theworldofdreams.com

World of Dreams has passed. I'm sorry to see it go, but mourning cannot last forever: eventually, one must move on.

And so, I wish to announce my next project, the Project. This really isn't the place to discuss it, though. Anyone who wishes to be involved, please visit my own personal website, http://www.drocket.net, especially the forums.

I read Drocket's "The Project" introduction and I want to cry. The very act of finishing each paragraph pisses away another drop of respect for the man. It literally makes me want to cry. I can understand the desire to let go of a project which you have driven forward forever - I can understand that as well or perhaps better than almost anyone else here. But to replace it with this ... this ... uninspired tripe?

From Drocket's "The Project" introduction:

http://www.drocket.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=42

The Project is an experiment, in many ways: as far as I know, no Ultima Online shard has ever been developed in the way that I plan to develop the Project. How so? Because I plan to involve you, the (hopefully) future players of the Project in its development far earlier than players normally become involved in this sort of project. I plan to give you to far more control of the basic attributes of the shard than players normally ever have.

This is like getting a new art pallette and handing a thousand people brushes. It is the million monkey driven typewriters of the internet that we hear of so often. 99% of the creative works in the world have one, or at most a handful, of authors because vision is dilluted when everyone pisses in the pot.

Here's a clue for you Drocket - it's been done a million times and you haven't heard about it because it hasn't *worked*. Search the web for dead game mods and foundered team efforts because they lacked vision. You can find dozens. Anyone who really has vision, drive, and time is already working thier own project and not waiting for you to raise the flag of ... well, nothing in particular.

You, the players, will have control of virtually everything. I say virtually because there are a few things upon which I must insist: the first is that the Project will predominately be a non-PvP shard. The second is that it must be a place of positiveness, of friendship and love, of players joining together because they believe that they can have more fun working together than in working apart. The third and final restriction is one of functionallity (AKA - some things just are't possible, often because of restrictions in the UO client.)

Control over what? Drocket offers pages of bureaucracy but if you swing over to the ideas section of his message boards he's started not a single thread. Is he saying that the rules don't matter as long as the peace and love flow? He's created at least 3 levels of bureaucracy and not a single part of the game system. That's not a foundation to build on, it's a quagmire.

Beyond that, pretty much everything is up to you. I plan to act as your guide, and implementor of what is decided. In this forum, I will post threads discussing issues that seem to be the most pressing. There is a second forum (titled 'Suggestions and New Ideas') where you can post any new idea that you wish. Eventually, once things get somewhat settled down, a lot of those ideas will wind up here for 'official' discussion, though for the time being, there are rather more important and central issues to discuss (no point in discussing the fine intricacies of bread baking when major topic such as how tradeskills should work in general need to be decided.)

Dumping 5 different jigsaw puzzles in the same box and hoping they come out to a coherent picture? That's sad. You're doomed - on the road to building a frankenstein monstrosity and throwing the switch, although for this kind of thing you get an arm and a leg on the table and then everyone gets bored and wanders off. I go over to "The Project" expecting some kind of neat new vision and find the UO shard equivellant of the Segway.

What really grinds my frontal lobes is that he couldn't even take the time to pass off an existing, popular project to somebody else - he tossed aside one of the most successful non-OSI UO shards, just dropped it on the floor, so he could start a bowl of soup and invite too many cooks to fiddle with it.

Drocket, quit smoking it, whatever it is.

Gee Ap, ever wonder why Ackadia isn't more popular?

Drocket has the support of a lot of former WoD players, and if you took the time to go over to his site and read all of the exciting ideas and discussions, you might change your tune.

Or not.

Whatever.

I always find it amusing how someone who doesn't have a clue about the real reasons for things that happen chiming in after the fact. You don't know the real reasons WoD closed. Only Drocket and the Admin Staff know the real reasons.

As a long-time player, I was present when some of the reasons were given, and I spoke to some of the staff. This wasn't a decision made "off the cuff" nor was it arbitrary. We trust our staff here enough to believe them when they said it needed to happen. When they said it couldn't be fixed, we believed them. None of us liked it, mind you, but we understood. More importantly, the players here experienced the issues.

In closing, please take your self-righteous, sanctimonius attitude back to Ackadia. I'm sure you have issues there that require your attention.

I freely admit that I don't know why the World of Dreams closed. Still, however, I feel that this vague "project" is a poor replacement.

As for Ackadia, I don't speak for them in any official capacity. They don't let me, I'm too acerbic.

WoD was closed because the lead developer got tired and lost interest. The rest of the staff felt like their ideas were being ignored and felt like Drocket's opinion was the only one that mattered. There was no teamwork amongst the WoD staff, we found out about changes like everyone else did: when they finally happened. Some of that changed toward the end, and Drocket started making more of an effort to include all of us in the decision making process, but it was too little, too late. WoD had suffered from lack of vision and focus for too long and most of us agreed that it needed to be totally overhauled if it was going to be fun again.

We reached our limit during a particular incident the night of the 5th year anniversary party. The details of that night are irrelevant now, but it was the proverbial "straw that broke the camel's back." A week later we came to Drocket and told him we were leaving the shard. He tried to convince us to stay, saying that he couldn't run the shard without our support. So the discussion became: find a way to fix WoD (and fix our own internal problems) or kill the project and start something new.

We spent the next two days trying to decide the best course of action. Our talks gradually deteriorated until the only option left was pulling the plug on WoD. I believe Drocket was sincere when he said he really wanted to turn things around, but we had been burned too many times in the past and were sick of the same old crap, over and over again. I was spending $500/year and a lot of time and tears, but what I was seeing were my resources being sqandered and the shard I loved turned to waste.

Some of you may be thinking that I'm trying to pin all the blame on Drocket. That's not the case, I'm fully aware of the mistakes I made. If I could go back to Oct. 2002 there would be a ton of things I would do differently. But in the end, the lead dev affects the life of the shard more directly than anyone else. At one point Drocket admitted that he had been with WoD for too long and should have had an "apprentice" waiting in the wings...But that he couldn't give up the control. I told Drocket that if he walked away from WoD, I'd leave the shard running until we found another scripter (or a couple, for that matter). But as you can see, that didn't happen.

In the end I think Drocket became WoD, and in the minds of many players he was Wod, and that was an extremely unhealthy thing for the life of the shard. I think it's great that he's trying to do things right with the Project. But after reading many of the posts there, I feel that history is only repeating itself...

To answer the question why I'm bothering "leaking the inside information from the vaults of the WoD Cabal", well...I just don't give a crap anymore about all this political BS. Everyone of us is going to have a different angle on what really happened, but there's mine.

Well, here is one old WOD idjit that appreciates knowing a bit more of what happened. Thanks for your candor.
What are you up to, now?

I'm looking for a new home to build on this scrap of metal and electronics I call a "server." Might be a while before that materializes, though...

Well try to keep us posted. I'd like to keep an eye on you. I sure hated to see WOD pass, but perhaps it merely grew ripe and ready to scatter its seeds.

thank you laephis for sharing your take on things.

I, for one, am glad that the real reasons for WoD's demise is out in the open. The whole "It's just time to end it" reason was bugging the crap out of me.

Not that I or any of us were owed an explanation but I just like to know what really happened. It would be interesting to hear the other admins take on the matter.

Anyway, thaks Laephis and please do keep us posted on what you plan to do with your "hunk of metal and electronics." I'm sure a lot of us would be glad to participate.

Thanks for sharing a view point Laephis.

Drocket is a poo poo doo doo head!

Azzo eats babies.

-M

Only on holidays. On a side note, don't read too much into the comment D-man, I still think ya are a pretty good dude. Shoulda's, coulda's and other such things aside, I still say thanks for the ride anyway.