Without a 'Trammel'

[Calix]

How do people get established? It's doable on non-AOS shards, there's no certain spawns you need to work, or items you need to get before you can be even close to competitive.

Say 4 months into a shard, an old PvP guild decides to start up. They're straight away targeted by some established guilds. Is it possible for them to get established and catch up with the rest of the shard in a reasonable time? If there's any doubt as to the answer to this, how bad is it for a single player, especially one new to UO, or without much AOS experience?

In a way the shard we're proposing is daunting even at shard opening, no safe zones outside of the towns, and even with everyone in the same position, certain players/groups will race ahead and gain a bigger advantage than would be possible on a non-AOS shard.

So what measures can we take?

We've already decided on increased insurance costs for murderer characters. Currently set at 4x price, probably realistically we'll end up at 3x. This is obviously only an effective measure for more than a month or two if we manage to develop a reasonable shard economy. As soon as the better players have almost unlimited money, increased insurance costs mean nothing to them. It's not just murderers that can 'grief' people off a shard either, and this rule has no effect on people that just want to grief without going red. We have 0 discouragement for that type of player currently.

We've spread the 'top item' spawns around a lot. Lost Lands are open, meaning even on a high population shard, groups can manage to do Champ spawns unhindered some times. Doom items and other high end loot is spread across 4 different dungeons, and there's lesser-but-still-useful stuff like horned kits available in an absolute ton of locations.

If we want a shard to have a decent player base, which relies on a steady stream of new players to replace the old that naturally drift away, what other measures could we consider?

[Joe]

In my mind this comes down to the building of the community, having a really slick website and forum up for the whole shard, so if an old guild starts up they can post and actually get some support from the community, ask for a bit of help getting established and say when they are getting targeted and ask for assistance if it does happen etc.

Maybe that is being a bit to optamistic about building a strong community like that though.

The other options is allow trammel style safe areas to pvm a little to get a little bit established at the start. Maybe work it round some lore as a 'town invasion' by mobs in which guards still work against reds but not vs mobs, could then cycles that invasion round a few different towns every now and then to keep it a bit fresher and not just been seen as trammel starting zone? Might be a little better than a pure trammel zone so that people could still flag and noto giving a slight danger aspect to it still

[Calix]

. Maybe work it round some lore as a 'town invasion' by mobs in which guards still work against reds but not vs mobs, could then cycles that invasion round a few different towns every now and then to keep it a bit fresher and not just been seen as trammel starting zone? Might be a little better than a pure trammel zone so that people could still flag and noto giving a slight danger aspect to it still

That has some potential mate.

[Joe]

off the top of my head one potential is orc's breaking out of their fort and invading cove for example, i'm sure there is ways to fit the lore round it to certain towns etc

[Night]

On Siege I started levelling in Delucia which was 'safe'ish'.

I always thought it would be cool to have some 'magic' cows there or something that were passive but with high hp/resists that could still give gains right up to GM, maybe even accelerated gains. Would only be needed for wepskill training as just about everything else can be done without targets ?

Del also pretty handy for raising mining, fishing, lj, taming etc

Some place like Del that was 'safe' but promoted accelerated gaining would be cool, would also be a good place for newbies to group up and find buddies or for guilds to recruit / seek new players.

[Joe]

I would prefer to avoid any magic cows or that sort of thing really, I can't think of any other idea that keeps with the lore apart from the town invasion type scenario, can scale sections of towns with different mobs etc so there is more of any entry level area for newbies i'm sure

[zole]

community definitely helps.

Second Age had some houses which people would lend to new people to use for a month or something to get established. That kind of stuff is really helpful, maybe too much? I dunno.. But community is a big thing for sure.

If there are some trammie type guilds (think EK) who would be happy to help new people coming to start up, that'd be good for the lone players. For pre established guilds, a small guild house would prob work.

[Padaxus]

training areas in townslike jheloum had to at least get passed say 60 before venturing out into the world but maybe at a reduced skill gain time?

its not quite trammel but offers people the chance to learn some skills in relatively safefy.

[Kzar]

Perhaps reward guilds and players for helping newcomers get started and learn the ropes?

[Superfast Oz]

You're starting people on 3*70 so I think this isnt a huge issue. With a weap skill at 70 you can get your first char on more remote spawns and do well enough. There's only 2 chars to train and our gainrates won't be a ballache. Getting gear might be tough but I don't imagine it taking long for a market of decentish loot to be established without being expensive.

[Mercury]

oz is right, just the startup skills are enough to farm easily. start a mage, get bs spell, go farm a medium drop like despise orges/ettins etc. And you will have 20k gold after 1st hour of server up. Same for dexer, probably easier infact.

[Nixon]

Insurance is there, 3x70 is there, coupled with all the spawn changes/locations and your doing fine. New players have every chance on this shard.