Bloody Ethics: It's not a game, it's a world

[crappled]

Mortal Online could always become the next UO, just needs more content, bug fixes and such.

For a short period in the beginning of Darkfall I thought that it was going to fill that role, but with the transfer of the euro characters to the US server it became apparent that Adventurine wasn't capable of making the right decisions for the game. A shame because the game itself was probably one of the most promising MMOs to come out in a LONG time.

[Halbu]

Mortal Online could always become the next UO, just needs more content, bug fixes and such.

For a short period in the beginning of Darkfall I thought that it was going to fill that role, but with the transfer of the euro characters to the US server it became apparent that Adventurine wasn't capable of making the right decisions for the game. A shame because the game itself was probably one of the most promising MMOs to come out in a LONG time.

My complaint with DarkFall is it feels too much like an FPS. People jump around like crazy, I like MO's pacing in the pvp. And the magery is a lot like UO which is a welcome change from most games with "cast bars".

[crappled]

Mortal Online could always become the next UO, just needs more content, bug fixes and such.

For a short period in the beginning of Darkfall I thought that it was going to fill that role, but with the transfer of the euro characters to the US server it became apparent that Adventurine wasn't capable of making the right decisions for the game. A shame because the game itself was probably one of the most promising MMOs to come out in a LONG time.

My complaint with DarkFall is it feels too much like an FPS. People jump around like crazy, I like MO's pacing in the pvp. And the magery is a lot like UO which is a welcome change from most games with "cast bars".

I don't mind the FPS magery and archery, but the melee really annoyed me. I wish there was more strategic blocking and swinging, rather than the crazy stupid spinning around running in dumb patterns. I wouldn't even be opposed to standing toe to toe with someone and fighting them like that, if the swing/block timing or melee powers you used actually made some kind of difference.

[jesot]

That is actually an amusing article. It manages to miss the point on so many things. I especially love the prediction of the virtual world we should be living in by now. UO, in its original concept of designing a world that would be run by the inhabitants while living fantasy lives, was a failure. There is a reason the vast majority of game players don't play games like the original UO or T2A...

Most of them have no choice or have never played a game with risk. Most games now are static and completely dictated by the developers.

But if you take a look at Eve, you see 200,000 subscribers for a game far more risk-laden than even UO was in its most savage incarnations. Sure, there are loads of people that want to play a cookie cutter carrot-on-a-stick grindfest, but a lot of these new MMO gamers just have never had the choice or even knew about other options when they were available.

There's a market for a medieval themed game like Eve -- like UO:T2A. A game with true risk v. reward, openness, player-chosen paths, etc.

And I just completely disagree with the idea that the game was/is too harsh. When I first started out in UO, I ran into a group of folks who were dedicated to defending other players from PKs. None of them had a house, so we also didn't have a guild stone. They hooked me up with their guild colors and some equipment to get started. We'd go killing ratmen and lizardmen in the swamps East of Brit, and if we had a decent group, we'd go to the Brit GY (It was a couple weeks before I ever left the Brit area). If there were reds, we'd amass a horde and camp the fuck out of their house(s). There were ALWAYS groups like that. Players policed themselves. If you got killed, you learned to play smarter.

A friend from the Brit-based non-guild I was in took me with him to a new guild that was actually doing stuff (treasure hunts, dungeon crawls, etc.) They taught me a bit more about the game. Skill gain, gold farming, various other tips & tricks. They were based on Ice Isle outside of Deceit. On my own time, I'd farm water elementals. When I had guildies on, they'd take me to the bone wall. I eventually got a couple silver swords and graduated to the lich room. EVERYONE knows about the lich room. Everyone would jump on the lich's and you'd pray that the corpse was yours to loot. Undoubtedly, there would be a PK or a group of players that would roll through, usually dragging the poison elemental with behind them. You learn how to deal with that situation, or you find somewhere else to hunt. And that's the thing, there were always other places with less risk that just didn't pay off as well as quickly. That's how things should be.

The risk for the PK or the guy dragging the poison elemental? For the PK, death was the worst thing that could happen. Stat loss was no joke. For the guys that just dragged the poison elemental and hid? The consequences might not have been as bad, but there was still risk in it. There was also the factor of killing the wrong person and having their entire guild chase you to across the map and camp you (and people didn't forget...names were written down, ICQ messages were SENT). And then there were other consequences. When I was coming up and was in my questing/dungeon crawling guild, there'd be the occasional gate that would open up to the spamming of "Bart Kill". Well, it was fun as shit camping and toying with those guys later on when I was 7x instead of 0x and in a PvP-oriented guild.

As someone who dealt with getting killed a lot, was never rich, and only went red a handful of times (always helping friends while out of guild or if my friend was gray/red)...UO wasn't that bad. It wasn't that harsh. There were always other ways to get where you wanted to go. There were always other paths to accomplish a goal. The trauma of dying and getting looted wasn't that bad. You got smarter in what you carried on you. You became a better player and grew as a person. The only game where "losing" was actually very toxic was in Shadowbane... I loved Shadowbane and we really never lost a major city, but we sure crushed a few...and people would leave the game in droves when that happened (though I wouldn't have been such a bitch, I don't blame people - that was months down the drain that they'll never recover because we'd just bane the next tree they put up). We didn't quit when we lost stuff in UO, we just got smarter.

If you don't think there are 200,000 people that would play Medieval Eve or T2A Era UO with a nice new engine, you're crazy. And at current rates ($15/m), that's $36m/y on subscriptions alone with another $10m from initial purchase. People want a game like that. There are caveats, though. First, the game has to have a clean aesthetic...Darkfall was a nice attempt at recapturing just the PvP aspect of UO, but it was an ugly game in an ugly, lifeless world...and no one wanted to play the game for the other aspects like exploration and crafting. Second, people have to know the game exists. There's plenty of money for such a game, it just has to be done and marketed right.