Excelsior

Here is an idea of mine. Given the importance of having a solid shard base and getting new players recruited to Excelsior and stimulating the economy and overall shard, in my opinion the description on the sites should show the proper message. I think that working together we can improve this and help Coli update it and hope for the shard population to grow even further benefiting all of us.

Below is the current description:

"Friendly players, great staff with professional approach. Since 2006. Balanced economy and drop rates. Over 6 years running. On a dedicated server with strong bandwidth. Tons of custom scripts, monsters and items. Frequent staff and player ran events. Browser interface for chatting, which you can access even at work. Welcome to your new home!"

Below are my first comments/suggestions:

- Space is limited, since 2006 is fine, but over 6 years running is a) wrong (should be 9!!! now) and b) we should choose either since 2006 or 9+ years since its repetitive
- Somewhere is should state a) no skill caps, b) 350 stat cap, c) fast skill gains
- include something on custom quests i.e. winter, Easter, spring, Halloween, etc.
- "Dedicated server w/ strong bandwidth and 99%+ uptime (Coli please confirm)
- include something on custom housing (w/ unlimited number of houseplots?) w/ plenty of customizable content
- 2 new facets opening in 2015 with 100+ custom quests
- over 150 players online at any given time with over 250 at times
- maybe mention something on the extensive wiki page

These are just some comments. Hopefully someone could draft a version 0 and we can work from there. Lets see how it goes otherwise we can create a smaller "working group". After all, we all vote and get 1ED, let's provide something in return.

Note: I have not discussed this with Coli or any of the other GMs. If they find this unnecessary please go ahead and lock the thread.

Once completed ill blast on my Facebook page. I dig it and love it here.

Frequent staff and player ran events.

Please change to "events run by staff and players" Player ran events make it sound as if we all fled. Just my 2 cents.

Friendly players, great staff with professional approach. Balanced economy and drop rates. 99% uptime since 2006 on a dedicated server with strong bandwidth. Tons of custom scripts, monsters and items. Frequent staff and player run events. No Skill cap, 350 Stat cap, fast skill gains. Customizable housing, minimum 2 per account. 2 new facets opening in 2015 with 100+ custom quests. Browser interface for chatting accessible even at work. Welcome to your new home!

Thought I would give it a shot...
Michi

Couple thoughts...

I agree about dropping the "6 years running". Since 2006 says it all.

"Tons of custom scripts, monsters, items, housing and deco." This shard is unlike any other Ultima Online experience out there. It's what Trammel should have been.

"Dedicated server?" Is someone running a public shard on a server that isn't?

Two-nines availability (99%) is not much of a brag. That allows for 3 full days hard down per year. Three nines (8 hours) or more is a brag.

The economy here is not particularly well balanced. It's liquid (goods trade hands frequently) and stable (neither badly inflationary nor badly deflationary) but things like the disparity between the value of crafted and easily looted weapons and armor suggest that the balance is off. The first two - liquidity and stability - are by far the more important characteristics of an economy.

The new facets are opening in 2015? By December? For sure? So much good stuff on the shard, why try to sell it based on what it doesn't have yet?

Don't spend more than about 3 words on the wiki, just enough to say that it exists. I've seen shards with better written wikis and guides. I've seen shards that have jack. Ours is middling.

Bandwidth is by Cogent Communications, the worst of the North American Internet backbones. If you have Verizon and suffered evening lag frequently last year, that's why. You were caught up in the Netflix/Verizon dispute. (Netflix used Cogent for the price)

Cogent's feats of infamy include cutting off all connectivity for days to Sprint a few years back in a game of "chicken" where Sprint eventually flinched. Which is not to say that Sprint was in the right... their behavior was borderline unethical. All the same, Cogent was willing to let its customers suffer as long as it took to make the point.

There is no skill cap but there are individual skill caps... 100 by default, 120 with a scroll, little more with essences and gear. Important to mention but careful with the word choice.

World chat instead of IRC is unusual but I don't know that it's remarkable enough to spend limited words in the ad on it.

i think it'd be a wonderful idea to revamp it. i agree with what wil is saying as well.
but i also think that the mention of the shard's release (despite the unknown date) would be worthwhile mentioning

if someone joins in january of 2015 and elysium was released by december 2015
it'd take frequent playing without donations to be ready for the shard by then

it's not that we'd be advertising what we don't have, but we'd be advertising what's shown right in town center to be coming out in the (hopefully near) future. and give them something to expect and look forward to.