G
Guest
Guest
Ok well this might seem flame-y and tbh its more of a series of points than a question I expect an answer to, but I think it needs to be said (assuming it hasn't before).
I started to play seriously again about 2 weeks ago, at the start of this whole Moonglow thing. Aside from Europa's nice beergarden which was taken away to make room for this rift, I find it pretty cool. A few friends have reactivated accounts and, all in all, its the first time in about a year and a half that i've been seriously playing again.
About the time I stopped playing, primarily because of my second year at Uni taking up a lot of time, we got the 9th anniversary. This came in a rather nice box and gave us some fabulous gifts. The tokens went for a fair amount and I myself bought a few copies simply to get a whole load of items.
So when I think about the 10th anniversary now, I have changed my mind from "unimpressed" to "insulted". My mother, the hoarder she is, managed to get roughly 500 of these things and just hands them out now and then. Not only did customers have to pay for these tokens that we got with the 9th anniversary, but we didn't get anything specific for a 10th anniversary.
This is excuseable, perhaps, to some extents since the decoration items themselves are great and every player's house is improved by them. However it rather undermines the purchasing of the 9th anniversary, 8th, or even 7th anniversary collections.
But the worst part is that, for all the years that Ultima Online has been around, for all the box releases that there have been, a whole decade of existance is summed up by not a boxed release, not a huge marketting push or any effort that seems to try and draw players back, but by a gift box with a fireworks wand and two tokens. Which were to mark the 9th year of UO. It had a sickeningly similar feeling to a time that I received a birthday card from a close relative about a year late.
It would have been nice to have given us even just one special item that commemorated 10 years of UO's existence. Items obtained from dungeons can still be obtained so I am left with this feeling that UO's 10th anniversary came and went. Out of any anniversary or event that should be commemorated, I would have thought that not 7, 8 or 9 years but the 10th year of UO's continued existence would have been something to celebrate or release a copy of in the shops.
Finally, what about 10 year old vets? Every year, I am sure that the number of players decreases and with that the amount of vets. Surely there should be some reward for players who have been paying for 10 years of gametime, putting up with bugs that hinder gameplay, changes that they didn't ask for and what I would consider fairly poor customer service at times.
Overall I just find it sad and anti-climatic that the oldest running MMO didn't even celebrate it's 10th birthday properly. I am sure somebody will tell me that Magincia or something was to mark that, but to be honest the almost total destruction of a city that has existed in UO since the beginning doesn't scream out "Birthday". I am sure that the looting of pieces of the town and subsequently selling it on for millions to other players to mark the existance of the game and it's world has some sort of irony in it somewhere but it sort of masks the horrific neglect of what years ago I had been wondering about. Would there be a big event? The return of companions, counsellors or something wildly amazing. A whole load of bug fixes. Something to really try and get players back. Even the announcement of the closure of UO would have been dramatic and less anti-climatic than the passing of the birthday.
This rant has gone on for long enough but tl;dr do you think that the 10th anniversary of UO was under-emphasised?
I started to play seriously again about 2 weeks ago, at the start of this whole Moonglow thing. Aside from Europa's nice beergarden which was taken away to make room for this rift, I find it pretty cool. A few friends have reactivated accounts and, all in all, its the first time in about a year and a half that i've been seriously playing again.
About the time I stopped playing, primarily because of my second year at Uni taking up a lot of time, we got the 9th anniversary. This came in a rather nice box and gave us some fabulous gifts. The tokens went for a fair amount and I myself bought a few copies simply to get a whole load of items.
So when I think about the 10th anniversary now, I have changed my mind from "unimpressed" to "insulted". My mother, the hoarder she is, managed to get roughly 500 of these things and just hands them out now and then. Not only did customers have to pay for these tokens that we got with the 9th anniversary, but we didn't get anything specific for a 10th anniversary.
This is excuseable, perhaps, to some extents since the decoration items themselves are great and every player's house is improved by them. However it rather undermines the purchasing of the 9th anniversary, 8th, or even 7th anniversary collections.
But the worst part is that, for all the years that Ultima Online has been around, for all the box releases that there have been, a whole decade of existance is summed up by not a boxed release, not a huge marketting push or any effort that seems to try and draw players back, but by a gift box with a fireworks wand and two tokens. Which were to mark the 9th year of UO. It had a sickeningly similar feeling to a time that I received a birthday card from a close relative about a year late.
It would have been nice to have given us even just one special item that commemorated 10 years of UO's existence. Items obtained from dungeons can still be obtained so I am left with this feeling that UO's 10th anniversary came and went. Out of any anniversary or event that should be commemorated, I would have thought that not 7, 8 or 9 years but the 10th year of UO's continued existence would have been something to celebrate or release a copy of in the shops.
Finally, what about 10 year old vets? Every year, I am sure that the number of players decreases and with that the amount of vets. Surely there should be some reward for players who have been paying for 10 years of gametime, putting up with bugs that hinder gameplay, changes that they didn't ask for and what I would consider fairly poor customer service at times.
Overall I just find it sad and anti-climatic that the oldest running MMO didn't even celebrate it's 10th birthday properly. I am sure somebody will tell me that Magincia or something was to mark that, but to be honest the almost total destruction of a city that has existed in UO since the beginning doesn't scream out "Birthday". I am sure that the looting of pieces of the town and subsequently selling it on for millions to other players to mark the existance of the game and it's world has some sort of irony in it somewhere but it sort of masks the horrific neglect of what years ago I had been wondering about. Would there be a big event? The return of companions, counsellors or something wildly amazing. A whole load of bug fixes. Something to really try and get players back. Even the announcement of the closure of UO would have been dramatic and less anti-climatic than the passing of the birthday.
This rant has gone on for long enough but tl;dr do you think that the 10th anniversary of UO was under-emphasised?
