Let's assume UO is going F2P. What would you like to see...

[In Flames]

For the sake of this thread let's assume that UO will be going to a freemium model.

What benefits do you think a paid account should have over a free account? What benefits would you LIKE to see free accounts and premium accounts get?

Personally, if UO went to the freemium model I'd like to see house decay come back, but where payed for premium accounts get auto-renew on their houses.

 

[Eyes of Origin]

I wouldnt care if UO went to FTP as long as paying paying players, like myself and many, many others, didnt lose anything in the process.

FTP players wouldnt be allowed to place housing.

 

[Divayth Fyr]

now im not saying that this game should turn into LOTRO;but lets just say in order to get "VIP" access you would need to pay $59.95 for 6 months and that basically gets you everything. On the other hand F2P Players would only get some stuff like "oh you can't go to this area" or "oh you can't place houses". There could be many benefits to this game IF it went F2P. Which this game is just too great to go free. But if it does, you know where to look on the forums.

 

[TheMac]

I wouldnt care if UO went to FTP as long as paying paying players, like myself and many, many others, didnt lose anything in the process.

FTP players wouldnt be allowed to place housing.

I agree with this 100%

 

[Storm]

more than likely you would have to pay for housing and this would make me leave the game after all these years
if they made things like the current packs then it might be ok but if i have to pay to compete and if someone can throw enough money at the game to buy themselves into what it has taken me years to accomplish then it will be no better than a facebook game

 

[TheMac]

Maybe we could make the FTP like the 14 day trail... except that there isnt 14 days its unlimited... You cant do any more or less then you can in a 14 day free trial.. And if you wanted to switch to a paying account you could do so at any time.... But once you turn your account into a paying one you cant go back...

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

I can foresee no scenario under which UO goes F2P.

The time to do that was when Darkscribe originally wanted to, and was brought on as producer in order to make it happen, but then EA screwed him over and made him do the KR client instead. (Source on this is an old Draconi post.)

Even worse, if UO does go F2P, I can foresee no scenario under which it succeeds.

F2P games should be on the easier, more intuitive side to learn and understand. UO isn't.

-Galen's player

 

[In Flames]

more than likely you would have to pay for housing and this would make me leave the game after all these years
if they made things like the current packs then it might be ok but if i have to pay to compete and if someone can throw enough money at the game to buy themselves into what it has taken me years to accomplish then it will be no better than a facebook game

You're missing the point of this post. And while it's really nice that you would rather quit this game than consider the idea of a F2P model, it's not really a productive way to handle things.

So again, what would you like the layout of a free to play UO to be.

Obviously the over all feeling is no housing for free players.
Let's go in depth there
All houses?
Or can we allow them classic small homes with house decay so long as we limit the number of accounts a person has (iTunes can track me by my motherboard, so could UO) Attempting to use multiple accounts from the same computer could yield a "You have accessed multiple free accounts from this computer and access from this computer has been blocked for 24 hours" message.

What about older content? Would they be allowed in Malas? Tokuno?

Character limit?

Race limit?

This discussion has a lot of possibility, and could eventually help this game become greater. Don't just regurgitate crappy answers at it. It makes for sad pandas.

 

[Woodsman]

Those of you who keep talking about f2p is the way to go, put your money where your mouth is and start laying out f2p options and packages. Don't be vague. I've provided a link to information on the trial restrictions at the bottom of this post. Use it. Show us what you think an f2p account could be. I may believe that UO has bigger problems than payment options, but I'm willing to consider it and spend a few minutes laying out specifics.

Full monthly subscription ($10 - $13 depending on payment option) required for the following:
- Ownership or co-ownership of a house
- Own vendors
- Own boats
- Participate in guilds or factions
- Have over 85 in a skill and have more than 500 points in skills
- Use any scrolls or soulstones/fragments
- Mining anything above iron or lumberjacking anything above regular wood
- Fishing up anything better than basic fish
- Obtaining color BODS
- Having more than 2 characters on a shard (in keeping with other f2p games)
- Have more than 75,000 in gold (similar to other f2p games)
- Have more than 60 items in a bank box (similar to other f2p games)
- Use checks and commodity deeds

Everything listed for the full monthly subscription above is both to keep existing customers from feeling ripped off, and is to keep the scripters from being able to do some of their scripting on free accounts. The above is also to provide a very clear point for people to decide if it's worth a monthly subscription or not. Finally, it's to ensure that subscriptions don't drop - the goal is supposed to be additional players, not a dropping of revenue from existing players.

Each f2p package below is independent of one another. Obviously, anything that is listed in the packages below would be barred on a completely free account.

Package #1 (Montly payment of $4)
- Allows f2p account to be friended to a house
- Allows f2p accounts to buy from vendors
- Allows f2p accounts to visit Felucca, T2A, Malas, Ilshenar
- Allows f2p accounts to do quests
- Allows f2p accounts to board ships
- Allows f2p characters to be created using elves
- Allows f2p characters to have up to 75,000 in gold (free limit - 35,000 in gold)

Package #2 (Monthly payment of $4)
- Allows f2p accounts to have up to 60 items in a bank box (free limit - 30 items)
- Allows f2p accounts to have up to 70 items in their backpack (free limit - 40 items)
- Allows f2p accounts to have higher than 70 in a skill (capped at 85)
- Allows f2p accounts to have amount of skills up to 500 points
- Allows f2p accounts to obtain anything more than basic loot
- Allows f2p accounts to use bags of sending, pet summoning balls, etc.

It is based in part on a thread from last year detailing trial account restrictions:

Did some searching and this is all I could find on what limits there are on trial accounts....

Removed the 15 day character age requirement for house placement
Players are not allowed to place a house while on a trial account
Players are not allowed to co-own or be traded a house while on a trial account
Trial accounts have travel restrictions –
Cannot visit Felucca dungeons or Felucca T2A
Trial Accounts have the following resource restrictions -
Will only receive basic ores and logs (iron, plain logs) even if they'd otherwise qualify for better types
Will not receive sand or stone when mining
Trial Account Misc. restrictions -
Will not receive ML rewards for resource gathering (jewels, ingredients, and white pearls while fishing)
Will not receive rewards, monster kill points, or virtue points from champ spawns
Will not get scrolls while doing champ spawns
Will not gain Justice virtue points for killing murderers
Cannot use Valor or Justice virtues
Cannot Protect or be Protected by another player
Can not join factions or faction aligned guilds
If in a guild they will be removed from the guild, if their guild joins a faction
Cannot use Scrolls of Alacrity, Power Scrolls, Stat Scrolls, or Scrolls of Transcendence
Cannot use Commodity Deeds
Cannot do Community Collections
Cannot use Soulstones or fragment soulstones
Cannot use Pet summoning balls
Cannot use Bracelets of Binding
Cannot use the Bag of Sending
Cannot do any repeatable quests – even if they are normally repeatable
Cannot acquire BOD’s
(also can't have vendors)

The reason why I based my packages on the trial restrictions is partly because the mechanisms are already in place, and also I'm trying to keep the f2p accounts from losing some of the sandbox aspects of UO, while at the same time preserving the value of the subscriptions.

 

[Woodsman]

Obviously the over all feeling is no housing for free players.
Let's go in depth there
All houses?
Or can we allow them classic small homes with house decay so long as we limit the number of accounts a person has (iTunes can track me by my motherboard, so could UO) Attempting to use multiple accounts from the same computer could yield a "You have accessed multiple free accounts from this computer and access from this computer has been blocked for 24 hours" message.

No houses for free, period. You have to provide an incentive for people to bump up from free to the $10 - $13 a month subscriptions. You also don't want people dropping subscriptions that were used for holding houses, because many subscriptions exist solely to hold houses, and that kind of drop in revenue would be really bad for UO's bottom line. Also, even if it were just small houses, we would end up with a housing space shortage in short order, because there are plenty of ways to get around the restrictions you mentioned.

The goal should be to encourage players new to UO to try it, not to make it easier/cheaper for existing players, including scripters, Luna vendors, and RMTers.

Also, and it's not a dig at the devs, but I don't think any of us wants anybody to screw with the housing system more than it's been screwed with. There are too many houses that should have fallen long ago, that are still standing.

 

[Nexus]

[YOUTUBE]4qLwvGbq_z4[/YOUTUBE]

I wanna be able to do that...

Yes that's actually one of my characters playing it from a script I made for it, a feature in that game.

Kinda sucks when the most remembered piece of music from all the Ultima games can't be played by bards in UO, but can by anyone in another game.

 

[aarons6]

an unlimited free account based on the 14 day trial would work.

there are many things you cant do on the free trial.

also its not updated to SA?

so basically for free you can run around and chat with people.

i know of at least 3 or 4 people that i could get hooked into playing and prob eventually upgrade if they had time to get used to the game.

 

[Infinite]

I would laugh my ass off at the people with multiple 10 year+ accounts who have wasted so much money on this game if it goes Free to Play. You guys got bent over for over a decade. lol

 

[Zosimus]

[youtube]4qLwvGbq_z4[/youtube]

I wanna be able to do that...

Yes that's actually one of my characters playing it from a script I made for it, a feature in that game.

Kinda sucks when the most remembered piece of music from all the Ultima games can't be played by bards in UO, but can by anyone in another game.

Now thats kick arse idea. Pretty cool.

 

[hen]

[YOUTUBE]4qLwvGbq_z4[/YOUTUBE]

I wanna be able to do that...

Yes that's actually one of my characters playing it from a script I made for it, a feature in that game.

Kinda sucks when the most remembered piece of music from all the Ultima games can't be played by bards in UO, but can by anyone in another game.

Well played sir. Bravo.

I think paid accounts should get rideable gorillas with banana cannons strapped to their heads.

 

[Squeax]

Let freebies run around Britannia but not Ilshenar/Malas/whatever. Let them pay a few bucks for that.

Sell one-shot soulstones pre-loaded with GM (not Legendary) skills. Who cares if some newbie gets to bypass beating a golem for 3 days or whatever? He'll still have to get to 120 the old-fashioned way at some point.

Temporary bless deeds. I dunno what the point of these would be really, when we have insurance, but I'll bet people would buy them. God knows being blessed adds WAY more value to an item now than you'll ever save on insurance even if you die more than Kenny.

Pet stuff. Feed your pet this thingy and it bonds instantly. Feed it this other thing and it gains X points of STR toward max. Whatever. Get someone to draw a PROPERLY HUED blue dragon or whatever and sell that.

Create a magical tool doohickey that can change the appearance of an equippable item. You know let people change a bascinet into a plate helm with the same stats, or whatever. Will need a lot of restrictions to not have any real effect on combat. No turning a plate piece into leather to gain medability, etc.

 

[northwoodschopper]

let free accounts log in as monsters. free AI upgrades!

free accounts are the random spawn mobs. they can move, attack, loot and are freely attackable. they cannot converse as all speech will be gibberish filtered. monsters scale on how many hours are logged into free account, as well as how many objectives the player fulfill.

objectives will be a list of things a player needs to accomplish so that their spawn level increases. like travel certain ammount of tiles; kill certain ammount of animals; kill certain ammount of NPCs; collect certain ammount of reagents; eat certain ammount of food; etc.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

I will never go free to play.

But

Here it is.

FTP

1 characture. No housing option. No friending option to houses. Fixed bank box of 50 items. No gifts. No ability to write in books. Time limit on play time before the squiggly wiggly box comes up and asks you to put in the code of distorted letters. Must log into character every 14 days before it is deleted.

end of story.

 

[northwoodschopper]

oh yeah, FTP facet restriction to Malas only.

 

[Striga]

If I pay and I wanna put more than one house -ex. one in one shard and one in the second shard with the same account- (but this is another point).

Anyway FtP or merge or shard gate!
Or close all and good night! End and start a new real UO.
Here too many players don't want changes because they lost items... oh my god it's a game do u like UO? We need improvement need changes need future we need sacrifices if u like this game for next years; open your eyes we lost players everydays and i listen peeps that answer always NO NO and NO.
With your NO you kill this game!

 

[Capn Kranky]

FtP account = essentially a trial account limited explicitly to Trammel. Since trial accounts cannot use scrolls of any kind they will be limited to stat cap of 225 and skill cap of 700.

They wanna get all of the pie, they pony up the cash.

 

[5% Luck]

This thread has been going on for...well IDK but it seems ive seen this on the board for weeks. Never heard a dev or exc comment on the topic nor do I see a lack of players even in the middle of the night.(yea atlantic).

I know some of you realize that if ya keep it on the boards long enough it happens!

I say go back to 4 chan and go troll Micky Ds instead. Leave our beloved game alone and I for one am SHOCKED! the moderators are the hands and feet of THIS operation!

%5 Luck signing out~

 

[Madrid]

These threads should get locked and tossed in Spiels and Rants.

I'm getting tired of seeing this same thread for the past month now.

Throw this thread in the garbage where it belongs.

 

[In Flames]

These threads should get locked and tossed in Spiels and Rants.

I'm getting tired of seeing this same thread for the past month now.

Throw this thread in the garbage where it belongs.

FtP could very well be in the future for UO. The developers have admitted to discussing it behind closed doors so this most certainly is a discussion that needs to be had by the community at large. You however have the right to ignore this thread and take no part in the discussion. Perhaps you should exercise that right.

 

[claudia-fjp]

Neutering FtP to the point no one wants to play it even when its free seems like a counter productive idea. Don't most FtP game give you the whole game then have a store where they sell items and added features?

 

[Nexus]

Neutering FtP to the point no one wants to play it even when its free seems like a counter productive idea. Don't most FtP game give you the whole game then have a store where they sell items and added features?

Not exactly, it's kinda difficult to explain...

What most do is give you access to all the area of the game, but limit your ability to make use of them..

Core Gameplay features, they always give you... It's access to certain skill sets or quests, Crafting limitations, or dungeons that get restrictive. They'll also do things like currency caps, housing limitations, pack limits, no access to Mounts, etc. to create things players will want to purchase, but could certainly do without if they wanted too.

For UO and it's sandbox nature, they'd have to sell things like all the Vet Rewards, Spawn rewards, sell tiered skill and stat cap increases towards 720, prevent them from being able to access peerless (they'd have do a one time buy for each one), not allow them to have over {X} amount of gold on each character. They'd have to sell arties, and other high desirable items on the game store (account bound of course). And all of these thing would be available to both F2P and Subbies, if they went a "Freemium" route like many other F2P games.

They'd have to block freebies from being able to get any of those things above through normal game play unless they put in a means to earn Store Credit, then they would still have to purchase the items via the store.

Though on the upside this would make the Games economy come into check... items we've farmed simply won't be worth near as much, because finally supply and demand will come full circle as in there will be a consistent supply.

 

[Woodsman]

You however have the right to ignore this thread and take no part in the discussion.

Speaking of not taking part in the discussion, even though you started the thread, you have said very little about f2p options yourself. What things within UO would you make available only to subscribers or as part of an f2p store?

I'm not meaning this as a jab at you - since you obviously feel strongly enough to start a thread, I'm genuinely curious. Most people aren't willing to give specifics when pressed, but you've talked a little about housing.

 

[Nexus]

was just thinking... One thing they could do is define a "Pure" template and give access to a specific number of these to F2P. For example..

Warrior:
Weapons Skill
Parry
Tactics
Anatomy
Healing
Archery
Resisting Spells

Mage:
Magery
Eval Int
Meditation
Resiting Spells
Focus
Wrestling
Tactics

Any other skills would require a purchase to access them..

Maybe make 4-5 pre-determined templates, Warriors, Mages, and a couple of Crafter set ups... So if they want that character to hybridise they have to "unlock" the skills they want to invest in.

 

[5% Luck]

A game where you have to pay2play owning a home....

Thats right all you keep and castle owners welcom to the land where eveyone has one.

Oh ...right...


Limited space...

Hrmmm

That might severely limit the player base. I mean as it is alot of player play in hopes of yea know owning a keep or castle. In any F2P model I can see castles would be handed out not by players

Ohh Nooononono

But by cash...

Its simply a horrid idea. I would stop playing.

 

[Smoot]

Housing in a f2p uo would be the same as it is now, but you would have to pay maybe 5 bucks to own a 10 by 10, 10 bucks to own an 18 by 18, maybe 20 bucks to own a castle. current housing would be grandfathered. space wouldnt be an issue. Even in current uo, it would be great to be allowed to pay a small fee to be able to place a house on a different (currently "dead) shard. Really, people already pay upwards of a thousand bucks to own a castle, whats another 20 to keep the game running?

To keep the game in operation, would you rather have UO become a free to play game, or maybe double or triple the current subscription cost?

 

[In Flames]

Speaking of not taking part in the discussion, even though you started the thread, you have said very little about f2p options yourself. What things within UO would you make available only to subscribers or as part of an f2p store?

I'm not meaning this as a jab at you - since you obviously feel strongly enough to start a thread, I'm genuinely curious. Most people aren't willing to give specifics when pressed, but you've talked a little about housing.

Personally, the first thing that comes to mind is limiting the number of accounts a person can have without paying money. Tracking PC hardware is easy.

Second, character slots. The game needs to focus a bit more on community so I would definitely limit FtP accounts to 2-3 characters. Certainly enough to do a great deal, but not enough to do everything oneself.

Third, Limited veteran rewards. Block certain ones entirely (Soulstones) and cut the number of rewards gotten in half.

Fourth No soulstone use or SoT use. These items are for people who have already put much time and effort (which to this point has meant cash as well) into UO.

Fifth, I would certainly give them access to classic houses, but only up to small stone towers, and no custom housing, but would remove the auto-refresh from FtP housing. Any character without 85 points in 3 skills (skills like meditation and focus would not count towards this) would not be able to place a house.

FtP characters wouldn't be able to found a guild, and forbid FtP characters from GMing a guild stone. For a few reasons which are pretty lengthy and strange to explain, but for brevity I'll just say to keep UO a little less cluttered and to keep more options for paying players when it comes to founding a guild.

I think a good idea would also be to open all accounts that are unbanned as FtP and email those people saying "HEY COME PLAY ITS FREE!" To help rebuild our communities, to kill off some of those undecaying houses and such. Players returning would have to have to choose which of their characters they wanted to unlock for free play though. Most likely done through the website. Of course you would have to limit how often they could be changed. Personally I would set it for once a month but that's me.

Then there would be little things. NPC vendor price increase for FtP players to hopefully help stimulate player run economies, limit the amount of BODs or heartwood quests FtP players can do in a day. I'm sure there is stuff I haven't thought of but that of course is part of the reason I started this thread ^^


Edit: Something I just thought of. For FtP players going away for a long time (military & such) but not wanting to lose their home due to decay, pay 2.50 per month and your house no longer decays. Payable entirely up front. Just a thought though.

 

[Capn Kranky]

A lot of this is why I jumped on a modified Trial Account setup. The restrictions for trial accounts is pretty much what many are really wanting an FtP account to have.

Nexus (above) has some ideas that could work. <shrug>

 

[In Flames]

A game where you have to pay2play owning a home....

Thats right all you keep and castle owners welcom to the land where eveyone has one.

Oh ...right...


Limited space...

Hrmmm

That might severely limit the player base. I mean as it is alot of player play in hopes of yea know owning a keep or castle. In any F2P model I can see castles would be handed out not by players

Ohh Nooononono

But by cash...

Its simply a horrid idea. I would stop playing.

Why do so many people misunderstand the concept behind FtP?

It's not about making players that play the winners outright, it's about dissolving the barrier to entry and getting a wave of fresh new players and bring old players back in. Bringing community back to a game where one is slowly fading away.

"I don't like change! If things change I'll quit!"
Bah, you've already quit playing this game if you don't want anything new.

 

[Elric_Soban]

I wouldnt care if UO went to FTP as long as paying paying players, like myself and many, many others, didnt lose anything in the process.

FTP players wouldnt be allowed to place housing.

agree

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

For the sake of this thread let's assume that UO will be going to a freemium model.

What benefits do you think a paid account should have over a free account? What benefits would you LIKE to see free accounts and premium accounts get?

Personally, if UO went to the freemium model I'd like to see house decay come back, but where payed for premium accounts get auto-renew on their houses.

What benefits do you think a paid account should have over a free account?
A) a pro-rated refund of any of a 6month block auto subscription >against< the F2P launch date
B) with A) being a "silent notice" upon login with an option to >quietly< receive refund of entire amount IF I choose to quit(entirely) at that time

What benefits would you LIKE to see free accounts and premium accounts get?
A) free accounts NONE ... they are playing for free for crying out loud ...
ANY more and that is buying/bribing peeps to play with you ...
B) premium accounts rate cut to $5 a month WITH "roll over minutes" of minutes not used in one month to the next.
C) one free full house transfer to shard of choice(okay ... terrain permitting) but ... two characters go with house.

these are non negotiable

 

[Nexus]

What benefits do you think a paid account should have over a free account?
A) a pro-rated refund of any of a 6month block auto subscription >against< the F2P launch date
B) with A) being a "silent notice" upon login with an option to >quietly< receive refund of entire amount IF I choose to quit(entirely) at that time

What benefits would you LIKE to see free accounts and premium accounts get?
A) free accounts NONE ... they are playing for free for crying out loud ...
ANY more and that is buying/bribing peeps to play with you ...
B) premium accounts rate cut to $5 a month WITH "roll over minutes" of minutes not used in one month to the next.
C) one free full house transfer to shard of choice(okay ... terrain permitting) but ... two characters go with house.

these are non negotiable

I don't think you understand how a Fermium model works..

Typically the model is laid out as....
Pay to Play
Premium F2P
Standard F2P

Basically once Standard F2P starts purchasing or reach a certain $$$ spent threshold they move up to Premium.

Paying subbies that wish to stop playing degrade to Premium.

Generally Premium downgrades have most of but not all of what they had as subscribers "Grandfathered" but only on existing characters, of course how much falls outside of the "Most Of" category can be pretty broad.

Paying players generally get priority access to the login server, and any "Patched In" content that doesn't fall as an expansion for free. Additionally many games with a "Freemium" model give a certain amount of credit for the games store for each month they keep their subscription active..

Your description is a tiered pay to play plan not a really "Freemium" in the sense of the question asked.

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

What benefits do you think a paid account should have over a free account?
A) a pro-rated refund of any of a 6month block auto subscription >against< the F2P launch date
B) with A) being a "silent notice" upon login with an option to >quietly< receive refund of entire amount IF I choose to quit(entirely) at that time

What benefits would you LIKE to see free accounts and premium accounts get?
A) free accounts NONE ... they are playing for free for crying out loud ...
ANY more and that is buying/bribing peeps to play with you ...
B) premium accounts rate cut to $5 a month WITH "roll over minutes" of minutes not used in one month to the next.
C) one free full house transfer to shard of choice(okay ... terrain permitting) but ... two characters go with house.

these are non negotiable

I don't think you understand how a Fermium model works..

I KNOW you don't know how to proof read
and
I KNOW you did not realize that >I stayed on topic<
and
Wrote down WHAT >I< would like to see IF UO goes F2P
I don't think it will ... mind you ... the premise WAS "pretend/assume/hypothesize"

I wrote what >I< wanted ... in full knowledge and comprehension of the various different models and methods OF F2P

I am of >an opinion< that F2P will finish off UO
kill it
wipe it out
shut the servers down
remove active participation from the realm of "available options"
404 server not responding FOREVER ...

and I did not ask whatsa Freemium

that clear up any items of interest for ya?

 

[Nexus]

that clear up any items of interest for ya?

Actually it doesn't....

How about explaining why you think a F2P or Freemium version of UO would be it's "Death". Every other game out there that has switched to this type of subscription model has seen increased profitability, and a boost in the number of active players.

In my experience with games that apply a decent Freemium option, there is little to no difference for Subscriptions players, generally there are additional benefits for subscribing. How could application of one of the various F2P models hurt UO, generally those who are subscribers when the change over is implemented remain subscribers, those who don't generally are replaced quickly by F2P players who decide they are better off with a subscription. No matter how it falls if a Freemium system was implemented I can't see it hurting UO myself, you obviously have a different opinion as to why, yet you feel that it's easier to to say

these are non negotiable

than to give a sound reasoning as to why you feel that way, especially when your views are so removed from what is already the standard in the gaming market already.

I don't think anyone is going to begrudge you your views, but, don't expect understanding or others to have full comprehension of them if you don't explain them, especially when you post something so abstract from what people generally expect based on the topic.

 

[In Flames]

No matter how it falls if a Freemium system was implemented I can't see it hurting UO myself, you obviously have a different opinion as to why, yet you feel that it's easier to to say

these are non negotiable

than to give a sound reasoning as to why you feel that way, especially when your views are so removed from what is already the standard in the gaming market already.

I don't think anyone is going to begrudge you your views, but, don't expect understanding or others to have full comprehension of them if you don't explain them, especially when you post something so abstract from what people generally expect based on the topic.

Nexus.

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

A
I don't think anyone is going to begrudge you your views, but, don't expect understanding or others to have full comprehension of them if you don't explain them, especially when you post something so abstract from what people generally expect based on the topic.

plenty here will begrudge me my opinions and style
and that is an inconsequential tangent(not on topic) ... ie not relevant

Your "experience" with other games ... well
how many of those were UO?
UO as it IS and has been? (hint: none)
(guessing that it might work /=/ experience)

Your opinion of a solution of a hypothetical
Must be(at least) on the assumption that the team and the company >will<
implement the "change over" in a "best practices" manner


Well(you may say/argue) they will fix the arising fails as they come ...


Well(you may say/argue) they will prepare the game for the influx
and anticipate the problems Before they CAN come up


Now then, again
I wrote what I would like to see IF a free to play model were implemented
the non negotiable aspect is also Not required to be "explained" or reasoned
I >would like< to be compensated for 11 years of loyalty and cost to have been here
I >would like< to be fore warned of a "change" that I see as being a death knell for the game as a whole
I >would like< for the powers to be, to have complete current clients for download

*shrugs*
I doubt that I could EVER "win you over"
I KNOW that you can't - me

The impasse >can only< "be settled" by test ...
fine
I'm willing to be tested and proven wrong(game survives and thrives)
Are you willing to be tested? EVEN if it proves You Wrong?

Burma Shave Baby

 

[Nexus]

I'm willing to be tested and proven wrong(game survives and thrives)
Are you willing to be tested? EVEN if it proves You Wrong?

Absolutely, UO has been on a downward spiral towards non-profitability for years, we see the results as the Dev Team gets cut back and utilised on other projects as well as UO. If F2P would be a death knell then I'd consider it a mercy killing. As it is, I've long accepted that the eventual closure of UO is something that will happen, that's not to say I'm looking forward to it, but I won't be surprised or outraged when the announcement finally comes.

I'm honestly surprised UO is still running, EA wanted to shut it down a few years ago, and I've not seen much in the way evidence of improvement in terms of subscriptions numbers since. Sooner or later either the game will drop into the realm of unprofitably due to declining subscriptions or a shift in the market/further decline of the global economy will force EA's hand and they'll decide that UO isn't profitable enough to continue to sustain.

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

Absolutely, UO has been on a downward spiral towards non-profitability for years, we see the results as the Dev Team gets cut back and utilised on other projects as well as UO. If F2P would be a death knell then I'd consider it a mercy killing. As it is, I've long accepted that the eventual closure of UO is something that will happen, that's not to say I'm looking forward to it, but I won't be surprised or outraged when the announcement finally comes.

I'm honestly surprised UO is still running, EA wanted to shut it down a few years ago, and I've not seen much in the way evidence of improvement in terms of subscriptions numbers since. Sooner or later either the game will drop into the realm of unprofitably due to declining subscriptions or a shift in the market/further decline of the global economy will force EA's hand and they'll decide that UO isn't profitable enough to continue to sustain.

WOW!
there will be NO "quick death for UO" cursing: string of unintelligible curses of a personal nature)

I hope in the future your "care givers" are of a similar opinion re: you ...

 

[Lord Frodo]

Absolutely, UO has been on a downward spiral towards non-profitability for years, we see the results as the Dev Team gets cut back and utilised on other projects as well as UO. If F2P would be a death knell then I'd consider it a mercy killing. As it is, I've long accepted that the eventual closure of UO is something that will happen, that's not to say I'm looking forward to it, but I won't be surprised or outraged when the announcement finally comes.

I'm honestly surprised UO is still running, EA wanted to shut it down a few years ago, and I've not seen much in the way evidence of improvement in terms of subscriptions numbers since. Sooner or later either the game will drop into the realm of unprofitably due to declining subscriptions or a shift in the market/further decline of the global economy will force EA's hand and they'll decide that UO isn't profitable enough to continue to sustain.

Please show us your proof of the profitability of UO and please show us where EA wanted to shut down UO.

 

[Nexus]

Please show us your proof of the profitability of UO and please show us where EA wanted to shut down UO.

Mark Jacobs claimed EA wanted to shut UO down at one point. Considering he was the CEO at Mythic at the time I'd say he'd know....


As to profitability, there are no hard numbers EA won't release them, but it's not hard to figure out that declining subscriptions = less profitability.

 

[Zosimus]

I'll help out Nexus here with the links so you all can see the proof so you dont have to question his comments.


Link..... Mark Jacobs says EA wanted to kill UO, but he saved it | Massively

Quoted just in case....

http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/10/21/mark-jacobs-says-ea-wanted-to-kill-uo-but-he-saved-it/

Mark Jacobs says EA wanted to kill UO, but he saved it

http://mythicentertainment.com/

Mythic CEO and Warhammer Online lead designer Mark Jacobs is a man who speaks his mind in the face of opposition and criticism. In truth, it's an admirable trait, even if it might occasionally cause some trouble. In the face of criticism from forum trolls and Blizzard COO Paul Sams, he posted a super-long defense of his game and himself. That's interesting on its own, but there's a gem hidden inside. Jacobs claimed that EA wanted to shut down Ultima Online, but he saved it!

Jacobs was defending himself against the accusation that he has a thin skin to criticism by listing things he's weathered and done over the course of his career. Listing those, he said he was "blamed for the state UO is in," but went on to say that "EA wanted to shut down UO when they gave it to us but I convinced them to spend more money on the game."

While it's not surprising that EA wanted to can UO, we're not sure whether to believe he was solely responsible for UO's rescue -- but if that really did happen, well, uhh... thanks, Mark Jacobs!


[Via Kotaku]

• Source

Tags: canned, ea, ea-mythic, electronic-arts, forum, mark-jacobs, mythic-entertainment, origin, shut-down, ultima-online, uo, warhammer-online

Also a post from this link.... f13.net forums - State of The Game - Mark Jacobs


Reply #58 on: October 17, 2008, 11:38:29 pm

So, let me get this straight. I've got the COO of the major competitor saying things that make it *look* like 1/2 of our players have left (which is ridiculously untrue), talks about our European launch being bad (oh yeah, WoW's launch in NA and Europe was flawless right?) while his game director spins BS about how the way Blizzard runs its beta shows its confidence in the game (forgetting of course the large internal alpha with paid employees that the games goes through and only then has a short public beta) while our beta, which has the general public in it for years, shows our lack of confidence. He then goes on to say that "he's thinking of quitting our game" (and by inference, saying that other players might want to as well) and that our interface looks like his (forgetting how many interfaces were done before WoW) and generally pissing on our game and when I respond, I'm the jackass? I had the following choices:

1) Say nothing - Of course, by saying nothing I validate Paul Sams' (COO) comments about our numbers and the Internet would have been full of "Blizzard must be right, no response from Mythic" and then I would have to explain to EA why I didn't respond (which I have in a followup interview with GamesIndustry) and if its true (which its not). In terms of Kaplan's comments, sure, I could have said nothing about them but again, people would have wondered why I said nothing.

2) Come out with guns blazing - By doing so I expected to get slammed in certain places (no surprise) but at least I get to respond. Of course, the only comments I made were on the Vault and to the reporter when she called me up and asked if I wanted to comment. I did not post anything on my blog, didn't go all over the Internet posting the same stuff but simply responded to a thread on the *one* place where I'm spending my time right now.

3) Come out but a bit more gently - Possibly but I'm sorry, I care about my game and since I do admit when we screw up or something isn't working, I also feel I have the right to defend it myself. If I let a CM or PR person do that, places like this would, of course be saying, that's just the PR flack/CM doing his/her job and, probably, the same line about it being true because after all, if it wasn't true why would they send the poor CM/PR guy out to take the heat.

In terms of whether I should be doing this or not, or how EA feels, well, since I talked to them before I responded, I know that they are fine with it. This gets back to the whole "Shouldn't a CM do this stuff" stuff and no, I don't think so. Our CMs are already doing more on WAR than they did at launch but when it comes to stuff like this, I expect to take the lead and the heat for it if I screw up. I'm not going to throw Bob or Missy out there to respond to this type of stuff because I don't want them to have to take the heat if something goes wrong or have abuse heaped on them because they couldn't say much without risk. I could frankly care less about the publicity since I'm neither a conference-***** (I barely go to one a year anymore and at most ever went to 3 a year) or press-***** and as the development of WAR has shown, guys like Paul, Jeff and Josh have spent like 10x the time I have in the spotlight. And if you go back to DAoC, well, this is the exact opposite of how things were then in terms of publicity as Matt and I and Sanya really did almost all of the press stuff. And certainly if you go back to my older posts early in the DAoC days, I was more outspoken, vocal and absolutely was willing to get into a tussle with people but how often have I done that in the last say, 5 years?

And for those that say I should always just keep my mouth shut, even when competitors (or people) say things that are wrong about us. Ask yourself how you would feel if you or something you cared about was getting attacked unfairly? Would you sit back and never say anything about it? Would you simply ignore it and move on? Maybe some of you would but that's not how I am. I usually go out of my way to praise most other games and developers (with a few well known exceptions) as I did today in 2 separate interviews.

In terms of me having a thin skin, LOL. In the 20+ years I've been making games, I've been called more obscene things, accused of being responsible for every thing that went wrong in DAoC (even when I wasn't involved in the game at all after a few years because of Imperator or WAR), blamed for the state UO is in (except thatEA wanted to shut down UO when they gave it to us but I convinced them to spend more money on the game), gotten death threats (and had to call in the FBI), told that I should "shut up and die" more times than I can remember, criticized because I want to start a blog, had someone wish that my son and I should die in a car accident because we changed how one of the classes in DAOC worked, get hate mail on said blog (I know, I expected it) and my personal email constantly and generally blamed whenever possible for everything that is wrong in Mythic, Imperator, WAR, DAoC, UO, etc. and I almost always (especially nowadays) ignore them. I'm not saying this to be whiny or complain but simply to point out that when some people say I have a thin skin that I ignore 99% of the things that are said about me and Mythic especially when they are said by anonymous posters on the Internet so my skin can't be that thin. And BTW, when things did go wrong with those games, I took full responsibility for it because as CEO/GM both externally and internally at EA as well, because I consider it part of my job (even if I had nothing to do with the decision at any level like changes to classes past a certain point or statements made by Mythic guys) unlike many both in our industry and in our world who never take responsibility. And somehow, some say I should say nothing ever in response and that I have a thin skin when I respond once in a blue moon. I'm not expecting one iota of pity or sympathy for that stuff because I know as the frontman for Mythic, I'm going to take the heat but not being able to say anything, ever? That's not fair and it is a double-standard.

So, I'm sure I'm going to get flamed here by some of you as well. But I'll say the same thing I said years ago and that is why is it okay when everyone else can say whatever they want here and in other places (no matter how untrue, vulgar or rude) about me, Mythic, WAR, DAoC, life, etc. without consequence but when I express an opinion or respond in any way, I get flamed for it. And before anyone says "Because you're GM of EA" the same thing held true when I was head of a company that had a few employees and I was probably making less than the a assistant manager at a fast food restaurant.

Mark

P.S. And in terms of the added classes to a couple of other games, I honestly didn't know that and nobody pointed that out to me either unfortunately. I'll correct the SoG because if it's more than one, which it certainly appears to be, then I really should change my statement even though I had a bit of a disclaimer on purpose in regards to that statement itself. As to whether they were cut and should have been added, well, my point was that when we cut them, there were a lot of posts on the WHA and Vault that we were going to save them for an expansion and then charge for them "because that's what Mythic does!!!" and "Mythic is greedy!" were the standard lines. I think I was well within my rights to be proud that we didn't do that.

 

[Siteswap]

WOW!
there will be NO "quick death for UO" cursing: string of unintelligible curses of a personal nature)

I hope in the future your "care givers" are of a similar opinion re: you ...

The fact that you would even make that comparison is just plain weird and also a little creepy. Although coming from you, it shouldnt surprise me.