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Laker Superior 2011 Rares Festival Opens in Just a Few Hours

July 9, 2016April 8, 2011 by Deckard

While there is already an event in progress, the official opening of the Lake Superior 2011 Rares Fest is in just a few hours – 10am Central, 11am Eastern, 8am Pacific. Vendors have already been placed and auctions have already taken place with items being sold.

Full List of Events.

If you need help getting there, the direct Moongate that takes you directly to the Rares Fest is once again in the courtyard area outside of the Luna bank in Malas (more directions).

I’ll be covering the opening ceremony as well as this evening’s relay race, but it’s something you ought to check out yourself. It’s been very active with many players showing up. Mesanna even showed up last night.

Getting to the Lake Superior Rares Fest

April 8, 2011April 4, 2011 by Deckard

So every day this week, we are going to be covering the upcoming Lake Superior Rares Fest, which runs from April 8 – 10, 2011. A few days ago, I posted details of the Petal from the Golden Lotus of Heaven contest and give-away, but leading off this week, I want to start out with something very important: Getting there.

There are several ways to get there, but I’m going to cover three ways (easiest is at the bottom).

First off, it’s located in Malas at 16o 52’N 29o 52’W.

The difficult way of getting there is just going there – it’s west of Hanse’s Hostel, south of Luna:

Another way, if you are passing through Delucia, in front of the bank there is a rune that takes you to the EM Hall/House. From there, you take the Moongate that’s in front of the EM Hall and it will drop you right in front of the Rares Fest Auction House/Museum:

UPDATE: This Moongate has been inside the Luna Bank/Entrance – You can’t miss it!

UPDATE #2: This Moongate has back outside the Luna bank (see image below)

Now in addition to the Petal from the Golden Lotus of Heaven contest, there are things happening currently – many vendors are in place, and you can visit displays in the Auction Hall of various rares. It’s worth a visit before everything starts up this Friday.

Ultima Online Spring Producer’s Letter

June 14, 2011April 1, 2011 by Deckard

UOHerald.com

Please note: This was an April Fools joke.

Greetings!

I was going to take this opportunity to reflect back on what’s happened over the past few months and even year as that is what producer’s letters normally cover, but we covered a lot of that at the recent House of Commons, and we are now in a better position to really talk about the future of UO. There are a few recent developments I will address.

The Video and the House of Commons that we had back in February. Let’s go ahead and get that out of the way. You guys really beat us up over both of them, and I’m here to say that we deserved it. The bruises have finally healed. What the video was originally going to be was discussions between myself and the rest of the devs over what we wanted to do in the coming year. Back in February I said that a lot had changed between January 3rd and the end of February. That video was thrown out, because during those 7 weeks, things changed for the better and bigger. I don’t want to say that UO was given a new lease on life because as far as I’m concerned, UO was never dead, but what was originally in the video was small potatoes compared to what we have been asked to do. We made another video based on what we were asked to do, but as it turns out, we revealed too much information, too soon, in that video, and much of it was cut out. It went from 25 minutes down to 3 minutes. Some of those things are planned for next year, and to be frank, had we mentioned them this early, we feel that they would overshadow our plans for 2011. You will get to see the full video at some point.

What have we been asked to do? A lot. Let’s just say that what we are doing will appeal to veteran players and to potential players who have never even heard of Sosaria. Over the past few months I’ve talked frequently with Dr. Ray, better known as Ray Muzyka, as well as others within BioWare and BioWare Mythic. As the head of BioWare, Dr. Ray wants to build up all of BioWare’s MMO properties and not just Star Wars. He wants to offer players a lot of choices between MMOs. Ultima Online is a part of his plan for BioWare Mythic to increase its presence in the MMO market. He likes what we are doing and planning on doing, and while much of his time is currently devoted to Star Wars: The Old Republic, he fully supports UO and will be making more resources available to UO, and has asked that I pass that along to you. We plan on having some town hall meetings with the players later this year and early next year, which will also be UO’s 15th anniversary, and Dr. Ray has indicated that he wants to attend some of them to show his support. In the coming year, Dr. Ray and others within BioWare plan on doing more for Ultima Online, and some of this will culminate in Ultima Online having an official presence at PAX East 2012. The feeling is that the 15th Anniversary in 2012 is very important to UO, BioWare Mythic, EA, and the MMO industry. Players like to receive gifts every year on the anniversary, but we feel the best anniversary gift is working to make sure that Ultima Online is around for another 15 years. A lot is being done that I can only now begin to talk about, but there is more that I can’t discuss until next year. The feeling right now is that anything that is announced beyond what the UO dev team has talked about will be overshadowed by Star Wars if it’s discussed at the BioWare level, or that players will be distracted by it and will overlook the major changes coming this year. Something that we brought up – some of us on the current UO dev team and on past UO dev teams have worked on other BioWare Mythic projects, and the leaders of BioWare have agreed that since those projects benefited from our involvement, that they would loan us developers and artists from other projects.

What I can say is this – we’ve been given a checklist of certain things that need to be done with UO to bring it to a level that BioWare and EA wants it to be at. Some of these have been discussed before and I’ll go into a little detail about others in this newsletter.

Ultima IV, EA, and a New Ultima Online

July 9, 2016March 30, 2011 by Deckard

I have seen the new Ultima Online, and it’s the Ultima Online that many readers of this website are currently playing, just with high resolution graphics and better player experiences, for both old and new players alike.

You read that right. Below are ~~eight~~ ten reasons why I think there will not be a new Ultima Online, but also why I think the current UO will feel like a new MMO if EA follows through on their plans. Some of these I’ve spoken at length about in the past, but given the high interest generated in Ultima IV that is currently present on the web, I think it’s important to point some things out.

I’d also like to point out that the jobs postings that have come to light (link) are tied to a possible second attempt at The Sims Online, only through a web browser this time around. Some have confused them and not actually read the job description, which explicitly states that it’s tied to a new Sims “experience” on the web. Even Massively failed to read through the links and see that the job posting was for somebody to work on The Sims.

Speaking of the Ultima IV story, that’s why I’m writing this – I’ve had several people ask me for my thoughts on it. If you are not familiar with it, read the original Ultima Aiera story about Ultima IV and some of the actions EA is taking as well as the article WTF Dragon posted earlier today trying to clear up a lot of the misinformation that is floating around the various game sites.

For the record, I think there is something happening with the Ultima franchise, obviously with UO as my long-winded post below illustrates, but also in other areas. Whether these are simply the original Ultimas distributed in some kind of DOSBox format or packaging, or some kind of online play, or some kind of update similar to the Secret of Monkey Island special editions, remains to be seen.

On with the list.

1. There are some still left in EA that remember the fiasco with Ultima Online 2.
However you may look upon Ultima Online 2 and how it was handled, EA did not have the ability to handle an MMO that was going head-to-head with an already existing EA MMO, and some of those in the upper ranks of EA’s current management were around to witness it. You can attribute it to not knowing what they wanted to do with Ultima and Origin, not knowing the target audience, or any number of other things. That’s not to say that other companies haven’t done so successfully – Sony has done so with Everquest and Everquest II, and CCP hopes to have two different MMOs successfully integrate, with EVE Online and Dust 514. Dust 514 is an FPS (First Person Shooter) MMO that will be set within the EVE Online universe and the players from each will be able to interact with one another.

If a new Ultima Online were created, while the old one was in place, it would create of hostility and resentment from current UO players if the new Ultima Online were treated better than the current UO, which wouldn’t be hard to do. Everquest II came fairly quickly after Everquest I, within 5 years I believe, whereas current UO players have been around for over a decade. Admittedly, UO’s numbers today versus the era when Ultima Online 2 was in development are much lower, but as I point out below in reasons #5, #6, #7, and #8, the actions that EA is supposed to be taking with the current UO do not reflect those of a company who would be considering another Ultima MMO, because they are indicative of a company who is trying to bolster the long-term survivability of the existing UO.

Notes about Publish 70, Tour, Map of New Magincia, Chance Encounter with Lady Mesanna, No Vendor Search

March 17, 2011 by Deckard

Publish 70 is now live, and the client patches have been released. The first thing I noticed – a 92MB patch for the EC. This is only part 1 – I’ve got quite a bit more to bring you, but have to step out for a bit. The second thing I noticed, there were no NPC shops, other than the Inn and the Fishing and Shipwright’s guild, plus the bank.

I was lucky enough, along with quite a few others, to run into Lady Mesanna, Associate Producer for UO. Phoenix, the Lead Designer for UO, was also on hand, answering a few questions. Among those answered – there will be a pet bonding gate installed in New Haven, and according to Phoenix, the idea of a way to search vendors has been discussed, but is not currently being pursued.

For more on New Magincia, which is the focus of this publish, see Map of New Magincia, Housing Details Released. There is a map of all of the plots below. I’m going to have to seriously revise that post, because there is nothing outside of the bank, Fishing Guild, and the Inn. I’m also going to have to seriously redo the Magincia map below because it’s way too busy.

To me, E-3, SW-1, and SE-1 really stand out. E-3 has a great view and SE-1 and SW-1 are probably the best locations for being near everything else.

This is E-3, and it’s also where I ran into Lady Mesanna, who introduced us to Phoenix, the Lead Designer for UO:

What’s it like to buy a ticket for the lottery? You are buying a ticket for each plot and it looks like you could buy tickets for every single plot.

Areas that are “Under Construction” look like this: