first i want to say i dont want to offense anybody here..im just very very sceptical.. for what did you make this shard ? what will be so special aobut it that everybody wants to play on it ? i guess you dont want to end like uoPerilous, DefianceUO or UOrevived with their 30 ppl avg on ? well maybe dfi can still be saved with the "big launch weekend" coming but i dont expect too much tbh.. what is difference on your shard ? and what went wrong on the other UO:R shards in your oppinion ? did you learn from any mistakes ? or did you allready know what will happen ? who knows maybe you are "the Guy" and your server will be packed..or will your shard just be another ghost town in the list of joinuo.com ? are you dedicated to the shard, love uo and plan to have a perfect launch and also take your time for working seriously on your shard ? ? or are you another busy guy working even more then fulltime and even working on the launchday of your shard ? u know the UO community hasnt seen a decent UO:R shard owner in the last years ? i wish you the best of luck with this shard really appreciate when someone is trying to bring UO:R back.. i have a stream on twitch.tv where i stream and compare the different UO shards...maybe i will stream about this one too.. greetings Zailm
I think your asking good questions. Starting on a new shard is a big time investment even if a lot of it can be macroed. I cant speak for the guys that run the show here but so far I have nothing but good things to say about the staff. They spend a lot of time in IRC with us answering questions and keeping us updated on shard news. When bugs and things come up and people post about it on the forums they have been pretty quick to fix things. A good number of people are starting migrate over here from USOA which has some issues all its own (all servers do) but a good community from my little experience there so they are welcomed here. The community here is very helpful and laid back, I think it has a strong base to last a long time. Only time will tell......
in fact: only time will tell thats right..but i would really like a statement from staff u know in beta the staff are allways very dedicated, fix things fast, talk with the players..then after launch they just lean back..some of them dont even show up anymore (the owners)..they just let their conseilours do everything (fixing bugs, implenting new things, events). most common excuse for not showing up or beeing slow at implementing and fixing stuff is: they are busy at work, they are moving house.... actualy the players dont care if you are rich and move into your next beautiful villa..we really dont care i was reading abit on the webpage and y i like some of the ideas for this shard. i also noticed there is some uosa crowd moving over here..im just wondering how/why..because its t2a..i was expecting more like uo:r players from hybrid, perilous and old dfi..any explenation for this ? maybe because it seems like there will be player ran towns here like on uosa ? the only issue i had with that shard was teleporting/invis jewelerey/clothes..1on1 is just not happening there because they have a teleport/recall macro (dont even need to cast telport spell with magic jewelery, its instant) well thanks for the answer Mikanele.. i just hope this isnt another shard which has a good beta and good launch (more then 100ppl) and then after 2 months its down to 30 clients avg instead of growing up to +500 ppl.. every uo:r shard does so and its really sad to see it........ some shard owners also fail because they focus too much on their own project and dont have any clue whats going on in the uo scene.. some of them cant even tell the 3 most populated freeshards because they just lack of knowledge. some of them dont even know what other shards of the same era are around.. im not joking..this all happend allready.. greetings Zailm
The staff here have a VERY longterm plan to make this shard successful. Counselors will be given no privileges to change or do anything in game besides answer pages as well. The plan right now isn't to shoot for some giant launch or spam the joinuo websites either. If staff were concerned with the overall # online, they would have allowed 3 accounts. The goal here is to promote being active and not 90% afk like most shards. There is a plan in place though to start advertising once we hit launch. Right now I think staff is happy with the # online we have, since we are still testing and fixing things. You don't want a crowd before things are in place and fixed, or you risk losing people. Once launch hits I would expect the # of people here to continually increase at a decent rate. In the end the players make the shard. This shard is UOR without all of the trammel. They are sticking to the main UOR mechanics, but not excluding other useful things if they make the game play better, such as buff/debuff icons: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=269 You might want to check out this post if you haven't seen it yet, people have been discussing why they love it here already: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=288 A few other things that will set this shard apart from ALL others is this. No donations whatsoever. Even if you want to donate you will not be able to. This shard is being created for the players and to give everybody a place to reside that they have always wanted, not just a clever way to bank off of peoples donation money. The staff here has actually hired a small professional team of programmers which is really nice. And after launch the community will be voting on many of the changes that would take place. The goal is for minimal staff involvement (truly automated/player started events) and things of that nature, but they will not just disappear. Its early so sorry if this is a giant ramble and makes no sense. I likely left out a TON of stuff lol, kid kept me up all night and I'm exhausted.
thanks for the answer Hatecrime! i understand that the maingoal isnt to have a big population but to have a decent shard.. but we really need to face reality here..if you tell somebody about a new shard they will ask how long it is up and how many players it has..if you tell him the shard launched 2 weeks ago and has only 80 ppl on, he will tell you that he doesnt want to play on that failshard..a shard beeing up and not growing (or only growing slowly) allready fucked up.. u can see that on the votesites like joinuo.com..these shard which promised that their population is growing slowly and they are sure it will have big pop, are still at the same online count..well most are even lower now.. its not Ultima Online in 1997..there are as many shards as sand on the beach (sorry we say it like this in german ) there is NO NEED to wait for a shard to grow..not in 2012...sorry if i say so..u can think i have a big mouth and should make my own shard if im not happy... but it has to be a blast from beginning!!! i really mean a blast from day1 (launchday) ofc it still has chance to grow..but it will more attract the ppl who are looking for a special ruleset etc..the ones who are looking for a crowded awesome shard are allready gone.. dont take UOSA as an example..because uosa is a princess and all the others are frogs.. i was reading about the buff icons..very very nice ..i also saw they worked on some of the houses to make it better which is awesome imo.. donations: its funny how you see Light on the defiance forum begging for his shard..saying that its not possible to maintain the hardware which is needed for a shard wihtout donations.. and here we have the other side..a shard which doesnt even want donations..silly is that ppl are still believing this silly man and really pay him money.. there should be still the possibility to donate wihtout getting any handouts in return..i mean if i love the shard i also want to support it. since there is no monthly fee. really love the idea of automated events..i was told by some other shard owners they dont want to implement it..because they dont want to make their shard feel like everything is automated and there is no staff..and then in the event they never had time to organize events or the events were just crappy..not not crappy..i mean real crap.. you say the goal is to not have 90% of the ppl in town afk..any idea how they are gonna make this happen ? btw i must disagree with one thing you say..you say: in the end the players make the shard..imo this is completely wrong..EVERYTHING depends ONLY on the shard owner. look at uorevived what players did with the shard..and it died..look at dfi what players make their..it has allready more then 1 player ran public library..and Light is still letting his shard die. thanks for the link..monster difficulty sounds very interesting..makes me want to try out one of your dungeons..there is a player in that thread who says there is no mount refresh and its good..hmm why ? i really liked that on uosa..on uo:r shards your mount is like on cocain it never has to rest...mount refresh is so easy with the correct macro. ps: anyone knows when this shard will go out of beta ? sorry but im sick of beta testing..(wasted alot of time on betas for nothing in the end) again sorry for beeing so sceptical! and for my bad english..if it was my first shard i would just dl the files and log into your beta shard and be happy.. keep up the work! greetings Zailm
ok thanks for the info..i will be ready for that launch day.. now lets test how long it takes for the staff to answer this thread greetings Zailm
This might not address all your questions Zalim, but I can assure you that this shard has been planned from the ground up as a long term project. Rather than trying to re-invent Ultima like other shards, or mold it to some vision of the shard owner the staff is committed to creating an accurate reproduction of the Renaissance era of Ultima online. However that comes with some caveats. Can you re-create the UOR era perfectly and build a successful shard? No. OSI tried this and even OSI with a multi million dollar budget failed. However we feel strongly that we can take the best aspects of the Renaissance era, remove the mistakes OSI made(such as trammel, player punishment, exploits) and create a thriving Renaissance era shard. You can see some examples of this in our changes to the castle and the keep designs. Pretty much everyone you meet who has ever played Ultima Online will complain about a keeps empty wells, or a castles massive courtyard. You can read more about those changes here. Perfecting the Stone Keep -Creating the Fortress So long story short Will the staff run around pretending to be god? Label themselves on the forums as "your master"? Have an Inflated ego? No. Will we be trying to constantly reinvent what Ultima Online was meant to be to keep our players happy with new and flashy Stuff? No. Will our administrators beg for donations or shut the shard down suddenly over hosting costs. No. Will we commit to spending time working with our players to create the best representation of the Renaissance era as it should have been should OSI have not thought up trammel? Yes Hopefully this addresses some of your concerns and shows you how committed we are to creating something great here. Will it be easy? Probably not. Will it take time to do right? Yep. But if you take a look at the extensive amount of website resources we have made available to our players you can get an idea of how serious we are taking this. Live Faction Status World Economy Overview Character Profile Achievements Map of the Renaissance World (Showing Player Houses) World Item Analysis Players - Guilds Custom Server Status We hope you stick around to enjoy the shard, and will do everything we can to keep it going strong.
First off, Welcome to UO:R. We are glad to have you and look forward to seeing you in game. Let me start by telling you why I like this server so much. 1. Factions 2. UO:R Housing as well as the New Houses the staff has created. 3. Dedicated hardworking staff. 4. PvP Balance 5. Skill Gain ( Nothing is super easy, but nothing is insanely hard. Perfect in my opinion) 6. The era itself without Trammel is the best in my opinion and I started in 1997. 7. The Website. The work is written all over its pages and in its code. You will not find a better free server out there with the website this one has. Auto Map, Faction status, world economy, character and players online status etc.. It's unmatched. Staff thanks for this! 8. The Crafting system and crafting rewards. It gives crafters a little something extra and truly rewards them for thier time. ( Bods) 9. I love the automated Events and automated gumps. No one will be unattened macroing here or Scripting! 10. I can't give enough credit to the staff. Some servers staff doesn't care, some servers staff flake off. But this is designed to make staff/player ineration as low as possible. 11. No Handouts! Which is huge for me. Tired of players getting donation items and free items via other servers. I have played all of the other uO:R servers. I played Hybrid and when it first came out I thought it was great. But it has gone downhill big time, I never liked Defiance and never will. I hated the ingame items more then anything. Way to many pretty colors. I have 3 7x chars on Perilous all the works. It was ok but it's not truly UO:R. They just changed having legendary scrolls. I played UOSA for a little bit as well and while it was good I felt so restricted there. I have been testing this one for a little bit now and I have to say "I love it". I can't complain about anything really. Sure there are still things that need to be worked on, but thats the beauty of being in Beta and being a Beta tester. You get to help find the little issues and help get the server perfected. Which is what it will be. History Perfected. If you are looking for a good server this is it. I am telling you from expereince. I have played every single one of the servers you mentioned. I am more then willing to let this server build up to what its going to become and I am going to enjoy the ride. If you don't wanna test thats understandable lol. You have put alot of time in on others servers and everyone can understand that. No hard feelings . We are all looking forward to seeing you on Launch day. None of us are ever uninformed and the staff keeps everyone in the know on everything from major patches to minor updates. I understand your concerns because they were also my concerns. But I can tell you truthfully, you have found the right place to spend your UO time. Again, Welcome! Rainbow
thank you for both answers Chris and Rainbow! i think i dont have anymore questions atm lets hope this shard brings UO:R (without trammel) back good luck and keep up the good work (yeh i really like the website) greetings Zailm
Hi and hope you decide to make UOR a shard you enjoy playing on. Perhaps i can also explain a couple things. One thing about this being beta, is the staff truely listens. Many players have found "bugs" or things they don't believe is correct for time period, report these things in forums and staff responds. That is a big issue for me, the communication between staff and players. I also believe this attitude of staff will continue long {years} after beta is over and done with. I do agree with Chris mainly about players making the shard. Example: pkers think it great fun to band together, go from place to place with three or more reds ganging up on one player. Eventually, that is what the shard will become because many players who do not enjoy getting swarmed by reds on a semi daily bases will leave the shard. I have honestly seen this happen. Back in the day, when you could pay to move a character to another shard, I've know quit a few players who chose that option because they became so flustrated with getting murdered by several reds. {not talking revenge killing here, that's a totally different issue} Even players who are good pvpers who enjoy a battle with a couple of reds, will leave. Simply because of the unfairness of many against one. Again, I'm not referring to the occasional group of reds going out hunting or players who want Trammel. This shard will offer tons of stuff for all players. so hope you stick around :}
I think it's time for Gharik's two cents. I hope I'm not beating a dead horse here, but there's a few key points that need to be highlighted. The beta team here was mostly handpicked by Chris and Ez. They came to us with a vision, and took our input into consideration. Any requests/ideas are considered, but those that will cause a great imbalance to the shard are discarded. Also, a huge part of this shard is the ECONOMY. They have spent a great deal of time and energy on keeping the economy stable. Will people horde pixels in the end? Certainly, but the limit of 10 houses per person, and the "land rush" style of house placing should keep things on an even keel for a very long time. Whether you're brand new, or a long time veteran, you should have a fairly easy time getting what you need here. I cannot stress how much the staff here listens to their players. After all, they were players themselves. I spent years on UOSA, and LOVED it. However, UOSA is limited by strict era accuracy, regardless of whether it improves game mechanics or not. While they're aiming for 99% era accuracy here, they've chosen to leave out the harmful mistakes OSI made. Also, since the Councelors and Guides will have no real power here, the GMs here will have to be committed. If you knew Chris and Ez like we do, you wouldn't question this in the least. Players do have a great deal of input on this shard though. Not everything can be done by GMs. Event ideas, storyline, bug reports, era research, and much more still falls to us, the players. The GMs do everything in their power to keep this running like a well oiled machine, but they come to us for the little things that make the game more enjoyable and will keep people flowing to the shard. I've likely missed much in my rant, but I hope I've covered some of the key topics that may have been missed. If you have any question, by all means come to any of us. The community here is very close. Gharik
After reading through this it really makes me wish i was here on day 1. I have to admit that im super impressed that what was said three years ago is still being applied. I am proud to be a part of this shard. Did yall think that UO:R would be as awesome as it is today back then?
Please excuse me for not having the time to read any responses to this thread... so the points I make may have already been covered. This shard is not in the "Launch" stage... and Chris(Telamon) has absolutely proven that he is all about long term growth (in my experience) ... Spending time on any other shard; would do you a disservice in the long term. If you want to come back to UO... this is the shard to do it on.
