Devs should reconsider what transfers (Some/most Equipment Should)
in New Legacy
I believe the devs being cautious with what transfers and what doesn't, reasonable. I however think that with primarily pets being xfered off and not equipment, it creates a deep divide at who and what playstyles are valued on New Legacy and in general the regular servers.
Here are some thoughts.
The clean answer is that New Legacy would get dumped to a new Shard "server" where all New Legacy players get dumped to and new production players can create on that "Production old season Legacy" server. It keeps stuff isolated like an "Eternal" server for a game like Diablo. People can choose to make characters on the server where they know the NL exists from the seasonal content and interact with it. The NL characters can then Xfer off without any of their NL stuff (Shard Bound) to their home server if they want. Then if people want NL stuff from the past seasons it still exists on an isolated server. Each season dumps characters on to the Production Legacy shard and it grows from there. This allows for everyone's "Legacy" to follow them to a production shard without it being lost, but it isolates the items (Obviously in future seasons they may just choose to have some items not make it to the "Production Legacy" server, but those can be known ahead of time).
The not so clean answer is to allow for specific sets of equipment to transfer and a list made public what will and won't delete upon transferring to their home production server. "No equipment" transferring kind of kills the "Legacy" part of New Legacy because to a Warrior character, their armor and weapons are their character like a tamer has their pets, a warrior has their gear. I think limiting it to only pets and no wearable equipment really hurts the warriors for maintaining their Legacy. I know there are many ways to go about this like the list of stuff that will xfer, or giving deeds that allow it to transfer off for only X amount of items etc... I understand the devs are playing it close to the chest right now, but for how absolutely rare some of the equipment is for how bad it is on production, I think killing off a warriors Legacy feels bad. (Or you make equipment rain from the sky and no one feels bad when it goes away because it's so common and wasn't really earned, and therefor not part of the Legacy feel).
The other way is just not have server transfers when the season is done and delete all NL characters (Which I know would have people stop immediately playing NL). However, I think people already have stopped because the lack of ability to transfer their "Whole" character so the philosophy just applies to all characters on the realm since it already applies to warriors. (Yes I know I am being a bit hyperbolic and deco and stuff is set to transfer, but for the most part equipment is deco when it comes to production due to how absolutely insanely busted gear is on production is when compared to NL, which is tame in comparison.
These are just my thoughts and while it is a ramble to a degree I think it should be discussed. I know devs want to stop botting, and bots would absolutely ruin NL if they were as rampant as Atlantic. So if NL became a "Year Long Event" style server that was just filled with bots that would be horrible. However, I think that the blanket "No Equipment" should be discussed and re-evaluated (I know nothing is 100% set in stone, but I would love to see a discussion on this with pros and even the cons as I don't play on production so I don't know) My personal choice would be creating a Production Old Legacy that everyone gets dumped on to with all of their stuff, and some stuff is shard bound and can't xfer, but otherwise their character and other stuff could transfer to their home production server. I know doing that would create an extra step, but it does create a safety net. Just my 2 cents to get the topic started.
Here are some thoughts.
The clean answer is that New Legacy would get dumped to a new Shard "server" where all New Legacy players get dumped to and new production players can create on that "Production old season Legacy" server. It keeps stuff isolated like an "Eternal" server for a game like Diablo. People can choose to make characters on the server where they know the NL exists from the seasonal content and interact with it. The NL characters can then Xfer off without any of their NL stuff (Shard Bound) to their home server if they want. Then if people want NL stuff from the past seasons it still exists on an isolated server. Each season dumps characters on to the Production Legacy shard and it grows from there. This allows for everyone's "Legacy" to follow them to a production shard without it being lost, but it isolates the items (Obviously in future seasons they may just choose to have some items not make it to the "Production Legacy" server, but those can be known ahead of time).
The not so clean answer is to allow for specific sets of equipment to transfer and a list made public what will and won't delete upon transferring to their home production server. "No equipment" transferring kind of kills the "Legacy" part of New Legacy because to a Warrior character, their armor and weapons are their character like a tamer has their pets, a warrior has their gear. I think limiting it to only pets and no wearable equipment really hurts the warriors for maintaining their Legacy. I know there are many ways to go about this like the list of stuff that will xfer, or giving deeds that allow it to transfer off for only X amount of items etc... I understand the devs are playing it close to the chest right now, but for how absolutely rare some of the equipment is for how bad it is on production, I think killing off a warriors Legacy feels bad. (Or you make equipment rain from the sky and no one feels bad when it goes away because it's so common and wasn't really earned, and therefor not part of the Legacy feel).
The other way is just not have server transfers when the season is done and delete all NL characters (Which I know would have people stop immediately playing NL). However, I think people already have stopped because the lack of ability to transfer their "Whole" character so the philosophy just applies to all characters on the realm since it already applies to warriors. (Yes I know I am being a bit hyperbolic and deco and stuff is set to transfer, but for the most part equipment is deco when it comes to production due to how absolutely insanely busted gear is on production is when compared to NL, which is tame in comparison.
These are just my thoughts and while it is a ramble to a degree I think it should be discussed. I know devs want to stop botting, and bots would absolutely ruin NL if they were as rampant as Atlantic. So if NL became a "Year Long Event" style server that was just filled with bots that would be horrible. However, I think that the blanket "No Equipment" should be discussed and re-evaluated (I know nothing is 100% set in stone, but I would love to see a discussion on this with pros and even the cons as I don't play on production so I don't know) My personal choice would be creating a Production Old Legacy that everyone gets dumped on to with all of their stuff, and some stuff is shard bound and can't xfer, but otherwise their character and other stuff could transfer to their home production server. I know doing that would create an extra step, but it does create a safety net. Just my 2 cents to get the topic started.
Tagged:
Comments
Would we be able to advance skill train pets if they transferred?
My point of view.
In NL, we have time investment versus reward, and those willing to explore a new shard get the rewards (new friends, new challenges and new gear/pets).
No one is blocked from going to felucca and get its rewards, same way no one is blocked from playing nl and collect new gear.
With the obvious unbalanced items that should not be transferred, the remaining gear that won't change the prodo UO shards, is a nice reward, and a Legacy.
Like always, I can be wrong... just explain why...
Diablo and other style seasonal games are very much in the, dump out everything on to their non-season content and then restart a new season of their seasonal content.
I just hope we get clarification as "Equipment won't transfer" could have been "Some equipment" or "Not all equipment" with a caveat to come.
We are already having a stagnation and quitting problem on the server due to the extreme lack of attention and content the server gets (Which you would think there would be an over abundance of attention with it being the first season).
I will say, I have liked that the devs have been willing to get on and have round tables with TWL and discuss content even if incredibly vague. I just think that devs should hear the player voice that the Legacy comes with the equipment and the journey the players went through, and not just the pets.
If you take that route, which they are kind of doing a half measure like that currently. People just stop playing because they're done since nothing they do matters anymore. By creating the "Nothing matters" people will just quit and wait until October (if they come back). That's why Diablo and other Seasonal games have a huge drop off after the first month or so is because people are done and did what they wanted, and since nothing matters they quit until the next seasonal challenge. I am not sure Broadsword wants a huge drop off and the server to be abandoned so quickly on a year long cycle.
It's not a wrong option, and for a new thing that was dangled out there for 4 years, the lack of info and direction has been rather bothersome, to say the least.
Sure I'd like to take my mage's 'winter's light' with me, but I'm really not bothered about my archer's 'eminently accurate silver composite bow of vanquishing'. It's nice on NL and I love the nostalgia of those old, familiar property names, but you'd never use it on a production shard.
So, it's the named items we want to keep? not the basic equipment?
I don't think this is what the NL development had in mind, and I don't believe they want abandoned servers so that no new players come to it. I definitely feel like the goal was to have active players year round.
I understand that getting to X equipment and being able to beat Y is the intended goal, but once you have done that, then what is the push forward for many players. Collecting and showcasing items has pretty much been a thing since lockdowns and secures became a thing on UO decades ago. Yes, the quest items become worthless for use, but like Phoenix Armor, Ranger Armor, Daemon Bone Armor, and other hard to acquire items back when I used to play in 2000, people still collected them even if they were worthless for combat, because they were cool to display.
With no grand point to NL beyond collecting right now, it seems weird to literally tell non-tamers they are leaving their Legacy behind instead of "Forging ahead" with their Legacy.
Yeah, I am cool if the starter quest items and artifacts transfer and the random regular guarding/hardening.../invul/etc... equipment is deleted. I don't think anyone will mind their supremely accurate vanq disappearing, but they may mind their Crimson Dragon artifact that's a prefix Wyrmguard suffix weapon disappearing.
I think this is a good discussion, and hopefully the devs take it to heart. Look at other games with seasons; they are short because people abandon them when they are done because once you have accomplished the set goal... nothing else matters. If the devs want NL to become abandoned early on once people accomplish their goals, that is a perfectly acceptable way to develop (I might suggest they don't make their future seasons 1 year and maybe 4-6 months if they do that so when they are abandoned it's only abandoned a short while). However, I don't think that was their initial design for the server and a reason they chose the 1 year rotation as they wanted it played for the whole year (Which is awesome, and I like personally). I do think the idea of how and what transfers should be looked at as it seems like resoundingly at minimum, the artifacts should transfer off.
Now is a good time to begin, the quest armor and weapons will be the maximum value.
Those beginning armor sets and the sash would be good enough for me to take to another shard.
Would be nice to know if pets can leave NL and will we be able to advance train them. The pets will be worth a lot if you can take them away and trade them to others.
I generally think that you can't give anything to transfer, in the first season you don't understand this yet, but if people understand that there will be something valuable on NL, the whole server will turn into a bot farm, I'm afraid that if pets are expensive, the second season will look much worse, the economy will be destroyed even within a month because bots will farm gold 24/7,simple things will cost millions of gold and as always, simple players or newbies will suffer.
For the leaders of races/events/laderboard, some kind of memorable gift - a special note to the Legacy Sash about the achievement, i.e. winner of the PvP/PvE tournament NL first season. For all NL participants, a gift token, which can only be obtained on NL for, say, receiving all the medals for Legacy Sash and, say, 150+ hours of game time on the server.
Then, after the end of the first season, a limited token is introduced for 1-2 months, which duplicates the gift token, but has a simpler version of rewards. Let's say (only one reward per account) - just as example.
Gift token - legacy shash with ur achivements (you receive it along with any other reward you choose)
- 1 manticore/any NL pet of a random color.
- Armor set of your choice with a rare color that can only be on NL.
- deed for rare title (giga chad from NL)
- deed for one of ecnhant of new legacy
- rare deco etc
- etc
Token from the shop - 1 manticore/any NL pet of only a normal color.
- deed for rare title (observer of giga chads from NL)
- common variant of NL decos
- etc
The second idea is to earn money from promotional tokens on people who did not want to participate in NL, without punishing them for this, giving the option to try rewards, albeit in a slightly different format, and attract their attention to the project in the future.
You create an end point for player accounts along with a continued chase if the really want. Some may go for 3 tokens and be happy or want to try and go for 7 by killing 3500 bosses or competing doing a mix of champ spawns, bosses, and other triggered events over the course of the year.
Maybe some titles we could choose.