Would you be willing to start fresh in exchange for a shard merge?

I know its controversial, but was just pondering the question myself. Personally, I wouldn't mind, but everyone is different.

I have a full slate of characters on every shard.  I have no interest in losing most of them because of shard mergers, because I'm sure EA wouldn't give me more 50+ character slots per account to make sure none of them were sacrificed.

If I'm in the mood for more player interaction, I just log on to a more highly populated shard and play there.  It's pretty simple, really.

Can't say I would keep playing if I lost everything again.

No way.  I might be willing to give up my houses as long as I had access to everything that was stored in them.

Shard merge is not a good idea, instead there should be similar technology to WoW where servers are merged into one server pool.  I can log into any server I have chars on and select the option to play in the "shard collective"  which can be a nexus that all chars on all shards have access to.   Think of it like the "hub shard"  Create unique hub shard events, unique hub shard drops and incentives.  At this point shard transfer shenanigans etc have gotten out of hand, lets just give players the options to pool together on a single instance - if you dont want to you can just log into your regular shard and play.

No just no.
If they replaced my house in the next new land and gave me time to move maybe.
Not a Housing subdivision land (if I wanted to "live" in a player town I already would)

i would play a fresh, no-transfer shard, but at this point a shard merger just would be too much effort.  As much as i would have liked to see a successful merge, UO just isnt set up for it.  If there was some way for a merger, but i would still have my houses fully decoded on the new shard, i would be for it.  otherwise, ive just spent too much time on them to do it again.

If they were to merge all the shards into one "mega shard" I would be all for as long as I could have a massive bank box to store all my stuff in. I don't really care about housing as to me its mainly storage space. The other issue would be the lag. Not from so many people but I am in Europe so if it was based in the US i would not get a great ping which could be annoying.

I have trained characters on a few other shards so it would be a shame to loose these but I would sacrifice these if it means there is more people around. I play UO because its a MMO and I like to see people around. I don't always interact with them but its good to see.

As for a fresh no-transfer shard I would again LOVE this. Might sort out the economy and put everyone on a level playing field. Would of been a good idea to launch with EJ if they had given it some more thought.

I voted no to the "starting over" part, not the shard merger part.  Low population servers could be merged without necessitating that characters start from scratch.  I'm not talking about mass mergers, but for argument's sake, choose the 3 lowest populations servers in North America and one each in Europe and Japan.  Give players the option of which other server to move to (penalties such as no replacement house if they choose Atlantic).

A replacement house would match their old house; it would not need to be rebuilt from scratch. Once placed, all the old items become available, and everything placed within the old house would be where it was, but now on the new server.  A suitable location would have to be found, but no guarantee that it could be in the same location, or even facet, as the original. Since the players would find the location for their transferred house, no one would be forced to place it in Felucca.

The goal would be a "no loss" transfer, except for those choosing to transfer to Atlantic or whatever other server deemed to already have adequate population.  This is because the primary purpose is too build up population density on the low population shards.  If necessary, players might be assisted in finding a location for their transferred house.  Maybe a single weed or rock that is blocking the placement could be eliminated.

In cases like @Margrette 's, where there are already existing characters on the server being moved to, the number of characters allowed for her account on the new shard would be increased to match what she had had on both.  I.e., if she had 6 and 6 on the two shards, now she could have 12 on the one.  To avoid players trying to take advantage, only characters which existed one month prior to the merger announcement could count toward the allowed increase in characters per shard. Not all characters from the closing shard would have to move to the same shard, however. So some characters might end up going to a shard where they do not have a house.

I know this concept is controversial, but the sad truth is many shards are effectively ghost worlds. Players who have friends on their old server could all strive to move to the same server.

There already is a personal shard merge option and that is shard transfer.

Rock said:

I voted no to the "starting over" part, not the shard merger part.  Low population servers could be merged without necessitating that characters start from scratch.  I'm not talking about mass mergers, but for argument's sake, choose the 3 lowest populations servers in North America and one each in Europe and Japan.  Give players the option of which other server to move to (penalties such as no replacement house if they choose Atlantic).

A replacement house would match their old house; it would not need to be rebuilt from scratch. Once placed, all the old items become available, and everything placed within the old house would be where it was, but now on the new server.  A suitable location would have to be found, but no guarantee that it could be in the same location, or even facet, as the original. Since the players would find the location for their transferred house, no one would be forced to place it in Felucca.

The goal would be a "no loss" transfer, except for those choosing to transfer to Atlantic or whatever other server deemed to already have adequate population.  This is because the primary purpose is too build up population density on the low population shards.  If necessary, players might be assisted in finding a location for their transferred house.  Maybe a single weed or rock that is blocking the placement could be eliminated.

In cases like @ Margrette 's, where there are already existing characters on the server being moved to, the number of characters allowed for her account on the new shard would be increased to match what she had had on both.  I.e., if she had 6 and 6 on the two shards, now she could have 12 on the one.  To avoid players trying to take advantage, only characters which existed one month prior to the merger announcement could count toward the allowed increase in characters per shard. Not all characters from the closing shard would have to move to the same shard, however. So some characters might end up going to a shard where they do not have a house.

I know this concept is controversial, but the sad truth is many shards are effectively ghost worlds. Players who have friends on their old server could all strive to move to the same server.

If you merged all three of the lowest population American servers, what would happen to players that had a house on each of those shards?  Now they end up being forced onto a larger population shard and lose all three locations they once had?  I have a castle each on Origin, Sonoma, and Lake Austin.  So if those all got shoved into Baja, then I would lose all three castles because there aren't enough castle spots on Baja for everyone who had a castle on Origin, Sonoma, or Lake Austin to still keep one on Baja?  No thanks.   How anyone could think that's fair and that people wouldn't leave over that is beyond me.

@Margrette If you had houses on 3 closed down shards, you could place them on another shard.  Obviously you have multiple accounts, and, as far as I know, nothing says someone with multiple accounts cannot have two (or) more houses on the same shard.  Maybe my idea is dumb, especially from a long-term vet perspective.  But for someone new to the game, or someone returning to the game after years of absence, the question they have on many of the shards is, "Where is everyone."

The solution I actually prefer is to have more total players, so there aren't so many ghost worlds in the first place.  Maybe EA's longstanding attitude will change, and they will start striving to grow interest in UO. Would it not be great if one could do a vendor search on any shard for "quiver" or other significant crafted item, and actually have results?

Rock said:

@ Margrette If you had houses on 3 closed down shards, you could place them on another shard.  Obviously you have multiple accounts, and, as far as I know, nothing says someone with multiple accounts cannot have two (or) more houses on the same shard.  Maybe my idea is dumb, especially from a long-term vet perspective.  But for someone new to the game, or someone returning to the game after years of absence, the question they have on many of the shards is, "Where is everyone."

The solution I actually prefer is to have more total players, so there aren't so many ghost worlds in the first place.  Maybe EA's longstanding attitude will change, and they will start striving to grow interest in UO. Would it not be great if one could do a vendor search on any shard for "quiver" or other significant crafted item, and actually have results?

Ummm....what are the chances that I could replace three castles on an already-populated shard, along with everyone else that's in the same boat?  What would I do with all the things I had stored in those three castles if I had to shove them into three 18x18 houses?   How much stuff would I have to throw out while the people who were already on the shard wouldn't have to do anything at all as a result of the merger? 

NO NO NO NO PaPa as my grandson would say.  Lose my shard and my preferred Castle spots, more than 1, and I quit.   UO to EA we just merged shards and lost a bunch of subs.  BS you are fired.  UO and DAoC will now be closed.

No idea why they couldn't code a housing subserver with enough space for 1000 houses, really nicely positioned with gardens and trees dividing each plot, similar to how they did the tokuno township around the square, with plots large enough for castles, keeps and everything down to 10 x 10's with seriously nice deco'd landscapes. water ways and rivers, and mini towns/market places and allow 'house copy' including existing design and all contents to those plots and move people that way. As they close a shard they move all players to this subserver. From this sever it would be seriously great to have gates to all other live 'shards'  to do all other uo stuff, dungeons, resource gathering etc so that players had the option on what shard to go play on for the day.

Would never happen but it would be an interesting exercise I guess.

A new shard where you can't transfer chars to would be cool. No catch. Just a fresh shard.

I would close a few virtually dead shards and allow free char transfer to any other shard. If anyone owns a house on the closed shard, they can move it with them - I would create these little islands per each house in the space void of Malas, like this:

@MissE and @InLor , I like both your ideas.

I'd like to be clear on what I said about shard merging.  I see it as a possibility that I personally would have no problem with. I'm pretty sure the devs won't actually do it, though, and that is fine as well. Since 2001, with the cancellation of the Ultima Worlds Online project (aka UO2), EA has consistently avoided "rocking the boat". Even when the devs made more modern clients, they have kept the Classic Client up to date with new content as well. Merging shards would definitely rock the boat, so it won't happen.

this is such an old topic (has been discussed over and over on boards across the web since the early 2000's)

Vets would leave. Period. The people who have kept UO in the black; who have supported this game through thick and thin are those same people who would suffer the agony of merges.
WoW could merge servers easy enough for they didn't have housing and banks slots were expanded. The "housing" they have now is instanced - the entire server cannot see what is in my keep there - only people I allow and they have to enter the instance to see it.

UO's persistent housing is a model that cannot be merged without someone losing something - and for many a vet who have castles full to the brim with unique and rare items (including those that are shard-bound) will cancel accounts if they had to lose them. Who gets to keep the castle at the Yew Gate between two shards? How does that get determined and still be fair? It cannot be done without someone losing out on their castle... and that will be a PR nightmare.

I personally know of people who do not play, but pay for their (multiple) accounts so their museums/rarities/castles stay standing. Historic homes placed on one shard would be "wiped" for a new home in the same spot on another shard. It was/is not easy getting that Historic status on a property... and it would kill the value many people see in the age of the game.

No... just plain and simple no.

UO's all-open, persistent, sandbox design wouldn't allow for a shard merger. To be honest, would be better to just delete a "dead shard", give "special housing land" to those "few" people remaining on a "dead shard" on the shard of their choice, and be done with that than to merge two or more "dead shards" with one another. 

A better solution to the "dead shard syndrome" is ...
1. EA open the purse strings for some real marketing efforts at various conventions
2. BS hire a dedicated and schooled/trained PR/Marketing person who is familiar with its products (and actually is a gamer as well)
3. We the player base introduce friends/family/other gamers to UO and play with them - don't abandon them

I'm personally working on the third one. Anyone else?

Kirthag

Option 3

I finally got the wife on and even better after 18 years I get to be the one who gets to say "What time did you turn off that %$^ game and come to bed"

I can also claim 2 old timer timers waiting for EJ to come back and see the changes.

A new player logging in to a dead shard and not seeing any other players around is bad for business

cobb said:

A new player logging in to a dead shard and not seeing any other players around is bad for business

No problem.  Merge the shards and there won't be a UO to log into so he wont see any dead shards or the rude Atl shard either.

How about a compromise approach -- many (all the) shards, one world? Every beast and evil creature, living and undead, move to a combined world, but the shards remain populated with players.  I.e., if you want to adventure, you take a portal to the resurrected, whole, Sosaria and its companion facets ("Greater Sosaria" -- GS).  You would normally log in and log out from your home or an Inn, similar to now.  If you get killed while adventuring or by another player, your body would remain in Greater Sosaria for 15 minutes, then decay.  Your ghost could be resurrected within that time and hopefully recover your stuff from the dead body. If you log out as a ghost, and 15 minutes or more passed since your death, upon login you will find yourself in your home shard, not GS. Each character would have a home shard.

Greater Sosaria would have all the facets we know -- Felucca, Trammel, Ilshenar, etc. From a player perspective, there would be little difference, except they'd see a lot more other players.  The shards we know now (Atlantic, Baja, etc.) would become existent memories of a broken world, sort of museums.  If new facets are added later, the shards would not expand, only Greater Sosaria.

Another way to look at this is to imagine not a merging of shards, but adding a new one, the "real" Sosaria, merged together with some greater magic. The shards remain, however, as echos of the broken Gem of Immortality. Any player could visit any shard, but all the action would take place on Greater Sosaria (GS).  Limited resource gathering (logging, mining) could be allowed on the shards.  There would be no risk, but the return would be half of what it is now on Trammel, and no advanced ore or wood would spawn. No housing would be allowed on any of the GS facets, but vendors would somehow function cross-dimensionally. The maps one gets during the Vendor Search process would allow teleportation of your character to the shard where the vendor is, and then back to GS (or wherever the character was to start with). This would offer a way for players to showcase their homes as well.

Dungeons would probably disappear from the existing shards.  Another approach would allow the dungeons to exist, but all players could do is walk around the map safely. There would be no danger and no loot. Twenty years ago a few players had managed to build illegal houses within dungeons. Hopefully that bug has been long-since handled.  If not, Your illegal house would remain within the empty dungeon, but no new houses could be added to a dungeon map.

Out of game, I'm not sure how best to handle the regional groups of shards.  (North American, Japanese, European, etc.)  They exist both because of language differences between players, and because the realities of the Internet mean that packets are slower between, say, Florida and Japan or Australia than between Florida and Texas (or wherever the North American servers physically are now). What I experience when logging into Oceania (from Florida) is that movement is staggered.  If riding a mount or flying, the character will move about 10 paces then pause in place for maybe 1/2 to 1 second, then move another 10 paces, etc. Packets are quick enough that walking or running does not usually exhibit these pauses.  My point is that practically it might be impossible to actually unite the player base.  Still, the regional server groups could each form their own Greater Sosaria until (and if) technology can manage to eliminate the slow packet speeds between regions.  If regional GSs were established, players could choose which GS to play in, and a means would be established to port between them. (No, I don't know how game fiction would explain multiple GSs.) The extended vendor search capability would be common to all shards, regardless of region, however.

Language differences could be alleviated by bringing back auto-translation.  When I started back in 1999, UO licensed a translation technology from a third party company.  If I were talking in English to someone who spoke only Italian or Japanese, the software would do its best to translate.  It was far from perfect, but it worked well enough to be useful.  I'm sure in the 20 years since, translation technology has improved.  Yes, I realize it is still far from perfect but I think it would be sufficient to allow adventuring together.

Neither Siege Perilous nor Mugen would become part of Greater Sosaria.  Their worlds have diverged too much, and these shards would remain pretty much as they are. Characters on these shards would not have access to GS. The current house limitation would apply -- one house per account, plus a second house in one of these two special shards should a player desire.

I'm sure computer power has grown sufficiently since 1997 to allow all players to game together.  Why not do it? I'm not claiming this approach would be free of problems, but perhaps it is a fair compromise between the expectations of veteran players and the game experience of new players.

InLor said:

I would close a few virtually dead shards and allow free char transfer to any other shard. If anyone owns a house on the closed shard, they can move it with them - I would create these little islands per each house in the space void of Malas, like this:

Thats actually a pretty good idea but make the areas larger and even allow pvp on some islands (for those with fel houses).

I love the idea of a new fresh shard, with nothing in and out. Start that with EJ. Everyone starts fresh.
:P

Just wondering is anyone in the biz and KNOW how much it actually costs for the server time of a shard? Most of Broadswords costs shouldn't change if they run 1 shard or 50.

Unless it's much higher then I'm thinking, 5 or 10 subscriptions would probably cover the server farm costs. So why would they close a shard even if the only things there are storage houses and transfer shields?

Lets not even think about what closing shards would do to investor confidence.

Just my option but then I "live" on a low pop shard.