Serious question about "SHARD BOUND" !

twizag

Good afternoon
For some time now, You have entered the shard bound things. I roughly understand why, understand requests players, BUT - in the new event again shard bound... You are well aware that many shards are currently sparsely populated by players, as a result of which any trade is barely breathing. You have cut off the ability to trade them elsewhere-this is the Atlantic place , do not make a secret of it. This way You just lower the interest in the game itself, you can even say kill this interest. I'm just asking you to think 100 times about whether it's worth continuing to experiment with shard bound things at all. This path is definitely a dead end, this is not just my opinion..

popps

I am of a totally opposite thinking....

I see that Shard Bound items a VERY good thing.

Why ?

Because so the locals have the ability to trade and buy those items if they wish so....

If they were not Shard Bound, they would pretty much mostly end up being transferred to Atlantic and be sold there and the locals of those Shards where those items originated would remain empty handed, incapacitated to buy or trade them....

So, I see these items as being made Shard Bound a GOOD thing, and a very good one too.

It might be bad for players wanting to farm them on low population shards and transfer them to Atlantic to sell them for high gold, but it is VERY good, to my viewing, for the local players of those shards who get to actually be able to trade or buy them on their Shard, the one where they actually originated....

RockStaR

popps said:

I am of a totally opposite thinking....

I see that Shard Bound items a VERY good thing.

Why ?

Because so the locals have the ability to trade and buy those items if they wish so....

If they were not Shard Bound, they would pretty much mostly end up being transferred to Atlantic and be sold there and the locals of those Shards where those items originated would remain empty handed, incapacitated to buy or trade them....

So, I see these items as being made Shard Bound a GOOD thing, and a very good one too.

It might be bad for players wanting to farm them on low population shards and transfer them to Atlantic to sell them for high gold, but it is VERY good, to my viewing, for the local players of those shards who get to actually be able to trade or buy them on their Shard, the one where they actually originated....

Most shards or dead shards actually copy or mark up Atlantic prices lolol

TimSt

Not everyone has shard transfer shields that let them go on shopping trips to Atlantic and bring stuff back to their home shards for free. Blocking the transfer of some items to Atlantic causes the local shard supply to increase.  Which should bring down prices on the local shard.  Atlantic prices would rise thou. 

twizag

TimSt said:

Not everyone has shard transfer shields that let them go on shopping trips to Atlantic and bring stuff back to their home shards for free. Blocking the transfer of some items to Atlantic causes the local shard supply to increase.  Which should bring down prices on the local shard.  Atlantic prices would rise thou. 

At the moment, this is not the case. Well, prices will increase inside, and where will the buyers come from?

twizag

popps said:

I am of a totally opposite thinking....

I see that Shard Bound items a VERY good thing.

Why ?

Because so the locals have the ability to trade and buy those items if they wish so....

If they were not Shard Bound, they would pretty much mostly end up being transferred to Atlantic and be sold there and the locals of those Shards where those items originated would remain empty handed, incapacitated to buy or trade them....

So, I see these items as being made Shard Bound a GOOD thing, and a very good one too.

It might be bad for players wanting to farm them on low population shards and transfer them to Atlantic to sell them for high gold, but it is VERY good, to my viewing, for the local players of those shards who get to actually be able to trade or buy them on their Shard, the one where they actually originated....

I don't play on the Atlantic, but I take things there for sale, because there are no sales on Europe or they are very slow. If things get more and more hardBound, you will only have to finish playing after 16 years.

Lord_Nabin

I don't really think the shard bound thing is a problem. Keeps items available for shard players,

Seige is an ok example on how prices are lower do to the fact you can not bring or take items about. 

If shard transfers are your way of making gold well there are plenty of other ways to accomplish that with other items. 

twizag

Lord_Nabin said:

I don't really think the shard bound thing is a problem. Keeps items available for shard players,

Seige is an ok example on how prices are lower do to the fact you can not bring or take items about. 

If shard transfers are your way of making gold well there are plenty of other ways to accomplish that with other items. 

If we talk about any events, then 1 day is enough, what would you do for yourself, because where to put the rest? Store it until the house and Bank are full?

Pawain

popps said:

I am of a totally opposite thinking....

I see that Shard Bound items a VERY good thing.

Why ?

Because so the locals have the ability to trade and buy those items if they wish so....

If they were not Shard Bound, they would pretty much mostly end up being transferred to Atlantic and be sold there and the locals of those Shards where those items originated would remain empty handed, incapacitated to buy or trade them....

So, I see these items as being made Shard Bound a GOOD thing, and a very good one too.

It might be bad for players wanting to farm them on low population shards and transfer them to Atlantic to sell them for high gold, but it is VERY good, to my viewing, for the local players of those shards who get to actually be able to trade or buy them on their Shard, the one where they actually originated....

Let me know how many Bone Helms you get when nothing is brought in.

I like shopping on Atl and getting things that Atl will never see again.

Whether you know it or not, Items are brought from Atl to the populated shards at a faster pace then they go from these shards. LS has PKs that cause noise in chat during prime time. I know how few scrolls are produced each night.  I bring back more deco than spawns and events take from LS.  Many of the items on Atlantic are destined for another shard.  The transportation center for UO.

Lord_Nabin

@Pawain exactly correct. Well done.

Seth

I think everyone needs to be specific about what type of items should be shard bound and what not. 

I opine that if Decor items (Rewards) are shard bound then is fine. So far this has been the case for event drops on my shard in the past years. It does no harm to the way we play since they are just decor.

Functional items including PS, arties, tokens, weapons, armors, resources should remain unbounded. I wished Mastery Is also non-shard bound, but it was solved by buying transfer tokens to shards that have them. But if you make any new functional item shard bound it may really make some shards more dead in the Long term. 

Try to Equip a top sampire suit without buying anything, it will probably take me years if my job allow me the time. And low pop shards don’t sell much items, so we always shop at Atlantic. Making such items shard bound, then it may mean shutting down some shards for good. 

Seth

Digress a little, I want to promote cross shard trading:

Instead of having to transfer a character over and back just to buy stuff, can the UO store sell Courier tokens like Pen of Wisdom with 100 charges. Each charge will allow us transfer one bag at a time to another shard. This is where those mailboxes can be used to link and receive the bag at the destination shard.

This is not character transfer, so it is less powerful than the 14 year character transfer token. That is used for players joining events, pvp, in another shard + trading if they wish. 

Make this a store item, and also a veteran item say 7 year vet reward. It is not a character transfer shield but Courier shield. Think Fedex, DHL. They ship for me, not that I fly over myself, buy and come back.

psycho

Shard bound property is a necessary thing.

Yes I xfer to atl, yes I xfer items back,  but still I think its needed with more shard bound propeties.

A recent example of this is the town invasion, how many people did not scout several shards just waiting for a new town to spawn so they could rush in and kill all mages and leave after 5min. Left was the poor local population fighting spawn for two hours with no reward.

Now if the spellbooks were shard bound.... HMMMM

Another example is the EM rewards, how many foreign xsharding multibots are there compeard to the local population?

Now if the EM rewards were shard bound.... HMMMM

As for the new deceit event Undead Kin and its shard bound rewards, the rewards are not overpowered are they?  Its good for local new/returning players on all shards to use. Whereas the high end xsharding population who has played for two decades have not need for these items, thus shard bound.

popps

Seth said:

Digress a little, I want to promote cross shard trading:

Instead of having to transfer a character over and back just to buy stuff, can the UO store sell Courier tokens like Pen of Wisdom with 100 charges. Each charge will allow us transfer one bag at a time to another shard. This is where those mailboxes can be used to link and receive the bag at the destination shard.

This is not character transfer, so it is less powerful than the 14 year character transfer token. That is used for players joining events, pvp, in another shard + trading if they wish. 

Make this a store item, and also a veteran item say 7 year vet reward. It is not a character transfer shield but Courier shield. Think Fedex, DHL. They ship for me, not that I fly over myself, buy and come back.

Instead of having to transfer a character over and back just to buy stuff, can the UO store sell Courier tokens like Pen of Wisdom with 100 charges. Each charge will allow us transfer one bag at a time to another shard. This is where those mailboxes can be used to link and receive the bag at the destination shard.

This is an idea worth thinking over...

What do you think @Mesanna , @Bleak , @Kyronix ?

Rather then having to transfer an entire character with its Bank Box, Backpack and, possibly, packhorse(s) or Beetle(s), have a Post Office set some place where, say, Character Joe from Atlantic can bring a bag, pouch or backpack with items in it and send it over to, say, Pacific to character Jane for a charge to be used up for the transfer....

It would be necessary, of course, for character Joe that is sending the bag, to enter the unique character ID for character Jane on Pacific and only this character will be able to retrieve the bag with the items in it.

No character would be Transferred, only the items....

This could be sold at the UOStore for Sovereigns and when all charges are used up the item would no longer work.

One important thing, though, since players tend to want to "ship" things from several shards, I think that, rather then an expensive item with lots of charges, it should be a cheap item with only a few charges on so that a single account wanting to use it across several shards, could purchase several, one on each of the Shard they need to use it on, each with the few charges needed.... say that 1 charge will send a bag with up to 124 items in it, the "Postmark" stamp item needed for the sending could have like 5 charges and cost like 100 Sovereigns, for example.....

This way a player wanting to send some items from 5 or 6 Shards, could, with 500-600 Sovereigns expense cover his/her needs buying 1 of each of those Postmark stamp items for one each of the Shards they are needed to be used on...

Sounds to me a hell of a good idea....

What do you guys think ?

Seth

popps said:

Seth said:

Digress a little, I want to promote cross shard trading:

Instead of having to transfer a character over and back just to buy stuff, can the UO store sell Courier tokens like Pen of Wisdom with 100 charges. Each charge will allow us transfer one bag at a time to another shard. This is where those mailboxes can be used to link and receive the bag at the destination shard.

This is not character transfer, so it is less powerful than the 14 year character transfer token. That is used for players joining events, pvp, in another shard + trading if they wish. 

Make this a store item, and also a veteran item say 7 year vet reward. It is not a character transfer shield but Courier shield. Think Fedex, DHL. They ship for me, not that I fly over myself, buy and come back.

Instead of having to transfer a character over and back just to buy stuff, can the UO store sell Courier tokens like Pen of Wisdom with 100 charges. Each charge will allow us transfer one bag at a time to another shard. This is where those mailboxes can be used to link and receive the bag at the destination shard.

This is an idea worth thinking over...

What do you think @ Mesanna , @ Bleak , @ Kyronix ?

Rather then having to transfer an entire character with its Bank Box, Backpack and, possibly, packhorse(s) or Beetle(s), have a Post Office set some place where, say, Character Joe from Atlantic can bring a bag, pouch or backpack with items in it and send it over to, say, Pacific to character Jane for a charge to be used up for the transfer....

It would be necessary, of course, for character Joe that is sending the bag, to enter the unique character ID for character Jane on Pacific and only this character will be able to retrieve the bag with the items in it.

No character would be Transferred, only the items....

This could be sold at the UOStore for Sovereigns and when all charges are used up the item would no longer work.

One important thing, though, since players tend to want to "ship" things from several shards, I think that, rather then an expensive item with lots of charges, it should be a cheap item with only a few charges on so that a single account wanting to use it across several shards, could purchase several, one on each of the Shard they need to use it on, each with the few charges needed.... say that 1 charge will send a bag with up to 124 items in it, the "Postmark" stamp item needed for the sending could have like 5 charges and cost like 100 Sovereigns, for example.....

This way a player wanting to send some items from 5 or 6 Shards, could, with 500-600 Sovereigns expense cover his/her needs buying 1 of each of those Postmark stamp items for one each of the Shards they are needed to be used on...

Sounds to me a hell of a good idea....

What do you guys think ?

Back to hijacking this thread and diverting to topic "Item Shard Transfer totem". Maybe it should look like a Totem instead of a "shield", that activates a shard transfer courier/pigeon/DHL/Fedex, whatever.

I am thinking of creating a new thread for this later:

>> Rule:

1) Only allow items transfer between shard in the same account.

2) It will transfer one bag per charge.

>> Process:

Destination Shard:

a) Player must assign One mailbox as the receiver on the shard.

b) The mailbox must be secured in the house owned by the account.

Shipping Shard:
a) Player right click on totem to select destination shard.

b) Player double click transfer totem to start the transfer.

b) Target the cursor at a bag inside his backpack.

c) After all the confirmation window, the bag will disappear from the backpack.

d) Both account may need to log off or not? (unsure, need Dev to confirm)

e) The destination shard will copy the whole bag with items inside to the destination shard mail box.

>> Others:
a) Reinstate the use of bank cheques to transfer gold between shards.

- Upon clicking at destination mail box, the check will disappear and gold goes to the bank automatically.

- The cheque cannot leave the mailbox (cannot drag or move it out, only accept double click).

b) Pets can also be converted to statuette and transferred to destination mailbox.

- Upon clicking at destination mailbox, the pet will be re-converted back into a live pet with same specs.

- The statuette cannot leave the mailbox (cannot drag or move it out, only accept double click).

Note: The mailbox is like a "Lighthouse", it is linked to the account, and allow the items to be transferred to a shard only if it is assigned. If there is no such mail box assigned on the shard, the transfer will fail.

@Kyronix Pls add this to your consideration in near future. It will help save the under populated shards because not many people have transfer token or be willing to pay 2000 Sov per transfer of character. Alot are inactive players with very few years in the game, and not sure if they want to play long term.

A more economical, easily accessible method of cross shard trading is necessary.

Arnold7

Why not just solve this problem by having the Ultima Online Official store reduce the price of the $20 transfer token to something much more reasonable for those just interested in visiting another shard and making it round trip?  It would be easy enough for developers to put some restrictions on the transfer so that it could not be abused.  Maybe actually consider the needs of players that have not been playing for the last 14 years or even the last 5 years.
 
It really frustrates me that the Ultima Online Store does not sell much of anything useful to a newer player that wants to advance in the game making those third party vendors we are not suppose to buy from the only realistic source of those items.  Yes, it is true if I had enough gold, I could buy some of those items from in game vendors.  But having played now about two years, I realize that only way to get that much gold is to buy it from  -you guessed it-  third party vendors.

And by the way as long as I am venting, can't you do anything about that Avatar with the kasa hat and blue robe that appears every day in New Haven advertising what I assume is a third party vendor?  I guessing that most new players, including myself, will will not be aware that making a purchase from that vendor is an event that can have them banned from the game.  

Seth

Arnold7 said:

Why not just solve this problem by having the Ultima Online Official store reduce the price of the $20 transfer token to something much more reasonable for those just interested in visiting another shard and making it round trip?  It would be easy enough for developers to put some restrictions on the transfer so that it could not be abused.  Maybe actually consider the needs of players that have not been playing for the last 14 years or even the last 5 years.
 

This would diminish the value of accounts that was paid for 14 years. If you have paid the account for 14 years and earned those shields, would you feel cheated if the UO store sell the (better) shield for only $2 each for everyone else, which also allow transfer of 5 packed animals?

There is a reason to differentiate and extract the function of shipping items rather than to diminish the value of existing "whole character" transfer with backpack, etc. Last time, it was really meant to transfer character between shard. For example, I worked in US for 5 years so I played at Pacific. After that I worked in Asia, so I transferred character to Asian shards.

But now its different. It is about items, not character. And shards are dying and even when you want to buy things there is no one selling - except in some shards like Atlantic (or the ONLY shard selling most stuff).

It is best not to affect existing "Character Transfer Shield" because such demand will muddle up and attract more negative response.

Stick with "Item Transfer" please, so that this request does not get killed off because someone try to make the current Character Transfer cheap. Even so, I don't think they would agree to implement item-only transfer. Asking to lower the price of character transfer token - I won't even go there. Technically its easy to change $20 to $2, in reality you will cause alot of unhappiness to veteran players.

I also own a 14-year account (in fact 18.67 year account) and I don't have any issues if they do not accept my idea of item-transfer. I am asking for the sake of players with much less than 14-year old account.

I cannot afford to be the courier for them all the time.

Seth

psycho said:

Shard bound property is a necessary thing.

Yes I xfer to atl, yes I xfer items back,  but still I think its needed with more shard bound propeties.

A recent example of this is the town invasion, how many people did not scout several shards just waiting for a new town to spawn so they could rush in and kill all mages and leave after 5min. Left was the poor local population fighting spawn for two hours with no reward.

Now if the spellbooks were shard bound.... HMMMM

If spellbooks are shard bound, I will cry. Thank goodness they are not shard-bound!

I got tired of doing the invasion, so I shopped at another shard and found a good deal for mage slayer that I missed. It was only +25 SDI but is enough.

Scout the shards to fly over and do the spawn each time,setting up equipping macros, stocking up, etc - No Way.

In addition, the moment the next town is announced, you have only 5 mins (if lucky) to find and kill the mage general.

Character transfer takes up to 1 hour - yeah, fly over to help them clear the remaining non-mage spawn.

popps

Seth said:

Arnold7 said:

Why not just solve this problem by having the Ultima Online Official store reduce the price of the $20 transfer token to something much more reasonable for those just interested in visiting another shard and making it round trip?  It would be easy enough for developers to put some restrictions on the transfer so that it could not be abused.  Maybe actually consider the needs of players that have not been playing for the last 14 years or even the last 5 years.
 

This would diminish the value of accounts that was paid for 14 years. If you have paid the account for 14 years and earned those shields, would you feel cheated if the UO store sell the (better) shield for only $2 each for everyone else, which also allow transfer of 5 packed animals?

There is a reason to differentiate and extract the function of shipping items rather than to diminish the value of existing "whole character" transfer with backpack, etc. Last time, it was really meant to transfer character between shard. For example, I worked in US for 5 years so I played at Pacific. After that I worked in Asia, so I transferred character to Asian shards.

But now its different. It is about items, not character. And shards are dying and even when you want to buy things there is no one selling - except in some shards like Atlantic (or the ONLY shard selling most stuff).

It is best not to affect existing "Character Transfer Shield" because such demand will muddle up and attract more negative response.

Stick with "Item Transfer" please, so that this request does not get killed off because someone try to make the current Character Transfer cheap. Even so, I don't think they would agree to implement item-only transfer. Asking to lower the price of character transfer token - I won't even go there. Technically its easy to change $20 to $2, in reality you will cause alot of unhappiness to veteran players.

I also own a 14-year account (in fact 18.67 year account) and I don't have any issues if they do not accept my idea of item-transfer. I am asking for the sake of players with much less than 14-year old account.

I cannot afford to be the courier for them all the time.

Why not just solve this problem by having the Ultima Online Official store reduce the price of the $20 transfer token to something much more reasonable for those just interested in visiting another shard and making it round trip?

Often, a player might have all slots already full at a given Shard so, in order to transfer a character from Shard A to Shard B, they would need to delete one character on Shard B which they may not want to do for a number of reasons....

Furthermore, the character would then be on Shard B and if the player wants him/her back to A, they would need to transfer it again....

So, the ability to send a bag with items in place of transferring a character would enable all those players not interested in transferring characters or not wanting to delete charaters if they have all of their slots as full on a Shard, be able to....

Personally, I think it would be a good addition and a very usefull one to Ultima Online.

Lady_Storm

One day I was talking to the powers that be about how its always the same players who come to a EM event and get or in the end buy up the items from the resident players and they end up for monster prices on Atlantic before even they have any idea the value of it.   Main example was one event that every drop was bought up or snagged by Atlantic players. The hour after they were done at the event every one was on a high end vendor in Luna square on Atlantic!
These players have sets of Event hunters on most shards all the same and at armor and skill levels we normal people can only dream of.  They spend plats on this so they do get the drops.
Making the odd number of items shard bound keep the players of those shards happy that they finally get some to keep. Its never said if the item will be so by the EM or the Dev. Its fair.
Perhaps if the Dev is willing to go one step further to ease this they can make the drops a 50 50 % of transferable/shard bound.  Out of 12 drops 6 will be shard bound the rest free to transfer.  
This is a simple way to fix the argument.

Pawain

Doing events on all shards is a play style.  I don't do it but if others find it entertaining then they should be able to do it and return with what they earned.  

The prices of these things are set by the market.  The players on the shard should not sell them, but when they do, it is their choice.

I am more for a clicky at the end of the event that gives a reward to all who participated.  The traders get what they want. The hometown players get an item that they can do what they want with.