BioWare Making Free-to-Play Ultima RPG

[The Wooster]

BioWare Making Free-to-Play Ultima RPG

"The first great Western RPG has been lovingly restored in Ultima Forever."

EA just announced that BioWare is working on a cross-platform, modern take on Richard Garriott's ground-breaking Ultima series. It's not quite what you'd expect, at least from an Ultima title. Ultima Forever has a bright, cartoonish aesthetic, only two classes and it's being published under EA's Play 4 Free label.

"Accept the challenge from Lady British and save the land of Britannia. Play as the Fighter or the Mage and travel alone or with friends, restore virtue and become the Avatar!" shouts the game's announcement page.

Lord British appears to have either been replaced or undergone sex reassignment surgery, presumably because he (Richard Garriott) is unlikely to be involved with the project. EA obtained the rights to the Ultima series back in '92 when it bought Origin Systems. Garriot eventually left the company at the turn of the century, shortly after EA canceled all of the studio's projects in response to the poor performance of Ultima IX. EA finally shuttered the studio in 2004.

EA also released Lord of Ultima, a free-to-play, MMO strategy game earlier this year to a generally mixed reception.

You can take a look at Ultima Forever's artwork and sign up for the beta here. [http://ultimaforever.com/signup]

Source: Ultima Forever [http://ultimaforever.com/]

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[saintdane05]

Hasn't this website been up for over a year?

 

[CD-R]

Well after the fiasco that was Ultima 8 and 9 I don't think there's any way EA could possibly fuck it up more.

 

[The Great JT]

If this is a true RPG, can I be the Avatar of the Guardian?

 

[PingoBlack]

Looks at Developer/Publisher combo ...
Walks away ... starts running ... sprints until breath holds.

Sorry, but seriously. EA/BioWare at this point are sure to miss any good ideas they could implement but instead provide only crap. They failed to succeed in modern MMOs so they decided to fall back to ancient MMOs?

Making remake of nostalgia-laced sandbox MMO -> Implement 2 classes. ???

 

[SachielOne]

Poor Spoony, first being Fired from TGWTG and now THIS^
Seriously someone should check-up on him.

From Spoony's twitter this morning after he found out about this: "Well, that about does it. I'm off to go start slamming my head in a car door, and I may never stop."

 

[Fappy]

Poor Spoony, first being Fired from TGWTG and now THIS^
Seriously someone should check-up on him.

From Spoony's twitter this morning after he found out about this: "Well, that about does it. I'm off to go start slamming my head in a car door, and I may never stop."

That sounds like a proper response from a fan. How many Ultima fans are actually excited about this?

 

[Lectori Salutem]

Dammit EA, nobody asked for this. If you make an Ultima game, people want an Ultima game, not that strategy game or this. Also, I thought UO still went pretty well, considering it's age.

 

[Scars Unseen]

Hooray! We're finally getting more Ultiwhat the fuck is this shit?!?

 

[craddoke]

Ultima IV-VII will always be awesome (VII being perhaps the greatest cRPG ever); I-III were great at the time; VIII was okay.

All other Ultima games are impostors - although this hardly even qualifies as an impostor.

 

[Joabbuac]

I never asked for this.

 

[Zaik]

Wow, not the move I would have made. Going from shitting in everyone's face with ME3 to a series with a history of shitting in everyone's faces.

It's looking pretty grim for Bioware.

 

[grigjd3]

So Bioware has gone from being the premier AAA western crpg maker to making a free to play throwback that will probably not make it to the same quality as most facebook games? Really?

 

[burningdragoon]

Is this BioWare BioWare making this or just another random studio that EA slapped the BioWare name onto (like for the C&C game)?

Not that it really matters, I'm just curious.

 

[Nooners]

Interesting how I (and I imagine, many others like me born to late to experience Ultima's prime) hadn't heard of the series until Spoony's retrospective, and then it started popping up all over again with Lords of Ultima, all the rereleases on GOG, and now this. Wonder if Spoony's influence contributed to an Ultima resurrection? Incidentally, if an official Ultima X was ever made, Ultima: Resurrection sounds strangely appropriate...

 

[80Maxwell08]

Is this BioWare BioWare making this or just another random studio that EA slapped the BioWare name onto (like for the C&C game)?

Not that it really matters, I'm just curious.

I'm pretty sure it's the latter. In particular it's Bioware Mythic who made the Warhammer MMO. Also some more info on it. Apparently it's a MMO remake of Ultima IV.
http://kotaku.com/5925250/ultima-is-going-free+to+play-heres-how-it-just-might-work
Judging from all the comments on every article I see on this I do not see this being a success.

 

[Covarr]

If they do a good job with this, then surely I'l...

Oh, who am I kidding? This is gonna suck.

P.S. Thanks

 

[mfeff]

Just going to leave this right here...

 

[Novaova]

EA just announced that BioWare. . .

There's two reasons why I don't care in the first five words of the first sentence.

 

[robert01]

An open letter to EA;

Please stop murdering game franchises. Everyone knows the last good Ultima Game (barring Ultima Online, that was it's own thing) was Ultima VII: The Serpents Gate and it would have been even better if you hadn't rushed Origin when they were making it. You need to just stop, stop making games, sell all your IPs and call it a day. You are the next THQ.

Without love;
robert01

PS: Fuck you.