Ultima Online Interview

UGO had the chance to sit down with Mythic Entertainment's Josh Drescher and Calvin Crowner for a Q&A session about the past, present, and future of Ultima Online.
Where does UO go from here? More expansions? A new game?

Josh: Another 12 years.

Calvin: There's a story arc that is ramping up to the expansion. We have these event moderators that are running players through their paces with weekly events every weekend to essentially give a finality that will bring a new landmass to the live game (with the expansion). There's a bit going on in this next month.

Josh: The UO 2 projects that have come up over the years were in many ways a result of the naiveté of the original production where there was this sense that every game requires sequels every couple years to keep the world alive and the idea of expanding an existing product, taking a game that exists right now and bolting new things onto it, didn't exist at that point and in many ways it was UO that went down that path and said "We don't need to force everyone to abandon this world that they were living in. We can actually build on that world and keep offering things to them."

I'm not saying that's the only reason that the UO 2 products didn't make it to retail, but once it became clear that people enjoyed living and playing in that world, there's no reason to shut one of these worlds down as long as it has enough of a population to make it sustainable. So as long as UO has people that love it, and want to play there you will see new development and content and ongoing support for it.