Ultima Online

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Ultima Online

• Social Accountability for Good and Evil
• (Presented 2/22/05 to Georgia Tech Game Seminar
  in the EGL)
• Rob Fitzpatrick
• gtg085g_at_mail.gatech.edu

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• I am using the history and progression of Ultima
  Onlines moral enforcement systems to weigh
  player freedom and social accountability against
  stricter rules and game-mechanic accountability.
• Disclaimer the history of rule-changes has been
  simplified and condensed, and some of the
  ordering is changed for the sake of grouping by
  topic. The general timeline for the development
  of the games rules is maintained. Also, I very
  much like UO, and prefer the early days to the
  later ones. Ive tried to be neutral, but my
  opinions will invariably be reflected in how I
  discuss the game and its history.

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Why Look at UO?

• Most varied, open game-play in a MMO game
• Idealistically designed with the philosophy that
  the players will moderate their own world
• Visible struggle between freedom and fun
• Continuous rule updates since 1998
• Multiple moral enforcement systems can be
  examined in one consistent game world
• The influence of variables other than the
  changing rules is minimized

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The Game

• First successful MMORPG
• Garriott wanted to reproduce the experience of
  table-top DD
• Social
• Unrestricted
• Non-violent game play options
• Building a character is difficult and extremely
  time-consuming
• Death is a consistent part of the game

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Original Morality Rules

• /- 127 Notoriety Points
• Characters title and color is based on notoriety
• An evil characters is red, neutral is gray, good
  is blue
• Simple good-evil scale
• Can gain a point every 15 minutes via good deeds
• Lose many points at any time via bad deeds
• Loose enforcement of typical game rules
• Murder anyone at any time
• Steal players belongings at any time
• Get into someones house and walk away with
  hundreds of hours of work
• Nowhere is completely safe
• Rule and law are enforced socially instead of
  strictly

6
Management Crisis

• Creators and managers of the game seem confused
  about what is allowed and what is not
• Rainz kills Lord British and is banned (Beta)
• To make a long story short, Origin considered my
  style of gameplay to be detrimental to the nature
  of the beta test. --Rainz
• Lord British threatens a thief with banning
  (Early release)

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Lord British asks the crowd to stop stealing from
each other during his speech
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Lord British dies to a firewall, cast by Rainz,
during a speech
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Lord British kills everyone
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Management Crisis (cont.)

• Conflicts between the games sense of legality
  and the designers sense of legality are signs
  that the loose rules offered more allowances than
  the designers were actually comfortable with
• Over the next 5 years, moral enforcement was
  removed from the hands of the player community
  and added as strict game mechanics
• The changes alienated old players and attracted
  larger numbers of new players

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Notoriety

• Great Lord 127
• Noble Lord
• Lord
• Noble
• Honorable
• No Title 0
• Dishonorable
• Dastardly
• Dark Lord
• Evil Lord
• Dread Lord -127

• Outside of town, grays and reds may be attacked
  or stolen from with no penalties
• Characters with worse than dastardly status may
  not enter towns
• Dastardly and better characters are protected
  from crimes while in town by the guards
• Killing a red is a good deed
• Monsters are red, animals are gray
• Healers wont resurrect reds

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What is Right and Wrong

• Good Deeds
• Give gold to NPC beggar
• Give food to hungry NPC
• Give items to appropriate NPC (cloth to a tailor)
• Kill relatively evil things (monsters and red
  players)

• Bad Deeds
• Begging (dastardly)
• Snooping (dastardly)
• Stealing (dark lord)
• Dismembering corpses
• Attacking blues
• This title is the lowest rank a character can
  be reduced to by performing this deed
• This deed will always reduce a characters
  notoriety

13
Red Culture

• Reds build their own towns, establish shops, and
  resurrect each other
• Groups of reds run through dungeons killing
  everyone without repercussion
• Never stay still
• Ignore NPCs and only kill players
• Rapidly visit every popular hunting spot in the
  world and then return to their towns
• Avoid retribution attempts
• Wait for players to re-equip and venture back
  into dungeons
• Tell stories
• Reds kill everyone, including new players and
  other reds not in their hunting party

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A ghost, recently murdered by reds outside a
dungeon
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Blue Counter-Culture

• Counter-attacks of blues are launched when
  victims resurrect and get back to town
• Too slow to catch mobile groups of reds
• Victimized blues eventually grow powerful
• Blues hate reds
• Groups of dedicated red-killers emerge
• Actively hunt reds
• War is brought to the reds home-towns and then
  their resurrection spots
• Best hunting spots in the game are off-limits to
  most players

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Blues, waiting near many red corpses (with a pet
demon) for more reds to resurrect at the Chaos
Shrine
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Game Experience

• Early game is to avoid reds while fighting NPCs
• Meta-game is to either become red or to hunt reds
• Areas of world are claimed, guarded, and
  exclusively owned by certain guilds and groups
• Must be in KoC to hunt in Deceit
• May not wear plate armor in Yews forests
• (Land wars also seen on Asherons Call PK
  servers)
• Characters are built in large part to escape red
  attacks
• Blues did not fight reds, blues ran from them
• RPG Pac-man game play experience
• Hiding skill a necessity to disappear
• Magery skill a necessity to teleport away

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Notoriety Problems

• Because notoriety has such a major impactevery
  player considers what the system will do rather
  than what they think is right or wrong. Xavori
• Some evil deeds are allowed, and some good is
  punished
• Looting players is not a crime
• Performing evil with a notoriety buffer prevents
  retribution
• Trapping players and helping monsters is not
  criminal
• Trespassing and looting houses is not criminal
• Players are not held accountable for indirect
  attacks (area of effect spells, traps)

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Notoriety Problems Loopholes

• Large groups can overcome town guards, removing
  all safety for new players
• Players arent held accountable for area of
  effect spells
• Scrolls allow players to use any spell without
  skill-checks
• Some weapons are overly powerful so aggressor
  almost always wins
• Players with enough notoriety to remain blue
  after committing a crime cannot be freely
  punished for their actions

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Necessary Changes

• Increase restrictions on crimes
• Game becomes less free, safer, more fair, and is
  generally more fun
• Town guards teleport and one-hit-kill
• Magic banned from towns to prevent area of effect
  spells in crowded areas
• Overly powerful weapons can no longer be found,
  although old ones still exist
• Scrolls are skill-restricted
• Crimes flag a player criminal
• Criminals turn gray for 2 minutes
• Anyone can attack a criminal without losing
  notoriety
• Town guards will not defend a criminal

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Dev. Team on Notoriety

• Notoriety currently doesn't distinguish between
  PvP activities and PvNPC activities, which is
  part of the problem.
• We felt that the system needed an overhaul
  because although it was helping most cases, it
  was restricting roleplay activities for many
  people, and it was too easily circumvented.
• Too much of the burden for policing was landing
  on the software, rather than on the players.
• (Quotes by UO Design Team)

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Renaissance

• Notoriety system becomes reputation system
• 2 values (fame and karma) combine for title
• Karma is a measure of good and evil
• Fame is a measure of power
• The intent of reputation is merely to give the
  NPCs a handle on how to deal with you
  --Designer Dragon
• The overall intent here is to make this into a
  roleplay thing--it has no real gameplay
  consequences. --Designer Dragon
• Reputation acts like alignment in Fable
• Murder is the only way to become red
• Resurrecting as a murderer causes a dramatic loss
  of character skill
• Murder counts decay over time

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Reputation Titles

• Title now marks your characters place in the
  computers role-playing game world instead of in
  the human, social community
• Murderer is the significant marker of player
  behavior

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An NPC guard taunts a player with bad karma
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Social Powers

• Can give karma to other players
• Allows players to reward other players for good
  deeds
• Was almost never used, and when used, wasnt
  useful
• Bounty system added
• Social accountability for murder
• Victims have a way to get back at murderer by
  adding to the bounty
• Friends of a murderer can betray them for the
  prize
• Acts as little more than a scoreboard for
  murderers
• Forced social dynamics fail in both cases
• Weak to prevent abuse (recycling karma, suicide
  for bounty)
• Trivial compared to existing dynamics (blues
  inherently want to kill reds, karma is a
  worthless gift to give)

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Stat Loss

• Many reds quit the game, angry that their
  play-style has been destroyed
• Red population decreases dramatically and blues
  can adventure in relative peace
• Accountability for mass murder is increased
  significantly, and it vanishes almost entirely
• Dead murderers spend months as ghosts while
  counts decay instead of suffering stat-loss
• Murderers stop killing each other due to reduced
  numbers and the significance of death

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Murder Counts

• Red if 5 or more murder counts
• Count decays with 5 hours of play time
• Blues can kill 5 people a day and stay blue
• Title no longer accurately reflects actions
• Originally it was clear what gray, red, and blue
  meant
• Accountability for selective murder is reduced
  significantly
• Deception and betrayal increase
• Inherent trust of blues disappears

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Murderer Accountability

• Murder changes to now produce both a short and
  long murder count
• Short counts decay in 5 hours and determine
  stat-loss
• Long counts decay in 20 hours and determine
  murderer (red) status
• Murdering while remaining blue is harder
• Color is a good indication of behavior again
• Some blues still go on murdering sprees when they
  have no counts
• No worse than similar issues with the notoriety
  system

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Post-Renaissance

• Consensual player vs. player combat increases
• Game is more newbie-friendly
• Player base changes
• Many old players leave
• Many more new players join
• Subscription number increases from 100,000 to
  250,000

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Good vs. Evil Formalized

• Intended to promote large-scale consensual wars
  without involving innocents
• Can officially announce yourself as a Hero or an
  Evil
• Gain special powers to use in the war
• Lose freedom to attack those who are not in the
  system
• Evils could be attacked by anyone and defend
  themselves, but could only initiate combat
  against Heroes
• Lots of people wanted to be heroes, very few
  people chose the restricted play style of formal
  Evil over PKing
• The system was ignored by players, failed, and
  was quickly removed

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Thievery

• Unskilled, unequipped thieves swarm players in
  town
• No character development time
• Nothing to lose by dying
• Steal for cheap thrills and to grief players, and
  not to advance
• Skilled combat thieves exist
• Remove a targets means of escaping or attacking
• Difficult character development
• Sacrifice combat skills for those of thievery
• Not a throw-away character like town-thieves

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Fixing Thievery

• Thieves Guild is created
• Need to be in guild to steal from players
• Guild only accepts skilled thieves
• The Thieves Guild expels murderers
• Thieves can steal at will
• Thieves can defend themselves if attacked, but
  can not initiate combat
• The victim, not the thief, now makes the choice
  of whether or not to fight

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Protect the New

• Young status granted to new accounts for 40 hours
  of play-time
• Young players can not be attacked by players or
  monsters
• Young players lose their status if they commit a
  crime
• Abuse runs rampant as young players run naked and
  unharmed into the deepest dungeons and grab the
  treasures
• Protection for young players is removed while in
  dungeons

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The World Splits

• Trammel
• Criminal actions are impossible
• All player vs. player combat is consensual
• Players can not be held accountable for legal
  acts like kill-stealing and bad-mouthing
• Territory can not be controlled
• Social connections are not important

• Felucca
• Keeps the rule-set that was in place already
• All PvP involves players who are in fighting by
  choice
• Social connections are extremely important
• Small town atmosphere
• No easy murder fodder
• Higher reward for higher risk design philosophy
  fails to draw non-PvP players to Felucca

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Trammel and Felucca
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Effects of the Rift

• Many old players leave
• Most of Felucca is abandoned, wasted space
• New players are never exposed to PvP and so never
  make the transition to Felucca
• Most old, advanced players either live in Felucca
  full time or quit the game
• A new generation of players advances in the
  safety of Trammel and stays there
• Non-Consensual PvP dies
• Thievery dies
• The moral freedom of the original design is lost
• Number of players increases

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Insurance

• Items can be insured and retained upon death
• Death loses most of its significance and is taken
  lightly
• A characters most powerful items can be used
  without fear
• Powerful items are very hard to find and
  establish a large entry barrier for new players
  wanting to get into PvP
• Murderers cannot insure items, rendering them
  unable to compete in combat and completely ending
  the era of killing without consent

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The State of the Game

• Official game is still thriving with expansion
  packs and new content releases
• UO is still the most open-ended MMO game on the
  market
• Going back in time is possible thanks to a large
  community of free, player-run servers emulating
  all of the various historical periods UO has
  passed through
• Meta-game is now searching for better and better
  items (like Diablo 2) and permanently fighting
  NPCs (like every other MMO) instead of engaging
  socially

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In Conclusion

• Social enforcement has almost completely
  disappeared in favor of strict game mechanics
• The mainstream prefers the new UO
• Original players who experienced UOs rich social
  community hate the changes and sit around
  drinking tea and talking about the good old days
• Loose game mechanics and social rule created an
  extremely harsh environment for new players that
  was cherished and loved by those who survived and
  tolerated it for long enough to establish
  themselves in the society
• Garriotts initial vision of a community was
  very nearly implemented, and was then gradually
  stripped away over time to increase profits and
  improve new player retention

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Playing the Game

• Official game site and ordering info available
  at
• http//www.uo.com
• Player run (free) server lists emulating all time
  periods available at
• http//www.topshards.com/index.php
• http//www.gamesites200.com/ultimaonline/
• Open-source UO emulator available at
• Homepage http//www.runuo.com/
• Sourceforge http//sourceforge.net/projects/runuo
  

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Screenshot Sources

• Death of Lord British screenshots from
  http//www.aschulze.net/ultima/stories9/beta.htm
• Trammel vs. Felucca images from
  http//town.uo.com/
• All other images from http//www.markeedragon.com/
  screenshots/showgallery.php/cat/501

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Possible Talk Topics

• Slider bars to measure morality
• Morality as a state vs. a history
• Allowances of a moral system in online worlds vs.
  single-player worlds
• Harsh, barbaric nature of un-enforced worlds
• Social emergence from loose rules
• Red towns
• Role of Player Killer Killers

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More Talk Topics

• Game play emergence from loose rules
• Characters sacrifice power for survivability that
  is unnecessary except to avoid reds
• Social conventions emerge regarding property
  ownership and accepted behavior
• Abuses in loose rules
• Red gangs killing everyone in the early days
• Loopholes in tight rules
• Young players looting and spying
• Murdering occasionally while maintaining blue
  status

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Discussion

• Strict rules to prevent grief play
• UO made invincible town guards, then increased
  social accountability, and then fully prevented
  non-consensual play with strict rules
• Restriction instead of accountability reduces
  player agency
• Stricter rules alienated veteran players who were
  used to social accountability, and attracted many
  more mass market players who felt safety and
  enjoyment with mechanically enforced rules
• UO initially had safe zones (towns) and later
  made the whole world safe (trammel-felucca)

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Discussion (2)

• Experience of being murdered
• Vengeance on murderers is a very desirable goal
  and motivation for advancement
• Strengthens social bonds recounting stories and
  traveling together for safety from other real
  people
• Frustration of being murdered allows for great
  satisfaction when it is overcome
• Replay value through a changing social world and
  dynamic balance of power

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Discussion (3)

• Murder doesnt exist without victims
• Stopping people from being murdered without
  consent removes murderers from the player-base
• Advancing from a victim to a murderer/defender is
  a much more meaningful progression than advancing
  from killing small monsters to killing big ones
• Ability to escape murder at any level (hiding
  teleportation) prevents frustration and makes
  being murdered part of a game, instead of an
  unavoidable punishment for dumb luck

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Discussion (4)

• Socially emergent games dont need much content.
  Removing social dynamics through strict rules
  demands that the development team do a lot more
  work and release updates/expansions instead of
  letting the players make their own game
  experience.
• More content means more grinding
• Cant compete with other players until extra
  content has been conquered
• More content means longer character development
• More time and effort to get the new content
  (stuff)
• If death penalty is harsh, hard-to-get content is
  too much to risk, and content is wasted
• Death is reduced in significance so that players
  can use the huge time-investment items without
  fear of losing all that work