It's 1:30am pac. time & just got back from the 1st day of Comicon & wow what a start,... mass amount's of people, but well worth it,... & what a gamers heaven. All the big gun's are there, such as PS, Wii, XBOX, & of course (EA),... the bummer about the EA Booth is, they appear to be putting all their time, effort, money & advertising in the up coming soon to be released,... War Hammer (Online).... eh.... They have about 8 screen's hooked up to the War Hammer server,.. so everyone can test run the game,.. but it apears to be not to far from WoW,...
I did ask the rep's working at the EA booth about UO & they just kinda gave me that look like I was asking about Atari or nintendo 64,... I just told myself these guy's are clueless and they'll never truley understand what a Real MMORPG is,.... & there is still no other MMO out there that is as rich or satifying as (Ultima Online).
The possitive about the EA guy's,.. was that they knew about the Towne Hall meeting on Sat. at the US Grant. but even then they sounded like they were'nt going. Anywho that's about it for now.
That's my 2gp's worth

It's a shame, but not really that surprising.

If they do W:AR correctly, EA has another potential cash cow on their hands; the following of WARHAMMER is very hardcore, though, and they will expect the MMO to match the mythos.

Ah well, at least we're getting *some* new content.

~M

But they actually knew UO existed?... Woooow.

On EA Germany website, do a search for PC and Online Games... you'll find Warhammer, and... oooh, UO:AoS, UO:LBR... with a link to an official UO Europe website.... which doesn't work anymore.
When looking through their shop, I did a search for "Ultima Online" - only thing I found was "Hellgate London"..?

Plus I can remember someone posting a link to an official EA Germany site where it said that UO had been shut down after LBR... :/

So I'm not at the least surprised at what you saw...

(Edit: Sorry, but this topic on how little they go into advertising a little more just gets me..)

I will totally be there tomorrow, and am uber-excited!

What UO2 and UXO could have been most likely would make WoW, TR, AoC, and other games pale in comparison.

If only they would have been given some more love and attention....

Back on topic, I believe there's going to be just far too many WoW facsimiles and grind-games introducing themselves after the success World of Warcraft had.

But many people, I've found, only flock there due to the end-level instances and content.

That's not to say Warhammer is a grind-game, though. I know very little about it, so my opinion is really moot until I read up on it (which may take a while if UO keeps me busy in-game ).

Some of them do go (to other games) after the graphics, but I'm waiting on something to be released with pure Unreal Engine 3 or Doom 4 Engine Technology that takes the MMO genre to a new immersive spectrum before I'll even consider a move from UO.

Besides, I'll take gameplay and entertainment value over shiny graphics and crisp environmental audio any day of the week...granted, all of them combined in a nice package is ideal, but it's not a perfect world and no game is truly perfect.

For me and many others, it's all about immersion.

On a side note, have you folks noticed how many MMORPG's looked extremely shiny and nice at first glance, but when released/played, turned out to be just lackluster and unpolished, and undeserving of Gold status?

Truth is, EA knows very well what they've got, and our current dev team is working hard both to squash bugs and to introduce some very unique and entertaining content for us.

Draconi and the current Dev Team are doing quite well, so far.

To this day, I still listen to the occasional friend going to WoW, and just chuckle to myself.
Why? Because most of them end up saying "This game is boring." or "I miss UO".

I'll take a slightly higher ping over lackluster 3d-pixel-crack-content any day of the week.

Personally, WoW was the only MMOG I've ever gotten bored trying to get into.

But that's a subjective opinion, to each their own. I still haven't found anything that's as good as UO out there that would make me worry about leaving any time soon.

Unless WAR is a major contender, that opinion will not waver.

So all in all, UO has been neglected in the past, but we've got hope for a bright future, regardless of how negative (some) people (naysayers) may be about the potential life-span of UO, there's a lot of room and a lot of power to grow in this game we call Ultima Online.

Our devs are fighting for it; Let's see where it takes us.....hopefully not directly into the path of Draconi's Flamethrower...