Player Base

[Robbbb]

Can you imagine if there were 2-3k UNIQUE players online on UOSA at any given time?! This would really create the 'experience' we are all looking for!

Does anyone have any suggestions, whether you think they are impossible or not??

Let's make this happen!

[Blaise]

At a guess, I think the entire UO Freeshard playerbase is somewhere around 5k people. This is just a guess based on the amount of people on each of the more prominent shards. Also, this is a really high estimate based on that.
In reality, it's probably more like a few thousand actual people playing UO freeshards. Others are either playing OSI still or playing something that was ya know....made in the last decade at least.

There is no possible way to win the favor of every freeshard player there is out there. I think perhaps over time as big-name games falter more and people long for something more gritty and less of a hand-out style, the numbers may increase. Until then, we will just remain a small niche market in the grand scope of things (billions of gamers).

[Populus]

While what Brules is saying is more or less true, it's a very pessimistic view!
To think we once had 800 peak by friends telling friends telling friends and very little official "Come play with us" I wouldn't want to think it's impossible to get a bigger playerbase. But what cripples that goal a bit is that we have 3x15 characters with 15 houses.

What about facebook ads? I saw one for another shard just recently. I know we have a facebook group, but there are ads on the side by google in cooperation with facebook (I think that's how it is).

[Jason-]

I like the positive outlook, but I think it would be extremely difficult to reach this shard's peak again given the shard's policy and mission statement.

[Frogleg]

i think the key to getting the shard numbers up would be to find a way to get people to stay. this includes the nubs and the vets who's houses are falling all the time.

[Captain Awesome]

I don't think there's any way this shard would ever blow up like that. Not enough people are looking for the environment this shard promotes. Even in the era of T2A not enough people were looking for the environment, which is why they created trammel. Unfortunately, there just aren't enough people playing a game this old to recreate the social aspect we had in T2A.

Having done the naysaying thing, I'll now say that the era of Social Media we are currently in is just about as good as it gets towards working toward that goal. Word of mouth has never been easier to accomplish and that's really the best way to get something going.

[Brules]

While what Brules is saying is more or less true, it's a very pessimistic view!
To think we once had 800 peak by friends telling friends telling friends and very little official "Come play with us" I wouldn't want to think it's impossible to get a bigger playerbase. But what cripples that goal a bit is that we have 3x15 characters with 15 houses.

What about facebook ads? I saw one for another shard just recently. I know we have a facebook group, but there are ads on the side by google in cooperation with facebook (I think that's how it is).

Put your reading glasses on.....

I think it is a good idea to have unique full time "role players" as it does add much needed depth to the server's they are on. I remember Baja seemed to have some over the years and were involved in long term shard wider story arcs. The issues always were someone sticking with it, and what powers to give them, as usually when players were given any powers, they abused the hell out of it lol.

You can easily make them custom outfits that are no drop no give, and give them no powers......I think some deco and outfits and some committed role players/story advancers and it would definately help UOSA.

[Mirage]

I think it is a good idea to have unique full time "role players" as it does add much needed depth to the server's they are on. I remember Baja seemed to have some over the years and were involved in long term shard wider story arcs. The issues always were someone sticking with it, and what powers to give them, as usually when players were given any powers, they abused the hell out of it lol.

You can easily make them custom outfits that are no drop no give, and give them no powers......I think some deco and outfits and some committed role players/story advancers and it would definately help UOSA.

You mean like giving the urk clan no drop no give no power red boots, ringmail, etc.? I think that's a great idea to promote role playing. I'm sure one of their obstacles and what wears them down is the constant re-equipping. Not the weapons/regs but to have to be constantly in uniform, boots, ringmail, orc helm, etc. as with other role playing guilds also. I agree with Brules that roleplaying guilds add a lot of depth to servers as well.

In my opinion though the server is fine and will continue to grow. At the pace that we would all like? No, but it will grow. If you're deeply committed then the best thing to do is to log in, create activity in-game, create activity on forums. Maybe organize a cheesy ass event like we did (viewtopic.php?f=45&t=39463 - extremely basic event with a $$ backed by it). It created a ton of activity that night and I think a lot of people had fun and a feel of nostalgia (literally 10-15 people fighting at once). Activity in-game breeds growth, not talking about it on the forums or irc.

Vets come back (they ALWAYS do). New players join here and there, some stick, some don't, and there's a flow of new people being "introduced" to UOSA. I've seen the shard with single digit clients on it, go to 100, to a quick 300, level out, pop to 500, back to 300, etc......the one reason I play here, and will never play another freeshard is that you know there is stability and there is a purpose for the mechanics that no one can argue with. I've played on countless freeshards prior to this and where are they all? Dead. Where will IPY be in a few months? Dead. Knowing that everything you work for will be there tomorrow is also nostalgia, isn't it? That gives people incentive to farm, collect pixel crack, build towns, and roleplay......as they do here on UOSA.

I want you all to take a quick minute and think about how many breaks you've taken from UOSA.

Now think about how many times you've come back, or resumed your activity.

And then think about how many times UOSA was still here when you became active again.

That's something you cannot count on with any other shard, and that's why I play this shard like it's OSI.

And then shard corruption.....j/k not even going to get into that.

UOSA or bust.

[Blaise]

If the great mighty teph was here he could spam porn again then (kids like me) would search free pron then we found this and then all the kids (like me) would fap to it and thus see the download site to this game and thus they thinking this game is a pron game when it's nothing like that. R.I.P teph a true niggerbloodjew.

WTF'ing hell man? GTFO with that shit in SA Discussion forum.

Maybe you dun like it but soon you will ^0- just let it have time to soothe into your weak little soul.

You're being an immature turd in a civil discussion thread. Save turdery for Trash Talk forums, please.

[Will Sinker]

If you are really interested in increasing the number of players on the shard I see a opportunities for growth that will not change our mechanics or gameplay at all.

Advertisement
Who are we trying to draw to a shard like UOSA? I believe most people that are looking for a few key words in relation to MMOS would be interested in UOSA. "Hardcore PvP" "Open/Full Loot" "Sandbox" etc. Now, doing a quick google search for those key words in various combinations I see games like Darkfall, Archeage, and various other mmos. None of which include our shard. I don't know what kind of barrier we are looking at in getting at least on the front page of such searches, but I believe that is the FIRST step in getting new, fresh players into the shard.

Lower learning curve
So now that we have a solid presence on Google when people are searching for our specific game type we must make information readily available. I believe that we have a solid wiki, solid guides in the forum, and a good amount of information floating about. However, to my knowledge, we are lacking a cohesive new player guide that starts with the very basics of the game. The tutorial is a good start for most, but maybe there is more that we can do as a community to help with this aspect? Would it may even be possible (depending on the era accuracy argument) to tie in the in game chat system with IRC to make it even easier for a new player to ask questions?

Demonstrate the fun aspects of the shard
We need a stronger presence on YouTube. It is very hard to make a quality UO video that can resonate with a person that has no experience with the game. I have found that Bandicam does a good job recording quality footage, but we need people that are willing to record the fun aspects of the game that set us apart such as house and IDOC looting, PvP, Stealing, large scale group fights, home ownership, or anything else that could draw our target audience.

Anyway, this was just my attempt at answering your question. I believe that we could draw a much larger crowd if enough effort was put into attracting players that are *craving* a more hardcore gaming experience than is currently offered in production MMOs. Less attention should be placed on "Ultima Online top 100 free shard" lists and more should be placed on drawing fresh players that have never set foot in Sosaria before.

[Oggog]

The guides and the general mechanics information could use some cleaning up. Sometimes you have to sort through a few pages of outdated information to get an answer, not complaining I know its all peoples free effort.

Also someone could maybe start a NEW tag guild for true newbies. I've played on shards where people occasionally respected that and so tagged players were griefed, killed, dry-looted without a res a little less.

The main thing is exposure tho..

It is possible to get new folks with current MMO's and most future MMO's being utterly terrible.

[Robbbb]

I was thinking more along the lines of someone getting in contact with the correct person at the current OSI and seeing if it would be possible to get an email list of people that played from begginning until mid-late 1999, that dont play anymore, so that we can blast out an email.

Or get into contact with Lord British and see if he has the list, I know if I was him I would have grabbed all of that data for my own stash before I left/sold it. =)

[Brules]

Wall of text

Exactly.....no drop no give equipment for the URKS would be freaking fantastic.Clothing, armor and helms, let them find new weapons. For a UOSA institution such as the URKS, I would be all for things like this. GM lvl, mo magic items.

Simple things like that would go a long way, and they are pretty much corruption proof.

We had RP'ers on Baja in era who had outfits or certain items that were GM given that were ND/NG to aid them in their RP'ing. Can't see why it should not be done here.

[MatronDeWinter]

ND/NG ???

[Oggog]

Lord British is probably in space. Also he is insane.