What I'd like to see happen with the Unity Database....

Just my thoughts, feel free to agree/disagree or whatever...

1) Contact all the players on the Unity database and inform them of the takeover, and allow them to post on a support ticket whether they are interested in renewing the game subscription. Give them a month or so to reply..

2) Install HZ on a new server... nothing built world objects etc..

3) For all players that HAVE said they are interested, move their characters, complete with plots etc to the new blank server.

This should allow all non-active plots to become available for purchase.. and allow us to have fun rebuilding things with characters we're familiar with and have decent experience levels to be able to build things reasonably.

I miss those world projects :)

(ok so I have badly phrased most of this, but I'm excited about being able to play again!)

Personally, I would like it if my characters could just be transfer to Chaos.

Unity has been down for so long, I have already made new friends, become part of a great guild, and created one awesome dragon. If I had to choose, I don't think I could leave to go back to my former home. What I really would like back is the few rare items I lost due to the close of Unity. Course, I doubt that would happen ^^ I am not asking for it right now with all the other problems facing Horizons. Still..... I can dream.


Oh.... but if the Unity sever is brought back, which I do hope so for those who await patiently for the return of it...... don't rename it "Unitas" ^^

I woudl like simply to see the unity server online like it was before the "transfer".

Heck Arietna you know how much work it was to get completed the first room at the harro event lair? :eek: And all other rebuilded structures on istaria?

Hey Takora,

Yes I certainly do... and it was a GREAT way of getting the community spirit up!

If we get all our characters back with their levels intact, and a larger player base, I think we'd really get some community work going.. I'd love to be a part of it (I was the first time around, too.. and part of the team that built Parsinia)..

Ari

I am not interested in returning under the circumstances you describe Arietna.

Restore Unity in its entirety, or move my characters to Chaos/Order along with reimbursement for the cost of my plot, the novians from the structures on that plot, and all items that were stored on that plot.

Those are the two situations that are good enough for me to return. A half-baked Unity is no good for me.

Since I am realistic enough (and even been told by GN) to know Unity got closed due to prolonged lack of revenue, I'd just be happy to be copied over into Chaos, possibly with Novians for my plots. Even naked and poor, I'd still resub immediately anyway, all I want is my dragon.

I am guessing there are a few reasons why people want their Unity back as a seperate shard again.
- Some if not many prefer a european shard as to population (nothing wrong with US-players mind you; but it just feels more 'home' that way for many);
- And I think a large reason: people don't want to lose their plots/lairs and all their work.

I don't see any other option then a seperate Unity shard to get the first point here fúlly answered... but maybe... see further on?

The second point: it will be hard, probably impossible, to get plots/lairs in the same size (let alone in the same places) back if you go with character transfer to Chaos/Order. Which means that most will not feel happy with this solution, even if they do get novians etc.


Maybe though it could all be adressed (the second point, and even to a certain degree the first one) by making a decent size island on Chaos/Order (lets say size lesser aradoth), calling it Unity Island, and moving all owned Unity plots and lairs of interested players as-is to that island (to Unity-island on whichever of the two shards a player chooses)?

Also, if this could be done, it would be normal and story-fitting that all world-objects on this (new) island would still have to be built; so this would also be a way to get new chances at community-building this way (while those wanting only ready and done structures, can always hop over to some mainland to find what they want over there).
Of course this island would also need to have resources... maybe that island could breathe the feeling of the old lesser aradoth, with all resources mixed, not in tier-belts? Might even bring back a bit of the magic of the old pre-merger worlds that way.

Does this idea sound crazy; or maybe doable, and desirable as a solution that everyone could live with?

Not a bad idea. I'm happy with all the suggestions really in a way. My preferences, of course, would be:

1. Unity back, keep my dragon, my items, my forms/techs, my lair. World projects... I don't mind either way. I was too late to join in any of them and both like having the stuff available but also the idea of helping to build them a second time round.

2. Transfer to Chaos (shard of your choice of course), keeping techs/forms and preferably gold paid for my lair. Novians I can go without, but I would want to be able to afford a lair as soon as I found one (if a suitable one even exists, I could find very little in my hatchie explorations). Unity Island sounds an interesting idea, might need tweaking a bit but would definately be fun. Our own community, with the chance for non-Unity players to come over and join in, or for us to go out and integrate with them. Possibly have non-Unitarians have to complete an attunement quest to go there that expanded on a story about this island reappearing (something like Drulkar being the ancient dragon city which is now abandoned, along those lines but obviously with a twist ;) Perhaps we have just escaped the evil clutches of the WA and managed to fight back to Istaria or something) Almost like a guild island.

I would simply like to see Unity back online and be able carry on building up my plot again.

all current structures as they were before Unity was taken down.
anything unfinished to be availible for us Unity players to complete

Personally I would greatly prefer Unity as shard back too. But well... if that doesn't turn out to be a realistic option; then I thought this idea might be a good second-choice (for me; for some others it might be first choice of course).

very good ideas, galilee and pevil:):)

i think its more likly the new team are considering the financial viability of unity.The pricing survey indicates cash is high factor.
It would serve them well to do a market research blanket e-mail to all registered unity players,to try and gauge the interest of players returning.
i think maybe a lot of the hard core players allready have replacement char,s on existing shards.
it maybe safer not to increase servers and merge unity onto existing.
i would like to see my char return to unity,but i wouldn,t want to loose the game time capitial investment and restart again.

I'd love to have Unity back, but the player base was so low that it was a desert, low revenue versus the same maintenance costs of the other servers.

I'd focus on what's "possible" and "business compatible" first.
1) Save the characters, top priority
2) Save the plots or at least novians
3) Save the shard

For me, 1) is "conditio sine qua non" (breaks or makes the deal) to return playing.
While I could play for > 14 hours a day and make my characters as good as possible, now I have 1 hour a day tops, I can't play for 20 years to just achieve my characters again. Expecially since the amount of "impossible to get, period" stuff I have on them is not replaceable and is part of them now.

I have the exact same priority as Vahrokh.

But is it that unrealistic to get the shard back online? I mean I would guess that the expenses of having it up and running would have fallen in the past 2 years? So we wouldn't need as big a population to keep it profitable now as we did then?

I like Galilees idea of a new island on either Chaos/Order (both?) for Unity players..

However if LOADS of us returned it would have to be huge to contain enough space for all plots/lairs!

Glad to see positive responses! :)
An edit to my first post here: I would love to see all plots/lairs of big sizes (say 60/60 or 75/75 and larger for plots; not sure what is 'big' for lair) whose owners will nót return to also be put (unowned, empty) on that Unity-island; so any Unity-players now stuck with smaller plots have a chance to upgrade on the same island (Unity-players first choice for at least 1 month before opening up left-overs to the whole world). Or, if it's easier, just copy those over as-is too, and go through the then following back-to-community motions together with rest of Chaos for whole shard; whatever is easier done and/or possible.

Edit: Chaos = Chaos/Order (15 minutes just passed :( )

Unity Island - I swear I had that same idea coming home from work today! Well almost the same.

Unity Island would have to be pretty huge, with mountains for the lairs and sloping down to flatter areas next to the ocean for the plots. It would need to include all 4 basic terrain types: volcanic, ice, grass and desert. I agree all plots and lairs must be "large". Large for a lair means 5x5x6 or 4x5x7.

Returning players could apply to have their plots and lairs copied onto the island, and that would mean encorporating them into the terrain as well. It's not so hard for plots since they're 2D, so you just need a square/rectangle of the same dimensions on the appropriate terrain type. Maybe a request to be next to the ocean, or up on a hill, whatever the original plot's position was.

However lairs are trickier, you can't automatically put a 5x5x6 lair layout into any other 5x5x6 lair because (1) the level zero depends on the terrain and (2) the entrance point is in a fixed place on that level. So the devs would need to literally copy the bit of terrain around your original lair entrance when they shaped the island.

Guild plots... I don't think creating new guild plots is justified, unless an entire guild was coming back to occupy them. But a group of players could ask for their copied plots to be placed together in the same layout as they were before, like a pseudo guild town.

In addition, they could patch the island and copied lairs onto Blight first, so players could check them over. If there was anything horribly wrong like "hey my biped can't get into my lair anymore!!" it could be pointed out and corrected before it went to the live shards.

Now in line with the current discussions on revenue, and considering the dev time to copy the plots/lairs and terrain, I think an upfront payment of say the first 6 months worth of your new subscription per plot/lair copied would be reasonable.

For anyone who wanted to upgrade, you could get your novians and a special Unity Island plot/lair purchasing token instead, you wouldn't have to go for the direct copy option. One token per copied Unity account. The token would be good for 1 month or so, then the island is opened up to everyone.

As for Chaos/Order, why not put the island on both and let Unitarians choose whether they want a roleplay server or not? I realise it splits the returning population, but I believe there are currently ex-Unity players on both shards anyway. And it also creates lots more plots/lairs for new players and existing non-EU players to choose from after the token-only purchase period is over.

Vahrokh's priority order - yes they could certainly copy the characters first then work on Unity Island second. However they'd need to get working on it fairly quickly, or it might start to feel like broken promises...

Finally I strongly agree with Galilee, even if we got loads of cash and novians there simply won't be the kind of "prime locations" available on Chaos/Order to replace what was lost. And for me personally, my lair was a direct extension of my character. Getting the dragon back without the lair would still leave me with a huge sense of loss. And whilst recreating a character from scratch is technically possible (minus a few old rares perhaps), recreating a lair is not possible if that lair isn't available to purchase.

Soresha

/waves to Soresha
Nice that you thought of it too :)
Of course it could also be 'Unity Archipelago': a group of islands close together (more bridgebuilding in the package! ;) ). Might be easier to catch the wanted/needed diversity that way.

I think that when Unity will be restored then many of the old players will return. Yes Unity was waste in the end, but only due to the fact that GN offered a more then poor support.

I think its not really a good idea to send emails to old players, because many email adresses changed in the past (i know this from my friends) better is a poll like we have one in this forum.