“I MARKED THAT DAY IN MY CALENDAR WITH A LARGE HAPPY FACE” [Author: Lum the Mad]
What set him off was one of the many petitions on the roll-your-own-petition site (my favorite: Import all of Japan NOW) demanding that EA say “we sowwy” in a childlike, girlish voice and take back all the people they fired and finish Ultima: Woo. Someone signed Markee Dragon’s name to it, saying that he was going to cancel his UO account in protest although he would still run his sites and all, because the ladies demand it. (Unfortunately, the forgery was neither that cool nor that correctly spelled.) Biz Markee fought back thusly:
EA has clearly decided that they were going to stop the development of UO2. When they say they were doing it because it would compete with UO I agree with them 100%. I like UO. I play UO and I don’t want to see anything done to it that would cause the game player base to stop growing.
I expect that most of you envisioned that when UO2 came out that you would play it and UO. Then after a month or two when you and all of your friends are established in UO2, you all close your UO accounts. EA knows that this is most likely what will happen. They know that they can not have both games running at the same time as it will only be a transference of the player base.
All of Markee Dragon’s marquee dragons then chimed in and agreed thusly:
No amount of whining and petitioning is going to change this decision as it is financially motivated.
Live with it people.
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Did these people think that this decision was on a whim? Just an idea to throw out there and see what the masses have to say about it. Duh!
We are talking business here. and good business says that you don’t compete with your own product.
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I am saddened that the cancellation of UO2 is true, but it was a smart move on the business side of OSI.
Its a no win situation, they lost millions in this cancellation, we lost the hope of playing something that was promised to give a new meaning to on-ling gaming. But you cant have 2 competing at the same time. I just hope they can make UO stronger and better with this decision.
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Im actually glad they stopped the UO2
Personally i thought it looked awfull – quake monsters in UO, and i wouldnt have played it either – mostley cause i dont feel like suporting OSI in another project.
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Due to a caraccident that I was involved in, I have been playing UO full time everyday for over a year, and I truly feared that UO2 would kill UO. So the other day I was informed that UO2 was taken off development. I marked that day in my calender with a large happy face
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Go UO! Let’s have this “old” game continue to beat the pants off everyone else! People play Diablo for a few months, EQ for a year… they play UO for years because of it’s depth and complexity. And only UO has the ability to attract a good percent of us “real” women as players.
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You Go MARKEE!!!!!!!!
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Looking at responses here, a couple other boards, and the Stratics poll, it appears more people are happy to see UO2 die than are upset by it (this is an unscientific, casual observation, my life is too important to waste time adding up numbers). I am among those happy to see UO2 get treated like an expired goldfish. I, personally, have zero interest in a first person RPG. First person is great for shooters, but would make a role-playing game virtually unplayable – more so when you consider how difficult it would be to play anything in a group.
Because of those game-play issues, I would not have switched to UO2, and I know I am not alone in that. Support for the original UO would have disappeared as two things happened: one, EA would want to focus on the new game, and would therefore move resources from UO to UO2. Two, EA would then see UO as a resource black hole, and would have deliberately (though secretly) reduced the quality of the game in an effort to force people to switch.
Ultimately, I have to say EA did the right thing, regardless of the questionable nature of why they did it.
So there you have it, EA is not actually a heartless keiretsu with the brains of a carp, they’re a pretty canny corporation with the heart of a fish. Or something. After the 30th sig graphic my brain exploded and my neurons began to form thoughts much like the description of this game.