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.
Play style vs gaining new players
Re: Play style vs gaining new players
Good post. I've often felt the same, that while the server here has a steady and active playerbase, it does seem to have a high turnover rate amongst it's new players. I'm sure much of it can be attributed to the harsh environment, as most modern mmo's aren't as cutthroat as pre renn uo, however I think there are a number of other factors that do discourage new players from staying here.
To start, I feel the usage of inaccurate methods makes the game far more complicated for a new player and puts any not accustomed to such far behind the rest of the playerbase.
Not only would a new player joining this server have to to try to get established in a game that has a steep learning curve, but with modern uses of multiclienting, macroing, and third party features, any player who joins and attempts to simply play the game is at a harsh disadvantage. While these methods could be argued to help new players, any player who comes here thinking that playing and getting established here is going to be anything like the era is in for quite a surprise.
I hate to sound so cynical, but it's pretty obvious that learning the gameplay here is quite different than the actual era. To any that think these aren't really necessary to playing UOSA: try making a char and not using any of these...see how impossible it is to keep up with the rest of the playerbase, then imagine a new player with no knowledge of the era trying to participate here.
Another difference between the era and now is the varieties of players found. While the era is remembered as being very harsh and cutthroat, the ratio of griefers to non was actually quite small. That is, while the era was notorious for having thieves and reds everywhere, the truth is, the "regular" players far outnumbered these. Crafters, PVMers, RPers and other more cooperative types were abundant, making the servers of then far more friendly, as there were other players to help out and participate with all over the place.
Here, a large portion of the players are pvpers, pks, griefers. The environment is far more competitive and lacks the numbers of casual everyday players that filled the servers of olde. There are far less players here to help out, go hunting with, toss a heal, and the like and far more players ready to pk and loot you given the chance.
In the end, I think much of the difficulty this server has with retaining it's new players are the differences between the game of then and now. Already the game was very difficult and unforgiving, but I feel this server takes that and adds an even harsher environment and requires a far more advanced knowledge of mechanics in order to have even a chance of keeping up.
While much of this can't be changed (at least as far as the administration is concerned). I would hope that the established players here would at least consider how difficult it is for new players to start out here and perhaps go easy on them or lend a helping hand. Even simply redirecting them to one of the handful of guilds that help new players (such as C^V or the recently formed NEW) could make all the difference between losing and keeping new players, something essential to the shard's growth.
To start, I feel the usage of inaccurate methods makes the game far more complicated for a new player and puts any not accustomed to such far behind the rest of the playerbase.
Not only would a new player joining this server have to to try to get established in a game that has a steep learning curve, but with modern uses of multiclienting, macroing, and third party features, any player who joins and attempts to simply play the game is at a harsh disadvantage. While these methods could be argued to help new players, any player who comes here thinking that playing and getting established here is going to be anything like the era is in for quite a surprise.
I hate to sound so cynical, but it's pretty obvious that learning the gameplay here is quite different than the actual era. To any that think these aren't really necessary to playing UOSA: try making a char and not using any of these...see how impossible it is to keep up with the rest of the playerbase, then imagine a new player with no knowledge of the era trying to participate here.
Another difference between the era and now is the varieties of players found. While the era is remembered as being very harsh and cutthroat, the ratio of griefers to non was actually quite small. That is, while the era was notorious for having thieves and reds everywhere, the truth is, the "regular" players far outnumbered these. Crafters, PVMers, RPers and other more cooperative types were abundant, making the servers of then far more friendly, as there were other players to help out and participate with all over the place.
Here, a large portion of the players are pvpers, pks, griefers. The environment is far more competitive and lacks the numbers of casual everyday players that filled the servers of olde. There are far less players here to help out, go hunting with, toss a heal, and the like and far more players ready to pk and loot you given the chance.
In the end, I think much of the difficulty this server has with retaining it's new players are the differences between the game of then and now. Already the game was very difficult and unforgiving, but I feel this server takes that and adds an even harsher environment and requires a far more advanced knowledge of mechanics in order to have even a chance of keeping up.
While much of this can't be changed (at least as far as the administration is concerned). I would hope that the established players here would at least consider how difficult it is for new players to start out here and perhaps go easy on them or lend a helping hand. Even simply redirecting them to one of the handful of guilds that help new players (such as C^V or the recently formed NEW) could make all the difference between losing and keeping new players, something essential to the shard's growth.
- Elisud
Re: Play style vs gaining new players
Well first of all,
I would like to say well done for bringing this topic up. I myself have recently joined this server am having a great time.
I used to play but after this era, hence there a lot of things that are new to me but i know about the general day to day things. Such as casting, being frozen and then targetting is completely new to me but i am learning
I would just like to say, i don't know if i have being lucky BUT during my stay so far, i have found a fair amout of really helpful people. And those who have seen me in game know who they are. Not so much with hand outs which never really helps anyone, but for teleporting me around helping me place my house the little things that really matter.
I think if a new player looks hard enough it is certainly possible to find people that will help out. Sure there is always a chance you are going to get pked, but that is truely the nature of the game. Anyone dedicated with a few hours a day can make it here as i have proved, ofc i still have a long way to go. However i am almost at the stage where i can begin to help others that need it. I feel people need to give back a little bit of help that they had at first. But can you ever truely know whos new and who is just trying to get a quick buck? I guess that just down to good old fashioned trust.
Kind Regards,
Serious Aka Stace
I would like to say well done for bringing this topic up. I myself have recently joined this server am having a great time.
I used to play but after this era, hence there a lot of things that are new to me but i know about the general day to day things. Such as casting, being frozen and then targetting is completely new to me but i am learning
I would just like to say, i don't know if i have being lucky BUT during my stay so far, i have found a fair amout of really helpful people. And those who have seen me in game know who they are. Not so much with hand outs which never really helps anyone, but for teleporting me around helping me place my house the little things that really matter.
I think if a new player looks hard enough it is certainly possible to find people that will help out. Sure there is always a chance you are going to get pked, but that is truely the nature of the game. Anyone dedicated with a few hours a day can make it here as i have proved, ofc i still have a long way to go. However i am almost at the stage where i can begin to help others that need it. I feel people need to give back a little bit of help that they had at first. But can you ever truely know whos new and who is just trying to get a quick buck? I guess that just down to good old fashioned trust.
Kind Regards,
Serious Aka Stace
<-Stace's Supplies->
-
Kryptonical
- UOSA Donor!!
- Posts: 1209
- Joined: Mon Jan 12, 2009 2:54 pm
Re: Play style vs gaining new players
benny- wrote:Good post. I've often felt the same, that while the server here has a steady and active playerbase, it does seem to have a high turnover rate amongst it's new players. I'm sure much of it can be attributed to the harsh environment, as most modern mmo's aren't as cutthroat as pre renn uo, however I think there are a number of other factors that do discourage new players from staying here.
To start, I feel the usage of inaccurate methods makes the game far more complicated for a new player and puts any not accustomed to such far behind the rest of the playerbase.
Not only would a new player joining this server have to to try to get established in a game that has a steep learning curve, but with modern uses of multiclienting, macroing, and third party features, any player who joins and attempts to simply play the game is at a harsh disadvantage. While these methods could be argued to help new players, any player who comes here thinking that playing and getting established here is going to be anything like the era is in for quite a surprise.
I hate to sound so cynical, but it's pretty obvious that learning the gameplay here is quite different than the actual era. To any that think these aren't really necessary to playing UOSA: try making a char and not using any of these...see how impossible it is to keep up with the rest of the playerbase, then imagine a new player with no knowledge of the era trying to participate here.
Another difference between the era and now is the varieties of players found. While the era is remembered as being very harsh and cutthroat, the ratio of griefers to non was actually quite small. That is, while the era was notorious for having thieves and reds everywhere, the truth is, the "regular" players far outnumbered these. Crafters, PVMers, RPers and other more cooperative types were abundant, making the servers of then far more friendly, as there were other players to help out and participate with all over the place.
Here, a large portion of the players are pvpers, pks, griefers. The environment is far more competitive and lacks the numbers of casual everyday players that filled the servers of olde. There are far less players here to help out, go hunting with, toss a heal, and the like and far more players ready to pk and loot you given the chance.
In the end, I think much of the difficulty this server has with retaining it's new players are the differences between the game of then and now. Already the game was very difficult and unforgiving, but I feel this server takes that and adds an even harsher environment and requires a far more advanced knowledge of mechanics in order to have even a chance of keeping up.
While much of this can't be changed (at least as far as the administration is concerned). I would hope that the established players here would at least consider how difficult it is for new players to start out here and perhaps go easy on them or lend a helping hand. Even simply redirecting them to one of the handful of guilds that help new players (such as C^V or the recently formed NEW) could make all the difference between losing and keeping new players, something essential to the shard's growth.
I actually agree with a lot that is said here. I never really played era, well I played for 2-3 weeks in 98, and then didnt play again until 2008-2009 time frame, and I started back up on this server. I for one would consider myself in the grand scheme of things very new to this game. I however seem to have established myself, or I would think I was established, every persons opinion of established is different.
When I started for the first 2-3 months I thought this game was absolutely designed to fuck you and make your stressed. Every now and then you would meet an "established" player and they would help you out and take you "under their wing" so to speak. But that was rare and very few in between.
I however would meet other new players with that same "wanna help" mentality and we would join together and help each other out. Unfortunately out of the 15-20 people I met that were new when I started (the first, that I'm aware of, NEW guild) I'm the only one that still plays. and that wasnt over the past 2 years, all of those players left UOSA within 3-5 months of starting.
I'm in web development and understand that the longer some one is on your website the greater your chance is to A. sell your product/service B. retain more customers C. overall become successful.
I believe this server needs to make some decisions as a group (not involving staff, cause they do EVERYTHING they can, and then some) to figure out if they would like this server to grow beyond the avf of 300-600 unique ips...which its been the same for at least a year or so at this point.
anyways, my 2 cents.
Re: Play style vs gaining new players
This is not a flame, but discussions like this are what birthed Trammel. Just saying.
Re: Play style vs gaining new players
There is a steep learning curve, and I feel truly terrible for anyone starting here who never played UO before.
But the information is out there. I put every single trick, tactic, formula, and statistic I know on this forum. There is plenty of information here on how to start out... how to macro a provoker, etc. With the guard zone of Trinsic, Barrier Isle becomes a spectacular place to learn the game mechanics in relative safety, and best of all that just happens to be a location of some free new player housing!
But the information is out there. I put every single trick, tactic, formula, and statistic I know on this forum. There is plenty of information here on how to start out... how to macro a provoker, etc. With the guard zone of Trinsic, Barrier Isle becomes a spectacular place to learn the game mechanics in relative safety, and best of all that just happens to be a location of some free new player housing!
Re: Play style vs gaining new players
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.
Re: Play style vs gaining new players
I think the player base will only really come from players from the t2a era, or atleast players with UO experience.
Re: Play style vs gaining new players
Another big post here, trying not to write an essay but I'm speaking for a lot of my friends, as we've all been having a lot of discussions about this recently.
A big thing that draws people away, imo, is some of the changes for the sake of "accuracy". I started on this server about 2 months ago, I now have 14 new players also starting here with me from different games (hopefully by the end of this week, 16 as another friend and his bro get started). While playing together, there have been several times where the idea of goin to a diff server has been brought up. One of the biggest draws to this server, is how legit and non-customized the server is, with no cash shops or voting incentives, that's amazing and something you basically can't find elsewhere. The reason why the conversations get brought up though, is because of some changes for the sake of "accuracy", and considering we've only been here for 2 months discussing the most recent patch changes, I can only imagine what players in the past had to adapt to.
For example, when we started, mounts wouldn't get fatigued, it's been forever since we played UO so we thought nothing of it. When mount stamina was brought up, we thought, oh hey, maybe this will make being on foot viable! People were even talking in the forums about how maybe less people will go around mounted because of this, and it would add some variety to what you encounter on the field. Instead? You can just hop off and say "all follow me" and hop back on to get stam back, no variety was added to the field, just another meaningless macro that we have to press for what, the sake of "accuracy"?
Also, when we FIRST started here, our first 4 characters were fencer dexers, and we traveled in a pack. A few of our guys (myself included) were UO:R players, so I figured melee had some love with the whole 2h weapon chance thing (conc blows, crushing blow, para blow). We quickly discovered this was inaccurate, which we were willing to accept, and just deal with smashing things over and over again with our spears. What we COULDN'T accept was that our swing timers wouldn't advance while moving and we had to stop to swing, this made chasing down anyone, impossible. I'm now the only one out of our original spear group, that still plays a warrior (although a modified one from our original builds). From what I gathered, prior to t2a, and after t2a, you could hit while on the move, this is what makes dexers good, chasing down and staying in peoples faces never giving them a chance to recover (especially a mage). Without this, mages easily gheal between swings while running. The patch we just had originally was looking like this would be possible again, moving and swinging, but instead, we still, for some unknown reason, have to stop to swing, because it is deemed "accurate", and for that reason 90% of the playerbase is a hally mage, dumb.
NOW, we're hearing about co-owner status being removed. Really? Where can the logic possibly be found in this one. A BUNCH of us are just starting here, we've gone in together on a few different large housing options, that we all own together, you're telling me we can't co-own each other now, seriously? I mean, seriously? You're telling me we all have to have separate housing since we can't lock down/security our way into our houses now, we can't all live in the tower/keep/whathaveyou that we've purchased together as a group, because this incredibly simple feature wasn't "era accurate?".
Combined with the fact that UO is a hard enough game to get in to and especially learn for a new player, this server is just taking more and more steps to please the macro frenzy, hally mage spamming, solo playing crowd, just based off these last patches. The need to dismount and say all follow me, why? Double Hally hits and still can't attack while moving fighters, why (at LEAST timers actually MOVE now while chasing, still gotta stop though). No more co-owners, why!?!? If the patches since our guys started are any indication of the increased macro-dependence and extreme favor of a single play type (hally mage), I don't know how you can expect to expand much larger than the servers current population. To me, it would make a lot more sense to get the servers up to par with what the developers INTENDED, not the exact actual mechanics of the time, I highly doubt developers thought "oh lets add in mount stam, but make it so when you run out, you gotta hop off, say all follow me,and its refreshed!", no, they totally weren't thinking that, it was a bug that they fixed later, along with other things, that should be fixed imo, not broken because it's "accurate to the era".
A big thing that draws people away, imo, is some of the changes for the sake of "accuracy". I started on this server about 2 months ago, I now have 14 new players also starting here with me from different games (hopefully by the end of this week, 16 as another friend and his bro get started). While playing together, there have been several times where the idea of goin to a diff server has been brought up. One of the biggest draws to this server, is how legit and non-customized the server is, with no cash shops or voting incentives, that's amazing and something you basically can't find elsewhere. The reason why the conversations get brought up though, is because of some changes for the sake of "accuracy", and considering we've only been here for 2 months discussing the most recent patch changes, I can only imagine what players in the past had to adapt to.
For example, when we started, mounts wouldn't get fatigued, it's been forever since we played UO so we thought nothing of it. When mount stamina was brought up, we thought, oh hey, maybe this will make being on foot viable! People were even talking in the forums about how maybe less people will go around mounted because of this, and it would add some variety to what you encounter on the field. Instead? You can just hop off and say "all follow me" and hop back on to get stam back, no variety was added to the field, just another meaningless macro that we have to press for what, the sake of "accuracy"?
Also, when we FIRST started here, our first 4 characters were fencer dexers, and we traveled in a pack. A few of our guys (myself included) were UO:R players, so I figured melee had some love with the whole 2h weapon chance thing (conc blows, crushing blow, para blow). We quickly discovered this was inaccurate, which we were willing to accept, and just deal with smashing things over and over again with our spears. What we COULDN'T accept was that our swing timers wouldn't advance while moving and we had to stop to swing, this made chasing down anyone, impossible. I'm now the only one out of our original spear group, that still plays a warrior (although a modified one from our original builds). From what I gathered, prior to t2a, and after t2a, you could hit while on the move, this is what makes dexers good, chasing down and staying in peoples faces never giving them a chance to recover (especially a mage). Without this, mages easily gheal between swings while running. The patch we just had originally was looking like this would be possible again, moving and swinging, but instead, we still, for some unknown reason, have to stop to swing, because it is deemed "accurate", and for that reason 90% of the playerbase is a hally mage, dumb.
NOW, we're hearing about co-owner status being removed. Really? Where can the logic possibly be found in this one. A BUNCH of us are just starting here, we've gone in together on a few different large housing options, that we all own together, you're telling me we can't co-own each other now, seriously? I mean, seriously? You're telling me we all have to have separate housing since we can't lock down/security our way into our houses now, we can't all live in the tower/keep/whathaveyou that we've purchased together as a group, because this incredibly simple feature wasn't "era accurate?".
Combined with the fact that UO is a hard enough game to get in to and especially learn for a new player, this server is just taking more and more steps to please the macro frenzy, hally mage spamming, solo playing crowd, just based off these last patches. The need to dismount and say all follow me, why? Double Hally hits and still can't attack while moving fighters, why (at LEAST timers actually MOVE now while chasing, still gotta stop though). No more co-owners, why!?!? If the patches since our guys started are any indication of the increased macro-dependence and extreme favor of a single play type (hally mage), I don't know how you can expect to expand much larger than the servers current population. To me, it would make a lot more sense to get the servers up to par with what the developers INTENDED, not the exact actual mechanics of the time, I highly doubt developers thought "oh lets add in mount stam, but make it so when you run out, you gotta hop off, say all follow me,and its refreshed!", no, they totally weren't thinking that, it was a bug that they fixed later, along with other things, that should be fixed imo, not broken because it's "accurate to the era".
-
Arcott Ramathorn
- Posts: 558
- Joined: Sun Feb 08, 2009 11:13 pm
Re: Play style vs gaining new players
Pro wrote: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.
Ive heard this sentiment from alot of people..."If they cant hang they dont belong on our server" Not everyone can be L337 but i think if you give them a chance to just get a foothold they will stick around a bit longer. And i dont think it would take too much effort. 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.
Ive been surprised by how many new players Ive met that have told me that they have never played UO before but: heard about it, read about, need a free game, just googled it, saw something about it on another website, were asked to play by a friend, among a host of other reasons a Totally new player would start Ultima Online.Zong wrote:I think the player base will only really come from players from the t2a era, or atleast players with UO experience.
Re: Play style vs gaining new players
I mean, if you don't get this, there's really no hope for you right?Grom wrote:The need to dismount and say all follow me, why? Double Hally hits and still can't attack while moving fighters, why (at LEAST timers actually MOVE now while chasing, still gotta stop though). No more co-owners, why!?!?
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.Grom wrote:it would make a lot more sense to get the servers up to par with what the developers INTENDED
Which is where you come in...
Uh yeah. This is like showing up at the Ming Dynasty restaurant and going ballistic because they won't let you order a pizza.Grom wrote:we can't do something inaccurate, because this incredibly simple feature wasn't "era accurate?", and we chose to play on a shard whose only goal is era accuracy?
Re: Play style vs gaining new players
tl;dr
i love UO
end of story.
i love UO
end of story.
Re: Play style vs gaining new players
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. Also, it makes tamers more valuable cuz of the ability to get the mounts with more stamina and it encourages more player interaction in more facets of the game, now there might be more pvp between people fighting to tame that nightmare. Managing your mounts stamina is part of the game, before you run in somewhere you think your gonna be fighting, prepare by refreshing your mount first. Go make a tamer and stock up on mounts with higher stamina.Grom wrote:Another big post here, trying not to write an essay but I'm speaking for a lot of my friends, as we've all been having a lot of discussions about this recently.
A big thing that draws people away, imo, is some of the changes for the sake of "accuracy". I started on this server about 2 months ago, I now have 14 new players also starting here with me from different games (hopefully by the end of this week, 16 as another friend and his bro get started). While playing together, there have been several times where the idea of goin to a diff server has been brought up. One of the biggest draws to this server, is how legit and non-customized the server is, with no cash shops or voting incentives, that's amazing and something you basically can't find elsewhere. The reason why the conversations get brought up though, is because of some changes for the sake of "accuracy", and considering we've only been here for 2 months discussing the most recent patch changes, I can only imagine what players in the past had to adapt to.
For example, when we started, mounts wouldn't get fatigued, it's been forever since we played UO so we thought nothing of it. When mount stamina was brought up, we thought, oh hey, maybe this will make being on foot viable! People were even talking in the forums about how maybe less people will go around mounted because of this, and it would add some variety to what you encounter on the field. Instead? You can just hop off and say "all follow me" and hop back on to get stam back, no variety was added to the field, just another meaningless macro that we have to press for what, the sake of "accuracy"?
Also, when we FIRST started here, our first 4 characters were fencer dexers, and we traveled in a pack. A few of our guys (myself included) were UO:R players, so I figured melee had some love with the whole 2h weapon chance thing (conc blows, crushing blow, para blow). We quickly discovered this was inaccurate, which we were willing to accept, and just deal with smashing things over and over again with our spears. What we COULDN'T accept was that our swing timers wouldn't advance while moving and we had to stop to swing, this made chasing down anyone, impossible. I'm now the only one out of our original spear group, that still plays a warrior (although a modified one from our original builds). From what I gathered, prior to t2a, and after t2a, you could hit while on the move, this is what makes dexers good, chasing down and staying in peoples faces never giving them a chance to recover (especially a mage). Without this, mages easily gheal between swings while running. The patch we just had originally was looking like this would be possible again, moving and swinging, but instead, we still, for some unknown reason, have to stop to swing, because it is deemed "accurate", and for that reason 90% of the playerbase is a hally mage, dumb.
NOW, we're hearing about co-owner status being removed. Really? Where can the logic possibly be found in this one. A BUNCH of us are just starting here, we've gone in together on a few different large housing options, that we all own together, you're telling me we can't co-own each other now, seriously? I mean, seriously? You're telling me we all have to have separate housing since we can't lock down/security our way into our houses now, we can't all live in the tower/keep/whathaveyou that we've purchased together as a group, because this incredibly simple feature wasn't "era accurate?".
Combined with the fact that UO is a hard enough game to get in to and especially learn for a new player, this server is just taking more and more steps to please the macro frenzy, hally mage spamming, solo playing crowd, just based off these last patches. The need to dismount and say all follow me, why? Double Hally hits and still can't attack while moving fighters, why (at LEAST timers actually MOVE now while chasing, still gotta stop though). No more co-owners, why!?!? If the patches since our guys started are any indication of the increased macro-dependence and extreme favor of a single play type (hally mage), I don't know how you can expect to expand much larger than the servers current population. To me, it would make a lot more sense to get the servers up to par with what the developers INTENDED, not the exact actual mechanics of the time, I highly doubt developers thought "oh lets add in mount stam, but make it so when you run out, you gotta hop off, say all follow me,and its refreshed!", no, they totally weren't thinking that, it was a bug that they fixed later, along with other things, that should be fixed imo, not broken because it's "accurate to the era".
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.
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.
"F**k that Morpheus, I'm takin' em both!" -KabalDerrick wrote: . . .get real please.
*pm me with questions about lasers*
Re: Play style vs gaining new players
Okay so I lied, I've read a bit of all this nonsense. Formulating any sort of opinion on the matter; I would just like to say this: if you've ever found yourself playing free UO shards back in 00-01, you probably played on the Sphere emulator, eventually graduating to the RunUO test shards during 00-02. Bringing our player (and I am sure I'm not alone here) to the launch of UOG: Hybrid. We all popped this cherry at some point or another, come on its razors default server! Here we are from 01 to present day, have I been playing free UO shards. I for one am sick and tired of looking at crazy neon colors and funny outfits that a corrupt GM would give their player. Many people who try to make their own custom shard fail miserably, and why? I cannot put my finger on it exactly but nonetheless I am glad this shard exists on the bases of it being a rather 'non' customized shard.potamus wrote:tl;dr
i love UO
end of story.
I am under the impression that many of the concerns on this thread are about how it is not customized with interesting things you would not see in this era. I feel good game mechanics will produce long term fulfillment compared to "crazy neon colors" and such things like it.
to add: if it is not about items or pixels and you feel you've tried your very best to enjoy the shard but don't, then that is okay too!
Re: Play style vs gaining new players
Yeah my original intent does seem to have gone off the mark a bit. From what Ive read here it seems that there is a large section of the forum readers who agree with me but none have a solution beyond trying to help them whenever you can. Wonder if its feasible to set up a sort of training program for new people who are brand new to UO and want to learn to avoid the pitfalls. While the information is out there, especially on the forums, Ive learned over the years that people wont spend the time reading them.potamus wrote: I am under the impression that many of the concerns on this thread are about how it is not customized with interesting things you would not see in this era. I feel good game mechanics will produce long term fulfillment compared to "crazy neon colors" and such things like it.