[Azuru]

They probably do read here.
But there is one dilemma , the staff will probably not add something that might scare veterans here much , and it seems to me that those veterans are scared very easily.
Its just an assumption , but i really cant deny that impression or hold it back , nothing will be added if some satisfied pvpers disagree with anything changing.
Thus the cycle repeats itselfs , its already begun , playerbase already has lowered after a peak, will continue to probably decrease slowly , ending in shutting down the server , maybe start again in restarting the server after a break after there are a certain amount of players telling about nostalgia.
Maybe thats not how it will go down , maybe its the way of any freeshard , which i ignore to accept.
But i think there must be taken some risk , not lowering the armor and weapon values here and there a little , but more major steps.

[Ramza]

Hiraku that's an interesting concept but it would pretty much gut the entire pvp system as it stands right now and would require a massive overhaul of weapons, spells, scrolls etc with months of testing.

edit: not just the pvp system but pvm also

I personally love the idea of rock paper scissors pvp with 3 different styles with strengths and weaknesses, but I don't think that is plausible for this shard. I'd love to try out a shard that had a system like that though. It's kind of sad that you can't use bows or weapons exclusively here, but it's just another style. One isn't better than the other, it's just different. I think that's what cause the arguments: people want to "upgrade" the system and the current players who are familiar don't see it as an upgrade, just a sidegrade.

[Azuru]

For me , adding thing would without question be an upgrade.
Of course you could argue that the fun of a game is always percieves subjectively , but even if its a seperatly shard with its own ruleset , uo is still a sandbox rpg.
One thing that rpgs and actually all action games today offer are different classes/playstyles/roles.
You could say from a professional game reviewers point that this shard is in comparison lacking , i know its kinda a bad comparison , also uo would not be rated good anyway on reviews if it came out today , but there is a little truth in it.

Aside from the promises about being 'true' to the core functions of Sphere 0.51a 'which is unique and considered by many to be the best representation of the essence and feel of early Ultima Online ' ( which i wholeheartly disagree with , having played the golden times of osi servers and the start of first german freeshards , fizzle and many thing which are missing here were always included) , why would be such ideas make no sense on this shard?

And of course you would need to test and simulate it (even giving players impressions of the developments and insights would be great) , throwing something in ruining the balance could affect the playerbase negativly.

[bloodrock]

Something has diffinatly changed. Had 200+ players on Feb 26 It has only been a litte over a month and were averaging 130-150 people?