Vet rewards

i didnt consider that, Not sure how i feel about vet rewards now,beyond maybe not fixing what aint broken...unless people here think the plat system is broken? But thats a separate issue. Thanks for the wise insight!

I call that Eve Online Syndrome.

Why can't the vet rewards be based on account play time instead of account age, then it actually rewards the people who put the time into the server.

Yes, definitely hours played

So for the third time can all you vets look at what i suggested earlier:

obviously other items too but nothing that can be traded outside the account that claimed it, And paid for with hours ingame. So spend 2000 ingame hours. Now you lost them as far as buying another item for 4000 when you only got 500 more ingame hours total.

I don't see an issue with it being tradable, if you want to throw away what you earned for gold so be it. 2920 hours is 8 hours a day every day for a year. That's not something easily farmed for gold profit.

Another way to look at it is like this, half of the 2920 is 1460, 1460 hours (4 hours a day) farming at 60k per hour = 87600000 gold. Any reward would not be nearly worth that much.

But ALL games are like that... the longer you play the more cool things you acquire. If you want something older when you weren't playing, you need to trade with another player.

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Now there's a novel idea that would really do wonders to curtail plat inflation.

Except that you don't actually have to be active at all to receive the plat. You can sit there idle for months and receive ~300k worth of plat per month. In addition to, including myself, but new players who come here and say, "Oh cool 700+ people online!," and then proceed to literally not see anyone, anywhere, doing anything except the small handful in Occlo. Honestly, I think the plat reward for staying logged in does more harm than good, but w/e.

Absolutely agree, no system should reward just being online.

We want to encourage people to play, not to AFK by the bank.

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I'd rather we had 550 active accounts than 800 ghost accounts, personally I think that having people actively run around the world is far better for new players joining the shard than seeing 50+ AFK characters and an inflated 800+ 'online' counter.

The first thing I do when I join a shard is check the banks, run around and try to talk to people - If I find that the majority of the playerbase doesn't actually do anything besides standing around the bank, then the question begs to be asked, what fun is there to be had here?

I'm not sure what other shard you're referring to, but I'm going to assume it's UOF due to the similar playercount. It's worth nothing that UOF uses a 'donation shop' that basically shits all over what made UO great historically, instead of working for your rewards, you buy them. Every day I'm glad that UOR is completely different to UOF, and run by honest staff rather than someone looking for a payout.

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This 100% - I've specifically talked to new players who's first impression was, "where are all these people?" And they spend a month or two macro'ing characters, only to hit the field to find out that "800" players is total bullshit because they run into maybe 5 people actually doing something. Then they leave. I was around hybrid when they actually HAD 800+ people, and let me tell you, it's a HUGE difference when you have 800 active clients vs. 800 clients that are mostly afk in their houses soley for the purpose of obtaining plat. And I can promise you new players notice the difference. Sometimes appearance isn't all that matters, you need substance to back it up, and when you don't have that, people get turned off. I would much rather see 100 active clients than I would see what we have now. It's a turn off when you recall from dungeon to dungeon, and finally just sit and stare at your screen in one of the biggest hotspots (Ice dungeon), and the only person who runs by is an occasional bard.

I've been really surprised (and I suppose, if I'm honest, a little disappointed) when today, for the first time, venturing out of Ocllo. Went to Trinsic to find the Tinker's Guild. Ran from the moon gate into town (by a very circuitous route) then wandered around Moonglow for a good while, looking for the places I wanted to visit. Ran back to the moongate, (getting lost a couple more times ) and then back to Ocllo.

Didn't see another single human-operated character (attended or unattended).

Is that necessarily a problem? No. I was very surprised not to see someone/anyone in the 20+ minutes I was on the island, though.

Is the plat system contributing to the lack of players? No, I don't think it is. It's more likely just a symptom of a large playing area and a relatively small active player base.

Having a small player base is not a problem, imo.

What I do think is a problem is the implementation of incentives, such as this topic, which gives the impression of having a large player base when in fact, you don't. I think it sends negative connotations to people who are new here, get excited by the prospect of playing on a large server, only to find out its BS.
I'm not trying to be negative I'm just being as realistic as I can. I understand the desire of wanting to have a larger server, but not at the cost of shooting yourself in the foot. I also don't find it very positive from an economic standpoint, but that's another issue.

But what do you do at this point? Remove it and watch more than half your online population evaporate over night? That doesn't look good either.

Bottom line is, I don't even know why the fuck I'm putting my two cents in. Never matters anyways.