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Pull The Plug.. (or do something Mythic)

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Prawn

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Merge shards... !

All the west coasts merge into one... east coasts could probably do atl and maybe another.. less and less players every day... id assume the player base is less than 1000 now across all servers.
 

Sauteed Onion

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
I think Atlantic is hoppin pretty nicely as it is, no need to merge that one with any others. According to some of the developer interviews though, they've batted the idea of merging servers but it always comes down to they don't want to have people forced into getting homes on new servers and loosing their old spots. Eventually though I think they need to really talk to the players and not just assume anything. Does a veteran on random ghost town server really feel that with enough notice he wouldn't want to relocate to another ghost town server that is merged with numerous other ghost town servers? Like 3-6 month notice so he can get squared away on his or her new server? Honestly though I think with enough developer to player correspondence the process wouldn't be as OMGWTF Where'd my house go bad as it could be, it just takes some TLC from devs. And really finding out which servers to merge with which servers. That being said, I'm not really for it, I say advertise and give incentives for players to return to UO other than come look at our new revamped dungeon you'll have your way with in less than 2 weeks. I could really pour on all kinds of ideas, but almost thread I get into I drop ideas into it, and it's really kinda not even worth it. NO dev will ever look at a suggestion in any thread I post in, and think Wow, I should actually listen to that player. And I can't blame em! I'm insane! Meow.

Also, just out of curiosity, what is your desire to see servers merged Prawn? (Honest question)
 

Manticore

Crazed Zealot
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Merge shards... !

All the west coasts merge into one... east coasts could probably do atl and maybe another.. less and less players every day... id assume the player base is less than 1000 now across all servers.
Are you out of your mind? Here is a simple fact finding mission you can do yourself. Go around all the facets on just 4 shards and count up the number of houses and pretty much you get a sample of how many accounts are active right now. Granted some are grandfather owned but its a small percentage. Try Atlantic, Great Lakes, Yamato, Asuka. Just those 4.
 
O

Old Man of UO

Guest
Are you out of your mind? Here is a simple fact finding mission you can do yourself. Go around all the facets on just 4 shards and count up the number of houses and pretty much you get a sample of how many accounts are active right now. Granted some are grandfather owned but its a small percentage. Try Atlantic, Great Lakes, Yamato, Asuka. Just those 4.
The housing topic is just a red herring. There are many ways they can deal with it without ever having to touch houses at all. For example, just merge the dungeons.

Try something new.
 

Kylie Kinslayer

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Nice points Sauteed.

Instead of merging shards, maybe they should offer an Account Xfer token, same price as the character xfer token. A one time use token that allows a player to purchase the token and move the WHOLE account from one shard to another. This would let those that keep on about wanting the shards merged, actually go to another shard completely. They are happy, and only they have to worry about finding new housing. Just an idea anyway.
 

GalenKnighthawke

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Oh look.

A custom rules shard thread.

Oh, sorry, it's a merge shards thread.

This is a bad idea, it's been explained why in countless posts. When the game was bigger there were complaints about lag and sprawl and having a trailer park atmosphere, etc. If you don't like the size of your shard you have options asides from messing things up for everyone else. New character; shard transfer; etc. It's not just about housing and even if it were, housing has long-been cited as such an important part of this game that it'd be a bad idea even if it were just about housing. There is no scenario under which merging shards is a good idea and it stands to alienate more players than it gets.


-Galen's player
 

claudia-fjp

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Are you out of your mind? Here is a simple fact finding mission you can do yourself. Go around all the facets on just 4 shards and count up the number of houses and pretty much you get a sample of how many accounts are active right now. Granted some are grandfather owned but its a small percentage. Try Atlantic, Great Lakes, Yamato, Asuka. Just those 4.
Are you unaware of the little thing called "bad EA programming" and what a large percentage of housing you think is on active accounts is in fact on closed and unpaid for ones? Some Return to Brit houses the owner still plays a main account, some the owner no longer plays at all, and many other houses the owner pays 1 month and gets 3 months of housing free. So to think every house you see = an active account is just silly. You'd be surprised how many houses who look perfectly normal from the outside, but if you look inside you see no modern items, or it is set up for something fundamental that was changed in the game over a decade ago.
 

Manticore

Crazed Zealot
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Are you unaware of the little thing called "bad EA programming" and what a large percentage of housing you think is on active accounts is in fact on closed and unpaid for ones? Some Return to Brit houses the owner still plays a main account, some the owner no longer plays at all, and many other houses the owner pays 1 month and gets 3 months of housing free. So to think every house you see = an active account is just silly. You'd be surprised how many houses who look perfectly normal from the outside, but if you look inside you see no modern items, or it is set up for something fundamental that was changed in the game over a decade ago.
I know 1 house doesn't mean 1 account. My point to the OP was there are a lot more than 1,000 active accounts and using the house counting on 4 shards was just an example. I know 3 players who are very active in playing have a combined total of 40 or so accounts.
 

old gypsy

Grand Poobah
Professional
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Campaign Patron
Like many others, I happen to like my shard very much as it is. I also like choosing my own house spot and would highly resent being forced to vacate and relocate just because a minority of players wanted shard mergers.

If I wanted a more populated shard or less populated shard, I'd buy the transfer tokens and move without creating the distress, disruption, or other numerous possible complications for fellow players that would most likely result from shard mergers.
 

GalenKnighthawke

Grand Poobah
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Stratics Legend
I think Atlantic is hoppin pretty nicely as it is, no need to merge that one with any others.
You know it's funny.....One feller' told me he wasn't happy even with Atlantic's population and insulted me for suggesting he should go to Atlantic.

This just goes to show how far the custom sharders, sorry I mean the shard mergerers, are willing to go.

According to some of the developer interviews though, they've batted the idea of merging servers but it always comes down to they don't want to have people forced into getting homes on new servers and loosing their old spots. Eventually though I think they need to really talk to the players and not just assume anything.
What worries me is that Jeff thinks it's only about housing, which, as I've made plain time and time again in many posts, is not the case.

Those who want a bigger community can find one. The real issue as far as I can tell is that people want the big community without having to find it. They want it to come to them. The less consensual someone else's play is, the happier they are. Sounds familiar, doesn't it.

-Galen's player
 

virtualhabitat

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
They could merge Oceania with another shard, it's not like it ever works anyway...

They could give the six people playing (ok, ok it's seven, but no one likes that one guy) on Sonoma a castle on Pacific, somewhere in Malas maybe...
 

GalenKnighthawke

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
leave my shard alone
Noob. Clearly we need to consolidate all shards into one. It's more convenient for the original poster!

Or at most have two shards. One for people who live at latitudes from 1 to 179 and one from the people from latitudes 180 to 360. Shards should be determined by the player's position relative to the Prime Meridian and the International Date Line.

UO has only 600 players left!!!

-Galen's player
 

GalenKnighthawke

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Noob. Clearly we need to consolidate all shards into one. It's more convenient for the original poster!

Or at most have two shards. One for people who live at latitudes from 1 to 179 and one from the people from latitudes 180 to 360. Shards should be determined by the player's position relative to the Prime Meridian and the International Date Line.

UO has only 600 players left!!!

-Galen's player
Oh, and each shard should have a classic rules set but with item insurance and full access to the Bushido skill (including the lightning strike special move), the Mysticism skill, and the ability to have an awesome Armor Rating from wearing a full set of bone armor and a death shroud.

-Galen's player
 

Petra Fyde

Peerless Chatterbox
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
No one here has any actual knowledge of the process that would be required to achieve partial mergers of dungeons only - except to blithely announce that it's 'easy'.
No one knows what exploits would be facilitated by having multiple shards sharing some areas, but not all - except you can rest assured some would be found. The bag of worms that was opened with the introduction of shard transfers and the rampant duplicating that followed demonstrates that.
No one here can explain how you would decide fairly who would get a particular house spot when a house exists in that location on every shard - this particularly applies to Luna and Zento.

It has been said that there are no current plans to merge any shards, until a Developer posts differently this topic remains.

no-through-road-sign.jpg
 
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