If not Trammel, then what?
Re: If not Trammel, then what?
There should have been a way to arrest murderers and utilize the prison, making them serve time. A public execution and deletion of murderer characters would also have been great. That murderer will no longer be a nuisance and balance restored... at least for the moment.
Re: If not Trammel, then what?
"Murderers" protect noble beasts such as dragons and wyrms from nefarious bards that cause families to kill each other.
They are doing a service to the wildlife, if anything bards should get murder counts.
I believe that PKs should continue in greater numbers.
They are doing a service to the wildlife, if anything bards should get murder counts.
I believe that PKs should continue in greater numbers.
Please choose a more appropriate signature.
Re: If not Trammel, then what?
Dont forget protection of the environment from deforestation or the leveling of mountains. any pk guild called world wildlife foundation? hahaSoma wrote:"Murderers" protect noble beasts such as dragons and wyrms from nefarious bards that cause families to kill each other.
They are doing a service to the wildlife, if anything bards should get murder counts.
I believe that PKs should continue in greater numbers.
Re: If not Trammel, then what?
The Hardcore Title on a Murderer would have done the job. If a Murderer dies, his character gets deleted. Would have easily countered the consistent garbage that destroyed a PvP environment that everyone enjoyed. Trammel just made it possible for you to avoid that interaction altogether as a blue. Not saying it was bad to enjoy mindlessly killing blues I just think you wouldn't throw away counts on blues who didn't carry what you 'needed' or 'wanted'. Of course, when the penalty of PK'ing is too harsh it is the reds who start to whine... look at IPY2 lol.
Re: If not Trammel, then what?
Murderer character deletion would have been pretty harsh but that doesn't seem to be a very balanced system. For example, a murderer that has a tally of 5 that just turned red compared to one that has a tally of 500 would share the same demise.
Statloss penalties being tweaked and increased would be more of a realistic change. The current t2a mechanic is something like 1% per murder with a cap of a 20% loss. Removing this cap for a 100% penalty would have produced a better feature in my opinion. This type of restrctured system would better resemble character deletion for the more severe murderers allowing the less severe murderers to have the possibility of redemption for their character.
Perma red feature solved the blue player killing situation.
Plus don't even get me started on IPY, lol. Az drove that shard to it's demise just as predicted by me. The same fate was shared by Divinity and Revelation too. Ryan and Az do not take warnings very well at all, their loss.
Statloss penalties being tweaked and increased would be more of a realistic change. The current t2a mechanic is something like 1% per murder with a cap of a 20% loss. Removing this cap for a 100% penalty would have produced a better feature in my opinion. This type of restrctured system would better resemble character deletion for the more severe murderers allowing the less severe murderers to have the possibility of redemption for their character.
Perma red feature solved the blue player killing situation.
Plus don't even get me started on IPY, lol. Az drove that shard to it's demise just as predicted by me. The same fate was shared by Divinity and Revelation too. Ryan and Az do not take warnings very well at all, their loss.
Re: If not Trammel, then what?
First post here! 
I have to disagree that Trammel was necessary.. Thinking back to that time (T2A), many people were not really accustomed to MMORPGs in general, it was a huge new world. There were so many new styles of play and things to do, I know I had trouble wrapping my head around all the options open to me - so I did the only thing I could - I just went with the flow and enjoyed the game as it came to me. I didn't spend endless hours on forums at this time, talking about the technicalities of combat mechanics or whatever - I just played the game.
I think people can respond in two different ways to this, people with a bit of imagination and dedication will enjoy it and the whiners, well, they will whine. For me just playing the game resulted in epic journeys, miserable deaths and meeting some great people (eventually) - I made friends several times with PKs after they killed me. I was never one myself, that wasn't my style, but I enjoyed the threat they posed, it kept me on my toes. They were exactly like me before, only they progressed further and chose a different play style. The same path of dedication/imagination vs whining was presented to them also.
You cannot say the game was made impossible to play by PKs, and if it ever were it didn't need Trammel, it just needed more time and for OSI/EA to stick to their guns on their vision of a MMORPG, you cannot just turn it into an EQ, WoW etc. It is also no coincidence that the other great sandbox MMO of our era, Star Wars Galaxies (developed by some of the ex-UO team) also suffered the exact same fate of being turned into a hideous monstrosity. Both games dying this way are tragedies yes.. but what is worse is that no future MMOs will likely appeal to our marketing demographic, personally I think this is a problem for humanity in general rather than my personal problem.
Just watch how the whiners are now the main targeted demographic by these so called game companies, look at the miserable failure that was Star Wars Old Republic, a game that had everything the whiners wanted. The whiners will always move on from game to game, whining and moaning and pissing about, never happy and even hating themselves as we enjoy our UO the way its meant to be.
As for UO Second Age, this is a great shard - I like the staff's resoluteness in not giving in to things like bank checks etc. That is the way to be, firm. Let's hope they continue to take it forward in a UO 2TA-like direction somehow.
I have to disagree that Trammel was necessary.. Thinking back to that time (T2A), many people were not really accustomed to MMORPGs in general, it was a huge new world. There were so many new styles of play and things to do, I know I had trouble wrapping my head around all the options open to me - so I did the only thing I could - I just went with the flow and enjoyed the game as it came to me. I didn't spend endless hours on forums at this time, talking about the technicalities of combat mechanics or whatever - I just played the game.I think people can respond in two different ways to this, people with a bit of imagination and dedication will enjoy it and the whiners, well, they will whine. For me just playing the game resulted in epic journeys, miserable deaths and meeting some great people (eventually) - I made friends several times with PKs after they killed me. I was never one myself, that wasn't my style, but I enjoyed the threat they posed, it kept me on my toes. They were exactly like me before, only they progressed further and chose a different play style. The same path of dedication/imagination vs whining was presented to them also.
You cannot say the game was made impossible to play by PKs, and if it ever were it didn't need Trammel, it just needed more time and for OSI/EA to stick to their guns on their vision of a MMORPG, you cannot just turn it into an EQ, WoW etc. It is also no coincidence that the other great sandbox MMO of our era, Star Wars Galaxies (developed by some of the ex-UO team) also suffered the exact same fate of being turned into a hideous monstrosity. Both games dying this way are tragedies yes.. but what is worse is that no future MMOs will likely appeal to our marketing demographic, personally I think this is a problem for humanity in general rather than my personal problem.
Just watch how the whiners are now the main targeted demographic by these so called game companies, look at the miserable failure that was Star Wars Old Republic, a game that had everything the whiners wanted. The whiners will always move on from game to game, whining and moaning and pissing about, never happy and even hating themselves as we enjoy our UO the way its meant to be.
As for UO Second Age, this is a great shard - I like the staff's resoluteness in not giving in to things like bank checks etc. That is the way to be, firm. Let's hope they continue to take it forward in a UO 2TA-like direction somehow.
Re: If not Trammel, then what?
Oh I don't disagree - but you have to give Az credit for his ideas, actual implementation is something different.Faust wrote: Plus don't even get me started on IPY, lol. Az drove that shard to it's demise just as predicted by me. The same fate was shared by Divinity and Revelation too. Ryan and Az do not take warnings very well at all, their loss.
IPY2 is an unplayable mess and was from day 1, doesn't mean he wasn't on to something with the Paladin system, etc. Easily the most original attempt at a statloss alternative so far.
Re: If not Trammel, then what?
IIRC didn't Divinity opt to use no mounts/no gating? That kinda sucked.. though IPY was fun, the original anyway. I remember IPY had that verification thing for multiple accounts in that you had to have actual IP addresses on your LAN approved by sending a screenshot haha. I read Divinity went down the drain because they didn't want to maintain it anymore, though I wasn't around when that happened - how/why did it end exactly?
Ryan doesn't seem to listen to anyone I believe, I remember making myself an admin on runuo.com (the option was hidden away in groups), informing Ryan and receiving no thanks or anything - it was fixed though. He was probably too busy on another Ron Paul campaign to reply...
Ryan doesn't seem to listen to anyone I believe, I remember making myself an admin on runuo.com (the option was hidden away in groups), informing Ryan and receiving no thanks or anything - it was fixed though. He was probably too busy on another Ron Paul campaign to reply...
Re: If not Trammel, then what?
I see a lot of people using Trammel as an all inclusive term for many things. What I remember in seeing the transition from T2A to Renaissance. There was one land mass (where housing could be placed) that was basically completely full because T2A was an expansion itself that added a new land (The Lost Lands but no housing could be placed there.) The population grew to a point and from what I could tell and it seemed like new players were most likely turned off by the difficulties that were there.
Now I know the "deal with it" concept but when a small house anywhere on the map was around 3 times the deed cost and the scarcity of resources it could be quite difficult for the new player to break into a basically set society where they would face many veteran players with vast resources and high level characters. But that could be overcome so that is not a good reason to complain.
Next were the complainers about pking, etc, etc. There complaints to me don't hold any water because they probably shouldn't have been playing a game with the risk T2A had.
To me OSI took the easy way out, relatively (though it created huge problems), and established a different rule set in their new land they called Trammel named after one of the moons mentioned in the Ultima series. This new rule set is what gradually deteriorated the game to what see today on the OSI servers. Everyone knows already what the game is today, which is one of very little risk and waiting for that reward to pop into your backpack or in your bank box. Thus the change in rule set decreased the population and the last time I played OSI which was around 2006/2007. The 4 lands (where housing could be placed) they had (Fel, Tram, Malas, Tokuno) most of them seemed quite empty as the amount of land area was way greater than the population even needed. Now if someone has played more recently and things have changed then I am sure they could correct me and probably will.
I would say that there were a few things that came along with the Renaissance expansion that were pretty cool and gave the game some more variety and had some new challenges for players. But changing the rule set put the game on a downward spiral. What has been mentioned earlier in this thread was one of the main issues also was combating PKs. Several of the ideas that I have read in this thread are quite similar ideas I have read by other people on a few other forums that were OSI players still or at one time. They basically hit the nail on the head, in that a complete rule set change was not the answer but in game functions (outside of PvP combat) that players could use to reprimand PKs or other unsavory characters.
I think the addition of another land (not a copy) where housing could be placed would have been the better solution, the attempt maybe balance out some of the PvP issues and make some more skills able to enhance and create new PvP templates (Nox mage, etc), the addition of some new housing styles, some new monsters and new variations of old monsters (Ancient Lich is one I remember, Tentacles of the Harrower) not that harrower thing that gave out Powerscrolls, and there are I am sure a lot of other things I am missing but I don't think that at least the stuff I listed is what killed the game. These all seem like minor things compared to the implementation of the new rule set that, to me at least, was the fundamental destroyer of Ultima Online.
Now I know the "deal with it" concept but when a small house anywhere on the map was around 3 times the deed cost and the scarcity of resources it could be quite difficult for the new player to break into a basically set society where they would face many veteran players with vast resources and high level characters. But that could be overcome so that is not a good reason to complain.
Next were the complainers about pking, etc, etc. There complaints to me don't hold any water because they probably shouldn't have been playing a game with the risk T2A had.
To me OSI took the easy way out, relatively (though it created huge problems), and established a different rule set in their new land they called Trammel named after one of the moons mentioned in the Ultima series. This new rule set is what gradually deteriorated the game to what see today on the OSI servers. Everyone knows already what the game is today, which is one of very little risk and waiting for that reward to pop into your backpack or in your bank box. Thus the change in rule set decreased the population and the last time I played OSI which was around 2006/2007. The 4 lands (where housing could be placed) they had (Fel, Tram, Malas, Tokuno) most of them seemed quite empty as the amount of land area was way greater than the population even needed. Now if someone has played more recently and things have changed then I am sure they could correct me and probably will.
I would say that there were a few things that came along with the Renaissance expansion that were pretty cool and gave the game some more variety and had some new challenges for players. But changing the rule set put the game on a downward spiral. What has been mentioned earlier in this thread was one of the main issues also was combating PKs. Several of the ideas that I have read in this thread are quite similar ideas I have read by other people on a few other forums that were OSI players still or at one time. They basically hit the nail on the head, in that a complete rule set change was not the answer but in game functions (outside of PvP combat) that players could use to reprimand PKs or other unsavory characters.
I think the addition of another land (not a copy) where housing could be placed would have been the better solution, the attempt maybe balance out some of the PvP issues and make some more skills able to enhance and create new PvP templates (Nox mage, etc), the addition of some new housing styles, some new monsters and new variations of old monsters (Ancient Lich is one I remember, Tentacles of the Harrower) not that harrower thing that gave out Powerscrolls, and there are I am sure a lot of other things I am missing but I don't think that at least the stuff I listed is what killed the game. These all seem like minor things compared to the implementation of the new rule set that, to me at least, was the fundamental destroyer of Ultima Online.
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Wonko the Sane
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Re: If not Trammel, then what?
How about... instead of Trammel, if you didn't want to take part in / be a victim of pking and stealing, then monster loot would only yield a percentage (low risk = low reward, somewhere around,say, 15-30%) of what the fully engaged in the world people could get. Your setting could be changed once a week or so. I'm sure it could easily have been coded to reflect the individual character instead of the world they happened to be present in (a la Young Player status).
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Light Shade
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Re: If not Trammel, then what?
Adding Trammel on the same servers created a divided playerbase on each shard. If they wanted a Care Bear land, they should have created "Trammel" servers.
As with most things, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. Trammel did succeed in getting more "Subscriptions," but it did NOT succeed in getting more players. This lead to other subsequent additions designed around getting more "Subscriptions" such as BOD's.
Trammel, from the standpoint of adding unique players, was a complete failure. Sure, the one house per account thing 'encouraged' people to open more accounts to have more houses, but there was nothing in Trammel or subsequent expansions that encouraged more unique players to play the game than previously.
There were just more rewards for having more accounts and people were willing to pay for those rewards. Hence, production UO sells off all kinds of items in-game these days.
As with most things, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. Trammel did succeed in getting more "Subscriptions," but it did NOT succeed in getting more players. This lead to other subsequent additions designed around getting more "Subscriptions" such as BOD's.
Trammel, from the standpoint of adding unique players, was a complete failure. Sure, the one house per account thing 'encouraged' people to open more accounts to have more houses, but there was nothing in Trammel or subsequent expansions that encouraged more unique players to play the game than previously.
There were just more rewards for having more accounts and people were willing to pay for those rewards. Hence, production UO sells off all kinds of items in-game these days.
[20:08] <@Kaivan> We have a ridable Maahes in Green Acres.
[10:00] <TheBreadman> leeds did a takeover on secondage
[10:00] <@Derrick> hax
Tom: Get bad bro
Re: If not Trammel, then what?
...and there it is. More logical than anything else.Light Shade wrote:Adding Trammel on the same servers created a divided playerbase on each shard. If they wanted a Care Bear land, they should have created "Trammel" servers.
Re: If not Trammel, then what?
I'd like to see rewards for killing greys and reds. Like for example, say I have a murder count or two, I should be able to work them off by going out and hunting down murderers. This way there is an incentive for PKers to help protect new players sometimes and it's not just a constant vet vs. newb gankfest.
Re: If not Trammel, then what?
I cant really remember having issues with pk's......but i was beta tester and after the 10000000 char deletions/server crashes I had a useable fightable char and was a pk....
Trammel was great for the game at the time, since it instandly doubled the land mass for housing placement, gave you a place to gold farm with your tamer etc etc
pre-t2a i remember hanging outside town as a dreadlord killing blues, but not as much during t2a..
using a 28.8k modem and trying to work off 40 hours of statloss was a bitch....
triple the short/long term count times and double the statloss, you have to remember that back then not everyone had cable and broadband wasn't around... it ment you got DC'd alot and you couldn't always macro 23 hours in a row to regain skills/work off counts.
i remember it taking a good week to work off a long count, simple because you didn't just log-in, leaving char to work off counts while you played another char. you would lag or get DC'd.....
Trammel was great for the game at the time, since it instandly doubled the land mass for housing placement, gave you a place to gold farm with your tamer etc etc
pre-t2a i remember hanging outside town as a dreadlord killing blues, but not as much during t2a..
using a 28.8k modem and trying to work off 40 hours of statloss was a bitch....
triple the short/long term count times and double the statloss, you have to remember that back then not everyone had cable and broadband wasn't around... it ment you got DC'd alot and you couldn't always macro 23 hours in a row to regain skills/work off counts.
i remember it taking a good week to work off a long count, simple because you didn't just log-in, leaving char to work off counts while you played another char. you would lag or get DC'd.....
https://www.plus.net/refer.php?strRefer ... 4b94d00dbeCheap UK Broadband from PlusNet.
Re: If not Trammel, then what?
I think someone hit the nail on the head earlier. Trammel killed the game for a lot of people not just because of the gameplay changes (although clearly that was also a large factor), but because it split the community. I was a part of the RP community when UO:R launched, and it totally ruined the game for any RP guild who wasn't RPing a good guy.
Anyway, here's the alternative to Trammel:
Create a new landmass that is only open to new subscriptions. Now you have a new level playing field for new players to start in (everyone loves a fresh start). Add a one way gate to the "old lands" so a character can go play with friends there, or whatever. Then, after a sufficient amount of time (6 months?) connect the two landmasses. The new landmass doesn't need to be huge. Now do this on a regular schedule.
Veterans who have established characters/housing/resources on the old landmasses won't want to start over from scratch. New players don't want to be shoved into a world where they are at a time/resource disadvantage.
That'd be my solution.
Anyway, here's the alternative to Trammel:
Create a new landmass that is only open to new subscriptions. Now you have a new level playing field for new players to start in (everyone loves a fresh start). Add a one way gate to the "old lands" so a character can go play with friends there, or whatever. Then, after a sufficient amount of time (6 months?) connect the two landmasses. The new landmass doesn't need to be huge. Now do this on a regular schedule.
Veterans who have established characters/housing/resources on the old landmasses won't want to start over from scratch. New players don't want to be shoved into a world where they are at a time/resource disadvantage.
That'd be my solution.