-
Hail Guest! We're looking for Community Content Contribuitors to Stratics. If you would like to write articles, fan fiction, do guild or shard event recaps, it's simple. Find out how in this thread: Community Contributions
-
Greetings Guest, Having Login Issues? Check this thread!
-
Hail Guest!, Please take a moment to read this post reminding you all of the importance of Account Security.
-
Hail Guest! Please read the new announcement concerning the upcoming addition to Stratics. You can find the announcement Here!
I call the anniversary date
And if it does?
It's gonna coincide with the 25th anniversary don't be surprised if destard our last event for a while...
LyricDear
Visitor
"Wanted" is a big word in this context. If they "wanted" to release it half-baked, they would. There's nothing stopping them.
That's a naive outlook. The UO Dev team is barebones. The reason I don't think it will be released is because I don't think they will be able to finish it in a reasonable amount of time given their short staff. They already added one dev because they weren't getting there. My guess is they want a summer release. In reality, if it actually comes out I'm guessing Winter.
LyricDear
Visitor
I don't think it's naïve.
They do lots of things against player input, why would releasing NL be something anyone could prevent?
I'm aware the team is barebones and I'm not faulting them for EA/Mythic/whoever the heck owns it now for not giving them funding to get a real team under their roof. They have too many eggs in this basket to not release it, it's only a matter of when.
I appreciate that they're willing to wait until it's done cooking to take it out of the oven, don't get me wrong.
I just don't think this is a matter of "want."
EA still OWNS DAoC and UO but they hired BS to maintain/upgrade itI don't think it's naïve.
They do lots of things against player input, why would releasing NL be something anyone could prevent?
I'm aware the team is barebones and I'm not faulting them for EA/Mythic/whoever the heck owns it now for not giving them funding to get a real team under their roof. They have too many eggs in this basket to not release it, it's only a matter of when.
I appreciate that they're willing to wait until it's done cooking to take it out of the oven, don't get me wrong.
I just don't think this is a matter of "want."
They'll release it in January of 2023 with no beta prior. It won't be anything Bonnie hyped it up to be. Instead, it will have a stripped-down item property matrix (which would be a good thing), a couple of QoL enhancements like the mining thing they've shown, no power scrolls, one facet, and seasonal.
- Awards
- 5
I had almost forgotten about NL, when was the last Newsletter? March? Surely they should have some actual gameplay videos to share by now and maybe start advertising? I think advertising 14 days free would encourage ex-players to give it a go. A September launch of NL coupled with some free 25th Anniversary advertising on gaming sites/magazines would be a good idea.
Right. I mean, it's not they announced it YEARS AGO, or anything. Oh wait, my bad ..........
They're waiting on funds since Keith shut Down RMT..
- Awards
- 5
It's not impatience, it's being perplexed about why there is no information coming out regularly, they billed this as the best thing for UO in years but now they seem to just not want to talk about it at all, it's starting to feel like the Account management debacle. If I'm right then the last we heard ANYTHING was back in the March newsletter. NOTHING in April or May?? If they are releasing it within the next 6 months then surely they must have a ton of stuff to share....
LOL You posted that like it would be a bad thing.
They definitely could communicate more or at least have a community manager of some kind to be a go between the team and the players.
They were doing the streams to talk about NL which was nice but of people just trash talked the team and the content they showed. Sometimes it seems like 90% of the people on the forums will never be satisfied with anything the devs say or do. I kind of dont blame them for not saying much because of that alone.
I’m eager to know what the new shard will be like but am also totally fine with waiting. It will be more interesting having everyone get acquainted with the shard at the same time imo.
The same answer as the last time you posted this. NL was announced in 2020 after a six-month delay in even announcing it (supposedly at that time they had been working on it for a year already). Now here we are in 2022 with a release target that is closing fast and we have seen NOTHING substantial. Add to it that they've cut way back on the prodo shards, people are a little concerned that the team's limited hour budget is not being used effectively on the right tasks.
Six months are left until they've missed their release and you have no word on beta (if they'll have one, which I don't think they will) and no solid plan of what the shard will be other than a few QoL enhancements, weather, and seasons. Anyone with any knowledge of SDLC would be concerned at this point.
If you look at the credits on the launch screen they have no testing team it's blank..
The first season is testing.
Why test something that will be deleted later.
I thought they might make a new UI. But I guess they can't because I'm guessing we will log into NL from the shard list.
The fact that you see no need to test something that is basically a new system baffles me....
First Night, everything will crash because there are so many players logged in. Every time there is a group event, it will be super laggy or crash.
Or I could be wrong and we will find out it is a combination of players and items in the game that overload the servers, and it will not crash.
They can't test load because only a small group of players go to things on TC. TC never crashes from load.
The servers are from Amazon not their own.
What needs tested? They are seeing the stats and mobs and determining the power. We will have crap weapons and armor. Probably Magery will be the only spell class.
A 25 year old system returning to basics does not need tested.
Like I said it will be wiped, so who cares if your book strap don't keep the books in when you die. Oh ya you do.
Those bugs you always complain about are not the issue. The issue will be bugs that allow players to gain stats too fast, or someone finds a way to make a lot of gold real fast. That could ruin NL quick.
They should get rid of gold as an independent item, it should go in our accounts as we kill stuff. That would end gold duping or some exploit.
According to what little we have been told they are revamping major systems and adding new and complex systems (this whole environment thing). Add in the fact it is built on a 25-year-old system and any product manager worth a darn would be testing the stuffing out of it. The fact that it doesn't appear that there will be a UAT phase of the development tells me that either they are nowhere near being ready to go live or they aren't implementing a quarter of the "trust us guys this is going to be so cool" features that they've mentioned.
This shows a complete lack of understanding of SDLC. To release something like NL with no testing or beta will be a disaster. After waiting three years, what do you think the reaction of the player base is going to be when it is an unplayable mess for the first season? Do you think anyone will return for season two?
It is clear that Bonnie has no project plan when it comes to NL. They're winging it off the cuff and the end result is going to show it.
I just can't even...
Back to not knowing what the hell is going on with this.
It was one thing when we got at least a monthly confirmation via newsletter that they were still working on it. But now….. who knows. I’m still looking forward to it but I honestly don’t even think about it anymore :/
It was one thing when we got at least a monthly confirmation via newsletter that they were still working on it. But now….. who knows. I’m still looking forward to it but I honestly don’t even think about it anymore :/
The central point of UO longevity is PERSISTENCE (e.g.: player's Houses). New Lunacy goes EXACTLY in the opposite direction.
I think their idea is interesting. We already have a bunch of shards that have perpetual life. NL is supposed to be more about the experience than item collecting.
It's easy to see that the project management on NL is horrible. They've never given actual milestones outside of extremely loose timelines like "Fall of 2022" or "pushed to 2023" which enables them to not deliver anything. I would expect to see some sort of timeline on when their development is done/artwork done/QA done/etc. In the latest newsletter Mesanna mentions the Alpha version which was never in the conversation before so my guess is that it's just going to be more of the same; radio silence then delay followed by more radio silence. It's pretty telling to me that they still have yet to release more than like 4 screenshots from NL which could easily come from a Prod shard (the artwork); there has been nothing about the rules/functionality (aka the important part).
I think it eventually will be released just to say they did it but it's likely going to be slapped together as they try to make their Xth revised deadline finally work.
I mean, at this point even DVV is questioning NL; so I think that really says something.
This is the type of stuff you get with a bad leader at the helm. Add to it you have someone who has zero concept of Project/Program Management or SDLC
The reason NL was pushed back this last time around was because Mesanna went on leave due to some sort of issue with her arm. That says a lot given that she doesn't actually code anything and majority of her work should just be making sure milestones are hit in a timely manner. What appears to have actually happened is that she went on leave for 2-3 months and the team basically got an extended vacation; we heard nothing from them from about May until September and nothing was introduced (except "pixie lights" artwork in July).
So there also seems to be zero accountability of delivering, not only a final quality product, but any product at all. Given that they've been talking about NL for what, like 3 years now (?) and we don't have a ruleset, let alone something that is actually tangible to get a walk through; I'd guess that they've missed several deadlines (assuming they had some) and nothing has been shaken up yet (ie vision revised or people moved around/fired). So basically the team has failed over and over and the solution is to just keep doing the same thing...again and again. That doesn't even account for the amount bugs consistently released into prod (likely little to now testing) each publish without many being fixed.
I've had serious doubts on how much the Dev team actually works on UO since 2020 (whether it be doing nothing at all or working another job). Aside from new art for some items and new "Treasures" items (which is basically just adding stats to existing items) we haven't seen much "new" content aside from the cookie cutter dynamic events. They all but admitted this would be the case as they work on NL but here we are almost 3 years later with the same cookie cutter events (Artisan / Krampus coming up again) but no NL. It's basically December so I don't expect any updates or new content (aside from artisan / krampus being "flipped on") until about March; sadly.
Miretar
Journeyman
I agree. My guild is on Legends. Our homes are on Legends. I waited years before getting a castle, and I only got one with help of a guild mate. Why would I drop everything to move to NL? There isn’t enough land to go around, and I remember the chaos of the past when new housing areas opened up.
You wouldn’t have to move to NL. It would just be a different shard with a different experience and housing is supposedly handled differently as well.
Legacy is not for us, that is paying players. Legacy is for returning players ... to turn them into paying players again.
As to us already paying players, despite persistence (good point) my beef with legacy is that I am only playing on one regular shard with one account, and I am at the slot cap with 7 characters. Although I'd be somewhat interested in legacy, I'd only play there if I could transfer my new character to my main shard. So a no go for me.
I for one am actually happy that they are "bribing" us with good stuff on the "treasures of" artifact vendors, even though these standardized events get old fast. Everybody should enjoy and take advantage of it too as long as the good stuff is out there. Once they really get their legacy shard running (hopefully not on the 30th anniversary) and focus on actual game development, they might only put junk on the event vendors, who knows.
We are free to play EJ made it so they don't care about new subs we the already paying multiple accounts will carry UO..
Aside for the outside chance that guilds use their guild house as a gathering spot; what are houses really used for?
Answer: Storage / decoration.
Now keep in mind that the shard is temporary so too will be the housing and anything in the house. It will really depend on the length of time the shard is running for but I'm not sure why anyone would really need their own house on NL given that it's going to go poof upon restart. I think housing is a prod shard mindset.
I agree, it's going to depend on the length of time the shard is running. If they're talking seasons like other games, we're looking at three to four months - in that situation, I wouldn't see the need for housing as much. However, I could easily see the team getting "delayed" with releasing a new season and the old one staying active for much longer. Let's be blunt here, someone got bent out of shape when she was called out for not being able to release a monthly newsletter. Do we really believe they'll be able to stay on schedule for the new seasons?