NEWS [UO.Com] Dev Meet and Greet Schedule

[UO News]

From the Devs
2014 Apr 21 20:47 GMT

We will be meeting on each shard for 1 hour in Lord Blackthorn's Throne Room. This will be an open forum for you to ask us anything that is on your mind. Please note that the schedule could change due to unforeseen issues but we will notify you of any changes ahead of schedule.





Shard M&G Scheduled Time Date

Legends 7pm ET April 30, 2014
Mugen 9am ET May 14, 2014
Atlantic 7pm ET June 4, 2014
Wakoku 9am ET June 18, 2014
Lake Superior 7pm ET July 2, 2014
Hokuto 9am ET July 16, 2014
Great Lakes 7pm ET July 30, 2014
Formusa 10AM ET August 13, 2014
Chesapeake 7pm ET August 27, 2014
Izumo 9am ET September 10, 2014
Siege Perilous 7pm ET September 24, 2014
Mizuho 9am ET October 8, 2014
Origin 9 pm ET October 22, 2014
Yamato 9am ET November 5, 2014
Pacific 9 pm ET November 19, 2014
Asuka 9am ET December 3, 2014
Sonoma 9 pm ET December 17, 2014
Sakura 9am ET January 7, 2015
Lake Austin 9 pm ET January 21, 2015
Arirang TBD February 4, 2015
Baja 9 pm ET February 18, 2015
Balhae TBD March 4, 2015
Napa Valley 9 pm ET March 18, 2015
Drachenfels TBD April 1, 2015
Europa 4pm ET April 15,2015
Oceania TBD April 29,2015
Catskills 7pm ET May 13,2015

Continue reading...

 

[Winter]

From the Devs
2014 Apr 21 20:47 GMT

We will be meeting on each shard for 1 hour in Lord Blackthorn's Throne Room. This will be an open forum for you to ask us anything that is on your mind. ..

How will this be conducted so that players can ask their questions without the whole meeting degrading into a mess?

 

[Tjalle]

How will this be conducted so that players can ask their questions without the whole meeting degrading into a mess?

Last time I think they teleported people one at a time into an area to speak to the devs. And in the meanwhile, everyone else around was muted.

 

[Storm]

How will this be conducted so that players can ask their questions without the whole meeting degrading into a mess?

I believe they said people would be squelched and only the people asking the question would be heard at a time

 

[Aurelius]

Hmm... suppose I should be glad they think there's at least a 12 month future for UO, the 'meet and greet' for my shard is almost exactly one year away

 

[MalagAste]

I just want to say thank you to the DEV's for doing this. I remember years back when I first started playing back in UO:R..... The DEV's would come round and meet up with folk once in awhile.... I recall at least 2 or 3 such meetings..... Where you could ask questions and such... It was certainly more personal feeling and far more memorable than anything else. It really felt like they cared about the players .... to actually come in-game and spend time with the players on a more personal level. Gathering feedback and answering questions and concerns.

I think it goes a long way towards rebuilding the foundation of the community as well as putting a more positive feel back in the game.

Just saying... Thanks.

 

[Jerec KTM]

Nice. I guess it was about time Messana kept her promise to come to Great Lakes and address the harassment issues that have been going on in Britain during the elections.... even if it takes five months and there will surely be another TOS violating harassment field day election before then.

 

[G.v.P]

Catskills 7pm ET May 13,2015

Over a year of pre-planned events?

I'm sorry, I cannot help thee with that.

Haha. But that is really, really nice. Hope it goes to plan.

 

[Aran]

Meh, I'll just drive down and bother them in person one day. They're not far away.

 

[MissEcho]

*taking bets on if the Oceania one ever happens* One year and one week away, odds are NOT good, especially due to all the unforeseen things that will definitely happen. No doubt if you attend another meet and greet and want a question for your shard you will be evicted?

For ONCE it would have been nice for our shard to be 'first' on something rather than dead last.

(Catskills just had a meeting don't forget so yes, we are again dead last)

 

[Frarc]

Yes... Its extremely hard to join the meeting on another shard.....(Sarcasm)

 

[MissEcho]

Yes... Its extremely hard to join the meeting on another shard.....(Sarcasm)

*sarcasm* no it isn't hard to join a meeting on another shard, but I bet you if you try to discuss OTHER shards issues on some other shard's meet and greet you will NOT be welcome.

 

[SunWolf]

At these meetings, please please be respectful for the people who actualy PLAY on the shards they are on. It will be pretty lame that for people to stand in line on eachshard and waste time and take away good quastons from players from that shard that they are on. Also if a reporter wish's to donate thier time and do a journel and post on stratics, it might reduce the same quastions asked over and over and over and over (atleast from the people who read stratics).

 

[Dag Nabbit]

*taking bets on if the Oceania one ever happens* One year and one week away, odds are NOT good, especially due to all the unforeseen things that will definitely happen. No doubt if you attend another meet and greet and want a question for your shard you will be evicted?

For ONCE it would have been nice for our shard to be 'first' on something rather than dead last.

(Catskills just had a meeting don't forget so yes, we are again dead last)

Catskills had a meeting for dealing with a specific issue with elections/voting. We were not allowed to bring up anything else really.

 

[Aurelius]

Yes... Its extremely hard to join the meeting on another shard.....(Sarcasm)

Well I for one won't push in on any other shard's meetings since they are for THEIR players to discuss THEIR issues.... clearly you take a different view.

 

[MissEcho]

Well no, I had no intention of going to another shards meeting either, as I know full well that persons on the home shard would not take lightly to interlopers, just as I would not like interlopers at our meeting, my initial post was to basically show my total disappointment that our small shard gets the dregs and is shoved last as it USUALLY is. One would think that given there are 365 days in a year, a visit to 26 shards of 1 hr per could have been done in at least 6 months ie around 4 a month and not taken over 12 months. It is ONLY 26 hours in total.

And yeah, I know the Catskills meeting was to do with governors etc however, we on other shards didn't even get that, we were advised on here (stratics and also by our EM) that we could attend the catskills meeting to have issues re the governors addressed for our shard but as you saw from the transcript of that meeting it was totally incorrect, any discussion of issues re governors on other shards was shut down immediately.

Anyways I guess the 'intent' is there but to my mind any serious set of meetings should of been scheduled 4 shards for 1 day a month (4 meetings of 1 hr) over 6.5 months (half a day a month is hardly an onerous schedule) . Or even better 8 shards done in 8 hrs a month would of taken at the most 3-4 mths. In my view, stretching it out over a YEAR is doomed to fail from the start and being last on the list (other than Cats) is most likely never going to happen.

I certainly will NOT be holding my breath

 

[DanteSignas]

2015?? Is that true or is this another typo. Ridiculous.

 

[Petra Fyde]

Let's take a step back.
These meetings are nice to be able to attend - but they're not the only time we'll see or hear from the Devs. The google 'hangout' was intended to be the first of many, the devs still read the forums regularly and post when they can.

 

[DJAd]

The google 'hangout' was intended to be the first of many, the devs still read the forums regularly and post when they can.

When is the next hangout?

 

[Petra Fyde]

That info will have to come from Mesanna, and probably not too far in advance. The more notice she gives the more time 'Murphy' has to throw a spanner in the works and postbone it
We know all the plans they have for May, so obviously it is unlikely to be until after that.

 

[Larisa]

I do miss when they would actually travel to a town/city near you. I attended the Chicago Town Hall Meeting, met Patrick and his lovely wife and then little baby girl who has grown into a beautiful young lady, and Jeremy AND Lady Rachel of Rachel's Runes, But I know that is time and money consuming, these shard meets will be pleasant, it is unfortunate that some shards have to wait quite awhile but the dev team IS busy with other things and they have to fit these meets into their schedules as well. Sure you'd think 1 hour isn't much...but think of all the other things they are doing.

In the meantime, I think the suggestion of posting relevant questions that are asked per shard be posted here so as not to ask the same questions over, so maybe the wait won't be AS bad as we'll be able to see some of the answers we might have asked at our own meeting thus giving us time to think of new questions to ask.

I can't wait

 

[PJay]

It will take a YEAR to get to some shards???

Thats like adding a vendor search tool and then not getting it working for over a month!

 

[Lady Michelle]

I see nothing wrong with going to other shard meetings to see what the questions that are asked, and what the answers will be. This way you know what questions to not asked on your shard because you already know the answer.
What would be wrong would be to go to another shard and ask questions.

 

[TandaBSK]

I welcome the meetings, the time frame seems a little long but given it is NOT the only task to be accomplished by all these people, and that they need time to digest, review notes and process each meeting it doesn't seem so unreasonable. Could we expedite some of this and set up a question page, NOT saying those will be the only questions or concerns addressed in these meetings, but if 5 or so of us on each shard have the same question we might be able to save some time and cover more ground. I think it might make things easier if they had a little prep time for some of the stuff we may ask. Maybe we could divide into topics: Mechanics & Tech stuff, Gifts & Rewards, Economy of the game, Governor's System & The King, Monster, Mobs, Loot & Dungeons, House Deco/Customization.

 

[SlobberKnocker]

boy catskills got the shaft. lucky dealer bad rng most likely.

what if they had a dev meeting on Balhae and no one came.

once they take a look at the attendance they will probably merge shards.

 

[Lord Gareth]

The most important questions on my mind are

1. Give me Items?
2. Are you going to give out items?
3. Give me Items?

Now!

 

[Viper09]

They are spaced out quite evenly and fairly over 27 shards, so why should it be surprising that some are scheduled for 2015? The devs still need to save time for their job

 

[DanteSignas]

They are spaced out quite evenly and fairly over 27 shards, so why should it be surprising that some are scheduled for 2015? The devs still need to save time for their job

Oh you mean like sitting around the office not doing anything and then figuring out how to sound snarky enough when they do answer their pre determined questions during their video QA?

Please.

 

[Viper09]

Oh you mean like sitting around the office not doing anything and then figuring out how to sound snarky enough when they do answer their pre determined questions during their video QA?

Please.

Gee, if you think that lowly of the devs who work on this game it's a wonder why you even bother to play, care so much about the Meet and Greet Schedule, let alone come here and rant about it.

 

[Angel of Sonoma]

They are spaced out quite evenly and fairly over 27 shards, so why should it be surprising that some are scheduled for 2015? The devs still need to save time for their job

This IS part of their job. Scheduling meet & greets 13 months out is far too long.

 

[Viper09]

This IS part of their job. Scheduling meet & greets 13 months out is far too long.

Well, I disagree. Looks fairly evenly spaced out still.

 

[Picus of Napa]

And what magical results will come of this? An expansion, content, lands, content?

 

[kelmo]

I am weary of trolls.

 

[DanteSignas]

Gee, if you think that lowly of the devs who work on this game it's a wonder why you even bother to play, care so much about the Meet and Greet Schedule, let alone come here and rant about it.

Nostalgia.

I think that's probably a common reason a lot of people still play. Whether they admit it or not is another story entirely.

 

[TandaBSK]

Like the comfy some what ratty looking pair of old slippers, combined with a good friend to share a drink with. I'd hazard that is part of it for some of us.

 

[Ludes]

I have every intention of attending almost all of them.. just as a spectator though.. I'm sure many questions asked and answers given will apply to things that are issues on all shards.
My main character is on almost every one so I look forward to seeing some familiar faces.

 

[THP]

gimme gimme gimme [sorted]

 

[Armand de Romanus]

i dont get why we cant have house of commons back? every 2 wks, open 2 all shards in mirc? moderated & kept civil. house of commons was so awesome & 1 of the reasons i even started using mirc at all. -adam

 

[DJAd]

I would attend but I know most of the answers to my questions already. "Coming soon".

 

[Aran]

i dont get why we cant have house of commons back? every 2 wks, open 2 all shards in mirc? moderated & kept civil. house of commons was so awesome & 1 of the reasons i even started using mirc at all. -adam

Because you have to get everyone together and online to sit in IRC for X hours at Y time, generally in the evening, when they probably have other things they'd rather do when not working?

 

[MedeaDF]

Our meeting (on Drachenfels) will be on 1st of April... next year.
Somehow I smell some really bad first of April jokes already... for next year, of course

 

[Flagg]

At these meetings, please please be respectful for the people who actualy PLAY on the shards they are on. It will be pretty lame that for people to stand in line on eachshard and waste time and take away good quastons from players from that shard that they are on. Also if a reporter wish's to donate thier time and do a journel and post on stratics, it might reduce the same quastions asked over and over and over and over (atleast from the people who read stratics).

You forgot to say please.
Wait, no you didn't!
..But still. Might as well take human nature in account.

" Ah man. Wish I played on Legends so I could ask my questions right now! But eh, might as well be "respectful" and wait for ONE DAMN YEAR WITH MY QUESTION, NP!" ...Yeah Not gonna happen. Everybody and their dog will be on Legends. It'll be pretty cool I wager. Nice to see if we can still draw a crowd big enough to bring proper lag. ; p

Genuinely curious,
How many relevant - shard specific - questions from Dev team is there to ask, really? These are developers of your favorite(?!) game. Do you really want to "spend" your question by asking some Muken or Lake Austin - specific thing solely for the sake of some "LOOK AT ME, I ACTUALLY PLAY HERE! : ) " -vibe.
If I get lucky enough to get picked once wagon arrives on Europa in 2029 A.D, I'll do my utmost to try to ask some nice big juicy question. Not some Europa specific trivilaities. " Hey Mesanna my home shard had several of the Hallloween masks come out as Mugen Pink, not Europa Gold. Are there any plans to redeem this? " Nobody cares. Ask about the game!! : p
Note tongue 26% in cheek pls dont be angry! But seriously. Please try to get answers about the game, not about some obscure server specific trivia thing.

Second part of your post about making sure each and every question gets documented and distributed sounds like a very important and good idea. In case Europa and myself still exist when Ask the Devs arrives there in 3781, I'll be happpy do write em down. . ..I'm sure many others will too.

 

[BeaIank]

In this case, being first will be a curse, yes. :|
As a Legends player that already suffers a lot from lag on the basis of living closer to Antarctica than to the Legends server, as much as I want to ask a question regarding what is being done towards the new player experience, I will have to sit out because there will be far too many people there and the lag on Castle Blackthorn will be impossible to deal with on my end.

Quite sad.

 

[Soul.Train]

Hello together,

its quite a sad Story... Bleak gave us hope with this Posting: http://stratics.com/community/threads/uo-com-vendor-search-issues.314572/ but the way he handled it till right now is unacceptable.

Giving informations about theire objectives is a really good thing but it´s more than usefull to give the Community Feedback if they fail to meet the deadline. The Community is badly treated by the Developers / the Company however it is/was named. Doing Business like that is simply inacceptable.

They will argue that the Community is verry small and the Budget is low.. anyway ... They should bring it to an end but dont act like they do. Just an example: European Players cant buy The Kings Collection at the European Origin Shop... so the Players had to fake theire IP to spent theire Money and get the Expansion. Some Days / Weeks later they couldnt buy anything from the Shop... Origin told them something with theire Billing Information is wrong. If you ask me..something with the whole Organisation is wrong. Its more than courious that a Company sanctions theire Customers for buying her goods.

I wish you all a nice Weekend...

Soul.Train

 

[Flagg]

Well I for one won't push in on any other shard's meetings since they are for THEIR players to discuss THEIR issues.... clearly you take a different view.

I imagine people of [quiet shard] and devs appearing there would all be very disappointed if entire community shared this sentiment. I can't even begin to imagine how depressing it'd feel to see you are greeted by..what, 3 people ;p Additionally, I bet literally everybody who doesn't play on ATL has come to miss seeing a proper crowd anywhere.

Additionally, UO has had strong drive to encourage people to do some serious X-sharding for a very long time. Who is and who isn't a member of this shard or that shard is sometimes pretty vaque and tricky question I think.

Why is it so important People from Lake Austin ask questions from Mesannna when she is on Lake Austin? Far as I know every single shard with 2 exceptions share identical rule set. Shard specific issues are almost always community specific issues I'd like to think. As opposed to something where POV of lead dev(s) of the game would be incredibly important to hear.

Askign devs about some shard specific question sounds incredibly useless and boring, frankly. It is Waste of your quality time with devs. It is a little bit like having god of your religion of choise appearing before you and proceeding to ask him/her/it about what are the headlines in today's newspaper; there are more interesting things to ask. It shouldn't take Lead Dev of your favorite game to answer some useless thing about server-specific lag or some damn Halloween mask dye. I really, reallly hope majority of people ask/talk about the game in grander scale, not about some odd formation of some rock circle on some west coast shard. If you have bugs to report send as bug report.

With all the (non-existant) authority I wield as a typical player of Europa, I'd like to officiallly welcome every single person here to our shard's Q&A! Bring your dogs, dragons, friends and relatives! Also bring good questions! Don't bring stupid questions!




Could somebody give an example of good, interesting shard specific question to ask? One providing an answer you genuinely feel more than 5 people would be interested to hear. I can't think of a single one. Very notable exceptions: Atlantic trade, ATl in general. Siege, localization on Japanese shards.

 

[Dag Nabbit]

I would like to hear from the Dev's themselves on what they hope to get out of this meet and greet. Will it be more of a rant session or will the Dev's ask specific questions to each shards player base that will turn into a round-table discussion?

 

[Deimos]

I miss the days of the semi regular Stratics IRC Dev Chats.....the town hall meetings....and expansions.
BUT, it's still good of them to do the videos and ingame shard sessions like this, it's something at least!

 

[kelmo]

Seriously? Is IRC still considered relevant?

 

[Zosimus]

What is IRC? Some type chat program or room?


I mean that is why we have Youtube and Skype now days.

There are all kinds of Gaming Conventions held around the world and in the states. It's just up to Broadsword an EA to make the decision to go to them and promote a 17 yr old game

 

[Deimos]

Seriously? Is IRC still considered relevant?

Naw, but I do miss the live chats, you know?
I guess IRC is a bit...old school now lol.