It’s a toss up for me...
Fel/Tram Split or Itemization of Properties
100% LRC is a good choice. It was a quality of life issue and I can see why they did it. LRC should have been capped at something like 75% But in the early days (not so much now) it was a good limiter on mages because it did limit what else could be on their suits. I remember for a long while100% LRC, 40%LMC was not attainable with all 70 resists or bucket loads of MR. So much so that I didnt PvP with 100% LRC often as I just carried around regs like I was used to doing, in order to prioritize other properties.
Trammel. I don't like mirrored worlds. I would have preferred other mechanisms.
I like most things but new Despice was a blow to new players and characters.
I joined UO in 1999, I loved playing then. New player exploring without a clue as to where I was going. Only direction was that from people at Brit bank saying "run N NW until you hit a mountain pass. Despise is that way. So off I headed. Training in the Bone Knight room with about 50 people, I did however like the addition of Age of Shadows. Suits weren't terribly complicated with attributes like LRC, LMC, etc. there were items tailored to both mages and dexxers. Now if you don't live UO, you have mediocre items, cant afford anything, have to listen to General chat and all the people thinking they own UO. (you don't). Its taken a turn for the worse for a long time, yet I still play.
Not making Trammel the ONLY place to play. They should have made the original world have Tram rules when they saw things imploding.
Trammel, Pub 16, itemisation in Age of Shadows and the easy mode that followed. Not to mention the centralisation of cities like Luna and Britain making everything else redundant.
See, I am going to go with something outside of the usual "I hate Tram, AoS, etc" and say the removal of Kingdom Reborn.
I personally believe that it was one of the most short sighted decisions in the history of the game, a new client with updated art that could appeal to the a new generation of players. It had the potential of pushing the game in a whole new direction, removing tile based movement and giving the developers the ability to create art/content for (what at the time was a decade old client).
While not all the art was the best, nor was it completely bug free at launch (I remember guys, I was there, I get it), if they had continued to work on it - it would have aged well and to this day the art looks still pretty ok (over a decade later). It would be much easier to get people into the game with it, than the Enhanced Client (which looks awful and follows no actual UI conventions at all) or the Classic Client which is basically worthless unless you've spent the last two decades running in it.
Ultima Online isn't a game that lacks content or potential and could definitely appeal to a wide audiance today, but its presentation is trash now thanks to decisions to either stay two decades in the past or clobber together 'something that works'.
1) Not allowing HTML Rune Books/Runes
2) Vendor fees
3) Imbuing
Why stop at LRC? All the special properties are bad. Should have just stuck with slayers, exceptional, and Vanquishing. The armor should still be better as you use higher end ingredients.
I loved the look of KR client, so yeah...
Some of KR was awesome the monsters etc but most of the terrain and stone walls were ugly most oooked washed out and all pink and baby blue pastel colors just horrific looking
I would say bringing back starting location by choice. New Haven at one point in the game was a recruitment ground for all guilds and especially on Europa where we had a lot of roleplaying guilds hurt the flow of our memberships. The game was too spread out as it was and New Haven should have remained the starting point..
Making dungeons harder. I could see re-vamping the spawn, but making them more difficult? No, there isn't enough players and it will be extremely hard for new players in all the difficult dungeons they have now.. At one point on Europa, the RP community would only wear crafted non-magical armor and weapons only and we had to change this when going into dungeons (and it was a very large community)
These two changes made all the roleplayers on Europa quit for the most part when it was an extremely busy RP community. It wasn't long after that everyone just stopped playing, because the RP community couldn't get around its own rules and restrictions we made for ourselves and we did it to balance PVP since we was a RP-PVP community and based entirely on making it as realistic as possible.
1. Trammel
2. Resists and item stats beyond vanquishing , power, silver etc. (it really made no sense in Ultima lore, this was basically to try to attract the Diablo crowd.. then it turns out Diablo did away with resists and made it easier for players to understand, surprise surprise - player quality of life went up! ) . These days you got to know exactly what is good or bad, or you risk throwing away a 200m item among all the "crap" loot you get.
3. Thoughtless neon deco and items. Ultima series wasnt a neon-fest, but these days it is.
4. Killing volunteer program in 2001. Global events etc.
5. Malas. Yeah, sorry houseowners but Malas is greenacres with some mountains strewn in between. It's flat and pretty ugly and was a quickfix to housing problem.
6. Deciding to never consolidate shards. Too many shards split the remaining playerbase.
I'd propagate for a shard consolidation program. Offer new house plots to people based on two values: a) how long the house has stood. b) size of house lockdowns . Create a new landmass only open to the consolidated shard, with these plots that are smilar to star-room / abyss plots.
Use best fit algorithm to find new places for peoples house plots and to allow people to keep their house / guilds together. Eventually these areas can also be consolidated and people can choose to move to normal landmass if they wish.
I recently came back and I would have to agree the Tram/ Fel split was among the worst thing done but something had to be done to curb what the majority of players disliked.
I like the EC client but would be nicer to be able to use the 2d models. Going back to the classic client just doesn't have the "fluidness" EC has. It's like playing with frame stutter. Ew
Oh also a huge mistake was not going with a anti cheat system which I'm surprised it still doesn't have. Yes they aren't prefect but better then nothing.
They made this game too easy.....and yet people still stick their hands out asking for more, more, more!
Transfer tokens and shard shields.
Also high up there and more just annoying............ Haven being destroyed and the Hobo camp known as New Haven being born. And the Destruction of Despise and replacing it with a mini game.
Without transfers R.M.T sites wouldn't exist. That's why some people argue to keep them, wonder why that is? LOL
I was always disappointed with the lack of a real PVE story-line that could be considered the main story, aside from player and coordinator created content. The lack of good quests was dis-enchanting. Coming back and seeing quests expanded upon was a nice welcome, but still a widely missed opportunity for the game to stay interesting and grow.
Honestly, it's a shame the game was sold to EA. EA is notorious for poor game content. I think that was the Ultima franchise's biggest mistake.
Nostalgia, the tamer changes, and housing keep me interested. One of the hugest things going for UO right now is the fully rendered non-instanced housing and the animal taming engine that you can get sunk into for months.
Elder Scrolls, another obsession of mine, has player housing that is pretty interesting, but quite expensive. Final Fantasy 14 has housing and it's great.
UO's housing though is still really enjoyable after all these years.
town bonus that excludes reds
