Two of the reasons for reducing the numbers of shards given by the posters relate to cost savings.
In both cases, these are not valid cost savings measures.
UO is a multi tier application consisting of a client, am application, and a database.
The application does not need to reside on a system dedicated to running the application. In fact, UO can be “virtualized” to have every UO shard in the world run on a single physical piece of hardware.
There is no need for the application or database layer to be dedicated to any specific hardware. The layers should be treated as abstracted applications that are independent of the physical hardware layer.
Server virtualization is a huge cost savings for companies that adopt the technology. The beauty of virtualization is that the end users do not need to know that you have gone from 100 physical servers to a single big server.
Done properly, the users will actually think the applications run better and faster.
Bottom line for EA is that running the current UO shards on a few hardware platforms that virtualized the physical servers would save the company money, and the UO players would never know the difference.
Now for the argument about the GM’s having less work.
The GM workload is not based on the number of shards, but on the numbers, and types of players.
It makes no difference if you have 100 players on 100 shards, or 100 players on 1 shard, the GM workload is the same.
Personality of the players however, that makes a big difference to the GM’s
Some play styles require much greater GM interaction with the player base.
For those who recall some of Sunswords old post on the topic during the UO:R change and the changes to thieves will recall he was very explicit that Free for all PvP, corps looting and Thieves drastically increased the number of calls to the GM’s when non-consent players were mixed into the equation.
So, would EA save money from reduced GM workload if they reduced shards? No, in fact, as the other poster mentioned, the greater interaction of the players would probably increase the clash of player personalities and thus increase the GM workload.
On the other hand, forcing the existing player base to move (Change) would be a costly and time consuming process that would once again alienate the player base, break up existing communities, destroy shard history and result in lost subscriptions.
People resist change. Any change forced on the player base will alienate some part of the player base. Think thieves, UO:R, AoS etc.
