If KR becomes a failure, I'm betting we can kiss UO goodbye. The dev team said in Chicago (and I believe them) that KR is the most significant financial investment EA has made in this game since its inception 10 years ago. If KR fails, I predict management will pull the plug on UO in favor of higher profit games.

Secondly - the dev team has already stated all over the place that the new expansion (Stygian Abyss) will only work with KR. It will NOT work with 2D. So if nobody plays KR, nobody can buy SA, and if nobody buys SA - you got it. Another nail in the coffin.

Yeah, I finally broke down and got KR.

It's not bad, it'll take some getting used to.

I think the manual that comes with it needs to be more thorough (kinda like all the help, hints, and tips everyone here has posted, BIG Thanks to all of you as I'll be re-reading all of that this weekend).

May actually be easier for newer players (ones that never touched 2D) to get used to because old habits are hard to break.

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Yup and they said the exact same thing with the Third Dawn expansion (you could only enter ilshenar with the 3D client) that lasted one whole expansion cause the very next one (Lord Blackthorn's Revenge) you could go to ilshenar in 2D.

As far as the most significant investment EA has made since launch? Well if I remember correctly LB mention the inital investment for it was $250,000. So even if they(EA) double or tripled the investment and gave it alittle boost, lets say $1 million dollars. What is that to a multi-Billion dollar company?

Besides I think that EA actually wants a piece of the online market now. That was the reason for the purchase of Mythic Entertainment, for the IP of Warhammer. By making this purchase, EA reduces its risk of its overall investment into the online market. And risk reduction/maximizing profits is really pleasing to the corporate suits that run EA and would not know a mmorpg from a hole in the wall.

Just look at how they (EA) has covered just about every type of online player since the Mythic purchase:

You have the pogo service(chats/traditional card & board games) for the casual/social type.

You have the sims online(Barbie's day out/Action figure ftw) for the social type.

You have Ultima Online for the lower end computer user (as long as the 2D client is running)

You have Dark Age of Camelot for the mid-range computer user

You have Warhammer Online for the high-range computer user (You think UO has fanbois? Try meeting some Warhammer ones)

So they pretty much cover the social gamer, causal gamer, and hard core gamer.

Even if KR does fail I know that many people will still play UO(I plan to play until either the shards shut down or I shut down ) and while the suits would like to have more people playing = more dollars. They (EA) can accept some failure. Since UO has had about 75 to 100k paying accounts for the last few years, steady. Why would they kiss that revenue stream goodbye?

Now will it effect Darkscribe and the rest if it fails? Most likely since the new president of EA wants to simplify the command structure, to lay blame easier if something goes wrong.

And you know the old saying crap runs downhill, If KR fails we will likely see a new team (at least the producer(s) and others not actually involved in programing), And then the rest of the team will more than likely be reassign to Warhammer.

Which will most likely leave UO a few techs to maintain the servers, and a few artists/programers to push out anniversary editions for quick cash each year and bug fixes.

OMG! I actually cannot wait for Warhammer Online, And TBH it won't need that good PC Specs. But it#s gonna shoot all over MMO's out of the water. Apart from one that you didn't mention:

DARKFALL ONLINE

How could you forget to mention this? Every role player's DREAM! *Drool*

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Your are going to need better specs than the average uo player has, but thats just my opinion.

And why did I not mention Darkfall? Because if you read my post, I was talking about EA only and what I think their plan is now (roughly) to provide online services/games for every type of online player (social,causal,hardcore).

Personally I think Darkfall is just vaperware. I do not know anyone who is in the beta, and is been coming for a long time. If it actually releases I might look at it.

Warhammer yeah I was pumped up when I if read about it a few years ago. Hell I even liked what the other company was doing before they(Games Workshop) cnacelled it and gave it the Mythic. Now I am kind of leery about getting another EAMythic product. I have been burned to many times with the lack of services and other problems with UO. But I still enjoy the game so I put up with all their bs.

I am going to have to think long and hard about picking it up. Even though I am somewhat crazed about warhammer. Been playing warhammer since 92.

Although if EAMythic offered a xobox live or sony station type package to play UO, DAoC and Warhammer, depending on the price, I most likely would go for it.

Yeah it is extremely disappointing to see UOKR go live in the state it is in. It needed AT LEAST another month before it was at an exceptable release state. I dont really blame the devs though likely it was the higher ups that forced them to do this. And sadly I bet the rushing is likely to continue, so SA will likely be released bug ridden and imcomplete as well now.

As is, I will keep up with the patches for KR but as of now 2D is my client of choice and looks like it will be for a long time

Back to the topic at hand. I really think the KR client has tons of potential and is definitely not as buggy as some make it out to be. There are bugs but the client is very playable in its current state and with a couple more patches should be good to go. I don't think it was ready to come out of beta but really it's not too far off, especially considering the amount of bugs and artwork they took care of in what, the last week and a half?

The biggest problem that I have is performance when there's a number of people on screen. When I'm running around the Luna bank and doing some shopping it becomes quite choppy and I have a pretty high-performance gaming rig (C2D at 3GHz, 2Gb high performance ram, 8800GTS). I don't know how they expect the average UO player to be able to operate in those situations with that client. Now it's really only in that area that I get any graphics lag but that's an area that you really can't avoid.

Keep in mind that I'm looking at this from the viewpoint of someone recently coming back to the game after a long hiatus. I played from release until about a year after the trammel/felucca split and just came back full-time recently and jumped right into the KR client.

For one, I never knew Warhammer was being done by EA.. Sorry! ;)

Warhammer Online will be win, I LOVE the producer. If only the people at UO could be as fun as the people working at Warhammer. Instead of sitting around like old farts and going, Now how can we steal more of their money?

How's the 8800 doing for ya? I was gonna save up so some money and build myself a custom gaming rig, Was planning on getting the 8800 GTS, GTX is out of my price range, heh.

LOVING it. I went from a 6800GT to this and it's been great. Only game that really slows it down is FEAR and that's with everything maxed out. The drivers still need some polish but otherwise I have no complaints.

Plus it overclocks well with stock cooling.

The 8800 GTX PWNS, it really might be the reason I like KR more than 80-90% of the people here.