Post: #11

The game is still awesome. It doesn't need a graphics overhaul; it needs a development team worth a damn and a consistent one. Not a team that is changed every few years. Give these people creative freedoms.

EA Mythic tried to do a lot of upgrading, but so did those prior. I mean really... how hard is it to design half of this stuff? UO Lost its player base due to the millions of changes it went through; some good and some bad. The main issue was consistency. They never released consistent updates.

Really, if EA wanted to bring back the massive player base it had; it would have to change its marketing to match current game with free-2-play and pay-4-content. This would surely bring a lot of people back. That monthly price tag is a lot to pay for something that doesn't get much content or substance added.

People started to get interested when they talked about releasing an old school server; which is great... but who would be updating it?! If the current servers don't get a lot in a way of updates... neither will the new old school servers either. This has been a big issue with EA for a long time with the Ultima Online game.

Another thing to point is the lack of some nicer things that get asked for. I think High Seas should have implemented some form of hand guns and rifles from the old pirate days. It would have been easily balanced too. Yet, I am sure this was too much work for them. People are not happy with just new "decorative" items.

EA Should have stopped hiring these teams and literally came to Sphere, RunUO, and Pol to hire people if you really ask me. How many of us would be releasing a ton of new expansions?! We are all ahead of EA by far code and script wise. Our imaginations have created things that EA could never have created. Give me a few graphic designers and animation developers and I'd be on top of it. The shards that use those cool gumps but lack the armor animations; they would have them. It needs a flare like that. Give me some sick ass new gothic plate mail with spikes and evil looks. How about some new half-plate to use. Give me a pot for a helmet (lol). I mean it is things like this that could sharpen up the experience for people.

Post: #12

(11-19-2012 03:42 AM)Lazarus Wrote:  

(11-18-2012 11:03 PM)JeBu Wrote:  I wish I would have money and time to make new game kinda like UO with this days standards and fill it up with my own ideas.

Someone has do that..

It's called Darkfall, here in Argentina we can't play because the ping...

But... that fucking game it's awesome.
Now they are take a new update with better graphics ^_^

I have you tried lowerping? I am in Kathmandu, Nepal playing on an Ultima shard located in the U.S. via a so-so wifi connection. Ping is almost always atrocious, usually unplayable. With lowerping it is much better, playable, and often quite exceptional.

I have never played Darkfall, and cannot comment on it, or even if it is available for lowerping, but it is worth a shot. I followed Darkfall, then Mortal Online while in production for a bit, but ultimately they went in a direction that was not quite for me. I cannot truly judge, as I did not play either, but I get a general idea from reading posts and talking to those who did/do play. Plus all I have at the moment is a little netbook, because I backpack extensively. I think I will buy a better laptop soon.

-------------

It would be nice to recapture that magic of first logging into UO back in 1998, and the year and a half that followed, when everything was new and unexplored.

I agree with Khaos, and think actually quite like the graphics of the old isometric 2D client. I likewise think that it could benefit from Sphere developers (and those of other emulators). You guys have done some amazing things, and it would be super easy to recruit a team in all categories, and without an enormous budget. The basics are already there. It really would not be that hard to revamp the system, perhaps even with different official shards that are built with a different aesthetic, rules set, etc., rather than being clones of one another. Or perhaps better yet, one consolidated server with a larger, integrated map that can accommodate more players. I do think it would be something of a hard sell for newer players, used to 3D and the more modern trend toward linear style, story driven game play. Yet, there does seem to be a growing tend, at least among indie, Kickstarter projects toward more sand-box-oriented play, and a not inconsiderable fan base of old-style UO.

I stopped playing on the official servers back during T2A, and returned over the year to try various free shards, some of them EA clones. From my personal viewpoint and aesthetic, I feel that they went in the wrong direction; greater move toward item dependency, rares, out of control economy/inflation, gaudy colors, art that did not fit the original look, etc.

I am sure we all have our subjective views on such issues. I personally wish they had gone in the same general direction, with the same general old school look and feel, but simply added more systems, skills, etc. to encourage different play-styles, bring more immersion to the world, give players more freedom and control over the environment, and encourage emergent behavior.

Post: #13

The art was a big move due to leaving behind the old artifact art. Which shows the huge differences in artists. This can create a gaudy look. You are right though; we could essentially pull together a team to create our own game with the files we have and our server. As for EA going in the wrong direction... yes and no. I would have liked to see more focus on skills on their end to provide the buffs and boosts to game style versus the item dependency. The items weren't too bad as of AoS... but the SA expansion really made everything item dependent. Which I don't like. Making magic items is fine; boosting already super powered items further... yeah... bad move.

I have thought about creating another server; but every player wants to play something so drastically different that it becomes bothersome to appeal to them all. One set wants classic UO, another wants EA mockup, another wants some DnD type server, Another wants something super custom, some just want pvp, some just want an rp... How do you appeal to them all? You cannot. It is impossible and without enough players around here telling me they want me to beast out in no time... my hands are tied on any server project. My computer could host a server with a couple thousand players easily; but it is having the product they want. *smh* I am not going to split my time working on 6 servers all using different things... might as well just create a gateway to other servers for those players to use.

If I could find a good group on here who actually understood how design and development worked; I would be more than happy to start up a linear graph and web of ideas for us to apply and create a server. I just have not worked with one person on here who can do that. Everyone has their own idea of what their server should be. Everyone wants to be the rockstar. No offense... not a lot of people are rockstar programmers/scripters... I still see redundantly repeated code that could be shortened with a function. Overly bloated code that could be simplified... *smh*. I think it is great everyone is trying; but people forget the KISS concept really applies to programming/scripting and does so very well and with good reason. Clean and memory/resource friendly.

Ha, I remember having a choice of 100+ servers easy to pick from to play. Had my own two servers... it was great. Now there is a handful left. The pickings are so limited and to be honest I don't like what half of them offer. It is leaned too far in one direction and lacks some common things to keep various players... while the others lean the exact opposite. It is like the recent presidents in the USA. Extreme Left Wing Commie's and Extreme Right Wing Facists... lol... There doesn't seem to be a lot of balance.

If people can get along though; I wouldn't mind doing a server again. Development is a democracy in a way; but once the core is planned... stick with it and expand.

Post: #14

With some help I could give you a new UO game, but for now I don't have that time to keep working on it.
The new features:
- New map, 1/4 size of felluca.
- No mounts, everybody is equal.
- Classes and Subclasses like
Robber: Thief, Assassin and Rogue;
Mage: Wizard, Priest and Summoner;
Warrior: Barbarian, Paladin and Knight;
Archer: Ranger, Sharpshooter (the damage guy) and Windwalker (the stealth guy);
- City wars;
- Militias;
- New Mining system: you always mine a 'unknown ore', then you clean it in water and get the real ore. (awesome effect showing it going to water barrel then back to player)
- New Lumberjacking system: it's like the system posted here that you get the real wood from the tree. (you chop a oak tree, then you will get oak logs)
- Dungeon Raid system: you and your party goes to a paralel dimension (copy of the current world) in the dungeon selected and then you need to finish (kill everything) to reach the boss to kill and get a prize. You're safe with your party there, but if the time is over and you lost something there (body or stuff), eveything will be removed.
- Real time environment: if its day here, then is day ingame. If its winter here, then is winter ingame.
- NPCs Vendors don't works at late night. They're closed between 12pm until 6am. If the players need buy something, search a player or wait or program that.
- New Classes Spellbooks: each one will have a 16 spells in the book. Everything is new and is not used in the base spellbook. They will have a new book and a spellbar to place the spells icons, when clicked will cast the spell.
- New Alchemy system: a book will hold the recipe scrolls of various potions, will not use the old skillmenu. (I made it for Rayvolution (Aetharia) then I think I can use it for my server)
- NPC AI Events: animals have a custom ai event that will make them smarter, attacking opposite kinds and fishing/pee, etc.
- New Combat System: everything is remade. Based on OSI Combat System with my aditions like: spelldamage/physdamage will be increased or decreased by tags (like props on chars), Magic Resistance will give magic damage absortion. If is night and you're didn't cast nightsight or hold a light(candle, lantern) you have high chance to miss your enemy.
- Graveyard Champion System: mini champions that will summon a mini-boss to get prizes.
- AssistUO Negotiate Features (like Razor): I can control all filters can be used by Razor and AssistUO. And if the player don't use AssistUO or Razor, it will be disconnected. Thanks to Feeh for the help
- City Strongholds: all main city have a stronghold that is where the major can control the things of the city. If its invaded by others militia, the current city will lose the guards.
- Citizenship: if you live in a city and you're a citizen, you will have skillgain bonuses in shops based on skill. Example: if you enter in a Tailor Shop, you will get skillgain bonus in tailoring.
- New Character Creation: you will not create your character in the old method. You will login and choose the things like: sex, hair, beard, body color, hair/beard color, Name (unique) and one of Classes.

And lot of things should come together
Here is the map (copied from Rel Por server)


Interested? Tell me and we can work together, I just want to play in a no boring server.
I hate tell this, but if someone who I know will work hard on it, I send the whole thing to make it happen.

Post: #15

wow extreme that sounds awsome, a like the idea of the npc's working a certain times, that would be very sweet if someone could script it, same with the mining and potion system

Post: #16

Doesn't need to be scripted at all.. it's a setting in sphere.ini

Post: #17

Is the map complete, or do you wanna help with that? Or anything...

Post: #18

(09-13-2013 06:54 AM)babazar Wrote:  wow extreme that sounds awsome, a like the idea of the npc's working a certain times, that would be very sweet if someone could script it, same with the mining and potion system

Yeah, it works with my environment system that is realtime ingame... so in 00:00am to 06:00am they will not sell things
Its already working, same for mining and potion system.

(09-13-2013 07:03 AM)Mordaunt Wrote:  Doesn't need to be scripted at all.. it's a setting in sphere.ini

Code:

// NPC AI settings
// NPC_AI_PATH                  0x001   NPC pathfinding
// NPC_AI_FOOD                  0x002   NPC food search (objects + grass)
// NPC_AI_EXTRA                 0x004   NPC magics, etc
// NPC_AI_ALWAYSINT             0x008   Always be as smart as possible with pathfinding
// NPC_AI_INTFOOD               0x010   NPC food search (more intelligent and trusworthy)
// NPC_AI_COMBAT                0x040   Look for friends in combat
// NPC_AI_VEND_TIME             0x080   vendors closing their shops at nighttime    <----------------------
// NPC_AI_LOOTING               0x0100  loot corpses an the way
// NPC_AI_MOVEOBSTACLES         0x0200  if moveable items block my way, try to move them

Yeah, but you can't handle the time they will stop working.

(09-13-2013 07:48 AM)Alaric Wrote:  Is the map complete, or do you wanna help with that? Or anything...

Yes, the map is complete. It's already have the cities and every house area done.
For now I don't need help because I can't work on it. And next week I will start as trainee on Petrobras so it will eat all my busy time :/

I think until the end of year the core will be done and it would be open for alpha/beta testing.