Today's Tweets from Jeff Skalski

[HD2300]

Grimm is doing a good job talking about the EC graphics update, my only wish is that the dialogue had started back in May. Or that he could post a few mocked-up screenshots so we could get a taste of what's coming.

There are no screenshots because they only started working on this 2 weeks ago.

 

[Cirno]

I think there's a problem here.
Feeling let down by the developers is one thing, but expressing that feeling by attacking the developers and people that don't share the feeling is really not helping to build any form of community. In fact, it runs counter to one of your stated goals, because no one likes to be attacked, and since they have no obligation to post here to communicate directly, the chances are they just won't volunteer themselves for that sort of treatment.

 

[Tina Small]

Does anyone know the ranking of bioware mythic games, meening player accounts per game? where does uo rank? are we at the bottom of the list middle?

I'm not sure anyone has any current and official "active subscription" numbers for Mythic's MMos. Around a year ago, however, in response to a blog posted by someone who claimed they were soon going to be laid off by Mythic ("EA Louse"), someone else who supposedly worked for EA ("Anonymous EA") claimed that Warhammer Online had at that point about 110,000 subscriptions and DAoC and UO each had about 50,000 subscriptions.

 

[Lady Tia]

Hrmm *ponders playing angels advocate*

I can not quote everything in that post that I like and agree with or the whole post would be quoted. Well said tho.

Agreed. Very well said Airmid.

 

[Lady Tia]

I think there's a problem here.
Feeling let down by the developers is one thing, but expressing that feeling by attacking the developers and people that don't share the feeling is really not helping to build any form of community. In fact, it runs counter to one of your stated goals, because no one likes to be attacked, and since they have no obligation to post here to communicate directly, the chances are they just won't volunteer themselves for that sort of treatment.

Yes, Cirno, that is the problem here. How can we expect the developers to come here if its to litany of attacks from the forum members. Would you come back to post more news/updates after that? Thank you for posting that comment!

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Regarding communication generally....

I'm in a weird spot here.

I was one of a small number of posters who had taken to encouraging less communication, because of the way some of the team, Cal in particular, kept making things worse when he communicated.

I had this assumption that if they communicated less, they would actually say more and say it better when they did communicate.

Quite plainly I was wrong, almost entirely so.

But then there is the following problem with them communicating more.

We, the UO community, collectively speaking, are ****ing crazy. We are only moderately, but noticeably, less crazy than is EA.

So how much good would their posting more really do? No matter what they said, half of us would consider them stupid or corrupt and would not be shy of saying so. A certain percentage of the remaining half would take everything they said, no matter what was actually said, as meaning the game was about to end, or as a sign of them hating PvP, or of hating Siege, or of lying, or of favoritism, etc.

So, not communicating is clearly not the answer. I was wrong.

Is more communication the answer? As clearly, no.

So what's the answer?

I have no idea I am afraid.

I'll just keep playing and see what happens I guess.

-Galen's player

 

[Woodsman]

There are no screenshots because they only started working on this 2 weeks ago.

Got proof of that or are you just trolling?

 

[Spyderis]

Yes, Cirno, that is the problem here. How can we expect the developers to come here if its to litany of attacks from the forum members. Would you come back to post more news/updates after that? Thank you for posting that comment!

Why whould they?? To clear their good name..remember if it wasnt for us, Paying to play..they would not have a job. Sure maybe somewhere else but not here..Pride only Hurts..Saying "sorry we had some problems will gain anyone mega props"..silence kills..

Look at Grim he is Loved now more than ever why? He Talks To Us

 

[Woodsman]

So what's the answer?

I have no idea I am afraid.

Using the official game site as it was intended - to communicate with the community, and do so in a regular fashion. They should be following UO Japan's lead and talking about EM events as well. They should be learning from UO Japan.

And getting somebody who is dedicated to UO's community. This business of sharing Kai with three other games isn't working. Three because I always forget that he's also talking about the Warhammer arenas game.

 

[Cirno]

And getting somebody who is dedicated to UO's community. This business of sharing Kai with three other games isn't working. Three because I always forget that he's also talking about the Warhammer arenas game.

Very very true words.
I think the shortcoming in this respect comes from EA management, who seem to be applying the same community model to MMOGs as they do to other titles; that is, not considering that rather than there being a singular release date, each month is effectively a release date. You can't stop selling the game, because you're relying on people buying another subscription cycle.

Without a community manager/representative, the developers are more or less flying blind. All they can really do is make educated guesses about what the players as a whole want, and what sort of reaction anything they release is going to get.

 

[Taylor]

They should contract out to Karina. Just sayin.

 

[Specialshoes]

Earlier today I tweeted

Hey @Jeff_Skalski How's that letter to the UO community comming? Can we expect some news from developers soon?

And I got this in reply

@Specialshoes Not done, but hoping to get it posted some mid to late next week. My grammer is horrible and it needs some editting.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

Without a community manager/representative, the developers are more or less flying blind.

Isn't that an easy thing if they're in denial?

sorry the guy is sick and all, but when he's well, he'll be back to whatever he Was doing? It sounds like we are just something to do when he's got nuttin else to do, besides, notice that little word "may" in that line? buncha of BS drama to me

 

[Woodsman]

Very very true words.
I think the shortcoming in this respect comes from EA management, who seem to be applying the same community model to MMOGs as they do to other titles; that is, not considering that rather than there being a singular release date, each month is effectively a release date. You can't stop selling the game, because you're relying on people buying another subscription cycle.

Without a community manager/representative, the developers are more or less flying blind. All they can really do is make educated guesses about what the players as a whole want, and what sort of reaction anything they release is going to get.

Well the heads of BioWare have said that BioWare titles are their responsibility, and theirs alone.

And here's the rub: Star Wars: The Old Republic has a large community relations team, both in PR types and in the forums community (Star Wars: The Old Republic | COMMUNITY) - their General Discussion forum is closing in on 4 million posts alone in just two years. Their community relations team is probably bigger than the UO dev team.

BioWare knows how to do community relations. I've participated in other BioWare communities. They are very good about providing forums for all of their games, including games that came out well over a decade ago: BioWare Social Network. The general discussion forum for Dragon Age II is hitting nearly a million posts at the one year mark. Obviously they are seriously invested in community relations and even providing a place for older communities - it's very telling that Baldur's Gate, a game that came out 13 or so years ago, has an official, and active, forum on the Social.BioWare.com forums.

But only when it comes to BioWare games.

All of that completely changes when you get to the Mythic MMOs. Now Warhammer does have official forums, and while some of the official Warhammer sub-forums are lacking in activity, the general Warhammer forum is active, but then again, they were spending a lot of money and effort on Warhammer just three short years ago. And at the end of the day, Warhammer is still sharing a community person with us and Camelot.

As much as I've railed against EA in the past, there comes a point at which we have to hold BioWare accountable, because the BioWare VP who is over BioWare Mythic has talked about being in charge of the MMOs and being proud of it, and the heads of BioWare have publicly stated that they, not EA, are responsible for how their games are handled.

BioWare gets how to do community relations and how to provide for a community. At some point, we have to accept that they have deliberately chosen not to do this for the Mythic MMOs. How to change that, I don't know.

 

[PsychoKinetic]

When I see the devs posting here I always imagine the old game of Whack-A-Mole. They pop their head up and immediately get pounded with a mallet of criticism and complaints.

I don't think that the criticism from the player base is what worries our devs the most though. It seems that whenever a dev starts communicating with us and making a name in the community then shortly thereafter they no longer have a job.

 

[Cirno]

Isn't that an easy thing if they're in denial?

I'm not sure what your meaning is there.

Well the heads of BioWare have said that BioWare titles are their responsibility, and theirs alone.

And here's the rub: Star Wars: The Old Republic has a large community relations team, both in PR types and in the forums community (Star Wars: The Old Republic | COMMUNITY) - their General Discussion forum is closing in on 4 million posts alone in just two years. Their community relations team is probably bigger than the UO dev team.

BioWare knows how to do community relations. I've participated in other BioWare communities. They are very good about providing forums for all of their games, including games that came out well over a decade ago: BioWare Social Network. The general discussion forum for Dragon Age II is hitting nearly a million posts at the one year mark. Obviously they are seriously invested in community relations and even providing a place for older communities - it's very telling that Baldur's Gate, a game that came out 13 or so years ago, has an official, and active, forum on the Social.BioWare.com forums.

But only when it comes to BioWare games.

All of that completely changes when you get to the Mythic MMOs. Now Warhammer does have official forums, and while some of the official Warhammer sub-forums are lacking in activity, the general Warhammer forum is active, but then again, they were spending a lot of money and effort on Warhammer just three short years ago. And at the end of the day, Warhammer is still sharing a community person with us and Camelot.

As much as I've railed against EA in the past, there comes a point at which we have to hold BioWare accountable, because the BioWare VP who is over BioWare Mythic has talked about being in charge of the MMOs and being proud of it, and the heads of BioWare have publicly stated that they, not EA, are responsible for how their games are handled.

BioWare gets how to do community relations and how to provide for a community. At some point, we have to accept that they have deliberately chosen not to do this for the Mythic MMOGs. How to change that, I don't know.

I would guess that it's "all hands on deck" for the new title.
As you say, they already have more eggs in that basket than in all the other MMOGs combined, so there's more riding on it.
They're betting on the new favourite which could make great headway in the genre, rather than the old line-up which would kind of be less of a loss to lose than The Old Republic.

In the best case, at the moment, they don't stand to gain much through investing in UO, and in the worst case they don't stand to lose much by not.

 

[HD2300]

Which dev should we let go so we can have a full time community manager? </stupidity>

Here is an idea. Why doesnt Messana, who is in charge of EMs, spend 10 minutes and post once a month on UOHerald, a list of all upcoming events in the next month? Problem solved. And for just only $10/month suddenly UO will get an 20,000 extra p(l)ayers.

 

[Woodsman]

Here is an idea. Why doesnt Messana, who is in charge of EMs, spend 10 minutes and post once a month on UOHerald, a list of all upcoming events in the next month?

It could easily be automated. The EM websites have RSS feeds, there are Drupal modules that could be added to the Herald to read and display those RSS feeds automatically.

 

[Spyderis]

I'm not sure what your meaning is there.

I would guess that it's "all hands on deck" for the new title.
As you say, they already have more eggs in that basket than in all the other MMOGs combined, so there's more riding on it.
They're betting on the new favourite which could make great headway in the genre, rather than the old line-up which would kind of be less of a loss to lose than The Old Republic.

In the best case, at the moment, they don't stand to gain much through investing in UO, and in the worst case they don't stand to lose much by not.

Fail..Counting you're eggs before they have hatched

 

[Tina Small]

There is a section of the UO Japan site titled "Team Comments." [ ƒ`[ƒ€ƒRƒƒ“ƒg ] It includes items such as letters from the producer, miscellaneous FAQs from the producer or appointed community representative, as well as other official communications, such as transcripts of video or House of Commons Q&A sessions, posts made in the Ask the Devs forum, and the old Five on Friday announcements. It does not include routine announcements about things like server maintenance, publish or patch notes.

For 2011, this section of the UO Japan site has 18 entries. The most recent one is from August 13th, an FAQ about the process of migrating to the new Account Management system.

For 2010, there were 47 entries.

For 2009, there were 69 entries.

For 2008, there were 70 entries.

For 2007, there were 68 entries.

For 2006, there were 59 entries.

I think those numbers pretty much speak for themselves as an explanation for why people are very unhappy at this point with the amount and quality of "official" communications from EA with respect to UO.

 

[Woodsman]

I'm not sure what your meaning is there.

I would guess that it's "all hands on deck" for the new title.
As you say, they already have more eggs in that basket than in all the other MMOGs combined, so there's more riding on it.
They're betting on the new favourite which could make great headway in the genre, rather than the old line-up which would kind of be less of a loss to lose than The Old Republic.

In the best case, at the moment, they don't stand to gain much through investing in UO, and in the worst case they don't stand to lose much by not.

I'm saying that they know how to do community relations, they just choose not to do so for the Mythic games. I don't know why they refuse to support the communities of the Mythic MMOs. It's not a resource issue - adding UO and Camelot forums to the BioWare.com forums would not be a drain on resources - Dragon Age and Mass Effect would dwarf both of them, and their moderators aren't paid. It would take 10 minutes to add half a dozen or so forums for each game.

It's not a money/manpower issue - when you read about how often the BioWare executives are flying around, about how they rented out places to show off the Warhammer arena game, including a part of a brewery, and just about all of their travels in general, it's clear that money is not an issue. If they've got the money to fly people to Germany to show off Warhammer arenas, if they've got the money to fly people around the country to make presentations to executives in person, if they've got the money to fly executives around the country to attend announcements about DLC for Dragon Age, they've got the money to contract out for somebody to work on the Herald. It doesn't take too many cross-country airplane tickets and hotel rooms before a contractor's monthly salary is paid for.

Here's what makes the least amount of sense to me: Camelot is getting a lot of work done on its new player areas. A lot. UO is getting a graphics upgrade, arenas are in testing, and UO is supposed to get a better new player experience. BioWare is putting resources into making UO and Camelot more attractive to new players.

But it's not putting resources into communicating those changes to the player communities. I take that back, it is communicating them to Camelot players with the diaries - this is from two weeks ago: Dark Age of Camelot But with UO, a new or returning player showing up at the Herald is going to think that nobody gives a **** about UO.

And when Skalski gets his intro letter written, is it going to be featured prominently on the Herald where everybody can see it, even a month later, or is it going to be quickly buried by the typical things posted on the Herald?

 

[Taylor]

For 2011, this section of the UO Japan site has 18 entries. The most recent one is from August 13th, an FAQ about the process of migrating to the new Account Management system.

For 2010, there were 47 entries.

For 2009, there were 69 entries.

For 2008, there were 70 entries.

For 2007, there were 68 entries.

For 2006, there were 59 entries.

To be fair, they suffered major layoffs at least 3 times since 2006. I readily acknowledge that communication has dropped significantly, but let's be charitable vis-a-vis the truth of the situation.

 

[Woodsman]

In the best case, at the moment, they don't stand to gain much through investing in UO, and in the worst case they don't stand to lose much by not.

They are investing in the games themselves, they are just not investing in the community. Sorry if I didn't post clearly about it.

They are doing things for UO and Camelot that show that somebody, somewhere wants to bring in new players. But it's just not being communicated well in Camelot's case, or not at all with UO.

Really though, it's in their best interest to work on all of their MMOs and not just Star Wars. If Star Wars drops off rapidly, it would be to their benefit to have other MMOs that they can use to bring in those players who leave Star Wars. $13 from a person who quit Star Wars and who is now playing Camelot/Warhammer/UO is better than $0 from a person who quit Star Wars and went to a different company.

 

[Tina Small]

For 2011, this section of the UO Japan site has 18 entries. The most recent one is from August 13th, an FAQ about the process of migrating to the new Account Management system.

For 2010, there were 47 entries.

For 2009, there were 69 entries.

For 2008, there were 70 entries.

For 2007, there were 68 entries.

For 2006, there were 59 entries.

To be fair, they suffered major layoffs at least 3 times since 2006. I readily acknowledge that communication has dropped significantly, but let's be charitable vis-a-vis the truth of the situation.

I don't think layoffs were the direct cause of official communications drying up starting in 2010. We still had community representatives and their boss in 2010 and 2011. We also had Zig helping Cal out for a while monitoring stuff and earlier this year Cal told us that one of the GMs (Akemai, I think?) was also monitoring the forums for issues. And then there's the Ask the Devs forum that was set up as a replacement for the Five on Friday announcements. I don't buy it that lack of manpower is the main reason behind the drastic drop-off in communications. I think there are other reasons for it.

Edited to add: Also, I think most companies that would like to hold onto their customers might actually increase communication after layoffs to reassure customers in hopes they won't panic and jump ship.

 

[Taylor]

For 2011, this section of the UO Japan site has 18 entries. The most recent one is from August 13th, an FAQ about the process of migrating to the new Account Management system.

For 2010, there were 47 entries.

For 2009, there were 69 entries.

For 2008, there were 70 entries.

For 2007, there were 68 entries.

For 2006, there were 59 entries.

To be fair, they suffered major layoffs at least 3 times since 2006. I readily acknowledge that communication has dropped significantly, but let's be charitable vis-a-vis the truth of the situation.

I don't buy it that lack of manpower is the main reason behind the drastic drop-off in communications. I think there are other reasons for it.

There are likely many reasons behind the trend. One of these reasons was noted by Grimm, himself:

. . . the problem comes in when people start using their posts to air out personal grudges, vent frustration, or just troll. When these things occur, and they occur enough, it gives us good reason to give pause about the next time we want to post anything. Given enough crucifixions (to quote Syrus) and the interest in posting at all is gone.

This sentiment has been proven once again by this thread. Nevertheless, as much as I respect you, Tina, I think that it is uncharitable to say that the layoff of over 1/3rd of their staff had nothing to do with the change. It is some combination of lack of manpower, persistent degradation, and other factors.

 

[Tina Small]

I think that it is uncharitable to say that the layoff of over 1/3rd of their staff had nothing to do with the change. It is some combination of lack of manpower, persistent degradation, and other factors.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then. As I added to my last post a while ago, I think many companies that have layoffs and want to keep their customers actually increase communications with their customers after a layoff. Going silent and/or putting out vague and misleading communications certainly doesn't instill much confidence in your customers when they know your numbers have decreased.

I'll use an example. Say you hear on the news that your local utility company has just laid off 20% of their employees. The next time you receive your utility bill, you notice that it no longer includes the little newsletter full of tips on how to save energy that has been included with the bill for as many years as you can remember. And when you check the company's website, you notice that the "Energy Saving Tips" section of the site has been left untouched for over a month. Would you not be a bit concerned that your utility company is in pretty deep trouble, more so than might be indicated just by the layoff? And wouldn't you begin to be even more concerned than you were when you heard the layoff news regarding what might come next in terms of the services you receive from the company and the prices they charge?

Or say it was your financial services provider that handles your company's retirement plan. For years, your quarterly statements have arrived with a newsletter and/or a newsletter was posted on the provider's website. And then one day you hear that the provider has decided to lay off 20% of their workforce. Next time you get your statement, you can't find any accompanying newsletter and there's a notice that customer service hours have been drastically reduced. How long is it going to take before you're picking up the phone and calling the HR department and asking them when the company is going to put the plan out to bid with another provider to ensure the longevity and health of the company's retirement plan?

I truly believe that any company worth their salt doesn't cut communications when they've had to cut staff. Yes, I admit that they may have to carefully watch what they say to customers, but they don't just clam up and act like they're trying to dig a wide, deep moat between themselves and their customers. If anything, they put more money and time into sending the message, "We're still here! We still want and value your business! We're still listening to you!"

 

[Lady Storm]

Tweet my aunt fanny! Indeed!!

I for one do not Tweet. doodle, or daudle, face what ever........ I dont trust them, never will.

As for this "cough" Gentilman writing us a intro........ petra close your eyes for a second...

Better yet I said it out loud so you dont need yell at me. Way too late and way over due..

Distance from the paying public is not a good thing. Suguestion ... get off your high cloud and address your public "GOD" the men and women of UO are waiting.....


*Taps foot*

 

[Petra Fyde]

*sigh*

Do I wish there was more communication?
Heck yes!

Do I worry about the future of the game?
Heck yes!

Do I think the community here is, in part, responsible for the lack of developers posts on this forum?
Emphatically yes. Galen said it well

So how much good would their posting more really do? No matter what they said, half of us would consider them stupid or corrupt and would not be shy of saying so. A certain percentage of the remaining half would take everything they said, no matter what was actually said, as meaning the game was about to end, or as a sign of them hating PvP, or of hating Siege, or of lying, or of favoritism, etc.

Several posters should read, and take notice, of this article
http://rationalmadness.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/destructive-criticism/

Is it a coincidence that the Mythic folk who have posted most frequently have been artists?
I think probably not. Cathat told us, when he was posting, that he had time to read and post because he was waiting for his work to 'render', meaning his pc was tied up and he couldn't move on with his work until it finished.

They are a small team, doing a very large job. They work longer hours than most people here work at their respective jobs. Heck half the folk here are posting when their employers think they're working!

How about we cut them some slack? How about we make a pact to welcome them when they post, we don't read into what they post meanings that aren't there? We don't attack them and call them 'lazy', 'incompetent' or other uncomplimentary names? We don't slam Kai for his slightly less than perfect English? How good is your German? We don't know what challenges they face in the code, the directives from above, the restrictions on what they can say and when. We have not 'walked a mile in their shoes'.
Yes, we're worried, but let's try to create an atmosphere in which they feel able to post without being pilloried for things they didn't say, didn't mean and don't intend?

 

[puzzleagent]

Just wanted to add something here about "layoff debate"

CCP, the company behind EVE Online, recently laid off 20% percent of their personnel and shortly after made a statement. You can find it in their website under news titled "CCP Focuses on the EVE Universe- A CCP Announcement"

I like how CCP has been handling communication so far

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

As much as I can appreciate the feeling Petra, it's a rather idealistic view... I like how ironic this all is.

How can you make a pact with a community that is aware (well I tought it was but it seems to forget alot) that there is no way UO will ever end ; but not because of us, because brokers and scripters will buy and use twice as many accounts the real players (and I'm not talking about solo players who could care less about community) do.

How irritating of a truth this is... and the simple fact that devs would think like this :

. . the problem comes in when people start using their posts to air out personal grudges, vent frustration, or just troll. When these things occur, and they occur enough, it gives us good reason to give pause about the next time we want to post anything. Given enough crucifixions (to quote Syrus) and the interest in posting at all is gone.

And Syrus to be honest I have nothing against you, think you have a great sense of humor ; our disagreements happen to be on unrelated matters...

but... if you want to bring a point across to people who are already frustrated, quoting a message that has your own name quoted is not going to make anyone feel better right now.

Once again the simple fact :

how can a dev who knows they can simply stop posting, ignore what ever post, say pretty much anything and noone can ever do anything about it... even straight out lie... and everyone waived their right to sue or class action.

You are invincible... this is nonsense and pure childishness.

And besides all this pointless babble, you're just doing your job, how can what someone says here morally get at you ?

We're not only starting to see a pattern here (people who chose to stand up for UO and get fired shortly after) but we also see the patternbreakers...

And beleive me, right now as I sit on my lonely corner of the world, I am trying to prevent further damage. Nothing else distracts my mind.

You see Petra what UO has created for us all to see : a true ULTIMA ... and its online in a persistant world.

Have you ever tought it be possible it had a collective unconscious too like what is dynamised to be henceforth in human relations and bloomed into "social media" ?

Let me help you all here look at this and the truths behind it :

How about we make a pact to welcome them when they post, we don't read into what they post meanings that aren't there? We don't attack them and call them 'lazy', 'incompetent' or other uncomplimentary names? We don't slam Kai for his slightly less than perfect English? How good is your German?

Assuming this mostly refers to my post (because I feel concerned at every corner it has)

Well ironically, amongst all things that could happen in the world right now, Jeff said his message would be delayed because his english was not the best.

Why would we care ? As someone CLEARLY mentioned before :

We only need to hear, hey we're working on this and that, it might help this, but might not.

Thats all the slack they already got.

They already got it don't you see ? anytime they start posting the people cheering them overpower the negative minds...

you are proposing a pact between the positive and negative minds ; without anyone having the ability to truely tell who is positive and negative.

Heck a person so very "close" to us could be a duper and have made a fortune out of crossing UO and noone would care or even know ?

And we're supposed to blame the people who dare to say the truth ?

They can and have been ignored for 14 years... and theres a disclaimer at the bottom of the page saying :

EXPERIENCE MIGHT CHANGE DURING GAME... thing...

we need a community that can discern between good and evil... not a neutral pact that is fueled by our collective ignorance of the true players...

damage control ought to happen now...

 

[Petra Fyde]

No, I wasn't meaning your post. If I'm brutally honest, I have to admit that I very rarely read your posts. They make little or no sense to me.

I am NOT saying we must not criticise. Reasoned and constructive criticism is valuable. I AM saying we should not attack, denigrate or deliberately misconstrue posts to suit our own assumed view of what we believe they think. None of us are mind readers and it is very wrong to attribute attitudes that have not been directly expressed.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Exactly... I'm sorry I can not simplify matters enough for it to be understood... as I mention often this is unexplored territory and I am still in a quest for truth.

BUT...

But I totally agree with you ; I will try to put it simpler again :

What if people do not want the devs to be friends with us and start insulting them... how will we know ?

You have to see this obvious WOUND we have here... there is no way to tell.

I have been intuitively snapping at the worse of them ; and I cannot say I act everytime with certitude and certainly accept I am making errors when I do.

But if you look at it with a broader perspective, you will notice that I have warded off much more troublemakers than all your ops combined ever did in UHALL.

All that is pretty much left that is "chaotic" is me, a few guys who remain on the political defensive, and the very angry multi-account ladies.

Just this should ring you a bell, but all the things you said "people shouldn't say"... I said them in the last days.

All of it, you see how powerful your subconscious is ?

All I said you recorded it there and it came back right, and it feels right.

How can I be right and wrong at the same time ?

 

[PASmountaindew]

Well with 3 different Apple products there I assume he is a big Mac fan. So maybe there is some hope of a Mac client for UO in the future? I can only hope.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

If it works on Ipad and similar I guess it would make lots of my friends happy.

I'm sorry guys if I sound alarming sometimes... I guess thats what I really mean :

I know I care about UO, I know I care about this community and that what I "provoke" is for its best... maybe its because I was so young and grew in it, I just "know" I'm doing it right.

And I'm not taking this into extremes since I am accepting somehow sometimes I make destructive errors.

The true problem is : I've been way too often compared to people who come here merely to cause trouble.

In fact the big bold truth is that many people whom I know stand to PROFIT from the fact the devs DO NOT fraternize with us ; have played the "gentle fool" to seem nice and serviable so their ideas would be picked...
and then some did... and then WE realised that they were ideas to enhance the market, to make more money for a select few

Then people subconsciously turn around and snap at me for having good ole sense ?

There people (who have nothing to lose) will come here and make us look bad, if they fail too bad they'll create another user and just jump in with more inflamatory remarks who will get other people to fall into ZIZANY.

Key words here... they've been coming round and round.

This needs to stop... and I do have a simple solution.

 

[Kayne]

I am one of the people who continually voices my disatisfaction about the communication issues. However I fully agree with Petra and Galen.
Communication from the dev team is abysmal at best, heck I don't mind if they don't post on stratics (though would be happier) as long as we get lots of updates on the Herald as to what to expect, whats gone wrong, what the latest fixes were etc.

Communication on stratics will not happen while they continually get lynched for everything they say or do.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Exactly... thing should be handled in a professional way at the source (herald) and then the Devs would realise they can simply write about what made their day sweeter...

They still can right now, saying that they cannot handle a few people who are losing patience because their own boss cannot keep things straight... it seems far fetched, you know what I mean.

 

[Larisa]

Well with 3 different Apple products there I assume he is a big Mac fan. So maybe there is some hope of a Mac client for UO in the future? I can only hope.

Remind me to drink my morning coffee before reading anything here...too many food references, I was confused as to what McDonalds had anything to do with anything...

Once I assimilated the information correctly I had to agree, MAC users need some love too, though I personally don't use one, my parents are avid MAC fans and I do think they are more intuative (Ignore my horrible spelling, still workin on that first cup of coffee!)

Also to everything else that's been posted here.

While I do enjoy waving my pom poms about, and always will only for the simple fact that I REALLY like this game, I enjoy playing it, even with all it's bugs and glitchy-ness...kinda like that old teddy bear you had when you were a kid...or..whatever your stuffed animal/toy of choice happened to be.

He might be a bit old and tattered, missing an eye maybe...had holes sewn up more times then you can remember..but it's still familiar and an old friend.

UO has been through alot over the years and has managed to make it through the rips and tears and re-sewn on eyes and even re-stuffed a few times and is still in pretty decent shape.

While I won't pretend to know what Jeff or anyone is really doing other then what we've gathered from his Tweets, I know that UO has not gone from their minds. Grimm is feverishly working on new graphics, as can be seen from his miriad of posts about the new artwork. Why would he be working SO hard on something that's just going to die?

Lack of Communication is bad...but it's everywhere unfortunatly. And I know I for one wouldn't want to be the one responsible for..say..housing....and come on here and post ANYTHING.

Just take at the recent changes to Stratics. I came in near the end of the migration to the new site and helped just a little transferring over a few pages and adding some content. Myself and a few other Stratics Staff spent a good portion of the day finding and fixing broken links, it takes ALOT of work, only to come on here and see posts like *WTF DID YOU DO TO STRATICS???* It looks horrible, my kid could have done better, what were you thinking????

Would you want to do anything if all you KNEW you were going to get is crap like that??? Especially since this IS the internet and you CAN stop and think before you type.

Take the sheep (Sorry Grimm!) One tiny little thing...one tiny little oops not even game breaking and people brought the pitchforks and torches out! Instead of...*I noticed that the sheep in the CC are a bit off, was that intentional?* They got *OMG WHAT THE HELL THEY ARE SO UGLY...etc. etc.*

STOP and think before you type, now I know alot of you are going to say *They should have thick skin, they should know how to take criticism blah blah* but there's a difference between constructive criticism and plain out blatant rudeness and unecessary mud slinging.

I know that it happens, I know that when you buy something from a store and it's broken, you go BACK to that store and take it out on the poor customer service lady at the front desk who has NOTHING to do with the object in question...doesn't make it right though.

Mayhaps be a tad bit nicer? I know the game is broken, I know alot of things need to be fixed/tweeked/ whatever...and I'm sure they do too...but try to express your displeasure in a way that's constructive and not bone-breaking.

I look forward to hearing from Jeff, whenever that may be.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

Without a community manager/representative, the developers are more or less flying blind.

I'm not sure what your meaning is there.

If they really needed our 'help', they'd find a way. With Cal gone, doesn't that place Mesanna in charge? Maybe it's too tough for her? Isn't it 'Associate' producer, not 'Assistant'? With head in the sand? maybe she thinks all is grand, no posts needed?
She knew better than Cal what to say/release, definitely a shinier apple in the barrel, and as the other Senior, I feel she should now assume the communicator role. Maybe she got crapped on and is now just doing her job w/o any 'extras'.

 

[Trebr Drab]

Personally, what we as players and posters do should not matter. It is their job to provide us with information, because we are paying for the service.

How they do that is another matter. I've never been a fan of a company talking on the open forums with the customers. That only leads to more personal conflicts. But they do need to give us a steady stream if information. They do need to read what we are saying, what our complaints are, so they can come to solid decisions.

Most importantly, they need to work on this game. Right now it seems like they aren't doing much for us. If they are, we don't know it because of the lack of communication, which is best done by statements rather than chit chat on the forums. They also need to let us know what they are working on, so that we can make our complaints known, and they need to adjust accordingly if they determine that we're right.

But really, my faith in game developers these days is almost nil. Too gamey, and too much "now" stuff that becomes unused in the near future (Arenas). Well, not to say Arenas are a bad idea even if they aren't used much soon. I mean, not enough long range planning and code to make the game better, long range.

 

[Tina Small]

I agree with several other people who have posted here that what I want to see is a lot more "official" communication. If the UO team members who are not tasked with or trained in the role of community representation are uncomfortable with or leery of posting in the forums or if Bioware frowns upon it for some reason, that's fine and it's understandable. Stick to doing what you are best at and leave the communication work to people like the producer and the community representatives.

But for goodness' sake, release news on a regular basis if you don't want your customers to start panicking. I think by now the huge decrease in the amount of official communication from the folks responsible for UO has made it very obvious that there's something afoot with regard to UO's future and whatever it is probably isn't good. So I think it should also be obvious that UO's players aren't stupid and really don't want to be lead down the same path EA led The Sims Online players down just a few years ago when they (very briefly) made major enhancements to the game after a long period of neglect, encouraged users to submit customized content, made it free-to-play, allowed you to buy in-game currency with RL money, rebranded the game to call it "EA Land," and then shortly afterwards shut it all down. It was a crummy, deceitful way to treat their customers and I think a lot of people felt like they had been used as unwitting and paying guinea pigs.

I have no interest in throwing my money at EA while in the back of my mind I sit and wonder if some hot shot at EA is sitting there laughing at my naivete and addiction to UO because there is some secret plan to wring more money out of me and see just how much neglect, half-truths, inuendos, rumors, and all-around poor service a truly addicted customer will accept before walking away for good.

All we know about Jeff at this point is that he has something to do with the Ultima Forever site where you can currently download the Ultima IV game and maybe you'll eventually be able to download additional old Ultima games. We don't know if he has anything to do with the Lord of Ultima browser game being run by Phenomic. We don't know if he has anything to do with the rumored Facebook Ultima game that is supposedly Paul Barnett's big secret project. We also don't know if he has anything to do with the 3D version of UO that NetDragon Websoft/TQ Digital may or may not still be working on. So if the only other thing besides the Ultima Forever site that Jeff has to worry about is this 14-year-old version of UO, then where is he? What is so damn difficult about posting a short letter of introduction telling us he's now in the role of being UO's producer, still getting his feet wet, is excited about stepping in as UO approaches a historic 15-year anniversary, and will have lots of exciting news to share with us "soon"?

In other words, why the heck is he avoiding like the plague the simple task of putting out a very brief, one-way form of communication telling us he's on the job now? Why can't he give us that one little reassurance that yes, it makes sense for us to keep sending money to EA to be able to continue to play this game we all know and love so well? Why, instead, are we being allowed to devolve into this bickering, pancakes, moaning, worried mass of addicted customers? Is he hoping that sooner or later we'll all just get the hint that EA is trying desparately to fire us as customers and simply wants to get the game to the point that they can honestly say that, impending 15th anniversary or no, it no longer makes any kind of economic sense to keep it running?

If Jeff is reluctant to talk to us directly on the forums, he has only to post his letters and notices on the Herald and just walk away. With his years of experience in the industry, I think it's a disservice to him to imply that he is not saying anything at all because he is worried that whatever he says, we will rip him to shreds on the forum. Lame excuse if ever there was one. He's not someone who is new to the industry and besides, look at our numbers. As everyone is so, so fond of saying, Stratics forum posters don't come close to representing the majority of UO players. We're just one tiny, angry but vocal mob that he can simply deal with by putting us on ignore while he puts out official communications on the Herald. He can use us take the temperature of the game, so to speak, but if he doesn't want to interact with us directly, he doesn't have to. But if he wants us to keep paying to play the game he is responsible for, then he surely does need to put forth some effort to give us information about the game's future via regular announcements.

 

[Madrid]

Well said Tina Small I think you nailed it!

This has been the worst year by far UO in terms of content and communication. Probably a direct result of EA's stock taking a nosedive over the past year or two. **** rolls downhill...

The lack communication however lies solely with those in the leadership this past year.

It's a shame that this game has been igorned because it has much potiential. It's also a shame what's happened to each of the clients that' been presented over the past few years.

The Ultima Online brand has been mismanaged in so many ways someone should write a book: "How not to run a business". All kidding aside UO should a template in College Businesses courses of what NOT to do:

1) Zero advertising and no shelf appearance
2) No customer service
3) Virtually Zero Communication (once every 4 months if were lucky on average)
3) Nothing being done regarding "graphics" to keep the brand 'competitive' with other contemporary online games of similiar genre.
4) Listening to the 2d jurassics and backtracking from UOKR to an even WORSE visual appealing client without giving players an option for better graphics.
5) Horrible gamesite (uogamecodes.com ) in which to purchase items with real life money. We've had customers with their money in hand lining up to hand over their money EA literally turned away because of the ineptitude of that site over the years. We've all seen the posts...
6) Limiting the sale of codes and UO related items for Real Life money stretching all the way back to Markee Dragon. Why the hell would you ever want to limit your venues for revenue?

The list could go on and on...

And the saddest thing of all is that there is nothing to suggest things will be any different.

I believe it was 3 weeks ago we were informed by Woodsman that we have a new producer. Not only that it was made public that Calvin Crowner the Lead Producer is no longer 'leading'. And still...nothing.

Unreal.

 

[Pinco]

Well said Tina Small I think you nailed it!

This has been the worst year by far UO in terms of content and communication. Probably a direct result of EA's stock taking a nosedive over the past year or two. **** rolls downhill...

The lack communication however lies solely with those in the leadership this past year.

It's a shame that this game has been igorned because it has much potiential. It's also a shame what's happened to each of the clients that' been presented over the past few years.

The Ultima Online brand has been mismanaged in so many ways someone should write a book: "How not to run a business". All kidding aside UO should a template in College Businesses courses of what NOT to do:

1) Zero advertising and no shelf appearance
2) No customer service
3) Virtually Zero Communication (once every 4 months if were lucky on average)
3) Nothing being done regarding "graphics" to keep the brand 'competitive' with other contemporary online games of similiar genre.
4) Listening to the 2d jurassics and backtracking from UOKR to an even WORSE visual appealing client without giving players an option for better graphics.
5) Horrible gamesite (uogamecodes.com ) in which to purchase items with real life money. We've had customers with their money in hand lining up to hand over their money EA literally turned away because of the ineptitude of that site over the years. We've all seen the posts...
6) Limiting the sale of codes and UO related items for Real Life money stretching all the way back to Markee Dragon. Why the hell would you ever want to limit your venues for revenue?

The list could go on and on...

And the saddest thing of all is that there is nothing to suggest things will be any different.

I believe it was 3 weeks ago we were informed by Woodsman that we have a new producer. Not only that it was made public that Calvin Crowner the Lead Producer is no longer 'leading'. And still...nothing.

Unreal.

There are only 2 possible things happening:

1) The EA is putting less and unexperienced people to work on UO to force mistakes and wrong decisions in order to push players leaving, so when the amount is too little they have an excuse to shut down the game... In short a failure-driven...

2) The EA is giving too few money to the team and the game now is bigger than they can handle. In this case the good devs have too much work to keep communication, events and client updates.

Both cases are not good at all, and means that EA don't know at all the real worth of UO

 

[Woodsman]

I think by now the huge decrease in the amount of official communication from the folks responsible for UO has made it very obvious that there's something afoot with regard to UO's future and whatever it is probably isn't good.

On the other hand, the next pub has the first part of the high resolution graphics update. If UO was in trouble, they wouldn't be putting resources into something like that since it's a long-term update. Same with Camelot - long-term things are being done. They would be putting those resources into Star Wars. Still though, they aren't communicating that well officially, and that's bad.

All we know about Jeff at this point is that he has something to do with the Ultima Forever site where you can currently download the Ultima IV game and maybe you'll eventually be able to download additional old Ultima games.

This part needs to be clarified quite a bit. And Jeff tweeted that he hired a designer who had been an intern, but for what who knows. The secrecy is ridiculous, especially since there have been numerous hints dropped about something related to UF.

I don't want to say it's spitting in the face of Ultima fans because that's a harsh statement, but there comes a point at which all of the hint dropping turns into ****ing with people. It crosses a line from building hype or trying to generate interest to just plain ****ing with Ultima fans every time they drop a time about their secret project, and it's incredibly disrespectful. There is no other way I can say it. It was cute for them to drop hints at the beginning of the year, and it looks like their top sekrut Ultima project was being shopped around well before then. But it's almost a year later, and any hint dropping without actual concrete information from this point on is just ****ing with people.

Given that it seemed like Barnett had a hard time selling this secret project, it could very well be that Barnett was pulling this crap so that he could run back to his bosses and say "I MADE THIS TWEET AND 200 DROOLING FANBOYS TALKED ABOUT IT, SEE THERE'S INTEREST IN MY PROJECT".

I will say that I'm incredibly glad that Skalski was giving control of the Ultima franchise and not Barnett.

We don't know if he has anything to do with the Lord of Ultima browser game being run by Phenomic.

He has stated publicly that it's not under his control, and he even went so far as to imply that if he had had a say, Lord of Ultima would not have happened. That won him some points with me - it's not often somebody from one part of EA is willing to publicly criticize decisions made by other parts of EA.

We don't know if he has anything to do with the rumored Facebook Ultima game that is supposedly Paul Barnett's big secret project.

Actually I think we do - from what it sounds like, Skalski is in charge of anything Ultima related, excluding Lords of Ultima, which to be honest isn't really Ultima related.

Barnett's crap which was I just ranting about it is definitely tied to Ultima Forever, but I think his role was just one of selling it and trying to get interest in it and little beyond that. Thanks to a friend who follows certain things/personalities more than I do, I've been made aware that Barnett is basically an EA cheerleader and little more these days. It explains why he was at the Warhammer arena press conferences, why he was traveling around hyping the new Dragon Age DLC with Felicity Day, why he was hyping the Sims Facebook game, etc.

The one time his hands have been dirtied with development/design, it was Warhammer, and we all know how that went. It's very odd though that he was kept on, because he is despised within the Warhammer community and is one of two-three people blamed directly for the Warhammer problems. Partly because of his role on the Warhammer team, and partly because he hyped Warhammer like mad even when we now know that it could not have come close to living up to his hype. The fact that he appeared to trash the original Warhammer Online when he was out selling the Warhammer arenas game didn't help his standing. Go post a thread on the Warhammer forums praising him and watch how many censored posts ripping into him pop up.

We also don't know if he has anything to do with the 3D version of UO that NetDragon Websoft/TQ Digital may or may not still be working on.

Very doubtful. Assuming it was actually being worked on, like somebody else said, if somebody within BioWare is not working on their normal project/game or another EA project/game, they would be working on Star Wars - EA would not be paying salaries of people working for a completely different company when Star Wars is around the corner.

So if the only other thing besides the Ultima Forever site that Jeff has to worry about is this 14-year-old version of UO, then where is he?

He did say they just hired an intern designer full time, so my guess is the other Ultima game is being worked on. If they hired a new full-time designer for UO, they should have announced it on the Herald since it would be a positive thing for players to see.

What is so damn difficult about posting a short letter of introduction telling us he's now in the role of being UO's producer, still getting his feet wet, is excited about stepping in as UO approaches a historic 15-year anniversary, and will have lots of exciting news to share with us "soon"?

This goes back to my rant about the Mythic MMOs and communication. If you remove the anniversary-related stuff from Camelot and Warhammer, their producers have been AWOL in the community. Even with the anniversary-related stuff, well Warhammer had their producer talking about some changes, and Camelot's producer just made a video. Compare and contrast with Star Wars, or other MMOs where you hear from producers on a timely basis.

Here's what gets me. Skalski and other BioWare employees have been flown around the country, and some were even flown to Europe for a conference. Skalski attended GDC Austin, and he went to California for an event and to meet up at EA headquarters. Some of the EA executives and hangers on have been flown around the country for things as simple as DLC launches. Money is not an obvious problem, because travel is one of the first things that gets cut when money is tight in a lot of large companies.

You don't need to fly executives around just because some semi-famous actress is going to be in DLC for a game that you're not even working on, unless you have money to burn.

In other words, why the heck is he avoiding like the plague the simple task of putting out a very brief, one-way form of communication telling us he's on the job now?

This is what confuses me the most about all three Mythic games. Long-term things are being done for all three games, but you wouldn't know it.

My only guess is Star Wars. It launches in two months, it's one of those kinds of projects that if it bombs, executives could lose their jobs. EA dropped $750 million on acquiring a company this summer, and I doubt they'll make that back quickly. EA spent nearly $800 million on acquiring BioWare in large part due to Star Wars. They also picked up Pandemic Studios with BioWare but closed them down completely within a year or two of buying them. People toss around $200 million or more spent on Star Wars, but forget to factor in the money spent acquiring BioWare just a year earlier.

At this point, I have a feeling a lot of people within BioWare Mythic are involved with Star Wars. I don't know about the UO team - obviously there is working being done on the graphics update and the arenas stuff, and we just got a large publish, but I think Star Wars is probably taking up some time.

But I still find it hard to believe they can only afford one community relations person for four different games when they can fly people around for flippin' DLC launches.

 

[canary]

Lack of Communication is bad...but it's everywhere unfortunatly.

Actually, no. You are wrong.

I play three onlines currently (with many, many more more in the past) and UO, by far and for years, has the worst communication of any game I've ever seen. I see free to plays with better communication than UO. Every game from smaller (Dofus, Glitch) to larger (Champions Online, WoW) has better customer service and respect for its customers over Ultima Online.

I am sure I am not alone in this stating this.

No, it shouldn't be Logrus', Phoenix's, or an developer's job to come on here (although in truth, pretty much every single online has the developers interacting freely with players on actual forum sites). But it needs to be someone's job (ie Kai, Messana, the new producer guy... whatshisname). And right now it obviously isn't.

As far as the 'would you talk to players who were mean?' scenario...

Let's say its someones job to answer the phone at work. They ignore most of the calls every day. People are having issues, so they call and call and call and pretty much every phone call is ignored. Well, the employee finally decides to answer a single call. The person calling is upset and angry, not only because they already have an issue, but also because the person who SHOULD be answering the phone obviously has not. So they let them exactly know what is wrong and how bad of a job the person manning the phone is doing. Now, is it then seriously okay for that the person whose job is to handle calls to then say 'Gosh, that caller sure was mean! I'll answer even LESS calls now!'.

Really? When should any paying customer for any product expect mediocre- poor service? And the thing is, we have obvious permissive people about that are apologetic over such treatment.

By the way, I'd love for non stratics mods/ news types, actual non affiliated players... to actually come to defend this treatment. I'm noticing everyone here apologizing for the team is pretty much a rep from stratics (and even many of you agree that we get poor service).

 

[Woodsman]

Two articles to read:

BioWare Mythic: WAR not in any danger from SWTOR, but not going F2P | PC Gamer

“No, no,” he said when I asked if Mythic’s involvement with SWTOR could signal WAR’s end during an interview at GDC Online. “All of these games appeal to different people for different reasons. I’m very proud to be able to say that I’m running the studio that’s run Ultima Online for as long as it has – 14 years. Dark Age of Camelot just celebrated 10 years. We hope we can run these games for as long as there is player interest.”

BioWare: EA doesn't tell us what to do News - - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

BioWare still has "huge autonomy" in what it does, co-founders Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk have promised Eurogamer. To say that EA now calls the shots "is not actually remotely true".

"One thing we commonly see is when fans don't like something we do, they put in the comments, 'Oh those EA guys, they're making BioWare do...' And I always chuckle because we are EA, we're BioWare - we're both, and we still have huge autonomy in terms of what we do," Greg Zeschuk told us.

"We're not being forced to do anything or told to do anything. We make the decisions. We take input.

"It's just funny when people say that, because it's not actually remotely true."

"At the end of the day, we're responsible for the quality of the content and games we release, and we're committed to try and always take feedback really seriously from our fans and be humble about how we take it - use it to make the next games better," Ray Muzyka added.

"You're only as good as your next game, and that's the way we've always felt. That's still very much a philosophy at BioWare; quality in our products and delivering each game and exceeding expectations and always trying to delight and surprise our consumers. That's still what we try and do."

"It's interesting because when we start out to make something, it's almost pre-green-lit," Zeschuk shared. "When Ray and I sat down with Casey [Hudson] to do Mass Effect, we all kind of said, 'Hey let's make a space game.' And Casey said, 'Yeah, well I want to make it a space opera.'

"'OK.'

"That was the green light.

"EA has a green-light process which we participate in," Zeschuk added with a smile, "but again, it's like, OK, are you not going to green-light Mass Effect 3? Like, really? You know what I mean."

Sounds like BioWare is doing their own thing which really makes the treatment of the Mythic MMOs really despicable. I felt better about it when we could pancake about EA, but BioWare is making it clear that they have the say in how things are handled.

 

[Tina Small]

Barnett's crap which was I just ranting about it is definitely tied to Ultima Forever, but I think his role was just one of selling it and trying to get interest in it and little beyond that. Thanks to a friend who follows certain things/personalities more than I do, I've been made aware that Barnett is basically an EA cheerleader and little more these days. It explains why he was at the Warhammer arena press conferences, why he was traveling around hyping the new Dragon Age DLC with Felicity Day, why he was hyping the Sims Facebook game, etc.

The one time his hands have been dirtied with development/design, it was Warhammer, and we all know how that went. It's very odd though that he was kept on, because he is despised within the Warhammer community and is one of two-three people blamed directly for the Warhammer problems. Partly because of his role on the Warhammer team, and partly because he hyped Warhammer like mad even when we now know that it could not have come close to living up to his hype. The fact that he appeared to trash the original Warhammer Online when he was out selling the Warhammer arenas game didn't help his standing. Go post a thread on the Warhammer forums praising him and watch how many censored posts ripping into him pop up. Very doubtful.

Paul Barnett is scheduled to give the keynote speech at the GDC China conference in Shanghai next month (November 12-14) for folks in the Online Game and Business Development track of the conference.

Game Developers Conference China | November 12-14, 2011 | Shanghai Exhibition Center | Shanghai, China

 

[Woodsman]

Paul Barnett is scheduled to give the keynote speech at the GDC China conference in Shanghai next month (November 12-14) for folks in the Online Game and Business Development track of the conference.[/url]

Well that confirms his cheerleader/publicity status. Looking at his Twitter, In the last month, he attended New York Comic Con for EA as well as a press conference there about the new Dragon Age DLC with Felicity Day. He did something with BioWare San Francisco, probably also Dragon Age-related. He did a Sims Facebook event in California, he attended CthulhuCon, and he gave a speech at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. In September he was headed towards San Francisco for Dragon Age-related business, and Sims Facebook stuff as well.

That dude gets around. They have literally flown him twice to California for Dragon Age and Sims crap in the past 30 days.

I don't know why he is involved in promoting the Sims, but BioWare has flown him around for a lot of product launches - Dragon Age DLC with Felicity Day, the Warhammer areans, etc. It's actually odd given the resentment towards him from the Warhammer community and how he hyped Warhammer like mad only to see it live up to a fraction of his hype.

It proves my point, they are not hurting for money. They have probably spent enough money on his travels over the last month promoting that Felicity Day Dragon Age DLC stuff and the Sims stuff to have paid somebody to work on Mythic MMO websites for a couple of months. Cross-country plane tickets and hotel rooms are not cheap.

If they were hurting for money, they would have some local EA PR person announce that Felicity Day was going to talk about her Dragon Age stuff and it would be her and the PR person and maybe an executive. They would not be flying Barnett cross-country for that if they were hurting for money. New York Comic Con - sure, it's a quick plane trip or train trip to New York from Virginia, and probably just overnight, but cross-country? No.

I'd add if the Ultima thing is a Facebook game like he's hinted, it makes sense that he would be involved with the promotion of the Sims Facebook game, or at least keep an eye on it, but God help us if he's directly involved in any Ultima projects.

 

[Lady Storm]

If you note I am not a Stratics worker here Canary and I have in the past defended the UO Dev team when it needed it.

In business phones dont go unanswered, they go to the "music hold" after a person asked for the department you require and then disconect after a 3 minute wait. (some call centers are automated so its a recording asking you to punch a key# to assist you in direction of your call)

I have read and said many times EA doesnt handle UO any longer. Mythic got the full control of UO till the aquisition of BioWare in which the founders who kept full control of their company in the merger took over as the parent company of Mythic and its games.
That said. Stratics personel and players alike here would like more input and I do agree with Petra. Granted not all comunication is quickly given, we dont know the job requirements the head of UO is under.

WE TAKE TO MUCH FOR GRANTED, we tend to act like spoilt children who didnt get mommys attention and when she does we twist her tail till we get what she said to how we want it said.

Granted words DO have multiple meanings and it is understandable that clairification on some things would need further explantations, but and I know you were expecting this but.

Some subjects around programing and content need to be "IN HOUSE ONLY" I say this knowing full well the impact that many of you really feel the need for full disclosure on all things UO. Facts are many ideas and works that are done just might not be ready for player use or to the degree that it might be totaly scrapped. Rather then get your hopes up on a system that will not work no matter how hard they try, it is in their and our best intrest that silence is used.

We were very fortunate to have had Cal who quite frankly let things slip that Mesanna wanted to clobber him for. You cant promise a child a treet if there is a chance it will be gone by the time they were told it would get there. Makes for a bad relationship situation. Mesanna has her hands full doing her job with EM's and last I heard the dear lady was hip deep in work related issues.

We tend to forget they are working... that means same as we work for a living. They do NOT work 24/7/365 for US. To expect them to go beyond their jobs is unfair. We redicule and conjole them at every turn and that quite frankly is not a exceptable thing to do. You wouldnt like it done to you in your work so why give that which you dislike to them? (we are all guilty of this including me)

UO is an icon in the industry for its sheer age, the love of the game has kept players coming back for years. Think of why you first came to the game..... the fun and friendships... challenges of mind and body of your avatar... (are you smiling?) Remember that feeling and pass it to others.... UO is what you make it.

I was looking at the original box games of Ultima and remembering how excited my family was to have them and how much fun it was to teach my son how to play... he was a little boy then..
Now I still have fun with my son playing UO. I dont see that box game as old and outdated but as a evolution and to be cherrised time with my family.

 

[canary]

WE TAKE TO MUCH FOR GRANTED, we tend to act like spoilt children who didnt get mommys attention and when she does we twist her tail till we get what she said to how we want it said.

No, we act like customers.

When a customer has a complaint, they have every right to voice it.

You may act like a 'spoiled child' if you wish. However, most of us are customers. And we expect better service. People here have provided very grounded, very logical reasoning and sound arguments. I do not see any 'MEMEMEMEOHMYMYMYOHMEMEME' around here, so I'm at a loss what you are even getting at. Asking for better customer servce and getting timely updates? Heaven forbid!

But, again, you might have low expectations. And from reading your post, it does look like you do.

edit: I can't help but recall it was you who created multiple threads about your account issues. Asking for mommy's attention, indeed.

 

[Warsong of LS]

There is a section of the UO Japan site titled "Team Comments." [ ƒ`[ƒ€ƒRƒƒ“ƒg ] It includes items such as letters from the producer, miscellaneous FAQs from the producer or appointed community representative, as well as other official communications, such as transcripts of video or House of Commons Q&A sessions, posts made in the Ask the Devs forum, and the old Five on Friday announcements. It does not include routine announcements about things like server maintenance, publish or patch notes.

For 2011, this section of the UO Japan site has 18 entries. The most recent one is from August 13th, an FAQ about the process of migrating to the new Account Management system.

For 2010, there were 47 entries.

For 2009, there were 69 entries.

For 2008, there were 70 entries.

For 2007, there were 68 entries.

For 2006, there were 59 entries.

I think those numbers pretty much speak for themselves as an explanation for why people are very unhappy at this point with the amount and quality of "official" communications from EA with respect to UO.

Great post, let us just cut to the chase, so to speak...Just let UOJapan handle the communications for the enitre world community since they seem to know what communication means.