Ghost Houses

[Tyrath]

When the second house on Siege was announced I loved it, still do. Each spring I close the bulk of my accounts and demolish the houses on those accounts. I keep my main accounts active and their houses up and log in atleast once per week even if briefly to make sure all is well. This time when I returned from the summer and started actively playing again I have noticed many of the places i would plop a house down for the winter are occupied. I have also noticed that they are pretty much unoccupied. Don't get me wrong I am not complaining about not being able to place a house in better locations. 99% of the time I preffer my houses to be in the middle of nowhere and on the small size. I would be willing to bet however that these second houses were placed by prodo shard players and most sit there forgotten about and empty.

What I wonder is if something could be put in place with the second house deal that the account that owns the house has to log on to the shards that their houses are on like every 90 days or the house goes into decay. IE Every 90 days I would have to log the accounts with houses onto atl and legends if they have a house on Siege and folks that primarily play other shards have to log onto Siege every 90 days to refresh their Siege house timer. It would only apply to accounts with a second house.

It just seems like a lot of wasted real estate in locations that would be attractive to someone interested in primarily playing on Siege. It would be nothing more than a minor inconvienence for someone to log onto the shard every 90 days and I suspect we would see many empty houses and dirt plots drop after the first 90 days. Just make it so everytime the account log on a shard that it owns a house on the housing timer resets.

I have all of my winter houses placed for my UO playing season (No not nearly as many accounts are being reactivated this year) and other than my 2 Tokuno Houses and 3 Island houses will all be demolished again in the spring making room for anyone who would like to occupy those plots. I just wish it were people placing who actually log on instead of chatting on ATL say "Oh yeah I have a house on Siege and have not logged on there since I placed it." Seems there is not a lot of difference between the old RTB houses and the second house (Ghost House) option.

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

I hate that people who don't play the shard are able to plop down a house and never have to maintain it.

Then again, as I've been told...I have no say in the matter, the people who thought it would work to attract a whole new flock of players (and who were wrong) got to represent past and future players and what's done is done...la

 

[ApollyonSP]

We should petition the devs to change this, to make a decay for secondary houses.

ESPECIALLY if they're unoccupied and not maintained over, say, 2 months?????

 

[SpyderBite]

Its been made clear to those of us who think the way you do, that these homes are the sign of a healthy sprawling population. And that we should leave it be. *shrugs*

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

We should petition the devs to change this, to make a decay for secondary houses.

We can't do that...we have no say in the matter. We've been directed by the old guard that what we think doesn't matter and the way the system works is building Siege the way they knew it would when they suggested it.

Haven't you heard? Siege is flourishing and it's all because people who don't play the shard are able to have homes on Siege...la

 

[Lore Denin (GL)]

I posted something very similar as an outsider looking to move to siege to be an active part of the community. If I am not logging in for 90 days, I have no issue losing my second home. The initial second home probably increased growth but without a decay factor its stunting Siege's growth. Siege is the worst place to l because living out in BF Malas is no good unless you are a mage who can gate or you have multiple accounts and vet status with house teleporters etc etc and then of course the spaces near those places need to also be available.

I am a long time player and have many friends on siege and I think in general the Siege population makes so much more effort as a whole to welcome and help new players and I am incredibly grateful for all of your help.

I do think its important to look at the situation as it is now and say yes we agreed to this and it was a good idea. It did some positive things for the shard but now that its reach a point where its detrimental to your/our shards growth its time to revisit a way to allow second homes to decay to make room for new players coming in.

-Lore's Player

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

You'll be surprised how many people have magery in their templates for just that reason. That being said, I prefer to run around the shard without it. Personally, I'd love to see mounts removed from the game as well (but that just from the fun I had with that ruleset from PR shards)...la

 

[FrejaSP]

I would say, we make houses start to decay 30 days after payment run out, if players want large houses, they should pay for them

 

[Tyrath]

I do love the second house concept to a point and yes there is still plenty of housing available on Siege its just not even semi desireable for most folks. Image is worthless if there are not people actively logging onto Siege because they want bragging rights on another shard that they have a house on Siege or just plain forgot they even placed a house on SIege.

 

[Tyrath]

I would say, we make houses start to decay 30 days after payment run out, if players want large houses, they should pay for them

Plenty of big house spots open like almost all of Malas and payment is not going to solve this problem as people are paying a lot of folks just played Siege for a few weeks placed a house in a good location and never came back and now there is a dirt plot or empty house taking up many decent locations that would otherwise be open and attractive to someone seriously wanting to set up shop on Siege. No danger of losing the Siege or Prodo houses as long as the account is active on both shards.

 

[Tyrath]

I would also add that the second house is a good concept and now that it has been in practice it should be tweaked to fit the reallity.

 

[Igg A Pie]

what about owning a house on prodo. I have housing on GL and ATL and very rarely play there at all. but I have to much stuff to want to piece it out. or love my locations. but from how everyone talks, in the same respect your prodo housing should disappear in the same manner. I like frejas idea about the 30 day thing, however, if it were me and liked the spot I placed, wether I played the shard or not on a regular basis, I would log in that time frame just to refresh. I am sure some houses would fall thru the cracks but idk if would be enough to matter. but hey, I am all for making our game play better here on siege. as far as I am concerned we are special and should be treated as such. I am not sure why the devs can make that happen. I made a post or posted in a thread, a few months ago about being able to do things or having items here exclusive to siege but I don't think anyone was listening. :{

 

[Tyrath]

Oh I have no problem with houses falling 30 days after non paymentbut this is an entirely different issue. A lot of people simply placed a second house and never looked back, their subs will continue to be paid so they can play their prodo shard and a housing spot is occupied and forgotten about on Siege. I really don't see the house placing visitors bothering to log in to Siege just to refresh a empty house or a dirt plot. Then we can have lots of PvP over what might be inside that IDOC

 

[Rieley]

I hate that people who don't play the shard are able to plop down a house and never have to maintain it.

Then again, as I've been told...I have no say in the matter, the people who thought it would work to attract a whole new flock of players (and who were wrong) got to represent past and future players and what's done is done...la

This statement is not true. Especially when a particular player is alleged to have supported the present Siege second house. I was very active when this was being discussed, the placement of a second house for on Siege, and read stratics forums daily. If they/she was wrong then what is being presently suggested is equally wrong.

When this was being discussed, most Siege players wanted rules in place for the second house on Siege. Such as but not limited to. (I am going by memory, however anyone is free to search these forums)

If second house would be available on Siege this is what Siege players asked for:

* Limitation in size of house
* Refresh house to keep it from decay
* Restriction on location
* Second house not limited to Siege, but any prodo shard

The DEVs decided that wouldn't be possible, so the players were given what we have now. And accepted it with class.

As for having no say in the matter, many that were not active at the time of discussion were not able to have a say. Nothing personal, if one was absent they couldn't add to the discussion that did affect future players. The only option I see is if the DEVs attempted to contact every player that ever played Siege for their opinion. That didn't happen.

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

This statement is not true. Especially when a particular player is alleged to have supported the present Siege second house. I was very active when this was being discussed, the placement of a second house for on Siege, and read stratics forums daily. If they/she was wrong then what is being presently suggested is equally wrong.

When this was being discussed, most Siege players wanted rules in place for the second house on Siege. Such as but not limited to. (I am going by memory, however anyone is free to search these forums)

If second house would be available on Siege this is what Siege players asked for:

* Limitation in size of house
* Refresh house to keep it from decay
* Restriction on location
* Second house not limited to Siege, but any prodo shard

The DEVs decided that wouldn't be possible, so the players were given what we have now. And accepted it with class.

As for having no say in the matter, many that were not active at the time of discussion were not able to have a say. Nothing personal, if one was absent they couldn't add to the discussion that did affect future players. The only option I see is if the DEVs attempted to contact every player that ever played Siege for their opinion. That didn't happen.

I can't comment on this topic, I have been told my opinion doesn't matter...la

 

[Troll The T Hunter]

wtf... I didn't even realize people with second houses didn't have to refresh them? if anything this hurts our population.

 

[SpyderBite]

I would say, we make houses start to decay 30 days after payment run out, if players want large houses, they should pay for them

But we're not talking about unpaid accounts. We're talking about second homes on Siege which are held by people who exclusively play prodo servers. Their accounts are in good standing so their house will never decay based on your suggestion regardless that they may never log in to Siege again.

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

But we're not talking about unpaid accounts. We're talking about second homes on Siege which are held by people who exclusively play prodo servers. Their accounts are in good standing so their house will never decay based on your suggestion regardless that they may never log in to Siege again.

Don't argue. She and the others know that this is a sure way to build the shard.

They have spoken and what we think is not relevant. We've been gone too long...la


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Freelsy]

I agree completely. As an older player who recently returned, I want to live in a decent spot. Seems a lot of these decent spots, and some large Keep spots are being occupied by empty and vacant homes.

Down with the squatters!!!

 

[Lady Michelle]

OMG !!! Its not my fault I was planning to be back on Siege on the 1st of November, but they messed up the trick or treating by shutting it off til the 15th of October. Then the Halloween deco contest took sometime I had to enter I told myself I won't enter do it next year. 2 days go by, and I'm stealing Glendale's keep on Great lakes only because I didn't want to decorate a castle. I steal a keep, and he gains a castle guess I'm not that good of a thief.
So yes I play Siege, and will be back. *hiding in my home* soon.

 

[Captn Norrington]

I am kinda on the fence about this, granted, I'm not a full time Siege player, but I do not have any Siege houses for the exact reasons some are upset about, I would never take up any house spot on Siege unless I was truly going to use it almost daily. I have 4 accounts, so could have very easily taken a few good spots when the change was announced but didn't want to take land away from the Siege community.

On the other hand, I do see that some people on Atlantic who placed houses just because they could have eventually wandered over and tried Siege for a bit, which increases the community.

The secound houses were a wonderful idea assuming people have respect for the Siege community and didn't take houses just because it's free stuff......and....well...people like free stuff and don't care about upsetting the local community apparently.

 

[Uvtha]

I can't comment on this topic, I have been told my opinion doesn't matter...la

You are such a drama queen.

 

[Uvtha]

When the second house on Siege was announced I loved it, still do. Each spring I close the bulk of my accounts and demolish the houses on those accounts. I keep my main accounts active and their houses up and log in atleast once per week even if briefly to make sure all is well. This time when I returned from the summer and started actively playing again I have noticed many of the places i would plop a house down for the winter are occupied. I have also noticed that they are pretty much unoccupied. Don't get me wrong I am not complaining about not being able to place a house in better locations. 99% of the time I preffer my houses to be in the middle of nowhere and on the small size. I would be willing to bet however that these second houses were placed by prodo shard players and most sit there forgotten about and empty.

What I wonder is if something could be put in place with the second house deal that the account that owns the house has to log on to the shards that their houses are on like every 90 days or the house goes into decay. IE Every 90 days I would have to log the accounts with houses onto atl and legends if they have a house on Siege and folks that primarily play other shards have to log onto Siege every 90 days to refresh their Siege house timer. It would only apply to accounts with a second house.

It just seems like a lot of wasted real estate in locations that would be attractive to someone interested in primarily playing on Siege. It would be nothing more than a minor inconvienence for someone to log onto the shard every 90 days and I suspect we would see many empty houses and dirt plots drop after the first 90 days. Just make it so everytime the account log on a shard that it owns a house on the housing timer resets.

I have all of my winter houses placed for my UO playing season (No not nearly as many accounts are being reactivated this year) and other than my 2 Tokuno Houses and 3 Island houses will all be demolished again in the spring making room for anyone who would like to occupy those plots. I just wish it were people placing who actually log on instead of chatting on ATL say "Oh yeah I have a house on Siege and have not logged on there since I placed it." Seems there is not a lot of difference between the old RTB houses and the second house (Ghost House) option.

House size should have either been limited to 7x7, or it should have been limited to Malas, or the houses should need to be refreshed, but apparently all of that was beyond doable in the code, so it was all or nothing I guess. I personally would have preferred nothing, but in the end I think the effect is minimal, especially since "good" houss are no longer so important with vendor search and all the teleport tiles and crystals. There are still plenty of house spots, including decent ones. Shard is dead either way.

 

[WhiteWitch]

Id be in favour of a sneaky unannounced purge, houses on Siege would be instantly deleted(and money refunded) if the following conditions are met:

1:The house has zero lock downs
2:The owner has not logged into Seige for a set time(a year, maybe two)

If both of the above conditions are met the house should be removed, fact is the owner probably wont ever notice and I bet a lot of houses and plots meet those conditions.

 

[GarthGrey]

What's the difference between someone owning a house and never logging in or being seen, or being an active member of this community, and someone logging in once a week to refresh that same house?? The shard benefits from neither of these scenarios. 2nd houses for Siege was a bad idea PERIOD, and was pretty much championed by a single person....

 

[Uvtha]

What's the difference between someone owning a house and never logging in or being seen, or being an active member of this community, and someone logging in once a week to refresh that same house?? The shard benefits from neither of these scenarios. 2nd houses for Siege was a bad idea PERIOD, and was pretty much championed by a single person....

Well it might deter lazy people. I know some people have said they wouldn't have a house if they had to log in an maintain it. Of course I think people asked for a timer, and they said they couldn't do it. :/

 

[THP]

i like my siege holiday home...and i do log in every 2 weeks to stock vendor and work skills a few points...iam all for a refresh...but a week would be a joke...people go on vacations for 3 weeks or more... the refresh would have to be at least 60 days..if someone aint logged in in that time they deserve to lose there siege holiday home

 

[TheDrAJ]

Actually I am convinced that it decreased the active players on the Shard. People like myself who only had Siege houses went and placed a house (for each of my 3 accounts) on other shards. I find myself playing Lake Superior, Atlantic and Great Lakes as much as I do Siege now.

 

[GarthGrey]

Actually I am convinced that it decreased the active players on the Shard. People like myself who only had Siege houses went and placed a house (for each of my 3 accounts) on other shards. I find myself playing Lake Superior, Atlantic and Great Lakes as much as I do Siege now.

Thanks for the honesty, too many fail to do that. ;-)

 

[Uvtha]

i like my siege holiday home...and i do log in every 2 weeks to stock vendor and work skills a few points...iam all for a refresh...but a week would be a joke...people go on vacations for 3 weeks or more... the refresh would have to be at least 60 days..if someone aint logged in in that time they deserve to lose there siege holiday home

Three week vacation... jesus.

 

[GarthGrey]

LOL I'm currently sitting on 34 days worth with the year almost ending.

 

[Uvtha]

LOL I'm currently sitting on 34 days worth with the year almost ending.

Heh, I haven't gone on vacation in years, and my last one was a 2 days mostly driving trip to Denver to see a sad Cubs team get whooped by the Rockies. But hen again I'm a lowerclass, heh.

I took a weeker to chi-town once! Was great.

 

[ApollyonSP]

The main problem with these secondary houses is that they are empty plots and look bad.
The second problem is that they take up room that active players could be using, which should take priority.


I have a solution.
Let's create a gold payment upkeep for secondary houses only. A secondary house is free upkeep if you login once every month (30 days). Or you can pay 1 million gold for each month (or a lesser amount), to not log in. That way this would help the "inflation" problem of the shard, as well as boost the economy, as well as help cleanup these eye sores.

Let's petition a developer.

 

[Tyrath]

What's the difference between someone owning a house and never logging in or being seen, or being an active member of this community, and someone logging in once a week to refresh that same house?? The shard benefits from neither of these scenarios. 2nd houses for Siege was a bad idea PERIOD, and was pretty much championed by a single person....

For myself account I would have been playing and skilling on prodo moved to Siege toons as did 90% of my play time. I am willing to bet most of the people that played siege a week or two got enough money to plop down a plot and then went back to prodo don't even remember they have a second house on Siege. THe folks that play mainly Siege and had their house before the 2nd house option had 1 house on Siege and were paying for that house. Those houses would idoc when payment lapsed and they no longer had the privilege of having a house at all. A big difference when its a second house owned by a prodo player who will keep their account in good standing and the second house will just sit there. Of course Atlantic players could make the same complaint about us placing second houses there so any decay timer should work both ways.

 

[Tyrath]

The main problem with these secondary houses is that they are empty plots and look bad.
The second problem is that they take up room that active players could be using, which should take priority.


I have a solution.
Let's create a gold payment upkeep for secondary houses only. A secondary house is free upkeep if you login once every month (30 days). Or you can pay 1 million gold for each month (or a lesser amount), to not log in. That way this would help the "inflation" problem of the shard, as well as boost the economy, as well as help cleanup these eye sores.

Let's petition a developer.

Exactly

 

[Tanager]

Is it true that once upon a time players could have as many houses as they liked? That they had to set one as primary, and refresh the others? Or refresh them all? I don't really know. It's my understanding some accounts are still grandfathered with these multiple houses. It seems to me that such a system, if it already exists or existed in the past, could serve the purpose here. Or treat the secondary house on any account (whether that house be prodo or Siege) have a similar decay cycle as a ship, the mechanics of which already exist.

I don't think the problem is so much that it cannot be done... I think the problem is that they don't want to deal with the fallout of people screaming about their house falling because they failed to read the fine print.

For what it is worth, I do support double housing. I wish it had the restrictions we asked for, but it was a good idea even as is. Yes some came and placed just because they could when it went into effect, but NEW2 was bursting at the seems for a while with players who wanted to give Siege a real try.

Why these players did not STAY on Siege is the real problem. In the grand scheme of things Siege's dwindling population has little to do with the availability of choice housing plots. I am convinced that dual citizenship is key to the long-term health of Siege, but we need to fix some bigger issues in order to KEEP players in some of those ghost houses.

And that issue is an entirely different can o' worms!

 

[Captn Norrington]

Is it true that once upon a time players could have as many houses as they liked? That they had to set one as primary, and refresh the others? Or refresh them all? I don't really know. It's my understanding some accounts are still grandfathered with these multiple houses. It seems to me that such a system, if it already exists or existed in the past, could serve the purpose here. Or treat the secondary house on any account (whether that house be prodo or Siege) have a similar decay cycle as a ship, the mechanics of which already exist.

I don't think the problem is so much that it cannot be done... I think the problem is that they don't want to deal with the fallout of people screaming about their house falling because they failed to read the fine print.

For what it is worth, I do support double housing. I wish it had the restrictions we asked for, but it was a good idea even as is. Yes some came and placed just because they could when it went into effect, but NEW2 was bursting at the seems for a while with players who wanted to give Siege a real try.

Why these players did not STAY on Siege is the real problem. In the grand scheme of things Siege's dwindling population has little to do with the availability of choice housing plots. I am convinced that dual citizenship is key to the long-term health of Siege, but we need to fix some bigger issues in order to KEEP players in some of those ghost houses.

And that issue is an entirely different can o' worms!

Yep, originally all players could have unlimited houses (Although back then all houses, even 7x7 were super, super expensive and hard to get, so people could only ever get about 3 or 4 at the most). You had to open every single houses door at least once a week or it would collapse. Some people started using it as a business, selling the houses for real cash and only needing one account so they changed it to one house per account.

 

[azmodanb]

i would vote for a 60-90 day rule... i have a house there... and a char in progress... but i admit i dont log in much

 

[Tyrath]

To think in late October 1997 a patch was put out that put a duplicate house key in your safe deposit box . The only thing worse than being locked out of your boat was being locked out of your house. The issues that I have heard as to why several folks did not stay came down to getting around the world, not being able to run around in their pixel crack (No Insurance and no bless) I must admit on prodo I use a bless deed on everything of value and there is zero chance of losing those uber suits. But for me that gets boring as in the grand scheme of things what lead me back to Siege. I would not even conside wearing a lucky mempo, conjurers garb, tangle, or crim here most folks wouldn't and well most folks like their shinys. For me Siege is as close to Old School UO as you can get, so the shiny things don't hold their importance here. You really have to be a special kind of nuts to enjoy playing Siege It really just comes down to the vast majority of players won't step foot in Fel on prodo even with the insurance and blessed items, they sure are not going to hang on siege where they might lose a cheap lrc suit and their shoes. A long way from being excited about a duplicate house key in '97 to wondering why there are so many second houses that have stood as dirt plots with a bag or box in them since they were placed............

 

[ApollyonSP]

I remember back when people got locked out of their own houses, and back then GMs would NOT help people.

That was an awesome time. However the scamming was outrageous. People would easily lose months worth or work and saving, without recourse from GMs.

In the beginning, you could truly "lose everything", and on every shard.

 

[Tyrath]

Those were frustrting yet very fun filled early days.

 

[Kas Althume]

So what's your idea for those who had siege houses before the rules changed and placed small homes on other shards? Am I supposed to refresh my siege houses because of having small homes elsewhere?

 

[SpyderBite]

So what's your idea for those who had siege houses before the rules changed and placed small homes on other shards? Am I supposed to refresh my siege houses because of having small homes elsewhere?

As that really wasn't the purpose of system; I'd suggest that the house on Siege becomes the "secondary" house and requires refreshing. Since your primary server is siege this won't really affect you. And if drop the home on the prodo server, the siege home becomes the primary again and there is no longer a requirement to refresh.

In other words, you'll be playing by the same rules as those who decided to place a secondary home on Siege.

 

[Guardian KX]

I was around when we fought for this right about housing...1 and yes it did give us a influx of new people. We need to sit back and acknowledge a few things tho;
1) The game is not worth 14 bucks a month in a internet world that's changing daily. UO is old, outdated, and lacking in the simplest of things like GM interaction and coding updates.
2) Everyone again came to place a house and give us a try. They wanted to see a full bank area and were not used to Luna's Bank, our prices, and god forbid no unlimited blessing.
3) At that exact time there was a token duping issue going on with a specific group set. This scared off people who normally might have stayed with authentic tokens, but fear is always a issue so some left and said screw it.
4) People who wanted to complain about many issues could not. Moderators who were used to "People of the old trolling ways" (yes myself too), were already pumped up on there godlike powers that they nerfed anyone who made a squeak. Why bother staying on a shard where a dishwasher can choke you silent.
5) 4 or 5 people who had been here forever were ruthlessly killing newbies for lack of anything else to do. Diablo and the gang did away with ALOT of them.
6) Housing space was open, but nothing big. GIL owns 90% of every big house on the shard. People wanted a house worth stocking up and decking out. What fun is it to decorate a 9X9. Ya its fun, but people need storage room.
7) UO has not advertised in YEARS. As I've said before, 9 out of 10 employees in a gaming store have never heard of UO, and the 10th guy was amazed it was still even running. No money going out = no new people in.

That's just a few reasons. We should be happy if not for, mainly, the knowledge that someone here with even a ghost house has cause to stop in, maybe get hooked, and make the move to Siege Perilous. Look at those ghost houses like pictures on the wall of family who could stop by at any moment. If you see someone inside rarely, go out of your way to toss some muffins on there doorstep so they know there welcome anytime to stop by.

Long Live Siege Perilous

 

[ApollyonSP]

IMO, the UO devs have done all they can. What can "WE" do as the siege perilous community?

I've talked about this several times. The old vets are a bunch ignorant farts on this shard. They really, really, REALLY do NOT help new players. The old vets have this "entitlement" mentality, after playing on the shard for so long. This is another huge hurdle to jump over. How do you herd a bunch of pissy cats? We need to. Since the devs and staff really cannot, or won't, do much, then it's on the community.

What siege players CAN do, and ought to do, is recruit on other shards. We need to make Siege enticing to play for new players. And we need to do the work, ourselves, to go to the other shards, and recruit. We need guild leaders. We need change. We need reasons to hold new players on the shard. Otherwise, if nothing is done, the siege population will stay the same and slowly wittle away to nothing. The old fart vets may like this possibility. But I don't. I'd rather see a successful, larger population on siege. I'd rather see a bunch of new players with adventures and stories to tell.

I'd rather see the game in its original form, which is what siege represents.


One of the main reasons I came back to UO, and siege in particular, is because games without LOSS are no fun to me. No risk, no reward. Siege is risky, but what is the reward?

I make my own fun.

 

[SpyderBite]

Siege tried the whole recruitment thing many times over the years and it was a little helpful. However, that was also when UO had a much healthier population and a steady traffic of new players who may not have been aware of Siege when they created their first characters.

Seems to me, the current population of UO are all people who've been around a while and already quite aware of siege.

There might be a small trickle of new subscriptions but based on the low pops on only two or three active servers during prime times; I doubt there is as much incoming players as there are outgoing.

So, while any plan is better than no plan. Is investing the time into cross server recruiting really going to be productive?

I'm not trying to be a naysayer. I'm just making sure everybody is looking at the bigger picture and setting expectations accordingly.

If you're fishing in a barrel with only a few seasoned fish; the cliche goes away.

 

[Tyrath]

Yep moving 10% of a pile of bricks into a new or different pile does not create more bricks. Some advertising would go a long way, a presence in game stores, target the 40+ year old gamers there are A LOT of us out here. Build a site with a real online guide of what is in UO. The massive depth of the game has a very steep learning curve. There is a lot to do in UO and many of those things are not easily found. I will use Solen for an example, I have spoken with many folks over the years who knew what bags of sending and trans powder are but had not a clue where they come from. Or knew where they come from but could not figure out how to start the powder quest. If you know to drop a seed on the queen great......... Without sharing my tricks of "Ant Farming" I can honestly say it is possible to farm 75k-100k per hour in straight gold, and 400-600 Zoogies per hour that can be converted to powder and another 100k-150k earned in that same hour. Thus making ant farming a very good way for a mid-gm level toon to make serious gold consistently. Yet new players have a very difficult time making enough gold to support themselves and buy the higher end things. It takes a particular template to be a zoogie farmer and ant farmer that can farm, you have to know how to work the ant locations and like so many other UO proffesions there just is no real information out there or guides that detail how to do it. A compilation of official guides would go a long way to helping new players climb up the learning curve and be able to get immersed in the game rather than run around broke or buying UO gold (prodo). Simple things like pounding on a vorpal bunny raises Anatomy from zero to GM really fast or zero-70 for siege ROT, easter eggs are worth 250 trash points, bunnies are full of unravel loot and about 1k gold and you can pick cotton during the thorn cool down, Pounding on ants starting with workers, then overland warriors and then queens raises Tactics Fast to 85ish and moderatley well on weapon skills from 40-85ish. How does someone new even begin to figure these things out in the mish mash of info out there. I am well aware Ghost houses are one small problem among hundreds of small problems. That is one the Devs can fix, advertising is one EA/Orogin/broadsword/Mythic or whatever they are today can fix, us players can also do a lot by sharing our knowledge in our chosen ingame proffesions. I might be a legendary Ant Farmer and the Master of the Zoogies but am a very weak PVP and weak at high end PvM and a decent crafter/imbuer. Hell I would love to see the return of the days when my ZOOG guild had 40-60 members farming zoogies, running powderand dominating the global bag and powder markets. The old ZOOG guild house on Legends has 12,000,000 Zoogies locked down in it just waiting to be turned into powder. Since my return to siege a few years ago I have collected around 350,000 Zoogies that I did not run for powder, it would be great to have a thriving guild again and have atleast a couple million Zoogies in reserve and financially stable members but that requires a much larger overall Siege population #1 to have a large pool of players that a small percentage of which willl be Zoogie addicts #2. A shard population to generate the demand for very large amounts of bags and T powder. Until then ZOOG is pretty much a castrated puppy humping a leg , hoping to accomplish something

 

[Uvtha]

Siege tried the whole recruitment thing many times over the years and it was a little helpful. However, that was also when UO had a much healthier population and a steady traffic of new players who may not have been aware of Siege when they created their first characters.

Seems to me, the current population of UO are all people who've been around a while and already quite aware of siege.

There might be a small trickle of new subscriptions but based on the low pops on only two or three active servers during prime times; I doubt there is as much incoming players as there are outgoing.

So, while any plan is better than no plan. Is investing the time into cross server recruiting really going to be productive?

I'm not trying to be a naysayer. I'm just making sure everybody is looking at the bigger picture and setting expectations accordingly.

If you're fishing in a barrel with only a few seasoned fish; the cliche goes away.

I just think it is what it is. UO is a game almost exclusively for die hards and people with emotional/nostalgic attachment that cant ever say farewell for good. UO is a hard game to sell to a modern gamer for a lot of reasons, and as such everyone whos playing knows all about SP by now, and most have even probably given it a try already if they are going to.

 

[FrejaSP]

Msybe we can find the owners of the inactive houses and try to invite them to the community. I did find alot I thought was inactive when I started the project with making Safe Haven a town. I had been a little burned out of stress from my RL the last weeks but I need to get back to make events in Safe Haven to build up the community.
I'm sure other places could do the same and this way help building the community and draw back the owners of second houses and other bored Siege players.
And to all the stealthers, try drop stealth on a soulstone and make the shard look more active

 

[Tyrath]

I just think it is what it is. UO is a game almost exclusively for die hards and people with emotional/nostalgic attachment that cant ever say farewell for good. UO is a hard game to sell to a modern gamer for a lot of reasons, and as such everyone whos playing knows all about SP by now, and most have even probably given it a try already if they are going to.

I go back to the cardinal piece of Crap RuneScape that blows UO away in number of subscriptions and is a total piece of crap in terms of content and Graphics. Pretty much which ever P2p server you log onto has atleast 500 people on server and very often 1000. Whats the difference between the two? The Runescape team keeps things interesting, they send regular emails asking what we can do to make things better, I have not played since 2002 and get emails asking what it would take to get me to sub again and come back........... They have a presence in gamestores even if it is just with gametime cards, they advertise primarily in Europe being a Brit based game and they in general make people feel they are getting their moneys worth. RS has been around since 1998/1999 and has grown from those of us who were the first 500 to several hundred thousand F2P and P2p subscribers. However in comparison to UO the game RS is total trash What you are saying about UO should then apply to RuneScape but for some reason it does not. I make the comparison between these two because they are comparative in age and graphics as well as overall theme and game play. I still go to the RS page and boards to chat with old friends and at the top of the page it shows how many people are logged in and playing usually between 20,000 and 40,000. I doubt seriously UO is any where near those numbers and UO should be.