[Altari]

Just some ideas:

1. Set a skill cap of about 1000 (10 GM skills) - That way, nobody has "every skill GM'd" and will have to make a choice between combat skills or crafting skills.

2. Combat skills (this includes magery, healing) should be easy gains to promote PvP and PvM. Nobody will bother going PvM in order to gain combat skills unless it is exceptionally easy to do so, and afk macroing is illegal.

3. Make ALL afk macroing illegal (making the skills harder is pointless, as it just means people will sit AFK for longer. Make the skills easier but require people to actually be present when gaining them).

4. There is no reason why people shouldn't make money from 300 hours work on a shard. Especially if they're present for all the work (no afk macroing).

5. Smithy/item gains should be harder, but the items they craft SHOULD ACTUALLY BE WORTH BUYING. Currently I'm getting more armor from a bunch of leather and studded armor I picked up from mummy's, harpy's, and wyverns than I do from, for example, a full set of ice armor... Why would people bother buying these armors if they're not worth it?

6. If you really wanted to force PvM, simply stop combat skill gains when attacking other players. That way people will be required to attack monsters to gain skills, instead of sitting AFK wrestling their friends and self-healing, thereby forcing PvM for any combat skill gains. Yes, it will piss off people who just like to log on, macro for a day or two, and then jump right in to PvP, but ultima online wasn't designed so that people could GM ten skills in a month by AFK macroing.

Currently, if you were going to attempt to GM magery by going PvM, it'd take you about a year :p