If you need proof just look at the population of Siege during those happier times...Compare it to any other Shard you wish, it will come up way short every time...
Comparing Siege to any other shard is invalid. There are other differences, major differences, between Siege and a normal shard beyond the lack of Tram.
I asked a question further up...and I will repost it directly to you...
...would you be interested in a Fel only Classic Shard if a solution to the rampant PKing could be implemented that didn't separate the population, or simply shut it off??
Think about it like this:
Back in the old days, a PKer could, and often would, indiscriminately kill resource gatherers. Most of the time, the resource gatherer had little of value on them. The motivation for the killing was simply griefing. That was the motivation for the majority of random PKs (and yes, there were plenty of them...I was there).
The problem back then was two fold...there was nothing to prevent the PK from randomly killing a player beyond having to wait out counts. Most PKs I knew back then were gankers that traveled in packs, and didn't really care about being red (once counts were instituted instead of noto). There was no artificial prevention (Tram, PVP switch, etc) and no in-game prevention to speak of in the form of player justice. There was some of course, my guild was one...but we were one of only a scant few.
The other part of the problem was that there was no disincentive to PKing beyond counts and the threat of stat loss.
Some kind of system would need to be implemented to make certain that if a PK came upon a resource gatherer, for example, that he or she would seriously need to consider killing that player. Some kind of negative consequence for that action must exist beyond murder counts. That was tried...it didn't work.
A classic shard, if they are going to do one, should be a do-over, in my opinion. The introduction of Tram basically destroyed this game. Some will disagree, but try and follow this time line:
- Game launched
- Noto changed to Rep
- Long term counts added
- PK issue still not solved, solutions discussed by devs including Good/Evil.
- Tram/Fel introduced instead...removing a good deal of the risk (and challenge by extension) from the game.
- Players became able to horde gold and items without risk of losing them.
- Players became bored.
- Pub 16 introduced, partially to attempt to lure traffic to Fel (Power Scrolls)
- AoS introduced making the game item driven to retain player interest.
- UO economy inflated beyond all reason due to insurance and Luna vendors.
- Expansion after expansion released containing more and more powerful items.
What we are left with is a Wow/Diablo 2 clone with very little challenge and community.
If the devs could have found a way to avoid that Tram/Fel split, I firmly believe that the UO economy would not be based on literally hundreds of trillions of gold today. The item based model would never have been necessary because the game would have retained some risk and challenge, without completely driving away the players that did not want to engage in PvP.
Numerous paths could have been taken besides what equates to a PvP switch.
- Expanded guard zones.
- Random wandering NPCs that attacked only reds placed at PK hotspots.
- One character goes red, all characters on the account go red.
- Real time jail terms for PKs.
- Perma death for reds that reached a certain number of murders and were killed.
- Better incentives for anti-PK guilds.
The solution, in my opinion, was not to just shut it off, but to find a way to make the behavior less desirable and easy. I think they were on the right track with perma reds and stat loss, but the Good vs. Evil system probably should have been tried before they just pulled the plug on the open PvP/one world model.
If they do a Fel only Classic Shard, they can do it differently than it was done the first time. Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it...and I don't think any classic players want to repeat what happened with Pub 16/AoS...and I believe that Ren was the root cause of that.
keep posting if your someone who has stumbled here with an inactive account that wants to come back for classic!
