They want you back, and they want you now. That’s why Bioware-Mythic started this Return of the Legends welcome back operation for Ultima Online, Warhammer Online and Dark Age of Camelot.

Continued…

For the first time in two years, Mythic Entertainment will be hosting a live Ultima Online (UO)community event at their Fairfax building in California on August 28. During the event they will share plans for future Live Events and discuss the shape of things to come for the UO community. In addition, there will also be an exclusive announcement for a release that is targeted for the end of summer. The UO team will be raffling off goodies such as cloth maps, UO gear, an ankh from the Stygian Abyss expansion, a T-shirt signed by Todd McFarland and much more.

To reserve a seat for the Ultima Online event, attendee’s must send an email to barmstrong@ea.com by August 16 and await a response for confirmation. Seating will be limited so it is recommended to RSVP as soon as possible. For more information you can visit UOs official website.

With BioWare Mythic offering Ultima Online: Stygian Abyss at the low price of $29.99 USD (including 30 days gametime), efforts are at an all-time high to revitalize this classic game. UO’s “Call to Arms” will feature such festivities as lore-based Live Events, which are slated to bring back several memorable characters from both Ultima and Ultima Online. Players will help drive the story arc as they work together to return the town of Magincia to it’s former glory. Also, new to the UO universe is an exciting PvP Arena feature that will allow players to face-off in 1v1 combat at either of two new arenas.

Continued…

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With the upcoming Update 6, Dungeons & Dragons Online players will explore swamps, raid sunken temples, and protect the last village of the Drow from otherworldly threats. One of the more compelling quest lines is the Claw of Vulkoor; players will be tasked with guiding tribal warriors through a mysterious cavern system in search of unknown fates and destinies. Turbine has recently revealed some screenshots from this particular addition, and it looks like a jolly old face-smashing time.

While Update 6 will take place in a new area known as Red Fens, I find myself wanting to visit this particular location just so I can knock down the paradox that is a giant dwarf. Doing battle with giant dwarves should be on everyone’s bucket list, right? Read up on Dungeons & Dragons Online’s Claw of Vulkoor quest line, as well as the other features in Update 6 here.

Lord British himself, Richard Garriot will be on massively.com’s webchat, Massively Speaking episode 100. Garriot will join hosts Shawn and Rubi for some chat on the past, present and future of MMOs. Topics will range from the early days of Ultima Online to the possible reinvention of Tabula Rasa and beyond.

To send an email, or sign up for the Massively Speaking episode 100 with Lord British podcast visit their website.

Last month, I posted a bit about the concept of risk in MMOs and the conclusion I came up with is that most modern themepark MMOs have sanitized their gameplay such that risk is no longer a factor. I feel that risk is an intriguing design element and that without it, our MMOs are less than they could be. In this article, I am going to talk about a traditional MMO death penalty that has been abandoned in most modern games, Losing Your Cool Stuff.

Of course, the most extreme example of this penalty is the Full Loot/Corpse Run — you die and everything you own is left on your corpse. You might have a window where only you can loot your corpse, or if the game is “full loot”, then your corpse is fair game. This is the death penalty of old-school, “hardcore” games like Ultima Online, Everquest and more recently, Vanguard and Darkfall. I understand why people don’t like corpse runs. You play through dozens of quests and instances to get great gear, only to die in the middle of a lava pit and have to sit naked and forlorn, staring at your unreachable corpse as the timer runs down and your precious items vanish. Full loot is even worse because almost every death brings with it the loss of your good stuff — and most players hate losing their stuff.

The Drop Chance System

This is a simple tweak to the full loot idea. When you die, instead of dropping all of your items on your corpse, each item has a small percentage chance that it drops — say between 2 and 5 percent. When an item drops, it will either stay on your corpse, to be possibly looted by players, or it will appear in the inventory of the monster that killed you. Most of the time, players will be able to shrug off death, having lost nothing, or only trivial items. However, every so often, death will mean the loss of a powerful weapon or armor and the player will have to decide whether it is worth the effort to get it back.

One of the problems you see in full-loot games is that items lose a lot of their value. You might own a powerful sword, but because the chance of losing it is so high, you never take it out of the bank. At this point, though the sword might be worth quite a bit of in-game currency, it isn’t in play and thus becomes pointless. If you want a game with lots of important, powerful gear, full-loot probably isn’t the way to go. Darkfall is a good example of this. Gear is important in the sense that it makes a difference in combat, but it is all expendable (and consumable) and so no specific piece of gear is interesting.

By making item loss possible, we add an element of risk. By making item loss rare, we increase the expected return of a player equipping his best gear. If there is only a 2% chance of losing the Greatsword of Doom and it increases your combat abilities by 20%, that is a pretty good bet that most players will be willing to make. We get our element of risk, but still get more gear, and more interesting gear, into the game.

Let’s take a look at some other ramifications and possibilities of this system.

Spicing Up Loot Tables: If you die to a mob, any items lost will be found on the inventory of that creature when you kill it. This gives players a chance to get their gear back, if they are so inclined, but also means that any mob kill has a chance to turn up some unexpected gear dropped by another hapless player. I like the idea of killing a wandering goblin and finding he just killed an unfortunate adventurer to the tune of a couple hundred gold and a nice sword.

Spicing Up the Monsters: Take that one step further and actually give the creature the benefits of any items he takes from players. I would mark these creatures in some way (ideally by putting the armor/weapon model on them) to show players these creatures are enhanced, but carry more loot than usual. You would have to limit this to humanoids, or just accept that this is a little goofy — how would a raging boar wield a sword? Still, imagine coming across a goblin in the wilderness and jumping him, only to find that he is wielding a wand of fire, or going up against a giant ogre boss when you know he just wiped the previous group and snatched a particularly powerful mace… but man do you want that mace!

Unique Items: One possibility I find very intriguing is that this system would allow the inclusion of powerful unique items in the game. These artifacts would be more powerful than similar items of their level, or have unique effects, but would have much larger drop chances. They are worth seeking out and owning, but you know that you won’t keep them for very long. Sooner or later, you will die and the item will pass on to the next owner.

Spicing Up the Economy: Part of the game’s economy could be focused around drop chance. Because the drop chance is low, I think people will be more willing to use (and lose) cooler stuff. However, because the chance to lose your good gear is there, most people will have backup sets. These sets will have to be looted, bought or crafted and I think a viable economy would exist for “second-tier” items. Crafted “second-tier” items would be even more in demand if you made the drop chance for crafted gear lower than that of looted gear.

A possible variation of this system is that drop chances could start low, but then increase as the player died. Certain classes or crafters could have access to enchants or buffs that lowered the drop chance. An economy would certainly spring up around these enchants as people tried to protect their best pieces of equipment.

Tying Risk to Reward: You could make certain areas of the game increase the base drop chance of the items of anyone who dies there. Increasing the drop chance increases the risk, because players who die have a higher chance of losing items. However, the rewards in that reason would be increased, either because the designers put the best stuff there, or just because all the monsters you are facing are likely to be carrying player gear. Dungeons could have the absolute best rewards, but only if you were willing to brave a greatly increased chance of dropping your best items.

So that’s the idea… If I were to be creating an MMO, I would consider a drop chance system as a compromise between a hardcore risk system like full loot and a no risk system like durability loss. Still, there are other ways to inject risk into a traditional themepark game and we will explore another one of those next post. Until then, I hope you have some questions, comments or ideas of your own. I would love to hear them.

I was perusing the shelves at my favorite game store and had decided I was going to finally buy a game for my Nintendo DS Lite. After much deliberation and some help from the patient staff at MicroCenter I found Chrono Trigger on sale for 19.99. I bought that and a Nerf case for it because I have big clumsy hands, I have dropped my iPod at least 5 times and I don’t think the DS can take that kind of abuse.

I played Chrono Trigger on the Super Nintendo many, many moons ago and I read good things about the handheld port of this console classic. It brought back fond memories and I feel that Chrono Trigger can stand alongside some of the most recent RPG releases. Chrono is a fun game that simplifies the Japanese RPG without giving up depth or breadth of the storyline. It might not have snazzy graphics but it has enough content to keep even the hardcore RPG player busy. After an hour or so of playing I was content with my purchase and thoutht to myself, “why I didn’t buy it sooner?” One reason is that I often get caught up in the Hype-O-Rama of the new game on the block syndrome that some of you can identify with. It is very easy to get caught up in the “new release” hysteria as you can see from some recent stories surrounding Aion and Champions Online.

There was a Time Machine hiding my storage facility.

Last week I had to stop in storage in search for some old paperwork. After thirty minutes of searching I opened some random box in desperation only two find not one but two Playstation 2’s inside. I was ecstatic because I thought I had sold them to Funcoland (life before gamestop) for new games. After further rummaging I discovered some games that were the most popular titles for that period; Socom 2 and 3, Final Fantasy 7, X, Final Fantasy XI and the original Grand Theft Auto III. They are not worth much selling on Ebay or back to G-stop and that is when it struck me, “If these are cheap then so are a lot of older PS2 titles!” This opened up a whole new avenue of gaming to me, for years I have been strictly MMORPG and PC game only; totally ignoring the console market has saved me from the red ring of death but I have also missed out on many good games. You can say I am trying to catch up with lost time.

Lease or own?

After spending a few hours on Final Fantasy X I found myself exhibiting the same habits as I would play an MMORPG. It was like soloing just without the chat box in the corner; I was micro managing equipment, looking up quest hints and even some grinding for exp. It was then that I was convinced it was time to stop looking forward to the next new, NEW thing that all the game studios are trying to cram down our throat. Instead I am looking for deals, classics and pure enjoyment all while keeping my gaming budget under control. I am still a poor college student that feels it makes better economics to own versus rent. For the same $15.00 that I pay for one month of “renting” time on a game, I can pay the same amount and OWN IT forever.

Doing some simple math, it would take 5 hours a day 7 days a week to finish Final Fantasy X in one month. In MMO terms that are usually deemed as “casual” playing, while “hardcore” players can rack up at least 40 hours or more in one week. I have read reports that FFX has over 100 hours of playtime built in without trying to get all the party members ultimate weapons. Now what dedicated MMO player would not try to get the best of the best equipment in the game? World of Warcraft was built on these standards. Yet I won’t be able to strut around the main city in my gear but there is still a challenge and the feeling of accomplishment that goes with it. That’s why we play MMORPG’s am I right? Don’t all agree at once.

I do miss the social aspect though. But I could always make a phone call.

Strut your stuff.

Second hand games is what made Gamestop what is today, building an empire on the phrase, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” Games like Gran Turismo are a joke at $3.00 but that is still a lot less than you will pay for a new title. I’ve got my eye on a copy of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES, I have been meaning to test the Free to play MMO and Persona is one of a long line of JRPG games that was the predecessors of the online MMORPG.

I spoke to some of my scattered gaming group and the attitude was split, “why do I want to play old games when I can play something state of the art.” Some just want to play the new stuff like Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 and some don’t mind hopping on the time machine to revisit some old favorites. I’ve grown tired of all the bashing, gnashing and trashing of newly released games. I am tired of being someone’s guinea pig, it is time to look towards something tried and tested, time to try out something old yet new.

What might be old to one person is still new to someone that has yet to experience the content. Take into consideration the latest announcement of Ultima Online’s new campaign: “Return to Brittania” as free to play until October 16th for returning members. I was just thinking about playing an older online game; Dark Age of Camelot came to mind but Ultima Online is the grandfather of MMORPG’s. This is a great time to give UO a try, there is a chance many of the old players will return which will mean a spike in server population. Empty servers is what has been holding me back from going back to my roots in Final Fantasy Online.

No, this doesn’t mean I am going to leave EVE, which has also been labeled an “old” game by some. I decided to try EVE because it has a long history, ambitious developers  and a dedicated fan base. This is what most mmo players really look for but are afraid to admit it.

Would anyone else like to join me?

Play safe,

Frank

To help celebrate Ultima Online’s 12 year anniversary, today EA has announced the Return to Britannia campaign.  The new campaign will make Ultima Online free to play until Oct 16th for all players, closed accounts in good standings will be re-activated so they can partake.  Below is the press release with more information about the Return to Britannia campaign.

New content available to returning players through the Return to Britannia Campaign includes Mondain’s Legacy, the 7^th UO expansion which introduced the playable Elven race and dangerous, new dungeons to explore. Mondain’s Legacy was made available at no charge in August 2009 to existing subscribers and to new players as part of the Ultima Online 14-day free trial.

“We’re hoping that, as part of the Return to Britannia Campaign, former players will once again rediscover the joys of Ultima Online,” said Jeff Hickman, Executive Producer for Mythic Entertainment. “UO was the first love of many MMORPG players, and it still holds a special place in their hearts after 12 glorious years. I think returning players will be pleasantly surprised to find a thriving and vibrant community from around the world ready to welcome back their former compatriots and include them in their ongoing adventures.”

Players returning to Ultima Online through the Return to Britannia Campaign can download and install the UOclient for free at: http://www.uoherald.com/trial/. Players who no longer have access to their Ultima Onlineusername and password can retrieve their account information at: http://support.ea.com.

Ultima Online: Stygian Abyss, the 8^th expansion was released earlier this month and revolves around the introduction of the playable Gargoyle race. Players will also find expansive new areas to explore, including Ter Mur, the Gargoyle homeland, and the Stygian Abyss – the largest dungeon area ever introduced to Ultima Online. This sprawling dungeon contains new boss monsters of unparalleled difficulty, including the Medusa, Primeval Lich and the Stygian Dragon, as well as Player vs. Player zones where adventurers are turned against one another. Ultima Online: Stygian Abyss is now available at UOGamesCodes.com and the EA STORE for $29.99.

Mythic Entertainment announced that the title that kicked off the visual MMORPG market will be receiving its seventh expansion for free.  Mondain’s Legacy – originally released at retail in 2005 – is availble for download right now at no charge to subscribers of UO.

“Mythic is extremely excited about offering Mondain’s Legacy as a free upgrade to all Ultima Online subscribers, as well as new players who sign up for the 14-day free trial,” said Jeff Hickman, Executive Producer for Mythic Entertainment. “Our goal is to continually provide fresh and rewarding experiences for our thriving UO community. By opening up our 7^th expansion to all players, we hope to get everyone excited for the upcoming summer release of our 8^th addition, Stygian Abyss.”

The now free expansion adds the Elven race and additional dungeons to the long-running title.

Sygian Abyss will follow later this summer and is set to introduce another new playable race, the Gargoyles, new areas, monsters and the largest UO dungeon ever, the Sygian Abyss.