Ultima Online/Trivia

• Screwed by the Network: As the first game of its kind, marketing estimates for the 'Multima' concept, as it was originally called, were based on pre-internet multiplayer games, a niche hobby, at best (even generous marketing estimates predicted only 30,000 sales over the lifetime of the game). After pitching the game for a year and a half and actually refusing to leave the boardroom until he got funding for the project. They gave him a quarter million dollars and all the developers nobody else wanted. They ran out of money before they could print beta copies of the prototype, so EA's first web site asked $5 for anybody who wanted to be in the beta. After that sold 50,000 copies, Ultima Online became Adored by the Network, while every other Origin product got screwed.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Ultima Online 2 would have been a 3D "2nd generation MMORPG" to compete with games like EverQuest. Its name was changed to Ultima Worlds Online: Origin, and was planned to have been released around 2000-2001.
  • Tabula Rasa, code named Ultima X, was intended as a Spiritual Successor to Ultima. The first version was going to be a fantasy MMORPG, then was scrapped to make a second fantasy MMORPG, then it was scrapped entirely and made into a completely different MMOFPS.
  • Ultima X: Odyssey would have been an MMORPG set on the world of Alucinor, continuing where Ultima IX left off. It would have featured more colorful graphics and a virtue system.

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