I read a lot of comments about how recent attempts to make a modern UO have failed to do so, so I'm curious. What about them makes them fail as a successor to UO (aside from not actually being UO2.0)? Also, what in your opinion are the most important ingredients?
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in the end the most important aspect of a sandbox mmo like that is the community. interacting with the same people. creating long lasting guilds and friendships. having allies and rival guilds. holding the same lands for years. having a reputation across the server and bitter enemies. in MO's case the community was incredibly tight knit even if a bit psychotic at times. still to this day, that is what i remember the most.
personally i don't think you can "bring back" UO, simply because its a different generation playing video games. the expectations for games now are stratospheric. even young gamers these days have played everything under the sun, and have years and years of heavy gaming experience. it is incredibly hard to hold their attention even if the game is perfect. this ADD mentality unfortunately creates a lot of dissatisfaction (cause no matter how much you change and consume you are never happy) and this creates an exceeding large amount of angry, rude and abusive gamers. such gamers simply cannot build pleasant gaming communities. so eventually, the more the game is addicting (anything good easily becomes addictive), the more toxic it's community becomes. its a vicious circle.
beauty is in the eye of the beholder. same goes for games. it is not the games that have become worse (on the contrary games have become works of art), it is us that have changed how we look at them.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
The big problem is that every time someone attempts to build one of these games it gets cancelled or is a laughable shell of a game with an empty world...
<Dear devs: it's not a sandbox unless there is sand and buckets.>
WISH would have been the next take on UO, but it got canned in beta suddenly(and I do mean suddenly). Apparently, they didn't think the success of the game-type was viable financially. Maybe back then it wasn't.
But, now, those types of games are pretty desired and no one remembers how to make them anymore apparently, heh.
It's clear from the survival genre rush, etc., that people want the sandbox type games, but there's just not enough money and interest being pushed into the MMO market, I suppose. That, and as I mentioned, the so called "sandbox" games we've seen being announced/developed have all been empty shells relying 100% on PvP deathmatch style gameplay.
updated graphics with minimal pop in
over 600-700 skill cap, maybe 900~1200 with slow progression
a proper fantasy OST by orchestra+
proper fantasy lore along with sandbox capability w/ player made events (global indication area)
updated and rare dyes, hues, pets, craftable items, stealable items, crafting system (valorite+)
more areas like Doom with higher difficulty, better rewards (risk vs reward)
keep the function where you can destroy a dead person's armor and take their head -- giving them the scraps of leather, etc.
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UO3 without some sort of Trammell design would fail or be a mighty small playpen.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Open world , PvE and open PvP . Guild warfare .Not taking you by the hand.
Exploration , discover secrets and ressources. Role play communities , or not .
You can be a ghost ! Ive seen people playing only as ghost just to have fun .
Diversed skillsets and no classes , make it YOUR way :
Skill based progression; want to be a mage who herd sheep , tailor and swing an axe ? Sure thing ! You want to be a thief and be a plain ass , why not . You just want to do mischief and poison food , leaving it in open area and watch noob dies, well you can !
Limited skills and stats , make you plan and build your personal character build.
Crafting and economy :
You can be only a crafter if your want !! Multiple crafting and gathering skills , player driven economy . Spam message in front of the banks to sell things and Have personal vendors !
Mastercrafted items with you name on , hell yeah ! Every theif and player killer will wonder who is this mysterious crafter they keep getting their weapons and armor from .
Bulk orders , work and complete orders for npcs and get rewards !
Other things :
Personal housing / custom housing , guild housing .
Ships, treasure hunting , tamables.
Collect special events items , collection items, rares .
Begging and camping are skills , albeit very useless ones !
One of the things I always mention when discussing UO, was the thieving system. Very hard to do in a game today, I think. Too many couldn't handle it. But you would have to make items valuable enough to steal, yet easy enough to replace.
Legends of Aria is really aspiring to be the next UO. However, there's another group making a custom server within LoA trying to replicate the UO experience. Both are worth checking out.