There's no place like home. *click* *click* *click*
Posted August 18, 2000 - 5:07 PM PDT by Adam Ant
New magic available to all players!
Remember in the Wizard of OZ when Dorothy finally finds out that she has the power to send herself home if she says "There’s no place like home" and *clicks* her heels together three times?
Well, it seems that the UO designers are going to allow anyone that gets 'stuck' to magically teleport themselves to town, and they don’t even need to click their heels together!
With a mere press of a button, you will be teleported to town (Reds to Buc’s Den.)
Now if this was limited to players that are physically stuck and cannot move, then I believe this is a good thing.
However, I don't think this is the case. This is likely a binky for those players that get killed and can't (don't want to) walk home.
Even this I don't have a huge problem with, If players are severely limited to the number of times they can use this feature. The designers say twice a day. Twice a day?
Believe it or not, one of the reasons I love UO so much is because it requires mastery. Dying should hurt, it should hurt a lot. Without great pain being associated with death, there will be no motivation to ‘learn’ not to make dumb mistakes. (Like stepping into a strangers Gate just because their offering rares at half off!)
I would have much rather seen OSI put a teleport button in the help screen that would:
1. log your exact position you used the feature (to allow someone to fix the broken location.)
2. Give you a target cursor so you can truly only teleport to a nearby position.
3. Impose some negative consequence to players using the feature that were not truly stuck.
But the way this feature was implemented, the designers have basically given two free bus tickets to each player - per day.
I can think of one modification to make this feature more reasonable:
When some poor sap pushes that button to teleport their sorry ass home, randomly teleport me to their location instead. :)
--Adam Ant
Do you think this helps or hurts the game?
Letter from a reader
Posted August 15, 2000 - 8:23 AM PDT by Adam Ant
I received this letter today, well actually a week ago :)
Anyway, this guy believes that Evil belongs in UO. I get many, many letters like this one, but this one articulated the frustrations we evil are feeling these days.
------------------------------
Dear Adam Ant,
I've enjoyed your site very much, and have followed your adventures closely. I can say that your valiant efforts to protect the wise undead does not go in vain. I have never hunted liches, nor will I......should I return to UO.
I was once a PK, not widely known, yet good enough not to get caught. I was one of the founders of the Pirates of Deep Waters. My friend and I did many boaters in, many of who were macroing unattended(illegal). We always left their boat where we found it(replaced it actually) leaving 2 items in the hold. One was a random item from the booty, and the other a book, proclaiming who exactly robbed them blind, and why they should never leave their boat unlocked or unattend macro. We were not only the scourge of the sea, but others in the guild were also the scourge of the land. I myself was an expert house theif. Having the time and patience I was at one time able to get into a house, take some valuable items, and leave. Being unnoticed was as rare as rain in the desert, but most of the times i got away scot free, other than a screaming angry madman or woman running after me as I recalled.
Those days came to an end. First when the changes to the boats were made. Nothing on the boats would remain, only what was within the hold. This made pickings very skimp. Then the serious blow to me when the dreaded house changes were implemented, which made me utterly useless. Stealing from blues was too risky for small stuff. This is the time I upped and left UO, seeking better grounds on AC and EQ. They don't have a decent PK system, which I miss. But now that the land has been doubled and the lag trippled, the PK system gone to hell, I will not return any time soon.
But if your idea was to be implemented, I may very well return. True, I could not house loot again, but I could do what I liked, PK. PK without stat-loss, but instead a better choice. Angel Island. A prison island as harsh as it can get, with little chance of escape, yet giving that little speck of light in the darkness. Instead of sitting their waiting for my murder count to drop, I can be doing something, shooting for that little flame in an endless sea of chaos.
That aside, I whole heartedly support Angel Island, and may start drawing up maps of what Angel Island could look like and some other ideas. We can strive to get the Holy Gods of OSI (Holy because I shot a dozen arrows into them) to implement this. I will post these ideas up on the forum. We SHALL BE HEARD!
"For I am Ray Tracer. Wave Surfer. I shall ride the waves of destruction onto those who would challenge the sea. Your fear of me shall create respect for me, in which I will respect you too as you fall to my attack. Do not challenge the sea, for it will win in the end"
Ray Tracer of Sonoma/Pacific
Chaos Craft Creations
Thank you Ray Tracer. I believe that one day OSI will acknowledge our proposal and make some small allowances for the role played evil of out lands.
--Adam Ant
Care to comment?
Welcome to GAME-MASTER.NET
Posted August 11, 2000 - 4:33 PM PDT by Adam Ant
Well, it looks as though I was able to move the site without too much trouble.
Actually, moving the files is the easy part, the difficulty came with the message board and news program. Oh well, no use crying over spilt brain cells.
I guess the upside is that I now own game-master.net :)
If I ever need to move again, nobody will even know, it will all just happen transparently.
Speaking of domain names, I would like to give a little love to the folks over at UOGuilds. Those guys are the greatest. Take Evilseed for instance. I say to him, “I want you to host my new domain and I don’t want to pay anything for it either.” And then I tell him, “I want a pop mail box for free too.”
You know what happened? I got it! Hehe, I love the internet business model :)
If you are looking for quality hosting, UOGuilds is the place.
--Adam Ant