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Ultima Online spent years developing a system that was destroyed by players

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Re: Ultima Online spent years developing a system that was destroyed by players

#61
post #39

I owe my career to this game. I was totally obsessed with UO from the moment I logged in for the first time and created my character, a crafter who was primarily a miner/blacksmith. That’s the thing about UO... nobody was the hero, everyone was just trying to survive and thrive in their own way; whether that meant crawling the dungeons as a warrior, bard, tamed, or caster; terrorizing those same dungeons as a player-…

I have a very similar story. I spent many many evenings in my teens learning to “script” with Taran’s Sphere Scripting For Dummies website and .chm file for the Sphere Server UO emulator.

Best part is I didn’t even realise I was programming. In my mind I was just making the game do what I wanted.

Re: Ultima Online spent years developing a system that was destroyed by players

#62
post #39

I owe my career to this game. I was totally obsessed with UO from the moment I logged in for the first time and created my character, a crafter who was primarily a miner/blacksmith. That’s the thing about UO... nobody was the hero, everyone was just trying to survive and thrive in their own way; whether that meant crawling the dungeons as a warrior, bard, tamed, or caster; terrorizing those same dungeons as a player-…

Surprisingly similar for me, I even released my first piece of software on the runuo forms (maraks script creator haha).

Never translated to working in software (couldn't afford college lol), but it did leave me with a hobbie I still do today, and love.

Re: Ultima Online spent years developing a system that was destroyed by players

#64
post #42

MMOs as virtual worlds are really hard. Red Dead Redemption online has all the great graphics, but play is mostly people randomly killing other people. No plot. This is a big problem with MMOs - big working worlds can be built, but mostly people just kill each other. Look at the success of Fortnite - 8 million peak concurrent players. Second Life has a functional economy, but no NPC ecosystem. The economy is driven b…

You mention RDR as if it was an MMO (which it obviously is not), and omit Eve?

How is RDR:Online not an mmo?

Re: Ultima Online spent years developing a system that was destroyed by players

#65
post #42

MMOs as virtual worlds are really hard. Red Dead Redemption online has all the great graphics, but play is mostly people randomly killing other people. No plot. This is a big problem with MMOs - big working worlds can be built, but mostly people just kill each other. Look at the success of Fortnite - 8 million peak concurrent players. Second Life has a functional economy, but no NPC ecosystem. The economy is driven b…

> This is a big problem with MMOs - big working worlds can be built, but mostly people just kill each other.

This isn't a problem with these games. It's intentional. Everyone knows how to mitigate it, you introduce a factor of significant loss aversion into attacking or being attacked, e.g. what EVE Online has where you might lose significant resources as a result.

Players by an large don't like that, and just want to join multiplayer and shoot and be shot.

The general public multiplayer mode in games like RDR or GTAV is always utter chaos like that, but you can just join private groups where it isn't like that.

I think that's the best of both worlds, you can still die (e.g. accidentally) and respawn quickly, and if you're being a dick the moderator of that session can kick you.

Re: Ultima Online spent years developing a system that was destroyed by players

#66
post #42

MMOs as virtual worlds are really hard. Red Dead Redemption online has all the great graphics, but play is mostly people randomly killing other people. No plot. This is a big problem with MMOs - big working worlds can be built, but mostly people just kill each other. Look at the success of Fortnite - 8 million peak concurrent players. Second Life has a functional economy, but no NPC ecosystem. The economy is driven b…

I tried to build a business on SL back in 2007. Secundavita was a replica of St.Francis’ church in Assisi. Big success, except for the money part.

I ended up finding a job at AWS through second life. Not a bad outcome.

Re: Ultima Online spent years developing a system that was destroyed by players

#69
post #42

MMOs as virtual worlds are really hard. Red Dead Redemption online has all the great graphics, but play is mostly people randomly killing other people. No plot. This is a big problem with MMOs - big working worlds can be built, but mostly people just kill each other. Look at the success of Fortnite - 8 million peak concurrent players. Second Life has a functional economy, but no NPC ecosystem. The economy is driven b…

> The biggest operations make US$ 6-7 figures this way.

In 2018? And here I thought SL died a decade ago...

Re: Ultima Online spent years developing a system that was destroyed by players

#70
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not uncommon among real people when they enter a new world. Take for instance, bison being nearly eradicated within a century of significant settlement west of the Appalachians. Not to mention, new players were probably practicing combat. It's not like anyone would normally have concern for killing virtual goats and rabbits.

Or the extinction of the California grizzly within 75 years of gold being discovered. It’s a common pattern — maybe the issue isn’t with the game…

That was the point I was trying to make.

I'd like to add, there's a current advert for an Xbox game, the backing track is the Beach Boys "Wouldn't it Be Nice." In any case shooting galore...as a Xmas gift? We're on the cusp of legit virtual reality and our goto is still kill kill kill?

This is why we can't have nice things.

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