Modernisation of Pangaea

[Kenyon Ahearn]

Hello guys, long time no speak,


The reason why I'm posting today, is because something has been bugging me slightly. Pangaea is a great game, I've played this server on and off for years now. However, something has been bugging me (when trying to think of ways to "sell" this game to my other non rpg, non 2d gaming friends), how can such an old game appeal to a younger generation (of Wow and COD players). I was hoping to start a discussion, with regards to how can we as a player base and a server appeal and attract more players?

Pangaea is an unusual game, I can think of hardly any others that require hundreds of hours of repetition and standing still - how is that enjoyment? Is macroing an appealing and rewarding gaming process that players today would want to participate in?

I'm not asking for a reversal or complete over haul of the game, (It would never happen), but what options do we have to make the game easier to grasp and progress without expecting it to be a chore - after all we play games for entertainment and to depart from daily activities.

Should gaming be a grind, or should it be a dynamic and progressive environment which rewards both role play and dedication.

What suggestions are there and what steps could we take to bring in a wider audience.

[Cyrus Tegyr]

First off I will start with rewarding roleplaying, that's out the window as far as I am concerned. It is extremely hard to police it and reward it. We've done this argument to death as far as rewarding role playing, its nigh impossible. You could have rp reward items similar to bug reward deeds but how do you explain where your character got them in an RP setting or why he has such a finely colored robe or cloak or shirt or whatever. RP is reward in itself, simply put people hopefully play Pangaea to RP because they find some pleasure out of it.

As for modernizing the game, there is a lot that could be done. As far as getting the grasp of the game, understanding what Ultima has to offer and more importantly what Pangaea has to offer, steps have been taken in that direction with the creation of the wiki. It just needs input from people who have the experience and know how of the given skills, classes, spells, rites, religions, weapons....The list is pretty long to list but you get the idea.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of people fail to see some of the similarities between Ultima Online and more modern games such as World of Borecraft(Warcraft). Pangaea and Ultima Online in general suffers from the need to macro out skills to build them, yes I agree, it sucks but you have to do it. World of Warcraft suffers from a similar ailment, it's a completely different grind then that of Ultima Online, in World of Warcraft skill grinding is replaced with Daily grinds, rep grinds, dungeon grinds, raid grinds and/or Battleground grinds. Nearly every online game I have seen save for maybe Eve I have little experience with that game in particular which allows you to build skills while offline, but nearly every other game has some sort of grind fest involved, it doesn't matter what you call it, whether it is having a third party click a mouse button for you on a gump or physically having to run 20 dailies a day to get anywhere, it's a second job basically until your character gets to the point where they no longer need to grind. Unfortunately, Pangaea has made it a little worse with the horrible invention of a heightened class but its a choice, you aren't necessarily forced into it.

Now that all that is out of the way, what can be done to bring in new players? Pangaea already has a wide variety of stuff that is currently not in place on most other shards, including OSI might I add. The two biggest being a class system and religion system, which for better or worse, are here to stay and semi-unique to Pangaea and only two to three other shards I know of. However, more could be done and here is probably my top 5, not all of them features mind you and not necessarily in any prioritized order:

1. Class System Improvements: This is getting there, I applaud a lot of the changes that have come so far for certain classes and I suspect we will see some more, but specifically at least from the top of my head I can think of three merchant classes that should have a deep looking into about some of their skills they have. Obviously other classes probably need a looking at skill wise, for some reason we have this notion of "The sacred temple which none shall enter called the Class System", if something is wrong with it fix it and clearly, there are some issues with things in the class system that just don't make sense, it isn't probably in just the merchant section, it's just I have a fairly good knowledge of the crafting classes and system on Pangaea.

2. Crafting System: One thing that sets Ultima Online apart from most other online games is the crafting system, ours is a little lacking, it needs some work regarding uniformity and better gumps. But it is can be an amazing system, however, when someone logs in and makes a bowyer and builds is bowcrafting and carpentry and one skill gives him these messages while the other doesn't give him any messages, it just seems like the crafting system was half assed slapped together, again no offense to the current regime, this is something that has plagued Pangaea since the days of POL 094(I think that was the first POL Core that went Repsak went live with?), well before at least the current scripters were there.

3. Secrecy: Why is it a big deal to have someone know what they need to do to get from 0-100 in a skill? I would understand if this information could be accessed in game through the use of a skill, for instance animal lore telling you that "This is a llama, can be used by adept veterinarians to train their healing arts" or arms lore "this is a mace, used by those who are adept in mace fighting to advance their fighting arts and can be crafted by master blacksmiths to better understanding of how to forge weapons" something like that, but we aren't cause that stuff isn't in the game.

4. Manners go a long way:In recent times, I will include myself in this as well, I tend to scan the forums at least once a day but usually probably about 4 times a day and I have seen posts/threads where it has broken down into near infantile behavior, maybe not enough for the gms to deem it necessary to lock a forum but where someone puts a comment in and is basically called stupid because he doesn't participate in or play a class that the topic at hand is for, for example. Or what seems to be personal grudges shining through over the open forums, while it might make for an interesting read to some I suspect to most, especially people just joining the shard, seeing stuff like that on the open forums is a bit disparaging. I am not saying we need to portray Care-A-Lot utopia but some restraint from petty differences or ONR (Online Nerdom Rivalry) when replying to a post that you might take exception to. Longanimity and magnanimity towards disagreements and/or ignorance is what I am pointing at. Oh! For those who took offense to the term ignorance, I just mean those who do not know what you know, it wasn't used derogatorily.

5. POL Core Upgrades: Believe me Ares and Kevin and anyone else who is scripting for the shard, I know that this is a huge undertaking, I helped a shard convert from 094 to 095, albeit it quite minor things I did but I did help a little and what little I did was an undertaking, so I understand that this is a big big big project and not one to be taken lightly. But with an upgraded POL core there are things that are just simply impossible right now that become real possibility, huge improvements in combat scripts being able to set up different scenarios in combat for instance, if you flank a mob or player in combat perhaps you do slightly more damage to them, catching them off guard. There are a bunch of improvements, the POL Dev team is currently trying to work on boat movement so that it isn't a lag fest, not sure where they are on that but I suspect it is coming up in an update at some point. There are a bunch of new things to the current POL Core (099) compared to Pangaea's (096) and again it is a huge project but one that I feel will be well worth it.

Again, these are just my views, and I don't expect them to fall upon listening ears, some of them are major, some of them just deal with making a nicer environment to play in. Nearly none except maybe the crafting system and POL Core Upgrade have nothing to do with modernization as I don't personally feel Ultima needs modernizing as I stated all games suffer from the daily grind, whatever format it is, whether it be skills to daily quests to dungeons to raids, at some point any online game becomes a second job to you in the sense that if you want to better your character you HAVE to do something you don't/mayn't want to do. However I suspect the flood gates will open regarding my RP shtick at the top, I stand my ground, RP in itself should always be the reward handing out awards and badges being the "#1 RP Buddy on Pangaea" ruins it, unless we want to take on the role of other online games that are PTP (pay to play) where the only RP done is by a small few who just put on random plays. (I don't mean making Pangaea pay to play, let's make that ABSOLUTELY clear.)

[Elsabet]

I don't think Pangaea needs to be modernized. If we wanted to play on a modern shard, we would! If we wanted to play a modern game, we would. However, all for improvements!

[Ares]

Heey Dr. Kenyon! Long time no see.

Regarding macroing: Macro alarms are now allowed, and there are skillbooks added to the loot meaning there's a slight alternative to macroing. It's a first step at least.

[Kenyon Ahearn]

Good morning!

Hello Ares !

Callum what an in-depth post and I must admit I completely agree with everything you said, granted I did have to look up longanimity etc up (haha) there are some real words smiths in Pangaea!

Your are completely right about the fact that we simply replace one grind with another, but the problem is that the grind Pangaea requires is not an "entertaining" grind in the way of killing monsters, doing quests (admittedly after 50 dailies on wow they no longer become entertaining) and getting loot. The way WoW sucks people into the grind is the overall reward (A mount, access to a vendor etc) but also the mini-rewards, the gold and loot gained from monsters and the generally frequent visible increase in reputation etc.

When I write these comparisons, I am by far not suggesting Pangaea mimic's WoW; WoW is a very empty game with equipment gathering, level building and finally raiding without a real sense of community, story of character significance.

Moreover, I am all up for removing the veil of secrecy surrounding training skills from 0-100, nearly everyone knows it, every does it, everyone sends the guides of ICQ, so why can't these resources be accessed by people who do not have friends, who do not have the ICQ contacts or even ICQ at all!

I appreciate what the staff has done so far, I am bewildered by the vast amount of updates, I'm not even sure what is going on right now, I'm still getting back into the swing of things. Macro alarms are a must, they allow people to micro and make it bearable; how on earth is it acceptable for a game to make you sit and watch the screen for hours for a blue 0.1; it isn't even remotely interesting. Furthermore, the addition of these books is an interesting notion which I really like, so thank you staff.

I am trying to spread the word of Pangaea among my friends, my main difficulties is persuading them over the graphics and role play aspects; it's almost a taboo to play these games lol! I appreciate a lot of us have a real hatred for change when it comes to Pangaea, and this "Modernisation" is a sin, but we must put our reservations aside if we want this game to survive the next few years with either a growing or a modest player base.

And finally, RP is exactly what you have just said, a reward in it's self. It is something that can play on a whole host of your emotions, whilst making it seem real. I agree there should not be RP rewards; it could lead to either favoritism or abuse; decoration is a highly sought commodity! I know this as a carpenter in game ha!

[Ivan]

It sure is hard to get players on pangaea, the engine and everything is outdated. But as a game world pangaea is unique its realy hard to find anything of comparison. I think there is no one who would not love the game world, if the game itself wouldnt be the limit.

Oh and hello Kenyon

[Boris]

I'd say I agree with Elsabet.

Even as a player I always considered macroing somewhat masochistic. You hate it, but you love it. You can keep the game on and macro - and do something else. Play another game, scroll the web, listen to music, watch a movie/series, etc. You play the game... but you don't play the game. You just keep it on, watch it every now and there's a benefit. It's really hard to explain to people who know nothing about UO or Pang.

Also introducing RP games to others is relatively hard. It's not a concept that "normal people" understand. Either you get it or you don't get it - and you really can't force anyone to like it. That's why PK shards have 500+ players online and even the most popular RP shards are a long way from those numbers. So lets say PK is for "gamers" and RP is basically a geek thing.

- Boris