UO Blog - High Seas in Retrospect - February 4th, 2011

New ships and sea content have been requested by the player base since literally 10 years. In October 2010, our wish finally came true. It now is time for a quick analysis of the effect this expansion (sorry, booster) had on the players and the game, and if it really managed to make UO more successful.

Content:

• Short Review of the High Seas Booster
• Prospects of Seafaring Content
• Did UO Benefit from High Seas?

Short Review of the High Seas Booster

With the High Seas booster finally the developers of Ultima Online seemed to have realized that constantly adding new landmasses ist absolutely unneccessary when there's so much unused space in the gaming world. As pointed out in a previous column, Ultima Online is full of deserted places nobody ever goes to. The water area is just one of them, only a very big one. While ships have been available in Ultima Online since the very beginning, sea adventures always were problematic. Lots of bugs, choppy ship movement and a lack of things to do while on a ship turned this feature into a niche. Not many players used boats, and until October 2010 one could safely assume that 90% of the players didn't even know how to navigate a vessel.

When we received news that an expansion called "Adventures on High Seas" was to be released, many players were very excited about it. When the High Seas booster was released, most players immediately went to the Sea Market to purchase one of the new ships. The features are actually quite cool:

• You can now acquire three new ships with lots of storage and the option to mount cannons on them. (Meanwhile, there even is a fourth ship, the Britannian Ship, which however is very difficult to get.) Artwork and features were really well done.
• The whole ship access concept has been revamped, it is more granular and it is similar to house access permissions. No more ship keys, yay!
• All ships now move smoothly, and they even can be navigated by using the mouse.
• Real sea battles with ship cannons are now possible. Handling of the cannons is very realistic, and while it seems a little annoying at the first glimpse to have to clean, charge, load and fuse the cannon after every shot, it adds a lot of realism and challenge to sea battles (since timing is essential).
• The crafting process of cannon charges and fuses is very time-consuming, expensive and resource-intensive. Many players don't want to do sea battles at all because it is such a hassle to prepare the necessary ammunition.
• The ship can go through different damage states that are even visible. If it is scuttled, it cannot move anymore and can be boarded. This is a great concept, since now sea battles actually make sense.
• Unfortunately, repairing a ship is again very resource-intensive. You need thousands of boards, cloth and ingots, and I wonder if this hurdle really adds to the gaming experience or just makes sea battles more annoying.
• New seafaring quests have been added, for example hunting for NPC pirate ships. Well done, however (considering the average uber-equipment of players) not really very challenging. The AI of the NPC pirates is not very sophisticated, but we didn't really expect more from UO.
• New boss monsters (Corgul and Osiredon) have been added. Especially Corgul and his secret moving island is very well thought out. Zillions of hit points and again mediocre AI, but still a fun experience.
• The new Sea Market is well done, and the solution for preventing cluttering and blocking of the docking area is perfect. I wish such places would become meeting points for certain groups of players, but since you can get everything almost everywhere and traveling spells are so common, the time of public meeting points in UO seems to be over anyway.
• Lots of new content for fishermen. New fish, new fishing quests, new rewards, and new cooking recipes to actually make something useful out of the new fish. However, after the thrill of the new is over, I still find fishing quite boring and something that doesn't make a lot of sense in UO. I could imagine lots of features that would make fishing more challenging, more adventure-like and more interesting.

Prospects of Seafaring Content

The way I see it is that the High Seas booster is one of the most successful expansions in UO ever (although it isn't really an expansion). It adds really great features to the existing environment, and players enjoy the existing landmass more than before. It also adds a new type of challenging player interaction (sea battles), even though hardly anybody utilizes it. The High Seas booster offers new gaming mechanics and new content that could be a fantastic foundation to build on. There are plenty of additional features and adventures you can produce based on this booster, some of which I have already described in my old "Concept for a Pirate Expansion" in 2009. Here are a few examples:

• Rich dungeon-like underwater world.
• More realism to seafaring (like weather effects).
• New concepts for sea warfare in Trammel (Letters of Marque).
• More secrets like treasure islands, dangerous reefs, sunken cities etc.
• More adventurous features for the fisherman, new fish with new features like whales, sharks, etc.
• Swimming and diving.
• More opportunities and reasons for PvP sea battles in Trammel.

Still, players should get more reasons to use a boat, especially since traveling spells are so common and you don't really need to spend the time sailing somewhere.

Did UO Benefit from High Seas?

I've been asking myself this question not only when High Seas was released, but also earlier. Technically, the High Seas booster was a milestone in UO game expansions (although there were some mean bugs in the beginning, especially with fishing). Finally the game designers dared a new approach of adding content. Instead of just adding new land, races or skills, they actually improved existing orphaned content in a fabulous way.

However, how much did this help to increase the player base? How many new subscriptions did High Seas accomplish? Since no official numbers are released, I can only guess. By looking at two or three of my favorite shards, and by hearing what other people say about their shards, I have a rather clear impression. While the subscriptions may neither have increased or decreased noticably, the player activity has gone down steadily. Especially when you are active in communities and guilds you will notice that most players only log in occasionally, not regularly. While in the heydays of UO players literally spent many hours a day in game, today the average player might only be online for a couple of hours per week. This lack of activity is a vicious circle, because the less people you meet online the more and more rarely you log on. And even expensions like the High Seas will not change that.

What many fail to understand is that items, new content and features (some call it "pixel crack") will only satisfy the player for a relatively short time - until he has acquired those items and explored the new content. Afterwards, he will be even more bored than before. The only thing that really pulls people into a game in the long term, that makes it difficult for them to log out and makes them so addicted that they can't wait to log in again, is an active community. It is the interaction with other players. It is all the fun, adventure, conflicts and drama that arise from spending time with other people, especially in a fantasy world. You can create an adventure by putting a quest system into the game and add a quest. But you can create millions of versatile and unexpected adventures by having an active player base and by giving them the freedom they need.

The High Seas booster has proven one thing: UO game designers have understood what it takes to make a good game expansion. Now they have to learn how to create a fertile breeding ground for communities and how to draw in fresh people.

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