8 réponses à ce sujet

[LTD]

TL;DR I want to see Bioware Network spamming me with Ultima Online advertisements goddamnit. Also, it is a great game and you should buy it. In UO, many of the buttons ARE connected to awesome.

Endless trial! Try now! Download today!Sounds familiar enough yas? Warhammer Online has secured permanent spot on BWN's frontpage. It is always one of the 5-6 products featured on the display window, happily  co-existing with actual Bioware products in "Games" section and even official WHO  forums(?)   now have a home@BWN. Overall, Warhammer Online consistently gets equal amounts of visibility and love  with Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age II......and vastly superior amounts when compared to TOR, Bioware's  very own MMO. All this attention and love to a game  that isn't even a bastard child of Bioware.

Surely it is just case of EA pulling some strings and asking Bioware to throw a bone to an alarmingly marginal  MMO that was once  supposed to be EA's very own  WoW killer and flagship product of the entire genre. Nothing in this would drive me towards nerd rage in any way  were there not one COLOSSAL snake in the garden! This post is about that snake! You see,while this slightly decayed carcass of Warhammer enjoys the spotlight, there isn't as much as a whisper about Ultima Online in entire BWN! I wonder why EA/Mythic/Bioware chose to back Warhammer with such fury and dedication and meanwhile lock UO in basement as if it were some deformed mentally unstable aunt you don't wish people to know of:l

I wager vast majority of active BWN users have never even heard of Ultima Online, game currently developed/maintained by the very same EA Mythic that is behind Warhammer Online. Why other highly  unlegimate adopted somewhat rotten bastard son gets so much love and attention while the other gets locked in basement and never spoken of at all is puzzling!

Why this puzzles me you are surely asking! I shall tell! Unlike Warhammer, UO very much looks and feels different enough to immediately  set it apart from rest of the MMORPGs out there. I wager nobody who has yet to try Warhammer Online is all that likely to ever do so; it looks like a slightly uglier version of WoW, has rather tarnished reputation and comes with trial that looks just..ever so unappealing and inferior when compared to rather successful and ambitious Free to play schemes of Conan,DDO and  Lord of the Rings online.

I dare say Ultime Online advertising is MUCH more likely to ignite this..this " hmmm what's this then?!" feeling in an  unsuspecting random dude lazily browsing the net. It is slightly disturbing how a good number of features in game released 15 years ago are STILL curve or two ahead of it's competition in 2011.  UO has pretty massive  bundle of features and qualities the genre abandoned when switching from fixed bird's eye to 3rd person. It comes with skill system that will forever make levelling up feel retarted ADHD arcade solution in eyes of  those who know what it is like to train a swordsman who also happens to be very  proficient in dragon taming, musicanship, poison tasting and begging. It comes with housing (and related customization) so sophisticated EA could market it as an  MMORPG version of Sims Medieval rather than an MMO.   It actually gives player a change  to mold portions of the world to his own image, so to speak - feature MMOs more or less abandoned when moving to 3rd person.  It comes with persistent, surprisingly large  playerbase that is propably closer to 50 than 15 years of age.  It is JUST SO OLDSCHOOL you feel irresistable urge to have any and all in-game communication done exclusively in grammatically incorrect thee-tho English.   It has aged extremely well and in all likelihood is making EA more money than Warhammer Online even today.

And YET! They are ashamed of this poor, old elderly creature  while ruthlessly and proudly strapping the slightly rotting carcass of Warhammer to motor cane just so it can be paraded around BWN day after day. Why is this, I wonder.:l

Modifié par LTD, 28 août 2011 - 09:35 .

[Fishy]

I played UO in 1998  on my 50,000 bauds connection . I was living in the middle of nowhere in Canada. So imagine the awesome pings . Seriously i think i was the only one in the region with internet.

[ErichHartmann]

Ultima Online is just not the same as when it first launched. Each successive expansion pack ruined the spirit of the game in my opinion.

[Nameless one7]

ErichHartmann wrote...

Ultima Online is just not the same as when it first launched. Each successive expansion pack ruined the spirit of the game in my opinion.

This.  Ultima Online was great at first though, no denying that.

[LTD]

Ehhh, I think it's mostly about our world and players not being the same:p
MMOs are not a fresh or new genre anymore. This combined with ease of finding and sharing information over net has drastically changed how people experience MMOs and how communities within them function. Everybody has very clear idea of how the game " should be played" and this idea varies very little from person to person.  Nothing feels quite as fresh, odd or mysterious as it used to.Not enough confusion!  When you have  dozens of MMOs and hundreds of related websites and forums and FAQs and  guides explaining player how he should play, it is very rare to run into a guy  who is just..doing his own thing...

....Speaking of which, this thread is now (also!!) about UO memories for nostalgy horny geeks:p
When I first logged in UO back in 2001, itr quickly became clear it'd be wise of me should I begin selling thighboots. So I went to Delucia, killed tons of cows, made boots out of them, dyed the said boots and then sold em to other players at West Britain's market. So much cold!!!
....Some days later I realized it would have been so much better and easier cash to sell the leather instead:p


Undeniably anything and everything in UO related to PvP and risk vs reward has been wrecked though. Plus combat is way, way too item based now yas. I have a habit of playing through 2 week trial every 2-3 years and genuinely think every other portion of the game is just fine. It is almost paradoxal how Ultima freaking Online is suddenly few curves ahead of MMOs that ***SHOULD** be so much more advanced UO can't even be called their competition.World in UO is just so much more dynamic than anything WoW or it's clones have to offer.

Modifié par LTD, 19 août 2011 - 02:35 .

[LTD]

Some screenshots of UO in all her glory. Is she not beautiful? Witness the ageles quality present in graphics! It's funny how simple enough 2d from late 90's is consitently pretty immune to bite of time. UO's graphics and engine looks every bit as slightly obsolete as it did 10 years ago:p Also, note the tasteful, beautiful pool of colors the game has.




Instant messaging has never really existed in Ultima Online. No tells, no whispers, no friendlists, no tradechats. Despite all their obvious benefits, seeing these things for first time in WoW initially bothered me. They remove certain " hands on" feel from the world and interaction. In UO,if you want to speak with someone, you actually have to meet with him face to face. If you want to sell something, you won't have to browse some excell sheet AH or spam trade chat. No sir! Instead, you take your goddamned horses on display to market infront of West britain bank and sell them like you would in real life medieval market place! By spamming your sell macro!  ...Well, that or you hire your very own merchants to your very own shop located in your very own house, another thing that has been missing from MMOs since SWG. 


Below you see a pretty recent pic of market infront of  West Britain Bank. It hurts to see it so empty, in its full glory this place was..sight to behold:p
Animal tamer has brought some horses and unicorns on display to top left corner so potential buyers can inspect their stats. Opposing him,random newbie has set up a small booze shop. Notice the godawfull mess. People have thrown used treasure maps and other junk on ground. Imagine that..MMO with items that actually bloody exist in the game world. Most modern MMOs(games as a whole for that matter) don't have that. Usually, item is just a dumb icon that exists in depths of an excell window displaying loot of the monster you just killed.  From there, you can move the said item to excell sheet representing your own inventory. In most modern games, most items/equipment don't really exist outside these excell windows. This results in very narrow pool of items; there is no point in giving player an ability to craft, loot or buy anything he can't drink, eat or equip. This is a trend I've always found clinical and annoying. UO's approach is once again much more..hands on. Throw a sword to the ground and whatdoyaknow, it actually exists in game world. People can see it, pick it up, kick it to side..It might seem like a small thing but does wonders to atmosphere, immersion and value people give to items.
'
Above mentioned value to items is a chapter of it's own really. Rares (i.e items that usually have no actual use or purpose, other than looking pretty and/or being difficult or impossible to obtain) are the defining currency in UO. Of course, you have your ordinary coin based currency you obtain by looting monsters and whatnot. Anf of course, you use this curreny to buy most of the things like in all other games. However, at  the end of the day this currency is tied, defined and measured with value of rare items in similar fashion to how real life currecies were tied to  gold n pre-world war era.








Point of all this being, you can  do none of this crap in modern MMOs. UO is an unique snowflake and you should love it like I do! Bioware, make people want to  buy UO, not Warhammer!

Modifié par LTD, 21 août 2011 - 11:07 .

[LTD]

Speaking of advertisement on BWN,isn't it a little odd there is no mention of SW:TOR here at all? I realize their hype machine isn't in full swing just yet but even sites like mmorpg.com have some TOR ads going now. Yet, nothing at home base hmhm?

[marshalleck]

Not that I think anyone was really wondering, but if you are curious about why Warhammer banners are displayed on BSN, it's because Bioware took Mythic on as a satellite studio now known as Bioware Mythic.

[LTD]

marshalleck wrote...

 if you are curious about why Warhammer banners are displayed on BSN, it's because Bioware took Mythic on as a satellite studio now known as Bioware Mythic.

Well, yas. As I mentioned, same Mythic entertainment is responsible of Ultima Online as well. It isn't Warhammer advertising I find puzzling, but lack of the other Mythic MMO,which just might have more potential than Warhammer.

Modifié par LTD, 28 août 2011 - 09:32 .