How to make UOR THRIVE and feel busy.

The other day someone did a !status in IRC and it showed 52k accounts...

52,000 accounts FIFTY TWO THOUSAND. As I am writing this post there are only 538 accounts online. A good portion of those are 1 player on 3 accounts.

So lets take worse case scenario 180 actual players.
Of those 180 players, how many are actually doing anything.

• Dungeons feel bare, there is almost 0 competition for spawns, maybe once every few hours you have to flee from a red.
• Even towns feel bare.
• Player run vendors are pretty eh, other than the few big named ones in Ocllo, DaBucs, and a few Yew Gate ones. (I remember almost every moongate house being a gold mine on live.)
• Champ spawns aren't really being done from what I can tell.

Now I have only been here since late October, so the no completion for spawns works in my favor so I can farm and get myself established but I am loving this server and want to see it populated and busy.
Maybe Chris getting back to be more involved will help growth and maybe bring back old members.
Maybe we need a new gold sink...Im not sure WHAT UOR needs to thrive but I would love to see it.
I still believe housing needs looked at(1 per account and how refreshing works). New players are sketchy to start here knowing they will have to pay 5x or more deed price for a larger home(in most cases)

What is everyones thoughts on getting newer (and older) players to play here?

I don't have the answers, just me rambling on.

Siege Perilous!

1 char per account

This is only true for keeps, castles and fortresses. Large towers are beeing sold recently for the range of deed price plus ~100k max. Large patios are sold for deed price + plus ~50k. Everything that is smaller can be placed by your own. There's plenty of villa and 2-L spots. For a new player the housing situation is not bad at all.

1 house per account? Why not! I think then 30-40% of all houses would fall or beeing demolished. The landscape would look desolate.

I don’t have any answers for you... But I will say you can’t compare UOR, or any free server, to OSI in its heyday. This game is 20 years old and there’s dozens of competing servers.

People create way more than 3 accounts at the beginning to get going.

Let's be realisitic here. UO is a very very old clunky game that is mainly played by nostalgic people in their 30s/40s and 50s, basically by the first MMORPG generation. How many of us are there world wide? 2, 3 or 5 thousand potential players who might be interested in still playing UO.

UOR has a great ruleset and a great community. You cannot get any better than this. When the UO Outland hype is cooled down in a couple of months we may have some returning players but in general UO Outlands shows at the moment what UO can achieve at best these days: approx 1000 players active.

I miss the "good old days" of OSI as well. Honestly I would play for 5-8 hours per day if it were at all possible. There is nothing the server or other players could do (aside from sending me a check in the mail big enough so I could quit my job) that would make me play more. I know many others in the same boat - they wish they could play more but cannot because of real life constraints.

I've farmed quite a bit (more than I should) during this Christmas event and did quite well. Very rarely do I go more than a few minutes before running into at least one other player in a dungeon. Sometimes I have gone overland even run into players there. Also, just 2 days ago I stumbled upon a small group doing a champ as well. I am in a few discord channels that are hopping with activity most of the day. So I guess depending on your perspective and expectations, you may or may not feel that the shard is "alive." Certainly I would love for the population to increase and I do what I can to help with that (assisting new players when I can) but I rarely find myself without other people to play with.

I've noted that in other threads people are frustrated with changes they feel are long-overdue. If it is true that there is a "flood" of people just waiting for a faction patch or something like that, then that would be great and I hope it happens. The only way I see that happening is with what we call "polite persistence" in my industry. Bitter complaints and insults to the shard admin on the forums hasn't worked yet, so I don't know why some of these guys [I'm not referring to OP] bother with it still.

Just sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. There are multiple posts similar to yours with dozens of great ideas and suggestions.

My recommendation is to check out this thread, and start promoting UOR

http://uorforum.com/threads/shard-advertising-how-to-help-players-find-renaissance.1130/

Unfortunately @Jeebs you joined this shard at a bad time. The UOR great depression started about a month before you joined. Towns never really felt alive here though besides Occolo since I've been here. If you want action the key is to join one of the guilds you see talking shit in trash talk. That's where you can find alot of this shards pvp and even pvm action taking place. The average player will think this shard is dead from the looks of town population but behind the scenes there are battles taking place daily at idocs/champ spawns and random guild territorys. The rivalrys fuel you to go to war and through hell anyway possible to beat your enemy its alot of fun.

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Btw I am in no way complaining about UOR. I am loving the shard and enjoying my time. It's near perfect and still "new" to me so I am able to stay active and not be bored.

Chris and staff have done an amazing job and I was highly impressed with my very first 10 mins if creating an account I was approached by a counselor welcoming me to the shard and offering assistance to the young program(that I declined).

Free @Treasureman 2019

Plants are the answer!
http://uorforum.com/threads/seeds-gardening-in-uor.6669/

Maybe if welfare plat was based on active hours instead of logged-in hours...

(I know that's a development challenge, but it's still on my wishlist)

Get rid of welfare all together and increase plat reward through activity.

I'm intrigued by your ideas, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Hell I wasn't even aware of welfare plat until I learned about [wallet to check my bond slots on a quest run last week.

Meh. I like it as is. I work a lot, and have a family. When we were all 15 and had all day long to play maybe, but brother, we aint anymore!

This year was my first year doing the Xmas event, and like the other events, I had a bunch of fun running around Britannia, running through the dungeons hunting for the mobs -- doing things I don't usually do. These events bring you to places you don't often go during the normal farming times where you hit those highest GPH places.

I posted some similar sentiments on another thread and I suspect these ideas aren't new but just some thoughts..

• Dungeons feel bare, there is almost 0 competition for spawns, maybe once every few hours you have to flee from a red.
  • More non-holiday events inspired by the holiday events could help here. April Pirates invasion, May zombie invasions, June feline invasions, etc -- with a series of mobs like we see with elves and the bosses spawning in dungeons and the overworld.
  • More server wide gather events, such as the one we had in Moonglow where people were selling things a few months back. That was a lot of fun and brought a lot of people out.
  • CTF and other events like that on some schedule/calendar so folks can plan to join.
  • Some random events that don't require staff intervention -- maybe a random overworld special boss spawn who yells out across the land or a random town invasion. Or, all those static locations on the map, broken runes, static houses, etc -- use those for random events.
  • Build a dungeon inspired by the new awesome Halloween dungeon. Maybe it opens once a month during a special event and can be used throughout the year.
• Even towns feel bare.
  • I mentioned before, but this server has some really talented deco people. Look at the AMIBs, level 7s, etc. Those are some really great looking designs. Unleash those folks in the towns to give towns a little more life, a little more "wear and tear" -- I believe this can be done while keeping the spirit of the era this shard represents in place. But this will make a town feel less bare, even if people aren't around.
  • Please, add a moongate that lets you get from West Brit Bank to Ocllo. I can count on both hands the number of people who told me in one form or another, after going to West Brit and seeing no one, assumed the shard is dead and left (folks who I ran into on Twitch mainly).
  • At least add some small little things to Ocllo Bank. I saw a GM setup some tables and chairs one night and thought awesome, though the next morning it was all gone.
  • Mentioned above, but let's have a monthly Saturday event in a random town like they did in Moonglow, people came and sold stuff, and others just stopped by to see the excitement. A "Saturday UOR Farmers Market" of sorts that hits different towns each week.

Again, I say all this with the disclaimer that I love UOR and none of this is done by a the snap of a finger -- just a few things I think would make the place we all love that much better.

Not sure this is an accurate statement. You can find most large houses around deed cost (assuming its not a premium spot), especially lately as the housing market has dipped a bit.

Welfare plat is what keeps me coming back to the server after my long breaks. Knowing that I have some extra cash waiting for me because I stay logged in while not active often pushes me to come back here vs play something/somewhere else.

It also keeps me somewhat engaged with server happenings, makes me check forums occasionally.

It’s not enough to diminish the rewards of active play but it is enough to buy a few bond slots or a new home for a fresh new start.

Just my .02.

People love having a fresh place to start over and race for things. Maybe not a server wipe but open up a brand new server. UO is only like 2 years older than EQ yet people flock back to that game every time they open up a fresh time locked progression server. Same goes for DAoC. Phoenix free shard just came out and its got 2500-3000 people logging in every day. Before that it was Uthgard. If there was a fresh server it would be packed with people trying to place the first castle and getting that prime real estate. Every hunting area will be packed again.