If and when Mesanna or Rob Denton announces that Broadsword has brought on someone to be a full-time community representative/PR person specifically and exclusively for UO, like we used to have and not just someone to post a few things on Facebook now and then, then I might begin to believe something is happening and that it has some chance of "saving" UO for a few more years.
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Most MMO's now have terrible forum communication with players. It's like they finally realised there is no point as somebody will always complain or say how bad the game is ect.
Take Black Desert Online's western launch, game is massive and doing very well but the official forum almost never see's a Dev on it or reply.
Seems as games have evolved...so have the game makers.
Take Black Desert Online's western launch, game is massive and doing very well but the official forum almost never see's a Dev on it or reply.
Seems as games have evolved...so have the game makers.
Most MMO's now have terrible forum communication with players. It's like they finally realised there is no point as somebody will always complain or say how bad the game is ect.
Take Black Desert Online's western launch, game is massive and doing very well but the official forum almost never see's a Dev on it or reply.
Seems as games have evolved...so have the game makers.
Agreed that is why it was sooo significant for Bonnie to break her long silence to basically just demand a thread get locked.....sadly the stratics staff fell over their asses rushing to do the dragon lady's bidding. But that made me and other reach out to EA where we received the exact same response... "Sorry for the delay things are a little chaotic as we transition to the F2P business model."
Dark Age of Camelot has a Community Lead, as well as a Community Admin who interacts specifically with the game's German players. If EA expects Broadsword to make UO free-to-play, then I would expect Broadsword to finally bite the bullet and add at least one full-time community liaison/PR person just for UO. Otherwise they might as well just kiss any investment of money, time, and people resources into "saving" UO goodbye. Why put all that effort into improving UO if you aren't also going to spend the money to make sure you have someone on staff to publicize the game and help improve or at least maintain its reputation?Most MMO's now have terrible forum communication with players. It's like they finally realised there is no point as somebody will always complain or say how bad the game is ect.
Take Black Desert Online's western launch, game is massive and doing very well but the official forum almost never see's a Dev on it or reply.
Seems as games have evolved...so have the game makers.
I'd just like to point out that contacting EA in the past in regards to UO has received a mixed bag of contradictory and outright untrue statements from their CS department(s).
People have been told things like "UO was cancelled," "UO is not an EA property," and that it's an iOS game (confusing UO with U4E). There also isn't a "UO franchise" it would be Ultima franchise, though that ended when the f2p U4E was axed in '14.
Could there be a hidden plot to go f2p? Sure, why not? Is the new monetary system or the upcoming in-game shop solid evidence of it? Not really, as both have been on the wish list for years. Though they definitely won't hurt either. However, UO still needs a thorough NPE before it can hope to retain new players.
People have been told things like "UO was cancelled," "UO is not an EA property," and that it's an iOS game (confusing UO with U4E). There also isn't a "UO franchise" it would be Ultima franchise, though that ended when the f2p U4E was axed in '14.
Could there be a hidden plot to go f2p? Sure, why not? Is the new monetary system or the upcoming in-game shop solid evidence of it? Not really, as both have been on the wish list for years. Though they definitely won't hurt either. However, UO still needs a thorough NPE before it can hope to retain new players.
People seem so stuck in their ways and seem oblivious to the fact that the shards are getting slower and slower all the time. Check out a few of the F2P UO models out there and see that many of the same people you once saw around are still playing- just not on EA free shards. The danger isn't that EA will finally close the door on UO sometime in the near future. It's more that as the shards get slower, people become disillusioned with the play style and quit the game altogether. Even if every single player that joined after F2P didn't spend a single dime on the game. It would at least stop the bleeding of bored players.
Don't forget Steam, Broadsword is desperate for UO to get on Steam.
Steam have said it only gonna happen if UO is F2P as they wont put an old 2d game up for $10 a month subscription. (prices may vary)
EA did give a rather detailed explanation as to where UO is right now and what's happening.
Bonnie did almost have a fit when she saw that EA were freely giving out the info to any that rung up and asked.
She got my thread locked as I posted the info here for all to discuss.
Sovereigns sound very much like a Broadsword compromise so EA still gets the cash but BS can control the in-game items for F2P.
Most importantly thou, with everything that's happening you would have to be blind to not see UO is going F2P......or just a fanboi beyond help.
Wake up.....just wake up.
Steam have said it only gonna happen if UO is F2P as they wont put an old 2d game up for $10 a month subscription. (prices may vary)
EA did give a rather detailed explanation as to where UO is right now and what's happening.
Bonnie did almost have a fit when she saw that EA were freely giving out the info to any that rung up and asked.
She got my thread locked as I posted the info here for all to discuss.
Sovereigns sound very much like a Broadsword compromise so EA still gets the cash but BS can control the in-game items for F2P.
Most importantly thou, with everything that's happening you would have to be blind to not see UO is going F2P......or just a fanboi beyond help.
Wake up.....just wake up.
Dont fool yourself....the game will look and function exactly as it does now with a couple exceptions.
1) EA and ingame store will now be competing and selling items presently only sold through 3rd party providers. Dont fool yourself that is significant just in gold sales. 3RD party providers sell billions of gold each and every day!
That can conservatively mean approx $250k per year in new revenue just in gold sales! That is like 1500 new account subscriptions/ month.
For a game like UO that is a huge number.
2) The game will be busier, more players....more activity, more player towns, and player run events, more pvp...more more more.
Players can still farm items and sell them because there will always be a market just like there is a market now for vendors.
All the freak show fear mongers will say there will be millions of exploiters and houses everywhere. They say this because frankly they dont have a clue what they are talking about!
Forbes had an article last September ( How 'WildStar' Transformed From A Subscription MMO To Free-To-Play and turn off your ad blocker) about how WildStar transformed from a subscription model to FTP. Some of the key points I took from reading the article were:
- The transition took over eight months and the company had over 100 people working on it. (Note: The game was launched in 2014. The FTP launch happened September 29, 2015.)
- To get people to buy things without making the game unfair or pay-to-win, Carbine opted to have an in-game shop heavy on vanity items (mounts, pets, dyes, costumes).
- They also included convenience items like instant teleportation, instant resurrection, and XP potions that didn't exist in the subscription model.
- In addition to letting you buy all of the above with real money, they put in a mechanism to let you grind in-game for the in-game shop's currency so you're never completely locked out of being able to purchase them even if you don't ever want to spend cash on the game.
- If you continue to pay the subscription fee, you have some perks like earning XP faster and having priority in queues. But subscription and free accounts have access to all game content.
- Carbine also realized by that point that players were already gravitating toward content they called "short-session gaming," i.e., playing for under an hour, so they added more short-session content.
- They also added other things like daily login rewards, lots of new items, and a new tutorial.
I'm sure there are other articles around describing how other games went from completely subscription-based games to some FTP hybrid.
Just throwing out this quote from an article I came across while trying to find a few more describing what changed in MMOs that went from solely subscription-based to some kind of FTP hybrid. The guy who wrote the article in 2013 was defending the subscription-fee model and you can find the whole article at the link below the quote.
"In other words: so long as there's new content added each month, helping players to feel like their $15 is actually paying for something worthwhile besides just keeping the servers turned on -- though that's important in itself! -- these games will be able to maintain their player bases without growing demands for them to go free-to-play. It doesn't have to be substantial content like new dungeons or zones, either; just things like special events, new outfits, new items or rare monsters can be enough to keep things interesting between larger expansions. So long as the players feel they're getting a good experience and aren't being cheated out of their money each month, there's still a place for the subscription-based model in today's gaming landscape."
Source: Pay to Play: In Defense of MMORPG Subscription Fees
"In other words: so long as there's new content added each month, helping players to feel like their $15 is actually paying for something worthwhile besides just keeping the servers turned on -- though that's important in itself! -- these games will be able to maintain their player bases without growing demands for them to go free-to-play. It doesn't have to be substantial content like new dungeons or zones, either; just things like special events, new outfits, new items or rare monsters can be enough to keep things interesting between larger expansions. So long as the players feel they're getting a good experience and aren't being cheated out of their money each month, there's still a place for the subscription-based model in today's gaming landscape."
Source: Pay to Play: In Defense of MMORPG Subscription Fees
EA's Star Wars The Old Republic apparently has three levels of access: FTP; preferred; and subscriber. The page at this linkfrom a SWTOR wiki on Reddit describes the differences: f2p - swtor. Scroll down a bit and there's a nice side-by-side comparison chart. There's also some information about the game's in-game cash shop.
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I play that game sometimes, they have made it really easy to get 80% of the subscriber benefits permanently added to your account through in game store purchases. Once you've bought anything at all from them your account is permanently at the "Preferred" level too. They make it very easy to stop paying a subscription for months, or even years, with not much of a noticeable difference other than your characters leveling up slower once you buy a couple specific things from the in game store.
I think it's a great system, every time there is a new expansion I re-subscribe my account for a couple months to do the new stuff, then let it fall back into free to play mode. It keeps players in the game that way. Instead of people leaving entirely once they get bored. they still log in sometimes even if they aren't paying, which keeps the servers populated.
Sounds quite reasonable as Long subscribers get some benefit out of their subscription. However, SWTOR is the perfect example for a game how I hate it as you are nannied by stupid and boring quests... It simply lacks freedom.
Okay, I re-read your locked thread. And yes, the lock request is a bit odd. However...there are a few things wrong with your supposition.
1) EA isn't going to give some random caller a detailed outline of their plans for a staff lunch order, let alone for one of their more obscure MMOs. Nor would a random CSR know what those plans were, seeing as they punt 99.9% of UO stuffs either to BS or limbo.
2) "EA" doesn't generate codes for UO items on Origin, Broadsword does. As has been evidenced in the past on two different official UO stores (uogamecodes.com and origin.com) once the site's supply of codes run out they have to ask for more to be generated. (This is a woefully inefficient approach to item sales that the in-game store should eliminate)
3) As I stated previously, "EA Reps" don't know WTF they're talking about when it comes to UO, and haven't in nearly a decade. This is evidenced in their deer-in-the-headlights bullpancakes responses to questions about UO, you probably just received the latest inaccurate (or outdated) response.
4) Mesanna has no real reason to lie about f2p. Doing so, if f2p is less than a year away, would irreparably damage her credibility. Every time she's asked, which is nearly once a week now, she's denied it, said it isn't happening, etc. (Caveat: That's not to say that there haven't been past "lies" regarding development. High Res art being the most recent.)
5) UO has had an item shop for a long, long, long time. Most subscription MMOs have them. Changing over to an in-game shop with currency bought on Origin is in response to that site's farcical inability to function rationally. (Selling more than one of the same item at a time being "too hard" is a perfect example.) While having a functional and worthwhile item store is the cornerstone of an f2p model, its not quite the smoking gun you make it out to be.
You need to cite where the "Steam is forcing them to go f2p" is coming from. Some anonymous "EA Source" isn't going to cut it.
While I personally think an f2p level of service for UO could be a boon, I know that the game simply isn't anywhere near ready for it.
Thats besides the point. Its the business model that is good and an example of how it can work and work well. The game design and content are irrelevant.
No reason to lie on a personal level. If her boss has told her to deny the fact then thats a different matter.
Why lie at all though? There isn't a logical reason to do so. There's way more benefit in hyping a change to f2p at every opportunity.
Simply because EA are not ready to disclose yet? From someone who has written comms announcements for large organisations, structure, content and timing of the comms is critical. Mesanna coming out and saying "oh yeah ... actually its true" just doesnt cut it. That would be a PR disaster.
What are they waiting for though? Its not as if UO is high profile enough for EA to go all cloak and dagger on its subscribers. A change this big requires an upfront infusion of cash to facilitate it; increased development and CS resources at the very least. They'd have to be hiding that too.
F2p would require at the very least:
- Comprehensive NPE
- Functional, logical, USEABLE account management system (which should be a part of uo.com)
- Official forums on uo.com which are NOT run/moderated by players
- Greatly expanded item store (which is likely what we're getting with pub 93)
- Community liaison (DAoC gets one, why don't we?)
- WAY more GMs
Sure, EA could be being sneaky...but without proof that f2p is happening this mostly just conspiracy theory territory.
I have been preaching that for years, best solution ever.
I looked up the limitations/restrictions placed on trial accounts and this is what I found:
-Cannot place a house.
-Cannot be co-owned to a house or receive a house in trade.
-Cannot visit Felucca dungeons or Felucca T2A.
-Only receive basic ores and logs (iron, plain logs) even if they’d otherwise qualify for better types.
-Cannot receive sand or stone when mining.
-Will not receive ML rewards for resource gathering (jewels, ingredients, and white pearls while fishing).
-Will not receive rewards, monster kill points, or virtue points from champ spawns.
-Will not get scrolls while doing champ spawns.
-Will not gain Justice virtue points for killing murderers.
-Cannot use Valor or Justice virtues.
-Cannot Protect or be Protected by another player.
-Cannot use Scrolls of Alacrity, Power Scrolls, Stat Scrolls, or Scrolls of Transcendence.
-Cannot use Commodity Deeds.
-Cannot do Community Collections.
-Cannot use Soulstones or fragment soulstones.
-Cannot use Pet summoning balls.
-Cannot use Bracelets of Binding.
-Cannot use the Bag of Sending.
-Cannot do any repeatable quests – even if they are normally repeatable.
-Cannot acquire BOD’s.
If trial accounts could become "permanent" instead of only being open for 14-days as a way to get people to stick around longer without having to pay for a subscription, do you think the above list should be modified in any way, especially considering that the goal of making them permanent "free" accounts is to get them to sporadically spend money buying things from BS/EA through the in-game store?
And what about a mechanism to let people with lapsed subscriptions come back permanently without having to pay a subscription fee again? What kind of restrictions would those accounts need on them to make things equitable between them and paying subscribers but still fun enough for someone with houseless but likely fully developed characters to stick around? Would they need the same restrictions as "permanent" trial accounts so they'd get limited resources, no quests, no BODs, no use of commodity deeds, no going to Fel, no house or co-ownership, no further use of soulstones or scrolls?
The restrictions that I see as being perhaps the biggest obstacles to getting people who aren't willing to commit to ongoing subscription fees but who would be willing to play houseless and pop in randomly now and then and come and go as they want are the inability to use commodity deeds, soulstones, and any kind of scrolls and the 125-item per character limit on bank storage. Would it make sense to have those things be made available, perhaps still on a limited or modified basis, to an account for one-time payments?
Also, in either case (trial accounts or non-sub-paying-reactivated-lapsed accounts), what could you sell them through the in-game store?
Sorry that's all kinda disjointed. Typing it on the fly before running out the door.....
*Edited to fix a typo and add a question mark to first full paragraph and add the word "further" to last sentence in second full paragraph.
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You know a lot of folks have been saying they've heard F2P is coming, so here's my offer. Put up or Shut up, provide some actual evidence, a screen shot of an online chat, an e-mail from someone at EA, something. Otherwise this topic needs to go back in the direction of Return to Brit, and leave F2P behind.
Actually let me expand on this a bit
The Devs have denied F2P is coming, I can understand why they don't want this rumor mill churning, people will get their hopes up on a rumor, and when it turns out to be only rumor..... it is either a huge disappointment which gets laid at the feet of the devs, or a sign of DOOM! Neither is productive, or conductive towards improving morale among the community.
Actually let me expand on this a bit
The Devs have denied F2P is coming, I can understand why they don't want this rumor mill churning, people will get their hopes up on a rumor, and when it turns out to be only rumor..... it is either a huge disappointment which gets laid at the feet of the devs, or a sign of DOOM! Neither is productive, or conductive towards improving morale among the community.
Leave the restrictions as they are. 14 days is not a long enough time to even grasp the basics of how to do things in UO and then EA expects a new player to make a decision on subbing or not. EA needs to give new players enough time to play and learn UO.