Freja’s Interview -An Open Discussion Of Siege- Part 3 of 3, The Ideal Siege Perilous
One Player’s frank & personal perspective on Siege’s history, current circumstances and how we might improve it all. Thanks to Freja’s thoughtful and detailed responses, this is broken into three parts: The Early Years, NEW2, and the Ideal Siege.
You are invited to join in the discussion!

“I would want to get the feeling back, I had when I played 1997-1998 but how to make that happen with today’s UO, that’s not easy.”

DeadBob, Last Question: Imagine that you owned Siege Perilous and you could order the programmers to make any changes that you wanted. What would your Siege be like?

Freja:
Oh I do sometimes wish, I could do that but can’t say, if it would be a success, as it’s very hard to make all happy. I would want to get the feeling back, I had when I played 1997-1998 but how to make that happen with today’s UO, that’s not easy.

Maybe the question is, what was it we did lose over the years?

1. Players roaming the land
– Newbies hunting for skills and basic items and resources
– PvM’ers, who do not like dungeons, maybe because of bad connection or other reasons
– PvP players, looking for a fight, that include blue and red roleplayers
– Crafters /gatherers, who will be out looking for resources

2.. Active player towns
– With shops and working crafters
– Players using the forest and mining spots near the player town

3. City loyalty
– Players mostly using the town near their home village
– Players meeting at the bank, the smithy, the tailor or other shops

4. The dungeons
– On Siege, it is to hard to get ind and out of the dungeons. At Covetous, mages can easy get to and from the levels but if you die, it’s a pain to get out and get rezzed and get in again. Warriors do have a lot of disadvantages on Siege.

5. PvP and RP
– I really did like the good old red vs blue system. I don’t like faction as it ruin alot RP and don’t work as a part of the community we once had around the cities and the player towns. The red vs blue worked much better, as red would raid dungeons, player towns and resource spots. That would bring out the blue PvP’ers, who would try to protect the places and run off the reds.

Now what would I do to try get this back?

1. Players roaming the land (here I’m most thinking of the Felucca facet)

– Newbies hunting for skills and basic items and resources
–> Make the animals stronger, newbies and weak crafters should only be able to kill sheep, hinds, pigs, goats, chickens and birds. to kill bulls, wolves, bears, big cats, you would need at least 70-90 in skills depending of support skills or not. Grizzly bears and dire wolves should be red and aggressive like in old days. Increase the count of hide a little.
–> Add back the old random gypsy and brigand spawn including the chest/barrels for lockpick/disarm trap training. I would also add some, who was not locked and where the trap would summon some evil mages or aggressive archers when you try to loot them. Should be able to spawn near player houses. They need to be made stronger too, special the Gypsies and they need better loot, maybe something blue will go grey to get. Gems, imbuing resources and stuff a crafter would keep in his backpack. Killing blue npc’s should again give you counts as it did in old days on Siege. That would be a way for evil roleplayers to go red without having to depend on counts from killing players. However if the char already had 5+ counts, he would not get one from a blue npc. The Brigands loot should be more like the loot in a PK’s backpack, gold, jewelry, weapon, armor with mods good for young chars and maybe limit to 1-2 mods, like 15-20 LRC or 1-2 stats regen, 4-8 stats increase but no crap mods. This way, young crafters could imbue 1-2 mods more and newbies could build a LRC suit or a warrior suit and get a weapon with 1-2 nice mods. I would also add 75% exceptional bonus to most armor and weapon loot to make it more useful. The spawn from the trapped boxes should have loot like in Shame level 1-2 depending of the power of the mage/archer npc.
–> Add back the random orc spawns in the forest, also here I would like some spawn of locked/trapped containers and the trapped, not locked ones should summon some random kinds of orcs, mages, bombers or some strong warriors orcs. Also this monsters need to be a little stronger, special the ones from the trapped boxes. Loot should be much like from the brigand/gypsy spawn but more orc minded, shiny items, food, bottles of cider/wine, resources to make alcohol.
–> I would place a few more spawns in deep forest, like the Liches in Yew, one between Cove and Vesper and one NE of vesper. Also here we need to be able to spawn some Lich Lords. This spawn need Shame loot.

– PvM’ers, who do not like dungeons, maybe because of bad connection or other reasons
–> To them, the above fix would do the trick- PvP players, looking for a fight, that include blue and red roleplayers
–> also here, the above fix would do the trick together the one for the crafters below. More players hanging out in and around the player towns and in the wilderness will bring back lonely PK’s and raid of player towns. That will bring back the anti PK’s too

– Crafters /gatherers, who will be out looking for resources
–> We need to increase the resource gain from mining (more gems and more granite) and hide from animals and monsters with hide. More crafting resources, maybe some rare random drop of resources you normal find in dungeons. Also add 2x resource and fame spawn like on normal shards Felucca.

2.. Active player towns

– With shops and working crafters
–> Make vendor fee lower in the player towns, like 25% of fee around Luna, in New Magincia, around Zento and near moongates.
That will help merchants trying to run vendors at less populated places. Also use the old guard forts, add some gypsy vendors like we see in Ilshenar, We will need a minter, a stable, a Inn and crafter npcs depending of the size of the guard fort.

Also make a few spots for bazaar vendors.
– Players using the forest and mining spots near the player town
–> That will come if the changes above is made both about vendors and the spawn.

. City loyalty
– Players mostly using the town near their home village
–> Remove of faction and factions taxes will help here together with the new City loyalty system.

– Players meeting at the bank, the smithy, the tailor or other shops
–> This one is harder. I would like to see some bazaar vendors near the crafter shops and the stable. I would like the crafter to be able to access a special community box in his bank, then he is at a npc shop and have at least 300 point in crafting. I only think the box should be able to hold 5 stacks/deeds and to deed and undeed an item. That could give crafters a little protection, and allow them to keep most expensive imbuing resources safe or have access to a pile of leather or ingots but they would still need to have most in their backpack. We need the thieves too. A crafter with a few secure resources are better than no crafters at the NPC shop.

4. The dungeons
– On Siege, it is to hard to get in and out of the dungeons. At Covetous, mages can easy get to and from the levels but if you die, it’s a pain to get out and get rezzed and get in again. Warriors do have alot disadvantages on Siege.
–> I would add a few teleporters from outside the dungeons to the levels. Yes they could be a risk to use, as PK’s may guard them, they would help players who die in the dungeons to get out and find a healer and get in again. Maybe place them a little away from the dungeon entree so young players still can go to the first level without camping PK’s.

5. PvP and RP
– I really did like the good old red vs blue system. I don’t like faction as it ruin a lot of RP and don’t work as a part of the community we once had around the cities and the player towns. The red vs blue worked much better, as red would raid dungeons, player towns and resource spots. That would bring out the blue PvP’ers, who would try to protect the places and run off the reds.
–> I would remove faction and add a new system that works with the guild and alliance system. There would be a good and an evil side you could join as guild or as non guilded.
To join the good side, you would need to be blue. You would have to stay blue to stay in the system. If you kill a blue, you would get 3 murderer count instead of one. You would get discount from npc vendors if you have less than 3 counts, so your price would be 1 x normal shard prices, if 3 or 4 counts, it will be 2 x.
chars in the good system, with zero murderer count would also have access to a little crafting bonus like from Arms Lore and a loot/fame bonus when killing monsters.
Blue players outside the system will pay 2 x normal shards prices, murderes will pay 3 x the normal shard price.
Players joining the evil side will be red and can kill the chars in the good system without taking counts. They are allowed to kill blue outside the system but will gain a count, they won’t get count from killing blue in the system. An evil can chop for 1x the taxes if zero murderer counts, it will be 2 x the price if 1-4 counts and 3x the price if 5 or more counts. If 5 or more counts, guards can be called on him in town if attacking blue in or outside the system.
Murderer counts will faster if in the evil system, 10 hours to decay a count. If zero counts, they too will gain access to a little crafting bonus like from Arms Lore and a loot/fame bonus when killing monsters.

I think it would be something like that

a little more to last question. You asked: What would your Siege be like? I don’t think I answer that, but more what I would changes so here it is:
My Siege would be a place with life in and around the player towns
It would be a place, where the PvP’ers could find fights
It would be a place, where there was advantage from only killing the ones who accepted more risk
It would be a place, where there was rewards for the extra risk
It would be a place, where RP reds in the PvP system was able to afford PvP as they could target the blue in the PvP system
It would be a place, where you could choose not to join the PvP system but you would have to pay more in NPC shops and you would not get the extra crafting/fame/resource bonus
You could still play the old style murderer. VS now, you could buy from npc vendors but with 5 or more counts, it would cost more.

It would also be a place where player towns would get back to life and players would use the forest for hunting.
Crafters would be more active in the land and the they would search for resources too
They could afford placing vendors in the player towns without the fee eating their profit
I believe a lot new guilds would grow up and there would be some cool role players between them
If a red RP guild got respect, for their play style, I believe, their victims would not give them a count

I believe if people have more fun, more would play.

DeadBob: Thank you Freja for your thoughtful, detailed answers and for all that you have given to other players and to Siege Perilous.

[This concludes the three part interview.]

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