UO equals EA, but will they ever add a touch of Blizzard?

[LeBaiton]

I am slightly concerned about my addiction to UO, I recently returned to UO after being abscent for two and a half years, but once I was back, all it took was a few t-maps to get back into it and loving it all over again...

They've changed t-hunting quite a bit during the last publish. Let me reitterate that I love most of the changes; I love the fact that they added special goodies, I love the guardians that stick to the chests, I love the random locations. A lot of love there...

I tested to my heart's content once the stuff went live, I felt I had a lot more to offer on a live shard instead of testing my t-hunting template on the test shard, as I am a t-hunter/tamer and you don't get free trained Greater Dragons or Cu Sidhe's. So I offered the dev team feedback on what I found out during my hunts. I posted my feedback here, multiple times, but no replies from the dev team were given...

However, it is not my intent to whine about it and make this a QQ thread about it. I'm a grown man, I can take rejection quite well, thank you. What does bother me however, and that is mainly from personal experience, is that stuff that is broken just get tossed aside to make place for new content. I had to post 4 or 5 years on this forum to get the Khaldun puzzle chests fixed, just because they were constantly adding new expansions, clients and other stuff to the game to bother about the broken stuff, until I finally nagged at Leurocian and CatHat long enough to fix this one very much enjoyable feature...

I watched the announcement for the new project from start to end. I loved how Cal said: "we listened to you when you said 'fix the damn bugs'", enjoyed what they showed and came out with high hopes. But then I looked back on the t-chest publish, which is only a few months old now and see the, in my opinion, borked loot intensity on the magic items in the new t-chests, and I'm like: huh, they're still at it. New stuff gets added, it might not work properly for the full 100%, but there they go again creating new stuff and this gets tossed aside...

I just wish they'd become a bit more Blizzardly. Not the full monty, please. I firmly believe that the success of WoW has made quite a few employees of Blizzard quite arrogant about what they can and can't do to their customers, but just for once I would like the UO team to answer the question "when will it be released?" with a "when it's done". However, I don't thinks this'll ever change while EA's at the helm though. For everyone's sake, I hope this expansion will be working at 110% when it's released...

Last time I logged into UO is already two weeks ago or so. I've noticed I do not have the energy to start another 4 year posting campaign to get the devs to look at the t-chests magic item properties, I also noticed how quickly I lost interrest in doing something I enjoyed doing before it - again, in my humble opinion - became borked. Hope that'll change again somehow...

 

[Arcus]

Cataclysm is looking mighty good....just sayin.

 

[Lord Chaos]

If they said "when its done", then people would complain that its not released fast enough.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

 

[Coldren]

There are several reasons one could point out as to why EA/UO isn't as "Blizzardly", some which are obvious, but I think merit discussion:

1) Money. Flat out no-brainer here. Due to the team size, support, and rate of advancement or improvement, it's not too hard to imagine that UO's budget is a laughable fraction of what Blizzard can afford to put into every game. Money can't buy happiness, but it sure can rent it (Praise be to Weird Al).

2) Age. UO is 13 years old now. It sits on piles of code that no one left remembers being made. It's also quite possible, given the difficulty they have answering some basic questions, that it is poorly documented, if at all. So spaghetti code abounds... Pull one thread, undo the entire tapestry.

3) Graphics. They can't seem to get art team that can take the UO pallet and beef it up like Saphireena did in her examples. They can try to recreate the world, but as KR has shown, it's actively rejected. They need to get the appearance down.

And last, but certainly not least, they are of the mindset that new content is the only way to bring in new blood. The problem is, the new content is piled on top of all the previous problems. Rather than rebuilding the foundation and making UO better at it's core, they slap on another layer and hope it covers the rust.

One day, it simply won't be enough.

 

[WhityJinn]

Cataclysm?

 

[WhityJinn]

beef it up like Saphireena did in her examples.

link, please

 

[Coldren]

link, please

With pleasure. I'll take an reason to post these as they're just so darn good..

Andrea's Ultima Online page > General > UO Art

 

[Coldren]

Cataclysm?

WoW's next expansion.

link, please

With pleasure. I'll take any excuse to post these as they're just so darn good..

Andrea's Ultima Online page > General > UO Art

 

[WhityJinn]

Ha...That white horse..

Many-many years ago on a free shard we had Unicorns.But not the ugly pieces of crap you currently ride in game, but something more like your white horse on the picture.But, the white colour itself was done 100 times better than this here, the mane was long, and the Unicorn itself was Glowing, like wisps.It is, actually, one of the most beautiful things I`ve seen in Ultima Online.

Remember when I first tamed myself one, in a dark room deep beneath the surface of the Lost Lands, the wild beast running around me and hitting me with spells.Took me five hours.

A red stood next to me, clad in brown orcish plate armour, with an orcish axe and an orcish Pendant.He was trying to tame the Unicorn too, and he did not kill me, because I had a few items and tactics that made taming easier, and he didn`t know he would need them until he met me.
Then I tamed the unicorn, jumped on its back and rode as fast as the wind, hoping to escape the red.

Not unlike anything you can experience in UO nowadays, eh?

 

[Babble]

It is UO! Why change a decade old system?
Without UO I would not have felt as the Horizon launch was a bit buggy but nothing worse I had seen in UO.
Also Mortal Online is not so bad if I compare it with what UO does, unfinished but not that much more buggier than things EA released.

 

[Thunderz]

WoW's next expansion.



With pleasure. I'll take any excuse to post these as they're just so darn good..

Andrea's Ultima Online page > General > UO Art

That white horse is AMAZING when its in one graphical position. But the colour and graphical detail look MUCH better than half the pets in game.

Id love to see pets in colours they come in, in real life and in fiction.

Thunderz
Thunderz

 

[Gandie]

One day, it simply won't be enough.

This! And thats why i do not play at the moment. UO needs a change at the core system.
But i do not think that will happen before UO one day closes, lets hope that day never comes, but if they keep doing what they do just adding content on a broken system it might.

 

[Coldren]

It is UO! Why change a decade old system?
Without UO I would not have felt as the Horizon launch was a bit buggy but nothing worse I had seen in UO.
Also Mortal Online is not so bad if I compare it with what UO does, unfinished but not that much more buggier than things EA released.

The spirit of UO should remain unchanged, on that we can all agree.

However, the reality of it all is that should UO stop attracting new players, one day, it will die out.

No one wants to see UO fundamentally changed for the sake of mass appeal, but we do want it's foundation to be structured in such a way that any further additions are supported by a firm foundation.

Correcting decade-old bugs, finishing content that's already started, do some documenting so simple questions like formulas don't take weeks of research by a dev, and getting some polish in the graphics department is what is required to do this. To do so will take money and people, and in some cases completely rewriting old systems (net code, server code, etc.) to bring them into the 21st century.

However, it's apparent that EA doesn't think it's a smart business decision to do so. What business and statics fail to show is that the soul of UO is what makes it great, and if you make a game with the spirit of a true world and let that world be realized, well.. Money should be the easy part.

Just ask Blizzard - WoW is a testament that if you take the time bring a world to life, and let it really shine, money will be coming in hand over fist. But you have to BELIEVE in the world, "The Vision", the reality you are creating is something worth the trouble. EA just doesn't believe in UO.

Give them 1/10th of the money they're dumping into their WoW clone with a Star Wars skin... Then you'd see some amazing things.

 

[Coldren]

This! And thats why i do not play at the moment. UO needs a change at the core system.

Well, I wouldn't say it needs a "change" at the core system. The core is beautiful.. It's fundamentals are sound and are what make UO, UO.

But it's broken. They need to finish and polish it.

 

[Gandie]

With the core, i did not mean the core of the system in regards to gameplay and ideas behind the game, but the old programmed client it is build upon.

 

[Coldren]

With the core, i did not mean the core of the system in regards to gameplay and ideas behind the game, but the old programmed client it is build upon.

Understood. Thank you for clarifying.

 

[Lord Urza]

With pleasure. I'll take an reason to post these as they're just so darn good..

Andrea's Ultima Online page > General > UO Art

Heck yeah! Im useually against changeing UO's look, but these pictures are awesome, because they look the same, just smoother and more detailed. AWESOME. Why couldnt KR look this good lol.

 

[Coldren]

Why couldnt KR look this good lol.

.. Or EC. A question for the ages.

 

[WhityJinn]

Bah...hundreds of thousands of people play the ugly 2D Ragnarok Online.

If the game is great, who cares how it looks...

by the way, wasn`t Ragnarok`s population way more than WoW`s?I mean, + all the people playing on free servers.And free servers usually show how many people play on them, it`s not like secret or something.

 

[Siteswap]

What it boils down to is that Blizz are a company that have the drive, belief and ambition in their product. They market it well, they invest in it, they maintain it, they excel in customer service. They also have a team of top quality programmers and developers whereas UO is saddled with Devs and programmers who are mediocre at best and incompetent at worst. You can bet that they'd jump ship today if Blizzard came knocking.

EA is the opposite of all these things that Blizzard do well for WOW in as far as UO is concerned.

UO will never be anything more than a bug ridden niche product, which lurches from one half baked half finished expansion to the next to cream more cash from us with minimum effort on their part. You can bet your bottom dollar that the booster pack will introduce more bug ridden code which will subsequently be ignored and left unfixed and unfinished when they move onto the next money spinner.

As far as marketing, customer service, bug fixing, stopping scripters/dupers/cheats, etc etc are concerned ... forget it. This is it. This is UO.

You will never get a 'touch of Blizz' on UO.

 

[mjolnir131]

Basically you can either spend money on making a good game or you can spend it hiring a washed up actor from the 70s to pitch a POS game.

 

[Siteswap]

Basically you can either spend money on making a good game or you can spend it hiring a washed up actor from the 70s to pitch a POS game.

Or you can make an excellent game and then spend a decade ruining it through a mixture of apathy and incompetence...

 

[canary]

What it boils down to is that Blizz are a company that have the drive, belief and ambition in their product. They market it well, they invest in it, they maintain it, they excel in customer service. They also have a team of top quality programmers and developers whereas UO is saddled with Devs and programmers who are mediocre at best and incompetent at worst. You can bet that they'd jump ship today if Blizzard came knocking.

EA is the opposite of all these things that Blizzard do well for WOW in as far as UO is concerned.

UO will never be anything more than a bug ridden niche product, which lurches from one half baked half finished expansion to the next to cream more cash from us with minimum effort on their part. You can bet your bottom dollar that the booster pack will introduce more bug ridden code which will subsequently be ignored and left unfixed and unfinished when they move onto the next money spinner.

As far as marketing, customer service, bug fixing, stopping scripters/dupers/cheats, etc etc are concerned ... forget it. This is it. This is UO.

You will never get a 'touch of Blizz' on UO.

x2.

I bolded the parts that really drive it home, and I think, aside from 1 or 2 on the UO team and the EMs, they really lack the passion for the game.

Overall, well said.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

What it boils down to is that Blizz are a company that have the drive, belief and ambition in their product. They market it well, they invest in it, they maintain it, they excel in customer service. They also have a team of top quality programmers and developers whereas UO is saddled with Devs and programmers who are mediocre at best and incompetent at worst. You can bet that they'd jump ship today if Blizzard came knocking.

EA is the opposite of all these things that Blizzard do well for WOW in as far as UO is concerned.

UO will never be anything more than a bug ridden niche product, which lurches from one half baked half finished expansion to the next to cream more cash from us with minimum effort on their part. You can bet your bottom dollar that the booster pack will introduce more bug ridden code which will subsequently be ignored and left unfixed and unfinished when they move onto the next money spinner.

As far as marketing, customer service, bug fixing, stopping scripters/dupers/cheats, etc etc are concerned ... forget it. This is it. This is UO.

You will never get a 'touch of Blizz' on UO.

x2.

I bolded the parts that really drive it home, and I think, aside from 1 or 2 on the UO team and the EMs, they really lack the passion for the game.

Overall, well said.

Sadly, I must concur. X2 again.

If it weren't for the EMs, UO would be dead. The metafiction isn't cutting it.. It's going nowhere at a senile snail’s pace.

Mythic should be investing money in cloning and then begging Mesanna to make copies of her. She’s the only Dev I’ve seen on a production shard who actually asked questions of the players and took the time to chat. (Yeah, it happens rarely on TC - but there they know that have to talk to the players…)

 

[Llewen]

As far as marketing, customer service, bug fixing, stopping scripters/dupers/cheats, etc etc are concerned ... forget it. This is it. This is UO.

Forget, "a touch of Biz", how about, "a touch unfair". Yes bug fixes can be slow, but they are happening.

Customer service? Well, I don't know about that one, I don't seem to notice a lot of improvement there, and it couldn't get any worse than it was without disappearing entirely.

Marketing? They seem to be making some efforts in that direction, but they really need to clean up their purchasing process and website as it seems that far too many people are having difficulty making purchases, and reopening and upgrading accounts, etc.

Stopping cheaters? Well maybe you haven't noticed, but a lot of people disappeared a short while ago. I think it's safe to say that that issue is finally being taken seriously. The only question is, was that a one time action, or will they keep on top of the issue and not let it slide for another 13 years?

 

[Evlar]

They'll never have a "touch of Blizzard", but a "touch of GameForge" might be a good thing.

I'm enjoying playing some of their games at the moment. I've yet to see any grief and the games seem to actually work "as intended".

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

As far as marketing, customer service, bug fixing, stopping scripters/dupers/cheats, etc etc are concerned ... forget it. This is it. This is UO.

Forget, "a touch of Biz", how about, "a touch unfair". Yes bug fixes can be slow, but they are happening.

Wait, what’s unfair in the assessment?
He’s correct in saying that there are no bug fixes going out to the players. A vague “There are bug fixes in the Booster…” doesn’t cut it. At. All.

I could tell you there are monsters under your bed… That doesn’t make it true, however.

Until Mythic deigns to tell us what these supposed bug fixes are, I call shenanigans.

Customer service? Well, I don't know about that one, I don't seem to notice a lot of improvement there, and it couldn't get any worse than it was without disappearing entirely.

There has been no improvement with customer service. None. The GMs still go by some unknowable rulebook that was probably written for WAR or DAoC, not UO.

As far as direct CS from Mythic, that’s still rather shoddy. Until UO gets its own Community Rep who posts frequently CS will be circling the drain.

Marketing? They seem to be making some efforts in that direction, but they really need to clean up their purchasing process and website as it seems that far too many people are having difficulty making purchases, and reopening and upgrading accounts, etc.

Sorry, but marketing needs fired. They are awful. The Re-enlisters is poorly timed and extremely amateurish. UO needs a serious polish before it gets a decent marketing push, not a half-baked booster booted out the door at warp speed.

Stopping cheaters? Well maybe you haven't noticed, but a lot of people disappeared a short while ago. I think it's safe to say that that issue is finally being taken seriously. The only question is, was that a one time action, or will they keep on top of the issue and not let it slide for another 13 years?

I still see plenty of people cheating, almost on a daily basis. IF there was a bunch of people banned then Mythic’s silence is bizarre. You’d think they’d be proud to announce that “Today, we banned the most egregious cheaters in UO. Rest assured that we will remain vigilant!”

Until they do that, the players will respond with a mighty: “Meh.”

 

[Saphireena]

Heck yeah! Im useually against changeing UO's look, but these pictures are awesome, because they look the same, just smoother and more detailed. AWESOME. Why couldnt KR look this good lol.

Hi Lord Urza: "Keep the classic look of UO intact" is exactly what I've been fighting for all these years, so probably the reason you liked these was because they were, in all simplicity screenshots taken of the original client, and merely scaled up to double size. If you look closely at the "before and after" animation in those gifs you can see the big chunky pixels. The only "change" I did to those, was to polish in the details of how I believed the original art was intended to look like. At least I hope I stayed faithful to the original artist's work.

As for the unicorn guys, that's how unicorns used to look when they were first introduced in UO, so that's just a very old screenshot.

 

[Hiru]

Rather than rebuilding the foundation and making UO better at it's core, they slap on another layer and hope it covers the rust.

I don't know why I laughed so hard... this is true and amusing. I will never quit... the game will quit before me. ~

 

[Aran]

I don't want a touch of Blizzard.