Cross Shard World

[Cymidei]

After reading about a someone trying to move seven accounts to a new server I had an idea...what if there was a new world/map where players all shards could travel to that featured a capital city, hub, auctions/commerce, PVP, PVE challenges and an area for events? Perhaps limited by region so we'd get good pings (East, West, Europe, Asia). Event ideas...world/regional PVP tournaments, meet and greets, EM events, etc.

I think it would be a good idea because it would help the community interact, find groups for PVE and PVP, and in general have a lot more fun than we do now on our isolated shards but we could all keep our shard communities/houses/towns intact

If you found a really cool guild maybe you could pack up and move to a new shard using the existing systems.

 

[Captn Norrington]

That kind of already exists. Test shard. anyone from all shards can transfer their character and any items they want there. It is frequently used for events, for example a couple years ago an in-game UO anniversary party was held on the test shard Luna fair area.

 

[Cymidei]

Well yes..but what I am talking about would be more permanent and you could take items back home!

 

[Tanivar]

Well yes..but what I am talking about would be more permanent and you could take items back home!

The game would lose to much money from transfer token sales and transfer shield owners would scream bloody murder. The devs would never hear the end of it.

 

[Theron]

The game would lose to much money from transfer token sales and transfer shield owners would scream bloody murder. The devs would never hear the end of it.

True.

Otherwise it looks like a great idea to me.
Could be some place accessible by regular portal, just a town for people to meet. Maybe we could skip the character and item transfers, but just a place for people to teleport into and talk to other shards without having to go copy a character, etc.

 

[MalagAste]

I still think that having a "cluster" of 3 or 4 shards "linked" by a central location like if they all shared Eodon, the Lost Lands and many Dungeons... Including the Abyss... where you couldn't say go from Atl to Legends but you "shared" those area's and could go to say Papua and trade with people on Legends or whatnot... would be good and beneficial to the dwindling populous. Add in a "Fel" only type zone for larger group PvP and such... give bonus rewards for that perhaps have some sort of "shard" base which folk from each shard could "defend" and such like VvV only with the 3 or 4 shards all defending against one another might make it more interesting. Kind of like a "king of the Hill" type thing which occurs say 1 or 2 times a week with smaller daily skirmishes that might determine what can be used... Never know.

At any rate it wouldn't kill the market on shields or transfers but might encourage more community.

And if the DEVs "really" wanted to make "money" then they would do things more like many free shards and offer services... such as allowing Player towns to buy things like Banks, Stables, Docks and such... which could be added to the maps by EM's or DEV's or the PEC..... or even GMs or something..... as well as selling things like the full bookcases, the Churchy looking benchs, special house deco items... etc... one use pet dyes... they could charge 2 or 3 bucks a month extra to add a second house... There are other things they could add like Dread Warhorses, special mounts, Special Clothes.... I mean how many would have paid to have the 15th anniversary robe but couldn't go to the meeting? Adding stuff like that would certainly bring in any needed cash.... but I think before any of that "could" happen... EA would have to loosen the purse strings so to speak and allow the DEVs to create something where they control the store NOT the Origin Store. I'm still waiting for the "in-game" store. To me that's something I'd very much like to see. If they could do that they could do any number of things including allow folk to add "years" or Months to their account age by paying for it. They could limit it so that you could say only add 3 months at a time in a 30 day period up to X # of months per year or whatever. This would not give "unfair" advantage... since they are still paying just like everyone else... but it would make many returning players VERY happy if they have the means to age their account back to where they once were when they can't retrieve a lost account. Or it would give people who can afford it the means to "catch up" to where their friends are. Again.... by paying.

Anyway just thinking/hoping.

 

[Ansel]

Actually when Ilshenar was originally proposed it was to be a cross shard environment.

The concept was interesting. You could get to it via moongates on multiple shards but you could not mark there and could only leave via transport back to your home shard, either through recall or, again, through the moongates. No house placement of course. And, of course, no Gate Travel.

And that's how it was implemented....well....except for the cross shard part. I wasn't there then and don't know what technical or design reasons caused the idea to be dropped, and the idea written out of the game lore.

It remains one of the more fascinating "might have beens".....in my view at least

 

[Cymidei]

Yes shared dungeon environments, etc. are what I had in mind....Bleh at them for dropping the cross shard idea in Ilshenar. C'mon folks we live in a day and age where your average 10 year old can use "bungee cord" to link together multiple Minecraft servers/shards and turn them into a network. It's not impossible. Most games now, like World of Warcraft, have found ways to merge server regions, battlegrounds, and instances. Even say, a common version Doom or something would be cool. If they had a common area for EM events, they could do epic stuff.

If UO really wanted to make some money....all it would have to do would be to copycat some Chinese web games....and put in a casino, tokens, gambling boxes for rares and overpowered gear that you buy. Those kind of games make money hand over fist but they tend to churn through users because they are so greedy.


I played one of those games for awhile and they had an interesting way of dealing with dead shards. They would merge shards together on a regular basis if users dropped below a certain threshold. How it worked was they would backup the servers, delete your shard, and make it so people from multiple shards log into the same world. If you used to play on Baja for example, you would wake up one morning and be playing on Baja+Atlantic+Great Lakes. If UO didn't have the housing set up the way it does, or decided to change it...one day they could do that. Every time things got merged, it was exciting, new people to meet, new guilds to interact with, more competition. The game would then simply start a new server and advertise to get new users, rinse and repeat.

Suppose you claim your house and it and it's contents get burned into a database. Boom....multiple shard environment goes up with a huge map, plunk, you put your house down somewhere else. Special arrangements for historic sites.

 

[Ansel]

Yes shared dungeon environments, etc. are what I had in mind....Bleh at them for dropping the cross shard idea in Ilshenar. C'mon folks we live in a day and age where your average 10 year old can use "bungee cord" to link together multiple Minecraft servers/shards and turn them into a network. It's not impossible.

As I said, I don't know why it was dropped. I was only there during the development of Renaissance and only briefly on that team. I went to Origin to work on Wing Commander Online (later Privateer Online) which EA later killed. Keep in mind that this was...my goodness...15 years ago What might seem simple now could have been another matter then

But, hey, we agree! It could have very positive results and....now is now

 

[MalagAste]

As I said, I don't know why it was dropped. I was only there during the development of Renaissance and only briefly on that team. I went to Origin to work on Wing Commander Online (later Privateer Online) which EA later killed. Keep in mind that this was...my goodness...15 years ago What might seem simple now could have been another matter then

But, hey, we agree! It could have very positive results and....now is now

Oh I agree. Like I said if they had "hubs" of 3 or 4 shards they grouped together... taking say Atl and 2 dead shards, GL's and 3 lower population shards, LS and 3 lower population shards, put Europa, Oceana and Drach together, same with grouping many of the asian shards, they could do it. They wouldn't have to "merge" all dungeons... just a few of the Fel ones, including the 2 Abyss Fel Dungeons, + the Abyss itself, Ilshenar, the Lost Lands and Eodon... I think it would be cool. Though the only major problem would be the 2 housing spots in the Abyss.

 

[Cymidei]

Just give the two house owners some jaw dropping compensation like a sky castle and a sea mouse mount and we're all good

 

[Ansel]

Oh I agree. Like I said if they had "hubs" of 3 or 4 shards they grouped together... taking say Atl and 2 dead shards, GL's and 3 lower population shards, LS and 3 lower population shards, put Europa, Oceana and Drach together, same with grouping many of the asian shards, they could do it. They wouldn't have to "merge" all dungeons... just a few of the Fel ones, including the 2 Abyss Fel Dungeons, + the Abyss itself, Ilshenar, the Lost Lands and Eodon... I think it would be cool. Though the only major problem would be the 2 housing spots in the Abyss.

That may well be much more feasible than one Ilshenar server connected to all the others.