2001-10-19: Nieves Gets Answers: UO Powergamers Interview

Nieves Gets Answers: UO Powergamers Interview

Nieves	What is your Philosophy for PvP Combat in Ultima Online?
Adrick	I think that pvp needs more emphasis upon the choices and skills of the person behind the character. I'd like to see the randomness decreased and the decisions for the player increased. I'd also like to see pvp made more accessible to more players; I think we can do more to encourage players to participate, especially in factions.
Nieves	Please tell me the rumors for Faction only PvP aren't true(?).
Adrick	They aren't true; however, consensual pvp systems will typically get more attention because far more players in UO have expressed interest in this element of pvp. We have specific shards such as Siege Perilous where the restrictions are not as severe; this sort of follows up question 1 in that we could do more to encourage participation.
Nieves	Why give up on the Allied Guild System? If you can do something like Factions or UO3D, why not something like that?
Adrick	In a perfect world, allied guilds would form their own faction. As it stands, guild alliances directly compete with the faction system as a vehicle for players to participate in large scale pvp combat. Guild wars are an important part of pvp and I'd like to see alliances as part of a faction enhancement.
Nieves	When could we see macroable special moves? Is it being worked on?
Adrick	We'd like to put macro moves in the game for warriors, but I can't give any definite answers on that right now.
Adrick	Nothing definite here. Although, through the event scenarios, new weapons may be introduced. What they might be, only Cal knows :).
Nieves	Are we going to see world changing and world affecting events like the Trinsic Invasion? I applaud the Ongoing Content team's efforts and the things they have done, but I, like many UO players, would like to see more content and less candy (rares/special items).
Calandryll	You'll see larger world altering events than what you saw in Trinsic. Trinsic was fairly limited and didn't really alter anything. We simply added new objects to the city to make it look like it had been taken over. With the scenarios, we can actually add brand new areas, like the orc dungeon or some of the stuff you will see in the upcoming scenario, as part of a story. In truth, the items make up a very small percentage of the actual content when you compare the number of items to the number of new monsters. The story will be much richer in the coming scenarios as well.
Nieves	Can we have the Ancient Wyrm or the Ancient Lich spawn randomly in dungeons once a day (not a set time)? This might sound like a stupid request, but I wouldn't mind seeing something like this.
Calandryll	We can change the spawn to work like that, but I'm not really sure we would want to. Spawn changes are very possible though, if they are part of the story.
Nieves	The masonry and glassblowing ideas: are they skills or "abilities" tied into other skills? Which ones?
Vex	All will become clear as the scenario progresses. :)
Nieves	Any new changes coming for Treasure Hunting?
Vex	None are planned at this time.
Nieves	Why the Guaranteed Gain System? What's the point? Most of your players have been around since UO:R and are way past the "new player" stage. If you are going to do it, fine, but I don't see why it's necessary at this point.
Vex	New players are starting UO accounts every day, and veteran players create new characters quite often. Guaranteed Gain helps veteran and new players alike. We feel strongly that, while Burst Hour was enormously successful, Guaranteed Gain provides more benefits with less exploitability.
Nieves	Are current skills that are never used going to be removed? Replaced with new ones? Changed so they become useful (like cooking was recently)?
Vex	Given time, anything is possible. Nothing has been decided about that right now, though.

References:

• http://web.archive.org/web/20011224175110/http://www.uopowergamers.com/a-oct01.shtml