All your points are entirely valid and well considered Galen. Please accept my response, not as promotion of "you know what", but as an objective response to this very discussion and your points raised.
I'm especially appreciative and understanding of the points you raised when it comes to the validity of paying for an official shard, versus the "free" options out there. Frankly, I don't give any credence to claims that just because "X Free Shard" has
"hundreds... nay... thousands of players" (I think we're on the same page when it comes to interpreting those claims
), they'll suddenly all jump ship and rush to pay to play UO. To get
all of those players interest in an official classic shard, is to offer it for free. That's null and void, quite rightly so.
Likewise, the exaggeration of the numbers relating to the free shards. Although I've never spent any great length of time on them myself, when my curiosity has got the better of me enough to look at first hand, my own observations lead me to believe that although there
appear to be very high numbers of people registered to play them, even the highest populated ones, don't appear to have more than three to four hundred players on
at peak times. There's probably only two or three servers at most, that can boast that.
Those sort of figures therefore, are far from sufficient as a means of gauging just how good a response and official classic option would get. All I think we can work on, with anything towards solidity, is the gathering interest that the topic is raising, mostly in its entirity, from formper players, who've indicated an interest.
Likely nobody will have any figures they could prove, until such a venture went live. I have argued before, that I suspect the number of former players, far exceeds the number of current players, therefore
anything that could or would encourage former players to return in significant numbers, can only be beneficial.
Regarding any lack of agreement in the discussion thread itself, I do believe there's a growing convergence of opinion towards what's supported, although granted, there's been countless splinters along the way. People are debating a lot of aspects and they don't always agree on every individual aspect, but as discussions progress, it's impressive to actually see people begin to agree more. We're talking about an era that took place ten years ago, so in all fairness, some initial thoughts and "feelings" from people, are bounds to be a little fuzzy.
Even if a classic shard never actually materialises, one thing I think is certainly beneficial, is the hype and attention it's drawing to UO. Hopefully that in itself will bring curious people to actually try and hopefully, stay with the game, in whatever format.
Other than that, clearly I'm in favour of a classic option being available, but I'm also interested in what other serious possibilities, along with the much mentioned prevention of cheating, that actually do have genuine potential to bring people to the game and stay with it.
Clearly UO could benefit from better marketing and promotion. Sadly it seems to lack in that department, though there are plenty of minimal cost ways to promote themselves. Given it's an online game, the internet itself is clearly the most cost effective way to go about that. Other than that, I'm interested to see what specifically, EA/Mythic can attempt, to encourage returning players, to maintain existing players, hopefully encourage new players, in addition to what seems to be the "tried and tested" route, of new expansions.
yet. It's just been undiscovered by many.
