How Does Ultima Online Do It??

[Tantalyr]

I played Ultima Online ("UO") from early 1999 (prior to the PvP/non-PvP facet split) through early 2003, and though I canceled all my accounts I still keep in touch with my friends who continue to play, as well as peruse the various UO community boards at least once a week. Although it's certainly down from its peak, the last estimate I saw a couple of months ago indicated that UO has approximately 175,000 paying accounts. And I wonder and wonder and wonder how on earth UO keeps such a large subscription base . . . .

Let's see how UO stacks up in the major areas players look for these days in MMORPGS:

Graphics

Let's put it charitably and call them "First Generation" graphics. The game debuted in 1997, and with but one ill-fated and indeed ill-conceived attempt to overhaul them with "3-D" graphics, they have remained the same ever since. I wouldn't elevate the game's graphics by comparing them even to anime. At best, the graphics rate one star out of five.

Character Customization

ALL characters are human. No races. None. Zero. Nada. The only character customizations are hair length and color (and mustaches/beards for male characters), and dyes for clothing (not armor, just clothing). One star out of five. Tops.

Combat System

Up until UO rolled out its Age of Shadows ("AoS") expansion, combat was quite intriguing, and relied heavily on players' ability to know which special attacks/spells to use and when. With AoS all the combat mechanics changed and became almost entirely "object" based. If you have uber equipment, you just point at a beastie, click, and sit back and sip a drink while you watch the beastie die. Same goes for PvP--the guy with the most uber equipment wins. Forget tactics. One star, maybe two, out of five.

Crafting System

For blacksmiths and fletchers, your business--shoot, your whole rationale--went to hell in a handbasket with AoS. What player in his right mind would want equipment a player makes when you HAVE to go loot uber equipment just to survive against beasties, much less PvP'ers? Crafters were still useful for making house decorations, but that was about it. One star out of five.

Multiclassing

Depends on your point of view on the merits of multiclassing characters. If you hate the concept, then you'll love UO. And the converse is true. Each character is limited to about 2.5 classes given all the abilities you must master to max out a particular class. I won't rate this aspect due to the differing views on multiclassing.

The Level Grind

UO doesn't have "levels" per se. Instead, you must master abilities (e.g., swordsmanship, blacksmithing, etc.) by using that ability over and over and over again. Like making literally hundreds of thousands of swords to master blacksmithing. It's the same old "leveling"grind most MMORPG's have, just thinly disguised. Two and a half stars out of five.

Uber Loot

You want uber loot? You got tons of it in UO. Along with the camping and crafter minimalization that inevitably goes with it. If you love uber loot, you'll like that aspect of UO a whole lot. If you don't like the notion of tons of uber loot, then you're REALLY not gonna like UO. Again no rating given the differing views on this design concept.

Player/Developer Interaction

Forget it. There isn't any. If you're actually lucky enough to have a dev speak to you (via email or IRC or some such route), just keep in mind that he's a GOD and you're a slimey peasant. I was one of a couple hundred players who beta'ed AoS before its launch. A closed board was set up for us to comment on the changes. And boy did we! Almost all of us repeatedly advised the devs that the massive changes which would be wrought by AoS would NOT be "appreciated" by the veteran player base. And we were told--almost literally--to shut up and just look for bugs. UO even shut down its official boards, which provided the only player/developer interaction that there was. Zero stars out of five.

Content

New "content"--which primarily consists of either fixes from the last patch screwups or small additions or changes--come in about every three to four months. New lands or critters are introduced only through expansion packs that must be purchased to experience them. World Master events occur about as often, and last a few hours at most. Even a casual player can max out a character within a month or two of rolling it, and hit just about every hunting ground in the game within a month thereafter. No quests to speak of. So after about three months you either make your own content or you roll another character. One star out of five.

Community

Outside the BNet Kiddie online games, I've never seen more jerks and griefers per square inch than in UO. If you hunt more than ten minutes at any of the more popular hunting grounds, you can be assured of being KS'ed until you give up and move on. If you go to any of the popular banks, count on having at least two to three strangers begging you to give them gold. And trash talking you if you don't. And if you're foolish enough to accept a challenge from some jerk to duel on the PvP facet, just realize that he'll be waiting along with 10 of his closest jerk buddies to gank your arse. And you'll get to hear some of the worst testosterone-overdosed trash talking while they gloat over your corpse. Go read some of the posts on the UO Stratics shard forums and you'll get a pretty good flavor of the "community" UO attracts. Sure, there are more than a few really good folks on each shard, but by 2003 they were outnumbered 10 to 1 by the idiots. One star out of five.

Lag

It's about as bad as it gets. When I canceled in 2003 I had a machine with a Pentium 1.8 GiGhz processor, a GeForce video card with 68 megs of RAM, 1.2 gigs of RAM on the machine, and a cable modem. And I would lag to desktop anytime more than 30 mobile characters (any combination of players and beasties/NPC's) were on screen at the same time. And I could count on lag death anytime I hunted--even solo--anywhere near a group of houses. One star out of five.

Fluff

Now this is where UO shines--eye candy abounds in this game. Plants, paintings, busts, and all sorts of nifty house decorations. Yearly rewards for players which get better and better with the age of the account. Exterior and interior house customizations. Five stars out of five.


All in all, I wouldn't give UO a second look beyond even a five-day free trial. So how does UO keep and/or attract a 175,000 subscription base? I've thought about it for some time now, and I truly do not have the slightest idea. But I do believe that if there is an answer, it should be bottled and every MMORPG ought to buy a case of it.

[Zarcharien]

Very good question, and I think its the combination of plots and fluff, and possibly the pvp. I stopped playing about 2 years (AoS did me in, just like others).

C'mon, plots uniquleydecorated stocked withraresto show off and say "look what I have, that others don't", vet rewards dating back many years ect...

That what and whyI think anyways.

[cattoy]

If, as you say, there are maybe one good player in 10, then there are about 17,500 good reasons to play UO.

[Tantalyr]

@Kumu--At first blush that would seem to be the answer, but I have to think that since no new Ultimas have come out since--what--1994?--and the online version is so subpar compared to just about everything else available, folks would have left in droves after a year or two. So I don't think that's what's doing it.

@Zacharian--Fluff is terrific alright. Every game needs eye candy (and I hope the Tulga gods are listening here). Giving us things like interior decorations, exterior house paint, plants, etc. would go a loooong way toward putting smiles on our faces here. But clearly fluff isn't--or shouldn't be--enough to hold any MMORPG together for long.

@Cattoy--True enough, but trust me--the overwhelming majority of bastages in the game really wear you down . . . .

[Varangaard]

Though, if one believes the graphs of MMOGCHART, UO has been in decline since early 2003, having lost nearly 100 000 players to date. http://www.mmogchart.com/

[IndyMan]

My UO account is probably 8 or 9 years old now. I keep it because I have a nice house and quite a few fluff items. Vet rewards and such. If I ever logged in and my house was gone, I would cancel that day. I just cant seem to MAKE myself cancel it even though I log in maybe 8 times a year for no more than 10 minutes.

[Zarcharien]

IndyMan, I believe you are not alone in that aspect by any means. Those are some of the biggest reasons that people hang on imo, plots and fluff.

Off note, cousin of mine was telling me UO is releasing a new expansion pack, due out around August. Suppose to include a new elf race to play and a new elven nation .. or something along those lines anyways. [:S]

[Unicorn's Lady]

Part of it is that it is almost as known as EQ (which makes sense since EQ was UO's main competitor originally), and part of it is loyality to the product and to comrades, and part of it is the fluff & loot,...

But part of it is that just about anyone with even a fossil of a computer system can get in. You don't have to have the latest cutting edge machine with a jillion Crays worth of memory to play, just rattle a few old parts together in a cardboard box and you've got a system that you can play UO on.
And the 2D version doesn't give you vertigo! (Horizons is pretty darn good toomost of the time, but some of the other 3D games out there give some of us screamingheadaches &sudden visits to the porcelain god)

UO will most likely continue for a while, but they are in decline with all the choices in gaming now out and computers becoming a very common household product. They finally gave players a oriental theme last year and now they have decided to give players a chance to be another race. (Shutting the barn door after the horse got out in my opinion.) Some day they'll be a "Remember When?" to us oldsters, just like the Atari 800.

Here's a link to the notice on Stratics about the new UO expansion http://uo.stratics.com/news/GeneralNews.shtml#newsitem1117767647,48049,


Nellie Lovett/Ochre Tekton
(used to be Maxine & Jane Trehawke on Catskills)

[Peaches]

Ultima online is coming out with a new downloadable addon, featuring? You guessed, a new player race. The beauty of this, is you can either create the new race, or do quests to turn your normal character into this player race, and do another quest to return back to your normal character. The design of this new race is an elf. In this addon, they have created quests, and more quests, and more quests, more dungeons, mirrored to felccua side and trammel side. Other features are more for the crafting side of it , and there is tons more announced and not announced as of yet. Date to be released is Aug I believe.

I still have 6 accounts active in Ultima Online, but I mainly play Horizons. When I need a nice break from Horizons, I go to ultima online.

Both games keep my interest. ;)

Oh yes, almost 9 years with Ultima Online
Almost 2 years with Horizons.

[Pero Salmon]

Same question on why Horizons isnt dead yet. Why because of the player fan base. Not everyone cares about graphics all they care about is having fun.

[Nanain]

Great community, who run player events, and thereby solidify their playerbase. UO players tend to have a different idea towards playerrun events, tend to take the game, and mould it to their needs, where other playerbases usually rely on the game company to throw out events, and things like ingame staffed taverns etc.
Plus the Fluff! Awesome Plant system, and virtual lego :)

And had they got their thumbs out and actually released their 3D version in 2000, imagine the like.
Their latest addon seems like a nail in their coffin tbh, if they had an engine similar to wow/eq2/hz whatever, coupled with their content, it'd kick ******!
Not to mention Samurai Empires was so out of context in Britannia, it was silly, and the 2D graphics for the new clothing etc was very badly done. Elves at least, fit with the lay of the land, since players have been rping elves since forever. But throwig out addon after addon is getting v boring.

[arseovrteakettl]

Never underestimate the power of fluff.

Hoping we start to see more placeable objects like those pumpkins, only less seasonal. They can be totally useless, but pretty: craftable or lootable.

Hoping there is in-game "paint" like armor dyes that you can use to pigment floors and walls of your place.

[Kulamata]

From your description, it sounds a lot like Diablo II, which has also done remarkably well with much the same recipe. Super loot, ummm... super loot, and oh yes, super loot.

No housing, crafting, races, but with jerks, and battle net is free. Graphics were not really competitive when it first came out. But the loot has a "thrill factor" which I think is the main reason it did so well for so long; I wish Hz had not been so adamant about unexciting loot for so long.

[Nanain]

uhmmm it has very good housing, has crafting, and with the next addon, has elves..ok so they look like they've been dipped in acid vats, but hey...

[Thorgat]

And I wonder and wonder and wonder how on earth UO keeps such a large subscription base . . . .

Maybe I can put a few answers here my friends and I found at least for ourself. It is not as simple to say it is brands, getting used to it and such, definitelly not.

- graphics: of course it is old but it makes fun, that helps to get over a few things. And 2D while building in it is a pain allows with experience and a variety of optical tricks to build very freely. Now combine that with the feature you can build your house freely from pieces now too, that is something where your home really becomes your own no matter how "first generation" it looks. It is not how your home looks but how you feel for it.

- Character Customization: Well, you have a wide variety in clothes especially with the AoS and now Samurai Empire expansion. You can wear more layer of clothing at the same time than in any of the many 3D MMORPGs I could name now. No tiering there, all can wear all of them and no, they do not look stupid or too tight or whatever you have in most mmorpgs today. Anyone can name any 3D mmorpg where you have a real wizard or straw hat, a real High Fantasy look to pick?
Where you have some stick that is not just a weapon but looks like a real walking stick so an old mage looks the way he "should"?
Some real looking classical hair, I mean look at the elf females in Hz, they look more in clothing and hair style like some old maid than a race close to nature and ... life. ;)
Hz doesn't even has a hairstyle of long hair that looks as nice as the UO one.
You can color the clothing almost freely, anytime not just at crafting and spend a long time to choose your favourite color combination. No tiered colors forcing once more status and money and powergaming to look the way you want, they all cost the same, you pick which one you want and color it. This type of freedom does NOT exist in the other 3D mmorpgs, does it?
And when the character is as small as it is in UO, its not so important if he looks really like an elf or a dwarf.

- Combat: the new system I hate, not for me anymore, the old one was not exactly stuffed with options but you had to react and know your class after all, so you were busy while fighting.


- Crafting: still a good system with a wide variety of options. You can do so many things I'd love to have in Hz for example. Plant crossing, taming - yeah I consider that crafting too, furniture making, lanterns etc. In Hz if I make what should resemble a lantern I craft an icon aka I'm thrown to the GUI and real world stuff.
In UO I craft a lantern I wear and light and unlight visibly for all. That is a small but for us important factor for something called atmosphere. :)
In UO I harvest wheat from a real field. In Hz I just have some of it growing widely here and there.
I go to a mill to turn it into flour, I see the mill starting to move and make its sound, it stops when done. In Hz it is an eternally working machine that does the whole sound all the time. That takes away any feel of being connected to the world, do something IN it. Instead I open a GUI window where I click on a few buttons. I'm just sitting in front of some modern machine display and hit the buttons so the technical stuff gets done. Maybe it sounds odd but what I miss is that I have things there to move and push and see the thing starts turning and working. Getting it closer to some old style thing.
And in UO I can place all those things on the ground or trade them - as the item they are in that world. In Hz I can't place anything on the ground and I just trade a list of words or icons. Once more I'm back to the GUI.
I like the farm like areas in LA after patch but why would anyone put a farm so far from a city or anything where you can cook and use the stuff?
In UO when I do plant crossing I see a GUI opening - but it shows a pot with soil and the plant in it. I have numbers and buttons too but I have to do with the plant I see. While in Hz everything is just the same technical window with sliders to adjust. It is absolutelly unimportant what you craft, it always is the same click process and it looks just the same. You don't even have to place the ressources you want into it - comfortable but yes it takes away any feel towards the prozess.
In UO at least you see what you will craft, it is much less technical and I'm no way saying great or so, but with that transparent UO crafting window at least you are a bit closer to the process and you have often enough other actions to do (double click at this item do than target at that item) closer to crafting.


- The Cap-System: I'm preaching that since a long time already, the cap if the game itself is broad enough ADDs to the game. People have so many things to do in UO, they hardly really hit the "end" in what I call "sidewards" rewards. People get to the skill sum cap which is the same grind as in most mmorpgs - and so by using the skill they shape the char they want and after that are FREE.
Of course some are than bored and leave, as leveling per se is all they enjoy but most people love to go on treasure hunt than or play a good game of bagball, chess or whatever, go and read books player wrote, visit the many shops all over the land or take part in some home decoration competitions, found a tavern or an order with whatever goal they might want. There is much to see and do in UO that no paid developer ever has done in UO but player are providing, inventing, combining.
I think and fear UO slowly moves away from the "sacred place" it was for a very long time for people that want the richness to enjoy some virtual simple life in a medieval setting and no matter what graphics are still willing to pay and want to pay in future too just to preserve that. But what the people at EA since AoS are doing is to change UO more and more towards what all the other mmorpgs have been in system: some run-along-the-line thing where nothing counts than the items you get, where you don't start to live once you have shaped your char but where that point of reaching the cap is considered the worst that can happen. When the common running-policy of other mmorpgs gets introduced into UO, it will die.
Maybe UO has grown too much to destroy it by making it as generic as those other are. Such a thing could tend to get its own life and a certain biological stability. ;)
But maybe not.
Thought what I heavily believe is that as long as UO stays the only alternative out there for people wanting just to live and settle, it will stay up no matter how many whistles and bells are added towards 3D mmorpgs.
One doesn't feed on caviar, but on bread. And I see no real bread in other mmorpgs.
Hz has come the closest to that from all the mmorpgs so far but still there is a long way to go to offer a real alternative. But Tulga should be aware that Irth with all their problems they still have is definitelly heading into that direction too. One will see if Magic Hat manages to get the thing polished of course. ;)

When I canceled in 2003 I had a machine with a Pentium 1.8 GiGhz processor, a GeForce video card with 68 megs of RAM, 1.2 gigs of RAM on the machine, and a cable modem. And I would lag to desktop anytime more than 30 mobile characters (any combination of players and beasties/NPC's) were on screen at the same time. And I could count on lag death anytime I hunted--even solo--anywhere near a group of houses. One star out of five.

I have maybe 5 times crashed in all those years now no matter how many chars I've had on the screen. o.O
The point of hardware btw is important for UO too, you can play it with very outdated machines and that is where Wish in my eyes totally misjudged the market. You can't set up an UO clone and say you need at least GF3 or Ati 9800 and WinXP but want a share of the UO player. That is absolutelly contradicting ...

[imported_Twelvebagger]

From your description, it sounds a lot like Diablo II, which has also done remarkably well with much the same recipe. Super loot, ummm... super loot, and oh yes, super loot.

No housing, crafting, races, but with jerks, and battle net is free. Graphics were not really competitive when it first came out. But the loot has a "thrill factor" which I think is the main reason it did so well for so long; I wish Hz had not been so adamant about unexciting loot for so long.

Spot on!

I played Diablo II LOD quite a bit, I even went back to it from scratch, after the merge, when I got sick of horizons. In the 4 or so months I was away I racked in 3 accounts full of mules and a handful of 90+ characters. No depth, No interaction, and chock full of bastages. So what makes it fun? Loot!

I've often said that if horizons had tons of loot it would be better than crack.


-12-

Note: Don't smoke crack.

[Tantalyr]

On balance, I think AoTK is right--it's the fluff. It's the house decorations. It's the plants. It's uber-rare silver magician's hat that isn't any better in combat than what a player could make for you, but it's got an unmatchable color.

Fluff does indeed make an MMORPG go round . . . .

[IndyMan]

They have houses, chestsand furnature that WORK

You can customize your house in wild ways, new walls, pillars, porches and such

They have pets you can tame

They have mounts you can ride

They have virtually no lag

They have the ability to portal around the world to save running time

They have the ability to PVP

You can build a house anywhere there is room, not in specific sections, which allowed for guilds to make towns for themselves.

You can craft or adventure

They have it all in one game.

After playing solidly for about 5 years I lost interest in it, but still stop in for 10 - 15 mins now and then.

I like my house and loot. LOL

[Seikojin]

:o
Indy is right to me at least. I have been paying for my account for about 5 or 6 years now and I will keep paying.

The game has a TON of flexability that only Horizons comes close to matching.

If HZ was built tospec with allthe bells and whistles fully in place I would cancel my UO account and let my stuff rot. But I have logged in every so often, hit shame, pwned a bunch of earth eles (its my pastime) and logged. My hoouse needs a ton of money I dont want to go earn to make it into its second stage.

The changes in AoS IMO was the best thing they could do for expandability. With all those abilities changeable and set the way they have them, they can do things that you cant do in a game like GW, WoW or EQ... (not saying they cant in WoW, or the other games, but it isnt that way now).

The big thing I am liking about UO now is they are putting a quest system back in. Hopefully its a more worked on version of the old quest system. That was sweet. Finding a book on a orc corpse and fiding a plan for a raid on some town... And it happens weather your there or not.

UO's winning formula? Their test server.
1. You start with a test package making the need for gathering or money obsolete. You can do it, but if you need money to do things like build or buy, you dont haveto waste time hunting or questing.
2. You can adjust your skill levels at any time with test commands. This means of there is something that needs focus, you can do it. And GM's and devs do make comment about what they are looking to stress or focus on in the test server.
3. Server wiping. Every so often the roster for the test server is wiped so people dont get items that have been changed causing problems, nor people getting attached to their test characters or stuff.

The last thing tends to make people rush to get one time spawns and good house spots, but they dont gripe when they are erased.

With this powerful testing force they fix their problems very quickly and ensure more balance is maintained by getting proper feedback before it goes to the final live servers.

This also leads to the ability to let content updates in a regular schedule. UO releases I think one expansion or major change a yeah and a smaller big update that may include the framework for the big expansion; or something equally tastey to enjoy.

Over at monolith some of the members in my team were old UO designers and devs. They didnt have a your nothing im omnipotent aire or attitude to anything.

Dunno, it may have been different before EA bought em, but they are a much better MMO now than they were back in the ninties.