Good news everyone! I've discovered how to repair our shattered economy!

So monster hunting is worthless, gold isn't worth looting, everything costs ridiculous amounts, blah blah blah, I don't really need to make this case in a game with a separate currency for billions, do I? Right, so what do we do about it? We're past the point where gold sinks will make any real difference, unless you want to put up a vendor with one-of-a-kind rares for like 1k platinum or something gonzo like that, which actually sounds like a good idea to me. Anyway, that's not what this is about.

Okay so here's what we do.

We add the totally optional option to optionally display your money in the form of a new currency. I'll call it doubloons right now, but in reality it should be called something better. Anyway, a doubloon is worth 1000 gold. So if the "display as doubloons" box is checked or whatever...

100,867,325g

Becomes...

100,867d (325g)

Basically you have 100k and the gold is just pocket change.

"Dude how is this actually helping anything?"

Hold on, hold on, I'm getting there. Okay so we let people get used to this for a while, right? We make it show doubloons by default and just let people opt out. Now here's where it gets crazy. You're gonna want to crap your pants, but stay with me, okay?

All right, so once everyone is used to this, we make monsters drop doubloons instead of gold. If a mongbat used to drop 30 gold, now it drops 30 doubloons. Stuff like that.

"You want to make mongbats drop the equivalent of 30k each? Are you insane? That's like the opposite of helping!"

No but see we also make all the NPC vendors take an equal amount of doubloons instead of gold too. Why? Because look, if you just divided everyone's gold by a factor of 1000 it would accomplish the same thing, but everyone would riot and then quit the game. This is all a psychological ruse. Instead of making everyone's money smaller, we just make everything else bigger. The whole doubloon thing is just an excuse to chop a bunch of pointless zeroes off of all the numbers and keep us all from going overweight the first time we loot anything.

Think about it. Your purchasing power relative to other players hasn't changed. Nothing about the player-to-player economy has actually changed. A rare that used to cost 100m gold now costs 100k doubloons. You can uncheck a box and still see all your gold if you want and you really like superfluous zeroes.

The only real difference is now someone who kills monsters has an actual chance to catch up to the guy who's been sitting on a pile of billions of gold for years. Now "millionaires" are actually rich. And gold sellers? They completely take it in the rump. Their existing currency stocks are worth less than ever compared to monster hunting, and now there are no checks to dupe to build a new stock.

TLDR: Instead of de-bigulating everyone's money, we re-bigulate prices and loot so that the money is smaller in comparison.

For the record, I'm rich and bored, not poor and jealous. I'd love to have a reason to fight monsters and I don't care if it means newbs can catch up with me.

Wait, I just ruined my own idea. As soon as this gets announced, everyone spends their gold and fills up every house and packy with whatever kinds of items can be sold back to vendors. Then once vendors start dealing in doubloons, they sell the crap. There might be ways around this but they would probably be unduly disruptive even by the standards of an idea like this.

But I do like the idea of a middle currency between gold and platinum, like how Warcraft has copper/silver/gold. I mean right now we have two demoninations, a one dollar bill and a billion dollar bill, you know?

I'm not as rich as many because I play the game mostly, and don't attempt to gain gold so much, but I have everything I'd ever need. I would also like parts of the game to have more meaning, crafting, gathering, etc. I also don't mind if we all restart from the beginning, and give new players an even playing field.

I'm not convinced by this idea to be honest.

I personally have found Siege Perilous a great place to play (the economy is not broken there), it helps keep me sane for when I play on Production. I now enjoy playing in 2 versions of UO. Today I got an event drop, and 2 first aid belts on Europa, tomorrow I'll farm bandages on Siege, or items to unravel to train Imbuing, where it feels like my hunts have meaning, so I get fulfilment.

Other suggestions of mine, take or leave them, I understand that many are contentious (but I believe in them), some may not be so much.

1. Take all Loot out of Trammel rulesets, there is no risk v reward there, no inbuilt game checks or balances. For example, I've been doing Khaldun farming in Felucca, and got myself PK'd enough times (have to wear weak pvm gear to farm, so I die...). Trammel should be a Housing, Crafting, Socialising place only. OR.

2. Do a complete gold and resources wipe - start again. And put Resources on a 1 Month Timer, so you cannot stockpile forever. OR.

3. Completely change the whole currency unit, and resource units to start again. OR

4. Fix Duping - this seems to be where much of it is happening (past and present). It appears for so long they ignored this - at the games peril, I don't know if they can physically fix this, or if they just ignored it, but it has destroyed so much. I do think the Devs have really stepped up their game in recent months to combat such activities, and the release of figures against Duping, Scripting, and Multi-Boxing have actively deterred many players to the point we really don't see so much ingame right now, as players are more wary. OR.

5. Fix Scripting. Again Scripting for resources has not helped, it created huge stockpiles that made most gathering styles pointless. Again one of my suggestions for fixing scripting, was to take everything out of Trammel, and put it in Felucca only, scripters can be PK'd in Felucca. OR;

6. Create a Massive Gold Sink. Find something that is really useful ingame, that players would really want, but is not game unbalancing. Price it at 10 Platinum from an NPC. {Maybe a Tool of Armour Style customisation for 1 account only}. Any item that is useful, desired, but cannot affect the game, that can be shown or used as a Vanity item also. 10 Plat these days, is like 10 million in the old days, when Ornament of the Magician was the must have item we saved up for. I don't have 10 Plat, many do, but I could save for it if I really wanted it. Burn this gold out of the game. OR;

7. Create new Crafting Items, with new resources, that haven't been duped yet. My problem with this, is this means Devs have to keep creating new stuff, and old stuff becomes obsolete, I hate that, I wish they could fix and enhance what we have. OR;

8. Get rid of IDOCS. When an account and house goes down - take all those items out of the game. I believe most damage is done, when Dupers houses go down, and all those items find their way into the economy. OR.

9. Just Devalue the Currency. Divide all gold amounts in accounts by 1,000.

Any other ideas welcome.

@Bleak can have one of his fun fact moments and tell us all Platinum s were deleted from the game.  🙂

That would stimulate a lot of things.

Put a progressive sales tax system in place.  Before any NPC or private transaction completes check the balances of each party.  The richer you are the more tax you pay.

Well, for people really worried about economy, make a non-transfer (of ANY kind, shard shields, transfer, whatever) shard. Make it a full fledged server, with no other special rules, an exact replica of the standard non EM event altered base game with all expansions and every single bit of up to date content.. don't let any play on it but paying customers. Fixed economy right there. No special incentive to play on it other than, a fresh server with no already beefed out bank accounts. Can't take the power scrolls to atlantic and come back with trillions or whatever ridiculous amount they claim people are making.

 Or, people just continue to play the game as they want. Either way, I'm glad UO exists and I can get my go do stuff in a fantasy world after I get off work, and try to explain this to co workers the next day and get laughed at. ❤️

NamelessJourney said:

Well, for people really worried about economy, make a non-transfer (of ANY kind, shard shields, transfer, whatever) shard. Make it a full fledged server, with no other special rules, an exact replica of the standard non EM event altered base game with all expansions and every single bit of up to date content.. don't let any play on it but paying customers. Fixed economy right there. No special incentive to play on it other than, a fresh server with no already beefed out bank accounts. Can't take the power scrolls to atlantic and come back with trillions or whatever ridiculous amount they claim people are making.

 Or, people just continue to play the game as they want. Either way, I'm glad UO exists and I can get my go do stuff in a fantasy world after I get off work, and try to explain this to co workers the next day and get laughed at. ❤️

TimSt said:

Put a progressive sales tax system in place.  Before any NPC or private transaction completes check the balances of each party.  The richer you are the more tax you pay.

So now I just have a second account with relatively little money, and when I need to buy something, I pass just enough cash to that second account and do it there.

I would just do a percentage wipe of gold in the game. Pick let say 75%, then wipe that amount from everyone, rich people lose a ton of gold and poor people lose little amount of gold.  Of course none of it is worth the time if they don't close duping loopholes.

I have a %100 cure for UO, just shut it all down and tell everybody to have a nice day.  UO is now fixed.  TYVM

    I notice that all the suggestions so far except one (I'll comment on it later) deal with the gold already in the game. That is a problem but unless we/they deal with the bigger one of unlimited gold flowing into the game we will always be dealing with runaway inflation. In game killing a mongbat and getting 25-50 gold is equivalent to a government just printing more money rather then borrowing it. NO economist thinks this is a good idea long term. The more there is of any item the less value it has. I seem to recall a story years ago about a grad student using UO inflation as the basis of his economics doctorate thesis.

Given that premise I would suggest 

1. Gold from "Boss Monster" encounters be removed or cut way back. Make doing them about possible getting top items. If I'm trying for Hawkwind's Robe or that Legendary Arti. I need, the gold is just a bonus that is hurting the game. And yes I am saying do away with the gold shower at the end.
2. Encounters that do give gold should be scaled to the difficulty for that player. A new player with a 50 point swordsman should get a lot more gold for a given encounter then my legendary one. As a mater of fact I think an encounter that I have no chance of losing should not generate any gold. Think swatting mongbats.
3. If point 2 is possible, how about separate and appropriately themed top encounters for just gold? That would make it possible to still quickly generate gold for that special purchase but give the developers tighter control and warning about the influx of gold. If too much gold is flowing into the game the encounter is not available.

I would be willing to bet that with Khal Ankur going almost constantly this month more gold has been enter into the game then has been duped in the last year. I'm guessing at least a quarter million each round just in the gold fountain at the end.

As for the suggestion that all reward encounters be moved to Fel. NO. If I and apparently the majority of players wanted to play PVP we would. Any attempt to ...   oh hell just read any of the other thread about this fight.

Tim said:

    I notice that all the suggestions so far except one (I'll comment on it later) deal with the gold already in the game. That is a problem but unless we/they deal with the bigger one of unlimited gold flowing into the game we will always be dealing with runaway inflation. In game killing a mongbat and getting 25-50 gold is equivalent to a government just printing more money rather then borrowing it. NO economist thinks this is a good idea long term. The more there is of any item the less value it has. I seem to recall a story years ago about a grad student using UO inflation as the basis of his economics doctorate thesis.

Given that premise I would suggest 

1. Gold from "Boss Monster" encounters be removed or cut way back. Make doing them about possible getting top items. If I'm trying for Hawkwind's Robe or that Legendary Arti. I need, the gold is just a bonus that is hurting the game. And yes I am saying do away with the gold shower at the end.
2. Encounters that do give gold should be scaled to the difficulty for that player. A new player with a 50 point swordsman should get a lot more gold for a given encounter then my legendary one. As a mater of fact I think an encounter that I have no chance of losing should not generate any gold. Think swatting mongbats.
3. If point 2 is possible, how about separate and appropriately themed top encounters for just gold? That would make it possible to still quickly generate gold for that special purchase but give the developers tighter control and warning about the influx of gold. If too much gold is flowing into the game the encounter is not available.

I would be willing to bet that with Khal Ankur going almost constantly this month more gold has been enter into the game then has been duped in the last year. I'm guessing at least a quarter million each round just in the gold fountain at the end.

As for the suggestion that all reward encounters be moved to Fel. NO. If I and apparently the majority of players wanted to play PVP we would. Any attempt to ...   oh hell just read any of the other thread about this fight.

People do not build up Platinums from Mob gold.  The above will solve nothing.

The 140K from Boss drops is a microscopic amount.

Tim said:

   
As for the suggestion that all reward encounters be moved to Fel. NO. If I and apparently the majority of players wanted to play PVP we would. Any attempt to ...   oh hell just read any of the other thread about this fight.

I know you and many players don't like this suggestion, but this is how the Universe has been maintaining balance for billions of years.

In nature there is a natural order, a cycle, there is balance, life and death.

There is always a problem when an apex predator gets so powerful it is unopposed. It breeds and swamps its environment, unbalancing and destroying it, which has a feedback loop of destroying the apex predator, then nature papers over the cracks.

Mankind in real life has forgotten this, and we are currently destroying our planet at a billion miles per hour. We are using all the resources, and keeping nothing in balance. Mankind has removed itself so far away from the natural order, we have forgotten that much of our daily food comes from killing things. These attitudes have filtered down to our games, and our thought processes.

We may be living in a sanitized world right now, but if we don't wake up, and fix things, we are in for a rude awakening.

Moving all reward encounters to Fel is an excellent idea. Also it would deter some of the scripters. Would be less headache for the devs

cobb said:

Moving all reward encounters to Fel is an excellent idea. Also it would deter some of the scripters. Would be less headache for the devs

Moving all reward encounters to Fel would be an excellent idea to kill UO for good.

So i vote NO on that one.

Pawain said:

Tim said:

    I notice that all the suggestions so far except one (I'll comment on it later) deal with the gold already in the game.........

People do not build up Platinums from Mob gold.  The above will solve nothing.

The 140K from Boss drops is a microscopic amount.

I'm doing Khal Ankur at the moment so lets use my experience to do some math

I'm doing him an average of 3 times a night at least 3 nights a week 

140,000 X 3 X 3 = 1,260,000 a week for one event

for this argument a better number would be 5 times a night 7 days a week

140,000 X 5 X 7 = 4,900,000 almost 5 mill a week from one encounter

So no I don't think its a microscopic amount even using your number of 140k which I think is low. I can also see soon complaints that the gold return isn't keeping up with the rest of the returns and needs to be bumped up. Pumping unlimited money into any system is not good. In real life the amount of money a counterfeiter pumps into the economy  is really small potatoes but try telling the judge that. One of my favourite political quotes is A Billion here a Billion there and soon your talking real money.

Also are you saying all those Platinums came from cheats or hacks?

Fel has

1. Only source of Power Scrolls
2. Double resources 
3. Automatic 1000 extra luck so loot is at top end of scale

Still the majority of player don't want to play there. 

When UO first came out it was Fel only and a total failure. Moving the all the rewards to Fel would kill the game.

No Fel.  I generally avoid it like the plague because I do not like getting killed by other players.  When they added Tram I moved there almost immediately.

Tim said:

When UO first came out it was Fel only and a total failure.

I remember it being a complete success, it's funny how so many people have created a perverse and incorrect history.

I bet there were more players then than there are now. I also bet many Vets who come back, come back with a nostalgic memory of those times. I also bet that many youngsters today, would prefer the original style - as demonstrated by the popularity of todays PvP games. You guys have just got too old, comfortable and sanitized in your outlook on life.

This wasn't really a Tram v Fel thing, I think that was only mentioned in 2 of my 9 suggestions.

Whether you like it or not though, you have to admit the logic is pretty sound for how I got to those points. Those 2 points should always be considered in any reasonable discussion on this topic without everyone going off on a kneejerk reaction. Ultimately, Players would adapt back, and the game, and the players would be better off for it.

I don't think everything should be moved to felucca, such as huntmaster challenge, or most lousy quests.  Special loot drop monsters should have better loot in felucca compared to trammel.  The drops could be in both facets but the felucca version should always be better.  If your not willing to risk anything then you should be rewarded less.

Tim said:

Pawain said:

Tim said:

    I notice that all the suggestions so far except one (I'll comment on it later) deal with the gold already in the game.........

People do not build up Platinums from Mob gold.  The above will solve nothing.

The 140K from Boss drops is a microscopic amount.

I'm doing Khal Ankur at the moment so lets use my experience to do some math

I'm doing him an average of 3 times a night at least 3 nights a week 

140,000 X 3 X 3 = 1,260,000 a week for one event

for this argument a better number would be 5 times a night 7 days a week

140,000 X 5 X 7 = 4,900,000 almost 5 mill a week from one encounter

So no I don't think its a microscopic amount even using your number of 140k which I think is low. I can also see soon complaints that the gold return isn't keeping up with the rest of the returns and needs to be bumped up. Pumping unlimited money into any system is not good. In real life the amount of money a counterfeiter pumps into the economy  is really small potatoes but try telling the judge that. One of my favourite political quotes is A Billion here a Billion there and soon your talking real money.

Also are you saying all those Platinums came from cheats or hacks?

Do a vendor search for 120 pet scrolls and see how long it will take to buy a set.

The gold is already in the game.  What we pick up is nothing.

5M a week is nothing.  I have to pay that much to be a governer it seems.   And if you are doing this all the time, why do you not know if 140k is correct?  My toon can hold 55K.  How do you get the gold to the bank? Nobody else is there?  You killed Khal alone?

I do take gold from spawns.  You do not get rich from that.  You vendor things that are useful to every player.  Or you find things that are worth a lot.

Chances are, if UO is still up and running, and they keep putting hoops to jiggle through (I don't jump much these days.. maybe that's what's wrong with me lol), I'll still be jiggling through them.

 Fel/Siege/Tram/Ilsh.. of all of these I'd say Ilsh is my least favorite to deal with. And mostly because paragons. Doesn't matter who or what's killing you to me, I used to get emo about getting flamed in gen chat because I sucked at pvp or whatever else, but I can /ignore those people and just pick it up and roll on.

 I can't stand getting smoked like a sausage by a paragon greater dragon while i'm farming barbed hides or whatever and trying to rez and instantly getting pancaked again. then got to go find a wandering healer or navigate a 2nd character down to that spot and get decimated again on that character lol. I suppose if they just left everything alone or whatever or increased loot somewhere I'll still dislike Ilsh the most.I used to like Ilsh.. My tastes change from time to time.

 Anyhow back on topic, I think to effectively "straighten" the market out would have to deal with the way gold is generated in the first place, and really look into making non-transferable shards.. This will help whatever segment of pvp'ers start over on that shard too, because people will not be going to farm the scrolls at a champ to take to another server or whatever else. Making"Shard bound" powerscrolls is fine and dandy (should have been done ages ago but didn't know such a thing was possible), but it might be a bit out of hand now no matter what you do, make only paying subscribers able to join those shards, and have an active surveillance of the shard(s) that is 24/7.. basically what should be going on on the already there shards.. but it looks like they are trying to have a more active hand in them now anyhow which is good. I'm sure there's a few people that wouldn't mind a fresh start server that can't be transferred to, or from. Just make it a full fledged Tram/Fel/Islh/Ter Mur/Eodon/whatever else server, with all the normal content that should be considered full prodo with the 1 lone altered rule of no transferring. Best thing I think that will appeal to enough people. The Tram/Fel split has bitter feuding that has been there since it happened and might as well consider that part of the baked in magic of UO.

 Else join Siege. That's about as close as it's gonna get to a fel only shard, but I have absolutely no objections to a fel only shard that is as up to date as normal prodo shards. Again, please leave that as a non transfer to or from shard with good surveillance also, monitoring for exploits and hacks so people got no excuse to flame eachother for speed hacking or whatever else. Or just throw the flood gates open and let everybody have access to the same exploits/hacks/dupes. I don't even use them and I can tell you the names of some/maybe most of them because people just blabbing about them in game even in gen chat.

 Regardless, still enjoying the fantastical experience that is UO.

NamelessJourney said:

 I can't stand getting smoked like a sausage by a paragon greater dragon while i'm farming barbed hides or whatever and trying to rez and instantly getting pancaked again. then got to go find a wandering healer or navigate a 2nd character down to that spot and get decimated again on that character lol. I suppose if they just left everything alone or whatever or increased loot somewhere I'll still dislike Ilsh the most.I used to like Ilsh.. My tastes change from time to time.

Make a tamer and use a 5 slot giant Beetle to kill those.  Your word will expand quickly.

Cookie said:

Tim said:

When UO first came out it was Fel only and a total failure.

I remember it being a complete success, it's funny how so many people have created a perverse and incorrect history.

I bet there were more players then than there are now. I also bet many Vets who come back, come back with a nostalgic memory of those times. I also bet that many youngsters today, would prefer the original style - as demonstrated by the popularity of todays PvP games. You guys have just got too old, comfortable and sanitized in your outlook on life.

This wasn't really a Tram v Fel thing, I think that was only mentioned in 2 of my 9 suggestions.

Whether you like it or not though, you have to admit the logic is pretty sound for how I got to those points. Those 2 points should always be considered in any reasonable discussion on this topic without everyone going off on a kneejerk reaction. Ultimately, Players would adapt back, and the game, and the players would be better off for it.

So please wise one explain to us why UO was forced to create Tram if UO was doing such a great job keeping subs, oh wait you can't.

Cookie said:

Tim said:

When UO first came out it was Fel only and a total failure.

I remember it being a complete success, it's funny how so many people have created a perverse and incorrect history.

I bet there were more players then than there are now. I also bet many Vets who come back, come back with a nostalgic memory of those times. I also bet that many youngsters today, would prefer the original style - as demonstrated by the popularity of todays PvP games. You guys have just got too old, comfortable and sanitized in your outlook on life.

This wasn't really a Tram v Fel thing, I think that was only mentioned in 2 of my 9 suggestions.

Whether you like it or not though, you have to admit the logic is pretty sound for how I got to those points. Those 2 points should always be considered in any reasonable discussion on this topic without everyone going off on a kneejerk reaction. Ultimately, Players would adapt back, and the game, and the players would be better off for it.

The devs said the unwanted PvP was the biggest mistake they made. That caused the largest drop in subscriptions.  I guess you think they wouldn't know.

Bilbo said:

So please wise one explain to us why UO was forced to create Tram if UO was doing such a great job keeping subs, oh wait you can't.

Pawain said:

The devs said the unwanted PvP was the biggest mistake they made. That caused the largest drop in subscriptions.  I guess you think they wouldn't know.

The Anarchist/Player Run/Player Justice side of the game was the biggest thing they got right, they just hadn't planned for it, expected it, or knew how to handle it. Look at how Siege works, for an example of a longer term Feluccan scenario. The players there run the shard, the economy works, the game works.

It's what put UO into folklore in gaming terms.

They then chickened out, backed up, and listened to the whining cry-babies - this was the biggest mistake they ever made. Their solution to this was the biggest mistake they ever made.

At the end of the day, game developers are only game developers, they are not psychologists, or economists, they have a limited scope into human nature, and are often learning this part as they go along. They have made big mistakes here, outside of pure game development terms - but, they were also in a new industry in terms of the history of mankind, they cannot completely be blamed. On one hand, who knew that if a bug could be found and exploited, many players would, and some wouldn't - except for example, the bible has been teaching us about the negative sides of human nature for 2,000 years (and how to try and overcome them) - we ultimately have not changed one single bit in 2,000 years, even though we'd like to think we have. (And btw, I'm an agnostic atheist, I'm not religious, but I do refer to the bible for reference to human history and human nature, as it's one of the greatest human works out there).

They destroyed the whole soul of an incredible game they had released. They also created easy-mode, and unbalanced the game itself for the long-term.

Cookie said:

The Anarchist/Player Run/Player Justice side of the game was the biggest thing they got right, they just hadn't planned for it, expected it, or knew how to handle it. Look at how Siege works, for an example of a longer term Feluccan scenario. The players there run the shard, the economy works, the game works.

It's what put UO into folklore in gaming terms.

They then chickened out, backed up, and listened to the whining cry-babies - this was the biggest mistake they ever made. Their solution to this was the biggest mistake they ever made.

They did not make Trammel because they just stupidly "listened" to complaints. As they said in the video, they were losing half the players to griefing. Devs may not be psychologists, but they have pretty good stats about what is going on in their game. Had Tram and item based gameplay not been introduced, UO whould have been dead looong ago. You miss the game play that was lost with the introduction of Trammel, and it's understandable. However, that game play was built on making other's miserable. Majority of people do not like to be on either end of that relationship. And this is why it is not sustainable in a commercial sense.
 And Siege, one of the least populated shards in the game, this is your example? Pretty much every unrestricted PvP games ends up the same: 1) Griefers drive away regular players. 2) Griefers realize it's not nearly as much fun to kill each other; 3) A few die hards remain in an empty world.

Sliss said:

They did not make Trammel because they just stupidly "listened" to complaints. As they said in the video, they were losing half the players to griefing. Devs may not be psychologists, but they have pretty good stats about what is going on in their game. Had Tram and item based gameplay not been introduced, UO whould have been dead looong ago. You miss the game play that was lost with the introduction of Trammel, and it's understandable. However, that game play was built on making other's miserable. Majority of people do not like to be on either end of that relationship. And this is why it is not sustainable in a commercial sense.
 And Siege, one of the least populated shards in the game, this is your example? Pretty much every unrestricted PvP games ends up the same: 1) Griefers drive away regular players. 2) Griefers realize it's not nearly as much fun to kill each other; 3) A few die hards remain in an empty world.

Is Richard Garriot still relevant today? Nope. Point made, he lost the plot completely, and does not know what he is talking about. Players need to stop quoting him, he got one thing very right (the largest part possibly by accident), then messed it up. (You didn't quote him specifically, but players keep quoting what he said from back in the day, I thought I'd address it).

You've given me the standard response of a Trammie, that has zero facts, it's completely made up in terms of hypothesis. You are like someone who has been brainwashed by your state media and completely bought it.

Would UO have been dead long ago? We don't know, stop saying that one, you don't know, I don't know, my suggestion is they could have done better than the solution they implemented - which completely unbalanced everything. How can you have 2 facets joined, where one is full risk, and the other is no risk, and the no risk side gets all the rewards pretty much  - can even you not see how non-sensical that is? Answer me honestly? In the light of that, was this the best solution possible?

Majority of people do not like to be on the receiving end of that relationship? What those players don't realise, is everyone is on that side of the relationship at some point, including me, just some of us know how to deal with it better, and not take it personally. There are ways around it to minimise being on that end of the relationship, it just requires some thought, planning, and decent gameplay, rather than having mindless easy-mode.

Your paragraph about Siege. I'd like to know the facts, I'd like to say Siege is not one of the least populated, and is up there in the middle, but I don't know the facts. I play Atlantic, Europa, and Siege. The rest seem dead, Siege seems to have more population than Drachenfells, or any of the other American shards, but, I admit, I don't know. But again, it's hard for Siege, it's a bit like Felucca, why will players play the game in normal mode, when they can just be given everything for free? I spent 5 minutes on Europa on Tuesday night, and got myself say 200m gold, I farm 12.5k in 5 minutes on Siege. Which do I get more fulfilment on... but that doesn't seem to matter to many players who just want stuff for free.

This thread will take the week end off. Less name calling and pot stirring are in order. Please keep the Terms of Service in mind when posting. 

My thief got killed 4 times yesterday while in Fel Khaldun by teamed up players.  How is that a fair fight?  I take my thief there because the champ spawn is rarely active and it is safe for my thief to detect hidden crates and chests without getting overran.  While my thief getting killed is little more of an annoyance the looting of my corpse was the annoying part.  They took my bags of sending and the reagents and potions that I would use to heal myself.  That is a dick move if you ask me.

Cookie said:

Is Richard Garriot still relevant today? Nope. Point made, he lost the plot completely, and does not know what he is talking about. Players need to stop quoting him, he got one thing very right (the largest part possibly by accident), then messed it up. (You didn't quote him specifically, but players keep quoting what he said from back in the day, I thought I'd address it).

You've given me the standard response of a Trammie, that has zero facts, it's completely made up in terms of hypothesis. You are like someone who has been brainwashed by your state media and completely bought it.

So what I can objectively draw from your statement, that no facts will ever stand in the way of your opinion. Even when given evidence from the best source possible, you casually dismiss the source and immediately follow up by a personal attack.
A statement about a game from a person who made it and had access to all the internal stats carries a lot more weight with me (and I imagine anyone) than clearly biased ramblings of a random forum goer. 

TimSt said:

My thief got killed 4 times yesterday while in Fel Khaldun by teamed up players.  How is that a fair fight?  I take my thief there because the champ spawn is rarely active and it is safe for my thief to detect hidden crates and chests without getting overran.  While my thief getting killed is little more of an annoyance the looting of my corpse was the annoying part.  They took my bags of sending and the reagents and potions that I would use to heal myself.  That is a dick move if you ask me.

But you can admire the natural inbuilt balancing mechanism of the game I hope?

This is a perfect risk v reward system in action.

You wouldn't be lucky enough to get this in Trammel.

Sliss said:

So what I can objectively draw from your statement, that no facts will ever stand in the way of your opinion. Even when given evidence from the best source possible, you casually dismiss the source and immediately follow up by a personal attack.
A statement about a game from a person who made it and had access to all the internal stats carries a lot more weight with me (and I imagine anyone) than clearly biased ramblings of a random forum goer. 

You have no real facts, I have no real facts. We are both discussing opinions.
Yours is that the game would be dead, with zero facts, Mine is that the game would be better off.

They did something to stop losing players at the time. That doesn't mean all would have gone, maybe the game would have been better off losing those players, and keeping the emotionally, intellectually, more skilful players than the losers they pandered to who can't even think for themselves.

You didn't answer my question either, are you able to?
Given the way I presented it to you, was Trammel the best possible solution with more rewards?

And yes, maybe I did a personal attack on you on a forum, gosh aren't I naughty?
I did it so you could play the victim a little bit more, you are so great at it.
Have you noticed how huge sections of society are only interested in playing the victim?
We can't all be victims I guess, so ultimately it may only leave me, as sole oppressor over 10 billion Whiney people.  😂

I was reading the Lake Austin meet and greet report on the other forum, and saw nothing relevant to this discussion, but I suppose I should ask somebody who can actually make one of those meet and greets if the developers would consider an all Fel ruleset shard (not Siege Perilous that has other mechanics built in) that is non-transferable and another "standard" shard that is non transferable and that only paid subscriptions can access them to help get a grip on economic stability with a very stern handling of any detected duping/mechanical exploitations that are obviously wrong and bad/ and actual enforcement of the ToS that is noticeable and not like remedial (sometimes months after the damage is done) band-aid style gabbledegook.

 I think this would be the best solution to having a semi-stable economic shard and they can even put an addendum like they do for the "pre-prodo/early patch" shards that they will experiment with money ideas on those shards before (if they even) roll out to the normal prodo shards. I think there are a few servers that patches hit to "experiment" on live game players instead of just letting Test Center be used for it. That or just do some actual at least intermediate level monitoring of these two proposed shards to keep them going in the right direction. Like if somebody keeps accusing somebody of speed hacking and it turns out this is just a person with a grudge, ban them for a week, or whatever else. If they keep doing stuff like that, just deny them access to the shard forever and let them play on the other ones or ban them outright whatever else. On the other hand, if the guy using exploits is busted 1 time, for legitimately using illegal programs completely 100% irrevocably ban them completely off UO. Get the message across. Something..

 Same thing for the normal shard, if somebody on there intentionally abusing in game systems and they know better, just ban them completely off the game forever. If somebody accuses somebody and no evidence ban them for a week.. if they do it again, ban them completely off the game. Maybe the player base will dwindle a bit, but if people knew an actual enforced ruleset was being pushed, with a fresh economy where there were no transfers to or from the server would ever happen EVER and only paying subscribers could.. well, ok I'll quit dreaming. I enjoy UO regardless for the things it offers over the competitors. I see potential, and I think the majority of people see SO much potential, but just get on edge and have sub-optimal ways of dealing with it? For some people UO is a very precious pressure relief system after working a stressful day/ career/ whatever and they get a bit emo (I been there) when something just gets ramrodded on the player base that nobody (maybe like 1 person on an obscure forum) asked for and it turned out terrible and caused much raging etc. Then there's this wall of silence from the development staff or whatever, and then people start eating each other's esophagus out crying fowl or whatever else. Pardon the hyperbole.

 So I guess in closing, if somebody makes it to a meet and greet, and doesn't mind proposing this idea to the devs (maybe put a spin on it, I'm not perfect, nor do I think my "solution" is either but it's an idea) please propose the idea. Also, I love you all. And cookies are delicious.

Cookie said:

You have no real facts, I have no real facts. We are both discussing opinions.
Yours is that the game would be dead, with zero facts,

No, no, no. Let's not be putting us on equal footing here. All you have is an opinion. I am am quoting the person who did have the facts. That person had the stats and was one of the people making a decision about Trammel. And considering that this is not enough for you, it's obvious that nothing ever will be.

And yes, maybe I did a personal attack on you on a forum, gosh aren't I naughty?
I did it so you could play the victim a little bit more, you are so great at it.
Have you noticed how huge sections of society are only interested in playing the victim?
We can't all be victims I guess, so ultimately it may only leave me, as sole oppressor over 10 billion Whiney people.  😂

Dear lord, would you stop projecting and trying to bring RL politics into this? You have no idea what my political affiliation is, and I suspect you'd be surprised if I bothered to tell you.

FACT  EA told UO to fix UO because they were losing subs and the fastest way UO could figure out how to fix UO was to create Tram, Fel only was killing UO and EA saw the writing on the wall.

Sliss said:

Cookie said:

You have no real facts, I have no real facts. We are both discussing opinions.
Yours is that the game would be dead, with zero facts,

No, no, no. Let's not be putting us on equal footing here. All you have is an opinion. I am am quoting the person who did have the facts. That person had the stats and was one of the people making a decision about Trammel. And considering that this is not enough for you, it's obvious that nothing ever will be.

We are not on equal footing, I am the only one providing any critical original analysis here, you are just regurgitating the same old mantra's, please don't even assume you have even showed up to this debate yet.

We have a failed system, so spouting out the same old nonsense won't do it for me, agreed.

What would do it, is if I saw any logical counter arguments, or any decent response to my original question to you. If I saw any glimpses of original thought processing would be fantastic.

For example, I have liked all of NamelessJourney's posts, he is thinking around the topic, putting in posts that attempt to actually tackle the subject. And Nameless - by the way, I had a huge thread on Stratics last year, where I asked for exactly what you just suggested in your above post, when I'm not on holiday stuck on an iPad sunbathing around the pool, I'll try and find you a link. My final conclusion was I can really only fix this for myself, so I started playing Siege. To you, and all the other new guys, I do love this game very much, but I am critical of glaring issues. There are definately aspects where you have to let some things go.

Bilbo said:

FACT  EA told UO to fix UO because they were losing subs and the fastest way UO could figure out how to fix UO was to create Tram, Fel only was killing UO and EA saw the writing on the wall.

EA are absolutely known for doing the best thing for a game, and not treating them like a cash cow.   🙂

Cookie said:

TimSt said:

My thief got killed 4 times yesterday while in Fel Khaldun by teamed up players.  How is that a fair fight?  I take my thief there because the champ spawn is rarely active and it is safe for my thief to detect hidden crates and chests without getting overran.  While my thief getting killed is little more of an annoyance the looting of my corpse was the annoying part.  They took my bags of sending and the reagents and potions that I would use to heal myself.  That is a dick move if you ask me.

But you can admire the natural inbuilt balancing mechanism of the game I hope?

This is a perfect risk v reward system in action.

You wouldn't be lucky enough to get this in Trammel.

It reminds me of why I fled Felucca to Trammel when it was created. Overpowered players killing less powerful players.

Come December 1st when the Treasures of Khaldun event ends I'll stop coming to Felucca except to mine in remote areas.  Felucca is not a fun place to play in.

It was worth a shot...