For Those Of You That Play Ultima Online…
Almost forgot: I stumbled over this whilst checking my various searches in TweetDeck:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DFqF_B3CWw?hd=1&w=560&h=349]
In the works!
I know not everyone here plays Ultima Online, either at all or with any regularity. Some of you Dragons and Dragonettes do play it, however, so here’s what you can look forward to in the coming months!
Interesting to hear the ideas for it. I’m a little older school than that, having a MUD Im also tooling with, but still .. interesting. UO after all, is pretty much the ur-example of MMORPGs. It was the mold, as much as Everquest and WoW has stolen the spotlight in more recent years.
They have consistently made the game worse and worse, and judging by what their big plans are in the video it doesn’t sound like they are out to change that record.
I don’t know about that. Stygian Abyss was, I thought, a major step forward, and the High Seas expansion actually looked pretty cool.
But that’s Mythic for you. Prior to their taking over Ultima Online development, I’d have readily agreed that the game was on a steady downward trend. Now, though, I think it’s turned around a bit.
The problem with UO isn’t the developers. The things they’re developing is just sympthomatic. It’s the player base. I used to play UO almost religiously when it first came out and they had such things as roleplay, and LB actually played. My other half was a beta tester even. Nowadays, however, the player base is entirely different, mostly scripters, mulers, and basically, the scum of the MMORPG community. Its a shame. A real shame.
High Seas is broken to unplayability, and they have the gall to charge for it.
And while I realize that Mythic didn’t start the trend, they certainly haven’t shied away from killing the game world by filling it with neon yellow giant dog mounts, sun glasses, and purple lightsabers. Not signs that they actually get Ultima or UO.
It’s the “duck bites” theory, I suppose. Gradualism, if you want a more sciency-sounding term.
I mean, they can’t exactly go and subtract all that from the game now, but they can begin (and have done so) to take steps to move what’s left of UO back toward something more familiar to traditional Ultima fans. They have some seriously hardcore Ultima fans in their ranks (including at the directorial level) and are trying to do what they can for the game. Not that they have the best material to work with, but even so…
Players want these things. The developers want money. So they keep adding the things the players want.
Say what you want about Halo, I give Bungie major props for drawing a very solid line on what was going to be the final bit of Halo. It takes a developer with a lot of integrity to stay true to the artistic vision.
Most developers don’t have that. Some of them, don’t even want it. I personally haven’t been terribly enthused by either wing of Bioware lately.
Stygian Abyss rules, High Seas works for me, and here is the extended 40 minutes version of the Ultima Online House of Commons Video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVkjR5kpZvE
Im doubtful. Look at Lords of Ultima. Stygian Abyss has little to do with anything UOUWish, or otherwise Ultima-y.
But here’s the thing. I don’t expect the game to stay true to the same forumla forever. That would be boring and uninteresting. What one truly wishes is for new things that fit interestingly into the world and offer something fun to play with. High Seas certainly wasn’t that; it had more bugs than an MS release. Stygian Abyss feels like a couple of new things that really weren’t new, and a new dungeon. Why this warrants paying for the expansion, I don’t know.
This is the reason eventually the powers that be at EA wanted to make a second iteration of UO. UO is dated, and suffers from a lot of vacuous matter from the more piss-poor expansions. It really DOES need a reboot. The thing is, the UO2 they were pushing, wasn’t anywheres near anything Ultima-ish.
Its a tough thing to balance – being new and interesting whilst staying true and consistent with the previous Ultima games. I stuggle with it myself in TFL.
First: Lord of Ultima wasn’t Mythic; it was a cash-strapped Phenomic. Not that it’s any good as an Ultima…it’s definitely a UINO. But still…different company entirely. And a few folks I’ve talked to “on the inside” were none too happy about Phenomic borrowing the name.
Also: Stygian Abyss can be downloaded for free; the only fee is the monthly subscription. High Seas does cost to obtain, however.
Lastly: which version of UO2? This one, or this one?
Ultimately, its the same people handling licensing rights. And paying to play is still paying, dude.
I was refering to the Todd McFarlane iteration. I have to admit- I actually found it genuinely interesting. But an Ultima game, it was not.
I have two specific fears with any future ultima games –
First, Origin picked up on THIS one even whilst they were still alive. To EA, Ultima has and always will be, just another name to exploit. A franchise to put on whatever they want to try to sell. See, Lords of Ultima. EA does NOT have a good history of managing franchises as anything but cash cows.
Secondly, and this may seem an ironic one coming from me, and perhaps hypocritical – but fan wank is bad. We don’t NEED another Ultima retread of beaten plot points. This is what we got in the watered-down Ultima IX and very few people liked it. Its easy to blame EA, or the pressure to produce big mountains of cash, and Im not going to deny that’s part of it; but another big part of it is these people were fans, and wanted to take those characters and put them into their own story. And it didn’t really work. It felt shoe-horned.
To segue into a more personal note…
This is something I’ve struggled with a lot in TFL. Keeping it seperate from the Ultima mythos enough that it doesn’t seem like that kind of fan wankery, but at the same time keeping enough familiarity that it doesn’t seem like “Ultima in name only”. Marzo and I had a good look at many of the fundamentals in U7 and Ultima in general. We kept the things that we felt were “Ultima” (core characters, the Virtues, the gypsy intro) and tossed a few things which we felt werent very “Ultima” (most of these are nitpicks, so I could do a whole list here.)
If they did reboot the series, it would have to really stand out as something new, but also Ultima. Im not sure Bioware Mythic has it in them. They’d basically have to produce AAA games. Because that’s what Origin did – they created worlds. 🙂
@WTF Dragon
Stygian Abyss is NOT free. Sure, you can download the game client, but you have to buy the expansion to use it. I believe the price is $30 for UO + Stygian Abyss and a “free” month, or $20 if you already have UO and just want the expansion of Stygian Abyss. Not free. Not even close to free.
$30 for an expansion to a nearly 15 year old game? Come on, even you are thinking that is madness right now.
You’re right, that’s a bit high. I suppose it was silly of me to think that Mythic would have released the expansion for free; the developers do need to eat, after all.
That said, I’m not really bothered by it. The $30 price point is maybe a tad on the high side, but the $20 price point doesn’t particularly bother me. If I were a lifelong UO player, I’d probably think little of it (since $20 would pale in comparison to what I would have likely already invested in the game), and if I were both a UO player and a classic Ultima fan, I’d probably be happier to pay for Stygian Abyss than, say, Lord Blackthorn’s Revenge.
Regardless, it’s not a particularly egregious thing. Egregious is Activision-Blizzard’s decision to release Starcraft 2 as three standalone packages, each to be sold at an AAA price point.
Those price points for a 15 year old game are synonymous to Origin re-releasing Ultima VII and expecting the same as say, Dragon’s Age 2 for it. And the sad thing is, I know plenty of people who would pay that, too,
@Peter
I think that is the thing. At this point, I don’t even think they are aiming at new players so much. They are just trying to gouge the die hards for every penny they can.
I ended up having to make a new account and ditch my old characters, since resubbing and buying the expansion at the same time comes to more than buying the package deal and getting the free month.
Also, I totally agree that Acti-Bliz releasing StarCraft 2 three times at full price (and that is full console game price at $60, which is more than the average PC release of $50) is bogus.
That other companies are doing it does not make it “okay” for Bioware Mythic to do it.
You know; I get it. We want good guys to come along and “save” the Ultima franchise. But if this is the way they’re doing it, then we’re better off with the many (good) fan projects, like Lazarus.
All I will be saying about UO, is that even with dumb samurais and female gargoyles… It’s still better than any other MMO on the market.
Whichs says a lot about the sad state of the MMO market.
Damn you Everquest.
I think UO is full of more potential than other MMOs on the market, but not better at this point. If anything for the past several years they have been trying to conform to the Everquest MMO type, and have succeeded in becoming very bland.
I never really understood the aversion to female gargoyles … Ultima IX’s hackish thing nonwithstanding.
Beh Lem: To be true that you do not see many gargoyle women. And to be true that so alike in voice and appearance, to be often mistaken for gargoyle men.
Dupre: [whispering] It’s the teeth.
Beh Lem: To be true in turn that this has given rise to the belief that there are no gargoyle women, and that drones just spring out of holes in the ground!
[Gwenno laughs]
Beh Lem: To be, of course, ridiculous.
Methinks you’ve been watching the Two Towers too much 😛
I think the problem with having female gargoyles… and that it’s a tad contradictory with the nature of Gargoyle as originally depicted, since they are pretty much defined as an asexual kind of race. Of course there has been retcon, and the Queen concept also work all things considered but going to having a fully female gargoyle as common is a tad different
Unless of course it IS explained consistently inlore… and this is actually what the Ultima X fiction did: it both explained pretty well where the queen come from and how the Garogyle race evolved until they got to a male/female aspect like humans.
I’m not sure if they did brought some similar fiction to UO, but that wouldh ave worked.
Regarding the ULtima-ness of Mythic’s addon, I don’t think you can argue against it. There are big Ultima fans in Mythic and it shows.
I mean let’s look at the addons we got before Mythic took over:
We got a half assed Lord Blackthorn’s revenge for the sole purpose of recycling UO2 content and fullfilling contracts with McFarlane. We got silly Paladin and Necromancers things coming out of nowhere. We got NINJA & SAMURAI for the sole reason (I’m quoting the devs here) that “Ninjas are cool!” that they try to make us swallow by some half assed explanation taht it was one of Sosaria’s lost lands… and we got ELVES!
Now what did we got when Mythic took over?
First a long overdue graphical overhaul. Admitedly UOKR went a tad too far, and Stygian Abyss went back a bit to a more traditionnal UO style: but it looked GOOD.
Then we got a first addon: The Stygian Abyss and a new playable race: Gargoyles.
Gargoyle you know the thing that should be a NO BRAINER as a playable race to anyone doing a Ultima MMO. And they even went as far as building the Stygian Abyss to mirror the first level of Ultima Underworld, and to faithfully rebuild the Gargoyle World of Ultima VI as part of the “Holy City” of Ter Mur. If that does not shows some passion for the old Ultima I don’t know what will. Eck, even the new intro them is a neat remix of the Ultima V theme 😛
And High Seas is also a neat concept bringing really neat stuff, at least in theory in any case.
I’d half expect Mythic to bring the Serpent Isle to UO down the road or something (note: if they DO taht at one point I will renew my subcription in a minute :P)
Now I’m not saying Mythic is doing a perfect job… but trully the stuff they have brought to UO is the kind of stuff that I would have wanted to see in UO more than any of the other addons done over ten years.