(Question) Is Broadsword a Game Hospice?

[DeadBob]

Was Broadsword Online Games set up as a place to squeeze the last remaining dollars out of a dying MMO? Or will they actually fix the problems that inhibit new growth?

Does Broadsword have the money to promote Ultima Online? Or is their market just returning players?

Will Broadsword make it easier for new players to pay to play? The current EA Account system is bureaucracy run amuck. It discourages otherwise interested players.

Finally, will anybody get it, that UO is not in competition with online games? Ultima creator Richard Garriott tried to tell us that, "Ultima is not a game, it is an interactive world."
You can log in and build a house, start a business, write a book, go fishing, sail a warship & sink pirates, start a fight with another player or monster, do quests or do some gardening.
Thanks to the creativity of UO players, it is not possible to name every possible activity.

So the question is, can Broadsword reach out to new players, make it easy for them to set up accounts, and enrich the interactivity of our world? Or are we getting more of the same-o until we shuffle off this mortal server?

 

[Boondocker]

I don't quite understand the rest of what you wrote but this here is right on the mark.

Finally, will anybody get it, that UO is not in competition with online games? Ultima creator Richard Garriott tried to tell us that, "Ultima is not a game, it is an interactive world."
You can log in and build a house, start a business, write a book, go fishing, sail a warship & sink pirates, start a fight with another player or monster, do quests or do some gardening.
Thanks to the creativity of UO players, it is not possible to name every possible activity.

 

[DeadBob]

Hi Boondocker,
You got the important part.
I was just also saying that UO needs to reach out to gamers by using a good marketing company. (http://valourcorp.com/services comes to mind. They truly know the online gameing market.)
And it should be easier for people to set up a new account, or to buy things from the UO store. To quota a fellow player, "Never has there been a business more inept than the online order system at Origin store." - startle

 

[Boondocker]

Vary true, I got it.

 

[Brock]

I lost faith in the way OSI, EA, and Mythic. They have always had horrible customer services a variety of reasons. I lost faith in OSI early on because they often waited weeks before responding back to a help question. Now years later I attribute this probably to an overwhelmed help desk. Then EA took full control and they gave us Trammel; a veritable copy and paste of the world we already had in an effort to create more housing and to stop people from rage quitting because they got PKed. But their customer support wasn't much better. I attribute this to a behemoth of a tech company who through careful cost/benefit analysis decided to keep the same number of help desk personnel on but added additional duties like supporting the online store which added name changes, gender changes, shard transfers for premium costs. Finally Mythic never had my faith as when they took over they changed the outdated but simle to use billing site for an overly complicated billing method that had required previous accounts to be converted in an overly complicated process. I will give Mythic credit in that they were able to put out two decent (not spectacular) expansions (SA and HS) in a time when UO had been outdated for a decade. Furthermore Mythic brought in the EMs which worked similar to the old Seers which was a a genius move. But there is nothing worse than emailing EA/Mythic support on a Monday about not being able to purchase something from their store only to receive a reply Saturday to try clearing my cookies and temp files. Then replying back saying no its happening on multiple browsers on multiple PCs from multiple home public and work networks. Then they reply for me to check my bank balance or call my credit card holder. So then I ask for a phone number. But when I call there isn't an option UO. Yeah, EA/Mythic's support is utter BS.

I guess the point I'd like to make is that I've always loved the game for all its quirky updates when it works from Trammel to this new Vendor Search system. But something goes wrong and the game doesn't work I hate life.

 

[Captn Norrington]

Personally I see it like this, EA bought the game, killed felucca causing most of the pvp'ers to leave, made malas, which damaged trammel quite badly causing a lot of the trammel people to leave. has the worst customer service I've ever seen, fired most of the GM's/devs then gave it to broadsword randomly....and since then the counselors have been brought back, the EM drop system is changing, the vendor search was created, the devs communicate more, and new EM's/devs are being hired, so broadsword seems to be doing a pretty fantastic job so far, considering they have only been working on UO a month or two.

 

[QMSoar]

If what Taylor wrote of Broadsword in the second post of this thread is correct : http://stratics.com/community/threads/the-age-old-question-should-i-come-back.313740/

I'm guessing they are not a Hospice.