Have there been any indications of new hires for new UO work? In the past, when they started hiring, word always got out that they were hiring for something, job postings, slip-ups, etc.
Sure, UO has a "franchise producer" over it who is technically a new hire, but UO also lost its producer last year.
I wish I was wrong, but there are no indications this time around that UO is getting more work on it than what has been announced. Hell, they are holding up work on some things that were officially announced (graphics upgrade), and have officially announced that other things are being scaled back to be a shadow of what they originally talked about (new player experience) because they said they have limited resources.