Letter/E-mail sent to Jeremy D.

[Harb]

As earlier, I'm stongly opposed to the idea, but was thinking about some of the player responses here and in other threads who favor it, and do believe it's possible to attain compromise and a "first tentative step" should player actions in-game prove there to be strong desires for consolidated populations.

You could add a moongate somewhere that would allow "gating" to any other shard. Then see what happens. We'd still play Chessie, I suspect most folks would stay where they are. But we'd all get to meet/ greet with ease, and chances of EM events (something many players loved) on a smaller scale would be heightened (they don't have to cover every shard every time).

The trouble is, doing this runs contrary to the theme of revenue generation from EA's perch, transfer token proceeds would disappear, so I suspect this is in the unlikely category. But who knows?

 

[Floyd the Barber]

I got an idea..... Why doesn't EA just market the game and actually advertise for it (I've heard advertising brings in new customers).

But..... then EA would have to actually spend some money on UO and not Warhammer.

 

[Yalp]

i think it that idea of a moongate between shards could cause alot of resentment from the peeps that lived on small shards. I can definitely see huge numbers of peeps with all the latest cheats, hacks, uber gear, pouring through the moongate during spawns and/or events.

For instance.. when greaters were introduced... Our small shard behaved in ways that were definitely different than the bigger shards.. (evidenced by the posts on stratics). We worked together to get every tamer a greater who wanted one. Instead of stealing tames from under peeps, you'd come into the dungeon, you'd assist the person whose "turn it was". That person picked the dragon they wanted after they lored. We either all killed it or we beat it to a pulp and a legenday tamer tamed it for them. They they took it out of the dungeon, gated to a nearby stable, and traded. Free of charge.... this helped to strengthen our community. If you had the time right then.. you stayed.. help the next person get their dragon and so on and so on.. if not, more than likely you came back when you could. This went on for days.

If someone tried to steal it.. well let's just say we had ways of dealing with em... and they didn't stand a chance. These peeps left pretty darn quickly.

Because we are a small shard, we tend to work more cooperatively with each other.. because we know our neighbors. We tend to know the bad apples. And we tend to tell each other about so-and-so being a bad apple.

I suspect our shard is not unique in this attitude.. however, there are many selfish players in the game, just like in real life..opening up a moongate might well destroy the community built on smaller shards.

 

[deadite]

Partial server merges would probably be good for the game overall. Some shards do not need merging, but some lower pop servers could benefit from merging with each other.

Most likely they have looked into the cost of doing server merges and decided that its way more expensive than just keeping the current hardware in place... the return doesn't justify the cost.

But only in UO would someone complain that a server merge should NOT happen because their houses line up perfectly. LOL.

 

[Harb]

But only in UO would someone complain that a server merge should NOT happen because their houses line up perfectly. LOL.

Our last two houses are intentionally geographically spread, so this comment doesn't directly apply

I would say, having spent time on various UO boards for over a decade, that one of the things I've learned is that what may be important, or very insignificant to me, may mean the world or nothing at all to someone else. I personally tend to respect the opinions/ desires of everyone posting legitimate comments (not all comments are). Thats a big part of the problem OSI/ EA/ Mythic and anyone else providing an entertainment product must cope with every time they produce a new product or make a change to an exisiting one. Something often unintentionally missed is the concept of empower, motivate, and avoid irritants.

Bottom line, if it's important to another player, it should be important to EA, and if we want our product to thrive, meaningful to all of us.

 

[Loqucious]

Don't need to merge the shards, we just need a gate that will allow us to go any shard we wish with just what we are wearing and what is in our backpack. This way people could have homes wherever they wished, and play on a shard with the population they wished. I belive very large player events would occur because of this.

 

[Kral]

<Cut and past from last thread on this same idea>


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.

 

[Yalp]

Don't need to merge the shards, we just need a gate that will allow us to go any shard we wish with just what we are wearing and what is in our backpack. This way people could have homes wherever they wished, and play on a shard with the population they wished. I belive very large player events would occur because of this.

Wait.. isn't there already the opportunity to create characters on every single shard in the game.. up to 7 of em... math isn't my strong suit.. but that seems like quite a few to me.

And if you really love some shard where your house is not located.. there's a remedy for that too.. x-shard transfer...

unless it's some closed event, aren't we already free to attend player events on shards not our own?

 

[deadite]

Our last two houses are intentionally geographically spread, so this comment doesn't directly apply

I would say, having spent time on various UO boards for over a decade, that one of the things I've learned is that what may be important, or very insignificant to me, may mean the world or nothing at all to someone else. I personally tend to respect the opinions/ desires of everyone posting legitimate comments (not all comments are). Thats a big part of the problem OSI/ EA/ Mythic and anyone else providing an entertainment product must cope with every time they produce a new product or make a change to an exisiting one. Something often unintentionally missed is the concept of empower, motivate, and avoid irritants.

Bottom line, if it's important to another player, it should be important to EA, and if we want our product to thrive, meaningful to all of us.

Sure, but there comes a time when the Dev team has to make tough decisions that are good for the game as a Whole, and not just give in to the whims of a few vocal players. (Although I'm not necessarily talking about UO server merges in this case, because I don't think UO is at that point yet).

The problem is that Mythic's track record is pretty lousy when it comes to making decisions. Anyone who has watched DAoC's rise and fall knows this pretty well. They tend to avoid tough decisions and take the easy route (server clusters over server merges) and then even when the consequences (no realm pride, massive x-realming) are obviously a problem, they give in to a group of complaining players (remove realm switching timers thusly destroying what's left of the integrity of RvR gaming) and literally YEARS later react too little too late when they finally get around to facing their mistake (re-adding realm timers in an upcoming patch).

I used to have faith in Mythic, but no longer. If they can't handle their own baby, DAoC, then I don't trust them with an inherited one that they obviously care very little about.

In summary, Mark Jacobs cares about nothing but WAR and it shows.

 

[Harb]

Sure, but there comes a time when the Dev team has to make tough decisions that are good for the game as a Whole, and not just give in to the whims of a few vocal players.

Very true sir. Looking back over the history of UO, I believe there have really been only two very tough decisions our dev teams have faced. One was actually before the game was even released. There were a handful of us involved in a pre-public beta (for lack of a better term, the beta before the beta if you will (I don't think there were any players in the alpha)), and once more beta folks entered the mix, it became evident that nonconsentual PvP would be a major issue. It took about 3-3.5 years before it was actually "fixed," despite vocal forewarnings from many of us. So this became a very tough issue for our dev folks, and honestly, consequences/ actions/ decisions still impact today. The only other truely major thing I remember was what became known as Publish 16, or to some the "bard nerf." Bards were/ are a very powerful class in PvM, and at the time were becoming more and more popular. Bard play had significant impact on non-bards, and there really was no way to adjust the spawn to meet the demands of an increasingly popular character type. Thus the nerf, and it was probably the only huge nerf we have ever seen. Other than those two, dev itself hasn't really had to make any particularly tough calls, at least from my limited viewpoint. Big decisions, when someday they must be made, likely won't be made by any member of dev itself. As for yielding to whims of the more vocal, my read has been that dev has been fairly good about holding up well to the pressure, and has been consistent despite the turnover inherent to the business. I've actually been somewhat amazed by the consistency. I think a lot of that has been due to having so many dedicated players actually being on the team itself. As long as they play and know the product, I think we'll be fine

 

[deadite]

Good points Harb. I agree for the most part.

I just worry now that UO is under different management. If EA holds true to the "city-state" mentality, then UO is the property of Mythic Entertainment now, which worries me more and more as time goes on.

Maybe after WAR releases we'll see some refocusing.

 

[Loqucious]

Don't need to merge the shards, we just need a gate that will allow us to go any shard we wish with just what we are wearing and what is in our backpack. This way people could have homes wherever they wished, and play on a shard with the population they wished. I belive very large player events would occur because of this.

Wait.. isn't there already the opportunity to create characters on every single shard in the game.. up to 7 of em... math isn't my strong suit.. but that seems like quite a few to me.

And if you really love some shard where your house is not located.. there's a remedy for that too.. x-shard transfer...

unless it's some closed event, aren't we already free to attend player events on shards not our own?

Yes you are correct, but the problem is storage of goods and housing. ATL already has limited housing space. If I could take my Napa chars to ATL when I felt like it, I would. I enjoy the large population of ATL, but I also like my 15x18 near the brit gate, which I couldn't get on ATL. Plus there is storage issues. I actually have chars on ATL and it is a bummer to not have a house to be able to keep my stuff in. Also, I REALLY like playing on the first char I ever created. Maybe that's just me though.

 

[Nexus]

The point of this thread is to inform people that UO's player population is dwindling. I've been on some shards during their prime time and did not see significant amount of other players. Try shopping at Luna on lesser populated shards; I think you'll find that the item selections are less than ideal.

I think reducing the amount of servers would definitely be a step up for UO. The economy would have a better chance of revival and we wouldn't have to worry about the death of UO - although we've been saying that since the game was released.

There are no perfect solutions for the problems that UO is facing, but there are steps the devs can take to fix it.

How about this...they keep the servers they have running up, fix major flaws in the game, Get KR running to an acceptable level and keep 2D and then actually "Market" UO in a fashion that will draw people to fill up those oh so empty servers.

 

[brundlefly]

With all the bugs, the economy ,duping and housing issues, merging shards would be another nightmare to deal with. I think effort spent on current problems would be a better focus of resources. It all comes down to the money. EAs support of the game reflects its bottom line. Im sure there are many caring people on the DEV team but there is going to be one person making the decisions.
This person wont care about your houses on different shards if there isnt anyone playing and paying. When accounts dwindle, support goes with it , so they must fix things for the paying customer or game over.
Consolidating shards would mean the begining of the end of UO.
I can imagine " eminent domain "claims forcing me to move out of the way for someone else of an older account. Worse still, packing all my stuff to leave my beloved home shard.
If you want to play with more people I suggest talking to more RL people about the game you play. EA will only respond to the bottom line. Player support is the life of UO. I told a few guys at work to download the trial and one got into it. Thats the way it always worked.

 

[Yalp]

Yes you are correct, but the problem is storage of goods and housing. ATL already has limited housing space. If I could take my Napa chars to ATL when I felt like it, I would. I enjoy the large population of ATL, but I also like my 15x18 near the brit gate, which I couldn't get on ATL. Plus there is storage issues. I actually have chars on ATL and it is a bummer to not have a house to be able to keep my stuff in. Also, I REALLY like playing on the first char I ever created. Maybe that's just me though.

Loqi! I hear ya about the storage thing.. too bad they don't allow us houses on more than 1 shard.. not all of em.. would be a nice money maker for EA.. buy another 19.95 token for added space on up to xxx shards.

 

[rskg4]

Most of the people here are so close minded; you don't see what's going on in the game. There used to be a time where I could walk through luna, or even go to a mall and buy exactly what I needed. It's been progressively harder over the years to get what you need without having to get it yourself. Personally, I don't have a lot of time to play the game so I like being able to buy whatever whenever. The population is just not there to supply the items we need to enjoy the game. EA has changed a few things that have made it harder, so the problems aren't all based on the low population. If we were to merge shards it would definitely up user activity on the shard and perhaps even help heal the battered economy.