UO has been Greenlit on Steam.

[Deimos]

Noticed the news thread had been closed, but I don't think it's been posted elsewhere:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=249850626

This game has been Greenlit by the Community!

The community has shown their interest in this game. Valve has reached out to this developer to start moving things toward release on Steam.

Should be good news for UO!

 

[Taylor]

Wow! Good news for the UO community. Renewed interest, more voices (both supportive and critical), virtual storefront presence, more flexibility to innovate/market/develop...seems like some good progress for UO under Broadsword. I'm watching with interest.

 

[AirmidCecht]

Incredible news! Thanks for posting @AdamPD!

 

[G.v.P]

Hm searching for Ultima Online results in nothing from Steam client search. Wonder how long it will take for the game to be up!

 

[Deimos]

Can't imagine the process of making UO steam compatible, being too complex.
Will be interesting to see how well it works.

 

[Taylor]

DAoC was also greenlit: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=249828843

 

[Deimos]

DAoC was also greenlit:

Nice catch!

 

[Flagg]

Woop, awesome news

I'm very curious to see how they end up 'gift wrapping' it for Steam community. Screenshots, art on the page is a big deal. UO can be made look very..enticing and presentable for those hungry of old school and nostalgy.

I hope they end up at least bundling DAOC and UO together. One sub for either and both.

 

[Deimos]

A single sub for access to both games, might be a good idea.

 

[Frarc]

Wonderful!

 

[Zerbee]

Fantastic news!
Hopefully they follow up on the May Return to Brit campaign in conjunction with UO now on Steam.

 

[Storm]

That is great news Thank you for sharing!

 

[kelmo]

*smiles* This is good.

 

[Ender]

Awesome. Will both clients be available then or what?

Although I don't see it being very successful on Steam at the current subscription price it surely won't hurt to have it on there.

 

[Storm]

Awesome. Will both clients be available then or what?

Although I don't see it being very successful on Steam at the current subscription price it surely won't hurt to have it on there.

yes both clients will be available and advertisement is good!

 

[Viper09]

Yay!

 

[Sargon]

yes both clients will be available and advertisement is good!

What about UOAssist? Will it be possible to run that through Steam?

 

[Storm]

What about UOAssist? Will it be possible to run that through Steam?

As for using assist by logging into steam first I dont know I doubt it, but you still will be able to run it the way you do now!

 

[Aran]

I would gladly pay an extra $2-3 a month to have a dual UO/DAoC account.

 

[Dol'Gorath]

Nice going! I hope the new UI for the enhanced client is done soon so new players can at least use a UI with some better function than the current one.

 

[Storm]

Nice going! I hope the new UI for the enhanced client is done soon so new players can at least use a UI with some better function than the current one.

I think it will be! I hope anyway and plan on doing a guide for it as soon as I have my hands on it!

 

[Dol'Gorath]

I think it will be! I hope anyway and plan on doing a guide for it as soon as I have my hands on it!

If anything someone should make a guide for the classic client. Using that thing and making macros in itself requires a dictionary with how complex and overwhelming that thing can be for new players.

 

[Flagg]

If anything someone should make a guide for the classic client. Using that thing and making macros in itself requires a dictionary with how complex and overwhelming that thing can be for new players.

Must..resist...client..wars...desire..to..fight...for..justice..too..strong..also..can't..stop...typing..like..this...

Ultimately it is a subjective thing, question of taste. During my most feverish moments, I find it (barely) somehow consiveable there are people who actually favor EC over CC. It is fine. There is plenty of very valid criticism one can direct at CC. However, calling it
" overwhelming" in comparsion to EC is most assuredly NOT among them.

CC has it's own measures of depth, complexities and quirks. However, CC does very good job in teaching new player one thing at a time much better than EC does. Most people favoring EC are quick to agree it takes modding, 40 min youtube set up guides and few weeks of ' getting used to' in order to like and operate it. - Quite a task for new player. CC on the other hand does very well in teaching new player one game mechanic at a time; player doesn't see huge, confusing empty UI. Rather, it is up to player to bring that UI in game as he lears more of what he needs and wants on screen. CC doesn't cast you to deep end of the pool. I've always felt UO would be easier game to approach for new players if it had " Classic Client and Advanced Client., rather than an ..'enhanced'
client.

Before dropping the subject, I'd like to share a pretty amusing largely irrelevant sidenote,
WoW is most popular MMO ever as we all know. WoW allows users to mod UI as well. Due to it's immense popularity, amount of modders, mods and add-ons for WoW's UI is absolutely staggering. Vanilla WoW and several years worth of UI add-ons started off with something that resembles EC well enough, 2,3,even 5 action bars on scene. Horizontal or vertical. You know the deal. However, over the years, most sophisticated User Interface addions for WoW eventually&gradually evolved into something that resembles CC's appproach to action bars more than ECs. ( Freedom to place buttons anywhere you like V.s being stuck with horizontal, and vertical rows. This degree of adaptable functionality and innovation from a late 90's UI off very first succesful MMO world ever saw. It is pretty humbling.

 

[pumpkin_escobar]

Great news

 

[THP]

Fantastic news!
Hopefully they follow up on the May Return to Brit campaign in conjunction with UO now on Steam.

Is there a May return to Brit ??? Hope so....or is it wishfull thinking

 

[Viper09]

As for using assist by logging into steam first I dont know I doubt it, but you still will be able to run it the way you do now!

I am 99.99% sure you can. Remember, though, that UO will not need Steam for you to play. Plenty of games that do need Steam support tons of mods along with mod-managers. I have also been able to run GTA 4 through Steam with alongside a game hack that provided me with some nifty little shortcuts to do some fun things in the game.

 

[Petra Fyde]

Is there a May return to Brit ??? Hope so....or is it wishfull thinking

I guess you didn't watch the State of UO video. Yes there's a May RTB, it was mentioned during the hangout session.

 

[BeaIank]

Excellent news!
Now to hope that they will put the items from Origin store at Steam as well so we who live outside North America can have access to the full UO catalogue.
It will be nice to be able to buy Stygian Abyss...

 

[THP]

I guess you didn't watch the State of UO video. Yes there's a May RTB, it was mentioned during the hangout session.

Ermm I wish i had the time to hang out....Still good news though!!!

I will pass the info on to freinds etc etc....as iam told ''less than 5% of players actually read stratics''- not my figures- whats ive read on the boards here...[lol]

Anyways i guess they wont advert it on the UO start screen either.....which is a real shame as everyone would see it then.....so its gonna be word of mouth only!!!! for this comeback

 

[Dol'Gorath]

Must..resist...client..wars...desire..to..fight...for..justice..too..strong..also..can't..stop...typing..like..this...

Ultimately it is a subjective thing, question of taste. During my most feverish moments, I find it (barely) somehow consiveable there are people who actually favor EC over CC. It is fine. There is plenty of very valid criticism one can direct at CC. However, calling it
" overwhelming" in comparsion to EC is most assuredly NOT among them.

CC has it's own measures of depth, complexities and quirks. However, CC does very good job in teaching new player one thing at a time much better than EC does. Most people favoring EC are quick to agree it takes modding, 40 min youtube set up guides and few weeks of ' getting used to' in order to like and operate it. - Quite a task for new player. CC on the other hand does very well in teaching new player one game mechanic at a time; player doesn't see huge, confusing empty UI. Rather, it is up to player to bring that UI in game as he lears more of what he needs and wants on screen. CC doesn't cast you to deep end of the pool. I've always felt UO would be easier game to approach for new players if it had " Classic Client and Advanced Client., rather than an ..'enhanced'
client.

Before dropping the subject, I'd like to share a pretty amusing largely irrelevant sidenote,
WoW is most popular MMO ever as we all know. WoW allows users to mod UI as well. Due to it's immense popularity, amount of modders, mods and add-ons for WoW's UI is absolutely staggering. Vanilla WoW and several years worth of UI add-ons started off with something that resembles EC well enough, 2,3,even 5 action bars on scene. Horizontal or vertical. You know the deal. However, over the years, most sophisticated User Interface addions for WoW eventually&gradually evolved into something that resembles CC's appproach to action bars more than ECs. ( Freedom to place buttons anywhere you like V.s being stuck with horizontal, and vertical rows. This degree of adaptable functionality and innovation from a late 90's UI off very first succesful MMO world ever saw. It is pretty humbling.

I was hardly trashing the classic client. But truth of the matter is, it is VERY hard to get into. I remember when I started UO back in 2000 it took a few hours for me to understand how to setup macros with guildmates helping me and referring me to websites for guides. It isn't very intuitive as opposed to the enhanced client which is closer to modern MMO's and you just drag and drop icons into slots and you're good to go.

 

[MedeaDF]

Yes, RTB was announced to be happend around end of May... we'll see about this.
The "adjusted vendor search" took how much longer than expected?
What was it, they said - soon™?

Well, but... yes, therefore good News for UO.

I am and will be never a fangirl of some third-party-dependable-community/software/tools/whatever others confirmed here... but, none the less.

Important part on that news is: I welcome any new players to UO, wherever they will come from! =)

 

[Aiden O'Connor]

Let's just hope they keep on pushing the game forward! I'd hate to see this momentum faulted for some silly reason. All it takes is one dungeon crawl, one good PVP fight, one item drop and people find what is so thrilling about this game multidimensional game. If you build it, they will come!

Congrats UO

 

[Lug]

I hope this translates into more paying players for UO. Good job to whoever thought-outside-the-box to try and attract more players.

Maybe the next step is to advertise UO on other popular MMO Forums. All the latest MMOs I've played in the past few years had ADS here on stractics: Neverwinter, D & D Online, Lord of the Rings Online etc... I would not have played them if not for the ads.

 

[Winter]

Almost everyone agreed that EA needed to advertize UO... now that Broadsword is in charge, they did. What better, cost effective way than to use Steam?

 

[Emil Ispep]

This is good news indeed. Look forward to seeing the new faces, and maybe some old friends.

On a side note, i REALLY hope something is done about the EA account management.

Getting the word out there is all fine and nice, but if people cant even figure out how to pay for an account w/o having to take an hour to read a how-to thread on stratics... well you see the picture.

 

[Darius Bloodbain]

Great news!
I am glad UO is finally going to get some very much needed shelf exposure to a whole new generation
through Steam.

 

[Aran]

I was hardly trashing the classic client. But truth of the matter is, it is VERY hard to get into. I remember when I started UO back in 2000 it took a few hours for me to understand how to setup macros with guildmates helping me and referring me to websites for guides. It isn't very intuitive as opposed to the enhanced client which is closer to modern MMO's and you just drag and drop icons into slots and you're good to go.

I also started UO back in 2000, it was pretty easy to get into.

 

[Flagg]

I was hardly trashing the classic client. But truth of the matter is, it is VERY hard to get into. I remember when I started UO back in 2000 it took a few hours for me to understand how to setup macros with guildmates helping me and referring me to websites for guides. It isn't very intuitive as opposed to the enhanced client which is closer to modern MMO's and you just drag and drop icons into slots and you're good to go.

"Hard to get into" when compared to a very good vanilla UI of some modern day MMO? Ermm..I guess.

Though both UI of Classic Client (c) 1997 and UI of SWTOR (c) 2011 always offer approx. identical amount of hazzle in pure vanilla form. (ie: " my god. everythhing is wrong. I can't play like this!! - sensation immediately after installing thre game. This is then followed by 5 mins of tweaking and "Ahh there we go. All good now." I doubt person willing and interested to try UO for 1st time ever in 2014 is going to have much trouble with something like binding a few spells where he likes.



"Hard to get into" when compared to EC? Another story. Testimonials and claims according to which EC takes massive amounts of modding and youtube guides are pretty numerous. Admittedly I lack empathy here; I do not know what EC feels through eyes of new player. I never saw it as a new player. I only know of a situation where I have EC and know exactly the things I want from it. And my god is it a workload to build it. I usually get tired of looking at the abolutely insufferable character/NPC graphics of EC long before I end up with UI that feels anywhere close to finished, good or natural.

From POV of player who is already in, enjoying his time in-game and wants to improve his game, how easy or hard setting UI up is somewhat less important. End result and how comfortable and/or efficient it is to use counts. more. Best UI I have ever used in any game ever was an add-on named Vuhdo. I bet it took like 3 weeks to set up properly.

This is little OT and might be a topic of it's own thread. Mods would propably lock it sooner rather than later though so eh.

 

[Storm]

I will see if I cant get a video of the CC together for anyone who needs it although it has been a while since I have done macros for it may take me a little bit to get familiar with it again, and I use UOassist also so doing it without that may take a bit! I will see what I can do!

 

[Ender]

My main thought on this though is that I don't find it likely many Steam users will see UO and be willing to pay $14 a month for it, or whatever it is now. Especially given Steam's loads of free to play games and huge discounts. I'm in a decent sized group with an active chat and I'll see if I can get anyone to use the free trial but I don't really see any of them willing to pay the monthly fee right now.

 

[Deimos]

If they offered UO and DAOC as a package deal sub (say $10 a month, for access to both games) it might entice people to keep playing.

 

[Speranza]

If they offered UO and DAOC as a package deal sub (say $10 a month, for access to both games) it might entice people to keep playing.

I've never played DOAC so this would be cool for me!

 

[Storm]

If they offered it for 10 a month they would have to lower everyones like mine to 10 giving up extra 4 dollars per account! Do you really see this happening? and then throw another game in on top of that? the amount of extra subs would have to be a lot to make up that difference and then make more money on top? and then that would mean daoc would get 5 and uo 5 ? meaning uo would be losing almost 10 per sub from current player? they would have to gain 2 times the current base ..

Not going to happen

 

[AirmidCecht]

If they offered UO and DAOC as a package deal sub (say $10 a month, for access to both games) it might entice people to keep playing.

SOE did this just this week with all access to their titles for $15/mo. Remains to be seen if this is the right move because it's a mixture of already F2P games and sub based but for the players who were already paying for EQ, it's a win-win.

 

[Storm]

I was hardly trashing the classic client. But truth of the matter is, it is VERY hard to get into. I remember when I started UO back in 2000 it took a few hours for me to understand how to setup macros with guildmates helping me and referring me to websites for guides. It isn't very intuitive as opposed to the enhanced client which is closer to modern MMO's and you just drag and drop icons into slots and you're good to go.

http://uo2.stratics.com/essays-and-guides/client-user-guide-classic Here is one Dreadlord Lestat made

 

[MedeaDF]

If they offered UO and DAOC as a package deal sub (say $10 a month, for access to both games) it might entice people to keep playing.

Not for me, but if there would be a 1 year UO subscription, I would just renew it every year without thinking.

Just sayin'.

 

[Ender]

If they offered it for 10 a month they would have to lower everyones like mine to 10 giving up extra 4 dollars per account! Do you really see this happening? and then throw another game in on top of that? the amount of extra subs would have to be a lot to make up that difference and then make more money on top? and then that would mean daoc would get 5 and uo 5 ? meaning uo would be losing almost 10 per sub from current player? they would have to gain 2 times the current base ..

Not going to happen

Lower just UO's then. I just don't see more than a very few new people wanting to keep accounts up at the current price.

 

[Zosimus]

If they had both UO and Daoc together at 10 bucks a month that would rock!


DaoC was very innovative at it's time. The RvR was so unreal. Some of the best PvP moments in a modern MMO up until Warhammer and GW2 I ever experienced. Oh the mounts ruled btw

The DaoC community and UO community is very similar and combining the two for one subscription price in my opinion would be a win win for Broadsword. To bad that decision is still in EA''s control


Here is a recent RvR video of DaoC

 

[Zosimus]

Here is a video from Sophie Breca posted 10 hours ago with MMO news from DaoC and UO

 

[Taylor]

Here's an example of the type of Steam sales I'd hope to see. This is from EVE, a subscription-based game launch back in 2003 that was later integrated with Steam.