Time to clean house: archive dead shards

InLor

So accounts of these shards would be copied onto islands on the new shard of choosing here. It would look quite cool. 

Margrette

InLor said:

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. 

A "lost cause"?? Wow. Such arrogance.

Meggie

Margrette said:

InLor said:

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. 

A "lost cause"?? Wow. Such arrogance.

     I believe he is ready to apply for being next UO Procucer  Mesanna will appreciate 

InLor

Nothing to do with arrogance. People's nostalgia is blinding them to certain moves that are normal moves in an mmorpg's evolution. When a shard is a total ghost town during peak hours and has been for a long time, it's time to think about it.

Dukarlo

I think for the most part players have taken it upon themselves to consolidate the shards. That's why Atlantic has fairly healthy population. If you want to play uo as it was intended with many other players Atlantic is your best option. I moved there a couple years ago along a few friends from gl and run into quite a few people from gl as well. Atlantic certainly has its problems but is by far the best option to play with other players.  I was to sentimental for the longest time about gl but after moving I never regretted it.

Sable

InLor said:

Nothing to do with arrogance. People's nostalgia is blinding them to certain moves that are normal moves in an mmorpg's evolution. When a shard is a total ghost town during peak hours and has been for a long time, it's time to think about it.

So lose the paying subscriptions of that shard for what?  This suggestion basically pisses away revenue.  Stupid stupid stupid.

InLor

Dukarlo said:

I think for the most part players have taken it upon themselves to consolidate the shards. That's why Atlantic has fairly healthy population. If you want to play uo as it was intended with many other players Atlantic is your best option. I moved there a couple years ago along a few friends from gl and run into quite a few people from gl as well. Atlantic certainly has its problems but is by far the best option to play with other players.  I was to sentimental for the longest time about gl but after moving I never regretted it.

Yep. This.

What people also don't get that it really hurts retention when someone spends a week on a dead shard and eventually gets frustrated because there is virtually no community. Magincia bazar is empty, places are empty, no competition, no guilds, no guilds, etc. This is not what the game is designed around.

Some of these servers have like 12 people max playing and 30 from Atlantic for an EM event... but day to day active players are unacceptably few. 

Overall UO has too many loose ends and spread too thin. Too many empty shards, two clients, etc. This is really unfortunate.

I would start by doing something simple: no new char creation on these shards from now on and free transfers out. Second phase could be rollout of house copy for those who have houses there they care about.

InLor

Sable said:9

InLor said:

Nothing to do with arrogance. People's nostalgia is blinding them to certain moves that are normal moves in an mmorpg's evolution. When a shard is a total ghost town during peak hours and has been for a long time, it's time to think about it.

So lose the paying subscriptions of that shard for what?  This suggestion basically pisses away revenue.  Stupid stupid stupid.

It actually boosts revenue when a game goes f2p and people have clearer, fewer choices of properly populated shards that promote player retention. You are not seeing the big picture.

And no one said they are lost subscriptions. I have suggested things like house copy to islands in Malas on other shards, shard to shard coupling where you log in to shard x logs you in to shard y from now on. Your house remains available in purgatory for as long as you like until you pick an island spot on a new shard. 

As for the numbers.. the team can crunch them. But several shards are clearly total ghost towns.

Davo

waste of time even talking about this again. nay

Sable

It isn't just the house , it is the history.  If I'm losing location, if I am losing my town banners, if I am losing the old roleplaying haunts, I'm not playing.  You lose all my accounts.  It's the money in hand versus the maybe someone new pays as much money as me (unlikely).

InLor

An archived shard could still stay open to be visited for its history.

InLor

Sable said:

It isn't just the house , it is the history.  If I'm losing location, if I am losing my town banners, if I am losing the old roleplaying haunts, I'm not playing.  You lose all my accounts.  It's the money in hand versus the maybe someone new pays as much money as me (unlikely).

How many accounts do you pay for?

Margrette

It would be nice if the dev team would let us know if this is even under consideration.

Margrette

InLor said:

So accounts of these shards would be copied onto islands on the new shard of choosing here. It would look quite cool. 

I would hate playing with my house stuck in all that blackness.  It's depressing.

Margrette

This whole subject is depressing.  I really think some people keep bringing it up time and time again because of its trolling value.

Sable

InLor said:

Sable said:

It isn't just the house , it is the history.  If I'm losing location, if I am losing my town banners, if I am losing the old roleplaying haunts, I'm not playing.  You lose all my accounts.  It's the money in hand versus the maybe someone new pays as much money as me (unlikely).

How many accounts do you pay for?

32

InLor

Some things are some things aren't. Things change. Two years ago so many players flamed me saying the CC resolutions would neeeever be updated. Here we are.

Just like UO would neeeever go f2p, right?

I love UO and its history, but seriously part of the playerbase is blinded by selfish nostalgia and some are very negative. Any suggestion (not neccessarily talking about this one) is said to be useless, deemed to never happen, etc. 

InLor

Sable said:

InLor said:

Sable said:

It isn't just the house , it is the history.  If I'm losing location, if I am losing my town banners, if I am losing the old roleplaying haunts, I'm not playing.  You lose all my accounts.  It's the money in hand versus the maybe someone new pays as much money as me (unlikely).

How many accounts do you pay for?

32

Please excuse me, but how is that even possible? What do you need so many accounts for? 

InLor

Margrette said:

This whole subject is depressing.  I really think some people keep bringing it up time and time again because of its trolling value.

I have stated my reasons for bringing it up and they have nothing to do with trolling.

Sable

InLor said:

Sable said:

InLor said:

Sable said:

It isn't just the house , it is the history.  If I'm losing location, if I am losing my town banners, if I am losing the old roleplaying haunts, I'm not playing.  You lose all my accounts.  It's the money in hand versus the maybe someone new pays as much money as me (unlikely).

How many accounts do you pay for?

32

Please excuse me, but how is that even possible? What do you need so many accounts for? 

For the houses they hold.  I won't even mention how many accounts of mine are in Endless Journeys  .  I actually own most of the houses in New Magincia Pacific and I have groups of houses that comprise other roleplaying towns.  If you want, go hop on Pacific and check the houses out.  They are all connected via teleporters so you can jump through them all.

Also, based on this argument, why not limit all returning player to Atlantic?  Would that satisfy you?  Or do you believe you are on a shard that would benefit from this?  I don't think Pacific would be a shard that was eliminated, but I wouldn't stand for it and I wouldn't wish it on players on other shards either.  I want everyone to have the same hope that their returning players will come home in time and enjoy the game again and stay.  I've already seen a large number of new players and old vets returning home on Pac.

InLor

Sable said:

InLor said:

Sable said:

InLor said:

Sable said:

It isn't just the house , it is the history.  If I'm losing location, if I am losing my town banners, if I am losing the old roleplaying haunts, I'm not playing.  You lose all my accounts.  It's the money in hand versus the maybe someone new pays as much money as me (unlikely).

How many accounts do you pay for?

32

Please excuse me, but how is that even possible? What do you need so many accounts for? 

For the houses they hold.  I actually own most of the houses in New Magincia Pacific and I have groups of houses that comprise other roleplaying towns.  If you want, go hop on Pacific and check the houses out.  They are all connected via teleporters so you can jump through them all.

Okay, I may do that.

Margrette

InLor said:

I have stated my reasons for bringing it up and they have nothing to do with trolling.

Do you have a list of shards you think should be "archived"??

InLor

Margrette said:

InLor said:

I have stated my reasons for bringing it up and they have nothing to do with trolling.

No, that's an assessment that needs to be made with backend data. Something only the UO team has. But it's clear from visits in peak hours a few shards are ripe for it. Drachenfels is a clear example. People should definitely free transfers out from a shard like that.

Larisa

I think you bring up valid points InLor..you're reasonings are sound, you don't come off as condescending or argumentative, you bring good things to the table and I wish more people would do the same.

As a counter offer, I would like to see, on the shard selection screen, something about....hell I don't know I'm thinking as I'm typing which is never good lol but something that will MAKE people want to go to the lower populated shards...I mean...there ARE people around, just some tend to not talk in General Chat...take Siege..which people ALWAYS say is a ~dead~ shard...and it's nowhere even close to that...same with Origin...we are around! I just want to see a way to get more players onto these shards, not close them off and leave them to die.

Meggie

If the only -valid- point in this idea is to prevent new player from logging in a 'dead' shard, then it's very easy to implement an advice about the shards and for example say (recommended) for some shards, after that the player does what he wants. And let live all the shards like before, because anyway it's not that that will 'save' UO

Margrette

Why not just show how many players are logged into a shard when you are the shard selection screen?

Bilbo

InLor said:

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. 

I does not matter what you think.  I gave you numbers and all you do is say vendor search.  Give us some numbers.  There are over 100 paid accounts on Drach, I could care less how many people you saw.  Those are paid subs and have every right to play their game their way and not yours.  Quit ducking the hard questions.

Bilbo

How do I get from lets just say Atl because you got your way and now I want to get back to my castle on Baja, how does this xfer work?  Will it be like the shard Xfer and will you be giving us back our Vet rewards that will no longer be needed because the shards are not there any longer.  Come on now answer the hard stuff.  Pretend you are Bonnie and you have to convince the CEO of BS to go to EA with your plan.  What % of players are you willing to lose to save UO because without advertisement you will not gain any subs.

DM_Wyvern

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?

Hi Magrette! As a new player, I have no intention of spending time in high population shards like Atlantic. It is my preference to game in quieter shards and I like your idea to dream up ways to incentivize both new players and established vets to check out low population shards. 

Do you have any initial suggestions here? 

Bilbo

Good for you @Grimjack not everybody wants to play on Atl.