Ultima Online Celebrates 10 Years

The well known EA-run MMORPG Ultima Online is now celebrating its ten year anniversary. At the time, Gamespot referred to the game as a 'buggy, unplayable mess.' Here's to another ten years, UO. 'In recognition of the game's 10 year anniversary, EA has announced the "Return to Britannia" initiative. Past subscribers of the game can download the free Kingdom Reborn update through Ultima Online's Web site, and then play the game gratis until October 9. EA will also be hosting a number of events during this period, including a monster hunt where players can win loot such as an ankh pendant necklace, a map of Brittania, an Ultima Online commemorative sculpture, and a virtue armor set.' I think it's also worth pointing out that UO isn't the first big graphical game to hit ten years; that would be Meridian 59.

Re:MMORPG

[Adambomb]

Almost forgot. do not forget the near verbatim similarity between the original Everquest game mechanics and the Toril(/Sojourn/Sojourn3/etc) [torilmud.org] Used-to-be-Diku codebase. Aradune I'm glaring at you.

no offense but this is why it sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

a monster hunt where players can win loot such as an ankh pendant necklace, a map of Brittania, an Ultima Online commemorative sculpture, and a virtue armor set.

Dont get me wrong, I played uo from beta till 2004 or so.. thats like 7 years. The problem with uo is they went from a nice free form game (like eve online currently) and made it more like a collecting stupid fucking rares and equipment game (wow has since refined this technique). I blame entirely EA. They made it into a game about collecting and decorating your house.(not that i didnt pimp the illegal no draw tile i had)

Its bittersweet because as much as people complained about OSI back in the day, they ran it LIGHT YEARS better than ea ever did. So grats i guess to the hollowed out shell of one of the best and most forward thinking games of all time. I still cannot build a house in any game since*.

*POS and 0.0 stations are almost houses but not quite.

What's the oldest (still active) MUD?

[Anonymous Coward]

MUDs have been running far longer (although admitedly this does not contradict the original article in any way). I play Discworld MUD and that's been running for 15 years for example.

I wonder which MUD has been running the longest out of all the ones still going? There are hundreds so I'm not researching it but if anybody knows then that'd be an interesting addendum to the article.

Re:Post from non-anon dev

[Lord_Dweomer]

Yep, Gemstone and the rest of the MUDs are the real first MMORPGs. I still think Dragonrealms is one of the finest games I've ever played. I have never in my life seen so much effort put into masking the numbers from players to make them actually read whats going on and immerse them in the story. Combat was an absolute joy as was everything else. Great playerbase too.

Need a credit card, even for the free trial...

[AdamTrace]

"Trial requires the entry of a registration key provided below. A major credit card is required to validate your account but will not be charged during the trial period. Please note the credit card will be automatically charged at the end of the trial unless cancelled."

I hate stuff like this. It preys on those of us who are too lazy to cancel our free subscriptions when the trial is up.

I'd love to give it a shot, but I just don't trust myself.

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