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Ultima Online

Developer(s) Origin Systems, Electronic Arts
Publisher(s) Electronic Arts
Designer(s) Raph Koster and over 20 more
Platform(s) Windows
Genre(s) MMORPG
Mode(s) Multiplayer
Rating(s) ESRB: T (Teen) (formerly Mature)
Media CD
System requirements Intel Pentium CPU, 32 MB RAM, DirectX 5, Internet access
Input methods Keyboard, mouse

Ultima Online (UO) is a popular graphical massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), released on September 25, 1997, by Origin Systems. A video game developer is a software developer (a business or an individual that creates Video games A developer may specialize in a certain video Origin Systems Inc (sometimes abbreviated as OSI) was a Computer game developer based in Austin Texas that was active from 1983 to A "game designer" is a person who designs Video games or one who designs traditional games such as Board games Video Games Designer A video game designer Raphael "Raph" Koster (born 7 September 1971) is an American Entrepreneur, game designer, and Author of In Computing, a platform describes some sort of Hardware architecture or Software framework (including Application frameworks, that allows Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. See also [[Game classification]] Video games are categorized into Genres based on their Gameplay interaction A massively multiplayer online role-playing game ( MMORPG) is a genre of Computer role-playing games (CRPGs in which a large number of players interact with A multiplayer video game is one which more than one person can play in the same game environment at the same time A video game content rating system is a system used for the classification of Video games into suitability-related groups The Entertainment Software Rating Board ( ESRB) is a self-regulatory organization that applies and enforces ratings, Advertising guidelines and Digital media (as opposed to analog media) usually refers to Electronic media that work on digital Codes. A Compact Disc (also known as a CD) is an Optical disc used to store digital data, originally developed for storing digital audio The Pentium brand refers to Intel 's single-core x86 Microprocessor based on the P5 fifth-generation Microarchitecture. Microsoft DirectX is a collection of Application programming interfaces (APIs for handling tasks related to Multimedia, especially Game programming and The Internet is a global system of interconnected Computer networks In Computing, a keyboard is an Input device partially modelled after the typewriter keyboard which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys In Computing, a mouse (plural mice, mouse devices, or mouses) A massively multiplayer online role-playing game ( MMORPG) is a genre of Computer role-playing games (CRPGs in which a large number of players interact with Events 303 - On a voyage preaching the Gospel, Saint Fermin of Pamplona is beheaded in Amiens, France Year 1997 ( MCMXCVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1997 Gregorian calendar Origin Systems Inc (sometimes abbreviated as OSI) was a Computer game developer based in Austin Texas that was active from 1983 to It was instrumental to the development of the genre, and is still running today. The game is played online, in a fantasy setting similar to that of the other Ultima games that preceded it.

The success of Ultima Online opened the door for the creation of many new massively multiplayer games. Ultima Online is a fantasy role-playing game set in the Ultima universe. A role-playing game ( RPG; often roleplaying game) is a Game in which the participants assume the roles of Fictional characters. It is online-only and played by thousands of simultaneous users (who pay a monthly fee) on various game servers, also known as shards. It is known for its extensive timing-based player versus player combat system. Player vs player, PvP, or Player Killing is competitive interaction within a game between two or more live participants Over a million paid accounts have been created in the game. To maintain order in the online community, there are Game Masters who resolve player disputes, police the shard for terms of service violations, and correct glitches in the game. A Gamemaster or Game Master (often abbreviated as GM) is a player in a multiplayer Game who acts as organizer arbitrator and officiant in rules situations Terms of service (often abbreviated as "ToS" are rules by which one must agree to abide by in order to use a service.

Several expansions have been released, but its aging game engine and graphics make it outdated compared to competitive, new massively multiplayer games. This changed with the release of Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn in 2007, which features a new game engine. Ultima Online Kingdom Reborn is a client for the 1997 MMORPG Ultima Online, created in 2007 with updated graphics Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Since Ultima Online's prime in 2003, the overall subscriber base has seen a steady decline. Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. Subscriber numbers peaked at around 250,000 in July of 2003, and to date sit around 135,000 subscribers (approximately 70,000 of whom are Japanese). The are the dominant Ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent of these approximately 127 million are residents of Japan [1] As of June 2006, Ultima Online held a 1. 1% market share of the massively multiplayer online game subscriptions. Market share, in Strategic management and Marketing, is the percentage or proportion of the total available Market or Market segment that is [2]

Quoting directly from the Electronic Arts press release announcing the Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn expansion, Ultima Online was "the first MMORPG to reach the 100,000 subscriber base, far exceeding that of any game that went before it. A news release, media release, press release or press statement is a written or recorded Communication directed at members of the News Ultima Online Kingdom Reborn is a client for the 1997 MMORPG Ultima Online, created in 2007 with updated graphics Since then, it has added seven expansion packs and dozens of free content updates, making it one of the deepest, largest MMORPGs ever created. It is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest continuously running MMORPG in history. Guinness World Records, known until 2000 as The Guinness Book of Records (and in previous U "

Contents

History

Ultima Online is the product of Richard Garriott's idea for a fantasy game involving several thousand people who can all play in a shared fantasy world. Richard Allen Garriott (born July 4, 1961) also known as Lord British in Ultima and General British There were a number of prior games that allowed hundreds of people to play at the same time, including The Realm Online, Neverwinter Nights (the AOL version), and Meridian 59. The Realm Online, originally known simply as The Realm, was among the first MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games for Neverwinter Nights was the first Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG to display graphics and ran from 1991 to 1997 on Meridian 59 is an online Computer role-playing game first published by the now defunct 3DO Company and now run by Near Death Studios. However, Ultima Online was intended to be a significant improvement over the previous games, both graphically and in game mechanics. The initial team was composed of Garriot, Starr Long, Rick Delashmit and, a bit later Raph Koster, who became the lead designer for the project. Raphael "Raph" Koster (born 7 September 1971) is an American Entrepreneur, game designer, and Author of Koster wrote a number of public "designer letters" and usually went by his nickname of Designer Dragon. Koster drew inspiration from a number of prior online games[3] such as DartMUD. DartMUD is a well known MUD, or online text-based roleplaying game started in 1991 at Dartmouth College. [4]

The project started in 1995 and was shown to the public at E3 in 1996. Year 1995 ( MCMXCV) was a Common year starting on Sunday. Events of 1995 The E3 Media and Business Summit, formerly known as Electronic Entertainment Expo and commonly known as E3, is an annual Trade show for the computer Year 1996 ( MCMXCVI) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar) At the time (in the mid-1990s), Ultima Online was a very expensive project and quite risky for the company. The development cost was much greater than traditional computer games, it relied on people accessing servers with modems, and it attempted to transform the Ultima series into an entirely new genre. Ultima Online was an ambitious game on a number of fronts, such as:

Upon release in mid-1997, Ultima Online proved to be very popular, reaching 100,000 paying subscribers within six months of release even despite severe "lag" problems at the time. Year 1997 ( MCMXCVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1997 Gregorian calendar Subscriptions continued to grow for several years reaching a peak of some 250,000 paid accounts. Origin was able to make a great deal of money from the monthly fees required to play Ultima Online and many other companies took note and began development of their own massively multiplayer games. The most successful games after Ultima Online have been EverQuest (released in March 1999), Asheron's Call (released in November 1999), Dark Age of Camelot (released in October 2001), and World of Warcraft (released in November 2004). EverQuest, often called EQ, is a 3D fantasy -themed Massively multiplayer online role-playing game ( MMORPG) that was released Asheron's Call (AC is a Fantasy MMORPG for Microsoft Windows -based PCs released on November 2 1999. Dark Age of Camelot is a 3D Medieval Fantasy MMORPG that revolves around the war between three realms at the end of World of Warcraft (commonly acronymed as WoW) is a Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG The Korean massively multiplayer game Lineage was very much inspired by Ultima Online, as have many other subsequent online games. Korea is a geographic area composed of two sovereign countries a civilization and a former state situated on the Korean Peninsula in East Asia. Lineage (리니지 is a Medieval Fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game ( MMORPG) released in 1998 by the South

Game mechanics

Main article: Ultima Online game mechanics

Ultima Online continued the tradition of previous Ultima games in many ways, but due to advancing technology and the simple fact that it was Origin's first persistent online game, there were many new game mechanics as well. Ultima Online continued the tradition of previous Ultima games in many ways but due to advancing Technology and the simple fact that it Partially designed as a social and economic experiment, the game had to account for the widespread player interaction as well as deal with the long history of players feeling as if they were the center of attention, as had been the case in single-player games. An economy is the realized social system of production exchange distribution and consumption of goods and services of a country or other area New to both the developers and the players, a lot that was planned never happened, and a lot that was unexpected did, and many new game systems were put in place to compensate.

Issues faced

Criticism of Ultima Online

In an infamous incident during the beta, Lord British was assassinated.
In an infamous incident during the beta, Lord British was assassinated. Ultima Online has seen many major revisions throughout its history Lord Cantabrigian British is the name of the ruler of Britannia, kingdom of the fictional world of Sosaria created by Richard Garriott for his Computer

Ultima Online has seen many major revisions throughout its history. This includes gameplay revisions, staff changes, technical revamps, porting the backend to Unix, and fundamental design changes. For the television channel see GamePlay HD. Gameplay includes all player experiences during the interaction with game systems especially formal With few earlier MMORPGs to take lesson from, the staff behind Ultima Online was breaking new ground and had to solve complex issues that had never been faced in a commercial game on such a wide scale before. The importance of understanding psychology, social interaction, economy, and other issues became increasingly important as complex social behavior evolved. Psychology (from Greek grc ψῡχή psȳkhē, "breath life soul" and grc -λογία -logia) is an Academic and Social interaction is a dynamic changing sequence of Social actions between individuals (or groups who modify their actions and reactions according to the actions by their An economy is the realized social system of production exchange distribution and consumption of goods and services of a country or other area In Biology, Psychology and Sociology social behavior is behavior directed towards society or taking place between members of the same species

Throughout the pre-release development of the game, a well-balanced, realistic economy and social structure was the goal. Definition In the absence of agreement about its meaning the term "social" is used in many different senses referring among other things to attitudes While not all of the features planned for incorporation made it into the first release, the developers did manage to give almost all of the control to the players in terms of what they could do to each other and the world as a whole. What ensued caused permanent repercussions still faced in the game today.

Expansions, sequels and other releases

Throughout Ultima Online's long history, there have been many releases of the game, both on store shelves and online. Several sequels were in development but canceled, and expansions have been released regularly. A sequel is a work in Literature, Film, or other media that portrays events following those of a previous work

Sequels

Two sequels were planned by Electronic Arts, but both were canceled during development so that more focus could be spent on the original game.

Expansions

Expansions have been released regularly, all of which add new content in the form of landmass, art, quests, items, or game mechanics.

Other releases

Ultima Online has had several special releases which were not expansions, but came with boxed or in-game extras.

Shard emulation

Main article: Ultima Online shard emulation

Fans of Ultima Online have reverse-engineered the game to produce server emulators of the original Electronic Arts servers. Fans of Ultima Online have reverse engineered the game to produce Server emulators of the original Electronic Arts servers Reverse engineering (RE is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device object or system through analysis of its structure function and operation Server emulator is a term that is used to refer to an internet server that mimics the behavior of another server that is usually more well known With the modern emulation server software available today, it is possible to customize most aspects of the game and support large numbers of concurrent players on a single server. These "freeshards" are not supported by EA but have been popular among users who prefer a different rule set, or who can not afford the monthly subscription fee.

Clients

Electronic Arts provides the standard client with which players are allowed to connect to the Ultima Online servers, though some third-party clients have been made.

Original client

The original Ultima Online client is completely 2D and, while it was state of the art when released, it is intended to be used on low-end machines that cannot support the more taxing 3D client. It also presents a different artistic flavor which some people find more attractive than the 3D client. Many of the graphics used are high-resolution versions of graphics used in Ultima VIII. Ultima VIII Pagan is a Video game, the eighth part of the Computer role-playing game series Ultima.

Ultima Online: Third Dawn client

The 3D client was originally released as a part of the Ultima Online: Third Dawn expansion, but has received poor reviews from both veteran and new players alike due to a large number of performance issues (especially memory leaks early on) and what many see as sub-par graphics. Ultima Online Third Dawn, released in 2001, introduced 3D models to the Ultima Online MMORPG franchise An update to the 3D client was made on January 30, 2006 when characters and creatures from the game were scaled down to smaller sizes. Events 1648 - Eighty Years' War: The Treaty of Münster is signed ending the conflict between the Netherlands and Spain Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar.

As of early May/Late April 2007, the Third Dawn client was done away with by EA, in order to make room for the Kingdom Reborn client (see below). Official UO servers will no longer work with the TD client.

Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn client

Screenshot from Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn.
Screenshot from Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn.

Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn was announced in August 2006 was released June 27, 2007. Ultima Online Kingdom Reborn is a client for the 1997 MMORPG Ultima Online, created in 2007 with updated graphics Other names In Arabic, the month is called أغسطسص ʾUġusṭuṣ or آب ʾĀb; usage varies from place to place and Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. The new client, according to the Ultima Online team at Electronic Arts, is being created for the purpose of modernizing the game's look, making it easy to add new content without backsliding through outdated and outmoded art, while maintaining the niche market as an MMORPG that can be run on lower-end computers. Unfortunately, many players noted that it was released before it was really ready, as it was extremely slow on most computers and many things were still left to do, as even some of the client art was unfinished at its release (among other things). Many players also voiced their dissatisfaction with the 'updated' art, stating it was still extremely dated in terms of its craftsmanship and overall look.

At a players' convention in Atlanta, EA announced that the recommended specs for the UO:KR client are a 1 GHz CPU, a GeForce 3 series video card (low end enough to be considered obsolete by the manufacturer as stated on its Internet site), 2GB of hard drive space, and 512MB of RAM. It stated that it had "some success" running UO:KR at 256MB RAM, but that 512 was recommended. This was changed as of August 13th, where according to the UO. com site the recommended specs are: Windows XP or Windows Vista, CPU: Intel Pentium III 1000 MHz or AMD Athlon 1000 MHz, RAM: 512 MB or more, Video: 64 MB 3D graphics card with Hardware Transform and Lighting, such as NVIDIA GeForce 3 class card or above, hard drive: 6. 0 GB available space.

EA has referred to the UO:KR client as "2. 5d," meaning that it was written in 3d and then effectively backslid into 2d to make it, in theory, easier for lower-end computers to run -- and, presumably, to maintain the "feel" of the game. Many players of the game disagree with this, however, stating that the system requires far more work and optimization to run adequately on lower and middle end systems.

The client is available as a free download for current players of the game.

Statements made by EA originally suggested, or appeared to suggest, that the KR client would replace the long-standing UO client. However, at the first of several EA-sponsored players' conventions referred to as "UO Town Meetings," in Atlanta, EA representatives suggested that the two clients would exist side-by-side until about 80% of the players had switched over to the new client.

Easter eggs

Ultima Online has included some well known Easter eggs throughout the years. A virtual Easter egg is an intentional Hidden message or feature in an object such as a movie, Book

See also

References

UOForums.com - Interview with Punkbuster's Founder, Tony Ray. Felucca Felucca is the original facet from when Ultima Online was first released on September 25, 1997 and was the only facet for over

UOForums.com - Interview with Jeremy Dalberg, Community Coordinator for Ultima Online.

UOForums.com - Interview with Tim "Draconi" Cotten, Designer for Ultima Online.

UOForums.com - Interview with Dave "Cathat" Brown, Character and Environmental artist.

UOForums.com - 2nd Interview with Dave "Cathat" Brown, Character and Environmental artist.

UOForums.com - Interview with John "Wilki" Wilkinson, Designer for Ultima Online.

  1. ^ MMOGchart. com (2006-07). An Analysis of MMOG Subscription Growth - Version 21.0. MMOGchart. com. Retrieved on 2006-08-09. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 48 BC - Caesar's civil war: Battle of Pharsalus - Julius Caesar decisively defeats Pompey at Pharsalus
  2. ^ MMOGchart. com (2006-06). MMOG Subscriptions Market Share. MMOGchart. com. Retrieved on 2006-08-09. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 48 BC - Caesar's civil war: Battle of Pharsalus - Julius Caesar decisively defeats Pompey at Pharsalus
  3. ^ Koster's Website
  4. ^ Koster MUD-Dev Posting "DartMUD was influential on me, certainly--ought to have been for everyone. "

External links

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