I can only assume they are going for at least slightly more than "Cal looks at camera and talks."
One consistent problem they have, though, and this goes not only for the current team but for every team I'm aware of that's worked on UO, is the anticipation not quite matching the final product.
And now, on a related note, I'll talk generally about the state of the game itself.
The really funny thing though is that despite the issues in the game, there's a fair amount going on that's right. The EM program is great. The invasions are fun for many, it seems, judging by the level of participation on Great Lakes, at least. (Every invasion in UO history that I've ever been involved in has a drop-off after it's become routine and it becomes obvious that we're not dislodging the invasion until the storyline itself progresses; that's just to be expected.) I genuinely believe that the server movement we've seen has the end goals in mind of updating capacity, improving performance, etc. The story arc, once you look through the weird stylistic and implementation issues, is actually decent. The villain has a new graphic. That, to me, is wonderfully telling in a good way.
The stuff that's gone right, though, has been accompanied by stuff going wrong, which other posts have covered.
But, the real issue is one of communication. They just don't do it well.
When we, being UO players, over-react to it, they respond by not communicating at all. And, really, this is just an extreme form of what's gone on in UO since its birth. A classic example is Europa. It was down. They got it back up. But then they forgot to tell us it was back up. So now if someone looks at the site, all they'll see is that it was down days ago, and no further news. It's not like they haven't logged into the Herald since then; they have and have posted multiple things but still can't bring themselves to edit the "Europa is down" post to say "it's back! Yay!" Another classic example is this phrase from one of the In the Shadow of Virtue fictions: "HeThe figure." The writer couldn't decide if the character was to be referred to in that sentence as "He" or "The Figure," and used both, presumably on accident. And then never proof-read.
Devs and players are both at fault to be sure (we overreact to the negative, have exaggerated expectations, take everything in the most negative possible light, have inconsistent expectations that we decide to pretend are not inconsistent, etc.), but the difference is they're getting paid for this. This game, and all related things (including fictional posts and message board posts), is their product.
-Galen's player
