I agree with the initial point about the house rules being damaging to RP and i wish they didn't make those changes, if someone starts going crazy in a house you can easily ban or eject them.
I think you've gone about complaining about it a bit wrong here though Jassi and let your emotions get the better of you lol.
Alot of the time we don't get our way and have to adapt and make do with what we have. We can always build arenas outside houses and maybe even email the PEC to assist with the event and lock down deco for the night.
Alot of the debate in this thread comes down to personal preferance. It's all well and good for Spock to say to Jassi that his complaint is ridiculous and that he's moaning about the game not be designed to the Europa RP Clique; but then complain that the Europa RP Rules of engagement werent designed to his own 'clique'. It all comes down to personal preferance of combat in the game.
The Europa Rules of Engagement were around since the start of Europa RP. The two RP communities in the early years of UO; Crossroads of Yew (CoY) and Europa Roleplaying Association (ERPA) both had their own versions. When the two communties merged into the Community of Roleplayers Europa (CoRE) then a single Rules of Engagement was drawn up to accomdate both communities playstyles.
Sticking with non magic gear in Europa RP meant that UO itself was no longer catering to balancing PvP in RP, thus we had to cater for ourselves and balance it ourselves with the Rules of Engagement.
They were NOT created to favour certain guilds or templates as every guild in the community had their say when drawing up these rules. We didnt just ban certain spells and stuff for the hell of it. It was created solely to keep a level and balanced playing field in PvP. Some of the new spells with the newer skills were just powerful for non magic armour. Each guild had their own rules also on what skills they allowed, some didnt allow necromancy because it isn't part of their Roleplay guild theme or Lore.
You don't like it? Fair enough, thats your personal preferance and everyone has one. There were/are plenty of other RP communities across the shards that play with magic gear that people who don't like the Europa RP rules can/could play with.
Don't bash eachothers playstyles or cliques, it just ends up in petty argueing, everyones entitled to their opinion and to play the game how they wish.
The Europa RP Community was one of the largest RP Communities on UO and went strong well up to 2012. It catered for a large 'clique' that wanted to play that way. Just like other RP communities catered for their 'clique'.
I was with Europa roleplay since 2000, most of that time spent with one of the oldest and largest RP guilds Vesper [-V-] Which i GM'd for 4 years up to 2010.
I loved my time in Europa RP and I was completely for the Rules of Engagement. It made RP PvP so much better than fel PvP in my own opinion. Fighting was all about teamwork and personal skill, not who had the best items. It wasn't as fast paced and battles lasted alot longer.
And my lord.....the big wars.....they were truly magnificent. Large scale battles fought around tactics, teamwork, crosshealing. They were one of my favourite parts of Europa Roleplay.
So for those saying all GM equipment is stupid, yes it is to you. But to myself and as you can see a rather large playerbase, it was our way of life, our prefered playstyle; and we enjoyed every second of it.
As for the decline of the RP Community on Europa and im sure other shards too. There are a number of reasons and in my opinion none of the main ones are even related to the Devs.
My first main point relates to all shards RP communities. The decline of the games overall playerbase. Roleplayers are a minority of the overall playerbase, so as the game shrinks the RP communities are gonna die off first.
Secondly and I noticed this during my last year as GM of Vesper. As the playerbase shrunk so did the numbers of leaders. The number of people willing to take up leadership roles, willing to host events and create RP Storylines just faded away. By the end I couldn't get anyone to help run Vesper reguarly and was running it basically by myself most of the time which can lead you to burn out on UO very quickly. Thus the commited guild leaders and such also dwindled and gave up from being burnt out.
Thirdly concerning Europa RP was the politics and drama that went on behind the scenes on the guild leaders forums and on ICQ between guild leaders. During big wars etc there was a strain on guild relations behind the scenes having to deal with problem members on either sides and number of other reasons.
Now everyone has arguements, its part of life; back in the day though there was a large number of guilds. So if two guilds leadership's were having arguements they could also have a break from eachother and focus RP'ing and have wars with other guilds in the community. As the community got smaller and the number of guilds got less; the same guilds were having to deal with eachother more reguarly until it got to the last 8/9 guilds where all the storylines and wars were between the same guilds all the time. So our leaderships were never getting breaks from eachother or the arguements.
This is what lead to me quitting RP and leaving UO for 2 years. During the last big war on Europa it was Vesper vs Yew, Cove, Skara, Trinsic and the Knights Templar. No one wanted to start a war or be seen as the bad guy, all the latter guilds were in an RP Alliance as most were royalists and loyal to the king where as Vesper was a Free Republic. So i thought screw it Vesper will give it a crack fighting all of them. Don't get me wrong it was an epic war with one of my most memorable battles the Yew Beach Landing.
Im sure members on all sides enjoyed the war and battles, but behind the scenes on the All GM board between the leadership there was a huge arguement going on. I won't get into details about it but it lead to my AGM quitting followed a few weeks later by myself. I ended up spending more time argueing on forums than actually playing the damn game. When a game becomes a job and you actually get stressed IRL over it then its time to stop. Its just sad that my last months of RP were a stressful time. Once i had left then Vesper quickly declined and im sure once other guild leaders left their guilds declined without commited leaders at their helms due to lack of leaders willing to take the thrones in game.
When I returned to UO i didn't return to RP really, created a PvM guild and started doing the other parts of the game. Ive only just returned to Europa RP the other week casually with the handful that are left.
My last point that i feel should be mentioned as it also played a part in Europa RP's decline is that an idea to centralise all the remaining RP'ers and guilds in Britain. Everyone packs up and creates guilds in Britain to start a fresh there, all in one place. This would of kept the RP community going at a decent size for more years but only half the community were willing, the other half didn't want to leave behind all their guild areas/housing and history and characters they had created there. Which is fair enough i guess. So that idea didnt go ahead as it would of split the already declining community in 2. Looking back now though I wish that everyone did get on board with the idea.
This post may be a little bit biased as of course im from Europa RP and thats what kept me playing for 10 years. I aint trying to offend anyone or insult them, im just telling the hard truth and defending what so many people are bashing in this thread; just trying to make you see things from the Europa RP perspective. Im sure you all played/play with awesome vibrant communities on other shards, so please don't bash Europa RP's way of life because its not your own playstyle.
P.S Jassi stay cool next time you post lol, making us all look like nutters.