How to revive the dying shards

[Yadd of Legends]

Give the dockmasters the power to ship a crate to another shard for some fee (not sure how much yet - ideally it would depend on the value of the items - how can we determined that in game?). Then people will start gathering resources on the less populated shards and shipping them back home (just like in real life).
Developers have said we can't shard hop characters. but I don't see why we can't send crates - maybe a crate a a week?
As a result, a market will develop to equip and outfit those characters who are gathering resources, and the whole economy will revive.
Ex: I'm sick of always waiting in line for miasmas on Atlantic to get chests for L6 maps. So I create (or already have) characters on less populated shards to farm miasmas and pay the dockmaster some fee to ship them back to Atlantic where I need them.
This is how it works in RL, why not in UO?
I see only upsides here. What are the downsides?

 

[Lythos-]

I see only upsides here. What are the downsides?

Reduced sales of the best seller the store offers...xfer tokens.

 

[Yadd of Legends]

We would still would need the transfer tokens to transfer characters, but yes, it might lower store profits from transfer tokens some. But reviving the game might be worth it.

 

[Lythos-]

Taking away even more money from the game isn't going to revive the game. Sure maybe a few people will play dead shards but in the end you're only taking money away from the game.

 

[Yadd of Legends]

OK, let's ask how many regularly buy transfer tokens? For $20, I've bought one in my eight years of playing, to transfer one character with a full backpack. How do we know transfer tokens are the store's best seller? I've bought a lot more soulstones over the years than transfer tokens, and more recently a bunch of forged metal tools. But spending $20 with any regularity to transfer stuff - I can't justify it.

 

[Spock's Beard]

Look, every other game even half of UO's age has merged servers by now. UO can't do that, so some of them are pretty empty. Just deal with it or move to Atlantic. Making it slightly easier for people to fart around on the empty ones and farm junk isn't actually going to "revive" them.

 

[Ox_AO]

leave my little shard alone! i like it the way it is

 

[MalagAste]

Don't need to buy transfer tokens at my age. By December I'll have one to every shard. Simply use the shard shields... you can move stuff once a month or so. It's honestly not that hard.

Sadly though it won't revive a shard. What would might be some advertising and customer support.

 

[Yadd of Legends]

And what percentage of the player base has shard shields - not me.

 

[DJAd]

Sadly though it won't revive a shard. What would might be some advertising and customer support.

This ^^

 

[DJAd]

I see posts pretty much daily about people having issues with getting old accounts back, forgetting details etc etc. They need to sort this out before they do anything else to promote the game.

If you check the UO Facebook pages its the same story, people can't get accounts back, lost details etc and nobody from the UO team replies on there offering help or support. I thought they even employed someone to take care of the UO social media??

Once they have sorted this out and old / new / returning players get back into the game they (the dev team) need to make a decent tutorial and some player guides. I mean they have a guide on the website now but they can't even update that, it shows the wrong information right now (go and see material bonus pages for example). The fan sites can update stuff but the UO team can't? Its a bit of a joke to be honest.

I'd love to see them write a tutorial about crafting and keep it so people don't start dropping off to sleep.

EDIT - I've also started to "follow" the dark age of camelot page on Facebook. That game is run by the same dev team as UO right? As it seems to get a LOT more love then UO. I've seen them giving away game codes, competitions etc. and all that this March!!! which is only 10 days in so far. Have we had any UO updates this month?

 

[Kuzan]

In the time of legends interview they discussed the account system on recovering accounts they are completely redoing it to make it really easy and I think they said adding more people for customer support once they do I'm going to try to recover a account I turned off in 2003 it took a week to recover the one I use now it was offline for 7 years

 

[DJAd]

In the time of legends interview they discussed the account system on recovering accounts they are completely redoing it to make it really

Yep I remember them saying this in the video. Didn't they say mid May?

 

[Kuzan]

Ya they said may

 

[Flagg]

It would lose them tons of money; nobody would buy tokens anymore. On the other hand, I can't imagine how it'd bring any new/returning players.

"Awesome, finally I can start elaborate muti-billion Xfer trade business in this game I have never played!" I can't see that happening.

Besides this, sure, it makes a convinient sounding idea for remaining players. I'd like to be able to do that! Though surely it would be wretched for shard economies besides ATL.

In very general terms, I bet it'd do the game tons of good if they allowed everybody utterly free movement between shards. Like, give every single character a free access to a shard shield that comes with a 2 week cooldown or such.
It would revitalize the gameplay experience for remaining players..but it would also prolly lose them more money than it makes, I dunno. It'd be cool to have one busy shard for your bank sitting,pvp and crowds, one for your housing, one for your guilds PvE..etc. Game has way, way, way too many servers for it's current population. Since closing or merging isn't really an option..this would make the next best thing.


To lock such cool feature behind some 10000 year veteran account thing is as fine an example of utterly insane game design as I can possibly think of.

 

[silent]

Sadly I think the reasons we're not bringing in new blood is:

• Partially the complexity of the game - For many of us this is what we love about UO, however I can see this as a deterrent to others starting out.
• Expansion costs to have a current account - Someone posted to open a new account and bring it up to the latest expansion was close to $100, haven't confirmed this myself tho.
• We don't have Kate Upton advertising for us.
• Monthly sub fee - There are many other free games out there that people are likely to try first basing their decision on cost.
• In game gold costs for equipment and resources to be competitive. - Equipment is expensive if you want to competitive in PVP or taking on high end MOBs. I know many of us started out beating on slimes and mining ore but we're pretty far from that era.
• Does anyone other than UO's current and past playerbase know this game is out there?

Some of these are fixable, some may not be....

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Sadly I think the reasons we're not bringing in new blood is:

• We don't have Kate Upton advertising for us.

I think you've solved the mystery...la

 

[icm420]

Sadly I think the reasons we're not bringing in new blood is:

• Partially the complexity of the game - For many of us this is what we love about UO, however I can see this as a deterrent to others starting out.
• Expansion costs to have a current account - Someone posted to open a new account and bring it up to the latest expansion was close to $100, haven't confirmed this myself tho.
• We don't have Kate Upton advertising for us.
• Monthly sub fee - There are many other free games out there that people are likely to try first basing their decision on cost.
• In game gold costs for equipment and resources to be competitive. - Equipment is expensive if you want to competitive in PVP or taking on high end MOBs. I know many of us started out beating on slimes and mining ore but we're pretty far from that era.
• Does anyone other than UO's current and past playerbase know this game is out there?

Some of these are fixable, some may not be....

pretty much nailed it..

I think the P2P era is over. No one wants to pay a sub fee for a game that is no better (in fact in many ways worse) then any other game on the market. We don't get exceptional support, exceptional quality servers, etc etc. I think we would see a large increase in population if we dropped the sub fee.

 

[Uriah Heep]

Sadly I think the reasons we're not bringing in new blood is:

• Partially the complexity of the game - For many of us this is what we love about UO, however I can see this as a deterrent to others starting out.

This. I'm a vet, and I hate not being able to sit down and play, withoout needing a calculator. And it seems the only thing that gets added is more complexity with each pub. Graphics arent killing ya, the time/money/ energy to get to a level field is.

 

[Keith of Sonoma]

Sadly I think the reasons we're not bringing in new blood is:

• Partially the complexity of the game - For many of us this is what we love about UO, however I can see this as a deterrent to others starting out.
• Expansion costs to have a current account - Someone posted to open a new account and bring it up to the latest expansion was close to $100, haven't confirmed this myself tho.
• We don't have Kate Upton advertising for us.
• Monthly sub fee - There are many other free games out there that people are likely to try first basing their decision on cost.
• In game gold costs for equipment and resources to be competitive. - Equipment is expensive if you want to competitive in PVP or taking on high end MOBs. I know many of us started out beating on slimes and mining ore but we're pretty far from that era.
• Does anyone other than UO's current and past playerbase know this game is out there?

Some of these are fixable, some may not be....

You had me at Kate Upton!!!!!

 

[Ender]

Yeah ignoring the monthly fee and lack of support, the complexity and the economy are pretty prohibitive for new players. Complexity can't really be solved, just alleviated with better info available in game or on the official site.

The economy though... Huge inflation, the majority of gold collected through 17 years never left the game and the population has only decreased. And now the devs are going to make it easier to have obscene amounts of gold available and for use in transactions? I'd rather see all gold amounts currently owned by players have one, two or even three zeroes slashed off. Billions become tens of millions. I'm unsure what to do with gold drops after this though, think probably decrease them by a lesser amount?

 

[DJAd]

The economy though... Huge inflation, the majority of gold collected through 17 years never left the game and the population has only decreased. And now the devs are going to make it easier to have obscene amounts of gold available and for use in transactions? I'd rather see all gold amounts currently owned by players have one, two or even three zeroes slashed off. Billions become tens of millions. I'm unsure what to do with gold drops after this though, think probably decrease them by a lesser amount?

Me: So you need a Slither, a crimson, despicable quiver, conj garb for this new suit bro.
Them: OK I've written that down, how much gold with that cost me, I have a few million in my bank from a few years back when I was playing before.
Me: Maybe 200m or there abouts
Them: Are you trying to scam me?

 

[Yadd of Legends]

OK, the way I framed my original proposal got the idea sidetracked into whether the game can be revived or not. How about I just suggest it would be a lot of fun for those of us without transfer shields to be able to play around on different shards and send items back to our home shards through the dockmasters. Nobody else likes this idea?

 

[DJAd]

How about I just suggest it would be a lot of fun for those of us without transfer shields to be able to play around on different shards and send items back to our home shards through the dockmasters. Nobody else likes this idea?

I like the idea. Why not just make it even more simpler and have a "shard gate" which is just like a moongate but takes players to another shard. Only the items in the characters backpack and clothing are moved.

I don't know if I would do much "playing around" myself. It would just be for me to travel to another shard to purchase items that I cannot get on a quiet shard.

 

[MalagAste]

Yeah ignoring the monthly fee and lack of support, the complexity and the economy are pretty prohibitive for new players. Complexity can't really be solved, just alleviated with better info available in game or on the official site.

The economy though... Huge inflation, the majority of gold collected through 17 years never left the game and the population has only decreased. And now the devs are going to make it easier to have obscene amounts of gold available and for use in transactions? I'd rather see all gold amounts currently owned by players have one, two or even three zeroes slashed off. Billions become tens of millions. I'm unsure what to do with gold drops after this though, think probably decrease them by a lesser amount?

That's nice for all you folk who have 10's of billions... but for the average Joe player who has maybe 40 or 50 million TOPS that's not really leveling the playing field.

 

[DJAd]

Meanwhile on Facebook...

 

[Yadd of Legends]

I like the idea. Why not just make it even more simpler and have a "shard gate" which is just like a moongate but takes players to another shard. Only the items in the characters backpack and clothing are moved.

I don't know if I would do much "playing around" myself. It would just be for me to travel to another shard to purchase items that I cannot get on a quiet shard.

Sounds good to me, although I thought they had ruled out characters jumping shards without shard shields or transfer tokens. I kind of liked the role-playing aspect of shipping goods across shards through the dockmasters, a form of global commerce.

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

but for the average Joe player who has maybe 40 or 50 million TOPS that's not really leveling the playing field.

LOL, 40-50 million? Try under 5 million...you sound like the Top 5% complaining about not being as rich as the Top 1%...la

 

[GarthGrey]

Sorry to troll, but I stopped reading after "my shard is so full I can't farm Miasma".

 

[silent]

LOL, 40-50 million? Try under 5 million...you sound like the Top 5% complaining about not being as rich as the Top 1%...la

If that's Siege dollars yer Rick James rich...

 

[Angel of Sonoma]

Give the dockmasters the power to ship a crate to another shard for some fee (not sure how much yet - ideally it would depend on the value of the items - how can we determined that in game?). Then people will start gathering resources on the less populated shards and shipping them back home (just like in real life).
Developers have said we can't shard hop characters. but I don't see why we can't send crates - maybe a crate a a week?
As a result, a market will develop to equip and outfit those characters who are gathering resources, and the whole economy will revive.
Ex: I'm sick of always waiting in line for miasmas on Atlantic to get chests for L6 maps. So I create (or already have) characters on less populated shards to farm miasmas and pay the dockmaster some fee to ship them back to Atlantic where I need them.
This is how it works in RL, why not in UO?
I see only upsides here. What are the downsides?

Sorry but I don't see how this would help the less populated shards. The only way I'd buy into this idea is if Broadsword sold a shipping token on their store for a price comparable to a transfer token so they could continue to generate revenue.

 

[Yadd of Legends]

Sorry but I don't see how this would help the less populated shards. The only way I'd buy into this idea is if Broadsword sold a shipping token on their store for a price comparable to a transfer token so they could continue to generate revenue.

I'm not arguing it would help the less populated shards anymore (although I think it would) - I just think it would be fun.

Sorry to troll, but I stopped reading after "my shard is so full I can't farm Miasma".

Care to explain that to us who don't play 24/7? I'll make it simple - I spent some hours creating a character to do level 7 maps. Lately I haven't even been able to get L6 maps (the source of L7 maps, every once in a while) because I can't find a time when miasmas are available. My solution: get the L6 maps on another shard where nobody seems to care about them and ship them back to me on Atlantic. The problem: I don't have transfer shields and I'm not paying $20 for transfer tokens. The solution: Open up shipping items across shards. That's the proposal, simple and clear.
EDIT: To anticipate an objection, yes, I could jump in and start killing miasmas when two guys with greater dragons are going it, but they're doing their thing, and that's not my play style. One creature spawning one at at time is not the kind of spawn I would jump in the middle of and take away from somebody else. I think my proposal is better.

 

[Ender]

That's nice for all you folk who have 10's of billions... but for the average Joe player who has maybe 40 or 50 million TOPS that's not really leveling the playing field.

It's not really about leveling the playing field immediately. That just won't happen ever. Over time it can, somewhat.

 

[Angel of Sonoma]

Sadly I think the reasons we're not bringing in new blood is:

• Partially the complexity of the game - For many of us this is what we love about UO, however I can see this as a deterrent to others starting out.
• Expansion costs to have a current account - Someone posted to open a new account and bring it up to the latest expansion was close to $100, haven't confirmed this myself tho.
• We don't have Kate Upton advertising for us.
• Monthly sub fee - There are many other free games out there that people are likely to try first basing their decision on cost.
• In game gold costs for equipment and resources to be competitive. - Equipment is expensive if you want to competitive in PVP or taking on high end MOBs. I know many of us started out beating on slimes and mining ore but we're pretty far from that era.
• Does anyone other than UO's current and past playerbase know this game is out there?

Some of these are fixable, some may not be....

I'll say it a million times...Want to bring in new players? Create a version of UO for the Xbox 360. Limit the access to Felucca only but allow housing, mining, lumberjacking, PvM, PVP, and any other features that are feasible for the platform. I watch my son & his friends play xbox. Nearly all the games they play involve PVP/PVM hence placing that segment of players in Fel. About the only non-shoot 'em up game they play is Minecraft where they can build houses and mine.

 

[Yadd of Legends]

I'll say it a million times...Want to bring in new players? Create a version of UO for the Xbox 360. Limit the access to Felucca only but allow housing, mining, lumberjacking, PvM, PVP, and any other features that are feasible for the platform. I watch my son & his friends play xbox. Nearly all the games they play involve PVP/PVM hence placing that segment of players in Fel. About the only non-shoot 'em up game they play is Minecraft where they can build houses and mine.

This is actually a great idea. I remember when there was a version of Ultima 6 on Super Nintendo
http://ultima.wikia.com/wiki/SNES-Port_of_Ultima_VI
But those were the days when somebody cared.

 

[azmodanb]

Me: So you need a Slither, a crimson, despicable quiver, conj garb for this new suit bro.
Them: OK I've written that down, how much gold with that cost me, I have a few million in my bank from a few years back when I was playing before.
Me: Maybe 200m or there abouts
Them: Are you trying to scam me?

you know what i did when i came back ? farmed the new stuff.. stuff like slither i bought after farming extra minax drops and selling them.

anyone can come back with a starter suit and farm themselves a few blackthorn items ... then sell some extra parts... and buy a slither and quiver .. well at least that is what i did.

now with new loot there suit can be quickly upgraded with brittle drops.. i think people are just lazy. but you know that...

also when returning i had over a 100m in no time and since has just kept growing.

maybe i just know how to play.. lol

anyone saying they never have over a few mills must be farming mongbats .. i just don't get it..

most drops sell for way.over a mill.

 

[Angel of Sonoma]

you know what i did when i came back ? farmed the new stuff.. stuff like slither i bought after farming extra minax drops and selling them.

anyone can come back with a starter suit and farm themselves a few blackthorn items ... then sell some extra parts... and buy a slither and quiver .. well at least that is what i did.

now with new loot there suit can be quickly upgraded with brittle drops.. i think people are just lazy. but you know that...

also when returning i had over a 100m in no time and since has just kept growing.

maybe i just know how to play.. lol

anyone saying they never have over a few mills must be farming mongbats .. i just don't get it..

most drops sell for way.over a mill.

except on sonoma...

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

anyone saying they never have over a few mills must be farming mongbats .. i just don't get it..

Some of us have never "farmed" anything but items from players packs. Sorry to confuse you since we don't play the same way you do. The most I ever had came from two land plots I stole outside of the Yew gate which gave me 15 million...la

 

[The Craftsman]

Give the dockmasters the power to ship a crate to another shard for some fee (not sure how much yet - ideally it would depend on the value of the items - how can we determined that in game?). Then people will start gathering resources on the less populated shards and shipping them back home (just like in real life).
Developers have said we can't shard hop characters. but I don't see why we can't send crates - maybe a crate a a week?
As a result, a market will develop to equip and outfit those characters who are gathering resources, and the whole economy will revive.
Ex: I'm sick of always waiting in line for miasmas on Atlantic to get chests for L6 maps. So I create (or already have) characters on less populated shards to farm miasmas and pay the dockmaster some fee to ship them back to Atlantic where I need them.
This is how it works in RL, why not in UO?
I see only upsides here. What are the downsides?

Or we could just go the F2P route. That would revive the dying shards (and the dying game).

 

[Yadd of Legends]

anyone saying they never have over a few mills must be farming mongbats .. i just don't get it..

Of course there are those who may only have a few mil because they spend it as quick as they get it outfitting 70 characters and decorating a half dozen houses, eh @MalagAste?

 

[Uriah Heep]

Well the good news is we are gonna be on Steam. The shards will all be full, harps will be playing, and there will be joy in the Kingdom =)

 

[MalagAste]

If that's Siege dollars yer Rick James rich...

On Siege I'm lucky if I have 100k. Between 10 characters even!

 

[cazador]

There needs to be a FTP Steam Shard....cap skills 680 cap stats at 225 only access to older dungeons in Fel/Tram..no special resource mining/lumberjacking no quests..yadda yadda..drop sub fee to $9.99


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[MalagAste]

Of course there are those who may only have a few mil because they spend it as quick as they get it outfitting 70 characters and decorating a half dozen houses, eh @MalagAste?

I actually spend a heck of a lot of my time gathering my own stuff to build my own suits to farm my own Tangles/crimmy's/PS and whatever because I can't afford to buy them from other players. I make my own suits farm my own Imbuing ingredients and such. I have 2 vendors on my Theatre that stand empty 99% of the time. I did put some cheap Scrappers with no mods on them from time to time when I get a few while trying to craft some slayer books. And I was putting a bunch of the fishing junk on them... but now I just toss that stuff for points for the most part and even though I do have a luna vendor house none of the vendors on it are mine. I simply don't have enough time in-game to be dinking with a vendor... I also don't charge my friends fee's to have vendors there so I'm not making millions off other players either.

Rarely when someone is calling out that they are buying something in Gen Chat I'll sell something.... but more often than not they don't want to pay enough to make it worth my while to stop what I'm doing and sell them something.

I quit trying to compete with the scripters long time ago for Miasma and IDOC loot. Again I don't want to spend all my precious time in UO standing around doing nothing for 5 to 20 hours. If I happen to notice a house that's falling sometimes I'll stop... or if one of my friends happens to know of an IDOC I'll come check it out but more often than not I don't bother.

I attend all the EM events on GL's that I can because it's my home and I enjoy them. If I do manage to get a drop I don't sell them. Most every drop I've ever gotten is still in my possession... Most of my characters actually are running about in ... junk. Base 100LRC suits on most my tamer/mages, not even full 70's suits on most my other characters. Pieced together junk from the kelp leggings and such that I have lying about. Runebeetle carapaces and such. And many of them use junk weapons as well. Stuff I've gotten farming other things.

I honestly don't care to imbue stuff even though I have a 120 imbuer with Queens Loyalty. It gives me a headache... and sadly my imbuer doesn't have ANY crafting skills so he just imbues .... I can't reforge stuff or anything.

And a great many of the characters I have were inherited so their skills were there I just ever so slowly have worked some of them up over the years.

 

[Nexus]

Well, why don't go about this logically, why are the shards dying in the first place? Some people say it's players collecting on a few select servers to have a bigger population to interact with, others say it's decline of the player base. Personally I think it's the latter, a decrease in the population. Think about it this way, many people are moving to higher population servers, but how are these servers having the space to hold those populations, in terms of housing availability etc. if other people aren't leaving them?

Revitalization of dying servers has to start with Broadsword finding a way to revitalize the brand and make it relevant in today's market. Everyone who's been involved with MMORPG's since the early days of the genre respects UO as one of the first big games. But do they really consider the game a relevant player in the MMORPG market right now? When you have multiple games that count their player base in the millions or hundreds of thousands, it's difficult to interest people in a late 90's game, who's population hopefully still numbers in the ten of thousands.

Truth be told there is probably very little we can do as players to revitalize dying Shards, the Brand needs an invigoration beyond expansions, housing rule changes, the idea of a Classic Shard, or an Outdated "Modern" Client (these largely only appeal to current players). Broadsword needs to find a way to make the game attractive to a new generation of players for any noticeable impact to occur.

 

[azmodanb]

except on sonoma...

weird.. so on sonoma there is no black thorns dungeon or lady Mel or dreadhorn or tram despise? well yeah that would be tough then

 

[Angel of Sonoma]

weird.. so on sonoma there is no black thorns dungeon or lady Mel or dreadhorn or tram despise? well yeah that would be tough then

sorry, i was referring to selling things

 

[Capt. Lucky]

I never actually transfer my toons with transfers. I create a character and transfer *stuff* I can't find to whichever shard I'm playing at the time. I just make whatever characters I need on each shard. It sucks doing all the same skills over again, but in the long run I think it's the best way to go. I'm just finishing a complete set of 7 new characters on Legends. Just gotta finish my fishing/pirate and thief. Always wanted to make a dexxer on Atlantic. Housing is the issue I have. I've already got 3 accounts and I'm not paying for another one just for a house. I'd like something done with housing like they did for SP.

 

[Yadd of Legends]

A thief? What is there to steal?

 

[Capt. Lucky]

A thief? What is there to steal?

Ya know, dungeon stuff. Want one of those torn paintings. Stuff like that.