The One and Only Pre-UOR Thread! Update -- 3 Polls of Results

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

I've made it easy, Wilki. All you have to do is cut &amp; paste.

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL that's hilarious. I wonder why they don't even make a single response to this thread.

Think about when you write a suggestion to, for example, a toy company. Regardless of whether or not the toy company likes your idea, you can bet your ass that 90+% of the time you will receive not ONLY a "Thank you for the idea, etc, etc" but also sometimes a free toy.

Companies appreciate when customers go out of their way to suggest something that they would purchase. Here we have something that would bring in many new customers at the cost of minimal work (sorry, I don't buy that nonsense from Hanse).

What we have with UO is that the company goes out of their way to AVOID even addressing a customer suggestion.

... not a good way to go about this.

 

[Guest]

You'd think they'd be posting on here asking us questions about what we do and don't want...

I mean, they should just state a disclaimer for ALL posts on these boards that they make...something to the effect of...

"We, in no way whatsoever, are suggesting that we will ever implement any of these ideas that you are suggesting or that we will even consider doing so beyond the discussions on these boards. That having been said, in order to better understand what our customers may or may not want, we will participate in this discussion and throw around ideas and ask questions. Keep in mind, these suggestions, ideas, and questions are for discussion purposes only and do not indicate us allocating resources to these proposals outside of our discussion on these boards."

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

You'd think they'd be posting on here asking us questions about what we do and don't want...

[/ QUOTE ]

One would think.

They don't even NEED the disclaimer; people whine and complain regardless of whether or not a developer makes an official statement or scribbles some ideas on a napkin.

 

[Davy Crockett]

I would rather be playing on an official UO:R shard right now...

...instead of posting on a forum telling you.

...instead of going to Disneyland.

...instead of having sex.

...instead.

 

[Guest]

How many people have to tell them before they actually open a Pre:UOR Shard?

 

[Spelunk]

<blockquote><hr>

How many people have to tell them before they actually open a Pre:UOR Shard?

[/ QUOTE ]

At this point, I'd settle for a response. ANY response. Sheesh!

 

[Guest]

Mr. Tact tried to respond to it in another thread, but I think his plan backfired horribly...

Like I said a couple posts ago, for them not to discuss these ideas is rather silly regardless of whether they actually think they'll ever implement any of them.

 

[Guest]

I don't think his plan backfired, but rather, his reasoning is flawed.

I doubt he writes in his journal at night, "I think today I finally dodged the PreUOR bullet. 'Tis a good day indeed!"

Mr. Tact simply carries wrong assumptions about what this type of shard would bring--revenue, enjoyment, and more players.

 

[Guest]

Perhaps.

I wish they'd just give it a try and end this speculation once and for all. They will NEVER do away with all this speculation until they do. They'll never rid themselves of everyone complaining until they do...and people like me will never give them a moments peace until they do.

 

[Bob Mac]

I think its more about job security more then anything. If they made a pre ren shard alot of people would go there. Now heres there delima, what are they gonna do to keep there jobs? Was there a UO2 to keep em busy? Major changes to the game keep people working plain and simple. Plus you have to think of shelf space. Do you think if UO stayed the same they would still have a spot on the shelf at stores? Thats why they make expansions, plus these expansions need to be "big" enough to warrent shelf space. Its all about $. But hey I'd pay for a "new" UOPR box on the shelf. I'd go deeper into the politics of business and how they apply to uo but i dont think people would care for it.

 

[Guest]

lol first off, all the people that would join the new shard wouldn't necessarily have to give up their AOS shards. I'm sure many would abandon their AOS shard (I would in a heartbeat), but there would be many who would also stay.

As far as advertising, how successful do you really think UOSE was? I'm sure it brought in SOME new players, but it also annoyed many others. EA had to spend countless dollars on advertising it, etc, etc.

Now imagine the kind of word of mouth advertising a pre-UOR shard would bring. I see people everyday on campus surfing the WoW message boards for hours on end. JUST that fact makes the game seem really appealing.

If UOSE had advertisements going on, I've never seen 'em. Word of mouth advertising would be SO much more effective. Are you going to recommend a game you're bored with, or are you going to recommend a game that brings suspense, camaradarie, and a sack of fun?

side note: UOSE may have been successful in other areas. I just have never heard/seen a single person talk about it... at all... ever. I bet people would at least be talking about pre-ren.

 

[Guest]

I understand that all fine. Its not about not changing so much as about the changes that were made. This is about opening the game up to a wider variety of people and THAT makes perfect business sense.

 

[TheRealIfrit]

<blockquote><hr>

I think its more about job security more then anything. If they made a pre ren shard alot of people would go there. Now heres there delima, what are they gonna do to keep there jobs? Was there a UO2 to keep em busy? Major changes to the game keep people working plain and simple. Plus you have to think of shelf space. Do you think if UO stayed the same they would still have a spot on the shelf at stores? Thats why they make expansions, plus these expansions need to be "big" enough to warrent shelf space. Its all about $. But hey I'd pay for a "new" UOPR box on the shelf. I'd go deeper into the politics of business and how they apply to uo but i dont think people would care for it.

[/ QUOTE ]


Id agree completely about UO's expansion...The only problem is, OSI changed the entire game. I will repeat...the entire game. Had they come out with new shards to apply their new expansions to they would have total diversity. Their decision to drastically take the game in on direction made some people happy but drove away and pissed off a large portion of their loyal customers who made the game successful in the first place.

 

[NunuSpider]

I haven't posted here in years, and this thread just reminded me why.

There's always been massive support for a pre-UO:R shard, from day 1 of UO:R. There are player-run shards out there that are extremely popular based on that ruleset, although it's often poorly emulated. In Por Ylem had some 1500 users on at peak times, and the lowest I ever saw it was around 7-800. And it was competing with similar shards with their own loyalists. On top of that, most of those pre-ren enthusiasts have stayed in touch with others who wouldn't play player-made shards for lack of authenticity, but would come back to OSI for such a shard.

The part of this post that made me angry though, was that like many of the guides and statistics on this site, your description of the t2a ruleset is all wrong. There were no wrestling special moves before UO:R. You could also mention precasting (removed december '99; UOR came out in April '00, so it depends on what month we're talking about), there were no special tools for fletching or inscription, no scribe bonuses to magery, and way too many more changes to even get into, but a lot of the important ones are missing or just wrong. Murderers could go into town, they were just KOS to guards. You might want to specify that strangers would be grey to a private house owner if they went in the house... bah. I give up.

The point is, there's a ton of players out there who would come back for a pre-ren shard, but these guys don't read Stratics. I saw a link to this thread on another website. I would never have come here if not for that. So just because you're polling a severely limited group, you're not getting the whole story. To anyone who's particularly curious, go out there and find the player-run shards (there are lots of them). Take a moment to set up an account, log in, and talk to a few of the players on there.

Anyone with any common sense can see it would be a profitable venture and would bring back a huge number former players. Hell, I would even go out and get my friends who've never heard of UO to play if the game was still that great, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. I'd be surprised to see less than 20,000 new and reopened accounts if OSI made such a shard, and I doubt they're irresponsible enough not to have a back-up of the server side code from back then lying around. The client from that time frame (circa 1.26) is still floating around the web.

I don't claim to know all in all what it would take to get that shard up and running, but even if it took a year, it would be worth it. We vets could finally show the newbies a taste of our world, without all the carebears telling one another horror stories - let them see for themselves, and let us relive our glory days, back when we fell in love with the most immersive game ever made.

 

[Guest]

Wow... well said.

 

[Spelunk]

Very well said!

I'm glad you made the point that most of the people who would flock to a pre-UO: R shard don't frequent UO Stratics or follow UO any more.

 

[Colbourn]

So does everyone think a pre UO:R shard is out of the question? In all honesty I think EA are passing on a decent opportunity to make some good money and keep the player base a little happier.

Player run shards are going to keep on stealing more and more players, if a Pre UO:R shard was to be brought in I'm sure that the player loss would be halted or even reversed.

I find it very unlikely we'll get what we want, but keep on pestering them.

 

[Guest]

I think its a logical idea. All the major players are offering specialized shards, why isn't Ultima Online?

 

[Guest]

Nearly 700 replies in the past 3 weeks (conservative time frame) and narry a single developer response... not one.

Are they just waiting for the problem to go away? The only way for it to go away is if the players go away.

Makes

sense.

 

[Guest]

From what i've seen and experienced...the players are going away. My brother and his friend's house just fell on Napa...

They got tired of the Item Fest Treadmill, Insurance, and the lack of realism. My brother goes to college and plays football for the college. He doesn't have hours upon hours to farm items all day long. All these changes effectively told him that his business was no longer wanted because he was only a casual gamer...and thusly, EA no longer has my brother's business.

Same for his friend.

When's it gonna stop EA?

 

[Guest]

Given what i'm seeing in the poll in another thread, the PvP aspect of a Pre:UOR shard wouldn't be an issue...granted, I think that's only a small portion of what Pre:UOR was all about. A part that further helped to make it a realistic world.

 

[Guest]

Everything takes time in the corporate world.
Don't expect anything to happen soon.
I'd advise everyone here to keep this thread going and bring as many new people to it as possible. Post about this everywhere and bring those old farts here. Tales of those times never gets old.

I have one from way way back pre-pre-pre-uor:
Within the first few months that I started playing I met a still good friend of mine who happened to be a pk back then. He had a drake on his tower roof (wild). We were standing outside chatting and a player ran by. You could tell he was new to the game so my pk friend didn't bother with him (something that was normal then). Anyways the drake wasn't so kind and sent a fireball his way, doing about 80 damage to a guy lucky to have 50 str. Took us awhile to figure out why the guy drop right at our feet for no apparent reason as you couldn't see the fireball hit him. He was probably wondering the same thing. Just a funny story I still remember to this day.

 

[Guest]

Thank you for posting that story. Many people have quite a few misconceptions about PK's and the times in general.

I, too, used to hang out with many a PK friend, even though I was on the side of 'Good' for the most part. I remember an obviously new and un-trained character running by me and a couple of my PK friends one time. He ran right up next to me and cried "HELP!", lol. I told him it was okay, just cuz they were red didn't mean he would be taking a dirt nap. I then had to explain 'dirt nap' to him. Found out this was his first time outside of a town. He ended up being good friends with myself and those reds. We taught him just about everything we knew and pointed him to schools for when we weren't online. That was back when there were player-ran schools all over the place.

 

[Guest]

I touched on this in another thread, but I felt that it belonged here because it helps to illustrate, for me, why Pre:UOR was such a special time.

The movie Pleasantville.

Pleasantville was perfect...to those who didn't know any better. Ignorance is bliss. Reality brings the good with the bad, but it brings a level of good that can never be achieved without the bad.

This movie clearly illustrates why I prefer the realism of Felucca over the see-no-evil of Trammel.

 

[Spelunk]

Well, it's pretty clear where the Dev Team stands on this issue.

There's no way they havn't seen this thread by now. They have no intention of even responding. They couldn't care less. It's very sad because this is obviously the biggest issue facing UO currently. I'm so bummed.

 

[Damon Blackblade]

Its sad indeed...

 

[Kallitcha]

<blockquote><hr>

Well, it's pretty clear where the Dev Team stands on this issue.

There's no way they havn't seen this thread by now. They have no intention of even responding. They couldn't care less. It's very sad because this is obviously the biggest issue facing UO currently. I'm so bummed.

[/ QUOTE ] I was too hopeing to see the devs comment on this, but I guess it will never happen.

 

[TSD]

Would it be possible to start an online petition where we sign our name and character name and send it to OSI? If 3,000+ people signed it...who knows what might happen.

 

[Damon Blackblade]

At this point, I think if we put 3,000 people out front of EA's offices chanting "Pre:UOR!!! Pre:UOR!!! Pre:UOR!!!" they'd find a way to spin it as still not worth their time and money. They'd label us as "crazy" and who would want to appeal to "crazy folk"...

 

[Damon Blackblade]

I think what we truly need to do is draw up a letter on these boards and have everyone, interested in a Pre:UOR shard put in their input until we have a "Final Copy".

Then each of us, on our own, needs to send hand signed copies of these letters to ALL of the big wigs that we can find at EA and keep sending them once a week until we get a response...

What's a few letters a week going to hurt?

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

I think what we truly need to do is draw up a letter on these boards and have everyone, interested in a Pre:UOR shard put in their input until we have a "Final Copy".

Then each of us, on our own, needs to send hand signed copies of these letters to ALL of the big wigs that we can find at EA and keep sending them once a week until we get a response...

[/ QUOTE ]
I was actually discussing something similar to this with someone a couple weeks ago. But I first wanted to get a in-game rally done supporting the idea. But I have been so busy lately as to draw up the details.

Also, generic letters are not the way to go. It takes no effort to print up a page and mail it in. I have a better idea which I will post after the rally.

 

[Damon Blackblade]

On a particular shard or across all shards?

 

[Guest]

It would likely be on Atlantic because that is my home shard and I have friends who can assist with the whole thing. Also Atlantic is one of the original shards. Might hold it at one of the abandoned player cities.

 

[TheRealIfrit]

You know...This really is ridiculous.
Can't we get any sort of answer from somebody that is somewhat 'official'.

It's been 5 years now since the game a lot of people loved was ripped away from them. The fact that their is still a huge playerbase for a t2a based server really should say something to these people...I wish it did, but I don't know. Maybe im just giving up hope.


For once these people have a chance to redeem themselves and do the right thing for their players for the first time without screwing somebody over and they just don't care enough to give us a "No" or a "We'll Put a Test center up for a week and see how it goes"

I mean..come on, this is just ridiculous.

 

[Guest]

There was a question in a poll they sent out on this topic. I wouldn't expect them to come out and comment on the boards. If they answer generally positively, people will take it as a promise for a shard. If they answer somewhat negatively, the flames ensue. If they just post a "Hi I'm here, we are reading the thread" people will complain wanting more.

Not trying to justify anything, just calling the situation how I see it.

 

[TheRealIfrit]

No, I completely understand and agree to a certain extent.

It's just really gotten to the point now where somehow has to say "Yea we care but we simply cannot 'move back'"
or "Maybe we'll try it out"

or something. The fact that 5 years later people are still actively pursuing this campaign, attempting replication of PR shards, setting up numerous petitions, etc, etc, Just proves that they really did have something special before UO:R. It's not about the better PvP, precasting, or any of it anymore. It's about the game and nothing more. The community was outstanding, the game truly was an adventure. No game has ever been able to come close to what UO was community wise. I just wish someone would recognize the fact that it's not 5 sixteen year old pk's who are campaigning about this. It's a big thing to a lot of people who played the game for various different reasons

 

[Guest]

My advice? Be patient for a week or so. Let them analyze the survey data and discuss. Then come back and ask for more. They will have more information on hand about any possible interest that exists, which means they will probably be more likely to answer one way or another.

 

[imported_Lord_Beleth]

First I want to say if a Pre-16 shard was made I would reactivate my account(s) in a heart beat.

Secondly for a Shard like this to work it needs to not be deemed a "PvP" server, but what it is truly meant to be, a Pre-AOS/16/UOR server. The game needs controls so that everyone is not a red like Siege is, thus the Stat-Loss of this era should be implemented again. The fact is to be a Murderer (not a PK, a PK is a far different then what a Murderer was in old school UO) you need to be accountable for your actions. Killing other players is fine with me, death wasn't as bad as people make it out to be but the ability to kill people without being accountable is far to overpowering.

Being a PK opposed to being a Murderer means managing your Murder counts, goading people into attacking YOU, etc.

The Perma-Grey system also needs to come back for thieves.

It is hard to pick and choose what new systems are beneficial to the game. Consider the fact that back in the day a tamer with multiple dragons was a serious threat but risked losing his pets by using them. If you we're to add in control slots, pet bonding and pet summon balls the feel is lost. Control slots help with balance but only because a tamers pets are never really killed, they are never forced to go out and re-tame there pets again.

If the plant system is added orange petals imbalance poisoning.

Insta-hit is a joke and should stay dead.

So here is my list of what should be present on this server (in MY opinion).

---
-Pre-Pub 16 item rules

-One land mass, the original Britannia.

-T2A with champion spawns that DO NOT drop skill/stat scrolls. (Champions would not exist in dungeons but the gold/loot dropped would make them viable. Even one-three spawns would be fine so that hunting grounds could be pre-served).

-Custom housing I can go either way with. The ability to make a player-run town unique is nice but is counter-acted with the ability for others near you to make horrid looking houses and the balance issues needed to make this work.

-No recalling (a page from the Siege book). Recalling makes the world seem far to small and kills the need/fun of boat based PvP. Boat decay would need to be sped up to 24h=decay so boats are not used as housing.

-No selling to vendors for first month-two months to prevent scripters from macroing trade skills up to gm to sell the goods to vendors for enough gold to place castles in the first week. After the first two months the issue would most likely be solved since the housing market would boom.

-IDOC houses with refreshing system. You have to refresh your house once a week minimum or it would collapse.

-One house per account. With a single land mass allowing multiple houses would be very bad.

-No vetern rewards

-Make Black/Leather/Special dye tubs sold at tailoring vendors for a marked up price

-No neon hair/cloth/dyes

-New skills would be fine if balanced to current era of gameplay.

-Mount-stamina significantly lowered, thus making controlling a mount in PvP skillful.

-Special moves that have a chance to proc and are not activated, thus making different weapons more viable in different situations (could even keep the Lance and have it have a dismount proc or keep bola balls).

-Factions system that is fully functional ingame.

-Order vs Chaos system that is fully functional ingame and allowed to be participated in well in factions.

-Stat/Skill locks using the OLD method of gainining skills (no 8x8, no GGS). See-sawing for stats, working individual skills to raise them.

-Magic Resistance vs Eval Int.

-Jewelry with charges

(I will think of more later).

 

[Geezepetes]

I like the idea of Pre UOR, some concerns and joys I have...

The housing doors should be as they are now. As I recall if you lost your key you lost your house back in that era.
The ganksters weren't quite as sophisticated then as they are now, these days houses would be camped and the owners would lose all with much more regularity, and the house would end up on Ebay.

Also on the housing issue, the land would disappear in a hurry and show up on ebay, to slow the land grab don't allow Keeps or Castles. Remember this era was so popular that to accomodate housing was one of the main reasons tram opened.

Thieves, the devs would have to put some effort into this area of play to make it more playable for all, they really made the game suck.

I look forward to house boats lining the coast and when items on deck didn't decay, and as I recall even vendors were allowed on them.

Which fisherman do we get the rich one or the poor one, and woohoo sea serpents in the waters all around Vesper again.

Gm plate armor was envied, and stacked up well against any magical weapons. If you didnt want to lose dex you wore an archers chain/plate suit, this was a good PvP era. Magic reflect was a must.

Magic items had a limited number of uses, or these, Invisibilty jewelry was hot item to have.

Do Bards get to provoke thru walls as they did then and the same with field spells,... does blade spirit poison once again?

Can we do without the hundreds of Large rats in the dungeons and the people setting camp fires to mess up skills please.

NPC noble killing for profit....I never....

All in all With a little tweaking it could be a really fun shard, and I would support it.

gzptz

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>


Also on the housing issue, the land would disappear in a hurry and show up on ebay, to slow the land grab don't allow Keeps or Castles. Remember this era was so popular that to accomodate housing was one of the main reasons tram opened.


[/ QUOTE ]
Every attempt to hold back housing has been a disaster. Housing should be on from the first second the server comes online.

Also the shard shouldn't fill out housing for 2 weeks minumum. PKs would be roaming the popular monster locations. I was actually PKed in Beta UOSE at a good farming spot. It was quite a shock. It would take a well planned effort to get enough gold for a single castle. It would also take over 300 new characters to make enough gold for a small house (100 gold per new character), so that avenue of exploitation would be gone. The only other thing would to make sure there is no vendor inbalances in selling items.

 

[Damon Blackblade]

The best way to curb people exploiting vendors and whatnot is to make vendors not buy anything...permanently. It increases player interaction and eliminates the ability to exploit things. I've seen this system in action and it works well...

 

[__Triz__]

to tell the truth, i wouldnt even mind a pre: AOS SERVER! anything to make this game not so item dependant!

 

[Damon Blackblade]

Heh, i'd love to see that. I'd love to see how many people starting playing on just a Pre:AoS server as opposed to the regular servers...though I, myself, would not play on just a Pre:AoS server. I want a server with Trammel AND AoS deleted.

 

[imported_The-Noni-Trader]

RTL for convenience....


I dont know if it's been raised throughout this vast thread but...

Raph Koster's Musings on UO Pre and Post ren and the reasons for it...
I think that is a great read.... for all of us.. whether we're for or against Pre-ren or even if you just want a good read regarding online societies and communities like UO and the study of human behaviour through them

 

[Guest]

Ok, finally going to give the rally a shot. All the information is in first post. If you have a question please reply and I will answer. Let everyone know and I hope to see you there!

**UPDATE**

<font color=red>Sorry for the confusion, it is May 29!</font color=red>

 

[imported_The-Noni-Trader]

You know I would like to see one change to the code.... [Other than I dont agree with the timeframe you're looking at requesting they revert to... I'd rather see them revert to the publish JUST prior to UO:Rennaissance]


Well the main thing I'd like to ask for ... is UNIQUE NAMES...

One of the major problems with Pre:Ren... if you look at Raph Koster's comments he brings this up repetitively....

The players were unable to sufficiently police themselves... This was due in part to the fact that there could be dozens of people with that name...

If you want a specific name but its taken... how hard is it to throw in a different spelling? or throw on a family name for your character? It also brings a sense of "knowing" the person when you are interacting with them... and allows you to feel more empathy naturally [the main reason scammers and griefers are rife online is that there is no empathy for those you are affecting.. because they are just characters]

 

[imported_The-Noni-Trader]

Consider making it earlier?

Hehe... We're trying to organise a blacksmithing rally at the same time in britain.... still in planning stages right now...

Guess we'll have to postpone another week... ours was going to be 8:00pm EST Sunday 29.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

Well the main thing I'd like to ask for ... is UNIQUE NAMES...

[/ QUOTE ]
There is already a solution, guild abbriviation. If your name is so valuable simply attention an abbriviation to it and your done.

Well the rally is from 5-7, so it shouldn't interfere with yours at 8.

 

[Z ink]

<blockquote><hr>

Ive got 12 active accounts, tons of bod runners, multiple large houses, and endless mil's. I'd gladly see it all deleted for the chance at a true pre-UO:R shard.

[/ QUOTE ]

With an attitude like that your ruining any chance we have of getting this shard, because why would EA spend money bringing back more player accounts when other people will be cancelling 12 accounts....

 

[Guest]

Good idea. I'll do my best to show up on the 29th. Sundays are rough for me w/ schedule conflicts, but I'll try.