Was wondering if theres any talk of combining shards, as most shards are lowly populated compared to the old days. A manditory, but free transfer system could be implemented, to condense 2 shards into one.

Any info or link to current threads would be helpful.
(one who misses the days of a crowded Brit bank trading area)

Not yet!

combining shards would get ugly. you would have the issue of who gets the house? for example, i own a house on LA in the same spot you own one on Atlantic, do you get to keep your house when LA is dropped and i have to move to Atlantic with no house? the hell with that. just an example, would not be a problem for me as i have a max storage house on LA, Atlantic, and Chessy. but you get my point.

If for some reason they were to do and it was the shard I played on, then I would close my accounts and quit. I am very happy with the housing I have on Sonoma, two places I would not be able to get if forced to move as they are key spots in the facet they are on.

It won't happen unless there's a painless way to move all of the houses over without offending the owners, or destroying the houses.

If people's stuff is threatened, their subscriptions might suddenly stop.

EA definitely doesn't want that.

Let me remove the word manditory, and perhaps add: Give the option to the *smaller* shards to move freely to the mid-to-larger sized shards if they so choose. And as far as the housed items i know when you get a transfer you get a box in your bank to put stuff into and it follows you over, however im not sure if they still do this.

Only way I'd agree to combining shards would be if there were some way to do it fairly where folk didn't lose all their homes and things.... that and if they were able to somehow combine things to themed type shards for things like Roleplayers, hunters, PvP/champspawn folk and the like.... Oh and clasic.....

The UO Team has never considered it, and squashes it as strictly player conjecture. They have said repeatedly that they have no reason to see it as an option.

After nearly 11 years (in September) of the existing shards... each shard has not only player houses, but especially guilds/alliances, player towns, and individual shard histories that would be lost.

Combining shards is another idea that likely won't see the light of day.

i play on la one of the smaller shards. I've also played on pac. I like my empty shard, so really wouldn't want to combine with a bigger one. If they should think of combining, i would think combining the smaller ones together would be better. Oh and no way would i give up my house. i love my house

Aye it would not work at all. Sight for example a 10 yr. old still functioning very large feluccan player run town on Chesapeake ie Paxlair. Let's say that Ches. had to *transfer or move* to Atlantic........what a mess that would be just regarding one very historic player run town that even Lord British has visited and well it just would not work. It would obliterate history on some shards with player run towns that are *ancient* and still there functioning.

Course IF they offered all my chrs. and their gold and regs. and vet rewards and heiloom tokens etc. to go from Siege to Chesapeake ...I might take them up on that offer though. I could consolidate my two shardedness to ONE..since I have been on Ches. for years and Siege for 4 yrs. but it's once vibrant fuller population dwindles, and I spent hours working on my chrs. skills via ROT the past 4 yrs there. etc. I could use them elsewhere like Chesapeake, IF.. if they offered us free passage with many of our 'non Siege specific' items, to transfer off of Siege. I bet I would not be the only one taking em up on that offer either.