Why?!

Ce Jayce

Ce Jayce

So a rant coming up here I guess.
Is it just my bad luck or is it becoming more and more common for shards and servers to up and disappear these days with no reason, explanation or contact?

I've played on a fair few free servers over the past 7 years and have seen many of them just disappear overnight with no reason or explanation from any of the staff at all.

The most recent of which is one that I was joint owner of and poured many hours of my time into to get up and running and working as a few people here will be aware of. No word from the Owner and the server & website disappeared overnight.
While I've tried to keep the players informed on what's happening it's kind of hard without any information.
It's just really fucking annoying that you whether a player or staff member put hours into a community, have a load of fun, make some good friends and then overnight it's gone and just stays gone.

Meh... rant over.
 
It is my guess that money plays a factor. No job-no money, no money- no internet, no internet-no server-no goodbye no reason why. Or death? It goes on & on all the possibilities. When I first started I wanted a shard so bad. So I hosted it off my local machine. I didn't have the money for a server host, the connection or the machine to do so. I had about 6 players and they all loved my work and ideas. However I couldn't connect to the internet or even play myself without lagging them. Thus another shard dies. Shard owners all have desires, goals, & dreams. But, making that a reality sometimes conflicts with real life. Family, children, work, love. All these can play a factor. There is no use in getting bent out of shape over it. It happens. Before, being a shard owner one should feel confident that they are in it for the long haul, and also be secure in the finance department. Really being a shard owner is sharing a dream. Sadly all we are is pixels in the wind. But, we all love what we do. Some more than others. And freeshard developers are notorious for disappearing. *POOF*
 
otimpyre said:
It is my guess that money plays a factor. No job-no money, no money- no internet, no internet-no server-no goodbye no reason why. Or death? It goes on & on all the possibilities. When I first started I wanted a shard so bad. So I hosted it off my local machine. I didn't have the money for a server host, the connection or the machine to do so. I had about 6 players and they all loved my work and ideas. However I couldn't connect to the internet or even play myself without lagging them. Thus another shard dies. Shard owners all have desires, goals, & dreams. But, making that a reality sometimes conflicts with real life. Family, children, work, love. All these can play a factor. There is no use in getting bent out of shape over it. It happens. Before, being a shard owner one should feel confident that they are in it for the long haul, and also be secure in the finance department. Really being a shard owner is sharing a dream. Sadly all we are is pixels in the wind. But, we all love what we do. Some more than others. And freeshard developers are notorious for disappearing. *POOF*
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Well I know that Ce Jayce could have hosted this server if he would have been contacted etc. The other owner kinda bailed and will not reply.

I am stumped as to what happened:\
 
it can be very frustrating im an expert of hard times and shards going poof. sad as i am to admit. its frustrating for all involved. a plan for back up hosting is always a good idea tho i know some owners hate the idea that someone else will have copies of their work. and customs personally i dont see keeping anything to myself there but reasons for disappearing can range and range. lets just hope that the worst did not happen and they are just on some hard times. something to bounce back from at any rate.
 
I know what you mean. One of the last shards I helped develop over 2 months with nearly all my free time.. then the owner starts freaking out because a barbed runic sewing kit with 28 charges dropped off a custom boss. He wanted only 10 use crafter tools for non-donators. Next thing you know everything we talked about in development had to do with money.. then he took it to the forums.

I think that's why a lot end up disappearing. Greed. Freeshards used to be way more fun than they are now when people were happy just to play UO for free and people actually engaged in PvP and shard owners didn't act like they were some kind of god or have 50 staff members.
Now 90% are pay to win and be catered to.

I've been developing mine on my home pc and will release it when I feel the balance is right. I don't have a donation section. I pay for everything on my own because I love to see players come in and see what they think of what I've made.

Don't get me wrong, I understand a shard has to be funded. But when you center your focus on donations, cater to those people.. others take offense and leave.
 
I've got nothing against the pay-to-play concept personally, if someone wants to try and make a living or part of their living with a UO Server then go for it!
However I think that the intentions should be clear right from the start and a server should be clear and honest about it. Pretending to be a completely free server with somewhat hidden and "under the counter" donation rewards to the non-donators and then helping out the donators with goodies and addons is wrong, annoying and deceitful. I would, will and currently do play on both types but if one of the "regular(?)" servers was to switch to a pay-to-play style I wouldn't be very happy about it at all and would probably stop playing there.
But straight up "Here is the donation section, here is what you get etc. etc. etc." right from the start of the server is fine with me. I know not everyone feels the same way about that though.

Just my two cents :)
 
Yeah that's exactly what I was saying. I am with you on letting it be known up front what you get but now a lot of shards are letting players make up things for the right price.

A very popular shard I played on that Insanity developed was amazing at one time. There was a ton of pvp going on, chat in world was non stop and fun. Then I get a message asking me to stop killing this person or that person because they are a frequent donator and they opened a ticket complaining (I do not loot or rez kill btw).

Soon after he (the owner not Insanity) took 90% of the good gold/token rewards and made those donation items or very hard to obtain.

Now pvp on that shard consists of who has bought the "pet of the month" and used "all kill".
 
To clear up before people think I'm targeting donators, that isn't the case I donated as well and now that I don't play I donate that money to emulator projects and VitNexCore.. although I'm not sure he got it or not lol. I want to see the community back the way it was.
 
One thing I personally love about DemiseUO and will constantly admire is the fact that I do not see greed o :pn that server... Custom servers I see a lot of greed in my opinion...

I loved Demise and playing there because the highest donation item was 25$ for a 7 skill to 100 which kept the game very fair and people still have to go get powerscrolls etc...

Personally I am a Slightly Cutsom/OSI person mainly because of equality...

Greed is something I see all around this world... Just go look around to what all of these companies are patenting.... Not to mention any names but there is a specific game on any smart device who has recently patented using the word "Candy" in any game name.... Ever.... Thats pretty greedy like come on. I just see a lot of greeed.

I will never be against Server owners taking money out of their server to go buy themselves something because hell they spend a lot of time work and effort into these servers... They deserve some pay.... But In my opinion.... That comes second to the players... Second to paying the bills... Sometimes even saving till you have a couple months already prepaid for just incase there is slow months....

This is my beliefs :p ... I may not be 100% pro open source but I am pro for free things unless you want to donate.
 
Very good comments here. This is why I believe in a project style shard creation. All staff has buy in to the project. If the shard owner has to back out, the shard should be offered to staff as part of the project.
 
As for donations, I've never used them. I can fund my server or I wouldnt open it. However, being a very busy guy, I can see the value to players to be able to advance their characters. I make pretty good money and it would cost me more to spend hours mining then it would to work those hours and buy ingots, lol
 
Donations are nice.. And I'm sure in a lot of peoples cases it probably is the only way hosting a shard is possible. But, it does leave room for abuse. I guess you just have to pick your battles..Support what you love.
 
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I worked all summer a full time job as I am only 17 I had a ton of extra money... Lets just say... Demise has recieved a nice donation from me of about 850$ over the course of the whole summer.

Since I am back in school I do not have the time at the moment for a job inbetween programming and school and such I don't have time for a part time job... Well atleast I like to prioritize Programming as I want to take it somewhere in life.

But anyways what I am saying is I really love donations. I love supporting something I believe in. I just hope they get put to use correctly and I feel like there is good people out therer that will and then there is the bad. Earn my trust and I will give you rewards :)

This summer I will have that same job and ServUO at this point will be receiving a good heap from me.
 
Yeah, I have no problem with donations, they certainly help people out, but I would be sure that my server is paid for even without them if I decided to take them.
 
That's the problem with some owners now. Instead of putting the money into development, server costs, or advertising some are pocketing it.. buying out vote sites and cheating votes making up and coming shards have no chance to grow. I know someone that played there that logged on the other day after 3 years of honest play and found out her account was banned because she had too much gold.... it isn't that hard to make that kind of money on that shard when there are pets that have 3khp 2k str and so on. This same person had also donated a HUGE amount to his shard. That is one of the reasons I can't stand that shard owner. I can understand some using donation money going in pocket for what an owner does.. but at least put some of it into the shard to show your players you appreciate it.
 
Doc said:
That's the problem with some owners now. Instead of putting the money into development, server costs, or advertising some are pocketing it.. buying out vote sites and cheating votes making up and coming shards have no chance to grow. I know someone that played there that logged on the other day after 3 years of honest play and found out her account was banned because she had too much gold.... it isn't that hard to make that kind of money on that shard when there are pets that have 3khp 2k str and so on. This same person had also donated a HUGE amount to his shard. That is one of the reasons I can't stand that shard owner. I can understand some using donation money going in pocket for what an owner does.. but at least put some of it into the shard to show your players you appreciate it
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I honestly don't understand why people like that even run a server! - Banning a player for having too much gold! That's not the players fault it's the fault of the server design! bah! People...
:D
 
Well I'm in no way innocent. I have been a pain in his side and have ranted a lot about him, but most people are blind as to his real side and I dislike people like him. But yeah this person had donated thousands over 3 years only to get banned because he decided she had cheated.
 
xG00BERx said:
.... You are an honorable guy.
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I just think the donations should be there to benefit the players that want to buy things because they don't have the time to powergame. You guys have me really thinking about this. There is a lot of good things you can do with the money if you are not counting on it for the server - charities, projects like ServUO, UOSteam, etc.
 
You know that's a great point. They SHOULD contribute back to the developers of the emulator and libraries they use to make that money. Great point.
 
Yeah that's nice of him. I asked and was supposed to be set up then stopped getting responses, but yeah that is very nice of him.
 
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