I've been reading stratics for a couple months now because of the classic shard debate. One thing I noticed is that a lot of people still really dislike reds and Fel in general. Why? Is it because of pre UO:R days? UO has been a consentual PvP game ever since May, 2000, when Tram was introduced. It's just a different playstyle (PvP) although it's a minority. I quit in 2004 and the Fel vs. Tram debate was still in full swing centered mostly on scrolls. So is it greed?
Reading stratics made me miss UO and after 4 years of WoW I re-activated my account. I haven't set foot in Fel yet, my gear suck and none of my characters are scrolled, but if I did and got killed it wouldn't bother me at all. I know the risk of going to Fel. I have the option to not participate.
I've highlighted the part that is both the centre of problem, and an illustration of the attitudes that exasperates it.
In fact, the debate has been going on since the first player killed another
13 years ago. And some of you've not listened in all that time to what the other side of the experience thinks. You just lazily assume a negative judgement about them, "Greed", because you assume your experience is objectively better, because you happen to subjectively enjoy it more.
Seriously, you take a comment from
4 years after Trammel was introduced, specific to that particular patch, and apply it both retrospectively back to players who couldn't have imagined even Trammel itself, and retroactively to players
6 years later when the market has long since been flooded, and characters scrolled up to the eyeballs?
In the meantime the Devs have bent over backwards to try and open up your playstyle to others. Scrolls was just one part of that; They are still working on it now, giving you Arenas to try and show those watching safe in the stands that not everything in Felucca involves foul mouthed, self obsessed little oiks, and that combat can be fun and exhilarating and yes, perhaps even honourable... It doesn't work though, and never will because what they and you just don't accept is
we know what we like, and it isn't that. And you know as well as I do that it'll quickly devolve into something that embarrasses every decent Red back across the moongates... Arenas are going to be the place you go when you move to a new shard, to find out who to put straight onto Ignore.
And we
have tried it the Real Thing too; some of us couldn't avoid it at first. And some of us have dipped our toes in later to test and re-rest our assumptions... I still remember in 2002 when the Sosaria Red Cross volunteered to stand in a marked off area and resurrect and heal people who died during a huge inter-guild Felucca rumble... needless to say some jack ass proceeded to kill all we unarmed healers to grief the event, and their fellow Feluccans. And others have gone to champ spawns since, been unable to compete against Ghost cams, or today speed hacks...
Now people would happily leave you to enjoy Felucca, which
you clearly do,
if some of you didn't warp every single thread, General Chat channel and facebook post, and general debate about gaming any and everywhere towards your own obsessions, insulting everyone else merrily as you go. And whilst all the time keep getting even objective facts wrong; the infamous MMO charts that show patches that were going to "kill the game" which didn't; the
other games that would kill this game that didn't; I think the best of all is the inability to even agree on which set of rules actually is "Classic" Ultima Online... Go and read the long thread on such, and witness posters get basic facts about what they want wrong, such as calling Publish 16 the introduction of Trammel...
And all the while ignoring completely the decade of MMO evolution since then... you yourself have just come back from the world's most successful MMO ever,
and it's Trammel with optional dueling. Even WoWs PvP servers are not free PvP, but faction based with huge safe zones. And no cross faction talk (and Ignore lists right out the gate) to prevent trash talking. There's Soulbinding to put brakes on the player economy and inflation, automatic loot rolling on the worthwhile stuff to prevent ninjaing... The world has moved on, and learnt from Ultima Online, and avoided it's mistakes today. Even if you could turn the clock back on a UO server,
we won't be going back there with you. That world is gone forever, because the only people who'd be there would be those who wanted to be, not everyone like we had to be back then because we had no choice. The doors out have opened and we've gone through and away. We'll stay on our Trammel servers now. Turn every single UO shard into a "Classic" and we've got double figures for games that have similar rule sets elsewhere. And I've still got my Amiga and PC copies of all the Ultima single players if I want that specific Ultima atmosphere...
So... THIS is why we are tired of "reds". Again, it's been
13 years, and some of your eyes are still locked shut in 1997; some of you've learned nothing, understood nothing, matured in no way, and insist on ruining everything you can even now with your constant blinkered judgements and obsessive interests long after you've over-exposed them to the point where people wince as soon as they see you coming.
All of that may not apply to you NorCal... but kindly leave your assumptions about "Greed" on the red side of your moongate, lest you find that increasingly it does...
It has nothing to do with ego good sir, nothing.
