(UO expansion) You'll all scoff, but I'm still going to jizz.

[Kail]

At this point, any change is mostly for the current UO players, and nobody needs to look any further than SWG:NGE to see what happens when wholesale changes are delivered poorly and with the wrong message.

That sounds about right to me.

I love sandboxes, but I have no desire to play UO.  This graphics update doesn't change that.  It's probably a nice bonus to current UO players, though, which is great.  For them to yank the rug out from under their current players in the hopes of attratcing newer ones with a more 3d game seems like a waste (might as well just release it as a new game anyway, it's not like they're paying for the license or anything).

I do strongly suspect that it's not a true 3d client, anyway.  There is no perspective in those screenshots and (I assume) you won't be able to rotate the camera, so it's going to be basically indistinguishable from 2d most of the time anyway.  Monsters casting shadows don't seem to take the geometry into account, either; looks like they're prerendered and then projected onto a flat plane underneath the monster (or something).

[geldonyetich]

I get the feeling that UO long passed the SWG level of alienating their existing playerbase.  Anybody that's left after the Renaissance Client, the Felicia/Trammel split, Elves, and Ninjas probably has learned to expect major revisions.

[Righ]

Anybody still playing UO or SW:G should have a leash round their neck, a ball gag in their mouth, a rubber suit on their servile body, and a butt plug with a tail on it rammed up their arse. Smell the glove, MMOG bitches.

[MahrinSkel]

There are a lot of gains to be had from pseudo-2D (2D games created with 3D models and using 3D rendering).  One of them is that 2D sprite animation is a dying art, it's harder to find artists who can do it well. Frankly a 3D model looks smoother, less repetitive, and with modern rendering systems can react to ambient light and other environmental effecs in a way that 2D simply can't.

The Torque Game Builder is much improved from the version Orbis rejected last year, if it could have done then what it does now, we would probably have used it (TGB is 2D through 3D).

--Dave

[WindupAtheist]

I'd answer rationally, but I'm lost in this fanboy fantasy where a combination of this expansion and Sony's continuing rape at the hands of Blizzard conspire to close the 50k subscription gap between EQ2 and UO, and the look on Smedley's face when he realizes his flagship next-generation MMO has fewer subs than Ultima fucking Online.  I'll admit it's not bloody likely, but it's not utterly impossible, and man is it a compelling thought.  It's like a guy you hate sitting on the side of the road in a broken down Porsche while an old woman in a Model T putters by and gives him the finger.

Anyway...

The difference between UO and SWG is that even when the developers are adding stupid things to UO, they're at least adding things.  When the SWG developers decided to add the NGE, they for some reason felt compelled to also tear out features/content willy-nilly regardless of the big bleeding holes they left in the game.  You might think Necromancy is a stupid skill to have in UO, but nobody is forcing you to use it, and it's a hell of a lot different than someone saying "We decided tamers suck, so no more tamers ever!" out of the blue.

[Simond]

Confirmed on Stratics:  All the horrible neon colors are going away under the new client.  Yay.

What about TROOBLACK?

[WindupAtheist]

Stolen from the Stratics thread, a direct comparison between identical locations.

Old UO


New UO

[Venkman]

How do most people play these days? With the old bitmapped-based client like what you showed or with the often-tweaked "3D" introduced with Iishenar? I personally didn't like the latter much.

[NiX]

How do most people play these days? With the old bitmapped-based client like what you showed or with the often-tweaked "3D" introduced with Iishenar? I personally didn't like the latter much.

The former. It's smoother, looks nicer and it has that classic feel. It's nice to see that they're retaining that old UO look with the new engine.

[WindupAtheist]

It is, if nothing else, an interesting example of a unique business approach.  Of the original Big Three, two have had sequels.  One (AC2) was a total failure and has been outlived by its own predecessor, while the other (EQ2) has performed underwhelmingly and holds fewer subscriptions than the original.  (At least according to Bruce, usual disclaimers apply.)  Neither attempt at a UO sequel ever got off the ground, however, and now EA appears to have comitted to updating/evolving the existing game instead.

If this little plan is successful, and delivers a return in subscriptions/retention sufficient to make the expense worthwhile, I'm going to go ahead and pound a couple nails into the lid on the coffin of the MMO sequel concept.

[Azazel]

The new pics look nice. I admit I'd likely never play it, but that's because I've got too much invested in other MMOGS (the primary one being RL friends & wife paying WoW). But it does look very nice. I hope it does well.

[El Gallo]

If they made a new shard and a more intuitive (or more functional and moddable) UI, I'd consider trying it out again assuming I wasn't horribly addicted to another game at the time.

I have no problem with the top-down view.  I actually miss 2-d games where Ifelt like I was walking around a painting.  Even the best 3-d games still have too much of a q-bert feel to them to me.

[Yegolev]

I had always assumed UO looked like it did because it wanted to be Ultima VII Online.

Where the dark-elf ninja vampire white women at?

HA!

[Yegolev]

Stolen from the Stratics thread, a direct comparison between identical locations.

Wow, there are a lot more monsters in New UO.

[Trippy]

Stolen from the Stratics thread, a direct comparison between identical locations.

Wow, there are a lot more monsters in New UO.

That's cause they've been feeding on all the horses.

[Numtini]

I have to say, I'm very intrigued. UO is still best in a large number of things.

[Jayce]

I think that WUA has a point.  There's not nearly enough scoffing in this thread.

[WayAbvPar]

I think that WUA has a point.  There's not nearly enough scoffing in this thread.

I was too busy rolling my eyes back into my head to scoff. At this point, this is like polishing a turd. UO2 kthx.

[Rasix]

Anyway, when this comes out next year I will obviously buy it.  Once the release-pains are over I'll let folks know, and then some of you should seriously consider giving it a shot.  It's got no classes, no levels, it's sandboxy, you can custom build your own house down to the last bit of floor tile, and it'll have graphics that aren't total ass.  You know you've wasted money on less interesting premises in the past.

This is just one thing I'm curious about, and I've never heard it explained or bothered to look it up, but how do ninjas, samurai, and paladins fit into this "no class" framework? Or are there just skills that enable you to be "ninja-like"?

It's funny though, with the small amount of time I spent playing on that grey shard (Metropolis), the one thing that never bothered me was the graphics.  These do look better, but I wonder if it would "feel" like UO playing it.

If they do undo some the item mudflation, I could see myself giving this a one month run if it's not buggy as hell.

PS. The game was ruined when they put motherfucking elves in it. But you can still have fun with ruined things, I mean.. someone's still doing Madonna, rite?

[Surlyboi]

This is just one thing I'm curious about, and I've never heard it explained or bothered to look it up, but how do ninjas, samurai, and paladins fit into this "no class" framework?

Like this...

[d4rkj3di]

I'm sorry, but EA taking UO to GlamourShots isn't going to do a thing for it. Putting Grandma in a new dress and slapping on some make-up isn't going to cure her Alzheimer's. All she's going to do is look at the pictures and ask, "Who's that painted up Jezebel whore?"

There's better ways to spend your money.

[Yegolev]

I only just noticed that WUA mentioned that he would buy this.  Are they actually going to charge for this?  Any benevolence I might have felt has left my body.  Through my anus.

[sinij]

At this point paying for UO is like paying for sloppy seconds from old one-legged whore who also happens to be your sister – you do what you got to do if you are desperate enough but there are ‘fresher’ alternatives around. I personally think UO's problem is not graphics, it the fact that gameplay fucked beyond any redemption thanks to generations of rampaging moronic developers. Too bad there are yesman like WUA that kept UOs corpse animated for that long. IT IS TIME TO LET GO.

[WindupAtheist]

This is just one thing I'm curious about, and I've never heard it explained or bothered to look it up, but how do ninjas, samurai, and paladins fit into this "no class" framework? Or are there just skills that enable you to be "ninja-like"?

It's all a bit like magery requiring evaluating intelligence to do any damage.  The ninjitsu skill has a bunch of abilities for enhancing melee, but in ways that require the hiding and stealth skills in order to be effective.  Since you can only have seven skills total, and each "class" skill usually has a couple support skills that tie into it, you have to consider carefully when making a hybrid.  Necromancy is virtually useless without spirit speak, bushido is somewhat nerfed without parrying, and so forth.

My main character does have necromancy and bushido, but I had to make some signifigant sacrifices in order to get it that way.  I don't have healing or anatomy, which means I have to largely rely on life-leeching to stay alive, and about half the bushido abilites are useless to me since I didn't have room for parrying.

By the same token you can stack bushido and chivalry onto the same template for uber melee damage, but you're going to have to forego some combination of healing, anatomy, parrying, and resisting spells, making your ability to avoid and/or heal damage rather suspect.

You can even stack chivarly and necromancy onto the same template, but then karma comes into play.  The effectiveness of chivalry spells is dependant upon having high karma, while every necromancy spell you cast lowers your karma.  So everytime you cast a necro spell, you'd be self-nerfing your chivalry.

You end up with some weird templates running around, but for my money it beats the shit out of the world being populated by thousands and thousands of the same eight character types.

IT IS TIME TO LET GO.

NEVAR!!!1!

[Surlyboi]

You end up with some weird templates running around, but for my money it beats the shit out of the world being populated by thousands and thousands of the same eight character types.

But Horde can play paladins now! 

[Simond]

I was too busy rolling my eyes back into my head to scoff. At this point, this is like polishing a turd. UO2 kthx.

WUA did have a point eariler about MMOG sequels, though. EQ2 is doing worse than EQ, AC2 died...who's to say that UO2 wouldn't be an equally bad move?
I mean, it's EA - designing a new game client is a level of magnitude easier (and cheaper, no doubt) than a new game.

Although they could take the SOE approach, and just fuck up a new game engine (EQ...twice), a sequel and a (different game) revamp.

[Venkman]

There's been really no statistical basis by which to say a sequel is any good or not. Two main titles that haven't done well/died versus a really small barely-heard-about game on version three and doing as well as the prior two did.

You end up with some weird templates running around, but for my money it beats the shit out of the world being populated by thousands and thousands of the same eight character types.

Hey, that's nine to you bub! Anyway, it's just the Class thing at all, be it the 9 of WoW or the 342 that SWG launched with. It's hemming people into roles. Of course, it's largely been proven that most people prefer that, but that's irrelevant. The genre is big enough to keep UO and EQ going forever.

[Jayce]

I HAVE always wondered... what's the point of an MMOG sequel?  Evolve the world, sure.  Have expansions, sure.  But an entirely other game? 

At most I would do something like the SWG NGE and call it a sequel.  Use most of the existing code, but maybe give it a graphics overhaul and add some map territory.  Making essentially another of the same game seems silly to me.

Also, I would leave out ATITD.  Their sequel model seems more like expansions to me.  I mean come on, they have released three in what, four years? Most houses can hardly keep up that pace in expansions, and Blizzard CAN'T.

[WindupAtheist]

There's been really no statistical basis by which to say a sequel is any good or not. Two main titles that haven't done well/died versus a really small barely-heard-about game on version three and doing as well as the prior two did.

I'm not up on ATITD.  Are these multiple versions running at the same time, or does one just end as the next begins?  Because that's not really the same as the EQ/EQ2 situation.

Hey, that's nine to you bub! Anyway, it's just the Class thing at all, be it the 9 of WoW or the 342 that SWG launched with. It's hemming people into roles. Of course, it's largely been proven that most people prefer that, but that's irrelevant. The genre is big enough to keep UO and EQ going forever.

Like I said, it's an interesting way they're going with UO.  They've apparently finally given up on ever doing a sequel, but between gameplay changes and now graphics, it's an entirely different game than it was four or five years ago.  And "rofl elfs" aside, that's probably a good thing.  Retention would probably be worse if melee were still the same "autoattack + bandages" game it was back in the day.

[Numtini]

ATITD ends the game and starts a new one. It's just a game with a time limit. It's not sequels.

[Venkman]

Good question WUA, and good point Numtimi. ATITD are true sequels. EQ/EQ2 and AC/AC2 are/were concurrent worlds. I imagine SOE thought they'd eventually close EQ1 because EQ2 was going to be the great success. But if they ever thought that, they've certainly wizened up by now.

The genre is too young to see what a "traditional course" is for an MMORPG. Therefore it's hard to know whether a sequel is even appropriate.

[WindupAtheist]

Do EQ & EQ2 combined have more subs than EQ would alone if the sequel had never been created?  More than likely.

Given the expense of developing and maintaining two games, was doing so the best idea?  Probably not.

I'm tempted to go ahead and say that developing two different MMO games based upon the same IP and basic design concepts is more a recipe for pointless redundancy than anything else.  I know that AC2 was by all reports just a very bad game, while EQ2 was trod beneath the feet of the WoW juggernaut, and taken together that seems to leave some wiggle-room for opposing viewpoints.  But I still think the core premise of the MMO sequel concept, that players will be inclined to migrate from Game 1 to Game 2, has been disproven.

EQ2 didn't just fail to make a dent in WoW, it failed to surpass the current incarnation of EQ1.  Not only did EQ1 players neglect to cross over to EQ2, but those who did quit EQ1 seem to have done so in favor of WoW.

MMO players will hold very tightly to the game they've grown accustomed to, but once they do make that break, they break cleanly and are up for grabs.  They'll go for the coolest-looking thing around, regardless of whether it's tied to the name and IP of what they've been playing.  So why bother making your new game a sequel to the old?  Having the old game's name on the box clearly WON'T draw players of that old game over to the new, but it just might turn off the people who had no interest in the old game in the first place, and don't want more of the same.

[Yegolev]

I also have the opinion that a sequel to a MOG is unnecessary.  You can call it an expansion or an upgrade, but extending the life of the original game seems like the best course.  UO is an example of this, as is EVE.  EQ is also.  None of those resemble the game at initial launch.  I'm not saying that EQ didn't need a rewrite or redesign or something, but spawning an entire new system was probably not the optimal solution.  On the other hand, I vastly prefer EQ2 to EQ, and you'd likely never get EQ2 without starting over completely.  Or at least without an enormous number of "I CANCE$LED MY ACCOUNT^ TODAY!!!11" posts.  If you want to make a new game, make a new game.

[Calantus]

The concept of a sequel to an ongoing game is obviously a relic of the singleplayer genre and everyone should have known better. Unless of course you essentially kill the first one and use the sequel as kind of a mega expansion.

In any case, I'd be willing to go back to UO for those times I don't feel like playing anything else, but it STILL has a lot of barrier to entry stuff in it as far as I can tell. The UI is SHIT, total utter shit. It's way more outdated than even the graphics. They also need to up the user friendliness of UO by about 10x and remove a lot of the tedium. Oh, and add in some PVP that isn't gate camping or agreed upon guild war faggotry (and no I don't necessarily mean PK, could be an arena or something to dick about with when the rest of the game gets boring).

Until then, meh, seeing screenshots of UO always brought on the nostalgia and made me want to play again. The updated graphics are just going to remove that pull.

[HaemishM]

The "updated" graphics really won't mean anything to me. Unless I can pull the view down into a 1st-person or good 3rd-person MMOG, it'll still just be a 2d ISO game.