we get from kill the dynamic champion).

Seth

They should add new useful arties to revive all the dungeons and hunting group. There is no need to create new areas or new events, just adding some good artifacts to say Dread Mare, Paroxysmus or Travesty, Medusa, Osiredon, Corgul, etc etc to give us a reason to hunt them again. No need ToT.

Like High Seas 2.0

How about Doom 3.0, Mondain 2.0, Shadowguard 2.0. Just update the drops.

Definitely more fun than spawning and killing oversized Rabbits in the limited farmland.

keven2002

I think the main theme is that the players need something new and for new things to be added more frequently. I'm not opposed to them updating drops for the current content and I also don't mind the ToT style turn in content, but both of those require new stuff to be added which the Dev team seems to be hesitant to do.

The only downside to adding new drops to existing content (like Doom) is that players will likely need to get quite a few things they don't want (like ring of the elements/etc) before getting the one thing that they are looking to get for multiple characters. I do like the idea the idea of recipes (like halo or bracers) that use an older drop to create a new useable item. I know Kyronix said it requires a little more work of the Dev's end but that's a good way for players to be able to quickly get multiples of something they want once they get the recipe or they can buy the recipe to make multiples (both assuming they have the older arty).

Seth

keven2002 said:

I think the main theme is that the players need something new and for new things to be added more frequently. I'm not opposed to them updating drops for the current content and I also don't mind the ToT style turn in content, but both of those require new stuff to be added which the Dev team seems to be hesitant to do.

The only downside to adding new drops to existing content (like Doom) is that players will likely need to get quite a few things they don't want (like ring of the elements/etc) before getting the one thing that they are looking to get for multiple characters. I do like the idea the idea of recipes (like halo or bracers) that use an older drop to create a new useable item. I know Kyronix said it requires a little more work of the Dev's end but that's a good way for players to be able to quickly get multiples of something they want once they get the recipe or they can buy the recipe to make multiples (both assuming they have the older arty).

There is alot of room for creativity and believing that power goes to infinity for both sides - player and the boss (monster whatever). In order to keep growing, power "creep" is healthy because it shows there is progress and players will keep going. 

When power remains the same, there are no new challenges and the game becomes awfully stale. Need some "inflation".

I don't think it should only be either "current dungeon" or "ToT" update, but both. 

For new items, it does not always need to be A and B to give C.

E.g. combine Two Travesty Mask to become a Sick Travesty Mask with added armor piercing properties for both magery and melee attacks.
 
Or combine two Animated Legs of Insane Tinker to become an Immortal Legs where, if your character suffers a lethal damage, it will prevent it from dying one time and return 20% HP, and say, a cooldown of 3 minutes. 

I am playing a mobile game that is so creative with its endless combination of possibilities. 

Urge

I'd be happy with more non key or quest bosses with rotating random drops. You could even go a step further and just have a random boss spawn area. 

Aside from that, i like the turn in rewards like the ToT and blackthorns. I think that should be a perma thing in game if it's set up where people can't afk it. 

But starting small i'd like to state with max luck for the past 4+ years, i have yet to get one usable stam piece. So maybe loot tables could be the first to get looked into. 

We're all probably wasting our keyboard life coming up with ideas though. Chances are slim to none on any of this. 

Seth

Urge said:

I'd be happy with more non key or quest bosses with rotating random drops. You could even go a step further and just have a random boss spawn area. 

Aside from that, i like the turn in rewards like the ToT and blackthorns. I think that should be a perma thing in game if it's set up where people can't afk it. 

But starting small i'd like to state with max luck for the past 4+ years, i have yet to get one usable stam piece. So maybe loot tables could be the first to get looked into. 

We're all probably wasting our keyboard life coming up with ideas though. Chances are slim to none on any of this. 

I think honest feedback is necessary - there are so much ideas and request for existing production shard content. Was there an active NLS thread for the past 3 years that is talking about the features, expectations, etc of NLS? Like how we debate on High Seas 2.0 features, PVP changes? Nothing, zero!

No one noticed there is not even a sticky thread on NLS in this forum. 

LilyGrace

On the topics of this thread, it's probably easier to just relay a conversation had between us here, a couple of casual players with old timey multiple accounts.



Usually when you talk behind someone's back you don't plan on putting it on blast after, but there it is. I do apologize for casually throwing the L word 'lazy' out there when describing devs. Lazy is not the first thing I think of when thinking of folks working to keep UO going. But sometimes it's not the last thing thought of either.

I admit to not knowing the first thing about how much or how little time anyone behind the scenes devotes to all things UO, on the daily, weekly, monthly or yearly. I can't know if, as someone mentioned in this thread, people are giving 100% to the work they're doing in UO or not. I only know I agreed with the poster who said, you should require it of yourself to do the best work you can when you've a job to do. No half-assing it.

New content and nostalgia keep my husband and I playing and paying and we're apt to take breaks in-between playing new content. What could be better for those looking at UO's bottom line than that? Still, conversations about not having a UO bill to pay every month do pop up now. New content overall is what would make quitting less likely. But players need to know too the quality of the content produced is important to the developers. And not least in importance, there needs to be some sense that developers care about staying connected to the player community. I think there's room for improvement here if for no other reason than to keep players excited about sticking around for what's coming next.

I want to tie this in with the recent Summer Solstice (that's solstice with two S). I'm completely sincere when I say the fairgrounds looked so great! As does the new artwork made available. It's easy to see a lot of work went into creating it and the game content. And the interaction with players and UO staff, in the moment, was a wicked lot of fun.

That said, I don't understand making this content so difficult to reach, many players can't help but feel dissatisfied when the event is over. The time constraints and the lack of information on what to expect at these special events makes it impossible to relaxedly enjoy. And it's almost impossible to enjoy the majority of the content being made available.

At the end of the day, it makes it look like y'all go to a lot of trouble (or fun) putting something like this fair together, then won't offer enough information to players or give enough of your time to let us fully enjoy it. Not all players are willing or able to keep their ear to the ground well enough to know ahead of time what the score is when jumping into an event like this.

Learning on the fly when you log in and having so little time, watching the clock, knowing you won't get to see much of it, at best leaves you feeling short changed. At worst you feel downright disrespected as a player who pays the same amount on an account every month as those who play UO like it's their job, and those who are willing to cheat to get what they want.

IMO, as was mentioned in another thread by someone else, there should be a map of how to get around and detailed information on what to expect (how to play the games) offered to players here on the message boards, well before the event kicks off. And we should have a reasonable expectation there'll be ways to police unscrupulous players. Either by way of game mechanics being used, or players having enough time to get their fill of the experience without the cheaters having much of an impact.

Lastly, we here are left giving our heads a shake when it comes to how it's expected any new players will come to UO. Or even if that's a real goal for developers. Unless there's more than meets the eye, it doesn't feel like we move toward that goal.

Thanks for listening.

Yoshi

“I agree with the conversation @LilyGrace
when I play in trammel I don’t experience a single bug at all, nothing.

however if your friends tried to pvp using broadsword classic client, they will instantly be killed due to the bugs

It’s almost as if a dev don’t pvp.

you automatically receive an additional 50+ damage vs people using a bokuto, which is almost everyone. 

They introduced a macro to use a trapped box, but failed to fix the bug that notifies you of when to use it..
so if you get hit by nerve strike one time, you’ll more than likely be hit by a second

Who going to play a client where you receive 50+ additional damage penalty?

plus the whole issue of not even being able to target your enemy as you have to tab through non hostile: neutral animals, dead orange pets, grey/red guild members and their followers

you could be killed by the time you tab through 7/8 targets just trying to even target someone

plus other stuff that doesn’t occur in trammel at all

even issue raised at meet and greet and Mesanna waffles on about features…
how do you describe a problem to someone who don’t play the game? 

You try and type it but I don’t know if she is dyslexic or just don’t have attention span to understand more than 10 words.

but it don’t matter anymore, people made their own client for bug fixes and they let us play it so whatever, someone even took screenshot with it and meet and greet and they didn’t care, but really not good system for new/returning  players at all.

to play one client for pvm then have to download and set up another for experience more advanced content later.

stupid imo

“

keven2002

@LilyGrace - It's almost like that blue text was straight out of my brain. I agree with much of what you said, new content (and rewards!) is what makes me log in (even if it's cookie cutter dynamic stuff). 

There is plenty of nostalgia logging into UO for me and running past certain places but it's getting to the point now for me that I'm seriously questioning what I've been paying for. It's been over 6 months and all we've seen is a slightly altered Spring 2022 event (minus the dungeon) and a slightly altered 25th anniversary faire.

I agree with you that it's quite possible the Devs plates are full and they've been working 60 hours a week to get things done but based on us only getting 2 (semi recycled) events this year so far and the lack of communication to tell/show us what they've been spending their time on it is very easy to think they aren't working very much.

It's getting to a point now where it seems like they want to push the envelope as far as they can to see just how little they can give us to see who holds out. Certainly not something you would think people being paid based on subscriptions would do... lose enough subscriptions and the job eventually goes away.

LilyGrace

I hear you, Yoshi, but admittedly PvP, with or without bugs just isn’t on my radar. I can’t speak to it other than to acknowledge your frustration. 

Thanks for the reply, Kev. Here’s hoping crispy fresh content and exciting dev team news is just around the corner. 

Cheers

Urge

LilyGrace said:

I do apologize for casually throwing the L word 'lazy' out there when describing devs. 

You are 100% correct in that we know nothing of schedules, resources, staff issues ect. 

It's also a 2 way street if they weren't so tight lipped leaving us guessing at every step of the game. 

It takes all of 2 minutes to say listen here's what's going on you won't hear from us until **** is done then we can work on XYZ.

I believe no apologizes are needed for your statement. If the shoe fits, ya feel me. 

CovenantX

Yea the whole scheduling in the OP sounds great, but it hasn't happened in the past, it's even less likely to happen in the future. (I hope I'm wrong on that).  plus the hard part would be for the devs to stick with any form of schedule, especially when it comes pumping out the content on time (history shows it's not likely) anyway.

  For example, NL was originally supposed to be released in 2020 (I believe), though with Covid a delay was to be expected.. but what's the reason for the delay now?  we're getting close to 4 years and we've got nothing, even in terms of new information about NL, short of the screenshots with vague descriptions of weather effects from back when it was originally announced.    -We don't even know if NL is even a thing still.

 No action on bugs reported in the last ~3 years or so.

 No Action of blatant botting/afk scripting, also no acknowledgement of this happening by any dev

 No roadmap for future content.

 

That's how bad the communication has been.

CovenantX

Yoshi said:

It’s almost as if a dev don’t pvp.

you automatically receive an additional 50+ damage vs people using a bokuto, which is almost everyone. 

They introduced a macro to use a trapped box, but failed to fix the bug that notifies you of when to use it..
so if you get hit by nerve strike one time, you’ll more than likely be hit by a second

Who going to play a client where you receive 50+ additional damage penalty?

but it don’t matter anymore, people made their own client for bug fixes and they let us play it so whatever, someone even took screenshot with it and meet and greet and they didn’t care, but really not good system for new/returning  players at all.

to play one client for pvm then have to download and set up another for experience more advanced content later.

stupid imo

“

    I generally agree with you much of the time. but the last sections of your post (underlined)

    I wonder if there are any examples of other Officially run MMO's that have this issue?

  because to my knowledge, this is something that's basically exclusive to UO, they don't punish people for using third-party clients that violate their own ToS, while also not fixing bugs for very extended periods of time.   -even when detailed information to reproduce the bug is provided.

-Personally, I don't think a 'lack of bug fixes' is a valid excuse to use illegal clients, the reason I say this, is because there hasn't been a 'debuff' for Nervestrike since SE (when nerve-strike came out) and suddenly when everyone scripts 'auto-pop box" out of paralyzes, now it's a problem. 

.... However,  No punishment for violating the ToS... it's hard to argue why that isn't a valid excuse to use third party programs though. 

King

well few things!

Yes, Mesanna probably told everyone(3) of her team to avoid post here anymore.

at the M&G is probably mesanna logging on all the toons anyway to pretend that they are all there.

but do you really blame her? look at the past 30 posts at this forum!   bitching and bitching and bitching about just everything, 99% negative posts about just everything.  My Mom used to say, if you dont have anything nice to say, Dont say!

Remember that they left Stratics because of the same shit,  they can just turn off the Official chat and than what?

I honestly think that NL will never happen, they dont have the resources, they dont have the people, this is not on any way to be negative about, we just know.

Like many people said, be happy with what we have, Try other things in the game, you know better than anyone, you can stay 24 hours in the game and there is always something else you can do.

Go train characters for events on all shards. always something to do and be happy with!

Yoshi

“ forum mods post in this forum all the time

just ask them for update on NL

as they seem to think they are higher up than dev and get to decide what is bug and what is not bug”

Garth_Grey

I"m down with all of it but "new dyes"..we have enough dyes.