I want this post to be as organized as possible to state a claim that I truly believe would only benefit the future of Ultima Online. UO players not in these forums and not playing the official shards want a true classic experience. We need a new "Renaissance" but with a more classic experience.

Old-School Players: A Lost Legion Worth Recapturing

Ultima Online’s golden era forged a passionate community of players who fell in love with its unforgiving, open-ended sandbox. Many of us “veterans” drifted away over the years as the official game changed dramatically – “imagine you fell in love with chess in 199x, and now in 2023 the same game has been transformed into like… spades”, as one player vividly described the modern UO experience . That original community is still out there. They reminisce about the adrenaline of open-world PvP battles, the thrill of a successful bank theft, the camaraderie of banding together to hunt murderers. In fact these players are playing several other private shards. Thousands of players. These old-school players are a vast pool of potential returnees. UO once boasted hundreds of thousands of subscribers in its peak years; even reclaiming a fraction of those would inject new life into the game. The official shards, however, no longer offer the classic gameplay that drew us in. Consequently, many of us have sought that nostalgia elsewhere, on player-run “freeshards” that do provide that classic feel. It’s time for Broadsword to recognize this and bring us back home.

Ultima Online: New Legacy – Missing the Mark for Veterans

When Ultima Online: New Legacy (NL) was announced, many veterans dared to hope it would be the official classic-style server we’d begged for. Unfortunately, NL has not met veteran expectations. By the developers’ own admission, “there is no magic dial to turn back UO to a specific era… so in short, no, this is not a 1:1 recreation of a classic UO server” . Instead of the 1997-style ruleset we yearned for, NL delivered a heavily reimagined experience. It introduced a seasonal shard that wipes after a year, with characters forced to transfer off at season’s end . For many of us, that was a deal-breaker – “They had me until they said the shard would go poof after one year”, as one disappointed player put it . The knowledge that all progress and the world itself would be erased in a cataclysm each year killed much of the incentive to truly invest in that shard .

NL also shied away from fully embracing old mechanics. For example, it does allow open-world PvP, but only through an opt-in Vice vs Virtue system – essentially a consent-based framework, rather than the original Felucca free-for-all with its criminal flagging system. Many core facets of classic UO (like freely snooping or stealing from other players, or non-consensual PvP outside guard zones) were constrained or redesigned in NL’s “custom ruleset.” This isn’t what veterans asked for. We wanted a pure classic shard, with the authentic risk-vs-reward and sandbox freedom intact – not a modernized hybrid.

The community’s response reflects that disconnect. Instead of rejoicing, veteran players met NL with a shrug or frustration. “What incentive is there to even get invested?” one Atlantic shard player wrote, noting “the shard deletes once a year… nobody in-game seems excited by this” . Another cynically called NL “literally a newbie feeder shard”, useful perhaps only for training newcomers before dumping them onto normal servers . On Reddit, one veteran lamented, “This is disappointing – I would sign up right away for a classic reboot… it’s like free money for them if they would do it” . That sentiment – willingness to resubscribe and support UO financially for a true classic server – is echoed by many. The development team tried to target nostalgia with NL, but delivered something most vets never asked for. As a forum poster noted, “a classic server has been asked for so often that [the devs] spent 5 years making NL in an attempt to bring back that feeling… [but] every poster said, ‘no one asked for that’” . In short, New Legacy missed the mark. It didn’t rekindle the old magic for the players who loved UO’s classic era the most.

Players Flocking to Unofficial Classic Shards

Where have the old-school UO fans gone instead? Unfortunately for the official game, most new or returning players seeking a classic UO experience end up on popular third-party servers. These independent shards flourish precisely because they offer what the official shards do not: the pre-Trammel, open-PvP sandbox with only minor modern tweaks. Consider the largest free-shard, currently the most populated free shard – players describe its population as “feel[ing] like old retail. Thousands of active players” online. By contrast, an official server like Atlantic (the busiest production shard) has nowhere near that active population today, and those who remain on official servers tend to play a very PvE-centric, item-heavy style that feels foreign to a classic veteran . It’s telling that when a Reddit user asked about which UO shard to play for a lively experience, one reply was: “You aren’t going to find much PvP on official UO… the small amount of remaining players are mostly carebears. Play [this popular freeshard] if you want excitement and PvP.” . In other words, the funnel for new players interested in UO leads straight to these unofficial servers, not the official game, because that’s where the fun is for a classic-oriented player. At this point it cannot be denied as all new players are directed to private-shards instead of the official game.

The community consensus is that some of these private shards are outshining the official game in providing an engaging experience. A very popular free-shard in particular has earned praise for its passionate development team and active support: “It has a more caring, more professional, more experienced staff… They do not tolerate cheating and genuinely care about the game. Do not give your money to EA,” one veteran wrote, frustrated that the official game feels neglected . Another commenter bluntly stated, “It is by far the best version of the game out there. EA drove the official game into the ground, in my opinion.” . These remarks may sting, but they reflect a widespread sentiment: The official servers, with their neon items, broken economy, and fragmented player base, just don’t scratch the itch for those seeking “the UO we remembered”. That’s why we see posts like “I never played Ultima before… [started on] a big free-shard… it’s a lot of fun and very populated” – yes, even brand-new players are often skipping official shards entirely, discovering UO through fan-run servers. The veteran audience and even curious newcomers with a sandbox bent are out there playing Classic UO – just not under Broadsword’s banner.

This is a huge missed opportunity for the official team. Huge! Every player on a free shard is a player who could be playing (and paying for) official UO, if only it offered the experience they’re looking for. These folks want to support the game – one forum-goer implored that he’d much rather play an official classic server than a third-party one and would “much rather support the official game” given the chance . We’re not asking out of nostalgia alone; we genuinely believe a classic-style server could draw a significant crowd. Other MMORPGs have proven this demand is real.

Lessons from EverQuest, WoW, and Others: Classic Servers Work

Broadsword wouldn’t be sailing into uncharted waters here – multiple MMOs have successfully launched classic or progression servers to re-engage lapsed players. EverQuest, for example, has run Progression Servers for years. These are official servers that start at the early-expansion era and gradually unlock content. They have been wildly popular – so much so that EverQuest’s player population actually grew in recent years thanks to what one producer called “the cottage industry for Norrath nostalgia” that Daybreak created. In fact, EverQuest’s team noted it had more players in 2019 than in 2015 largely because of these nostalgia-fueled servers . That’s a 20+ year-old MMO boosting its bottom line by recapturing veterans. World of Warcraft offers an even more dramatic example: when Blizzard launched WoW Classic, millions of former players returned. One gaming forum member estimated “Classic Vanilla brought back at least 3 or 4 million players, which is insanity.” Indeed, WoW Classic’s 2019 launch saw over a million viewers on Twitch watching the nostalgia unfold in real time , and the subscriber count for WoW rocketed upward as long-departed players resubscribed en masse. Even Old School RuneScape – an official 2007-era version of RuneScape – exploded in popularity after its introduction, far surpassing the modern game’s player count and proving that gamers will flock to an old title if it offers a beloved experience preserved in time.

The takeaway is clear: classic servers can rejuvenate a game’s community and revenue. They tap into a potent mix of nostalgia and the desire for gameplay that modern iterations have left behind. Importantly, they also attract newplayers who missed the game the first time around but are curious about its legendary early days (often via word of mouth or streamer exposure). Ultima Online was the pioneer of MMORPGs – it has a storied reputation. And it still offers such a unique level of gameplay unlike most other MMO's, in it's classic form. Imagine the marketing potential of officially offering “Ultima Online Classic,” inviting players to step into a living 1990s sandbox world (with a few modern comforts). Many veterans would resubscribe in a heartbeat (we know this, because we see them say so in forums and reddit almost every day), and curious sandbox enthusiasts from other games would come check it out as well. As one fan summed it up: “To me the whole idea of a classic version… would be to re-capture everything for the sake of preservation. I’d rather not play third-party servers to get this experience… Most of the overall UO community would absolutely want it.” It’s time for Broadsword to follow the successful examples of Blizzard and Daybreak: leverage that nostalgia, and bring those wandering souls back to Sosaria.

What a True Classic Server Should Look Like

To truly recapture the old magic, an official classic shard needs to embrace the core mechanics that made UO unique – including the rough edges that modern design smoothed away. That means a single landmass, Felucca-only world— no split facets dividing the player base into safe vs. dangerous lands. Open-world PvP must be a given, with the original risk vs reward dynamics: anyone can be attacked outside town guards, and dying to another player means they can take your belongings. The thieving system should be fully functional: picking pockets, snooping in backpacks, stealing items off of players or chests, with the accompanying notoriety system (thieves going gray, murderous thieves going red, etc.). Murder counts and notoriety should likewise mirror the old days – players who choose the path of the murderer become infamous, attackable by anyone, and face consequences like being kill-on-sight in guard zones. No insurance, no item blessings – in classic UO, if you died, your stuff was lootable. That harsh risk made every encounter meaningful and gave PvP and PK interactions real stakes. It also fueled the player-driven economy (when items can be lost, crafting and trading thrive).

Crucially, this classic shard should only implement minimal Quality of Life (QoL) changes, ones that smooth out tedious aspects without altering gameplay balance or atmosphere. For example, UI improvements (higher resolution support, modern macro options, container grid loot, etc.) and fixing of long-known bugs would be welcome – things that don’t change the core mechanics, but make the game more playable in 2025. Minor conveniences like the Commodity Deed box for bulk resources (which was mentioned in some classic shard discussions ) could be acceptable, since they don’t break immersion or combat. But anything that would Trammel-ize the experience or remove the beloved “rough edges” is not what we’re after. The guiding philosophy should be: preserve the original mechanics and spirit, only trimming the truly aggravating bits that serve no purpose other than to annoy. (For instance, maybe allow a slightly higher housing secure item count or eliminate 1998-era server bugs – small tweaks that don’t affect PvP/PvE balance or the risk factor).

Felucca-Only, But Not a Grief Fest – Finding the Balance

The biggest concern whenever open PvP is mentioned is, of course, griefing and player attrition. We veterans fondly remember the wild west days of Felucca, but we also remember why Trammel was introduced – too many casual players quit after being repeatedly griefed or PKed. How can a Felucca-only shard thrive without repeating that history? The answer: by learning from past mistakes and community ideas. It is possible to have an open PvP world that isn’t a newbie slaughterhouse. Here are some proposals, many of them coming straight from veteran players who have pondered this very issue through the years:

• Stronger Consequences for Player Killers: In classic UO, murderer characters (reds) already faced some penalties (couldn’t enter towns without guards attacking, long-term murder counts leading to stat loss on death in some rulesets). A classic shard could crank this up further. Community members have suggested ideas like disabling murderers’ access to certain conveniences – for example, reds could be barred from using public banks or NPC vendors (forcing them to rely on the black market or blue accomplices), truly living as outlaws . Others propose in-game bounty or justice systems: “If someone has killed a lot of people, make in-lore responses to it – e.g. a sheriff NPC spawns to hunt them when they attack someone”, one player wrote, advocating increased risk and reduced reward for PKs. The gold a PK loots could even automatically contribute to a bounty on their head, claimable by whoever brings them to justice. The goal is to let PKs exist (they are part of the ecosystem and fun) but ensure being a villain is a hard life, where constant fear of retribution and logistical hurdles curb rampant griefing. a free-shard somewhat had this with the murderer reputation system; an updated classic shard could amplify it.

• “Young Player” Protection: Ultima Online historically introduced a Young player status for brand new accounts, giving them temporary protection from harm. On the official shards circa Renaissance, a [Young]character couldn’t be attacked by players and got a grace period to learn the game . We can adopt a similar (but improved) system. For instance, a new account could start with a limited-duration protection where they can’t initiate or be subjected to PvP for, say, their first 40 hours or until they exceed a skill threshold. During that time they could adventure, build up a basic kit, and get hooked on the game’s possibilities without the fear of being instantly ganked. To prevent abuse of such a system (e.g. veterans creating “Young” alts to farm in safety), certain limits are needed – and the community has ideas here too. One popular suggestion is to replace the Young status with a safe haven area: for example, a “Shelter Island” newbie zone where no PvP is allowed and players cannot advance beyond a certain skill point (or earn unlimited wealth) while there. Similar to New Haven / Ocllo. New players could stay in this protected area to practice and then “graduate” to the main world when ready. This prevents a permanent god-mode exploit (since progress is capped in the safe zone), but still gives genuine newcomers a refuge. The key is to give newcomers a fighting chance to fall in love with UO’s depth before they’re thrown to the wolves.

• Encourage Community Mentorship and Anti-PK Gameplay: In the old days, anti-PK guilds would rise to challenge the murderers, and veteran players often took newbies under their wing. An official classic server could foster this spirit actively. For example, game moderators or event managers could spotlight player guilds that volunteer to protect new players or patrol newbie areas. Small incentives (special titles, or cosmetic rewards) could be given to players who, say, consistently avenge murders or rescue players from PKs. This creates a culture where player-policing supplements game mechanics. On a classic shard, being the dreaded PK should be fun, but being the hero who slays PKs can be equally rewarding socially. If Broadsword commits to at least minimal support (e.g. recognizing community sheriffs or running EM events that rally players against notorious villains), it can mitigate the feeling of helplessness that drives new folks away. We can preserve open PvP while empowering players to police themselves in organic ways just as the original game was designed to do.

• PvP Hotspots & Risk/Reward Tweaks: Another theory is to concentrate PvP in certain hotspots rather than having gankers randomly roaming every newbie dungeon 24/7. UO already has a system for this: the Champion Spawn and power scroll mechanics (on production shards, these high-reward PvE events occur only in Felucca, attracting both PvMers and PvPers for competition). A classic shard could employ similar ideas – e.g. place the most lucrative monsters or treasure in far-flung, obvious locations (think Fire Dungeon or a Necromancer fortress in the deepest woods), so that opportunistic PKs naturally gravitate there where they’ll clash with tougher adventurers. Meanwhile, areas near towns or newbie spots might offer lower rewards, less incentive for roving PKs. This doesn’t eliminate the danger anywhere (nor should it – danger could lurk anywhere in classic UO), but it creates focal points where experienced players expect heavy PvP, leaving other areas somewhat quieter. Essentially, let the high-end risk/reward systems entice the PvPers to fight over big prizes rather than spending all day griefing miners outside Britain. Casual players can learn to avoid known hot zones until they’re ready. This way, open PvP remains, but natural player behavior funnels the worst conflicts away from the truly vulnerable.

The UO community has discussed these kinds of solutions at length, and even current freeshards continuously tune their rules to balance PvP and retention. For instance, on a big free-shard (a Felucca-rules shard), players noted that uncontrolled PKing was “ruining exploration [and] progression” for new and mid-level players , and they petitioned the admins to “slow down the PKing” to sustain long-term growth. The lesson: we can keep UO dangerous without making it despairing. By implementing smart penalties and protections, a Felucca-only server can avoid the mass exodus of novices that occurred in ’98. In fact, the thrill of a single-risk world, when tempered by just enough safety nets, will be a selling point. Modern gamers are bored of consequence-free theme parks; a well-managed dangerous world is actually very attractive, as long as it has some guardrails and a strong community.

A Passionate Plea to Broadsword

So I write this as devoted Ultima Online fans who want to see the game thrive. We’re not simply chasing nostalgia for its own sake; we truly believe that refocusing on the classic experience will benefit the entire UO community and Broadsword’s bottom line. The current trajectory – where official servers carry on with a dwindling population and the real growth happens on unauthorized shards – helps no one in the long run. Broadsword has an opportunity to bring those players back under the official umbrella, to preserve UO’s legacy properly, and to generate excitement (and yes, subscriptions) by doing so. As one veteran said, “I’d rather support the official game…without it we wouldn’t have nearly three decades of UO”, and he argued that most of the community wants a true classic server . There is a profound love for Ultima Online that has persisted for nearly 25 years after Renaissance – let’s harness that.

Picture the marketing headline: “Ultima Online Classic: Return to Britannia”. The gaming press would eat it up (much as they did for WoW Classic). Lapsed players would come flooding back to see Britannia reborn in its old glory. Current players who prefer modern UO can continue on the prodo shards – but many would likely roll up a character on the classic shard too, just for a taste of the old days. New players, drawn by word-of-mouth, might choose the classic shard first because of the buzz and the chance to experience the legend of early UO. This isn’t just a pipe dream; we’ve seen it happen elsewhere. We know it can work – if done with authenticity and respect for what made UO great.

Broadsword, we urge you: please strongly consider launching a classic-server model for UO. Follow the examples of EverQuest and WoW by offering an official way to experience the game as it was (with only careful, minimal updates). Embrace the original mechanics – the open-world PvP, the risk of loss, the player freedom to be a hero or a villain – because that is Ultima Online’s soul. At the same time, leverage the community’s ideas to make it sustainable: protect the newbies, punish the griefers just enough, and let the in-game community flourish to handle the rest. We truly believe that such a shard would not remain an empty museum piece; it would become a vibrant, populated world, likely the most active UO server in years. The success of classic projects in other MMOs and the booming free shard populations prove the demand is there waiting.

Ultima Online is a one-of-a-kind MMORPG, and its classic era gameplay remains unmatched in its intensity and freedom. We as a community are practically begging to give you our money to experience that officially again – “it’s like free money if they would do it”, as a frustrated player said about the classic shard idea . So please, recapture that audience of old-school players. We’re here, with swords and spellbooks at the ready, eager to return to a Britannia that feels like Britannia. Give us that world, and we will happily forge new legends in it – together, under the official UO banner.

Let’s bring our friends home. Let’s make Ultima Online’s next chapter one that celebrates its first chapters.

Just no. No more this shard or that shard. No more trying to recapture feelings and memories.

Bruh even if they saw this post and said "Gadzooks he's right!" you'd never see a classic shard before the 2030's. It's a team with like two people left who know how to program a computer.

Grimbeard said:

Just no. No more this shard or that shard. No more trying to recapture feelings and memories.

It’s not about chasing old feelings or living in the past. It’s about realizing the potential that still exists in UO and giving players old and new a reason to come back and support the official game.

If we want this thing to last another 25 years, we need to start by respecting what made it great in the first place.

Lord_Nythrax said:

Bruh even if they saw this post and said "Gadzooks he's right!" you'd never see a classic shard before the 2030's. It's a team with like two people left who know how to program a computer.

This is when the team pitches the idea (with numbers and supporting data) that hiring people to overlook and design this project is worth it in the long run. 

Blizzard did it, Daybreak did it. That’s the purpose of a development team and company.

MacroPlanet said:

Grimbeard said:

Just no. No more this shard or that shard. No more trying to recapture feelings and memories.

It’s not about chasing old feelings or living in the past. It’s about realizing the potential that still exists in UO and giving players old and new a reason to come back and support the official game.

If we want this thing to last another 25 years, we need to start by respecting what made it great in the first place.

Again, these forums are only a tiny sliver of what other UO players and potential players want. 

They gave us a classic shard it's siege and it's empty for everyone who thinks it's this period fifteen more think it's that again you're chasing memories and if all the disloyal free sharders came back we could hire a lot more developers..

Grimbeard said:

MacroPlanet said:

Grimbeard said:

Just no. No more this shard or that shard. No more trying to recapture feelings and memories.

It’s not about chasing old feelings or living in the past. It’s about realizing the potential that still exists in UO and giving players old and new a reason to come back and support the official game.

If we want this thing to last another 25 years, we need to start by respecting what made it great in the first place.

Again, these forums are only a tiny sliver of what other UO players and potential players want. 

They gave us a classic shard it's siege and it's empty for everyone who thinks it's this period fifteen more think it's that again you're chasing memories and if all the disloyal free sharders came back we could hire a lot more developers..

Siege is not classic. It still runs on modern mechanics and systems. Calling it ‘classic’ is just not accurate. And this isn’t about chasing memories it’s about fixing the direction of UO’s future.

A true classic shard would retain players, not divide them. The fact that so many people still play on free shards proves the demand is there. If anything, giving those players a reason to return officially would strengthen UO and its future—not weaken it.

I read most of it, and yes, I can see the point- in fact to be fair, you have 100% nailed it.
I completely agree with the playstyle you are describing, this is what a majority of gamers want, but this is not what UO currently serves.
I am forever trying to edge it back a little.

Many players left, live in a lie perpetuated by the remaining minority left on official, while you quite rightly say, the pvpers are outnumbering them by many thousands on unofficial shards.

Official is where the carebears won sadly.

I'm not saying there is not a place for carebears, but UO went overboard, and ditched a majority of their playerbase.

I remember one of the Devs saying at the meet and greet, if there was one thing they could do differently about the past, it would be the Fel/Trammel split - and centring so much of the reward in a risk free environment ever since then. I agree with this. The whole point of UO was lost, and it became a shell of itself.

Some of this is easy to say with hindsight, at the time, they could not tell how it would go, but they were genuinely only listening to 1 set of players. For those who say, but PvM is what players want, no, this is a delusion, for the minority on Official - Yes, for the majority playing UO, No.

To me, it was always obvious they were pandering to the wrong set of players.

MacroPlanet said:

(...)

I think the reason why there were so many players in the beginning is because in the beginning there were no emulators like there are now and if you wanted to experience it, you had to subscribe and be on the official servers.

Although there were emulators within a short time of the game's release, they were not OSI systems, until 2002 when they created something similar.

I also think that two of the reasons why some players don't play on official shards lie in these two strong points:

- Not paying money

- Automated play

Regarding the first point, those players don't use EJ accounts because of their limitations, not having houses, normal access bank, etc... but doing this in an open way, without subscription, could be a real chaos, many cloned accounts filling the shard with houses. So, it's fine as it is at the moment.

But even in a hypothetical case that in the future everything would be open access, the players of the second point would not come.

For one reason, they use programs that do everything automated, from resource exploitation to fully automated pvp/pvm gameplay, click a button and watch.

Therefore, no matter how you look at it, those players from the second point will never come back, because if they are detected they will be banned.

So, what happened, will never happen again.

Regarding felucca, if you have a craving for a single facet you can go for Siege Perilous and you will find players who crave that kind of game.

Cookie said:

I read most of it, and yes, I can see the point- in fact to be fair, you have 100% nailed it.
I completely agree with the playstyle you are describing, this is what a majority of gamers want, but this is not what UO currently serves.
I am forever trying to edge it back a little.

Many players left, live in a lie perpetuated by the remaining minority left on official, while you quite rightly say, the pvpers are outnumbering them by many thousands on unofficial shards.

Official is where the carebears won sadly.

I'm not saying there is not a place for carebears, but UO went overboard, and ditched a majority of their playerbase.

I remember one of the Devs saying at the meet and greet, if there was one thing they could do differently about the past, it would be the Fel/Trammel split - and centring so much of the reward in a risk free environment ever since then. I agree with this. The whole point of UO was lost, and it became a shell of itself.

Some of this is easy to say with hindsight, at the time, they could not tell how it would go, but they were genuinely only listening to 1 set of players. For those who say, but PvM is what players want, no, this is a delusion, for the minority on Official - Yes, for the majority playing UO, No.

To me, it was always obvious they were pandering to the wrong set of players.

100% man. There’s still time to turn the ship. It doesn’t have to be something that’s injected into the live shards, but a separate shard to cater to those players that left after Tram and AoS. Bring in those players, let the post-Tram & AoS players realize the potential of old UO. Fix it in a way that serves both groups of people (as stated in my original post) and I think UO has a successful Classic experience.

MacroPlanet said:

100% man. There’s still time to turn the ship. It doesn’t have to be something that’s injected into the live shards, but a separate shard to cater to those players that left after Tram and AoS. Bring in those players, let the post-Tram & AoS players realize the potential of old UO. Fix it in a way that serves both groups of people (as stated in my original post) and I think UO has a successful Classic experience.

I don't think any clock can be dialled back though, but what can be done, is to make decisions that bring back that attitude, that game-style.

Re-introduce content of a different style slowly if needed - more risk vs reward, start by re-vamping VvV. It's about where their effort is put, and the message they send out.

Right now, these current events are very popular, so cannot knock them for sure.

I'm also not a fan of new shards by the way - I'd even reduce shards/clients, for a more meaningful experience. If Classic client was improved, you could ditch Enhance client, I know that will cause outrage, but it would improve consistency. Of course you cannot do anything drastic like this, until there is a genuinely viable contender.

mis said:

MacroPlanet said:

(...)

I think the reason why there were so many players in the beginning is because in the beginning there were no emulators like there are now and if you wanted to experience it, you had to subscribe and be on the official servers.

Although there were emulators within a short time of the game's release, they were not OSI systems, until 2002 when they created something similar.

I also think that two of the reasons why some players don't play on official shards lie in these two strong points:

- Not paying money

- Automated play

Regarding the first point, those players don't use EJ accounts because of their limitations, not having houses, normal access bank, etc... but doing this in an open way, without subscription, could be a real chaos, many cloned accounts filling the shard with houses. So, it's fine as it is at the moment.

But even in a hypothetical case that in the future everything would be open access, the players of the second point would not come.

For one reason, they use programs that do everything automated, from resource exploitation to fully automated pvp/pvm gameplay, click a button and watch.

Therefore, no matter how you look at it, those players from the second point will never come back, because if they are detected they will be banned.

So, what happened, will never happen again.

Regarding felucca, if you have a craving for a single facet you can go for Siege Perilous and you will find players who crave that kind of game.

You’re missing the point when mentioning Siege. It’s not just about “only Felucca”. It’s about the classic mechanics and gameplay as well as the risk/reward. It runs on the same post-AoS mechanics with most of the same modern systems. It doesn’t scratch that itch. A real classic shard isn’t just about Felucca—it’s about restoring the entire philosophy of what UO was: a player-driven sandbox with risk, freedom, and consequence. That’s why unofficial shards continue to thrive because they actually deliver that. 

Yes, early UO had no alternatives you had to sub. But that doesn’t explain why so many people stayed for years, or why they’re still flocking to unofficial shards today. It wasn’t just about access it was about the design. Those servers are thriving because they offer a version of UO that the official game abandoned.

As for the two reasons you mentioned, free access and automation, those are symptoms, not the cause. People didn’t leave OSI just because they didn’t want to pay. They left because the game drifted so far from what made it great that it stopped being worth paying for. And the automation angle? Sure, some abuse it, but a ton of players just want a world that feels alive, dangerous, and meaningful again, something modern UO struggles to achieve.

If Broadsword ever decided to meet those players where they are, they’d be shocked how fast the old players would come back. But until then, we’ll just keep watching thousands of players hang out on shards that feel more like UO than UO itself. Taking away from the potential of the official game.

Cookie said:

MacroPlanet said:

100% man. There’s still time to turn the ship. It doesn’t have to be something that’s injected into the live shards, but a separate shard to cater to those players that left after Tram and AoS. Bring in those players, let the post-Tram & AoS players realize the potential of old UO. Fix it in a way that serves both groups of people (as stated in my original post) and I think UO has a successful Classic experience.

I don't think any clock can be dialled back though, but what can be done, is to make decisions that bring back that attitude, that game-style.

Re-introduce content of a different style slowly if needed - more risk vs reward, start by re-vamping VvV. It's about where their effort is put, and the message they send out.

Right now, these current events are very popular, so cannot knock them for sure.

The point is not to fix the current game and its trajectory. The point is to introduce a new shard, rid of the New Legacy, and start new with a classic shard. Mostly the same but some changes to make the classic experience best for both post Tram players and pre-Tram players. Explore those ideas that other have had when looking back on UO’s history.

Then if it finds success, maybe start introducing those changes to the live servers.  it the idea is to have a separate shard (similar to WoW and EQ) for the classic experience.

Im not wanting to move the clock back, but to help move it forward for another 25 years.

MacroPlanet said:

Cookie said:

MacroPlanet said:

100% man. There’s still time to turn the ship. It doesn’t have to be something that’s injected into the live shards, but a separate shard to cater to those players that left after Tram and AoS. Bring in those players, let the post-Tram & AoS players realize the potential of old UO. Fix it in a way that serves both groups of people (as stated in my original post) and I think UO has a successful Classic experience.

I don't think any clock can be dialled back though, but what can be done, is to make decisions that bring back that attitude, that game-style.

Re-introduce content of a different style slowly if needed - more risk vs reward, start by re-vamping VvV. It's about where their effort is put, and the message they send out.

Right now, these current events are very popular, so cannot knock them for sure.

The point is not to fix the current game and its trajectory. The point is to introduce a new shard, rid of the New Legacy, and start new with a classic shard. Mostly the same but some changes to make the classic experience best for both post Tram players and pre-Tram players. Explore those ideas that other have had when looking back on UO’s history.

Then if it finds success, maybe start introducing those changes to the live servers.  it the idea is to have a separate shard (similar to WoW and EQ) for the classic experience.

Im not wanting to move the clock back, but to help move it forward for another 25 years.

Everyone wants a new shard - including Kroduk.
This just dilutes things more, and creates more work, spreads the workload meaning nothing can have the attention it deserves.

My entire motto in life, is keep it simple.
If I have 10 bank accounts, I will reduce that to 2.
It clears your headspace, and your energy, to do a more focussed job.

For me, it is about the Vision. The Big Picture.
Once they decide that is their vision, their strategy, then they work towards it, with their future decisions.
They can only work with what they have.
I think they have said enough times they cannot easily go back that far - 1. I accept this, 2. I actually think no-one would really want to go back that far.
So I'd like the modern game, with a more realistic gaming attitude re risk vs reward, it would change the way new content is delivered, until it flows through the game.

Cookie said:

MacroPlanet said:

Cookie said:

MacroPlanet said:

100% man. There’s still time to turn the ship. It doesn’t have to be something that’s injected into the live shards, but a separate shard to cater to those players that left after Tram and AoS. Bring in those players, let the post-Tram & AoS players realize the potential of old UO. Fix it in a way that serves both groups of people (as stated in my original post) and I think UO has a successful Classic experience.

I don't think any clock can be dialled back though, but what can be done, is to make decisions that bring back that attitude, that game-style.

Re-introduce content of a different style slowly if needed - more risk vs reward, start by re-vamping VvV. It's about where their effort is put, and the message they send out.

Right now, these current events are very popular, so cannot knock them for sure.

The point is not to fix the current game and its trajectory. The point is to introduce a new shard, rid of the New Legacy, and start new with a classic shard. Mostly the same but some changes to make the classic experience best for both post Tram players and pre-Tram players. Explore those ideas that other have had when looking back on UO’s history.

Then if it finds success, maybe start introducing those changes to the live servers.  it the idea is to have a separate shard (similar to WoW and EQ) for the classic experience.

Im not wanting to move the clock back, but to help move it forward for another 25 years.

Everyone wants a new shard - including Kroduk.
This just dilutes things more, and creates more work, spreads the workload meaning nothing can have the attention it deserves.

My entire motto in life, is keep it simple.
If I have 10 bank accounts, I will reduce that to 2.
It clears your headspace, and your energy, to do a more focussed job.

For me, it is about the Vision. The Big Picture.
Once they decide that is their vision, their strategy, then they work towards it, with their future decisions.
They can only work with what they have.
I think they have said enough times they cannot easily go back that far - 1. I accept this, 2. I actually think no-one would really want to go back that far.
So I'd like the modern game, with a more realistic gaming attitude re risk vs reward, it would change the way new content is delivered, until it flows through the game.

We all know the elephant in the room free-shard that holds a few thousand players that do enjoy going back that far. Of course there are a lot of elements added to keep people grinding, but the same old UO rules are there and enhanced to make all players happy.

Agreed that simple is better. Which is the perfect reason why modern UO feels so detached from the original game. Of course the developers say it’s not possible with what they have now, but the idea is to have a team hired in to help achieve something like this. Take it seriously and truly put work in. It’s not impossible, because passionate people online have created it hundreds of times through the decades.

Kyronix said:

Thank you for the lengthy post - I do want to correct one of your assertions however, our community is thriving - there are countless players and guild organizations who are playing hard to make sure Britannia thrives.  We are spreading the word about UO farther and wider than we have ever before, and we will continue to do that.  

As far as what you are really asking for - what exactly is it?  There are generalities you mention related to the "classic risk vs reward" experience but when Siege Perilous is brought into the conversation there is apparently something else missing from it to "scratch your itch"...what mechanics are you looking for?  

Again - we appreciate the lengthy well prompted post but in order to digest this and see how we can build it into our long terms plans you're going to need to give us a little more meat & potatoes as it were 🙂 

The streamers are the future we need 

Kyronix said:

Again - we appreciate the lengthy well prompted post

 😂 

MacroPlanet said:

We all know the elephant in the room free-shard that holds a few thousand players that do enjoy going back that far. Of course there are a lot of elements added to keep people grinding, but the same old UO rules are there and enhanced to make all players happy.

Agreed that simple is better. Which is the perfect reason why modern UO feels so detached from the original game. Of course the developers say it’s not possible with what they have now, but the idea is to have a team hired in to help achieve something like this. Take it seriously and truly put work in. It’s not impossible, because passionate people online have created it hundreds of times through the decades.

I accept your point, and I was going to touch on this.

Yes, there are some very successful shards doing this.
I know of one, that has pulled away a huge number of my pvp friends.
But even with them - the feeling is, this is temporary, they are letting their hair down, having a blast, until it gets old, or dies for one reason or another, then they will come back to official if and when the time is right. They are not completely lost, although the war on 3rd parties did leave a toxic taste in the mouth for many.

So one important point is, UO official does have the longevity, and the committed team.
A lot of players on free-shards, are still watching official, and will come back if they see a change in the right direction.

Kyronix said:

Thank you for the lengthy post - I do want to correct one of your assertions however, our community is thriving - there are countless players and guild organizations who are playing hard to make sure Britannia thrives.  We are spreading the word about UO farther and wider than we have ever before, and we will continue to do that.  

As far as what you are really asking for - what exactly is it?  There are generalities you mention related to the "classic risk vs reward" experience but when Siege Perilous is brought into the conversation there is apparently something else missing from it to "scratch your itch"...what mechanics are you looking for?  

Again - we appreciate the lengthy well prompted post but in order to digest this and see how we can build it into our long terms plans you're going to need to give us a little more meat & potatoes as it were 🙂 

Well defended, and thank you for the response. 🙂

I wouldn't expect anything less of course.
The question you ask, is a hard one, to answer in a couple of minutes, and I cannot answer for Macro, but I can answer in general.

What exactly is it?

1. Refresh the PvP system - for me, this could be as simple as refresh VvV, I would be happy with that, some players hate VvV, want factions back, some people just hate VvV, some just see it as unfinished, some think a refresh in terms of rewards and for me - traps and turrets could help make it more fun again.

2. Modernise the Classic client - I believe you are on this, after many years. 🙂

3. I know you say this is hard, but UO has so many old, obsolete systems, players actually like the old systems, but find the content out of date, many of them could just have loot refreshes that bring them in line with todays game.

This could be as simple as - loot re-distribution - to allow players to farm current items around the world-map, to re-use all the current content. Raptors Claw from Raptors is amazing, the grind is fun, if you can equip your players just by going to different areas and grinding, it brings back pvm in that sense, currently this does not feel possible in the sense the loot is all so outdated. I know you address this with the new event styles, and that is going very well, but in between them.

Crafting - BODS add more rewards to them. 
Treasure Hunting - refresh them a little.

There is enough out there now, if we all sat down, with a targeted brainstorm on each area, we could add in a lot of logical new stuff.

4. Bring back more content into Felucca, re-introduce more of a risk vs reward feeling. Champion spawns are still going. They are a success. Just bring more content back into Felucca.

5. Throw in some Felucca Easter Eggs 🙂

You, as moderator of the r/UltimaOnline subreddit, are fully emersed in an audience of former players of the game. That's fine, those spaces are valuable. But that audience is also chock full of greyshard players and disgruntled former players, too. And so I hope they're not skewing your perception of the current retail game.

Why should we care what people who haven't tried and don't play New Legacy think about it? Why do you think its worth coming here and telling us, the people who pay to play Ultima Online, that people who don't pay for it want us to know that what we're getting isn't actually all that good?

There's someone on one of the discords who has said, and I'm quoting directly here: "NL sucks.. i tried it once when it was new, logged in, saw the rainbow gate of transgenderism and decided its not the place for me."

Should we listen to this person and remove scary colors from the game, so we can draw them back to UO? 

"The community consensus is that some of these private shards are outshining the official game in providing an engaging experience."

Which community? Because these people aren't our community. They're at best stuck in the past with a version of the game in their head from twenty years ago which naturally evolved or at worst disingenuous about retail UO because they're trying to draw people in to their monetized shards built off of stolen IP.

I don't care what the RC Cola UO players think about this game. I don't care if they say that they'd come back if the devs "would just do this." I don't care because I don't believe them. 

Kyronix said:

Thank you for the lengthy post - I do want to correct one of your assertions however, our community is thriving - there are countless players and guild organizations who are playing hard to make sure Britannia thrives.  We are spreading the word about UO farther and wider than we have ever before, and we will continue to do that.  

As far as what you are really asking for - what exactly is it?  There are generalities you mention related to the "classic risk vs reward" experience but when Siege Perilous is brought into the conversation there is apparently something else missing from it to "scratch your itch"...what mechanics are you looking for?  

Again - we appreciate the lengthy well prompted post but in order to digest this and see how we can build it into our long terms plans you're going to need to give us a little more meat & potatoes as it were 🙂 

Thanks for taking the time to respond, Kyronix. I want to be clear upfront: when I talk about the veteran community feeling overlooked, I’m not trying to knock the current player base, I'm one of those players. I love that there are still guilds, player-run events, and folks keeping Britannia going. I'm not claiming that there isn't. My post is simple, to help find a way to bring in even more players. The players that are out there that don't play current UO. Because I want to see this game continue on full strength. I don't think that should really be looked down upon or just pushed aside. 

But I think we both know that the crowd who fell in love with UO during its early days, before Trammel, before AoS, a lot of them aren’t on the official servers anymore. They’re on freeshards, or they’ve drifted off completely. That’s the group I’m talking about—the ones who would love to come back if there was something that really spoke to that original experience.

We’re asking for a real classic shard—something that brings back the feel, systems, and community-driven chaos of UO from around 1997 to 2000. Not Siege. Not New Legacy. Not a blend of modern and old systems. More like what EQ and WoW did with their classic versions—faithful to the original, with just enough updates to keep it playable today.

Siege gets mentioned a lot, and yeah—it’s the closest thing we’ve got. But it’s not quite there. A few reasons:

• It still has the Trammel-era map design. We want a single-world experience like old-school Felucca where PvP, housing, and thieving all coexist.

• There’s too much post-AoS baggage. Power creep, artifact bloat, blessings… it all dilutes the danger and simplicity that made classic UO great. Siege feels like modern UO with restrictions, not a clean return to the core systems.

• It gets no spotlight. Siege isn’t marketed. It’s off in a corner, not treated like the main stage for classic-style gameplay.

I kind of went over some of the features, but if you want meat and potatoes then here are some ideas that could be further developed.

• Felucca-only world. No split rulesets or mirrored maps.

• No insurance or blessings. Loot should matter. Dying should mean something.

• Thieves, reds, and bounty systems fully working. Let players be villains—but make it a real lifestyle, not a casual toggle.

• Classic PvP/criminal flagging. Not opt-in systems. Let risk live in the open (in reference to NL).

• Keep gear simple. No power-bloated loot. GM and slayers, that’s enough.
  

• Skill cap stays classic. No stat scroll grind. Templates were meaningful because of limits.

• Only light QoL tweaks. Things like better UI or modern resolution, not mechanical changes.

We’re not asking for some weird hybrid. Just the game that felt dangerous, alive, and unscripted. Something that brings back the heart of what made UO special.

Honestly, NL had some good intentions. But the shard wipes, the opt-in PvP, and the major system changes kind of pulled it away from what many of us hoped it would be.

If you built a real classic shard, modern backend, original feel, I’d be the first to promote it. So would a ton of others. Reddit, Discord, old guild chats we’ve all said we’d come back in a second if it felt like the real thing again. The problem with only listening to these forums is that there are a whole community of players out there where their voices aren't heard.

Thanks again for hearing us out. We’re pushing for this because we care. UO has stuck with us for decades, and we just want the chance to come home to the version of the game that started it all.

Jepeth said:

You, as moderator of the r/UltimaOnline subreddit, are fully emersed in an audience of former players of the game. That's fine, those spaces are valuable. But that audience is also chock full of greyshard players and disgruntled former players, too. And so I hope they're not skewing your perception of the current retail game.

Why should we care what people who haven't tried and don't play New Legacy think about it? Why do you think its worth coming here and telling us, the people who pay to play Ultima Online, that people who don't pay for it want us to know that what we're getting isn't actually all that good?

There's someone on one of the discords who has said, and I'm quoting directly here: "NL sucks.. i tried it once when it was new, logged in, saw the rainbow gate of transgenderism and decided its not the place for me."

Should we listen to this person and remove scary colors from the game, so we can draw them back to UO? 

"The community consensus is that some of these private shards are outshining the official game in providing an engaging experience."

Which community? Because these people aren't our community. They're at best stuck in the past with a version of the game in their head from twenty years ago which naturally evolved or at worst disingenuous about retail UO because they're trying to draw people in to their monetized shards built off of stolen IP.

I don't care what the RC Cola UO players think about this game. I don't care if they say that they'd come back if the devs "would just do this." I don't care because I don't believe them. 

I appreciate the thoughtful response, but I want to clear a few things up.

First off, I’m not some outsider throwing stones. I’m a paying subscriber to the official game and have been for a long time. I’ve supported UO financially, consistently, because I want it to succeed. Nothing I’ve said is “skewed” by bitterness or grey shard loyalty. It’s based on my own experience playing the official game right now and a genuine desire to see it thrive again. if you don’t believe me, come visit my house in Moonglow i had placed since 2020.

Second, I’m fully aware that r/UltimaOnline includes a mix of perspectives—yes, including former players and those on free shards. But that doesn’t invalidate their feedback. If thousands of players used to pay and want to love UO again but feel there’s no place for them in the current version, maybe that’s not just nostalgia. Maybe it’s an opportunity we’re ignoring.

You mentioned New Legacy—and I get it, people shouldn’t dismiss it without trying it. But let’s not pretend the dev team has done a good job communicating or building trust with the community over the years. The skepticism didn’t come from nowhere. And one ignorant quote about “rainbow gates” doesn’t represent the broader playerbase that left. That’s a strawman.

You ask “which community?” when I mention other shards outshining official UO. The truth is: former subscribers. People who were once part of this very community but left because the game changed beyond recognition. Whether you like it or not, they are part of UO’s legacy. Ignoring their voice doesn’t make them irrelevant—it just ensures they stay gone.

I don’t bring this up to stir division. I bring it up because UO still has something magical, and I believe if the official team tapped into that history more thoughtfully—if they actually delivered something closer to what so many players loved—we wouldn’t have to be debating this at all. They’d already be back.

MacroPlanet said:

You ask “which community?” when I mention other shards outshining official UO. The truth is: former subscribers. People who were once part of this very community but left because the game changed beyond recognition. Whether you like it or not, they are part of UO’s legacy. Ignoring their voice doesn’t make them irrelevant—it just ensures they stay gone.

First, I disagree that the quote I posted is anymore a strawman than the handful of ones you included in your original post. I was sharing a representation of unfounded commentary in the same way I believe you are.

But let me zero in on this part of your previous post because I think it reflects well our two differing viewpoints.

You're speaking of legacy and how their voices still carry weight. Ultima Online is a business, not a democracy. You're advocating for former customers who have moved on and my argument is that they forfeited their voice on the direction of the game when they left and especially when they left for a grey shard which harms the current product. I would love for former players to return to the game but I would prefer our team not prioritize the perspective of people who have actively harmed this business. 

Edit:

Also, I forgot to address this:

MacroPlanet said:

I don’t bring this up to stir division. I bring it up because UO still has something magical, and I believe if the official team tapped into that history more thoughtfully—if they actually delivered something closer to what so many players loved—we wouldn’t have to be debating this at all. They’d already be back.

You've posted on this topic before, about six months ago. The response then was similar to the response you have received now. It should be very apparent to a veteran player such as yourself that the retail UO community (to say nothing of the former UO community) is not a monolith. No one loves or prioritizes the same thing about UO as anyone else and saying if the dev team, in essence, just did this "they'd already be back" is reductive. 

There's a lot of nays in this thread, so I'll throw in my yay. An official classic UO experience would be really cool. I think it would be a great vector for advertising the game as well.

Also, regardless of whether this is something that Broadsword could or would pursue, I want to push back on this idea that anyone who's interested in this is living in the past. That so many players enjoy pre-Trammel rulesets to this day (including many first time players) is proof that it's more than just us boomers chasing memories. Yes, nostalgia is a part of it, but who cares? That's a natural human emotional response, and there's big bucks in nostalgia anyway. Thousands of people genuinely love early UO, just like people who prefer Classic WoW to retail. I don't care about open PvP, but I would definitely play any version of UO with pre-AoS gameplay mechanics and itemization.

Jepeth said:

MacroPlanet said:

You ask “which community?” when I mention other shards outshining official UO. The truth is: former subscribers. People who were once part of this very community but left because the game changed beyond recognition. Whether you like it or not, they are part of UO’s legacy. Ignoring their voice doesn’t make them irrelevant—it just ensures they stay gone.

First, I disagree that the quote I posted is anymore a strawman than the handful of ones you included in your original post. I was sharing a representation of unfounded commentary in the same way I believe you are.

But let me zero in on this part of your previous post because I think it reflects well our two differing viewpoints.

You're speaking of legacy and how their voices still carry weight. Ultima Online is a business, not a democracy. You're advocating for former customers who have moved on and my argument is that they forfeited their voice on the direction of the game when they left and especially when they left for a grey shard which harms the current product. I would love for former players to return to the game but I would prefer our team not prioritize the perspective of people who have actively harmed this business. 

Edit:

Also, I forgot to address this:

MacroPlanet said:

I don’t bring this up to stir division. I bring it up because UO still has something magical, and I believe if the official team tapped into that history more thoughtfully—if they actually delivered something closer to what so many players loved—we wouldn’t have to be debating this at all. They’d already be back.

You've posted on this topic before, about six months ago. The response then was similar to the response you have received now. It should be very apparent to a veteran player such as yourself that the retail UO community (to say nothing of the former UO community) is not a monolith. No one loves or prioritizes the same thing about UO as anyone else and saying if the dev team, in essence, just did this "they'd already be back" is reductive. 

Appreciate the thoughtful reply, seriously. I’m not here to argue just for the sake of arguing. I’m here because I care about UO’s future just as much as you do, even if we see different paths forward.

You’re right that UO is a business, not a democracy. But I’d argue that any business that wants to survive needs to understand its full market not just its current customer base, but the lapsed and the curious. When I bring up former players, I’m not suggesting they should override the current community; I’m saying their departure holds valuable insight into what changed, what was lost, and what might be recaptured.

And yeah, some of them play on freeshards. But let’s be honest, many didn’t go there out of spite. They went because they couldn’t find what they loved on the official servers anymore. That’s not betrayal, it’s unmet demand. If another restaurant is serving the recipe you used to love, you go there. Doesn’t mean you’re rooting against the original place, you just miss the flavor.

I don’t think supporting official UO and recognizing the popularity of freeshards have to be mutually exclusive. In fact, listening to those players could be the bridge that brings some of them back. Not all of them, sure—but some. And some is better than none, especially when UO’s long-term survival depends on new (or returning) blood.

As for the “they’d already be back” line…I hear you. That might’ve come off too simplified. I know the UO community is diverse, and no one solution fits all. But when you see thread after thread, comment after comment, year after year from people saying, “If they just brought back [X], I’d resub today,” you have to wonder: what would it take to actually test that? Blizzard, Daybreak, Jagex—they all did, and it worked. Maybe UO is different. Or maybe it isn’t.

We don’t have to agree. But I don’t think it’s unfair—or harmful—to push for a version of UO that tries to win back part of its legacy playerbase. Because if we don’t even try… we’ll never know what could’ve been.

I will add a single cent from the bag of cents my neighbor dropped while he was parking his car.

Right now we have 3 developers Kyronix, Bleak, and Parallax. Between these 3 they are developing the classic client, enhanced client, production servers, Siege Prelious servers, and the new legacy servers.


Again this is not even my cent. Just found it around my neighbor's car.

Cookie said:

Many players left, live in a lie perpetuated by the remaining minority left on official, while you quite rightly say, the pvpers are outnumbering them by many thousands on unofficial shards.

Official is where the carebears won sadly.

I'm not saying there is not a place for carebears, but UO went overboard, and ditched a majority of their playerbase.

I remember one of the Devs saying at the meet and greet, if there was one thing they could do differently about the past, it would be the Fel/Trammel split - and centring so much of the reward in a risk free environment ever since then. I agree with this. The whole point of UO was lost, and it became a shell of itself.

Some of this is easy to say with hindsight, at the time, they could not tell how it would go, but they were genuinely only listening to 1 set of players. For those who say, but PvM is what players want, no, this is a delusion, for the minority on Official - Yes, for the majority playing UO, No.

To me, it was always obvious they were pandering to the wrong set of players.

First, calling them "carebears" makes you look...not very mature, to be polite.  You can despise them all you want, but UO is still alive here in 2025 because of those "carebears".

Second, as somebody who played Siege when it opened up, and who is getting ready to build another house there after coming back, in regard to what the OP wants, well, Siege is not exactly heavily populated to begin with, and I'm not going to judge the OP too harshly because they are clearly passionate about UO, but I sure do hear a lot of people who complain about old-school PvP who all seem to live on non-Siege shards.  Is Siege perfect? No, of course not, it's too hard for a lot of people and I completely get that, it's hard to make money, it's hard to run around in stuff you know you will lose if you die, you can't sell to NPCs or train with NPCs, you get one character per account, but we will never return to that pre-Trammel time again (and Siege launched pre-Tram, and Runesabre knew what he was doing when he created it).

Third, you heard from a dev saying they regretted the Fel/Tram split, and yet the people who were in management and running UO (or even higher up the ladder above Origin) from that era have discussed about how they had to do something because UO was shedding players who were tired of being PKed. They were getting a very bad rap. It was on all of the websites, in the gaming magazines, in mainstream articles. I had plenty of friends who were leaving UO. The companies who launched MMORPGs after UO made sure to allow for non-PvP play.

UO peaked three years after Tram was added, in mid-2003. Everquest launched in 1999 with heavily-restricted PvP for a reason, and EQ handily beat UO unfortunately.

I'm not judging you Cookie, but when this stuff comes up, and people complain that the "wrong set of players" were pandered to, they are ignoring the obvious: the "wrong set of players" were the vast majority of players, as you yourself have acknowledged, and therefore the devs were in fact catering to the "right set of players".

Finally, a lot of you seem to lose sight of the fact, when you talk about the "point of UO", you're just making up what you think the "point of UO" is, because UO was not supposed to last this long - they planned it to last a few years until they had the sequel out. UO2 was supposed to come out and replace UO. It pains me greatly that UO2 was killed, because so much of what was in it, ended up in WOW, and was claimed to be "ground-breaking" when UO2 was going to do those things years before WOW launched. Instead, EA in typical idiotic EA fashion, got cold feet about dividing the player base or even losing players with UO2 replacing UO. All of the sudden, a codebase that was not supposed to last beyond a few years was forced to become something it originally wasn't meant to be.

And I would even argue that any supposed "point of UO" has long since been lost because people have forgotten the single-player games that UO was based on.

This is more for other people in the thread, but some want to force PvP on people, and dress it up as "UO is supposed to be risk-based, so you should be forced to play this way" when that's not the case at all - go back and look at the advertising for UO - they were literally trotting out stay-at-home moms who were hanging out in their little UO shops making clothes or armor or whatever and having fun little adventures, while ignoring the fact that so many non-gamers who were drawn to UO were getting royally pissed off at being ganked while out mining or gathering hides or whatever. From interviews at the time, they thought the PKers would be kept more in check than they were, and it was killing UO's bottom line.

Lokea said:

Cookie said:

Many players left, live in a lie perpetuated by the remaining minority left on official, while you quite rightly say, the pvpers are outnumbering them by many thousands on unofficial shards.

Official is where the carebears won sadly.

I'm not saying there is not a place for carebears, but UO went overboard, and ditched a majority of their playerbase.

I remember one of the Devs saying at the meet and greet, if there was one thing they could do differently about the past, it would be the Fel/Trammel split - and centring so much of the reward in a risk free environment ever since then. I agree with this. The whole point of UO was lost, and it became a shell of itself.

Some of this is easy to say with hindsight, at the time, they could not tell how it would go, but they were genuinely only listening to 1 set of players. For those who say, but PvM is what players want, no, this is a delusion, for the minority on Official - Yes, for the majority playing UO, No.

To me, it was always obvious they were pandering to the wrong set of players.

First, calling them "carebears" makes you look...not very mature, to be polite.  You can despise them all you want, but UO is still alive here in 2025 because of those "carebears".

Second, as somebody who played Siege when it opened up, and who is getting ready to build another house there after coming back, in regard to what the OP wants, well, Siege is not exactly heavily populated to begin with, and I'm not going to judge the OP too harshly because they are clearly passionate about UO, but I sure do hear a lot of people who complain about old-school PvP who all seem to live on non-Siege shards.  Is Siege perfect? No, of course not, it's too hard for a lot of people and I completely get that, it's hard to make money, it's hard to run around in stuff you know you will lose if you die, you can't sell to NPCs or train with NPCs, you get one character per account, but we will never return to that pre-Trammel time again (and Siege launched pre-Tram, and Runesabre knew what he was doing when he created it).

Third, you heard from a dev saying they regretted the Fel/Tram split, and yet the people who were in management and running UO (or even higher up the ladder above Origin) from that era have discussed about how they had to do something because UO was shedding players who were tired of being PKed. They were getting a very bad rap. It was on all of the websites, in the gaming magazines, in mainstream articles. I had plenty of friends who were leaving UO. The companies who launched MMORPGs after UO made sure to allow for non-PvP play.

UO peaked three years after Tram was added, in mid-2003. Everquest launched in 1999 with heavily-restricted PvP for a reason, and EQ handily beat UO unfortunately.

I'm not judging you Cookie, but when this stuff comes up, and people complain that the "wrong set of players" were pandered to, they are ignoring the obvious: the "wrong set of players" were the vast majority of players, as you yourself have acknowledged, and therefore the devs were in fact catering to the "right set of players".

Finally, a lot of you seem to lose sight of the fact, when you talk about the "point of UO", you're just making up what you think the "point of UO" is, because UO was not supposed to last this long - they planned it to last a few years until they had the sequel out. UO2 was supposed to come out and replace UO. It pains me greatly that UO2 was killed, because so much of what was in it, ended up in WOW, and was claimed to be "ground-breaking" when UO2 was going to do those things years before WOW launched. Instead, EA in typical idiotic EA fashion, got cold feet about dividing the player base or even losing players with UO2 replacing UO. All of the sudden, a codebase that was not supposed to last beyond a few years was forced to become something it originally wasn't meant to be.

And I would even argue that any supposed "point of UO" has long since been lost because people have forgotten the single-player games that UO was based on.

This is more for other people in the thread, but some want to force PvP on people, and dress it up as "UO is supposed to be risk-based, so you should be forced to play this way" when that's not the case at all - go back and look at the advertising for UO - they were literally trotting out stay-at-home moms who were hanging out in their little UO shops making clothes or armor or whatever and having fun little adventures, while ignoring the fact that so many non-gamers who were drawn to UO were getting royally pissed off at being ganked while out mining or gathering hides or whatever. From interviews at the time, they thought the PKers would be kept more in check than they were, and it was killing UO's bottom line.

Sometimes people are so wrong, there is nothing I can say. 🙂

Carebears as a description works fine, you understand what I mean, you cannot deny the world, and UO went that way, and it has been an unmitigated disaster listening to these people all round. They get something, then never stop wanting it easier. Instead of learning, playing smarter, adapting.

Siege is always a poor example, no need to keep bringing it into it. It is a great shard, it is even more hardcore than the original UO used to be - due to a different rule system, in the evolving game.

I didn't say they regretted the split, I said the way it was done. Effectively removing all risk and reward, placing everything in Trammel, it was obvious the whole population would move to where it was easier, and it wiped the community aspect of UO. Reliance on other players etc. Everyone didn't go to Trammel because it was popular, they went there, because everything was free and given to them on a plate. Which ruined the entire concept of the game. Of any game tbh.

The point of UO, was it was a sandbox, it had a feel no other game had. You were meant to earn your way. That is where fulfilment comes in.

No need to force pvp on everyone, this is again victim mentality, risk vs reward does not have to be pvp. It can be dying in pvm, and losing your suit, or what you have earned. It can be introducing the very real concept of failure. Which cannot happen in Trammel.

Edit. I logged off, turned the pc off, and went to bed, then I thought of the next bit I wanted to add.

PvPers added in the concept of failure. This meant the concept of success was so much more real, so much more earned, and therefore more emotionally fulfilling.
In Trammel, with Insurance, power creep, sampires etc, there is no concept of failure - this is carebear mentality. Allow that to continue and It all gets boring. 

Now Kyronix knows there has to be a concept of failure, and a concept of earning, and achieving - so how does he now achieve this in an environment where failure is impossible?
And I hope he understands the point I am trying to make here - and this is where I believe I have been ideologically different.

He achieves it by going hard on the concept of RNG. You can work your arse off, you can put the hours in, you can do everything right, and Luck/RNG can still bring about failure. So these days, no-one moans about PK's, but they moan about RNG, or Luck, because that is the failure mechanism that has been built in to give players that feeling of achievement.

But is that achievement? Players instead get frustrated because they have put the effort in to earn  something and feel they deserve it, but not been able to get it? Is that fair?
It's basically a case, of pick a side. Fulfilment by earning vs a player (using your brains), or fulfilment by earning vs RNG. Is fulfilment earning vs RNG really earning something? Or just gambling.

The reason it is clever, is no-one is blaming the PK's anymore, they are not blaming people... they are blaming an invisible system. Having said that, No, they are often blaming the Devs, so poor Kyronix, in taking the blame away from the PK's, put the entire blame game of players frustrations onto his shoulders re (supposed) poor systems, perceived/or real faulty RNG etc - because now, it is the systems not delivering what players want, or feel they earned. And therefore.... players STILL quit, because of perceived injustice and frustration, with the systems, and the Devs now.

If I were Kyronix, I would not have been such a martyr. 🙂
I would have let the sandbox do its job, the sandbox was able to deliver balance.

I'm not going to judge you either, because most of your posts seem very sensible, I'm just going to assume you fell for the carebear propaganda.

Kyronix said:

There are generalities you mention related to the "classic risk vs reward" experience but when Siege Perilous is brought into the conversation there is apparently something else missing from it to "scratch your itch"...what mechanics are you looking for?  

   pretty much that.

I just want to add a correction to my previous post.
I believe it was Messana who took the brunt of players frustrations, not Kyronix, as she was in charge for most of the period.
I believe I have now just fully explained why, psychologically.
In effect, she put it on herself, when she did not need to.
And this is what happens, when you pander to carebears.

Cookie said:

No need to force pvp on everyone, this is again victim mentality, risk vs reward does not have to be pvp. It can be dying in pvm, and losing your suit, or what you have earned. It can be introducing the very real concept of failure. Which cannot happen in Trammel.
...
PvPers added in the concept of failure. This meant the concept of success was so much more real, so much more earned, and therefore more emotionally fulfilling.

You talk about "risk vs reward".

There was no risk for a group of PKers who were jumping miners and lumberjacks and people who just wanted to run around in a virtual world and craft and do non-combat things, there was only rewards for valuable ingots and wood and armor/weapons made by the crafters. Even when they would occasionally lose, they would easily make it up with just one decent kill of a miner or lumberjack.

There was no reward for a miner or lumberjack or craftsperson who had just spent a few hours mining or chopping trees or trying to get stuff to town to sell it, only to lose everything to PKers (sometimes simply because they were on a faster connection). There was only "I just spent X amount of my valuable time getting ore or lumber or making armor to sell to other players and I lost everything including my tools, why am I paying for this and why should I login again tomorrow and risk the same thing when my only reward is a corpse, trash-talking from the PKers, and lost time?"

And if you talk about UO being unique among games, don't forget that a part of the marketing was targeted at people who had no desire to PvP. I wish you would go back and look at the marketing and positive media coverage, because it was a whole lot of "I'm not into all of that swords and sorcery stuff, I just really like the community, and I like having my own little house and making stuff."

These people do not hang around long when they start losing the stuff they love about the game, and these people are allowed to love the game just as much as you do.

Also, don't forget that when UO launched, personal computers that could run it well were not ubiquitous, nor were fast internet connections, and the Ultima games had been for nearly 20 years, which means lot of early players were in their 20s/30s/40s and didn't have vast amounts of free time to make up when they lost hours of work in the game.

Trammel was a direct response to players getting ganked and dry-looted and getting PKed outside of their own homes and losing a lot of time they had invested in whatever they were doing. You can call them carebears just like people did over 25 years ago, but at the end of the day, they spoke with their wallets.  UO hit its success well after Tram (and even in the wake of Everquest doing massive numbers).

@Cookie I know we both agree on a lot of things, and that UO was never supposed to become what it became (it wasn't supposed to last 30 months, let along nearly 30 years), but maybe that's the nature of a sandbox - to evolve over time into something completely different than it was.

Lokea said:

Cookie said:

No need to force pvp on everyone, this is again victim mentality, risk vs reward does not have to be pvp. It can be dying in pvm, and losing your suit, or what you have earned. It can be introducing the very real concept of failure. Which cannot happen in Trammel.
...
PvPers added in the concept of failure. This meant the concept of success was so much more real, so much more earned, and therefore more emotionally fulfilling.

You talk about "risk vs reward".

There was no risk for a group of PKers who were jumping miners and lumberjacks and people who just wanted to run around in a virtual world and craft and do non-combat things, there was only rewards for valuable ingots and wood and armor/weapons made by the crafters. Even when they would occasionally lose, they would easily make it up with just one decent kill of a miner or lumberjack.

There was no reward for a miner or lumberjack or craftsperson who had just spent a few hours mining or chopping trees or trying to get stuff to town to sell it, only to lose everything to PKers (sometimes simply because they were on a faster connection). There was only "I just spent X amount of my valuable time getting ore or lumber or making armor to sell to other players and I lost everything including my tools, why am I paying for this and why should I login again tomorrow and risk the same thing when my only reward is a corpse, trash-talking from the PKers, and lost time?"

And if you talk about UO being unique among games, don't forget that a part of the marketing was targeted at people who had no desire to PvP. I wish you would go back and look at the marketing and positive media coverage, because it was a whole lot of "I'm not into all of that swords and sorcery stuff, I just really like the community, and I like having my own little house and making stuff."

These people do not hang around long when they start losing the stuff they love about the game, and these people are allowed to love the game just as much as you do.

Also, don't forget that when UO launched, personal computers that could run it well were not ubiquitous, nor were fast internet connections, and the Ultima games had been for nearly 20 years, which means lot of early players were in their 20s/30s/40s and didn't have vast amounts of free time to make up when they lost hours of work in the game.

Trammel was a direct response to players getting ganked and dry-looted and getting PKed outside of their own homes and losing a lot of time they had invested in whatever they were doing. You can call them carebears just like people did over 25 years ago, but at the end of the day, they spoke with their wallets.  UO hit its success well after Tram (and even in the wake of Everquest doing massive numbers).

You’re not wrong about how it felt for a lot of players back then. Plenty of people got burned mining, crafting, or just exploring and ran into  PK squads who saw them as easy loot. We all were a target at some point. That frustration is valid. But here’s the thing: we’re not asking to repeat 1998’s mistakes, we’re saying we can learn from them.

In one of my earlier posts, I mentioned exactly this: with what we know now, there are smarter ways to reintroduce a Felucca-only world without letting it spiral into a grief-fest.

Just a few examples I threw out earlier below:

• Enhanced consequences for reds — Not just the old “guard zone = death” system, but harsher penalties. Maybe reds can’t use public banks, can’t access key vendors, or accumulate bounties that players can claim.
• Bounty or justice systems — Imagine if every time a PK dry-loots a miner, a portion of that loot contributes to a bounty. Now you’ve got PvPers hunting PvPers. The economy of justice becomes player-driven again.
• New player protection — Instead of giving everyone a bubble or safe facet, we create smart starting areas (like a Shelter Island concept) where newbies can skill up, make a little gold, and learn the ropes before stepping into the deep end.
• Hotspot-based PvP — Spawn high-value content in risky areas to pull PvPers to those zones, creating predictable risk zones, while other areas stay less hostile.
• *edit* Safe-Dungeon Rotation — a feature in other shards like a safety dungeon rotation. Each week a new dungeon is highlighted for players to roam without the fear of being PK’d.
• *edit* Enhanced Player Detection Skill — Give Blue characters a free skill where Red player detection is greatly enhanced and can pin-point if a Red is nearby. Better than the original detection skill.

All of this creates a world that’s dangerous but manageable. You keep that core UO tension where a trip to town isn’t just a formality, but you don’t shove new or casual players straight into the meat grinder. That’s where the original game failed, and that’s exactly the kind of thing we can fix now.

No one is dismissing the “peaceful” players who love UO for the community, the housing, the crafting. I’m one of them. I hardly veered join in in PKing, but i like the risks that come with it. Each login felt different than the last. I’m saying those people also thrived in the old game when risk was shared, but it needs proper guardrails. If the goal is to bring back a “classic” experience, it needs the unpredictability and the lessons learned since then.

Trammel was a reaction. But it wasn’t the only possible solution. It was just the only one they had at the time. With better tools and modern design, we could absolutely strike a balance that protects players from being stomped repeatedly while still letting the world feel alive and untamed.

This isn’t about nostalgia for the sake of it. It’s about bringing back the freedom and agency that made UO stand out, while acknowledging the ways it broke down and doing better this time.

*edit* I guess I’m trying to say is that there are absolutely ways to reintroduce classic in a way that makes more sense in 2025. We have decades of information to go on and know now what works and what doesn’t. 

There’s just simply no way you can deny that there are an even amount of people in the free shard world that would jump at an official classic Ultima online. They are there and they are real.

I won't gonna lie.. after Mariah job & reading this post.. i've lost all hope and stop the billing on my accounts.

I would have need the support of 4 or 5 players; legit with brain power.. won't happen in this community on this forum.. Enjoy New Heresy; Theme Park Legacy and those temp bribe events for bots... u won't get anything better than that.


I'll come back when I can manage to one man army this B; to stream and make a few vid on UO to show how great is UO under this Mesanna corporate culture in 2025 for a legit PvP OW lover, as soon I have the time and to give EA the solutions. Till then enjoy..

We could have SO MUCH MORE with so MUCH LESS DEV WORK.. those temporary bribe event are just a way to secure their job.. while making UO worst with copy pasta weapon with different special moves.. 95% of the content is dead and with the power creep bribe they been feeding bots, they just making it worst.. as for NL, it clrealy failed to deliver what it was promise, it's just gonna be another bribe/ extraction shard.. a part of the bad corporate culture.

Most of the actual dev team should be move on DAoC or that Star Wars MMO, an actual theme park.. after we chop the head. all we need is 3 person to make UO a great sandbox again; Cerebro, Cojones y Talento... but not with that culture.


PS: a classic shard should be played on CC and only CC. This is the most important aspect of a "classic" UO, imo... y'all been missing the obvious; with your "siege perilous" #2 idea 
We having a TC #2 in NL.. and i'm reading ideas for a siege perilous #2.. as a "classic UO" like what??

PS2: if they do a siege perilous #2 make it for RP users.. like with mayor.. jail system.. all the good stuff for nerds. but this is not what a classic UO shard should be. the Classic UO shard should be UO at it's more popular played on CC.. while addressing the problems that was ignore back then to double down on them.

SA was great but it brang a tonsss of problem.. bring back magic finding without the 30 mods attach to an items.. the obvious stuff u know.. like those new potions, apples, etc etc.. all that heresy must be deleted.. if u want to remove curse.. bring a paladin with you; MMO!.. bring back jousting.. even today ~22 yrs later.. Necromancy still look to be unfinish.. so much easy stuff to address #balance..  and I maintain the way the game is today.. NL should aspire to be a hardcore shard (1 life; a hybrid of roguelite and hack and slash for temporary high octane events or leaderboard stuff, while being playable on mobile), anyway.

Have a good one.

MacroPlanet said:

In one of my earlier posts, I mentioned exactly this: with what we know now, there are smarter ways to reintroduce a Felucca-only world without letting it spiral into a grief-fest.

All of this creates a world that’s dangerous but manageable. You keep that core UO tension where a trip to town isn’t just a formality, but you don’t shove new or casual players straight into the meat grinder. That’s where the original game failed, and that’s exactly the kind of thing we can fix now.

No one is dismissing the “peaceful” players who love UO for the community, the housing, the crafting. I’m one of them. I hardly veered join in in PKing, but i like the risks that come with it. Each login felt different than the last. I’m saying those people also thrived in the old game when risk was shared, but it needs proper guardrails. If the goal is to bring back a “classic” experience, it needs the unpredictability and the lessons learned since then.

Trammel was a reaction. But it wasn’t the only possible solution. It was just the only one they had at the time. With better tools and modern design, we could absolutely strike a balance that protects players from being stomped repeatedly while still letting the world feel alive and untamed.

This isn’t about nostalgia for the sake of it. It’s about bringing back the freedom and agency that made UO stand out, while acknowledging the ways it broke down and doing better this time.

*edit* I guess I’m trying to say is that there are absolutely ways to reintroduce classic in a way that makes more sense in 2025. We have decades of information to go on and know now what works and what doesn’t. 

There’s just simply no way you can deny that there are an even amount of people in the free shard world that would jump at an official classic Ultima online. They are there and they are real.

I'm completely agreeing with your analysis of the situation.
I edited your suggestions out to make the post shorter.

The only area I disagree with you, Is you wish to go back and create another clean original style shard to achieve all of this, (and so does Kroduk, and so do many players).

Whereas I am saying, we are where we are, I think your suggestion in itself is too much, too risky, will split the playerbase more. I am saying - take it from where we are right now - there is a lot of good stuff where we are right now - players are still finding ways to play and enjoy themselves.
I am saying, change the Vision, and with that changed Vision, implement new stuff slightly differently, towards a new vision.

Lokea said:

Cookie said:

No need to force pvp on everyone, this is again victim mentality, risk vs reward does not have to be pvp. It can be dying in pvm, and losing your suit, or what you have earned. It can be introducing the very real concept of failure. Which cannot happen in Trammel.
...
PvPers added in the concept of failure. This meant the concept of success was so much more real, so much more earned, and therefore more emotionally fulfilling.

You talk about "risk vs reward".

There was no risk for a group of PKers who were jumping miners and lumberjacks and people who just wanted to run around in a virtual world and craft and do non-combat things, there was only rewards for valuable ingots and wood and armor/weapons made by the crafters. Even when they would occasionally lose, they would easily make it up with just one decent kill of a miner or lumberjack.

There was no reward for a miner or lumberjack or craftsperson who had just spent a few hours mining or chopping trees or trying to get stuff to town to sell it, only to lose everything to PKers (sometimes simply because they were on a faster connection). There was only "I just spent X amount of my valuable time getting ore or lumber or making armor to sell to other players and I lost everything including my tools, why am I paying for this and why should I login again tomorrow and risk the same thing when my only reward is a corpse, trash-talking from the PKers, and lost time?"

And if you talk about UO being unique among games, don't forget that a part of the marketing was targeted at people who had no desire to PvP. I wish you would go back and look at the marketing and positive media coverage, because it was a whole lot of "I'm not into all of that swords and sorcery stuff, I just really like the community, and I like having my own little house and making stuff."

These people do not hang around long when they start losing the stuff they love about the game, and these people are allowed to love the game just as much as you do.

Also, don't forget that when UO launched, personal computers that could run it well were not ubiquitous, nor were fast internet connections, and the Ultima games had been for nearly 20 years, which means lot of early players were in their 20s/30s/40s and didn't have vast amounts of free time to make up when they lost hours of work in the game.

Trammel was a direct response to players getting ganked and dry-looted and getting PKed outside of their own homes and losing a lot of time they had invested in whatever they were doing. You can call them carebears just like people did over 25 years ago, but at the end of the day, they spoke with their wallets.  UO hit its success well after Tram (and even in the wake of Everquest doing massive numbers).

There was no risk for a group of PKers
There is risk to PKers if those miners are protected.
In real life, towns and villages evolved for a reason, for protection from the roaming brigands, for the social aspect, humans are social creatures mostly. UO was exactly the same, we had towns and villages, we had crafters, we had traders, we had fighters, all in 1 Town, all acting as a community.

That was how the game was. That is how my guild is, right now, one of the few left operating like this, and we are seriously successful, and enjoying ourselves. We all have different skills and abilities, and we help each other. We have pvmers, crafters, house deco people, rare collectors, traders, pvpers etc.
Because this is my Vision, this is my belief, I want all these different people around me, experts in their own areas.

There was no reward for a miner or lumberjack or craftsperson who had just spent a few hours mining or chopping trees 
You know the answer here as well as I do. The answer was to play smarter, bring those logs in more regularly.

I just really like the community, and I like having my own little house and making stuff."
It existed in the player towns. It existed in the main towns like Britain, around the Blacksmiths - SO much more than it does now - would you agree?

Also, don't forget that when UO launched, personal computers that could run it well were not ubiquitous, nor were fast internet connections, and the Ultima games had been for nearly 20 years, which means lot of early players were in their 20s/30s/40s and didn't have vast amounts of free time to make up when they lost hours of work in the game.
I do not forget - this is why UO actually took off when it did - when the majority of the public finally got the technology to play UO better, and therefore more dived in - NOT because of Trammel, which coincidentally happened at the same time as technology caught up with UO.
Do you think the whole world heard about Trammel, and this amazing response to PK's and so decided to dive into UO?
Or was it the whole world had just achieved improved Tech, and were now able to play this really cool game UO? (and Trammel is just where it happened to be at that stage, poor guys).
This is the carebear myth - misinterpreting data.

Trammel was a direct response
Yes it was, they did their best, they got it a bit wrong, it was overkill.
They could have created Trammel - and put absolutely no loot in Trammel, had it as a housing area. People could live in their houses, walk around freely, socialise, all these thing you say they like doing.  They could train there. But why give them absolutely free loot, and therefore dull the game for a huge majority?

Cookie said:

MacroPlanet said:

In one of my earlier posts, I mentioned exactly this: with what we know now, there are smarter ways to reintroduce a Felucca-only world without letting it spiral into a grief-fest.

All of this creates a world that’s dangerous but manageable. You keep that core UO tension where a trip to town isn’t just a formality, but you don’t shove new or casual players straight into the meat grinder. That’s where the original game failed, and that’s exactly the kind of thing we can fix now.

No one is dismissing the “peaceful” players who love UO for the community, the housing, the crafting. I’m one of them. I hardly veered join in in PKing, but i like the risks that come with it. Each login felt different than the last. I’m saying those people also thrived in the old game when risk was shared, but it needs proper guardrails. If the goal is to bring back a “classic” experience, it needs the unpredictability and the lessons learned since then.

Trammel was a reaction. But it wasn’t the only possible solution. It was just the only one they had at the time. With better tools and modern design, we could absolutely strike a balance that protects players from being stomped repeatedly while still letting the world feel alive and untamed.

This isn’t about nostalgia for the sake of it. It’s about bringing back the freedom and agency that made UO stand out, while acknowledging the ways it broke down and doing better this time.

*edit* I guess I’m trying to say is that there are absolutely ways to reintroduce classic in a way that makes more sense in 2025. We have decades of information to go on and know now what works and what doesn’t. 

There’s just simply no way you can deny that there are an even amount of people in the free shard world that would jump at an official classic Ultima online. They are there and they are real.

I'm completely agreeing with your analysis of the situation.
I edited your suggestions out to make the post shorter.

The only area I disagree with you, Is you wish to go back and create another clean original style shard to achieve all of this, (and so does Kroduk, and so do many players).

Whereas I am saying, we are where we are, I think your suggestion in itself is too much, too risky, will split the playerbase more. I am saying - take it from where we are right now - there is a lot of good stuff where we are right now - players are still finding ways to play and enjoy themselves.
I am saying, change the Vision, and with that changed Vision, implement new stuff slightly differently, towards a new vision.

The vision change in itself makes sense. However, it would never be enough to bring back the players that left UO but still play UO. The ideas I was playing with was bringing those player back under the Broadsword umbrella (aka with Blizzard and Daybreaks classic version of their game). I understand your concern about splitting the community even further and that’s a real concern for the current player base.

Your idea is a great one, I too would love to see a vision change to the current live shards. But I think it would mostly only impact those that currently play instead of bringing in the old/new blood players.

Unless Broadsword was willing to go all-in on a major overhaul like fully embracing the classic systems again, reintroducing real consequences, making stealing and snooping viable, restoring the weight behind player interaction (which was a huge thing in the original game) it’s probably not going to move the needle much in terms of reviving the old-school crowd. And honestly, doing that kind of overhaul to the live game would probably upset the current playerbase more than anything. A lot of them play because the game evolved away from that style since Tram and AOS.

So that’s the conundrum.

The players who want the classic feel aren’t on the official servers anymore, and the players who are here likely prefer the direction the game has gone. That’s why many of us feel the only real solution is to have a separate, dedicated classic shard that exists alongside the modern ones that way so both groups can have the game they love without stepping on each other’s toes.

Again, I really do see your point about splitting the community even further  My hope would be that it would only bring more people together.

Cookie said:
There was no risk for a group of PKers
There is risk to PKers if those miners are protected.
In real life, towns and villages evolved for a reason, for protection from the roaming brigands, for the social aspect, humans are social creatures mostly. UO was exactly the same, we had towns and villages, we had crafters, we had traders, we had fighters, all in 1 Town, all acting as a community.
.....

That's nice that it worked out for you, that you had friends playing at the exact time you needed them.  But that was not reality for a lot of people, and I know you remember all of the websites chronicling those folks getting ganked and dry-looted. Look, I'm glad you had great experiences, but man, a heckuva lot of people did not have that experience, and a lot of them left and never came back, which is a huge reason why UO struggled to find traction at times in those first 5-6 years while first EQ and then WOW took off (and both of those games looked like garbage in the early years).

Trammel was a direct response
Yes it was, they did their best, they got it a bit wrong, it was overkill.
They could have created Trammel - and put absolutely no loot in Trammel, had it as a housing area. People could live in their houses, walk around freely, socialise, all these thing you say they like doing.  They could train there. But why give them absolutely free loot, and therefore dull the game for a huge majority?

It sounds like you want to force people to play a certain way, that they have to risk losing the resources they had gathered, and therefore their valuable time, because you believed they should only be able to gather those resources in a non-consensual PvP area. 

Not really much of a sandbox is it? Kind of the opposite in fact.

MacroPlanet said:

The vision change in itself makes sense. However, it would never be enough to bring back the players that left UO but still play UO. The ideas I was playing with was bringing those player back under the Broadsword umbrella (aka with Blizzard and Daybreaks classic version of their game). I understand your concern about splitting the community even further and that’s a real concern for the current player base.

Your idea is a great one, I too would love to see a vision change to the current live shards. But I think it would mostly only impact those that currently play instead of bringing in the old/new blood players.

Unless Broadsword was willing to go all-in on a major overhaul like fully embracing the classic systems again, reintroducing real consequences, making stealing and snooping viable, restoring the weight behind player interaction (which was a huge thing in the original game) it’s probably not going to move the needle much in terms of reviving the old-school crowd. And honestly, doing that kind of overhaul to the live game would probably upset the current playerbase more than anything. A lot of them play because the game evolved away from that style since Tram and AOS.

So that’s the conundrum.

The players who want the classic feel aren’t on the official servers anymore, and the players who are here likely prefer the direction the game has gone. That’s why many of us feel the only real solution is to have a separate, dedicated classic shard that exists alongside the modern ones that way so both groups can have the game they love without stepping on each other’s toes.

Again, I really do see your point about splitting the community even further  My hope would be that it would only bring more people together.

I'm with @Cookie you have to be careful about splitting the current playerbase. I really only played Siege because of a few friends who did, and it was not my main shard, so I was not (and am not) putting my full playing time into it, but I'd be worried about such a shard splitting anybody away from Siege. It's not that their characters and houses would disappear overnight from Siege, it's that activity would disappear. 

And as you rightly point out, you can't force current players to go to a new (or rather old) system because that would end UO as we know it. We can compare housing numbers on the non-Atlantic shards in terms of Tram/Fel and see where people want to play or at least live the most. I'm putting together a map of castles, keeps and towers in Tram/Fel, and I'm going to be curious to see what the numbers are when I finish, but that's for a future thread. 

Even the non-official shards have their limits. I know somebody in-game that came back a few months before I did this year (or probably last December, I know he did the holiday events), that I met while sailing around last week and doing a bunch of the HS stuff I never did before.  He played on the...largest third-party non-Broadsword shard that shall not be named, and he completely left because he grew to despise it - he wanted to spend most of his time doing ocean content (fishing, pirating, etc.), and he found himself constantly getting hammered by 5, 6, 7, even 9 or 10 boats and getting PKed.  One dude getting killed by practically a small fleet of boats and they weren't getting much out of him (he would offload valuable stuff as soon as he got it), yet they wouldn't stop.  He was told multiple times that he could join one of the sailing groups or whatever, or he could spend his days getting jumped and killed. It wasn't PvP, it was a large group/guild jumping solo players and telling them to join up or else. Now that's anecdotal and one person's experience, and it's possible he tangled with one of these groups and pissed them off, but whatever happened, it made him go from playing a free shard (and official) to only paid shards over the past few months and not look back.

With all of that said, I would be interested in a Broadsword-run "classic" shard, but I just don't think we have enough devs right now. I have an opinion that the New Legacy stuff is at least a partial rewrite of parts of UO's codebase, and if true, it'll be a while before the devs have the time to even think about another shard, but at the same time, it's possible a rewrite (partial or otherwise) could make it easier.

If you had a "classic" shard, I just don't know where the players would come from. It's not going to be the majority of current players who are happy where they are at, it's not (hopefully) going to be Siege players.  Former players?

There is another aspect that has to be mentioned - there are players who play the third-party shards, who do so simply because they are free, and I think we probably underestimate their numbers.

And yet another aspect is that a lot of former players aren't coming back for anything short of a graphics overhaul. They just aren't.  Many left for Everquest (Neverquest for the olds like me) or WOW and never looked back, and now they have things like Final Fantasy, Elder Scrolls, etc.

And I don't mean a graphics overhaul like make it a 3D style like FFXIV or WOW/first-person, but something where we can zoom in on a high-resolution display and see a lot of details (maybe similar to Diablo, while keeping UO's unique perspective).

edit: hundreds of thousands of people tried UO at some point since 1997.  Even combined, the official and the third-party shards today are a fraction of the number of people who tried it at some point.  I think to get those people back, you have to figure out why they left.

 Or you have to package UO for a new generation, who has grown up on Minecraft, and various Japanese (and non-Japanese) pixel-based games (smartphone/tablet app stores are full of such games) and who still play them, and therefore wouldn’t turn up their noses at UO’s graphics.  I think this has more potential than trying to win back former players - once a player has left and later come back, it’s very easy for them to leave again.  

Lokea said:

It sounds like you want to force people to play a certain way,

Not really much of a sandbox is it? Kind of the opposite in fact.

It sounds like you want a single player game, which is pretty much what you have achieved.
Good for you.
Again, I would argue, this was not the point of UO.

Cookie said:

Lokea said:

It sounds like you want to force people to play a certain way,

Not really much of a sandbox is it? Kind of the opposite in fact.

It sounds like you want a single player game, which is pretty much what you have achieved.
Good for you.
Again, I would argue, this was not the point of UO.

Nah, I spent too much time and money getting friends, family, and co-workers to play, and I played all of the single-player Ultima games.  I’m good.

Lokea said:

Cookie said:

Lokea said:

It sounds like you want to force people to play a certain way,

Not really much of a sandbox is it? Kind of the opposite in fact.

It sounds like you want a single player game, which is pretty much what you have achieved.
Good for you.
Again, I would argue, this was not the point of UO.

Nah, I spent too much time and money getting friends, family, and co-workers to play, and I played all of the single-player Ultima games.  I’m good.

If you travel back to 1996-1997 and ask everybody involved what the point of UO was, you’d have almost as many different answers as people you asked.

But if you are so concerned about risk and reward, can I ask what facet your home(s) are on and where you spend the majority of your time gathering resources and doing non-combat stuff?  And do you have at least one character on Siege that you’ve played regularly at some point?

I play Europa Felucca predominantly.
I hate going to Trammel to be fair, and am often disappointed when they do events in Trammel.

I did have a character on Siege also.
Ultimately, I got bored of the skill gain system, that allowed 0.1 per day.
I find the rules there, even more harsh than original UO, as in original UO, we were losing self crafted sets, here you are losing artifacts that take a hell of a lot of play to get.

Lokea said:

And as you rightly point out, you can't force current players to go to a new (or rather old) system because that would end UO as we know it. We can compare housing numbers on the non-Atlantic shards in terms of Tram/Fel and see where people want to play or at least live the most. I'm putting together a map of castles, keeps and towers in Tram/Fel, and I'm going to be curious to see what the numbers are when I finish, but that's for a future thread. 

Even the non-official shards have their limits. I know somebody in-game that came back a few months before I did this year (or probably last December, I know he did the holiday events), that I met while sailing around last week and doing a bunch of the HS stuff I never did before.  He played on the...largest third-party non-Broadsword shard that shall not be named, and he completely left because he grew to despise it - he wanted to spend most of his time doing ocean content (fishing, pirating, etc.), and he found himself constantly getting hammered by 5, 6, 7, even 9 or 10 boats and getting PKed.  One dude getting killed by practically a small fleet of boats and they weren't getting much out of him (he would offload valuable stuff as soon as he got it), yet they wouldn't stop.  He was told multiple times that he could join one of the sailing groups or whatever, or he could spend his days getting jumped and killed. It wasn't PvP, it was a large group/guild jumping solo players and telling them to join up or else. Now that's anecdotal and one person's experience, and it's possible he tangled with one of these groups and pissed them off, but whatever happened, it made him go from playing a free shard (and official) to only paid shards over the past few months and not look back.

With all of that said, I would be interested in a Broadsword-run "classic" shard, but I just don't think we have enough devs right now. I have an opinion that the New Legacy stuff is at least a partial rewrite of parts of UO's codebase, and if true, it'll be a while before the devs have the time to even think about another shard, but at the same time, it's possible a rewrite (partial or otherwise) could make it easier.

I would actually be really interested in your findings too. I don’t do a lot of exploration in Tram, but in Felucca on Napa Valley there’s quite a few castles and keeps up still — fully decorated, too. It seems that people still enjoy Fel (at least living there). 

As for your buddy and the boating experience, it’s interesting that you bring that up because I recently just saw a post from the admin on cancelling a boating expansion because of issues like this. 

Cookie said:

Lokea said:

Cookie said:

Lokea said:

It sounds like you want to force people to play a certain way,

Not really much of a sandbox is it? Kind of the opposite in fact.

It sounds like you want a single player game, which is pretty much what you have achieved.
Good for you.
Again, I would argue, this was not the point of UO.

Nah, I spent too much time and money getting friends, family, and co-workers to play, and I played all of the single-player Ultima games.  I’m good.

If you travel back to 1996-1997 and ask everybody involved what the point of UO was, you’d have almost as many different answers as people you asked.

But if you are so concerned about risk and reward, can I ask what facet your home(s) are on and where you spend the majority of your time gathering resources and doing non-combat stuff?  And do you have at least one character on Siege that you’ve played regularly at some point?

I play Europa Felucca predominantly.
I hate going to Trammel to be fair, and am often disappointed when they do events in Trammel.

I did have a character on Siege also.
Ultimately, I got bored of the skill gain system, that allowed 0.1 per day.
I find the rules there, even more harsh than original UO, as in original UO, we were losing self crafted sets, here you are losing artifacts that take a hell of a lot of play to get.

Even if you only got 0.1 a day your character would have been done 5 years ago...

Grimbeard said:

Even if you only got 0.1 a day your character would have been done 5 years ago...

As I said, I got bored with the lack of progression.
I'm an endgame player, I do not want skilling to take forever.
I've done it a million times, for almost every skill, I'm over that now.

Lokea said:

If you had a "classic" shard, I just don't know where the players would come from. It's not going to be the majority of current players who are happy where they are at, it's not (hopefully) going to be Siege players.  Former players?

Find the first-time players who would see UO the way many saw it 20-25 years ago.  I really think there is an untapped market of people who like graphics similar to UO’s and who would love the housing and crafting systems.

That’s kind of my point of this entire post. It’s not to please the current player-base. Obviously we’re here for the long haul. It to bring in those players that left official for the more classic experiences on these free-shards. At one point most of these people were official UO players. One free-shard—that really large one—easily has around 3,500 people playing on any given night. Mix in the hundreds of other free-shards and you probably have anywhere from 5,000-8,000 UO players that are untapped. Let alone the random younger players that heard of UO, but never played it. 

On the subreddit we’ll get a weekly post that comes up (sometimes multiple times a week) asking where to get started with UO and how to play. There’s a handful of us there that try to push them to the official game, but it’s usually outvoted by the big free one. It has those modern features they’re looking for, QoL features and it has that old school pre-tram vibe.

In fact I think any person that plays ‘survival’ games would probably really enjoy playing UO…classic UO that is. 

So yeah, I know I sound like a broken record but I truly do believe deep down that UO could have that renaissance again like other older MMO’s have. The audience is there, like you stated. It just needs those QoL features and a true classic experience with some tweaks so it’s not an absolute gank-fest like the old dread days.

@MacroPlanet You should try Fractured.. the PvP system u want, already exist.

Why do those threads always end up with people suggesting we point loyal players to free shards with the systems they want? Its a great thread, and I will also give a Yay here.

And the numbers brought up for the biggest unofficial shard... just pale in comparison to the international servers most of us never hear about because they are in Russian, Japanese, Thai, Korean... many told me they would join even if it was English only.

Make that 50k potential players who would probably sub just to try the official and professionally designed version of classic. A huge business opportunity.

I've also only played on official servers, for similar reasons that were pointed here. I re-sub periodically, just to check if this classic vanilla ruleset could be brought back, even if imperfect, even if absurdly simple with 0 support.

I personally know over a thousand people who would re-sub in a heartbeat... and according to my Russian friend, he knows at least 10k people that have been looking exclusively for this for decades.

They showed up in Shroud of the Avatar as a few thousand strong guilds (gave it a big funding boost), asking for the same thing (easy to look up) and they all left all at once when they got the same replies with the same mentality. Sorry to say the hard truth here, but that was it for Shroud, it died right there when it rejected the old school players requests (all of them arbitrarily). It did not have the loyal player base UO has to survive this.

So, many claim they have played single player Ultima... but it seems to me like they took nothing away from it, the whole series, the whole IP, is about characteristics players are asking for here. You can abstract everything else easily. 

So maybe we listen to Sherry the mouse and align the servers to the real IP, so its actually an ultima game?

Or is Sherry now irrelevant too?

Ahua said:

Make that 50k potential players who would probably sub just to try the official and professionally designed version of classic. A huge business opportunity.

Have you tried New Legacy?
In the mind of the actual dev this is what people wanted as a "classic" experience.. a sexy theme park for griefers. A niche to a niche for the actual players.


Personally I still believe they should go with the most popular version of UO and start from there.. make it even better before adding a couple new things on it.


PS: we losing our time.. they needed 5-6 years to launch NL.

Yes, actually I loved it, but it was something entirely new, nothing to do with classic except the feel. I still enjoyed (very much actually) it as I was away for a long time. Was a nice welcome back, but I played it alone (at least what I could) because there was no reasons for other players to help me apparently they were all too busy to talk to me and kept talking to each other about how legacy is nice to fast train GM characters and get unique deco. I have not met one single player that seemed to be there for the reasons I thought this server was opened for.

Which is sad... a lot of efforts and most people only use it to meta.

I certainly am not expecting anything, just adding my voice to support the idea. I'm still looking for a similarly designed experience, 25 years later... should speak for itself (hello lol). Broadsword owns it now, so ball in their court.

I come back periodically asking for it. So I know how those threads usually end, however its always interesting to read and I'm sure the devs do profit from them, if only to take the pulse of the player base. If nobody reacts or those threads die, it can't be a good sign.

Just as a follow up I would like to add that I do not understand the main point of those against. It always is about subjective bad experiences with that ruleset. And when you simmer it down to the lowest common denominator, its always about losing time.

It makes me feel like none of you played old games, which kind of makes me sad, you're missing out. Best example that most older people might know about is TMNT on the NES. How many times you died in the underwater level and had to start over completely? I think it took me 50 tries to make it. Each previous try was a total loss, nothing remains I completely start from scratch.

All games I loved, and many I still love, involve it being so hard and unforgiving, where simple mistakes make you "lose your time", while in classic UO, even if you lose all your stuff and a lot of time, you still have your skills, your whole bank, your whole house, waiting for you to restock, you can get back in pretty quick and it forced players to build communities. In the modern ruleset, sure its too much, but in the old classic ruleset, it just makes sense. Crafters are just happier to have to work constantly and that many players depend upon them. Roleplayers like me are also happier, because I can roleplay a paladin and ask people if they need escorts or protection. Right now, people just laugh, nobody needs me, like ever.

The whole design of this early gaming era, was about losing time (risk and reward), and it made it fun, because when you finally made it, it was much more rewarding.

I feel strange having to explain something that has been in games since forever.

Even before video games in D&D (which inspired all of them), sure there were resurrect spells, but good luck making it up to that level. How often the players in games I ran had to accept their character death and start completely over, losing all their time?

Every single one of them will tell you it was much more fun this way, they thought much harder about their decisions, it felt significant when a character died or succeeded, solely because of time invested.

So don't think I don't understand the reaction when I say "house keys". I do understand, more time could be lost, making it this much more significant, much more meaningful to hire a player or NPC when that key will be in danger of being stolen.

I do agree that some mitigating systems were incomplete, which amplified the feeling of unfairness, but I think that now, with all we learned, its all possible to recapture along with the players associated.

On the other hand, I do see the technical difficulty to make it fair. I do hold some designs, and I sure hope the devs will be at least willing to discuss the philosophy behind it.

If I stick to NES again to remain concise, Exodus had you only save at the inn in LB's castle (an actual save like Zelda), if your whole party died, you had to take up an older save point, effectively losing a lot of time. You could also lose gear or temple/magic if you chose to res instead of reloading. It was risky.

Then in Quest of the Avatar, they I think intentionally moved to passwords, if your party wiped it was game over and you had to use the last code, lots of lost time.

Then in Warriors of Destiny, still passwords, if you did res you would lose experience, penalty scaled with karma.

Ultima Exodus was the first to introduce a balance in the RPG genre, which so many games were inspired by, I'm thinking of ie. Faxanadu and Dragon Warrior.

So I think maybe we get lost in the definition of a game, or maybe if that is too pretentious I will say the definition of Game with a capital G. 

There are also many games I played when I was younger, best example is Wizardry 4... where the level of difficulty was so high that I couldn't even begin to progress in those games, never could finish it. Started over so many times thinking I had missed something, while in fact I was just too young to comprehend its depth.

Total loss of time?

No... pure fun, and I replayed it many times, pure genius storytelling and puzzles. Appreciate it much more as an adult with all I know.

10x as unforgiving as classic UO, yet still fun decades later.

So, with all this in mind, what would you say the problem really is?

Ahua said:

Just as a follow up I would like to add that I do not understand the main point of those against. It always is about subjective bad experiences with that ruleset. And when you simmer it down to the lowest common denominator, its always about losing time.

It makes me feel like none of you played old games, which kind of makes me sad, you're missing out. Best example that most older people might know about is TMNT on the NES. How many times you died in the underwater level and had to start over completely? I think it took me 50 tries to make it. Each previous try was a total loss, nothing remains I completely start from scratch.

All games I loved, and many I still love, involve it being so hard and unforgiving, where simple mistakes make you "lose your time", while in classic UO, even if you lose all your stuff and a lot of time, you still have your skills, your whole bank, your whole house, waiting for you to restock, you can get back in pretty quick and it forced players to build communities. In the modern ruleset, sure its too much, but in the old classic ruleset, it just makes sense. Crafters are just happier to have to work constantly and that many players depend upon them. Roleplayers like me are also happier, because I can roleplay a paladin and ask people if they need escorts or protection. Right now, people just laugh, nobody needs me, like ever.

The whole design of this early gaming era, was about losing time (risk and reward), and it made it fun, because when you finally made it, it was much more rewarding.

I feel strange having to explain something that has been in games since forever.

Even before video games in D&D (which inspired all of them), sure there were resurrect spells, but good luck making it up to that level. How often the players in games I ran had to accept their character death and start completely over, losing all their time?

Every single one of them will tell you it was much more fun this way, they thought much harder about their decisions, it felt significant when a character died or succeeded, solely because of time invested.

So don't think I don't understand the reaction when I say "house keys". I do understand, more time could be lost, making it this much more significant, much more meaningful to hire a player or NPC when that key will be in danger of being stolen.

I do agree that some mitigating systems were incomplete, which amplified the feeling of unfairness, but I think that now, with all we learned, its all possible to recapture along with the players associated.

On the other hand, I do see the technical difficulty to make it fair. I do hold some designs, and I sure hope the devs will be at least willing to discuss the philosophy behind it.

If I stick to NES again to remain concise, Exodus had you only save at the inn in LB's castle (an actual save like Zelda), if your whole party died, you had to take up an older save point, effectively losing a lot of time. You could also lose gear or temple/magic if you chose to res instead of reloading. It was risky.

Then in Quest of the Avatar, they I think intentionally moved to passwords, if your party wiped it was game over and you had to use the last code, lots of lost time.

Then in Warriors of Destiny, still passwords, if you did res you would lose experience, penalty scaled with karma.

Ultima Exodus was the first to introduce a balance in the RPG genre, which so many games were inspired by, I'm thinking of ie. Faxanadu and Dragon Warrior.

So I think maybe we get lost in the definition of a game, or maybe if that is too pretentious I will say the definition of Game with a capital G. 

There are also many games I played when I was younger, best example is Wizardry 4... where the level of difficulty was so high that I couldn't even begin to progress in those games, never could finish it. Started over so many times thinking I had missed something, while in fact I was just too young to comprehend its depth.

Total loss of time?

No... pure fun, and I replayed it many times, pure genius storytelling and puzzles. Appreciate it much more as an adult with all I know.

10x as unforgiving as classic UO, yet still fun decades later.

So, with all this in mind, what would you say the problem really is?

The main reason I'm against is at least two fold 
1. The team is split enough let's not spread resources anymore 
2. I joined  at start of AOS so would want to return to that beginning 

Great post, but you are missing the obvious.

You keep talking about hard hard hard.. the classic u want is full loot.
Bring back the hard content and limit the good stuff like invisible, remove curse.. etc, etc.. to encourage coop and synergy.. if the PvE is hard you are less tempted to make more ennemies.

Personally back then in the spawn I was showing usually solo.. I would start working the spawn, if I receive a protection (virtue) It's win/win.. If they attack me.. i'm sticking around to mess with them. Full loot u can't.. if u can it's because u gather 90% of your playtime, type of stuff and finally can enjoy some PvEvP.


My issue is FULL LOOT.. on every single game i've played.. the con are way too big to compensate the pro.. BUT.. if u wanna speak about hardcore.. 1 life this is VERY different.

The biggest  issue I have with full loot is human nature.. the risk vs reward is way too great.. people will go out when it's 90% chance to survive and steam roll most of the time.
It's empty.. with usually a single zerg dominating the game.

The eve dev did some good stuff to mess with those dominant faction ruining the game for everyone else.
A game like Albion become more and more PvE friendly..back then u could even do full loot content in the safe zone (blue zone) when you would tag for faction..
Today even in yellow zone faction war you are not full loot.. and the game is WAY more popular.
MO the full loot is not the main concern for the game popularity.. like UO; it's plagued with cheaters.


Personally I hated UO when it was only Fel.. u needed a zerg to gain access to a dungeon.

I don't mind the grind.. but if u make me grind I better keep what I got equip.. Losing what is in my bag is WAY better.. u lose your ACTUAL grind.. this is some good risk vs reward.


The AoS change was good stuff, imo.. the AoS "noobs" is whom u should aim.. not the ~10k bearded neck that was crying cuz they are too "good" to do PvE and much rather just bot their gathering and crafting while sitting their schlongs in front a dungeon entrance/griefing or yew gate 90% of their playtime as a zerg.


But yeah.. how u are talking right now, you should keep an eye on Pax Dei.. I had high expectation for that title, today it's all gone.. like I was thinking tESO would become UO next gen before Paul Sage got fired and Pete Hines took over Zenimax.

The Pax Dei "full loot" original plan was perfect, imo.. the result of the first alpha it was limited to a TINY region. I really liked that original plan cuz anyway at least 50% of your playtime would have been building that house or mega castle (as a guild) like a survivor game with real hard PvE everywhere. But yeah.. today it's all about mobile stuff and microtransaction with a tiny PvP zone/full loot.
The collision system and friendly fire that was originally plan and so much more would have made the full loot good, imo, harder for big group to synchronize vs a smaller one.. since it was more a survival game than a real sandbox MMOrpg. Map so huge and hard to travel.. u may never cross path with another guild while trading stuff with them via a middle man located between both guild.


But yeah, usually full loot is not a good news for enjoyment or casual.. it's a toxic griefing paradise for tiny PP.. They don't really want to PvP.. just steam roll noobs that don't have access to what they does.

Edit: Last Oasis was kinda decent as full loot.. but it had some good design to help make it a decent one. The "seasonal" system came in too late to save the game.. cuz at a certain point new players could not compete with older guild and numbers would drop and the dev came in with good ideas.. but it was too little too late.

Grimbeard said:

The main reason I'm against is at least two fold
1. The team is split enough let's not spread resources anymore
2. I joined  at start of AOS so would want to return to that beginning 

I do understand and agree with this fully: if it takes one single dev away from prod, which they are obviously good at, bad idea. Regardless, the discussion is important, because those people exist and there is no reason not to be inclusive. Who thinks about a 25 year old game and sighs and goes "ah if I could have a classic shard I would make time for it"? We want those people to feel at least welcome. If everyone shies away from it while it comes from the very IP that inspired it, its not a good sign, its a bad paradox. It does stir hearts, let's not mince words, I of all people would know.

If somewhere there is a glimmer of hope that someone with the heart and the will and the power to see this business opportunity, would step forward, I think its a worthy reminder. Because the whole IP seems to require it, philosophically speaking of course. I have a full time dev job for 5 years now, and I would force my teammates to accept to split my time if I were told there is a sliver of a chance this is in the works and that I could participate. I am very, very passionate about: not the old snapshot memory of "classic" but the classic that never was because everything towards it halted, useless to drudge up the reasons why. That is the past. I am talking about the fulfilled Classic vision, the fabled unicorn nobody could ever reach the heel of.

I would personally enjoy both production (Atlantic is embedded in my chest) and this hypothetical server, and definitely would enjoy New Legacy even more too.

@KroDuK

you make good points, and I've heard people complain similarly on Atlantic about the huge guilds: when they decide to do an event or a spawn they just get everything while everyone is scrambling to land just one hit.

But we didn't go to the moon because it was easy... a balanced classic UO or UO inspired gameplay has never been achieved, in any game, we would know about it, I assume you're also a old timer.

I can speak as both a designer and a philosopher here, the IP's own original mechanics, allow for it to be possible and fun, and very much balanced. Like you would not even get one complaint, I could guarantee it.

Its so hard not to talk about it and subsequently ruin the mystery...

Its a very, very complex design that clearly does not belong on the public forum. My goal here is not to pinpoint all those issues or pitfalls. I would just like to see minimal compassion, humility in the face of a whole playstyle that has been ostracized and fractured but that did exist, gloriously so. People that also got ganked, also got abused by hackers, also couldn't access dungeons sometimes. But still enjoyed it all, in retrospect, 25 years later. Enough to care by walking forward in the spotlight to say "yay". I could not let this thread end like this, it might end, but not like this. 

There is still so much content I have yet to see, even some expansions I have yet to buy, enough for me to enjoy Atlantic for a long time ... I'm truly impressed with such a small team.

So I'd double down and say that if it takes potential investment away from production shards, its all the same bad idea. Which sadly reduces its chances of becoming reality drastically.

Its just one opportunity among many others... all I can say is that this one contains magic and could become as big a revolution as U4 was to RPGs.

not one constructive phrase... so New Legacy wasn't for you. If you have grudges you can take them to another thread, this thread will not suddenly cause the devs to create a new shard as I'm pretty sure no thread caused New Legacy. They will do whatever they want and can do, like every studio ever, you certainly won't get anywhere with such an attitude.

I personally loved every moment I spent on New Legacy, even the portraits, its meant to be old school and bring back old Ultima IP. I absolutely love the idea and execution, and I'm glad they did it, it felt like a gift made just for me. I'm also using the enhanced client and I'm not having any problems playing the game as intended. Also got a few hotfixes since I came back, so I'd say its going along as planned.

Seriously the only thing that was lacking on New Legacy was the community, it felt like a single player experience for me, and is literally the only negative point imo.

I was having way more fun on the 4th coming NMS revolution server than playing NL. (the NMS server has like 13 players)

NL left such a bad taste in my mouth.. knowing the same dev are dealing with official UO for soo many yearsss.. To me, it brang back all those bad memories and let down since ~2006.


But yeah, the key to success here would be AoS era, but u address stuff instead of making it 20 time worst.. When u have the money from the succesfull product that is UO.. you could work on a passion project à la NL but for what u want a full loot classic SANDBOX shard, that would kill the illegal servers.

We just dreaming tho.. They can't even deliver the part one of the CC FPS and window size upgrade that was promise to us for summer 2025.. they legit went radio silence.. wich is a shame.


Edit: to me NL is for UO what DBZ Evolution is for DBZ:

I don't think we should exclude much content from classic, as long as its cannon I guess, and it should be also deployed in a way that is cannon too. These are details honestly, the core mechanics is what matters. I like all expansions but some things don't make sense for classic, economy is the most complex subject. It takes a whole village to raise a child, and it takes a whole team to raise a village. So this is not something they can whip up together in a few weeks anyways, it has to be precise and moderated at first. So these details would fall into artistic liberty of the people in charge.

I hear you, but I have a completely different perspective on it, as I'm sure we all do.

If you talk like this (saying their ideas is crap without anything constructive) to people, who clearly work hard (I can tell I've been a dev for 20 years now)... why do you think they don't reply anymore? You should act like your age. This stuff is hard, working with older technology is even harder, then the whole thing has an inertia of its own you can't really let go once the gears are in motion. Have a little compassion, sit, look in the mirror and speak like you would love to be spoken to.

Just leave your grievances in their respective threads and we'll coexist just fine. You made your point, and I agree there are great things about AoS that would fit a classic shard. And remember its not about picking a moment in time, its about the structure itself.

 

Ahua said:

If I stick to NES again to remain concise, Exodus had you only save at the inn in LB's castle (an actual save like Zelda), if your whole party died, you had to take up an older save point, effectively losing a lot of time. You could also lose gear or temple/magic if you chose to res instead of reloading. It was risky.

Then in Quest of the Avatar, they I think intentionally moved to passwords, if your party wiped it was game over and you had to use the last code, lots of lost time.

Then in Warriors of Destiny, still passwords, if you did res you would lose experience, penalty scaled with karma.

By the way, there has never been an Ultima game with password saves. Not on home computers, not on console, not even in weird Japan-only ports.

Oh you are probably right I just pulled from old memory, the point was there were penalties, and losing progress or time was the standard. But at that point it wasn't you die you start over completely, but dying still had consequences. It could have been more forgiving like Zelda, but they intentionally designed it this way.

Ahua said:

And remember its not about picking a moment in time, its about the structure itself.

You lost track of reality while typing your post.. this part proving it. The structure we (you and I) talking about is risk vs reward and the moment in time is the key moment to the solution.. Full Loot is a niche to a niche.. let's rebuild the main structure before working on a niche for the niche... what the actual team is doing via NL.. I understand your POV, but look in that mirror without pink glasses son.. I already done that from my part.


Just to give you a small example of the mirror activity i've done.. if they bring AoS and artifact.. do it.. WITH RNG ROLLS ON ARTIFACT.. so in 10 years we might have one perfect artifact.. great for sandbox. You LIMIT THEM in numbers we don't need thousands of OP and OP'ers artifact on top of limiting their OP'ness without limiting their potential... just a few of them per POI with random rolls on them. TADA! yearssss of content.

Another dumb example.. for champions that should have been done in the early 2000.. some champ should drop more of certain PS.. like the harder one should have higher roll for better PS.. so Piper ain't the go to for most people. TADA! Multiplication of real optimize POI!!

I got a shit load of solution like that.. cuz unlike you I did what u want me to do but without pink glasses on and a functionning brain, with tons of top tier experiences.

If u want me to rub *snip*'s back, before feeding them solution.. try again. or change something from the formula.. I know what part I would change personally.


PS: I realise you just fishing for solution for NL.. the answer to that problem is *12 inch in front the screen*
Give us part one of CC upgrade that was promise for summer 2025, before asking for anything else. It's give/give.. We (me and myself) still hvn'T receive a thing.. other than slapss in the face.

PS2: if the dev ego gets in their way to do a good job cuz they are hurting to come ask for answers.. the problem is not on me.. but on that EGO, that shouldn't even exist in the first place.


Y'all acting like UO was too old to be popular and gets hundreds of thousands of real players.. when in fact this is his strong point.. Tonsssss of dead content cuz of *snip* and being able to run on a toaster!!!!!! Just make a good product instead of making it worst since ~2006.


Edit: btw the solution u fishing for about NL is f'ing RP.. dev more RP tools for the full loot NL.. it gonna add a meaning to the frustration, theorycrafting and limit it. But again.. u'd ask how.. wich is a huge problem, want us to do it for you? Cuz I for sure, won't feed anything for NL.. *whisper* the Legacy part!!

What you are missing isn't rose glasses, its a little compassion. You skipped that part probably intentionally, its ok I forgive you.

I do think your ideas have merit, I've thought about those you mentioned too when replying to you and considering AoS (they're obvious). Its easy to find the solutions from outside, when nothing has any lasting consequences on the rest of your or your coworker's lives or player base. But I'm reading around here and it seems every single thing they attempt is bad, according to a few louder people who also flame those who attempt to remain positive. But they are still here, playing and hoping (obviously). Would be hard not to argue that if they are still here, it is because the devs do some things better than free shards. If you pay for a service you're not fully happy about, and you still chose to pay while free options exist, its because you do appreciate many things.

Sometimes, especially during transitions like this, devs need fans to focus a little bit more on those aspects to really keep a good flow and not always be second-guessing. I did not attack the content of your posts, but the way you vehiculate them. You think they did not read your posts and slapped you in the face? I can tell you they did read them, every single one. All my dev friend without exception do, I do not miss a single post by one of my fans, even if it means I'm going to sleep very little, not a single one ever. But sometimes I cannot reply, focusing on that instead of continuing to design is often a very bad idea. In this particular context they'd spend more time wondering if they are catering to the right people than actually developing.

It seems to me like you'd only be happy if a dev posted a video of himself crying on the floor, stuck in a dark void of despair. What good would that do to us? 0.

This isn't such a mainstream game anymore, and you don't have rose colored glasses you have brown colored glasses, and a lot of pride, which I'm not going to assume is warranted or not. It's kind of paradoxical if you ask me.

It shows you have not sat in a designer's seat, while its leaking customers, while you attempt to fix problems and others pop up, when what you thought would be your best decision turned out to be snubbed because of other issues you are perhaps temporarily powerless about and people can't let it go.

I agree that communication is key, but honestly I have been around, and I've hardly seen better in the same context. Look at the UO forums, every UO forum actually, they are quieter than ever, only a few vocal people remain arguing about actual gameplay and the future, rest is item and event questions. One of hand you look at your numbers and think its ok, its holding, or maybe slightly better so you get a little motivation, then on the other hand you get very vocal players complaining about specific issues that you try to fix, while ending up unable to take the time to communicate why you skipped or were unable to apply certain fixes without wasting time.

Compassion means being able to switch seats, for a moment, then coming back to yours and focusing on that lowest common denominator of that shared passion. You clearly have a passion for this game, so do I, so do they. I would never ask you to pat anyone on the back arbitrarily, but to speak like you would like to be spoken to, if you were in that seat and things looked that bleak.

Niche of a niche, is pretty much where we are at right now.

I also see on the broadsword website that they are fully committed to financial and state transparency. Why do you think we don't get this direct transparency?

Because of ego? ridiculous... imo its just because it would hurt more than it would help, objectively. And how do you feel about that? Are you happy or can you have compassion and understand that maybe you should express yourself differently?

Maybe you're a much better UO player than I am, I've been away too long to argue that, but you've got your nose dug so deep into the niche of the niche that you only see a few feet in front of you.

At least I got you to share a few constructive opinions, so its all good.

Ahua said:

What you are missing isn't rose glasses, its a little compassion. You skipped that part probably intentionally, its ok I forgive you.

I do think your ideas have merit, I've thought about those you mentioned too when replying to you and considering AoS (they're obvious). Its easy to find the solutions from outside, when nothing has any lasting consequences on the rest of your or your coworker's lives or player base. But I'm reading around here and it seems every single thing they attempt is bad, according to a few louder people who also flame those who attempt to remain positive. But they are still here, playing and hoping (obviously). Would be hard not to argue that if they are still here, it is because the devs do some things better than free shards. If you pay for a service you're not fully happy about, and you still chose to pay while free options exist, its because you do appreciate many things.

Sometimes, especially during transitions like this, devs need fans to focus a little bit more on those aspects to really keep a good flow and not always be second-guessing. I did not attack the content of your posts, but the way you vehiculate them. You think they did not read your posts and slapped you in the face? I can tell you they did read them, every single one. All my dev friend without exception do, I do not miss a single post by one of my fans, even if it means I'm going to sleep very little, not a single one ever. But sometimes I cannot reply, focusing on that instead of continuing to design is often a very bad idea. In this particular context they'd spend more time wondering if they are catering to the right people than actually developing.

It seems to me like you'd only be happy if a dev posted a video of himself crying on the floor, stuck in a dark void of despair. What good would that do to us? 0.

This isn't such a mainstream game anymore, and you don't have rose colored glasses you have brown colored glasses, and a lot of pride, which I'm not going to assume is warranted or not. It's kind of paradoxical if you ask me.

It shows you have not sat in a designer's seat, while its leaking customers, while you attempt to fix problems and others pop up, when what you thought would be your best decision turned out to be snubbed because of other issues you are perhaps temporarily powerless about and people can't let it go.

I agree that communication is key, but honestly I have been around, and I've hardly seen better in the same context. Look at the UO forums, every UO forum actually, they are quieter than ever, only a few vocal people remain arguing about actual gameplay and the future, rest is item and event questions. One of hand you look at your numbers and think its ok, its holding, or maybe slightly better so you get a little motivation, then on the other hand you get very vocal players complaining about specific issues that you try to fix, while ending up unable to take the time to communicate why you skipped or were unable to apply certain fixes without wasting time.

Compassion means being able to switch seats, for a moment, then coming back to yours and focusing on that lowest common denominator of that shared passion. You clearly have a passion for this game, so do I, so do they. I would never ask you to pat anyone on the back arbitrarily, but to speak like you would like to be spoken to, if you were in that seat and things looked that bleak.

Niche of a niche, is pretty much where we are at right now.

I also see on the broadsword website that they are fully committed to financial and state transparency. Why do you think we don't get this direct transparency?

Because of ego? ridiculous... imo its just because it would hurt more than it would help, objectively. And how do you feel about that? Are you happy or can you have compassion and understand that maybe you should express yourself differently?

Maybe you're a much better UO player than I am, I've been away too long to argue that, but you've got your nose dug so deep into the niche of the niche that you only see a few feet in front of you.

At least I got you to share a few constructive opinions, so its all good.

Keep 8n mind that particular troll doesn't even play 

@Grimbeard

yeah I'm just figuring this out... I assumed since he was here, he must be paying for an account?

Ahua said:

@ Grimbeard

yeah I'm just figuring this out... I assumed since he was here, he must be paying for an account?

Yes to quote him "to help make game better "

a game he does not recognize... while accusing others of shady logic and design fishing? yup... makes sense.

Ahua said:

What you are missing isn't rose glasses, its a little compassion.

Thank you, your opinion is noted.

Cookie said:

I remember one of the Devs saying at the meet and greet, if there was one thing they could do differently about the past, it would be the Fel/Trammel split - and centring so much of the reward in a risk free environment ever since then. I agree with this. The whole point of UO was lost, and it became a shell of itself.

Should they have done pvp 'area's instead of fel/tram? Maybe, maybe the server infrastructure wasn't designed for that so they had to make a mirror world.  But then we'd have posts complaining about no housing spots.

I don't think anyone would actually go back in time with the hackers as you said who would actually do much worse, wait until you went to sleep then used flour sacks to gate under your house and empty it without even needing to kill you. I got my house emptied 3 times, and my account hacked twice. Bad time? For me, nope, because without that huge risk, that huge loss, I would not have pulled tight like this with those who helped me defend myself and my progression.

Making friends was always, to me, what its all about. Which is why I make great friends playing live D&D... players can pick to be negative alignment, and because of this, organically we pull together to defend ourselves, which make us combine our strengths and really learn to appreciate and depend on each other. It creates that ancient tribal or township feeling, which we all grew to appreciate beyond any physical or digital "reward".

It is also kind of useless to think back about the whys of Trammel and UO... what is done is done, player base is completely different now. Also I'm appreciating much of the new content, and QoL changes and new systems... there is no reason not to have them.

You are right in all you say, but you'll find a huge portion of players still enjoy older games, in which you lose time. All my favorite games, every single one has mechanics in which you can "lose" a lot of time, but you're playing, are you really losing? Not in my mind.

My own characters were deleted when I came back 15 years ago. When I subbed back to UO, I lost ALL my time and rares. (I got an e-mail from support saying they needed room on their servers from EA, not kidding) and I'm having fun starting completely over. If you were right, I have options so I can rage quit. I would have preferred to be hacked, so at least I can blame it on someone. Regardless...

With that logic someone could think the RNG is too steep for dragon eggs and they're losing time after a while they're unable to get it. Lost time is lost time, even if its not a death or a penalty. Where does it end? When we get a game where you can only go UP, and where you become superman as quick as possible ? Honestly think about it... for me that is not a fun game, I don't see the challenge, only entertainment for my ego. But I don't judge, I've also enjoyed super-hero games... its just this is Ultima. Broadsword now not only handles modern UO, but the whole IP, and its a valid appeal to bring it up.

I'm replaying SP Ultimas right now, and let me tell you, it makes me "lose" a lot of time. Do I want to play something else because I have options that allow me endless giant step progression? nope.

I knew it was a major reason, people don't like to lose time generally so they would like death to be balanced, but I never thought it could become an entire argument for absolutely no negative consequences ever. That would be to me the opinion of a thin slice of end-game players, that only enjoy the end-game.

I don't even think most people in the gaming world would agree to no consequences if we polled to remake or remaster old games. All my favorite games to this day, have a risk of losing time for various rewards.

I've always said UO was kind of 4d chess, lol... imagine a game of chess where no players can lose. Game lasts 3 hours, you lost, did you really lose 3 hours? Or was the game fun while you played?

No in fact each loss makes you better, you learn, if you have fun, you don't lose time unless you convince yourself you did.

Of course argument that falls flat is someone cheats, but that is beyond the scope of this thread.

We cannot go back, but we can recreate that experience some of us crave, without removing anything from modern players (given a separate fund stream, which is next to impossible in today's world).

Please rest assured, the level of support for this thread indicates it will soon die. I am old and wise enough to read the room.

It is only a dream. But one I hold dearest among all games, among all RPGs, among all MMOs.

I would love to see Broadsword make an attempt, because I feel like they truly love the IP, proof was in New Legacy for me. And the argument can stop there.

Which is why I came in wanting to add my "yay", that's it, I just say yes, I would pay for this.

For many of us, even if we got hacked and ganked and abused so often, the friendships we created through necessity to defend ourselves were all worth it, and then some because I would do it all over again without hesitation. And we don't say this while still charmed by the "nostalgia" as many of you say... we say this 25 years later, in retrospect, as gamers with options.

If we get it, good... if we don't, I still helped fund modern UO through my subscription, in this situation, nobody loses time or money or otherwise.

All you need to understand is that players not wanting to lose any progression, is quite new in the gaming world. Then, you can say that is your preferred design. Your opinion is as valid, all gamers opinions are valid when we talk about games. 

I am a veteran player and an original beta tester. I get where MacroPlanet is coming from, but I disagree with most of what he says.   

MacroPlanet said:
I want this post to be as organized as possible to state a claim that I truly believe would only benefit the future of Ultima Online. UO players not in these forums and not playing the official shards want a true classic experience. We need a new "Renaissance" but with a more classic experience.
...

I was very happy as a player when Trammel was created, as before then, most my characters were sub-optimal templates that included fragments of smithing, lumberjacking and camping so they could stay out in the wilderness away from town and the reds. I still participated in red-hunts with my guild through Mondain's Legacy and I still make regular trips to felucca with many of my characters.

MacroPlanet said:
Old-School Players: A Lost Legion Worth Recapturing
  Ultima Online’s golden era forged a passionate community of players who fell in love with its unforgiving, open-ended sandbox. Many of us “veterans” drifted away over the years as the official game changed dramatically – “imagine you fell in love with chess in 199x, and now in 2023 the same game has been transformed into like… spades”, as one player vividly described the modern UO experience .
 ...

 I enjoyed the changes in the game from Second Age through Mondain's Legacy. Yes, changes over the years require adjustment. Age of Shadows was fun, but when Samurai Empire released, all my guildmates from templates that could cross-heal to use Sampires. I highly approved the treasure hunting changes in publish 105 even though it meant I had to revamp my templates.

MacroPlanet said:
Ultima Online: New Legacy – Missing the Mark for Veterans
  When Ultima Online: New Legacy (NL) was announced, many veterans dared to hope it would be the official classic-style server we’d begged for. Unfortunately, NL has not met veteran expectations. By the developers’ own admission, “there is no magic dial to turn back UO to a specific era… so in short, no, this is not a 1:1 recreation of a classic UO server” . Instead of the 1997-style ruleset we yearned for, NL delivered a heavily reimagined experience. It introduced a seasonal shard that wipes after a year, with characters forced to transfer off at season’s end . For many of us, that was a deal-breaker.
 ...

I think Broadsword did a good job with the New Legacy Shard. I think it allows new or returning players a good way to get a basic template ready for the live shards without excessive grind. I played this season and I intend to give the next season a try.

  Using 3rd party shard is a personal preference and very much subject to the player. Very few of my guildmates from the 1990s and 2000s still log in...I doubt they are playing on those shards.

Thalon said:

I think it allows new or returning players a good way to get a basic template ready for the live shards without excessive grind.

Let's slap an advanced character token on the first sub, after 2 yrs hiatus or on brand new.

Let's work on prodo.. so much stuff could be done.

You mean EA could have given me an "advanced character token" when they admitted to deleting my characters for a few megabytes of space? ._. -.-

The support e-mail ended with "there is nothing we can do about it".

I could use that right now lol.

So much could be done...but how many players would like any given change and how many would hate it?

On production shards, I think Broadsword is better playing it safe, keeping the change limited. Players have established characters with specialized equipment. I saw a thread on the Discord channel last month asking if additional perks should be added for casters that use actual reagents instead of LRC suits and the poll had players arguing both ways. My only thought on that poll was existing game mechanics already give an advantage if your character doesn't use LRC armor. If a given piece of armor doesn't have the LRC property, it can have a different property like casting focus, additional resist, damage eater or something else helpful.

New Legacy provides the developers with the chance to try something different without upsetting players with established character builds based on long established templates. I would love to see some new mechanics tested there.

As far as an advanced character token or other long term subscription benefits, yes, it would be nice. We are all subs here or we wouldn't be able to post....but I won't hold my breath while waiting.

Exactly this... as you said the gameplay is now very complex and balanced for production shards, we've acknowledged it requires the full current team to maintain it. Of course I'm also open to testing new mechanics on NL. 

So the only way this project would take hold is if some generous benefactor somehow pulls the right strings and hires a parallel yet compatible team.

Why do I feel each word I add, the less chances of it happening?

But who knows... some certainly owe me that.

*coughing spell*

This thread has about done its course, with very little support... I am forced to see the mirror of the whole situation. Our shards are like nations, and all we have is dividing concepts, that keep us apart.

Like in the world, cultures are so different its going to be hard just to find something that truly brings us together, except I guess the love for the IP (or the love of humanity in the mirror), but that is a given. This is not enough.

I really feel like its time to, at least do the first step, at least start on the path to re-unify.

I think only Broadsword can do this at this point. If nothing is done, then we will keep dividing, the shards will keep breaking into more shards, more sub-cultures, more niches until it is all unmanageable.

I thought New Legacy was meant to do that, but we're forced to accept when people are done with their progress and objectives, they once again split, divide to their home shards.

I submit that the Ultima games are all about world peace, about a moral basis, about ethics, about a unifying concept for the whole of humanity. Some might think I'm being cheesy here, but I'm not really. Anyone with literary background can appreciate the structure of the legend of the Holy Grail built in the story of Ultima 4-9. It point to one single, unifying place.

Mute we stand on the cold plains of Wiltshire.

The opposition is great, the profit is also unsurprisingly great in division. We know.

We are patient, and all we can ask is, can it be done?

https://youtu.be/lIZOhN-svFY?si=qc-_gQTiYJsTXUMH

I would add something else - UO’s strengths have always been based around two major things that make it unique, and that do bring people together.

1. You can be anything you want. You can mix-and-match skills and make some very interesting and unique combinations that you won’t find in any other game.  So of course that creates some very unique player groups within UO, who are going to have very different views on what UO is and isn’t or what it should be. You have crafters who rarely fight, you have people who spend all of their time working on their houses, you have people who spend much of their time PVPing, you have people who spend much of their time in events, people who spend their time just hanging out with other people.  Some of these groups have no interest in the back-and-slash fighting that’s associated with RPGs, and outside of UO may not play other games (or it’s mobile/phone for them).

The devs have to balance between those groups.  And I know that’s a weird point to make about something that unifies people, but it’s true, our diversity has always been our strength - most other games will force your characters and your playing into specific classes and styles, but not UO.   And that’s probably why UO players in real life are so diverse - I’m not joking when I say I know many UO players who do not consider themselves gamers, but who put in more time per week than a teenager with a PlayStation or Xbox.  And you see it with so many female players versus other MMOs, and you see it in the ages of players from middle schoolers to retirees who are into their 70s (as we’ve recently been reminded of due to the loss of some beloved players)

2. Housing. I think we’ve already mentioned it in this thread and it’s been mentioned many other times.   It’s probably why UO is still alive here in 2025 - people who would have a hard time parting with homes they’ve owned for many years, even decades.  We are getting improvements next year, so it’ll be interesting to see.

I would love for the ability to live in towns (and forego vendors, or maybe limited to one).  I do think we are very scattered.  I think New Magincia had more potential than people realize but I don’t think it was enough.  I think New Legacy actually touched on this a bit with how they laid out housing ares, but I would like more work on that - perhaps have some NPC facilities and a town square every so often amongst the NL housing areas.  Or a transfer portal.

Ahua said:

the gameplay is now very complex and balanced for production shards..

                                                                😂 

ok ok @KroDuK

maybe not according to the most elite PvPers, I did read many other threads.

I mean generally, if people keep having fun with it, its because in essence its complex enough, and balanced enough. But as I said, it requires the whole current team to keep working on it and maintain it, lets say work in progress.

@Lokea

low_key great posts and ideas! Very inspiring... its nice coming back for me after 15 years, and having enough maturity and most importantly enough experience to absorb all these perspectives.

For me you touch very important points just with this "living a town" vibe, which I underlined earlier when I spoke of the tribal feeling it created. While we created the first player towns (to protect ourselves against hackers and pkers) I've indeed always dreamed of mechanics that could foster it in a way that is more official, more permanent, I wonder if EA still has all my e-mails lol, a treasure trove for sure. Over a certain size a township might have its own guards and yes merchants for example, removing the need to have player guards take shifts 24/7, which is unrealistic in today's frenetic world.

I will just cool down a bit here, because I know many of those designs, some of which we share, some of which are unique to each of us, are really valuable. They really are, and beyond UO. Its a choice to share them and bring them forth for UO. I do it out of pure love and gratitude, because just the fact that it still exists, just sent me on a series of epiphanies that completely changed my life. To me its worth a lot, more than they probably can understand, and I will support the UO team regardless of their decisions.

But indeed these designs would need to circulate in a grounding community group for such a shard so they are not lost in the noise. 

What I am looking for in a thread like this is not to spread the seeds to the four winds and hope it takes... but that we can at least agree as Ultima fans to some very basic degree, pick grounding ideas of RPG purity (my main point in this thread), and that we all can look at each other and beyond all details, we all agree that it just makes sense to have that gameplay option. Not necessarily because everyone likes it or will play the idea, but simply to honor the previous work, and its soul. It can only reinforce what is currently there, both can coexist easily.

A dialectic. Not a debate on if this or that buff or details, but a deep and constructive dialectic.

I know there are problems with each design, possible exploits, possible abuse.

But if it is sowed in fertile earth, and has deep roots, we will also know and remember we wanted this for a different reason: so that we can ignore its faults, completely, we will be completely oblivious to even actual blunders in its development. Could even ignore bots and scripters completely, because the value of the game would be its community. Let them script, let them powergame... you go up by following the virtues and walking the walk, not because of numbers. And yes I imply that great, immense powers be applied to *true* virtue, as they were in all ultimas.

The essence, the actual revolution Ultima 4 was, is that it wasn't so much about go here take that beat the boss, but it made you actually stop and think, introspect and take notes, draw maps, think think think, it kept our brains young and flexible. I'm thinking of Wizardry 4 and Bard's tale too that were clearly inspired by it.

The Ultima IP, to me, is TITANESQUE, it is legend. It needs to step up and take its place.

Honestly I look at new legacy and I'm thinking "its almost all there, its almost ready for it".

It's beautiful, it makes tears come up as I write this, but people have to know its more than just "another UO shard". And the only way they're going to know, is if out of the ashes, a new community is born that pulsates and vibrates so much that it can't be ignored.

It needs to be grounded with all Ultimas, all the lessons, all the companions, all the friends who literally poured sweat and blood into it. But it needs to go further, and honor all its inspirations, I think it should be even more than this, hopefully a subject for another day.

Most importantly Tolkien, Dragonlance and of course, the grail myth and legends. They are an integral part of the Ultimas, because the stranger, did have them in his bookshelf, so they are cannon in Ultimas even if they can't be directly referenced because copyright.

But the essence, exists here. It needs to be honored too, because its the right thing to do.

Basically we can use the analogy of the Hobbit here.

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien

Just bear with me a few moments and imagine that was true, imagine we all agreed to having this pure RP-PVP shrine of a shard. 

The townships would grow so organically, and be so strong (because we know UO so well now, we'll defend against every possible incursion). It would be like new legacy at first, all the best players installing a structure that makes it easy to protect new players, easy to defend and work with GMs to moderate the worse abuse.

Of course it will need basic moderation... its a shrine, also hire someone to take out the trash.

Again, there is no way that the experienced players that would ground such a shard fall to the same terrible experience they might have had back in the day.

I write this with cold hands and a warm heart. I know, I might be dreaming, I might be delusional.

But it often starts with just that, a dream.

Ahua said:

I mean generally,

 😂

Ahua said:

if people keep having fun with it, its because in essence its complex enough, and balanced enough...

Addiction ain't fun.. I mean generally..  😂
..these days games doesn't need to be fun just addictive.. look at most mobile game.


fun.. UO events should be a fun bonus.. not the main content.. wich is only meant to be a bribe, while downgrading the entire game... If UO was a child.. Mythic/BS would get accuse of bad parenting.. Feeding candies instead of a healthy supper.. type of parenting.. ruining their health long term for short term "success".

Getting bribe is fun.. I get it! 2 pop-tarts, 1 chocolate bar and a can of soda for school lunch! 😂


Balanced..  😂

What's wrong with the game, again?

Right, I think we need to hear again basic game theory from college sprinkled with a little doom and generalizations. *le sigh*

Rocko said:

What's wrong with the game, again?

If u can't follow, do not slow everyone down.. again!

KroDuK said:

Rocko said:

What's wrong with the game, again?

If u can't follow, do not slow everyone down.. again!

Again, what is wrong with the game?  What do you think this thread will achieve?

I say nothing is wrong, just asking for a specific gameplay option, with very little support.

Not sure it will achieve anything but it deserved to end on a more elaborate note.

I'd love to relive the magic of Ultima Online's early days -- no new shard with an old rule set or a NL-type shard has a chance to bring it back in my opinion. 

Ultima Online was a bug ridden mess when it launched. While there are issues today, it's light-years beyond what it was at launch in terms of stability, exploitable bugs, and whatnot. With many things people are nostalgic over, the rose-colored rear-view mirror obfuscates a lot of the gripes of the days long passed. Major changes to the game largely  spawned from demands from the player base. 

Players are much, much more sophisticated than during the infancy of Ultima Online -- and the game is a lot deeper. Ultima Online was a lot of fun at the start, but extremely limited. Look at crafting, which is still complained about and has issues, at launch vs today. Hell, players are much more sophisticated than during the AoS launch. 

In my opinion, the best way forward is to keep with incremental improvements and an overhaul of the classic client's graphics/functions to be more modern. Given the ostensibly low number of developers behind UO, that's unlikely to happen. I know they've made an effort with the web client to deliver some of that. 

My opinion is just that -- mine. Everyone has their own, especially what is the golden set of rules for UO. 

With that said, I do think there is value in people advocating for whatever change they think will improve things because maybe a portion will be adopted and successful. 

Our opinion match our experiences and knowledge.

I respect one of your alt account opinion.