Shard Closure [Closed June 2 2012]

[Red Squirrel]

We have been thinking this over for quite some time now, and it is with great sadness that we have decided to move on to different projects.

We have dedicated 5+ years of creating a unique shard that players would enjoy. The shard started off as a home away from home for the guild EVP off the UO Demise shard. As we played around with developing for the shard, our imaginations took off to create many unique additions.

Unfortunately, a lot has happened in 5 years. We have found ourselves unable to continue to support the shard. Many systems need to be recoded in order to catch up with the newest major additions (UOSA, UOHS). Being a competitive free shard with a team of only 2 developers is no easy task.

There have been many client changes that have been increasingly difficult to support with a customized core and there has been lack of funds to upgrade the infrastructure to prevent lag and slow downs.

Ultima Online was not initially developed by our team. There was always a constant struggle to develop with the tools we had. Although we often met the challenges head on, life has changed and we have other commitments now that we did not have before.

The shard will officially close its doors on June 2, 2012. The forum/site will remain online and there is no immediate plans to change or shut it down.

We would like to let players know that there was no single factor that impacted our decision to close the shard. It was a long time coming. We have tried our best to find ways to make things work but sometimes the best routes to take are the hardest to trek.

This project has been our passion for a long time and we've put a lot of work into the shard and the infrastructure that helped us develop it and manage it such as update scripts, backups, and so on.

We look back at when the shard first started, and throughout the path of its progress, there have been a lot of good times and great memories. It has been an honor and privilege to have experienced the joy of creating a unique experience that players could enjoy for free.

These experiences will be truly missed and will leave a nostalgic feeling inside. We would like to thank everyone who has played on the shard throughout this time and hope to see you all around the forum sometimes. We will be here.

We will most likely be making the shard's source code available to the public, through the RunUO site as GPL or from another source. The database will NOT BE released, however. This is for everyone's protection in case there may potentially be confidential information of some kind.

You can check out http://www.uogateway.com for another shard if you wish to continue playing UO. Perhaps you guys can get together and pick a common shard to go to, but it's your choice. We will leave that up to you.

In closing, thanks to all the players for their support these last 5 years. Although we must now move on with things, we would like to express our thanks for having played our shard. We wish you all the best in the future.

Signed the AOV Developers:
Red Squirrel and Death

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:6457, old post ID:37848

[keltrick]

thanks for the greatest ultima online memories EVER guys i will miss you all
while i was the guy wearing the red shirt or the crewman number 6 of the goal i enjoyed every minuite of it.
THANKS EVERYONE I WILL MISS YOU! (now i gotta get a mop for my floor)

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:6457, old post ID:37849

[Anonymous]

Thanks for red for supporting this great shard... Been some fun times.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:6457, old post ID:37850

[Nexus Graveheart]

I shall add my own comment to this momentous statement.

I recently celebrated my 5 year anniversary with this shard, far exceeding my time with OSI ('00-02, 03-later in 03) Previous to this shard, I played on Demise, and it is through the Demise forums that I discovered this shard, and I never left. I tried to play Demise for a while, but all did was run BoDs and in the end, I gave all my BoDs to Feersum Endjinn on Demise (my best friend there), and left the shard for good.

My greatest memories are:

- Discovering a bug with the Crystal Daemon before it was moved to the temple. Reco Elgred and I discovered that the summons did not exist inside caves. And there was a cave convenient that had flowstones that closed off an area that allowed us to attack the Daemon without ever taking damage an allowing us to attack without fear of ever taking damage. We abused this for as long as we could (please forgive me Red and Death). However, I am sure one of you saw us at it, and it was rectified. I never got an artifact from it though.

-Fighting the Argentinians in Buc's Den. All they did was cast Summon Daemon until they got a dark father at some other gate, then they would enter the gate and come to Buc's Den. At which point, Reco would lure the "dark father" into the woods and dispel it and we would wait for the Argentinians to boldly come through and fight behind their demon, and we would kill them. They were good sports, and we all had a good time.

- Learning to PvP from Eby, and several others. Having duels in Eby's Shadowlords house. We all had a good time, and it is a shame that we were not able to stick around as a group and defend the crypts.

- The Temple of the Air. This was a quest offered by Brunus that took place in Covetous. I was rather new, and was only wearing a full set of Myrmidon Armor. (At that point, farming Swoop was an excellent means of acquiring all armor sets) We fought all sorts of nasty beasts. The only companion I can remember is Dumples. However, towards the end, when we were all getting beat down, Hector showed up and saved us all with his bow. We destroyed the Wolf Spider and all of the Demitel mirages. Following that, Brunus gave us a feast upon shadow stone tables, and gave us a tour of his creations. All of them later decayed, but not before I was able to make copies of his books. Which, due to my own laziness, decayed with my first houses. And so, as a historian, I failed myself. At any rate, it no longer matters. However, my reward was a cutlass, the same hue as the full Myrmidon Suit, that was called "Away From Me, Ye Pirates!" and had, I think, 50% DI, 50% RPD, Repond Slayer, 30% SSI, and perhaps a dexterity bonus.

- From watching, at a distance, Nos spit terrible things from his keyboard and be greeted with the banstick.

- Finally having the ability to own enough houses to build a grand waterfall and river combining my houses. And consequently, losing all of those buildings when with a new job my interest and energy with the game waned.

- Spending weeks saving money to help try and meet some sort of goal that Plastic Man told me was needed to build our own guild town. We both failed to stick around long enough to gather the money, although I believe that his bank account probably has a good deal of money.

- I will always lament the time I spent developing stories around my roleplayers based upon the UoV lore. Jaelon the Healer has spent "years" tending to Mordak, who has always been tainted with a blackrock infection. He is still in this state, and will forever will be, God rest his soul.

- A personal apology to the developers, to be sent privately.



There are more memories, I know. Many, many more, and I hope to be able to reminisce about them with you guys, as we all move along in our lives. Red and Death, I do not for a minute, dislike or mutter against you for this decision, we all need to move along at some point in our lives. I have projects myself that I know would take me away from the game.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:6457, old post ID:37851

[DOCTOR THUNDER]

You guys have given us a lot of great times and memories. Sometimes we showed our appreciation, sometimes we didn't. Thanks for everything.

If I am ever up by the Arctic Circle, I will look you up Red.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:6457, old post ID:37852

[Blackadder]

Sad to see the shard go, but fully understand the reasoning....
Good luck with your new projects guys, and thanks for all the fish!!!!

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:6457, old post ID:37856

[Kwan]

We had some good times back in EVP i miss those days.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:6457, old post ID:37868

[Red Squirrel]

Well it's official.






The shard is now closed. I want to thank everyone once again for all the great times and for your continued support.

Ironicly I did not have to actually shut down the app as it crashed on it's own. There seems to be tons of weird random bugs that made it in the last couple months, they are unexplainable. Perhaps it was just a sign.

As I mentioned in the original post, the site will remain live and there are no immediate plans to close it. If I do, there will be notice ahead of time.

There is the slight possibility the Age of Valor name is reused for another game server or other project but there are no plans so don't hold your breath... but you never know, now that I'll have all this spare time.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:6457, old post ID:37873

[d.]

Thanks for many years of great memories. This was one of the best free shards if not THE best free shard.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:6457, old post ID:37875

[ggkthx]

Thanks for many years of great memories. This was one of the best free shards if not THE best free shard.

Agreed.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:6457, old post ID:37885

[Shanks]

It's been over two years since this server closed and I still can't find a server worth playing lol.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:6457, old post ID:37924

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah crazy how fast time goes.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:6457, old post ID:37926