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OSI Starts Selling Preleveled UO characters
NinjaPablo writes "OSI has started a new service, detailed here which allows you to pay $29.95 to get a decent character premade for you, and bypass the hours of working skills at lower levels. Most of the player community is in an uproar about the whole thing, since it basically means a newbie can pay a little extra and be as good as an average player right off the bat."
Face it. UO is slowly fading into irrelivance. Everquest seems to be the "standard" mmorpg-- i don't know anyone who plays uo anymore-- and with the upcoming, mindblowing Star Wars Galaxies, soon UO will be attracting no new customers, only the diehards. UO could try to keep people with really good plots and stuff, but that would likely only retain old customers, and attract few new ones.
So, instead, they're trying desperation tactics like this one. Think about it. This is not a decision that even a company as stupid as the one that bought and ruined Origin would make about a product they wanted to keep viable. This is a product that is near the end of its lifespan, the parent company knows it, and so they are trying to squeeze out the last couple pennies from it before it fades into complete obscurity.
Origin's parent company doomed UO to stagnation, irrelivance, and eventual death the day they killed Ultima Online 2. The product is no longer maturing, and so it will be replaced by services that do. Plain and simple. Welcome to the gaming world, where the only law is that stasis is death.
So what's Lord British been up to lately?
--super ugly ultraman
So.. Basically OSI is trying to cut in on the After Market selling of property and accounds, and try to take in some of the profit themselves.
That's no such a bad idea. People on Slashdot always say- Don't attack a new technology or development, find a way to adapt to make it work for you.
That seems to be exactly what they are doing here.
Colin Davis
Let me say first off I support gaming and roleplaying and all that, but to the people who are freaking out about this I say so what?
Now a bunch of UO geeks are mad because they just realized that they have wasted hours and hours of their life that could of been spent otherwise.
If anything this should be a wakeup call that spending hundreds of hours "developing" a computer character may not lead to the payoff you think it did.
To the people who feel they have been cheated, your the ones who are cheating yourselves by investing way too much time in a game.
Life is too short, time to unplug.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
If people are willing to pay to skip the first part of a game isn't that an indicator there's something wrong with that part?
Just an observation.
As both a gamer and someone who runs a business in the online gaming space, I can see both sides of the coin here.
Personally I see this as a great first step for massively multiplayer gaming. Not necessarily a great first step, but a move forward nonetheless.
I used to play EQ for 10 hours a day. Then I met the right woman, got married, and had a baby. When Dark Age of Camelot came out, I managed to play 4-5 hours a handful of nights a week (at the expense of sleep). Luckily my wife loves gaming too, but she was in the same boat.
I really enjoyed both games, but in both situations I could not compete with teenagers and college students who could throw 12-14 hours a day at the game. It really ruins the fun if you can no longer group with your friends because your character has fallen behind.
So, yes, I think it's great that I can get the +10 Not-so-rusty sword for $9.95 or whatever... Otherwise I would just be camping some spawn mindlessly wasting time to get it in the game. That makes me get bored and want to quit the game, taking my subscription revenue with it.
Gaming companies and the games themselves are better off long term if they can keep people attracted to the game. For those of us who love the games, but simply don't have the time, this is a good thing.
I think a better (even more powerful idea) would be to create servers/shards/realms with a MAXIMUM amount of hours played per account per week. This would be great for people like me who can only play so many hours a day -- basically you're keeping the power gamers out of one or two servers to allow casual players a chance.
Especially in newer games like DAOC where realm vs realm is so important, there is no way someone who can only play 10 hours per week has a chance. I applaud the companies for realizing this and starting to take baby steps towards addressing it.
Case
Ahhh yes. The instant gratification option. Also the "I have a life, unlike you loosers" excuse. Its much the same line you hear from those who run various game cheats.
If you don't want to play the game, don't play it. If the game requires some degree of time and experience and you are either unwilling or unable to meet that requirement, go find another game to play.
Multiplayer games are not there for your own personal ammusement. Don't screw with other's fun. Or put another way... if you want to play the game, PLAY THE GAME. Stop whining and looking for a shortcut.