Ultima Online Expansion Sept. 8, WAR Expansion In Near Future

IndustryGamers recently spoke with Mythic Entertainment execs about the futures of Ultima Online and Warhammer Online. UO's newest expansion, Stygian Abyss, was recently given a September 8th release date. As for WAR, they say, "... we just finished up a major patch for Warhammer Online and there's a lot of stuff we're thinking about for improving and enhancing the gameplay experience and guaranteeing that the product lives up to the legacy of the Warhammer franchise. You should expect an expansion in the near future." The Overly Positive blog suggests that recent developer interviews have undergone a change in tone, demonstrating a greater willingness to acknowledge the game's flaws and work out ways to correct them.

Comments

Re:Amazing

[Greyfox]

Our expectations were a whole lot lower back then. I think one of UO's strengths back then was that even though the whole thing outside town was PvP, there wasn't an insurmountable difference between a relative newbie and a geared-out character. Two or three fairly new people could ambush and kill a 7xGM if they played their cards right.

It went downhill after EA took over and introduced the non-PVP zones, the WoW-like gear grind, insurance (To let you keep your items when you were killed) and the $20 expansions every 2-3 months.

While UO is not Archetype based it keeps niche

[The_Myth]

I left UO to play SWG as in the Original days SWG was UO:2 with the Star Wars IP. UO's greatest strength was that you could change your class. Its not like WOW where a Mage is a Mage is a Mage. You could mix parts of the Mage skill set with that of the warrior and with the pet handler and create your own combination. Sure there were cookie cutter builds but by the time you changed your character to that build a new cookie cutter build had gained popularity. People became good at PVP not by changing their skills every two weeks but learning to master the skills that they had chosen to learn for best effect. IMO while UO stays away from Archetype based characters it will maintain its niche.