UO Second Age

Turkeys and sharks!!!

Blaise wrote:Also, yes, the skill-gain through bearing witness worked for almost, if not all, skills at one point. If your skill was low enough you would simply get skill by watching others do things.

This was the greatest thing ever back before skills were lockable b/c you could run up to a 1337 powergamer and start busting out some campfires and they would run like crazy b/c they didn't want a random skill (you had no control over which one) to drop as they gained camping skill from "watching" you camp. Good times.

Originally, you got one power hour per day. This was a UOR feature. A new day started at midnight for the time zone the shard was in. Your power hour would be the first hour you played that day, though I think it may not have started immediately (maybe after 15 minutes or so). You had to be careful not to play past midnight lest you waste the next day's power hour. It was a good idea to log in around 10:30 pm for the first time in a day so you could get two power hours more or less back-to-back.

The system was horrible because it was the most anti-social thing to happen to UO outside of Trammel. It basically forced you to structure your play time around it to maximize gains, because they were painfully slow outside of it. So most of the time you'd ask someone if they wanted to go PKing or whatever, and the response you'd get is "can't, it's my power hour." It also sucked because it just wasn't immersive in any way. It took you out of the world and reminded you that you were playing a game, and it made it feel more like a scheduled grind. There was no fiction or explanation to justify the mechanic in-game. The announcement was "we want more casual gamers to be abl to keep up in character development." But the other side of that coin was that it basically held back your character development outside of PH.

Eventually they added commands to let you start your power hour when you wanted it and check the timer until your next power hour was available. But the system still sucked. And it continued to suck until it was replaced with an even worse one, the Guaranteed Gain System (GGS). GGS would ensure your character would gain a skill point every so often, but the timers were something like .1 per week after 90. And the non-guaranteed gain rate was abysmally low.

No thanks, skill gain is fine here.

Good post LKP.

Mirage wrote:

RoadKill wrote:
Removal of hued ores and addition of 20+ colored armor only purchasable from NPC vendors

That's going back!

Indeed. For me, T2A is the "UOR" of UO for most people. I didn't enjoy the T2A era much. Pre-T2A was the most fun I ever had. The systems were simple but effective, making it really up to the user skill rather than the character skills+items (T2A is more character planning/strategy + item-based rather than heavily strategy based)

Pre T2A was pretty amazing back in the day, but just like this shard, the biggest era inaccuracy is the fact that this game has been out forever and we are a special few who play it and know the ins and outs.

What made UO so fun back then was a good mix of casuals, people from all over the world, severe lag, the game was in a constant state of patches and change, competition for every vein of ore, every tree (I remember this on US servers), to make a buck.

I played a pre T2A server a few years ago and the low population sucked, but even if there was a population, the problem is everyone min maxes to the best skill set possible and everyone was an Archer/Mage/Hider there was even less variety there than here.

LKP wrote:Originally, you got one power hour per day. This was a UOR feature. ...

It was actually "Third Dawn".

T2A-era Siege Perilous

Braden wrote:

LKP wrote:Originally, you got one power hour per day. This was a UOR feature. ...

It was actually "Third Dawn".

Technically, power hour, which was originally called "burst hour" was introduced with the final T2A patch in March of 2000.

only thing i miss is a blessed rune book?

other than that been here just 1 day and loving it

and better still I met a new player today with nothing so I helped him out a bit and gave him a hard earned 1K to start

arr the good old days

I forgot, though others have mentioned. Crafting menus!!! The era accurate menus suck and only serve to annoy. Thank gawd we have macroing, what a painful and shitty idea those menus were. BTW, can we get new menus??? Doesn't affect game mechanics anyway, so let's have it!!!!!!!!

PS I want better menus.

Kaivan wrote:

Braden wrote:

LKP wrote:Originally, you got one power hour per day. This was a UOR feature. ...

It was actually "Third Dawn".

Technically, power hour, which was originally called "burst hour" was introduced with the final T2A patch in March of 2000.

Sharpshooter gets sharpshot!

To the first, I don't really consider Third Dawn or LBR to be eras since they didn't change the gameplay in any significant way. I consider the eras to be pre-T2A, T2A, UOR, Pub 16, and AOS. And while there have been changes since AOS, it's already such a mess that it doesn't even matter.

To the second, I don't remember it being that early, or ever being called "burst hour," but we're talking 12 years ago so you're the historian. I'm too lazy to dig up the patch notes.

To both, it doesn't change anything exactly which patch or expansion the feature came with; my feeling on it are the same.

I am sure it has been said but house customization. I think folks would have fun with it here but the only way I see it being done is if its 1 house per acct. WOnt ever see it here, so eh?

preferred uo:r style pvp a lot more. i'd argue it's less luck based. paper scissors rock for UO:R pvp isn't true, if anything it was more balanced and less gear dependent than t2a ever was. go up against me with a gm hally while i rock reflect/tele/invis gear and a +25 vanq halberd and tell me that isnt the truth.

it would be interesting to see how pvp would pan out on an accurate uo:r era shard. there has never been a mechanically accurate replica of any era from UO:R patch to publish 16. its all mix and match.

Good post nightshark.