Encore un déménagement pour l'équipe de développement !

Goodbye UO

There is nothing to lose for me to post this and I admit I feel bitter, so why not let you know the truth?

Alot of the UO team was laid off today including me and all of QA.

We were escorted out of the building and not even allowed to email our goodbye email to everyone else. They even had managers watching us the whole time like we had done something wrong.

Most of the engineers are already working on Warhammer.

Most of the rest of the UO team is not going to Virginia. Only one person is moving fore sure and maybe one or two more are considering it too. That’s it. Almost all of the famous devs are not going.

Almost everyone on the list posted earlier by someone is not going to Virginia for sure.

Early December is when everyone who does not move to Virginia is laid off too.

I hope that something I did for UO is something that you found fun. We really did try to do our best.

Maybe I will see you all in another not EA game soon!

I wish I could post something useful other than to say it isn't what it seems, there's much more to it than meets the eye and some of the facts are easy to find and from them right conclusions can be drawn but for all the obvious reasons, I can't. What I can say, with all due respect to Schild, this move was not about EA being the Borg and that UO & DAoC are not becoming zombies. One day, I'm sure they will as every MMO does but it isn't today or even this year (I hope). Now, please layer on the hate over a nice piece of distrust and tell me you don't believe me.

The UO team will be working under Mythic’s supervision but will remain in Redwood Shores. There are no plans for them to move here as that would be counterproductive. Besides, who wants to leave a really cool campus at Redwood Shores to come to our bare-bones offices in VA?

Oh, that quote is a year old and things do change in a year.

I don't have a timeframe right now - it's definitely still "delayed" :P

Right on the heels of hearing from Chris Rabideau (UO Producer) that the entire Ultima Online Development Team is going to be shipped off to Virginia, we're now getting word from sources at EA/Mythic of significant layoffs that took place today too (October 24). Aaron Linde over at Destructoid has the most comprehensive story to date about it, so I direct you to a quote from his article titled Restructuring, layoffs forthcoming at EA, Mythic Studios:
Owing to sagging profits and and a less-than-firm grip on their once invulnerable spot at top of the third party heap, Electronic Arts is looking to make some changes in their corporate structure, starting with Mythic and their Redwood Shores studio. An internal email from a trustworthy source who wishes to remain anonymous reveals that John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts, has tasked every studio and company within the monolithic publisher with getting their rising costs in line with revenue, which in plain English means layoffs.
The email from Mythic VP Rob Denton was sent to all employees of Mythic and details some of the plans to reduce costs by cutting jobs as well as some actions already taken. Headcount will be managed through "attrition, performance management, stricter hiring guidelines and layoffs". Over the next two months, the Ultima Online team will be moving from EA Redwood Shores to Mythic's Fairfax, VA studio to streamline operations. Meanwhile, a number of employees at both studios have already been let go as of earlier today, with more to follow as EA tightens its belt in the coming months.