Ultima Online Enters The Stygian Abyss

@Gen-an: Wow, thanks for mentioning Neverwinter Nights. That's probably the grandfather of MMOs. Old, forgotten, and probably in some elderly home out there.

Back in those days the first 5 hours were free, then you had to pay $3 every hour after that! That's just for internet connection and not to play the game. Thankfully after awhile that they gave 20 hours free, then you had to pay the $3/hr...

I feel old and I'm not even 30 yet... :(

iAnimate

If I was still playing I'd hop on this expansion. I haven't played in about 7 or 8 years. Making Trammel and Felluca really changed the game, that and being forced to delete my favorite character pissed me off.

Trowble (XBL/PSN)

@Archaotic:

I spent a 6 month stint as a Game Master for that game back in the day (before EA took over). They had a fanatically loyal fan base even then.

@Monoxide: Hah, Recall... classic.

I still try playing once and awhile, but like the sentiments of everyone else, Age of Shadows and Publish 16 really killed the original idea.

Trying to be more like the 'popular' new MMOs out there, they took away what made UO popular. There weren't thousands of different weapons and armor. There weren't an eternity of quests to do. You played the game the way you felt you should. No levels, no talent trees, no achievements.

I always wish I had played more during the better days, and regret not doing so now. However, there will always be a soft spot in my heart for this game, and a character ready to be played if EA ever decides to be cool and release legacy shards (hello DAoC)

Gobeler

"Now in its twelfth year of oppression," is what I read it as.

@derFeef: eh not really

starwind-hawking

UO '97 and T2A- still the most fun MMO I've ever played.

I still hop on for a few months every year on free servers that replicate that era of the game. Just so old that the playerbase is very thin. :(

Its sad to see what MMOs do today. The model of UO, while rough around the edges, should be a standard to build upon. Real economy, items are with your character/body upon death, housing, guild wars in cities, sea warfare, dungeon ganking, thieves, ect ect...

To anyone who was around in the Dread Lord/T2A days- I hope we get to see something like that again someday. (NOT DARKFALL)

Kal Ort Por

Monoxide

@OtakuMan24:
I'm pretty sure EA holds all the rights to the Ultima series, so he wouldn't be able to make anything without working with/for them. And seeing as how EA completely destroyed the series, I doubt he would want to work with them.

Ultima III was what got me into gaming (YELL EVOKER!), and IV, V and VI were good, but the production value on them just went in the toilet. I think it was IX that was unplayable out of the box. As for UO, it's cool they've lasted this long, but I'd be really surprised if Garrott ever had a another top tier game.

@tslothrop: Totally agree with you- the Ultima series up until about VIII were some of the best RPG/adventure games in existence. Ultima VII and VII.5 are still a couple my favorite games of all time.

It's odd that they are so rarely talked about these days...but I agree, they're due for a comeback!

Aggrotank

@Alibyebye Essmob:
I know that, but,... still weird :)

Hah. I remember playing Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss on my 386 back in like 1992. It was awesome.

@Archaotic: When EA patched this game with some "new content" like SOE did with SWG it turned into crap, but still nowadays, if you play with friends roleplaying it has infinite amounts of fun, and i should bold INFINITE. It is considered the "father" of the actual MMO industry. despite Neverwinter nights in the old 90's. I was a big uo fan in 2000-2003. but then it came that patch... heh, still funny.

@derFeef: Sorry, as much as I love RE Howard, he didn't invent the word.

"[From Latin Stygius, from Greek Stugios, from Stux, Stug-, Styx.] "

[dictionary.reference.com]

Man, I haven't seen the gargoyles since my Dad picked up Ultima VI: The False Prophet for the PC in what feels like a millenia ago. (Probably more like 1.5 decades)

Man that game was fun. The sheer depth and open ended-ness was sheer awesome back in the day. I got to go with tslothrop on saying that I REALLY want to see the trilogies remade and re-released on either console or PC (preferably PC).

Many games have gotten face-lifts with some having surprising degrees of success since Super Mario All-Stars did it on the SNES a long time ago. I would REALLY like to see the original Ultima series get that kind of treatment.

Come on Garriott! You're back from your space trip! Make it happen!

~Otaku-Man

OtakuMan24

What? Really? People still play this game? Wow. I remember the owner of the net cafe where I played my first LAN games of quakeworld. He was a huge UO fanatic. His tiny closet of an office had a small desk, a chair, and a PC running UO. He created some automated scripts so that he could train his mining, or some random skill, while he was away from his computer. I remember Team Fortress being much, much more interesting than UO. :)

PissedPS3Fan

@Azza: No, more like Ultima Underworld 3. Or maybe start a new trilogy? Ultima X or something? Or even revisit the Worlds of Ultima series. I'd love to play Martian Dreams or Savage Empire but with updated graphics, better audio, etc.

I remember playing Ultima Online in junior high what it feels like forever ago. I also remember how fun it was having a player beg you for gold and telling them you would give them gold outside of town. Obviously I just killed them when we got there, but yeah, UO was fun.

Glad to see it's still around too.

Stygian? Robert E. Howard would be very angry... and the Age of COnan Devs too.. ?

My one and only journey into the MMO realm. Was fun while it lasted, but I got out once I realized it was pretty much the only thing I was doing, all the time. Same thing with a few friends of mine.

I'd occasionally play World of Warcraft at a friend's house but it never appealed to me the way UO did.

KaneRobot

Go to a UO forum nowadays and its very different from, say, a WoW forum. On most MMO forums its all about raids and gear and etc., on UO its about vendors and crafting and taking care of odds and ends and carving out a little life on the server.

Pretty cool. I really wish more games expanded on its framework, because its inherently more complex and interesting than the DikuMUD style of EQ, WoW, and everything else save SWG (and smaller oddities like Tale in the Desert).

Mokon

@Struct09: Oh but OF COURSE it will. You never know. And anyhow, WoW still has seven years to go to beat Ultima Online, and that's still going strong.

Oh, I just don't like WoW.

@Azza: Of course WoW will last a lot longer than UO does. 11.5 million subscribers, and after 4 years it hasn't even peaked yet. UO peaked a long time ago at 250,000 subscribers.

Any why would you hope not? WoW is a great MMO, people really enjoy the game, and Blizzard is a great developer.

Some of my fondest gaming memories come from my couple years with UO - truly the wild west of MMOs in its day. Not only am I surprised it's still going, I'm surprised it's getting a new expansion.

@tslothrop: Do you mean like "Lord British's Crossbow Training", "Super Lord British Brawl", et ceteraaaaaaaaaaa?

i remember getting this the day it came out. what a mess it was upon release, pretty much no rules whatsoever. but god damn if it weren't some of the most fun i had ever had in am mmorpg.

I really wish they'd do something else with the Ultima franchise.

More than any other, Ultima was the series that made me a gamer, but I basically have no interest in playing MMOs. I wish they'd make some sort of different new installment with the IP. Or even just remaking Ultima IV or VI or VII or one of the Ultima Underworlds. Just seems a shame that they'll only use the setting and themes to add expansions to an MMO.

I've never played Ultima Online, but Jeeeesus that's fucking insane that this is still going twelve years from release.

I wonder if WoW will beat it. Hope not >_<

i remember them being...more red. Whats gonna happen to all the normal gargoyle mobs? Ahh UO, great days. I'm the guy who used to nuke the bank and have his guild jump out of the bushes to loot the corpses.

kitsuneconundrum

mega nerds everywhere rejoice!

It's amazing to see this game still up and running considering the numerous mmo's that have shut down after all these years.

This was the MMO to start my addiction to the genre.

This games still around?

colosussbaine

Ultima Online? Jesus, I played that game back in high school - for like a week and a half. Could never really get into it much though. Surprised it's still RUNNING.

@Struct09: WOW is an MMO with Blizzard's signature "addictive to the point of causing starvation, lack of bladder control, nausea, nosebleeds, and death".

I wouldn't call it good though.

@Gen-an: Age of Shadows...that killed the game completely. They took it from being a skill based game into another item based, epic rare treasure hunt. The only thing that made it different then all the other MMO's and what actually made me enjoy it is exactly what EA removed from it.

Darkest Daze

@Struct09: WoW isn't even the best MMO... WoW is like the Panzy MMO...

Cueil

I stopped playing in 1999-2000 after playing since launch, that's when it started changing, the first few patches were alright, they added fame and karma, fixed healing so it actually did something but then they split the world in two, one for pvp and one for newbies.

I never bothered with the 3d client, it looked so horrible. But UO was a game where you could do more than raid dungeons, you could bake a cake.. make poison, it felt like a much more complete game than EQ or AC, even if the quest system was left broken for 3+ years.

mutedia

I LOVED the Stygian Abyss...must...not...give in...to temptation...

@Archaotic: Holy shit, the STYGIAN ABYSS? I LOVED THAT GAME!!!!

UO is really the only MMO I've ever played. I still remember noobing around during the Dread Lord days, and then later, working at my 7xGM on Great Lakes for what seemed like forever, only to be banned for UOE. Then after my ban expired, I powergamed up a PK char from noob to 5xGM in a week on Lake Superior, then became a Merc for a respected "Good" guild that was against PKing, who had me get 25 murder counts into statloss "defending" their little city.

GREAT times. =)

AiRDawG

@Struct09: too bad their revenues from last year dont add up to 11.5 million active subscribers =/

@colosussbaine:

Seriously that's pretty amazing, when I read the topic I thought it was some fancy way to say UO was finally closing but turns out it was another expansion, go figure.

@Archaotic: No one plays this game anymore. It's beyond me why they are releasing a new x-pac.

Well, let me rephrase that. No one plays on OFFICIAL servers anymore.

The vast majority of people that play this game play on free shards (UO servers.) It's not only because they are free, but because most of them are old style UO that players enjoyed more, before developers made bad changes.

And even those free shards recently experienced a mass migration to Darkfall Online, a new 3D MMO with UO roots.

Armagetiton

@tslothrop:

I agree. I'd really like to see a new single-player Ultima. But honestly, moreso I'd like to see a new Ultima MMO, like Ultima Worlds Online: Origin ([en.wikipedia.org]) or Ultima X: Odyssey ([en.wikipedia.org]). Ultima setting, but with the graphics and interface upgraded to modern standards.

Leave the game mechanics themselves alone, though, please. The sense of freedom that UO allows is unparalleled.

Matt Daniel

@Archaotic: You think that's surprising, I played a game in middle school called The Realm Online, and that's still running.

Bigfoot

@colosussbaine: I'm surprised this expansion is still being worked on I actually worked on this, and I was laid off about a year and a half ago. I'm happy that all our work didn't just get tossed.

@tslothrop: yes. to everything you said.

@Boudabras:

same here. never paid to play it, always played on the privately run shards, but still.. I loved that game. It really did change my life, and I hold it dear to my heart as far as games go. I almost miss it sometimes.