You know who could learn a lot from UO? Richard Garriott. He has just about forgotten everything that made it great and has been squandering his talents ever since.
Tabula Rasa got me all excited but of course that one got axed, screw you Richard for making me care enough to be frustrated with how things turned out...
/Cheers, Lahnmir
'the only way he could nail it any better is if he used a cross.'
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
So sorry but hell no. UO was so much more than a MUD and MUCH more than any game today, minus the shiny grpx.
MUDs - nah.
There were many, many far more complicated pen and paper rpgs available: D&D, AD&D, Chivalry & Sorcery, Empire of the Petal Throne, Runequest, Bushido, Dragonquest (the SPI one) and others ..... not to mention SF e.g. Traveller and "horror" e.g. Call of Cuthulu.
Along with some pretty good boardgames as well e.g. Sorcerer's Cave along with some that have since been turned into computer games e.g. Talisman.
RPGs had developed way beyond what was first seen on computers.
MUDs, by comparison, were very simple. (As was UO). They had to be - early machines were limited. Even mainframes! (Which hosted some of the first MUDs.)
Which is not to say that MUDs don't have their place in the evolution of online gaming. They do.
UO though brought a huge leap forward in terms of taking gaming to a "wider" audience. Something that can be laid at the feet of RG. Maybe it was a new audience as well but who knows.
The demands that those first iterations of UO placed on your computer system though - it was bad. Must have limited its take up. Maybe why EQ1 had such a tiny graphics window - whether it did or not it certainly ran better .... after they fixed the many chat window crashes.
UO is and was the only "sandbox" mmorpg. It's criminal that games like Albion try to compare themselves to a sandbox game.
I remember operating a casino in UO, building everything from table games to ATM machines with just the tools the devs put in game, none of which were intended to be used to create a casino with. THAT is what made UO a sandbox.
Why do devs think ffa pvp with loot = sandbox? Recent "sandbox" games have a very small box of sand and even less tools to play in it with.
I've finally figured out what went wrong with UO, and also a solution (pre-Trammel). The real problem with UO was the criminal system. If a player killed another, all he the killer had to do was find a place to hide for a few minutes until the players grey status was removed. On top of that, the player not wanting to turn red just had to "consider thier sins," with a little patience. Praying on other became too much of an easy payoff. Okay, now, hear me out, before I explain my solution, also consider that the game had no real way to ward off economy inflation.
remeber "GUARDS!" ????
The solution: hirable escorts from Lord British. The farther away you go from town, the more expensive they become. A new player could pay a few gold for the escort to watch over them as they kill bunnies or what not. The guards would insta kill anyone trying to attack them. Wanna take them to dungeon Deciet? Well that's gonna cost you some $$$$. Open a gate and they'll ask if you want to pay the charge.The farther you go, to places with more lucrative loot, thier prices go through the roof. And if you attack someone, they insta kill you. Keeping players comfortable who dont want to get ganked, and also helping prevent inflation.
Oh yeah, and also, grey status for murder should have been like 24 hours in game time. Should they wanna recall back to their house and wait it out, that's an entire day without that player on the loose. Wanna go red? By all means, go ahead, the escorts wont attack you, but dont think about attacking them
Meridian 59 came out almost a full year before UO and did many of the things that UO did, and some it did not. It had a justice system, multiple schools of magic, a skills system that increased through use, and many other features that are either lauded by UO enthusiasts or downright better than what UO did. I'm not claiming it was a better overall game, but many of those core concepts you say drive the MMO market were in Meridian 59.
Well while Meridian 59 did proceed UO, it was basically invisible. The internet was in it's infancy and if you did not have product in the stores during that time you just got very few players. Hence I kind of question people that even bring that game up. I was part of a huge game playing community and far as I know none of us ever heard of that game until much later. Meridian 59 is just a game that no one ever heard of until people like you started bringing it up.
Comments
Tabula Rasa got me all excited but of course that one got axed, screw you Richard for making me care enough to be frustrated with how things turned out...
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
There were many, many far more complicated pen and paper rpgs available: D&D, AD&D, Chivalry & Sorcery, Empire of the Petal Throne, Runequest, Bushido, Dragonquest (the SPI one) and others ..... not to mention SF e.g. Traveller and "horror" e.g. Call of Cuthulu.
Along with some pretty good boardgames as well e.g. Sorcerer's Cave along with some that have since been turned into computer games e.g. Talisman.
RPGs had developed way beyond what was first seen on computers.
MUDs, by comparison, were very simple. (As was UO). They had to be - early machines were limited. Even mainframes! (Which hosted some of the first MUDs.)
Which is not to say that MUDs don't have their place in the evolution of online gaming. They do.
UO though brought a huge leap forward in terms of taking gaming to a "wider" audience. Something that can be laid at the feet of RG. Maybe it was a new audience as well but who knows.
The demands that those first iterations of UO placed on your computer system though - it was bad. Must have limited its take up. Maybe why EQ1 had such a tiny graphics window - whether it did or not it certainly ran better .... after they fixed the many chat window crashes.
UO played a part.
I remember operating a casino in UO, building everything from table games to ATM machines with just the tools the devs put in game, none of which were intended to be used to create a casino with. THAT is what made UO a sandbox.
Why do devs think ffa pvp with loot = sandbox? Recent "sandbox" games have a very small box of sand and even less tools to play in it with.
remeber "GUARDS!" ????
The solution: hirable escorts from Lord British. The farther away you go from town, the more expensive they become. A new player could pay a few gold for the escort to watch over them as they kill bunnies or what not. The guards would insta kill anyone trying to attack them. Wanna take them to dungeon Deciet? Well that's gonna cost you some $$$$. Open a gate and they'll ask if you want to pay the charge.The farther you go, to places with more lucrative loot, thier prices go through the roof. And if you attack someone, they insta kill you. Keeping players comfortable who dont want to get ganked, and also helping prevent inflation.