I think we can all agree the EC graphics are bad
I can't, actually, at least not completely. As a nearly life-long Ultima fan (I began with Ultima III, fourteen years before UO), yes, you got me there; the creature models do bother me. For the first time in Ultima's storied history, a development team looked at all the franchise's bestiaries, then threw them on a fire and said, "
Meh." Thus, the EC is filled with trolls that I'm guessing resemble [miniature] Scandinavian mythology (rather than Garriott's Sosarian trolls), dragons that suddenly became Eastern-mythologized with the release of the client (rather than Garriott's Western-mythologized, Sosarian dragons), Headless monsters with--wait for it--dismembered heads (Protip: Sosarian Headless monsters
come into existence without heads), Ettins that have suddenly shrunk to become the height of humans, and the list goes on, and on, and on.
It's not nostalgia. Feeling wistful for 1997's graphics? I'm sorry, y'all, but give me a break. No, the chip on my shoulder is there because the team that developed the EC was totally and completely apathetic with regards to the franchise, and this is probably half the reason I still play the CC about half the time. Because, while its graphics aren't as advanced, its art direction is faithful toward the source material. I half-suspect that, one day, some former dev will admit during an interview or forum post that many of the EC's mobiles were borrowed from some unrelated, cancelled game in order to save EA money.
Having said that, though, the
environments--the grass, the roads, the mountains, the dungeons, things like that--are truly refreshing to look at, and have given me hundreds of hours of enjoyment, exploring Britannia and other facets anew. This, coupled with the EC's vastly customizable user interface and ease of use [once you've climbed up its learning curve], largely account for the reasons I play the EC about half the time, too.
The client we need just never got made. A client that would marry the best aspects of the EC with the CC--and then give players total customization of their experience; even if that meant the CC's look and feel coupled with the EC's customizable UI. That's why we really have these fights--why we can't stop. Because we're still fans, and subconsciously we know there's still work that the game deserves, but will never get. Because the big money has run out.