If EA ran that site they would have their name all over it and in case you don't know it EA Corp is out of Calif not Fla. This is a private site, if you want to see transparency then go look at DAoCs site.
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Who is really running the UO swag store?
I guess people are worried about the ethics of it, if it is done under the table. But even how do we know that EA/BS with some agreement etc are not benefitting from it, and thus the game as a whole? Also I doubt that anything wrong is going on, but people are expressing their concerns, however way off the field they may be..LOL : It would not be a very good idea to post these concerns on the "official" UO board.
Ooops! Banned..LOL, At this point, I'm not sure I would lose any sleep over it.I guess people are worried about the ethics of it, if it is done under the table. But even how do we know that EA/BS with some agreement etc are not benefitting from it, and thus the game as a whole? Also I doubt that anything wrong is going on, but people are expressing their concerns, however way off the field they may be..LOL : It would not be a very good idea to post these concerns on the "official" UO board.
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There's the ethics concern, but just as importantly, people deserve to know who they are handing their money too. The website isn't clear, UO Swag isn't a registered business in the State of Florida. We know Broadsword isn't running it, so who is. If I order a mug and it arrives damaged, what are my options for return/replacement/refund? The site is sketchy and doesn't inspire confidence that it is a professional business. I can see why people are curious.I guess people are worried about the ethics of it, if it is done under the table. But even how do we know that EA/BS with some agreement etc are not benefitting from it, and thus the game as a whole? Also I doubt that anything wrong is going on, but people are expressing their concerns, however way off the field they may be..LOL : It would not be a very good idea to post these concerns on the "official" UO board.
Possibly another EA/BS half baked idea : Swag Store. Agree they should document it better.
Agree...
Either way whoever owns it it would be nice to know that 100% is going to Broadsword to put towards the game development.
Just like the in game store. . . . If I knew 100% of buying soverns was going to Broadsword for game development i'd probably help out and buy some. But as far as we know that all goes to EA so I'll pass on giving them money that UO won't see!
Just like the in game store. . . . If I knew 100% of buying soverns was going to Broadsword for game development i'd probably help out and buy some. But as far as we know that all goes to EA so I'll pass on giving them money that UO won't see!
BS/DAoC/UO collects ZERO cash from anything, EA gets all the green and EA writes a check to BS to run DAoC and UO. Any cash transactions dealing with BS/DAoC/UO are done on a EA owned site, EA gets the green.
Which means to me that if EA stops getting the green, they stop writing the checks.
All purchases happen on origin.com and a quick whois search tells you who legally receives your money. What's not publicly disclosed is the current state of the deal between EA and Broadsword, if contracts are to be renewed etc.Broadsword hasn't updated their site since 2014.
Public whois Contact Information for origin.com
Registrant Contact
Name: Domain Administrator
Organization: Electronic Arts Inc.
Mailing Address: 209 Redwood Shores Parkway, Redwood City CA 94065 US
Phone: +1.6506281500
Admin Contact
Name: Domain Administrator
Organization: Electronic Arts Inc.
Mailing Address: 209 Redwood Shores Parkway, Redwood City CA 94065 US
Phone: +1.6506281500
Tech Contact
Name: Domain Administrator
Organization: Electronic Arts Inc.
Mailing Address: 209 Redwood Shores Parkway, Redwood City CA 94065 US
Phone: +1.6506281500
ADDITIONAL INFO
For those who don't know the history - EA bought mythic entertainment in 2006, shut down the mythic studio that had a long history and now broadsword.com and mythicentertainment.com both resolve to Broadsword's website. The original owner of Mythic Entertainment, creator of Dark Ages of Camelot(Broadsword's other game), was Mark Jacobs. Mark Jacobs is now in Beta stages with his Dark Ages of Camelot killer - camelotunchained.com
EA's stock has crumbled by 45% in the past six months and the future of UO's official server is... cloudy to predict. EA has a long history of short notice shutdowns with game credit for other EA titles as compensation. Broadsword is a small publisher and without the deal, if they in fact own UO, may not be able to keep the game afloat, especially while losing subs in their other game....
Stay tuned for an announcement of some sort in 2019, hopefully EA's having lost 23 billion in market share recently won't leave UO under the axe. 45% of the company value being wiped off the books hurt EA deeply.
Public whois Contact Information for origin.com
Registrant Contact
Name: Domain Administrator
Organization: Electronic Arts Inc.
Mailing Address: 209 Redwood Shores Parkway, Redwood City CA 94065 US
Phone: +1.6506281500
Admin Contact
Name: Domain Administrator
Organization: Electronic Arts Inc.
Mailing Address: 209 Redwood Shores Parkway, Redwood City CA 94065 US
Phone: +1.6506281500
Tech Contact
Name: Domain Administrator
Organization: Electronic Arts Inc.
Mailing Address: 209 Redwood Shores Parkway, Redwood City CA 94065 US
Phone: +1.6506281500
ADDITIONAL INFO
For those who don't know the history - EA bought mythic entertainment in 2006, shut down the mythic studio that had a long history and now broadsword.com and mythicentertainment.com both resolve to Broadsword's website. The original owner of Mythic Entertainment, creator of Dark Ages of Camelot(Broadsword's other game), was Mark Jacobs. Mark Jacobs is now in Beta stages with his Dark Ages of Camelot killer - camelotunchained.com
EA's stock has crumbled by 45% in the past six months and the future of UO's official server is... cloudy to predict. EA has a long history of short notice shutdowns with game credit for other EA titles as compensation. Broadsword is a small publisher and without the deal, if they in fact own UO, may not be able to keep the game afloat, especially while losing subs in their other game....
Stay tuned for an announcement of some sort in 2019, hopefully EA's having lost 23 billion in market share recently won't leave UO under the axe. 45% of the company value being wiped off the books hurt EA deeply.
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Now do that same WhoIs for “UOSwag.com”. Items purchased there are not through Origin, and no other information is available.
They sell real world stuff on uoswag, not game items as far as I can tell. Real world stuff might not be covered in the Broadsword EA deal, if that's an official site. No mention of it on Broadsword's website.
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UO.com is not Broadsword.com but cool, it is official. I see real world items like cups and tshirts, not game items that are probably locked into the EA contract.
To put this quite simply for Ultima Online....
EA stock is in freefall the past six months, down over 45%, and shareholders will want answers. They may seek to make some substantial changes that could easily impact broadsword.
And Broadsword, a small publisher with two games (UO and DAoC), is now facing the return of Mark Jacobs, the creator of DAoC and mythic entertainment with his new game Camelot Unchained(which looks amazing in Beta).
Now would be a good time to support Broadsword with store purchases, 2019 is looking like a convergence of storms.
To put this quite simply for Ultima Online....
EA stock is in freefall the past six months, down over 45%, and shareholders will want answers. They may seek to make some substantial changes that could easily impact broadsword.
And Broadsword, a small publisher with two games (UO and DAoC), is now facing the return of Mark Jacobs, the creator of DAoC and mythic entertainment with his new game Camelot Unchained(which looks amazing in Beta).
Now would be a good time to support Broadsword with store purchases, 2019 is looking like a convergence of storms.
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One question. If the rumors and implications that have been floating around are true. That the official Swag store is ran by one of the notable RMTers, are you comfortable handing them your personal information such as real name, physical address, email/phone number etc?
That is the real question here even if people are dancing around it. Those rumors are out there and if they aren’t true why isn’t Broadsword or the Swag Store forthcoming with information to disprove them.
Agreed. Omission on this subject doesn’t look good at all. Just saying.
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Me personally, I’m not handing them my money if I don’t know who they are with all the rumors floating around. That’s not even a concern for me at this point honestly.
My concern is if those rumors are true, what does that say about the ethics of either EA or Broadsword if they will willingly climb in bed and go into business with an individual who has been screwing them over for years?
Unless of course they havn't been screwing them for years
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Then the quickest way to set minds at ease is to disclose who is operating the official store. It puts all the rumors to rest.Unless of course they havn't been screwing them for years
LOL
Yall not gonna get a straight answer. If a straight answer (transparent and proveable) were possible, it woulda been answered on the official board, instead of being locked and cleansed
Yall not gonna get a straight answer. If a straight answer (transparent and proveable) were possible, it woulda been answered on the official board, instead of being locked and cleansed
No sympathy from me.
Even if it means closing UO down. No sympathy at all. When you treat your employees and especially customers like EA does, you deserve to lose it all.
Period.
And poor decisions....If you are gonna run a game with a small team, every member should be a coder lol. As I understand it, Kyronix is the only coder in the crew?
Misk is QA...nothing personal, but that's a joke.
Mesanna is a glorified community liason.
Bleak the network man does okay I guess...even tho he is mute
Levitica, no idea what her salary is, but still...
Need a coding producer.
and a coding network man.
no QA, we have to do that anyway
no artist, pay a player for the rights to use some art...we have some awesome player graphics running around, and some of them would probably just donate it for the beterment of the game.
Im glad im not the only one that understands it that way.No sympathy from me.
Even if it means closing UO down. No sympathy at all. When you treat your employees and especially customers like EA does, you deserve to lose it all.
Period.
And poor decisions....If you are gonna run a game with a small team, every member should be a coder lol. As I understand it, Kyronix is the only coder in the crew?
Misk is QA...nothing personal, but that's a joke.
Mesanna is a glorified community liason.
Bleak the network man does okay I guess...even tho he is mute
Levitica, no idea what her salary is, but still...
Need a coding producer.
and a coding network man.
no QA, we have to do that anyway
no artist, pay a player for the rights to use some art...we have some awesome player graphics running around, and some of them would probably just donate it for the beterment of the game.
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Ohh... can I jump in? *giggles*
As an ecommerce developer, I got curious.
The site itself is hosted by and built in SquareSpace - a DYI ecommerce platform for people who "produce" stuff.
Just check the source code (surprised none of you did that yet).
The swag has the quality of chintzy stuff produced via an on-demand print service - I suspect something like VistaPrint. I've done similar with art and logos in the past for myself - OR -
massively produced swag for trade shows and conventions. I've got tons of stuff that look _exactly_ like what is in the UOSwag store.... and honestly, it really is swag.
Incorporating a business can be done across state lines - operate in Hawaii but be incorporated in Delaware - for tax reasons.
~~~
Now, personally, if UOSwag were "official" the word wouldn't be coming from BS, but from EA/Origin first then trumpeted by BS. I seriously don't think EA would allow a licensee (BS) to delegate reissue of licensed products to some joe-blow. And I seriously doubt there is any real license agreement between UOSwag (a third-party) and EA without explicit contract agreement between BS & EA. What is interesting, is none of that stuff being sold by UOSwag is "new". If I were wanting to make money, I'd want to have newer artwork, a wider selection of stuff. II'd be pushing the EC artwork, and stay away from the Hildebrandt "dated" stuffs.
Not knowing any of the particulars, but knowing ecomm, BS is probably dumping old tradeshow swag in a way to make money as quickly as possible. It costs money to store swag. It could also be the supplier of all that swag is tired of housing it, so asked BS for a way to dump it and have some sort of ROI.
In any case... it is on BS's shoulder that this is going on. If the company/person running UOSwag is a player, who cares? What I see isn't "new" swag - but old **** being dumped.
As an ecommerce developer, I got curious.
The site itself is hosted by and built in SquareSpace - a DYI ecommerce platform for people who "produce" stuff.
Just check the source code (surprised none of you did that yet).
The swag has the quality of chintzy stuff produced via an on-demand print service - I suspect something like VistaPrint. I've done similar with art and logos in the past for myself - OR -
massively produced swag for trade shows and conventions. I've got tons of stuff that look _exactly_ like what is in the UOSwag store.... and honestly, it really is swag.
Incorporating a business can be done across state lines - operate in Hawaii but be incorporated in Delaware - for tax reasons.
~~~
Now, personally, if UOSwag were "official" the word wouldn't be coming from BS, but from EA/Origin first then trumpeted by BS. I seriously don't think EA would allow a licensee (BS) to delegate reissue of licensed products to some joe-blow. And I seriously doubt there is any real license agreement between UOSwag (a third-party) and EA without explicit contract agreement between BS & EA. What is interesting, is none of that stuff being sold by UOSwag is "new". If I were wanting to make money, I'd want to have newer artwork, a wider selection of stuff. II'd be pushing the EC artwork, and stay away from the Hildebrandt "dated" stuffs.
Not knowing any of the particulars, but knowing ecomm, BS is probably dumping old tradeshow swag in a way to make money as quickly as possible. It costs money to store swag. It could also be the supplier of all that swag is tired of housing it, so asked BS for a way to dump it and have some sort of ROI.
In any case... it is on BS's shoulder that this is going on. If the company/person running UOSwag is a player, who cares? What I see isn't "new" swag - but old **** being dumped.
The main problem i think people are having is that they dont want to buy something that is supporting an RMT player. Which is understandable.
The second problem they are having is that money is being taken and products arent being delivered.
The third problem I think is that the products that have been delivered arent up to par with what the customer expects coming from a "partner" of uo.com.
The fourth problem is people already dont trust Mesanna and this type of secrecy isnt helping.
The fifth problem is people dont want to give emails and personal info to other players which is absolutely understandable considering how many people have had their accounts stolen that way.
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All of that still boils down to the secrecy around this. Transparency on either BS's or the Stores part would eliminate or validate all of those concerns excepting the trust issues with Mesanna.
agreed.
Okay I'm going to sound off here for what its worth. Jirel and I laughed at the UO Swag store because over a year ago Mesanna told Jirel in an email that she was going to put up a swag store.
This was an email conversation because due to certain RL issues we'd cancelled our reservations to the 20th Anni. party. Jirel had asked Mesanna if she could purchase two of the t-shirts from her since we wouldn't be able to attend and that was Mess's response. That was September 2017, and after the 21st Anni. came and went we'd pretty much give up on it. Then she launched the Swagstore on Oct. 30, 2018.
I put my IT networking skills to work and found the Swag store is hosted by GoDaddy.com. Those of you have problems getting an answer or refund can contact GoDaddy.com abuse and they WILL do something. Also the owner is using WebByProxy out of Scottsdale, AZ which means they DON'T want anyone to know who they are. Which is no big deal as Stratics uses WebByProxy; its a privacy protection thing.
That being said as an E-merchant plus the absence of an about me page, makes them look sleazy. Even the Chinese cheap-fake-junk websites have an about me. Even our favorite spamming Russian RMTer has contact info on his website. Yeah, I checked it out- didn't buy anything- but checked it out.
My advice if you really want something from UOSwag use a MAJOR credit card. DO NOT under any circumstances use a debit card. Credit cards will issue a refund if something goes wrong Debit Cards which are connected to your bank account are not required to issue a refund. So with a debit card you are 100% out of luck. Also with a Debit card you are giving them access to your bank account- DOH! (Thanks to Jirel who's studying Accounting, and has work experience dealing with this sort of thing.)
That website would have failed Dr. Kyrylova's Web Design class and earned you a dressing down.
Here is the GoDaddy Whois results : WHOIS search results
This was an email conversation because due to certain RL issues we'd cancelled our reservations to the 20th Anni. party. Jirel had asked Mesanna if she could purchase two of the t-shirts from her since we wouldn't be able to attend and that was Mess's response. That was September 2017, and after the 21st Anni. came and went we'd pretty much give up on it. Then she launched the Swagstore on Oct. 30, 2018.
I put my IT networking skills to work and found the Swag store is hosted by GoDaddy.com. Those of you have problems getting an answer or refund can contact GoDaddy.com abuse and they WILL do something. Also the owner is using WebByProxy out of Scottsdale, AZ which means they DON'T want anyone to know who they are. Which is no big deal as Stratics uses WebByProxy; its a privacy protection thing.
That being said as an E-merchant plus the absence of an about me page, makes them look sleazy. Even the Chinese cheap-fake-junk websites have an about me. Even our favorite spamming Russian RMTer has contact info on his website. Yeah, I checked it out- didn't buy anything- but checked it out.
My advice if you really want something from UOSwag use a MAJOR credit card. DO NOT under any circumstances use a debit card. Credit cards will issue a refund if something goes wrong Debit Cards which are connected to your bank account are not required to issue a refund. So with a debit card you are 100% out of luck. Also with a Debit card you are giving them access to your bank account- DOH! (Thanks to Jirel who's studying Accounting, and has work experience dealing with this sort of thing.)
That website would have failed Dr. Kyrylova's Web Design class and earned you a dressing down.
Here is the GoDaddy Whois results : WHOIS search results
And don't forget to mention warnings issued, LOL
I'll place this here to go along with my previous post. It appears the majority of you need it.
sorry some of us are having a conversation that you dont agree with. No need for the personal attacks on an entire group.
No, you're spouting an Alex Jones-level conspiracy with absopancaking NO CREDIBLE EVIDENCE. Either prove conclusively there is something truly nefarious going on, or STFU. One person reporting not getting their items "on time" does not a pattern make.
Lots of sites use GoDaddy, lots of sites use SquareSpace, lots of sites use Domains By Proxy for anonymization. None of this is particularly suspect. If you really dig into the source code, you can find the person who created the site - and a little interweb sleuthing shows they live in Florida.
The site is linked off uo.com, but don't expect EA to acknowledge it. EA barely acknowledges that it owns UO, in fact most of the CS personnel think they don't.
As my post history will attest, I'll gleefully hold the dev's feet to the fire when they make bad decisions, but this is just getting stupid. Would more transparency/information from Mesanna be nice? Yes, absopancakinglutely. Is it likely to happen? Notsomuch. Her secrets have secrets. *shrugs*
If you're worried about the site, don't buy from it. Nobody is forcing you to buy tacky overpriced tchotchkes.
I have to ask. Exactly what makes you think you have the right/ability/authority to tell US to "STFU" (your phrase)? If our discussion bothers you, you can always read other posts on Stratics. No one is FORCING YOU to read this post. Just sayin'.
who sounds like alex jones right now?
Because this kind of crap is what erodes faith in the game. Sitting here and spouting unsubstantiated conspiracies, turning off anyone new who dares to brave the den of iniquity that U.Hall has become.
Seriously, there is no substance behind the conspiracy theory. I get that we're living in the "post-truth" era, but I don't subscribe to the alternative facts lots of you seem to cling to. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.
If you want drama, watch reality TV, Fox "News," or go to 4Chan.
Still you conspiracy types.
You just need a leader, a delusional "U" who spouts prophecies which repeatedly do not come to pass.
Here's your logo:
I don't think you understood my question. I saw nothing in your reply that answered it. Do what I say or (S**U) doesn't "cut the mustard". Your comment was an emotional response, NOT a statement of fact. Contrary to your apparent belief, we all ALL entitled to our opinions, AND are allowed to voice them here. ROFL
Oh, I understood it, I simply didn't care. The unfounded speculation shat willy nilly into this thread doesn't rise above the threshold of a non-mocking response.
If people want to be taken seriously, they wouldn't latch onto a single reported unsatisfied customer (who was publicly responded to/taken care of) as if it were a divine gospel presented on the Golden Plinth of Absolute Truth. If people want to be taken seriously, they wouldn't latch onto a single person positing (whout any supporting foundation) that the site is run by a filthy RMTer as if it fell from lips of a host of angels.
Sure, BS has been less than transparent about the whole thing...and I will admit that the redaction of the thread on the UO Forums was...unwise/ irresponsible ...even provocative...but if you want to shout "CONSPIRACY!" you'd better be able to back it up with something other than smoke and shadows.
Right now, the bulk of this thread is a lot of
thrown against a wall.
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C'mon Dot, that's not the proper device for deflecting Mind Control rays, see below.
And besides, if you're going to do a tinfoil hat in a UO related topic, it should be a Kasa
C'mon Dot, that's not the proper device for deflecting Mind Control rays, see below.
View attachment 91126
And besides, if you're going to do a tinfoil hat in a UO related topic, it should be a Kasa
hahaha that kasa got me.
LOL, I love your posts so much!
Thanks so much! This is the voice of reason!