Why UO is the way it is.

R

Ripstas

Master
To quote Raph Koster, who was in turn quoting an essay by Richard Bartle:

The fascinating part of the essay, however, is where Bartle discusses the interactions between these groups. Killers are like wolves, in his model. And therefore they eat sheep, not other wolves. And the sheep are the socializers, with some occasional Achievers for spice. Why? Because killers are about the exercise of power, and you do not get the satisfaction of exercising power unless the victim complains vocally about it. Which socializers will tend to do.
Further, Bartle pointed out that eliminating the killers from the mix of the population results in a stagnant society. The socializers become cliquish, and without adversity to bring communities together, they fragment and eventually go away. Similarly, achievers, who are always looking for the biggest and baddest monster to kill, will find a world without killers to be lacking in risk and danger, and will grow bored and move on.
Yet at the same time, too many killers will quite successfully chase away everyone else. And after feeding on themselves for a little while, they will move on too.
 
Darkarna

Darkarna

Grandmaster
Ledz Epplin said:
It's true and why UO died a slow death. With Trammel, it took all the thrill and risk, thus the fun, of being out in the wild.
Click to expand...

Sending this reply back to February 6th 2015 -->

Trammel was personally and actually one of those good times for me but only for the first few months. Why is this? I can imagine the voices of disgust bellowing out with the intent of labelling me as a lemon, let me explain *story time* : -

The moment Trammel landed was a day of great depression for most PvP orientated classes, Player Killers embarked on long missions to find fresh meat amongst a Felucian Rule set, towns started to empty and thieves were left sitting in a puddle of their own tears, rocking back and forth as their victims began to find moonstones and immigrate over to the 'fluffy' lands. For myself, the decision was simple, instead of dehydrating myself like others before me, the only relevant option was to experience these new lands for myself and what a great decision it was.

Trammel was full of love, vibrant colours infected every dishonest part of my thief, rabbits hopped along and I could have swore that some were wearing bow ties. The monsters were equally disgusted but at least they could kill some people from time to time which opened up a new era to all those who had worked out a slight oversight from the staff of OSI/EA. Bouncing around Terrathan Keep would lead me to a great discovery, some poor soul had misjudged his playing ability and decided to try and 'French Kiss' a Terrathan Avenger which obviously lead to a very painful, poisonous death. His lifeless body lay sunbathing on the floor, worms, maggots and beetles had already taken hold of this bounty and began the decomposition stage, the stench was overwhelming as I scurried over to take a look if bodies were lootable, but alas, a magical force prevented any interaction with the corpse whatsoever :(.

I decided to try my hand at slaying the Terrathan Avenger, the bloody thing had looted something from the blue's corpse, so whatever it had looted would have been sitting proudly in the creatures pack *wherever that was*. So the battle began, a thief with only magery and no EVAL began the epic battle of killing this dangerous walking venom sack. A decent amount of time had passed and the Terrathan Avenger lay dead in the midday sun. It's loot contained some gold, a magical weapon and a few fish steaks which it had looted from the blue guy *who's ghost must have gotten lost since the guy had not returned*. I noticed that the corpse had turned to bones by this time so thinking to myself oO( Just check it, you never know ) I toddled over to the bones and double clicked.

*POOOOF*

The corpse opened and all the loot was there for me to take.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

For the next few weeks, my goal as a thief in Trammel was to be transformed. Instead of stealing items using the skill, many runes were marked to places of absolute destruction *death gates*, many Trammelites were gated from the confines of the maximum safety of Britain Bank to Wyvern Island, Lich Cove room and other assorted death spots, when their corpses turned to bones a little creativity and loot such as full sets of Ranger armour, rare rocks, many, many sets of plate, dex and leather armour of all quality and other assorted goodies would be mine.

Soon after other methods arrived *trapped chest in brit, blow someone up and party them as they died would allow you to fully loot them in any Trammelian town, or hide and trade with someone while they tried to loot their corpse, this prevented any looting attempts. Alas, one day I set up a mark and executed the plan only to find myself recalled to a jail where a GM was standing with a personalized whip and a bottle of lubricant *shudders* and a three day ban.....

When everything was fixed though, I moved back to Felucia and sat in line with the other thieves, crying..
 
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