Trammel did hurt UO, I think they know that to. By adding exactly double the land space is going to alienate people enough.
It helped a lot more then it hurt the population was already in a sharp decline and that was the original reason for Tram. If they had never added tram trust me UO would have only made it a few years like most today.
Can you point to ANYWHERE on the graph pre-trammel, that saw a decline? Your 50 bucks are worthless. Think a while for yourself instead of parrotting defensive dev propaganda defending their decisions.
EQ happened to UO, not any phantom "population decline". UO devs were envious of EQ's success, and analyzed that Trammel would be the answer. When Trammel hit, UO had 180k subscribers, 6 months later UO topped off forever at around 220k. One might ask if Trammel really WAS a good solution. One might even ask what they were trying to solve. Why fix a problem that is not there?
This was a petition for someone to make an mmo that develops the original concept of UO right? Instead of what we have today which is a brown sea of clones, and a few daring exceptions (<3 EVE).
At least the horizon has some interesting things to bring... too early to tell but Earthrise, Mortal Online and my favourite; Darkfall Online (shut up haters, the day will come!) are all looking back to the original days of UO for inspiration. My hope is that at least one of them succeeds in creating an experience like original UO.
Developers today want to create an experience that doesn't scare anyone off, and if they could financially motivate to send someone along with each game copy that holds your hand while you play, they would do it.
Trammel did hurt UO, I think they know that to. By adding exactly double the land space is going to alienate people enough.
It helped a lot more then it hurt the population was already in a sharp decline and that was the original reason for Tram. If they had never added tram trust me UO would have only made it a few years like most today.
Can you point to ANYWHERE on the graph pre-trammel, that saw a decline? Your 50 bucks are worthless. Think a while for yourself instead of parrotting defensive dev propaganda defending their decisions.
EQ happened to UO, not any phantom "population decline". UO devs were envious of EQ's success, and analyzed that Trammel would be the answer. When Trammel hit, UO had 180k subscribers, 6 months later UO topped off forever at around 220k. One might ask if Trammel really WAS a good solution. One might even ask what they were trying to solve. Why fix a problem that is not there?
Ultima Online Interview
RPG Vault chats with Ultima Online producer Jason Bell about Britannia.
showUSloc=(checkLocale('uk')||checkLocale('au'));document.writeln(showUSloc ? 'US, ' : ''); October 19, 1999 - Head gaming wizard Jonric over at our network partner the RPG Vault recently had an opportunity to talk to Ultima Online producer Jason Bell about the state of Britannia. This interview gives an uplifting look at the building of an online gaming community as Jason Bell revels that now "roleplayers can co-exist (sort of) with KeWL D00dz." Now you know, and knowing is half the battle after all. So stop doing your impression of Cobra Commander and go check out the interview.
Propaganda huh odd I didn't write this review the "Head gaming Wizard " did go back to your charts little boy I was there!!
I assume he means EQ by your standards when he say's KeWL D00dz huh?
let me ask did it take you the whole 3 hours to find that chart to try and make yourself look smart?
"The most important thing is to have the design support the players in setting their own goals in both cooperative and competitive interaction with one another." - Ironore -
/signed This was a petition for someone to make an mmo that develops the original concept of UO right? Instead of what we have today which is a brown sea of clones, and a few daring exceptions (<3 EVE). At least the horizon has some interesting things to bring... too early to tell but Earthrise, Mortal Online and my favourite; Darkfall Online (shut up haters, the day will come!) are all looking back to the original days of UO for inspiration. My hope is that at least one of them succeeds in creating an experience like original UO. Developers today want to create an experience that doesn't scare anyone off, and if they could financially motivate to send someone along with each game copy that holds your hand while you play, they would do it. To the future, and what it brings!
I think the developers are the scared ones these days.
Darkfall
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
I think that there are to many people that don't really understand FFA Sandbox terms.
What developers need to do is create bounty systems that reward players for taking care of the bad guys. Also you need to reward bad guys for killing higher up good guys.
Allow quests to be player created such as. Player A needs to get materials to a certain town to craft Iron. Player A talks to a mercenary NPC which then posts it as a job for players to pick up. So while the weak crafter is hauling goods, Good guys can protect them.
The problem stems from everyone wanting to be evil, because evil is cool. But mindless PvP hapens because of lack of things to do. Therefore you open the door to griefing.
Dev's need to allow players more control over quests and give bonuses to those who do good, and those who do bad. Instead of the standard issue "kill X mobs"
Hell this is what player driven economy is all about.
Have warrants that get placed on peoples heads, allow bad guys to become informed about major shipments.
And player housing. Jeez can someone get this right?
Don;t even get me started on player craftable items.
Trammel did hurt UO, I think they know that to. By adding exactly double the land space is going to alienate people enough.
It helped a lot more then it hurt the population was already in a sharp decline and that was the original reason for Tram. If they had never added tram trust me UO would have only made it a few years like most today.
Can you point to ANYWHERE on the graph pre-trammel, that saw a decline? Your 50 bucks are worthless. Think a while for yourself instead of parrotting defensive dev propaganda defending their decisions.
EQ happened to UO, not any phantom "population decline". UO devs were envious of EQ's success, and analyzed that Trammel would be the answer. When Trammel hit, UO had 180k subscribers, 6 months later UO topped off forever at around 220k. One might ask if Trammel really WAS a good solution. One might even ask what they were trying to solve. Why fix a problem that is not there?
Ultima Online Interview
RPG Vault chats with Ultima Online producer Jason Bell about Britannia.
showUSloc=(checkLocale('uk')||checkLocale('au'));document.writeln(showUSloc ? 'US, ' : ''); October 19, 1999 - Head gaming wizard Jonric over at our network partner the RPG Vault recently had an opportunity to talk to Ultima Online producer Jason Bell about the state of Britannia. This interview gives an uplifting look at the building of an online gaming community as Jason Bell revels that now "roleplayers can co-exist (sort of) with KeWL D00dz." Now you know, and knowing is half the battle after all. So stop doing your impression of Cobra Commander and go check out the interview.
Second, how about some coherency? I simply don't understand what you are writing?
Furthermore, I can't see how words from one of the guys on the inside, trying to defend their decisions, can disprove the hardest facts we have. Remember that SirBruce keeps updating the history, even to this day. And as time passes, the old history becomes less important to protect by the companies, and therefore more of the truth seeps through.
I can't see how your very incoherent post disproves anything I wrote.
Try harder mate
I asked you for one VERY simple thing: Point out at what point in history prior to UO:R (Trammel) UO was in a "sharp decline" (your words). Can you do this very simple thing? If not, then you prove that you are nothing but a parrot, believing every little propaganda thing spewed out by idiots making idiotic decisions, and that you cannot do thinking for yourself.
Jonric: Origin has stated repeatedly that the launch of EverQuest has not really affected the UO player base. Do you think this will continue to be the case when Asheron's Call launches?
Jason Bell: Oh, I think it's affected the player base, but the game has continued to grow anyway. As for AC, who knows? I think there's a lot of evidence that our competition is growing the player base of the whole medium. It's not a zero-sum game.
Game, set and match
There is your "sharp decline", from the very interview you linked to yourself.
and about the FFA PvP, there are a couple misconceptions and I’m going to explain them with my extreme bias =D
first of all, in UO there weren’t levels, i agree FFA PVP is a bad idea in games with lvls because there is absolutely no possibility of beating 20 levels about you.. even 5 people 20 levels below often cant kill someone higher
levels are a restriction, much like linear quests systems and tailored classes that suck away immersion and should not be in an MMO
The lack of FFA PVP is an invisible barrier that makes the world fake, as opposed to living and breathing.. you can hate it.. and most people that hate it are weak people imo.. just like in real life they cant roll with the punches.. when the going gets tough you figure out how to improve your situation.. whether in real life or not...
you cry about how pvp is hard just like how you probably cry about how college is hard or work is hard...
in a game with out levels, people with substantially less skill can beat people that are "higher lvled" if they are genuinely better than them..
yes a noob cant compete but he can get through it.. when i started UO, i was a miner, I got PKed.. guess what i didnt cry and quit.. i worked on being able to defend myself..
i almost have my bachelors degree.. and i will be going off to get my masters in business finance.. i credit a lot of my drive to when i played UO back when i was 13 and beyond
i get a bit heated about this topic not only because the games being made are garbage but because of the overwhelming evidence that the majority of humanity is lazy and wants to be spoon feed.. WoW is a sociology experiment that has proven that most people are lazy pieces of crap who want life on easy mode and hate challenges
i agree with everything the OP said.. and about the FFA PvP, there are a couple misconceptions and I’m going to explain them with my extreme bias =D first of all, in UO there weren’t levels, i agree FFA PVP is a bad idea in games with lvls because there is absolutely no possibility of beating 20 levels about you.. even 5 people 20 levels below often cant kill someone higher levels are a restriction, much like linear quests systems and tailored classes that suck away immersion and should not be in an MMO The lack of FFA PVP is an invisible barrier that makes the world fake, as opposed to living and breathing.. you can hate it.. and most people that hate it are weak people imo.. just like in real life they cant roll with the punches.. when the going gets tough you figure out how to improve your situation.. whether in real life or not... you cry about how pvp is hard just like how you probably cry about how college is hard or work is hard... in a game with out levels, people with substantially less skill can beat people that are "higher lvled" if they are genuinely better than them.. yes a noob cant compete but he can get through it.. when i started UO, i was a miner, I got PKed.. guess what i didnt cry and quit.. i worked on being able to defend myself.. i almost have my bachelors degree.. and i will be going off to get my masters in business finance.. i credit a lot of my drive to when i played UO back when i was 13 and beyond i get a bit heated about this topic not only because the games being made are garbage but because of the overwhelming evidence that the majority of humanity is lazy and wants to be spoon feed.. WoW is a sociology experiment that has proven that most people are lazy pieces of crap who want life on easy mode and hate challenges /rantoff
You may be right, but I don't really agree with that. Most people who left UO was because it was a big waste of time to lose items constantly to other players. Items that you may have spent hours collecting. It might be OK if you have all day long to play, but some people are more interested in the PvE content.
As for sandbox I believe you can have a PvE sanbox without PvP. It does restrict some things like being able to steal from other players which was a neat feature. Still you can develop a large array of PvE content with lots of possible ways to build a character.
I can say I agree with the general concept of the thread.. there are things I don't agree with as well.
FFA PvP just comes down to how much of a market do you want? How many subscribers etc
If a developer is willing to settle for the PvP 10% and yes I'm sorry we are the 1 out of 10 of the market then FFA like old UO makes sense.
However, I also believe if you do this you market the game that way. You up front tell people "when you leave town you will be killed and looted". You don't make any promises other than that.. and that you'll support this type of play.
Beyond that why I'd like a modern UO (doesn't have to be fantasy) that isn't just FFA or has a better system then stat loss, murder system or trammel.. is a very successful skill based game could start to show the market that you don't need to keep the clones attacking.
imho the entire level/class/uber loot is what is wrong with almost every MMO on the market.. the entire level design is a screw up to start with (in an mmo).
But I really don't think you want to read the wall of text I could add to explain that.
Also the crafting sytem / player market you had in UO.. really can't exist in a uber loot /raid based type of game.
I was still making gold by the tons when I shut my accounts down in 2002... on my vendors that is.
interesting this thread. While pvp centric, doesn't seem too heated. No bans, no major flames.
I wish we had more sandbox games other then EVE Online but yeah its the way things roll I guess. I kind of given up. I play EVE alongside a theme park MMO now. I dont see things changing anytime soon. I wish MMOs were easier to make like MUDs then we would see plenty of them and see something new all the time.
I wish Second Life was more of a game instead of feeling more like a TV commercial or business venture.
Sandbox games seem like the natural progression of MMOs. But I guess I'm wrong. Soon WAR will be here and I suspect its gonna sweep the shelves. I'm gonna preorder it too I guess. Cant beat them; join'em <weep>
On September 25th, 1997, Ultima Online was released, giving birth to the modern age of MMORPGs. Anyone lucky enough to be sitting at their computer that day with a copy of UO in their hands got to experience one of the most interesting days in video game history. There were glitches, crashes, bugs, exploits, and unbearable lag in the path of anyone who dared log in to Origin's servers. But behind all the problems was a bold new game, filled with fresh ideas and a scope that no prior game could compare with. The world of Britannia was open to any who wanted to face its challenges. You could explore, craft, hunt, socialize, and die. With the success of Ultima Online, the future of the genre certainly looked bright. This was only the beginning. With time the genra would grow and mature, and soon there would be games that blew Ultima Online away, leaving it to only be remembered as the game that sparked the genra alive. Right?
Well, Maybe Not. I'm sitting here almost 11 years later looking at the account management page for Age of Conan. It's been out barely two weeks, and I'm about to cancel my subscription and head back to the world of Britannia. Not on an official server, but one that emulates the feel of the game as it was back in 1998. From the time I first entered Ultima Online up to the time I'm writing this, I have spent hours and hours playing every single MMORPG I could manage to provide time for. I've explored the worlds of Everquest, Asheron's Call 1 and 2, Final Fantasy XI, Anarchy, Eve and Shadowbane. I was there for the rise of Warcraft, the scams of Dark and Light, the patches that destroyed Star Wars: Galaxies, and the bot farming of Lineage II. I've seen it all. My list of cancelled subscriptions could stretch for miles. So why have I gone full circle back to the game I began with. What happened?
The problem as I see it began on March 16th, 1999, with the release of Everquest. Now don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun playing Everquest. It was a good game for its time, but it was also the biggest factor in the destruction of the genre. Everquest provided players with a much less open-ended experience than that of Ultima. The game's mechanics were less complex, the choices a player could make were more restricted, and the gameplay was more structured. All this would have been fine except for the fact that Everquest made a lot more money than Ultima. They were both a commercial success, but Everquest was an absolute jackpot for the producers. Now any company looking to fund a new MMORPG had to face a depressing fact: The production companies were a lot more likely to provide money for an Everquest style game than an Ultima one.
So the years rolled on, and many new MMORPGs began to hit the market. I purchased game after game eagerly anticipating the successor to Ultima; a game that would take Ultima's core principals and extend them to create an even greater immersive experience. Asheron's Call showed some promiss with a seamless 3D world and an open ended PvP server called Darktide. Siege warfare and harsh PvP were anticipated from Shadowbane. Star Wars: Galaxies offered an open style economic system, and a skill structure similar to Ultima. There was hope in the air, but that hope would quickly transform into despair.
In April 2000, Ultima Online, in an attempt to inscrease subscription numbers, begins a series of steps to make Ultima a lot more like Everquest. The world is also doubled in size, but not by new content. Instead they jusy create a second instance of the existing land. PvP is ruined. A year later, Dark Age of Camelot and Anarchy Online are released. Camelot is almost an exact replica of Everquest, except that it adds an extremely static and close-ended team PvP system. It becomes a huge commercial success anyways. Anarchy offers a fresh new Sci-fi theme into the genre, but I sensed trouble on my first trip to the instanced dungeons. This was touted as a feature. It seemed to me to be a cheap way for the developers to create less content and stretch that to more players.
Soon enough, Everquest clones were being released every few months. Asheron's Call II, Final Fantasy XI, Everquest II, Lineage II, City of Heroes. There was no room left in the market for another game just like Everquest right? I thought so, and just when I was convinced of it, World of Warcraft came out, proving me to be as nieve as they come. I played Warcraft day and night and watched the list of servers grow beyond belief. This game was hugely popular, but at its core, it still remained just a highly polished copy of Everquest. Sure it looked different, but the gameplay was largely the same. I couldn't understand why anyone thought it was so good.
So what's wrong with all these games? Well nothing if you like them. But if you are like me and yearn for open- ended MMORPGs, then none of these new games will really do it for you. What happened to having a challenge? Games should actually penalize death. Death!... Death should be bad. There is no need for zones and instancing. Ultima and Asheron's call, two of the first MMOs, had seamless worlds. Why is the technology for it absent today? Crafting should be as much a part of the game as hunting. You should be able to loot players that you kill, and have them loot you. A MMORPG should offer a feeling of being immersed, which means being part of a living, breathing world. Today's MMOs feel more like single player games than they do their predecessors. How about a skill based system for once and does every single game need to have classes and levels?
Today's games are over designed. Everything is laid out for you from level one so you are never in a situation too hard or too easy. You are guided on a path where you are faced with no challenge and constant repition. I want to be scared in a dungeon. I want the fear of being Pkd, and I want the exhilaration of success when I finally make it through these challenges. I'm sick of the expected, and this is why I find myself on the Age of Conan account management page today, cancelling my subscription.
Age of Conan is a terrible game. It is the most banal experience I've had in years. It will outsell almost every other current MMORPG and turn the developers into millionaires. It offers no interesting ideas of its own and simply repeats the same old crap we've seen for years. I don't blame the developers though, because this is apparently what people want. This is what people buy and love to play. I didn't understand it years ago and I certainly don't understand it today. The MMORPG market, despite a few brave souls like Eve, is devoid of interesting ideas. The open-ended MMO is dead. It died a long time ago. The genre is in a sad state and will continue to be so until some developer is brave enough to try something new. Until then, I'll be hiding out in Britannia, circa 1998. Sorry for the rant.
Your stuck in the past, AC was much better then UO, played both, AoC will not out sell other mmo's its not only complete crap, distribution of game and gamecards is also terible almost nowhere to found any copy of game.
To say its end of open ended mmo's, your eather belong to those who like the majority, follow blindly hypes or the mass, and thinking darkfall is vaporware, your mistaken.
Darkfall is the FUTURE, this game will revolutionise the genre again, ok it will be hardcore and 100% sandbox, so people have to re-discover a genre like this again, but im positive this game will SHAKE the mmo's community at his foundation, as you never have seen before.
Darkfall will profail.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
Well, I think we all agree with the OP that the marketplace seems to be constricting and contracting itself to produce only limited, instanced and path-bound MMOs - all of which are so much the same that only one of them really seems necessary, WoW.
Most of us would also agree within him when he argues for the return of open-ended sandbox-type games like Ultima Online and the original Star Wars Galaxies.
However, I'd say he makes a colossal error if he thinks that the whole point of sandbox games is to provide him and those like him with FFA and PK'ing.
If the truth be told, FFA PVP sounds terribly glamorous to us pizza-stuffed, basement mushrooms but, in reality, they are of appeal to very few; mostly hardcore early adopters who never get killed because they get the best armour first and because they spend hours playing with nothing but a red plastic bucket under their desk for company. The time they spend preying off the rest of us gives them the weird sexual or emotional kick that is always the pay-off for the bully-type personality but, really, why the hell would any of the rest of us pay our subs to give them their jollies?
I suppose that SWG cames closest to finding a happy medium between the Sandbox MMO and forced PVP with the BH vs jedi system and the GCW Tef system.
That said, if forced PVP is what the OP wants, then open-ended Sandbox MMORPGs will never give hum what he wants - because what he is looking for is actually an MMOFPS like WWIIO or Planteside. There are new games coming up for him like SOE's The Agency and Huxley.
Meanwhile, for those of us who want a truly open-ended sandbox game in which combat, socialising, crafting and exploration all come together... there is nothing.
On September 25th, 1997, Ultima Online was released, giving birth to the modern age of MMORPGs. Anyone lucky enough to be sitting at their computer that day with a copy of UO in their hands got to experience one of the most interesting days in video game history. There were glitches, crashes, bugs, exploits, and unbearable lag in the path of anyone who dared log in to Origin's servers. But behind all the problems was a bold new game, filled with fresh ideas and a scope that no prior game could compare with. The world of Britannia was open to any who wanted to face its challenges. You could explore, craft, hunt, socialize, and die. With the success of Ultima Online, the future of the genre certainly looked bright. This was only the beginning. With time the genra would grow and mature, and soon there would be games that blew Ultima Online away, leaving it to only be remembered as the game that sparked the genra alive. Right?
Well, Maybe Not. I'm sitting here almost 11 years later looking at the account management page for Age of Conan. It's been out barely two weeks, and I'm about to cancel my subscription and head back to the world of Britannia. Not on an official server, but one that emulates the feel of the game as it was back in 1998. From the time I first entered Ultima Online up to the time I'm writing this, I have spent hours and hours playing every single MMORPG I could manage to provide time for. I've explored the worlds of Everquest, Asheron's Call 1 and 2, Final Fantasy XI, Anarchy, Eve and Shadowbane. I was there for the rise of Warcraft, the scams of Dark and Light, the patches that destroyed Star Wars: Galaxies, and the bot farming of Lineage II. I've seen it all. My list of cancelled subscriptions could stretch for miles. So why have I gone full circle back to the game I began with. What happened?
The problem as I see it began on March 16th, 1999, with the release of Everquest. Now don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun playing Everquest. It was a good game for its time, but it was also the biggest factor in the destruction of the genre. Everquest provided players with a much less open-ended experience than that of Ultima. The game's mechanics were less complex, the choices a player could make were more restricted, and the gameplay was more structured. All this would have been fine except for the fact that Everquest made a lot more money than Ultima. They were both a commercial success, but Everquest was an absolute jackpot for the producers. Now any company looking to fund a new MMORPG had to face a depressing fact: The production companies were a lot more likely to provide money for an Everquest style game than an Ultima one.
So the years rolled on, and many new MMORPGs began to hit the market. I purchased game after game eagerly anticipating the successor to Ultima; a game that would take Ultima's core principals and extend them to create an even greater immersive experience. Asheron's Call showed some promiss with a seamless 3D world and an open ended PvP server called Darktide. Siege warfare and harsh PvP were anticipated from Shadowbane. Star Wars: Galaxies offered an open style economic system, and a skill structure similar to Ultima. There was hope in the air, but that hope would quickly transform into despair.
In April 2000, Ultima Online, in an attempt to inscrease subscription numbers, begins a series of steps to make Ultima a lot more like Everquest. The world is also doubled in size, but not by new content. Instead they jusy create a second instance of the existing land. PvP is ruined. A year later, Dark Age of Camelot and Anarchy Online are released. Camelot is almost an exact replica of Everquest, except that it adds an extremely static and close-ended team PvP system. It becomes a huge commercial success anyways. Anarchy offers a fresh new Sci-fi theme into the genre, but I sensed trouble on my first trip to the instanced dungeons. This was touted as a feature. It seemed to me to be a cheap way for the developers to create less content and stretch that to more players.
Soon enough, Everquest clones were being released every few months. Asheron's Call II, Final Fantasy XI, Everquest II, Lineage II, City of Heroes. There was no room left in the market for another game just like Everquest right? I thought so, and just when I was convinced of it, World of Warcraft came out, proving me to be as nieve as they come. I played Warcraft day and night and watched the list of servers grow beyond belief. This game was hugely popular, but at its core, it still remained just a highly polished copy of Everquest. Sure it looked different, but the gameplay was largely the same. I couldn't understand why anyone thought it was so good.
So what's wrong with all these games? Well nothing if you like them. But if you are like me and yearn for open- ended MMORPGs, then none of these new games will really do it for you. What happened to having a challenge? Games should actually penalize death. Death!... Death should be bad. There is no need for zones and instancing. Ultima and Asheron's call, two of the first MMOs, had seamless worlds. Why is the technology for it absent today? Crafting should be as much a part of the game as hunting. You should be able to loot players that you kill, and have them loot you. A MMORPG should offer a feeling of being immersed, which means being part of a living, breathing world. Today's MMOs feel more like single player games than they do their predecessors. How about a skill based system for once and does every single game need to have classes and levels?
Today's games are over designed. Everything is laid out for you from level one so you are never in a situation too hard or too easy. You are guided on a path where you are faced with no challenge and constant repition. I want to be scared in a dungeon. I want the fear of being Pkd, and I want the exhilaration of success when I finally make it through these challenges. I'm sick of the expected, and this is why I find myself on the Age of Conan account management page today, cancelling my subscription.
Age of Conan is a terrible game. It is the most banal experience I've had in years. It will outsell almost every other current MMORPG and turn the developers into millionaires. It offers no interesting ideas of its own and simply repeats the same old crap we've seen for years. I don't blame the developers though, because this is apparently what people want. This is what people buy and love to play. I didn't understand it years ago and I certainly don't understand it today. The MMORPG market, despite a few brave souls like Eve, is devoid of interesting ideas. The open-ended MMO is dead. It died a long time ago. The genre is in a sad state and will continue to be so until some developer is brave enough to try something new. Until then, I'll be hiding out in Britannia, circa 1998. Sorry for the rant.
Your stuck in the past, AC was much better then UO, played both, AoC will not out sell other mmo's its not only complete crap, distribution of game and gamecards is also terible almost nowhere to found any copy of game.
To say its end of open ended mmo's, your eather belong to those who like the majority, follow blindly hypes or the mass, and thinking darkfall is vaporware, your mistaken.
Darkfall is the FUTURE, this game will revolutionise the genre again, ok it will be hardcore and 100% sandbox, so people have to re-discover a genre like this again, but im positive this game will SHAKE the mmo's community at his foundation, as you never have seen before.
Darkfall will profail.
I don't know if you are being ironic or not. Did you mean Darkfall will Prevail? Profail sound like it'll fall flat on it's face in epic proportions.
But whatever Darkfall is(I've never heard of it) I seriously doubt it'll, 'shake the mmo community at his(?) foundation'.
One thing that really hasnt been discussed much was the reason why open pvp was more tolerable in UO than other games. Open loot pvp would not work in games like WOW because the whole game is based on items. People would be killing themselves because they just lost some "Sword of Destiny" or something that they camped or raided for a a solid month to get. Whereas UO was not item based, and equipment was dirt cheap. You could go out butt naked, with a bag of regs, recall rune, and blackmsith player made sword and you where good to go. There was no need to have some camped sword or special armor or weapon in order defeat or gain the edge over your opponent. Thats right the best equipment in UO was made by player blacksmiths, not dropped from monsters.
While it could be an inconveniance at best if you got pkd. Usually people would gate you to town where you could ressurect, rereg, equip and you where back in the game in no time. It would take me no more than 3 minutes to resurrect, grab some recall regs at the bank, recall to my house, equip and be back in the game ready to fight. Compare that to the hell of what is WoW if your party gets taken out in a raid.
Now that said, I will say that the people that did have the hardest time, me included at first where newbies. And I did not see any problem with young areas like "haven" that they put in for new players to get there skills up and learn about the game some before being put out in the main population,
But can anyone who truly ever really played UO in the old days, can tell me that once they had an established character that being pkd ruined your character or set you back so far you couldnt compete? The game unlike every other game I have played was not ITEM BASED. So loosing items didnt destroy your character. You didnt loose skills when you died, or levels. Most people who got pkd just got pissed because it hurt their pride. Trust me, I was one of those people at first, who tasted the other end of and E-bolt many times as a newbie. When I first saw the words "Corp por" I thought it was a foreigner saying hello or something until I bit it then got resurrected in my diapers.
As I said UOR could have been avoided. They could have made servers like every other mmo has these days pvp servers and non pvp servers. I really think most people would have stuck around. Maybe a few hardcore griefers would leave after they were faced with nothing but people who wanted to be on the pvp server, but overall it would have been a much better option than the land split. There is still player run servers out there to get a taste of the the old days, I was actually quiet suprised at the shear amount of people who played on player run servers based on classic UO. So I wasnt the only one who felt betrayed by UOR
Zones and instancing are needed to compensate for all the players logging in to the same server. The design allows to cram more players into one server without decreasing the performance on both server and client side. At the time of UO, not many even know what is MMO, so there weren't as many players as today, so there were no need for instancing.
Zones and instancing are needed to compensate for all the players logging in to the same server. The design allows to cram more players into one server without decreasing the performance on both server and client side. At the time of UO, not many even know what is MMO, so there weren't as many players as today, so there were no need for instancing.
Not really. You could also have several starting points. Instances are in no way needed. Its merely a choice of design to have them or not.
M M O S S I N C E |1998| P L A Y I N G F A L L E N E A R T H T I M E I N V E S T E D |uo|swg|wow|fe| B E T A T E S T E R |rz|tr|hgl|potbs|potc|gw|hz|wish|fe|wow|df|war|allods|cog|lu| w w w . c l o w n g u i l d . o r g
Levels and classes are a huge restriction to creativity, possibilities in both PvE and PvP, and ultimately makes every cookie-cutter MMO the same thing. Something that is discussed more seldom is the necessity that these MMOs seem to have to base EVERYTHING around quests, instead of more open-ended material. I remember playing UO and never doing a single quest, yet being just as addicted (and more) as I get to these new MMOs. Yet another example that people need their hand held, a journal that tells them where to go and what to do.
Disturbingly enough, even with a journal that gives detailed descriptions of quest location and goals, in help channels there is a constant stream of "where 2 find boss who drops key to keep?" etc. Most times I bother to log into a general channel in an mmo, I lose a little hope in humanity. To cite an excellent quote from bash.org that sums it up well:
<+kritical> christin: you need to learn how to figure out stuff yourself..
I think come back to UO from years, I think this topic will set my final decision and will cancel my both EVE and VG subs. Even this two games gives me most if searching in MMOs they do not give me even the half of the UO have gave me.
Where themepark games try to hide that they are copying WOW, games like Mortal Online and Darkfall make no attempt to hide their inspiration ______\m/_____ LordOfDarkDesire
Zones and instancing are needed to compensate for all the players logging in to the same server. The design allows to cram more players into one server without decreasing the performance on both server and client side. At the time of UO, not many even know what is MMO, so there weren't as many players as today, so there were no need for instancing.
Not really. You could also have several starting points. Instances are in no way needed. Its merely a choice of design to have them or not.
Raids instances in WoW are ending points, not starting points.
I would like to point out that when I left UO, every successful PvPer needed to be a tank-mage. Every single one of them had the exact same setup. At least class based games force players to choose different game styles. Back in the day, everyone was a carbon-copy of the next guy.
On September 25th, 1997, Ultima Online was released, giving birth to the modern age of MMORPGs. Anyone lucky enough to be sitting at their computer that day with a copy of UO in their hands got to experience one of the most interesting days in video game history. There were glitches, crashes, bugs, exploits, and unbearable lag in the path of anyone who dared log in to Origin's servers. But behind all the problems was a bold new game, filled with fresh ideas and a scope that no prior game could compare with. The world of Britannia was open to any who wanted to face its challenges. You could explore, craft, hunt, socialize, and die. With the success of Ultima Online, the future of the genre certainly looked bright. This was only the beginning. With time the genra would grow and mature, and soon there would be games that blew Ultima Online away, leaving it to only be remembered as the game that sparked the genra alive. Right?
Well, Maybe Not. I'm sitting here almost 11 years later looking at the account management page for Age of Conan. It's been out barely two weeks, and I'm about to cancel my subscription and head back to the world of Britannia. Not on an official server, but one that emulates the feel of the game as it was back in 1998. From the time I first entered Ultima Online up to the time I'm writing this, I have spent hours and hours playing every single MMORPG I could manage to provide time for. I've explored the worlds of Everquest, Asheron's Call 1 and 2, Final Fantasy XI, Anarchy, Eve and Shadowbane. I was there for the rise of Warcraft, the scams of Dark and Light, the patches that destroyed Star Wars: Galaxies, and the bot farming of Lineage II. I've seen it all. My list of cancelled subscriptions could stretch for miles. So why have I gone full circle back to the game I began with. What happened?
The problem as I see it began on March 16th, 1999, with the release of Everquest. Now don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun playing Everquest. It was a good game for its time, but it was also the biggest factor in the destruction of the genre. Everquest provided players with a much less open-ended experience than that of Ultima. The game's mechanics were less complex, the choices a player could make were more restricted, and the gameplay was more structured. All this would have been fine except for the fact that Everquest made a lot more money than Ultima. They were both a commercial success, but Everquest was an absolute jackpot for the producers. Now any company looking to fund a new MMORPG had to face a depressing fact: The production companies were a lot more likely to provide money for an Everquest style game than an Ultima one.
So the years rolled on, and many new MMORPGs began to hit the market. I purchased game after game eagerly anticipating the successor to Ultima; a game that would take Ultima's core principals and extend them to create an even greater immersive experience. Asheron's Call showed some promiss with a seamless 3D world and an open ended PvP server called Darktide. Siege warfare and harsh PvP were anticipated from Shadowbane. Star Wars: Galaxies offered an open style economic system, and a skill structure similar to Ultima. There was hope in the air, but that hope would quickly transform into despair.
In April 2000, Ultima Online, in an attempt to inscrease subscription numbers, begins a series of steps to make Ultima a lot more like Everquest. The world is also doubled in size, but not by new content. Instead they jusy create a second instance of the existing land. PvP is ruined. A year later, Dark Age of Camelot and Anarchy Online are released. Camelot is almost an exact replica of Everquest, except that it adds an extremely static and close-ended team PvP system. It becomes a huge commercial success anyways. Anarchy offers a fresh new Sci-fi theme into the genre, but I sensed trouble on my first trip to the instanced dungeons. This was touted as a feature. It seemed to me to be a cheap way for the developers to create less content and stretch that to more players.
Soon enough, Everquest clones were being released every few months. Asheron's Call II, Final Fantasy XI, Everquest II, Lineage II, City of Heroes. There was no room left in the market for another game just like Everquest right? I thought so, and just when I was convinced of it, World of Warcraft came out, proving me to be as nieve as they come. I played Warcraft day and night and watched the list of servers grow beyond belief. This game was hugely popular, but at its core, it still remained just a highly polished copy of Everquest. Sure it looked different, but the gameplay was largely the same. I couldn't understand why anyone thought it was so good.
So what's wrong with all these games? Well nothing if you like them. But if you are like me and yearn for open- ended MMORPGs, then none of these new games will really do it for you. What happened to having a challenge? Games should actually penalize death. Death!... Death should be bad. There is no need for zones and instancing. Ultima and Asheron's call, two of the first MMOs, had seamless worlds. Why is the technology for it absent today? Crafting should be as much a part of the game as hunting. You should be able to loot players that you kill, and have them loot you. A MMORPG should offer a feeling of being immersed, which means being part of a living, breathing world. Today's MMOs feel more like single player games than they do their predecessors. How about a skill based system for once and does every single game need to have classes and levels?
Today's games are over designed. Everything is laid out for you from level one so you are never in a situation too hard or too easy. You are guided on a path where you are faced with no challenge and constant repition. I want to be scared in a dungeon. I want the fear of being Pkd, and I want the exhilaration of success when I finally make it through these challenges. I'm sick of the expected, and this is why I find myself on the Age of Conan account management page today, cancelling my subscription.
Age of Conan is a terrible game. It is the most banal experience I've had in years. It will outsell almost every other current MMORPG and turn the developers into millionaires. It offers no interesting ideas of its own and simply repeats the same old crap we've seen for years. I don't blame the developers though, because this is apparently what people want. This is what people buy and love to play. I didn't understand it years ago and I certainly don't understand it today. The MMORPG market, despite a few brave souls like Eve, is devoid of interesting ideas. The open-ended MMO is dead. It died a long time ago. The genre is in a sad state and will continue to be so until some developer is brave enough to try something new. Until then, I'll be hiding out in Britannia, circa 1998. Sorry for the rant.
Your stuck in the past, AC was much better then UO, played both, AoC will not out sell other mmo's its not only complete crap, distribution of game and gamecards is also terible almost nowhere to found any copy of game.
To say its end of open ended mmo's, your eather belong to those who like the majority, follow blindly hypes or the mass, and thinking darkfall is vaporware, your mistaken.
Darkfall is the FUTURE, this game will revolutionise the genre again, ok it will be hardcore and 100% sandbox, so people have to re-discover a genre like this again, but im positive this game will SHAKE the mmo's community at his foundation, as you never have seen before.
Darkfall will profail.
I don't know if you are being ironic or not. Did you mean Darkfall will Prevail? Profail sound like it'll fall flat on it's face in epic proportions.
But whatever Darkfall is(I've never heard of it) I seriously doubt it'll, 'shake the mmo community at his(?) foundation'.
How can you have a opinion of something you claim(i realy doub your answer is honest)you never heared of?
Go read up first gamelore and info about darkfall and then give your opinion if what i claim is true or not.
But looking at your answer you already have make up your mind lol.
Problem with most here is they give opinions about something they dont have clue whats it all about bah:(
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
To Rymdkejsaren: I would like to point out that when I left UO, every successful PvPer needed to be a tank-mage. Every single one of them had the exact same setup. At least class based games force players to choose different game styles. Back in the day, everyone was a carbon-copy of the next guy.
That is untrue. Most people just copy what is successful and are too lazy to be innovative. *cough*like the mmo industry *cough* When I left UO, my character had no magery, and wore bone armour. She was a Alchemist/Fencer/Poison/Pickpocket/Hide, my tactic was to steal their black pearl or mandrake root, and 90% of the time after that, they didn't have a chance.
Comments
It helped a lot more then it hurt the population was already in a sharp decline and that was the original reason for Tram. If they had never added tram trust me UO would have only made it a few years like most today.
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My 50 bucks worth!
http://www.mercenaries.ws/Subscriptions-mod.gif (see original at www.mmogchart.com). UO:R == Trammel.
Can you point to ANYWHERE on the graph pre-trammel, that saw a decline? Your 50 bucks are worthless. Think a while for yourself instead of parrotting defensive dev propaganda defending their decisions.
EQ happened to UO, not any phantom "population decline". UO devs were envious of EQ's success, and analyzed that Trammel would be the answer. When Trammel hit, UO had 180k subscribers, 6 months later UO topped off forever at around 220k. One might ask if Trammel really WAS a good solution. One might even ask what they were trying to solve. Why fix a problem that is not there?
/signed
This was a petition for someone to make an mmo that develops the original concept of UO right? Instead of what we have today which is a brown sea of clones, and a few daring exceptions (<3 EVE).
At least the horizon has some interesting things to bring... too early to tell but Earthrise, Mortal Online and my favourite; Darkfall Online (shut up haters, the day will come!) are all looking back to the original days of UO for inspiration. My hope is that at least one of them succeeds in creating an experience like original UO.
Developers today want to create an experience that doesn't scare anyone off, and if they could financially motivate to send someone along with each game copy that holds your hand while you play, they would do it.
To the future, and what it brings!
[DTE]
It helped a lot more then it hurt the population was already in a sharp decline and that was the original reason for Tram. If they had never added tram trust me UO would have only made it a few years like most today.
...
...
My 50 bucks worth!
http://www.mercenaries.ws/Subscriptions-mod.gif (see original at www.mmogchart.com). UO:R == Trammel.
Can you point to ANYWHERE on the graph pre-trammel, that saw a decline? Your 50 bucks are worthless. Think a while for yourself instead of parrotting defensive dev propaganda defending their decisions.
EQ happened to UO, not any phantom "population decline". UO devs were envious of EQ's success, and analyzed that Trammel would be the answer. When Trammel hit, UO had 180k subscribers, 6 months later UO topped off forever at around 220k. One might ask if Trammel really WAS a good solution. One might even ask what they were trying to solve. Why fix a problem that is not there?
showUSloc=(checkLocale('uk')||checkLocale('au'));document.writeln(showUSloc ? 'US, ' : ''); October 19, 1999 - Head gaming wizard Jonric over at our network partner the RPG Vault recently had an opportunity to talk to Ultima Online producer Jason Bell about the state of Britannia. This interview gives an uplifting look at the building of an online gaming community as Jason Bell revels that now "roleplayers can co-exist (sort of) with KeWL D00dz." Now you know, and knowing is half the battle after all. So stop doing your impression of Cobra Commander and go check out the interview.
pc.ign.com/articles/071/071369p1.html
Propaganda huh odd I didn't write this review the "Head gaming Wizard " did go back to your charts little boy I was there!!
I assume he means EQ by your standards when he say's KeWL D00dz huh?
let me ask did it take you the whole 3 hours to find that chart to try and make yourself look smart?
"The most important thing is to have the design support the players in setting their own goals in both cooperative and competitive interaction with one another." - Ironore -
I think the developers are the scared ones these days.
Darkfall
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
I think that there are to many people that don't really understand FFA Sandbox terms.
What developers need to do is create bounty systems that reward players for taking care of the bad guys. Also you need to reward bad guys for killing higher up good guys.
Allow quests to be player created such as. Player A needs to get materials to a certain town to craft Iron. Player A talks to a mercenary NPC which then posts it as a job for players to pick up. So while the weak crafter is hauling goods, Good guys can protect them.
The problem stems from everyone wanting to be evil, because evil is cool. But mindless PvP hapens because of lack of things to do. Therefore you open the door to griefing.
Dev's need to allow players more control over quests and give bonuses to those who do good, and those who do bad. Instead of the standard issue "kill X mobs"
Hell this is what player driven economy is all about.
Have warrants that get placed on peoples heads, allow bad guys to become informed about major shipments.
And player housing. Jeez can someone get this right?
Don;t even get me started on player craftable items.
Ugly state this MMO business is in
No one thinks anymore
It helped a lot more then it hurt the population was already in a sharp decline and that was the original reason for Tram. If they had never added tram trust me UO would have only made it a few years like most today.
...
...
My 50 bucks worth!
http://www.mercenaries.ws/Subscriptions-mod.gif (see original at www.mmogchart.com). UO:R == Trammel.
Can you point to ANYWHERE on the graph pre-trammel, that saw a decline? Your 50 bucks are worthless. Think a while for yourself instead of parrotting defensive dev propaganda defending their decisions.
EQ happened to UO, not any phantom "population decline". UO devs were envious of EQ's success, and analyzed that Trammel would be the answer. When Trammel hit, UO had 180k subscribers, 6 months later UO topped off forever at around 220k. One might ask if Trammel really WAS a good solution. One might even ask what they were trying to solve. Why fix a problem that is not there?
showUSloc=(checkLocale('uk')||checkLocale('au'));document.writeln(showUSloc ? 'US, ' : ''); October 19, 1999 - Head gaming wizard Jonric over at our network partner the RPG Vault recently had an opportunity to talk to Ultima Online producer Jason Bell about the state of Britannia. This interview gives an uplifting look at the building of an online gaming community as Jason Bell revels that now "roleplayers can co-exist (sort of) with KeWL D00dz." Now you know, and knowing is half the battle after all. So stop doing your impression of Cobra Commander and go check out the interview.
pc.ign.com/articles/071/071369p1.html
Propaganda huh odd I didn't write this review the "Head gaming Wizard " did go back to your charts little boy I was there!!
I assume he means EQ by your standards when he say's KeWL D00dz huh?
let me ask did it take you the whole 3 hours to find that chart to try and make yourself look smart?
Jesus christ, what a mess of a post you made there. Link to the interview doesn't work (I dug up one that might work though: http://rpgvaultarchive.ign.com/features/interviews/uojbell.shtml). Next time do your homework before you bother people here.
Second, how about some coherency? I simply don't understand what you are writing?
Furthermore, I can't see how words from one of the guys on the inside, trying to defend their decisions, can disprove the hardest facts we have. Remember that SirBruce keeps updating the history, even to this day. And as time passes, the old history becomes less important to protect by the companies, and therefore more of the truth seeps through.
I can't see how your very incoherent post disproves anything I wrote.
Try harder mate
I asked you for one VERY simple thing: Point out at what point in history prior to UO:R (Trammel) UO was in a "sharp decline" (your words). Can you do this very simple thing? If not, then you prove that you are nothing but a parrot, believing every little propaganda thing spewed out by idiots making idiotic decisions, and that you cannot do thinking for yourself.
Game, set and match
There is your "sharp decline", from the very interview you linked to yourself.
For me PC-RPG was always like Bard´s Tale, Might and Magic, Wizardry or AD&D: level-based.
This does not explain AoC though.
i agree with everything the OP said..
and about the FFA PvP, there are a couple misconceptions and I’m going to explain them with my extreme bias =D
first of all, in UO there weren’t levels, i agree FFA PVP is a bad idea in games with lvls because there is absolutely no possibility of beating 20 levels about you.. even 5 people 20 levels below often cant kill someone higher
levels are a restriction, much like linear quests systems and tailored classes that suck away immersion and should not be in an MMO
The lack of FFA PVP is an invisible barrier that makes the world fake, as opposed to living and breathing.. you can hate it.. and most people that hate it are weak people imo.. just like in real life they cant roll with the punches.. when the going gets tough you figure out how to improve your situation.. whether in real life or not...
you cry about how pvp is hard just like how you probably cry about how college is hard or work is hard...
in a game with out levels, people with substantially less skill can beat people that are "higher lvled" if they are genuinely better than them..
yes a noob cant compete but he can get through it.. when i started UO, i was a miner, I got PKed.. guess what i didnt cry and quit.. i worked on being able to defend myself..
i almost have my bachelors degree.. and i will be going off to get my masters in business finance.. i credit a lot of my drive to when i played UO back when i was 13 and beyond
i get a bit heated about this topic not only because the games being made are garbage but because of the overwhelming evidence that the majority of humanity is lazy and wants to be spoon feed.. WoW is a sociology experiment that has proven that most people are lazy pieces of crap who want life on easy mode and hate challenges
/rantoff
Remember Old School Ultima Online
You may be right, but I don't really agree with that. Most people who left UO was because it was a big waste of time to lose items constantly to other players. Items that you may have spent hours collecting. It might be OK if you have all day long to play, but some people are more interested in the PvE content.
As for sandbox I believe you can have a PvE sanbox without PvP. It does restrict some things like being able to steal from other players which was a neat feature. Still you can develop a large array of PvE content with lots of possible ways to build a character.
I can say I agree with the general concept of the thread.. there are things I don't agree with as well.
FFA PvP just comes down to how much of a market do you want? How many subscribers etc
If a developer is willing to settle for the PvP 10% and yes I'm sorry we are the 1 out of 10 of the market then FFA like old UO makes sense.
However, I also believe if you do this you market the game that way. You up front tell people "when you leave town you will be killed and looted". You don't make any promises other than that.. and that you'll support this type of play.
Beyond that why I'd like a modern UO (doesn't have to be fantasy) that isn't just FFA or has a better system then stat loss, murder system or trammel.. is a very successful skill based game could start to show the market that you don't need to keep the clones attacking.
imho the entire level/class/uber loot is what is wrong with almost every MMO on the market.. the entire level design is a screw up to start with (in an mmo).
But I really don't think you want to read the wall of text I could add to explain that.
Also the crafting sytem / player market you had in UO.. really can't exist in a uber loot /raid based type of game.
I was still making gold by the tons when I shut my accounts down in 2002... on my vendors that is.
interesting this thread. While pvp centric, doesn't seem too heated. No bans, no major flames.
I wish we had more sandbox games other then EVE Online but yeah its the way things roll I guess. I kind of given up. I play EVE alongside a theme park MMO now. I dont see things changing anytime soon. I wish MMOs were easier to make like MUDs then we would see plenty of them and see something new all the time.
I wish Second Life was more of a game instead of feeling more like a TV commercial or business venture.
Sandbox games seem like the natural progression of MMOs. But I guess I'm wrong. Soon WAR will be here and I suspect its gonna sweep the shelves. I'm gonna preorder it too I guess. Cant beat them; join'em <weep>
Your stuck in the past, AC was much better then UO, played both, AoC will not out sell other mmo's its not only complete crap, distribution of game and gamecards is also terible almost nowhere to found any copy of game.
To say its end of open ended mmo's, your eather belong to those who like the majority, follow blindly hypes or the mass, and thinking darkfall is vaporware, your mistaken.
Darkfall is the FUTURE, this game will revolutionise the genre again, ok it will be hardcore and 100% sandbox, so people have to re-discover a genre like this again, but im positive this game will SHAKE the mmo's community at his foundation, as you never have seen before.
Darkfall will profail.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
Well, I think we all agree with the OP that the marketplace seems to be constricting and contracting itself to produce only limited, instanced and path-bound MMOs - all of which are so much the same that only one of them really seems necessary, WoW.
Most of us would also agree within him when he argues for the return of open-ended sandbox-type games like Ultima Online and the original Star Wars Galaxies.
However, I'd say he makes a colossal error if he thinks that the whole point of sandbox games is to provide him and those like him with FFA and PK'ing.
If the truth be told, FFA PVP sounds terribly glamorous to us pizza-stuffed, basement mushrooms but, in reality, they are of appeal to very few; mostly hardcore early adopters who never get killed because they get the best armour first and because they spend hours playing with nothing but a red plastic bucket under their desk for company. The time they spend preying off the rest of us gives them the weird sexual or emotional kick that is always the pay-off for the bully-type personality but, really, why the hell would any of the rest of us pay our subs to give them their jollies?
I suppose that SWG cames closest to finding a happy medium between the Sandbox MMO and forced PVP with the BH vs jedi system and the GCW Tef system.
That said, if forced PVP is what the OP wants, then open-ended Sandbox MMORPGs will never give hum what he wants - because what he is looking for is actually an MMOFPS like WWIIO or Planteside. There are new games coming up for him like SOE's The Agency and Huxley.
Meanwhile, for those of us who want a truly open-ended sandbox game in which combat, socialising, crafting and exploration all come together... there is nothing.
Your stuck in the past, AC was much better then UO, played both, AoC will not out sell other mmo's its not only complete crap, distribution of game and gamecards is also terible almost nowhere to found any copy of game.
To say its end of open ended mmo's, your eather belong to those who like the majority, follow blindly hypes or the mass, and thinking darkfall is vaporware, your mistaken.
Darkfall is the FUTURE, this game will revolutionise the genre again, ok it will be hardcore and 100% sandbox, so people have to re-discover a genre like this again, but im positive this game will SHAKE the mmo's community at his foundation, as you never have seen before.
Darkfall will profail.
I don't know if you are being ironic or not. Did you mean Darkfall will Prevail? Profail sound like it'll fall flat on it's face in epic proportions.
But whatever Darkfall is(I've never heard of it) I seriously doubt it'll, 'shake the mmo community at his(?) foundation'.
Mne eto nado kak zuby v zadnitse.
One thing that really hasnt been discussed much was the reason why open pvp was more tolerable in UO than other games. Open loot pvp would not work in games like WOW because the whole game is based on items. People would be killing themselves because they just lost some "Sword of Destiny" or something that they camped or raided for a a solid month to get. Whereas UO was not item based, and equipment was dirt cheap. You could go out butt naked, with a bag of regs, recall rune, and blackmsith player made sword and you where good to go. There was no need to have some camped sword or special armor or weapon in order defeat or gain the edge over your opponent. Thats right the best equipment in UO was made by player blacksmiths, not dropped from monsters.
While it could be an inconveniance at best if you got pkd. Usually people would gate you to town where you could ressurect, rereg, equip and you where back in the game in no time. It would take me no more than 3 minutes to resurrect, grab some recall regs at the bank, recall to my house, equip and be back in the game ready to fight. Compare that to the hell of what is WoW if your party gets taken out in a raid.
Now that said, I will say that the people that did have the hardest time, me included at first where newbies. And I did not see any problem with young areas like "haven" that they put in for new players to get there skills up and learn about the game some before being put out in the main population,
But can anyone who truly ever really played UO in the old days, can tell me that once they had an established character that being pkd ruined your character or set you back so far you couldnt compete? The game unlike every other game I have played was not ITEM BASED. So loosing items didnt destroy your character. You didnt loose skills when you died, or levels. Most people who got pkd just got pissed because it hurt their pride. Trust me, I was one of those people at first, who tasted the other end of and E-bolt many times as a newbie. When I first saw the words "Corp por" I thought it was a foreigner saying hello or something until I bit it then got resurrected in my diapers.
As I said UOR could have been avoided. They could have made servers like every other mmo has these days pvp servers and non pvp servers. I really think most people would have stuck around. Maybe a few hardcore griefers would leave after they were faced with nothing but people who wanted to be on the pvp server, but overall it would have been a much better option than the land split. There is still player run servers out there to get a taste of the the old days, I was actually quiet suprised at the shear amount of people who played on player run servers based on classic UO. So I wasnt the only one who felt betrayed by UOR
Zones and instancing are needed to compensate for all the players logging in to the same server. The design allows to cram more players into one server without decreasing the performance on both server and client side. At the time of UO, not many even know what is MMO, so there weren't as many players as today, so there were no need for instancing.
Zones and instancing are needed to compensate for all the players logging in to the same server. The design allows to cram more players into one server without decreasing the performance on both server and client side. At the time of UO, not many even know what is MMO, so there weren't as many players as today, so there were no need for instancing.
Not really. You could also have several starting points. Instances are in no way needed. Its merely a choice of design to have them or not.
M M O S S I N C E |1998|
P L A Y I N G F A L L E N E A R T H
T I M E I N V E S T E D |uo|swg|wow|fe|
B E T A T E S T E R |rz|tr|hgl|potbs|potc|gw|hz|wish|fe|wow|df|war|allods|cog|lu|
w w w . c l o w n g u i l d . o r g
Levels and classes are a huge restriction to creativity, possibilities in both PvE and PvP, and ultimately makes every cookie-cutter MMO the same thing. Something that is discussed more seldom is the necessity that these MMOs seem to have to base EVERYTHING around quests, instead of more open-ended material. I remember playing UO and never doing a single quest, yet being just as addicted (and more) as I get to these new MMOs. Yet another example that people need their hand held, a journal that tells them where to go and what to do.
Disturbingly enough, even with a journal that gives detailed descriptions of quest location and goals, in help channels there is a constant stream of "where 2 find boss who drops key to keep?" etc. Most times I bother to log into a general channel in an mmo, I lose a little hope in humanity. To cite an excellent quote from bash.org that sums it up well:
<+kritical> christin: you need to learn how to figure out stuff yourself..
<+Christin1> how do i do that
[DTE]
I think come back to UO from years, I think this topic will set my final decision and will cancel my both EVE and VG subs. Even this two games gives me most if searching in MMOs they do not give me even the half of the UO have gave me.
Where themepark games try to hide that they are copying WOW, games like Mortal Online and Darkfall make no attempt to hide their inspiration
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LordOfDarkDesire
Zones and instancing are needed to compensate for all the players logging in to the same server. The design allows to cram more players into one server without decreasing the performance on both server and client side. At the time of UO, not many even know what is MMO, so there weren't as many players as today, so there were no need for instancing.
Not really. You could also have several starting points. Instances are in no way needed. Its merely a choice of design to have them or not.
Raids instances in WoW are ending points, not starting points.
To Rymdkejsaren:
I would like to point out that when I left UO, every successful PvPer needed to be a tank-mage. Every single one of them had the exact same setup. At least class based games force players to choose different game styles. Back in the day, everyone was a carbon-copy of the next guy.
Your stuck in the past, AC was much better then UO, played both, AoC will not out sell other mmo's its not only complete crap, distribution of game and gamecards is also terible almost nowhere to found any copy of game.
To say its end of open ended mmo's, your eather belong to those who like the majority, follow blindly hypes or the mass, and thinking darkfall is vaporware, your mistaken.
Darkfall is the FUTURE, this game will revolutionise the genre again, ok it will be hardcore and 100% sandbox, so people have to re-discover a genre like this again, but im positive this game will SHAKE the mmo's community at his foundation, as you never have seen before.
Darkfall will profail.
I don't know if you are being ironic or not. Did you mean Darkfall will Prevail? Profail sound like it'll fall flat on it's face in epic proportions.
But whatever Darkfall is(I've never heard of it) I seriously doubt it'll, 'shake the mmo community at his(?) foundation'.
How can you have a opinion of something you claim(i realy doub your answer is honest)you never heared of?
Go read up first gamelore and info about darkfall and then give your opinion if what i claim is true or not.
But looking at your answer you already have make up your mind lol.
Problem with most here is they give opinions about something they dont have clue whats it all about bah:(
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
I think that I've never heard of it, is proof enough that it wont be shaking anything to it's core. Is the point I was trying to convey.
Mne eto nado kak zuby v zadnitse.
That is untrue. Most people just copy what is successful and are too lazy to be innovative. *cough*like the mmo industry *cough* When I left UO, my character had no magery, and wore bone armour. She was a Alchemist/Fencer/Poison/Pickpocket/Hide, my tactic was to steal their black pearl or mandrake root, and 90% of the time after that, they didn't have a chance.
Mne eto nado kak zuby v zadnitse.