About that secret project

[Hemisphere]

Not that it's particularly relevant to anything these days, but for those who were following the cancelled secret project a few years back, I finally found some solid information on it:

Critical Mass Interactive and Origin Systems worked together on a huge expansion and "re-envisioning" of Ultima Online. The project was defined as a complete graphical overhaul of Ultima Online in order to take it from a 2-dimensional world to a fully realized 3-dimensional world.

As with all projects that require care in managing legacy world building, the most exquisite painstaking concerns quickly came to the surface. For instance, there were players that had arranged many items in the game (that had no real gameplay effects) to resemble different items. Those had to be accounted for, as the goal was to literally "throw the switch" and have everything function in 3d effortlessly.

CMI provided a set of assets that were used in small scale tests, as well as a complete video showing what added features were planned to go along with this new release. Take a look at a few of these assets below and you can see what might have been...

Found it on the EA Games section of the Critical Mass website: http://www.criticalmassinteractive.com/clients/EAGames/EAGames.html

Sorry if this is old news!

 

[hawkeye_pike]

While this certainly does look good, I remember that one of the development team (was it Draconi?) once said: UO contains such a mass of different items (millions) that redesigning all of them in 3D would be a project of gigantic size. That's one of the reasons why Stygian Abyss will use the existing artwork. (I hope I remember correctly.)

UO seems not to have the budget to finance a complete remodeling of all in-game artwork.

 

[Hemisphere]

Actually UO has around 16,000 items, but that number is also incredibly misleading, because for example one style of wall or floor = around 10 items, one spell animation (for example fireball) counts as like 30 items, some items are multi tile (for example a pentagram and an abbatoir both count as 9 items), and there are MASSES of items which are either "bits" of another item, some combination of two or more items into a single graphic, very simple variations of another item, or simply another graphic resized (like monster statues, armour, and weapon graphics)

In all I'd be quite surprised if there were more than 2000 completely original art resources required to build UO's complete library of statics.

 

[AdamD]

I can't imagine how nice UO would've looked, if they'd actually gone ahead and finished it.

 

[Dor of Sonoma]

It was ghastly.

 

[Fink]

As for art compatibility when going fully 3D, I've always thought it's really mostly house decoration that has that optical illusion effect when stacking & arranging items to look like other items. As such I thought a toggle on the house could change the player's view to a default isometric camera angle. Basically, when entering a "legacy" decorated house, the owner can opt to have visitors view their house interior at the correct angle.

Much easier to hypothesise than to put that into action, though. There would still be a plethora of issues of compatibility, plus all those nifty "illusion" houses would fall apart if viewed at the wrong angle.

 

[Jhym]

*shrug* "Legacy support" is used as a blanket excuse in the software industry, to avoid doing hard work.

They could have easily switched us by, oh I don't know, telling the decorators to build other displays.

I know some people spend days putting their special mosaic dedicated to Boba Fet into the game, but would they be so devastated that they'd leave if they had to redesign it in 3D?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

In any case, I really think EA should just bite the bullet and force us into a new client that lets us view 3D (not isometric 3D.) Otherwise, they will be continually revamping the 2D client until 2032 when the world ends.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

Uuuuuh... that sounds like the most creepy workaround feature... I'd never implement such a thing.

As for art compatibility when going fully 3D, I've always thought it's really mostly house decoration that has that optical illusion effect when stacking & arranging items to look like other items. As such I thought a toggle on the house could change the player's view to a default isometric camera angle. Basically, when entering a "legacy" decorated house, the owner can opt to have visitors view their house interior at the correct angle.

Much easier to hypothesise than to put that into action, though. There would still be a plethora of issues of compatibility, plus all those nifty "illusion" houses would fall apart if viewed at the wrong angle.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

In any case, I really think EA should just bite the bullet and force us into a new client that lets us view 3D (not isometric 3D.) Otherwise, they will be continually revamping the 2D client until 2032 when the world ends.

Actually, I belief that many people (including myself) prefer the isometric view. UO isn't a 3D shooter game like WoW or Darkfall, and it never will be. I always preferred isometric view. First person view makes me sick.

 

[Tomas_Bryce]

*shrug* "Legacy support" is used as a blanket excuse in the software industry, to avoid doing hard work.

They could have easily switched us by, oh I don't know, telling the decorators to build other displays.

I know some people spend days putting their special mosaic dedicated to Boba Fet into the game, but would they be so devastated that they'd leave if they had to redesign it in 3D?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

In any case, I really think EA should just bite the bullet and force us into a new client that lets us view 3D (not isometric 3D.) Otherwise, they will be continually revamping the 2D client until 2032 when the world ends.

Yes, most people would definitely quit if they made it "real" 3D. I hope that answers your question.

 

[Littleblue]

Looking through the artwork displayed on that page, I see a *blue* Futon!

I want one!

 

[canary]

*cries*

I want THAT UO.

 

[canary]

Yes, most people would definitely quit if they made it "real" 3D. I hope that answers your question.

I wouldn't say 'most'... its never wise to ASSUME things.

But if you DO want to assume things, how many NEW players do you think this would draw? I'd say it is quite possible we'd end up with MORE subscribers.

 

[Sir_Bolo]

Sorry if this is old news!

Yes it is old news

speedman spilled the beans about the secret project in a post on his blog on the 10th anniversary of UO.

 

[Capricious]

I was invited to the UXO thing in SF. I had a blast and honestly I was excited about the game. It was really beautiful in my opinion