And now to something completely different...

[Eärendil]

...those of you who read my posts know that I am kinda Broadsword-cheerleader - at least no harsh critic. Hence, let me point out what I think should be next they have to do. But first, I would like to summarize what are the assets atm:

- Those who constantly say, BS does not care and just keep in UO in maintencance are simply wrong
- We got a new expansion
- We got new bosses, group encounters, varying content like Kotl stuff
- They respond to our criticism (maybe not the way we like it - e.g. art, combat changes)
- They communicate with us (maybe too erratic, but they do!)
- They did set up a new website in recent years, brought back MyUO
- They made the newsletters and continue with meet & greet
- They implemented the inamge shop
- They listened to wishes and brought new items for the ingame shop (maybe not the ones we wanted...)
- They are updating old content like Doom (maybe different than expected, but better than nothing)
- They had given us events and some years ago vendor search
- They did NOT stop working on CC, in contrary: we now have new screen resoulutions
- They will continue to revamp stuff, e.g. taming

So, we might critizise single or some more points, but they are working on the game and I personally like the most things - especially the new screen resolutions.

Hence, it is time for some completely different actions in early 2017 - after next publish: @Mesanna @Kyronix @Bleak Stop working on the game for 1-2 months and invest all your time into....

...ADVERTISING!!!
...MARKETING!!!

Contact each and every gaming website, journalist, blogger, magazine: Write them that our 20th anniversary is ahead, that we are still here! Make some fancy stuff for returners, offer some RTB-action and -events, spend some money for banners, online ads and maybe ads in printed gaming magazines.

TALK ABOUT UO! TALK ABOUT THE ANNY! GIVE OUT PRESENTS (free RTB codes, additional housing options for new accounts, "Welcome Back-Vanity"-Items, do some CUSTOMER MOTIVATION!

TAKE YOUR TIME, JUST GO INTO PUBLIC! This 20th anniversary combined with the positive assets of the last years is THE DECISIVE MOMENT to bring back UO to the light of the public.

I promise you, its worth the efforts. You dont have to spend too much money. Just contact 1-2 university master-classes in advertising/marketing communications. Talk to their professors, lets make some innovative advertising projetcs, maybe in social media. Let some young creative folks work for you, lets them create a campaingn. You WILL succeed!

Have a great 2017!

 

[cobb]

Also fix the account management page

All that marketing and advertising will go to waste if interested people are unable to navigate the account management page.

 

[Eärendil]

Well, than rarely caused problems in my case, but you are right. However, without communication, things will not improve on a large scale!

 

[Phantasmagorian]

The account page and the process of retrieving it are a bloody mess. It was my sheer will to play UO again that got me back into the game, certainly not the easy of getting my account up and running. It shouldn't be that way.

 

[Thrakkar]

...ADVERTISING!!!
...MARKETING!!!

I promise you, its worth the efforts. You dont have to spend too much money. Just contact 1-2 university master-classes in advertising/marketing communications. Talk to their professors, lets make some innovative advertising projetcs, maybe in social media. Let some young creative folks work for you, lets them create a campaingn. You WILL succeed!

While it would be cool, if it would have some effect, I think you're seeing it through rose-colored glasses.

Question: What do you do, if you sell an old car? You usually polish it up so it looks like new, because that sells way much better. The first impression is what counts.

UO is now 20 years old and it shows.
On the account page (although i never had any problems with it).
An ancient client with a horrible user interface, where you need to buy a third party program, to improve things (Granted, the charm of the old graphics outweights that a bit, but that doesn't apply to any new player).
A little bit more modern client, which is also a little bit more buggy but also has the better user interface, but still has no 2017 up to par user experience.
Two clients in the first place.
One of the steepest learning curves in gaming history. (aka no new player experience)
Boring boss design (usually just meat shields).
And the list goes on.

Good luck selling that in 2017. The expectations of a typical 2017 gamer is way off, on what UO offers.

Don't get me wrong. UO is still a good game. But you have to dig deep, to find the gem, that UO is. Potential new players wont even start digging or stop half way through.

IMHO the best bet for UO in 2017 is the endless journey. I can imagine, that this could bring back old players and maybe even some freeshard players.

 

[The Craftsman]

...those of you who read my posts know that I am kinda Broadsword-cheerleader

"kinda"? Errr, like ... totally.

...ADVERTISING!!!

Never happening as this has nothing to do with BS ... its EA and they arent interested.

...MARKETING!!!

Never happening as this has nothing to do with BS ... its EA and they arent interested.

 

[Eärendil]

Guys, its worth a try. Dont be so negative. People buy vinyl instead of CDs again. Why? Nostalgia! People buy/collect all kinds of stuff from the good old times. Just because under the patina, they are still good/cool. Vintage is "in". And so on... Why do people still buy/play Monkey Island? See....

I am working with special interest journalists all the time. Anniversaries are their moments for features. It doesnt cost a penny to call them and say: Here we are, 20 years later. You WILL get attention.

I know that from many other products, be it old music bands, furniture, lifestyle products. You can sell anything with the right attitude. But as long as there are millions of players who dont even know that we are still here, you cant sell to them.

Begin with talking to multiplicators!

Just
as
simple!

 

[Eärendil]

Silence and negativism does not create sales.

 

[Thrakkar]

I'm not negative, just realistic
People buy and play the HD remastered version of Monkey Island with improved UI
UO isn't remastered...
And nostalgia is usually for people who experienced that one thing back then.
And the Vinyl/CD analogy isn't really applicable here. Vinyl records can sound way better than digital releases, if mastered correctly. Because let's be realistic, digital releases are mastered to death (Loudness war - Wikipedia)

 

[Eärendil]

From a advertising view its not about facts but images. Not abour features but communication. Not about the matter but about thought. Not about substance but style. Not about stuff but emotion.

But, whatever, it was worth a try... If we dont even want that our publishers talk about our game and if we dont even defend it, why should anybody talk about it/want it.

We need far more positive spirit here ;-)

 

[Donzer]

From a advertising view its not about facts but images. Not abour features but communication. Not about the matter but about thought. Not about substance but style. Not about stuff but emotion.

But, whatever, it was worth a try... If we dont even want that our publishers talk about our game and if we dont even defend it, why should anybody talk about it/want it.

We need far more positive spirit here ;-)

Im with you!

I also think that they are trying their best at BS, considering the support they get from EA. I havent been playing much the last few years, but still want to support the game.
I do think it is possible to get more players into the game, old aswell as new. But granted it does require some effort regarding the new players and the first experience they get.

I would hope that BS have enough control over their daily schedule to set aside some time to do some interviews to gaming sites, some youtube clips explaining the game and the upcoming 20th anniversary.

 

[Eärendil]

Exactly

 

[Petra Fyde]

Im with you!

I also think that they are trying their best at BS, considering the support they get from EA. I havent been playing much the last few years, but still want to support the game.
I do think it is possible to get more players into the game, old aswell as new. But granted it does require some effort regarding the new players and the first experience they get.

I would hope that BS have enough control over their daily schedule to set aside some time to do some interviews to gaming sites, some youtube clips explaining the game and the upcoming 20th anniversary.

I won't say I disagree totally, but didn't we just learn about the upcoming open-ended trial account from just such a youtube interview?

 

[Uvtha]

People buy vinyl instead of CDs again. Why? Nostalgia!

Yeah... but if people want gaming nostalgia they can head over to GOG and get Baldurs Gate or 100 other games for 5 dollars, AND can play them fullscreen. How could you justify to a new player (even one into retro gaming) the cost of the base game and then upgrades, and then 14 bucks a month?

I just don't see it.

 

[Eärendil]

BG is fantastic, but offline ;-)

 

[MalagAste]

If they work on Advertising and Marketing then it's going to be UGLY... first off there is NO NPE. Unless people try the EC first which has this horrible NPE... Which doesn't teach new players much of anything...

No... if they tried to market the game who's going to help new players? The @$$#@+$ who are in Gen Chat $#!+ talking??? Oh no wait new "young" players can't leave the Help chat.... which is solely populated with the bot spamming gold sales.

So who's going to help them??? GM's? Well it only takes 4 to 48 hours for a player to get a response from one of them.... yes that would be a great thing... NOT.

And finally where are they going to find forums to ask for help??? On the Website??? Nope wrong again.

And finally.... how are they going to chose a shard? If they chose anything other than a few shards they will quickly find NO ONE is there.

 

[SugarMMM]

Whenever I talk about the game with my friends they don't make fun of me because of the graphics, they make fun of me paying the monthly fee x 14. I think the monthly fee will will deter the most people.

How about some merchandise? I'd totally wear some UO jewelry, shirt, stickers or even a license plate bracket.

I have a bunch of nephews that play that Minecraft game and you all know how pixelated that game is...... if we could get some of those players to come over that would be huge!

 

[Tanivar]

The enlarged CC game window should be pointed out in any advertisements. So many have complained about the old CC game window tiny size and that the EC wasn't a good enough substitute and have vanished from the game. How many might return now that their favorite client now will nearly fill the screen on modern wide screen monitors? It's made play for me much nicer now that I don't have to strain to read the game text and spot & target tiny items.

The CC's only big problem, it's old small screen size, is now history.

 

[Eärendil]

Whenever I talk about the game with my friends they don't make fun of me because of the graphics, they make fun of me paying the monthly fee x 14. I think the monthly fee will will deter the most people.

How about some merchandise? I'd totally wear some UO jewelry, shirt, stickers or even a license plate bracket.

I have a bunch of nephews that play that Minecraft game and you all know how pixelated that game is...... if we could get some of those players to come over that would be huge!

Yes! Good idea! Absolutely!

 

[Eärendil]

The enlarged CC game window should be pointed out in any advertisements. So many have complained about the old CC game window tiny size and that the EC wasn't a good enough substitute and have vanished from the game. How many might return now that their favorite client now will nearly fill the screen on modern wide screen monitors? It's made play for me much nicer now that I don't have to strain to read the game text and spot & target tiny items.

The CC's only big problem, it's old small screen size, is now history.

Another good argument! Correct! You just have to TALK about it!

 

[Uvtha]

The CC's only big problem, it's old small screen size, is now history.

Am I wrong in thinking it's the window size, not the resolution? I ask because I don't really care about the window size, I just have altering my screen resolution anytime I want to play UO at an appreciable size.

 

[Tanivar]

Am I wrong in thinking it's the window size, not the resolution? I ask because I don't really care about the window size, I just have altering my screen resolution anytime I want to play UO at an appreciable size.

I'm currently now at the monitor's default resolution of 1920x1080 with Windows 10 set to display everything 25% larger and the game set to full screen 1024x768, with the game window at 1280x720.


Desktop looks like

 

[Thrakkar]

Am I wrong in thinking it's the window size, not the resolution?

You windows OS runs in a certain resolution.
UO's fullscreen setting has a certain resolution.
UO's game window has a certain resolution.
Basically the digital size is the resolution in pixels, be it a window, an image, your whole screen. Anything. So just using the term resolution is a bit vague and may cause confusion in some cases

I ask because I don't really care about the window size, I just have altering my screen resolution anytime I want to play UO at an appreciable size.

There are several ways of making the whole game (not just the game window) bigger.
But yeah, that's a possible workaround.
Personally I would find it cumbersome to change the screen resolution every time I want to play the game and then have to change it back, once I'm done. But as long as it works for you

Another one would be Tanivars approach, to keep the screen resolution but instead increase the scaling to 125%, maybe even 150%. It is as "comfortable" as your approach, because that setting is for everything, not just a specific application or game. So you might want to set it when you start playing and set it back to its previous value, once you're done playing. The only difference I see, is the crispiness of the game. Since windows is scaling it up, it gets a bit blurry. Your solution keeps it crispier (but that also heavily depends on your monitors native resolution). In the end it's just personal taste.

 

[StressBall]

I think BS do a pretty decent job with the resources they have and seeing their dev team is so small, The amount of time just doing newsletters and meet and greets must be pretty taxing just in itself especially if they are just constantly bashed over the same things time and again (we see the same thread here over and over of non stop grumblings).

I would like more updates about the future plans, if someone from BS could address the planned changes that Bonnie mentioned in her POD cast; one slot pets being trainable up to five slot pets and the new unending trial accounts, new rideables going to be added to the in game shop etc.

Keep up the good work and let more people know about it

 

[kelmo]

I believe the Dev team has the big picture in mind.

 

[Omnicron]

The account page and the process of retrieving it are a bloody mess. It was my sheer will to play UO again that got me back into the game, certainly not the easy of getting my account up and running. It shouldn't be that way.

Maaannnnnn....You aint playin...I felt the same lol.

 

[Uvtha]

I'm currently now at the monitor's default resolution of 1920x1080 with Windows 10 set to display everything 25% larger and the game set to full screen 1024x768, with the game window at 1280x720.

View attachment 60725
Desktop looks like
View attachment 60726

Yeah, guess I never thought about that. Cheers!

 

[Archnight]

IMHO the best bet for UO in 2017 is the endless journey. I can imagine, that this could bring back old players and maybe even some freeshard players

I see this being key for this year too, let`s get some people back to the game or from freeshard back to prodo. I wish EA/Broadsword could find a way to slap these freeshards with a copyright lawsuit or something, there's probably thousands of UO players using these freeshards for free. Let's advertise through the web on all those gaming sites and facebook, keep adding stuff to the store and bring back the enhanced graphics from UO:KR. Dev's need to do yearly gold wipes like they've done in the past, too many dupers/cheaters hoarding large amounts of gold and we need more gold sinks to fix the economy

 

[Eärendil]

I like your points, Archknight - but for the moment focusing on advertising/marketing would be enough IMHO ;-)

Babysteps!