This is where you need to time the introduction of the shard. Now we'd probably struggle to attract the Europa players simply because we have been out of sight and mind for way too long. Even DF players, many are moving on or already have moved on, it will be hard to get them to back track on a new shard. We had a huge impact on DF pvp, and left a real nice mark in the end, after so many disliked us. We had several of the DF guilds playing, or at least creating accounts and seeing what it was about. The EU players that came across, were generally people that played on DF with us at some point, and the others were just a few stragglers that wanted to fight there enemies of the past - note : ELR.Angus wrote:I think the hardest thing with a free shard is getting the balance right between what we and others loved about UO, and introducing new ideas and aspects to make it feel somewhat fresh.
For me there is no, nor will their ever be a perfect free shard, I just cant see it being possible, theirs too many "what ifs" involved, its such a big gamble, and as Nox states, if its not backed properly its just not going to work.
I personally think getting a playerbase for a shard like legacy wouldnt be that hard, but getting a playerbase of players that wanted to particpate in the shards survival and future is near impossible. Look at this forum for example, lets just say most of I-C play it, and us few straggelers that still post here because we cant let UO die, thats a decent solid 20 playerbase, but thats not enough to draw masses in, and if it does, you know its gonna be players who want instant satisfaction within the game and no work.
The problem with free shards? Too many twinks who never experienced what UO was to alot of people.
Most of what Ive said has probably been stated already, but FU im hungover and needed my say !!!
It didn't have the pull to bring in the real guilds needed for a shard, the UCH's the EK's etc. Ignore the freeshard guilds for just now.
Why?
Well the shard suffers from two main things really.
- Difference of opinion.
They are new gen pvpers. We are old gen pvpers. Our mentalitys and such are completely different. What we like and what we don't like differ. Getting the balance between new and old is almost impossible.
- Fucked off with UO
We have been through so many changes, nerfs, screw ups etc from a pvp perspective, the game we love has been tampered with too oblivion and instead of making a potentially great pvp system - which AOS had a real chance of becoming in the end, they've completely screwed it for the sake of an extra buck. These new gen players aren't at the stage we are at yet, so pulling them away from OSI to Free on the long term is almost impossible.
We've seen it in the past, except the shoe was on the other foot. We were at a point of reasonable content after p16 - we didn't have the same hate we have now thats for sure. 6i6 with their Defience was able to attract so many core EU pvpers initially because literally scores of EU guilds were so unhappy and disgusted with what UO had become, they were happy to move to such a shard. Despite many of them, hating the guild and in particular the leader.
Why? All because the execution was timed right.