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I've been thinking about writing this document for some time, but never seemed to get around to it. I have been watching the recent exodus of experienced players from the game, however, and it has really spurred the urge for me to put this together to possibly stop the good players from leaving.
There's definitely a large number of problems with Ultima Online. That's clear. But for as many disappointments as the bugs cause, I see more people walking away disgusted because of their interaction with other players. What strikes me about this is that the people involved just don't see the whole cycle. They don't understand how and why the players play the way they do, and because of that they don't see how the current behavior of most of the UO players can ever lead to the kind of gaming experience they're looking for.
Even beyond that, I think there are a large number of players who don't understand what the best aspects are of a role playing multi-player game. I see lots of people playing UO exactly like it's a single player game. They're exploring the challenges of NPCs and stat building, finishing that part of the cycle, getting bored, and moving on.
So what I've written is a description of the "Circles" of game playing. The better you are, the higher your circle.
By doing this I'm hoping to:
The good news is, if you wait for it, it will come (especially given OSI's willingness to constantly update the game to make sure the environment encourages this).
The information below is based on real observations of the cycle of game play for hundreds of players. It's not something I invented, it's something I have experienced myself, and watched others experience it. The observations I'm making come from a long history of playing online games, and/or participating in online communities. In some way shape or form, I've been hanging with people online since around 1986, beginning with pre-internet (or at least pre publicly used, web based internet) local 6 person chat rooms and BBSes, up through services like AOL, through online games, out onto the internet, etc. Not that I'm particularly interested in boring you with my "credentials", but I think it's important to know that I've seen a lot of this shit, and that I'm not just guessing about how it works. For over 10 years, one way or another, I've been watching people interact online. In terms of player interactive games, I've played Diablo, MageStorm, Doom (I&II), Duke Nuk'em, Quake, War Craft, War Craft 2, Starcraft, Solaria, Everquest, dabbled in some MUDs and probably most importantly, a graphical MRPG game called Neverwinter Nights based on AD&D rules that allowed 500 or so players on at once for over 3 years. Offline, I've played D&D, AD&D, Magic: The Gathering, and off-line computer games.
For whatever it's worth, here's what I've seen. (I've tried to keep this main document streamlined to provide a relatively quick read on my main point - the cycle of game maturity. There's a ton of good detail on each section that I'm not providing here, but my intention is over time to write more sections, and hyperlink to them from this document. If you wanna get deep into it, you can follow those, if not, just breeze this top layer).
Most players move through a hierarchy of playing, advancing through states of maturity as characters and players in the game. I don't mean maturity in the sense of real world adult sensibilities, I just mean in terms of fully developed game skills, knowledge, and characters. The point of writing this up is this: think about where you're at in this cycle, think about where the people that you're playing with are at in this cycle, and think about what the over-all effect on the gaming experience will be in Ultima once enough people have been around long enough to make it through these stages.
That's the whole key. The highest forms of play are in the upper stages. The player base has not had time to reach them on a general level, which means that finding people that are high enough up the circles to play with is tough.. (Pursuit of the lower circles often leads to what some players consider "power" playing and that some call "abusive".)
(Also, worth mentioning is the fact that some of us out there may not have even tried to go through each of these Circles in Ultima. Players like me come from other environments where we already did this, so we know what type of character and play style we like. As a result, we make a b-line for that niche, without stopping in the other circles. You may recognize yourself in this category.)
When players first start the game, they're newbies. Their main concern is acquiring enough stats, skills, money, weapons, armor, etc. just to survive. They want to do things in the game without risking death at every turn.
Once you're starting to get your stuff together, you're less worried about just staying alive, and more into developing a higher level of competence. You're rolling through lower-level creatures, and common challenges, beating them, and gaining momentum. Game play finally starts to feel a little "fun".
Once you're pretty good, you start getting determined to be "really" good. You get the best armor, the best magic, the best skills, etc. etc. If you've got that, usually you start trying to beat the game. You find the toughest monsters, and baddest dungeons, and take 'em on in a full charge. Unfortunately, this is also around the time that certain players start finding and exploiting bugs. As part of the urge to beat the game, they beat the hell out of it... by cheating.
Ok, so you've got it, the best of everything... so now what? Well, this is a social game. Multi-player games are all about interacting with other real people. So if you want to prove how good you are, you've got two choices. People pick whatever is their style, but almost everybody moves into either
1) Helping others (taking bands adventuring, handing out stuff, teaching newbies, etc. Note: this is NOT the same thing as Role Play, that's covered the 5th Circle) or,
2) Killing others (kill everyone, including those who have no chance at beating you and then taunt them with the fact that you did it. Note: this is Player Killing, it is NOT the same thing as Player versus Player which is covered in the next Circle.)
Now here's where it gets interesting. And also dangerous for OSI. There's a limited number of things to do in a game that can be programmed into it. It's at this point that people have exhausted them. They need something new, and there are only a few options left. The point is that no matter WHAT OSI does, they just can't program an ever-changing environment that will hold the interest of real people for an indefinite period of time. It can't be done. It's not possible.
What can be done is to set up an environment in which people amuse themselves. Once people have used up all the pre-programmed challenges, there's nothing left but to interact with other people, and that's what most/all of the Fifth Circle is about. If OSI has designed a game that doesn't support numbers 1 through 7 (below) very well, then people will head straight for number 8, and UO will die out.
There are a number of options to turn to in the Fifth Circle, and which way you turn is a matter of who you are. Depending on your inclination, you might pick any one of them. When you've fully explored the one you pick first, if you're like most true gamers, you'll just move on to one of the others. The longer you've played, the more accepting you are of ALL of these aspects, because you've tried more and more of them, and realize and understand the merits of them.
I've tried to list them in the order that most seem to move through them, but it's fairly likely that the average player will just skip around to whatever holds their interest. The DEGREE to which you explore these is also variable. If you're not very strategic, you might just barely touch PVP, but then get neck-deep into RP, or visa versa. The bottom line, though is that since all of these items are about interacting with other people (except MAYBE #1), if you don't have other people to interact with that are exploring the category you've chosen, then you don't have anything. That's the problem that UO is suffering from right now. Anyway, here they are:
1) Different classes - roll a new guy, start over, and develop him differently. Really get to know the nuances of the advantages and disadvantages of the various character types.
2) PVP (player vs. player)- aaahhh! Now here's the real beauty. Fighting NPCs is a chore, fighting real people (in the right game environment) is an ART! UO has yet to see ANY of this to my knowledge. All it has is PK (player killing). Simplistic brainless slug fests with no technique or talent. This art will develop. The highest form of this is 1 on 1 (in my opinion anyway, although could change my mind yet). And for those who think that the UO interface precludes this, let me just say that there are a TON of ideas that have not been explored yet. And unlike many other games, if there's things that make it suck, just get 'em to change it. Now I agree, bug exploitation for instant kills is a joke. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the ART of PVP. Nothing in this brief paragraph can describe the full scope of PVP, so don't underestimate it. And the synergy of player versus player with ALL of the other circles is the life-blood of a game IMO.
3) RP (Role Play) - Playing an actual personality/character, whatever your activities are (pk, pvp, guide, helper, whatever) adds a spice and newness to the game like nothing else. In my opinion, if you combine this with #2 above, you've reached the pinnacle of game playing.
4) Chat Room - as stupid as it sounds (to me anyway), lots of people get in a game, conquer the basic challenges, make some friends, and then forget it was ever a game. They just hang out and chat with the people they've met. I don't condone this, but nonetheless it's the last stage for a lot of people. However, my own observation is that the chat interface in UO is pretty bad, so people won't really chat in this game.
5) Flame Wars / Board RPs - this is something almost undeveloped by OSI, but you can't overlook it. Where ever there are boards to be had in multi-player games, there's a class of people who specialize in just verbally taking people apart, and/or posting RP and such. When this is based around actual game events, it becomes very involving. Well worth participating. Again, when tied to a STRATEGIC PVP system in which epic battles occur whose outcomes are based on the real human skill of the participants, then a drama and poignancy to these interactions is added that is not otherwise present.
6) Intrigue / Events / Guilds - Where ever people go they form organizations with purposes. Those orgs compete or conflict, and this is the heart of the political posturing in MPGs. Very cool stuff.
7) Occupations - this is a new one in graphical MPGs. It's what OSI has created by taking a stab at creating a real economy. I'm not sure how this will work out in the end once things are balanced, but it's definitely a challenge. Be a merchant, a sailor, a miner for hire, whatever... interesting.
8) THE BIG SCARY ONE FOR OSI - GO GET A NEW GAME. People get bored. Some have the inclination to get involved in the other seven final challenges, and some don't. A lot of what determines if people stay with a game is how well the game supports the above 7 items. Programmed challenges NEVER keep people fascinated. You just can't program an NPC to be smart enough, funny enough, aggressive enough, cool enough, unpredictable enough, etc. to hold a real person's attention for any length of time. Your average player probably breezes through the first 4 circles inside of 3 to 6 months of play time (depending on how many actual hours they play). Once that's over, if the game can't support and support WELL real staying-power playing that the 7 above give, then you might as well stick a fork in it, it's done.
This is the final circle of game play. This is the stage at which a player appreciates all aspects of the Fifth Circle. When you have a world full of the ultimate players, they combines everything above and create a challenging, human interacting, role played world with a wide variety of classes, game play styles, and occupations based around a system of competition that demands skill, thought, reflex, and strategy to compete (whether that be in PVP, role play, intrigue, competitive business, whatever).
You can only reach this circle if the conditions are right. First, you have to be the right type of person. You need to have an attention span, a desire to interact with others, imagination, a love of challenge, and a strategic mind. Second, you have to have the right type of game. The place where you play has to be capable of supporting all of the above elements in an interface that really allows you to explore them all. The extent to which it does NOT support them is directly tied to how soon you basically throw up your arms, conclude that you can never reach the higher circles in this environment, and boogie looking for that next online game.
When you reach this level, it could be with a varying amount of skill in any of the 5th circle challenges. Some people specialize in one or two, and are very light on the others, some are Renaissance people and are well rounded in them all. The key thing is that you recognize all of them and their merits, and are able to integrate yourself into the elite class of characters who play them all without limiting the interaction of any of them.
That means more than the common attitude of "I play my way, you play your way, just leave me alone." RPers need to realize that RPing in Disney is not what this particular game is about. It's about RPing in a vicious medieval realm, where death is very real. PKers need to realize that beyond just slaying the helpless, fighting even battles is where it's at, and that even beyond that, making someone feel like they're just been destroyed by an evil lord rampaging across the realms is hugely better than feeling like they've been destroyed by a 15 year old brat, rampaging across an environment only slightly more sophisticated than a Nintendo game.
And don't forget, you goodie RPers, PKing isn't just for evils. There's nothing wrong with killing other players in the name of good. ;>
Hopefully this was at least semi-interesting, and more to the point, I hope it makes a few people think about why things aren't just the way they like them right now, and points out that given time, there's a good chance that will change.
Hedron
The False Prophet
KAAOS - www.kaaos.com
Since I have not really gotten around to expanding this document on a comprehensive basis to include cohesive articles on other areas, I thought I would at least attach some of the various posts that I have saved regarding other areas of game play. These posts are the seeds of what will eventually become further articles underneathe this article. They're not as well structured and thought-through as the above, so please just take them for what they're worth.