is it good?

I'm really having a great time on your server and I really do appreciate the years of hard work you've put into this place, and yes that guy who obviously made an account to hide behind is a douche but please read what Heretic posted and take it to heart because he is 100% right.

new system, I can get a rune book and ethy in one shot with a tight team and have. Old system, took me a bit to earn those.

*has been silenced, you know what I mean*

Chris, I personally also don't agree with the idea that utterly rich players are discouraging. If I did, I wouldn't be here playing for almost 2 years now, let alone writing extensive posts with the sole intention to help the server thrive with the experience I've earned. Who knows me knows that to this day I don't even have a blessed runebook and PKs and thieves can attest that I run with 7 runes on my backpack and basically the only platinum reward I hold (a potted plant) was earned on Treasureman's scavenger hunt. So, yeah, I agree with you on disagreeing with it.

But my experience on being almost completely dedicated to new player welcome and help unfortunately tells me different. That's what I'm thinking about. Want it or not, this is a game of collective dispute. It's not only about setting personal goals and accomplish them, unfortunately it's not. It's mainly a game of who have more. It's not a coincidence that the most expensive items to this day are items you can dress and show off to everyone. Also, nobody buys a 1000 platinum statue to keep it on their banks. They do it to put on their Fortress front view so the most people can see. I am certain we can agree on this paragraph.

So yes, this affects people game play. And for sure the new ones. I am no communist or a socialist for that matter, and I don't think that we have to share richness from rich people to poor people. But I strongly believe that we need a narrow distance between the new Young at Occlo and the richiest dude on the shard for the sake of its own health, and the current Harrower and the way it's being used as we know it is doing anything but helping on that matter. It's easy to see here: http://ps.lzm.me - these are the statistics on a new player guild channel. If you look at the "Last seen" column you will see how many people join, play for a while, and go. For a diverse amount of reasons, sure, but I am positive that this subject also influences it heavily, after talking with them for many days and experiencing the game together.

So I think this is a subject we need to address carefully aiming a good new player retention. For instance, the idea of limiting to 1000 platinum per Harrower and a 20 platinum cap per toon is good. It is a great reward already, let alone if you are clever and feisty and awesome and creative to do it 3-clienting and have your 60 share.

As I said, let's forget about groups, people, methods. Let's focus on what really matters. Player retention. Maybe you think this reward system is not messing with it, it's fine. I will continue trying to show evidence. But let's agree it's very far from doing good also, other than expanding the reach between the richest and the poorer. Sorry for my english.

As I told you @Chris I don't believe EVERYone's issue is WHO is getting 200 plat or not....it is the difference between this reward sytem the next highest reward given for an activity....

Now you told me that they do a lot of work to get there and they do, BUT lets look at what they do:

6 champions: ok they have to do these to get the skulls, I usually average 10-15 plat per champ on my one Char alone (sometimes more sometimes less). That is about 60ish plat to get skulls, more if some asshole steals the skull or makes off with it, or a champ get s raided when the boss is up because them i have to do another champ gaining a bit more plat....

60 plat per person ALREADY just for the skulls.....with ONE toon

Then even with one toon at the harrower I can make another 100 plat. (Not sure if the first harrower or the tentacles give plat to be honest so not counting that) Which makes the reward for ONE toon about 160 plat.

Now IF I am good enough I have 2-3 toons and walk away with a possible 320-480 Plat for all my work, which again WAS a LOT.


Now lets look at any other activity on shard:

Any ONE toon can make bout 8-12 plat PERIOD!

Which means even with 3 toons your looking at a whopping 24-36 plat.

1 toon=8-12 vs 160 and for 3 toons if your talented =24-36 vs 320-480


@Chris, that is a difference of 148 plat PER TOON.....i'ts the gap. If there were no plat at champs and they were only rewarded at the end it would still be a huge gap.

I don't know if I am right in how I have read everyone's concerns, but I think this is a big part of it. Every new change if going to need tweaks, that is all I am trying to say, while still respecting and appreciating ALL the work you do for us to be able to enjoy a game we love.

First thank you for replying to me @Chris, I really do appreciate it.

I can totally see how you could think it's that way, it's certainly a reasonable idea to have, but I'm telling you now, as a new player - it can be discouraging.

Now let me clarify - I don't want you to take all the beta-era veterans' loot from them and give it to me. I don't want you to give me a super special noob power scroll so I can steamroll through everything. I LIKE taking my time, and yeah if I got EVERYTHING right away that would suck. I don't think anyone here would disagree with that.

But I think a lot of folks don't remember what it's LIKE to be new - even the people who didn't start here 3/4 years ago likely started back in the 90s. It's not just wealth of gold or loot that puts new players at a disadvantage, it's also lack of knowledge that most veterans probably take for granted. It's easy to feel that "I'm starting the race while everyone else is on the final lap" kinda feeling. I'm not saying it IS the reality of the shard, but it's an easy impression to get - Heretic's post unfortunately backs this up.

Thankfully, you have a lot of really dedicated vets here who work to answer questions and get people involved. This includes some of the "troublemakers" in this conversation, on both sides, in my personal experience.

See this is the thing. I don't think people want "the same success with minimal effort." (I hope not at least) I think you and the people expressing concern both want something "fair," but I think the image of "fair" is different.

You want people who you see as putting in a lot of time and effort to be rewarded for it, and you think it's unfair to give people the same reward for less time/effort. (Am I on the right track there? I don't wanna put words in your mouth.)

They want people who they see as being shut out to have more of a chance to "catch up" and think it's unfair to tell them "get some valorite equipment and 15 years of skills or go home." (Again folks correct me if I'm talking out of my butt here)

Both sides make sense to me.

This is a huge challenge with any long running online game, I'd wager. You don't want to alienate the dedicated people who built you up. But you have to bring in new blood as well to keep things moving. I can't even imagine how hard that must be - god knows EA apparently can't figure it out! - so it's no wonder that there's controversy about what to do.

I am 100% with you here until the italicized part. I really don't think that anyone wants that to be the solution (although with all the arguing if you just threw up your hands and deleted the Harrower I honestly couldn't blame you). To be fair, saying that doesn't solve the problem, either. But I think everyone is hoping for something less extreme.

I can't comment about the old system example because I wasn't here, but is this new system newb anyone in particular? It's not me, but I'm only the most loudmouthed newb, I'm not a spokesperson. I really wish more new players would speak up in here about their impressions just for a balanced take -- maybe we could start a new thread specifically for new players to give their opinions? Would this be helpful to you?

See I think that these can be separate things. Obviously folks have been playing together for a while, there's gonna be history, it's going to paint new conflicts - that's how it goes. But I think that's the problem - the legitimate criticisms get lumped in with the old drama and no one can tell which is which anymore. Plus I think 90% of us on here have gotten to the age where we don't feel like taking anyone's crap anymore It's unfortunate.

I'm a liberal arts major so math is another language to me, but didn't someone point out that that's a lot more than were being summoned before the change? Has the population changed a lot since then (again I seriously don't know and want to learn)? If it has, then that's fine.

This I do like, truthfully. I rolled up an account on another shard that opened recently (I'll be honest, I wanted to see what a "gold rush" was like) and thanks to their donation shop there are already people running around on etherial fire beetles or whatever the heck they are. And I have to eyeroll. I really do respect that you don't pander for easy money like that. That's why I hope this discussion can bring something positive.

And I hope you don't think I'm picking on you with this huge essay, Chris - I wrote this out because I really do like this place and I want to help it move forward in a constructive way.

I must be doing something wrong, as I do not average anywhere near 10-15 plat per champ per character.

As i said it was averaged and about that much, I run a mage tamer, I am always on my animals close to the mobs, and i was counting Boss plat too...sometimes it is 8 sometimes it is 16....it depends on the champs, if i am there from popping it to boss death.

That is also why I used the low end in my total of 60 plat....most people I know make 8-12 plat at every champs, some may make less, but remember I also wasn't counting gold, jewels, regs and all the other drops...still easily equaling a gold value of about 500K between all SIX champs.

Also even without the champ gold/plat/drops the difference between the end game of 12 plat vs 100 plat is huge....just saying....

Disregarding the other parts of this ongoing argument, there are still many other instances where new players instantly become rich through other avenues that take even less time/dedication. It's not uncommon to see some lucky new bastard that happened to kill the right leprechaun and landed himself sandals worth a few million. Or at anniversary time the lucky few that randomly get a mask dye or sandals, instantly becoming richer than I have ever been in my two years here. I am in favor of the old system even if we dumb down the plat each character received. It was just a good time going there and fighting/stealing with the rest of the server as it was one of the rare moments where people weren't holed up in their homes and actually interacting with one another.

every tamer has the same opportunity to succeed here

what's the problem?

Bad, @wylwrk! Go to your corner!

How is that any different from the seasonal events?

It also keeps the economy in check. If a rich fuck wants more platinum they have the option to buy platinum from said newbies or are forced to champ a shit ton more often.

Its not high risk. I have 2 murderers and 3 tamers. Are you really going to run your murderer into a well organized 3 boxing taming group with any kind of effect? & I sure wouldn't risk my 2 stat murderers in that horde. What options do you have to interfere with any champ spawn without bringing them to tears and crying to daddy because they were "harassed"?

...also its not very fucking hard to champ.


I said from the very beginning of the harrower changes discussion that this shit will not work. Dont go blaming the playerbase for not bringing this up sooner. We had multiple irc convo's about it. There is no changing Telamon's logic.



WHO AMONGST YOU COMPLAINED ABOUT/DURING THE OLD SYSTEM?
WHO AMONGST YOU COMPLAINED ABOUT/DURING THE NEW SYSTEM?

Was there 1 single thread where someone was bitching about the old system before you stepped in and deemed there to be a problem?

Seasonal events are not player activated and as such not as requisite of a communal or group effort.

I have one murderer and one tamer. I will run them into anything I feel like with varying success (mostly fail). If I had a mind to put a stop to these people who are doing so well at the Champion/Harrower spawn, I would just make three tamers and get all my friends to, so we could go jock the champs on our blues and take skulls and plat.


Maybe we should just disable stat-loss at Champion spawns (as has been suggested), so we can all run three red tamers and not have to worry about suffering risk when we want to interfere with other players' in-game activities.

This thread is not being driven by fear mongering, envious, haters. This sounds like hysterics.

People put in the exact same amount of work in the prior system. The spawns required the exact same amount of mobs to be killed to progress them, and the harrower was the same as well. In the past some guilds like O^S, TT, and Vella would do the work to gather the skulls and felt encouraged to invite the community to the harrower because it had no negative impact on the reward they would receive.

What I think is unfair is saying that players were getting ethereals in 3-4 weeks of joining the server. I don't believe this was true. That players were getting effortless platinum by tossing a few ebolts. That people want to not reward hard work. That the people posting in this thread are here to criticize the server or hate some few unnamed players. That players are offering no solutions (they are, quite a few of them.) That players in this thread want to punish others for working hard. These statements are hyperbole and marginalize the voices in this thread that I think have mostly been constructive and overly considerate in their posts.

Platinum has for the first time in the history of the server dropped in price in the past month - as demonstrated in #uortrade and the trade forum. The reason is obviously that 10 harrowers were worked in two weeks by small groups of players. Which says to me that the 'flood of effortless plat' is worse now than it was in march2015 where Vella hosted 10 harrowers in a day and chose to invite the community. And that event was an extreme outlier beyond comparison.

There has not been a single public harrower since the patch. Many players including wealthy veterans count this as a community loss.

For the record I WAS one of those newbs (and a true newb as this was/is my FIRST UO experience ever) and it took me 6-7 months to buy my first blessed runebook deed and I STILL have no ethy (still working on it). I went to almost all the public harrowers and I used to sell my plat to finance my char building (think my first 3-4) and buy a small tower. Then finally started saving for that Blessed RB.

@shaun84 was 1 week older than me and had played UO before and he didn't get a Blessed RB til Vella gave him one a few months ago...and he still has no Ethy.

We both worked our way From small Towers all the way up to a shared keep slowly, the back to smaller houses and finally just a couple months ago back to our own individual keeps.

This has taken me about a years time and I haven't completed or in most cases even started what I wish to accomplish here.

I would honestly think that as far as player retention goes, it's more detrimental when a newbie hops on IRC with a question and everyone trips over themselves to give them a free small house or whatever to "get them started". I would imagine this has happened more times than the narrative given that newbies were getting ethys and blessed runebooks because of the public harrowers. At least in the latter case, they were actually playing the game and involved in a community event.

I half agree, half disagree with this comment. I completely believe that this happens more often than the 3-week ethys, because I've actually seen IRC folks offer houses (I missed the tripping over themsleves part though, guess that's the rub of living in an Asian timezone). And I agree that playing the game/getting involved is important.

But please don't underestimate what a difference that first house can make here. It's HUGE.

One of my first few weeks here, I was piddling around Occlo still with nowhere else to go. I was hanging out in the mage tower basement provoing demons onto evil mages and watching them steal wizard shoes. I met X-Factor down there and chatted a bit, he offered to take me out and get a house. My mind was blown. He got me some non-crappy armor (I was like...3 AR at the time? I didn't notice what AR was yet), and took me on my first ride around Britannia - something I love to do now. He helped me pick a spot, taught me how to place a house, and before I knew it I had my very own little sandstone.

I'm using that sandstone right now to train most of my characters. In the meantime, having that little house gave me the bug to want more, BIGGER houses (bought a log cabin with money I earned, now I'm dreaming of an L-shape). Plus the experience made me think of vets here more like big brothers than Big Brother, you know? It was a huge part of player retention for me so far. It really did "get me started."

But I guess the difference between my story and your post is the level of involvement for both vet and newb. It didn't feel like a handout so much as a rad adventure dodging Leprechauns AND Easter bunnies to find an open place and the entire thing was in-game. If he had just tossed the keys to me over IRC I'm sure the feeling would have been different.