UO Developers

UO between 1997 and 1998 or I Killed Cows for Karma Loss

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As I’m working on the article about the The Second Age expansion (Update: UO: The Second Age – finished)in my little quest to look back at UO’s history as we head towards the 14th Anniversary, quite a lot was added to Ultima Online outside of the T2A Expansion, between September of 1997 and October of 1998. The following are some highlights taken from Update.UO.com/OldPatch.

Warning: This can be a long read, but it should be a fascinating read, as you’ll see some of the things we don’t even think about anymore had a lot of time and effort devoted to them. Those not familiar with UO’s early years but who play these days will probably (hopefully) be surprised and amused that some things we take for granted were not always a part of the game.

So we start in October 1997, just after the launch, here are the changes and additions made:
* A new pet command, “transfer,” was added. This completely transfers loyalty fr om one boss to another. This should be used to sell pets to other players, rather than “friend,” which merely adds an additional master.
* Animal trainers now understand the word “stable.” They will charge you 30gp fr om your bank account to stable a pet, and will keep it safely (unless they are killed) and well-fed even while you are logged out. The word “claim” will retrieve all pets y ou have at a given animal trainer.
* When clicking on someone, their name appears red, gray, or blue, depending on the following:
*** if performing a bad action such as theft, attack, or snooping would lower yo ur notoriety, they show in blue
*** if performing such an action on them would improve your notoriety, the name shows in red
*** if it would have no effect on your notoriety, it shows in gray
* The area west of Trinsic that has no bridges over the river will gain them.
* Ships and houses now put a duplicate key in your safety deposit box when they are built. Note that existing houses and ships will not do this for you!
* When you build a house, the key will appear in your backpack instead of in front of the house.
* Safety deposit boxes! All banker functions remain intact as before. But in addition, if you say “bank” to the banker, he will open up your personal chest. Note that there is a limit on how much this chest can hold! Also, gold in your account and gold in the box are the same gold; there’s just two ways of getting at it now.
* Committing a criminal act (an action that results in the loss of notoriety) will flag you for two minutes as a criminal. During this time period, actions against you will not result in any notoriety changes at all. Note that looting is not currently defined as a criminal act! Also note that attacks of any kind are still illegal in guarded areas!
* Herds of deer, flocks of sheep, herds of cows, packs of timber wolves, and small packs of undead will start roaming the land.
* Gypsy camps and brigand camps will appear.
* You will be able to rescue prisoners and escort them back to the location they request, for a reward.

November 1997
* Added a macro called “AllNames” that lets you bring up the names of everyone on screen instantly.
* Mining now has a small animation, a delay, sound effects, and autostacking of ore in your backpack.
Fletching and lumberjacking also now have sound effects, animations, and require “process” time.
* Gate travel is now two-way, so that if someone tries to trap you on a roof you can just walk back.
* There are now four damage types: direct (ignores armor), physical, fire, and energy.
* Newbie items are not stealable.

December is where things really start to pick up. Among the additions: Vendors, tinker traps, pack animals, the bounty system, orc mages and orc lords, circle of transparency.

Read more

Jeff Skalski Introduces Himself to the UO Community

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Yesterday I guessed that Jeff Skalski had something to do with UO and today he started the process of introducing himself to the community, with a post on Stratics:

Just wanted to stop by and say hi to everyone. I got a lot of catching up to do as you can imagine with getting reacquainted with UO. It’s been over 10 years since I’ve played and a lot has changed since then as many of you know. Regardless, the team has run me through what they have planned for the next couple of publishes and cool things are coming. Right now I’m focused on doing everything I can with getting us through the remaining migration issues. I know it hasn’t been as seamless of an experience as we originally hoped for some people, but we have more fixes in the works.

See you online,

Jeff

That’s a good opening post to the community. Things are looking good.

Is Jeff Skalski the New Ultima Online Producer? (Updated)

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Updated: I asked Jeff directly on Twitter and this was his response: “You found me. ;) Yes, I’m the Ultima Franchise Producer & UO is now one of the projects I’m responsible for. Nice to meet you.”

It’s been two weeks since UO lost its producer. Calvin Crowner was the producer when UO saw the Stygian Abyss expansion released (possibly my favorite expansion), the High Seas booster pack that revamped an area that desperately needed it, as well as the reincarnation of the EM (Event Moderator) program, along with about 20 or so publishes. Big shoes to fill.

Ultima Aiera is running a story about an update to Jeff Skalski’s twitter status.

Namely, Jeff Skalski is now listing himself as a Producer at BioWare Mythic and he claims to be “working on virtuous things”

You can follow Jeff on Twitter.

You can now follow UO Journal on Twitter as well.

Now it’s possible that Jeff is working on Paul Burnett’s “secret” Ultima project and given the emphasis on Ultima IV and the virtues…but UO has been without a producer for a few weeks now. Either way Jeff is a producer of something Ultima-related.

UO Producer Calvin Crowner Has Left Ultima Online

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Just to give you a small idea of what happened to UO during Cal’s tenure:
* Stygian Abyss expansion
* High Seas
* Around 20 or so publishes
* Revival of the EM program

I’ve actually been working on this for almost an hour, trying to decide what to say, because I’ve seen this happen so many times in the past, and I liked Cal, but here goes. According to Mesanna, UO’s Associate Producer, Calvin “Uriah” Crowner, has moved on from the UO team. The message was very lacking in details and I’m not happy with the fact that it’s not up on UOHerald.com, but maybe it will eventually be. Then again, it’s EA and they are showing a reluctance to communicate about big issues with the players these days. This is a Very Big Deal, given everything that has happened in August and given that UO is reaching a crossroads of sorts in my view and in the view of others.

Here is the message from Stratics

The UO team would like to let our players know that Calvin has moved on to another adventure in his life. He is no longer the Producer of UO, but rest assured that things are going on as they always have. For those that have been with UO for a while you know that many have come and gone over the 14 years, but UO always continues!

The UO Team!

My thoughts on Cal:
One thing I regret, is not interacting with him more than I did, because he answered my questions when he could, and would go out of his way to respond privately, even on weekends or what would normally be considered after work hours. The last personal response I received from him was the day after the account management system went live. I don’t think he got much sleep the following week based on the activity I saw and that he was reading Stratics at very odd times of the night and morning.

From several private messages I exchanged with him, he was very excited and very passionate about UO. This seemed to grow as things changed above him this year, and he made it clear that he was excited about growing UO’s playerbase rather than trying to just keep the existing players around. When the news of an artwork update, new quest system, revamped new player experience, and other things became public, it became clear why he was excited about UO this year. A lot of us who watched last year play out were getting the sinking feeling that UO was going into some kind of maintenance mode and that EA was focusing the UO team on retaining players rather than adding new or returning players. That was changing. One thing that didn’t change was the lack of public support from EA and from BioWare.

In retrospect, I was rough on him a few times with my April Fool’s producer’s letter, and more recently in privately asking him to communicate more clearly about the account management system. The things I asked for were clearly out of his hands. It was not my intention to be rough on him, publicly or privately. If it was taken that way, I deeply apologize. This became even more obvious during the account migration disaster when a few simple links on the BioWare Mythic accounts website could have gone a long ways towards alleviating a lot of the player frustration and stress, and Cal indicated an interest in spreading that information around, but it was clearly not his decsision to make. UO, and I would imagine to a lesser extent DAoC and WAR, have lost long-time players over this account management migration, and none of that was Cal’s fault.

If you told me that all of the stress from the past year got to him and he had enough, I would not only believe it, but be impressed that he was able to hold out for as long as he did. EA is known for being a meat grinder to work for, and UO has a lot of very bitter players who don’t see much of a future for it. These players were looking to take out their anger on the nearest target they could find, and all too often that was Cal.

That’s because Cal was pulling double or even triple duty – he was having to produce UO while putting out wildfires that were not of his or the UO team’s doing, and as a friend put it, dealing with a mob of players who cared only about the short term or about themselves at times, even as he and the team were working on things that would benefit them in the long run. In past years, UO had its own community relations team. In recent years, there is a very small community relations team within BioWare Mythic that ostensibly includes UO, but they seem to be more focused on the Warhammer games than UO or DAoC. That left it up to Cal and the UO devs (and artists) to add community relations to their already numerous responsibilities. I truly hope that this was Cal’s decision and that EA or BioWare was not trying to pin anything on him – EA really botched the account migration system not just for UO, but also for DAoC and WAR, and for Star Wars: The Old Republic.

I think he and the UO team were left out on their own more than they should have been, and should have received a lot more public support from EA and more importantly, BioWare. I had hoped that things would change with the Ultima Forever project, DAoC’s new website and rebranding from Mythic to BioWare, the new Warhammer game, and with BioWare becoming its own label, but sadly that was not the case. The Ultima Forever project would have been a prime opportunity to see actual public support for UO from BioWare beyond a simple banner and a paragraph of text on the Ultima Forever website. BioWare still had ample opportunity to step up and publicly support UO, as well as DAoC, and they still have yet to do so. It’s a damn shame they wouldn’t do so while Cal was producer, because he certainly deserved their public backing.

Earlier this year, it became clear that UOJournal.com would be a solo effort for a time, and I questioned whether I had the time or commitment. It was the positive things about UO that Cal and other members of the UO team said both publicly on other websites as well as privately in emails, that kept me interested in keeping the site going.

I want to say this: When you see some of the big things finally come into play for UO later this year and into next year, including the new artwork, you really need to thank Cal for some of that.

And I want to also mention this: Many of the UO developers and artists probably could have left UO for Star Wars: The Old Republic, as they have hired a lot of people over the last several years, and they chose to stay with UO.

Cal, if you read this, I hope that you have found a much less stressful place to work. If you ever get down to Texas, I’ll be happy to buy you dinner.

BioWare Mythic – Fairfax – Hope Everything is Okay

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Out of curiosity, I’ve been looking at the Fairfax County Emergency blog and it’s pretty rough in that area this evening, thanks to Hurricane Irene.

In case you’re not aware, Fairfax county is in Virginia near the eastern seabord and it just so happens that it is the location for BioWare Mythic, aka the Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning teams. I did not hear whether any developers from the area evacuated – it looks like they mainly are having to deal with power outages and some flooding.