This is an interesting story coming off the heels of Rift announcing its “Prime” aka “Legacy” server. Ultima Online producer Bonnie “Mesanna†Armstrong states quite clearly in today’s UO newsletter that there are no plans for UO to get a legacy server.
She cites the following “challenges“, all of which I think are a little weak.
1. People can’t agree on what a legacy ruleset would be.
Seems plenty of people have agreed in the past. There are a litany of examples spanning the past decade or more. People tend to like when you start somewhere around the beginning. They like the trammel stuff or they don’t. Pick one. You’ll get at least half the people.
UO Forever seemed to do a decent job at picking a reasonable point in the timeline. They screwed up their server management, otherwise it was fine.
2. The old “we lost the server files” excuse.
WoW used that one already. 😛 You have to find another excuse! All kidding aside, that’s a pretty lame reason. If the free shards can do it, and someone at an official company says they can’t, I just roll my eyes.
3. It’s a lot of work!
Yes, it seems like it would be! Broadsword isn’t the biggest company, and for that I think they deserve some leeway on this one. It would be a massive undertaking. DBG’s EverQuest servers, though at times I feel completely under-managed and supported, probably required an investment of time; Time = money.
I thought the, “It would take us over a year to accomplish this” line was a little ridiculous, though. Of course it would! I mean, according to challenge #2 you lost all the files as the game moved across the country anyway. 😉
Bottom line, yes it’s a lot of work. Yes it’ll cost you money. Yes you won’t please everyone. But don’t you think you’ll also be able to say, “Yes, more people will play UO,” as well? I think so, and I would be one of them. I play(ed) on the private servers. Nothing is wrong with the game — it’s always the terrible server management. Give me something official and I’ll throw money at you. I know a dozen people who would come with me, and we’re only a tiny fraction of many larger and more dedicated players.
There’s opportunity just sitting there on the table, but they don’t want to take it.
I’d be all over an official t2a Era server.
other options:
4. We hate money
5. UO is a money laundering operation for X. If we made real money that would throw everything off.
UO forever was great when it started. It was so random that I felt like getting back into UO at that specific time it was coming out, then happening on forum post that lead me to the town of Haven. I never played when you could build your own homes, and it was so cool to have built my own mansion. Overall, I would say that UO forever was decent, I left that game with more friends than I started with so that is good.
I liked the second age expansion, but most of my time playing UO was just exploring.