Ultima Online
Released in September 30, 1997 by Origin Systems Inc, Ultima Online (UO) was the first of the real massively multiplayer games. The game is played online and has a fantasy setting, like the other Ultima games that preceded it.
Overview
Ultima Online's success opened the door for the creation of many exciting new massively multiplayer games that have or are about to hit the market. UO is a third-person/isometric fantasy role-playing game set in the Ultima universe. It is online-only and played by thousands of simultaneous users (who pay a monthly fee) on various game servers, also known as "Shards." There have been hundreds of thousands of subscribers. To maintain order in the online community, there are gamemasters who resolve player disputes, police the shard for terms of service violations, and correct glitches in the game.
Several expansions have been released, but its aging game engine and graphics make it fairly outdated compared to competitive, new massively multiplayer games. The original Ultima Online sequel, "Ultima Worlds Online" was canceled before it's release citing the competitive nature of the Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming market, fearing that the sequal would harm Ulimta Online's subscription numbers and vice versa. A new sequal is currently under development called Ultima Online X: Odyssey, which is to bring together the stories from Ulitima IX and Ultima Online. The number of subscribers achieved by UO was surpassed by Everquest in 1999.
Technically-inclined fans of Ultima Online have reverse-engineered the game to produce emulators of the original game servers. This emulation is perfectly legal, and Origin is aware of its existence, although in certain countries the authors of these emulators are considered to have violated their software license by reverse-engineering the game, and may be banned from the official UO servers as a result (other countries don't allow restrictions on reverse engineering). These shards are usually run on a spare computer. They are almost always operated without a charge to the player. These "player-run" shards are often set in environments other than the Ultima universe, and their rules of conduct for their players vary greatly. Many shards encourage or enforce their players to roleplay and remain in-character.
The Assassination of Lord British
Lord British (Richard Garriott's character) is supposed to be immortal. However, this was not the case during an in-game appearance in Ultima Online's beta test on August 8, 1997. A player character known as Rainz cast a spell called "fire field" on Lord British that surprisingly killed him. Shortly afterwards, Rainz's account was banned from the beta test for previously exploiting bugs rather than reporting them (infamously used by his character Aquaman to kill many player characters). According to Origin, he was not banned for the assassination but rather for previous complaints against his account that were brought to light as a result of this attention.
Expansions
- The Second Age (October 1, 1998) Also known as T2A, this expansion featured a new area of land called the Lost Lands, along with an in-game chat system and new creatures.
- Renaissance (April 3, 2000) The world was doubled in size, as there were literally two copies of it. The worlds were called Felucca and Trammel, after the two moons in Ultima's Britannia world. The Trammel world did not allow player killing, while the Felucca world did. Felucca also adopted an "evil" look.
- Third Dawn (March 7, 2001) The major change was that this expansion included a 3D client, no doubt to compete with 3D massively multiplayer games like Everquest. Also, a special Third Dawn only land was created, called Ilshenar. It was accessible only to 3D clients until the release of Lord Blackthorn's Revenge.
- Ultima Online: Lord Blackthorn's Revenge (February 2002) Lord Blackthorn's revenge brought "A dark new world based on new characters from Todd McFarlane" to Ultima with improved game AI, in-game help, and improved character creation.
- Ultima Online: Age of Shadows (February 2003) Bringing the landmass of Malas with lots of space for housing, two new character classes (Paladin and Necromancer) and the possibilty to customize house designs.
Shard Emulators
External Links
Referenced By
30 September | 30th September | 5th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards | Annual Interactive Achievement Awards | Asheron's Call | CRPG | Computer RPG | Computer role-playing game | EverCrack | EverQuest | Interactive Achievement Awards | LPMUD | Lineage (computer game) | Lineage (game) | List of MMORPGs | List of computer and video games by name | MMORG | MMORPG | MUCK | MUSH | Massive multiplayer online game | Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game | Massively multiplayer online role-playing game | MorroWindHelp | Morrowind | Multi-User Dimension (MUD) | Multi-user dimension | Multiplayer | NannyMUD | Nerf(computer games) | Nerf (computer games) | Origin Systems | Origin Systems, Inc. | Origin Systems Inc | Player Killers | Player killer | Player killing | Player vs. player | Richard Garriott | Role-play | Role-playing | Role-playing game (video game) | Role-playing game (video games) | Roleplay | September 30 | September 30th | Synthetic economies | Synthetic economy | Timeline of video games | Ultima | Ultima Online: Renaissance | Ultima X | Video game/RPG | Videogame Timeline | WorldForge
|
