Renaissance Guide to Shard Support and Copper Coins

Beginning in Patch 73/74 the Renaissance staff will begin to roll out our new Shard Support system which includes the Clean up Britannia and the Moat/House Decor systems. Operating as a free server has posed many challenges over the last 5 years and one of our greatest challenges was finding a way to properly reward our players for supporting the server.

This new system aims to resolve that, while avoiding the blatant cash for items methods that other servers employ. Even on servers that claim to not allow financial influence you still always end up finding a situation in which a player is able to purchase assistance. In most cases these are good people just desperately in need of income to justify their time investment on the server. For years Renaissance has operated with a skeleton crew of extremely trusted staff to avoid any such situations like that.

However the server needs to be self sufficient. The health and stability of the server will always be unstable if we have no operating surplus and are losing money each month. This impacts our ability to purchase needed services, switch servers if the need arises or purchase advertising if there is a lul in new player activity. Rather than wait for some disaster to befall the server, or my personal ability to make up the shortfall each month, or lead to the rise of situations where we have to compromise our integrity to simply keep the server going we have come up with the system you see here.

A completely fair and transparent system that allows players to support the server in whichever way that suits them and earn nice rewards for their effort. Some players can trash thousands of items, others can focus their time on writing helpful guides, others can record their pvp sessions and upload them to youtube and for players with the means they can support the server financially. Each one of these methods is essential to the health of the server and we have struggled for years to find a fair way to reward the hard work our players have volunteers to make UO Renaissance the best server.

While we understand there is always a negative perception about anything donation related on a UO server. I encourage players to read this guide, talk to the staff and experience the system for themselves before jumping to conclusions. The staff will be extra focused on addressing false statements made to scare players into thinking that Renaissance is going to be, or will ever be a pay to play server. We are simply striving towards, as we have always done, for the server to be self sufficient financially. We welcome open and honest discussion about keeping the server healthy long into the future.


Table of Contents
1. Reward List
2. Earning Copper Coins via the Clean Up Britannia System
3. Earning Copper Coins by helping with Advertising
4. Earning Copper Coins by helping with Creative Writing
5. Earning Copper Coins by Donating to cover hosting costs
6. Transfering Copper Coins between your accounts.
7. Rules and Regulations

Other useful Links
UO Renaissance Shard Support
Patch 73
Cleanup up Britannia Guide (Work In Progress)
House Customization / Moat Guide (Work In Progress)

Common Questions about the Copper Coin / Shard Support System

Q. OMG They said the server would never sell items! I've been betrayed!
A. The Renaissance server will never allow players to purchase items or have the standard donation shop you see on so many servers. This always leads to an economy based on how much you donate rather than an economy based on earned currency. No transferable items will be able to be purchased for coins players earn by Advertising, Creative Writing or Donations. When a player uses those same coins to improve their house, a transfer limitation is placed on the house to prevent multi step processes that could result in donations being turned into ingame commodities. This system is a reward for all of the hard work that our players have given freely to the server over the years.

Q. Can I use coins I earn from Advertising, Creative Writing or Donations to purchase items from the Clean Up Britannia Reward store?
A.No. Only copper coins earned ingame via the CuB system can be used to purchase items from this store.

Q. What is the purpose of the Support Tab/Copper Wallet in the player profile menu?
A. This is where copper coins will be stored that are earned from all of the various sources. These coins are only transferable between your own accounts and can be used to purchase staff services or decorative additions to your house.

Q. Do I have to donate to get any specific reward/staff service or house addition at any time in the future?
A. No. There will never be anything added that requires donations. Players can earn every reward available by any of the methods listed in this guide or using a combination of the various methods. The only restriction is that the CuB reward store items can only be purchased with coins earned from the CuB system.

Q. Why would I want to deposit copper coins to my account wallet?
A. This wallet is used to purchase all of the rewards not available via the Cub Reward store. In order to purchase these items you will need to have the correct amount of coins in your wallet.

Q. Can I remove copper coins from my account wallet once I deposit them?
A. No. Once copper coins are deposited to your account wallet they cannot be removed. They can be transferred to your other account, but never removed or returned to transferable ingame copper coins.

Q. How do copper coin transfers work between accounts?
A. If you have two characters online, from the same computer, you can select to transfer copper coins from your wallet, to that accounts wallet. This feature will only work if both accounts are logged in from the same computer at the time of the transfer. This function will have a limitation on how often it can be used.

Q. I can not afford to donate now but I really want <System Reward> as soon as possible.
A. There are no timed exclusives with this system. Some players will want to donate to obtain as much decoration options as possible rather than earning coins by any other listed method. However you should never donate if you cannot afford it. You have plenty of time to earn your desired reward as this system will not be going away.

Below are a list of items that players can purchase using the new copper coins. These are divided into two types of rewards.


These items will be available from the reward vendor found in most backs and can only be purchased using copper coins earned via the CuB system.

Singing Crystal Balls (9 Different Variations)
Random Sounds, Blacksmith Theme, Nature Theme, Wildlife Theme, Alchemy Theme, Tavern Theme, Music Theme, Spooky Theme,Combat Theme

Disturbing Portrait - Changes when double clicked

Creepy Portrait - Changes when double clicked

Unsettling Portrait

Animated Fire Trap - Blows fire when a player walks nearby

Animated Guillotine - Animated action when double clicked.

Short Range Teleportation Tiles
Note: These items can be used to bridge normally non-bridgeable houses that are 1 tile apart. There will be a variety of conditions in place for placement, linking and functionality. But in essence they provide a magical connection between normally non connected houses. This will also be a player managed item, requiring no staff assistance.

Treasure Pile Home Addon (Large/Small Versions)
Note: Prices are still being determined for these items based on CuB testing, additional rewards may be announced as we continue to complete work on this system.


Items listed below can be purchase using coins from your account linked Copper Coin Wallet. Using coins deposited into your wallet from the CuB system. Or earned by Advertising, Creative Writing or Donations.

• Character Name Change - 5,000 Copper Coins

• Forum Name Change - 10,000 Copper Coins

• Home Lockdown Expansion (+25 Lockdowns) - 20,000 Copper Coins

• Home Secure Expansion (+1 Secure) - 20,000 Copper Coins

• Account Recovery - 20,000 Copper Coins

Note: This is a suggested donation, We will never force someone to pay for recovering an account. However they will be encouraged to donate to the server to support the staffs efforts and time required to look up, verify, and email a player their account information. One day we will get this automated and remove this option. ​

• Character Transfer - 25,000 Copper Coins

Allows you to transfer a single character to one of your other accounts, or an account of someone else that players in your house. Clear ownership of the accounts must be shown.​

• 6th Character Slot - 30,000 Coins

• 7th Character Slot - 60,000 Coins

Note: Additional character slots will be unable to own a house to maintain fairness in the housing system. They are subject to no other restrictions.​

• Moat Decorations / Styles - 5000 to 75,000 Copper Coins

House Decoration Guide - Work In Progress
Note: Players will be able to get started with a moat using platinum. Optional moat designs and decorations will be purchasable using copper coins from your account wallet.​

• General House Decorations - 5,000 to 50,000 Copper Coins

House Decoration Guide - Work In Progress
Note: This will include items such as house flags, and other planned additions for houses that lack a courtyard.
Note: Using copper coins from your account wallet to purchase add-ons for your house will disable the ability to transfer your house for 14 days. This will not however affect your ability to transfer the house to one of your other accounts.[/indent

• Courtyard Security Services - Courtyard Inspection - 1000 Copper Coins

This command will inspect the courtyard in a large keep, castle or fortress and provide you with a count of the runes that currently exist leading to this location.

• Courtyard Security Services - Courtyard Security Reset - 50,000 Copper Coins

This command will purge all runes that currently exist in the world that lead to the courtyard of your house. This is intended as a very expensive service that we do not expect to be used often. However it will provide a link between players helping the server in exchange for having a secure courtyard in a house you just purchased or placed yourself.

• Vendor Management - Vendor Inspection - 100 Copper Coins

This command will give the player some very basic information about a vendor currently in their house. Such as last access date, funds held, and how long the vendor will exist at its current funding level. This command is only accessible to the home owner.

• Vendor Management - Vendor Move - 500 Copper Coins

This command can be used to move a vendor to a new location in a public vendor house. This command is only accessible to the home owner.

• Vendor Management - Vendor Retire - 1000 Copper Coins

This command will retire a vendor that has been abandonded for more than 30 days by its owner. When targeted if the vendor meets this criteria any funds the vendor has earned will be deposited into the owners bank and the vendor will be allowed to decay by normal means in the next vendor payment cycle. There is no charge if the vendor does not meet this criteria. This command is only accessible to the home owner.


Moat / House Decor Note: While copper coins are used in conjunction with the moat system it is not required to take part. Players will be able to buy a basic moat, basic bridge using the platinum currency. Copper will be used to purchase additional decorations, moat types and additional mechanisms.​

Beginning in Patch 73 we will be slowly rolling out the Clean Up Britannia System. This will be the primary source in which players earn Copper Coins.

To read more about the system you can check out the compendium post here or the forum guide here (Both are work in progress).

Clean Up Britannia - 1 to 100 Coins Per Item

Some highlights of the Clean Up Britannia System

• Players will be able to craft a special barrel that can be locked down in their house to use for various house cleaning activities.
• Players can drag a single item or a container into the bucket to be rewarded with Copper Coins.
• Players can use the appraisal feature to determine the value of any container of items that is accessible.
• Players must lock down the CuB Barrel and be a friend of the related house to use it.
• Items that can be crafted or obtained for no cost (body parts, death robes, etc) will not be able to be turned in for copper coins.
• This system will be part of Renaissance for the rest of the servers life. The prices for items may change, or certain sections may be closed for maintenance. Otherwise the system will be permanent.
• Each use of the Clean Up Barrel will be logged for the goal of keeping a web based leaderboard and personal player stats (for fun and player bragging rights)

Coins earned via this system can be freely transferred between players, sold on vendors or via the trade forums. Players will also have access to a special store to buy Clean Up Britannia exclusive rewards (as shown in the previous post).

Note: These rewards cannot be purchased with coins earned from Advertising, Creative Writing or Donations.

Players may also deposit Copper Coins into their account wallet should they wish to purchase some of the additional services available for Copper Coins or to purchase many of the new house add-ons and decorations that will be available.​

One of the key ways players can help UO Renaissance is by providing us with advertising services. As a free server we depend greatly on efforts by our players to get the word out about the server.

Listed below are some of the important ways that you can get the word out about the server, and the reward you can earn for doing so.

Youtube Videos - 250 Copper Coins Each

Posting videos on YouTube of narrated UO Renaissance game play is a very valuable tool for helping players fine their way to the server. Be it player run events, pvp outings or just general game play session with friends. Properly tagged and described these videos can provide a great source of free advertising for the server.
Requirements:

• Each video be of a reasonable length
• Each video needs to have the relevant tags to help it show up in searches (Ultima Online, Online Games, MMORPG, UO Renaissance, T2A, etc)
• Each video needs a good description of what it contains including a link to the UO Renaissance website.
• DO NOT post videos taken from other sources, or not personally recorded by you.

Note: Your channel does not have to be focused on, or limited to UO Renaissance. Just having the videos available helps the server
Methods:

• Twitch - Twitch provides a simple method to automatically upload recorded twitch streams to youtube in 30-60 minute chunks.
• Bandicam - for $39 players can buy the full version of bandicam and easily record a section of their desktop for later uploading. The free version works as well, but has a resolution limitation. https://www.bandicam.com/buy/

Staff Reporting: Email support@uorenaissance.com a list of the videos you have uploaded along with your youtube channel information. Include a direct link to each video along with a description of that videos. Also provide your account name which you would like to have the the coins credited to. ​

Video Game Forum Posting - 250 -1000 Copper Coins

Posting detailed player experiences about this classic game on video game related forums can be very helpful to the servers efforts to find new players. In 2014 one of our players posted this guide to Ultima Online on the Neogaf forums. Since that posting over 5000 inbound clicks have come from that article. To buy a similar amount of advertising from google would cost $1000.
Requirements:

• Follow the rules of the location where you are making the post! Do not spam or advertise where it is specifically not allowed.
• Focus on making the post about Ultima Online, not about UO Renaissance specifically. Just indicate that if they wish to check out this awesome game, check out "this server" We win by teaching a new generation about Ultima Online, not just UOR.
• Make it personal, A story about an experience you had playing Ultima Online with your friends, will always be more effective than straight advertising.
• Be detailed, include lots of pictures and player experiences.
• Avoid using pictures that are low quality or include client modifications like the tree hack.
• Include at least one link to the UO Renaissance website somewhere in the post.
• DO NOT steal content from other posts when making your own post, borrow ideas, and formatting but create new content.
• However making the same post on several different sites is acceptable.

Methods:

• Seek out various video game forums that allow for public discussion of online games, and free servers. Read the rules of the forum and contact the staff if necessary to make sure it is ok to post about a Ultima Online free shard.
• Avoid using links to images hosted outside the forums or UO Renaissance domain. Ergo don't link to your personal imgur accounts. If you ever delete the pictures, the link from that post will break reducing the effectiveness of the post.

Staff Reporting: Email support@uorenaissance.com a link to the post you have made along with any relevant information. Also make sure to provide an account name that we can credit the copper coins to.

Note: Advertising efforts undertaken anytime after 1/1/2017 will be valid for copper coin rewards.
​

Creative Writing Services - 250 to 2500 Coins/ Per Guide

One of the most important things on a classic UO server is quality guides that help players learn about the world, skills, and tactics. Without some of the guides written by our players UO Renaissance would not be the successful server it is today. Just one of our new player guides has over 85,000 views since it was written. And while the staff does what we can to create detailed guides for our world the amount of information to cover in a readable way is daunting.

Below are some common guidelines for guide creation.

• Work with the staff to pick a topic that is lacking information wise.
• Optionally pick a topic that is something you are experienced with and wish to share that with others.
• When possible use detailed videos or images to help make the guide readable and easy to understand.
• Use multiple posts when making a guide, vs a single post with tons of information. (Make sure to reply to your thread immediately to reserve space for the different sections)
• When covering a complex subject, consider making a reply post for each specific issue you want to cover. (Much like I did for this guide)
• Provide a table of contents in the first post so players can easily navigate to what they are looking for.

Note: The staff can provide any player wishing to create their own guides with fonts, watermark images and Photoshop templates for our standardized graphics.

There is no such thing as a bad guide. The more player experience we can share with others. The more we can share our love of Ultima Online with new players. Be it PvP instructional videos, guides to the various combat templates on Renaissance or simple skill training guides everything is appreciated.

Staff Reporting: Once you have completed your guide make sure to submit it to the staff support email support@uorenaissance.com. Make sure to include your account name as well so we can reward you for your time. Obviously only submit guides that you created yourself. No plagiarization. However additional guides for the same subject are perfectly fine.

Depending on the length/quality/other factors the staff will determine a reward between 250 and 1000 Copper coins for the guide creation. In special situations where the staff requests help from our playerbase in creating specific much needed guides higher rewards can be available.

A great example of a high quality player created guide is Alex Caember's new guide "Welcome to Ocllo". We noticed that we lacked a basic travel guide for our new player program/Ocllo island as this is a custom location most players are not aware of.

Other good examples

The Great Spawning Rare Guide
One Guide to Rule Them All
Renaissance Guide to Home Ownership
New to Ultima Online?
Welcome to Ocllo Guide
And of course this guide to Copper Coins.​

Note: Guides submitted after 1/1/2017 will be valid for copper coin rewards.​

Donating to Earn Copper Coins

While cleaning up your house, advertising the server, and writing guides help the server and our players donations help us keep the lights on. UO Renaissance will never close due to lack of donations, or profit from an excess of donations. However running a server this successful is expensive.

Note: At no point will donations be able to be used to earn transferable ingame items. For the complete details of how we avoid this please read the rules and regulations section.

Players can donate to support the server via either Paypal or Patreon as detailed here on our support page

Methods:

• One time Donation of $5 - 4,500 Copper Coins
• One time Donation of $10 - 9,000 Copper Coins
• One time donation of $20 - 18,000 Copper Coins
• Recurring donation of $5 - 5,000 Copper Coins (per month)
• Recurring donation of $10 - 10,000 Copper Coins (per month)
• Recurring donation of $20 - 20,000 Copper Coins (per month)
• Donations in other amounts are accepted, just check with the staff to determine the reward value.

Staff Reporting: For donations the staff will contact you, via the email account used in submitting the donation to determine which account you would like your donation linked to. For recurring donors once we have that information on file your copper coins will be credited each month on the day your donation goes through. If you have made a donation and have questions you can contact support@uorenaissance.com directly.

Note: My wife has volunteered to take over this aspect of running the server, so please be nice to her!

Past Donations: Should players have donated to support the server before this system goes live, you can contact our support email to require a credit for those donations. Donations that were received after 1/1/2017 will qualify for copper coins.

Purpose of Donations: As a free server that doesn't sell items directly to the players. Items such as skill balls, ethereal mounts, and neon items. Unlike for profit servers our costs are covered by the staff and the benevolence of our players who have donated without an expectation of reward. Listed below are some of our monthly expenses that are covered by the staff and player donations. Should there ever be a month where the donations exceed the costs of running the server the surplus will remain in the Renaissance account to allow for emergency services or the hiring of contractors for needed services (graphic design work, advertising services, forum template services, software subscriptions for the server, etc)

Note: Due to paypal limitations, we are forced to link a company to our paypal account for tax purposes. Up to this point we have been unable to afford the accounting services needed to setup Renaissance as basically a non profit. Ergo the listing of one of my personal businesses as the target of the donations. However all UO Renaissance funds are kept separate and our paypal/patreon accounts are dedicated to UOR.

Monthly Services

• $500-650/Month - Dedicated Business Class Server Hosting with active DDOS mitigation services
• $60/month - VPS Web Hosting Services
• $50/Month - Offsite Backup Services for Game/Web Server Data
• $50/month - Email Advertising Services (MailChimp)
• $40/Month - ReSharper Ultimate
• $50/Year - Domain Registration
• $50-250/Month - Advertising Services (when we could afford them)

One Time Services

• $200 - XenForo Forum License
• $50 - Xenforo Forum Templates
• $25 - Various Xenforo Plugins

Final Thoughts: In preparing this system I took the time to look at how much the server has cost to run over the last 5 years. Between covering the disparity between donations/total costs, and all of the aspects I have paid for myself I have spent almost $10,000 of my own money on this project. And while I would happily spend another $10,000 it is just not sustainable in the long run. The server needs to be self sufficient regardless of my constantly covering its losses. At the moment I have a great job, a great company and no children on the way. Should one of those change, it could impact the ability to provide the services we currently enjoy. By addressing this now, vs when it is to late we can ensure the long life and success of the server.​

Using the new Copper Coin wallet available in the profile menu players can manage their earned copper coins. This menu has quick links to this guide so players with any questions can easily find their way here.



Players have two main options here.

Deposit Copper Coins

This will allow you to target a stack of copper coins that you currently posses and credit them to your copper coin account wallet. Once coins are transfered into your wallet they can only be used to items listed in the reward section of this guide or transferred as shown below. Make sure you do not want to save your coins for use in the Clean Up Britannia store, as once they are deposited in the account wallet, they cannot be removed again. ​

Transfer Copper Coins

This will allow you to target another of your characters, located on one of your accounts in order to transfer an amount of copper to that account.
You will have the option to specify the amount of copper you are going to transfer.
This command will only work if both accounts are logged in, and accessed from the same remote computer.
Attempts to transfer coins to accounts other than your own will fail.
There will be a timer associated with the transfer ability as well to make sure it is not abused.
All uses of the transfer command will be used to make sure that no account sharing is used to violate these rules.​

So to be clear, copper coins earned from Advertising, Creative Writing or Donating can not be transferred between accounts that you do not control. They are rewards specifically earned by the player involved and not a commodity to be sold to other players.

Below you will find a summary of some of the rules and regulations related to this system.

• Coins earned from Advertising, Creative Writing and Donations will be credited to the players account. Never as ingame transferable currency. These coins can not be used to purchase transferable ingame items. (Such as rewards from the Clean Up Britannia shop.

• Coins earned via the Clean Up Britannia system can be sold to other players, transferred to friends and used to buy exclusive items in the Clean Up Britannia reward store.

• Ingame coins can be deposited into your accounts copper coin wallet in order to use them for purchases such as moat decoration, name changes, character slot expansions, etc. Once deposited these coins cannot be removed from your copper wallet.

• You may however transfer copper coins between your account wallets using the transfer feature available from the support menu. Both accounts must be logged in from the same computer in order to allow the transfer.

• This method of transferring coins can only be used once every two weeks. As always accessing another players account is not permitted and can result in the closure of that account for violating the account limitations. As of patch 73 new tools have been provided to the staff to better track and address account sharing, and account limitation violations.

• Houses upgraded using copper coins to purchase additional decor will have a transfer limitation placed on them for a period of time between 2-4 weeks. This will avoid any situation in which coins can be transferred via the house addition system.

A. Honestly did not think of that, but I suspect yes. We do intend for them to have a very limited range horizontally, but a limit vertically should be a non issue. (We don't want people teleporting across the world. Some so reasonable restrictions will be in place.

B. Copper coins are given directly to you when using the Barrel. Coins earned from other methods go into your account wallet. PLayers can share a single barrel, as long as they are friended (minimally) to the house it is locked down in. Multiple barrels can be in a house, and multiple players can use the same barrel. Since it does not act as a container there is no dropping/leaving items in it. You drop an item/container of items on it, and are instantly given a reward and summary of the value of what you turned in. However if say 2-3 people are dropping items at once, the results page might be confusing. (As it only shows the most recent turn in of items)

C. They are mostly live now, but will not be able to be purchased until patch 74. Players will make this purchase themselves, with no staff interaction, which enables the 6/7th slots. (1-2 weeks away)

B + C. While coins are given to you ingame from the CuB system, to purchase the character slot expansion, your account wallet would need to have enough coins to cover the purchase. This would require you deposit enough coins to the account wallet, from your CuB turn ins to cover the purchase.

We debated long and hard over that one, but is is one of the most requested things by players on the server. And with the age of the server and players placing, buying and transferring houses there is always the fear about "what is out there"

Our logic was that if someone wanted a secure courtyard that badly, then we should come up with a pathway for them to earn that by helping the server in the methods listed in the guide. It also allows players to support the server for something that provides value to them, and them alone. It is also one of the more expensive services you can purchase.

In the end we determined it will have little to zero effect on the player to player ingame economy, while providing huge benefits to the servers health (by the amount of help you have to provide) to earn this service.

So yes, It is outside the bounds of felucca. But a fair compromise to help the server long term.

All of the rewards are listed here Ceaesar. The rewards are divided into two sections. Rewards you can buy ingame with coins earned from the CuB system. And non transferable rewards/decor/services that can be purchased using coins earned from all of the methods listed.

http://uorforum.com/threads/renaissance-guide-to-shard-support-and-copper-coins.21748/#post-203736