UO Publish 70.0.5, Client Updates on UO Test Center

Now that we are moving past the recent Theme Packs publish, we are rapidly moving into something that should appeal to many UO players – work on Stygian Abyss and Ter Mur.

Remember, earlier this year the UO developers said they wanted to move towards shorter, but more frequent events, as well as rounding out Ter Mur, and this looks to be the start of it.

Here are the publish notes:

We are pushing Publish 70.0.5 to TC1 this afternoon and will do a small Client Patch at the same time.

You can find the Patch and Publish notes below:

Publish 70.0.5 – Echoes of the Past – Ter Mur Live Event – Phase 1
We are pleased to announce that the Echoes of the Past event will commence shortly within Ter Mur on all shards. The first phase will begin with a quest provided by Queen Zhah herself in the Royal City Throne Room. This quest will take you to a newly opened piece of Ter Mur, and begin to show a glimpse into the history of the Gargoyle kingdom.

We invite you to take part in this story and help save Ter Mur!

Bug Fixes
* Fixed the issue that stopped players from stealing from monsters
* Fixed an issue with Tinkering

Enhanced Client 4.0.14.5
* Cliloc updates
* Ter Mur world building update

Classic Client 7.0.14.4
* Cliloc Updates
* Ter Mur world building update

Lord British Talks Social Gaming, Fishing in UO

Gamasutra has posted an in-depth interview with Richard Garriott, aka Lord British. The majority of the interview covers his views on MMOs today, on mobile gaming, or more precisely, cross-platform gaming, why he thinks certain social games do better than others, and in general a wide range of topics related to gaming.

There is a very brief discussion of what Garriott considers to be a spiritual successor to UO, Lord British’s New Britannia, that his company, Portalarium, is currently working on. He does reference Ultima Online in discussing it:

Now that being said, one of my personal goals is to create a more what I call an Ultima Online-like experience with the game that I’m hoping to do — the big game coming up. And that will again go back to making linear narrative somewhat of a challenge, just like it was a challenge in Ultima Online.

Towards the end of the article, in a discussion of metrics, Garriott explains the usage of metrics and how it related to fishing in Ultima Online, both originally and then how the developers adjusted it to match peoples’ expectations.

RG: Yeah, well, I can tell you in Ultima Online we constantly used those metrics to redesign the game. For example, one of my favorite stories is, in Ultima Online, when the game shipped, you could use a fishing pole on the water and there was a 50/50 chance you’d get a fish. Beginning and end of simulation — literately use a pole, on water, 50/50, fish. Lots of people did it, tons of people did it.

And people began to believe apocryphal information about fishing; they began to believe that if you fished in a river versus in the ocean they were better chances of getting fish, which of course was not true. I told you the simulation use fishing pole, on water, 50/50, fish. That’s it!

But so many people were doing it, and so many people had these fictitious beliefs that we thought, “Wow, we should spend some time to make fishing better!” And we did. Over time we actually made the fishing simulation more improved, gave you different kinds of fish, and there really was a point to using different places, and then it became even more popular.

And there were things that we thought were really cool that we put in the game, that nobody noticed or cared about — very sad and tragic. But we either fixed and adressed those, or often, we just removed them from the game.

Full Article: Gamasutra

Ultima Forever, Dark Age of Camelot Updates, a Sign of UO’s Future?

Less than a week ago, Ultima Forever, a website devoted to the Ultima franchise was launched. On top of that, the Ultima Underworld games were launched through Good Old Games. These two things were a big boost for raising awareness of the Ultima franchise, with the Ultima Forever website even featuring Ultima Online.

Speaking of Ultima Online, around a week and a half ago we got the Ultima Online Developer Q&A for May video posted online. I mentioned in my notes on the video that there were some positive things for UO going forward:
* Highlighting of a respected GM
* New Player Experience expanding to include dungeon/mob changes, plus starting off in existing cities, with interaction from veteran players.
* Looking to increasing activity in other towns that aren’t New Magincia.
* Going forward, steady flow/work on bugs rather than the start-stop work we’ve seen.
* A little discussion of the artwork update.

That’s all good for UO – a better/more organized video, Ultima Forever, Ultima Underworlds on GOG.com. Very good.

While we UO players feel very neglected by Electronic Arts at times, or feel that we are isolated, there is another group of MMO players with whom we should be commiserating with – Dark Age of Camelot. They’ve suffered through staff reductions just the same as UO has, they’ve suffered from being ignored or pushed off to the side, at least in our minds.

Guess what’s happening with DAoC? Quite a bit.

If you read the Producer’s Letter for June, Dark Age of Camelot is getting what DAoC’s producer, Stuart Zissu, calls “big ticket items”, including:
1) “New User Journey” which sounds an awful like what the UO devs are trying to do with the New Player Experience.
2) A new website.
3) A DAoC wiki that will be filled by players.
4) Some kind of player transfers.

The thing that gets me the most is that they are getting a new website.

Look at the official Ultima Online website.

Now look at the Ultima Forever website.

One of these websites looks like an Ultima website. The other looks like a generic fantasy website with “Ultima Online” slapped on it. I’ll leave it up to you to decide.

I just know that it would be a shame if the UO developers put a lot of effort into new player experiences and artwork updates, only to greet potential new players with the travesty that is the UOHerald.com. I hope with the attention being given to the Ultima franchise and with two of DAoC’s major updates revolving around a website, with another being a new player experience, that UO will also get a similar website facelift.

Theme Packs / Mini Boosters Available on UOGameCodes.com

You didn’t think they were going to get the theme packs into the UOGameCodes.com store today did you? Well they did, pretty close to midnight my time.

The price is $9.99 apiece or $14.99 for both, the same as the High Seas Booster Pack. I can’t say I’m too happy about the pricing, but I’ll be upgrading one full account and possibly picking up an individual pack or for another account or two. I expected them to be individually priced in the $5.99 – $7.99 range, as the house tiles are considered by some to be incomplete due to no new doors or floors and roofs, and we don’t get the original see-through stairs. I don’t think the pricing was controlled by the developers, I think it was set by somebody within EA who maybe didn’t understand it, especially given that together they are the same price as the High Seas Booster Pack, and more expensive than the Stygian Abyss upgrades when they go on sale. In my view High Seas is worth $14.99, and I believe it has more content than the two theme packs combined.

With that said, I believe I understand why the packs are priced the way they are since they were probably priced by people who aren’t involved with UO, and I don’t think this will be the last of the theme packs. I just hope that in the future, pricing is cheaper and that the house tile sets are complete and that we see doors and floors that match.

It is what it is, and maybe now that these are out, the developers can turn their full attention to the artwork update, along with the Ter Mur storyline. It would be incredibly disappointing if the developers were forced to make more theme packs before they are able to finish the artwork updates and the Enhanced Client work.

UOGameCodes.com Store
* UO Rustic Theme Pack – $9.99
* UO Gothic Theme Pack – $9.99
* Grand Bazaar Pack – $14.99

Rustic Theme Pack contains:
* Board and Batten wall tiles
* Raised Garden Bed
* Distillery
* Topiaries
* Rustic Bench
* Commodity and Pet Broker Encampments

From the Rustic Theme Pack, I like the wall tiles, I like the garden bed – it’s maintenance free gardening. I am holding my judgement on the commodity and pet broker encampments.

I don’t like the fact that the distillery requires something that has to be stolen. To me, this is potentially another academic bookcase problem. It will be frustrating for some people, and that’s never a good thing for something that people are paying money for. See the issue with cannons, gunpowder, etc., and the High Seas booster.

Gothic Theme Pack
* Gothic wall tiles
* Advanced Training Dummy
* Chest of Sending
* Ritual Table
* Gargoyle Statues
* Commodity and Pet Broker Encampments

From the Gothic Theme Pack, I really like the wall tiles although I would have also liked new floors and doors. Don’t like the Advanced Training Dummy – too many things are too easy in UO as it is, however I guess this is for new players. The Chest of Sending…I’m still not sure how that replaces a bag of sending, and I probably should look into it further.

Keep in mind that these won’t be live on all shards for several more days, if not longer!

Official Ultima Online Statement on Ultima Forever

Earlier today, the Ultima Forever website officially launched and smack dab in the center was a big mention of Ultima Online.

Here is the official statement posted on UO Herald

Stretching across dozens of games and three decades’ time, millions of people from all over the world have set out on great adventures in the world of Ultima. They have braved perilous dungeons, faced off against fearsome enemies, conquered lands and saved worlds.

Today we have launched a website dedicated to that heritage – ultimaforever.com! Over the coming months, ultimaforever.com will be expanding, looking back at over 30 years. For a start, we are pleased to officially offer the full, original PC version of Ultima IV for download.

Check it out.

What is not officially mentioned is that another big story came out today, namely Good Old Games is offering Ultima titles. GOG.com has what is their biggest announcement to date, an agreement with Electronic Arts that includes two Ultima titles as a part of the first batch of old DOS-based games that are being made available, and Ultima Forever just happens to launch at the same time. They launched within an hour of each other. It’s not a coincidence, as you can guess from the timing and from statements made on the Ultima Forever twitter account.