i stopped reading at "laughing stalk" which I assume you meant "laughing stock", but either way  your extremely misinformed and misled.

UO has been around for 10 YEARS and still has a strong, albeit not as strong as it once was, base of players. As proof, i offer to you the fact that the game is soon to be undergoing its largest expansion ever, one which will be primarily free of charge(unlike other large title games who charge a lot for content  that often times should be free).  If they didnt have funding provided by ten years of stability, this would not be the case.

I guarantee if i offered the companies with soon-to-be-released big title mmos a ten year lifespan, they would jump at the opportunity. But UO isnt stopping at ten, its expanding more than ever.

Thanks for the correction, it's actually, "laughingstock."

But the rest of your post is a joke!  EA would keep UO even if it was losing money, because it's their foot in the door of MMOGs.

EA's new investment into UO is too little too late and does not make right on all the wrongs.

Gameplay is paramount, a small graphics upgrade will do very little.

Originally posted by Ryld
I'd take Raph over any of the "big" four mentioned. R

Originally posted by Ohaan
Kudos Sempiternal
While I have been away from UO for a long time I still hold the original game and Garriot's work in high regard. Your posts reflect the sentiments of many a UO vet.

Some people may say that UO is not great but it doesnt suck when you factor in its age and the competition. However compared to the original game, following the Origin philosophy modern UO DOES suck... hard. EA changed the game from being a progressive gaming concept into a simple cash cow.

Most will agree that Trammel was the first nail in the coffin, for me the last was the ninjas (c'mon wtf?!). Since then there have been so many more nails (elves, insurance, relics, etc) that this coffin is permanently sealed.

I have read several interviews with Richard Garriott and if you read between the lines it appears that the departure was not all that pleasant. Can't imagine what it was like to have a bunch of bean counter knuckleheads move in and tell you that despite your game being a success, that they know better...

Garriott quote from Gamespy interview:

But even today, I wish that things had worked out better with Electronic Arts. It's ironic that the top selling online product at EA, even today, is Ultima Online. We constantly tried to tell them that we understood the online game business and give advice, but the company had a very different agenda. Even the four or five other massively multiplayer games they've launched have flopped compared to Ultima Online.

On the one hand, I feel vindicated that we were giving good advice, but unfortunately there was a substantial disagreement as to the future of online gaming there, and it just wasn't possible to sustain the relationship.

Thank you very much!  And thanks for the excellent quote from Richard Garriott - perfectly in context.

Originally posted by outthislife
UO laughing stock? And here I thought, people WORSHIP this game because of what it is and what it has done.

It's a laughingstock not for what it has done, but for what it has become.

The Ultima Online design that won over 90% of the game's professional recognition and awards, over 75% of it's peak subscription numbers and which was entirely responsible for the game's success...

...is no more.

Well I have a different point of view on UO.  I started about 9 months after release, I understand the first 9 months were pretty bad.

I really think the addition of trammel was not the backbreaker you feel it was.  I always lived in Felucca, my girlfriend too who never pvps.  We did just fine.  Had the house looted a few times, no big deal, part of the game.  Trammel was necessary, because not everyone wants to pvp.  I think it worked well, if you wanted to pvp, you adventured in Felucca, if not trammel.

What really broke the camels back was "Age of Shadows".  There was the expansion that really deviated from Richard's Ultima.

First off you could rarely play the first two months after the release of the expansion, there were so many bugs.  Then they had the gaul to raise subscription fees. 

Age of shadows introduced overpowered items into the game.  They were trying to keep up with EQ or one better them and instead it backfired.  You used to be able to pvp with just hand crafted items, so big deal if some looted your corpse, you still were very competitive.  Age of shadows changed all that, weapons and the new skills seriously skewed pvp fights.  Now you had special skill extensions that you could only get in certain Felucca dungeons, nothing like narrowing down where the griefers could interrupt your play. 

Just horrible design, completely missed their target audience.  My entire guild, almost 100 strong just left. 

Oh btw Consequence, nice fanboy, but meaningless post, my gf still has an active account and the lake superior server she is on is practically empty,  There is hardly anyone playing.  So much for the game going strong.....

Originally posted by Ciredric

Well I have a different point of view on UO.  I started about 9 months after release, I understand the first 9 months were pretty bad.

Yes there were quite a few bugs and the notoriety system put good-guy players at a disadvantage to reds. The reputation system was a great improvement. The time of its implementation to the intro of Trammel was the prime UO experience IMO.

I really think the addition of trammel was not the backbreaker you feel it was.  I always lived in Felucca, my girlfriend too who never pvps.  We did just fine.  Had the house looted a few times, no big deal, part of the game.  Trammel was necessary, because not everyone wants to pvp.  I think it worked well, if you wanted to pvp, you adventured in Felucca, if not trammel.

I sort of agree. To the average non-PvP focussed player, Trammel was not the end of the UO. However it did mark a significant turning point in UO development philosophy. Even Raph Koster was against it, citing that the death penalties for murderers had already brought the rampant pk problem under control. Additionally it ruined the element of danger and unpredictability that made UO so unique. Even if you were not out to PvP you always had to be prepared. On Trammel you could be half asleep or watch your favorite TV while playing and not have to worry about surprises - Yawn...

What really broke the camels back was "Age of Shadows".  There was the expansion that really deviated from Richard's Ultima.

For the average player, I think you are correct this was the big hit to the game. A total deviation from the Ultima philosophy.

 

Originally posted by niko084

What they need to do is stop making all this new stuff to attract new players and start focusing on the players they have. EA really seems after the money on this and only the money. Mainly because they make more off in store and account sales then they do off the monthly accounts as long as they sell them fast enough. So release another upgrade at $40 that is a complete waste and totally full of bugs. Then they go and release new graphics, targeting systems etc that really nobody has any care for. Sure it looks pretty, well I am a member of 6 large guilds throughout a few servers and I don't know a single person that is looking forward to the new graphics to come out, or the uses the poor excuse for a targeting system they released.

Ok this is my take.

Yes I was a Pre-UOR player. In fact, I still have the original game copy with cloth map and pin somewhere around the house. What got me into UO was the fact that you could be ANYONE you wanted to be. They didn't give a toot about your name (unless it was racist/sexist etc) or if someone else had it already. There you can already see where modern games fail. True, they want their ingame messaging system, but honestly, big mmo gamers usually have their own chat room anyway.

UO:R - I wouldnt exactly call it the downfall of UO but it was the first nail in the coffin. Don't get me wrong, I was a trammel boy for a long time until I got bored of it. One day i was sitting at trammel bank, just reading what other people wrote for a good 3 hours. "im paying $10/month for this?" And so I started going to Fel a bit more, building my store there (everybody wants Death Inc. weapons :P) and just having a good time with my thief.

I pretty much quit when Age of Shadows came out. Don't get me wrong, I really liked some aspects of it all, like the ongoing quest (was it invasion of trinsic or something? yew? i cant even remember) but the updated graphics were so unecessary for the game. To this day I'd still rather play pre-UOR UO for $20 a month than WoW for free. Give me shitty graphics, connection dependant gameplay compared to dull and lifeless questing anyday of the week.

What made UO fun? Open ended-ness. You could go out with a 50 mage, a bag full of blade spirit scrolls and rake in money at ogre lords. Nothing was level dependent. You could bend the game rules to your advantage. In this game, skill was more important than items.

I've played many of player run shards, trying to rekindle my flame for UO, but it never really gets me going. It's never going to be the same as back in 98 or 99. I just hope that one day, EA will see where they went wrong and Open UO:Legacy, shards that follow the pre-UO:R ruleset. I'd pay $20 for that.

Sad to read this ... just started playing UO about 8 months ago and I enjoy the game ...  Will EA revamp the problems or is this game run it's course for the most part??

- FRAG

Originally posted by Fragmentor

Sad to read this ... just started playing UO about 8 months ago and I enjoy the game ...  Will EA revamp the problems or is this game run it's course for the most part??

- FRAG

 

It's common for more recent players of UO to not realize how drastic a change the Renaissance expansion was.  Even veterans of the game tend to forget.  But, overall, UO: Renaissance was a much more drastic change to the fundamental Ultima Online game than the Age of Shadows expansion.  The Age of Shadows expansion is only more easily recalled because it was much more recent.

While Age of Shadows introduced item-based gameplay, UO: Renaissance was a 180 degree shift in the entire concept.  Renaissance split the world in two, doubled the land mass overnight and, most infamously, was the beginning of the end of the virtual world community design in favor of a protected solo-player oriented environment.

UO: Renaissance was the definative change to the game concept and resulted in the game losing both growth and appeal shortly thereafter.  Ultima Online was at 185,000 accounts when Renaissance was released - six months after the release of Renaissance the game only grew by 15k more.  It essentially converted UO from a community driven virtual world into a video game merely competing as an EQ clone with poorer graphics and poorer solo-player design.

I'll never get over the fact that one of the best MMOG designs ever was turned into just another mediocre MMOG design by the likes of Electronic Arts.  And, I don't want to get over it.

I will always remeber it for what it is, one of the most ignorant changes in MMOG history.

Did you ever roleplay back in 98 or 99 before Trammel?  That was when the UO audience was the most mature and was the height of roleplaying in Ultima Online.  There were dozens of roleplaying guilds, player establishments,  player towns, and player events on every shard and many of them such as taverns had regular hours of operation, every day.

Ultima Online is now a mere video game chatroom for kids, the disabled, and poor; an empty shell of it's former glory.