NERFFF!1

[Stigmatas]

Freeshards!

Now mods, before you get twitchy, I saw nothing in the RoC about discussing freeshards, only advertising them. And the point of this thread is just the opposite.

I've often given thought as to why EA has never brought down the hammer on the people who run these. I made comment in another thread, that I appreciate fans doing what they do, for free, but imagine the revenue from some of these people coming in to continually develop our UO, the real UO, if they did not exist.

Now, you can argue that people play them because they can set the shard up how they want it, we all know this, but I've met several people over the years who left the real UO in order to go play freeshards, well, because they are free.
Why pay for something when you can get it for free?

I've seen the sub numbers for other "UO killers" over the years, like SWG, and EQ, EQII, etc. and it seems to me UO is doing rather well, still, after TEN and a half years. I don't see the others lasting that long. This says something. UO is something special. But we are losing massive amounts of revenue that could pay new devs, QA'ers, etc.

Why then is this allowed to go on? Too much work? If they sent notice to even just some of the people running these, threatening action, and the major freebies closed up, I'd venture to say that many would get the hint and come back to the real UO to get their fix.

There are a lot of untapped subscriptions floating around out there that we could add to our own community, if they were made to follow the rules of the real world.

I don't know, correct me if I'm wrong, but WoW has no freeshards right? SWG? EQ? EVE?

If it ever happened, couldn't you see Blizzard threatening lawsuits against people who set them up? Why not EA then?

 

[Thaledred]

<blockquote><hr>


I don't know, correct me if I'm wrong, but WoW has no freeshards right? SWG? EQ? EVE?


[/ QUOTE ]

WoW does have freeshards, it's no problem at all to run your own WoW server, of course it's illegal. Same with EQ, dunno about SWG and EvE.

Anyways, i would have closed all UO freeshards long time ago, i have no idea why this was allowed at all.

 

[Der Rock]

--------------------------------------------------
Anyways, i would have closed all UO freeshards long time ago, i have no idea why this was allowed at all.
--------------------------------------------------------------


maybe EA called this as "mouthpropaganda" for UO

 

[Karthcove]

The more free shards the more games boxes sold - Look at Valve Software's Half-Life, Counter-Strike as an example - running a server has always been free but it still costs money to buy the game. It's kinda like Sony's Betamax or even Apple's computers, if you make it so restrictive you won't capture your products full potential in market share.

 

[imported_Sarphus]

Well the biggest problem with freeshards is that they are stupid...

I actually had a friend today icq me trying to get me to come play on a freeshard. She said "it's just like a production shard!"

that's bull plop.

I would love to see freeshards whacked, but I'm not sure there are many legal things that can be done to prevent them. If you don't protect your intellectual property early on, I think you can actually lose the right to enforce it. I'm not a lawyer, so I could be way off on this, but I think that's how it works.

 

[Guest]

I think that is correct. Also, the fact that it is, "Free", also stops something from being done about it. Now, let one of them charge a small fee, and see what happens, hehehehe.

 

[Stigmatas]

<blockquote><hr>

The more free shards the more games boxes sold - Look at Valve Software's Half-Life, Counter-Strike as an example - running a server has always been free but it still costs money to buy the game. It's kinda like Sony's Betamax or even Apple's computers, if you make it so restrictive you won't capture your products full potential in market share.

[/ QUOTE ]


That hasn't been true for UO in a long time though. UO is a free download for one, and even if you have a boxed copy, all you need to do is install from that old version you USED to play, patch up through EA's server's, and start playing your freeshard.

They need to nerf freeshards. Nerf em good. Of course I can't see the future, but it's just common sense that those who love UO, and played a freebie, would start up their subs again on production UO.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

But we are losing massive amounts of revenue that could pay new devs, QA'ers, etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

ROFL at we. Do you own EA/Mystic stock?...la

 

[Stigmatas]

We as in we the players, the devs, EA.

But, you knew that. Thanks for the bump

And, it's Mythic, not Mystic

 

[Guest]

Freeshards are full of players who grew tired of paying for the support they received. They are full of players who grew tired of the game being destroyed by the way the game seemed to be molded by Trammies. freeshards are full of people who loved the way the game used to be and aren't willing to pay for an inferior product.

There are a lot of really cool ideas that could be used by EA/Mythic if they took the time to check these shards out.

Besides that, I'm sure thewir bean counters have weighed the costs of taking these people to court to have them stop their shards, and have figured it wouldn't be worth it. I can tell you though, merely from the size of the largest freeshards, that if EA/Mythic actually created a PvP type old school server, they would be creating their most populated server to date. They would have old accounts restarted by the buttload. There are so many old time players that are looking for their old UO to come back, but until that happens, they are more than willing to spend their time on the freeshards...la

 

[Stigmatas]

You need to read the thread about Designer Dragon, and learn why the game has been molded by "Trammies". I don't expect your mindset to understand though. You believe trammel ruined UO, even when overwhelming evidence states otherwise. I won't bother arguing that though. Live in your own little world.

Karma.

Trammel.

You very well could have a point about the bean counters figuring on not reclaiming the revenue they would lose in pursuing the people who run freesharders, but I guarantee that they would get at least some people back.

To say though, as usual from the "back in the day" people like you, you assume that pvp and grief play rules UO, and Trammel sucks. The proof is overwhelming otherwise. Now I know there are a lot of free pvp servers out there, but I bet you never even considered how many pvm only servers there are too?

Besides, this thread is not about pvm vs. pvp. There is another one on that. I think it's the thousandth thread on such a topic. This is about freeshards, and the potential untapped subscriptions that could be reclaimed from them if they were shut down.

Here is a good question for you. If freeshards are so great, and you have played them? Why are YOU back?

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

...Trammel sucks...

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT...la

 

[DrMcguilicudy]

<blockquote><hr>

Freeshards are full of players who grew tired of paying for the support they received. They are full of players who grew tired of the game being destroyed by the way the game seemed to be molded by Trammies. freeshards are full of people who loved the way the game used to be and aren't willing to pay for an inferior product.

There are a lot of really cool ideas that could be used by EA/Mythic if they took the time to check these shards out.

Besides that, I'm sure thewir bean counters have weighed the costs of taking these people to court to have them stop their shards, and have figured it wouldn't be worth it. I can tell you though, merely from the size of the largest freeshards, that if EA/Mythic actually created a PvP type old school server, they would be creating their most populated server to date. They would have old accounts restarted by the buttload. There are so many old time players that are looking for their old UO to come back, but until that happens, they are more than willing to spend their time on the freeshards...la

[/ QUOTE ]


Link?

 

[Guest]

Here's two...

link
link

...la

 

[Poo]

year upon years upon years ago i went and had a look at a free shard.

and this was years ago mind you.
but there was stuff on that free shard that there STILL isnt in the production shards.

GOOD STUFF!

but i like the production shards.
the stability of it i guess.

 

[Guest]

The stability and the fact that except for a few scandals that happend years ago. The developers do not give preferencial treatment to individual players. This does happen a bit on the freeshards...la

 

[Guest]

I think the rules about free shards are fair and clear.

Choose to play free on a shard hosted by someone other than EA or play the production shards but you can only choose one. Hosting a shard breaks the tos and you are no longer legally allowed to play an EA server.

No different than being banned from an EA server for breaking the tos any other way.

Why are free shards a good thing for EA?

People who do not wish to pay or cannot afford a monthly fee will still buy a disc in a store and play a free server.

People who are banned from production shards can still buy a disc and play a free shard.

Sure if you get banned for any reason you can make a new account and no one will probably ever find out.

But the point is still there. EA can still sell a disc to people who are banned or just don't want to pay a sub fee.

To me this is nothing more than a smart marketing plan.

We all know that EA is more concerned with sales of a disc on a store shelf than collecting a monthly subscription. Why? because there is more money in disc sales than in monthly fees. The fact that they even have their own servers is so that they can sell you a game that is "fully" supported. EA servers are obviously more stable than a free shard. Stable because the UO servers have been open for over 10 years now while a free shard may be here today and gone tomorrow.

That's it. Why would EA kill off a possible source of income? You may think a free shard hurts the amount og money EA makes but the reality is that it brings in money.

So I have to disagree with this post. The only thing this post represents is a single persons personal negative view of something. Not supported by any facts.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

People who do not wish to pay or cannot afford a monthly fee will still buy a disc in a store and play a free server.

[/ QUOTE ]

No they won't. They'll download it for free...la

 

[angelus aconitum]

<blockquote><hr>

You believe trammel ruined UO, even when overwhelming evidence states otherwise

[/ QUOTE ]

Trammel ruined UO for many people.
AOS ruined UO for many people more.
Samurai and ML ruined UO even more for some people.

This all should not be a discussion of what ruined which things for who, but it should be a discussion to open a "classic" shard beside the existing ones. Maybe even two shards, one for PvP and one maybe for roleplaying ?

I play Siege, but I hate ..... yes I really hate the current systems (armour, weapons, new monsters, artis ...... I so absolutely hate arties, you can't imagine how much I hate them).

So nobody should fear that all production shard should be changed to pre pub 16 or something. This should be a discussion of adding a shard to bring back the core of UO, the veteran players !

I thought more than once to go to a freeshard and I even looked on some websites, but so far I am still paying for 3 account here. Why ? Because I still have hope that we will be heard one day !

UO, even on Siege is not the UO I prefer to play, it is more than inferior to me compared to the pre-AOS UO. I don't say get rid of Trammel on prod shards, but open a "classic" server without Trammel and the old armour system and all that. I think that should not be too hard to understand, isn't it ?

 

[Der Rock]

---------------------------------------------------------------
I play Siege, but I hate ..... yes I really hate the current systems (armour, weapons, new monsters, artis ...... I so absolutely hate arties, you can't imagine how much I hate them).
---------------------------------------------------------------------

ei, zum deiwel kumm eraus, warum mogscht koi arties?
kumscht mit denne haufe zahle net zerecht?

why u dont like arties?
to many numbers ?
do u think most people would like to play a game with no changes in 10 years?

 

[Guest]

Vanq, Power and Force weapons were fine...and much easier to determine if you wanted to steal...lol...la

 

[Guest]

All those games of free server my friend, I personally developed a EQ server.. With the name Image The Gimp *hint hint* EQemu was the first EverQuest emulated server

Don't tell this man he can't program and don't tell him making a emulated server for 3d games is easy either. A UO server would be extremly easy to make but a EQ server is a totally different ball-game... And yes WoW has them also I know most of the people creating these things and hacking MMO's (no i'm not one of them anymore)

I was also involved with the first Sphere Shards back in the day, and other companies like Sony and Blizzard don't crack down on these as much as you would think... You say it's illegal but there is nothing illegal going on no source code is being hacked. It's simple as sniffing out packets and making your own server for the game.

What can these companies do press charges, bahahaha... No they can't becuase they arn't doing anything wrong running a server that isn't doing anything like hacking the real server. The people doing stuff wrong are the people using the clients in the wrong way i'm sure it goes against every EULA to connect to the free servers using a client. My EQ accounts have been banned not becuase of the server development but becuase of connecting to them with the client.

Don't ask me how they found out cuase I really don't know.

 

[Guest]

Well I will be honest... I have personally played a few different free shards. In the beginning it was to check them out and see what all the hype was about but then I started to really like a few of them and even made some friends. But I never stopped paying my UO subscription fees each month and I also play regulation UO durring the same time period. The one thing that I noticed about a few of the "good" free shards is EA could learn a lot from them. One of the custom things I really liked was you could hunt dragons and every once in a while in the loot you would find a dragon egg. Eventually the egg hatches and starts it's life as a snake and you train it up and after so many training points have been earned it then changes into an aligator. Basically changing shape and form and skills and stats as you train it up eventually reaching the highest level which is an Ancient Wyrm. There are quite a few other coll ideas I saw on some of the free shards that I would love to see incorporated in regulation UO. Maybe EA can contact some of the people that run the free shards and offer them immunity if they become an EA employee and help develop some of their cool ideas into UO?

 

[pallas]

RTLFC

There is also a LOT more 2d art people are using on freeshards, some of it very good. Again, the team could take note of this.

 

[Guest]

Freeshards aren't keeping away revenue or players. The majority of the freeshard players are people who either A) do not want to pay for uo, and will only play if its free, or B) do not like the direction uo has taken development wise.

 

[eolsunder1]

Free shards are BENEFICIAL to the official shards. Any idiot who wants to nerf free shards might as well say I want to nerf regular UO shards also. Use your brain.

Most of the creative ideas come from free shards. Individual shard runners are the ones that have time and ideas to create the fun stuff in the game. Not the paid Devs or programmers, but people who actually run their own free shards. They are more creative. Where do you think most of the things in regular shards start out? On free shards. Then after they have been on them a few years, Some Dev who sees them takes the idea and puts into the game. The free shards test drive those new ideas.

Taxidermy kits, colored woods, crafting, "peerless' and boss's, invasions, new designs, repair deeds, those nice keep/castle ladders you have now, all those new pixel crack items, all from free shards. They have had them in years before the production shards. Some Dev or producer simply took them from free shards and put them into the game.

There are still tons of great ideas on free shards that haven't been put into the game. Want a xmas event? How about free shards that have ogre lords dressed up in santa outfits running around with evil elves attacking the cities. How about santa and sleds going through towns dropping off presents. How about actual cities decked out in holiday deco (instead of just snow on the ground.. how fun). This is what free shard people do. The UO team needs to look up creativity in the dictionary and learn even a little from free shard hosts.

Free shards also get people introduced to UO. Some people might not want to pay initially. They might start playing freeshards and get the hang of it and decide to start playing the production shards. Freeshards are also the hangout spot for many players who get fustrated with UO and really don't want to quit, so they play freeshards with rules that they consider more fun. They might come back later.

So, what happens if freeshards are gone. All the players testing them who might come into regular UO.. gone. All those who left regular UO who might come back but are hanging out in freeshards to get their fix.. gone. All the great ideas in the game (Hundreds more than just the ones I listed) gone. Just think of how lame production shards would be right now if there never were any freeshards. Very lame I can tell you.

 

[angelus aconitum]

<blockquote><hr>

---------------------------------------------------------------
I play Siege, but I hate ..... yes I really hate the current systems (armour, weapons, new monsters, artis ...... I so absolutely hate arties, you can't imagine how much I hate them).
---------------------------------------------------------------------

ei, zum deiwel kumm eraus, warum mogscht koi arties?
kumscht mit denne haufe zahle net zerecht?

why u dont like arties?
to many numbers ?
do u think most people would like to play a game with no changes in 10 years?

[/ QUOTE ]

Hey Buale, kaasch läsa ?
Wenn dr richtig gugsch und dann au no läsa kaasch, dann kaasch säa, daß I grad sag, dass dees als äxtra schärd gmacht wära muaß. Du Bachel !!!! Also gang no amol nuff und läs no a mol. Und dei Gschwätz sieht aus wia wenn dr a Badenser wärsch ! Ätsch !

K now in english:

If you read my post carefully you will notice that I never said that I want the other shards to be touched. I said that it should be an additional shard to the existing shards we have ! Go read it again, I wrote it even two times, but you don't seem to read posts, but just bash on it without even knowing what you answer to !

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

People who do not wish to pay or cannot afford a monthly fee will still buy a disc in a store and play a free server.

[/ QUOTE ]

No they won't. They'll download it for free...la

[/ QUOTE ]

Only if you want to sit through a patch and mess around with a large download or whatever.

There are many players who download the game sure but there are many who will pay for the latest version rather than downloading it.

Still my point was not completely about buying vs downloading either and as others had mentioned an even larger number dislike current UO.

How about custom UO? some players prefer some of the great free shard systems we will never see on a production shard.

All it comes down to is the fact that someone wants to bash the freeshard community because of personal feelings.

go boo hoo else where...

 

[Guest]

IF freeshards are stopped, and if freeshard players were to come back, then there would need to be a pre-AOS/pre-UO:R/pre-T2A shard, and also some of the ideas incorporated onto production shards. I've seen pre-Trammel freeshards that have more players than some production shards...

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

Free shards are BENEFICIAL to the official shards. Any idiot who wants to nerf free shards might as well say I want to nerf regular UO shards also. Use your brain.

Most of the creative ideas come from free shards. Individual shard runners are the ones that have time and ideas to create the fun stuff in the game. Not the paid Devs or programmers, but people who actually run their own free shards. They are more creative. Where do you think most of the things in regular shards start out? On free shards. Then after they have been on them a few years, Some Dev who sees them takes the idea and puts into the game. The free shards test drive those new ideas.

Taxidermy kits, colored woods, crafting, "peerless' and boss's, invasions, new designs, repair deeds, those nice keep/castle ladders you have now, all those new pixel crack items, all from free shards. They have had them in years before the production shards. Some Dev or producer simply took them from free shards and put them into the game.

There are still tons of great ideas on free shards that haven't been put into the game. Want a xmas event? How about free shards that have ogre lords dressed up in santa outfits running around with evil elves attacking the cities. How about santa and sleds going through towns dropping off presents. How about actual cities decked out in holiday deco (instead of just snow on the ground.. how fun). This is what free shard people do. The UO team needs to look up creativity in the dictionary and learn even a little from free shard hosts.

Free shards also get people introduced to UO. Some people might not want to pay initially. They might start playing freeshards and get the hang of it and decide to start playing the production shards. Freeshards are also the hangout spot for many players who get fustrated with UO and really don't want to quit, so they play freeshards with rules that they consider more fun. They might come back later.

So, what happens if freeshards are gone. All the players testing them who might come into regular UO.. gone. All those who left regular UO who might come back but are hanging out in freeshards to get their fix.. gone. All the great ideas in the game (Hundreds more than just the ones I listed) gone. Just think of how lame production shards would be right now if there never were any freeshards. Very lame I can tell you.

[/ QUOTE ]

Dont forget rideable polar bears

 

[Guest]

But we have polar bears. Well if you are on a 9 year vet account...

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

But we have polar bears. Well if you are on a 9 year vet account...

[/ QUOTE ]

I think his point was that the idea of ridable polar bears came from freeshards.

 

[Stigmatas]

I won't dicuss it as it's not relevent. It's been stated time and again, threads about "classic" shards are not allowed on Stratics.

Why? Because EA said so. They have stated it's not gonna happen. UO needs to move into the future, not the past. Old UO was flawed. And all the things you can state that you say ruined UO for some players, well, the things that were before they were changed, ruined it for others.

I still believe most people play free shards because they are free. I would even go as far to say as that is the #1 reason. Go hand out something for free, and see how long it lasts. The free "whatever" will get scarfed up quickly, regardless if it's crap or not.


People cannot even come to agreement on what their classic shard would consist of. The one thing I would support would be segregating PVM from PVP shards, and forums too.

I'd actually love to see a classic shard come about, just to shut some people up. Watch it grow for a few months, then watch it die as it would. Before long you would get the same thing we have now. Nerf this, change that, this sucks. I quit.

I must disagree with whoever said theres only about 10K people on free shards. I know I've read somewhere there are far more. I still believe, if they were all shut down, or at least the largest of them, UO would have more subs.

A game like WoW I can understand not shutting these things down. But UO? We could certainly use the numbers. She's a great game, but getting very very dated.

 

[Stigmatas]

You do realize you can download UO for free, patch it up off EA's servers, and go out and play a freebie?


Your whole post is wrong.



People also play the production shards, and freebies, simultaneous. What made you think otherwise?

I even checked one out long ago. Yes some of them can have some neat stuff, stuff I hope EA rips back off from them. But I wont play them for reasons stated.

The proof you seek is simply in the existence of the freebies. My own UO neighbor from years ago, told me she and her dad were quitting, I guess due to money problems, or just to save money, I didn't get in depth with her. Only that she said why pay to play when you can do it for free? She quit a couple weeks later having sold her account and house on ebay. Lame.

The main point of the thread would be this: How many subs would UO have if all freebies were shut down? How would it then compare to SWG, EQ, EQII, even WoW?

 

[Stigmatas]

haha, yea the dragon egg thing is cool. I've heard of it before, and even think the freebie I tried years ago had something like that. They also had a UO Walmart where you could spend you gold for house eye candy, which I was VERY envious of at the time. Then they finally came out with heritage tokens and I was very happy

. mmmmm rugs.

To the thread: again, its not my intent to say that freebies are totally evil, and the operators be sued or anything crazy. Only to discuss, are they legal? Are they illegal? Why? How many subs would production UO reclaim if they were shut down.

Of course, if they were shut down, it would not phase me one bit. My other point is that I really think it would help boost sub numbers, as I believe they haved leeched plenty of players away.

 

[Stigmatas]

<blockquote><hr>

Freeshards aren't keeping away revenue or players. The majority of the freeshard players are people who either A) do not want to pay for uo, and will only play if its free, or B) do not like the direction uo has taken development wise.

[/ QUOTE ]


I disagree. Take the one example of my old UO neighbor. I believe people will take free stuff when they can. Myself included.

Draconi. Make with the free castle already.

 

[Stigmatas]

I don't deny the freebies have some cool stuff on them. I've said I've seen it myself. But I don't believe that everything has been ripped from the freebies by the devs like you say. Not everything.

I also think you have it backwards. Freebies leech people from real UO, not the other way around. Once someone is getting something for free, and they are enjoying it, why would they go to a pay server, if the freebies are so great like you say? Think about that.

 

[Stigmatas]

<blockquote><hr>

All it comes down to is the fact that someone wants to bash the freeshard community because of personal feelings.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you refering to me? If so, wrong....again.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

The more free shards the more games boxes sold

[/ QUOTE ]

*nixed*

Incorrect. You don't need to buy the game to play on a freeshard.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

I think that is correct. Also, the fact that it is, "Free", also stops something from being done about it. Now, let one of them charge a small fee, and see what happens, hehehehe.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, it doesn't. I had this discussion recently on these boards about artwork.

Just because something is 'FREE' doesn't mean that it's legal. It doesn't mean they cannot sue/stop you. It is STILL copyright infringement. They CAN stop you (but, like someone else mentioned, that if you fail to enforce it, you will lose it).

But, just because it's FREE doesn't change anything.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

Does Blizzard actively hunt down WoW freeshards? Or do they do the same thing EA does? Nothing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Blizzard actively shuts them down as they can.

 

[AdamD]

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

Does Blizzard actively hunt down WoW freeshards? Or do they do the same thing EA does? Nothing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Blizzard actively shuts them down as they can.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think that's accurate
Do a search on google for free wow servers, there are hundreds
If they really wanted them to be shut down, they'd go after the creators of the server emulation software, but they haven't
Just as EA hasn't gone after the creators of the most popular UO server emulator.

The only reference I could find about Blizzard issuing cease and desist letters, was this
http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/22261

But that was during beta, and as far as I know, they haven't gone after the server emulators since the software went gold.

 

[Guest]

I already stated there isn't a thing they can do to shut down a free server. One all the code is the programmers own code, two it isn't the server breaking the EULA is the clients connecting to the emulated servers.

They may even offer to pay these emu servers off to hand over code

So if Sony or WoW or EA wanted to really do something the only thing that could be done is maybe put up their own free server log ips coming in and add them to a mmo blacklist and delete ban these peoples accounts for using the client in the wrong way.

I remember when Sony tried shutting down EqEmu but they couldn't- just nothing they could do aside from try to keep posting patches that we would have to work around.

Maybe that's one way of keeping free servers off the map is putting some code in the clients but people will just think of a way around it.

But for a game like UO when someone can download a client from years ago off the internet to play a free shard you can't really do much to stop UO free shards you really can't. Back when this game came out I don't think the thought of "What if someone emulates one of our servers?" ever crossed their minds. That led to this whole mess of UO free shards.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

I already stated there isn't a thing they can do to shut down a free server. One all the code is the programmers own code, two it isn't the server breaking the EULA is the clients connecting to the emulated servers.

They may even offer to pay these emu servers off to hand over code

So if Sony or WoW or EA wanted to really do something the only thing that could be done is maybe put up their own free server log ips coming in and add them to a mmo blacklist and delete ban these peoples accounts for using the client in the wrong way.

I remember when Sony tried shutting down EqEmu but they couldn't- just nothing they could do aside from try to keep posting patches that we would have to work around.

Maybe that's one way of keeping free servers off the map is putting some code in the clients but people will just think of a way around it.

But for a game like UO when someone can download a client from years ago off the internet to play a free shard you can't really do much to stop UO free shards you really can't. Back when this game came out I don't think the thought of "What if someone emulates one of our servers?" ever crossed their minds. That led to this whole mess of UO free shards.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why would EA pay someone to hand off the code for the most popular uo emulator? It is OPEN SOURCE! this means that not only the original creators have it now.

Is EA going to pay every single free shard to shut down and hand over all code? How are they going to know they got all the code?

It would be impossible to stop this at this point.

The original source code for the 2d uo client was leaked once before also. Many people still have copies of it.

There are alternate uo clients being developed for free shard use are they going to try to shut that down? You don't even need anything that ea owns rights to to create a uo clone because the code has been blown wide open.

It is a frivolous argument trying to say that all free shards should be shut down.

 

[imported_BlacK RaiN]

<blockquote><hr>


To say though, as usual from the "back in the day" people like you, you assume that pvp and grief play rules UO, and Trammel sucks. The proof is overwhelming otherwise.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol

UO freeshards are mainly no trammel and have player populations that rival any of our paid-for servers.

UO has less subscriptions now than it had when it was Felucca only.


The proof is not helping your case... at all.

Nice lies tho, as usual!

 

[Guest]

Well that's pretty much what I am trying to say. But back when these free emu's where being developed companies would pay for the source to be killed. I swear to that but now a days with open source engine and yada yada yada your right it's never going to happen.

Oooo well if you ask me free shardsarn't such a bad thing let them grow in numbers if I ever see a free UO shard with more players then the Legends shard and a devoted staff with good events best beleive i'm not paying for this garbage anymore.

Really due to the fact that I hate waiting months for the end of an event or years to see how something folds out.

If the events where not so dang stupid I would be like no no free shards suck but the fact is the devs for UO are not creative enough for me. Let me find a better shard thats free and i'm there, think I care what people say?

 

[Kat SP]

<blockquote><hr>

Well the biggest problem with freeshards is that they are stupid...


[/ QUOTE ]

I beg to differ. There is a VERY good one out there that has got the development aspect down pat. EA's dev team could learn quite a bit if they were to pay attention to this one in particular. I have already taken the liberty, earlier this year, to direct their attention to it, but sadly, I'm willing to bet my suggestion has fallen on deaf ears.

They have a very healthy economy. Bugs are taken care of rapidly, rares are rare, pvp is balanced, skill gain is rapid to encourage player to get out there and play and cheating is handled quite effectively. This shard has been around 4+ years and is still going strong.

I'm not advertising for them, as I haven't mentioned the name, nor will I, publically or otherwise. I do not play there, but I have checked it out. I prefer to support EA - UO, but if things get much worse, thats where I will be playing.

These shards are not played because they are free. They are played because they know what they are doing and aren't afraid to do it. Players spend their money on these "other" shards. They simply are not required to pay a subscription fee.

 

[Kat SP]

<blockquote><hr>

UO freeshards are mainly no trammel and have player populations that rival any of our paid-for servers.

UO has less subscriptions now than it had when it was Felucca only.


[/ QUOTE ]

QTF on all counts.