"No rants. No finger-pointing. No bitterness. Not in this article. Patrick Malott, the UO designer known as Leurocian, has tended his resignation at Electronic Arts. His last day there is June 17. He and his wife are returning to Indiana and I'm sure every seafarer in Sosaria will join me in wishing them the best of luck in their future endeavors.
A year ago, I wasn't even playing UO and this site was shut down. It was in July when I checked in at Stratics to see that a new designer, Leurocian, was posting quite frequently about his new job as a UO developer and what he was hoping to accomplish. Along with live team lead Fertbert, he championed a brief era that saw unprecedented development attention - both bug fixes and content addition - for the seas of UO. Leurocian sought out my input on his design ideas and words cannot express the wondrous joy I felt at tossing ideas back and forth, discussing how the community would react to the designs, and then seeing the players embrace them with such enthusiasm when they were implemented.
It wasn't just the seafaring community that Leurocian invigorated. All of UO's various communities and playstyles were excited by his constant public presence. His posts reflected the simple facts that he loved UO, he had gotten his dream job, and he truly enjoyed participating in the often rough and tumble message board environment. There was no "ivory tower" mentality, no "us and them" for Leurocian - he was one of us at the same time he was one of them, and that is an accomplishment that no one had ever managed in seven years of out-of-game community. There should be a Nobel prize for that or something.
The legacy of Leurocian's work - a revitalized Ilshenar, a high-end reward for fishers, and so much else - will live on past his tenure at EA. Seafarers will benefit from the fact that, in spite of almost constant player petitioning for easier ancient SOS bottles and guaranteed leviathan minor artifacts, Leurocian wisely stuck to his guns and as a result we have a system in the game that will not burn itself out for many years. Seahorse statuettes and ghost ship anchors will continue to be prized rewards for hard work, perseverance, and a dash of true luck. And I suspect that in the years ahead, players will still be guessing at just how big the biggest fish in the Sosarian seas is. Maybe someday, someone will catch it.
There's really nothing left to say here but thank you to Patrick Malott. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, and this is a stretch, never has so much been accomplished so well in such a short time. Thank you, Leurocian, my friend, for giving us all a time when the seas seemed fresh and the hope for clearer sailing ahead seemed more real than ever."
Aren't we glad this was 2005 and he is back???
Sorry if I scared anyone... but some deserved it!
