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West Yew University (WYU) has been erased from UO history......

croy6325

Journeyman
UNLEASHED
Screenshot (8).png Screenshot (10).png

I started playing in '98. WYU was my 1st guild, i was invited by Enigma and Cassius while it was under the leadership of Silver Dryad. The house, the hedge, the forge to the west, and the theater to the east were given and dedicated to WYU because it was a guild dedicated to helping new players. I spent a ridiculous amount of time at this very location chatting, "sparring", organizing dungeon runs, hiding from PKs, etc.... I return to this very spot once a month or so just to reminisce about the times I had with this guild, to this day I still get that knot in my throat when i think about all the great times I had here. WYU was my home, was my online family, and the nostalgia of this guild, has kept me subscribed for many years, and now its gone.........why? it was one of the things that makes Atlantic unique, no other server, free or official has this. This small plot of land, this handful of tiles was my sole reason for visiting Yew. It was a small house in an obscure location, out of the way, not taking up a housing spot; it existed solely as a monument to some of UO's earliest history.

I was junior in high school when discovered UO, and am now married and the father of 3 girls who give me that odd look when they see me playing such an old game, unfortunately as of today, after many years, i'm taking the 1st character i ever created, and one of the original members of WYU, Sir Croy,, and am logging him out at the bench that sits next to the place i once called home. As of today my subscription is cancelled, and my house will eventually fall just the same. Good bye UO, thank you for memories, God bless!
 

Uriah Heep

Grand Poobah
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
I can dig it. Memoriess of the great adventure, great friends, great times, nostalgia, is what keeps a lot o f people playing.
Mesanna is destroying all that and turning UO into a deco-centric Sims game with no history other than what you did yesterday.
 

Dryzzid of Atlantic

Lore Master
Professional
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
I am sorry that you found out this way, I know it's upsetting. I felt the same way when I found out the Halfing had fallen. I was able to attend the WYU fall and we got most, if not all books out of it. Emails were sent but unfortunately nothing could be done.

Here are the final moments just before the fall:

1596296312697.png
 

Miri of Sonoma

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I am sorry that you found out this way, I know it's upsetting. I felt the same way when I found out the Halfing had fallen. I was able to attend the WYU fall and we got most, if not all books out of it. Emails were sent but unfortunately nothing could be done.

Here are the final moments just before the fall:

View attachment 110631
It is sad when buildings that were so much a part of a shard's history are lost. But I am glad to hear at least books were saved!
 

Rune Artisem

Visitor
WYU meant a lot to many old timers on the Atlantic shard. I was never part of the guild, and had few interactions with those in it, but their reputation was impeccable. I'm glad the blessings remain, but the house should have been kept as well since it wasn't impacting new housing placement in any way.
 

Lord Nabin

High Council Sage - Greater Sosaria
Professional
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Glorious Lord
This is a sad development
 

celticus

Crazed Zealot
UNLEASHED
Agree. Sad issue, but it happened, and the Devs or their circumstances or whatever they are planning lead to this. I am sure it was most likely unavoidable, as they would not purposefully and intentionally want to hurt the feelings of people in the game now, and also lots of the other folks are long gone for years even decades. Life goes one, and there are new things cooking up in the horizon, definitely as they have demonstrated.
BIG DEAL ! Life goes on folks. Now lets ALL quit on account of this?
Jeeeeesussss!! :devil:

** Slowly and purposefully ducks under the table, getting ready for the onslaught of rotten eggs, rotten tomatoes and utensils getting ready to be tossed **
 

Uriah Heep

Grand Poobah
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
here are new things cooking up in the horizon, definitely as they have demonstrated.
Umm, I missed the demonstration, unless you spoke this tongue-in-cheek, so to speak.

By clearing all the housing space they can, I seriously hope to hell they aren't doing that to enable EJ accounts to place. Temporary houses good for 90 days, buy your token to place from the ingame store!!!

I can see it now
 

celticus

Crazed Zealot
UNLEASHED
Umm, I missed the demonstration, unless you spoke this tongue-in-cheek, so to speak.

By clearing all the housing space they can, I seriously hope to hell they aren't doing that to enable EJ accounts to place. Temporary houses good for 90 days, buy your token to place from the ingame store!!!

I can see it now
The demonstrated new stuff is here already, as their new code for allowing quick deployment of new events and content, that they hope will provide new interest in actually playing the game, possibly new rewards etc.

They need more subscriptions, so by allowing EJs to have 30-90 day housing may not work too well, plus there will be some type of upkeep on their part for this, and likely lots of hassle for that. Also how many real EJ's are out there? No one really knows. There are a lot of regular subs likely that may have EJ farmer Bots. But they would not be interested in 90 day homes since they already have housing likely.

I suspect it may be something to attract more subs, and to keep the present subs subbed.
Could be something they may have learned from other MMO's? We can only guess.
The insight might tell us that it may have to do with housing, especially to try to repopulate the low pop shards. Maybe this is why the mass demolition of old structures, even historical ones. That last part is a little extreme, and understandably some people with emotional ties to them may get offended.

One more possibility may be an act to correct their Massive Taming Blunder of making pets eat regular player power scrolls. There are only a few ways to do that. As it is now, the Taming Specific PS are hugely and unreasonably overpriced and certain player toons have to dish out hundreds of millions of gold to just scroll he players toons, and for new players impossible to get unless they go to RMT sites, or get a sampire properly outfitted, and then chain multiple Champ Spawns spend hundreds of hours doing that, to hopefully get lucky and get the right ones. Most people don't have the time or inclination to do that. So unless they do that, PS and taming will be out of balance. It looks that there are a lot of tamers in the game, and most are either not willing to do PVP or not interested, also. PVP is one of the best parts of this game and the pet PS thing has changed the focus of that, and has led to even more corruption from all aspects.
 
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petemage

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
One more possibility may be an act to correct their Massive Taming Blunder of making pets eat regular player power scrolls. There are only a few ways to do that. As it is now, the Taming Specific PS are hugely and unreasonably overpriced and certain player toons have to dish out hundreds of millions of gold to just scroll he players toons, and for new players impossible to get unless they go to RMT sites
The people running the RMT sites 100% have Broadsword's back. Call it :tinhat: , but that's exactly how it's supposed to be. Hope you're not holding your breath over Mesanna hurting their business.
 

Poo

The Grandest of the PooBah’s
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Campaign Benefactor
ive had the very same thing happen to me, it is very sad and disheartening.

but just remember why we still play...... still..... still..... still play this game, there are little spots of joy that we enjoy.
cling to those i say.
like draining the blood from your fallen foe and making a meat suit out of him!
happy happy joy joy!
 

Arcus

Grand Poobah
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Such a sad state of affairs. I know that knot. I still get it running though the cave to Shame. I still get it at the brigand camp. I am sorry this happened. Why is no one paying any attention?
 

Cear Dallben Dragon

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Just so its clear, this does nothing for the game but hurt it. You cannot place a house there to it frees up nothing. Lots of historical places were deleted from the game and nothing can take their place because they were placed illegally to foster community and build history. If there was a good reason to delete WYU there is just as good of a reason to rebuild it like town banners. Letting history like this fall does nothing for the game or the players. Its just malicious.
 
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Rune Artisem

Visitor
Just so its clear, this does nothing for the game but hurt it. You cannot place a hose there to it frees up nothing. Lots of historical places were deleted from the game and nothing can take their place because they were placed illegally to foster community and build history. If there was a good reason to delete WYU there is just as good of a reason to rebuild it like town banners. Letting history like this fall does nothing for the game or the players. Its just malicious.
This. 100%.
 

Jepeth

Seasoned Veteran
UNLEASHED
I hate that this story has happened over and over across all the shards. On Chesapeake we lost the Black Rose Brewery in the former player city of Corwyn, and the last remaining city building on Port Baldmore.

cp_BlackRoseBrewery.jpg map_portbaldmor.jpg
 

Rune Artisem

Visitor
The Undead Keep of the Necropolis on Catskills also fell this weekend. I was there to help the Undead guild recover as much as possible. I know it had been "owned by OSI" for a long time, and was definitely impacting housing spaces (the Undead guys placed two plots there after it fell and plan to build a new 'keep'), but all the surrounding houses were still held by this guild, and pleas to keep it up went nowhere. The Seer created tower outside it has been allowed to stay so there's that at least.

These are pics I found online of the keep (they aren't mine, and are from different time periods; check out that tent in the one pic).

ca_UndeadKeep.gif guardtower-large.jpg keep.jpg
About 2-3 weeks ago, players could no longer enter it (it had been publicly opened until then).
 
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Arcus

Grand Poobah
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I hate that this story has happened over and over across all the shards. On Chesapeake we lost the Black Rose Brewery in the former player city of Corwyn, and the last remaining city building on Port Baldmore.
Oh lord this is terrible.
 

MalagAste

Belaern d'Zhaunil
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
It hurts, doesn't it... it's hard to watch history be destroyed... Watching it certainly does not endear me to staying... just makes me want to leave more. But that's more of missing people that I used to see around places like those. Memories of the good times had there... rather than the place itself... friendships formed and bonds made... wars fought... even enemies remembered. But I will always have the screenshots and memories to treasure.
 

Jepeth

Seasoned Veteran
UNLEASHED
Side question. What is the mapping Tool used for the Screenshot?
Does it auto create buildings like uomap in the past?
I couldn't tell you. I saved that picture from either their website or stratics. Every one of those buildings are gone now.
 

UNKNOWN of Atlantic

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
I just wonder if they are dropping all these historic locations for EJ placing why not just put 7x7 Rentals in Malas lands where there no houses and cant be placed for EJ players to bid on like Magincia Stalls? ... Like where the old reward castles are. ....just saying
 

ShriNayne

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
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Awards
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EJ accounts can't have houses, they are dropping them because of this 'biggest boldest endeavour' thing they are working on, DAoC have done the same thing, so there must be some connection, a lot of people think it's Steam.
 

petemage

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
I always admire those that seem to know when a journey is over and move on to something new. I'm not that good at it, but I've come to realise I'm not going to miss any of those pixels that I've not touched in years and only been saving for nostaligic reasons. More often than not it's better to turn the lights off when the party is indeed over.
 
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Lord Arm

Certifiable
Governor
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
im sorry this happened and i know some are upset about loss of history. in someways, everyone's house has history, some more than others. if the people were given notice/informed of the changes and didnt want to pay to keep their house, well it will fall. i hope they were given notice. new history will be made and new adventures. ive had many guildies, friends just leave the game without a word. their old houses gone now but i keep their memories fresh. maybe some of you will be at my house/castle when it falls, hopefully far in the future lol. i wouldnt want anyone to be upset. if i left the game and didnt play, i wouldnt expect my house to last for ever.
 

croy6325

Journeyman
UNLEASHED
im sorry this happened and i know some are upset about loss of history. in someways, everyone's house has history, some more than others. if the people were given notice/informed of the changes and didnt want to pay to keep their house, well it will fall. i hope they were given notice. new history will be made and new adventures. ive had many guildies, friends just leave the game without a word. their old houses gone now but i keep their memories fresh. maybe some of you will be at my house/castle when it falls, hopefully far in the future lol. i wouldnt want anyone to be upset. if i left the game and didnt play, i wouldnt expect my house to last for ever.
You are misunderstanding what they did. A lot of what they deleted weren't actually "player owned" housing. In early UO, the devs granted perks to certain guilds that contributed to the growing community. Take WYU for example; WYU was a guild dedicated to helping new players, so the devs placed a house in within the guard zone, gave it a hedge, placed a forge one screen to the west, and a podium to the east. It would be otherwise impossible to place anything in this location without the devs intervention. It wasn't owned by anyone, it belonged to the guild and was entirely unique to Atlantic.. After Trammel was introduced, WYU slowly died out, and the guild location became a monument to Atlantic's early history. There was absolutely no good reason to remove it.
 

Lord Kurt Cobain

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Just wanted to say that I actually have the guildstone for West Yew University (WYU). Its currently displayed at my Umbra rares museum, just outside the west gate on ATL. I got it from an idoc about 4-5 years ago.

I never knew much about its history, or that people had such sentimental value for this guild, since I myself am from Lake Superior.

That being said, I would be willing to part with the guildstone to the right person and for the right trade. If you have interest in acquiring the guildstone, and can provide a compelling argument for why you should have it, please feel free to reach out to me.

If I cant workout a trade for the stone, perhaps I'll find a way to better honor the memory of the guild. I think it would be cool to add a little book documenting some of the guild's history.
 

Dryzzid of Atlantic

Lore Master
Professional
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Just wanted to say that I actually have the guildstone for West Yew University (WYU). Its currently displayed at my Umbra rares museum, just outside the west gate on ATL. I got it from an idoc about 4-5 years ago.

I never knew much about its history, or that people had such sentimental value for this guild, since I myself am from Lake Superior.

That being said, I would be willing to part with the guildstone to the right person and for the right trade. If you have interest in acquiring the guildstone, and can provide a compelling argument for why you should have it, please feel free to reach out to me.

If I cant workout a trade for the stone, perhaps I'll find a way to better honor the memory of the guild. I think it would be cool to add a little book documenting some of the guild's history.
I would be interested in purchasing this for the Atlantic Repertory outside of Zento. We house all of the collected fiction from the Atlantic RP community and a large portion of Atlantic seer items/uniques from the early days of UO.
 

Lord Kurt Cobain

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Always about the profits. Sad..
Actually has nothing to do about profit. Gold means very little to me in this game. If you knew me at all you would know that I am a collector of old school items, and this happens to be the only guild stone in my collection, and one of my favorite pieces. I don't think its absurd for me to ask for something in return.
 

MalagAste

Belaern d'Zhaunil
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
Actually has nothing to do about profit. Gold means very little to me in this game. If you knew me at all you would know that I am a collector of old school items, and this happens to be the only guild stone in my collection, and one of my favorite pieces. I don't think its absurd for me to ask for something in return.
If that's the case I'd donate one I honestly don't care for though it be on GL and would have to get to Atl... (I no longer have shields up)... so that you can still have an old guild stone and they can have this one for this RP community. I had a bunch at my Crypt that I got from IDOCs or whatever... so I'd donate one to you they can trade for that one.
 

Pawain

I Hate Skilling
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Actually has nothing to do about profit. Gold means very little to me in this game. If you knew me at all you would know that I am a collector of old school items, and this happens to be the only guild stone in my collection, and one of my favorite pieces. I don't think its absurd for me to ask for something in return.
I give my vote to trading to Dryzzid. I think he will give it a good home.
 
Actually has nothing to do about profit. Gold means very little to me in this game. If you knew me at all you would know that I am a collector of old school items, and this happens to be the only guild stone in my collection, and one of my favorite pieces. I don't think its absurd for me to ask for something in return.
I think it's pretty absurd.
 

Lord Nabin

High Council Sage - Greater Sosaria
Professional
Supporter
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Glorious Lord
I think it's pretty absurd.
Why he is a collector, he could just as easily say I like it and am going to keep it in my collection just letting you know its not lost.

Some people donate things like this. Some people make them available for sale. Its fine either way. Its also fair either way.
 

Pawain

I Hate Skilling
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
I think it's pretty absurd.
The guy found an item 4 years ago. Seems like Atlantic did not miss it if it took fours years for someone to ask for it. How the heck would the player know the guildstone had any importance? You thinking he should know is absurd. I have old guild stones and deeds as deco. Should I be asking who the owner is. The original owner is not around or they would have answered the email the devs sent out telling them those houses will fall. The owner could have removed the items if they cared.

You are absurd. Dude should be rewarded for keeping it and paying attention enough to tell others he has the item that nobody cared about 4 years ago...
 
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Lord Nabin

High Council Sage - Greater Sosaria
Professional
Supporter
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Glorious Lord
There was a point that I had several hundred guildstones. I had collected them from all the shards. If someone came by looking for a specific memory and had a good historical story I would sell them very cheap 10 mil or so. Others I saved for good friends for when they showed back up and gave them to they original owner. Tried to get the Devs to create an area for them but found no interest. Eventually sold the rest over a few years worth of rares fests lol it was a very long process....I had fun with it. I like the history they represent. Its unique.
 

Stinky Pete

Babbling Loonie
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
You could give me the stone. I don't have much but it would mean a whole lot to me. I have a box of stuff, it has everything I own on production shards in it. I would gladly give it to you. Oh, did I mention that the box is Vault #1 on Atlantic? Uniquely rare, could be yours with all of my production shard possessions and gold.
 

Pawain

I Hate Skilling
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
You could give me the stone. I don't have much but it would mean a whole lot to me. I have a box of stuff, it has everything I own on production shards in it. I would gladly give it to you. Oh, did I mention that the box is Vault #1 on Atlantic? Uniquely rare, could be yours with all of my production shard possessions and gold.
You can't sell the Luna trash barrel..... But, good try.
 
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