What happened with the classic server thing?

I've been out for a while. Months ago people where debating about the chance of EA setting a shard to play with the classical configuration. I dont know how it ended at last but i can figure it. Any help?

Not enough interest, it wont be done. We also wont be going back to the "good old days" in real life. Neither are as good as people imagine.

It was a bad idea, the game was rubbish pre AOS, i know i played it

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Noone can agree on what a "classic server" should be for one, secondly it would detract from current game development which the UO team doesn't exactly seem to have the manpower to handle.

If you're playing in the MMO/persistent world genre expecting nothing to ever change, you're in the wrong genre. MMOGs are based on constant changes and additions. Sometimes for the better, sometimes... not.

These are the two reasons why it will never happen. Even if the UO team had the manpower to build a shard with a third ruleset, no agreement could ever be reached on what "classic" is.

When I came back, I looked through a bunch of the classic shard threads, and there seemed to be five main ideas for a classic shard:
* 1997 UO
* T2A UO (1998)
* Renaissance (Tram/Fel) UO
* Pre-Publish 16 UO
* Pre-AOS UO

I did see somebody arguing for a "classic" shard with item insurance, which I thought was hilarious.

I think if the classic shard fans could have gotten together back in 2008 or 2009 (before the layoffs) and presented a unified front, they might have had a chance. Now the UO team just isn't big enough, and the classic shard fans are too divided.

Not to mention that many hardcore classic shard fans went off to either start up or join free shards that had the exact ruleset they wanted. Those people are not going to give up their communities they helped build to come back to the EA/subscription shards.

There is another aspect as well that was brought up in another thread - look at the specialty shards - Siege/Mugen, and how hard it's been to get support for them. I can't see a "classic" shard, even if people could agree upon what "classic" means, being any better supported than those two. Even when UO had a larger team, it could still be tough to get support for those shards.

Draconi said it best and I for one must agree with the Dev on this. The vast cost of the remaking of a classic shard and the loss of the original blueprints for it make the request for a Classic Shard Impossible to fill. WB btw

Petra close this down plz

I believe the interest is there as well, although I agree with you - those interested have moved on, presumably to free shards that have those rulesets. The problem is still designating exactly what "classic" really means.

Both sides? Try just the classic side - like Dermott and I said - the classic fans could never decide on a ruleset.

If you do pure 1997 UO, there are going to be T2A fans pissed that it doesn't have T2A, and Ren fans pissed that it doesn't have Tram.

If you do T2A UO, there are going to 1997 fans pissed that it's anything but the launch UO, and there are going to be Ren fans pissed that it doesn't have Tram.

If you do circa 2000 Renaissance/Tram, you're going to have 1997 UO fans pissed that it has T2A and Ren/Tram, and T2A fans pissed that it has Ren/Tram. That's not even touching the pre-pub 16 fans (which are probably more Ren/Tram fans) and the pre-AOS fans who don't want AOS but want pub 16.

Like I said, somebody should have tried to unify the classic fans and make a unified case, but getting classic fans to agree on a time frame for a classic shard is like rounding up half a dozen cats that want to go half a dozen different directions.

This is illustrated by how many free shards there are that claim to be "classic" but all differ about what they consider to be classic.

I think the consensus was that first off what folk "loved" about that time is long gone ..... no more would there be "newbs" to pick on and destroy time and time again because new players who are NOT into PvP have too many other "safe" choices to pick from.... therefore the "fun" of the old days would NOT be there and there is NO way to bring it back... Most folk would never be food for the fodder again.

Secondly... If and this is a BIG if.... a Fel ruleset server were such a splendorous thing which it is not.... Why then is it that Seige and Mugen have so very few players??????

The logic would dictate that a classic shard no matter how folk try to pull it off though we all know it is NOT possible given the current state of the Game and DEV's..... is a dead horse.

Umm...No, Warder.

People took what they liked and deemed it the "consensus."

Others claimed the consensus was pre-AoS, but then Morgana, the de facto leader of the movement, labeled anything other than pre-Trammel "****." (Though she later reversed herself.) One free shard even has immediately post-AoS as its classic era. Ironically I'd thrown that out there as a joke at one point.

What the "consensus" was was a moving target at best. And illusion is a more accurate description. There was not, ever, any actual consensus, but there were plenty of people claiming that their preferences were a consensus.

-Galen's player