Some things never change... The pom-pom wavers continue to wave the pom-poms no matter how lousy the situation gets (which sort of leads you to believe they really were pom-pom wavers in another life, forced to cheer for their lousy, no-win football team regardless of the fact that their team achieved the impossible and had a negative ratio of wins to losses). The people who point out that the status-quo is unacceptable are reminded that "UO is just a game" without actually using the words "UO is just a game," as if UO being just a game is, in and of itself, some kind of acceptable reason for shoddy communication. And the developers continue to miss deadlines at a rate that the word "deadline" ceases to have a meaning.
I mean, come on... how many times can an update be pushed off before it's no longer acceptable? "Here's what we're going to talk about it when we get around to it." "We had a lot of distractions, but here's what we're going to talk about." "I know you've been waiting for months, but we promise, we'll talk about it soon." "We'd talk about it but [marketing|PR|excuse of the week] is adding their touch to it." Cal, regardless of the pom-pom wavers, if most companies were run like your particular division of Mythic Entertainment, corporate America would be in far worse shape than it is now.
I say this as a programmer who knows deadlines in programming have to be more fluid than solid -- regardless of what the rest of the world is -- and I say this as a programmer who worked on several projects as the sole programmer on the "team." I was still required to communicate regularly and effectively with the people for whom each project was dedicated to, and while maybe there was no requirement of me to take the suggestions of those I was programming for, you better believe it made my job easier in the long run.
And sure, we all know Mythic's UO team is more skeletal than Deceit 2, but that's not an excuse either. If the UO team was putting out a quality product, the team wouldn't be in the state that it is. Their continued failures, particularly since the move from EARS to Fairfax, have sealed the fate of UO. We've heard how many times about the great attention that the Enhanced Client is going to receive? And yet, with no substantial improvements since it was released (and yes, I know someone will point out the minimal updates and call them substantial, but there are still fundamental flaws in design, execution, and performance that have been there since "release" and continue to remain in what is quickly becoming a "beta" that could give Duke Nukem a run for his money), there are still people who believe it will get substantial attention.
There are those who seem to think Mythic can afford to "fix the issues" while not expanding the game any... That continues to be an incorrect stance, as the longer the game remains stagnant, the lower the subscription base will become. We've seen it historically in the number of people we see online during huge, expansionless periods. People like new things to do. When UO becomes a game you load up just like any other game you'd toss into your X-Box, it ceases being what it's intended to be.
Then again, Mythic totally blew the booster concept all to hell. With an expansion that didn't require a hard deadline, they gave it a hard deadline... went from pre-alpha to beta to release in 6 weeks(ish)... and it show(ed|s) in the way the expansion play(ed|s), and the fact that they've worked to monetize on something that was just barely out the door and which had already been monetized (ie: the special boat). Things like saltpeter show that they don't understand gameplay in general, and there's a continued disconnect particularly with the UO:HS expansion...
So the news for this year? Some predictions:
- No Classic Shard (or worse, "We're moving ahead on a Classic Shard, spreading ourselves even thinner than we already are..." I doubt this will be in the news, but then, this is Mythic's UO team, and I've been stunned by past decisions, so who knows?).
- No expansion.
- We're working on the EC (which will amount to next to nothing, and will do nothing to bring the 2D players who WOULD switch given 2D options that, you know, actually WORKED *coughbackpackcough*).
- More event stuff (which, much like the past THREE years, will trickle out in small amounts, but be enough to keep people logging in).
That'll be about it.
Oh... and discounts at the UO store... which is sort of scary.
What we won't hear about is anything that could position UO as a contemporary player in the MMO market, which is sad, given that a facelift and some creativity could do just that. Then again, every time they try to bring UO up to contemporary levels, they either get distracted, fly off on a tangent, or fail horribly.
The state of UO... is not pretty. And it's certainly not something to be pleased about.