The Grinch and the Christmas Spirit

[Shindaril]

Greetings all,

Lately, I've seen a lot of hostility towards the shard and the staff, who are doing their best for us, the players, and I'm not feeling happy. I've seen the staff spending a lot of hours for us, the players, to have fun and enjoy our stay on this shard - daily. The Winter Quest, for example, great, balanced rewards for altering difficulty quests based on the advancement of the player character itself, is a blast indeed. A new quest, Pest Removal was added and we should be grateful for it - Not complaining if we couldn't complete it for the difficulty, but enjoying that it was given to us to test and trial our own abilities.

I'm taking this chance to thank our staff for their great work for giving us, the players, their personal time to provide us more concept to keep us entertained and interested for no real reward for themselves. I wish we all could remember that this is a free to play shard and it's run mostly by our donations and the time our great staff can willingly spare for us. For that reason alone, I, personally, cannot comprehend why some players are complaining for something they've worked so hard for and given to us so that we can have fun and, most likely, test our limits as well.

To me, it seems that the ideology between UO freeshards and MMORPG's in general has been misunderstood to a certain degree...So let me give you a personal example to consider about: I have very recently discovered that I should not had been able to use a certain item for relayering - which you all must know by now, is not the cheapest thing to do on this shard - When I found that out, I did page and report the matter so that our great staff knows and can resolve it as they see appropriate. I will not have any regrets for possibly losing 500EDs for a relayer deed, 100 EDs for one +10 levels deed and another 50 EDs for SR 5 deed on that weapon for as long as I know that it wasn't meant to be possible and I have helped them to discover a bug or a glitch, I never intended to exploit. It is from my great respect towards our staff, I'm even posting this message and it is my humblest wish for all of us to stop and think - Who do we own the glory and credit for being here today?

To me, at least, it's a privilege to call myself an Excelsorian and I do hope, you all feel the same way as I do and join me when I have only one more thing to say:

Thank you for your great work and enjoy the Christmas, +Colibri, +Nyx, +Veritas, +Requiem, +Mocha

-Shindaril

P.S. My apologies if I missed anyone from our great staff.

[+Colibri]

Thank you for this kind and motivating post.

I agree with what you wrote, this is a constant problem and i don't think it will go away. It's the internet, there's something empowering about being able to hide behind a pseudonym, and in the end there's other internet places people can go to if they go so far as to not being welcome some place anymore.
But this is also a problem of perception and selective memory - yes there are several difficult people out there, but at the same time there's about 200 players every day (actually a lot more in a 24 hour period, or a 7-day period) that don't cause any problems and aren't really noticed. Every now and then i encounter a player that i've never met before, and at first glance I assume they must have just started playing recently, but actually the account is for example 2 years old. That's in part probably because they never sent a help request or otherwise did something to get our attention, mostly because they never caused a scene.

In your post you have thanked us, the staff, at this time I'd like to thank everyone (the vast majority of players) who are playing the game as intended.

(as for the Reaper of Souls, there was a help request from another player as well (but a little different issue from yours, i'll come by in-game), that artifact actually has a relayering restriction which is now published on the wiki as well).

[Zalia]

*High Five*

[Golden Temptress]

*Raises a glass to what shindral says*

I love the overall balance of the game and players/staff, most the people are awesome, but there's always that other element and I don't know how the staff put up with them as I would of lost my temper with them a long time ago lol, but back to the topic I too am proud to call myself an excelsorian and here's to many more years of happy playing