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A Dying Star

M

mycenaen

Guest
Oh Uhall, hear my plight.

I'm from the Formosa shard (yessss, the under-represented in Stratics), and this is the story of how our shard is dying--- (pvp)----:

In terms of pvp, our shard is made up of three big guilds. We have less people on the entire shard, so it's basically always these three guilds, and we 'know' all the players from each side. As I said, the numbers are smaller, but the fights are not less intense, and many times, the 3-way dynamic makes for some very interesting tactics and politics.

However, and to cut the long story short, a recent development has arose that is forcing two of these guilds to want to migrate over to other servers. How is this possible?!? Here's what happened:

Basically, (I don't want to step into Uhall with the intention of flaming, but I AM prejudiced, hear me out), ... basically, BESIDES training up your own PVP skills, it seems one credible alternative for winning wars is to RECRUIT, RECRUIT, and RECRUIT. yep, so much so that you literally have 2x your enemies' numbers. ALWAYS. Yessir, gay gank/run-hide tactics CAN win the battle, where valour will not. I wish I'd recorded the video of the time I shot a -FUKIYA DART- at a guy from this gank guild, and he ran 5 screens before recalling. They never fight 1v1, and their mages are best at casting this spell:

An Ex Por.

Yep, the spell that keeps you waiting for the dismounters and the stealth deathstrikers to come out and do you in.


OH MY GAWD -- just another whiner who's come to UHall to tell us how his guild suxxors and can't recruit enough people to face this gank guild, right?

Haha.. the truth of the matter is that the two remaining guilds don't HAVE that interest in playing Bunnies Online. as far as I can tell, my guild and the other guild STILL have interest in ACTUAL PVP ---- where people still use uhm, other spells besides Paralyze, other special moves besides Dismount, and other templates besides GANK Templates. We DON'T want to play this numbers game of seeing who's got more 'guys' on their side. (oh yeah, and this gank guild uses Razor too, so that they can auto target you once you enter their screen :)

If you don't think the problem is serious, the other non-gank guild has already told some of our members that they plan to move to the japanese servers. as for my own guild, the pvp numbers have started dwindling, because people (including me) are just SICK of being ganked, and ganked, and ganked, by newbies. Felucca is a barren land, and nowadays I don't even log on in the day time, because I know that any action in Felucca will be met with 2x/3x numbers in resistance.

But anyway, I'm not here just to play a sad violin tale for anyone to cry (if anyone is), I'm here to point out one fatal flaw in the game that people have ALWAYS been complaining about, but has come to such a head in my shard, that I've recently been checking out PS3 prices, and wondering about going to Oblivion and GTA4 and so on. (and yeah, I'm kinda hardcore about uo, usually spending more time IN it than in real life in a given day, whenever time allows). The flaw is that ganking works. (especially so with some 'cutting-edge' 3rd-party programs).

SOME game mechanic has to exist that could be devised by people smarter than me, to make the game balanced (the eternal holy grail for uo right?) in terms of numbers. so that you DON'T have to play Government/Army Online, constantly recruiting/training people JUST to have PARITY <-- in terms of numbers to fight.

and, yes, before you flame me, we DO still engage in these crazy fights, 2 v10, (i'm not making up these numbers. my friend would draw 5 of them away from the rat spawn, leaving me a mere 5 in the island to handle), .. oh yeah, AGAIN i wish i had that picture, where I was stealthed, and my screen FILLED with orange names. FILLED with orange names, chasing down my poor 2 - 3 guildmates. we call it superman training. but even so, it gets kind of tiring after a while, to have your stealth appear, and have one guy mana vamp you, one guy bleed you, another to put his dragon on you, enough people to surround you so that you can't move etc etc.

or am i just another whiner who should "go play something else if you can't handle it?", and disappear into Oblivion or Liberty City?

What say you, Uhall?
 
5

5% Luck

Guest
I can understand where you are coming from. I will tell you politics is a hard card to play on the losing edge of a sword. But , Like any place you find many people congregating, you find a political atmosphere. In uo, in the past, watching and altering the political feild was something I took alot of time to do and enjoy. Remember its politics, not general recruitment and base tactics. Its a battle of ideas not just words or numbers. If somehow the idea becomes promnate that this guild is "unhonorable" or"unkool" not directly mind you but if these ideas grow so will swell your ranks. Of their own accord. This happens all by itself in most cases. Even just due to the want for a better fight. But GL my friend. May UO felucian politic be at your aid soon!
 

kelmo

Old and in the way
Professional
Alumni
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Dread Lord
I feel your pain. *nods*
 

Cogniac

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
This reminds me of the way that Shadowbane used to be (I hear they deleted everything and started over, so it's probably not the same way now). Shadowbane is all about siege warfare, and guilds can own and fortify cities. Unfortunately, it took lots of time and money to build up a city, and hardly any effort to destroy one. So a guild would spend months building up a city only to have a giant zerg guild roll in and destroy the entire thing in a few hours. This would repeat over and over with the outcome being "join the zerg guild if you want to win, or just quit." Eventually the zerg guild would control everything and that particular server would just be over. No one would play anymore and it would die.

This sort of thing also almost happened in EvE Online once. They all play in one giant "universe," and if you manage to take over the central sector, no one else can build any more ships, and you basically win (read: destroy) the entire game. The largest guild in EvE, Band of Brothers (BoB), one day decided to try to take over the central sector, and was only stopped by, ironically, one of the worst admitted zerg/griefer guilds in online gaming, GoonSwarm.

In a more UO-centric example, this is essentially what factions used to be: Everyone would join one faction and just farm the cash and rewards associated with owning every faction city.
 

Kayne.

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
the way factions used to be

on the atl server. most of the shard is minax.....ide say about 4 guilds totally double TB and COM combined, ...not for the pvp. they zerg the other factions, and get gear.
 
A

AesSedai

Guest
- Therein lies the difference between a dying star and an everlasting one, me thinks.
 

Anakena

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
What about having a temporary alliance with the other guild in order to beat the zerg guild?
 
B

Belmarduk

Guest
This sort of thing also almost happened in EvE Online once. They all play in one giant "universe," and if you manage to take over the central sector, no one else can build any more ships, and you basically win (read: destroy) the entire game. The largest guild in EvE, Band of Brothers (BoB), one day decided to try to take over the central sector, and was only stopped by, ironically, one of the worst admitted zerg/griefer guilds in online gaming, GoonSwarm.

In a more UO-centric example, this is essentially what factions used to be: Everyone would join one faction and just farm the cash and rewards associated with owning every faction city.
As one of our best politicians in the history of the second republic said to a journalist:
Lernen Sie Geschichte, mein Herr (Learn history,Mister) :)

1. The "central sector" would be the empire which cant be playercontrolled.You mean 0.0 which surrounds the empire (flower/pedals)
2. Bob nearly was whiped out in the "Great War" (1/2007 - beginning of 2008)
because NOT ONLY the Goon-scum but MOST 0.0 alliances went for Bob then.The goal was to remove Bob from 0.0 It was nearly succeded but they managed to hold their core region somehow...
The northern coalition played a big part alongside the southern coalition.
3. The 2 powerblocs made the mistake of letting Bob lick their wounds for a few months then - Bob started its new campaign: Maximum damage (or Minimum damage as it is also called) summer 2008 - Sofar Bob has not been very sucessful - even though they use "blob-tactics" to crash nodes....
4. The North is still alive and kicking ! Sadly so is Goonswarm also.
5. Something like this will never happen in Eve because if a powerbloc gets too powerful and starts trying to "conquer Eve" the other alliances will band together and stop the aggressor.

Has allways happend - Will allways happen:
Phoenix Alliance vs Evolution/M0O (Great Northern War) 2004
G vs _5_ etc 2005/2006 :(
Ascendant Frontier 2006 (The Great Southern War)
etc etc
Greetings Belmarduk
 
M

mycenaen

Guest
What about having a temporary alliance with the other guild in order to beat the zerg guild?
hmm actually we did have some temporary alliances. but there's problems with not joining completely via the guild system and becoming one guild. eg, you don't share UOAM, and your fields and wither hit each other lol.

anyway, on a really populous night, say weekend nights, the 'zerg' guild outnumbers both our guilds combined :> anyway it's a whole can of worms, because this guild and my guild also have a history hahah!!!!!
 

Cogniac

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I'm going to be honest: I don't actually play EvE Online, so all of my knowledge of its happenings come to me from my friends who do play (a good number of which are in GoonSwarm haha).
 
M

mycenaen

Guest
haha i bought my ps3, and am considerin canceling my account, woot
 
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