What's up next?

With the current arc ending tomorrow what's next and when?

Rock Crab.

Spring, time to get outside and enjoy the nice weather. See you in the fall.

(my hope, anyways)

AmberWitch said:

Rock Crab.

apple for me .

Larisa said:

https://uo.com/2025/01/21/2025-roadmap-update/

Looking beyond Publish 119 we are planning our next update to the Ultima Online New Legacy shard!  New Legacy Publish 2 will bring an exciting event that will explore the origins of the Echoes of the Blighted Realm!  We look forward to you joining us on that adventure this Spring!

This summer you can look forward to Publish 120 to our live servers – will the long standing peace that King Blackthorn has enjoyed finally be running out?  Small skirmishes and inconveniences have underscored King Blackthorn’s rule – is there something bigger and more sinister on the horizon?

Was really hoping for something on production between now and summer 

So I assume no Easter Event this year?

As much as I absolutely love the event cycles, and this last one was super top notch; Im down for some down time.  

I loved this 3 part event.  It had variety and kept me interested.  Did I get all the rare hued plants, sadly no.  I did manage to get all the antiquities and all 4 of the totems.  I really would love another hidden chest event down the road.  That was too much fun!

Nyre said:

So I assume no Easter Event this year?

keven2002 said:

Nyre said:

So I assume no Easter Event this year?

I think this would be a perfect 1day or 1 weekend type of event where they randomly spawn an Easter Bunny with either high HP or decent resists (so it doesn't die in 30 seconds) that would drop something like "Easter Bunny's Carrot" and/or other deco type stuff for people to remember the holiday.

Nothing too crazy so that people who can't play or find the random spawn won't feel like they missed out.

@ Kyronix / @ "Community Manager" ??

Spawn them in Luna that way everyone could find them 

Grimbeard said:

Spawn them in Luna that way everyone could find them 

Or spawn them in Paws, and nobody will find them....

I hope another strike against the "constellation client" is the next thing in terms of what the devs are working on. It needs to be done. Hopefully some sort of permanent account action. It especially needs to be done before the next content/ToT.

Per the stream the other week:

New NL publish.

Loop is correct, there is no Easter content this year. It was talked about in the livestream interview. 🙂

Onixia said:

I loved this 3 part event.  It had variety and kept me interested.  Did I get all the rare hued plants, sadly no.  I did manage to get all the antiquities and all 4 of the totems.  I really would love another hidden chest event down the road.  That was too much fun!

I never got the hang of TMapping but chasing down hidden chests was a blast! I got all four of the items plus two extras. I agree, it would be nice to see them again...

Maybe should have continuous events line up for whole year with no or minimal gaps in between. 

1 for tamers
1 for thieves
1 for bard
1 for all hunters, mage and warriors

The explanation for no holiday specific events is pretty creative. Took less time to conjure up,that woke idea than to actually put forth effort into something. Gonna tell it like it is , as I have dumped a lot of money into this world of animation, for 20 years. Pathetic.

Maybe do Vernal/Autumnal Equinox-Summer Winter Solstice events. Eliminates the timeframe and alienation aspects. And I mean, who doesn’t enjoy a good Summer solstice Bonfire and Pig roast. 

  

the_8th_Man said:

The explanation for no holiday specific events is pretty creative. Took less time to conjure up,that woke idea than to actually put forth effort into something. Gonna tell it like it is , as I have dumped a lot of money into this world of animation, for 20 years. Pathetic.

We all seen what happened to Budweiser and now Disney (Snow White)I don’t think UO can afford to play that woke game. I’d think most of us that are still here have western values (saying that very loosely)and beliefs/ celebrate those holidays to eliminate them will not go over well at all. 

the_8th_Man said:

The explanation for no holiday specific events is pretty creative. Took less time to conjure up,that woke idea than to actually put forth effort into something. Gonna tell it like it is , as I have dumped a lot of money into this world of animation, for 20 years. Pathetic.

Not to bring up politics. But a multinational game that has events centred around July 4 or some other holiday that only a portion of players celebrate always pissed me off and usually sent me looking for another game. It is a sign of a company of limited imagination and willing to accept a limited number of customers.
Good corporate policy is don't alienate any customer without a good reason. They all have money to spend.

How would you feel if without an explanation and a really good in game reason they decided to centre events around July 1st (Canada) or maybe August 24 (Ukraine) and ignore July 4. Religious holidays are an even bigger mine field. 

I'm assuming your American no insult intended 

Ehh I wouldn’t read too much into it. Kyronix even said something to the effect of “well, I guess we do Halloween” :P.

If you want to associate Easter broadly with the Spring season, then the answer is there’s an NL publish coming up. So the real reason is that we had several things back to back, and now they want to release something for NL.

loop said:

Ehh I wouldn’t read too much into it. Kyronix even said something to the effect of “well, I guess we do Halloween” :P.

If you want to associate Easter broadly with the Spring season, then the answer is there’s an NL publish coming up. So the real reason is that we had several things back to back, and now they want to release something for NL.

I don't think production players care about NL we want steady new content even if it's recycled tot's or town invasion the ease of deployment was the reason given for their creation 

You mean selling luck potions!

They want prodo players to feel like the distracted boyfriend meme this month!

I would love to get away from any events or holidays that have nothing to do with Ultima (not counting the anniversary) and maybe see the Ultima equivalent of the Darkmoon Faire (WOW) - but more than a simple Solstice Festival or Spring Festival that was in the stand-alone games.

https://www.wowhead.com/guide/world-events/recurring/darkmoon-faire-guide

They have a separate island for it, and UO has a ton of unused islands that would be perfect ( I would suggest Jhelom as it has the design and infrastructure already available but there are other islands).

https://www.wowhead.com/guide/world-events/recurring/darkmoon-faire-guide#how-to-get-to-the-darkmoon-faire

Doesn’t have to be an island, could be something like this from Ultima IX: “ Now there was a certain inn, located midway between Britain and Yew, and famous for its excellent autumn ale. So good was the brew that many fine folk were given to retire to that place for a fortnight's holiday when the new casks were breached. Tents had to be pitched on the grounds to hold all the guests, and for two weeks each fall the place took on the air of a fair or festival.”

One week a month (or a weekend), and is just a fun thing to run around or meet up with friends there. The item collectors get their items, for newer players there are things to do hat can help them out, for existing players it’s a chance to see other players outside of Malas or the spawns, etc. and because it’s like clockwork, unlike most events, there’s no stress if you can’t make it that month.

 And being monthly, it won’t feel like a waste of dev resources for a one-off event.

Wouldn’t be hard to figure out what it could look like (but it would take some dev time) - we have 9 Ultima games and a handful of expansions (plus the two Worlds games),  plus UO’s past, to poke around looking for events.  A starting point would be having a Gypsy wagon at the entrance, and the paragraph I quoted above and looking at the Solstice and Spring Festivals from the games.  Neutral ground between Fel and Tram players as well. There’s tons of NPCs from the games that haven’t been tapped.

Kyronix,

I'm not sure you'll see this, but you said in the livestream interview with Fenneko that you wanted to talk to the people who chose the dates for the holidays. My suggestion would be to skip traditional holidays completely and focus on the virtual world of Sosaria.

However, if you need some repeatable content delivery mechanism, some of your players are thinking along the same lines.  

Seth said:

Maybe should have continuous events line up for whole year with no or minimal gaps in between. 

1 for tamers
1 for thieves
1 for bard
1 for all hunters, mage and warriors

Victim_Of_Siege said:

Maybe do Vernal/Autumnal Equinox-Summer Winter Solstice events. Eliminates the timeframe and alienation aspects. And I mean, who doesn’t enjoy a good Summer solstice Bonfire and Pig roast. 

--
I had Seth and Vic beaten by a few months.







--
Good luck Greg!

@Arroth_Thaiel that is amazing!

Tim said:

How would you feel if without an explanation and a really good in game reason they decided to centre events around July 1st (Canada) or maybe August 24 (Ukraine) and ignore July 4. Religious holidays are an even bigger mine field. 

Yikes, y’all, I regret having paraphrased Kyronix on why we ain’t gettin’ Easter goodies. :P

Who cares about Easter anyway when you could have Cinco de Mayo instead? UO is missing sombreros and maracas. Add a taco recipe!

the_8th_Man said:

The explanation for no holiday specific events is pretty creative. Took less time to conjure up,that woke idea than to actually put forth effort into something. Gonna tell it like it is , as I have dumped a lot of money into this world of animation, for 20 years. Pathetic.

I always find those holiday gift kind of stupid.. I'd much more prefer if we register our birthday on the account and receive something special that day.

As for the holiday event.. it eat resources.. they much prefer working on NL; wich is pretty much that.. an event server; with new frequent theme.. It just make sense to cut on the fat from prodo.

But yeah, let's agree the response was 

keven2002 said:

If it makes you sleep better at night; instead of calling it "Easter" then let's call it the "Spring Celebration". At the end of the day most people just want events/stuff throughout the year.

It was always incredibly silly to have an Easter event in UO, given that there was no Easter in the Ultima series because, you know, it didn't have Christianity or Christ or anything.  It would have made more sense to have a celebration around Lord British's birthday or something (or assassination and rising from the dead).

Or if somebody just had to have an Easter celebration, make it about The Avatar, because The Avatar was literally the closest thing to a Christ figure - he returned to Britannia several times to confront evil, was supposed to return one last time I think (or maybe the final time was the whole Guardian storyline because the Guardian was the friend we made along the way or something).

Or celebrate the Armageddon spell somehow.

Isn't a gap between global events an opportunity to hold player events?

Maybe, but it’s an even better opportunity to complain on the forums. :P

Organizing a shard-wide Easter service (He is Risen! He is Risen indeed!) just ain’t the same as an official event where bunnies poop out tokens that you can redeem for leet gear.

keven2002 said:

Tim said:

How would you feel if without an explanation and a really good in game reason they decided to centre events around July 1st (Canada) or maybe August 24 (Ukraine) and ignore July 4. Religious holidays are an even bigger mine field. 

As another said, I don't want to turn this into something super political but enough is enough with the "I'm offended by everything" stance. I think I speak for many people when I say who cares what the holiday is; if there is some sort of event/drop/token/etc for it then I'm all in; regardless of the technical holiday.

If it makes you sleep better at night; instead of calling it "Easter" then let's call it the "Spring Celebration". At the end of the day most people just want events/stuff throughout the year.

At the end of the day in this day and age there is 0% chance to make everyone happy so if the statistics say 51% of the western Hemisphere celebrates Easter (or insert any other holiday) then what exactly is your issue with catering to the majority? Again I don't care if it was Ramadan gifts/content, if that was 51%+ of people in the timezone, that would be much better than having nothing so they don't offend anyone.

Quick sidenote - I always thought this argument was funny because some people think that we need to be all inclusive for everything instead of catering to the majority. This reminds me of a friend with type 1 diabetes who made a great point; he said just because he's diabetic he doesn't expect the vast majority of the public (restaurants) who aren't diabetic to cater to his personal needs (ie a diabetic friendly menu). That's a very realistic view of the world.... not sure why anything else is any different (in UO or not); if you are that opposed to Easter or 4th of July or whatever else then you don't have to participate....just like if I really was offended around July 1st (Canada), I would also not participate.... but I'm not so I would definitely check out what was going on.

The problem with a company catering to 51% of the population is unless they are very carful they are writing off the other 49% as potential customers.

The point I was trying to make was Broadsword made a financial business decision not one to make anyone feel nice.

Your diabetic friend may not expect a diabetic menu. But the restaurant owner know he is more likely to come back to a restaurant that caters to his needs and makes him feel that little bit special. He/She will then calculate whether the extra cost is worth the advantage over the competition.

Petra_Fyde said:

Isn't a gap between global events an opportunity to hold player events?

Since you mentioned this.

Wasn't there going to be a "tool" players could use to make an event?  


Wouldn't calling it a Spring event make the players south of the equator confused about the name?

loop said:

Yikes, y’all, I regret having paraphrased Kyronix on why we ain’t gettin’ Easter goodies. :P

Who cares about Easter anyway when you could have Cinco de Mayo instead? UO is missing sombreros and maracas. Add a taco recipe!

Bravo! Taco recipe for the win and toss in a Margarita recipe for the Distillers. I haven't distilled anything in years...

loop said:

Yikes, y’all, I regret having paraphrased Kyronix on why we ain’t gettin’ Easter goodies. :P

Who cares about Easter anyway when you could have Cinco de Mayo instead? UO is missing sombreros and maracas. Add a taco recipe!

if the skull tile floor could talk, it would scream Dia de las Muertos.  

Tim said:

The problem with a company catering to 51% of the population is unless they are very carful they are writing off the other 49% as potential customers.

The point I was trying to make was Broadsword made a financial business decision not one to make anyone feel nice.

Your diabetic friend may not expect a diabetic menu. But the restaurant owner know he is more likely to come back to a restaurant that caters to his needs and makes him feel that little bit special. He/She will then calculate whether the extra cost is worth the advantage over the competition.

keven2002 said:

I think you are taking my numbers too literal... 51% begins to represent the majority but would be much higher than 51% in some cases. What if we are talking a 75/25 split or 80/20?

At the end of the day businesses are catering to someone, majority or not. If you owned a business, would you run it to cater to the majority of your customers or the minority? You are going to alienate someone so why would it be the majority? If you do that, you better hope the minority can keep your business going.

Given dev/producer statements in the past, and shard numbers and population, and now a second NL shard, half (or more) of the UO players are probably Japanese.  They were 25% according to EA in the early 2000s and nearly 50% with Stygian Abyss which was a big jump in less than a decade (or they weren’t bailing for other MMOs like others were and instead stuck around).  Looking around their shards, they seem to buy a lot from the store.  

Lokea said:

keven2002 said:

I think you are taking my numbers too literal... 51% begins to represent the majority but would be much higher than 51% in some cases. What if we are talking a 75/25 split or 80/20?

At the end of the day businesses are catering to someone, majority or not. If you owned a business, would you run it to cater to the majority of your customers or the minority? You are going to alienate someone so why would it be the majority? If you do that, you better hope the minority can keep your business going.

Given dev/producer statements in the past, and shard numbers and population, and now a second NL shard, half (or more) of the UO players are probably Japanese.  They were 25% according to EA in the early 2000s and nearly 50% with Stygian Abyss which was a big jump in less than a decade (or they weren’t bailing for other MMOs like others were and instead stuck around).  Looking around their shards, they seem to buy a lot from the store.  

It makes the most sense to find or create holidays or events that cater to everybody playing inside of a fantasy game. 

80% of players have a fisher therefore 80% of the content should be fishing related 

Grimbeard said:

80% of players have a fisher therefore 80% of the content should be fishing related 

if 80% were fisherman in real life you might be on to something.  

Lokea said:

Grimbeard said:

80% of players have a fisher therefore 80% of the content should be fishing related 

if 80% were fisherman in real life you might be on to something.  

Ah but that's even better!

Grimbeard said:

Lokea said:

if 80% were fisherman in real life you might be on to something.  

Ah but that's even better!

We'd all benefit from fishing a lot more in real life!

But I'll just say that the Japanese players would not be getting an NL server if they were a small portion of the player base.

I'd be curious to know what the production schedule would look like if all holidays, minus the UO anniversary and EM events, were put aside for the time being, and work focused on the next major publish(es), and that may even be what's happening (I hope it is).  

If we got publishes a month or two faster because design, art, and coding were focused on said publishes instead of events/holidays, that would mean more hopefully actual content in a year.

Yea - I think we can all agree that more events/items/etc is a good thing

keven2002 said:

Yea - I think we can all agree that more events/items/etc is a good thing

Yeah, with the new NL update, which is a lot of content, if that's the route they go - more big stuff sooner and not getting tied down with holidays/events, I'm perfectly happy with that.

When I came back, and spent some time looking around, I was slightly concerned that they were too focused on those who have to collect 32 different hues of some item and not getting enough new bigger content into the game.  But this, after their comments in some interviews, has me believing that they are going down the road of a lot more content.

I'm ok with a NL update but we need to find a middle ground where both production and NL get things to do. Even if they just ported some of season one nl stuff to production it would be nice 

I won't be surprised if some things do come over to the production shards, but only after the Shattering (which should happen in September/October). Unless they run with the "if you want this stuff, do it on NL and transfer it over when the season is done" route.

They don't need to re-use NL stuff they can just pick a war fork and slap new mods on it with a new name. 

As for the bribe route, I agree.. this is all what BS does.. come on NL and move stuff away.  🙁

Lokea said:

I won't be surprised if some things do come over to the production shards, but only after the Shattering (which should happen in September/October). Unless they run with the "if you want this stuff, do it on NL and transfer it over when the season is done" route.

Unfortunately this is what they will say