June 30, 2001-1:00 P.M. PST-Jackal
Rant Time (sorry, there will be no point to this)
The Factions vs. O/C debate continues to rage on Pacific. I sit back, look at the arguments, and laugh. It's no wonder this argument isn't going on, on any other shard. I guess common sense got thrown out the window with UO:R...Think about it people! What is factions? It's massive warring without:
-blue interference (other then looting)
-res fighting
It's by far the best form of warring UO has ever seen. A good example of O/C wars is: two days ago on O/C charcs, five of us got in a fight with nine oranges. We killed three of them quick and the rest started to run around in the forest. I must of killed Tina 25 times from full health because she kept getting ressed, blue healed, and attacking again. How are you supposed to win a fight when all you see are idiots in res robes with blessed weapons running at you with no fear of death? Eventually, three of our five died and we lost that fight. I died to a katana hit from a new res, a war axe hit from a new res, and a FS from the mage I was fighting. Pretty much insta-death from new resses. Is this kind of crap what you people like? I realize there is a certain guild that plays this way and I fully expect them to continue to be very reliant on blues and res fighting, but the rest of you are just dumb (for lack of a word that makes you sound more idiotic).
What excuses do you have?
You don't like stat loss? No one likes being in it, but you except it because it stops the damn res fighting. With stat loss it's actually possible to win a 25 vs. 25 battle because eventually one whole side will be in stat loss. I've seen huge O/C wars rage for hours and hours on the backs of new resses with very little equipment. They basically keep going till people have to log out. Have I mentioned I love being attacked by people in res robes?
You got ganked? This has to be the single stupidest argument that exists. If 10 people kill you and start to talk shit then I understand why someone would say it. Other than that, it's just a dumb excuse. If you aren't good enough to fight your way out of a gank or aren't fast enough to run from it, then don't go into a 10 vs 1 fight! Join a guild, make some friends, or god forbid, work on your PvP skills. "I was fighting 1vs1 and 5 more oranges came, lame!" There is 100's of things you can do to avoid that situation. Rather then complaining maybe...try learning to PvP smarter then an 11 year old kid, fresh off the short bus!
In following ranting format this is where I'm supposed to put the conclusion. So umm...k I think O/C warring is for people who aren't good enough to fight outnumbered and for people who need blues to win. In other words: it's for the mentally challenged cowards of UO.
June 29, 2001-7:00 P.M. PST-Jackal
GMs Held Accountable for their Laziness?
Once publish 12 gets active on all shards, you will now be able to rate the quality of service you received when a game master assists you. When the call is closed, you will get a window allowing you to rate the service from excellent to just plain bad. This is one of the many ways we are looking to improve the quality of service and feedback is welcome.
-Maleki
OSI has always received boatloads of feedback. Too bad they always just ignored it...Or maybe the system will work like it did before and the complaints will be sent to the Gm to "review" or in other words delete, hide, stash, and get rid of before their boss sees? Even though I know that this is just OSI blowing smoke, it will still be funny to see the piles of complaints each GM will get.
June 29, 2001-6:55 P.M. PST-Jackal
Secure:
I heard that the registration server is finally encrypted (even though Funcom hasn't really commented on the issue). Congratulations to Funcom for fixing something, they're already ahead of most of their competition by proving they can actually fix a mistake.
WTG!!!
June 29, 2001-2:00 A.M. PST-Jackal
OPP on a Roll:
Starting early Wednesday night an OPP force of 11 swept through stiff TB opposition, though Britains guards and into the throne room. For the first time in days Britain was liberated. Upwards of 30 True Brits lay dead along with their 10 guards. Our group continued on to the Shadowlords crypts where we found another large group of enemies. After several hours of constant fighting for control of the crypt OPP was forced back out of the crypts. A quick regroup and attack proved successful as OPP was able to break through the traps and claim the Crypts. With both the TB Castle and SL Crypts under Minax control, our scouts hit every city, moongate, and stronghold finding absolutely no opposition...
That brings us to Thursday night. OPP forces grouped up for our nightly assault on Britain only to find a measly group of unorganized TBs who scattered at the sight of our group. The newly placed TB guards were alone and slaughtered without protection. After a short stay in Britain to secure every part of the town and moongate, off to the SL crypts we went. Inside we found around 20 SL behind poison traps ready for war. The ensuing battle lasted about an hour leaving the main SL force dead inside crypts and corpses of SL re-enforcements scattered all over the forest outside. OPP didn't take a single loss last night assaulting Britain, killing the guards, and assaulting the SL crypts.
No Entry
It's good to see things picking up a bit again, although I'm sure it's just the upside of the phases our enemies go though. However, they do deserve credit for gathering in force and coming out for war. Great battles everyone, lets try to keep them up!
June 27, 2001-3:00 P.M. PST-Jackal
AO Ships Today:
As I'm sure everyone knows every single MMORPG thus far has been a complete mess for the first few weeks. That was expected today with the public release of Anarchy Online. Amidst the expected duping and massive exploitation of bugs already going on, AO has their competition beat by making the largest fuck up in MMORPG history. I guess they somehow "forgot" to encrypt their registration page which means if you register for AO and set up an account you are sending your personal info and credit card info across the world totally un-secure. This is common knowledge by now and I bet there is 100's if not 1000's of hackers already trying to grab a few CC's for free. This is frightening to say the least. If you're one of the unfortunate individuals that has already registered I would suggest calling your CC company before anything major happens. How stupid do you have to be to hand out your customers personal info on a silver platter the first day? My god...
June 26, 2001-4:00 P.M. PST-Jackal
WOAH WOAH WOAH...WTF!!!
These
changes are currently active on "Test Center 6t". We encourage
players to test these changes and provide feedback.
Hit Point Calculation The following change will be made to the manner in
which hit points are calculated for players.
Hit Points = (str/2) + 50
Note: Any spells or effects that modify strength will also modify the target’s
maximum hit points equally. For example, under the new formula, a player with 80
strength will have 90 hit points. However, if they drink a greater strength
potion, their strength will be 80+20 (100) and their maximum hit points will be
90+20 (110).
Anatomy Damage Bonus A bug causing the anatomy damage bonus to be doubled
against players will be fixed. However, the maximum damage bonus for anatomy
will be increased to 30% upon reaching 100.0 skill (the damage bonus will still
be 20% for players with less then 100.0 anatomy skill.
This change will have the following consequences…
Under the current system, a player with an anatomy skill of 100.0 can receive a
20% damage bonus against monsters, and a 20% damage bonus against players. Under
the new system, a player with an anatomy skill of 100.0 will receive a 30%
damage bonus against both monsters and players.
Similarly, a player under the current system with a skill of 80.0 can receive a
16% damage bonus against monsters, and a 32% damage bonus against players. Under
the new system, this player will receive a 16% damage bonus against both
monsters and players.
Lumberjack Damage Bonus The lumberjack skill will now add a damage bonus
to axe weapons using the same formula as described for the anatomy damage bonus.
The bonus is 20% of the lumberjack skill until 99.9 skill and 30% for 100 skill.
Spellbooks Players will no longer be required to equip their spellbooks
while casting. They may continue to do so if they so choose (holding a spellbook
will not prevent you from casting a spell).
Players will be able to gain wrestling and/or tactics skill while holding a
spellbook if the appropriate skill is marked to go “up”.
Spell Changes
Several spells will have their power increased, particularly low-circle spells.
Spells such as Magic Arrow, Fireball, and Lightning Bolt will do noticably more
damage then before. The energy bolt, explosion, and flamestrike spells will be
given a small damage increase. In addition, some spells will have lower reagent
costs (note: until players receive a client patch these changes will not be
visible in the spellbook).
The Harm Spell
The “Harm” spell will have its damage scaled based upon the caster’s
distance to the target. The closer the caster is to the target, the more damage
it deals.
In
Development
June 25, 2001-6:00 P.M. PST-Jackal
Dev Journal:
Hezrael, one of our 3D Artist, recently finished working on a new Adventuring area, the Vampire Lord's Keep. To show the community some of the process that goes into making the Art of Shadowbane, we present you with a Developer's Journal entitled The Vampire Lord's Keep.
June 25, 2001-5:00 P.M. PST-Jackal
OPP UO Recruitment Changes:
We are changing our UO recruitment system to invite only due to the massive amounts of applications we receive. OPP will be paying more attention to the way people act in UO and going after them rather than trying to sift through 100's of applications that all say the same thing. Yah I know, we're brilliant!
Achilles and Magius have been promoted to ranking members to help make OPP UO run more smoothly. Congratulations and good luck to them.
Look for more significant changes coming soon.
June 25, 2001-3:38 A.M. PST-Jackal
OPP Fight Night Champs:
2 vs. 2 Mages:
Good Fights Tonight Everyone=)
June 24, 2001-12:38 P.M. PST-Jackal
Poll Results:
New poll posted regarding the PvP on the Siege Perilous Shard of UO. Go Vote!
I'm honestly shocked at the results of our last poll. You're all nuts...Do you honestly think that the guilds listed there will back off before an amateur guild like TL? Why in gods name did anyone vote for WAR? Yah, like they'll undeclare anyone...However, I do certainly agree with the 31 of you that voted for: "FL already pussed out and that's all that matters."
Amen to that!
Want to know how OPP warring is going? Rather then explaining it here, I thought I would toss a link to this thread that I posted under on the SL Board.
Pacific Allies & Enemies Section has been updated.
Siege Perilous Allies & Enemies Section has been updated.
June 24, 2001-12:35 P.M. PST-Jackal
Phase 1 Server Dev, "Check":
We’re very pleased to inform the player community about the status of Artifact’s game server platform. After more than 6 months of extensive design and development effort in conjunction with outside sources, Artifact’s revolutionary distributed server technology has undergone internal testing and has solidly proven its unique capabilities. The expandability and adaptability of the server platform allows the creation of unique, machine-controlled opponents, each with distinct personalities, who can follow a player over any distance and are capable of evolving and learning over time. This technology creates a land without zones, a place where each sword and shield is unique to the blacksmith who created it, an environment with changing weather patterns producing snow or rain. Artifact’s server technology allows us to blur the line between whether a character is human or machine controlled. Our goal is to not create a game - our goal is to create a new reality. With this new technology, it is the goal of Artifact Entertainment to change what Massively Online Role Playing Game means to gamers over the world.
June 22, 2001-1:46 P.M. PST-Jackal
Top 10 Online Guilds:
Due to the lack of organization in the Online RPG Community we've decided to put together a list of the Top 10 Online Guilds. The purpose of this list is to recognize those groups of people who have worked for years to build a stable Online Guild. Obviously this process will be very difficult so I would appreciate your comments and suggestion. Keep in mind that this list will NOT rank guilds from 1 to 10. OPP will not be choosing the "best" because in our opinion the "best" is a goal not a reality. We will simply do our best to choose the top 10 guilds based on each guilds' ability to be a steady and influential presence in the Online RP Worlds and on their ability to plan for the future. Keep in mind that this list will be made up of Online Guilds (guilds that play multiple games) only.
Links Section Updated:
The Links Section has been massively updated. I'm still looking for more decent online gaming news sites (post them here). A number of big and the majority of the smaller news sites have imploded in recent months leaving a whole lot of nothingness...
Where do you get your news from?
June 21, 2001-6:42 P.M. PST-Jackal
Hi!
Tossed a quick update into the members section and we'll be updating links tomorrow maybe...
Thanks for not spamming my email and thanks for spamming the shit out of my ICQ.
Check Back Later
June 21, 2001-6:25 P.M. PST-Jackal
What's a Four Year Vet?
As
a player’s account reaches 48 months of age, that player will receive an
additional Reward choice. At a point soon in the future, we are looking to add
another tier to the rewards choices, and the following items will become
available to 48-month veterans:
Dyeable Spellbook (a special spellbook that comes completely filled with all 64 spells)
Only players whose accounts are 4 years old or older will be able to equip it. It can be dyed using the Leather Dye Tub.
House Decoration Kits (bags containing eight decorative items suitable for use in player-owned houses)
These
will be deed-style add-ons. Some will consist of multiple pieces, and they
cannot be manipulated using the Interior Decorator’s Toolkit. Others will be
single-tile pieces and can be flipped and floated using the Interior
Decorator’s Toolkit.
There will be three themed sets to choose from:
Day of the Dead - this set will include Halloween-themed decorations, including a skeleton in a coffin, a pool of fake blood, spiderwebs, skull candles, and scattered hay
Gardener’s Delight - this set consists of several plants and cacti (some potted, some not) and a decorative rock
Tavernkeeper Set - this set includes a large fishing net, suitible as a wall hanging. Additional treasures include dyeable wall-mountable shields, a saddle on a saddlehorse, a large ship’s anchor, and a bar complete with openable half-door
Magic Hat
Intended for emergencies, the user can pull out desperately needed supplies, like a recall scroll, a small number of bandages, a few arrows or bolts, an orange, yellow, or black potion, a few magic reagents, an apple, or even a cute fluffy white bunny rabbit. This stylish treasure can be used once per day.
Swell...A hat...Great
June 21, 2001-6:22 P.M. PST-Jackal
Better Late Then Never!
Two updates this week. First off, we've added the a new section of Lore to the Human description. Additionally, in our ongoing quest to improve the graphics quality of Shadowbane, we've also taken recent user feedback into account and are happy to show off some incremental improvements to the Minotaur art! These can be seen in two images (found in the Screenshot section), an out of game render of the Minotaur model, and an in-game screen shot; along with two renderings of the Ghoul and Revenant (to be added to the Bestiary later). Feel free to stop by our forums and let us know what you think of the direction we're heading. Thanks!
June 16, 2001-6:55 P.M. PST-Jackal
This Page, OPP Updates:
Sorry for the lack of updates lately but there's been nothing going on. OPP UO has started on SP again, our Baja unit is PKing away, our group on Ches has joined up with a large warring guild there, and OPP Pacific is still looking for more wars due to the lack resistance.
I'm leaving town for a few days so don't bother ICQing or Emailing (getting 100 emails and 500 ICQs at any given time isn't fun). I've been slowly updating each section of the site for the last couple of weeks. I'll upload the first updates to the Links and Members Sections late this week when I get home. Amazingly we may have the Joining Forms back online by then too! I'll also update the Poll of the week...err 2 or 3 weeks when I get back.
*waves*
Have Fun Everyone
June 14, 2001-7:55 P.M. PST-Jackal
The Dev Team Loves You, The GMs Ban You:
Our little buddy Evocare (who just happens to be lead designer of UO now) posted this on the Official UO Boards today. Since this is the first thing that even slightly affects PvP that hasn't been deleted, I would like to congratulate Evocare and whoever else helped come up with this idea for not only thinking up a semi-decent idea but also getting it posted and keeping it from being deleted!
Hello,
we're discussing implementing the following change to the hit point calculation
formula. I'll detail some of the reasons below.
The current formula: Maximum Hit Points = Strength
The "new" formula: Max Hit Points = (Strength/2) + 50
Here are some examples of the results....
Str Hit Points
25 62
50 75
75 87
90 95
100 100
120 110
NOTE: This formula only applies to str/hit points... stamina and mana
would continue to be derived from dex/int in the same manner we have now.
General impacts:
1) New characters won't die as easily.
2) Low-strength stat combinations become considerably more playable.e.
=]
Full
Thread
Well go Comment on it, there's an OSI employee doing something other than eating Twinkies and abusing their power! Take advantage of the situation!
June 14, 2001-7:50 P.M. PST-Jackal
Wahhhhhhhhhhhh:
This is why you have to love the SB Dev Team:
Lazy?
of COURSE we're lazy, we're game developers! I'm suprised you didn't know this
about game development -- most game developers typically only work about 3 or 4
hours out of any given week. The rest of the time we spend watching movies,
hanging out by the pool, and basking in the endless praise of our
readily-satisfied fanbase.
I'll let ya in on a secret, too. All that stuff about crunch mode, sleepless
nights, thankless tasks, wasted youth...? Lies! All lies. We're just one small
part of an industry-wide conspiracy to garner undeserved sympathy. I'm kinda
surprised you fell for it, actually. I mean we're making GAMES. How hard could
that be?
I guess the cat's out of the bag now, though, huh... Oh well. If you'll excuse
me, it's just about nap time. See ya.
Warden
Wolfpack
Full
Thread
When people make posts like this they should get answers like the above.
Beautiful=)
June 14, 2001-9:55 A.M. PST-Jackal
Yawn...zzzzzzzzzz
Is it just me or is absolutely nothing happening?
Email me, I'm bored...
June 11, 2001-8:55 P.M. PST-Jackal
Swell Pictures:
The release today entails four screenshots depicting various areas of our current Beta World. In the first two screenshots, you see a Templar near a small circle of stones and later battling a skeleton of immense proportions. The third screenshots shows a Ranger who has wandered into lands claimed by the undead. And finally, making his first public appearance, we have Kerax Bloodcrest, a Minotaur Barbarian!
Graphics look pretty damn good to me...
June 10, 2001-9:55 P.M. PST-Jackal
OPP Fight Night Champs:
Three vs. Three:
Two vs Two Gimps:
Badbeef & William Wallace
Two Vs. Two Mages:
First Place:
Second Place:
June 9, 2001-11:55 P.M. PST-Jackal
Page Update:
Don't forget to vote in this weeks poll about the wars on Pacific.
Why Are You Scarred of Us?
Our war stone has been up and running again for a while now, and as stated in June 5 OPP News, none of our enemies will war us anymore . Only three guilds have had the balls to declare back on us. Those three guilds are:
I would like to take this opportunity to publicly call everyone else
who we were warring before, who won't war us again: complete cowards. I guess this means we get to declare victory over all of you? Not only did you drop from factions, but now you won't even war our secondary war stone with all our second and third charcs on it?
*makes funny chicken sounds*
Maybe people are afraid to fight us because they fear the blessed fishing pole of vanq?
So we avoided the whole declaration process by going order today. We finally thought we would have some oranges to fight! Boy, were we wrong...OPP gathered around noon and hit town after town all afternoon. Why does O/C warring suck? Because, there's either 20 oranges or 0 oranges! Our little group of around eight found no action, so we logged on faction charcs and kicked around some TB and SL. That was swell, more spiffy base fighting (just thought I would note that ESF/OOB has been crying that OPP gates in blues to base assaults. We have never done this and will never do it, why would we even care? OPP took the TB base today and just left the sigils sitting there. What did happen though: at the SL crypts there were three members of OOB field jumping. I guess that makes ESF hypocrites? hmmm...). After killing what seemed like several hundred oranges (they're like ants coming out of those bases) we switched back to our war charcs because we heard there was 20+ DF/WAR/VVV/TL around. Yah, there was...Our group of seven OPP did ok at first but...we got swarmed bad in the end. Good fun though, other then TL blue healing and DF res fighting. Here's a pic from the fighting:
err...wait...are those orcs or are they new ressed DF? Sorry, I was too busy fighting to think about taking pics but this one is good enough. It pretty much describes how our enemies fight us. Wonder if VVV and DF will un-declare chaos now to avoid our war?
Only Time Will Tell...
June 9, 2001-1:55 A.M. PST-Jackal
In Regards to Scorn's Post (OPP SB News June 8):
This is exactly what I expected from the SB Dev Team. PvP in SB will be better then all other games if they can balance it out. Up till now, no game has put this much time an effort into different character choices. There will be a whole lot of possibilities in SB. In UO and even EQ there really isn't much you can do. There is a handful of different templates you can follow to make a good character, and then that's it. Its going to take years just to sift through all the combinations of abilities in SB. The discovery process is always the best part and with all these possibilities, the discovery process in SB will be rather lengthy. This will also give people a reason to hit all the fan sites daily for new info, which will help build the community. PvP itself will be quite intense because of all the different combinations of skills and abilities people will be throwing at each other. Even if you over simplify their system to just one vs one with two warriors like Scorn did, it still sounds very interesting (definitely better then anything out now).
I'm not sure what people are complaining about. To be totally honest this is exactly what I was expecting...What was everyone else was looking for? Massive Multiplayer Mortal Combat Online?
June 8, 2001-4:55 P.M. PST-Jackal
Something That Doesn't Suck:
The Lead Designer for Shadowbane, Scorn, posted this on the Official Dev Board today regarding combat:
Howdy!
I’m Scorn. I haven’t posted before, but since I’m the lead designer of
Shadowbane and you guys have so many questions about the combat system, I
thought I’d try to clarify things a bit.
Shadowbane has a very complex combat system that we’ve designed to incorporate
elements of tactics and player skill into the typical character versus character
comparison most systems use. I could go on for a while about our design
philosophies; how we’ve tried to use a rock-paper-scissors approach to balance
with every attack having an opposing defense, and how we use a timer-based
system to reduce the “twitch” factor. But, it sounds like you guys want some
meat instead of more assurances that it won’t suck. I can’t give you all the
details because, frankly, we’re still tweaking the system (and will be until
release), and because I don’t really want to. I think part of the fun of games
is the element of discovery. Anyway, on to the meat!
Initiating Combat:
Once a player enters combat mode and attacks another player, one of two things
occurs:
If the attacker is equipped with a melee weapon (or no weapon) he will close to
the weapons maximum attack range and start swinging.
If the attacker is equipped with a ranged weapon he will start shooting /
throwing at his target.
Once a defender is attacked, or takes damage he will immediately try to kill his
attacker; this follows the rules above. If he is armed with a melee weapon,
he’ll close and attack, if ranged then he’ll starting shooting.
Any time a character automatically moves to follow, close distance with, or
engage an opponent, this movement can be aborted by selecting another movement
destination. So, if you don’t like chasing after your opponent, just click the
ground nearby and you’ll stop. Also, some Combat Maneuvers (like Shield Wall)
will cause your character to hold ground and not move to engage attackers.
Movement:
Characters cannot move and attack at the same time. Moving away from combat will
cause your character to abort his attacks until he has stopped moving. With
considerations such as Stamina cost for movement and combat and variable
movement rates, it will be possible to run away from combat and escape or be run
down and butchered depending on the characters involved and the situation.
Sequence:
Weapons have speeds that act as the basis for how often a character swings. This
is greatly modified by the character’s skill and speed. This means that a
skilled and fast character will attack more often than someone with less skill
and with the same weapon. However, a fast, skilled character with a slow heavy
weapon is not necessarily faster than someone slower and less skilled with a
very fast weapon. Getting hit in combat does not affect your combat sequence,
but using different combat maneuvers does. This means that if I have a 3 second
combat delay and 2 seconds into the timer I decide to throw a kick at my
opponent, then my 3 second timer will start over after the kick has been
resolved.
Combat Maneuvers:
This is IT! This is where individual player skill comes in to play in combat.
Anyone can level a character, equip some weapons and attack someone; this
requires little skill. Effective use of Combat Maneuvers will determine the
outcome of a fight. Period. A higher level character with better equipment will
_lose_ to a player that uses his Combat Maneuvers more effectively. Every time.
The basics are pretty obvious; there are a ton of these Maneuvers (with unique
animations) that become available to different classes at different levels and
can be developed by investing skill points. Here are the important points:
Maneuvers include one-shot moves that damage, blind, cripple, or otherwise hurt
your opponent. Examples of these include: Kick, Backstab, Crippling Strike,
Slam, and Power Strike.
Maneuvers include combat stances that affect the overall way your character
performs in a fight. Among other things, these can modify Attack, Defense, and
Damage ratings, and the rate at which Stamina is expended (or recovered).
Examples include: Aggressive, All-Out Defense, Hold, Stand Ground, Recover,
Withdraw, and Evade.
Maneuvers cannot generally be stacked, so players must chose when and how to use
them.
Maneuvers either have a direct Stamina cost, or affect the way Stamina is lost
in combat. This means that less robust or tired combatants need to end a fight
quickly or disengage while they still have the energy to run away.
Maneuvers have recycle times. This means that some moves can only be used once
or twice during a given melee; knowing when to use a Maneuver is part of what
makes a skilled player.
Given experience, a player should be able to identify what Stances and Maneuvers
his opponent is using, has used, or is about to use and change his tactics
accordingly.
This system will continue to evolve as we progress through Beta testing and in
its current incarnation relies heavily on player skill. This will obviously have
to be balanced so that player skill remains an important factor in combat
without becoming one that makes Shadowbane inaccessible to new or casual
players. Finally, be aware that this is a high-level view of the basic combat
system that does not even begin to touch on the use of Magic.
Scorn
Woot, I'll comment more on this later tonight!
June 8, 2001-3:55 P.M. PST-Jackal
Viva Los Vegas!
The OPP Vegas Trip is officially scheduled for July 13-15. We will probably be arriving all day Friday the 13th (if anyone dies on the way it's not my fault! Kind of creepy huh?). We'll be meeting up Friday at a hotel (I donno...you tell me?) to just chill while people arrive. Then that night we'll go get hammered somewhere and talk about "In Vas Mani". After we sleep off the hangovers (assuming anyone sleeps) we'll be going to some shows and stuff Saturday. Then we will probably repeat Friday nights fun. No clue what we're going to do on Sunday but it will be fun, I promise.
*grins*
June 8, 2001-1:55 P.M. PST-Jackal
Poll:
Lakers in 5 (4) |
8% |
 |
|
Sixers in 5 (2) |
4% |
 |
|
Lakers in 6 (16) |
35% |
 |
|
Sixers in 6 (7) |
15% |
 |
|
Lakers in 7 (1) |
2% |
 |
|
Sixers in 7 (5) |
11% |
 |
|
I like the WNBA Better! (3) |
6% |
 |
|
I Don't Care About the Best Sport in the World! (7) |
15% |
 |
If you voted for the Sixers you're dumb, k? Lakers will win in five or six...sorry.
To the three women who read this site: hi!
How can you not care about the best sport in the world?
New Poll:
New Poll Added regarding the little wars on Pacific UO.
June 7, 2001-12:25 A.M. PST-Jackal
Site Updated:
New Poll Up about NBA Play-Offs!
GO Lakers!
A big thank you goes out to everyone who has emailed me in support of OPP over the last week. Thank You!
June 7, 2001-12:05 A.M. PST-Jackal
Judging By the Fact that Our Last Update Sucked:
Judging by the discussions that have followed Monday's update, there are some significant details about combat that didn't make it into the FAQ. To answer some of the questions that have been frequently asked in the last 48 hours, we present an addition to the Combat FAQ, which can also be found in our new Recent Updates section of the eternally expanding Shadowbane FAQ.
This SB update still leaves me thinking:
?
June 5, 2001-3:08 P.M. PST-Jackal
You Have Been Plucked!
There once was a time that Lancelot proclaimed that there would be another shard wide war. Last nites quaggle mier was only the beginning of what could be Pacifics last and most agressive history in the making. I just wanted to point out that OPP was not involved in this History.
-Lancelot of FL
Are you trying to say that OPP won't be part of your little house hiding contest because FL and all your little playmates are afraid to war us?
*makes funny chicken sounds*
June 4, 2001-11:33 P.M. PST-Jackal
Well Gee Golly:
You know you're loved when people like Lum the Mad start taking cheap shots at you:
Ask yourself if you actually want to, you know, be around these people. Are these the folks you’d kick back a beer with at the end of a workday?
-Lum the Mad
Yah, he's referring to guilds like OPP. Maybe I'm a bit confused but wouldn't the answer to this question be a very loud (caps = loud): YES! I've been involved with hundreds of guilds since I found my internet addiction and I can honestly say that people who are PvP oriented are generally the most mature and giving people on the net. I rarely see anyone from the PvP community take things out of context. I could walk up and meet my worst enemy (even though I don't have one) and have a great time with them. I have daily conversations with my enemies over ICQ. We laugh and joke about everything. Point is: guilds like OPP are all about having fun. We have a great time just being together. That's what this is all about, right? Getting together with people you have fun with and having...fun. I've spent hours in our mIRC channel just talking with my guild mates. We share pretty much everything and are always here for each other. On the flip side, I have been involved with other guilds that are big and established like OPP, with one distinct difference: they don't PvP. These guilds tend to be very chaotic and people are constantly complaining. They want hand outs and don't seem like they're having very much fun. The thing about PvP guilds is the guild mates need each other. They need to know that when they go out on a limb their brother has their back. PvP guilds pull people together and have to have a very strong sense of togetherness. On the other hand most Monster bashing guilds are out to get what they want. They only need their guild mates to help make them richer.
So, if given the opportunity, would I rather meet up with a bunch of blood thirsty PvPers or a group monster bashers? Hmmm...not a tough decision at all.
June 4, 2001-11:02 P.M. PST-Jackal
Ummm?
For this week's Monday update, we are presenting another section of the ever-growing Shadowbane FAQ. Today's topic is one we are sure is dear to many of your hearts: Combat.
This SB update leaves me thinking:
?
Player Justice:
Vos'x at SB Vault was kind enough to find this nifty little commentary from Mahrin Skel, who just happens to be a developer of DAoC (that is Dark Age of Camelot BTW (that is by the way, umm, BTW)). I read his little story and had to comment on a few things:
Mahrin Skel starts out by babbling on about how Shadowbane isn't expected to do very well and how DAoC has "so much more" (laugh). At the heart of this discussion is player justice. This is a topic that has been under much debate since UO and EQ came out. Does full player justice work? Can a group of people build a community that is fun to be in? The majority of the gaming companies have come to the conclusion that it's simply not possible. So, most games have adopted some form of a team PvP system (race warfare in EQ, Faction warfare in UO, and in this case Realm warfare in DAoC). These systems allow gamers to engage in the riggers PvP combat, but limit who you can and can not attack. If you can't attack someone you might as well help them, right? That is the assumption that team PvP systems rely on. On the other hand, SB is jumping in head first by saying that the people can and will build a thriving community based on the fact that they are accountable for their actions (player justice). They aren't putting in any outside controlling factors to "make" the system work, they're assuming people will want to have fun and in turn build their own system. Basically, they are just tossing in several thousand people and saying: have fun, do whatever you want. Obviously this is the ideal situation for the so called "player killer" or the infamous "grief player". These two groups tend to base their actions around other players (ignoring the NPCs because they're...well, boring) and thrive off the intrigue that is created by player interaction. These groups have been labeled time and time again because they are scourge of every game out. They are the elite players: the ones who had EQ maxed out a month after release, were bored of AC after 2 weeks, and wore the title Dread Lord in UO. When they max out the computer controlled side of the game they turn to players, who are ever changing, and always entertaining. The problem is: after the UO Reputation patch no game has had the balls to come out with a system for player justice because it supposedly doesn't work...it only caters to the elite player, or the kid who has 12 hours a day to spend on the computer.
In my opinion none of the arguments against player justice make any sense. The computer controlled side of a game should just be the backbone for the player community. If some one calls me out, I should be able to do whatever I want to them. If some thief loots my kill, I should be able to make them pay. You see what I'm getting at? Dev teams love to put restrictions on the elite players because they cause problems, they know they're the gods of the game and they use their experience and skills to prove that. Here is what happens:
Joe goes to the store and buys the newest game. The game has been out for three weeks and he's really excited to get involved. He just finished up Mario 2 after 10 years and can't wait to try something a little more difficult. After a few hours everything is installed and his account is all set up. "Screw reading the 150 page manual", says Joe. "let me play, I just beat Mario 2, I don't need no stinkin manual!" Joe logs in and creates his character: Joe the Plummer. He immediately starts wondering around town looking at the great graphics and is having a lot of fun. As Joe looks up he sees the gates of town and quickly scurries out on his mission to slay the first creature he comes across. Unfortunately, Joe didn't bother to look into the game first to learn about the community, so he accidentally wonders into the territory of some Bandits. Oops, Joe is dead and paging a game master. After the game master tells Joe it's all part of the game and he needs to read the manual, Joe says: "yah whatever" and goes back to exploring the city. For the next few hours Joe is repeatedly killed every time he wonders out of town. Discussed and angry Joe gives up and quits.
Joe represents the average gamer, a newbie, someone who doesn't really understand what is going on. Ignorance and stupidity flow through Joes veins and his ego won't allow him to learn. After all, he isn't a newbie right? He just mastered the newest game on Play Station! The main problem is the huge rift that grows between the elite player and the new player. Often times there is a serious lack of people helping those new players because there is really no benefit to doing it. I think the SB people are the first to address this problem by making it somewhat easy to level and tweaking PvP so that you don't get the the "fire meteor of newbie-death". I haven't played SB (jerks screwed me out of my beta account, I'm still bitter!), so I can't really say that their system will work but I can say that they are trying! Games like DAoC are total EQ knock offs (regardless of whatever this guy says). I've beta tested DAoC for some time now and I knew how to play the game within 5 minutes. All the commands are the same as EQ. Right down to the incredibly annoying chat window and grouping system. Don't get me wrong, DAoC has some promising features, but they have made one basic mistake: realm warfare.
Let me fill you in on a little secret. The true definition of a grief player exists only in games with massive restrictions like EQ. These people do anything they possibly can to piss you off and then what? Then both people cuss each other out for the next 20 minutes via a chat window. They continue to make the game suck for each other and nothing ever happens because they are both protected by the system. The system protects the virtual asshole, the true grief player! This is the single biggest flaw in all the games out right now. The PK in UO isn't a grief player! He is someone who enjoys the challenge of PvP or intrigue of role-playing. There will always be a victim, you can not create a system that has no victim. All you can do is create a system that holds people accountable for their actions and hope that people are smart enough to avoid being a victim. If the game has no rules or preset restrictions then people, will work together for a common goal. Everything you do counts, every decision you make could either make or break your reputation! A game with very few restrictions has the potential to provide players with endless possibilities. They can't max their players out, they can't say: "I've done it all", they can't make decisions on a whim, and they most certainly will have to make friends and work with the community to survive.
The only problem is people like Joe represent the majority. Is there enough veteran players out there to keep a game like Shadowbane afloat? A PvP oriented system provides the advanced online gamer with endless entertainment, but in turn it also provides the newbie with endless grief. Full player justice is the ideal system, but can the people handle it?
June 4, 2001-2:52 A.M. PST-Jackal
Monthly Promotions:
Elder Promotions:
-Night
Member Promotions:
-Josh
-Sindicator
Congratulations Guys!
June 2, 2001-12:52 A.M. PST-Jackal
What's an Event?
Given the recent actions of our buddies at EA/OSI, I've decided to ask them to clarify what constitutes an event. Since they have decided to completely ignore the 100+ people who have emailed them with questions, I've formulated a new plan. I will publicly post a question to the support staff on this page and send in matching emails. If we do not receive any sort of response, then we will go ahead with our plans. Certainly OSI will tell us if we're planning something that is against the TOS if we openly, publicly, and privately ask them first, right?
Ok so here is my first question:
Will killing people at the orc spawns in Felucca warrant any sort of suspension or action against the account(s) of that player?
This question has been sent to support@uo.com
Our poll for the week is up and it is related to UO!
VOTE! <---click that, you know you want to
If you're here to read about how you can be banned for killing other players click here.
Related Links:
Shit...OPP's Back:
Upon our return, we quickly figured out what our buddies the True Brits and Shadowlords have been up to. Apparently SL has been beefing up their hiding skills again because I only saw three that didn't have recall pre-casted today. On the other hand TB had Brit all decked out with guards, vendors, about 20 cannon fodder newbies, and around 10 PvPers. OPP attacked once, twice, three times, and by our forth attack we had killed 6 dragons, 2 white wyrmies, 8 guards, and roughly 30 oranges (who knows on repeat kills, lets just say a lot). Not too bad if you ask me. Good battle for Brit today and I must say I was quite pleased to see that TB took advantage of their opportunity to beef up the faction.
Good Job TB!
The History of OPP UO:
I've been writing up our guild history for while now and have finally finished a rough draft. I plan to actually go through and revise this version at a later date (maybe I'll check my spelling and grammar too!). It currently covers OPP from September 1997 to mid April 2001. If you have any question or comments, (you will, trust me) post them here. For your enjoyment I've also posted the first installment of our UO Memories Section. The purpose of this section is to allow people to write up their characters history and have it posted publicly.
Duels:
A number of OPP are still looking for people to duel. Specifically we're looking for people who will duel for decent amounts of money. Post here if you're interested!
Brothers [FL]:
The "Brothers" have been riddled with defeat since their return to UO. Over the last week they have been scarce at best. I have seen no more then a handful since a couple weeks ago. Lance has undeclared on us and states:
"I personally don't think we should continue to battle them..."
-Lancelot of FL
It's pretty clear that FL is nothing alone. Not even a speck in the whole scheme of things. TVA also has some friendly comments about FL on their news page and on our message board.