Welcome to UO Cataclysm
March 5th, 2021
Greetings Avatars, it's both difficult and hard to believe that I'm writing this today after so many years. In 2008, Tantrik, Insidious and I conceived of the idea of recreating an experience that we had as teenagers while playing on the original Imagine Nation shard. It took us 6 years of development with a huge learning curve to finally get to a position where we felt confident in launching and did so in late 2014. The number of bumps in the road were much greater in the beginning and we had to become experts at everything.. development, world building, server administration, customer support, marketing, and the list goes on. In the early days I'll admit, it was quite rough for us as staff and there were many times I was ready to throw in the towel, but we persevered.
I had no idea that to create what we had it would require so much more than just the correct rules for the era. A UO shard is a living, breathing entity and requires proper nourishment like anything else. We experienced many naysayers in all those years and although they may have tried, they never broke our spirit. We made many difficult decisions but always had the best intentions of the shard in mind. Many changes transpired in our lives during the course of Cataclysm.. marriages, children, new jobs, new responsibilities. Although it may seem unbelievable to some, we took substantial portions of time out of our lives to create Cataclysm and keep it as professional as it was. While creating our first Expansion I was thinking about designs and content from the moment I'd wake up, on my drive to work, discussing with my colleagues at lunch only to get home and not leave my computer until long after the sun went down. It brought me great joy to see our creation being consumed by all of you. I remember the first smoking treasure chests, how hard it was for players and everyone was developing strategies and how much delight this brought me. To continue with that momemtum was difficult and I'm sure pushed many of our relationships to the brink.
I hope that all the effort we did allowed you to achieve what we always wanted, for you to relive a part of your past and have that nostalgic experience that we all crave. Thank you Tantrik and Insidious for all the work that you've done here, without you both there is no way we would have ever lived up to our dream and vision. Thank you as well to all of our supporters, players and predecessors as without you we'd have never had the success we had. I will always cherish the time that I spent here.
As we kept the torch lit for so many years, I am confident that it is merely dim only to be reignited when the time is right. Goodnight Cataclysm and may your memory continue to shine.
~Klysmos
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