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

[Azaroth]

Granted I'd probably end up shooting myself were I forcefully charged with a task like that, I still enjoy the option being there.

[WindupAtheist]

The really sad part is, I believe they're going to keep the old-style backpack as an option.  So the Stratics monkeys are literally shrieking like morons for no reason.

[Slayerik]

The old inventory rox. That is all.

[Sky]

I am also a fan of the old inventory. I remember the first time I got into the EQ beta and thought "I can only have 8 things in my inventory!?" (6, 8, whatever it was). Sure, you can get a few bags, but inventory management was way more of a chore in every diku after UO, still is. I was just working to make 12- and 16-slot boxes because my EQ2 characters have too much crap and not enough space to keep it.

And somehow a chat bar or window or whatever in UO is wrong, anyway. The great thing about UO was that you actually had to talk to people in person, and you could close a door and nobody could overhear your conversation. Bah.

Never done smiley faces, but it was useful for laying out vendor bags in a nice way.

[Calantus]

I also like unslotted inventories and free-and-easy swinger chat.

Yeah, I'm a UO hippy like that.

I must say I like the unslotted inventories quite a lot too. It always makes me feel all Ultima 7 when I see those, and that was the first computer game I ever owned. I still maintain free-and-"easy" chat was stupid. :P

EDIT: Goddamnit. I've gone all post-happy the last 5 minutes and missed my 1337 post count.

[WindupAtheist]

The actual mechanics of talking aren't changing.  You literally just have to press enter before you start typing instead of having every keystroke go into the chat buffer.  Unless you don't want to, in which case you can set it to work like it does now.  It's an utter non-issue.

[Nija]

Freetardsshards! Play here. http://www.inmaniylem.com/

If only to log in and page the admin telling him to move you to prison permanently.

Can you have your salad tossed in UO prison?

http://forums.inmaniylem.com/viewtopic.php?id=133

I guess so. The joys of having a functional prison. The admin is redoing guard AI now so that instead of insta-whacking people, it sends them to jail. I think the preliminary idea, at least at this point, is that when you show up in jail you get two pardon deeds spawned. One is a resource deed, and all resources are available on alcatraz, for 5000 of a resource. The thing is that you can only turn in 1k at a time - so if someone whacks you and takes it, you'll have to start from scratch. I whacked some guy and found his stash of 800 logs for instance, so I guess he needs to turn in X amounts of boards. I turned them into 940 shafts, and hit the gym to work on archery. (the dummies in prison go up to 50% skill instead of 25%, so non-combat characters can be OK in there too)

The other type of resource deed is time based, and I think it's a week. So if you show up in jail with a pimped out character, you'll have to mark something down in order to raise resource gathering skills to get out quickly, or just not use that character for a week.

There's also a PA system in the gym so you can hear the new meat pleading their case in the warden's office. Pretty funny stuff.

[Damn Dirty Ape]

I must say I like the unslotted inventories quite a lot too. It always makes me feel all Ultima 7 when I see those, and that was the first computer game I ever owned.

Ultima 7 (part 1 + Forge of Virtue) is the greatest CRPG of all time.  The similarity between graphics depicted on the back of the UO box was what convinced me to purchase UO.  Words cannot even begin to describe how much of a sad panda I was when, instead of Iolo, Dupre, and Shamino, I was greeted by p1mP D4dDy, ho juice, and k0rN dawg after creating my first character and stepping foot outside Yew.  Sup thou, indeed.

I was so bored last night, I downloaded Mondain's Legacy and reactivated my account.  All my old characters on Chesapeake were still there.  Except for Luna which was packed, every town I visited was deserted.  Even Britain bank.  Still lots of houses around, though.  

[WindupAtheist]

They seriously need to delete like 75% of the cities or something.

Britain, Moonglow, Jhelom, Trinsic, Yew, Minoc, Magincia, Skara Brae, Vesper, Cove, Serpent's Hold, Nujelm, Buccaneer's Den, Occlo/Haven, Delucia, Papua...  That's sixteen.  All mirrored in Felucca, too, so actually thirty-two.  Then there's Luna, Umbra, and Zento.  And Gargoyle City way out in the middle of bumfuck Ilshenar.

So that's thirty-six cities, in a game where you can easily recall to any of them instantly, and where the only thing to recommend any beside the most populated would be either a monster invasion or lag.  The game had around 130k subs last time Bruce did his chart, and of course half of those are on Japanese shards anymore, but even still... give them back their peak of 250k subs and make them all American, and what?  They'd fill up four of those thirty-six cities?

[Driakos]

They seriously need to delete like 75% of the cities or something.

Britain, Moonglow, Jhelom, Trinsic, Yew, Minoc, Magincia, Skara Brae, Vesper, Cove, Serpent's Hold, Nujelm, Buccaneer's Den, Occlo/Haven, Delucia, Papua...  That's sixteen.  All mirrored in Felucca, too, so actually thirty-two.  Then there's Luna, Umbra, and Zento.  And Gargoyle City way out in the middle of bumfuck Ilshenar.

So that's thirty-six cities, in a game where you can easily recall to any of them instantly, and where the only thing to recommend any beside the most populated would be either a monster invasion or lag.  The game had around 130k subs last time Bruce did his chart, and of course half of those are on Japanese shards anymore, but even still... give them back their peak of 250k subs and make them all American, and what?  They'd fill up four of those thirty-six cities?

Hey! You forgot Heartwood.

I like that the towns are there.  Maybe not Heartwood, but I like that I can stop by the other towns.  Folks will always choose one to centralize in, and if I don't feel like recalling around, there's always a town within a few minutes (tops) horseback.

Should just concentrate on filling the towns with content and reasons to exist, beyond being pit stops outside of Luna/Britain.  The collection spots are a good start, and the event program made some use out of the lesser used towns.  Just needs more.

[WindupAtheist]

Heartwood poses as a city, but it's really just the quest givers's wing of Yew.  It's not like there are vendors or banks in there.  Anyway, I always thought those 'community collections' things should want quest reward widgets, and not resources.  Would give some of those kill quests a reason to exist, and make the collections lest of a script-miner fest.

[WindupAtheist]

Don't like posting the same thread twice in a row, but what the hell, it's news.

The misbegotten "3D" client that debuted with the Third Dawn expansion finally goes dead on April 2nd.  A few people are trying to raise a stink on the forums, but it really is just a few people.  There must have been fucking nobody using it.  The original client goes dead when/if they persuade 95% or more of the playerbase to use it, and then that's it.  It's the new client, or nothing.

Also, the "lava maze" thing referenced a few pages back as having been part of the Halloween test shard has indeed made it into production as part of the new quest chain they're patching in.

[Damn Dirty Ape]

I wish the 3d client was already dead so I didn't have to waste time downloading that piece of shit as part of Mondain's Legacy.  It was clown-shoes from the very beginning.

[Numtini]

I see the 3d client, the backpacks, the chat, and everything as the same issue. And it sounds to me like they're making the same mistake again. The 3d client wasn't great partially because it was hobbled by the 2d client. I think it's that this whole "I'm going to hold my breath and turn blue if my 1997 game changes at all" mentality has hurt UO a lot.

I hope they put in the KR and ditch the 2d immediately. It's long since time and the only way the KR will get the attention it deserves is if it doesn't have to compete with the 2d one. If the KR client is good enough to ditch the 2d client, then it's not good enough to be released at all.

[WindupAtheist]

The Stratics monkeys crying over backpack and chat options is one thing, but the rejection of the old 3d client is something else entirely.  That 3d client was pure shit.  I tried using it.  I couldn't.  It actually looked WORSE than the old 2d one, had a terrible memory leak for a very long time after release, and the performance was awful even on machines that buried the recommended specs.

Nevertheless, I agree that since they're patching the new client out for free, they need to make it mandatory sooner rather than later.  Don't go into this whole "two clients" thing again, just grow a pair and make people use it.

[Dren]

I tried that 3D client for exactly one night.  It was buggy, slow, and looked terrible.

I much preferred the 2D client.  That game was all about simple and speed.  I understand what they were going for with the 3D client, but man somebody really screwed that up.

[Nija]

The 2D client is so awesome that I can recall around and buy reags over VNC, so I can keep my magery macro going on one of my new characters.

[Sky]

I dubbed the 3d client Turd Dawn back in the day. Got it free through the Turd Dawn beta. Used it for 15 minutes, sucks.

Though I admit I really don't like the trend to take perfectly good 2d stuff and make it 3d. Civ 4 and HoMaM 5, I'm looking at you.

[Venkman]

I quite because of Third Dawn. So that's going away and being replaced by a new engine? I skimmed a number of pages here but couldn't find info on it, and nothing at UOHerald jumped out at me.

[Driakos]

I quite because of Third Dawn. So that's going away and being replaced by a new engine? I skimmed a number of pages here but couldn't find info on it, and nothing at UOHerald jumped out at me.

I found it here

Q: Will we still be able to play with the old 2D or 3D client after Kingdom Reborn launches?
A: The 2d client will continue to be supported for quite a while after KR's launch, and after Stygian Abyss's launch - although you'll need KR to run SA. However, the 3D client will not be supported with KR. As the servers are upgraded to handle KR, the existing 3d client will no longer work on them.

Dumping Third Dawn as soon as UOKR Launches.  Three clients would be insanity.

[Venkman]

Yea, just swung back to mention I found the UO Kingdom Reborn stuff. Looks like a nice face lift that keeps the establishment players are used to working in,

[WindupAtheist]

My recent bout of WoW has reinforced my opinion that a package deal is the way to go for a company selling multiple MMO games.

As it was, I got burned out on WoW and went back to my old game, losing Blizzard $15 per month.  (Not that they'll miss it, but that's beside the point.)  If there had been a stable of second-string games for me to dabble in, I might have gone for a package deal so that I could play those while still maintaining my WoW account to drop in and help guildies.  I would still be using only one person's worth of bandwidth, but the amount of money being made from me would have increased rather than dropped to zero.

EA/Mythic really needs to do a Station Pass for WAR/UO/DAoC/Sims/whatever.  Yes, there are some people willing to pay for two different MMOs simultaneously, but without a package deal odds are good that one of them is just going to be WoW.

[Numtini]

Of all the companies out there, I think the combination of "whatever" + UO is one of the most potent for a package deal. As long as they don't get SOE greedy about it.

[Dren]

Of all the companies out there, I think the combination of "whatever" + UO is one of the most potent for a package deal. As long as they don't get SOE greedy about it.

Completely agree.  I'd love to keep my account active for occasional runs through nostalgia land, but I can't stomach their absurd monthly cost for an old low maintenance game.  I dropped my sub when they raised the price.  Actually, I had 2 subs back then.

[shiznitz]

I think a EA/Mythic Station Pass is a certaintly once WAR launches, if not sooner. Why lose the core DAoC forever? Keep them hanging on.

[WindupAtheist]

An interesting EA/Mythic job posting:

EA-Mythic is seeking a Development Manager for Ultima Online, which is being rejuvenated with the most significant investment since it launched. This year, the UO team will ship Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn, Ultima Online: Stygian Abyss, and the 10th Anniversary Pack. The UO team will also launch several projects to its worldwide player base, including several epic in-game events and other significant development projects dealing with game system improvements.

If they're doing another anniversary box for the shelves, then the Stygian Abyss expansion is probably going to be a paid download like the last one.  It's an odd strategy, but someone must have looked at the numbers from last time and decided it works.

Doesn't matter to me.  I'll get the new graphics for free, download the expansion when I feel like it, and just ignore the anniversary box.  Lots of existing players buy them because they pack them with promotional codes for new furniture and shit, but what do I care?

I do wonder what the "other significant development projects dealing with game system improvements" are though.

[DataGod]

so it goes live next week?

[Azaroth]

I'm interested in how it'll all shake out. But I have a history of expecting people to be doing more than they are. I think UO:KR will be an opportunity sorely missed if they don't do a bunch of things that I can think of pretty much off the top of my head.

Of course, what I think they should be doing IS automatically correct. They might as well just hire me for that position and get it over with.

[WindupAtheist]

so it goes live next week?

Nah, the termination of the UO3D client probably just means the UOKR client is going into open beta or something.  According to the CM, they have to change the server code for the KR client to work, adapting the 2D legacy client to be compatible with the new server code takes work, and it's work that's just not worth doing for the virtually unused UO3D.

EDIT:  Also, some screenshots from one of the "town hall" meetings.  And by screenshots, I mean photographs of a monitor screen.  Apparently you can zoom in until your horse takes up half the screen, or out until your character is a little blot.

[Damn Dirty Ape]

Bring back the Ultima IV client, beeyotch!

[shiznitz]

Why the hell does the character health bar have a huge face shot attached? Haven't devs learned that people want UIs with minimal borders/frames and extraneous art?  VG does this as well.

[Ixxit]

so it goes live next week?

Nah, the termination of the UO3D client probably just means the UOKR client is going into open beta or something.  According to the CM, they have to change the server code for the KR client to work, adapting the 2D legacy client to be compatible with the new server code takes work, and it's work that's just not worth doing for the virtually unused UO3D.

EDIT:  Also, some screenshots from one of the "town hall" meetings.  And by screenshots, I mean photographs of a monitor screen.  Apparently you can zoom in until your horse takes up half the screen, or out until your character is a little blot.

Nice.  I think it may be time to start looking for my old UO cd's.   When is the projected release date?

[Endie]

Why the hell does the character health bar have a huge face shot attached? Haven't devs learned that people want UIs with minimal borders/frames and extraneous art?  VG does this as well.

Like the 8 million people all wetting themselves monthly over a game with a gui using that portrait placement?  Most people don't want what you describe: they want warm and shiny.  Whether they're playing UO is a veeeery differemt story though, I admit.  But the point of this upgrade is surely to entice them.

[WayAbvPar]

Bring back the Ultima IV client, beeyotch!

GOD I loved that game. Very well could be my all time fav.

[WindupAtheist]

Nice.  I think it may be time to start looking for my old UO cd's.   When is the projected release date?

I don't know, and since it's going to be a free download and not something sold in a retail store for money, they don't seem to feel compelled to give any concrete date.  They did send out beta invites within the last few days, so in all likelihood there are beta players running around on production shards using the new client right now.  I can't imagine it'll be more than a few more months.

EDIT:  DDA & WAP, you guys can play something with the Ultima 6 "client" if you want.  :-D