T2A Accuracy: Progress and Discussion

[Orsi]

If we could compare this shard to the original T2A in terms of game mechanics, what percentage do you believe we have come to this goal?

Given, we will probably never be an exact 100% replica but we are coming very close to what would be consider an A+. At what point do we stop worrying about the mechanical aspects of T2A, and begin to start wondering how to improve the cultural aspect of it? What are the goals we should strive for once era accuracy has been completely achieved? What are the major areas of discrepancies, if any, that need to be corrected or are in the progress of being corrected towards T2A accuracy?

Some suggestions and discussion would be great in order to understand the mind set of the players, and the direction the staff see as appropriate.

[Derrick]

Thanks for this topic. I'm feeling the same way about mechanics, and have been trying to focus more on content. Although little things to fix do still seem to come up a lot

[Orsi]

I've floated in and out of the shard since it began almost... 2 years now? It has come a long way and I am astounded by the commitment you have put forth, Derrick, in researching, programming, and moderating the shard. Somehow I've found myself downloading the client, and would like to contribute as much as I can to improve the 'feel' of the game.

The 'it is not the same because it is 10 years old' excuse is not a valid argument. Art has lived on through the ages and inspires many well beyond the time the artist created it. I would consider games to also be an artform and Ultima Online to be one of the classics. When was the last time you thought Led Zeppelin wasn't the same? We may not have the same feeling that we had when we discovered them for the first time but we still enjoy it much more than other, newer songs.

Even then, there is another feeling which comes very close to what I've mentioned and that is of sharing the experience of discovery to someone else, and this is what I think we should do. We need to begin considering ways to replicate the actual reason we keep coming back to this game, and more precisely, this shard.

[Orsi]

The shard is coming close to a point where there are not enough issues to deal with in regards to game mechanics, and it will become apparent that we need to start addressing other aspects of the game itself. Putting aside all the minor inaccuracies that may be found in the future, we need to create a few core ideals that should direct this shard. These ideals should be broad and contain the main philosophy of what we consider the essence of T2A. Ideals which we consider to be positive for the enjoyment of everyone and questions that may validate temporary adjustments to rules:

• interaction
  • Can we encourage players to frequent certain spots and discourage others somehow?

• a diverse economy
  • If a major unbalancing happens, should we destroy resources or make them harder to obtain for a period?
  • Are there any professions which are less-profitable compared to others?
  • Does one aspect of the economy totally negate another?

• balancing innocents to murderers
  • What actions are appropriate if the murderer population increases too much?

• etc...

At the same time, we should also solidify a few objects which we consider to be as accurate as possible and we consider untouchable even in respect to the above ideals. This would help in deciding what policies to implement, what content can be altered (if any), and how to address contentious issues which may arise in the name of era accuracy.

[Mikel123]

• interaction
  • Can we encourage players to frequent certain spots and discourage others somehow?

• a diverse economy
  • If a major unbalancing happens, should we destroy resources or make them harder to obtain for a period?
  • Are there any professions which are less-profitable compared to others?
  • Does one aspect of the economy totally negate another?

• balancing innocents to murderers
  • What actions are appropriate if the murderer population increases too much?

• etc...

I would vote against all of these suggestions/ideas. I wouldn't advise artificially making up new rules or incentives/disincentives.

[Derrick]

I think this might prove to be a very useful thread, but I also am against any form of social engineering on the shard.

I'm all about providing new content, but for the purpose of providing choices. I don't belive anything should attempt to encourage play-style, only provide more things to do.

[Orsi]

I just wanted to get the discussion started, throwing out ideas. I have worded what I'm trying to explain wrong. Do not consider those examples above as literal rules. What they are supposed to be are intrinsic values about the Second Age. Things that are fundamental to the era that we should never attempt to go against and any updated content should be in context with.

For instance, new content like lands, dungeons or items would most likely be out of context with the Second Age, but why? What are the underlying reasons why we would be opposed to this kind of change? Would it be social interaction, as in it spreads out the population too much? Is it trammelizing, creating more of an emphasis on aesthetics? Do certain aspects of accuracy actually increase enjoyment, such as cutting cloth one band-aid at a time? These are the things we need to discuss because they are not technical aspects which we can do physical research for as was done previously.

The goal has been to restore all the accurate game mechanics to the shard for the past 2 years, which was akin to archaeologists digging up lost artifact of an ancient city. Once all the details have been dug up, what do we do now? We can't keep digging. Now we need to take the role of anthropologists and consider what were the values of all these items we've found. The more we understand of how the Second Age worked the way it did and what the designers were aiming for, would help us to stay true to the era while also providing change and growth.

Questions to elaborate the idea above:

• Why did the designers only allow low-level key bindings in the client and ban all third party applications except for one?
  • -what features were included in UO Assist when approved, and what were taken out to approve it?
  • -did cutting bandages one at a time serve to prevent the over abundance of bandages, or was it an issue they never got around to fixing?

• What exactly were the goals of the designers when changing issues multiple times during the era, such as weapon and armour stats?
  • -were they trying to balance the different weapon skills or trying to make less-popular weapons more viable?
  • -should we consider taking up that mission and make weapons such as scimitars, viking swords, war axes and other miscellaneous ones that are there but not used often a little more powerful?
    • -would that not also provide 'new' content while not directly creating 'new' items?

• Are there skills, items and locations that are pretty much redundant as they are that should be considered when attempting to create content?
  • -would altering said skill, item or location steer us away from the Second Age too much, or would it be more like improving an aspect of it?

The overall conclusion is, we have the foundation. Now how exactly do we build on that?

[Orsi]

edited the above

[Stargazer]

I agree that Social Engineering is out of the question. You can't change the game or do things to try and fit everyone into a single bottle at once, because then you're taking away from what made UO great; that being an absolute sandbox environment. We should focus on expanding the sandbox.

If I'm hijacking, let me know and I'll start a new thread with these comments.

This is what I am getting out of this discussion: Can we maintain the "UOSA is T2A Accurate" mold and draw, while making the shard better? Here are several points I've been thinking about

-The Blacksmith
I knew many players who were smiths. A L L they did was sit at the smithys, especially N.Britain, and repair people's shit for a fee and tips. Why isn't that here on UOSA? What can we do to make that a viable playstyle?

-Useless Skills
We can improve on UOSA and expand by changing skills that are totally useless. Honestly, who has GM Begging (other than for the sake of saying they do)? How can we make this a viable playstyle?

-Useless Weapons
Who uses a viking sword? Forget the +tacs or damage modifiers. What incentive is there to use a broadsword? What I see is that people use either Halberds or Katanas. WHY is this? I know why, according to the numbers, but is it more important to be era accurate than it is to increase the size of the sandbox?

These are just a couple of points. I'm willing to put a LOT Of effort into this discussion and thoughts on how to improve such things if I find that we have an ear and people are interested. What has raised this issue with me is the recent changes where player hired vendors were changed so that they couldn't be dressed anymore, because it was era accurate. I feel that made our sandbox just a little bit smaller. I would have used this feature to dress up NPC Cultists for looks and flavor to our player run town. Now that ability is gone in the name of being era accurate.

[trag]

I just wanted to throw my support in for the following ideas:

- Blacksmiths actually working the field - I miss this!
- Useless skills and weapons being made useful - sure, this is not "era accurate" but it WOULD bring more people out and WOULD create new styles of play.

Once we achieve Era Accuracy (or as close as we can get in 2009 and beyond) - where does it go from there?
Do we stagnate and refuse to change because "that is the way it was" or, as someone mentioned, do we take the role of an OSI developer in 1998 and think "what would have been done in the era to make this more fun?"

Expanding on Orsyth's post, I would like to see events still take place as they do today (the time schedule, being automated, etc) however I am in favor of moving these events out of Green Acres and into a more populated area. This does NOT MEAN I want to allow everyone in the tournament to be open to griefing. It would be the same standard Tournament rule/ruleset (once you enter you are basically in Trammel and put in a 'Guild' when the Tourney begins.) just open in a more public place where players can "stumble across" things. Murderers would still be able to go to these events as well, but that is an issue for the devs to work out the coding.

Of course this means some work for the devs, as I suspect the tournaments are held in Green Acres to make the fact that you're in the Trammel facet (it works like that on other shards, I am not sure about this one, just thinking technically out loud here) much easier. If it wouldn't be much of a headache, it would be very cool to see tournaments take place in known public areas.

[nOgAnOo]

mmm.. platypus and I only played during the Second Age.. our accounts got banned for scamming/hacking.. so everything we recall is from SA on Lake Supererior.. but I don't recall all that much since we were so super high at the time.. omg.. UO + weed = heaven. .. I never did pvp back in the day.. I was a merchant.. I had a swordsman at about 70.. I hunted north of Minoc by the North Mines west cave.. The amount of monsters there seems totally accurate to me.. but as for items.. there was the item bless deed.. I had a silver durable accurate halberd of vanquishing (blessed) .. and it was worth 350 dollars on ebay at the time.. there was a portable 1 stone forge bug.. so I had one of those.. there was a no draw tile from some other bug.. ranger armor and potted plants went for 15k back then.. there was some bug to make black furniture and those sold for 10k a piece.. black dye tubs and black sandals at least 100k.. and 1 mill gold sold for around 60 dollars on ebay.. If I recall correctly there were red sandals that spawned on npcs.. This was from '99 I believe.. shortly after CUB and trammel stones were just coming out and nobody knew what they were.. Our accounts got banned before trammel started.. One other thing.. the coal from Christmas was darker.. and smeltable.. it made almost black armor.. Derrick.. you are doing a wonderful job on this shard.. I am very proud of you.. I am still recruiting lots of foreign girls to play.. we're gonna keep this shard poppin forever! - nOgAnOo, Aaliyah, Shakira, Akasha, Options -- Marky B -- Representing ASS, AZZ, and ILL

[Orsi]

Interesting post...

I think a good rule for any 'new' content developed would be to provide usefulness for redundant aspects of the game.

Also, I think we should attempt to discover issues that may be preventing play styles, such as the smith hanging out at the blacksmith shop, and correct them. Do we have too many GM Blacksmiths on the shard with vendors, making it easier to just run to a player vendor anywhere? Why are there too many GM Blacksmiths? Is becoming a GM Blacksmith easier than it used to be because skill gain is faster?

[purplehazze]

Personally, I would like to see some of the later house layouts added to the shard. I think this could be done without hurting the t2a experience. I'm a big fan of the sandstone patio and the 8x8 tower. I'm just speaking from the perspective of someone who doesn't pvp much but likes to run vendors and deco houses. Maybe we could modify the prices a bit to make these layouts harder to attain. I'm interested to see how others feel...

[Sentinel]

More random town invasions!

[Duul al'Vath]

-The Blacksmith
I knew many players who were smiths. A L L they did was sit at the smithys, especially N.Britain, and repair people's shit for a fee and tips. Why isn't that here on UOSA? What can we do to make that a viable playstyle?

I was a frequent fixture on Chesapeake at the N. Brit forge and the Delucia forge. There aren't enough actual players (500 online accounts is a bit misleading) to require that kind of presence at the forges.