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If you zoom up a bit from the level this article is in, as I understand it, while Ultima was on the rocks anyhow, it was Ultima Online that comprehensively kill

by jerf 6y ago

If you zoom up a bit from the level this article is in, as I understand it, while Ultima was on the rocks anyhow, it was Ultima Online that comprehensively killed the franchise by being too successful. Rational business logic said to pour the effort into the moneymaker UO and the single-player Ultimas couldn't compete for resources. IMHO, there would still have been a lot of winds against the series anyhow. The exponential increase in the difficulty of technology was not playing well with Origin's high level of aggressiveness on that front. And perhaps a bit more controversially, the series just wasn't headed in a good direction; after the impressive founding of the series' reputation on the virtue system in 4 and 5, the series was headed ever faster into a nihilistic undercutting of its own foundations. (And I'd highlight the undercutting aspect over the nihilistic aspect; while I'll cop to being less impressed with nihilism than probably the average HN reader, nihilistic RPGs aren't intrinsically a bad thing, but in this particular case it undercuts the foundations.) Even a fully-realized Ultima 8 was never going to fit the series very well, and IMHO could even have ended up with a worse story in some aspects than we got.

kbenson 6y ago
Well, I distinctly remember there being a lot of hype a while after Ultima IX came out that Ultima X would be a reimagining of UO in 3D. I'm not sure how much of that was wishful thinking on the part of gamers that were looking for a silver lining in the steaming pile that was Ultima IX (me included) and how much of that was founding in fact, or at least the plans of Origin/EA. One would think if UO was so successful they would want to funnel people into something new with even more longevity. On a side note, Ultima IX was not only not a good game, it's the only game I know of that ever sent me a complete set of new CDs with an updated version on them months after release without me even specifically requesting it. I still remember the mostly (entirely?) blank white tri-fold (or quad fold?) cardboard CD enclosure it came in with all new disks. I don't think I ever used them, partly because I already had that version or one better from the internet prior to it arriving, and partly because the game still had such horrible performance on my moderately good system that I had already given up on it because the gameplay itself wasn't nearly good enough to make me subject myself to that.

by jerf 6y ago

kbenson 6y ago

Well, I distinctly remember there being a lot of hype a while after Ultima IX came out that Ultima X would be a reimagining of UO in 3D. I'm not sure how much of that was wishful thinking on the part of gamers that were looking for a silver lining in the steaming pile that was Ultima IX (me included) and how much of that was founding in fact, or at least the plans of Origin/EA. One would think if UO was so successful they would want to funnel people into something new with even more longevity. On a side note, Ultima IX was not only not a good game, it's the only game I know of that ever sent me a complete set of new CDs with an updated version on them months after release without me even specifically requesting it. I still remember the mostly (entirely?) blank white tri-fold (or quad fold?) cardboard CD enclosure it came in with all new disks. I don't think I ever used them, partly because I already had that version or one better from the internet prior to it arriving, and partly because the game still had such horrible performance on my moderately good system that I had already given up on it because the gameplay itself wasn't nearly good enough to make me subject myself to that.