aspects of UO I would like to see maintained

One of the good things about Shroud of the Avatar is that there are no unlockable areas based upon level. They specifically stated that low level avatars can proceed through more dangerous territories, but they would have to consume more potions and other consumables to make it through. There is nothing holding a person back from exploring the whole world. I'm sure there might be some specific locations that have really crazy stuff that might scare the pants off of anybody at any level, but for the most part we can explore without level restrictions.

So really there is no level grind, and no need to bother with levels other than get the skills YOU WANT. The only time I think that people might want to be concerned about maximizing your skills is if you want to participate in PvP wars. If you're goal is to role play and explore the environment it is very likely you can have any character build at any level and have an enjoyable time.

The reason I think PvP is different is because of the human factor, because other players will become possible enemies. Then having fine tuned skills and making better choices might make the difference in who comes out the winner if you seek out human opponents. AI is not competitive by nature, and doesn't have an ego to bruise.

 

I think there are some misconceptions on what an instance is from a gameplay perspective. Most of what you see in MMOs with instances are those are the sealed in areas where you go through content and it (usually) doesn't respawn till you clear or group disbands or something like that. It's also focused, targeted content designed for a purpose, usually a tank, 2 damage dealers, and a healer to be challenged at X level with these monsters.

We have 1 persistent world. What changes from my instance to someone who I wouldn't see in FPO or OPO would merely need to be the monsters/npcs/resources. There would be no discernible difference between it and being in a normal MMO setting from my perspective. I see people running around, I saw monsters being killed, I see monsters respawning, I see resource nodes being used and respawning, I see NPCs being interacted with. someone else enters, game checks to see if everyone in my gameplay is acceptable candidate for the new person and boom they enter and we are all already there doing our thing. and it's no different than if someone had just ridden in from some other zone.

Will there be specific targeted content for group play like dungeons and raids? I think unlikely, at least nothing you can't defeat in single player by getting some companions.

Anyway, that's my take on the system. We'll see how it really works very soon.

 

@Fox Cunning.

I got you. I just disagree. If I want to be a grandmaster of various skills, and can afford one or more accounts, then what I am PAYING for is being a grandmaster. I didn't "win", I just got to play what I wanted to be inside the game rules.

If my buddy wants to play WITH me, but only has time for a few hours a week, whereas I put in a solid two to three hours a day, any xp based system, regardless of what the points are called, what exactly they affect, or how they are apportioned will keep the two of us divided.

I don't care if people get powerleveled. It does NOT affect me. If some douche pays to powerlevel his toon and gets much much more powerful than I am, I will avoid him till we plateau and I get my roughly equivalent build (which WILL happen in SotA, and relatively early on), and then use the fact that I actually learned the system instead of having someone else do it for me to kick his butt.

There is a vague point to be made about getting this service for PvP play, but ultimately once you hit a certain point what you are getting is versatility and early access to the new powers as they come out, and most players will have no problem getting these things merely by playing the game.

I am in favor of shared xp. I deny the claim that it ruins anything at all except for the player getting powerleveled.

 

That's how every game works. If you played 3 hours a day and your friend plays a few hours a week your character would be much more skilled IN EVERY GAME.

However it was already said that even the lowest level people can travel through the toughest lands, but they will have to use more consumables like potions etc. This is in stark contrast to WoW where the two couldn't hang out together.

Besides levels in SotA are just placeholders for how many skill points you have available. So if you were playing UO 3 hours a day you could build up your skills X points higher than your once a week friend. Same with SotA, playing 3 hours a day you will have X skill points more than your friend. Doesn't mean your character will be super powered because this is a classless game and you can pick all kinds of skills not mastering in any one skill tree so you might not be far ahead of your friend combat wise, but you might be able to cast spells and be able to use shields, and use swords, and maces (if you spread your skills around).

 

@Isaiah. Thank you so much for explaining my own post to me. Did you have any response to my post, or were you satisfied paraphrasing it at me?

Just in case you missed it, I am objecting to the separation of XP gain in a group of uneven 'level' on the grounds that it is diametrically opposed to the way things work in real life, where following significantly more skilled people around as they strut their stuff is called "training", as well as it being punitive and kinda dumb.

 

The ability to smack 'respected fellow players' in the face with a warhammer for attempting to grief.

 

Fishing - SOS's, bards, taming, and semi rare hunting.... Also crafting taking the mark, when exceptional, of the maker... These are a few of my favorite things.

 

Poisoning. By far my favorite skill in the game. I had so much fun with poison. That stack of 20 cooked ribs or fish steaks in your backpack was always funny when it was poisoned.

Fishing. I never leveled fishing in UO. That on top of carpentry and bowfletching are the only skills in game I never leveled or even attempted to. I'd like to do it at some point. Make fishing more than point and click though. That's probably why I never bothered. An awesome example of fishing are the fishing mini games in the old school Breath of Fire series by Capcom. Those games are worth playing through just to get to the end game fishing holes! You ever tried to angle a Leviathan? If Crapcom made a spin off Breath of Fire Age of Anglers game or something I wouldn't have a life for a month.

The ability to switch up the games playlist music with whatever you wanted. If anyone remember that then you remember how much you could break up the monotony with just a small switch of the ambiance of the game via background music. Background music in games are what gives boss battles that extra kick. I absolutely loved the world music in UO. RG and his gang truly made a masterpiece with it. Moonglow is my favorite. But the combat mode music weeeeellllll that's a whole other story in my opinion. It just never really caught me. Sorry but it got swapped with Corvus Corax tunes.

 

Haha fun times

dropping poisoned food on the floor for some unsuspected traveller to pick it up and eat it, just to be hit with a dose of deadly poison

I used to do this with tinkering too, dropping locked chests in dungeons and players thought they had just spawned, ran over and picked the lock and either got infected with lethal poison or insta death from an explosion.

 

I played pre-T2A and UO:R era UO. I have been here a while, off and on, and am well aware that SoTA is not UO2. This is my list of features I would maintain from UO if I ran the zoo (and if there were no legal complications regarding the lore). Basically, it would just be a bigger, more detailed version of pre-T2A UO with better graphics and more options. Not terribly original, but hey, you asked.

1. Open, seamless, sandbox environment. No instances (including houses and dungeons) or zones. Granted, I would make it much larger than UO's world, far more detailed and immersive, and would include only one server for all players.

2. Classless, level-less skill-based system, with a somewhat restrictive skill cap (UO's 700 cap was just right, imo, though I think it was 600 initially) and slow, hard won, rewarding gains. I would port it directly from UO to this new game, though I would greatly expand the number of skills. There is really no equal to the feeling of being able to go where you want to go, be who you want to be.

3. No quests or story line. The only "quests" I recall from early UO were escorting NPCs. I would do away with even these, and simply give the players the tools to fashion their own "content", not by way of actual quest writing capabilities and such, but by providing ample and diverse methods of interacting with one another; peaceful and otherwise.

4. The PvP system, including the old notoriety system.

5. The death system. Again, exactly as it was in pre-T2A UO.

6. Full loot. No blessed items or insurance (though I do recall spellbooks being blessed).

7. No totally safe zones. I would incorporate UO's system of guarded cities, as well as its insta-kill guards.

8. No starter or tutorial zones of any kind (along with the ability to chose your starting city at character creation).

9. No champions, raids, bosses, and the like (definitely nothing unique that respawns). These seem to have cropped up after my UO days, as I do not recall such things in early UO. I do seem to recall occasional GM-run events with named creatures. I would do away with even these, but that is just personal taste, though I might occasionally inject named and powerful creatures or groups of creatures into remote areas. I'd rather the players themselves provide most of the central conflict.

10. The lore. One of my favorite things about UO (I am also a veteran of the old single player Ultimas). Granted,the lore was, to a large degree ignored, but I liked having it in the background, and providing flavor to the world. This should maybe be number one.

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And some things I would change/add:

1. Remove all instant travel except possibly a few static moongates.

2. Reinstate a system like the Artificial Life Engine that was scrapped early on because players kept killing everything so fast it was never really utilized. Also, implement similar features such as seasons, an elaborate weather system, etc.

 

Personally, if I were given the opportunity to have a full loot PVP system, vs. having all the trammel and semi trammel players play in the same game as me, I'd take more subscribers. It seems many of the people who desire full loot systems with NO insurance and NO way to save any of your gear at all, are the very old school UO players. Which is great, but you need to be fair and think about the MUCH larger base of players that desire SOME kind of support in keeping the gear they work hard for. Yeah, there needs to be repercussions for dying, but losing everything you worked for seems like a bit much. That system works great in DayZ, but their gear is absolute basic, and has no identity to individual items other than: pistol, shotgun, sniper.

I think insurance is fantastic, maybe give the gold to the PKer instead of sending it to the UO bank(nothingness).

I mean think about it guys, you want people to come into the Red/Hot zones so you can fight them, right? Entice them. You don't have to gimmick other PVP'ers to come out there, they can't wait to be out there. You have to lure the non-PVPers and the semi-PVPers out there, and saying LIVE OR DIE is not the way to do it. Because their blues, they are perfectly content with not getting into a Hot zone, so approaching them with that I really don't think is inviting. But if they know if they do get caught and die, it's not the end of the world for them, for doing something they aren't interested in in the first place.

And for the record, we should be starting off on the lighter end, making it easier for blues to come into Red zones, and fine tune with updates. Making it too hard, and trying to make it easier will have a much more negative impact than the former, I firmly believe.

 

Half of the insurance cost went to whoever dealt the deathblow. You'd get a little system message of " XXXX gold has been deposited into your bank account"

 

how about full loot? Insurance didn't appear until years after Lord British left that company.

 

I've been on both sides of the fence there. Insurance and no insurance. Pre and post AOS.

Pre trammel days it didn't really matter. You could roll around naked or in craptastic exceptional armor. You didn't lose much when you died. Maybe 5 minutes while going back to suit up.
Post Tram was nothing more than a gear/gold grind tram side. You were relatively safe as long as you didn't get killed by anything that didn't loot corpses.
AOS rolled in and people jumped ship. The weapon and armor stats were a huge learning curve. Magic damage had a huge overhaul and there were multiple almost instant heals via the new skills added. It took what they were familiar with and flipped everything around. People who stuck with it went through the learning curve. Those who didn't jumped ship for other games and or free servers.
People that cried about gear based pvp were either too lazy to put together a suit (took about a month doing reset BODs. It wasn't that hard) or they rolled into pvp in a LRC suit and thought having 191 mana was the business instead of focusing on oh Idunno HPI and LMC.
Gear didn't bother me considering everyone had the potential to be on an even playing field. Full loot didn't bother me either because once again everyone was on an even playing field (Siege) it was just a more simplistic one. As much as a majority of those guys talked smack about prodo shards there wasn't a single established person there who were willing to toss out their blessed bunny hats and ember leggings though until they were outright unblessed. It was an extreme case of the pot calling the kettle black. So noobies there just had to either take their lumps until they acquired them or stick to prodo shards. All the while the established guys had a pretty good advantage over them and knew it the entire time. Extreme case of the pot calling the kettle black.

 

Without a doubt, the kind of management that can keep a game going for 17 years.
I think that's something all the backers of this project would like.

 

So many people talk so much good abot the 'hardcore' era of UO...

Yet the game peaked after trammel, and fact remains: Official UO HAS an 'Hardcore' Server ( Siege ) , and it is pretty much COMPLETELY dead, and been so for years.

Please look at the reality and not only nostalgica.

 

That sounds like a load of hell. No wonder why the freeshards do so well.

 

With the current combat skill has nothing to do with it. skill procs have more to do with success than any amount if skill. You can be the best at stacking you deck perfect but if a crucial skill doesnt pop at the right time all your ability doesnt matter

 

in my opinion that is a great observation.

 

In my opinion your observation is an astute observation. Too bad so many dont see this or are in denial that LB isnt a water walkig deity