TB's town add ons. Why are they even around?

[BlackFoot]

I like the idea of taking over old broken down town add ons. New guilds move in, fix the place up, shouldering the load to make them relevant again. It feels more organic? cheese ball word but whatever.
I think mym is a good example of not just letting stuff die out and being erased, it can still be a good part of UOSA.
Maybe new players dont have the history of how they got there in the first place but I think alot of vets can remember.
I think it adds more than it detracts.
The few broken down pieces of shadowmire etc just make peopel ask questions, 'what is this? whered it come from? etc'
Gives a real honest history to the shard.

[Kander]

I like the idea of taking over old broken down town add ons. New guilds move in, fix the place up, shouldering the load to make them relevant again. It feels more organic? cheese ball word but whatever.
I think mym is a good example of not just letting stuff die out and being erased, it can still be a good part of UOSA.
Maybe new players dont have the history of how they got there in the first place but I think alot of vets can remember.
I think it adds more than it detracts.
The few broken down pieces of shadowmire etc just make peopel ask questions, 'what is this? whered it come from? etc'
Gives a real honest history to the shard.

Best thing I have heard so far! Its all about the history and keeping it alive. Just like TB will stay alive even if we take over their docks and maybe a bench near some trees. Ppl will alway know that they used to live here and pirates moved in since they went poof. And who knows if we are lucky we will own other houses in the area and we can revive that area some more. And i dont mind leting the name still be TB as long as every one knows pirates live there.

[Roser]

*slams a sudsy pewter mug on table*

YARRR!!!!!!!!

[Arcott Ramathorn]

This is the second time I have brought up a discussion on town add ons...

I say one more strike and he is out!

Everyone is pressuring Derrick for a response so they can throw it back in his face..."you said monthly upkeep", "you said only with public approval", "you said this you said that"

I think Derrick needs a PR department so he doesn't paint himself into a corner.


I personally think Derrick enjoys creating these things but does not enjoy the idea of these things going poof. He probably doesn't like having to go back and manually delete them, especially if someone else wants to claim them/use them/hug them kiss them and call them george.

I like the opinion that they add more than they detract and are part of the shards history and future.

[BenBrawl]

I just dont see why it matters? as long a PoD is going to use them then good, let them use them! charge them monthly up keep or something.

[Nevermore]

I didn't even finish reading the second page of this thread because of how ridiculous this shit has gotten. So let me lay it on the line for you guys.

In the beginning we had VERY few members, and we (the staff) were very excited about the project we were embarking on. Finally getting ourselves back into the world and era of UO we loved. And, in the beginning, our feelings were more towards making it FEEL as if nothing had ever changed. As opposed to now when we try to make it mechanically the same as it was in t2a. This lead to a lot of overzealous ideas for things we remembered as cool. 'Oh man, town addons! Oh man, city invasions! Oh man, improptu seer quests!' and the like. We never really developed a guideline of how, when, where, why, and under what circumstances town add ons, world add ons, etc. would be introduced into the game. Mostly because there were only about two staff back then and we were spread thin.

There were a lot of things we implemented without thinking of how it would affect the shard two years in the future. Because two years wasn't something we were sure was going to be around. And under this same sortof 'let's make this like how we nostalgically remembered it' we didn't really consider any sort of impact it'd have in the future. IE the people who's guild towns got addons dying out, and other things like that. When we were started doing addons, it hadn't crossed any of our minds that some day it'd have to be gone. Because atleast when I played you, those addons were there for as long as I was.

Poor planning on our part, I suppose. But as it stands now we have no simple solution to managing town addons that doesn't require constant staff check up, to determine that the guild or town or whoever was blessed with an addon is doing whatever you all think needs to be done for it to stay. And NONE of the staff have the time to go over every single detail about these addons on a long basis to determine the validity of them. I've stated before, this is a hobby for us and most of us have much more busier lives than most people would assume.



That being said, it's not like we're unaware of this issue. I can't count how many times this particular 'What to do about town add ons, decaying/inactive guilds, etc.' discussion has come up. We're trying to find a solution that works well for us and everyone else. And despite what anyone may believe, it's not that simple, we're not going to just start wiping addons. The way we go through add ons is we get 'formans' and construction workers, etc. to make all this hapen. We want to keep it immersed in-game. Wiping the tiles isn't the way out of this.

And as I said earlier, we've been discussing this for a while. But it takes time. We're all full-time working adults, with jobs and family and responsibilities. This is a free time project, and it's an INCREDIBLY small staff. Derrick's the lead and pretty much ONLY coder. So any ideas we do come up with, he has to implement. And he's backlogged to a staggering degree on all the stuff he has to update, change, code, implement, you name it. It's just a process that's going to take time. Even though I know it's already taken a lot.


Now what I can ask of you to help is, maybe you guys have some fresh insight we're overlooking. Any ideas are welcome and will considered on how to handle this situation.

But everyone making threads calling out individual guilds or towns with addons due to either their petty differences or jealously are the types of 'town add on" rants that get ignored.

[Roser]

*high fives*

[yossarian]

I think this adds a bit of history and it makes sense for a pirate guild to occupy a decaying town. I hope it stays.

Along the lines of construction workers and formen in game, perhaps a NPC or 2 could randomly spawn from time to time and start "pickaxing" away at custom tiles and the tile would eventually be destroyed. Tile by tile custom addons could decay. If you want to keep your addons simply kill the NPC, or for RP guilds who arent into killing NPC's, have a string of text that will make the NPC disapear. It would be in game and somewhat automated. Something like this would probably have taken care of TB by now.
It sounds had to code though, probably just make Derricks stack of stuff that much higher.

[son]

An official stance on the issue has to be realized by the moderators. If the rules are not set in stone, then they cannot be enforced.

[monaxe]

i think the fact that people have to log on the forums to get the addons is not a good idea cuz many of the players hate the forums or the other players who play the game. lol so unless you are just out there are appease everyone u cant get an addon. this should be done entirely inside the game, not on the forums and irc or eliminated.

the best policy for this shard would be to not add anymore guild town addons. the reason can be seen in all the guilds that had their addons and quit, (t-b, t2a, the cartel, shadowmire, etc...) we dont have a huge population and no one is gonna play here forever (besides refreshing) and it just looks plain silly to have abandoned towns that will always happen on a free shard. these addons are just a distraction that no guild in the history of this shard has yet to earn.

[Hemperor]

I didn't even finish reading the second page of this thread because of how ridiculous this shit has gotten. So let me lay it on the line for you guys.

In the beginning we had VERY few members, and we (the staff) were very excited about the project we were embarking on. Finally getting ourselves back into the world and era of UO we loved. And, in the beginning, our feelings were more towards making it FEEL as if nothing had ever changed. As opposed to now when we try to make it mechanically the same as it was in t2a. This lead to a lot of overzealous ideas for things we remembered as cool. 'Oh man, town addons! Oh man, city invasions! Oh man, improptu seer quests!' and the like. We never really developed a guideline of how, when, where, why, and under what circumstances town add ons, world add ons, etc. would be introduced into the game. Mostly because there were only about two staff back then and we were spread thin.

I have to disagree:

Sorry, at first glance it really looked like a GM was in the guild or something.

Anyways, what kind of prices are we looking for things like these? The healer thing is a little weird...

Anyone interested in developing a player run town should contact Kasimir (He's out of town this week though). No Staff members are affiliated with or have preference to any Guild on the shard. There is cost associated with building a town of course, such and lumber, wages for the craftsmen, etc. Items such as Fences are of course not portable either and do require quite a bit of upkeep. There is quite a bit to it, and since this seems to have led to quite a bit of confusion we will likely have to publish some rules/guide related to this type of venture.

http://forum.uosecondage.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1424

There is also a post by Kasimir somewhere that even lists prices and upkeep.

But everyone making threads calling out individual guilds or towns with addons due to either their petty differences or jealously are the types of 'town add on" rants that get ignored.

People making threads and discussing specific issues is what gets the bigger picture solved and always has. Not entirely sure why you are knocking the fundamentals of this shard with what appears to be complete disinformation.

[BlackFoot]

Shadowmire is the one example of exactly how in an ideal world town add ons creation/removal would take place.
Unforuntaly, most peopel will never realize how much time and effort it took to create/maintain/remove the town.
Keeping in game story lines in place and coordination needed between staff and players to make it happen.

Shadowmire was built by an rp guild, add ons slowly bought and paid for, it got larger with more events/activity slowly over time. This was a conscience decision made by both parties (staff/players) and the luck of actually having staff available 2 years ago during the exact time they were growing the town. When the guild went inactive and so did the town the add ons were sitting there accumulating dust.

The players voluntarily slowly decayed the town down. (At this time there was countless felix posts about add on removal polls, they had no impact on anyones decisions). Eventually when they realized they werent going to be able to return and maintain it properly, an event was held for the towns destruction. A few pieces were left on purpose where the town once was. This again took a large amount of time and coordination between the players and staff.

This is how in an ideal world it would be handled every time. How much free time do you think staff has to do this? How many players out there go inactive, then willingly come back to destroy what they had paid for and created?

Removing the towns properly with an rp element can have a long lasting positive effect on the population involved, compared to just deleting them.

[wisedevil]

I havent played here much until now, but I used to be in TB many months ago before I quit again. I must say that I dont even remember who was the GM, but what I remember is that he was a very good person who have helped new players for a year by the time I joined the guild. What I think is that TB's town add ons should stay in their ghost town just to show a bit of respect to Him and as a memorial of this guild.

[son]

(At this time there was countless felix posts about add on removal polls, they had no impact on anyones decisions).

There was one post, and the town fell shortly after from memory.

[BlackFoot]

Missed the point, which is

spamming on the forums to have parts of the shard's unique history deleted does more damage than good in the long run