No matter what MMO you play, you have to give respect to Ultima Online. For a while now, Mythic Entertainment has been tasked with keeping the godfather of MMOs up and running, and next week they will release a new expansion, The Stygian Abyss. With a new zone, new boss mobs, and a new race, this might be the time to jump back into the game that started it all. But don't take my word for it, press play and let Josh and Cal from Mythic tell you themselves.
Subscribe to G4's The MMO Report Podcast by clicking your preferred service:
Comments
Displaying 1–15 of 15
uofanatic
I just want to make a comment to people who have not played Ultima Online.
Like others have said, this game is the original MMO. You have to look at the perspective of content over graphics on this one. The game has been around for over 11 years now and the content in the game is extremely deep. There is an economy, just like WoW or EQ, but it is even deeper than you could imagine. I have played since 1998 and have items from back then. I have saved the items, which are still useable in the game (And sought after I will add), and worth a ton of gold. The possibilities in this game are so extensive it can take a year to understand all of the mechanics involved. I have played all of the major MMO's to date and It is funny, I always end up back in UO.
The characters are built upon skill points, rather than a "Class", to which you can mold and build up how you want with any skill you want. Each skill has a cap, (example: Blacksmithing cap is 120) and your character has a skill cap of 700 points. You fill in those points with whatever skill points you want. So imagine this: You have a crafting character. 700 skill points used up. You have Tailoring (To make cloth and leather armor), Blacksmithing (To make metal armor and weapons), Bowcraft (To make those uber bows and crossbows), Tinkering (To make uber jewelery), Mining (To mine the ore needed for metal working), Lumberjacking (To gather the wood needed for bows), and Magery to cast a few spells along the way (Heal spells, Recall, Defensive spells etc). ALL ON ONE CHARACTER! This leaves 6 other character slots for fighters, spell casters, treasure hunters, tamers, you name it!
My recommendation: TRY THIS GAME if you have not before. This is the time, with the good 3d graphics, awesome expansion that doubles the size of the world, and a ton of players around to help you out.
sarid
if i wanted to get info one one thing like UO i would go to a forum for it, i come here to see Casey be awesome and to get the latest news in mmo's in general.
stop with these stupid specials and get back to the normal loop of news.
Meshakhad
OK, specials are good now and again, but three in a row? That's just too much. No MMO is so important to deserve a special after two weeks without regular news. Make it the headline, but not the focus of an entire episode. Or even have a special IN ADDITION to the regular report?
FuzzyHammer
How about a special on champions of norrath or PSU next week? lol j/k you guys are awesome, I'm just being a jerk for no reason. MMO report is awesome, now and forever!
maahony
Let me toss on my powdered wig, inject myself with some yellow fever, change my ram to 8mb and load some some sweet sweet UO. Seriously, who plays this stuff?
Champions opened for business Sept 1 (came down Sept 2), DDO is coming out, there are a load of free to play betas rolling around as well as some other premium titles about to hit shelves and we get "exclusive" UO interviews? How many people were beating down these two dorks door to talk to them about UO - did the interviewer start out the QA with aimless stories about how much a loaf of bread used to cost in his day and how children today have no respect for their elders. Maybe next week we can go back and do some sweet exclusive interviews with the creators of Race War Kingdom and what they are innovating next?
Honestly, I love this show but this was spicy flavor weaksauce. UO is the Estelle Getty of MMO's, just because you are still alive (not the case for Estelle anymore) doesn't mean anyone cares. The amazing innovation they mentioned, btw, quality developers wouldn't wipe themselves with today. If I could play this load of junk on my iPhone (maybe I already can) then maybe I'd be interested as a goof but this joke stopped being relevant to MMO gaming circa the mid 90's (that's being quite generous to UO btw).
Next week on the MMO Report: MUD's - amazing new developments from this thing that most of your viewers have never heard about!
Norcon
Im getting sick of specials, can you give some actual news for once?! the only reason I watch the MMO report is because I want to know what's going on in the world of MMOs, (and because Casey is totally awesome!) but any way, I want some news please!
Shredator
Someone, somewhere is playing it. Probably.
MindTricked
I'm constantly amazed that people still play UO. I quit, after 5+ years, back in '05, and I have friends that still play. Gotta admire the longevity of this dinosaur, if nothing else.
Basara549
8-Track users? More like types that prefer to listen to LPs rather than CDs or MP3s, because the older medium preserves more of the recording that is lost in encoding. And yes, there are people who still make LPs for that very reason.
UO is still around because it WORKS. There are all kinds of WOW-clones and EQ-clones that have less of a following than UO, and so far, UO has outlived every game that was supposed to have killed it (including not one, but TWO games that were supposed to replace it).
The simple fact is that there are hundreds of thousands of loyal players (most of us older ones) that prefer the overhead view ala Fallout/Jagged Alliance 2/X-Com, compared to running around looking like Shrek while getting motion sick with all the WOW-type graphics. Probably closer to a million if you count all the freeshards (player-run servers using an old hacked emulator engine) that exist that EA doesn't condone, but neither have they shut them down (a lot of ideas for in-game systems that the official version of the game has added in the last 7 years, appeared first in freeshards - one has to wonder...)
Plus, there's an element of community within UO that has actually has people playing for purposes OTHER than constantly running around and fighting. Crafters, in-game auctioneers, artists that design their custom housing to look like other things entirely, even prayer groups that meet for services using their in-game avatars once a week. There really isn't another game remotely like it, in that aspect - it's a sandbox, not a level grind.
TyDogg
WTF is Ultima Online? lol
crocodilius
most revered? guess these dudes never been to BlizzCon >.> v.v <.<</safety_wrapper&g t;
FuzzyHammer
Ok, so developer interviews are awesome, and every MMO deserves some of the spotlight... like I get that. But I don't think the MMO report should do exclusive shows... like that whole thing could still be in the show, but it would have been nice to have an extra minute or two about what else is going on in the MMO-verse. Nobody watching this is going to complain if the MMO report ran a little long and fed us more news, because the fact of the matter is this: We love Casey and he doesn't get enough face time when you make shows like this and he's the freakin' host. Also, it's the second week in a row that you all did this.
i.e. - Champions online came out this week, and after their 2nd day their servers shut down completely... which is a little funny... you could have mentioned something.
Like the last Blizz show you did was probably good for people who still care about what they'll get to grind for in the next WoW expansion... although it's relatively more important because if you didn't buy your special tickets to go to their secret convention just for their 1 lil' company, you'd miss a bit of info because they're too important to show up at any other cons. So this is an easy way to get all the info right here rather than to scour the internet for hours looking for bootleg videos.
But UO? Really? The top news story on their website was the fact that they were being featured on your website. Truth. Why are people still playing that game? That's like people who still hold onto/currently use their 8-track and VHS tapes.
I'd rather hear about the development of NEW MMOs coming out that I have no intention of playing than about old MMOs that are hanging on via life support that need their plug pulled.
What's going on with The Secret World?
cryfordawn
While UO was the greatest MMO of all time when it first came out, now its nothing more then 2d garbage. I played UO for 9 years from Alpha through its major release. Its just outdated and time to close it up. If your computer can only maintain to play UO and not something more modern like WOW or Star Wars KOTOR then its time to get out of your moms closest and give her back her computer. Game was tired years ago.
Let it go EA
Bassglass
It looks nice. but i am not sure if i will go back to UO because of it.
krypto74
Yaaay, Flying Draenei! Wait.. never mind.
Displaying 1–15 of 15
Add a Comment