Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
PC Games (Games) Role Playing (Games) Entertainment Games

EA Origin to Reveal Ultima-X Odyssey 28

Posted by simoniker from the no-longer-lord-british's-domain dept.
Sutekh-Acolyte writes "Richard Garriott and the other founders of Origin may be gone, but the developer is still alive and kicking. Electronic Arts is hosting an event in San Francisco on August 21-22, dubbed 'EA-X Event'. It'll give around 100 hardcore MMORPG gamers and select members of the gaming press a first look at Origin's secret project that previously has been almost entirely in the dark up until now: Ultima-X: Odyssey. It will be interesting to see if UXO brings some innovation to MMORPGs or lives off the genre's popularity." As well as the movie on the EA-X site, there's a good summary of current information at RPGDot, and Ianstorm.com has a gallery of new 3D renders from Liquid Development, who seem in some way related to an unannounced Ultima project.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

EA Origin to Reveal Ultima-X Odyssey More

EA Origin to Reveal Ultima-X Odyssey

Comments Filter:
  • I dont know about you, but old King Richard really did breathe and eat this stuff and I think it showed. With him gone, will it still have that certain magic?

    I would like to hear your answers?
    • I agree, "King" Richard did breathe and eat this stuff and it showed, he seemed quite the loony. Oh wait, maybe that wasn't what you were saying. :)
    • I agree to an extent. Lord British was Ultima, for better or worse. It was his brain child and the lore was deep enough to rival Tolkien when you look at Ultima I-IX and Ultima Online. He was also a "ecentric" in that he favored the path less taken in game design. Ultima Online was a huge gamble and up until launch they had no idea if anyone would actually want to play the game or if they would cough up $10 a month to play in this little social experiment. Luckily for Garriott, most of his gambles came
  • Tedious or terrific? I'll wait for the reviews.

    The number of MMOG's springing up with little or no innovation, fun, interaction, or really anything else that might keep you entertained, is attrocious.

    Here is an idea game developers. Why don't you decide on a game that YOU would like to play, then build it!

    So many seem to be cynical attempts to lock in players with time-delays designed to squeeze as much money as possible from anyone willing to give it a try.

    Bah Humbug, I say.

    Q.

  • YARG! (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by TwistedKestrel ( 550054 )
    Goddamnit, I'm still so pissed off about the canceling of UO2 that I cry myself to sleep at the base of a grave I carved myself. If I ever meet the guy that made that decision I'm gonna punch him in the face so he won't see me wind up for the kick to his groin.
    • UO 2 (or, TGFKAUWOO)was the original successor to UO that EA cancelled after much hooha and to the wailing and gnashing of teeth of many. This is likely a rehash of that game.
      • I have no doubt that they'll use the work done by UO2's game design team while developing UXO. They already stripped out most of its content for use in the Blackthorn's Revenge [uolbr.com] expansion. The development of UO2 wasn't cheap, and attempts to reclaim the loss only make sense.

  • Yawn. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Randolpho ( 628485 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @10:51PM (#6631750) Homepage Journal
    Am I the only one tired of MMORPGs? I mean, sure, game companies think they're a great way to make money, gotta love that whole subscribe to play thing, but I have yet to play one that managed to immerse me in the same way that, say, Baldur's Gate, or Ultimas 4 through 7 did. Sure, it's great to be able to chat with your peeps and nab P|-|@t L3\/\/t off the corpses in the game, but that gets kinda old after a while. In the end you spend most of your time going after that next level (or worse, making things) rather than furiously trying to figure out how to stop the Guardian.

    In short, I want to say to the folks who keep making MMORPGs: where's the beef? Give us substance, not shallow rat-hunter 3d crap!

    • Re:Yawn. (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      In short, I want to say to the folks who keep making MMORPGs: where's the beef?

      Maybe it's under the pickle.
    • I don't know what "substance" you're looking for. If it's engaging stories with interesting beginnings and exciting endings, then MMORPGs aren't for you. The depth in a good MMORPG should theoretically be found in the community that develops inside of it. The various activities within said game should be engaging enough to interest people (and "phat lewt" certainly is engaging to a great many people), but when it comes right down to it the real fun should be found in the people with whom you engage in sa

  • Not really related to UXO, but UO... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jsse ( 254124 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @10:59PM (#6631811) Homepage Journal
    Richard Garriott and the other founders of Origin may be gone, but the developer is still alive and kicking.

    They've gone for good. Richard, or Lord British, and the rest of the founders, are idealists.

    In the beginning of UO, Lord British and Designer Dragon insisted that there should have a completely free environment in which online players could create their own economy and communities. The free economy system collapsed immediately as players to players trading couldn't drive the in-game economy, and player-oriented craftsmanships weren't be able to take a major part in economy; thus we still had to rely on gold and treasure respawning. Unrestricted players' behavior did not result in healthy grow of communities, but instead a living hell of PK-everywhere.

    LB and DD's idea could have been suceeded, if there's no exploits and abusive behavior does not affect others, but that kind of ideal online environment simply doesn't exist.

    UO had undergone radical changes after LB, DD and the rest of idealists were gone. House system, for example, has been changed such that the ownership doesn't rely on just one in-game stealable object - key, and trading become more secure. That kind of changes would not be seen when LB still around.

    Although it's many years too late for a 3D UO to come, but I'd absolutely give UXO a try.

    • Re:Not really related to UXO, but UO... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ObligatoryUserName ( 126027 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @11:33PM (#6632027) Journal
      Designer Dragon == Raph Koster. Last I knew, Raph Koster was the Lead Designer of Star Wars Galaxies. The philosophies you're talking about can be clearly seen in that game. Sad to say, if most of the complaints about Galaxies are true (haven't played it myself) it seems that this player centric philosophy isn't sufficient for a game to be good - it needs to be correctly and effectvly meshed with quality pre-scripted content. (Which can be cost-prohibitive for games of this size; Everquest is huge because it has been using its revenues to build up the world over the years it has been operating.)

    • Unrestricted players' behavior did not result in healthy grow of communities, but instead a living hell of PK-everywhere.

      While this failed to lure the masses into the great game and only paved the way for Everquest's monumental success, this "PK Hell" of your's created the largest MMORPG niche of pure dog eat dog PVPers ever seen. UO started out as a PVP game and slowly became more and more impotent in that area. Gone are the days in UO where all you needed was a mildly developed character and equipment t

    • Lack of content, say it with me now... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by August_zero ( 654282 ) on Thursday August 07, 2003 @12:49AM (#6632411)
      UO was only entertaining in the days of the "PK-hell". When all of that got pushed aside it only served to reveal the true cause of the problems: THe game world was hideously boring with nothing to do other than crowd into one of 8, count em 8 dungeons supposed to provide thousands of players with areas to hack their way through.

      When 6 people jump every single respawn anywhere in the world you are going to have some problems.

      Now I understand a lot of content has been added since the bad-old-days when I used to play it. but as someone who played the game in its first year and watched them nerf everything to hell until there was nothing left to do, I can tell you that lofty ideals of the creators had less to do with the smoking crater the game turned into than the whip cracking suits that pushed it out the door a long time before it was ready to go live.
      • THe game world was hideously boring with nothing to do other than crowd into one of 8, count em 8 dungeons supposed to provide thousands of players with areas to hack their way through.

        Correct, but i have to throw in, that i read that UO was originally designed for about 300 to 500 players per shard (more like the other MMO's/MUD's back then) and they completly got overrun with players since they didnt expect that much interrest in this kind of games in the first place.

        This also explains the openness
    • I always feel sad when I read things like this.

      The game was hardly the PK-Hell environment it is made out to be. Did people PK, yes. Were there hordes of PK's everywhere? No.

      What I find funny about the game is the only people still playing are the ones who like the PvP system and some roleplayers.

      If LB and DD hadn't spent so much energy chasing away a lot of the PvP, with stat loss etc... set UO would be a lot more popular.

      And if you want to see what DD's ideals on a game are, take a peek at SWG.
    • Unrestricted players' behavior did not result in healthy grow of communities, but instead a living hell of PK-everywhere.


      I'll take a living hell of PK-everywhere over the living hell of being in the disneyland that is SWG any day.

  • Origin is gone (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mana Knight ( 318150 ) <mk AT tradewars DOT org> on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @11:33PM (#6632025) Homepage
    "Richard Garriott and the other founders of Origin may be gone, but the developer is still alive and kicking."

    Sorry, but Origin died a long time ago. It's nothing more than an a part of EA now.

    There is no Origin, only Zuul!
    • I miss wing commander badly. I really wish the legal rights would open up for someone to do remakes of the pre-FMV ones. (source code etc). O well.

Slashdot Top Deals

"Hello again, Peabody here..." -- Mister Peabody

Close