Several Ultima fans — Pix included — have reported receiving the Ultima Forever Collector’s Edition box from Mythic in the last week or so, and I too received mine in the mail recently.

These boxes were sent out to those intrepid Ultima fans who stepped up to alpha test the game last year, as well as to a handful of people who participated in a retweeting contest that was held during E3 last month:

TY to remote players of the #E3 Quest for the Avatar contest. We loved the enthusiasm & will award the top 10. PMs to winners to follow now.

— Ultima Forever (@UltimaForever) June 17, 2013

Unfortunately, as has been the case with many others, my box got somewhat squashed in transit:

The box flap opens to reveal an image of the Gypsy and a handful of screenshost of the game:

Inside the box, a new cloth map (which is of significantly higher quality, and apparently doubles as a screen cleaner; it now includes the spread of the Black Weep across Britannia) and a package of larger Virtue tarot cards were to be found. The tarot card package also included a sticker:

As well, Mythic included a (blank) 4 GB USB drive — these credit card-shaped USB drives seem to be all the rage nowadays — adorned with what has become the most common Ultima Forever promotional image. The back of the card, meanwhile, is blank save for the URL for the game’s official website:

Now, contra some others, I didn’t get a producer’s letter in my box, so I’ll include the one that Browncoat Jayson received here for reference.

The damage to the outer box doesn’t really bother me, as it has a few others. All in all, this is a quite humbling gift for Mythic to send out (unprompted!) to those of us who participated in — and gave voluminous feedback concerning — the Ultima Forever alpha test. Especially since we had each already received a cloth map and (physically smaller) tarot card set as a “thank you”.

But then, the team at Mythic are like that, good men and women through and through. So thank you, Mythic and the Ultima Forever team. Keep being awesome, and keep working dilligently (and passionately) on Ultima Forever!