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Bringing Ultima Online To The Masses

Posted by simoniker on from the be-careful-of-fire-field-spells dept.

Thanks to GameSpy for their section featuring extracts and articles centered around the previously Slashdot-mentioned new book, Dungeons And Dreamers, which discusses "the rise of computer game culture" through figures such as Ultima creator Richard Garriott. The feature includes a three part extract from the book, dealing with "the trials and tribulations Richard Garriott and his team at Origin underwent in order to bring Ultima Online to the masses." There's also an interview with the book's authors, as well as a chat with Garriott himself, in which he trails his new NCSoft-backed massively multiplayer title, Tabula Rasa, which he says "combines MMP with story-based scripted adventures for parties of players."

3 of 18 comments (clear)

  1. Re:hmmm by WinnipegDragon · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Ummm... In the gaming world 'to the masses' clearly excludes Mac users. 5% of the desktop market does not 'the masses' make.

  2. What about by Pingular · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The trials and tribulations Richard Garriott and his team at Origin underwent in order to bring Ultima Online to the masses.
    The article completely fails to mention the fact that Richard Garriott and the Ultima Online team turned the largest and (in my opinion) best MMORPG ever into a waste of time for everyone involved, with players, having played for four years deserting it mere weeks after them bringing out the Age of Shadows expansion pack. For those unaware of what happened with Ultima Online, the Age of Shadows expansion pack irreversibly changed the game for the worse, causing floods of players to leave to other games, such as Everquest, Diablo 2 and Star Wars Galaxies. Leaving Ultima Online left a sour taste in mine, and I'm sure many other fans of the games mouths.

    --

    When anger rises, think of the consequences.
    Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
    1. Re:What about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I don't disagree with your assessment of the Age of Shadows expansion, but you can't blame that on Garriott. He left the company almost 2 years prior to that. In my opinion, that's when UO really started going downhill. Everything that was visionary about the game and everything that made it "an Ultima" has been slowly stripped from it ever since. I still consider UO the best MMO ever made, but that game died when Garriott, Long, Koster and others left. Now it's just another product in the EA catalog being run by people who know nothing about how to make a good MMORPG, much less an Ultima.