No. I don't like what UO has become, and I don't like where KR is taking it. I play UO very little these days for a number of reasons, not all necessarily related to my enjoyment of the game, but some very much related to my enjoyment of the game.

And while I don't take pride in being the naysayer, my only hope is that you'll read my words and either see my perspective, or grow to appreciate a game that you enjoy a lot more. After all, what could I ever hope to do to change UO, the best game I ever played?

I'll always be playing UO, though, one way or another.

If I want to imagine everything, I'll play PnP, thanks. I like the fact that UO gives nice possibilities to actually visualize your imagination. The other games don't. Period.

Many games offer many possibilities for one to visualize their imagination. It's what you do with what you have with your community. Its the community that sets the role play stage, even if its an imaginary community for some.

Update

Posted by Mr.Tact (1/29/07)



I want to address a big concern that I'm seeing in this thread -- the changes to the UI. There's a lot of "why the heck are they doing it this way". Diminishing the immersiveness of UO is a genuine concern, and one that we wrestled with. "Make spellbooks look like spellbooks" and "make all UI elements look consistent" are conflicting goals, and consistency ultimately won. We want UO to have a long and prosperous life, and to do so -- to compete in today's MMO marketplace -- we have to ensure that a player who has played WoW or EQ2 or DDO or SWG or CoH or RuneScape or Flyff or . . . you name it . . . can jump into UO and start experiencing its greatness with minimal friction. We want them to be able to learn the subtleties of the interface in a matter of minutes, and we judged that consistency was critical to achieving that.

Those of you who feel strongly that this is the wrong decision, don't fret! Although we don't have the resources to build two entirely different interfaces (one for the new folks and one for vets), we are doing a couple of things to allow you to make KR feel like the UO client you've known and loved for many years.

First off, we are planning legacy support for several interface features. I believe Aaron alluded to this at the town hall. I don't think it's going too far out on a limb to say that this is a very high priority for those of us who have been around for a while. We understand how important it is to you guys. But do note the word "planning" in that sentence. None of that stuff is done yet, and it's conceivable it could get cut or pushed until after KR in order to actually ship the new client.

What do I mean by "some features"? I'll give you a couple of examples. By default, KR chat will not be "type to talk". It will be modal, as is nearly every MMO out there -- you hit enter, you go into chat mode, you type, you hit enter again, you leave chat mode. Are some existing UO players going to hate that? Absolutely. Ergo, we are going to try and have a "legacy chat" interface option that WILL be type-to-talk.

Another example (one that I can see is clearly a hot button for many people) is containers. We are currently planning on three "views" for containers: the list view you saw at the town hall, a grid view (similar to most inventory systems out there), and a legacy view, where items just go where you put them. Again, not built yet, but in this case, as I'm the guy who's supposed to implement this, and I see no technical restrictions on doing it, I feel pretty good about it.

That is not to say containers will look like they do now -- they will be windows, just like everything else. But that takes me to my second point. Our interface will be very skinnable. If you want, you will be able to replace the background art for backpack windows with art that looks like a backpack, and I have no doubt that within days of shipping KR some enterprising group will announce that they are developing a "legacy client" skin.

(One last related thing I want to throw in here: we ARE planning to have user-configurable alpha on the containers, so if you dislike see-through windows, you will be able to reduce the amount of blending, or turn it completely off.)

Be nice to each other...tabby

Can you actually give me an example of these "many possibilites" that the "many" games provide? For what I have played the other MMOs, they don't offer jack compared to UO.

You have to visualize it.

Possibly, use you imagination.

I already said that if I am forced to imagine everyting, I'll rather play Pen and Paper roleplaying games. UO gives me the possibility to do most of the things needed to do visually, so it's different from PnP roleplaying. The other MMOs I've tried (and I've tried about a dozen) don't offer enough possibilities to visualize the things UO does. Can you see my point now or do I have to log into UO to show you what I mean?

sooo we can costumize the UI skin.. !

Thats good news... I'll make me own.

I am ok with the new interface but I think it's great that they are gonna make a legacy interface.

they are not going to make it.. he says hes sure some group does it. But not 100% sure