BioWare

UO 2012 and Community

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Over the past year, I talked about things I thought needed to happen as UO moved towards its 15th birthday. Sadly, while some things are being done to move UO in a good direction, such as dungeon revamps, other things which are more important in the long term are not being done, even though they are incredibly obvious to all who are concerned about UO. Back in October, I made a post, Three Things to start Fixing Ultima Online, which were:
1) Act like BioWare owns it.
2) Raise the level of communications.
3) Talk to us about the short and long-term plans for UO.

Today, I want to talk about #2, although it certainly ties into the other two.

One of those things was improved community relations as well as promotion of UO’s community. Back in November 2nd Producer’s Letter from Jeff Skalski, he even highlighted that as the #1 thing in the list of plans for UO.

Sadly, it’s not really happening.

The community team is still woefully understaffed and UO shares a few people with at least three other BioWare Mythic teams, and it shows. While Dark Age of Camelot was finally moved away from the CamelotHerald.com website over to the DarkAgeOfCamelot.com website and received a much needed makeover, the Warhammer Online website makeover that was promised roughly 8-9 months ago, and then saw delay after delay last fall has never happened. DAOC players didn’t receive much of a bump in improved community relations as a result of the website makeover. Jeff Skalski, the Ultima producer, said he would look into UOHerald.com moving back to UO.com, and everybody that plays UO knows that UO’s website needs a facelift.

The problem is that the same person or persons responsible for the other websites is also responsible for UO’s website and nothing has changed since around this time last year, although the community team may have in fact went down a headcount. I’m not sure, but having followed them for the past year, there are one or two people that I no longer see being actively involved with any of the BioWare Mythic games.

Of course, last April, BioWare Mythic got a “web journalist”, but we’ve only seem him once or twice. He was probably moved over to an MMORPG that has something to do with George Lucas’ vast empire.

Recently, Ultima Auctions asked Jeff Skalski in a twitter message about the community relations team and if they were separate. Jeff responded: “Our community team here is a seperate group who works with all of our projects.”

Still, you would think that there would be a lot more community relations going on, and that over time the websites would improve.

In reality, over the past few years, the UO, DAOC, and WAR websites have went backwards. Sure, Dark Age of Camelot got a much-needed domain name change and a makeover, but as a whole, all three websites have lost functionality.

Normally, over time, gaming websites gain functionality.

That is, unless you are one of BioWare’s MMORPGs that doesn’t have “Star Wars” in the name. If you are one of those BioWare Mythics that don’t have “Star Wars” in its name, your websites will in fact lose functionality over time.

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Check Your Inbox for a Message from Origin – Discounts of 10% – 40% Possible

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Check your email for a message from Origin/EA with the subject of “A surprise discount inside – how much will you save?”

It’s a Halloween promotion from Origin.com, EA’s online store, and it includes coupon codes for anywhere from 10% – 40% off, with some getting lucky and getting 100% (very few I imagine).

It looks like you can use it for multiple items, just make sure and put the code in after every item.

Of interest to Ultima Online players, the following do seem to take the codes:
* Ultima Online High Seas Booster
* Ultima Online Stygian Abyss account upgrade
* Ultima Online Stygian Abyss new player/30 days.

The email will have something that looks like this, with the code below it:

3 Things to Start Fixing Ultima Online

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I was hesitant to make this post since we are supposed to be seeing Jeff Skalski’s first official producer’s letter to the UO or Ultima community this week, but when respected members of the UO community make such posts, and when I read many responses that I agree with, I can’t hold my tongue. I hope that Jeff’s letter addresses the following, but this is not addressed to Jeff. Instead, it’s addressed to anybody who has an interest in UO. Much of the following is probably out of Jeff’s hands.

1) Act like BioWare owns it.
BioWare used to stand for quality and support, but BioWare Mythic clearly does not. UO players were led to believe things would improve with the changes in names and integration within BioWare, but that’s not happened, and it’s been way too long. BioWare Mythic’s Vice President recently talking about how proud he is to be head of the studio that runs UO is just rubbing salt in our wounds.

2) Raise the level of communications.
This means fixing up the website to communicate information to players, talking to us in a timely manner, and adding UO to the BioWare forums alongside Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, Dragon Age, and BioWare’s other RPGs. WAR and Star Wars: The Old Republic have official forums. Make some for UO and Camelot. Stop pretending like we don’t exist and stop with the nonsense that the silent treatment is what’s best for UO, because it’s not. This is even more important in the wake of the account migration fiasco, parts of which are still causing problems. The silence is hurting UO as bad as anything else.

3) Talk to us about the short and long-term plans for UO.
Don’t act like the plans for UO are to be written on a scroll tucked away in some secret vault within the Vatican. We know UO players are a bitchy lot and that some flip out if some deadline isn’t met, but we don’t need dates, just details. Right now a new or returning veteran would take a look around and assume that UO is continuing to die, and quickly leave. Talk to us, and make sure that those plans are posted in a prominent place on UOHerald.com or UO.com.

Don’t give us buzzwords or vague goals either, because that’s bullshit.

You’re not a startup with a brand new MMORPG, UO has just passed 14 years, and it’s hurting, and the time for being vague has long since passed. Give us concrete details. If you don’t have concrete details for UO’s future, then tell us right now so that we can stop telling others that things are going to change or UO is going to improve, and let us move on to other games.

I’m well aware of the high resolution artwork updates. I’ve even exchanged messages on Twitter with Jeff Skalski publicly about them. But I guarantee you that many are not aware of them. This is a sign of how bad things are as far as community relations and communication.

A lot of these problems have been around for years, there’s no excuse at this point.

UO, WAR, DAoC – Around as long as there is player interest

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Ultima Online just hit 14 years, Dark Age of Camelot has hit 10 years (Happy Birthday!), and Warhammer: Age of Reckoning has hit 3 years.

Are they going away anytime soon or going “free-to-play” (pay-to-play).

Not according to an interview in PC Gamer with Eugene Evans, BioWare Mythic Vice President:

“No, no,” he said when I asked if Mythic’s involvement with SWTOR could signal WAR’s end during an interview at GDC Online. “All of these games appeal to different people for different reasons. I’m very proud to be able to say that I’m running the studio that’s run Ultima Online for as long as it has – 14 years. Dark Age of Camelot just celebrated 10 years. We hope we can run these games for as long as there is player interest.”

WAR, then, definitely isn’t going the way of Matrix Online and Star Wars Galaxies. Not only that, Evans said subscriptions have risen in the wake of Warhammer: Wrath of Heroes’ recent announcement. So then, free-to-play? Sure, it’s all the rage, but WAR’s marching to the beat of its own drum.

Article: PC Gamer

UO’s 14th Birthday or Anniversary

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Today is UO’s 14th Birthday, or Anniversary if you prefer. Either way, it’s been 14 years. By the way, yesterday was UO Forums 9th Anniversary

Last week I started a series celebrating that, and tomorrow I’m picking up where I left off, and by the way, this series will continue into October:
* UO: The Charter Edition
* UO Between 1997 and 1998
* UO: The Second Age
* Remember Enchantress Emily?

Jeff Skalski, Producer of the Ultima Franchise, had this to say:

Just over 14 yrs ago the world was introduced 2 the term MMORPG. Much respect 2 Origin 4 opening up this space & happy 14th anniversary

Now I could write a bunch of lofty sentences about the impact of UO on the gaming world, or refer you to the discussions going on at UO Forums and UO.Stratics.com, but I think instead we should all join in on the huge celebration happening on the two official UO websites:

* UO Herald
* Ultima Online official Facebook page

Prepare to spend a lot of time on those two pages reading statements from EA and BioWare celebrating UO’s history as well as hearing from the BioWare Mythic community team. From the statements and posts on those two websites, you’ll get a good sense of the respect that UO earned over the years.