Night of Horrors Challenge Event - Halloween 2015

start us with unlimited supplies but limit them for challenge (ie types not amounts) auto looters are killing the normal players. Do not reward teamwork in these events, this is a holiday event, those guilds who team up and pro razor everything have enough perks and advantages without having to run through everything at an uber advantage to the common player. Watching the auto loot and other various functions of razor sometimes makes me realize this is what is ruining the fun and nostalgia of playing UO. Some of you people could and would fully automate a 24/7 play style if you were allowed.


I'm very disappointed in this event right now.

and I mean teamwork as in 3 or 4 people using mumble or whatever to merc the events, this should be an all for one type situation

I won this event last year by myself running around on an LJ while I was at work dclicking bandages manually and attacking things manually. If groups of people coordinating are a problem, you might be playing the wrong game. I also do quite well just picking up potions and bandages manually. It's not that much of a difference. If doing well is important to you, you can choose to blast the use of programs that are and have been approved since the lights came on, or you can embrace them and setup a restock agent in 30s to have the same advantage as anyone else.


Last time I was in mumble at one of these events, I was coordinating with another smith to make weapons and armor for everyone.

I think Telamon plans to add Survival in at some point (I've at least been asking for it quietly in the background for two years). Those are great for people who don't want to play on a team or prefer to be solo, whatever.

Survival is fun, but last night I wasn't able to find a spell book or a spear until the brit bank vampire section, then not getting a holiday bag after the server went down was even more frustrating on top of that. Why are there even options that encourage someone to bring a crafter to this? That doesn't even really make sense to me. And as a holiday instanced event, I think it should involve all players participating to work together equally and not in subgroups.

Your thoughts are totally valid but I honestly don't think there's anything you could possibly do to forcibly prevent teamwork in an MMO. Other than providing a one-off instance for every individual, it's just never going to happen.

Options that are available to bring a crafter is one of the greatest and most underrated parts of these events. I actually made more cHoin on my crafter in one session than I did on any melee toon I have brought in the past. Folks were very appreciative and have compensated me with cHoin after the match. I got no gift bag and never asked for one because I was taken care of by the 30+ (or more) people I hooked up with items. If people had an honor system at 1 cHoin per GM weapon, you could easily rake in more cHoin than a top scoring melee player, if you held people to their word.

I think for the mages especially, the spellbooks should come with a base level of spells, like heal, cure, fireball and MAYBE lightning.

We get to pick up weapons and immediately start doing damage. People who rely on spells have to scrounge around and get lucky finding a scroll that's even remotely effective. Perhaps we'd see more mages on the top if we provided at least some decent initial drops (low level pre-loaded spellbooks). Some protection or RA scrolls would be nice.

I don't understand the beef against organized guilds. If a guild is mowing through everything, that actually helps you as a solo player. It means you see more bosses, which equates to more opportunities to earn holiday coins and rares. You may not win the individual point tally, but honestly, the people pulling the wagon should be rewarded for going the extra mile anyways.

As for mages, they seem to be taking the top point slot now that people have caught on about Earthquake. Kind of a risk to see if you'll even get that spell, but if you do, you will annihilate the Balam fight. Seems like a high risk, high reward type of choice. Though even with a dexxer, you're probably not a competitor unless you get silver, so I guess that's the same boat. Spellbooks starting with some base spells seems like a good idea.

As to Razor - let's face it, vanilla UO is painful. Trying to drag 2x2 pixel gems out of a monster's corpse is god awful. The majority of skills and actions in this game are incredibly monotonous with not even the occasional flare of excitement. This isn't why UO was so good in the old days. It was good because no one knew what the hell they were doing. For most of the playerbase, this was their first MMO. The power-gamer mindset was just being born and taking hold in people. UO was awesome because it was open and new. UO now is still open, but it is old as dirt. Everyone knows the in's and out's, and if they don't, there's a detailed guide section to get them up to speed. There's also plenty of competition from other games. Razor helps make UO's ridiculous interface and monotony tolerable.

And as to the crash, Chris must have been going a million miles a minute. He opened gates back to the event room, spawned additional bankers, and went through everyone 1 by 1, giving them a healthy consolation prize. Simultaneously, he was dealing with an issue with a bugged guard in Skara. I say cut 'em some slack on that one.

I think this is an excellent idea. I would think most level 1-3 spells could be included safely, and would add some potential strategy as well. Level 1 to 3 spells are the ones you can buy in town from mage shops, so they're sort of the "basic" spells IMO. Teleport and Wall of Stone might be problematic I guess, but I'd love to see players have the ability to Clumsy or Weaken some monsters, etc.

I've not heard this before, but great analogy. And totally agree with the broader point... as long as there are things to do as an individual and as a team, everyone should be happy. There is plenty to do in this event as an individual, IMO. Every time I play through it, there's more I wish I tried and explored and such.

Good points Basoosh, but technically power gaming has been around since well before UO. I'd like cite the name of the magazine Nintendo Power as a potential time frame of origins of the term but I can't rightly say that's true or entirely accurate. I do know that people have been powergaming (hardcore grinding to %100 completion) since the first games with depth were produced. This is not to downplay your point, just a side convo on the etymology of powergaming.


I had further thought while I was in the shower touching myself. I think some containers in the event should have cHoins that can only be STOLEN like masks and other semi-rare junk in town chests normally. This, coupled with perhaps a small chance to successfully steal cHoin from the monsters (maybe only bosses), would be great for thieves. Maybe on successful steal, the boss mobs would retarget to the thief so there's high risk in doing so and ability to mitigate pumping the mobs for cHoin and coming away with dozens in a single instance.

Yea, I getcha. I meant more from an MMO/multiplayer standpoint. For example, raid guilds mowing down endgame content wasn't commonplace.

No better time to plunder the local jewelry store than during an invasion.

there is no danger in stealing from the boss and it killing you because you insta rez and keep all your possessions. it is a trammel rule set so i don't see how a thief could really cause many problems to the other players.

i got to wonder if 35 minutes is the standard for these events or if that was just the decided time it should take a well focused group to get through the whole thing. every run i've been on seems to be slowing down more and more as people "power game" which is fine but it would be nice to finish the challenge. i know it was said right off the bat that you might not get everything you need and probably won't be able to complete the whole thing...which again i totally support. but, when its a time restraint instead of a difficulty component it can feel, frustrating.

Maybe the timer can be raised on the last few days to give us a chance at completing everything and killing The Black Knight. I'd love to take him down at least once.

I think it might be nice if the event rewarded the entire event group based on it's progress (hitting certain benchmarks) instead of individual kills or fast/automated looters. As in possible rewards randomly distributed into the holiday bags of the players at the end. This wouldn't have to entirely take rewards from those that shine individually or quick loot, but I like the idea of less emphasis on them and more on the progress of the entire group.

It's a great event though. It's kind of bizarre to watch all the meltdowns over it because this event is so well liked that people get so upset over getting in, getting what they want, feeling like they got what they deserved etc. There are people that played here who have always been ungrateful, that pushed every boundary and complained about the server for months, that left this server, badmouthing it for other servers - and those people were here for these events. Talking trash about the server in all caps, but desperately trying to get into the event.

It's clearly a loved event and all groups of players are in it - factioners/pks, pve'rs, roleplayers, crafters, board warriors, new players. It's nice to see the teams and the crafters. It might be even better if instead of those groups being fractured by competition they had more motive to work to finish the event and less to profit their close friends.

Event has made me rich(in my eyes) and been a lot of fun. I just wish I could loot as fast as everyone else

Maybe an increased cHoin drop in the end-pouch based on phases completed?

i was definitely thinking increased coin drop based on progress - maybe some of the most sought after drops/statues/rares would be rewarded via the orange bag and given out at random so that the crafters, bards, or non pro's have an equal shot

set up a scavenger agent and put everything you want (all scrolls, reg bags, weps, etc) and hot key it


then make another scav hot key for gold and whatever rare drops there are


there you go, instant automated l33tn3ss

I like that idea Mes.

As it stands now I think the competitive players like the fact many get left behind after the graveyard segment. (more for them) Where as I'd like to see the most capable players rallying the troops together to free the city!

These are totally awesome for a free shard! I believe the management is doing a great job and it designed to be fun and clever! If you can make another make sure Chris knows in advance and I am sure he will get you an early invite.

Thanks for an event I look forward to every day of this season!!!

Having done a few of these events, and like Lando making my initial UOR fortunes off of it, I would agree that it would make sense to give everyone the same rewards based on overall progression. Then randomize extra loot for some or give extra rewards to top DPSers or whatnot. One of my friends was mainly healing her hubby through the whole event and I guess didn't do enough damage to any one monster to get a "kill" so she didn't get a loot bag. I think her problem was that her select enemy target macro is set for nearest and she doesn't have a last target set. So she heals then selects a different target every time she casts harmful spells.

The "rewards based on damage only" system simply doesn't address all the different play styles that an MMO such as UO offers in my opinion. We could have ranks of Dexers followed by archers and mages advancing and clearing things in groups systematically, but instead the entire event is a pandemonium. Everyone running around and fending for themselves or their friends. Not caring if they are taking resources someone else could use that they don't even need because holding others back means you are ahead of the game. Not saying that those things aren't part of UO game play, but if the whole event is a Tram event, shouldn't we try to get something done more than just run whack, loot, die, res, rinse and repeat?

Not knocking this event in any way. Just think it could be better