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:...wait, ultima online still exists?..

[_Sprocket_]

UO is one of those old celebrities who you thought were dead, but aren't. They just have elves.

Rule, Britannia!

[Draconi]

What a day! We just launched the open beta, and now I get to come home and see UO up on the front page of Slashdot!

This totally made my registration all those years ago worth it :P

Seriously! A lot of people don't even realize UO is even around, when it still has a playerbase that outshines (in size *and* passion) many of the newest entrants, who're so quick to fade away while Britannia lives on.

It's amazing, and humbling, when I think about how different UO is from the grindfests so prevalent these days, when all we do is try to let players live in the Ultima universe with some fun, tile-based physics and a penchant for interactivity (and in Felucca, a bit of brutality!)

The Stygian Abyss expansion may not be 3D (awww, sorry Ultima Underworld), but there's plenty homage paid to our rich past :)

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.

Why..

[Renraku]

Why is Warhammer Online releasing an expansion? There's not enough players for the content that's out there, unless they merge to about five servers.

Sorry to shit on their parade, but every time I check server populations, it's low/low or medium/low. Haven't seen any highs, except in the beginning.

Re:Amazing

[IorDMUX]

of course it weas cooler when Origin still existed and owned it. .

Agreed. I've recently been reading up on the Ultima IV - VII "Let's Play"'s, and I am quite impressed at what Lord British (the programmer, not the NPC) was able to achieve in the late 80's and early 90's with the series. It was enough to make me forget that there ever was this EA nonsense... that is, until Serpent's Isle came out and all the NPC's walked around calling Lord British a bastard and a beast.

*Ahem* ... CURSE YOU SHAMINOOOO!

Re:Amazing

[ShakaUVM]

>>Don't forget when ti came out you could not become a 7xGM because someoen would lgiht a campfire next to you and you'd gain a point in Camping and lose one of your GMs.

Yeah the skirmishing combat chefs were one of the best parts of the early guild battles.

Don't look! He's cooking an omelet!

(For those of you who didn't play UO, the above is not actually a joke. You'd send people in front of their army to cook in order to drop their highest skills - the game had a skill cap, and also a system where you'd learn skills by watching other people. And the first skills to be dropped were your highest ones, like grandmaster spellcasting. =)

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.