Publish 99 TC1 Release 2
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Comments
@Kyronix
1. The restrictions list says both Veteran's and EJ have a skill cap of 700 + 20 based on months active. Aren't all accounts currently at 720 points regardless of age? I seem to remember holy hell a couple of years ago when the age requirement for skill cap increases was removed (am I remembering incorrectly?). Is this just a typo, or are skill cap age restrictions for existing accounts being reinstated?
2. EJ is limited to "only basic ore and wood" for harvesting restrictions, but EJ does "Receive Mondain’s Legacy Resource Rewards". So, EJ players can't get special resources through resource harvesting, but do get them through other means (like Trade Orders, or loot drops?). Just making sure I'm reading that correctly.
Thanks and it's looking good. Hadn't even thought of 1/10th of those restrictions you all had to take into account.
The new store stuff looks good too. That Deluxe Starter Kit seems to be tailored for a specific friend of mine.
In regards to the alacrity token, why add something so powerful that diminishes the value of the alacrity scrolls already available in game? Sure, it's account bound, but allowing up to ten people to be influenced by it? That pretty much murders the market for the fifteen minute scrolls.
As for the dungeon awards token... that's essentially giving people a free Blackthorn artifact, which is likely worth far more to people to sell than to use.
1) the Alacrity token is obivously marketed to new players. Can new players afford your shop?
2) Vets rarely need to train multiple Skills so Token is largely wasted. Even if it is a new character most Vets probably have Soulstones with high level skills to use. Scrolls help fill in what is missing. Why pay real money for the Token if you have in-game gold and a Scroll will serve just as well?
3) Metaphorically, the token is a limosine, the Scrolls are a motorcycle. Not as stylish, one fits one, but it will get you to where you want to go.
Regarding Endless Journey Restrictions, Bank Box is completely unusable as intended and mentioned in the notes. Would it be possible to allow EJ players to View but not Use or Remove Bank Box items on final publish?
Blacksmithing, Carpentry and Inscription services offered through afilliated subcontractors.
Exotic beasts available with proper authorization from the Crown.
Would you be able to give more specifics on how the Token of Skill Alacrity works? On TC1, when I activate it I get a message "You have enabled your new player skill gain aura", followed a few seconds later by "Your new player skill gain bonus period is now over." Is this just a bug, or are there other restrictions to it? (Need to be EJ, need to be non-maxed skills, etc.).
Also, as far as the week long timer goes. Since it appears I can toggle the Token on and Off, is the timer a week from the point of purchase? The point of first activation? Or a week of total "activated" time?
Thanks!
Home of the Pet Intensity Calculator, Pet Planner, Trainable Animal Bestiary, and other Tools, Guides, and Information.
Does that restriction also include PEC monsters, or is it specifically EMs?
Miscellaneous
Players Paid account EJ AccountEJ Players will not have access to bank boxes?? WHY?
for
Treasure Hunters
While having the newbie armor blessed is nice...it doesn't teach NEW players about insurance and loss of items...maybe have the blessed timed for a week or so until they get a handle on the game..I don't know just my thoughts.
The rewards that you get from the collections or Blackthorns should be account bound too, because as stated above they can just get a few arties and sell them for a lot of gold.
Also I heard something about a new player experience....where is that? What are NEW..actual new, never been in UO before, where do they learn about...insurance? How to get around? What moongates are, how to find your weapons special moves? How to recharge their runebooks...Things like that..is that coming? Please tell me that you're not just gonna direct them to the wiki...they need something IN GAME like there used to be..I have faith in you Devs!
Also in regards to the bank...I did read something about EJ Accounts having a storage vault? Is that not in this publish or how do we access that?
That's all for now, I'm sure I'll think of more later!
If you have multiple UO accounts under one master account, can some of them be in active/paid status while others are in Endless Journey/unpaid status (assuming they have been inactive the requisite amount of time) and others still under the same master account are inactive (not active and not Endless Journey)?
Think about it Drake. Ultima Online has always been a subscription based game. Broadsword still has expernses and would like players to continue subscriptions.The restrictions against mining rare resources, earning powerscrolls, etc would be meaningless if veteran players going off subscription still have access to their Bank Box. There are enough resources tucked in for most veteran players to not need to participate in Shard economies.
Without a Bank Box, EJ players will have to purchase important items from other players/player-vendors in-game.This makes running a vendor more rewarding for players that do maintain a paid subscription. My own vendors on Pacific starved after the Stygian Abyss release...maybe other Shards it will not make as big a difference.
Also, there was mention of allowing EJ accounts monthly storage rental for in-game gold. No mention of it in current or previous test center notes. Anyone know if this idea was dropped or just not ready for test center?
Blacksmithing, Carpentry and Inscription services offered through afilliated subcontractors.
Exotic beasts available with proper authorization from the Crown.
the idea of the bank storage for EJ accounts, are good and bad, like other games, it could allow the scripters and the like, to use the free accounts to be as a holding account, or dubbin' account for cheats and hacks. Or maybe like other games allow them to stand in one place and farm areas.
A way that could maybe solve this would, like it was said previously, allow them to purchase bank slots for in-game gold. Only a limited access though.
It was said previously that EJ accounts, if they didn't pay the upkeep of the Bank slots, then it would be raffled/auctioned off to the highest bidder. Not sure how that would even work. I think it should just go back to the game resources, and allow others to loot.
Just my two cents. Overall I think the EJ publish will be a good thing, because it will allow old and new players to be able to see the mechanics of the game and progress, and decide if they want to come back or not. As do all veterans at one point or another. UO grows on you and their isn't anything that come close to the ability that you can do in UO, that you can't in other games. Some have come close but not there yet.
Wildfire
Also, I'd strongly suggest that the Virtue Shield be a partial hue item (as in just the background) and leave the lines silver. The current dipped-in-paint look really detracts from the artwork.
Regarding EJ restrictions, they should have access to bank boxes with a limit of 50 items. Tying their hands with no bank access + paid vault access won't be seen as an incentive to subscribe. In fact, it may ultimately drive more people away.
What they should do is fix the dungeon/drops and give people more incentive to actually go there and hunt, instead of giving yet another easy button and winding up with another abandoned area of the game.
As for the dungeon content itself...those areas are already dead.
The only ones I routinely see on Blackthorn's is scripters. I only know one person who likes fighting the city spawn
Covetous is only visited for the Void Pool, Cora is left alone because the encounter is just dreadful.
Someone must farm Despise for quivers, though I've never seen anyone else there on GL since a few months after release. The initial minigame is a glaring example of how not to design content, as it's a griefer's dream.
Expecting any of that content to get a playability update, let alone a drop increase in the medium future is probably self-defeating.
Why did you remove the Orc Brutes? They are and not really that hard to kill with a newbie character. Jirel has been killing them as long as she can remember. Please put them back in the fort.
Also consider changing that rune to the orc cave because it is a better place to kill orcs and there is usually a roaming healer close by to rez players. There are a variety of Orcs to kill as well as other easy monsters. This does include orc brutes on the lower level.
I just think it's there but it's still being internally tested, hopefully with the next publish update!
Players need somewhere to store pots, petals, spare slayer weapons, spare pieces of armor incase they get looted, pet balls, if they are interested in crafting then somewhere to put a bod book, crafting resources. Among other things.
Also if an EJ player buys a commodity deed of 100 greater heals off a player vendor how are they to 'recover' them and again where are they gonna store em?
OTHER games either have a bank, chest or guild box whatever, or the character have certain slots (ie UO has 125 backpack slots) however in other games where the ONLY storage is what your character can carry, they do not tend to have weight restictions so you can't move (eg with 10 heavy items in your pack), nor with games like that do your items go 'poof' if you die and are late getting to your corpse, nor can monsters loot your stuff. You only have to remove items when your pack (or alloted storage spots) is totally full.
UO is totally different. If ONE items is too heavy you can't move, stuff can be looted by mobs/players and you can lose all your uninsured backpack items if your die and can't get your body.
There was talk of the 'vault' but frankly unless it is something you pay for with ingame gold I don't see the point in making it a shop bought thing. If I had to pay 2 bucks a month or something for 'vault' storage I may as well be paying a sub. So a lot of people will be put off instantly by that. I would, and if I came to play and bought 100 orange petals and had nowhere to put em then again, what is the point in playing?
If you want people to get reinvolved and attract new players with a free to play option it has to actually be playable. A limited bank of 20-30 items would be fine, and if they had to 'pay' for it with in game gold would be ok. If they wanted extra then sure, hit em up for more vault storage. Perhaps you think all existing players will be creating accounts ad infinitum to get those 20-30 bits of extra storage lol. I don't.
What is gonna happen is that any genuine new EJ person is gonna be nagging those with storage and banks to store stuff for em.
The idea is to get people rehooked so they subscribe. On the basis of no storage I wouldn't come back and won't be asking any friends to come and try it either. Even less chance if they only way they can get any storage is to buy it. Not happening.
Cheers MissE
for
Treasure Hunters
Blacksmithing, Carpentry and Inscription services offered through afilliated subcontractors.
Exotic beasts available with proper authorization from the Crown.
Don't like the "no bank" thing.
You give these new players a chest full of goodies that take up slots in the pack, but no way to bank/store things they won't be using right off the bat (what player uses ALL spell books ALL the time?!). That will hurt more than help anything.
The "vault" thing sounds okay, but renting for space would probably mean some limited interest, then players saying "fug it" and just dropping out.
Instead, I'd limit the Bank Storage for EJ accounts - I like Dot's 50 item idea as that is just enough to store the stuff bought from the Origin store, some extra weapons, armor, and resources without going over board. Then, when an EJ player hits that 50-limit and tries to add in 51, there is an up-sell opportunity (gump reading, "You can upgrade your Endless Journey by [clicking here] to store more items in your bank." Just remember, say what you CAN offer, not what the customer CANNOT do!) I do remember being "young" as a tailor and that bank storage was my lifeline. I hoarded everything 'cos I didn't know any better, and back then, I wished for more storage which prompted me to save gold so I could buy a house. Imagine how that would inspire an EJ player to 1 - pay for a sub and 2 - continue playing to get a house. Without that storage, I'd never have continued playing. Besides, giving all this stuff to a totally new player who doesn't understand what it all is, letting them store it until they understand better would be a wise thing to offer.
I know BS isn't pushing the CC, but honestly, if I had to run around with all those books, a chest full of gear, and gold (more on this below), resources and what not... a new character is going to be overweight (and dead) in no time.
Banking gold is NOT intuitive in this game. Most games, gold is automatically put into the toon's money balance, but here we still have to harvest the gold from a dead mob. So putting that gold into the non-existent bank box is going to be a problem. What will the newbs do with their gold - without the bank box to drop it in? The gold doesn't deposit automatically and one has to be a bit skilled with the grab gold pixels, drop on banker - but don't miss the banker or someone else will grab your gold - but there's no place that instructs that. And I'm sure a newb killing fodder in the forest will be overweight with gold pretty quick... then what? Without auto-claim-to-toon-balance, this will be a game killer for many a new player.
kirthag.blogspot.com
ETA: the only way to get those books out of the chest is to die. hehehe.
Or - drop the chest on the ground, then can take the books out. Not the best option...
Another add... I went and grabbed another "starter kit" and could take out books... weird.
kirthag.blogspot.com
That's SCREAMING to the cheaters "Script me! Script me!!!!" to the point to where you'll have hordes of scripted EJ accounts trying to steal the scrolls left and right. As if the potential/certainty for ghost camera abuse isn't bad enough.
And, I'm seeing this as a die-hard Trammie, with little to no expectation of this directly effecting me (I'll be buying from the spawner, raider or thief, regardless) - but from the safety of the bleachers I can see how this idea is horribly wrong.