[UO Herald] Happy Thanksgiving!

[Noble Beast]

*perked up after reading Basara's Post*
So Basara? *grins* How do I turned in a Plucked Turkey? Just hand it over to a Butcher & the Harvester appears in my pack? Is there a quest? I have a couple that I have not sold from last year. I just thought that they were decoration, hehe. Thank you for the enlightenment & the info.!

 

[hen]

Yes just hand it to a butcher and the blade will appear in your pack.

 

[Goodmann]

I gotta say this rehash of thanksgiving taste like 7 month old deviled eggs with a side of maggot stuffed turkey. They should have charges us $15 saying this was a thanksgiving booster.

 

[MalagAste]

I love it! Thanks Devs! I sure enjoyed this event last year and I'm happy to have it back.

My Bard thanks you very, very much for the bottom of his heart.

It's fantastic my Bard seriously enjoys things that make him useful.

I steer clear of the little nibbler gibblets on my other characters though... nothing like getting being chicken round turkeys...

 

[Apetul]

Same event as last year? I wish they would have changed at least something.. like, random karma (positive or negative) on each turkey.

 

[Lord Urza]

Well I really do hope everyone who wasnt around last year for this event enjoys it. I dont think anyone who was around for it last year will bother.

 

[Rotgut Willy]

Well I really do hope everyone who wasnt around last year for this event enjoys it. I dont think anyone who was around for it last year will bother.

I missed it last year (can't remember why) and am looking forward to hunting some big bird tonight after the kids go to bed.

 

[Mr hawk]

I know you guys are hard at work but maybe update the date of the Harvest Cider to 2010? that we get from the Cornucopias, "Harvest Cider 2009".


Thank you.

 

[Demonous]

contrary to what most people are posting, i don't appreciate this so called update at all, its 100% identical to last year, i have plenty of the stuff from last year already, better off just not having turned them back on, the devs can't be that busy to not change some things about it, how hard is it to make them drop different items from last years

 

[kelmo]

contrary to what most people are posting, i don't appreciate this so called update at all, its 100% identical to last year, i have plenty of the stuff from last year already, better off just not having turned them back on, the devs can't be that busy to not change some things about it, how hard is it to make them drop different items from last years

OK. Don't bother then. So it is left overs... I see a lot of folks enjoying it. I see folks that missed it last year. It is not required.

I personally am tickled that they flipped that "switch". Why not? There is nothing shattering in this scenario, and I feel the few Devs we have left are spent after the booster and Halloween stuff.

Cut them some slack. They do what they can with the resources available.

 

[Skrag]

That bugger hit me for 51 Damage in a max resist suit. Doh ... gotta wait until back home from work to kill em with a tamer.

Derail, but this is pretty much the story of balance in UO. Don't actually tell a tamer they're overpowered though, or you'll get a giant sob-story about sampires.

 

[Demonous]

OK. Don't bother then. So it is left overs... I see a lot of folks enjoying it. I see folks that missed it last year. It is not required.

I personally am tickled that they flipped that "switch". Why not? There is nothing shattering in this scenario, and I feel the few Devs we have left are spent after the booster and Halloween stuff.

Cut them some slack. They do what they can with the resources available.

halloween stuff ? they made a few new things for trick or treating and made super hell hounds, that isn't much coding for a development team, last year's halloween content was awesome

 

[Whinemaker]

I'm sorry that I'm kinda derailing the topic a bit too, but I don't mind the same content at all; I didn't have time to play last year.

What I DO mind is that they didn't do the same to Halloween. I'd really love one of those Conjurer's Trinkets or Garbs, but just can't amass 30mil for one at the rate I play.

 

[sablestorm]

halloween stuff ? they made a few new things for trick or treating and made super hell hounds, that isn't much coding for a development team, last year's halloween content was awesome

Were you there? You can 100% say that is not much coding for them? I doubt it. I think you're making assumptions here and foolish assumptions at that.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

halloween stuff ? they made a few new things for trick or treating and made super hell hounds, that isn't much coding for a development team, last year's halloween content was awesome

Were you there? You can 100% say that is not much coding for them? I doubt it. I think you're making assumptions here and foolish assumptions at that.

It might be a lot of coding for an intern... But no, for a team that felt capable enough to take on boat movement changing a few values for what could spawn for trick-or-treating should be child's play.

The treats/ancient hellhounds and the bloody sash/wearwolves would have taken the longest amount of time. These actually took new art and coding time.

However, the debacle that is the booster isn't a reason to 'cut them slack.' This is their job, not a hobby. We pay them to provide new content in a professional and consistent basis to keep UO relatively fresh. Had their level of attentiveness been where it should be, we woud have recieved some fiction for the additions at Halloween, the reason the turkeys are back (since no moongrass spawned last month), and Al the Ornithologist would respond to more than just "brush."

 

[Demonous]

It might be a lot of coding for an intern... But no, for a team that felt capable enough to take on boat movement changing a few values for what could spawn for trick-or-treating should be child's play.

The treats/ancient hellhounds and the bloody sash/wearwolves would have taken the longest amount of time. These actually took new art and coding time.

However, the debacle that is the booster isn't a reason to 'cut them slack.' This is their job, not a hobby. We pay them to provide new content in a professional and consistent basis to keep UO relatively fresh. Had their level of attentiveness been where it should be, we woud have recieved some fiction for the additions at Halloween, the reason the turkeys are back (since no moongrass spawned last month), and Al the Ornithologist would respond to more than just "brush."

thank you, finally someone that agrees with me and isn't sucking up and praising the dev team for everything they do, they aren't gods people

 

[Goodmann]

Halloween=Fail
Last Event Arc=Fail
Thanksgiving=Major Fail
I hear for Christmas there giving out xmas trees, piles of snow with holiday cards Merry Christmas 2005 (the piles of snow are bugged and do not throw).

I do not know why people move onto to other mmo's

 

[Luke Carjacker]

It's a little late now, but I wish they would have rehashed the Halloween Event from last year, then spent any new development time on Thanksgiving.

The Halloween event from 2009 had a lot of great new content, kept a lot of people engaged and offered some nice rewards that were well-matched the the amount of time and effort required to obtain them. The could have rehashed the event entirely and just given out a slightly different reward (conjurer's sash, conjurer's boots, whatever). A re-hash of that event would have been more fun that the Halloween event from this year.

The Thanksgiving event was boring last year and certainly wasn't worth another run. But really, Thanksgiving isn't a holiday that's about gifts and rewards so I'm not that bummed out just avoiding the whole thing altogether.

What is disappointing is that the developers don't seem to know what worked well (Halloween last year) and what didn't (Thanksgiving). If it's as easy as just flipping a switch, they totally missed which one to flip. Hopefully they have the Halloween code laying around for future use.

 

[Symma]

You get a seasonal event, which encourages a little teamwork, and lot of ya are complaining :/

Let them concentrate what development time they have to proper issues like Publishes.

I'm just happy we get any sort of event and that they remembered to switch it on at the right time.

Since when did events like these promise to be radically different? If you go play World of Warcraft they are just as guilty at this, with alot of seasonal events being pretty identical to each year, just with renamed rewards.

 

[Basara]

Well I really do hope everyone who wasnt around last year for this event enjoys it. I dont think anyone who was around for it last year will bother.

I guess that's why my entire alliance dropped everything else they were doing to go back to Turkey Hunting, the second it went live.... rolleyes:

The desire to get more of the Harvester's Blades is pretty high among those who've actually seen them in use.

Only those with absolutely no desire to gather crafting ingredients would ignore this event.

 

[Mapper]

Good news is the Town Criers are now blasting about Turkeys rather than ToT!

Bad news.. Not everyone got the message.

 

[Silverbird]

I cant wait to try out my new harvester blade with my fisher. *g*
Anyone tried out to imbue those blades? Might give a nice lizardman slayer and could replace a butchers war cleaver in some cases. (But theres probaly not much intensity left for imbuing with sc-np already on them.)

 

[sablestorm]

It might be a lot of coding for an intern... But no, for a team that felt capable enough to take on boat movement changing a few values for what could spawn for trick-or-treating should be child's play.

The treats/ancient hellhounds and the bloody sash/wearwolves would have taken the longest amount of time. These actually took new art and coding time.

However, the debacle that is the booster isn't a reason to 'cut them slack.' This is their job, not a hobby. We pay them to provide new content in a professional and consistent basis to keep UO relatively fresh. Had their level of attentiveness been where it should be, we woud have recieved some fiction for the additions at Halloween, the reason the turkeys are back (since no moongrass spawned last month), and Al the Ornithologist would respond to more than just "brush."

What's your programming background Martyna? How about you Demonous?

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

What's your programming background Martyna? How about you Demonous?

I used to be the IT Manager of a software training company that had an engineering team and project management divisions on the side. Granted, it was a strange combination but it kept things rather interesting. That was also nearly 10 years ago now. While I don’t know the specific language UO is programmed in, I know the accepted processes and standards of the field.

However, it’s more than enough experience to recognize rushed/lazy development and coding. Changing item IDs in the spawn tables for trick or treat would have taken them minutes, creating the items slightly longer. The hellhound and werewolf would have taken the most time to create as they were both new art and more in-depth coding to "balance" the hound. The dual-hued trick cloth is an obvious bug that they decided to accept as a feature since people liked it and had already 'exploited' the hell out of it.

The turkey event was little more than flipping a switch and spawning new Town Criers with last year’s message (yes, the Criers are new not reprogrammed). The only new item appears to be a Harvest Talisman, which again would have taken minutes to create and implement. But really, another few minutes could have been taken to have new cornucopias spawn 2010 beverages, not rehash 2009’s.

While one can blithely say that "they didn't need to do this, be thankful we get anything..." I say B.S. UO is their job. Providing content is their job. Holiday content is expected by the p(l)ayer base, and rightly so. (i.e. there is a long history of it being provided) Remember the regifting of a few years ago and the outcry that caused? Tweaking the turkey event a tad more would have satisfied people, while an actual quest line for Halloween would have satisfied people last month. (And no, rehashing 2009’s event would have been lazy). The holidays don’t sneak up on the Team as I’m sure they have calendars, these things should have been settled in June to avoid a last minute scramble.

The Team has retreated to a hole since the incomplete, bug-riddled Booster was dropped on us - their communication and bug-fix responsiveness was quite admirable for a while but is flat lining again. The p(l)ayer base will "cut them some slack" when what they release isn't substandard, poorly announced, and without marginal fictional introduction. They are a for-profit corporation, not a mom 'n pop operation managing UO out of the kindness of their hearts. Thusly, some of Mythic's issues do need to rest squarely on EA's diabolical shoulders when it comes to arbitrary and unrealistic deadlines, and lack of adequate resources/backup.

 

[NuSair]

Harvest Talisman?

 

[NuSair]

While I don’t know the specific language UO is programmed in, I know the accepted processes and standards of the field.

From what I remember, UO is programmed in C++ and they have their own scripting language called WOMBAT.

 

[Llewen]

... gotta wait until back home from work to kill em with a tamer.

Good luck with that one...

 

[Llewen]

Thusly, some of Mythic's issues do need to rest squarely on EA's diabolical shoulders when it comes to arbitrary and unrealistic deadlines, and lack of adequate resources/backup.[/FONT][/COLOR]
[/FONT][/COLOR]

I'm no fan of EA, but times are tough and EA is struggling. Now of course you could say that at least some of their struggles are of their own making as they seem to have a habit of buying successful game studios and severely cutting their staff and the resources available to them, and at the same time doing their best to disconnect them from their player base by contracting out customer service to unqualified third parties.

It rather makes you wonder if they are surprised when their newly acquired gems quickly lose their lustre. They shouldn't be...

 

[Voodoo990]

I used to be the IT Manager of a software training company that had an engineering team and project management divisions on the side. Granted, it was a strange combination but it kept things rather interesting. That was also nearly 10 years ago now. While I don’t know the specific language UO is programmed in, I know the accepted processes and standards of the field.

However, it’s more than enough experience to recognize rushed/lazy development and coding. Changing item IDs in the spawn tables for trick or treat would have taken them minutes, creating the items slightly longer. The hellhound and werewolf would have taken the most time to create as they were both new art and more in-depth coding to "balance" the hound. The dual-hued trick cloth is an obvious bug that they decided to accept as a feature since people liked it and had already 'exploited' the hell out of it.

The turkey event was little more than flipping a switch and spawning new Town Criers with last year’s message (yes, the Criers are new not reprogrammed). The only new item appears to be a Harvest Talisman, which again would have taken minutes to create and implement. But really, another few minutes could have been taken to have new cornucopias spawn 2010 beverages, not rehash 2009’s.

While one can blithely say that "they didn't need to do this, be thankful we get anything..." I say B.S. UO is their job. Providing content is their job. Holiday content is expected by the p(l)ayer base, and rightly so. (i.e. there is a long history of it being provided) Remember the regifting of a few years ago and the outcry that caused? Tweaking the turkey event a tad more would have satisfied people, while an actual quest line for Halloween would have satisfied people last month. (And no, rehashing 2009’s event would have been lazy). The holidays don’t sneak up on the Team as I’m sure they have calendars, these things should have been settled in June to avoid a last minute scramble.

The Team has retreated to a hole since the incomplete, bug-riddled Booster was dropped on us - their communication and bug-fix responsiveness was quite admirable for a while but is flat lining again. The p(l)ayer base will "cut them some slack" when what they release isn't substandard, poorly announced, and without marginal fictional introduction. They are a for-profit corporation, not a mom 'n pop operation managing UO out of the kindness of their hearts. Thusly, some of Mythic's issues do need to rest squarely on EA's diabolical shoulders when it comes to arbitrary and unrealistic deadlines, and lack of adequate resources/backup.

/Singed!! Good post