UO Second Age

BlaiseDad wrote:I'm guessing you never had anyone tell you that the fun of the game is PLAYING it. Winning is just a bonus.

Don't make uneducated guesses. You're looking silly.

When you hit a certain point, like your 4th month playing this shard, you have done everything there is to do.

Having scheduled automated events brought excitement. It's why the events were packed.

With out them, we lost active players.

Anyways, I am completely enlightened with the audience I am debating this issue with, and I'm not going to waste anymore time.

I'm sorry you're seeing UO as another game to be beaten but that's not what it's about for the truly passionate Britannians.
At 4 months in I was thinking "Yes, this still as much fun as I had when I played years ago".
Oddly enough, at over a year, I was thinking the same thing just the other night. This is a world, not a game. People inhabit this place as a social medium, not simply another scoreboard of nerd achievement. This is the greatest sandbox I've ever played in and I've 'met' so many great people that see this world through similar eyes. Sometimes I like to fight, sometimes I sort and decorate, sometimes I just wander around listening to the sounds of Ultima and wondering what I might stumble upon next. Last time it was a Leprecaun and I wasn't even looking.

Maybe I intentionally don't get sucked into the PvP scene so that I don't turn into another bored player sitting around saying "gimme" instead of getting out in the world and making things happen for others.

But please, don't 'waste' any more of your precious time.

You guy's are losers.

Commence to bringing back the events

Fede, while I don't necesarily agree with your style of debate, I agree with you here.
Just letting you know what you're saying isn't falling on deaf ears and the support for bringing back events in some form is there.

There is so much grey area in the NEA issue of this. On Sonoma in 1999 there was a tournament held once a week with seer and GM support. Since the staff here don't have the time or resources to continue to throw scheduled/regular events, then automating them seems like the logical thing to do. That was the thought process when first implementing events, correct? It's not as if Derrick and the staff, when creating this shard, thought automated events were actually era accurate and then later realized they weren't. They were removed due to bugs, which can be fixed, not due to era inaccuracy.

Since Sonoma in 1999 had a weekly tournament, does that mean NOT having weekly tournaments here is NEA?
Of course not. Point being, there is grey area on this subject when it comes to the NEA issue.

Bring back events in some form. A huge number of players here believe it is good for the shard and will not only increase our population, but KEEP people playing here for longer cycles of time.
You can point that our population has had a spike this winter...but shouldn't it always be on the rise, events or not? The longer the shard exists, the more people have played here, the more people they tell, the more old players will come back, etc.
It certainly doesn't seem like events will drive players AWAY, so the only outcome of reimplementing them (provided the bugs are worked out) is a positive one.

Halbu, you can post screenshots of activity, but I can go to Brit Bank and the gy right now, 5:30 pm on a Saturday, take screens of NO ONE and post those, but I won't waste your time. Events or not, there will be times when the shard is populated and busy and times when the shard is slow.

Everyone that says events take away from the sandbox/field aspect: I agree with you to a certain extent, but is it really THAT bad to have an hour here or there when the field is a bit empty? It's already like this the majority of the time, and it's not as if events were all happening during peak hours. I have screenshots upon screenshots of huge battles at Bucs Den before and after CTF's and tournaments, and the gy after events would sometimes be packed for hours. Not to mention, the amount of farmers in dungeons went way up during tournaments and were ripe for pking. Is a tournament at 12:30 am Monday morning REALLY going to put a damper on field pvp?

Either way, this issue reminds me of liberals vs conservatives. Good luck convincing someone on the other side of the fence into compromise. I'm not posting this to change anyones mind, just stating what myself and a large number of players here believe would help our shard thrive and reach the next level as far as long-term population goes.

iamantitype wrote:Fede, while I don't necesarily agree with your style of debate, I agree with you here.
Just letting you know what you're saying isn't falling on deaf ears and the support for bringing back events in some form is there.

There is so much grey area in the NEA issue of this. On Sonoma in 1999 there was a tournament held once a week with seer and GM support. Since the staff here don't have the time or resources to continue to throw scheduled/regular events, then automating them seems like the logical thing to do. That was the thought process when first implementing events, correct? It's not as if Derrick and the staff, when creating this shard, thought automated events were actually era accurate and then later realized they weren't. They were removed due to bugs, which can be fixed, not due to era inaccuracy.

Since Sonoma in 1999 had a weekly tournament, does that mean NOT having weekly tournaments here is NEA?
Of course not. Point being, there is grey area on this subject when it comes to the NEA issue.

Bring back events in some form. A huge number of players here believe it is good for the shard and will not only increase our population, but KEEP people playing here for longer cycles of time.
You can point that our population has had a spike this winter...but shouldn't it always be on the rise, events or not? The longer the shard exists, the more people have played here, the more people they tell, the more old players will come back, etc.
It certainly doesn't seem like events will drive players AWAY, so the only outcome of reimplementing them (provided the bugs are worked out) is a positive one.

Halbu, you can post screenshots of activity, but I can go to Brit Bank and the gy right now, 5:30 pm on a Saturday, take screens of NO ONE and post those, but I won't waste your time. Events or not, there will be times when the shard is populated and busy and times when the shard is slow.

Everyone that says events take away from the sandbox/field aspect: I agree with you to a certain extent, but is it really THAT bad to have an hour here or there when the field is a bit empty? It's already like this the majority of the time, and it's not as if events were all happening during peak hours. I have screenshots upon screenshots of huge battles at Bucs Den before and after CTF's and tournaments, and the gy after events would sometimes be packed for hours. Not to mention, the amount of farmers in dungeons went way up during tournaments and were ripe for pking. Is a tournament at 12:30 am Monday morning REALLY going to put a damper on field pvp?

Either way, this issue reminds me of liberals vs conservatives. Good luck convincing someone on the other side of the fence into compromise. I'm not posting this to change anyones mind, just stating what myself and a large number of players here believe would help our shard thrive and reach the next level as far as long-term population goes.

^ +1

No matter how you look at it, events will only raise the population. You can bicker about small details of them not being era accurate but at some point you need to at least somewhat cater to what the players want. Without players you don't have a shard. As for myself, I've only been here about 5 months and have already lost almost all interest in playing anymore. Sure some old players will still be coming back here and there even without events but none of them are gonna actually stay and keep playing. Events and leaderboards give pvpers something to look forward to and work towards. Without the events it's just another day of fighting the same 10 people out on the field with nothing to gain. It gets old really fast.

iamantitype wrote:Everyone that says events take away from the sandbox/field aspect: I agree with you to a certain extent, but is it really THAT bad to have an hour here or there when the field is a bit empty? It's already like this the majority of the time, and it's not as if events were all happening during peak hours. I have screenshots upon screenshots of huge battles at Bucs Den before and after CTF's and tournaments, and the gy after events would sometimes be packed for hours. Not to mention, the amount of farmers in dungeons went way up during tournaments and were ripe for pking. Is a tournament at 12:30 am Monday morning REALLY going to put a damper on field pvp?

Even though I'm sure Derrick has plans for the events and just hasn't got around to it yet, I'm gonna go ahead and say thanks for putting this comment out there, this is exactly what I've always thought, but I just never thought some people might not know this. This is why I'm suggesting the actual game play area of the events be in a "trammel" type environment such as mYm arena, but have the sign-ups and waiting area in the main world. I remember wanting to go to the events on a red but being scared that 10 people would be waiting by the gate to gank me, so I'd stealth up and check the scene first. There should be some danger in entering the event, and making it home with your prize if any.

iamantitype wrote:There is so much grey area in the NEA issue of this. On Sonoma in 1999 there was a tournament held once a week with seer and GM support. Since the staff here don't have the time or resources to continue to throw scheduled/regular events, then automating them seems like the logical thing to do. That was the thought process when first implementing events, correct? It's not as if Derrick and the staff, when creating this shard, thought automated events were actually era accurate and then later realized they weren't. They were removed due to bugs, which can be fixed, not due to era inaccuracy.

Do we have proof that these events existed? To what extent was GM and Seer support provided? Were the mechanics suspended for those involved, players and spectators alike? Without answers to these questions, and more, the claim of weekly tournaments is, at the moment, completely unsubstantiated.

iamantitype wrote:Since Sonoma in 1999 had a weekly tournament, does that mean NOT having weekly tournaments here is NEA?
Of course not. Point being, there is grey area on this subject when it comes to the NEA issue.

Until in-era information is provided that shows that these events were held on a weekly basis, and also shows that these events suspended the mechanics of the era, then this is a moot point. Supposing that this is proven in part or whole, it does not warrant 5 events a day, and doesn't even warrant that we follow that server's formula.

iamantitype wrote:Bring back events in some form. A huge number of players here believe it is good for the shard and will not only increase our population, but KEEP people playing here for longer cycles of time.

This is a supposition, and one that is not supported by the facts. If events increased the population, the the logical conclusion is that the lack of events would decrease the population. This has not happened.

iamantitype wrote:You can point that our population has had a spike this winter...but shouldn't it always be on the rise, events or not? The longer the shard exists, the more people have played here, the more people they tell, the more old players will come back, etc.

If this theory were true, then UOSA would have been well beyond 1500 clients online before events were touched. The plain fact of the matter is that there is a limit to the number of players that will join a server.

iamantitype wrote:It certainly doesn't seem like events will drive players AWAY, so the only outcome of reimplementing them (provided the bugs are worked out) is a positive one.

This is impossible to claim. No one has any idea how many potential players were driven away in the ~3.75 years we had events, thus we cannot prove that their existence did not drive players away.

iamantitype wrote:Everyone that says events take away from the sandbox/field aspect: I agree with you to a certain extent, but is it really THAT bad to have an hour here or there when the field is a bit empty? It's already like this the majority of the time, and it's not as if events were all happening during peak hours. I have screenshots upon screenshots of huge battles at Bucs Den before and after CTF's and tournaments, and the gy after events would sometimes be packed for hours. Not to mention, the amount of farmers in dungeons went way up during tournaments and were ripe for pking. Is a tournament at 12:30 am Monday morning REALLY going to put a damper on field pvp?

This implies that it is our responsibility to create activity for players. It's not. On top of that, with the majority of our ex-events being catered to PvP players (about 90%), we were expressing a bias to one group of players over another. This, quite obviously, is not acceptable.

Gymkhana wrote:No matter how you look at it, events will only raise the population.

Again, this position does not fit the facts. There should have been a significant drop in players once events disappeared. This has not happened.

Gymkhana wrote:You can bicker about small details of them not being era accurate but at some point you need to at least somewhat cater to what the players want.

It is not our place to cater to what specific players want. This implies that one particular group of players is more valuable than the next, which is entirely incorrect. However, if this had been our approach, we would not have chosen an objective approach to the mechanics themselves, and would have catered to what the players wanted from the start.

Gymkhana wrote:Without players you don't have a shard. As for myself, I've only been here about 5 months and have already lost almost all interest in playing anymore.

There it is again, the implication that events were what made the server successful. This entirely ignores everything else that has been done on the server, and makes events the sole breadwinner of the server. This is a silly, and completely unfounded notion.

Gymkhana wrote:Sure some old players will still be coming back here and there even without events but none of them are gonna actually stay and keep playing. Events and leaderboards give pvpers something to look forward to and work towards. Without the events it's just another day of fighting the same 10 people out on the field with nothing to gain. It gets old really fast.

Again, it is not our place to make the fun for you. You must explore something in UO that you find fun, not demand that we produce what you consider fun for you. This defeats the purpose of the sandbox environment.

Gym and Tittype,

Don't bother responding. Take it from me.

Also, it's nice to see that my text did reach the right individuals.

Have a good weekend guys.

You probably didn't notice the drop in players because all you're looking at is the player numbers. I know most vets don't still have 3 clients running all the time trying to build characters like noobs do so when a vet leaves you would only see 1 less player and when a noob comes you will see 3 more. If you actually paid attention to how many people were pvping then and how many are now then I guarantee you would see a huge drop. I've personally talked to many people who left this server strictly because events are gone and will not come back unless events are back. I don't know one person who only came to this server because events were not era accurate and cancelled and are going to leave if they come back.

Like I said, no matter how you look at it events will only increase population. There will be zero downfall to running them again.

Gymkhana wrote:You probably didn't notice the drop in players because all you're looking at is the player numbers. I know most vets don't still have 3 clients running all the time trying to build characters like noobs do so when a vet leaves you would only see 1 less player and when a noob comes you will see 3 more. If you actually paid attention to how many people were pvping then and how many are now then I guarantee you would see a huge drop. I've personally talked to many people who left this server strictly because events are gone and will not come back unless events are back. I don't know one person who only came to this server because events were not era accurate and cancelled and are going to leave if they come back.

Like I said, no matter how you look at it events will only increase population. There will be zero downfall to running them again.

Well, its a good thing that I take a look at the client to IP ratio, instead of just taking the client count as a factor. Our ratio is still the same as it was last summer, so that argument does not hold water.

Yeah it definitely doesn't hold water because I'm making all of this up. I'm lying about having talked to 15+ pvpers who don't play here anymore only because there is no events. Get real man. The fact your denying that nobody left because events were cancelled is a complete joke.

i really miss events it gave us all something to do when we were bored personnaly i have cut back alot on my play time because theres nothing else to do as a pk on this shard i can tell u in a month of pking 4-5 hours straight i wracked up 100 kills this is constantly going to all the dungeons doing runs and most of those kills where the same damn people over and over wherever all these people are please lemme know cause i aint seen hardly anyone new at all :/

I'm not claiming that a few people haven't left due to events. This is an obvious result if those players' game play revolved around events. However, suggesting (as you implicitly do) that there is a significant drop in population expressly due to events is silly.

im not gonna say events have a direct affect on population but i will say this undeniably with events around it gave us all something to do when we were bored and sick of farming or getting 5v1 ganked or doing the ganking what have you but i mean even if u dont wanna have the 1v1 2v2 3v3 i mean CTF DD monster bash those things where alot of fun