UOSA VS IPY 2.0

[Victor Cassella]

Hello Everyone,

I don't want this to turn into a flame war, but need some opinion from each side.

I am a old school 1997-2003ish UO player looking to return. I use to play on a free shard called Legacy back in 2005-2006. It was the most amazing PreUOR shard I have ever played on, with one of the most talented programmers I know, Sherkas. Unfortunately we could never get our population to boom, and sat at 20-50 clients online, sometimes as low as 10. As you can guess it finally died.

I am looking to return in a somewhat serious fashion, with the possibility of having 3-5 more people join me shortly.

What I am looking for.

PreUOR related experience.
I am looking to put in many hours, and don't want the server to disappear or go dead in 6 months.
Good, fair admins. Committed to squashing bugs, cheating, exploiting etc.
Strong population, so the world feels alive, and you actually run into people at dungeons, towns etc.
Great PVP, reds, red hunters, crafters, vendor malls, good player economy.

Has the population been on the decline, raise, or just fluctuates but never drops below your "core"?

I've been recommended to this server, and IPY 2.0. This server's average pop seems to about 400 clients? and IPY seems to be about 800-950 clients. However population isn't everything, as I have heard the horror stories of IPY 1.0

Thanks for your guys thoughts in advanced!

[Jayrich]

UoSA will celebrate its 4th year anniversary this december. i have been playing since last august there is no down time that i can remember except one day when they worked on the server. which was announced up to maybe a month before .

nothing is ever wiped. if you dont log in for a year your account will still be here. in terms of community we have what your seeking . there are player towns and player run vendor areas. there is plenty of small spots available for new players and up to towers usually go for around deed price.

i would guess during peak times there is up to 500 clients online. not sure how many people actually sitting there playing . as you are able to log up to 3 clients and macro. i think if you log in to most pvm hot spots in the shard within a short amount of time a pk will come looking for loot. towns usually have players .

hope you enjoy your experience log in and take a walk around . check it out think you will enjoy this server. just remember this is T2A ruleset and they take pride in making it as accurate as possible so if u hated t2a probably not the shard for u.

[Pirul]

Echoing what jayrich said, your best bet is to log in and play.

However, as to what you are looking for: the admin are the absolute best. They are SUPER dedicated to solve bugs (unless they are not game breaking era accurate bugs, those are still here to preserve the accuracy of the shard).

You will find a SHITLOAD of activity out there, I will even go out on a limb and say, look for a guild. If you go out to play alone, prepare to be rolled by 3 or 4 Cr3w, TG or NWO members. If you'd rather fight the reds, look for DG or C^V, we can normally put up solid enough numbers to either fight back, or get our loot home (depending on our goal that night).

There are also a couple very nice player ran towns with very good stocked vendors. There is a very healthy merchant community active.

Population has fluctuated, but never seems to fall. Again, your best bet is to log in and take it out for a spin.

[marmalade]

I played on there for a few months, but UOSA is definitely better run... by a long shot. The higher pop count is hardly noticeable.

[McSchnurke]

It should also be noted that if you're interested in the actual t2a experience IPY only uses t2a as a basis for their own ideas, some unique and some from other eras of OSI/EA UO. UOSA is extremely era-accurate, though.

[Stuck]

I'm told IPY has trammie house security. Why would anyone want to play there?
(and this is coming from someone who wears trammie gear).

[Victor Cassella]

Thank you very much for all the responses, it is very helpful!

I have logged on both servers, and have many hours in on both already. I am definitely leaning towards UOSA for the very reasons listed by you guys. I am very excited to hopeful build up some good charactesr quickly to join in the PVP, dungeon crawler, crafter vendor malling..FUN!

[BenBrawl]

Your making the right decision by playing UOSA! there honestly isnt a better shard out!

[Lucy the Lich]

Echoing what jayrich said, your best bet is to log in and play.

However, as to what you are looking for: the admin are the absolute best. They are SUPER dedicated to solve bugs (unless they are not game breaking era accurate bugs, those are still here to preserve the accuracy of the shard).

You will find a SHITLOAD of activity out there, I will even go out on a limb and say, look for a guild. If you go out to play alone, prepare to be rolled by 3 or 4 Cr3w, TG or NWO members. If you'd rather fight the reds, look for DG or C^V, we can normally put up solid enough numbers to either fight back, or get our loot home (depending on our goal that night).

There are also a couple very nice player ran towns with very good stocked vendors. There is a very healthy merchant community active.

Population has fluctuated, but never seems to fall. Again, your best bet is to log in and take it out for a spin.

/initiates "The wave"

I played on a couple of other servers. I found they like to go for convienance rather than shard accuracy. I'm quoting Seven when I say this but, I'd rather play here DUE to the fact that I know the admins are stable & they are not going to make a change that is convienant for their friends.

My 1/4 dollar

[BlackFoot]

Another tip would be to scan through the patch notes and bug report areas in both shards forums

Pretty easy to tell the difference between shards by that alone.

[Lucien]

One thing I just can't understand is: why is their player base so big? Better advertisement, perhaps?

I love UOSA, but I'd like to see it growing!

[Zelek Uther]

I *heart* UOSA

[Halbu]

One thing I just can't understand is: why is their player base so big? Better advertisement, perhaps?

I love UOSA, but I'd like to see it growing!

Most people are macroing/multiclienting even more than UOSA because the skill gain on IPY2 is terribly slow.

There's more active players on UOSA as well as more diversity than IPY2.

[Victor Cassella]

One thing I just can't understand is: why is their player base so big? Better advertisement, perhaps?

I love UOSA, but I'd like to see it growing!

Now that I am pretty much fully committed to this shard, I'd have to echo that. The more I play here, the more I believe this is a way better shard than IPY, yet they have double the population. Don't get me wrong, 400 clients online does make the world feel alive, but you can never have too many people.

I am sure admins have tried all sorts things to promote the server, and I am sure this topic has been beat to death. But it be worth always attempting to promote the shard and try and reach that golden 1000+ clients online mark. The thing is population brings population, which I believe is why IPY's population does well. Not because its that great of a shard, but because it has always been known to be the biggest free shard.

I'll be donating to this shard, as I know how much it takes to keep these servers running. I'd also be willing to donate separately into some form of affective shard promoting.

[Blaise]

I've got a character on IPY because curiosity got the best of me.
There are some things I like the concept of such as unique names, no mounts, no recall in dungeons, Paladin Class buff items, etc.
Things I don't like are Skill Scrolls, NPC Red hunters, and a general feeling of something that is not the UO experience I long for.

When I log in here, I'm 17 y/o kid again in my heart playing on dial-up (sometimes my ping really sucks) and having a great time with my guild mates and most everyone I encounter in game. We've got a decent mix of most every play style here and there's only 'some' elitism from the more experienced PvPers. Even they understand that some people are noobs though and most are very helpful.

Of course, without murderers, griefers and the like, help wouldn't be so necessary. These freedoms and lack of 'fluff' that caters to new-age gamers, is what will keep me here until I decide to not play UO anymore.

As I've said many times, this is THE UO shard. There are no others.