Originally Posted by
WinninOne
Gaming isn't about that anymore. More and more gamers are not spending 6 hours per day playing these games. They play in their spare time for an hour or two and then go days without touching it again. Even if a small percentage of players still want to play non-stop there's a bigger market, especially globally, of people who want to be casual players. It's not that they couldn't learn to be hardcore players. They don't want too. They see it for what it is. A game meant to keep you busy for a little while not be the center of your day.
You can't equate the "hardcore" concept in WoW, to Ultima. Sure, the game takes time to develop, but there is really so much more time investment required with World of Warcraft, than there is Ultima. The beauty of Ultima is, you can step away from the game for a few days. With WoW, you run the risk of falling behind everyone else in content, and never getting to experience it before the next expansion. WoW has never presented much dynamic gameplay - you quest, you gather gold, you farm resources for your professions, all culminating in reaching the maximum level to redo the same dungeons over and over in hopes for that one single piece of gear that's eluding you.
To make matters worse, each and every character you choose to level follows the same cookie cutter routine. While in Ultima, each character can take a different route to reach "profitability", "sustainability" or whatever term you want to apply to being "near the top".
As I said above, with Ultima, there are a plethora of goals you could set for yourself. Just for the heck of it, let me paste a brief overview I provided in an advertisement thread, for the server I currently own:
Code:
- SA/HS Enabled (playable Gargoyles!)
- PvM/PvP Balanced
- No Skill Cap
- 300 Stat Cap (350 w/ scroll)
- Fast skill gains (check out our Training Area for even faster gains to 75!)
- An expansive New Player Dungeon, accessible only by players under 21 days old - 4 customized quests (with additional crafting quests), all culminating in a fun and challenging Newbie Champ.
- Helpful starting items: Newbie Scroll with tons of information, including a free set of LRC gear (plus more!)
- Felucca - High risk, high reward. Double the loot, resources, PS, etc in Felucca
- Fully spawned Ter-Mur (vendors, NPCs, quests, Stygian Abyss, etc)
- Fully spawned Underworld (complete with stealables)
- RP content as well (ongoing quest chains that last for months!)
- 5 custom Ores, 11 custom Woods, 7 custom Leathers; all based on a 120 skill cap.
- Smith/Tailor/Taming/Fletcher/Carpentry BODs
- Animal Breeding w/ Bio-Engineering (as well as custom tamables)
- PvP Points (Points, Rankings, Credits for Rewards, Duels, Challenge Games, & more)
- PvP Tournament system w/ 1v1 duels & arenas
- PvP Bounty System
- Pirate system (the waters aren't so safe anymore... yarr!)
- Voting Rewards (for each vote you earn a credit. Credits can be exchanged for great rewards!)
- Guild Travel (travel to guildmates, or have them come to you!)
- Custom fishing (complete with new fish, new rares, and a variety of other treasures from the depths)
- Staff Ranking system (your feedback will never go unnoticed)
- 2+ Houses per Account
- Yard & Garden system
- Automated Auction System
- Account Vaults
- Dozens of custom Stealables with varying Artifact Rarities.
- Townhouses (rentable/purchasable NPC homes scattered throughout multiple facets)
- Multiple professions: Beekeeping/Waxcrafting, Winecrafting, Whittling, Seafood, Toy Crafting, & more.
- Custom currency: Imperium Coins (used to purchase Donation Rewards!)
- Casino Royale (Poker, Slots, and more!)
- Multiple Staff events including: Paintball, Battle Chess, Bomberman, Skullball, Grab All, Bingo etc.
- Automated Staff (these auto-GMs can handle nearly all of your average help requests. Live Support is still available!)
- Mail System (send gifts directly to friends' banks!)
- Variety of custom 'mini-champs', each with their own challenges and loot!
- Druid, Cleric, Spellweaving, and Mysticism spell systems are available.
- Large selection of custom addons for your home, located in our Deco Mall!
- Rune Chanting (a system completely custom to Imperium! Not to be confused with "Runecrafting".)
Everything listed above is barely scratching the surface of what's available. That's not delving into the actual gameplay involving PvE/PvP/RP. So to say that players need to be "hardcore" to enjoy Ultima Online, is just silly.