UO Second Age

This is the houses we speaking about. (marked red dot). It could have been for active players but no no.... This is a real waste of space....

Sorry to waste your time. It's all been refreshed a while ago. One more non-player for months+ logging in to spite the shard.

I seriously doubt its to 'spite the shard'

Thats a lot of land and items that he has accumulated.

He may be too busy irl right now or just hasnt been in the mood to play UO for awhile.
But I doubt he would take time out of his day to log in and refresh all those houses and whatever else every two weeks, just to spite the shard.

Seems to me he plans on coming back at some point in the future and doesnt feel like losing all hes gained.

I guarantee when he has no expectation of coming back he will either let them drop or give everything away

Ohm wrote:I seriously doubt its to 'spite the shard'

Thats a lot of land and items that he has accumulated.

He may be too busy irl right now or just hasnt been in the mood to play UO for awhile.
But I doubt he would take time out of his day to log in and refresh all those houses and whatever else every two weeks, just to spite the shard.

Seems to me he plans on coming back at some point in the future and doesnt feel like losing all hes gained.

I guarantee when he has no expectation of coming back he will either let them drop or give everything away

I hope you are right. I've heard other players login to refresh just for spite ($$$ on Verity Isle). One long term afk player could consolidate all those spots.

The big difference is that it costs real money to keep houses on an old OSI shards, here they keep it for free as long as they feel for it. This is a big thing that is forgotten then we try to mimic a T2A server in its era. Houses did go away then people left an OSI server for a longer time they don't here. I would think that the same goes for stable slots. Closed accounts lost the pets spots in stables after a while and houses dropped to. We don't have closed accounts here.

I wish we know how many people that moved on to [other server name] and just destroy for us by refresh the house while they play and have fun on another shard.

Yea right, they will come back someday. I think that people that are defending the drop outs have a second agenda, like keep the house price up.

Another thing about rares. we could drop out some new server rares now and then OSI did some errors sometimes and it was a large amount of crying in the forums about this then people were losing gold on rares while OSI just answered that rares was not an intended to exists and was just a error.

Didn't IGMs generated new rares now and then with new hue and name on normal armor, weapon and clothes, I do not remember if this comes after T2A era.

Bixby Legbone wrote:Sorry to waste your time. It's all been refreshed a while ago. One more non-player for months+ logging in to spite the shard.

Indeed. Thank you OP. What you failed to realize when you posted this, thinking it would help some newbies, is that you just spurned any opportunity where they could get any loot. Countless newbies have made this mistake. Oh, I'll just post some IDOCs on the forums and now everyone can have some fun! That's not how it works. Anyone with an IDOC worth caring about is usually a forum lurker AND has a shitton of old vet friends who can just text them and tell them to refresh. I'm almost positive that this was the case today. Oh hey uhh you know all your shit is IDOC? Woops! Let me go take care of that right now!

Vitiek wrote:Now, I'm not sure if someone owns these and will refresh them, but I think it could be a good chance for newer/ish players to get a piece of the action, rather than keeping this information secret amongst the megarich/megabored IDOC community in group 3.

You are mistaken. I knew that it was a possibility the entire time, but thought it was worth mentioning anyway because I, for one, having only played here for a few weeks seem to care more about the community than my own personal standing within in. It is sad to see that some people only play to further their own personal gain. Perhaps they forget that playing on a free shard that relies on donations, amongst other things, means that there is no ultimate guarantee that it will exist forever. There is no giant gaming corporation footing the bill for their hard work month after month, so it really emphasizes the importance on making sure that the community doesn't dwindle into nothingness.

The way I see it, if we want an expanding player base and a shard with longevity, it is up to us to make sure this is a shard that is worth playing by putting the overall good of the realm first. Otherwise, who's to say how long this free service will be continued to be offered? I, for one, am thankful everyday this shard is online, but as I mentioned before, having only played here a few weeks, can already tell there are some pressing issues that are holding it back.

You may choose to agree or disagree with my opinion, but at least we have a voice here. We didn't have that luxury during OSI days as their bottom line was always profits and sustainability, not player happiness.

Vitiek wrote:

Vitiek wrote:Now, I'm not sure if someone owns these and will refresh them, but I think it could be a good chance for newer/ish players to get a piece of the action, rather than keeping this information secret amongst the megarich/megabored IDOC community in group 3.

It is sad to see that some people only play to further their own personal gain. Perhaps they forget that playing on a free shard that relies on donations, amongst other things, means that there is no ultimate guarantee that it will exist forever.

You're wrong again.

1) If no one plays for their own gain, there is no community. What's your business standing, give until there's no giving left to give?

2) This shard does not rely on donations.

Capitalist wrote: You're wrong again.

1) If no one plays for their own gain, there is no community. What's your business standing, give until there's no giving left to give?

2) This shard does not rely on donations.

I don't know if I would consider my standing to be give until there's no giving left to give, but it's certainly not take until there's nothing left to take.

As per directly from the "Support Us" link from the UOSA website:

"Second Age is supported by Player Donations, advertising revenue, and the Owner. Donations made will first be used to pay monthly shard expenses, as well as to support needed hardware upgrades as our player population grows. We also will occasionally run targeted ad campaigns to help bring new players to the shard. Thanks again for your interest in donating, and thanks for enjoying the shard!"

It is foolish to think that donations are not a factor. Any free service to the public comes at a cost.

In any case, I've made my point pretty clear and I do not wish to engage in any flaming.

I never said it's not a factor, don't try to twist my words because I pointed out that your very direct and abrasive are wrong.

Looking back at your first post regarding advancement on the server, I can't see why players are restricted in anyway. If its land/rares you are after, a lot of the vets and "mega rich" are posting auctions in the trading forum which you are free to purchase - if making money is not a problem as you say. I think the vets here are mostly great and keep to the spirit of T2A (other than occasional gifting a small house deed which is not T2A at all). You can advance to their level given enough time, if that's what you desire. And if it's not, then just play and enjoy the game, that's what I'm doing.

Roden wrote:Looking back at your first post regarding advancement on the server, I can't see why players are restricted in anyway. If its land/rares you are after, a lot of the vets and "mega rich" are posting auctions in the trading forum which you are free to purchase - if making money is not a problem as you say. I think the vets here are mostly great and keep to the spirit of T2A (other than occasional gifting a small house deed which is not T2A at all). You can advance to their level given enough time, if that's what you desire. And if it's not, then just play and enjoy the game, that's what I'm doing.

I believe it's restricted in the following ways.

Farming gold: PKs, while seemingly a bit sparse nowadays, are known to ghost popular farming spots and can easily take out new players who don't know how to defend themselves/escape. Granted, there's a learning curve and I believe getting PK'd is part of the UO experience, but I just fear that on a shard this small already, getting PK'd every time you go out is too demoralizing for the new players who don't have the heart to stick with it and end up quitting. It sounds like there once was a pretty big anti-PK initiative, but not sure if there still is anymore?

Real Estate: As mentioned before, there's a pretty large stranglehold on all large housing plots. I know there are a ton of small spots open, which is awesome, but once you have a small, there you find that invisible glass ceiling of advancement to get a larger spot. You're forced to grind out 2-3x the value of a larger house, which, if you refer back to the PK issue, can feel like a daunting task for some.

Networking: Is there a rough estimate as to how many actual players actually use these forums or the IRC chat? If it's a strong majority of the population, then yes, you are right, but without any statistics, it's tough to say how far the benevolence of rich traders, etc. is really reaching.


In the ~3 weeks I've been here, I've been able to accumulate a few hundred thousand gold and an L-shaped house, which I am perfectly content with. It's more than enough gold/space for just myself. But the fact is, in this day and age there are so many options of free games to play (lots of which are multiplayer), and UO isn't at the top of many people's list (unless they've played before). When I made my first post, it was meant as a community outreach to give some hope to other players, instead of perhaps a "rich getting richer" type situation, that's all.

I was reading through a different thread, and I forgot who mentioned this statement, but I'll do my best to quite him/her (I'll see if I can find the exact thread so you don't think I'm making it up )

"Our recruitment for the shard is great, but our retention is terrible."

Once again, thanks for reading, and sorry if it took me a few posts to fully get my thoughts out.

I understand you want the best for the shard - though my points on those issues:

Farming gold: Yep, you said it, just learn to escape or fight back.
Housing: On OSI it was far worse, we're lucky here. A lot of good spots able to be purchased on the cheap compared to OSI (can see a bunch on trading post right now).
Networking: I have no idea, but it's sort of era-accurate. The first few months I played T2A I don't think I even looked at sites like stratics very much, never mind auctions etc.

Basically - the shard is emulating the T2A-era, so it means new players have to at least grasp the concept of what makes T2A good. And I think that is what should be used to advertise the shard to potential players. If they're not interested in a semi-hardcore experience, then they can play WoW or FFXIV (actually, I have FFXIV but it failed to keep my interest very long).

Advertising it simply as UO/T2A is OK but won't increase/decrease numbers drastically. If more people understood the vision behind T2A and what it tried to accomplish, I imagine the numbers would increase quite a bit and people would actually stick around. Though that requires a coordinated effort on part of staff/players/advertising campaign as well as a bit more forward momentum (I still think Derrick and co should play god and try to expand on T2A vision in their own way, at least little by little).

Vitiek you might have more credibility when you mention player donations and the need for community support, if you yourself actually donate.

An excellent point I just made a PayPal account solely for this reason and am waiting for it to be verified from my bank account.