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

[WayAbvPar]

All my Bard's Tale/Ultima/Wizardry experience was on the old stalwart, the Commodore 64. Yes, for you kiddies out there, that means it had a full 64kb of RAM (38911 bytes free!).

Heh- found a screen shot-



Wow...memories!

[Yegolev]

So it's all but officially confirmed that Jacobs burst into the UO dev catacombs with a bullhorn and shouted "GET UP YOU LAZY FUCKS!"?

[tkinnun0]

Heh- found a screen shot-



Wow...memories!

The cursor is not right.


Aaah shit!

[WindupAtheist]

So it's all but officially confirmed that Jacobs burst into the UO dev catacombs with a bullhorn and shouted "GET UP YOU LAZY FUCKS!"?

As far as I can tell, the chain of events goes like this:

1)  UO team begins working on something around the beginning of the year.
2)  They state that a "big announcement" will be coming soon.
3)  News breaks that EA is purchasing Mythic.
4)  UO team cancels announcement, makes vague reference to talking with Mythic people.
5)  Stratics monkeys predict the doom of UO and a free pass to Warhammer for UO players.
6)  UO team denies imminent doom, states that plans may be getting "more ambitious".
7)  Players discover the UO:KR teaser site via clues from an in-game event, and here we are.

[Venkman]

The amount of changes shown here reveal an origin well in advance of EA closing the deal with Mythic. I will give Mark credit for maybe pushing them along to a quicker release, but you can't just slap together a new game in a week without it being an obvious attention grab. There's serious deep level stuff he may have fast tracked, but I gotta imagine they've been on this awhile.

[WindupAtheist]

Thread title edited to be more useful.

[Yegolev]

The amount of changes shown here reveal an origin well in advance of EA closing the deal with Mythic. I will give Mark credit for maybe pushing them along to a quicker release, but you can't just slap together a new game in a week without it being an obvious attention grab. There's serious deep level stuff he may have fast tracked, but I gotta imagine they've been on this awhile.

I agree that there is a lot here, but there is no denying that a good coach can take twelve losers to the playoffs.  Surely there was a lot laying around from the debris of the past few years, but I find it sort of difficult to think that the team was suddenly just inspired to put a lot of it into a huge update.  But who knows, I don't have any facts or anything, just a gut feeling.  Angry gut.

[Tale]

All my Bard's Tale/Ultima/Wizardry experience was on the old stalwart, the Commodore 64. Yes, for you kiddies out there, that means it had a full 64kb of RAM (38911 bytes free!).

Heh- found a screen shot-



Wow...memories!

C64 in Flash (seen on boingboing.net)
http://codeazur.com.br/stuff/fc64_final/

[Venkman]

I agree that there is a lot here, but there is no denying that a good coach can take twelve losers to the playoffs.  Surely there was a lot laying around from the debris of the past few years, but I find it sort of difficult to think that the team was suddenly just inspired to put a lot of it into a huge update.  But who knows, I don't have any facts or anything, just a gut feeling.  Angry gut.

That's actually where we agree. I think they were working on this all for awhile, planned to announce it fairly soon anyway, and it is coincidence that Mark is here now to help them along. In my opinion, the only difference between him being at EA now and not being at EA, as it pertains to this expansion, is the attention the expansion received. Without Mark, this would still be a thread here, but not as much talked about in other places. With Mark it's news on top of news. A year from now people will think he did it. Maybe that's what EA wants. No idea.

[Dren]

Oh that explains it. I was Apple //e until my first Mac.

Same here. My first games were The Bard's Tale, Space Quest, Zork, and Hitchiker's Guide. I think Starflight as well. I didn't get my first PC for several years after that.

Still, I learned BASIC at the age of like 8 or so. It was something to do with the computer after I'd beaten a game, and was waiting for my mom to shell out for another. :)

I learned it at about the same age, but that was because the best thing I had was my VC20 with a whole 8k! (Outside of my Atari 2400) I had a tape drive, but it worked like shit.  If I wanted to play a game, I either waited for the tape drive to take 10 minutes loading, or just type in the whole 8k's myself.  I started making my own games soon after.  My best was my own Raiders of the Lost Ark game.  It was the popular movie at the time, and I was a fanboi too.  It was a challenge, even then, to stay within 8k though.  I still  boggle at the memory of it.  I think I was more of a catass on programming the games for that system than I was for playing them.  I think I just threw away my design notes from them all last year. 

[WindupAtheist]

Minor update.  EA is listing the following job opening.

Game Designer for Ultima Online
(Worldbuilding Specialist)

Key responsibilities:

This game designer position will be part of a team dedicated to Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn, a complete re-building and re-designing of the legendary MMORPG.

You will be focused on:
* Rebuilding the world of Ultima Online using our custom worldbuilding and editing tools.
* Fixing broken areas of the map, making some major changes and polishing small details
* Designing new areas, dungeons, buildings, outdoor areas and others.
* Communicating your ideas clearly and working with other designers, artists and engineers to build them within a complex online RPG.
* Working with a team of outside worldbuilding contractors, who will be doing much of the hands on work of rebuilding the world

Requirements:

* 3+ years worldbuilding experience on an RPG or online RPG
* Minimum of 1 published titles with a designer credit
* Ability to communicate effectively in both written and verbal forms, in both one on one and large group situations
* Skilled with basic world building tools and Adobe Photoshop
* Thorough knowledge of the latest RPG design trends, philosophies and techniques
* Thorough knowledge of competitive products in the MMORPG category
* Ability to work in a team environment with maturity and leadership
* Have excellent interpersonal skills and be able to effectively communicate and work with all disciplines within a game team.

Preferred:

* Ultima Online player
* Bachelor's degree in a fine arts field, or equivalent experience

So yeah, it looks like they're not just slapping some shit onto the client ala UO3D.  I don't know precisely what they mean by "rebuilding the world" or how ambitious this rebuilding will be, but the more the better.  Wouldn't it be sweet if they preserved the housing, but spread it out across a larger and totally redesigned world, and finally cut down on urban sprawl?

[Calantus]

I hope they have learnt the lessons of NGE and aren't too ambitious.

[WindupAtheist]

Unless they up and turn it into a Diku, it would be almost impossible to fuck it up SWG style.  I mean for all the hundred pages of hand-wringing, the bottom line regarding the NGE is "Don't turn your non-Diku into a Diku, because anyone who wanted that is already playing WoW."

[Venkman]

The game's already changed pretty significantly, but yea, not in the slap-in-face sorta way. New engine on one of the few remaining "old" games is good. I doubt they even want to mess with the old formula, or even would know how to. EA's idea of getting "serious" about MMOGs was buying Mythic for the sure-win Warhammer license.

(not that "sure win" equals "beats WoW", just that it's a far easier sell than a decade-old isometric game based on a license few modern gamers even really care about)

[Sky]

Sounds like a job for our resident mmo necromancer, Brian Green. :)

[Yegolev]

I guess we know who bought that other There license.

I think Raph should apply for this job.

[WayAbvPar]

I guess we know who bought that other There license.

I think Raph should apply for this job.

Hehe that would be awesome. DD is back and badder than ever, bitches!

[Tale]

the bottom line regarding the NGE is "Don't turn your non-Diku into a Diku, because anyone who wanted that is already playing WoW."

Incorrect history. The CU (the first revamp of SWG which occurred months before the NGE) was the revamp that turned it into a Diku. It did not work and they were in a mess, so that's when the NGE came along. And the NGE was an attempt to turn it all into a MMOFPS.

[WindupAtheist]

Then more broadly:  "Tinker with the game, but don't try to change genres.  You idiots."

It's like they invented New Coke, but instead of being cola, New Coke was actually a brand of butter.  And then they sat around wondering why all their cola customers weren't buying New Coke Butter.

[sinij]

Then more broadly:  "Tinker with the game, but don't try to change genres.  You idiots."

Now tell me how this would not apply to UO:R?

[WindupAtheist]

Just fuck off.  Nobody cares.  Not even me at this point.

[schild]

For the record, SW:G was always a diku, it was just veiled with layers and layers of bullshit.

[El Gallo]

Does "diku" even have meaning anymore?

[Signe]

I used to have a little Diku mud and once I made everything out of bread code and ate it.  It stood up pretty well and only crashed when I tried to eat my words. 

Just sharing....

[WindupAtheist]

o.O

[Margalis]

The SWG changes took away a lot of the core value for the existing players.

Turning UO 3D or rebuilding the world doesn't do that. That doesn't mess with the core reasons people play UO.

[Calantus]

Then more broadly:  "Tinker with the game, but don't try to change genres.  You idiots."

Now tell me how this would not apply to UO:R?

 

[Numtini]

Now tell me how this would not apply to UO:R?

Because the majority of players were playing a PVE game and having that interrupted by PKs. As a PVEer, I had no interest in sharing a world with the PKs at all. They were playing some game, but it was totally different from the game I (and I think the majority) of players were playing. PKs weren't part of our experience, they were an interruption of that experience. The minority of PKs were, in effect, changing the genre of the game for the majority.

I think that's an issue that the PKs never understood. We didn't view them as part of the game. They were a bug. UOR patched the bug.

[Slyfeind]

The sad thing is, PvP in UO had so much potential. I remember Garriott going on and on about "You can be evil, but you'll have to do it thematically!" And Raph saying how the Ultima single-player series was about learning the virtues, then the online game was about applying them. And so on and so forth. And visions of kingdoms warring against each other, bandits (REAL bandits that don't go "hed up ur ass lol"), and yeah, it's been said a buncha times; a couple fuckwits screwed it up for everyone else. I made a thief, and an insta-rez bank-monkey stole my newbie gold not ten minutes into the game.

So we have the ultimate grief; the Trammel and Felucca split. LOL PKS GO 2 MIRROR.

[sinij]

We all know that up to the moment UO:R released hordes of Dreadlords were camping guard lines and runegates and after UO:R released PKs and all other types of griefing magically disappeared in a happy-go-lucky Trammel.


 UO:R wasn’t there to solve any global problems, we all know it created a lot more issues than it solved, it was released with a sole purpose to compete with EQ, since WoW was not yet released and at the time trying to out-DIKU EQ was the thing to do with your mmorpg.

[Morat20]

This is brilliance. The NGE derail was countered by possibly the only tangent with more power --- UO's bitchslap to PKers. And to make it all the better, the UO:R tangent actually brings the thread closer to topic.

Bravo.

[WindupAtheist]

UO:R wasn’t there to solve any global problems, we all know it created a lot more issues than it solved, it was released with a sole purpose to compete with EQ, since WoW was not yet released and at the time trying to out-DIKU EQ was the thing to do with your mmorpg.

UO:R solved everything.  Four out of every five UO players moved to Trammel and never really looked back.  Subscriptions increased, finally peaking three years and several expansion later, and the previously-discussed churn was reduced.  Even as the game nears ten years old, it's still profitable enough to justify major development.

The game is approaching a decade old, and the shit you're still on about is just a fucking footnote from the game's first couple years.  At this point it's like bitching that Nintendo Co. jumped the shark when it dropped the words "playing card" from it's name in the sixties.

[sinij]

Just fuck off.  Nobody cares.  Not even me at this point.

You obviously still do.

[sinij]

From uo.stratics.com

 Entitlement Issues
We are aware that some players are experiencing entitlement issues. We would like to let you know this is a temporary issue and your entitlements are still in place. We appreciate your patience, and apologize for the inconvenience this interruption may have caused. 

WUA I think you are too experiencing Entitlement Issues, don't worry your entitelments are still in place. Now go play your robo-ninja-elf-samurai-bug-riding-neon-touting-artifact-using character and pretend that U in UO still stands for Ultima.

[DataGod]

Oh I was a counselor in UO and a Pre-pub 9 Guardian in SWG...perhaps Im doomed to be tortured by MMO's, maybe I oughta go drink some New Coke Butter and end it all.....


Side Note: As a counselor going on player calls the biggest whiners were always the dreadlords....ALWAYS.

I jailed (yeah they had an instanced Jail FYI) 2 one time, the conversation went like this:
Me: Thats it Im taking you two to Jail, your behavior is way out of bounds (theyd sandbagged (blocked in 3 players in ghost form) some players and wouldnt release them)
DL1: FU A-hole Counselor
DL-2: "                       "
ME: ports them to Jail
Them: (after leaving them there a few hours) Dude your so unfair, this is a violation of my rights!
Me: ROFL Cry more noob....

Payback is a Bitch in a robe.....

I sure miss my glowy lantern sometimes when Im playing an MMO...