UO Producer’s Letter – May 2011

UO’s Producer, Calvin Crowner, has posted a new Producer’s Letter today. I am very happy about this and the video update (see the story after this). I would like to see these every month and I have a feeling that we might see them every month.

This is much better than some of the communication we’ve received in the past.

It’s a beautiful Spring Day in Fairfax before a long weekend … Memorial Day weekend.
We have prepared a video to answer some questions about what’s in the pipe for this summer and the rest of the year, so I will not spoil that much here.

Nevertheless, I will give you a bit more detail on what to expect …

The Ter Mur Story:
We’ve been hinting for some time about filling out the Ter Mur areas, and this will be done not in epic style, but on a small scale with lots of detail. The story in itself could be released on its own merit, but it will be distributed in game. This is not about invasion or carnage … it is about sharing a story. Zhah is the focus. She will be going through many challenges, and you will be part of her struggle.

Enhanced Client Crashing and commitment to the EC:
We have multiple reports of EC crashes. While it’s important that we improve stability, and we are getting some information about steps to reproduce from players, not all are consistent or truly reproducible from our end. So at present we are enhancing our crash logging information, so we can gather more information and take appropriate actions to address the issues.

Player Abuse:
We are very aware of the escalating cases of abuse in the game over the last few months. We have had problems with our petitioning systems, and have been unable to receive or action some cases as quickly as we’d like to. As an answer our operations team working with CS has developed a new tool to allow our GMs and customer support reps not only to action faster, but to record activity better as well as a functionality to replace lost items. Expect to see the results of this new tool in the near future.

Additional High Seas content:
In the development of High Seas, we had to remove a sea encounter due to schedule. We have taken the time to add it back, as well as revamping some of the fishing quests and reward items. These changes have been submitted for QA, and we will grind on getting them tested and ready for production after the break.

I wanted to keep this brief because there is a beautiful sky outside … but I have to go check out the worldbuilding for the new zones in Ter Mur.

Please, for all of you in the U.S. it is Memorial Day weekend. A time to remember those who gave their lives in service to protect and create the freedoms we often take for granted. So in the traffic, parades, and revelry please be safe.

I don’t have much else to say since I’m reserving my comments for the video, but this is a good direction for UO and the developers to take in regards to communicating with players.

New Magincia Bazaar aka the Encampment System

The official information about the upcoming New Magincia Bazaar, which has been renamed the Magincia Encampments, was released a few days ago.

You can visit the official website and download a PDF of the information, however UO Guide has put together an online reference page for the Encampment System.

Keep in mind that this maybe a part of the upcoming booster packs and some if it might require the purchase of one or both booster packs. That is subject to change. Language within the client files indicates it will require the purchase of a booster pack.

Here’s a brief bit of information from the PDF (which UO Guide assembled into an online guide):

The New Magincia Bazaar is a dynamic new center for commerce that offers buyers and sellers alike the opportunity to trade in extraordinary new ways.

The Bazaar of New Magincia consists of 50 stalls that will be leased for one week at a time by prospective merchants. These stalls are available to renters for commerce. The Bazaar Authority keeps expert brokers on staff, who are available for hire by those leasing stalls in the bazaar. These brokers act on behalf of the stall renter to buy and sell merchandise. Brokers are of two types: Animal Brokers, and Commodity Brokers.

Animal Brokers will take possession of pets and sell them at a price determined by the owner, charging a small commission for each sale, plus a small percentage commission on the sale price of unsold inventory. Prospective customers will be able to preview animals for sale in specially designed pens, and see their vital stats.

Commodity Brokers are able to both buy and sell commodity items for their employer. They work on commission similarly to Animal Brokers: they receive a small percentage of each purchase or sale, and they charge a percentage commission on all sale-able inventory.

I would highly recommend visiting the UO Guide page linked above, as it’s the easiest way to view the information online. I’m not going to restate the information here, although I’ve posted several stories in the past about it.

Founders of BioWare Speak About MMOs

Gamasutra has posted an extensive, 4-page interview with Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk. Many UO players may not necessarily recognize the names, but they are the founds of BioWare, and Dr. Muzyka is the head of BioWare and Dr. Zeschuk is the Vice President and “Group Creative Officer” at BioWare. that’s very important to UO players as Ultima Online is a part of BioWare (BioWare Mythic) within Electronic Arts.

Obviously the majority of the interview is going to revolve around Star Wars: The Old Republic, the upcoming MMO from BioWare, but I think it’s important to note how they view the MMO industry and MMOs, as both of them are in a position to influence UO. The so-called Ultima reboot also falls under their domain.

The interview even starts off discussing their influence within BioWare:

Ray Muzyka: We set vision statements. We talk about core values a lot, and we try to live them. We set a vision. Our vision for our group within [parent] EA, for BioWare, is create, deliver, and evolve the emotionally engaging games in the world.

Some of this is really ironic, given how UO is treated by EA at times:

Ray Muzyka: We talk about them a lot. Yeah, we take them seriously. Like, we make decisions in that context. Our employees, our customers, our investors, we try and deliver things that are really aligned with all three of those groups to have a sustainable business long term. We try to make decisions that reflect quality in the workplace, quality in our products, entrepreneurship. We try to be very humble, high integrity with how we deal with all the people we work with, and all those stakeholder groups.

There is discussion of the various studios within BioWare, including BioWare Mythic under which UO directly falls, working across the studios to help one another, but it sure doesn’t feel like UO is getting much help, even though we know UO developers have helped out with Star Wars:

RM: It’s very collaborative, too, where different team members will help one another even across studio groups. So, we have Edmonton, Austin, Montreal, Virginia, and Ireland, the five studios within BioWare, and of course our great partner studios within Electronic Arts.

A lot of people are contributing trying to make the games as good as they can be and give feedback and play them and sometimes work on different projects from different locations. So, it’s very much a team. It’s a large team, it’s a distributed team, but we have a common sense of purpose and identity and shared common values. Everyone’s very passionate about their craft.

RM: Great support from EA to build our games.

GZ: There’s a lot of EA support in all our stuff.

RM: In fact, that’s one of the reasons we joined EA, like the inspirational leadership from guys like John Riccitiello. He’s still inspirational to us. He’s a mentor to us. The opportunity to become a publisher, as well as a developer. So, we’re doing all aspects of that now. We’re working with the sales and marketing teams directly, the development teams. That’s pretty exciting. You know, it’s a way to get closer to our consumers and the ability to pursue new things. Like when we joined EA, we had two studios, right?

It’s a very interesting read, but at the same time UO players will be slightly frustrated, as UO doesn’t get directly mentioned and all of the wonderful things they talk about, the support they are getting from EA, etc., none of that appears to be trickling down to UO. One would think that when they talk about their stable of games and how important MMOs are, that UO and Dark Age of Camelot would get mentioned, even in passing, but no, that’s not to be.

I think UO has some support – we are getting artwork, quest, and new player system upgrades. But the people at the top of BioWare have had ample opportunity to discuss UO publicly, or at least offer some public support of UO, and it just doesn’t happen. I don’t want to say they are pretending that UO, and DAoC, don’t exist, but it feels like it.

Read the full article at Gamasutra

Richard Garriott Gives LOGIN 2011 Keynote

Richard Garriott gave the keynote speech at the LOGIN 2011 Conference that’s being held this week.

He discussed what he perceives as three eras of gaming, with the third era currently happening, while the second era was kicked off by MMORPGs such as Ultima Online:

Later, online games started to take the market. Massively Multiplayer games are gaming’s second era. Ultima Online–originally called Multima– paved the way for these games, but Garriott notes that it was a project no one initially believed it. “This is the hardest game I’ve ever had tried to get going,” he noted as he described the trouble. He later had to go over-budget on Ultima IX, and used that extra money to start creating the game. This gamble eventually paid off because Ultima Online sold more copies than Ultima 1-9 combined, according to him.

Garriott notes that his is an era because it was pioneered by multiplayer games. In the keynote, he shows examples of how Ultima Online (made in 1999) looked most like Ultima 6 (from 1990). However, press allegedly still praised about the game because of the online component. In the next decade, online games and virtual worlds would become a major force in the industry.

Read: Full article at LOGIN News

Update on UO Spring Cleaning Event

Thanks to a Stratics thread about the upcoming Spring Cleaning, first mentioned back during the House of Commons chat a few months ago, we have a little more information.

In response to timing and the upcoming end of Spring, Cal Crowner, UO’s Producer, has posted this:

Design already in progress

We are calling in Spring Cleaning in the Summer time. Yeah yeah … it’s lame but yes we are doing it …

We will probably have an update on a few other things for you this week as well.

There is a lot going on, so I don’t agree with the anger directed towards the devs, but it’s not surprising. I’m hoping the other updates mentioned will be in regards to the artwork or the pricing and availability on the upcoming mini-boosters.