I think we need a reward system, with 'silver coins' to encourage players to venture out and play. The system could allow a very low chance of drop rate on every monster and could be calculated on which monster it dropped on and then not repeat with that monster. This would eliminate people trying to 'farm' these coins.
I prefer glowing red stuff as a reward That aside, great idea. Anything that gets people out and interacting with the world gets my vote!
Aside from maybe encouraging a few retired PvMers to bring out their tamers and farm again for a bit, I don't think a system like this would change much of anything. The people who don't come out and play - resource-gatherers, crafters, rare-collectors, etc - aka people who have means of making plenty of easy gold without PvM. I don't think they'll be persuaded to do otherwise with some silver coin drops.
What if the reward was not monetary. Unique item drops at 0.000001% or something on a random monster. Yes people can then trade it for gold/silver/whatever BUT someone will still have to go out and get that item.
I think any idea that incorporates a small chance to drop either a rare or a semi rare is a good one. I still see people farming bulls for nothing other than the chance to get a fur. Imagine if we had a similar idea in effect with multiple Mob types! There still seems to be basically no rare market on the server, I assume this is because we are still so young so many haven't gotten to spawn yet, and those that have are being hoarded. Basically this makes me all sad-panda status as I love me some rare collecting but have never gotten into the game of going out and getting them myself (although I'd love to learn the in's and out's of this if anyone would ever be willing to drop some insight!). Short answer: YES PLZ!
I dunno how many people are farming bulls for fur in lieu of leathers, but that's possible. Furs can come from anything that drops leather hides I think. Boss mobs have a VERY slim chance of dropping a statuette. Silver is Faction currency, and thus right out. Rewards can be had through the various BoD systems, PvM and maybe at some point in the future, PvP, but we'll see.
You know what brings people and action to a server? PVP. You know what generates pvp? Events. Scheduled events. Even if people just log on for them, they at least log on. And after years of experience it will create post event action. If they log off right after then so be it, but at least it draws attention. Look at uosa, not to bring it up, but that place fell to pieces after they removed the events as far as pvp goes and it affects the server as a whole. No, pvp is not the only aspect, but we already have enough pvm/crafting going on here. Also, you don't need a reward system with events. They are supposed to be for fun and to generate action. Which, by the way, they are very successful at accomplishing. Please, I know what I'm talking about when it comes to this..it needs to be addressed quickly.
P.S. I'm not talking about randomly dropping in irc and saying, "hey Ctf in ten minutes." I mean scheduled variety. It will attract players and it will result in future field action. Just don't add rewards.
I must say I agree with Mandevu in the sense that just starting to promise people rare shiny objects is not necessarily great for the extended life of the server. One thing I noticed on UO:R is that people here still like playing the game the way it was back in the day. People still PvM, PK's are less frequent making for more fair fights and they are not running around on Bola Tamers etc. I digress. The point is that on the 'other' server I play on, everyone is more obsessed with handouts and rares than anything else. The sale of these items makes everyone a millionaire and it just stops feeling like authentic UO after a while. I know that the OP is discussing something less frequent but I'm very hesitant about getting the ball rolling on any kind of "special items" since things like PvP and events do a much better long-term job at keeping the server fun. And as I mentioned it seems like people still enjoy PvM on this server as it is.
With regard to the past few posts, if World of Warcraft (and countless other games, including Ultima itself) can teach you anything, it is that people go full-tilt gonzo for stuff. Stuff is what it's all about. WoW is as empty and dead-end a game as I can imagine but you can acquire a whole lot of awesome looking, uber-cool-named stuff, and that's exactly why millions of people are playing it. It has to be, because there is nothing else to do in that one-dimensional linear game. Now I know that some people hate stuff for various reasons, and they're allowed to, but the act of hating does not reduce the awesome power of stuff. I guess there are pixel collectors and those who don't collect pixels. I've never understood why the second group gets so angry at the first though. You can debate how much stuff should exist - personally I don't think that a wide variety of different rares cheapens anything, I just don't like it when a specific rare is devalued by being handed out en masse (i.e. what OSI did with Black Dye Tubs). Also, stuff does not affect the economy except to transfer already existing wealth from one player to another. Mandevu, you said that you know PvP isn't everything in UO but everything else you said belies that statement - "You know what brings people and action to a server? PVP.", "...we already have enough pvm/crafting going on here.". The truth is there are also PLENTY of people who play for reasons that have nothing to do with PvP. I've met four players in the past week or so while out and about, some of them successful established vets here, who've said that PvP doesn't interest them at all and they play for an entirely different reason. It's true that some PvPers will make a hasty exit from a server if they don't feel there's enough 'action' for their liking; it's also true that many people who enjoy PvM, crafting, resource gathering, running a vendor, or any of the myriad non-combat things you can do in Ultima, will leave just as quickly if a server becomes glutted with PKs. They're all important to keep around. At the same time there will always be people who won't stay unless everything is exactly the way they want it to be and there's nothing you can do about that. I think all playstyles are useful in creating and maintaining a well-rounded server but tbh I think the peaceful players need to outnumber the PvPers/PKs by a substantial amount for a proper balance to be achieved. A lot more prey around than predators; I think that's pretty sensible. I'm all for more events but I assume that the staff wants a break after the non-stop events of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. I don't have much of a life but I'm pretty understanding of others who want to get out more often.
THIS, MORE THIS, AND TRIPLE HYPERDODEKAMEGAULTRA THIS!!! I know they're working on Free-Use and THAT should be the reward for these events, in my rarely humble opinion. Every DAY that there is a CTF, Town Criers should be announcing that shit at LEAST once an hour up to the event start. The Chamber of Virtues is NOT where people look for these things when they join a server. The twiddle thumbs at the banks (namely, WBB). Also, 1v1 and other straight PvP Tournaments MUST be done, and regularly. A decent break (30 minutes/1 hour) between CTF and Tournaments will be best (restock, shitbreak, etc) Town Criers utilized more often/effectively Event Gates (even if they JUST bring you from the banks to the Chamber of Virtues) Chamber of Virtues itself should be a No-Loot/No-Aggro area to avoid Faction camping (Yeah, it's fuckin Trammel, so sue me). These things will keep people HERE, waiting for the next event or TRAINING for the next event.
Also, sorry, I spaz-replied after seeing Mandevu's post. I think you've got solid points. People play for stuff, for sure. I don't think PvP events should be the way to get that stuff. I think the PvM type 'holiday' events are where it's at for them. The 'reward' for PvP events are bragging rights and leaderboards. Perhaps trophies with 0-tradein value would be nice for display purposes and also suiting the desires of those who like stuff. I would love my own trophy collection and a collection of guildmate's trophies for the guild hall (like the trophy cabinets in schools, etc). All good.
I agree with Blaise about the town criers. The more ways we can get the word out the better. Just last night I missed a CTF even though I got a ping in IRC about it just because I had my sound off. I'd also like to see the event calendar scheduled out further. Right now I see there's a CTF scheduled tomorrow but it'd be nice if events for the whole month were already posted. I'm not sure about the trammie chamber of virtues, though, unless it was just for 10 minutes before signups or something. As for more "stuff," I agree with Zagyg that people want it and will keep coming back for more. I think the aquisition of said "stuff" should be more directed than random drops and more involved than event rewards. I'm not saying anyone should be made to farm headless for 30 hours to aqcuire the +3 skillet of cooking at 0.00002% chance of a drop, I'd like to see more of a quest type system. I hate to say "quest" 'cause it sounds like we're playing WoW but something more than mindless farming can still get people out and about in Britannia. Something where you can feel a sense of accomplishment going through the steps rather than just getting the loot. Experience shows that people will keep showing up for pixel crack but wouldn't it be better if they had something fresh and new to DO while attaining it? To that end, we all play UO for the sandbox experience. We make our own entertainment here, if you will. I don't see why we as players can't do a better job of providing that entertainment for eachother. Sure, more rares, more events, and more quest systems would be great (sorta maybe. . . ) Hell, we'd all have three beggers if Telamon and EZ introduced begging BODs. However, I think what we really need is community enrichment! There are plenty of people that'd come out for an A^T fight night if it was held every week. There are plenty of people that would RP if others would just RP back. If you actually hang out in your player run town others will too. . . And now I'm in "new thread" territory so I'll just take this elsewhere. . . Hopefully ya'll get my point.
I was thinking awhile about rewards and just plain farming is not exactly the best way to go about rewarding people for getting out. Maybe some sort of NPC quest/bounty system which might actually help newbie players out. Like farmer joe can't grow crops because his farmland is being ravaged by Mongbats. kill x number of mongbats, and once this is done, a harder mob spawns which has a higher chance of dropping something or proof that can be redeemed to said npc. I am not a programmer, so I dont know how hard it would be to instance something like this, but it might be fun as you get into harder mobs.
I've been reading a wile now and I'm not exactly sure what the orginal post was about lol, but what did stick with me was everyone talking about pvp events etc... I feel like all of that is in the works. Maybe not tonight or tomorrow. But I'm sure it'll happen. There are projects / fixes the staff are working on to better the shard. Whilst also creating these holiday events just to give us something fresh. I think these holiday events are just what we need, for the time being. I'm not against having set tournaments, pvp / pvm related. I personally would log on and compete in the Bard tournaments on uosa... and I know atleast a few other people also did this. I watched the 1v1 pvp tournaments (even before I knew anything about UO). It was a good selling point for the game from the guy who showed me UO. My point from this post though that I'm trying to convey is that the staff are chopping away at bugs/fixes and on top of that implementing some events for us to enjoy wile they add these time consuming patches every few weeks that have been strenuously thought out and tested.
And it is much appriciated. I mean really I took this as a "wish list" kind of thread. Honestly I think this shard is great, and the staff does exactly what they need to do without caving to pressure to realize the goal of having a great shard.
Yeah, what I'm trying to convey is MOAR NAO PLZ!?!?!!?!?!??!?!?! I love all they're doing, I just wish there were 10 Telamons working on things so we could get there sooner.
