Continuing on with what I posted yesterday, I know there would be a couple issues trying to graft a 3d engine on the current UO world. A real one, not the one we saw with 3rd Dawn. Perhaps more than just a few problems too........
But I don't see anything that would outright prohibit it. The world might need a bit of changing so it isn't full of flat forests with trees laid out in unusually symmetric patterns. Perhaps the 1st person would only be available inside dungeons and buildings. I see this type of upgrade as the easier of two paths to restart the game. The other being a huge effort to bring 1997 isometric graphics to 2009, not 2001 which Kingdom Reborn tried to do. Even then, if that was the only upgrade performed the developers would need to combine it will a huge amount of game play enhancements in the all realms: PvM, PvP, sailing, housing, crafting, etc. Every single system would need a new and involved feature.
For UO to reverse its decline, you need something compelling to draw the attention of every MMO player out there. There needs to be something enticing them to at least give UO another 14 day trial. It all needs to go in simultaneously so when you login you see lots of other people playing with you.
The Stygian Abyss has the potential to do this. That is quite a big if there though, considering we have little idea of what is going on. At the moment it sounds like an average UO expansion. New dungeon(s), a couple new skills, a new system to revive crafting, etc. That is not going to cut it by a long shot. It might help maintain the status quo, but it is unlikely to turn subscriptions around.
As far as expansions go, the last two sucked. The most recent Mondain's Legacy was billed as a return to the game's "roots". Virtually everything about it failed. Recipes are nothing more than an one time annoyance, crafting quests in Heartwood are all "make x and have a 0.01% chance of getting a good drop", and the whole elf thing was just a marketing ploy to begin with. It didn't really "expand" the game at all. The same thing with Samurai Empire. New lands and two new skills which had a pitiful amount of abilities. It is no wonder players have lost interest in UO over the past 6 years. The game has gotten absolutely stagnate in terms of content additions.
If you go look back at the patch notes from 1999, 2000, and 2001 it appears they are doing stuff every single month. Not only that, but there was already so much stuff to do that you didn't hang off of every publish. It just added to your list or fixed stuff. In the past 2 years the majority of publishes have been to either fix/launch the Kingdom Reborn client or event related. The problem with events is they are short term.
I think I got a little off track in this post. I'll just end it here and try again another time.
April 23, 2009
April 21, 2009
UO Client Trailers
Here is a trailer for a new UO client I have thought up. If I had the patience, time and knowledge on how to do this, I think it would look really great. But I have none of those so you will just have to pull out your imagination and work with me.
So there is an ancient looking book which opens up to the first page. It shows a screenshot of a player sitting in a small house. There is a chair and a table. Maybe an empty bookcase. There is also a date, 1997, at the heading of the page. The page then turns to 1998. A few decorative items are added to the house. Perhaps some furniture introduced with The Second Age expansion. Do you see the theme?
As this is going on there is a narrator explaining what is going on. He is saying something like "For over a decade, Ultima Online has been growing and expanding....." I've not put a lot of thought into what the narrator says. So just know that it is there. Use your imagination and put words in his mouth. He won't mind.
So the pages keep turning. 1999, 2000. Maybe the leaves on the trees outside die showing that the changover to Trammel. As the years go on, two or three items are added to the house showing the growth of the game. When you arrive in 2008 it is filled with stuff. Then the announcer says something like "a lot has changed, but none more so than what is to come". The page turns once more to 2009.
You are greeted with a much larger image. It looks pretty much the same though. But something is different. The graphics are sharper and more clear. The page notes that the resolution is in 1280x720. The screen then zooms in on various parts to showcase the new high definition graphics. It looks exactly the same as the 2D client except much better. It is on par with what you see in Blizzard's Starcraft II and Diablo III screenshots. There is a fireplace going showcasing the new lightning effects.
The screen zooms back out to standard view. Now players would probably be very happy with this. It looks like an isometric game released in 2009. But then the narrator brings out the big twist! He rotates the camera angle. "For the first time you can now see all angles of the game world". You get to see the back of a house for the first time. There is full rotation, 360 degrees. This is it, the big new improvement for the client. The new hook to draw people in. You can zoom and rotate the camera. It looks spectacular. Everything UO players have been waiting for 10 years.
The screen begins to fade. But the narrator tells it to stop. He's not done yet. You have to see the best part. The screen snaps back to standard view. It starts to zoom in you think. But it is not the same this time. It goes over the shoulder of the avatar. Could it be? Yes it is! First person view. You are now staring at the desk, where you were writing. You look up at a painting on the wall. It is so big. It then switches to 3rd person over the shoulder view and whips around. You see a closeup of the avatar's face. It has an actual expression. Then the door opens behind into a bright light. The narrator says something like, "take your first step into the new world". End trailer.
First things first, I think up until the rotatable camera part could be applied to the upcoming Stygian Abyss client. A trailer similar to that would be absolutely killer as long as the client is solid.
As for the rest, you are probably wondering how that can all be done. It has been stated that camera rotation would be impossible for UO. It is as the client is being designed. For some reason the developers wanted to stick with sprites. Unfortunately that means you are limited to one field of view. I believe that switching to polygon models would have been possible. There may have been a tiny reduction in art quality, but what you would gain (camera rotation and 1st/3rd person perspectives) would make up for it. Plus all the graphics are being redone in high definition polygon models. So the walls of the house, the desk, the chair, the avatar, etc are all polygons. I would really like to see some comparisons of UO creatures done in polygons to see how much of a difference there would be.
The reason Kingdom Reborn was shunned was because it changed the look of the game. In my dreamt-up client you will be virtually unable to notice a difference in "classic" mode. You have the exact same perspective and all the art is the same, except in higher quality. You can take advantage of 1st person or rotating the camera if you wish. Or you could turn off those features and play UO the same way you did back in 1997.
If Mythic is serious about having UO have a place in the MMO marketplace they need to one of two things. Either bring the client up to Diablo III and Starcraft II art quality or add a 1st/3rd person perspective. Kingdom Reborn was a failure from the very start because it was no where near close to that.
One more trailer idea I had was for the new 1st person perspective. It opens with you traveling through an iconic UO dungeon such as the entrance of Deciet or maybe adventuring into the Wrong Troll room. The narrator is talking to you saying things like "Doesn't this place seem familiar? Have you been here before?" Chances are that person has if they played an MMO other than World of Warcraft. The trailer just ends with a shot of the UO symbol. Something like that would drive interest in UO to something unseen in a decade.
So there is an ancient looking book which opens up to the first page. It shows a screenshot of a player sitting in a small house. There is a chair and a table. Maybe an empty bookcase. There is also a date, 1997, at the heading of the page. The page then turns to 1998. A few decorative items are added to the house. Perhaps some furniture introduced with The Second Age expansion. Do you see the theme?
As this is going on there is a narrator explaining what is going on. He is saying something like "For over a decade, Ultima Online has been growing and expanding....." I've not put a lot of thought into what the narrator says. So just know that it is there. Use your imagination and put words in his mouth. He won't mind.
So the pages keep turning. 1999, 2000. Maybe the leaves on the trees outside die showing that the changover to Trammel. As the years go on, two or three items are added to the house showing the growth of the game. When you arrive in 2008 it is filled with stuff. Then the announcer says something like "a lot has changed, but none more so than what is to come". The page turns once more to 2009.
You are greeted with a much larger image. It looks pretty much the same though. But something is different. The graphics are sharper and more clear. The page notes that the resolution is in 1280x720. The screen then zooms in on various parts to showcase the new high definition graphics. It looks exactly the same as the 2D client except much better. It is on par with what you see in Blizzard's Starcraft II and Diablo III screenshots. There is a fireplace going showcasing the new lightning effects.
The screen zooms back out to standard view. Now players would probably be very happy with this. It looks like an isometric game released in 2009. But then the narrator brings out the big twist! He rotates the camera angle. "For the first time you can now see all angles of the game world". You get to see the back of a house for the first time. There is full rotation, 360 degrees. This is it, the big new improvement for the client. The new hook to draw people in. You can zoom and rotate the camera. It looks spectacular. Everything UO players have been waiting for 10 years.
The screen begins to fade. But the narrator tells it to stop. He's not done yet. You have to see the best part. The screen snaps back to standard view. It starts to zoom in you think. But it is not the same this time. It goes over the shoulder of the avatar. Could it be? Yes it is! First person view. You are now staring at the desk, where you were writing. You look up at a painting on the wall. It is so big. It then switches to 3rd person over the shoulder view and whips around. You see a closeup of the avatar's face. It has an actual expression. Then the door opens behind into a bright light. The narrator says something like, "take your first step into the new world". End trailer.
First things first, I think up until the rotatable camera part could be applied to the upcoming Stygian Abyss client. A trailer similar to that would be absolutely killer as long as the client is solid.
As for the rest, you are probably wondering how that can all be done. It has been stated that camera rotation would be impossible for UO. It is as the client is being designed. For some reason the developers wanted to stick with sprites. Unfortunately that means you are limited to one field of view. I believe that switching to polygon models would have been possible. There may have been a tiny reduction in art quality, but what you would gain (camera rotation and 1st/3rd person perspectives) would make up for it. Plus all the graphics are being redone in high definition polygon models. So the walls of the house, the desk, the chair, the avatar, etc are all polygons. I would really like to see some comparisons of UO creatures done in polygons to see how much of a difference there would be.
The reason Kingdom Reborn was shunned was because it changed the look of the game. In my dreamt-up client you will be virtually unable to notice a difference in "classic" mode. You have the exact same perspective and all the art is the same, except in higher quality. You can take advantage of 1st person or rotating the camera if you wish. Or you could turn off those features and play UO the same way you did back in 1997.
If Mythic is serious about having UO have a place in the MMO marketplace they need to one of two things. Either bring the client up to Diablo III and Starcraft II art quality or add a 1st/3rd person perspective. Kingdom Reborn was a failure from the very start because it was no where near close to that.
One more trailer idea I had was for the new 1st person perspective. It opens with you traveling through an iconic UO dungeon such as the entrance of Deciet or maybe adventuring into the Wrong Troll room. The narrator is talking to you saying things like "Doesn't this place seem familiar? Have you been here before?" Chances are that person has if they played an MMO other than World of Warcraft. The trailer just ends with a shot of the UO symbol. Something like that would drive interest in UO to something unseen in a decade.
Youtube Revenue Solutions
I read about how Google was losing a ton of money on Youtube. Just a few ideas I had on how they could try and stop that.
Implement Buffering - When you click to load a Youtube video, it currently loads the whole thing. If you visit a page that has it set to auto-play and you won't want to watch, you click pause. But the entire video still loads. That is a ton of bandwidth wasted. Sometimes you also begin to watch a movie and decide it isn't worth watching the entire way through. Youtube should implement buffering such as Hulu and some of the Asian video providers do. It only loads a certain amount and then stops. The bandwidth and subsequent cost savings could be huge. The developers could even add a feature to the menu bar where you can load the entire video if you wish, but buffering is on by default.
Video Subscriptions - This may not be a huge money maker, but I'm sure there are at least a few people out there who would like to sell their videos to people. Youtube could have a program where they manage all that for you. All you handle is making the videos and driving the subscribers. Youtube handles the rest from payments to video access.
HD Embedding - Do you run a website and want to host videos on it? Well Youtube could stream HD content right to your website without a watermark. You just pay either per view or for bandwidth. Currently HD embedding is possible on external websites, but is not an official supported feature.
Advertising Over Time - At the moment the advertisements that appear beside videos stay there no longer how long you are watching. On a non-video website you are always switching pages and thus viewing an array of ads. Youtube could swap out banner ads every minute or so to increase the amount shown.
I had two or three more ideas but unfortunately appear to have forgotten them when I thinking about it last week. My own fault I suppose for taking so long to write this post.
Implement Buffering - When you click to load a Youtube video, it currently loads the whole thing. If you visit a page that has it set to auto-play and you won't want to watch, you click pause. But the entire video still loads. That is a ton of bandwidth wasted. Sometimes you also begin to watch a movie and decide it isn't worth watching the entire way through. Youtube should implement buffering such as Hulu and some of the Asian video providers do. It only loads a certain amount and then stops. The bandwidth and subsequent cost savings could be huge. The developers could even add a feature to the menu bar where you can load the entire video if you wish, but buffering is on by default.
Video Subscriptions - This may not be a huge money maker, but I'm sure there are at least a few people out there who would like to sell their videos to people. Youtube could have a program where they manage all that for you. All you handle is making the videos and driving the subscribers. Youtube handles the rest from payments to video access.
HD Embedding - Do you run a website and want to host videos on it? Well Youtube could stream HD content right to your website without a watermark. You just pay either per view or for bandwidth. Currently HD embedding is possible on external websites, but is not an official supported feature.
Advertising Over Time - At the moment the advertisements that appear beside videos stay there no longer how long you are watching. On a non-video website you are always switching pages and thus viewing an array of ads. Youtube could swap out banner ads every minute or so to increase the amount shown.
I had two or three more ideas but unfortunately appear to have forgotten them when I thinking about it last week. My own fault I suppose for taking so long to write this post.
April 12, 2009
Raising the Lower Reagent Cost
So I'm doing a Lord Oaks champion spawn last night with our guild. It gets to second second stage. I start summoning Earth Elementals to deal with the wisps. There isn't much going on so I start thinking about the act of summoning an Earth Elemental and how it is funny to create something out of nothing (because I have 100% Lower Reagent Cost, it takes not reagents to cast any Magery spells). I jump to thinking that it might be an idea to change Lower Reagent Cost to be less effective on higher level Magery spells.
You see, ever since LRC (the abbreviation for Lower Reagent Cost) was introduced 6 years ago with the Age of Shadows expansions, it has been a disease on the game. When the people who designed item properties did so, they expected that it would be impossible for players to get 100% of anything. They even let you get as higher Lower Mana Cost as you want. If a cap was never introduced, we could be casting spells using no mana today!
So getting 100% LRC was probably thought to be virtually impossible. And if you did manage it you would be sacrificing other properties in the process. But here we are today where neither has proven true. Virtually every magic caster runs around with 100% LRC and every other important property.
Over time a few developers have expressed opinions that LRC needs to be dealt with. Reagent use was supposed to be a key balancing factor in casting magic spells. It prevented players from fighting indefinitely and more importantly acted as a gold sink due to only being able to acquire reagents from NPC vendors. But, of course, players have gotten so used to running around with no worries that any time it is brought up there is a huge backlash.
Well back to my idea. What if higher level spells required reagents? For example you need 2 reagents to cast an 8th circle Magery spell. None of the 8th circle spells are vital. You can still use your full array of healing and attacking abilities even if you run out of reagents. You just can't resurrect other players, summon elementals or cast Earthquake. All of which are very powerful spells and should require physical items to pull off. This system can also be applied to 7th circle, requiring 2 reagents or 1 reagent. Then 6th circle would be 1 reagent. For example. If you try to cast Resurrection under this system it would randomly select 2 reagents you must have and use.
I haven't seen this type of solution proposed for balancing LRC before. It could also be expanded to high skill Necromancy spells. I think this proposal could be sold to the general player base if it was thoroughly explained how the removal of reagents has negatively impacted the game.
You see, ever since LRC (the abbreviation for Lower Reagent Cost) was introduced 6 years ago with the Age of Shadows expansions, it has been a disease on the game. When the people who designed item properties did so, they expected that it would be impossible for players to get 100% of anything. They even let you get as higher Lower Mana Cost as you want. If a cap was never introduced, we could be casting spells using no mana today!
So getting 100% LRC was probably thought to be virtually impossible. And if you did manage it you would be sacrificing other properties in the process. But here we are today where neither has proven true. Virtually every magic caster runs around with 100% LRC and every other important property.
Over time a few developers have expressed opinions that LRC needs to be dealt with. Reagent use was supposed to be a key balancing factor in casting magic spells. It prevented players from fighting indefinitely and more importantly acted as a gold sink due to only being able to acquire reagents from NPC vendors. But, of course, players have gotten so used to running around with no worries that any time it is brought up there is a huge backlash.
Well back to my idea. What if higher level spells required reagents? For example you need 2 reagents to cast an 8th circle Magery spell. None of the 8th circle spells are vital. You can still use your full array of healing and attacking abilities even if you run out of reagents. You just can't resurrect other players, summon elementals or cast Earthquake. All of which are very powerful spells and should require physical items to pull off. This system can also be applied to 7th circle, requiring 2 reagents or 1 reagent. Then 6th circle would be 1 reagent. For example. If you try to cast Resurrection under this system it would randomly select 2 reagents you must have and use.
I haven't seen this type of solution proposed for balancing LRC before. It could also be expanded to high skill Necromancy spells. I think this proposal could be sold to the general player base if it was thoroughly explained how the removal of reagents has negatively impacted the game.
April 9, 2009
Sound is so Complicated
Special Note: This isn't very interesting. I wouldn't read this post unless you are wondering how to create a setup where you can record sound from a specific game without voice chat being included from Teamspeak/Ventrilo.
I've been working for a couple weeks to get the sound settings on my computer to a place where I can do what I want, which is basically record game sound without voice chat. Yesterday I finally got it down.
Before this all got started I had to have my regular headset and then used some iPod earbuds to listen to both computers at the same time. Main computer ran UO, laptop ran Ventrilo. It was not ideal at all. For one, the headphones were pressing against the ear buds and causing ear aches which were annoying. I also had to reach for the laptop keyboard every time I wanted to talk in voice chat.
To begin I tried various means to route the sound from my main computer to a laptop and then to my headset. I bought a cable to plug into the headphone socket and pipe all sound to the microphone socket. But that wouldn't work because then all my UO sound is going to broadcast in voice chat. So I bought a splitter to bypass connecting to the laptop. But when I had both computer on there was terrible static. I've been informed it has to do with the different groundings and I could have purchased a device to eliminate that. So the setup could have worked but I'm glad it didn't.
So then I look into methods of streaming sound over my network. I am able to use VLC to stream a movie, but can't find any method to do just computer sound. Plus there is a terrible delay which I'm sure there is a way to correct with some buffering options. But I can't buffer game actions so everything would be out of sync.
Then I read about more methods and decide to look into purchasing a sound card. Currently I was using the motherboard sound jacks. I hop on to Newegg and see the selection. I notice some Audigy cards and suddenly remember I have a computer with a sound card in it. The computer is about 8 years old so I didn't think the card would be compatible. I thought my computer (Dell Vostro 200) only had PCI-Express slots. Which was pretty silly of me because I bought a PCI wireless adapter and installed it when I bought the thing. Anyway, I rip out (literally, it was jammed in there) the sound card from the old computer, which turned out to be an Audigy 2 Platinum or something, and installed it into my current one. Their still updating drivers for it. When I downloaded it the last update was March 9.
Finally it looks like I'm getting somewhere. So I setup Ventrilo to use the sound card and Ultima Online ends using the motherboard jacks. Here I run into another problem, how do I listen to both at the same time? Then I remember the splitter and give it a second try. At the time I thought the static was from the laptop, because I do get a little bit normally. There was none. Hurray!
So now I can record videos with all game sounds while excluding voice chat. In addition the sound card makes me sound a lot clearer. I'll also probably see a boost in audio quality for newer games. UO shows no noticeable difference from either on-board or from the dedicated sound card, as I would expect from a 14 year old game.
I've been working for a couple weeks to get the sound settings on my computer to a place where I can do what I want, which is basically record game sound without voice chat. Yesterday I finally got it down.
Before this all got started I had to have my regular headset and then used some iPod earbuds to listen to both computers at the same time. Main computer ran UO, laptop ran Ventrilo. It was not ideal at all. For one, the headphones were pressing against the ear buds and causing ear aches which were annoying. I also had to reach for the laptop keyboard every time I wanted to talk in voice chat.
To begin I tried various means to route the sound from my main computer to a laptop and then to my headset. I bought a cable to plug into the headphone socket and pipe all sound to the microphone socket. But that wouldn't work because then all my UO sound is going to broadcast in voice chat. So I bought a splitter to bypass connecting to the laptop. But when I had both computer on there was terrible static. I've been informed it has to do with the different groundings and I could have purchased a device to eliminate that. So the setup could have worked but I'm glad it didn't.
So then I look into methods of streaming sound over my network. I am able to use VLC to stream a movie, but can't find any method to do just computer sound. Plus there is a terrible delay which I'm sure there is a way to correct with some buffering options. But I can't buffer game actions so everything would be out of sync.
Then I read about more methods and decide to look into purchasing a sound card. Currently I was using the motherboard sound jacks. I hop on to Newegg and see the selection. I notice some Audigy cards and suddenly remember I have a computer with a sound card in it. The computer is about 8 years old so I didn't think the card would be compatible. I thought my computer (Dell Vostro 200) only had PCI-Express slots. Which was pretty silly of me because I bought a PCI wireless adapter and installed it when I bought the thing. Anyway, I rip out (literally, it was jammed in there) the sound card from the old computer, which turned out to be an Audigy 2 Platinum or something, and installed it into my current one. Their still updating drivers for it. When I downloaded it the last update was March 9.
Finally it looks like I'm getting somewhere. So I setup Ventrilo to use the sound card and Ultima Online ends using the motherboard jacks. Here I run into another problem, how do I listen to both at the same time? Then I remember the splitter and give it a second try. At the time I thought the static was from the laptop, because I do get a little bit normally. There was none. Hurray!
So now I can record videos with all game sounds while excluding voice chat. In addition the sound card makes me sound a lot clearer. I'll also probably see a boost in audio quality for newer games. UO shows no noticeable difference from either on-board or from the dedicated sound card, as I would expect from a 14 year old game.
April 6, 2009
Faction Rankings Analyzer
I've got the idea now to make a web application which would harvest and display all types of interesting statistics related to UO factions. Plus I would be able to eliminate all of the ridiculous point amounts some Asian players have run up. Then we would be able to see the real stats once again, plus so much more like which faction has the most players and graphs on how member counts fluctuate.
I'm probably going to get on this very soon because each day that goes by is another day of statistics lost.
I'm probably going to get on this very soon because each day that goes by is another day of statistics lost.
April 2, 2009
Making Videos & Drafting Posts
I've never been a screenshot person. I've played UO so long but have hardly any. What I am discovering though is videos are more my forte.
Some people have probably seen my channels on Veoh and Youtube. In the past year I've created and uploaded about 50 UO related videos. There are about 3 dozen more sitting on my hard drive which I have to get to some time.
I find it a lot of fun making them. At the same time I learn a lot about video (and now audio) editing. Plus, this creates a record of things I do along with big fights. The other day I noticed that my videos on Youtube have been viewed over 27,000 times. Combine that with Veoh and that is a lot of hits. (I don't know the total because Veoh does not list that anywhere)
Very recently I decided to start doing narrated videos. My first being a historical tour of the Tower I placed when Trammel opened up.
JC's Tower Tour [Part 1]
JC's Tower Tour [Part 2]
Originally I was using Veoh mostly due to the quality of the video. But now Youtube offers HD consistently and does not have many of Veoh's drawbacks (annoying advertisements, annoying related videos taking up the whole page, annoying removal of nice features for me to use).
Another narrated video I plan on making soon is one where I explore the history of UO houses I've owned/used. There is a lot of interesting stories there to tell.
Finally, there are a couple blog posts currently in draft form. One in particular I hope to get posted soon is about a design for a 7th Champion Spawn type. This is an idea I've been kicking around since they first introduced the whole system.
Some people have probably seen my channels on Veoh and Youtube. In the past year I've created and uploaded about 50 UO related videos. There are about 3 dozen more sitting on my hard drive which I have to get to some time.
I find it a lot of fun making them. At the same time I learn a lot about video (and now audio) editing. Plus, this creates a record of things I do along with big fights. The other day I noticed that my videos on Youtube have been viewed over 27,000 times. Combine that with Veoh and that is a lot of hits. (I don't know the total because Veoh does not list that anywhere)
Very recently I decided to start doing narrated videos. My first being a historical tour of the Tower I placed when Trammel opened up.
JC's Tower Tour [Part 1]
JC's Tower Tour [Part 2]
Originally I was using Veoh mostly due to the quality of the video. But now Youtube offers HD consistently and does not have many of Veoh's drawbacks (annoying advertisements, annoying related videos taking up the whole page, annoying removal of nice features for me to use).
Another narrated video I plan on making soon is one where I explore the history of UO houses I've owned/used. There is a lot of interesting stories there to tell.
Finally, there are a couple blog posts currently in draft form. One in particular I hope to get posted soon is about a design for a 7th Champion Spawn type. This is an idea I've been kicking around since they first introduced the whole system.
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