Codex of Misinformation

[JC the Builder]

I was doing some stuff today and decided to take a look at when the last time the Codex of Wisdom, the authoritative game guide, was updated.

- Did you know every day you get one hour of accelerated skill gains, otherwise known as a "power hour"?
- There must be a bug in the system because it says I need to refresh my houses by opening the front door
- The stat cap is 225 and no individual stat can go over 100
- New players can use youthful treasure maps to try out treasure hunting

 

[Adora]

This is just sad, even by their standards.

 

[canary]

Sad, bit not shocking.

I know they have a skeleton crew, but my god I also don't understand how other small games can get stuff done in a timely manner and still run their own message boards, update game info, etc and UO utterly fails in that department.

Power hour was years ago... literal YEARS.

And they wonder why any new players might feel intimidated. *sighs*

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

I know they have a skeleton crew, but my god I also don't understand how other small games can get stuff done in a timely manner and still run their own message boards, update game info, etc and UO utterly fails in that department.

I believe that this can be answered with one single word: Professionalism.

 

[Derium of ls]

I remember seeing that tower you're standing in on youtube

and on topic... hahaha wow, that's awesome. I wish there was an official UO forum. Because I'm sure we would see posts every now and then along the lines of: "WTF, why is my powerhour broken??".

 

[phantus]

I believe that this can be answered with one single word: Professionalism.

THis

 

[Lord Frodo]

OMG I LOVE IT

 

[Viper09]

Perhaps the fault here is with our lovely friend EA who constatly feels the need to fire devs randomly each year leaving us with a different team and lead for mythic. God only knows how much stuff was never passed down to the news devs after each departure of what little things like that need to be refreshed.

 

[Woodsman]

Perhaps the fault here is with our lovely friend EA who constatly feels the need to fire devs randomly each year leaving us with a different team and lead for mythic. God only knows how much stuff was never passed down to the news devs after each departure of what little things like that need to be refreshed.

Next you'll be telling us that UO had this huge expansion and another client and then a bunch of people were laid off afterward, leaving a small group to try and fix the problems with that expansion while rolling out more content.

 

[canary]

Next you'll be telling us that UO had this huge expansion and another client and then a bunch of people were laid off afterward, leaving a small group to try and fix the problems with that expansion while rolling out more content.

After a year or so the same excuse grows tiresome. I for one think it gets old that there is always some apologist to find an excuse for quality in the product. They have a job to do, just like you or I. And its obvious some days it isn't getting done.

While you are at it, you might as well still blame their move to VA. /eyeroll

 

[Woodsman]

After a year or so the same excuse grows tiresome. I for one think it gets old that there is always some apologist to find an excuse for quality in the product. They have a job to do, just like you or I. And its obvious some days it isn't getting done.

While you are at it, you might as well still blame their move to VA. /eyeroll

Go ahead and defend EA all you want, but EA gets their asses handed to them by companies who use former UO devs.

We're not even talking about the small MMOs either - EA is obsessed with World of Warcraft, and yet they drove former UO devs right into the arms of Blizzard, including the current lead designer on WoW.

When the UO devs publicly admitted that if they are working on new content, they have to stop working on bugs because there is not enough people, that pretty much summed up EA's attitude towards UO.

 

[Tinsil]

This is just sad, even by their standards.

is that u in the avatar pic? u r really hawt

 

[Viper09]

Next you'll be telling us that UO had this huge expansion and another client and then a bunch of people were laid off afterward, leaving a small group to try and fix the problems with that expansion while rolling out more content.

And...? Doubt I will be saying that. The problem here is misinformation. A codex I bet the team either doesn't know about or forgot about. The team has been cut many times. When one group leaves and another is brought in there is always going to be stuff that doesn't get passed on. Of course that's exactly what I had already said. But then again you also have a point, they have new stuff they always have to do. New bugs to iron out, older content taking less priority, add on the other stuff on their plate, etc. Congrats on trying to make a huge deal about this woodsman. All I was saying, well, won't restate it a 3rd time. My original post was pretty straight forward.

 

[Woodsman]

Sorry, was just being sarcastic/kidding.

It's really depressing that this has happened so many times with dev teams turning over or being laid off or forced out. It's left parts of the game unfinished, it's left us with three clients that get started and then abandoned (jury still out on EC), and so on.

 

[Viper09]

Sorry, was just being sarcastic/kidding.

Ahh, ok, makes sense now. Sarcasm in text form not easy to catch sometimes.

 

[Woodsman]

Ahh, ok, makes sense now. Sarcasm in text form not easy to catch sometimes.

Sorry.

I see people (not you) say if they would just get rid of the current dev team and bring in a new dev team, it would fix things, when really it wouldn't, because EA is still EA and still doesn't care about UO.

 

[JC the Builder]

It isn't so much as being neglected as in it has not been touched since the Age of Shadows release in February 2003. Maybe they completely forgot it was there. I wouldn't be surprised if Cal reads this topic and asks another team member what the Codex is, lol.

At this point it would probably be better to simply remove it completely from the game instead of updating. It is probably a nightmare to modify and the window is so tiny.

 

[Cear Dallben Dragon]

I would definitely remove that entire thing from the system of UO. Ultima Online needs to downsize itself to match the size of the studio/staff working on it. I love the dev team, theres just not enough of them.

 

[Silverbird]

Someone should design a house without doors and call a GM to ask, how he is supposed to refresh the house (include a hint to that codex within your request).
Any bets, that most gms would be massivly overstressed with such a task?

 

[Annonymous User]

Someone should design a house without doors and call a GM to ask, how he is supposed to refresh the house (include a hint to that codex within your request).
Any bets, that most gms would be massivly overstressed with such a task?

I am doing this as soon as I get off work today, we should get a bunch of people to, and see if it can cause chaos and confusion !

 

[Woodsman]

GM response times already suck as it is, and you want to deliberately screw around with them?

 

[Uvtha]

Yeah... the codex needs some SERIOUS love. I don't think its been touched more than a couple times since fairly shortly after it was put in like 8 years ago.

Which is a shame, its could be a helpful resource, and all it takes is the time to open up a word document and write the info down. :/

 

[olduofan]

Problem is I really don't think anyone knows the correct info to put in it. We still get question on the broads here about things like "luck" that hasn't been fully answered by the devs they them self don't even know and the usual response "we need to look into it" or "ya it needs a little fixing"

I agree it would be a great start in helping new players but could consume a lot of man hours (and we all know our dev team is very small) trying to find the data to put into it

 

[Klapauc]

That codex and the playguide on uoherald where the first things that came to my mind when i did read about their talk about improving new player experience.
Imho a working and near crash free EC and an ingame help system should be the first steps, not some improved new player area. Wtf are they thinking .
Most new players i did talk to struggle with the very basic things in game . A good game guide that is embedded into the client would help alot with that and reduce frustration.

 

[Neutron Bomb]

Remember the HoC video we just recently saw? That was the entire skele crew, lol.

 

[LoL/Sonoma]

Would be great if it were linked to a wiki and the players (approved ones to avoid griefers) could handle this. Would much rather take care of posting a lot of the general info myself than have the devs stop squashing bugs to do this.

 

[Tazar]

Remember the HoC video we just recently saw? That was the entire skele crew, lol.

We saw Cal, Mesanna, and Supreem on the video.

Based on Stratics Developer Posts, we have those three and we also have Logrus, BTeng, Phoenix (Vex), Mark, TheGrimmOmen... plus Community Folk, EM's, GM's and more supporting the game. I am sure this is not a full listing.

 

[Neutron Bomb]

We saw Cal, Mesanna, and Supreem on the video.

Based on Stratics Developer Posts, we have those three and we also have Logrus, BTeng, Phoenix (Vex), Mark, TheGrimmOmen... plus Community Folk, EM's, GM's and more supporting the game. I am sure this is not a full listing.

It was a joke.

EDIT: And when we say Skeleton Crew, we mean the people who actually work for UO. Which includes the Devs, managers, testers, etc...And excludes EM's, Community Folk, (And I'd even go as far as saying the current slew of GM's).

 

[Merion]

What they should do:

ditch the codex in its current form and just include an iframe of uoguide instead.

 

[Viper09]

What they should do:

ditch the codex in its current form and just include an iframe of uoguide instead.

In favor of the first part about ditching it. Considering how old that codex is I think starting over would be a lot easier. As for an iframe of uoguide? I think they might want something that's officially their own accessible in game as opposed to a fansite, regardless of how helpful it would be.

 

[G.v.P]

What they should do:

ditch the codex in its current form and just include an iframe of uoguide instead.

Probably not a good idea as iframes can be hacked, then EA could have a lawsuit on their hands. Better to keep things in house despite having old info, hehe. Sentiment is in the right place, though.

Well, I'd like to see where all the young games are in what, 13-14 years? Just remember, it used to be good. When it was a new product, it was a LOT of fun. It's still fun now, for the faithful veteran, but yeah, it's hard to imagine ever recruiting a new player at this stage of the game...between lack of support and lack of next-gen features/graphics.

 

[Cogniac]

What they should do:

ditch the codex in its current form and just include an iframe of uoguide instead.

I like the idea of ditching the codex, but not the idea of a UOGuide IFrame in the client. IFrames are notorious for causing security problems. And I'm saying this as a UOGuide admin.