60 Days

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Muolke
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60 Days

Post by Muolke »

Where do I begin?

I've been playing on UOEX for 5 years now and you could say i'm one of the most active players on this server. I play a lot, I donate a lot, I buy/sell alot, and i've managed to collect a decent amount of items.

For the past year or so i've been pretty vocal about the lack of support and involvement by staff on this server. You simply can't run a server that has up to 300 players online at once with only 1 person. I don't count +K because she really can't do much (just being honest). The fact that the server has been unplayable for the past 6 hours reaffirms my position and strengthens my argument.

So this is where the title of this post comes into play. I'm going to give it 60 days to see a plan written in stone to turn things around on this server. I don't want promises, I want to see things happen. Other than trivia there hasn't been an event in over a year (possibly 2). There hasn't been any new content. And there hasn't been any improvements to the timeliness of issues (tickets) being resolved.

I won a deed at the last auction and it took over 5 weeks to have it taken care of even tho it was a relatively simple fix.

Some of you might say "this is a free server", and yes while it may technically may be a free server we all know that if nobody donated this server would be shut down in no time. Colibri knows how much i've donated, and while I don't expect any preferential treatment I do expect to see those donations make some kind of difference and help improve the server.

In 60 days if I don't see anything improving i'll trash all my items (sorry - not giving anything away) and move onto something else. Maybe a different shard, or maybe a different game. But I won't be spending anymore of my time or my resources on UOEX.
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Wil
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Re: 60 Days

Post by Wil »

This server is run at +C's pleasure. No matter how much time you spend or how much you donate, it's still run at +C's pleasure. You are entitled to nothing beyond the courtesies people ordinarily give each other. You are certainly not entitled to put +C on a "performance improvement plan," as if you were an employer dealing with an underperforming worker. Get over yourself.
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+Colibri
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Re: 60 Days

Post by +Colibri »

Hey, yeah you've been around for quite a long time, and I understand you want our shard to be more active, with more things to do.. events and more content.

For the past year I've been dealing with cleaning up things that have accumulated over the past years (or almost a decade). The thing is, as we were making events and adding content, I've been the bottleneck when it comes to the technical/infrastructural functionality of the shard. And many times, when a problem/bug/error happened, I had too much on my plate and then just left that for later. Well, that later finally came, because there were too many things piled up to even see out of it.

I plan to write a bit of a bigger-picture post on the forum when the time is right. Was hoping this would be around april-june this year, but I'm still cleaning up stuff. But it's near.

You should definitely count +Kimane, because the way we now do things, is so that I don't get leftovers and problems to solve, that pile up like things used to. Trivia event doesn't involve fighting with your character, but it's working properly, and +Kimane can do all things related to trivia without having to wait for me, or that my list would get longer.

Overall the server is stable, today I had a nice long afternoon nap on vacation when this happened. I think it happens almost every year when I'm on vacation - Murphy strikes again. I just wrote this on the downtime thread post: "Having another person being able to reboot the shard wouldn't do much good because the problem has to be properly corrected.". If someone just rebooted it, it would cause even more problems for me down the road (similar to what's been piling up from around 2014-2020).


I'm currently on vacation, and the camp site where we're at doesn't have water on the lots. Usually at camp sites that i've been to, there are these pillars/towers (a few feet high) where you connect electricity, and also a hose that you run to your tent/trailer, so that you can cook and wash dishes right on your plot. When we came here, I was disgruntled at the camp - I thought, well with all the years they have been running this place, they could surely have installed water in these towers. Looks like we'll have to live with the water we carry. Then, when i was digging a little hole for the water to drain to, I found what is probably the problem for not having water on the lots... the land is very much like clay, water almost doesn't penetrate the ground. It can handle the few liters that come from using water that you carry to your lot, but it wouldn't handle the larger quantities that would come if we had a hose connected. (well, they could just make full plumbing, but i haven't seen that anywhere).



So when it comes to plans, announcements, and them not being just promises. I will announce things when they are actually in the works, or near completed. I am still working on tidying up from the past ill-organized system. And I will not rush into making things the way they used to be.

When the time is right, I will announce a longer term plan. Although I know what the post will contain, there's no point in posting it too soon - a) it will trigger a discussion, forum threads and incoming idea tickets, which we won't be able to process yet. And b) the promises you mentioned in your post.

I don't know when that will be. To post plans ahead, and already start making that a reality... probably not within 60 days.
+Colibri, Administrator of UO Excelsior Shard

Don't know what the purpose of your life is? Well then make something up! ;)
(Old Colibrian proverb)
Athena Tenebris
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Re: 60 Days

Post by Athena Tenebris »

I personally found the server stagnant for awhile then seeing other admin people leaving. Things did not look good. It seemed as if nothing at all was happening. And it really was not at that time.

Then a resurgence came a bit as some bugs were getting fixed, little things here and there done.


IDOCS were happening (even though I prefer natural house dropping, the IDOC is still kind of fun). More auctions taking place. Kimane coming on board.

Life was instilled in the shard again. Activity running higher.

Events are great to have, but I also think all events should not revolve around fighting. Not everyone is a fighting machine. You need a good mix of events.

Trivia is a good addition.

I see things moving forward, maybe it is still not fast enough for some, but definitely seen movement :)

It would of course be nice to see a master plan, a road map so to speak, with an estimated time-line if possible. Hopefully something to make crafting more relevant in the big picture (especially more fishing, haha).
Zeratul
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Re: 60 Days

Post by Zeratul »

I am still holding out for Elysium. If it's not happening...lets remove the Elysium FAQ page off the site.
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Muolke
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Re: 60 Days

Post by Muolke »

Wil wrote:This server is run at +C's pleasure. No matter how much time you spend or how much you donate, it's still run at +C's pleasure. You are entitled to nothing beyond the courtesies people ordinarily give each other. You are certainly not entitled to put +C on a "performance improvement plan," as if you were an employer dealing with an underperforming worker. Get over yourself.
As we like to say down here...bless your heart.
RobRoy
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Re: 60 Days

Post by RobRoy »

Can’t disagree with some of what was said. And +c’s response isn’t quite a comfort either. Let’s not be so nieve here a lot of money is made from running this shard the players in it have certain expectations that isn’t necessarily out of line.
Silent
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Re: 60 Days

Post by Silent »

I've been playing UO in fresshards for the past 18 years or so. During this time I've seen shards get shut down and moved to others which soon succumbed to the same fate has the previous. Although it is a reality that there is a need to increase game masters in this server you can't be rude about it.

During the time we've been here real life has kept going, people get married (even gms did hehe), people grow older etc... I have no doubt the effort that is made by +C to keep this thing going on with all his real life, and I am really thankful for all my "virtual properties and progress" being maintained by him.

While you can talk about donations and etc we don't pay a monthly fee to play, many players never donated in their lives and still have access to this game. Don't act like saviours of anything because you pay to get things not to improve the shard, if you would pay just to have the shard running and get staff you would all be in the original ultima online so don't "demand" things because that's just rude.

Now we can discuss the need for GMs and discuss what is more needed in this server - page assistance/events/development.

That is an adult conversation that could be created instead of this lousy post.
Lurking the forums since dec 2012
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Animol
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Re: 60 Days

Post by Animol »

Muolke wrote:In 60 days if I don't see anything improving i'll trash all my items (sorry - not giving anything away) and move onto something else. Maybe a different shard, or maybe a different game. But I won't be spending anymore of my time or my resources on UOEX.
Can't you just quit without making a scene, Karen? People come and go all the time, it's not a big deal, seriously.

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Muolke
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Re: 60 Days

Post by Muolke »

Animol wrote:
Muolke wrote:In 60 days if I don't see anything improving i'll trash all my items (sorry - not giving anything away) and move onto something else. Maybe a different shard, or maybe a different game. But I won't be spending anymore of my time or my resources on UOEX.
Can't you just quit without making a scene, Karen? People come and go all the time, it's not a big deal, seriously.
Making a scene? It's a forum post. You know...the place where people write messages and post them online for others to read. Do you even know what a Karen is?

The fact that you had to take the time to try and make this petty jab says a lot more about you then it does about me. I get it that you're sour because I always undercut your vendor and made way more gold in game than you could possibly imagine but that's what happens when you play smart.

Now feel free to crawl back into your hole...thanks.
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Animol
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Re: 60 Days

Post by Animol »

Holy balls, you really do live in another dimension :lool:
Nick
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Re: 60 Days

Post by Nick »

:lool: :lool: :lool:

Yes, I do wish there were more staff and GMs I miss +M and +A but, as far as quality and stability no sure there's much better for the price. Maybe we should all step up and toss $5 in the pot a month...
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Johnny Warren
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Re: 60 Days

Post by Johnny Warren »

Animol wrote:Can't you just quit without making a scene, Karen?
Muolke wrote:Do you even know what a Karen is?
I totally mistimed naming my baby girl Karen 2 years ago... :scared:
JOHNNY WARREN!
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Impious
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Re: 60 Days

Post by Impious »

I've only been on uoex for about 6 months and I'm bored. I'm not end game geared, I'm sitting on 4 relayers, but I'm just bored. What am I supposed to do now? Level another weapon? Get another GOC to sell? Run Doom over and over? I shouldn't be bored yet...

I checked out another server this week and in 5 days they've had more events than I've seen here in 6 months. It's not even close. This upcoming weekend, here's the schedule:

Sept 17th - Fishing Tournament starts at noon
Sept 18th - TBA
Sept 19th - "Talk like a Pirate Day" Pirate Champ at noon
Sept 19th - Armageddon Event at 8pm, all champs spawned at the same time
Sept 19th - Poker Tournament, rare pet hunt
Sept 20th - Grand Pirate Auction

New Pirate "treasure key quest" is LIVE, limited time

There's 600+ players, over 60 custom quests, tons of champs, daily events, levelable special gear, active guilds, pvm, pvp, pks, etc etc etc

This other server is about the same age as uoex, but one server seems to be growing while the other seems to be slowly dying. Is anything going to change or improve? Or are we just going to have 10 trivia questions per week and no staff interaction whatsoever?
Zeratul
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Re: 60 Days

Post by Zeratul »

I don’t disagree with you Impious. The word abandoned comes to my mind.

Are we on a sinking ship? Time will tell.
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