I have compiled a nifty little list of some folks on the Steemit platform who have already chatted about UO and I wanted to invite everyone to chat about Ultima Online here in this thread as well as on Whaleshares discord : https://discord.gg/dcTe7q
Ultima Online was the most ambitious MMORPG of its time. In fact lots of people argue that even today, some 20 years after the launch of Origin System's UO; no game that ever dared to fly as high. The reason for this is because as a business model, as a software ecosystem, as a game - Ultima Online is perceived in many ways, to be a failure. The game was plagued with swamped servers, high ping times, account credential issues, bugs and ravenous deadly Player Killers. I mean ravenous like they didn't just pop up on you in your favorite mine, forest or dungeon and kill you. They killed you, your dear pack llamas and they took all of your ingots and tools, weapons and earnings. Then they chopped you into pieces and insulted your ghost it was BAD. Many players were driven out of the game by other players called "Griefers"
The reputation system built into the game was unable to produce any sense of accountability or justice. It was eventually considered a major design flaw to have open-world free pvp that included the potential for deep personal loss. When you died in Ultima - all of your equipment was there on the ground on your dead body for anyone to loot! So while simultaneously in a game world of limited resources: one where you could go to the orc fortress and "grind" out gemstones, gold and magic gear. Or you could go to the orc fortress and farm the people who have been there farming for an hour or two each. The difference in reward for time invested could look like this : 1,000 gold per hour for farming orcs VS. (1-2)*1000 gold / (.125-.5) hours. Even the most modest number 4,000 gold per hour + you dont have to compete for spawns.
But they DIDN'T have a blockchain =-)
Even using a simple set of weekly threads on steemit we could verify and vet users, keep a list of reports and use crowdthink / witnessing to moderate and uphold shard rules, and not only that but your reputation, influence and assets on Steemit are DIRECTLY connected with your behavior in game. Could this fix the design problems within Ultima Online and generate another Ultima Online golden era? This is what we must discuss =-)
Game theory + Steemit (or relevant blockchain) + decentralized platform for incentivizing UO = WTF who knows. Its research that has yet to be conducted!
https://steemit.com/gaming/@nomad88/ultima-online-a-world-created-by-origin
https://steemit.com/gaming/@steeminator3000/ultima-online-fun-times
https://steemit.com/ultimaonline/@splatterhaus/the-fabled-buccaneers-den-ultima-online-killfest-zone-and-how-glorious-it-was
Picture credit for the Ultima Online logo :