WP

Hi all. I've been around for about a week, and have a few observations that I wanted to bring up. This seemed the most appropriate place for it.
For the most part, I'm enjoying my time here. There are some very helpful players that I've seen around, and I haven't met anyone who didn't seem friendly, which is great.

I've come from trying out a few different shards over the past month. I played back in the old days on OSI before T2A was a thing, and I keep coming back to free shards every so often. I love the game, but like a lot of games, without a solid community, particularly people to play with and socialize with regularly, the tedium wins out. For this reason I was pretty hesitant to try this shard. I have seen enough of a rapport at times with some of the players and staff that I'm still hopeful at playing awhile.

There are some other issues though that I've noticed that make it an uphill climb. There are policies and settings that I think could be fine, but there isn't a large enough player base for it to be a good environment for the new player. The beginning skill bumps are nice, but there is a major hole in the beginning play here.

The thing that tipped me off to a lot of it was on my second day, when I spent about two hours going through the travel center and checking out every vendor I could find. I had at this point GM'd taming, gotten a couple of bakes and farmed over a 100K gp. I assumed that this would be enough to get me some decent newbie gear, and give me a good idea on how to gauge the economy here, so I could start saving up for some power scrolls.

It was not. There are little to no power scrolls out on the vendors. There were very few vendors that had much of anything of interest to a new player. I could not find more than two pieces of affordable gear that had LRC on it at all. I like the mage/necro tamer role, but I can't get the gear I need for it. I'm not looking for great gear, just an LRC suit.

I spent some more time grinding out gold, asking questions in chat, or of a few people here or there, and I'm completely convinced that the economy is broken. I've been playing here for five days, with a few very long days over the past weekend. I have placed a castle, I've bought a Radiant Fire, and Shield of the Dark Rose, but I can't piece together enough gear for a full LRC suit, or find any power scrolls to advance the skills i want to play, much less afford them. I only was able to afford the castle and these items because there is nothing else worth spending my gold on so I hoard it.

I thought that I might try archery, since I couldn't find some LRC. My first string broke within five minutes. There really needs to be something about that in the new player guides, near the top. I had no idea what I was supposed to do about it. i was lucky enough that someone in public was able to fix it for me, and I found the post that talked about it while they were doing so. I spent 50k in gold in the next two hours on strings because they kept breaking. After the first two I bought the most expensive ones I could off of the npc vendor, and those lasted less than twenty minutes. I have no idea who this mechanic is supposed to serve, but it's definitely not helping new players.

The progressive power scrolls are a problem. On a shard large enough to have an economy where you have many people that can farm them, and several vendors selling them, it can help to have to go in order. With the number of players here, and on most other small shards, its detrimental. There are not enough of them in circulation to make them available. I can see lowering the drop rate for the 120s, giving a reason for people to consume the lower ones, but there isn't a large enough population here to farm them to allow people to progress.

The BOD system is strange to me. On every other free shard I've played on, there are BODS for bowcrafting. Most have them for tinkering and and some for carpentry. I ran through several tailoring bods, but get the same rewards, some cloth, some sandals, some tokens and gold. In most places I would get a 5 or 10 use runic for some of the 20 item higher cloth bods sometimes. It seems like the runic rewards are in relatively short supply though, causing the lack of crafted gear on vendors.

I had been hoping to do some taming bods to possibly get a taming scroll, but not being able to pick up a new taming bod right away after turning in one makes it hard to keep motivated when you don't have a stock pile of them to continue doing it. I'm kinda curious why I can get a new smithing or tailoring bod right away, but not a taming one.

I do have to admit, I've done less than two dozen bods, so maybe I'm just impatient with them, but having gotten and completed them all at 100 skill in the craft when I got the bods, I'm not seeing what I expect.

I'm tied on what I think of the various keys(spellcasters/tools/etc). In most servers I've been on that have them there is a pretty wide disparity in how to get them, and that's fine. But none of them have as high of a requirement for them, particularly spell casters keys, although several others do require quests for them that take anywhere from an hour to days.. Given that it's super easy to get LRC gear from those, making it less needed, I find it both amusing and frustrating.

I'm having a hard time in general understanding some of the direction of some of the things implemented here. On several shards there are very strong indicators for a general play style that make some of their rules and implementations make sense, even if I don't agree with them. I have no idea here what the top bosses or areas are like here. There isn't enough information that I've found yet to give me a clue as to why this is.

For the new player, I'm doing pretty well with my tamed critters. It's what I prefer to base my characters on, but I like to have a backup, and given the lack of gear available, either from loot or from player vendors, I can't do much other than peace or disco the mobs for the pets to beat on.

I'm not saying that I think the way things are implemented are wrong. I am meaning to say these are things that I find odd about the server that I don't think are helping it retain new members. On the one hand, I'm finding it an interesting challenge to deal with the added difficulty of not being able to advance as quickly. On the other though, I spent almost three days in the same dungeon because it was the fastest place for me to make money while leveling the pets without risking them too much until I could afford bonding deeds, and now that I'm ready to move on to the next challenge, I really can't because of a lack of available items.

There's an overall lack of player vendors because players are generally cheapskates. The people with the biggest bank balances are the same ones who balk at paying vendor fees. Some former vendors that sold scrolls held over a hundred million gold but most people now won't subsidize the costs at the beginning to get a good scroll vendor started. Others found out that some are giving away lower scrolls for such low prices that (to them) they aren't worth gathering anymore.

The issue is similar with player-crafted gear. So much "high end" gear is given away for free / cheap that nobody wants crafted items, so nobody does crafting. Platinum items made with platinum tools sell for scrap value just because they aren't an artifact. Nobody believes me when I say that player-crafted items can be just as good or better than the coveted rare drops.

The economy is broken. There is no real "fix" except to wipe the shard and start over, as evidenced by other shards that have done the same thing. Too much gold is a problem common to many old shards. We could do something slightly less drastic like wiping only the gold from the world but even then the complaints would never end. Just look back over the older posts here from when we reduced the gold drops at champs!

Bow strings break. The trick is to craft your own, stronger strings as soon as you are able. Stronger strings do extra damage as well. This was another place where the economy was supposed to step up and create a market for strings. Instead, either nobody has them or they are given away for free. So much for that idea! Chance is a fickle thing. Something with a one-in-200 chance of breaking can break on the 3rd use or it could break on the 199th.

You can learn about a lot of the custom additions in this section of the forum:
New WP Content

Storage keys are supposed to be expensive and hard to make. They are simply meant to be something worked toward as an eventual goal. Spell casters just have to rely on the ol' reg bag until they can afford a key. You can buy regs in bulk and they're light enough that you can easily hold enough for a lot of adventuring before needing to restock.

The lack of some BOD varieties is because we run a very old version of RunUO. There are no plug-and-play systems that we can use for the missing types. Any attempt must also carefully tested with the BOD keys and other systems. We plan to look at this at some point but it will be very slow going to make sure nothing compromises the stability of the shard. Runic tools are available at the Crafter's Champ and through various quests, elementals, or even the Ingotless Blacksmith.

We purposefully don't have a wiki. It's more like real life was before google, where you learned by experience and by the stories of others. I've seen more than once where a player showed up, was given some high end gear when they started, and they "finished" the shard in 2 months time. There was nothing else to do; they skipped straight to the end game and bailed for other challenges.

WP's strength is its continuity. I modified our old server base to work with the current generation of client while not losing anything we already had. The shard's history and player contributions are fully intact. That also means all the "old" systems are still in place but they're interacting with the newer appearance and custom artwork. There will always be a few things to fix here and there but no other shard has ever pulled off that feat. AFAIK we are also the only place with different land masses for Tram and Fel, and with a form of PvP that makes it truly optional rather than necessary if you want to advance.

Changes are always happening here. We will continue to add new content and refine existing systems for as long as we can keep operating the keyboard!

I put a full LRC set on my vendor. See Yordor's Smithy gate at the travel center. I keep all kinds of things on my vendors when I get the chance to play.

Don't forget the Buying and Selling sections of the forum. That's a quick way to get something out of the ordinary or anything you can't find.

Arakines...very well thought out and written post..I will attempt to address what I can from a players point of view

quick backstory for credibility..I have been here over 8yrs.. joined a few months after the shards creation so I have seen every ebb and flow and seen and felt every change, improvement, tweak, and alteration that Ghost and company have made.

Power Scrolls: In the beginning there was no progressive system..If you got a 120 you were golden. They were highly coveted and quite costly...made the 105/110s useless. As soon as you could solo a champ you farmed it to death. The progressive system was put into place so that we would have a ladder to climb. (I benefited greatly in the early days via that system). Player vendors ebb and flow on that depending on the player base. We get an influx of new players and the vendors get restocked....then the new players age and the stocking stops until the next wave...not an effective system. I do not run a vendor and haven't in years...I prefer the barter system. I have a vast store of power scrolls (as do many vets). I will trade my PS for your PS. 105 for 105....2x105 for 110...3x105 for 115...105+110 for 115...you get the idea. The way I look at it is that you are putting in the effort to gather the scrolls i am just turning them into something you need instead of just allowing a player to buy their progress

Economy: Yes the economy is broken...essentially been broken for years...gold is meaningless. There are those that have 100s of million gold and nothing to spend it on (not entirely true)...gold has always been too plentiful. Personally, during my 8yrs i have never had more than 14 million in my check book..never needed it. Even right now i only have 4 million. I have always been a grinder and thru various periods of unemployment i have put in far too many hours grinding away..everything can be obtained thru work. Now I am an unusual case because i have had the TIME to put in...most people do not have the ability to put in 8hrs a day like a full time job of playing this game like i have. If find that the barter systems is the best. Organics, Bark Fragments, Arcane gems are the real currency of WP...things the vets are too lazy to gather themselves.

Equipment: I spent the better part of two years wearing Blaze Plate until I was able to craft a 100% LRC full resist suit of Ethereal Leather armour. Over the years i slowly replace each piece with Crusader. Is Crusader or Taint necessary..NO. Is it nice to have..meh sure. Can you accomplish every task on the shard wearing Ethereal Leather?..absolutely. Can you upgrade and augment with artifacts and rares? of course as they come available. You don't even need a runic sewing kit to make the armour...just ethereal leather. You can obtain it by dropping the Master of Arts aka Crafter Champ and taming the Lokai or killing the Ethereal leather elementals..slighty harder but not impossible task. If you want to build your own weapons and armour which i suggest you do...you want runic tools..there are methods of gaining them..killing elementals...Master of Arts...Inglotless BS..and the oft under utilized Balzon (Fenris the worried blacksmith)...Make yourself a decent Yumi and Radiant Scimitar. Often...and I do not know about this year but the Valentines Week quest line usually offers a fine bow, shield and belt. IF buying equipment is your method based on time constraints I suggest seeking Dragoon and his shop...He is the purveyor of all that is shiny. If you are seeking a specific artifact...most players will trade..myself included..for your extra artis. If you visit the Voting Stones daily...which everyone dang well better be doing...there is always the chance of a piece of Crusader armour dropping as a thank you....if you get a duplicate piece..I will trade my duplicates for yours...as I believe most players will.

Keys: Keys are very very useful..and i stress useful..however they are quite difficult to obtain even by the most experienced crafter. That being said...if you gather the raw materials....I will make the attempt to craft them for you...there can be failure there can be success..but I offer my services ..again many others will as well. Same thing with bowstrings..bring me the raws and I will give you an unbreakable bow string.

Jewelry: the crafting of jewelry with runics is your most effective method of increasing your buffs and tailoring your equipment package to your specific play style...try it.


I have always found the charm of UO is the lack of structure...you at times have to make your own fun...create your own economy your own little world. UO is clay...it is what you make it.

merely my own thoughts and in no way representative of the philosophy or thoughts of the Staff of WP...

huggs

Avanthar