Tag: Ultima Online

Ultima Online Producer: Support Ultima For Ultima 2


It’s easy to forget sometimes that Ultima Online is still with us. After all, the game enjoys a healthy but quiet community, and the idea that Ultima Online 2 could be a reality was mostly given up on some time ago. Still, the reveal of Ultima Forever, the remake of Ultima 4 as a free to play game, has some fans worried about the future of the ancient MMO they love. In order to quell these thoughts, Jeff Skalski has posted a Letter From The Producer on the Ultima Herald. In the letter, he assures players that Ultima Online will remain stead in its tracks, and that neither Ultima Online or Ultima Forever have had an affect on the development of each other.

Finally, Skalski made a point of Ultima Online 2:

Lastly, for those interested in seeing a UO2.  No surprise announcements on that today, but what I will say by everyone continuing to support UO and Ultima Forever this is the kind of ammunition I need to convince the high level execs that the market is ready for more Ultima.

So fans of the much anticipated and oft-cancelled sequel can take solace in knowing that they aren’t they only ones who would like to see the franchise continue. If you want to see an Ultima Online 2, I suggest making your desires known to the executives at Electronic Arts.

(Source: Ultima Online)

Second Star Interactive: Dark Age Of Camelot + Ultima Online?


Second Star

Does anyone else remember the excitement you felt when you learned that Richard Garriot was back and making MMOs? I believe it was 2005/2006 that Tabula Rasa was fully announced and confirmed to be in development, and many of us just couldn’t wait to see what Garriot’s twisted mind would come up with. Another Ultima Online, perhaps?

SecondStar Interactive is a new studio formed out of names we know well.

  • Darrin Hyrup: Founder of Mythic Entertainment.
  • Lory Hyrup: Lead Designer of Dark Age Of Camelot.
  • Cooper Buckingham: From Warhammer Online, Dark Age of Camelot, The Sims, and Gods & Heroes.
  • Tim Cotten: Ultima Online.
  • Eric Piccione: Art Director responsible for the look of Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot.

What type of MMO is SecondStar working on? I have absolutely no clue. All we know is that the game is running off the HeroEngine, the same engine you’ll find in Star Wars: The Old Republic and a few other upcoming titles.

I know what some of you are thinking (Ultima Online pre-Trammel PvP with three factions and an extensive crafting system and RvR) and I must ask to contain your drool! That being said, the wait for information shouldn’t be long, SecondStar has rounded out their announcement by claiming a late 2011 release date.

More on SecondStar’s upcoming MMO as it appears.

A Live Community Is A Happy Community


Han Solo works Black Fridays in the electronics section of Best Buy.

Massively has an excellent interview with Lydia Pope, community manager at Sony Online Entertainment overlooking Star Wars Galaxies. Despite all of the rage one might find toward the aging Star Wars MMO, those who do play the game are just as involved as those who played in years past. So much so, in fact, that Lydia feels strongly enough to say that Star Wars Galaxies has one of the most active communities on Sony Online Entertainment’s list of MMOs. With the GM-run events, players are still coming out in droves to run their own events.

But why does Star Wars Galaxies have such an active community? Lydia believes it is partially due to the game’s built-in social aspects. Player owned houses, hubs, emotes, the Galactic Senate, etc, allow a level of interactivity between players and between GM’s that other games just don’t offer. In fact, Lydia explains that community leaders are not an appropriate answer to better feedback.

“[In] our other games, where we have community leaders, we don’t get that in-depth with the feedback.”

An active community is a happy community, and can really boost morale to a game. Back in the times of Ultima Online, players may remember Richard Garriot running around as Lord British (alongside Lord Blackthorn), and then years later as General British during Tabula Rasa’s short reign. Say what you want about the guy, but it is nice to be able to post on the Alganon forums and get a response from CEO Derek Smart and other devs. Some of you who played The Matrix Online will remember the events that took place in that game as well.

Of course, if you hadn’t noticed from my listing of Tabula Rasa and The Matrix Online, an active community does not a healthy game make alone. It does, however, increase the odds of someone sticking around who may have become bored and quit early on.

Ultima Online Going Pokemon Model, Favors Booster Packs


This is not a screenshot from Ultima Online 1.

For a game that launched thirteen years ago, Ultima Online is still doing well for itself as one of the few MMOs on the market to bring competition to the Everquests in the field of “how many paid expansions can we pump out?” Ultima Online this past year saw the release of Stygian Abyss, a part of the Ultima world many of you haven’t seen since around 1992 with Ultima Underworld, bringing with it new skills, a new race of gargoyles, and new housing tiles (yikes). More importantly, the Stygian Abyss dungeons brought in what all Ultima Online players love, non-consensual PvP.

Last month (August), we learned that Ultima Online would be moving away from the expansion pack model, and moving towards a booster pack system, allowing shorter development time, lower price, and faster turnaround. The whole plan would culminate in a rate of two boosters per year at fifteen dollars each (think the MMO answer to episodic gaming, but not the way Valve does it).

This fall will see the release of Adventures on the High Seas, focusing on sailing (I don’t see the connection) and the new pirating skill, alongside new ships, pirate NPCs, and a new boss encounter (the Rarely Ignored Autonomic Armament beast.) The fishing skill will also be receiving an update, with a new cap and new things to catch, and presumably will allow you to hone your torrenting skills from “waste of time” (pirating Tabula Rasa) to “how did you find that?” (downloading the Tabula Rasa collector’s edition dog tag, but digitally.)

The booster back is currently in open beta on Ultima Online’s website.

Ultima Online: We Love New Players…For Dinner.


Okay, not so much.

So technically it’s been years since a romp through Ultima Online meant quickly being chewed up, spit out, stomped on, cremated, and then having your stuff stolen by the many denizens of Lord British’s lands, but the idea still stands. Bioware Mythic would love to have you for dinner, so much so that new players will find themselves handsomely rewarded for setting up new accounts with Ultima Online.

In the new player initiative, new accounts (not trial) will receive welcome presents, including twenty thousand gold, skill boosts, as well as premium armor and weapons…until they lose all of it ten minutes later wandering outside of the starting area looking for a bank. I kid, of course…

But it gets better! Those of you from the old days of Ultima Online will be glad to hear that the live events are coming back. Old characters will be making returns, and story arcs will play out live, with developer interaction of course.

It’s never too late to give Ultima Online a try. The game runs slightly cheaper than most other subscription titles, and offers a 14 day trial.

More on Ultima Online as it appears.

Mythic Shuts Down Merchandise Site


Batton down the beer steins!

MMOs, as is the case with most forms of entertainment, regularly don’t see anywhere near as much success outside of their main product and, in many cases, online stores are kept to a minimum, if they are kept at all.

Players who attempted to purchase anything from the Mythic Store today were met with the above notice. The official reason is “business.”

It was a business decision, if you have anything specific you were looking for send Andy a PM on the boards and he will look into helping you out.
-Mythic, on the Mythic Store Closing

No doubt a disappointment, as the Mythic store held quite merchandise for Ultima Online, Warhammer Online, and Dark Age of Camelot. The closing of the Mythic Store has raised the usual bout of questions, and of course the regular course of trolls coming out of the woodwork to proclaim the death of Warhammer Online.

Warhammer Online has been having its ups and downs over the past few months, and the recently unveiled ability to have characters on both factions on the same server has stewed fears of even more server merges, a fear that would be in Mythic’s best interest to address, on a wide scale (whether it be true or not). As I’ve said before on MMO Fallout: If you (the company) do not fill the holes, someone else will fill them for you, and you will not like what they fill it with.

So this may be just another victim of Mythic’s cost cutting venture. Should any other news arise, you will hear it here.

Dad's Back! Richard Garriot Returns!


Get the canceled game, Dad's home!

Call him what you want, King Garriot, General Garriot, crazy, Richard Garriot is the big daddy of the MMORPG world, and has a special place in the hearts of many MMOers, whether you’ve played his version of Ultima Online (the old one) or Tabula Rasa. Ever since Tabula Rasa flew the coop and fell ten stories to its death, there’s been a lot of skepticism in the MMO world as to whether or not gaming genius Richard Garriot would make it back. He seemed busy with his new life flying the cosmos, and didn’t seem all that interested in the MMO landscape anymore.

Boy were we wrong, as Garriot himself is back with Portalarium!

“The Portalarium mission is exactly what I want to be doing next in games. This really takes me back to my roots in the game business – small development teams, low barriers to entry, affordable budgets for quality projects, and unlimited new interactive frontiers to explore together with our customers.”
-Richard Garriot

Interactive frontiers? Unlimited? Back to his roots? Excuse me if I glee. From my understanding, Portalarium will be starting out with a “portalarium player” that will act as a plugin to allow other gaming engines to work inside of social websites: Facebook, Myspace, etc. Where will Richard Garriot go from there?

Well that, my friends, will yet to be seen.

Unfortunately there is still no news on the $24 million lawsuit against NCsoft.

Dad’s Back! Richard Garriot Returns!


Get the canceled game, Dad's home!

Call him what you want, King Garriot, General Garriot, crazy, Richard Garriot is the big daddy of the MMORPG world, and has a special place in the hearts of many MMOers, whether you’ve played his version of Ultima Online (the old one) or Tabula Rasa. Ever since Tabula Rasa flew the coop and fell ten stories to its death, there’s been a lot of skepticism in the MMO world as to whether or not gaming genius Richard Garriot would make it back. He seemed busy with his new life flying the cosmos, and didn’t seem all that interested in the MMO landscape anymore.

Boy were we wrong, as Garriot himself is back with Portalarium!

“The Portalarium mission is exactly what I want to be doing next in games. This really takes me back to my roots in the game business – small development teams, low barriers to entry, affordable budgets for quality projects, and unlimited new interactive frontiers to explore together with our customers.”
-Richard Garriot

Interactive frontiers? Unlimited? Back to his roots? Excuse me if I glee. From my understanding, Portalarium will be starting out with a “portalarium player” that will act as a plugin to allow other gaming engines to work inside of social websites: Facebook, Myspace, etc. Where will Richard Garriot go from there?

Well that, my friends, will yet to be seen.

Unfortunately there is still no news on the $24 million lawsuit against NCsoft.

Eve Online: The Exception To The Rule


02n

Some time ago I wrote an article discussing how games that have full, unrestricted PvP are doomed to fail. The games create a griefer’s paradise, where Player Vs Player combat is no longer about finding the most powerful person to take down, but rather how many people you can gank out of their starting area before you are removed for a few hours. Developers create the games with the knowledge that the title will be niche, but fail to realize just how many players will not make it past their first free month of gameplay.

Continue reading “Eve Online: The Exception To The Rule”

Stygian Abyss Ships! And Ultima Online 2?


Ultimaonline

Despite being two years older than Everquest, Ultima Online can only boast half the number of expansion packs. That being said, EA reminds us of the continued investment they hold in the title with today’s release of Stygian Abyss, introducing a new race, new classes, new abilities, and an entirely new facet.

In an interview with Calvin Crowner, he had this to say about the possibility of a new Ultima Online:

Well, I can’t say just yet, but Mythic is always looking at our existing intellectual properties and discussing the best course of action for the franchises.

What do you think? Ultima Online 2 has been tried, and never made it through production. Should Mythic go through with a plan for Ultima 2, they will have to take a good hard look at who they’re going to market the game towards.