UO Journal has a write-up, and a lengthy quote from Ultima Online producer Calvin Crowner, about the upcoming changes to Ultima Online player accounts. Since he’s got the story pretty well-covered, I won’t bother repeating much of his commentary here, except for these brief details:

Key Changes and Updates:
* Account Center will change — I think this is not as important as some of the others, although it definitely feels dated and could use some work, especially in regards to new players.
* Transitioning to a new system, the overall Electronic Arts. This probably means we’ll access things through Origin.com, which is what EA is planning to use as its portal for all of its online gaming needs, whether it’s browser-based games or MMOs or game stores.
* New payment options for European players
* Trial accounts can be turned into regular accounts without waiting 14 days, once payment is made.
* Account age will be properly tracked.
* Increased security.
* It sounds like you might be using your email information to login. I hope not – I have several accounts tied to one email address.
* It also sounds like you can migrate everything to one single Master EA account. This would be nice for those players with a lot of accounts.

I’m not a UO player, but I know that some of you are, so do be sure to stay on top of the information coming out about these changes. BioWare Mythic has been streamlining the web presence and user accounts of their titles of late, beginning with Dark Age of Camelot and now moving on to Ultima Online. It sounds like they’re really trying to bring everything into unity with EA’s extant user account management setup, as well as the Origin service.