Which is why my accounts are now not being renewed when the game time runs out. I think we have tried every way we have open to us, repeatedly, to try get things changed, but with absolutely no impact at all, and I'm too tired of watching such a great game, and so many good people, be so woefully treated - but that's a rant for another thread....
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its not an oxymoron unless you look at things from the simplest of equations. naturally theres multiple variables and factors involved. i think it makes perfect sense.
btw we're not talking about any resemblance to a real life economy, we're talking about a healthy game economy not primarily based off buying, but on getting items yourself. In any mmo the real life cost / time commitment must be factored in when analyzing what makes content worth doing. I have built around 30 fully scrolled / geared characters in the last couple years without finding the need a single time to actually do daily content myself to get the things i need to suit/scroll those characters. i think this is the case for many players and a large reason why players assume they have to buy everything. i just dont think building even 1 character fully with absolutely no need to play the game content should even be possible, and the ability to easily farm items because of low competition among other factors contributes to this.
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I agree to the extent that low shard populations are not the sole reason for low populations. We'll just have to agree to disagree on the rest of it
And that's okI agree to the extent that low shard populations are not the sole reason for low populations. We'll just have to agree to disagree on the rest of it
So you want high prices because in your opinion players should be forced into getting their own stuff. No Loot in your opinion would be worth anything so PvPers would have to go get all their own stuff. You really need to step back and read what you are preaching or trying to preach. You can not have a vibrant economy when prices are skyrocketing out of control. You can not force people to play a game the way you think a game should be played and still have fun. You can not force all US players onto Atl no matter what you think might be the benefit. Ping and lag alone would destroy any pleasure people think they may get. All West Coast players would burn the Devs at the stake. What are you really trying to build here, to me alls your really trying to do is shove as many people into Atl that you can get just to watch UO die IMHO even faster than what it is. DAoC get rid of some shards/areas, did that boost their total player base and get more people to play, no it did not so I guess that Broadsword looked at what DAoC did and saw that shard mergers provided no benefit at all. So the only true benefit to a shard merger is really in the mind of the people backing this idea because DAoC you know the other game that Broadsword already proved it.
Truly you need to ask who really benefits the most from a shard merger. RMTs would love this. People who lose their shards would hate this and most likely vote with their subs. PvPer on Atl would love this because more people would have to hear their childish BS in gen chat. Atl vendors and house owners on Atl will price gouge and clean up. We will have the return of the Gank Squads in fel and also have to listen to them in Gen Chat, more sheep for the gready. Atl doesn't have a Community it just has more players. Just because you have more people does not mean more people are working together.
IMHO the more someone tries to push their ideas/beliefs the more it looks like the person they are trying to help is in fact themselves. You can not benefit the few and expect the majority to following willingly like sheep to the slaughter. You know for a fact that people will not stop selling goods and you know for a fact that prices will go up and the true benefactors of a shard merger are the people with the resources, you know the sites that have endless supplies of goods for sell, so who are you truly trying to benefit, because it does not benefit the majority of UO.
So are you implying that every player should be forced to go to Fel to do champ spawns and harrowers to get skill and stat scrolls for their own characters in order for UO to have any chance of surviving a few more years?
If we don't want players to be able to buy items, but rather play the content to obtain the items themselves, then not having items for sale on a slow shard should be a good thing... Yet you site it as a negative point if favor of shard mergers (nothing for sale = broken economy)
Yet you say that you have been able to buy items for all your characters without ever needing to do content. This has a couple flaws. How did you get the gold to buy the items? You must have done some content, right? And someone had to do the content in order to have the item to sell to you, no?
A good economy is not about everyone having to do all the content, I think a good economy comes from players doing the content they enjoy and trading rewards with those who enjoy different types of content. For the most part I believe the lack of items for sale on slow shards is primarily driven by the fact that most of the players there are long time vets and are for the most part self sufficient.
I'd benefit because I'd have more people to role-play with. No money/gold/items involved.
One thing that would really help with keeping new & returning players would be a good information source that tells people how to do things in the game. There are commands in this game that are not listed anywhere and you never hear of them until someone mentions them in these forums. I'm currently training a Tamer on Siege and it was a hassle until I ran across a post that mentioned the Follow command 'alt left click' on target. Another one was the 'Cntrl-Q' repeat last keyboard entry. The manual that came with UO:Ren listed a bunch of commands but I have not seen them documented anywhere since.
People come to this game for the first time or return after years away and can't find such basic information to do basic things in this game. This needs to be fixed.
The game I play when I'm not playing UO has a website called gswiki.play.net that apparently works much like Wikipedia does. It was originally a site set up by a player and called krakiipedia and looks to have been taken over by the game company during one of my UO sessions. Something like this would really help as a good information source for UO players. It outshines the games offical info pages dramatically. Who knows the required info to play a game better than the players who play it.
I can't really imagine a conceivable way to merge anything that is already out there. Current dungeons, Tram housing, etc. It would have to come with very awkward restrictions on trading and looting, otherwise people would find ways to use it mainly for Xfer economy or some weird abuse.
However, I can absolutely imagine future expansion having dungeons/lands that are all about Xfer.
" Hero, we must send a part of you 100000 years to past because of reasons. Nothing you own can follow your avatar there!"
This land of the past, where everybody spawns naked and without a coin to their name mind ya, would then be one single land mass, combining each and every server. Dungeons, housing, everything. It'd also give a golden opportunity for nice and merciful soft-wipe for the gigantic clusterhump that passes as UO's itemization and skills. You could then have full cross realm dungeons and the like there. Nothing comes with your avatar to the new lands..and nothing leaves to direction of your character in old lands. Yet, you lose nothing you have back in old lands.
Soft reset.
Maybe give change to earn your "original character" some cool **** via some bind-on-account reward tokens earned on new lands but cashed in on old lands.
However, I can absolutely imagine future expansion having dungeons/lands that are all about Xfer.
" Hero, we must send a part of you 100000 years to past because of reasons. Nothing you own can follow your avatar there!"
This land of the past, where everybody spawns naked and without a coin to their name mind ya, would then be one single land mass, combining each and every server. Dungeons, housing, everything. It'd also give a golden opportunity for nice and merciful soft-wipe for the gigantic clusterhump that passes as UO's itemization and skills. You could then have full cross realm dungeons and the like there. Nothing comes with your avatar to the new lands..and nothing leaves to direction of your character in old lands. Yet, you lose nothing you have back in old lands.
Soft reset.
Maybe give change to earn your "original character" some cool **** via some bind-on-account reward tokens earned on new lands but cashed in on old lands.
So there are not enough people on Atl for your liking. How many more people do you need. Or is it that the RP you pick is not everybody's cup of tea and you think it is ok to force people to your shard of choice and what do you do when they don't want to RP with you, force them to?
DAoC did shutting down lands give you more subs, because subs are the bottom line, NO! OMG why not, it should have. Money is the bottom line and a shard merger will not give UO any more subs, in fact they could very well lose a lot of subs and close down UO. So you chose UO or what looks like more people but in fact is really less people because of lower subs and kills UO.
No, I don't really think that's it at all.
Are you actually interested in my observations and experiences with RP Community population trends over the past 3 1/2 years or are you just looking to demonize my motivations some more?
an easier fix rather than shard merger at this point would simply be player bound arties / items. i hate to say it, but in the current state of the game that would be the easiest fix. it would solve alot of the problems with UOs buy/sell mentality and get people playing the game again.
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I really don't see how artifacts being on sale have anything to do with the population of a shard (which is a strong premise for the merging according to some people). There isn't enough interest for people to farm m'arties and such on the lower population shards, very true. I rather like that - gives blacksmiths a chance to make and sell their wares... which honestly is the better solution imo. That leans toward community.
When dropped items got better attributes than what the crafters could make, it created a serious vacuum in the economy. All those crafters were suddenly without customers, even for repairs! Artifacts fell from the sky like rain! Everyone and his cousin was out farming the "latest and greatest content" to get the "latest and greatest items" and when they had enough for themselves, they sold their surplus. Players were out farming artifacts and, if memory serves, is what started the current "economy" for no longer were the markets driven by finely crafted wares - but by those who got the most drops the fastest. Personally, I have so many artifacts, I purposely DON'T USE THEM for I feel it is boring being the most twinked out character. I've been hoarding artifacts - to unravel them.
Yes, I destroy artifacts.
Prior to the artifact storm (some call it Age of Shadow - its just Age of Stuff to me), I think it was all pretty balanced. Were some crafters price gouging in the past? Yep... but they quickly earned bad reputations and thus, were not very popular.
If the majority of players are so keen on farming drops and arties - of course there would be an imbalance - flooding the market with too many of the same thing when people already have loads of arties in their storage containers. Shoot, I've seen artifacts get left behind at IDOCs!!!
As I see it in other games - the crafter is the cornerstone. They are the ones that keep the markets active - by buying up the resources others collect, by creating items from those resources, and then selling those created items as the players' demand rose.
What happened to UO is the players' demand for crafted items fell, the crafters no long had a purpose, the items they could produce no longer could compete with that which was farmed. So those people who were die-hard crafters, left. Of the majority of people I used to play with, almost all of them were crafters. Aye, they had combat characters, but their fun was really in crafting.
Its slowly reversing.... I'm currently lost in the mire of reforging and imbuing benefits as most others are.
But the question really is, how can we, the players, change the state of the game? Or should we rely on the providers of our game to force us to change?
hrmmm...
Who are you trying to convince, me or you that you have all the answers? How old do you think the average UO player is, probably a lot older than you might think. Do you really believe that as adults playing a MMO that is we truly believe what you are trying to sell that we could not/would not have already Xfer to another shard. Please give the population a little more credit than that, we are not a bunch of children that need to be led around and told what is best for us. I have been here for more than 17 years and if I truly believe anything you are trying to sell me I would have moved already. Do you really think that you have come up with a unique idea or the OP. This is not the first time and Mesanna is not the first Producer to say this is not a good idea. So why is it that against all these great ways to build a better mouse trap that UO is still here, may it be that we get to play a game the way we want to play it. People need to use common sense when they try to shove an idea down someones throat, the harder you push the more people will be alienated against your idea. You can say the same thing 100 different ways but in the long run it is still the same thing. If your RP buddies truly felt that it would be better to move don't you think that they are adult enough to do so or do you truly believe that the majority of UO players are a bunch of little children that do not know any better and should be led around by the nose. Think before you speak, we are not children. We are adults and we make adult choices and if you push adults we speak with our wallets and not a bunch of rants or ideas that force other to play a game we chose not to.
OMG are you serious "PLAYER BOUND ITEMS", LOL. So what you think is good for UO is that every toon has to have their own items and that no toon can share with others. Please tell me you are not serious about this. Your idea kill all the trades people in UO. Your idea kills all the crafters in UO. Your idea kills all the tamers that get non tamers their pets.
This is getting beyond whatever. Here is the bottom line. Uo can do what UO wants to do and as an ADULT I will make an ADULT decision as to whether I approve or disapprove of the changes with my wallet. I as many others that play UO are ADULTS and make Adult decision every day and we truly do not need to be led by the nose and told what is best for us. By all means change UO to the point that the majority no longer care for and when we as paying customers stop paying then I can already hear the people ranting that it is our fault for making an ADULT decision to no longer support something that is not fun for us. When they close UO because of ill thought out ideas and the consequences that come with them you will have nobody to blame but yourselves. I am going back to playing UO my way, sorry you don't think it is the right way. LMAO
A lot of people are looking at this in black and white. Lets step over yo the grey side for a bit.
Its no more true that everyone would quit if they merged shards than it is that more people would play if they did.
Lets face it no one wants to play a dead shard but I'm certain they are given plenty of opportunity to fix that with shard shields for some anf transfer tokens for the rest. Most shards will help you even restart.
New players already have the option to go to a populated shard.
The biggest problem is since they are using transfer tokens as a cash cow they aren't about to reduce the amount of shards reducung sales for these.
All in all I think content brings in more players, not population.
Its no more true that everyone would quit if they merged shards than it is that more people would play if they did.
Lets face it no one wants to play a dead shard but I'm certain they are given plenty of opportunity to fix that with shard shields for some anf transfer tokens for the rest. Most shards will help you even restart.
New players already have the option to go to a populated shard.
The biggest problem is since they are using transfer tokens as a cash cow they aren't about to reduce the amount of shards reducung sales for these.
All in all I think content brings in more players, not population.
There is also a bit more involved in talking business than trying to sound intelligent and talk about subs.
At the end this comes down the cashflows, which subs are only one aspect. Another is clearly the store, which from a business point you might wonder why it is not available in game in 2015?!
A business person might ask how they prioritize their work and if they plan for return on invest for their development time. The team will probably say they implemented a in-game system of "refinements" for a couple of weeks. It didn't bring in revenue, but it's a fun system*.
Another business person might ask for their marketing strategy, and they might say they are relying on players doing basic marketing for them for years now. Let alone complex campaigns or social media strategies. For a long time they often even didn't update all news on their own UO.com and the likely most visible game patcher news.
They even pay EMs and Event coordinators but fail to make even a tiny bit of out-of-game marketing from it. A single screenshot for posting on UO.com would be a start. A paragraph of lore could do better.
From a business point of view is pretty clear that the agenda set for UO by Broadsword/EA is completely meant to let it live that way. It's hard to believe the Dev team - all working in business for decades - is not seeing all this points.
We only interface with Mesanna at one end of the chain though, having no idea how long the chain above her is, and what decisions are made for what reasons along this chain. And even that interfacing consists rather of her famous "maybe in may", "we will look into it" and the like.
The only point to talk to them business is through your wallet. Play the game and pay or quit. That's also the forumla for shard mergers.
But everbody that thinks some effort on Stratics is going to make it up the chain at Broadsword/EA is free to take it
*said some guy somewhere on Stratics
At the end this comes down the cashflows, which subs are only one aspect. Another is clearly the store, which from a business point you might wonder why it is not available in game in 2015?!
A business person might ask how they prioritize their work and if they plan for return on invest for their development time. The team will probably say they implemented a in-game system of "refinements" for a couple of weeks. It didn't bring in revenue, but it's a fun system*.
Another business person might ask for their marketing strategy, and they might say they are relying on players doing basic marketing for them for years now. Let alone complex campaigns or social media strategies. For a long time they often even didn't update all news on their own UO.com and the likely most visible game patcher news.
They even pay EMs and Event coordinators but fail to make even a tiny bit of out-of-game marketing from it. A single screenshot for posting on UO.com would be a start. A paragraph of lore could do better.
From a business point of view is pretty clear that the agenda set for UO by Broadsword/EA is completely meant to let it live that way. It's hard to believe the Dev team - all working in business for decades - is not seeing all this points.
We only interface with Mesanna at one end of the chain though, having no idea how long the chain above her is, and what decisions are made for what reasons along this chain. And even that interfacing consists rather of her famous "maybe in may", "we will look into it" and the like.
The only point to talk to them business is through your wallet. Play the game and pay or quit. That's also the forumla for shard mergers.
But everbody that thinks some effort on Stratics is going to make it up the chain at Broadsword/EA is free to take it
*said some guy somewhere on Stratics
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It is very BLACK AND WHITE. Why do you play UO, because it is fun. If it were not fun you would not pay a fee so you could play. Now what is fun to you may or may not be fun for another. But the bottom line is we play for fun.
It is very true that when UO no longer is fun you will quit. Now for the most part everything UO has done to our game in the past we can accept and still have fun if not than why are you still here.
Lets face it there is no such thing as a dead shard in UO. I can say this with 100% truth. As long as there are houses on a shard than someone is paying for an account to maintain that house and whether you see that person or not means nothing, they are still supporting their shard and UO the way they think is right and nobody has a right to tell anyone else how they may or may not play UO.
If you really wanted to Xfer I find it very difficult to imagine that you could not find $20 or save some every month and buy the 5 pack from that other place. If money is truly that tight then you have no reason to be playing UO in the first place or even paying for the internet. UO, cable, internet, phone, movies of anything nice comes long after all bills and food is in the house. It is called taking care of family first. You don't even have to Xfer a toon a month but anybody that can afford to play should be able to Xfer all their toons with in a year.
IMHO you are %100 right about content out weighing population. There are players that comeback every upgrade to see what is new and if they like it enough they stay. Something has made UO not fun for them and they are hoping the new content will bring back the fun.
It's not black and white because there are no definitive outcomes to shard mergers. Very few things are all or nothing.
While I appreciate your candor, I really wasn't making an argument for or against mergers.
We can debate what we consider a dead shard but really distracts from the money side of it.
I'm really not sure what you're getting at about xfers, it seems we are making the same point but I'm not sure about the family part. The doesn't seem neither here nor there with my post.
Forgive me but there are shards that do not have the Abyss?
*puzzled*
Just trying to follow.
You guys realize that there is a very simple reason and solution for everyones sake that doenst involve moving/closing/shutting down any servers. Go back to what caused the great change up in why atlantic became the vendor hub of UO. The shard transfer shield is what changed everything. This should not be a 14 yr reward! They should either remove the transfer shield from the game or make it a 1st or second yr reward. Then everyone can go and get everything they need from other shards instead of countless farming hours if they choose to. It would bring vendors back to other shards as people could go buy up stuff cheap on atl and return it to their home shards for profit. It also would put a stop to the overly rich from monoplisig the market. Game Set Match
"Abyss ruleset" shards are Siege/Mugen - it's a term from a while ago that sort of stuck, but pre-dates Stygian Abyss by many years.
Just one correction...Having shard shields means that the person is/was loyal to the game and is being rewarded for doing so. I take offense to the insinuation that because I have shields (was loyal) I am to be looked at as a problem. Instead I would appreciate a thank you for continuing to pay my subscription and keeping the game going. I can understand jealousy and coveting what others have, but to accuse us of being a problem is just preposterous.
No your selfish. If you think your shield is deserved just for being around longer then you are not good for the future of uo. All you care about is making your gold off the new people. Every shard was populated just fine with tons of vendors until the shard shield came out, if you think different you should not play the game. People shouldnt have to transfer twice just to buy stuff that used to be regularly vendored on their own shard until they came out. Ive been playing for ten years plus and if I had them I would still say the same thing. Peoples time put in doenst mean anything to anyone except yourself, you are no more important to uo then someone whos been paying for 6 months. Unbelieveable how full of themselves vets think they are, they would rather see the game die them do anything to help it.
Assumptions much? How exactly do I make gold off new people?
I think there is a mirad of reasons why shard populations deminish. I am also not nieve enough to think it is only one thing like you. As far as a vets value, ummmm obviously someone at UO values vets. Otherwise I wouldn't have shard shields and you wouldn't be so upset about it....
Your straw man argument is bunk. I either swallow your warped opinion fully or I am some how full of myself, selfish or any other cute little derogatory word you can muster.
I expected you to resort to disparaging my character and calling me names, just not so soon. It means your opinion/theory is weak and without merit thus instead of arguing the benefits of you opinion and selling people on it. You fell you have no other options but to resort to attacking ones character. Sigh....
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Captn Norrington
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I take offence to this. I and many others with shard shields will gladly do transfers for other people to help them, with no personal gain whatsoever. I have had shard shields since the first day they came out, and have almost a full set currently. I have only used them for personal reasons about 10 times in the entire time I have had them. On the other hand, I have done free transfers for other people well over 100, if not 200 times. I am not alone in that, there are quite a few shard shield owners who use the shields to help the community not to "make gold off new people".
As for your assumption that shard shield owners somehow "raided" other shards to take all the vendors away, that is not correct. I saw it all from the beginning, and I promise you that shard shield owners are not the main cause of it. The locals on each shard independently started moving their items to Atlantic to sell for profit with normal transfer tokens long before shard shields came out. All the shard shields did is make it cheaper to do transfers for those people, they would still be doing the same thing with or without shard shields. The only difference is that using shard shields lets them save the gold they would have spent on a normal transfer token.
Are you serious? Just how long have you been playing UO, sounds like a very very jealous person. By the way this started long before Shard Shields were even thought of. UOs population has been declining from just shortly after Age of $hit came around. I guess you have never heard of Xfer Tokens, they are sold at the store and other places and have been around a long long time and yes people did use them a lot so your assumption is nothing but a rant because you are jealous of those that have been rewarded for paying for this game 14+ years. If it was not for the diehards you wouldn't even be playing UO to whine about this. May be you should be thanking us for keeping UO alive for so damn long.
LOLOLOL. Wow just wow. Did you notice only the people with the shields are upset with my post? Go figure. Im not saying everyone that has them is doing it for profit but it sure makes it a lot easier for them to just xfer stuff to atlantic to sell doesnt it. There is hardly even any regular transfer tokens for sale in game anymore. If you dont think that shard shields ruined most shards economy then your just blind to it or dont care at all about the game. Its really sad what uo has come to now. It also reminds of why I dont bother to post on these forums anymore. Grab your shovels vets and keep digging the hole for uo cuase you like your shard shields.
Lol another vet who thinks they are personally responsible for keeping the game alive. HAHAHAHAAHAHA. UO would still be here if you quit, your not that important. Make the game better for everyone who plays not just yourself. I think its hysterical you will play the vet card over helping make the game better. Do you not think more people would play if they could more cheaply get the stuff they need without endless farming and spending hundreds of millions? And no Im not jealous of it, I have billions of gold and made it all on servers that were not atlantic. Earlier in this thread I read about a guy who just wanted to make a simple bokuto mage weapon and couldnt cause no runics wre available to him on his shard, thats completely absurd. Is he supposed to buy two xfer tokens just to make himself one weapon or buy it. If I was new or returning and ran into that I wouldnt bother to play at all.
The topic of your post is about shard shields. Of course people with shard shields are going to say something. You are surprised by this? hhmmmm ok....
You said I was selfish and all I care about doing is making money off of new people. Now you are walking it back and saying not everyone with shields is this way....which is it? I suppose the lack of transfer tokens is Shard shield peoples fault as well? How about this, we have now heard you say twice that anyone that does not believe what you have to say is blind, selfish, full of themselves, etc. Where are the facts, I have heard none to support your case? Some advice, stop attacking people, calling them names, using straw arguments and throwing out platitudes at people that disagree with your opinion. You just might have more successful time on public forums.....just sayin'
Why not make a crafter and make it himself {{Mind blown}}. Engage the community to have one made. Buy one token and move where the people are. Go to Tok and get one as a drop. Your opinion is not the only solution.
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Now this is very funny. You accuse us, the long term vets for milking players for gold. You say that there are no resources on other shards and that is also our fault. You say we are selfish and it is because of us that UO is the way it is.
Let me pull something out of your quote " I have billions of gold and made it all on servers that were not atlantic." Here it is people, lets talk about the person milking other out of their gold. If there are no resources on other shards then how did you make all that money. Why is it that you assume we sell all our stuff on Atl. and not other shards. Why do you assume that we don't buy stuff on Atl and take it back to our home shards. As for the guy wanting a Bokuto why if you were there and have made all these BILLIONS didn't you offer to make him one or am I wrong in assuming that you made your BILLIONS off of players by providing them with goods and services thus helping out the shards you play. Or did you make your BILLIONS the other way and are just pissed that your RMT for Xfer Tokens are on a downward spiral because of us 14+ year vet.
It really is funny that people whine about things that rewarded long term vets but are so clueless that if it was not for the long term vet that UO would have died years and years ago and all these new people would have never heard of UO or had a chance to play it.
You really have to look at things and ask yourself why is this a whine and what is it really affecting. Is it affecting UOStore, i don't think so or they would have never allowed Shard Shields. Now ask yourself if it is affecting RMT sites because they are not selling enough Xfer Tokens. YEP YEP YEP kind of makes you wounder doesn't it folks or when someone claims to have made BILLIONS but doesn't appear to be able to make someone a simple Bokuto.
Why didn't the Great DC make him one is the better question.
I farmed champ spawns for a few years and raided people who ran them. I literally made all my gold selling scrolls and replicas on my home shard. I got the items there and sold them there. I didnt farm them then move to atlantic to sell them. What I am saying here is shard shields are the reason people started moving to sell things on atlantic. There was tons of vendors then and they were stocked with just about anything you needed. And yes the vets take advantage of it. As far as that random post I was refering to about the weapon, I dont even know who it is, it was just an example i read in here, jesus. I feel like I need crayons and a coloring book to conversate in these forums.
Everyone still seems to dance around the question I asked couple posts ago.
Would the game be better if everyone could get what they needed via use of those shields if it was a lower reward?
Its probably too late now as that was like 3-4 yrs ago and its been ruining ecomonies since then but the sooner it gets acknowledged the better the shards will be with population and resources of any kind. I personally dont need the shard shield, Im just speaking for the people that would be able to do much more in game if they could have it. Oh and by the way i have been playing since 97 but not continuous on one account, I still think shard shields was awful decision then and now. Everyone should be able to use them or noone. Period
...ah referring to the "Abyss Shard" not Stygian. Y'all and your fancy lingo! hehe Thank you for unpuzzling me
*wispers* you think I'd know more terms.
The game would not be better. It would be different. The game economy started shifting when shard transfer tokens were introduced. Then we had duping. http://www.uoguide.com/Duping
I have been privileged to have someone transfer stuff for me years ago at no cost bringing my (very extremely useless) stuff from Great Lakes where I started and recently a very nice fellow brought me my (very extremely useless) hat I had on Atlantic at no cost. (talk about attached!) People will learn to fend for themselves. We as UOians have survived years without having to have "The best of the best of the best!" Those of us who as you state and I quote " Im just speaking for the people that would be able to do much more in game if they could have it"(sic) didn't have it in the beginning as we were growing up. If they want it that bad, they can go to https://www.origin.com/en-us/store/...d/addon/ultima-online-character-transfer-code and buy a couple. I don't have any and I am living.
Honestly there is nothing as wonderful as working hard to get something so it is appreciated it. If you make everything easy, you take away one of the founding good feelings of accomplishment that is missing from so many other games that makes UO stand out.
I am not going to compare your comments to any real life things, but if you think just for a mere moment, something might come to you.
I'm curious. I am under the impression that multiple people still pay a subscription fee for this game when by a relative viewpoint, nobody plays the game? When I left every person I knew hacked and cheated, and that was only when you eventually came across someone by happenstance. I think a shard merger would be great, but if you are worried about new players caring about population, I think you should be more worried about new players not wanting to pay a subscription fee for a 17 year old game when there are brand new, very excellent Triple A titles available for free to play with the option to purchase in game content that you can also choose to earn for free. Call me crazy, but if you want to keep this game breathing more than a year longer, I might suggest that you stop pilfering money for an outdated product. No disrespect meant by my before mentioned thoughts, I just think that if you truly love the game, you will stop charging for very few are far between updates of any relevance and work on the core structure of the game and stop charging money to do so. If the players love the game, they will choose to support it.
I am the more unusual reguarding this since I have a grandfathered account. I have houses on Atlantic, Lake Superior, Baja, Catkills Yamato and Balhae. Depending on my mood I will play where I want and since Im almost 18 year vet and have Shard Shields...yes Im special and proud of my non stop payments to this game for over 17 years. I don't think anything should be changed. Unless UNLESS it is the ONLY way UO can survive. Person can play a shard with out a house 175 items in a bank and even riding a beetle with another 125 is alot of items and Yes I do that too. Blah....
The trick is creating new content that doesn't get eaten up so fast. Most people, and you will see this with the information and guides that come out with the newest expansion of any game, read and go through something fast paced to get the item first to sell or use it. No one take their time anymore. It is a gimmie gimmie world. No one wants to see UO die, but I (we?) don't want to see new people come in lost. The game has tons of in game content to keep people busy. A new player, unless they macro or do extreme power gaming, is not going to max out their characters in a year and do it all. I've not even done it all. I agree with working on the core structure, but why would you suggest cutting off the income to the very people who would do it?
One of UO best features that they don't list anywhere on their site is the ability of customization of the characters. There is no "you have to to play a character this way". There is nothing to draw you in. Everyone talks about UO being a sandbox game, but do not promote that feature.
This is sooooo true!
WoW released whole garrison expansion - I maxxed it out in just over a month.
Maxxed three of my toons in less than that time.
Got bored.
Returned to UO.
I've yet to be completely bored in UO. It might get tedious... but never boring.
Here's a short outline on what would help UO... and all this PLAYERS can do.
- Instead of bank-sitting in Luna all the time, bank-sit in New Haven
- Greet the Newbs
- Offer assistance
- Organize "Noob Events" where newer players actually feel welcome
- Announce in GenChat of a dungeon crawl/net toss - don't do it alone!
- Post positively on the forums (not just Stratics)
- Share your adventures on your Shard Forums (yeah, this is on Stratics)
- Link to exciting adventures on the Shard Forums in your Facebook (if you use Facebook that is) or any other social media
- You don't have to say that it is YOUR character
- You can just say, "Yah! I play an old game! Its still good!"
- Help new ppl feel WELCOME - give them a tour of the shard (yes, even in Fel)
- Don't be so negative all the time
- Take pictures of your houses and post them - anywhere - UO is still the ONLY game with the level of unique-customizability in the industry.
We all know grassroots movements are powerful - we don't need to merge shards - we need to bring in new subscribers. Why should _only_ Broadsword and EA have to do it?
I knew nothing about UO until my sis convinced this one-time-apple-fanatic that yes, PeeCees are good for something other than calculations in a spreadsheet. Not only changed my view, but my career as well as my gaming habits. That had nothing to do with hard marketing.
Imagine if New Haven and a New Haven Dungeon was instanced and you could greet every new player that steps foot into this game?
It would look like this:
*new character appears"
Vet player "hello new player, welcome to Ultima Online. my name is vet player. I would like to help you"
New player "selling UO gold for .20 per million at [edited - we'll just say "some website"]"*
Vet player "screw this, that's the 59th one of those today" Kal Ort Por
*not a real site as far as I know, just meant for illustrative purposes. Not intended to promote any RMT site.
Edit by admin - I know the site you put in was a fake one - but we don't wanna give anyone ideas.
Your point is noted though. *sigh* ~Kirthag
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That's lol. You know how long it takes to farm for a specific runic of any sort ? BOD rewards weeks.... Doing the Elf quests... days at the least. Now add in I need the silly Whetstone from shame to finish, which = 1 out of 5 drop on 3 different bosses, which require 10 shame crystals which if not on lvl 5 has a drop rate of about 1 in 50... so, the point is still valid. To get a single weapon in the game as a returning player its going to still take me 100s of hours for ONE SINGLE WEAPON! ( don't even factor in, that who knows if I roll the right mods etc.. etc.. and I still need a forged runic tool from the store to ensure the weapon I just spent a billion hours farming to make doesn't break when I try to enhance....). Not even mentioning group content, I don't have a lot of people online that are very social on the shard who want to go farm peerless with me( and I mean freeking farming) I don't have a lot of the items you take for granted centures etc.. etc.. .
And just for the record, I have all req. crafting skills maxed. Its the ITEMS that require GROUP effort to create I can not come up with, because the GROUP has all been moved to atl. I am not going to start over from scratch with 0 support on atl. Just because I have not been playing doesn't mean I have not been supporting UO by paying for my accounts. I have 2 castles and a MAG plot ( that I won from that auction around the high seas time...) with the deed. To me if I have to start over from scratch, just to have access to resources needed to compete, ill go play a newer game. In the end though, if something doesn't change Expansion whatever... I am going to unsub and not worry about checking back and that's the issue with UO.
Why not make a crafter and make it himself {{Mind blown}}. Engage the community to have one made. Buy one token and move where the people are. Go to Tok and get one as a drop. Your opinion is not the only solution.
Your retort only seems to address one of the three options in my post you quoted. How about, ".............Engage the community to have one made. Buy one token and move where the people are. Go to Tok and get one as a drop. Your opinion is not the only solution."