1. What are you missing in
UO and could it be improved by us players?
Frankly it is players that is the key missing feature. You can do whatever you like, but if you cannot count on much player in game support spinning scenario's is pointless. Its all very well going for some random "lets have some fun today" but if just two people turn up your rather limited. Even if you have some scenario planned your in trouble there. The other problem is that as the number of RPers decline, there is increasingly a sence that activity for one guild is a net loss for another guild. If your guild is doing well and others are doing badly, its not suprising that people want to cross ship. This isn't bad, but it does mean once a guild can no longer command a reasonable turn out a night, they struggle to get back on form.
I also think I did miss the randomness. To use the usual cliche of "back in the day", Samsca could wander across just about all Sosaria looking for something to do. It usually involved getting locked up or being harrassed, but it was entertaining enough. It reached a point however where I felt I couldn't much leave Vesper without some cast-iron IC reason and when I did due to a lack of knowledge about the other cities and places I could rarely find much happening anyway.
I think at a time a few years ago I could know IC (or ooc through dozens of posts on the forums) about lots of scenarios, plots or storylines. Turn up at a certain place and you could get involved. These days I don't have a clue IC and even OOC as the forums are not only less used but more scattered, requiring the checking of multiple different forums. Meanwhile I think the decline of the poste (no insult on any who once wrote for it) was at once both a symptom and a cause.
So something to let people better know where they can be/whats going on and perhaps a greater understanding of non-native (Vesperians in Trinsic, Trinsicians in Vesper etc) RPers would be good. If people won't consolidate, atleast be more permissable about where people can go.
2. Do you think we don’t do enough story lines for interactive roleplaying and character development?
Love them or hate them, there are increasingly few people exist to generate the storylines. I never had a problem with elitism, probably because I became an "elite", but I tend to think due to being willing to get involved in anything that was going on. When your going on and on about how your the greatest, your not saying everyone else isn't, your just offering a hook. Maybe its just that not enough people know how to latch onto this hook. Story lines appeal to a certain number of players, usually the ones more opposed to PvP and the pillars of activity involved in most "PvP" guilds.
Story lines, scenarios and events are not bad. The problem is some of them become little more than evenings entertainment for the higher ups while the rest of the minions were bored stupid. An example would be any meeting where Twothumb and some foreign dignitary would talk, if I wasn't on the council table and instead stuck outside I quickly became bored to tears. Few people I think like spending two hours mute and inactive listening to people drone on and on. (Say no to 12~ hour court cases!!)
3. Any suggestions what could or should be done overall to improve roleplay and get more people having fun at it?
A system which permits greater involvement might be good. Regardless of how long the moot took to plan it was a pretty enjoyable cross-Europa event. Its all very well to say *hey guys, fancy getting involved* but it can be difficult to see how that is actually possible.
Greater flexibility but coupled with greater information as to what was going on.
A clean slate on RP (at least on the remnants of CORE side) might also be an idea. On the otherhand the idea of ending so much history strikes many (including myself) cold. Regardless of this there seems little point for so many self-appointed (except in Vesper, Hurrah!) elites to continue ruling over ever shrinking feifdoms devoid of activity.
But would I be willing to go to Trinsic/Yew and play a peasant? Hmmm.. probably not.