Message to TFO Guild

Well I was going to call a meeting either tonight or sometime before the shard went down but it seems I wont get a chance, so I will post what I was going to go over here. I just wanted to let everyone in the guild knwo that I, personally, am 100% in favor of what Lady Aly and Lord Dramin are doing in attempting to bring about balance and an economy into our world. I have also talked to Lady Nevaeh and she as well is 100% in favor of this. I was hoping to allay any fears that any guild member has and assure them that Lady Aly and Lord Dramin has our best interests and that of the Shards at heart. As for anyone who has donated to the shard and received items in exchange for that donation, it was stated in Lord Dramin's post that something would be done about that. Again, I can assure you that Lady Aly and Lord Dramin will be fair about this. Have they not always? We are still sort of in the beta stages of the shard make-up in my mind, and this is my opinion only, and things are still being worked out. The shard has only been up and running for a year. Mistakes happen and they must be corrected. Think of it this way, isnt it grand to be part of the birthing of a new world? And to be part of the testing process and to see some of your own ideas get implemented into the making of this Shard? Lady Aly and Lord Dramin work tirelessly trying to make this the best shard they can, and they have been extremely fair to each and everyone of us. This time around the shard became a bit unbalanced and it was felt that it was keeping us from growing and attracting newer players. We need new players if we are to survive and grow. This resetting of the shard will give the administrators the time to fix this. Before anyone gets all excited and upset, please give them a chance to do their work and then see what the results are. Once the changes are made, the shard will once again be a challenging, motivating home, where we will have to rely on each other for items such as runebooks, armor, furniture etc. We will once again be a guild, not just in name only, but a working guild, who call upon each other for help, reassurance, and guidance. Our guild titles will actually mean what they say. Hopefully, also, once the changes are made we will see more interest from the outside, and new people will start arriving and calling Gahnak home. An economy will start forming, and our world will be.....reborn.

Lord K'ael Stormfyre The Heart of the Dragon
Guild Leader TFO (The Fabled Ones)

Unfortunately the shard will always be unbalanced, it is the nature of games. Take a look at the difference between what the seniors start again with compared to what the newer players will re-start with (bare in mind new players are supposed to benefit the most from the preposed changes yet suffer the most at the beginning).

I give the shard up to 3 months before someone is soloing things that the staff didn't expect to be soloed. I wish everyone well, but once the shard comes back up I will be splitting what items I still have between whoever turns up with the bias towards weaker/ newer players and then I will be leaving for elsewhere.

I would go into more detail but unfortunately I feel its pointless as I have already gone in reasonable detail on a number of occasions and don't feel like reiterating myself to a blank void. If I was to stay then after a couple of weeks I would simply be in the same position I was in and would end up causing the staff to make more alterations after 5 or so months. The main thing for me is that after countless levelings of many characters on various different shard types over the last 9 or so years I have just no interest in re-building my character every 5 months.

Again I wish everyone well and so on but you'll be going through the lastest round of Gahnak and subsequent ones without me.

I wish you all the best in your gaming life and in your non computer oriented life. I hate to see you go but I respect your wishes. Good Luck in all you do.

Sorry I have to edit this post as I feel there is a bit more I need to say. The following is just my feelings and thoughts on things and not intended as a direct response to Rithik......nor is it intended as an argument or sermon.


Perhaps Rithik, you are correct in that in three months someone will be soloing things.....the keyword there is "someone" not "everyone" as it is now. I was never for raising skills or stats by use of deeds or any other means but I agreed as I felt it was something that should be tried. Perhaps you are also correct in the balance of things but again there is a way to balance things so that the scales are not tipped completely to the table on one side as they are now. A new player has no chance unless older players "hand" them everything. I know, I have sat many times and watched. All veteran players can kill almost everything in game if not in one hit, two or three. There is no challenge to anything. I spend most of my time trying to figure out how to make things more interesting for all, be fair to new players as well as old and I understand these redo's are frustrating for all. But each player must do what he feels is best just as myself and Dramin must do what we feel is best. I really don't want to spend my time trying to find scripts or work on scripts so the Godlike players here have something to do. I like to interract and be a part of things as well other than on the flip side of being in a file folder on my computer figuring out this and that. More than that I hate putting veteran players through this bullcrap of redoing things because it makes a hell of alot of work for me and work for them as well. So these things are not done on the spur of the moment. We have had several players leave because they could not fight anything other than a lower level mobile without uber stats and skills or uber armor.....I take responsibility for that because i am here daily and added those items into game or let them be added. Lesson learned for me. I apologize to all for these redoings but until i get this place how i want it and how i feel it is correct and good for everyone I gotta do what feels right. This means trial and error. As Kael said, we are still new. We can stay the same and have nothing more than the basics, no new deco, no new worlds, no new monsters and be like other shards from our past but i see and want better things. I want new people to come into game and stay as well. I want the old people to stay. I hate to lose anyone because a new player could become a new friend and all the old players here are already old friends. But a good friend told me I could not sit here and please everyone and as hard as it is to admit, he was right so the best that I can offer is the best that i can do in whatever way I can achieve this. Even if it means changing things.

Love,
Aly

Not as many people can kill as much as you think they can. Also in time that someone will teach others then there will be many someones perhaps even a guild full (like you claim there is). You need to stop that someone from becoming that someone if you know what I mean... With the current preposed changes there is nothing there to do that, so stats/ skills will be lower so what, monsters are being weakened in preportion so no worries there. So gear is getting weakened again big deal its not like half the properties on the Angel gear (or most gear sets for that matter) are even usable because of some of the only existing caps) and all gear properties (excluding those that bump Skill/ HP/ INT/Dex) are worthless in comparison to stats and skill.

I could kill most things ingame without my angel gear and armed with only a NPC smith bought dagger. That is how powerful skill levels are, stats are there to make things more comfortable so you can make mistakes (especially HP/Dex) but even then are substantially more powerful than junk properties like DCI/HCI...etc.

Some of the medium-timer/ promising players I know of that left or dissapeared did so when the only ways for them to carry on/ compete with higher levels got removed/ stopped. No way for them to compete anymore without donating and even then as Seniors retained their pre-nerf status/ things this meant there was a void/ gap between them and the newers/ medium timers a gap that could never be filled unless the previous "method" was re-added back.

Put simply stop grandfathering (allowing people with now unattainable things to keep them) and use caps. Would my weapons damage have been as much of an issue if it was capped at 100, would my 19.6k HP have been such a nuscience if new caps meant it was lowered to 3500? but the means of reaching that cap still existed so that the mediocre players could eventually become capable seniors.

As for the new players, most leave anyways and its not the fault of anyone linked with the shard (existing player/ staff member) if they are foolish and decide to go somewhere that is meant for tougher players and then complain by saying "Oh on my last shard something else was here QQ". Oh and guess what there are actually people amongst the senior players who played back when the shard was a lot harder than it is now. Back when if you died to a low end red dragon kin guy you would not get your stuff back as no one could kill a single one without a dozen or so deaths and no one had more than 100k in gold. I still racked up most of my deaths on those dragonkin guys back then and I know Nev did as well. We survived, we progressed onto harder things because we were patient enough to learn how to beat them effectively after a while. If you die to things in the game as a brand new player then complain and ragequit then the shard is better suited without you as any game is.

i would like tio say that i can agree to Rithik, even tho some of the things he said. makes no sense to me. that might because i'm only made it to the 9th grade in school. and that i only been playing UO for just more than a year.
but what i really like to say is that i can deal with the down size on the stats of the monsters. i cand deal with the skill and the stats cap. but i can;t understand why we have to redo our skills all over agan. i sent Dramin a PM on the skills i need to beable to play the game. i have heard no response. please think about this one thing. how would yall feel if yall was on someone else server and this came to be and issue. would't yall be upset to have to start over again as far as skills and stats is consern. come one yall got to agree. ten skills . do yall really want new players. if so ten skills is not going to cut it. just my opinoin
i hope yall think about it a little more

Masta

Greetings Everyone.

Just a short response in regard to the 10 skills capped at 150, this allows players to basically choose an occupation for each of their charactors. As it stands now, one charactor is all that is needed even though I believe each account can have up to 5 charactors. This does not mean each player will choose to create alternates but for roleplay purposes I've always loved the idea.

Linzy has gotten rather lazy and I can't wait to put her tail back to work.

See everyone soon

Nev

I have kept quiet on the downsize to wait and see how it will look after everything is done for a reason. I will not state that reason here however but will respond to a few things. Yes the shard became unbalanced and I share the blame with Aly and Dramin on that as we are supposed to all work together to create a stable realm to live in for our players. As Nev stated 10 skills at 150 is plenty to make a very strong character that will be viable in this game. I played for two years on a shard that had a 1200 skillcap and the individual cap per skill was 120 and I was a very strong player able to go into most areas and survive IF I was careful. What I understood as the dream for Gahnak Falls when it was first introduced to me was that it would be a fun AND challenging place where as much as possible as playes progressed to that maximum limit they would be unable to solo the monsters in that tier. On that note YES it takes time and effort to do that and all of our veteran players have been more than willing to put that effort and time in to get to those levels and hunt down that gear and I see that promise in the newer players to get to that level of play ability. I know it is going to suck building those skills up again and maybe we'll hold some events to make it easier to do that by giving out deeds as prizes or just handing out skill. I know that isn't a final solution but it is a brainstorm. Please feel free to come to me with any suggestions to bring before the entire staff. You all know me (I hope) as a fair and level headed person who tries to help out as much as possible and make things as smoothly as possible. I don't want this to hurt the efforts and time everyone put in and we will do our best to compensate players as we go. It is sad that Rithik has decided to leave us but I personally wish him well as we have played together for some time both on and off of Gahnak Falls. Please be patient and TALK to us on your concerns so we can take them under advisement and try to implement our changes with those in mind to try and keep everyone at peace. Thank You

Greetings everyone.

I have something to say too!

Kinda.

You guys type alot. D: