cause population growth on possibly all shards. As it is now, when I use a shard shield to go to GL or LS I can't wait to go home (to Atlantic) to find things to buy, people to talk to, blah blah blah. We could have moongates to move from shard to shard, houses on any shard or all shards. Wouldn't it be fun? Kinda like the old days. I remember having five characters on many shards, and a house for each character. I sold all the Atlantic houses (7X7's) to Zamboni Driver. Some of you might remember him.
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If an account could have a house on, say, five different shards, we could...
- Thread starter Val Van Wolf
- Start date
- Watchers 4
A house on other shards might be a way to bring life to some lower populated shard but to get to them you need a Xfer shield or a token to move a char. Doing this for free will cut UO money in Xfers and make those Vets that took Shard Shields worthless.
Everyone condenses their houses onto 1/5 as many accounts, financials collapse, game cancelled.
Lets changes the Siege second house to include other shards.
Changes it too:
I don't think we should allow more than 2 houses on an account.
I do however have one problem, I only feel players should be allowed to have a Keep or Castle on an account, so if you already have a Keep or Castle and want to place one on a new shard, your old Keep / Castle will start to decay, even if on different shard. And if you already have a house on the shard for the new Keep / Castle, that will start to decay too.
Changes it too:
- An account can have a house on 2 shards
- Have to choose one to be primary house and the other one will be second house
- Primary house will stay for 3 months if account go inactive
- Second house will stay for one month if account goes inactive
- If you place/trade to get a new house on a shard you already have house on, your old house on that shard will start to decay
- If you place a house on a shard, you not have a house on, your second house will start to decay. You can changes what house are primary before you get your new house, not after one start to decay.
I don't think we should allow more than 2 houses on an account.
I do however have one problem, I only feel players should be allowed to have a Keep or Castle on an account, so if you already have a Keep or Castle and want to place one on a new shard, your old Keep / Castle will start to decay, even if on different shard. And if you already have a house on the shard for the new Keep / Castle, that will start to decay too.
They should just change housing limitiations to something similar like taming, where you have control points and different pets have different CP requirements.
Here they could use storage. Every acc gets 2500 storage, so you can place as much houses as you like, as long you don't exceed your storage cap (with the only two exceptions for keeps & castles, which would only count as 2500 storage points, since they have more than 2500 actual storage.). It would be then up to the player, if he wants to have five 7x7 plots with 425 storage (on a single or multiple shards) or a single castle...
Each 20% Storage increase would have to affect the cap as well, though.
Here they could use storage. Every acc gets 2500 storage, so you can place as much houses as you like, as long you don't exceed your storage cap (with the only two exceptions for keeps & castles, which would only count as 2500 storage points, since they have more than 2500 actual storage.). It would be then up to the player, if he wants to have five 7x7 plots with 425 storage (on a single or multiple shards) or a single castle...
Each 20% Storage increase would have to affect the cap as well, though.
It wouldn't grow the population, it would just spread it around (in theory).
I do like the idea of 2x houses per account (not including the SP house).
back in the day, it was limited to 1 house per account because the population was sooo high. A decade+ later, were quite a bit lower on the numbers, so i think this could change.
Thought about a vet reward for a "second house" but i dont think this would be fair to everyone if it was a 16th or 17th year reward =/.
However, i would not mind paying up to 50$ from the origin store for a "second house" token... (limit 1 per account).
back in the day, it was limited to 1 house per account because the population was sooo high. A decade+ later, were quite a bit lower on the numbers, so i think this could change.
Thought about a vet reward for a "second house" but i dont think this would be fair to everyone if it was a 16th or 17th year reward =/.
However, i would not mind paying up to 50$ from the origin store for a "second house" token... (limit 1 per account).
One of their concerns was always increased storage with multiple houses. So simply giving you another house to place on prod shards won't happen.
*sigh*
here we go again.
Not the answer. You could have a house on every shard and it wouldnt make the game more populated. When you are playing on one shard you arent playing on another shard.It would be the same amount of players just spread more thinly.
The answer is new players. Only F2P can deliver this.
F2p with 5 bucks per additional house per month. end the 90 day cheat thing. would make more $$ than we do now and happier players.
UO has lost millions of dollars because it hasnt gone F2p. its the perfect model. first house could even be 10 bucks a month with no limits, then varying costs. 1 dollar per month for up to 8by8, 3 dollars for up to 9 by 12, etc etc.
many players who currently dont open new accounts just for houses would take advantage of this.
thats just 1 of the 1000 ways UO could make way more $$ and increase player base by at least 300 percent. no idea why @Mesanna hasnt done this 4 years ago when the timing would have been perfect.
UO has lost millions of dollars because it hasnt gone F2p. its the perfect model. first house could even be 10 bucks a month with no limits, then varying costs. 1 dollar per month for up to 8by8, 3 dollars for up to 9 by 12, etc etc.
many players who currently dont open new accounts just for houses would take advantage of this.
thats just 1 of the 1000 ways UO could make way more $$ and increase player base by at least 300 percent. no idea why @Mesanna hasnt done this 4 years ago when the timing would have been perfect.
This does nothing to resolve the issue....this is the problem in UO today. Few are willing to accept what the game needs to improve ( F2P and less shards) they just want more crap for themselves. All the more reason to do these things....so the more selfish players will either change their views ...or rage quit and move on!
I would prefer F2P but have been given the impression that it will NEVER HAPPEN. So I made this suggestion about houses on many, few or all shards.
Of course you are right but my secret agenda (we all usually have one) is to have a castle. About the only way to get one would be to place one on a very low population shard and thereby giving up one of my 3 18X18s on Atlantic. I have never had a billion in UO and have no idea how to get billions and billions. But I still love UO, love some of my characters and will only quit when I find something better.
Once again I beg of you, DO NOT TALK MEAN AT ME, as one of my children once said. At least my original post here has caused some discussion and that is a good thing.
Of course you are right but my secret agenda (we all usually have one) is to have a castle. About the only way to get one would be to place one on a very low population shard and thereby giving up one of my 3 18X18s on Atlantic. I have never had a billion in UO and have no idea how to get billions and billions. But I still love UO, love some of my characters and will only quit when I find something better.
Once again I beg of you, DO NOT TALK MEAN AT ME, as one of my children once said. At least my original post here has caused some discussion and that is a good thing.
I like the idea. Like everything else, it will never happen of course. It also has nine million different issues, question marks and integral little dysfunctionality here and there. ( What happens to economy? Would ppl close many extra accounts cause of this? How much not being able to sell Xfer tokens would lose money for them?" etc etc etc.
Ignoring all these, I still like the idea. Across all shards, you could have...Say, one house between sizes Castle-18 x 18. Two houses around 14x14, three houses of 8x8. Still only one/shard though. You could not have castles on ATL and Europa both on same account. You could have Castle on Europa, 8x8 on Atl, 14x14 on Great Lakes. I think it'd be fun. It will never happen of course.
Considering the current population, UO would need shard merges SO BADLY. We have one pretty busy shard where game feels reasonably alive. And dozen(s!) of shards anywhere between ' little tooo quiet' and 'completely dead.' Would be so much better to have two or three shards full of life. ((And if some half dead shard hero interjects here with " but mah community!
" I'll tear my eyes out I swear)) Regardless, Shard Merge is another thing that can and will never be done so hay.
Next best thing would be a " soft merge" where people can move between Shards with relative ease and freedom. Like Moongate that takes you from ATL to Europa. 100 hour cooldown. This way I could do group hugging on Europa, PvP on ATL, RP on Castskills and PvE on Origin. Struggling, small RP guild on Catskill would suddenly have, not just Catskill players but entire UO playerbase as potential recruitment pool. Same for a Champ guild on Origin. Your idea would help and support this " soft merge" taking place. I think this could be done. It will never happen of course.
Ignoring all these, I still like the idea. Across all shards, you could have...Say, one house between sizes Castle-18 x 18. Two houses around 14x14, three houses of 8x8. Still only one/shard though. You could not have castles on ATL and Europa both on same account. You could have Castle on Europa, 8x8 on Atl, 14x14 on Great Lakes. I think it'd be fun. It will never happen of course.
Considering the current population, UO would need shard merges SO BADLY. We have one pretty busy shard where game feels reasonably alive. And dozen(s!) of shards anywhere between ' little tooo quiet' and 'completely dead.' Would be so much better to have two or three shards full of life. ((And if some half dead shard hero interjects here with " but mah community!
" I'll tear my eyes out I swear)) Regardless, Shard Merge is another thing that can and will never be done so hay. Next best thing would be a " soft merge" where people can move between Shards with relative ease and freedom. Like Moongate that takes you from ATL to Europa. 100 hour cooldown. This way I could do group hugging on Europa, PvP on ATL, RP on Castskills and PvE on Origin. Struggling, small RP guild on Catskill would suddenly have, not just Catskill players but entire UO playerbase as potential recruitment pool. Same for a Champ guild on Origin. Your idea would help and support this " soft merge" taking place. I think this could be done. It will never happen of course.
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In case of shard mergers, I wonder why people keep bringing this up. Does it increase the total population of UO? No. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't what most people want are more new players and paying customers?
I can see people's arguments for F2P as a way to bring in more players. But what do shard mergers have to do with that?
If you don't like your shard, move to a different one. If you want to play on a full shard with lots of people, move to Atlantic. If you want to play on a medium populated shard, move to Great Lakes. If not, play any other shard.
Now as for the OP's suggestion, I would say no. Simply because I feel that if you want more housing, open another account and help pay for the game that we love to keep it going. Any idea that gives players a chance to close or condense paying accounts, I am against.
I can see people's arguments for F2P as a way to bring in more players. But what do shard mergers have to do with that?
If you don't like your shard, move to a different one. If you want to play on a full shard with lots of people, move to Atlantic. If you want to play on a medium populated shard, move to Great Lakes. If not, play any other shard.
Now as for the OP's suggestion, I would say no. Simply because I feel that if you want more housing, open another account and help pay for the game that we love to keep it going. Any idea that gives players a chance to close or condense paying accounts, I am against.
Allowing an additional house on Siege didn't increase the Siege population. What it did do, is take away some prime locations for the regular Siege players.
I like Freja's suggestion with the primary house designation. At least make people who have vacation homes on Siege visit us from time to time to keep their homes.
Kinda like claiming residency in Florida, you have to live there for at least 6 months of the year to claim their tax benefits.
-Val'lyn
I like Freja's suggestion with the primary house designation. At least make people who have vacation homes on Siege visit us from time to time to keep their homes.
Kinda like claiming residency in Florida, you have to live there for at least 6 months of the year to claim their tax benefits.
-Val'lyn
Shard Mergers when coupled with F2P business plan will insure all shards have healthy sustainable population base. I dont believe that F2P in itself would resolve the issue...there is just toooooooooooooo much land mass. People wont invest time or money in a F2P game if the shards are mostly deserted. If you cut the shard numbers by 50% yes we will lose some whiners...but most people are so addicted they will keep accounts...especially since they are free! And eventually they will return to the game because they are addicted, and yes once again it is free. Yes they might close some of their accounts....or just stop using some of them. But this isnt a bad thing either. Some person with 10 accounts so they can have 10 different houses isnt helping the game because they are still just one person playing one account at a time typically. F2P and Shard mergers will generate way more revenue then it can possible lose.
It is about making world feel alive and inhabited. Larger the pool, smaller the amount of water poured in appears. Two liters in a pool looks depressing. Almost like there'd be no water at all. Two liters in a bottle is a nice juicy filled drink of fun times.
2k players can be a filled vibrant game full of life or a depressing wasteland. All depending on size and amount of pools.
Everybody who is not playing on ATL has an experience of very quiet-half dead game. If we had only two or three shards, everybody would have an experience of very vibrant game. Benefits are obvious I think.
And again, I too think it can never be done. It would be really good for UO though.Housing and player owned property is awesome thing. Like as not UO would be long dead without it. But downside, it does make something like this impossible.
Of course, getting loads of brand new players would be even better. That is never gonna happen either.Atleast not without F2P.
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This is no doubt the bottom line truth of the matter. I'll give you a real-life example. I created a character on Great Lakes yesterday (just for the fun of it), spent the whole day building her up to start farming gold, got to thinking how much gold I would need to buy a house ... and then I remembered, "Wait, if I place a house on this shard, it will condemn my house on Atlantic." It sort of irritated me to be reminded that the only way I'm going to have a house on Great Lakes is to create another account and make this new character a co-owner. So I asked myself, "Do I want to spend $12 or $13 a month for another account just so I can have a house to go with this new character?" It reminded me real clearly why this one house per shard rule is in place - so we will pay for more accounts - or at least be tempted.