| Subject: More from Sunsword |
Author:
Darkstone News
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Date Posted: Thu, Jun 12 2003, 11:16pm
In reply to:
Darkstone News
's message, "An update from Sunsword" on Thu, Jun 12 2003, 11:14pm
The following was posted by SunSword (Live Producer), on the Stratics UO U.Hall Board, with further comments and updates:
I don't *believe* we intend to change anything about grandfathered houses, but don't quote me on that yet. I'll check with the team on Monday.
and more comments from SunSword:
In general, I've refrained from jumping into the rate adjustment fray because there isn't a whole lot to say beyond what was said in the announcement. It's a business decision.
If you just want some examples of the improvements from the development side, some obvious things you can point to are the recent shard upgrades we've done (both hardware and OS) and the new hires I've just mentioned.
and more comments from SunSword:
Peaches, I doubt that "most" of the shards will get a backup run on test center. It's just too costly in terms of time and resources. But we should get 1 or 2, which should be enough to get the appropriate feedback.
and more comments from SunSword:
I think we've posted in a variety of places that the Launch Gift will only be available for characters created before Pub 19. Characters that qualify before that date will still be able to claim the gift after Pub 19.
and more comments from SunSword:
It will pass, that I promise. When I came back to UO in Sept. believe me, I had a lot of the same questions you do. Namely, 'How the *bleep* can this take so freaking long?" The short answer is the infrastructure changes (which are a good thing) that had become part of phase III had dependencies well beyond the UO Live team and the critical nature of the changes meant that it couldn't be pushed. In hindsight, phase III and the infrastructure changes probably should have been done independently, but alas, they were not. And here we are.
The kinds of problems we're finding right now are optimizations and unusual conditions, but we really do need to find all of them, because a player isn't going to care what "unusual" conditions may have lead to his or her inability to place or keep a house, right?
We're all struggling with the conflict between doing it right and doing it fast, but I think most of you will agree that we should err on the side of right, eh?
The team will get faster at doing it right. That's what this new publish process is all about.
and more comments from SunSword:
The doom boss artifact issue should be resolved soon (before pub19). It was originally slated for pub 18, but had to be pulled at the last minute.
and more comments from SunSword:
Part of the process for Phase III is load testing. We aren't currently planning on artificially staggering the decay times.
As for PvP balance, we constantly evaluating PvP. I won't explicitly comment on mage/necromancy myself, but I'll get a designer on here to chat with you about it during the week.
and more comments from SunSword:
I wish I could spend more time on the boards and in the game to talk to players, but unfortunately, my responsibilities keep my away from the computer much more than when I worked on UO in the past. I really do enjoy my job a great deal, so its a limitation that I'm willing to accept. But, you should also see individual team members posting more soon, and that should also help.
I find I have the most time on weekends and at nights, but of course, I have to squeeze that in with family time.
and more comments from SunSword:
We can't do everything at once. The BOD system should be extended to the rest of the crafting skills. I can't say when right now, because the only thing I'm willing to make predictions on are the things we're actively working on.
and more comments from SunSword:
I'd love to answer that question in detail, perhaps that's something I'll do in my next "comments from the team."
In the next few months at least, you will see improvements in a lot of areas that have needed them for a while (yes this is general, but as I commented elsewhere, I don't want to commit to things we aren't actually working on yet). There are many things in UO that desperately need some TLC, but it will take time.
As for the quality of customer service, that's a top issue for all of us here at OSI/EA. The CS department is constantly working to improve the quality of service. Hopefully those improvements will become tangible soon. I know that we on the development team make it one of our top priorities to give the GMs and other customer service reps the tools they need to do their jobs better. Each one of these new publishes has a section specifically designed to improve our customer service, either by addressing top call generators, or giving the CRMD team better tools.
So, to answer your question about new hires, the answer is "no." The two programmers are for server-side/game programming. Obviously, the artist is for graphics needs, but we certainly won't be limiting ourselves to that. It would just be nice to be able to deliver more graphics improvements and have better equity between the 2D and 3D client. Having an additional team member should help us achieve that goal.
Long term, there will be an emphasis on graphical improvements, but that's a ways down the line. For the rest of the year, the vast majority of the team's emphasis will be on:
A) Bug Killing
B) Improving and expanding existing game systems
C) Infrastructure improvements
Bug killing should be an obvious one. The work on existing game systems will be prioritized based on how much demand there is (exhibited here and elsewhere), how much work it will take to make the improvements, and to some degree, how long it's been since the system was last addressed. The infrastructure improvements may or may not be invisible to you, but in general should improve the overall quality of the service and the manpower needed to support it.
After that? Big plans! Once the service has found its "center," it will be time to look towards the future for major updates...but that's so far off at the moment, it's probably mean of me to tease you with it. Anyway, I think UO has years and years left in it, so that discussion can wait a few months, eh? I don't want to distract the developers, they're so focused these days.
I recognize that you were probably looking for some more specifics in this response, but you should commend me for exercising the kind of restraint that many of my predecessors failed to exhibit... ;)
I'll think about what additional things I'm comfortable revealing in a comments from the team.
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