Out of curiosity, a second shard?

[Ragancy]

You've got some valid points, for sure.

I honestly think the one house per account would be good for the shard and always thought one house per char was a bit much. There doesn't seem to be a fair way to retrofit a one house per account policy when many veterans obviously have several houses per account.

[Lagrath]

I'm not a "pro-coder" or anything but I'm sure there a number of ways to physically implement this on the server. From an admin perspective, you would have to give people a lot of notice (at least a month) that they have to decide which house they want to keep on each account. You could also do it that the players somehow pick which character per account is the own that owns a house.

Edit: and TBH if you don't notice within 4-6 weeks of getting notice on patch forums, irc, vent, maybe a mass forum PM, talking to people in game, etc., that this is incoming, maybe you are one of those people who logs in twice a month to refresh 15 houses who is causing these problems (lack of new player accessibility + simo low housing prices) in the first place.

[Ronk]

Well, thats the big PRO of a new server and/or wipe. You don't have to retro anything and you don't have to worry about fair/unfair.

And yeah, the housing market on this server is not a good view of things I don't think. In many cases they sell for so cheap because so few people need/want to buy them and the people selling don't really care about profit. All in all, this shard has a really dumpy economy where as if you did an SP shard with 1-2 accounts max...I think you'd get a good economy. A good economy would also attract non-pvp people to the shard.

Also, as mentioned previously, a new shard or wipe would make us more era accurate. T2A didn't slowly evolve the way it did here from just a few players to tons. Ideally you'd want to drop as many people in the world as possible at launch time. Heck, maybe then you'd see a more era accurate number of castles too.

[Lagrath]

Well I mean a server wipe would hugely benefit me and all of my new guild (and anyone else we bring over). It might not even be as big a deal if the new patch makes blessed items breakable. That being said, I'm trying to offer up a fun and valid alternative to such a drastic measure that would let all of you veterans and rich people keep all your characters and wealth and your best houses/castles.

My favorite gaming experience ever was starting on UO when it was brand new and no one had anything so that could be a huge amount of fun, but I doubt it's going to happen. I think it's more likely that the admins would listen to my account housing limit suggestion than that they would restart the server.

[Ronk]

... but I doubt it's going to happen. I think it's more likely that the admins would listen to my account housing limit suggestion than that they would restart the server.

I agree, though this is a discussion forum and it can't hurt to discuss the possibilities. There are lots of pros and cons both ways. What it boils down to though is player count. The hardest aspect of server is getting enough players to provide a good experience. And having lots of different servers competing for a limited player base does not help.

But on that note, a few long time 'rich players' also does not benefit the shard much. Thus if they were casualties at the cost of gaining new people, id go for it.

[Lagrath]

Yeah I agree. It's sad to join a new server that's pretty great but has a housing market/to some degree an economy that's in this weird stagnant spot of "houses are worth nothing to rich people who have tons of them and both good and bad spots and it's not worth even the time to sell them, but as a result housing in a good/decent spot is not possible for new people or new towns, so the market stays dead and new people stay discouraged"

[Pied Piper]

a server wipe

Will it be 2-ply?

[applejack]

1 house per character is 100% era accurate so don't hold your breath on ever getting that changed. You got a better chance for server wipe, also extremely unlikely.

Also, there is absolutely no housing issue here. Doesn't take much work to get pretty much anything you want, including a guild town.

[Ronk]

1 house per character is 100% era accurate so don't hold your breath on ever getting that changed. You got a better chance for server wipe, also extremely unlikely.

Also, there is absolutely no housing issue here. Doesn't take much work to get pretty much anything you want, including a guild town.

Guess that depends on your definition of 'pretty much anything'. There are several houses whose owners don't play but somehow find the time to log in and refresh weekly. These just sit, take up space, and provide no means to actually acquire them.

[Lagrath]

1 house per character is 100% era accurate so don't hold your breath on ever getting that changed. You got a better chance for server wipe, also extremely unlikely.

Also, there is absolutely no housing issue here. Doesn't take much work to get pretty much anything you want, including a guild town.

Possibility of 5 houses per player on a server where most players started at the same time

versus

Possibility of 15 houses per player on 3 free accounts (and players using proxy IPs for more accounts since they're free) when a handful of those people were present at the start


Are two VERY different things so if your goal is to reproduce T2A era accuracy this isn't even possible with the history/development of this shard + housing market inactivity + server policy in this particular context, and the differences in housing access and lack of incentive to sell/difficulty reaching owners are evidence of this.

All of this is anyway apropos to attracting new players and new life to server, which is ALSO a stated objective of the admins!

[MatronDeWinter]

New shard will never happen. It's a horrible idea in any case. Lagrath has some very valid points.

[Ronk]

1 house per character is 100% era accurate so don't hold your breath on ever getting that changed. You got a better chance for server wipe, also extremely unlikely.

Also, there is absolutely no housing issue here. Doesn't take much work to get pretty much anything you want, including a guild town.

Possibility of 5 houses per player on a server where most players started at the same time

versus

Possibility of 15 houses per player on 3 free accounts (and players using proxy IPs for more accounts since they're free) when a handful of those people were present at the start


Are two VERY different things so if your goal is to reproduce T2A era accuracy this isn't even possible with the history/development of this shard + housing market inactivity + server policy in this particular context, and the differences in housing access and lack of incentive to sell/difficulty reaching owners are evidence of this.

All of this is anyway apropos to attracting new players and new life to server, which is ALSO a stated objective of the admins!

Which is why ive always been against 3 accounts. Further, I think the goal should be to provide the T2A experience over the T2A mechanics. It would be better for attracting and maintaining people and it would be more fun.

Three accounts does far more harm than good. But its one of those things you can't fix without starting a new server and/or wipe.

[Lagrath]

Which is why ive always been against 3 accounts. Further, I think the goal should be to provide the T2A experience over the T2A mechanics. It would be better for attracting and maintaining people and it would be more fun.

Three accounts does far more harm than good. But its one of those things you can't fix without starting a new server and/or wipe.

Ok sure, let's say the root of all evil are the extra free accounts (I don't have an opinion on this, I like both ways but think having 3 easy accounts discourages getting proxy IPs to macro on yourself/etc.)

Even if that's the case

1. This won't be fixed without either a server wipe or forcing people to pick one account which amounts to close to the same thing for some people, which won't happen.

2. The worst manifestation of this is the ability to lock down massive amounts of real estate anyway, the other effects of multiple accounts leave vastly less imprint on the shard and economy.

Therefore

3. You should add your voice to supporting my position of limiting houses to 1 per account!

[Dolos]

In general:

A shard wipe could be interesting, I'm not saying I'm for nor against it, I would continue to play either way.

Making a 2nd shard I believe is an absolutely abhorrent idea. It would split the player base and lower the overall gameplay on both servers. I'd be more inclined to cut the UO world in half and force people to be in closer interaction with oneanother (which is an equally ridiculous idea) than to create another server.

[Ronk]

In general:

A shard wipe could be interesting, I'm not saying I'm for nor against it, I would continue to play either way.

Making a 2nd shard I believe is an absolutely abhorrent idea. It would split the player base and lower the overall gameplay on both servers. I'd be more inclined to cut the UO world in half and force people to be in closer interaction with oneanother (which is an equally ridiculous idea) than to create another server.

I had a shard idea to do this one. I was gonna build a wall and cut the shard down to cove, vesper, and minoc only and the land between. Then build some dungeon entrances ^_^