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Ultima Online Expansion Goes All... Samurai?

Posted by simoniker on from the weirdness-abounds dept.

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.

4 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. Huh? by Kirsha · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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...

  2. Cashing In by dancingmad · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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)
  3. Japanese market? by dammitallgoodnamesgo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Japanese market? by yakitori · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The last couple years, there has been increased emphasis on the Japanese market in UO. From the major localization changes a couple years ago to this new expansion coming out soon. It would be safe to wager that possibly 30-40% of the subscription base of UO is located in Japan (of about 200k+ subscribers). If a player hopped onto any of the Japanese servers, they can quickly see they are far more active than most of the American servers (shards). Of course, FFXI is eating away slowly at that base, but not quite so badly I imagine. They are both mmorpgs, but at a basic level, different games.