Server Merges, A Discussion.

[Wizal the Fox]

To make those threads about merging more constructive I think the first thing would be to delete all the posts:

1) that say "just use xfer tokens" without addressing their cost

2) that say "it will never happen and the devs have said so", because it is a plain lie repeated over and over by a few people trying to shutdown those threads

3) that say "just merge some facets" without addressing the technical issue of doing so.
It actually requires to completely change how the game technically works, we are talking about years of development, so THAT will never happen.

I believe after all those posts are removed, it would be far easier to discuss anything.
But sadly, what will happen of course is that 80% of the posts will fall into one of those 3 categories, and someone will end up locking the thread, without anything serious having been discussed yet again.

 

[MalagAste]

I adore deco and design... I would have zero intention of moving to a 7x7...

However the only thing that would get me to move as I said was a shard designed for playstyle.... but we already know from other games that have tried this that it WON'T work.

So, most won't even consider moving because of housing and/or history. Many feel attached to their home shard. Years of "fond" memories keep us where we are. Certainly I'd LOVE to have more players on my shard... especially role-players but I don't think that is going to happen.

One thing I can say is this... I've known several guilds/groups that have left my shard for "greener" pastures... sadly the reality is that 98% of the time when they left it was the "end" of their guild/group within a year. More often than not I have noted that when a guild leaves they do not fair well... often the group ends up with a fraction of what it had and eventually it dies out. I hate to see that happen at all.

I myself attempted to move shards once... but I found that the other shard no matter how good it seemed just never felt like "home". I just couldn't feel like I belonged there.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

To make those threads about merging more constructive I think the first thing would be to delete all the posts:

1) that say "just use xfer tokens" without addressing their cost

2) that say "it will never happen and the devs have said so", because it is a plain lie repeated over and over by a few people trying to shutdown those threads

3) that say "just merge some facets" without addressing the technical issue of doing so.
It actually requires to completely change how the game technically works, we are talking about years of development, so THAT will never happen.

I believe after all those posts are removed, it would be far easier to discuss anything.
But sadly, what will happen of course is that 80% of the posts will fall into one of those 3 categories, and someone will end up locking the thread, without anything serious having been discussed yet again.

In other words, delete all the posts that challenge the premise of the thread, which is that shard consolidations are good and necessary to the health of the game, and the only issue is how to manage them.

This is a premise there's very little, if any, reason to believe. It cannot withstand challenge. You poke, it and it crumbles.

Therefore it is understandable why folks who wish to support it do not wish to see it challenged. No one likes to see one's beliefs crumble before empirical reality.

By contrast, I say delete all posts that say to just delete posts that challenge the premise of the thread.

If the game's profitability were endangered by there being a lot of shards, shards would have already been consolidated. If the game were not profitable, the game would be dead already. The day UO isn't profitable, is the day before EA shuts it down. EA is not a nice company, is not sentimental, and is barely aware of our existence but suddenly they'll be all over us once we aren't turning a profit. Folks like Woodsman who appear to have knowledge of such things and appear to have clear minds tell us, convincingly, that server cost isn't much of an issue. And finally, the UO experience doesn't really require a large population, not for most playstyles.

The bottom line is.....Some folks like to be on highly-populated shards, and find it necessary to make those who don't go along with their preferences. And the more the premise is challenged, the more it is seen for what it is: A preference.

-Galen's player

 

[Woodsman]

One thing I can say is this... I've known several guilds/groups that have left my shard for "greener" pastures... sadly the reality is that 98% of the time when they left it was the "end" of their guild/group within a year. More often than not I have noted that when a guild leaves they do not fair well... often the group ends up with a fraction of what it had and eventually it dies out. I hate to see that happen at all.

I myself attempted to move shards once... but I found that the other shard no matter how good it seemed just never felt like "home". I just couldn't feel like I belonged there.

This is a part of the human cost right here. I remember a lot of guilds/player towns being gutted when Tram housing opened up. And those were people still on the same shard. Granted, it wasn't the easiest to move freely between facets at the time, but Tram was a knife cutting right through the middle of a lot of guilds/player communities. Now apply that to a lot of people transferring to completely different shards and it would be a lot worse.

And Tram was voluntary. Make it a forced move, and there would be a lot of resentment.

 

[Woodsman]

If the game's profitability were endangered by there being a lot of shards, shards would have already been consolidated. If the game were not profitable, the game would be dead already. The day UO isn't profitable, is the day before EA shuts it down. EA is not a nice company, is not sentimental, and is barely aware of our existence but suddenly they'll be all over us once we aren't turning a profit.

That's the key. If EA needs to save money on UO, they aren't going to try and save a few hundred dollars in electricity or cooling costs by closing a shard, or try to make back a few thousand dollars by selling the hardware off.

They are going to go for laying off a developer or artist who costs EA $50,000+ in salary and benefits. Or they will ditch the EM team.

And if they reach that point, they could/would shut it down as you say. They have no serious attachment to UO. They make more in one day from a game like Battlefield than they make from UO in a year.

And finally, the UO experience doesn't really require a large population, not for most playstyles.

I think that mentality comes from treating all MMOs the same.

A game like Warhammer requires a large server population, and you actually see a lot of people begging for server merges. UO on the other hand doesn't. Warhammer lives and dies by whether they can bring masses of people together. UO is full of people who like to spend a lot of time doing things that don't require other players.

 

[Woodsman]

To make those threads about merging more constructive I think the first thing would be to delete all the posts:

Don't forget the posts that describe the idea as an actual "merger".

It's not a merger, not in the least.

Atlantic or Great Lakes or Lake Superior players are not going to be asked to "merge" with a smaller shard, and ATL, GL, or LS players are not going to be asked to give up their castles and keeps and prime housing spots in a forced move.

The smaller shard is going to be asked to give up their castles and keeps and prime housing spots.

It's a forced move is what it is. They are not going to close down an Atlantic and force those players to move to a small shard. The small shards will suffer.

 

[Adol]

Unlike many modern MMOs, Ultima Online already allows you to make characters on any shard, anywhere in the world that you like, and has right from the word go at no extra cost at all. And regarding ping, well thanks to the spread of broadband, the current recommended shard for me here in the UK is actually Pacific, according to the classic client, which has half the latency of my own shard Europa (down in 17th currently when sorted by Connection). It's not really a dominant issue then today. No, the only limitation on where I play full time is the 1 House Per Account rule; so with that in mind, what is the only identifiable, server side reason people are staying put?

And what would a physical merger of land mass interfere with?

Exactly. Why people even feel the need to try and debate around the idea is beyond me; nothing is stopping people voluntarily going anywhere the population is now, except ties to investment in property or personal history; so it takes a staggering mis-reading of the playerbase's values to think that destroying that bond, the one that keeps them playing here, may be in the best interests of this game.

A far better approach instead would be to suggest clusters of Instanced realms, that all shards within a group access together; so that people keep their home base, but can adventure together with a larger community in. Something like a single Malas that everyone in North America etc accesses.

And if paying for a few extra servers to host new realms couldn't be justified...what about allowing your own house to be mirror-instanced instead? So if you were playing on Atlantic say, but your account's house was on Europa, you would have a limited option to access it from the housing database anywhere via a special rune, so you could use it's storage etc for all your characters. But without said house having to physically be on Atlantic, or having to abandon it on Europa to play with people on Atlantic. There'd be no extending the database size either because you'd still be limited by that houses storage limit. Sure, it would ruin the character transfer token trade, but that should in turn give you another big hint as to where EA/Mythic see the real revenue stream lying...

 

[Chad Sexington]

My suggestion:

1. Create a Trammel only shard.
2. Let people transfer to the Trammel shard, but not transfer out.
3. Let people transfer to Siege Perilous, but not transfer out.

People will transfer willingly without being forced. There will always be too much resistance if you try to force people to give up their homes. Make it an option and there won't be any room to complain.

 

[Hi my name is]

My suggestion:
Create a Trammel only shard.

That's every shard in UO - siege/mugen. Literally the only difference between a shard now and a trammel only shard is powerscrolls would have to be available in tram. That thought alone disgusts me.

 

[old gypsy]

My suggestion:

1. Create a Trammel only shard.
2. Let people transfer to the Trammel shard, but not transfer out.
3. Let people transfer to Siege Perilous, but not transfer out.

People will transfer willingly without being forced. There will always be too much resistance if you try to force people to give up their homes. Make it an option and there won't be any room to complain.

Every shard has Trammel. It would be pointless to make a special Trammel only shard.

Your second point is moot in view of the logical response to the first point.

I thought the whole idea behind Siege was to succeed the hard way. To allow a fully skilled character to transfer to Siege would unbalance the shard and undermine the purpose for its creation in the first place.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

That's every shard in UO - siege/mugen. Literally the only difference between a shard now and a trammel only shard is powerscrolls would have to be available in tram. That thought alone disgusts me.

This is a misconception of, or a deliberate lie told by, Fel players. Either way there's items besides power scrolls and there's rewards besides items. Looking through the UO Guide will get you a fuller list.

A Trammel-only shard will surely have more players than will a Fel-only shard, either in present form or in the form of a custom-rules shard.

But either way the topic of the moment is forced server moves.

For better or worse (and I think mostly for better) I really doubt making more shards is in the cards.

-Galen's player

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

I think that mentality comes from treating all MMOs the same.

A game like Warhammer requires a large server population, and you actually see a lot of people begging for server merges. UO on the other hand doesn't. Warhammer lives and dies by whether they can bring masses of people together. UO is full of people who like to spend a lot of time doing things that don't require other players.

Do you really think it's that accidental?

You could be right, but given other posts in this thread I in my darker moments think that it is a deliberate attempt by people whose playstyle does depend on more people to get people to move to them instead of the other way around.

-Galen's player

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

I thought the whole idea behind Siege was to succeed the hard way. To allow a fully skilled character to transfer to Siege would unbalance the shard and undermine the purpose for its creation in the first place.

You'd think that but I see an awful lot of posts asking for such and such a thing to be made easier on Siege.

-Galen's player

 

[Chad Sexington]

I thought the whole idea behind Siege was to succeed the hard way. To allow a fully skilled character to transfer to Siege would unbalance the shard and undermine the purpose for its creation in the first place.

In a perfect world, yes.

At this point, I think there are more people who say, "I've always been interested in trying out Siege, but I don't want to start from scratch" compared to the entire population of Siege... maybe many times over.

If that weren't the case, I'd be the number 1 cheerleader for no transfers to Siege, ever.

 

[old gypsy]

In a perfect world, yes.

At this point, I think there are more people who say, "I've always been interested in trying out Siege, but I don't want to start from scratch" compared to the entire population of Siege... maybe many times over.

Even so, I'm wondering if there might be some resentment from hard-core Siege players if such transfers were to be allowed. Current Siege players had to start as newbies and work their way up. Someone coming into Siege with an advanced character developed on a regular shard might not be welcome by some. Just a thought... I don't really know.

 

[Chad Sexington]

Even so, I'm wondering if there might be some resentment from hard-core Siege players if such transfers were to be allowed. Current Siege players had to start as newbies and work their way up. Someone coming into Siege with an advanced character developed on a regular shard might not be welcome by some. Just a thought... I don't really know.

Yeah, I used to play Siege and went through it like everyone else.

Then again, I don't play anymore, I just manage a fan site these days. So maybe I should just shut my mouth.

 

[Poo]

1. how are you gonna move my 3 castles to these shards and get all my stuff there?

2. what kind of of compensation do i get for you deleting 21 fully developed, suited and scrolled out characters per shard.
every shard.

3. is server maintenance really that much that my $45 a month isnt helping? i would think that with 120,000 subscriptions a year would easily pay for that. (thats over 21 million in case ya dont have a calculator handy)

4. some of us have always played on small shards because we like that atmosphere. we like not having to wait in line behind 20 other people to kill a critter, why should be be forced to move and play on a packed shard?

 

[Poo]

i always thought that posts about shard mergers where made by people who cant make and keep friends on their own.
they have to force people to play with them, ya know the type, their parents had to create play dates for them.
like seriously, why do i need to be forced to go play on a big shard when im perfectly happy where i have been playing for 14.5 years?
the cost argument is crap.
EA will never let UO die even if 5 people are playing it.
why?
because its the oldest MMORG.
that is free media right there, not to mention bragging rights.

"ya thats right, we have the oldest and longest running online game in the history of the world, go ahead and look us up in the Guinness book my friend"

no, you dont pass up bragging rights like that, specialy when its being paid for by the players.
and have you looked at the other games that EA has in the field right now?
that new Star Wars one has a bigger player base then WOW!

you dont think they would spread out the wealth from some of their other games to some of the lower producing ones to makes their bag of stuff look nice and full to anyone who comes shopping?

 

[Woodsman]

Do you really think it's that accidental?

You could be right, but given other posts in this thread I in my darker moments think that it is a deliberate attempt by people whose playstyle does depend on more people to get people to move to them instead of the other way around.

Those people whose playstyle depends on more people..I would think they would already be on a well populated shard.

If Atlantic, and some of the other larger shards aren't populated enough for them, I doubt that forcing people on smaller shards to move to larger shards is going to solve their population problem.

That's assuming that people who forced to move and give up their houses/castles/keeps for something crappier on a larger shard are going to be willing to stick around.

I've changed houses and locations several times since coming back, and as of this weekend am back to the point where I can easily bank or store the items in my houses on characters if I walked away again or wanted to move elsewhere, but if I had a castle, keep, or multiple houses next to each other or some really cool spot on a smaller shard, and was told I had give all of that up to move to a larger shard, I would walk away.

I have a friend who actually paid a few hundred bucks for a castle in a nice spot on a smaller shard recently. He's wanted a castle in a certain place for literally years, and he got a good deal (I think). I can't imagine the rage that he would go through if he was told he had to move to a larger shard and give up having a castle.

 

[DreadLord Lestat]

Forced Server Merge

I personally enjoy playing on a medium populated shard. I enjoy people being around and doing things with them when I want to but I also enjoy not having to wait in line to kill things. Being forced to leave my shard and start over on a new extremely crowded shard would cause me to quit UO for good and not look back.

Forced Server Merge

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

That's every shard in UO - siege/mugen. Literally the only difference between a shard now and a trammel only shard is powerscrolls would have to be available in tram. That thought alone disgusts me.

This is a misconception of, or a deliberate lie told by, Fel players. Either way there's items besides power scrolls and there's rewards besides items. Looking through the UO Guide will get you a fuller list.

A Trammel-only shard will surely have more players than will a Fel-only shard, either in present form or in the form of a custom-rules shard.

But either way the topic of the moment is forced server moves.

For better or worse (and I think mostly for better) I really doubt making more shards is in the cards.

-Galen's player

You make no sense.

Every shard is basically Trammel only bud. Are you seriously trying to tell me that the few fel specific items are an issue to all your supposedly blissful Trammel folks?
You cant be completely happy in your world because of a few paltry items that in your own words are easily obtained/bought?

I really wonder how happy you are if that is your only issue. Sadly I think you just need something to whine about no matter what you are given. You will never be happy.

How come you almost never see a fel player complaining about the items that are only obtained outside of fel? Hrmmm...

 

[Kael]

Would love to see this happen

Drop it down to say 3 - 5 shards...be kinda like the old days with these shards each having a healthy population

The housing issue would be tricky...but i'm sure some form of accomodation could be had to appease most

 

[old gypsy]

The housing issue would be tricky...but i'm sure some form of accomodation could be had to appease most

Sure. If I was on a low population shard, I'd say move my house along with its entire contents to the exact same spot it currently occupies, and do the same for every other player forced to make such a move.

I don't see it happening. I might have considered it at some point in the past, but no longer. When my ability to make my own choices is removed from UO, that will be the day I finally hang it up and move on.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

You make no sense.

Every shard is basically Trammel only bud.

I just checked at a Moongate, saw an option for Felucca, so....

Didn't read the rest of your post....If you start that detached from reality I can only imagine where you'll wind up.

-Galen's player

 

[Velvathos]

They should just open up the green acres(it's huge, one shard alone can have a castle for every player in the green acres) and place keeps there. Give the keeps to players who's shards are closing down, allow them to claim the keeps. Only players who's shard is going to close down to claim such a keep in the green acres...

Allow free transfers back and forth as much times as they want to so they can move everything.. Give it a very good time limit(at least 90 days) till the shard closes..

Shards with ancient RP history and tons of lore should be the ones that stay.. Lake Austin, Lake Superior, Great Lakes, Baja, Napa Valley, Origin,
Sonoma and Legends can all go..

Keep Europa, Drachenfels and Oceania due to their server locations and where the player base comes from..

This leaves us 4 shards + Siege.. Pacific, Atlantic, Chesapeake and Catskills should be the ones that stay due to their background and their population. Siege Perilous should remain opened..

8 American servers would basically close down..

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

EA/Mythic will never talk about UO beeing unprofitable with the player base so we wont get any info about this anyway - they are a company like others are - f.e. if you are CEO of a multibillion dollar company, would you talk about in public that some of your businessunits are unprofitable? I dont think so - and i work for a multi-billion company - you dont speak about this in public.

So better forget about any EA/Mythic employee starts to talk about this - BUT keep on posting IDEA's like that! Because most of them are reading them!!

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

i would think that with 120,000 subscriptions a year would easily pay for that?

Hey Poo, is that real numbers for UO according to official notes or a guess?

I just cant "feel" that high number - i am just curious about the source they come from....i was guessing UO got around 50k subscriptions highest anymoe..but i have no source for this - just a guess..

txs

 

[Carharrt]

UO IS profitable or it wouldn`t be running. Do the math... some say 50k? Well assume theres only 20k players,at 12 dollars a month thats $240,000 a year. Now just how much do you think it takes to keep electricity going to a few servers and pay a few people to work on it?

Not to mention braggin rights to the longest running MMORPG.

After its already been said that merges won`t happen,its kind of amusing to read "close this one and that one" like it ever has a chance in hell of happening.

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

You mean 240k by month..

Well i have no clue about the online and gaming industry, i dont work there BUT, if they still have aprox. 175 employees working there not only for UO but also fpr the other games, producing, designing, etc.. it might be not that much revenue it sounds in first caluculations to keep profitable - just do the math..

At the end - everything we THINK we know, might be totaly wrong, even anual reports from EA mythic, Bioware Mythic however they realy call themselves now, will not tell us the truth since its just a small part of the EA universe...

 

[Woodsman]

EA/Mythic will never talk about UO beeing unprofitable with the player base so we wont get any info about this anyway - they are a company like others are - f.e. if you are CEO of a multibillion dollar company, would you talk about in public that some of your businessunits are unprofitable? I dont think so - and i work for a multi-billion company - you dont speak about this in public.

UO IS profitable or it wouldn`t be running.

Actually Carhart, Galen, myself, and others are right - if UO wasn't profitable, it would have been closed down long before now. Anybody who thinks the top EA executives harbor some kind of hidden love for UO or will keep unprofitable games around for a long time has clearly not been paying attention to the last 15 years. They've moved the teams from the middle of the country to one coast, and then all the way to the other coast. These moves severely disrupted UO. How ironic that BioWare Austin is an incredibly large studio these days and is in part, in charge of EA's biggest and most expensive MMO. Rather than invest millions to really grow UO, they've greenlit competing projects for UO that sucked up millions of dollars and then canceled those projects. They've let UO be impacted by idiotic corporate turf wars. They've laid off a lot of UO team members even while UO is profitable.

Pause and think about that for a moment: EA laid off UO team members when UO was turning a profit while other games weren't. That speaks volumes about how the upper management of EA thinks of UO. They were willing to cripple a profitable game simply because other games were costing them too much.

After watching what happened to UO when Warhammer crashed and burned and they gutted Mythic as a result, I'm not the only one who was worried that if Star Wars didn't do well, BioWare might be gutted.

 

[goldenpower]

There may come a time where the costs of server maintenance and just keeping 13 north American shards open becomes totally unprofitable

I doubt it.

I think all the East Coast shards are on the same server. I don't think it costs them much to host more than 1 game world on a server.

also, EA's servers probably do a lot more than just host UO game worlds.

I would say the most expensive part of UO is the salaries/benefits etc.. that EA has to pay employees working on the game. when it becomes unprofitable they will simply fire people, when they have to fire so many people they can't run the game anymore they will shut it down or sell it.

 

[Woodsman]

Shards with ancient RP history and tons of lore should be the ones that stay.. Lake Austin, Lake Superior, Great Lakes, Baja, Napa Valley, Origin, Sonoma and Legends can all go..

This leaves us 4 shards + Siege.. Pacific, Atlantic, Chesapeake and Catskills should be the ones that stay due to their background and their population. Siege Perilous should remain opened..

8 American servers would basically close down..

Are you really arguing that Great Lakes, Lake Superior, Baja, Napa Valley, etc. have no ancient history or lore?

And you want to cram the populations of all of those shards into four shards that are already medium or highly populated? And green acres ain't a suitable replacement for those other 8 shards.

Congratulations, you've just told a large portion of players that their history and their housing and everything they've done doesn't matter. You've told them that if they were on Atlantic or Pacific, their houses and characters matter, but if they are on another shard, they have to lose all of that.

You get credit though. You didn't pretend it was a merger, you were upfront that your idea is a forced move.

 

[goldenpower]

They should just open up the green acres(it's huge, one shard alone can have a castle for every player in the green acres) and place keeps there. Give the keeps to players who's shards are closing down, allow them to claim the keeps. Only players who's shard is going to close down to claim such a keep in the green acres...