Lord of Ultima
Toltec Dragon alerted me to this new game from EA, which appears to be an online strategy game set in the Ultima universe. It’s being developed by EA Phenomic, who made Battleforge…so there’s some fairly serious development firepower behind this thing.
At the moment, there’s not much that I can really tell you Dragons about the game. I’ve signed up for the beta, but can’t seem to log in — the servers are always “full” (or they may not be on yet and that’s just the generic error message being thrown out). Nor can I access the game’s wiki or forums.
And I’m not sure what to think about this whole thing, either. This is apparently supposed to be a broswer-based strategy game, and those generally are far less than awesome (let’s be honest: the best ones are good for a few minutes of distraction, nothing more). At the same time, Phenomic is no second-tier developer…so I’m not sure at all what EA is getting at by enlisting them for this effort.
Would Ultima even render well as a strategy game?
Methinks it’s too early to tell with this one.
Also, Fenyx Dragon noted that Gamasutra had an article up about the game; give it a look.
And finally, from Sergorn Dragon, a possible Lord of Ultima screenshot:
[singlepic id=2 w=320 h=240 float=center]
NOOOOOOOOooooooargh!…. *Has heart attack from shock*
ehem, seriously speaking, if screenshot is accurate then it looks like one of the flash based online mmo strategy games that had ads all over the place with stolen art used for advertising (busty girls from some other games) even tought games themselves featured nothing the adverts promissed. And they kept pushing them out every few months with new name and graphics. Basically they were microtransaction scams as you could buy your self advantages with microtransactions.
But come on EA, could you have not tarnished Ultima name by putting it in some random unrelated mmo game and used some other name instead.Are you really that interested in destroying all the old franchises that you’ve hoarded over the years!?
Found the games I was talking about. Kingory, Evony, Empire Craft, Lords Online etc. etc. etc. All use busty females (real or imagined) for advertising while featuring none in game (several of which have been used without permission). All feature near identical gameplay with different graphics.
Article about one of the females used for advertising kingory: http://www.aeropause.com/2009/11/somebody-needs-to-tell-capcom-chun-li-now-selling-chinese-web-game/
I’d love to hear someone explain how this image relates to gameplay of evony: http://www.bruceongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Evony-Breasts-Advert.jpg
Just use google image search to see more of the pics used in adverising.
Evony was one of the worst offenders in that regard, certainly…and I for one do hope that this game doesn’t go that route. Having said as much, we are all pretty aware of Evony (and other such games)…whether or not we want to be. The advertising has been effective in at least getting the name out there.
And I can’t help but wonder if this is maybe a prelude to something. In the forum, it was pointed out that the Ultima brand name isn’t as well known these days as it maybe once was. So this could be an attempt to revitalize awareness of the Ultima name, as a prelude to another Ultima release that…er…isn’t an online, browser-based MMO.
For better or worse, EA owns the Ultima brand name, and they will do with it what they will. Personally, I’m thinking this one should at least be checked out before we completely consign it to the “crap” pile.
I will naively hope that this represents some sort of Ultima rebirth, but I’m sure it’s going to have as much to do with the Ultima we love as the new Zork MMO has to do with the Infocom universe.
If it is from EA it will not be worth playing. It will be targeted to the masses and not the fans.
As much as I hate the idea of web based games, I don’t really think this game is intended for the masses having a name like Ultima that nowdays does not mean much to many people.
@Odkin admittedly, what I took away from your comment first was: there’s a Zork MMO?
Point taken, though.
@Stephan not to sound like a corporate stooge, but doesn’t it make sense for a business to build a game for the widest audience possible?
Niche products, especially in the computer gaming world, have a way of dying out.
@Natreg I’m finding it difficult to get a sense of who the game is targeted toward. The point that the Ultima name doesn’t mean as much has been made, and is well-taken here…but equally, anyone with a quarter of a brain at EA has to know that hardcore Ultima fans are going to steer clear of a web-based strategy game bearing the Ultima name.
I can’t see it appealing to UO players either; they already have an Ultima MMO to play, after all.
Which I guess probably does mean this game is targeted outward, at casual web surfers and not-specifically-Ultima-fan-type gamers.
Though a part of me still thinks they might just be setting themselves up a means to virally re-assert the Ultima brand, ahead of some new development in the series.
Yes, there is a Zork MMO. http://www.legendsofzork.com. There’s a little white house, and the GUE, but the horrible cartoon art style and play of the game make the whole thing very un-Zork-like.
That said – I GOT IN to Lords of Ultima. It’s standard Warcraft II isometric “click to build a woodcutters hut”. “now build a cottage for you workers” stuff. Would have been very popular in 1999, I’m sure. Haven’t gotten through the boring tutorial with “Lady Lyanna” helping me establish my region of “Caledonia”.
Whargs, sounds very UnUltima to me. After reading the news about this I first was excited, but after taking a look at the above screenshot and reading the post of Odkin it sounds like not worth beeing followed. Well… I’ll stick to EUO again then 😉
It’s a sad thing that EA doesn’t really understand the whole value of Ultima brand. Even mediocre party RPG in Ultima world would make many people to buy the game. Why let it to linger off to oblivion when they could make a nice money by just selling the brand and let the others to make a game of it if they really doesn’t understand the value of it? Recently we have seen lot of come backs, like Bioshock (System Shock), Fallout3, AvP3 and even Bionic Commando. And people are crazy about those games.
It seems that this new Lord of Ultima has nothing to do with Ultima, except the name, which is an outrage to me.
If this is all EA does with the Ultima brand name in the next couple-a years, apart from keeping UO limping along, I too will be quite vexed.
But as for right now, I’m not at the point of outrate: I’m darn curious.
A good friend of mine, who has a number of connections to the gaming industry (and, indeed, who regularly takes coffee with any number of folks at BioWare, lucky barsted), opined that this might be a move on EA’s part to re-assert the Ultima name, and to set themselves up the opportunity to virally market that name around a bit…in advance of a more mainstream Ultima project announcement.
Which jived with my own suspicions, as noted above.
It seems kind of a silly way for them to go about it…but then, I ask you: who hasn’t heard of Evony these days?
Oh, c’mon. I loved Age of Empires. But then, Ultima doesn’t seem very appropriate for such a game. Ultima is all about individual adventurers in an existing landscape. I’ll bet it IS just using the name without any real reference to Britannia.
That is the general tenor of the few reports I’ve been getting concerning the game’s content.
If this game has nothing to do with the Ultima brand, then its a real shame.
But if its based on the Ultima world, then I guess its better with a bad game than no game at all.
I’m still wondering thought why there hasnt been an Ultima Online 2 released yet, nor why there isnt a new Ultima adventure.
I’ll try out this Lord of Ultima beta just to see whats it all about.
Let’s not pretend EA hasn’t been raping the Ultima name for years now. Anyway I’ve been trying this out in Beta. It’s pretty shallow and there are indeed microtransactions you can buy to give yourself advantages, so very lame. It has a lot of problems and the basic gist is you’re watching bars fill up (and some things take many many hours!). For some reason I’m compelled to keep going, even though it has nothing to do with Ultima, but EA certainly isn’t getting any money off of me from microtransactions. I at least want to get up to having a Castle, and I guess that’s how they get you, by appealing to the greedy nature in all of us where we want more more more. Still, the game is firmly in the “meh” category, and is a far worse offender than even Ultima Online for raping the name of a great series.
It seems it is *technically* set in the Ultima universe. The website Wiki states it as happennig after Sosaria is destroyed and a new continent, Caledonia has arisen. It takes place on one of the worlds inside one of the shards from the shattered Gem of Immortality. And that’s about it as far as similarities arise.
anyone else have log on issuses