Hahahah we should be Neofriends xDI was startled by the new screen, too, at first, but quickly adapted... since I do play... rarely, of course.... but yes, I must confess... *cough*... once in a great while I do enjoy visiting Neopets.
I blame my grandchildren. It's all their fault.
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Oh dear...The new start up screen- Dino land for under 5s??
I have to agree with the majority of posters on this. My initial reaction at first sight was, what the hell is this?. Not really my idea of being representative of UO. And whilst I do not know what colour dinosaurs actually were I would doubt if they were blue somehow, that seems an unnatural colour for a large predator. Also what is the yellow animal? surely that is not supposed to be a tiger?. I also agree there is a cartoony look to the whole thing. My verdict is -- Could Do Better!.
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I kind of like it actually, I agree that it doesn't really fit in well with the UO theme, but it's still nice artwork. We see it for what, like 5 seconds when logging in? I think we can deal with it 
I think a lot of you are missing the point, I, and others, don't think that this art is terrible, it just doesn't fit our game. Not criticizing the art, just the application to this game.
shhhhh, be vewwy vewwy quiet.............
I've always felt UO to be medieval... with wild magicks that would thrust the unwary to weirdness. The Hildebrant picture is classic - says what UO is to a "t" as it was back in the day.
T2A - the first real expansion - and Renn both stuck to the classic UO feel and we grew to love it all. Although, I still wonder the source of Lizardmen... always did... and it made me think of the original "Land of the Lost" show and Sleestaks. I even called them that back then, much to the dismay of my friends and family who played then. I used to tease them that if a tyrannosaurus rex showed up, I'd make a tamer just for that.
Third Dawn and LBR introduced us to .... cyborgs. I felt it was kinda a stretch to the medieval imagination - but it made sense that dabbling in the darker arts would cause, strangeness. So the medieval mindset did what it does best - fight what it doesn't understand. The introduction of a "3D client" was a flop. It hurt. Badly.
3D starts with the game engine. Not with artwork being forced into a 2D quasi oblique perspective.
Then, somewhere, the developers got confused.... which led to a whole lot of malcontent, yes?
Age of Stu--Shadows, was an attempt at modernizing the game overall, but keep the classic UO feel to it, yet appeal to the newer 3D crowd. . Well, the neon stu--shadows (eh?!) didn't help. What was good were the two missing classes (Paladin & Necromancers - aka medieval Templars and Witches - very fantasy-medieval) and it looked like a return to more medieval/dark ages type of stuff with the occasional poke from Minax. Just, all the "stuff" kinda messed with it.
Then we went Japanese.
Nothing wrong with that - but a better explanation of how this came to be would have been nice. In medieval times, the Middle East was more involved with Anglo-Saxon races (which is what UO was based on - c'mon, "Lord British"??) than the Japanese. Even Chinese would have been better. It was a real stretch for the mindset and seemed the producers were wanting to make the game full on Asian for a bit. Again, can see how some 3D art is being forced into oblique perspective (the kirin & serpentine dragon look like.... pardon... origami)
Then Mondain's Legacy - Elves - which the LB swore would never happen. Ahh well....
The story arc was plausible and did make for some interesting changes in the game. Some rich RP was dreamt up by players.... really did feel good for a while. But it didn't pack the "umph" and at this point it felt like the game was slipping for me.
Stygian Abyss gave us the Gargoyles as a player-race. The Gargoyles were around for a while as NPCs, but didn't really fit into how the Ultima lore made them. The story building up the race wasn't congruent with the lore, and it just kinda flopped imo. I would have loved to see BOTH types of Gargoyles brought into the game as player race. I just wish there was more lore that matched up with the original series. Technically, there are no "female gargoyles" only the queen (and even that was stretched in the original series) - which is why I played my own fem-garg as a daemon possessed human. She's been since exorcised...
High Seas - should have been released a whole lot sooner. Ahh well. Some of us played pirates from the early days.
Now... the Time Lord is wrecking havoc on our idyllic existence [sic]... I think this is the old "Ultima Worlds" game coming to being. It is of my opinion that a lot of what was being developed for UWO has been fed into the game over all these years. Steampunk, cyborgs, and now dinosaurs...
Aye, the Gem of Immortality is many faceted. When spaceships come into play I dunno what I'll do....
Personally, I like the medieval aspect of the game more than anything - I like that time period. Is why I'm in the SCA. Dinosaurs are kinda pushing it - but I can adapt my game play to kinda "ignore" that aspect in my RP. Was getting hard to ignore it with the raptors that came about in Ter Mur - but then the persona Kirthag didn't really like the "demonic race" to begin with - they seemed so stuffy, moreso than elves.
It feels like the UO-universe is splintering apart. It was awesome in the Ultima Series, in that each release of the series was self contained, and served up the lore well to keep them connected. But the UO game isn't doing it justice really. The finesse of the story telling lacks big time. The EMs are trying to do a good job, but I sense a real lack of passion - have they played the old Ultima games? I applaud their attempts, but really - for those of us who have played and experienced the original Ultima series, sometimes the events they put on are just .... not right. Sometimes even rushed... part of why I don't do them really.
I see them attempting to bring the Ultima series into UO - that's only natural - but its just so... splintered. Much like the Gem, eh?
The artwork on the splash is very, immature feeling, for this game. Seriously. It feels almost anime, not even manga worthy - a bit more kawaii and yes, neopets-ish. UO has a huge history that should be put forth by any representation. Looking at the new UO site, although a bit bland, does lend itself toward the overall UO feel. Then someone sees that splash and goes, "What the?"
My sis, who hasn't played since Y2k, saw that and told me I can have her aged account. She's going back to Guild Wars.
What is UO about? What IS Ultima Online? I'd rather see something showing the Gem's shards, floating in space, and "reflections" of each aspect mirrored in them (dino, gargoyle, elves, ninja, pirates, solen, knights, dragons, undead, blah blah blah) and some shards just out of focus... that HINTS at more possibilities and expansions. That kinda suits what UO is. A world made up of undiscovered worlds.. yes?
Or if that is too much.. do something like Blizzard does with Diablo3.. the splash is simply their logo (a transparent PNG that sits in the middle of the desktop). That would be better than.... the Saturday morning cartoon we are being presented.
It took me a full year to convince my sister to at least re-download the game and I spent the past 3 weeks helping her get her account squared away (try recovering an account that was closed back at the turn of the century!). I'm depressed. Really.
I think Kirthag will stick to Sosaria....
T2A - the first real expansion - and Renn both stuck to the classic UO feel and we grew to love it all. Although, I still wonder the source of Lizardmen... always did... and it made me think of the original "Land of the Lost" show and Sleestaks. I even called them that back then, much to the dismay of my friends and family who played then. I used to tease them that if a tyrannosaurus rex showed up, I'd make a tamer just for that.
Third Dawn and LBR introduced us to .... cyborgs. I felt it was kinda a stretch to the medieval imagination - but it made sense that dabbling in the darker arts would cause, strangeness. So the medieval mindset did what it does best - fight what it doesn't understand. The introduction of a "3D client" was a flop. It hurt. Badly.
3D starts with the game engine. Not with artwork being forced into a 2D quasi oblique perspective.
Then, somewhere, the developers got confused.... which led to a whole lot of malcontent, yes?
Age of Stu--Shadows, was an attempt at modernizing the game overall, but keep the classic UO feel to it, yet appeal to the newer 3D crowd. . Well, the neon stu--shadows (eh?!) didn't help. What was good were the two missing classes (Paladin & Necromancers - aka medieval Templars and Witches - very fantasy-medieval) and it looked like a return to more medieval/dark ages type of stuff with the occasional poke from Minax. Just, all the "stuff" kinda messed with it.
Then we went Japanese.
Nothing wrong with that - but a better explanation of how this came to be would have been nice. In medieval times, the Middle East was more involved with Anglo-Saxon races (which is what UO was based on - c'mon, "Lord British"??) than the Japanese. Even Chinese would have been better. It was a real stretch for the mindset and seemed the producers were wanting to make the game full on Asian for a bit. Again, can see how some 3D art is being forced into oblique perspective (the kirin & serpentine dragon look like.... pardon... origami)
Then Mondain's Legacy - Elves - which the LB swore would never happen. Ahh well....
The story arc was plausible and did make for some interesting changes in the game. Some rich RP was dreamt up by players.... really did feel good for a while. But it didn't pack the "umph" and at this point it felt like the game was slipping for me.
Stygian Abyss gave us the Gargoyles as a player-race. The Gargoyles were around for a while as NPCs, but didn't really fit into how the Ultima lore made them. The story building up the race wasn't congruent with the lore, and it just kinda flopped imo. I would have loved to see BOTH types of Gargoyles brought into the game as player race. I just wish there was more lore that matched up with the original series. Technically, there are no "female gargoyles" only the queen (and even that was stretched in the original series) - which is why I played my own fem-garg as a daemon possessed human. She's been since exorcised...
High Seas - should have been released a whole lot sooner. Ahh well. Some of us played pirates from the early days.
Now... the Time Lord is wrecking havoc on our idyllic existence [sic]... I think this is the old "Ultima Worlds" game coming to being. It is of my opinion that a lot of what was being developed for UWO has been fed into the game over all these years. Steampunk, cyborgs, and now dinosaurs...
Aye, the Gem of Immortality is many faceted. When spaceships come into play I dunno what I'll do....
Personally, I like the medieval aspect of the game more than anything - I like that time period. Is why I'm in the SCA. Dinosaurs are kinda pushing it - but I can adapt my game play to kinda "ignore" that aspect in my RP. Was getting hard to ignore it with the raptors that came about in Ter Mur - but then the persona Kirthag didn't really like the "demonic race" to begin with - they seemed so stuffy, moreso than elves.
It feels like the UO-universe is splintering apart. It was awesome in the Ultima Series, in that each release of the series was self contained, and served up the lore well to keep them connected. But the UO game isn't doing it justice really. The finesse of the story telling lacks big time. The EMs are trying to do a good job, but I sense a real lack of passion - have they played the old Ultima games? I applaud their attempts, but really - for those of us who have played and experienced the original Ultima series, sometimes the events they put on are just .... not right. Sometimes even rushed... part of why I don't do them really.
I see them attempting to bring the Ultima series into UO - that's only natural - but its just so... splintered. Much like the Gem, eh?
The artwork on the splash is very, immature feeling, for this game. Seriously. It feels almost anime, not even manga worthy - a bit more kawaii and yes, neopets-ish. UO has a huge history that should be put forth by any representation. Looking at the new UO site, although a bit bland, does lend itself toward the overall UO feel. Then someone sees that splash and goes, "What the?"
My sis, who hasn't played since Y2k, saw that and told me I can have her aged account. She's going back to Guild Wars.
What is UO about? What IS Ultima Online? I'd rather see something showing the Gem's shards, floating in space, and "reflections" of each aspect mirrored in them (dino, gargoyle, elves, ninja, pirates, solen, knights, dragons, undead, blah blah blah) and some shards just out of focus... that HINTS at more possibilities and expansions. That kinda suits what UO is. A world made up of undiscovered worlds.. yes?
Or if that is too much.. do something like Blizzard does with Diablo3.. the splash is simply their logo (a transparent PNG that sits in the middle of the desktop). That would be better than.... the Saturday morning cartoon we are being presented.
It took me a full year to convince my sister to at least re-download the game and I spent the past 3 weeks helping her get her account squared away (try recovering an account that was closed back at the turn of the century!). I'm depressed. Really.
I think Kirthag will stick to Sosaria....
Somehow I think we're on the same page.
- Awards
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And the Gods wept.
Reminded me of some B horror movie distributor who said something like "Throw some boobs on the poster and the kids will go see it". I think it was some MST3K bonus feature.Lugs suggested UO Splash Screen:
Scantily clad red headed bombshell drives daggers into Tyrannosaurus Rex skull.
Me likely.
Boris Vallejo never been UO
again better
I've always admired his art - awesome - but the avatars in UO have always been less superhuman, more ordinary people out to face the hordes rather than characters that look like Conan the Barbarian.
maybe its to appeal to the asian market. the "Cosmic Turtle" is well known creation myth in eastern religions. the art would make sense too as it looks a little anime-ish. So killing the turtle that the universe is supposedly built on may lead to destruction of space and time, which would make sense with the lore of the Time Lord and the attempted creation of a Time Gate?
You don't need to be good at something to understand/critique it. As for examples of something better, the old splash screen was an example. I could also give you 100 examples from any number of places.
I'm thinking you're pretty much spot on with this.
However, I gotta ask, if there are 4 celestial creatures in Chinese mythology, and the Dragon Turtle is a composition of two of them, where is our Bird Tiger?
Doubtful they accidently brought in tigers with the same expansion....just saying!!!! (Are there White Tigers in Eodon? - That would be awesome!)
They been clever with that part to try and throw you off track.
Tigers - yup you can see them.
Birds? ahh what's that big dinosaur looking thing....oh that's right, they evolved into ........?.......Birds
So http://www.wiki.ultimacodex.com/wiki/Pterosaurias in a *soon* to be released update then?
Head goes *BOOM*. That's a little to damn smart. Kinda creepy. I'll be watching you. We may have to burn ya at the stake.
Yeah.... UO's been kinda going in that direction for a while.
Now, if we get the Monkey King in here, I'll be all over that. ^.^ Wait... that's not fantasy-medieval. >.<
I have several Dragon Turtle figurines in my home, is positive Feng Shui for supportive power, success, longevity, etc. The creature is called Long gui - supposed to be the son of the celestial dragon Long (the five-fingered Emperor Dragon who got happy with a tortoise which is why he is land based).
Sounds like we are mixing Dr. Who with Asian lore into a fantasy-medieval game.
The more I think about it, the more I want to see a shattered Gem of Immortality splash screen....
Heh,
Just saw on the player wiki that the Dragon Turtle spawn has Greater Phoenix.
So pretty much the Vermillion Bird. Wonder if they/it spawns anywhere else in Eodon?
I'll pretend the blue lizards on the splash screen are the Azure Dragon.
Now for White Tigers. Here kitty kitty......
Just saw on the player wiki that the Dragon Turtle spawn has Greater Phoenix.
So pretty much the Vermillion Bird. Wonder if they/it spawns anywhere else in Eodon?
I'll pretend the blue lizards on the splash screen are the Azure Dragon.
Now for White Tigers. Here kitty kitty......
So I went and grabbed a bunch of images and slapped this together.... (pls note, this is just a quicky thing not professional grade with images ripped from Google and past UO artworks). My concept of a better suited splash screen.... got tired of hunting crystals so didn't add more... but you got from L to R: Stygian Abyss, Time of Legends and High Seas represented....
and what ever happened to this... actually, I never saw this... but is what mmorpg.com used to represent the login screen.... was this KR's login cos that was the only client I never really used...
and what ever happened to this... actually, I never saw this... but is what mmorpg.com used to represent the login screen.... was this KR's login cos that was the only client I never really used...
Yeah... I liked the artwork that artist provided... MUCH more suitable to UO than the cartoon...
I think the cover art is a bit misleading, in the sense that makes this game look nice, lovely and cuddly. Dinosaurs can be the theme, but dont make it look so Disney like, do remember the players that play this game are mostly adults not kids...... Make the dinosaurs look more aggressive and threatening!!
What happens when that 12 year old new player, joins the game thinking its a ''happy'' game due to the cover art, and then goes to FEL and gets killed repeatedly?? Or gets ripped off thinking everyone in game is nice and cuddly.... The cover art should reflect the game, so maybe the old Uo or even the HS cover seemed more like it. or an even an upgraded aggressive looking Dinosaur theme one.
He will end running away from the game faster than he arrived at it. Someone before said that it might attract the parent too, well it might catch the eye but once you are into the game, you realise that the picture has nothing of relevance to the game, how long you think they will stay.... especially if they are guided by that simple cover art.
Also something that I havnt seen many people mention is the ability of the parent to pay for the game, we do not want super young new players even if its boosts the game numbers up, cause it will just end up with a huge bunch of whinning kids, crying in General and in the forums. The parent will be willing to pay the sub which is not cheap either but once it realises that this game does not help or educate in any way their son/daughter, How long will they stay? Not saying that other games educate more than UO, but that is a point that parents look at when allowing their kids to play. Also the fact that there is lots of new games with even better graphics than UO, and not have to pay, is a big disadvantage towards UO, to attract new players.
I would like to see how long it would take till someone started to rant on Forums about what the game has turned into cause of the new blood arriving in... and all the whinning, not like it has ever stopped anyways with the older players but still, even more rant, complains and bad tempers!!
Also what about all the cursing and bad tempers from other players, do you really want your young kid learning all of this from the ingame chats? If they want to market the game for a new generation of young players, they will have to start to police ingame chat and add 100s of GMs to the game, as new problems will arise with the new players not knowing how to use the mechanics of this game, or a parent trying to tell someone to stop cursing/swearing at their son/daughter!!!
Personally I can see this being a much bigger problem for UO, as a well placed, well groomed and with a good job parent can take the game to court for not protecting their child from abuse from other players.... Whats the age rating in UO? Deffo cant be a PG, so has to be a 13+ game at least.... Here is some food for thought!!
I will write more later on, need some food now......
What happens when that 12 year old new player, joins the game thinking its a ''happy'' game due to the cover art, and then goes to FEL and gets killed repeatedly?? Or gets ripped off thinking everyone in game is nice and cuddly.... The cover art should reflect the game, so maybe the old Uo or even the HS cover seemed more like it. or an even an upgraded aggressive looking Dinosaur theme one.
He will end running away from the game faster than he arrived at it. Someone before said that it might attract the parent too, well it might catch the eye but once you are into the game, you realise that the picture has nothing of relevance to the game, how long you think they will stay.... especially if they are guided by that simple cover art.
Also something that I havnt seen many people mention is the ability of the parent to pay for the game, we do not want super young new players even if its boosts the game numbers up, cause it will just end up with a huge bunch of whinning kids, crying in General and in the forums. The parent will be willing to pay the sub which is not cheap either but once it realises that this game does not help or educate in any way their son/daughter, How long will they stay? Not saying that other games educate more than UO, but that is a point that parents look at when allowing their kids to play. Also the fact that there is lots of new games with even better graphics than UO, and not have to pay, is a big disadvantage towards UO, to attract new players.
I would like to see how long it would take till someone started to rant on Forums about what the game has turned into cause of the new blood arriving in... and all the whinning, not like it has ever stopped anyways with the older players but still, even more rant, complains and bad tempers!!
Also what about all the cursing and bad tempers from other players, do you really want your young kid learning all of this from the ingame chats? If they want to market the game for a new generation of young players, they will have to start to police ingame chat and add 100s of GMs to the game, as new problems will arise with the new players not knowing how to use the mechanics of this game, or a parent trying to tell someone to stop cursing/swearing at their son/daughter!!!
Personally I can see this being a much bigger problem for UO, as a well placed, well groomed and with a good job parent can take the game to court for not protecting their child from abuse from other players.... Whats the age rating in UO? Deffo cant be a PG, so has to be a 13+ game at least.... Here is some food for thought!!
I will write more later on, need some food now......
This is just awesome for me!!![/QUOTE]
Oh me too! I miss it miss miss it and them.
Merlin
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Couldn't they find some hipster-ish artsy fartsy college kid who would do something better for a 6-pack of Bud Light and 50 bucks?
I'm also a little let down by the log in screen. Sure, we only see it for 5 seconds, but it's really poor quality. Should've just re-used the savage empire cover if they were going to be that cheap with it.
I'm also a little let down by the log in screen. Sure, we only see it for 5 seconds, but it's really poor quality. Should've just re-used the savage empire cover if they were going to be that cheap with it.
- Awards
- 4
Awesomely suited for UO. Well done!So I went and grabbed a bunch of images and slapped this together.... (pls note, this is just a quicky thing not professional grade with images ripped from Google and past UO artworks). My concept of a better suited splash screen.... got tired of hunting crystals so didn't add more... but you got from L to R: Stygian Abyss, Time of Legends and High Seas represented....
and what ever happened to this... actually, I never saw this... but is what mmorpg.com used to represent the login screen.... was this KR's login cos that was the only client I never really used...
Is this your design?Perhaps they should have made artwork like this.
I think my favorite part is the saber tooth tiger... which doest exist. Not the regular tigers which DO exist. Just... sigh.
There are a lot of subscribers that love the splash screen though. Sorry for the large size but I thought some might like a UO theme desk top.
