Time to clean house: archive dead shards

InLor

This may be controversial, but I think certain shards should just be closed/archived. Offer free transfers away from these shards. Creation of new chars should be blocked on these shards. For accounts that don't even have a char on them, they shouldn't show in the list anymore. 

An example is Drachenfels. It's just deader than dead and it's a shame if even 10 players get on there instead of say, Europa. They'll waste resources and time on a shard that has a population so low you really miss out on a ton of UO experience. I even think they can't get a proper feel of the game on such a shard. Vendors are missing 90% of stuff you will find on an active shard. There are no people to normally group with. (So few, you can hardly call it a proper mmorpg experience), etc.

I've been traveling shards during this first period of EJ and some have plenty of new players and returnees coming in, some are just dead. Some of these people also don't realize that not all shards are like this. I spoke to already two people who almost left because they thought the game was dead. Turns out they just went to a shard that is dead.

It's not good for UO or new players/returnees to keep these shards in list. I vote for archiving roughly in the manner I described in my first paragraph. Free transfers out. No more new char creation. Time to clean house.

Maximus_Neximus

It's not as simple as that though.
What about players houses there? All their stuff that they can't fit in their bank to transfer? What if they already have characters on other shards, which ones do they get to keep?
That's just for starters. It's easy to say, let's close these shards when it isn't one that you play. And no, I don't play Drach.

Ivenor

I voted Maybe, because the real problem, IMO, as always is the case with this topic, are Houses. Chars can be "moved" to other Shards, sure, but if the spot in which a player has its house in DRK is already taken in EUR or on some other Shard? Who decide who get it?

InLor

I've previously came up with this idea that you get a vendor-search-like recall to your house on your old shard. So you can keep your house there for as long as you like, but the shard is archived. The char transfer in terms of having chars on other shards already - well, find shards you don't have chars on, delete them, or offer extra slots for these people.. whatever is feasible and reasonable.

Sable

There is already a means to transfer to another shard.  In my opinion, it would be stupid to force players to transfer now.  I would quit if they forced me to transfer from Pacific.

Meggie

InLor said:

I've previously came up with this idea that you get a vendor-search-like recall to your house on your old shard. So you can keep your house there for as long as you like, but the shard is archived. The char transfer in terms of having chars on other shards already - well, find shards you don't have chars on, delete them, or offer extra slots for these people.. whatever is feasible and reasonable.

In this case, if the shard is "archived" (it means keep your house as is and be able to recall to it at any time -is this what you meant ? then these players should be able to get another house on the new shard ?? (while keeping the old one) or they could choose to stop playing UO at all but the old house on the archived shard would stay there forever for free ?? Also, what if they haven't finished their deco on the "archived" shard ? will they be able to continue ??? Lots of questions !! Because, after all, the players on the dead shard have put as much efforts as others in the other shards so beware not to be totally unfair !! Would that even be legal ?? (as per TOS) And, last but not least, how much money is this going to get you in your pocket ?

Ivenor

I explained myself badly: I meant that, IMO, Chars transfer is NOT a big problem (as a last resort it could be raised the number of slots of the "migrating" players in the "recieving" Shard as a form of compensation), but that the Houses are. The Vendor search-alike engine for houses is surely feasible, but I am non so sure that it will be really cheaper to mantain that to simply keep the Shard servers going. Anyway, I agree with the abstract general idea of "Shard pruning"...

North_LS

i think what InLor is getting at is to leave the shard online and fully functional with everything intact for all current residents, but to block creation of new characters there. This would prevent returning or new players from accidentally trying to get started on a near-empty shard, while still allowing those who enjoy the shard in its current state to stay there.  For those who would like to move, allow free one-time transfers off-shard.  Something would have to be done regarding housing and transferring contents though.

Margrette

Let's try something new for a suggestion and reverse the outcome:  Why not just ask existing players to branch out and make characters and build homes on some of these dead shards?  Why not give them some kind of an incentive to do so?

Ivenor

Margrette said:

Let's try something new for a suggestion and reverse the outcome:  Why not just ask existing players to branch out and make characters and build homes on some of these dead shards?  Why not give them some kind of an incentive to do so?

I like that!

Meggie

Ivenor said:

Margrette said:

Let's try something new for a suggestion and reverse the outcome:  Why not just ask existing players to branch out and make characters and build homes on some of these dead shards?  Why not give them some kind of an incentive to do so?

I like that!

Yes !

InLor

North_LS said:

i think what InLor is getting at is to leave the shard online and fully functional with everything intact for all current residents, but to block creation of new characters there. This would prevent returning or new players from accidentally trying to get started on a near-empty shard, while still allowing those who enjoy the shard in its current state to stay there.  For those who would like to move, allow free one-time transfers off-shard.  Something would have to be done regarding housing and transferring contents though.

Yep, quite right!

InLor

Margrette said:

Let's try something new for a suggestion and reverse the outcome:  Why not just ask existing players to branch out and make characters and build homes on some of these dead shards?  Why not give them some kind of an incentive to do so?

Sorry, I don't think it's feasible to resurrect some of these shards and with the limited resources the team ahs I think we need to simplify and fonsolidate. Incentives to move away from dead shards, not to them...

InLor

Meggie said:

InLor said:

I've previously came up with this idea that you get a vendor-search-like recall to your house on your old shard. So you can keep your house there for as long as you like, but the shard is archived. The char transfer in terms of having chars on other shards already - well, find shards you don't have chars on, delete them, or offer extra slots for these people.. whatever is feasible and reasonable.

In this case, if the shard is "archived" (it means keep your house as is and be able to recall to it at any time -is this what you meant ? then these players should be able to get another house on the new shard ?? (while keeping the old one) or they could choose to stop playing UO at all but the old house on the archived shard would stay there forever for free ?? Also, what if they haven't finished their deco on the "archived" shard ? will they be able to continue ??? Lots of questions !! Because, after all, the players on the dead shard have put as much efforts as others in the other shards so beware not to be totally unfair !! Would that even be legal ?? (as per TOS) And, last but not least, how much money is this going to get you in your pocket ?

My pocket? Huh? As for legality: of course it is legal. Servers are closed and merged in MMORPGs all the time.

And for some shards we are really talking about a very small amount of players. Shards can be archived indefinitely even, but just close them for newcomers and incentives moving away by making it free. Perhaps a house copy feature is feasible... where the players from dead shards can move their house to new housing lands on other shards made available especially for them. Earlier I came up with these floating islands in Malas for that. Could be cool.

Margrette

InLor said:

Margrette said:

Let's try something new for a suggestion and reverse the outcome:  Why not just ask existing players to branch out and make characters and build homes on some of these dead shards?  Why not give them some kind of an incentive to do so?

Sorry, I don't think it's feasible to resurrect some of these shards and with the limited resources the team ahs I think we need to simplify and fonsolidate. Incentives to move away from dead shards, not to them..

I think the work to close shards and try to placate the people who were affected by the closures would be much more extensive than coming up with ways to entice more people to play on quieter shards. Closing shards would likely drive away a number of players; encouraging people to spread out again might just bring some old players back.

InLor

Well, there are several ways to go about it. Disallow new chars. Give the remainder of people super-charged shard shields of choice or something like that. This would not be a lot of work. My intuition is that UO can have a second renaissance and grow, but it shouldn't cripple that by allowing people to spread to thinly.

Bilbo

This again.  What do you consider a small amount of players?  How many lost subs do you consider ok.  Why do you insists that in order for UO to work we have to play it your way.  UO has survived for 20 years the way it is and it will survive just fine as is.  I just ran around Drach Luna and I counted 41 paid accounts, how many Castles are there on Drach?  I think someone said that there was +50 castles per shard (tram and fel) so that is 100 accounts.  How many dead shards do you think there are and which shard are you going to force people to play, what Atl, I am sure all the WEST Coast players will love that.  

Meggie

Bilbo said:

This again.  What do you consider a small amount of players?  How many lost subs do you consider ok.  Why do you insists that in order for UO to work we have to play it your way.  UO has survived for 20 years the way it is and it will survive just fine as is.  I just ran around Drach Luna and I counted 41 paid accounts, how many Castles are there on Drach?  I think someone said that there was +50 castles per shard (tram and fel) so that is 100 accounts.  How many dead shards do you think there are and which shard are you going to force people to play, what Atl, I am sure all the WEST Coast players will love that.  

This

Bilbo

Here is another problem with your idea.  I have 7 chars per shard, what do you suggest I do with them, delete them?

Margrette

@InLor, you said in your first post you've been traveling shards. Which shards would you like to see closed?

Syncros

I liked what someone suggested in another thread to make "islands" where they could transfer their homes to. It would prob end up looking like ice isle with castles and keeps everywhere...

Larisa

We want to revitalize the ~dead~ shards....why close off character creation to them? We want MORE people there...how is disallowing people to create characters on these so-called dead shards helping in any way? I have seen more people come to Origin in the last few weeks.....people from Europa, Siege....THIS is what we need! Don't cripple them.

InLor

Syncros said:

I liked what someone suggested in another thread to make "islands" where they could transfer their homes to. It would prob end up looking like ice isle with castles and keeps everywhere...

I suggested that, yeah.. hehe

Margrette

Larisa said:

We want to revitalize the ~dead~ shards....why close off character creation to them? We want MORE people there...how is disallowing people to create characters on these so-called dead shards helping in any way? I have seen more people come to Origin in the last few weeks.....people from Europa, Siege....THIS is what we need! Don't cripple them.

I agree, Larisa.   I think of the Korean players I've met on some of those "dead" shards and I do not get the impression that they would have any interest in playing on another shard.  They would be gone as customers and that would really be a shame.

crunchnasty

I am on the west coast, no problem playing Atlantic in exchange for a higher populated shard base

InLor

crunchnasty said:

I am on the west coast, no problem playing Atlantic in exchange for a higher populated shard base

I play Atlantic from Europe and I'm fine.

InLor

Larisa said:

We want to revitalize the ~dead~ shards....why close off character creation to them? We want MORE people there...how is disallowing people to create characters on these so-called dead shards helping in any way? I have seen more people come to Origin in the last few weeks.....people from Europa, Siege....THIS is what we need! Don't cripple them.

I think a few are a lost cause and it's better to archive them and incentivize transferring out. Solutions for housing/amount of chars can be thought of. 

jaytin

I agree with Larisa on this. Merges or closures are not a good idea without having instanced housing. We saw during the artisan festival that some of the so-called 'dead' shards actually did really well, because they have a great, tight-knit community.

InLor

Bilbo said:

This again.  What do you consider a small amount of players?  How many lost subs do you consider ok.  Why do you insists that in order for UO to work we have to play it your way.  UO has survived for 20 years the way it is and it will survive just fine as is.  I just ran around Drach Luna and I counted 41 paid accounts, how many Castles are there on Drach?  I think someone said that there was +50 castles per shard (tram and fel) so that is 100 accounts.  How many dead shards do you think there are and which shard are you going to force people to play, what Atl, I am sure all the WEST Coast players will love that.  

They can copy their house to special Malas Islands. Or stay on their archived dead shard. No one talked about forcing anyone to transfer to a specific shard. Though I play Atlantic from Europe with a DSL connection and it's fine. 

Drachenfels is deader than dead. Anyone saying otherwise is delusional. Vendor search shows a handful of vendors only.. It's an old shard of mine so I checked there often. On peak hours there are a few people only.. probably can count them on two hands. Zero people at Luna bank on Friday evening. And I saw a new player in Haven and told them to go Europa since Drach is dead. They thanked me for it. It's not fair to new players to have coax them into playing virtually abandoned shards. 

InLor

A method would be to have people with chars on such shards still login to that shard, but they appear at their new house which is a floating Malas island on a new shard of their choosing. that would instantly solve housing/chars problem. 

InLor

jaytin said:

I agree with Larisa on this. Merges or closures are not a good idea without having instanced housing. We saw during the artisan festival that some of the so-called 'dead' shards actually did really well, because they have a great, tight-knit community.

Right, hence my suggestion of creating these floating islands where the houses are copied to. 

And people with chars on many dead servers logging on for some events doesn't really mean the shard is viable and good to keep around for new players to go into and find out there is virtually nothing there.