NEWS [UO.Com] Producer Letter

[UO News]

General
2013 Apr 16 21:50 GMT
I wanted to take a few moments to fill everyone in on a few things we are doing. I have heard rumbling from the community that the sky is falling. I promise that is not true. We still have a team that is dedicated to UO and is excited about what is to come. The Event moderator program is here and still going strong.

As for the future of UO, I would like to share with you some of the ideas we have and want to see happen this year.

• New Theme Pack “The Kings Collection”
• Vendor Search
• New Story Arc
• Revamping Vet Reward – You have to be x age to get it but we are making vet rewards so anyone can use it.
• Revamping Fishing and Pirate Loot
• Adding a Gargoyle Horn Stylist
• Adding Fey Slayers to dungeon loot
• Reopening shard of the dead for Halloween
• Coming up with our Christmas and new Vet Rewards and Anniversary Rewards
• Adding new begging items for Trick or Treating
• Adding additional items to the clean up Britiannia turn ins
• 2nd House option on Siege
• Still working on High Res Art that has not been dropped, the housing wall tiles are numerous and takes a while to redo. I highly doubt we will be able to get this in game this year, we are shooting for the beginning of next year.
• Fix Bugs

I would also like to address the issue of King Blackthorns Counsel on Siege. Originally we did not put it on Siege due to the fact that the towns are Faction towns and we know griefing will happen. If Siege accepts that fact we will be more than happen to add the voting system to Siege.

Next week we will once again put Shadow Strike on Clubs for all the Stealth Macers out there.

We are putting out a publish for a few bug fixes that you will get tomorrow during maintenance:
• Players that are co-owned to a house can once again use house teleporters properly
• Orc Helms now provide the expected 3% LMC.

See everyone in game !!

Continue reading...

 

[Shakkara]

Ok, I wasn't expecting much anymore so I guess this is some good news.

Looking forward to the new theme pack but also hoping that it includes clothing items with stats on it that can compete with the ugly conjurer's garb, so we have more options until there is a way to hide robes. Hoping that we get crowns, fancy helms and jewelry that is craftable/imbuable and maybe even lootable Just please make any chairs/thrones and benches face in all directions, not just two. Else I can't put them at opposite ends of a table, and that'd make a very poor banquet.

Early next year is sooner than I expected with the high res art so that is good to hear. Isn't it an idea to crowdsource some of the work? I can understand the art pipeline is quite complex but there are always things that laymen can do. When I was working on an MMO as designer, I also made alphamasks for the furniture items and set locations on the items for the characters to sit/lay on. Takes 15 min to figure out how to do things like that, and after that it's just repetition... Just put up a video how exactly to do things, and people are sure to help out.

Fixing bugs is good, but how about rebalancing things, especially with the design work from recent patch not being complete. How about making dragon armor worthwhile? Balanced on 2H weapons? The problems with the equipment slots for gargoyles? Standarizing refinement components and making them stackable so they don't take up a whole house?

I'm also missing two things on the list that I consider very important: Making gold account-based and making the 720 skillcap available to characters from all ages.

Keep it up

 

[Penana Car]

Based on this list it already looks like it's going to be a disappointing remainder of the year for UO. Time for changes.

 

[The Mule]

So this year we can expect a vendor search, theme pack, and the rest of the same stuff from last year. Got it!

 

[kelmo]

I am pretty pleased with this "to do" list.

 

[old gypsy]

General
2013 Apr 16 21:50 GMT
I have heard rumbling from the community that the sky is falling. I promise that is not true. We still have a team that is dedicated to UO and is excited about what is to come. The Event moderator program is here and still going strong.

*whew* Thank you! That's what I was hoping to hear!

 

[Cyrah]

There is no bad news on that list. Thank you for some good news Lady.

 

[Pinco]

in short:
- a lot of new items (90% deco)
- vendor search
- 2nd house on siege

so it's confirmed, they still 5 people working on UO

 

[Shakkara]

in short:
- a lot of new items (90% deco)
- vendor search
- 2nd house on siege

so it's confirmed, they still 5 people working on UO

They should make our subscription fee proportional to the amount of people working on UO and normalize it to a devteam of 30 people which is quite normal for a game like this.

30 people working = 12.99 subscription fee.

5 people working = 12.99 * 5 / 30 = 2.17 subscription fee.

After all we were made to pay 3 bucks more for the increase of the customer support team. Where are they now?

 

[kulder]

That does encourage me to keep throwing my money away to EA

 

[chise2]

Well its probably less then what many were hoping for but considering how small the uo dev team is still pretty nice. I am satisfied with what I see on that list. As a Siege player I am also happy that A. the second house on Siege idea has not been abandoned B. we can actually get the city election stuff!

 

[Tanivar]

Will anything get done to compensate for the new high latencies and packet loss rates we now have from being in the Cloud these days? Things do take longer than they used to. Slow-motion, slow-motion, pause, and repeat as the new normal evening speed of travel doesn't work for adventuring. I'm rarely logging in anymore due to it and I'm just a crafter/forager where speed isn't often vital.

 

[Lord Nabin]

Great list. Thank you for all of your Hard work and the rest of the team's

I and many many others appreciate it!

 

[Lady Michelle]

in short:
- a lot of new items (100% deco)
- vendor search
- 2nd house on siege

so it's confirmed, they still 5 people working on UO

* HEHE sneaks in and changes it to 100% deco*

 

[Vexxed]

• New Theme Pack “The Kings Collection”

When they Say "Theme Pack" Is that what the Rustic & Gothic things were or we talking new skills & dungeons etc? If it's like the Rustic & Gothic stuff then ....

Theme Pack = The suck.....

 

[Shakkara]

That does encourage me to keep throwing my money away to EA

Well at least you know for sure now that near nothing of it is going to be poured back into improving the game.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

• New Theme Pack “The Kings Collection”
Meh

• Vendor Search

Good!

• New Story Arc

Withholding judgement

• Revamping Vet Reward – You have to be x age to get it but we are making vet rewards so anyone can use it.

Not sure I'm big on this one... I'm gonna say "thumbs down"

• Revamping Fishing and Pirate Loot

• Adding a Gargoyle Horn Stylist

• Adding Fey Slayers to dungeon loot

• Reopening shard of the dead for Halloween

• Coming up with our Christmas and new Vet Rewards and Anniversary Rewards

• Adding new begging items for Trick or Treating
• Adding additional items to the clean up Britiannia turn ins
• 2nd House option on Siege

Ok. No big opinion either way on these

• Still working on High Res Art that has not been dropped, the housing wall tiles are numerous and takes a while to redo. I highly doubt we will be able to get this in game this year, we are shooting for the beginning of next year.
Good to know this is being worked on, however, by next year SotA will be out, so........

• Fix Bugs
Goes without saying really.

I have heard rumbling from the community that the sky is falling. I promise that is not true.

Maybe, but I wouldn't say that everything is sunshine, rainbows, and roses either.

 

[SunWolf]

Theme pack is like rustic/gothic. They are mini boosters that adds things to the game but not everyone will buy them. Still they are rather cool in my opinion.

Reading this, and listening to all the negitive posts from people. I think most of the time they put on working on things is fix whatever exploiting, dubbing, and anything other hacks that people come up with.

You can make the most wonderful game in the world and the best graphics, and it will be that till you put players on it, then they will break it. You can ignore all the broken things and keep adding addon's but soon the good people who makes your game great will leave and ur just stuck with trash...

The game is updating slowly aswell fixing things as they are discovered, and new things are added. In time we should have a pretty good game I hope. Was hoping this year, but looks like next, but still that is still good.

The dungeons/virtues and other things they are working on aswell which probaly will be this year and that isn't listed. But I think they was asking for ideas for those remaining ones and problay none really jumped out yet i guess or they started working on one now.

 

[Madrid]

• New Theme Pack “The Kings Collection”
• Vendor Search
• New Story Arc - Could care less about Story Arc.
• Revamping Vet Reward – You have to be x age to get it but we are making vet rewards so anyone can use it. Please break it into tiers. I'll be dead in 15 years...maybe less!
• Revamping Fishing and Pirate Loot
• Adding Fey Slayers to dungeon loot Gonna have to lobby against this as many of the Fey creature are of good alignment. I need to look out for my furry friendly critters in the Twisted Weald. There's plenty of weapons that deal out high damage to Fey.
• Reopening shard of the dead for Halloween Could care less
• Coming up with our Christmas and new Vet Rewards and Anniversary Rewards
• Adding new begging items for Trick or Treating
• Adding additional items to the clean up Britiannia turn ins
• Still working on High Res Art that has not been dropped, the housing wall tiles are numerous and takes a while to redo. I highly doubt we will be able to get this in game this year, we are shooting for the beginning of next year. Depressing. How can a game go from high resolution to low resoution is something I'll never ever be able to wrap my head around. High resolutions is taking WAY too long and this is just for wall tiles? Geez....Good greif! High resulution was was promised almost 4 years ago. Why can't the KR art be made available to those who want it in the interim?
• Fix Bugs

 

[Obsidian]

Any more dungeon updates? Maybe Doom redo on the list? Pretty please. With sugar on top.

 

[wanderer1origin]

They should make our subscription fee proportional to the amount of people working on UO and normalize it to a devteam of 30 people which is quite normal for a game like this.

30 people working = 12.99 subscription fee.

5 people working = 12.99 * 5 / 30 = 2.17 subscription fee.

After all we were made to pay 3 bucks more for the increase of the customer support team. Where are they now?

lol theme pack charge pays for developers, 12.99 pays for their aspirin too read the forums and for whiskey for the em's

 

[Lord Frodo]

How about a Vet Reward Turn-in program because of all the IDOCs and for us old timers being able to get the new vet rewards that were not there when we picked our rewards. It is very hard to pick a 4th yr reward when you are 15 yrs old.

 

[Viper09]

I will certainly be looking forward to seeing what will be included in this new theme pack.

 

[Lythos-]

I will certainly be looking forward to seeing what will be included in this new theme pack.

I would buy it to pvp wearing a kings crown granted it becomes available with satisfactory mods.

 

[Ender]

Theme pack? Ugh. I never even bought the Rustic/Gothic crap.

And Fey Slayers to dungeon loot but not imbuable or craftable? Really?

 

[Oops]

New Theme Pack “The Kings Collection” - some way to show increased profitability for EA. Makes sense, and good to see new content.
• Vendor Search - You want to spend the time of the 5 people on this game to reinvent the wheel? What happens when your search is released and they improve their functionality past yours? Are you going to continually put hours of 5 people into going against gaming companies with more people then you have? This seems like the dumbest of all of the ideas.
• New Story Arc - This is a story written for a video game. This should not make a task list. Ever.
• Revamping Vet Reward – You have to be x age to get it but we are making vet rewards so anyone can use it. - Fantastic idea, all around. If you didn't release those Shard Sheilds you wouldn't have also shot yourself in the foot in your largest revenue stream. Why that ever was released I'll never understand, that was the last produecers nail in his coffin right, not on this team?
• Revamping Fishing and Pirate Loot - Good idea, good system, but more content the better.
• Adding a Gargoyle Horn Stylist - There's already an NPC that does this with human hair, so you're changing out a player type and image set. This is neat, but shouldn't be something we look forward to. It's something 1 person should do 1 day this week, or even from 8-9 am over the course of 2 weeks?
• Adding Fey Slayers to dungeon loot - okay, adding that line of code seems good.
• Reopening shard of the dead for Halloween - Thank you for flipping a switch.
• Coming up with our Christmas and new Vet Rewards and Anniversary Rewards - That's good to hear we won't be losing systems in place for over a decade. Thank you for continuing to produce things in Ultima Online.
• Adding new begging items for Trick or Treating - Good idea
• Adding additional items to the clean up Britiannia turn ins - Yes, you mentioned this numerous times throughout the year. I'm not sure why you would stop?
• 2nd House option on Siege - Great idea, best one on the sheet?
• Still working on High Res Art that has not been dropped, the housing wall tiles are numerous and takes a while to redo. I highly doubt we will be able to get this in game this year, we are shooting for the beginning of next year. - Not your fault, larger staff is needed for graphics work.
• Fix Bugs - OKAY NEAT. ???


The sky should fall, we need a fresh new sky.

 

[puni666]

General

Next week we will once again put Shadow Strike on Clubs for all the Stealth Macers out there.

So giant clumsy clubs are stealthy? W/o the ability to crush things.. hmm. Catering to one person seems silly devs...

 

[puni666]

General

• Adding Fey Slayers to dungeon loot

"Hey, lets farm oaks"

 

[puni666]

"Hey, lets farm oaks"

I forgot the other part. Where people don't log off.. because it's overly easy now.

 

[hen]

Is 'Shame' dungeon loot going to be rolled out to anywhere else this year? Treasure Maps, Ilshenar monsters, Doom, Dungeon revamps, etc etc etc.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

Absolutely insane lol.

You get communication, nice vet reward tweak, 2nd house on Siege, and a nice little graphics shout-out and all you can do is complain and whine?

*shakes head*

 

[budman23]

• Revamping Vet Reward – You have to be x age to get it but we are making vet rewards so anyone can use it.

what does this mean? Be more specific

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

what does this mean? Be more specific

I am guessing that it means that after 'x' number of years(maybe 3?)you will be able to use all the vet rewards. Will not be able to claim a Boura but will be able to buy and ride one, etc...?

 

[KLOMP]

So basically the whole ongoing legacy dungeon/loot revamp is dead in the water halfway through. But you had months to waste cooking up all this Publish 81 junk nobody asked for, week after week to burn tweaking HLD and DCI, trying (and failing) to sell us on Refinement before giving up and just ramming it down our throats anyway. Splendid time and resource management guys.

Next week we will once again put Shadow Strike on Clubs for all the Stealth Macers out there.-

Did anyone even ask for Shadow Strike back? So much for my thoughts of having some clubs made now that Crushing Blow has been un-nerfed.

 

[Aurelius]

Absolutely insane lol.

You get communication, nice vet reward tweak, 2nd house on Siege, and a nice little graphics shout-out and all you can do is complain and whine?

*shakes head*

Just to point out, we've 'got' nothing yet, and to quote from an earlier 'Producer's Letter',

Posted by From the Devs | 2012 Jan 31 16:49 -0500 GMT

We're planning to continue to revamp the rest of the sins dungeons every other publish, so let us know which one you like to see next.

Just because they say it, and maybe even intend it, does not mean it happens, or that it happens 'soon'....

 

[Viper09]

what does this mean? Be more specific

I believe it simply means that while you have to be X number of years to claim a certain item as a reward, there will be no age requirement to actually use it. So if someone wasn't old enough to claim an ethy mount as a reward, they could go purchase one from another player and be able to use it.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

Just to point out, we've 'got' nothing yet, and to quote from an earlier 'Producer's Letter',

Posted by From the Devs | 2012 Jan 31 16:49 -0500 GMT

We're planning to continue to revamp the rest of the sins dungeons every other publish, so let us know which one you like to see next.

Just because they say it, and maybe even intend it, does not mean it happens, or that it happens 'soon'....

Uhh, seriously?

You point out one specific sentence?

Like you have gotten nothing since 1/31/12? I dont think so.

Move along please.

 

[Minerva Foxglove]

Most things here im looking forward to. Some I could live without but they will be good for other people. Much more than I expected to hear. Vet reward change, Story arch , theme pack, fishing loot are my favourites. Thanks so much!

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

Will anything get done to compensate for the new high latencies and packet loss rates we now have from being in the Cloud these days? Things do take longer than they used to. Slow-motion, slow-motion, pause, and repeat as the new normal evening speed of travel doesn't work for adventuring. I'm rarely logging in anymore due to it and I'm just a crafter/forager where speed isn't often vital.

Thats a joke.

I still pvp quite regularly so not sure what you mean when you say you cant even play your crafter anymore.

Sounds like an issue on your end bud

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

IMO the only thing sadder then players already whining about the proposed new content/changes is all the ex players whining about the proposed new content/changes.

No longer playing/paying but still complaining eh? Truly sad

 

[Lore Denin (GL)]

I would also like to address the issue of King Blackthorns Counsel on Siege. Originally we did not put it on Siege due to the fact that the towns are Faction towns and we know griefing will happen. If Siege accepts that fact we will be more than happen to add the voting system to Siege.

Please DO NOT do this... You mentioned you did not add the system to Siege because factions can grief players?

By what, placing town guards in towns they control and attacking people in those towns??? If I were a non Britannian faction, I'd go way out of my way to kill anyone trying to hold an election to be govern of MY town which I had to defend a sigil for 10 hours every three days to maintain.

By allowing elections in faction towns you are doing the exact opposite.. griefing faction players by allowing non faction players to take control of the towns faction players have earned the right to own through the game mechanics of war.

This is not a critizism of the election system (which in my opinion is fantastic) nor am I against Siege getting an elected council. I only think the Dev's need look a little deeper when adapting systems designed for "regular shards" onto Siege.

A simple solution would be to have a slightly differnt council in the war torn Kingdom of Siege Britannia consisting of cities/fortresses which are stable and firmly under Britannian control. 7 Britannian towns are involved in Factions... that leaves the towns of Jhelom, New Mag, Occulo and Cove and the Fortresses of Empath Abbey, Serpents Hold and the Lyceaum as Britannian footholds. Add the current Commading Lord of TB to stand for the 7 war torn cities which may or may not be under Britannian control and you have council of 8 like the other shards. A solution like this is consistent with history/story of the world and does not grief anyone's gameplay and gives siege a Britannian council consistent to their unique world (where Lord British and Nystul did not choose to flee to Tram... though I was always curious why there is a Council of Mages faction on siege as the contention stemmed from the facet gates..).

People will throw out the names of other towns to be included but its important to remember that not all towns in game are part of Britannia (Buc's Den, Luna, Wind, etc). People will also argue that Empath is part of Yew and Lyceaum part of Moonglow but as a long time faction player I can attest that these are non faction areas (no faction guards or vendors can be placed there).

This will likely get lost but I hope it finds the right person before the town system is put on Siege.

Thanks,
-Lore's Player

 

[pumpkin_escobar]

Please, please fix greater dragon colors in EC client

 

[CovenantX]

Any more dungeon updates? Maybe Doom redo on the list? Pretty please. With sugar on top.

I'm hoping for this as well.

Getting the shame loot-system rolled out to the rest of the Dungeons, Overland, T-maps, SoS', & Quest rewards.

Hopefully this isn't one of those systems that just never gets finished like the Virtue system.

 

[flappy6]

nice list but could you add imbue to artifacts please

 

[hen]

I'm hoping for this as well.

Getting the shame loot-system rolled out to the rest of the Dungeons, Overland, T-maps, SoS', & Quest rewards.

Hopefully this isn't one of those systems that just never gets finished like the Virtue system.

And Vorpal Bun Loot too!

 

[budman23]

I believe it simply means that while you have to be X number of years to claim a certain item as a reward, there will be no age requirement to actually use it. So if someone wasn't old enough to claim an ethy mount as a reward, they could go purchase one from another player and be able to use it.

The intent is to ask the specifics of this, will it relate to soulstones? shard shields? or simply ethys?
Like i said, be more specific.

 

[Aurelius]

Uhh, seriously?

You point out one specific sentence?

Like you have gotten nothing since 1/31/12? I dont think so.

Move along please.

I did not say 'nothing', just pointed out that suggestions put forward in these letters are not guaranteed and gave one example. Sorry if that makes you feel the need to try be smart.

 

[Zosimus]

I am pretty pleased with this "to do" list.

“To be is to do”
― Socrates

 

[popps]

As for the future of UO, I would like to share with you some of the ideas we have and want to see happen this year.

• New Theme Pack “The Kings Collection”

I hope that this Theme pack will be a larger addition as compared to the Rustic/Gothic Theme packs and will be more than just decorative new content....

• Revamping Fishing and Pirate Loot

I really hope that this means also the revamping of the Fishmonger Quests' rewards system (with possibly new items added) as well as the loot assortment and quality of land Treasure Hunting chests' loot, not just fished up chests' loot....

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

I think this is damn great!
Thank you!