I'm sorry it's getting annoying for people to keep hearing about NetDragon. I would just like to point out for the people who apparently don't follow links and/or don't like to do any more reading than necessary:
As recently as September 26th, Chris Ondrus' public profile on LinkedIn only said for his current position that he was working on two external projects with EA's partner, NetDragon. Since then, Mr. Ondrus has updated his profile to include the following new/revised information in the Summary section:
Multi-talented Producer with 15 + years of video game experience, specializing in AAA RPG's, MMORPG's and Free to Play games. Successful manager leading multiple teams in a fast paced large scale MMORPG production environment.
Shipped 14+ games for the PC market. Titles include The Elder Scrolls series, Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing Games; Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer: Age of Reckoning. Currently working on two Free to Play games for the China Market, Dungeon Keeper Online and Ultima China.
Experience producing Free to Play games for China's online video game market utilizing Electronic Arts key Intellectual Properties. Business development and licensing experience building and maintaining partner relationships.
Managed and expanded an external team of outsource developers based in Shanghai China developing content for MMORPG's.
And the Experience section of his profile now says:
Producer and Director of Outsourcing
Bioware, a Division of Electronic Arts
June 2009– Present (2 years 5 months)
Producing two projects with one of the leading MMORPG Play for Free game developers in China, Netdragon.
Outsource Director
Director of Outsourcing as well as producing two external projects with our foreign partner Netdragon, World of Dungeon Keeper and Ultima China. During my time as the OS Director this fiscal year I was in control over an overall budget of 1.185 million, managed an external OS team of 25 artists, DD’s and AD. In addition I managed, negotiated, budgeted and schedule 9 domestic artists, musicians and freelancers.
Achievements:
• Overall budget: $1.185 million
• Art efficiency: 88%
• Net saving: $425,140
• • Saving per internal SM by utilizing OS: $6,283 (Average OS SM $3,894/Average Internal cost SM $10,177)
Korean WAR Aesthetics
Lead the charge for all art and audio aesthetic changes for the War Asia product. Analyzed the Korean market to evaluate what Korean gamers like to see and hear and play. Through my research I created detailed documents to communicate changes that Mythic needed to make to Warhammer in order to be successful on the Korean market. All art/audio and graphics changes not only made a difference in the War Asia build but also will enhance the English/European builds.
Achievements:
• Create documents for all Art Aesthetics
• Communicated buy in from dependencies
• Negotiated staff time and tasks with leads
• Art directed animation and audio to reflect the core goals of WAR Korea Aesthetics
• Presented changes with Asian partner NHN to gain buying and feedback
If the "Ultima China" project is vaporware, why would the person who is producing it have gone from a month ago not even naming it in his public profile to now not only giving it a name but providing additional details such as the size of the budget and the number and type of people he is managing?
He obviously isn't ashamed of the project or afraid to have it on his resume. So that leads me to believe there's a really good chance that the project has not died at all and the reason we haven't seen anything is because Bioware has had the sense to keep it under wraps all this time because of all the criticism it's bound to get once it is publicized. Also, because the Dungeon Keeper game is right on the verge of finishing its beta stage and being released, I doubt that now would be a really great time for him to try to split his focus even more by managing the initial release of concept art and whatever else gets released to the public at the alpha and early beta stages of a new game's development. In addition, Bioware may not want a lot of other "competing" information released just now as they prepare for SW:TOR to be released.
I most definitely hope that Jeff Skalski is prepared to give us more information on the status and scope of this project, which until a month ago was nothing more than an oft-repeated blurb on NetDragon's press releases and financial reports but now has an identified producer and some publicized information about budget and staffing shared with another project. I would like for him to clarify whether or not the "Ultima China" game is only going to be available in certain Asian countries, or whether NetDragon will go on to localize the content for EA so it can be released in other countries in North America, Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, in much the same way that NetDragon has already done for many of their own titles.
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