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Ultima X - Odyssey Development Cancelled

Posted by simoniker on from the ultimately-canned dept.

eToychest writes "According to a post by David Yeeon on the front page of the official EA site, PC MMO title Ultima X: Odyssey has been cancelled. The post reads: 'As of today, development on Ultima X: Odyssey has ended. We feel that Ultima Online is where we need to focus our online efforts and most of my team will be moving to the UO expansion pack, the UO live team, and an unannounced Ultima Online project.' It's too bad, but perhaps it was for the best." GameSpot sketches out the background, explaining: "The [August 2003-announced] game went through an evolution when its design and development staff were recently moved from EA's Austin, TX studio to the company's main Redwood Shores campus... UXO was to have picked up where the Ultima IX storyline left off", and GameSpy adds that the new Ultima Online expansion pack "will be officially revealed later this month at an EA press event."

9 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. Where Ultima IX left off... by scrytch · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...for me anyway: Ripping the disk out and throwing it across the room with a cry of disgust, with box soon to follow, and uninstalling the damn buggy piece of crap. I even put up with Ultima 8 because it had an interesting story. But U9 was just unplayable. And that's just on the technical side. On the artistic side, it betrayed the story by breaking continuity -- what the hell did the Avatar do when he came out of the Etheral plane, giving up literal godhood to return to Britannia, then seeing the Guardian's face engraved on the mountain, dragons flying overhead ... did he go back home and get a ham sandwich and forget?

    Bah. A pox on you, Lord British.

    --
    I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
  2. Re:Not Surprized... by Loadmaster · · Score: 3, Informative

    I agree. This has actually happened for a MMORPG. It's called Allegiance and was created by Microsoft.
    Gamespot gamespace here
    I'm very tempted to download it and see what the fans have done.

  3. To Clear things up by GearType2 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I am very pissed off at this, and EA for continously cancelling good games. Anyways to topic: This isn't an MMO, it is not UO2, it was supposed to be more of a 3D diablo. Where you could team up and get zones with friends to fight in, and build up a character to eventually a pvp world.

  4. Re:Not Surprized... by tod_miller · · Score: 2, Informative

    "Microsoft has released the full source code to its hybrid real-time strategy/space combat game, Allegiance. Despite critical acclaim, it failed to make much of an impact , selling fewer than 29,000 copies in its first year.

    Allegiance actually won the dubious honor of Best PC Game No One Played in 2000 from GameSpot."

    Perhaps people saw the M$ logo and thought better of it. I mean, what else have they been behind that was so great game wise?

    --
    #hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
  5. UO/UO2/UO:X History, Long read warning! by BloodAngel_Au · · Score: 5, Informative

    Heres all the details on the twining development, distruction and even Lord British's take on everything, here we go:

    Ultima Online 2 Announced [September 23, 1999, 11:28 pm EDT
    http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?act ion=p ostmessage&boardid=1&id=0&threadid=600 0

    Lord British Moves On [March 30, 2000, 6:15 pm EDT
    http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?act ion=p ostmessage&boardid=1&id=0&threadid=117 25

    Ultima Online: Third Dawn Announced [November 10, 2000, 12:45 pm EDT
    http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?act ion=p ostmessage&boardid=1&id=0&threadid=194 91

    Ultima Worlds Online: Origin Canceled [March 21, 2001, 3:56 pm EDT
    http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?act ion=p ostmessage&boardid=1&id=0&threadid=234 89

    Lord British on Origin [March 23, 2001, 11:47 am EDT
    http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?act ion=p ostmessage&boardid=1&id=0&threadid=235 74

    UO2 'wake' held in Austin March 29, 2001
    http://www.gamespydaily.com/news/fullstory.a sp?id= 1523
    http://www.gamespydaily.com/news/screenshots .asp?i d=1524
    http://www.gamespydaily.com/news/screensho ts.asp?i d=1526

    Wich included burning af almost all the documents to do with UO2

    Lord British Interview [April 09, 2001, 1:31 pm EDT
    http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?act ion=p ostmessage&boardid=1&id=0&threadid=240 83

    Then apparently legal threats from McFarlane lead to this compromise:

    UO: Lord Blackthorn's Revenge [October 31, 2001, 1:29 pm EDT
    http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?act ion=v iewthread&threadid=30105

    Ultima X: Odyssey Announced [August 22, 2003, 10:22 am EDT

    3/21/2004 Origin: The Final Goodbye
    http://www.wumple.com/index.php?p=23

    With many things burnt from Origin, including docs, pictures and various artifacts.

    Ultima X Odyssey Cancelled [June 30, 2004, 10:19 pm EDT

    A bit of reading, I know, but it very interesting read on the history of UO2/OWO, UO, Lord British and EA/Origin from Late 1999 on to now.

    Edit: Just found this: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?010528fa_FA CT Interview with Ralph Koster.

    and just to sum it up:
    http://www.gamespydaily.com/screenshots/index .asp? id=1100

  6. Re:Series was long dead by bWareiWare.co.uk · · Score: 3, Informative

    Ultima 7 is still going strong!

  7. Re:Series was long dead by Pluvius · · Score: 2, Informative

    No, seriously, Ultima 8 sucks because it goes away from everything that made the other Ultimas worth playing (the changes in Final Fantasy 7 and Quake 3 are nowhere near as drastic), and Ultima 9 sucked because it was half-finished at time of release and didn't run well on the PCs of the time (I suggest people who didn't like it try it again, this time with patches). Has nothing to do with being an oldskool sadsack.

    Rob

  8. Re:Series was long dead by Kadmos · · Score: 3, Informative
    "...the series died at the end of Ultima 7"


    Died? Or was fan resurrected?...
    Try Exult (Ultima 7 on Linux & Windows), Ultim 6 online, Ultima Legacy, or any of the many Ultima remakes.

    There are *heaps* of Ultima related projects at http://reconstruction.voyd.net/ (I havn't linked them because I don't whant them to be /.'ed)

    It's all good being an Ultima fan :-)
  9. an OSS MMO already exists by Skilf · · Score: 2, Informative

    Hi Actally an OSS MMORPG project is already ongoing. The Planeshift project started end of 2000/ early 2001 and development is still going strong. If you want to help them go take a look at their recruitment page For example, a the moment they are looking for 2D and 3D artists as well as Background/setting team members. It's been a while since I haven't tested their game (more than a year) so I won't comment on it, but the best thing is to head over there and try it yourself ;) Be aware thought that it is an ongoing project, so don't go there looking for a finished game :)