This will be the 1st of 2 replies I'll do in this thread. (OK I can't guarantee only replies EVER in the thread, I mean for now.)
One will be on the issue of Fel and Tram generally, the other will be on my proposed solution for the facet loot issue.
This first post is about the Fel/Tram issue generally. I will use standard text that I have developed to deal with custom rules shard threads, but the issues are similar, so most of the text remains appropriate. Any part of it that isn't appropriate likely is due to the origin of this text.
anyway, here goes.
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If the premise of this post were true, the following list of things also would be true.
Publish 16 never would have happened. Posts from the dev team at the time said that Publish happened because most people had left Felucca for Trammel and there was a need to balance out server loads for a greater degree. If Trammel hadn't been a success, most people never would've left, and Publish 16 never would have happened.
But it did happen.
Trammel never would have been created, because the discontent created by Fel never would have existed and thus there never would have been a need for it.
But it was. (Then see also above.)
Richard Garriott's Memorable Moment from UO would not have consisted of a realization, caused by an incident of one player harming another, that he had to think hard about the rules of the world he'd created.
But it was.
Link:
Memorable Moment – Ultima Online
Starr Long would not have indicated that the creation of Trammel was necessary when he spoke at the UO anniversary party.
But he did. (There used to be a paraphrase up someplace of the talk he gave; others will remember it though not all will remember it.)
Siege and Mugen would be the most-populated shards in UO because people would like to play that way.
But they are not.
There never would have been a need to have the Siege housing gimmick as people would have played there without it, because they liked to play that way.
But there was.
The Fel Abyss spawns would be crowded with folks doing them. (The undead one in particular has a lot of cool content and good rewards.)
But they're not.
There wouldn't be posts on Stratics complaining that VvV was dead, because people would jump at the chance to PvP.
But there are those posts.
Games that came out post-UO that had more of a Fel type environment would be prospering, whereas games that came out post-UO that had more of a Tram type environment would be failing.
But that's not the case. Shadowbane is dead. Darkfall has 3,344 likes on facebook;
Darkfall Online
Everquest has 66,431;
EverQuest
UO has 27,757.
Ultima Online
(Facebook likes aren't a perfect indicator of a game's popularity but it's a much better metric than individual posters.)
No likes for Shadowbane because it died.
I found a Facebook page for a free shard! Number or likes: 3,773.
I found a Facebook page for another free shard, specifically dedicated to the Second Age era. Number of likes: 1,680.
Finally, Fel would be so popular on its own that threads like these wouldn't exist.
I could go on and on but that's enough for now. Ultimately the argument of these types of threads is "Trammel failed, because failure is defined by the original poster not liking it."
There was a time when most players would see posts like these and just let them pass by, but I'm glad that time is gone. In not responding to posts like these we run significant risks of letting intense opinion be mistaken for popular opinion.
I don't expect to post in this thread again, however, because it'd be pointless.