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Posted By Gabriel B. about 9 months, 3 weeks ago
Tell me the future of this game…that bad huh?
Yesterday, Joystiq managed to wrangle an interview with Kate Flack, the lead designer of Ultima Forever, the upcoming free-to-play game by Bioware and Electronic Arts. The interview revealed many details about the game, including that the game was currently in its alpha build but will move into closed beta “very soon.” More importantly, Falk revealed that the game would be developed for and released on the iPad and other tablet devices first before other devices and make use of the virtual keyboards, but not virtual joysticks or buttons. The multiplayer RPG will also be set 21 years after Ultima 4 and feature the flattened isometric view that became associated with later games like Ultima 7, though there will of course be higher resolutions and some conveniences that weren’t around back in the day, like an improved conversation system and questing system. The virtues have also been incorporated, both in how players react to NPCs and how they react to other players, which will improve or damage their status as the Avatar.
You heard that right: in this game, everyone is the Avatar. As Flack states, “Ultima 5, 6, 7, 8 haven’t happened yet. Lord British is among the stars; he’s no longer there. Lady British has now taken the throne and we’ve found that one Avatar isn’t going to do it this time round, we need multiple Avatars and multiple people coming to try and repair the land.” True, multiple Avatars is more than a little confusing (what, do you have to take the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom back to the Abyss after you find it so the next guy gets a chance?) and takes away from the trials of the original avatar but…the Great Council was sealing dungeons in that time, so it is possible you are a member of it. Lord British’s absence is more disturbing, since he has been a staple of the series and he was exploring the Underworld during this time, so having a new character ascend the throne is a bit weird. Of course, Lord British’s absence might be due to Richard Garriott not being involved in this project and working on his own game. Flack assures fans though that “Ultima is very well respected in EA.”
No word on when Ultima Forever will be released, but in the meantime you can enjoy EA’s latest Free-to-Play Ultima game Lord of Ultima and feel the deep respect the series has received. Please leave your thoughts below on the game and keep following Blistered Thumbs for the latest news on this game.
“Ultima is very well respected in EA.”, HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! XD XD *Falls from his chair*.
I’m thinking of an 8-letter word. Starts with B and ends with L.
Screaming it out in a terrible rage on an infinite loop.
Is this what you’re talking about?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeaGJRV-whU
“in the meantime you can enjoy EA’s latest Free-to-Play Ultima game Lord of Ultima and feel the deep respect the series has received.”
Gabe! The sarcasm! It’s too much! It hurts!
You know they did say this was not an MMO, “It’s very much a classic RPG adventure. It’s more in Dragon Age’s territory than that of an MMO.”
If there’s tons of ‘player-controlled main protagonists’ running around in the same place, I still don’t like the idea, even if it’s a co-op game where every players an ‘avatar’, it’s a premise that doesn’t lend to the Ultima feel of ‘I am a flawed Christ figure’ when there’s multiples of you, it makes you feel a lot less special, which is what MMOs always feel like to me, ‘save me, Obi-wan Kenobi, you’re our only 1,000,476th hope’!
If you want to remake Ultima 4, I say remake Ultima 4, don’t make an Ultima 4 remake into an MMO. To really appreciate an Ultima game, you need to feel immersed in it, like you are the ONE who will succeed in becoming the Avatar, when everyone succeeds at being the Avatar, it makes no sense. Unless all the players end up being false Avatars, in which case, that explains a lot of Ultima 5, but everyone succeeds in being a failure.
HOORAAAAAAAY!
Edit: Ultima 4ever. I GET IT.
So, they are meddling with the time-line of Ultima, tweaking pre-existing concepts of Britania and pushing aside old Characters to make way for new ones…
I’m not at all liking this approach; if there is a franchise that deserves a reboot is Ultima, but all this feels more like the “beating of a dead horse”.
I still hope it all turns out for the better.
I just realized something, if this game takes place between Ultima 4 and 5 then there is a strong possibility that all the multiple Avatars are what cause the inversion of the virtues and the rise of Blackthorn; think of it, there’s a chance the final cut-scene of this game will became the biggest anti-climax of recent memory…
Dude! That’s heavy…