Shard Activity

Player run tournaments are fun but not easily balanced and very easily disrupted. Sure, I like to drive some sloppy old vehicles at times, but when I want to be sure I'll get to work....I take the newer one with a better service history.

OMFG, pick a topic already. There's an entire thread dedicated to that patch you're upset about that hasn't even been fully coded yet. As for getting pulled for a tourney, I don't think he intended for people who sign up to go roam the world. I could be mistaken but I think he means pulled from the waiting area at the event.

Liberation's fight nights also had several small showings because people didn't like him, or various other reasons. No one playing on the shard is going to have a personal difference with the shard and boycott events as a result. They know everything will be clean, balanced and fair which results in a good time. After that kind of fun, taking a beating in the field is much easier to deal with.

to your point, Blaise, and while some might have failed to show up because of their personal feelings for me, many good pvpers did not participate in the Grimoire tournaments because they recognized that it was a community-building exercise more-so than it was a tool to measure skill. this was reflected in the most common rule-set which favored skill-less templates like that of Perseus.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

staff: please take these not as negative comments on my behalf, but rather as an offering of insight into a community that you may not have much visibility into.

to some degree i have to agree with Mes that our problem is social. however our thoughts diverge on the old chicken/egg adage. he believes that our stagnant pvpers force out new players and thus cause the pvp community to be small, whereas i believe the following list forms a filter which encourages most pvpers to leave the server, thus leaving only a few special personalities behind.

1) this is somewhat of a trammel server. (targetted trammel is a kind of trammel)*
2) a general lack of enthusiasm about focusing development efforts on PvP-related items*
3) no skill-balls (a truly indefensible complaint)

* this is not a condemnation, but rather a commonly-held perception which insular sections of the population profess more adamantly at some times than at others.

WRT #2 - a few currently broken/wanting things:
- heat of battle (this is a big deal)
- 0 damage swings (this is a big deal)
- 0 damage punches not interrupting spells
- no [pouch commands
- no automated pvp tournaments
- no mount fatigue
- there is not enough awareness of target nearest macros for there to even be discussion on it, even though staff has announced razor negotiate being implemented

failture to address (with either code or comment) the above items, coupled with statements from the staff suggesting that any time spent developing pvp systems is time wasted, makes some people (me included) feel like second-class players.

i'm not saying that fixing any of these things in any combination will make pvp so much better here that everyone will flock to this server, however not addressing them when they are called out sends a message to any would-be community member about how their playstyle is accepted by the staff and about how much they are valued as players. (no, i'm not saying that staff doesn't value all of their players.) it is a public relations problem.

that all being said, UOR has the best foundation ever built for a PRS and if we can reform our image in the eyes of the collective pvp community then the choice of server will be clear to literally everyone except the greedy administrators of other servers.

It might be good then for the pvp community to not get so bent out of shape when the community disagrees with them, even in part. What I've seen in the last two years have been many changes and any time it has to do with PvP, all hell breaks loose and people are at each other's throats about OP this and NERF that and from the perspective of a sole admin, I would likely back burner all that headache as well. Working on systems that are widely applauded and enjoyed by the majority of the player base, is probably enjoyable. Whereas working on systems that people are going to fight about to no end, is like going to the dentist. Sure, it's gotta be done but I don't know anyone who likes it.

Whenever big faction discussions have come up, people argue back and forth about opinions on the matter and without common ground for points to move forward on, it just won't move forward. While the points you bring up are valid and not really related to factions, they are in the same huge bag that's starting to burst at the seams.

I wasn't trying to downplay the positive contribution the Grimoire brought to the shard. Just more the point that bias holds sway at such events. Players don't like players and have their issues and despite my issues with you in past or present, I still attended some events there too. However, being that you just called one of your most winning participants skill-less, makes you sound like an asshole who didn't appreciate his dedication to attendance when the rules suited that template. More fuel for the fires of why everyone didn't attend I guess and absolute evidence as to why completely unbiased shard-run tournaments are going to have better turn-out, results and consistency.

This thread seems to be about shard activity so I will drop by and add my two cents and sidestep this other conversation.
Here are the things that I think might help increase shard activity.

1) Server hot spots
Places where people naturally gather increase player interaction and I believe that deep down player interaction is what all UO players desire, even if it's not always seemingly nice player interaction. Hot spots draw people outside of their houses and increase player interaction and makes the server a more exciting place.
There are examples of times that UOR had hot spots generating a lot of fun, though I can't think of any hot spots that are currently seeing activity. In the past, the rat spawn in despise and the valentine's spawn outside of wrong were great hot spots which players showed up to kill monsters together or pvp against each other. I enjoyed the activity created by both of these places when they were active.

2) Non-instanced monster areas
This kind of touches on hot spots, but I think a lot of the new stuff that has been produced for UOR is either instanced areas or newbie dungeons which most of the active older players don't see.
This touches on the hot spot thing, but people need a reason to come out of their houses and safe areas to do their playing, it will generate more player interaction. Obviously PKs are a concern, which leads me to the next point.

3) Mechanics that increase risk to PKs
Before people whine at me for a trammy witch hunt, I'll remind everyone that I have been a very prolific PK in the past so hopefully you'll add weight to my opinions accordingly.
The current crop of PKs uses hit and run tactics where the beat the monster slayers up quickly and bail before people looking to kill them could possibly catch up with them. Currently to actually catch PKs to bring them to justice you have to ghost or otherwise scout all of the hot spots very thoroughly and have enough people on call to show up and gank them before they get away, it's quite difficult. The current ruleset makes it very easy for PKs to run away, with most groups of reds being wealthy players who have houses every 15 feet and gate bots on top of that and it makes it very easy for them to escape even the worst situations.
My suggestion here is that the rules be tweaked so that reds who are flagged criminal cannot hop gates, recall, or run into houses.

I also don't like the current heat of battle rules with regard to oranges, I would also like it if oranges couldn't run into houses or gates as well but that's not really related to server activity.

4) Staff run events
On OSI there were seers that ran events and story lines and such for players relatively regularly. I would like to see something like a seer program here, it would involve trusting some people with limited powers but I think there are some talented people on the server who could run these events well and give the RP and monster slaying crowds some fun events and create buzz for the sever.

I don't follow this. We have automated duels here. If people truly wanted a measure of skill, that's available 24-7. IMO, people don't want a tool to measure skill.

I think these are somewhat fair. Although, this is only a "trammel" server compared to where many of us came from. Don't forget, there are many servers out there that, literally, are Trammel servers.

These, I mostly disagree with. Prior pvp-successful shards did not have heat of battle at all. Zero damage swings, while frustrating, also allow for higher-end swings too. Trust me, there would be many more complaints if instead of alternating between hits of 0 and 20, you just hit for 10 every time. At least with it the way it is, you can get a couple of lucky rolls and capitalize on it if you're good.

Not sure what a [pouch command does, but again perhaps that's evidence that it's not strictly needed.

Mount fatigue is, IMO, impossible to get right.

As for Target Nearest macros, one way to add awareness might be to explain what you're referring to.

so we agree. neat.

cool. i didn't really list them because i think they're important. they are things that have been called out and not prioritized.

which servers are those? (name servers that no one plays and prove my point)

i feel like you missed the point of that list. re-read my post i guess.

Prior to turning off automated events, UOSA was one of the most popular PvP heavy shards out there, as far as I understand it. There is no heat of battle flagging there. There are also teleport and invisibility jewelry/items though. The point being though is that it was a pvp-successful shard until they closed the system that provided consistency and leader boards/rankings that are just a huge burden for the players. You know the challenges, quite intimately, of providing consistent and detail oriented events for other players and there's a reason that no one's touting years of time doing so. You didn't even run your own events the entire time, as you went on hiatus and your former enemies ran it for you.

The biggest difference I can see between PvM changes and PvP changes are the way they are addressed by the community. For the most part, PvM/Non-PvP changes are like "Hey, you know what would be cool..." and folks are like "Yeah!". Whereas PvP changes are like "What do you guys think about this?" and folks are like "If X, Y and/or Z don't change, fuck this shard I quit, it's garbage blah blah spell delay, poop." After so much of that I'd be ready to throw the switch entirely. I'd probably just blow it off and work on shit that gets a lot of approval from the least vocal crowd out there and delights me as well.

Guess it's kind of a shame we lynch-mobbed the one guy on the admin team that was passionate about combat, because he insisted on taking part as well.


I like Napo's idea regarding flagging preventing recall, gate use and house entry but should also apply to consensual combat flagging for warring, factions and O/C.
Also, for hotspots I think the crimp on Champs may have just gone overboard but I haven't done one in long enough to know first hand if it's not worth it or folks are just sad it's not a platinum pump like it once was.

yes, please.

no one was mad at sandro for being an admin. he left because he broke the rules and telamon had to remove him from staff.

i do agree, however, that we need someone doing what sandro was supposed to be doing. i don't believe that they should be allowed to play, though.

The same argument could be used about your comment on needing horse fatigue. Cherry picking gets you no where.

IPY-1 was the most successful PVP shard but that was in 2003-2004 when the only solid competitor was Metro and UOGamers. Metro didn't have the population, and UOGamers was easily pushed aside for obvious reasons. UOSA definitely takes #2.

IPY1 didn't have a single event, people PvP'd for the love of the fight. 10 years later, we're extremely lazy people who want instant fights on a game that's losing interest and players fast. Add on the fact that there is more quality competition in the UO space right now than there has ever been and you're on the right path. UOSA's events had little to do with people leaving when you look at everything going on with UO and free shards.

i didn't say that we needed horse fatigue.

re-read my post.

This is probably up my alley, as I think I probably knew more than him about the mechanics of weapons and armor and stuff. And the part I don't know as much as him about, spell timing and such, actually seems to be in pretty good shape here. And as far as "not playing", I think I'm fairly insulated from this type of thing on this shard.

However I just don't think there's any way that some new PvP Czar is going to be able to please everyone, with respect to heat of battle, house hiding, weapon and armor changes, 0 damage punches, etc. So having Chris decide it is in some ways better since he's a little harder to complain about, given all of the other everything he does for the shard.

i conceed that you and nightwolf seem to be brilliant at mathmatical figuring (so much so that i fear this is an attribution which i'm not even qualified to make). however, and as napo has shown, there are certain elements of actual field play whose impact, i suspect, might elude someone who is not so familiar with the current conditions of play. that being said, it is hard to have that insight without actually playing, which goes contrary to my previous post w/r/t staff not playing..