Personally, as a UO player for quite many years, I have looked into both SotA and Shards but they both have things in their announced gameplay which I do not like as compared to Ultima Online...
I mean, issues which I do not like that would not get me change the game I play as of now.
Also, I imagine that it might not be easy for any new game to reach or get close, in just a few years developement, to the vastness and complexity of a game like Ultima Online which was achieved over 17 years and a number of Publishes, expansions and so forth....
The best way to look at new games is to begin by not expecting them to be the same as something you've played before. The new game may have different new features that you love, the old game may be better in other respects. But I never look for another UO, because there already is a UO that I can play. I don't want another game exactly the same because that would be like saying to an artist "I love this first painting you made, please just keep painting the same thing over and over." Seriously I'd punch someone if they asked me to do that
I really look forward to seeing what happens when a group of ex-UO devs get a fresh slate to start over again, it's not something that happens very often.
As for complexity, I'm presuming you've played UO for many years as I have. When you were new, the game you fell in love with wasn't today's UO. It was much simpler and as a newbie that was actually a good thing. It was easier to learn UO back then
If you were faced with today's UO and you knew nothing about the game, you'd probably find it really hard to settle in. So there is a negative to complexity - having it all land on you on launch day actually isn't as good as you'd expect.
What made UO a great experience for me is being there while changes are being made. You see the world shape around you. You help shape it (or see bits of it explode *winks at Draconi*). Part of your fondness for UO is living in the world
as it changed around you. When you walk round a new game world the items and buildings are just pretty stuff, you have no real connection with them, or story. But once things change around you, you have memories of events and a personal story. You have a fondness for that place that just wouldn't be there if it was all set down in front of you at day 1. You can walk around your shard and tell a history of how it developed.
I do think, though, that Ultima Online should not stay static but that the needed enhancements should be done to it and the sooner the better, so to avoid that new games coming out might erode the player base of Ultima Online. We need more players, not to loose them.......
Also, I think that the game would also greatly benefit from a new expansion as it has been quite some time now, since the last one (and I mean expansion, not a booster....).
I think rather than new expansions, we really just need things happening across the land and content that we have now. We need the devs to finish the high res art and revamping the old dungeons and perhaps looking at rolling more events like treasures of tokuno style to the areas that we never really hunt any more. Get people in game in areas that have been neglected recently. Finish the virtues! There are changes for the vice and virtue stuff and apparently taming is on the horizon too, so I would prefer to not have more new content when existing projects would bring that in while they were being finished.
Wenchy
