Ultima X: Odyssey Preview
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Of course, reaching the level of the Avatar will mean maxing out both Virtue and path-based levels and the developers want you to take on quests with that goal in mind. Although they encourage social interaction and the formation of guilds, people who just want to hang out in Alucinor and PK may be disappointed to find that attacking a friendly character without his or her consent is not allowed. If you want to fight another player, you'll have to challenge him to a duel, which he'll have to accept for the fight to take place.The design of the combat system itself seems to be an effort at broad based appeal, as well. Like a console adventure game, Odyssey will feature dynamic real-time combat that incorporates the use of combinations, special attacks, and finishing moves. Instead of back-slash commands, you'll use your mouse and hot-keys to vanquish your foes. Even the amount of time between mouse clicks will come into play, assuring your complete involvement in the combat process.
With all the NPCs running around handing out quests and guilds fighting turf wars with other guilds, you might be wondering how easy it will be to get your particular quest done without getting lost in the throng. The plan is to offer private quest areas on-the-fly that only you or your party can enter as well as private maps for staging battles between guilds. This will eliminate the frustration that resulted in other MMOGs when you accepted a quest to kill a monster, only to find that someone else has already killed it. It will also mean load-times between zones, however, an inconvenience that EA hopes will be offset by the uninterrupted gameplay that private areas will afford.
At a final glance, EA and Origin hope to win subscribers to Odyssey by eliminating or offsetting the negative aspects of MMOGing and offering a gaming experience that will appeal to the broadest spectrum of gamers. The only misgiving I have about Odyssey is that, in every fundamental way, you have to accept the Virtues of the Ultima universe as your own to truly play the game as a role-playing experience. What this could mean is that players who are looking to play an evil character may have a difficult time doing so. The quests and combat may be fantastic, but for a certain niche of players, much of the fun in role-playing is exploring one's darker side in a safe environment. Time will tell how the game will play out in this regard.
