Dead Easter?

[Poo]

So that would be a no for Easter this year?
im just guessing as there as been no word from the Dev's about anything, unless i missed it?
not even a repeat of last year?
nothing.....
not a really good start for the new Producer.
no Valentine's Day swag and now no Easter, next thing you will tell me he has never heard of second breakfast.
or third.

 

[Amber Witch]

In the UO Community Manager's last live stream interview with Kyronix that question was asked and he said there wasn't going to be an Easter Event. There was a discussion about that and I don't remember what exactly his response was. Here's a link to the interview:

 

[DM Wyvern]

In the UO Community Manager's last live stream interview with Kyronix that question was asked and he said there wasn't going to be an Easter Event. There was a discussion about that and I don't remember what exactly his response was. Here's a link to the interview:

Yes, TLDR (or listen) Kyronix wants to move the dev team away from expending time and resources on yearly cultural events that might not translate well for an international audience - and instead focus team resources on developing global events like the recent Shadow's Awakening series of events:

Shadows Awakening - UOGuide, the Ultima Online Encyclopedia

www.uoguide.com

 

[Izzy MBC]

Yes, TLDR (or listen) Kyronix wants to move the dev team away from expending time and resources on yearly cultural events that might not translate for an international audience - and instead focus team resources on developing global events like the recent Shadow's Awakening series of events:

I'm a little torn on this. It's a break from 'tradition', but from an 'Ultima canon' perspective, perhaps real world religious calendar events never made sense anyway? If they are replacing it with universe-specific stuff, especially if they reflected on momentous events from the Ultima series, then that'd be really cool. Unfortunately, as a millennial, the Ultima series of games kinda passed by me so I can't really speak to any of it (although I have briefly played Ultima VII and VIII recently, cool games tbh).

 

[Potgut]

not a really good start for the new Producer.

To me, I like to think that it's a sign that new producer is actually using his small dev team he has available to focus on something different instead doing the same rinse and repeat of the last many years. Hopefully what Kyronix will focus on now will amount to something different, interesting, or greater down the road.

Plus, holiday related gifts flooding everybodys storage and vendors from prior years, I don't know how much more of this clutter we need. Maybe it will encourage more of us to dust off our old holiday decos and put them into use.

Since we just got a new producer so recently, I'm going to be patient and give Kyronix a chance. Because of small dev team they have, maybe sacrificing some holiday content might be the price to pay for some bigger UO overhaul or content that UO has needed. Time will tell. I would love to see more UO lore related content, something that's more original that ties into the UO history and events.

 

[skett]

NL will probably be the main focus with this team (the last team)

 

[Lokea]

If they are replacing it with universe-specific stuff, especially if they reflected on momentous events from the Ultima series, then that'd be really cool. Unfortunately, as a millennial, the Ultima series of games kinda passed by me so I can't really speak to any of it (although I have briefly played Ultima VII and VIII recently, cool games tbh).

The Ultima series has a very large amount of anniversaries/events that could be celebrated if they want to go that route:

Timeline of the Ultima universe - The Codex of Ultima Wisdom, a wiki for Ultima and Ultima Online

But yeah, if getting away from holidays speeds up other content, I'm all for it. When I came back, I looked through all of the holiday offerings I had missed over the last 10+ years, and while there were plenty of cool things, and they were all easy enough to find on vendors, I wonder how much time was spent on them and what it could have been used for instead.

I highly recommend you spend more time on U7 and U8 and maybe jump back to Ultima VI (which gets into the gargoyles). I know a lot of UO players are too young to have experienced 6-8 when they were originally released, but it was an amazing time and an amazing run of games that were really pushing RPGs along - I like the earlier games as well, but 6-8 are still very playable (and there are modern game engines/emulators that will let you play them on modern systems with some quality-of-life changes), and you'll see the roots of UO.

 

[Poo]

my 3 adult kids who are playing since last summer where all waiting for the Easter stuff after i bragged it all up.... and now nothing.
i guess if they put on more global arcs and stuff then that would be fine, but wouldn't it be easier to turn on small event stuff and rinse repeat since you have already made it to keep people occupied instead of just hoping they will enjoy your once a year arc?
like the Halloween stuff, they turn that on and every couple years chuck in something new.
you don't hear people complaining about that, gives people stuff to do.
Easter last couple years was fun.
had some excellent stuff to get off it, everyone enjoyed it for the couple weeks.
literally low hanging fruit.
toggle is on and let the paying people keep themselves occupied while you make your arc.
that's what i would do.
like Valentines Day, put up a rose or a plushy bear clicky.
they have done it in years past, just change the colour and its label, what is that 30 minutes of coding to tweak an already existing item?
shuts people up for all of February.
same thing for April, turn on the bunny hunt and counterfeit egg hunt.
that shuts up people for April.
Halloween eats up Oct-Nov
Christmas eats up Dec.
Sept is eaten up by the Anniversary.
that leave 6 months open for your Arc for the year, run a story ark May-Aug that leaves 2 months of the year that are open for your paying clients to busy themselves.
bored people tend to wonder off....
and if enough wonder off.....

 

[Petra Fyde]

I see these gaps between global events as the ideal time to do player events without losing most of your potential participants to whatever global event is happening. This past Tuesday Europa governors hosted a vorpal bunny hunt, which had a bit of a surprise for us, because as well as the brightly colored eggs we said we'd give a prize for, we found curiously adorned eggs were spawning too.

 

[Keven2002]

i guess if they put on more global arcs and stuff then that would be fine, but wouldn't it be easier to turn on small event stuff and rinse repeat since you have already made it to keep people occupied instead of just hoping they will enjoy your once a year arc?
like the Halloween stuff, they turn that on and every couple years chuck in something new.
you don't hear people complaining about that, gives people stuff to do.
Easter last couple years was fun.
had some excellent stuff to get off it, everyone enjoyed it for the couple weeks.
literally low hanging fruit.
toggle is on and let the paying people keep themselves occupied while you make your arc.
that's what i would do.
like Valentines Day, put up a rose or a plushy bear clicky.
they have done it in years past, just change the colour and its label, what is that 30 minutes of coding to tweak an already existing item?
shuts people up for all of February.
same thing for April, turn on the bunny hunt and counterfeit egg hunt.
that shuts up people for April.
Halloween eats up Oct-Nov
Christmas eats up Dec.
Sept is eaten up by the Anniversary.
that leave 6 months open for your Arc for the year, run a story ark May-Aug that leaves 2 months of the year that are open for your paying clients to busy themselves.

I can see both sides.

I agree with you for the most part about using the prior years efforts to "re-run" things like V-Day etc; these are just small code changes that likely require minimal testing and would probably be quick/easy wins for people who like to collect clutter pixels.

That said, I see the thought about making it about one certain culture... so instead of calling it Easter they would call it something like Spring Solstice (which is essentially what they've done the past couple years).

At the end of the day, I think most people would be in favor of more, not less, content... whatever they call it doesn't matter to me (but I guess some people feel strongly otherwise).

 

[Silent Singer]

I don't mind missing Easter content. Even though I wish New Legacy had not happened and instead all that work went to prodo, it didn't. And I have revisited NL since publish 2 and wow! I consider this the Easter content. The new Blackthorn dungeon is a blast so far. And the rewards are things I've always wanted, like the golden armor sets from Blackthorn treasury. And the tmap antiquities are super rad. Named unique EM type items with my name on them, hell yeah! Any time we have to chunk Easter gifts for this type of stuff I am all for it.

 

[DM Wyvern]

I don't mind missing Easter content. Even though I wish New Legacy had not happened and instead all that work went to prodo, it didn't. And I have revisited NL since publish 2 and wow! I consider this the Easter content. The new Blackthorn dungeon is a blast so far. And the rewards are things I've always wanted, like the golden armor sets from Blackthorn treasury. And the tmap antiquities are super rad. Named unique EM type items with my name on them, hell yeah! Any time we have to chunk Easter gifts for this type of stuff I am all for it.

Hey @Silent Singer!

Really glad you decided to revisit New Legacy following Publish 2! I agree with you, now is a great time to check out New Legacy - between the Legendary Foes, Vesper Museum Antiquity Hunt and the Forsaken Bloodline event, there's a lot to explore and do on New Legacy now.

And the developers are fully committed to ensuring a great production experience, too. You may recall that when New Legacy launched at the end of last year, production had two consecutive events, resulting in several months of fun for production players. We on New Legacy had to content ourselves with the handful of Legendary Foes in the meantime. But the wait was worth it - and moving forward, the developers plan to toggle back and forth between production and New Legacy. ^_^

I see these gaps between global events as the ideal time to do player events without losing most of your potential participants to whatever global event is happening. This past Tuesday Europa governors hosted a vorpal bunny hunt, which had a bit of a surprise for us, because as well as the brightly colored eggs we said we'd give a prize for, we found curiously adorned eggs were spawning too.

I think this is an excellent suggestion too, Petra!

 

[Zynia]

I guess my question would be if they are "cancelling" traditional holiday gifts and events (Valentines, Easter) and focusing on international players; what "international" holidays have they added for that player base?

 

[Lokea]

I guess my question would be if they are "cancelling" traditional holiday gifts and events (Valentines, Easter) and focusing on international players; what "international" holidays have they added for that player base?

I don't think they plan on any new "holidays" for the foreseeable future, at least not like we've had them in the past.

I mentioned this on the official forums, but they could transition to something more automated, similar to say the Darkmoon Faire in WOW, and Ultima IX even provided a nice little setting for it, quoting myself:

Doesn’t have to be an island, could be something like this from Ultima IX: “ Now there was a certain inn, located midway between Britain and Yew, and famous for its excellent autumn ale. So good was the brew that many fine folk were given to retire to that place for a fortnight's holiday when the new casks were breached. Tents had to be pitched on the grounds to hold all the guests, and for two weeks each fall the place took on the air of a fair or festival.”

One week a month (or a weekend) just a fun thing to run around or meet up with friends there. The item collectors get items, for newer players there are things to do hat can help them out, for existing players it’s a chance to see other players outside of Malas or the spawns, etc. and because it’s like clockwork, unlike most events, there’s no stress if you can’t make it that month.

And being monthly, it won’t feel like a waste of dev resources for a one-off event.

Wouldn’t be hard to figure out what it could look like (but it would take some dev time) - we have 9 Ultima games and a handful of expansions (plus the two Worlds games) plus UO’s past, to poke around looking for events. A starting point would be having a Gypsy wagon at the entrance, and the paragraph I quoted above and looking at the Solstice and Spring Festivals from the games. Neutral ground between Fel and Tram players as well. There’s tons of NPCs from the games that haven’t been tapped.

 

[Pawain]

Since there is such a small team and they are constantly working on content, I imagined that some time after the events are over, one of the team said, anyone notice its already March? And they see which of these holidays they could put a deco item in. New Year, Valentine, St Pattys, Easter, or Spring. We have not been getting any of those each year. Its mixed with sometimes 2.

Sometime between Feb 1st and April 31st would be a good time to get a Clicky. I think the Animated Heart Balloons would be quite popular. People fall in love everywhere. IMO the valentine ones have been the best!

 

[Ivory Norwind]

I don't like NL and I don't like that you have to lose (in favor of NL) something in Classic UO. I'm already quite angry about the change a few years ago to the dungeons that are now inaccessible beyond the first level (first levels that are sometimes already too strong for one person). That then they have to lack essential things for fun on the simple Ultima Online especially if in favor of the MMRP I just don't like it. You're just capable of doing events for months (which completely blocked Solen Hive unless you went in a group) in favor of team games. I have been playing solo for I don't know how many years and I want to continue to be able to play alone.

 

[Cinderella]

my 3 adult kids who are playing since last summer where all waiting for the Easter stuff after i bragged it all up.... and now nothing.
i guess if they put on more global arcs and stuff then that would be fine, but wouldn't it be easier to turn on small event stuff and rinse repeat since you have already made it to keep people occupied instead of just hoping they will enjoy your once a year arc?
like the Halloween stuff, they turn that on and every couple years chuck in something new.
you don't hear people complaining about that, gives people stuff to do.
Easter last couple years was fun.
had some excellent stuff to get off it, everyone enjoyed it for the couple weeks.
literally low hanging fruit.
toggle is on and let the paying people keep themselves occupied while you make your arc.
that's what i would do.
like Valentines Day, put up a rose or a plushy bear clicky.
they have done it in years past, just change the colour and its label, what is that 30 minutes of coding to tweak an already existing item?
shuts people up for all of February.
same thing for April, turn on the bunny hunt and counterfeit egg hunt.
that shuts up people for April.
Halloween eats up Oct-Nov
Christmas eats up Dec.
Sept is eaten up by the Anniversary.
that leave 6 months open for your Arc for the year, run a story ark May-Aug that leaves 2 months of the year that are open for your paying clients to busy themselves.
bored people tend to wonder off....
and if enough wonder off.....

I have a bunch of green thorns

we could always do our own event

 

[skett]

I see these gaps between global events as the ideal time to do player events without losing most of your potential participants to whatever global event is happening. This past Tuesday Europa governors hosted a vorpal bunny hunt, which had a bit of a surprise for us, because as well as the brightly colored eggs we said we'd give a prize for, we found curiously adorned eggs were spawning too.

I see the gaps as a good time to trash / sell stuff /junk and close accounts down

 

[Ivory Norwind]

I see the gaps as a good time to trash / sell stuff /junk and close accounts down

Ok, but then where do you go? What's an alternative to the old dear Ultima Online????

 

[Petra Fyde]

I see the gaps as a good time to trash / sell stuff /junk and close accounts down

You do you. I'm still getting too much pleasure out of playing daily to think about giving up. But: I don't play to make gold, so I'm not fussed about the cost of stuff. I don't play Atlantic, so I'm less affected by botters, and the ones I do come across I try to ignore. I refuse to let them spoil my enjoyment of the game.

 

[Veldrane]

I don't disagree with Kryonix's point - the small team needs to focus on building systems that bring long-term playability instead of one off holidays. The system they implemented to speed up deployments of invasions and ToT events is a good example of that. I'd like to see them spend their time building more infrastructure along that lines.

What I find disingenuous about his statement is the part that he isn't saying, "they're not spending time on holidays because their focus is NL." Production severs being de-prioritized over NL was a major concern when it was first announced. I recall certain trolls and cheerleaders shouting down that concern as invalid.

 

[skett]

they are and have been de-prioritized production severs for NL those that think the holidays are not part of UO look at this page
Holiday and Collectible Lists
NL isn't what they advertised over 4 years ago they said achievement rewards might be transferred off now they are adding more and more items trying to bribe/ lore people over to a failed / flawed concept that isn't at all what they said it would be.. largest crowd / player base ? right ....
I bet 2/3 of the people playing NL wouldn't if pets artys and deco wasn't going to be transferred off to production shards

 

[Lokea]

What I find disingenuous about his statement is the part that he isn't saying, "they're not spending time on holidays because their focus is NL." Production severs being de-prioritized over NL was a major concern when it was first announced. I recall certain trolls and cheerleaders shouting down that concern as invalid.

If they had de-prioritized production servers in favor of NL, NL would have been out 3 years earlier and you wouldn't have had all of the holiday and anniversary, and other pixels added for the collectors over the last 3-4 years. If anything, production shards were prioritized.

I still think the NL stuff is probably laying the groundwork for something related to the 30th anniversary. I also think NL is helping to get people from different shards playing together (many of us do not play on Atlantic). It's something different, something big, and they are building and tweaking new systems that can be (eventually) deployed to the production shards.

In the long run, they need to try things like NL, because maintaining the status quo with the production shards and just adding various new pixels for holidays and anniversaries has clearly not been working in bringing new or returning players back, or keeping current players engaged.

If things aren't changed up, UO will be on an actual deathwatch and not just the fake one people tossed around for the last 20 years. I was checking out the Red Dragon Inn on Baja last night, and while heading over from the Zento gate to the coast to sail out there, it was a punch to the gut to see how empty Zento was. And it's not just the smaller shards - I see 18x18s in decent locations on my shard go IDOC and nobody replaces them.

 

[Ivory Norwind]

I say that I don't like NL but not because I don't like it but because after more than 24 years, I can't throw everything to the wind for a shard that lasts 1 year and then I have to start over. If NL were a lasting shard, like many other shards on UO, maybe I would think about it. But no, I can't play for a year or for a period of time and then everything disappears. What's the point? I want a game where things stay, the efforts you make to get everything are worth something and you don't lose them after a while. Is Ultima Online at risk of closing? Ok, what do they give us as an alternative? A true and serious alternative

 

[Lokea]

Is Ultima Online at risk of closing? Ok, what do they give us as an alternative? A true and serious alternative

By the way, I'm not saying it is at risk of closing (although any game is technically at risk, and EA does ultimately own it). They have a small team, and their server costs are cheaper than they were 20 years ago.

But I do believe they have probably reached some kind of point where things have to change in the long term, or rather maybe that they feel they have to change. I know that since I last left, that a lot of people moved to Atlantic which hurts a lot of shards, but I also played on LS and GL when they had populations the size that Atlantic does in 2025 (actually probably larger), when space was at an absolute premium and you were doing good to buy small house spots, so when I keep finding prime spots and keep-sized spots on formerly-busy shards, it leaves me wondering.

Look, they have a plan with NL, and somebody in management above them signed off on that plan. It feels like it's heading towards the 30th Anniversary in 2027, since the next season will probably wrap up in late 2026, which is about the time they will start kicking off events that head into September of 2027. This plan didn't occur in a vacuum, and Kyronix didn't walk into the office one day and just start randomly developing the outline of what NL would become. They began planning it out, they announced it, and they worked on it when they could, when production shard stuff didn't interfere. They developed the NL knowing that it would not be everybody's cup of tea, but they felt compelled to pump dev resources into it.

And maybe it's not anniversary-related, maybe it's them trying to create something that will bring people together from various shards. Yeah, they could release transfer shields for those who haven't hit 14 years, but that doesn't necessarily mean that people on Catskills or LS are going to hop over and banksit in Malas on Atlantic or go hitting dungeons/Champs with other people. But it would be an easy way for the RMTers to make easy money. Instead, they develop a shard where not everything can be transferred around, and that is story-driven (lest we forget the "Ultima" in "Ultima Online"). Something long-term is happening.

Now as to why they are going about things the way they are, they'll never say for a couple of reasons - namely they'll catch hell for whatever reasons they post, even if said reasons make sense, because the critics will latch onto it and use it to talk trash about UO. If they lay down some long-term timelines and they don't quite meet the deadlines they have within that timeline, again, the critics will latch on and use it to talk trash about them or UO or both. I think they do want to keep some things a surprise for the people who are genuinely curious about NL I also think that because they are a small team, it's far more difficult to find time to work on both production and NL shards, so it's easier to keep some long-term things in the dark for UO players, rather than risk missing some deadlines or having to pull back some systems. And there is probably some truth to them adjusting what they do on the NL shard based on feedback and what they see from the previous events on the NL shards.

Anyways, sorry for the manifesto, but I see a lot of people talking about the NL, and what they like or don't like, and it doesn't feel like they are talking about why the NL shards even exist in the first place and what the team hopes to accomplish with them, and I think that's a far more interesting story.

 

[Petra Fyde]

For me, Europa is my home, and where I'll play till either it, or I, no longer exist. NL is for the fun of playing it without worrying about what happens when it goes away, I'll still have Europa.

 

[Keven2002]

If they had de-prioritized production servers in favor of NL, NL would have been out 3 years earlier and you wouldn't have had all of the holiday and anniversary, and other pixels added for the collectors over the last 3-4 years. If anything, production shards were prioritized.

I disagree and the based on what the Dev team said (ie they are focusing on NL) and the fact that we went several years without any real new content (just the same plug and play dynamic events); I think that's proof they were focusing on NL (or maybe just relaxing while they "worked from home"). The system was in place to do more of the plug & play content so all the Dev team had to do was think of some items for that content; again not hard to reskin some like a pair of bone gloves and name them Mantle of Archlich. This could hypothetically be done in a month or two (for the year) and then have 10 months for whatever.

It is what it is at this point for NL; I don't expect them to let it die season 1 but I do wonder if NL was Mesanna's idea (to bring the biggest audience ever) and Kyronix will rethink splitting the dev team's efforts between NL & Prod. They say they can use some of the things in NL to carry over to Prod but outside of artwork/items; I'm not so sure about that because some of the systems (ie skill gain) is completely different from Prod and would require major changes to existing Prod code (something they don't like to do). As someone else mentioned too, it was originally said that only the character would transfer off the shard but now it seems like pets and other items might because who wants to play a shard for a year just to GM some skills (that can be done on Prod). How that integrates into Prod is the biggest question... are those pets going to be OP or will they be like the GM toons you create (ie weaker than what we have on Prod)?

From what I read/heard about NL over the years, it was meant to bring in new/returning player which I think makes sense. The unfortunate thing is that I don't think they've seen some major influx of new people playing NL; in all honesty it's more likely current players that pause playing their own home shards which kind of segments the player group and creates less population on Prod shards (or less population than though for NL during things like dynamic events). I really don't think that was the intention of NL.

 

[Veldrane]

I disagree and the based on what the Dev team said (ie they are focusing on NL) and the fact that we went several years without any real new content (just the same plug and play dynamic events); I think that's proof they were focusing on NL (or maybe just relaxing while they "worked from home"). The system was in place to do more of the plug & play content so all the Dev team had to do was think of some items for that content; again not hard to reskin some like a pair of bone gloves and name them Mantle of Archlich. This could hypothetically be done in a month or two (for the year) and then have 10 months for whatever.

It is what it is at this point for NL; I don't expect them to let it die season 1 but I do wonder if NL was Mesanna's idea (to bring the biggest audience ever) and Kyronix will rethink splitting the dev team's efforts between NL & Prod. They say they can use some of the things in NL to carry over to Prod but outside of artwork/items; I'm not so sure about that because some of the systems (ie skill gain) is completely different from Prod and would require major changes to existing Prod code (something they don't like to do). As someone else mentioned too, it was originally said that only the character would transfer off the shard but now it seems like pets and other items might because who wants to play a shard for a year just to GM some skills (that can be done on Prod). How that integrates into Prod is the biggest question... are those pets going to be OP or will they be like the GM toons you create (ie weaker than what we have on Prod)?

From what I read/heard about NL over the years, it was meant to bring in new/returning player which I think makes sense. The unfortunate thing is that I don't think they've seen some major influx of new people playing NL; in all honesty it's more likely current players that pause playing their own home shards which kind of segments the player group and creates less population on Prod shards (or less population than though for NL during things like dynamic events). I really don't think that was the intention of NL.

I think this is the real question - what is the goal of NL under the new leadership? Anyone who's done development knows that managing multiple code bases is a huge endeavor. UO currently has three code bases or two code bases and a fork, depending on how you want to look at siege. I'd love to know what Kryonix is thinking for dev allocation. Since closing down NL isn't an option as they've invested too much into it, the likely outcome is that NL is the focus, but with the notion that even more items will be transferable to production.

I'd be curious to know if they have explored what it would take to port the current shards over to the NL code base.

 

[Ivory Norwind]

Anyways, sorry for the manifesto, but I see a lot of people talking about the NL, and what they like or don't like, and it doesn't feel like they are talking about why the NL shards even exist in the first place and what the team hopes to accomplish with them, and I think that's a far more interesting story.

They really explained very well the creation of NL and what they want to achieve. They have not said that they will devote themselves almost exclusively to NL but that's what they are doing and it is very clear

 

[Keven2002]

I think this is the real question - what is the goal of NL under the new leadership? Anyone who's done development knows that managing multiple code bases is a huge endeavor. UO currently has three code bases or two code bases and a fork, depending on how you want to look at siege. I'd love to know what Kryonix is thinking for dev allocation. Since closing down NL isn't an option as they've invested too much into it, the likely outcome is that NL is the focus, but with the notion that even more items will be transferable to production.

I'd be curious to know if they have explored what it would take to port the current shards over to the NL code base.

That's an interesting outlook on NL; I'd guess we both have experience of regime changes in the software/tech world and from my experience the person taking over their predecessor's work that they didn't agree with (or is as passionate about) would usually "support" that project/work for a little bit to show good faith, but ultimately would kind of veer away from the old regime. The updates for NL that just went in were likely in the works under Mesanna; the telling thing will be how many updates NL gets down the road (compared to Prod).

The biggest question for me would be what Kyronix feels about NL. If he was a major champion of the project then yes I think you are likely correct; the focus will be more and more on NL with the "shattering" being the point where the "new" stuff merges onto Prod for use. I think the deciding factor will likely be what happens after the season ends. If it's a huge amount of effort or has tons of issues and/or an unfavorable player reaction (ie players don't feel like starting all over again on NL2) then I can see them just doing 1 more season of NL before phasing it out. I think how the end of season 1 is received, combined with how much of an advocate Kyronix is for NL will determine the future of NL.

 

[skett]

I just wonder how many new / return players it lured in over the last 6 months compared to how many players have quit over the last 4 years bc of lack of new content and rinse and repeat events as well as seeing NL and what they are doing with it now.
I see people still closing accounts down and idocs still on all shards.
How long will NL keep those new/ return players ?
Anyone who says NL didn't take away from production is delusional... It still is

 

[Keven2002]

Yea I'd be curious on what the overall subscription change has been year over year from 2019 through 2024.

I will say that short time I did play NL (mainly out of boredom) that I did have a chance to meet some new & pretty cool/helpful people and I think that's what UO was built on (at least for me) 25+ years ago. Some people really only care about community and aren't super concerned with new content; it's not for me (when we pay a subscription for the game at least) but I'm sure some people value the community over new stuff to do.

 

[Pawain]

(or maybe just relaxing while they "worked from home"

You clearly have not seen the interviews with Kyronix, his whole adult life has revolved around UO. Show one thing he has said that makes you believe he is a slacker. Keep your stupid conspiracy theories in Unleashed.

 

[Petra Fyde]

Did anyone actually bother to listen to some of the recent interviews? They are NOT favouring NL over Prodo, they're alternating publishes. Prodo got 119, NL got publish 2, Prodo has the promise of a Summer event. The whole team live and breath UO. Fortunately they tend to not listen to nasty-minded spiteful conspiracy theories.
They have my unqualified support and I will aid them in any way my limited abilities allow me to.

 

[Anon McDougle]

A summer event is too far away

 

[Pawain]

A summer event is too far away

The next event used to be in October before NL was even thought of. We had 6 months or more of nothing.

Never enough for you.

 

[Veldrane]

Did anyone actually bother to listen to some of the recent interviews? They are NOT favouring NL over Prodo, they're alternating publishes. Prodo got 119, NL got publish 2, Prodo has the promise of a Summer event. The whole team live and breath UO. Fortunately they tend to not listen to nasty-minded spiteful conspiracy theories.
They have my unqualified support and I will aid them in any way my limited abilities allow me to.

Let's be honest here, you're hardly an unbiased opinion on the subject. Also, the team unfortunately takes any sort of feedback that isn't rah rah as nasty-minded and spiteful.

You clearly have not seen the interviews with Kyronix, his whole adult life has revolved around UO. Show one thing he has said that makes you believe he is a slacker. Keep your stupid conspiracy theories in Unleashed.

Slacker? I don't think anyone's impression of Kryonix is that of a slacker. I've always considered him very dedicated to UO. However, NL suffered many delays far exceeding typical SDLC expectations, including a three-month period during which the project head's absence supposedly prevented any progress. So let's not act like everyone is running at 120% allocation all week every week. I suspect Kevin's comment about working (relaxing) from home was a joke. Last I knew, Broadsword had a strict in office rule pre and post covid, which I find to actually be a negative. They'd attract better talent with a remote work model like pretty much all the rest of software development.

 

[Lokea]

For me, Europa is my home, and where I'll play till either it, or I, no longer exist. NL is for the fun of playing it without worrying about what happens when it goes away, I'll still have Europa.

I think a lot of people are losing sight of this - those people are taking a micro-level look at NL instead of a macro/broader look at UO in general..

I could be wrong, but everything I've seen says that NL is about adding some serious new content for the RPGers and those who are bored of existing content and systems in such a way that doesn't upset current UO players or current systems. The UO.com and Stratics forums would be full of people melting down if they all of the sudden made a lot of changes to the production shards (aka migrating the NL rulesets to the production shards). But they need to have some new rulesets for new systems - it's just the nature of software development that it's better to do it on a new shard rather than risk breaking a lot of things for shards with players who have been around for decades.

Not to mention the whole house/guild thing on the NL shards - they would have to make serious changes to existing housing systems and nobody wants that.
They just do not want to make drastic changes to existing production shards, and they also don't want to create something that the power gamers/RMTers/etc. could power through in hours and start selling in Malas the same day. That's why NL is a separate shard and that's why they are being cautious about what they allow to transfer over. They want this stuff to have meaning to those who go through the trouble of finishing it.

 

[Lokea]

I'd be curious to know if they have explored what it would take to port the current shards over to the NL code base.

See my response above - you do not want to do something like that and either A) risk breaking current shards (from a technical perspective) or B) make changes that piss off people who are used to things being a certain way for the last decade or more.

 

[skett]

“those who go through the trouble of finishing it”

 

[Lokea]

It is what it is at this point for NL; I don't expect them to let it die season 1 but I do wonder if NL was Mesanna's idea (to bring the biggest audience ever) and Kyronix will rethink splitting the dev team's efforts between NL & Prod.
.....
From what I read/heard about NL over the years, it was meant to bring in new/returning player which I think makes sense. The unfortunate thing is that I don't think they've seen some major influx of new people playing NL; in all honesty it's more likely current players that pause playing their own home shards which kind of segments the player group and creates less population on Prod shards (or less population than though for NL during things like dynamic events). I really don't think that was the intention of NL.

That's an interesting outlook on NL; I'd guess we both have experience of regime changes in the software/tech world and from my experience the person taking over their predecessor's work that they didn't agree with (or is as passionate about) would usually "support" that project/work for a little bit to show good faith, but ultimately would kind of veer away from the old regime. The updates for NL that just went in were likely in the works under Mesanna; the telling thing will be how many updates NL gets down the road (compared to Prod).

The biggest question for me would be what Kyronix feels about NL. If he was a major champion of the project then yes I think you are likely correct; the focus will be more and more on NL with the "shattering" being the point where the "new" stuff merges onto Prod for use.

We know how small the dev team is. We know that somebody upstairs from Mesanna/Kyronix either signed off on this, or possibly even gave Mesanna the task of doing some new things (and the public reveal of NL was fairly close to the 25th Anniversary). I very much think that Kyronix was involved with the design of NL from the start, and as @Pawain said, he's passionate about UO. I doubt Mesanna developed all of the ideas on her own, because while she was wearing the producer hat, she was also wearing the customer service hat, and probably several other hats. She did not have time to meticulously plan the NL system - for that you need a designer.

Now what the long-term goals for NL are, who knows, but I don't think NL exists in a vacuum - I've said several times now that I think the timing is meant to lead into the 30th anniversary. If we start the new season this October, that leads us to October of 2026 as the end of the next season, and it's at that point that things have to kick into gear for whatever is planned for the 30th in 2027. Those of us who played back when we got regular expansions, know that there was a lot of prep work from a content/storytelling perspective (not always, but mostly), as well as a technical perspective in the preceding months/year. I'm not saying there's going to be an expansion, but I do think that NL could be their testbed for whatever events are planned for 2027.

 

[Veldrane]

Yea I'd be curious on what the overall subscription change has been year over year from 2019 through 2024.

I will say that short time I did play NL (mainly out of boredom) that I did have a chance to meet some new & pretty cool/helpful people and I think that's what UO was built on (at least for me) 25+ years ago. Some people really only care about community and aren't super concerned with new content; it's not for me (when we pay a subscription for the game at least) but I'm sure some people value the community over new stuff to do.

You can tell that the systems in NL are much more flexible and extensible than production UO is. While I still oppose NL as a separate code base and seasonal model, I believe many of their systems would have served production better. Yes, that would have meant a heavy rewrite of production, but I think there was a path there that could have been successful. NL has far too many deviations to what is core UO to be a straight port to production, but there's a lot of good innovation there.

 

[Veldrane]

See my response above - you do not want to do something like that and either A) risk breaking current shards (from a technical perspective) or B) make changes that piss off people who are used to things being a certain way for the last decade or more.

UO is dying a slow death because of stagnation. Measured implementation of change isn't bad. I think Krynoix has the mindset to approach change in a much better manner than his predecessor.

 

[skett]

@Lokea

I’m not sure why you think NL has anything to do with the 30th anniversary. You think in 2020 they started preparing for the 30th anniversary when we hadn’t had the 25th yet ? They might twist it some how into the 30th anniversary but it has nothing to do with it. I hope they pull the plug on it after this season tbh.

 

[Veldrane]

I doubt Mesanna developed all of the ideas on her own, because while she was wearing the producer hat, she was also wearing the customer service hat, and probably several other hats. She did not have time to meticulously plan the NL system - for that you need a designer.

I'm going to disagree here a bit. She is a well known micromanager and narcissist. I doubt Kryonix had as much input as you believe he did.

 

[skett]

UO is dying a slow death because of stagnation. Measured implementation of change isn't bad. I think Krynoix has the mindset to approach change in a much better manner than his predecessor.

after reading the interview I found him to be tone deaf. I hope I’m wrong tho

 

[Lokea]

I just wonder how many new / return players it lured in over the last 6 months compared to how many players have quit over the last 4 years bc of lack of new content and rinse and repeat events as well as seeing NL and what they are doing with it now.

Yea I'd be curious on what the overall subscription change has been year over year from 2019 through 2024.

I will say that short time I did play NL (mainly out of boredom) that I did have a chance to meet some new & pretty cool/helpful people and I think that's what UO was built on (at least for me) 25+ years ago. Some people really only care about community and aren't super concerned with new content; it's not for me (when we pay a subscription for the game at least) but I'm sure some people value the community over new stuff to do.

As somebody who last took a break around the time of the 16th Anniversary (and I had already checked out by then - I was just paying to keep my houses up and collect gifts and vet stuff, I was not playing), when I came back earlier this year, I actually looked at and thought about various major changes that had happened since that era of 2011-2013.

These are what stood out to me in terms of importance, and note that I'm leaving a lot of stuff out that would not have been noticed by me or anybody else who was not following UO.com (or who had never played) - this is stuff I saw in various emails asking me to come back, newsletters, mentions on other MMO sites, etc.

• Vet transfer shields (2011) - It may seem odd to mention these, but I think without these, you might not have seen a lot of people move to Atlantic - I've certainly seen many, many houses on ATL that have shields for various other shards.
• King's Collection - June 2013 - this was all about adding stuff for existing/paying customers and generating revenue.
• Vendor Search - Dec 2013 - this was not something that would bring new or former players in by itself but was definitely a quality-of-life improvement for both existing players, and new players coming in who were used to other MMOs.
• Time of Legends - 2015 - this was an actual expansion and something that could get the attention of both potential new players as well as former players.
• Ultima Store - May 2016 - this was all about existing customers and more revenue (but it made it easier for existing players to get exactly what they wanted).
• Customizable Castles and Keeps - 2018 - this was all about existing customers (and potentially returning players who might find it interesting to finally do something different in a massive footprint).
• Endless Journey - 2018 - this was a massive thing, got a lot of attention, and was definitely about new and former players (I know that many existing players used EJ accounts for various other purposes, sometimes picking up a vault for storage).
• ClassicUO Web Client - 2024 - I think this was also about new and former players. It was a change up for those who did not like the existing clients, and it was big for Mac/Linux users who were tired of using VMs.
• New Legacy - 2024 - I think it was meant for existing, new, and former players. It got a lot of attention, it was EJ-friendly (mostly). It brings in some more traditional RPing elements.

As I said, I know there are more things, but these are what one would notice from emails and various MMO websites if they weren't following UO closely.

Out of those things since 2013, only Time of Legends, Endless Journey, ClassicUO, and New Legacy were capable of generating interest outside of the UO community, but let's not kid ourselves, the graphics, while we like them, are not helping UO out, so it may be better to argue that those things were meant to interest former players.

It's interesting to see the spacing in between those. 2013 was busy. 2015 was as well. 2018 saw some big things for existing players (and potential players), and then 2024. That's the result of a small dev team.

 

[Veldrane]

after reading the interview I found him to be tone deaf. I hope I’m wrong tho

With his predecessor still working for Broadsword, I'm sure he took the safe route when addressing certain topics. I think he has a passion for UO and I believe that is going to be a good thing. If I had to give some advice to Krynox (not that that I would ever be asked for it), it would be the following.

1. Pay Attention to Industry Trends -This one is nuanced. Pay attention to what is becoming popular in the MMO world, but also understand your player base. The quest framework in NL is a good example of this. The seasonal nature of NL is a bad example.
2. Grind Does NOT Equal Good - Love it or hate it, but old school RPG was all about the grind. UO was never as bad as EQ was, but those days were long over. You've got an aging player base that does not play six to eight hours a day on average. There shouldn't be an instant "I get the rare widget of whatever" button, but not everything needs to be a grind.
3. Share a Roadmap - He's already doing this, but I think after years of poor communication, this one is critical. You don't have to share all the details, but make sure that the player base understands what is on the horizon.
4. Get Out of the Echo Chamber - There is has been the long running notion that there are only two types of people in the forums - those that love the game and those that hate it. The team has leaned toward only listening to those people who weapon toxic positivity. As for constructive & critical feedback. Yeah, because of the vitriol the toxic positivity folks have brought to any discussion that has tried to voice critical feedback, it's going to be hard. It's like politics. The middle ground folks are few because the only way to be heard in the shouting match is to be so far on one side. Going to take some work, but continue engaging the ENTIRE community to help foster those reasonable voices that aren't just going to agree or disagree with every decision based on nothing but principal.

 

[Anon McDougle]

NL isn't UO it's a weak wow copy even the divergent path didn't fix that toss in the thing that makes UO well UO it's permanency we've lived in our UO home longer than any real life one. my characters are older than my children.

 

[Veldrane]

NL isn't UO it's a weak wow copy even the divergent path didn't fix that toss in the thing that makes UO well UO it's permanency we've lived in our UO home longer than any real life one. my characters are older than my children.

Yes, that's why a straight port would destroy UO. Like just shut off the servers type of destroy. However, take a step back and look at the systems they built. That quest engine alone (don't focus on the paths nonsense) would have been a massive boost to production.