Trouble Brewin O'er the High Seas, or Where be our Cap'n?

[Viquire]

Well, since we can't gloom and doom in the farewell thread I just thought I'd go ahead and put out a welcome mat.

Course what I would really, really like, is a reason to be hopeful. SO I'll put out a mat for that too. Anybody want to step up before the weekend and tell us we do or don't have someone, that we are or are not looking for anyone, or just what exactly might we expect through the end of the year.

You are all too kind. Thankee fer readin'.

 

[Kayne]

Theres enough doom and gloom irl

*throws out a welcome and hope mat*

 

[Shamus Turlough]

Post with care. Clan Turlough watches all threads equally.

 

[Neutron Bomb]

I'm pretty sure we gave Cal enough crap here (Maybe not, he was in the military), to the point that Cal will never stop in. A nice guy, and surely blamed many times over things out of his control. Yet he was the Capt', so maybe that's just part of the role.

 

[Kayne]

Maybe we could mutiny and take over UO?

 

[Ender]

How many new producers does this make and in how many years?

 

[Viquire]

Post with care. Clan Turlough watches all threads equally.

[YOUTUBE]LFgMowOwek0[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Shiznit Bo'Bourbon]

Post with care. Clan Turlough watches all threads equally.

So we're down to the point of some guy with a WoW avatar forcing us to pretend we're cheerful and positive?

 

[hen]

Hopefully an old or new person and not one of the current team, given their silence recently. Would rather have a bull-by-the-horns-leader.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

It will be interesting to see who takes over as producer and how they will handle communication in the (near) future. While Cal was at head for some more "behind the scenes" style of upgrades and support for UO (which makes me NOT think of this as a doom and gloom thing), the change in how dev-to-player communication was handled compared to the Draconi era was, well IMO, rather lacking.

Maybe we had gotten used to the methods used by Draconi, Leuro, and others, but the change for me in this regard really put a big damper on my enthusiasm for the current team.

Hopefully we can also get an events team that can take what worked well in past events, storylines, and scenarios and build upon the successes instead of flooding us with insta-killing uber creatures as has been the norm lately. What we need is a content team that knows how to create content for solo to small groups that allows those groups to thrive without allowing uber-templates (be they Sampires, bards,tamers, whatever) to monopolize said content.

So good luck to Cal, but I hope we get someone on board who is more open to more consistent communication as opposed to occasional info dumps (though I also realize the fault the players and posters, especially on this board hold in regards to lesser willingness to communicate).

 

[Jhym]

He wasn't a bad producer, and he didn't tell us Trammel wasn't a mirror.

So all in all he was a middle of the road captain that did ok with what he had.

I believe he had several significant turnovers and EA layoffs, as I recall, so you have to admit we could be in far worse shape if he didn't do a half-way decent job of watching over things.

Now some of his underlings, you might argue need lashings on the poop deck now and then.

 

[Shamus Turlough]

So we're down to the point of some guy with a WoW avatar forcing us to pretend we're cheerful and positive?

You can post in any way that makes you feel contributive. As long as it is within the rules of conduct.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

I think most of Cal's credit will be spearheading the behind the scenes upgrades (server upgrades, and in time the account system upgrade) as well as a good bit of game rebalanceing and a decent amount of new content.

Where I think that credit falls off is in the realms (as stated above) of communication and several of the less than optimal events.

So yeah, middle of the road is about right, but I never really got the feeling that UO was about to really break out and turn a much needed corner the way I was with Draconi and team... but even there in the end there were some screwups before the handoff to Cal IMO as well.

Hopefully the next Producer can take what Cal built behind the scenes and show us something amazing.

 

[Viquire]

What I really missed with Cal was a feeling that he "got" UO in the same sense Draconi did, which is completely unfair of me. But...it is in fact Ultima Online. The farther removed we get from the days that those games were fresh and relevant the less likely that is to happen. I am very intrigued that pub 72 sees us adding a long awaited virtue in a way that almost seems to make some sense.

So yes, there is still hope for the future. I hope they will continue to move forward with mini expansions, as long as they seem to make sense in the context of the game world, and fill holes, balance systems and make nominal improvements along the way.

 

[Woodsman]

What I really missed with Cal was a feeling that he "got" UO in the same sense Draconi did, which is completely unfair of me. But...it is in fact Ultima Online. The farther removed we get from the days that those games were fresh and relevant the less likely that is to happen. I am very intrigued that pub 72 sees us adding a long awaited virtue in a way that almost seems to make some sense.

Given that Cal was on Star Wars Galaxies, I could definitely see where he came to appreciate UO, especially with the early SWG developers who were UO developers. He also saw what happened with Sony really screwed up.

When Cal was pushing the graphics update, and the quest stuff, and the new player stuff, I felt like he was definitely taking a longer view, as a friend called it. Unfortunately EA is a next quarter kind of company, and they probably kept too many resources focused on Star Wars and then this whole account thing. Whoever replaces him is going to run into the same problems.