Cove orc fort

[slyyoungstar]

From talking about new player encouragement w Kain's posts, I just wanted to bring up a thought I've had since I started on this server years back. I don't have documentation or anything to back this up, and I'll let it go if I'm the only one, but the Cove orc fort was one of the perfect newb spawn starting areas on OSI. Here the spawn is greatly exaggerated, not to mention the strength of the individual orcs (specifically Lords/mages) are jacked way higher than what I remember. The never ending mob of orcs there has made it basically impossible to use that spawn as a farming spot, and I wanted to hear if anyone else agrees with my memory of OSI's orc fort being drastically different during the T2A era. I guess I bring it up from the thought of new players, and this one was a glaring red flag when I first joined as something so era inaccurate that I was frustrated. I just don't want that same feeling to turn away someone if that's their default starting farm spot and first experience with the T2A shard.

[Boomland Jenkins]

My memory on OSI for the orc fort was before t2a, and specific to Lake Superior, but the spawn there use to come in a massive wave. We'd clear the fort as a group and usually within 20 minutes, a large cluster (10-20 orcs) would spawn near the two guard towers at the entrance of the actual fort. I can't quite remember how the fort was inside, because we rarely went inside. Usually between big spawn we'd hang out and chat while one poor guy had to run the armor and gold back to our house.

[Kaivan]

Without any proper documentation of the spawn, we can't really do much to change how it currently works. I would check the newsgroups for player accounts, or screenshots to see if anything can be revealed about the density of the spawn found there.

As for the orcs themselves, our current information regarding their stats and skills as well as combat is based off of information found in the demo plus any patch notes we've found along the way (for the most part). What we've found is that the stats themselves are pretty much what we've expected to find. As an example we can look at this archive of the stats from the last day before AoS was introduced and see the reported ranges for the stats and skills of an orc. Comparing to the demo itself, the following lines of information actually defines the skills and stats of a regular orc:

<strength 1d25+95>
<intelligence 1d25+35>
<dexterity 1d25+80>
<hp 1d25+95>
<mana 1d25+70>
<stamina 1d25+90>
<sk skill_melee 1d250+550> (wrestling)
<sk skill_magic_defense 1d250+500> (magic resist)
<sk skill_battle_defense 1d250+500> (parrying)
<sk skill_magic 1d250+500> (magery)
<sk skill_weapon_hand 1d200+500> (generic name that references the equipped weapon to determine their skill)

From this, we can tell that the reported values at the end of UOR, and the values found in definitions for creatures from very early in the game's inception line up pretty well, which cross verifies that information as being as reliable as we can get short of getting actual numbers from the era. As for the combat itself, I've heard other anecdotes about orcs being a lot harder than they should be, and it is possible that something changed regarding monster combat that we don't know about, or that our own mechanics aren't doing things properly, but the most likely answer is that player memory is very aged at this point, and our expectation of what should be happening and what actually happened are now different. Either way, I'll see if I can't find out what's going on.

[slyyoungstar]

Cool, thanks for the replies. Like I said, mostly just going from memory here and it struck a chord as sticking out as my first experience on the server. I remember from about '98-'01 that was a go to spot that you could stand around and hang out at cleaning up a couple orcs at a time, but it could have been a product of multiple people doing the same thing. It was a red frequented zone for sure bc of the easier newb targets, but I remember surviving no problem with 80ish fighting skills and gm weapons as a newb. On the server here, if you can survive by yourself in there, you're doing some serious juking/barding/invis/etc.

[SirEricKain]

Cove Orc Fort/Covetous Harpies/Delucia Cemetery were all great places for newcomers...

The spawn was insane in T2A, they toned it all down in UO:R from my recollection, you always needed to x-heal and carry plenty of food/red potions with you or you wouldn't live to tell the tale.

[SirEricKain]

+1

[Quin the Wretch]

Cant say much but I do remember going into the fort was risky. Easy to get crimped not to mention the occasional stealth pk spamming LB. Usually just lure a couple out if you cleaned up outside. But definitely should be able to farm with gm/force gear and common sense in my book.

[Lamer]

imho, this shard needs a few minor tweaks... i know i know era accuracy and stuff... but tell me how exactly does the event/silver thing meet era accuracy... u r doing this to attract players and to keep them playng... so you should maybe think of doing some other things as well... i like this shard, i play alot... but orcs FE are just useless as they are... they are doing mace style damage and the loot is only interresting to newcomers... who dont want do go and farm bone ar all day to be able to go to the orc fort for 1 hour for example... same on the spawn... at such spots OSI spawn was designed for LOTS of players so everyone would get some... well no doubt there are locations one could go instead. buy why just leave nice locations completely unused? just to b accurate for NO reason... i mean theres no accuracy profit out of this...

i think the whole staff should think about such issues discuss them and maybe later on let players vote just to know what they think about it... i dont say hey change this and that even theres no evidence and so on but KEEP IN MIND this is NO osi shard and you may have to tweak it a little so we get closer to the experience we once had, sorry for bad english but im not used to it anymore and all just imho

[Deyash]

I was there two weeks ago and I also believe the spawn to be strongher thn t2a.

I went there ussually on OSI and it was difficult to enter, but now you cannot be even near the entrace with a sole warrior char. Orc Lords chops like hell, and Im not sure but I dont remember Orc mages at cove