Future of UO

Is UO Getting a Community Relations Boost?

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Dave Crooks posted an article on the UO Herald about EverQuest joining Ultima Online in the GDC Hall of Fame this week.

I’ve played EQ, glad to see it join UO in the Hall of Fame, but that’s not the big story here.

Dave Crooks has never posted on the UO Herald before.

According to LinkedIn, Dave Crooks is a “Web Journalist” for “BioWare Mythic” since April of 2011.

Not BioWare (which would imply Star Wars: The Old Republic), no “BioWare Mythic”. Now Dave has posted quite a bit on the official Dark Age of Camelot website, and a few things on the Warhammer Age of Reckoning website, mostly within the past few months.

But this marks the first time he’s posted on the Herald.

Welcome Dave, hope to see you post a lot more.

Arena Combat System in Testing for UO

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Better late than never! A while back it was announced that there would be an arena combat system coming to UO in some form. It was obviously delayed due to the many bigger things happening this year, but it’s happening, and it’s in testing on the TC Arena Test:

There’s a new Test Center in town: TC Arena Test. This is a special rule set shard for testing a new Arena Combat system.

When an arena match starts, the participants have a short time to enter the red moongate that takes you into the arena. Players will have their movement restricted within the area until the match starts. Gladiators who die in an arena match will be transported outside of the arena and resurrected immediately. Once you die in a match, you cannot re-enter that match!

Full Story with directions and screenshots: UO Herald

Keep in mind that to transfer characters, you login with that character, find a safe spot to logout, but don’t logout – open the help menu and select Character Copy.

I only played with it for a few minutes, but looks good so far. I’d recommend you all try it out, even if you’re not a PvPer.

UO, WAR, DAoC – Around as long as there is player interest

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Ultima Online just hit 14 years, Dark Age of Camelot has hit 10 years (Happy Birthday!), and Warhammer: Age of Reckoning has hit 3 years.

Are they going away anytime soon or going “free-to-play” (pay-to-play).

Not according to an interview in PC Gamer with Eugene Evans, BioWare Mythic Vice President:

“No, no,” he said when I asked if Mythic’s involvement with SWTOR could signal WAR’s end during an interview at GDC Online. “All of these games appeal to different people for different reasons. I’m very proud to be able to say that I’m running the studio that’s run Ultima Online for as long as it has – 14 years. Dark Age of Camelot just celebrated 10 years. We hope we can run these games for as long as there is player interest.”

WAR, then, definitely isn’t going the way of Matrix Online and Star Wars Galaxies. Not only that, Evans said subscriptions have risen in the wake of Warhammer: Wrath of Heroes’ recent announcement. So then, free-to-play? Sure, it’s all the rage, but WAR’s marching to the beat of its own drum.

Article: PC Gamer

UO’s 14th Birthday or Anniversary

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Today is UO’s 14th Birthday, or Anniversary if you prefer. Either way, it’s been 14 years. By the way, yesterday was UO Forums 9th Anniversary

Last week I started a series celebrating that, and tomorrow I’m picking up where I left off, and by the way, this series will continue into October:
* UO: The Charter Edition
* UO Between 1997 and 1998
* UO: The Second Age
* Remember Enchantress Emily?

Jeff Skalski, Producer of the Ultima Franchise, had this to say:

Just over 14 yrs ago the world was introduced 2 the term MMORPG. Much respect 2 Origin 4 opening up this space & happy 14th anniversary

Now I could write a bunch of lofty sentences about the impact of UO on the gaming world, or refer you to the discussions going on at UO Forums and UO.Stratics.com, but I think instead we should all join in on the huge celebration happening on the two official UO websites:

* UO Herald
* Ultima Online official Facebook page

Prepare to spend a lot of time on those two pages reading statements from EA and BioWare celebrating UO’s history as well as hearing from the BioWare Mythic community team. From the statements and posts on those two websites, you’ll get a good sense of the respect that UO earned over the years.

People with More Than 9 UO Accounts

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If you have more than 9 Ultima Online accounts, you know by now you can’t really link them to your Main account through Accounts.EAMythic.com. 9 is a hard limit.

Jeff Skalski, the producer of the Ultima Franchise, has posted an update on Twitter, saying that EA is investigating a way to link more than 9 accounts to your main EA account.

I’m one of those affected. Even though most of my accounts aren’t active, it was annoying to have a limit. And I believe the limit includes WAR and DAoC accounts.