Thinking of returning & state of the shard

[Choice Made]

Hi everyone,

Well i decided to take the 14day trial to see what things were like.

The last time i was in Oceania was from 04 to 05 (Lefty), before that it was 99-00 on Pacific then Oceania.

On my travels, it doesn't seem like much is happening on Oceania. Hardly a soul to see around the place. Even Luna Bank is generally deserted. And by the look of these forums, it doesn't seem like an active shard anymore.

So i ask you all, is it worth taking the plunge and coming back? I really enjoyed this game back in the day.

Further to that, what it the general state of the shard?

What are people doing?
What guilds are out there, and active?
What is the PvP and Faction scene like?
What events have happened or are coming up?

Your responses would be appreciated,

ChoiceMade

 

[Unsatisfied]

I went on for an hour today and found 4 people in that hour(5:30pm). And two of them were afk in Luna, one was running around outside my house at Brit moongate. I certainly won't be returning to something like this other than that a member of my family still plays daily, says fel has castle spots empty (bout 4 he knows of) and tram has keep spots... Probably castle spots he hasn't found. And there is usually an idoc castle every few weeks.

 

[Dain]

Shard is more active now than I have seen it in 2 years and is steadily increasing.

Right now everything will seem rather empty because of the latest Pub.

ALmost everyone is either down at Narvey Nighteyes (there's 8 people here right now) or doing the Housing quest (almost always see 5-10 people doing the round for that)

Things are rather active, u just have to be uptodate enough ingame to know where to look.

If you're interested in coming back then I would say give it a shot, a month at least.

Certain people, no names, don't enjoy UO unless there is a massive population, probably because they go and form an elite team of PvPers, make gimp templates with an item advantage, half the time cheat, then pancake because there's no PvP or no one will play with them. Being an absolute $%^%^&%$ doesn't help their cause either.

 

[Unsatisfied]

One thing I find amazing is, my house at fel brit moongate I was offered 40 mill for when I was quitting and AoS was just starting, that was when a few mill was a lot of money, apparently a house on the other side of the road at bmg that is 3 or 4 times the size of mine went for 6 mill recently, and now 6 mill is apparently chickens feed, dunno if this is true or if my family is just feeding me bull**** but WOW.

 

[EveningKiss]

Yeah unfortunatly when they introduced the elven race bac in 05 ( i think it was then it was right before i quit) the price of gold droped ALOT. Many people were hunting a bird that droped 10k a pop so it didnt take long to get mils. I useto shard hop for clients to buy rares to bring back to our shard. (mainly the rares that were exported by others).

 

[Unsatisfied]

Yeah but my point really was not that gold has become worthless, thats another terrible story but the fact that while gold has now become worthless so has my house that used to be one of the most saught after locations on the shard. Simply because theres no demand for it anymore because the population is so small, and the lands so vast.

 

[Venus_AUPK]

Ill second what Dain said just because you ran to the bank and a moongate doesn't mean there's not people playing.

As your said your self there's a lot of land out there now its a little stupid to say no ones playing because you only saw 3 people at 530pm.

 

[Unsatisfied]

I didn't soley base my reply around that fact. My dad still plays the game daily... Still has his house set up in Luna that I placed for him years ago and he tells me every day how dead the shard is and how he doesn't see it lasting much longer because there's very few new players coming into the game let alone this specific shard, meanwhile droves of people are packing uo and quitting that he knows on a weekly basis. You can't honestly say it's a well populated shard. Look at the game/shard 6 or mote years ago. That's populated. Oceania is dying a slow and painfull death.

 

[Sneaky Que]

I didn't soley base my reply around that fact. My dad still plays the game daily... Still has his house set up in Luna that I placed for him years ago and he tells me every day how dead the shard is and how he doesn't see it lasting much longer because there's very few new players coming into the game let alone this specific shard, meanwhile droves of people are packing uo and quitting that he knows on a weekly basis. You can't honestly say it's a well populated shard. Look at the game/shard 6 or mote years ago. That's populated. Oceania is dying a slow and painfull death.

In fact, since the SA expansion, both the population of Oceania and the rest of the OSI shards has been increasing. Just looking at the population of Oce now I can tell you that is roughly double what it was a year ago. While that is still small, it is getting bigger and is set to keep increasing as the new changes come in with the upcoming publishes. Check out the faction patch notes and test shard to see what I mean.

 

[Thaqui]

I've been in pretty much the same situation. I recently got the 14 day trial, just to go back and see what UO was like now. I'd thought that maybe under Mythic there would have been some new changes.

After hanging around Luna a bit and just wandering around, the only people I did see were AFK at Luna bank, or taking the Luna moongate to parts unknown (or parts locked from my trial account).

However I realised I've been having more fun on my freshly made character, running around the wilderness of Britannia stabbing mongbats, than I ever did idling around on my 7xGM character wondering what the hell to do now. The game really is what you make of it, so now rather than returning to my account I think I'm just going to keep with my newbie swordsman/mage/about 20 other skills under 35.0, and visit all those places no one ever goes to because it's "not worth it". Well, it's fun, so "worth it" doesn't matter.

If anyone would like to join me, get in touch. Running away from lizardmen is probably more fun in a group. Just make sure you have a free character slot...

 

[Fink]

Hallows again, Thaqqles.

I'm up for some newbery, if I can catch you about.

 

[Thaqui]

Are there ways to find someone around these days? I'm around New Haven mostly when I'm on.

 

[Sneaky Que]

Are there ways to find someone around these days? I'm around New Haven mostly when I'm on.

Try asking in global chat. Type , (comma) then space and type what you want to say and hit enter. Global chat appears as blue text (default) in the bottom left of the play window (same as guild and alliance chat).

 

[Fink]

Are there ways to find someone around these days? I'm around New Haven mostly when I'm on.

Try asking in global chat. Type , (comma) then space and type what you want to say and hit enter. Global chat appears as blue text (default) in the bottom left of the play window (same as guild and alliance chat).

Also there is a chat gump for switching channels. Beyond that there is not much control. The chat gump can be opened via the strip menu (in either client).