The Future of UO – April 2011 Edition

First off, there will be spoilers, but not to the point of me digging around in client patches. Any spoilers you see below were mentioned in the Producer’s Letter.

I’m saving my thoughts about New Magincia for another post, but so far I’m impressed with what I’m seeing on my shard. I really thought it would turn into Luna 2, and I can’t apologize enough for thinking that. I’m planning on trips to all of the shards in coming weeks, but from my own and from a few others, I can say that many people moved to New Magincia with the intent of actually living there. I want to talk about other things though.

When Calvin Crowner posted his Producer’s Letter last week, it gave us a good idea of what to expect over the coming year from UO. I’m going to kind of post my thoughts in the order of the producer’s letter.

Vendor Bazaar
I won’t spoil it too much, but you can dig through the UO Journal archives or just search UO Journal for “vendor bazaar” and you’ll see plenty, but at this point I’m wanting to know how many and where they will be. From what has been said and what has been seen within the client files, I think it’s going to be an interesting system. I wonder how it will play out with people who have bought homes in what people thought would be a vendor-heavy area, who are deliberately resisting putting vendors out.

In the producer’s letter, it was mentioned that a “core feature that will fill out the bazaar will allow players to buy and sell commodities” which leaves me to wonder if the vendor bazaars will not be full vendors, but instead will only be able to sell certain goods – commodities such as reagents, lumber, ingots, and perhaps the various imbuing ingredients. That might just mean no rares, no weapons, or anything of that nature, just things that can fit in the commodity deeds. That strikes me as very interesting. It could very well turn New Magincia into a shipping or a manufacturing hub of sorts, while staying away from the tackiness/gaudiness of Luna. It might also keep runaway prices from happening, like what you see in Luna, since the market would be focused on one type of good – commodities. With a lot of people participating, you might see a race to the bottom of sorts.

Read more

Ultima Online Client Patches 7.0.13.3 and 4.0.13.3 (Spoilers)

Kai Schober has posted the following to UOHerald.com in regards to new patches that were rolled out this afternoon.

Greetings,

We delivered a new client on the patcher today at 2 pm EDT – Classic Client 7.0.13.3 and Enhanced Client 4.0.13.3.

The Patch is a preperation for the upcoming Easter Events. The events will start on April 24 and lasts for two weeks till May 8th.

Please enjoy and have a safe Easter.

Included in these patches are some interesting tidbits relating to the future of UO.

SKIP THE TEXT BELOW IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED!!

Read more

Talents of Sosaria (Art Contest)

Bonnie “Mesanna” Armstrong, UO’s Associate Producer, posted this early today on the UO Herald website.

Ultima Online is proud to have the players it does, and we know that among you are people brimming with creativity and talent. We are proud to announce that we will be highlighting player’s creative talents using the www.uoherald.com site to display submissions from you, our players! For the month of June, we’ll be highlighting those of you are skilled at drawing, sketching, vector art, digital art, and paintings. Submissions that adhere to the following rules will be accepted and put in a gallery for viewing at the UOHerald website. So get those brushes and pens out, dust off your tablets and canvas, and put your imaginations into high gear!

RULES

1. All submissions must be made to your primary play shards EM, via email as an attachment. (Your shards EM’s should have their emails posted on their EM forums or at their www.uoem.net website.)
2. All submissions must be received by 11:59 PM in your shards local time zone, June 30th 2011.
3. Submissions must be related to Ultima Online; please include a brief description of what your work is depicting in case there is any confusion.
4. Submissions must be made by a valid email address so if there are any issues, correspondence can be initiated.
5. No submissions will be accepted containing content inappropriate for a PG movie. (Ultima Online is rated T and submissions should reflect that.)
6. Submissions must include the name by which you wish to be recognized for your submission.

We’re looking forward to seeing the best of what you have to offer us, and we can’t wait to see the talents of our loyal players and citizens of Sosaria. Once your submissions have been checked over by your shards EMs, they’ll be passed along to us to post here on UOHerald after the deadline for submissions has ended!

Now the UOEM.net website – you need to look at your shard’s website.

For instance, Lake Superior is LakeSuperior.uoem.net, Atlantic is Atlantic.uoem.net, and so on.

My thoughts are this: This is a good attempt at reconnecting with the player community, and it’s going to add content to UOHerald.com, player-driven content.

The UO devs have discussed player-driven events becoming more important, and while this is out-of-game, I think it feeds right into that attitude.

UO Producer’s Update – Enhanced Client, Story Arcs, Ter Mur, New Magincia, Vendor Bazaar

Calvin Crowner, the producer of Ultima Online, has posted a Producer’s Update, outlining upcoming changes and additions to Ultima Online.

Greetings,

There is empty space in Magincia. There is room for a bazaar area. And you the player are going to help fill that space.

Over the next few weeks we will be sharing art and information about the continued restoration of Magincia. While we are sorting the plots, and players are settling in to their homes, we will give you updates on the new items that will be available this Spring.

Some of you have already seen the new wallsets on various sites or the forums … but there is more — some decorative, some functional.

The first, we’d like to unveil is the distillery:

The distillery is designed to allow players to distill and distribute alcohol. This item is something you always wanted for Ultima Online. Players will be able to not only create, but also engrave and name their special brews. So if you ever had a desire to run moonshine across Sosaria … your day is coming!

In the coming weeks we’ll share information on the raised garden bed, gargoyle statues, and even a llama topiary. The core feature that will fill out the bazaar will allow players to buy and sell commodities, as well as feature that will finally allow vendors to sell pets. Check our Facebook page on the next Fridays.

We will also share the high-level design doc with you (as we did with Magincia), and plan to give you least 3 weeks on test center to play and give feedback.

Speaking of Test Center: We will be turning on character copy soon. Character copy is intended as a feature that will allow players to copy one of their live shard characters to a test center. The intent is to allow you all to play on Test Center with a character you are familiar with instead of building one from scratch for each new publish. We hope this will inspire you to come put new features through their paces on test centers.

High Level Focus:

We are centering many decisions this year around improving the Enhanced Client (removing the Beta Tag); increasing the frequency of small developer-lead events; and improving the transition of new and returning players to Ultima Online.

First step for the art resolution pass is to assess what we have and how best to use current art assets. In the near term we plan to update the terrain to a higher resolution. Following how our first pass works, we will move on to other elements.

We feel a slow iterative approach is best when dealing with the client, and will also insure players are not downloading massive art updates each time you log in.

Understand, this does not mean we are abandoning the Classic Client. A dominant number of players still use the Classic Client. However, that intrepid Beta tag is a bit glaring, and we’d like to get the EC to an acceptable state which will allow us to remove it. Along with stability, we would like a better bit of “polish” for its appearance, and how players interact and view the gameworld.

What about the shorter story arcs?

Our next arc will center on the origin of Ter Mur. We are planning the first events for June, which will run for 6 weeks. If there is great interest some aspects of the event will run longer. We’ll play it by ear.

There will be some fiction about the event, but the feedback we’ve received tells us players prefer actual exploration and discovery in the game rather than a lot of reading external to it. Fiction simply whets the appetite for what’s to come.

In the interim you will be seeing an interesting change to the material and subject matter for EM events this Spring.

For the new player experience, we are still gathering information from the forums and reviewing past efforts Ultima Online has made to bring players to the game. We need to find a balance of giving enough to allow a new user to understand, as well as help returning players catch up quickly.

The final note:

Many of you are aware a part of the team is in Japan. They are doing well and are doing their best to deliver content and updates to the game given the intermittent after effects of the earthquake and tsunami.

We still have an Americares button on the Ultima Online page. Note that all proceeds go directly to Americares and support for Japan relief. While the headlines have changed the need has not.

Keep the team and the Japanese community in your thoughts.

Thanks for your attention, and see you on the boards.

Read: UO Herald

2011 Festival of the Grape Harvest (LS) – April 16

One again I’m showing a little prejudice towards LS, but you are more than free to contact us with events on other shards. Anyways, this weekend, Saturday, April 16, 2011, it will be the 2011 Festival of the Grape Harvest on Lake Superior.

EM Autolycus has posted this invitation:

Join us out front of Empath Abbey this Saturday, April 16th, for 2011′s Festival of the Grape Harvest. The monks have processed the latest harvest of grapes, and are happy to pull out their finest vintage in celebration.

Let’s take advantage of their selfless giving of booze alms; get drunk, throw some darts, and other miscellaneous acts of silliness…

When: Saturday, April 16 at 7pm CST / 8pm EST

Where: Out front Empath Abbey and the Ye Olde Winery, Trammel. Gate provided from New Haven bank.

via: Lake Superior Events