UO’s 20th Anniversary Part 1: The Players

We are just around five months away from the 15th Anniversary of Ultima Online, and I think it’s time to talk about the 20th Anniversary. Too soon? Shouldn’t we be talking about the 15th instead? No, it’s not too soon.

The plans and goals for the 15th Anniversary are already in place and are being worked on as we speak. Other gaming websites are already working on stories celebrating UO’s 15th Anniversary. Jeff Skalski and Bonnie Armstrong were interviewed for PC Gamer (probably the June issue) about the anniversary. If the 15th Anniversary was a train, it’s pulled out of the station. We have a pretty good idea of the destination and stops along the way, we just haven’t been given a formal schedule or menu.

Many of us would like UO to be around in 20 years, and the time to really talk about it is not in April of 2017. The time to talk about it is now. So let’s talk about the 20th Anniversary. This is going to be a first in the series of articles discussing UO at 20 years, and it’s kicking off with a question about who plays, has played, and will be playing UO.

After all, without players, there is no UO. There’s also another angle – as I’ve said in the past, many problems that people have, or the boredom that people experience, can be attributed, directly or not, to the lack of players. Most of our best times in UO were when we played with a lot of other players. That is something I discussed with another player earlier this evening, which led to the first topic in this series.

So who is the future of UO?

Is it those of us playing here in April of 2012?
No. Not unless we all rush out and sign up for 5 extra accounts and keep paying for those accounts every month from now until 2017. If you took a snapshot of the players who have active accounts in April of 2012 and took a snapshot of players who have active accounts in April of 2017 and compared the two, the odds are very high that a lot of us playing in April 2012 will not be playing in 2017. Real-life complications – family or financial obligations, health issues, job issues, other games, losing interest in UO. Those are all things that have caused many people to leave UO in the past, and none of us currently playing are immune to those things.

We as existing players are not going to sign up 5 extra accounts apiece to help UO out. So you can’t count on us to grow the playerbase. One of the things that keeps people playing (and paying for) UO is the friendships and shared adventures, and you can’t have that if you aren’t replacing those who leave UO.

Returning players?
So who are the fabled “returning players”? It’s the hundreds of thousands of players who have tried UO over the last 15 years. There is certain nothing wrong with trying to bring back those players since there are so many and they have some familiarity with UO, but first you must accept that they’ve already tried UO and then quit at least once. You can’t base the future of the game on a group of people who have already quit UO at least once.

Let’s back up and look at the history of UO, in 5 year chunks, to put returning players in context.

1997 – the launch
In 1997, UO was really the only game in town. Plus, Ultima Online still had single-player Ultima games rolling out to help bolster the interest in an MMORPG of UO. There were people who were trying UO who had no interest in the other Ultima games. There were Ultima players who were trying UO because it was an Ultima game. Good times for UO.

2002 – The Dark Age of Everquest’s Call
In 2002, at the 5 year mark, the Ultima franchise had basically been reduced to Ultima Online. There would be no more single-player Ultima games to help UO. World of Warcraft, Star Wars Galaxies, EVE Online, etc. had not yet launched but they were on the horizon and being discussed. While UO still really only had to worry about EverQuest, Asheron’s Call, and Dark Age of Camelot (just barely) for the most part, all was not rosy. UO had been under fire and losing players even as they brought in more players. EverQuest was doing very well, and plenty of UO players were fans of the Warcraft games. Radical changes had been made to bring in new players and retain existing players (UO: Renaissance, the 3D Third Dawn client), and radical changes were in the works (Age of Shadows). UO wasn’t a “has-been” MMORPG yet – it’s peak number of players had not yet been reached, but the playerbase was in a state of flux – players leaving for 3D games, new players coming in as they became interested in MMORPGs or got better internet connections. You could still make the case that returning players were important, because there wasn’t that much competition, and many had tried the few mainstream competitors and then came back. Plus even though single-player Ultimas were finished, the Ultima franchise was still very well-known and fresh on peoples’ minds.

2007 – the World of a Lot of MMORPGs
At the 10 year mark, UO was feeling its growing pains. Its peak number of players was reached shortly after the 5 year anniversary. UO had become item-based, reducing some of the uniqueness it had retained. The PvP glory days were just that – glory days. It still had its housing system which no other game matched, but it also had a 3D client going nowhere fast and not bringing in many players, and the classic client with graphics rooted in the 1990s. It still had a lot of developers, but it had also had a lot of turnover and had been down, or started down, several different paths.

The Reborn Kingdom is in Trouble
I think starting around 2007 is where, just from the perspective of the playerbase, UO got in trouble. While it’s biggest expansion, Stygian Abyss, was still two years off, the potential group of players was shrinking. Too many other MMORPGs drowning out UO. Becoming item-based with Age of Shadows, and with some of the grinding present, UO could no longer present itself as a mainstream alternative to the largest MMORPGs, as it could back in 2002 with EverQuest.

Ultima as a franchise, had not seen a new game to generate excitement and interest in several years. Origin as a studio and identity was gone. There was a bright spot – the Kingdom Reborn artwork update to replace the 3D client, and Stygian Abyss – UO was returning to its Ultima origins. But the Kingdom Reborn update had serious problems, leading to it, and it’s artwork update, being pulled just a few years later in favor of the Enhanced Client and it’s 1990s-era graphics. While Kingdom Reborn and Stygian Abyss generated a lot of interest, that interest didn’t translate into a massive influx of players who stuck around.

Where does that leave returning players?
Do not forget that returning players are players that have left UO at least once. Ask yourself what UO has done to bring back a large enough number of returning players to grow the playerbase, and to keep those players through 2017.

The graphics? UO stepped back to its 1990s-era graphics with the removal of the Kingdom Reborn artwork Those players who left to play better-looking games are not going to come back. Is it the expansions? While the Stygian Abyss was extremely impressive, some of the other expansions have all but ruined UO in the eyes of ex-players, whether it was PVP changes or the itemization and semi-grind that was introduced. I’m sure that Stygian Abyss brought in many ex-players, but after they finished doing everything that they can with Stygian Abyss, they are back to where they were pre-Stygian Abyss. The player population in 2009 was quite a bit smaller than it was when many of those ex-players originally left, reducing the “Massive” part of the MMORPG as well. A lot of players play MMORPGs because they want to play with a lot of other people.

So we’re down to people who have never played UO
This is the issue that a lot of people want to ignore. I know what’s been said already by UO developers/the producer, that new players are not a focus.

Some players fear that any effort to attract new players will cause the game to somehow be changed, or broken, or that it means ignoring existing players. I hate to break it to you people, but UO was irrevocably changed with Renaissance, with Age of Shadows, with Mondain’s Legacy. It would be very hard to to change UO more than it was changed with Renaissance or Age of Shadows.

Some people have the attitude that existing players are the ones who have kept UO afloat and therefore should be catered to. That attitude was acceptable when UO had 150,000 subscribers, or even 100,000 subscribers. That many subscribers can keep it going for years to come, but those years are sadly past us. If those existing players were bringing in thousands of new players every month, if they were adding thousands of secondary accounts every month, cater to them. But they are not.

You can’t count on every existing player here in April 2012 to pay their fees every single month through 2017. If existing players couldn’t help grow UO’s playerbase before now, they are not going to be able to help grow it in the next 5 years. You also can’t base a game’s future on returning players who are liable to come in, play the newer content, and then leave for the same reasons they left before.

The sky is falling!
Before any of you say that my sentiments have been proven wrong in the past, that everybody has been predicting UO’s demise since the start, step out of the time machine and and step back into 2012. This isn’t 2002 or 2007 when UO was growing or still had a substantial number of players.

UO will enter a death spiral if it doesn’t change its focus to bringing in new players. If it chases after returning players while catering to existing players, that pool of paying subscribers will shrink year by year, until EA has had enough enough and shuts down the servers, and then there will be no more returning or existing players.