[NEWS] Sosaria Reels Interviews Jeff Skalski

[Petra Fyde]

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Sosaria Reels recently spent some time talking with​

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Jeff Skalski, Ultima Franchise Producer.​

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We hope you enjoy the interview!​

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[Nok]

Very cool!

 

[Storm]

Best interview ever very honest answers no trying to get around or avoid questions! and not 5 min very very good!

 

[SinDee]

Great job with this interveiw. Glad to see Jeff is a pretty cool guy

 

[Sevin0oo0]

 

[Tina Small]

Great interview, Jeff and Watchertoo! You covered a lot of interesting ground with the questions, Watchertoo, and I very much appreciated Jeff's honest answers. I hope you'll be able to arrange for more of these on an ongoing basis. I'm also looking forward to Jeff's responses to the questions submitted by the folks at UOForums.

Suggestion to Syrus: Maybe while Stratics is down for the migration, you could have whatever message page will display during that time include a link to this video. Perhaps give people something to watch and think about during that time?

 

[Taylor]

Suggestion to Syrus: Maybe while Stratics is down for the migration, you could have whatever message page will display during that time include a link to this video. Perhaps give people something to watch and think about during that time?

Great suggestion. Will do!

 

[Viquire]

Very glad of an opportunity to get more than 140 characters worth of information at a time.

Great jobs Reels, and good interview and a big thanks to Jeff for making time to do it. More psyched about the possibilities of cross promotion on Ultima titles now than I can ever remember. Really looking forward to what the year has in store.

 

[Frarc]

Nice!


15 More Years!

 

[Krinkle]

I like the cut of his jib..... and I'm not even sure what that means.....

 

[Uriah Heep]

I like the cut of his jib..... and I'm not even sure what that means.....

I like the haircut...

 

[ShadowTrauma]

Normally just read the posts here but I really liked what I heard. It was a good interview and I appreciated the pvp/faction questions from Watcher. Look forward to hearing more and seeing some of what was talked about in action. I have played many games including Biowares latest SWTOR and nothing keeps bringing me back like UO. In star wars at this point I can honestly say I've accomplished all that is available to me, in UO that would be quite a task indeed with all the flexibility and options we have.

Once again good post, I enjoyed it.

 

[LordDrago]

Very nice.

Question: Why does it look like Jeff's office is just slapped together drywall with a cable taped up the wall and across the ceiling?

 

[CovenantX]

Very good interview, Another 15 years would be ****ing amazing =D

 

[Arrgh]

I hope he can bring more players back in and get the low pop shards able to cross over for items they can't get on their own shards w/o using buggy xfer tokens.

All in all that was time well spent listening to this interview.

 

[Woodsman]

Very good interview, Another 15 years would be ****ing amazing =D

Did he actually talk about the future of UO?

 

[Carharrt]

Great interview and best of all it soooo burst the bubble of all those naive doomsayers out there. :loser:

So much for dying after its 15th birthday, LMAO

LONG Live UO!!

 

[Storm]

I like the fact that it was confirmed the uo subs are growing now! I have noticed a significant increase in people playing!

 

[AirmidCecht]

Did he actually talk about the future of UO?

He mentioned that every week they get together and discuss the direction they are taking things and dropping hints of what the current arc is leading towards...

He also mentioned that they are looking at ways to bring in new players and dealing with a huge learning curve....

 

[Lord Sir Scott]

Very good interview, a little discouraged he had not played in a decade, Hope he gets into it more...
For the most part if i was asked how i felt now that i watched this, i would have to say really i am undecided, Time will tell...

 

[Vyal]

"no comment"

Total bs...
heard it all before.
His hacker comment and talking about a certain player style and getting them a place of their own? Could he be talking about free shards, classic shard?

 

[Cear Dallben Dragon]

Great interview!
on advertising: Ultima VI Online is constantly running Lord Of Ultima banner adds. Surely Ultima Online could show up. Cant be to hard to throw out game time cards with all those other no name games I see in walgreens.
I UO

 

[NuSair]

"no comment"

Total bs...
heard it all before.
His hacker comment and talking about a certain player style and getting them a place of their own? Could he be talking about free shards, classic shard?

I get the idea that he's talking about production shards where you would be allowed to use the program(s) that shall not be named.

 

[Ender]

Great interview and best of all it soooo burst the bubble of all those naive doomsayers out there. :loser:

So much for dying after its 15th birthday, LMAO

LONG Live UO!!

How so?

Get me a text version, direct quotes. Or if it's very brief statements, the time in the video.

I'm not going to spend half an hour watching it.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

This interview was far and away the best ever done with a UO representative.

• Real, decent questions
• No schoolgirl giggling
• No random cut aways or people interrupting to squelch a comment
• No "team" to get in the way

However, his answers, while they were nice, have indeed all been heard before. (aside from the "spoilers") UO is still firmly swaddled in Area 51-esque secrecy, something no non-Mythic MMO does.

His comment about no new NPE is distressing. UO needs one. Desperately. To not see that is sheer folly. If, as producer, you acknowledge the obscene learning curve for UO and then not do something massive to ameliorate it...you have failed. Hell, he could turn on the old SE and AoS starting quests - that would be a big help.

Still, this interview was way, way better then any featuring Cal...

 

[Ender]

This interview was far and away the best ever done with a UO representative.

• Real, decent questions
• No schoolgirl giggling
• No random cut aways or people interrupting to squelch a comment
• No "team" to get in the way

However, his answers, while they were nice, have indeed all been heard before. (aside from the "spoilers") UO is still firmly swaddled in Area 51-esque secrecy, something no non-Mythic MMO does.

His comment about no new NPE is distressing. UO needs one. Desperately. To not see that is sheer folly. If, as producer, you acknowledge the obscene learning curve for UO and then not do something massive to ameliorate it...you have failed. Hell, he could turn on the old SE and AoS starting quests - that would be a big help.

Still, this interview was way, way better then any featuring Cal...

I still wonder why the hell they got rid of those quests. Those were far and away better than the current New Haven stuff, especially if you don't use the Enhanced Client. Without the EC, you're literally thrown into a very dated, confusing game with no instruction whatsoever.

 

[Vyal]

Did he say anything about fixing the bestial suit issue? Hitting someone with 4 AI's while they have 1 HP and they don't die is kinda sorta getting old...

It's as frustrating as those glass swords used to be on the shard of the dead. But it's live on all servers....

 

[yars]

"keep an eye on the wild dragons"

me thinks destard is the next revamped dungeon.

i also liked the comment "dude im not gonna contend with when"!!!

 

[yars]

"keep an eye on the wild dragons"

me thinks destard is the next revamped dungeon.

i also liked the comment "dude im not gonna contend with when"!!!

city banner for town loyalty seems lame, but lets see what the big prize is gonna be

 

[AirmidCecht]

Over 1k views in 2 days

Thank you Jeff and Sosaria Reels!

 

[Tina Small]

How so?

Get me a text version, direct quotes. Or if it's very brief statements, the time in the video.

I'm not going to spend half an hour watching it.

Petra posted a transcript here Saturday morning: http://uo2.stratics.com/posts/27112.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Well done, watchertoo.

-Galen's player

 

[AirmidCecht]

Petra posted a transcript here Saturday morning: http://uo2.stratics.com/posts/27112.

Oh I meant to thank you for this Tina. Amazing thank you!

 

[Tina Small]

Oh I meant to thank you for this Tina. Amazing thank you!

You're welcome!

 

[Taylor]

Petra posted a transcript here Saturday morning: http://uo2.stratics.com/posts/27112.

Thank you so much for this, Tina!

 

[Storm]

Very cool

 

[Woodsman]

This interview was far and away the best ever done with a UO representative.

• Real, decent questions
• No schoolgirl giggling
• No random cut aways or people interrupting to squelch a comment
• No "team" to get in the way

However, his answers, while they were nice, have indeed all been heard before. (aside from the "spoilers") UO is still firmly swaddled in Area 51-esque secrecy, something no non-Mythic MMO does.

Like others have said, disappointing this secrecy about Mythic MMOs remains. I can't go a week without getting spammed by a bunch of MMORPGs sending me details about their future plans. Even BioWare games that aren't even out spam me with their future plans.

I blame Warhammer. Paul Barnett and the others promised the moon with Warhammer and then Warhammer crashed and burned hard and still hasn't delivered what Barnett and the others promised, and so it seems like all Mythic MMOs are now afraid of promising anything. Which is bs because like you said, non-Mythic MMOs do not do this. In the good old days, UO was not surrounded by secrecy.

His comment about no new NPE is distressing. UO needs one. Desperately. To not see that is sheer folly. If, as producer, you acknowledge the obscene learning curve for UO and then not do something massive to ameliorate it...you have failed. Hell, he could turn on the old SE and AoS starting quests - that would be a big help.

As nice as the interview is, and as cool as Jeff sounds, this makes him sound like he's less of a producer/team lead and more like somebody who has hopped on the UO train and will ride it for a while, and then go somewhere else.

This will probably be edited out by a mod, but you can't call yourself a producer or team lead, admit that there is a huge problem that affects the growth of UO's playerbase, and then admit that you have no intention of fixing it.

Especially when you actually said you considered providing a place for people who use the exploits/cheat programs.

Are they really that more important than new players?

 

[Petra Fyde]

First: I'll ask you not to speculate on what a moderator will or will not do, especially when what you're suggesting is NEVER done, if fact CAN'T be done by a moderator. On very, very rare occasions I have myself, as Managing Editor, edited out one offensive part of a post in order that what I consider a valid and important post may remain on view. That has happened only when the poster him/herself is not online for me to request them to edit themselves. In the almost 3 years I've been ME I think I've done that twice.


Second: You are not quoting accurately, perhaps you should read the transcript Tina Small very kindly did for us?

Now there are some things that we’re doing that we have ideas that will make the initial journey into the game a little bit easier for new players, but that’s not where we’re going to put a lot of our focus at this time.

My hope is that we’ll put a bug in the ear of previous UO players, to draw them back into the strong community that we have today of active players. Along that, there’s definitely, whether through forums or through trade shows or people that I talk to or friends of friends, who know what Ultima Online is but have never played it. I think there is an opportunity there for us to gain their attention and get them back in. We’re going to look at how we’re doing our trial and some other things to help make that a little bit smoother experience. But beyond that, we’re not going to do like a whole new user experience. To do it right would take so much time and effort, where I think we could have some bigger wins with some other stuff we’re excited about doing that we’re currently working on or planning to work on later this year.

He didn't say he had no intention of fixing it, just that it wouldn't be the best use of resources at this time.
We all know that, learning curve or not, UO doesn't appeal to many of the newer, younger game players, with the emphasis on newer rather than younger. Gaming itself has changed as the industry has expanded, newer gamers, used to following strict progress lines, with a few exceptions, don't appreciate the freedom UO offers.

 

[Woodsman]

First: I'll ask you not to speculate on what a moderator will or will not do, especially when what you're suggesting is NEVER done, if fact CAN'T be done by a moderator.

I apologize - I thought mods had that power.

Second: You are not quoting accurately, perhaps you should read the transcript Tina Small very kindly did for us?

He did in fact say "we’re not going to do like a whole new user experience. " and he did imply that "hackers" are somehow more important than new players and that they are important enough to warrant a place to play and that they would look at it closer to the summer, right after he said they devalue the game experience:

We don’t condone hackers. We feel that they devalue the game experience. And those players who are not, are on unfair grounds because they’re not hacking the system like the [hackers] are. So it unbalances things greatly. The bottom line is, we know when people are hacking, and we’re going to be taking a more aggressive approach against [them]: warning them and then, if need be, getting them out of the game and off those shards.

Now, speaking of hackers, though, there’s definitely…there’s some stuff that the team and I are in discussion about. We understand that some players just want to play that way, and [we're] trying to figure out a way where we can give them a place to play like that. So, we’ll see. Maybe we’ll talk more about that towards the summer.

And yet, as you point out, he said that fixing the new player experience wasn't a good use of resources at this time.

I happen to think that new players are a lot more important to this game than people who want to run the cheat programs and that new players deserve a better experience up front.

Putting aside the fact that UO's reputation in regards to cheating/exploits will suffer even more than it already has if Jeff actually considers accommodating these people, the people running the cheat/exploits are not going to keep UO going in the long run, and they probably won't allow the UO team to push them off to their own shard. I doubt your typical exploiter wants to only compete against other exploiters - the whole purpose of exploiting/cheating is getting an advantage and you can't exactly get an advantage when everybody is running the same cheats/exploits/software.

I just strongly think Jeff needs to think about a new player experience and a new area for new players over the freaking cheaters.

As for returning players - there is a lot that needs to be done to even begin to draw them back in, and the problem with trying to bring them back is that they left for a large variety of reasons that you really can't accomodate - better/different graphics, larger game worlds, more players, different settings.

People forget that during UO's peak years, UO had very little competition - Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot, EverQuest were it, and all of those were fantasy-based. Star Wars Galaxies, EVE Online, World of Warcraft roll out, and UO subs start dropping drastically.

I think that things like the high resolution graphics need to be given a priority and finished, things like the UO website need to be fixed, and that things like a new player experience need to be bumped up. The first two will help bring in returning and new players, at least more than giving the "hackers" a place to play.

And new player experiences are important - the guys who run BioWare claimed that the first hour or two in a game are the most important - they went back and redid some of the early parts of Dragon Age 2 specifically because they believed they were losing people in the first Dragon Age early on.

Besides, returning players who would consider coming back are probably going to come back regardless of what is done to cater to them. A lack of players, a lack of graphics improvement over the last 15 years is going to turn them off.

 

[Woodsman]

And it should be noted that he said subs were up. If subs were up, you'd like to think BioWare would give them some more resources, especially since they helped on Star Wars.

 

[Petra Fyde]

I'll agree on the hackers. They don't want to play with the other hackers, they want to have an advantage over legit players. I would be looking at finding ways to stop the darn hacks from working, if I could.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

The Program That Shall Not Be Named has been around since what, AoS? So easily nine years.

If, in those nine years, they haven't been able to stop the program from working...it's not going to happen now. They simply need to swing the ban hammer with a heavy hand. Three strikes and you're out. Account deleted. House deleted.

Even considering "catering" to 'hackers' (he should really be saying scripters) is a business decision destined for epic, career marring, failure.

 

[Woodsman]

What if BioWare announced that they knew there were cheaters/scripters in Star Wars, and rather than just ban them, they would consider having a place for them to play?

The gaming media would crucify them.

Any effort being considered for supporting the cheaters/scripters should instead be put towards helping new players. In thinking about it since my post this morning, it's really insulting that the cheaters/scripters should even be given such consideration.

Of the exploiters, Jeff said: We feel that they devalue the game experience.

You're not going to do much for new players, who bring value to the game experience, but you're willing to setup a place for the exploiters to do their thing?

 

[MalagAste]

What if BioWare announced that they knew there were cheaters/scripters in Star Wars, and rather than just ban them, they would consider having a place for them to play?

The gaming media would crucify them.

Any effort being considered for supporting the cheaters/scripters should instead be put towards helping new players. In thinking about it since my post this morning, it's really insulting that the cheaters/scripters should even be given such consideration.

Of the exploiters, Jeff said: We feel that they devalue the game experience.

You're not going to do much for new players, who bring value to the game experience, but you're willing to setup a place for the exploiters to do their thing?

I have my concerns about that as well, though seriously I'm a bit reserved about the new player experience and how much time should be devoted to helping new players. My only reservations though are more about being honest with myself as to just how many "new" players there might really be as opposed to old players returning. There are old players returning all the time and often they have a great many questions about things. The learning curve for old players retuning is almost too great to the point where many fail to really get back into the game because they feel it's either too expensive and they feel there is no way for them to get the things they need... or they find that there is just too much to have to relearn for them to really enjoy the game again. I'd rather see something done to help returning players "catch up". Most of them don't even know what the current expansions are... how to get current or where to get codes. Certainly hasn't helped either that many have had bad experiences purchasing the codes.

 

[Woodsman]

The learning curve for old players retuning is almost too great to the point where many fail to really get back into the game because they feel it's either too expensive and they feel there is no way for them to get the things they need... or they find that there is just too much to have to relearn for them to really enjoy the game again. I'd rather see something done to help returning players "catch up". Most of them don't even know what the current expansions are... how to get current or where to get codes. Certainly hasn't helped either that many have had bad experiences purchasing the codes.

Is there a reason why a new player experience/returning player experience can't be very close to one another?

It's a valid point. I usually take short breaks if I take a break, but the people I know who have taken longer breaks do have a harder time coming back, and a lot of the questions/issues they have are identical to questions/issues that new players have.

 

[Vlaude]

Cal mentioned several times that it is important they don't ban massive amounts of players. They rely on their subscription money to keep the game running. Creating an exile shard for them isn't "catering" to them, it's allowing them to still play, and more imporantly pay, while taking them off production shards. A new player experience is too risky for them to do because of the production time versus unknown results (other than possibly losing more discontent current subscribers). Read in between the lines, UO is in cruise control and has been for some time now. It's up to the subscribers to keep the game from shutting down.

 

[Woodsman]

Creating an exile shard for them isn't "catering" to them, it's allowing them to still play, and more imporantly pay, while taking them off production shards.

People who exploit are not going to want to only play with other exploiters. A big part of why they exploit is to get an advantage over honest players. Trying to shove them off to a separate shard is hilarious because they won't stay there.

If you're going to try and develop a new shard for them and develop the coding to keep them there, you might as well bring up the classic shard stuff. It would be a better return on resources.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

The Program That Shall Not Be Named has been around since what, AoS? So easily nine years.

As far as I can tell, 1.5 to 2 years older than AoS.

A lot of people think such things are exclusively AoS problems. I know that isn't what you specifically were saying but that's how your post will, likely, be seen by some.

-Galen's player

 

[Vlaude]

People who exploit are not going to want to only play with other exploiters. A big part of why they exploit is to get an advantage over honest players. Trying to shove them off to a separate shard is hilarious because they won't stay there.

If you're going to try and develop a new shard for them and develop the coding to keep them there, you might as well bring up the classic shard stuff. It would be a better return on resources.

Te alternative would be to do nothing. The goal is to still collect their subscription money. Banning them, and not collecting their money is not an option.

 

[Woodsman]

Te alternative would be to do nothing. The goal is to still collect their subscription money. Banning them, and not collecting their money is not an option.

The man said they devalue the game experience. If UO is unprofitable without them, then UO is in trouble.