Ultima Online: The Awakening (Are We The Rioters?)

Last year, I made some uncanny predictions that turned out right and made the UO producer think somebody was feeding me inside information. I based my predictions on close scrutiny of the work being done on UO, and things that were said and unsaid by the UO team, and things that seemed to be cut out of certain videos.

It’s about time I try and do it again, and just like before, I’m aiming for the fences on this one. As Mickey Mantle once said, when you aim for the fences, you are going to strike out a lot, and the odds are against me repeating my success from last year. I’m going to try anyways.

Before you go any further, you should familiarize yourself with The Awakening at the UO Guide. What is The Awakening? I’m not going to sum it up here because I’m going to be talking about it throughout this article and you should have a better understanding than what I’m going to provide – go read the Ultima Online guide article linked above.

Right now, The Awakening is the current story arc that is going to take us through the 15th Anniversary, but I think it’s something more than just the story arc.

If you’re not keeping score, the 15th Anniversary of UO is just over 4 short months away – the end of September.

Hold up! Let’s go back five and a half years to put this in a proper historical context. I believe it was in December of 2006 that we were introduced to Inu the Crone. She kicked off the Warriors of Destiny event cycle, that among other things gave us an awesome story arc involving the Shadowlords. The Shadowlords were a part of the single-player Ultima lore. In the first part of 2007, a strange “Blackrock detector” device was being constructed in Moonglow.

Here we are in 2012, and we’ve got The Awakening story arc, with ties to the Exodus Dungeon as well as Exodus from the single-player Ultima lore. There is even a big mention of Lord Blackthorn, a character from both the single-player Ultima and UO lore. We have the the Nexus deed allowing us to construct strange devices in our homes. The Nexus might or might not reference the Hallway of Worlds:

The Hallway is a dimensional crossroads from which a person could enter any world or dimension desired.

The design documents of Ultima IX reveal that the Hallway (in the document as the Nexus of the Worlds) was build by an ancient and powerful race, as a way-station to allow travel to any point in the universe at will.

Where am I going with this?
The Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn expansion/client was introduced as a part of the Inu storyline. A storyline that leaned on Ultima lore and introduced strange devices. Here in 2012, we have a storyline leaning a bit on Ultima lore and introducing strange devices.

Kingdom Reborn launched in 2007, the 10th Anniversary of Ultima Online.

2012 happens to be the 15th Anniversary of Ultima Online.

Starting to make a connection? Whether you are, or you’re dismissing my theories as insane ramblings, read on a bit as I talk about a few parts of the current storyline that I think are interesting.

The Rioters
I know some of you think that they are based on all of those “Occupy this city” and “Occupy this street” protestors that were in the news last year and earlier this year. Sure, they hit all of the major cites in Britannia, and as you read the journals, where people talk about how bad and hopeless things are and how unsure they are of the future, you get the feeling that maybe the UO designers are trying to inject real-world politics and economics into the game, but stop and think about it for a moment.

Many players are not happy with UO right now for many reasons. Some are giving up and leaving, just as some of the NPC journals have indicated that citizens of Britannia are doing. Just like the citizens of Britannia write in their journals, we too do not have a clear sense of the future of UO itself, and we are concerned.

Some players are taking their frustration out on various forums, on Twitter, on blogs. Online rioting if you will.

What if the rioters are us?

Town Loyalty
There’s another aspect of the story arc that is interesting. If you declare your loyalty to a town by performing certain actions, you will be rewarded with a loyalty rating, town banners, and you can even obtain a title for all to see declaring yourself loyal to a city.

What if the loyalty to a town is indicative of our loyalty to Ultima Online?

Jukan and Meer Heirlooms and Loremasters
There are Jukan and Meer heirlooms to be found and turned in to Jukan and Meer loremasters. For those around during the days when Ultima Online 2 was in development, Jukan and Meer were originally going to be playable races in UO2.

Could the sideplots with Jukan and Meer “history”, if the heirlooms can be considered a part of their history, be an indicator of an “Ultima Online 2” or at least an addition of the playable races from UO2?

The Grinding
Without going into specifics (the topic deserves its own article), there seems to be an increase in grinding in the current events. The developers and designers are aware of it, which brings me to this: increasing the grinding is a good way to keep players busy without having to add a lot more new content. That’s good if you are busy on other things and want to squeeze as much time as possible out of work going into the game currently.

Jeff Skalski
Jeff Skalski, the Ultima Franchise producer, has a background full of 3D and other art-related work. Early in Dark Age of Camelot’s history, he worked as a World Artist, before becoming a Lead World Artist. He was the Art Director for Imperator Online, he worked on Mass Effect as an artist, he was in charge of art outsourcing on Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, before moving into management-type rolls.

I do not believe that Jeff Skalski was brought in to oversee UO’s funeral. I also believe that because of his background in art and 3D work, and as a fan of the Ultima games and UO, that he would like to see UO modernized, and would like to see it flourish once more.

The Enhanced Client, 3D Artwork, High Resolution Artwork
Starting with the previous UO producer last year, work was undertaken to bring high resolution artwork into UO. Our tablets and phones are starting to have a higher resolution than UO is capable of displaying. Some browser-based games have a higher resolution than UO. These days it’s not uncommon for people on desktop PCs to have 20-inch displays, and decent 23-inch monitors can be had for under $200. UO doesn’t look so good when you zoom in on larger or higher resolution displays, and just in general it’s showing its age. It can be argued that UO’s look was dated even before it launched in 1997, as Ultima IX and EverQuest launched before the decade was out, and between UO’s graphics and open-world PvP, the people spoke with their wallets and EverQuest jumped way out in the lead before some kind of Warcraft world thing came along 5 years later. But in 1997 many of us were still on 800×600 and 1024×768 displays, so the problem wasn’t as pronounced.

I’m going to get some hate email over this, but UO’s current graphics situation and the Classic Client is not doing it any favors. To paraphrase something I said about players in my look at UO’s 20th Anniversary – The Players article:

If the existing artwork or Classic Client was bringing in thousands of new players every month….leave them alone and focus on just the classic client. But they aren’t.

The good news: it’s being worked on. The artwork budget has been increased. The groundwork has been laid for UO to move into the 3D world – the artwork is being converted to not just high resolution, but 3D, although it’s currently downgraded back into 2D before going in the game.

TheGrimmOmen, showing just how awesome he is, even added high-resolution animation coding capabilities into UO’s pipeline.

The Times They Are a-Changin’
We have this big story arc, with some parallels to a past story arc that introduced a new client. You know what? Those parallels may not mean anything – everything I just wrote above about the story arc may not mean anything.

But the story is definitely building up to some kind of change in Britannia. The rioters are angry at what is happening. Dark times are at hand. Something Exodus-related is building up. People are worried. The NPCs report that things aren’t safe.

You can’t have all of these dark and forbidding things happening, without something to offset them in the end.

So What is The Awakening?
It’s the next major version of Ultima Online. It may not be a full expansion, but it could be the Enhanced Client along with the high resolution artwork coming out of beta.

Think about it. Some feel the artwork and other parts of UO are “tired”. UO has been on a steady decline in numbers for nearly 10 years, with bumps here and there for expansions and other events.

Isn’t it about time that UO “woke up” from its slumber and joins the modern world with a “finished” Enhanced Client and high resolution artwork?

It’s the 15th Anniversary. Nothing would make a lot of players more happier than to have an influx of new and returning players to Ultima Online. An EC coming out of beta and good looking high resolution artwork would bring in new players, and bring back more than a few players who have left.

Ultima Online: The Awakening

Kind of has an appeal to it. Lots of symbolism.

The elder MMORPG is going to finally wake up from a long nap.

Note: Images used on this page, via the Ultima Online Guide