Fascinating Video on the History of UO

Raph Koster, Rich Vogel and Starr Long discuss the development and early days of Ultima Online at GDC 2012.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1016629/Classic-Game-Postmortem-Ultima

 

Yes, this is an excellent Post Mortem on UO. It really should be required viewing.

Interesting part to me is when Starr and Raph talk about combating simulation loopholes, and their response was to make the simulation More detailed and only later on did they start scaling it back.

To me, MMOs have been scaling back simulation ever since then, losing a lot of magic that was created by RG , Starr, and Raph. With SotA, I would to see them try to reset the amount simulation back what they originally had hope for and see what they are capable of with today's technology and social knowledge.

 

Thanks for the link.

 

Very interesting indeed. They were all pretty much flying blind, and figuring it out as they went. So many lessons learned, by gamers and designers...something like early UO will just never, ever happen again. I spent a dozen or more years wishing someone would make another UO-like game, and some have attempted it, but no matter what the specific rules are or are not, it's just not the same. I have accepted that it cannot be done again. Nothing ever can be like that again, the community has split up into niches, and so different rule-sets are required for different kinds of players now.

 

It's easy to forget the role that the Ultima series played in Ultima Online because of how little story was officially baked into the UO experience. One of the best things about UO by far was how well fleshed out the actual world was. The dungeons, the shrines, the cities, the landmarks--every part of Britannia felt old and traveled, like it had been there long before I played UO. For my part, this is remarkable precisely because I had never played an Ultima game before playing UO.

Despite the fact that the developers of UO were treading new ground, they were also working with a franchise that provided a very, very strong foundation for them. No other game will ever offer a similar experience because so much of what UO was depended on intellectual property that now belongs to EA. You can't truly reproduce the UO experience just by duplicating the mechanics in a 3D environment.

 

That's funny, because when my pal was trying to get me to play UO, I only played single-player games like the Ultimas and Doom and so on. I was skeptical of online and multiplayer. In the sixteen years (REALLY?!) since, I have only played mmo's, and lost all interest in single-player games. I don't see the point anymore in playing a game by myself, with no one there to celebrate with, show off in front of, rez and be rezzed by, trade with, argue with...

I know not everyone agrees with this sentiment and many people prefer single player. Good on you, then; I hope everyone has lots of fun doing whatever he or she wishes in SotA.

 

Good vid. Worth the hour.

 

Thanks for sharing! Worth watching, interesting.