source taken from UO.UHall

Comment

Apologies if this has already been posted:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/55/10

There's an interesting segment about the creation of trammel, and he seems to imply his preferred method would have been player towns with PvP controls, rather than a mirrored facet. Of course, he left OSI before the decision(mistake) was made.

I think that single decision has shaped the course of UO for the last 6 years more than any other. Intriguing to think how different the game would be now if he had remained in charge, even if just for that extra year.

http://www.uo.com/cgi-bin/newstools.pl?Article=8402

Can we revert to this please?

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He was Designer Dragon, and I believe he was the very first lead developer for UO. As much as the game has changed over the years, a lot of his fingerprints in terms of "virtual worldiness" are still all over it.

That said, he can also be a bit of a wannabe-sociologist kook, more interested in tweaking the dynamics of his virtual society than in delivering fun to customers. But he's a cool guy, and very active on a lot of forums.

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That particulr article is quite old news, really, being from three months ago But the escapist is a good read, though

His blog actually goes into far more depth about all kinds of gameplay issues and UO design reasonings (same for SWG), and is a good general MMO design theory resource:

http://www.raphkoster.com

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Didn't he just start his own studio? I assume he's working on his own MMO right now.

I liked a lot of Designer Dragon's ideas. I remember him from the old Ultima Dragons days (where everyone chose a first name to go along with "Dragon" to designate you as an Ultima nerd). I have to admit... I lost a little respect for the guy when he stopped going by Designer Dragon. But I guess the Ultima Dragons are just ancient history nowadays.

Also, yes, SWG was a disaster, but I think blaming it all on Koster is a bit silly. SWG in it's original form beats the hell out of the current NGE incarnation!

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Draconi UO Designer

Long live the Ultima Dragons! It still seems to be active (someone could correct me), and I think the "Join" feature even works still! The UDIC was one of the first websites I ever found on the web. (I think I was looking for a map editor for U6 and ran across it).

It's actually kinda fun to compare the developers list against the Grand Roster and see who's who

Lord I still want this to happen. Player towns are just so right for UO, most of the fun in the early days revolved around them. At least on Ches they did. The town PVP controls might have been the way to avoid making a Trammel. *shrugs*

I have infinite respect for Koster and many of the others who were part of the original team as well, but I disagree with the stance on Trammel. Trammel, in my opinion, did save UO and I don't believe player run towns or anything relying on player responsibility for that matter would have.

If it wasn't the PvP kiddies ruining the MMORPG for the those wishing to play it as a MMORPG, then it would have been the "big fish in the little pond" people who wormed their ways in to so many RP communities and kept those communities from growing because everything became based on the mutual hind-end-kissing.

Trammel gave people the ability to be respected in the communities if they chose to strive for that in an honest fashion. It gave the Quake heads their own facet to stay in and do nothing but endless rinse & repeat PvP. In both, Trammel proved the flaws in Felucca.

But it's good to see Koster still active in the industry. He was a very, very awesome person in UO. Now if he'd only go join Garriott and Long at Destination, and they could return to their Origin.....

Player towns would be awesome, but, the only problem I see with that, is the fact people quit and tend to sell said player town housing as "rares" on Ebay

Or, they quit and the housing collapses

One thing that could be done, imo, is to allow EA to take ownership of X houses in a town, EA decos the area, with say npc's and/or deco and the houses remain in EA's hands indefinatly

But then the question is, what happens if all the creators of said towns, quit? does EA demolish the town?

Player run towns would be the making of UO imo, but it's how to go about implmenting such a thing.

I agree with this 100%. Infact it's the reason why I can't stand freeshards. They are geared towards hardcore PvP. But on the other hand, UO in it's current state is geared towards PvM. UO lost that fine balance between PvP and PvM when AoS hit.

Hehe, when I saw the pictures of UO on the box when I was out buying it years ago, I saw people fighting in bases and saw cannons. I thought we could make our own towns and raid and such. I agree that if implemented, player ran towns would be a huge breakthrough for UO.