Very often, Ultima Online is always nominated at every announcement of a new sandbox mmo, as an example of how a sandbox mmo should be made. But still, Ultima is totally silent in the mmo panorama, and barely few website announced the endless journey update (with rater low interest in general for the f2p option). Someone can kindly explain me what happened to Ultima? What changes made the population decline?
Trammel Happened. Not just a little Trammel.... but all of the pukey neon garbage added into the game made it into a clone of WoW and not an Ultima. I logged into the old servers a few years ago during a free trial... and it was seriously depressing to me to see how they destroyed it.
EA’s UO is dead and buried. After Lord British left they desecrated the game. Come check out UOR though, it’s all the best parts of OSI UO with Chris’ “History Perfected” fixes that tries to address the issues mentioned above, the right way.
British wants to reclaim the IP but EA is just sitting on its bones, as they do all the studios and IPs they acquire and run into the dirt because they don’t give a fuck about gaming or gamers.
I didn't know he had tried to get them back... would be nice to see it back in his hands, but like you said, EA will just sit on it. Maybe when they feel they can no longer milk Ultima Online for any money, it might be more appealing... but I doubt it knowing them.
I watched an interview with him a few months ago talking about his new game and how he had tried to get the IP back and couldn’t, he wanted the game to be “Ultima Online 2”.
Might be a case of better the devil you know for us here? EA leave us alone, LB might want to shut us down so we'll all buy $1000 castles in his new venture. Or not, I don't really know much about the guy. Change brings risk though.
To add to what others have said, I think it is important to acknowledge the "history perfected" aspect of UOR. It's not just a snapshot in time of 1999 OSI, but it is an effort to continue development the way that Ultima Online should have gone had the huge mistake of Trammel never been made. So rather than a knee-jerk copy-paste of the entire world map, the additions to UOR appear to carefully consider what (possibly unintended) effects they might have.
Yes however the major issue I have is SotA is pay for cool stuff. Want a house for example.. Pay $50 for lot then $150 for shack... Etc. I understand part of $ was funding development of the game however appeared as method to make $ which kinda pissed me off since he got enough from selling uo to go into space. So i guess since my ultimate bucket list item is going into space there is some jealousy too.
That is a good point.... Even when some people got him to appear on their free shards, he just tried to poach players for shroud of the avatar.
That game looks like a last ditch money grab to fund his non gaming activities. I’m so disappointed in him. Actually disappointed isn’t even strong enough of a word for how I feel about him.
One day I logged in and half the population had just straight bailed on me to go live in boo boo land. My spots were worth a fraction of the cost and my homies wouldn't kick it with me any more because they didn't wanna lose their shit. I stuck around a little bit and then mother fuckers started slinging bolas around, riding around on beetles, some goofy ass ninjas started poppin outa no where and then I had guys that were 7xGM turning into 6x super wizards. Shit was wild, then they pissed all over your boy 'Snots Mac & cheese by taking a critical bong rip on my hard work by introducing this shit where you could get this wild ass head start on a character, 70 in a skill I think, killed the hustle. And I'm about that hustle. My guy Richard Garriot was cashing out and heading to space and I thought shiiiiiieeeeeet, I'ma get me a slice of that action, stuck my accounts on a site for some of the RL cheddar cheese and took my girl to space......mountain in Disneyland.
A lot of truth has been said by a lot of people in this thread. IMHO, Trammel was the beginning of the end. The dev started catering to people who didn't like getting ganked and never cared to learn how to mitigate losses and learn to be smarter about playing the game. It's always the beginning of the end for a good game when a dev starts kow-towing to players who threaten to take their gaming dollars elsewhere. Then there was EA taking over, and everything they touch generally turns to poop. LB sold out, very disappointing. Even more disappointing is the whole SOTA debacle. Ugh, I could go on and on about what a mess that's become. A UO with a ruleset circa pre-2000 in a more modern client would be golden, been thinking this for many, many years. Until then, this is the best shard to play the best game ever made in its most amazing form. To OP: What happened to UO is it got PKed, dry-looted, and was eventually, lovingly resurrected by people who cared about the magic and wonder of the game. Play here.
'SnotManiac, I'm in tears brother. Tears of Hulkamania are streaming down my face dude, from laughing so hard. The Hulkster is down with your kind, brother. And by kind I mean a hip dude who knows whats going on, jack! *cough*just stay away from Brooke *cough* UO was at it's best when I was hangin' and bangin' with the NWO, jack. Until EA gave UO the Fingerpoke of Doom, brothers. Almost as if Vince Russo himself designed Trammel dudes, while he was not taking the right kind of vitamins. Judy Bagwell on a forklift? That's as ridiculous as Ninjas and Samurais in Ultima, brother. Only love (but hate for EA) - HH
The game developers did what most ppl asked them to do. They gave into gamers crying. Gamers dont think of how things will effect the game. all they think about is "Wouldnt it be nice to not get pked... lets make an area where everyone is nice" & "ooo thats pretty i would like more neon stuff"
