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MMO Alts

May 30, 2013 by 13 Comments

mmo altsI have a serious love-hate relationship with alts.  For years, and years, and years I was an altaholic.  I went to meetings, got back on my feet, and eventually began playing just one character.  But while thinking about this topic tonight, I realized since then I’ve stopped enjoying MMOs as much.  Have you seen the new seasons of Arrested Development?  I seriously heard that exact “coincidence” whisper in the air; but is it really a coincidence? Maeby you can think on that while I continue.

There’s this awesomeness about alts.  Just knowing that I can replay through a game as another class, or go another path and have the same amount of fun makes me instantly feel good about playing.  It’s like I’ve justified my purchase in some extraordinary way.  If a game is good enough to play through again, it must be something special.  I want alts to once again be this joyful indulgence for me.  I want to feel like I can’t possibly reach max level if I don’t stop playing all of my alts and pick one to focus on.  That’s an awesome problem, but one I’m having less and less.

Not every game should allow alts, though.  I think Star Wars Galaxies is a great example of how you can have the best of both worlds.  One character.  Only one.  You can be whatever you want on that character if you put in the time, and if you want to switch then start unlearning and go down a new path.  This kept class population in check, and gave people real decisions to make.  It was like being able to play all my alts at once.

But lately I hate the concept of alts.  Alts replace the role other people are supposed to play.  People think they don’t need to rely on someone else because they can just roll an alt and fill that role.  Alts devolve into twinks that just burn through content and make me question if I really loved playing the first time through.  Alts are this defense people throw up when someone says they ran out of things to do — “Have you leveled an alt yet?”  I can’t even find a single class I like in most MMOs these days.  I end up hitting the max level and hit a rock and a hard place: I don’t like any of the class choices -and- I don’t want to go through the content.

I’m really conflicted.  Maybe the devolution of MMOs is to blame, or maybe there haven’t been any really good games to play alts in for a while. Some people will chime in almost instantly that they still struggle with the urge to play so many alts  (you know who are) and can’t understand where I’m coming from.  I can’t identify with that position when it only takes 20 hours to reach max level, and I could have every class to the max in a few weeks if the game was really worth playing through all over again.

What are your thoughts on alts?  Do away with them entirely and improve the overall experience?  Bring back the old EQ way of doing it where alts were a serious work because leveling anything required you to commit?  WoW’s method of cranking out alts? Maybe this all boils down to me wanting to enjoy a MMO more, and for a longer period of time.

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Dedicated Crafting Classes

February 23, 2013 by 21 Comments

I believe that dedicated crafting classes are one of, if not the most, important features in a MMO.  If a game can sustain multiple play styles, that game will have far more depth than a game where crafting is something anyone can pick up and max.

My custom house in UO is currently under construction. I have converted the second floor into one giant workshop where I spend most of my day tinkering.

Something about crafting relaxes me.  For over a month now I have been playing a pure crafter role in UO.  I log in each day, visit my vendors to see what other players have purchased, head back to my workshop to craft items, then revisit my vendor to restock.  When I have stocked my goods for that day, I spend the remainder of my time gathering resources, crafting inventory to have on hand, and finally I come up with ways to market my goods to gain an edge against the competition.  As you can see, my daily agenda is quite full.  I can easily spend 2-3 hours stocking my vendors and preparing for the next day.  I recently wrote about having to rely on other players to provide me materials, and the biggest reason I choose to buy so much from other players and cut into my profits is because I don’t have enough time.

Playing a pure crafter is a fulfilling experience for me.  In fact, although it may sound like I have a fairly regimented and monotonous schedule, I find playing a vendor to be more dynamic than playing a company character.  I’m always having to worry about inputs from other players. Have prices dropped? Is there a new hot item in demand? I’m constantly adapting and changing in ways other players who go out each day to slay monsters can’t even imagine.  Keeping up with the trends is precisely how I built my immense crafting empire in SWG: I found a need and filled it before anyone else — it just happened to be food and drink which provided stat bonuses no one knew they needed until they met someone who was way better than they were because they consumed my goods.  Consumable + can’t live without = rich Keen.

Camelot Unchained is going to have a crafting system which sounds, so far on paper, like what I want.  According to Mark Jacobs’ Foundational Principle #7, the fundamentals for a good crafting system are there: Item decay, dedicated crafting classes, everything you make is useful (instead of making 50 widgets you’ll never use), no AH (you have to come to me or my shop) and you can customize the look of the items (hopefully).  There’s one feature, however, that makes this system more impressive than even the one used by UO: All items come from crafting.

When I craft in UO, I’m constantly having to compete against these rare magic drops that are sometimes better than anything I can make.  That’s aggravating because my entire reason for existing is to provide players with things they need to go out and hunt monsters.  If they can remove me from the equation, suddenly my reason for existing comes into question.  If players are forced to turn ot crafters for everything, suddenly there will always be a reason for a dedicated crafter to exist.  Combat classes will be forced to rely on crafting – whether they do it themselves via journeyman crafting or turn to dedicated crafters for more illustrious items.

So far I see two potential issues in Camelot Unchained’s plan.  First is item decay.  There is no full looting in PvP; the only way an item will be replaced is through item decay.  Items will need to decay fast enough to generate enough demand for potentially hundreds of dedicated crafters.  If there are 1000 combat characters, even if only 100 people play dedicated crafters (10%), that’s not a lot of business.  It’s even less business if those people only need to replace their items once a week.

Second, why am I making gear?  Realm pride is one reason.  I want my realm to win and I want them to do so using my stuff.  If realm pride can boost personal pride, that’s awesome.  But I also want to get rich and have nice things.  In UO I work so hard to sell sell sell because I want to be able to decorate a custom house and help my friends.  Those things cost a lot of money due to money sinks.  Hopefully Camelot Unchained provides me an outlet for spending my wealth, and sufficient cash sinks.  Furthermore, I hope combat characters earn enough cash to bring it my way.

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Why I play UO: Relying on Others and Building a Community

February 12, 2013 by 21 Comments

Ultima Online Forever is still my game of choice these days, so I thought I’d give you all an update on what’s been going on in-game and some of the reasons why I continue to enjoy a game nearly 15 years old.

Relying on Others: A slightly different take

Often this topic centers around having to group with people to take on PvE encounters (forced grouping), but I had an experience yesterday where I willingly chose to rely on other people to help me with something economy related.  A guild member of mine was showing me something when we came upon a location he uses to farm wool from sheeps.  He said, “I’m hesitant to show you this location because then you won’t need wool anymore!”  I thought about it for a second, and what he said is true; if I decided to farm this on my own then I wouldn’t need to pay him for wool anymore.  However, taking the time to go out and sheer the sheep is yet another activity I would have to add to my already busy schedule in-game.  I told him I can’t take the time to do that, so I want him to continue to be my supplier of wool.

I formed a relationship with another player wherein we both benefit from each other, and rely on each other.  He needs money, and I need wool.  I have created similar relationships with several other players.  One random person I’ve never actually met before approached me and wanted to supply me with a modest sum of Iron ingots once a week.  I have come to rely on this individual because, once again, I don’t have the time to go out and mine iron ingots.  I have yet another relationship with 2-3 other players who supply me with various types of leather.

If not for these many other players, I would not be able to play UO the way that I do.  I enjoy creating things, selling them, coming up with ways to improve my margins, and ultimately profiting from my time and relationships with others.  If not for having to rely on other people, I would be left with a completely hollow experience.

Haven has a fence!

Our guild, Haven, has a city (Haven City) located East/NE of Britain.  We’ve been here for a while now, placed a dozen or so houses, and even attracted some neighbors we enjoy having around.  We have created a tiny little sub-community that seems to grow every day.  Haven has a great history on UOForever.  We were the first to place a house, first to place a second house, were the first to GM many of the crafts, and we’re ultimately responsible for spreading the fact that this server exists to a great many people.

To thank us for playing (and being awesome if I do say so myself), the server admin placed a permanent fence around our existing city in order to symbolize our unity, our status, and recognize us as an official community.

We were talking on ventrilo last night about how we haven’t had this much fun in a game in a long time.  I attribute almost all of that to both the reliance on other players, and the fact that we have built a community that feels like it is permanent.

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The Delicate Balance of a Sandbox World

February 4, 2013 by 25 Comments

The Keen and Graev Community has been enjoying quite a run in a UO shard called “UO Forever”.   Playing fresh has been a real treat, and an experience I never thought I would have again.  No, there’s not a ‘but’ coming.  I’m genuinely enjoying 90% of the stuff I do in-game.  I love the economics side of the game: Building a shop, selling my goods, competing for market share, accumulating wealth — building myself up.  Others in my group like hunting monsters, finding treasures, sailing ships to find treasure, collecting rares, and even a few enjoy PvPing. I won’t quit until my friends stop playing.

Traditionally, UO has been a game to support all of those play-styles.  I can’t say that throughout its history there has always been a perfect balance (in fact it has swung back and forth, one side to the other), but there is something inherently more to UO than mindless killing or completely supporting only one style of play.  That’s where many other “sandboxes” fall short.  Take Darkfall, for example.  Darkfall is technically a “sandbox” but the focus of the game is, at all times, in all ways, focused on combat; more specifically, killing players.  I enjoy the balance in UO, and I’m saddened when I see that balance being disrupted by nothing but talk of combat, killing other players, and altering the game on that premise.

That was a really long introduction to an issue I want to bring up about UO Forever which I will use as an example of a point I’ll probably make in one sentence at the end.  The UOF server is being mismanaged because the admins have altered the game to support their preferred style of play.  Instead of preserving the (unstable) balance of play-styles, they’ve made changed and plan to make changes that are going to cause the server to crash and burn. It’s not my intention to understate or overstate any issues, but let me explain a few particular problems that should illuminate what’s going on.

The server admin has admitted to hating tamers because they killed his Mage on previous servers.  As a result, according to a tamer friend, taming is the slowest skill to raise, some of the stronger pets were removed, some take more space, pets move slower, and do less damage.  Many melee special abilities have been disabled.  Mounts have unlimited stamina making it easy for someone to ranged kite, and mages have been known to paralyze and explosion kite with impunity.  Raising magic resist has been ridiculously slow if not impossible to raise.  A poll went up today asking if people would like explosions (mage spell) to stack, essentially making it even easier for mages to nuke people to death — when the poll started to look like it was going to fail, one of the server staff made a comment saying maybe “mobocracy” (asking for opinions) wasn’t a good idea.  So obviously the staff love their mages.

Then there’s the hindrance to crafters.  Up until yesterday, for the past two weeks there has been a 40% penalty for crafting in a town, and a 25% penalty (my numbers might be slightly off) for crafting in a house.  The goal was to force crafters into danger because, according to the admin when I slammed him with questions, it wasn’t fair for crafters to be able to make things and be safe.   I haven’t been able to wrap my head around that one.

Another friend who enjoys sailing a ship to find treasure reports that a nerf is coming to the quality/quantity of loot on treasure maps. Add that to the fact that boats were set at 10x their normal cost. I remember reading something about the server admin finding that type of gameplay boring.  Furthermore, magic items rain from the sky like candy inside dungeons, making crafted gear harder to market to other players.  I assume the reason for this is to get people into dungeons where the mages can PK them.  I’m spinning that one big time, but can you blame me given what’s already been said?  Okay, maybe it would have been more fair to say the magic item drop rate is high so the mages can farm dungeons easier than anyone else and make the most money.

What lessons can we learn from this?  Obviously, and sadly, this comes with the territory on a free/private server; you get what you pay for.  My point isn’t to besmirch the name of the UO Forever administration — they’re accomplishing that on their own.  My point is to highlight how easily, and quickly, one of the best sandbox games can be altered in such a way that it begins to play (and fail) like games today.  It doesn’t take much to offset the delicate balance.  Losing sight of the mark for a second is all it takes.

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