Talk:Lord of Ultima

This article just comes off as kind of angry. I played Lords of Ultima for a week, so if anyone has played longer than that, feel free to fix this article up. If not, I'll clean it up. Dungy 15:01, September 20, 2010 (UTC)

I only played it in beta so my knowledge is WAY out of date. I'd like to see the article de-angrified though. :) -- Fenyx4 16:08, September 20, 2010 (UTC)

Haha, I wonder who felt the need to fix this article anonymously. Regardless, thanks for the edit. It's better now. Dungy 21:56, September 24, 2010 (UTC)

I just can't bring myself to properly link Serpent Isle, Ascension, and Forge of Virtue on this page... Dungy 00:32, October 9, 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, I came through this article before and thought the same thing... I almost added the links, but it doesn't seem fair...--Sega381 01:15, October 9, 2010 (UTC)

I'm getting the impression that Serpent Isle, Ascension and Forge of Virtue are just kind of codenames for the updates. From the "features" and discussions about them, they have absolutely nothing to do with the Ultima games that bear those names. Just added confusion, in my opinion. If you really wanted to link them, something in the Trivia section noting that the (upcoming) expansions are codenamed after those games would be enough. --Browncoat Jayson 15:12, October 11, 2010 (UTC)

Yeah they're just milestone name but are not related in any way, so I don't much see the point of linking to the games. I figure a trivia bit saying that would suffice. --Sergorn 15:24, October 11, 2010 (UTC)

Done Dungy 15:53, October 11, 2010 (UTC)

Article tone

Is this latest edit copy-and-pasted from EA materials? The "About Lord of Ultima" section reads like an advertisement for the game, which I don't find particularly appropriate. --Terilem 21:01, 13 December 2011 (PST)

Yes, the section is from the press release stating what the features of the game are. I added reference to the page for it. Feel free to rewrite it if you'd prefer it to be more neutral; I just felt it was better than the "this isn't Ultima..." vibe that was there before. -Browncoat Jayson 21:37, 13 December 2011 (PST)

You should have seen it before I rewrote it the first time. It was downright belligerent before that.Dungy 03:50, 14 December 2011 (PST)

Welcome LoU Editors

Now that all of the topics from the former wiki are available, I've announced that we would like LoU community members to help us keep them updated. Thank you to everyone who provides any lacking information. --Browncoat Jayson (talk) 20:06, 9 April 2013 (PDT)

Do we want that, though? Is the purpose of this wiki to be the go-to place for detailed game mechanics in anything even tangentially related to the Ultima series? I've questioned this before when it came to Ultima Online - I think all the detailed skill pages and such are far beyond the scope of this wiki. That didn't really generate much discussion though. It could be that I'm in the minority and we do want to cover everything with the Ultima label to as great extent as possible. Is that the case? I'd really like people to weigh in on this, because I think it's an important decision to make. What exactly lies within our scope? --Warder Dragon (talk) 05:02, 10 April 2013 (PDT)

I feel that with this and all the UO material (with the UO Guide already out there, why?) our focus is becoming rather bloated. We are the wiki for the single player Ultimas and everything related to those; it is fine to have a basic article each for UO and Lord of Ultima, as they relate to the series, but in my opinion the in-depth stuff should be left to their own dedicated wikis. Unless I'm mistaken, in both cases these additions seem to have been made without much (any?) discussion amongst the editing community beforehand. --Terilem (talk) 05:19, 10 April 2013 (PDT)

I must have missed the part of the mission statement that said we only cover single-player games here. Honestly, I only added the LoU stuff because the dedicated wiki for that was taken down. Yes, they have since started a new one, but I won't lose sleep by taking hits away from Wikia. It *is* an Ultima title, and for the RTS-PVP genre a pretty good game, so what is the issue with this being here? --Browncoat Jayson (talk) 10:32, 10 April 2013 (PDT)

I think the issue is that we don't have a clear, written-down and agreed mission statement for the wiki. Each person then has their own opinions on what should or should not go here, partly based on past discussions on Talk pages and forums. In theory, we do have a page that states this, Ultima Codex:Coverage. According to it, "The Codex of Ultima Wisdom will cover all information related to the computer game series Ultima." The fact that it has focused mostly on the single-player games till now is just an organic result of the people that have contributed. Maybe now would be a good moment to decide this, as Warder Dragon is asking.

I, for one, don't see any objective reasons to separate material from the multi-player games from this wiki, and I feel that most of the arguments for this are really of a subjective nature (meaning fans prefer to ignore those games, or like them less, or not consider them canon, etc.). There are objective issues to factor in, such as how easy would it be to maintain the additional information, how much duplication there is with other web resources, etc. But, again, my feeling is that it would be better to have all information about all Ultima stuff in the Ultima wiki.--Sega381 (talk) 11:48, 10 April 2013 (PDT)

Right, exactly. I personally feel that delving very deeply into the game mechanics of the "non-core" Ultimas dilutes our purpose, which I always saw as the single-player series. If that's not the case, and the consensus is that we do want to cover everything with the Ultima label down to a very detailed level, then of course that's okay and I won't make a fuss about it. Of course, then I fully expect to be able to expand upon Ultima Online freeshards as well, which I've refrained from to this point. --Warder Dragon (talk) 01:19, 11 April 2013 (PDT)

So this is a somewhat important discussion, but there are only about four people discussing it over here... should we move it somewhere else where it gets more visibility? I think this is as good a time as any other to try to define this issue. --Sega381 (talk) 14:09, 13 April 2013 (PDT)

How bout the talk page for Ultima_Codex:Coverage--what an old man. The Ultra-Mind (talk) 22:03, 13 April 2013 (PDT)

Sure, I'll try that, thanks! --Sega381 (talk) 07:39, 16 April 2013 (PDT)

Cancellation

I've added a note about the upcoming closure of LoU. I'm not sure if this should have the Category:Cancelled Games tag added to it or not; it has been cancelled, but unlike others on that page this one was actually completed and released. Thoughts? --Browncoat Jayson (talk) 19:32, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

The "cancellation" of a MMO game is a very particular thing. If I wanted to make a comparison to single-player games, the closest thing would be a singe-player game that is no longer available, and will never be available again (but this is not totally exact, as people who have bought the game before this would still be able to play it). A similar case would happen with single-player games that have a multiplayer side that requires external servers; though again, if those servers were offline only the multiplayer part of the game would be no longer available.

In any case, I think that LoU does not fit in the Cancelled Games category since, as you said, that category really means "Games that were cancelled before they were completed and released". If anything, the status of LoU would require a new category, something like MMO Games No Longer Playable. But as LoU would be the only game in that category (as of now), I don't think it is much useful to create it.--Sega381 (talk) 22:16, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

What about a "Discontinued Games" category ? Granted this only concerns LoU for now, but it's safe to assume there WILL be a point in time where this concerns UO and U4E as well... --Sergorn

That should probably work. --Sega381 (talk) 01:24, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

What's "provocative"?

I think the line "EA Phenomic was criticized for using provocative advertising, similar to the ones Evony used at the time" needs more clarity, since there's nothing I see on http://www.evony.com/ that seems the least bit provocative by now. I imagine that it means "sexy" like the UO advertisement here. The Ultra-Mind (talk) 19:15, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Here is an example of a typical Evony ad of the time, and some discussion on when they started changing them: Gamasutra on Evony Sega381 (talk) 14:41, 11 August 2020 (UTC)