Pretty useless to have a poll like that on a board infested with 2d whiners that are afraid of change.
I don't know if I'm only speaking for myself here, but personally I have never been afraid of change (and I'm about the most faithful legacy art fan you'll find). In fact I'm all for change as long as it's
change for the better, not worse. For this to happen, it needs to fill some basic requirements:
- Any new changes need to
improve things, not impair them (something we've witnessed with the paperdolls, the loss of the clean cut, crispiness of the 2D items, tiles and environment traded in for something which is mushier and darker, the loss of Ultima charm in avatars and creatures, the way in which the backpack items have become so tiny and unrecognizable to name a few)
- Any new changes may not drastically alter the virtual world that we know and love. That world contains years of history for us. Familiar places that hold many wonderful memories. It is disturbing to visit these places with a new client and not even recognize them anymore. It is disturbing to have worked hard to tame magnificent looking dragons, only to find they have been turned into creatures one would have never bothered taming in the first place. It is disturbing when one doesn't even recognize their own paperdoll avatar anymore.
My guess, is that fans of the classic client react in such a negative way simply because the ratio of negative and positive leans more towards the negative side.
There might also be some subconscious offense taken to changes which had absolutely no valid or explainable reason. This causes players to lose faith and trust in the developers, making any future "upgrades" all the harder to swallow as the rebellion of these players grows. Drastic changes need to have a founded, good reason. They can't be made just "because it would be so cool".
The sad thing is that the devs have only ever meant well for the players. All they wanted to do was give us new and exciting content. They wanted good for us. The problem is that in the excitement of the countless brainstorming sessions they must have had, packed full of bright-eyed devs and product managers all bouncing ideas around that sound cooler, and cooler and cooler - well, they never really stopped to consider the delicacy of the situation and the psychological impact of changing our world. Then again, what do I know. Maybe they
did understand these risks. Maybe they hoped that we'd be so overwhelmed by all the massively cool stuff that we wouldn't mind a change here, and a change there. Maybe they thought that it's safe to downgrade some things, seeing as they'd upgrade so many other things. But you can't just sneak that stuff by us.
What I'd like to think is that the devs were facepalming through the whole ordeal and it was really the upper management that forced these changes upon us all. I'd much rather blame the people who are clueless when it comes to the heart of Ultima. I
want to have faith in our devs!
Basically, if you are going to upgrade a game and get everyone excited about it, there are no bargains, no ratios, no compromises. It really does need to be far superior AND without losing even a smidgen of all that was good to begin with.
Easier said than done, I'm sure.
