M
MoonglowMerchant
Guest
*shakes head*
HarUO is alive and well
Even if it's not offered up in stores it should be present in magazines, and other periodicals, especially one's targeted on PC Technology and the Gaming industry. If they advertise that way and make use of sites like Amazon and Gamestop to sell boxes then it shouldn't be that bad on them. Amazon doesn't have the limited shelf space issue that retailers do.Contrary to personal norms, I'm not sure of the "best" direction here. I know I don't like the idea of no box/ shelf space, but that's from an emotional opposed to an intellectual baseline. If we had a history of solid marketing, I'd recommend defering to their good judgement, but we know how well that's gone over the years. While I don't believe a yearly box the necessity it once was, there probably needs to be some cycle for reintroduction. Maybe 2d or 3d year boxes, but as JC mentioned above, a shelved product needs something more special than routine updates/ upgrades. I'm not sure how far out Dev plans anymore, if they're on a single year plan, the process wouldn't lend itself well to any predetermined shelf cycle. My guess is that SA is the "biggie" over the next few years, and if so, it likley needs to be boxed. If it isn't "big" enough to merit the expense, hold it until it is. Of course there are other methods for marketing, so if we move away from boxes entirely, it's probably worth a shot to blitz alternate techniques if for no other reason to calibrate results for future marketing schemes. EA has to remember that our player base is not the same as the base for other products, and for the market we represent, it's a very safe bet that the market isn't even close to fully utilized. Regardless, it will be interesting to see where this goes.
That is why Diablo III and Starcraft II are going first person right? The perspective you play the game in does not matter. It is the game itself.#2 - Isometric games have fallen out of favor. The FPS stampede over the past two decades still continue to be popular.
When I see people talking about UO they are often referring to the "good old days". There is obviously something more appealing with the way UO was 8 years ago than it is today. Some people may have been turned off, but many more people were having fun.#3 - The UO name still has an ominous legacy. The Dread Lord Days did a LOT of damage to our player base. Thousands of players who were learning the ropes were mercilessly bullied and preyed upon by PKs, in a system that did not protect weaker players.
Sure. That's why all the MMORPGs still have non-consensual PvP, right? I don't care what you heard, the current policy towards PvP (consentual/server based only) prevading the MMORPG community speaks with a lot more weight.When I see people talking about UO they are often referring to the "good old days". There is obviously something more appealing with the way UO was 8 years ago than it is today. Some people may have been turned off, but many more people were having fun.
Yea the game is old but it never met it's potential. If..UO was to ever have a major overhaul (This doesn't mean just a new client) to allow it to meet that potential they I would say the impact of it being "old" would be dampened. After all everything that's old is new again.. look at fashion, car design, and numerous other instances.There's seven major problems with the current state of Ultima Online, in my personal opinion. Your mileage may vary, but I would like to hear what you think.
The first two, really can't be helped:
#1 - The game is just old. Gamers are fickle when it comes to the age of their games. Most people who play computer games are under 30, and young people naturally are always going to new horizons, especially with entertainment.
Very true though I personally detest FPS games, There is still room for Isometrics, but it would have to be integrated with the option of being played First Person.#2 - Isometric games have fallen out of favor. The FPS stampede over the
past two decades still continue to be popular.
I don't completely agree with this, One thing I hear positive about UO is that it has the best PvP of the MMO's out there, another thing I look at is UO peaked in subs 3 months after AoS launched. Players had the option of removing themselves from Non-Consensual PvP by that time. I think it's more of a view from the knowledgeable public that UO is a game riddled by Exploitation, and Cheating. It has several major balancing issues because the developers don't seem to make the use of variables in the code to separate PvP encounters from PvM most the time leading to balancing in one causing imbalance in others.The next four I think are irrevocable, just the sins of the past management:
#3 - The UO name still has an ominous legacy. The Dread Lord Days did a LOT of damage to our player base. Thousands of players who were learning the ropes were mercilessly bullied and preyed upon by PKs, in a system that did not protect weaker players. This made a great deal of people leave UO, never to return. Hindsight is 20/20 -- non-consensual PvP was a bad idea, because it rewards predatory behavior towards weaker players. Virtually no MMORPG allows it any more. UO still bears the stigma of antisocial gaming.
Read the Above, I do think that cheats and exploits are the single most damaging thing in UO's history.#4 - Hand in hand with #3 is the utterly pathetic way the duping crisis was handled. Our UO economy STILL hasnt recovered from this travesty, and it took the GMs YEARS to fix it, after months of denying it and having a bunch of greedy cheaters rob the rest of us blind. Again, when a counterfeiter gets away with it, the rest of the consumers end up paying for the theft. Also, it has been proven countless times that scripters and bots operate with impunity in this game. While EA makes lots of hot air posts about raids and investigations, at the end of the day, we the players see two big things on our screen -- cheaters rampant, and a conspicuous lack of enforcement.
The Volunteer program legal mess jacked that up, years ago when you did a page you often times got a Smurf to evaluate the situation to see if a GM was warranted. Also all the GM Support staff wasn't restricted to being in house, they have people doing it from home all over the place. Restricting it to In house really cut back on the numbers of support staffing, leading to constrains in time, which of course lead to procedural changes, which binds the support staffs hands.#5 - Years of infamously horrible customer service, (GMs were synonymous with the line "I can't help you with that" on virtually anything) But damn, we didn't know when we had it good. At least someone actually SHOWED UP that you could complain to. Now we have a cookie cutter "go look at our website" support.
Yea they did and when RG left most of his development team at least those remaining went with him. EA's demands for deadlines and reshuffling of the Dev Team squeezed most of Origins in house programmers out. These were the people who helped envision UO, and many of the standalone Ultima Games, simply put no one else could have followed in their foot steps no one knew the internal working, story line, and goals for Ultima Online better.#6 - Richard Garriot and crew built this system out of love and personal pride. It was their baby. Now EA sees it as a vehicle to get money, nothing else. Its an intangible change, but it still its a malaise that eats at the game.
I don't think #7 can fix it or really help at this point simply because as long as the issues generated by the others are still in place, it's simply a band-aid. It's like trying to plug a leaky dam with bubble gum. We get the Event we're all happy for a few days or weeks and then BOOM right back to harping on Cheats, Bugs, and Exploits. There has to be an overall improvement on both ends for UO to progress, more event and fresh material, and a serious visible effort to close up exploits bugs and cheats. These will lead to solid game play again and that will do the most to help UO.The last one, I DO think EA could fix. And fixing this could lessen the impact of 1-6....
#7 - Inactivity on the Event Front. I understand all efforts are currenlty being diverted to the new expansion, but let's face it. The game has been dullsville for months. There's no hot quests, no new developments to the storylines, no new BBEG wrecking havoc on the world. Just the same ol' monster mash in dungeons, the same uninspired crap we've always had.
You know, it wouldn't be hard at all to just have a weekly ongoing event (and not another damn invasion, those things just show how unimaginative things have gotten on the other side of the screen -- oohhh, lets just have a wave-based monster spawn we cant possibly win in the long run -- yeah, we never saw that before). It's showmanship and good writing that gets people excited. Have it so that if you miss a week in UO, by God, you miss something BIG. That doesn't take wizardry programming, nor does it take a lot of planning. Just have an involved storyline that gets everyone itchin' to log on after work. THAT will generate the word of mouth and bring people in.
This.When I see people talking about UO they are often referring to the "good old days". There is obviously something more appealing with the way UO was 8 years ago than it is today. Some people may have been turned off, but many more people were having fun.
The entire premise behind Warhammer Online is non-consensual PVP. That game sold over 750,000 copies during the launch. EVE Online has huge non-consensual PVP areas and is currently growing its subscription base with up to 40,000 players logged in at the same time. The idea that non-consensual PVP is undesirable to most people is absurd. During that time that everyone said Trammel had to happen or UO would die, UO was growing subscriptions! It was only perceived as a negative thing because Everquest came in and grew to twice UO's size.Sure. That's why all the MMORPGs still have non-consensual PvP, right? I don't care what you heard, the current policy towards PvP (consentual/server based only) prevading the MMORPG community speaks with a lot more weight.
The entire premise behind Warhammer Online is non-consensual PVP. That game sold over 750,000 copies during the launch. EVE Online has huge non-consensual PVP areas and is currently growing its subscription base with up to 40,000 players logged in at the same time. The idea that non-consensual PVP is undesirable to most people is absurd. During that time that everyone said Trammel had to happen or UO would die, UO was growing subscriptions! It was only perceived as a negative thing because Everquest came in and grew to twice UO's size.
Check the figures for UO Subscriptions over time (is sirbruce still tracking this?). See that higher than current figure back before Trammel. Now subtract the 75k or so current subscribers from the 200k or so from then, and you'll see that 125k people preferred non-con PvP, a good bit more than there are active now.What's the average population difference between Fel and Tram on any given Shard (not Siege ruleset)... I'm not talking about right at Champ Spawn time but overall... where do people spend their time.
That should tell you how many people like non-consentual PvP.
I don't believe that.This was mentioned at the Town Hall. Jeremy was saying that it is extremely tough to get shelf space in stores, especially for PC games as they tend to favour console ones. Where they do stock them, they tend to want the huge sellers.
I think their point is that the sums involved in getting it in store may be better spent in other forms of advertising.
As of now they have not made any firm decisions, but I think we are going to have to judge it in the light of the overall package when the launch comes.
Very nice post. I strongly agree with the "theme" of your points, but disagree on a couple of the "eaches."There's seven major problems with the current state of Ultima Online, in my personal opinion. Your mileage may vary, but I would like to hear what you think.
While there's merit here, I don't agree that it can't be "fixed." Unfotunately I know nothing about programming, so I may be about to unintentionally err. My understanding is that theres code in two places, on a server and within a client. If the client code is modernized in SA, the first battle is won. Again, as I understand it, the client must be modernized before the server side can be. Assuming client acceptance, the second battle is the server code. Unless you intend to win both battles, theres no reason to fight the first. So "mechanically," I think there is an ongoing effort to update code. As players though, we really don't see much of the back end. We have four perceptions, the visuals, interface, content and events. I can not comment on how the interface compares, I suspect we're fine with what we have. UO has never "lagged" on content and likely never will. Events, and a staff to support them, seem based on subscriptions/ generated revenue. On that we'll have to see.The first two, really can't be helped:
#1 - The game is just old. Gamers are fickle when it comes to the age of their games. Most people who play computer games are under 30, and young people naturally are always going to new horizons, especially with entertainment.
JC hit this one already in terms of comparison. I like our "view," others do as well. I'm not sure this is really a problem, but you are correct, it generally is against the trend.#2 - Isometric games have fallen out of favor. The FPS stampede over the
past two decades still continue to be popular.
While many may disagree from a perspective of personal preferences, the simple fact is that you're absolutely correct on the effect this had, and consequences continue to linger. Whether you preferred or loathed the playstyle, for those few of us still around from the pre-public days, the impact here was the most significant of all. We lost more players in the first year than any online game other than WoW have achieved since. My first two public years were spent trying to help beginning players, so for me this isn't a "hearsay" theory, I played avidly the entire time and witnessed the migration first hand. UOR offered some repreive, and subscriptions recovered to their highest number before or since, but the new player influx during that time period was miniscule compared to year 1. While not "fixable" in terms of "tainting," it can be addressed now and in the future. Powerscrolls in Fel only, and red access into gargoyle lands display a tendency within dev to ignore lessons learned over the years.The next four I think are irrevocable, just the sins of the past management:
#3 - The UO name still has an ominous legacy. The Dread Lord Days did a LOT of damage to our player base. Thousands of players who were learning the ropes were mercilessly bullied and preyed upon by PKs, in a system that did not protect weaker players. This made a great deal of people leave UO, never to return. Hindsight is 20/20 -- non-consensual PvP was a bad idea, because it rewards predatory behavior towards weaker players. Virtually no MMORPG allows it any more. UO still bears the stigma of antisocial gaming.
Absolutely. It is vital to eliminate duping once and for all. Gold needs a replacement currency. This one requires a "reboot," but again it's something that can be done.#4 - Hand in hand with #3 is the utterly pathetic way the duping crisis was handled. Our UO economy STILL hasnt recovered from this travesty, and it took the GMs YEARS to fix it, after months of denying it and having a bunch of greedy cheaters rob the rest of us blind. Again, when a counterfeiter gets away with it, the rest of the consumers end up paying for the theft. Also, it has been proven countless times that scripters and bots operate with impunity in this game. While EA makes lots of hot air posts about raids and investigations, at the end of the day, we the players see two big things on our screen -- cheaters rampant, and a conspicuous lack of enforcement.
Yup. Much of this was actually organization, not broadly known within the public wrealm. Support and marketing have been separate of dev at least since year 3, I'm unsure prior to that. The effect was that the lead guy for UO, each of them over time, could not directly influence critical facets of the player experience or growth of the game. Later moves into pogo/ ea.com and now Mythic have not "cleaned" this up. Unfortunately it's now become a resource issue. We don't generate adequate revenue for a large, trained, and dedicated staff. I do think they're trying though, recently, things seem a little better, though thats more a "feeling" than a "fact."#5 - Years of infamously horrible customer service, (GMs were synonymous with the line "I can't help you with that" on virtually anything) But damn, we didn't know when we had it good. At least someone actually SHOWED UP that you could complain to. Now we have a cookie cutter "go look at our website" support.
True. But sincerely, I think for EA it's always been primarily about revenue, something I'm not critical of - that's business afterall, which is EA's role. Again, and while also just a "feeling," I get the sense that our team still sees and feels the love and pride aspect. I do have directional concerns with our current team, but much of that may be due to poor communication, which isn't necessarily anyone's fault.#6 - Richard Garriot and crew built this system out of love and personal pride. It was their baby. Now EA sees it as a vehicle to get money, nothing else. Its an intangible change, but it still its a malaise that eats at the game.
Agreed, and fixable. Again, great post.The last one, I DO think EA could fix. And fixing this could lessen the impact of 1-6....
#7 - Inactivity on the Event Front. I understand all efforts are currenlty being diverted to the new expansion, but let's face it. The game has been dullsville for months. There's no hot quests, no new developments to the storylines, no new BBEG wrecking havoc on the world. Just the same ol' monster mash in dungeons, the same uninspired crap we've always had.
You know, it wouldn't be hard at all to just have a weekly ongoing event (and not another damn invasion, those things just show how unimaginative things have gotten on the other side of the screen -- oohhh, lets just have a wave-based monster spawn we cant possibly win in the long run -- yeah, we never saw that before). It's showmanship and good writing that gets people excited. Have it so that if you miss a week in UO, by God, you miss something BIG. That doesn't take wizardry programming, nor does it take a lot of planning. Just have an involved storyline that gets everyone itchin' to log on after work. THAT will generate the word of mouth and bring people in.
ADVERTISING? Where? When? How? Who? I wanna see ... can someone point me in the right direction?I think their point is that the sums involved in getting it in store may be better spent in other forms of advertising.
Relax. It is far too much work to moderate a message board where people actually post.To whoever moved this one into Spiels and Rants, the thread 1) has been constructive and 2) will never be viewed by anyone in Dev based on where you've moved it to. Just an opinion for what it's worth.
Call me skeptical, but the only proof that we have of the expansion is a few words from the devs. Give someone a WoW manual, a thesaurus, and the phrases "it's in the works" and "we'll look into it" and they wouldn't have much trouble coming up with similar expansion notes.I really am surprised EA is going to go ahead with this expansion. I really, really thought they were just gonna continue to run down the clock with minimal investment.
I agree JC.When I see people talking about UO they are often referring to the "good old days". There is obviously something more appealing with the way UO was 8 years ago than it is today. Some people may have been turned off, but many more people were having fun.
How is EA going to get old players to return if when they go down to the local Best Buy and SA isn't on the shelf... How are they going to know there even is an expansion?This is why it will not be in the stores. EA has much better chance of trying to get players to return to the game, than they do trying to get brand new players. They do after all have every person who ever played the game E Mail on file.......
Any thread that says things aren't peachykeen is moved to the SnR section. Where it is safe from the eyes of the Devs (and therefore an utterly useless subboard for complaints). God forbid they should actually read what's upsetting us.To whoever moved this one into Spiels and Rants, the thread 1) has been constructive and 2) will never be viewed by anyone in Dev based on where you've moved it to. Just an opinion for what it's worth.
I'm not looking to pick a fight, but this simply is not correct. JC, as do many, prefers the PvP aspect of the game. PvPers are one of the five major demographics of our remaining player base (PvPers, role players, "older" players, female players, and Japanese players accross the spectrum), so I have no intent to diminish the enjoyment many find within this aspect of the product. That said, anti-social behavior nearly destroyed the game. Anti-social behavior and a preference for PvP are not the same thing. But history is what history is, despite current "real life" trends to rewrite it, and in this case the outflux of players early in the game due to anti-social behavior was overwhealming - and has never even been close to repeated since. And there are some of us who were around to witness it firsthand. It doesn't make anyone smarter, more experienced, or provide a more valid "worlview." But it is a fact, and the first year was a proverbial "muther." It's hard, probably impossible, to put a firm finger on it, but if we retained 1 in 10 of the year one players through a third year I'd be surprised. Subscription rates didn't fall off as quickly, many of us were opening multiple accounts during this period, so statistical accurancy isn't easy to be sure.The mass exodus was when they started changing gameplay to appease the minority. People didn't leave UO because of the PvPers/ PK'ers back in the day what happened is that the PvPers/PK'ers left and moved on to other games.
To be fair, they get it right most of the time. One of them blew this one, which is forgivable It needs to go back to UHall though. Fixing mistakes is a sign of confidence!Stratics = Dumb Mods who move/delete any threads not related to Trammy flower growing.