Cancelling My UOSA Subscription

[chumbucket]

Just to add: My impression of Lightshade, not knowing him in game (to my knowledge), is very good. He is the kind of player we need on this shard. I'm sad to see him go if he does go. (But I would still loot his house if given half a chance.) I'm very sympathetic to the stable complaint as that is one thing that might severely hurt at least certain styles of gameplay.

A case for changing it might be made like this even supposing the current mechanics are era accurate: The stable limit, in era, had no noticeable effect on gameplay. There was de facto no stable limit. But in the radically different context of a freeshard that has been running longer than all of T2A, this formerly inconsequential mechanic is severely hurting a central aspect of the game (any style of play that involves keeping pets other than horses). An exception should be made then on the grounds that (1) in era the mechanic was not noticeable yet (2) is now very bad for the game and (3) the proposed change would restore a T2A-like environment.

Actually, I can't say I know any of the above to actually be true, but that is my impression: There was a limit but one that had no consequences, and now it does have very bad consequences. But supposing all that is correct, this kind of change would be very different than, say, blessing runebooks, introducing Trammel or ninjas or new houses, etc. Those are not only not era accurate, but also the lack of them is not wildly detrimental to the game even in the context of a freeshard. Indeed, I would propose that if ever the current policy on era accuracy be changed, it only be changed in this very minor way and that this new policy be implemented very conservatively. That would preserve everything great about the shard while getting out weird kinks like this.

I can't say I am a fan of people AFK buying reagents, but I can't see a case for changing it on these or similar grounds. A few people get rich for relatively little effort. But so do people with 500 dragons. No noticeable difference in the shard I think and certainly no game breaking one.

[Light Shade]

Posts like this can only hurt the shard. People come and go every day, and while I have played with you in the past and found that you are a likeable person I simply don't see why you would make a post like this if you have nothing to offer other than complaints.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this.

Aside from the stables thing, everything I brought up had nothing to do with Era Accuracy. If someone has an issue with something, they should discuss it. If someone were to silently disapprove, ignore, and then walk away leaving something that (in their opinion) needed fixing, then that would make them negligent. Apathy is never a good course of action.

People can choose to spin this in the most negative way if they want, I will not tell anyone what to think, but they can also take this as some constructive criticism, make the best of it, and try to use it to make things better.

It is my hope that my comments will make things better. If I didn't care, I wouldn't comment.

-L/S

[Ragancy]

1.
The AFK buying macroers should be banned, bottom line.

It puts the people who actually buy the items by playing the game at a HUGE disadvantage.

I know it's not the same as AFK gathering, but AFK buying regs is absolutely terrible for the shard. It just makes the shard look bad.

2.
The stable issue should be addressed - I don't know how, but when there's so much feedback on an issue, it just begs for attention in some way.

3.
I've been noticing a lot of desyncing, too. It's very annoying, but it's one of those things I've just made an adjustment to by improving the location of my resync hotkey.

[chumbucket]

1.
The AFK buying macroers should be baned, bottom line.

It puts the people who actually buy the items by playing the game at a HUGE disadvantage.

I know it's not the same as AFK gathering, but AFK buying regs is absolutely terrible for the shard.

2.
The stable issue should be addressed - I don't know how, but when there's so much feedback on an issue, it just begs for attention in some way.

3.
I've been noticing a lot of desyncing, too. It's very annoying, but it's one of those things I've just made an adjustment to by improving my resync hotkey.

Unless you are selling reagents, I don't see any huge disadvantages. Plus there are the bonuses of a gold sink and easy access to bulk reagents on player vendors.

[Ragancy]

Unless you are selling reagents, I don't see any huge disadvantages.

Ding, ding, ding!

It greatly diminishes any incentive for a legit player trying to run a reg vendor.

This can be applied to arrows and other items. That in turn means less incentive for lumberjacks...less people killing harpies...less PKs to kill those people killing harpies, and so on.

It has a huge effect.

[Shane Dog]

AFK buying regs and stable slots is not ERA accurate.

I don't care either way if we use Razor or not even though it is nice to use to gain skills as well as make other macros (Razor is not ERA accurate). Simple fact remains that afk buying crap with no risk involved 24/7 is not ERA accuarate. This is not Trammel.

Needs to be bannable offense in my opinion. In another thread didn't a GM place a new ingame world object to prevent someone from running a stable macro from a house!?

LOL'lollercakes. The irony.

[SethTersius]

Do AFK buyers REALLY sell enough regs that they cant keep up with demand otherwise?

This is an honest question.

[Pro]

why not make a newb char and just kill them? hide/attack, explo pots, nox and res, 100 tamed cats. it all works.

[Light Shade]

(But I would still loot his house if given half a chance.)

Phew! If the villains stopped playing the villains, things would dissolve into anarchy, chaos, and Trammel in no time.

In response to what you wrote, though, i've often wondered, does:

Mechanical Accuracy = Code
-or-
Mechanical Accuracy = How Things Worked In Era
-or-
both

As you say, in Era, this was never a serious issue like it is here. Sometimes I think we lose sight of replicating the Era by focusing on the code. This is one of those instances.

[Light Shade]

Do AFK buyers REALLY sell enough regs that they cant keep up with demand otherwise?

This is an honest question.

Chaos used to resell reagents all the time. He was always doing it by hand. The most he would use is his sell agent.

He bought and sold more regs on this shard than probably anyone.

So to answer your question: No, they do not sell enough regs that they cannot keep up with demand.

The net effect, though, is that there used to be reagent vendors all over the place. Now there's only 2 or 3 that are ever stocked with any true consistency. Of those 2 or 3, at least 2 of them are supplied through afk macros.

[Derrick]

does:
Mechanical Accuracy = Code
-or-
Mechanical Accuracy = How Things Worked In Era
-or-
both

Well, the code is the definition of how things worked, but in some areas we have only been able to approximate this. In other areas we are using verbatim OSI code; however this isn't possible for every mechanic in the game, it's still a RunUO server.

We can't replicate or attempt to replicate the fact that most people were on dial up connections, or that those with more money or lived closer to cities had better connections. This could be considered how things worked as well, but it's out of our hands.

There are a lot of tiny little things that are quite diffiult to fix. But we'll continue to work on it as we have time. Please remember that there is very little that we can do that doesn't gernate hate-mail from someone or another, and quite typically both sides of the dispute have valid points. What we would like to do is maintain the shard in as stable of a state as possible, and leave the world to the players.

In the void of staff intervention creativity thrives.

[WiseOne]

In the void of staff intervention creativity thrives.

Creativity on how to exploit, scam and grief to be precise.

[Vhyx]

<snip>

The net effect, though, is that there used to be reagent vendors all over the place. Now there's only 2 or 3 that are ever stocked with any true consistency. Of those 2 or 3, at least 2 of them are supplied through afk macros.

This is exactly why I will not buy reagents from player run vendors. Since it's obvious the policy on AFK reg buying isn't going to change, all I can do is not support the dinks that do it.

It's also much easier on my pocketbook to buy direct from the NPCs or loot other players when the opportunity presents itself.

[SethTersius]

In the void of staff intervention creativity thrives.

I agree. Sometimes I look back and realize how much *less* fun it was to have so many strict rules and a GM constantly watching you.

Im having a hard time explaining it in a way that comes across as how I feel and not "I want to be a kid in a candy store with no one looking."

Lack of someone looking over your shoulder has positive implications, although we all tend to assume the negative.

[WiseOne]

How hard is it to take 5 minutes and mark all the mage shops in a runebook. Even if one or two are sold out the rest will have and some as much as 999 on a regular basis. I do all my buying manually and the only reason I started selling in bulk is that I simply have well more than I need. I think afk anything other than raising (some!) skills is against the spirit of the game and the intention of the GM team.