Dont get me wrong, it wasnt a criticism of Siege, just a fact being stated. I love Siege and completely agree with you.
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How to revive the dying shards
- Thread starter Yadd of Legends
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I felt this way a few months ago, but I would say in the past 30days population has boomed again. Not anything crazy, but things are going on again. Atl pvp at yew gate has picked up significantly along with a few other shards. It's just a roller coaster right now, and in all honesty it needs to be addressed. They need to find a way to keep people logged in rather than leaving due to boredom only to come back 2 months later due to some other boredom...
I like the F2P idea, it would definitely hurt the free shards and bring back those that go there due to not wanting to pay a sub. But there needs to be some sort of pay to win feature; house/vet rewards/skill points/stat points etc. Something to generate money to keep the game moving forward and also something to reward those that donate or pay a monthly sub
Most of the people I used to know don't play freeshards for the little bit of money they save, they play them because of the setup and rulesets.
Yeah Im trying one of those out for the first time. It puts the EA shards to shame in many respects.
Do any of these free shards use the enhanced client, and if so, does it work? If so, okay they've stolen it, but at least they keep it working?
I agree here. Without starting that old argument again, a lot of people are very interested in some form of a classic shard. What a way to kick off putting UO on Steam... announce a classic shard revival.
OK, but even if there were manpower, even if any Devs today had the knowledge to sustain a shard, as a few of us have asked, which "classic" version? Pre-T2A, probably not the old Noto system, but Reputation, when archer-mages ruled because eval wasn't needed, and anyone could tab-hide to escape? With T2A but before Trammel, late enough to get skill locks, but before stat locks? Pre-Publish 16? (Stat locks weren't introduced until P16.) And at each stage there are so many bugs and exploits. Go back far enough, and people will be dusting off whatever cheat program worked at the time.
No one ever agrees on what is the best classic shard option...but alot agree that one is needed in some form. The most popular free shards are all ren based and have thousands playing. Personally, I would love to see Pub 16 but anything around that era would be good.
Should not be an issue with creating or sustaining a shard like this. Bug's have already been fixed...patch them in and then just leave the game alone. If the dev's need help i'm sure someone can point them in the right direction.
I have to assume your post was placed to troll or just argue. Not sure why they would need to "dust off the old cheat programs" Couldn't they just use what cheat programs are rampant right now? I mean..really?
Contrary to the false perception of some people that when I disagree it's "it's to troll or just argue," I am doing neither. I'm pointing out as a matter of game development that it's not as easy as you think, and I've repeatedly asked (with never getting an answer) what these "free" shards' populations would be if they charged the same as EA. It's not just a sustainable business model for EA. It isn't even worth their time or money to pursue legal action to protect their intellectual property.
Today's cheat programs may or may not work. They may exploit holes that didn't exist until after a particular, considerably later publish. Did you see that the most recent publish broke picking up gold at champ spawns? Similarly, a new publish may unintentionally open up something else, so the cheaters would do better to dust off the likes of UOE and see if it works. On top of that, the current Dev team doesn't even know how a lot of things work that their predecessors made. Just who do you think would "help" them, current players? Old Devs? When you say that "Bug's [sic] have already been fixed," you don't seem to realize many bugs didn't get fixed for some time. To fix a particular bug by a certain, earlier time period would be more than considerable work for the current Devs to determine when the bug was fixed, understand how it was fixed, and apply it to the earlier point. How would they find out how the mana vampire bug of 1999 was fixed? Or the uninsure and aggressor bugs of 2005?
With the Devs not pushing out much new content as it is, it's unreasonable to think they have the time to sustain a version of the game more than 15 years old. EA's not going to let them invest the hours into a novelty shard that'll be another Siege.
They would except for a few things... first there wouldn't be any lambs who are easy to slaughter because they WOULDN'T play on that shard...
Second you can't get any customer support on any shard so a new classic shard would be just as lousy as the ones we have now without support.
I'm going to go out on a limb and also say that a "classic" shard would not be able to get or use most the Vet rewards, Spring Clean stuff, there would be NO buying things to use from the Origin store either on those shards and to me I'm guessing that alone would be a MASSIVE reason why it'll NEVER happen.
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We already have two shard rulesets and two clients on a skeleton crew dev team. Free shards can devote their full resources to a single shard with whatever classic component wishlist they like, but the official game team cannot. They have also stated in the past that they don't have the code for it anymore--it's not just a matter of flipping a switch to deactivate the past 10-15 years of updates. I don't care one way or another about the prospect of a classic shard, but realistically it isn't going to happen.
I still don't comprehend how EA/Broadsword can say with a straight face they dont have the code anymore to do a classic shard, while freeshards all over the place are using it...
Exactly. It's all BS.
Just want to jump in and say in the Dev Diary thread, I mentioned I think they should save a copy of the current code before the expansion, to have ready for other servers as a J.I.C. thing to have at least modern UO available just in case Time of Legends flops on deck and doesn't deliver as intended. I don't think a classic shard would realistically happen meself, and I don't think my suggestion should be viewed with any more optimism, but modern UO still works for the most part, spaghetti and all.
I would like to see a little more support in the GM system, regardless of what happens, this might be a good retention of subs thing, and if possible, possibly going over old tickets as part of that system for certain tickets that stood out, like maybe a paying customer got super pissed off and quit because of lack of GM support etc.. perhaps shoot that player an apology email, offer a free month, and pray they come back? But ya, little to no optimism there.
Also @Broadsword, maybe hold a competition for us avid UO people's to come up with advertising promos for you, banner ads, slogans, commercials? Or even ideas. It might be a pipe dream, but starting somewhere gotta happen.
I'm not pushing for a classic shard, it would probablly overload the team. My bone of contention is tell me something doesn't exist when it plainly does and is in use elsewhere. I think it was Judge Judy who said it best, Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.
I agree with you if you atleast put the cd in a store someone would pick it up and try it. I still have my Uo Renaissance disc I bought from Walmart
Yes I have seen a couple advertise they now offer the EC. I'm not sure what version of the EC though.
Buhahahahaha, awesome!
They can borrow my copy of renaissance if they need it ha
Actually they WOULD play on that shard and I'LL tell you WHY. Thousands play on free shards with the ren era. A few of the shards have very, very active forums with player introductions. It is amazing just how many people have stated they only quit the game but they absolutely HATED the expansions and how they completely ruined the game and just how excited they were to see someone recreating that AWESOME time. Sorry for the caps...but you seemed to use them to accent yours so I followed suit lol
Oh there are a lot of "perceptions" about you from other players...but I will not go into that. Again, this will be my last post in this thread in response to you.
Let's try it this way.
One would have no idea how the population would dip if they charges a monthly fee. I would "assume" that it would dip a bit for the very casual player or else they can be like players on EA and just sell gold for game time. People play the shard because they love the era that is not offered with the current version of UO.
If they use a cheat program now then they will probally still use it and unless Broadsword is willing to at least have one person looking into complaints then it will never change.
If Broadsword needs assistance figuring out how to make the game that they run work and have no one qualified in figuring it out they are in a huge amount of trouble lol They of course could probally consult with a multitude of kids that have run quality shards from their parent basements over the last decade. Maybe even look into the many quality coders out there at the moment running great shards on a contract basis.
Yes, this forum has a number of people butthurt because I tend to point out facts and logic, often what shouldn't take a lot of thinking to realize. If it weren't for forum rules, I'd post a few choice PMs from cowards who can't even hide their sock puppetry very well. They know who they are.
Try "dip a lot." Something free tends to have high price elasticity once people have to pay for it. Would the free-sharders pay $5 per month? Ten dollars? They may love the experience, but after all, it's a great value.
Per what you said, Broadsword's already in trouble. When there are several generations of developers, it's inevitable that some point, there aren't enough notes and documentation, so the current group doesn't understand how old code works. But it's there, they figure, and they can only do their best to not break it. I'm not the only one who's offered high-level development (so I wouldn't need to see actual code) in fixing new problems, at no charge because it's worth it to me to help the game. But the Devs don't seem interested in talking to anyone offering free help, and with the way EA is, how could Broadsword then get leeway to hire outsiders?
I don't know exactly what you mean by "If they use a cheat program now." My point was that something working today might not work for old code, because Devs since then may have opened up something since, and it's very difficult for them to apply today's fixes to old code. There's so much happening even today that the Devs don't even hint will ever get fixed. Once upon a time, things were announced on uo.com that this or that is a bannable offense, the end. Whereas Devs once took a strong stand against UOE and stressed even UOA wasn't legal (before UO Pro), today's attitude is as if they never heard of scripts or speedhacking. Within a few hours of the 9/11 attacks, some distasteful individuals started making characters named Osama bin Laden. OSI's official response was to post a warning on UO.com that accounts would get suspended (72 hours and not just 24?).
For about 1 month..... then they would realize the CS Sucks.... and everything else and not only that..... people wouldn't be paying to do it when they already are for FREE.
Actually I TALK to a lot of players that I PLAY with on free shards. They actually would reactivate an account and play on an official shard. While free shards have alot more credibility now than they did years ago. Many players still have concerns of any shard that is not "officially" run. I mean Richard Garriott has arrived a couple times to help run a event on many of these free shards but there has been (still are) some shady spots out there !
Bah! I am breaking my own rules of never replying to you more than once in any thread. But please enlighten me with what evidence you have of these "facts". Reddit had a wonderful fight between an owner and a dev on a very popular free shard where financial information was revealed. So these "cheap" free shard players somehow raise between 10k-40k a month in revenue for the shard owner. Between 500-1000 unique ip's log in daily so I assume they would do "ok" in numbers.
The shadiest spots are still on the production servers. And like I said with the state of customer service they would all quit in a month.
Oh, isn't that just too terrible for you that someone is questioning what you're posting?
It's a simple matter of the law of demand, since UO even on "free" shards is not a Giffen good. The only question is how much demand would dip as the price increases.
Would you care to give a link to that supposed discussion, and just how credible is a claim of that much revenue? What documents can be produced, e.g. a hired CPA that can verify what's been filed with the IRS? Talk is cheap, especially online. Think about it. If a free shard could really pull in nearly half a million a year, a couple of UO Devs would split to run their own.
Over the years UO has catered to exactly the people it shouldnt have been. And this leaves us with who we have left, the people posting here who are the hopeless addicts (like myself) who wouldnt leave UO anyway.
It's a downward spiral moving the game further and further from what it could have been to remain popular and satisfying to an average gamer / UOer.
There are so many easy fixes apparent to anyone who plays MMOs that the devs just insist to ignore, and instead waste time, waste art, waste old content, pump out new worthless content.
There is nothing you can do to revive shards. Its sad but thats really a joke at this point. Take what we get, the devs have such an outdated unsustainable idea of what the game is and are bent over by the vocal minority that its really not even worth discussing at this point.
In short, and you can hate me for being honest, No ones opinions or ideas on these boards should even be considered. Its the opinions and ideas / reasons of the 100s of thousands who have given up over the years.
It's a downward spiral moving the game further and further from what it could have been to remain popular and satisfying to an average gamer / UOer.
There are so many easy fixes apparent to anyone who plays MMOs that the devs just insist to ignore, and instead waste time, waste art, waste old content, pump out new worthless content.
There is nothing you can do to revive shards. Its sad but thats really a joke at this point. Take what we get, the devs have such an outdated unsustainable idea of what the game is and are bent over by the vocal minority that its really not even worth discussing at this point.
In short, and you can hate me for being honest, No ones opinions or ideas on these boards should even be considered. Its the opinions and ideas / reasons of the 100s of thousands who have given up over the years.
Want to revive shards? Roll back the time and never give shard tokens away.
Want to revive the shards? Roll back time and dont screw up the game and drive the vast majority of your players away.
Lots of mistakes have been made in the way the game has been directed but shard tokens are, IMO, the worst addition made. People complain about empty vendors and having the do everything on ATL but they often don't equate that with the timing of these tokens. They are a great reward for those who have put the time and dollars into the game but such a bad idea.
Honestly, you need to crack down on the blatant users whom sell gold/items for IRL money, shut down third party sites that to this day are still hiding duped items and start focusing on fixing the current list of broken things.
I mean there is someone who blatantly shows off their website on stratics that sells gold, accounts and items for RL currency and still for some reason @Mesanna doesn't have the nerve to go after them....
I mean there is someone who blatantly shows off their website on stratics that sells gold, accounts and items for RL currency and still for some reason @Mesanna doesn't have the nerve to go after them....
I wouldn't blame Mesanna for that. I seriously doubt that she and/or Broadsword have the budget to hire attorneys for that purpose
.Who needs an attorney??
Find their accounts and delete them...It wouldn't be hard to track an IP...
Find their accounts and delete them...It wouldn't be hard to track an IP...
Ok, the expansion is coming. It's comin, and it's probably going to bring some subs back for at least a month or two. But what needs to be really considered is, when these subs returns..
1.) Customer Service? Did this improve to at least barely passable level? Have you been so pissed off over something you had or any other player had no control over that just drove you to unsub? Did GM send you to a website to look at some wildly off topic Q&A about how to trouble shoot technical problems from the late 90's to early 2005? Pro tip: This is not even barely passable level.
2.) Bug Fixes? Have these been addressed? Can you say this game has less spaghetti strewn in it than an Italian Diner in New York? When you walk into Bedlam does a mob you've never seen before swam you like you were a loaf of Garlic Bread in said diner? Sometimes, sometimes not. Do people still have flagging issues? Transfer Issues? Is Europa still having bizzaro downtime? These kinds of things are the bane of a good time. Sometimes when you click your status bar to invis yourself, you somehow don't click that, but what ever was under it.. or the blackness outside the client window. Many Crashes to Desktop the average gamer wouldn't put up with, but us old UO people just stomach and consider an ingrained feature. When breaking party do party bars disappear? Why do they? It is annoying because many people still do peerless with friends even though they can solo them, but having to re-drag bars all over the place kinda stinks.
3.) Updating? Are we going to get updates to aging content people have been barking for? Maybe more rewarding quest system for High Seas? People narry want to spend the time to arrest a pirate to return to Docktown and get a light fire cannon ball. Not fun. Maybe big wanted poster for deco, or even rank titles, but maybe something more useful, an imbue-able sea captains set of armor, that is not mix n' match studded and un-studded leather. Maybe it is all cloth, with the same resists as studded armor? Maybe it is all studded leather armor with the same resists as studded leather armor? Let's bend the envelope a little, and bring some of this mountain of content into the scope of things to do that are both fun and worthwhile. Instead of just needing to arrest the pirates to get the reward, maybe you actually have to kill certain ones of them? Or include Corgul and Osiredon in that same quest system.. "I need 4 Pirate captains, and a sliver of Corgul and Osiredon the Scalis Enforcer's flesh to give you your reward." This may be hard, probably not solo-able, and definitely worth a reward. And people would probably do it for the desire-able reward. Pet parrot art, that sits on your paperdoll shoulder, uses the Talisman slot, but gives you the same bonuses as a talisman. Eyepatch headgear, that is the same as a helmet slot item. Not just deco, stuff on top of actual armor, but actual armor, probably easier to code on skeleton crew, and you know, people been asking for this stuff on and off over the years.
4.) Music? Can we at least get some new battle tunes added to the mix? Nearly 2 decades of the same battle music stinks. Many of us just turn the music of the game off these days. I still would listen to it if it didn't drive me insane listening to it. There is some music in Dawn's Music box that is good but I don't hear it anywhere else, can we toss that in some game situations other than sitting your house turning Daawn's Music Box's handle thinking why this isn't in the game? Intro music I think was designed to get the blood pumping, but it's getting pre old, and kind of annoying also. And it isn't mysterious sounding at all like the previous tune. The music in Britain is getting old. The music in Minoc is getting old. Way old. Those little diddy's when you get by a pub, could use an update. This may sound like a lot of work, it may be a lot of work, but little touches like this probably be a nice little refresher for some of us whacko's that listen to ingame music for whatever reason.
5.) Towns? Years ago, there was pretty good reason to visit the different towns. Did you want to mine? Go to Minoc. Did you want to fletch and lumberjack? Go to Yew. Did you want to spend way too much on a White Wyrm and push through a crowd of people you could or could not trust to do it? Go to Britain. Today, people just go bank sit at Luna. Have you considered what would bring people back to the different towns in this day and age? And if the expansion drops, and we get a new town in it, why would people want to go there? And also please consider the layout. Ter Mur is cool for the soulforges, but that place is an eyesore to be quite frank. Also, New Haven is ugly. New Haven Cave for beginners is bland and boring. And again, New Haven Cave could be a good place to toss in some quests like we used to get in Despise, "Hey Adventurer can you double click me rq and escort me out of this place?", and maybe get some catchy semi-pleasant battle music or cave ambience stuff, and we're rockin n' rollin' right along too. Maybe we can get a few more New Magincia style situations with current towns, but with different circumstances.. Maybe a flood wipes out a part of Skara Brae, or an upheaval of land adds new Mass to it, and destroys some of the town, and those who brought resources to a certain threshold via a quest system get put in the raffle for new plots there? But make sure the quest threshold is not some unthinkable you don't have a job and this is all you can do day and night threshold, but a reasonable amount. These are just some suggestions on current towns, that might pique interest here and there, and maybe give people a reason to come see what's changed in that regard.
I know this is a how to revive dying shards thread, but all this stuff that may help bring people back to the game. And maybe Atlantic will be so full, people will just think to go to GL and set up shop. Or maybe GL and Atlantic might get so full people be like I"mma hop on Sonoma and set up shop. And we'll have 3 or 4 Atlantic size shards hopefully. Whatever happens, I still think it would be cool to see some better quest rewards for the various quest systems we have, and listen to some more music variety. That battle music.. Ouch.
1.) Customer Service? Did this improve to at least barely passable level? Have you been so pissed off over something you had or any other player had no control over that just drove you to unsub? Did GM send you to a website to look at some wildly off topic Q&A about how to trouble shoot technical problems from the late 90's to early 2005? Pro tip: This is not even barely passable level.
2.) Bug Fixes? Have these been addressed? Can you say this game has less spaghetti strewn in it than an Italian Diner in New York? When you walk into Bedlam does a mob you've never seen before swam you like you were a loaf of Garlic Bread in said diner? Sometimes, sometimes not. Do people still have flagging issues? Transfer Issues? Is Europa still having bizzaro downtime? These kinds of things are the bane of a good time. Sometimes when you click your status bar to invis yourself, you somehow don't click that, but what ever was under it.. or the blackness outside the client window. Many Crashes to Desktop the average gamer wouldn't put up with, but us old UO people just stomach and consider an ingrained feature. When breaking party do party bars disappear? Why do they? It is annoying because many people still do peerless with friends even though they can solo them, but having to re-drag bars all over the place kinda stinks.
3.) Updating? Are we going to get updates to aging content people have been barking for? Maybe more rewarding quest system for High Seas? People narry want to spend the time to arrest a pirate to return to Docktown and get a light fire cannon ball. Not fun. Maybe big wanted poster for deco, or even rank titles, but maybe something more useful, an imbue-able sea captains set of armor, that is not mix n' match studded and un-studded leather. Maybe it is all cloth, with the same resists as studded armor? Maybe it is all studded leather armor with the same resists as studded leather armor? Let's bend the envelope a little, and bring some of this mountain of content into the scope of things to do that are both fun and worthwhile. Instead of just needing to arrest the pirates to get the reward, maybe you actually have to kill certain ones of them? Or include Corgul and Osiredon in that same quest system.. "I need 4 Pirate captains, and a sliver of Corgul and Osiredon the Scalis Enforcer's flesh to give you your reward." This may be hard, probably not solo-able, and definitely worth a reward. And people would probably do it for the desire-able reward. Pet parrot art, that sits on your paperdoll shoulder, uses the Talisman slot, but gives you the same bonuses as a talisman. Eyepatch headgear, that is the same as a helmet slot item. Not just deco, stuff on top of actual armor, but actual armor, probably easier to code on skeleton crew, and you know, people been asking for this stuff on and off over the years.
4.) Music? Can we at least get some new battle tunes added to the mix? Nearly 2 decades of the same battle music stinks. Many of us just turn the music of the game off these days. I still would listen to it if it didn't drive me insane listening to it. There is some music in Dawn's Music box that is good but I don't hear it anywhere else, can we toss that in some game situations other than sitting your house turning Daawn's Music Box's handle thinking why this isn't in the game? Intro music I think was designed to get the blood pumping, but it's getting pre old, and kind of annoying also. And it isn't mysterious sounding at all like the previous tune. The music in Britain is getting old. The music in Minoc is getting old. Way old. Those little diddy's when you get by a pub, could use an update. This may sound like a lot of work, it may be a lot of work, but little touches like this probably be a nice little refresher for some of us whacko's that listen to ingame music for whatever reason.
5.) Towns? Years ago, there was pretty good reason to visit the different towns. Did you want to mine? Go to Minoc. Did you want to fletch and lumberjack? Go to Yew. Did you want to spend way too much on a White Wyrm and push through a crowd of people you could or could not trust to do it? Go to Britain. Today, people just go bank sit at Luna. Have you considered what would bring people back to the different towns in this day and age? And if the expansion drops, and we get a new town in it, why would people want to go there? And also please consider the layout. Ter Mur is cool for the soulforges, but that place is an eyesore to be quite frank. Also, New Haven is ugly. New Haven Cave for beginners is bland and boring. And again, New Haven Cave could be a good place to toss in some quests like we used to get in Despise, "Hey Adventurer can you double click me rq and escort me out of this place?", and maybe get some catchy semi-pleasant battle music or cave ambience stuff, and we're rockin n' rollin' right along too. Maybe we can get a few more New Magincia style situations with current towns, but with different circumstances.. Maybe a flood wipes out a part of Skara Brae, or an upheaval of land adds new Mass to it, and destroys some of the town, and those who brought resources to a certain threshold via a quest system get put in the raffle for new plots there? But make sure the quest threshold is not some unthinkable you don't have a job and this is all you can do day and night threshold, but a reasonable amount. These are just some suggestions on current towns, that might pique interest here and there, and maybe give people a reason to come see what's changed in that regard.
I know this is a how to revive dying shards thread, but all this stuff that may help bring people back to the game. And maybe Atlantic will be so full, people will just think to go to GL and set up shop. Or maybe GL and Atlantic might get so full people be like I"mma hop on Sonoma and set up shop. And we'll have 3 or 4 Atlantic size shards hopefully. Whatever happens, I still think it would be cool to see some better quest rewards for the various quest systems we have, and listen to some more music variety. That battle music.. Ouch.
Its not rocket science. The shards are only dying for one simple reason. Lack of players.
The answer is simple. To revive the dying shards, and indeed UO, subscription numbers need to reverse their current trend and start going up rather than down.
This will never happen as EA have abandoned UO and will let it wither on the vine until it dies.
Sad but true.
The answer is simple. To revive the dying shards, and indeed UO, subscription numbers need to reverse their current trend and start going up rather than down.
This will never happen as EA have abandoned UO and will let it wither on the vine until it dies.
Sad but true.
No. Leave Skara and the original towns alone. They already destroyed the beautiful Magincia and made it a trailer park, that is quite empty now on most shard. You want to destroy a town, there is Luna, Umbra, and the Meer village...make up a town, I dont care. But leave the original alone, please dont ruin another one
Ok you win, please destroy Luna though!
I'm gonna go back to the classic shard theory, and ask why anyone would come back to pay for that when they can get it for free now? Just doesn't make sense.
Just stick with what's in the game now. Improve that. Don't go backwards.
Just stick with what's in the game now. Improve that. Don't go backwards.
Because it is what a ton of people want. They should be in the business of satisfying consumer demands. Wanna know something- they have free shards out there that use the current landscape and are not very busy. A lot of people are slowly quitting the game because they are getting sick of how bad the game has gotten, miss the old days or maybe even how slow their shard has gotten and are bored. This would be a way to keep them, get old customers back and just maybe put a dent into the free shard populations. Again, its my opinion and you have yours. Really, what would the cost be to open a certain era of a classic shard and how beneficial to the game would another large group of accounts be ?
There are many people who'd like Ferraris for $100 each, so should automakers attempt to satisfy that demand? It is not only what customers "want": it is a matter of providing it profitably, and even if profitable, considering the opportunity cost.
The current Devs are barely able to put out bug fixes and new content. Do you really think they can maintain old code they know nothing about, with lots of bugs and exploits that weren't fixed until a long time later, and take the risk people would play for a month before saying "That was fun but I'm bored already"? How will people react to the old PvP bugs and exploits like invulnerability, staying blue after stealing out of town (not fixed until 1999), and instant-death from magic arrows (which would affect PvMers)? That one took two years before it was fixed, maybe three.
You must really think highly of the team running Ultima Online now. How is it possible that anyone else can use the old code of Ultima Online and yet the professional dev's from Broadsword wouldn't be able to? Tell yah what, perhaps they could hire an intern from high school to help them then if they really needed it. You love to toss out all the "old bugs" that you prob exploited back in day. But they don't exist anywhere else that uses the ren era.
Google Ultima Online and look at the top results. I'll say this, you shall find one right at the top and when you do a little research on it you will see it has over 10k forum accounts, has been open for just over two years (guess people didn't get bored after a month), it makes a fortune (so much for the old F2P model doesn't work) and has over 2300 Facebook likes. It also has routine numbers of 500-1000 players on at all times.
No man. There really is truly no logical reason people would start paying for something they currently get free and could still get free.
If you had a machine in your house that magically produced Ben and Jerry's ice cream, would you go to the store and buy Ben and Jerry's ice cream if the magic ice cream machine still worked?
If you had a machine in your house that magically produced Ben and Jerry's ice cream, would you go to the store and buy Ben and Jerry's ice cream if the magic ice cream machine still worked?
If you ever paid attention to what I posted here and elsewhere, you'd know I'm as critical as anyone. Or are you deliberately trying to put words into my mouth?
Because it's about building new code on top of old and hoping nothing gets broken. Sometimes things do. How do you think picking up gold was broken with the recent publish?
You're being nonsensical here. To "hire an intern from high school" may find someone very competent in producing new code, but there would be massive expense in retraining. Do you think Broadsword is going to commit to that kind of expense?
And now you're being doubly nonsensical, because the bugs I mentioned were eventually fixed — but only after a very long time. You can't just say "classic as of [date]" and expect it to have bugs easily fixed. Who's around today who would know how?
I'm not going to do your research for you. Do you know nothing about the online experience of the last couple of decades, specifically that the number of created accounts is meaningless? How many are sock puppets, how many are people who tried for a month (not paying anything) and left? It's individual active users that count.
Talk about revenue is cheap. If it's making a fortune, then where are its verifiable tax returns? If the price doesn't matter, then why doesn't it charge $10 per month, month to month like old UO, and see how the population does.
Just because something has been open for two years does not mean it doesn't have churn. UO in its first few years grew massively despite a lot of churn. If you knew what you were talking about, you'd know that so many would try UO but leave after a month or three. Or do you think that in the real world, population growth means nobody dies?
And I never said anything like "the old F2P model doesn't work," so you can stop putting words into my mouth.
I've already done the research and sampled the product. You on the other hand just babble on and refuse to look at proof. I can't link the site but you should look just to see how popular the classic shards are. You want the shard's owners personal tax returns as proof? Hahaha...post ea's and your own personal one. They don't need a monthly subscription because the f2p model works.
How expected that I fisk you, and this is all I get. "I've already done the research" does not cut it when claims of subscribers and profits are unverified. You talk about "proof," so where are the verified financial statements? Where is the count of unique IPs? Absolutely I will demand such things, and until then, talk is cheap. How do I know it's not just someone trying to portray his shard as so busy, in order to attract people? And my personal financial records are not in question here since I am not the one making claims. Is that so hard to understand?
"They don't need a monthly subscription because the f2p model works." Notwithstanding they therefore have a lot of free riders, you still ignore the simple point that if it weren't for price, not as many people would play. Why is that so hard for you to understand?
Since you like to pretend things weren't written that refute you, here's shoving it back down your throat. And take note of the last part:
And I never said anything like "the old F2P model doesn't work," so you can stop putting words into my mouth.
Talk about revenue is cheap. If it's making a fortune, then where are its verifiable tax returns? If the price doesn't matter, then why doesn't it charge $10 per month, month to month like old UO, and see how the population does.
Just because something has been open for two years does not mean it doesn't have churn. UO in its first few years grew massively despite a lot of churn. If you knew what you were talking about, you'd know that so many would try UO but leave after a month or three. Or do you think that in the real world, population growth means nobody dies?
And I never said anything like "the old F2P model doesn't work," so you can stop putting words into my mouth.
And I never said anything like "the old F2P model doesn't work," so you can stop putting words into my mouth.
If you ever paid attention to what I posted here and elsewhere, you'd know I'm as critical as anyone. Or are you deliberately trying to put words into my mouth?
Because it's about building new code on top of old and hoping nothing gets broken. Sometimes things do. How do you think picking up gold was broken with the recent publish?
You're being nonsensical here. To "hire an intern from high school" may find someone very competent in producing new code, but there would be massive expense in retraining. Do you think Broadsword is going to commit to that kind of expense?
And now you're being doubly nonsensical, because the bugs I mentioned were eventually fixed — but only after a very long time. You can't just say "classic as of [date]" and expect it to have bugs easily fixed. Who's around today who would know how?
I'm not going to do your research for you. Do you know nothing about the online experience of the last couple of decades, specifically that the number of created accounts is meaningless? How many are sock puppets, how many are people who tried for a month (not paying anything) and left? It's individual active users that count.
Talk about revenue is cheap. If it's making a fortune, then where are its verifiable tax returns? If the price doesn't matter, then why doesn't it charge $10 per month, month to month like old UO, and see how the population does.
Just because something has been open for two years does not mean it doesn't have churn. UO in its first few years grew massively despite a lot of churn. If you knew what you were talking about, you'd know that so many would try UO but leave after a month or three. Or do you think that in the real world, population growth means nobody dies?
And I never said anything like "the old F2P model doesn't work," so you can stop putting words into my mouth.
- Status