Thread :-.. well this EM event sure did grind to a screeching halt ,posted in
UO.UHall


Comment

it was doing good and then ... nada

i've almost stopped checking the thread in the hopes of new information

the boredom level is at an all-time high with this quest, that's for sure

I was hoping before xmas it would pick up steam but ... of course in typical ultima fashion it went in the exact opposite direction and died a slow and painful death

let's go down the list of unfinished story plotlines so far shall we?

1) the extra doors that lead nowhere in the roclasmpy dungeon
2) the time lord
3) the rifts
4) blackrock in all its shapes and forms - all 3 of them (original pieces, small pieces, and large pieces)
5) what the hell is inu doing these days - i don't even know where she's hanging out anymore
6) sherry the mouse that walks around aimlessly
7) the non-functional contribution statuette in the wisp dungeon
8) the lack of a source of dense information
9) ricardo's irrelevance to anything
10) snake skins that do nothing
11) ophidian rations that do nothing
12) wasn't this supposed to be a runup to the uokr release and some "big" info or something - i'm not hearing anything big and xmas is almost here

(feel free to contribute your own leftovers to this list if you want)


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Do not forget those events that are on other shard, example Sonoma, we still have a red gate in the Serpent's Hold war room to Ocllo and a spawning of ice dungeon monster to greet you, the spawn is all around the now empty graves of our old EM and her brother, [story line back then was Jade (Masara) was from there, and her brother's grave was used by her in her plot the year before]

When Masara left for Siege, the event was explained by the death of Jade by savages in Ilsh, and we were introduced to Rowena [Hazel] as she led a mission to retrive Jade body.

Now Jade's ghost as well as her brother's are now seating in the library in ice dungeon, [Trammel] and we are no where closers to finding out who was pulling the strings, for all know that the savages of Ilsh could not or would not have done such a mission on their own.

So we now wait with hopes that someday our current EM will be able to finish the current events of the old commanders death and lead us onto the future of Sonoma.

5) what the hell is inu doing these days - i don't even know where she's hanging out anymore



Check Yew Prison [Trammel]



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5) what the hell is inu doing these days - i don't even know where she's hanging out anymore

Watch the trial of Ricardo (being re-enacted daily in Yew) for the answer to that one.

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Ah typical U.Hall negativity from someone who's obviously not paid much attention. Were you at the trial of Ricardo? Have you read Jeremy's comments about upcoming UO:KR information early next year? Where did they say we'd know where the story was going prior to Xmas? Oh, they didn't.

I'd like to see a few loose ends tied up as well, but I'm taking a more positive view. I'm quite hopeful based on everything I've seen from the EA/Mythic team these past couple of months.

BTW it's not an EM event. Those are specific to a single shard. It's a game-wide storyline.


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What you're describing is Inu the Crone.....The storyline that will lead to the launch of UO:KR.

It is not an EM event, it is on all shards and is run directly by EA.

I have my quibbles with this event.....Ok, some aren't quibbles but are serious criticisms.

However, to say that it's come to a "screeching halt" is simply a factual error. Most of the things you mentioned have been in use during parts of the storyline. You probably missed them. I missed most of them too. Some are simply objects. Momentos, eventually valuable perhaps. Many, perhaps even most, players like having things like that. Also, many, perhaps even most, players like having some things lying around, the legacy of permanent changes made by an event cycle. (How many players complain that such permanent changes "never" happen since the Seers?)

(They have removed some things, the chalk outline and chattery NPCs outside the WBB for example, thank God.)

Now again.....I'm actually not a great fan of this event cycle, though I'm glad to see so many players so into it. But your central criticism is simply wrong factually.


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Except for the sole highlight that was the ophidian invasion, this entire Inu thing has been one big letdown. It never even sounded good in theory.

"Coming to UO, a brand new awesome storyline! INU THE CRONE! This seemingly pointless NPC will be standing at West Britain bank shouting nonsense for WEEKS! As many as six or seven people on Stratics will bother trying to decipher her gibberish! The rest will THRILL with boredom as they correctly guess that nothing she's spamming will really matter anyway!"

"Coming next, PART TWO of the amazing saga of INU THE CRONE! Inu has been kidnapped by some generic villain for some ill-defined reason, and only whoever happened to be standing around the bank when the event started can save her! GASP as you and 400 other people plow through hordes of paragon balrons and other things by sheer weight of numbers! GROAN as you realize you've burned through a quarter-mil worth of insurance money but can't actually let the old cow out of her cell when you do find her! BOGGLE while you wonder why the kidnapping of a random crazy old woman is anything of concern to the kingdom in the first place!"

...and then most recently...

"Coming to UO, the latest chapter in the neverending story of INU THE CRONE! This time Ricardo the thief is on trial, and YOU will have the chance to sit silently and watch our NPCs decide what to do about it! SHUFFLE as you're made to sit still in the courtroom! CHAT in the party system as you watch a bunch of scripted characters have drama and adventure! SNORE as you realize that you're pretty much watching the game play itself this week!"



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Jeremy_EAMythic UO Community Coordinator

rtlp


Kaghash - what kind of events do you want to see? What would you find exciting? Examples of successful events, in this or any other mmo, would be most helpful.


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The Inu storyline was originally intended to announce the future of UO. After that point, it basically lost its purpose and the storyline has clearly suffered. There are now so many loose ends all over the place that the events don't seem connected anymore.

Inu should be retired and something new should happen. For instance, why don't they make a new king for Britannia or introduce other major characters. There used to be lots of them in UO's early history, but most are now gone (died, vanished, went to other planes of existance). It seems as if everything revolves around one or two people.


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Well, I disagree. The trial has been a great idea, imo anyways.

It also did something ingame that really does not happen much anymore, for me... it made me think. UO has become just so,what is word, rote,?

It was also fine when the gypsy ran up to me yelling "Ricardo is innocent", even though I could not interact with him. All I could so was say that I agree.

It was almost like the old days when npcs actually noticed us

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I personally believe scenarios were much more rewarding and fun, than EM events
EM Events are only at certain times of the week, scenarios are there for everyone, all the time and last for the life of UO
They also bring in new items, art and animation and additional storylines

Any chance of a new scenario team?

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Kaghash - what kind of events do you want to see? What would you find exciting? Examples of successful events, in this or any other mmo, would be most helpful.



#1 - Whatever is happening, it must involve the players

I don't care how clever you think Inu's spam was, or how hard it was to script that trial. This is a game, not a movie. Creating "content" that doesn't actually give your customers something to DO is a waste of development resources. A little bit of non-interactive "fluff" is fine, but it should be a peripheral addition and never anything of as much signifigance as this Ricardo trial.

#2 - What the players do should have an effect

The best UO event in recent years was by far the ophidian invasion and it's use of the advanced spawner. Why? Because unlike every other city invasion in the history of UO, this one wasn't just going to end when some GM remembered to delete the spawners months down the road. It would end when players made it end. The invasion could be fought, pushed back, and defeated. Not just farmed for gold out of sheer novelty. Other good events were the savage/orc war and the destruction and possible saving of Yew back in the old "scenario" days.

#3 - Yeah, people like items

Don't make the items anything unbalancing, just unique. (The recent Halloween event did a good job on this front.) Give us something new and shiny to collect as we interact and shape events.

Adding new limited-run items is a great way to de-fossilize the economy, and get money flowing from the rich old vets to the have-nots. There are people with LOTS of gold, who will pay some of that gold to relative newbies in order to get more of whatever the new item of the week is.

During both Treasures of Tokuno events, for example, every Joe Newbie was rolling in millions of gold. Why? Because anyone could go kill orcs, or kappa, or anything, and have a shot at a minor artifact that could sell for hundreds of thousands. During that Halloween event, any cash-poor casual gamer could possibly get one of those ghoul statues, and sell it for millions.

Fluidity in the economy is a good thing, and these sort of items encourage it.

#4 - Complete storyline synopsis at uo.com, updated like clockwork

Don't make me come here and try to figure out what events I've missed and whether they connect all of this other seemingly unrelated stuff.

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Jeremy_EAMythic UO Community Coordinator


As for #4, I'm working on it - I completely agree with you.

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I disagree, I don't like the Inu storyline too much (but hey others are enjoying it and thats good enough for me), but the trial was actually pretty interesting and there was a great turnout, at the same time it was a testbed for developers which was a bonus. So its definetly not a waste of development ressources.


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Kaghash - what kind of events do you want to see? What would you find exciting? Examples of successful events, in this or any other mmo, would be most helpful.



To start things off jeremy, We need congruity int he story line!!!

Examples:

Lorgash: Why did he have "The shattering", and why do we have it now?

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Enslaved Demon: Who is his master? What plain of existance?

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Odda: Still standing there, spouting off the same dribble?

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Daiichi, Nanako, Tomoe, and Yatsue:
Have no clue about anyhting that happened to inu, or anything else.

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Maya: Did they make it out of the fandancer dojo?

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Yrigor:
Why did he have us kill people? Who was his master? What dark matters made him do what he did?

Lorenzen: Why does he still respond as if thats all he knows, Yrigor is already dead, and he is unaware!

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The ghost at brit moongates: Will he ever get rezzed?
Barry the moongate:
Does anyone but me care that he is STILL stuck in the ethereal void?

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To top it off...

The Sheriff of Trinsic: STILL Does not know about Ricardo being captured.

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And there is more... much much much more... things that have been left to sit
stale....

Will these ever be answered? Or will they be another "FoA Memorial"


Thats frusterating, all the NPC's created just stand there, never to be updated.


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CatHat UO Character/Environments Artist




Not Quite -

hmmmm should I play more UO and get to understanding this thread...

OR

not?

lol

I am glad that I am not the only one lost, but UO's events are just random spurts of activity and then nothing.

Yea, I agree
Personally I think they're a waste of time
Either they actually get PAID professionals to do events like clockwork, or scrap the whole thing
It's not fair for X shards to get events on and off and some shards not to get any at all
Seems the event program is just a total mess and waste of players money

When I used to play, I lost count of the stupid amount of areas the Baja EM used to block off for no reason, like the gargoyle city and that was blocked off for weeks, but why? there was no storyline to anything he/she did either.

The events never seem to have any real purpose. However the invasion of the Ophidians was great. It was like, there are only so many of these things set to spawn, so kill as many as possible in the hope that the next one, is the last one. Best event I've done in ages. However, why can't we bring some of the original players back. The Avatar, King of Britania (forgets his name), Lord Blackthorn etc...........if you've ever played the Ultima Series, I mean the Single player ones, you'll know that there are a lot of story lines that UO could easily include, but haven't bothered. I'd like to see the gargoyle race quest. Basically the gargoyles are dying out because they have lost the lenses that allowed them to read the gargoyle codex. Find the lenses. It could even just be a quest. Com on dev team, more interactive quests/events are needed.

IF they weren't so sporadic and weren't such a mess, they wouldn't be half as bad

But it's much of the same old, same old

Lead everyone around on a tour of Brittania, spawn XX monsters, then spawn a big one hit killing boss
And yea, if it was something like the ophidian invasion, it'd be GOOD
But some shards haven't seen events in MONTHS

Ho ho ho, if you only knew the answer to that. I have full faith in Jeremy and the new team, think about what's really going on in the works. You just have to read behind the lines to get the storyline, they want you to think and to puzzle things out. I mean, who wants the story told to them, when you can figure it out on your own and work to make a difference. That's what the team wants from us now, but here, if your a Ultima buff like I am, the last name on the current BNN article, non other then Sutek of Moonglow. Then think about what they are doing with the Justice of Yew, but moreover the Compassion of Britania's Royal Council, then think on whom could influence it all, here is another clue, I'll give you Three guesses. But maybe I'm just crazy, shut up Adam!

*wishes he could hear the voices Cabe hears*

I may need you to send me PM on what all is going on. As far as the story line goes...I feel more lost then Carpathia does about PvP .

Vepl