UXO interview

I saw over at Blues News and add emporium that IGN has an interview up regarding Ultima X.

http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/440...

I liked some of the answers and also the art and modles seem to have improved a bit at least going by the screen shots. I'm highly dubious about this tittle but the Producer is signing the right tune it would seem.

You might want to take a look at the large combat system article that was recently put up at the official site if you haven''t done that yet. Featuring like 6 sites with details on how the battle system is working.

Hmm... the one thing that bothers me is he said that the land size will roughly be the same as UO when it launched. He was talking about the larger zones in the sentence before. So I hope he means the larger zones will be the same size as UO at launch.

If he means that the whole world size is going to be as big as UO, I have major concerns. Even if they have the ""instanced"" zones, thats still too small.

Heh... in the military, UXO means ""UneXploded Ordinance,"" so I came into this thread expecting some interview with some other military guy about Iraq or somesuch.

Imagine my embarrassment.

It still seems too cartoony to me. I haven''t played an Ultima game since Ultima VI either. I don''t know, some of the luster has faded for me.

As for the combat. While I like the fact that it''s more ""interactive"" than your typical MMOG, how the hell are you gonna type and attack at the same time with all the crap you have to pay attention too? I know I may be over-dramatic about this. But one of the many, many, many things I didn''t like about NeoCron was the fact that movement/combat and ""talking"" (ie typing) were done through two different interfaces that were mutually exclusive. I think you had to hit Tab to go from one to the other if I remember correctly. Other people seemed to pull it off somewhat, but I never got the hang of it. Made me apprecite hitting a single key to attack in other games...

The guy talking, Rick Hall seems like his got some good priorities for his game.

Its pretty cool that you can play a Gargoyle.

Its EA however, (and EA Online at that) so the odds are not looking too bright.

"RumbleFish" wrote:

It still seems too cartoony to me. I haven''t played an Ultima game since Ultima VI either. I don''t know, some of the luster has faded for me.

As for the combat. While I like the fact that it''s more ""interactive"" than your typical MMOG, how the hell are you gonna type and attack at the same time with all the crap you have to pay attention too? I know I may be over-dramatic about this. But one of the many, many, many things I didn''t like about NeoCron was the fact that movement/combat and ""talking"" (ie typing) were done through two different interfaces that were mutually exclusive. I think you had to hit Tab to go from one to the other if I remember correctly. Other people seemed to pull it off somewhat, but I never got the hang of it. Made me apprecite hitting a single key to attack in other games...

LOL two words, Team speak. To be honest I generaly stop watching text all togather when we have the whole guild on TS... course that can lead to it''s own issues.

Fang'' you are a cynical bastard, after all it takes one to know one. To be fair though, I thought E&B was very well done, though I didn''t care for the art, the amount of quests and start and general world engagement at low level was inspiring. Course when that petered and I realized I was going to have to start treadmiling I quite.

The combat information is an interesting read but I think they have dumbed things down to much, and it would seem a couple key elements are missing that would make this system viable actually tactical. Clipping and positioning. Nowhere is clipping talked about which means it''s missing and nowhere is is flanking or rear attacking discussed... makes me think this will be a pretty hollow system, but will see.

While Team Speak may work when you have a group that moves from MMO to MMO together, us loners who end up in groups sometimes don''t have it too easy.

Dammit, I thought the title said ''UFO.'' Imagine my surprise.

The AI personality at the beginning of E&B that took you on a tour and guided you on your missions through the newbie levels was excellent. Its definitely a mechanic worth copying.

The combat sucked, plain and simple. I played early beta (my friend was a designer) and the crafting all had very generic icons which served to confuse in the multipart recipes. I would assume this got better by release (10 months later)

I never tried any of the crafting in E&B I just ran through the quests, there where so many of them and they interlocked and crossed over and had some minimal tree choices (that part was not done so well but at least it was there). I wish I had liked the art style better and that the content had not petered out but still it was a good ride while it lasted. I wish all the character art was more in the style of the login chick/tutor :).

The combat sucked, plain and simple. I played early beta (my friend was a designer) and the crafting all had very generic icons which served to confuse in the multipart recipes. I would assume this got better by release (10 months later)

Most of the icons looked the same to me when I tried crafting in E&B. Not only that, but it was expensive as hell to make anything good. If you didn''t know what people wanted, you could screw yourself out of a lot of credits.

Funny story about E&B. I got tired of it before my thirty days were up and cancelled my account. Even had to cancel my remaining free days. About a week later I get a call on the answering machine from the Tutorial Lady (Megan?) asking me to please come back and that I was missed. My wife almost had a heart attack.

About a week later I get a call on the answering machine from the Tutorial Lady (Megan?) asking me to please come back and that I was missed. My wife almost had a heart attack.

Kinda creepy, but kinda cool in a way. She definitely was a strong personality in the game.

It was 1% cool and 99% creepy. I just wasn''t expecting it. I had gotten an email from them around the same time (can''t remember which came first) that just made it even more creepy.

LOL, that is definitely marketing to far. I didn''t have that happen so I suspect they drew a lot of fire over that. I can''t imagine what my wife would have said but I''m sure it would have involved me buying an expensive apologia dinner even if I hadn''t done anything wrong.

Frankly I get pretty annoyed when companies contact me directly like that, as a rule I try not every give any cooperation my personal information they just can''t resist using it in ways I find offensive (like selling it). I keep waiting somebody to sue over having to provide personal information to warranty credit (an ugly little trend that companies abuse regularly to build and sell annoy lists with).

I reminded my wife about my post from Megan the Tutorial Lady. She pointed out the fact that ""she"" didn''t mention Earth and Beyond until the very end of the phone call. Yeah, it took a little while to convince her everything was ok.

I mean geez, it started out something like ""Hey, it''s me, Megan. Remember me? We really miss you and want to know if you''ll be returning..etc, etc, etc...""

But yeah, it pretty much turned me off to any more MMOG''s that EA may ever do.

Maybe thier marketing department just wants to see you get divorced, after all without a wife you''d have alot of free time on your hands

That quote provided above for E&B''s phone call comes from my wife who remembers almost every word of it from a year ago.

EA Online has handed their business over to their marketing department.
That call proves it... just imagine how much work and money must have been invested in such a mechanism.
I''ve heard their methodes where even rougher when you tried to cancel Sims Online. I think they almost reached a point where investing this time and money in the game instead would have done more good to them...

In a few years, they dont even need a game anymore ... they just make you curious until you subscribe and when you try to cancel their external staff ""visits"" you and later you get a call: ""Hi, its me, Megan... remember your wife and children? They''re here at EA and really miss you...perhaps, if you return to the game...""

@Topic: From what i see and read, UXO sounds good... but thats the problem for me with any MMORPG out there, they all sound so good before release...

Ah... and i already know which feature will be changed by patch first: ""In an easy fight, you may choose to click rapidly, swinging your weapon every second"". Regarding the sheer amount of monsters you usually wade through to gain levels, i can imagine that EA gets a lot of money from Logitech

And then LogiTech unveils the ""Turbo Mouse."" Like the 3rd party controllers of old, a simple switch turns your left (or right) click into a turbo click capable of up to 25 clicks per second with a single press. You''ll be wading through MOBs like a hot knife through butter.

I am so glad BLizzard decided to add 10 years to my index finger by allowing you to click and hold to continuous swing in Diablo 2.

Why didn''t anybody tell me that? I''ve been jabbing the button like a schlubb ever since I got it.

Yeah that is one of these features I''m not real sure about, I would rather have had some sort of location targeting for different effects that works in conjunction with positional attacks a million all but random clicks, ugh my carpool tunnel.

Im not sure I follow you there Griff. You are saying that you want location effects targeting that works in conjunction with positional attacks? I dont get the ""attacks a million all but random clicks"" section.

I like the autoattack of the RTS games. I like attacking while moving in Mechcommander. I like the placed specials of Warcraft 2+. I dont think Dungeon Sieges party scripting for ranged maneuvering (move melee to the front and mages to the back) works, especially in the narrow dungeon hallways. Mechcommander 2 keeps ranged units at a distance well, but they have an open landscape design.

Eh hem, I shouldn''t multitask so much my posts get half baked and no proofing.. So what I was saying is that I don''t like the idea of needing to continually click for generic attacks to be going off.
I would like to see targeting for attacks that can generate different effects based upon that targeting. I would also like to see positional relationships such as flanking to be mixed in targeting and have an effect. Pretty much any combination of the above would be preferable to a click fest IMO.

I always liked the old Daggerfall combat system. You just held down the right mouse button and slashed either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally and got different attacks out of it. Nowadays, I''m sure there would have to be more than just that to keep everyone entertained, but I always found it to be a simple, yet elegant system.

IGN has the second half of the interview up

http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/440...

Seems to be getting into character creation. Nothing revolutionary but at least there level of building your character besides changing jobs *gasp*. Sounds a bit AC2-ish, hopfully their tree''s wont'' suck and will be radicaly different instead esentialy the same no matter what you play.

I have no idea how well they will do it but every designer could take a lession from this statment.

There''s nothing more boring than when every monster is just a shambling, emaciated dealer of destruction. That''s too ""cookie cutter"". We wanted monsters that you could see as participants in a story...

In my eyes, having to click thousands of times to attack is not making the combat system more ""intricate"", its making it only horrible... but we''ll see.

Many people dont like the ""press autoattack and watch"" System, but they forget that that system was invented primary because of lag reasons. If you have a lagspike of 30 seconds, you will probably be dead when your client gets control again. When autoattack is on, you lose your specials, but you will attack further.

When autoattack is on, you lose your specials, but you will attack further.

And still die!

yeah I''m curious how they will handle that, so far that is the one thing that sounds really weak with what they are doing, but it could have some interesting game benefits, like allowing lower level folks to hit even in a tuff fight (twinking) if they delay long enough... I don''t know it''s funky system to be sure but it sounds like it will allow you adjust the odds, how much remains to be seen.