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Ultima Online Expansion Goes All... Samurai?
Thanks to Yahoo for reprinting an EA press release announcing the Ultima Online: Samurai Empire add-on, a "new expansion pack" for the long-running PC MMO title. According to the release: "Traveling around a mysterious Asian environment filled with exotic beasts, expansive dungeons and scenic housing areas, players can strive to become a fierce Samurai, dedicated to the art of Bushido and focused on learning new physical combat abilities.... Players also have the choice of joining the elite ranks of the Ninja, where they will concentrate on magical combat and stealth." UO Stratics has both concept art and screenshots from the newly-announced expansion, quite a thematic departure from "the European high fantasy" of the original title, and "scheduled to ship November 2004." We recently covered both Ultima Online's 7th anniversary and the cancellation of Ultima X: Odyssey.
Samurai's and ninjas? Is there any mention of such oriental themes in the previous Ultima games? Seems to me like something out of place for Britannia...
I'm no huge fan of the series but it seems like Ultima is trying to capitalize on how cool Japanese stuff is in America these days. I'm sure it will be a shallow attempt to cash in.
For a real fun Japanese experience, VM Japan, from Falcom is a cool Japanese mythology based tactical RPG for the PC. I still enjoy a game of PC RTS Shogun Total War (the developers aren't Japanese but they put a LOT of research into the history), which was the first Total War game.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
There was a trend a decade or two back in paper-and-dice RPGs when everyone was headed "East." Some of it successful, some boring. I wasn't into Vampire but their Kindred of the East book blew me away.
I figure there's two ways to really screw this up: repackage same old paradigms to look exotic, or bore players with stereotypes from film and TV. Concept art looks good except for the cut and paste "screenshot."
Alex.
This shouldn't be a foreign concept to the /. crowd.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
EA have been trying to break the Japanese market for a while now (and failing) - I know that I've seen some very prominant adverts for FOMA UO, which is coming soon, and I suspect that Ultima Online has a certain amount of mindshare amongst MMORPG players here - I've seen a few guides for it in the walkthroughs section of shops. It's possible they wanted to encourage the Japanese market by making them feel at home.
I wonder how well this game will be received... in Japan!
It was either go samurai, or go commando. I think they made a wise decision.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
MMORPGs are designed to be join in, get hooked, and dig in for the long haul systems. The addition of an expansion clearly aimed at Asian markets (I didn't play Ultima 7, 8, or 9 but I'm guessing ninjas and samurais weren't in them) probably won't garner much success. After all, why switch to a 7 year old game just for an expansion when you can pick up a copy of the 2 year old Final Fantasy XI which already features ninjas and samurais?
At the risk of being called a troll, the GUI for UO is so shit how could anyone tell if a character is a samurai or anything for that matter?
I think they are LONG past due on graphics improvement (the crappy GUI is the reason I cancelled my account after 10 minutes of play after being convinced to join by a friend). I know about the UOX plans and cancellation etc. but lets hope they go ahead with what I've heard and plumb in the UOX engine into UO proper. I think I'd sign up then.
Three words: Jumped The Shark
How strange... the first FFXI expansion also added the Samurai and Ninja jobs (as well as Dragoon). In FFXI, the Samurai was a melee class based around weapon-skills rather than raw power, while the Ninja's abilities included... (wait for it)... stealth and a strange form of magic (which consumed items rather than magic points). Of course, FFXI already had a large Japanese fan-base, so it made sense there.
If they want to expand the genre a little, add the space weapons and travel back in.
This is 20-something years now I've been playing the Ultimas. EA finish screwing it over, and give it back to Richard, please.
Koreans won't please about Japanese things as they dislike Japan.
I'm also an "old school" Ultima fan playing II, III,and IV back in the day.
While I admit I haven't really played any of the newer games and haven't even looked at UO, I must admit that this expansion both makes me curious but also makes me disapointed.
It doesn't seem that they are updating it enough and the only logical sucessors to UO have been canceled. (UO2 and UX:O).
What I want to know is, are UO player numbers increasing? or has 7 years of running taken its toll?
And doesn't EA realise that maybe constantly churning out expansions really only prevents people (like myself) from going out and buying the now budget title?
I definitely would have checked out UX:O had it not been canceled, and even though I'm a sucker for samurai and ninjas and the what not, even this is unable to take my interest into UO.
scheduled to ship November 2004
Which really means, it's scheduled to be cancelled by September 2004 since it's MMO releated.
In that respect, EQ was a much more inviting game (and one that kept me involved for several years). UO had promise, but at least in the early phases they really let the griefers/macroers run away with the game.
This is interesting, though. I've been waiting for a decent MMORPG based on eastern mythology and culture for a while now. I don't hold out much hope that UO would do it right (just do I don't appear too biased, Sony would absolutely murder it for EQ if they ever tried it), but it's a start.
I still have an account @ UO...here are some details.
Griefing has been removed by the fact that pvp is not allowed on 3 of the 4 parts of each server - if you go to the pvp part, you might get punked.
I still like UO cause it has a lot of content & loot. If you want the old school pure pvp ultima you can play on the Siege Perilous server which is 100% pvp.
The interface is so old...damn. I recently logged out of UO and played SWG - its like interface shock or something =).
Im not a fanboi of UO - but its got content which is lacking in everything else for the most part. Its more of a solo/small group game whereas EQ is a medium to large group game.
Anyways I know why they are putting in Eastern stuff - its cause the Far Eastern playerbase is now the largest and has dedicated servers just for Japan, etc. It doesnt fit in at all w/ traditional UO - I played I-IX standalone...no stinking ninjas in those.
Twylight
As long as I can get a Japanese school girl outfit in the expansion, and wear it around, I'm game!
UO Rebirth
Play UO as it was in the beginning. As it was before it sucked. And do it all for free.
These people are failing to take into account that there is a HUGE asian MMORPG market. Far larger than anything we have here in America. So it would seem they are merely making an attempt to cater to that market with little R&D costs on their side, and if they pick up the Japan fans in America, so much the better.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Actually, the original Sosaria (original name of the world of Ultima 1) featured four different land areas which included the current Britannia and this "new" area. If I remember correctly after the Stranger shatters the Gem of Immortality the other 3 nations were destroyed/disappeared. In fact, Shamino was the King of one of them AFAICR. So just go to Stratics to compare the original Sosaria map and this lands.
So, while they are trying to capitalize on more Asian interests its more a part of the world than Malas, Ilshenar, or the Last Lands were.