Ultima Online doing better than new MMOs Related content
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Latest Ultima Online screenshots
- First Impressions Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn [20]
- News Mythic "committed" despite layoffs [7]
Ultima Online doing better than new MMOs News
MMO PC News by Oli Welsh
The lead designer of Ultima Online has boasted that the 12-year-old game is doing better than many more modern rivals, and still has plenty of new content to come in future.
"UO... it's got a very core player base, and not a small one," Tim Cotten told Gamasutra. "Many of the new MMOs that come out never reach our current levels. We have 27-odd servers - it's still a very healthy MMO."
Ultima Online recently saw the release of biggest-ever expansion Stygian Abyss, along with a drive to recruit old players, and Cotten says the team - now housed at Warhammer Online developer Mythic - hasn't run out of ideas yet.
"If you want to go for a historical timeline, we're only around Ultima VI; we've got tons more of content left to play with," he said. The team is also working on a brand-new client for the game, currently in beta.
"It's based on the technology for Kingdom Reborn, but from the ground up, rebuilt by our engineering and design and art teams to actually be much more faithful to what the UO players actually need. And it's still in beta and it will be an ongoing beta until it is done and done right."
For more on the game that refuses to die, check out the Ultima Online gamepage.
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Ultima Online
Latest News
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Mythic "committed" despite layoffs [7]
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Ultima Online welcoming old players back [4]
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Ultima Online to expand in September [7]
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UO: Stygian Abyss beta sign-ups begin [4]
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Ultima's Stygian Abyss expansion dated [11]
Latest Screenshots
16 July, 2004 [14]
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Comments: 1-13 of 13 in total
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On the one hand you keep your core when it's going to be hard work making your game look like LOTRO and Aion etc. but on the other, if it could just look a bit more like Dragon Age is going to look, sort of isometric but lavish visually, they could do a lot worse in terms of attracting people into it.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 28/10/09 @ 11:00
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IronCladChicken
28/10/09 @ 11:34
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EA screwed them over back when EA were activision - UO2 looked pretty amazing.
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The big difficulty (I believe) with client coding for UO is that compatibility (both in terms of assets and gameplay) needs to be maintained with users of older machines/clients. This always causes huge problems (see Everquest 1) unless the developers force a new high-spec engine onto users, and/or revamp vast swathes of existing content. Both cause certain groups of players to get upset! Add to that, my guess is that many UO players continue to play it in part due to low system requirements... Updating the game wouldn't be my first choice job!
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poopmonster
28/10/09 @ 12:46
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When WoW came out, EQ had already taken the lion's share of UO's playerbase - I think it (UO) topped around 400k, then dropped to 200k post-EQ (who's playerbase went up to 400k...so 200k new players).
A few years ago I heard varying estimates ranging from 40k to 200k. I'm inclined to believe the lower number is more accurate today - I certainly can't imagine it's anywhere near 1 million.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 28/10/09 @ 12:47
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IronCladChicken
31/10/09 @ 11:51
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@smelly
Never gonna happen man - I think Garriots experience with U9 put him off making another game. At least Bethesda\Oblivion can continue to nick ideas from Ultima and take credit for them 10-20 years later ;) |
Comments: 1-13 of 13 in total
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