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YouTube Gaming Community

sablestorm

Babbling Loonie
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With the 20th anniversary of UO coming up, I thought I'd put this idea out there and see what the community and Dev Team thought of it. Is there any chance Broadsword could reach out to the YouTube gaming community and give them free accounts to try out UO so that they could make videos about it or live stream their adventures? These days, I don't get exposure to new games by seeing them sitting on game store shelves or by seeing commercials on TV about them. I typically learn about new games from recommended videos that pop up on YouTube. The hope is not only for exposure, but also that some of these personalities would fall in love with the game and keep playing. Furthermore, the hope would be their fans would try it out in the hopes of adventuring with these personalities. What do you guys think?
 

Captn Norrington

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My guess is that only EA would be able to authorize that, not Broadsword, since the whole account management thing is still controlled by EA they would most likely have to be the ones who approve free accounts. Anything requiring EA's direct approval tends to not work out very well when it comes to UO... like putting UO on Steam etc.

I agree that it's an awesome idea though, it would pretty much be free marketing for UO and could potentially attract a bunch of new players.
 

sablestorm

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Hmmmm, well, F*** EA. What about the community? Think we could pull something like this off?
 

maji111

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
There are people that stream UO on twitch.tv and people such as Corpse of Bear that upload certain types of videos to their YouTube channel. The twitch streams get 3000% less viewers than people playing peggle on twitch and videos that have been uploaded to the most popular UO youtube channels for 3+ years have approximately 150 views.

TLDR: Whilst it's a positive outlook and credit to you for trying to promote it, there is simply no wider interest in it.
 

Uvtha

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Think we could pull something like this off?
Honestly, I think the majority of the appeal of UO is to people already playing. It's a pretty hard game to get into, or even get interested in. It's old, it shows. The development history is a frankenstein's monster of a patchwork quilt, it shows. Plus even if you were interested the entry barrier is pretty rough. No tutorial or new player experience, the official wiki is rather lacking, so much of the game is simply undocumented stuff you wouldn't know about unless you were playing 10 years ago when the additions were added to the game... Basically you have to get a primer on how the game works from the community and that can be a major turn off.

I encourage people to share their experiences, but UO is what it is, at that is a very niche experience. There are people out there not playing that would like it if they did play, but honestly I doubt there are a ton
 

Merlin

The Enchanter
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It doesn't need to come officially from EA or Broadsword - it could just be about encouraging the community to post more videos. Whether it's Live Streams or "How To" videos, any more documentation on this game would help. Nearly every other video game does this - there is no need for some overarching approval from EA for the fans to get more involved with posting YouTube videos.

Not too long back, Dr. Alzheimer posted Tutorial videos for keying peerless encounters.

Ultima Online Peerless Strategies - UO Guides by Dr Alzheimer - YouTube


This is exactly what we need more of... but we need it for all aspects of the game and for someone to possibly categorize them into a library that could be easily followed and found by new players. Probably wishful thinking, but you have to start somewhere and this is the way to do it without requiring the permission of the various 'powers that be'.
 

Kayhynn

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Campaign Supporter
I haven't posted any videos recently, I need to do more but life got in the way, but I do have decorating tours and decorating guides on YOuTube and have streamed in the past.
 

transcendent

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
I doubt Broadsword or EA is going to bother doing that, but there is nothing stopping players from posting videos
 

kazeandi

Adventurer
I don't think streams would pull in new players. UO is a 20 year old game that didn't age well. It's not intuitive either and the clients make it a mess to control. The action is also not twitchy at all. It doesn't have a clearly defined "endgame" and doesn't appeal to any specific fan base these days.

When UO came out, it was the first of it's kind, based on a wildly popular series of RPGs, the lead was a celebrity among game designers and Origin Systems had a lot of cred.

Now what's left to stream? A bunch of old farts who could be the daddies of today's gamers playing some game that looks like a pixelated LSD trip.

If UO had gotten a completely new engine with up to date graphics and a clean UI, we'd not all hang on Atlantic, all servers would be alive. They totally missed the ship.
 

Jolt

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
The graphics and the complexity of the game aren't that much of a barrier to entry I don't think. There's a massive movement of newer indie games that have relatively poor graphics and are quite complicated but are really popular.

The trouble with UO is the cost of entry and lack of social media presence.

I recently resubscribed after a 10+ year break. I considered playing a bunch of times over the last few years, but whenever I got to the subscription screen I got annoyed by the fact it was still a tenner for a month. So anyway, this month I decided to bite the bullet and resubscribed. I played a little while before realising I probably need to buy a soulstone to adjust my old character templates. So down goes some more money. Then I realised I that imbuing would be really helpful to get my gear optimised, so I spend a bit more money on Stygian Abyss. Now I'm looking at the benefits of skill masteries. I'm thinking having access to them would make my characters more powerful, but I'm essentially dropping £15 just to be able to use them, as the rest of the expansion content isn't interesting to me.

I've got a job and I can afford this stuff, but I have a really acute sense that I'm being ripped off by EA/Broadsword. I have a strong sense of nostalgia driving my desire to come back and play, but a new player wouldn't have that and wouldn't put up with the blatant fleecing.

I think a really proactive development team that was in tune with the current gaming trends could really revitilise UO. There's a ton of good, re-playable content in it that would attract new players. The original client and graphics are absolutely fine and are just in need of a bit of optimisation.

Some suggestions as a new returner:

1. Optimise the old client to run a bit smoother/work better with higher res monitors
2. Condense a few of the shards to increase population (may do something like WoW with cross-server zones for dungeons etc)
3. Produce a starter pack/returner pack (something like all the expansion packs and a free 30 days for £20. Put a nice special mount or item in there as an ingame bonus)
4. Review the subscription cost (maybe reduce it by 30-50%) and add more content to the ingame store. Personally, if the sub cost was a flat £5 per month I think I'd be happy just to let it run indefinitely without worrying to much about it. At £10 per month I'm much less likely to do that.

Finally, with all those in place:

5. Get a really exciting campaign running and advertise the **** out of it on social media. Incentivise resubscribers in that period. (say if you resub during the even you get a free soul stone - something that is really attractive to returning players).
6. After the campaign event ends, have a weekly repeating event on one of the weeknights that lasts 6 hours or so. Make it really challenging but with high rewards so it attracts people to come back each week.
 

Alex"Drake Iron Heart"CS

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
I doubt Broadsword or EA is going to bother doing that, but there is nothing stopping players from posting videos
There is!!! In theory all the videos in YouTube about UO are illegal and should not been posted. If you read the TOS, you cannot show the game anywhere in any media......

So even if 1000 people posted videos, we could have EA shut all the videos down as you have not got their permission of their rights to the game....

Also another point, this is a double side blade, same way it shows exposure and might attract many players, It will also put many more players off IMO, its a niche game, it does not appeal to the modern gamers in anyway. The new player experience is crap, if you are unlucky to start on a low population shard, you must as well quit if no one comes to your aid as you wont know anything about the game and you wont know what to do.....
 
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