🚀 go-pugleaf

bma...@origin.ea.com (Brian Martin) wrote:
>
> My name is Brian, and I am one of the many Ultima 9 team members. Right now, 
> U9 is in the early developemental stage, and we want to know what you, the RPG 
> fan, would like to see in the next Ultima. 
> .
> .
> .

Thanks for asking us. My suggestions would be:

1)  Turn-based strategic combat.
2)  Increase the importance of skill development.
3)  Improve the interface to minimize the hassle of dealing with the inventory,
    arming the party, casting spells, etc.
4)  Stress variety rather than quantity.
5)  Include some puzzles, riddles, tricky mazes, etc. to make the quests
    more interesting.
6)  Reduce the length of conversations with non-essential NPCs, or even
    eliminate many of those conversations - there's no point in wading through
    oodles of inane stuff said by an NPC who doesn't really have anything 
    interesting to say. 
7)  It would be nice if some NPC's competed with the player, or tried to
    impede him, etc. It's boring when all the NPC's are basically passive and
    confined to their towns while the player's party is the only itinerant 
    and active entity.
8)  Make sure the game is solvable by people who don't want to resort to
    reading the clue book.
9)  Base the game on a good intense script so that it doesn't end up being a 
    game where you wonder around in a passive and static world, kill some 
    monsters, retrieve some items, blow up a doomsday machine, and all for some
    obscure reasons. There should be a good story behind the game in which the
    player plays a part (but not the only part).
10) The greatest challenge, I think, is to achieve a good balance among the
    various components, so that playing the game is fun and not a hassle. 
    Cool graphics and sound are interesting for a short while; a well-balanced
    game based on a good script can hold the player's interest for many hours.

Ariel Cohen
aco...@cs.ucsd.edu