Play style vs gaining new players

[Pirul]

If this sort of stuff is making people leave then they just aren't cut out for this shard. It's always going to happen on here and while players leaving isn't a good thing they wouldn't last in the long run anyway.

I think this misses the whole point. As benny said, when the game originally came out, the ratio of "trammies" to PKs + thieves was way different. A gank squad of 5 or 6 pk's would run into any spawn and be met by 10+ farmers. Granted the farmers would scatter like feathers and one or two would die, but if you were a farmer the odds of escaping were 80-90%. Here most new players will farm alone, or in groups of 2 or 3, where if a single PK runs in (which, when you add that most are more experienced and much better at what they do than the PK's in OSI), he will surely drop one of the farmers, and most probably 2. If he's really good + lucky, he'll drop all 3. If you look at those odds for a new player...it pretty much sucks. Additionally, if you went to Brit bank, the sheer number of people would dilute the ratio of people vs. thieves. If you go to WBB now, how many thieves per "customer" will you find?

For a new player this might seem overwhelming. Guilds like C^V, IL, and NEW, we try to take in or at least provide some tips and pointers to new players, however, as you should all well know, we can't cover all the new players. Which brings me to another thing, Mikel123, the information you have posted in the forums is invaluable, and incredibly helpful, unfortunately, NOT ALL NEW PLAYERS READ THE FORUMS, so they have no clue as to how Razor works, what is the best template, how and what to equip to escape PK's, or how to meet/contact helpful guilds/players. This supports all that benny said, about the learning curve, multiclienting, Razor, etc.

This is not a flame, but discussions like this are what birthed Trammel. Just saying.

I don't agree with this statement at all.

If you stumble upon someone farming on a bard and they die in one or two ebolts without moving more than one or two tiles then they are prolly newbs. Try telling the ghost that he needs to try a lesser spawn, maybe pop a gate to town(maybe use his rune) Dont call his ghost a nub fag and kill his mount! I think adding the insult to the injury is more damaging than just pking.

+1

We, or at least I, am not asking PK's and griefers to stop their activities, but it's not difficult to find out if a player is new, and doesn't have a clue, or if he at least knows what he's doing (if you kill a dexxer in Brit GY or Yew liches, and he's got no pots or trapped pouches on him, you can get a clue that he doesn't know much about the game). If you do find those players, don't be a *synonim for penis* and throw him a gate and tell them about NEW, the forums, etc. If you steal their only 300gps while they are sitting at the bank afk, leave him a book telling them to go to Barrier Isle to look for new player housing, or to find C^V.

I think the player base will only really come from players from the t2a era, or atleast players with UO experience.

Also, not my experience in the least. Granted, most 1337 PvPers will have a lot of UO experience, but since we at C^V actually are on the look out for new players, we find a multitude of them who are playing UO for the first time in UOSA. Many of our former and current members are having their first exposure to UO on this server. A couple of experienced members have even brought their sons, daughters and nephews to play UO on this shard.

Many have left overtime, but at least we try that they do not leave earlier because their experience was bad.

So, as benny said, just pointing them to NEW, IL and/or C^V might make a huge difference.

[TheEttinKing]

I am a farmer my goal in this game was to kill monsters and acquire wealth and make a few friends.
In all the time i played on this server about a year or better i had 2 friends one was Stranger who is a friend irl and Platypus who i met thru stranger the rest of the people who play here are Assholes.

I had to bank in a town that was populated by npc's cause if i went to brit i would be naked within 2 seconds of recalling in and missing a kidney.

When i was farming i got pked every 10 minutes, they killed me my mount my monster then called me profane names for 15 minutes and bragged about how bad i was and how leet they were.
Rinse and repeat that step all day long for a year


I was harrased by other players here so much that ive almost shot my monitor irl and lord knows how many times i picked it up to throw it out the window that is next to it and had to restrain myself.

Some one should host a Uosa convention so i can run you all over with my truck.

And at the end of my uosa career i look back and say man i bet thats why they added a trammel it must be nice there not having to deal with all that.

[Grom]

This shard is so far closer to what the developers intended than any other custom shard out there, because in fact, the era we mimic was one when sales were good back then and they could develop as they saw fit. Pretty much 2000-onwards, they had to simply cater to the majority of the playerbase (and by this I mean, 75%, not 99%) to maintain as much revenue as they could in their dying game. So, goodbye vision, hello catering to whiners.

If you honestly think it was their "vision" to have to do meaningless macros to exploit your mounts stamina up, you better not go into game development. The era was flourishing at the time, yes, largely due to the lack of competition, not because their current build was flawless, bug free, balanced, or anything of the sort. While I agree the addition of Trammel was to cater to a larger playerbase, they had a lot of good changes as well.

Uh yeah. This is like showing up at the Ming Dynasty restaurant and going ballistic because they won't let you order a pizza.

Who's going ballistic? This is a thread about play style and new players, and getting them to stay. I'm giving the perspective of over 10 new players who just started on this server (my guild/friends), some of which did played at UO release (even if I did not, as I've stated many times, UO:R is when i started). You're going to have a hard time drawing in any new players if you implement meaningless patches that both a) inconvenience players for no reason and b) serve no other purpose than for "accuracy", even if it was a bug at the time. For example, I believe people talk about duping as a bug in this era yes? Why isn't that implemented? Shouldn't it be for accuracy? No, of course it shouldn't, neither should some other bugs, but a select few have a panic attack if things aren't as accurate as possible. You can still have a server accurate to the principles of the era, while fixing obvious mechanical bugs or things they were obviously going to fix but didn't make it before your cut off date.

Reduced mount stamina is fine, I've killed several people whos horse ran out of stamina but they would have been fine if they were on a frenzied.

How is it fine, the only person who would ever die due to a horse running out of stamina, is some poor noob who doesn't have a macro setup, all it takes is a the press of a button to dismount, all follow me, remount, and bam, full horse stamina again. I don't know about you, but having a frenzied certainly hasn't been a big deal in my experience, hell we just randomly tap our macros as we're travelling around to make sure our mounts are full stam at all times, it's just inconvient and broken.

About the housing, only a character who also owns a house cannot be co-ownered to another house. Transfer ownership of your house to another charcter, co-own the original owner of your house to it, now you can be coowned to your guild house.

It is my understanding that they plan on phasing out co-owners entirely, so no, you won't be able to do that.

I don't understand people who complain about the abundance of hally mages, the theme of the game is of magic, its a magical game. Ya you can play a dexxer, or w/e but a hally mage is the base character and the most well rounded, its like complaining that too many people play as mario in super mario world instead of luigi. There are several viable templates all of which have weaknesses, to me the game is pretty balanced. Keep in mind how old the game is, there isnt gonna be a bunch of different classes like WoW or somthing.

When people say a major reason why hally mages were so devastating this era, was due to very few people having high resist (almost no one gm), and yet still the vast majority are hally mages that dominate the field regardless, one is led to believe that something definitely isn't accurate. It was the staple of the era as people put it, but it was like that because no one ran around with gm resist. Yet here, on this server, either gm resist isn't negating as much as it should, or other combat mechanics/balance is off, my moneys on the melee/archery mechanics, as I still don't see why melee has to stop for a second for their swing to go off nor why archery damage delay is so incredibly long.

[Foopy]

Perhaps I haven't been here long enough but I've seen a total of 0 guild battles since starting up. Say what you want about Tram but the fact is it gave the nubs an option to bail on getting pwned and left the rest to try their luck with people who could actually defend themselves.

I've played on and off for an extremely long time and I'd rather lose in a fair fight than butcher bards all day.

Tram was honestly the best thing for competitive balance, at least on Chesapeake. If you truly fancy yourself a PVP'er then you should ply your trade VS oranges rather than blues. This led to respect between players and boycotts on running even numbers, recalling, chugging pots 1v1 and wielding magic weapons.

This is the first shard I've played where the top guilds and PVP'ers were not instantly visible. But this is all symptomatic of a small player base and I personally agree with the OP that griefing just reenforces the status quo.

PK was almost exclusively a secondary playstyle. I can recall very few career reds once statloss came into effect.

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

@ Pirul & EttinKing:

+1

Foopy made some good points too.

I think some of the others can take it a little easier on Grom who, ultimately (pun intended), is only pointing to the exploitation-potential of mechancal-era-accuracy: I've pointed-out elsewhere that any UO of any era (read, "publish") is/was a dynamic, not finished, product; the devs may have been basking in UO limelight in the T2A era, but that does not mean that they completely implemented "their perfect vision", devoid of bugs/flaws, during the era.

In fact, precisely the opposite: the OSI marketing Nazis were pushing new material (UOR), particularly in an attempt to maintain their market hegemony over rivals like EverQuest; as "finishing" T2A was always something occupying the "back burners", some fixes that needed to be designed and implemented simply never got any further than discussion over coffee in the lunch room.

Of course, there is no way for any of us to know the full extent of what modifications were intended, but never implemented.

Yeah, I'm plugging "Thematic Era Accuracy" again, but bear in mind the statement I've made immediately above: anything to be considered in such a context is going to require some tangible evidence proving that the T2A devs were dissatisfied with those particular T2A mechanics. Certainly, this must not be abused by anyone who only wants the mechanics of *whatever* to satisfy his/her own personal agenda.

I'd love to see more new (to UO) players, here at UOSA, but I don't want Trammel (Haha, on an entirely-unrelated matter, Derrick asked me to find a tile reference using Razor, and Razor told me I was in Felucca! ). A small thing that might help the community as a whole might be if UOSA staff issue an(other) announcement, pointing to shard policies (particularly harassment); such a "reminder" might curb griefers (it also might encourage whiners to complain about griefing that isn't griefing ... oh well).

Hey, EttinKing, don't leave UOSA; join my guild instead!

SS

[potamus]

I am beginning to notice a shift in conversation focusing now on how hally mages (leaning more towards what this thread is seemingly about) ruled the era because nobody had GM resist and blah blah. Er, I should apologize, I am not trying to sound like an ass, but anyone who says that things are different now, then they were then, simply because most everyone did not GM resist or have a 7x character for that matter; come on guys some of you are making it sound like the developers never tested templates and what not, because I can bet you they tested at least several templates for pvp. Setting resist to 100 was probably a given during any testing in pvp. However yes, over time I bet they had issues finding their own flaws and bugs within the system. So far to date I believe the bugs now are mere annoyances then true exploits like: swinging your halberd every 2.5 seconds regardless of stamina. My advice, don't sweat the small stuff. Go out and find the real bugs that cause players to truly gain advantages that drive off new comers.

[Derrick]

While the goal is for shard to be accurate, I certainly understand why these changes have been frustrating for many. There has been no intentional catering to anyone; In many months prior to the last series of patches much focus had been on the smaller things aiming to increase accuracy in a way that steered away from making major game play changes for the sake of some stability; but the time came that these other problems just needed to be fixed; and dreading it all the way we've done the best we could as fast as we could to implement required changes to the combat system and mounts. I do hope that we can enter another period of relative stability for a while. As there's really few big inaccurate issues left on the shard apart from issues with housing.

I hope to focus on some other shard features in the coming weeks and months, and one of my primary goals is to develop an "online playable demo" that will be listed on the shard list when you connect. I think that the barrier to new players on Second Age is huge and I'm very excited about addressing this in a very fun way.

On the concern about refreshing a mounts stamina by dismounting. There is no doubt this is an accurate OSI feature and all appearances are that it was an intentional feature. We know that it was in pre-T2A as we have the code; and I believe we also know when it was taken out post-Era, although I don't have that in front of me right now. This is certainly not something that most people were aware of in era; and as such I have refrained from commenting much on the mechanics of it.

I guess I should let the cat out of the bag, and mention two things that allow this to make more sense:
This applies to all pets in follow mode. When they are following their stamina is constantly refreshed.
You do not have to say "all follow me" when you hop off, as long as they are in follow mode their stamina is refreshed constantly, unless they are mounted.

Hopefully this will alleviate some concerns about having to do this with a macro, and also make everything look a little less silly. I've hesitated to talk about this feature because it's not exactly something that OSI published in any of their infomation, but was bought up here by players not staff and I desired to leave it in that realm. Sorry for the spoiler.

[malice-tg]

First off Id like to say that this is NOT a whine on my part. Id like to start a serious discussion about this. I came to this server knowing I will have a long learning curve to learn pvp. I played UO back during the t2a days so knew what to expect when I found this server. Kudos to Derrick et al for doing a wonderful job. Im having a blast and would like to see this server thrive.

That being said what about the people who didnt know what to expect having never played UO before. How long will they last considering all the pranks,antics and tricks that are being played on them to kill them and/or take their hard earned belongings? Ive been here about 2 months now and ive been working hard to make myself self reliant, in the process Ive met a lot of people including a lot of new people. What Im seeing as a problem is that most of these new people dont last long. I meet them, chat with them for a while over a few days time and never see them again. Most of their conversations seem to center around the huge amount of grief they are receiving. I realize this is part of T2A but how can the server grow?

In the same 2 months I have been here there doesnt seem to be any growth in the number of people online.

i dont think pking / pvp/ noto pking decreases population.

our biggest spike in population per unit of time was when a large amount of german pvp guilds joined. we gained like 200-300 clients and they rolled dungeons with 5 -6 people.

i think once new players figure out the game (without pks) they would quit due to boredom. farming uninterrupted for hours is not what uo is about. uo is about player interaction in a sandbox environment.

if we stopped encouraging people to make "farming" characters the server would be better off.

in t2a 1998-1999 people farmed on their "main" tank mages in the higher level spawns so they could defend themselves if anyone were to attack them. if anyone back then brought a bard to a high level spawn on catskills the other pvm players would reject them because the bard would steal fame and generally was weaker and unwanted.

so in conclusion people like a challenge and are more likely to quit when gold gains are easy and player interaction is minimal.

[Pirul]

i dont think pking / pvp/ noto pking decreases population.

Agreed, it's being a prick about it that turns new players off.

[Foopy]

i dont think pking / pvp/ noto pking decreases population.

I agree, but PK'ing really seems to be the only visible form of PVP on this server outside of tourneys. I don't fault anyone for doing it, it's a fun play style, but speaking to your comment about people enjoying a challenge...

Where is the challenge in PK'ing on this shard? Fast skill gains and multiple clients remove the primary challenge to PK's during this era. Mechanically accurate statloss is ineffectual with inaccurate skill gains and inaccurate playstyles (multiclient ghosting).

In my personal opinion, all the mechanical accuracy in the world isn't going to offset the proliferation of era inaccurate playstyles and I see this shard having a tough go of it whenever that other shard completes beta.

No offense intended toward Derrick, this shard is run very well. The onus for this reality is on the players. As in real life you shouldn't do something simply because you can.

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

i dont think pking / pvp/ noto pking decreases population.

Agreed, it's being a prick about it that turns new players off.

I endorse this clarification: if some of those "PvP"ers have left UOSA because they weren't deriving enough satisfaction here from being cheap, lame, chihuahuas (oh noes! QQs!), then there must be a few things that the design team, and the player community, are doing right.

malice-tg, your remark regarding bards makes me chuckle, as its not dissimilar from the mentality I've just described.

Pre-T2A, "killers" (PvM as well as PvP) were all Tank Mages because their was no reason to build your skillset otherwise; with T2A, "killers" had to modify their builds and favour magic over melee, or vice versa; bear in mind, that the Guild system had also just started-up "full gear" within the playing community.

A single Bard, a single pure Fighter, and a single pure Mage, acting in co-operation owned the entire dungeon floor; at the bottom levels, you'd need 2 or 3 (or even 4-6; I have such fond memories of Hythloth) such teams to steamroll the spawns.

Of course, the problem was that such teams were kind of difficult to find and/or put together: most experienced players simply converted their Tank Mages to Hally Mages and carried on solo; most of the "teams" you would see would likewise be teams of Hally Mages, who couldn't own the floor themselves, but would immediately turn-on and PK any Bard-Fighter-Mage trio who arrived to "show them up" ("dem farmerz tink deyz betta dan me! I show dem! [what a cheap, lame chihuahua I can be when I attack someone for no reason by surprise]"); additionally, whoever your bard was knew full-well he/she would be dropped in a mana-dump, if he/she became the first target when PKs came prowling around (so, it was a difficult position to fill).

In my opinion, this cooperative facility of alternative skillsets was what made T2A so great while, at the same time, permitting characters to be free of any/all "chains" imposed by a strict character-class structure.

I'm quite pleased to point-out to all loner-chihuahuas that, generally speaking, they are not wanted: neither here at UOSA, nor anywhere else, including real life!

SS

EDIT: some of my "characteristic diction" has been changed; no need to be (excessively) impolite.

SS

[Pro]

rofl you actually think people were jealous of others pvm skills?

[Sticks]

On the concern about refreshing a mounts stamina by dismounting. There is no doubt this is an accurate OSI feature and all appearances are that it was an intentional feature. We know that it was in pre-T2A as we have the code; and I believe we also know when it was taken out post-Era, although I don't have that in front of me right now. This is certainly not something that most people were aware of in era; and as such I have refrained from commenting much on the mechanics of it.

I guess I should let the cat out of the bag, and mention two things that allow this to make more sense:
This applies to all pets in follow mode. When they are following their stamina is constantly refreshed.
You do not have to say "all follow me" when you hop off, as long as they are in follow mode their stamina is refreshed constantly, unless they are mounted.

Hopefully this will alleviate some concerns about having to do this with a macro, and also make everything look a little less silly. I've hesitated to talk about this feature because it's not exactly something that OSI published in any of their infomation, but was bought up here by players not staff and I desired to leave it in that realm. Sorry for the spoiler.

HAHAHA. That is awesome. It is amazing the capacity of humans for superstition. In another thread I saw someone comment about feeding their horse to regain its stam, and I could swear I remember doing to same way back when. If that and the all follow me 'trick' did indeed exist and arise due to this system which the importance of other actions were mistakenly attributed, all the more amusing.

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

rofl you actually think people were jealous of others pvm skills?

You are the only person to mention jealousy; is that the best justification you can offer to explain why cheap toy poodle lamers act like cheap toy poodle lamers?

Otherwise, this remark says absolutely nothing.

Hmm, further back we have a reference describing bards as being unwelcome on the dungeon killfloors, because they "stole fame" (this would be a neat trick: fame goes to whoever strikes the killing blow) and otherwise "were weaker" (that incredible weakness known as stealing off the entire spawn) and were "unwanted" (because they probably had their own crew with them and, so, were unwilling to give charity to freeloaders).

Earlier, one of the Hally-Mage crowd was whining about how "boring PvM is ... grinding for hours in a dungeon". THIS, Pro, is where your ROFL belongs: hours? HOURS? Um, the Bard-Mage-Fighter trio left the dungeon completely stuffed with (good) loot not more than 30 minutes after arrival.

Hally-Mage PvM: (a group) hiding behind the corner of the wall in the cavern at Destard, stepping out every two minutes to drop a fresh Blade Spirit (or even, *gasp* Energy Vortex!) on the Ancient Wyrm(s) hung up on the stalagmite (you all know the spot I'm talking about: I'm sure a lot of Hally Mages kill eachother over it). Yeah, my time's too valuable for Hally-Mage PvM, too.

More ROFL material for you: the collective voice of the cheap-lamer-toy poodle-crowd blames whiny PvMers for "carebear" worlds like Trammel, or WoW (I've never played WoW, so I'm not sure what it's like there).

What a bunch of cheap-lamer-toy poodle-developmentally-challenged horsecookies: the publishers are publishing "carebear" games not because they are protecting whiny PvMers from "leetPvP pwnage (FTW!)"; they are publishing these "carebear" games, and carefully inserting harassment clauses into their players' Codes of Conduct, to protect their business interests from the predation of cheap lamer toy poodles; beyond taking money from the griefers up until they get themselves banned, they want no interaction with the griefing community whatsoever.

Those who can, do;
Those who can't, teach;
Those who can't teach, teach Phys-Ed;
Those who can't teach Phys-Ed ... apparently PK defenseless noobs on UOSA.

SS

EDIT: altered some diction to selections more-palatable for general consumption, and also altered some phrasing that might imply I'm attacking or blaming Pro, which I'm not, really; he got caught-up in the aftermath of my "jealousy" retort, but some of the subsequent remarks seemed also to be aimed at him, which would be neither fair nor, indeed, accurate.

SS

[Mikel123]

I guess I should let the cat out of the bag, and mention two things that allow this to make more sense:
This applies to all pets in follow mode. When they are following their stamina is constantly refreshed.

Interesting... so my dragon fights a Balron and gets pounded on for a while, but I heal him and he ultimately prevails. Now as soon as I tell him to follow me, his stamina goes back to full? That's very interesting. Not a *huge* difference-maker for pvm, but interesting nonetheless.