In Ink: UO in the Gaming Media – March 2012

It’s April, and that means a round-up of the gaming media’s mentions of UO for the month of March, 2012. This is the start of a monthly column, and it should get more interesting as we get closer to the 15th Anniversary.

The inspiration for this idea came partly from something I had done occasionally on another site over the past year, and partly from reading through some old PDF’s of Origin newsletters from the 1990s (aka the ‘Point of Origin’ newsletters). They had a column aptly titled ‘In Ink’ that discussed the media’s coverage of Origin and Origin games. Admittedly, some of the references are very minimal and/or referring to days of UO’s past

Without further ado…from earliest to latest.

Massively – 2 March 2012
In an article “Some Assembly Required: Six must-haves for creative expression” by MJ Guthrie, the ability to create and preserve literature in MMORPGs is discussed, with UO getting the credit: “I have been dying to highlight this feature for a while, and I was going to find a way come to theme park or high water! Why? Because this is the most awesome feature ever! As a writer and lover of literature, I just can’t fathom how so many games have missed implementing this feature, especially since it was actually first introduced eons ago in Ultima Online: player-created books. ”

The Escapist – 7 March 2012
In a panel at GDC 2012, “Good Design, Bad Design, Great Design”, Raph Koster’s background with Ultima Online and other games was mentioned, and how it helped shape his views on game design. Very brief mention.

Massively – 7 March 2012
At the Game Developer’s Conference 2012, Massively talked to Spacetime Studios, creator of Dark Legends, and mentioned that the studio’s staff goes back to Ultima Online.

GamerFront – 8 March 2012
First Earth (First Earth website) is briefly discussed. It’s a game that just entered alpha testing last month, that is, in their words, “player-driven, open-world design, inspired by the classic game Ultima Online“. For more on UO’s influence, there is a game design entry on the First Earth blog discussing it.

Massively – 8 March 2012 (also Kotaku).
UO and World of Warcraft were indicated into an “MMO Hall of Fame”. Massively described it best – “Geocities-era site design”. I’m not the best of designers, but I could have had a better website design done in 10 minutes. And I wouldn’t have huge ads that have nothing to do with the games right in the middle of the home page. And there are so many other things wrong there, I don’t know where to begin. Game Developers Choice Online Awards is legit, and UO took the first year’s Hall of Fame entry by itself. The only good thing – it got UO a big mention on Massively and Kotaku. That’s it.

CSU Signal (California State University) 8 March 2012
Okay, so it’s a review of Star Wars The Old Republic. and UO is only briefly mentioned once. It counts though, right?

Piki Geek – 8 March 2012
Ultima Online is apparently mentioned towards the end of that week’s Piki Geekcast/Podcast.

Massively – 10 March 2012
While this references the article that kicked off this column, it’s focused just on player-written books: “Ancient sandboxes like Ultima Online and modern classics like EverQuest II give players the ability to write their own books, which then populate player-run libraries, serve as tavern menus, explain quests, and mark the memory of friends who left the game. Later games, however, have sadly passed over the mechanic.”

Joystiq (parent of Massively) – 12 March 2012
In an article, “The year role-playing games broke”, by Rowan Kaiser, UO’s early influence was mentioned: “One major and obvious technical innovation altered the genre a great deal: widespread internet use. The static-world RPG became plausible, with Ultima Online acting as a blockbuster that followed in the steps of smaller-scale games like the original Neverwinter Nights, Meridian 51, and The Realm.”

Massively – 15 March 2012
A brief mention of UO in the context of Raph Koster’s history and linking to a summary he put together, of his best game design articles. If you have the patience, look at some of those articles – UO and Ultima get mentioned quite a bit.

Massively – 16 March 2012
In a soapbox column by Eliot Lefebvre (“What You Loved is Still There”), UO and its early PvP are given a big mention: “Unfortunately, among the gamer community as a whole and the MMO community in particular, there’s a strong sentiment that huge seas of silent majorities exist. There are still die-hards insisting that closing off open and universal PvP ruined Ultima Online, despite the fact that players flooded toward the option to avoid open PvP as soon as it became available. There’s a reason no subsequent open PvP game has done well for itself, and that reason seems to be that a lot of people just don’t like it.”

Kotaku – 16 March 2012
In an article about the original Everquest going “Free-to-Play” after 13 years, UO is mentioned alongside EVE Online and Asheron’s Call as early games still charging subscription fees. Dark Age of Camelot is not mentioned.

Massively – 19 March 2012
Brief discussion of the practice of some MMORPGs including earlier expansions in their latest expansions.

I would like it noted that Ultima Online references pop up a lot in the non-English gaming media, and those are not included here. If you have any translations you’d like to contribute, or I missed any references, and understand I didn’t include blog postings about UO, just the gaming media, please contact us through one of those means, or send me a private message through my profile here at the Ultima Codex if you are a registered member.