Reasons you don't play now?

[Thane ir'Wyndan]

Hello I am making an inquiry of current and former players who have either stopped playing or don't play much anymore.

Why is it you don't play Sylvan any longer?  What changes could lure you back?  Please be as specific as possible.  Anything along the lines of "the shard sucks now" will be deleted. 

I want to try and get back the home that Sylvan used to be and your help is needed.  Thank you and hope that some of you will chime in with some concrete answers.

[Abbadon]

Mostly just bored of the game itself, grinded myself to death and could solo about 95% of the shard without much difficulty (with the exception of silly 1 hit firebreathers. I dont know ANYONE who likes those lol). Also the lack of fresh blood and guild unity/rivalry/pvp that kinda stuff that keeps me going in most games was missing for me so it got boring eventually Sort of kept going for the community and friends, but after my break, more than half of them disappeared

[Cpt_Starfox]

Well, I still play some, but here's what I'd like to see. New Dynamics and more RP and deeper story driven RPish quest.

Here are some ideas and opinons:
Druids and warriors are fun and powerful... but let's let some other "classes" have some more fun.

Mages have druids, let's give necromancers something I'd call Technomancers. They would he 100 necro/tinkering/arms lore. The could craft and control powerful machines of magic and war! They would be the leaders of the Technomantic Empire (sorta playing off the Exodus stuff with their golem controllers and such... maybe an extention of this in sotry along with other old UO myths and such!) Like druids they would have a seperate meathod of being able to effeciantly "heal" their machines such as a making Spirit Speak do it... giving SS more purpose as a decent useful skill. The higher the SS the better it would heal the machine than say something like GH or Cleans Wounds (like ppl can GH and cleanse wound pets but it isn't as good as vet so in this case not as good as SS)

This could have many many deep story driven scripted RPs and could also inspire some player/gm driven rps!

Bards also could use some attention... maybe some serious similar quest for them to aquire specail instruments that might do things like area discord or area flame strike or sometihng else... the instruemnts might require not only barding skils but also magery or something.

I belive that various ML stuff might easily be scripted in as I've done it a bit myself and would like to see that happen and possibly even be made craftable!

It also might not hurt to improve the druid quest and give it a bit more story... not just change it to make it hader... but make it more interesting! Even exisiting druids might do it just to see what has changed!

I think the races could use a bit of attention in the area of RP... this could also be done with race-specific, RP, deep-story quest. The reward for the quest might be an item for that race only. I'd not suggest a balance altering item or anything like that, I'd rather play a race for RP purposes and not because of one race can do/have such and such special power and another race can't... That part of the beauty of Sylvan, we have all the races and they are all equal and are there mainly to promote RP and not change dynamics. So long as the story is deep and enjoyable and the reward and exsperience give the person pride in their race... then that is what I'm talking about and in that way it can jsut be for increased RP

These are a just a few ideas I've dreamed up so far - They would add new dynamics and new RP and some of the ideas as u can see can do both at once!

[Onari Ithildin]

Well for me it has a lot to do with the people I have meet since I started on this shard. I have made some amazing friend. I have played many other games but I always come back to UO. I enjoy UO for several reasons.

1) I love the crafting system. I would love to see it expanded. I know many peeps have asked for like a candy system or other bods to be added. I would enjoy that myself.

2) I have the ability to be a solo player or group with friends if I need to. If I am having an off day or just want alone time I can but there are things in the world I can not solo so I can get a group together and we can go kill.

3) I can build things and make new interesting items. I would love new items to come about. I love decoing. I rebuilding things and I love trying to make new interesting items if they are only for me. My toon was ALWAYS redesigning her house because I could. I love having more options for that.

4) I can not solo everything with my toons. I am sure I COULD BUT I choose not too. I do not think we should be able to. My toon loves relying on her significant other to be with her.

That is all I can think of for right now. if more crosses my mind I will be happy to pass it along too. I do not want to lose my home either and I want to make it better.

[Shadhahvar]

I have not played much in the past four months due to a new addition to the family. Now he is settled down and a month old I can play a little more again. I am glad to be back but sad to see there are no players left to play or talk to.

I agree with Onari, I love to craft and deco and collect a lot of the special drops are shard gives. I also would like to see more bods for other craft skills. I also think it should be a little easier to get runics from Bods.

I also have a toon that can solo a few items and could be stronger but do not want to. I like hunting in groups small or big. 

I have to run to get baby if I think f something else I will add it later.

[Woede]

Several reasons, none of which has anything to do with Sylvan or UO.

More work, less time for play. New games (Dawn of Discovery, Mount&Blade, Dragon Age) meaning less time for UO.

Also, as my son gets older, there's more time devoted to activities outside the home during my free time. When I'm at home, it's better to have a game I can pause with a child around.

UO itself is more of a journey than a goal. When I log in, I don't ever think "Today I'm going to get the X I've always been hoping for". It's much more of a "Today I will do the tasks I enjoy doing such as mining for val to so that I can get x(more sockets, more cash), so that I can improve my X (fighting ability, house, etc.). With that being said, I don't think that's as attractive to me (with my limited amount of time to devote to it) as playing another game where I can sit down, play a couple of hours and go.



Something I've been thinking about for a while now with Sylvan is that simple attrition might eventually mean no more players. A certain number of players will stop playing every year, that's a simple fact. As it gets harder and harder to play (this old version of razor, this obsolete program to launch, you have to actually want to play UO, etc., etc.) for the FIRST time, the new players coming in may not be able to keep up with those lost.

[Aderyn]

I know it's not entirely useful to cite "lack of time" for these, as the skygods have no control over my work schedule. But it is mostly that I have very little time to play. I suppose I don't spend as much of the little free time I've had playing because I just don't have large enough chunks of time free to really do much in-game. One of the things that drew me into this shard was that there were very frequent events happening. Even when I didn't have a long time to devote to playing that night, I could often sign in, and catch a few rounds of paintball or a race. At the time, there were also consistently more people online at a time, though. Sadly, I have largely been unable to attend planned events simply because of my erratic work schedule. I miss pet wars, but wouldn't really be able to suggest a day, as there isn't one that I would reliably be able to attend, as my schedule is never the same from week to week.

So, again, I realize this may not be very helpful feedback, but it's mostly what keeps me away.

[Foray]

No time left is the main factor for me. I have 21 hours of routine/ scheduled work a week, but a further 51 recognised non-routine hours a week where I have to stay on site and be ready for call outs. Most of my gaming time was done to pass time during the 51 hour point as sometimes I wouldn't get called out for hours (in some cases days) its also the reason why sometimes I would randomly go afk for ages or dissapear for short time.

On top of that as I share the job with my elderly dad (The work is far too much for 1 person so we halfed it so it was manageable) I am also taking over more and more of it as he asks to do less and less. I believe he'll have mostly retired from the work within the next 3 years when its just too much for his disability. Meaning no more job splitting, I'll also have to look after him in a carers role. So the amount of hours I have to put in on the job and on looking after him is creeping up every week.

I forsaw an issue with where I would be in a few years time, while the job is more flexible for managing the work, homekeeping and the caring than a 9 - 5 job would be (due to living and working in the same building) but its still going to be too much for me in the long run so I considered qualifications via the OU so I could self teach myself out of it but I can't trust myself to be able to get it done that and the only interesting courses require job sponsorship and I know my employer would either say no or yes but I'd have to split the work (and consequently my home and tiny wage) with some stranger which would cause problems with the caring.

As for the shard itself I don't fit in anymore, I played mostly back when if people didn't like a certain thing (sockets, runics...etc) then they simply didn't use them and left others to use them and neither person would bother the other or try to impose their way on another by changing the shard itself. Also it always seemed that a number of changes where pushed through by senior players who believed they knew what they where talking about when they didn't.

There are some changes that would help the shard, but not wanting to cause a fuss I'll only mention two:

Bowcrafting exceptional rates need improving

Various "unpopular" classes need improvements to make them viable in higher zones (in the case of mages this means either finishing the work that was being done on spell defence or reverting it back the the RUO default).

[Cadbury]

I'm still very new here and I really like it so far. I'd have to agree with the statement about the "other" classes getting some attention. I posted a suggestion regarding mages here: http://forum.sylvandreams.co.uk/index.php?topic=5124.msg33015#new . It's just  rough outline.

How much does it cost to get a scriptor on average? I bet that a lot of the suggestions here could be implemented relatively easily if we had one.

I haven't yet participated in a shard event, perhaps because I only play on weekends. But that would be so much fun!

[Prosperity]

I'm perfectly happy with the way things are, although I do miss more company but I feel that will come along in time.  As most players, I have times when I can't be around and days when I can't get over involved because I know I will have to log.

I like to rp my character however, I don't really enjoy conforming to in game rp.  I've been on other servers that impose rp on the game world and I find the players end up in cliques...those who immerse themselves in the rp and the rest of us who are clueless and no longer fit in with the server. 

I like it better here, where you can participate if you like or not and still feel welcome.  Besides, I don't have specific times when I can routinely play.  I play when I can grab the time and that doesn't really fit in with organized rp or other events.

I'll be in Sylvan as long as there is a Sylvan.  By the way, if there are new players who need anything to improve their game they are welcome to contact me in game.  I have stuff and I'm very willing to share it to help another player along.  My characters are Prosperity, Avarice, Prudence and Fidelity

[Mina]

emm,   reason i not been playing,  well...  not had time, money or internet..  loadsa problems came up n bit me in the bum,  almost worked em out  woop woop....  however...  i finaly manageds to get game downloaded and installed ( by the way link... the last patch wont work, address is incomplete on link) but when i got ingame... was nobody there...  will try again later coz  i miss all my friends.