By and large this is so, but Ultima Online has always been a conglomeration of thousands of sub/meta-games.Orsi wrote: By using automated programs to eliminate the work and effort that go into performing all the 'tedious' tasks, the tasks that are intended by the game designers to do, players don't have to play parts of the game which they don't like. This leads to the game becoming fragmented, with each player never playing the whole game but only a fraction. Eventually, each player is only playing their favourite fragment of the game, and the shard isn't a living world with all players playing the same game at the same time. Rather, the shard becomes a single-player online zone where each player chooses to play with other players only when they want to. That is not Ultima Online, that is Ultima partially-Online.
Don't be fooled. Most everyone just wants their own little corner of the world to be easy. "If I don't do this, it should be hard as f--k... but if I do, I should be able to afk that crap in a night."Orsi wrote:After looking through this thread more, I'm a little more encouraged by the slight increase of people who seem to understand the negative social impact of these automation programs.