LGLS
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Aug 4, 2008, 5:56 AM
Post #4 of 13
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Macroing
Many skills in Ultima Online can be advanced via simple, repetitive mouse clicks and movements. Because of this, and with the help of the in-game macro system, widespread unattended macroing once took place for the purpose of advancing skills or statistics and sometimes wealth. The same effect could sometimes be achieved by simply setting a roll of coins or some other weight on a user-defined hotkey.
On Siege Perilous and Mugen, shards designed to be more difficult than most, a modified skill gain system is in place that only allows small amounts of advancement each day. This was originally set in place to combat macroing on these shards.
Some have urged for Electronic Arts to include more advanced macroing systems in Ultima Online to make it less monotonous and more handicap-accessible. People who suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome often find the repetitive clicking painful and even prohibitive, and at least one class action has been threatened [1].
Unattended macroing is especially punishable, and if a character is found to be macroing (with or without the use of third-party programs), they will often be confronted by a game Master and asked to respond -- failing to do so will at least result in a warning and could even result in suspension or banning of the account.
Griefing
Originally, there were very few artificial restrictions on how players could interact, and the developers intentionally provided mechanisms for both attacking and stealing from other players. Most frauds and other indirect means for creating an advantage via the exploitation of other players were also not restricted, with the exception of when bugs were involved.
Many players saw a "punch in the nose factor" (as Raph Koster, AKA Designer Dragon, one of the original Ultima Online developers, put it) involved, as players were able to harm other players directly with little penalty, which allowed too much griefing. Others saw it as creating a more immersive and complex atmosphere where unpredictable and challenging situations could occur spontaneously between players, but expressed concern over the barrier to entry for new players and the seeming imbalance which favored anti-social behavior.
Gradual shifts in game mechanics and introductions of new systems took place. The developers initially added a system whereby the server categorizes criminals and murderers from the innocent in the form of differently shaded character and name highlighting (blue for innocent, gray for criminals, and red for murderers) on mouse-over. This, however, was not without its problems -- many criminal acts could be accidentally performed while trying to do something otherwise legal, and the unfortunate player who suddenly became "gray" would most often be killed by NPCs or other players right away, regardless of the reason behind the criminal status. Players who killed others only because of their status and without regard for reason were often called "noto-PKs" since, at first, the notoriety statistic determined this status -- these players, too, were often called griefers. Later, the developers implemented a feature commonly known as "statloss," which decreased skills and stats upon death if the character was a murderer. Statloss was very controversial and was often cited as an example, by player killers and other PvP minded players, that the developers were siding with players who favoured the opposite style of gameplay. Eventually, the ongoing depredations of the 'red' community caused the creation of a separate, mirror world, called Trammel, where only mutually consented PvP and theft could occur (within or between player guilds) that were in a state of war with each other.
Criticized as going too far in the opposite direction, many players cited the introduction as the downfall of the Ultima tradition of interesting and complex behavior, stating that the server-enforced laws were often too simplified to be appropriate in many situations and did more to harm the long-term health of the game world than it did to help it. Regardless, almost all player activity moved to Trammel, and the old world (given the name Felucca) became practically abandoned. Most subsequent MMOs have followed the example of Trammel, and do not allow unconsented PvP or theft (if there is a mechanism for theft at all).
In those subsequent MMOs that have allowed consented or unconsented player combat, usually the items that may be taken from a player's corpse are limited (in some cases nothing may be taken). Ultima Online originally had no such distinction and all items a player had at the time of death stayed with the corpse, and every item was removable by anyone. This gave a huge incentive to griefing because it was much more lucrative to kill and rob other players than a monster. An average troll may have yielded 200 or 300 gold. However, a player would often yield a full suit of armor, magic items, and consumables (e.g. potions, magic components, bandages, etc.) plus whatever gold he or she may have collected from fighting. As a result, the richest players and the most successful murderers were often one and the same. Successful player killers could easily make literally ten times robbing others than what they would fighting monsters. Those new to the game, who had played traditional computer RPGs, would often use the tactic of hoarding that worked in single player GAMES, and would carry a majority of their possessions with them. When killed by another player, their murderer was richly rewarded and they were severely punished. Many new players quit in frustration when this would happen, as literally dozens or hundreds of hours of work could be invalidated in ten seconds with a prepared ambush.
Some still question the methods used to deal with the griefer issue. Raphael Koster has said:
"Being safe from evil is, in my mind, an uneven tradeoff for the fact that you don't get to be heroes anymore, in that you can just opt out of fighting evil. It may be nobody wants to be heroes except when it doesn't count, when it isn't challenging, that people would rather fight "pretend evil" than the real thing, but I don't personally believe that. I still think people are better than that."
Housing
Another problem was that of player-owned housing. UO has always allowed players to purchase houses, and build them on practically any flat piece of land. For the first few months, the primary issues with housing were that losing the key meant losing the house (often to another player who stole it or killed the owner), and if someone managed to get inside the house (either by exploitation of a bug or by simply waiting until someone opened/unlocked the door), they could steal everything inside. These issues were later addressed by making house keys “blessed” (non-stealable, non-droppable upon death) items, and by giving special commands to “lock down” items, so that even those who got in the house could not pick them up. Ownership of a house was also eventually defined separately from mere key possession.
After a few months, when some players and guilds had enough money to buy many houses, there came the problem of using tents and other cheap houses to wall off huge sections of the world as private areas. It was a common solution to the above problems (before they were fixed), if you owned a large house like a tower, to build three smaller houses around the entrance, walling you in, and then using the recall or gate spell to get inside that artificial courtyard. Since some players abused that tactic to create gigantic “courtyards”, the developers eventually opened up all of the major ones by deleting selected houses and by putting the additional restraint on house placement rules requiring that there be empty space around a building before it may be placed.
By the time Trammel was introduced, there was literally not a single empty space of land anywhere in the game where a house of any size could be built. Vast amounts of wilderness were covered with a thick layer of housing, making places supposedly “wild” seem like cities. When housing was enabled on Trammel, tens of thousands of players simultaneously camped out and tried to compete for prime locations for various types of houses, resulting in massive amounts of telestorming, where players were transferred amongst the sub-servers of a given shard, causing random teleportation and extreme amounts of lag. For many years, housing space was scarce, due in part to rising numbers of subscribers and only slowly increasing limitations on the number of houses each account may own. Several worlds were created without the ability to have houses built within them to protect their atmosphere from becoming another city. Almost all house transactions during this time were of currently-owned houses being sold, or people waiting outside houses that are about to “decay” (disappear from lack of use) – even though housing is limited to one house per player. In recent years, additional housing areas have been made available for all players. Many subsequent MMORPGs used instancing for housing or simply did not provide it at all.
Customizable housing was introduced with Ultima Online: Age of Shadows. Originally, the concept was prototyped by Vex (a designer on the Ultima Online team). Customizable housing is considered a replayable game mechanic, a gold sink, and a tribute to a player's imagination. The massive amount of ingenuity put forth by the playerbase on their houses is a testament to how diverse the game has become. To this day, Ultima Online still offers the most comprehensive housing system in any online fantasy world.
(This post was edited by Pheylan on Aug 4, 2008, 8:41 PM)
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