Ultima Forever Gets Lord British, and Mythic Goes Mobile

[Woodsman]

UO's "sister" (or "brother") title, Ultima forever is going to get Lord British after all, sort of. And it may have happened over lunch - Ultima Franchise Producer jskalski and BioWare Creative Director Paul Barnett had lunch with Richard Garriott.

Ultima Forever: Lord British Approves : Ultima Forever @ UltimaCodex.com

Lord British Will, Apparently, Be In Ultima Forever (Sort Of) : Ultima Forever @ UltimaCodex.com

As yet, it’s not been disclosed exactly how Lord British will appear in the game, although the mention of a cameo appearance in the Lycaeum certainly suggests one possibility. And it would be an interesting move, a keen inversion of a planned ending for Ultima 9 which would have zoomed out from the island of Skara Brae on its journey through space and time, through a telescope and into Richard Garriott’s observatory at his home in Austin, Britannia Manor.

Also we get a bunch of screenshots. Mythic Entertainment Publishes Ultima Forever Page, Screenshots, Concept Art : Ultima Forever @ UltimaCodex.com

And if you go to the Mythic page and look at careers Mythic is switching to mobile.

EA Mythic is looking for passionate, talented people willing to help disrupt and redefine the RPG genre in the mobile space. Located just outside of Washington D.C., we are a studio with 15 years of MMORPG heritage, from ‘Dark Age of Camelot’ and ‘Ultima Online’ to ‘Warhammer: Age of Reckoning’. Not content to rest on our laurels, we are building on our experience of creating and maintaining connected, persistent worlds to give us a unique advantage in mobile gaming. Leading the charge into the core RPG market, we're putting strong IPs on mobile in new and exciting ways.

We provide an open, fun environment that gives individuals an opportunity to learn and grow. We have an on-site gym, tabletop and figure-painting sessions, and a free game rental library. We are located in lush green Fairfax VA, with access to some of the best restaurants, theatre, and museums in the world. (Also, free donuts on Wednesday.)

If you have what it takes to create the future of Mobile, Android and iOS games, come and be a big player in a studio that’s going places.

Makes sense, none of the MMORPGs are labeled Mythic anymore, just EA and BioWare.

In Jeff's letter to the UO players a few months ago, he talked about Ultima Forever a bunch. I hope that he sees this thread since I @ him, and maybe talks a bit about it and how it will help UO since he has implied that they support/promote each other. He even said that the Ultima Forever site will promote UO and UO will promote Ultima Forever.

 

[cazador]

Very classy RG...now plz get involved in UO again

 

[Joey Porter]

Nice move. I bet RG's study smells of rich mahogany and leather bound books.

 

[Jynxx]

Very classy RG...now plz get involved in UO again

Just for fun today I looked up Garriott's page on Wikipedia. Here's a fun snippet from the page:

-----------
Garriott founded the company Portalarium in 2009 with the intent of developing and publishing games for the emerging social network market.[3] The company will be launching a massively multiplayer spiritual successor to the Ultima series, though Garriott has remarked that if he were to secure the rights to the Ultima intellectual property from Electronic Arts, the game could literally become Ultima Online 2.[18][19][20][21]



It's fun to dream, anyway.

 

[Shakkara]

I'm not going to play any game that is not on the PC.

I'm not going to play any game that has levels.

This new game isn't Ultima, it's an abomination that exploits the Ultima name for profit. A true successor of Ultima would not have levels nor classes.

 

[Wenchkin]

There was an earlier statement from EA pretty much saying that they realised they should branch out into the mobile/linux market so I expect they will certainly be hiring mobile folks to bring that forward. Good to see them doing that.

UF will work on the PC, it's just also going to work on mobile devices. I hope they get the android and linux markets tapped with it soon too, but given the size of the android market I doubt it'll take them too long. It would be good to see the Ultima franchise move out cross platform.

As to whether it's Ultima or not, it's a different game under the same franchise, that's all. Just like Lord of Ultima. If they want to appeal to a different market and demographic then they will do the game differently.

I'm looking forward to trying it to see what they've done. Quite honestly, I don't care if it looks and plays totally differently to UO - as long as it's good, entertaining and contributes to the franchise coffers. It's not UO, but while UO has a lot of wonderful stuff in it, it's also badly broken in many ways. It's a mammoth task to fix and realistically I don't think the changes I want will ever happen. The community here seem to want a totally different game to the sort I like, so a fresh start will be good for some of us.

Wenchy

 

[Cear Dallben Dragon]

I'm not going to play any game that is not on the PC.

I'm not going to play any game that has levels.

This new game isn't Ultima, it's an abomination that exploits the Ultima name for profit. A true successor of Ultima would not have levels nor classes.

You can play this game on PC

Several Ultima games had both levels and classes.

The more Ultima the better IMO. Lord of ultima didn't hurt anyone.
I am more than excited to see Ultima come back in any way shape or form.
Ultima games have always been how I make them out to be in my mind.
Give me a ultima title and tell me not to have a great time, its not going to happen.

 

[Promathia]

You can play this game on PC

Several Ultima games had both levels and classes.

The more Ultima the better IMO. Lord of ultima didn't hurt anyone.
I am more than excited to see Ultima come back in any way shape or form.
Ultima games have always been how I make them out to be in my mind.
Give me a ultima title and tell me not to have a great time, its not going to happen.

+1

People really need to either 1. Know the original Ultima games and 2. Read about Ultima Forever before they start bashing it.

 

[Coldren]

*Chuckles*

I remember when RG first announced that URPG was going to be mobile, and everyone freaked out.. Think that was, what, a year or more ago? But now that EA is doing it, well.. that's just good business sense.

Suppose he knew what he was talking about way back when, eh?

And for the record, do not expect URPG to be UO2.. It won't be, it's not intended to be, and never was.

 

[cazador]

The "spiritual successor"... Uo2 with RG at the helm doing things his way would be great btw

 

[Viquire]

Woodsman,

Thank for continuing to follow up and reporting the progresses you find.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

I'm not going to play any game that is not on the PC.

I'm not going to play any game that has levels.

This new game isn't Ultima, it's an abomination that exploits the Ultima name for profit. A true successor of Ultima would not have levels nor classes.

You do know that the Ultima Prime series was a Level-based game don't you? Granted they weren't as overbearing as Diablo, but they WERE level based.


I am also fairly certain that "profit" was the motive behind the Ultima series in the first place.

 

[Viquire]

...



You do know that the Ultima Prime series was a Level-based game don't you? Granted they weren't as overbearing as Diablo, but they WERE level based.

And classes, it worked out that you were all classes at the end game for most of the titles, but there were distinct class types.

 

[Spiritless]

There are classes in UO and always have been. You just have the option to deviate, usually ineffectively.

 

[Ludes]

Anyone gotten into Ultima Forever beta?