Someone tell me what happened?

[linko50]

When i first started playing this game, EA wasn't even involved.... this was one mans great achievement, and OSI was literally making history with the immense player base that they had worked so hard to obtain......


Now that EA has taken over, and placed Mythic into the picture, the customer service has taken a nose dive.... occasionaly there is a knight in shining armor who comes in in actual GM form to make a public appearance...



I hate to say this, but i closed one of my accounts today, and the only reason my other two are up is because i am a pack rat, and i have alot of stuff i dont want to get rid of, but i am spending my gold on gametime codes, i dont even log in hardly enough to spend anything.... I even considered having a real treasure hunt where the end result, the person who found the last clue and solved it got my luna house, just to brighten up someone elses experience in this game before i left for good.

what i see being the case now, until someone proves me wrong is

OSI made history
EA/Mythic is living off of history......

when all they need is a real customer service department... that isnt afraid to get their hands dirty. Hell, two dedicated people could make one hell of an impact if they were dedicated to it...

 

[Alvinho]

When i first started playing this game, EA wasn't even involved.... this was one mans great achievement, and OSI was literally making history with the immense player base that they had worked so hard to obtain......


Now that EA has taken over, and placed Mythic into the picture, the customer service has taken a nose dive.... occasionaly there is a knight in shining armor who comes in in actual GM form to make a public appearance...



I hate to say this, but i closed one of my accounts today, and the only reason my other two are up is because i am a pack rat, and i have alot of stuff i dont want to get rid of, but i am spending my gold on gametime codes, i dont even log in hardly enough to spend anything.... I even considered having a real treasure hunt where the end result, the person who found the last clue and solved it got my luna house, just to brighten up someone elses experience in this game before i left for good.

what i see being the case now, until someone proves me wrong is

OSI made history
EA/Mythic is living off of history......

when all they need is a real customer service department... that isnt afraid to get their hands dirty. Hell, two dedicated people could make one hell of an impact if they were dedicated to it...

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, Did I say Wrong?

EA has always owned Ultima Online, EA purchased Origin Studios includeing the Ultima and all titles and was in control of the OSI studio since 1992, The Online portion of Ultima that was released pubicly in 1997 was produced through the origin studios a subsidary of Electronic Arts. If it was not for EA funding there is a very good possibility that Ultima Online would have never existed

Since I proved you wrong I will gladly take the Luna home off your hands

 

[linko50]

so then was it to save the namesake of OSI that they changed hands publicly? like exactly when customer service took a nose dive?

 

[Alvinho]

so then was it to save the namesake of OSI that they changed hands publicly? like exactly when customer service took a nose dive?

No Osi took a nose dive when Anthony Castorio aka Sunsword took over the Reigns at OSI a EA subdisdary, customer service took a nose dive, as well as the mirror of Felucca when he promised everyone that Trammel was not a mirror, with his exlempary leadership, AOS was also Born as the small spike in subs happened but to Pinpoint the problems with UO started when he was in command.

The public change of names, was not to safe any name, or else OSI studios woudl still be produceing games

 

[JC the Builder]

EA didn't really get involved until they dismantled OSI and took over direct control of Ultima Online in early 2004. But that isn't when customer service went downhill. It isn't even when Mythic took over handling of UO. It was in December 2006 I believe that Mythic decided to consolidate operations and the entire Gamemaster staff was laid off. After that the level of customer support has varied greatly.

 

[THP]

Lets be fair AOS started to kill our game...

oH I wish i could still track down a blacksmith outside a npc shop!!! and ask him to make me a deal verite /val armour!!! everyone throws away normal verite/val armour now they dont even smelt it!!!!...crazy

 

[RaDian FlGith]

Actually, UO had already started going down-hill long before AoS. After Designer Dragon left (and took a large portion of the team with him) for Star Wars Galaxies (and who wouldn't leave for an opportunity like that?), the team that followed (which I believe had Sunsword as lead) completely scrapped ALL of the impending ideas at the time. Now, whether this was because they didn't know how to pick up coding, or simply because someone on the team just didn't like what was coming down the pike, it all (Necromancy, Advanced Alchemy, game systems that would have been much more rich in style than what we've gotten) got cancelled, but it wasn't for literally months and months that the DevTeam actually stepped up and said they were cancelled.

In the meantime, Sunsword developed the "It's not a mirror" landmass of Trammel, decided that they'd force all of the people who wanted OUT of PvP to move (because, you know, the whole reason for Trammel was because there were more non-PvPers, so it made sense to totally destroy the RP communities that were present in player-run towns), and literally, overnight, the whole game changed. It has never recovered.

I'll say it again, and I'm, never popular for saying it, but without the changes made to UO during AoS, there would be far fewer players left than there are today. Yes, they handled it horribly, but the change to the way items worked WAS necessary. You only have to look at all of the "classic" shards on the emulators to see that, unless it's a run-free PvP fest like the old days (that gets old VERY quick), they don't tend to last for long, and that's due to a lack of variety. What few people seem to remember is that when you finally managed to get a vanquishing weapon or a full set of indestructable armor, you never wore it for fear that it would be lost or stolen.

Everyone talks about the death of crafting as having been the moment that insurance came to the game. It's not. The death of crafting came as player vendors entered the game. Sure, people don't have to replace anything, but they do tend to look for better stuff. Again, EA certainly could handle this better, but at this point, the developers don't even understand that game (just look at the "You must unlock a locked container in order to unlock what's inside of it, here, we'll make it inconvenient on everybody because we can't figure out a way to elsewise fix the bug," fix of recent to see that they really don't play that often) that they're developing.

At any rate, UO has been on a long, gradual down-hill slide. It's just that as we get closer and closer to the bottom, the angle is getting steeper and steeper, because now, we have a two person Live development team, and a handful of people keeping it on life support. We're now at the end of July, more than a year after Stygian Abyss was announced, and since the KR client went "live," and we have to basic facts: KR is still not complete, and SA is still not being talked about. Maybe they're still working on SA. Me, I think they scrapped it, or they've dumbed it down to the 2D client, which signals the death of KR as a failure.