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Ultima Online

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Ultima Online
UO 7th Anniversary Edition
UO 7th Anniversary Edition
Developer(s)Origin Systems
Publisher(s)Electronic Arts
Producer(s)Richard Garriott
Designer(s)Raph Koster and more... over 20
Platform(s)Windows
ReleaseSeptember 30, 1997
Genre(s)MMORPG
Mode(s)Multiplayer

Released on September 30, 1997, by Origin Systems, Ultima Online (UO) is often considered the first popular massively multiplayer online game. The game is played online, in a fantasy setting similar to that of the other Ultima games that preceded it.

Overview

The success of Ultima Online (UO) opened the door for the creation of many exciting new massively multiplayer games that have or are about to hit the market. UO is a third-person/isometric fantasy role-playing game set in the Ultima universe. 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 also known for its extensive timing-based player versus player combat system. 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.

Several expansions have been released, but its aging game engine and graphics make it very outdated compared to competitive, new massively multiplayer games. Since the release of Ultima Online: Age of Shadows expansion, many veteran players have all but removed themselves from the game to either try new MMORPGs, free shards, or quit entirely. Since Ultima Online's prime in the early 2000's, overall subscriber turnout has been dramatically dropping. Subscriber numbers peaked at around 250,000 in July of 2003, and have steadily declined to around 160,000-175,000 subscribers (Subscriber counts source Mmogchart.com). The number of subscribers achieved by UO was surpassed by EverQuest in 1999. According to Mmogchart.com, Ultima Online holds a 1.7% market share of MMORPG's (figures from June, 2005). Ultima Online is still losing subscribers, but as of June, 2005 it is still above 150,000 subscribers. Part of this decline is due to natural aging of the game and its aged graphics, but it also no longer has the market to itself, and other MMORPGs are in close competition.

Issues Faced

File:UO LB assasination.jpg
In an infamous incident during the Beta, Lord British was assassinated

Ultima Online has seen many major revisions throughout its history. This includes game-play revisions, staff changes, technical revamps, and even fundamental design changes. With few earlier MMORPGs to take lesson from, the staff behind UO 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 such became increasingly important as complex social behavior evolved.

Throughout the pre-release development of the game, a well-balanced, realistic economy and social structure was the goal. While not nearly all of the features planned for incorporation made it into the first release, the developers did manage to put almost all of the control into the hands of 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.

Macroing

Almost every skill in Ultima Online could be advanced by a couple of simple, repetive mouseclicks. Even fighting monsters could be circumvented by sparring with training dummys or casting magic spells on yourself. Players would set up programs that could mimick mouseclicks to advance their skills without them being there. Almost any skill could be macroed, and a wellstocked player could quickly create a grandmaster in a matter of weeks.

Griefing

Many players saw the "punch in the nose factor" (as Designer Dragon put it) of being able to harm each other directly as allowing too much "griefing" – or intentionally hampering the entertainment of others. Typically griefing was done by ether repeated PK (player killing), stealing, using harmful exploits or running various scams. Originally unrestrained in nature, developers attempted increasing penalties to curb "anti-social behavior" by introducing various game systems, such as notoriety system, stat loss system and many others. This effort culminated in release of Trammel – a portion of the world in which mutual-consent was necessary to directly harm another player. Introduction of Trammel negatively affected risk vs. reward balance and severely decreased opportunities for consensual PvP (player versus player) combat. While the warrants of eliminating un-consensual PvP combat are debatable, majority of subsequently released MMORPGs started off right away with only greatly limited mutual-consent combat amongst players. Many more players left in subsequent years, often marking the introduction of Trammel as the turning point, claiming the ability to avoid the more complex sides of interaction took much of the spice away from the game.

Housing

Another problem was that of player-owned housing. UO has always allowed players to purchase houses, and build them on practically any flat piece of land. For the first few months, the primary issues with housing were that losing the key meant losing the house (often to another player who stole it or killed the owner), and if someone managed to get inside the house (either by exploitation of a bug or by simply waiting until someone opened/unlocked the door), they could steal everything inside. These issues were later addressed by making house keys “blessed” (non-stealable, non-droppable upon death) items, and by giving special commands to “lock down” items, so that even those who got in the house could not pick them up. Ownership of a house was also eventually defined separately from mere key possession.

After a few months, when some players and guilds had enough money to buy many houses, there came the problem of using tents and other cheap houses to wall off huge sections of the world as private areas. It was a common solution to the above problems (before they were fixed), if you owned a large house like a tower, to build three smaller houses around the entrance, walling you in, and then using the recall or gate spell to get inside that artificial courtyard. Since some players abused that tactic to create gigantic “courtyards”, the developers eventually opened up all of the major ones by deleting selected houses and by putting the additional restraint on house placement rules requiring that there be empty space around a building before it may be placed.

By the time Trammel was introduced, there was literally not a single empty space of land anywhere in the game where a house of any size could be built. Vast amounts of wilderness were covered with a thick layer of housing, making places supposedly “wild” seem like cities. When housing was enabled on Trammel, tens of thousands of players simultaneously camped out and tried to compete for prime locations for various types of houses, resulting in massive amounts of telestorming, where players were transferred amongst the sub-servers of a given shard, causing random teleportation and extreme amounts of lag. For many years, housing space was scarce, due in part to rising numbers of subscribers and only slowly increasing limitations on the number of houses each account may own. Several worlds were created without the ability to have houses built within them to protect their atmosphere from becoming another city. Almost all house transactions during this time were of currently-owned houses being sold, or people waiting outside houses that are about to “decay” (disappear from lack of use) – even though housing is limited to one house per player. In recent years, additional housing areas have been made available for all players. Many subsequent MMORPGs used instancing for housing or simply did not provide it at all.

Customizable housing was introduced with Ultima Online: Age of Shadows. Originally, the concept was prototyped by Vex (a designer on the Ultima Online team). Customizable housing is considered replayable game mechanic, a gold sink, and a tribute to a player's imagination. The massive amount of ingenuity put forth by the playerbase on their houses is a testament to how diverse the game has become. Only Ultima Online offers the most comprehensive housing system in an online fantasy world, to this day.

Economy

Another large problem facing UO has been the economy. While remaining balanced, money (or more generally, value) has been added to the game much more quickly than it has been taken out, resulting in extreme devaluation of gold. Value often enters the game through killing monsters, treasure, and crafting, while the primary way it leaves the game is through NPC reagent sales. Throughout the history of UO, various “gold sinks” have been provided to compensate, and prices of items have steadily risen to compensate, but the effects are still felt.

MMO economy is always faced with the problem of inflation. This is due to the introduction of new players into the game and veteran players running out of choices to spend their money on. Each new player becomes a source of new income. This is reflected by real world economics. Inflation in any game, without a severely imposed closed economy by a game designer, is something that always occurs.

A severe set of gold sinks, such as that employed in World of Warcraft, curtails inflation, but does not elliminate it.

Bugs

UO has seen a large amount of bug exploitation throughout its long history. While this is true of all MMOs and computer programs in general, some of the bugs, the reasons why they existed in the first place, and the way they were dealt with, were all relatively new (especially to the staff working on UO) at the time. Some subsequent games have learned by UO’s example and some repeat the same mistakes.

One key issue is that, after the official release of the game, EA and Origin have always been unwilling to do a complete wipe of any shard, and will only do a relatively minor revert, never more than a few days at a time. This has left the game marred with the aftereffects of many bugs. Response by ex-team member: The reasoning for this is marring the playerbase's memories of their character growth outweighed the erase of an entire shard. A paying customer would rather a new shard be created than have their items and characters they love destroyed. A producer's response is that erasing a shard is a huge loss of revenue due to the players that quit.

Another problem has been that, initially, too much trust was given to the client. Before long, players began circumventing the client in order to send otherwise impossible packets, causing the server to do things it normally would not do (thanks only to client restrictions). A famous example is “true black” dye tubs and the ability to walk through walls. “Speed walking” (the ability to walk or run faster than you would normally be allowed) was also introduced through the third party program "UO Extreme", which also allowed for many other illegal features. In recent years, EA has gone to great lengths never to trust the client about anything, and other games have followed suit.

Duping

The duping bug exploit started at the game's release and, for unknown reasons, was not resolved for over a year. A player would throw his soon to be duped belongings on the ground. He then teleported to a far away place and shut down his client before he arrived. The virtual world had many computers controlling different regions, and by moving a long distance the character would be transferred between two computers, but by shutting down the client the character would be lost in the transfer. When the player logged back in the server would use its last backup of the character which included the now duplicated items.

Expansions, Sequels and other releases

Sequels

  • Ultima Online 2 (UO2) — later renamed Ultima Worlds Online: Origin (UWO:O) — was announced in 1999. It was to add Steampunk elements to the fantasy setting, set in a world where the Past, Present and Future of Sosaria were merged together by a mistake made by Lord British while attempting to merge together the shards of the Gem of Immortality. Todd McFarlane was hired to design original monsters and regions for the game, as well as help shape the story. It was cancelled in 2001 before its release, citing the competitive nature of the massively multiplayer online gaming market — Electronic Arts feared the sequel would harm UO's subscription numbers. Some of the monsters and art made for UWO:O were later used in the Ultima Online expansion Lord Blackthorn's Revenge.
  • Ultima X: Odyssey — This new MMORPG was to be set in a world named Alucinor, created by the Avatar after the events of Ultima IX: Ascension. It was cancelled in 2004 — again, according to EA, in order to focus on expansions to the original Ultima Online.

Expansions

  • The Second Age (October 1, 1998) Featured a new area of land called the Lost Lands, along with an in-game chat system and new creatures. Also known as T2A. Was Released in two boxed versions with the first having different artwork and a single manual.
  • Renaissance (April 3, 2000) The world was doubled in size, as there were literally two copies of it. The worlds were called Felucca and Trammel, after the two moons in Ultima's Britannia world. The Trammel world did not allow player killing, while the Felucca world did. Felucca also adopted a darker, more foreboding look.
  • Third Dawn (March 7, 2001) The major change was that this expansion included a 3D client, no doubt to compete with 3D MMORPGs like EverQuest. Also, a special Third Dawn only land was created, called Ilshenar. It was accessible only to 3D clients until the release of Lord Blackthorn's Revenge.
  • Lord Blackthorn's Revenge (February 24, 2002) Brought "a dark new world based on new characters from Todd McFarlane" to Ultima with improved game AI, in-game help, and improved character creation.
  • Age of Shadows (February 28, 2003) Brought the landmass of Malas with lots of space for new housing, two new character classes (Paladin and Necromancer) and the ability to customize house designs. The item system was completely reworked with this expansion. Armour resistance was split in to five types of resistance, and many new properties that affected gameplay were added to weaponry. As good equipment was now vital, this expansion also brought with it item insurance.
  • Samurai Empire (November 2, 2004) Brought ancient Asian mythology and folklore to the game, two new classes (Ninja and Samurai) and a new area to explore, the Tokuno Islands.
  • Mondain's Legacy (August 30, 2005) Introduced a new race, elves, and a new skill, spellweaving. Several dungeons were also added. This is the only UO expansion to be released as a "download only" product.

Other Releases

  • Ultima Online: Charter Edition (September 30, 1997) Was available to Pre-order from Origin Systems at the launch of Ultima Online and in small quantities alongside the standard retail box. It included a signed lithograph of the Ultima Online artwork by the Hilderbrandt brothers, A Pewter Pin badge bearing the Ultima online logo and the box was signed by Lord British AKA Richard Garriott. The Charter Edition also included the cloth map which was also a feature of the standard box.
  • Ultima Online: The Seventh Age (September 25, 2004) Was a special release of the game to celebrate Ultima Onlines Seventh birthday. Like all of the items listed in this section, this release did not bring anything new to the game and is not an expansion, but included a more recently patched CD, but the Age of Shadows was still the most current version at the time. This release was contained in a small cardboard box containing a triple CD Jewel case, featuring Ultima Online Age of Shadows, but also Included Ultima IX: Ascension Install and play discs as a special bonus. A glossy booklet showing the history of Ultima online expansions was included which contained historic art and interview from the UO team and community leaders. Also included in the package a code for an in game gift, one of which was Ultima Onlines famous Hilderbrant print, an extra character slot (A total of six charachters was now available) and 7 buddy registration codes.
  • Ultima Online: The Eighth Age (September 25, 2005) Was a Boxed Game CD with an array of in game tokens. Though not bringing any new features the release was to celebrate Ultima Onlines Eighth birthday. The Box included a updated game CD (with more recent patches), A Glossy booklet feauring an Atlas of Sosaria, In Game Tokens For An Anniversary Gift (Choice of 8) a character transfer, an advanced character and a 45 day free trial code. Also a time limited Blue soulstone was included.

Ultima Online Timeline and Milestones

August 1997 — Lord British has an unfortunate accident. While giving a speech to a bright-eyed Britannian crowd, the King was engulfed in flames and spent some time in the realm of the dead. However, with the aid of his companions, he was revived shortly thereafter and finished his speech, much to the delight of those in attendance.

September 1997 — Last day of the original beta test. The beta ended with a bang, as players were treated to an "end of the world" scenario with Shadowlords, demons, and other evil creatures slaughtering every character in sight.

September 1997 — The adventure begins! Ultima Online opens its doors to the public.

October 1998 — The Second Age. Ultima Online's first expansion introduced an entirely new landmass, vicious new monsters, new dungeons, and a lush tropical jungle filled with surprises.

December 1998 — Ultima Online achieves 100,000 users worldwide.

January 1999 — Ultima Online expands into Asia

May 1999 — Origin Systems announces European launch of Ultima Online.

January 2000 — Ultima Online expands into Australia with "Oceania," UO's 21st shard.

February 2000 — The Invasion of Trinsic. A massive army of undead laid siege to the once peaceful city of Trinsic. Due to the overwhelming odds, the dark army managed to conquer the city under the leadership of Juo'nar and the Dark Mistress Minax. All hope seemed to be lost, but noble Britannians from all over rallied together and reclaimed the city from the clutches of evil!

February 2000 — Ultima Online achieves 150,000 subscribers.

February 2000 — Lord British disappears. Rumors fly on the wind about the disappearance of the King. Some claim he was abducted by Mongbats, while others insist that it was the work of more malevolent forces.

May 2000 — Renaissance. Ultima Online's second expansion marked the beginning of a new era in Britannia. With the splitting of the lands into the facets of Trammel and Felucca, players could choose their geography based on their play style.

November 2000 — UO World Faire. Players from all over met and mingled in Austin, TX at Ultima Online's first official Fanfest.

March 2001 — Third Dawn. Ultima Online's third expansion introduced the new land of Ilshenar, new beasts and monsters, and an entirely new way to view the game.

January 2002 — Online Worlds FanFest. Ultima Online's second official Fanfest was held in Austin, TX. Players were able to meet the Developers behind the game, as well as special guest speaker Todd McFarlane.

February 2002 — Lord Blackthorn's Revenge. Ultima Online's fourth expansion brought players into a world under siege, replete with more than 30 new and exotic characters created by none other than Spawn™ creator Todd McFarlane.

May 2002 — A hero emerges. Dawn, Royal Knight of Britannia, leads the fight against Blackthorn and Exodus.

February 2003 — Age of Shadows. Ultima Online's fifth expansion was the most aggressive yet, offering players the ability to custom design their homes, the Paladin and Necromancer professions, a new land called Malas, and 13 new combat moves.

March 2003 — Ultima Online reaches 250,000 subscribers.

June 2003 — Lord Blackthorn is defeated! During a speech given by the virtuous Dawn, Blackthorn orders his minions to attack the assembled masses. The battle was fierce, but in the end, the noble citizens of Britannia prevailed, and Lord Blackthorn was slain.

September 2003 — Lord British returns! The Lost King returns to his people and speaks of the future of Britannia.

September 2003 — Happy 6th anniversary Ultima Online!

Timeline and Milestone sources taken from : http://www.uo.com/sept2003nl.html#grand

Shard emulation

Technically-inclined fans of Ultima Online have reverse-engineered the game to produce emulators of the original game servers. This emulation is legal, and EA is aware of its existence, although in certain countries the authors of these emulators are considered to have violated their software license by reverse-engineering the game, and may be banned from the official UO servers as a result (other countries don't allow restrictions on reverse engineering). To stay legal, emulation servers do not distribute the official EA client files, and the users of the emulation software must not charge their players to be able to play on their individual shards. Even knowing they can't make any money from their work, this hasn't stopped UO enthusiasts spending countless hours producing excellent free-shards that rival the official EA ones.

With emulators, coders and players alike can enjoy a much larger variety of playstyles and UO time periods. From the Pre-T2A era, to the era of Samurai Empire, to fully customized shards which don't even seem like UO anymore. A few shards encourage or enforce their players to roleplay and remain in-character, while far more encourage PvP combat.

Ultima Online emulation has become quite a phenomenon, no other MMORPG had as many different emulators over the years, and none have achieved the quality of emulation provided by the various UO emulation teams.

While many players choose to play on emulated servers to avoid the monthly fee of the official servers, a good part of them migrated away from the official servers because of disagreements in the changes the developers made to the original game play over the years. In recent years, the number of people who have begun playing on emulated servers without first playing on official servers, has been increasing. This is partly due to several free releases of the official client for download, as well as advertisement of the game by those who either create or support emulated servers.

Nowadays, some servers rival the official ones in size and quality. It is possible to find complete and well-populated servers emulating the world as it was in the days before the Renaissance expansion pack as well as servers that provide support for all expansion packs to date. Many European and Asian servers boast of very high numbers of players, as well as extremely customized features, while a higher percentage of American servers have been predominantly small and less customized. This may in part be due to the fact that most of the mainstream emulation software is accessible to English-speaking countries, so there is more incentive for potential players to create their own instead of playing on somebody else’s.

Part of the reason why emulation in Ultima Online has been so successful is the relatively open format of the game's software; it is possible to change the server the game client connects to by merely editing an ASCII text document, although many modern emulators require that the client packet encryption be turned off as well. Removing the packet encryption can be accomplished by either removing it from the client’s executable (as UORice does) permanently, or by circumventing it on a per-use basis by either filtering the packets or modifying the client each time it is run (such as UOGateway and Razor do).

Today, it is commonplace for many custom servers to not only feature custom game play, but also custom media, such as graphics and maps, as well. Almost all of the UO client files have been reverse-engineered, and a whole slew of editing software has arisen. With the addition of custom maps, graphics, and even sound, some of the more custom UO servers are barely recognizable as emulations of the original game at all.

Many players and server administrators wonder if operating or playing on an emulated server is legal or not. Doing so is often considered in the gray area of the law, but to this date, no emulated server has been shut down simply because it emulates the official servers. The only time operating one has been a clear violation of the law is if it uses trademarks owned by Electronic Arts, or when it distributes in some form copy written work, such as a client or client media (such as original graphics sent alongside customized/new ones).

Playing on and operating an emulated shard is, however, against the terms of service of Ultima Online. Therefore, doing either activity may result in account suspension on the official servers, though there has been no known incident of this ever happening.

Notable UO Server Emulators

Emulation Information

  • ShardWire - MMORPG emulation information.
  • UOGateway - A program that removes the client encryption, and lists some free shards.
  • Ryandor - Very active web site regarding making custom maps for UO.
  • Orbsydia - Information for tools such as UOArchitect and UOLandscaper.
  • ScriptSharing - Dedicated to the scripting and sharing of scripts for UO emulators.

Clients

Official clients

Ultima Online features two distinct clients: the original client, which has 2D characters and lighting, and a very distinct 3D client, which uses 3D models for characters and lighting. The 3D client was originally released as a part of the 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. Both clients, however, have strong followings, and EA continues to develop both simultaneously. A much needed update to the 3D Client was made on January 30th 2006 as characters and creatures from the game were scaled down to smaller size. A criticism often heard of the 3D client was how characters and creatures were disproportionate to the rest of the games isometric environment.

Third-party clients

  • Ultima Iris (in development) is an open source client able to work with emulated servers. Using mostly the graphics of the official client, it is able to work with higher resolutions and on multiple platforms. It also allows for the addition of custom art, making it highly desirable to custom shard makers. This client allows for 2D or 3D Ultima Online-like game-play requiring only a copy of the original client. The most notable feature of Ultima Iris is its real 3D engine.
  • PlayUO, (formerly known as Krrios' Client, or KUOC), is another option of custom Ultima Online client, however it is closed-source and only has a 2D version. It can be downloaded at the RunUO.com forums.
  • Palanthir (in development) is another option of custom Ultima Online client, however it is closed-source and only has a 2D version.

See also

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