EA celebrates ten years of Ultima Online
by Jason Dobson 
{ Sep 28th 2007 at 9:00PM }
To commemorate this milestone, Electronic Arts is trying to win back former residents of Britannia who since have moved on to bigger and better things to retry Ultima Online using the game's recently launched "Kingdom Reborn" update, which will be free to download for past subscribers through October 9 by way of their old, most likely misplaced username and password.
Calling the event its "Return to Brittania" campaign, EA will welcome players with a monster hunt and prizes including an ankh pendant necklace, map of Brittania, Ultima Online commemorative sculpture and virtue armor set. Characters will also be given a wand of fireworks and 10 décor tokens, though we haven't a clue what those might be. Happy Birthday, UO. Try not to break your hip fighting ogres.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Adam Chance @ Sep 28th 2007 9:23PM
I beta'ed, UO and played it for a few years. I have so many great stories about how god awfull it was. If EA charged $5 a month instead of $15 they would have alot more people playing!
blooh (CDF - Ass Ring) @ Sep 28th 2007 9:24PM
they still charge 15 a month for it? lollllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
that game should've been made free like 4 years ago or so
Cluckyx @ Sep 28th 2007 9:25PM
Heh I remember trying UO when I was about 11 (Now 20) had zero idea on what the hell to do. I made a cobbler and somehow got a full set of boneplate within 20 minutes of playing.
Can anyone tell me. Was Bone plate any good?
Untamed @ Sep 28th 2007 11:32PM
Bone is newbie armor. You can get it off any skels/zombies in any of the graveyards.
UO is an amazing game, the freedom it gives you to do what you want is why I've played it for about 7 years myself, off and on.
Of course, I also only play on the free shards (servers).
Sethisto @ Sep 28th 2007 11:41PM
UO rocked back in the day. Killing whoever, whenever, and looting their corpse, then dieing 10 minutes later and rekilling someone for a new set of armor was awesome.
Rob @ Sep 28th 2007 11:59PM
I beta tested UO, in fact I still think I have the original beta test Cd-Rom around somewhere. I loved the game during the first 2 years. About a year into it I left and came back six months later as a PK on Pacific with my old guild. No other game has been as fun or given as much freedom as UO. EA really screwed it up after they booted Richard Garriot. They catered to the care-bears and watered much of the original concept down. I would never even look twice at it now-a-days except in fond rememberance of what was once a great game.
Rob @ Sep 29th 2007 12:04AM
"You notice Origin stealing $10 from you."
portuga-man @ Sep 29th 2007 7:41AM
this game was awesome back in the day, and it would still be had ea not bought it/sacked richard garriot...
i think this was one of the first games in which ea saw they could make profit and bought it. the creation of trammel was simply one of the biggest mistakes in mmo history. freeshards are the only thing left for me :\
smartguy1600 @ Sep 29th 2007 2:35PM
I played back when I was like 12, all the way up until about 14/15 I think. I had some idea of what the heck I was doing. All I remember was being a magic focused character who had a crazy amount of regents and spent a lot of time scribing recall scrolls for lots of gold. I loved the amount of freedom of that game. I kind of wish Garriot would somehow decide to just completely re-invent the game (although thats difficult considering who owns the rights now..., instead of this upgrade. There are free ways to play UO, and this update isn't really making me want to go back to the game.
Brad Lee @ Sep 29th 2007 4:10PM
Wow, there's no way I could play that game. Just looking at the picture makes me feel sick. There's something about that perspective that just completely throws off my equilibrium...
severian00 @ Sep 30th 2007 2:43PM
Who knew this thing was still going?
Hoj007 @ Sep 30th 2007 7:36PM
damn people still play it? I loved this game back in the day. So many wonderful memories...
Can't wait for Tabula Rasa!
Hoj007 @ Sep 30th 2007 7:37PM
damn people still play it? I loved this game back in the day. So many
wonderful memories... Can't wait for Tabula Rasa!
Anticrawl @ Oct 1st 2007 7:23AM
I had no idea people still played this. Crazy, I remember this fondly, use to play all the time. Had some guy my dad worked with paying for my monthly account cause he's that big of a.. well nerd is a bit odd to use here but that's the best way I can describe it. Fun game, don't remember it being 15 a month, thought it was 10, but whatever I didn't pay for it. After he quit paying for it I just played free shards.
Adam_UOForums @ Oct 3rd 2007 2:40AM
The new client was shipped out before it was ready, not that that's any surprise
Not many like it due to it's lacklustre interface and poor graphics by today's standards.
Btw, if anyone wants to ask questions before they play, feel free to sign up at www.uoforums.com