What is the secret to UO's longevity?

Aballister

Giggles

Community

Victim_Of_Siege

More addictive than Crack

Mervyn

Pineapple, and a slice of onion.

Meggie

What we own in game hehe

Gidge

#1 Love of.

#2 Each person has their reason due to UO having something for everyone.

#3 42

#4 It has taken it's own path and is customer driven. Our team(s) through the years has listened to our ideas and though (sometimes to a not so happy ending for others). Some seem hell bent on fixing what makes UO unique and has held us mesmerized.  There will be a point when so many of the little things that makes UO what UO is unrecognizable and will lose it's long standing devoted fans. Eye candy can only get us so far and they seem to want to make things very tough for those that remain.

Make better armor
Make tougher monsters
Make better armor
Make tougher monsters and things more difficult
Make better armor so we can withstand tougher monsters
Make tougher monsters to eat through tougher armor.

Quite vicious.

Bilbo

It is truly one of the few online games that young and old alike can always find something to do and play at their own speed.

Tim

To expand on Bilbos post

Everybody can play the game they want. Not the Game someone else thinks they should be playing. (If I don't want to play pvp or any other content why the hell should I have to?)

Syncros

Supposed to type in "discuss" rather then nothing at all.

Archnight

1) UO feels like a medieval and magical world, not just a game
2) Most depth, best customized housing with pets
3) Community
4) Can be played at any age with limited time
5) Nostalgia (Yeah it's also part of the reason hehe)

Rock

I don't disagree with anything which has been posted.  There is another factor, however, which I believe directly affect the financial viability of the game.  UO has a large number of veterans with multiple accounts.  Some barely play any more, but they keep their accounts active because they do not wish to lose their houses and the work which went into them and their contents.  Without the personalized housing, my guess is that UO would have folded a long time ago.

While I was away from UO, I was playing City of Heroes (CoH).  I don't know numbers, but I'm pretty sure its active player population was significantly greater than UO.  Yet its publisher NCSoft killed it and fired the employees of the ParagonSoft development team. This was not because it was unprofitable, but because they didn't think it was profitable enough.  If EA ever decides the incoming cash flow from UO (mainly via its longtime vets) is not "profitable enough", I doubt they would have any qualms about doing the same thing to this game.  Maybe the prestige of still running the first MMO contributes to its life a little bit as well.  That said, I wonder if EA executives in general have ever played UO or know much about it.

(I'm not ragging on EA, btw.  I just think their decisions will be mostly based on income and not so much player feelings. It's just the way things work.)

Mervyn

For me, obviously I think the strong Christian values and theme that UO has, has a lot to do with its longevity. The virtues are an obvious simarly to teaching a lot of what the bible teaches. The demons are to be slayed. The demon names from the bible are directly:
Molech and Beelzebuth.
 Ararat and the Ark of course are nice direct Christian touch. It’s a breath of fresh air from the other politically correct games. 

CovenantX

Rock said:

(I'm not ragging on EA, btw.  I just think their decisions will be mostly based on income and not so much player feelings. It's just the way things work.)

   Except they'd be making less income when people are dissatisfied with the product quality & service. so in the end they're the same thing really.

 The path they seem to be taking the longevity of UO won't last too much longer, unless they have some tricks up their sleeves to attract Paying costumers.

Endless Journey could be that (right now it isn't), but unless it's advertised to reach people who otherwise wouldn't know about it, it becomes just a "free" platform for Existing players to abuse for personal gain &  do further damage to the in-game economy by mass farming via bots & other even more nefarious methods...  Which in turn deters from actual players using the content... causing those players to eventually drop their sub because the product then becomes much less worth paying for thus loss of interest and so the end time.

Anyway, as per the topic...

I'd say the main contributing factors to the longevity of UO is (in no particular order) Obviously the players would be the main thing at this point.

#1) Character Creation & Customization.

#2) Pvp, Perhaps Pvm for some (I lose interest in pvm after the "fun" wears off)

#3) It's a sandbox, the freedom that comes with it is unique, which prolongs interest because you're not forced to do something by following a predetermined path for progression, instead you can choose between many different ways (although, it's imbalanced currently, quite a bit)

#4) In-game trading, very few items are not able to be traded, bought or sold in-game.  Most other MMOs, seem to go the character/account-bound route with almost everything you can get in-game.

#5) The Devs that maintain & update all of it. 

Despite some of their decisions being very questionable at times.

Tim

Mervyn said:

For me, obviously I think the strong Christian values and theme that UO has, has a lot to do with its longevity. The virtues are an obvious simarly to teaching a lot of what the bible teaches. The demons are to be slayed. The demon names from the bible are directly:
Molech and Beelzebuth.
 Ararat and the Ark of course are nice direct Christian touch. It’s a breath of fresh air from the other politically correct games. 

I tried really hard not to comment. But "strong Christian values" from the leading advocate of PvP play?

I'm not a student of comparative Religions but I'm confident the majority if not all teach the "virtues" in some form or the other. Also the demons names, mount Ararat and the Ark are also in "other" religions namely Jewish and probably Islam.

I'm not trying to criticize you or your religion but religion and politics are two thing that are to important and divisive to bring into the game. If you play because you see your chosen religion in the game fine but have the courtesy to keep it to yourself.

PS One of the reasons I don't like PvP is the moral grey aria of killing another human even if it is only a game.

Pawain

He said for him.  And there is a whole lot of PvP in the first books.

Rorschach

beware the trolls, tim.

Mervyn

I'm not trying to criticize you or your religion but religion and politics are two thing that are to important and divisive to bring into the game. If you play because you see your chosen religion in the game fine but have the courtesy to keep it to yourself.

I’m not religious. 

Bilbo

Mervyn said:

I'm not trying to criticize you or your religion but religion and politics are two thing that are to important and divisive to bring into the game. If you play because you see your chosen religion in the game fine but have the courtesy to keep it to yourself.

I’m not religious. 

OMG This is so funny, if you are not religious then why did you even bring it up.

Tim

Rorschach said:

beware the trolls, tim.

Oh I know but 

1. Some comments can't be left to stand with out being challenged 
2. I really think letting religion or politics into the game would kill it. I can see even the holidays recognized in the game being problematic (I don't know but how many places celebrate Halloween ?) We are after all a world wide game.
3. Following all of Mervyn's posts with  would probably get me banned 

DeadlySerious

Mervyn said:

For me, obviously I think the strong Christian values and theme that UO has, has a lot to do with its longevity. The virtues are an obvious simarly to teaching a lot of what the bible teaches. The demons are to be slayed. The demon names from the bible are directly:
Molech and Beelzebuth.
 Ararat and the Ark of course are nice direct Christian touch. It’s a breath of fresh air from the other politically correct games. 

If Jordan Peterson dabbled in a bit of UO I could imagine him saying something like this xD

On topic - Character Tempate, kit potential and a nice pet system (even more improved and interesting now!) + Pinco's client, I think these are key factor's as all the systems I mentioned are so strong in comparison to every other mmo currently, the only contests are games such as Archeage (class divesity is excellent) but it's heavily p2w. Obviously UO playerbase is super low but it's still alive thanks to UO's core mechanics, imo.

Tanager

I have dabbled in several other realms, but I always end up back in Sosaria. I think the most enduring thing about UO is that it offers a freedom of play style that other MMOs just don't.

1) There are no levels. I need a certain amount of strength, or a certain amount of skill - but this is not the same as a level based game. A lowly noob can party up with a 20 year vet, and there are no ''experience'' penalties or level limitations as to where they can go, kill, or quest.

2) Class restrictions are minimal. We have the general basics... Warrior, Caster/Controller, Crafter, Rouge. But even so, we can mix and match any skills and stats ANY way we want to create any sort of character we want. Some combinations might be more effective than others, but being the most effective is not always the most fun for some one. Furthermore, we can redo those combinations any time we feel like investing the effort.

3) From the very beginning, UO has been about freedom of choice. The entire notion of Good vs Evil has always been a factor - but unlike other MMOs that make this attempt, UO takes into account the existence of grey areas as well.

I do not do the gear grind any more. Kill things to get good gear so that I can kill better things to get better gear so that I can kill even harder things JUST to get better gear, etc etc. At this point, I tend to wear the most minimum of gear because I find that challenge to be fun. I don't do the farm grind any more either - kill the same things over an over so I can keep a vendor stocked and become rich. I do not insult those things - I used to enjoy it, and many folks still do. But for me, my game play for many years has been about helping others to enjoy those things, because I like the warm fuzzies. It's a win-win.

UO has a little bit of everything for everyone, and I think that is what makes it last.

Galder

best.game.ever.