NEWS [UO.Com] Greenlite UO on Steam

[Flagg]

People in comments section are, unsurprisingly enough, finding the subscription model extremely alienating. Having only a - TWO - week free trial adding insult to the injury. It just looks a little bad is all. There are precious few MMOs still able to pull this off..and none of them are from 90's. WoW can still do this. Yet, even they have been offering an endless trial for a very long time.

Potentially ending up in Steam increases visibility of UO greatly. Without a doubt some 30-somethings who used to play in 90's feel the old spark igniting and return to check the game out. Brand new players? Much more questionable. In eyes of rest of the world, sub model is absolutely jurassic leftover from world that ended somewhere around 2010 or so. Precious few brand new players will find it in them to justify a monthly fee. By now there are dozens of extremely good MMOs out there that have an extremely fair F2P setup going. Idea of paying monthly for UO just feels..It's just a big flat "nop" for them.

 

[Spiritless]

I too was somewhat dismayed by the number of negative comments, but they go along with the usual spate of freeshard recruitment posts that used to appear on the UO facebook page - now diligently removed by the new person in charge of the page.
Most of the negative comments are recruiting for freeshards.
Maybe they're afraid that if UO succeeds on Steam their freeshards will be threatened?
Some of the others haven't even looked at the game in recent years. Some didn't even realise it still existed.
It is to be hoped that the postive comments by current players will convince some of those negative posters to re-consider and have another look at our game.

lol, it's such a deluded point of view to blame negative feedback on people trying to "recruit" for freeshards.

For those who haven't read the discussion areas on Steam regarding UO, feel free to take a look at the general comments or discussion threads. This may be the first exposure many of you have to opinions about the game outside of the highly fanatical "everything is great" crowd.

The reality is, this is the type of feedback a game like UO is likely to receive when you attempt to market it to the current era of gamers, which so many of you have been saying that EA should have done for so long. It is very unsurprising that a subscription fee higher than other games like WoW will be scoffed at for a game released in 1997 whose systems are very antequated compared to what is presently out there. These days, people just expect better for their money or more liberal models which don't tie people down to monthly fees. That's just a reality of how the gaming world and gamers' expectations have evolved. That is reflected by some of the comments there from people who were 10-year veterans of the game that quit:

i played UO for like 10 years solid.. i loved the game but it grew old and for me its not worth the subscription anymore HOWEVER if it was free to play and i could play my old account again and my server was once again populated with f2p players and not empty i would play the heck out of UO again.

Yeah i played this game for 8 years and TBH i left it because it got boring and the player base was rapidly falling. there were not very many people around to do things with anymore. They need to make it F2P because i am not paying the same sub price for something i played when i was young lol I hope they make it F2P because i would go back and try it out again. But i will not pay for a sub unless i go back and see some spectacular increase in player base so my vendors will be worth having again.

UO still has a lot to offer. It is important to recognize and acknowledge the negative feedback from who you're marketing the game at, though, rather than just casting it off as freeshard recruiters/trolls/idiots/wrong, etc. and take them into consideration for how the game could evolve in the future. If Broadsword is serious about taking UO forward, this is precisely what they will do. I would argue the type of feedback you're seeing right now from outside of the "UO loop" is a lot more valuable than the 15-year veterans who constantly sing the game's praises and proclaim how Broadsword/EA can do absolutely no wrong. It's nice and all, but those are the type who will be paying for UO regardless and they've long since lost touch with standard gamers who are just browsing for a new game to play with an unbiased eye capable of seeing things for how they actually are for today's gamer.

 

[York_Siege]

Voted NO, I don't like the way steam does business. They use All of the little "marketing tricks" that i think are dishonest and annoying....
The last game i bought that had steam attach is loaded with ad's and i paid 80 bucks for it.... screw steam...

 

[Viper09]

Voted NO, I don't like the way steam does business. They use All of the little "marketing tricks" that i think are dishonest and annoying....
The last game i bought that had steam attach is loaded with ad's and i paid 80 bucks for it.... screw steam...

Sounds odd that any game would be loaded with adds if it cost money...what game was it?

I ask because I have never encountered any adds whatsoever in my experience with Steam (with exception of the normal adds in the store for games they are selling).

 

[Speranza]

Voted NO, I don't like the way steam does business. They use All of the little "marketing tricks" that i think are dishonest and annoying....
The last game i bought that had steam attach is loaded with ad's and i paid 80 bucks for it.... screw steam...

That has nothing to do with Steam, and do not forget even if UO goes on steam you will never have to use Steam.

 

[G.v.P]

Even better, steam auto-patches all your games, no needing to search online for patches. Steam-hosted multiplayer so you don't have to look elsewhere to play online, and achievements!

I know some people who would come back for UO just to do Steam achievements lolol

 

[Dol'Gorath]

I know some people who would come back for UO just to do Steam achievements lolol

Achievements are addicting man... When they came out in WoW, I literally spent a few months going back over old content just to build up my score. =o My current goal is racking up achievements in Civilization 5 =]

 

[Dol'Gorath]

I too was somewhat dismayed by the number of negative comments, but they go along with the usual spate of freeshard recruitment posts that used to appear on the UO facebook page - now diligently removed by the new person in charge of the page.
Most of the negative comments are recruiting for freeshards.
Maybe they're afraid that if UO succeeds on Steam their freeshards will be threatened?
Some of the others haven't even looked at the game in recent years. Some didn't even realise it still existed.
It is to be hoped that the postive comments by current players will convince some of those negative posters to re-consider and have another look at our game.

Freeshards will never be threatened by UO becoming more successful. Many free shards offer what UO does not, True classic shards with pre-AOS rulesets and pvp that actually works and dev teams that actually support pvp. I think we have to accept that the UO community fractured a long time ago. Those that prefer classic UO will NEVER come back. Those that can adapt to modern UO may or may not decide it's worth paying for. It depends on how much work the dev team puts into improving UO and getting the word out. As you can see b y the comments, the gaming community at large prefers F2P. The longer that UO holds on to this antiquated and ancient subscription model, the longer it will decay. Only large games like WoW can pull off a subscription effectively, and eventually the time will come when even they have to do a F2P model.

Most of those players turned off by AOS haven't tried UO in years and still have horrible memories about how unbalanced and stupid AOS was. They don't know about improvements to runic crafting or imbuing or shame loot, etc.

There are too many things that UO needs to fix before it can seriously attract back players, especially with in the pvp area. Seriously, the second they announced vice and virtue was locked to guilds, I knew it would fail immediately. PVP needs to be open and accessible, not locked to guilds! It has to be something like factions where anyone can sign up and participate at will. Some of the comments are harsh but true. UO has become too tramellized over the years, mainly because they devs have allowed the pvp systems to fall into pieces for so long. When people on the pvp shard [Siege] refuse to even call it a pvp shard you know we have problems!

 

[Uvtha]

I don't know how many years I've been saying the same thing but this proves that the UO crowd for the most part is so resistant to change, either in game or out of game that even posting it on steam raises hissy fits, even if it is good for the game.. Christ people, PC games aren't sold in boxes anymore, period. Console games will soon meet this fate as well. People have been whining for UO to have a shelf presence again for years. Well, this is it.

Well It sort of makes sense to me. Lots of people want everything to stay the same once they find something that works for them. I imagine the population of the oldest mmo around probably has a lot of these kind of people. Silly as that outlook may be....

 

[MedeaDF]

Just navigate the darn site yourself and find a free game. It isn't hard.

It's not about "hard" or "easy", its about that I don't want to download random stuff because I like to cast one simple vote for UO! *sighs*
What do I have to do next time for a simple vote? Pay for it or what?

Do you realize Steam came out in 2003?

http://store.steampowered.com/

Its really not that hard. I mean, you must not have bought or played a game on your PC in years.

Damn Sony having to make me use my Playstation for Ps4 games! God, I need a Playstation account to play online? Social Media garbage

Oh sure, I'm really happy that I can read, thanks for asking. And thanks to Wikipedia, I know everything about Steam now.
Still - I don't want to download random stuff to cast one puny little votey-thingey for a 16 year old game like UO!
(And btw, I dont own a PS either. For what? I've been playing PC games for over 25 years now).

Why can't Broadsword manage their own website, do their own thing for interested people and share that link worldwide? (It would be distributed anyway over social media) Getting votes there, on their own site? Why do they need Steam for this? Because of the 65 million gamers on Steam? Sorry, IMHO this is way too complicated for new players and also returning players (besides those unbelievable clever 65 million people who are gonna vote for this Steam UO Greenlight thing right now, right? Oh, wait *counts votes on Steam* Erm, yeah...).

Its like the Origin Shop and the downloads there - I don't download stuff there because I don't want their "free and cool program" to be installed. Thats it. No more, no less. And I don't care about all those 65 million or whatever other people. It's my PC, its my decision. The End.

Is it really that hard to understand what my point is here?

Oh yes, and BTW, if you still don't get it, maybe you get it this way:
I play EVE for over 6 years now, without using Steam.
I play UO for over 13 years now, without using Steam.
And I need to register and download this "free and cool Steam client" (along with some DRM junk) and a "free game" to be able to vote... ?! Simply put: NO! I won't do this, period!

So I just loled, and still didn't vote.
(Also another fine reason, why I would never use a FB, G+ or Steam account to login on Stratics... figures.)

 

[Ashlynn_L]

If you're not part of the steam userbase you won't get to cast a vote on steam greenlight - makes sense really. The vote only determines whether the title will be greenlit for the steam store anyway - and as you said, you don't care about steam or it's users.

Nothing is going to change for you so no, I don't understand your complaint.

 

[Zerbee]

Sorry, IMHO this is way too complicated for new players and also returning players

And obviously Steam isn't marketed towards you. As an overwhelmingly majority of PC gamers use Steam now. TBH, if a "new" player thinks using Steam is too complicated, they will probably find UO too complicated.

The only potential downside to UO being on Steam is the negative feedback it will get, but the that is minimal and ignorable to an existing playerbase. Some exposure is better than no exposure.

 

[Promathia]

Just stop.

You dont need Steam, you wont need Steam. This is their "shelf" presence everyone wants. The whole gaming industry is going digital and Steam has been ahead of the game for years. You cant be a PC gamer without having experience with Steam (MMO's dont count).

You need to be an "active" user of steam to vote for a SIMPLE REASON, which has been explained. Greenlight is a chance to studio's especially the Indies to get their games on Steam. Greenlight is a way of QUALITY CONTROL. If any free account could vote, a developer could just spam free accounts to fudge the system and get complete and utter JUNK on steam. Steam does this so WE the consumers don't get RIPPED off.

I am fully confident that UO will get passed onto Steam, so really if you don't want to sign up to steam or buy something, THEN DON'T. Just stop COMPLAINING.

Those of us who use steam will vote. Those on steam who want UO or remember fondly will vote. YOU are not being forced to do anything.

 

[Taylor]

If UO makes it to steam, it will get broader exposure than it would on the shelf in Best Buy. It's even better than a shelf.

 

[Viper09]

If UO makes it to steam, it will get broader exposure than it would on the shelf in Best Buy. It's even better than a shelf.

That's reason enough. With 75+ million people who use Steam, UO will finally get the advertising and audience we have all been wanting.

 

[BeaIank]

Also, summer and winter Steam sales, the bane of gamer wallets everywhere.
Put the one month game time code or the 3 months game time code on those and see a lot of impulse buy as well.

 

[Taylor]

I don't remember the last game I bought in a store, but it's been a decade. I've bought so many steam games during sales--and haven't even played half of them. Valve is good at what it does. Let them add UO players for us.

 

[Dol'Gorath]

I don't remember the last game I bought in a store, but it's been a decade. I've bought so many steam games during sales--and haven't even played half of them. Valve is good at what it does. Let them add UO players for us.

The last boxed game I bought was Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword expansion I think in 2008? Since then, PC games have not been sold in boxes, period. Even gamestop and best buy have reduced their PC sections to like one row and it usually just consists of strategy guides and game cards for MMO's. The days of boxed games are over. It's kind of embarrassing some people on this forum are so behind the times, especially in the fact that computer users are usually supposed to be ahead of the curve...

 

[Storm]

I have not bought a game off of the shelf in at least 10 years either. Digital is so much easier and faster for me and I dont have to wait for it to be delivered or for a store to get it in stock!

 

[G.v.P]

If UO makes it to steam, it will get broader exposure than it would on the shelf in Best Buy. It's even better than a shelf.

Aww...poor shelves :'(

 

[Dot_Warner]

Shelf presence, even if its a digital shelf, could do good things for UO.

But...

UO isn't ready for a marketing push. This should have been done after Virtue vs Vice and a decent NPE was published. Also, much like with Return to Britannia, this should be coupled with ingame event(s) that are easily accessible to a newbie. The fact that new accounts won't have SA or HS, thus will be kept out of a majority of the relevant content, is going to be a deterrent.

 

[Doubleplay]

I completely understand the excitement about this announcement. However, if I ever have to register for a Steam account, you can be sure this 15 year veteran will cut the last check to Ultima Online (EA). The convenience of these third party platforms is not free. Nothing is free. Just check out your registry before and after signing up. Call me a paranoid if you want.

 

[Taylor]

Supporters have used Steam; opponents haven't. Most opposing points raised so far aren't concerns to Steam users, because they actually know what the platform is and does. A little experience counters a whole lot of fears that spring not from experience with Steam, but from ignorance of Steam. It's telling.

 

[Riyana]

Steam is to PC games what Amazon is to books. It's more or less a digital GameStop. It is a STORE FRONT for PC games that just happens to be online only. This will not affect current players AT ALL. This thread is hilarious.

UO being available on Steam is a good thing. Dot_Warner makes a great point about the timing, but they can always make some big pushes or sales when they release Virtue/Vice or run the next global event or whatever.

It's going to be okay!

 

[Aran]

@Taylor this whole Stratics thing has been a great experiment but I think it's time to shut it down and move on.

 

[Taylor]

@Aran It's certainly my most expensive habit. Happy birthday, btw.

 

[G.v.P]

I completely understand the excitement about this announcement. However, if I ever have to register for a Steam account, you can be sure this 15 year veteran will cut the last check to Ultima Online (EA). The convenience of these third party platforms is not free. Nothing is free. Just check out your registry before and after signing up. Call me a paranoid if you want.

On Dec. 1, 2013, Steam reached 7 million concurrent users, up from 6 million the previous year. I'd say that's a fairly healthy growth rate and worthy of turning would be naysayers into believers. Disregarding Steam, or worse, fearing it, would be as silly as avoiding Google products, like Google search, or YouTube.

In the history of the Internet there have been plenty of intrusive software titles, such as AOL for example, and AIM. These titles would constantly check to see if they were set as the default portal for the Internet, or if they were set as start-up items, and they would tell the registry to add them as a start-up program even after the user explicitly removed them from that list. Steam is NOT that kind of program. If you don't want it to be a start-up you simply go into settings and you're done.

Now then, Steam, as a service aside, does NOT guarantee all of the titles you are able to download through Steam will be on the up and up, just like you won't be pleased with everything you end up seeing on YouTube (the Internet is a wonderful, yet scary place). Like Goat Simulator, for example, which is openly stated as being full of bugs. The devs cooked up an April Fool's joke kind of game and as such, one would not expect amazing results from that product. Even so, the community available through Steam allows a user to read tons of comments and a metascore game rating, both of which are available for almost the entire library of Steam games.

Anyway, rated by service, Steam does its job--organizing and providing access to a ton of games--extremely well. The service allows the distribution of major and indie titles side by side by use of a powerful and easy search tool and gives users the ability to add titles to a "Wish List," which, upon opting-in, will E-Mail you whenever those titles go on sale. If all you play is UO and you're not one to change, then yeah, Steam is a hard sell. In that case, users might rather see UO through GOG. Otherwise, if you're in the market for games, life without Steam is just an Epic Fail for your wallet.

 

[Taylor]

I can download and play Combat Arms from their website. Alternatively, I can download and play it via Steam. In the nearly five years I've been playing, no payments related to Combat Arms have ever been paid via Steam, nor to Steam. The same is true of at least half a dozen other games I own.

That's experience taking, not speculation.

 

[DanteSignas]

I completely understand the excitement about this announcement. However, if I ever have to register for a Steam account, you can be sure this 15 year veteran will cut the last check to Ultima Online (EA). The convenience of these third party platforms is not free. Nothing is free. Just check out your registry before and after signing up. Call me a paranoid if you want.

You totally are in this case. But I understand your sentiment.

 

[General Lee]

I bought my first copy of UO in an computer games store many years ago and this is going to be as close to a "store" as UO will get these days, so this is our chance to get fresh players again. I paid $1.24 for the cheapest game I could find so I could vote to green light UO, more exposure for our game is exactly what we need. Fingers X'd.

 

[Smoot]

I read alot of the comments. the "negative" ones all seem legit to me, and are why alot of the people i started with wont come back to the game. Like a "first love" that just isnt realistic anymore. Its good to see UO on steam, but also perhaps the devs can use these comments rather than dismiss them. See why people who once loved uo no longer play. will significant changes be made just to bring people back. no. but perhaps keep the ones of us still here a little longer.

 

[Storm]

so what is it exactly you think should be done?

 

[Thrakkar]

Why can't Broadsword manage their own website, do their own thing for interested people and share that link worldwide? (It would be distributed anyway over social media) Getting votes there, on their own site? Why do they need Steam for this? Because of the 65 million gamers on Steam? Sorry, IMHO this is way too complicated for new players and also returning players (besides those unbelievable clever 65 million people who are gonna vote for this Steam UO Greenlight thing right now, right? Oh, wait *counts votes on Steam* Erm, yeah...).

Yeah, right! They "just" need to share a link worldwide...
Can you even imagine, how much that would cost to make that happen?
The UO greenlight page has gotten more hits in the last few days than the uo.com page in the last year. Also gaming sites are picking this up and write news about it. It's going viral without almost any effort.

 

[drewster513]

Tried to vote but like @Nails Warstein i get the same message sorry but its a new account and im not buying a game to vote i only play UO lol sorry again

 

[MalagAste]

Many of us "older" folk don't really have Steam.... but my kids do. So I asked them.... and asked them to ask their friends. And I'm hoping their friends ask their friends etc... Just ask about see if you can get some more friends to vote.

 

[Petra Fyde]

Many of us "older" folk don't really have Steam.... but my kids do. So I asked them.... and asked them to ask their friends. And I'm hoping their friends ask their friends etc... Just ask about see if you can get some more friends to vote.

That's what I did. I don't have it, nor do I have any use for it. But I know folk who do.

 

[covert]

Voted NO, I don't like the way steam does business. They use All of the little "marketing tricks" that i think are dishonest and annoying....
The last game i bought that had steam attach is loaded with ad's and i paid 80 bucks for it.... screw steam...

Your **** experience isn't the result of Steam or Valve's doing. I'm curious as to which game you're so vaguely referring to...

 

[cazador]

I voted yes on 3 accounts just because people are voting no.. Just want to be different


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[Aran]

Wow, any thread really can be made into a custom rules shard thread and a free to play thread. Someone should throw in shard mergers too.

-Galen's player

What we really need to do is get rid of the "Enhanced" client.

 

[Dol'Gorath]

Wow, any thread really can be made into a custom rules shard thread and a free to play thread. Someone should throw in shard mergers too.

-Galen's player

When accounting the total, population of UO players, you don't just count the ones playing official servers. There are free pre-AOS shards with more players on than 6 of our lowest pop shards combined at any given time. I think that's a significant amount of people being ignored by the current regime.

Also the fact that the devs have ignored and shunned pvprs for so long is unacceptable. They have allowed that segment to bleed away into free shards that have better pvp, or to other games in general hat actually care. Even WoW, as PVE focused as it I, offers a lot for it's pvp population to do, and if you wanted to just pvp and never step into a dungeon you could. That is what UO needs again. Vice and Virtue will not address openness and accessibility for pvp, especially with that horrible decision to close it off to guilds only.

Modern UO doesn't appeal to everyone, it needs some work but overall it's not too bad. The devs and Mesanna need to read that negative criticism of UO from a source OUTSIDE of Stratics, because Stratics is way too fanboyish for their own good and I am glad the users on Steam pointed that out. Stratics has gotten to the point where mediocrity is praised. When I see people celebrating something as mundane as a GM simply doing their job or some minor addition to the game like a new dye color instead of encouraging and DEMANDING more of your dev team, I just have to sigh.

 

[Aran]

When accounting the total, population of UO players, you don't just count the ones playing official servers.

Yes you do. They're the only paying customers, and the only ones that matter. I didn't read the rest of your post because your first sentence was so wrong.

 

[Dol'Gorath]

Yes you do. They're the only paying customers, and the only ones that matter. I didn't read the rest of your post because your first sentence was so wrong.

They are potential numbers. And since most of the industry is F2P now with the exception of a few holdouts technically no one is a paying customers unless you can convince them to invest in your product and buy a few things.

 

[Speranza]

They are potential numbers. And since most of the industry is F2P now with the exception of a few holdouts technically no one is a paying customers unless you can convince them to invest in your product and buy a few things.

I could potentially give you a million dollars, but that doesn't make you a millionaire.

 

[cazador]

-We need new players
-We need new players
-We need new players
-We need new players
...
..
.
Not that way


Beggars can't be choosers



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[The Zog historian]

How many of those shards would be around if they cost $10 a month? They have their population because of the price.

 

[cazador]

How many of those shards would be around if they cost $10 a month? They have their population because of the price.

Most of those shards live on donations and a FTP model..which of course can't possibly be true..UO would never survive that..

Oh and they have reliable servers, no server lines, and no server maintenance down time..weird


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[The Zog historian]

How much of a profit are they making, if any? Or are they just breaking even? EA isn't about to risk variable revenue on UO, you know. Donations and F2P purchases are fine for a small development team that makes iOS and Android games, but EA wants something to generate revenue reliably. There will come a point (hopefully still far away) that though UO is still profitable, it's not enough, and EA will pull the plug.

 

[cazador]

How much of a profit are they making, if any? Or are they just breaking even? EA isn't about to risk variable revenue on UO, you know. Donations and F2P purchases are fine for a small development team that makes iOS and Android games, but EA wants something to generate revenue reliably. There will come a point (hopefully still far away) that though UO is still profitable, it's not enough, and EA will pull the plug.

Seriously? And give up the longest running MMO? Doubtful..I don't know they seem to make enough money in donations to keep a lag free server new content every few months for the last 8-10 years..and still have 500-1000 online daily..more than OSI can say, unless you add up multiple shards..UO is still around as a chest bumping oh we have this blah blah..it's obviously not making much $..go look at how far EQ has come since their launch, and look at the garbage we've dealt with in the same time frame..


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[The Zog historian]

Yes, very seriously. Companies are not in the business of losing money for the sake of nostalgia, no matter how long something's been around. You really don't think there will come a time when not enough people will play UO, and EA will decide that money is better spent on something else?

Right now UO's making enough. How much is "enough," I couldn't tell you, but I'm happy it is.

 

[cazador]

Yes, very seriously. Companies are not in the business of losing money for the sake of nostalgia, no matter how long something's been around. You really don't think there will come a time when not enough people will play UO, and EA will decide that money is better spent on something else?

Right now UO's making enough. How much is "enough," I couldn't tell you, but I'm happy it is.

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