UO2. An article about it and us "Older Gamers"

[Green Mouser]

The Game Archaeologist: Is Ultima Online 2 a doomed prospect? | Massively

 

[Woodsman]

Warhammer Online and Star Wars the Old Republic have ensured that EA will not make another traditional MMORPG.

If there ever is a game called Ultima Online 2, it will be more like Ultima Forever than UO.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

That is a terrible, terrible article. So many things wrong with it, starting with the pictures. #1 and #3 specifically...

 

[SlobberKnocker]

the only thing i see in the article that is something i believe in is the idea of retro. retro always comes back in vogue over time. im not sold on uo needing better graphics. theres someting alluring in the old style to me and i'm sure im not the only one. i think if the current dev team stays on the course of the recent producer letter and can finally give a good concerted effort to seriously curtail the unauthorized accoutrements that some choose to run, coupled with a little bit of advertising than yes i can see a revival at some point down the road.

rose colored glasses? not sure but its what i would loke to believe.

 

[Picus at the office]

I don't think that UO2 would be close to the game that UO is or was. I'd be shocked to see that a current crop of devs are able to think, plan and push a game as deep as UO is. While I've not bothered to play other games from what I have read most seem to be more of a story or quest base unlike the sandbox style that I'm not sure anything else has. The investment that would be needed to get such a game off the ground would be large not including all the other costs if it ever launched. It's a shame that starwars never did well but I have been told it was a borked game from day one.

I'm not sure that a sandbox style would go over well anymore as it seems most newer players want everything spelt out and in place for mindless fun. Sad but playing UO is more of what do you want to do and less of do what you are told.

 

[Green Mouser]

What slightly disturbs me is that I found this article in my Archaeology news feed. Not helping me feel current

 

[Woodsman]

coupled with a little bit of advertising than yes i can see a revival at some point down the road.

rose colored glasses? not sure but its what i would loke to believe.

UO gets mentioned all the time on some of the MMORPG sites, and not just Massively. The recent producer's letter was posted on a bunch of different sites, and not just MMORPG sites, but general sites.

 

[Woodsman]

I don't think that UO2 would be close to the game that UO is or was. I'd be shocked to see that a current crop of devs are able to think, plan and push a game as deep as UO is. While I've not bothered to play other games from what I have read most seem to be more of a story or quest base unlike the sandbox style that I'm not sure anything else has. The investment that would be needed to get such a game off the ground would be large not including all the other costs if it ever launched. It's a shame that starwars never did well but I have been told it was a borked game from day one.

I'm not sure that a sandbox style would go over well anymore as it seems most newer players want everything spelt out and in place for mindless fun. Sad but playing UO is more of what do you want to do and less of do what you are told.

ArcheAge will be the closest equivalent to a sandbox-style MMORPG to come out in the next few years. Even then a part of it is live-arc driven, although you are not required to participate in that part of the game. You can just stick to building your house and farming your fields and treasure hunting in the ocean. And you can raise crops on the bottom of the ocean, which is like the opposite of a raised garden bed.

Richard Garriott's thing might be pretty close though. Somebody mentioned Elder Scrolls somewhere else, but while it has some former UO people working on it (the Creative Director is a former UO Lead Designer), I don't know if they really would embrace the sandbox.

I think that depresses a lot of current and former UO players, that nobody is really trying to make something like it. It says a lot about UO itself, about how special it is, but it also doesn't bode well.

EA is doing away with single-player games btw.

EA Turns Its Back On Single-Player Games, Embraces The Cloud - Forbes

“We are very proud of the way EA evolved with consumers,” EA Labels President Frank Gibeau said recently. “I have not green lit one game to be developed as a single player experience. Today, all of our games include online applications and digital services that make them live 24/7/365.”

Gibeau is speaking of EA’s embrace of the cloud. Going forward, every EA game will have some multi-player or social component. This doesn’t mean single-player games will cease to be a part of the EA catalog, it just means that even single-player games will have tie-ins across multiple devices.

 

[legendsguy]

Of course it's doomed. Who in their right mind would ever trust EA again to make a good UO game? Perhaps you're hooked on UO now, but you'd have to be a complete fool to go through all that again.