Looking for a difficult shard, or, is this stuff possible?

[yugen]

Hey guys, I've been playing UO since summer of '97, and I love it. I feel UO was as great as it was because it was truly created from the heart. Most other games made nowadays are made for profit and thus the creators do not pour their soul into it, and so it lacks certain subtle things that make UO so great.

I've been experimenting with different games, and different shards on UO trying to find something that I thought was perfect. Well, that basically led me to writing down all of these ideas I had, and coming to the conclusion that if I want to do something right I pretty much have to do it myself

I played Siege Perilous quite a bit back in the day... So, to start things off, does anyone know of a good free shard that is similar to SP? As in, extremely difficult, 1 char per acct, tons of limitations, etc?

If you know of any, please share. In the meantime, here are some of my ideas for an ideal shard for us truly hardcore gamers. I've been playing a bit of "UnReal World", a survival sim (google it) and have been using some ideas from that game. Anyways... Here are some of my ideas. Many of them are quite elaborate and would be difficult to program. I would certainly settle for something less technical, as long as the server is difficult and risky
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Ideas for an extremely difficult UO shard.
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- There is only one character allowed per player and IP. If a player is found to be using multiple characters, all of his characters will be banned or killed.

- Unattended macroing is not allowed. A questionare gump will appear on all player screens at unpredictable intervals. The questions and correct answer will be easy to answer, but they will always be arranged in an unpredictable manner to avert macroing programs and AFK macroers.

- Cheaters will be immediately banned.

- In order to gain skills, one must be well rested and well fed.

- Food decays. This averts stockpiling and makes hunting and gathering an essential factor that keeps players active throughout the forests and wilderness.

- All foods will have their own unique effect on a player, that a player must discover through experience.

- Strength, dexterity, and intelligence must be maintained through diverse nutrition. If a person is underfed, his stats will begin to drop.

- Magical reagents must be gathered throughout the world, and they are extremely rare. Being wild herbs and organic components, their location of growth is unpredictable.

- In this world, it is far more common to be spending your time chasing down a bleeding deer rather than parading the dungeons in search of monsters!

- Extensive karma system that makes calculations based on nearly everything you do. However, this system will be unpredictable so any rewards or penalties may come as a surprise to the player.

- When death arrives, you will enter into the nether as a ghost. Resurrection is possible, but the reagents required to resurrect someone may be hard to come by.

- Line of sight: All characters are considered "hidden" or "stealthed" until noticed. When noticed, their presence may be sensed until interupted by time or space. Factors include the stealth and perception senses of characters.

- Mounts are available but cannot run full speed for very long.



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COMBAT
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- Use wrestling to take an opponent down where he becomes vulnerable.

- Target specific combat - Leg attacks will immobilize, etc.

- Combat is dangerous. People can get killed or paralyzed in one blow, especially without protection.

- A mindless attack can leave a character off balance, prone to dangerous counter attacks.

- Attacks are generally more effective when delivered to an opponents side or back.

- Fear will make a character more prone to attack and less able to attack. Fear can be induced by many factors. A virtuous player will be naturally less fearful.

- A player can become mindful of combat and make use of an active defense, which enables a player to block many attacks (leaving only a few openings) but this will cause the defending players movement to halt every time he blocks an attack.




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PENDING IDEAS
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- Shelter from harsh weather

- Cutting down trees?

- Logging out costs money per week to live in an inn or shelter where food and such is provided.

- perma death

- hidden skills, unpredictable genetic perks that must be discovered?

- Virtue system: Unpredictable system that grants bonuses to truly heroic players based on the virtues. This system will be designed to reward players who are genuinely virtuous and will not be a predictable system that you can just grind through.

[Lord_Greywolf]

Many of the things is there will be on different shard in different ways, and many will not be possible with out doing a total core rewrite and major system overhall

and event he stuff that does not require that i do not know if you will find a shard with it all

i.e. food decaying -- to have stuff stored in secured containers and still decay is hard to put in (but is possible), but left on ground will decay (i have food storage boxes on my shard and an advanced cooking system)
Hunger & thirst - varies from shard to shard - some has nos effect (standard) others have penalities (like with mine - sever hp loss - really hurts in battle when it hits) and some have it effect skill gain (but not many)

players per account - might be a few out there that limit it to 1 character
i limit to 1 account per person, but still the 6 normal - but many player "test" character types on my shard for the "style" they want - i have a full customized race/class/level system that means out of class abilities are hard to get (but possible) - i.e. fighters to start have very limited healing caps (but can raise them with the proper stuff later on) and healers (clerics) have great healing but limited fighting, etc

non macroing - many shards have that - but i allow it - but not in cities, dungeons or other special areas - so will be easy to find shards like that

the advanced combat system for where you hit, directions, etc is not really feasible with out total core and major script changes - the system is just not compatable for it

many reagents on my shard are rare (for the advanced spells) but other are common place - i also have resource gathering (based on magic skill and getting some of the reagents from trees)
but i have other stuff limited - like blank scrolls - very hard to by - need to make them - which takes cooking logs to make pulp, then carpentry to take pulp into papyrus, then cartofraphy to turn papyrus into blank scrolls
so again most shards do not limit reagents - they have it more set up for magic use - but there might be a few out there

most places do not have unique effects for food - it is mostly for eating, but many also have (like i do) "magical" foods that can be eaten for bonuses
also weird items that way also then many would never thoink of for it until they try (like sand dollars that are fished up [rare to get] )

many have modified the karma system a little - but i do not know of any that intense - it is not a common thing to modify

death - i do not know of any shard that makes it permenant, or hard to get rezed - players do not like loosing bodies and equipment because they cound not get rezed
or losing a character they spent weeks or months making to have them die for ever and have to start over - will not have to many players for that, so i do not think you will find any shards that way

charging at inns - a few have that - paying to log out - never herd of that, but doesnot mean much
of course hard to stop a person from logging off - they just close down UO and they will get logged off eventuly (default is 10 minutes)

line of sight - some have put this in for many things, but with a large player base, it does cause lag, so most abandon it

i have herd of some places making it sor mounts and non mounted people run at same speed - but that is unrealistic
but if properly done - stam can be reduced while "running" on a mount - it is your stam, but could be used to slow down the mount some how - then when dismounted he takes on your stam loss and you go back up
but not sure if it would be worth the effert of the coding envolved - because a horse should be able to get you away from danger before slowing down

So over all - i do not think you wil find a shard with it all
you will find peices here and there, but i would think less than half of what you want
and some of the stuff not at all

[yugen]

Thanks for the response. It sounds like you've put a lot of effort into your shard, i'll check it out!

[Terrorist]

there are a few tough shards out there as stated, but if your ever lookin for a fun one, or one that is a mix (lil tough to start out, but is also pvp gear) let me know

[skisko]

>> I played Siege Perilous quite a bit back in the day... So, to start things off, does anyone know of a good free shard that is similar to SP? As in, extremely difficult, 1 char per acct, tons of limitations, etc?

The only thing that made Siege difficult was not being able to vendor items. The skill gain limitations actually made it easier in a lot of ways since you could play a mediocre amount and still be about as advanced as the hardcore players.

[dren]

Some of this stuff you wrote about sounds really great, there are definitely features that I would be interested in implementing. I'm going to play a bit of devils advocate here though for a minute.

There is only one character allowed per player and IP. If a player is found to be using multiple characters, all of his characters will be banned or killed.

What if someone makes a character then makes it incorrectly? How long would you make them wait to delete it? If you didn't make them wait then what would stop a character from deleting and recreating over and over again?

I think a better solution would be to limit 1 account per IP.

- Unattended macroing is not allowed. A questionare gump will appear on all player screens at unpredictable intervals. The questions and correct answer will be easy to answer, but they will always be arranged in an unpredictable manner to avert macroing programs and AFK macroers.

These gumps exist already on some shards. However, do you really want to watch yourself fish for weeks straight?

- Cheaters will be immediately banned.

What would constitute cheating?

- In order to gain skills, one must be well rested and well fed.

People have been known to go for ages without eating. You really only need water to live. Where would characters sleep? It would be extremely difficult to implement a sleeping system.

- Food decays. This averts stockpiling and makes hunting and gathering an essential factor that keeps players active throughout the forests and wilderness.

If people can build houses then they're going to stock pile. Once cities formed and people learned how to preserve food people moved beyond the hunting and gathering stage.

- All foods will have their own unique effect on a player, that a player must discover through experience.

Eating is great, I think it would be great to bring emphasis back onto the cooking skill. I think the unique effect is part of role playing.

- Magical reagents must be gathered throughout the world, and they are extremely rare. Being wild herbs and organic components, their location of growth is unpredictable.

This would make magery gain very difficult. Especially assuming you wanted to have a large shard. If you're concerned about people stocking regs then you could cap the vendors reagents.

- In this world, it is far more common to be spending your time chasing down a bleeding deer rather than parading the dungeons in search of monsters!

Sounds good! However, wouldn't people want to be more involved in adventurous activities in this kind of role playing environment?

- When death arrives, you will enter into the nether as a ghost. Resurrection is possible, but the reagents required to resurrect someone may be hard to come by.

If you wanted you could disable ressurect on healers then only mages could ressurect other players. With difficult skill gains being resurrected would be more hard to come by. Maybe place a few wandering healers that could resurrect throughout the world. Or, possibly enable ressurection at shrines. A shard would lose a lot of players with this kind of setup, but i'm all for it. I think it would encourage people to be more carerful, and generally only take combative actions with other players when there were serious reasons.

- Line of sight: All characters are considered "hidden" or "stealthed" until noticed. When noticed, their presence may be sensed until interupted by time or space. Factors include the stealth and perception senses of characters.

Time and space? It's 2D...

- Mounts are available but cannot run full speed for very long.

Haven't you seen Lord of the Rings?

- Virtue system: Unpredictable system that grants bonuses to truly heroic players based on the virtues. This system will be designed to reward players who are genuinely virtuous and will not be a predictable system that you can just grind through.

Here's an idea for a virtue system:

ORIGIN - Ultima Online - Main

- Cutting down trees?

Unfortunately, these are connected to the map file itself.


If you're intersted in role playing then please check out my post here:

People intrested in Roleplaying?

[yugen]

I've given up on the idea of creating a shard, but I'm still interested in these ideals, so i'll reply.

do you really want to watch yourself fish for weeks straight?

No. That's the point. Even the smallest of items will be valuable. Nothing comes easy on this shard. To have even enough fish for you and your friends should be a precious thing.

What if someone makes a character then makes it incorrectly? How long would you make them wait to delete it? If you didn't make them wait then what would stop a character from deleting and recreating over and over again?

One free delete, and then a 24 hour wait after that. Not really an important matter to me.

What would constitute cheating?

Unattended macroing.

People have been known to go for ages without eating. You really only need water to live. Where would characters sleep? It would be extremely difficult to implement a sleeping system.

Part of the virtue system I had in mind would account for vegetarian or fasting, and would give certain merits for players who lived such a life. Sleep in an inn would be paid for by your bank account, if you ran out of money you could incur character penalties or perhaps debt.

If people can build houses then they're going to stock pile. Once cities formed and people learned how to preserve food people moved beyond the hunting and gathering stage.

Well, on this shard, food decays, so stockpile all you'd like, but it will rot. Also, houses could be liable to breaking into or perhaps even destroyed depending on circumstances i haven't thought of yet.

This would make magery gain very difficult.

Aye. Not every comon man is a great mage on this server. Chances are that most players will be brandishing a sword rather than a loaded spell book. Magic use is very rare and only the most experienced players will be able to use it, and even then, only occasionally.

Sounds good! However, wouldn't people want to be more involved in adventurous activities in this kind of role playing environment?

This server doesn't cater to the average player who wants to accumulate a mass of wealth and be a hero among a million other heros. This server is dedicated to the players who want to step outside of that boundry of safety, and for people who are beyond the typical glory seeking hero RPG that is so typical. In fact, i'd say this would be more of a survival sim with medieval combat elements included.

Time and space? It's 2D...

Time = minutes, hours, whatever, space = tiles.

Haven't you seen Lord of the Rings?

Yeah I have, and apparently so has everyone else because most fantasy games tend to be a LOTR rip off.

But, without even considering that, taking into account that we're dealing with UO and all of it's limitations, full speed mount running with the small UO screen leads to come very disconnected PVP. Once a player gets off screen you can barely find him again.

Here's an idea for a virtue system:

ORIGIN - Ultima Online - Main

Like everything EA did to UO, it sucks

[dren]

nevermind what i originally wrote in this box, it's too late, gnight

[yugen]

No guards?

I don't know... Maybe mortal guards or something.

[Treetall]

Hey, I play on a server called Purely Primitive. They are steadily increasing prices of items on vendors (about once per week prices go up on something), to try and make the world economy completely player driven. The players have to grow crops, so some characters have to farm to supply reagent, food, cotton, flax, and that sort of things to players. Players cant buy the materials at a low enough cost from the vendors to make money, but they can make money for example off of sewing if they find a player that farms to sell them cotton to sew with. Of course, they can go grow the cotton themselves but that takes time too. Almost all of the things that can be grown have seeds in them that are removable by paring knives so that they can plant more crops.

The Strongest warriors in the land are in the mid 70's skill. i believe there is one mage that is around 70. The highest skill in the entire world is somewhere near 80. Skill gain is really hard after you get to about 60 and gets increasingly hard as it goes up.

There is a death penalty that makes it to where there is NOTHING in the world as valuable as your life. This makes perfect sense to me.

Small houses are cheap, 10k. This makes young players be able to get a place to stay reasonably. The bigger nicer houses are more expensive.

You must eat and drink or you will start losing health and stamina.

When you kill at rat and skin it your get rat meat, deer=deer meat, dragon=dragon meat. Nobody can cook much of this specialty meat yet but it has different properties that will play a bigger and bigger part as the world economy grows.

There is a great crafting system. All handmade items are better than if you buy them in the store or get them off of a creature that you have slain. This makes Blacksmithing and tailoring a better trade, these skills are very important in this land.

Tinkers have a good market for tool, sewing kits and such. This is because the town vendors are too expensive to buy from them.

Virtually anything in this world that is valued is pretty hard to get. There is not an abundance of magic weapons in the world.

The best tamer in the world just got where he could tame a black bear. Everybody not running around with tame dragons.

The only city that has guard protection is Britain. The players will have to enforce laws in the other towns if the want.

PVP allowed. No Rule other than no profanity. The players have to deal with the unruly characters. The death penalty makes the scoundrels think twice about bothering the law abidiing citizens next time. That is if anybody can kill them.

This is the hardest place i have ever played, and it will get harder to make money after the limited amount of farmland is comletely used, thus limiting how many cropse are being gathered, which directly relates to how much sewing is being done.

There is no skill cap in the game, a person can have 100 in every skill if they wish to spend the time and energy to acquire them. Of course, you will lose a percentage of all skills and stats if you die. You can have a very well rounded charcter if you wish.

There is a 300 pt stat cap. you can have 100 in str,dex and int. Again DONT DIE, or you will lose some of them.

Purely Primitive is designed to be played forever. A long term game that you will enjoy for years to come.

You will feel a sense of accomplishment when you gain skills and acquire things here.

The Large Creatures (like ettins, ogres, trolls) are stronger here just because it makes sense.

Characters in mid 70's skills with nice equipment are very respected here.

The community is small but very active. Come give it a try.

I can assure you that no other world ever created has been given as much thought as this one.

Hope to see you in Britain.

[yugen]

Now THAT sounds like my kind of shard

Going to give it a shot.

[Generic_Player]

UOGamers: Divinity - (Ultima Online Freeshard)
By same people who made RUNUO and RAZOR..
Its a hard shard, but not THAT HARD, no one plays a server that you have to wait over a month to gm a skill..

[yugen]

I have a large brick and a couple 7x on divinity.

I'm playing Purely Primitive, awesome concept for a server. Glad to see some devs with balls. Its like Siege Perilous again.

[TurboABA]

uohadrian.com Hadrian's wall is pretty good play their myself. Good luck on crafting gains their. lol.

[yugen]

Looks like Candy Land compared to Purely Primitive

[ThatGuyBehindYou]

Try The Abyss UO (google search it) it's a great shard with +300 people online, it is an old (like 1999) style UO with new monsters etc, the server is full with rats (i mean people who will do anything to scam you) and it makes a good life emulator

[yugen]

Honestly I probably won't play any shard other than Purely Primitive. It's the only truly original server with an honest, discernible shift in the emphasis in gameplay. It feels like UO felt like in 98, not because it tries to emulate that era, but because the creators recognize where the game went wrong and changed some of those fundamental reasons.

[Suil Ban]

Originally Posted by yugen

Honestly I probably won't play any shard other than Purely Primitive. It's the only truly original server with an honest, discernible shift in the emphasis in gameplay. It feels like UO felt like in 98, not because it tries to emulate that era, but because the creators recognize where the game went wrong and changed some of those fundamental reasons.

Yeah, sounds like a pretty 'hardcore' shard:

OUR ONLY RULE:
- Absolutely no swearing, cussing, or anything that could be considered foul language will be tolerated. There is a jail system implemented but not all words are in there, due to conflicts with regular speech. This, however, does not mean that these words are allowed. We think that if a parent wants to play with their kid in their lap, they should be able to, and not have to worry about exposing their kid to a bunch of foul language. Also, some have young children that actually play. We don't think that the parents of those children should have to worry about that either. It is a very simple rule, and it is the only one, and it is not at all unreasonable.

[yugen]

Well, it's disciplined, mature, and difficult. I honestly don't understand the no cussing thing, maybe the server owner has a kid who plays it. Personally, I think it is a good rule. If you can't restrain yourself from cussing, you're probably not good for the shard overall.