Cancelling My UOSA Subscription

[Will Sinker]

I still don't see why we couldn't simply raise the amount of stable slots each stable master has available and increase the amount of stable masters. Eventually we would get to a number of slots that would make it near impossible for people to fill them all up consistently. This does not alter the mechanics as we (as far as I know) have no idea as to how many slots each stable master had available in era and the number of stable masters varied greatly based on demand on shards as noted by your post in suggestions/era accuracy Derrick.

[Nidaic]

I still don't see why we couldn't simply raise the amount of stable slots each stable master has available and increase the amount of stable masters. Eventually we would get to a number of slots that would make it near impossible for people to fill them all up consistently. This does not alter the mechanics as we (as far as I know) have no idea as to how many slots each stable master had available in era and the number of stable masters varied greatly based on demand on shards as noted by your post in suggestions/era accuracy Derrick.

My 0.02,

Adding stable slots will only increase the size of dragon turrets and allow a greater scale of stable hording, which is dependant upon the griefers want to horde said slots. With even 1000 stable slots per stable, costing 30k per week in stable fees, I believe players would still fill said stable slots irregardless of the amount of gold required due to the fact that it is the intention, not the investment ( gold can be quite trivial when funding a personal or grief war from what I have seen, not to mention owning a whole stable for less than a small deed per week seems trivial to me although I do not have a tamer, [who wouldn't make atleast a small deed a week to own a stable?])
Another way to subvert the stable griefery is to add a set amount of guaranteed slots... but this also falls into mechanical era inaccuracy as well as trammelism.

The answer to the stable fiasco i do not know, I can not give what I do not have.

AFK Reg Buying: The cost of a player's subterfuge of this market would/is enourmous. From spending 2 active accounts to block bankers in odd spots of the bank to constantly spending character slots on statloss noobs that try to PK reg vendors, It's not economical from an account basis ( not dealing with the gold cost.) IMO, it would be easier/economical on account management (personal, as in you and I) to archerbot the afk reg houses to prevent the willing customers from obtaining them; Although still this forces Non AFK players to become afk players, leaving their accounts turreting outside Yew bank.

Again, I have no answer to this issue. Archerbot their vendors? Spend accounts connected to stop their macros for a day(or less)?

[Telamon]

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[Braden]

I did my best to do this until I was down to a 200k gold and 250 BP total across all my accounts. Point being, for a casual gamer such as myself, I can't keep it up. I was literally giving away everything I owned...whether it was 1,000's of crossbow bolts and Heavy Crossbows for the Paintball Event or Vanq's and gold for the Invisible Maze Event...either way, I was slowly putting myself into the poor house to do it.

When I run official staff sponsored events, I do not offer any prizes. People just participate because they want to participate and have fun. You are under no obligation to offer any prize at your events. Often, I tell people the prize is "bragging rights".

[Cataclyst]

I'm with Braden on this. If you're worried about money, then you don't need to offer prizes. For example, most pvpers will participate in the tournies regardless of if theirs a prize or not. If the event is fun enough for the selected crowd, then that "fun" is the only prize they need.

As far as the desynching thing goes, people may not notice this but most of the time it's the players fault they're desynching. Rarely does it just happen randomly, if you're sitting there spam casting spells WHILE trying to move, it'll happen. You'll get the rubberband effect, and then bam, you're out of synch.

The tamer thing, you can lock pets up inside a house, and nothing will happen to them, if positioned correctly they will not die. While the stable slots are a little annoying, it hardly ruins any kind of game play. The staff not being present isn't at all a bad thing tbh, sure it can get annoying when you want them to deal with some random person whose breaking the rules, but you can just hop in IRC, give the location of said player, and you'd like like 10 people ready and willing to deal with said player in the way that they see fit.

The thing I've always enjoyed about secondage, is it doesn't cater to anyone really, it's just.. Secondage.. theres changes we all hate, but theres ways to work around every single one of them. The stable change, keeping pets inside your house actually saves you money! If they go untame by some rare chance, so what! Retaming is 100% guarenteed, so why let it bother you ?

[Pirul]

I'm with Braden on this. If you're worried about money, then you don't need to offer prizes. For example, most pvpers will participate in the tournies regardless of if theirs a prize or not. If the event is fun enough for the selected crowd, then that "fun" is the only prize they need.

There is a reason most players who used to run regular events no longer do. It is expensive, a pain in the ass, and you need to deal with griefers who'll stop at nothing to screw your event up. Been there, done that.

As far as the desynching thing goes, people may not notice this but most of the time it's the players fault they're desynching. Rarely does it just happen randomly, if you're sitting there spam casting spells WHILE trying to move, it'll happen. You'll get the rubberband effect, and then bam, you're out of synch.

It is not always that simple. You do not stop for a whole second before casting greater heal when 2 pk's are chasing you. Might work in duels, but fighting in the field is a whole nother animal.

The tamer thing, you can lock pets up inside a house, and nothing will happen to them, if positioned correctly they will not die. While the stable slots are a little annoying, it hardly ruins any kind of game play. The staff not being present isn't at all a bad thing tbh, sure it can get annoying when you want them to deal with some random person whose breaking the rules, but you can just hop in IRC, give the location of said player, and you'd like like 10 people ready and willing to deal with said player in the way that they see fit.

Not everyone has a castle or a keep, which are the only places to keep animals safe. I am NOT keeping my nightmare, dragons and frenzieds in my tower. Specially new players who can barely afford a pack horse, and want to stable it in order to not have to pay 500gps the next time they log on, because they don't even have a small house to put it in.

The stable change, keeping pets inside your house actually saves you money! If they go untame by some rare chance, so what! Retaming is 100% guarenteed, so why let it bother you ?

Oh yeah, retaming is 100% guaranteed...specially with dragons and nightmares where you'll "anger the beast" 19 out of 20 times. And they WILL go wild after a couple of hours of receiving no comand or no interaction (so basically you can't go to work or sleep), and completely dissapear in about 20 hours if you do not log on to "interact" with them (so you cannot take less than a day off UO).

[Derrick]

As long as there is a perceived market for "stable slots" we could multiply the capacities by ten and people would still fill them up with rats. Our stable limits currently far exceed what was available on any OSI shard in era.

I posted this elsewhere, but will post it here too: The AFK churning of vendors for gold is absolutely forbidden, same as mining/lumberjacking/fishing unattended, you are making something out of nothing, there is no difference.

The shard rules have been updated to strongly reflect this.

[Pirul]

I posted this elsewhere, but will post it here too: The AFK churning of vendors for gold is absolutely forbidden, same as mining/lumberjacking/fishing unattended, you are making something out of nothing, there is no difference.

The shard rules have been updated to strongly reflect this.

This is the first I've heard of this, and I think it is a GREAT step.

Thanks a lot!

[Zeppelin]

As long as there is a perceived market for "stable slots" we could multiply the capacities by ten and people would still fill them up with rats. Our stable limits currently far exceed what was available on any OSI shard in era.

I posted this elsewhere, but will post it here too: The AFK churning of vendors for gold is absolutely forbidden, same as mining/lumberjacking/fishing unattended, you are making something out of nothing, there is no difference.

The shard rules have been updated to strongly reflect this.

Good Duel.

[Mikel123]

Our stable limits currently far exceed what was available on any OSI shard in era.

This will not be a popular thing for me to say, but... if that's the case, and we have some idea of what they were in era, they should be lowered.

As it stands, we neither have mechanical accuracy (because our slots total differs from 1999), nor do we have historical gameplay accuracy (because there wasn't nearly this much of an issue with stable slots in 1999).

[Vhyx]

As long as there is a perceived market for "stable slots" we could multiply the capacities by ten and people would still fill them up with rats. Our stable limits currently far exceed what was available on any OSI shard in era.

I posted this elsewhere, but will post it here too: The AFK churning of vendors for gold is absolutely forbidden, same as mining/lumberjacking/fishing unattended, you are making something out of nothing, there is no difference.

The shard rules have been updated to strongly reflect this.

Derrick,


After reading this, I want to say, have my babies. Even though there would need to be some bromance involved, I'm glad to see that you have stated that making something out of nothing is a douche-bag move and will be punished accordingly.

Ban the guys in the screenshot Telemon posted and I'll buy you a diamond encrusted pop tart.

All of this will be null and void when I sober up in the morning. Except the ban those afk-gaining turds part.

[Naljier]

Policies regarding AFK Buying, Selling, and Gathering:
This abusive policy is one of the more shameful things about this shard. The cost/risk of stopping people from engaging in these activities far out-weighs the cost/risk involved in AFK'ing everything in-game. Overall, it has a detrimental effect on the shard. This can be evidenced by the string of dead vendors across the shard. Rewarding people for being AFK and punishing someone who actually plays the game for not having a fast enough razor macro is no way to create a good gaming environment on a server. Allowing people to AFK their skill gain is one thing, but allowing players to automate the entire game is quite another. This detracts from the game, overall, and significantly decreases the replayability of the game for its players.

I'll agree with this part whole-heartedly. 90% of my gametime lately has been devoted to dealing with afk macro'ers. From ingots to boards to scrolls it is getting completely out of hand. In the last 2 months you can barely find a bank without at least 1 character macro'ing something 18-20 hours a day.

Just stop by any bank looking for Jacob, Indiana Jones or Dolce a Gabanna and you will see what I mean.



Of course I do appreciate all the free time the GM's do spend dealing with people who cheat the system, but the policy regarding afk resource gathering has been muddied here lately. I pointed Kaivan directly to a player buying and selling from vendors AFK and was told that it is perfectly fine since he is "buying" something.

In one case a player was running the macro so unabashedly unattended I was able to selectively trap his character in mage shops, steal all his gold from selling scrolls, unblock the bank spot, and follow him to the next shop stealing his gold yet again. I was able to do this for 2 hours, stealing almost 50k in gold without a single action by the macro'er. And of course the next day the player in question had adjusted his macro to recall to several banks if his first spot is now blocked.

I do agree with LS that it is becoming more and more difficult for players to police this type of activity on our own without major investments in time. Having a firm statement regarding specific actions that are considered not allowed along with specific policies for how players should report such actions would be nice to see.

thats great for you, you made money, so stop whining mate.

[Pirul]

thats great for you, you made money, so stop whining mate.

Best part is, no one else can do money from this no more!

[Ragancy]

As long as there is a perceived market for "stable slots" we could multiply the capacities by ten and people would still fill them up with rats. Our stable limits currently far exceed what was available on any OSI shard in era.

I posted this elsewhere, but will post it here too: The AFK churning of vendors for gold is absolutely forbidden, same as mining/lumberjacking/fishing unattended, you are making something out of nothing, there is no difference.

The shard rules have been updated to strongly reflect this.

From the rules:

You may not gather things unattended. This includes Mining, Lumberjacking, lockpicking in dungeons, cotton picking/sheep shearing, and fishing. You may also not buy/sell or buy/craft/sell with vendors AFK for profit.

Thanks, Derrick.

[mrbojangles]

On the stable issue.. I'm sorry but I just don't get the outrage over this. Stable spots have become a commodity, and now must be purchased from players who control that commodity. You don't log onto this server, load up a naked character, and then get angry when you can't fight anything. No, you have to BUY equipment. Why are stable slots, which are the equipment of the tamer and miner, any different than swords and regs for warriors and mages. Spend twenty minutes buying stable spots, I bought 20 for 20k, that is a lifetime supply for me, and I've already given half of them away. This issue is so overblown, I just don't get it. Is it inconvenient for some? yes. Is it game-breaking, absolutely not. Yet again, GO BUY SPOTS. Noobs don't need packhorses, any vet will tell you mining without them is much better. And as a fan of free-market economics, I love seeing new player-markets emerge.

On the subject of free-markets, one thing that can not be settled by players is the problem of AFK resource gatherers. I see it attempted, I know certain players here donate a lot of their time to trying to stop these lazy bums from ruining the market, they block locations, pk, etc. But it's really just a game of whack-a-mole, because the macroer is always one-step ahead. This is one issue that I do think needs more attention from GM's. Certain player markets have crashed recently due to abundance of AFK resource gathering, this doesn't hurt vets (im making a ton of money off this actually) it hurts the new player to the shard who is forced to sell his goods at 60% of what it should actually be worth, now a noobie miner has to mine 30% more ingots than he used to to afford that first house, etc.

As for events, players can take care of these. I'm currently involved with participating in or planning of three events, they go on all the time, I'm shocked how few of our players can actually be bothered to participate. It seems that players really just want free trophies in trammel, not to participate in community-rich events. That being said, it definitely would not hurt to re-start the seer program, and maybe get more of a background narrative going on this shard.

edit: I and others have brought up the suggestion of taking in more staff members. I'd like to add, that I understand this is not an easy request at all. Staff members here are incredibly selfless and generous with their time, and I have never experienced anything but the utmost professionalism from them. Maintaining this high level of trust is very difficult, and requires a rigorous vetting process when accepting new staff members. Maintaining this status quo is much more important than adding staff, and somehow derrick has managed to avoid recruiting any questionable staff so far. Basically... keep up the good work, keep doing what you're doing, but hopefully some good matches step up to volunteer their time, because I think the shard could benefit from it.