15-Year MMO Veteran Player's Thoughts & Desires

Allow me to introduce myself. (Skip to the numbered section if you don't give a rats ass )

HELLO! ;] im Joe. Im 28 yrs old and I've played a ton of mmo's and rpgs. Some I may not have given a a completely fair shake, I'll admit and I also admit that I do not know what truly is best for a successful RPG like the one we're discussing today, however I know how I feel in my 15 years of online-gaming and what captured me in this search for the next best MMORPG since UO. One thing is for sure, nothing ever quite competes with UO. Not for me. I've played Underlight, UO, AC1/2, Shadowbane, Darkfall, Darkages, Rift, and yes WoW. UO & UL are the only games I constantly go back to time after time. SWG, Tabula Rasa, Mortal Online, Dungeon Siege, Anarchy Online, DND Online, Second Life, The Perfect World, Aion, Archlord, City of Heroes, and I'm sure there's a coupel I can't think of right now. My favorite RPG of all time is Final Fantasy 6. But UO is in a close 2nd, despite me still being a bit mad about Trammel and the fall of the fun PvP times in UO. Most of the above mentioned games had my attention for about 2 hours or so then I got bored. I honestly feel very similar to Archengeia on youtube about most of these games and they probably deserve more props from me but this thread isn't about those games. This is about SoTA and what my desires/expectations are. No offense to the developers of these other games, mind you - some of them are still absolute works of art and pieces of history. If this game doesn't come close to capturing the audience like UO did though, then I don't think any game ever will(at least not in my lifetime). World of Warcraft, I'm sure had its moments, but you will soon see my friends who have grown tired... 15 years have passed since UO's prime and I'm still in love with the game and believe it dominates still in many areas of the online rpg world. This is a pretty long thread and I want to touch on topics most important to me, however I'm sure there are things that I've missed/overlooked in my gaming experience so please don't hate. I try to be as open-minded as possible when it comes to other games. I truly do, but Ultima Online still holds the torch.

In UO, I loved how everything I clicked on, right clicked on, or double clicked had a chance of doing something different. It tells a story in itself and really felt as if the world was alive and changing, and it was... the seasons changed, the weather changed, and the atmosphere set the mood in most instances. Job well done! If I had a tool, for example a shovel, I could either dig through the surface or I could not. For the most part, whether or not you were able to come up with resources or not just... made sense! The artists/programmers really did a great job at making it a very pleasurable experience for a gamer looking for adventure. Exploring/discovering was half the fun! It was interesting to know there were dynamic objects in the world that could also be thrown on the ground for your partner to grab in a pinch. To say the least, and maybe I'm just amused at little things like an object having multiple properties and being visible and lootable by anyone, but I still very much enjoy a rich story with the elements of mystery/action/adventure/ and yes lots and lots of pvp.

On the other hand, sitting on the sidelines, I enjoyed being able to see what other people had in their bags. You could really tell what they were up to or what they were about to be up to and could plan for the big heist as you cycled through your targets. It makes sense I could snoop in someones bag, people wore big bags back in those days. Yes you could see what someone was carrying.! Snooping, bring it back! Please! And Thievery!!! Yes! :] So fun, and not even very rewarding! But comical and very fun. If my memory servers me right., I'm fairly certain thieves who got caught got treated with the utmost respect in those days by the guards & common folk, Lol.

Seriously though, I whole-heartedly enjoyed the harshe penalties for choosing to go down the dishonorable path of shadows while shedding blood, but the thrill of the kill and the loot sometimes did not make it worth it. if you were lucky enough to be on a bounty board, it was also cool to have people actively hunting you. some guild battles felt the same when you knew you were outnumbered but went to battle anyways, sheesh that was fun stuff! I totally disagree with Lord British when it comes to I am who my character is. I'm no murderer in real life but I will shed blood online... oh yesss there will be blood. I think there should be a way to repent your sins as well. The notoriety system in UO was HUGE, because it worked and because it looked cool. The Evil or Wicked Jist which would make people want to fight me. The Illustrious Jist would make people want to fight beside me, I loved it.
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My Desires/Questions for SoTA
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:: 1 | Rares & Ultra Rares :: I enjoyed collecting, trading & selling rares and ultra-rares in UO. It wasn't easy for me but it was rewarding. It was also enjoyable to decorate my house full of them in later more ascended stages of society. to show off my stature. I felt a good sense of accomplishment when I could add something to my crib, even if I was a murderer at the time.
:: Question :: How will you handle loot thiefs, house hiders, server-line hoppers, cheaters & exploiters, and macroers. If these problems aren't handled with care, then the above and below topics are kaput.

:: 2 | Murderers :: I feel that it could be detrimental to the game if murderers are punished to the point of the game just being Unfinished. I think having detail and thought placed into how the world will respond to players, how npcs react to players, and overall just how the players collid with the wrold. And please don't skip detail and thought when it comes to how murderers are dealt with. If there is no end-game style situation for killers, as brutal and cold-hearted we may be, the players themselves will quit if theres nothing to do or if they can't participate in at least some of the world events.
:: Question :: Will player killing be allowed? There will be no trammel right?

:: 3 | Death &amp; Ressurection <strong>::</strong> Make it like UO. If there is one thing I could request from UO, this would be it. Being a visible ghost when aggressive who can speak only to other ghosts was the cats meow! Dying was never so fun when there was someone to talk to, Lol. Also bein' able to see mad ghosts or ghosts who were talking, extraordinary and hilarious! My thoughts on this would be that it requires mounts because otherwise you could just follow people around to spy on them. Maybe passing to the next server cluster means you would take huge experience hit/skill atrophy. Same with if you disconnected before you ressurected could be added as a larger experience hit.

:: 4 | Balance versus Combat Diversity :: I think this is a great debate - I would hope you would be able to balance the game without sacrificing diversity and I feel the more diverse a game's pvp is, I feel the nonpvp part of it should be 8x more diverse. if I want to simply stop pvping and still enjoy the company of friends while playing a game, I want to be captured by something even if its brief, just to lead me along...

:: 5 | Dueling &amp; Healing :: If you can't enjoy dueling, you can't enjoy pvp... Nope - I disagree! I enjoyed being a healer in other games starting with a game called Underlight, eventually on to UO but healing someone was incredibly fun and rewarding if it would actually keep people standing. I enjoyed healing in UO,AC,&amp; Rift however, it's too simple and not friendly enough. I liked it especially in UO, the healing allowed for players to properly defend themselves versus ganks but also allowed enough offensive output to make for fun duels, 2v2's, and more. I could still cast heals decently enough to keep my friend alive but my target would for sure have to worry about if I was going to switch to offense on the fly. Being attentitive to the opponents actions, spell combinations was crucial. Managing consumables, also crucial as they were on quick timers unlike most mmorpgs out these days. Why are they like this? Why aren't consumables quicker? Potions are good, lots of them, but I do feel like the necessity of mana potions to be a little redundant and felt the idea of meditating to get your mental strength back made perfect sense.

:: 6 | Siege warfare :: I like the video I just seen about sieges, except I think that 30 minutes isn't too long to be without your home &amp; its posessions. It sounds just about right.
:: Question :: What kind of cool-down can we expect before the army comes through again and wrecks the town walls? 30 minutes? 15 minutes?
I would love to be able to destroy a city, continue the battle outside of the city walls for those who choose to. Enjoy a 2nd, or 3rd time around if they decide to rally their troops, only to take down the city again, and make it larger and larger scale through each phase. There should be nice rewards for participating in this as well, but nothing over-the-top. IMO, a 12 minute cooldown would give people time to rejuvenate, resupply and also take a leak or whatever

:: 7 | Atrophy &amp; House Decay :: Will there be atrophy in the skill system? What about for player owned houses? Can somebody say I.D.O.C.? Please bring the house looting parties back, some of my most memorable PVP memories. Also some of the biggest fails, but always entertaining.

:: 8 | Crafting :: Instead of just collecting the resources in abundance then grinding everything down to proper materials and clicking 'Create', a more creative, nicer looking and more fun solution would be to introduce minI games/puzzles to the crafting system unlike almost every other game out there. The posibility to discover differen't combinations of recipes for what works with what patterns or shapes you actually mold with your mouse movement. Maybe make it optionable? Or make it so the best crafted gear would from really skillful(at the mini game) players with a ton of luck, or with learnable) patterns. then instead of looting a new recipe or pattern, create a way to manipulate the current pattern with a new piece of material you found or with some good ol fashioned pen n ink pattern you picked up along the way that describes how to forge or craft something. I hope this explains to you what I mean, I guess the siumplest way to describe what I want is, something fun, something medieval, something with plenty of thought and lots of detail

:: 9 | Religion, Virtues, &amp; Marriage :: This is something I loved in some other games I played. It adds such an element of community. Having a church to take someone to who is sick and unable to gain experience no more since they were nearly mortally wounded or when they get posessed by demons. Maybe make it so only the highest level priests or priestesses could cure or exorcise them and make it be at the church for the city to witness and embrace... that would be fun. Marriages in games can be a riot as well if people use their creativity and actually role-play which is quite fun &amp; exercises your brain. If you've never done it, try it - don't be afraid and don't try too hard. Just go with it. On the topic of marriage, I feel it's important to say No gay marriage should be allowed in SoTA. No, I'm not a homophobe, I just dont think it would be reasonable in this story. Role-playing 1000 times over beats a grindathon leveling treadmill, believe that!

:: 10 | RP Only Shard :: I really really want this to be a RP style game, period. I mean the way I see it is, its your game Lord British and crew but for me, I truly think the server should allow for restrictions to allow for an extremely in-depth story, where the developers &amp; paid game-masters(main characters) can live out their characters stories in the game and create the history and literature of the game as the world turns. Players wanting to Role-Play could gradually become part of the main story. How can this be achieved? One way would be to enforce $15/month to play, Include two servers - one for Role-Players only and banish the trolls as the come to the server and refuse to RP after a few strikes.
:: a :: Paying your devs/game-masters to play as characters from the story would encourage role-playing, but they would need the ability to jail/warn/ban people that decide to go out of character. The ban should come after the 3rd warning. There should be a two shards total. Online &amp; Online-RP Only, and if banned - you're banned on both. Please tell me you're heavily considering these styles of restrictions on players and I will back the game $100 more! If this is going to be the next best thing, Mr Garriot - this is how I think it is achieved.
:: b :: Allow for easily distinguishable &amp; customizable (even moddable) actions/emotions for people to play with. Things to entertain them while not-so-entertaining RPs are goign on. I want to be able to enact reality to the next level when it comes to emotions/actions/rp. That is what I loved about Underlight is you could do literally ANYTHING because of the role-playing environment that was enforced But since we're at a new age in graphics &amp; game possibilities, allow for chairs that players can actually sit in. Allow for people to play cards, dice, other board games. Players shoule be able to enjoy a loud drunk pub, get trashed or fist-fight while a band puts on a show or a travelling casino/carnival comes to town. Allow for carnivals put on by people who get paid to be the carnies and enforce the laws of the carnival! Allow for people to voice-chat within 20 meters of each other while making it so their mouths move also is another interesting idea but maybe not suitable for this type of game.
:: c :: Sorry the RP topic is so long but it's important to me and I feel it's almost entirely missed by other game developers and is sought after by real dungeons &amp; dragons players and players like myself who know just how fun it is. Bringing these people into an online world means the story gets richer and richer. The one thing that would have to be included that was similar to UO would be the book system where you could literally type out a story and sell the book or give it to someone in the game. Adding a library to the game where the history of the world could be stored and accessible by players who meet certain requirements would be awesome

:: 11 | Miscelaneous / Collision Questions ::
Will I collide with other players, npcs, and objects?
Will buildings crumble as they're damaged?
Will trees have proper physics?
If so, will I be able to see/hear the window howling through them? Can they be flamable or able to be hacked down piece by piece?
Will bodies be able to become dismembered by the ill-willed?
If so, can I collect the skulls of players I murder?
Will things decay and/or grow fungus or mold or get infested with maggots, over time?
Will we leave actual footprints/paths in the world that indicate the more travelled upon roads?
If so, will the tracks be coverable, rambo style?
Will I be able to blend in with the world if im good at hiding?
If so, Will I need a skill to hide or just proper attire? Or just how will this work?
And, will I still be able to chat over my head? (always loved that)
Will the soundscape be ever changing as we move throughout the world? I loved the music &amp; sounds in UO.

<strong>I salute you SoTA Dev Team and wish each of you all the best.</strong>

Thanks for reading!