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Forum: Ultima Online
Topic: UO Second Age
started by: Cakedaddy

Posted by Cakedaddy on Jan. 03 2009,20:16

Ok, so my wife wants to play UO again. I help her get it setup. However, we can't find UOAM any more. So, I'm looking for that. In my searches, I came across:

< UO Second Age >

Early reading says:

We are making T2A. No new stuff added, no old stuff removed to fit any certain play style. It is T2A only.

I'm thinking "awesome". I hit the forums and server stats. 350+ clients at peak times and as of Nov '08 there was still plenty of spots for houses.

So, I'm downloading the client now and gonna check it out. If you have ANY interest in playing, please download now and check it out with me. I don't want to be way ahead of everyone.

Highlights:
They have horses.
You can redeed your house.
You can heal through poison.
No arms lore/wrestling disarms.

I don't know:
Para blows.
Strength of summoned deamons.
If the forge spot is open.
Skill gain rates.
Murder counts.

Lastly: Precast-Hally-Whack seems to be the standard template there.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Jan. 03 2009,20:29

I couldn't edit my post. . .

Murder counts:
Short and long. Long keep you red, short give you statloss. Short decay in 8 hours.

I didn't think T2A had statloss.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Jan. 03 2009,20:52

Forge spot is taken by a tower. But there's room for a large forge in the heart area and in the clearing to the w/nw.

Ran into two blues on the way down from Yew.

So far, I agree with their accuracy. Right down to giving you the insta res option with a 10% stat loss. A Wisp started talking to me. I was able to start my character in Yew, not Brit. People are on horses.

So far, so good.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Jan. 04 2009,00:10

Old school crafting menu in use.
Fancy shirts are good money, but thread/etc costs alot.
Lots of spots for houses.
Monsters don't auto attack tamed pets.
You can hide beside monster/animals you are actively fighting? Haven't tried talking while hidden yet.
Not sure about skill gain rates yet. I'm wrestling sheep and have 40, from 0. Need to see if it slows down later.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Jan. 04 2009,00:32

Ok. .. this one hurts. . .

No magic in towns!!
Dexers rule the town lines.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Jan. 04 2009,02:30

Correction on magic in towns. Offensive spells only do 1 point of damage. Para and poison still work though. This will take you back to where mages were just healers in town. Unless deamons hurt. But even still, you'll have to work hard to keep your target still long enough for the deamons to hurt them.

Moongates do not have the menus for you to pick where you are going. You run in and end up somewhere. You can click on them to tell you where they currently lead. They change with the moon or something.

You can escort multiple NPCs and there's no time limit between them. They don't pay very well though.

Leather armor messes up meditaion. This doesn't make sense to me. I know studded did. But not plain. So, mages don't wear armor.

Unattended macroing is allowed. But not for resource gathering. Razor is the only allowed macro tool. No EasyUO.

Correction on short term murders. 2 hour decay. No idea on long.

Lastly, is anyone reading this? Does anyone care? If not, I'll stop taking the time to post.

Posted by GORDON on Jan. 04 2009,09:21

I'm reading it. Don't know that I care to start again. How many are on this server, peak times?

Posted by Cakedaddy on Jan. 04 2009,11:18

Currently, there are 358. Peaks are 400-450ish. 3 accounts per IP means there are probably 200ish active.

I haven't seen any reds, but I've only been out of town long enough to get to the moongates. I'm told there are alot of PKs.

Macroing in moonglow right now, and about 12 people have passed in the last 20 minutes.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Jan. 04 2009,21:47

Wife is on board now and we have a combined 37k now. Just farming gold and macroing free skills for now. Gonna get that vendor house placed and then work up some crafters for income. I see alot of traffic, but no fights yet. But then, moongates are protected by guards, so reds don't use them. I haven't been to the dungeons yet. Have only been tailoring with gathered wool and escorting. Escorts pay between 50 and 250 gp. I average about 180 though. I pick up new ones in each town I deliver to. Grab wool along the way to keep the tailor going. Good system and with two accounts running, making decent gold now. Have to keep moving the tailor though because the vendors pay less and less the more you sell them. So to keep the profits up, I switch towns every so often. Don't know how skill gain is cause I'm going for profit, not skill gain. But hiding is up to about 75 after about a day of macroing. Working tracking now. Tracking is the old style "Dave is to the North West" stuff. No red arrows. Once you get a lock, you keep it. I was tracking the banker, then ran way away from the bank. I kept my tracking lock the whole time. I'll see after some skill gain if the 'lock on' range increases with skill.

So, is anyone else going to play, or am I wasting my time with these updates?

Posted by GORDON on Jan. 05 2009,05:52

Eh. I only feel about 1% motivation to reload the game.

Maybe if Leisher was going to play, too. ;-)

Posted by Leisher on Jan. 05 2009,11:28

If I thought it'd be like the glory days, I'd sign up and talk everyone I know into playing.

Unfortunately, we know it won't be like that, the small # of players guarantees it.

Too much time for such a small user base.

Call me when Star Trek Online hits.

Posted by GORDON on Jan. 05 2009,11:38

(Leisher @ Jan. 05 2009,14:28)

QUOTE

Call me when Star Trek Online hits.

I dont think I'll ever again invest time or money into another MMO game. None of them will ever have the freedom and user base of the original UO.

Posted by Leisher on Jan. 05 2009,11:55

So if one does come along with said freedom (and death penalties), you'll play?

I, too, am very hesitant to get involved with something that takes so much time again.

Still, my UO memories are good enough that I hold out hope that something will come along to match it.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Jan. 05 2009,16:26

Depends on what you consider the 'glory days'. I put the glory days between the beginning up to about April of 2000 when they introduced Trammel. There were alot of changes put into the game after you left. I don't think you even saw T2A. This server, so far as I can tell, is getting the T2A era pretty damn close.

I participated in some pretty big fights in the early UO days. I'll admit that I was little more than a meat shield at most of them because I didn't know what was going on. But the fights we had after T2A have never been topped in ANY game. It's crazy how well the UO view owns the multi play experience. Even with TF2, voice coms play such a small part in the over all experience. You can comment on turret location, or announce a spy. But it doesn't have a very large impact on the success of the team. With UO, voice coms made such a HUGE impact. That along with UOAM. Over all, hard to explain. But TF2 can easily be played with no voice coms. Yes, they add to the experience. But they don't make or break it. With UO, holy shit does it add to the experience. The giving of information that can actually be used and is helpful is . . . awesome. Try to give a location in TF2. . . "The spy is. . . at that place by the rock and stuff" I dunno. Maybe I don't know the maps well enough, but you can't even specify a direction in that game. With UO, you can give all kinds of info, UOAM is invaluable in keeping track of each other.

Point being, the fights in UO may not have been as 'grand' as the noto days. But they were WAY more intense and tactical. I'd take T2A era over the old noto days. . . any day. And that leads to the final point. The population doesn't need to be huge for UO to be fun. There needs to be just enough bad guys that you have targets. Metro had about a 10th of the population that OSI had. But it was every bit as fun. Until Zen lost his mind and went psycho on stuff.

Anyway. . . you'd be surprised how fun a small tactical battle can be.

But in typing this. . . I had a question form. This isn't a slam or bash or anything like that. Just something I've observed. What would keep your attention, long term? UO didn't. You left during it's glory days for other games. So even if the holy grail of MMOs came out, what would keep you there and playing?

Posted by Troy on Jan. 06 2009,12:40

Not sure if anyone had seen this yet.

< Darkfall Beta reactions >

Feel free to skim down to the points about PVP, Looting, and Crafting.

Posted by Troy on Jan. 06 2009,12:55

Oh, the important part that I left out is that they announced yesterday that this long called "vaporware" "pre-Trammel UO with Graphics" now has a r< elease date of January 22nd. >

Posted by Cakedaddy on Jan. 06 2009,13:16

"drop out of FPS or combat mode" Fucking blah. Having played Warhammer Online, FP view fucking sucks for an RPG. I wish people could let go of some of the eye candy and pick functionality instead. UO may have been ugly, but it's the best system as far as combat to date.

Posted by Leisher on Jan. 06 2009,13:46

QUOTE

I wish people could let go of some of the eye candy and pick functionality instead. UO may have been ugly, but it's the best system as far as combat to date.

Fuckin'-A

Posted by TPRJones on Jan. 06 2009,14:21

I don't get it. For an RPG what could be more immersive than FPS? Sure, something can come up behind you, but that's immersive, too. Learn to look around.

I always hated the UO top-down thing because I can't see more than 15 feet in front of my character. Something important standing 16 feet away? Can't see it, edge of the screen, sorry.

I'd rather be able to see into the distance in one direction than see a tiny distance in all directions.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Jan. 06 2009,23:34

(TPRJones @ Jan. 06 2009,07:21)

QUOTE

That's just because you've never experienced the fast paced, real time combat that is UO. If you just want to play dress up and fight in the safety of instances and level up. FP is a happy eye candy view for that. If you want fast paced, hard core PvP, FP Just doesn't work. For immersion, FP works. For functionality, top down is the only option.

Posted by TPRJones on Jan. 07 2009,03:42

Instances != FP, that's a separate issue.

This makes me want to reinstall EQ, actually. No instances there, and I actually miss the insanity of it.

Posted by GORDON on Jan. 07 2009,06:31

It's the difference between Command and Conquer, and Quake. Both very different, but fun. If you are looking for a "I am immersed in the world," then FPS is for you. If you want to have a god's eye view and be able to make tactical choices while incorporating your surroundings, then the top-down is better.

I can't even picture some of the 20v20 PVP fights I saw in UO, in a FPS setting. You'd see a few guys, and the rest would be out of your line of sight. Then there was when the entire city of Trinsic was invaded by the undead... that was crazy.

Posted by TPRJones on Jan. 07 2009,07:01

I played UO a little bit, and I can't fathom seeing 20 people on the screen at the same time. My screen was cluttered and unreadable enough with seeing 10 people at once at the Brit Bank. They barely all fit on the screen at the same time.

Top-down is excellent when you can pull out some and get a wider view. My main problem with UO was being stuck seeing a tiny piece of it at once, a good quarter of which was essentially the top of my own character's head. And I hated constantly being killed by things way off the edge of my screen that I never got to see, but was still within killin' range of.

I do wonder if perhaps the UO I played was somehow a different interface then the UO the rest of you played. It's the only explenation that makes sense to me.

Posted by Leisher on Jan. 07 2009,08:17

QUOTE

My main problem with UO was being stuck seeing a tiny piece of it at once, a good quarter of which was essentially the top of my own character's head.

I played UO for years, but the top of my character's head was never a quarter of the screen.

Posted by GORDON on Jan. 07 2009,09:10

I wonder if he saw the horrid but short-lived 3D client.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Jan. 07 2009,09:30

Ya. No idea what he saw. In any UO I played, you could not be attacked/damaged by something that was not on the screen. Nor was the top of my head a quarter of the screen.

Posted by TPRJones on Jan. 07 2009,09:42

Well, specifically the entire character, or the orthagonal equivalent of the top of one's head. Sorry, got a little hyperbolous there.

But yeah, the middle 1/4 of the world was me. There's almost but not quite enough space around me to fit another me between me and the edge of the screen. This was my UO experience, and it seemed to match the posted screencaps I've seen (like you guys used to post showing you owning newbs) so I never thought to question it.

But now I'm beginning to wonder. Are those screencaps perhaps cropped, and my UO experience was so crappy because something was horribly wrong with my client?

Posted by Leisher on Jan. 07 2009,10:34

Something was definitely wrong with your client.

< Screenshot. >

That might be an updated screenshot as the graphics seem to be more polished, but the size of the characters is correct.

Posted by GORDON on Jan. 07 2009,10:40

(Leisher @ Jan. 07 2009,13:34)

QUOTE

Something was definitely wrong with your client.

< Screenshot. >

That might be an updated screenshot as the graphics seem to be more polished, but the size of the characters is correct.

What version of UO is that screenshot from?

Posted by GORDON on Jan. 07 2009,10:42

And btw, there are tons of screenshots here:

< www.dtman.com/uo >

Keep in mind most are cropped to the relevant action.

Posted by TPRJones on Jan. 07 2009,10:49

(GORDON @ Jan. 07 2009,12:42)

QUOTE

Keep in mind most are cropped to the relevant action.

And now I feel like an idiot. Since the cropped versions matched what I had experienced, it never occured to me to consider otherwise. Heh.

Okay, that does look quite a bit better. Bigger, anyway, with more room to see what's going on. Maybe I should give UO a try again sometime.

Posted by Leisher on Jan. 07 2009,13:52

Gordo, I have no idea what version that is, I googled "Ultima Online screenshots".

I will say that going back through those screenshots makes me wish the golden days were still with us.

Posted by Malcolm on Jan. 07 2009,14:45

(Leisher @ Jan. 07 2009,12:34)

QUOTE

Something was definitely wrong with your client.

< Screenshot. >

That might be an updated screenshot as the graphics seem to be more polished, but the size of the characters is correct.

Holy fuck. That's Diablo-quality graphics compared to the shyte I saw back in '98.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Nov. 16 2010,16:01

Recently started playing this server again. Many more changes making it more like pre-uor. However, there are crafting vendors EVERYWHERE, so running a shop is WAY more compentative. EVERYONE has a vendor somewhere, so there aren't many customers as everyone is under cutting everyone else. Luckily, I'm still rich from playing before. :-)

One of the better changes is that fellow order/chaos people are green and attackable. So, the number of available targets went up. At first, I wouldn't attack the green people. However, they would always attack me. So. . . there's no honor among order. The action isn't nonstop as you still have too look for targets or camp the Brit GY, but, at least now green people show up along with orange and red. Recently, the RP orks became active again, so most of the action is at their fort. Their RPing gets somewhat annoying, but I tolerate it for the fighting it brings. I don't actually fight them, because they don't use horses and people pressure you into getting off yours to participate. Except eventually, a pack of reds will show up, on horses, and they WON'T get off theirs. So, they have a huge advantage and wipe everyone out. So, I stay on mine and just wait for the reds to show up and fight against them.

One change that would impact Troy is that treasure maps aren't identifiable any more. They all show up as tattered. No level indicator. So, you don't know if you are REALLY buying a level 5 until after it's dug up.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Nov. 22 2010,10:48

New thing going on on the server. A guy has created a game called "Capture the Capital". The game is setup with two towers about 2 screens from each other. At the top of each tower are chests full of iron ore. The object is to get into the enemy's tower and take all their ore back to your tower. After 20 minutes, the team with the most ore in their chest is the winner. Cool thing is, you enter the event dead. They res you on top of the tower and you have to equip yourself using the equipment your team captain picked. Your supplies are in chests at the top of your tower. Supply chests are lootable as well. So, taking the other team's supplies cripples them. It's very well run and setup. There are of course, no horses. But, given the small playing field, that's not a big deal. Last night was a 5 on 5. Only problem was, the other team had a dragon. So, they creamed us. Future events will have an equal number of tamers on both sides. Also, neadless to say, my template wasn't very affective. The hiding came in handy on more than once. But the tracking didn't help at all. I'm building a new Alex the Artist to use when playing this game. It's quite fun. Being that mostly PKs play it, the competition is stiff, there aren't any douche bags ruining it, because all the douche bags are playing, and they all use vent, so there's a chance at organization. Our team captain wasn't a very good planner. But even if he was, the dragon still tipped the scales WAY too far for the other team.

Troy, what template did you have to Taz? I'm leaning towards:

Magery
Resist
Eval
Swords
Tactics
Meditation
Wrestling

Here's a newb question. . . does anatomy add a damage bonus pre-uor? If so, I might dump wrestling for anatomy. Ya, I know that I won't get a spell off close combat, but, I don't like standing next to people when I cast anyway. But then, when you are clumped on the stairs of a tower, it's hard not to be.

Of course, by the time I get this guy built, the organizer of the event will probably be burned out from the over head of running them and won't do it any more.

Posted by Malcolm on Nov. 22 2010,12:03

I think anatomy did give a pre-UO:R boost to damage. I remember training up a dex monkey & keeping anatomy in there for that reason.

Posted by GORDON on Nov. 22 2010,12:25

Hide a blank rune behind the tower before the game starts and use it to open a gate.

Assuming blank runes aren't part of the team captain equipment loadout.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Nov. 22 2010,14:11

No gating/recalling is a rule. However, teleporting off the top of the tower once loaded up, is not illegal.

Also, the whole point of starting dead is to help ensure that people aren't smuggling in illegal stuff. Vanq weapons, etc. You aren't actually suggesting I cheat next time, are you?!

I was just thinking, adding poisoning to the skill set may be pretty cool. I THINK poison potions are in the list of things the captain can start us out with. But then, it's only a matter of time before the other team is looting your poisoned weapons off of the dead.

Posted by GORDON on Nov. 22 2010,14:36

Not suggesting you cheat, just suggesting you exploit some gray areas.

Drag a nearby dire wolf into the mix, just to be funny.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Nov. 22 2010,19:38

Something else that would be funny, is someone else create an Alex the Artist. Go there early and log out. Once the action starts, log in and just join in. See if they ever figure out that there are two.

Posted by GORDON on Nov. 22 2010,20:31

Keep one at each tower so they aren't together on anyone's screen.

Posted by Troy on Nov. 23 2010,00:15

(Cakedaddy @ Nov. 22 2010,10:48)

QUOTE

That was my template on TaZ except I had Mace Fighting instead of Swords. Quarterstaffs were the bomb.

I might have to check out the capture game, it sounds intriguing.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Nov. 23 2010,07:08

When I went to start my new Alex, I actually found one that I had started on a second account. He already had 91 magery, 87 Med and 75 resist. So, that was cool.

If you or Gordon want to build a character for it, I'm training at the tower. The doors are now locked because of it.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Nov. 23 2010,07:47

This thread is the one that games will be announced in. So far though, he's only giving people a few hours notice.

< http://forums.uosecondage.com/viewtop....tart=45 >

Posted by Troy on Nov. 23 2010,10:16

(Cakedaddy @ Nov. 23 2010,07:08)

QUOTE

I don't need to recreate a character, all my guys are still good to go. I've got a ton of gold, and a two good PVP guys. Also my t-hunter still has about 20 treasure maps.

I logged them all on occasionally just to check. I won't be able to play this week because I'm going home, but I could give it a try next week.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Nov. 23 2010,12:16

Just saw that he's running another one tonight. If something changes with your schedule, try to check it out. The other people seem to use vent, by the way.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Nov. 23 2010,22:36

Tonight's was WAY better than the other night's. There were no dragons and it was 7 v 7. The game is gaining in popularity.

We had a stealthing thief on our team. So the plan was to play defense, and he'd stealth over and take their stuff. It worked, once. Then they knew to reveal often to find him. They had a couple guys suicide run through our tower and actually made it up there to get ore. This gave them the lead at about 20 minutes of a 30 minute game. Now they were playing pure defense as we tried to assault their tower. I'm generally pretty cautious and was playing healer at the bottom of the stairs to the attackers at the top. They were getting synched pretty well, but we kept them alive. One of them got an EV cast up there which caused some chaos. One of the enemies fell and we made a mad rush up there. Since they had already been focusing on the three attackers, I just bolted for the ore chest. One guy followed me up there, but I was able to easily heal between his hally wacks. I think they were out of mana for the most part. I grabbed all I could carrry. Too much in fact. A weaken spell would have stopped me cold. I ran back through the crowd all the way back to our tower with the one guy following me. Shortly after, another guy was able to haul 25 piles back to our tower. This gave us a small lead with very little time left. We played D and caught their last suicide rusher before he could escape with ore. We had no voice comms tonight, but we still did pretty well using guild chat. I now know stealthing is useless in this game. However, our stealther claims to have stolen most of their root, and all but 20 of their ore. I don't see how that's possible. They didn't make that many trips up to our chest to take it all back, and then some. So, she may have had it, but died and lost it back to them.

My tank mage is now all 87+ for all skills. So, coming along nicely. Sparring with a paladin shoots the skill gain up. I was doing it wrong for 12 of the last 24 hours of macroing, else I'd be 95+ by now.

It's always fun at the beginning of the round.

Alex, what are you?
Pure mage.
Do you have swords?
No, pure mage.
Do you have stealing?
No, pure mage.
Are you a tamer?
No, pure mage.

They just can't comprehend that I don't have the cookie cutter template.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Nov. 24 2010,14:18

I wonder how well it would work if everyone summoned a deamon or two, and then rushed in with EV precast. The other team would be furiously dispelling summon shit all over the place while we dump and whack.

Swords at 99.8 and tactics right behind. Next I'll get wrestling up. I've decided to do that instead of anatomy. Having a hally hit me with no wrestling offset will just hurt way too much.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Dec. 14 2010,20:52

They had another game tonight. I have three characters I can take now. All named Alex. Tonight, I took the tank mage. I played mostly defense. I got so loot heavy, they I wanted to play conservative. Our team decimated the other. We had a stealther, and they never tried to reveal. So, we got an early lead and kept it. They would try to go on offense, but we had a strong defense. Before the game was over, they were out of regs and weapons. They couldn't do anything. We took the rest of everything they had.

It was a lot of fun playing with the tank. It was nice to participate in dealing damage, even when out of mana. I have to work on my pre-cast hally wack though. I have a stealthing/Mage Alex I'm taking next time.

It was 9 vs 9 tonight. Largest turn out I've participated in.

Posted by Troy on Jan. 04 2011,08:31

IPY 2.0 launching Jan 21, 2011.

Everyone who still likes UO should at least try it. It's going to be pretty cool. It will be heavily modified T2A.

< Check out the "10 for 10" blogs for all the changes. >

Is it going to be perfect? Of course not. But it will be a very populated server with all kinds of interesting new content, Old school combat, and lots of appeal for non pvp types, as well.

Edit:
Also

at that seamless mouse controlled boat movement.

Posted by Malcolm on Jan. 04 2011,08:59

I'm about done thinking that anything even close to the '97 - '02 UO will exist anytime soon. The server population just isn't going to be there. Without the inexhaustible legions of dumbass PKs/NPKs, it's just not as fun. And without the even more inexhaustible legions of mob-only hunters, crafters, and RP folk that seem to draw those (N)PKs, you'll never be able to get that feel or atmosphere back.

There was something satisfying about taking down groups 2 to 3 times your size because the game's fight mechanics rewarded proper strategy and tactics. There was something fun about going to Buc's Den or the crossroads or the late night post-server backup Ragnarok-style death fests.

Posted by GORDON on Jan. 04 2011,09:05

Last time I played I was disheartened by the fact everyone has script/macros for everything, now. It seems like with 1 keystroke they do an ebolt/precast exp/switch to hally/drop exp/lob a purple potion.

I never wanted to go that deeply into competing, and I feel I can't compete, now.

Posted by Troy on Jan. 04 2011,09:23

I agree with both comments.

I know there will be more incentive to PvE, as that is part of the major changes.

As to the script and Razor stuff, I suck at dueling as much anyone else who hasn't actively played these shards non stop for years. I'll probably do what I usually do and incorporate hiding and stealth to get my kills.

I always like to keep an open mind though, and I think I actually signed Cat on to try it out, as she has been wanting to play a game with me.

Posted by Malcolm on Jan. 04 2011,09:49

(GORDON @ Jan. 04 2011,11:05)

QUOTE

The macros never turned me off. Shit, I can write macros. It was when PvP started getting dominated by the twinks who had blessed katanas of vanq and invulnerability armor that got to me. Especially considering those bless deeds were probably earned due to their hording shit for zillions of years and turning all their trash in for the one-time "clean up the server" drive or whatever. PvP became something you couldn't jump into after training up your 7x GM for a month. You had to have top-of-the-line equipment and you weren't going to risk losing it unless you had the means to replace it or it was unlootable.

Posted by GORDON on Jan. 04 2011,10:06

(Malcolm @ Jan. 04 2011,12:49)

QUOTE

(GORDON @ Jan. 04 2011,11:05)

QUOTE

Cake and I rose to the top of the Factions list during that time frame. We could deal with that, even with the peeps who had the deeds that let them get to 105.0 swords, and stuff.

But back then we were ahead of the curve on technology... we were among the first to have broadband, voice communication, and a UOAM server. Now everyone has that, PLUS they use the EasyUO scripts that allow them to pvp as I described above, doing 6 actions with a single keystroke. That's pretty much where I draw the line. It isn't pvp any more, it is who has the better script.

Posted by Malcolm on Jan. 04 2011,10:11

Long as the "last target" button is there, yeah, automated death-dealing will figure in heavily. I remember a HUGE thing about that feature.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Jan. 04 2011,10:29

I think the combat scripts are the minority, rather than the majority. The only script I don't like is the purple potion one. I think it's lame as hell. If I find someone using that, I won't fight them. But even with all those scripts, I think the old TKV could still win plenty of battles. Our guerrilla tactics would nullify even the best of scripts.

As much as I'd like to believe in IPY, I can't. The people that built and ran the first one were just too retarded. And that level of retard just doesn't wear off over time. I predict that it will be just as corrupt and stupid as the first one and won't last any longer.

Posted by GORDON on Jan. 04 2011,12:52

Last time we played, I don't think I got a single kill, and the purple potions never stopped hitting me. I got unlucky that night, I spose. I didn't see any easy kills outside of killing the new res thief who kept going gray over and over.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Jan. 04 2011,14:36

Because of the lower population, you have to be more patient looking for kills, or, be ready to fight superior numbers.

We mostly just camped the graveyard. We could also camp some of the dungeons, or, farm a dungeon and wait to be jumped. Basically, everyone hunts. They all have popular hunting spots marked and they recall from location to location. So, you could just be chasing after each other and never spotting them. Or, you stop in one spot and wait. Lastly, you could go to where they live. I don't normally go to where they live because that's the spot they can all get to quickly. So, you show up there, start fighting, they announce in Vent there's action, and the whole guild recalls in. So, it's the most dangerous spot. Being order/chaos spawns more targets as well. You just have to get used to attacking other greens, cause they will attack you.

Posted by Malcolm on Jan. 04 2011,15:22

I also vaguely remember having three mules to support two combat-ready characters. Gold farming still sucks.

Posted by GORDON on Jan. 04 2011,15:32

And yeah, I'm still not going to join it if it has slow skill gain.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Jan. 04 2011,17:30

I'm the opposite. With skill gates or insta characters, it's lame.

Posted by Malcolm on Jan. 04 2011,17:52

(Cakedaddy @ Jan. 04 2011,19:30)

QUOTE

I'm the opposite. With skill gates or insta characters, it's lame.

I don't have ten hours a week to devote to building a character. I want a game, a pleasant distraction or diversion. I don't want a job.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Jan. 04 2011,19:18

Given that you can macro combat skills mostly unattended, I never minded slow skill gain. With fast skill gains, everyone has their own mules and there's no economy because no one has to buy anything. If everyone has their own blacksmith, there's no weapon/armor trade. And player economy is very important, in my opinion.

I wouldn't want to play on a server where everything is given to you and you are just suppose to go hit people on a battlefield. It takes too much out of the game. I want something to do when I'm NOT attacking other people.

Posted by Malcolm on Jan. 04 2011,19:52

If I could afk macro, I suppose I wouldn't care. I always fucking hated that retarded OSI policy against it.

Posted by GORDON on Jan. 05 2011,03:04

(Cakedaddy @ Jan. 04 2011,22:18)

QUOTE

That's simple then, just make the combat skill gain fast.

Posted by Troy on Jan. 05 2011,06:56

I think this is actually going to be a even more hardcore server. RoT skill gain. After 70 or so, you can only gain 4-5 skill points a day.

Will certainly turn some people off.

Posted by Malcolm on Jan. 05 2011,09:48

(Troy @ Jan. 05 2011,08:56)

QUOTE

I think this is actually going to be a even more hardcore server. RoT skill gain. After 70 or so, you can only gain 4-5 skill points a day.

Will certainly turn some people off.

I don't mind the RoT so much as long as the gain curves don't become logarithmic and the mindlessness is macroable.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Jan. 05 2011,10:38

So, is there power hour? I don't mind real gain speeds, but to slow it down is definitely a turn off.

Posted by Troy on Jan. 05 2011,11:10

(Cakedaddy @ Jan. 05 2011,10:38)

QUOTE

So, is there power hour? I don't mind real gain speeds, but to slow it down is definitely a turn off.

I believe they are implementing a 2x skill gain in dungeons.

And you can loot "skill" scrolls randomly from monsters which are non transferrable. It would give you .1-.5 in the skill of your choice. Probably about as rare as treasure maps.

Both of those changes promote PvE and actually getting out and exploring the world, which I'm a big fan of. Will see how they actually implement, though.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Jan. 05 2011,11:34

hehehehe I was reading about all the special stuff you can get in dungeons and what not. It seems like they are trying REALLY hard to get targets in the dungeons. No matter how many trinkets they try to lure people into the dungeons with, the people that mainly farm dungeons will get tired of getting ganked by reds very quickly. I think that's what killed IPY to begin with. The lack of targets. EVERYTHING they implemented was to make it harder for unwilling participants to get away. First they took horses (or maybe they just knew from the beginning they didn't want their prey running away on horses), then they slowed down recall. They did everything they could to make their target hold still long enough for them to be able to kill them. That was the biggest problem I had with that server. They were trying to force people to play a certain way. The way they wanted them to. This time, they are trying to lure targets in with shiney trinkets.

Posted by GORDON on Jan. 05 2011,11:58

Everybody into the pvm aspect of the game is already playing WOW.

Posted by Malcolm on Jan. 05 2011,15:18

Unless you can reliably fund character building and maintenance through PvP alone, PvM was necessary. And every now and again it's good just to make sure you can beat retard AI.

Posted by GORDON on Jan. 05 2011,17:21

(Malcolm @ Jan. 05 2011,18:18)

QUOTE

Unless you can reliably fund character building and maintenance through PvP alone, PvM was necessary. And every now and again it's good just to make sure you can beat retard AI.

Depends on whether they plug that tailoring hole, or not. We used to be able to just stand in the tailor ~~whoop~~ (whoop??? what kind of typo is that?) SHOP and make thousands of gold an hour macroing.

And if they don't have the reg vendors that double their inventory every time they sell out and refresh, then GMing magery will be exceedingly difficult. I have seen that little aspect whined about as "making the game too easy."

Posted by Malcolm on Jan. 05 2011,18:15

As I said, I'm pretty sure my UO days are permanently over. That set of circumstances is never going to be recreated again. As much shit as there was that came along with that (again, I'm talking maybe 1997-2002 or so) period, there was some shit that was very definitely right.

Posted by GORDON on Jan. 05 2011,18:23

Again, I MIGHT play the game some day, but only if I can just jump into a PVP character. I'll never "push the stick" again. Have done it too many times.

Posted by Troy on Feb. 11 2011,17:41

Launch day. Just got home and downloaded the client.

From what I've read, big first day numbers with over 1,000 forum users. UO having one last gasp I guess...

Posted by Malcolm on Feb. 11 2011,18:59

I am still amazed that game continues to stagger on after having been gutted and completely redone.

Posted by Troy on Feb. 14 2011,07:55

Joined with the Goons, so I am one of many. We have been pooling our resources. Some very interesting changes on this shard.

First of all, it is hard as balls to do anything. Spawns are hard, and very short on gold. An earth elemental for example, only has about 30.

Gold in general is very hard to come by. To counterbalance this, you can become a "citizen" of any of the towns in the game, knocking your prices on all goods sold their to 30% of normal, but ties you to the town, and gives you a sense of living there. The goons have chosen Moonglow. Their clan is Moongsquad. So I buy regs for 1-2gp there. You can eventually run for office and give bonuses to citizens (like skill gain and other goodies.) You can also rent the abandoned houses in towns.

Skill gain fairly slow, and is capped out on gain per day after 60. Stats are a little bugged, but towards the even slower side. Skill wise macroing is crazy slow but there are "market squares" in towns that have improved crafting skill gain. Dungeons are 200% combat and magery related gain and monsters of your general level will(seems like 1 in 10) drop a skill scroll, which is good for .1-.3 gains of one of your top 7 skills.

Boats are only craftable. Goons(thanks to sheer numbers and pooling resources) got the first house and boats. Then we went to ice island(You can't recall to ice or Fire) to macro in Deceit. Things fell apart a bit last night after some idiot got their boat stolen and a bunch of newbie PKs made it to the island and started killing the macroers. Luckily I had called it for the night to spar in town, and didn't get hit.

My current skills are:

65 Archery, 55 Magery, 50 Resist, 68 Anatomy, 60 Wrestling, 55 Tactics 60 Eval.

Stat gain is bugged a bit, and seesawing has been removed. They are supposed to make gains more common. I have 75/25/25 right now.

Basically there is all kinds of new content, everything is really cool, but the game is brutal, learning curve wise. The basic monsters don't give you enough income to be worth killing, so you have to do crafting of some sort to get starting funds. Higher level monsters have more loot though, so I think it is just getting over the initial curve.

There are (rare) monsters that appear randomly, that drop about 10x the gold and magic items, which are fun to hunt and explore for.

NPC buy back everything at VERY low prices: 1-20gp for basic armor, similar for weapons. The few magic items, even crappy ones, that I have gotten sell for 100gp or so, which is nice, and is a nice boost.

I logged on Sunday night to see 1200 people playing. You see a ton of people when you explore. PKing will probably start picking up this week.

Posted by Troy on Feb. 17 2011,06:56

I finally got 100 strength, took two nights of arms lore.

I didn't get to do anything yesterday, but apparently there were 1400 users online. It's more crowded than a real UO shard, at this point.

My skills are all in the 60-70s except for magery, which is only 57 or so. Going to work on that when I get home!

Posted by Troy on Feb. 17 2011,07:57

Other cool thing. They have been running a Ustream "Killcam" Which goes to a new death every 5-10 seconds. It will be very useful when we actually go out hunting to figure out where the hotspots are.

In the first few days all it showed were people dying to deer and mongbats. But it's getting much more interesting.

Posted by Troy on Feb. 21 2011,06:59

2,000 active accounts last night. They are having to increase the spawn in dungeons to keep up.

Got my skills up to the 70s, and have largely moved to Ice Island at this point. Farming away with Goons and raising defense forces when needed.

Posted by Troy on Mar. 08 2011,11:45

Elections are here.

2,100 active accounts on a freaking Monday. This is has to be the most populated Ultima Online server since early OSI.

Moonsquad (Goons) are obviously running for Moonglow, and have a strong voting base, despite a campaign slogan that we are going to exile (make grey in town) anyone who opposes us.

Results will come in at 8:00 tonight. Then we militia up and drive out the opposing party with fucking ebolts (occasionally fizzling since everyone has about 80 magery)

Assuming we win, our king gets access to the city treasury(Which is enormous, as one of the top reagent towns) and can set a city resident wide bonus, like bonuses to blacksmithing or fishing or magic item drop.

Treasury funds can be withdrawn at a 10% rate, or invested in things like in city vendors, increased defenses and guards.

Tonight will also begin the town and treasury raids, as opposing city militias will start attacking each other.

Posted by Troy on Mar. 16 2011,12:27

I will continue my updates, if only as a journal for myself!

Reddit opened up a recruitment drive this weekend, and brought in 100+ new players to their (RED) guild. Word of mouth continues to somehow spread: 2,300 players on a Monday. I don't even know how many will be on this weekend, but it will probably be huge.

I'm doing what I tend to do on most shards. Get a PVP mage up and running, than find some PvE thing that gets me a shitload of magic weapons, and then sell them on the best vendor I can get access to. This time, I'm to the left of the Yew Moongate, instead of the right.

The red system and the nature of ROT means that PKs are still fairly uncommon. I'm thinking that will improve when people start getting skills into the 90s.

Still VERY rare for anyone to have a GM anything. Apparently one dude from Sweden who has been playing non-stop has GM fencing. Welfare to play American computer games must be sweet.

Overall, this is the best MMO experience I've had so far, which is saying something. The feel you get for living in a town is something I've never really seen before, and is quite interesting. I go to other cities to PvP and am instantly lost.