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Ultima Online Growth

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  • herculeshercules Member UncommonPosts: 4,924

    http://www.mmorpgchart.com/

    Everyone got their own chart to show.

    If you look at this chart it shows that the numbers pre trammel was hovering at 150-200k at best.

    After trammel it kept on rising hitting its peak at 250k at around july 2003.Then it declined.One reason only game got old simple as that.

    It happens to all mmorpg as they age.

  • HarafnirHarafnir Member UncommonPosts: 1,350
    I was just wondering, upon glancing at the chart, how a game could have negative 55.000 player. Is that 55.000 players that is really really really not playing? They are not playing UO so strongly, it calls upon the negative forces of the underworld? I have no idea, I am bad at math.

    "This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
    It should be thrown with great force"

  • ElnatorElnator Member Posts: 6,077
    You are all over-analyzing this.  What caused UO's decline was a number of things but Trammel absolutely was the largest.

    Pre-Trammel UO had an extremely loyal player base.  Because of the intensity of the gameplay and the inherrant fun it brought.  Even people who longed for safety quickly learned that without the PVP risk the game wasn't as fun.  Thus they started screaming for EQ "like" content with raids, loot, etc. 

    Before trammel the playerbase was loyal and loved the game despite the older graphics.  After rolling trammel people got complacant.  There was no longer any real risk so they now wanted to get uber items.  So EA gave them uber items.  Then they wanted 'better graphics'.

    By putting trammel out EA drove off many of the LOYAL fanbase in order to cater to a vocal, but slightly minority, fanbase which would eventually leave "once they finished the game".  The hard-core loyal fanbase quickly moved to free shards that offered "classic UO"... And, as proof that they are a loyal fanbase, two of the known free-shards actually have more active players than any 1 official server...

    No, Trammel didn't kill UO by itself.  But it is the underlying festering wound that made it capable for serious attrition to occur.  Those who LOVED the original UO left because it's been irrevocably altered from what made it so great.  Replaced by mechanics so similar to other MMORPG's that UO, on a trammel server, only has it's skill system to set it apart.  And that alone isn't enough to retain loyalty... thus there are fare fewer die-hard loyalists in UO... thus the game's steady decline since trammel was introduced.

    Not saying Trammel killed UO all by itself.  But trammel took out the one underpinning that made UO truely unique.


    Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
    Sig image Pending
    Still in: A couple Betas

  • BrianshoBriansho Member UncommonPosts: 3,586

    I agree, without Trammel you wouldn't have as many banksitters.
    They have spoiled the playerbase time and time again.
    Most of the playerbase de-evolved into a "ME ME ME, MINE MINE MINE" twink mentality.
    Just check out the uo.stratics.com messageboards. The UO Hall is pretty much Spiels N Rants X 30000.
    People are constantly flaming the developers to change things here and there saying its going to help balance the game.

    UO is an example of the developers listening to the playerbase too much.
    Devs need input but in UO they try to make everyone happy and its just running the game into the ground.



    Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!

  • herculeshercules Member UncommonPosts: 4,924

    considering UO saw its peak 3 years after trammel with 250k accounts i doubt its fair to say trammel crowd was not loyal.

    You are assuming the ppl who left because of trammel were more loyal.There is no evidence to show this.After all UO was 3 years old when trammel was released and half the numbers probably never played UO at release.

    Game is old and numbers drop .Lets face it ppl want to try new things and sitting in the same game for 9 years is something most will never consider.

    Also lets not forget the free shards.While i cannot name any in specific a few months ago i tried the origin servers for a few days and they seems like filled and more laggy then a specific group of 3 servers i checked out right about that time which are free to play and are classified according to the expansions.And there are hundreds of free sard thought most emptry.

    The actual players on all shards free or paid is probably easily 500k+

  • galefan2004galefan2004 Member Posts: 127
    T2A was not the best era of the game. EA did make a totally different game, but that was AoS. It had nothing to do with Trammel at all. The game started losing players a few months after AoS came out, and it has been downhill ever since because AoS took everything UO was and changed it.
  • galefan2004galefan2004 Member Posts: 127



    Utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter bollocks.
    I won't argue on this point any further, your points are based on opinion and you have no facts to back your argument up.


    Wow you might want to try taking your own stance here seeing the only facts you have shown is that UO has declining numbers. You don't mention that UO had top numbers RIGHT BEFORE AoS, and it has gone downhill ever since.
  • galefan2004galefan2004 Member Posts: 127

    growth to over 300,000 subscriptions. 


    UO NEVER had 300,000 subscriptions. It capped at around 250,000, and it capped with the release of AoS (mostly because at that time everyone had 5 accounts to place houses). Then people saw the stupidity of AoS and started to leave in droves.
  • herculeshercules Member UncommonPosts: 4,924


    Originally posted by galefan2004

    growth to over 300,000 subscriptions. 



    UO NEVER had 300,000 subscriptions. It capped at around 250,000, and it capped with the release of AoS (mostly because at that time everyone had 5 accounts to place houses). Then people saw the stupidity of AoS and started to leave in droves.

    yep paid uo never did more then about 250k accounts.But i really wonder how many play UO on some free shard.Everyone i know that still plays UO play it on a free shard.The last guy i knew from back in 2000 or so recently quit and moved to -you guessed it a free shard.
  • ElnatorElnator Member Posts: 6,077


    Originally posted by hercules

    Originally posted by galefan2004

    growth to over 300,000 subscriptions. 



    UO NEVER had 300,000 subscriptions. It capped at around 250,000, and it capped with the release of AoS (mostly because at that time everyone had 5 accounts to place houses). Then people saw the stupidity of AoS and started to leave in droves.

    yep paid uo never did more then about 250k accounts.But i really wonder how many play UO on some free shard.Everyone i know that still plays UO play it on a free shard.The last guy i knew from back in 2000 or so recently quit and moved to -you guessed it a free shard.



    The one I play on has over 6000 players ;) 

    Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
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  • sempiternalsempiternal Member UncommonPosts: 1,082


    Originally posted by Harafnir
    I was just wondering, upon glancing at the chart, how a game could have negative 55.000 player. Is that 55.000 players that is really really really not playing? They are not playing UO so strongly, it calls upon the negative forces of the underworld? I have no idea, I am bad at math.

    Uh, notice the label on the y axis.  The chart represents performace or growth during two different eras, not total players.  Trammel, lost 55,000 more players than it started with.  That does not mean there were negative 55,000 players!
  • 7Fold7Fold Member Posts: 318

    Trammel didnt kill UO in subscriptions, but it did kill the community. What once was a game that needed teamwork to survive, guild alliances, friends,  became a 10 accounts to each person with 30 houses spread amongst each account, greed game.     The risk was gone, and so was the economy.

    Not to mention, everyone seems to fail to understand that when trammel got introduced it doubled the land space which further split the community. A much better way to have done this would have been to allow players to have moved there accounts to a pvp switch shard than to split the land into like they did. This would have kept both players in UO, so yes in the end Trammel hurt UO because the way it was introduced. They should have had pvp and non pvp servers, then everything would have been just fine.

    And ya like previous posters said AOS was the big killer. Trammel hurt the community, AOS nailed the coffen lid shut, no more need for smiths, insurance bleh...   

    I would easily say they are more people playing private classic shards than the official Ultima Online game. Yep according to mmorpgchart UO has around 130k subscriptions, thats the key word SUBSCRIPTIONS not players. Like I said there is alot of players out there with 5-10+ accounts, im sure the actual player base is quiet low, considering there always bitching about the lack of players over at the Stratics messegeboard.

  • ElnatorElnator Member Posts: 6,077


    Originally posted by 7Fold

    Trammel didnt kill UO in subscriptions, but it did kill the community. What once was a game that needed teamwork to survive, guild alliances, friends,  became a 10 accounts to each person with 30 houses spread amongst each account, greed game.     The risk was gone, and so was the economy.
    Not to mention, everyone seems to fail to understand that when trammel got introduced it doubled the land space which further split the community. A much better way to have done this would have been to allow players to have moved there accounts to a pvp switch shard than to split the land into like they did. This would have kept both players in UO, so yes in the end Trammel hurt UO because the way it was introduced. They should have had pvp and non pvp servers, then everything would have been just fine.
    And ya like previous posters said AOS was the big killer. Trammel hurt the community, AOS nailed the coffen lid shut, no more need for smiths, insurance bleh...   
    I would easily say they are more people playing private classic shards than the official Ultima Online game. Yep according to mmorpgchart UO has around 130k subscriptions, thats the key word SUBSCRIPTIONS not players. Like I said there is alot of players out there with 5-10+ accounts, im sure the actual player base is quiet low, considering there always bitching about the lack of players over at the Stratics messegeboard.


    I have a former guildmate who still plays on the official servers.  According to her they are damn near vacant.  You might stumble across 1 or 2 people in an entire day of play, if you're lucky, unless you go to the most popular areas, in which case you might trip across 20 or so.  Even the towns are pretty vacant (brittania, etc) from what I understand.

    On the flip side on the shard I play on you can't run very far at all without runing into other players.  I think we peak at about 800 players online on any given evening (usually actually about 600).  And the server feels pretty crowded, actually. 

    Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
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    Still in: A couple Betas

  • sempiternalsempiternal Member UncommonPosts: 1,082



    Originally posted by Elnator
    I have a former guildmate who still plays on the official servers.  According to her they are damn near vacant.  You might stumble across 1 or 2 people in an entire day of play, if you're lucky, unless you go to the most popular areas, in which case you might trip across 20 or so.  Even the towns are pretty vacant (brittania, etc) from what I understand. 



    I logged in last week, its still nothing but a rotting hollow carcass of it's first few years of magnificence.

  • goneglockingoneglockin Member UncommonPosts: 706

    Hi- I'm one of the people who left because UO went trammel.  I was mostly a resource gather, crafter, and home maker.  I did enjoy PvP and had a red that I roleplayed with as a lone warrior; attacking and killing only those who were very rude.  I never ganked.  Ever.

    When Trammel came out; Felucca began to empty out fast- and later became nothing but a gankfest.  Most of the industry, business, and daily encounters/adventures dried up for me.  Ultimately Without good and evil coexisting on the same world; the game lost everything that made it fun.

    I was also pissed they took all the leaves off my trees.  The world just looked ugly.  There was no reason to do that.

    Hope you got your things together. Hope you are quite prepared to die. Looks like we're in for nasty weather. ... There's a bad moon on the rise.

  • sempiternalsempiternal Member UncommonPosts: 1,082
    You are not alone.  As you can see from the growth chart, UO has lost 55,000 accounts since Renaissance divided the lands and changed the gameplay.
  • ToodlesToodles Member UncommonPosts: 121

    WHat s sh*ton of you clusterf*cks don't take in to account is that DAOC was released a year after trammel was. DAOC came new to the scene sporting a whole new type of pvp. Anarchy Online was just before that. Many of us hard core fel-side pvp'ers were foaming at the mouths when our friends or guildmates started telling us about new games with far better graphics being developed. Soon, 1 or 2 would be invited to a beta, then they would come back to us and give us all kinds of juicy info. I Loved pvp and IDOC camping in Fel. Nothing will ever beat that for me in any game. However, the carebear turn UO took and the release of DAOC a year later coupled with EQ buying out Origin - well you had a 1-2-3 punch knocking all the wind out of whatever sail UO had still going for it.

    There were alot of reasons UO began to decline:

    Age

    Competition

    Arguments in dev.

    Rule changes

    etc.

     

    It's not linked to just 1 thing.

  • BrainyBrainy Member EpicPosts: 2,026

    Well considering a bunch of griefers and bandwagoners left on the release of trammel, EQ was released, and DAOC was released, yet still the subscriptions for UO increased steadily.  If UO would never have changed to the trammel ruleset, their wouldnt have been a UO now or 5yrs ago years ago for that matter. 

    If you look at that chart you will notice also that the later a game released the more popular they were likely to become.  Where the popular game of the year had almost double the subs of the previous most popular game.  All the way to WoW, where that game blew the rest out of the water.  I think its mostly that MMO's in general were becoming mainstream.

    I would bet that if UO would have started with Trammel ruleset in the firstplace, the game would have been 3 times as popular as it was.  Sooooo many people quit during the pre trammel period - better known as ganker/griefer/scammer paradise.  Where all the popular pvp spots were right outside of all the newb zones and all the bank areas were full of naked thieves.

  • RainStarRainStar Member Posts: 638
    Seems to me that in a way griefers control the future of a game. Whiners aka nerf callers do too.
  • GameloadingGameloading Member UncommonPosts: 14,182
    Trammel didn't scare people away. it was Everquest that drawed players away from UO. UO was old and outdated.
  • D0minati0nD0minati0n Member Posts: 25

    I was in THE largest guild in uo. Tram came out. We all said goodbye and watched uo turn into a chatroom. I mean why go to fel? to get robbed? killed and looted? Maybe its why leave fel.... its not like UO was a heavily oriented around weapons or armor or anything, i mean you shouldnt be rare hunting alone if your afraid to die, not to mention losing a rare was not the worse that could happen to you. Me and a buddy camped a house till it fell and placed another one over it... We had no draw tiles and tons of stuff you'd never see in the game. He robbed me and got away with it lol! so i told a gm he had a no draw tile :) Now that was UO...

  • BrainyBrainy Member EpicPosts: 2,026



    Originally posted by D0minati0n

    I was in THE largest guild in uo. Tram came out. We all said goodbye and watched uo turn into a chatroom. I mean why go to fel? to get robbed? killed and looted? Maybe its why leave fel.... its not like UO was a heavily oriented around weapons or armor or anything, i mean you shouldnt be rare hunting alone if your afraid to die, not to mention losing a rare was not the worse that could happen to you. Me and a buddy camped a house till it fell and placed another one over it... We had no draw tiles and tons of stuff you'd never see in the game. He robbed me and got away with it lol! so i told a gm he had a no draw tile :) Now that was UO...



    Actually UO had a steady increase in subs after trammel release, even with all the little rebelous kids leaving because they couldnt grief newbs anymore.
  • MarkuMarku Member Posts: 452

    i started UO a couple months before trammel was released, and although it was quite exciting/scary i wasnt able to explore as much as i was able to in trammel, trammel allowed me to access more of the world. I was quite a RPer so i enjoyed UO for quite a few more years until they brought out age of shadows which really ****ed the game over. Since then ive been seeking the UO formula in other mmorpgs but have failed to find one(SWG was almost close in pre-cu but cu/nge destroyed my interest). Roma Victor has elements of the UO world but lacks the cash/size of team to bring out patches quicker. Ryzom tbh i havent played enough of, its not very newbie friendly.

    You're probably all better off playing on those free UO shards if you miss the old versions so much. I found it difficult to get into those because of not knowing anyine in them and generaly they're all pvp hardcore.


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  • RainStarRainStar Member Posts: 638
    I didn't like AoS either, things just seemed to go downhill with that expansion.
  • vengeful85vengeful85 Member Posts: 65



    Originally posted by Brainy



    Originally posted by D0minati0n

    I was in THE largest guild in uo. Tram came out. We all said goodbye and watched uo turn into a chatroom. I mean why go to fel? to get robbed? killed and looted? Maybe its why leave fel.... its not like UO was a heavily oriented around weapons or armor or anything, i mean you shouldnt be rare hunting alone if your afraid to die, not to mention losing a rare was not the worse that could happen to you. Me and a buddy camped a house till it fell and placed another one over it... We had no draw tiles and tons of stuff you'd never see in the game. He robbed me and got away with it lol! so i told a gm he had a no draw tile :) Now that was UO...


    Actually UO had a steady increase in subs after trammel release, even with all the little rebelous kids leaving because they couldnt grief newbs anymore.




     Well said Brainy, all the **ssing and moaning done  seems to be by the players that are mad because pvp was turned into player vs skilled player that were there for pvp only  and thier  "fun" of  killing miners and  resource gatherers,and new players  trying to gain a foothold  was reduced to fighting  another player that wanted to actually fight against other players.
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