UO Blog - Revolutionzing Ultima Online - February 17th, 2010

When you look at Ultima Online today, you see an exremely versatile game with high complexity and vast content. When you analyze the content, you will soon find out that the game consists of a lot of features lying idle, as players strive for new and challenging things to do. However, the potential of UO is gigantic, and it has not even slighty been tapped.
 

Content:

• Introduction - Ultima Online Today
• The Potential of Ultima Online
• Improving the Game Client
• About Static and Dynamic Content
• Everything Needs To Have a Purpose
• Introducing Creature AI
• Improving Monster AI
• NPC AI
• PvP and Player Griefing
• The Coexistence of Good and Evil
• Abolishing the Trammel/Felucca-Spilt?
• Filling UO With Adventure
• Game Atmosphere

Introduction - Ultima Online Today

Ultima Online has been the most persistent MMORPG on the market. The subscription numbers seem to be relatively constant, deviating within normal boundaries around the number of 100,000. Most players are UO veterans who have been in this game for a long time. Some of these players go, and some of them return after a break. As many players have several accounts, the number of real players is certainly lower. UO seems not to have a significant number of really new subscribers, i.e. people who never have played the game before. (These statements are based on my long experience with UO and my thorough observation.)
 

Ultima Online contains more than 50,000 unique objects (items) for both decoration and practical use. Those could be anything from weapons, armor, clothing, tools, furniture or deco items to plants. The world of Ultima Online consists of 16 game servers, called shards. Each of these shards contains 6 landmasses (Britannia, Lost Lands, Ilshenar, Malas, Tokuno, Ter Mur). Two of them (Britannia and Lost Lands) have been mirrored many years ago into the two facets Trammel and Felucca. This means, we have 8 landmasses total on each server.
 

One thing that distinguishes UO most from other MMORPGs, is that UO consists of an unmatched number of „games inside the game“, allowing players to do a lot of different things. You can fight monsters or players, hunt, socialize, grow plants, breed animals, tame creatures, cook, mix potions, craft, build and decorate houses, fish, dig for treasure, solve quests, hold events, etc. The list seems endless. UO does not even force you to fight. You can spend a long time in the game without having to use weapons.
 

The developers make sure that players don't lose interest in the game by continuously adding more land, creatures and content by releasing expansions. Players are „bound“ to the game not only by the community, but also by their virtual possessions, like valuable items, exceptional skills, or their customized house.
 

---

The Potential of Ultima Online

Content and Complexity (Breadth)

Adding more and more content gives players new things to do and new goals to achieve. It makes the game broader, but it also makes the game more complex. Just take a look at the Stygian Abyss expansion: A lot of great places, dungeons, skills and systems have been introduced. Those additions were great for the veteran players, until they had discovered it all. Now, activity is dwindling again.

Let's face the fact: Pure content-based add-ons can catch the players' attention
for no longer than 6 months, before they will be bored again.

Is there a limit of adding new content? Especially new players feel totally lost when they face the inscrutable mass of information they're confronted with when playing UO. Complexity is good, up to a certain limit. But does the amount of content really improve a game? When a player advances, many features of UO will become unattractive, as they do not offer a challenge anymore and have lost its novelty. Because of that, you could say that 90% of the game content is only used by 5 % of the players. (Examples: Hardly anybody ventures into the Virtue Dungeons anymore, as the creatures are not challenging. Nobody explores the land anymore, as it already is known and there's nothing to do.)

Content and Quality (Depth)

Keeping players at it by adding more and more content is a vicious circle. It is like owning a photo store and adding more and more different camera models to the product line. At a certain point the customer will be confused by the vast number of cameras, which all do more or less the same thing. Due to a lack of innovation, the customer will probably go to a different store. The more clever thing to do would be, to replace existing models by cameras with new exciting features and better quality. Improving established cameras with better features will not only keep customers interested in your store, it will also attract many new customers.

Now imagine what you could achive if you'd take all the broad content of Ultima Online and make it deeper! Take existing land, creatures, features and add intelligence and functionality to them. You would not only improve the quality of UO immensely, but you'd also create something that never has been achieved by any MMORPG. And this would definitely attract a lot of really new players to the game.

In January 2010, I made a rather representative poll (456 active Ultima Online players have been asked) which yielded an interesting result: The average age of an UO player is approximately 37. 71% of the players is older than 30 years. Only 4% of the players is 20 or younger. From this result, you can derive that UO fails to attract young customers. You can conclude that most of the UO players are veterans. However, it is safe to say that the number of veterans will never grow. It will naturally decrease. To make a game more successful, it is essential to appeal young gamers.
 

---

Improving the Game Client

The Classic Ultima Online Client (Legacy Client) is 12 years old. Let's face the facts: This client is extremely out-dated. Even on high-end computers with perfect connection, the screen is moving choppy. The resolution is limited to 800x600 pixels. It is extremely difficult to prevent client manipulation (and thus hacks giving other players unfair advantages). And last but not least, the graphics look really old.

It is very obvious that players who do not have any sentimental connection to Ultima Online will never even take a closer look at that game, simply because it looks and feels outdated. No matter how good the content is. If the subscription numbers are to be increased, a modern game client is a prerequisite! The argument that the Legacy Client can run on 10-year-old computers might be relevant for a small number of veteran UO players. But the majority of gamers out there have computers that are able to handle much more than a modern UO client would require.

There have been several attempts to introduce a new game client. The Third Dawn Client and the Kingdom Reborn Client failed. Not because the players didn't want a new client, but because they were poorly done. Both clients had too many technical and graphical issues.

The new Enhanced Client (using the Gamebryo engine, just like the Kingdom Reborn Client) is the first alternative with potential. However, it still suffers from a lot of issues and seems to be neglected, and the object graphics consist mostly on old low resolution pixel objects.

The resolution of game objects in the Enhanced Client is too poor (which you notice when you zoom). It needs better graphics to attract new players. Several of the new graphics from its predecessor (the Kingdom Reborn client) were not bad (e.g. plants and boats), while others looked just wrong in size and perspective. Concerning graphics, Kingdom Reborn was a step in the right direction, and it is a pity that this had been given up in the new Enhanced Client.

In the long term, I am convinced that supporting two game clients will cause unnecessary cost. Also, the existence of the old client prevents the evolution of Ultima Online, as several new/improved features will not work with the Legacy Client. If a new game client is done well, it would not be a big problem to finally stop supporting the outdated Legacy Client after a transitional period. It is important to eliminate compromises that constrain progress.
 

---

About Static and Dynamic Content

So far, Ultima Online has received 10 expansions, which increased the number of available landmasses from 1 to 8. The number of dungeons has increased from 7 to 59. The diversity of creatures and monsters has increased extremely, too.

As mentioned above, these expansions make the game broader by adding more content. However, is it really that much of a difference whether you fight an Ogre from 1998 or a Goblin from 2009? Other than looking different, the principle remains the same. It spawns, attacks you, you kill it and loot it, it respawns.
It is true that new eye candy can renew the players' interest into the game. But only for a limited time. To keep them interested, you constantly have to feed them with new content. Meanwhile, UO is so filled with content that most of it remains unused. The old content has simply palled.

Let's take a look at the overground land of Britannia. This land is huge, filled with animals, monsters, landmarks and beauty. But nobody bothers to venture out into the wild to explore it. The landmarks have no function, no riddles or secrets. The animals just walk around, doing nothing, offering nothing a player would need. The monsters are no challenge for the average player anymore, since equipment has become so much more powerful. There's really no point in going there, as everything is static - the same old.
The same thing happened with the new landmasses, like the Lost Lands, Malas or Tokuno. Certain places in Ilshenar are still being visited once in a while due to the Champion Spawns and the associated rewards. The rest is dead or only used for player housing.

Is it really the right strategy to simply create new content when the old one becomes boring? I think not. Because the old content is broad and rich and offers a lot of room for improvement. What a game like this needs to remain attractive, is a certain amount of unpredictability. It has to be dynamic, always changing. It has to make players venture out because they will never know what expects them. It has to offer the player constantly new things to discover.
 

---

Everything Needs To Have a Purpose

Ultima Online is full of items and even skills that serve no real purpose. A very good example, as it perfectly shows the correlation of things, is eating. You can eat and drink in UO, but it makes no difference at all. the functionality is actually there, but it never was fully implemented. As eating is futile, hunting animals, gathering raw food and the Cooking skill are rather useless as well. Besides, you could buy any kind of food from an NPC vendor for such a low price, that it is not worth the trouble to cook it yourself. This is only one example.

An MMORPG will be more fascinating, the more realistic and challenging it is. Challenges that can be mastered by intuitive playing are motivating and add to the fun. A simple trip through the wilderness could become an adventure you have to plan, not just a boring walk in the park. However, this would have to be balanced thoroughly, because you don't want players to worry about eating and drinking more than actually the adventure itself. It is important not to annoy the player with too many useless obstacles.

Back to eating: Imagine that if you don't eat for a long time, you will lose stamina and in the end also health (hit points). If you refuse to eat for a long time, you could starve to death. If you strain yourself by riding, running or fighting, you will have to eat even sooner. The profession of a hunter would become very interesting. Combined with cooking skill, you could provide the adventurer with high quality food, better than everything he could buy in a shop. Suddenly, the wildlife got a purpose and players will be hunting animals.

This was only one example of many. Sheeps can be shorn, cows can be milked. But they, too, lack a purpose. Time to think about a change! The next task would be, to make hunting more challenging...
 

---

Introducing Creature AI

Animals. Ultima Online is full of them. Rabbits, sheep, cattle, deer, wolves, bears and whatnot. They spawn in a certain location. They stand, walk around, and do nothing. If you approach them, they will ignore you. They can easily be killed with one or two hits of a weapon. This makes me wonder why they are there in the first place. Have they been implemented to make the world seem less empty?

What creatures need, are not only a purpose, but also more complex and intelligent reactions. Every creature in Ultima Online should be driven by its individual needs, and change their behavior once the need has been satisfied:

• If hungry, search for appropriate food. Hunt/eat. Wander as far as necessary to find food.
• If not hungry, start looking for a shelter. If a shelter was previously chosen, go there.
• If in the lair and not hungry, look for things of desire. If those things are found, bring them back to the lair.
• If attacked, defend or fly, depending on the strength of the enemy.
• Animals that survive a long time should become stronger.
• The spawn points of animals should move, according to the environmental influences.

As you can see, the needs and behavior of a sheep will differ from those of a bear. Let's take a look at how hunting would work in such an environment:

You go to the woods to hunt for food. Unnaturally, no deer can be found. Suddenly, you come across a grizzly bear, and you realize that it has chased all the deer away. The bear notices you, and as it currently is hungry, it immediately attacks. As you don't have any raw meat on you which you could lay down to distract it, you decide do flee, as a hungry grizzly will probably mince you, and you're too hungry to get into a dangerous fight. The bear runs fast, but you manage to hide and sneak away. Suddenly you discover several deer in a clearing. As you approach, they notice you and run away. Thanks to your bow, you manage to slay two hinds. You roast the meat at a campfire, which yields food for two days (UO days).

Each type of animal provides different food and hides. Some meat is better to keep up the health, others is better to keep up stamina. Some meat helps to regenerate faster, others will keep you awake and your mana in good condition. The best way to catch rabbits would be, to lay out traps. Their pack instinct makes wolves dangerous, if they come in groups. A pack of wolves should be avoided. They usually hunt in packs, surrounding their victim. Birds actually fly and can only be hunted with bow and arrow. Boars yield a lot of good meat, but they are careful and not easy to find. Some animals are active at day, others at night.

A trapper can craft various types of traps and bait for hunting different kinds of animals. However, traps can be stolen by someone who has the Stealing skill (which would be a criminal act). Trappers sometimes hunt in groups, laying out a number of traps and chasing animals into them.

All this will keep the wildlife in constant change. If a hunter kills a lot of deer, he might have (unwittingly) deprived a dragon of its food supply. The dragon then would increase its search radius, and even could invade a nearby village and start feeding on players. The players wouldn't necessarily have to kill the dragon; they could lure it away by herded animals or laying out large numbers of meat. Being fed, the dragon would then retreat to its cave. If a human interferes with the biological cycle, it could lead to unpredictable effects.

(All this can actually be done. I have personally witnessed a creature AI similar to my description working on a test shard.)
 

---

Improving Monster AI

Current monsters do not really excel at their intelligent behavior. They spawn in a certain area and simply attack any intruder. If a monster is killed, it respawns after short time. The so-called Champion Spawn areas have a feature that spawns more powerful monsters, if enough of the previous monster class have been slain.

This is rather predictable and boring. If people are looking for a certain reward, they just recall into the associated spawn area and kill the monsters until they receive the reward. It is guaranteed that the monsters will be there, waiting to be slain. This makes not only adventuring futile, it also takes the challenge out of hunting.

With an improved artificial intelligence (AI), monsters could react to their environment and create always different scenarios of threat:

• Monsters can check the number and strength of the intruders, and if necessary retreat and call for reinforcements.
• Monsters can be able to group and engage a single target.
• The longer a monster survives, the stronger it should be.
• The more enemies a monster has slain, the more riches it should have gathered.
• Like animals, monsters should be driven by needs. They can leave the dungeon and go hunting. They can gather riches and carry them back into their cave (to lock them into treasure chests).
• If too many monsters have been slain in a dungeon, the monsters could randomly plan an attack on the nearest town. They could leave the dungeon at night, invading a city.

Wouldn't it be better to make monsters more intelligent, instead of simply putting bigger and stronger monsters into the game? Giving a monster 10,000 hitpoints seems like a sorry excuse for not having monsters with intelligent behavior. Here is a simple example of what can easily be done with Mage AI:

Spellcasting monsters should receive a major overhaul, instead of just assigning a higher damage factor to their spells and giving them thousands of hit points. They should try and keep distance to their enemy, like any spellcasting player would. They should use special moves like disarm. They should cast spells according to their enemy's weakness. If low on health, they should run away and heal themselves. They should work together, heal and cure each other. Their skill and loot should increase up to a certain limit, if they manage to slay their enemies.

Farming and Scripting for Rewards

Another big problem is that creatures are respawning at exactly the same location over and over again, mostly immediately after they have been slain. This does not only make dungeon adventures impossible (cause you will never be able to clear an area and move on), but it also encourages farming and scripting. It eliminates all the fun of adventuring, traveling and discovery. People just recall/run to their favorite spot and hack away on the same monster again and again and again, until they get the desired reward. A quite common remark amongst players is: "I've been in this cave slaying the monster XXX for 10 hours now. I've been working my arse off to get this artie." Game mechanics should encourage adventures, not mindless repetitive tasks. If people get rewards for rinse and repeat, but don't get rewarded for exploring and adventuring, then there's something wrong with the role playing game.
 

---

NPC AI

Thousands of Non Player Characters (NPCs) inhabit Britannia, some of the good, some evil. Their AI, too, is practically non-existant. One of the best examples of unrealistic NPC AI are the town guards. One hit kills, invulnerable - come on! NPCs should be able to access the same abilities and features of a normal player. They should get their advantage by fighting 100% efficiently (as they're run by a script), not by getting thousands of hit points and dealing unrealistic high damage. Here are some examples of how NPC guards could be improved:

• It should be very difficult, but not impossible to kill a guard.
• Guards should loot items from their victims, and actually replace their own equipment by looted items, if those are better. This way, the equipment of a guard would automatically improve over time.
• It should be possible to disarm NPCs. However, they will rearm themselves with the best weapon they can find in their backpack. This way, they may even switch from a sword to a bow and change their fighting behavior during combat.
• Guards should use bandages to heal themselves, they should chug potions, or even poison their blade if they have the appropriate weapon and poisoning skill.
• This way, the fighting experience against such NPCs will be completely different, very challenging and fun, as the NPC acts more like a real player, and less like a predictable MOB.
• Guards should have the ability to call for help, so other guards in the vicinity (like 2 screens away) would come to assist them.
• Guards could patrol certain areas or even change shifts at certain times, thus making a little room for a siege or an invasion of a town.

There are many many more examples of NPC improvements that would make the game more exciting, dynamic, adventure-like and realistic. Like vendors closing their shops at night. Vendors and NPCs that are vulnerable and can actually be slain (albeit not looted). Or vendors pricing their wares according the shard-wide demand (similar to reagent vendors, but more sophisticated).
 

---

PvP and Player Griefing

One of the most important and controversely discussed subjects of MMORPGs is nonconsensual PvP (player versus player fighting). UO has a long history of PvP. I won't go into details about this development here; I have written about it extensively in one of my previous blogs.

The original idea of UO was that players would govern themselves, and game mechanics should interfere as little as possible with the player's choice between good and evil. This would form communities, cause players to stick together and take sides. While the idea was great in theory, it didn't work out too well. UO was haunted by rampant player killing, griefing and cheating, causing many players to leave the game. After several other attempts, game designers decided to solve this problem by splitting the world into two facets (called Trammel and Felucca). In one facet, nonconsensual player killing was impossible. In the other facet, player killing was unrestricted.

The problems arising from this shaped Ultima Online until today. On the one hand, Felucca still allows unlimited mass-murdering and player griefing. On the other hand, Trammel is home to players who want to play a risk-free item-based game. The splitting of the world caused a lot of communities to break apart and fade. It opened Felucca as a niche for players who had fun with mass-murdering and who could afford the necessary equipment, and banned the rest of the players into a world without risk and challenge and without the necessity of player interaction. The original concept had been destroyed for good.

Today, most game designers know that the coexistence of good and evil in the same world is an essential feature of any MMORPG. It is what welds players together, forms communities, creates unlimited adventures. Implementing artificial PvP boundaries, like PvP switches or PvP zones, destroys all that and only proves that the game designer was not able to come up with realistic solutions.

Why did the original idea fail? It failed, cause it lacked the required tools to create a balance between good and evil. Players never really were able to govern themselves. "Good" players felt victimized and helpless against "evil" players.

After putting a lot of thought into the PvP dilemma, it became clear that the root of the problem was that the player was forced to make a choice. A choice between Felucca and Trammel. A choice between black and white. All the players who preferred the greys migrated to other MMORPGs. This needs to be solved!

---

The Coexistence of Good and Evil

As mentioned above, the coexistence of good and evil is extremely important for any multiplayer game. It adds challenge to the game, unmatched by any creature AI. It makes the game dynamic and less predictable. It gives people something to fight for, and forms communities.

More precisely: On principle, being evil should be possible everywhere in the gaming world, but it also should have serious consequences depending on where and how the crime was committed. Players must have the possibility to choose the amount of risk they're exposing themselves to. There have to be realistic ways to avoid danger, just like in real life. However, it should not be possible to switch off any risk completely, just like you never can completely prevent being the target of a pickpocket in real life. The basic concept consists of the following principles:

• Almost the same rules for Trammel and Felucca.
• Each character has a criminal record where all his criminal acts are stored for a long time.
• If there's a witness to the crime, the consequences for the criminal are more severe.
• Detectives can hunt criminals and put them in jail, if they have examined the crime scene.
• Criminals will be punished according to their crime record, if they are caught.

Criminal Record

Each crime will be stored as marks on the criminal record. The number of marks you get for a crime depends on:

• The type of the crime committed (murder, theft, looting an innocent, beneficial acts to a criminal)
• Whether there was a witness (without a witness, the criminal gets only a „suspicion mark“)
• Special marks for previous convictions (the number of times a criminal has been caught)

Those marks will be erased („decay“) after some time. Previous convictions will last 6 months, all other marks will last 3 months. The more marks on the record, the more severe the punishment if the criminal gets caught.

This system is meant to make a difference between someone who only commits criminal acts occasionally, and a notorious mass murderer. Unlike today, where people in Felucca can commit as many crimes as they like as sports, without a real consequence other than "being red".

The Witness System

The witness system will prevent excessive criminal acts in a realistic way. When committing a crime somewhere in the secluded wilderness with no witness around, the criminal will only receive a suspicion mark on his criminal record. If there's a witness around (any player or NPC who is alive), he will receive more heavy marks on his crime record.

Thus, each player can choose the risk he wants to expose himself to. While cities will always be relatively safe due to the number of players and NPCs around, it is always a good idea to have company out in the wild. If you stick to the roads that will be frequented by NPCs, a murderer will think twice before attacking you. If you're hunting alone in some dungeon cave, a murderer might get away with only a suspicion.

On the other hand, criminals have to be more careful and sneaky, and they too have a risk to consider before harming another player.

Detectives

A new profession will give players a realistic chance to hunt down criminals. Every player with a clean criminal record can acquire a license as a detective or bounty hunter. He can use the existing Forensic Evaluation skill to examine a crime scene. Depending on the skill level, he has 5-15 minutes after the date of crime to examine the corpse or the person that has been stolen from. He then will receive a blessed (non-lootable) warrant with the name of the culprit on it. The warrant will also show the current landmass and coordinates where the culprit can be found (if he is online). This warrant will last for 2 weeks before it crumbles.

To give the detective a good chance to defeat the (probably well equipped) criminal, he will receive a bonus: Each mark on the culprit's criminal record will increase the damage he receives from the detective who has the appropriate warrant in his pocket. Also, the level of the detective's Forensic Evaluation skill will determine his defense bonus against any criminal.

For defeating a notorious criminal, the detective will receive a bounty hunter ticket. When turning in a number of tickets, the detective can select from several useful rewards (which will be bound to the character and the detective profession).

Punishment

If a criminal is defeated by a detective who has a warrant against him, he will be held liable for all the misdoings stored on his criminal record. In other words, he will receive punishment, the severity depending on the number of marks on his record. It is important that the punishment hurts especially notorious criminals, but doesn't completely destroy their way of playing Ultima Online. A lot of testing and tweaking will be necessary to find an appropriate balance. Suitable punishments could be:

• Jail-time: The character is actually locked into the Yew Prison for a number of days, thus not available for playing UO. (The player can still use other characters.)
• Bailment: Possibility to shorten (but not erase) the jail-time by paying a lot of gold.
• Expropriation: Insured items of the convict will be confiscated and can only be released after a certain amount of gold was payed.
• Pillory: Character will be pilloried in public for 2 hours, and people can throw fruit and cabbage at him.

 

Abolishing the Trammel/Felucca-Spilt?

It is obvious that the system described above can only work, if the difference between Trammel and Felucca is diminished. As merging those facets will be impossible due to existing player houses, the rulesets have to be adapted. Suggestions:

• PvP rules in Trammel and Felucca are the same. In theory, crimes are possible anywhere.
• In Trammel, access to cities, moongate areas and the first level of dungeons is not allowed for people with many marks on their crime record.
• The land of Felucca is turned into an old Britannia lying in ruins. A Britannia that is destroyed, but still breathes the history of the Early Days.
• Cities and guard towers in Felucca will be redesigned and will lie in ruins. Shops in Felucca will not function anymore. Only Buccaneer's Den will have functioning shops and a bank. No more guard protection in town, no more NPCs (except for wandering healers). Instead, cities will be haunted by Undead and other evil creatures.
• Felucca Cities will be like overground dungeons. They will be home to dangerous creatures, and you can detect secret vaults and cellars beneath the debris of old houses.
• The dungeons of Felucca will be removed (we don't need copies of Trammel dungeons). Instead, all dungeon entrances in Felucca will be connected by a gigantic web of underground caves and tunnels, that will serve as a new vast dungeon system. These caves will be home to ancient horrors of the Early Days of Britannia.

This way, Felucca will become a whole new interesting area which can be visited by both, criminals and good people. The risk for adventurers is only slightly higher (due to a lack of NPC guards) but still acceptable. Traveling there will be worthwhile for every player, as it offers something new.
 

---

Filling UO With Adventure

First of all, it should be considered to restrict recalling in certain areas. But before doing that, it has to be guaranteed that the journey to the destination is not a boring nuisance, but is actually worth the while. Also, the casual gamer who doesn't have time for a 3-hour-gaming-session should be able to choose from enough challenging game content without having to spend too much time. There are several possibilities to limit traveling spells: Only allow recalling out of certain areas (like already in Ilshenar or Felucca Dungeons), or setting a weight limit for recall spells in general.

Back to the adventure: UO is full of fantastic landmarks, dungeons and places, but nobody cares about them because they have no function or meaning. The world contain lots of more or less random features, secrets, riddles and adventures that encourage people to wander through the wilderness to discover things. The world should also be full of risk and adventure. I have extensively described several examples in older bolgs here and here.
 

Add intelligent creature and monster behavior, and venturing out into the wild will be a full-blown adventure!

I even could imagine that in very rare occasions players could be infected with a plague (maybe when fighting a certain monster hidden somewhere in the depths of the dungeon), turning into a shard-wide event. This plague could be transferred to players standing close to the sick player, and it could cause slight hit point loss over time. Players then would have to solve a quest to find a cure for the disease, which will be made available through an NPC vendor.

---

Game Atmosphere

The importance of game atmosphere should not be underestimated. The more impressive the atmosphere, the better we can dive into the gaming world and "live" our adventures. The atmosphere of UO is somewhat rudimentary, and also limited by client technology. However, there are several functions in UO that offer a lot of room for improvement:

• Day and night: (Equivalent to darnkess in dungeons.) It is there, but has no meaning. It can easily be switched off by using Night Sight spell/potions/items. Nights should be dark, days should be bright. Night Sight should offer a slight improvement, but not turn night into day. Torches and lanterns should have a use. If you fight in a cave, you could place a few lanterns to light up the scenery. The transition between day and night should be smoother. Darkness at night could also differ, depending on the moon phase.
• Seasons: The game has already received an upgrade, as during winter the ground is covered with snow (see screenshots here). It would be no big deal to make trees changing foilage in autumn and winter. Red leaves in autumn, barren trees in winter. Let it snow in winter, let it rain during the other seasons.
• Weather Effects: It would add a lot to the atmosphere, if weather effects would be added and actually had a meaning in UO. Traveling in cold regions should require warm clothing (e.g. a robe) and cold resistance, otherwise the hit points would slowly decrease. Running around naked in these regions for a long time could cause sickness or even death. Traveling in warm southern regions should require light clothing (no plate armor), otherwise stamina would slowly decrease when walking. During a thunderstorm, there should be a minor chance that a player gets hit by a lightning. In the morning, there would be a chance of having fog on the shores, during which sometimes undead are haunting the coastline. During a thunderstorm, it should get darker.
• Current: This actually would be a great addition for a Seafaring Expansion. A logical current system on the ocean (similar to the Gulf Stream) could influence the speed and direction of a boat. Of course, this would only make sense if boats were used more commonly.

I am sure there are many more ways to improve the game atmosphere, not only optically, but also by adding function to it. Unfortunately, the way Night Sight is implemented today allows us to completely circumvene the little bit of atmosphere we have in UO, and most people do that out of convenience. Sometimes we even organize dungeon adventures where Night Sight is prohibited. It adds a lot to the fun if you try it!
 

---

The question remains, with all the recent lay-offs from Electronic Arts and a lot of good UO Developers gone (Draconi, Sakkarah and others), have the chances decreased that UO will ever be revolutionized?

[ Back to the main page ]