UO Second Age

Ok, I got inspired to create this thread after having read this thread (VOTE FOR US!!!!) urging people to vote for the shard. Why vote at all? What good does it give me? We all know that people on the internet are mostly very self centered and egoistic, in other words, they only do things that they will have some personal gain in. But voting IS very important. If the shards gets a better position in the listings it could very possibly encourage new players to seek out the shard. With more players we get a more dynamic shard, thus bringing even more players. With a healthy player base we get a better shard. Also, the more players there are, the more likely it'd be that more people would donate real money and help the shard survive. Because, let's face it, Derrick cannot possibly be expected to pay for the shard by himself forever.

Now here is my suggestion. A "vote shop". I encountered this wonderful idea while playing Rising Force Online (RF) on a private server. Now, this private server does exist for profit, and does have a cash shop, but they only got to be really successful because of the vote shop. The vote shop exist to encourage players to vote for their shard, and gives a little reward in return. Every time players click one of the vote links on the forums or shard homepage, they are also asked to submit their account name that they wish to vote with. Once that is registered, they are then forwarded to the voting site and can vote for the shard. With every vote registered from a valid account the player gets awarded "vote points". Those vote points can then later be used (when accumulated) to purchase in-game items. This gives players a real reason to vote for their personal gain, even though they don't care for the shards well-being or prosper.

Now, I can't specifically say many things about how this would be executed here, I just want to get this idea out there and perhaps give this shard a better chance to survive for many years to come.

I can give some examples/ideas/suggestions on how this could work here, but again, nothing specific, just suggestions.

• Players would be allowed to vote 1 time a day (a 23h30min limit between votes) for each account on each voting site.
  
  Players would get a reward of X vote points (vp) for each successful voting one each voting site. The amount of vote points received would have to be decided by staff.
  
  Vote Shop items could either be items not able to obtain in game (for some reason) but have a purpose, or voting trophies that can be used as regular trophies, or perhaps some common items that are always needed, like resources, bandages, newbied items, rewards available through trophes, or perhaps even daily rares. Prices in vote points would have to be decided by staff.
  
  When making a purchase vote points would be withdrawn from the players account and item purchased received on next log-in (one would possibly have to be logged out from the game when making purchases).
  
  Vote points would not be tradeable, but some/most item in the vote shop perhaps could be.

Now, as I said, these are just suggestions. But I don't think this would cripple the economy in any way, at least not more than the trophy system and events are affecting it. Also, the rewards for voting should not exceed the rewards for participating in events and getting trophies, but they shouldn't be far off either. If one can play for 10-20 minutes and receive a trophy, that effort should be reflected in the voting system and award items of similar value for the same amount of time. I'm thinking like this because events (daily) are also something where one is somewhat of a representative of the shard in promoting activity, PvP and player interaction, and that is probably the most sought after reasons for making people vote as well.

People do things for their own gain, and what better way is there to encourage people to vote than giving them something for their effort? Everyone wins! It's in fact a win-win-win situation where players vote for the rewards, new players find a wonderful shard, and the shard prospers with more and more players (that also vote). It's a never-ending circle of goodness. ;)

not bad idea, every 30(or wahtever) votes you do you get a trophy pt
will have earned it more than playing a ctf game

Good idea. Has anyone ever accused you of being a nice guy?

Kraarug wrote:Good idea. Has anyone ever accused you of being a nice guy?

dont do it, it will go straight to his head!!

BlackFoot wrote:will have earned it more than playing a ctf game

Yeah, exactly! ;)

Kraarug wrote:Has anyone ever accused you of being a nice guy?

Well, actually, I hear it all the time for some reason. Hehe ;)

Wise wrote:

Kraarug wrote:Good idea. Has anyone ever accused you of being a nice guy?

dont do it, it will go straight to his head!!

Too latez! ;)

great idea i think rewarding players for voteing is good it shows that people who care earn. and the more you use this system the more you earn and the more the shard earns from you if this gets added make sure its ip based.

i would suggest that you were given half point trophys so it doesnt flood the server but keeping intrest.

im bumping this because it is a gread idea

I'll bump it too, but are there any thoughts on rewards that could be given outside of game, like IRC/Forums/MyRunUO that might also encourage voting? The policy really has been no in game reward at all for anything outside of game, and we have stuck to that for a long time.

thats hard especially since there are alot of players that dont use these means of commnication and therefor the reward would be useless for them... but I See your point about not giving out rewards in game, which is a very good policy... which makes the reward system a little flakey, it could be kept track of in a point system and that could be used for various things, for example if my guild has 1500 Voting points this reflects well on us in the community and would help when asking the players for guild town add-ons, but that only appeals to a small populus, the greater shard population would need somthing more... Forums there is not much left to give away: specific titles? special icons? these have already been done, IRC I am not sure what kind of benefirs can be givin out aside from moderator status or immunity to SpamServ..

The one Idea I though of though limited is giving away T2A: UOSA CD's with a T2A CD label on them, all the files needed to play UOSA, and a ton of screen shots, from players (and secret ones from GMs & admins of random things you guys see!) but that costs money and money takes away from the shard as a whole...


I will think of ideas

I agree, it'd be hard to find something that would really be an incentive for people to vote without it being an in-game reward. But look at it this way, when one is voting, one is still doing an act closely related with UOSA, and there is an obvious limit to it. It's very different to selling gold or resources for real money. The forums are for some a closely related part of the game and voting would be very closely connected to the forums.

It IS still possible to go through an event gate, stand there totally afk while to go cook your kidz dinner, however unethical that is. The statistical minimum reward for doing that is 3k. There is a lively [urlhttp://forum.uosecondage.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=6773]discussion on that topic[/url] ongoing right now, but should still be brought up in relation to this.

The real incentive in getting people to get voting and actually do it regularly is to give them something they can appreciate in return. As Wise said, many don't visit the forums or get on the UOSA site at all, but this would bring them here, repeatedly. Not only could it get more people to the shard, but we could get a more lively community on the forums as well.

If someone thinks of a viable "reward" out of game for voting on a regular basis, it'd be really good, but if not, then an in-game reward that is no better than that of the same amount of time spent in a scripted event should still be seriously considered.

I also like the policy the shard has with no in-game reward for real money, and that is the reason I donated in the first place, BUT I haven't viewed the policy to not award any outside of the game activity. I think the policy should be limited to money. After all, I have been receiving in-game "rewards" (player accumulated) for outside of the game activities by selling forum signatures made outside of the game.

How about making event gates use up a vote point every time you use them?

Just an idea.

That isn't a bad idea Kefka...

Use the vote points as a type of currency for the event gates.

how about a viewable list of all forum members and what their vote count is on the webpage listed in order of most votes

Showcase a voter of the month in the news main page once a month with an ingame character profile spotlight. The incentive would be to get their character in game more famous as a reward
Would be valuable to a lot of people i think, pks can show off their guy and spread the fear, merchants get their name out

what ya think?

BlackFoot wrote:how about a viewable list of all forum members and what their vote count is on the webpage listed in order of most votes

Showcase a voter of the month in the news main page once a month with an ingame character profile spotlight. The incentive would be to get their character in game more famous as a reward
Would be valuable to a lot of people i think, pks can show off their guy and spread the fear, merchants get their name out

what ya think?

I like that.. but derrick cant even update the "weekly" (bi monthly) screen shots, he should find a staff member to keep the main page updated, or even a player to keep a blog or what not on UOSA

But I do like the idea ^_^

Personally I like the idea of vote "Points" being used for the event gates. It helps balance two issues. The cash issues of the Event rewards vs. The advantages of promtion of the server. Bring it on. A little bit of work for those that want the rewards.