When do the EC get its love needed?

[lucitus]

Hello Devs,

my simple question is when will the EC get the work it needs?

I have now played over a half year with bugs, which are really serious!

The main really anyoing bug is, the mirrors of the monsters and players when you leave and enter a screen fast again. I cant understand it cant be so hard to fix it or?

There are other things like not visible items in grid view,leather sleeves,leather gloves, chainmail leggins, which should also not be hard to fix.

And at all the acceptance of the community is much higher than KR ever got, so please do it for the future and focus the development to the Enhanced Client to get ready! As better as longer you have nothing hard todo with it.

Thanks for getting attentation!

 

[canary]

'Soon'.

 

[Slayvite]

You should have been reading the news over the last few months, then you would have seen we lost about half the staff from Mythic.
Most of the devs that went were the ones doing the EC, so now its just turned into another client upgrade that will never be finnished and then axed in a few years.
You can see by the mass of activity by the Devs on the boards here that the 5 staff that are left dont have time to respond since they only get paid now to feed the hamsters.
25th of Jan and still no real post as to what happened before x-mas or what it means to us or where were upto on the Magencia event or if indeed the EC has been shelved for lack of staff.

 

[Splup]

Heya,

So I tried to give EC a real change and tried to PvP with a mage with this new client. Here's the problems I ran into:

1. Health bars are too slim and wide, hard to target and take too much space sideways.

2. When I put my cursor on someones health bar, the target does not color like in Classic Client. Makes hard in group fights to know if someone is on my spell range, when I have 5-12 banners and I can't recognize which is who's banner cause it does not color.

3. And as a little extra to the point 2. first, I don't know if he's on my range and add there that there's no range check. I could do without range check but I deffo need to see who's banner my mouse is on.

4. Lack of target queue (yea people been requesting this for long time), but I used to play without it so I quess I could learn to live without it, but would be nice.

5. Can't do mounting macro with Legacy targeting.

6. Can't make dismounting macro say all follow me after dismounting.

7. People on mount in armor on my screen keep turning to naked people running on foot.

8. I didnt figure out how to get it to undress to a secure container, is this possible?

9. War horses from all factions look the same.

10. Peoples horses and chars sometimes stick to my screen even thou they are far gone.

11. Health Bars and other stuff keep getting stuck to my cursor. Very very annoying during the battle to notice that I have a health bar stuck on my cursor and can't do anything about it except try to click like hell all over the screen and finally it drops at some point.

12. After lots of PvP or champ spawn the game starts to freeze when you take mouse out of gaming area.

EC seems promising but definitly needs some love still before I start to use it as my main client.

 

[canary]

You should have been reading the news over the last few months, then you would have seen we lost about half the staff from Mythic.
Most of the devs that went were the ones doing the EC, so now its just turned into another client upgrade that will never be finnished and then axed in a few years.

Uhm, sources please on the members let go were the EC responsible ones? Can't do it...? Didn't think so.

Anyhow, the UO Team has had over TWO YEARS to polish the KR client. The only thing the did to it is basically remove the art. It has hardly been touched since 2007, so your argument doesn't hold any merit.

 

[Cear Dallben Dragon]

pretty sure it was 2 years to do nothing with KR and possibly work on SA. in the EC boards there is a thread of over 100 issues with the client. since the release of SA they fixed one thing. the volume of a spell.....
There are millions of little things like this that could be fixed on one quick publish. hell, the volume on conflags is still insane.

regardless. the EC needs immediate attention.

 

[lucitus]

But blaming is useless, stop the events and work on the client. Stop making insurance changes and damm do the client work!

Expect from the EC also the 2d client can be better. What needs the best Serverbalance and systems if you have no client to play with!?

So damm you are Mythic and makeing such a bullsh1t. Any free game get better support!

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

Don't expect changes anytime soon. They claimed someone was working on the EC and had a slew of fixes awaiting the 'next publish'... And then we got the insurance thing which isn't a bug fix.. and no, it wasn’t requested by huge percentage of the player base..

Once again, Mythic is losing credibility by blowing smoke instead of showing actual progress -on anything- even the 'Ask the Devs' forum has become a joke.

Communicate Mythic. It’s not difficult.

 

[canary]

When supposedly UO has an art lead, and they can't even do something as simple as layer clothing in a paperdoll right in TWO YEARS, it is very easy to state there is some major incompetence/ issues over at EAMythic.

 

[deadite]

I too am waiting on the publish that they mentioned back in December... I hope that it is still coming. The lack of communication since winter break has been a little frustrating.

 

[lucitus]

Yep thats why i have created this thread, i only want an answer and i want to show that it has become more important to patch the Enhanced Client!

 

[HD2300]

If you have to wait 6 months for a bug fix patch and another 6 months for another bug fix patch, it is safe to say it is dead. KR deja vu.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

Hello Devs,

my simple question is when will the EC get the work it needs?
I have now played over a half year with bugs, which are really serious!
[...]
Thanks for getting attentation!

This has been asked dozens of times for the past 9 months. NONE of the developers really gave an honest answer. The only answer we got was, they wanted to fix the EC eventually. They didn't say when, they didn't say how. And that was 3 monts ago.

I am so disappointed with the development and communication policy (not only concerning the client, but the whole SIMS... err... UO game) that the thought of leaving has crossed my mind more and more lately.

P.S.: You won't have the developer's attention, that I can assure you.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

You should have been reading the news over the last few months, then you would have seen we lost about half the staff from Mythic.

If you read the media, you can easily realize that EA is a company that is extremely tough and uncompromising when it comes to profits. Especially in difficult economical situations, they have NO issue whatsoever to shut down a game completely, if it doesn't provide enough revenue.

To my opinion, the EA management doesn't care much about the potential of a game. If it doesn't yield enough profits, staff will be reduced, and eventually the game will be closed.

The problem of UO is that it has great potential, but due to its design mistakes (turning it into a static item-based singleplayer SIMS game without risk, using a 12-year-old ridiculously outdated client) it fails to attract new customers. The only players that join UO are those who have played it before and return for sentimental reasons.

UO needs a revolution, a complete overhaul, concerning both game mechanics and graphics. If it doesn't get that, it will slowly fade away. That I am absolutely convinced of. And I won't be the last rat leaving the sinking ship.

 

[HaHa]

You should have been reading the news over the last few months, then you would have seen we lost about half the staff from Mythic.
Most of the devs that went were the ones doing the EC, so now its just turned into another client upgrade that will never be finnished and then axed in a few years.
You can see by the mass of activity by the Devs on the boards here that the 5 staff that are left dont have time to respond since they only get paid now to feed the hamsters.
25th of Jan and still no real post as to what happened before x-mas or what it means to us or where were upto on the Magencia event or if indeed the EC has been shelved for lack of staff.

Noooooo.... save the hamsters ! ! ! !

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

This thread will now be locked because I said something in it...

it's the green blue red effect, as I dubbed it...

I think EA would have made more money in giving over the game to fans and requiring a lower subscription just to keep the servers alive and keep the sandbox legally sound.

It's even pointless arguing about it, non EA servers do have better support, better art, bigger playerbases...

I don't play them because they split players away, and it pisses me off badly, I think it's evil, like selling stuff for real money... this is real evil at play here.

 

[pgcd]

I actually think they're working on the EC - seeing as BTeng, who seems to be the main dev on it, must be busy enough not to answer questions in the Ask the Devs forum (and I don't mean this in a bad way).

 

[Evlar]

Sadly, I'm leaning towards the thoughts that because the EC doesn't seem to be getting the attention it should be, for the continued longevity of the game, that it doesn't entirely bode well for the future.

Granted, expansions and improvements are vital to the life-span of an online game, in order to keep people's interest. When situations arise where a major leap like client upgrades are insufficiently supported, bugs are prevelent for unacceptable lengths of time and projects never completed, you have to wonder how long the player base will accept such derisory service and continue to remain loyal.

The UO player base is arguably amongst the most loyal there are, but unfortunately we're either far too accepting of the poor service, or too delusional in thinking that EA care enough to get things right in the long run, thus hanging on an hoping...

UO as I loved it most is long gone. UO as I would like it to be for the future, is but a pipe dream. Like others, I too wonder how long I will continue with my subscription, but perhaps that's the excuse that EA needs to finally put UO to sleep...

There is sufficient enough players though, plus players who I'm sure would love to play UO once more, were it in the hands of people who genuinely cared. I'm not sniping at the developers mind, they work for an employer who is tying their hands I'm afraid. Perhaps once EA finally pulls the plug, there will be enough people willing to either buy the rights, or take it on and resurrect it.

 

[Splup]

T
It's even pointless arguing about it, non EA servers do have better support, better art, bigger playerbases...

And THAT is sad.

 

[lucitus]

If you read the media, you can easily realize that EA is a company that is extremely tough and uncompromising when it comes to profits. Especially in difficult economical situations, they have NO issue whatsoever to shut down a game completely, if it doesn't provide enough revenue.

To my opinion, the EA management doesn't care much about the potential of a game. If it doesn't yield enough profits, staff will be reduced, and eventually the game will be closed.

The problem of UO is that it has great potential, but due to its design mistakes (turning it into a static item-based singleplayer SIMS game without risk, using a 12-year-old ridiculously outdated client) it fails to attract new customers. The only players that join UO are those who have played it before and return for sentimental reasons.

UO needs a revolution, a complete overhaul, concerning both game mechanics and graphics. If it doesn't get that, it will slowly fade away. That I am absolutely convinced of. And I won't be the last rat leaving the sinking ship.

What i dont understand is that they have developed KR with a overall new engine, this was a high investment in UO. I have reviewed the data of KR this were more than 10.000 titles new designed in high quality art. Over 100 different monsters, races and character models, to that comes the new water, lava and enviroment system. And now the whole investment is a miss only because they are too lazy to finish it?

I dont know but any manager i would say, is going to proceed the work.

Also the potential is there and not away, the KR never got a chance to show its pros. Also with the comparrision to actual games of this genere and view KR was good, a bit imbalanced in graphics, the settings for low middle and high end machines werent intigrated, but this is in my eyes only a bit focus work. And say it again for good client the people are also spending money, or what would you say?

 

[hawkeye_pike]

What i dont understand is that they have developed KR with a overall new engine, this was a high investment in UO. I have reviewed the data of KR this were more than 10.000 titles new designed in high quality art. Over 100 different monsters, races and character models, to that comes the new water, lava and enviroment system. And now the whole investment is a miss only because they are too lazy to finish it?

I dont know but any manager i would say, is going to proceed the work.

Also the potential is there and not away, the KR never got a chance to show its pros. Also with the comparrision to actual games of this genere and view KR was good, a bit imbalanced in graphics, the settings for low middle and high end machines werent intigrated, but this is in my eyes only a bit focus work. And say it again for good client the people are also spending money, or what would you say?

I think that many of the KR graphics just looked wrong, out of perspective, and wrong in size. Some of the KR graphics were great, like plants and boats. I don't understand why they didn't recycle the good parts and use them in the EC.

We have to be honest here, the KR Client wasn't really playable. I tried hard, and for many tasks I had to switch back to the Classic Client. This has changed with the Enhanced Client. I have no more use for the Classic Client anymore.

I would say, for a good client and a good game, the game will get more subscriptions.

 

[lucitus]

*looks*

 

[AesSedai]

- I've been thinking about this too, as I seem to recall a Dev. post in late December about a new publish containing some EC bug fixes, potentially arriving sometime after the holidays; so I started looking, but I haven't located that statement yet.

However this is one I quickly noticed which I felt was relevant to your subject:

The First rule of EC...
http://vboards.stratics.com/showpost.php?p=1525151&postcount=2

... 1. The Enhanced Client is still in "Beta" - We are slowly working towards getting the client to a point where we can consider it officially released. We don't want to do this until we are sure its ready...

...I hope EA corporate might realize one of these decades that they will benefit more once they stop half-assing their alleged desire for quality gaming...
(I deleted a lot here. Similar has been said before. EA corporate's business model continues to amaze me. Sometime they should consider restructuring from the top-down as often as they seem to like to wreck things from the bottom-up; especially when so many quality people have been tossed aside while the problems at the top continue to create the same mistakes... imo. I did delete a lot...)

 

[lucitus]

Released, it will never be released this was absolutly clear after this statement .

It is like if you build your home and say it is ready when it is ready. You will never moove to your new home .

 

[Evlar]

Which is the catch really...

...we moan about the EC client, and the old "well actually, it is still beta" answer is reeled out.

Cutting staff, merging what's left of the Mythic team with Bioware... I'll tell you when it'll be ready for "official" release... sometime never!

 

[Divster]

I love the ec i really do and i find the lack of any communication to be nothing else than insulting, yes fine they have had cutbacks and yes they have had layoffs but it seems as if ea don't give a rats ass about their customers. There is no reason whatsoever that they could give that could excuse this lack of simple decency between a consumer and thier provider other than they don't give a toss other than the fact that we pay our subscription each month

I'm not talking about the devs here they are simply doing a job, I am talking about the company as a whole, this problem is not specific to this game and it WILL in the long run damage them

sort it out

 

[MalagAste]

Seriously sad that EA can't get it together enough to see that things get done...

Though I'm still fairly well convinced that EA wants UO to FAIL... and they WANT to be finished with it but they just can't justify shutting it down because it generates a "fair" if and albeit dwindling income.... it's still an income which EA NEEDS... but they want to pull the devs out of UO because they want to make more cheap stinking games that are quick sellers and make more money just making more useless not so good game....

EA fails to realize that UO is important to more than just them. UO has quite the loyal following and they just plain don't get it. I'm sure there are a dozen or more "free" shards... and yes some have super awesome graphics and neat new items and all this wonderful stuff... however... and this is the biggest thing... most of them don't last long... many of them are LAGGY as a walk through a vat of honey... and often on free shards you have sickning favoritism... It's my opinion that EA should have nipped that bussiness in the bud years ago and found some way to shut them down.

But that's just me I guess.

I think the EC needs a lot of love.... and so does the 2d client.

 

[Mitzlplik_SP]

Same thread different week. QQ more,could be worse.
At least the lights are still on.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

As nice as it would be, I'm no longer holding my breath on any real improvement.

I'd like for them to prove me wrong, but... well, I'm not seeing it right now.

 

[lucitus]

I see nothing over 2 weeks now

I hope this is a good sign

 

[canary]

I see nothing over 2 years now

I hope this is a good sign

I fixed your quote, hun.

 

[Damien Softstep]

Hello Devs,

my simple question is when will the EC get the work it needs?

I have now played over a half year with bugs, which are really serious!

The main really anyoing bug is, the mirrors of the monsters and players when you leave and enter a screen fast again. I cant understand it cant be so hard to fix it or?

There are other things like not visible items in grid view,leather sleeves,leather gloves, chainmail leggins, which should also not be hard to fix.

And at all the acceptance of the community is much higher than KR ever got, so please do it for the future and focus the development to the Enhanced Client to get ready! As better as longer you have nothing hard todo with it.

Thanks for getting attentation!

http://kotaku.com/5402586/mythic-committed-to-its-games-amid-ea-layoffs

 

[canary]

Damien you should really put that link into your sig, it is good for a laugh.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

http://kotaku.com/5402586/mythic-committed-to-its-games-amid-ea-layoffs

This is called spin. Hickman did it, Calvin did it. Neither of them are to be believed. If they were truly committed to the games, they wouldn't have gutted them of their creative talent.

EA is a faceless corporation with the morality of a serial killer, and we're all out of fava beans...

 

[lucitus]

Layoffs okay but not with my money . I pay for it, so no fact to layoff people!

But you are right Mythic has developed a flop with WAR and the best times are over. I think Mythic is dead, but UO will never die!

 

[lucitus]

Thanks for the last patch! This is what the client needs! On a good way please stay on it, only a few more and the client is ready!

 

[AesSedai]

Thanks for the last patch! This is what the client needs! On a good way please stay on it, only a few more and the client is ready!

- I agree.
(well, I think it might take 3 or 5 more patches to be ready for 'non Beta'... unless they devote a large chunk of UO development to the EC for 1 or 2 updates. But, I do appreciate the progress. Thx Axel and all on the UO Team)

 

[BlackMagus]

Just for the record:

I do use the EC for all purposes and think it's absolutely fit for production use.

Give it a try if you haven't done so already. It's not as buggy as the board might suggest, at least on my machine.

 

[canary]

Just for the record:

I do use the EC for all purposes and think it's absolutely fit for production use.

Give it a try if you haven't done so already. It's not as buggy as the board might suggest, at least on my machine.

It isn't laggy, it is full of bugs IN the client. A good or bad computer has nothing to do with it.

 

[BlackMagus]

I am not talking about lag or hardware. As I said: the client is not as *buggy* as the forum often reflects it to be.

My first hand experience in two months of intense use:

- Not a single crash
- No unexpected lag. On the contrary, I think that EC is faster if I compare walk speed to fellow players
- No noticeable memory leak
- One installation problem: had to search forum to find a way to fix locale setting to english, otherwise text was not properly displayed (this one sucked!)
- One bug noticed: sometimes armor piece art is not displayed, so the pieces are invisible. Gameplay affect for my playstyle: none. Use legacy container workaround if problem.
- One minor annoyance: the auto-walk mode. Learned to not accidentally click to avoid.

I cannot remember a single other bug. I am sure on or two naked bodies ran by in the two months which might have been graphic glitches, but beyond that...

I am not saying that EC has no bugs. I am only saying that in my personal experience, I do not notice the bugs in daily game play at all.

Contrary to that, though, I enjoy the fantastic macro facilities, the targeting facilities, and the improved graphics (subject to taste) of EC in comparison to CC.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

I am not talking about lag or hardware. As I said: the client is not as *buggy* as the forum often reflects it to be.

My first hand experience in two months of intense use:

- Not a single crash
- No unexpected lag. On the contrary, I think that EC is faster if I compare walk speed to fellow players
- No noticeable memory leak
- One installation problem: had to search forum to find a way to fix locale setting to english, otherwise text was not properly displayed (this one sucked!)
- One bug noticed: sometimes armor piece art is not displayed, so the pieces are invisible. Gameplay affect for my playstyle: none. Use legacy container workaround if problem.
- One minor annoyance: the auto-walk mode. Learned to not accidentally click to avoid.

I cannot remember a single other bug. I am sure on or two naked bodies ran by in the two months which might have been graphic glitches, but beyond that...

I am not saying that EC has no bugs. I am only saying that in my personal experience, I do not notice the bugs in daily game play at all.

Contrary to that, though, I enjoy the fantastic macro facilities, the targeting facilities, and the improved graphics (subject to taste) of EC in comparison to CC.

While the EC interface (especially when skinned with Copper Enhanced by Dermott) is superior to 2D, it is also rife with bugs and annoyances that for many people are game stopping. Since you can't remember any of them, I direct you to Hawkeye Pike's thread of 100+ outstanding EC bugs
--> http://vboards.stratics.com/showthread.php?t=154028

The EC has come a long way stability wise, I haven't suffered a crash I could directly attribute to it in a LONG time. (I play the EC exclusively)

Until the list of bugs is cut down to 20 or less, the EC will sadly continue to be considered crap by the majority of players.

 

[canary]

I am not talking about lag or hardware. As I said: the client is not as *buggy* as the forum often reflects it to be.

That is your opinion, then. The majority of 'the forum' disagree with you.

See, in the EC vs Legacy client war, there is the often forgotten 'third choice'... people who WANT to play a new updated client but find the EC client a piece of ill conceived garbage. If it is a testament to the programming skills of the Dev team then it definitely will not get better.

 

[lucitus]

What for me is important is that the players movement will be a bit smoother and the sound is working again of them. Then client is in a really good state! All in all, we can say a one or two publishes and we can say it is ready for the world

 

[BlackMagus]

I see that this is an emotional topic... anyways, I was not expressing my opinion, but rather my experience.

If you are a heavy duty UO player, and happen to run EC on an environment that compares to my machine (average win 7 laptop), and happen to have the network connection I have (average but consistent cable 100ms ping), and happen to have the game setup I have (fullscreen without 3rd party apps or mods), you might just have a solid EC experience like I do.

My message is just "Give it a try if you haven't already - it might work better than you think". It is not "EA, you don't need to fix reported bugs cause I don't care" or "all the reported EC bugs are a myth".

 

[canary]

I see that this is an emotional topic... anyways, I was not expressing my opinion, but rather my experience.

If you are a heavy duty UO player, and happen to run EC on an environment that compares to my machine (average win 7 laptop), and happen to have the network connection I have (average but consistent cable 100ms ping), and happen to have the game setup I have (fullscreen without 3rd party apps or mods), you might just have a solid EC experience like I do.

My message is just "Give it a try if you haven't already - it might work better than you think". It is not "EA, you don't need to fix reported bugs cause I don't care" or "all the reported EC bugs are a myth".

I have, and yes, you are still wrong. It runs flawlessly on my computer, but the bugs, myriad of systems still not put in and the way it looks graphically (ie paperdolls, etc) is so horrid it ruins it for me.