Let’s Revisit High Seas, Mining, and Lumberjacking

A few days ago I posted an article, One Year Later, It’s Time to Revisit New Magincia, where I discussed the idea of not abandoning New Magincia or washing your hands of it, but instead making some tweaks to make it appeal to more players.

While much of what I discussed might not mean much to new or returning players, I feel it would help with player retention and with revitalizing some areas that need it, and in the long run would contribute to new and returning players sticking around. In that vein, today’s article is about revisiting the High Seas booster, and Mining and Lumberjacking.

It was inspired by a couple of Stratics threads, Suggested new loot for High Seas and Unattended Scripters. I may not find the time to engage in the discussions at Stratics or UO Forums, but I do try to read the threads.

Mining and Lumberjacking
This is going to be brief compared to the High Seas discussion below. Those of you who mine or lumberjack are aware, and have been aware, that for the past several years, ores and lumber are randomized as far as the colored ores and lumber (Dull Copper, Bloodwood, etc.). You maybe able to get a few streaks out of a tree or a mining spot, but it will flip at some point.

Why was it done? Doesn’t matter at this point!
It doesn’t matter if it was done to make people move around more rather than going through their runebooks and harvesting exactly what they needed, or whether it was done to combat the people who use automated means of gathering resources (aka scripters), because what I know is this: It’s not doing normal players any good. You used to have a lot of casual players (or casual crafters) who could login, get what they need, make the items they wanted to make, and go on their way. They can no longer do that, and it’s not just them, it’s also the players who used to have the time and energy to make a serious go out of mining or lumberjacking.

If you take something that was not that exciting before, and you make it very time consuming and tedious, you’re going to drive up the odds that people will either turn away from it altogether, turn to automated (scripting) software, or turn to people who automate (script) their resources.

Those three outcomes are not good in anybody’s book. We’re coming up on 5 years or so, it isn’t working, and regardless of what the original goal was, the scripters are the only ones who benefited.

Did anybody ask us if we wanted to see what used to be somewhat enjoyable activities destroyed or handed over to the scripters? I don’t recall anybody sending out any email surveys or posting forum threads about what the UO team could do to destroy mining and lumberjacking for a lot of folks, do you?

High Seas
Changing course (there’s a joke there somewhere), let’s set sail on the High Seas. Just to refresh your memory, High Seas (High Seas – UO Guide) was the first of what was supposed to be twice-a-year booster packs, released back in October of 2010, around 18 months ago, for $14.95. That has since been dropped – no more expansions, no more booster packs. High Seas is, in my opinion, a very cool addition to UO, as it revitalized some areas (the seas, fishing) and increased the depth of UO (adding in naval fights, the Sea Market, true pirates, more ships, other options), as well as vastly improving boat movement.

Among the other things it introduced, and besides the other three ships, it introduced the Britannian Ship, a very large ship that is difficult/expensive to get – either you collect 10,000,000 points through the Cooperative Collection, or you go on line to Origin.com and pay $11.99.

First, let’s talk about criticisms
18 months in and the loot, rewards, what have you, are not worth it anymore, especially on the NPC ships. That however, is not the biggest criticism. For some, the biggest criticism might be the expense of buying the Britannian Ship, but I think the bigger problem is the amount of effort required to engage in naval combat. The effort or expense is a deterrent to most people.

The amount of effort involved in obtaining the necessary supplies and then sinking a ship are not well-rewarded. While I know that it should not be easy to sink a ship, I also know there should be an incentive to do so. Read the UO Guide entry on Cannons or check the Stratics link above to see what all is involved. If the reward was better, I doubt there would be as many complaints as there are, and I believe that players would participate a lot more in High Seas-related content. Some of the ships are literally not worth engaging. And mining saltpeter…there’s a good reason why many people buy from others who are probably using automated means to obtain their supplies.

There are other things that should be revisited – the quests, the frequency of some of the fishing scrolls.

All of those items should be addressed, and I believe could be addressed in a relatively short order – we’re not talking about new systems, we are talking about listening to the players and why they aren’t participating in that content, and discussing very specific systems – the process involved in manufacturing ammo, the loot drops of the ships.

There are other things that can be done to increase the participation in the High Seas content.

Make it free
The amount of people buying it these days is probably not too high. Making it free for all players would encourage more players to participate – I know a lot of people who only have it on one of their accounts, and I’m one of them. I cannot justify buying it again for my other accounts. Would I use those other accounts with High Seas-specific content? Yes, but not to the tune of $30.

Use it to sell the Britannian Ship/Captain’s Bundle
The Britannian Ship is $11.99 through the Origin store, or an ungodly amount of Collection points in-game. It requires the High Seas booster, and because of that, you are automatically excluding a lot of people and a lot of accounts. Make the High Seas booster free, take a chance on increasing sales of other items through Origin.com. There’s also the Captain’s Bundle, which is $17.99 and includes the Britannian Ship, a Captain’s Wheel (which doesn’t work on ships…), and paints for said ship.

Buy it on one account, have it on all accounts
Our accounts are now linked through the new Origin.com account system, as of last fall. If you can’t make it free, then make it so that buying it on one account allows you to access the content on all accounts.

Those are just some thoughts – I suspect the market of UO players wanting to still buy High Seas 18 months later is small, but look at this as a chance to get more out of it, to generate some goodwill for the players, and to increase the pool of eligible buyers for the Britannian Ship. Many MMO developers, EA/BioWare included, include previous expansions for free at some point. High Seas was not a full expansion like Mondain’s Legacy or Age of Shadows. It makes sense to make it available, if only for the existing players.

High Seas, Mining, Lumberjacking
Are they really connected, or did I just throw them together for this article. Actually they are somewhat connected. All three should be a lot more enjoyable than they currently are. It does one no good to have content, but not have willing participants. High Seas and Mining issues are connected – saltpeter is a pain to get, and the amount of time and resources required to engage in naval combat with certain ships are not worth the outcome.

If you want players to do do something, you have to give them an incentive and it has to be worth their time. If you want to make something more rare or you want to discourage certain behaviors, don’t make changes that do the opposite and drive players into the arms of the very players (scripters) you are trying to discourage.