In response to my retrospective on Richard Garriott’s Ultima series, Joe Garrity of the Origin Museum writes:
Excellent article, David. Your summary was spot-on, and your opinions seconded. I too would love to see a new Ultima, but it might not be in the cards. There is always hope, however. Ultima’s current IP holder is EA (Garriott only holds copyright on the names Lord British and Shamino). EA is responsible for UO of course, and they’ve just started Lord of Ultima as an RTS through Facebook, which is doing well. Exercising this use of their IP may be a way of “testing the waters” for the popularity of a new Ultima game. I think the days of single-player are over, but I’d give anything to wander the streets of Britannia again, and adventure with comrades that have been my trusted allies since we were 10 pixels high! :)
Hi Joe. Thanks for posting a comment. Yeah, that’s cool that EA is testing the waters with an Ultima RTS, though I’ve never been a big RTS fan myself. Last night I was actually just talking with some friends about Ultima, and I was commenting that one thing that made Ultima more fun than other RPGs — particularly multiplayer ones — is that you play the entire game as the most important person in the world, and everyone you meet just falls over themselves praising you and expressing amazement that they’re actually getting a chance to meet you. It may not really be practicing the Britannian virtue of humility to enjoy that so much, but it is fun.
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