Jeff Skalski, Ultima Franchise Producer, Interview at UO Forums, Bonus: Virtues
Part 1 of UO Forums’ interview with Jeff Skalski, Ultima Franchise Producer, was posted last night.
Here’s a few choice quotes that might interest non-UO player Ultima fans:
UO Forums: What is your full job title and what does it mean exactly?
Jeff Skalski: My full job title is Ultima Franchise Producer. I manage and build great teams while building great products that hold true to the IP.
UO Forums: Are there any plans to implement the rest of the Virtues into the game?
Jeff Skalski: Yes indeed and very long overdue in my book. I’m challenging the team to get this done this year so we can finally check that system off.
Unfortunately not much else about bringing Ultima lore in, although they are revamping all of the dungeons, slowly but surely.
I’ve posted a couple of my thoughts on the UO Gateway, concerning UO-specific matters.
It was a good interview. Normally it’s hard to get specifics out of the UO team these days.
It really is to crazy to think that’s it’s been almost a decade since they put the Virtues in UO and they haven’t yet completed it.
I never played with UO’s Virtues system because I had quit the game before that, but it sounded interesting. I felt it came to late though, for me Ultima Online really should have launched with Virtues built in.
@WtF – I didn’t see your comment at the link provided, just my own. Am I missing something?
@Sergorn – It’s crazy from our perspective, but in reality there’s a vast gulf between madness and apathy. I understand it from a social/technical perspective, as I’ve given a lot of thought to implementing a virtue system. I’ve concluded that with some exceptions it should come to a voting mechanism by which players may rate other players on their embodiment of the virtues (or sins against), using a “Type” and “Strength” system.
In a sandbox game where perceived offenses and virtuous behavior are highly subjective and often not directly interpretable by programming code, a player-initiated score for individual grievances with associated virtue mark-up/downs might be the most accurate (“Knave almost killed me,” versus “They killed my family… I will kill them all.”). If you combined each accusation/rating with game state circumstantial evidence such as Who recent killed or took possessions from while dead or unconscious Who, it could work reasonably well.
You could accuse a player of petty theft without justification, which would result in a modification of their virtue scores relative to the accusation (Honesty -1, Compassion -1, Valor +1, Justice -1). Ideally you’d want to equate general player actions with the principles and subsequent virtues mathematically so the rewards and punishments balanced out logically. For every negative there would be a positive with a probable and generally equal frequency when players behave normally. You could steal an apple, but then give it to a beggar instead of eating it, so you’d break even on the virtues. The beggar’s Humility might go up, or their Valor (violent beggars with too much food!).
On that note, what virtues might be affected if you foolishly gave a dagger to a beggar and he wandered into the shadows laughing? That’s never happened to me in an Ultima, but it would be cool if it did.
Uh…that’s because I didn’t post any. This was Deckard’s post, not mine.
Multiple authors!