by Azaroth | May 19th, 2010
Yeah, I know. And the natives are starting to get restless. Sorry. I understand.
Let me put my explanation this way:
Game development takes a long time. Game development with volunteer developers takes… well, a really long time.
However. I haven’t announced IPY, IPY2, IPY 3.5, or my own personal remake of King’s Quest IV (that’d be so fucking awesome). This is just my blog where I speak hypothetically.
In fact, I struggled with the idea of posting anything to this blog because managing expectations is something I wanted to do carefully. Perhaps I’m going about it in the wrong way. I’m not sure. But I also wanted to get the community involved to some extent and give them a voice. I had some questions I genuinely wanted to ask. Those goals don’t mix well, I’m finding.
But the point is that we’re free to discuss anything we want.
So here we are. We’re at the point now where I have to admit we’re taking a long time to get some pretty big jobs done. One of those big jobs is “life” sometimes for my guys, and there’s nothing I can say except “Alright, no problem, I hope you get back soon, good luck with that”. I’ve never put demands on the time of my guys, and I won’t start now just because we’re all feeling a bit antsy.
IPY 2 is a big, big job. I started it BECAUSE it was a big job. At no point did I sit down and decide to run the same shard over again. I sat down, after a long stretch of not even THINKING about UO because I was so burned out, and figured that if my passion for the game had endured IPY… it’d probably always be there. That didn’t spawn thoughts of repeating the past and getting burnt out again – it spawned thoughts of fixing the problems, improving the game, taking it to a new place, challenging myself to be an actual game designer and actually make something better… really give back to the game instead of just copying it. All while being honest with the direction in terms of how the solutions jived with the original design of the game and the intentions of its designers.
I wanted to go back and explore the fork in the road left untaken when UO:Renaissance was released. To me, in my imagination, one sign reads “UO:Renaissance” and the other is just a big question mark pointing toward an overgrown path.
If we continued under developers with a different mindset and different goals, where would the game have gone? What would it have looked like today?
I think those are important questions for such a rabid community of oldschool UO fans. Things can’t just stay static… because nobody would be playing UO right now. It would have had to evolve, so I really like thinking of where it could have (or in my mind… maybe should have) evolved to.
I honestly have little problem blogging for five years while I wait for IPY 2 to get coded up, tested, and ready to go. I’ve done it to this point, and whenever people get jumpy with me about a release date, my reply tends to be something along the lines of “Keep your panties on, Mable”.
But at this point, I think we can genuinely go back and reexamine a question I had for you guys months ago. A question you may understand much better now:
One Shard Or Two Shards?
See, IPY: Classic was ready to go in October of last year. I was worried about the PvP mechanics and how people would look at them without their rose coloured nostalgia glasses on, but I’ve been reassured by the best source I can imagine. It’s ready to rock, more or less. The cheap development server I have it running on in Montreal might get a little laggy if I gave you guys the login tonight, though.
But the point is that originally I asked this question for a good reason. Development is going to take a while. I can’t help that.
In fact, several times now I have simplified my plans for the server just so that we’re not looking at 2025 as a release date. I didn’t want to, but I did so grudgingly because I understand that you guys don’t want to wait forever… and it’s really hard on the coders to see no light at the end of the tunnel.
So originally, I queried the community here whether they’d like a classic IPY ruleset and an ‘evolution’ ruleset running at the same time. This is for two reasons. One being development time and that the classic server will give everyone something to play in the meantime, the other being that obviously some people may get upset with the changes. I don’t want to be developing another UO:Renaissance2 and leaving the people who dislike it bitter and angry.
I was asked today “Will I like the new ruleset?”. Well, all I can do is talk vaguely about “evolution” and give hints out. Some of you are on board, and that rocks. But right now when I say “Evolution”, you have a shiny happyland full of rainbows and pots of gold in your imagination… or… whatever. When it’s done, my version may vary significantly from the one in your imagination. Or it might be the same. But you can’t really know.
Now of course, potentially you split the playerbase when IPY2Proper launches, yes. But there are multiple ways to handle that when the time comes. One being… that you don’t. Perhaps that means one is left being the weaker sibling, but at least it exists still – and the more popular server will be the more popular because of player choice. Not for lack of options.
It’s like taking Siege Perilous down right now if you were EA. Even if you put up a classic server, or if you patched Siege INTO your classic server… the fourteen die hard Siege fans would freak out and firebomb your offices. For years afterward, hatred would be spewed on various messageboards about when you took down Siege, etc. Some times you just need to let people have it… even if they don’t play it.
So this isn’t an announcement of anything, including IPY: Classic. I am, however, going to pose the same question to you guys again. One shard or two?
Or, since the actual goal here would be to make you all happy (and prevent you from lighting up the torches and sharpening the pitchforks for a while):
Loading ...You might want it even if you don’t play it… but let’s see if you’ll actually play it.
Another reason to word that poll in such a way is because there are, as always, other UO shards out there. I assume some that perhaps you’re happy with. If you ARE happy with your current UO shard and likely wouldn’t switch to a classic IPY ruleset, then you know how to vote.
With this poll, I get a clearer idea of what I should do. The results will be kept from the public, so there’s no reason to attempt to cheese it in your favour. It also doesn’t end the possibility of IPY2, either. In fact, it enhances it in several ways that I suppose don’t need to be discussed just yet.
My main concern here is that the day to day operation of the shard will completely monopolize my free time and negatively impact development of IPY2. This is obviously something that I’d need to figure out before doing anything.
Either way. Don’t flip out if we all vote here and nothing happens. I’m just collecting opinions, as I always am.
To make this nice and easy, I’ve added the poll to the right hand side of this blog.
“…challenging myself to be an actual game designer and actually make something better… really give back to the game instead of just copying it.”
In all reality, you’re just a remixer. A sampler. Like me. Someone who sees something, a gem really – and has to polish it up and rehash it just enough so that you can pass it off to the rest of us warm bodies under the lights of a disco ball and under the influence of ecstacy. I mean honestly it’s reminding me of that scene in Dumb & Dumber where Lloyd sells the dead parakeet to the blind kid.
“I think those are important questions for such a rabid community of oldschool UO fans. Things can’t just stay static… because nobody would be playing UO right now.”
They can stay static, all right. These people would play UO still if a nuclear bomb went off and slaughtered their entire town. As long as they had a bomb shelter and a decent Wi-Fi signal, these people wouldn’t have any real reason to complain. If they did they’d have tried out something different for once in the past +decade. No but honestly, they can be pretty picky because UO players are so antiquated and provincial in their taste. Which isn’t a bad thing, it’s just that typically a person whos only played one game or focused on one game for so long has a heightened sense of equilibrium regarding UO, and much less so regarding other MMO concepts and dynamics. Don’t be afraid to dump new stuff into the game, just because some die-hard loser with no holistic taste hasn’t seen an emulation of it in UO yet.
When I originally told you to put up IPY again, I said it as a joke. I didn’t really mean it has to come up. Or come up quick. Or come up at all. But on the real? Get the shard up noob.
“But right now when I say ‘Evolution’, you have a shiny happyland full of rainbows and pots of gold in your imagination… or… whatever.”
I pretty much think of 16 bit sprites running around chugging potions hitting hot keys and wearing rainbows and looting pots of gold. I dunno about the rest of these people but my consternation surrounding UO is usually limited to pretty archaic shit. Rainbows weren’t invented by OSI or EA, rather by Kellog’s when they made Lucky Charms. (They’re a Kellog’s product, right?) Anyways, point is – “AWE” shouldn’t be as much of a focus as “VALUE” – Replayability will certainly crush any HOTNEWSHIT you put into a 13 y/o game. This means it boils down to game balance, positive community, and proper administration. Period.
Honestly I don’t want to sound like a cynic, but dude – there aren’t *THAT* many die-hard UO fans left. There just aren’t. We represent a sliver [people on this blog] of a sliver [potential IPY players] of a sliver [people who play UO which holds less than 1% of MMORPG market share] of a sliver [people who can tolerate people like Bagel King]. Maybe splitting the server sounds like a great idea, but in practicality you want to hold a lot of water. Jacky Treehorn holds a lot of water in this here town. You don’t hold shit, Leibowski!!! STAY OUT OF MALIBU, DEAD BEAT!!!!!! No but seriously. I think it sounds like an exciting prospective experiment, but anything worth doing is worth doing right. AND worth putting all your eggs in one basket. New shit has come to light, man… did it ever occur to you, MAN, that maybe… look, she kidnapped herself man! She needs to feed the demon! Or whatever…
Also one more thing. Don’t really take what most of us say seriously, to the point of feeling like you’re stepping on toes or infringing on peoples ideals or wasting their time or testing their patience or ignoring their demands. We’re talking about the dredge of the online game community. Free loading noobs who can’t afford to pay monthly fees for awesome games like HELLGATE: LONDON. WARHAMMER: 9008XL. JIMMY AND THE FAILBOTS VS CARMEN SAN DIEGO ONLINE. DARKFALL. SHREK MMO. Stuff like that. These scrubs can go beta test Hello Kitty Tycoon Deluxe 8: Az’s Balls Expansion – Game of the Year Edition.
I know this comes across possibly brash but you all know me, I always keeps it rizzle…
Its good to see you have such a passion for this. Maybe one day you should try college for game design/theory. It might further your passion for this sort of thing.
On an other note sounds great for opening the server up XD. But the splitting the shard population does sound like an issue still, well to me atleast. You see UO’s population has dropped by alot as the years as passed but if we can focus on bringing more people into UO’s circulation then this wouldnt be an issue. So why not suggest UO to that guy at work you sometimes talk to. Or your buds who you talk to online or know irl just these things could make a huge difference when this finally happens.
Looks like Yaht wrote that post while under the influence of ecstasy…
But yeah I agree with the two above posters that splitting the population of the two servers is a bit risky.
I mean for one, lots of players won’t want to start over at what you’re making seem like a lengthy character development time. Lots of players won’t like what you see as a positive evolution. Granted if PvP is unchanged then you probably can’t fuck up enough to piss the die hards off.
I’ll play both or either – but the fact of the matter is that no matter how great the evolved version is, if Classic has a significantly higher population everyone is going to play that. And chances are if you open it first then that’s going to be the case – especially if everyone is dedicated to their six week developed character or however long it takes to 7x.
But yeah.. open classic before the Shadowbane Emulator gets going!
I just read a comment of yours in the previous blog posting that you don’t care about the population of IPY:Evolution as long as you’re happy with the outcome.
That’s a good attitude to take and with that in mind I would say put up IPY classic. If anything it will give your Ipy:Evo more exposure.
Another way to look at it, put a classic shard up as a tester to prove the point if there really are enough people out there interested in UO still. It would be a shame (certainly from your point of view) to invest hours/weeks/months of dev time on IPY2 only to find people just arn’t interested….however…
Stratics: http://vboards.stratics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=35
MMORPG: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/forum/355/Britannia-Tavern-General.html
Mortal Online: http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/34230-old-uo-players.html
http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/37924-ultima-online-second-age-populated-player-run-server-free.html
DarkFall: http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=211532
http://www.fohguild.org/forums/other-games/42015-ultima-online-second-age-era-server.html
argues otherwise, and thats just a small sample, plus every single Player run shard message board out there (and that’s quite a few) are foaming at the mouth for Ultima Online STILL after 13 years, albeit most want a classic UO experience.
In several of those links above for Darkfall, Mortal Online & fohguild, IPY is specifically mentioned and not just in past tense. Somehow, the hype for IPY is already getting out, I think that speaks for itself. There is undeniably a demand out there for a old classic UO, hence why EA devs actually bothered to comment about it. Worst case, if IPY 1.5 is released soon, it will give you a set in stone idea on whether IPY 2.0 is worth pursuing I.E whether the demand is there.
Just my thoughts. And in all honestly thats coming from a sat on fence unbiased perspective.
If it was from an unbiased perspective, you’d acknowledge that over half of the people in the Darkfall thread are going “WTF IS IPY. UO?! GAY” in so many words. Just sayin. And Mortal? Dude that game looks like absolute ________ fill-in-your-own-mad-lib.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not talkin smack, just sayin – admit it, you’re a lil bit of a fanboy. Cmon, it’s ok to say it.
But yeah the “hype” is out there, for what it’s worth. TBH all it really takes is some random dude to tweet or facespace a link to this site for us to gain more and more traction. Which I’m sure is happening on a daily basis, albeit minute in size.
Dude, I’m a MadLibs fanboy.
Johnny threw the red ASS to his dog!!
LOLOLOL!!!!!!!!
T’HEEHEEHEEHEEEHEEE
*runs around in circles giggling*
haha yeah, but then did you expecting anything else from the Forumfall website…:)
I’m on the fence for IPY, but certainly a rabid fanboy for UO of old. The reason i’m on the fence here is that I simply dont have enough information to know whether IPY is my thing, other then the Legends, Myth’s and webshrines dotted around the net that still sing IPY 1′s praises.
I admit, it’s what brought me here and why i”m curious and as a UO fan what choice do I have? Play EA UO, Play UO:Second Age or accept the fact that UO is finished…
But I agree, hype would benefit the project and at IPY really should launch with as many onboard as possible to maximise longterm success.
I guess that’s intangible “passion” is what seperates traditionalists from progressives. People who stick with one game through its entire life cycle, compared to people who fly to the next trendy thing.
DID I JUST GO POLITICAL ANALOGY ON THIS TOPIC? OH YES I DID
*runs around in circles giggling*
i’ve been progressive, fuck, i’ve played too many MMO’s to even remember them all. UO just beats them all. Nothing wrong with “progressives” if the game your going too is actually better….there lies the problem.
UO/EQ & Eve = mmoRPG
nearly every other modern MMO is just a co-op singleplayer pulling out the letters R.P.G from it’s ass and putting it on the end.
Call me OLD SKOOL I guess.. And no i don’t have a beard, wear sandals over white socks or smoke a pipe!
That Forumfall off topic thread was pathetic. Shows how far Darkfall has fallen. Also, it’s against the TOS there to talk about free UO servers, usually the posts are closed.
But this seriously made my day:
Azaroth
Normal User
Long term follower
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Canada
“Silly ’09ers.”
I was really on board for Darkfall until the development started taking something near a full decade. I think I followed it religiously ’01-’03 or so.
If IPY2 is still in development in 2019, I’ll email Tasos and apologize for getting fed up with them.
I still have a staff account if you want to sneak around the Dev/staff forums. It’s a good place to see how to NOT DESIGN A GAME. Yeah it’s that bad. I honestly don’t know how their startup received capital investment unless it was a loan from some desperate noob who wanted a game custom designed where he would have the upper hand. And there are no upper hands in DF just fails all around.
Also is Nihilus spying on me IRL? Cuz I have a beard and sandals over socks and I’m smoking a pipe on my back patio as we discuss.
I think you’re in a bad place the second you start using volunteer customer service.
This is also a shot at myself, I suppose. :(
If your ever board shitless and fancy shits and giggles while losing some IQ, the Darkfall forum is a “choice” place to hang out.
If it went up, I would play it undoubtedly. However, I’d probably rather just wait for the final product (or as much of it as possible) and keep it as one shard.
I think there’s definitely value in launching IPY Classic in the short term. It should not only reduce anxiety for IPY2, but also enhance development by presenting issues that you may have forgotten about since the original IPY. Community migration obviously presents issues, but I think that’s something that you just deal with when you get there. I’ve always been in support of having one “evolution” server, but I formed that opinion without consideration for the development timeline or the fact that some people aren’t going to like it.
I’m also biased, because I’m really craving some IPY.
Yeah, but I wonder how many other people are.
There is only one way to find out!
Exactly.
A poll!
Why don’t you just put up a shard until the release of the new one?
You don’t even have to regulate it really – it’s not like you’re looking for a long term solution with a classic server. So yes it will undoubtedly take a nose dive towards the wolves, but such is freeshards.
I would definitely play, but if it trades off with development then I think I would rather wait.
It would be ideal if you had someone else just administrate it with the understanding that it will practically be ‘as is’ for its entire life – to save pressure on the limited coding resources you have now. It’s kind of like those freetrials that only let you access certain parts of the game that never change.
The only way I can answer whether or not I want a classic server or this rebirth of ultima online that you are putting up is a timeline.
That timeline can be even 3-8 months off.
If its another 3-8 months, then by all means ‘keep truckin’.
But if its another two and a half years you might want to start the classic, get a community, then hire coders.
oh and as far as one server or two… i would be down for having 1 classic then bullrushing in IPY2 in when it is finished on the same server. give people 2 weeks notice to bank their items/houses
(can’t give them too long b/c then they would all stop playing like on divinity)
transfer it chars/accounts to ipy2, and then go from there – even if the babies scream and cry their eyes out about it. some might leave -eventually they will leave anyways- and ipy2 would attract a different group of players that have already quit IPY2:classic or want something else than classic UO.
nobody has any loyalty to other uo shards besides the weirdos that go around everywhere preaching how good uosecondage is.
but all of their pvpers will move to IPY because the PVP is horrid on secondage.
if UO has any hope of staying afloat, I believe it it is with IPY and it has to be within the next year (imo)
I seriously doubt that there would be a character transfer to the evolved server from the classic.
Especially since the evolved would have the skill scrolls that have been talked about.
Even though I would prefer that there would be a character transfer, I know there won’t be.
theres a different approach you could take though, having one shard with two facets.
Script it so that theres a different set of rules depending on if
your in felucca or trammel.
That way players can just hop between whereever the action is
i’ve been following UO shard forums on and off for about 7 months waiting for a shard to play, if IPY classic comes up ill definitely play and I can think of 4 irl friends I would bring. I would also gladly (when it’s launched) at least try out IPY 3.0 and I think most people would be as well if IPY 2.0 turns out to be as good as IPY 1.0.
(you are now aware of the countdown from 3)
Just put a copy of what you’ve got of IPY Classic so far & just let it run to iron out any bugs and maybe even gather ideas just think of it as a test center.
Once people start playing and you open yourself and the community to ideas related to Evolution I think you’d see a lot more traffic thus interest and possibly more coders for this project.
Either way, I and I’m sure many, many others will regularly drop by here and read your blog until something on concrete!
More coders isn’t the problem… dedicated, lasting coders are.
If you get enough coders coming and going (:() and you keep the code clean and understandable, code.google is great for that. You would have no problems getting what you want done and making it easy for new coders looking at the code.
So Friday’s the deadline ay? :P
Yeah, I’ve been told to start using google code. Sounds like a decent idea.
As was shown with the traffic spike just because of a mention of IPY.
By the way, no legit MMO launches without missing the launch date and fucking some other stuff up too, so no pressure to meet the deadline of next friday.
Before it gets covered up on PhatChat:
Azaroth : Next topic will be discussing minor alterations to the IPY:Classic ruleset. More polls, most likely!
Playerbase: A lot of people came back to UO when IPY came out. Lots of players requit uo when IPY left, and moved on. In any case, I think a lot of people will still come back when this gets going again.
I don’t believe in 2 servers/IPY’s as I’m not in the mood to start on the classic shard then once I was secure and IPY2 came out and everyone went there – I would not want to start all over again. I recommend focusing on either the classic or the IPY2 – and after reading some comments and posts about IPY2 I would vote to work on IPY2 only.
People want to come back to UO as they remember, make sure the server is stable and there’s no corruption.
Thoughts about playing with everyone again on IPY is giving me goosebumps!
Long live ‘?’ clan.
I have to agree with a lot of people. IPY brought me back to UO and I was really enjoying it again, even after the wipe. I would offer some help with coding, but I’m kinda useless after quitting EA years ago :(
I will definitely bring a half dozen or more with me to the server when it does open once again. Really excited to hear about the progress.
I’ll ask this on Ravatar’s behalf – What about the Hally Timers?
Fixed, bro.
Apparently he says lick my balls, I dunno why he’d be so crude.
A big improvement IMHO would be to make it so you cant GM combat skills on other players, but only by fighting high level mobs. It would mean people would be out in the dungeons from the very start and there would be pvp etc before everyone was 7xGM.
Well, we’ll test it during beta but… I think GMing any combat skill in your house is going to be a big of a pain in the ass.
Should be more than a pain in the ARSE! It should be impossible! :)
Actually, I really like the “pain in the arse” route. I don’t want to completely ban macroing. Maybe if I had 25 coders working around the clock and I could totally redesign UO to not be a computer virus that distributes carpel tunnel to its victims IRL.
I’m happy making it easier and cheaper for people to get ahead by playing the game and leaving macroing as a slower, more expensive option. To me, that’s a fine compromise.
You make a fine point, good sir. A fine compromise indeed.
an alternative to statloss:
red ghosts cannot be resurected by players or take gates, they have to walk to the chaos shrine
if stranded on an island, they would have to use help stuck and walk from there
ehh?e
ehh??
if you want to punish characters specificly then the game must be centered around characterdevelopment. To make each character valuable, as it stands now you can just have several characters. If one of them is temporarily stuck or unable to be playable for abit then you’ll just play with another.
not w/ one char red = all chars red and a limit 2 accounts per IP
It seems to me that the adequate way to deal with excessive pk’ing in a classic shard would be to integrate a system that is internally consistent with classic UO gameplay, instead of imposing a forced system such as statloss to try and discourage excessive murder.
Something in the line of balancing the odds against new players a bit, instead of openly discouraging pk’ing.
I don’t know if anything of the kind has already been suggested somewhere in this blog (except for my own comment in some year-old post), but I think a system like this wouldn’t be half bad:
After a set number of kills in a set period of time put a bounty on pks’ heads that goes up with the murder count.
Then put range-limited spawn points inside dungeons and other pk-heavy areas that spawn blue “bounty hunter” npcs with varying combat skills. Some really nasty that spawn by themselves, some weaker that spawn in groups. Make them respawn often and make them attack reds giving priority to the highest murder count.
Also, put a npc in every town that will give the bounty money for players who sell them the red’s severed head.
It’s something simple, that would give pks, wether they want it or not, something else to spend time with (and in some cases maybe even worry about) other than just murdering every new player in sight.
You know what, I’m feeling pretty good right now so I’m just gonna come out and say it in a rambling incoherent manner -
I feel that the biggest issue regarding PKing AND Statloss is whether or not a system can operate on moral scale. The number one issue in any situation of UO should be based on the ramifications of personal moral conduct. ESPECIALLY in the most direct and personal activity – OUTRIGHT MURDER. It is one thing to delve into it neck-deep and talk about the morality of X or Y, but straight up, PKing is MURDER. It is the quintessential morally corrupt direct in-game “FUCK YOU” of the highest order. The only thing that could be implemented into a game that the majority of culture would find more morally bankrupt as an activity would be rape.
This being the case, I am reaching a point where I feel that performing one of the most violent and malicious crimes, in a game that was based upon morality and the butterfly effect of choice on a meta-scale, should be, literally, one of the most difficult tasks to not only COMMIT, but to GET AWAY WITH.
And I am someone who enjoys PKing way more than PvP, and I have PvPed in games for half my life [literally, I've ran the numbers, it's not even fucking funny, it's truly disturbing].
I feel like PKing, at least in UO, should be one of the most shocking and intense experiences, all the way across the board. This means for the predator, the victim, both parties immediate friends/relatives/contacts/associates/clients, the media [forum], the audience [playerbase], other murderers, stuff like bounty board / competition / economic “victim” supply and demand, etc… it goes on and on.
PKing should be recognized as such in a moral perspective, as well. Hopefully IPY X.Y will be able to make magic happen with regards to moral decisions and actions in the game, with the upmost importance being PKing.
Whether or not the punishment or reward or whatever is this or that, I don’t really care. I really don’t. You could tell me I have an actual gun to my ballzak IRL and if I had my head lopped off and given as a bounty in game that someone would shoot my nuts off, I’d still do it. PKing is a lifestyle, baby!
Look all I’m saying is that PKing should be a truly engaging experience with more ramifications than just lost/gained loot between two people. Put some of the RRRRR back in MURDER, baby, YEAH!!!!!
Dewars n soda, do it. do it.
I know what you mean, and I also enjoy outright pking in UO.
However, something I have always seen in most pre UO:R freeshards is that the very ammount of pks always ends up becoming a sort of oppressing “presence”. You get to a point where reds are like boogie-men (considering the vast majority of blues are not particularly inclined to pvp and would rather not come in contact to any reds). Every time a blue strays out of a guarded area he does so with ass in hands. Reds are basically on top of the food chain.
So the only real thrills you get (purely as a pk, forget gws, faction wars and what have you) will come from sparse skill-balanced pvps, or the even sparser ass whooping by a group of anti-pks.
I think adding a bounty to your head would actually balance this felling of “oppression”, in that you never know when a lonely pking session might turn into a npc driven Screwmenomoreplease. You won’t feel like you’re on top of the food chain. At least not all the time.
Almost forgot: Make these blue npcs spawn in quantities that are proportional to the ammount of red characters logged on the server at a given time, so that demand mirrors offer and the shard doesn’t become a fu*kfest of virtue.
Honestly? I hope you really just make a SINGLE server. Well made, well thought out, and well run.
How old is UO now? As much as people from other freeshards would probably loathe the idea, I’m still convinced that a single IPY shard would be UO’s best chance at a minor revival.
Either way… I’ll play on whichever, though I’d honestly prefer this 2.5 type deal. I think people will live and adjust to the changes as long as you don’t make them abrasive to the overall playerbase (which is hard seeing how fucking ornery UO players are).
That said, 2.5. One server. Balls to the fucking wall.