Question & Answer

Thanks to forum poster crunchnasty for providing some great questions!

1.   Fix crafting and mule skill sets to become more of the economy again. I know you’ve heard the “make useless skills worth using again” yelled at you till the horse was beat dead. Taste ID, Item ID, Begging, Camping, and a litany of others have few practical uses in today’s game play. 

We are aware that some of the skills from over the years are no longer used in game.  As we add new features and adventures we are always looking for a way to make them useful in a way that would make sense.  Crafting & mule skills are something we are constantly thinking about how to keep relevant in the broader scope of the itemization loop in game.  This is a delicate balance though and we look forward to a discussion with the community in the future when we try to tackle this big problem.

2.  Make creating a thief / fishing character worth it again. Pvm and Pvp. Theres no reason to be a dungeon theif vs say creating a treasure hunter (especially when t-hunters are getting a boost next patch), unless u want some cool deco. (same applies to being a Legendary fisherman… cool for deco, not much else.) Make a PvP thief? unless you wanna hang out and steal exclusively from champ spawns, forget about it cause theres nothing else worth / or available to even steal from people.  Nobody participates in VvV mechanics, so stealing there is not important anymore. 

It’s true that the thief profession has been changed radically over the years as a result of changes in gameplay rules.  While the dungeon stealing thief has had regular content updates when applicable, the PvP thief hasn’t seen much in the way of updates.  A major thief update is something we’ve toyed with, but the application of the profession beyond PvM is delicate.  If there is community interest in exploring additional roles for the PvP thief this could be something we focus on for a future publish.

3.  Theres a reason almost NOONE plays a gargoyle character. It’s because they aren’t fun to play. Maybe theres something that can be done about this. 

This is a pretty subjective analysis, and generally when anyone speaks in terms of “noone does this or that” the assumption is pretty off base.  Gargoyle characters are pretty popular despite the assertion otherwise.  We look forward to discussions on how to improve the gargoyle play style from those who enjoy that type of gameplay!

4. What is there to do in Eodon, Illeshnar and Tokuno these days? I literally go to Tokuno on ATL for Goodman’s Rune Library and thats it. My wish list includes making it fun to go to every facet of UO because new stuff is happening that every PvM’er wants to participate in. I realize this isn’t specific enough of a request, but I just want to know your thoughts, we have so much open space that isn’t being used by majority of players, and I’ve grown to love PvM a lot recently)

The world is pretty big, and has only gotten bigger.  It’s something all virtual worlds struggle with as we expand into unexplored new realms.  We try to keep each facet relevant, and provide incentives and unique opportunities that will encourage visiting each.  With the latest Treasure Hunting revamp facet plays a huge role in which types of items you get among the various loot categories.  When designing global events we also try to target previously unexplored areas when the narrative dictates.  If there are specific areas of the world you think could use some action – let us know, or take up the mantle and make the world come alive on your shard.  Keeping Britannia a living, breathing world is as much up to you as it is us!  

5.  Keep us in the loop – We want more information about what the staff is working on, and why. What is being considered, and why. UO is my main pasttime. I want more information. There will be months on end without much except some forum post responses here and there. 

We hold regularly scheduled Meet & Greets, release periodic newsletters (like this one!), and read a slew of e-mailed feedback and forum messages every day.  The UO forums provide us a great opportunity to engage with the community in thoughtful, respectful, and reasoned feedback.  We try to get the community involved as early as we can to gauge interest and temper expectations for new features coming to Ultima Online.  It’s important to keep in mind, however, that when something is in-concept it is just that – in concept.  With the recent Treasure Hunting changes there is already an expectation that everything that was talked about in the discussion thread is set and stone.  Things can change and will change.  Early discussions need to be met with an understanding that everything is subject to change.

6. Work on the loot table (obv keeping power creep in mind). Especially the rare dungeon drops being less useful than other magic ‘no name’ loot that drops regularly on the roof etc. Doom / Peerless artifacts should be sought after more than just random legendaries at the roof. Right now 99% of dungeon artifacts are cool looking / lore-wise but junk in their usefulness.  Make all the older boss and dungeon encounters up to date in terms of loot table. Right now I only see ppl take champs and the roof seriously. Noone wants to do peerless, Eodon encounters, or Doom (it is all empty just like High Seas has been for so long)

This is an incredibly delicate balancing act – how do you keep each area of the game world relevant while providing balance across all loot types.  One of the major challenges is that our game world is 20+ years old (amazing!).  Few other virtual worlds can make that claim, so attempting to re-balance everything would require some thoughtful consideration on any changes we make.  We look forward to discussions with the community on how to adequately manage keeping each area of the world relevant, and providing incentive to continue hunting treasure!

7. Is VvV working as intended? because I don’t see anything special happening other than everyone attacking each other without a purpose. It would be nice if a system in VvV actually kept people engaged, do you have any ideas on how to move forward?

VvV addressed a number of concerns we had with the core PvP experience in the world.  That being said, we recognize that we fell short on providing additional context and incentive for participation in the actual VvV gameplay.  We hope to take another look at VvV and provide some greater incentive for participation in a future publish.

8. Fix the out of control inflation – This may tie into several other issues. But why do I need several billion gold to buy what used to cost 1 million?  Is there a solution to this?

Unfortunately there is no silver bullet to solve inflation.  We have taken steps to combat inflation such as providing gold sinks and making transactions at higher levels easier with currency conversion.  We constantly keep ways to combat inflation in mind as we develop new feature