Draconi, who are you playing to?

[Guest]

Do me a favor, Draconi. Log into a character. One that you play when you don't want anyone to know it's you. Then go to the most crowded bank on the shard, and take the time to talk to... say... ten people. Get each of them to summarize, in their own words, the Inu the Crone storyline up to this point. I'll be shocked if more than one or two have anything more to say than "Well Ophidians attacked, and blackrock blew up Haven, and demons blew up Magincia for some reason!"

Who is it that's supposed to be sitting around thinking that the little non-event which happened on Friday was cool? We've got people from overseas coming on to post "I not so good with the english, but how do you say, le WTF?"

When you kicked the Magincia invasion off with just a few creatures to kill, posted some "prelude" story on the website, then waited a week before giving us any more monsters... who did you think enjoyed the waiting? All I remember is 90% of everyone thinking it was over and being disgusted.

Who do you think enjoyed sitting squelched watching NPC chatter at that silly Ricardo trial a while back?

I'm sure some people enjoyed these things. But how many? Some of the hardcore on these forums, maybe some of the roleplayers... A drop in the bucket compared to all the regular slobs who just kill monsters and banksit and never bother reading Stratics.

But we're not talking about the efforts of a guy with his D&D crew, or a Seer horsing around with the "in crowd" like it used to be in the old days. We're talking about the development team of a major commercial MMORPG.

You're a developer, not a DM. Quit playing so hard to a tiny fraction of your audience. Quit thinking anyone but a few enjoys this c**ktease business. Cut right to the havoc and put the speeches on the website.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

Do me a favor, Draconi. Log into a character. One that you play when you don't want anyone to know it's you. Then go to the most crowded bank on the shard, and take the time to talk to... say... ten people. Get each of them to summarize, in their own words, the Inu the Crone storyline up to this point. I'll be shocked if more than one or two have anything more to say than "Well Ophidians attacked, and blackrock blew up Haven, and demons blew up Magincia for some reason!"

Who is it that's supposed to be sitting around thinking that the little non-event which happened on Friday was cool? We've got people from overseas coming on to post "I not so good with the english, but how do you say, le WTF?"

When you kicked the Magincia invasion off with just a few creatures to kill, posted some "prelude" story on the website, then waited a week before giving us any more monsters... who did you think enjoyed the waiting? All I remember is 90% of everyone thinking it was over and being disgusted.

Who do you think enjoyed sitting squelched watching NPC chatter at that silly Ricardo trial a while back?

I'm sure some people enjoyed these things. But how many? Some of the hardcore on these forums, maybe some of the roleplayers... A drop in the bucket compared to all the regular slobs who just kill monsters and banksit and never bother reading Stratics.

But we're not talking about the efforts of a guy with his D&amp;D crew, or a Seer horsing around with the "in crowd" like it used to be in the old days. We're talking about the development team of a major commercial MMORPG.

You're a developer, not a DM. Quit playing so hard to a tiny fraction of your audience. Quit thinking anyone but a few enjoys this c**ktease business. Cut right to the havoc and put the speeches on the website.

[/ QUOTE ]

Alright, I had some critical remarks for them primarily in regards to communication and managing expectations, but I think you're going way too far here. Because you don't buy into this stuff, doesn't mean a whole horde of people do, myself included. If you want to get straight to the havok, go hunt in Doom or something. There are plenty of monsters for you to mindlessly kill there. Admittedly I'm a roleplayer, but I've got friends who aren't and who came and enjoyed the Ricardo trial. Actually, the majority of people who saw it, myself included, had very low expectations. We didn't think it would be entertaining just sitting around, but we went out of curiosities sake and found ourselves quite engrossed. The storylines have been intruiging and have generated a lot of speculation among the players. The events are drawing out huge crowds. UO is more active during events than I've seen it in a long time so they must be doing something right. I don't mind watching a story play out. I don't even mind if it is short. My contention is you can better manage player expectations if you communicate more clearly and let us know when a "big" event is only going to be a few minutes long for the first stage. I'd even suggest making it longer and more involving to begin with. What I don't say is their efforts and creativity is pointless.

 

[Guest]

Last time I bothered reading these boards was around the time of the last event, and I remember a lot of newbs coming on and screaming that the event was too short. This was followed by the hardcore Stratics crowd having to explain that it wasn't actually over, and me wondering what the point of waiting was.

Yeah yeah, some hardcore forum guy with quadruple-digit posts thought the trial thing was neato, and assures me his friends did too. But the fact is, the MMO masses just don't care about lore. They don't. Almost nobody reads the quest text in WoW, almost nobody in UO gives a crap what gibberish Inu is spouting in what town, and whatever story the developers make up, half of all the roleplayers will try to pin whatever happens in Moonglow on drow jedi gangsters, or whatever their own personal storyline dictates.

I mean imagine an alternate world where Magincia was wall-to-wall monsters on Day One. Do you really see anyone coming to the boards and going "DARN IT DEVS, I WISH YOU HAD STOPPED THE EVENT FOR A WEEK AND KEPT THE SPAWN LOW!"

edit: I should clarify, it's not like I'm saying we shouldn't have a story. But I get the impression they're sitting over there thinking that we're stewing and murmurring and whispering in anticipation to each other over what crazy twist the story will take, when really it's like five people on the forums doing that, while the 300 guys standing there when the event actually ended were more like just "wtf, no monstars? ripoff!!1!" and so forth.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

Last time I bothered reading these boards was around the time of the last event, and I remember a lot of newbs coming on and screaming that the event was too short. This was followed by the hardcore Stratics crowd having to explain that it wasn't actually over, and me wondering what the point of waiting was.

Yeah yeah, some hardcore forum guy with quadruple-digit posts thought the trial thing was neato, and assures me his friends did too. But the fact is, the MMO masses just don't care about lore. They don't. Almost nobody reads the quest text in WoW, almost nobody in UO gives a crap what gibberish Inu is spouting in what town, and whatever story the developers make up, half of all the roleplayers will try to pin whatever happens in Moonglow on drow jedi gangsters, or whatever their own personal storyline dictates.

I mean imagine an alternate world where Magincia was wall-to-wall monsters on Day One. Do you really see anyone coming to the boards and going "DARN IT DEVS, I WISH YOU HAD STOPPED THE EVENT FOR A WEEK AND KEPT THE SPAWN LOW!"

edit: I should clarify, it's not like I'm saying we shouldn't have a story. But I get the impression they're sitting over there thinking that we're stewing and murmurring and whispering in anticipation to each other over what crazy twist the story will take, when really it's like five people on the forums doing that, while the 300 guys standing there when the event actually ended were more like just "wtf, no monstars? ripoff!!1!" and so forth.

[/ QUOTE ]

To immediately counter your points, they've had events where it was wall to wall monsters in a town. The players cried for a build-up which led to the invasion of Britain, which I thought was well done except they made the bone headed decision to release the treasures of Tokuno at exactly the same time. There are a lot more people into the feel of the story, if not the details, than you expect. I think your 300 guys aren't just waiting for a monster bash. I think they are all different, some wanting more story, some such as yourself who could care less.

 

[imported_ParadoxUO]

Cant make everyone happy... but... I'M HAPPY!

GO DEVS!!!

 

[Guest]

And here I thought this was a den of mindless cheerleading. Way to show me.

Man, can we have an event that doesn't start a "WTF, WAS THAT IT?" riot after it's "mysterious first phase"?

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

And here I thought this was a den of mindless cheerleading. Way to show me.

Man, can we have an event that doesn't start a "WTF, WAS THAT IT?" riot after it's "mysterious first phase"?

[/ QUOTE ]

When they started the EM program, the first event was quite simple. They just handed out sashes. Everyone was aware that there would be no fighting. It seems like such a mundane thing, but people waited around hours for the event to start and lined up to get those sashes. Now I realize there was a goodie involved, but the event went over pretty well because players had a level of expectation and it was met. If people know the early phase would be this quick, I think it would have been better received. A little better communication is what I'm asking for. The website should be the prime source for disseminating information, not these boards. The majority of UO Players like UO quite well, but you'd think they all hated the game by most of the posts here.

 

[imported_blesh]

gettin thrown into something headlong without waiting is like getting your birthday, christmas, easter, and halloween all thrown down on one day.

anticipation is half the fun. chill out and be patient. if they didnt release things slowly you would be on here pancakes about how short and few and far between the events are.

Dev team, you rock, and are certainly getting better than when i started 2 years ago as far as live events go. I'm very happy, and look forward to future events.

 

[Bordoms]

<blockquote><hr>

...But the fact is, the MMO masses just don't care about lore. They don't. Almost nobody reads the quest text in WoW...

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not a WoW fanboi by any means, but that's one area they excelled at (lore) and you're wrong about the "almost nobody reads" the quest text. 90% of the people I played with read the entire quest prior to accepting it - we'd stand around until everyone finished. If you didn't, you missed a huge aspect of the game and it was nothing more than deliver blah blah blah..kill blah blah blah.

I was partial to the Duskwood quests, especially the Legend of Stalvan, but then, I read the story line and found myself absorbed in it, hurrying to find the pages of his past and learn of what became of him. I absolutely enjoy that type of depth in an MMO I played. UO lacks in that area significantly.

 

[imported_feath]

I got up at 1am, my local time, to play my legends character. Happily looking forward to -anything- that would be provided. I was aware that not much would happen - the uo.com site is pretty clear the main event is the following day.
I sat there for a while, so did a lot of others, and...nothing happened.
That bothered me a bit, but I know stuff happens. But what made me upset, was -nothing- was posted about it being delayed. I continue to check boards and uo.com for -any- communication on what is happening. Its now 12 hours since it should have started, and there is still nothing, anywhere that I can find.
I have nothing against what anyone's posted in this thread, even though I may not agree with them. I just wish we knew what was going on, so I could be there -if I wished to be there- when something is happening.

 

[Guest]

Who enjoyed the scenarios? me for one

 

[imported_Cyrah]

Oh for pete's sake...

Point one, it was made very clear that friday was the prelude. Yes it was called an event. Should have been called a prelude. I give you that. On LS Nathan told people this, a few heard.


Point Two, all that happened in the past is the past. This is a new dev team, and it is small. We have no clue what they are really up against.

Point Three, I will say only this on the past, some devs spawned a monster on every tile for events. Wtf was word.

Anyways I bet irl all of us give people a break now and then. Yes I know we pay, yep, yep.

It will all be fine and heroes will live and die once more.

 

[Larisa]

I didn't even read past the OP.

WHO is he playing to and how MANY were interested were the only things that caught my eye.

Now, remember...this is on ORIGIN, one of the least populated shards...

Freeing Inu from the Evil Yrygor

Killing the Void Shadow

This is the FIRST Ricardo trial, remember it re-ran once a day

That's a heck of alot of *nobodies* that aren't interested in the event. And that's just ONE shard.

The Inu thing was HUGE when it ran once a week.....all of the people who participated remember, and were VERY excited and VERY interested and VERY involved in the whole thing.

So in answer to your question...I guess he's playing to the people that actually CARE??? Maybe....about Ultima...about it's history...about it's future.

Sure the Inu Event Arc tapered off a bit....alot of changes happened within the company, we lost alot of great people but the ones we still have, and the ones we've aquired since then have been working hard to give us what we want...no matter how much we whine and cry and boohoo about things.

I am glad to see Inu spouting nonsense again, I am glad that this event is FINALLY happening, the stress test was SO long ago but I remember it, it was fun, it was chaos and I am looking forward to doing it on my home shard this time.

 

[imported_Gwyneth]

<blockquote><hr>

...I guess he's playing to the people that actually CARE??? Maybe....about Ultima...about it's history...about it's future.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's what I prefer to believe. I'm one of those who recently returned to UO and it feels wonderful to be back, just to savor the magic again. It's all good.

 

[Vallend]

I know on the Catskills shard we are heavily involved in the events. Partly because Franklin, Sahra and myself try our best to keep the players informed on all the aspects of the event. When we find out something is coming up we post about it and what you may need for the event, (Such as last night we got word out that you may of needed blackrock on you, and one player was kind enough to show up with near 70 of them that she handed out to everyone else.) we tell the players where the event is and the time it should start too. We also post any background information we find on the event too, to help player get more fully into the event.
We fully cover the events and make sure those players who contributed to it get the notice that they deserve. So in my humble opinion Catskills players know what the storyline is if they read Stratics, and if they don’t we will recap it for them, so everyone on the shard can enjoy it.

 

[Guest]

Uh Larisa, was that the rerun of the Ricardo trial that the nudist colony just happened to catch?

 

[Surgeries]

<blockquote><hr>

But the fact is, the MMO masses just don't care about lore. They don't. Almost nobody reads the quest text in WoW, almost nobody in UO gives a crap what gibberish Inu is spouting in what town, and whatever story the developers make up, half of all the roleplayers will try to pin whatever happens in Moonglow on drow jedi gangsters, or whatever their own personal storyline dictates.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah...it's me.

The UHaller with lots of posts.

I am just going to ask a few simple logical questions, that I hope you can answer cogently:

How in the heck do YOU know what the "Masses" in UO want? Exactly?

Exit Polls you conducted on tens of thousands, that have left UO?

ALL of YOUR friends and players...all of the THOUSANDS, or even HUNDREDS that Draconi and team are ignoring?

The ones that YOU know so very welll what THEY want, and that Draconi and Team are completely missing.

Uh huh. Yeah...righto.

You got it all going on.

UO needs new life new blood and new activities, badly.

Content injections have been minimal, at best, of late. Lots of things have gone wrong in the last year...two years...five years...indeed.

<blockquote><hr>

I mean imagine an alternate world where Magincia was wall-to-wall monsters on Day One. Do you really see anyone coming to the boards and going "DARN IT DEVS, I WISH YOU HAD STOPPED THE EVENT FOR A WEEK AND KEPT THE SPAWN LOW!"


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes...actually.

That would have been an extremely likely pancake from at least a few players, on these boards...even from people who have played for years.

Yes...I believe there would have been pancakes, and loud at that, no matter WHAT EA does.

"Too long!!" Too Short!!" "Too Hard!!" "Too Easy!!" "Wrong Facet!!" "Wrong Time!!" " Too Many Items!!"

Ugh.

I only know what I read here, and what the people I know and play with feel, and what the people I meet in game say. It isn't the MASSES that YOU seem to know so intimately.

But they aren't all feeling what YOU say the "Masses" REALLY want. Not at all. And neither am I.

Which, then, makes me wonder...

Do I just hang out with the wrong people?

Or do you?

 

[imported_Coppelia]

<blockquote><hr>

Yeah yeah, some hardcore forum guy with quadruple-digit posts thought the trial thing was neato, and assures me his friends did too. But the fact is, the MMO masses just don't care about lore. They don't. Almost nobody reads the quest text in WoW, almost nobody in UO gives a crap what gibberish Inu is spouting in what town, and whatever story the developers make up, half of all the roleplayers will try to pin whatever happens in Moonglow on drow jedi gangsters, or whatever their own personal storyline dictates.

[/ QUOTE ]
That's true for a lot of players.

What's more frustrating is when you miss a part of the event arc and you're suddenly out of the story. For example I didn't know Inu had to be freed. But I join others when fighting the Void Shadow (that I left after dying by a spawn at the one-way entrance of the dungeon).
All I see is Inu babbling in Nujel'm with keywords going nowhere, books in Jordan's office in Minoc that I never read but always told myself I should take the time once to do it, strange things through the land (weird gate in Britain, puzzle rooms in Fandancer dojo...) that I don't know and have no clue how it works and what it is for.
I feel a bit rejected, as if I wasn't worth it because I wasn't there when it happened and I didn't read hundreds of posts of players trying to solve stupid riddles.

If anticipation is half of the fun, asking for players to gather at a time with the promise of an event and doing nothing but muttering Matrix-like gibberish... that's not anticipation. If nothing's going to happen, just tell it in the annoucement : "First night will be a speech to expose the plot" (for those who care). And then the interrest of doing the event ingame instead of a text on a website is to interact with players. So discuss with players, doh!

When you say "Events return! Bob discovered how to use blackrock properly and will try it next saturday at 9 PM!", that's anticipation, that's exciting. You expect it's going to blow up, spawn lots of thing and you're anticipating. Then if you don't give what the players come from, they're frustrated. Like if Steven Spielberg decided not to show the T-Rex in Jurassic Park, or like if there were no alien to be seen in Aliens, and then they'd say T-Rex/aliens are coming in the next movie.


The game is there for interaction, not reading annoying plot exposure in the middle of spam. If you can't handle a discussion with players without spam going wild, just spawn some mobs or w/e requires to click and not to chat. Don't take it personal, it doesn't mean the story is bad. Well I don't know, finally I don't know who's really Inu. Maybe the whole story is nice, maybe it's rubbish... I can't know I don't seem to be welcome.

 

[Guest]

Wow. Someone was actually giving away Blackrock? We had a Guy on LS trying to sell it for 1 million each, hehehe.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

I'll be shocked if more than one or two have anything more to say than "Well Ophidians attacked, and blackrock blew up Haven, and demons blew up Magincia for some reason!"

[/ QUOTE ]
Inu was quite well known a couple years ago but since she has not been in the spotlight for nearly a year she may have been fotgotten. That is the result of sporadic events, not people disregrading the story.

Plus when you tear down event relics such as the Ricardo Wanted Posters, who is anyone supposed to know what is going on? Ricardo is still relevant but you wouldn't know it.

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

"... can we have an event that doesn't start a ..."


nope

Lack of events will start a ________
Paced release of events will start a ________
Instanced series of multiple selected events will start a _____
evenly distributed across Fel/Tram facets will start a ______
dedicated to JUST one rule set will start a _________
Giving Powerful "rare" items will start a _________
Giving nothing will start a _________

witness your own posting ...

You've no clue ... "go to the most crowded bank on the shard, and take the time to talk to... say... ten people" ...

So ... you think the banksitters .... are a good reflection ? should have tried it on at least one shard ... before making Your suggestion.
OR
Are YOU trying to "steer" Draconi ... via your suggestions &gt;here&lt; ?

Not exactly a "group of expertise" to draw from , &gt;here&lt; , on the forums ... supposedly ... all those &gt;here&lt;, had access to the same "precise" info ...
where to go, what to bring, what to expect ...

"... can we have an event that doesn't start a ..."

nope

 

[Guest]

Larisa, the mose people I see is maybe 50 in one of the screen shots. I see more people than that at Yew gate on any given night.

Does anyone know what the population of each shard is?

I personaly didn't take part in these events because they are boring to me, but thats just me.

In the big scheme of things I do like that they are trying to add content to the game to try to keep it fresh.

I just wish that they would address in game issues with as much effort as they do to new content. errrr, then again maybe not... considering how poorly they go off sometimes

Granted the Devs have also addressed taming and crafting a little bit which is nice, but one of my main concerns is almost never addressed, and that is PvP. And when they do make chages to PvP it with the NERF stick!!

Couldn't EA post a list of 5 changes or enhancements and let the community vote on the order they are implemented, or at least the top 3? Also they would actually have to follow through with all 3 or 5 changes.

 

[Floyd the Barber]

I agree with you only to a certain extent.

Yes, the Inu story line has been played out waaaaay too long and very confusing for people. And, most people probably couln't tell you what in the hell is actually going on with it. Very poorly put together, just trying to remind myself of all of the changes that have taken place amongst that dev team/ea since it started which has probably caused most of it.

On the other side of the coin though I think you are wrong in the fact that only a minority takes part or wants these sort of events. I think most people enjoy the events because they think it's a chance to receive some sort of item/reward.

So, maybe people don't care as much about the lore as they do the chance to get something out of the event, but people definitely want events and this kind of stuff. At the same time though the Inu thing has been played out very poorly unfortunately.

 

[imported_Skrag]

RTLFC

The OP is basically right, and a few designated Stratics community people going "Look at this screenshot of a dozen people in some Ilshenar dungeon!" doesn't change that.