@Guido_LS: I think you're missing the whole point. It's not that we're going to go back to the first day of T2A and stay there forever. We MIGHT want some of the good things that came later, like maybe plants, some (but not all) of the later weapon, armor and deco art, maybe dragon armor, even. Maybe a tamed-down version of customized housing. If the classic shard is as popular as we hope it will be, we might even want to bring some of the new lands in, or, more likely, we would pester the Devs for some unique new lands instead of the weird, not-quite-UO'ish Illshenar, and a totally new dungeon or two, designed especially for the T2A era skills, spells and abilities. However, I think that about 99.9999% of us would stage a wholesale revolt if some well-meaning Dev even mentioned Malas or Doom. AOS left such a bad taste in our mouths that we still seethe in hatred of the very letters.
We might want a lot of stuff after the classic shard is on its feet and has a healthy, growing population and we've all gotten on our feet, so to speak.
But we don't want any of that stuff at the beginning. We want to start fresh, with an unspoiled T2A world, our "Garden of Eden", so to speak.
We're getting a new start, a chance to take the path not taken, taking the first step onto a new path, at a point in time before UO's devs began their trek down the path to AOS. We're going back to a time when we all agree that UO was fun, and starting again.
It can adapt, change, and evolve as the players in that world see fit. But don't force all the crap that several generations of well-meaning devs threw our way, beginning with UO:R, which a lot of us believe was the turning point, where UO ceased to be a medieval fantasy world where we could live, and became just another fighting MMORPG.
@Kelmo: I used to play on Siege some, pre-AOS. My character there still has his AOS robe. However, haven't played on Siege since AOS. I've barely even logged onto Siege in the last 7 years. Why?
1. I just couldn't see going through the slow, agonizingly slow, gut wrenchingly slow, grind of redoing his skills to survive in the post-AOS world there. Skill gains on Siege just seem like they take forever and a day.
2. I hate living out of a bank box.
3. I may have just moved to Siege and endured the slow process of making new characters if I could have had 5 characters on Siege. However, with just one character, I wouldn't be able to play the diverse ways that I like to play. I might want to play a thief today, a knight in shining armor tomorrow, a mage the day after. I might even dust off my tamer every great occasion. I might want to PvP today, PvM tomorrow and craft the next day. One character doesn't provide enough diversity.
4. A low shard population feeds on itself. I play on Atlantic, where there is a big population. Siege is almost deserted. I don't want to play on a shard with a really low population.
Yeah, if we do make a classic shard, and it's successful, it will, of course, make Siege even more deserted.
But think about it. If you're on Siege, that means you don't mind PvP. You're not really an item w&0+e. You won't die if you lose that great item you just looted because you couldn't insure it.
Don't you want to be able to play in a time where magic resist...resists magic? Where spell reflection...reflects spells? Where reactive armor acts like ... armor? Where you can glance at a weapon or piece of armor and see if it's worth keeping, rather than getting out your calculator and spending 10 minutes figuring out whether it will work with your suit? Where, in a battle, the person with the best skills wins, rather than the one who has swallowed the best power scrolls? Or where, in a battle, the best player wins, not the best suit?
If the players on Siege move to the classic shard, and Siege becomes a deserted wasteland, won't the players who have moved to the classic shard be having a lot more fun playing UO in T2A than they were, trying to play UO in Candyland? If you didn't want to stay on the deserted Siege, of course, you would be more than welcome on Classic.
All teasing aside, the truth is that Siege would probably be one of the hardest-hit shards. Most Siege players are veterans who played before AOS, who hated AOS, and who would welcome the opportunity to play in the pre-AOS world again.
I've noticed that a lot of current players on low-population shards who are against a pre-AOS shard have the same fears that you do: If the classic shard is successful, a lot of the remaining players on their shards will move there, leaving their shards a deserted wasteland. They may be able to place a castle for the price of a deed, but why bother, if there isn't anybody left to play with?
Likewise, a lot of the people at EA would be hoping that a classic shard is a dismal failure, because the devs and management who have survived from that era would have to admit that they made a mistake. And a costly one.
