This website looks awfully familiar!
Well, first off, the painting in the header is from The Brothers Hildebrandt, some of the most wonderful painters of fantasy artwork. It is the Ultima Online Hildebrandt Print, which is known in-game as the Tapestry of Sosaria. It should be easily recognizable, and if you’ve seen the full print up close, it does an incredible job of capturing a little bit of everything about Ultima Online, from merchants and craftsmen to harpies to dragons to knights and wizards fighting said dragons to people fighting lizardmen. The image in the header happens to be a photo I took of my copy of this print that came with my Charter Edition of Ultima Online. EA used to sell the print for around $24 through their online store, but I have not seen it there in years. I do have some clean, high-resolution scans I’ve made of the Hildebrandt print that I own, but I am unable to provide those through this website, as I believe that would get me in hot water. Maybe one of these days I’ll get the nerve up to ask Cal Crowner about making a high resolution copy available so that people can use it for the computer backgrounds, especially as we come up on the 15th anniversary.
We are not associated with the uojournal Twitter account and we are not associated with UOJournal.com from around 2003.
For more on the story behind UOJ, please see Site Update plus some answers (Feb 27, 2011)
As for the rest of the site, you’ll notice a slightly familiar look. We tried to pay a bit of homage to the original UO.com website as it existed from early 2000 up through early 2007. Because the UO.com site maintained nearly the same look for over 7 years, and because we liked it for the most part, it kind of become iconic in our eyes, and so you’ll notice some similar textures and colors here and there used on UOJournal.com. It’s nothing against the change to the current style that happened 2007 and that was carried through to UOHerald.com, we were just used to it and liked the layout. We are also paying a bit of tribute to the original OWO.com website which was the home for UO information prior to UO.com launching, as well as the alpha and beta information. It prominently features the Hildebrandt painting in several of the menus.
The Goals of the Ultima Online Journal
We want to honor the spirit of BNN, Britannia News Network, (for more, see History of the Ultima Online Journal), as well as provide news about Ultima Online, all in one easy-to-find location. Our intent is not to compete with any other Ultima Online fansites or UOHerald.com – we don’t have the resources to do so, and we just want to offer something a little different. There is a place for UOJournal.com – how many times have you wanted to quickly find exactly what was going on and what was coming up with UO?
What kind of news, you may ask?
– Official UOHerald.com news
– In-game news, sometimes in-character, sometimes out-of-character, such as EM events on shards.
– Comments made on various websites by current (and past) UO dev team members that relate to UO.
– Comments made by or about BioWare or BioWare/Mythic about or relating to UO.
– News of past UO personalties that have moved on.
Who is our target audience?
You, of course, along with any other Ultima Online players, past, present, and future.
What else?
We have a few ideas, but we aren’t ready to reveal them just yet. We will probably be tossing in the occasional commentary and wish lists. We will be providing a home of sorts for a few guilds that we are currently in or are starting. If you are a guild looking for a place to call home on the web, please feel free to contact us – we can setup a blog, image gallery, forums, etc.
Are we affiliated with Electronic Arts?
Nope, UOJournal.com is not endorsed by or affiliated with Electronic Arts, BioWare Mythic, or any other EA entities.
Experience with RPGs?
Deckard: The first RPG I had any experience with was Zork on a Compaq Portable my dad brought home in the early ’80s. Not long afterwards we picked up a Commodore 64 and then the Ultima games began a life-long off and on obsession of sorts.
– CW