My wish for Friday!

[Uriah Heep]

Is that we would finally get some communication here from someone who knows whats going on. I hear questions going around all the time, and it's simple stuff that probably wouldn'T be classified with any other game.

Stuff like...how long with the 14th tickets be available

How long will the dyes be available (compassion)

Is there anyone besides Grimm working on UO now? Since he is the only one we see here.

What is the cutoff date for Turn ins?

What is the cutoff date (if any) for claiming the gifts from turnin.

When will house decay be turned back on, and will it be any different from before?

simple tidbits that most everyone wonders about.

 

[Spyderis]

Agreed!! Thanks to Grim and his awesome work with the pumpkins, he has been the only one for weeks talking to us. Its like after Cal left, UO has been silent. No info on halloween, as to the questions mentioned above. I know lots of other posts have been negative However, some are justified. Maybe "They" have realized that most of the gripes are justified and are ashamed that UO had gone down hill in a major way.

I have had 2 accounts going on 9 years. Im not as die hard as some but i have put in my time and money. I would rather have some explaination than some dyes. My accounts was screwed up for 43 days. I worked w/ the support team to get my accounts found and migrated what a mess. I chose to do this because of the last vid i watched w/ mesanna and cal talking about the new and upcoming things. That has been 7 months ago...

SO....DEV'S, PRODUCERS, MESANNA..IT WOULD BE NICE TO KNOW WHAT THE H@LL IS GOING ON AND WHATS UPCOMING. ALSO BRING BACK 5 ON FRIDAY!!!

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

My wish for Friday would be sneak preview screenshots of the upcoming art upgrade in the EC.

 

[Salivern_Diago]

Agreed with the OP. There is nothing 'determental' in telling the players the small amount of information asked above. We have had little to no updates about any of the above (despite the repeated requests over and over which all have gone ignored).

Could someone please reply to these, or do we have to start sending loads of emails to get an answer?

 

[nynyve]

Some news would be nice.

 

[KingHen]

I want cookies!

but yes news would be nice...

 

[Woodsman]

...

My wish for Friday would be sneak preview screenshots of the upcoming art upgrade in the EC.

Yes please.

 

[Tina Small]

Is there anyone besides Grimm working on UO now? Since he is the only one we see here.

I saw two yellow-named UO team members on the Arena Test Center earlier today: Supreem and Phoenix.

 

[olduofan]

I saw two yellow-named UO team members on the Arena Test Center earlier today: Supreem and Phoenix.

go figure devs are playing online games while there at work, makes me wounder if there bosses know about this?

 

[Pinco]

I really miss the five on friday with 5 questions about gargoyle flying

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Just my personal .02

Yeah, I too miss the days of Friday 5, and the days of the Dev's being very active on Stratics Forums. BUT, imho we {the community of Stratics} share a bit of the blame in why they are not as active as they were years ago etc. Put yourself in their shoes for a minute, and be honest with yourself. If you went somewhere that was above and beyond what your job description is, and every time you went there the majority of things you saw were negative/griping and on occasion downright RUDE comments about not only you but your co-workers as well, along with the body of work you all work over, would you continue to go "above and beyond" just to suffer that kind of treatment?

Now I ain't saying we ALL are guilty of that, nor am I saying the folks in this thread are gulty of that. Only offering a very plausible explanation of why there seeems to be limited contact with them on the boards.

As usual, I could be wrong, it would not be the first time

 

[olduofan]

Just my personal .02

Yeah, I too miss the days of Friday 5, and the days of the Dev's being very active on Stratics Forums. BUT, imho we {the community of Stratics} share a bit of the blame in why they are not as active as they were years ago etc. Put yourself in their shoes for a minute, and be honest with yourself. If you went somewhere that was above and beyond what your job description is, and every time you went there the majority of things you saw were negative/griping and on occasion downright RUDE comments about not only you but your co-workers as well, along with the body of work you all work over, would you continue to go "above and beyond" just to suffer that kind of treatment?

Now I ain't saying we ALL are guilty of that, nor am I saying the folks in this thread are gulty of that. Only offering a very plausible explanation of why there seeems to be limited contact with them on the boards.

As usual, I could be wrong, it would not be the first time

I was thinking the same thing. hell who wants to try to communicate with people that are just going to bash you? I know I am guilt of it and I know a lot of others are as well.

That all the more reason I give TheGrimmOmen 2 thumbs up he has been bashed by a select few and still try's to give those people incite and understanding thats far more than I would even come close to doing( I would tell them where to stick it).

Thanks Grimm

(lets hope the rest of our team can stomach these boards again soon and start posting again)

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

That MAY seem like a part of it Kylie, but I think it mainly has to do with the personalities of the people who are in charge.

Case in point, in earlier days, you got a little bit of interaction here and there, then you had the HoC chats as the main focus of dev-player interaction. Luckily, they were held roughly on a monthly basis. Then a little later, we had Calyndryll as a dev-player liason and then move ever forward to the Draconi led team that gave us 5 on Friday, active posters in Jeremy, Draconi himself, Grimm and Cathat, and even Supreem more often at that time, and the Town Halls. Then after Cal took over, that level of interaction fell off almost completely aside from a few posts here and there. The Town Halls ended, 5oF turned into the Ask Devs forum which has been seemingly forgotten, HoC chats became horribly infrequent and turned into non-interactive videos (although the interactive video HoC chats were a brief light in the darkness because of how many questions could be answered in voice vs by IRC).

Now we have a new producer, but we have really yet to see what standard of communication they will bring forward or if there is someone else on the team that prefers a more hush-hush style of running things.

The attitude here in many cases hasn't helped things though, and there's a big difference between bringing up issues and problems with the game, it's another entirely to bring forward some of the attitudes seen here. But I'm going to say it's more based on the style and personality of the team more than our bellyaching.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

That all the more reason I give TheGrimmOmen 2 thumbs up he has been bashed by a select few and still try's to give those people incite and understanding thats far more than I would even come close to doing( I would tell them where to stick it).

True, Grimm definately seems like a thick skinned individual. Able to take verbal taunts, smile, and still try to serve the person the best way he can.

...

That MAY seem like a part of it Kylie, but I think it mainly has to do with the personalities of the people who are in charge.

Now we have a new producer, but we have really yet to see what standard of communication they will bring forward or if there is someone else on the team that prefers a more hush-hush style of running things.

Yeah, I agree, each Producer has their own style when it comes to release of info. I don't know who "controls" the flow of information, I have always assumed someone higher up than the Producer dictates that *shrugs*. Even back when the Dev's were highly active on the boards they were still bound by not giving out info until they had the ok to do so. If we are talking solely about release of upcoming content etc then I would say that does lay in the area you are talking about. My post above was more along the lines of basic Dev interaction on the boards, not about release of content etc. I shouldda made that clear, my bad.

 

[Woodsman]

I don't know who "controls" the flow of information, I have always assumed someone higher up than the Producer dictates that *shrugs*. Even back when the Dev's were highly active on the boards they were still bound by not giving out info until they had the ok to do so. If we are talking solely about release of upcoming content etc then I would say that does lay in the area you are talking about. My post above was more along the lines of basic Dev interaction on the boards, not about release of content etc. I shouldda made that clear, my bad.

Given that all three Mythic games suck when it comes to player communications, I'm leaning towards it being higher up than the producer as well.

There is a thread on the Warhammer forums about a PC Gamer article where a BioWare VP talked about community:

“No, no,” he said when I asked if Mythic’s involvement with SWTOR could signal WAR’s end during an interview at GDC Online. “All of these games appeal to different people for different reasons. I’m very proud to be able to say that I’m running the studio that’s run Ultima Online for as long as it has – 14 years. Dark Age of Camelot just celebrated 10 years. We hope we can run these games for as long as there is player interest.”

WAR, then, definitely isn’t going the way of Matrix Online and Star Wars Galaxies. Not only that, Evans said subscriptions have risen in the wake of Warhammer: Wrath of Heroes’ recent announcement. So then, free-to-play? Sure, it’s all the rage, but WAR’s marching to the beat of its own drum.

“Right now, we’re focused on [arena-based spin-off] Wrath of Heroes as our free-to-play offering in the Warhammer universe,” Evans explained. “We believe in the community of players who are playing Age of Reckoning. Yes, we could have attracted a lot of players to it [with free-to-play], but it’s unclear how long you’ll keep them. We wanted to support our game as it currently exists.”

This is a VP of BioWare who is in charge of UO, Camelot, and Warhammer saying he believes in the community of players. This is Jeff Skalski's boss or maybe boss of bosses.

And yet they keep players of all three of those games in the dark.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

In any game... the developpers are lucky to have a MODERATED, devoted, loyal company who makes efforts like startics to coordinate just this.

Being "bashed"...

re-read the thread guys ... it's 5 wishes on friday that should exist now.

For the devs... this is a mine of ideas (and say what you want, even if there's some petty bickering and allegations ; those players that do have ideas do not feel intimidated to submit them)

But that would be politicizing our "importance" now wouldn't it ?

Well maybe its about time we did, but softly and non violently... don't wait for some players to start jumping a notch and having to start actively limit the flow of "free speech" in here again...

we worked so hard for that, now there's another step to take.

 

[Kiminality]

My wish for Friday would be to be able to decide which seat I should take.

 

[Ned888]

I think the 5 on Fridays is a very reasonable request to ask of our game developers.

Petra has been submitting questions, but there doesn't seem to be any response as of yet.

I guess being reasonable doesn't always work, huh?

 

[clarkifer]

My wish for Friday would be to be able to decide which seat I should take.

NOOOOO don't start it!!!!!

 

[Ludes]

Off Topic I know but I'm wondering why the OP chose Uriah Heep as your name?

It brings me back to 1982 when I saw Uriah Heep open for Blue Oyster Cult at Weidsport Speedway in NY.

I caught a drumstick thrown into the crowd by Lee Kerslake..

I still have it.. it's even signed.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

Agreed with the OP. There is nothing 'determental' in telling the players the small amount of information asked above. We have had little to no updates about any of the above (despite the repeated requests over and over which all have gone ignored).

Just think of how much goodwill/excitement/interaction the Team could have generated if they had bothered to say they were working on finishing up arenas after the last publish instead of maintaining the cone of silence.

If the buck truly stops with BioWare, as one of the VP's stated, then someone needs to light a fire under them.

 

[Salivern_Diago]

They desperately need a community rep thats prepared to do the job properly and communicate with the players. I dont know why Kai ignores UO but its harming the tatters of UO's rep even more.

I guess the question is.. "WHY is there little to no communication, why cant/wont the Dev's talk to us (Or even post informative updates to UOHerald). TheGrimmOmen answers what he can but Mesanna, the new producer, Supreem or any of the others really need to just made themselves heard a little. When Tim/Draconi left communication really faltered but we were assured that the Dev's would answer questions in the proper thread.. then a year or two on that too faltered.. now Cal's gone.. silence.

What great wrong have we, the players who pay for UO done to deserve the contempt we are being shown? The Migration mess, House Decay etc all need a little leadership...

Just a little...

 

[Uriah Heep]

Off Topic I know but I'm wondering why the OP chose Uriah Heep as your name?

It brings me back to 1982 when I saw Uriah Heep open for Blue Oyster Cult at Weidsport Speedway in NY.

I caught a drumstick thrown into the crowd by Lee Kerslake..

I still have it.. it's even signed.

Ahhh, the glory days of kerslake and Hensley, Mick Box and them. I chose the name, cause way back when I loaded UO up for the first time, I knew I wanted to be a mage. Couldnt think of a cool name, Merlin and all that seemed so, umm, overused. As I was mulling it over while listening to The Magician's Birthday album (not cd, nor tape, album!) LOL, It just hit me the name would be fantastic for a mage =). The rest is history.
And I'm envious cause I never got to see them in person

 

[Zosimus]

If it wasn't for Woodsman finding information and keeping the UO stratics community informed it be way much worse. He is more of a community rep UO has. If I recall correctly, he introduced Jeff before Jeff could. lol.

I dont think anybody has really thanked him......

@Woodsman. Thank you for letting us know as much as you have found out and keep up the good work.

 

[canary]

In any game... the developers are lucky to have a MODERATED, devoted, loyal company who makes efforts like stratics to coordinate just this.

They are also lucky to have jobs. Something that the current subscribers of UO allow them to have.

BTW, the most respected/ beloved developers were the ones that always maintained contact with the community. Shocking, huh?

While there will always be those who have nothing but critical things to say, that gap is obviously lessened when you do have UO employees interacting with the players. So, the question is, would they (hypothetically) rather tick off 80% of the player base or like 15% of the player base?

 

[Uriah Heep]

Well it's 5 pm in Va now, and not a peeps outta anyone. Reckon it's business as usual...playing the quiet game.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

They have routinely posted as late a 9pm EST, so there is still 'hope.' I just wouldn't advise you to hold your breath.

 

[Woodsman]

@Woodsman. Thank you for letting us know as much as you have found out and keep up the good work.

You're welcome but I have to confess that a few simple RSS queries in Google News and following a few people on Twitter makes it simple to follow this stuff. I also follow the Camelot and Warhammer forums and they dig up a lot of stuff.

I have "Ultima Online" "BioWare Mythic" "Ultima" and a few other terms set up through Google News in my newsreader, as well as following a few gaming sites through their RSS feeds. It's pretty surprising how much Ultima Online is referenced by other companies or developers in a lot of articles.

Like these are sitting in my reader just from today:

The Repopulation influenced by UO and SWG | Massively

GDC Online 2011: A nostalgia trip with the original EverQuest team | Massively

McQuaid: When you dueled somebody, it would say, "So-and-so beat so-and-so in a duel to the death." In beta we went in there and created a character called EverQuest and a character called Ultima Online. And then we would do a /kill on UO, so it would broadcast to everybody that EverQuest killed Ultima Online.

That's what is frustrating for me - UO is mentioned a lot - every week, so people are still aware of it, at least within the gaming community. Developers still talk about it in interviews. It seems like it pops up a lot on Gamasutra. When people say gamers aren't aware of UO anymore, it's flat out wrong. Setup up an RSS reader, plugin "Ultima Online" "Ultima" "Richard Garriott" etc into Google News and grab the query strings for your reader and you'll see how often large gaming sites mention it.

I would be careful about plugging in just "BioWare" because you'll get 90% Star Wars stuff. "Electronic Arts" gets you mostly Battlefield 3 and Sims stuff a lot of times.

 

[Zosimus]

I actually do what you do since I like a variety of differnt games. As a former DaoC, Warhammer player I also keep up on their forums.

I see the difference or lack of communication when it comes to UO. Not saying the devs have been guilty of it in DaoC or War just UO lacks more.

I will give credit where credit is due and that goes to Grimm Omen. Even though he deals with more the art and graphics he does speak.

Jeff....................................well....................lets just leave it at that. He is a noob atm so I will let that slide.

Cal. he did speak and respond alot. more then what may want to believe.

Mesanna. Community favorite by most ( not mine) but I will leave it at that.

 

[Uriah Heep]

New list above of questioins people would like answered. Suprisingly, it is exactly the same as last week. No info in over a week now? I'm shocked and appalled!

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

I told you so...



They're too busy working on high res... tiles...