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United Pirates High Light Situation

Scarst

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
With Va'lis' departure from UO. UP needs to reevaluate it's position.

We are currently in an Alliance that is now just us and a guild of alts from CoD to the best of my knowledge. We have absolutely no control over highlights currently and are only high lighted to CoD and PGoH.

Nothing I have stated above is an Opinion it is all truth and starting from this point on I will state my opinion and the words of those I've spoken with.

We've lost HL's with all of the yewish guilds, S^S, RoH, Rose, and I'm probably missing some. I believe this is a major loss and it doesn't do the community any good for us to stay in the position we are in now.

As a member and current holder of The United Pirates I want the opinions of the members as I admit bias in wanting to quit the alliance to get back the High Lights we've lost and I can not see any conceivable reason not to do so but I am only one member and UP is as much your guild as it is mine.

I've talked to Trinsac and Pike, both of who gave me there opinion which I will sum up below.

After stating what I stated above Trinsac agreed with my view on the situation.

After explaining to Pike why I was asking the members explaining I felt bias and that I was looking for peoples opinions he stated that he would do the same thing if the OvC wasn't kicking off by now due to lack of members and that we could always pick it back up if it started picking up at any time in the future.

I do assume that whole system will still be open in the future if it stays in place.

In summation I UP needs the opinions of the Members to decide it's fate it is currently heading towards leaving the Chaos alliance and reinstating High Lights with the rest of the community.

If you do have a word for staying in the Chaos Alliance Please state a reply as your opinions are important to the fate of UP, I'd also like to know if you agree with this or if you have other motives to want us to leave.
 

Farsight

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Factual corrections:
UP has never been orange to either the Solantavo Syndicate or Rangers of the Heart.

A major reason for other guilds departing the OvC project was UP, and nothing in-character. The only one who was rumored to leave for reasons other than Pike and Aneirin was Aegis itself, and Aedon is currently away (Highlight with Aegis is an odd thing anyway, since I have never once actually attacked anyone from the village).

Any other Yew Guilds I know about are 1-2 player affairs, and highlights won't help them or us.

Now my opinion:
I think it would likely be easier to get the other Yew guilds back into the game (as "out-of-system") than it would be to rebuild the entire war-structure.

The lost wars are mostly people who rarely went out of their way to play with UP. The big exception to that is a group you wouldn't even consider warring against.

I feel like OvC is a project on life support, but I also don't see any better alternative out there.

But I've also not been on Catskills much lately, so my information could be dated, or even wrong.
 

hawkeye_pike

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
To my opinion, the loss of Va'lis is bad for the community, but it should not affect our decisions. UP are evil and chaotic enough for the whole shard, hehe.

A guild leader of UP should focus on getting healthy interaction and lots of fun within the RP community. This requires mostly two things:

1. Active guild members
2. Highlightings with other RP guilds.

Since Scarst is trying to achieve both, he is on a good path. I think the OvC theme was worth giving a shot, but guilds on Catskills simply are too individualistic to put them under one big roof. Unfortunately the OvC hasn't really developed or grown, despite all efforts of Pandora. That's why I think it might be more efficient to take matters into our own hands again, become an "out-of-system" guild of OvC like all the others, and take care of our highlights by ourselves. Another advantage will be that we once again could highlight RBG, a group we had lots of PvP fun with.

I think the reason why all the good ideas just vanish into a puff of smoke is the general lack of player activity (not only on Catskills). It is hard to build a community when most players only log in twice a week.
 

Scarst

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Factual corrections:
UP has never been orange to either the Solantavo Syndicate or Rangers of the Heart.

A major reason for other guilds departing the OvC project was UP, and nothing in-character. The only one who was rumored to leave for reasons other than Pike and Aneirin was Aegis itself, and Aedon is currently away (Highlight with Aegis is an odd thing anyway, since I have never once actually attacked anyone from the village).

Any other Yew Guilds I know about are 1-2 player affairs, and highlights won't help them or us.

Now my opinion:
I think it would likely be easier to get the other Yew guilds back into the game (as "out-of-system") than it would be to rebuild the entire war-structure.

The lost wars are mostly people who rarely went out of their way to play with UP. The big exception to that is a group you wouldn't even consider warring against.

I feel like OvC is a project on life support, but I also don't see any better alternative out there.

But I've also not been on Catskills much lately, so my information could be dated, or even wrong.
I assumed on S^S but I know for a fact at one point Pirates were highlighted to RoH because Deranigan stirred up trouble with them and fought against Faris.

But even with what you said you haven't given a reason for us to stay in OvC as we could HL the two guilds were HL'd to right now.

And the whole point of having Highlights against other people wouldn't be purely for violence but it would give them the option since if we did go somewhere, say the Rest and PGoH was there all the other people wouldn't have to sit around if a fight broke out like nothing was happening.

And while my feelings on the one or two people guilds are well known, I do believe they are part of the RP community whether or there big or old. I also believe excluding people is wrong. As it stands right now we are only HL'd with PGoH and CoD and nobody can say before hand the pirates didn't have interactions with other people before this alliance no matter how limited.
 

Farsight

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
To my opinion, the loss of Va'lis is bad for the community, but it should not affect our decisions. UP are evil and chaotic enough for the whole shard, hehe.

A guild leader of UP should focus on getting healthy interaction and lots of fun within the RP community. This requires mostly two things:

1. Active guild members
2. Highlightings with other RP guilds.

Since Scarst is trying to achieve both, he is on a good path. I think the OvC theme was worth giving a shot, but guilds on Catskills simply are too individualistic to put them under one big roof. Unfortunately the OvC hasn't really developed or grown, despite all efforts of Pandora. That's why I think it might be more efficient to take matters into our own hands again, become an "out-of-system" guild of OvC like all the others, and take care of our highlights by ourselves. Another advantage will be that we once again could highlight RBG, a group we had lots of PvP fun with.

I think the reason why all the good ideas just vanish into a puff of smoke is the general lack of player activity (not only on Catskills). It is hard to build a community when most players only log in twice a week.
I'll just make this short.

That sums up my opinion today fairly well. Next step is to talk it over with the other GM's of OvC, see if we can't reach a consensus.
 

Bianca_CoD

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Just my opinion guys,

I think to us it will not matter much whether you are in system or out. The highlights will be automatic either way. While loosing a good player like Va'lis is a great loss, remember that had been barely around for quite a few months now.

If I remember from all the pre-forming chats for the OvC idea, the only guild Hawkeye was actively highlighted to at that time was RBG and maybe PGoH. And since PGoH was joining OvC anyways, the only loss was the highlight to RBG, which Hawkeye did voice a strong opinion about as he's friends with those folks. There was strong opposition from the guilds that eventually joined OvC against RBG joining. But I also do not think Pitr would be interested in joining OvC as long as its a "CoD organized idea". I may be wrong.

Unfortunately the OvC hasn't really developed or grown, despite all efforts of Pandora.
Hawkeye, and that's the problem. Its been all on Pandora. I help as much as I can, but no one else has helped her much, besides Thom with their ideas for caravans and to some degree Va'lis with his Cult of the Fallen idea. There hasn't been anyone else coming up with ideas that fall into the OvC theme of RPvP with a common RoE. It cannot be left up to just one person. You cannot tell others to "get in the game" when you yourselves haven't. Every guild leader or officer in OvC should be "LEADERS", not just Pandora.

A thinking a meeting of the GM's and Officers would be very beneficial to all.
 

Scarst

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Just my opinion guys,

I think to us it will not matter much whether you are in system or out. The highlights will be automatic either way. While loosing a good player like Va'lis is a great loss, remember that had been barely around for quite a few months now.

If I remember from all the pre-forming chats for the OvC idea, the only guild Hawkeye was actively highlighted to at that time was RBG and maybe PGoH. And since PGoH was joining OvC anyways, the only loss was the highlight to RBG, which Hawkeye did voice a strong opinion about as he's friends with those folks. There was strong opposition from the guilds that eventually joined OvC against RBG joining. But I also do not think Pitr would be interested in joining OvC as long as its a "CoD organized idea". I may be wrong.



Hawkeye, and that's the problem. Its been all on Pandora. I help as much as I can, but no one else has helped her much, besides Thom with their ideas for caravans and to some degree Va'lis with his Cult of the Fallen idea. There hasn't been anyone else coming up with ideas that fall into the OvC theme of RPvP with a common RoE. It cannot be left up to just one person. You cannot tell others to "get in the game" when you yourselves haven't. Every guild leader or officer in OvC should be "LEADERS", not just Pandora.

A thinking a meeting of the GM's and Officers would be very beneficial to all.
Va'lis not being in game much just makes my point all the more, It's an alliance where we're not controlling our HL's even though we're basically the only ones in it and before the suggestion of putting a character in the alliance holding for a warlord rank I have to ask "Why?" it makes no since to add an extra step. Despite what you said Hawkeye said which I'm almost positive he didn't, We were highlighted to more than RBG and PGoH. He may have said they were the only ones we were actively fighting with but that's something completely different.

As for a meeting of GM's and Officers I don't see that accomplishing anything but eating 1-3 hours talking semantics and ideas that wont be fulfilled if play times can't line up.

Staying in an alliance really doesn't give the pirates any benefits which has been the main point of this whole discussion. And I have asked people to give reasons for staying in and have yet to get one.
 

Aedon Durreah

Village of Aegis
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Factual corrections:
UP has never been orange to either the Solantavo Syndicate or Rangers of the Heart.

A major reason for other guilds departing the OvC project was UP, and nothing in-character. The only one who was rumored to leave for reasons other than Pike and Aneirin was Aegis itself, and Aedon is currently away (Highlight with Aegis is an odd thing anyway, since I have never once actually attacked anyone from the village).

Any other Yew Guilds I know about are 1-2 player affairs, and highlights won't help them or us.

Now my opinion:
I think it would likely be easier to get the other Yew guilds back into the game (as "out-of-system") than it would be to rebuild the entire war-structure.

The lost wars are mostly people who rarely went out of their way to play with UP. The big exception to that is a group you wouldn't even consider warring against.

I feel like OvC is a project on life support, but I also don't see any better alternative out there.

But I've also not been on Catskills much lately, so my information could be dated, or even wrong.
Small correction to your numbers. Aegis has at least 10 active members. We do not involve ourselves in much, because not much has been of interest to all my members.

We also, like many other RPers have lives which take up the more playable hours for the game.

I cannot speak to Silverwoods numbers.
 

Farsight

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I stand corrected (and the misinformation due to time differences is the main reason I play Europa 95% of the time now).
 

hawkeye_pike

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
If I remember from all the pre-forming chats for the OvC idea, the only guild Hawkeye was actively highlighted to at that time was RBG and maybe PGoH. And since PGoH was joining OvC anyways, the only loss was the highlight to RBG, which Hawkeye did voice a strong opinion about as he's friends with those folks.
Not that it would matter much, but just for the sake of truth: I didn't vote for RBG highlighting because of some special friendship status. I voted for them because the battles between UP and RBG have been a lot of fun and they have been fair and according to RoE. If we had a complaint it always was taken seriously. To me, those are the basics of good guild wars.

Hawkeye, and that's the problem. Its been all on Pandora. I help as much as I can, but no one else has helped her much, besides Thom with their ideas for caravans and to some degree Va'lis with his Cult of the Fallen idea. There hasn't been anyone else coming up with ideas that fall into the OvC theme of RPvP with a common RoE.
Absolutely true! However, I think that no meeting and no agreement will change anything about this. Why? Because there simply are too few active players in the RP community (and in UO in general). Even I do not play enough UO anymore in order to build a great community. I'm very glad that I joined an active community on Europa where I can just tag along without any duties. A handful people there are working their arse off to develop storylines and organize great events. I sometimes even feel bad that I cannot contribute more.
At least the load of worrying about equipment and gold has been taken off my shoulders now, which leaves me more time to play UO and have fun.
 

Aedon Durreah

Village of Aegis
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I stand corrected (and the misinformation due to time differences is the main reason I play Europa 95% of the time now).
*smiles* Time is a big factor for most of us sir.

I would play Europa more myself if not for the time issues.
 

Pandora_CoD

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Because there simply are too few active players in the RP community (and in UO in general).
That's the problem I have been desperately working to fix; yet I am told how much Catskills doesn't need fixing left and right. Problem is they don't see it through an RPvP'ers eye; they're fine with tavern sits once a week.

I have been at recruiting events in other shards, RP events in other shards, making friends, inviting folks to come here, posting on UHall, planning events that invite folks to visit Catskills etc. etc. I do not care if they come over to be part of CoD/UP/OvC etc.etc., or they never join a guild here and only visit occassionally. Either case bring more people to interact with. Problem is I am the only one doing it, and frankly it doesn't take a whole lot of time to do.

I work just as much as anyone else, if not more since I own my own business, have a sleuth of health issues to deal with, planning a wedding, doing a lot of business travel, etc. etc. Not to mention I co-GM two other chapters of my guild (TLP) in two other games, DAoC and WoW. So why arent more of us, the few, doing the same?

Now I can understand Aneirin and Hawkeye being on different time zones, seriously I dunno how they ever did it before for so long!! I mean its like 4 am for them when its peak time here on Catskills. Good heavens!

P.S. Scarst, I ditto B's point --- you don't HAVE TO BE an in system guild. We can fix that tonight.
 

Aedon Durreah

Village of Aegis
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Catskills does not need saving. That is a fact. Those wishing to RP will find plenty of avenues to do so. We have many that live in other time zones, and a great deal of folks that live professional lives and have a slew of health issues. RP should not be the central focus of our lives, nor should RPvP bee seen as any different in planning and execution.

As for Tavern sitting, that has been discusses and rediscussed over the years. And while I understand the importance the town tavern played in the history of mankind,k I for one would love to have seen folks use NPC towns to a greater degree.

I am also one that would have loved to see us, at least for RPvP agree to limit gear to GM made. We are not supposed to be PVPers, so gear should not be a central focus in our battles. Also, as I have stated time and again, not every encounter need end in a fight.
 

hawkeye_pike

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I have been at recruiting events in other shards, RP events in other shards, making friends, inviting folks to come here, posting on UHall, planning events that invite folks to visit Catskills etc. etc. [...] So why arent more of us, the few, doing the same?
After having tried all kinds of things to reactivate the community and bring more fun and adventure to Catskills, I now realize that we - the players - cannot solve this problem. What we do is throwing seed on barren land. The player base is shrinking slowly but steadily, and most of all the player activity has been dwindling a lot. The reason is not that our community sucks, but that the player base of UO is growing older and older and no new people are succeeding. As we all know, the older you get the more duties you have in RL and the more your priorities in life shift away from online gaming.

The only one who can solve this are the EA Mythic game designers by doing something about UO that brings new players to the game (I'm not going to go into detail here cause I already wrote an extensive column about this issue).

Now I can understand Aneirin and Hawkeye being on different time zones, seriously I dunno how they ever did it before for so long!! I mean its like 4 am for them when its peak time here on Catskills. Good heavens!
You don't want to know... :)

I am also one that would have loved to see us, at least for RPvP agree to limit gear to GM made. We are not supposed to be PVPers, so gear should not be a central focus in our battles.
That would be great, Aedon, but frankly I have given up on discussing this matter on Catskills, a shard where all people depend so much on their gear.
 

Aedon Durreah

Village of Aegis
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I know Pike. One thing I can say for sure, all Aedon's gear is player made. And I myself am willing to wear GM gearz when interacting with RPers.
 
C

Calico_Jake

Guest
I tell ya, some of the best times I have had on uo was running into a dungeon with a group with no armor. Then running around picking up stuff as we went along.
 

Bianca_CoD

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Catskills does not need saving.
I respectfully beg to differ in many ways, sir. I agree with Hawkeye here; throwing seeds on barren land. I couldn't have put it better myself really. Catskills population is dwindling day by day. And that population affects many RP guilds in general, perhaps not your guild in your corner of the world, but that's not a true statement for everyone. Everyone experiences Catskills issues differently and Pand speaks of her own experiences and some guilds share her experiences. So therefore its not a fact for all, though it may be a fact for you.

For me, I do feel Catskills needs saving and I believe Hawkeye is right! As much as I love Pand, she's been my friend for over a decade and appreciate her efforts and to some extent they work and have brought in new players, its not enough. I feel EA needs to do something about it and its not something we players have control over, like they did for DAoC which helped a whole lot, and that's server clustering. I would love to see us clustered with the other EST servers without a loss to my properties. They have the know-how on how to do this, and do it well, so I say they should do it. Not to mention active marketing would certainly help! Free to play too!

My 2 cents.

B.
 

Aedon Durreah

Village of Aegis
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I respectfully beg to differ in many ways, sir. I agree with Hawkeye here; throwing seeds on barren land. I couldn't have put it better myself really. Catskills population is dwindling day by day. And that population affects many RP guilds in general, perhaps not your guild in your corner of the world, but that's not a true statement for everyone. Everyone experiences Catskills issues differently and Pand speaks of her own experiences and some guilds share her experiences. So therefore its not a fact for all, though it may be a fact for you.

For me, I do feel Catskills needs saving and I believe Hawkeye is right! As much as I love Pand, she's been my friend for over a decade and appreciate her efforts and to some extent they work and have brought in new players, its not enough. I feel EA needs to do something about it and its not something we players have control over, like they did for DAoC which helped a whole lot, and that's server clustering. I would love to see us clustered with the other EST servers without a loss to my properties. They have the know-how on how to do this, and do it well, so I say they should do it. Not to mention active marketing would certainly help! Free to play too!

My 2 cents.

B.
Nothing wrong with your 2 cents Bianca. Many that have spoken to issues of UO are correct and incorrect at the same time. Our views after all come from within ourselves, and mark only things as we see them at the time. None of us are can claim to be completely right or wrong on this subject. However, if any of us truly believe they are throwing good seeds on fallow land, I have two suggestions. Either find a way to nurture the land that is conducive to growth or move on to better pastures.

The latter, I know from my own past is the hardest to do. We all love this old game, and many of us have devoted long hours and in my case years to trying to make my time here better. We seek that magic source that will reignite the passions for RP and UO that we remember from the past.

But as you said, and correctly, there is little left that we as players can do to change things. That is in the hand of the owners of the franchise. Combining shards would not be a good answer due to what you have stated, loss of lands by some folks. Though as those of us that have long supported this game dwindle, EA may be forced to find a workable way to do it.

I am sorry that you feel Cats needs saving, I still think you are incorrect there. (*grins* from my corner of the world of course.) Those of us that play cats, and especially those of us that have called it our home for a great many years need to recognize that our view of what constitutes good RP interaction may not be the view of others.

Nurture your fields. Fertilize them and hope for a good crop. But leave your neighbors fields alone. They may be well satisfied with what they are growing. It may not be a perfect crop, but it is what they choose to grow.
 

Pandora_CoD

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I know Pike. One thing I can say for sure, all Aedon's gear is player made. And I myself am willing to wear GM gearz when interacting with RPers.

LOL Aedon you mean to say you still carry around regs or scrolls to gate, recall, etc? I am impressed! ;)
 

Pandora_CoD

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Nurture your fields. Fertilize them and hope for a good crop. But leave your neighbors fields alone. They may be well satisfied with what they are growing. It may not be a perfect crop, but it is what they choose to grow.
First, I know they can cluster shards without anyone loosing their territory. They simply add a "flip switch" to the game that allows you "inter-dimensional" travel. Seen that first hand from Mythic in DAOC. Worked great.

Secondly, I think Pike and others in UP share the same sentiment as I do. They've told me many times of such. Catskills needs more people to RP with in it!!! Its what's on "life support", to borrow words. It is a key factor to many people that do take that final step to "move on". Pike/Aneirin to Europa with Scarst (although Scarts still spends time here, a lot of it is in Europa, he's told me that himself). Even some of my own guildies kick around the idea of moving to another shard. Its simple as that... lack of population. Some shards simply have life in this game still, while others do not.

The weaker shards should be, in my opinion, consolidated to the stronger ones and we will not loose our cities and towns and such. They've done it before, they can do it again!
 

Scarst

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
First, I know they can cluster shards without anyone loosing their territory. They simply add a "flip switch" to the game that allows you "inter-dimensional" travel. Seen that first hand from Mythic in DAOC. Worked great.

Secondly, I think Pike and others in UP share the same sentiment as I do. They've told me many times of such. Catskills needs more people to RP with in it!!! Its what's on "life support", to borrow words. It is a key factor to many people that do take that final step to "move on". Pike/Aneirin to Europa with Scarst (although Scarts still spends time here, a lot of it is in Europa, he's told me that himself). Even some of my own guildies kick around the idea of moving to another shard. Its simple as that... lack of population. Some shards simply have life in this game still, while others do not.

The weaker shards should be, in my opinion, consolidated to the stronger ones and we will not loose our cities and towns and such. They've done it before, they can do it again!
There are giant differences in UO and DAOC mostly the coding.
 

Pandora_CoD

Certifiable
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There are giant differences in UO and DAOC mostly the coding.
Not when it comes to server clustering sir. Technically, it wouldn't be any different than having a character transfer switch that is always on for certain shards. Much like adding another option to the Gating menu. I know that first hand... ;)
 

Aedon Durreah

Village of Aegis
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Stratics Legend
First, I know they can cluster shards without anyone loosing their territory. They simply add a "flip switch" to the game that allows you "inter-dimensional" travel. Seen that first hand from Mythic in DAOC. Worked great.

Secondly, I think Pike and others in UP share the same sentiment as I do. They've told me many times of such. Catskills needs more people to RP with in it!!! Its what's on "life support", to borrow words. It is a key factor to many people that do take that final step to "move on". Pike/Aneirin to Europa with Scarst (although Scarts still spends time here, a lot of it is in Europa, he's told me that himself). Even some of my own guildies kick around the idea of moving to another shard. Its simple as that... lack of population. Some shards simply have life in this game still, while others do not.

The weaker shards should be, in my opinion, consolidated to the stronger ones and we will not loose our cities and towns and such. They've done it before, they can do it again!
Then let those that feel Cats is dead move on. Those of us that still enjoy the cats community will do fine.

Pandy, I am not saying there is not room for improvement. All things can be improved on. I am just saying that many of us that have played here for years, and call Cats our HOME shard, do not subscribe to the idea that RP here is dead or n life support. It is what it is, and many of us are fine and settled with what we have.

Good ideas though should always be shared, and hopefully look at with open eyes. Who knows, something may be seen in new ideas put forth that will ignite something more.
 

Farsight

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
The highlight situation has been rectified. Thanks to all involved for the help, action and advice.

Moving on now...
 
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