UO Producer: No Planned Expansions and Oceania

by Deckard · March 28, 2012

A couple of interesting comments were posted by Jeff Skalski (Ultima Franchise Producer, Head of UO) this evening, one dealing with the lack (and continued lack) of expansions for UO, the other with the Oceania shard.

Jeff Skalski in the New Expantion (sic) thread at Stratics

When asked about whether expansion development has stopped:
Hey Shelleybean. At this time we are not putting any effort towards an expansion. Instead everyone is focused on the build up to the anniversary and the items I’ve laid out in my last producer’s letter. We’re pushing to make our bi-monthly publishes as full of fixes and new toys as possible.

It’s an odd situation – this fall, it will have been three years since we received the Stygian Abyss expansion. Looking back at it, it almost feels like the developers knew it would be one of the last expansions for UO. They put a lot into it. Since Stygian Abyss, we’ve received the High Seas booster (UO Guide) and the Rustic and Gothic “Theme Packs”. Last year, it seemed like more “boosters” and “theme packs” were going to be the norm, but that’s changed.

Do not forget, however, that the Enhanced Client is getting a high resolution artwork update, and that takes up a lot of resources and money (More Information: Hints of the Upcoming High Resolution Artwork). There’s 15th Anniversary stuff going on as well. If they can finally give us a high resolution client, I think that’s more important than any expansion. There will be a lot of people coming back to UO this fall, and I hope they are ready.

Jeff also posted in the OCEANIA LOGIN SERVER OUTAGE (sic) thread at Stratics

For the backstory on Oceania, see the Woes of Oceania post.

This was in regards to Oceania’s continuing problems:
Chatted with the engineers today about the progress on the fix. Looks like we’re 14-16 days away from it being completed and tested. I’ll post more as I hear it. Once we have a more confident date around when to expect the fix in I’m sure we’ll post a message to the the herald to share the news.