Convincing IRL friends to play UO?

[sk8nomad]

So, was wondering what some good methods would be to convince people that know nothing about UO to play here? I've tried to get people to play in the past, and failed. Based off my experiences, teaching them to powergame or giving them gold and a house right off the bat and having them macro wouldn't be very effective in player retention. Because I think it lacks purpose.

I was thinking about maybe training a warrior with them would be best (without any external help from other characters) at first to get a feel of things? I think this would cause them to get a feel for things, and the struggle of starting off with nothing, and overcoming that struggle. I would like some discussion on this. Have any of you ever succeded in getting a friend (from rl) to play UO from having no prior experience in UO? What made you interested in UO, and what continues to interest you in UO? Thank you for reading and any replies

Regards,
-sk8nomad

[sk8nomad]

I will start off.
When I was eight, my Dad and I went to Best Buy and got this game. I think he had a buddy from work that convinced him to play this game, (we weren't gamers at the time, so I guess I should ask him!) Anyways, I always looked up to my dad, and I would see him playing this game alot. I would watch him fight monsters, tame animals and even mine for metal! He would often have me mine for him. Anyways, I would watch him get pked and looted and stolen from, this is what always drew me to the game. To be like the people that had an advantage over my dad in the game. Eventually my sister and I got into the game, and we all made pvpers and we all played on Pacific. We eventually pked people together and this was a blast! We had a small house at the Brit X roads, and fought with the guild CB which was mainly Houdini of Thugs and Jackal (later turned into OPP). They would later become friends with us. Anyways, I always was drawn to the dark side of UO. Pking, stealing, looting. This is what still draws me to the game 15 years later. I love conjuring up evil plans and seeing how they turn out. To this day, I am still completely obsessed with UO.

[ScoobyDoO]

I remember when I first started UO, my friend had it when I was like 12. I made fun of the game and made fun of him for playing it and the next day, I was playing 24/7. See the thing your missing here is how do you convince someone that has never played a game this old? What made me play was it was a game I could raise skills, have a house and a game that actually lets you keep our items to be used for the next time you log in and play. Now that was pretty cool. Now adays you go way many more advanced games out there and with Xbox and PS3 sorta becoming children's first gaming/online experience, UO will eventually be forgotten. I think you should revisit on what your trying to accomplish here. What we should focus in is keeping the players we already have. Giving our community events and guests and things like that to always have something new to look forward too.


<3 Scooby DoO

[nightshark]

About 10 or so of us in school all started playing in 1999. I was never able to convince any of them to play any new shards since quitting official servers. Getting friends who've never played to give a shot, has proved hopeless.

My thoughts on why it's so hard to convince friends to play, which many may disagree with:
Without having experienced the game in its prime years, UO is not attractive graphically, mechanically nor does it seem engaging. There's extremely little depth to the actual gameplay when compared with other MMOs or single player games out there today. In UO, combat mechanics are primitive, the game is jerky, PvE is boring and extremely simplistic - from PvM to crafting (eg: warrior=autoattack + bandage).

Newer MMOs do most, if not all of the PvE/PvP parts of their games much better and engaging than Ultima did, they just lack an open world and some of the better features that went along with that, like housing, player vendors and unscripted player encounters.

I wrote a lot more about my feelings of the game, but it was turning into more of a rant so I deleted it and decided to stop here. Long story short was that UO would need an enormous revamp to be attractive to non-players of the game right now (say, for UO2).

[Jupiter]

About 10 or so of us in school all started playing in 1999. I was never able to convince any of them to play any new shards since quitting official servers. Getting friends who've never played to give a shot, has proved hopeless.

My thoughts on why it's so hard to convince friends to play, which many may disagree with:
Without having experienced the game in its prime years, UO is not attractive graphically, mechanically nor does it seem engaging. There's extremely little depth to the actual gameplay when compared with other MMOs or single player games out there today. In UO, combat mechanics are primitive, the game is jerky, PvE is boring and extremely simplistic - from PvM to crafting (eg: warrior=autoattack + bandage).

Newer MMOs do most, if not all of the PvE/PvP parts of their games much better and engaging than Ultima did, they just lack an open world and some of the better features that went along with that, like housing, player vendors and unscripted player encounters.

I wrote a lot more about my feelings of the game, but it was turning into more of a rant so I deleted it and decided to stop here. Long story short was that UO would need an enormous revamp to be attractive to non-players of the game right now (say, for UO2).

^ nuff said. +1 for the shark

[milk]

I got my special lady friend to start playing on this shard. I play with her and try not to powergame. Its fun for her to just run around lost in the forest like a spaz. She has no concept about why I try to buy a house in a specific location, or why I would ever pay lots of gold for a bloody bandage or a dirty pan. Shes happy with some used bone armour and her newbie sword. She actively seeks out mongbats to fight.

Nobody plays like when they fist played the game, just running around killing shit and picking up the meat off corpses. Most people just macro 24/7 then buy crap and then never really play. It is fun to go back to the basics and play like how you played the first time, but its not an efficient way to play. Its hard not to think about how much money you are losing just messing around and playing the game.

Also, UO is incredibly hard to learn. There is nothing intuitive about the game. Simple things people take for granted, like finding the bank in Trinsic, is pretty frustrating for a new person. Knowing what to do after you die, and how to drag a spell icon out of your spellbook are really hard when you have no idea what you are doing.

The only way to get new people to play is to play along with them, otherwise UO looks like a giant video turd.

the end

[jimm1432]

I was lucky enough to beta test the game and I got around 5 of my friends into uo really early but I must say were all rpg nuts, shadowrun/breath of fire/phantasy star/mario rpg/final fantasy etc anything really and uo was something totally unique, soo much freedom and fresh ideas.


I doubt anyone I know would even try playing uo if I asked now days. it's all call of duty and sport games for them now (if anything at all)

if you have friends that enjoy minecraft/flight sims/runescape/still have 9 hour starcraft sessions/considers them self a pro gamer etc, you mite have a chance to convert a few but uo is too old and hard to learn for most gamers now, angry birds is as far as many talents stretch now.....

[abercoby]

There's extremely little depth to the actual gameplay when compared with other MMOs or single player games out there today.

This is 100% wrong. No other game out there has the depth of UO. Can you give me one example?

[Blaise]

Single player I could agree with on that statement, but MMO? I don't know about all that. Depth to me does not equal 1000x spells or 1,000,000 hit points and 100000dps.

[nightshark]

There's extremely little depth to the actual gameplay when compared with other MMOs or single player games out there today.

This is 100% wrong. No other game out there has the depth of UO. Can you give me one example?

You've picked the most vague statement in my entire write up and simply contradicted it. I'm not even sure what to write in response. If you think I'm wrong then you should be telling me why.

[abercoby]

There's extremely little depth to the actual gameplay when compared with other MMOs or single player games out there today.

This is 100% wrong. No other game out there has the depth of UO. Can you give me one example?

You've picked the most vague statement in my entire write up and simply contradicted it. I'm not even sure what to write in response. If you think I'm wrong then you should be telling me why.

Vague? i'd say it's pretty straight forward. Anyway this is what 'gameplay' means to me but I assume not to you:

Gameplay is the specific way in which players interact with a game,[1][2] and in particular with video games.[3][4] Gameplay is the pattern defined through the game rules,[2][5] connection between player and the game,[6] challenges[7] and overcoming them,[8] plot[9] and player's connection with it.[6] Video game gameplay is distinct from graphics,[9][10] and audio elements.[9]

Source: wiki

My intention was not to offend you. I was surprised though by your statement.

[nightshark]

[snip]

You know, I've thought about this a bit because I do get where you're coming from. I say it's vague because it's quite impossible to answer without ending up in a sub argument about what kind of gameplay depth is important. Which was not the main aim of my post - just to point out that graphically and mechanically, UO is dated.

IMO the entire depth of UO comes from player interactions, not the actual mechanics of the game (such as combat mechanics). Which I think I covered by saying the open world atmosphere of UO is its selling point. Perhaps my wording was bad and I should've said that the mechanics have much more depth in modern MMOs, though I think mechanics are a big part of gameplay.

Which would be the biggest thing UO would need to revamp for a hypothetical sequel, other than graphics. If not, noone would be interested in it other than the type of die hard fans we find on these forums (myself included, I'll be playing again some day).

[sk8nomad]

I know when I originally read your post (nightshark), I immediately thought of the monotonous actions which kind of seem like work. But now that I think about it more maybe they were designed like that intentionally, and that contributes to the beauty of UO. Work is a vital part of any society.

I really like the discussion in this thread... Sofar my conclusion is that begining a new character with your friend is the best way, that way you're there to help them if needed, and you don't take away from the struggle of starting out. Then, and only then, they can learn the ways of the le3t 4fK m4cro5
Thank you all for contributing

[nightfishing]

My take on this is a little different. I am 38 which means I was 22-23 when UO came out. My friends and I all went apeshit crazy over the concept of an online rpg so I don't really have many friends who haven't already played UO. I actually ran off an unwanted girlfriend by mining at 3am back when every swing had to be manually clicked.

Fast forward. Today I am a Language Arts teacher who is responsible for the minds and futures of kids between the ages of 11-14. There is one kid who is like 16 and drives himself to school, but I digress. In my school we have roughly 300 PCs in labs, classrooms, the media center, etc. I constantly find these shitty little 1 and 2gig flash drives that kids leave behind. I have made it my mission to confiscate any drives that can't be matched with an owner. I bring these drives home and I copy the following to the drive: UO client, Razor, UOAM, some various minor utilities such as treasure hunting stuff, mIRC, and a small text file detailing what these files do and how to use them.

I am a pretty laid back teacher. My kids behave not because I threaten them or write them up, they are cool because I take at least 3-5 minutes every other day or so to talk with them about gaming, movies, chicks, whatever. They tell me about how cool Black Ops II is and I tell them they must have an extra chromosome. They tell me they will own me online at Madden and I tell them I can't meet them online because I don't like jail. They tell me all kinds of crap and I pretend like they aren't the main reason the U.S. will fail in the next 30 years.

I guess I should get to my point. I hand out about 20-30 of these pre-loaded drives every year. I figure about 50% of the kids actually install the game. Every now and then a kid comes up and is all like "Yo Mr. P, I installed that UO game!" I expect them to immediately tell me how I changed their lives for the better and how I was right when I told them that today's games are 99% garbage. What they actually say, invariably, is "Jesus Mr. P, that game was in 2D!!! OMFG I spent like 20 whole minutes installing all that stuff and it was this lame ass 2D game!!!! You suck dude!"

UO has been one of the best gaming experiences of my entire life. I started with an Atari 2600 (Adventure!!!,) graduated to the C64 and made the Temple of Apshai my home away from home, got way closer to Princess Zelda than is socially acceptable, blew shit up in Phantasy Star 1-over 9000, and gave a guy a bag of weed to show me how to beat some boss in Final Fantasy III. It kills me that I can't share how awesome this game is with a new generation. If you are much younger and this post offends you, don't let it, the fact that you are reading it means you are not one of the gaming-deprived kids I am ranting about. Also, I am pretty drunk and I have to leave in 12 hours to spend 4 nights in a cabin with my future in-laws.

[malice-tg]

So, was wondering what some good methods would be to convince people that know nothing about UO to play here? I've tried to get people to play in the past, and failed. Based off my experiences, teaching them to powergame or giving them gold and a house right off the bat and having them macro wouldn't be very effective in player retention. Because I think it lacks purpose.

I was thinking about maybe training a warrior with them would be best (without any external help from other characters) at first to get a feel of things? I think this would cause them to get a feel for things, and the struggle of starting off with nothing, and overcoming that struggle. I would like some discussion on this. Have any of you ever succeded in getting a friend (from rl) to play UO from having no prior experience in UO? What made you interested in UO, and what continues to interest you in UO? Thank you for reading and any replies

Regards,
-sk8nomad

your notion is 100% right..

newbs dont need a castle to train, gold to macro, or free stuff....

they need mentor-ship and companionship.. they need to learn how things work.. die a few times and most importantly feel a sense of accomplishment for attaining a goal.

this is why giving newbs GOLD is stupid and only accelerates the rate at which they quit.


just take your friend farming.. i would actually bring your strong character with a silver weapon and just kill stuff with him as if you were a newb too.

good luck

also people who never played uo before and come here under 25 years of age amaze me i dont get how they even comprehend the old 2d graphics lol