Out of curiosity, a second shard?

[ehafh]

i'd love the chance at playing a siege perilous type environment.
never took advantage of that awesomeness back in the day.

[applejack]

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.

Fair enough. But what I mean is any type of house in most all types of locations is easily obtainable. Is Silverfoot's Windmere castle obtainable? No, but there are A LOT of options. A few months ago I sold an isolated group of towers and houses that could have been a great guild town. I believe a couple other groups of housing that could fill a similar need are for sale right now. I can't speak on their costliness (or lack thereof) but there are threads upon threads on how easy it is to obtain gold here.

It seems that often people get mad that they can't get exactly what they want, right after they start playing. I find that really silly to be honest.

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!

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, really. I see where you're coming from on this, but if you want to start throwing out the 'era accuracy' term I suggest you read up on what that is defined as here and the difference between mechanics and policy.

Also I just think this thread is a colossal waste of typing. That comes from reading almost every single posting ever made in this forum for nearly two years now. Hooray for a desk job with internet.

[Ronk]

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.

Fair enough. But what I mean is any type of house in most all types of locations is easily obtainable. Is Silverfoot's Windmere castle obtainable? No, but there are A LOT of options. A few months ago I sold an isolated group of towers and houses that could have been a great guild town. I believe a couple other groups of housing that could fill a similar need are for sale right now. I can't speak on their costliness (or lack thereof) but there are threads upon threads on how easy it is to obtain gold here.

Yeah, makes sense. I am and will always be for a shard wipe for the following reasons:

1. I want to see fewer accounts/characters so the server has a more healthy economy.
2. I want to see a lot of grandfathered inaccuracies removed.
3. I think it'd breath some new life into the shard if done right.

Of course, as an orc, I have very little to lose if this happened. Id lose my house, the clan would lose a ton of territory. Id lose 1.5 GM poisoners, my GM lockpick, etc. But none of this is anywhere near the loss some would lose.

Of course...in my opinion, and in many cases, its no big loss if some of these non-playing hoarders quit.

[Pacifico]

Also I just think this thread is a colossal waste of typing. That comes from reading almost every single posting ever made in this forum for nearly two years now. Hooray for a desk job with internet.

Get back to answering cA complaint forms, we don't pay for you and that desk to be searching the forums!

[Lagrath]

It seems that often people get mad that they can't get exactly what they want, right after they start playing. I find that really silly to be honest.

If that's the line of thinking you're coming away with, you COMPLETELY missed the main point of what people have been talking about for the last few pages, and totally ignored several specific issues I've pointed out that other established players said were valid points. You might have been tipped off that you're not understanding the big idea by the fact that most of my posts have been arguing AGAINST things which would hugely benefit brand new players like myself at the expense of everyone else.

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, really. I see where you're coming from on this, but if you want to start throwing out the 'era accuracy' term I suggest you read up on what that is defined as here and the difference between mechanics and policy.

I read it all before I came here. I was just pointing out that the way you were arguing for era accuracy was totally inane in context of the discussion we were having. The overarching objective of the shard is recreating the playing experience of a certain time period, within the limits of what is pragmatic and also still fun to play. Tying the fact that ever character on OSI could have a house to this overall standard of Nov 1999, when that reality existed in a world where 99.9% of those players only had 1 account with max 5 houses (and most started at the same time) is just plain mad.

You're trying to cling to one minor technical policy of the era for the sake of accuracy when the different policies and realities of this shard mean its application actually makes it a less accurate recreation and (I and others are arguing) an overall less fun playing experience (most of all for any newer players). What you're doing is the very definition of missing the forest for the trees.

Say that you've got a historical reenactment or a computer simulation where you're trying to recreate a famous battle that is notable and distinct for the sole fact that exactly 200 bowmen managed to hold off 2000 knights. For whatever reason, policies made beforehand mean that you have to run the simulation with 2000 guys on the side of the archers instead of 200. So someone comes along and tries to collect up 1800 of the bows & quivers so that at least you're still trying to recreate the impact of 200 bows used versus 2000 incoming knights- and then you go "Wait, TECHNICALLY, all those men (all 200 of them) that were at the battle had a bow, so everyone on the archer's side has to have a bow if we want this simulation to be accurate."

Ok, yes, technically that's true, but is what you're trying to test and really go for here the fact that this was a famous battle with 200 bows used versus the knights, or is your main objective to make sure everyone on the archer's side happens to have a bow on him? 2000 bowmen shooting at 2000 knights is not going to get you anything close to the point of the original battle. Forest for the trees.

[Mikel123]

Silverfoot's Windmere castle

Half of what's wrong with this shard can be summed up in these three words.

[MatronDeWinter]

Silverfoot's Windmere castle

Half of what's wrong with this shard can be summed up in these three words.

It's the truth too. (nothing against s.foot)

[Pirul]

I agree with those who say a parallel shard would split the population up, and that would suck the big one.

A shard wipe, meh, I have no opinion one way or the other, I guess most of my guildmates and I would continue to play here because we enjoy the game and comradery more than the pixels we have accumulated.

As far as the housing issue goes, I think getting a guild town should NOT be an easy/cheap endeavour. I don't know how other guilds have managed to accumulate the real estate to establish theirs, but I'll share C^V's experience in getting New Windmere with you.

When we started C^V back in Feb. 2010, we found a small house spot 1 tile off the Vesper guard zone on the north side of the bank's west bridge. That was our guildhouse until April 2010, when the L-Shape (which is still our guildhouse) fell and we managed to get the spot. That particular house had been in and out of IDOC at least 3 times before finally falling. We camped the spot like hawks. We were a small guild with most of our members being new and inexperienced in PvP (hell, some of us still are!!), and yet we fought like beasts vs. the other players who wanted the spot, and we got it. We put 2 smalls there for a couple of days, went on a super farming spree, and when we saved up enough for an L-Shape (we couldn't even pool enough money to afford an L-Shape deed back then!!), we switched up the houses.

Keep in mind that the two smalls west of the L-Shape were owned by [+ -], and although their activity was already in a steep decline, anyone who has played this shard for some time will tell you, they were not soft players. After asking for a loooooong time, finally in june of the same year we finally were able to purchase those 2 smalls. At the end of june, the last small house north of the bridge went IDOC and fell, we also managed to get the spot. In September, the first small house off the bridge fell, and again, after camping the site, we got the spot. This is when we really could say we had a proper guild town and all it had cost us was 20k over deed for the 2 smalls we purchased and A LOT of work to get the other houses.

In November we made a huge push to purchase / place the rest of the houses in our town. After 10 months the end result was New Windmere as you can see it today (sans the add-ons).

The moral of the story is that if you want to set up a guild town you'll need 3 things: work, patience and perseverence. Do not expect to be able to set up a guild town in the first month of play here.

[Pirul]

The overarching objective of the shard is recreating the playing experience of a certain time period, within the limits of what is pragmatic and also still fun to play.

Don't mean to be an ass, but I think the actual goal of the shard is to have era accurate mechanics. It would be impossible to recreate player experience, because for one, the population is a fraction of what it was on production shards, the era we're playing came out 12 years ago (so hardly anything is new), and some of us are not teenagers anymore.

[Lagrath]

The overarching objective of the shard is recreating the playing experience of a certain time period, within the limits of what is pragmatic and also still fun to play.

Don't mean to be an ass, but I think the actual goal of the shard is to have era accurate mechanics. It would be impossible to recreate player experience, because for one, the population is a fraction of what it was on production shards, the era we're playing came out 12 years ago (so hardly anything is new), and some of us are not teenagers anymore.

Oh, of course. I meant "experience" in terms of the experience of UO in the T2A versus other UO eras, not in terms of how it was when it was 1999 and we were kids, and of course a private server can only go so far in the recreation.

[Gregorius]

Housing: Not an issue.

People come and go. New housing spots open all the time.

I've been here 62 days. I placed a small in an empty space south of Brit <not swamp> at 7 days old. I placed another small 1/2 a screen away when a neighbors house collapsed at 40 days. Last Week I camped a Tower drop and beat Telemon 'n' Co, filling the Tower Space completely with a Brick. In another 60 days, I'll have the money for a Tower Deed, and trade up, maybe. I hate UO stairs

Tower owner in 4 months. Not too bad.

Considering I've seeing a small along Brit East Woods Guard line at Auction for Deed + 10k I don't think a
problem exists....

What we need is more dungeons...with less PK's.... HHHMMM!!!!
I won't say it

[Kaivan]

The overarching objective of the shard is recreating the playing experience of a certain time period, within the limits of what is pragmatic and also still fun to play.

Not to rain on the discussion, but this a disconnect. The goal of the server is to mechanically reproduce the era as best as possible. Beyond that, the rest of the 'experience' is something that players must create for themselves, using the provided mechanics.

[Lagrath]

The overarching objective of the shard is recreating the playing experience of a certain time period, within the limits of what is pragmatic and also still fun to play.

Not to rain on the discussion, but this a disconnect. The goal of the server is to mechanically reproduce the era as best as possible. Beyond that, the rest of the 'experience' is something that players must create for themselves, using the provided mechanics.

Right- like I was already trying to clarify in my prior post, the way you just put it is much closer to what I meant to say. I think enabling 3 accounts per person with 15 legal houses on a privately developed shard seems to me to generate a situation and economy that makes it difficult.for the players to create anything close to how things worked with the original mechanics; that is, the many of the same people who accumulated high quantity and quality of real estate early on are the same with the least incentive to sell and the least likely for a new person to successfullu reach with offers even if the veteran with 20 mil did give a damn about house deed +15k.

[Pirul]

Please don't tell me I spent 10 minutes writing this:

As far as the housing issue goes, I think getting a guild town should NOT be an easy/cheap endeavour. I don't know how other guilds have managed to accumulate the real estate to establish theirs, but I'll share C^V's experience in getting New Windmere with you.

When we started C^V back in Feb. 2010, we found a small house spot 1 tile off the Vesper guard zone on the north side of the bank's west bridge. That was our guildhouse until April 2010, when the L-Shape (which is still our guildhouse) fell and we managed to get the spot. That particular house had been in and out of IDOC at least 3 times before finally falling. We camped the spot like hawks. We were a small guild with most of our members being new and inexperienced in PvP (hell, some of us still are!!), and yet we fought like beasts vs. the other players who wanted the spot, and we got it. We put 2 smalls there for a couple of days, went on a super farming spree, and when we saved up enough for an L-Shape (we couldn't even pool enough money to afford an L-Shape deed back then!!), we switched up the houses.

Keep in mind that the two smalls west of the L-Shape were owned by [+ -], and although their activity was already in a steep decline, anyone who has played this shard for some time will tell you, they were not soft players. After asking for a loooooong time, finally in june of the same year we finally were able to purchase those 2 smalls. At the end of june, the last small house north of the bridge went IDOC and fell, we also managed to get the spot. In September, the first small house off the bridge fell, and again, after camping the site, we got the spot. This is when we really could say we had a proper guild town and all it had cost us was 20k over deed for the 2 smalls we purchased and A LOT of work to get the other houses.

In November we made a huge push to purchase / place the rest of the houses in our town. After 10 months the end result was New Windmere as you can see it today (sans the add-ons).

The moral of the story is that if you want to set up a guild town you'll need 3 things: work, patience and perseverence. Do not expect to be able to set up a guild town in the first month of play here.

To get this:

...the many of the same people who accumulated high quantity and quality of real estate early on are the same with the least incentive to sell and the least likely for a new person to successfullu reach with offers even if the veteran with 20 mil did give a damn about house deed +15k.

Which essentialy means: I R NEW GUILD TOWN PLZ

[Kabal]

The overarching objective of the shard is recreating the playing experience of a certain time period, within the limits of what is pragmatic and also still fun to play.

Not to rain on the discussion, but this a disconnect. The goal of the server is to mechanically reproduce the era as best as possible. Beyond that, the rest of the 'experience' is something that players must create for themselves, using the provided mechanics.

I'm picturing a brand new UOSA siege shard with all the same mechanics as we have them now but from the very beginning of the shards existence. One more thing I think is necessary is the slowing of skill gain to accommodate for razor, and just have a vote before the shard ever starts on what kind of items should be available and how to get them. If blessed clothes were just insane expensive instead of only available with silver that would be way better IMO. We should schedule the launch of UOSA siege perilous six months or a year out and just advertise the launch all over the net.