Classic shard.

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

*sighs* I believe we are way below the rader.

I'm not. I never have been. And I never will be!

Who is with me?

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Without AoS properties, what is the need for runics.

Pardon my Sosarian...but frak runics.

 

[Velvathos]

*sighs* I believe we are way below the rader.

I am going to reply to your post, I would love to see a fix on Siege Perilous as well, but we have to remember that Siege was not built for veterans, it would built for players who wanted more of a challenge out of UO, it is a extremely hard shard to get around, I currently only have ONE account through Europa and it is all I can afford at the moment, otherwise I would open a second account for Siege, I really don't wish to give up everything I have on Europa to make one character on Siege.. I can't have a house on Siege with one account..

I think that is where the issue lies, and I think it is why most people have not played on Siege, if I could have a house on Siege, and another on a production server, I would gladly play it..

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

I love Stratics...but as fans of a Classic Shard, we need to start spamming the web.

UO Classic Shard NOW!

Make this your signature here...make it your signature on Myspace, on Twitter, on Facebook, on every website you go to. Paint on your car! Put it on your underwear in case you die!

UO Classic Shard NOW!!

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Devs...we have come to an agreement. PKers, non-PvPers, blues, reds, crafters, RPers...

-Pre-AOS
-No Trammel
-T2A era skills and ruleset
-No power scrolls
-No character transfers to or from production shards
-No expansions past T2A at server up.
-Post-T2A era secure storage in houses and skill locks
-Necessary bug fixes
-Order/Chaos consensual PvP system
-T2A era heavy penalties for PKers: permanent stat loss, can't enter towns except Bucs Den, newbied items drop to corpse on death, bounty system (with controls to prevent abuses), long-term murder counts, etc.

Is it really that much to ask?

There are free shards offering this right now.

We DON'T WANT TO PLAY ON PIRATE SHARDS!

WE WANT TO GIVE YOU MONEY!

MONEY = GOOD!!!

 

[Heartseeker]

I am finally feeling it. I think we can do this, if we just unite!

A Classic Shard is with our reach. I gave up for a while, and got discouraged, but the compromise I have seen in the last few days makes me believe again!

Come on Devs...MAKE US ALL BELIEVE AGAIN! YOU HAVE THE POWER TO DO IT!

I know you will, because deep down, you had to believe yourself, or you would not be working on UO!

And if you are working for a paycheck...I understand that...we all do, but imagine if you were a missionary saving a dying people! We ARE THAT PEOPLE!

Talk to your bosses! Explain it to them! UO ... IS the community!!!! It always was!!

We want it.

Do it!

We won't disappoint you!

Besides...what else have you got to do? Build a new "expansion"?

Be someone that DID SOMETHING...not someone that just did something...get it?

About time.

Welcome back; to the "real".

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

About time.

Welcome back; to the "real".

I knew you hadn't given up on me...or on a Classic Shard.

Now make it your signature! Let's do this thing!!! EA will listen to us!!!

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

And...

Heartseeker:

Thank you. Thank you for pushing me and not allowing me to give up. I will be in this fight until the matter is dead...or until I am!!!

UO CLASSIC SHARD NOW!!

 

[Velvathos]

Without AoS properties, what is the need for runics.

Pardon my Sosarian...but frak runics.

Well, AoS properties are..

Well, the properties never really CHANGED believe it or not, they just re-named them and added percentages by fives I think...

A exceptional weapon automatically had 20% damage increase, magic wise, anything that was Might gave you a 25% increase and Vanquishing was 30% damage increase, if I remember.. I keep thinking that there is one more level of damage increase back then, cause there was three levels of accuracy, which is basically your Swing Speed Increase, as we call it today, 25% = Surpassingly Accuracte, 30% = Eminently Accurate and I believe 35% = Supremely Accurate.. I am trying to correct myself because it has been so long.. If you look at the Obsidian (pardon my spelling) weapons we got during those invasions, it should be completely accurate..

 

[Heartseeker]

About time.

Welcome back; to the "real".

I knew you hadn't given up on me...or on a Classic Shard.

Now make it your signature! Let's do this thing!!! EA will listen to us!!!

lol, you know I luv ya.

 

[Velvathos]

Already added it to my sig Morgan..

 

[Longest Journey]

Well, AoS properties are..

Well, the properties never really CHANGED believe it or not, they just re-named them and added percentages by fives I think...

A exceptional weapon automatically had 20% damage increase, magic wise, anything that was Might gave you a 25% increase and Vanquishing was 30% damage increase, if I remember.. I keep thinking that there is one more level of damage increase back then, cause there was three levels of accuracy, which is basically your Swing Speed Increase, as we call it today, 25% = Surpassingly Accuracte, 30% = Eminently Accurate and I believe 35% = Supremely Accurate.. I am trying to correct myself because it has been so long.. If you look at the Obsidian (pardon my spelling) weapons we got during those invasions, it should be completely accurate..

We had ways of getting magic weapons back then. You fished them up from high level SOSs and treasure maps. They also dropped from monsters like Ancient Wyrms, Lich Lords, Balrons, and other high monsters.

Being able to craft them made going hunting for magic weapons pointless.

No runics, please.

 

[Velvathos]

We had ways of getting magic weapons back then. You fished them up from high level SOSs and treasure maps. They also dropped from monsters like Ancient Wyrms, Lich Lords, Balrons, and other high monsters.

Being able to craft them made going hunting for magic weapons pointless.

No runics, please.

I know, I am just, trying to refresh my memory.. I am absolutely positive that 30% or 35% damage increase of today's standards = a vanq during the pre-aos period.. We always had the damage increases and stuff from magical weapons, it just never told us how much we got out of it..

That is why they added percentages, they just went over-board by making the game too item-based with AoS, because I remember before that, everyone was happy with with the weapon and armor changes, before runics, it was real nice, and I believe items still had to be identified.. Might/Vanquishing became Damage Increase, a weapon with Might on it gave you 25% damage increase and a weapon with Vanq gave you 30% correct me if I am wrong..

I am not talking about runics, talking about the benefits that the old items gave us..

Swing Speed Increases = Suprassingly Accurate(25%), Eminently Accurate(25%) and Supremely Accurate(30%)

Damage Increases = Might(30%) Vanquishing(35%)

Okay, I think that is what it was.. CORRECT me if I am wrong.. I thought there was one more level of damage increase back then on magical items though.. A exceptional weapon automatically had 25% damage increase I think..

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Already added it to my sig Morgan..

HAHAHAHAHA!!! Awesome!

That's actually Gaelic for 'if I spend all my money getting drunk and give away the rest, then what business is it of yours!' ...but same damn difference!!! I LOVE IT!!

 

[Longest Journey]

I know, I am just, trying to refresh my memory.. I am absolutely positive that 30% or 35% damage increase of today's standards = a vanq during the pre-aos period.. We always had the damage increases and stuff from magical weapons, it just never told us how much we got out of it..

That is why they added percentages, they just went over-board by making the game too item-based with AoS, because I remember before that, everyone was happy with with the weapon and armor changes, before runics, it was real nice, and I believe items still had to be identified.. Might/Vanquishing became Damage Increase, a weapon with Might on it gave you 25% damage increase and a weapon with Vanq gave you 30% correct me if I am wrong..

I am not talking about runics, talking about the benefits that the old items gave us..

I dont think it was that much of a damage increase. I know a vanq hally hurt like hell when you got smacked up side the head with one, plus when people used to poison them, it added to the pain.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

UO CLASSIC SHARD NOW!

Make it your sig, make it your status on Facebook, make it whatever twitter does ( I really don't know ), and make it your purpose in life. We CAN HAVE THIS!

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

People...we are the revolution!

We are what 'they' don't want to talk about! We are 'them'.

We are those whose names cannot be spoken!

We are a whisper on the wind. We are a thunder in the storm!

We are the people. We are those that were supposed to be represented.

We are the thorn on the rose, the bee in the honey comb, the storm before the rainbow!

We are the ones that scream but are not heard. We are those that exist in shadow!!!

But I tell you...OUR DAY IS COMING !!!

They cannot ignore us forever!!!

 

[Kael]

I'm in....make the dang shard already

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Feeling the love!

Who is next?

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

lol, you know I luv ya.

Never doubted ya!

Now add it to your sig before I get kicked off here or something!!!

(no one has threatened to kick me off...I am just pressuring Heartseeker!)

 

[Trevelyan]

Yes to a shard before AOS!!

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Yes to a shard before AOS!!

Even if it means no Tram??

 

[Trevelyan]

Tough one. Ive never had no tram, but id give it a go if it was that or no classic shard.

I was a newbie in 2000, and then a bunch of people came soon after who picked up a copy of the game on PC Gamer magazine's disk.

It was newbie friendly but nothing like today. Mid 2000 to early 2001 was probably the best time that ive known. Things started going down hill around LBR.

 

[Longest Journey]

Morgana, I applaud your vigor in rallying support, but we need a....general consensus on what would make a good classic server.

Heres my compilation of, what thus far seems to be agreed upon....I think.

-The Second Age rulesets
-Stat loss for reds
-Long term murder counts
-T2A magic weapons
-T2A magic armor
-T2A Magic items/wands (fireball wands, invis rings, blessing cloaks, magic reflect tribal masks etc)
-T2A skill gains (Pre power hour)
-T2A classic housing
-No Trammel
-Lost Lands and Britannia only
-**Logical upgrades to the crafting system (for details, see below)
-Necessary fixes for bugs and glitches for that era
-T2A housing rules (lock downs and secure containers)
-Good aligned NPCs that attack reds
-T2A magic system
-T2A item rules
-Vet rewards, but only dye tubs or deco items.
-More stackable items (IE potions)
-Bring back Guildstones

**The crafting upgrades are as follows:

-Tailors will be able to make bone armor as well as repair it along with leather armor

-Bow crafters will be able to repair bows

-Carpenters will be able to craft all staff weapons as well as clubs and repair them along with wooden shields

These upgrades are logical and were requested in T2A, but never implimented until it was too late.

-No powerscrolls
-no runic tools
-no BODS
-no control slots
-no pet bonding
-no item insurance
-no bless deeds or blessed items
-no ethereal mounts
-no neon colors
-no bounty system (perhaps added in later when time can be taked to properly hash out the exploits)

 

[Unsatisfied]

Only thing I'd like off the list is vet rewards, or at least the black dye tubs. If they exist should be hard to come by like they were in the classic days. Some kind of an event reward or something along those lines.

Like other things ive mentioned before I wouldnt cry if it was there. Just my personal opinion keeping it classic.

 

[Longest Journey]

Only thing I'd like off the list is vet rewards, or at least the black dye tubs. If they exist should be hard to come by like they were in the classic days. Some kind of an event reward or something along those lines.

Like other things ive mentioned before I wouldnt cry if it was there. Just my personal opinion keeping it classic.

Actually, the black dye tubs were around BEFORE the vet reward program. I believe they were given out one year for Christmas.

 

[georgemarvin2001]

@Longest Journey: I liked Morgana's list a lot better. It's short, to the point, and doesn't include any of the things that there is still a debate over.

-Pre-AOS
-No Trammel
-T2A era skills and ruleset
-No power scrolls
-No character transfers to or from production shards
-No expansions past T2A at server up.
-Post-T2A era secure storage in houses and skill locks
-Necessary bug fixes
-Order/Chaos consensual PvP system
-T2A era heavy penalties for PKers: permanent stat loss, can't enter towns except Bucs Den, newbied items drop to corpse on death, bounty system (with controls to prevent abuses), long-term murder counts, etc.

Add: No Neons

The problems with the Longest Journey list:

There isn't really a consensus on whether we want power hour or not. Some people like it, others hate it. It's not a "deal breaker" either way. I would just leave it out of the poll altogether.

POST-T2A housing rules (lock downs and secures) is the consensus, with one dissenter wanting the T2A rules. During T2A, you had to lock down a row of tables so people couldn't reach your stuff. The lock downs and secures rules were all post-T2A.

-good aligned NPCs that attack reds
That wasn't part of what we wanted in the shard at server birth. It is what most of us would want to add if there is a problem with PKers. The consensus is to start with the classic T2A era penalties, and add that if PKing does become a problem. The consensus is this:
-T2A era heavy penalties for PKers: permanent stat loss, can't enter towns except Bucs Den, newbied items drop to corpse on death, bounty system (with controls to prevent abuses), long-term murder counts, etc.

You left this VERY IMPORTANT one out:
-No character transfers to or from production shards
If you allow transfers from prodo shards, whole PK guilds will transfer in 2 minutes after server birth, with 125 million gold and all the crap they can carry on each character.

The argument about classic or custom housing is still going on. I would just leave it out of list, since there isn't a general consensus and it's not a "deal breaker" either way.

There isn't a consensus on veteran rewards. I DON'T want any of the +3 AR robes. It pretty much forces everybody to wear one and cover up the GM crafted clothes and armor that crafters worked hard to make. They were one of the worst ideas ever, IMHO. *spits on the sorry (censored) who came up with the idea of robes with stats*
Also, there would be some unforeseen consequences. If they give veteran rewards on the new shard, they should start over, and make new, deco-only rewards. But I don't trust the Devs to do that. First thing you know, they would put in something that they think is neat and harmless, but would unbalance things and cause all sorts of problems.

There isn't a consensus about the bounty system. I would just leave it out of the poll. It isn't a deal breaker either way, anyway. Most of us want it, IF it could be made so that people wouldn't exploit it. The problem is that we can't really figure out a way to do it where it would work like it was intended to.

Several of the items are redundant, which is making the list too long. For instance, you can combine several of them into one:
-T2A era weapons, armor, jewelry and magic items

There isn't a consensus yet about runic tools. I would just leave it off the list. If a few craftsmen join this thread, there may be some heated debate about this one. A lot of people, including the forum mod who first brought up the subject, think they were post-AOS, but they weren't. People have forgotten that they were introduced into the game all the way back in publish 14, a year and a half before AOS. Remember that I was a GM blacksmith back then. A lot of us craftsmen had begged the Devs to make a system in which we could craft magic weapons and armor, and put our names on them. We wanted it to be very hard to do, and require a lot of rare materials, so that they didn't just flood the market. Unfortunately, the devs screwed it up about as badly as is humanly possible, and came up with the awful BOD system, where we had spend years going to the blacksmith shops and collecting BODs, then we had to find a place to store 50,000 BODs to get just one valorite hammer.
I was going to suggest that, instead of dealing with that awful mess again, how about making runic hammers with one charge on them a rare spawn in treasure chests? That way, the treasure hunters get a new, valuable item to sell, and the craftsmen get to make magic armor that has their names on it. The craftsmen would be willing to pay the treasure hunters more for a bronze runic than they could get for a vanq weapon.

 

[Longest Journey]

@Longest Journey: I liked Morgana's list a lot better. It's short, to the point, and doesn't include any of the things that there is still a debate over.

-Pre-AOS
-No Trammel
-T2A era skills and ruleset
-No power scrolls
-No character transfers to or from production shards
-No expansions past T2A at server up.
-Post-T2A era secure storage in houses and skill locks
-Necessary bug fixes
-Order/Chaos consensual PvP system
-T2A era heavy penalties for PKers: permanent stat loss, can't enter towns except Bucs Den, newbied items drop to corpse on death, bounty system (with controls to prevent abuses), long-term murder counts, etc.

Add: No Neons

The problems with the Longest Journey list:

There isn't really a consensus on whether we want power hour or not. Some people like it, others hate it. It's not a "deal breaker" either way. I would just leave it out of the poll altogether.

Power hour was bad. It cut down skill gaining to an hour a day. After that hour, skills crawled at a painful pace.

POST-T2A housing rules (lock downs and secures) is the consensus, with one dissenter wanting the T2A rules. During T2A, you had to lock down a row of tables so people couldn't reach your stuff. The lock downs and secures rules were all post-T2A.

Actually, you could secure containers in T2A by saying, "I wish to secure this" then clicking on the container.

The only thing that changed is the locking down. Before, you could store items in a locked down container. After the change, items in locked down container would become locked down themselves.

-good aligned NPCs that attack reds
That wasn't part of what we wanted in the shard at server birth. It is what most of us would want to add if there is a problem with PKers. The consensus is to start with the classic T2A era penalties, and add that if PKing does become a problem.

We, what is this we? I never remember reading anywhere that morgana's list was gospel truth set in stone as to what people wanted. It was a possibility, a suggestion. Nothing else.

-T2A era heavy penalties for PKers: permanent stat loss, can't enter towns except Bucs Den, newbied items drop to corpse on death, bounty system (with controls to prevent abuses), long-term murder counts, etc.

Permanent stat loss? Ummmm, thats just as bad as perma-death. Regular stat loss is okay because the character can be salvaged and restored eventually by reworking the skills.

but permanent? No, thats a bad idea. Youre bascially gimping a persons character to an unplayable degree, which is unfair to the player. knocking them out of the combat scene for a while and forcing them to re-work the characters stats back up is alright. But permanently droping their stats and not letting them recover? Thats just wrong.

You left this VERY IMPORTANT one out:
-No character transfers to or from production shards
If you allow transfers from prodo shards, whole PK guilds will transfer in 2 minutes after server birth, with 125 million gold and all the crap they can carry on each character.

Why list this? Its a given. Of course youre not going to be able to transfer your post AOS characters over to the classic server, its impossible. The two characters are based on two different sets of programming. The AOS characters have a completely different pool of stat and skill points. They just wouldnt take in the classic server setting.

The argument about classic or custom housing is still going on. I would just leave it out of list, since there isn't a general consensus and it's not a "deal breaker" either way.

Classic server = classic housing. Case closed.

There isn't a consensus on veteran rewards. I DON'T want any of the +3 AR robes. It pretty much forces everybody to wear one and cover up the GM crafted clothes and armor that crafters worked hard to make. They were one of the worst ideas ever, IMHO. *spits on the sorry (censored) who came up with the idea of robes with stats*

Also, there would be some unforeseen consequences. If they give veteran rewards on the new shard, they should start over, and make new, deco-only rewards. But I don't trust the Devs to do that. First thing you know, they would put in something that they think is neat and harmless, but would unbalance things and cause all sorts of problems.

Then do away with the rewards all together.

Heres how:

Make things like the leather, black, and special dye tubs purchaseable off of NPCs or as drops from SOSs, treasure maps, or as loot in chests in dungeons.

Things like the banners, make them craftable by tailors or carpenters.

The monster statues, again, make them rare drops on the monster they represent. Skeleton statue drops off of Skeleton monsters, Dragon Statue drop off of Dragons and Ancient Wyrms, Ogre statue drop off of Ogres and Ogre Lords, etc etc etc.

And there you go.

There isn't a consensus about the bounty system. I would just leave it out of the poll. It isn't a deal breaker either way, anyway. Most of us want it, IF it could be made so that people wouldn't exploit it. The problem is that we can't really figure out a way to do it where it would work like it was intended to.

Thats the thing, it CANT be made unexploitable. And I wouldnt want the developers wasting their time trying to come up with solutions that just wont work and slowing the progression of the classic servers do to so.

So, drop the bounty system all together because it was broke then and could never be fixed. Unless you can prevent players from making deals with one another or working with a friend, then a red guy can have his blue friend kill him, turn in the head, then split the money between them.

Face it, folks, the bounty system was a crapshoot.

Several of the items are redundant, which is making the list too long. For instance, you can combine several of them into one:
-T2A era weapons, armor, jewelry and magic items

I was being thorough or else mistakes can be made or things can be misconstrued.

There isn't a consensus yet about runic tools. I would just leave it off the list. If a few craftsmen join this thread, there may be some heated debate about this one. A lot of people, including the forum mod who first brought up the subject, think they were post-AOS, but they weren't. People have forgotten that they were introduced into the game all the way back in publish 14, a year and a half before AOS. Remember that I was a GM blacksmith back then. A lot of us craftsmen had begged the Devs to make a system in which we could craft magic weapons and armor, and put our names on them. We wanted it to be very hard to do, and require a lot of rare materials, so that they didn't just flood the market. Unfortunately, the devs screwed it up about as badly as is humanly possible, and came up with the awful BOD system, where we had spend years going to the blacksmith shops and collecting BODs, then we had to find a place to store 50,000 BODs to get just one valorite hammer.

Doesnt matter when the runics came in, they were a mistake all together. Runic weapons were overpowered and hurt smiths and tailors who couldnt get their hands on them. It make it so that unless you had a runic crafting tool, you were an incomplete crafter.

As for you being a GM blacksmith then, I also recall you claiming to have owned a small tower back in T2A. Small towers didnt come in until Reniassance. So, your knowlege of the old days is suspect. While you manage to get some things right, you make glaring errors that hint towards you not having played T2A or any time before trammel.

I was going to suggest that, instead of dealing with that awful mess again, how about making runic hammers with one charge on them a rare spawn in treasure chests? That way, the treasure hunters get a new, valuable item to sell, and the craftsmen get to make magic armor that has their names on it. The craftsmen would be willing to pay the treasure hunters more for a bronze runic than they could get for a vanq weapon.

No ruincs, period. If you needed magic weapons, you hunted dragons, ancient wyrms, lich lords, ogre lords or other high monsters. If that wasnt your cup of tea, then you made a fisherman, treasure hunter, or lockpicker and fished up SOS, dug up treasure chests, or picked the chests in dungeons.

Smiths got to put their names on their GM made armor and weapons. I didnt mind it and neither did a lot of other players.

 

[Akix]

Just here to voice my support for a classic shard, the pessimist in me is telling the optimist in me not to get my hopes up...But here goes... /Sending support to cause/ NNNNNGGHHHHHHHHH!

 

[Kaleb]

It appears, That what most have been describing is just going back to T2A, IMHO that is not a 100% wise Idea, The shard would collapse in months. If it were the case to just make a T2A server, then my position changes in a complete 180, from for to against the server. Everyone talks about people leaving due to PK's, well there were some of US that were going to leave out of pure boredom. A lot will come back and a lot will remember how 2nd age got boring and up and leave again. That is mainly my main motivation to add things from newer expansions that do not deviate from the t2a era combat/skill/item system.

I mean one guy, wants the code back where we can have 5 wyrms in toe=lame, Same guy doesn't want any of the new stackables. again = lame,
Same guy Doesn't Want the old school Texas Law housing= Lame, Private housing Killed pvp to a sense look at yew today for example.

Quests were one of the better systems on prodo shards, and can bee cool on a classic shard.

Context menus are a nice feature also.

A lot of cool item, armor art

Some may not remember, But Necromancer Was on the Table since launch,It was going to be released during t2a but the pulled out for some reason, then it took them until aos to decide on what they were going to do with it. The old UOFOURMS was loaded with requests for the skill. They started giving out necro regs long before AOS, a lot are considered rares now.


Its like my brothers 65 chevelle ragtop, This car is considered classic but has modern top, interior, brakes/suspension, wheels, tires, Drivetrain, soundsystem. Although the car was a beast in its stock form, the car is even more of a beast today than it was then, And it is still a 65 Chevelle.

As long as we stick to the Basic t2a core of rules, there should be no reason other item's/systems dont make it in that can bring fun to other playstyles with out going away from or unbalancing that T2A era Feel and Ruleset. I want a Classic shard just as much as everyone else, but I also want one that will attract every playstyle.

Custom housing works on servers w/o the tram ruleset with out private housing. you dont get players putting up waterfalls like prodo shards that will leave their house open to anyone walking in, They put up doors that need to be locked, they make buildings that look like buildings, Rarely do you see Blank Plots unless that plot is for sale.

Im still for Ilshenar, But same as others the "Mc.Didnt know S*&$ about UO" art needs to go, maybe replace with art from some of the newer critters. No paragons, No arties, no lvl 6maps, LvL 6 maps should only spawn on Ancient wyrms, and Balrons but be rare drops, being that most the time you will get a lvl 5. Cannot recall in, Only blues can recall out if and only if they have zero counts, (In fact blues can recall from anywhere as long as they have zero counts, another reason you have to decide if killing someone is worth the count.)

Bonding Im on the fence, It would be great for crafters and their pack horses, There is still a viable market for pets with bonding in game with a t2a ruleset Big money spawn areas do get camped. Do not allow auto stable, and with the old pet decay rate/hunger, and the many different stats of tameables that will become important and keep the market flowing. Remember there is no tram, Players will have a tougher time taming, no auto stable, people will forget to stable their pets and loose them. Quicker decay, a lot of pets may go wild if not takin care of. But again its not a dealbreaker, I still have my first W.Wyrm from way before bonding, and can survive w/o it.

Neon colors I do not like but many more than all of us like them, I like that I can find my body more easily with them though. Its not a deal breaker to me if they were in or out.

 

[mmorpg.com]

First of all, I don't know how anyone who was there can say that PKers weren't all over the place. However, it did slow down a little when they added the various forms of justice systems. Just not nearly enough. And the reason it didn't slow down enough was because they always had loopholes. Yeah, reds had to burn off murder counts, and that slowed them down a bit. Not enough though.

Just a note for those who refuse to believe that UO was bleeding numbers because of rampant PKing. When Star Wars Galaxies was in beta, Raph Koster (who was lead programmer in UO for the first couple of years or so, and then I think the same position at SWG in it's first couple of years) said this, paraphrased: "UO had lost numbers in the 6 digits due to PKing, I kid you not." This was in response to the same sorts of PKers who wanted SWG to be open PK and loot too. 6 digits is 100, 000, minimum. And UO had around 200,000 when they added Trammel. That's about 1/3 of the players at minimum left UO because of PKing, and it might have been much higher. And it only stopped because they removed PKing through Trammel.

I have been saying for years that if a game had a justice system that worked, it would be the best way to go. Because, as we all know, Trammel had lots of problems with griefers still, even without PKing and stealing. The only reason we don't see much of it now is because there's not enough players meeting each other for interaction these days. And that loss of interaction is bad, except for the griefers. But if we had a workable justice system, players could take care fo that kind of griefer themselves. GMs can't be timely nor can they judge who's telling the truth, it just never works that way well.

So I go back to the loopholes in the justice systems they tried. Fix those, and you won't have many PKers, nor griefers, because players can take care of the problems themselves. Those you do have will be great fun for players who want to play the role of justice seekers. And the victims have the satisfaction of knowing their griefers will pay the price. They won't leave if they know that.

It also removes artificial restrictions, and makes UO feel more like a world, which is it's strong point and reason for still being.

1. You're right about loop-holes in the player justice system - major ones. In fact, the bounty system which was designed to make murderers targets for good players by offering rewards for killing them, effectively resulted in the exact opposite since murderers could collect their own rewards using alts or friends. Thus, the bounty system actually encouraged murders to kill, kill repeatedly, and kill in the meanest ways so that they could build up a large reward from angry players that they could then just collect for themselves.

The simple error in the bounty system was not requiring the murderer to pay the reward amount himself, through another player bailing him out of jail. If the murderer had to pay bail in the amount of the reward paid to his killer, then it would have changed the whole dynamic of the player justice system and it would have functioned as intended.

2. Raph Koster was merely referring to players that had quit UO. However, that was in the infancy of MMOs. We now know that hundreds of thousands of players quit all major MMOs all the time. It's a minority of those that actually end up subscribing long term. In fact, if you added up all the UO accounts that have been closed now, it would probably be in the millions. But, would you then say that Trammel caused the closure of millions of accounts? Of course not. The closing of accounts is a normal occurrence even when no changes are being made to a game.

However, what summarizes the whole Trammel debate is just the facts;

Ultima Online grew steadily to 185,000 accounts before Trammel existed. Peak UO accounts were at about 250,000 after Trammel for a short time. 250,000/185,000 = 74%

 

[georgemarvin2001]

@Longest Journey: We really need a list of the important parts of a classic shard that pretty much everybody AGREES on, not just a list of stuff that you want, whether most of us agree with you or not.

Customizable houses, plants, deco items, veteran rewards, power hour, etc. aren't really that important to most of us either way. We will play on a classic shard whether they are included or not, but there isn't any clear consensus; they all have several supporters on both sides of the fence. Let's just leave the more trivial points that aren't going to affect whether people would play on the classic shard or not out of the poll.

You can make your case for the stuff that you want, but that a lot of other people don't, after we get the shard into development.

It IS necessary to list the part about no character transfers. We don't want any room for error on something that important. We'll get one shot at this, and I don't want to see it wasted because we left something as important as preventing character transfers out of the list. If it isn't listed, the Devs may decide to let characters transfer, and just drop any skills over 100 to GM. The classic shard doesn't need a massive influx of PKers with maxxed out skills at server birth. It especially doesn't need 1000000000000000 billion gold coming into the economy.

About house storage in T2A: You're all alone on this one. You seem to have forgotten the mess that was T2A era house storage. It was a real disaster, and caused the GMs a LOT of trouble. Yes, you had ONE secure container for a small house. It was limited to just 400 stones, though. And, while there were only 25 lockdown slots for the small house, you could use them to lock down containers with storage for 125 items each. Anything you put into the locked down container had to be locked down manually. If you didn't lock them down, they wouldn't decay, but they were freely lootable. That meant that a small house could have 125+(25x125)= 3,250 items in it. That's more than an 18x18 today. Naturally, people didn't want to limit the number of items in their houses to just the 125 items in a secure, and 25 locked down items that couldn't be looted, so there were some really strange solutions. People would put a bunch of tables across the area where they put all the stuff in the locked down containers, and unlock one to walk to their storage, then lock the table back down. There were rows of little houses that all had 3,000 items each packed in little 7x7 areas that there were spots where a row of small houses produced more lag than a packed castle does today. GMs constantly fielded calls from players whose houses had been burglarized. All in all, T2A housing storage was a massive headache. Except for a few packrats and thief characters, virtually everybody really hated the hassle and grief that the T2A house storage system caused. Some players went so far as to keep one utility character in the area they stored stuff, and "hand" it to the other characters when they needed it. It was changed for a VERY good reason. That's why almost everybody here who had to deal with T2A era storage problems, with you as the notable exception, agreed to the POST-T2A storage rules. We can't store as much stuff, but it's a lot safer and more secure.

This "we" was that, after a lengthy debate, nearly everybody agreed to starting the shard with the full set of the classic T2A penalties for PKers, but waiting about asking the Devs to spend a lot of time and effort making any new systems to prevent griefing by PKs until we know whether the extra measures would even be needed or not.

Permanent stat loss existed from the earliest days of the game until the winter of 1999 on Siege, and until Evocare removed it in 2002 on production shards. I had actually forgotten that it was still around on production shards in the post-trammel era. I remembered when it was removed very early in Siege's history, and thought it had been taken out everywhere at the same time. I never played as a red, so it wasn't one of the things that had affected me directly back then. But, for the game as a whole, permanent stat loss for PKs was a big part of the classic UO. You seem to be about the only person who is against it. Permanent stat loss meant that, when you were hit with the 20% penalty, your GM'ed skills went down to all 80s. You could re-work them, if you could avoid getting killed while you tried. I'm beginning to think YOU didn't play during the T2A era, if you've so conveniently forgotten how stat loss worked throughout the first half of UO's history.

There is no need to be insulting and insinuate that I'm lying about a house that I owned in the game 10 years ago. I'm trying to remember all of the things that happened from a decade ago until present, in a game that has changed on a regular basis for over 12 years. I can't even remember what I had for breakfast the day before yesterday; we're all making some mistakes about both the time line and some of the details of all the changes. Even the moderator thought that runics came in a year and a half after they did. None of us have perfect memories of everything that happened over that time, and exactly which publish that each and every change was made in.

Over the years, I have owned dozens of houses in various locations across Felucca, Trammel and Malas. I've owned a small house somewhere close to Trinsic, the house below the Brit gates, a villa below Vesper, a small marble workshop that I have no idea where it was, a large marble house that I turned into a pretty nice vendor shop and rune library in Trammel at Vesper beach, just below the inn, a house above the Brit x-roads, a large tower above Trinsic in Felucca, a max storage house in Malas, then another max storage in Malas, and probably 15 or 20 others over the years. I would have a really hard time trying to even remember most of them. I do remember the Brit house because I had finally GM'ed blacksmithing and I got a lot of enjoyment from showing off my skill and selling my wares. I'm still thinking that the house below the Brit guard zone was a small tower. I know it wasn't one of the littlest houses. I'm reasonably sure that it was pre-trammel when I moved there, because I did a big business there. I had sold a house in the boondocks, that was great for mining and hunting, but terrible for vendors, and was looking for a good spot for a vendor house when somebody at Brit bank advertised that one. It was a really great spot for a crafter with vendors. I had a hard time keeping enough armor sets and bags of katanas in stock. I would sell 10-packs of the kats and kryss. I stayed there for several months. I remember the decision to sell that house pretty well. After Trammel, shops in Felucca went downhill FAST. Besides, a bunch of PKs moved in down the road, and my crafter started getting ganked during recall lag about every time I recalled in. I was on dial-up, and I usually couldn't move for a few seconds after a recall. Before I could move, I was dead and looted. I finally got fed up with it and sold it and moved into the villa at Trammel Vesper beach, then sold that and bought the large marble just down the road, just below the inn. I stayed there for years.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

It appears, That what most have been describing is just going back to T2A, IMHO that is not a 100% wise Idea, The shard would collapse in months. If it were the case to just make a T2A server, then my position changes in a complete 180, from for to against the server.

I think the concensus is that they start with T2A...and then make whatever changes that become necessary. If the shard has too many PKs, there are dozens of ideas that have been posted here. Also, I don't think too many people would want it remain completely static and never change. But I do think that most people wanting a shard like this would like to see is for it to take a totally different path than the one the devs took with UO the first time.

Changes that come to this shard should be well thought out, not rushed, and should never split the population or introduce AoS. The land masses, perhaps if the population got large enough...but certainly not the uber 100 pt damage per hit monsters and item based models.

I think the reason that most of us are for T2A is because it is probably the best place to start from because it was an era before a lot of the truly bad expansions had their effect on the game.

I would just like to see it kept small at first, just because I would want people to interact rather than be spread all over the current land masses.

 

[georgemarvin2001]

@Morgana: Agreed. We start with T2A and move forward on the path not taken, but carefully this time, and without the reckless abandon that brought us the Felucca/Trammel split and AOS.

@MMORPG: Great idea for justice. If there is a big problem with massive amounts of griefing, we may put that before the Devs. I like the idea of wandering patrols, too. Just not at the start. Let's see how things work out before we give the Devs a lot of new work.

Yeah, you have to wonder what Koster's mindset was back then. I mean, the day T2A was released, UO had 100,000 subscribers. The day UO:R was released, it was 185,000. The total number of active subscriptions rose every month throughout T2A. The fact is that, while thousands of people really were leaving because of PvP, twice as many were joining than the number who were leaving each month. Total subscriptions almost doubled during T2A. There is no reason to think that the curve wouldn't have continued to go in the same direction whether UO:R was released or not. And that was in the era of dial-up, when only a small percent of households even had a computer. It was as impressive for its time as WoW's 10 million subscribers today. But, instead of being happy with his success, he wanted to keep everybody who bought the box, tried UO for a month and didn't like it.

You have to think that he wanted to have his cake and eat it too. He wanted to bend over backward to "fix" the game so he could hang onto everybody who tried the game and didn't like it, and, at the same time, have all of the people who loved it as-is recruit all of their friends to join. That was before the MMORPG companies realized that customers would come and go. You can't please everybody, so you just have to find your niche. You couldn't hold onto everybody who bought the box and tried the game for a month or two. Trying to please everybody all the time is where they failed.

A better decision would have been to fix the griefing, not so much by the mostly honorable, feared but respected PKs of the time, but the massive amounts of problems that were caused by a few real jerks who did a lot of mean and nasty stuff just to torment other players, rather than just separate the population into two separate groups. If you have a room full of kids and one keeps punching all the rest of the kids, then breaks all the toys and kills the puppy, you don't send all the kids off to separate rooms to "solve" the problem. You punish the one who is causing all the problems.

Another problem was that UO was just too crowded back then. On Atlantic, you could wander around for months and never find a spot big enough to even place a small house. I would spend whole days sitting at a little 7x7 house that had went IDOC, where about 20 or 30 of us were trying to place a house. A lot of people wanted to play, but they wanted a house, and there was just not a place available to place one anywhere. We needed new land for houses. But we didn't need an exact copy of what was already there. We needed a new land mass.

Some people were getting bored with the dungeons and open PvM areas available. I knew every nook and cranny of every single dungeon. I had runes marked to every single place in the land that was worth exploring. We needed new, interesting dungeons. We needed more open land to PvP in. We needed new open land to PvM in. We needed new items to craft. We DIDN'T need Trammel, an exact duplicate of each and every dungeon that we already knew by heart.

If they had worked hard and given us new content, new housing areas, and stopped the problems with a few griefers causing massive amounts of trouble, subscriptions would have grown just as much as they did when they gave us Trammel. Probably a lot more. And they probably wouldn't have leveled off at 250K, like they did in the months after UO:R.

 

[georgemarvin2001]

@Longest Journey: It looks like I may have figured out the problem. That old house was probably a small stone workshop. Like I had said, it was a vendor house. I logged in and bought a house placement tool and looked at the classic house options for the first time in several years; that one looks about right. I remembered that it was stone and bigger than a regular house, but still just the small footprint. It has been 10 years since I owned the place, so there was no need in calling me a liar and acting snotty because I had forgotten some minor details about a house I owned a decade ago.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

I could be wrong...but I think when people have said 'T2A Era house security' I think that they just mean that we should have lock downs, secure containers, doors that don't require keys (or that have changable keys), etc. I don't think they were specifically referring to the actual numbers of lock downs and such. Again, I could be wrong...

...but I think most people can agree, or at least...wouldn't refuse to play a classic shard if it goes in...that we need some kind of house security. In the old, old, days, anything you put in your house was just lying there for anyone to pick up and walk away with. Lockdowns and secure containers were a blessing!

It might be fun to loot someone's house, but it sucks when it happens to you...so that one is a wash, even for the worst griefers I would think.


I have no strong opinion on the number of lock downs and such. As long as we didn't have freely lootable houses like in the beginning, I would be good with it...or we could even have the most current system of house ownership, with just the classic designs. Whatever on that front is fine with me...

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

I also think it is important for everone (or as many of us as possible) to reach a list of minimums...a list of must haves...and not get too mired down in bickering over trivial points.

-T2A era skills and spells
-T2A or Original land mass only (if original, T2A added later)
-Fel Rules
-All anti-PK measures that were in game before UO:R (stat loss, etc)
-No AoS content
-No Powerscrolls
-No Transfers to or from the shard
-Bring back order/chaos

To me, those sound like the core of what people want. It satisfies the majority while not excluding anyone.

Other things could be added later, like tougher penalties for PKs, or not, depending on the need for them.


Ask yourself this:

If they opened a shard with what I have listed above, but it did or didn't have any of the small things like neon colors, custom housing, pet control slots, fancy hair dyes, vet rewards, certain number of lock downs, etc...would you still play on it?

If the answer is no...then what is the thing that would prevent you from trying it?

 

[Cardell]

-T2A era skills and spells
-T2A or Original land mass only (if original, T2A added later)
-Fel Rules
-All anti-PK measures that were in game before UO:R (stat loss, etc)
-No AoS content
-No Powerscrolls
-No Transfers to or from the shard
-Bring back order/chaos

yes!

 

[georgemarvin2001]

-T2A era skills and spells
-T2A or Original land mass only (if original, T2A added later)
-Fel Rules
-All anti-PK measures that were in game before UO:R (stat loss, etc)
-No AoS content
-No Powerscrolls
-No Transfers to or from the shard
-Bring back order/chaos

To me, those sound like the core of what people want. It satisfies the majority while not excluding anyone.

Other things could be added later, like tougher penalties for PKs, or not, depending on the need for them.

Sounds good!

 

[Unsatisfied]

Only thing I'd like off the list is vet rewards, or at least the black dye tubs. If they exist should be hard to come by like they were in the classic days. Some kind of an event reward or something along those lines.

Like other things ive mentioned before I wouldnt cry if it was there. Just my personal opinion keeping it classic.

Actually, the black dye tubs were around BEFORE the vet reward program. I believe they were given out one year for Christmas.

I know black dye tubs were around before vet rewards this is my point they were rare before vet rewards. Im talking about before this xmas give out you speak of even. The original black dye tubs were given out from an event where everyone on the shard was given a ticket with a longass number on it. two people got given the same ticket and you had to track down the other player... One of the prizes you could chose was a black dye tub... I think another one was a cbd, cant remember what the others were, but anyway it took ages to find your other half. and it was one ticket per account... So this made the black dye tubs pretty rare still. Im not sure if they were ever given out as a christmas gift but if they were it would have been a cpl of years down the track cos they were rare for a long time.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

I'm not talking about candy land... I always played a red, ever since my mentor Tiffric of AMT got murdered by those necromancers. I was pretty young, and I turned evil out of confusion and with a foolish hope that it might get me in the favors of those people so I could better strike at their hearts.

Before that I was a very good player, never would have hacked, never would have tried to attract attention in such a manner. I was a mage, and I helped noobs. Back in the day, AMT was classic UO... the community feeling it brought to the game is yet unmatched. I still have tastes, odors and feelings when I think about it... it's so fresh in my mind I can almost touch it.

Nope I did not enjoy the fact that my name was hated, it meant nothing to me exept more trouble. People would recall only to gang up and I would often end up fighting alone or with Nick-of-time as a criminal "grey" healer against sometimes up to 10-20 people.

I never died, it was my second best friend who treasoned me by scouting Leihas and instead of being a good friend, well he called LLTS and they set up so much people that they lagged me to death even if I recalled 1 screen away. There was at least 150 people there, and the reason my friend did it is that my head was worth thousands in real cold hard USD cash.

Which was totally lame. A sandbox becomes a game when people start making money off it, true evil controls the subconscious of that game as soon as this happens. This is what truely happened to UO, this is a distraction because as long as this issue isn't fixed it will fail miserably...

@Ahuaeyjnkxs: Keeping stat loss doesn't mean making UO a "candy land". Far from it. UO had stat loss from the very earliest days through T2A. Back then, being a red meant something. The best reds were practically legendary, and players knew to run if they saw them. I know that you hated losing the character, but didn't love the fact that your very name gave the majority of the blue population a sense of dread and awe? That blues would see you from a screen away and start running, or recall out? That your name was cursed by whole guilds of anti-PKers?

The very point of stat loss and lots of other penalties for being red was to make life hard for reds. Being a successful red character was something that only a real hardcore gamer with exceptional skills could do.

Being a successful red was something that a lot of players were very proud of. Take Vader, for instance. He was red, and he survived for years. I think somebody paid like 10 million for his head, and put it on display when he finally died, back when gold sold for $100 per million on eBay, because it was a piece of UO history. He was a real UO legend, and was worshipped in death, as he had been feared in life.

Yeah, being a red and dying usually meant something very close to perma-death. And that was part of the game. You had to be one of the best players in the game to turn red. You were both feared and respected. You were a legend.

You had to pick your targets, and you knew when to run away. Taking out stat loss was one of the things that helped to turn UO into candy land. T2A without stat loss wouldn't be T2A.

In today's game, I returned to UO last fall, after a year and a half absence. I had to join faction, then kill a bunch of enemy factioners just to get the faction gear that you need to play effectively these days. Even my PvM characters joined, because that gear is a lot better than anything you can get any other way.

One of the first things I saw was that most of the reds today are practically clueless, in terms of actual survival skills in an old school environment. I had to join a PvP guild for my own survival in Felucca these days, so I found out that PvP today doesn't resemble PvP during the classic era. Practically everybody runs a script that casts their spells for them and throws their pots for them. It does everything but wipe their noses for them. They die every 5 minutes. And they kill everything in sight, whether it's enemy factioners, enemy guild members, members of their own faction, or even fellow guild members who got a scroll they wanted. There isn't any reason to be careful. There isn't any reason to choose their targets. There isn't any reason not to commit mass murder. There isn't any reason to think before they attack. They raid every single champ spawn that a trammy guild tries to work, the second that the champ pops. They have faction gear, which gives them a huge equipment advantage over the trammies, in an equipment-dominated game. They have all the power scrolls, because the trammies aren't allowed to ever finish a champ spawn. The trammies do all the work, the PvP faction guilds get all the scrolls. Then the faction guilds slaughter each other for them and put them on their Luna vendors for the Trammie guild to buy. A lot of the richest trammies do have skills at legendary, but they have to do a LOT of gold farming to get them.

In the old days, a group of reds might stage a raid, but they didn't just kill everything that moved. Death for them meant severe penalties, maybe even character death. What stat loss did was it made the reds careful. It meant that they were mostly real hardcore gamers with a lot of experience and battle skills, not some script kiddie with a penchant for mass murder.

In a T2A environment, most script kiddies today would work for weeks to make a 7x GM red character, die in a matter of minutes, suffer stat loss, figure out that once they had suffered stat loss once, as a red at just 80 skills, they were sitting ducks for every blue in the game, either delete the character or sit out their timer to turn blue, depending on how many counts they had, then become more careful about how often they indulged in a murder spree. The average AOS PKer might keep 3 or 4 short term murders on his character in a T2A world, but he would be really careful about his targets, to keep it under 5. Out of the hundreds of reds on Atlantic today, I could probably count on my fingers the number of them that are really skilled, and could operate as reds in a T2A environment. Most of the reds today might have 10,000 murder counts, but they have also died 50,000 times. When they figured out that death had meaning in the T2A world, they would have second thoughts about playing a mass murderer who attacked everybody they saw, on sight.

In short, Evocare's decision to remove stat loss and all of the other penalties for red characters was part of what turned UO into a "candy land". It existed pre-T2A. It was still there during the T2A era. PvP was alive and well back then. So was PvM. And crafting worked pretty well, too. With only the best players becoming reds, we didn't have the mess that is Felucca today, where it's practically insta-death for any blue who dares to step out of a moongate.

For the rest... I think you summed it up pretty well. I haven't even tought about pvping since I joined back last winter.

Oh and I was so hated back then that I never became a legend. Basically everyone but Nick was against me.

AND LET IT BE KNOWN THAT THEY WERE AGAINST WHAT I STOOD FOR !

I was Brainbug, and I found only one person to this day that actually remembers me. I outranked all other reds by far, but they weren't standing against gold selling, the weren't involved in fighting the EVIL that sneaked in the minds of so many, they were working for it, and if it wasn't for their super UOE skunkworks hacks paid for... I would have killed them over 10 times. And yes I attacked them too, I liked noone exept true noobs crafters whom I never touched.

So there we go again, it's up for consideration, make of it what you will.

 

[kelmo]

Dude... You lost me when you equated pixels to dollars. It is just pixels...

 

[Guido_LS]

If the answer is no...then what is the thing that would prevent you from trying it?

The point is not to get people to try it. The point is to get people to stay there, to make the financial input from EA worth their time, so they don't just shut it back down again, or make it Siege 2.0.

What will keep the vast majority of the current player base from staying there is simple - taking out everything in the game that provides a diversion from what is seemingly the ultimate goal of some in this thread - PvP land. No plants. No quests. No custom housing, even when just the original, base tiles are offered as a compromise. No goal that will mean anything to anyone except the PvP'er and how many notches s/he can place on their belt.

No, what is being offered, and proffered, by certain more vocal people in this thread, is nothing more than Call of Duty, except with swords and sorcery. And something that base, that stripped of content, won't keep anyone around for long. It's the primary reason that MMO developers make expansions - to keep things from being stale. This doesn't even offer stale - all it offers is already molded.

Unless there is some compromise on at least a couple of things, this will have the lifespan of a goldfish in a piranha tank...

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

I know black dye tubs were around before vet rewards this is my point they were rare before vet rewards. Im talking about before this xmas give out you speak of even. The original black dye tubs were given out from an event where everyone on the shard was given a ticket with a longass number on it. two people got given the same ticket and you had to track down the other player... One of the prizes you could chose was a black dye tub... I think another one was a cbd, cant remember what the others were, but anyway it took ages to find your other half. and it was one ticket per account... So this made the black dye tubs pretty rare still. Im not sure if they were ever given out as a christmas gift but if they were it would have been a cpl of years down the track cos they were rare for a long time.

Actually, the original black dye tubs were created using a hack that altered the data going between the server and the client. Once they were in game, the GMs just allowed them to stay and started giving them away in special events...then they were a Christmas gift...and then a Vet Reward.

But really...what difference does it make if someone can dye their clothing pure black? At least they aren't dying it neon puke green or highway cone neon orange!

I have no strong feeling on black tubs one way or the other because they don't affect gameplay.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Yeah it's pixels ! But back then I could turn around and sell my head for 4000 USD...

just pixels ?

It's not money it's just worthless paper ! Right ?

Same thing... if the evil is not rooted out, it will rot from the inside out !

 

[Evlar]

Glad to see this thread is headed in the right direction. One of more unity towards the ultimate aim. A CLASSIC SHARD

I'm definitely in

 

[kelmo]

I find it interesting... While this thread is going on here. There are many threads on Siege trying to save the shard. Just so you know many on Siege are willing to give, many more so than in the past.

If the classic thing comes to pass, I feel Siege will be doomed. I am not saying we will be deleted. Just that much more empty.

I understand the differences between classic and Siege. Hell, I could have 30 some odd characters. That is just on one shard. Add 'em all in I could have hundreds.


I play where I do for a reason. How about you?

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

No plants. No quests. No custom housing, even when just the original, base tiles are offered as a compromise. No goal that will mean anything to anyone except the PvP'er and how many notches s/he can place on their belt.

I for one have no issues with quests...no issues with custom housing with some limits...and even some plants...as long as they get rid of those garrish neon colors. I actually rather like the plants that are actually green and look like...plants. The re-hued stuff they can keep.

One thing I think that every current Tram player should understand about 'Classic' UO:

It wasn't as geared toward PvM as it is now.

There were only the anti-virtue dungeons, and with T2A, you got Ice, and Fire, at so on.

I'd also like to see Khaldun included. That was always the 'advanced' dungeon of the game until all the new expansions came along.

I wish there was more I could tell you that would make you like a world without Ilshenar, and Tokuno, and paragons, and peerless bosses, and artifacts, and all that comes along with all of that...but if that is what you are into, there is a HUGE list of shards that are currently available that have all of that stuff.

A Classic Shard wouldn't have that stuff.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

I play where I do for a reason. How about you?

I used to play on Atlantic because of the people I knew there. Now I play on Atlantic because there is really no point in changing shards just to have the same old post-AoS garbage elsewhere.

 

[georgemarvin2001]

@Morgana: The big difference is the way that lockdowns worked during T2A, not just the number of them. Let me explain:

During T2A, a small house only had 1 secure container and 25 lockdowns, but the stuff inside the locked down containers wouldn't decay, so you could actually have over 3,000 items in a little 7x7 house. There wasn't any weight limit for locked down containers, but the one secure container could only hold 400 stones. Now, here's the problem with the T2A era lockdowns: ALL OF THE ITEMS IN THE LOCKED DOWN CONTAINERS COULD BE LOOTED BY ANYBODY WHO COULD REACH THEM.

That meant that GMs fielded literally hundreds of calls every day, because: My thief finds a house with all 25 lockdowns filled with 125 items each. I wait patiently at the door until the owner walks in. I follow him in before he closes the door. I just stand there in stealth mode until he logs out or leaves, then start opening all of the locked down bags and sifting through them, until I've managed to load my pack down with all of his most valuable stuff. I recall to Brit bank and sell all of his stuff for cheap. Then I wait till somebody else uses a moongate to go home instead of just recalling, follow him in and rinse and repeat. Most of them have tables locked down in front of their bags of valuables, but I just wait till they unlock the table, and follow them right inside. By the end of the day, I've looted maybe 20 or 30 houses of all of their most prized possessions, which they worked hard for months, maybe years, to get. The next day, all of those home owners log in and open the bag with their most prized possessions in it. It's empty! They all page the GM repeatedly, and all he can say is that there's nothing he can do about missing items. They're still mad, so they page again. And again. Until the GM ends up having to warn or ban some of them. Over the course of a week, my thief has managed make several million gold pieces, but he has also managed to generate something in the range of 500 calls to the GMs, has thousands of players talking about a really nasty new item bug, and UO has maybe a hundred cancelled subscriptions from the people who will swear that the dirty GMs are just being real jerks because they won't replace all of those really valuable items that just poofed, and they won't even acknowledge that there is a really bad item bug that is ruining the game for everybody.

Don't blame the thief; the game mechanics were set up especially to allow this type of stealing; the thief isn't intentionally doing something out of character just for the purpose of griefing other people. He's using the game mechanics to make a living in his chosen profession, in the exact manner that they were set up by the devs.

Now, do you see why so many of us want the POST-T2A rules? And why the people who plan to make thieves on their classic shard accounts are lobbying so hard for it? In the T2A era, a resourceful 2 day old thief could make millions of gold every day, while giving the GMs nightmares and blithely wreaking havoc throughout the entire game world and even threatening UO's entire subscriber base.

The truth is that even most of us who benefited so greatly from the old T2A housing storage system realize that it was an unmitigated disaster. It caused thousands of people to cancel their subscriptions, gave the GMs a bad name for something that they couldn't do a thing about because it was part of the T2A game mechanics, and caused rumors of hundreds of non-existent bugs, some of which still persist till today.

Any more questions?