Ultima Online

Firstly: Well written and you nailed it.

Second: I played UO when it first came out and quit for good last year. Watching the game over the years since LB and LB left I can now make this comparitive statement:

Left: UO Before EA
Right: UO After EA

Nuff said.

LOl that is some funny stuff man! Lmao before and after.

I played UO from beta until the Fel/Tram split.

The reason the game died for many at that point is because it was no longer a "living" world.

The split broke apart guilds (mine included), allowed people to CHOOSE what kind of world they wanted to play in.  Before that you had to LIVE in the world.... there was no escaping it.  That was the best part about the openness of UO.  It was a living breathing world.  If your friend was getting killed trying to mine, you could go defend him and ambush the PKers.  You didn't have to have hundreds of quests built into the game to keep your attention.  The WORLD was the quest. 

I see people complaining about getting killed by PKers.  To me, the fights that I had with reds were the funnest times I have ever had in a MMO game and that feeling has never been duplicated.  The split killed that.  It was no longer the Blues vs. the Reds it was the Blues in Trammel and the Reds in Fellucia.  The PKers turned from pirates into rabid, gate camping, wolves (if you understand my comparison).

Not only did the split kill the immersion & close knit communities of the game but it also ushered in a new era of absolutely no fear from the player base.

People started hoarding gold because they could camp dungeons with no chance of getting killed.  They could start using their weapons of vanquishing all the time because they had no chance of losing them.  They could mine all they wanted because there was no one around to steal their ore. 

Not only did the split destroy everything that WAS UO it also managed to turn the game into the very thing the original UO would never have become.  A grind.

<modedit>

PK's were the main reason I left along with hundreds of thousands of others...to live in Everquest.Origin chose to ignore its player base and  many in the  subscriber base voted by taking there money away from Origin and giving it to a company who listened to them.

Experience before Trammel, is the reason that I still today would never go into a game with full open PvP.

as UO showed, there were far more arseholes that wasnt looking for a challenge, but for a lone target to zerg and teabag than there were people signing up to fight those kinds of players.

In a land of no rules, it's fun to be the badarse. And before Trammel, UO was the land of No rules.

In my personal opinion, the OP is just one of those PK'ers that lost his lone targets to zerg and teabag, and now goes on ranting how Trammel ruined the game for all of us....

I returned to the game AFTER trammel, and only left when a certain expansionpack arrived and well.. Did a SWG-NGE on UO when it comes to continuity

Originally posted by Arawon

PK's were the main reason I left along with hundreds of thousands of others...to live in Everquest.Origin chose to ignore its player base and  many in the  subscriber base voted by taking there money away from Origin and giving it to a company who listened to them.

See I would have to disagree with you there.  You were obviously playing UO until something more your style came along.  EQ was that game for you.

I liked UO the way it was... along with "hundreds of thousands of others" (see I can make up numbers too).  No offense to you, but why are you so special that the entire base of the game needed to be changed to cater to your play style?

I don't understand why people take your stance with MMO games when no other genre has to deal with it.  I guess it's the evolving nature of each game & you feel that you need to change it to fit your life, instead of finding a different game with like-minded people that already caters to your type of gameplay.

What I'm getting at is when someone like you plays Call of Duty 4 do you complain a lot on the game's forums that the developers need to change it because you don't like getting shot at.  That you should just be able to run around and hit people with pillows and no one dies?

No.  You bought the game because you were expecting to get shot at.  You would have found Pillow Duty 4 if you were looking for the other type of gameplay.

So why is it that games like you (the vocal minority) want to change perfectly good niche games to cater to your every need?

Honestly I think the current lack luster state of the MMO genre can be summed up by the fact that EA/Origin did not, in fact, ignore their vocal player base and issued the Tram/Fel patch. 

And here lies the issue with every MMO to come out since then.

IMHO.

Edit:  Wolfmann.  I find it interesting that people keep bringing up the zerg/asshole/etc. side of the PK puzzle.  Where you apparently had multiple problems with this.  I never had any issues that you describe.  The only time that I would be faced with multiple PKers is when I went looking for them. 

During the normal course of the game I barely had any run-ins with more then 2 or 3 PKers at a time.  But of course I always traveled with my friends.  I cannot even remember a time when we were not looking for a fight that we had any trouble dealing with the reds.  I don't mean to be rude, but it seems like you guys just weren't very good at the game. 

Originally posted by Dameonk

 

Originally posted by Arawon

PK's were the main reason I left along with hundreds of thousands of others...to live in Everquest.Origin chose to ignore its player base and  many in the  subscriber base voted by taking there money away from Origin and giving it to a company who listened to them.

See I would have to disagree with you there.  You were obviously playing UO until something more your style came along.  EQ was that game for you.

 

I liked UO the way it was... along with "hundreds of thousands of others" (see I can make up numbers too).  No offense to you, but why are you so special that the entire base of the game needed to be changed to cater to your play style?

I don't understand why people take your stance with MMO games when no other genre has to deal with it.  I guess it's the evolving nature of each game & you feel that you need to change it to fit your life, instead of finding a different game with like-minded people that already caters to your type of gameplay.

What I'm getting at is when someone like you plays Call of Duty 4 do you complain a lot on the game's forums that the developers need to change it because you don't like getting shot at.  That you should just be able to run around and hit people with pillows and no one dies?

No.  You bought the game because you were expecting to get shot at.  You would have found Pillow Duty 4 if you were looking for the other type of gameplay.

So why is it that games like you (the vocal minority) want to change perfectly good niche games to cater to your every need?

Honestly I think the current lack luster state of the MMO genre can be summed up by the fact that EA/Origin did not, in fact, ignore their vocal player base and issued the Tram/Fel patch. 

And here lies the issue with every MMO to come out since then.

IMHO.

So why should us that "survived" the onslaught of weakling zerg PvP'ers not be offered the same courtesy to ask for PvP to be limited so we can enjoy the games too?

Originally posted by wolfmann

 

Funny you should say that, since I see on every official forumboard for games under developement, whimpering from folks like you, that the game should be turned into full loot PvP, cuz thats what they want.

 

So why should us that "survived" the onslaught of weakling zerg PvP'ers not be offered the same courtesy to ask for PvP to be limited so we can enjoy the games too?

The games currently in development that I follow seem to be about 50/50 as far as the forums go for those for or against full PvP.

Having said that, I would never want full PvP in a class based game.  It cannot work.  Ever.

The only type of MMO game that can support an open PvP environment is a skill based sandbox type world.

Limited PvP is the way to go in the current crop of upcoming MMO games, there is no other way to do it.

My biggest complaint, though, would be people complaining about the developers decision (whatever it may be) after the game has already been released.  When the consumer is full aware that the game has a certain type of gameplay (whether it be open or restricted) and wants the developers to change it simply because they do not like it.

No... in today's market MMO games are multi million dollar projects & the developers want to make the biggest return on their investment so no big name companies are making niche games.  Everything is catered to the mainstream.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but it does lead to some very bland games that all feel and play the same.

Edit:  I actually support your view that both sides of this PvP equation should be considered & that there are way more PvE players then PvP players.  But what I would like to see is a game developer that ignores everyone and makes the game that THEY want to make.  (I'm not referring to ignoring bugs, or crucial game imbalance issues... but if they want everyone to wear purple hats in the game and people start complaining that they don't like purple hats... the developers need to be brave enough to tell those people that the game is not for them.. and keep on the same development track.  In the end, if it's fun, people will play)

Only then will we see some true innovation in the genre.