source taken from UOHall on Stratics


According to one player ,this provides an interesting read and perspective

Some responses from others included this reference to Richard Garriot

What has he actually done since UO? what games have actually gotten to going live? UO is his laurels.. his mark on the industry....UO is what brought him fame and attention in the industry.... if UO would have been overshadowed by UO2 so soon after UO then he wouldnt be the icon he is..... maybe......

??? Garriott was already an icon of the industry back in the 80's, well before UO was even conceived. He was also connected to UO2, so I'm not at all certain what you're getting at by saying that it would have overshadowed him.

As for Tabula Rasa (or whatever it is called), I have little interest in playing it, but I do believe that it will be a relatively successful game.



CatHat was quick to respond to the initial post amending the thread subject to 'The first rule of game development should read-- "do no harm to a good series"


Perspective is right. I"m amazed at what some folks will write aritlces on - and the 'facts' they think they know. Why didn't he state the reasons that one got canceled. They're very black and white - was it blind love for it or starry hopeful denial he didn't lay out the list? Oh wait - he sights mean olde' EA killed em - give me a break. Talk about a blanket scapegoat reason.

I find it kind of funny how folks will write about canned games as Messiahs when the fact is they never get off of the ground because of terminal complications and shortcomings. I won't write a counter article explaining why they had to can that particular UO and spill all the stories about it that abound. That would be in bad taste since many friends worked on it, and probably would violate some policy in kicking our own titles landing me in deep doodie. Every game has its stories after all. Ever read the post-mortums in game Developer mag? Nothing's ever easy.

Its just a reality of the technical, creative and business process, that is the game industry, that when any one of those big 3 aspects really won't work - you scrap what your doing. If you don't they you're knowingly pushing out turkey to the public while you pretend its all good. Close your eyes and hope for the best. A sin worse than the pain of a game cancellation in my book.

The game industry is full of seqels that should have never happened the way they did. You all know what i'm talking about - everyones had a long awaited seqel they've bought only to moan when they get it home to find out its junk and possibly the coffinnail that will insure another title in that series never come.

For me - i think the worse sequel game I ever got was Masters Of Orion 3 (seqel to the acclaimed MOO2 after a 7-10 year wait, I still play MMO2 to this day).- sorry to anyone who mighta worked on MOO3 - not anyone in particular i'm blaming - but it just woefully failed as a game.. I would have much rather waited another year while they restarted and gotten a game that WORKED and not the one that i spent 50+ bucks on release day - and then subsequently tossed into the trash later that evening knowing MOO game probably won't be back for a 4th release.

I'd never want that to happen to Ultima and i'll be damned before i work on a project thats a true coffin nail in such a historical series as UO. Fortuneately a lot of other people feel very strongly about keeping UO alive and well too. In the end you have to stick with your best material and do right. Go back to the drawing board if you must babe - but do right.

I really do not think UO2 would have worked, they would not have shut down UO and they didn't want to take away the UO player base