Compliments of the UO Herald, here is Jeff Skalski’s second producer’s letter, 31 January 2012. While he is the Ultima Franchise Producer, here he is speaking as the UO Producer.
Jeff Skalski
31 Jan 2012 16:49:35 ESTHappy New Year Everyone!
Hope everyone had a fun and game filled holiday break with friends and family. 2012 is upon us and for Ultima Online it’s time to celebrate our 15 year journey. UO to me is the MMORPG that kick started this genre and we have so much to be thankful for it. I have much respect for the original Origin crew who got this ball rolling. UO would be nothing without the fans and passionate community it has. You guys and ladies are the best and longest supportive group of creative players I know of. You continue to amaze me with how you play within our little sandbox world. So many great stories to be shared, and new stories yet to be written. To all the players who have walked the lands of Sosaria I encourage you to join us this year for the celebration. An epic story arc has begun that will carry us till September when a new…. (Mesanna just gave me the evil eye again.) Well you’ll just have to play and see. 😉
The team is hard at work to do everything we can to make this year a year to remember. Thanks to everyone for all the constructive feedback from pub 73. Pub 74 has now gone worldwide and if you haven’t had a chance yet to check out the patch notes you can do so here. Pub 75 development is already well underway. Lots to do in support of the anniversary arc and a handful of long overdue bugs we plan to attack. Let us know what you think of the recent revamps to Wrong and Shame dungeons. We’re planning to continue to revamp the rest of the sins dungeons every other publish, so let us know which one you like to see next. Other items on the table for discussion this year (insert typical disclaimer here 😉 is finding more creative ways to deal with our hackers, improving our enhance and legacy clients, putting the challenge back into champ spawns and bringing value back to plate are just a few examples of what we like to get done. Revitalizing the old, celebrating 15 years and aggressively knocking out bugs is a major focus us over the coming months. Now I’m sure several of you are wondering what about the high res art for EC that was mentioned before. Well I just got a preview of it and it’s not ready for primetime yet. I know many of you are really looking forward to it, but we need this to cook a little longer. The highres art should look better, not different, so it’s turning out to be more challenging than originally planned.
On other news, keep an eye on the UO Herald for upcoming EM events tied to our anniversary story arc. You won’t’ want to miss it. Speaking of the herald, we are planning to relaunch UO.com later this year with an all new look. More details to follow on that in future posts. We also will start doing spotlight articles on some of our most passionate fans and their love for Ultima Online. It’s amazing what some of you have done and I’m happy to share it. On our Origin.com store we will continue to roll out a several new offers over the coming months. 30 day game time codes and a reincarnation token (gender, race and name change) are up to bat first. We hear you loud and clear about wishing for the ability to buy codes in quantity and are working with the Origin to get that functionality as soon as possible. For those having issues connecting to the Origin store in their region I urge you to check out PayByCash for another method for meeting all your UO shopping needs.
Before signing off I wanted to say one last thing… thank you. Thank you to all current UO players for helping us mold Britannia into what it is today and thank you to all the previous players who helped defined what Ultima Online will be remembered as for generations to come. Lots going on in 20-12, so buckle up and we hope you enjoy the ride with us!
Cheers,
Jeff Skalski
Ultima Franchise Producer
Tweet me anytime @jeff_skalski
