The MMORPG.com Livestream – Comments, Maybe New Land

So earlier this week, 6 members of the UO team got together with some members of MMORPG.com and did a live stream/broadcast of them playing UO. I thought it would be a great opportunity for them to tell us about the 15th Anniversary since it’s less than 5 months away and since it’s rare for so many members of the UO team to be speaking publicly. Plus it was an incredibly diverse group – software engineers, designers, management, and Q&A/testing.

I was very mistaken – I thought it was going to be members of the UO team telling people why they should be playing UO and what is upcoming with the anniversary and beyond, but really it was just a dungeon crawl that was broadcast over the internet. Nothing wrong with that – the participants had a good time as you can see from the video below, and it showed how much fun UO can be and why it put the “Massively” in Massively Multi-Player Roleplaying Games.

Now if you watch, about 13 minutes in, there is a little talk of the anniversary and some new stuff, including possibly a new land. I have to think that I was mistaken in hearing it though, for reasons that I will explain later in the article.

A few times, Bonnie “Mesanna” Armstrong, the Associate Producer, was asked if she wanted to talk about plans and the anniversary, and unfortunately the +120 Legendary Shield of Secrecy and Denial was in use 🙂

A couple of things did jump out at me. First, we got to see first hand how bad UO can be for first-time players, as well as returning players. Now we can blame it on the lack of preparation beforehand, but a couple of times there were clear instances where somebody new to UO was used to MMOs and MMORPGs working one way, and UO working another way. That’s something that a new player experience should take care of, but our current new player experience doesn’t really cover it. It’s a roll of the dice for a new player entering UO, as to whether they will be lucky enough to find somebody to show them the ropes.

The second thing that jumped out at me was that something slipped out past UO’s +120 Legendary Shield of Secrecy and Denial.

I started preparing a transcript, then stopped when I saw a post on Stratics that Tina Small had been working on one. I was about 20 minutes in, and I was only covering what the UO team members said, but Tina is covering it all! I’m a wimp when it comes to transcripts these days.

But I had to post this little snippet since I transcribed it and didn’t want my work to go to waste. Keep in mind I was going off my own recording and not the YouTube recording above, but I checked it, and it starts at about 12 minutes, 45 seconds into the video on the YouTube recording.

Without further ado, some choice excerpts:

Kai Schober (BioWare Mythic Community Relations): Why don’t we talk a bit about the 15th anniversary that ??? we are celebrating this year.
Kai: while everyone is getting ready
Kai: so

Bonnie (Mesanna/Associate Producer) Armstrong: What do you want to talk about? (laughter)

Kai: Yes, this fantastic storyline already going on, with several chapters on the web page.

Mesanna: Right!

Kai: There is ??? something we can already see in-game.

Mesanna: NO! (laughter)
Mesanna: Umm..this is

Kai: (couldn’t understand) … just…

Mesanna: (this is) gonna lay out pretty well as it goes, but we don’t really want to give anything away.

*followed by somebody typing a lot, probably Skype from what I heard*

Kai: But ??? we have ??? land ??? (and) we don’t want to tease anything ??

*Lots of laughter*

Mesanna: I know that sounds really mysterious, but if I say anything it’s just gonna give it away, so I’d rather just kind of keep my mouth shut on it.

Kai: But make sure to keep an eye on the Herald (UOHerald.com) we have fantastic story lines written by the EM Team and maybe you get a hint.

Mesanna: I would like to say this whole event was written by the EMs..so..umm..I’m sure you’ve seen some differences from the past of global events that we’ve done. So this is their first attempt at realizing what it takes to do a whole arc like this.

*Following by comments from MMORPG.com staff and discussion of the EM program*

My Comments:
Now it’s possible I’m mistaken, but it sounded like Kai said land, but it wasn’t quite clear, and neither my recording nor the YouTube recording were clear on the matter. I have to believe that I misunderstood Kai and that it’s not new land, because UO’s population is not really suited for new land at this point. On anything but the top 2-3 shards, most areas are barren for large parts of the day.

If they are putting engineering resources into new land instead of things more suited to bringing in new players, I would be disappointed and very shocked. The best present they could give us for the 15th Anniversary is to lay the groundwork for a 20th Anniversary, and new land doesn’t do that. Make the current lands busy, then let’s talk. That makes me think that I misunderstood, because they know the activity and numbers better than we do, and they know we need new players.

Think of UO as a really cool old house with a lot of history. Some windows are broken, the paint is peeling, carpets smell funny. Other than that, it’s a great house! Just needs a new coat of paint, some siding and windows replaced, maybe some new carpet.

I was also disappointed that even though the event was billed as listening to the UO team discuss UO’s 15 year anniversary, there wasn’t really much discussion of UO at all, or its history, as far as presenting it to a bigger audience. I guess the UO team knew that most people watching were UO players and so didn’t need to preach to the choir, and it became a dungeon crawl instead. It was good to hear about current things from the designers, and about the EM team, no denying that, but I really thought it was a missed opportunity. It’s not very often that so many diverse members of the UO team are together and available for public comment.

I would like to thank the MMORPG.com folks, they did a good job of talking about UO and trying to showcase it to a wider audience, talking about some of the things that make UO unique.

I was very impressed with the MMORPG.com folks.