Keeping a classic alive
A player’s perspective on the oldest MMO’s past, present and future
By Colin Lyons
Ultima Online (UO) is a fantasy role-playing game — the first massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) in world history.
It launched on September 24, 1997 and is still played today. It is a subscription based MMORPG, not a free game, yet it still holds attraction to gamers some twenty plus years after its release. Likely the subscriber base has changed in various ways. Certainly the earliest players are now older. How many subscribers there are, where they live in the world, how often they play, how many years they have subscribed, etc. are important matters, relevant matters, but not the focus of this blog. What is of interest here is can a two decade old subscription-based MMORPG stay relevant. With the alternatives available to gamers — Black Desert, Conqueror’s Blade just to name two — why would gamers pay to play an “antique” fantasy game?
According to Top Best Alternatives, as of November 17, 2016 there were“59 Games Like Ultima Online”. So the genre seems attractive. Research of the technical parameters of the competition (platforms, graphics, etc.) suggests that UO appears rather dated and possibly less attractive than many alternatives. And what about the free shards — those Ultima Online parallels like Legends of Aria, Shroud of the Avatar, or UO Outlands? How and why do they survive? They have the look and feel of the original Ultima, but they diverge from the present development path of Ultima. So why has Ultima Online survived in the face of such independent competition and spinoffs and more to the point, can it remain relevant into the future?
Personally, I have played Ultima Online almost twenty one years now. I was very young, sitting in my dad’s lap when I was introduced. It was a holiday gift to my family from an uncle who lived far away and felt the game was a possible way to stay connected. There was no in-game face-time back then, but in-game messages could be “texted”. This served decently, but as it turned out, the content of the game was the essential enticement to keep family members (uncles and cousins) engaged more than they would have been otherwise. As the years passed most of us continued to play and we keep socially connected.
We also made independent social connections through the game and the gaming experiences. We met other players online, joined player guilds, created virtual characters, invested in character builds, hunted, crafted, lived and died all in this virtual world of UO. As the game developed, we searched the Ultima Newsletter, Stratics and other forms of updates just to stay current. Over the almost twenty one year lifespan the developers have issued over 100 “publishes” (new content releases) adding new features while revising some of the old. In short, the game became an investment — a huge investment — not only in subscription dollars, but in personal time, energy and effort to advance your position within the game. Often there was great enthusiasm and joy in gameplay, but it was always tempered by the virtual impediments and losses that make the game a challenge. The “gamification” derived from this content, anchored in a steadily advancing virtual ecosystem.
Yet good things never seem to last forever. To many subscribers, Ultima Online was a good thing, but the rise of spinoffs suggest that not all players were entirely satisfied. From my study, it appears that spinoffs appeared when UO developers created major game changes which apparently did not appeal to segments of the UO community. Changes such as player vs player rule changes or graphics, or the introduction of factions, etc, appear, by in-game conversations, to correlate with subscriber shifts, though only UO management would know for certain. Certainly some subscriber losses came at the hands of competing MMORPGs. Also for a younger generation, UO must appear, graphically anyhow, rather dated in comparison to more modern games built on platforms where graphics may be more enticing and which enable more flexible and rapid responses to player interests. Younger players may have never given UO a fair trial which led to my interest in an academic exercise which I describe below.
My hypothesis was that the virtual world of Ultima Online is highly desirable for gamers interested in this genre. There is never a reason for boredom. The economy is rich, the crafting, hunting, and competitions are forever advancing and rewarding. There is role-playing for those interested, guilds and events for socialization, and, in short unending intrigue, challenge and bounty for time invested. This is not a game of chess where opening gambits are classic, the midgame may be a struggle given a single misstep, and the endgame is mechanical. Ultima is an unending, ever changing, fascinating simulation. Based on a player’s vested experience, advancement is assured. I suggest that the game would not have survived two decades and counting if not for the richness and gamification of the virtual world.
I also surmise from my two decades of continuous play that the subscriber base is not what it was. It is pretty obvious from the loss of in-game characters, inactive guilds, open housing plots, feedback from players that remain and other indicators. The reasons for the attrition may be several. The original player base has aged considerably. As mentioned, the graphics are “quaint” and the response to player requests may be slower and more constrained as compared to modern games on platforms such as Steam. Coding and game creation was not the same back in 1997. A lot has changed.
To this end, my proposal was to suggest that the entirety of the UO program be recreated using a modern platform utilizing modern code. This could allow for better graphics to entice new, potentially more discerning players to trial UO. For veteran players, such a platform holds the promise of greater flexibility and speed with which to address player concerns. To test this proposal, I selected a micro-experience I remembered playing as a youngster. My character would enter a lich room and battle liches.
For this academic exercise, I utilized Unreal Engine 4 and created a fantasy environment with animations using modern 3D graphics. The setting was a broken down room and my character battled a spawned lich and it looked great and functioned properly! The issue: the graphics looked nothing like UO. They weren’t supposed to, that was the point of the exercise, and they didn’t. It was supposed to be an entirely new generic creation, an enhancement for new young players and it was that, but for a veteran player it felt wrong.
It reminded me of UO’s attempt to improved graphics in 2009 when the Enhanced Client was launched. That was not a well-received effort. It just wasn’t UO and it would never be. Now some players adapted to the new graphics, which also came with some functional enhancements which made it easier to swallow, but overall it just wasn’t right. For true veterans, moving to new graphics changes the entire game. The nostalgia is lost. A battle in a lich room just wasn’t the same. It would never look right or be right.
My academic exercise was a success and a failure. I could see where using a modern platform would improve the ease of programming in the game for content innovations. The lich room and character creations were proof of that. But to retain the essence of Ultima — the game face — the truth hammer hit me over the head. Mess with the graphics (like in 2009) and you lose the veterans. Graphics are the nostalgic lifelines in a game. League of Legends incrementally improved their graphics over several years and this no doubt helped older player acclimate to new normals. To entice new players and keep a classic game relevant, tread softly, for your veteran subscribers will surely vote with their feet as spinoffs have shown historically in Ultima Online.
