A new game or new client won't happen. Besides, the EC is the same engine that Oblivion, RIFT, Dark Age of Camelot, Warhammer Online, and a bunch of other games already use. Oblivion and RIFT show the power of the engine that the EC sits on top of. What's important is seeing how this graphics upgrade works out. The graphics are being converted to 3D, according to that post I quoted from Grimm:
I would like to see high resolution 3D. I know they say that it'll be high resolution 2D, but they are on the edge of putting the system into place to really grow UO. That's frustrating. I don't know of any UO player that doesn't want to see UO survive another 5-10 years, and moving UO to a high resolution 3D system, or at least offering it with one of the clients is the kind of thing that can do that.
That's a big part of why I started this thread - things are being done but at the same time it feels like there are no clear plans because there is no direction being communicated. They refuse to communicate any kind of big picture to us, yet EA is spending who knows how much on upgrading UO, in addition to the Ultima Facebook stuff.
Look at
Jeff Skalski's Linked In profile:
This may sound corny as hell, but look at all of that. Honest to god, that is exactly what I want in a UO producer - somebody who believes in transparency, open communication, and advocate/champion for his products, a charismatic and great speaker.
And look at that last line - "Artistic background focused on world modeling and level design."
That is a perfect fit for what UO needs at this point in time. Yet we're still kept in the dark.
And you want confusing - we had a huge 15th anniversary gift revealed to us. I would think that would have been kept secret, to keep from spoiling it since it's an in-game thing.
I've got faith in TheGrimmOmen that we'll see something, but I'd like to hear this stuff from the producer.
EA is putting money into this stuff. The secrecy and lack of a dialogue leaves me speechless. You'd think they'd be freely talking about it since it would mean free publicity (and free advertising).
