[imported_Sidelichus]

I must agree with praecor loth, i have myself been thinking of quitting at least 5 times now and i play like 3 weeks inx.
Why? Like he said, skillgain is so slow you lose interest in em, but also the whole thing is designed like everyone is forced to macro.
I would think that ultima online would be about gameplay, and i know its near impossible to build a shard in wich ettins are something you hunt with a group and the oldest player would be the only guy gm of something on the shard, without that gameplay all that remains is hoarding and pvp.
So people want to max out to compete, so people macro since skillgain is slow. But skillgain is so slow that even the less usefull skills take a week to gm, so what you get is a shard full of people of wich 80% is afk macroing.
Every new player cannot play untill he/she can compete, thus has to start from scratch taking at least a month or 2 to get some decent skills.
Ive always been convinced that the only cure for boredom is something called moderation, the more moderate things are on a shard the better.
in that pre (im used to aos) succeeds but leaves a gap that could be evolved to become a force.
Pre is moderate, and is the easiest of the two to create gameplay on since you have alot less to worry about balancewise.
Making macroing easier equals more gameplay but has as negative side that certain things will have to become worth less.
The gameplay? think of more armors on the shard enhancing both pvp itself and the loot, think of more people 'able' to pvp or pvm.

This shard needs to make up its mind, it is no original ultima shard in wich everything is a adventure and your stat will go up once a week. If it is a pvp shard then making skillgain so slow is the most dumb approach possible. Especially in its beta state, since what a shards first glance shows will descide its potential to players, and trust me on this one, there arent that much people playing ultima online still.