New shard in Beta now

[Aya'Stigi]

UO Outlands. This should be the next big server. It is in Beta now. Interesting way of dealing with counts/stat. It is being made by Owen and Luthius. I know one was involved with Rel Por and An Corp. Boulderfist is involved and Shadow Clan (not the original) from UOF are all ready to start. There may be some other RP groups ready to roll as well. A lot of custom content mixed with the familiar. Heck if we do not want to play Orcs we could always go back to the format we used with Requiem and make Brigands.

http://uooutlands.com/

What are your thoughts? I know...UO. We need to find a new platform to really have a go at being an active group, but this may give us a new place to play that is not already built up (fresh start).

[Aya'Stigi]

messed around a bit today and ran around. The world is HUGE. There are moongates in towns. Some towns have moongates to the dungeons. The shelter island has a gate to a housing area (this is the houses on display) there are like 100 different houses to choose from with some Orc options. http://forums.uooutlands.com/showthread.php?tid=91

There are 2 big Orc forts they are easy to defend, basically one way in/out. There was no overland spawn at this time. I only saw a handful of players in the Shelter Island town area and one or two in the other towns i stopped by. There was spawn turned on in the dungeons. I didnt stick around to fight anything.

Very Rel-Por ish and Requiemish. But very big.

[Gnoth]

Seems to be another iteration of the rel por/an corp series of shards. Lots of new bells and whistles this time around but still the same old and tired mechanics that made all the previous versions fail. I got excited at first glance until I saw it was the same devs as before. Sadly I don't think this one will last either. Their grand murder system is just stat on death plus gold payments, which obviously makes running a red roleplay guild unviable. It just dissapointing they put all this effort into the map and new features but their creativity ends at 15+ year old game mechanics. They all restrict play in some way, instead of encouraging it.

It really comes down to the era as well, all the t2a shards fail eventually, because it's not a good era balance wise. Lack of template variety, no mounts, etc. Either you're rolling a group of hally mages or stealthers and that's really it. If you consider all the popular shards right now that have been around for years, they're all ren rulesets and I think there's a reason for that. These t2a ones are always dominated by the same small group of players/guilds and it's really just a club catered to them.

I don't mean to be so negative but given how many branches we've started on their servers and how every single one ended the same way, I really just don't think it's worth the effort to do it yet again. If you want to run a small group of stealth archers though, that'd be the only way to have success, it could be fun. Or just stick to RP and avoid murdering. Just the two cents of a grumpy old orc.

Should move the thread to the future branch discussion to see who else is interested at least.. I just don't think I am. As far as UO goes I'm down to just mess around on Hybrid, anytime we have it's always been a blast as far as raiding and clomping go.

[Aya'Stigi]

Thanks for the input Gnoth. I am a bit worried that there is too much custom content. It is a huge undertaking and it has been in development for a year(ish) with no release date mentioned. You are not wrong with your T2A assessment.

Ultimately, I am just trying to drum up some interest in being active in any platform.

Hybrid? Does it have the population to support us? I ran around today, there were 350 accounts logged in...I did not see anyone outside of Brit bank and only 2 moved from their banksitting position. If there were some sort of revival there it could be OK but it is hard to have any kind of raid with no other participants. It is a shame though because Hybrid was so good long ago. UOF is then new Hybrid at this point it seems.

[Burz'Ro]

I would like to hop on every once in a while. I am finishing my Master's degree this month, so hopefully I'll have more time to play this summer

[Grognak]

Even if it fails like T2A shards usually do, it's also usually good for a month or two of fun before we give up. I've played with you all long enough to know that you're like me, you find the getting established part the most fun.

My wife and I have a 3 month old so my evening time is limited, though. But I do have a cushy IT job where I get to play computer games all day.

[Gr'Kig]

UOF might not be too bad I suppose if half the orcs hadn't been banzored.

[Nok'Tor]

Congrats Grog!!

I am always interested in playing anything with you guys. I have to say that the urge to play UO has not been very high lately.
I dunno though if we get enough interest I might find the time. but if i have a preference i think we should try other games together.

[Muzgash]

UO Outlands seems to have all the shard hopper attention atm, which is 75% of the UO fanbase. Interested to see if it will continue, going to idle in their discord channel for a bit.

PS: So far, the RP community seems strong.

[Zak]

Skill gain is brutal, takes quite the commitment, 1500-2000 on daily. No mounts in dungeons, archery and poisoned weapons are dominate, the templates are diverse. It's a strange server for sure but I've been having fun. It would be difficult to get a red rp guild going with the penalties. If anyone wants to around or RP a bit I'll be on the UO Outlands Discord under the name greenjelly or send me a PM for my cell number