Supporting Second Age

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Derrick
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Supporting Second Age

Post by Derrick »

I've added a page for optional shard donations to the home page. This is not for profit and we are not in dire straights by any means. Donations will allow us to put up some targeted advertisements on search engines and some of the shard listing sites and cover some of the hosting costs. Additionally we will try to maintain a fund for hardware upgrades as your support permits. Currently our hardware is more than sufficient to accommodate our playerbase and I won't allow any lack of contributions to endanger that status.

This shard will continue to run as long as I'm still breathing, and longer still if I can train up a heir to the empire that is UOSecondAge.

SecondAge is and will continue to be a Free Shard.

There are not and will never be any in-game rewards associated with making donations to the shard. We will not pocket any money. All staff are volunteers and Love working on this project.

Again, we're not in any danger of shutting down at all. This is primarily a way to fund some advertisement and bring in some new blood.

Thanks to everyone. The immense support of our players has been a big part of our success, and as has been mentioned in countless other threads there are many non-financial ways to support the shard as well such as voting, getting the word out in other (non UO shard) forums, telling your friends, dropping fliers from helicopters, etc...

The donation page is here

Teknix
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Re: Supporting Second Age

Post by Teknix »

i like the idea of donating with some sort of kick back. i would put it at no more than 10k gold (maybe more, i dunno, maybe 20k). this would help out those new characters that need a little extra cash.

also, you would only receive this ingame cash/kick back once. donating a 2nd or 3rd time will not give additional ingame cash. you can do this only once per account.

i like the idea because you're likely to get some people that will donate that would not have otherwise. if you need some RL cash to get the advertising going, why not do this?

i'm still gonna donate regardless. just a thought i had.

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Derrick
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Re: Supporting Second Age

Post by Derrick »

Thanks Teknix. A lot of shards to do this, but we are sworn not to ever allow this. We want this to be a free shard where everyone can can be on equal footing regardless of their ability to pay. When people get rewarded it's no longer a donation. Although the reward will really be in the (hopefully) increased playerbase from which all players will benefit.

alatar
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Re: Supporting Second Age

Post by alatar »

I've given out countless gold to new players when they started, only to see half of them log-off. I would suggest not giving away items to new players unless you can safely assume their stay on the server.

I've found that instead of just giving people stuff, it works better to just help them obtain it, even if that means hunting with them in dungeons and letting them loot all the bodies. Back when I ran my new player guild I would take members to Destard & other hunting areas and kill everything and split the gold & items equally. This encourages team play and adventure, instead of a veteran player giving the newbies everything they need. It seems to have a better affect on the players if you interact with them as opposed to just handing them free items, as they become accustomed to hand-outs.

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Derrick
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Re: Supporting Second Age

Post by Derrick »

alatar wrote:I've found that instead of just giving people stuff, it works better to just help them obtain it
This is how I feel about it too. Knowing someone on the shard, having that connection, is way more valuable than 100k in the bank.

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Kenrick
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Re: Supporting Second Age

Post by Kenrick »

Anyone can get gold the old fashioned way - I think more people would be inclined to donate if there were unique rares available only through donating.

Things that would hurt the game would be crap like 7x GM balls, and all that nonsense. I don't think offering a few really cool rares hurts that much IMO.

Nevermore
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Re: Supporting Second Age

Post by Nevermore »

Derrick wrote:we are not in dire straights by any means.
But we are the sultans of swing.
Image
I'm a chemistry set that makes only firecrackers and smoke bombs.

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BloodyBandage
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Re: Supporting Second Age

Post by BloodyBandage »

Your integrity as well as your awesome staff/players truly make you a standout free shard. This project is just going to keep on getting bigger and the way you have decided to handle the money is honorable and necessary to make this the biggest 2d online game on the market (not just uo free shards, but as a whole...let's face it, we all know this is the best free game). I'm sure everyone is willing to help out; either by their activity on the shard, word of mouth, or financial. Your shard integrity level has increased + .01, it is now 100.00 ;)

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seth
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Re: Supporting Second Age

Post by seth »

First off, great job Derrik! I have dreamed of the day when the pre-trammel era would arise once more and rule the day. You have made a dream of mine come to reality.

I was at work today and I couldn't get this server out of my mind. Please, if there is anything your staff needs financially or in the form of a flash-based website design, let me know. I do intend on supporting this server and becoming an active player who will help any fashion to make this the best server that your team can offer.

Once again, thanks for bringing back Felluca and all of the memories I once had a long time ago. May this server be the second coming of UO!

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Derrick
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Re: Supporting Second Age

Post by Derrick »

Thanks guys! This shard couldn't be what it is without the players as well, most of the accuracy corrections and bug fixes have been due to player reports. We have a great community here.

Thanks to our contributors, we've put up some ads on Google and bought a banner on Gamesites200, and upgraded the server memory since donations opened.

We are receiving a lot of hits to our website and could probably use to add some better content on the home page. I think a flash vid within the page would be great.

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Alex21
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Re: Supporting Second Age

Post by Alex21 »

[quote="Derrick"]Thanks guys! This shard couldn't be what it is without the players as well, most of the accuracy corrections and bug fixes have been due to player reports. We have a great community here.

Thanks to our contributors, we've put up some ads on Google and bought a banner on Gamesites200, and upgraded the server memory since donations opened.

We are receiving a lot of hits to our website and could probably use to add some better content on the home page. I think a flash vid within the page would be great.[/quote]

sounds like a competition to me

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Derrick
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Re: Supporting Second Age

Post by Derrick »

Alex21 wrote:sounds like a competition to me
Aye. If anyone wants to submit some flash or (small) gif animations from in-game for the website please do.

Dante
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Re: Supporting Second Age

Post by Dante »

[quote="Derrick"][quote="Alex21"]sounds like a competition to me[/quote]
Aye. If anyone wants to submit some flash or (small) gif animations from in-game for the website please do.[/quote]

i vote you make a new post about this, and make it an actual competition :)

eniave
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Re: Supporting Second Age

Post by eniave »

I am so enjoying the shard especially the sounds and music. What EA did not realize or seem to care was that many of us loved the single player Ultima games. Thanks for a real T2A.

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Safir
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Re: Supporting Second Age

Post by Safir »

First off, I'm amazed how fast this server brings back the memories of playing Ultima Online. I mean like the early Origin days, not when they went and added stuff that ruined UO, or other free shards that where Origin in "buggy"-mode (or "7x GM on signup"-mode for that matter).

It feels like I'm back where I belong, and I've only had my account for two days. I'm usually not the donating kind of person, but UOSAs stand on not giving any rewards for players who donate is surprisingly refreshing, and I hope you hold your stance on that forever.

I would love to help out, be it for advertising, server upkeep, or nicotine and caffeine for the staff.

I do have one question however: Do all donors get that really awesome "UOSA Donor!!" ranks on the forums, or does one have to donate more than a certain amount? And if that's the case, how much is the requirement? Also, what information would I need to provide in my transaction for you to know it's me donating?

Thank you UOSA for makin Ultima Online a reality once again! You bring awesomenimity to a whole new level!

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