Ultima Online (HQ Remake) - Swamp (2022 Remake) (Crystallized Version)

Channel:

Pieces of 8-bit's HQ Remakes

Subscribers:

2,950

Published on August 4, 2022 2:00:19 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfxE4P53sHc

Game:

Ultima Online (1997)

Duration: 3:32

311 views

27

This piece was commissioned by Xerardo.
Ultima Online (UO) is a MMORPG that was released in September of 1997. Since then, the game has seen 8 expansions and other updates, including an entire overhaul with the release of Kingdom Reborn in 2007.

Besides the original world of Felucca, where PVP is harsh and unforgiving, those expansions added new worlds: Trammel, Ilshenar, Malas, Tokuno, Ter Mur, and the Valley of Eodon. In these new worlds, rules could be set to consensual PVP, and other features such as new monsters, dungeons, cities, and more space for player housing were added. The themes of these worlds range from the land of Gargoyles, to Japanese inspired islands, to a prehistoric continent.

One of the most remarkable event in MMORPG history occuredd on UO. Richard Garriott's in-game character, the esteemed Lord British himself, appeared in a beta test on August 9, 1997 and was assassinated by a player known as Rainz. While Lord British was supposed to be invulnerable, Mr. Garriott had forgotten to turn his god-mode back on after the server had crashed, which made him to vulnerable to Rainz's Fire Field spell. Rainz then began rampaging and killing nearby characters at the event. He was banned from beta testing after the incident, citing repeated complaints of exploting the game's bugs instead of reporting them. This event went down in MMORPG history.

The left beta and went public in September 1997 and quickly became popular. Within 6 months, it had reached a subscriber count of 100,000 people, the largest in history up to that point and far exceeded Origin's projections. By 1999 servers had opened up all over the globe as that popularity grew in Europe and Asia. In 2000, Origin pulled out and Richard Garriott left with them, prompting players to come up with their own story as to why Lord British had abandoned them. By 2003, subscribership peaked at 250,000, but by February 2004 Origins was shut down and EA took the reins. More expansions were released, adding new worlds, new content, and fine-tuning PVP. In 2006 EA handed UO to Mythic Entertainment, who wanted to implement PunkBuster to curb cheating, but it never manifested. In August 2007, Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn massively upgraded the graphics of the game. Mythic would go on to release the final expansion to day in 2009. In 2014, developer Broadsword took control of UO and holds it to this day. In 2018, a free-to-play model was adopted to replace the 2 week trial that was previously in place, allowing F2P players to play the game as long as they like but being highly restricted without being a paying subscriber.

Two sequels were canceled before release: Ultima Online 2, which would have added Steampunk to the game, and Ultima X: Odyssey, which was to be set in the world Alucinor created by the avatar after Ultima IX: Ascension.

Ultima Online holds multiple Guinness World Records such as "First MMORPG to Reach 100,000 Players", and yes, they even gave one to Rainz for being the "First and Only Person to Kill Lord British".

UO still has a cult following today and remains a favorite of streamers. If you are interested in playing the game, you can get started for free on the UO website.

Thank you for listening (and reading). If you would like to commission a piece of your own, be it remake or original, please feel free to contact me at epicpiecesof8bit (a_t) g_m-A_I-L (d.o_t) C_o.m for details. All proceeds go back into the channel to the benefit of all gamerkind.

Special thanks to Wikipeda.org and MobyGames.com

Original score by: Kirk Winterrowd,Joe Basquez, and Hal Milton
This version is Copyrighted ©2022 Pieces of 8-bit
Where applicable All Rights Reserved

Other Statistics