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The UO successor
Enerzeal
Member Posts: 326
These days we see alot of people applying UO successor to signify a game that is going to have the features which made Ultima Online into what made it one of the greatest MMOs. Mortal Online for example said it would be the new Ultima Online, as did Darkfall. Anyone who has played the original pre-trammel UO knows there is significant difference between them. Ultima for instance was not a game that had pvp combat at its core, it was made up of a great many things.
Today when people not familiar with Ultima Online as a great many people are not hear the term sandbox or UO2, they begin to think Darkfall, which is infact damaging to the sandbox world, and to the name of Ultima Online. The whole idea behind this post is to try and explain what a real sandbox is about, and where other games wishing to become that next great sandbox fall short.
So I ask everyone, in your opinion what are the core elements to a sandbox? To get the ball rolling I will fire off a few..
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Full PvP (full loot or partial loot)
Alignment System (Obvious system dictating who the good and the bad are, restrict the bad people to specific evil towns and healers)
Full list of trade skills (fishing, farming, foraging, mining, smithing, carpentry, bow craft, jewel crafting, etc)
Living breathing world (something you step into and watch develop around you)
Construction (from housing upto keeps and walls)
Player run shops (big important one)
NPCs for hire
Fluff items galore (books to write in, instruments, furniture, etc)
Skill based system (with skill cap (silly Darkfall))
Everything should be crafted by players (and lootable from monsters)
Devoid of social blockers (An auction house takes away player to player interaction, no one barters for there goods. You can see it most obviously in World of Warcraft with the random dungeon finder. I lost count of how many I ran without need to speak a word to the other people, and 9 times out of 10 I never saw those people again. General chats as well need to go out of the window.)
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In Ultima Online people made there living from begging from other players and NPCs, it wasn't all about being the very best, it was about enjoying the world you lived in. You could be content having a little shop selling an assortment of weapons or bows. Some people sold recall runes, and some people sold poetry.
You don't log in and think, "today I will kill 50 people!" or "Today I shall gain 4 levels and get that drop from Uldaman!". Instead you log on and think to your self, I wonder what my friends are upto, and perhaps I will stock my shop and talk to a few customers.
Comments
You realize that no general chat is a social blocker right? If you don't believe me, just ask the folks in FFXIV .
UO was the best game ever. But a there will never be a game like it again most likely. It's best to try to have fun with what we have.
Remember Old School Ultima Online
The isometric view angle in UO is something I love. I know everyone wants first person view or 3rd person view but to me UO's combat and controls had a lot to do with it being isometric. Everyone says these new sandbox MMOs are "just like UO" and the first thing I look for is the isometric view angle, if it doesn't have it, I immediately close the page.
It's kind of sad really. With all the amazing new game engines and other tech today, UO still reigns supreme, sitting nice and cozy in its throne as the king of sandbox, looking down on shit like DF and MO and wondering if they even deserve to be granted the title "competition". The game is 13 years old. It's kinda sad.
World of Warcraft is the original creation of God. Real Life is in fact a WoW clone.
Anyone who even compares UO to DF and MO are .... (See Avatar)
if everyone loved UO so much why are you not playing now? it is still running. it gets new patches and content.
if you dont like the tram portion run a free server with pre-tram rule set.
the reason no one will probably come close to making the second coming of UO anytime soon is that it had so much to do and is mostly balanced some how. You have 1xx skills you can choose from and pretty much make what you want. It has the best house making system in the game. I have made some pretty ridiculous houses with it.
either way, UO classic server should be coming back some time in late q4 this year or early q1 next year. I will be returning for sure.
same with EQ progression server.
If swg had been released a year later allowing all the bugs in beta to be fixed, that wouldve been a deserving successor to uo. As far as next gen uo successor, arche age seems to be gunning for the title.
Maybe to be a true UO successor, you need to make it 2d.
Maybe some company can make a great 2d game like UO. It'll be much easier to creat the game in a financial and resource point of view. And the company can focus on things that do matter.
Sadly I doubt there will ever be a successor to UO pre Trammel. Whilst your list nailed the elements, the real thing a UO esque game needs is a devoted developer and more importantly, a playerbase which is totally different to the one you find in mmo's today.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
Wait I am confused.
is UO great because its original, or is it great because its the best sandbox mmorpg on the market?
So if UO,Eve,DF,MO all released on the same day, UO would out sell all of them?
Sounds like the age old argument of Halloween1 vs the Remake.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Didn't read the thread properly did you. Allow me TL:DR it for you..
UO = true sandbox
Mortal / DF / Eve = not the true sandbox in all its proper glory, they take elements but fail to make up the whole picture.
What makes the perfect sandbox in your opinion...
its called EVE online
Playing EVE
Played Darkfall, Played Wow,
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
EVE is the space above the sandbox.....nothing tangible to hold in your little pixelated hands or stand on with your pixelated little feet. Nothing but a cold void to float around in....a giant fishbowl.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
OK fine :P SWG was the successor, because they are both based on planets. And then EVE can be the successor to SWG because they are both Science Fiction and SWG had some space elements right?
Therefor EVE is the 2nd Successor to UO i gess. Is that Better?
Playing EVE
Played Darkfall, Played Wow,
SWG was the spiritual successor to UO because the vision behind the game's core systems came directly from the people that made UO. Individuals like Koster and Vogel, Helios, and others. Some of whom make up the core of The Old Republic's dev team. So, the next successor to UO, actually, would be TOR. Granted they have moved in a different direction lol, but it is being "fathered" basically by the same people.
I think Eve has more in common with STO than it does to SWG or UO. But then again eve is.... well its eve lol.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
what?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
You're aware that you pretty much took a crap on every EvE fans mom by saying that EvE has anything in common to STO! ;D
Hang on. So....EvE is not a sandbox (or rather a "true" sandbox as someone stupidly added), because the game is played exclusively in outer space?
You do realize that virtual soil is not a criterium for being a sandbox game?
Nothing here makes sense.....
EVE is the space above the sandbox.....nothing tangible to hold in your little pixelated hands or stand on with your pixelated little feet. Nothing but a cold void to float around in....a giant fishbowl.
Hang on. So....EvE is not a sandbox (or rather a "true" sandbox as someone stupidly added), because the game is played exclusively in outer space?
You do realize that virtual soil is not a criterium for being a sandbox game?
Nothing here makes sense.....
nothing here makes any sense at all!Look, I'm no graphics junkie or anything, but that game looks mighty dated (take it with a grain of salt, I still think Ragnarok looks good.)
And I'm no expert on gameplay, but it played like a sack of potatoes too.
And all those things you mentioned that made UO so awesome? Yeah, you can find all those things in Runescape.
My point? Try to leave nostalgia-ville for a second buddy. I know, it's hard sometimes, but we all have to wake up sometime and say, ' woah! That was my first MMO? That thing plays like crud!'
Tl;dr I tried it. Was hardly impressed.
Awaiting GW2
I'm pretty sure when people say sandbox, they mean it metaphorically, i.e. its doesn't actually have to have sand you can walk on.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
Maybe not for you, but it sure is for me. This is coming from a guy that grew up absorbing fantasy settings where 99% of them involved a humanoid making something of nothing. Key word there...humanoid. You have too little available in EVE to do for me to consider it a sandbox game. Shall we list the ways?
Crafting
PvPing
Mining
Selling
That's it. That's your basic choices in EVE. Then you have players adding the flare to those things to make them appear to be more than that. But in a real sandbox mmo you can have:
Crafting (WITH buildings and non combat releated items)
PvPing
Mining
Selling (WITH shops)
Fishing*
Farming*
Taming*
Hunting*
It's more choices for more immersion. Hell, EVE doesn't have ANY OTHER LIFEFORMS besides humanoids! Lifeless and void of charm or dangers outside of player created ones (which traditional fantasy have always had). This is why I do not consider EVE a sandbox mmo. There is no sand per se, only a box...a big empty box.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
All that and tachyon beam lasers too!
Give me liberty or give me lasers
Then by that definition metaphorically speaking....every mmorpg is a sandbox. If you mean literally speaking then no mmorpg ever created was a sandbox....you'd only find those in playgrounds. But for me similarly, EVE is no sandbox.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
That's the strangest definition of a sandbox mmo i've ever seen. A sandbox game is one in which there is no linear set path within the game world, the player has the ability to go about his business as he/she likes and still have an impact upon the game world.
Essentially what you are saying then is that a game could offer near limitless freedom, but if it is set in the future or some other genre in which fishing and farming are not included then it cannot be a real sandbox?
A sandbox needs fishing, really? Fishing is the ultimate representation of freedom and non linearity I guess regardless of the setting of the mmo.....
EVE does have player owned structures btw.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."