Ultima Online sucks [Gads, here's my response]
Kevin Jenkins
Jiunwei Chen wrote:
>
> At 09:25 PM 10/16/97 -0700, you wrote:
> >I've played Ultima Online for the last time. Lag, buginess,
> >nonfunctional parts, and immature children all contribute to a pointless
> >frusterating game.
> >
> >First lag: The lag is so bad in this game at best of times you jerk
> >around a lot and at worst of times you completely can't move. Most of
>
> [snip]
>
> Ack, your lag seems to be quite bad. Where are you? Are you sure you're
> using the server closest to you?
> Even during the beta, when I had the 28.8k, lag made the game playable.
> Now that I'm on an Ethernet connection, there is virtually no lag, but it
> hasn't changed THAT much since I left my old modem days.
Well I'd have to say that 99% of players don't have ethernet so it's not
an accurate comparison. What really counts is how it runs for most of
the players; and for most of the players it is unplayable. Numerous
times I've been so upset by the lagginess I considered writing an angry
email to Origin about it; but knew it would be ignored anyway. How
often do you see people say 'damn lag'? Not counting myself (which is a
great deal), I see it perhaps 10 times per 5 minute trip through town.
It's not just me either, in fact I have an excellent ISP based on my
performance in other online games.
I'm on the Baja server which is actually BETTER than the Pacific server
too.
<snip>
> As for constantly crashing servers and whatnot, it's unfortunate. All I
> can say is that it may get better in time. More servers ARE online. The
> Chesapeake, as a matter of fact, came up today. I probably should transfer
> to it (as I do live in Virginia), but my character is firmly situated in
> Atlantic. :)
I don't care if they eventually get 100 servers online each with dual
t3's each. Origin's costs don't concern me. The number of servers
don't concern me. I judge the game by my own performance and to me it's
unplayable. If they were going to add servers they should have done it
in the first place before they shipped the game. If they couldn't
afford it then that's too bad they shouldn't have made the game so
dependent on the servers.
> >And a whole other list of things to complain about:
> >Can't click on people because of lag
>
> I can click on people fine. Then again, I am on Ethernet. :) But when I
> was on a modem, I still found it quite easy to click on folks. Also, one
> update they just made, objects the cursor is over in the outside world are
> highlighted! This used to happen only on items in your backpack. Now
> they've added it to the outside world. Yay!
Try casting spells on someone moving around. Impossible. You click
where he is but the click doesn't register until a second later at which
point he is in a different spot. Now try this in combat while you are
getting hacked on. Now try this in combat when you hit the open
spellbook macro 10 times in a row, get the spell selected 5 seconds
later, and then wind up clicking on the ground anyway. Very very
frusterating. I don't think we should all have to have ethernet T!
connections just to play the game. Subspace works just fine for me,
with a 200 ms ping rather than a 1000 ms ping with UO. Subspace has
just as much data to handle as UO. Also, even if there are 2000 players
in the UO game world you don't see all 2000 players at once and I don't
care what excuses Origin has for the lag anyway.
> >Can't switch weapons quickly because of bad design
>
> Why would you need to switch weapons quickly? The idea is that you became
> skilled in the use of ONE type of weapon: bladed, blunt, bows, etc.
> However, I'll agree that the process of switching at all is done rather
> badly. As a mage, one needs to have his or her hands FREE of anything in
> order to cast spells. As you may guess, mages often have to switch from
> being bare-handed, to having a shield or whatnot. Many magic users have
> complained about this. Hopefully Origin can implement some sort of macro
> system in the future to aid the process.
I think you said if for me. I'm a fighter/mage. If I see a tough
monster it takes me a total of 15 seconds to disarm, cast the spell, and
rearm. If there were no lag it would take me about 5 seconds. As it
is, I have to run away (and deal with lag not letting me move), try to
drag the weapons to my pack (and deal with lag not registering the
clicks and selecting the object in the first place), hit the open spell
book macro 10 times, select the spell, fail to click on the creature,
run again, fail, run again, succeed because I let myself get hit, hit
backback 10 times in a row, then rearm and fight.
> >Every so called profession other than fighter is pointless due to bad
> >design
>
> Umm, what ARE you talking about? I am a blacksmith, and I am having a
> wonderful time in UO. Money comes easy, although it is balanced so that one
> can't earn millions of gold in an hour. :) A friend of mine who is a
> tailor, also makes money rather easily. He's also a mage. THAT profession
> seems to be working well. And I constantly run into other players in other
> trades ... alchemists, rangers, bowyers, tinkerers, miners ... who seem to
> be doing quite well, as they should be.
Blacksmith is the exception not the rule. Since the whole purpose of
the game is combat blacksmithing is the one area where with a lot of
work it's possible to make a meager amount of money. In one hour of
blacksmithing I can make 50 gp if I'm lucky. In one hour of fighting
(although this is rare I'm usually wandering) I can make 500 gp easily.
Alchemists could make perhaps 50 gp an hour.. if you are willing to
stand around town shouting 'potions for sale.' To me that's work; not
fun. I don't think anybody likes to just stand around and do that.
I don't know what you mean by ranger profession; that's a fighter with a
high detect invisible. In other words, a fighter.
Boyers could make perhaps 20 gp an hour.. once again if you do nothing
but work. There's almost no demand for it. Arrows are everywhere and
next to nobody uses bows anyway.
Tinkerers could make perhaps 10 gp an hour. With wood you make garbage
nobody wants. With metal you can make shovels and smiths hammers.. both
things people will buy but then you have to go mining for the metal.
More time and more work. Boring.
Miners could make perhaps 50 gp an hour. If you mine and sell the
ingots anyway. Once again hard boring work. I'd much rather play a
game than work in one.
Besides that, doing a 'profession' other than fighter or a variant (this
includes mages) is just as dangerous as fighter with the PK's running
around. If you can't protect yourself you are as good as dead as soon
as you leave town. Nobody wants to go to the trouble of traveling in
packs of ten from city to city. There's no point to wandering anyway
for that matter.
> Pointless? I think not.
Well the point of the game is work. I think that sums it up nicely. If
you want to work this is the game for you. Wandering for hours
searching for monsters or cities or buildings. Doing some silly task
for 3 hours in realtime to make a hundred gold pieces or so just to have
it stolen and getting to spend another 3 hours doing it. Dying and
having to loot and scavenge for hours so you can fight again. Standing
around town for half an hour trying to get someone to buy your stuff. I
wouldn't call any of this fun; yet you spend 95% of your times doing
these things. UO was designed as a virtual world and like the real
world it's hard for somebody with nothing but the shirt on his back to
get started. This may be realistic but it ruins the gameplay.
> >Most of the time parts of the game are down due to overcrowded servers.
> >Server crashes about 3 times a day.
>
> Again, more servers are being added. Right now, I've been playing on the
> Atlantic, and it's acted rather well. (I play at night, though) Much more
> stable than during the beta test. And pretty consistent, giving the
> difficulty Origin must face in having to balance 2000+ people in a server
> at once. Yes, they SHOULD be 100%, but I personally give them slack simply
> because I know how chaotic and unreliable the Internet is. :)
> (If only there were a UO-LAN ...)
Well I certainly don't expect it to run at LAN speeds. I'm a heavy
internet game player myself and am well aware of the limitations of the
net. However, there's a big difference between the game having lag (200
ms ping) and the game being unplayable (1000 average ping). It CAN be
done because I play at that 200 ms ping on Subspace every day. If it's
NOT like that then there's a problem Like I already said, they should
have added these servers BEFORE the game was released; not after. You
wouldn't buy a car with a lawnmower engine just because the dealer tells
you they'll (maybe) upgrade the engine sometime later to a 4 cylinder
and then a 6 cylinder sometime after that. Likewise, if servers weren't
up to the task of handling all these players (and they most definately
are not) then they shouldn't have released the game.
> >Commands are repeated due to bad design
> >Certain commands are delayed needlessly due to bad design
>
> Huh? What commands are you talking about? There are commands at all? :)
Macros. For example if I hit tracking twice in a row and it doesn't
lose my commands it shouldn't take 2 responses from the server. This
doubles the server load when the client could easily tell you this.
There are many other things that are obvious even to me that waste
bandwidth but I won't get into that.
> >Constant harddrive access and effective 580 Meg install due to bad
> >design.
>
> I don't know about the constant hard drive access (I have 64 megs of RAM,
> maybe that's why), but I agree the 580+ meg install is rather large.
> Unfortunately, I don't see an EASY way to get around the fact that UO has a
> BUNCH of graphics/sounds/animations to store. Take 'em out? Hmm. I'd rather
> leave them in.
I have 64 too. My complaint with the harddrive access is that it is
unnecessary access. If I leave an area I could see it; but just walking
along with nothing nearby shouldn't require accesses all the time. It
is also too often anyway. More of the game should have been stored in
memory.
> >Not enough macros due to bad design
>
> What macros are missing? As I mentioned before, switching items in and out
> of one's paperdoll is missing. Otherwise, you can use macros to invoke
> skills, open windows, say things, and perform SOME actions. Pretty much,
> all that's needed in the game. I'm curious to know, however, what you think
> is missing.
My biggest gripe is not having macros to switch weapons etc. like you
said. However, there needs to be much more. Macros for certain spells
(healing especially), automatically performing a sequence of tasks,
using certain items, etc. These are all so vague it covers a huge
category. There are also not enough macro slots to begin with.
<snip>
> Loses sounds, I dunno. Garbles up the screen? I've noticed a few errors
> here and there, but they don't DIMINISH from the game any. Nit-picking,
> perhaps, but UO is game about player interaction, seemingly not graphical
> perfection?
An error is an error. When I write programs I don't say "Well the point
of the program was so and so, so since the error doesn't have to do with
that I won't fix it." The game should be flawless or it shouldn't have
been released. Occasional obscure bugs is one thing; bugs anybody could
see anytime is another.
> >GMs don't respond to players due to lack of support
>
> There are, however, many Counselors around. BE AWARE, though, that GMs and
> Counselors are currently in the business of helping folks SERIOUSLY in
> need. That is, they are stuck in places and need assistance to get out.
> Please don't bother GMs or Counselors with, "How do I do this?" questions.
> While they may be important to you, there are unfortunately a lot MORE
> newbies than GMs/Counselors, and they're usually busy tackling problems
> with the servers, catching loophole abusers, etc.
I don't do that either. I message the gm with bugs such as 'my health
bar is permanantly green' or 'I can't move' or 'I can't deselect this
item.' No response though. I admit that I often wanted to message 'why
is this so lagged' or 'why do i pause every second' or 'why do i keep
jumping around' as a complain rather than a true question but I knew the
answer already.
<snip>
> Umm, recently, they've tweaked up the monster/animal respawn rate
> TREMENDOUSLY. My mage friend, who goes out into the woods constantly, has
> been amazed by the wildlife that exists now. I'd seriously suggest going
> out into the woods again and checking the scenery.
Sure thing, I just wandered around for an hour and killed 1 monster.
What fun.
<snip>
> Gads, you've had a tremendously bad experience with the game. So much so,
> that I think I'll post a new note remarking on what the game is like once
> you've GOTTEN past the lag and have a like for the genre. :)
Well in the unlikely event the lag is reduced to where it doesn't hurt
the game I'll sign back up. Let me know if it ever happens.
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Jiunwei Chen
At 09:25 PM 10/16/97 -0700, you wrote:
>I've played Ultima Online for the last time. Lag, buginess,
>nonfunctional parts, and immature children all contribute to a pointless
>frusterating game.
>
>First lag: The lag is so bad in this game at best of times you jerk
>around a lot and at worst of times you completely can't move. Most of
[snip]
Ack, your lag seems to be quite bad. Where are you? Are you sure you're
using the server closest to you?
Even during the beta, when I had the 28.8k, lag made the game playable.
Now that I'm on an Ethernet connection, there is virtually no lag, but it
hasn't changed THAT much since I left my old modem days.
I guess my ISP was either luckily close to the Atlantic server, or your
ISP is low-quality / has bad luck. :(
>Second bugginess and nonfunctional parts: If the game wasn't ready why
>did they ship it? It crashes constantly and locks up very often. Just
>reboot you say? Nope, since you character is on the server that means
>you are completely vulnerable for 5 minutes before it logs off. I've
>died before from this when UO crashed. It's ridiculous. There's even a
>strategy button on your player picture that isn't highlighted because it
>wasn't implemented. What kind of joke is it when a game is released and
>parts aren't even implemented yet?
Ahh, remember, UO is not your "typical game". You ask, "if they game
wasn't ready why did they ship it?" Agreed, they probably jumped the gun a
bit, BUT they did have to release the game at some point. And from the
beginning, gamers were told that UO would be an ongoing process. They're
constantly adding/removing things from the game.
That "strategy button" you mentioned? It WAS in the beta, but something
caused fighting to go horribly wrong at times. Players complained, and
Origin took it out. Now I guess they're working on re-implementing it in
the future, although I'd argue that the attack system is currently fine the
way it is.
As for constantly crashing servers and whatnot, it's unfortunate. All I
can say is that it may get better in time. More servers ARE online. The
Chesapeake, as a matter of fact, came up today. I probably should transfer
to it (as I do live in Virginia), but my character is firmly situated in
Atlantic. :)
>And a whole other list of things to complain about:
>Can't click on people because of lag
I can click on people fine. Then again, I am on Ethernet. :) But when I
was on a modem, I still found it quite easy to click on folks. Also, one
update they just made, objects the cursor is over in the outside world are
highlighted! This used to happen only on items in your backpack. Now
they've added it to the outside world. Yay!
>Can't switch weapons quickly because of bad design
Why would you need to switch weapons quickly? The idea is that you became
skilled in the use of ONE type of weapon: bladed, blunt, bows, etc.
However, I'll agree that the process of switching at all is done rather
badly. As a mage, one needs to have his or her hands FREE of anything in
order to cast spells. As you may guess, mages often have to switch from
being bare-handed, to having a shield or whatnot. Many magic users have
complained about this. Hopefully Origin can implement some sort of macro
system in the future to aid the process.
>Every so called profession other than fighter is pointless due to bad
>design
Umm, what ARE you talking about? I am a blacksmith, and I am having a
wonderful time in UO. Money comes easy, although it is balanced so that one
can't earn millions of gold in an hour. :) A friend of mine who is a
tailor, also makes money rather easily. He's also a mage. THAT profession
seems to be working well. And I constantly run into other players in other
trades ... alchemists, rangers, bowyers, tinkerers, miners ... who seem to
be doing quite well, as they should be.
Pointless? I think not.
>Most of the time parts of the game are down due to overcrowded servers.
>Server crashes about 3 times a day.
Again, more servers are being added. Right now, I've been playing on the
Atlantic, and it's acted rather well. (I play at night, though) Much more
stable than during the beta test. And pretty consistent, giving the
difficulty Origin must face in having to balance 2000+ people in a server
at once. Yes, they SHOULD be 100%, but I personally give them slack simply
because I know how chaotic and unreliable the Internet is. :)
(If only there were a UO-LAN ...)
>Commands are repeated due to bad design
>Certain commands are delayed needlessly due to bad design
Huh? What commands are you talking about? There are commands at all? :)
>Constant harddrive access and effective 580 Meg install due to bad
>design.
I don't know about the constant hard drive access (I have 64 megs of RAM,
maybe that's why), but I agree the 580+ meg install is rather large.
Unfortunately, I don't see an EASY way to get around the fact that UO has a
BUNCH of graphics/sounds/animations to store. Take 'em out? Hmm. I'd rather
leave them in.
>Not enough macros due to bad design
What macros are missing? As I mentioned before, switching items in and out
of one's paperdoll is missing. Otherwise, you can use macros to invoke
skills, open windows, say things, and perform SOME actions. Pretty much,
all that's needed in the game. I'm curious to know, however, what you think
is missing.
>Game runs at 1/2 speed with half the time you waiting and half moving
>due to lag and overcrowded servers.
Hehehe, I take pity on you non-Ethernet players. :) I am constantly
running past lagged players seamlessly. Then again, I was doing the same
thing on my 28.8k ...
>Music is terrible and only plays at certain times anyway.
I don't get music at all. :(
(Must be my crap sound card, a Yamaha)
>Game often loses sound due to bugs
>Game often misshows the screen due to bugs
Loses sounds, I dunno. Garbles up the screen? I've noticed a few errors
here and there, but they don't DIMINISH from the game any. Nit-picking,
perhaps, but UO is game about player interaction, seemingly not graphical
perfection?
>GMs don't respond to players due to lack of support
There are, however, many Counselors around. BE AWARE, though, that GMs and
Counselors are currently in the business of helping folks SERIOUSLY in
need. That is, they are stuck in places and need assistance to get out.
Please don't bother GMs or Counselors with, "How do I do this?" questions.
While they may be important to you, there are unfortunately a lot MORE
newbies than GMs/Counselors, and they're usually busy tackling problems
with the servers, catching loophole abusers, etc.
>Mouse clicks are often not registered due to packetloss and overcrowded
>servers
Yeah, that's a problem I've noticed. I get used to it though. :(
>And most of all: EXTREMELY FRUSTERATING BOREDOM due to lack of things to
>do. For every minute you spend fighting you spend 30 minutes looking
>for something to fight. I HATE it. Wander, wander, wander, fight,
>wander, wander, wander. The game would actually be fun if I could just
>go out to a monster filled area and fight 5 minutes later. But nope,
>you instead spend half an hour just mindlessly wandering then kill
>soemthing stuipid, then wander another half an hour. The game respanws
>the monsters anywhere from once an hour to once a (real) day depending
>on the whims of the gm. When it's once a day you can literally wander
>for 2 hours like I sometimes did and never see a single creature except
>maybe a few animals.
Umm, recently, they've tweaked up the monster/animal respawn rate
TREMENDOUSLY. My mage friend, who goes out into the woods constantly, has
been amazed by the wildlife that exists now. I'd seriously suggest going
out into the woods again and checking the scenery.
Also, you seem to be one of those gamers stuck in that "fighting frame of
mind". This is not Diablo. The nature of the game, believe it or not, is
not ENTIRELY to kill everything in sight. If that's what you want it to be,
you may be disappointed. Most folks seem to fight in order to attain items:
gold, increased skill, hides. They increase their personal worth, then
finally tackle the BIG dungeons like Despise, etc. THAT is where you
probably want to go. Not "smacking cows off in Yew". :)
>I truly hate it. If there was no lag at all the game would be average;
>not great due to bad design and pointlessness but at least playable.
>However with all the lag you can't control your character, can't give
>commands, move slowly if at all, and die for no reason. I'm so mad
>right now there aren't words strong enough to describe it. I'm going to
>cancel my account and I'd definately warn anybody against buying it.
Gads, you've had a tremendously bad experience with the game. So much so,
that I think I'll post a new note remarking on what the game is like once
you've GOTTEN past the lag and have a like for the genre. :)
- Jiunwei Chen
+-------------------------------------+
| jch...@vt.edu (ICQ: 1725497) |
+-------------------------------------+
Jiunwei Chen
At 11:37 PM 10/16/97 -0700, you wrote:
>> Even during the beta, when I had the 28.8k, lag made the game playable.
>> Now that I'm on an Ethernet connection, there is virtually no lag, but it
>> hasn't changed THAT much since I left my old modem days.
>
>Well I'd have to say that 99% of players don't have ethernet so it's not
>an accurate comparison. What really counts is how it runs for most of
>the players; and for most of the players it is unplayable. Numerous
>times I've been so upset by the lagginess I considered writing an angry
>email to Origin about it; but knew it would be ignored anyway. How
>often do you see people say 'damn lag'? Not counting myself (which is a
>great deal), I see it perhaps 10 times per 5 minute trip through town.
>It's not just me either, in fact I have an excellent ISP based on my
>performance in other online games.
Ahh, the thing is, UO *IS* different from Quake and Diablo in terms of how
the game is handled. In Quake, there are a VAST number of servers to choose
from. Diablo, there are a VAST number of other players to play a game with.
The way UO is structured, there are only a "few" servers, Pacific, Baja,
Atlantic, etc. As I noted earlier, your ISP may be excellent, but when it
comes to that Origin server, bad luck ensues.
And as you can see above, I did note that when I was on a 28.8k, the game
WAS very much playable. Maybe MY ISP was lucky then? Anyway, the world is
quite well populated with players. Unfortunately a good may be unable to
play, which is a pity. (Suggestion: Go to www.owo.com and look for a
program called "UOTrace", it tells you your latency towards the game servers)
>I don't care if they eventually get 100 servers online each with dual
>t3's each. Origin's costs don't concern me. The number of servers
>don't concern me. I judge the game by my own performance and to me it's
>unplayable. If they were going to add servers they should have done it
>in the first place before they shipped the game. If they couldn't
>afford it then that's too bad they shouldn't have made the game so
>dependent on the servers.
First of all, you are being QUITE unrealistic. Origin isn't Microsoft. I
doubt they could afford the millions it would cost to bring up 100 servers.
"Origin's costs don't concern me." I think they should, if you want to see
future Ultima games and whatnot. And changing the nature of the game
drastically would have likely sacrificed MUCH of what Origin (and many
players) expected to see.
In other words, Origin wanted to create an Ultima universe populated by
humans and NPCs alike, and have it reap a PROFIT. Their entire plan was
risky from the start, simply because of the nature of the Internet and the
attitudes of "mainstream" RPG/adventure gamers. I knew a lot of people were
going to complain about the way the game was designed. It worked against
them, in a similar way Sports games may not please Puzzle fanatics.
>Try casting spells on someone moving around. Impossible. You click
>where he is but the click doesn't register until a second later at which
>point he is in a different spot. Now try this in combat while you are
>getting hacked on. Now try this in combat when you hit the open
>spellbook macro 10 times in a row, get the spell selected 5 seconds
>later, and then wind up clicking on the ground anyway. Very very
>frusterating. I don't think we should all have to have ethernet T!
>connections just to play the game.
Again, I didn't have Ethernet during the beta (which was a LOT more
inefficient than anything UO players see now). I had a 28.8k. And I had a
ROARING good time. And yes, I got in quite a few battles and whatnot.
Admittedly, it was harder back then, but it was still manageable. It's much
like playing Quake with a really high ping. :)
>Subspace works just fine for me,
>with a 200 ms ping rather than a 1000 ms ping with UO. Subspace has
>just as much data to handle as UO.
Uh, no. How are you making such a claim?
>Also, even if there are 2000 players
>in the UO game world you don't see all 2000 players at once and I don't
>care what excuses Origin has for the lag anyway.
Server-side lag IS unexcusable. But most of the lag players like you
experience, happen BETWEEN the server and your computer. Subspace is
fortunate in that the data being passed is not as extensive as in UO.
Basically, the positions of ships, and projectiles, and their types. I'd
even argue that many of elements are computated on the client-sied, since
the game is rather "mathematical" in nature (bouncing bullets, rebounds,
ships moving in a 2D universe, all bring up memories of parametric
equations and physics) Thus, connection is often better in that game.
But Origin is not that fortunate. Players can move at will, so there's
little "computation" involved (to the extent in Subspace that is). Also,
there are MANY more "types" involved with the look of players. Have you
noticed all the different types of clothing (with different colors!) that
are in the game? Then, of course, the locations and types of all sorts of
items on the ground, have to be recorded ... as well as who may be picking
it up at the time, etc. On top of that? Checks for thievery, and other
actions. A LOT of stuff needs to be sent. Thus, connection is often NOT
better.
>I think you said if for me. I'm a fighter/mage. If I see a tough
>monster it takes me a total of 15 seconds to disarm, cast the spell, and
>rearm. If there were no lag it would take me about 5 seconds. As it
>is, I have to run away (and deal with lag not letting me move), try to
>drag the weapons to my pack (and deal with lag not registering the
>clicks and selecting the object in the first place), hit the open spell
>book macro 10 times, select the spell, fail to click on the creature,
>run again, fail, run again, succeed because I let myself get hit, hit
>backback 10 times in a row, then rearm and fight.
Your biggest problem seems to be lag, in that case (as I have talked about
many times before). But if Origin did implement a better macroing system
for switching weapons AND spells ... that may reduce the pain players like
you experience. HOWEVER, the problem with having extensive macros is this:
abuse! During the beta test, and even today, macros are highly over-used
... by players who will repeatedly hit a button combination over and over
again, while watching TV no doubt, in order to increase the value of a
skill or even a stat.
I guess the reason Origin is making spell casting difficult, is because
the consequences if it were easy. Mages are SUPPOSED to be a lot more
powerful than fighters. Having an extreme number of high-level mages
running about, ruins the balance of the game. Thus, make them work as hard
as fighters at increasing their skill, if not MORE so. (And yes, fighters
do have to practice, by finding creatures/monsters to kill ... a training
dummy only ups their skill so much, and fighting air doesn't increase
skill, unlike magery)
>Blacksmith is the exception not the rule. Since the whole purpose of
>the game is combat
NO! The purpose of the game is *NOT* combat. Please get this straight. UO
is NOT a "Diablo-type" game where one is supposed to "kill the bad guy" or
whatnot. Such quests may be a large part of the game, but it is not the WHOLE.
>blacksmithing is the one area where with a lot of
>work it's possible to make a meager amount of money. In one hour of
>blacksmithing I can make 50 gp if I'm lucky. In one hour of fighting
>(although this is rare I'm usually wandering) I can make 500 gp easily.
Umm, I can make 500 gp in an hour easily as a smith. Your skill stinks. :)
Seriously, one needs to increase their skill before they can rake up the
money. A grandmaster smith can make a LOT more money than a novice. I, as a
Journeyman smith, can't make as much, but I can easily make 500 gp an hour
making chainmail coifs all day long.
A miner can also make 500 gp in an hour. Ingots are a VERY much wanted
item. They often sell for 5 gp an ingot. I regularly buy bulk quantities of
them. 30 ingots for 150 gold. And I'd buy more if my money weren't in the
bank.
>Alchemists could make perhaps 50 gp an hour.. if you are willing to
>stand around town shouting 'potions for sale.' To me that's work; not
>fun. I don't think anybody likes to just stand around and do that.
That's you. People, believe it or not, DO enjoy doing that. It's the
player interaction which is enjoyable. If it that isn't your idea of
entertainment (and I'll admit, only a few hardcore RPGers may enjoy that
... which is the AUDIENCE Origin is appealing to!) then UO is the wrong
game for you.
>I don't know what you mean by ranger profession; that's a fighter with a
>high detect invisible. In other words, a fighter.
A ranger is someone who attacks via a bow, and often has skills such as
tracking, animal taming, etc. In other words, he or she works in
conjunction with nature. That's MY idea of a ranger, and I have seen quite
a few. Now that pet transfer works, I imagine many rangers are raking in
money by selling pets to strangers. :)
(I've seen more than a few pet gorillas in the Minoc forge)
>Boyers could make perhaps 20 gp an hour.. once again if you do nothing
>but work. There's almost no demand for it. Arrows are everywhere and
>next to nobody uses bows anyway.
Shopkeepers apparently enjoy buying bows. I myself have never tried
Bowyering, but a friend of mine may dabble in it. I'll report how
successful it is later.
>Tinkerers could make perhaps 10 gp an hour. With wood you make garbage
>nobody wants. With metal you can make shovels and smiths hammers.. both
>things people will buy but then you have to go mining for the metal.
>More time and more work. Boring.
Tinkering is, admittedly, more than a skill than a profession. I know you
can definately make more than 10 gp an hour, but certainly not as much as a
miner or a blacksmith.
>Miners could make perhaps 50 gp an hour. If you mine and sell the
>ingots anyway. Once again hard boring work. I'd much rather play a
>game than work in one.
Again, mining IS hard work. Boring, perhaps (if it isn't your "type of
game"), but some folks like it. They enjoy taking people's virtual money. :)
>Besides that, doing a 'profession' other than fighter or a variant (this
>includes mages) is just as dangerous as fighter with the PK's running
>around. If you can't protect yourself you are as good as dead as soon
>as you leave town. Nobody wants to go to the trouble of traveling in
>packs of ten from city to city. There's no point to wandering anyway
>for that matter.
Umm, as I noted in another message, my mage friend wanders (alone) from
city to city ALL the time. I've wandered from Minoc to Vesper MANY times
(to deposit into the bank). Rampant PKing? I think not. (Maybe they're all
around Trinsic, heh)
>Well the point of the game is work. I think that sums it up nicely. If
>you want to work this is the game for you. Wandering for hours
>searching for monsters or cities or buildings. Doing some silly task
>for 3 hours in realtime to make a hundred gold pieces or so just to have
>it stolen and getting to spend another 3 hours doing it. Dying and
>having to loot and scavenge for hours so you can fight again. Standing
>around town for half an hour trying to get someone to buy your stuff. I
>wouldn't call any of this fun; yet you spend 95% of your times doing
>these things. UO was designed as a virtual world and like the real
>world it's hard for somebody with nothing but the shirt on his back to
>get started. This may be realistic but it ruins the gameplay.
Ahh, thanks for summing up the exact reasons why you, and other mainstream
gamers, won't like UO. It doesn't FIT them. Is it the fault of Origin? NO.
Why? The game was made for folks who ENJOY such work as you described. The
number of these gamers IS few. But, for some reason, many players fooled
themselves into thinking that UO was another Diablo of sorts. It is NOT.
UO game overexceeded initial expectations by three to four times. Origin
simply wasn't expecting so many players to be "in" to this type of game.
Folks like you overloaded servers, counselors/GMs, and then complained the
game wasn't good for fighting. And indeed, it isn't. Hopefully the game
population will diminish somewhat, and leave Britannia truly populated by
those who DO enjoy UO for what it is supposed to be.
>I have 64 too. My complaint with the harddrive access is that it is
>unnecessary access. If I leave an area I could see it; but just walking
>along with nothing nearby shouldn't require accesses all the time. It
>is also too often anyway. More of the game should have been stored in
>memory.
I can't hear my hard drive accessing, so I really can't respond to such
complaint. Anyway, I can't see why it would be bad, since the game
presumably runs perfectly for me with 64 MB of RAM. I guess it must be the
Ethernet?
>My biggest gripe is not having macros to switch weapons etc. like you
>said. However, there needs to be much more. Macros for certain spells
>(healing especially), automatically performing a sequence of tasks,
>using certain items, etc. These are all so vague it covers a huge
>category. There are also not enough macro slots to begin with.
Read what I said earlier. Macros are a touchy subject, because they can
and HAVE been easily abused. Unfortunately, most of the hard-core RPGers
are also hard-core macroers. :) Origin decided that they wanted people
playing the game to increase their skill, not watching TV hitting a button
repeatedly.
>I don't do that either. I message the gm with bugs such as 'my health
>bar is permanantly green' or 'I can't move' or 'I can't deselect this
>item.' No response though. I admit that I often wanted to message 'why
>is this so lagged' or 'why do i pause every second' or 'why do i keep
>jumping around' as a complain rather than a true question but I knew the
>answer already.
Green? You were poisoned, if I remember correctly.
An 'I can't move' complaint should probably be quantified with a location
of where you are, etc. I can imagine a lot of newbie players saying, 'I
can't move', but meaning that they move slowly because of lag or whatnot.
As for deselection of an item, huh? I can't see how that can't be easily
resolved by yourself, by right-click or something. But I'll give you the
benefit of the doubt and say that it was a legitamate complaint. :)
>Sure thing, I just wandered around for an hour and killed 1 monster.
>What fun.
Recently? The monster respawn was VERY recent. Actually, some players
argue that there are too many monsters now. :)
There are constant battles in cities against monsters. Anyone remember the
"Attack of the Undead" in Trinsic? And, thanks to the UO Vault
(www.uovault.com), there was another recent attack on Cove. (Lots of
dragons, orcs, etc.) I only wish Minoc is spared from such a disaster, at
least when I'm around. :)
>Well in the unlikely event the lag is reduced to where it doesn't hurt
>the game I'll sign back up. Let me know if it ever happens.
Get UOTrace. It should tell you where packets are being dropped, etc. It's
a very handy tool, to see what the problem is ... your ISP, or someone in
between, or Origin's ISP, etc. Hopefully, as more servers are increased,
and as the population dies down, or as Internet backbones get better (GO
FIBER!), lag will decrease.