For those who feel doom and gloom...

[Saphireena]

I found I found it!

Now to find the old message board with people's comments .

 

[Woodsman]

I am confused by the orc as a playable race comment. Do we not have this in game already? We have Orc armor, Orc masks (several), Orc polymorph, custom orc housing tilesets, orc deco, and the big majik flippers (orc costumes?). There are lots of ways to play orcs. You can imbue yourself a very lovely Orc mask and even dye it to match.

I love this aspect of UO. The orcs are an entirely playable race, but in a way that could only be found in UO.

Don't forget that if you use the EC, you can pick an Orc appearance.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

You can try to candy coat it all you want and argue about how it isn't a Kung Fu Panda/ Pokemon expansion.... but it is... You can say all you want about how it's always been there and blah, blah, blah..... but the fact remains it's a Kung Fu Panda/Pokemon expansion....

If you don't want to think of it that way go right ahead delude yourself..... but you know deep down that's EXACTLY what it is... Catering to the kiddies.

Yes, and High Seas was Pirates of the Caribbean. Without, you know, any of the excitement of aforementioned movie.

These silly arguments that deride a game that is taken seriously by its development company and which has surpassed every MMO milestone and then made some of its own is a bit, well, silly.

Ultima Online has had one major problem in the 14 years it's been around.

Electronic Arts.

I'm glad there are still people playing UO that truly enjoy the experience it offers. For me, the only things UO has that the others don't have is a very small list:

- Roleplaying
- Live events
- Customizable housing

That's about it.

Now, there are days that I roam Azeroth thinking to myself, "What a waste of a virtual world." Those are the days I wish Designer Dragon had been in charge of WoW at some point and that housing had at least made it into the game on the SWG level. There are days that I wish WoW wasn't a leveler.

On the other hand, when I roam through Ultima Online, I think to myself, "Wow... fourteen years, and not a single pixel has changed." Yes, yes, Enhanced Client and all that. Got it. Not a fan of the travesty it is, and yeah, someone can say I'm just trying to cling to the 2D client. Given that other games I play actually have, you know, modern graphics and clients, that's definitely not it, but still, someone's bound to say it.

I also mourn UO's lack of any real development of PvE. It's the same ****, different expansion for the most part. And while I am the first to say that not everything in an MMO should be soloable, I'm also the first person to say that "challenge" does not come by way of "how many times can I resurrect from one-hit kills." And, well, you know, partying up in a barren game with a less than stellar party system... *shrug*

I think the things that I like the most about UO are the things that keep me around. But I'm not under any delusion that UO is some stellar game that is chugging along with technology and innovation. I mean, let's be honest. It only took 13 years for someone to program "smooth boat movement." Thirteen. Years.

I mean, look, I'm still here largely because I have hope that someone will do something with UO that really DOES tap the potential of the game. But as the playerbase dwindles because the game has grown stagnant, because months go by without meaningful developmental communication, or because their friends have gone for whatever reason and they no longer have a reason to log in, it becomes less and less likely that UO will continue to be viable for another decade.

And really, the thing I mourn the most is that in fourteen years, a 3D upgrade of the game itself, all of the bits and pieces that make UO what UO is (and precisely what OWO:U and UXO would not have been and not have possessed) has not managed to materialize. I still remember playing Ultima IX. For all of its bugs and all of its rushed release and roughshod plotline, I remember running around Buc's Den and thinking to myself "It's have to be larger than this, but wow, I would love to see UO grow to this scale."

South facing buildings. Chairs that don't have west and north facings for whatever reason. All the little things that could have and should have been tinkered with in fourteen years...

You know... it's like watching a child that just refuses to grow up. It has had a lot of fun, but it grows old after awhile.

I hope... TRULY... that the new management over at Bioware does some magnificent things with UO. But at the rate of the trickle releases, I'll be playing my "Kung-fu Panda/Pokemon" World of Warcraft a lot more because at least there I can count on regular content releases to keep me interested, and game mechanics that evolve over the years, and challenges and areas to explore and all the stuff that UO really, truly should have.

Shame with newer, one-shot kill monsters. Yeah... we didn't have an entire expansion of that a decade ago, right? Here's my question, and one the devs should seriously ponder: "Where's the deeper areas of Shame? Where are the new places to explore that have been patched into the dungeon, breathing not only a new monster mix into it, but new life as well? And for that matter, where's the second level of Khaldun?"

UO's game engine is, at the very least, easy to patch map content into (*bows with a smile*)... a few new rooms, passages, secrets and such using techniques learned during the SA development phase would have been nice. New monsters, rehued. Yeah... that's so 2001.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

The main conclusion that can be made is that a hi-res pixel version of UO is out of the question, so it's pretty pointless to even pursue. Still nice to look at though .

Certainly if we're talking about hand-drawn pixel art, yeah, that's pretty much out of the question because in this day and age it wouldn't make sense to go down that particular production line.

However, using 3D tools and textures that are in the same spirit as the original graphics there's very little reason that they couldn't give UO an overhaul that either (1) is "full-zoom 3D" like the EC (and KR) is trying so desperately to be, or (2) is "fixed-zoom orthoisoinsertgraphicmetrichere" where it would behave like the old The Sims and provide zooms at fixed intervals, and which in either case would (3) use assets that could be readily updated for future use should production standards change down the line.

There's no reason UO's art and style can't live on in an update. Sure, it would take some time. They did it once with KR -- they simply chose poorly. And they did it when they first built the game.

And truly, for viability of the game beyond those of us who still subscribe to it largely out of nostalgia and those of us who still find some lingering social aspect to it -- meaning viability for new players -- it really should get a face-lift.

 

[Saphireena]

And here is the message board (oh and those first couple comments are from Finns - and we all know Finnish people are crazy about the sauna! So glad they found this place .

Good grief I'm so sentimental to save all of these *sighs*. But so many good memories in UO. You can do anything you set your mind to, even if it's making a public sauna by the sea! Try doing THAT in WoW eh?

By the way, we used the Telekinesis spell to create "steam" haha.

I love this game so much, looking back at these screenies just brings it all flooding back. I feel so heartbroken that I've tried again and again to lure people here but they never stick around. *sighs*

 

[RaDian FlGith]

Don't forget that if you use the EC, you can pick an Orc appearance.

Which makes one wonder why you can't choose a body in the 2D client. Sure, having selectable faces might be a challenge, but someone should be able to take the core paperdoll and make selectable paperdolls that match in 2D to the style of the 3D (yet maintain 2D's visualization).

But, then, I've wondered that for some time.

 

[Saphireena]

The main conclusion that can be made is that a hi-res pixel version of UO is out of the question, so it's pretty pointless to even pursue. Still nice to look at though .

Certainly if we're talking about hand-drawn pixel art, yeah, that's pretty much out of the question because in this day and age it wouldn't make sense to go down that particular production line.

I'm not so sure. (and I'm just going to copypaste from a message I wrote to a friend) Everyone in Stratics keeps saying that pixels are a thing of the past and that we need to look forward blaa blaa blaa. But then I look at a company like Sulake who continue to make they're hugely successful pixel graphic Habbo Hotel and I think: if Sulake can do it, why the hell can't we?

From Wikipedia:

"Habbo (previously known as Habbo Hotel) is a social networking site aimed at teenagers. The website is owned and operated by Sulake Corporation. The service began in 2000 and has expanded to include 11 online communities (or "hotels"), with users in over 150 countries.[2] As of August 2011, over 230 million avatars have been registered.[2] There are an average 10 million unique visitors monthly[2]." "Sulake has reported a $3 million (€2.3 million profit) for the first financial quarter (January - March) of 2010 on revenues of $20 million (€14.7 million)."

Really I ask: why can't we? (I know, I know, I'm beating a dead horse) But perhaps it's seeing Sulake do it year after year and with huge success that makes me persist with this pixel thing. If there were no such thing as Sulake and the success of Habbo, I'd have turned off that broken record YEARS AGO.

If only someone would give me a classic dev client doubled in size, I'd start transforming those pixels myself, if for no other reason than my own obsessed pleasure!

You know, right now things are going really well for them and they're hiring a lot of staff here in Helsinki. Pixel artists as well, and actually asked me to join them also. If I felt passionately about Habbo and weren't as happy as I am at Digital Chocolate, I'd have probably taken the job happily. But as much as I like pixels, making an online world for teenagers doesn't really float my boat. (and nothing wrong with teenagers, I just want to be able to enjoy playing the game I make and have something in common with my co-players) Maybe some day, you never know.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

Saph,

I certainly understand that there are reasons for using pixel art in some circumstances... but that development path does have a the downside of having to be redrawn if you ever need to scale the artwork larger.

Now, true, a 2048x2048x300dpi diffuse that's got a normal map used specifically for the purpose of creating tile-based artwork does also someday risk going the way of the dodo, but I suspect not for decades to come. Thing is, if you have the 3D architecture which is vector in its basis, and high-quality bitmaps draped over them, modern graphics systems can make extremely small or extremely large representations based on them that do not hit the "everything looks horrifically pixellated when zoomed in" look.

I mean, yeah, pixel art is still used. But it's not exactly a limitless art form.

Edit: Yeah, there are lots of places pixels are used. And I'm not actually saying "don't use tile-based artwork," what I'm saying is create a production line that envisions the future as well. You might think that as a pixel artist, you'd never understand how to texture a 3D object. I can tell you that while it takes getting used to, I think you'd find yourself pretty successful at it.

 

[Saphireena]

I certainly understand that there are reasons for using pixel art in some circumstances... but that development path does have a the downside of having to be redrawn if you ever need to scale the artwork larger.

* This much is true. But hey, we've seen things redone and redone and redone in UO - it just was the 3d version, not the bitmap version *grins*.

You might think that as a pixel artist, you'd never understand how to texture a 3D object. I can tell you that while it takes getting used to, I think you'd find yourself pretty successful at it.

* Oh I've done 3d a bit. I'm a still a 3d newbie, but I've done modelling, texturing and animating. In fact you guys might be quite amused by this 3d UO horse I did once because I was so irritated by the Kingdom Reborn horse. . (the whole process documented in the link)

http://andrea.net/art/frame_bottom_01_content.html

And at work we make a lot of vector art, in fact for the past half year I've been making vector characters and animations in Flash.

I get the point of being smart and economical in making graphics, I really do. But I still insist that the charm of the UO art are the pixels and that in the case of UO, it's worth all the trouble. Just as Sulake believes Habbo is meant to be pixel. I'm sure they'd have gone for vector ages ago otherwise.

 

[elspeth]

Saph!! Welcome back. You probably don't remember me much but I adored your hi res 2d graphics and have always been a big fan of the 2d UO charm.

And isn't it funny but like you, I went to WoW for several years and also couldn't bring myself to stop paying for my UO account (course I only had one). Several months ago I just got completely bored with WoW even though my good friends still play there (they may be moving on soon too though) and when faced with a money saving decision of what account to cancel, I just couldn't even stand the thought of cancelling UO.

Shortly after stopping WoW, I happened to notice the ads for the pandas and I was like, oh no so glad I'm not playing that anymore! WoW really is the smoothest mmo ever and you gotta love the ease of it though I actually started to hate it because they were always making changes that meant I couldn't even play until i spent hours reading up on my characters to determine how to reset my talent trees and the like and this meant I often didn't get to play or do dailies because I don't have much time to play games at all. Also, just trying to do dailies can take hours upon hours with like an hour minimum whereas in WoW 15 minutes is enough to go do something fun.

Anyways, welcome back and I and my husband are returning much like you so there are a lot of us. cheers!

 

[Saphireena]

Saph!! Welcome back. You probably don't remember me much but I adored your hi res 2d graphics and have always been a big fan of the 2d UO charm.

And isn't it funny but like you, I went to WoW for several years and also couldn't bring myself to stop paying for my UO account (course I only had one). Several months ago I just got completely bored with WoW even though my good friends still play there (they may be moving on soon too though) and when faced with a money saving decision of what account to cancel, I just couldn't even stand the thought of cancelling UO.

Shortly after stopping WoW, I happened to notice the ads for the pandas and I was like, oh no so glad I'm not playing that anymore! WoW really is the smoothest mmo ever and you gotta love the ease of it though I actually started to hate it because they were always making changes that meant I couldn't even play until i spent hours reading up on my characters to determine how to reset my talent trees and the like and this meant I often didn't get to play or do dailies because I don't have much time to play games at all. Also, just trying to do dailies can take hours upon hours with like an hour minimum whereas in WoW 15 minutes is enough to go do something fun.

Anyways, welcome back and I and my husband are returning much like you so there are a lot of us. cheers!

Thank you so much! I hope you're having a blast with all the new stuff, I know I am . Your message really warmed my heart on many levels, for instance knowing that there are others feeling the same things, experiencing the same things. Surely there must be more of us out there!

Your mention of WoW dailies reminds me of a something a friend said in WoW the other day. He was saying he never wanted to try UO because he knew it's a major grind fest. I told him: No... WoW is a grindfest, UO is anything but!

The only way to get ahead in WoW is grind. Other than crafting, there's not much else to do if you don't grind to get enough of this or enough of that to get your better armor set so you can get to the next level of dungeons or raids. In UO you can go sailing, treasure hunting, grow plants, amongst a billion other things. When I told him that, he said he'd consider coming to give it a try soon .