So to anyone on other shards, other than TB-hating Europa, are you in True Britannians? How active is it on your shard? Is it the dominant faction?

On Europa you have CoM, SL and Minax who all have good PvP guilds - but on Europa theres basically nobody, except 3 or 4 thieves who all have RL stuff so they can't always be on and are very hard to contact. Then we have maybe 2 or 3 people who don't even PvP, but they give it a go (usually die) and then theres me and two others who want to PvP, have the money to buy stuff we need, but since we don't know how to do anything, we always die.

New guilds seem to want to join other factions, but why? I don't get it, True Britannians seem like such a noble and logical choice for joining at this sort of time. Maybe I misread people totally and, in fact, people just like being the bad guys :[

So really why does nobody like TB? And on Europa if anyone is reading, why not?

I'd blame the BCG vaccine, personally.

Coughing up blood is a big downside

TB's rarely been the dominant Factions at the times I've observed.

Here are my theories.

1. PvPers seem to like evil, or at least rebelliousness. TB is kind of the goody-two-shoes Faction.

2. On LS at least, many RPers were in TB at one point and, while they were good fighters and TB did pretty damn well, the perception is that RPers can't PvP, and thus the Faction suffers from the "stigma." It doesn't matter, it seems, if that stigma matches reality or not.

On a personal note.....I would likely join TB, except for the thing where Factioners can't be healed or rezzed by other players outside of Felucca. I do a good amount of high-level PvM (Doom, Peerlesses, and the like) and being assisted by others players is rather essential.

-Galen's player

That is one of the major turn offs for me as well. I love going to Doom and ML Peerless, and being res/healed at such events is also HIGHLY essential for me as well. So you will not see me in factions.

/signed

Yes, on Oceania TB is #1!

...not that we have much competition lol

ORIGIN - Ultima Online - Community

Exactly!.... That's one of the biggst turn offs for me..... the few times I have tried factions was such a pain!.... Couldn't even get my pet rezed... definatly a major drawback to me!.... I've no desire to go about my bussiness and not be able to get a rez or have anyone help me. Sure faction mates can but there is NO Faction chat for starters really not like guild and alliance chat... making it even more difficult and frustrating..... NOT worth the bother if you ask me.

I can think of a couple of reasons why guilds may avoid joining TB:

- If your guild includes red characters, both TB and COM can both be impractical bases to defend because people hesitate to heal the red characters if the fighting spills out of the base.

- You may avoid TB if you are worried about significant numbers of nonfaction characters hanging out right outside the base and getting in the way or interfering in faction fights.

- There is a perception that the TB and COM bases are too easy to defend passively (if the faction also controls the town the base is in) by placing gas (poison) traps at the base border and other types of traps (e.g., explosion) right next to them on the town side and then also placing town guards right outside the base entrance.

- The TB base is huge and there are many places for the enemy to hide. Not a good situation if your guild doesn't have a few trackers and detectors who can help when you're defending the base.

- On some shards (e.g., Baja), there is no portcullis at the top of the bridge into the base. Some folks like to use it as an additional defense, others don't. Also, on some shards there is a set of doors right before you hit the sigil room; other shards (Baja, GL) don't have those doors. So for any particular shard, the existence or nonexistence of the portcullis or the doors before the sigil room may be a factor for people deciding whether to go TB or another faction.

- There are exploits that can be used to break into bases and/or move sigils out of the base. Depending on who else is playing in factions on your shard, this can also be a factor in deciding which faction to go into.

- The TB war horses just aren't cool enough, compared to the war horses for the other factions.

If you want to be in factions and also like to do peerless, go to Doom, or participate in a lot of group-oriented PvM, join a faction guild that also does these things when they aren't doing factions stuff. Or get your regular hunting partner(s) to join factions with you. Or make a character that is specifically for factions. The other characters on your account on that shard will not have faction status attached to them just because one character is in factions. If you have multiple accounts, I'm sure you can find a character on one of the accounts that you could put into factions. Or consider buying the upgrade and use your 7th character slot for a faction character. Make a character for factions that you wouldn't normally use for PvM and you really won't have any conflicts.

I use my faction tamers for PvM on a daily basis. If I'm hunting by myself, I just try to scope out the area where I will be ahead of time to find the healers. And if I'm going to be someplace where there are no healers nearby (e.g., deep in a dungeon), I make sure I have runes for that place on another character on another account so I can log on another computer with the second character, go to a healer and gate out my faction character's ghost for a rez if I have to.

Lack of a faction chat system is not that big of a deal if you are in a faction guild or you play with people who use Ventrillo or TeamSpeak. When you're in the middle of a fight, using chat really doesn't work that well anyway because you have to type and because other people don't always catch what you said. If you're in factions and running solo, well you are in a little bit of a hard spot. I would suggest hanging out at the base and trying to make contact with anyone else you can find that's in the same faction and take things from there, whether that means you use ICQ or other instant messaging system to catch up with each other and then party chat or a UO chat room, or Vent or TeamSpeak when you're actually doing stuff in factions.

And if you are hesitant about joining factions because you aren't sure what to do, don't let that hold you back. Give it a try with some friends and eventually things will start to click and you will have fun. Even if you never manage to get control of the towns, I guarantee that if you enjoy doing things as a group that require teamwork, strategizing, and being just a bit mischievous, you are willing to learn from your mistakes, and you are tenacious, you will have a good time.

DOCTOR TREVELYAN! Here is my theory for you.

TB Faction + Britain = Guardzone.
Therefore, seeing as most factioners are PKers, they cannot xheal eachother in town when a fight breaks out!

Reasons not to use TB base:

1) Guard zone in front making murderer entry/defending difficult
2) Traps can be placed across the entire entrance, making it impossible to enter
3) Enemy factions can place guards right at your entrance

Also there is simply not enough people to spread out in all four factions. COM and SL are the best bases right now depending on your defense style. The third faction is a toss up between Minax and TB.

:[

If anybody gets into the focus group, I recommend pointing this out, that various fixes and allowances should be made for factioners so that more people will play

Namely:

- Allow reds to heal in a guardzone
- Allow other players to heal factioners, in Trammel

These have no imbalance associated ctions and I would consider them a bug, in their current state.

Also, what is this whole town control, Trammel benefit thing? I seriously cannot see reds enjoying the Trammel benefits myself..