Slashdot Mirror
Ultima X - Odyssey Development Cancelled
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."
...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.
Heres all the details on the twining development, distruction and even Lord British's take on everything, here we go:
t ion=p ostmessage&boardid=1&id=0&threadid=600 0
t ion=p ostmessage&boardid=1&id=0&threadid=117 25
t ion=p ostmessage&boardid=1&id=0&threadid=194 91
t ion=p ostmessage&boardid=1&id=0&threadid=234 89
t ion=p ostmessage&boardid=1&id=0&threadid=235 74
a sp?id= 1523s .asp?i d=1524o ts.asp?i d=1526
t ion=p ostmessage&boardid=1&id=0&threadid=240 83
t ion=v iewthread&threadid=30105
A CT Interview with Ralph Koster.
x .asp? id=1100
Ultima Online 2 Announced [September 23, 1999, 11:28 pm EDT
http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?ac
Lord British Moves On [March 30, 2000, 6:15 pm EDT
http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?ac
Ultima Online: Third Dawn Announced [November 10, 2000, 12:45 pm EDT
http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?ac
Ultima Worlds Online: Origin Canceled [March 21, 2001, 3:56 pm EDT
http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?ac
Lord British on Origin [March 23, 2001, 11:47 am EDT
http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?ac
UO2 'wake' held in Austin March 29, 2001
http://www.gamespydaily.com/news/fullstory.
http://www.gamespydaily.com/news/screenshot
http://www.gamespydaily.com/news/screensh
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?ac
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?ac
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_F
and just to sum it up:
http://www.gamespydaily.com/screenshots/inde