Covid-19 and the big UO announcement

quickblade

Can anyone tell me, how come , they arn't , announcing, 

The Biggest And Boldest Update In Over A Decade

, while everyone is at home because of covid-19 , why not take advantage of that and at least have it announced jesus , the marketing in this game....

I feel like they missed the opportunity

Theo

Feels like they are notably absent just turning on old events to keep people busy with no real progress.  Not really understanding what is going on. Most people can work from home in the tech space and things are going gangbusters for other gaming companies with all of the people home.  

I get that some new announcement won't make the code magically be ready - but they really could have spun up any number of promotions to get people back into UO during this time.  Really missed a golden opportunity.  

Like subscribe for one month - get a mythic token free. 

Alacrity training hours for all every Friday/Saturday.  

Some rare hued tamables one month only. 

Etc etc.  

Any number of things that are pretty easy to implement and then email blast your old subscribers.  

Honestly they could have had a number of promotions in game that would have garnered some press coverage.  Imagine some sort of contest where the winner gets one month of their mortgage/rent paid up to $2k?  What does that cost them?  2k?  They could get crazy publicity.  

Something like complete this quest chain and your name is entered into a drawing.   

Get creative already.  With weather getting better in Northern Hemisphere and lockdowns opening up - the window is closing. 

quickblade

Theo I couldn't agree more with your post, so many gold opportunities they could of had, but they chose to remain silent and toggle some old events switchs on instead, now like you said , the door is closing with summer approaching UO about to reach the lowest peak again of the year, great time to announce it right ?

Picus

^All of this...

Uriah_Heep

yes

Lord_Frodo

For the simple fact that if they did announce it and god forbid something happened that they could not do what they wanted then I will say with 1000% clarity that all you people would want them all fired.  Now how do I know this, for the simple reason that in the past DEVs use to tell players what was coming out and when it did not happen the boards exploded with threats foul language and everything else.  That is why the DEVs no longer say anything because of the RUDENESS of some of these so called ADULTS.  Do you think the DEVs have the same equipment at home as they do in they office, no.  They are stuck at home like the rest of us so cut them a break.

Skett

I agree they would get flamed if plans didn’t work out but maybe they tell us 
“we are currently Think about doing blah blah blah if things work out if not we might be doing Blah blah blah if all that doesn’t work out we will turn on old events while we come up with plan C” 

Seth

Promotions should not need high-end machine, e.g. discount codes for Origin store sovereign. I think I saw promotions at EA.com but not at Origin store.

They really need to at least put UO at least at some places where others can browse and take notice. Unless someone already know this game, they will never search Ultima Online at origin.com. Now it is depending on word of mouth to bring in new players. But this being an old game I think will be tough.

Pawain

Hype was always a good thing.  Until Forums were invented.

Agree that they could have done some promotions to make some money while people are at home.  People investing in a game may help a few more stay.

Aenvar

I'm actually scared about it, this "big announcement" is so vague I don't know what to expect.

quickblade

Promotions to make money? Im talking about bringing back an actual player base because everyone is at home, doesn't take a master in marketing to figure out that we are in a world 

pandemic and that there's a ton of gamers right now at home trying to figure out a game to play.

I was looking at a free shard streamer on twitch other day, actually there was 2 of them streaming, one had 150+ viewers and the other 130ish , we need to get those players back into ultima online OSI, those that play  the free shards ...

But it's too late by now , they will anounce their big announcement in july, which  they should of done around marsh. BIG missed opportunity , this summer gonna be a dead UO like usual, specially with the lockdowns opening up, everyone about to spend their entire summer outside.

And now with the suspense of this annoucement, we can only be disappointed by it.

Lord_Frodo

IMHO all the nay sayers would have been disappointed by it no matter when they announced it including you.

People play FREE shards because they are FREE and they can openly run any program they want.

Mariah

Covid 19 has disrupted everyone, including the UO team. It is grossly unfair to expect that everything will function in exactly the same way as it would under normal circumstances.

Yes, they can work from home effectively, but if they could do the whole thing from home, they wouldn't have an office in the first place.

Cut them some slack.