Where is everone?

[lancelot99]

Been back about 3 weeks and on Europa, apart from the Luna bank (same 2-3 people there), everywhere seems deserted.... (even peak weekend and evening times??)

when i left 5 years ago, Doom was always full of people, the elf village was full of people and always a cue for people killing the swoops... so i went to explore...

i go to Navery.. no one there (once i did see a sampire and was promptly told to f*** off as he was camping the spawn alone and didn't want to share, not sure why he didn't just play a single player game)..

went to the new dungeon to do some renowns (can't do sgyian drag or slasher due to their extra damage versus pets with a tamer-which seems totally wrong, limiting my gameplay, why no high end creature do 3x damage to anyone with bushido, or chivalry? as to do x you need to have y but thats another argument for another time)

so went there to look around and was again totally deserted... so feels like playing a single player game (but charging monthly for it)

so, where do people go during the game?

 

[pgib]

i go to Navery.. no one there (once i did see a sampire and was promptly told to f*** off as he was camping the spawn alone and didn't want to share, not sure why he didn't just play a single player game)..

You're not the first one reporting this. I never met this guy but i'll start wandering around navrey's lair from now on, just for the pleasure to be his fighting companion. Sampires... bah.

Anyway, peak time now means that we have 100, maybe 150 players on, spread all over a very big landmass, so the chances to meet someone are not that high. And considering the risk to meet a bathead like the one you told us it is not a bad thing after all.

The good news is that you can use the general chat to gather people if you want to do some interesting mob. I always yell through that when i'm about to start a medusa or a ilshenar champ spawn, things like that. You just have to skip all the pvp trashtalking usually going on there.

Unfortunately you're right saying that there are quite a lot of challenges we tamers are simply excluded from. We have to hold our breath until this anti-tamer wave goes off.

 

[Woodsman]

If you had noticed a drop in the past two days I'd say it was Skyrim.

 

[Heimi]

If you had noticed a drop in the past two days I'd say it was Skyrim.

And BF3!

 

[HD2300]

It is because UO lost A LOT (>50%) of p(l)ayers in the 2 years prior to getting a new Ultima Franchise Producer recently.

 

[Arrgh]

And BF3!

...and beta for SWTOR mmo.

 

[Cetric]

I think that acct management page change really hurt alot. Many people were on the edge of weather to continue playing or not, and when they had the billing site fiasco, they just said screw it.

 

[Raptor85]

could also be the fact that a lot of players right now are hitting the point where they need to do their first renewal with the new account system (people who used to pay in 3-6 month increments), and UO's official sites basicly suck at telling you how it works (not even a mention of the _uo still). Vast majority of UO players dont have stratics accounts or read stratics so there might be quite a few players now that think they lost their accounts.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

Results of game changes since then by the Dev's to bring back 'community' - nurf the areas commonly solo'd (done, now dead as you see). (I think maybe Sampires are a way for the soloist to thumb their nose back at them) 1 hit kill you mobs w/ 35,000 hit points Force group play. You didn't even mention lumber jack, mining or t-maps ... well, i don't want to spoil the surprise.
Welcome Back

 

[temu]

They need to merge shards badly. Merge all the shards and let's experience a populated UO again!

 

[Woodsman]

They need to merge shards badly. Merge all the shards and let's experience a populated UO again!

You seriously want thousands of people to up and leave don't you?

Because that's what would happen once people started losing their housing spots and communities.

If you want a more populated shard, there is nothing stopping you from moving to one.

 

[Herman]

Europa is one of the shard that lost most people the last couple of years it use to be one of the biggest shards
part of the reason i think is that we (from europa) ping pritty good to Atlantic

I did notice a big dropp off in people a couple months before SA came out

Then when SA was out it was a short moment 1 month or 2 when people came back to check out the new expansion only to leav again

I suggest u join a guild or an aliance being a solo warrior on small shards is not fun but can be wery rewarding and fun if u meet up with a nice group europa players are also known to be wery kind and helpfull
Good luck

 

[Salivern_Diago]

At lest once a day I go down to the Primeval Lich spawn and spam wither for an hour. Your more than welcome to come with me if you want? I'm not good enough to complete the champ but I do do the lower levels.

 

[Wizal the Fox]

Some US shards always managed to survive with a low population, but they do benefit from a huge US Xshard trading market, so it remains really a choice to play there.

Europa situation is unique in that it is sinking alone. You can't find anything there (or 5 times the price of any US shard, if you ever find the items you're looking for). To give you an idea: it took me 4 weeks to find someone selling a soulstone token, and 1 week to find a vendor selling barbed leather.

Europa EMs are in their roleplaying trip only, it's not bad but very limited. Most people attending are traders from other shards anyway waiting for a drop to xfer.

You also have to remember that unlike with redundant US shards that people chose to play on, most original Europa players didn't exactly chose in the first place, they HAD to because 10 years ago the ping wasn't bearable for connecting overseas.

Of course, in the long term merging is unavoidable, but you can't say it because, you know, some people "have spent so much in their house location that they would immediately quit" or something along those lines. More likely those comments usually come from xshard traders that would loose their main source of income if there was nothing to xshard anymore. Their opinion is of course meaningless but the point is that it is a matter that is nearly impossible to talk about, even if everyone in private know it is unavoidable somehow.

In any case, regarding Europa, many people I know who haven't already done it are ready to move (and leave the antimerging naysayers playing alone on their empty shard) but categorically refuse to pay hundreds of $ in xfer tokens for something that is not their fault at all in the first place. I had high expectations that the Shard Shields would be an answer, with vets packing both for themselves and their friends, but it appears that the packy/pets limitation will bar anyone from permamoving with all their stuff. Where do we go from here, god knows...

 

[Raptor85]

Being against merging isn't about gold, it's about history, while not as many as a few years ago there's still a lot of houses left that have been up since the shards first went live, and some historic/beautifully decorated houses that would be completely lost if that were to happen. Not to mention 14 years of shard history....no...a shard merge would be a surefire way to immediatly get 95% of each shard's population to quit the game. There's also geolocation as well, us west coast players or the euro players don't get the best of pings to the east coast servers, mix that with a population of even half of what the shards had 8 years ago and it's near unplayable for a lot of us, at least to the point where anything that takes precision we can't do (like pvp, of the harder mobs)

 

[Woodsman]

Of course, in the long term merging is unavoidable, but you can't say it because, you know, some people "have spent so much in their house location that they would immediately quit" or something along those lines.

Like Raptor85 said, it is about history, and there are technical problems (several thousand items per account that would need to be migrated over without loss), but everybody who thinks it's a solution ignores three things:

1 - If people want higher population shards, the mechanisms are in place for them to move to those shards now.

2 - A merging of shards means that for those who have a lot of characters across multiple shards, they will end up losing characters, and resentment will be created.

3 - A merging of shards means that a lot of people who have castles, keeps, or mini-towns are going to not only lose those, but potentially be forced into smaller and fewer houses, and potentially be forced to give up items since they would be going from castles/keeps/multiple houses down to something smaller with less storage. Resentment against players who didn't have to change shards and resentment against EA will skyrocket.

Players who would lose castles/keeps/houses/multiple houses that they may have had for years (a decade or more even) or that paid real-life money for, and who would probably be losing item storage, are going to be put in a really bad situation and a lot will say "**** it, I'm done, you don't respect me, you don't respect the years I put in, I'll take my ****ing money and go elsewhere."

There is also the negative publicity aspect. Merging of shards would send a bad and highly visible sign about the state of UO and would also probably keep people away or keep them from returning, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of low populations.

UO's problems will not be solved with shard mergers, because if it reaches the point where the population is that low, it's finished anyways and EA is not going to spend money to migrate people over, they will just close the thing down. UO is not Camelot or Warhammer that requires a concentrated population to drive the game - those are PvP-oriented games that do require a concentrated population. Nor does UO require a lot of hardware resources - if it did, shards would have been closed long before now.

You want to keep people playing the game, or at least keep them paying their monthly fee, you don't want to create a situation where people lose characters/houses/items because they will leave. **** with peoples' houses, and they will leave.

 

[Woodsman]

Or the short answer: When you have a game full of pixel addicts, if you mess with their pixels, reduce the amount they are allowed to have or take pixels away that they've had for years, they'll leave.

 

[Wizal the Fox]

1 - If people want higher population shards, the mechanisms are in place for them to move to those shards now.

... yeah... for ONLY $140 per account...
I bet I could answer 99% of UO complaints by answering "just pay $140" to achieve <x> or <y>

You don't want shard mergers, fine, but at least don't keep those of us who want to move hostages... This is not eastern Europe during the Cold War...

 

[ahardy]

Like Raptor85 said, it is about history, and there are technical problems (several thousand items per account that would need to be migrated over without loss), but everybody who thinks it's a solution ignores three things:

1 - If people want higher population shards, the mechanisms are in place for them to move to those shards now.

2 - A merging of shards means that for those who have a lot of characters across multiple shards, they will end up losing characters, and resentment will be created.

3 - A merging of shards means that a lot of people who have castles, keeps, or mini-towns are going to not only lose those, but potentially be forced into smaller and fewer houses, and potentially be forced to give up items since they would be going from castles/keeps/multiple houses down to something smaller with less storage. Resentment against players who didn't have to change shards and resentment against EA will skyrocket.

Players who would lose castles/keeps/houses/multiple houses that they may have had for years (a decade or more even) or that paid real-life money for, and who would probably be losing item storage, are going to be put in a really bad situation and a lot will say "**** it, I'm done, you don't respect me, you don't respect the years I put in, I'll take my ****ing money and go elsewhere."

There is also the negative publicity aspect. Merging of shards would send a bad and highly visible sign about the state of UO and would also probably keep people away or keep them from returning, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of low populations.

UO's problems will not be solved with shard mergers, because if it reaches the point where the population is that low, it's finished anyways and EA is not going to spend money to migrate people over, they will just close the thing down. UO is not Camelot or Warhammer that requires a concentrated population to drive the game - those are PvP-oriented games that do require a concentrated population. Nor does UO require a lot of hardware resources - if it did, shards would have been closed long before now.

You want to keep people playing the game, or at least keep them paying their monthly fee, you don't want to create a situation where people lose characters/houses/items because they will leave. **** with peoples' houses, and they will leave.

For me merge is very possible, for example, close a low pop shard like legends, and make a Trammel(Legends) on atlantic for example, then tell to legends players they have 3 months for move their houses to trammel on legends, then after that, merge that faccet to atlantic then atlantic will have

Felucca
Trammel
Legends
Malas
llesnar
Tokuno
Ter-MuR


I dont want merge all shards like our friend, but maybe make 1 East 1 West 1 Europa 1 Asia 1 Oceania ?

 

[Woodsman]

... yeah... for ONLY $140 per account...
I bet I could answer 99% of UO complaints by answering "just pay $140" to achieve <x> or <y>

You don't want shard mergers, fine, but at least don't keep those of us who want to move hostages... This is not eastern Europe during the Cold War...

Personally I think there ought to be some kind of one-time option to move a certain amount of characters over to a different shard, like $5 a character, but you only get to pay that price one time, and you can't move them anywhere else for say 4 months to keep the x-sharders from taking advantage of it. After that, if you want to move those chars elsewhere, the normal $20 or so applies. X-sharders will get to take advantage to an extent, but it would provide a means for those who legitimately want to move at a cheap price.

I just know that merging shards and telling a bunch of players on a low-population shard that they are being moved to a medium population shard, and a lot of them are going to say "**** you" and be done with UO. You just don't screw with people's housing.

You just think you've seen drama on Stratics over the years. Have a bunch of people being told to give up their castles/keeps/multiple homes on small shards to move to larger shards where they probably won't get castles/keeps/18x18s. You'd find out what drama is.

 

[Warpig Inc]

Whats with the shard merger drum beat again. There is the coming of the transfer token shields.


Well they are a good ideal. If you just want to keep 14+ year accounts around. Why the shields need to be reduced to 5+ year vet reward or the tokens they make are not account bound.

 

[Coppelia]

Transfers don't solve the problem. Transfering from an empty shard to another isn't the same as merging servers.

About history : the only historical things are Thalos' creations, the decorated banks and specific house won through contests. All of these can be saved while merging. You only keep one of the bank designs ok but anyway, there are historically displayed for nobody currently.
What's great shouldn't be the past. It's terrible enough that we can prefer the gameplay of the past because some changes were poorly done, UO shouldn't also slowly die on the ruins of its past.

About castles : you shouldn't have placed them all to begin with. That's a consolation for dead servers but it's not a due.


But of course merges would mean a loss of players too, so it's not a solution in itself. UO needs more players, and again F2P would bring them.

 

[A Thought Elemental]

i go to Navery.. no one there (once i did see a sampire and was promptly told to f*** off as he was camping the spawn alone and didn't want to share, not sure why he didn't just play a single player game)..

There are some MMOs where, if someone speaks to you that way and you report them, they see a 24 hour ban for their verbal abuse of you.

 

[A Thought Elemental]

UO needs more players, and again F2P would bring them.

Hell no.

Free-to-play is the invite back in for the abusers who recently lost some of their tools for farming this game of its resources to make their own, personal, real-life incomes.

Free-to-play is the equivalent of firing this game's dev team and its GMs - because without subscriptions etc, they have no income.

This isn't a hobbyist service, it's supposed to be professional. We ask for professional GM service - - we ask for nicer looking Hiryus - - we ask for everything under the sun. This is a case where you have no chance of getting what you don't pay for.

So yeah. Hearing the cries for F2P in this game is getting kinda old, even if it may be innocently-intended from some. It is NOT innnocently-intended by some others.

 

[Prawn]

It is so friggin' simple why don't you people see it..

THERE ARE NO NEW PLAYERS

Returning yes.. but hardly any.

The only people left are those who cannot walk away from the game because they have invested too much of their lives. Most players are addicted to the pixel crack as some will call it.

In the next 6 months UO's population will decrease dramatically. There might be active accounts but those playing will poof.

Look at what games are currently being released now and into the spring of 2012..

UO and this subject is like ..

 

[ahardy]

Why in place of cry and cry, our players simple don't try bring the friends for uo, start post #UltimaOnline on every tweet, talk about it for friends, post on facebook, make the comunity bigger, then save uo.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

In the next 6 months UO's population will decrease dramatically.

I certainly doubt that. With customer service and GM help being equal now, how they gonna cancel if they can't access their account(s) or change credit card information? That's why it defaults to 'auto-bill', and people think EA is stupid? Ha

 

[Woodsman]

In the next 6 months UO's population will decrease dramatically. There might be active accounts but those playing will poof.

Look at what games are currently being released now and into the spring of 2012..

The next 6 months are going to be rough - Kingdom of Amalur from EA (which is probably going to become an MMORPG), Star Wars, Diablo 3, Skyrim which just came out, Guild Wars 2, plus a few others.

However, UO probably has a two year window before things get really bad. Within that time frame, the follow-up to World of Warcraft, Titan or whatever they are calling it, will be launched, along with a couple of huge fantasy/medieval RPGs and MMORPGs. Blizzard has already decided that they will be the ones to make a Warcraft killer, and all of their top talent has moved from Warcraft to 'Titan'. EverQuest Next is somewhere in there as well. Rift has a chance to really grow as well.

Diablo, Guild Wars, Titan, EverQuest Next, those will tempt a lot of people. While a lot of UO players only play UO and have little interest in other games, there are plenty that like to try out other games.

There is still enough time for them to put UO on the right track. If they invest the resources into it. High resolution graphics are a start, but there's still a lot that needs to be done with the EC and with winning people over to the EC. The new player experience is really bad. Account management is really bad. The official community is really bad (non-existent really) and community relations are still bad, we're still sharing one person with three other games.

 

[icm420]

The tactics patch several years ago is when most of the people I played with quit. When you spent like a 100mil on a hat of magi, an amazing war fork/cleaver etc etc and then one day your hat is being worn by everyone (doom fix) and your weapons need tactics to be used you may get a little mad. I am almost strickly looking at this from a pvp aspect because that is what I do in UO.. Uo pvp has been bad for awhile for sure but that patch years ago is when I saw 50 vs 50 fights go to 15 vs 15. I actually miss the bok gimps when you got dismounted by a lesser hiyru non stop and you could evade when you wanted.. etc etc.

Since I have started playing approx. 6 years ago I've seen nothing but a decline in player population. Right now my core group has pretty much left UO, and I know many people who just can't find a reason to play anymore. My group is headed towards Diablo 3 eventually but for the time being we are just doing our own thing. When you play with people for years and years you sort of become a family so to speak, and we will continue to game together and I have only UO to thank for that, but the bottom line is the game is aged and boring. I love pvp, I have people in my group who love to deco, some love to do plants and craft and no matter what your into we have all hit that wall where we just can't find a reason to log in other then to talk and hang out with one another. Well we don't need to pay UO to do that... we have ventrillo and thousands of titles to try out, most free to play. I don't think a shard merge is what we need.. we just need a reason to play. I guess collecting items is what does it for most people but for me it was always the pvp. My friend is on a free shard right now because he has access to every single deco item ever made and then some. Another plays the facebook games. When game time codes were working I had a great way to keep myself playing.. I would play for "free" by making 28 mil a month. I payed for the account by playing and that was a great incentive. Now I just don't care about it, I have no reason to play, the pvp is stale and boring and I am forced to pay them money vs using in game items/currency. To top it off they added in a horribly ugly race.

 

[old gypsy]

The next 6 months are going to be rough - Kingdom of Amalur from EA (which is probably going to become an MMORPG), Star Wars, Diablo 3, Skyrim which just came out, Guild Wars 2, plus a few others.

However, UO probably has a two year window before things get really bad. Within that time frame, the follow-up to World of Warcraft, Titan or whatever they are calling it, will be launched, along with a couple of huge fantasy/medieval RPGs and MMORPGs. Blizzard has already decided that they will be the ones to make a Warcraft killer, and all of their top talent has moved from Warcraft to 'Titan'. EverQuest Next is somewhere in there as well. Rift has a chance to really grow as well.

Diablo, Guild Wars, Titan, EverQuest Next, those will tempt a lot of people. While a lot of UO players only play UO and have little interest in other games, there are plenty that like to try out other games.

There is still enough time for them to put UO on the right track. If they invest the resources into it. High resolution graphics are a start, but there's still a lot that needs to be done with the EC and with winning people over to the EC. The new player experience is really bad. Account management is really bad. The official community is really bad (non-existent really) and community relations are still bad, we're still sharing one person with three other games.

I'm one of those who plays UO exclusively, which is why I'm hoping EA will do whatever needs to be done to improve it and keep it alive. I'd even switch to a newer client if required (have always used the CC) as long as it results in extending UO's life for years to come. I love this game, but if it ends I don't foresee playing another.

 

[ahardy]

The tactics patch several years ago is when most of the people I played with quit. When you spent like a 100mil on a hat of magi, an amazing war fork/cleaver etc etc and then one day your hat is being worn by everyone (doom fix) and your weapons need tactics to be used you may get a little mad. I am almost strickly looking at this from a pvp aspect because that is what I do in UO.. Uo pvp has been bad for awhile for sure but that patch years ago is when I saw 50 vs 50 fights go to 15 vs 15. I actually miss the bok gimps when you got dismounted by a lesser hiyru non stop and you could evade when you wanted.. etc etc.

Since I have started playing approx. 6 years ago I've seen nothing but a decline in player population. Right now my core group has pretty much left UO, and I know many people who just can't find a reason to play anymore. My group is headed towards Diablo 3 eventually but for the time being we are just doing our own thing. When you play with people for years and years you sort of become a family so to speak, and we will continue to game together and I have only UO to thank for that, but the bottom line is the game is aged and boring. I love pvp, I have people in my group who love to deco, some love to do plants and craft and no matter what your into we have all hit that wall where we just can't find a reason to log in other then to talk and hang out with one another. Well we don't need to pay UO to do that... we have ventrillo and thousands of titles to try out, most free to play. I don't think a shard merge is what we need.. we just need a reason to play. I guess collecting items is what does it for most people but for me it was always the pvp. My friend is on a free shard right now because he has access to every single deco item ever made and then some. Another plays the facebook games. When game time codes were working I had a great way to keep myself playing.. I would play for "free" by making 28 mil a month. I payed for the account by playing and that was a great incentive. Now I just don't care about it, I have no reason to play, the pvp is stale and boring and I am forced to pay them money vs using in game items/currency. To top it off they added in a horribly ugly race.

You stop, and players like me and my guild come back to the game, its the life, if in place of cry you play and put your friends play again, see it populated is very simple, its just make your part.

Want pvp, call your family, teach they, then go pvp with they, don't wait staff make a miracle and add tons of players, don't wait the others make your game.

 

[Cetric]

Since so many people are so worried about losing their house if they did a shard merger... why not change the (low - med-hig) population thing in the launcher to show true numbers, then for 1 month open up a free shard transfer program for anyone who would want to move all their chars. People would migrate to the shards that were more populated if they wanted, others could stay back and keep their home, and everyone's happy?

 

[icm420]

You stop, and players like me and my guild come back to the game, its the life, if in place of cry you play and put your friends play again, see it populated is very simple, its just make your part.

Want pvp, call your family, teach they, then go pvp with they, don't wait staff make a miracle and add tons of players, don't wait the others make your game.

We still play and pvp, it's just not in uo . UO has been great to us but it's time to move on. Mayb in a few years we will get bored of what ever we are into and come back, thats the way it always works. And they all can pvp decently, even our crafters have a red or two.

 

[Coppelia]

Hell no.

Free-to-play is the invite back in for the abusers who recently lost some of their tools for farming this game of its resources to make their own, personal, real-life incomes.

Free-to-play is the equivalent of firing this game's dev team and its GMs - because without subscriptions etc, they have no income.

This isn't a hobbyist service, it's supposed to be professional. We ask for professional GM service - - we ask for nicer looking Hiryus - - we ask for everything under the sun. This is a case where you have no chance of getting what you don't pay for.

So yeah. Hearing the cries for F2P in this game is getting kinda old, even if it may be innocently-intended from some. It is NOT innnocently-intended by some others.

No, F2P model with its usual 10% of paying players would make UO earn more than current P2P subs. Refusing it is morbid.


Less GMs? First of all that's impossible. There's no GM in UO anymore. EA shares GMs between several games, which is very problematic for a complex game like UO. The support is already at its lowest.

Saying that without subs, EA would have no income is a lie even without counting the increase of the population. Not only that would mean that F2P MMOs make money out of thin air, but it would also deny the very existence of uogamecode.

Finally about cheaters, you are not only paranoid, but you are also throwing accusations that are very bad taste. UO isn't the only game with cheaters. It's very possible to deal with it, even in a F2P game. But the most important is that we players don't have to pay the consequences of the dev team not wanting to deal with cheaters. Of course with more players there are more cheaters, but without more players this game is dead. So they have to bring the players AND deal with cheaters.
Obviously if devs feel unable to deal with cheaters there's nothing to discuss, the game is condemned.

 

[pgib]

We ask for professional GM service - - we ask for nicer looking Hiryus - - we ask for everything under the sun.

The problem is that we keep asking but we don't see the answers... we basically pay to ask. Not that bad as a business model as a matter of fact.

 

[Green Mouser]

Shard merge...blah blah blah

Simple solution is a cross shard Gate then everyone can go everywhere. The old argument against that here used to be "EA won't give up the sales". Well that is proven wrong with the transfer shields.