UO EXPANSION TO BE RELEASED AS “DAWN”: THE WORD “THIRD” TO BE PATCHED IN LATER [Author: Lum the Mad]
As the collected UO community basically heaves a long-suffering sigh at news that UO3D would absolutely positively be on store shelves later this month, Jinx found a choice quote from an interview with Rick “Stellerex” Hall, UO3D’s Producer, last year.
We have plenty of time for a polishing pass, actually a couple polishing passes. OSI has definitely said they don’t want to release this thing until it’s good. We’re not giving people a ship date because we’re not shipping until it’s ready. Ready doesn’t mean debugged, either. Ready means debugged and polished and nice and smooth. They’ve told us they’re going to leave the decision to ship in the hands of the development team.
So either (a) the development team thinks scheduling a release while serious bugs remain in the code is just fine or (b) the producer lied. You know, both of those choices pretty much suck.
I’d go on, but Jinx put it succinctly already:
What we have here is the continuation of a legacy at OSI that dates back to Ultima 8. They continue to release all their games months in advance. Its become commonplace. UO was out a good 4 months too early. T2A was 2 months too early. Depending on your point of view, UO:R is still not ready to be released nearly a year after it already has been. Third Dawn is simply the next logical progression.
God help the Ultima: Woo team. And God help anyone left at Origin, if they seriously think they can still pull this crap in the now fiercely competitive MMOG marketplace and get away with it.