Weapon Spellbook Armour Rewards
Ok, as I always start my threads, with a bit of personal game experience backstory. Always fairly important to me that bit, shows I'm involved, I'm genuine, I'm feeling it - in fact many of my opinions are based on feelings which is pretty important in a game, lets you guys know where I am.
This thread is partly inspired by the new Whip of Underwhelmingness or whatever it is called, but it applies broadly, has been my issue for a long time.
I've not got involved in the new High Sea's content, and a part of me is so glad I have not spent my time there, it would have wound me up beyond belief, as do many of the events in UO. A part of me is laughing at the Trammies, and the pain they are going through, we've all been there a billion times before in this game, but right now I'm feeling my decision not to partake has more than paid off.
So where am I? I'm currently in Felucca on Europa, our team have finally won a 20 year long war in Felucca, we dominate, we have created peace in our time, this week has been a very strange week, a week of celebration, a week of non stop spawning all over the entire map, whenever, where-ever we want, our pvmers have been let loose. This in no small part has been due to our old rival Mervyn vanishing on us, and the final PK guild that stood up to us for so long, collapsing. I wonder if we are the first and only shard where the Blue's won the war? We've deserved it - friendship, organisation, teamplay, skill, effort, never quitting, no ego's between us, got dirty when we had to. So anyway, my week has been a lot of fun, spawning, teamplay, fun with all my old friends - sure beats what most of you seem to be going through.
Back to the title of this thread...
Developers - Kyronix, Bleak, anyone else there at Broadsword - you have a job to develop content that fits into, and has a purpose within the game.
If you release Deco - that is all good and fine for the Deco players, your job then, is originality of thought, and the art matters - not something I'm into, so moving on swiftly.
If you release gear - and here I am suddenly very interested, I'm all about practical stuff - you have a duty to make it useful. If @Kyronix or @Bleak can provide me with any useful purpose whatsoever for this new Whip of Underwhelmingness, then I will put my hands up, and eat all of my words.
When I say useful - I mean it can have any use whatsoever, for a certain template type, for a certain event within game, boss type, spawn type, pvp, the possibilities are quite huge. But when I look at so many of the ingame items, and see them failing basically on all fronts, it makes what should be a huge fun part of this game seem completely pointless. Players should want to aspire to collect some of these things.
Blackthorns Kryss set for example - an example of a nice slayer set. Completely outdated. Update it.
Give us well designed sets, aim them at the various main templates, make them actually work for certain ingame scenarios. That to my mind, is what you need to be doing.
You've really gone down the road of making things completely random, so random, that the players cannot conceive of any ingame use whatsoever, what is the point?
It also makes the Playerbase really question your ability to even understand the game? Not a great place to be, as I personally am not actually that critical of you, and have respect for you doing overall a very decent job.
I can admit, that in some doses, random, and player imagination can be very cool - but right now, my opinion is, we could use a lot more structure within the entire design and reward process.
As always, I perceive most PvM/PvP reward artifacts to be completely useless. Please go back, and rework most of them, update their stats.
Additionally, make the acquiring of them, possible, by the class that is actually going to use them. You completely wiped me out, when you did Invasion spellbooks (your best designed content for Mages for about 15 years), available only in Trammel {The Best Mages play in Felucca} and only acquirable by Sampires?!?! You've really got to think what you are doing to your playerbase. I would have quit the game at that point, if one of the nicest guys ingame, hadn't just farmed the entire set and given it to me. What a guy, and sadly he has now quit the game. 
Where can this thread go, if players want to add useful comments?
You can agree with me of course. 
Or, I think it would be nice if players added in any Old/New artifacts, Gear Sets with Properties/abilities that could be useful ingame, that we would want to play for, aspire to actually do the content.