I can go either way on the temporary addition of the blackrock skill gain effect. Granted I believe in gradual skill gain over gameplay, but the skill gain system itself has been a disgrace ever since GGS or GSG or whatever the proper term is for it was introduced. It was the holidays, people were home, it was temporary anyways...I decided to use it. I saw no harm in it.

However the way it was turned off really irks me. No, I'm not saying it should have gone on longer. This was a good amount of time I think for it to remain. Those of us who decided to use it already had. But no word, no warning. No corresponding fiction on uo.com to give a RP or even sensible explanation to it suddenly vansishing. Simply a message with the patch.

This is another example of corners being cut..which I've been seeing happen more & more. A better idea whould to have set aside 3+ days and gradually doubled the blackrock spawn each day from the day before, then simply turned it off after the spawn had increased so much as to obviously make it impossible to train skill there anyways. That wouldn't have even needed a paragraph story on uo.com but one would still have been nice anyway.

That's my feedback as a player. I enjoyed the ability to train a new character using the area and it was a nice holiday bonus from the Developers...but still, there was a corner cut that didn't need to be, and I think the staff really need to look at how much they're doing that. Whether it's because Mythic has taken over or because everyone there is stretched out between KR and Inu and Ricardo and...et cetera.

I agree.

I liked the story where they worked it in...why not let it bow out with a small story? Like you said, cranking up the spawn to a point where being in there was an actual death sentence wouldve worked very well and Im sure could be tied in some way to the overall arc of the stiory....

I was really hoping that the Quest NPCs added to the Lyceaum were going to a blackrock turn in. Wouldve been really neat taht if you turned in enough blackrock pieces you could get some kind of pendant that would work like the motherlode, but even have it set at .2 every gain or something.

Or be able to pick "Blackrock-made practice weapons" after turning in so much of the blackrock pieces that would do very little damage and be near worthless unless you were trying to gain skill only.

Agreed.

To me this represents a lack of consistency that is (ironically) consistently present in many of the recent additions to UO. The addition lacks a real reason, real being relevant to the world of Britannia. I don't mean they should write a little story on uo.com for everything they put in the game, I just mean the additions should be added in such a way that they preserve the coherency of the world so that it's still believable, in a way, and not an addition whose sole purpose is to "please players". And as strange a thing as I just typed sounds, bear in mind that I feel maintaining a coherent and believable world is far more important than providing little bonuses to players that ring true with the floods of odd ideas I see on U.Hall every day.

In other worlds, building, maintaining, and improving a game system that best carries out a theme and means of existing within Britannia is far more important than "little bonuses".

But then, I probably don't know what I'm talking about.

Definately agree. If they put a little story to get it in, they should have done the same to get it out.

That's what I thought this whole thing with Wexton was about, I thought they would have done a little storyline where he created his blackrock locator and it would diminish the power of the areas, thus weakening the spawn (making them actually kill-able) AND getting rid of the "infused power".

Eh, guess that's just my mind playing tricks on me.

I agree with the story in story out Idea.

I would also be happy with something being added without a story that is just found by players they could also remove it without a notice to. it would keep people looking for stuff and exploring more of the landscape.

I would have preferred random blackrock crops spawning around the lands that added the gain and then when it was mined up the gains dried up as well.