| Subject: Is UO coming to an end? Sunswords reply... |
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Date Posted: Tue, May 06 2003, 08:45pm
In Stratics U Hall the following was asked…
Is UO coming to an end?
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QUESTION BY CARETAKER
Hi everbody, i still play UO, dont get me wrong, and I will continue to play it as long as possible, but i noticed a lot of players leaving the game, new players who give up after their trial month, and most forums are nearly dead. PVP is limited to about 30 active players on my shard atm, the only cities with players in it are Britain, Minoc, Moonglow, Skara, Luna and Malas. The only active dungeons are Shame, Covetous and Destard. Champion spawns are pretty abbandoned and when there is one active its always the same 10 players that are there.
Is it just me, or are you expierencing this as well?
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SUNSWORDS REPLY
UO is not coming to an end. Far from it. However, it has been changing, and some of that change has been difficult.
I don't have much time to post on this subject at the moment, but I read this and felt I have to say something. I will elaborate more on it in a "Comments from the Producer," soon.
1st of all, scenarios are not dead. The UO Live team is undergoing a transition in process and form that has two goals:
A) To increase overall quality
B) To update the service more frequently
In order to do this, we have to be more disciplined in both planning and execution. We have already headed down this road, and so far, the planning has resulted in the need to do more feature revision, bug fixing, and infrastructure development than pure content (scenarios) for the first 2 publishes (18 and 19). Once we have accomplished this, we will have put the service into a state in which we can add content (scenarios) with the quality and frequency that you and I demand.
When I returned to UO late last year, I examined the scenarios and it became clear that we couldn't justify the man-power given the content we were producing. Based on our resources, we just have to be more efficient, so that's part of what this is all about.
This isn't a small undertaking the team is doing. We are juggling a very large number of tasks, many of which you will never see as an end user. We are changing the way we do things in almost every area (which I'm sure is somewhat frustrating for many of the developers because it appears to slow things down). All of this is required in order to be in a position to take UO where it needs to go in the future.
I'm aware of the concern that many of you have for the changes with UO. The team has been working to rectify most of those concerns with Publish 18, and you'll hear more about that in the coming weeks.
A couple of interesting facts:
- UO has more *paying* subscribers than it has ever had at any point in the past.
- UO's simultaneous users, number of log ins, and total minutes of playtime reflect a healthy play pattern by the community.
I'm not saying your concerns aren't warranted at all. What I do know is that because I'm not allowing the dev team to talk much about what they are doing, it feels like we may not be doing much. Unfortunately, this "black out" is necessary in order to force the dev team to perform to our new standards. Over the years, we've defintely shown a deficiency in our ability to predict when a certain thing is going to be available for consumption (either by date or quality). That has to stop. In a month or two, you should all be able to see the results of the dev team's hard work, and I'm sure you'll tell me what you think. If nothing else, it will be that we accomplished some very important things with good quality.
We have got to get this game to a point where the only thingsl you guys are talking about is how much fun the game is and what you want to see added to it next.
P.S. - I may have *really* interesting things to talk about regarding the future of UO in the coming weeks. But for now, we'll focus on the business at hand, because there is plenty of that.
Anthony Castoro
"SunSword"
Producer, Ultima Online
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QUESTION BY AZRILE
So let's see... Under your watch
1. The ant scenario was never finished (is the machine working?).
2. The demon scenario was cancelled completely
3. The buggiest expansion EVER was released... one that requires 2 full major publishes (18-19) of bug fixes before the game can see new content.
4. New ingame content will easily reach the a year gap (ant quest til new content).
And we are supposed to believe your little speech. heh.
And a little explaination about supply and demand.. The only reason there are so many accounts now is because for 3 years now the game has starved people for housing. Housing has such high value (ebay), that it easily justifies paying $10 ( when an 18x18 house sells for $500 bucks). People don't mind hanging onto those accounts now... but wait til it all shakes out. and those houses no longer have the real dollar values they had in the past.... heh, just one more reason for you guys to keep delaying Phase3. Just keep an eye on ebay, it is a forecaster of subscriptions... as house prices go down, so do subscriptions.
Anyone that plays the game can tell you that there are very few new players. Most of your new accounts are old players that are just doing it for housing.
And as I've said a million times, UO is the best game out there. But only because of housing, player vendors, and a complete crafting system.... things that were in the game 4 yrs ago. Once a game comes out that goes after those things, rather then trying to be the 'next' EQ, UO will be in real trouble. It's pretty safe being in second place, the new boys all have their sights set on the champ.
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SUNSWORDS REPLY
azrile,
I understand that you may be frustrated by what's happened over the last year, but I think you under-estimate the challenge of coming into a complex situation like UO and trying to change it in a short amount of time.
I had no choice but to stop the scenario work immediately to try and get AoS into shape. Not the happiest decision of my life, but there you go. In any job, we work with what we are given, eh?
I totally agree with your last statement, and that's why we have to hunker down and get this game whipped back into shape. Otherwise, we'll never be in position to focus on what makes UO great in the longterm.
Anthony Castoro
"SunSword"
Producer, Ultima Online
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