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| Ultima Worlds Online: Origin |
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Previews October 2000 • Vol.8 Issue 10 Page(s) 56 in print issue |
Ultima Worlds Online: Origin | ||
Jump to first occurrence of: [ORIGIN]
In 1997, Ultima Online was born from an ambitious dream: to create a game in which hundreds of thousands of people could participate at once and forge friends and foes across the vast server-based landscape. Following in Ultima Online's footsteps, competitors with better graphics and more streamlined play have appeared and flourished. Electronic Arts has responded to these upstarts with Origin, an entirely new massively multiplayer game. Origin attempts to combine all the best features of popular role-playing games. Being a truly 3-D-based game, the player's perspective has been shifted from "looking down from heaven" to "looking over the shoulder." "Our primary goal has been to choose the angle that provided for the most immersive feel possible," says Origin's lead designer, Damion Schubert. "I think that players will find the view to be more engaging and attractive." From what we've seen so far, he's right. And, the graphics aren't the only improvement the second time around. Origin's designers have drawn from previous experience to improve such things as newbie protection, player-vs.-player combat, team interaction, and dynamic environments that change as the story progresses.  Along with all the new features, Origin extracts the best parts of the older Ultima Online game, most notable of which is that Origin will continue the tradition of developing a strong sense of community among players. "There are a lot of people out there for whom the idea of simply living in a virtual world is a compelling way to spend [their] time," Schubert says. "We have been focusing on rewarding these players—we're putting a lot of energy into enhancing the experience and making life exciting for them, as well as making them more necessary for the adventurers of the world." Even more impressive is the makeover that the land of Britannia receives in the new game. "Origin exists in a divergent timeline from Ultima Online," Schubert says. "A huge cataclysm has ripped through the land and brought together elements of the past, present, and future into one world." With the cataclysm come vast changes in the environment and characters of Britannia, as high technology is introduced into the magical land. Origin focuses on adding a new "technological" element to the game, which is a new realm of wild, fantastic, and bizarre machinery that exists to act as a foil against the game's magic. Players can choose to embrace these elements or combat them. There will be new bounties of technological items, skills, monsters, and cities throughout the world, all of which will still mesh cleanly inside of the fantasy environment. However, players who have invested in the present version can breathe a sigh of relief because the advent of Origin will by no means signal the end of the original Ultima Online world. "Ultima Online has a rabid and ever-growing fan base, and it shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon," Schubert says. "Plus, the UO development team has its own plans up its sleeves for future expansion of the game, which, I think, will excite a lot of people." Origin makes some pretty big promises, but only time will tell if the designers are able to live up to them. Of course, they've had four years of trial and error with Ultima Online under their belt, so they have a great chance of pulling this one off. Origin is definitely a title to look out for when EA eventually releases it in the first half of 2001.  (NOTE: All pictures here were taken from the alpha version of Origin, so they may not be representative of the final product.) by William Van Winkle |
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