Recall

[kinson]

I understand you don't want people recalling all over the place, because it means more possibilities for pvp, and that is why you removed recall runes and rune books, as well as making recall and gate travel stop working completely.

I ask that you make recall work again and let people recall off their keys. If they select a keyring w/ keys on it, have an option to pick which distination you want to goto. For example, recall between your boat and house.. Because I don't use UO AutoMap (which I should look into actually), I have been lost at sea, recall to my house for safety as I logoff for the night, and go back the next day to try to find my way around.

So people don't go cluttering up the harbor's with their boats, make it a rule that boats are not allowed to be parked at docks unless the owner of the boat is with it. So people have to pack up their boats if sailing into town and whatnot. This would stop people from having quick and easy recall between towns and their house. People would have to park their boats outside of town, giving them ample opportunity to have pvp action. Maybe even put signs at the waters edge, a certin ways away from towns, saying no boats past this point!, forcing people to run a certain ways in unguarded areas before they reach a town.

Play with the idea some, and see how you like it.
No matter how long a shard has been around, wether it be 2 months, or 10 years, there is always room for improvments, tweeks, and adjustments to be had.

[Prometheus]

Nov 7, 2010 13:43:33 GMT kinson said:

No matter how long a shard has been around, wether it be 2 months, or 10 years, there is always room for improvments, tweeks, and adjustments to be had.

Very true, but I've always seen our system of restricted recalling (using only the telepads in dungeons) as opening up different gameplay opportunities, that's why I removed 100% recalling.

It's mostly so that players identify themselves with certain towns and areas and also because it means there'll always be mystery; without the ability to instantly recall anywhere on the map, noone knows what's on Hythloth Island or anywhere else for that matter. Towns can start and grow and noone will even know about it.

Unfortunately it has led to less player interaction, but that will reduce with time as our numbers keep growing and when Factions go to war. Also the weekly Sunday quests are a time for players to get together also.

[Fayt]

Maybe, rather than a recall, per se'. A stone that would function as a recall, however, only taking them to the town they belong to, say, Billyboblumberjack of Minoc uses it, and he gets sent to Minoc. They don't get the benefits of going ANYWHERE, just to their respective towns. Yay? Neigh? It'd achieve what you want, people identifying with a certain area, while still giving us, the players, a way to get out of trouble, or out of a physically stuck area when no staff are available. All while, as stated, achieving your wishes.

It would also force people to pick a town, and identify with it. I've no plans of ruining your idea, just lightening ours, as the players, and yours, as the staff's load, without having to wait for staff to help us from a stuck location, and you for not having to stop to help a clumsy player that got stuck.

[kinson]

I was thinking of something silimar to that idea the other day too.. It would be a good idea in my opinion. You're inside your house and you have a pker or two .. or more, sitting outside your house waiting for you to open the door..

According to the rules, pking someone inside their home is not allowed, but once they are inside your house, they can rob you blind.. Now, I am sure if you attack them while they are inside your house, the rule no longer applies..

So, in this case .. you are either stuck inside your house for awhile, hope that you're able to get other players to come help you, play a different character for awhile (which you might not want to do, because you have plans to do something on that toon), logoff for awhile and hope for the best, or take your chances and go running out of your house, screaming and waving your arms like a madman, hoping you're able to get away alive.

[Fayt]

Or wish you were a mage so you could earthquake the piss out of those suckers.

[kinson]

But wouldn't they be able to do the same to you?

[Fayt]

If they were mages you wouldn't have had time to think "Man I wish I could've recalled safely" Cause of earthquakes and greater explosion. Besides, most people belonging to towns own a house in said town, so they'd be protected by guard.

[kinson]

Wrong. A town costs 500k. You can choose to make it a no pk zone. To add guards to your town costs another 1.5M gold.

About your assessment of people not knowing what is out there on, as you put it, "Hythloth Island or anywhere else for that matter.", people have the ability to mark a rune there and check back with it from time to time at their desire.

I am thinking, at least in part, a reason for removing recall and gates is so that people cannot recall away as they have a pker after them. I think adding something like a 2 minute delay from exiting combat would be suitable before you can recall.. Sort of like you can't hide when you have a creature or player that has made an aggressive move towards you on the same screen as you..

[Prometheus]

I'll read this tomorrow whilst I'm at work (lol). Right now I've spent all day on my PC getting shard stuff done and I need a rest, sorry guys.

[willowleaf]

Kinson, i got a solution to your problem. If your worried about people going in your house and robbing you, well then thats why house's have the option to lock items down and have Chest that only a owner can open.

[kinson]

My statement was only part about being robbed, but it was mostly to the point of pkers are preventing you from doing leaveing your house and doing anything of importance (different things are important to different people, so don't think that I am saying one thing is more important than anything else for everyone).

[orbital]

about the recall thing - maybe you can implement a skill called 'Escape', in-which will enable you to mark one location (numerous times) but the skill can only be cast once an hour.

ex: I can mark my house go hunting and cast escape to recall back to my house, in turn i wont beable to use that skill again for an hour or a few hours.

(If anyone has played Lineage2 they implemented this feature.)

[Prometheus]

Sorry but I'm not a fan of these suggestions. I recognise that recalling is good in lots of ways, but not enough to want to bring it back in any other sense than it already exists (with telepads in dungeons).

House-killing is a double-edged sword, so to speak:
1. If there's a thief in your house, all you have to do is walk out the front door and quickly close it and the thief will be trapped in your house - will have to die and lose their stuff just to escape.

2. If there's PKs outside your house, all you have to do is drop all your items in a secure, walk out with no items on, quickly shut your door and run to the nearest healer to res. You're not trapped at all, and you might live inside guarded protection anyway.

...typing this from work so will respond to those other points later.

[Prometheus]

Also, restricted recalling provides many benefits to gameplay:
1. PKs can wait outside of a town's gates and, even though without recalling the playerbase is spread more thinly across the map, this concentrates PvP gameplay activity into specific areas and increases interaction (with dungeons being the other place).

2. Some regional resources will be rarer in one part of the map than in other places and this will facilitate trade. Also, towns built where there are regional resources available may become characterised by that type of armor/decoration from logs and ores. This will add to a town's identity also.

3. Mystery.

4. It also adds danger to players travelling from one town to another and makes anywhere outside of town a place of danger, where anything can happen, adding to the sense of security players feel when inside their home town.

5. This is also primarily the exact way in which I've envisioned UO from the moment I started playing it back in 1999. I felt quite let down when, as a newbie, I discovered players could recall instantly anywhere they wish. I think your suggestion for some device which teleports a player back to their home town is also "going too far" and that our current version of restricted recalling is a simple but very effective way of keeping the shard the way I see it should be.

ZH Factions is designed to be more entertaining the more you play, rather than the opposite which I feel it has been in the past. I think a change to recalling along the lines of your suggestion would go too far in the wrong direction and, especially this week, I'm really excited to see how we're progressing both in terms of existing players setting themselves up and in terms of the lots of newbies who have joined us.

Also, not only do I not want to change the system we have, but I also think we're doing really well now without any changes. Restricted recalling, I knew, would be the biggest turn off to prospective new players, but nevertheless we're progressing and garnering new interest all the time. We're reaching the point where the shard starts to sell itself, rather than me having to go out and advertise around the place, and that's a big step - we'll be entering the [2nd Age] soon as a result.

It's great to see such enthusiasm from you guys, but I don't think I'll be changing up regarding recalling. Your suggestions are always welcome though, keep them coming!!

[charsi]

Shame really, recall is one of my favorite spells in UO. Very few other games use it.

But I like the idea of having a form of "hearthstone" if you will. What someone said earlier about "Billybobjoe of Minoc" being able to use some special "townstone" to recall to his designated city (or player city).

I get the idea if what you're trying accomplish, traveling is also one of the more joyous aspects to UO. I'm not entirely convinced though that making an already very large world larger with such a small playerbase is wise.

We'll see how it plays out, doesn't bother me at all in the meantime though!