If Trammel is the destination, just how far along the path are we?

Yeah, I'm sure you had a ton of experience with factions to base their accusations on. /end sarcasm

Just peeking back in here to check...
Yep, pot thoroughly stirred.

I had a summary planned before putting out the fire I just got done throwing gasoline on however, @Alice Asteroid put it more eloquently than I could have ever hoped to. That post was on point.






@Mindless
Old tracks but, I'm all about this right now. It might have something to do with the thumbnail though.

Chill

More bass it is....

I've lost my mind a bit... (ha) ... but that Weekend Players track is very nostalgic.

I had experience to base THEIR accusations on? Put the pipe down and try again. I never played Factions on OSI and quite honestly didn't PvP outside of occasionally attempting to fight back, before dying to murderers, my entire OSI career.

I heard first from a former CL of Shadowlords of long standing, who happens to be in SL with you right now, albeit not playing much, if at all. Tamers made factions stupid. Sorry, but not sorry at all, that it was known years before this shard launched. I've even gone so far as to read countless forum threads about factions and what could be done to improve/save them on OSI. It was quite honestly, near replicas of what you're hearing about here currently as issues. Fortunately administration here isn't bound by subscriber paydays so HOPEFULLY at some point the stupid shit will be removed from Factions.

It's already a nice tidbit that faction tamers will suffer a 5% pet stat/skillloss (non-faction will be 2.5% again) after that's patched back in. A step in the "proper direction Avatar", as the Guardian might say.

" Telamon has some vague problem with the way people farm it for plat that will likely mean less plat from harrowers. When he nerfed champ spawns the first time, people didn't spawn seriously for months.
It's very discouraging, as champ spawns are something that brings the server together and they do it in a way where it's very difficult for even groups of reds to break in and chase everyone off."

Napo, If you read what Telamon wrote about the harrowers, you know it isn't some "vague problem"

Really you all.

Telamon has stated many times that he has a "To do List" He works down the list. When one thing is done, he crosses it off. How long it takes him to do the items on list, depends on his free time and how much coding, etc. is involved. So if he has only worked on instances this summer, that is why, one heck lot of work. It's not like he can just snap his fingers and he is done.

There are some volunteer players who are working on things to add to the server. I know this because I helped a little with one. I won't say who or what, but this will add more things for players to do out in the world, when it is done.

Back in the day during the red and blue wars ( not server wars) but when Red GM's and Blue GM's would agree on a time and place to war one another, the GM's would set conditions for the war. Sometimes would be no looting, sometimes anything went. So saying that guilds which agree not to loot another guild here is Trammel, that is just so wrong.

Let's see. A AFK player can get town killed here. Players can get robbed in town. Players can get pked out in the world. Robbed out in the world.
Players can get pked on their boats. Robbed on their boats.Players can get pked on their own doorsteps. Geesh How Trammel can you get.

And guess what. Our server even has things to do that does not involve PVP...Does this make it a Trammel server??? Heck no....back in the day before Trammel was even a twinkle in EA's eyes, or OSI's, there were things to do that did not involve PVP.

For all of the above reasons I stated. I vote a big fat zero. This server is very far from being Trammel.

Point proven, didn't even read the rest.

This is an annoyingly circular thing to say man. I'm starting to feel like there's more crying about crying about crying than there is crying about crying or crying to begin with.

People should just sack up and fight or not fight. Stop going to irc or the forums to complain about how losing wasn't fair. Stop complaining to staff about legal tactics and staff needs to stop being available to listen to these complaints.

This is an interesting subject. There are quite a few people in the pvp scene on all sides that don't get involved with this stuff at all. You wouldn't even know their irc and forum handles or pvp affiliation because they just aren't board warriors.

But as for the vocal people - the whiners and the enablers -

Do I think they'd stop whining eventually?

I don't think so, not really. I don't think it seems to make a difference whether you respond to them or not. The whiners weirdly enough manage to rewrite history over time, though. Apparently if you are loud enough and post your agitprop as much as possible you can convince a community and administration of anything you want to. This is an annoying concept. I've never used a third party program or scammed someone. I've never preyed on the weak or hassled the nonpvpers. But we're still the shard boogeymen because factions is war and propaganda is a powerful tool. This forum is hyde park and every thread is a soap box.

But this doesn't mean I think the best answer is to reply to the posts and further shit up the forums. It's an annoying situation where you feel compelled to defend yourself with what you feel are truths even though it just makes the situation worse. I don't know what the right answer is.

Would they toughen up? Would they leave?

Doesn't seem like they ever leave. Really I'd say almost all of the complaints and threads about factions are by people that are avoiding participation but still complaining loudly. I think staff has suggested they don't participate if they aren't enjoying it. But it's been the same song for about a year. Believe it or not though, it wasn't always this way. There was a time people just kind of logged on and duked it out and logged out without complaints. And nothing has changed about the strategies. People just fight less and complain more.

I do think it's off-putting to new people (all new people, pvpers and non.) It might help if the threads and posts could be kept in a better place or sent to trash talk more quickly. Although sometimes it seems like people have a morbid interest in reading the threads. If it's a thread in trash talk people know what they're getting into before they open it. But that doesn't stop them from opening it and posting about how stupid they find it. It's like people hate the pvp politics but still want to read it because it's a more tangible soap opera.

I don't truly believe this kind of thing will get better. It would take a lot of player turnover, and this server seems to really retain players. Especially the wealthy and the pvpers. You'd rather keep Jupiter but you're stuck with me for some reason. If new teams showed up in factions and didn't join existing sets of bitter people there would be a real fresh revival. I really believe that. I'm not sure if it will ever happen again however.

Then you're daft and shouldn't waste your time quoting me. Sorry you're so wrong you can't man up and handle it maturely.

Yes, because abusing mechanics in unsportsmanlike and discouraging fashions is something everyone should look up to as high brow "pvp". You're the shard boogeymen because you admittedly will go to any length to secure a win or kill, or just plain spitework, regardless of how potentially damaging the bug might be, should it be made public. Some things aren't nearly as drastic but you're no Mary Poppins on the PvP scene.

You see, in one paragraph you've marginalized my pvp career here into ad hominem. You've got no real ammo. You've just got a finger to point with. All you can do is vaguely say I exploited bugs and cheated somehow. To call my factions tactics bugs or exploits is an extremely reaching interpretation. Everything I've done was legal in 2000 and now. In fact despite you calling my strategies bugs they're still here too. 25% of all the faction kills in server history are credited to me. I don't have anything to prove to you or anyone else.

I'm not Mary Poppins. Although I loved her movie and I think Dick Van Dyke is the original Dilf. I believe factions is asymmetric warfare in a UO sandbox. The winners will be those that fight the smartest and hardest. I recognize a tool and how to use it. You sit on the sidelines and cry while the world continues to turn without you. Not every fight can be won head on. Sometimes a trap or feint wins a battle. In factions you either learn to think this way or you have a bad time.

Ok blaise. After reading your post I see a bunch of crying that is unwarranted for several reasons. Months after factions came out pets were limited to 1 dragon and 1 mare, effectively destroying the use for tamers in factions (whom previously had no limit on followers). You wouldn't know thay because, admittedly, you didn't pvp then. This is exactly why I said YOU have nothing to base HIS accusations upon, because apparently youll believe anything. So now you're here talking out of your ass about things you obviously know nothing about, things that take place in an aspect of the game that you continue to not take part in, for no sensible reason at all save for perhaps making yourself look like an idiot as usual.

Okay, so what is the problem that is so severe that harrowers need to be deactivated for months?
On one hand, he says that he isn't thinking that people are getting too much plat from harrowers, but you can see from his actions that this might not be the case? If it isn't a problem of too much plat entering the system, why were they disabled and why have the continued to be disabled?
I've been scratching my head over it, the only think I can think up is perhaps that the large groups of players were putting stress on the server hardware, but that's really just speculation. So it seems to me that it's either that he actually was upset about the volume of plat being farmed, or that it was a server issue. It's hard to tell, and that brings us back to "vague problem".

Then there's the issue of people playing more than one character, which in the past Telamon says he has no problem with as it's difficult to pull off, but then when you look at the proposed system it's clearly designed to try to prevent people from doing that. Once again, it seems vague to me.

Maybe you're seeing that I don't, but I can't quite tell what his stance on the issue is, what about harrowers was so broken that it needed to be disabled immediately and for this long, and what exactly his proposed changes are intended to bring about.

More difficulty, more distribution depending on participation for the WHOLE harrower. Less rewards for participants of the last phase. No flat 20 plat for every toon. That's what I understood.

" perhaps that the large groups of players were putting stress on the server hardware, but that's really just speculation"


yep, that was one clear and distinct point Telamon put forth.

So you answered one of your own questions. Enough said.

Actually, I know you're a great PvPer. That's what makes it more embarrassing to see you doing things like walling guards into bases with faction vendors. I've never said it didn't work that way on OSI, I'm just saying it's not combat. It's fucking stupid and has no place in the game, in my opinion. If you love it so much, great, that's your opinion on things that aren't combat being proper in the pvp scene.

If you want me to spell out the exact nature of the most heinous shit you've done, I'm sorry I won't. It's not in anyone's best interest for drastically game-breaking bugs you've abused, to be made full public knowledge. If you need to know exactly what I mean, you can ask napo. Last time he pushed this to detail, I gave him the exact detail in PM and he shut right the hell up.

Not ALL of your 'faction tactics' are piss poor sportsmanship or entirely aside from actual players fighting players. Just some of them, and that's what makes me sad to see coming from people who I respect as quality combatants. I'm not 'crying on the sidelines' by voicing my concerns about what makes no logical sense in the game. A trap or feint is dandy, but abusing poorly considered mechanics to get cheap victories, is just that. Cheap. I have always had fun in factions until things that aren't players fighting players come into play. Guard spam, vendor wall/turrets, packs of tames, tons of daemon summons. It's not that it's a bad time or that I can't do the same, it's just boring and I have no interest in "fighting" like that. I know I suck but I'll be damned if I'm ever pulling pets into a base or engaging in things like luring guards into places they don't belong because the code allows it. Yes, I have strayed from the path of virtue in the past and it never sits right with me, so I step back. I hope that some day, it's not a festering shitpile of un-pvp, so when I do engage again I can fight people, not bugs.


Kane, you're still daft. I've read countless threads about dragon armies in faction bases on OSI and Les Claypool was the first person to tell me how fucking lame it was. Perhaps he could jog your memory? I don't believe "anything" but I sure as shit believe the people I know and trust.

[obligatory 'shit just got real' meme]

10 a=shit
20 a=a+real
30 print a
40 goto 20

run

On the whole, despite little nitpicky complaints I may have (bonding), this is the best UO 3rd party shard Ive ever been on and I hope it lasts forever.

Amen!

Hype train!!!

Love ya:
@Chris
@DarkWing
@Ariadne
@Samorite

And all the rest who make this possible!

Awww guys... d--don't do that.

You just invited them all to a shit sandwich of a thread.... and the bread is reeeeeeeealy thin.