BioWare Making Free-to-Play Ultima RPG

The Wooster

King Snap
Jul 15, 2008
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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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CD-R

New member
Mar 1, 2009
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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.
 

PingoBlack

Searching for common sense ...
Aug 6, 2011
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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

Former Escapecraft Op
Aug 10, 2009
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DVS BSTrD said:
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

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Jan 4, 2010
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SachielOne said:
DVS BSTrD said:
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

New member
Apr 11, 2011
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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.
 

craddoke

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Mar 18, 2010
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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.
 

Zaik

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Jul 20, 2009
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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

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Mar 4, 2011
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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

Warrior without Weapons
Jul 27, 2009
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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

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Sep 27, 2009
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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...