Posted March 20, 2012
With the release of the majority of the Origin legacy titles on GOG, I began asking myself: would Ultima Online (UO) be viable? Since its launch in 1997, UO has been subscription based. There are still official shards (i.e. UO servers) up and running, although I cannot attest to the subscription base. However, many older MMORPGs have abandoned the subscription model for free-to-play, powered by in-game microtransactions. Most notably, UO's old rival and fellow giant EverQuest finally went free-to-play this year, some time after even its own sequel.
Many players and patrons of GOG matured alongside the internet in its infancy. We can remember with nostalgia, and perhaps not without residual frustration, the chiming of the dial-up modem as we connected to play UO, or other early pioneers of the genre. In my opinion, few games in that vein have been able to replicate the magic, the immersion, and the fun. For many of us, it would have been our first foray from traditional single-player role-playing games into a vast, interactive arena.
While any shift to free-to-play would probably be self-contained, I thought it might bear observing that GOG would be fertile grounds for a UO revival. Here, we have a player-base devoted to the enjoyment and preservation of vintage games. What if, in the indefinite future, a re-packaged, re-tooled original version of UO was released here, with a GOG-user shard? The upkeep costs of running a single shard can't possibly be that extravagant. Then they could release updates or expansions, depending on the community demand. For my part I never played beyond The Second Age, but I wouldn't say I'm a purist.
This all presupposes that the powers that be at EA and the intrepid entrepreneurs at GOG are able to come to such an agreement. It presupposes that it would be profitable to EA eventually. Suffice to say, there are a number of presuppositions. But if by some stroke of fortune this were to ever happen, I for one would be happily lost in the Britannia of 1997.
What do you think of this idea? Also, feel free to wax poetic about your UO memories! A good nostalgia thread is always in order.
Many players and patrons of GOG matured alongside the internet in its infancy. We can remember with nostalgia, and perhaps not without residual frustration, the chiming of the dial-up modem as we connected to play UO, or other early pioneers of the genre. In my opinion, few games in that vein have been able to replicate the magic, the immersion, and the fun. For many of us, it would have been our first foray from traditional single-player role-playing games into a vast, interactive arena.
While any shift to free-to-play would probably be self-contained, I thought it might bear observing that GOG would be fertile grounds for a UO revival. Here, we have a player-base devoted to the enjoyment and preservation of vintage games. What if, in the indefinite future, a re-packaged, re-tooled original version of UO was released here, with a GOG-user shard? The upkeep costs of running a single shard can't possibly be that extravagant. Then they could release updates or expansions, depending on the community demand. For my part I never played beyond The Second Age, but I wouldn't say I'm a purist.
This all presupposes that the powers that be at EA and the intrepid entrepreneurs at GOG are able to come to such an agreement. It presupposes that it would be profitable to EA eventually. Suffice to say, there are a number of presuppositions. But if by some stroke of fortune this were to ever happen, I for one would be happily lost in the Britannia of 1997.
What do you think of this idea? Also, feel free to wax poetic about your UO memories! A good nostalgia thread is always in order.
