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Ultima Online: Fifteen Years & Counting

13

Comments

  • jarziumjarzium Member Posts: 40

    i really want to love UO. i've tried playing it a couple of times, but the graphics, UI and controls are really backdated. it's charming in a way, but i wish the graphics could be cleaner and controls would be less clumsy. 

  • AirmidCechtAirmidCecht Member Posts: 4

    Originally posted by jarzium

    i really want to love UO. i've tried playing it a couple of times, but the graphics, UI and controls are really backdated. it's charming in a way, but i wish the graphics could be cleaner and controls would be less clumsy. 




     

    I know this has been a long standing issue even in the UO community itself. What was once the tram/fel facet debate is now the classic/enhanced client  debate. Both are available with the enhanced client using a UI most are used to now with newer MMOs and even offering some legacy mode toggles as a hybrid of sorts to keep the "feel" of UO with a newer UI.

    The thing is, recently titles like Minecraft seem to understand that as long as you offer players a bit of control over their world, graphics or lack thereof can be forgivable.

    I personally play both clients depending on what I'm in the mood for and play all styles including PvP (where I try to leave some things lootable for my many deaths). 15 years is pretty cool and one UO players are proud of. After all, we're the ones that keep it going :)

    Thank you MMORPG for highlighting grandpa. He can still kick some butt!

  • MuridanMuridan Member Posts: 94

    I played UO from 1998-2004 and I'm still searching for a game that grabbed me the way it did. 

    Great memories. 

  • oubersoubers Member UncommonPosts: 855

    man, i miss the good old days in Brit (up and around the bank) :) hehe

     

    image
  • AutemOxAutemOx Member Posts: 1,704

    Originally posted by fenistil

    ...

    in it's days (up to first few years after release) it was great game. Everything was player oriented , player-made , alot of freedom. Of course that also created alot of problems and game suffered from many bugs, etc - after all it one of first mmoprg's.

    Still apart of maybe SWG no other mmorpg was so rich feature wise.

    Maybe ArcheAge will share some similarities, even though ArcheAge will be more casual friendly and also bring many themepark elements.

    Even so cannot wait for AA to hit western shores. For it to succeed very good company (caring & having very good GM support + reacting fast to exploiters, botters, etc) have to publish it.

    It that kind of company will do it, then this game imo have a chance of success in west.

    also pls P2P for AA. Sandboxy features would be ridiculed in microtransaction , item shop based game...

    +1

    Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.

  • oubersoubers Member UncommonPosts: 855

    Originally posted by BillMurphy

    I'm just throwing this out there... but who WOULDN'T want a new Ultima?  Online or Off?  I mean, seriously.




     

    everyone who used to play UO wants it and you know it :p

     

    image
  • RyzesRyzes Member UncommonPosts: 4

    I would love an Ultima 10 or even a reboot like they do in the movies.

    UO is the most unique game.  It's a true virtual world with freedom to do anything (house decorating, crafting almost anything, skinning deer,  ride your boat with the newer boat manuvering, etc). 

    I still sub to UO although I don't get compelled to log in much anymore.  The world has gotten too big and although there are a million things to do, I feel it's in need of a real serious graphical & UI revamp that only a UO2 could offer at this point for me.  But EA is not the one who can do it.  Hence the problem.

     

  • RajCajRajCaj Member UncommonPosts: 704

    Originally posted by Amaranthar

    The reason for this is because various head honchos over the years tried to give the players something more than they had the funds available to clean up with, they wanted to change UO, and they all felt like they could do it better.

    One thing a lot of people don't know about UO's subscription numbers. They had a lot of gamers try the game. Just as many, or nearly, as EQ and other games until WoW brought in that huge influx. It was the rampant PKing that drove most of them out right away. If not for the PKing, Sandbox would probably be looked at with much more hope for subscription numbers, at least on an equal basis with Themepark. And this kills me every time I think about it.

    While a lot of people harken back to the "Pre-Trammel" era as the glory days of UO.....my personal opinion is that the right balance was reached with the "Rennisance" expansion, that introduced Trammel.

    For those not familiar, essentially EA introduced a PvP Switch to the game by making a carbon copy of the world where there were consentual PvP rules.  So one facet of the world was called Felucia, where there was Free For All combat, and had a very wild wild west feel to playing.  Almost all the PvP happend in this part of the game world.  The other facet was called Trammel, where players were protected from PKs and unwanted PvP (Most of the PvE happend in this part of the game world)

    It gave players choice, and I spent most of my time in Felucia because I liked the excitment of having to look over my shoulder...be constantly aware of my surroundings, and of course the PvP.

    With that said, I don't buy the argument that PKers drove people away from UO.  They had a whole "carebear" version of the world all to themselves to play in without worrying about player killers.

     

    Secondly.....Themepark games would still be just as popular today if UO never had a FFA system. 

     

    And the reason is because most of the casual gamers that tried, and were turned off, to sandbox MMORPGs back in the day went back to their consoles & other casual play games because there wasn't game mechanics to direct their every move.  The learning curve was high, and many of the tasks were repetitive and mondain to folks that were just looking for some quick gaming action.  The time it took to make progress in the game was way to long for the casual gamers that only had 30-40 minute play windows.

     

    ENTER WOW

    Now you have quests to direct people around the map....constantly re-inforce and reward players with gear & xp.   You had a simple UI that anyone could understand, and an extremely lowered learning curve that a 5 year old could pick up.  Marketing & Polish not withstanding, the reason WOW pulled in so many new gamers from other casual gaming generes is because it was designed for the casual gamer.  It's express intent was to make as much of the game accessable by the most people possible.  And the Themepark is born....and a precident is set in the MMO industry.

     

    I'm not saying PKing wasn't one aspect of sandbox game play that turned some folks off.....what I am saying is that the Virtual World kind of MMO, like UO, was rejected by most mainstream casual gamers for ALL it's qualities, not just PKing.  The Themepark "sit back and enjoy the 30 minute ride" was something suited for the casual crowd and they responded by the millions.

  • InvintionInvintion Member Posts: 28



    Birthed from a generation of dice rolling, choose-your-own-adventurists, the players of Ultima Online (UO) are given a massive list of skills in which to build their character, opening a world of options to create the one stop shop crafter, or powerful purist/hybrid class for your goals whatever they may be.  Many games of today have lost the flexibility to template one’s own character, to combine varying themes into a single avatar.  The choice of class now typically serves to simply limit your pool of abilities to choose from and your eventual “role” in any real scale combat. ..




    During a time when we were amassing hoards of phat loots, spread out as Magic the Gathering cards, pewter, and bytes in a few text MUDs (multi-user dungeons) that actually saved your character, Ultima Online gave me a home where I could HOARD.  In this shelter for my hard earned pixels I was able to display my loots to /raise eyebrows, derive some oohs and aahs from the newbie I bring by to give some junk from the community chest, or display the latest murderer’s head I hunted down as retribution for killing my guildmate (or somewhere to safely run to hide from thus said red)... 


     


    You remember when you first turned into a dragon?  I remember the first time I was a dragon, back when we were inputting /attack goblin and WPS (words per second) was your limitation, not ICD (internal cool down).  OK Granted you couldn’t actually BE a dragon in UO =P.  But you sure could have one as your loyal companion!  Why does it always have to be time to kill the dragon?





    Ultima Online (UO) was at the dawn of time in the immersive worlds that brought fantasy to an online visual, virtual experience over the years.  The game offers exploration, treasure, and helping or killing-a-plenty of both monster and player; aspects which appeal and serve/d well to satisfy the desire of MMO players for all these years.




     


    Much Appreciated,




    ~V~





     

  • VhalnVhaln Member Posts: 3,159

    Have they considered making it into an iPad app, yet?

     

    When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.

  • RajCajRajCaj Member UncommonPosts: 704

    Originally posted by Vhaln

    Have they considered making it into an iPad app, yet?

     

    You jest....

     

    Richard Garriot has stated that his intention is to make his new "Spiritual Successor to UO" MMO a game that plays across all platforms, including iOS & Android.

  • InvintionInvintion Member Posts: 28

    Originally posted by RajCaj

     

    With that said, I don't buy the argument that PKers drove people away from UO.  They had a whole "carebear" version of the world all to themselves to play in without worrying about player killers.

     




     

    I loved "old school UO", even as a player that is not driven by PVP, the "wild-west" feel you describe is defintely great for the MMO push to not venture out alone.  That being said, I do feel that it is best to keep this open world pvp to a level where the player has been able to grow to a point they could manage to compete with either similar or higher levels.  This can be done thru the common flagging systems of today or by the UO regulation we saw of guard zones.

    Something about the timing in regards to when you refer to the Tram Xpac for UO.  if I'm not mistaken, the release of EQ (which was more catering to a beginner and much less threatening) and the UO expansion which split the worlds are very curiously coinciding.

    ~V~

  • bunnyhopperbunnyhopper Member CommonPosts: 2,751

    Originally posted by Amaranthar

    One thing a lot of people don't know about UO's subscription numbers. They had a lot of gamers try the game. Just as many, or nearly, as EQ and other games until WoW brought in that huge influx. It was the rampant PKing that drove most of them out right away. If not for the PKing, Sandbox would probably be looked at with much more hope for subscription numbers, at least on an equal basis with Themepark. And this kills me every time I think about it.

    Can you point out to me the source information you are using to back up the fact that a great deal of gamers turned away from sandbox games because of rampant pking in UO? For a start non MUD mmorpgs where still in their infancy in the pre tram days, to somehow think that there was a massive crowd already there playing and then quitting seems inherently incorrect.

     

    SWG doesn't really fit into that remit either, given it was a sandbox without pking (ignoring the Jedi system). Nor does EVE, given it is successful and has pking in it.

     

    Moreoever the actual increase in subs UO gained post Tram was not really much over what you would have expected given the rise in internet access for gamers, the awareness of the mmorpg genre and the bump in subs seen with major expansions.

     

    EQ (which you touched upon)and the rise of the more graphically orientated mmorpgs (followed by more single player/casual centric mmos) is what "did for" UO in terms of it being a major market share holder. The ismoetric world was simply behind the times and the majority of gamers new to the genre wanted 3D.

     

    UO is for me certainly the greatest mmo there has been, but it is not what it once was and that boils down to what occurred with "the split". If you removed the pking/ffa from EVE it would still probably go on, but it would be a mockery of the game it once was and that is exactly what happened to UO.

     

    That is not to say there wasn't issues with pking of course.

    "Come and have a look at what you could have won."

  • RajCajRajCaj Member UncommonPosts: 704

    Originally posted by Invintion



    Originally posted by RajCaj




     




    With that said, I don't buy the argument that PKers drove people away from UO.  They had a whole "carebear" version of the world all to themselves to play in without worrying about player killers.

     










     

    I loved "old school UO", even as a player that is not driven by PVP, the "wild-west" feel you describe is defintely great for the MMO push to not venture out alone.  That being said, I do feel that it is best to keep this open world pvp to a level where the player has been able to grow to a point they could manage to compete with either similar or higher levels.  This can be done thru the common flagging systems of today or by the UO regulation we saw of guard zones.

    Something about the timing in regards to when you refer to the Tram Xpac for UO.  if I'm not mistaken, the release of EQ (which was more catering to a beginner and much less threatening) and the UO expansion which split the worlds are very curiously coinciding.

    ~V~

    I obviously can't speak for everyone that "graduated" to PvPing in UO, but from my personal experience in UO....Trammel was an important step in my maturation as a MMO gamer.

     

    The protections that Trammel offered allowed me to get my MMO legs under me and get proficient at playing my character.  After my skills were raised to a level that I could compete with other players, I got board with the predictable AI the monsters in the game had. 

    It was that point where I moved to Felucia for the next challenge....playing against the ultimate AI, other people.  Even PvEing in the Felucia zone was MUCH more entertaining due to threat associated with playing in that "Wild West" environment. 

    With that said, the progression I made may have not come if I weren't able to get myself aclimated to the game in the lands of Trammel (where there are more protections for new players)

     

    Contrast that with games like Darkfall that smack newbies over the head with a blunt weapon as soon as they step out of town.  Not saying that MMOs have to cow-tow to new or less experienced players....but they should alteast provide for the opprotunity for players to grow to a point where they willingly look for additional challenges in a FFA environment.  The Trammel / Felucia system as a PvP switch was a lazy way to fix the problem, but effective none the less.

  • IllyssiaIllyssia Member UncommonPosts: 1,507

    Originally posted by RajCaj

    Originally posted by Vhaln

    Have they considered making it into an iPad app, yet?

     

    You jest....

     

    Richard Garriot has stated that his intention is to make his new "Spiritual Successor to UO" MMO a game that plays across all platforms, including iOS & Android.

    Facebook does indeed play on most platforms.

  • GrayGhost79GrayGhost79 Member UncommonPosts: 4,775

    For the record 

    Ultima Online Renissance launched in 2000

    Ultima Online hit it's highest peak in subscribers in 2003

    Ultima Online Age of Shadows was launched in 2003 

    After Age of Shadows the steady decline began

     

    Trammerl didn't kill UO, people wouldn't sit around for 3 years in a game that no longer appealed to them. 

    Age of Shadows and the insane itemization did. 

     

    If Trammel killed UO it wouldn't have peaked 3 years after it happened lol. While some of us (Myself included) enjoyed the FFA PvP the fact remains that far from all players do. When persistent characters are involved the majority out there do not FFA PvP. The Tram/Fel split was an excellent answer to this as the PvP'rs were able to continue PvP'ing and the trammies got to stay safe and PvE. It was a steady rise after the fel/tram split up until Age of Shadows. 

     

    You can say UO's hayday was before trammel but thats the opinion of only a few UO's hayday was from 2000-2003. After that it was all down hill. 

     

    While you personally may disagree the fact remains that UO's popularity increased when Tram hit. 

  • OzmodanOzmodan Member EpicPosts: 9,726

    Originally posted by GrayGhost79

    For the record 

    Ultima Online Renissance launched in 2000

    Ultima Online hit it's highest peak in subscribers in 2003

    Ultima Online Age of Shadows was launched in 2003 

    After Age of Shadows the steady decline began

     

    Trammerl didn't kill UO, people wouldn't sit around for 3 years in a game that no longer appealed to them. 

    Age of Shadows and the insane itemization did. 

     

    If Trammel killed UO it wouldn't have peaked 3 years after it happened lol. While some of us (Myself included) enjoyed the FFA PvP the fact remains that far from all players do. When persistent characters are involved the majority out there do not FFA PvP. The Tram/Fel split was an excellent answer to this as the PvP'rs were able to continue PvP'ing and the trammies got to stay safe and PvE. It was a steady rise after the fel/tram split up until Age of Shadows. 

     

    You can say UO's hayday was before trammel but thats the opinion of only a few UO's hayday was from 2000-2003. After that it was all down hill. 

     

    While you personally may disagree the fact remains that UO's popularity increased when Tram hit. 

    This!

    UO had huge server and bug issues after Age of Shadows was released.  Took them 2-3 months to get things stablized.  The itemization issues just enhanced the exodus.  Lances were so bugged that they were immediately FOTM and it took them quite a while to fix that problem.  

    UO did not need itemization.  Another example of developers messing with success to come up with a disfunctional game.

    The most important thing about a pvp game that has item loss, is to keep replacement equipment cheap.  Even with insurance it became very expensive to outfit your avatar after that.  Became very expensive to make anything useful too.

  • AmarantharAmaranthar Member EpicPosts: 5,785

    Originally posted by bunnyhopper

    Originally posted by Amaranthar



    One thing a lot of people don't know about UO's subscription numbers. They had a lot of gamers try the game. Just as many, or nearly, as EQ and other games until WoW brought in that huge influx. It was the rampant PKing that drove most of them out right away. If not for the PKing, Sandbox would probably be looked at with much more hope for subscription numbers, at least on an equal basis with Themepark. And this kills me every time I think about it.

    Can you point out to me the source information you are using to back up the fact that a great deal of gamers turned away from sandbox games because of rampant pking in UO? For a start non MUD mmorpgs where still in their infancy in the pre tram days, to somehow think that there was a massive crowd already there playing and then quitting seems inherently incorrect.

     

    SWG doesn't really fit into that remit either, given it was a sandbox without pking (ignoring the Jedi system). Nor does EVE, given it is successful and has pking in it.

     

    Moreoever the actual increase in subs UO gained post Tram was not really much over what you would have expected given the rise in internet access for gamers, the awareness of the mmorpg genre and the bump in subs seen with major expansions.

     

    EQ (which you touched upon)and the rise of the more graphically orientated mmorpgs (followed by more single player/casual centric mmos) is what "did for" UO in terms of it being a major market share holder. The ismoetric world was simply behind the times and the majority of gamers new to the genre wanted 3D.

     

    UO is for me certainly the greatest mmo there has been, but it is not what it once was and that boils down to what occurred with "the split". If you removed the pking/ffa from EVE it would still probably go on, but it would be a mockery of the game it once was and that is exactly what happened to UO.

     

    That is not to say there wasn't issues with pking of course.

    No, I can't support that statement. My sources are lost on the internet or gone.

    What I can tell you is this. I've seen several statements to this effect from the original big dogs at UO, Koster for sure, and I think Garriott and Star Long, but maybe others instead.

    Raph Koster posted as Holocron on the SWG boards before release that the numbers of players that left UO directly because of PKing was in the 6 figures. So anywhere from 100,000 to something short of a million that left UO directly because of rampant PKing. I think it's safe to say that it was on the short end of that range, but that's quite a number.

    One of these guys said in an interview once (I think it was Long, but it might have been a later big wig) that UO had more than a million gamers try it, but most leaving. But I don't know the time frame there, it could have been over 5 years, I just don't know. But also, all these games have a lot of players try them out and leave. One of WoW's developers that talked about the percentages of keepers more than a few months, and how low it was for all of them, even WoW. It was something in the 20%-25% range for WoW. The hidden numbers out there are much larger than we gamers know because they aren't talked about much.

    But I don't have links, and I've tried before to find these things without luck, so I'm not going to even try now.

    Let me add that EQ came out only 1 year after UO. Their numbers were quite a bit larger. Do you think that there was that much of a new community of gamers that knew nothing about UO? In one year? And if said community did grow that much, was it because they were aware of UO, the first truly massive MMORPG and heavily in the gaming news, or not?

    One of my biggest regrets in my time playing MMORPGs is the fact that I've been unable to get PvPers as whole to realize their affect on their games. And I've tried for quite a few years. I mean, all you have to do is look at what happened to any game or server that allowed wide open PvP. UO (until Trammel was added), UO's PvP Felucca, AC's Darktide server, Shadowbane, Darkfall, Mortal Online, all of them. They may have started well, but al started sufefring the hemorrhage of attrition as players found out that they aren't going to be King of the Hill, and there's no room for any other play in such an environment.

    You know, you just can't have meaningfull PvP as part of a game world unless PvPers give something. But PvPers won't give. Neither will non-PvPers. I can offer you a system that makes PvP meaningfull in one world, and separates the PvPers from non-PvPers, through the use of a "military" function in guilds and adding a separate supply chain/resources/territory (a combined system) to fight for, but I've been shot down before so I won't bother now.

    Once upon a time....

  • InvintionInvintion Member Posts: 28

    I don't believe anyone tried to say that the tram xpac was UO's downfall.  It was merely a turning point where the many generations of UO players differ greatly in schools of thought.

    Personally, I have done plenty of stocking my house with multiple sets of banged out armor, guild colored clothing, and reagent bags for recovery situations in hopes you could retrieve the goods from the PK or that are soon to decay on your corpse in the dungeon. 

    When they took away the fear of gear loss, and introduced lower reagent cost (I NEVER want to go back!), I adapted and happily hoarded those pixels of jewelry and armors that I might use for one of my characters or my friend's guildmate's cousin who just started.. or that noob that I saw sweating so hard chopping wood to build their first house that the axe mightve flown out of their hands! ~V~

  • MacroHardMacroHard Member Posts: 104

    perhaps it wasn't feasible to continue to poor heavy investment into the title a handful of years down the road.  So instead EA appeared to keep UO as a bank that was dwindling every year and put limited funds into that arrangement - instead of trying to keep it going full-fludged for years and years to come.  Eventually all games die.  No one knows when. 

  • bunnyhopperbunnyhopper Member CommonPosts: 2,751

    Originally posted by Amaranthar

    Originally posted by bunnyhopper


    Originally posted by Amaranthar



    One thing a lot of people don't know about UO's subscription numbers. They had a lot of gamers try the game. Just as many, or nearly, as EQ and other games until WoW brought in that huge influx. It was the rampant PKing that drove most of them out right away. If not for the PKing, Sandbox would probably be looked at with much more hope for subscription numbers, at least on an equal basis with Themepark. And this kills me every time I think about it.

    Can you point out to me the source information you are using to back up the fact that a great deal of gamers turned away from sandbox games because of rampant pking in UO? For a start non MUD mmorpgs where still in their infancy in the pre tram days, to somehow think that there was a massive crowd already there playing and then quitting seems inherently incorrect.

     

    SWG doesn't really fit into that remit either, given it was a sandbox without pking (ignoring the Jedi system). Nor does EVE, given it is successful and has pking in it.

     

    Moreoever the actual increase in subs UO gained post Tram was not really much over what you would have expected given the rise in internet access for gamers, the awareness of the mmorpg genre and the bump in subs seen with major expansions.

     

    EQ (which you touched upon)and the rise of the more graphically orientated mmorpgs (followed by more single player/casual centric mmos) is what "did for" UO in terms of it being a major market share holder. The ismoetric world was simply behind the times and the majority of gamers new to the genre wanted 3D.

     

    UO is for me certainly the greatest mmo there has been, but it is not what it once was and that boils down to what occurred with "the split". If you removed the pking/ffa from EVE it would still probably go on, but it would be a mockery of the game it once was and that is exactly what happened to UO.

     

    That is not to say there wasn't issues with pking of course.

    No, I can't support that statement. My sources are lost on the internet or gone.

    What I can tell you is this. I've seen several statements to this effect from the original big dogs at UO, Koster for sure, and I think Garriott and Star Long, but maybe others instead.

    Raph Koster posted as Holocron on the SWG boards before release that the numbers of players that left UO directly because of PKing was in the 6 figures. So anywhere from 100,000 to something short of a million that left UO directly because of rampant PKing. I think it's safe to say that it was on the short end of that range, but that's quite a number.

    One of these guys said in an interview once (I think it was Long, but it might have been a later big wig) that UO had more than a million gamers try it, but most leaving. But I don't know the time frame there, it could have been over 5 years, I just don't know. But also, all these games have a lot of players try them out and leave. One of WoW's developers that talked about the percentages of keepers more than a few months, and how low it was for all of them, even WoW. It was something in the 20%-25% range for WoW. The hidden numbers out there are much larger than we gamers know because they aren't talked about much.

    But I don't have links, and I've tried before to find these things without luck, so I'm not going to even try now.

    Let me add that EQ came out only 1 year after UO. Their numbers were quite a bit larger. Do you think that there was that much of a new community of gamers that knew nothing about UO? In one year? And if said community did grow that much, was it because they were aware of UO, the first truly massive MMORPG and heavily in the gaming news, or not?

    One of my biggest regrets in my time playing MMORPGs is the fact that I've been unable to get PvPers as whole to realize their affect on their games. And I've tried for quite a few years. I mean, all you have to do is look at what happened to any game or server that allowed wide open PvP. UO (until Trammel was added), UO's PvP Felucca, AC's Darktide server, Shadowbane, Darkfall, Mortal Online, all of them. They may have started well, but al started sufefring the hemorrhage of attrition as players found out that they aren't going to be King of the Hill, and there's no room for any other play in such an environment.

    You know, you just can't have meaningfull PvP as part of a game world unless PvPers give something. But PvPers won't give. Neither will non-PvPers. I can offer you a system that makes PvP meaningfull in one world, and separates the PvPers from non-PvPers, through the use of a "military" function in guilds and adding a separate supply chain/resources/territory (a combined system) to fight for, but I've been shot down before so I won't bother now.



    To suggest that all the subs, or even the majority of them (in SWG) came purely from people who had rejected UO due to pking is a leap into the realms of fantasy. Frankly if Koster said that it numbered 6 figures who left UO purely due to pking then all the data that is on the net with regards to subs must be totally and utterly false to a factor of about 10. Which is unlikely.

     

    All the data that you can still access on the net, actually points to the sub numbers steadily increasing over time up until the point the pleothora of more graphically advanced and all round less complex mmos came to dominate the market.

     

    EQ was indeed just after UO, but it heralded a new dawn which clearly appealed to a larger userbase. Not everyone rushed to it from UO because not everyone was playing UO in the first place. That is not surprising given how new the genre was to the market place still and how few (when compared to now) people actually played mmorpgs.

     

    i'm not debating the pros and cons of ffa here, I just think you are being somewhat hyperbolic with regards to your thoughts on the negative impact UO's ffa stage had upon the sandbox market place.

    "Come and have a look at what you could have won."

  • HolaHolaHolaHola Member Posts: 68

    Ultima Online is to me the best MMORPG made too this days, and even with some wrong turns it is still the best one out there (which is sad).

    Played it on and off for 10 years, and nothing came or comes close to it. People often says AoS destroyed it, well it changed, and not for the better at that time, but today its a really really solid games which could work for the masses if it just got a new updated client with new graphics (still keep top-down view else its not UO) and UI.

    Playing: League of Legends!

  • VagelispVagelisp Member UncommonPosts: 448

    Why don't you improve the game's Graphics for God's sake?! This is a hudge drawback for almost every player including old farts like me who played it from 1997. I got spoiled by the 3D areas of EQ and so forth and i am sure that there are many other people who feel like i do.

    I know that UO is still the "WOW" of sandbox mmorpgs and there is still not a chance to find a "modern" mmo that has 10% of its features. Why don't you take advantage of UO's unique features and evolve the game as it deserves?

     

     

  • AirmidCechtAirmidCecht Member Posts: 4

    Because they risk losing a bulk (not all) of their current subscribers who prefer 2D and what's considered a classic client. Kingdom Reborn was the first attempt at a compromised solution but was 1.implemented way too early and 2. not promoted properly.  The new Enhanced Client is a slow build this time with lots of input from players. Pinco's UI is a great example of taking the EC and tweaking it. We are already seeing more screen shots and in game videos taken with the EC than ever before which means slow and steady does win the race :)

    Sosaria Reels is UO based videos with both CC and EC featured if you want to compare. It comes with a warning though that this is not your bells and whistles graphics in either case but it will highlight the subtle differences as well as a look at different shards. 

     

  • AmarantharAmaranthar Member EpicPosts: 5,785

    Originally posted by bunnyhopper

    Originally posted by Amaranthar


    Originally posted by bunnyhopper


    Originally posted by Amaranthar



    One thing a lot of people don't know about UO's subscription numbers. They had a lot of gamers try the game. Just as many, or nearly, as EQ and other games until WoW brought in that huge influx. It was the rampant PKing that drove most of them out right away. If not for the PKing, Sandbox would probably be looked at with much more hope for subscription numbers, at least on an equal basis with Themepark. And this kills me every time I think about it.

    Can you point out to me the source information you are using to back up the fact that a great deal of gamers turned away from sandbox games because of rampant pking in UO? For a start non MUD mmorpgs where still in their infancy in the pre tram days, to somehow think that there was a massive crowd already there playing and then quitting seems inherently incorrect.

     

    SWG doesn't really fit into that remit either, given it was a sandbox without pking (ignoring the Jedi system). Nor does EVE, given it is successful and has pking in it.

     

    Moreoever the actual increase in subs UO gained post Tram was not really much over what you would have expected given the rise in internet access for gamers, the awareness of the mmorpg genre and the bump in subs seen with major expansions.

     

    EQ (which you touched upon)and the rise of the more graphically orientated mmorpgs (followed by more single player/casual centric mmos) is what "did for" UO in terms of it being a major market share holder. The ismoetric world was simply behind the times and the majority of gamers new to the genre wanted 3D.

     

    UO is for me certainly the greatest mmo there has been, but it is not what it once was and that boils down to what occurred with "the split". If you removed the pking/ffa from EVE it would still probably go on, but it would be a mockery of the game it once was and that is exactly what happened to UO.

     

    That is not to say there wasn't issues with pking of course.

    No, I can't support that statement. My sources are lost on the internet or gone.

    What I can tell you is this. I've seen several statements to this effect from the original big dogs at UO, Koster for sure, and I think Garriott and Star Long, but maybe others instead.

    Raph Koster posted as Holocron on the SWG boards before release that the numbers of players that left UO directly because of PKing was in the 6 figures. So anywhere from 100,000 to something short of a million that left UO directly because of rampant PKing. I think it's safe to say that it was on the short end of that range, but that's quite a number.

    One of these guys said in an interview once (I think it was Long, but it might have been a later big wig) that UO had more than a million gamers try it, but most leaving. But I don't know the time frame there, it could have been over 5 years, I just don't know. But also, all these games have a lot of players try them out and leave. One of WoW's developers that talked about the percentages of keepers more than a few months, and how low it was for all of them, even WoW. It was something in the 20%-25% range for WoW. The hidden numbers out there are much larger than we gamers know because they aren't talked about much.

    But I don't have links, and I've tried before to find these things without luck, so I'm not going to even try now.

    Let me add that EQ came out only 1 year after UO. Their numbers were quite a bit larger. Do you think that there was that much of a new community of gamers that knew nothing about UO? In one year? And if said community did grow that much, was it because they were aware of UO, the first truly massive MMORPG and heavily in the gaming news, or not?

    One of my biggest regrets in my time playing MMORPGs is the fact that I've been unable to get PvPers as whole to realize their affect on their games. And I've tried for quite a few years. I mean, all you have to do is look at what happened to any game or server that allowed wide open PvP. UO (until Trammel was added), UO's PvP Felucca, AC's Darktide server, Shadowbane, Darkfall, Mortal Online, all of them. They may have started well, but al started sufefring the hemorrhage of attrition as players found out that they aren't going to be King of the Hill, and there's no room for any other play in such an environment.

    You know, you just can't have meaningfull PvP as part of a game world unless PvPers give something. But PvPers won't give. Neither will non-PvPers. I can offer you a system that makes PvP meaningfull in one world, and separates the PvPers from non-PvPers, through the use of a "military" function in guilds and adding a separate supply chain/resources/territory (a combined system) to fight for, but I've been shot down before so I won't bother now.



    To suggest that all the subs, or even the majority of them (in SWG) came purely from people who had rejected UO due to pking is a leap into the realms of fantasy. Frankly if Koster said that it numbered 6 figures who left UO purely due to pking then all the data that is on the net with regards to subs must be totally and utterly false to a factor of about 10. Which is unlikely.

     

    All the data that you can still access on the net, actually points to the sub numbers steadily increasing over time up until the point the pleothora of more graphically advanced and all round less complex mmos came to dominate the market.

     

    EQ was indeed just after UO, but it heralded a new dawn which clearly appealed to a larger userbase. Not everyone rushed to it from UO because not everyone was playing UO in the first place. That is not surprising given how new the genre was to the market place still and how few (when compared to now) people actually played mmorpgs.

     

    i'm not debating the pros and cons of ffa here, I just think you are being somewhat hyperbolic with regards to your thoughts on the negative impact UO's ffa stage had upon the sandbox market place.

    Well, let me try to explain.

    If a game has 100K subs, and over the next few months gains another 300K subs, but loses 250K of those new subs, plus loses another 50K of the original subs, you'd see a report that the game stayed at 100K subs. Yet, 400K people tried the game out.

    And the same sort of thing with the entire industry itself in those days. A lot of people tried out UO and left the MMORPG scene entirely, while new people came in at the same time. Subs did increase overall quite considerably, especially with WoW, but also overall. Some old UO players ended up in EQ, others in AC, others in DAoC, mixed in with the new players who never played UO, and some just left the scene and went back to SPgames or FPSers, or whatever. The overall retention numbers increased, we don't know how much the overall numbers of people who didn't stick increased but I'm absolutely sure they did. The point is, that UO had about as many players try it as those other games before WoW did, game per game. But the other games had more retention than UO did exactly because of the PKing. And of you don't want to believe Koster, that's your right. But you don't know how many left a game before they could be counted as subs on a quarterly basis. Koster did.

    Once upon a time....

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