Abydos wrote:But there is a suggestion to just "try something - anything". We've never been looking to deliver an experiment.

Every DAoC freeshard is an experiment. You delivered a failed one. Your habit of downplaying the concerns of your players definitely helped in its demise. It did so for Uth 1.0 too by the way.

Abydos wrote:We were starting with a set target and moving from there.

No need to be disingenuous. You didn't really move or even plan to. The drastic drop in population interest made you relucantly give in half an inch, but this only confirmed the extent of your unwillingness for meaningful improvement.

Abydos wrote:But in the case of some things, if there isn't a clear path forward on something why risk changing from a known state? Sure it may not be perfect but consider that doing nothing *is* an option and in the absense of data could be the less risky or more correct one.

What you wrote here directly translates into the following:

"We are fundamentally incapable of estimating the risk of change, thus no changes can, will or should be made."

It's nothing but an indication of incompetence. What makes it even worse is that you brazenly use it as an excuse for your inaction.



Also, if you seriously call a 100-fold decrease in population "absense of data" nobody can help you.

I think someone has put this very nicely on reddit, something along the lines of "Uthgard is designed as a museum. It's nice to visit a museum every now and then, but it's not a place I want to live in".

This pretty much sums it up for me . You can recreate every detail of a thing and it will still remain lifeless without giving it some kind of "soul". In the case of Uthgard, it would have meant acknowledging that the very people they are trying to reach are not 20 year old college students anymore with plenty of free time. What little they eventually did, just wasn't enough to save the project (for me).

Lasastard wrote:I think someone has put this very nicely on reddit, something along the lines of "Uthgard is designed as a museum. It's nice to visit a museum every now and then, but it's not a place I want to live in".

This pretty much sums it up for me . You can recreate every detail of a thing and it will still remain lifeless without giving it some kind of "soul". In the case of Uthgard, it would have meant acknowledging that the very people they are trying to reach are not 20 year old college students anymore with plenty of free time. What little they eventually did, just wasn't enough to save the project (for me).

That makes sense to me.

In all honesty, I prefer the classic ruleset, we just need some QOL and bonus XP and it's fine. I don't want tons of crazy stuff. I want something that's a bit less of a time sink.

Zarkor nailed it. Devs here are the very definition of Spider-Man standing in the room going down in flames around him and saying "things are fine", when the overwhelming evidence is that things aren't fine. Uthgard's reality distortion field.

Some other server is doing quite well, despite the too many changes they did. So it seems like that proves the Devs wrong right there. Doing a lot of changes fast actually worked out better than sitting on your hands and letting the building burn around you. Surprising, I know.

Severian wrote:Zarkor nailed it. Devs here are the very definition of Spider-Man standing in the room going down in flames around him and saying "things are fine", when the overwhelming evidence is that things aren't fine. Uthgard's reality distortion field.

Some other server is doing quite well, despite the too many changes they did. So it seems like that proves the Devs wrong right there. Doing a lot of changes fast actually worked out better than sitting on your hands and letting the building burn around you. Surprising, I know.

The "server that will not be named" is doing well because they actually LISTEN to the players and then think about the ideas objectively instead of just saying "NO" to everything.

What are the odds the dev's here will listen objectively? Yes I know they made a few modifications a long time ago, and they inferred more would be changing as time went along, yet here we are with Abydos adamantly saying "House vaults ARE account vaults!!" when in reality he knows the difference, he just can't admit he is wrong any more than he already has with the earlier changes.

Nothing else will change with this server with the current dev's. They felt like they were the gods of DAoC and apparently Abydos hasn't come down off that pillar yet because he refuses to admit a few simple things could mean all the difference to the server.

A house vault is fully accessible to every character on your account.

Its not about a god complex by any means. Have a read through this thread and look at the variety of competing voices. And that's just the people here (some of whom haven't played here in years) espousing what they want. Let me know when you come up with a solution.

Abydos wrote:A house vault is fully accessible to every character on your account.

Its not about a god complex by any means. Have a read through this thread and look at the variety of competing voices. And that's just the people here (some of whom haven't played here in years) espousing what they want. Let me know when you come up with a solution.

But all user posting here have played for years. Organizing raids, administrate guilds, uthgardrelated websites, guides...
Why not anymore? Because of the staff, because of decisions, because of better options, because of you, Abydos.

And a house vault is not fully accessible. Its need to get purchased first and thats a obstacle for poor or new players. Plain and simple

I'd put a wager that the few who stopped playing on Uthgard "because of Abydos" are likely contained to the group of players that got banned.

Where do you draw the line in how much of the game is bypassed to be accessible? For a vault, what is the need for a "poor or new player" to have access to items across multiple characters? Part of the game (especially if you're starting a new character and want to give them a boost) is to build up the necessary gear and equipment to make that happen.

Sure we could make all horse tickets free, remove house price/rent/offer instaport everywhere. But why? There are games out there that offer just that. But they're not DAOC.

I think the bottom line to the topic of the thread is "Because DAOC got boring for me". That's ok. Humans love novel things.

Abydos wrote:A house vault is fully accessible to every character on your account.

Its not about a god complex by any means. Have a read through this thread and look at the variety of competing voices. And that's just the people here (some of whom haven't played here in years) espousing what they want. Let me know when you come up with a solution.

So I keep bringing up the account vault, but seriously, I have read through all these forums and I see a TON of support FOR account vaults in each capital and I only see ONE person against it and that is you.

Are you sure you are reading the forums objectively? Read back through and find anyone who says it is a bad idea and let me know because I have never seen a post against it.

Other things like more hasteners just to make travel to specific places easier in PVE only zones as well as teleporters in PVE only zones to make it a little more convenient. I am not talking RvR so I really don't see anyone who would be upset about these little things, but I do see a whole lot of time saved getting back to your group if you aren't a speed class.

I REALLY would love to see Uth have a couple hundred players per realm at any given time, and I would be more then happy to help in any way I can, but so far Uth has literally only listened to a very few of its players. Why no in game votes just to see about some littler ideas to see if people like them?

Abydos, you are a very smart person who has programming skills well above and beyond anything I could ever hope to achieve, but when is Uth (and its few remaining players) going to realize that the player base did not abandon Uthgard 2.0, it was pushed away and told to keep their modern ideas to themselves.

Uth is free for us to play and you guys make all the final decisions, but even a parent needs to admit when they are wrong and listen to the kids every once in awhile.

Abydos wrote:I'd put a wager that the few who stopped playing on Uthgard "because of Abydos" are likely contained to the group of players that got banned.

Where do you draw the line in how much of the game is bypassed to be accessible? For a vault, what is the need for a "poor or new player" to have access to items across multiple characters? Part of the game (especially if you're starting a new character and want to give them a boost) is to build up the necessary gear and equipment to make that happen.

Sure we could make all horse tickets free, remove house price/rent/offer instaport everywhere. But why? There are games out there that offer just that. But they're not DAOC.

I think the bottom line to the topic of the thread is "Because DAOC got boring for me". That's ok. Humans love novel things.

You're right on a lot of issues, but you're wrong on accessability for account vaults. Just half the price of land and houses for a month, and then everyone can snag one for cheap. It is about the journey, but making the journey solo is awful.

So 300g lots are too expensive?

Abydos wrote:So 300g lots are too expensive?

It's minimum 2.5 plat to get a house plut a vault. That's not easy to come by unless you have a good farming group. Most people coming in on hib won't have the same guild supports that you have on Mid or Alb right now. Even then, max pop is hitting 50-70 depending on the week. You need to stimulate the incoming playercount to start it back up. There are cross server people who would give Uth another shot if there were more people on, and getting a vault wasn't so much of an investment. It isn't JUST the land or JUST the house, it's the totality. I don't think it's unfair to temporarily lower the costs, or raise XP rates to bring in more people, then lower XP bonuses and raise house rates as more people come in and the economy kicks back up.

Abydos wrote:Sure we could make all horse tickets free, remove house price/rent/offer instaport everywhere. But why? There are games out there that offer just that. But they're not DAOC.

Hmm, the place that should not be named looks and smells like DAOC, so will do for me.

But wait, doesn't live have things like SI, NF, teleporters and all that?

Is that not DAOC?

Wakefield wrote:

Abydos wrote:Sure we could make all horse tickets free, remove house price/rent/offer instaport everywhere. But why? There are games out there that offer just that. But they're not DAOC.

Hmm, the place that should not be named looks and smells like DAOC, so will do for me.

But wait, doesn't live have things like SI, NF, teleporters and all that?

Is that not DAOC?

I think he meant to say they aren't classic DAoC.

That said, we all have different ideas of what makes classic DAoC classic. Removing some of the time sinks AND adding SI would seem like good things to me.

Abydos wrote:I think the bottom line to the topic of the thread is "Because DAOC got boring for me". That's ok. Humans love novel things.

This is why people feel that you are blind for information that does not suit your narrative.

DAoC didn't get boring. People take breaks due to IRL and stuff sure, but we all know that after all these years it's probably the least boring game ever for most players. Even Uthgard 2.0 did not get boring. More than anything it got frustrating. For various reasons stated in this thread and many others. (Low pop, timesinks, dev attitude, ...)

People don't like to get frustrated, especially in their free time. That's why they quit. That's also why so many players choose to play on that other server. They're definitely not bored of DAoC. If they can enjoy it without frustration they will even sacrifice their preferred server setting for it.

Also, the people who actually still visit these forums are not even a fraction of the players that actually quit playing. You're working with an incredibly pre-selected sample.

Abydos wrote:Let me know when you come up with a solution.

Simple. Contact your entire Uth 2.0 player base and put out a survey on the matter.

Example:

"Why did you stop logging in?"
[x] IRL
[x] Timesinks
[x] Patch setting
[x] RvR Balance
[x] (Lack of) social circle
[x] Lack of players
[x] I got bored of DAoC
[x] ...

"What could bring you back?"
[x] Account Vaults
[x] SI
[x] Hasteners
[x] Teleporters
[x] Better XP rate
[x] Better RvR incentives
[x] Bonuses and Events
[x] ...



Obviously you should go way more in-depth here if you would actually do this. But I honestly don't expect anything anymore.