In this episode of Matt Chat, Matt Barton chats with Johnny Wood. In his day job, Mr. Wood is a developer at Turbine, but you all probably know him as the original creator of Classic Ultima Online (also and formerly known as Ultima 4 Multiplayer).

Of course, as is discussed in the video, it has been years since he’s had anything to do with the project. He does talk about how he’d love to see more people pick up and run with the project, however.

And at least one person has certainly done that; Classic Ultima Online has seen a number of improvements and revisions, which were made more or less in time for Ultima 4’s 30th anniversary. There’s even a new game server online, hosted by David Baity of megawars.net.

(You can connect to that server at this address: ultima.shatteredmoon.com:58888.)

If you haven’t yet, I’d totally recommend downloading the new CUO client; you can find complete installation instructions at the download page on its website. If you played the game back when Johnny Wood was shepherding it, it has evolved significantly since then; it’s definitely worth another look.