THIS IS NOT YOUR FATHER'S ULTIMA
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The Avatar is in trouble, and he needs your help.
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Having just returned for EA's grand unveiling of Ultima X; Odyssey to the gaming community, I am filled with conflicting emotions - excitement, concern, wonder... but above all, interest. Perhaps it was all the free food, free drinks, and free swag, but I think EA managed to take a bunch of jaded gamers and, if not impress them, at the very least pique their interest in this new product. You'll be reading a lot more details about it in the coming days and weeks... for now, I'll just share my thoughts.
THE BASICS
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ULTIMA ONLINE IS NOT GOING AWAY. Let me say that again - ULTIMA ONLINE IS NOT GOING AWAY. In fact, a new expansion to Ultima Online will come out next year, and probably many more after that. Ultima Online is a core EA/Origin product and it has a large, dedicated follow and a great team of developers who are constantly improving the game.
So what is Ultima X: Odyssey? UXO (not UOX) is a completely new MMORPG. It is designed as a sister-product to Ultima Online. It's not a sequel to UO; it's not UO2. It's something new. Different. Better? That's in the eye of the beholder.
If you are a fan of Ultima Online and you love the game, chances are you might not like UXO. That's FINE. The product was, frankly, not designed for existing UO players... they want you to keep playing, and supporting, the UO franchise. UXO is really aimed at those people who play other MMORPGs, or who played UO and quit. EA actually sat down with their market research and exit interviews, found out WHY people weren't playing UO, and WHAT things were most important to them. Then, they designed an entirely new game around those core features.
I'm sure a lot of UO players will like and play UXO, and I think that will be welcomed. Some players may even switch over and quit UO. But those of you who do not, you have nothing to be worried about. The simple fact of the matter is different MMOG players want different things. Old-time MUD developer and online games researcher Richard Bartle has done research on this in the past and identified the different motives and desires of different players. UXO is designed for people who aren't currently subscribing to UO. You need not be jealous of them or feel superior to them, or feel like you are inferior. You are just different people, who want to experience the world of Ultima and all the rich story and history it has to offer, but in different ways. You are brothers and sisters, not enemies.
Ultima X: Odyssey is also designed as a sequel to, and an extension of, the single-player Ultima saga, which ended (or so we thought) with Ultima IX: Ascension. Whereas Ultima Online branched off from Ultima II and really created parallel worlds, UXO is the next step in the original Ultima saga.
THE BACKSTORY
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At the end of Ultima IX, the Avatar ascended to full Avatar status, appeared to merge with the Guardian, and thereby the two were destroyed. The End.
But wait! You only THOUGHT that's what happened. In truth, the Avatar and the Guardian went off to fight an extra-dimensional plane-shattering battle of Good vs. Evil, Chaos vs. Order. Where they've been duking it out for the past... years, millennia, eons... who can really tell.
That's the good news. The bad news is - The Avatar is losing.
So, the Avatar needs help! That's where you come in. The Avatar has created his own universe (or several, probably, since UXO will also have multiple servers similar to "shards") called Aluncinor. Aluncinor is created from the Avatar's memories and thus contains many familiar places from Britannia such as Britain, Cove, Buccaneer's Den - but not all of them, and not in the same way you may have seen them in the past. Furthermore, it contains many news areas, not seen in any Ultima before.
Your job is to do just what the Avatar did - become a disciple of the eight Virtues, perform grand quests, and ascend to Avatar status yourself! Then you (and your disciples... more on that later) can support the Avatar is his seemingly eternal battle with the Guardian.
VIRTUES
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In case you forgot, the eight Virtues are Compassion, Honesty, Valor, Honor, Humility, Sacrifice, Justice, and Spirituality.
The Virtues are an integral part of UXO. Everything you do will be influenced by your virtues and in turn your choices will determine what virtues your character advances in (see below). Quests, items, NPCs, etc. can all be influenced by the Virtues.
RACES
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There are 4 races currently, and 2 more to be implemented before release. They are:
Human
Orc
Elf
Gargoyle
Pixie
Phoda (a hamster/rat-like furry humanoid)
The races, however, are purely cosmetic. They do not affect your abilities in any way, nor do they provide any special bonuses. The same goes for gender. There may be some *minor* differences between the races -- for instance, Pixies will hover in the air, and Gargoyles may (or may not) glide over water rather than swim -- and different races will probably have race-specific emotes. But otherwise, it's purely a fashion choice -- you can be a Pixie Barbarian, or a Gargoyle Bard, whatever you like. The rationale behind this is simple one of play balance -- if, for example, Orcs are made stronger than everyone else, and strength is of primary importance to melee characters, then almost every fighter you see will be an Orc, and Foda fighters will complain because they are unavoidably gimped. Personally, I think a finely tuned balance system can work around these issues, but it takes a lot of effort, and given that great balance has rarely been achieved in any MMOG, this seems to be a sensible approach.
CHARACTER CUSTOMIZATION
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Character visual customization will be fairly basic, and not as advanced as Star Wars Galaxies for example. You'll be able to do the basics - hair color, hair style, eye color, skin tone - but you won't be able to select the precise length of your nose or the size of your ears. There will instead be a selection of faces (hopefully a LARGE selection), which you can pick for your basic look. It's not clear just how far the skin tones will go, but you will have both purple and red gargoyles and presumably both light and dark elves. Things like selecting height and weight are still iffy; it takes more work in the graphics engine and on the artists to do that. Characters do have different sizes and heights based on their race, of course, but how much you will be able to customize them beyond that is not yet decided by the development team.
CLASSES AND ABILITES
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There are four "paths" to Avatar Status. Each path has 3 character classes, or sub-classes if you will, for a total of 12. They are:
The Path of the Blade - Knight, Barbarian, Fighter
The Path of the Arcane - Mage, Sorcerer, Tinkerer
The Path of Nature - Ranger, Druid, Shepherd
The Path of Balance - Paladin, Bard, Necromancer
Your character can only choose one path, but within that path you are free to mix and match different class skills. Each class starts out with a basic skill, so as a newbie following the Path of the Blade, you can pick the starter skill from Knight, Barbarian, or Fighter. As you gain experience, you can spend those points to buy new skills, or increase the power of an existing one. When the skill level reaches 6 (this might change), you "unlock" the next tier of skills for all three classes.
It's quite similar to Asheron's Call 2 or Star Wars Galaxies in this respect, but they aren't skill trees... if you spend all your points on the Tier 1 and Tier 2 Knight skills, at Tier 3 you can take the Barbarian or Fighter skill. Or split your points and have Tier 3 abilities in all three classes. There is some undetermined total cap on skills, however, so eventually you'll be encouraged to specialize.
Again, like AC2/SWG, there skills represent special abilities, frequently spells or combat moves, which you bind to a function key to perform the special actions during combat. You also have buffs, heals, and some abilities can even be passive (like a general defensive bonus). Using your skills takes "Power" (energy) though (see below).
We saw only the Blade and Arcane classes at the event; basically, Fighters and Magic-Users. Not much to say about each beyond the obvious, although exactly what distinguishes a Knight from a Fighter and a Mage for a Sorcerer isn't clear. A Tinkerer works a lot like a Magic-User, only he uses and throws potions (much like an Alchemist) and perhaps will have other mechanical-oriented abilities. I don't have much to tell about the other classes, except the Shepherd is probably the "pet tamer" class and the "Balance" class, which confusing at first, seems to be focused on fighter/magic-user hybrids.
VIRTUE ABILITIES
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In addition to the above, there are also special Virtue abilities. As you complete quests you accumulate virtue points in various virtues, which you can then use to buy special virtue powers that work much like your class abilities. They are, however, completely class independent. They didn't talk about these too much, but they will be an important part of the game (see below).
STATS
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There are four primary stats - Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Constitution. As you gain "levels" (more on this later) you can increase those stats. An option will probably be available to decrease them as well, perhaps through a quest, to allow "respeccing" in case you make a horrible mistake.
There are also derived stats, which are affected by your primary ones and calculated automatically based upon them. There are Hit Points, Power, Offense, Defense, and Luck. Hit Points are your health, and Power is basically your energy/mana which is used when you do your special attacks, spells, etc. Offense and Defense are like your To Hit and Armor Class characteristics and are important in combat. Luck is a special attribute that influences the quality of loot you receive and perhaps other things. (Quick side-bar: When you are looking at treasure, a little Shamrock appears on those items which were generated or made better due to your luck attribute.)
INVENTORY
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The following slots are equippable - left hand, right hand, leggings, undershirt (chest and arms), overshirt (chest and arms), gloves, head, and three slots for jewelry - 2 rings and a necklace. Also there's another chest slot I'm not clear on (robe?).
In addition, your basic backpack has 36 slots for items; each item appears to only take one slot regardless of size. In addition, you can obtain multiple bags to increase your inventory even further and carry more stuff around.
There are no weight or encumbrance limits. You have a counter that tracks how much gold you have as well. There will be a bank-style system for storing excess items (and maybe gold?).
COMBAT
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Combat is designed to be more intense and action-paced. One thin the developers wanted to do was get away from "sandwich" fighting... that is, when you target a monster, hit the auto-attack key, go to the kitchen to fix a sandwich, and come back in a few minutes to see if you've won. They want the combat to be interactive, and involve strategic thinking -- not a click-fest, but clicking-required.
Every character has a base attack (again, much like AC2/SWG, but not automatic) that doesn't use any Power. When you target an enemy, you click the left mouse button to swing. You have to keep clicking to keep attacking. However, clicking rapidly won't get you very far. You are still restricted in how often you can swing. Also, your base chance to hit is based on 25% of your offense. As you fight, two status areas appear around the target showing your current Offense and Defense levels -- remember those? As the seconds tick by your Offense lights up in notches until it's at 100%; then you can do a full power swing with a much better chance to hit.
Similarly, your DEFENSE needs attention as well. It starts out at 100% and decreases over time, so you need to click your RIGHT mouse button from time to time to keep your defense jacked up as high as you can. However, unlike your base attack, defending uses Power, so combat becomes a time vs. resource management game.
And of course while you're doing this, you'll be mashing your function keys for your various special attacks and abilities. Again, it's a lot like AC2 or SWG, but you can't really leave your mouse alone... you have to pay attention and click when you need to click or you'll soon be seeing your character's death animation.
It's too early to judge the pace of combat based on what we saw and got to play, because everything is adjustable and not tuned or balanced. The rate of attacks, the power cost of abilities, the rate at which you regain Hit Points and Power... all of that is still being tweaked. Generally speaking, however, UXO is trying to achieve a more Dungeon Siege or Diablo 2 style to the combat, fast-paced, action-based, with lots of movement, and not having just a PC "locked" against a particular mob, hacking away over and over again.
ZONES (YES, ZONES)
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This was perhaps the most surprising feature of the game... it is zone-based, much like EQ. With almost every modern MMOG focusing on open and contiguous areas, it may at first seem strange that UXO would use zones. However, I think this is understood by their choice of graphics engine (Unreal Warfare), the desire to allow private areas (see below), and their general vision of making the game more like the single-player CRPG experience.
At launch, there will be 55 zones, with more added later. Each zone is of indeterminate size, but based upon what I was told (65535 coordinate units with each representing half an inch resolution) that works out to 2730 feet on each side of a zone, or about half a mile. Not enormous, but not too small either, especially considering the Z-axis.
Travel between zones is done via doorways, generally into dungeon areas, and pathways and roads for overland travel. There are Moongates as well, which apparently also act as bind points, or perhaps more precisely, resurrection points.
DEATH AND BINDING
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As you travel in the world and encounter various moongates (and perhaps other features), these go on your list of possible bind points. If you die, you don't automatically respawn at the last place you bound. Rather, you will be able to pick where to resurrect from all the bind points you know... you could pick the closest, or choose to go all the way back to another area. In theory, you could eventually collect all known bind points and come back anywhere.
The nature of the death penalty in the game is also still undecided, but it figures to be fairly light. No experience loss or experience debt, and very possibly little if any item loss or temporary stat loss either. This isn't written in stone yet, but the goal of the game is to have a fun action-paced experience, and the last thing you want to do is die at 11:59PM just before you had planned to go to bed and now you have to spend an hour doing a corpse run to recovery your stuff.
THE ODYSSEY ADVENTURE SYSTEM
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The core gameplay element of UXO is the Odyssey Adventure System (which sounds to me like something Marketing came up with to describe what the Devs thought was just common sense). This is the way in which UXO is more like single-player Ultimas and other CRPGs, and less like a MMOG... or so they claim.
Advancement of your character, particularly in the Virtues, is almost entirely based around quests. After a certain amount of time running around killing stuff, if the game system determines you don't have a quest (or perhaps aren't doing the one you do have), one will be made and presented for you. No more of this running to a certain spot to find a particular monster or NPC to start a quest - the NPC will (with some exceptions) come to you. When you talk to the NPC, it will give you a story and interactive dialog choices about a particular quest. You can then choose whether or not to take the quest, and also just how you plan to go about it.
This is where the Virtues come in again. Say an NPC comes to you wanting helping catching a thief who stole some bread. You could find the NPC and find out he's a poor, starving traveler who had to steal the bread... if you choose to let him go, you'll advance in the Virtue of Compassion. Or perhaps you think black is black, white is white, and a criminal is a criminal. You haul him off to jail and gain in the Virtue of Justice. It all depends on what YOU decide is right for YOUR character.
And the story doesn't stop there. Perhaps the poor traveler is poor because an evil monster burned down his home, and perhaps you could go deal with it for him in exchange for a magical family heirloom? Or maybe you just want to kill the beggar and take the trinket for yourself. It's all up to you. There are no wrong choices - simply multiple paths to achieving Avatar status.
Each quest will be crafted and are expected to range from simple 20 minute FedEx missions to long multi-hour epics. Each is hand-crafted (though tailored to your level and skills) and is designed to make you feel like the traditional CRPG hero, making the decisions and choosing your destiny. EA says that many of the quests will be deep, with multiple branches, multiple choices, and interlocking with other quests. This will require a lot of work to do, but with the powerful scripting capabilities of the Unreal engine, they claim is actually takes more time to conceive and write up a quest than it does to actually script it into the game.
You can, of course, decline a quest, or stop a quest for the night and pick up where you left off the next time you play. You can also do quests with others in the game world, be they random strangers or fellow guild mates. The goal is to have at a minimum some 300 distinct quests at launch, with more coming all the time. In fact, many new quests can be "hot loaded" on the server with no downtime or patch required to the client.
As I said before, quests are also tuned to your level and experience and ability. For a new player, the boss monster might be a Mongbat; for a higher level, it might be 20 Mongbats. Or a Frost Giant. The same goes for groups... the game dynamically generates appropriate encounters based on who is participating. You can't fool it, either... if you take a quest by yourself, then group with 5 other people, the encounter generation system for the quest will know.
PRIVATE AREAS
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Another key part of the Odyssey Adventure System, as well as the game overall, is the ability to create private areas. Basically, this allows single-players or groups to choose, when they zone, to instead instantiate a private copy of that zone to allow them to do quests without interference or griefing from others. Or even not do quests at all, and simply camp monsters or explore dungeons without competition.
Exactly how this will work is still unclear, and it seems like the Developers are sure they can do it, they just don't know what the best method of implementation is. There may be limits on private areas and when exactly you can create them and when you can't. The interface by which a player instantiates them is also not yet finished. There are many details to work out. But the goal of the feature is clear - to allow players to do quests, explore areas, and kill monsters without any interference from other characters, if they so choose.
It seems like it will be almost possible to play the game entirely single-player, but some areas like the towns may be shared-only. In any case, you'll always be online; it's not offline-play.
THE ENDGAME (AKA THE ADDICTIVE CRACK ELEMENT)
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Okay, so you remember the Avatar, right? The whole point of you doing all these quests is to help the Avatar by mastering a Virtue and becoming an Avatar yourself.
When you do this, your character ascends. Whether or not you can still adventure at this point wasn't made clear, but you've definitely reached a cap. At this point, you can then create other characters, which are disciples of your Avatar character. Your new character will start with a special stat bonus appropriate for that Virtue and maybe the path your previous character followed as well.
Your new character will have to master a different virtue, and achieve Avatar status in that one... and then your next character will have BOTH special bonuses. It was also suggested that as your disciples advance, you can actually go back to your previously ascended Avatar character and advance them further as well, although exactly how this would work isn't clear.
Ultimately, you could eventually have Avatars in all 8 Virtues, with the last character achieving uber Avatar status just like the real Avatar. What happens then? Who knows... hopefully they will have the first UXO expansion out before anyone gets that far.
There is something of a downer - your disciple characters each have to have unique names, different from your original. This bothers me a lot, and I think it will be a problem for others as well. It's not clear exactly how the developers can work around this issue, but I hope they do so. In any case, I also hope that when the last disciple becomes an Avatar, you can pick which character becomes the uber Avatar.
EXPERIENCE SYSTEM
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Actually, I'm not entirely clear on the details of this. My impression is that regular experience was based on what you killed and quests you completed and is not "use-based". You spend this experience on increasing your skills. The game is not level-based per se, but once you've accumulated enough experience, you do "level up".
You can also increase your attributes, which I think comes from points you get when you gain a "level" but again I'm not sure.
Virtue experience seems unrelated to other experience and comes solely from completing quests.
OTHER FEATURES IN THE GAME
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Items are very feature-rich and unique, much like AC1's or Diablo 2's loot system. They can have a variety of special abilities -- attribute enhancers, damage type modifiers, offense or defense bonuses, visual effects, etc.
Some items can be "intelligent" and they will gain experience and "level up" along with your character, becoming more powerful and gaining their own special abilities while you advance at the same time. By the time you reach Avatar your trusty sword could rival Excalibur, and be a truly unique and powerful artifact.
Also, some items can be "imbued" with Virtues. Instead of spending points on a particular Virtue Ability, you could instead enchant the virtue points into a necklace or a weapon, giving it special powers and bonuses related to that Virtue.
There will be pets, though it's not clear if all players can have them or if they will be specific to the Shepherd (and possibly other Nature) class(es).
There will PROBABLY be mounts, although they PROBABLY will be for travel purposes only, and you'll have to get off them to fight in combat. Exactly how they will be implemented is undecided.
Groups can contain up to (8 or 9?) characters at a time. There will be Guilds as well, but Guild functionality will probably be fairly basic at launch. Don't expect Guild Halls or lots of special features; just the basics like ranking, assigned powers, Guild chat, etc.
Chat text is in the chat box; no overhead chat bubbles. Right now the chat interface is stuck in the upper left corner; I'm hoping you'll be able to move that around on your screen or at least put it at the bottom. Similarly, your function bar is at the bottom; it would be nice to be able to move it to the top if you desire.
Characters have a compass and waypoints are used in quests to guide your character to where you need to go next. No looking up on web sites to find the exact coordinates of where you need to go; just follow the arrow.
No need to carry arrows or spell reagents. Again, very much like AC2 I think.
No weight or encumbrance.
Monsters drop loot in little "chests" when they die. When you double-click the chest it opens and you can see the loot inside it. You can mouse-over an item and a pop-up shows you the item's characteristics, damage, range, any special powers, etc. Double-click to put it in your backpack or click the handy "loot all" button. However, oddly, this button doesn't loot the gold as well; that's a different button.
Every item, it seems, can be hyperlinked. You can click on character names in the chat window to bring up an examine on them. You can drag the cool item you want to show someone into the chat window and wherever they are in the world they can click on it and see its attributes and such.
There will be day/night cycles. No word on a dynamic weather system and what if any effect it'll have on the zone you are in, although we did see snow and rain.
There will be towns, with NPCs, shops, etc.
Characters take no damage from falling.
There is swimming, including at least some limited underwater movement.
Characters can walk or run. You can't run while in combat mode (though you can run while someone else is attacking you). Running isn't a skill, although various abilities and magic items might enhance run speed.
Character won't be able to fly... well, perhaps on a magic carpet, but only for travel, not free-form flight. Gargoyles don't fly. Pixies will hover above the ground and flap their wings but again, can't fly around.
There will be dual-wielding. There will probably also be the ability to select left or right hand as your primary weapon hand.
There will be shields and capes/cloaks, but we didn't see any at the demo.
I don't know about two-handed weapons; I would guess yes.
There will PROBABLY be treasure maps of some sort or another as a form of mini-game/quest.
PvP is entirely consensual. Again, the exact mechanic is unclear, but appears to be a switch and/or a challenge/duel system. No PvP-only areas per se, but you will probably be able to instantiate a private area and then have others come PvP with you there.
Right now you can group with a low-level character and power-level them without them having to do any combat. There may be some limits put on this, but generally speaking they are going to allow sharing experience in that manner.
Party leaders can set group looting policies (Free For All, Shared, etc.)
When someone loots an item from a chest, the empty slot shows who looted it and what it was they took. Great for finding out if someone in your group is "Ninjaing" the cool stuff.
Supposedly, characters will be able to summon each other if they are not in combat. So if I'm out on an adventure, and you log in and we like to group together, but you're on an entirely different map, I can summon you to me and we can immediately group up and start playing together. Again, the exact details of how this will work have to be worked out... the summoning may be limited to bind points, for example. However, I still see people creating teleport bots that will simply collect all the bind points and then summon people when requested. There was a suggestion that you limit this to people on your buddy list... fine, then the bot just puts everyone it sees on its buddy list. I remain skeptical.
OTHER FEATURES PROBABLY NOT IN THE GAME (AT LAUNCH)
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The Development team believes it is better to do a few core features, and do them very well and make them very deep and interesting, rather than do a lot of features halfway that leaves people unsatisfied. Thus, there are several features that won't be in the game, at least at launch.
The first big one is crafting. There's really no crafting system in the traditional sense, and certainly no class focused on it except maybe Tinkerer. As I mentioned before, there will be the ability to imbue items with abilities, and you should be able to trade those items with few restrictions. And with the complex loot system, there will be all different sorts of items to find and trade with. But there will be no crafting per se. The good news is that a deep crafting system is a target feature for the first UXO expansion.
The second big one is housing. No private housing or even guild halls. This also means no player-run towns. Again, this is a target feature for the first UXO expansion.
Also, since there is no crafting, there's no mining or resources.
No mounted combat (although probably rudimentary mounts for travel purposes).
Probably no global bazaar or auction/trading system at launch, although if not then it would probably be patched in after release as soon as they can get it done and functional.
No playing "evil" and helping the Guardian instead. You're all Heroes. Quests are all about the Virtues, and Virtues ultimately help The Avatar, not The Guardian.
No Chaos/Order as part of the game mechanics, although that could always change.
No Lord British... but everything else Ultima could and probably will be in the game at some point, including various well-known NPCs from the single-player games.
No special dancing or player-made music. I expect there will be some rudimentary emotes and Bards will probably be able to play something, but don't look for a deep or complex entertainment system like Star Wars Galaxies has.
No flight (at least, not free-form flight).
No item degradation (a good thing, IMHO).
No overarching dynamic good vs. evil or PvP systems that affect the world (capture areas, guild wars, player-controlled areas, etc.)
Very few non-combat frills or mini-games... probably no fishing, no plant growing, no forensic analysis, etc. The game is focused on quests and combat. There's no healer class; if you want to be a healer, you need Compassion abilities (or items with Compassion imbued on them). If you're lucky there will be some-sort of in-game marriage mechanic.
GRAPHICS
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You may have noticed I haven't mentioned the graphics yet. Well, you can look at the screenshots and judge for yourself. My opinion is strictly that, and probably biased.
Personally, I prefer more photo-realistic graphics and heavy detail, and I think that's where the industry is going. I think games like Asheron's Call 2 are beautiful, and it looks like games like EQ2 and Mythica are going to raise the bar even higher. The UXO team has deliberately decided against this approach, opting for a more exaggerated and "fun" cartoony feel to the game.
While I agree this is an aesthetic choice, I have to believe it has a lot to do with the Unreal Warfare engine as well, and the limitations of putting that in a Massively Multiplayer environment. While the graphics we've seen are still pre-Alpha, to me I see fairly moderate polygon counts on the terrain, some pretty boring textures, and an extremely short view and draw-in distance. Many of the client frills, like grass, weren't in yet, although you can see it one of the videos and the grass doesn't fill in until you are quite close.
The shots you see in the distance are photo-realistic landscapes, but that's because they're just bitmaps that you can't reach... they're mapped on the edge of the Zone. The beautiful image of the mountain in the distance is just that... an image. Objects have 3 Levels of Detail right now, and to me even the nearby hills drop out polys and textures quite quickly. The forests - touted in the video as the best seen in any MMOG *or screenshot* - simply aren't. They are okay, but they aren't dense enough, have no frills yet, and are pretty standard. The shafts of light filtering through the canopies are nice, however.
Water reflections are very good, and the water texture and movement is quite nice, although some of the water I saw indoors looked so-so. Flames were also pretty but not breathtaking.
The characters and monsters themselves are actually not that bad, and while perhaps "fantastical" I think "cartoony" may be too strong a word. The clothing (when worn) is very nicely detailed, and the color schemes are just fantastic. Very bright, saturated colors, deep hues, nice contrasts... with fanciful patterns. And the particle and lighting effects aren't bad either, although they could still use some work. Still, it's a fun game to look at. One developer said part of the inspiration for the look and feel came from the movie _Shrek_.
And I think that's the key. While I would much rather play a game with AC2 or EQ2 level graphics, by maintaining a consistent look and feel with the graphics UXO does have (the "cartoony" look goes all the way down through your inventory, abilities, and most of the interface screens), and by concentrating on fun gameplay, I find the graphics acceptable. I wouldn't not play the game just because I disagree with the graphical approach. UXO should be fine so long as the gameplay is fun.
In the future, I hope the graphics get better, but that will mean redoing a lot of artwork. And I don't mean to badmouth the Unreal Warfare engine, but I have to wonder how much of their graphics is limited by that, which they find acceptable given the engines powerful scripting capabilities. To put it another way, Ultima Online was acceptable when it came out, but I would not tolerate the graphics today, even with the 3D client. Eventually UXO will reach the same point in its life cycle.
THE EVENT
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I'll talk more about this in the future, but the event was a blast. They really rolled out the red carpet for us and they gave us tons of cool stuff to take home (some of which you'll see on eBay soon). I had a great time meeting the developers and fellow MMOG players. I think the developers are sincere in wanting our feedback, but exactly how much we can influence things at this stage isn't clear. The food was good and it was fun playing the game the short time we had at the computers. I also am glad I was in the PvP tournament; I'm not a big PvPer in MMORPGs but I think the Ankh letter opener we got is the coolest thing.
I also think they really wanted to impress us and get us to tell everyone else how great this game is or will be. Well, I can't do that. I'm not saying it sucks... far from it. But it's still too soon to tell. There are a lot of "What Ifs" that needed to be worked out, and a very careful product marketing strategy that has to be put in place. I think they can pull off a success, but I can't honestly say you should play this game and not, say, World of Warcraft or EverQuest 2 or Mythica because, frankly, we don't know enough about those games yet, either.
I thank everyone at EA and Origin for inviting us all and I hope you guys do more events like this in the future!
FINAL THOUGHTS
========
I have several more "complaints" about the game, which I'll go into in the next few days, but I'll leave you with some final impressions.
UXO is not UO. Think of Dungeon Siege, with a dash of Diablo 2 and Asheron's Call 2, with a heavy dose of Ultima fiction. Many of the features are very similar to AC2, from classes and skills down to the combat, although AC2 doesn't use Offense/Defense and constant clicking. That said, I don't think that's a bad thing... personally I really enjoyed playing AC2, but it lacked depth and long-term content.
I think UXO will attract a lot of subscribers, not from UO, but from other MMORPGs like EQ, DAoC, AC 1 and 2, etc. Which it is designed to do. But I think the lack of many features, such as housing and cities and deeper guild management, as well as simply the sheer number of little extra niceties that games like UO and AC and EQ accumulate over time, many of which are "promised" in upcoming MMOGs, will be a problem for them. I don't know what to suggest, since I fully support the idea of doing fewer things and doing them well... I guess I just think they need a few more things, and do them well, than what they have planned for release.
UXO is going to be up against some stiff competition - Star Wars Galaxies, Dragon Empires, EQ 2, World of Warcraft, Mythica, Tabula Rasa, etc. If you put them side-by-side and talk features, UXO could come out looking on the surface to be too limited, and without jaw-dropping graphics, a lot of people may simply pass. UXO's strength is in promising a single-player CRPG-like experience, with deep quests and action-paced combat. But these are things a gamer has to see first-hand to believe.
If UXO can provide enough content, and FUN content, to keep players playing, then they might be able to buy enough time until they can release their first big expansion (probably not long after release; less than a year, maybe 6 months) to add more core game elements. But if players max out their characters in a few months and have done all the quests and there's nothing new to do (except maybe keep grinding on your next alt "disciple"), people are going to look around and start noticing what's missing, because they have nothing to do and they want some more depth in the world around them. When you do "World first, Game second" like I think MMOGs like UO and SWG have done, you run the risk of your game not being fun enough. If you do "Game first, World second" as AC2 has done and I think UXO is doing, you run the risk of the game only being fun for so long. Content, content, content is the key.
So when will this game come out? The press release says "winter" but there's no way they'll make Christmas, so that's code for "January/February" which IMHO is a bad time to launch a new product, particularly one that I think can use all the extra development time it can get to try to add some of those missing features I talked about. They describe the game as "pre-alpha", with "beta" being core feature complete, and basically a time to add content, fix bugs, do additional policing and minor features, and do lots of testing. Considering they've been developing 18 months so far, I would not expect to see the game before March, and quite possibly not until June.
But I could be wrong. EA and Origin need a big hit, so there's pressure to have one, but at the same time, they know you don't want to release too early. I think Star Wars Galaxies released about 3 months too early, but it's unclear from a business standpoint that launching when they did was a net negative. EA might wind up making a similar decision with UXO.
Well, that's all for now... I must get some sleep.
Bruce "SirBruce" Woodcock
23/08/2003, 13h15
