Posted to UOHerald by Cal Crowner
11 Apr 2008 16:08:23 EST




My introduction to the Ultima Online Community was met with the same fanfare as Gallagher at a Kiwanis Club bake sale: “Sure I hear claims he’s entertaining, but I ain’t gonna clap for the same old watermelon/sledgehammer shtick! Show me something funny, boy!”

Well, since the “hello” in February, a substantial publish in March, and the launch of Mad Mage … I am going to say this: we aren’t done yet. Yes, I am going to continue to state that we have big plans. What we have on the schedule for the next six months does not even begin to describe the amount of effort, creativity, passion, and downright ultra-engaging- sultry-deliberately mind-altering-should have swallowed-the blue pill, psyche-shattering, toe-sweating, eye-ball tearing goodness that we have in store.

We are on track for the Epic event still planned for the end of May. Given this, I want to announce our publish for April is light on bug fixes. The team is currently focused on a deluge of events to deliver during May culminating in the event mentioned above. However, do not despair. Draconi should be announcing a fairly tasty intervention planned for late April for all you adventuring addicts. However, we reserve the right to change our mind and fix anything we darn well please! You can’t stop us from trying to make a better game, so there!

On a side note, I’d like to say a quick hello to the UO team in Japan. Draconi, Kil, and I had a chance to go sit with the team for a week of embarrassing moments trying to speak Japanese, and Draconi translating that I “are noob.” Kilandra made him promise not to try to teach me anything else for the rest of the trip. While we were there, we had the honor of interviewing with Okata-san from 4gamer.net. The questions made us smile, as well as ponder the future of Ultima Online for Japan, and the international player base. Overall, I thank EA Japan for a fantastic stay and I will never look at an egg the same way again.

There is something else I learned in Japan, but I will save that for the end.

Next, I have two fairly serious topics that I’ve been addressing with the team here, and I’d like to share them with the community.

First, I’d like to hear boisterous applause for the crew that delivered Pub 51. The team right now is both growing and excited about what’s to come. It’s my responsibility to make sure they press forward while keeping perspective that we have a huge loyal community that deserves our response, and simultaneously insuring no one gets a shiv in the parking lot, because a fix didn’t make it into the client publish. (I’m kidding, there have not been any serious shiv incidents for at least three weeks). Given this, we’re striving toward perfection. Perhaps its that obsessive compulsive side of us that makes us gamers in the first place, but I can assure you, every one of us reads the boards almost fanatically. We heard the gnashing of teeth and screams from the lower balcony of Gehenna regarding Archcure. It was reverted, and we are still looking into the balance for that system. There are hundreds of similar gameplay fixes, bugs, and system design enhancements. Within reason we’d like many of them fixed and/or implemented to some degree. (With the exception of anything regarding lederhosen and mint jello because that’s just weird).

I’ve shown members of my team a small folder in my Outlook that has features from players that we are hoping “some day” (cue elevator music) we’ll implement. So please, keep writing. We’re watching. But, remember you catch more flies with honey and vodka, than just plain honey. Can you spell Stolichnaya? I knew you could.

Next, I’d like to share a quote I keep on my desktop. The context for this message is from a website at the time EA announced moving the team from Redwood Shores to Fairfax. The contributor cited a note from someone on the Ultima Online team who’d recently been released:

“… Business as usual, but you know it's that stinky EA business. While it's plausible Ultima Online will benefit from this move later down the road; thanks to more resources available under one roof, all the UO and DAOC devs doing quality assurance on Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, that sort of thing. One thing is certain and that is you can't replace a dedicated developer who worked on the project for years and poured everything they had and expect the same results from their replacement or non-replacement in some cases. I guess we can expect a skeleton crew for UO from here on out.”

The UO team covers four countries, and six times zones. Any team meeting we have, I must account for schedules in Japan, the UK, the West Coast, Texas (where time actually folds and gets bigger), and here in Fairfax. We have local, remote, and an extended team now in Asia. We’ve had one of the more significant publishes in seven months just days ago, a comprehensive plan that takes us through the next two years of development, an increase in player activity and subscribers, and increasing interaction with the community.

I’ve got your skeleton crew right here.

Now, for what else I learned in Japan. Okata-san from 4gamer.net shared a word that I tried to translate, and I will apologize now if I spell it incorrectly. The word (phonetically) is kai-ko-shugi. Loosely translated, it is that aspect of Ultima Online that pays homage to the “retro” or ‘old-school” game design when graphics were a bonus, and sound meant you listened to the Tom Cruise and Mia Sara movie Legend soundtrack on cassette tape while dungeon crawling. There is a reason Ultima Online, and the Ultima series are legendary. It’s the return to something indefinable, unquenchable, and epic because of the vision Richard Garriott had $250,000, a dream, and millions of players ago. So ten years later, we’re still here. For the person who released the above quote, good luck with your website … this skeleton crew will see you on the 25th Anniversary of Ultima Online.
Finally, what am I personally working on? *Girds himself with cast iron +2 flame retardant and troll repelling forum gear* I am working on uo.registration.com …

I KNOW!! It’s borked. Mesanna has taken to sending me every e-mail regarding the registration site. I missed an e-mail for a parent-teacher meeting within the deluge of e-mails … actually wanted to say thanks for that – I can’t stand those things. Anyway, I am doing what I can about the site and working with the powers “Who Be.”

In closing, thanks for sticking with us, wait your tip staff, and please safe drive homely.

WOW,

thanks for saying you can not say anything. More of the same, trust us you live the next stuff we have planned but we can not say anything yet.

We have more subscribers? Like to see the proof of that. How about working on yogametimecodes too, Many players have problems over there too.

thanks for posting again as usual tabbitha, though the text is not worth the pixels its using.

On the contrary, I enjoyed this post quite a bit! Would you rather listen to crickets chirp? Oh, that's right... UO players are NEVER satisfied!

LMAO!!!

I rest my case!

did the post make me laugh? Somewhat.

But how about some actual answer, not just vague statements about future plans.

I enjoy the game, played it for 10 years, never have deactivated my original account, loggin just about everyday.

I am just tired of the same cloak and dagger secrets. It was from EAMythic that said they wanted to communicate more with the community. This is same old vagueness/spin/smoke in mirrors that the community has gotten for years. I realize things/plans change, thats just part of the gaming business.

But why could he not tell the community, for example, when/where the cocoa trees/seeds are going to get in. They are done, they just got bumped out cause of the live event. Look I not a garderner, never done it. But these trees/seeds were the newest thing for that section of the community. Why can they not get a straight answer?

You want me to believe UO has not got a skeleton crew? Post a picture of the current team from around the world, they have posted pictures before. Name names and positions. Give the players something concrete for a change.

Did you miss the paragraph preceding the "skeleton crew" statement? If there could have been a gesture along with the "I've got your skeleton crew right here!", I imagine it would involve grabbing of male private parts or a middle finger (as in, it was meant as sarcasm).

... though I could just be reading flowers and fairies and happiness into everything, as us UO-lovers tend to do!

Actually Kit I as yourself obviously did find the "skeleton crew" reference quite amusing! Also found myself wanting to believe everything he said about great stuff coming (my reason for reactivating my accts the last time). Found it to be a great read with some progressive info (at least in regards to registration site....which might lead to other sites being fixed and updated). The one thing I didnt find amusing was the fact that once again its ok to flame someone making a negative comment, but quite the contrary otherwise.

Does this replace FoF? If so, boo.

Some of this seems like calculated spin to lessen the impact of the alleged MMORPG chart data.

I find it less than heartening that all the players' suggestions end up in a "small folder" in an outlook .pst. The suggestions I've made over just the last 5 years should fill up substantially more than a small folder.

Small folders in someone's .pst are not visibile to the rest of the dev base, are easily forgotten, are not easily referenced and - if my workplace IT is any indication - are easily lost in server crashes.

I am very glad to hear a pre-announcement that April bux fixes will be light. I am also glad to know that the May culmination of the Mad Mage event is still on track. For these tidbits, I thank you.

~M

Where is the flame? I imagined it entirely possible that you didn't read the entire dev post and took my single-sentence quote out of context (thus the elaboration on what I was thinking when I read the sentence in context).

If anything I've posted today comes across as a flame, it's neither meant that way nor meant to be personalized. (I'm assuming you're referencing the MMORPGCHARTS thread? I elaborated there on how my thoughts relate to subscription numbers, though I should have been more explicit initially - there's obviously been some misunderstanding of my intent).

Most interesting part for me was ... trying to figure out just who the heck Cal is and where did he come from all of a sudden ... introduced himself in Febuary? ok i must have missed that all together ... is he replacing Jer? *since I didn't see a 'title' reference for him.


*personally I like Gallagher but thats a different subject

Hi Queen Mum,

I fpund his (cal) intro , I just paste it for you:

Hi From CalCalvin Crowner05 Feb 2008 16:49:31 ESTI'll introduce myself by stating what the heck my job title means. I am the Development Manager for Ultima Online. Hold on a minute, that kind of just caught up to me. No pressure. This means that server crashes, staffing the team, schedule decisions, prioritizing bug fixes, squelching rumors, and emanating a general sense of well-being are well within my responsibilities for delegation. Restated: when it’s “broke” I try to figure out who is going to fix it. If it’s not broken I do my best to make sure it remains that way. Did programming once. Hated it. Did sales. Had such a sense of self-loathing I often tried to determine whether to expense gas on business reports or suck straight from the nozzle holding a cigarette. Like many who are reading this letter: I love games. All games. I am an old school Efreet-cover carrying purveyor of Dungeons and Dragons who still has d100s in a mustard yellow TSR dice bag next to my boxed copies of Privateer 2 and Crusader: No Remorse. Run on sentence complete.

From this perspective, I am more than honored to hold the torch for Ultima Online. I spent a bit of time with the group at EARS before the team transitioned to Mythic here in Fairfax. During those few weeks I learned more than a bit from the experts of Ultima Online -- I was introduced to a lot of passion for Ultima lore, and respect for the entity that is Ultima AND the Ultima Online community.

I named a rock group Smock Llama Mama once. But that’s a different story all together.

I am here to break radio silence. First and foremost: by no stretch of John Cleese’s imagination is Ultima Online going away. On the contrary, if you could see and smell the amount of right and left brain molecules burning between developers here, you might wonder how we could stand to work among the palpable sulfuric fumes. We have some great plans in the coming months. There are three major story arcs in the works culminating in what I can only describe for legal and marketing reasons as an “Epic Event” coming this Spring … Applying my First Rule of Molyneux, make that late Spring.

The first of said events will literally incorporate showing a little love to the players. Well a lot of love to the players. Our lead designer spends way too much time studying chocolate. So if you have an endorphin deficit, the Valentine’s Day Event is for you. Next, the Mad Mage will finally make his way into Britannia. Look for the sightings of general mayhem and schizophrenia some time late March. I’m sure you’d like to know more. I would like to tell you more, however already understanding that these few words have obligated me to several years spinning straw into gold for a wee man, I’ll hold off on any other announcements.

In addition, we are taking a bit of course correction from Jeremy on prioritizing our feature list. You should know that we have been working pretty steadily on answering the mail for both live events and several major systems the community is clamoring for. Understand we are by no means idle, and against all sanctioned methods of scope and project planning, we are doing a bit of parallel engineering. Do not try this at home without a certified project lead.

In closing, please stay tuned. We have some amazing, well-scoped, and thoroughly achievable plans – a lot of them silly, most well-intentioned, but all of them passionate about the continued evolution of the Ultima universe. The most important thing to remember is the team now dedicated to Ultima Online is growing and so thrilled about what’s to come … your best chance for survival is a +5 Helmet of Endurance … and your seatbelts.