Originally posted by Quizar1973 UO started goin downhill when trammel came out....it finally fell off the cliff when paladins and necros came into play
For some reason UO still gained almost 100% more subscriptions after Trammel was introduced. Doesn't sound like downhill to me...
Ok... I've never called anyone on this, but its time to put this rumor to rest. Prove it.
I disagree. I was there. My server did not double (great lakes). Also, the population was tight knit, after trammel the community was ruined and UO continued to grow more and more barren. I went back a year after and Great lakes was dead, my old buddies had all switched servers, which was also fairly dead. All UO effectively did was get people to join to see if it had improved, while neglecting their loyal fanbase. They are now left with a hollow, more than half empty world.
Find me some numbers. I looked, and all I found were posts from other people. If anything, subs may have piqued for a month as their loyal players quit (and had a month left), and the care bears joined to see what was available. That part is just my opinion. But I would love to find some true numbers and see how long these subs remained "doubled" even though the servers emptied.....
K found some #'s. Trammel didn't bring in many people at all!!!!!!!!! UO population did indeed increase substantially, but not until YEARS after trammel. Trammel came in 2000. UO's pique was in 2003 (which is also when all other games also had rising sub rates, such as EQ). They also have a poor record for retaining customers since trammel. Seems people may have been joining, trying it out, and quitting. Some of this info is from Wiki, some I found on a stats site. I can find it again, I believe I typed in "UO Subscription numbers" in google to find the info. Its kind of funny. UO was solid pre-trammel. You recognized people and there was a community. Once Trammel came in it appears it introduced the new norm for the majority of MMO players... which is "buy new game, play for a month, move on, rinse and repeat".
In all honesty, I'd probably play here and there if the game was how it was before trammel, but I doubt I'd be anywhere near as interested as I was.
For some reason UO still gained almost 100% more subscriptions after Trammel was introduced. Doesn't sound like downhill to me...
It gained 100-150% more subscriptions over the course of several years, with several updates, at a time when there was a massive increase in the number of gamers coming onto the online market. So it is certainly not so clear cut.
You could double the number of players in EVE by removing FFA pvp, removing all death penalties, making it grindable in a week and dumbing down all the economic and crafting systems. Yet regardless of the increase in players, that would be the game going downhill.
Downhill in your opinion, you mean?
Because the numbers, as you did admit yourself, speak the opposite. UO:s downhill began when Age of Shadows was introduced and the game became gear-based.
You claim that Trammel was the downhill of UO? How do you explain the fact that it was Felucca that became a ghost town after the split?
I'm sorry if you lost something dear with Renaissance, but your feelings and opinions don't trump hard facts and numbers. More people liked UO with consensual PvP than FFA PvP. Period.
Originally posted by Quizar1973 UO started goin downhill when trammel came out....it finally fell off the cliff when paladins and necros came into play
For some reason UO still gained almost 100% more subscriptions after Trammel was introduced. Doesn't sound like downhill to me...
Ok... I've never called anyone on this, but its time to put this rumor to rest. Prove it.
I disagree. I was there. My server did not double (great lakes). Also, the population was tight knit, after trammel the community was ruined and UO continued to grow more and more barren. I went back a year after and Great lakes was dead, my old buddies had all switched servers, which was also fairly dead. All UO effectively did was get people to join to see if it had improved, while neglecting their loyal fanbase. They are now left with a hollow, more than half empty world.
Find me some numbers. I looked, and all I found were posts from other people. If anything, subs may have piqued for a month as their loyal players quit (and had a month left), and the care bears joined to see what was available. That part is just my opinion. But I would love to find some true numbers and see how long these subs remained "doubled" even though the servers emptied.....
For your reference, Renaissance was introduced in May 2000, see the huge spike there? Age of Shadows was introduced in Feb 2003, see the short spike and then quick downfall?
One could argue, that it was WoW that killed UO, but UO put itself directly in competition of the gear treadmill games with Age of Shadows.
EDIT: And I have to add from personal experience that on my shard, Europa, the population absolutely exploded with Renaissance and the RP community thrived for many years after. The best ever moments in MMOs for me still come from this period.
For some reason UO still gained almost 100% more subscriptions after Trammel was introduced. Doesn't sound like downhill to me...
It gained 100-150% more subscriptions over the course of several years, with several updates, at a time when there was a massive increase in the number of gamers coming onto the online market. So it is certainly not so clear cut.
You could double the number of players in EVE by removing FFA pvp, removing all death penalties, making it grindable in a week and dumbing down all the economic and crafting systems. Yet regardless of the increase in players, that would be the game going downhill.
Downhill in your opinion, you mean?
Because the numbers, as you did admit yourself, speak the opposite. UO:s downhill began when Age of Shadows was introduced and the game became gear-based.
You claim that Trammel was the downhill of UO? How do you explain the fact that it was Felucca that became a ghost town after the split?
I'm sorry if you lost something dear with Renaissance, but your feelings and opinions don't trump hard facts and numbers. More people liked UO with consensual PvP than FFA PvP. Period.
I'm sorry but I couldn't disagree more. 2 major things happened here which are being ignored. One - all of the carebears that didn't like being in a risk vs reward situation fought tooth and nail to be a vocal minority and begged and pleaded with OSI to get the carebear land aka Trammel. This also opened up a ton of real estate since it was a mirror of Felucca. So everyone went to place as many castles, towers, keeps, houses, etc.. This naturally brought more people over to that land. Some may look at this as a positive thing. But it did so much more harm than good. It yielded thieves useless. It make PKers useless. (I'm not talking about the random reject that killed newbies - i'm talking about the professional killers that looked for good fights and battled good vs evil.) This game was originally ALL ABOUT Risk vs. Reward. They should never have invented Felucca and Trammel - instead they should have made a server where there was no PvP. Sorry but the carebears got their cake and ate it too, while everyone else got screwed.
Originally posted by Quizar1973 UO started goin downhill when trammel came out....it finally fell off the cliff when paladins and necros came into play
For some reason UO still gained almost 100% more subscriptions after Trammel was introduced. Doesn't sound like downhill to me...
Ok... I've never called anyone on this, but its time to put this rumor to rest. Prove it.
I disagree. I was there. My server did not double (great lakes). Also, the population was tight knit, after trammel the community was ruined and UO continued to grow more and more barren. I went back a year after and Great lakes was dead, my old buddies had all switched servers, which was also fairly dead. All UO effectively did was get people to join to see if it had improved, while neglecting their loyal fanbase. They are now left with a hollow, more than half empty world.
Find me some numbers. I looked, and all I found were posts from other people. If anything, subs may have piqued for a month as their loyal players quit (and had a month left), and the care bears joined to see what was available. That part is just my opinion. But I would love to find some true numbers and see how long these subs remained "doubled" even though the servers emptied.....
For your reference, Renaissance was introduced in May 2000, see the huge spike there? Age of Shadows was introduced in Feb 2003, see the short spike and then quick downfall?
One could argue, that it was WoW that killed UO, but UO put itself directly in competition of the gear treadmill games with Age of Shadows.
EDIT: And I have to add from personal experience that on my shard, Europa, the population absolutely exploded with Renaissance and the RP community thrived for many years after. The best ever moments in MMOs for me still come from this period.
I'm sorry but I couldn't disagree more. 2 major things happened here which are being ignored. One - all of the carebears that didn't like being in a risk vs reward situation fought tooth and nail to be a vocal minority and begged and pleaded with OSI to get the carebear land aka Trammel. This also opened up a ton of real estate since it was a mirror of Felucca. So everyone went to place as many castles, towers, keeps, houses, etc.. This naturally brought more people over to that land. Some may look at this as a positive thing. But it did so much more harm than good. It yielded thieves useless. It make PKers useless. (I'm not talking about the random reject that killed newbies - i'm talking about the professional killers that looked for good fights and battled good vs evil.) This game was originally ALL ABOUT Risk vs. Reward. They should never have invented Felucca and Trammel - instead they should have made a server where there was no PvP. Sorry but the carebears got their cake and ate it too, while everyone else got screwed.
First of all, how could the carebears be a vocal minority, when they obviously outnumbered the FFA PvP fans by a bucketload? EA did what they thought would bring them more subs and guess what - it worked.
Thieves were something that never should have put into a game anyway. It was a profession for total jackasses who liked to abuse game mechanics and glitches to steal other players' stuff.
How did Trammel make these so-called "real PKers" useless? They were given a faction PvP system where they could fight each other as much as they wanted - on a "professional" level as you call it. The only PKers made useless were exactly the "random" (not so random in my experience) rejects killing newbies. Turns out quite a bit of those big bad PKers couldn't take the heat after their easy prey left and packed their things too.
How do you think it would have been different with a non-FFA PvP server? You think the mass exodus that took place from Felucca to Trammel wouldn't have happened, just this time with people switching servers? Ok maybe some people had so much wealth and possessions they would not have moved, but most of them would have. The result would be jam-packed PvE servers and dead PvP servers. Only difference is EA would have pissed off a bit more customers by forcing them to swap servers.
The numbers again speak for me. The "everyone else" that got screwed were in the far minority and as a business, EA made the right choice by giving the finger to all griefers and so called PvPers.
I'm sorry but I couldn't disagree more. 2 major things happened here which are being ignored. One - all of the carebears that didn't like being in a risk vs reward situation fought tooth and nail to be a vocal minority and begged and pleaded with OSI to get the carebear land aka Trammel. This also opened up a ton of real estate since it was a mirror of Felucca. So everyone went to place as many castles, towers, keeps, houses, etc.. This naturally brought more people over to that land. Some may look at this as a positive thing. But it did so much more harm than good. It yielded thieves useless. It make PKers useless. (I'm not talking about the random reject that killed newbies - i'm talking about the professional killers that looked for good fights and battled good vs evil.) This game was originally ALL ABOUT Risk vs. Reward. They should never have invented Felucca and Trammel - instead they should have made a server where there was no PvP. Sorry but the carebears got their cake and ate it too, while everyone else got screwed.
First of all, how could the carebears be a vocal minority, when they obviously outnumbered the FFA PvP fans by a bucketload? EA did what they thought would bring them more subs and guess what - it worked.
Thieves were something that never should have put into a game anyway. It was a profession for total jackasses who liked to abuse game mechanics and glitches to steal other players' stuff.
How did Trammel make these so-called "real PKers" useless? They were given a faction PvP system where they could fight each other as much as they wanted - on a "professional" level as you call it. The only PKers made useless were exactly the "random" (not so random in my experience) rejects killing newbies. Turns out quite a bit of those big bad PKers couldn't take the heat after their easy prey left and packed their things too.
How do you think it would have been different with a non-FFA PvP server? You think the mass exodus that took place from Felucca to Trammel wouldn't have happened, just this time with people switching servers? Ok maybe some people had so much wealth and possessions they would not have moved, but most of them would have. The result would be jam-packed PvE servers and dead PvP servers. Only difference is EA would have pissed off a bit more customers by forcing them to swap servers.
The numbers again speak for me. The "everyone else" that got screwed were in the far minority and as a business, EA made the right choice by giving the finger to all griefers and so called PvPers.
As someone mentioned before - a huge influx of gamers were coming to the market. This alone can and most likely does explain the spike in subs. Remember a thing called Everquest? I think you're right about one thing. Some people just like you hate diversity in games. You want your holy trinity and the same old boring crap mmo's which have been created just for people like you. UO was one of the very few games which you could just about anything in. It has the BEST thieving system, and no other rogue or thief classes have ever gotten close in comparison. Now I can't tell you how you played UO.. from the way you talk about it.. you probably just put your head through a wall everyday up until the invention of Trammel.. but we used to have epic battles. Good vs Evil. The guild I was in would hunt down pk groups and have great fights. Sometimes we would win, but other times we would lose. These pk's made a name for themselves. They had a great bounty system as well.
You're right on another thing to. There was a mass exodus. 2 in fact. The first one happened when trammel was patched in, and the carebears and tradesmen moved over. You could no longer buy anything in Felucca. You had to go to the other place with happy little trees. They effectively created a real world simulation and changed it to a eutopian society. Didn't work in the matrix, and it didn't really work in UO either. The 2nd mass exodus were the loyal (oldschool) players leaving the game. Sure some remained, but they killed what the game was for 3 years. A fantastic real world simulation where the players made the world. You can talk about sub numbers until the cows come home, but the original game was killed with the invention of Trammel and Felucca.
Edit: You say FFA-PvP like that term even existed back then. These people weren't FFA-PvP fans.. they were fans of the game. The original game.
Because the numbers, as you did admit yourself, speak the opposite. UO:s downhill began when Age of Shadows was introduced and the game became gear-based.
You claim that Trammel was the downhill of UO? How do you explain the fact that it was Felucca that became a ghost town after the split?
I'm sorry if you lost something dear with Renaissance, but your feelings and opinions don't trump hard facts and numbers. More people liked UO with consensual PvP than FFA PvP. Period.
No EVE would go downhill in the opinion of 99.99% of the current playerbase and anyone who has ever wanted to play a sandbox game with those specific mechanics. Increasing accessibility by removing the core complex systems of a game in order to increase popularity does indeed make what is meant it be a complex, sandbox game, go downhill. That should be obvious to anyone.
Well actually there is some debate as to when UO started it's slide. Many believe that Tram was the start of the slide as it demonstrated that the devs were prepared to dramatically alter the core of their game in the hope of grabbing extra players. Slippery slope sindrome.
It is interesting to note that UO hit it's popularity peak directly after (in fact it spiked up right after) the release of AoS. Prior to that there was a close to linear increase with a jump with the level of size one would expect from a major update hitting.
I "claimed" that your assertion that UO gained 100% more players due to the split is not actually that clear cut and I demonstrated why, even leaving aside the fact that it had 185k subscribers prior to Rens release according to EA's own press release. To blindly try and ignore the major external factors and the fact that numerous add ons/developments took place in order for those sub numbers to increase and attribute it purely to "the split" is ridiculous.
More people clearly prefer not to be directly engaged in a FFA pvp system, but your "100% gainz" comment as though that was purely attributable to Tram is not "hard fact". Nor is the notion that increase in player numbers automatically means that a games quality on all fronts has improved.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
I'll reply to both of you without quotes here, since picking apart your posts serves no further purpose here.
Unfortunately for all of us, we have no way of knowing if UO would have gained subs at the same rate if they never split the world. The only thing we know for sure is that it did gain subs after the world was split. We can try to find as many other reasons for the sub gains as we want, but I'm going for the Occam's Razor with this case and I back my claim up by the other well known fact that Trammel bursted with population while Felucca became a ghost town.
Everything you state is based on speculation and opinion. My posts are backed up by hard numbers and facts.
On the philosophical side of "they killed the spirit of UO" I can only say that yes, they changed the game. For me, it was for the better. I played for 4 years after they introduced Trammel and had a time of my life in the RP communities of Europa. Had a ton of PvP aswell. Risk-free of course and (mostly) when I wanted it, where I wanted it. Some of us play games to relax, not to get an adrenaline rush
Nor is the notion that increase in player numbers automatically means that a games quality on all fronts has improved.
Can you point out where I claimed anything like this? I stated that for me and for many other people, the game changed for the better. For others, it didn't.
Nor is the notion that increase in player numbers automatically means that a games quality on all fronts has improved.
Can you point out where I claimed anything like this? I stated that for me and for many other people, the game changed for the better. For others, it didn't.
"Downhill in your opinion, you mean?
Because the numbers, as you did admit yourself, speak the opposite."
I mentioned that if you removed all of the core mechanics from EVE simply to make it more accessible to a larger audience that you may well increase the subs, but that the game would be "going downhill" from what it originally was. Your response seemed to indicate that the number increase though would show that not to be the case. As though numbers automatically = quality. But if that is not what you meant then it is simply a case of misunderstanding.
Population increase is a statistic, but when it is impossible to show that it is linked purely or even primarily due to that one shift in system paradigm, then that is all it is. It means absolutely nothing to the given argument, when the given argument is trying to imply that said pop increase is brought about by that one split in mechanics.
My opinion as to whether or not the "spirit" or whatever of the game was killed due to Ren or some other update is just that, an opinion. Some share it, others don't. But the key point I was making was that the notion of thinking that Ren/Tram lead to a 100% population increase is simply incorrect. The game was progressively increasing in subs, the game had a jump in subs which you would expect from a major update and more people coming online (whether it had a shift in ruleset or not and it certainly was not a100% increase), as can clearly be demonstrated by the larger jump directly after AoS. There is no "hard fact" that demonstrates that the continued growth of UO was primarily attributable to the Ren split.
I'm glad you loved the game after Ren/Tram and I am certainly not arguing against your subjective preference for that game style as it is no less valid than my own subjective preference for other game style/types. It is merely that the whole "100% gain due to Tram" line doesn't hold up to scrutiny, even when it is clear that more players prefer non FFA games.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
Most people went to Trammel for the land rush and so they could look cool at Brit bank in their colored armor for hours without the threat of losing their stuff. Consensual PvP was a small footnote at the time. (Besides, all of the good PvPers went to Siege P. anyway )
OSI later instituted some mechanics that favored Felucca for things like greater loot and skill gains. IMO things would have been far better if those had been in place to begin with, but, whatever.
The above is my personal opinion. Anyone displaying a view contrary to my opinion is obviously WRONG and should STHU. (neener neener)
Yes it seems we had a case of misunderstanding. I took the meaning of "downhill" as the success of the game in an objective sense, and not as a subjective matter of how the game felt for you.
I also measured the decisions to change the game business-wise and in light of the numbers (sub-paying population is pretty much the only measurable number in an MMO's success), they seemed good decisions.
Of course the numbers might be misleading as you said, and the eventual downfall of UO could have been entirely the fault of Tram/Fel split. However, that is an assumption we will never be able to test if it holds water, so as I said, I have used the Occam's Razor (the most obvious explanation is most likely the correct one) here and concluded that splitting the world did not hurt Ultima Online's population.
You all realize that UO is still a very active game? I havent had an OSI account in a long time,(I stopped paying to be a citizen in a ghost town) but there are a handful of very active free servers. They range from oldschool pre tram servers -> lastest client servers -> servers loaded with custom items and quests etc. Some are small playerbase and some have 100's of players on at a time. I wont reccommend any particular one here but Google it and come check it out. there something for all types of players. AND THERE $FREE$>
Originally posted by Quizar1973 UO started goin downhill when trammel came out....it finally fell off the cliff when paladins and necros came into play
Ah, the classics ... vi vs emacs, star wars vs star trek, Felucca vs Trammel.
Vi Improved
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville
Comments
Ok... I've never called anyone on this, but its time to put this rumor to rest. Prove it.
I disagree. I was there. My server did not double (great lakes). Also, the population was tight knit, after trammel the community was ruined and UO continued to grow more and more barren. I went back a year after and Great lakes was dead, my old buddies had all switched servers, which was also fairly dead. All UO effectively did was get people to join to see if it had improved, while neglecting their loyal fanbase. They are now left with a hollow, more than half empty world.
Find me some numbers. I looked, and all I found were posts from other people. If anything, subs may have piqued for a month as their loyal players quit (and had a month left), and the care bears joined to see what was available. That part is just my opinion. But I would love to find some true numbers and see how long these subs remained "doubled" even though the servers emptied.....
K found some #'s. Trammel didn't bring in many people at all!!!!!!!!! UO population did indeed increase substantially, but not until YEARS after trammel. Trammel came in 2000. UO's pique was in 2003 (which is also when all other games also had rising sub rates, such as EQ). They also have a poor record for retaining customers since trammel. Seems people may have been joining, trying it out, and quitting. Some of this info is from Wiki, some I found on a stats site. I can find it again, I believe I typed in "UO Subscription numbers" in google to find the info. Its kind of funny. UO was solid pre-trammel. You recognized people and there was a community. Once Trammel came in it appears it introduced the new norm for the majority of MMO players... which is "buy new game, play for a month, move on, rinse and repeat".
In all honesty, I'd probably play here and there if the game was how it was before trammel, but I doubt I'd be anywhere near as interested as I was.
Downhill in your opinion, you mean?
Because the numbers, as you did admit yourself, speak the opposite. UO:s downhill began when Age of Shadows was introduced and the game became gear-based.
You claim that Trammel was the downhill of UO? How do you explain the fact that it was Felucca that became a ghost town after the split?
I'm sorry if you lost something dear with Renaissance, but your feelings and opinions don't trump hard facts and numbers. More people liked UO with consensual PvP than FFA PvP. Period.
Here you go.
http://mmodata.blogspot.fi/
And direct link to the chart:
http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-2.png
For your reference, Renaissance was introduced in May 2000, see the huge spike there? Age of Shadows was introduced in Feb 2003, see the short spike and then quick downfall?
One could argue, that it was WoW that killed UO, but UO put itself directly in competition of the gear treadmill games with Age of Shadows.
EDIT: And I have to add from personal experience that on my shard, Europa, the population absolutely exploded with Renaissance and the RP community thrived for many years after. The best ever moments in MMOs for me still come from this period.
I'm sorry but I couldn't disagree more. 2 major things happened here which are being ignored. One - all of the carebears that didn't like being in a risk vs reward situation fought tooth and nail to be a vocal minority and begged and pleaded with OSI to get the carebear land aka Trammel. This also opened up a ton of real estate since it was a mirror of Felucca. So everyone went to place as many castles, towers, keeps, houses, etc.. This naturally brought more people over to that land. Some may look at this as a positive thing. But it did so much more harm than good. It yielded thieves useless. It make PKers useless. (I'm not talking about the random reject that killed newbies - i'm talking about the professional killers that looked for good fights and battled good vs evil.) This game was originally ALL ABOUT Risk vs. Reward. They should never have invented Felucca and Trammel - instead they should have made a server where there was no PvP. Sorry but the carebears got their cake and ate it too, while everyone else got screwed.
lol @ Warhammer on that chart 0.o
First of all, how could the carebears be a vocal minority, when they obviously outnumbered the FFA PvP fans by a bucketload? EA did what they thought would bring them more subs and guess what - it worked.
Thieves were something that never should have put into a game anyway. It was a profession for total jackasses who liked to abuse game mechanics and glitches to steal other players' stuff.
How did Trammel make these so-called "real PKers" useless? They were given a faction PvP system where they could fight each other as much as they wanted - on a "professional" level as you call it. The only PKers made useless were exactly the "random" (not so random in my experience) rejects killing newbies. Turns out quite a bit of those big bad PKers couldn't take the heat after their easy prey left and packed their things too.
How do you think it would have been different with a non-FFA PvP server? You think the mass exodus that took place from Felucca to Trammel wouldn't have happened, just this time with people switching servers? Ok maybe some people had so much wealth and possessions they would not have moved, but most of them would have. The result would be jam-packed PvE servers and dead PvP servers. Only difference is EA would have pissed off a bit more customers by forcing them to swap servers.
The numbers again speak for me. The "everyone else" that got screwed were in the far minority and as a business, EA made the right choice by giving the finger to all griefers and so called PvPers.
As someone mentioned before - a huge influx of gamers were coming to the market. This alone can and most likely does explain the spike in subs. Remember a thing called Everquest? I think you're right about one thing. Some people just like you hate diversity in games. You want your holy trinity and the same old boring crap mmo's which have been created just for people like you. UO was one of the very few games which you could just about anything in. It has the BEST thieving system, and no other rogue or thief classes have ever gotten close in comparison. Now I can't tell you how you played UO.. from the way you talk about it.. you probably just put your head through a wall everyday up until the invention of Trammel.. but we used to have epic battles. Good vs Evil. The guild I was in would hunt down pk groups and have great fights. Sometimes we would win, but other times we would lose. These pk's made a name for themselves. They had a great bounty system as well.
You're right on another thing to. There was a mass exodus. 2 in fact. The first one happened when trammel was patched in, and the carebears and tradesmen moved over. You could no longer buy anything in Felucca. You had to go to the other place with happy little trees. They effectively created a real world simulation and changed it to a eutopian society. Didn't work in the matrix, and it didn't really work in UO either. The 2nd mass exodus were the loyal (oldschool) players leaving the game. Sure some remained, but they killed what the game was for 3 years. A fantastic real world simulation where the players made the world. You can talk about sub numbers until the cows come home, but the original game was killed with the invention of Trammel and Felucca.
Edit: You say FFA-PvP like that term even existed back then. These people weren't FFA-PvP fans.. they were fans of the game. The original game.
No EVE would go downhill in the opinion of 99.99% of the current playerbase and anyone who has ever wanted to play a sandbox game with those specific mechanics. Increasing accessibility by removing the core complex systems of a game in order to increase popularity does indeed make what is meant it be a complex, sandbox game, go downhill. That should be obvious to anyone.
Well actually there is some debate as to when UO started it's slide. Many believe that Tram was the start of the slide as it demonstrated that the devs were prepared to dramatically alter the core of their game in the hope of grabbing extra players. Slippery slope sindrome.
It is interesting to note that UO hit it's popularity peak directly after (in fact it spiked up right after) the release of AoS. Prior to that there was a close to linear increase with a jump with the level of size one would expect from a major update hitting.
I "claimed" that your assertion that UO gained 100% more players due to the split is not actually that clear cut and I demonstrated why, even leaving aside the fact that it had 185k subscribers prior to Rens release according to EA's own press release. To blindly try and ignore the major external factors and the fact that numerous add ons/developments took place in order for those sub numbers to increase and attribute it purely to "the split" is ridiculous.
More people clearly prefer not to be directly engaged in a FFA pvp system, but your "100% gainz" comment as though that was purely attributable to Tram is not "hard fact". Nor is the notion that increase in player numbers automatically means that a games quality on all fronts has improved.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
I'll reply to both of you without quotes here, since picking apart your posts serves no further purpose here.
Unfortunately for all of us, we have no way of knowing if UO would have gained subs at the same rate if they never split the world. The only thing we know for sure is that it did gain subs after the world was split. We can try to find as many other reasons for the sub gains as we want, but I'm going for the Occam's Razor with this case and I back my claim up by the other well known fact that Trammel bursted with population while Felucca became a ghost town.
Everything you state is based on speculation and opinion. My posts are backed up by hard numbers and facts.
On the philosophical side of "they killed the spirit of UO" I can only say that yes, they changed the game. For me, it was for the better. I played for 4 years after they introduced Trammel and had a time of my life in the RP communities of Europa. Had a ton of PvP aswell. Risk-free of course and (mostly) when I wanted it, where I wanted it. Some of us play games to relax, not to get an adrenaline rush
Can you point out where I claimed anything like this? I stated that for me and for many other people, the game changed for the better. For others, it didn't.
"Downhill in your opinion, you mean?
Because the numbers, as you did admit yourself, speak the opposite."
I mentioned that if you removed all of the core mechanics from EVE simply to make it more accessible to a larger audience that you may well increase the subs, but that the game would be "going downhill" from what it originally was. Your response seemed to indicate that the number increase though would show that not to be the case. As though numbers automatically = quality. But if that is not what you meant then it is simply a case of misunderstanding.
Population increase is a statistic, but when it is impossible to show that it is linked purely or even primarily due to that one shift in system paradigm, then that is all it is. It means absolutely nothing to the given argument, when the given argument is trying to imply that said pop increase is brought about by that one split in mechanics.
My opinion as to whether or not the "spirit" or whatever of the game was killed due to Ren or some other update is just that, an opinion. Some share it, others don't. But the key point I was making was that the notion of thinking that Ren/Tram lead to a 100% population increase is simply incorrect. The game was progressively increasing in subs, the game had a jump in subs which you would expect from a major update and more people coming online (whether it had a shift in ruleset or not and it certainly was not a100% increase), as can clearly be demonstrated by the larger jump directly after AoS. There is no "hard fact" that demonstrates that the continued growth of UO was primarily attributable to the Ren split.
I'm glad you loved the game after Ren/Tram and I am certainly not arguing against your subjective preference for that game style as it is no less valid than my own subjective preference for other game style/types. It is merely that the whole "100% gain due to Tram" line doesn't hold up to scrutiny, even when it is clear that more players prefer non FFA games.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
Stupid argument you guys are having tbh.
Most people went to Trammel for the land rush and so they could look cool at Brit bank in their colored armor for hours without the threat of losing their stuff. Consensual PvP was a small footnote at the time. (Besides, all of the good PvPers went to Siege P. anyway )
OSI later instituted some mechanics that favored Felucca for things like greater loot and skill gains. IMO things would have been far better if those had been in place to begin with, but, whatever.
The above is my personal opinion. Anyone displaying a view contrary to my opinion is obviously WRONG and should STHU. (neener neener)
-The MMO Forum Community
Yes it seems we had a case of misunderstanding. I took the meaning of "downhill" as the success of the game in an objective sense, and not as a subjective matter of how the game felt for you.
I also measured the decisions to change the game business-wise and in light of the numbers (sub-paying population is pretty much the only measurable number in an MMO's success), they seemed good decisions.
Of course the numbers might be misleading as you said, and the eventual downfall of UO could have been entirely the fault of Tram/Fel split. However, that is an assumption we will never be able to test if it holds water, so as I said, I have used the Occam's Razor (the most obvious explanation is most likely the correct one) here and concluded that splitting the world did not hurt Ultima Online's population.
Yes, probably more than on many f2p games.
Just not all on EA shards. :P
Vi Improved
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville