[UO Herald] Ultima Online at Wayback Wednesday

[UO News]

MMORPG.com's Twitch TV channel is going to visit Ultima Online tomorrow night, 05/16, in its Wayback Wednesday series. The session will launch at 9:30pm EDT (3:30am CEST).
The hosts Rob 'Grakulen' Lashley and Hillary 'Pokket' Nicole will be joined by Bonnie 'Mesanna' Armstrong and other members of the Ultima Online team to explore the game on Test Center 1 and talk about its 15 years of history.
Join us on the channel tomorrow night!

Continue reading...

 

[G.v.P]

Cool--hopefully they'll remember to turn on God-mode this time so they don't faceplant .

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

*wonders how badly this will get griefed*

 

[kelmo]

Is this a web cast?

 

[Sevin0oo0]

here?
MMORPG.com Streams

 

[Uriah Heep]

Oh Lord, keep em outta general chat!!! LMAO

 

[MalagAste]

All I can say is I certainly hope they attempt to make it look good. *crosses fingers* And I pray no-one does anything to make UO look much worse than it already does.

 

[Woodsman]

All I can say is I certainly hope they attempt to make it look good. *crosses fingers* And I pray no-one does anything to make UO look much worse than it already does.

I'm dreading the comments from non-UO players, because it seems like every time UO gets mentioned on the game sites, you get these comments:

* Hey, the 1990s called, they want their graphics back
* UO and Star Wars Galaxies: Best Housing Ever
* I miss sandbox MMORPGs
* I wish more MMORPGs were skill-based like pre-AOS UO was
* Tram/AOS ruined UO
* Try this freeshard, it's where all the cool kids hang out
* Richard Garriott needs to make a UO2
* Whoa! UO is still running?
* Richard Garriott should never have let EA take over/buy UO (I swear to god I've seen this more than a few times)

Those are just the easily predictable comments.

 

[Dol'Gorath]

I'm dreading the comments from non-UO players, because it seems like every time UO gets mentioned on the game sites, you get these comments:

* Hey, the 1990s called, they want their graphics back
* UO and Star Wars Galaxies: Best Housing Ever
* I miss sandbox MMORPGs
* I wish more MMORPGs were skill-based like pre-AOS UO was
* Tram/AOS ruined UO
* Try this freeshard, it's where all the cool kids hang out
* Richard Garriott needs to make a UO2
* Whoa! UO is still running?
* Richard Garriott should never have let EA take over/buy UO (I swear to god I've seen this more than a few times)

Those are just the easily predictable comments.

Too bad all of the above will be present. Its up to current UO players to try to counter the trash comments that will surely pop up.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

Woodsman, they just did a DAOC one, over 3hrs I think
DAoC – Wayback Wednesday (Mythic Q&A) Transcript Part 1 « Etaew's Blog

interesting topics
I never thought about f2p & pvp related as Pay 2 win

 

[Woodsman]

they just did a DAOC one, over 3hrs I think
DAoC – Wayback Wednesday (Mythic Q&A) Transcript Part 1 « Etaew's Blog

interesting topics
I never thought about f2p & pvp related as Pay 2 win

Quickest way to kill a PvP-oriented MMORPG is make it pay to win.

 

[G.v.P]

I'm dreading the comments from non-UO players, because it seems like every time UO gets mentioned on the game sites, you get these comments:

* Hey, the 1990s called, they want their graphics back
* UO and Star Wars Galaxies: Best Housing Ever
* I miss sandbox MMORPGs
* I wish more MMORPGs were skill-based like pre-AOS UO was
* Tram/AOS ruined UO
* Try this freeshard, it's where all the cool kids hang out
* Richard Garriott needs to make a UO2
* Whoa! UO is still running?
* Richard Garriott should never have let EA take over/buy UO (I swear to god I've seen this more than a few times)

Those are just the easily predictable comments.

But everything above is pretty much true...lol ;P so expect current, former, and non-players to say that pretty much until the end of time.

Housing in SWG was pretty amazing for me, it was the first full 3D experience of owning castle-size houses. The combat in SWG sucked though.

If Garriott made a UO2 I'd leave UO in a heartbeat. I still lament not being able to try out Tabula Rasa.

 

[G.v.P]

Woodsman, they just did a DAOC one, over 3hrs I think
DAoC – Wayback Wednesday (Mythic Q&A) Transcript Part 1 « Etaew's Blog

interesting topics
I never thought about f2p & pvp related as Pay 2 win

Warhammer: Wrath of Heroes faces that problem. The in-game currency prices of the content far exceed what a normal user could accumulate in any reasonable amount of time. It would be like a 2,500 Covetous turn-in being valued at 25,000 instead--no one would play that grind, instead they'd pay $1.99 ;P.

The thing is, though, even in these situations, you'd end up paying a lot less total money for a good f2p than you would UO. For example, I've spent $25 on League of Legends, a f2p MOBA, and I've played it for a year and two months. That's $1.79 a month...

 

[Raptor85]

But everything above is pretty much true...lol ;P so expect current, former, and non-players to say that pretty much until the end of time.

Housing in SWG was pretty amazing for me, it was the first full 3D experience of owning castle-size houses. The combat in SWG sucked though.

If Garriott made a UO2 I'd leave UO in a heartbeat. I still lament not being able to try out Tabula Rasa.

Ditto to this comment, i'd ditch uo for a RG designed UO2 in a heartbeat... I actually liked Tabula Rasa but it suffered some really bad "NCSoft Syndrome"...basicly the same problem that plagues all their other games (lineage series, aion, etc...)....it was about 50% of a game that was released before they finished making it or testing it. (to no fault of RG's dev team.....NCSoft forces all their dev teams to rush release before they're ready....they've done it on pretty much every game...)

Another one I actually miss is "Earth & Beyond" developed by Westwood...EA pushed it out early and limited store quantities to try to iron out bugs during launch...they did it for too long and the population in game was kept wayyyy low for the first few months...it completley killed the game. It had some amazing potential with some additional work but EA shut it down completely when they closed Westwood studios and moved the C&C franchise internal :/ About 90% of the areas created for that game were never even released as it never "fully" left initial testing O_x

Warhammer: Wrath of Heroes faces that problem. The in-game currency prices of the content far exceed what a normal user could accumulate in any reasonable amount of time. It would be like a 2,500 Covetous turn-in being valued at 25,000 instead--no one would play that grind, instead they'd pay $1.99 ;P.

The thing is, though, even in these situations, you'd end up paying a lot less total money for a good f2p than you would UO. For example, I've spent $25 on League of Legends, a f2p MOBA, and I've played it for a year and two months. That's $1.79 a month...

I like the "Quake Live" and...."other" UO shard model, what you pay for gives 0 advantage....just extra features and customizability (special colors, multiple linked characters, ability to launch private servers...etc)

Besides, UO is already more "pay to win" than many other F2P games...advanced character tokens, the knife thing that is the only way in game to get certain items from monsters, soulstone tokens, teleporters, the tool that lets you completely bypass break chance on items and enhance things FAR beyond what is normally possible.

 

[PASmountaindew]

I'm dreading the comments from non-UO players, because it seems like every time UO gets mentioned on the game sites, you get these comments:

* Hey, the 1990s called, they want their graphics back
* UO and Star Wars Galaxies: Best Housing Ever
* I miss sandbox MMORPGs
* I wish more MMORPGs were skill-based like pre-AOS UO was
* Tram/AOS ruined UO
* Try this freeshard, it's where all the cool kids hang out
* Richard Garriott needs to make a UO2
* Whoa! UO is still running?
* Richard Garriott should never have let EA take over/buy UO (I swear to god I've seen this more than a few times)

Those are just the easily predictable comments.

You know you were a teenager in the 80's if you played Ultima Online on a 56k modem and the sad part is that you can still play it on that same modem. lol

 

[Storm]

You know you were a teenager in the 80's if you played Ultima Online on a 56k modem and the sad part is that you can still play it on that same modem. lol

lol i played on a 14.4 to start with

 

[G.v.P]

MMORPG.com's Twitch TV channel is going to visit Ultima Online tomorrow night, 05/16, in its Wayback Wednesday series. The session will launch at 9:30pm EDT (3:30am CEST) [...] Join us on the channel tomorrow night!

Damn, just realized this will intersect with not only "Revenge," but also a Lakers game. Fml, haha.

 

[Woodsman]

It kicked off 5 minutes ago. Or did it?

 

[Woodsman]

Why are they discussing warlocks and barbarians?

 

[Woodsman]

It's live.

 

[Woodsman]

So they don't want to give the story away, but why don't they talk about the other plans for the 15th anniversary?

ehh I'll just wait for the posts or video tomorrow, hopefully somebody does a transcript, I can't watch this.

 

[Don't Tread on Me]

ok, so, ummmmm. i just tuned in for about 3 minutes and am very very curious.... why is the guy who we're watching obviously never played UO before in his life? maybe i don't know how this works... but, wow! very frustrating! now.... i would have loved to have seen messana's screen but watching that guy was making me twitch badly and i had to stop. also, not a very good promo for the game.

 

[Woodsman]

Yeah, that's why I stopped watching, I can't stand it. It's one thing if I'm in-game and helping somebody, but watching this? No.

You should have seen the beginning - it started late, and they were putting this all together on the fly. I would have thought they would meet like half an hour before and get everybody to the location they plan on playing, then start.

And I got an ICQ saying that Mesanna is asking for pixel crack ideas for the 15th anniversary.

 

[Don't Tread on Me]

And I got an ICQ saying that Mesanna is asking for pixel crack ideas for the 15th anniversary.

I say give everyone a couple of runics to blow on reforging... cause reforging takes them away QUICK!!!! just an idea though.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

I'm at the event... We're in covetous... The "interviewers" (and I use that term extremely flippantly) are complete newbs... even though the male has -played before, it was LOOOOOONG ago. He's made idiotic comments about people stealing from him when he's died, and nobody from the Team has bothered correcting him after the first time.

Mesanna won't talk about the Anniversary, even though Kai asked her to multiple times... Sad that they didn't bother coordinating what they were going to talk about.

Mesanna asked for Vet Reward, Anniversary, and Holiday item ideas... (You'd think they'd bother tracking those things year-to-year, not want them a few months before they are due. le sigh.

 

[Woodsman]

Mesanna won't talk about the Anniversary, even though Kai asked her to multiple times... Sad that they didn't bother coordinating what they were going to talk about.

Mesanna asked for Vet Reward, Anniversary, and Holiday item ideas... (You'd think they'd bother tracking those things year-to-year, not want them a few months before they are due. le sigh.

It's a perfect time to be talking about future stuff - MMORPG.com will probably post about it tomorrow. MMORPG.com has a huge audience.

If your community relations person is prodding you to talk about the anniversary, you probably should listen to them. Another blown opportunity to maybe get new players to try UO or get old players back.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

This.. excursion.. (I'm now standing here hidden out of boredom) is really shining a bad light on Jeff's decision to not move forward with a decent NPE. Worst. Decision. Ever.

Any advertising is good advertising... right? *coughs*

 

[G.v.P]

are they still on TC1?

oh damn you need to register to use chat hehe

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

Yes, just killed Cora.. her loot is terrible.

 

[Woodsman]

This.. excursion.. (I'm now standing here hidden out of boredom) is really shining a bad light on Jeff's decision to not move forward with a decent NPE. Worst. Decision. Ever.

According to his twitter, Jeff is either playing Diablo III (he tweeted a pic of his box arriving Monday) or he's on his way to San Francisco to show off Ultima Forever.

Any advertising is good advertising... right? *coughs*

Especially for people who like black and white I looked at it twice in the past 10 minutes and both times the person doing it was dead.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

I gated them to Fel, thats part of why

 

[G.v.P]

pokket is adorable. i'll have to watch her other streams haha.

so hard to watch since it isn't in CC though.

 

[G.v.P]

*swoon*
Pokket on King of the Web

 

[AirmidCecht]

I was in chat, watching the live stream and in game.

I was a bit disappointed too at first because we could have set them up with proper gear. As a community we do that for new players but it didn't occur to me on test center. Was it something that could have been pre-planned? yes but oh well.

Grakulen does way back Wednesdays, he is not supposed to just know how to play. That's part of the revisit classic games novelty when he does this. He is easy going, has fun and enjoys promoting games like UO. So what's the issue here? We came together as a community and showed them a fun time, we accomplished some goals of our own with testing lvl 2 Covetous.

Ideally I would have liked to see them take 5-10 min prior to logging into game to cover the things mentioned here with UO and our upcoming anniversary but during the stream it is much too choppy and too much going on to really get into that part of it. One thing Grakulen mentioned was doing this again which to me means, room to improve, have more fun with everyone from all shards and promote the hell out of UO.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Maybe next time it will not clash with an EM event and more folks will make it too.

 

[Woodsman]

Ideally I would have liked to see them take 5-10 min prior to logging into game to cover the things mentioned here with UO and our upcoming anniversary but during the stream it is much too choppy and too much going on to really get into that part of it.

We must have watched a different stream, because it was never choppy for me, and the UO team was given a huge opening to talk about the anniversary several times, and Mesanna talked a little about the anniversary at the start after Kai talked about it. Once or twice at the start, and apparently after I stopped watching, it was brought up a few more times, once or twice by Kai. At the end when I came back, the guy who was on the video asked Mesanna if she'd like to say anything or show anything and she didn't really respond to him - she kind of talked past it.

It was very easy to understand Mesanna when I was watching, so I don't know why she wasn't talking about it more.

 

[Rupert Avery]

To me it feels more like a bunch of gamers just chatting and playing a game... not like an interview or showcase of an old game.

The idea of Way back Wednesday is awesome. I haven't watched the other episodes of it, but I think I will and see how they fair up compared to this one.

 

[G.v.P]

To me it feels more like a bunch of gamers just chatting and playing a game... not like an interview or showcase of an old game.

That's how I feel as well. I missed the first almost two hours so I'll have a lot to catch up on but from what I saw--mostly PvP--it was just about trying to figure things out on the fly, with Kai and Mesanna trying to teach as they went along. Kudos to Martyna and whomever else for insuring that Fel would make it in the stream. It really was a thorough two and a half plus hours, even if it didn't cover all the bases. Also, I'd watch this stream again just to listen to Pokket, haha.

Next time they ought to do it on a real shard like Atlantic or something.

 

[Flutter]

Saw some of it. Was embarrassing. Especially knowing that Mesanna was there and could have helped/educated/advertised/made the game not look confusing... anything. They knew this guy was going to come do this and didn't have suits prepared? Just told him "say give arties" like a bag of artifacts is a usable suit.
Guy OPENLY asked how to attack someone and no one (from the UO team) helped him learn to turn off tab for combat? Really? Great PvP advertising there.
Someone asked what the inside of a players house looked like. No one (from the UO team) explained to guy how house privacy worked so he's running around Fel Yew trying to get into houses....

I'm actually feeling mad about this whole thing. We are desperate for players and advertising. Way to go.

 

[Rupert Avery]

mmorpgcom - Wayback Wednesday with Ultima Online @Grakulen and @Pokketsays with Devs!

mmorpgcom - Wayback Wednesday with Ultima Online @Grakulen and @Pokketsays with Devs!

the videos

 

[Storm]

I had a good time only died 3 times lol

 

[Rupert Avery]

I had a good time only died 3 times lol

i wiould of loved t join but 3-4am is a little off for me lol

 

[Woodsman]

I'm actually feeling mad about this whole thing. We are desperate for players and advertising. Way to go.

That's how I feel.

 

[Woodsman]

Ideally I would have liked to see them take 5-10 min prior to logging into game to cover the things mentioned here with UO and our upcoming anniversary but during the stream it is much too choppy and too much going on to really get into that part of it.

So I put it back on there after somebody ICQed me that it was still going, and I just heard the guy ask Mesanna if there was anything else she wanted to say, and she said no. It was crystal clear, no glitchiness, and she had the floor, and nothing. Not even a hint of anything. We're down to 1-2 more publishes beyond the one coming out next week before the anniversary hits, and nothing but pixel crack and the story arc.

One thing Grakulen mentioned was doing this again which to me means, room to improve, have more fun with everyone from all shards and promote the hell out of UO.

That's what I thought this was would be - the dev team promoting UO. I guess I was mistaken, it was just another "let's play" type of things.

So I shouldn't be so critical I suppose - this was supposed to be just a bunch of people playing UO, not actually promoting it.

 

[G.v.P]

mmorpgcom - Wayback Wednesday with Ultima Online @Grakulen and @Pokketsays with Devs!

mmorpgcom - Wayback Wednesday with Ultima Online @Grakulen and @Pokketsays with Devs!

the videos

cool thanks, I couldn't find them on his page

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

So I put it back on there after somebody ICQed me that it was still going, and I just heard the guy ask Mesanna if there was anything else she wanted to say, and she said no. It was crystal clear, no glitchiness, and she had the floor, and nothing. Not even a hint of anything. We're down to 1-2 more publishes beyond the one coming out next week before the anniversary hits, and nothing but pixel crack and the story arc.
That's what I thought this was would be - the dev team promoting UO. I guess I was mistaken, it was just another "let's play" type of things.

Kai asked Mesanna to talk about the 15th Anniversary and what was planned. She fell back on her tired "its a surprise" line, and Kai seemed rather flummoxed by the response. Hard to be the PR guy when the associate producer doesn't want to talk about the future of her game. Ever.

Not everything needs to be a secret from the p(l)ayers. Conversely, we don't need to hear every little detail, those are where the surprises can hide. But, seriously, you need to have something concrete to talk about during things like this. Future plans being the primary talking points: dungeon revamps (Despise is next), next Virtue to be completed, hi-res artwork (the part about no KR art for the EC floored me, as it would literally be a switch. All the art is IN THE CLIENT ALREADY.)

If the upcoming PC Gamer interview is this bad... Hell hath no fury...

 

[G.v.P]

I'm actually feeling mad about this whole thing. We are desperate for players and advertising. Way to go.

I agree the devs could have worked on it better but the POV was through a guy who knew relatively little about the game. Yes, you can blame the devs for not teaching, but first off, are we expecting the majority of the devs to have working knowledge of PvP? They were probably busy themselves trying to figure things out, lol. Also, how is something supposed to look professional when the guy who intends to host the event knows nothing going in? At least Pokket knew what she was doing, somewhat.

I don't know, I feel like the problem with advertising is anyone who remembers UO as it used to be would more likely join a free shard because free shards deliver exactly what UO used to be like back then (T2A, etc) and current UO doesn't. I can't imagine anyone seeing the EC and going, "Oh yeah, I think I'll try that out again for $13 a month." But Grak did close the show by talking about how UO is still well alive, and how the EM events and player-driven content keeps the game active. That's something, at least. Maybe if they do this thing again they can actually focus on the live content or something, on a production shard.

 

[G.v.P]

Mesanna like five minutes into the first stream: "I should have met up with you two beforehand," regarding Pokket and Grak's inexperience. Yeah, guess it was mostly Grak to blame as far as the lack of structure.

Ahh sounds like Pokket was actually playing in the CC. Wish we could have watched her stream ;p.

Kai: "Why don't we talk about the 15th anniversary we're selling--celebrating this year." Haha.

 

[Flutter]

Kai asked Mesanna to talk about the 15th Anniversary and what was planned. She fell back on her tired "its a surprise" line, and Kai seemed rather flummoxed by the response. Hard to be the PR guy when the associate producer doesn't want to talk about the future of her game. Ever.

Not everything needs to be a secret from the p(l)ayers. Conversely, we don't need to hear every little detail, those are where the surprises can hide. But, seriously, you need to have something concrete to talk about during things like this. Future plans being the primary talking points: dungeon revamps (Despise is next), next Virtue to be completed, hi-res artwork (the part about no KR art for the EC floored me, as it would literally be a switch. All the art is IN THE CLIENT ALREADY.)

If the upcoming PC Gamer interview is this bad... Hell hath no fury...

God help me but I feel the same way.
You don't have to give away surprises. What you DO have to do is keep people interested and give them something to look forward to. I feel no excitement in the anticipation of the 15th anniversary. I remember when I felt like I "just can't wait!" for XXX to come out. Now I don't even know what there is to look forward to.
I really feel like they just take for granted that we are going to continue playing every month.


Oh and I also don't care if this was a "let's just play..." type of thing. As a representative of Ultima Online it is your duty to make it fun, exciting, and make people interested and want to play. Otherwise they needn't be there in the first place. What's the point?

 

[Woodsman]

Not everything needs to be a secret from the p(l)ayers. Conversely, we don't need to hear every little detail, those are where the surprises can hide. But, seriously, you need to have something concrete to talk about during things like this. Future plans being the primary talking points: dungeon revamps (Despise is next), next Virtue to be completed, hi-res artwork

And the main guy talking mentioned a couple of times that he was on the EC because people were asking him about it. It was the perfect opening for them to mention that they were doing a high resolution graphics update for the EC.

If you go back and read the January interview

Ultima Online (UO) Interviews: Fifteen Years & Counting at MMORPG.com

MMORPG.com:
What can we expect in the future for Ultima Online?

Bonnie Armstrong:
There will be some fun things going on to celebrate our 15th anniversary! You can expect to see the UO dev team be as passionate and as dedicated as our players, we love the game as much as they do! We will be working hard to keep our players entertained and hopefully around for another 15 years.

There was also nothing about the high resolution graphics update. Nothing to reach out to new plaeyrs. It's like they want to keep it a secret from the rest of the MMORPG world or something.

If the upcoming PC Gamer interview is this bad... Hell hath no fury...

I keep telling myself, and people keep telling me, that the high resolution graphics update is a good sign that UO is actively supported, but these kinds of things drive me nuts.

When the devs get these huge opportunities to go out there and really sell UO and tell people who don't play UO that they are working on things that should attract new players, and instead seem to be preaching only to people who already play, what are we supposed to think?

If there is ever another one of these "let's play" things, if the devs are reading this, for the love of god, try and sell the game, tell people about the things you all are doing that could attract new players, like the graphics update.

I don't get it - the dev team is busting their butts on a bunch of things, and not just the graphics update, but it's like they don't want to talk about it elsewhere.

I don't care about more pixel crack for holidays or vet rewards, I want the game around long enough that people can actually claim 20 year vet rewards.