Ultima Online

The Game Developer's Conference is a collection of annual events that bring together the best and brightest minds in the game development community to share ideas with their peers. Every once in a while, GDC Vault releases some of those presentations for free to the general public, and this is one of those awesome times!

This time around, it's a video lecture from GDC Online, held in Austin last October. But it wasn't just any lecture, no sir. It's a post-mortem of sorts for the grand-daddy of our genre -- Ultima Online.

[Note: To access chapter selection, click the fullscreen button or check out the video on the GDC Vault website]

UO is the grandaddy of the MMO industry and so the appropriate choice for the first of our 12 Games of Christmas.

Back in September, Ultima Online marked its 15th Anniversary. To celebrate this remarkable achievement, we asked one of its long-time players, Padric of Chesapeake,  to tell the story of the game and how it affected his life.

You can find Part Two of his recollection of just how much of an impact the game had on the gaming world and his own life, right here. For now, read on to be reminded of just how much games can affect our lives in ways that continue to surprise.

Back at the dawn of recorded history; well the early days of the internet, although there are many who will tell you that nothing of importance occurred before the ‘net, there was a man named Richard Garriott. In the mid '90s, gaming, for the most part, consisted of pencil and paper MUDs and Pong.

Garriott would change that forever.

This is the final part of an article by a long time player of Ultima Online. 

UO is the first game of its kind to find wwide ranging success and paved the way for many of the games you play today -- including one that launched last night.

Read the first part of the article here.

To celebrate 30 years of the Ultima franchise and 14 years of Ultima Online, EA and BioWare Mythic have launched a new Ultima Forever site that lets you download the original PC version of Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar for free! If you've never played this classic game, here's a brief description from the site:

"Released in 1985, Ultima IV was the first in the 'Age of Enlightenment' period of Ultima games. It truly was a step forward in gaming, as it focused not on defeating some generic evil force with traditional “hack & slash” gameplay, but offered a story-driven quest based on ethical dilemmas presented to the player in an attempt to achieve enlightenment."

If that's not enough Ultima for you, then you'll be happy to know that Ultima Underworld 1+2 is now available on GOG.com for $5.99. The package includes Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss and Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds.

Ultima Online Producer Cal Crowner and Associate Producer Bonnie Armstrong have chosen YouTube as their medium to answer questions from the game's community, and they cover a variety of topics in their latest Q&A video. Watch it below for details on their plans for the game.

Crowner also wrote a brief producer's update letter that discusses the Ter Mur story, enhanced client crashes, player abuse and additional High Seas content. It pairs well with the video, so be such to check it out for even more Ultima Online news.