UO vs. The Rest

Mostly PC, but console and mobile too
Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

There are several former UO peeps on this board. There are several other peeps who have played the likes of EVE, EQ, etc.

Someone in another chain made the statement that EQ was better than UO, so here's your chain (requested by MBB) to explain yourself.

For the UO players, the vast majority stick by the fact that UO was the pinnacle of MMOs.

Make the argument about how good EQ was or EQ II is or that EVE really rocks or that Auto Assault kicks ass (better hurry on that last one though, it might be gone before this chain dies).
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Post by thibodeaux »

I enjoyed EverQuest, and played it for a year or so. I tried UO with you guys once or twice but didn't really have the time to get into it.

The thing I liked about EQ was the 3D, first person stuff. It was HUGELY immersive for me. Compared to that, I thought UO looked like an old Nintendo game.

Now, this is all eye candy. I didn't play UO enough to know anything about the nuances of gameplay. I've heard, and have no reason to doubt, that UO ownz0rs EQ when it comes to tactics and fighting and so forth.
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Post by Leisher »

I have zero problem with the assertion that EQ was pretty and UO was ugly.

UO had everything else over EQ though.

When it comes to actual fighting and all the things you could do, it'd be like comparing a horse drawn carriage to Air Force One.
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Post by GORDON »

I always considered UO to be version 1 of the MMORPG market, and EVERYTHING else since has been v.5-.9. I just haven't seen anything with 50% of the depth of UO.
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Post by mbilderback »

Bah, you guys never played EQ much, did you? The group tactics were actually very important. Not to mention raw material gathering, refining, making it into items, and selling items. I just don't think you all felt the depth inherent in EQ. Now, I will say that I have no idea as to the depth of UO. But, from everything I've heard, I lost nothing and gained great graphics and better immersion by going with EQ over UO.

Also, I resisted EQ like MAD for a very long time. And in the end, I quit EQ because I just didn't feel it was deep enough. EVE was the same way, there just isn't enough there, but I have yet to see ANY MMORPG put enough in that didn't have to do with hack-n-slash.
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Post by GORDON »

What destroyed UO was when they tried to make it more like EQ. I WAS there for those changes. Killed what made the game fun.
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Post by mbilderback »

Can you be specific? I'd really like to see what you think is so different between the games. That way, I can compare my more in-depth knowledge of EQ with your more in-depth knowledge of UO and see where we are?
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Post by Malcolm »

Trammel. Motherfucking Trammel. & there's a few other cardinal sins the devs commited.
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Post by mbilderback »

Trammel? What did they restrict? Illuminate me.
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Post by Leisher »

Can you be specific? I'd really like to see what you think is so different between the games. That way, I can compare my more in-depth knowledge of EQ with your more in-depth knowledge of UO and see where we are?


We should go point by point so we don't get confused and off topic.

We can start with craftsmanship, trade, product distribution, and crafts if you'd like?

Trammel? What did they restrict? Illuminate me.


Trammel was the design team's attempts to turn UO into EQ as requested by the whiney RPGers. The RPGers didn't like gates full of monsters being opened during their weddings and such. They didn't like the lawlessness of the world and wanted the PvPers put in designated areas. They wanted everyone to play with nerf swords and speak in a language I like to call "broken Shakespeare."
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Post by mbilderback »

Can you be specific? I'd really like to see what you think is so different between the games. That way, I can compare my more in-depth knowledge of EQ with your more in-depth knowledge of UO and see where we are?
We should go point by point so we don't get confused and off topic.

We can start with craftsmanship, trade, product distribution, and crafts if you'd like?
EQ had all of that.
Trammel? What did they restrict? Illuminate me.


Trammel was the design team's attempts to turn UO into EQ as requested by the whiney RPGers. The RPGers didn't like gates full of monsters being opened during their weddings and such. They didn't like the lawlessness of the world and wanted the PvPers put in designated areas. They wanted everyone to play with nerf swords and speak in a language I like to call "broken Shakespeare."



Ah, yeah, that kinda sucks. PvPing makes for a controversial topic in all MMORPGs. I'm still not convinced one way is over the others, yet.
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Post by Leisher »

Yeah, I know EQ had all of that. I was asking if you wanted to start there on how it all was handled. I mean, you are wanting to go into details correct?

For example, I assume EQ had the standard skills system, so if you wanted to craft items you had to work on your tailoring, blacksmith, carpentry, tinkering, etc.

If you wanted to get the actual resources, you had to work on your mining, fishing, skinning (what was this skill actually called?), lumberjacking, etc.

If you wanted to go out into the wild to even collect those resources you had to work on hiding in case of monsters or combat in case of PKers, unless you had an escort (friend or hired help).

Selling your goods meant a simple trip to town to sell to NPC vendors or going to the bank and trying to sell things there. (If you've never seen the bank in Britain, you missed out. It has yet to be duplicated.) Or you could just build your own shop whereever in the world you wanted to and sell your items there. In fact, if you owned a house, it was a simple matter of placing a vendor inside or outside. No trips to towns neccessary.

Several people opened businesses to rave reviews. I remember a bar near Yew that became such a hang out that the game masters launched quests from there. The bar was pretty cool. It had regular customers who'd go in and tell stories (ic and ooc), there'd be games of chess and checkers, people getting their avatars drunk, bar fights, etc.

Of course, all the goods in game were used not as as weapons, armor, clothes, food, drink, and mounts, but also to decorate your stores, homes, and castles.

I remember when we got our first deck chairs for The Forge.
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Post by thibodeaux »

UO pretty much 0wnz0red EQ when it comes to owning property. You couldn't really buy or build houses in EQ.
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Post by TPRJones »

EQ crafting wasn't even as complex enough to include resource skills. The parts you need for crafting in EQ are either vendor-sold or looted from dead critters. At the higher levels of crafting there were some items where you had to get the parts from other crafters in other fields, but that was as complex as it got.

Oh, and don't sell your crafted items to NPCs, they usually pay less than a quarter of what the individual components were worth before you crafted the item.
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Post by Alhazad »

EQ crafting wasn't even as complex enough to include resource skills. The parts you need for crafting in EQ are either vendor-sold or looted from dead critters. At the higher levels of crafting there were some items where you had to get the parts from other crafters in other fields, but that was as complex as it got.

Oh, and don't sell your crafted items to NPCs, they usually pay less than a quarter of what the individual components were worth before you crafted the item.
i once found a pottery formula that actually made me money, but it still wasn't enough profit to be worth spending my time doing that instead of trying to get lewts

WoW crafting is the same way, by design, but at least they have an auction house

matter of fact, WoW crafting was pretty damn fun, although the only tradeskill worth a damn in PvP is engineering
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Post by GORDON »

Yeah, housing alone put UO a level above. Warring guilds didn't have to find each other at the gates, banks, or dungeons... they could also seige your castle, fire Energy Vortices on/off the roof, etc. Any type of house from a one-room shack to a massive castle that took up 5 screens.

But then you still had open combat w/reds at the moongates... dungeons... resource harvesting areas... and on and on and on.

Full looting. Death would cost you, and it usually meant something. The world was a dangerous place, out in the wilderness. If you can't handle it, you better not be out there alone. So you get the skills to survive. Or you make friends with an anti-pk guild (like TKV) to watch your back, when they could. Or you hire mercs to protect you. All of this was done, and done often. Entire webpages with epic stories were devoted to these types of activities.

I keep wanting to say that bar near Yew's name was Cabela's... though I know that's not right. But it's close. Canoli's? No. Kazola's?

Vast resource/crafting systems. And I mean VAST. Mining against a mountainside for iron ore took one skill,... smelting the ore into iron took another skill.... then crafing it into 100 types of armor, all with different strengths and weaknesses... and that blacksmithing skill didn't even allow you to touch leather armor for theives and mages, which took an entirely different skill.

Crafting magic scrolls. Spellbooks. Rune books (which came later, but I always liked them... and made a SHITLOAD of money making them, when I was in walmart mode)... all these took entirely different crafting skills, requiring completely different resources.

I could dig the reagent system for magic usage, not just a generic "mana/magic" bar. It meant you packed heavy and risked a lot upon death, or you would have to run out during a long fight and retreat. Making a kill and the overconfident shit-talker was carrying 300 of each reg was always cause for a "ha ha." We always carried a light combat load of 30-50 each, iirc. It ensured we made our kills swiftly, and we wouldn't lose much on those rare cases we dropped.

Combat was so complex we'd spend entire evenings dreaming up and practicing new combat tactics, which is why we were ultimately the best small combat guild in the entire game. Unproven, but I truly believe it. We'd take our newbs and teach them the simple tricks. We'd practice summoning demons with which to attack the favorite banks of our enemies... and we'd go in outnumbered and kick the ever loving shit out of them. We'd practice ambushes, and again win fights while outnumbered when we'd drop 2 of them before they even knew we were there.

We'd go into stealth mode and stand right next to them unseen while they talked trash about us, and about how much we sucked at the game. While we are hidden, literally, one step away from them. Lots of those types of pics on that website. It would only take the use of one simple skill for them to discover our presence... but apparently that was a "gay" skill to have. So we'd use that weakness and, again, kick the ever loving shit out of them.

And early UO had no storyline running whatsoever. Everything in the game was driven by actual people, and it was fun and dramatic and hilarious as all hell. EQ had "Plane Raids," though. I heard it would take something like 50 doods to take out some massive AI controlled monster. Weeee.

What else shall I discuss?
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Post by Alhazad »

What else shall I discuss?
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Post by Selby »

UO wins. Hands down. Depth, gameplay, endless limits on what you can do and where you can go. Sure it looked dated, the engine was developed in 1994-1995 (whenever Ultima VIII came out). The level systems of today are all nice and whatnot, but UO allowed you to do whatever you wanted without having to spend money to re-spec or re-roll another character. Sadly this freedom is what allowed the game to descend into what it has become. People complained about being killed so much that the development team put a mirror land up just to cater to the "no PvP" playstyle.

People who weren't there really don't understand and likely won't. Those who were and didn't like it can be somewhat understood because quite a few people really were dicks, just that those who wanted to fight them and beat them outnumbered the masses who would rather sit around and emote or show off their glowing blue staff of l33tness at the bank.




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Post by Cakedaddy »

EQ makes me think of a big single player game you could play with other people. Nothing they do affects you or the story line or the community. But, if you wanted, you could team up with random people and go fight something together. Just like you could in so many other RPG games. You could remove the MM part of EQ, and the game wouldn't change all that much. EQ could be played on a 64 player server just as well/easy as you can on the 2500 player server. UO sucks with 64 people. The server MUST be populated for the server to be any fun. In UO, everything you did could impact the community in one way or another. I still remember the name of the mayor of Yew. Did any of the towns/cities in EQ have mayors? If so, how did they enforce their 'rule'? Yew had the Yew malitia that acted on behalf of the mayor (or sometimes not at all). There was the Museum of Memories that held all kinds of rare items from the game's history. Each and every player had the opportunity to do something for or against the community. We built our own story line and adventures and quests. Roll playing orcs would invade the towns. Massive PK guilds warring massive Anti guilds. Oh, and there was the occational AI monster bashing events as well.



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Post by Malcolm »

The entire class/leveling system in EQ is something that sticks in my craw when someone claims to have created a "dynamic" world. It's not dynamic. You just forced me into a nigh irreversible, static decision right after I install the game. The UO and Eve way of doing skills makes more sense.

That being said, I knew many folks who played EQ. That game had them addicted like fucking heroine. As far as getting your customer based hooked, EQ wins.

Another point EQ has over UO was the size of the game world. I remember someone did a study on how big the realm of Britannia & its surrounding islands were. Ended up being something like the size of Disneyland. Most of the space in the wilderness was taken up by houses. I HATED trying to pick my way thru an impassible area only to find someone had dropped a house that made me backtrack for ten fucking minutes. Like I couldn't just squeeze between the mountain & the house.

Yet another EQ plus was the endgame for the PvMers. As has been stated, there were critters that needed dozens of top notch motherfuckers to kill. Content like that wasn't intro'd into UO till long after it'd been placed on life support. Even that content was half-assed. It was harder to get the shiniest shit in EQ than UO.

Yea, UO's view was dated as were the graphics, but when I'm being shark-circled by half a dozen d00dZ, I don't particularly care what they look like as long as I can hit them.

And at least UO had Richard Garriot for a bit. EQ had Brad McQuaid. If I remember correctly, he played a ranger. Oddly enough, I recall back in the day that rangers were about the only class to avoid the nerf stick.

EQ's PvP switch is the quickest & dirtiest way to solve violent player interaction. & it sucks. A free-for-all outside designated areas is better than pressing some magic button.

In EQ, if you picked a class cos of some uber ability & then the dev team killed it, whoops, damn, guess you'd better roll up another dude. In UO, I could just train another skill or two & drop the now worthless one.

The crafting debate has already been argued, but I'll leap in. UO had all sorts o' shit on EQ here. If they'd've just intro'd typed leather & coloured ore earlier, 'twould've been preferable. But, oh well, there were player shops that had the standard in pre-blessed item PvP outfitting. Get a set of gm leather or plate, maybe a gm shield, gm hally, gm katana, gheals, gcures, gbooms perhaps, some reags, & off to beat some ass again. I didn't've to spend another two months camping the Ill-Tempered Aardvark of Dreary Swamp to get my gear back. Then again, EQ has that PvP switch--whoops--guess that'd kill a player economy right there. What's the point of making quality standard items if superior items are dropped at a high enough frequency?

The real estate issue also kills EQ. To this day, I remember my first couple small houses in UO (when small houses cost like 4K). I remember our gm's keep (placed back when you could tailor plate bustiers from leather & summoned walruses yielded leather). He eBay'd that keep & bought a big screen TV. He made a fortune selling pentagrams (house decorations) when they came out. He made millions. We ran a mall outta that keep. Had a vendor that sold recall scrolls. Made good cash off it.

In UO, it was realistically possible for me to solo. Treasure maps, ophid hill, drake island, etc.

Lastly, I'll hit PvP. There's nothing about EQ PvP that I've read which makes me believe it even came close to the model UO had. In UO, it wasn't the equipment. It was the skill of the player primarily & the skill of the character secondarily. If you wanted to venture outside of guard territory & then encountered some hostiles, you either'd to recall quick, try to run back to gt, or fight it out. If you were walking somewhere, chances are you didn't've the magery to recall reliably, & chances are the hostiles were mounted, so you really couldn't run. That means folks were more inclined to learn to fight. Ain't no switch.
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