An Exciting Turn of Events

[Ron Bron]

Stratics is pleased to announce that it will transition back to a fully dedicated Ultima Online fansite! Yes you heard me correctly, Stratics will return to its roots, and turn all attention to Ultima Online, and slowly phase out aspects of the Site that relate to other games.

We hope this news makes you as excited as it does us because it was inspired by your feedback. We have not ignored the many cries for Stratics to focus more on building content for UO, and less on other games. After all, that's why you joined this community right? Well, we are going to make that happen and we hope that by doing so we can better meet the needs of this community.

So, what about all the fanfare regarding the "New Stratics?" The new website will be launched under a completely separate brand. We hope that by separating the new Site into a new brand, that will also allow us to focus that Site on its unique purpose: to become a Massive Multiplayer Online and Massive Online Battle Arena social network. Of course, the new Site will welcome the UO community, but there will be no migration of accounts or UO Stratics content. Non-UO article content will be migrated. Keep your eyes open for a future announcement regarding its name and launch date.

This is really a great opportunity for us to improve the UO community, attract more UO members to Stratics, and strengthen our relationship with Broadsword. We have already started thinking of ways to cater the Stratics experience to the UO community and additional features that the UO community would find useful. There are some exciting months ahead.

Thanks for being in our community and thank you for your feedback, positive or otherwise

 

[Zuckuss]

Let me be the first to say; Excellent!

 

[Larisa]

Let me be the second to say...SOMEONE REMOVE ALL THESE DARN BANNERS UNDER MY NAME!!!!

Well...not all of them....at least for now I'm very excited that Stratics is returning to it's roots, RonBron is pretty amazing UO deserves it, as does it's rich community. I hope you all are as excited as we are at this awesome news.

 

[old gypsy]

Stratics is pleased to announce that it will transition back to a fully dedicated Ultima Online fansite! Yes you heard me correctly, Stratics will return to its roots, and turn all attention to Ultima Online, and slowly phase out aspects of the Site that relate to other games.

I didn't expect this, but let me say... :snoopy:THANK YOU!

 

[Llewen]

Good call. The "Stratics" brand is too entangled with UO and it's history to really be anything else.

 

[Lord Taliesin]

There are games besides UO?

 

[Poo]

i see this as 1 of 2 ways.
1 - they realized how much of a pain we are and didnt want to bring us to the brand new site in case we pee in the fountain.
2- it was easier to leave all the fear mongers and change haters behind then have to try to spoon feed them the new site. (which actually makes sense when you think about it..... we play a game that can legally drink in most parts Canada! we dont like change!)

either way im happy we are staying.

 

[azmodanb]

going for uo's actual legit sause boards? great idea. im sure broadsword/uo will be happy with this.. now to push for a link on uo.com to its official boards to bring in new blood.

 

[Ashlynn_L]

So err is this basically a non-event? As in the forums are staying as they are - there is no re-registration or account migration or moving over to a new website and all that stuff?

 

[Parnoc]

Congrats folks at Stratics, a lot of people were very concerned with the "new" direction and as one post says, the death of Stratics which would have been a sad time for all of us that use Stratics as our information hotline. I applaud you for your grasp of what could have been a very disastrous decision for the future of UO Stratics and all of us users.

 

[Ron Bron]

So err is this basically a non-event? As in the forums are staying as they are - there is no re-registration or account migration or moving over to a new website and all that stuff?

Correct.

 

[kelmo]

*waits for another shoe to drop*

 

[BrianFreud]

So to be clear, does this mean that these forums are staying, and we can ignore the "nothing new will be saved" that went into effect 2 weeks ago? I've been waiting to run any new auctions, and I know others have as well, so I wouldn't have the auction disappear halfway through...

 

[old gypsy]

There are games besides UO?

From what little I comprehend about the newer games, UO seems to have acquired the status of official "geriatric ward" in the game industry. So it's only fitting we have our own special site and forums. And this is one oldster who is pleased as punch!

 

[Spiritless]

Wow, someone actually listened to me. I'm gonna have to invoice you for that business advice.

In all seriousness though, this was the correct move. For years people have been trying hard to make Stratics something that it is not and this latest attempt would have gone the same way as all the others. If you're trying to make some kind of pseudo-social network for MMO gamers in general, doing it under a separate, fresh banner makes the most sense whilst letting Stratics be Stratics. Hopefully this means a full commitment to making Stratics the undisputed best UO site available. Right now there is a lot of work to do both in terms of the resources it offers and the way it allows the community to contribute to managing those resources (a Wiki format would be ideal, imo, as there are a lot of people who wish to contribute here but certainly won't do so if their contributions have to be emailed to some admin all the time.)

My confidence in this site's leadership has increased tenfold recently, particularly with how the forums are being managed and now this statement of intent about the focus of Stratics. Kudos.

 

[Larisa]

There is a link to Stratics on uo.com....

So to be clear, does this mean that these forums are staying, and we can ignore the "nothing new will be saved" that went into effect 2 weeks ago? I've been waiting to run any new auctions, and I know others have as well, so I wouldn't have the auction disappear halfway through...

That is correct. Feel free to go wild!

 

[Zuckuss]

So to be clear, does this mean that these forums are staying, and we can ignore the "nothing new will be saved" that went into effect 2 weeks ago? I've been waiting to run any new auctions, and I know others have as well, so I wouldn't have the auction disappear halfway through...

This is correct. There will be no loss of information.

 

[Angel of Sonoma]

wow.

 

[Ron Bron]

Wow, someone actually listened to me. I'm gonna have to invoice you for that business advice.

In all seriousness though, this was the correct move. For years people have been trying hard to make Stratics something that it is not and this latest attempt would have gone the same way as all the others. If you're trying to make some kind of pseudo-social network for MMO gamers in general, doing it under a separate, fresh banner makes the most sense whilst letting Stratics be Stratics. Hopefully this means a full commitment to making Stratics the undisputed best UO site available. Right now there is a lot of work to do both in terms of the resources it offers and the way it allows the community to contribute to managing those resources (a Wiki format would be ideal, imo, as there are a lot of people who wish to contribute here but certainly won't do so if their contributions have to be emailed to some admin all the time.)

My confidence in this site's leadership has increased tenfold recently, particularly with how the forums are being managed and now this statement of intent about the focus of Stratics. Kudos.

UO will receive a renewed focus, and we will certainly do our best to become undisputed heavyweight champion of UO. We certainly have the right community and volunteers to make that happen.

 

[FrejaSP]

Do happy dance

 

[MedeaDF]

Sounds good... but, I'll prefer to wait for a few.

*sits down quietly in a corner and just... wait*

 

[Kirthag]

Rumour slaying post:

The only changes to the forums will be some cleaning up, eventually archiving all the non-UO boards and some style change (template cleanup and such). There will be a bit of reorganization for display purposes, but other than that - the forums are as they are.

There will be some server changes over this weekend which may cause disruption in off-peak hours, but this is natural so that we can clean up files. Will post a more formal announcement.

Eventually, the domain for all this will be stratics.com. The domains uo.stratics.com and uo2.stratics.com will still work, so your bookmarks won't break.

Some other "changes" that are being discussed are all for the better. To give a hint:

• Some of the oldest content for Stratics.com will be accessible again
• The way information flows on Stratics.com will be slightly different, more on this as we iron out the details
• Services to community members are being looked over, including the StraticsPro program and a few other things

After talking to staff, a lot are staying with Stratics, but will be part of the new site's community as members. Those that are going to be staff on the new site are still part of the community here at Stratics. Anyone, for that matter, can go on over to the new site AND still be part of Stratics - no harm in that.

Stratics, and the new site, are both properties of Bazaaro Community, Inc. Stratics is not being sold, or given up to anyone. All staffers for both sites continue to be volunteers under contract with Bazaaro Community, Inc. If anything, Stratics may be looking for more reporters, so look for a post on that soon.

I think I covered some of the whispers I've heard through the grapevine. If anyone has questions, feel free to post and we will reply as soon as can.

 

[Gidge]

So, what about all the fanfare regarding the "New Stratics?" The new website will be launched under a completely separate brand. We hope that by separating the new Site into a new brand, that will also allow us to focus that Site on its unique purpose: to become a Massive Multiplayer Online and Massive Online Battle Arena social network. Of course, the new Site will welcome the UO community.

This means we will be grouped in with other games of the same type. It won't be specifically dedicated to just UO. We will be transplanted.

 

[NinjaSampire]

Great news!!

 

[Kirthag]

This means we will be grouped in with other games of the same type. It won't be specifically dedicated to just UO. We will be transplanted.

The way the new site will work is there will be a UO group. Not necessarily categorized, but more of a social group per se. From what I've seen of it, it actually looks quite fun.

 

[Pandora_CoD]

Rumour slaying post:

The only changes to the forums will be some cleaning up, eventually archiving all the non-UO boards and some style change (template cleanup and such). There will be a bit of reorganization for display purposes, but other than that - the forums are as they are.

There will be some server changes over this weekend which may cause disruption in off-peak hours, but this is natural so that we can clean up files. Will post a more formal announcement.

Eventually, the domain for all this will be stratics.com. The domains uo.stratics.com and uo2.stratics.com will still work, so your bookmarks won't break.

Some other "changes" that are being discussed are all for the better. To give a hint:

• Some of the oldest content for Stratics.com will be accessible again
• The way information flows on Stratics.com will be slightly different, more on this as we iron out the details
• Services to community members are being looked over, including the StraticsPro program and a few other things

After talking to staff, a lot are staying with Stratics, but will be part of the new site's community as members. Those that are going to be staff on the new site are still part of the community here at Stratics. Anyone, for that matter, can go on over to the new site AND still be part of Stratics - no harm in that.

Stratics, and the new site, are both properties of Bazaaro Community, Inc. Stratics is not being sold, or given up to anyone. All staffers for both sites continue to be volunteers under contract with Bazaaro Community, Inc. If anything, Stratics may be looking for more reporters, so look for a post on that soon.

I think I covered some of the whispers I've heard through the grapevine. If anyone has questions, feel free to post and we will reply as soon as can.

@Kirthag, can we please have our shard forums similar to something like this:

Shard
> Shard Discussions
> Shard Trade Forum
> Shard Role Play Forums
> Shard EM Forums
> Shard Guild Forums

We really do not need separate "events" forums --- we should consolidate that in one forum ( like UO Events does today) with the pre-fixes for the shards. I would even venture to say, let us use UHALL for events with pre-fix tags for the shards; it is simply more visible there!

Is there going to be a CALENDAR add on at some point? Because if so then yes I could see keeping them separate.

 

[Kirthag]

Thanks Pandora for those awesome ideas!

We are already discussing some condensing of boards and services, and developing new ones that will work hand in hand with the content side of the site (uo2.stratics.com). Now that we have a dedicated team focusing in on UO only (believe me, I am so relieved myself!) there's a lot we will be doing.

There is a cleanup going on... this will be apparent over the weekend.

If anyone remembers the "old days", there were really only about 7 or 8 boards in all at UOSS. Simpler times then.

As we continue our meetings (right now all Admins are meeting once a week), we will be considering all sorts of features and services. Some will be short term, others long - but definitely will benefit the UO community!

This we are discussing now:

• Stratics Pro
• Trade Boards

 

[Flair]

Now that we have a dedicated team focusing in on UO only (believe me, I am so relieved myself!) there's a lot we will be doing.

Who does the dedicated team consist of ?

 

[Kirthag]

Who does the dedicated team consist of ?

Thanks for asking Flair.

Right now we are still talking to all staff. When we get everything settled, an announcement will be made.

To see all staff (current and the growing list of past staff) you can visit http://uo2.stratics.com/team

 

[Victim of Siege]

Couple of people missing from that past staff list . . .

 

[Kirthag]

Couple of people missing from that past staff list . . .

More than a couple... I know.
Going back over 17 years of files and sites is time consuming. It is being updated on an ongoing basis.

 

[Flagg]

@Kirthag, can we please have our shard forums similar to something like this:

Shard
> Shard Discussions
> Shard Trade Forum
> Shard Role Play Forums
> Shard EM Forums
> Shard Guild Forums

We really do not need separate "events" forums --- we should consolidate that in one forum ( like UO Events does today) with the pre-fixes for the shards. I would even venture to say, let us use UHALL for events with pre-fix tags for the shards; it is simply more visible there!

Please no. Couple of more silent, dusty half dead new sub forums is one thing Stratics most assuredly does not need. One single semi busy shard forum with everything shard related poured in there sounds much nicer than six dead on arrival sub forums.

Even Atlantic Shard general forums come with over two months old posts on the front page. ATL event forums front page go back 3 years.. Front page of the general RP forums for this entire game go back over three years. Something like grand total of 40 news sub forums to make sure this silence grows that much thicker? Please no.

I really like the remark about tags and pre-fixes though. Single, no-sub-forums general Shard forum with Tags or pre-fixes like [ EM event ] or [ RP ] or [ Guild ] or etc would be great.


...with Trade forums prolly being the only exception to above.

 

[Ron Bron]

Please no. Couple of more silent, dusty half dead new sub forums is one thing Stratics most assuredly does not need. One single semi busy shard forum with everything shard related poured in there sounds much nicer than six dead on arrival sub forums.

Even Atlantic Shard general forums come with over two months old posts on the front page. ATL event forums front page go back 3 years.. Front page of the general RP forums for this entire game go back over three years. Something like grand total of 40 news sub forums to make sure this silence grows that much thicker? Please no.

I really like the remark about tags and pre-fixes though. Single, no-sub-forums general Shard forum with Tags or pre-fixes like [ EM event ] or [ RP ] or [ Guild ] or etc would be great.


...with Trade forums prolly being the only exception to above.

Thanks for providing the awesome feedback guys. It's good to hear you're suggestions.

 

[The Craftsman]

Stratics is pleased to announce that it will transition back to a fully dedicated Ultima Online fansite! Yes you heard me correctly, Stratics will return to its roots, and turn all attention to Ultima Online, and slowly phase out aspects of the Site that relate to other games.

We hope this news makes you as excited as it does us because it was inspired by your feedback. We have not ignored the many cries for Stratics to focus more on building content for UO, and less on other games. After all, that's why you joined this community right? Well, we are going to make that happen and we hope that by doing so we can better meet the needs of this community.

So, what about all the fanfare regarding the "New Stratics?" The new website will be launched under a completely separate brand. We hope that by separating the new Site into a new brand, that will also allow us to focus that Site on its unique purpose: to become a Massive Multiplayer Online and Massive Online Battle Arena social network. Of course, the new Site will welcome the UO community, but there will be no migration of accounts or UO Stratics content. Non-UO article content will be migrated. Keep your eyes open for a future announcement regarding its name and launch date.

This is really a great opportunity for us to improve the UO community, attract more UO members to Stratics, and strengthen our relationship with Broadsword. We have already started thinking of ways to cater the Stratics experience to the UO community and additional features that the UO community would find useful. There are some exciting months ahead.

Thanks for being in our community and thank you for your feedback, positive or otherwise

That's one hell of a strange business decision.

UOs numbers continue to decline and it's been apparent for a while now that it runs on life support. Why would you put all of your eggs into one basket and invest your future into a dying game rather than look to expand into emerging markets.

What happens to stratics when EA pull the plug, which like it or not draws closer with every subscription lost?

Then again separating out the UO content makes it easier for you to shut the site down when UO folds so I'm sure that's the driver behind it. Probably a sound decision then.

 

[Mr Obvious]

UO has been around since 1998 and has many of long time players. When I see that Stratics is making a decision for a site just for UO players I say kudos. UO Stratics was is and always will be here to support the players. I just want to say thank you Stratics

 

[callum_fitzhugh]

Just very interesting. Good luck.

 

[Smoot]

That's one hell of a strange business decision.

UOs numbers continue to decline and it's been apparent for a while now that it runs on life support. Why would you put all of your eggs into one basket and invest your future into a dying game rather than look to expand into emerging markets.

What happens to stratics when EA pull the plug, which like it or not draws closer with every subscription lost?

Then again separating out the UO content makes it easier for you to shut the site down when UO folds so I'm sure that's the driver behind it. Probably a sound decision then.

i could still see stratics being a viable website after EA UO shuts down if it were transitioned to a forum for free shard players. It may even get more users than it does now.

 

[Pandora_CoD]

Please no. Couple of more silent, dusty half dead new sub forums is one thing Stratics most assuredly does not need. One single semi busy shard forum with everything shard related poured in there sounds much nicer than six dead on arrival sub forums.

Even Atlantic Shard general forums come with over two months old posts on the front page. ATL event forums front page go back 3 years.. Front page of the general RP forums for this entire game go back over three years. Something like grand total of 40 news sub forums to make sure this silence grows that much thicker? Please no.

I really like the remark about tags and pre-fixes though. Single, no-sub-forums general Shard forum with Tags or pre-fixes like [ EM event ] or [ RP ] or [ Guild ] or etc would be great.


...with Trade forums prolly being the only exception to above.

The problem is.... not any one shard operates the same way. Take us in Catskills for example:

We RARELY if ever use the trade forum --- I could see that going away and putting a pre-fix for [Buying], [Selling], [Trading], [Price Check] into the main Catskills forum. I mean do the other shards trade forum have a TONS of requests that would warrant a separate forum? Would it be good to just consolidate those two?

The RP Forums for us is a question of FINDABILITY. It's tough to find the RP stories and yes I know we can click on a pre-fix and it sorts through all the RP tagged posts, but not everyone knows or remembers to do that. It was and is certainly better to have all those storylines, plots, biographies, etc. in one place. Having said that, maybe we should be funneling all our RP forums into the GENERAL RP Forum, White Stag, that already has shard prefixes: [Catskills], [Atlantic], etc. Would anyone welcome that change or would you rather keep your separate RP forums?

The EM Forums --- honestly, I could sorta see this going away and being funneled into the main shard forum with the prefixes it has today, [EM Event], [EM Fiction], and maybe some new ones like [EM Announcement], [EM Discussion], [EM Poll]. Question is, how can you allow these prefixes to ONLY BE USED by the actual EM's and not everyone that has access to post in the forum?

The guild forums --- well these are the INDIVIDUAL guild forums that exist today that are moderated, etc by the guilds themselves. For us, we know United Pirates hosts their guild forum here on Stratics, and I've wanted to host my own for the RBG Theme there (was considering that). I do not think there is any way out of not having that, nor should we want to get rid of that. I think having guild forums hosted on Stratics is a great idea!

Pandy

 

[Smoot]

Well maybe not directly but I sure get a lot of Origin "cookie ads" when I visit here

hehe yes i suppose your right. but i dont think any adds here are direct, they come from browsing history/prferences, unless stratics has some secrete deal with origin, as well as the guy selling star wars gold, and the arab women e-pimp.

 

[Smoot]

The problem is.... not any one shard operates the same way. Take us in Catskills for example:

We RARELY if ever use the trade forum --- I could see that going away and putting a pre-fix for [Buying], [Selling], [Trading], [Price Check] into the main Catskills forum. I mean do the other shards trade forum have a TONS of requests that would warrant a separate forum? Would it be good to just consolidate those two?

The RP Forums for us is a question of FINDABILITY. It's tough to find the RP stories and yes I know we can click on a pre-fix and it sorts through all the RP tagged posts, but not everyone knows or remembers to do that. It was and is certainly better to have all those storylines, plots, biographies, etc. in one place. Having said that, maybe we should be funneling all our RP forums into the GENERAL RP Forum, White Stag, that already has shard prefixes: [Catskills], [Atlantic], etc. Would anyone welcome that change or would you rather keep your separate RP forums?

The EM Forums --- honestly, I could sorta see this going away and being funneled into the main shard forum with the prefixes it has today, [EM Event], [EM Fiction], and maybe some new ones like [EM Announcement], [EM Discussion], [EM Poll]. Question is, how can you allow these prefixes to ONLY BE USED by the actual EM's and not everyone that has access to post in the forum?

The guild forums --- well these are the INDIVIDUAL guild forums that exist today that are moderated, etc by the guilds themselves. For us, we know United Pirates hosts their guild forum here on Stratics, and I've wanted to host my own for the RBG Theme there (was considering that). I do not think there is any way out of not having that, nor should we want to get rid of that. I think having guild forums hosted on Stratics is a great idea!

Pandy

maybe you could create your own group on the new site, that way you could tailor it to fit your personal needs. remember these forums are staying as is, but anyone can use the new site for whatever purpose when it comes out. just something to think about.

 

[The Craftsman]

Is be interested to know what sort of use base stratics has as far as UO is concerned.

How many individuals are logged in at any given time. How many individuals post on a weekly/monthly basis. That sort of thing.

Will UO stratics be supporting a user base of under a hundred? Hundreds? More?

So stratics .... are you prepared to post numbers or are you going down the EA route?

 

[Smoot]

Is be interested to know what sort of use base stratics has as far as UO is concerned.

How many individuals are logged in at any given time. How many individuals post on a weekly/monthly basis. That sort of thing.

Will UO stratics be supporting a user base of under a hundred? Hundreds? More?

So stratics .... are you prepared to post numbers or are you going down the EA route?

we can see this now, 33 atm. yes that only shows members tho not people who might just be browsing the site but not logged on.

 

[The Craftsman]

we can see this now, 33 atm. yes that only shows members tho not people who might just be browsing the site but not logged on.

People will log in and out I gyess. I'd be more interested over any given month how many individual accounts log in. I would assume stratics has that type of data.

 

[Blind Tom the Pirate]

This is correct. There will be no loss of information.

[Out of character]...'Wow, so over joyed, I pee'd my pants!' Not, but...great news indeed! I do hope this bodes well foe the future of UO information sharing.

 

[Kirthag]

Ok. Pls. keep to topic.

Previous staffers did the best they could with the resources and knowledge available to them. As does anyone who produces a game fan site.

We are discussing the focus of Stratics being a dedicated UO fansite. I really like some of the ideas coming from the conversation, can we please focus on them?

 

[Yadd of Legends]

Whatever your concerns now, I don't think past staff should be removed from the record. That would be altering history and it makes me very uneasy in any context.

 

[Kirthag]

Past staff are not being removed. Dunno where that came from....

Articles written by past staff has their by-line, as should be. We are also combing through 17 years worth of archives to compile a list of past staffers and displaying it. If they do not wish to be recognized on the boards or on the Past Staff lists, that is their perogative - but their by-lines are added in by programming and are not being removed.

That is a publishing standard.

 

[kelmo]

*smiles* A lot of folk who did not live by publishing standard worked really hard here. None of it was perfect. But we really cared.

I think in the almost ten years as a volunteer, I was sold off a half dozen times.

I would cut the people that built and maintained these forums and a little slack.

Some may never come to Stratics again. I am the one watching. Good luck with all the future. You broke some hearts here, new team.

Remember, as you move forward. Each and every individual person is a treasure. The folks that just do the thing for love of the game...

 

[Yadd of Legends]

My point is nobody should be removed from lists of past staff, which seems to be what Flair was requesting two posts up. If you were past staff, you should be on the list of past staff, period. It happened, it's history, and it should not be altered. Do you realize how many requests newspapers get from people wanting their names removed from past articles on the websites just because they don't like the facts? We don't change the historical record, and I don't think this site should either. Of course I don't own or control this site, but as a user I expect the site to reflect truth, not somebody's fancies.

 

[kelmo]

There is a lot of love in this "lil project " called Stratics.