Can someone explain the "other shard"-phenomena?

I've come to understand that a certain shard is not allowed to be named, or it shall be referenced to as "the other shard", "voldershard" or whatever. It feels somewhat secterian, I'm astonished and also perplexed to wether this is ironic or dead serious. I was for example corrected by Chris when linking to the other shard's forum, to help people learn more about a certain matter.

This has nothing to do with "the other shard" but is generally considered etiquette. Since this community evolves around UO:R, no other games, communities and UO servers shall be advertised, discussed and trashed.

I've seen people get kicked from IRC for advertising other games or sites. If you allow discussion about other servers, where should the admins draw the line ? Allow trash talk and block advertisement ?

The best solution I can think of is blocking all "other servers" and "other games" talk in all official channels.

Free free to open a new IRC channel where you rant about other shards. Allowing this kind of talk in official channels would make the staff here look pretty pathetic though ...

It's a combination of insecurity and immaturity, IMO, and it's silly.

Showing confidence in the product here will do far more to grow the population than preventing references to it. Showing class and respect towards other similar products will also do far more to grow the population than bashing it.

This is not directed at the admins, but everyone who uses the "voldeshard" terminology, who trash-talks a place that gave them a lot of good times, etc.

Not advertised, fine.

But not discussed? Come on. This is like if I dated a girl for a few years, had some good times but ultimately broke up, and then told my friends they could never reference or mention her name in front of me again.

Well if we had a balance discussion, people would also talk about the advantages of other server/shards - which is pretty close to advertising/promoting them.

And picking up your girl friend comparison ... try talking to your new girl friend about the good and bad times your had with your ex. That's probably the correct way
No one is expecting you to renounce talking about any ex or future servers you're making love to. Just do it in a non-moderated place

At a base level, reference to the competition is just not in the best interests of the shard especially directly linking. Feel free to go directly link UO:R on any of their forums and see how far it gets you.

As I'm sure you're aware, many of us came from Voldeshard and that is just a pet name we came up with in jest to reference it without naming it. Many people feel a great thing crumbled into darkness and despair beyond hope, despite the passion of the once burgeoning community. It's a painful memory to lose a grand place that many of the relationships we hold dear here, were formed in. So personally, it's just making light of a dark situation to make it less painful.

You're not likely to find a single person not impressed by the great work that ONCE happened on said shard and trash talk aside, we all know what a great thing it was. It is not any more and there's no beating around the bush about it. A large number of people feel slighted by the time wasted committing to a shard that had a seemingly committed staff that just plain went vacant out of the blue after they stripped out one of the most enticing reasons to login, events.


We play a 15 year old game and MOST of us are adults without copious spare time to host events just to get griefed by other players set on ruining the good times of others. So to hell with era accuracy, let's play some friggen Ultima Online without restriction that forces us into a broken era of mechanics. We want events. We want patches that make sense for the actual game play as a whole. We want an involved and passionate administration.


So in short, say the name all you want, it's not hurting anything. Direct linking is seen as advertising and rightly so. Looking back in the history of my activity in their communication channels, one might note that I primarily only spoke about UO:R when other people slandered it and prompted a rebuttal. Then subsequently I got banned for pointing out an obvious potential oversight and window for abuse of privilege by a newly appointed administrator.

Anyway, take the trash talk as negative all you want. I said some pretty hurtful shit about my wife when we separated for a year but anyone who knows anything about it knows I love her. Much like I love UOSA, I just can't be a part of something that doesn't want to be a part of me anymore.

Ok, I feel I got some more understanding of it. So is it allowed to say UOSA without getting banned? Discussing other shards however is not allowed? It was a bit strange that I couldnt link to UOSAs forum to guide someone who wondered about Richard Garriots appearance though. =\ It was for an informative purpose only.

I think they are actually very lax around here about mentioning other shards by name. Linking directly to their sites though, I can't say I'd expect lenience there.

However, being the crazy that I am, I think it would actually only benefit us to allow people to link to references on other shards. Hell, if people could link to the patch notes of the competition in threads discussing patches or mechanics, I don't think it would be bad for the shard. It's one of those fine lines where you can't rightly say if it hurts more than it helps. Personally I feel it's like letting people look at both steaks before they cut into one, with conversation around the differences to support or detract from them with detail.

Any mention of other shards, especially UOSA, will bring out the nutters who just want to rag on it because it doesn't cater to them and didn't allow them to go on extended, insane rants against the owners and staff on that shard's forums and IRC, just as they will one day rag on this shard, its creators, and staff. The circle of life. Many such players are former UOSA players that have moved here, and one day they will move somewhere else when something happens that they don't like and they are told to tone down their personal attacks against staff.

But: Anyone who gives you a free game to play deserves deference and respect, because they are providing you with something free and any policy, etc., they choose is something they've chosen FOR THEIR PROPERTY. You won't find me ever ragging on staff here or anywhere else, and I hope you won't find my guild doing that. You will find others, others who lessen the quality of the shards they play on, doing exactly that, and in doing so cheapening the experience of the shard and weakening the community by driving away players.

I never asked for catering, but after spending countless hours somewhere and supporting someone and helping wherever I could, only to be lied to directly, I took it pretty hard. If a day comes where Telamon chooses to lie to my face about something, however insignificant, I may be just as bitter and scathing. When you're layering corruption on top of corruption and then icing the cake with lies, someone's going to taste the cardboard flavor and speak out about it.

I myself have spoken negative about "that other shard". I never spoke about the staff though only the degradation of the player base and why it was happening and what could have fixed it. However, if you want to talk about corruption. I once played on a shard a long time ago (I don't even remember the name) where staff thought it was funny to pop in on players while they were hunting and use the /kill command on them. This usually happened when you were deep in a dungeon and no where near a wandering healer or anything of the sort. The staff member who was most notorious for it? The OWNER! I complained about it one time and was told by the player base that it was part of the shard and then was promptly banned from the forums. I have never played on a shard that bad since. In all honesty I have appreciated every free shard I have played on for the fact that it IS free, but once in awhile even being free isn't a defense if you feel like you're wasting your valuable playing time.

Who said you?

No one had to Derrick, but thanks for asking.

I enjoyed the other shard for the few months I played there and really respected their commitment to accuracy. It was a tad on the obnoxious side though. The ghost cams made any dungeon worthless to try. Even most overland spawns were too dangerous to hunt. Hell, even rune libraries like justice island and that tower in Moonglow were treacherous. It got to the point that if I encountered another player while hunting I left immediately because I knew a red was soon to follow. My whole game became fishing and lvl 1 maps, and there were plenty of times I had to run while fishing too. It got old.

There were some good people there and some good times had with player run events. I participated in a magic academy series of events that I enjoyed. Even earned a special Moonglow Wizards Robe. I would have stuck around longer but I only play 1 game at a time and that might have been one of my Planetside or Dark Age relapses that took me away as well.

I love this shard and plan to stay here as long as UO remains my drug of choice. I could sit here all day and list the reasons why UOR is the best incarnation of UO ever, but you guys already know why. The community here deserves special note though. You guys are some of the best players ever encountered and I really like everyone here. From the criminal element to the PK's to Blaise the ranting lunatic and everyone in between. You guys are the best.

*Raises glass* here! Here!

Thank you Chris for a clear answer!

Respect yes. Respect and cooperation always. Deference no. Deference is a problem. Deference leads to isolation with an inner cadre who feed one's preferences back to him, magnifying one's views out of proportion with those held by the audience. Eventually this leads to self-defeating choices, like the z-axis stool change on the "other shard."

Everyone knew that was a damn fool thing to do. Derrick didn't even particularly want to do it from what I could tell. But how could he back down as folks "supported" him with thorough research and chants of era accuracy?

?????

deference: humble submission and respect

I'm not sure how the shard population offering humble submission and respect to the Admin's choices of Patches could lead to the outcome you suggested.

I do see that favoritism from the Admin towards select players could lead to this (i.e. favoring enhancements, counsel, etc from a select group of players rather than being open to all) But deference?

I think you should defenestrate whatever dictionary you're using.