WAITAMINNIT - UO? ROLEPLAYING? SCREW THAT, WHERE’S MY GLOCK… [Author: lum]
Banstyle has a few things to say. You may disagree with some of them, but hell, that’s what makes America great (or whatever country you happen to be in, unless it’s Australia, in which case it’s a great country with 900+ ms ping times)
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I did some brainstorming over the weekend. Did anyone else notice that OSI has been giving us alot of goodies lately? (i.e.: Skill Control / Management, death of blue healers, more exceptional quality items, “Change name” Registrar, and not to mention the incredibly stupid “bless item” trashcan system) Anyone put some thought into why these changes are going in so fast? Is there some competition out there that we don’t know about?
Lets take Skill Control for a second and analyses why in god’s name this exists and OSI is even considering implementing it into Britainnia:
Roleplay Factor:
Basically, I’ll be honest. I think the people at OSI are very smart people, not all of them though. Here we have a system that lets you take control of what you learn and do not learn while adventuring in this world. No roleplay value whatsoever. In the past, before changes we made and things were added daily, alterations used to go through a little roleplay test. For instance, remember back in the Necromancy “hope” days when some bright-eyed Dev Team member created a way to “change your character’s gender” via a potion? Well, luckily it was never implemented into the normal shards, but the fact that it was actually considered and created on Test Center amazes me. A potion that changes your character’s sex. Again, no roleplay value whatsoever. It is on the borderline of not making any sense at all. It was an idea at first, then it went into a little room where people think about how it can be added into the game in a “roleplay” fashion. I fear that system is dead, and there is a good reason for it, which I will get into later.
Being able to “control” what you learn and what you do not strikes me as odd. It is the same as if I, in my character, were to physically open my head up and take out the unnecessary memory portions of my brain. It has no roleplay value, it shouldn’t be part of a roleplaying game.
PvP Factor:
“But what if roleplaying is dead anyway? What else is there to screw with?” said OSI, in a low, surly voice.
Now we see PvP as something that has been virtually torn apart from day one. The great thing about the PvP’er is that they adapt to whatever change OSI executes. You could basically nerf magery down to Magic Arrow and the mages of the world would still continue to fight/PK/war with each other until the end of time, only after a few harsh words, of course, but I blame that on the Ritalin.
Skill Control will forever change PvP as we know it. We will now see 6xGM mages (with, lets say, 50 hiding skill) hide from their enemies, and the Grandmaster Swordsman BillyBob using a mace because its the only weapon he had at the time. These are just examples, but the possibilities are endless. Joe the Cook, for instance, used to cook Freddie’s fishsteaks after he fished for hours at a time. Now Joe is useless, for Freddie can cook his own steaks after a few tries, and not worry about losing his GM fishing status. More money for Freddie. It goes on and on.
Long Term Factor:
The whole point of this essay is to come to grips with the beginning of the end. All these changes would ruin the economy of Britainnia within the next four months. These changes came *directly* after the announcement of UO2. There is no surprise what is happening here.
UO is dying. It will soon be replaced by it’s new and improved rival offspring. OSI’s focus has now changed from “Help the economy and player community to last a long and wonderful life.” to “Make the customer happy.” Finally! No more stupid-ass patches. Less lag. Skill Control. Make any item newbiefied! Everything we ever wanted and bitched about over the past year is finally coming to us, and it’s coming fast. Why?
If you ask me, it’s because UO is not going to last long, and OSI wants to remind you that they are the nice people here. This way, they’ll know you’d forget all the bad blood that has happened in the past, and remember what they wanted you to remember. Not a bad idea, I actually applaud them. Within the next year, you will find you will be very happy with UO. You will slowly and surely get everything you asked for, and once you change over to UO2, you will see this whole downward spiral, happen all over again.