events - prepare for e-rage.

[ClowN]

i have a simple solution to propose. As i understand, there are many players who enjoy the events. There are also many players who do not enjoy the events (i fall into this category for reasons already stated in this thread and many many other threads like it).

The pros/cons of having a server with/without automated events, have already been stated so i wont bother bullet pointing them in this post.

Why not temporarily suspend all automated events for a predetermined amount of time, and see first hand how it affects game play? Say maybe 2 weeks, or a month? And just measure the results in terms of active players, increasing/decreasing field pvp action, etc. At the end of the trial period, take a player poll and evaluate further.

[Panthor the Hated]

Solution for what? This isn't a drug we need to be weened off, many people simply want them to remain. Those people will play for events and often other things as well. If you don't like events don't play in them. I'm sorry if the person Matron wants to steal from or that TG wants to gank will be unavailable for 20 minutes but we don't need to cater to them any more than we need to cater to Sandro.

A real solution is to remove the trammel rules of the event areas, there really should be no unguarded zones that strictly prevent stealing/killing/mount stealing/ect..

Really, we don't even need event waiting rooms to begin with, just a sign up point. The tournys are a different deal since there needs to be actual arenas but it certainly shouldn't be a 'safe zone' in between fights.

There are actual issues with the event system here that do take away from the game. Instead of addressing them we have these entirely pointless threads where its events vs no events. Thats stupid and unproductive. Deep down I'm pretty sure you all know it won't happen anyways.

[Drunk Monk]

Sounds like good reasons to support your local orc horde. Even when our numbers are low, we still try roadblocks, running stealth archers through a dungeon, or some type of event (Minoc Invasion, Krull'nuk Summoning). Anything to mix it up ya know? Those last 2 took lots of preperation from Urk and work from the staff to pull off and was worth every bit we put into them. And if the staff couldn't help us, we would do events anyway.

[Tagarr]

Well worded post Panthor.

I agree with some of your points.
However, the fact that ALL of the automated events actually involve removing players from the natural UO landscape and placing them in venues that didn't exist, is the problem.

Sure, coding is better, and more elaborate things can be coded in to the game; but that doesn't mean we're going to go and throw rideable, color changing, glow in the dark, dissapearing wooly mamoths in, just because we know how to do it.

[andersej]

Sure, coding is better, and more elaborate things can be coded in to the game; but that doesn't mean we're going to go and throw rideable, color changing, glow in the dark, dissapearing wooly mamoths in, just because we know how to do it.

AHahaha

[Homie]

Well worded post Panthor.

I agree with some of your points.
However, the fact that ALL of the automated events actually involve removing players from the natural UO landscape and placing them in venues that didn't exist, is the problem.

Sure, coding is better, and more elaborate things can be coded in to the game; but that doesn't mean we're going to go and throw rideable, color changing, glow in the dark, dissapearing wooly mamoths in, just because we know how to do it.

What kind of problem?

The events are older than you and me. They existed before we joined and this "removal" doesnt really exist. its a concentration of players, hell yeah its a boost for gameplay. Where can you find so many people having pvp after an event, you wont see those mass fights without automated events in place. Maybe i forgot, that this possibly means you and your brothers wont be able to find players with 50 % health in a dungeon

Anyways there is no "testing" phase needed, we HAD this and it didnt work like SUGGESTED. End of story!

Again, people complaining about every small thing that is in place since ages are the problem not automated events.

regards

[Tagarr]

The events are older than you and me. They existed before we joined and this "removal" doesnt really exist.

What does that have anything to do with them being remotely era accurate?

"They've been here for a long time, that makes it ok."

Then we might as well call it game over and fix no further inaccuracies; because some of them have been here for longer than you and I?

Just because it's a component of the game that people enjoy doesn't make it accurate to the reproduction of the era, sorry.

If everyone enjoys the events so much, and they aren't INACCURATE to the end-goal, why don't we make the entire server revolve around events?
Block off everywhere but brit bank, make it no-loot/no-kill, and the only thing you can do is play back to back events?

Why draw the line at having them every couple hours?
This is my point; we've stretched and blurred the boundaries on what is and isn't deemed accurate strictly for the sake of keeping these events in play. Long story short, due to this "line blurring" we've cultivated a culture of players that relies on events to fuel their passion to play. I don't think that's necessarily what Derrick or anybody has in mind when joining a server whose main "marketing" selling point is reproducing the T2A experience.

[MatronDeWinter]

Why not temporarily suspend all automated events for a predetermined amount of time, and see first hand how it affects game play? Say maybe 2 weeks, or a month? And just measure the results in terms of active players, increasing/decreasing field pvp action, etc. At the end of the trial period, take a player poll and evaluate further.

The problem with this is that the people who only log on to events will just not log on, and spend their time playing whatever other server they play on while complaining on the forums. Even though there is a noticable increase in actual players in the actual game during this time, the drop in clients online will cause even more people who don't actually venture out into the actual game to complain as well.

This was tried before, and there was an increase in people at all of the major hotspots. Sadly, due to the impending server-apocalypse that a slightly lower client count causes, events were re-instated. The people who quit during this time know that it's only a matter of time before there are magical events in fairy land again. The only way to go about something like this is to give players no choice but to play the game, or do without.

[Homie]

What does that have anything to do with them being remotely era accurate?

Why do automated events concern era accuracy anyhow?

They were obviously inaccurate when implemented but intended to be a replacement for the old events constantly held by the staff on osi in 99, right?
After being in place for such a long time, it became a policy desicion in my opinion.

A lower event frequency or even the complete removal of automated events won't change the shard into anything more accurate, quite the opposite will happen. The event system as a compromise-feature in respect to the voluntary basis of the staff being removed for the doubtful hope for more interaction ingame is a bad deal for the whole playerbase. In the end a feature vanishes from the shard and no alternative is added.

Events - to me - are nothing more than a small but important additional bonus beside the farming, stealing, afk killing and other stuff you can do in britannia.

I would really recommend you to read the other relevant posts/threads regarding the silver/events/trophies subjects instead of warming up a topic that is totally squezed out.

regards

[Azimer]

Dunno if u guys remember but.... Staff toned down events a while back and the population took a hit.

The population count is an irrelevant point when it comes to events. If we are using the playercount as a driving force for changes on the server, then there are many other changes that could be done to increase the playerbase at the expense of mechanical accuracy.

You will have to accept that some UO players aren't as capable as other's when it comes to making a sand castle.... so they need auto sand castle's to give them a reason to game.

It is not the job of the server to provide you with content in a closed off environment that removes you from the normal interaction of the world. Players who require that must either accept that they will not get that in a mechanically accurate environment or they should just walk away.

I would propose the staff reform all "trammel" tourneys/events and slap them in the real world.... Although that would be asking a lot, as I'm sure that would require ALOT of time planning/scripting/fixing bugs.

Removing the events from the "trammel" (although it is arguable that the ruleset for event is even more restrictive than the trammel ruleset) ruleset is not enough. These events must also be run as normal events, and they must also be non-automated.

In my opinion, we don't have enough people making PvP type player run events. Combat Trammel with Felucia.

If there aren't enough people making PVP or PVM or any kind of player-run events, it seems self evident that the solution to that problem is not to provide an automated system that does it for you, and does it in a way that can never be accomplished in the normal world.

Some people joined this shard in march 2009 and have missed yet the vital points of "trammel" events and why they are not inaccurate (policy thing blabla..).

Events are a matter of mechanical accuracy. There were no automated events on OSI servers that existed as a unique event to any one server. Because the only "events" that might be considered automated (CUB/Trinsic Invasion) were events that existed on all servers, we must adhere to the accuracy of those events, since they existed on all servers. Beyond that, even the "automated events" that existed on OSI servers did not remove you from the real world.

People only play for events, thus we should remove events to increase the player base?

The fact that people play only for events is the problem. These players must either move out into the normal world, or they must quit because they refuse to interact. Of those two choices, it would be foolhardy to say that 100% of the players will choose one option or the other, which means that - to some degree - the number of people interacting in the normal world will increase. So yes, remove events to increase the player population in the normal world.

I completely disagree with to OP. I think there should be more events. In fact I have given up waiting around for the couple of random CTF games that fit into my play time schedule. Also please remember the rewards for the events do not impact game play at all and give no advantages to players. As far as I am concerned, silver could be done away with and events could happen on a fixed, daily schedule.

Disregarding silver (which is another topic), events remove players from the normal world, and place them in an isolated area of the game (both physically and mechanically wise). This is something that never happened on OSI servers.

I hope that people play here for fun and not to gain a feeling of accomplishment that they should be getting from the real world. While I do enjoy being out in the larger UO world, I do not feel a need to farm, collect useless pixels, or rid Brittania of the bad guys, ect. ect. My point is that events are fun. This game is old and most players have done everything that can be done 5 times already. Given this I can not understand why anyone would play with anything but a casual mindset. Events are convenient which maximizes fun for some players. I would rather spend a half hour pvping the whole time then 6 minutes fighting someone in a dungeon and the rest of that half hour preparing.

"Fun" is a subjective thing, and UOSA cannot increase "fun" for all players (because some players fun is inherently decreased when others have theirs increased) The only reasonable approach that secondage can take is to create a mechanically accurate environment, and let the players find their own fun in that environment.

Finally, I would like to encourage people to add to the shard rather than subtract. Please bring ideas of things you would like to do, rather than say all the things that you do not like. This shard, and UO in general, provides a lot of opportunity for the players to forge the game play and world environment. Saying that the game would be better by removing aspects that a lot of people like is not constructive. If you think that events destroy the community OP you should really get off your high horse and join one. You will see and interact with more players than you probably do in an entire month. You will be team mates with former enemies. Enemies with former friends. It is fun, which I believe is the goal for playing a game.

Again, the issue you point out is one of "fun". These events, which are a matter of mechanical accuracy, need to go as much as cutting bandages one at a time needed to be put in.

Events are very conducive to what I want to build on this shard.

What you or "I" or any other player wants for this server is irrelevant. Mechanical Accuracy is the prime stared goal of the server, and automated events interfere with that goal.

Era accurate game mechanics are one thing. In game content is another thing.
An increase in in game content will go a lot farther for player enjoyment than a removal of in game content.

"In game content" was very rarely produced by the GM`s on OSI (look at any pre-UOR server and see how few events were actually run). It was up to the players to come up with their own content which is the entire point behind a sandbox in the first place. Beyond that, even when the GM`s did produce in-game content the content was very rare (as mentioned before), was never automated on a server-to-server basis, and never removed players from the normal world, and the open interaction of that world.

These events are the best staff can do on their schedule to create in game content. When they have time they will replace these events with more real world in game events.

Should the GM`s be providing "in game content" that specifically removes players from the normal world, stifles interaction both in the "content area" and the normal world, and inherently breaks the risk vs reward framework that serves as the foundation of this era over 700 times a year (Or however many automated events take place on secondage per year)? Is that really what they should be doing in the first place?

well the 'real' argument is that they arent actually an 'accuracy' debate. They are a administrative policy decision. Ie - staff can run any custom event they want as did staff on OSI during the era.
They just have better code to run better events easier than they did a decade ago.

Events in their current form are NOT NOT NOT an issue of administrative policy. It would be proper to say that what events we choose to run are an administrative policy (because each server had its own set of events), but those events must adhere to the mechanical accuracy of the era, at the very least. This means that we cannot have any automated events. No OSI server had its own set of unique Automated events, We would also need to have all events exist in the normal world. No event ever removed players from the interactive environment. These are important factors in bringing our events in-line with the events seen on OSI servers.
If these actions are taken, then the king and frequency of events that we run could indeed be considered administrative decisions. However, until the issues with accuracy are ironed out, events are very much an issue of mechanical accuracy.

Also, better code is irrelevant as well. RunUO code is better equipped to handle things such as swing times than OSI code, but UOSA has intentionally reworked things to operate like OSI servers (check the patch notes for swing changes). If better code is a reason to stray from mechanical accuracy, then we should consider reverting our code to the original RunUO code, in spite of its effect on mechanical accuracy.

[Spitfire]

Just curious here (I do not remember on this shard or OSI), where did the silver system and tournaments come from? Did they exist on OSI? If they didn't exist on OSI, did the staff here just come up with them on their own?

[Sandro]

Somebody please explain to me why removing events will force players into the "real world" and to play the game. If a certain percent of people only login to play the events as it is now, what makes you think removing them completely will suddenly change their mindset to wanting to play on the field, 18 hours a day? People who don't play on the field or do much in game outside of events, do so for a reason. Removing the only reason they login won't make them play more.. This logic is pretty fail..

Its quite the opposite.

[Azimer]

Somebody please explain to me why removing events will force players into the "real world" and to play the game. If a certain percent of people only login to play the events as it is now, what makes you think removing them completely will suddenly change their mindset to wanting to play on the field, 18 hours a day? People who don't play on the field or do much in game outside of events, do so for a reason. Removing the only reason they login won't make them play more.. This logic is pretty fail..

Its quite the opposite.

If people only play for automated events and these events are removed they will either play in the normal world or they will quit the game. You cant say 100% of the players who play for events will quit the game nor can you say 100% of them will play in the normal world if automated events are removed.

If players have no choice but to interact in the normal world than they will interact in the normal world. Providing a non-mechanically accurate environment for players to interact outside the normal world takes players out of the interaction of the normal world.

[Quin the Wretch]

Panthor the Hated
Post subject: Re: events - prepare for e-rage.

A real solution is to remove the trammel rules of the event areas, there really should be no unguarded zones that strictly prevent stealing/killing/mount stealing/ect..

hear hear!! QFT and all that good stuff!

back in the day duels were a part of old UO life. They were respected and honored. Im sure some fuXxOrs griefed from time to time but it was rare. They were held out of town guards and people respected them. Winners were gracious and losers respectful. If some donkeytard looted he was reskilled to tears.

simple solution is move events to public places like Yew Bank roof, Blanche Isle, Wrong roof, etc etc. Have an event bot snoop and remove contraband. Good spot for CTF would be Yew Crypts or Hedgemaze. Just need an event bot to area kill the spawn for 30 min or w/e.

[Panthor the Hated]

tl;dr, your replies to me are soured by the 30 other people that said them before and were wrong though.