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Strotski posted:Every once in a while I remember Ultima and what amazing of an experience it was and I realize I'd hate playing it today. I have a love/hate relationship with it. I was playing when it started in '97 (lived in Austin, roommate was on the UO team, friends with a bunch of the Origin folks), had a blast the first several years, watched it almost implode multiple times pre-Renaissance. I stayed pretty steady through 2010-ish, and then came back off and on for large chunks of time through 2015 and then sporadically after, was very disappointed they almost pulled off a total client rebuild into a true 3D system a couple of times (which would have changed everything) and then ran into problems/got cold feet/had a dumbass player revolt. It's a genie that can never be put back in the bottle. Pre-UO:R/Tram, many people didn't see how bad things were getting with players leaving because they were PKed/lost everything one too many times. Saw a couple of people almost come to physical blows at a UO get together at the Texas Renaissance Festival, because the organizers had the bright idea of A) getting some UO team members to come, which guaranteed a lot of UO players would follow and B) had players wearing name tags with their chosen character name and shard listed underneath. Really disappointed we never got a true UO2 released to the public - it was aggravating seeing stuff in UO2 (technically Ultima Worlds Origin or something like that) that wasn't in other MMOs, and then UO2 is killed, and that stuff starts appearing in other MMOs. There was stuff in UO2, that popped up in WOW when it launched a few years later, that is taken for granted now. As I said, got to see from "behind the curtain" thanks to a roommate and friends, was a counselor (until they hosed that up because of the lawsuits against EA), was in the running for being an EM a few years ago, but had to pull out due to our youngest being born. And EA would have let it die a while back if the Broadsword guy hadn't stepped in to save Dark Age of Camelot and UO. Between him and 30,000-35,000 Japanese players (like half the player base is Japanese), they are the reason it's still around. EA likes having the "longest-running MMORPG" around (sorry Meridian 59), but they give no shits about trying to make it better. And like Kumba said, they have 6 people on the dev team (not counting EMs/GMs). I know a couple of them (the producer has been around with UO forever, and I have sometimes questioned whether she has helped or hurt UO) and it's still amazing when they pull off some decent additions. I suspect they farm out some of the art stuff though.
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Mar 30, 2021 02:02
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| # ¿ May 23, 2024 01:28 |
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