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Gosh, this is a shock. Py messaged me on Siege discord last May asking for a list of GMs of guilds on Siege for a project he was doing, apparantly it was a podcast. This is part of the conversations we had at the time, nothing personal or confidential in what I'm about to post, just a general text of what we said:

Commander Py — 03/05/2024 00:37
Hello! I was hoping I would find you here. I have a little project about guilds, I would love a chance to speak with you

Shalimar — 03/05/2024 13:58
Hi there! I am in the UK most of the time now so I wasn't on when you sent the message. Of course we could have a chat, just let me know when you're here and I can be too. Welcome back!

Commander Py — 04/05/2024 20:54
Hi! So wonderful to hear from you and see you are still doing good deeds here. I am traveling for the next few days, I will message you upon my return.
My goal is to assemble a list of guild master contacts (out of game contact info). Would that be something you might be able to help me with?

(I sent the list of GM's to him...)

Commander Py — 08/05/2024 21:43
This is fabulous! Thank you. Do you also happen to have contacts for any of the guildmasters of my heyday, like Grot, Donal Mor of LDH, Raziel or Rigovran of KRT?

Shalimar — 08/05/2024 21:59
I'm afraid not, those players left a long time ago. Donal was around again for a little while a few years ago but he disappeared again. Rizarium who was KSS with you still uses Siege stratics, the one who married Kaisa if you remember. Not sure of the names he used, could be Tizarium and Shiver me Timber as well.

Commander Py — 08/05/2024 22:00
I'll find him there! Thank you very much

Shalimar — 08/05/2024 22:00
You're very welcome, and if you intend to play again there are a lot of those GMs listed who have offered to help

Commander Py — 08/05/2024 22:01
I am actually creating a project outside of the game world

Commander Py — 08/05/2024 22:09
In fact, I wanted to ask you about this. I am working on a podcast idea. Interviewing guildmasters. Not only from Ultima, but from all games. There are so many guildmasters out there without mentoring, without leadership guidance, and hearing the stories of other guild leaders, people who are doing something special, highly successful, or just different would be inspiring and entertaining to many. I am putting together a list of interested persons.
Are you possibly interested?

Shalimar — 08/05/2024 22:11
Hm, I'm not sure about that, I like to stay in the background.

Commander Py — 08/05/2024 22:12
Oh I get it. It would be audio, not video. I think what you are doing and have done is a wonderful service to others and the community. I would probably say the same thing the first time I was asked. I know that it would be inspiring to others. I'll see how you answer the next time I ask

Shalimar — 08/05/2024 22:14
Hehe, I am very reluctant to use voice on discord as well. I've only joined the voice channel once or twice, not something I like to do, I also have a strong Scottish accent, haha.

Commander Py — 08/05/2024 22:14
Well that sounds simply beautiful.

Shalimar — 08/05/2024 22:15
I'm sure you'll get plenty of takers from the list I gave you though.
WULF also came back last year he was a lot of fun. And we had an excellent orc for a while too, he does videos I believe.

Commander Py — 08/05/2024 22:18
Thanks for everything, I will check in with these contacts

Commander Py — 08/05/2024 22:20
I am dropping offline, it was great speaking with you. I really appreciate you taking the time with all this.

Shalimar — 08/05/2024 22:20
Anytime

Commander Py — 08/05/2024 22:20
salute

Shalimar — 08/05/2024 22:20
Bye for now
Sol Invictus!

Commander Py — 08/05/2024 22:21
Sol Invictus!
looks upon Shalimar with pride

Shalimar — 08/05/2024 22:21
That is what Tjalle said when I said you may be coming back

Commander Py — 08/05/2024 22:22
I don't wish to raise hearts to let them down



Very sad to hear he's gone.

We have the biggest representation for SP on Siege discord. It has been very active since it began. Other forums for Siege are dead. I was fine with my ICQ before discord, I'd spent ages going through hoops to get my account back, and wasn't sure I wanted to try a new way of communicating, but discord is fast moving if you want it to be, post/reply/send pms, it's something that works and I'm glad I joined.

Since I posted about this subject a week ago Siege discord has had approximately 300 replies on the subject of changes to make Siege's population grow, consisting of ideas/suggestions/maybe/yes good/no bad etc., with reasons given for these opinions. I have also had numerous pms from players who would rather spectate and have opinions or ideas but choose not to post, so I will do it for them anonymously if that's what they want. If no reasons are given other than 'so I can pk everyone' or 'so I can stay safe' this sort of stuff will not be taken into the final outcome. It is not one-sided at all and is a discussion on how to bring players back or tempt new players with ideas on how to do it. I see no need to have it drag on and on until Mesanna forgets what she asked me to do or I lose the will to live.

Everyone is welcome - past, present and future Siege players. Sure, there's a few insults posted here and there but nothing major because there are rules.

I'm not going to waste time posting on dead forums for the sake of one or two players who are too stubborn to join Siege discord just because it was Max Blackoak who set it up. This has been a success since day one and as I say, it's the only forum that anyone bothers to post on now with any regularity.  Vice have their own discord, just for them, same as I have one for NEW, and UWSP have their own DRMA, WAKA etc., all have their own discords, with everyone being able to have their say on the Siege one.

You mean uoforums Siege where the only one to have posted anything at any time recently is EM Kincaid? Those forums?
You mean uoforums Siege where the last poster to actually get a reply from another player was Blargety - last post October 2018? Those forums?
Or uoforums @devs section where there's been 5 comments since August, not including New Legacy posts? Those forums?

I'll tell you why I chose to post on Siege discord and only Siege discord - it's the only Siege forum including Stratics that gets any bloody traffic, that's why.

If you know another forum that Siege players actively use these days please tell.

I wasn't even asked to put it to players, she approached me and asked me to compile a list of simple changes to help populate the shard. I decided the fairest and best way to do it was to ask the players who play on Siege and most of them are on Siege discord.

This is the Siege discord thread in its entirety as it stands right now and Shalimar is the only one making the edits to it:

Please don't post here, this is just going to be letting folk know what will be sent to Mesanna so it's transparent and above board. I'll send it some time this week so if there's anything you want altered or changed entirely, please say so in the general channel.

Hello Mesanna, this is Shalimar from Siege Perilous, we met in the Siege Memorial area on Tuesday, 29 October. You asked me to compile a list of simple things that would make Siege more attractive to players old and new from Siege and production shards and send it to you. After asking players for their ideas this is what has transpired regarding changes for Siege that should be done to attract players while not forgetting what Siege is meant to be - A shard for PVP, PVM and crafting; for those who accept there is a risk of death/looting for everyone when doing their chosen activity,  welcomes those risks and enjoys the excitement that comes from being a part of Siege Perilous.

1.  The old Hero/Evil system with the ability to incorporate VvV artifacts for easy suit building and HCI, DCI, SDI, FC AND FCR for buffs dependent on whether mage or fighter. Everything should be unblessable. We all know turning on VvV artifacts has been an issue in the past, but the time is right to allow them on Siege, unblessable, where if you die the artifact is lost and your killer can either sell back or claim points on it perhaps.  New players will be able to take advantage of this and be able to gear up faster. Or - Keep VvV and simply allow the artifacts, unblessable. Production players want to be able to gear up fast and want to be able to participate quickly, if they join VvV they can take advantage of this system and get suited and booted faster

2. Update Blackthorn artifact menu to include past event items, unblessed, unbless quivers and add to Blackthorn for 10 points. There are so many haves and have-nots things have become  unbalanced so this would be a good move. Timed events with powerful blessed items are a problem for players who were not here 'at the right time' and these events cause a real imbalance over time, so if they can be made available by adding to Blackthorns would help greatly in sorting out this disadvantage. Events are good but maybe keep any 'blessed'  drops to deco items only.

3. Extend town buffs to include more choice and increase amount of town buffs,  as not everyone wants to be in VvV or PVP and it would help those not in VvV to build their template.
 
4. Enable passive detect. Stealthers should have a risk of being exposed when moving around other players and thieves should be flagged grey to anyone they have stolen from until killed by that player. At the moment there is no risk to a stealther or thief character.

5. Keep Sacrifice but only so it resurrects you without your gear, seed of silver sapling as well,  gear should be left on corpse. Selfres is abused by some afk scriptfarmers, who are killed and simply use this to come back and continue afk scripting. Unless the ToS is strictly enforced this abuse will continue and these players lose nothing, aka no risk v reward, so if ToS can't be strictly enforced the only option is to selfres with no gear. Use of Undertaker Staff should be limited to a safe logout location.

6. Remove ability to hide/invis/move when using help/stuck and increase waiting time, using help/stuck from inside an instanced encounter should remove your character from that instance while waiting to be teleported. Unless a player is physically stuck in game this shouldn't even be used. You're not stuck if simply using this feature to get away from enemies or get to a safer location.
 
7. Turn off instanced areas or put a time limit on them – when the time is up they become public. Instanced areas are 'safe' and this needs to be changed, so if players have a set time to do them - a challenging time (short) then they will become public is a compromise to having them completely safe or completely public.
 
8. Make NPC vendors work for reds.

9. There should be no safe guard zone farming. Gathering resources or anything else should have the risk element on Siege.

10. Make it a reportable offence to use EJ accounts as bot cameras - getting caught 3 times is a permanent ban on the account.

11. Reduce vendor contract costs. Sometimes items sit on vendors for a long time costing the seller a lot of gold especially if they are only able to have a vendor placed for them with a daily cost instead of being the house owner with ability to place the owner contract which takes a percentage of the sale. This doesn't mean the unselling item has been overpriced, it just means that a buyer hasn't wanted it yet.
 

A few asks that would be for all shards...Jewellery boxes need filters, so we can find the jewel /talisman type we're looking for quickly. We have to rummage through jewel boxes at present hovering over the items to see if we have what we're looking for. While we appreciate these are very good for saving our house storage, they can be improved.

VS type search of your house.

Chance for crafters to make artifacts from runics.


12. The ghost houses on Siege placed by production players who never play on Siege need to have a frequent refresh rate or be charged gold by the day...amount to be determined. Or if you can just drop the dirt plots scattered everywhere by production players would help. This idea worked at first but most of these players have gone from Siege, they only left an empty dirt plot...just because they can. One suggestion which I think works is that you delete empty dirt plots with no inventory/used storage taking up housing space in a sought after area that an active Siege player could use. You could put a timeframe on how long these empty dirt plots can stay 'as is' before deleting so the player has warning of what will happen if they don't use it.
 

I know Gilfane has a presence on Siege discord, and would have expected someone to either get involved in the discussion or copy it to your own forums, private or public for you to discuss though participation along with everyone else would be better.

Before I say anymore, Torin is wrong, this is a discussion for all to take part in, and if players choose to not take part we have no idea what they would do to try to improve our population on Siege. It has not been sent to Mesanna yet.

The post Nonel made with 'numbered points' are being changed all the time which Az, or Mavia or any other Gilfane member on Siege discord can see, ask for changes or just copy here if you don't want to be involved, but that defeats the purpose. I was asked to do this by Mesanna so I put it on Siege discord where most of us have a presence.

Welcome back Bey'lik. Wydstrin [PAG] and Pixie [PAG] are both on Siege discord, as is Bg [UDL] and Nalfein [TAX] not playing UO as far as I know but they're there so if you want to contact, just join Siege discord. You can find the address on Siege stratics https://community.stratics.com/forums/uo-siege-perilous.60/ Gosh I remember Tyrone Rugan [X] sneaking into town as a red when reds weren't allowed hehe. Those were fun days indeed.

Hiya, when you leave me a new pm to continue what we're currently talking about, can you let me know here on the publics please? That way I know when to log in. Also, apologies for not noticing your pm before, I always forget to look at 'my messages' way up top of the screen. I'll check back later, thanks.

I have one for you if still needed Raven. Just drop it in the NEW mailbox when you're done with it (if you still have it) I can leave it at NEW and CharGar can pass to you if I'm not around when you are.

When I had SP.net spambots would find their way there occasionally. I'm not tech savvy but I went into the database a few times and banned a whole range of IPs these bots were coming from, say a hundred IPs before and after. Eventually they stopped. I remember telling this to Hoffs years ago when the same thing happened on these forums but he didn't know how to access the database. It's probably a lot more sophisticated these days but worth trying if you haven't already?

Have you got stones for Akota? His house fell in Zento about 10 years ago and he's looking to try and get them back. He's tested the old stones I have but no joy. If you would let me know when you're around I can ask him to meet you in Zento Inn (he's not subbed yet) to test your un-named ones.

Thanks.

Mine stopped working not long after I came back to UO. I remember having a long conversation with Hoffs on it (I think he wanted to verify it was really me, hehe) Anyway, a few months after coming back it suddenly stopped letting me log on and I had to go through all sorts of hoops to get it working again, even bought a cheap phone and gave them that number because there was no way I was giving them my real one.

I only use discord these days and stratics if necessary.

9626593 (Elaine) was mine.

You're not wasting anyone's time Beli, you got people thinking, asking questions and trying to figure this out, hehe.

Apparently, according to the stratics thread I linked to above, you use a Heartwood runic saw and normal wood, hoping for a 90 luck pole, then use oak to enhance the 90 luck pole for another 40, so you end up with 130. I have no idea how you would get that to 190. Beli, where did you see the info for a 190 luck fishing pole? Also, if it was possible to make it, it would wear out fast with use, so why not just get a BG fishing pole (vet reward & blessed) and wear luck?

I was going to have a bash at making this Beli, but fell at the starting block. It seems a heartwood runic saw is needed (haven't got one) and you make poles with regular wood, trying to get one at 90 luck, then enhance it with oak for another 40 luck, but that still only gets you to 130. Link to the thread I read about it... https://community.stratics.com/threads/fishing-pole-with-luck.420134/

Hiya Toth, I'm not Gilfane but was posting a message in here when I saw your hello. Welcome back.