All Hands on Deck! Your ideas wanted!

[scadeus]

Ahoy me mates,
for quite a few months there's been an idea lurking in the back of my mind - the idea to transfer Ultima Online into a completely new setting: The Golden Age of Piracy! I imagine a caribbean Island worls with jungle, beaches, caves and settlements. With some adjustments the engine should indeed be able to act as the stage for a Shard like this.

What am I looking for?
First of all: Feedback! Are there others who are interested in such a setting or who even would play some day on a Server like this?

Furthermore: Your ideas! I would like to learn about your opinions on the following two points:
1) What would you expect from a project like this?
2) Which features are essential for an Age of Sail-like setting?

Of course I am interested in any kind of of Input. At this point it is mostly collecting ideas and concepting, because apart from a few sketches and a few islands in my Server. If you like, you can post your comments in this thread, but if there is greater resonance, we can move on to an external forum as well.

so far,
scad

PS: I have attached some screenshots as appetizer. There are edges and unfinished parts, they should merely function as an appetizer.

PPS: Gumps by Nyray.

 

[pooka01]

sounds like a good idea.

first idea: swimming. cause swim + islands.
second idea: killer dolphins. cause we can swim.

specific: swimming at walking speed for more legitimity.

 

[scadeus]

Hey pooka,
thanks for posting! afaik, swimming is included in the 3d client but not in the 2d version so including a swimming animation would be VERY hard and would require a sh*tload of work. Dolphins actually exist in the *.muls though. But thank you for your input! Anyone else?

 

[LFFPicard]

Ale!

Just of the top of my head.

A Pirates Cove
A Pirates Code
Trade Ships
Merchants
Scavenging

What would make the whole survival/pirates thing work is have the economy player driven. Only very basic items are available from merchants other than ale. All items must be scavenged/looted or stole form creatures/monsters/other players. Gives a great survival feeling, maybe have some NPC pirates around you can steal/kill to start you off but enhancing/creating better weapons and armour requires you to go and find the materials instead of buying form NPCs all the time.

 

[scadeus]

Ahoy LFFPicard!
I'm glad to tell you all the points you've mentioned are part of my concept. I have been playing on a shard with a player-driven economy for years and this is what makes people interact and work together.

 

[LFFPicard]

Indeed, my idea came from the likes of Fallen Earth (MMO) and Minecraft (Obvious Survival Mode)
Years and Years ago I planned something like that for a shard I wanted to make, including removing Recall/Sacred Journey and increasing Gate skill requirement. Adding public transport on a custom map to force people to explore and do things.
But with most of the ideas I have, never skilled enough to follow through.. Speaking of witch I must finish the 2 film scripts and book I started writing :/

Edit: I would be happy to throw ideas back and forth and see more of your work, I have quiet the imaginative mind, would be nice for someone to make use of it!

 

[scadeus]

anyone with more ideas?

 

[Poga]

Heya.

few ideas i would like to see on such server, would be

* pirate treasure maps
* few pirate lords(not existing in person) but they could at some point owe islands and draw people(crew) around them, this is more rp/pvp thing i guess, their own pirate codex, this is more or less like guild system with lord as main reason guild exists
* big whirpools(in water) that once you get in draw you in middle and drop you out somewhere else(could be cool traveling method)
* diffrent battleships, slower and stronger, weaker and faster

I've recently joined RUN UO(without any scripting knowledge), and to be honest i've never played on RUN UO server, server I play still runs on POL 95, so I have no idea what is possible what not on RUN UO, but those are things I would like to see on such server...

other than that, concept is GREAT!!! I definitely would enjoy playing on such server

 

[scadeus]

Hey Poga,
did you just register just to reply to my thread? I feel honored! About your Ideas:

1. What would a Pirate/Age of Sail-shard be without treasure maps? They are simply part of the setting! (Though not historically correct, but that is a different story)
2. I intend to make this shard rp-based if I ever get my arse up. So if a player manages to find a bunch of deck rats people willing to join their crew they would technically be pirate lords.
3. Those whirlpools actually sound nice but would be another thing to design. All in All they could be modified moongates, so the amount of scripting necessary shouldn't be too high (I'm no expert on that though)
4. I already thought about different types of ships. That is quite hard to realize because the ships from vanillaUO don't really fit as they represent ships in a more medieval setting. But you got to work with what you got... I made a quick sketch of sails on a dinghy though but i can't draw at all. (see attachment)

Anyway, thanks for your input! Every idea and any kind of help is heavily appreciated!

 

[m309]

Woah. Those sails are awesome!

 

[scadeus]

Hey m309,
thanks for the praise but do you really think so? I'm not quite satisfied with them. In my opinion they still look like scribbled together in GIMP (basically that's exactly what they are). I still didn't manage to implement them correctly. Looks in the attached screenshot (from actual server, screenshot above is out of gimp). Apart from the ships rail shining through it should be easy to fix though. But I still have no clue how to manage that.
But thanks anyway!

 

[m309]

I absolutely think its great! Wayyyyyyy better than the stock UO sail art. Will you be releasing them to the public by any chance?

Are you implementing it as one piece, or multiple pieces? If you're using it as only one piece it will cut through other objects like that.

Gimp has a feature that will cut an image into tiles which will alleviate that issue.

 

[scadeus]

Yeah I don't really like the stock art either. People made incredible stuff out of it but it still looks quite 90s-like. I don't know wether I will release them some day but for now I'd like to use it for my own project. I've already made sketches for the sails of a Tartane and a small sloop... this will take longer though.
but b2t: I have cut it in several pieces (mast and sail separately, to create rolled up sails some day) and it is just that one piece that is bugging me. Everything else fits.

 

[_Epila_]

I think you should make use of a modded UltimaLive or any other thing that allow you to use bigger maps. I will not enter in details of how you can achieve this, it is not the point yet. But a bigger map is a must if you want people to explore the world the way they should; default map size is too small for such thing.
(the text is cluttered but worth to read...be warned as I wrote this as I think)

I like the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, some of my ideas may contain references to it and other sources too =p

• -A big town, to resemble something like Port Royal from the movie. One thing I like the most of UO is the PvP, you should give players a way more to battle, that comes along with a pirate port (Tortuga?) where the pirate players can hide or be protected. Players should be able to have some control on it, they should be able to see their choices on action. Imagine the pirates out-boarding on the goodguys port to pillage
• (More towns apply depending on map size, something like UK, Spanish, Tortuga pirates, the asian pirates on the movie...)
• -This one comes with a little design difficult: If you gonna have tortuga, it must have at least a bit of order. Port Royal can have guards, but Tortuga...well..."land of no one", but if you do want people(pirates) to visit it and use as a base it must have a little order.
• -3 to 6 (depends on map size) small villages (pirates or not) to use as trade route. They should be able to be ruled by pirates or by the big town. Again some design difficult, the economy from both sides should depend but not fully depend on these trade routes... Ambush trading ships is also cool.
• -1 or 2 specialized cities/village/places (depends on map size) where obtaining resources is easier. Resources should also be location based, some kind of fishes should be only gathered at specific places...same for ore/wood
• Random important npcs over the world, players should visit them often (Tia dalma shack?)
• -For the ship ambush, I have a simple pirate ship with crew that follow players boats and try to dominate the ship. Need some improvement but you got the idea
• -Based on my idea, you're going to have good guys and pirates. I do not like World of Warcraft way to separate by alliance and horde, UO way is more realistic. Everybody is a good guy until it turns to a pirate (something based on UO notoriety). Players should be able to create pirates directly.
• -Environment is a MUST. From what I've seen in my UO experience, is that sometimes player don't have anything to do. Quests can be the solution but they must be more realistic and environment based. Talking about golden age of piracy, you can hide a chest somewhere and announce it on both pirate and goodguys town, so players can go and grab it, pvp should happen if they both arrive at same time. If there is a low player base, random encounter or npc ambush does apply.
• -One thing I like about level-based mmo is that they're almost login&play and level is acquired with time. UO is skill based but should behave like login&play. People tend to login, macro for a few days then play as a full-powered char. This is bad, people should be able to be part of the main-thing even with a young char. Macro should be avoided and resources should not be as important as they are on vanilla UO.
• -PvE! Here rely another good aspect of UO. It is basically the same as PvP but with an AI behind it. Random encounters/ambushes AI-based as said above, themed dungeons: Why do a pirate or a suit-guy would go to a cave?
• -Magery? if yes, NO RECALL/GATETRAVEL...boats/ambushes/random encounters/pirating would die with players recalling everywhere anytime... It should be at least difficult to move from one spot to another using magery or related
• Neutral village/city. One of my ideas is a way to fast travel (thats why I 'banished' recall). This would allow a paid-travel at specifics time of day between both good guys and pirates where both route-map could reach this place
• World: Lots of places to explore. Players should feel that there always something to new explore.
• Jobs? Players should be able to work for money. eg: You could join a quest where you should deliver a package, goods, etc...even illegal people(npcs) transportation lol

Why I ask for a bigger map? Well I think UO map is small...Yeah it is big enough to be almost-impossible to visit every POI in one day (and do its tasks if any) and boating should really slow down the exploration. But I still feel it is small. I've uploaded a image to compare the actual Felucca size with the half-theoretical max map size (green) and the max map size (blue). We don't know if UO read map locations (packets/internal) as signed or unsigned numbers. With a map this big, my number of cities, villages and etc does not apply...Players should always have a safe-place near to be and logout. I do have lots of maps projects with sailing routes, economic, geographic, political details hanging here. I was building a server that would bring back to life the sailing, but never thought about a real piracy/golden age of sailing based server

My ideas may be cluttered but I wrote as I imagine how a UO-based pirating would be. They sure need to be polished but the main idea is to create a real immersive piracy environment.

I do really want to see and help a server like this, but I'm full with college tests till 9/jun

 

[pooka01]

For safe logout: bedrolls. people always forget those.
If the map has alot of small islands, and boats actually cost something, physically stuck help amount should be increased, as people will get stuck on total random islands and won't be able to leave them if they use all their stuck help.

And for my part, i would like to see something such as that:

It's just hard to consider that the scale of the map would be considerably large, enough that the island to the bottom right would be the entire britannia xD
But you get the point with that picture, a main continent that would act as a "base" area, IE starting, pvping a lill bit, pvm in dungeons, then when you can affort buying a ship or joining a crew you could get in an adventure.

(also i got it wrong in my picture, that island should be fully sided so we can actually sail on every possible direction without facing a limit)
-A better fishing system, and like it was mentionned, certain fish types only acquirable at certain areas of the, ex: very rare ship that can be sold like 50 gp each! This way: pvp over a certain place. And the zone would be rather small and long to regenerate. Also; ever saw a crab cage? There could be some kind of fishing net that stays in the water until you gather it, with chances of failure where every fishes are free, or getting 20 fish after 30 seconds (a faster ratio than regular fishing?)

-Speciality town, cheaper things: wood, metalwork, leather, food, etc.

-Hirable, i would lie if i say i hate them... Give them gold for 12 hours and kill stuffs with.

-Lord of pirates, like menntionned above, (correct me if i'm wrong), some kind of "factions" of pirates would be nice, with a "supreme lord" over every factions that are voted (similar to the movie): the one with the most votes. This leader could decide of stuffs that touch everybody and act as a town leader for every towns, raising and lowering prices etc (the ones that are over control by pirates). a guild could also take control of a town and manage it at will, which means independant pirates could win
If somebody has good idea of what else a pirate lord could decide it would be nice, i'm not good with player ran economy so i'm probably not the best one to say what they can do.

-Dungeons: mines, crypts, undergrounds, secret cave, passages to other lands, all that would be good filled with monsters! (just please avoid putting undeads everywhere if you place monsters? )

-Rare monsters, i think it has already been talked about, but: krakens, leviathan, sea serpents, mermaids? lol -> ophidians that would do magic, some cyclops on islands appearing at night, dark giant wolves appearing at night also, etc... Coul add some uniqueness to a location.

That's what i would like to see.

 

[Dian]

Is the shard ready yet?

 

[scadeus]

G'morning everyone!

Wouldn't have thought people had so much to contribute, but that's great! I will try to comment on your suggestions as detailed as possible.

_Epila_:

- larger map: I'm not really sure about this. I think the stock-UO map is just plain HUGE and the bigger the map, the larger spread of the players. I have no idea of the situation in english-speaking countries, but here in germany recently a top-of-the-notch RP Shard went online and they have ~70-80 Players online every evening. I think that's definitely not enough for an XXL-Map... The problem is the following: on a OSI-/fantasy shard you have a network of streets between cities, which offers the potential to meet other players. In an island setting, there would be no such network and in the worst case, people would miss opportunities for interesting roleplay by just a few screens. Do you get my point?

- at least one or two larger cities with different characteristics and different "flair" are a must-have. Port Royal is what I thought of as well, but at the moment I'm just not very far concerning mapping.

- as I plan to focus on roleplay, the pirates may take care of their island(s) on their own, but if needed I could provide a few NPC guards. Cities like Port Nassau were officially ruled by the English, which were present, while the real "kings" were pirates.

- a number of smaller settlements: definitely! The exact number can be determined while concepting the map.

- random NPCs: I would like to keep the numbers of NPCs as low as possible to enforce human interaction. But if a Tia Dalma-type of swamp witch is needed, why not played by a real person?

- pirate boat script: I already had a look at it and it looks totally nice! When the time has come, I intend to use it. (sparely though)

- pirate creation on startup: I'm not really sure about that. I thought about a class-like character creation system so that people would be able to take sides ingame.

- treasure hunting: totally agree with that!

- skill system: I definitely don't like vanilla UO concerning that. The shard I played on for years had a time-based skill-gain system with levels. You had to play about a year to reach max level.

-pve: especially essential for combat-oriented chars, so yes. I thought about a few concepts, such as pirate skeletons (POTC, yay!), a sewer dungeon (rats etc.).

-magery: I don't really think magery as it is fits into the setting, but a user in a german forum suggested a voodoo-like magery system and I do like the idea.

-neutral village/city: sounds good but I'd have to see how to implement this in actual gameplay.

- Jobs: Jobs should be given by other players (merchant A says "deliver package to merchant B", Navy Officer C was ambushed by pirates and puts to gether a crew for revenge, etc.)

pooka:
thanks for the additional input!

-fishing system: maybe enhanced fishing/cooking system. your suggestion would furthermore encourage trade between players. The only thing is the potentially high amount of scripting necessary.

- different resources in different parts of the map. sounds great and gives a solid basis for policy. e.g. England trying to remain neutral with spain due to spain's ore mines, whereas spain needs wood which grows in larger dimensions on british islands etc... so: yes!

- dungeons: see my comment on PVE above.

-rare monsters: sounds cool, but again: incredibly large amount of design necessary. Even the smallest animations are a pain in the arse to create.

Dian:
No, unfortunately not. I don't really have more than a few buildings and plans.

At all:
The response to such a setting is more positive than I would have thought. So there may be the time to really come off the couch. If any of you are really interested in helping me out, reply to this thread or pm me. I guess any help is appreciated. Thank you for taking your time to read through this. <3

 

[_Epila_]

I have to admit I fear about the big map I've suggested
1- How to generate it? UOLandscaper can generate but the amount of RAM it consumes is incredible high; 1GB for ML sized map, following the scale, for the half max size map it would consume 36GB! Without mention to the rendering time: 6 mins for the ML sized and 3.6 hours to the half max size map (reference: core2-duo 2.13ghz 2GB RAM MBW from 2009)
2- Decoration: Have you ever tried to create a ML sized map? It is a 36 times bigger map for the half size map
3- May need a improved map generation tool? For sure, the ones we have are incredible difficult to use and produce usable content after many tries... but they're usable if you're patient to learn them
4- Player base: they will disperse which such large map, how to bring them together?
Ok these figures are for the half map max size I've mentioned, It can be smaller. If you're curious about the full sized map, multiply those figures by 4

My server project does have a modded map. At first it would be a ML-sized map, it is pretty close to finish but I had a secondary map that I've found on the internet and modded a bit. The map image (below) is a map-look that I like, it does have similar to earth patterns and I think it is game-usable. It is actually ML-sized but since I have it in vector format, it can be rendered at any size. This is the detailed map I said I have with the geographic/climate/etc...

Ok I will stop saying about the map and start giving generic usable ideas =p

The response to such a setting is more positive than I would have thought. So there may be the time to really come off the couch. If any of you are really interested in helping me out, reply to this thread or pm me. I guess any help is appreciated. Thank you for taking your time to read through this. <3

One thing I'd like about piracy-based game is that it looks chaotic, I mean, It is pirating...fast, chaotic, "no-rules" also fun environment... One thing I keep imagining is the pirate pillage over the cities...people running and fighting everywhere

As I said, I'd be pleased to work/help it, but not before my finals

 

[scadeus]

Ahoy Epila!
The map size you suggest is just crazy! The sketch in your attachment looks just plain HUGE. Especially point 4 is what would worry me. About the mapping tool: I use centrED and build everything up screen by screen and building for building.

ABout chaos in pirate settlements: Have you ever played Akella's old POTC Game with the New Horizons mod? On Tortuga there were people dueling, prostitutes, opium dens... Amazing atmosphere.

I have finals on July on my own, so good luck for yours!

 

[pooka01]

Also i noticed in your first screenshot that the land tiles were all the same, you should make a random tile application: ie, 4 sand tiles and applying them with the tile random from list. Tiles that all look the same aren't really appealing to me, and it would certainly have an impact of the gameplay

Second, rare monsters don't even require creating new arts, using pre-existing monsters can be great too.
I remember watching the tv show Sinbad or Simbad i don't remember, it was kinda pirate-like, with monsters; harpies, giants, mermaids, spectres, etc.