1. What are you missing in
UO and could it be improved by us players?
I miss pre-AoS
UO, when plate armour was worth wearing and there weren't all these crazy new skills! when magic items were simply, but significant and you could win a fight in NPC bought equipment. I maybe mentioning all game mechanics, but it's my belief that these mechanics helped to build the best RP world possible without TOO much crazy customisation. and neon was always the bane of my life!
2. Do you think we don’t do enough story lines for interactive roleplaying and character development?
I'm not playing atm, but by the sounds of it there are plenty of story-lines just no real incentive for people to play them out.
3. Any suggestions what could or should be done overall to improve roleplay and get more people having fun at it?
Remember years back when we had that big debate/arguement about CoRE needing one big story? I think it probably needs that. what is the big picture of RP? what are the relationships between the city-states? Is war looming? Is there some political scandal amungst the nobility of Trinsic?
I think with a over-riding narrative people feel more keen to emerse themselves into it. I remember the days when I was just a peon in Vesper and I always loved not knowing what was going on high up andjust logging on to try and find out!
With a few wise headed GMs at the top you should stop getting everyone involved in the running of the big picture of the community. get the storyline sorted at the highest level and don't reveal any of it to people below! this was how it was years and years back and I loved it! but one of my biggest gripes for the last couple of years as a player were that everyone knew every story and what would eventually happen.. and the excitement just drained away.
4. For those that left, do you consider returning and what would ea have to do?
I consider returning all the time! I miss RP so much, but the reasons I left are still too strong for me to come back; illogical weapon specials, crazy skills that every man and his dog can master, neon.
When I look at the basic structure of RP these days it couldn't be better! You have basically just 4 town/city guilds left: trinsic, vesper, cove and yew. In these places you still have concentrations of people.
What I think needs to be done is for the top dogs in at least vesper, trinsic and cove to get together and bash out the overriding narrative of the community. They need to figure out a political structure. From this comes intrigue and conflict (in many different forms). Cities will start to poke at each other and trade with each other, and most importantly, will seek to "one-up" on each other.
Once you get this in place the armies will start gathering, alliances will start forming and as long as you keep a check on it from a very few top dogs then you can twist all these factors into good stories.
Then your average smuck will want to login to raid another town with his friends, or be part of a political mission, or organise his own little event within the bigger picture, without knowing what effect the higher-ups might perceive to have.
I think a player run shard is a good idea, but we'd need someway of new blood getting in otherwise we'll have put the last nail in place for the end. If you did a player run shard it should be pre-aos for sure! But I don't think you need to use a player run shard. Just get the overall picture in place.
RP on Europa needs a good dictator!