Food for Thought

[Wallenstein]

I just re-joined UO after a two-year hiatus and took ownership of a Catskills account. I play on Great Lakes so I am in the process of transferring everything if and when the transfer servers become active again, but I'm saddened at how dead Catskills is.. At 9:00pm EST on a Wednesday night in the summer there were three people at the Luna bank, zero people at the Trammel Britain bank, and 1 person at the Felucca Yew gate. Two thirds of the Luna houses are simply dead, too. No vendors, no customization, and there's one that is literally on fire.

Anyway, I was thinking that the game is steadily "dieing" partly because people are noticing the large drop in subscriptions/dead servers and just leaving the game because of it. But, if everyone from the "dead" shards (Drach, Baja, and other servers not known for being the 'big' ones) transfered to one of the bigger shards (Great Lakes, Atlantic) then this game would be like it was at least five years ago.

No house spots would be available (amazingly good for the real estate market and economy), PvP would be off the hook, vendors would be valuable again, and the server(s) to which everyone transfered would be thriving like crazy.

I know people will say that people have their home shard and that's that, but if someone is going to quit the game because their shard is dead then at least try transferring to a place like Great Lakes and then reconsider quitting. If lots of people did this Ultima would actually have a decent chance in "coming back". Over time people would realize that there are only two shards with virtually all of the UO players and they would be booming.

For crying out loud there are 157 people viewing this one forum (UHall) right now. It's 1:42pm on a Thursday and this is a ~10-year-old game.. it does have a chance..

Okay, back to staining the fence outside and cleaning the gutters

 

[Gildar]

Lots of people like having shards that are quiet.

And Catskills is far from being dead - we're just very diverse and enjoy doing things more than bank sitting. Lots of people go out hunting. Lots of people hang out in New Haven. Lots of people roleplay. Lots of people PvP (or try to, anyway). Lots of people just go around exploring.

Certainly not as alive as we used to be, but we've still got a decent presence.

 

[Alvinho]

Check your ICQ

 

[Arabella]

Welcome back Wally! Come back to Great Lakes and do factions with us!

 

[Doomsday Dragon]

If I were not on a decent sized shard already I probably would have transfered out just because small shards are boring and there is no point in playing if your bored.

I think depending on how things go in the future you may see a lot of people hopping to larger shards.

 

[Oriana]

I happen to like Baja, it's far from dead. It's a smaller population granted but a good community.

As for being dead on any shrad right now. Thats not that unusual for summer time. In the 8 years my hubby and I have played we've noticed a drop of player during the summer season. I would be very upset if forces to leave to a different shard, because someone else thinks it's dead.

Ori