Excelsior

I played UO for 5 years several years ago. I have been wanting to play again but I have been unwilling to pay due to being married and having kids. I recently came upon the free shards and I am very excited in joining one. This one seemed the more interesting that I found. I am wondering if there are any pros/cons to free shards and what they are.

I think I was probably in a similar situation to you when I first joined as I played UO for quite a while but it was such a long time ago! I’ve found that this shard is an excellent place to call home. I haven’t seen another shard that has such a friendly player base and staff as dedicated as they are here to bringing amazing custom content to the players.

There are lots of pros, such as all the amazing custom content, helpful and friendly players, good server population, a wiki with info about a lot of the content on the server, by the sounds of it a fantastic new player area (my account is too old to go in), regular events of varying difficulties and a lot of UO-based fun all round.

I found that there are a few things to be mindful of in terms of differences to OSI. If you are attuned to OSI you may not fully comprehend what things are useful on this shard to begin with (finding out is half the fun ), as there is no skill cap and with the custom tameables this does make things different. But if you played UO for a while it gives you a good understanding of how things work and it’s very easy to pick up the differences.

Welcome and good luck!

I would say you found the right shards.. There is enough people here that you won't feel alone but not so many you will feel lost in the crowd . Enough space to hunt and not feel like you are in someone eles space. there are so many different things to keep you busy and having fun. Many many goals to be able to reach for and enjoy .. And when the champs re up its a blast people work togather as a team to get it done . Just my two cents I hope to see you in game ..



Missy

I've been here for 6 1/2 years trying to decide if this is the right shard for me. I'll let you know what my decision is whenever I make up my mind. I am still trying to get the feel of the place.

Hey there and welcome. I've only ever played on free shards and have always considered them far superior to the pay shards. Of course finding the right shard is key. I've been here a little over 4 years and love it. I've gotten a little adventurous over my four years here and played a bit on a couple other shards, but to me, they all fall utterly short of the experience here.

One thing though, if you are all about PVP, this isn't going to be the place for you.

I can tell you, i've been here for about 2 weeks and this shard is very nice. There is ALOT to do to keep you busy, stats are pretty easy to macro up, with no limit on what you want GM'd on one char. You can macro all skills, just not ones for collecting resources, which is understandable. The people here are all friendly and very helpful (just yesterday had someone approach me and ask me if i needed some gear as i was naked, but explained I had been working stealth, but appreciated the gesture).

I too have kids and am married, but couldnt justify p(L)aying on Origin servers. I had played here years ago for a month or so before RL got in the way of things (son was born). But when i felt the urge to play again, i knew what shard to come back to. I looked at a few other shards, but I was never that good at PvP so i passed on them. I like the sense of adventure, without having to worry im about to get ganked for my gear.

Craxis wrote:I played UO for 5 years several years ago. I recently came upon the free shards and I am very excited in joining one. I am wondering if there are any pros/cons to free shards and what they are.

Do you enjoy player vs player combat with its pros (the pure thrill) and cons (Red player-killers gang-killing you)? You won't find it here. Depending on which year's game mechanics you liked best there are several other shards likely to to be a blast.

Do you prefer to play where it's you vs. the game with the help of your friends? This is THE shard. The folks are friendly and the custom content is extensive.

Have been playing UO on and off for over a decade...was recently getting the itch again and found this shard. Have to say that after a couple hours it's been very interesting and quite overwhelming.

Everyone I've come across though has been super friendly. Looking forward to getting some time to actually dive in and figure things out.

The nice thing is you don't "have" to pay for anything, but the server is setup for donations (to help pay the server expenses) which in turn will reward you will server currency (ED - Excelsior Dollar) which is used for elite rewards, but players will pay handsomely for those server currency scrolls(1ED = about 50k gold). (10 EURO = 100 ED, 14USD = 10 EURO)

The players are for the most part all very friendly. This server has PVP disabled with the exception of the 1 PVP dungeon. The no skill cap is amazing!!! (you could have every skill at 100 if you wanted to)

There are these little red chaos shields on the ground (red gateways in some places), those serve as the world teleporters. You can get to almost every place in the game instantly that way. Felucia is however limited... you can only use teleporter to get to the entrance of Fel.

There is always 150-175 players online at any given time (give or take the AFKers)

You can use a website interface to quickly search all the vendors in the game for items http://vendors.uoex.net/

There is a TON of customizations... They keep making more quests, offering more new items as well as new content from time to time!!! There is a training room that you can level almost every skill to 75 (there is a handful of skills you can't use in the training room), you can borrow players personal house trainers to finish leveling almost every skill to the 120 cap (a few skills require essences to go from 115 to 120)

My wife and I joined the shard about 10 days ago now. We love it here, yet there is definitely a gap between new players and those well established. I have met several helpful, but most just ignore you.

We have found a nice little spot to place a couple small towers, and look forward to playing here as time allows us. Eventually looking at re-establishing an old Guild of mine with new players, and only time will tell if that is the right thing. I used to run player guild ran events on Siege Perilous for 5+ years.

Respectfully,

Rigovran