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Crowfall's Gordon Walton on how Trammel impacted classic Ultima Online
With Ultima Online's second expansion in 2000 (yes, 2000) came a copy of the world, a facet called Trammel where non-consensual PvP was forbidden. Ever since, the current and former UO community has debated whether this was a brilliant or terrible move. Now we have the word from former Executive Producer Gordon Walton, who discussed Trammel on the Crowfall forums. "I regret some (but not all) of the outcome," Walton began, going on to explain that the rampant PvP was driving away over 70% of new players to UO. The creation of Trammel doubled the playerbase, but he said that it disenfranchised the hardcore PvPers who now had to prey on each other instead of PvEers. "I also learned from my UO experience that it's really hard to change a brand," he wrote. "Inherent in the UO brand was the fact it was a gritty, hard core world of danger. We were not successful in bringing back the (literally) hundreds of thousands of players who had quit due to the unbridled PvP in the world (~5% of former customers came back to try the new UO, but very few of them stayed). We discovered that people didn't just quit UO, they divorced it in a very emotional way. But we did keep more of the new players that came in by a large margin, significantly more than than the PvP players we lost."
Dark Age of Camelot takes aim at group finder and bug fixes
An end-of-the-year community Q&A at Dark Age of Camelot revealed that the team has a lot on the docket for Patch 1.117, including the long-awaited casual group finder and a heap of bug fixes. "We think that focusing our development resources on bug fixing for an entire patch cycle is something that hasn't been done in a long time and is something that will make everyone's gameplaying experience that much better!" Broadsword posted. Other topics discussed include freeing up space in quest logs, plans to update the patcher, and ideas to help out starter guilds. The Q&A even revealed that there will be "official Broadsword player reps" and "scheduled raids of all sorts" for trial accounts, although details on those will be coming later.
Shards lead dev talks skill caps, pickpocketing, and more
Citadel Studios CEO Derek Brinkmann was interviewed by Worlds Factory this week, and the subject of course was indie sandbox Shards Online. The piece explains Shards' debt to both Neverwinter Nights and Ultima Online, the latter of which Brinkmann helped develop. He explains Shards' current skill cap (each skill tops out at 50 while the total cap is 250) as well as everything from hirelings and tamed companions to housing, pickpocketing, and guild wars!
Ultima Online publish brings holiday gifts, veteran rewards
You might forgive 17-year-old Ultima Online for long stretches between patches, but fortunately, you don't have to. The antique sandbox's Halloween event is now over, being replaced yesterday with a new patch that ushers in the winter holiday event and its attendant gifts. This year, Santa's bringing us a fireplace, a plant grinder, a power scroll book, and "a steam powered beverage maker that can be used in conjunction with the cooking system to create new items listed in the 'Beverage' section of the cooking menu." Yum. The update also includes a new monthly game hunting competition sponsored by the Skara Brae Ranger's Guild, with special hunter-themed rewards like a new title and weapon. PvPers can look forward to a new leaderboard to track PvP progress in the still-fresh vice-vs.-virtue PvP system, and long-term players will find new veteran rewards are available, including new statuettes for youngish accounts, an ethereal hell hound mount at the 15-year-mark, and a sewing machine and smithing press for sevenbies.
Dark Age of Camelot grants accounts free playtime for its birthday
Like its sibling Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot is currently welcoming old players back with free account time just in time for its October anniversary. Unlike UO, though, DAOC's Come Back to Camelot promotion extends to the most ancient of accounts and runs for two weeks only: All accounts that were inactive on or before September 24th, 2014 are eligible for 13 free days! Simply login to the account center, re-subscribe, and the 13 free days will be applied to your account automatically! This campaign will run until October 31st. Broadsword Online also touted a hot fix that permits a dozen previously unrollable race/class pairings. If you've ever wanted a Troll Warlock or Sylvan Champion, now is the time.
Return to Britannia campaign starts tomorrow in Ultima Online [Updated]
For the entire month of October, Ultima Online will be running another Return to Britannia campaign in the hopes of luring both the old guard and the new generation for the game's 17th anniversary. From October 1st through the 30th, former players will be able to return to the game for free, mirroring previous Return to Britannia events. There's a lot to celebrate in UO these days above and beyond its birthday. The game recently implemented its Publish 86 with the vice vs. virtue system, added more sea adventures, and is working on a new UI for the enhanced client. You can check out video of the 17th anniversary festivities after the break. [Update: Players are reporting that the Return to Britannia campaign is not resurrecting very old accounts.]
Dark Age of Camelot builds statues of King's Tournament champions
Have you ever fancied the notion of having a giant in-game statue erected in your honor? This egotistical dream may come true for you in Dark Age of Camelot... if you are one of the winners of the October's King's Tournament. This brand-new event in DAoC kicks off tomorrow to commemorate the game's 13th anniversary. Each of the three realms will be tracking RvR stats for everyone in the game, and at the end of the month the top two players from each realm will be crowned champion. These six winners will have a statue of their character constructed in their realm's capital city. To track the progress of the tournament, players can check out an in-game leaderboard which will be updated on an hourly basis.
Warlords of Draenor: New Mythic Tiers will not be cross-realm
With the patch 6.0 pre-expansion period almost upon us (certainly within the month) we know that we'll get to see the debut of Mythic difficulty Siege of Orgrimmar. However, that difficulty will be cross-realm, just as heroic SoO has been up to now. Watcher answered a recent question on twitter about how Warlords of Draenor mythic raids will work in this regard. @goldman1337 New Mythic tiers will not be cross-realm; that restriction will be removed after some time, likely when the next tier arrives. - Watcher (@WatcherDev) September 30, 2014 What this means is that the newest Mythic raid will always be realm only, keeping the prestige of realm first chases alive, but as another tier is launched, that previous Mythic tier will hopefully become cross-realm, allowing you and your friends (or even just willing strangers, ala today's SoO pugs) to run the older content. Seems fairly reasonable to me.
Dark Age of Camelot passes the torch to a new producer
It's a season of change over at Dark Age of Camelot, as the team is transitioning from former producer Talal Saad to the new one, John Thornhill. Saad said that he's not leaving the studio, but moving into a role that oversees more than just one game. "Rather than serving at the helm of one particular game, my responsibility will be to act as advocate and to use my time and energy to focus on how Broadsword can have a bigger impact, provide more investment, and achieve greater success for multiple products," he wrote. Thornhill introduced himself as the former lead designer for DAoC and outlined what the team would be focusing on for the future. He said that there are plans for the game's 13th anniversary (including new race and class pairings), the release of patch 1.116 around the end of November, the increase to champion level 15, an addition of a casual group finder, and more interaction with the community. "Our focus is going to be updating and modernizing the user experience of Dark Age of Camelot for the foreseeable future," Thornhill promised.
Richard Garriott becomes Lord British again for Ultima Online's 17th anniversary
On September 24th, 1997, Ultima Online opened its doors, forever changing the MMORPG landscape. That was 17 years ago today, and that means it's time for cake and ice cream! Just make sure to check that cake for deadly poison. Poisoning cake and giving it to unsuspecting passers-by is actually a thing you can do in this crazy sandbox. Wanna celebrate? UO Stratics reports that the Broadsword team is hosting an in-game party tomorrow evening with some notables from UO's history in attendance. Join me for a live, in-game event on TC1 September 25th 2014 at 7pm ET! Meet Richard "Lord British" Garriot and Starr "King Blackthorn" Long at Castle Blackthorn to celebrate Ultima Online's 17th Anniversary! The anniversary parties are always a blast (Thanks to the Dark Lady). This year will be very special as both Lord British and King Blackthorn will join us. If you can't attend, it will be shown on youtube . It will also be streamed live on http://www.twitch.tv/stratics. A post on the official site also welcomes the new patch we covered last week and a new player Advisor program similar to the old Counselor program made famous in the game's early days.
Vice vs Virtue PvP system arrives on Ultima Online's test center
In testing now on Ultima Online's test server is publish 86.3, better known as the Vice vs Virtue patch. You remember the virtues, those iconic and ambiguous philosophical principles guiding the Avatar? OK, now forget all that because peeveepee, guys. Yes, Vice vs Virtue is a a new system designed to bring a fresh version of Order and Chaos consensual PvP -- any PvP, really -- to landmasses that are currently PvE, including Trammel and most of the expansion territories launched in the last forever. The opt-in faction-based system brings the battle to the core cities of the game and rewards participants with a special currency that can be traded for everything from mounts and artifacts (gear) to murder pardons and hair dye. Look, UO players take their hair dye very seriously. The patch also introduces new trader quests to the game and revamps dungeon loot spawns to encourage ventures to the open-PvP Felucca facet. The devs have invited players to help stress test the systems this afternoon.
Dark Age of Camelot patch spruces up keeps and relic raids
Patch 1.115c went live on Dark Age of Camelot's servers today, bringing with it a slew of changes to the game's relic raids, keep art, and New Frontiers system. Players will log in to discover that relics are back in the possession of relic temples, bringing back the old raid mechanics for a new age. To steal a relic, teams have to open up certain relic milegates first and then plunder the item from its respective keep. Keeps have also received a visual upgrade and can be captured and upgraded by the three factions. There are several new RvR quests as well as plenty of fixes for bugs that may vex ye, so check out the patch notes and give the updated classic MMO a whirl!
The incredible aging demographic
Let me put it on the line - LFR and Flexible raid sizes are the most important raiding experiences currently available in World of Warcraft, and the upcoming Mythic 20 person raid difficulty is an atavism, barely even an appendix, that only a vanishing few players will experience when it is current. It exists for a sense of achievement and prestige that only a few players really have the time for anymore, and every year, that group of players gets smaller. The reason for this is simple - as Tom Chilton put it, the demographic is getting older over time. People like me who played for the raid game back in classic are older. They have jobs, kids, schedules that don't permit the kind of time investment hard modes currently demand, the kind Mythic will demand. And it's not that you can't do cutting edge raiding in, say, six hours a week. I'm not arguing that you will have to put in 20 hours a week to do Mythic. I'm arguing that even scheduling one or two nights a week and being there reliably is actually really hard when you have other commitments that can often demand your time on a moment's notice - in essence. being able to go when you want/need to raid instead of when the group is scheduled to go is a huge boon to that aging demographic. For all the elitism, all the sneering, and all the slurs directed at the LFR player base, the feature allows people who love raiding but who can no longer commit to scheduled WoW play a place to do it. You can ask if this is healthy for the game as a whole - whether or not your answer is yes or no, though, there is no escaping this simple fact. WoW is a decade old. Many of us playing it have been here for years now. Even players who started in Wrath or Cataclysm have now been playing for years. This is an aging game with aging players, this is the reality of the situation. And this means that more adaptive raiding solutions are going to keep presenting themselves.
Ultima Forever will sunset August 29th
Ultima Forever is unfortunately not so forever after all: EA/Mythic has just announced that its Ultima-flavored mobile MMO will be shutting down on August 29th. Forever. Strangers, Seekers and Avatars all, While the past year has certainly been quite the adventure – in Britannia and beyond! – that adventure is now drawing to a close, as the time has come for us to say goodbye. As of Aug 29th 2014 (11:00 AM EDT), Ultima Forever will be shutting down its online services, and will no longer be available to play. This was a very difficult decision for us to make. We've seen the game through ups and downs, and hope that you've enjoyed playing it every bit as much as we had making it! Through it all, it's been players like you who've made it all worthwhile. The team says that during this final month of operation, it will boost rewards and drops, halt equipment decay, and cease selling premium currency.
Dark Age of Camelot adjusting New Frontiers again
Sometimes adjustments seem like a good idea right up until they're implemented. That's the case with Dark Age of Camelot's recent changes to New Frontiers. The game's most recent producer's letter states that they were made and quickly proved to not have the desired effects, which means that several elements need to be tweaked and re-balanced. This includes several rollbacks -- Relics will return to Relic Temples, docks will be returned to their original location, and players will no longer be able to port to shore-keeps. The updates to the game in the near future won't be limited to PvP, however, as the development team is also looking for ways to spruce up PvE content by modernizing mechanics and adding in new loot. In the longer term, there are also plans to revamp the game's LFG interface and provide a Champion Level increase. Check out the full producer's letter for all the details.
Ultima Online overhauls factional PvP in publish 86
Broadsword Online has announced that Ultima Online's publish 86 will arrive on the test server this evening. Notably, the patch includes the first phase of the game's new Vice vs Virtue system, a massive ground-up rework of the existing faction PvP system intended to bring rewarding, objective-based PvP back to the cities. The update also features a new trading-based quest system, new property generation mechanics for spawned loot, and a refreshed Cleanup Britannia vendor. Check out the complete patch notes on the official site. If you're a former player thinking of dropping by your old haunt to see how it's doing, recall that last month, the developers hinted at a return-to-UO promotion coming in August.
Dark Age of Camelot brings back character and guild searches
Looking for a particular person or group in Dark Age of Camelot? Fortunately for you, Broadsword has made it that much easier to track those people down for a hopefully not-at-all-creepy reunion. The devs announced that they have brought back character and guild searches to DAoC. Currently, these searches are limited to the Ywain server but will expand to other servers in the future. The team also said that it's going to be adding more in-game lists for realm point earners and champions of the realm in the near future. Character and guild search used to be in DAoC until Mythic took it down several years ago.
Ultima Online patch delayed because of Mythic shutdown
While last month the Broadsword Online team reassured players of its games that they would not be affected by the shutdown of Mythic Entertainment, Ultima Online Producer Bonnie "Mesanna" Armstrong has admitted today that update 86, originally slated for July, has been delayed until at least mid-August. "The shutdown of the Mythic Studio [...] has caused us to move the rest of our build machines from that office to the office in Herndon before we were expecting," she wrote in her producer's letter today. "So that has caused a delay in our publish time." But there's also some good news for players of the veteran MMO. Here's some of what Armstrong says the team is currently working on: a new trade quest to acquaint players with the world, new Clean-up-Britannia rewards, a new interface for the enhanced client (helped along by a well-known player modder), a revamp of the Advisor program (what used to be called the Counselor program), revisions to the global loot system, anniversary rewards for the game's 18th birthday in September, and a return-to-UO promotion for former players in August. Armstrong also notes that the UO team is looking to hire an engineer and site designer.
Working As Intended: The forgotten fields of Green Acres
My first trip to Ultima Online's Green Acres was in 1998. The first guild I'd ever joined had just split up into a bunch of... let's call them "philosophically incompatible" groups, and I was still hanging out with some of the shadier types because I was a clueless teenager in my first MMO and wanted desperately to fit in and hadn't yet figured out where I belonged. "Hit this rune," my new guild leader commanded. His favorite murderin' weapon was a poisoned warfork. He was not a nice man. "I'm being evicted from my safehouse in Green Acres. Help me move my crap."
The Daily Grind: What was your favorite Mythic memory?
It's been a little over a week since Mythic Entertainment went out with a whimper, and as a former Warhammer Online fan, I'm still feeling a little sad about it. I appreciated the studio's enthusiasm and vision, even if I wasn't as much into PvP as some of those devs were. But at least a couple of the studio's former charges live on -- as do our memories. So what was your favorite memory involving a Mythic game, the studio, or the dev team? Let's raise a virtual glass and give a fond toast to yesterday's tales. Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
