Jeff Skalski Leaving Mythic/EA

[Viquire]

It wouldn't have died if it went Android.

Time and again I asked. Sycophants. *shrugs* Oh well.

 

[Lorax_Pacific]

It seems to me he did more than credited. My feeling was behind the scene he's driving changes to the loot stats, parameters, treasure loot, and dungeon revamps. He liked the original parameters of armor and weapons that had names like vanquishing broadsword of might so was trying to bring back a taste of that era. Although I have no idea what anyone really does and how things work at mythic. Maybe he's the type of person that doesn't need all that credit because he feels humble. Wow. Lot's of negativity in the posts above.

-Lorax

 

[old gypsy]

It seems to me he did more than credited. My feeling was behind the scene he's driving changes to the loot stats, parameters, treasure loot, and dungeon revamps. He liked the original parameters of armor and weapons that had names like vanquishing broadsword of might so was trying to bring back a taste of that era. Although I have no idea what anyone really does and how things work at mythic. Maybe he's the type of person that doesn't need all that credit because he feels humble. Wow. Lot's of negativity in the posts above.

-Lorax

He also communicated on here in the beginning. I recall posting that gardeners/chefs would like to be able to raise their own vanilla. He answered my post, saying that he couldn't promise anything, but would look into it. It wasn't long after that when the gargoyles' illness and search for a cure was on... and we were finally able to grow our own vanilla. As I mentioned before, I don't know what went wrong later, but he was very engaged in the beginning. And I will always remember that.

 

[Spiritless]

I watched the video linked earlier in its entirety. Seemed like a decent guy who knew what was up and had fairly rational ideas about the direction of UO specifically. Shame he couldn't be more vocal where most of the active community are and engaged more, cuz he seemed like the type of guy who we need more of around the game. As he was responsible for the IP as a whole and not just UO though, it was obvious his management directed him to pay more attention to mobile expansion, etc. so that also explains why we didn't see much of him.

I liked his candid, honest and yet professional interview. Some interviews done with past and present members of the team have been cringeworthy and frankly unprofessional and oft times condescending to the playerbase. Don't think I've watched a UO dev interview prior to this since that awful Cal/Mesanna vid.

 

[Promathia]

To be fair, can he really leave Mythic when Mythic no longer exists?

He didn't do jack for UO, Ultima Forever was a mess, and Dungeon Keeper was a downright embarrassment.

 

[Tina Small]

To be fair, can he really leave Mythic when Mythic no longer exists?

He didn't do jack for UO, UOForever was a mess, and Dungeon Keeper was a downright embarrassment.

I think he did do some good things for UO behind the scenes. We just didn't hear much about it because I suspect a major part of his role was to help Mesanna step into the role of being UO's producer after Calvin Crowner left. Jeff may have felt that part of that role was to make sure she got the limelight as UO producer, not him. As he was the Ultima Online Franchise producer, I think Jeff probably had a whole lot of Ultima Forever activity going on at the same time that he just couldn't talk about. We were introduced to him in September 2011, but if you look at the dates for when various things were happening in the background with Ultima Forever, you would probably guess he was up to his eyeballs organizing things and pushing stuff along for Ultima Forever. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_Forever:_Quest_for_the_Avatar). If you remember, Jeff had a lot of prior experience working with companies in China who were doing third party development work for EA, so I strongly suspect that he and Chris Ondrus were at the time we first heard about Jeff working with Netdragon Websoft on the early foundations of Ultima Forever. But it was something he wouldn't have been able to tell us about and would have been something he had to juggle with helping Mesanna keep UO running, most likely also while EA was going through its regular routine of fall and spring headcount-trimming.

Edited to add this paragraph: I also noticed that on Twitter, the job title Jeff showed changed to Senior Producer some time after Ultima Forever launched, so it no longer said Ultima Franchise producer. I actually think his title change may have happened about the time Dungeon Keeper was announced, about a year ago. Hard to say without inside information whether that means that at that point there really was no more "Ultima Franchise" (i.e., UFE was being abandoned?) or if the "Senior Producer" title just gobbled up the lesser responsibility of being the Ultima Franchise producer. It was about at the same time that Kate Flack, who was also working on UFE and I think participating in helping with some story stuff on UO, had a job change as well.

I saw that not long ago, Carrie Gouskos and Jeff Skalski passed along "boxes and boxes of Origin artifacts" to Joe Garrity, who runs the Origin Museum. (https://www.flickr.com/photos/14729250@N02 and look him up on Google and the ultimacodex.com site to find out more.) (Carrie Gouskos used to be the producer for Warhammer Online and she later became Ultima Forever's producer, after Chris Ondrus left EA. After WHO closed, so about a year ago, she became Mythic's Director of Studio Operations. I would guess that means she has had a lot of the responsibility for closing up the Fairfax office, as it seems that Paul Barnett who was the GM has relocated to EA's San Francisco office, based on what little can be gleaned from his Twitter info.)

Although we may never see or hear about things like this unless we're really digging around, or we regularly visit sites like ultimacodex.com, these people that we just barely get to know DO care about Ultima Online. I just don't think they're always in a position to do things or say things that let us know. And of course you have to factor in personalities and corporate culture as well. One of the things I liked about Cal was that he was a communicator. But he also didn't have the lengthy background with EA or Mythic that some of the other folks who have been involved with running UO have had. So, naturally, when things change and someone else who has been in that culture a lot longer takes over, they may have a completely different stance on how much and what they are going to communicate to players.

Anyway, enough of my rambling. If you run across holiday or anniversary items with the name of "Gryphon" on them, don't forget that is Jeff Skalski's UO nickname and if I'm not mistaken, I think it was the Stratics community which helped him acquire that nickname.

 

[old gypsy]

If you run across holiday or anniversary items with the name of "Gryphon" on them, don't forget that is Jeff Skalski's UO nickname and if I'm not mistaken, I think it was the Stratics community which helped him acquire that nickname.

It was, indeed, the name that was chosen! The moment it was announced, I crafted two of them to put in front of my house in New Magincia. I believe the statues are still there, although the house is owned by someone else now.

 

[Uriah Heep]

I think he did do some good things for UO behind the scenes. We just didn't hear much about it because I suspect a major part of his role was to help Mesanna step into the role of being UO's producer after Calvin Crowner left. Jeff may have felt that part of that role was to make sure she got the limelight as UO producer, not him.

This made me spit Dr. Pepper...Mesanna was in charge as producer all along, regardless of titles. Everything that I ever saw that had Calvin Crowner in it, everytime he was asked a question, he would look at her for permission to talk about it...

 

[Goodmann]

Can we replace him with that one guy who was drinking a beer during that dev interview.

 

[Dot_Warner]

Can we replace him with that one guy who was drinking a beer during that dev interview.

That was Mark, the author of the god-awful, lore-ignorant Lost & Found - Part 3 story. He was gone not long after the videoed drinking-on-the-job incident.

I believe he was also the one that said worthless fish bait and the then low legendary fishing scroll drop rate was "just fine."

 

[Goodmann]

That was Mark, the author of the god-awful, lore-ignorant Lost & Found - Part 3 story. He was gone not long after the videoed drinking-on-the-job incident.

I believe he was also the one that said worthless fish bait and the then low legendary fishing scroll drop rate was "just fine."

I think he must have designed the EC because only a drunk person could have made those type of graphics

 

[Dot_Warner]

I think he must have designed the EC because only a drunk person could have made those type of graphics

Heh

KR and the EC both predate him, though it would be nice to blame them on someone. Well...you can...the contractors EA hired to do them and the producer who OKed them (specifically the mobs). Alternatively, you can blame OSI artists from ~'96-2004, since 90% of the EC's static art assets are from the CC, along with the 2009 producer who thought sloppily upsizing low-res art was a nifty idea.

Mark is better left forgotten.

 

[Captn Norrington]

I think the main issue that caused the EC graphics to turn out so badly, is that whoever built it didn't create a "new client, with new graphics" they just tried, and failed miserably, at copying the CC graphics that were already there. If they had started from scratch and built the entire world over again with a new type of graphic it might have actually turned out pretty well.

 

[Dot_Warner]

I think the main issue that caused the EC graphics to turn out so badly, is that whoever built it didn't create a "new client, with new graphics" they just tried, and failed miserably, at copying the CC graphics that were already there. If they had started from scratch and built the entire world over again with a new type of graphic it might have actually turned out pretty well.

They did that. It was called Kingdom Reborn. People bitched. A lot.

So, they scrapped most of KR and gave us a new, dumbed down version: the EC. People bitched slightly less.

Now, while some of KR's graphics were hideously malformed (most items were completely unrecognizable, as were many mobs) much of the environment art was superior. It was a work in progress that was capriciously abandoned far to quickly.

 

[Aran]

It shouldn't have been started.

 

[Uriah Heep]

I loved that my Ossie was the size of a bank, and I rode him side-saddle, on his head, no less!!

 

[MalagAste]

They did that. It was called Kingdom Reborn. People bitched. A lot.

So, they scrapped most of KR and gave us a new, dumbed down version: the EC. People bitched slightly less.

Now, while some of KR's graphics were hideously malformed (most items were completely unrecognizable, as were many mobs) much of the environment art was superior. It was a work in progress that was capriciously abandoned far to quickly.

Probably wouldn't have bitched if they hadn't tried to use Pointillism to create the art. Was hideously ugly...