I miss you all, and an RP dedicated UO freeshard exists...

[Linaeus]

Honestly, I feel that if we pick up a freeshard we should do something entirely new, not continue with this. As far as Trammel/Felucca rules; I will not play an all-Felucca shard if it isnt exclusively for RPers. Its all well and nice to say that you "learn to only carry what you need" and all that jazz, but nothing ruins my day like spending an hour herding a bunch of recruits into a line only to have some neon-haired idiot with no pants on run up and insta-gib half the guild.

It is also worthy to note that Hoagie and I have been working on a freeshard designed for small-scale, highly centralized RP, but that I stopped working on it a while back due to lack of interest on my part and on the part of those that I let in on the plan.

If people are still interested, I can elaborate on my ideas regarding such.

[Linaeus]

Some examples of buildings and points-of-interest in and around the village I built for the shard.

Small graveyard


Shipwreck being picked through by orcs.


Ruined building being slowly swallowed up by the swamp.


East gate, wall, and armory of the fortified village.


Village chapel.


Ruined homestead.

[Hrothgar]

The same grievous error repeats itself over and over in the making of RP freeshards. It's the lack of centralization. My ideal vision of a freeshard would be one SINGLE city, with a limited area around it (forest, mines, mountains, small village etc). Alas, people tend to dream too big, conjuring up these massive maps with the naive conviction they might be able to fill it with hundreds or thousands of roleplayers. It's not going to work. You need to start small and centralized and only when the gates are overflowing and roleplayers have trouble moving without rubbing arses THEN might you begin to consider adding an expansion to the realm.

My point is: I have a burning desire to roleplay in UO again and am very interested in a freeshard adventure, but I will not participate in something obviously doomed from the start. I'm not directing this at Torrak's project fyi, as I've no conception of what that is about. Torrak could you share some more info on where you're currently at in this and what the idea behind it was? I think some of us would love to hear more about it.

[Linaeus]

The idea was for a Dark Ages style village. An isolated farming village that sprung up around a small, remote border post, but has since largely been cut off from the outside world by a global breakdown of authority and civilization. In real life, this took the form of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the repeated invasions of each successor state by assorted barbarian hordes. So far, though, we've been using the Yew Plague as the basic backdrop for the setting. In other words, it'd take place in the near future of Europa's setting, but in an alternate timeline in which the Yew Plague was never cured, the resultant undead hordes were never driven back, and everything just generally went all to pot.

We also programmed in a system for perma-death that worked on a points system. Every death accumulates a certain number of points based on the nature of that death - getting blown up by a mage accrues significantly more points than getting punched out in a bar fight. Points decay over time, but if you surpass a certain threshold then it automatically disables all of the possible means of resurrecting you and locks your points, keeping you dead forever. We feel that this system encourages people to show dangerous situations the respect they deserve, without making people feel like they can't even get into a minor scuffle without risking their character.

Beyond that, we've been working on custom monsters (for instance, zombies that're stonger and have the Pack Instinct trait), and a few other goodies.

So, the key points are;
- Dark, realistic setting in a post-collapse world, centered around a village that has little contact with the outside world. The roads are unsafe, the authorities don't make any effort to protect more than the key cities, and the order that the great powers of old once provided has all but disappeared.
- Game mechanics and GM oversight that ensure that everything has a real consequence, for better or worse. Someone foolish or brave enough to challenge a dragon should feel the pain - or the gain - that kind of thing calls for.
- Lack of IC authority. There are a handful of people whose opinions are still respected, but those who would traditionally enforce order and protect the village are long gone. The characters must work out how to run and protect their homes for themselves, and deal with the consequences of their decisions.
- A dangerous world. This isn't a fairy-tale world where delightful magical creatures dance in sunlit glades. This is a brutal, almost post-apocalyptic world where desperate men and creatures alike want what you have, and you'd damned well be ready when they come for it. Death lurks just beyond the treeline, and there's no longer a national army or militia to go sort it out for you.
- Highly centralized setting. Reflecting the isolated nature of a Dark Ages village, the area of play will be appropriately small. Many areas beyond it will be blocked off, and only selectively opened as the situation demands - a trip to a neighboring village to salvage equipment, for instance. This will keep the players concentrated into one area, and keep them interacting even if they do splinter into cliques and gangs.

[Linaeus]

We also coded out all magical properties, so that's nice.

[Keane Wakefield]

Oh at the random times I miss UO. It's 4am in the morning here.....

If you all join a free shard lemme know I am willing to help.

[Hrothgar]

Seems like a solid plan, at least as solid as a free-shard concept can get. I'm all for putting time and effort into this if you're considering it. Might even be willing to put money into it. Add me on skype Runarthors.

[Linaeus]

Do you have Facebook or Steam or anything? I'm almost never on Skype. 

[Kado Gael]

Good stuff!

I like the idea about permanent death!

[Leander]

I'm still interested in project Keres-Grayner!  It's great to see everyone enthusiastic and kickin' around on this thread.

[Delfer]

I'm still interested too, especially having seen those screenshots. I'd love to chill in that armory area.

[Garak Nightchill]

I played on a couple of perma death persistant world RP Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 servers and found it enhanced the quality of RP.  People were forced to RP their characters more realistically since there was a real risk of death.  Full pvp wasnt a problem since random attacks were too risky for the attacker.

[Linaeus]

Well, I'm glad to see we're all more or less of a like mind. So, I suppose the next step is to explain what we need from you folks if we want to go through with this;

1. I need help building the setting. I could do it all myself, but it'd take forever, and be highly prone to becoming an off-and-on project like it currently is. I need people who can work with InsideUO and RunUO, and work with me to plan out and construct the village and its surrounding area.
2. I need input on what the participating players want included. Specific buildings, the overall feel of the village - new and intact, broken-down and weathered, etc. - andso on.
3. I need patience. This isn't something that'll be ready to run immediately, and since its likely to be our tomb I intend to take my time building it.

[Delfer]

I haven't used any Inside or RunUO but I could check them out and probably learn. Provided it's easy enough I could definitely help build the village. Only thing is that it'd be on and off for me too.
I could also offer input on aesthetics of course.

[Sergio]

I didn't lose interest I just kinda have been busy with real life trying to secure myself a track to a proper career/job and what not, only reason i didn't bug you was I knew you were doing the same thing with classes haha. I'd offer to help build crap but I'm a horrible designer my houses and buildings always end up bland and average at best, if you need traps and dangerous things on the other hand I'd be in on that.