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That solves the market and accessibility for new players to easily locate what they need, but does not solve the issue of giving people a decent sized population to interact with in other aspects of the game.
Without going into instancing (a la WoW) there's not much else can be done really.... its kinda done on a small scale per-shard, but making that broader might be out of the dev teams scope.
The 'Greater Good' is keeping as many players happy as they can by letting them play where they want, not by cramming them all unhappily into a few shards to keep a few happier.
If they cram my accounts onto your shard you'll be ticked pink I'm sure, at least until my gametime runs out, then I'm gone to a freeshard with the population size I like.
You need to make the REAL world sacrifice of going through the expense and hassle moving to the busiest shard which is apparently Atlantic. If Atlantic isn't enough of a zoo for you, start trying freeshards.
And what is to say that your opinion holds weight to the majority of the games train of thought?
And yours does? mess up others play for your benefit?
Nice straw man!
Actually, I'm not really putting my personal opinion in this matter. I am looking at it objectively and putting forth a reasonable solution for the greater good of the entire community.
If it were up to me there would be 1 server for the continental US located somewhere in the central region giving the best possible scenario for ping for all players east and west. I would also remove all faccets except for fel while dumbing down the current loot pub significantly. But unlike you, I know that this would never work and can admit that it would harm the current player base that is addicted to easy mode. So I choose not to interject it into this current discussion because it holds no merit in solving an important issue.
Well I wouldn't play there. Would NEVER be able to have a house let alone the 10+ I have right now.... which IMO would be the end of UO for me.
Honestly I doubt it. There are MANY people who keep playing because of the stuff they have, and the houses they have placed. Take away years of work, and you take away any incentive they have to keep playing. Make no mistake, the game is dying, merging shards and removing one of the main reasons people still play would kill it outright.
Test it out by merging Drachenfels into Europa. Theres probabl;y only a dozen or so people left on Drach anyway.
Or you could all dump UO and come play Albion Online
Still in closed beta,, 40,000 subscribers already (probably double UO) and all on one server. Most fun Ive had since, well, UO was in its heyday.
Or you could all dump UO and come play Albion Online
Still in closed beta,, 40,000 subscribers already (probably double UO) and all on one server. Most fun Ive had since, well, UO was in its heyday.
Your logic can be questioned here on two levels.
1) The assumption that merging shards would increase activity. It wouldn't, It would kill it. Period. UO isn't the kind of game where a server merge works. In a game where you have no physical ties to the world it's not an issue, your gameplay won't be effected. but when people have invested that time and effort into the physical game world and have formed communities around those physical places, you can't just take it away from them and say "it's for the good of the game", as if their loss is of no consequence. You can call that selfish, but I think it's perfectly reasonable.
If I lost my house I wouldn't play any longer. That's not out of selfishness, that's just the only thing that keeps me subbing every 90 days. I lost interest when they stopped making proper expansions like 10 years ago now, literally the only thing that keeps me subbing is my house. Even though I sub 4 months of the year I would say I only actively play 1, because I just lose interest so fast. The nostalgia is still there, but it's very limited. If the game decided that for growth they had to kill my shard I would say no hard feelings, (it will save me 60 bucks a year I could spend on a ps4 game I actually am engaged with) and I would move on, and not return. I have a feeling that a large chunk of the current player base would have a similar but angrier reaction. I don't see how the game could live through such a change.
and
2) The assumption that lack of activity on shards is keeping away new players. That might be one of the factors involved in KEEPING new players, but it really has nothing to do with enticing them to start. If they don't play they probably are much more interested in just experiencing the game on an entry level, they won't care so much about the population until they decide its a game they want to sink time into. If active players were an issue to a new player and they see "shard merge" that's going to be an instant turn off anyway.
The 3 real factors that keep people away are dated appearance, dated game style, and the fact you have to pay the same monthly sub as you do for modern subscription based games. The rest is piffle.
On top of all that it would be a VERY large project for such a small team, and would probably take at VERY least a year of constant work, with no new work being done on the game to get it done.
It's simply not a good or reasonable idea.
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I think i'll wait for Shards myself.Test it out by merging Drachenfels into Europa. Theres probabl;y only a dozen or so people left on Drach anyway.
Or you could all dump UO and come play Albion Online
Still in closed beta,, 40,000 subscribers already (probably double UO) and all on one server. Most fun Ive had since, well, UO was in its heyday.
The question was the exact reverse of your own. If that's a straw man so is yours. I think the reaction of people in this thread and the other threads about shard merging would put the popular voice soundly on the side of no anyway.
I said it already a million times, but I'll gladly repeat it:
Instead of actually merge two or more shards, just open up free char transfer between those shards:
Free transfers between all US East shards.
Free transfers between all US West shards.
Free transfers between all European shards.
Free transfers between all Asian shards.
Transfers between shards from different regions would still need a token. I.e. Atlantic -> Europe or whatever...
No token or in-game item would be involved for the free transfer. Would work just like the TC char copy: Go to your Menu, select char transfer, select one of the eligible servers -> done.
I'm calling that a "soft-merge"
And it will only tick off shard shield owners, who own only shields from one and the same region. (But even that could be overcome, since shields are account bound, maybe with devs directly exchanging them on request.)
sorry man but you are....
this idea is the dumbest i ever heard....
i my opinion they should get people moving by giving them benefits to do so.
like: dear player we want to consolidate, you can move your entire stuff (chars house banks) the way it is to the shard whatever, your house gets placed in one of the "housing areas" of your choice:
Snowy, player town
snowy, secluded
grass, player town
grass, secluded
...
...
....
...
whatever.
no fees no costs, hell we are in 2015 this is not more then copying some values in a database....
iam sure a lot of people would use this to get away from dead shards.
and when the handfull of people (oh my shard history -> yeah 95% is no longer existing already) realize they are alon, hell yea let them be and turn off xfer for these shards. finished...
give all other a hi res graphics and other nice gimmicks.
like: dear player we want to consolidate, you can move your entire stuff (chars house banks) the way it is to the shard whatever, your house gets placed in one of the "housing areas" of your choice:
Snowy, player town
snowy, secluded
grass, player town
grass, secluded
...
...
....
...
whatever.
no fees no costs, hell we are in 2015 this is not more then copying some values in a database....
iam sure a lot of people would use this to get away from dead shards.
and when the handfull of people (oh my shard history -> yeah 95% is no longer existing already) realize they are alon, hell yea let them be and turn off xfer for these shards. finished...
give all other a hi res graphics and other nice gimmicks.
You don't find it strange that some free shards have a higher population than Atlantic?
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So you already don't play, and you're threatening to "really" not play..oh boy lol.
You would think it would be a large project, but the framework is already in place. They can already distinguish what items you have to transfer them to another shard. All the would have to do is make a house packing feature. If they went through all the castles and guaranteed a placing for them, opened up Malas/Ter Mur/Eodon/Ilshnar for castles and housing all on one shard made it all one facet rule set (Fel) kept all dungeons VvV rules and all overland consensual pvp and left tram dungeons trammy safe zone..even with all those changes there would still be an ability to place houses. There just isn't enough players period. I can literally place a house on any shard, Atlantic is the only one I have to spend 5 minutes or so searching. You can place a castle on like 5% shards freely, 80% keeps or smaller, 10% 18x18 or smaller, and atl being the last 5% you have to look for a decent sized house but with enough looking you can place a 18x18..I just did after about 30 minutes of looking two days ago. I'm not going to be losing nothing in a merger, I have 5 houses 1 castle, 3 keeps and an 18x18 right outside Luna. I would gladly pack them up and consolidate them on a merged East shard and a merged west one. Housing wouldn't be an issue at all if the Devs would actually do some math. We might need
US East 1
US East 2
US West 1
US West 2
Europa
Asia 1
Asia 2
Siege
You'd still have needs to transfer between shards, it would consolidate PvP down, RP down so people have people to play with. It would be a lot easier for new players to pick shards to play on, it would give them an ability to drop a lot of servers and focus on making the ones we have higher quality, more EMs on fewer shards for better content and storylines. There are far more pros than cons. Housing being the biggest con. Shard history doesn't really come into play as much as people like to admit. I was born on Chesapeake and refused to really leave Chesapeake. I even sold my shard shield account a few years back because I literally had no need for it. Back then the banks were twice what they are now. This is the time of the year you see a big influx in the population(winter) but if anything you're struggling to find people to play with. There has to be a happy medium where the majority WILL be happy. I honestly think the majority will be happy with that solution(silent majority) do remember maybe 1-2% actually view and post on stratics. Goes back to my thought years ago..ballot boxes at Luna. If the devs laid out a good solid plan to consolidate and not screw the majority but still cater to the minority..it would be a hands down vote for the merge. Disagree all you like and continue playing in maintenance mode. It's like complaining your team sucks from the sideline, but you do nothing to aid them..at least bring us the water!
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Not a bit strange, their free, and target the era and playstyle and have a population those players enjoy.
If they dump my characters into a mobscene shard to thrill you and a few others until my gametime cards run out, I'll be on one of those free shards right after the cards do. One with a UO:Ren era setup and a small population, the type I enjoy.
I truly don't understand the logic..forgive me in really trying hard not to sound trollish..but wth you play a game to be alone. I just don't see how that's entertaining. You can easily play on THE biggest shard and be completely alone. Trammel was set up to be the ultimate land of solitude. You don't need protection. What it feels like to me is if you can't go to a spawn at any time of the day and be left to spawn uncontested all day you'll quit. MMO's have a meaning, and based off the acronym i don't think it's solo player. Correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe a little reasoning would help me comprehend..I'm just a bit confused, I lost my helmet strap sooo I have to be cautious not to bang my head so early today.
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Not a threat, I really wouldn't care if they did a server merge, a server wipe, or just shut the game down. I wouldn't be mad, I would just not play anymore. I essentially quit this game a long time ago, and the only thread still connecting me is the community (mostly here) and my nostalgia, and my enjoying the work I did designing and decorating my house, and occasionally liking to wander around in it with the character I built and remember the fun times. Honestly if I could get an offline copy of siege as it sits right now, that I could just host myself, I would never log on to the regular game again.
It's completely irrational, but that's the cost of instilling value into valueless things I guess.
But we both know I'm not the only one attached to these things. I would wager most people are, as this is a pretty old player base, and one resistance to change, not that most gamers aren't. I don't think it would be anywhere near as simple as you suggest it would be. You don't think the planning and execution for this wouldn't be a big project for a 4-5 person team? It took them a year to make Time of Legends... That's assuming that the above is the plan they ended up with, which I think we both know it wouldn't be. Any change as massive as one that up-ends literally the entire customer base, destroys communities, history, personal accomplishments, etc, is not going to be something that's done either lightly or without a TON of planning, and testing. Not to mention that what you suggest requires making at least one new system (to track, guarantee and organize order status of placing privilege for castle owners, which would make people irate), and changes to other large systems that are probably much more complicated that you imagine them to be.
Even if you are ok with potentially losing all of your property/community, we both know most people would not be ok with it. Why pretend they would be? It's just a reality, people would not accept it, regardless of how much better the game would be with fewer servers.
Again, we have the idea that this idea would end maintenance mode (ignoring the fact that they are still adding content, however limited). No in system change is going to draw a substantial number of players into this game. You need to accept that. This is an old game, it looks old and it plays old, it has a niche market, and while that market may not be exploited to it's fullest, it's never going to be a game that draws a lot of players again.
As for team analogy, I think it's silly. The proposed idea would kill the game. Period. No matter how much you think people SHOULD accept it for the good of the game you KNOW they don't. Why pretend? To me, it's more akin to being a sports fan who disagrees with the other fans who, when the team is faltering, demand that every player on the team simply be fired. All that would happen is that there is no longer a team.
Not to mention that there's already a better solution at hand for getting those niche players out there that we don't have, and it doesn't involve up-ending and probably dangerously upsetting a majority of players... switch to a F2P model. Of course, people won't accept that either despite the fact that if done correctly it wouldn't effect their gameplay in the slightest except for giving them more people to play with. So if they won't accept that, how are they going to accept the exceptionally more dramatic prospect of losing their homes and communities? Simple. They won't.
Highlighting/underlining for emphasis... Therein lies the only real and practical solution to the population problem.
So why wait. You have the option now to join a freeshard that has a ruleset you prefer and a population level you like. Many of these shards are run in a far more professional way than those clowns at EA run the 'official' shards. Its a debacle.
You know, I agree with basically all of this and your sentiment, in general, and that's why I play siege, because of the idea that people need each other. They really don't because of design not really catering to it, but I digress...
That said, there's idealism and there's pragmatism. People are the way they are, and you can't force them to change. The harder you try the more they will resist. Exactly why this idea has no legs. People love their pixels, you simply have to respect that.
I think that's highly subjective.
Yep. If UO goes the F2P route then attracting new players wont be a problem. We wouldnt be having the debate on shutting shards down, we'd be having one on creating more shards. This is the only thing that can save UO. Its dying slowly. If it was a dog, you'd put it down as the humane thing to do.
I'm not asking to merge siege at all. Just so you know. It has a completely different rule set and should be that way for the remainder down to the last stealthing soul there. But to merge even 60% of shards that literally have maybe 20-50 user is not a bad idea by any means. I could post videos of lands that are completely empty. That's more of a turn off for any returning/new player then our obvious content/graphics issue that will never change.
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You do realize that free shards inflate their population counts with most allowing 3 accounts per player? Most of us may have multiple accounts but only play one at a time...la
You do realize that most free shards have account caps..EA doesn't..so people that have 10-15 houses in prodo shards..same problem doesn't exist on free shards..that's not even really the point now is it Rico? I'm not arguing about account counts and things because it's a flawed argument on both spectrums
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I don't care about siege being in the merge idea or not, like I said, it's all pretty irrelevant to me, as I don't really play, and wouldn't be upset if the game closed down or if shards were merged or deleted or altered... whatever. Frankly, I think UO is probably past it's time. What I'm saying is that while I agree with you generally, most people don't, and that's just how it is.
Annoyingly, I've got a dozen years of pixels on Chessie I can't move to where I play, Siege.
Nice way to start a thread by calling the Community Blind.
Worst idea I've read in along time.