Jeff Skalski Works on Virtuous Things

Akalaupdate: Deckard, at UO Journal, speculated that Jeff Skalski might also be the new Ultima Online producer, replacing Calvin Crowner. Jeff responded thusly:

You found me. 😉 Yes, I’m the Ultima Franchise Producer & UO is now one of the projects I’m responsible for. Nice to meet you.

This is an interesting phrasing, since it indicates that Ultima has become a franchise (which implies multiple release titles) within EA BioWare. That, in turn, signals that EA has significant interest in the Ultima IP, beyond just churning out updates to UO.

But then, if you’ve been reading Aiera for more than a month or so, you already suspected as much.

The First Age of Update: Jeff, according to UO Journal, has just introduced himself to the Ultima Online community.

Just wanted to stop by and say hi to everyone. I got a lot of catching up to do as you can imagine with getting reacquainted with UO. It’??s been over 10 years since I’??ve played and a lot has changed since then as many of you know. Regardless, the team has run me through what they have planned for the next couple of publishes and cool things are coming. Right now I’??m focused on doing everything I can with getting us through the remaining migration issues. I know it hasn’t been as seamless of an experience as we originally hoped for some people, but we have more fixes in the works.

See you online,

Jeff

This is a good initial posting; straightforward, to the point, addressing and yet also looking past present issues…methinks that Ultima Online — and Ultima in general — is in quite good hands.

Original post: Let me introduce you all to Jeff Skalski.

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll probably have seen me fire off the occasional tweet in his direction. Jeff got his start in the gaming industry working at MicroProse, on such titles as Magic the Gathering and Klingon Honor Guard.

Today, however, he is a producer at BioWare Mythic. Yes, that BioWare Mythic.

And may I draw your attention to the little self-description he has put on his Twitter profile?

If you aren’t already following Jeff on Twitter, Ultima fans…you might want to consider doing so. You know, just in case this means anything.