souce taken from UO U.Hall

Lesson the First: Almost any significant change to PvP will have an impact on PvM. Almost every significant change to PvM (as it affects templates) will have an impact on PvP. Almost any significant change to crafting will have an impact on PvP and PvM. Changes in loot affect PvM and PvP. Changes to skills affect PvP and PvM.

Craftable spellbooks affect PvM and, to a lesser extent, PvP. Craftable rings affect PvP and PvM. Craftable runics affect PvP and PvM.

Changes to critter loot and loot from other sources affect PvP and PvM. Anyone remember how hard 1/3 rings used to be to get? Or what we used to wear before marties both large and small?

What were our templates before Bushido? Before Chivalry? In PvP or PvM? When did we begin playing archers in both after the ORIGINAL "nerf" years and years ago?

Lesson: We can't expect any significant change to any game system which doesn't have an effect on another or all other game systems. So, only someone who hasn't been paying attention for the past 10 years or so will request something like: "Developers don't do anything to fix PvP which will have any effect on PvM!"

Lesson the Second: Throughout the internet universe of game players, the PvPers outnumber the PvE'ers by a huge margin. Of course, this includes all the games which are not MMORPG's such as first person shooters in which the entire purpose of the game is to "PvP."

Lesson: People who cry "PvMers are the UO majority, so stop paying attention to the whines of the PvPers and cater only to the PvMers" are asking the developers to completely ignore the largest section of the internet gaming marketplace. And, to make things worse, they are asking this in an environment in which UO has a significantly dwindling subscription base....at a time when critter hunting is better than it has ever been.

Lesson the Third: Anyone who posted the focus of the "PvP focus group" did so with the knowledge that their source had violated the Non-Disclosure Agreement. They posted it with the knowledge that it would cause an uproar on these boards. They posted it with the hope that it would throw a wrench in the works.

Lesson: If you ignore Lessons 1&2, then, when you post an unfinished product on the boards in hopes that it will stop further progress on fixing PvP because it might have an adverse impact on your game play, then you might get what you ask for. The focus groups was, as I suspected, mostly a group of people who were to REVIEW changes that the DEVELOPERS proposed, although the players were submitting their own ideas....NONE of which had been adopted by the developers as yet and NONE of which were on the boards. So, now, due to this insanely selfish act of "Don't mess with MY gameplay to fix the game play of SOMEONE ELSE" in posting these unfinished IDEAS, the players will have a much more difficult time in AFFECTING what the finished product is....INCLUDING minimizing the effect on YOUR gameplay when possible. Be careful what you ask for.

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Lesson 1: Then the devs should stop treating each as they're a vaccum, just because a change makes sense in one system doesn't mean it does in another.

Or maybe the devs should finally wisen up and start seperating the PvP and PvM systems better, so the changes that makes sense in PvP and not in PvM will be applied solely to PvP and visa versa. Anything else is pure laziness.

Lesson 2: You forget the thousands of singleplayer games or multipurpose games like AOE and C&C. Your statement is way off both for MMORPGs and non-MMORPGs.

Lesson 3: Havinhg a single purpose group that evaluates multipurpose changes (affecting both PvM and PvP) is terribly onesided and unless we're lucky will only serve to worsen the game.

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While I like throwing wrenches around, there were other reasons. One of them being that people were trying to sell really expensive items (100+ million Ecru Rings) before the majority of players found out about the changes. That is a big issue with this group. Some guy even tried it here on Stratics in the Rare Collectors forum. A select group of people are going to know what changes are going to be ahead of time and can profit from it. Insider trading as they put it.

There is also the right of all players being able to know of potential changes that could affect them. For example, two people are going to train Bushido, one in the focus group and one not. The one in the group knows of an upcoming change and decides it is not worth training a new character. The person not in the group goes ahead and is shocked two weeks later to find their new template destroyed. This person even put together the suit, spending millions on items people were eager to sell because they knew of the upcoming changes.

The focus group discussions should be in the public eye.

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There is a third option:


3) You can have this focus group where people (albeit, not all of them experts on the matter) can have meaningful exchanges with the devs directly, without the background noise of the masses, to share knowledge and educate one another about this issue. These postings will be made public for everyone to see, but only the focus group participants can respond to the developers. Group participants can remain anonymous if they so desire.

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If people are making live-shard decisions based on first-pass rough changes, well... that's their gamble. And they're under NDA so we can make first-pass rough changes and get some eyeballs on them without it becoming a huge deal all over - witness the 100+ post thread on the leaked changes, some or most of which may never go live in any recognizable form. If we have to consider the PR implications of our testing, we're not going to get real testing done - and so we'll have to just pull it back internal.

That being said, we think that, so far, we're getting good feedback and making real progress - we just need to all get the same page as to how it's gonna work. Incidentally, we have no intention of putting these changes on a live shard without public testing time, so y'all will get a chance to weigh in, too - just not quite yet.
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E. Jeremy Dalberg
UO Community Coordinator
EA Mythic
www.uo.com

*sigh*

It's no wonder this game's a mess, when people can't adhere to such simple rules.

It just shows you that a majority of players are only out there for themselves, instead of making the game, experience, and the community a better place. Perhaps in the future, focus groups should be by invitation only; based off acct history, forum post history(This forum in particular , and time in game.

So true Adam.

Good idea Maddux.

That's why I didn't think that focus group was a good idea. Plus they didn't ask a lot of info on that application. There may have been good people in that 1st group who really wanted to help pvp, but idiots have to ruin it and get them all booted out.

Who's to say that this 2nd group would be any better?

There needs to be a binding agreement, by law, if possible.
May seem abit over the top, but if it keeps people from "leaking" information, then so be it
I feel sorry for those who DID provide good info and abided by the rules.
I agree with Maddux to about the account banning.

Hell we have lawyers in the US now going to jail for leaking grand jury proceedings to 2 reporters so they could write a freakin book about possible cheating in baseball. We have White House employees leaking information about undercover people. There is no honor, there is only covering your own arse and all else be damned.

A real shame. The Dev's reachout for input only to get burned by those with no integrity. I wouldn't blame them if it never happens again.

You can't have such profound PVP changes placed before someone and not except them to discuss it with close PVP friends. This is how it has always been with "this" group of people. It happens with every expansion even while the NDA is in effect.

If this was an official expansion then the chatter would be a lot more hidden. Even with Kingdom Reborn, people were talking for weeks beforehand with closed beta testers. But this is just a plain old publish and having people sign Non-Disclosure Agreement is really silly.

The new forum postings are already being leaked and someone will probably post the most important one by the end of the day. It looked like someone already tried on Stratics when I check UHall this morning.