A little while back I met someone in new haven starting up a new char. I offered him advice and gear and starting gold, and he respectfully declined both tips, advice and goods. He was a wise man:
He said "I don't play to win big prizes, or major gear or gold. I want to learn this new world for myself, from scratch. Part of the fun of the game is exploring so many unknown, undiscovered by me, things. Discovering new things about the game is most of the fun for me. I would like to discover these things by myself. That is the FUN of the game for me.."
I could not quite understand this then, and I thought strange fellow, but original. Shrugged it off.
But having played the game a while I understand this fellow better.
I hope that the newcomers are mostly true newcomers, and that they try to just enjoy this massive UO game for the fun of it, whether 12-15 year old kids, or 60+ year old retirees that have some more time in their hands and want to spend some time to just have fun.
On a different note: I would hate to see a new wave of Trolls, Griefers, or one of several varieties of exploiters and TOS violators flood the game and the chat channels.
I dont know what type of player authentication EJ will use: All present paying players are one or another way authenticated (credit card, email address, paypal net tracks etc). I hope EJ accounts also hav a way of authentication of sorts for EJ accounts. I also hope the IT staff for UO implement an IP address system that can track IP addresses of players so that they can potentially BAN TOS EJ violators.
Banning an IP address may deter nasty Griefers, and stop them from logging in with any of their accounts, payed or free. The real question is is it possible to ban an ip address since IP addresses change every so often in most households, i.e most people do not have a static address. An IT person may have better answer to this.
Also another question for EJ free to play is: How many accounts will it be legal for one person to have? 1? 2? how about 50? How about having 5-6 of them logged in for resources same time?
I guess will know a little better in few weeks when EJ hits, how this will play out. It was bound to happen..
With all the competition of "free shards" out there. "Free shards" is a misnomer also since there is no free lunch anywhere, and in most if not all of the free shards you still pay MINT for upgraded game content..