Excelsior

I would really love to see the fix for the Blood Clan drop. I want to see more organics/vials/tools and drops like Dr Apocalypse or any other rare type of loot. It’s a wasted spawn because there is no group loot and very difficult to solo because it is so spread out.

Karma Spawns are a bit of a negative for most players. I cant ever get anyone to do them with me and im even reluctant to do a spawn that lowers karma. It you change the loot to a special rare drop then it may draw interest to do these types. Id love to see a rare pet drop(like the mule in moa, imprisoned dog, albino squirrel etc)Maybe drop a super rare max pet (noble) with a rare name!

Lord Oaks is so camped I have only seen it up 2 times in 6 months and have only been able to do the Harrower 1 time. I wish you would consider making the spawn on a random timer or pop more often so that all of us get a chance to participate

I love seeing different types of champ spawns! After 6 months of waiting to find it up, I finally did the Dr Apocalypse for the first time yesterday (this spawn is so camped its never up, please make it a random timer or more frequent!) I enjoyed it because I had to use a different strategy to beat it because of the magic reflect! I would love to see another custom spawn like this one!(loved the loot!)

MOAs
Please modify the easy moa spawns to only drop 110s and 115s so the noobs cant flood the market with cheap 120s for rock bottom prices. Since I have been here the addition of the noob champ and the ez moa spawns has ruined the scroll market. Make 120 scrolls harder to get by making a hard moa for veterans

not sure if its possible here..but on another shard i saw a *fix* to champ camping same time aslo a tool *choice* for players that are tired of waiting for a specific spawn

they had a kinda like arena instance ..a closed area a group was teleported to by a staffer ..none outside party could budge in or *see* what happened
the cost was around 800k for the whole group but then you could choose to fight whatever boss even a paragon dark father

this place was mostly used by veteran guilds to be able to get a private champ

I have an opinion on champs to make it more fair for everyone. As i understand it most spawns are on a approximate 6 hr timer however no one really knows when that is unless you either did the champ yourself or was around to hear about it when it was done. I know there are many that record the times in order to hit the next one and next one and so on. My thought is why not automatically record spawn times for all to see so that way everyone can know approximate timing on when they are going to take place and possibly have some sort of char tracker to know if its the same char(s) doing the same spawn over and over again and prevent them from doing it say max two times in a row or only once solo. As for ps's and moas i think 105's should be non existent and drop should be totally random on others no matter what champ however the more difficult ones that take groups to fight should only give out 115 and 120's or special artys or something. Possibly basing it on how fast it was beaten or how many it took to beat (Difficulty) to decide whether High chance of higher end ps or lower chance of it.. Moas I have always known to be for the newer players. I dont necessarily mean young or new to uo players but more or less the players that are not yet strong enough to say go to tougher ones like paroxymus or Apocolypse or many other tougher champs. But due to the nature of Moas being that it drops crafting ones I do think there should be a veteran Moa created that would be far more difficult even if it was more hp and damage in all creatures spawned.

Electra wrote:I would really love to see the fix for the Blood Clan drop. I want to see more organics/vials/tools and drops like Dr Apocalypse or any other rare type of loot. It’s a wasted spawn because there is no group loot and very difficult to solo because it is so spread out.

Lord Oaks is so camped I have only seen it up 2 times in 6 months and have only been able to do the Harrower 1 time. I wish you would consider making the spawn on a random timer or pop more often so that all of us get a chance to participate

AGREED!!! Would LOVE to see a random timer in addition with ability to mark in fel. Would make game more enjoyable and much less tedious.

I also agree with having a private champ spawn, payable in large sums of gold. This would definitely bring back some excitement for me.

well the way i saw it working on other shard ..the pay for champ area was like when your group enter a peerless boos room

so only 2 downsides to it is
1.only one group can go at the time (unless its possible to make it instanced or make 2 or more areas for payable champs)
2. it need a staffer to summon the group and start the wanted spawn/boss..so sometimes when ppl like to go they just have to wait for a staffer to pop on

The addition of a MoA newb spawn isnt what ruined the PS market. It's the introduction of the PS bag that ruined it. There are at least 3 bags that I know of and probably twice that in existence. When Blaze is buying all 110 PSs at 25k per to upgrade them... its only a matter of time. I think the bags should have a hefty delay on them or have charges that only allow so many upgrades per day/week/month or whatever.

Rune wrote:well the way i saw it working on other shard ..the pay for champ area was like when your group enter a peerless boos room

so only 2 downsides to it is
1.only one group can go at the time (unless its possible to make it instanced or make 2 or more areas for payable champs)
2. it need a staffer to summon the group and start the wanted spawn/boss..so sometimes when ppl like to go they just have to wait for a staffer to pop on

A possible method would be to just add a "Champion Token" to one of the vendor stones, and build a handful of rooms for the fights (5 or so at maximum I guess? I doubt more are needed but with this system it is not an issue to have many of them), accessed via a master room which is in turn accessed by the red shield teleporter.
Each champ room has an empty/occupied flag in front of it, like a crystal that changes color if a group/groups are inside already.
If the flag thing isn't possible, then an easy fix is to make the room like this:
(I hope the code thing works, it looked fine when I used the preview function) People can walk in, check out the altar from a safe place (which also restricts any possible cheapness by disallowing spell casting and is too far away to use a bow) and then descend via the telepad if nobody is at the altar. A return telepad can be placed down below which only functions when a champion is not active (not summoned yet, or already slain) or if you are a ghost. The upper telepad will not let anyone who isn't saved to the champ port down while it's active (it will let people who got saved, then died, went out to the entrance to get a res, and came back in to rejoin the fray though).

At the center of the champ altar in each room is a doodad that accepts the Champion Token and brings up a gump where you choose your desired champion. Only one person can have the gump up at any one time (other people will get a message that the doodad is being used currently).
After that one person chooses, the doodad disappears, along with the Champion Token from the pack of the chooser, and everyone within 30 steps of the altar is saved to that champ. People who are out of range will function like they got a 'no' vote on the 8 candle rule. Then there's a 30 sec countdown before the first waves pops up. When the champ is slain, the doodad will reappear in 10 minutes (to facilitate collection and splitting of the gold, any loot distribution, and so on).

I have no idea how hard or easy this to set up, though.

ow thats a nifty idea..why didnt i think of that

the token should be same price because this idea is also a goldsink

ive no idea how hard it is to code stuff like this tho..but i think many people would like to see this happen

I had thought I read somewhere about being able to "buy" a champ spawn but now I can't find any information on it. Some people have said they haven't even seen Doc. Apoc or even Oaks and this seems to hold true if it's only a once a week. Was this done to prevent camping of the spawns because if so, it's done the COMPLETE opposite and made it so it is camped and done by the same people.

A random timer, ID on your account saying you did it and can't do it again for X amount of days, or more frequent spawn would be great and might give other people the chance to try out these spawns.

That "personal champ spawn" is something we sometimes sell at auctions (it's a deed for a one-time privately spawned champ spawn) but it's a really rare thing.

Currently with that 8candle rule system it seems that the problems with the champs have subsided, so i dont plan any more changes here. Maybe something where you can check whether a champ spawn is active and whether you can still join it (for example a 5k token fee for each check). Also perhaps something where you'd be limited to let's say doing 2 champ spawns in a 24 hour period, or doing one particular champ every 2 days, but i'm not sure how much nuisance that would be to those whom champing is the thing they like most, so it's more of an idea stage right now...

Lord oaks is on a long timer to prevent people doing the harrower twice a day

Now that I dont have as much time to play, it is nearly impossible for me to do Lord Oaks or Dr Appocolypse due to the length of the timers and the campers I encounter when I try to do them...

Well after going to the open discussion today its apparent that the champ spawns are still a problem. Here are a couple of suggestions to add to my original post 8 months ago. The new limit on the recalling in and out of Fel came from some of the exploits from players using alt chars to camp the champs, so I think this will also give more people a chance to do a champ spawn...with or without the new changes made to the recalling.

Make a key that you earn from a great deed, defeating a hard monster or a long quest to start a champ. This way you dont have to camp a spawn, you can trigger it if you have limited time or want to arrange a time for a group to meet.

I like the idea of making noob only champs, mid level only champs champs and vetran only champs accessible only after reaching certain mile stones. This will divide up the number of campers and make spawns more available to players

Make players have a time-out after completing a spawn before they could do another - or just 2 per day...

Make some spawns only able to be started by 6 people. This encourages team play and makes you share the loot with others

Randomize the spawn timers! When I had my EE guild up to 50 members and played activly, I was able to post times to members and dominate the spawns all day to the minute. (great for my guild but bad for players)

Make spawns so far away or heavily guarded only a few would dare venture out that far and would more likely be available when checked (how about a spawn with no res stones nearby...dangerous!) or spawns like blood clan that are too spread out to solo.

Make some vetran spawns that are much harder to defeat, with multiple bosses or limits to powers (no magic, no bios, dark, no pets, etc to add to the challenge)

Dont drop so much loot on the ez spawns and limit MOA to only dropping 105, 110 and 115 ps. This would encourage young players but dissuade vetrans from bothering with the lesser spawns.

Move the spawns to T2A where you cant recall or mark the location

I will put some input here as well. . again coming from a newer Excelsior player but also one who has played a ton of UO long ago.

There were no champ spawns and no powerscrolls when I stopped playing UO last. One of the first things that struck me was that GM skills are now almost useless. I once got scoffed at when trying to do the noob MOA because I "only" had 100 archery. OK so I can deal with that. Problem is that it isn't easy for a new player to get PS by doing champs because vets have pretty much taken them over. It's been a couple of months and I have yet to see an MOA active other than the noob one.

The nature of a game like UO tends to favor people who have the luxury to sit there and play for ridiculous amounts of time, and the champ spawns are the example par excellence. I love this game, but my life does not allow for camping out to wait for a champ timer to reset, and even if I knew exactly when they would reset it's not like I can necessarily be there at that time.

Earlier in the thread someone said that the PS market is "ruined" and that 120's should be made a lot harder to come by. Clearly, this will only widen the gap between vets and noobs. Firstly, when I see people offering crafting PS for upwards of 250K I hardly think that is a "ruined" market. How many millions is one supposed to earn from a champ spawn, anyway?

You could think of it this way: things are "equitable" when the hours invested in doing a champ spawn is equal to the hours of balron farming it would take to be able to buy all of the PS acquired during said spawn on the open market.

Now factor in BODs. It takes WAY more time and effort to get a PS from a BOD than from a champ, and then look at the alternative rewards. Yew runic tools or +3 armor of crafting? And some think that the PS market is "ruined" because they can't demand 1/4 mil one of several PS they earned from a champ?

If anything, PS should be made easier to come by thus bringing the price WAY down and forcing vets to get a little more creative about how they are going to earn money in the game. Just like in real life, a little deflation every now and again is a GOOD thing. . unless of course you are one who thinks it's ok that it takes 10 people working 10 hours in order to pay for what you produced in one hour simply because you have found a way to work the system to your advantage.

So.. after looking back through all these posts.. I'm going to point out a few things and discuss them.. Trying to get to every point made here would be extremely time consuming.. =P

First off.. Tenetn.. amazing post, and very well said.. my kudos to you..

Frankly.. Electra's thoughts involving restricting champ access to 2 per 24/48 hours isn't such a bad idea at all. As tenetn said, nearly every champ is taken over by players who've been here for a year or more, and have the spawns down to a few minutes. Last I checked, it was courteous to allow newer players to join you in a champ spawn, and I can't even begin to count the number of times Vets told me it was their spawn.

Spawn timers need to be changed.. randomized.. period. That should be the first step taken. No more campers, and a fair chance for everyone and not just vets looking to control the market completely.

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--OT slightly.. ever wonder why the auctions have been less than exciting? For the simple fact you have a handful of players with tons of gold that continue to camp champs, force massive inflation and then they buy everything at the auction. If a little "deflation" occurred, I bet it would certainly better the turnout for auctions.
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Back on topic.. It was mentioned about having certain champs drop less than 120s.. that would make sense, if it pertains to the newbie champ. Having the newbie champ drop 120s is.. well, nonsense. It's far too easy..

I also saw a comment about the PS bag ruining the market; and mention of BlaZe being behind a lot of it. Frankly, that's rude and bogus. BlaZe has done an amazing job with controlling the PS inflation. Having him purchase the lower PS's not only benefits younger players and offers them an easy way to make some cash (without it being in enormous amounts), but he puts more 120s on the market instead of having just a few out there, where vets buy them up and then resell em to younger players for even more.. or hand them off to just their guild.. I for one feel that BlaZe has done great..

Back to Electra's other post.. the key idea sounds good, although lets be sure it doesn't effect the current spawn timer. Because if it did, then once again you have vets controlling the champs, because they'd be the only ones able to afford these "keys".

In short.. change the spawn timers.. limit the amount done per day, per player.. and forbid camping. Most people have forgotten the definition of common etiquette and greed and somehow get the two mixed. I'm not here to point fingers or offend anyone.. but most newer players aren't the issue. The gap between vets and newer players needs to be shortened a bit. There are just some players here who have far too much control over the market, champs, and many other things which ruins opportunities for newer players.

I love the idea of limiting champ spawns for each player. I would say twice a week should be more than enough spawning for one player, and there is so much more to do.

I have to disagree though with the statement that the people who are always spawning are so rich that they control the market. Imo, there are several activities that are as much, if not more lucrative than spawning (I took two minutes to think about it and i found 5 activities way more lucrative than spawning).

But hey, spawning is fun and I beleive every player that loves challenges should get that adrenalin boost that comes from a champ spawn.

Ciao all

Polar Bear