Keeping the Shard interesting....

[Grey Snow]

I understand the philosophy of the shard, era accuracy. And i above anything else understand why the GMs want to keep it that way, I too am a lover of this era of UO, thats why i chose the shard. It has the most do anything you want and play how ever you want to play feel that any MMO in my oppinion has had.

But there is a reason games come out with exspansions and move on. To keep the players interested and bring new things to the table and keep them playing. I understand that our GMs aren't paid and do a hell of a job. But making the shard its own is part of keeping people there and playing. I'm not suggesting changing anything with game play or pvp or pvm, more or less those fancy pixels that seem to run and dominate the money market in UO like it always has been.

Basically my feeling is the shard has progressed to era accuracy and is now past its limit of having anything ground breaking being patched in besides minor changes and bug fixes. Which makes the economy in a black hole. Why would a super or mega wealthy person continue to play or even put money back into the games econmy if there is nothing that interests them.

I'v been around on the shard for about 140 days, and iv done fairly well for myself making money and moving forward status wide purely through wealth (I suck at pvp otherwise id win more silver). But UO is a game of status symbols, when you see someone recall to the bank roof on a pure mare with neon hair and blessed neon sandals, you think damn he's a bad ass.

The one thing on our shard that isn't era accurate is our silver system. And if you can have something like that which is such a huge impact on our econmy and how money is spent; why can't a few other minor changes bad made that will draw some attention to the big money on the shard. Or on the other end of the coin be a reasonable chance for a new player to strive for.

A few ideas that I had:
-Silver system revamp, i know its been brought up a thousand times before. Basically nothing on the list of rewards is that spectacular besides Clothing bless deed, spcial dyed masks and sandels and for the rare few who love decorating house the bear rug, fireplace, and bookcase. But as we all know personal looks of a character shows more as a status. Maybe bring in a few new things, and drop some items that will never even be considered like deamon bone and some of the other rares.

-Changing rare timers to throw everyone for a loop making some not so rare items now a little more rare or vise versa. Maybe even throw in some new ones that are already out there in the game but just not obtainable by players yet. Take the furs for example: Anyone who played OSI know what that market did, but nobody knew it was going to happen. The people who knew about that on this shard hoarded and stocked up on them hoping fr that same thing, but really will it ever get back to that because so many people hoarded and were ready for them to stop spawning.

To sum my thoughts up, i just feel like the economy of the shard is going to go into a steady decline because money values of top teir items will get so out of controle. Money is always being made and the people that have the ability to buy things that increase in value or profit more do it and why not. There needs to be something more to interest players that get to wealthy levels to keep them playing. I'm not a mega weathly person by any means, but i do well. But it seems like you would strive to keep those that have been around by evolving some, rather then just keeping things the same recycling in newbies every month or two. I know the game is hugely pvp based and that truely is what keeps the peoplecontinuing to play. But for those "Trammys" out there like me; that do controle markets and are mega wealthy need the interest to keep you the shard going.

Shard needs to evolve into something of its own, can't be stuck in 98 forever having everything and never having anything to strive for. While game play an always be the same as it was then.

Just my thoughts bring the harshing and feedback.

[Sandro]

Item bless deeds?!?!!??

[dustylane]

Great post.

I think the game play system does not need to be changed either which seems to be their number one fear. It must be era accurate on that level and thats fine. But things like pixels that dont affect any game play but can add status and drive money from the mega rich back into the economy rather than having an entire server of hoarders. Im not talking about getting absurd and having wild ass colors and crazy colored mounts so everyone looks like a clown either. I know this post will get flamed because it seems that minor suggestions of the sort get taken out of hand and argued against that we don't want this to happen. So I believe the suggestion should be taken as it is, a minor scale, and watch it really boost play and economy.

[Corbin]

One thing I've talked about in the past, not specifically pointing at this shard, but at the general idea... these freeshards have the opportunity to pick up where EA left off and make the game what it should have become and do it right. I've seen a few shards out there that have taken small steps at doing this, such as adding new classes, races, and spells, to even editing the main map which creates a whole new UO experience.

I never understood why someone hasn't taken the chance or starting the game where UO left off when it was at it's prime, and steered it in the direction of what UO should have become rather than what it did.

[Azile]

Except the entire premise again is era specific shard. To go back and play it "the way it was".

In game events are great things to stir up the fun however.

Yesterday's invasion of Cove was classic fun all day. Managed to stumble onto it at noon and had a blast all day there. However, was about 3 players all day fighting the endless horde of orcs, mages and ogre lords...until mid evening when about ten players showed up and more or less controlled the town until it ended. I think it would have been cool if they had some bosses at some point, but oh well, ogre lords were cool when they popped.

The number one thing to increase the random fun element of uo t2a is a higher population player base and I honestly believe there are many ex second age era uo players who will play this shard if they knew about it.

My last 4 weeks on the shard have really felt like I was able to go back in time to the good old days and start over and relive the experience. Other than the obvious difference in playerbase from then, it feels as close as I think it could get. Not to mention the absolutely beautiful way that it is run and managed, making it far different than 99% of the private uo shards out there. It is run "professional" and with clearly defined parameters, rules and goals. He'll, OSI never came close to achieving that aspect as Derrick has.

[Azile]

If a money sink that did not break the T2A mechanics etc drastically, why not allow reds a system to pay to avoid stat loss, given that back in the OSI days, you had to illegally macro and of course spend a lot of gold to get back those skills, now it is just simply time and money, about 3 days and 300k. It would not be terribly game breaking anymore than the couple of economy additions already in that are not era accurate, silver system etc. Now instead of making the character macro back those lost stats and skills, idle for those days, create a costing of whatever is high enough that it is for the wealthy to use, but low enough it is not a joke. 1 million gold maybe.

I am still not totally sure about how we have stuff included like silver system that is not accurate, but then are intense sticklers about even a suggestion to a change that is not era accurate. Being née to the shard, maybe I am missing something.

Runebooks, potion kegs, well I think they are not accurate, but they make sense because they help reduce the number of objects per player dramatically.

Silver system...I guess it is seen as a harmless means to provide something to the upper level of the economy. I can tell you however, when you first start here all over, you simply cannot get gold fast enough, since with building 3 accounts, always have a Mage going non stop etc. I know if I had been here for a while by now I would have a large amount of wealth etc, but it is not like the rich players are throwing it around in the streets. No walking into Brit bank and finding 20k piles of gold being dropped by Sir Wealthy Pants.

One of the things I have noticed thou, a symptom of the shards population woes is the huge amount of housing with a vendor with nothing but empty bags on the vendor. Finding easy vendors to buy loads of resources seems difficult, but of course, you pick out the key vendors, mark them etc, but I find it hard to believe so many people just have idle housing and vendors. Just an observation. So there is some tightness at my level, the recently started player to the economy.

[punk]

I agree, I think personal touches on rares, silver reward system, etc, were all something that the EA developers were striving for themselves. Every shard had its own set of rares, and different things, so its not going against era accurate to switch things up a bit because we have such a small community of players in comparison to EA's servers.

Silver system needs revamped, and the rares and leet pixels systems could use a few unpredictable switch-ups.

[Guerrilla]

I hear all of your points, and they are very valid. The only thing, in terms of gold sinks/economy etc. that I personally think should be worked out, is definitely the amount of houses that 1 player can own. 1 house per account people say, but to be honest, if i had any say so, I would limit it to 1 house per IP, with the exception of siblings/wifes whatever... do that and watch the population increase, no more empty vendors etc. Am I the only one that feels this way?

[theidocghost]

damn right rilla and btw i swear it was 1 house per account derrick told me otherwise but i do belive it was only 1 house per account!

[Zydin]

Naa man, yer right, the housing is lame. You know it's bad when a keep idocs like one awhile back and instantly there's 5 smalls in it's place. People looking to just make a lil extra jack off some poor sap that wants to place a keep.

I'm rolling pretty heavy, but I still only have 2 houses. A patio and a small. I just don't see a point in having more other than to be a d-bag like BeatingDouche and try to make money off of real estate. That's what RL is for.

[nightshark]

damn right rilla and btw i swear it was 1 house per account derrick told me otherwise but i do belive it was only 1 house per account!

Was 5 houses per account until UO:R

The difference is that people generally just had 1 account

[DrFaustus]

Revamp/Rewrite the silver system:

This would change a lot of things, and keep people interested....if even for a few months.

It's easy and quick to do.

[Mens Rea]

I THINK WE NEED NEW TYPES OF REGS

LIKE WHAT IF YOU GROUND UP SULPHEROUS ASH AND THEN POURED IT OVER SPIDER SILK?

YOU WOULD GET YELLOW SPIDER SILK AND IT WOULD BE LIKE HAVING 1 SILK AND 1 ASH

THIS IS A GOOD IDEA LETS HEAR IT FOR NEW REGS

[Gray Wolf]

Gold sinks is only part of the problems.

First off, and I say this truly from the heart: the dedication of Derrick and the staff is second to none. These guys are top shelf, and pull no punches.

However, ALL the arguments laid out here are mute as long as `Era Accuracy' stands; as it has, as it does, as it will.

I will be very honest: I am looking at other free shards with a `bit more' than just T2A. However, it sets me up for the trap; at what point will I start looking for the `next' free shard with that `something a bit more than that'.

I play here because, as Grey Snow stated, it has that `back when i started' rush. However, if the game does not evolve (as it must not to remain era accurate), what will happen to it?

Are we looking for `era accuracy'?.. or `era accuracy with a few tweaks'?.. or `a T2A with blessed runebooks, one house per account, one-cut perr stack for aids, stackable potions, house deco tools, ad-nauseum?"

What IF Derrick ran the experiment and took a vote of a T2A-esque shard, installed with the top 10 requests? Would it be played at all, would the player base move to this new T2A-PLUS server?

My suggestion: Bring in the deeds for the sandstone, the mini-tower, the white marble patio, the villa and the workshops. Limit the number of houses to one per account.

Much to ponder, but it all hinges on one thing: era accuracy.

[TheEttinKing]

i would pay ten million gold for a marble patio