Happy 10th Birthday Ultima Online! A Look at the Past, Present, & Future of MMORPGs
by Josh Pankratz on October 19, 2007 at 2:57 am
Still loves you after all these years
On September 25th, EA celebrated the birthday of their long running franchise Ultima Online. The game still supports an avid fan base despite 10 years of developer changes, nerfs, buffs, and class balances. If not for UO breaking through multiple boundaries, great games such as World of Warcraft and Guild Wars may have never come to fruition.
Still that doesn’t mean that we as gamers want today’s developers adopting every idea UO gave birth to. For example, every year (excluding 1999) EA, the publisher of Ultima Online, would make slight modifications to the game world and release it as that years “new version”. Sound familiar Madden Fans?
Ultima was definitely a pioneer in the industry, as it spawned a franchise that would change basement dwelling gamers forever. Everquest, one of the most wildly addictive games to date, added the carrot on a stick mentality that kept players up all night. Maybe I can just get one more level before I get to sleep! WoW players can relate, and have Everquest to thank for it.
Since March 16th, 1999, Everquest and its expansions have sold over 2.5 million copies. There is something inside all of us that grins at the idea of being a hero, saving an enchanted land, while meeting new people and experiencing adventures along the way. Everquest did that for the grocery baggers, the fast food cooks, and the high school students who grew up reading tales of knights in shining armor.
It’s not always a fairy tale though, anyone who has played EQ or any other MMO for that matter can tell you, you’re not always saving the world. MMO’s make gamers do extremely tedious tasks, often before they are able to delve into the heroic “fun” stuff. This concept is one that most would say needs to be changed, however I feel developers implement it in there games as a sort of right of passage, much like a gaming Briss. It makes you really appreciate the higher levels later on, when you are powerful enough to mow through a monster that obliterated you in the past.
As the Gaming Industry has evolved to foster high def graphics, the MMO space has evolved as well. Games like Guild Wars and World of Warcraft now boast stylish graphics and more fluid gameplay. It has become easier than ever to immerse yourself in the experience.
One cant help but daydream about the future of MMO’s. Photorealistic graphics and intuitive combat that handles like a fighting game. We can dream can’t we? Will games like Funcom’s Age of Conan usher in a new era of multiplayer worlds? Probably not, however they will set a new standard for developers, at least in terms of graphics.
No matter how talented the developer, no one will be able to meet the high standard of a gamers imagination, and that’s why games like Media Mollecule’s “Little Big Planet” just may be the wave of the future. How long before a developer incorporates user content in an MMO? What does that mean for us? All questions the future holds. Only one thing is certain, it’s a good time to be a gamer.
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on October 19, 2007 2:54 pm
man i feel old. i remember playing that game back before publish 16 went in, and anyone that played around that time should remember publish 16 as the killer