Platinum has little to no value.

I think we have let this thread run it's course long enough. As the topic of the thread is pretty much ignored and it is now a primary place for people to hate on the server and make vague accusations of corruption targeted at the staff and volunteers.

I am going to be very clear here as I have been in IRC and in other threads. Accusations against other players and the staff of cheating, selling items, being given items by the staff with no more proof than the fact that you don't like this person are not acceptable in a community forum. We have tolerated years of this type of stuff as it is primarily targeted at anyone who bothers to volunteer for the server. So much so that our new volunteers have to run a gauntlet of alternate identities in order to keep their volunteering, as a hobby on a server they love, a secret from the negative players that you see in this thread.

We have a zero tolerance policy for staff/volunteer misconduct and will always investigate players concerns in this area. When they are reported to the staff for review. Additionally this server has run at a loss for most of its life with donations barely covering costs these days. Seeing some of the comments in this thread are event more insulting considering I just spent almost $1000 on the next year of hosting, domains, and privacy services for the website.

So to be clear if I see one more post from someone about how a player bought items or add-ons from the staff. Your forum account will be terminated.
So to be clear if I see someone accuse another player of cheating without having taken the time to speak to the staff about your concerns. Your forum account will be terminated.
I don't expect people to like me or agree with everything we do here. I don't mind the insults, hate speech or threats directed at me. But for the sake of our 50,000 accounts and 6 year history I will protect the integrity of the server and the countless hours our volunteers have donated without reward.

This is not a trammel server. Just because you can not win an argument ingame does not mean we have to provide you with a platform to attack players outside the game world. Work out your differences ingame, not on the forums. Every time there is a thread about what might be a legitimate concern of the players it is derailed by players with an axe to grind. In order to deal with the players who have valid questions for the staff we will censor the players who are only looking to stir the pot.

As an example in this thread there are accusations that the staff only develops patches for money. There are accusations that we are selling addons to players. Their are accusations against volunteers. And in the same thread there are people complaining that patches are not done on your own personal time table. Yet no one puts 2 and 2 together and realizes that maybe things are slow is because this same toxic playerbase will only be happy when the server has no volunteers, not staff, and inevitably fails.

They lack the self awareness to understand that by forcing the limited staff we have left to babysit their antics on the forums we take away valuable time from development and the support of players with valid questions. By running off the volunteers that provide assistance to the server the time I have left for development gets smaller and smaller as I am forced to deal situations like this.

As for the actual concern of this thread.

Platinum has always been meant as a reward currency for the players. Not primarily as a tradeable currency between players. We will not make development decisions on the server based based on the current value, in gold, that players are selling their platinum to others. To that end we are always willing to talk about expanding what you can buy with platinum, or methods in which to ensure that players earn platinum in a fair manner. We have planned changes to the champion system rewards, and other methods in which players earn platinum. At its core however the system is a replacement for the old UO Veterans rewards. The value of the currency should be equally matched to the desire of players to obtain things from the reward store.

Saying it has no value, or its use is depreciated is misleading at best. Keep in mind the system is focused on new players. It is only natural that at some point the system would have limited appeal to long term veteran players. We are more than happy to discuss changes as long as you retain the ability to understand the appeal of the system to a player on his first day, 2nd month and 3rd year. Our goal as staff on Renaissance is to give a player from day 1 an endless list of things they would like to accomplish coupled with understanding that each will require work by the player to accomplish.

Players complaining that "this is broken, this server sucks" because they have purchased everything they want from the store, or have no desire for items in the store does a disservice to players coming here from other servers where item like ethereals are only available for $24.99. To make this clear attached below are pictures of all the "worthless" (/s) items currently available from the platinum vendor.



As for the mis-information regarding events we ran a quick town invasion for St Patricks day and are combining the classic St Patricks and Easter events into a larger event for the next few years. This event will run for about 2 weeks and combine the aspects of the easter egg hunt with overworld hunting, and high conflict random mini dungeons with additional rewards for brave players.

During the town invasion we simply used last years leprechauns and with last years loot table. There was no loot given out other than the standard platinum statues common to all public events. Players can expect a detailed event post in the next few days with the event starting later this week.

For now I am going to close this thread. However players are welcome to restart a platinum discussion thread with a more specific focus/concerns and I will respond as I have time.

I have opened a new thread for the specific purpose of continuing the platinum discussion in a more positive manner. It can be found here. http://uorforum.com/threads/platinum-system-discussion.32240/