Why can't free shards retain players like OSI?

Moderators: Benn, Calix, senji

Post Reply
Calix
MOTODEAMON
Posts: 6109
Joined: Sat Dec 27, 2003 10:05 am

Why can't free shards retain players like OSI?

Post by Calix »

Just thinking out loud with this really, mostly stuff I've gone over before but just forming some thoughts.

I know there's a few long-term successful shards. Hybrid is a ridiculous success, 500+ online for 8 years or something insane. IPY2 has been going over a year now with hundreds online. UOSA is still peaking at over 500.

But why do most players get bored in a few months - when on OSI tens of thousands have hung around for years? Why haven't we stuck around on any of the free shards we've made effort on? It's not just that they aren't 'our' era.

Few reasons:

1. Beyond the initial excitement and reawakening of the old UO feelings, there's nothing to achieve that the majority of players haven't done multiple times previously on OSI or other free shards.

2. Doesn't 'feel' right. Razor instead of UOA, the few inaccuracies of RunUO compared to the real thing, the inevitable changes that free shards make to improve the game. One of the biggest reasons for UOSA's success is the latter part of that sentence can be completely excluded.

3. Lack of players. Even the busy shards like UOSA don't have that same feeling that busy OSI servers had. This picture tells the story:
Image

4. Lack of professionalism. Not necessarily in the behaviour of the staff, but by not having a good looking webpage, a MYUO clone, lack of updates, etc.

5. No direction. Most shards are thrown together to replicate a certain era, or to introduce a certain group of people's 'dream UO' and then not taken anywhere. That doesn't necessarily mean with new ideas or new lands or new systems - it could just be a lack of evolving shard storyline. Players like to feel involved in a the world they are attempting to participate in.

6. Cheating etc. Not just speed-hacking. Razor macros, mass multi-client resource gathering. That kind of thing.

There's probably some more reasons, but those cover the reason the vast majority don't stick around.

So basically, it's pretty fucking hard to succeed. Hybrid has done it by being the 'official' RunUO server, picking the most popular era and expanding on it. UOSA has done it through replicating the next most popular era exactly, and through having the most professional set up. Great staff, events, brilliant webpage, MYUO clone, etc. IPY2 has mostly traded off the reputation of IPY1 and will probably fail soon, despite some really good ideas. Every other shard set up has eventually been a failure.

Calix
MOTODEAMON
Posts: 6109
Joined: Sat Dec 27, 2003 10:05 am

Re: Why can't free shards retain players like OSI?

Post by Calix »

At least we knew what to expect! All of these turned out to be accurate.

Night
fIlThY cUnT
Posts: 651
Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2004 9:56 pm
Location: visiting zole in prison

Re: Why can't free shards retain players like OSI?

Post by Night »

17 years worth of pixel crack
Image

Post Reply