That video wasn’t the only time we did a GDC postmortem though! There was another one back at the 15th anniversary in 2012 as well, which is available on the GDCVault. If you’re one of those people too young to know why UO mattered, this article is probably the place to start. This postmortem drew pretty heavily on the article “Ultima Online’s Influence,” published on this blog five years ago at the 20th anniversary. I’m running low on specific stories about UO and its development, so instead, I’ll just point back at older ones:įirst of course, has to be the postmortem we did at GDC for the 20th anniversary: Won’t apologize for games that let you sit, decorate a house, or go fishing, though. These days, when people say they are sick of crafting being in everything - it makes me want to apologize a little bit. Whether it’s Runescape, Minecraft, Eve, DayZ or Neopets, those younger folks probably played something that was inspired by UO in some fashion, and don’t realize how big a shift from prior games it represented. In many ways the influence of UO is so pervasive that it isn’t visible.

I saw a post on Reddit yesterday that asked “how come no other MMOs have done open world housing, besides ArcheAge?” Ah well…. A lot of the folks streaming about games weren’t born yet either. The fact of the matter is that the most frequently targeted gamer audience wasn’t born when UO came out.

I note a lack of thinkpieces and articles, this time around. The fact that the game is still running is a testament to the devoted community and the ongoing maintenance over the years from countless people. Given that I actually started work on UO on September 1st 1995, it’s actually more than half.

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