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No Herald updates over a week now.

C

canary

Guest
One of the biggest problems I can't see 3D working for is things like Custom house building. That would be horrifically difficult in a pure 3D setting. Unless of course they gave the tile based, iso-metric view we have now for custom designing.
Its worked for the Sims for years.
 

Lady Storm

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
The EC client is horrid.
The first time I downloaded it for trial outside of it crashing what first hit me like a ton of bricks was the headache I got from my eyes after an hour of trying my damest to walk in Luna.
At first I thought it was from my con that the comp was having difficulties and the stream of info was hastled, I even had my son double check the cable linkage.
He confirmed the link was sound and that it was all fine, and asked me what the hell I had on my comp that sent me to the Tylenol bottle. When he looked at it he said " OMG!! mom get that off your comp". We deleted it. This was after 2 weeks of hell trying to ajust to EC.
I went back to CC and no more headaches. (outside of the ones created by the billing department)

I am not the only one who is effected by this. 3d is known for its effects on the human brain in tests. The results is not good. The massive headaches and eye strain is only the tip of the iceburg according to the medical community. Being an xRN, I worry for the young that may be using this medium and hurting their sight and heads for what they think is good video.

I for one am all for the future dont get me wrong, but if the sheep look to you like an advance in the picture quality I got news for you. Someone who never played UO looked at the picture on my big screen tv/monitor when my son was showing me something and asked what hte cut out sheep things were there for.... Yes I know Mythic said they were a mistake and would be fixed but my kids friend was right they do look like paper cut outs on unseen sticks moving around.

As some of you so rightly pointed out EC is not perfect. Its a sham of 3d but I have to admit its a hell of alot better then the first attempt EA made of it. Seriously people, squabbling over the picture of how a game looks is really not our problem. 14 years of UO looking like it does was not why the masses fliped out and left. Lets point the finger of guilt squarly on the real guilty enity....EA Staff. YES EA.

We have had good and bad Dev teams over the years, and each has scratched out digs into the # counts of this game that would have gotten them fired faster had the brass not been busy counting the $$ coming in the bank.

UO was the First mmorg game for EA, all other $ games were their stand alone's like Madden Football. They made Billions off those games so let the slipshod Producers have free run till our $$ started to drop.. then it caught their eye real fast.

The massive distruction of UO is based sololy on the past Dev teams who failed miserably to listen to players but went off on their own tangent and did what THEY wanted to have done. Not what was good for UO.
Each publish added bugs and flaws to already buggy content after content. And we wonder why people left the game??
Fix after fix was not what needed to be fixed but what was in the Dev's eye of flawed. Most times it was not what the player needed or wanted.
Things the original Dev team left for players to find were the minute a player found them removed as bugs.... when they were there FOR US TO FIND... Each team has stoped the current time stream and changed the whole thing for their development style... thats all well and good but it threw alot of players for loops who wanted to continue on....

90% over the life of UO, Players left UO for sound reasons.

I wont even mention the fiasco of billing of late, or AOS....

There is a whole new generation of players out there who have never seen or heard of UO.
We do have players inviting their friends to come play who too have never played.
Many are adult. ( over 30 ) I have met some of them and they are nice people. We forget ourselves sometimes, this game was not for the under 21 croud in the beginning. But we coped when children started to enter the game and made room and ajustments in language and actions (for the most part, we still have potty mouths in chat...). UO is not a bad game its just been miss managed.

Each Dev has made UO less of what it could have been.. I remember the day all were worried WOW was going to kill us... wow is over 6 years old now.. UO is still here. Maybe by threads but we are alive dispite condemnations of the oopsite.

We cant count on the Dev to bail out the game anymore its up to us.

Perhaps if we spred the game around to others who would not usualy play a video game...
Adults who are not fermiliar to games but wold like to try. Kids are too jadded by the hype of 3d that even many of you are too hooked on getting that you lost sight of what really is why you play the game. Look beyond the 3d and see the worth of the game as it was meant to be.

I bet every one of us knows someone who has never played UO. Give them an old copy of your UO thats sitting around the closet. Pass them a web addy with the instructions on how to install it... what to expect and how to start... We are the games embassidors, how we come off is how we promote it.
By the way......
We need to change our attitudes and get players in game to stop the "if you dont like it QUIT!! " attitude. We have let slide by alot we in the RL would not put up with in our homes. Why should our game be any different then our homes??
 

Tina Small

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
The problem with a UO2 is that if you try to replace UO with another game, if you don't provide a means for UO players to migrate with their stuff and their characters and if you don't provide a similar sandbox-style environment, then there is damn good chance they'll just walk away completely, including look at other games or free shards.

This is what the Netdragon fanboys don't seem to comprehend - providing a replacement UO that isn't really really close to UO is going to provide an incentive for people to say "**** it" and walk away and look at other games or freeshards. Especially if a replacement UO is as cartoony and non-sandboxy as all of the other Netdragon offerings. If UO players want cartoony or non-sandboxes, they would have already left.
I wouldn't call myself a NetDragon "fanboy." I've just found UO boring enough lately to have the time to go digging around to find out what might be coming next via the agreement between EA and NetDragon to develop a new 3D version of UO. I am definitely not a fan of the free-to-play aspect of NetDragon's games and would be pretty concerned if EA decides to have NetDragon actually operate the game on North American/European/Australian servers, especially if it goes free-to-play. I can understand (which doesn't mean I like or agree with) why EA may have decided to farm out the development of a new version of UO to a country where development costs are likely to be lower and to a company that is trying extremely hard to make a name for itself as a developer of quality games. So much of EA's focus has been on Star Wars the last couple of years, and yet here they have UO coming up with a record-setting 15-year anniversary. I suspect that after Bioware started working with NetDragon on coming out with the DKOL game in early 2009 and while they were struggling to push the Stygian Abyss expansion out the door and two years after the very poorly accepted roll out of the KR client, it was probably not that hard of a decision to make to decide to have NetDragon work on a massive upgrade to UO. For all we know, that decision was part of why Draconi left EA.

I agree with you completely that if a new 3D version of UO isn't similar to what we have now in terms of the sandbox-style environment and if it doesn't look great, people won't accept it. I'm not so sure about whether or not it's necessary for current and former players to be able to carry over their characters and "stuff" to a new game, however. In a lot of ways, I think a fresh start might be a better way to go if EA wants to get former players to give a new version of UO a try. Keep the basics of UO the same, add some new elements, provide some strong incentives for people to try out the new version at its very beginning with new characters, and it just might have a fighting chance to succeed. If it's accurate that there are at least 2.5 million UO accounts in existence (most of them dormant), that's a pretty good number of people who have tried UO in the past who might very well be willing to pony up a month or two's subscription fees to try an updated version.

With regard to NetDragon's games looking cartoony, keep in mind that all but one of their existing games are 2D or 2.5D. Dungen Keeper Online, their first joint project with EA, is their first true 3D project. Have you actually looked at some of the videos for it yet? Are they really what you would call "cartoonish"?

There are a bunch of Dungeon Keeper Online videos linked in this September 2011 review of DKOL: Dungeon Keeper Online (CN) - Exclusive preview ~ MMO ☆ Culture. There's also a whole two pages of videos of better quality here on the official website for the game: ??-³?OL???-dk.91.com. Keep in mind that DKOL has both an above-ground component and a dungeon component and they were developed using two different game engines. I would expect a 3D version of UO to look much closer to DKOL than to any of NetDragon's previous games.

I'm certainly not nuts about the whole situation, but I really don't think UO can keep limping along as is. It will just continue to lose subscribers unless something truly drastic happens to it and I somehow doubt that EA is stupid enough to let that happen. But I think the timing the last few years has been such that they decided they had to outsource the development work to someone else. I suspect that they have kept the work very hush-hush and deliberately wrote the press release as vaguely as they did regarding where the new version will actually be available because they may not have wanted to smack their shareholders and customers (existing and former) smack in the face with the fact they outsourced new work to a company in a Communist country shortly before laying off 1500 of their own employees.

I guess if things play out the way I think they might (a new version of UO replaces what we currently enjoy), a lot of us will be asking ourselves how we're going to proceed. I think for many of us, what we decide is going to depend greatly on communication from EA and how it influences our opinion of them as a company. While we may have great esteem for some of its employees, is that enough for us to continue to support the company, especially if we look at online game industry jobs lost in the countries where we all live because companies like EA decide to outsource jobs to other countries. The more I read and the more I think about the situation, the less sure I am of what I will actually do. I'd like to think that a successful roll out of a new version of UO might mean at least more customer service jobs in the US and in Europe, but I somehow doubt EA will even think to tell us a detail like that.

Sorry this is long-winded and wordy as usual and not too well-organized. Much to think about on a Sunday afternoon. And all over a bunch of pixels we push around for enjoyment and, maybe more importantly, for the connections those pixels help us make with other like-minded individuals.
 
S

Sevin0oo0

Guest
We need to change our attitudes and get players in game to stop the "if you dont like it QUIT!! " attitude.
I think it was a Dev that said that, wasn't it? "don't like it, don't play it" - I personally am taking his advice
 
C

canary

Guest
I bet every one of us knows someone who has never played UO. Give them an old copy of your UO thats sitting around the closet. Pass them a web addy with the instructions on how to install it... what to expect and how to start... We are the games embassidors, how we come off is how we promote it.
Truth is, though, I'm guessing most of us have tried at some point. This game is old and definitely shows it age.

Frankly, none of my friends will play. Not when there are newer, nicer and less buggy games available. I know that it is much easier getting my friends to play decent F2P games... and seriously, a nicely built F2P game is far more enticing to most than an aging, bug riddled game that is more or less on life support with ancient looking graphics that you are expected to pay for monthly.

edit: I played Champions with my bf this weekend, per his request. I also have played Dofus, Glitch and Runes of Magic with him. There is no way he would ever play Ultima with me. Ever.
 

HD2300

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I mostly agree with Tina's analysis.

1. The decision was made not to make the same mistake 3 times in a row.
2. Look at who is leading the projects. Its the big guns and they dont work on dead-end projects.

imo they should run both games concurrently. Some will only play UO, many new players will play UO 3D, and some will play both.
 
K

Kayne

Guest
14 years of UO looking like it does was not why the masses fliped out and left. Lets point the finger of guilt squarly on the real guilty enity....EA Staff. YES EA.

The massive distruction of UO is based sololy on the past Dev teams who failed miserably to listen to players but went off on their own tangent and did what THEY wanted to have done. Not what was good for UO.
Each publish added bugs and flaws to already buggy content after content. And we wonder why people left the game??

Each Dev has made UO less of what it could have been.. I remember the day all were worried WOW was going to kill us... wow is over 6 years old now.. UO is still here. Maybe by threads but we are alive dispite condemnations of the oopsite.

We need to change our attitudes and get players in game to stop the "if you dont like it QUIT!! " attitude.
I've cut mountains of this post but I couldn't agree more.
On the bit about WoW - take a look people WoW is 6 years old and guess what lots of people have left it and continue to do so - its graphics are much better than ours but its content is getting worse. I was going to sub my WoW account again and was told by a group of friends not to bother its crap now. That came from real die hard mmo/WoW fans.

Oh look its Star Wars: Galaxies - oh wait that lost a ton of subscribers too due to content decisions and changes the players didnt like.

UO really is no different to other MMO's eventually it loses lots of subscribers. However its major difference and one we all agree on is the gameplay cannot be found in other MMO's at this point in time and never has been.
 

Martyna Zmuir

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I mostly agree with Tina's analysis.

1. The decision was made not to make the same mistake 3 times in a row.
2. Look at who is leading the projects. Its the big guns and they dont work on dead-end projects.

imo they should run both games concurrently. Some will only play UO, many new players will play UO 3D, and some will play both.
Until there is concrete PROOF that this project even exists, the rest of us will continue to discount it as wish-fulfillment fantasy.
 

Ludes

Babbling Loonie
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I think it was a Dev that said that, wasn't it? "don't like it, don't play it" - I personally am taking his advice
Ummm.. No offense meant, but if you quit playing UO, then why are you still all over the UO forum?
 

Uriah Heep

Grand Poobah
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Wow, this thread has run the gamut of emotions. From where is our communications to a EC vs CC debate, and to how much support we get now from EA.
Personal Opinion Only, shooting from the lip.
WYSIWYG We are probably as good as it is gonna get. I don't see any evidence otherwise, a new producer over all things ultima? yup, but that doesn't mean Ultima Online, as we know it anyway. LOL, you could put a new man in charge of Ford, but that doesn't mean he will dress up an edsel and sell it again. Also, if our new producer were real worried about us, we shoulda been hearing something from him, if only bs and poppycock every day or so.

Another thing that makes me think we are almost to zombie mode, the gamewide events and such are just reruns. Take last years stuff, add one or maybe two simple things to it, and flip the switch. I'm willing to bet taht will be the case with Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years as well.

When the lead artist is the only one communicating with the playerbase, that should tell you loads about where we are headed. And no, I will not accept that bs about "they're just busy and can't take time to post anything right now"...

My two cents, not worth much really ;)
 
W

Woodsman

Guest
For all we know, that decision was part of why Draconi left EA.
So Draconi left because of Netdragon, even though he left 7 months after the agreement? It wasn't because over the previous 15 months EA had been slashing over 10 % of the entire workforce....gotcha.
In a lot of ways, I think a fresh start might be a better way to go if EA wants to get former players to give a new version of UO a try. Keep the basics of UO the same, add some new elements, provide some strong incentives for people to try out the new version at its very beginning with new characters, and it just might have a fighting chance to succeed. If it's accurate that there are at least 2.5 million UO accounts in existence (most of them dormant), that's a pretty good number of people who have tried UO in the past who might very well be willing to pony up a month or two's subscription fees to try an updated version.
Putting aside the fact that a fresh start would ensure that existing players would bail on it, just in case you missed it, within the past few weeks, the UO Herald, the Ultima franchise producer, and TheGrimmOmen have all publicly mentioned that the first part of the high resolution graphics update is coming soon - next publish in fact. It's still on the front page of the Herald.

If EA were messing with a new version or farming out a new UO, they wouldn't be doing the high resolution update to the EC. The executives maybe dumb as hell at times, a lot of times actually, but if it's one thing that EA is good at, it's being goddamned stingy with the money when a franchise is not high on their list. And all three BioWare Mythic games are all of the sudden getting a lot of work done on them. Well, Warhammer....tough call, technically Wrath of Heroes could be good for attracting players, but really it sounds like somebody (Barnett maybe?) heard the term "MOBA" and thought they should get into the MOBA genre.

As for pancakes about EA, and even I do it, apparently EA doesn't have much to do with BioWare's stuff.

BioWare: EA doesn't tell us what to do News - - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

One thing we commonly see is when fans don't like something we do, they put in the comments, 'Oh those EA guys, they're making BioWare do...' And I always chuckle because we are EA, we're BioWare - we're both, and we still have huge autonomy in terms of what we do," Greg Zeschuk told us.

"We're not being forced to do anything or told to do anything. We make the decisions. We take input.

"It's just funny when people say that, because it's not actually remotely true."

"At the end of the day, we're responsible for the quality of the content and games we release, and we're committed to try and always take feedback really seriously from our fans and be humble about how we take it - use it to make the next games better," Ray Muzyka added.
So it sounds like BioWare has been ****ing us.

And we should be pancakes at them for only giving us one community guy, who is mostly putting his time into Camelot and Warhammer. He even goes on third party forums to talk to Camelot players, he posts plenty of the official Warhammer forums, but nary a word on UO in a long time.

I have my account on the official BioWare forums, now to find a good question to ask Kai about UO, one that won't be ignored.
 

Dermott of LS

UOEC Modder
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
...

Just LOL at that inane video from a whiny PK who ends it with an EQ box (because THAT game was known for its open PvP :p )

But then I always laugh at people who play with the logic of "I can be a jerkass!" then wonder "Why am I being treated like a jerkass?".
 

atlanticScorpion

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
WOW!!!!! (and I don't mean world of warcaft) I started this thread just making an observation that the uo herald had not been updated and it turned into a end of the world doomsday scenerio. Or a who did what when and who's fault it is. Truth is that the game has gotten so bad that we would rather post, read, post, pancake, read and post some more. I started gaming with Doom in dos mode over a 14.4 modem and thought this is great. Then I started Warcraft CD:\warcraft.war old dos games playing head to head with a good friend for hours. then onto warcraft II in windows 3.11 and onto delta force in windows 95. Then one day I was turned onto UO and it had been out for a short time and I was behind quick. playing for hours on end to get gold for better armour. Learning about T-Mapping. using moonstones to get from tram to fel. Running from city to city. Taking a boat to Deceit for Bone knights power hour. Getting my first house on atlantic for 225k a small marble in fel outside Transic. Buying gold on ebay for 10 bucks a mil. Ahh the good old days. Some friends thought that paying a monthly subscription was nuts. I said sure i gonna stay in tonight and play and you go out to a bar and spend 50 bucks and probably get you butt kicked. After playing for while the said they were coming out with UO Oddessy. They had videos of it and everything. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRMGXXsMiZU
Ultima Online:Odyssey Online & Ultima Online 2 Animations - YouTube
I was excited and thought well this will kill off UO so i sold everything and waited and then nothing. And all these years later we are still here. Players quitting but then returning even when they said never again. I say they should put it back on store shelves so it could attract new players and put games codes there too like microsoft points so my wife can buy them for me and I know she would.(hehe). Ok this post is longer than I expected and I am a veteran noob at this. Again this Thread was a simple observation and this is how it turned out. I hope the Dev's will see that we are very passionate about UO and consider is a part of our lives that is starting to seem like Real life where we are all waiting for the econmy to turn around and the jobs to come back and the Wars to end. (we are in limbo in both worlds):confused:
 

Tina Small

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
For all we know, that decision was part of why Draconi left EA.
So Draconi left because of Netdragon, even though he left 7 months after the agreement? It wasn't because over the previous 15 months EA had been slashing over 10 % of the entire workforce....gotcha.
If I recall correctly, I think the last time we saw a post from Draconi as an EA employee was late summer 2009, right around the time SA rolled out. [Edited to add: Draconi's last post on Stratics as an EA employee was made September 9, 2009, one day after SA was released.] There was much speculation in mid-November 2009 that he was included in the mass layoffs at that time because people noticed some changes in his Stratics profile right around the time of the mass layoffs. You are correct, though, that it was several months more (i.e., February 2010) before he posted a formal goodbye. Speculation in mid-November 2009 as to why he didn't say anything was that he might have been prevented from doing so under a non-disclosure agreement. ( http://vboards.stratics.com/uhall/167748-draconi.html ) At the time, because it was so odd to have not heard from him in so long, I wondered if he might have actually parted ways with EA shortly after SA rolled out and it was convenient for all concerned to make it look like he got laid off with everyone else.

In a lot of ways, I think a fresh start might be a better way to go if EA wants to get former players to give a new version of UO a try. Keep the basics of UO the same, add some new elements, provide some strong incentives for people to try out the new version at its very beginning with new characters, and it just might have a fighting chance to succeed. If it's accurate that there are at least 2.5 million UO accounts in existence (most of them dormant), that's a pretty good number of people who have tried UO in the past who might very well be willing to pony up a month or two's subscription fees to try an updated version.
Putting aside the fact that a fresh start would ensure that existing players would bail on it, just in case you missed it, within the past few weeks, the UO Herald, the Ultima franchise producer, and TheGrimmOmen have all publicly mentioned that the first part of the high resolution graphics update is coming soon - next publish in fact. It's still on the front page of the Herald.

If EA were messing with a new version or farming out a new UO, they wouldn't be doing the high resolution update to the EC. The executives maybe dumb as hell at times, a lot of times actually, but if it's one thing that EA is good at, it's being goddamned stingy with the money when a franchise is not high on their list. And all three BioWare Mythic games are all of the sudden getting a lot of work done on them. Well, Warhammer....tough call, technically Wrath of Heroes could be good for attracting players, but really it sounds like somebody (Barnett maybe?) heard the term "MOBA" and thought they should get into the MOBA genre.
I'll believe it when I see that there is actually a high resolution graphics update "coming soon." I think the last thing I read that talked about the update mentioned it would only apply to terrain. I half-expect what ends up happening to just be the result of some gimmicky stalling tactic and not a true "update."

And we should be pancakes at them for only giving us one community guy, who is mostly putting his time into Camelot and Warhammer. He even goes on third party forums to talk to Camelot players, he posts plenty of the official Warhammer forums, but nary a word on UO in a long time.
Kai worked for GOA, the company in Europe that ran the DAOC European servers, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise that he seems to favor them. That is probably the game that he has the most experience with. We were told by James Nichols in February that Kai would formally introduce himself to the UO community after he became more familiar with the game. Since that's never happened, does it mean he still hasn't played UO? Or is it more likely that UO's getting some major revamp that makes it a waste of his time and the company's resources to do much with the official website or to even get to know us? That's my guess as to what's going on. He probably has too much to do and as a community, we're just not worth the effort because we're probably soon going to fall apart and disappear. Sorry for the doom and gloom, but I really think at this point EA's just stringing us along with fewer and fewer empty promises and half-truths and hoping we're foolish enough to keep paying them money while they dangle fewer and fewer carrots in front of our faces.
 
W

Woodsman

Guest
I'll believe it when I see that there is actually a high resolution graphics update "coming soon." I think the last thing I read that talked about the update mentioned it would only apply to terrain.
Then you didn't read the Herald from two weeks ago:

"the first part of this will be the terrain in the next publish, so keep your eyes open for a new look"

The Herald, Ultima producer, and an artist all mentioning the update in the past few weeks is a lot more concrete than anything you all have dug up on Netdragon.
Kai worked for GOA, the company in Europe that ran the DAOC European servers, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise that he seems to favor them.
Ironically he posts quite a bit to the official Warhammer boards.
Or is it more likely that UO's getting some major revamp that makes it a waste of his time and the company's resources to do much with the official website or to even get to know us?
It's that he doesn't seem to know a lot about what he is doing. He told the Warhammer forums that upgrading Drupal 6 to 7 on the Camelot website is holding up the Warhammer website upgrade. The actual Warhammer website design is finished - he posted it on the Warhammer forums. It took him forever to get a design up for them to see. I think this is why MyUO isn't back, why Reamlwars is up on the Warhammer site, and why the realm and housing stuff isn't up on the Camelot site - if he has problems with Drupal upgrades, expecting him to upgrade the code that accesses game databases is too much.
Sorry for the doom and gloom, but I really think at this point EA's just stringing us along with fewer and fewer empty promises and half-truths and hoping we're foolish enough to keep paying them money while they dangle fewer and fewer carrots in front of our faces.
While I agree that we apparently aren't worthy of any progress or news on a website update, if it was this bad, EA would just pull the plug. They wouldn't **** around or anything, they would pull the plug and move those developers over to Star Wars that they wanted to keep, and that would be it.

I agree with you that Kai is doing a lot. He manages at least those three websites, he polices the official Warhammer forums, and he's involved with the Wrath of Heroes game. It's ridiculous that UO Japan has an actual team for their website, and we get like 10% of Kai.

I'm just waiting for them to announce Ultima Forever or whatever they are calling it, and it having its own community relations team, etc. while UO is stuck with sharing Kai with the other BioWare Mythic games.

At this point I wish Kai would just swap a few graphics out with the Camelot design and use it for the Herald. People who don't play other MMOs don't realize how bad the Herald is.
 

Ludes

Babbling Loonie
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
...

Just LOL at that inane video from a whiny PK who ends it with an EQ box (because THAT game was known for its open PvP :p )

But then I always laugh at people who play with the logic of "I can be a jerkass!" then wonder "Why am I being treated like a jerkass?".
I was laughing too..

I've been enjoying these as well.



The Noob Comic
 

Tina Small

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
According to his latest "tweet" on Twitter, Mr. Skalski is going to the Game Developers Conference in Austin this week. Maybe he'll use that venue to make some announcement regarding the Ultima brand.
 

hen

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
We really should be calling out Kai and Mesanna on this. Kai has done nothing for us since being appointed in FEBRUARY and Mesanna, as we have seen from the video chats, prefers the silence is golden routine; this isn't really cutting it with the paying customers anymore.
Time to fess up Bonnie, Associate Producer, and tell is what is going on. And give your community rep a good kick in the pants for not being here.
 
K

Kayne

Guest
Jeff Skalski has promised to deal with customer service/communication problems in a post here on stratics. Lets hope he does it will alleviate some of the grouching we do due to it
 

KingHen

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
It would be extremely helpful to have some sort of communication. Even something stating you are working on the next Pub or something. Saying nothing say a lot, and allows for some to come up with their own ideas of the reason for the silence.
 
S

Sevin0oo0

Guest
I think it was a Dev that said that, wasn't it? "don't like it, don't play it" - I personally am taking his advice
Ummm.. No offense meant, but if you quit playing UO, then why are you still all over the UO forum?
no offense taken... I "am taking" not "have taken". I've played a long time, and have a lot invested. Rather than just throw all those years into the trash, it seems to me, a better thing to liquidate out the acct, get what I can, and then move on, rather than forfeit it all. I'm not gonna save the toons for a possible 'later', I'm done dude.

CleanUp helped me a Ton, if it had only included BODS, I'd be almost done. Kinda like when a parent dies, and you have to sort thru all that 'old stuff'. I won't have it happen to my loved ones IRL, nor would I put it on the next owner of my acct.

And i pay 6mths thing, so I have time left, But until then, I'm gonna do what helps the most towards that end, so I'll still be playing and complaining. My last days, I just do the parts I enjoy. Half my time is spent in forums, much less frustrating.
 

Ludes

Babbling Loonie
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no offense taken... I "am taking" not "have taken". I've played a long time, and have a lot invested. Rather than just throw all those years into the trash, it seems to me, a better thing to liquidate out the acct, get what I can, and then move on, rather than forfeit it all. I'm not gonna save the toons for a possible 'later', I'm done dude.

CleanUp helped me a Ton, if it had only included BODS, I'd be almost done. Kinda like when a parent dies, and you have to sort thru all that 'old stuff'. I won't have it happen to my loved ones IRL, nor would I put it on the next owner of my acct.

And i pay 6mths thing, so I have time left, But until then, I'm gonna do what helps the most towards that end, so I'll still be playing and complaining. My last days, I just do the parts I enjoy. Half my time is spent in forums, much less frustrating.
Well at least there are still parts you enjoy, and hopefully since you have six months something might rekindle your interest.
 
W

Woodsman

Guest
Would This have been great yes or no?? UOX trailer - YouTube
If you liked Unreal in a pseudo-Ultima setting, yes. I would have played the hell out of UO:X. In a way it kind of reminds me of Wrath of Heroes, only without the 18 player restriction. FPS-style combat, and basically a continuation of Ultima IX. It felt like a multi-player Ultima IX. Which I would have played like crazy.
It would be extremely helpful to have some sort of communication. Even something stating you are working on the next Pub or something. Saying nothing say a lot, and allows for some to come up with their own ideas of the reason for the silence.
Actually they did mention the next pub, on the Herald, on Skalski's Twitter, and from comments TheGrimmOmen made in another thread. The problem is that it was a passing mention on the Herald, in the happy birthday UO thing.

And Dark Age of Camelot has a nice little 10 year birthday thing going on:

Dark Age of Camelot

Dark Age of Camelot: Ten Year Anniversary! - YouTube

So has anybody ever said why the UO Japan community actually has a community relations team and the rest of UO doesn't?
 

Lady Storm

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Thats easy to answer Woodsman.
The japaneese shards are very active and the players over there have their own GM's, EM's, and ways things are done. way better comunications because they actively work with their players as the division of that is in japan.
 

Martyna Zmuir

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We really should be calling out Kai and Mesanna on this. Kai has done nothing for us since being appointed in FEBRUARY and Mesanna, as we have seen from the video chats, prefers the silence is golden routine; this isn't really cutting it with the paying customers anymore.
Time to fess up Bonnie, Associate Producer, and tell is what is going on. And give your community rep a good kick in the pants for not being here.
^ THIS.

However, I know it won't happen.

So has anybody ever said why the UO Japan community actually has a community relations team and the rest of UO doesn't?
Extreme apathy from Bioware I would wager. Hopefully Jeff might be able to change that... Tho those hopes are dwindling due to his lack of...well...anything approaching visible leadership.

The last thing UO needs is yet another uncommunicative, behind-the-scenes person in a position of authority. We need a bull-by-the-horns leader who knows how to rally the community and generate some exitement about the future of our geriatric MMO.
 
K

Kayne

Guest
Well we go a week without and then two in one night/day depending on your location
 
S

Sevin0oo0

Guest
Thats easy to answer Woodsman.
The japaneese shards are very active and the players over there have their own GM's, EM's, and ways things are done. way better comunications because they actively work with their players as the division of that is in japan.
don't they also have their own art team doing localized chilocs and graphics?

which reminds me... when we talk about or mention 'Devs', who are we really talking about?
yeah, I know they have Many people that do Art (probably for all the games in that studio + a few), but who does the rest of the codes, for modules and stuff? Who tweaks skill rates, spawn, resource stuff, formula's? My bet is that it isn't the artists, but that's just a guess. and who makes the decisions to make 35k hp mobs, or clutter up SA w/ spawn. ?
 
W

Woodsman

Guest
Thats easy to answer Woodsman.
The japaneese shards are very active and the players over there have their own GM's, EM's, and ways things are done. way better comunications because they actively work with their players as the division of that is in japan.
But if the old numbers are right, that Japanese players make up half of UO, it would seem like we too would justify having a community relations team rather than a single person that we share with other games. They have several people working on their website. We have, at best, 33% of one person. As others have pointed out several times, we have a few dozen EMs, and yet you would never know it going by the Herald. A look at the UO Japan website and their EM events are right there.

They even have mention of UO players or EMs doing Halloween artwork :) Pumpkin Season

Kai was kind enough to post the 6000x3600 finished poster for Camelot's anniversary:

Dark Age of Camelot

If Photoshop is not lying to me, you can drop the DPI to 150 and get a 40 inch x 24 inch poster if you run over to Kinko's. UO got a happy birthday mention.
 
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