Ryandor.com

So, I'm planning to start my own shard probably on Sphere, and specific for Iris Clients. I plan on having a custom map and with luck, twice or even three times bigger than the original (since Iris is open source and it was confirmed that custom map sizes are an option in Iris). Now, while I do have lots of unique ideas, one of them is to try and get rid of all sorts of teleports including the recall spell.
The problem is that I want to build a PvP/PK/RPG shard. What it means is that PKing is going to be an option and without recall, it might make it very hard for players (especially PKs) to escape from the battle.
Also, noobs are going to really suffer from the lack of recall since they'll become and extremely easy target for PKs while mining or hunting. There will be no way for them to escape.
For now I only have this:
My map is going to consist of two or three continents and a couple of islands around them. Each continent will have a capital and players will actually choose where they want to live (though, changing a citizenship from one continent to another will always be an option even long after char creation). While all of the three continents will have all the basic ores/animals/logs/etc, each one of them will have its unique resources. So, I'll make it impossible to recall from one continent/island to another. So, it'll basically mean that everyone will have to go through the trouble of buying a ship and sailing every time they need something, right? Wrong! And here's the greatest part about my idea: Some people will simply be the merchants. They'll buy ships and their job will be to sail from one continent to another, buy things and sell them for a greater fee at another place where those things are rare.

So far, this is the only way I thought of to limit recall. Any new ideas will be highly appreciated.

You dont need recall, that is what hiding/stealth and shadow step is for.

A ninja character can hide and shadow step 4-5 screens in any direction before needing to rest. Coupled with their stealth ability it makes them a PK's worse nightmare.

All of my old miners were excellent hiders and didnt get waxed very often unless they had a tracker in the group. But then again that gives rangers a job as well.

Teleport via line of sight and shadow step are about all any player really needs though some with get frustrated at the amount of time it takes to get from point "a" to point "b" rather quickly. You might consider leaving "Moongates" for public transport and doing away with gate/recall. This will allow them to move around faster but make it more challenging.

Dev

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"So...if crazy people don't know their crazy...does that mean your only sane if your know your crazy?"

How about including a farming system? Maybe it will be possible to buy a furrows sector, then you should to buy seeds or fruits for planting from a farmer vendor. So you take that stuff to your new farm and plant it there. They grow some time with your care (watering, health-care, like in gardening system) and give you new seeds for replanting if need, and a culture for selling. And with your wealth grows you can buy more rare and exeptional seeds that are need more special care, but giving much more expensive things... perhaps that give some players to grow wealthy without endlessly reaping dungeons off...

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"Be calm and silent, as Darkness care not of passions and lies. Be patient and cold, as Darkness exists out of borders of time and emotions. Just be yourself, as You are in the Darkness and Darkness is inside of you."
-Dark Ones Doctrine, 2001y (c)-

Yeah, I've thought of farming. It's a good idea. I also thought of animal farms, too.
As for Dev's suggestion, maybe I really should look into way to help people avoid unwanted PvP in other way.
Thanks, I'll think about it.

RUNUO already has a farming script that works pretty good.

If you wanted to let players buy furrows you could simply script them just like a house without the customize ability so a player would buy a deed of a certain size then simply go near their house and place it just like a house.

If you want to get all spiffy about it you could do different shapes just like foundations with fences around them than "lock" to protect the garden area with perhaps a few customizable items like the scarecrow or some deco farming items like a plow.

Personally I like the idea of preset plots of land for both houses and farms, this allows full control of the "Sprawl" and prevents players from placing houses in areas they should not be. This keeps the wilderness wild and the cities bustling.

If your not sure what I mean by preset plots you can check them out at many of the other online games such as Dark Age of Camelot or Horizons.

Dev

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"So...if crazy people don't know their crazy...does that mean your only sane if your know your crazy?"

Richard Garriott would tell you that you need to be able to get to your friends quickly ? players do not want to waste time traveling over the same, boring scenery over and over, every time they want to meet up with somebody ? especially if they have a limited amount of time to play. This is, of course, if you are targeting the huge ?casual? gamer audience.

I, on the other hand, am against every kind of instant long-range travel. I see no need for it, and can think of ways to circumvent all of the ?problems? it creates ? though a problem for someone else might not be a problem in my mind (unwanted PvP, for instance).

I really do like your ideas, though ? I have always been in favor of opening up the seas to merchants, and to make it a viable trade. Localized economies would add to the depth of the world hugely. The journey should be sufficiently difficult and the prices should be sufficiently different to make it fun, though.

It would also allow you to localize cultural things, like dress, etc. too.

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

Yeah, but most of it would only work if I can finally make a huge map. I'll only be possible with Ultima iris.
As for the need to travel in long distances, friends could just live in the same town/comtinent. But much needs to be corrected for now.

Thanks for your advices, though. It really helped.

Another thing is to make a shard that's most interesting to women, too.
Now, I'm not a chuvinist or a bigot and I absolutely believe in a total gender equality, but it was proven that men and women share different interests. There's a reason why most men would rather watch football(I hate it, btw) while most women would prefer to watch a sobe opera or something and the reason is because men need a copetition while women need something emotional. Same applies to games.
Guys like battles because, again, for them it's a competition which they need. And that's the reason why the majority of UO players are men.
Also, that's the reason why girls are much more likely to play UO rather than DAoC where everything is battle oriented.
So, I've been interviewing lots of girls who play UO and other MMORPGs to understand what they like about UO and what they would like added so that I can make a PvP/RPG shard with a perfect PvP while still adding new things that would attract women too. The final idea is to create a shard that would consist of 50% women and 50% men.

I may post the interviews later if you wish.

One idea I have always had in the back of my mind is for ?long-distance? sailing. It is difficult to describe, but this is how it would work:

Each landmass would have a bounding box, and that box would have associated ?world? coordinates. So, for example, there is a bounding box ranging from map coordinates (100, 100) to (230, 150) with the world coordinates of (1000, 2000)... meaning, even though on the map, the box begins at 100, 100, the server thinks it begins at 1000, 2000? The world coordinates would not be limited at all, either, so you could have a box begin at 1000000, 100000? or some such huge number. Then, whenever a player sails outside of one of these bounding boxes, their ship simply stops moving (or appears to, somewhat) until it hits another bounding box? giving the impression of gigantic distances between islands. Unfortunately, this would make things like sea piracy only possible within the bounding boxes of islands. You also have to wonder what benefit there is to increasing the amount of seemingly-meaningless time on sea voyages, but if you include all kinds of scenarios that can happen during that ?not-in-any-box? time, such as violent storms and navigational issues, especially if food is required, would make it quite interesting, I think.

Of course, all of this would require significant low-level rewiring of the emulator used.

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

Looks like a good solution. Though, I more count on Ultima Iris because having a real big map is a great thing.
Just think about it: map twice the size of the original map would be more than enough. An ocean that's as big as the whole original map is huge enough and a land that would be as big as the whole map is huge enough, as well.

Ah... I've always dreamt of going on 6-month long voyages with bad weather, rapidly diminishing food supplies and with the overhanging threat of mutiny...er...hanging over my head.

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-= Ho Eyo He Hum =-

Just dont get to huge or your players will get lost and lonely...if the game feels empty they will leave just as fast as if it were boring.

Dev

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"So...if crazy people don't know their crazy...does that mean your only sane if your know your crazy?"

That's also right. I have a few tips to make a huge world that wouldn't feel too empty evn with 100 150 players online, but I'll have to work on it. There's so much work, and it'll take a pretty long time (since I work alone for now)

I think you should feel lonely at sea when you are not around land.

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

Oh, you can trust me on this one:) When I just started to play UO, I guess it was the best time. I didn't know about Recall and In Lor since me and my friend were the first to play UO in our company so there was no one to guide us.
And I'm glad so. I remember we were running from Britain to Trinsic "to the other town" and it was just great.
Another thing about my noobness is my sea travel. I used to spend hours traveling from the Britain bay to the ice isle and other islands. When I first came to Ocllo, I was running around looking for unique items vendors sold. I also remember the very first time when I just came to the ice isle. I saw polar bears and walruses so I started to tame them and then brought them to Britain. I kept trying to sell them but nobody would buy them hehe. I remember taking food supplies to the ship and barrels of water. I also had lamps on the ship because I didn't know about In Lor. My merchants ideas and many others are based upon my very first experience of UO. It was so much fun and when we discovered Recall, it really ruined the whole game for me.
Of course not everyone will enjoy sailing from place to place, but then it'd suck if everyone would be the merchant. The whole point is that only a few will do this role. I'm sure I'm not the only one who loves sailing. Especially, if sailing will have a meaning.