Roadmap for next event

Now that we've had a smooth transition of power and are winding down current event what's up next ?

psycho said:

I dont mind a new expansion, something new to look forward to, and lots of content with a big bang drawing alot of new/returning players. But please fix all of the above first.

They have half-a-dozen people on the team. Try to lay a roadmap out for the following for even just one year:

1. Keep long-time existing players happy
2. Bring old players back
3. Bring new players in

So #1 - If one were ruthless/callous, one would say that any long-time existing players here after all these years are probably going to need a lot of negative changes (in their minds) before they leave, so as long as you don't make any drastic changes, most will stick around.  They've been through thick and thin, and are probably here because they are attached to friends/houses/etc. There's a lot that could be done that would make them happy (bug fixes, client improvements, etc.), that you mentioned, but I'd argue that the best thing you could do for long-time existing players is to bring in a lot of new players. 

#2 I'm one of those old players who came back.  EJ did it for me (spurred by the fact that my kids are old enough to be interested), but I'm starting to do NL with them as well, but it's too early for me to decide about NL (but I think it could help). I went ahead and re-activated my main account, while my kids are on EJ (new accounts created just for them). I may end up re-activating a few old accounts for them and let them make new chars on them, as they now want their own houses and I'd like to get at the vet rewards and a few other things from those accounts (plus it's not fun working with EJ accounts that can't work with houses like subs can). I can say 100% that EJ brought me back and has me playing with my kids. EJ let me take a peak at all of my (way too many) accounts at what I had banked over a decade ago and I would not have dropped almost $40 on a whim to re-active three accounts so myself and my kids could play. If I were Broadsword, I would push out more emails to past players pushing EJ.

I certainly received many emails about EJ, but my kids asking why I have an entire shelf with a copy of every physical edition available of UO (including the charter edition!) and its expansions along with a dozen or so hint books about UO (some in other languages - the Japanese put out a lot of books about UO) as well as copies of every Ultima game from III - IX is really what got me going, which ties into the below.

My only real problem is I need to buy the last expansion (it's been 10 years, wish it were included, but I understand why and will gladly do it once I'm caught up on other stuff) and the economy. It was a complete shock to me. I don't know how you prepare returning players for the economy. Sure, most of us have stuff stored away that's worth 10s of millions, but still, many won't want to give that stuff up.

#3 continued below.

#3 So now we are at what I consider to be the most important thing - bringing new players in. I know a lot of people started playing as kids/teens, but I also went to the early meet-ups in the 90s and early 2000s in the Austin and Houston areas, and most of those people were my age (20s or older) and now I'm pushing 50. I won't guess at the average age of the UO player, but if it's in my age-range, I don't know if it's wise relying on that demographic, but regardless, I think you need new blood. We never hit the peak numbers that WOW or FFXIV hit, so we can't rely on simply bringing back a certain percentage of past players. 

With that said, the most popular video game in the world among the younger crowd is Minecraft, and it's crazy hearing middle-schoolers talking about it. The amount of discussion about building houses, mining ore/harvesting resources, crafting lots and lots of stuff (and getting extremely creative with it), lots of discussions about PvP and PvM (and toss in Fortnite amongst the younger crowd and their love of PvP), combined with blocky graphics from the 90s means a lot of younger people/kids are not going to turn their noses up at UO, and grinding is not a big deal to them. My son plays on Hypixel, which is a Minecraft platform that was hitting well over 100,00 concurrent players over the last 4-5 years, and it has a lot of mini games and feels like a full-blown MMORPG.

My point is, kids and younger people are not necessarily going to be turned off by the graphics like many who are a bit older and into Xbox/Playstation. My kids are downright impressed/charmed by UO. My daughter is trying to tame everything in sight and wants her own house to build, and my son is chomping at the bit to advance and do bigger things (he's really wanting to get into naval/fishing stuff).

I think you kind of have to nudge them into using the EC though, or ClassicUO (which has been a godsend in terms of playing on Macs). I prefer the EC and Pinco's UI, but I can play ClassicUO just fine (it performs like a dream on my MacBook Air). I used the regular 2D for many years, but newer players are going to want the QOL stuff in the EC or if they do 2D, ClassicUO.

I just don't know how you reach them, short of advertising, and I don't know how you prepare them for the economy in the game, without making them feel they are running into an economic wall.  I have seen plenty of players generously gift millions in gold and items to new and returning players (even had it happen to me) but that can only go so far.

I also think you have to steer them to the right shards. It can't be one of the lesser-populated ones, and there are a lot based on my travels around various shards with my daughter looking for housing ideas. It can't necessarily be Atlantic, because they will run into a wall in terms of the economy and lack of decent housing spaces.

Sorry for rambling, been thinking about this topic a lot since I came back and my kids have told a few of their friends about it in the hopes of their friends trying to get their parents to get them accounts (one parent we know had played and was surprised it was still around).

I think there is potential to bring in new folks, but it's not going to be easy.

1. Unfortunately, for UO these are two opposites: attracting new players and retaining old ones.
2. Keeping old players means continuing the imbalance, giving them things to collect might be a bit of content.
3. To attract new players/returnees only in the short term for retail, a large expansion with reworked mechanics and a large volume of new content could be released - but this will not happen for obvious reasons.
4. No adequate newbie will want to play "like a new game" in a game with a 25+ year ruined economy and even if you want to counter this argument by saying that he can earn more and get things faster on the one hand it is true, but on the other hand, and I have seen this many times, when people who want to trade can only hope for super luck to get an expensive item instead of balanced market relations where they can sell services and resources and play as they want, and not just hunt for items for super PvPers.
5. Well, here comes the big question of who is more valuable, new players or old ones, because it is obvious that the only real method to reboot the retail economy is a wipe, and then for greater popularity, a release on Steam and advertising of the game as an MMO with history, but an "indie" project, people love indie, no one will pay attention to the graphics.
6.Apparently old players are more important, so this will not happen, which means it is obvious what can be expected for retail, eternal fuss in ToT events and EM events, a new expansion for UO retail is possible only if the NL project closes or additional people/third-party company are hired for this expansion.
7.that's why, to attract new players and returning players, the bet was made on New Legacy, personally I have a good attitude towards this server and believe in its great potential, but honestly, it's very difficult to sit on both chairs, someday this will play a cruel joke because content for NL will not be released as often as the new audience would like, and the old retail audience will get tired of the paradigm in which it was immersed.
8. As much as I like New Legacy, we need to be realistic and there are only two ways: either roll the dice and try to restart the game with all possible ways to advertise/hype the project in a new way, or try to keep the entire audience within the same framework. I don’t think that distributing players across so many servers and different gameplays is a good idea. Everything needs one house, one balance, and one economy. For a game with a story like this, there's enough content for everyone to find something interesting for themselves.

cant attract new players when most people don't even know UO exists, When UO comes up in conversation most gamers now days is like what is that? or what that still exists? or hmm i think my grandpa used to play that. No where is UO advertised, it now like become this big secret game, pretty sure they dont want to attract new players, they want UO to die, and pretty sure when we are gone so is UO.

Whitewolf said:

cant attract new players when most people don't even know UO exists, When UO comes up in conversation most gamers now days is like what is that? or what that still exists? or hmm i think my grandpa used to play that. No where is UO advertised, it now like become this big secret game, pretty sure they dont want to attract new players, they want UO to die, and pretty sure when we are gone so is UO.

If they wanted UO to die, EA would have just killed it, like they've killed many (much more popular) franchises and studios. If they are willing to kill SimCity and The Sims Online and Westwood Studios, and Maxis and Origin (and the list is long), they would kill UO without thinking twice about it if they didn't want it around (and they would have done it years ago). Somebody at EA management has a soft spot for UO.

The first part of your comment is the more important one - how to raise awareness of UO's existence (insert Monty Python .gif of "I'm not dead"). Advertising campaigns can be fairly cheap online, but it'd be best to do it around UO's anniversary in September. Email campaigns can also be fairly cheap, and I bet they've pulled back many a vet with the occasional email or newsletter.

The only way advertise UO is to pay or ask to non UO streamers and YouTubers to play it or at least tab it when they doing other games, but game should be not bad, game and client should be polished somehow for nowday standards and ofc it should be fresh, I know Asmon or Soda Is cost like skyrocket ,but I think they stream many small games for free if game is good. UO is legend if official devs ask this most popular mmo streamers to play in better version of father of al MMOs it could work. The only one issue I see is EA, they should be initiators I think,  but looks like they care only about FIFA coz it is most of they're revenue.

Lokea said:

Whitewolf said:

cant attract new players when most people don't even know UO exists, When UO comes up in conversation most gamers now days is like what is that? or what that still exists? or hmm i think my grandpa used to play that. No where is UO advertised, it now like become this big secret game, pretty sure they dont want to attract new players, they want UO to die, and pretty sure when we are gone so is UO.

If they wanted UO to die, EA would have just killed it, like they've killed many (much more popular) franchises and studios. If they are willing to kill SimCity and The Sims Online and Westwood Studios, and Maxis and Origin (and the list is long), they would kill UO without thinking twice about it if they didn't want it around (and they would have done it years ago). Somebody at EA management has a soft spot for UO.

The first part of your comment is the more important one - how to raise awareness of UO's existence (insert Monty Python .gif of "I'm not dead"). Advertising campaigns can be fairly cheap online, but it'd be best to do it around UO's anniversary in September. Email campaigns can also be fairly cheap, and I bet they've pulled back many a vet with the occasional email or newsletter.

My personal theory on why EA hang on to UO is to have the kudos of claiming the longest running MMORPG, though they apparently don't want the hassle of actually managing the title, which is where Broadsword come in.

EA had bought Mythic and their game Dark Age of Camelot. They were gonna shitcan UO but Mark Jacobs at Mythic convinced them to put it under him alongside DAoC. Then eventually Mythic got the axe and Broadsword was spun off to act as the EA MMO retirement home.