Basic premise for a possible future shard

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Calix
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Basic premise for a possible future shard

Post by Calix »

Will add to this as I think of things.

Structured and planned future, including server costs, player numbers, etc. If considering actually launching something, be certain that staff are in it for the long haul.

Heavily advertised. Ensure a continued wave of new players.

Set out a shard 'story' in Ultima Lore, well presented on website, and evolve this story as the shard develops, involving players in this. Make this central to the shard and hopefully it's something that sets it apart from the others and appeals to more than just the usual PvP crowd.

Modified AOS ruleset.

Felucca old lands and POSSIBLY Felucca lost lands only.

No neon items or horrible item hues. Things like artifacts toned down to 'normal' UO colours.

Attempt a working economy - gold sinks. 'Vanity' items like 4th year+ emounts, special hair dye, etc = mirrrrrions.

Loot. Stick to some Legacy ideas, ie Shame. Spread it around all dungeons and perhaps some other areas as well. Remove some of the items from these drops(including spawns) and make them crafter only(powder of fort, etc). The server birth/daily rares, etc should remain the same.

No rune beetles or other abominations, like Legacy.

No horrible newbie-grind stage. No 'trammel island' idea like on Legacy. Let chars start with 2x skills of choice @ 90, and 225 stats. 1 char per account. It shouldn't be a chore to get started and established.

Consider giving 'naked' chars a base resist level and base casting level, without items. Perhaps 60 in each resist, and 2/5 casting. Items could then obviously add to this, with the same caps as legacy/p25. Resists on items would need to be changed to have something like 0-3 in each resist on them, with 3 being the maximum and rarest. Other items could all remain, except jewelry, which would have to be capped/lowered for most properties, with the fc/fcr being unnecessary now. The point of this is to make AoS much less reliant on items. The part that people enjoyed, ie making suits, improving their setup etc is still there, but would also make it possible for people to compete on an 'unitemed' char. This would appeal to RP type players, 'duelers' etc. Items become a bonus, not a necessity.

PvP mechanics. Legacy was pretty much spot on. Field and area effect spells is the one area that wasn't quite right. Poison field/Para field - upped to 100 mana per cast(affected by LMC ofc) and wither mana cost doubled and changed to a 1 tile radius around the casting char. Should put an end to choke point and field-spam pvp.

Factions. I can't remember exactly how it worked on Legacy. Was control of each town linked to certain dungeons, giving bonuses on loot and champ spawns? Perhaps change this to a %. 8 towns controlled = 100% bonus to loot. 6 controlled, 60%, 4 controlled, 40%. etc. In all dungeons. Consider other rewards as well. I can't think what else was in on Legacy. Allow faction vendors on player housing. Include things such as necro regs. Possibly some of the stuff we discussed in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3892 & this thread viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3917


Events. Have an evolving shard 'lore' storyline. No global announcement events like OSI ended up doing, and most freeshards still do. Something more like this: http://www.pusateri.org/blood/events/foa.htm where GM's play NPCs characters and drive a story line that players can have an impact on, becoming part of the 'official' history of the shard as it evolves.

Support for communities.

Stuff for crafters/merchants. No idea at present

Safety for non-PvPers, without over-trammelising the world. No idea again.

Superfast Oz
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Re: Basic premise for a possible future shard

Post by Superfast Oz »

Spreading the shame items across the shard would definitely be better. I'd make the items drop a lot less over time too. Legacy had very high drop rates, which is ok to begin with, shit later on. You could monitor how rich people are getting and use this as a measure of how much the drops need to be lowered in order to increase prices.

90 is too high for starter skills, I'd say 3 @ 70 is better for creating usable characters. Don't like the idea of giving nakeds resists etc. Better players could just run naked with the stats you said, and I don't think it'd be good for the economy.

Def keep lost lands, make khaldun useful, and add more to it. I always thought factions was shite and broken in my playtime. Maybe if choosing one was mandatory it would have more meaning.

Dunno about the field ideas. I think choke point play takes a lot of skill and it's one of the reason in Men that we won so much.

Calix
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Re: Basic premise for a possible future shard

Post by Calix »

Superfast Oz wrote:Spreading the shame items across the shard would definitely be better. I'd make the items drop a lot less over time too. Legacy had very high drop rates, which is ok to begin with, shit later on. You could monitor how rich people are getting and use this as a measure of how much the drops need to be lowered in order to increase prices.
Agreed.
Superfast Oz wrote: 90 is too high for starter skills, I'd say 3 @ 70 is better for creating usable characters.
Yeah probably. Just throwing a figure out there. The awful newbie stage isn't fun for anyone though and chars would need to start at a stage where you could go out and train or PvM without having to do pathetic stuff like see-saw stats, or pick fucking cotton. May as well go to a quest in WOW. FIND ME 10 WOLF SKINS FROM PVMING RABBITS.

Superfast Oz wrote: Don't like the idea of giving nakeds resists etc. Better players could just run naked with the stats you said, and I don't think it'd be good for the economy.
This is the problem with AoS though, if people have got to PvM to find fc/fcr jewelry and a ton of armour before it's even worth trying to play, you're putting a ton of people off straight away. Getting set up for PvP in 'old' UO is enough of a hassle, needing regs, pots, etc. When you add all this in on top it's just a chore. Only the hardcore would bother. You need to level up the playing field a bit, especially when you're starting with a brand new shard. It's not like the naked thing would be a good idea for proper PvP. I wouldn't fancy fighting a necro after corpse with 45 fire/poison.
Superfast Oz wrote: Def keep lost lands, make khaldun useful, and add more to it. I always thought factions was shite and broken in my playtime. Maybe if choosing one was mandatory it would have more meaning.
Only reason I was suggesting not including LL = player density, but I'd rather have it in. Agreed @ Khaldun. Factions I dunno, is it even worth including? I like the system but I don't think anyone gave a shit on legacy really. Maybe it's not needed at all, or you need something new and better completely.
Superfast Oz wrote: Dunno about the field ideas. I think choke point play takes a lot of skill and it's one of the reason in Men that we won so much.
Really? Choke point PvP is fucking boring, and the way you lot played on Legacy = run run run run run from every fight, throw down a few fields at a convenient location, turn, and drop someone. Not the kind of PvP I'd want to encourage. No doubt it took skill and co-ordination, I'd much rather see people actually fighting each other on screen, xhealing etc.

UO was just field spell wars once everyone worked out the tactics.

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