Post Your Ideas Here to Repopulate Shards (Sorry Not Atlantic)

[Nails Warstein]

It is nice to see the Atlantic shard so healthy and populated. However lets make King Blackthorn decree " The Homesteader Act! " In an effort to repopulate the shards, mainly because players leave their shard to shop Atlantic which has been designated as the unofficial trading hub shard for all of Ultima Online, and sometimes never return home. Also you know how depressing it is for a returning veteran to come back to the game after playing years on a non-Atlantic shard to come back and see their original home shard vacant? This is why I advocate for repopulating the shards.

Here were my CRAZY thoughts. Potential coding nightmare.

1 - FREE daily vendor upkeep. No Charge! What a bargain! Never pay to sell your items on any shard except Atlantic. (My personal favorite idea)

2 - FREE one time transfer per each character to any shard OFF Atlantic. No free transfers back to Atlantic.

3 - Allow one additional house per account, perhaps in felucca only on every shard except Atlantic.

4 - An eighth character slot available on all shards except Atlantic.

5 - Faster respawn timer on all bosses, resources, and higher quantities of return on every shard except Atlantic.

Thank you for sharing your creative and positive criticism and/or explaining why it will never happen, work, or shouldn't be done.

 

[Goodmann]

Def something that needs to be adressed
1. Shard Merger

2. Multi Shard Transfer Gate (char only) maybe limit to once a month per char

3. One House per shard limit

4. Shard only item Spawns, Example Sonoma would spawn different items than ATL

 

[O'siris]

I like the transfer off Atlantic Idea, I would take a few characters away to test other waters if it was free. Also not being able to have a house, although its not horrible if you are just there for a little bit, but if I planned on actually staying there I would need another plot. Even if it was a small one.

 

[Gedgerez Tesherd]

A very interesting proposal for sliding the wealth & population of Atlantic spreading across lesser shards. There aren't too many delicate ways to shift population, other than server merging for shards (or cross server zones), which would never happen on UO, so in theory the Free 1 time xfer may help. Those whom consumed the massively duped Mythic character tokens can repent for their evil by taking that toon to a low pop realm in an attempt to add to their new shards growth & expansion. As for the vendor fee removal, sure why not, I play all servers, & that looks very motivating & uplifting, perhaps a breathe of fresh air to not upkeep fee's on servers with such a low population it takes weeks or months to sell a single item (have witnessed the long periods of time personally). I can say right now there are very few if any resource gatherers still at work on a daily basis on most low pop realms. Perhaps an additional increase in resource collection in Felucca, as well as reduced respawn timers for wood, & ore could spurt some motivation again (other than bot'ers hopefully). I absolutely love the proposal for an 8th char slot, seeing how my account is max'd, & never liked the idea of deleting toons, or amassing tons of gold to buy bulk full soulstones, so I just started playing other servers to make different templates. Left out, that I also think white candle alter timers at champion spawns could use a spawn timer decrease, as to spawning the 1st & 2nd levels faster. Then perhaps increase the white candle timer on the 3rd level spawn just a bit (non Atlantic). That's about the only boss timers I really have an issue with when messing around with champion spawns. Whoops left out the whetstone of innervation bosses, then I suppose those summoning alters should also receive a reduction timer to respawn the boss on each level slightly to match ones pace of cycling a full set of 3 summoned boss kills in Shame (non Atlantic).

 

[Orgional Farimir]

It is nice to see the Atlantic shard so healthy and populated. However lets make King Blackthorn decree " The Homesteader Act! " In an effort to repopulate the shards, mainly because players leave their shard to shop Atlantic which has been designated as the unofficial trading hub shard for all of Ultima Online, and sometimes never return home. Also you know how depressing it is for a returning veteran to come back to the game after playing years on a non-Atlantic shard to come back and see their original home shard vacant? This is why I advocate for repopulating the shards.

Here were my CRAZY thoughts. Potential coding nightmare.

1 - FREE daily vendor upkeep. No Charge! What a bargain! Never pay to sell your items on any shard except Atlantic. (My personal favorite idea) Maybe. This would at least help keep some items on the less populated shards


2 - FREE one time transfer per each character to any shard OFF Atlantic. No free transfers back to Atlantic.

This would be a good idea. It would really help if Atl is a person's "home shard" and have all char slots full.

3 - Allow one additional house per account, perhaps in felucca only on every shard except Atlantic.
This needed to happen years ago


4 - An eighth character slot available on all shards except Atlantic.

No 7 is plenty

5 - Faster respawn timer on all bosses, resources, and higher quantities of return on every shard except Atlantic.

No this would just let people script on the slower shards to xfer over to Atl. It is already being done, but this would make it worse

Thank you for sharing your creative and positive criticism and/or explaining why it will never happen, work, or shouldn't be done.

Maybe I am biased, but I think the shard populations are based off of PvP. IF there is a thriving PvP community then there are a lot of needs for items, consumables, drops, suits, and so on to support the PvPers. Because of the needs more crafters, shame farmers, peerless runs, and so on are needed, which would repopulate Tram.

So what needs to be done is 1 EM at a time hold a 3 month long PvP/EM event and broadcast it for 2 months before it starts. Maybe something like a RP war. Announcing it in advance would allow new PvPers to the shard to train/transfer characters to get ready. Giving PvPers a reason to log in to the slower shard on a constant basis will help increase the Fel population, which as mentioned earlier will help the Tram population too.

Now I am sure posters like Galen are going to be ticked off at this idea because it will help keep PvPers interested in the game, and they will post a long story as to why it won't work, but maybe we should all just ignore posts like that.

 

[Seona]

I am a strong advocate of a free transfer for characters and I've mentioned it in the past elsewhere. I don't think that just one token is enough though, make it so that you can bring your entire cast over from one shard to another. I played on Atlantic for the first month or so after I returned only to head back to Napa (the deadest server we have). While there isn't a ton of activity, there ARE a lot of core players and we get together and run dungeons and do other fun activities like that. I can walk through Feluccia and not see another soul the entire time I'm there and often head there to farm materials for crafting.

I think that the only way we could do a true server merger would be to create the new shard, advertise that it is for a Napa/Sonoma convergiance and then give a free token on those servers to anyone who asks for one (put a vendor that has Napa -> Redwood and Sonoma -> Redwood tokens at all of the banks). Then, once that's out there, let players transfer over as they wish for six months, at the end of the six months all remaining characters would be deleted(!) with a LOT of notice going out beforehand. The characters MUST be backed up, however, so that the EM on Redwood (just threw that name out there since they're both SF area) can reactivate characters that are on the account from the closed shards to the new one.

It's a bit crazy, but I really think that that would be the best way to pull a server merger off. That way no one is too upset and we don't have to worry about not being able to have equal placement chances for houses/towers/keeps/castles.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

It took one reply for this to become a shard merger thread.

I had expected at least 2.

Shard mergers are a bad idea. Some shard residents appear to like their small communities, like to know everyone, like to be forced to get things themselves when they cannot be for sale as reliably as on, say, Atlantic or GL/ Shard mergers would just piss off more people than it would appease, especially given that people who want a really populated shard can go to Atlantic either through character transfers or building up a new character, which folks here tend to argue is "too easy" anyway. So if that's the case why not start fresh someplace and see how things go? Housing is the most-often cited reason but as-important is just the general sense of being uprooted, when one of the appeals of this game is the sense of being someplace you belong. It's not like an FPS game where all the environments are interchangeable. It is for some I guess but those players are way smaller in number than they like to claim.

As to the actual point of the thread, incentives to join other shards? Firstly I go back to this: Some shard residents appear to like their small communities, like to know everyone, like to be forced to get things themselves when they cannot be for sale as reliably as on, say, Atlantic or GL. How long before the charm of those small shards is gone, thus killing the point (and this is if it the idea works at all)? How long before the residents of the bigger shards start to wonder if it's favoritism?

And if it doesn't work, how long after its being implemented will a shard merger thread start? I bet an hour after such an idea is Published game-wide, at most.

-Galen's player

 

[Voodoo Bad Mojo]

one house per shard.
who wants to play on a shard where ya have to live out of your bank?

 

[Doubleplay]

I have to say that the lack of economy on a small shard is a game killer for someone wanting to start from scratch. If you can find only a few legendary scrolls for sale (as an example) across the entire shard, then what is the point sticking around waiting and waiting for something to pop up. I do get it if the response is "then go get your own scrolls" but let's be realistic that is not going to happen. If higher end items are not for sale, or if all vendors are practically empty, then farming the ore, wood or etc. becomes pointless. What are ya going to buy?

 

[Merus]

I have to say that the lack of economy on a small shard is a game killer for someone wanting to start from scratch. If you can find only a few legendary scrolls for sale (as an example) across the entire shard, then what is the point sticking around waiting and waiting for something to pop up. I do get it if the response is "then go get your own scrolls" but let's be realistic that is not going to happen. If higher end items are not for sale, or if all vendors are practically empty, then farming the ore, wood or etc. becomes pointless. What are ya going to buy?

As someone from a very small shard I can tell you that most of the core players do not run vendors because there is no one to sell stuff to on a regular basis. That being said, any new player that asks will most likely get anything and everything they need to get off the ground free of charge. Are folks handing out 120 magery scrolls? No, but you can probably get a 110 or 115 free of charge. LRC suit? Prolly free of charge. Full spellbooks? Prolly free of charge. Warrior suits? Free of charge. The list goes on.

 

[Leonidas]

I would definitely play on others shards other than Atlantic if some of list were to happen.

 

[Stranger]

What is happening with the auction house system they were thinking about implementing? If they make the auction house system work across all shards instead of being shard specific that would solve the problem. Then you would no longer have to go to Atlantic to find an item or to sell an item. You could buy from Atlantic people and sell to Atlantic people while still staying on a small shard. Meaning every shard could buy and sell from each other without having to x-fer. Making finding items easier no matter where you play. Eventually the items would be spread across all shards and the prices would settle across all shards and everything would be equal. Then people could decide which shard they wanna play. Whether that is based off their best ping/latency or the best PVPers or the best role players or the best guilds or the best EMs and events or the most players so its not hard to find a group or the fewest players so they can play alone or the shard with the friendliest players or the shard with the best player ran events or the shard with the most housing available or whatever. People would find reasons to spread out.
Then those vet reward shields that everyone complains about wouldn't be so overpowered after all

 

[SunWolf]

You have siege that is supposed to for advanced players

You have Origin that is the em training ground now and it is a public test shard so to speak

You can make a shard for trading, the rare fest thing, rather than move around and such. Set it up as a buying and selling shard of sorts. The collectors would move there problay and make it active.

but come up with a plan that adds something to each shard, that makes it it's own. Might be to many shards to do this but just a idea.

 

[polanco]

I would love to get off Atlantic as well
but you can't find half the things you need anywhere else

It would probably have to be the players making a coordinated effort to move to bring back other servers

 

[Voodoo Bad Mojo]

You have siege that is supposed to for advanced players

You have Origin that is the em training ground now and it is a public test shard so to speak

You can make a shard for trading, the rare fest thing, rather than move around and such. Set it up as a buying and selling shard of sorts. The collectors would move there problay and make it active.

but come up with a plan that adds something to each shard, that makes it it's own. Might be to many shards to do this but just a idea.

siege is for advanced players?
your kidding right?

i think your missing what siege is about.

 

[Aran]

I've never seen the draw of playing on Atlantic. I don't think someone enamored with it would see the draw of playing elsewhere.

 

[Aran]

siege is for advanced players?
your kidding right?

i think your missing what siege is about.

I think you're the one missing it, actually!

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

siege is for advanced players?
your kidding right?

i think your missing what siege is about.

I will agree Siege is about trying to get back to a Pre-AOS era, but surely you would agree a player that is brand new to UO these days would be in well over their head. It is geared towards veteran players and those who quit the game because of the rules (insurance etc) that hit with AOS.

 

[Uvtha]

It is nice to see the Atlantic shard so healthy and populated. However lets make King Blackthorn decree " The Homesteader Act! " In an effort to repopulate the shards, mainly because players leave their shard to shop Atlantic which has been designated as the unofficial trading hub shard for all of Ultima Online, and sometimes never return home. Also you know how depressing it is for a returning veteran to come back to the game after playing years on a non-Atlantic shard to come back and see their original home shard vacant? This is why I advocate for repopulating the shards.

Here were my CRAZY thoughts. Potential coding nightmare.

1 - FREE daily vendor upkeep. No Charge! What a bargain! Never pay to sell your items on any shard except Atlantic. (My personal favorite idea)

2 - FREE one time transfer per each character to any shard OFF Atlantic. No free transfers back to Atlantic.

3 - Allow one additional house per account, perhaps in felucca only on every shard except Atlantic.

4 - An eighth character slot available on all shards except Atlantic.

5 - Faster respawn timer on all bosses, resources, and higher quantities of return on every shard except Atlantic.

Thank you for sharing your creative and positive criticism and/or explaining why it will never happen, work, or shouldn't be done.

Get more subs. End.

 

[Aran]

I will agree Siege is about trying to get back to a Pre-AOS era, but surely you would agree a player that is brand new to UO these days would be in well over their head. It is geared towards veteran players and those who quit the game because of the rules (insurance etc) that hit with AOS.

Er... Siege quite predates AoS and insurance.

 

[THP]

well iam working on a actual shard population numbers.

iam visiting all shards for a couple of weeks....

its pretty interesting too....and its shocking how unpopulated some shards are...

no spoilers yet but some shards as well as open castle spots free to place , nearly empty zento cities [ the supposed 2nd luna shopping ground] have even the odd luna spot open too...

coming soon!!!

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Er... Siege quite predates AoS and insurance.

Hmmm... never knew that. I started playing shortly after AoS hit, had always assumed Siege was done to save that old way from losing it then. Thanks!

 

[FrejaSP]

siege is for advanced players?
your kidding right?

i think your missing what siege is about.

It is for advanced players

- NPC vendors do not buy your wares and they won't sell most resources. That force you to trade with players and force you to play a little different as you can't just buy resources from npc's, craft stuff and sell back to the npc's.

- You can only have one char, that force you to interact with other players, when you need something, however you can as many soulstones you want.

- No kind of recall works, so you need a good mount, a frend who can gate or room for magery on your char or you need to know where to find public houses with teleporters and crystal portals.

- You can be attacked anywhere, so you better keep your eyes on the screen and do not sleep walk or you will get a free death robe

- Siege do not have item insurance, so don't leave town with something you can't afford losing. A backup suit in your bank or house make life much easier.

- Siege have one free Siege bless, that works on one item at the time. Spellbooks are blessed and some deco reward items. Clothes items without magic mods can be blessed with CBD

We do have players whostarted as newbies on Siege without trying other shards first, they are doing fine as they are not spoiled of easy play in Trammel

 

[FrejaSP]

I will agree Siege is about trying to get back to a Pre-AOS era, but surely you would agree a player that is brand new to UO these days would be in well over their head. It is geared towards veteran players and those who quit the game because of the rules (insurance etc) that hit with AOS.

Siege was born before AoS and Item Insurance. It was born without the old stat loss for murderes.
Like all other shards, Siege had changed over the years, we did not get the Trammel facet, Mugen did, Mugen and Siege did not get the trammel ruleset
We did get Malas, Ilshenar, Tokuno, Termur /Abyss but all without Trammel ruleset and Item Insurance
We did get AoS and it almost killed us as it made items very expensive to replace
With new dungeon loot and Imbuing, items become less expensive and Siege started to grow again.
Now where players can place a second house on Siege and can use adv and mystic char token, Siege are getting more players and it looks like new guilds and communities age growing up too.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Every thread (more or less!) of late becomes one or more of the following:

• A Siege thread;
• A custom rules shard thread;
• A shard merger threat;
• Some combination thereof.

None of these topics are of mainstream interest but the proponents of all of them are quite-popular boys and girls who have spectacular gifts for self promotion.

I can only hope the UO team continues to realize just how non-mainstream this stuff is. I fret that one day a team will mistake Stratics posters for UO players at large and thus flush the game down the toilet.

-Galen's player

 

[DevilsOwn]

Nails, what I see in all those proposals is an easier way for folks to farm other shards and take the goods back to Atlantic because of shard shields. The vendor proposal would allow selling all of those very high end rares at no cost. Uvtha is right, more subs.

 

[Warpig Inc]

Def something that needs to be adressed
1. Shard Merger

It has come to kicking around the bones of this dead horse. If the population of two shards agree to a merger, then let them compete in some shard contest to decide who is less dead.

2. Multi Shard Transfer Gate (char only) maybe limit to once a month per char

Bad for the origin store profit. Good excuse to make the shard shields not a veteran reward and something to sell on NPC vendors. Think EM events are a circus now? Guess how they'd be if players could just walk to them from another shard.

3. One House per shard limit

Hoarders and gold sales sites wet dream. If players really needed other shard storage space. The waters would be packed with ships. Some of us remember a time of docks and beaches lined with boats.

4. Shard only item Spawns, Example Sonoma would spawn different items than ATL

This wouldn't be that special if #2 became true. Example is the EM event item sales once cross sharded.

 

[Warpig Inc]

Fix More bugs.

Police the game better.

Bring back players by buffing up the golden oldies already in game. DOOM & BOD rewards a start. Adding more new and making returning players feel more behind the times is not a 5 stars way to pull back in vets.

Bring in new players without advertizinga. That leaves word of mouth from current players and game news reporting. How is that going? I would have the same sales belief in pushing bacon redpepper icecream as UO. And any reporting done is about the same as the story about "if a catus falls in the desert, does it make a noise?" if noone recalled into the area prior.

Scripters, dupers, gold farm AFK, sales sites and underground shards. Anything close to cutting off their nuts and taking them upstairs, storing them in the fridge as a reminder. Two birds win win. Like the world needs them reproducing anyway.

 

[Endal]

As someone from a very small shard I can tell you that most of the core players do not run vendors because there is no one to sell stuff to on a regular basis. That being said, any new player that asks will most likely get anything and everything they need to get off the ground free of charge. Are folks handing out 120 magery scrolls? No, but you can probably get a 110 or 115 free of charge. LRC suit? Prolly free of charge. Full spellbooks? Prolly free of charge. Warrior suits? Free of charge. The list goes on.

This is entirely true. I've only returned to Napa about a month ago and when I got here I almost felt like I was cheating because everyone kept giving me stuff to help with my skillgains. I've worked hard to return the favor, though. I sell suits at cost to new players and I've participated in a few group events and helped take out the boss with my 200 SDI. I've got a vendor, but I just sell the stuff that I make for new players there (and books with my ICQ number for free in case people want a custom suit).

I would definitely play on others shards other than Atlantic if some of list were to happen.

Come on over to Napa! We're the smallest community in the entire game, but we are active on the General Chat and our new EM looks like he's going to be a real fun guy! I'll help get you suited up and we can go beat up some Champs!

Siege

Siege is definitely for advanced players. I have my guy over there and I've made quite a few mistakes already. That said, I do still enjoy learning the curve over there a few hours a week. I've even got a house placed next to where my Napa house is at (good location, near Jhelom/Yew/Minoc). If you don't think that Siege is advanced, why don't you go over there and show the Shadowlords how wimpy you think they are (grins).

 

[Nails Warstein]

Nails, what I see in all those proposals is an easier way for folks to farm other shards and take the goods back to Atlantic because of shard shields. The vendor proposal would allow selling all of those very high end rares at no cost. Uvtha is right, more subs.

More subscriptions you both say, hmm.. Any ideas how? Perhaps maybe you both don't like my ideas, that is fine. Please propose some ideas of your own. No offense, but more subs isn't a solution. We need ideas that help foster new subscriptions.

Again I will advocate free vendor costs on all shards (not Atlantic) which will help returning players and new players alike. Its true, too many players do farm shards, and bring their goods back to Atlantic. (Maybe Origin Store likes this current model, its sells transfer tokens) However my proposal will entice shard farmers to keep their goods on the shards they farm on. This in in turn will seed the economy on all the shards. I will support any idea that helps shards become self-sustainable, and attract players to stay instead of quit. Again I've known too many players who return to find their shard dead, and decide to leave again. I want to put an end to this.

I also hope the new vendor search system (auction house) could somehow give players the ability to buy items from other shards perhaps without having to transfer to get that item. If they do put this feature into it the game, I am sure players won't mind paying some sort of transfer cost to get items off other shards (gold sink)

I appreciate all the positive feedback so far. Lets keep creating more ideas for the UO staff to consider.

 

[Assia Penryn]

More subscriptions is what is needed. I don't personally care if shards have a low population outside of the fact that it hurts the game's profit margin. As a player of Atlantic, other shards being empty doesn't hurt my playstyle... total population does. What is really needed is getting more people into the game and keeping those we have. I personally have been debating about pulling up shop and closing my account myself ... my account just turned 16 years old.

 

[Endal]

I also hope the new vendor search system (auction house) could somehow give players the ability to buy items from other shards perhaps without having to transfer to get that item. If they do put this feature into it the game, I am sure players won't mind paying some sort of transfer cost to get items off other shards (gold sink)

Now this I could get behind... the idea of being able to live on Napa but buy items from other shards like Atlantic with a 5/10% increase in price would be fantastic. It would probably destroy the Luna Vendor Mall, but I really don't care about that (sorry, I don't). Putting up an AH like that would be a HUGE step forward for UO, since no other game that I've heard of has done that. C'mon guys! Let's plan it for Patch 84!

 

[DevilsOwn]

the 'how' for new subs has been kicked around endlessly, and it's apparent that, on EA's end, nothing will be done in that direction.. I can tell every person I know that they simply have to try UO and maybe, just MAYBE, one of them might

if there was an easy answer for this one, all the shards would be hopping

don't think your ideas are bad, Nails, it's just like all good ideas there's a downside... would they help to repopulate the shards? perhaps... would more use them to farm the smaller, deader shards? most certainly, imho

 

[Zosimus]

Every thread (more or less!) of late becomes one or more of the following:

• A Siege thread;
• A custom rules shard thread;
• A shard merger threat;
• Some combination thereof.

None of these topics are of mainstream interest but the proponents of all of them are quite-popular boys and girls who have spectacular gifts for self promotion.

I can only hope the UO team continues to realize just how non-mainstream this stuff is. I fret that one day a team will mistake Stratics posters for UO players at large and thus flush the game down the toilet.

-Galen's player

All of the above is false.

It's more or less "I want threads"

Developers already know most regular forum posters are the minority to the actual player base. How do they know this? People that actually enjoy the game are playing the game. Not living on forums


Plus, the posters who regularly post here about UO subs and players have this super high number. If that is true, then there would be thousands of topics and thousands of posters. Not the same 40ish regular posters



Now to the actual issue about repopulating smaller shards......

It's on the shoulders of the player base. Use social media and talk to your friends. Get them to play the game and come to your shard. EA does not advertise UO. You have better chances to get the local drunk on the street corner to play UO by talking to him rather than depending on EA to fix the issue.

Players on lower populated shards can hold player events, get more involved with their shard community, make the shard fun to play.

In the end the true issue is ATL items can be sold for much higher prices than lower popuated shards That is why players farm low end shards and do mass x-fers to ATL to make their gold.

 

[temu]

http://oi40.***********/e0lq95.jpg

 

[The Zog historian]

It was the second suggestion of merging shards that did it.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Maybe I am biased, but I think the shard populations are based off of PvP. IF there is a thriving PvP community then there are a lot of needs for items, consumables, drops, suits, and so on to support the PvPers. Because of the needs more crafters, shame farmers, peerless runs, and so on are needed, which would repopulate Tram.

So what needs to be done is 1 EM at a time hold a 3 month long PvP/EM event and broadcast it for 2 months before it starts. Maybe something like a RP war. Announcing it in advance would allow new PvPers to the shard to train/transfer characters to get ready. Giving PvPers a reason to log in to the slower shard on a constant basis will help increase the Fel population, which as mentioned earlier will help the Tram population too.

Now I am sure posters like Galen are going to be ticked off at this idea because it will help keep PvPers interested in the game, and they will post a long story as to why it won't work, but maybe we should all just ignore posts like that.

Thanks for the shout-out; sorry for not recalling who you are in return!

At any rate, you're right that focusing on PvPers is not the way to go; there's not enough of them, and if there were more of them there would never have had to be a Trammel and never any need for the long list of incentives to get people there. People who like to deny reality deny those incentives but I've posted long lists elsewhere, nothing can change the basis reality of their existence, or the basic reality of their under-use.

Please note that a non-PvP focused game like Everquest 48,000 likes on Facebook. (Their new edition already has 37,000 likes.) Darkfall, which once was the candidate of the week to kill UO, has 3,900. Their focus on PvP (note this statement on their Facebook page: "The best PvP MMORPG is back with a vengeance. The cries of battle will be heard once again over the land of Agon") has not helped them. Shadowbane died a long, long time ago. Their PvP focus didn't help them either. Ultima Online has 22,000 or so, less than a less-PvP focused game like Everquest. World of Warcraft, where it's my understanding PvP is strictly controlled through a Factions-like system, has 5 million likes. (Granted they may share a Facebook with their strategy game titles as well but either way, the trend is quite clear.)

Facebook likes are not a perfect metric of popularity by any means, but a more reasonable one than "random dudes on message boards like to talk about how awesome they fight." Especially when they go out of their way to drag someone into the discussion who does not recall hearing their names.

Further, despite statements to the contrary, Shroud of the Avatar is still publicly on the fence about PvP. (Source: Their FAQ, which reads in-part: "And if you contribute at the Developer level or above, we will bring you into the inner design circle. In addition to getting general design ideas from you, you will have the chance to lend a voice on even the more contentious issues involved in game design. Some examples would be: PVP – Where, when and under what conditions? Persistent Housing – How can we make a housing market that creates opportunity and engaging gameplay? These are just a few of the design ideas we will be discussing in our Developer Roundtable discussions." thus clearly indicating they are on the fence.)

-Galen's player

 

[Ray_Martin]

Returning player here... I would have come back earlier if I could find a SOUL on GameFAQs.com for UO. I hope I don't get thought of as an advertiser for that site...

It has a lot more traffic and the UO boards are dead. If you can even find a board that shouldn't be dead... I think it'd do a lot for the game if all players from Stratics posted on it at least once a day and try to get it further up on the listings of PC games.

Some other things I've thought about and have already been addressed and probably beat into the ground... Player Housing needs cleaned up. Put an option on the sign that gives a reward of some kind. A one time use. Any account house that hasn't received it within a time frame gets demolished. Do this periodically.

If you're a veteran player helping out returning players (Thank you!) a runebook with a empty plot for a house would be a very nice touch and I think it's something new players might find exciting enough to stay for. If anything it may get them to pay one month.

Starting gear and Haven should be reworked to have content closer to the most recent expansion. When I played Haven was only reachable by most players by boat... so I know it's possible to twerk it a bit.

Vets are going to be mad at me, but gold needs to be tossed and a new currency used. I would go so far as to say that currency shouldn't have a physical presence in game at all if possible. Veteran players should get together to fix their economies and not be greedy hoarders. Vendor prices are RIDICULOUS. Auction Houses should have a gold sink somehow if nothing else.

Just my humble opinions on what may be possible to do.

Oh... Stop pushing Siege Perilous. It's not new player/returning player friendly. You may disagree and that's fine, but imagine being new/unfamiliar and starting on Siege.

 

[Silentfury]

There will never be a Shard Merger due to Player Housing. Plain and Simple.

 

[Doubleplay]

As someone from a very small shard I can tell you that most of the core players do not run vendors because there is no one to sell stuff to on a regular basis. That being said, any new player that asks will most likely get anything and everything they need to get off the ground free of charge. Are folks handing out 120 magery scrolls? No, but you can probably get a 110 or 115 free of charge. LRC suit? Prolly free of charge. Full spellbooks? Prolly free of charge. Warrior suits? Free of charge. The list goes on.

I totally agree with the facts as you state them. On my shard a beginning player can usually get fully outfitted, adequately funded and rack up quite a few friends in short order.
As a kid, I always wanted to accompany my father on one of his hunting trips out of state with his friends. When the day finally came that I was old enough to be invited, I was ecstatic. The trip was fantastic, with all my plans, my expectations, the trip out of state, the conversations, the camping, and finally bagging some deer, packaging the meat and loading the freezer when we got home. Please imagine...... What if just a few days before the trip, my uncle came by and told my father that he had just returned from a hunting trip, and offered to fill our freezer with his leftover meat. My father accepts, and cancels our trip..... Perhaps you can see my point.

 

[Merus]

I totally agree with the facts as you state them. On my shard a beginning player can usually get fully outfitted, adequately funded and rack up quite a few friends in short order.
As a kid, I always wanted to accompany my father on one of his hunting trips out of state with his friends. When the day finally came that I was old enough to be invited, I was ecstatic. The trip was fantastic, with all my plans, my expectations, the trip out of state, the conversations, the camping, and finally bagging some deer, packaging the meat and loading the freezer when we got home. Please imagine...... What if just a few days before the trip, my uncle came by and told my father that he had just returned from a hunting trip, and offered to fill our freezer with his leftover meat. My father accepts, and cancels our trip..... Perhaps you can see my point.

Hence why the new player should ask if they want the help. No veteran player is going to force anyone to use something or play a certain way.

It is also the reason I am very careful in just how much I offer. I am far from rich by UO standards, but I could scroll out and outfit any account from the ground up many times over. Yet, when a new player ask for things I am careful to help without making my help the endgame... ie... you might get a basic LRC suit... if you want the top of the line PvP mage set up, you will still have to earn it.

I am guessing on the fantastic trip Dad prolly bought you some camping cloths and gear... right? I certainly agree that being able to experience and earn your way into UO is a big part of what keeps people in the game. Those who are given top of the line everything don't have the same appreciation as those who have earned it. However, I think with the UO we have today there are some basic essentials that one needs in order to get out and start hunting.

 

[Arrgh]

Def something that needs to be adressed
1. Shard Merger

2. Multi Shard Transfer Gate (char only) maybe limit to once a month per char

3. One House per shard limit

4. Shard only item Spawns, Example Sonoma would spawn different items than ATL

I like this minus point number one and three!

 

[Lord Nabin]

I would love to get off Atlantic as well
but you can't find half the things you need anywhere else

It would probably have to be the players making a coordinated effort to move to bring back other servers

You can find them, you just have to earn them instead of shop for them.

You have to interact with the other players on the shard to help get your suit parts.

Interacting with a player base is what this is all about and what helps make the game play unique.

When I arrived on Siege to wander the forests of Sosaria. I had plenty of folks that wanted to help me get established there. Working on my own I eventually gathered what I needed and had a blast doing it.

The Good Old Moonglow Red is still a bit hard to find but from time to time someone takes pitty on the Old Sage wandering the lands of Sosaria and provides him with a flask.

 

[Minerva Foxglove]

Also there is an Atlantic guild that places books on other shards esp in Haven and tell new people to restart on Atlantics . I met new players that were convinced they had chosen the wrong shard and moved to Atl before they were established on Europa. They told me when they returned to Europa..
I have seen this book now and then for more years than I can remember *shrugs*

 

[THP]

Errrrr there is only one answer... so stop making it a taboo subject....[whatever]

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

There will never be a Shard Merger due to Player Housing. Plain and Simple.

Shard mergers are a bad idea, for reasons other than housing.

As stated earlier in this thread: Some shard residents appear to like their small communities, like to know everyone, like to be forced to get things themselves when they cannot be for sale as reliably as on, say, Atlantic or GL/ Shard mergers would just piss off more people than it would appease, especially given that people who want a really populated shard can go to Atlantic either through character transfers or building up a new character, which folks here tend to argue is "too easy" anyway. So if that's the case why not start fresh someplace and see how things go? Housing is the most-often cited reason but as-important is just the general sense of being uprooted, when one of the appeals of this game is the sense of being someplace you belong. It's not like an FPS game where all the environments are interchangeable. It is for some I guess but those players are way smaller in number than they like to claim.

I do, however, appreciate how some need to devolve a complex issue into a "plain and simple" argument, especially if the argument is something that one doesn't value. For example I could long ago have said "this game will not grow because of PvP, plain and simple." But I've avoided saying that because I know it is not "plain and simple," and because I know that one reason I'd say it is that I just do not value PvP. Reality is more complex than that.

But oh well. Going the "plain and simple" route works for most of the popular kids here, I guess.

-Galen's player

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

I am confused.

Your ideas are sound but they are not specifically designed to introduce new players into the game. They would simply move the existing players around.

What does this serve? If Atlantic has everything you need why move?

Do all your massive game changing ideas just so a few people can own a bigger home on a different shard? That's laughable imo.

Shards died. Let them rest in peace with the 3 silly historians still left on them.

Go Atlantic!!

 

[Nails Warstein]

I am confused.

Your ideas are sound but they are not specifically designed to introduce new players into the game. They would simply move the existing players around.

What does this serve? If Atlantic has everything you need why move?

Do all your massive game changing ideas just so a few people can own a bigger home on a different shard? That's laughable imo.

Shards died. Let them rest in peace with the 3 silly historians still left on them.

Go Atlantic!!

My point was I have known way too many returning players and new players alike try to thrive in UO, but found their desolate shards to be inhospitable deserts. I almost think Atlantians either don't care or fail to understand the dire situation out of ignorance. Hence these insensitive remarks. I wouldn't be receiving likes on this post or constructive criticism if it was not a legitimate issue that not only needs to be addressed. It desperately needs to be resolved and I am open to any thoughtful ideas that could help if even just a little.

 

[Ray_Martin]

Get more players by advertising what UO does. Get more players by boosting them more easily to skill levels of current players.

Current players are going to have to make some sacrifices... For example... Houses on multiple accounts just taking up space, Vet Reward system revamp so new players don't feel left behind, gold being dropped for a new non-physical currency. An understanding that PVP on UO is sub-par to other games and stop reminiscing about the Felucca only days.

Branding UO as a grown-up MMO that is established and with more customizable features than anything else found in the Genre.

Add new shards and phase out old shards. Atlantic/Siege being exceptions... This will get rid of inactive houses (Another sacrifice current player base SHOULD make), consolidate current players into fewer realms.

These are on top of what I've already said that was completely ignored.

Oh and an expansion that includes all content in one package.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Get more players by advertising what UO does. Get more players by boosting them more easily to skill levels of current players.

Current players are going to have to make some sacrifices... For example... Houses on multiple accounts just taking up space, Vet Reward system revamp so new players don't feel left behind, gold being dropped for a new non-physical currency. An understanding that PVP on UO is sub-par to other games and stop reminiscing about the Felucca only days.

Branding UO as a grown-up MMO that is established and with more customizable features than anything else found in the Genre.

Add new shards and phase out old shards. Atlantic/Siege being exceptions... This will get rid of inactive houses (Another sacrifice current player base SHOULD make), consolidate current players into fewer realms.

These are on top of what I've already said that was completely ignored.

Oh and an expansion that includes all content in one package.

What you call an "inactive house" is an account that's being paid for. I guess it's possible to bounce between accounts and maintain houses on a rolling basis, given the rules, but the bottom line is an active house, someone has paid money for.

Were I not a UO player I would not like the idea of a game that alienated its players on the off-chance of attracting new players.

Besides, as stated many times now, housing's just one reason among several that shard consolidations are a bad idea. Also wouldn't adding new shards while taking down old ones, in many senses, take us to the same place we were just at save that, now, current players are pissed off to boot?

-Galen's player