Ultima Online Still Thriving More than 25 Years Later (July 14, 2023)

[ChrisReid]

Here at the CIC, we used to keep pretty close tabs on Ultima Online. As a product that was developed alongside contemporaries such as Wing Commander Prophecy at the famous Austin studio, it was a big deal to see EA continue the MMO long after Origin's closure. When Electronic Arts finally did decide that they were done with it in 2014, that could have very easily been the end, but the game has somehow continued to thrive for another decade under Broadsword. So I was really happy to see this recent PC Gamer blurb about high turnout for the game's summer barbecue event. The game has been continuously running for more than 25 years now, so the fact that it exists at all is impressive - but all the more so that they're still having fun events in their tight knit community! You can skim through a few recorded streams below to see what the game's like in 2023:

Ultima Online still boasts an active official and unofficial events community—just the other day, the Siege Perilous server featured a choreographed rock concert where community favorite Lord Galois busted out some sick MIDI lute riffs, and Reddit users on the InsaneUO server have reported sightings of infamous monarch Lord British attacking random players and then letting people rifle through his inventory.

While I'm too young to have ever got into Ultima Online, it's really great to see one of PC gaming's earliest MMO communities continue to thrive like this, both with and without official support. Cheers to another successful barbecue, and here's to many more.

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Original update published on July 14, 2023

 

[jpasan]

I never played Ultima Online, but still hate it.

It began the shift to everything always online at Origin that ultimately led to the demise of everything else. And itself

 

[ChrisReid]

That's certainly one opinion! Another perspective is that a massive shift in the industry was in progress, and Origin happened to be at the forefront of it - with games like UO and also novel experiences like Wing Commander Secret Ops leading the way. In a very slightly different universe, Westwood's Earth & Beyond wouldn't have been in EA's stable to compete with the various online WC efforts in development, and we instead would have had Wing Commander/Privateer Online still running 25 years later.

 

[Bob McDob]

In a very slightly different universe, Westwood's Earth & Beyond wouldn't have been in EA's stable to compete with the various online WC efforts in development, and we instead would have had Wing Commander/Privateer Online still running 25 years later.

I don't know, would it have? Earth & Beyond only lasted two years, but then maybe nobody really cared enough about it. Star Wars Galaxies lasted eight years, which is still only a third of UO. The only other game I can think of with the same longetivity is Tibia, another roleplaying game from 1997 that turned 25 in January.
The more time goes on and the longer UO stays alive (or maybe keeps getting resurrected, oOoOoOo) the more I start to feel it's a special freak of the era and can't be judged by the standards of later games.

 

[ChrisReid]

I think there's quite a few. Ultima isn't even the only long-running MMO that Broadsword operates. They also run Dark Age of Camelot, which is only a couple years younger than UO. The space sim MMO Eve Online is more than twenty years old, so it's certainly possible WC Online would still be going today. World of Warcraft is about to to turn 20, and apparently the original Everquest is still going? Here's an article with twenty MMOs that are 15+ years old: https://gamerant.com/mmorpg-oldest-online-today-ranked/

But even if it only lasted two years, that would have been more two more years than we got.

 

[Bob McDob]

I completely blanked on World of Warcraft and EVE for some reason (the latter is bizarre because I've actually played it). I think the mid-90s 2D of UO makes me process it as far older than the other two games even though it's "only" six year older. It also might be that the other games have received much more impressive graphical updates that makes them scan as more modern.

I had no idea about Dark Age of Camelot, it's good to know that it's still running! (Also Everquest)