I know what you're all wondering. No, seriously. I do. "What the hell is Ultima X: Odyssey? Is it the new UO? Is it Ultima X? What IS IT!?" *insert sounds of strangling me here*

Okay, first I'll address something right off the bat, to clear up any confusion there might be about UX:O. Ultima X: Odyssey is NOT Ultima Online 2.0. It's best not to think of it as Ultima Online at all, really. It's a massively multiplayer game, yes, and it's an Ultima game, yes, but it's not Ultima Online.

As it was described to us, UX:O is essentially a sister product to UO. Your UO characters have nothing to do with your UX:O characters. Really, it's less of a sister product than just a different game entirely. It's like saying Everquest and Star Wars Galaxies are sister products just because they're both put out by SOE.

Ultima X: Odyssey would best be described as a Massively Multiplayer Single Player RPG. It continues the main Ultima series where IX left off. The Avatar and the Guardian, who were thought to have simply cancelled each other out, actually went off into another plane of existence to duke it out. And, from the sounds of things, it's not going too well for the Avatar. So, being the ultimate badass that he is, he creates a world to train people in the virtues so that they can come aid him in his battle. That world is Alucinor (not Brittania, or Sosaria, or anything like them). You and thousands of others are the inhabitants of this world, fighting monsters, and learning about the virtues.

UX:O, rather than being a world to simply exist in, is more along the lines of a massively multiplayer Diablo. No, wait...come back. Hear me out. The focus of the game isn't so much skill building and MUSHing, but combat, and questing, and all sorts of other heroic duties. There are no bunnies to bash, or deer to wail on, because that's not heroic. This game is all about making the player feel like a badass. Before I get onto the combat though, let's start with the graphics.

UX:O uses the Unreal Warfare engine for its graphical splendor, and they've done it pretty damned well. Already it's a beautiful game, and it's just getting better and better with polishing. The water is a sight to behold... probably the best until Dragon Empires comes out. Lots of moody forests and white snowfields. The Mount Bold level we got a chance to play around on made use of a LOT of vertical space. It just kept going up, and up, and up. The nice thing about the use of the Unreal Warfare setup they have going is that they can actually create and drop modules onto the server withou having to shut it down. Forget huge patches... Origin's got it goin' on.

Now, the thing that has me intrigued is the quest system. Gone are the days of trekking across the land to try and find the NPC that gives you a quest to go on. In UX:O, the quests come to you. You might be out in the forest, and a farmer will run up and ask for help, because his homestead is being raided by bandits. You can choose to help him or not, but you won't have to go hunting for the quest. The lead designer for the team said they were working on having at least 300 distinct quests by launch (two quests featuring the same requirements but different targets, such as killing 5 mongbats versus killing 5 frost spiders, count as one quest. That's 300 different gameplay experiences.) This all uses what they call the Odyssey Adventure System, which is a tool they've made whereby it actually takes them less time to MAKE the quest and publish it than it does to think it up. That means constant updates from launch on. No need for patching, as it uses the same hot publish system as the rest of the game.

Earlier I mentioned that the game focuses on the Virtues. Oh, HELL yeah it does. Every quest you complete earns you points towards a particular virtue, depending on how you choose to complete it. There are no wrong ways to complete a mission (other than not completing it). We saw an example where a posessed necklace was obtained, and you had the choice of either trying to follow its instructions to get it de-posessesed, or taking it to the camp shaman to have her examine it. Every quest has multiple outcomes, all of which gain a particular virtue. In turn, gaining virtue points grants you the option to gain special virtue abilities, such as a one-hit, no-experience insta-kill for Valor, which is kind of an "Oh Sh**" button. Just one example.

One thing that still has me very, very intrigued is the ability to "ascend". See, when one of your characters reaches the top level of a particular virtue, he has the option to "ascend". By doing so, you gain another character... a disciple of the first. This new character starts from scratch, but comes with some of the inherent virtue abilities of the previous ascention. And when he gets high enough to ascend, his disciple has BOTH virtues inherent. Once a player ascends eight disciples, in each of the eight virtues, he or she has essentially reached the level of the Avatar himself, and I believe that opens up a whole new section of the game. They're still debating where to go with that, but from the sounds of things, ascention is a pretty big deal, so getting all eight characters up that high should be pretty cool, and very difficult.

Combat. Unlike previous online RPG's, UX:O uses a real-time combat system. Essentially, you left click to make an attack, and right click to attack. During combat, you have to control your defense and attack bonuses (like right clicking to build up your defense bonus if it gets low, or rapidly left-clicking to build up strength and momentum during a fight. Battles can get downright dirty. Especially when combined with the special moves and other attacks you have at your disposal.

Now, you remember I said it had portions of a single player game mixed in with the MMO games? That comes into play with private areas. If you and your friends are doing a quest as a party, and certain things are necessary for it to have in order to be completed, the server will make a private copy of the map that only you and your party exist in for the duration of that part of the quest. No grief killing of the boss, no spawn camping. It's like having a single player, or small multiplayer game built into the massively multiplayer game. Good idea, to make this game work.

In a nutshell, UX:O is an online RPG focusing more on combat and heroism than anything else. They plan to possibly add in a more robust economy, and perhaps player housing, but for now it's a sweet adventuring game. And the best part? It's due out by Q1 2004. Check out the screenies below to get a feel for the game. Hope this helped to clear things up!

Le site officiel est en-ligne depuis quelques jours:

http://www.uxo.ea.com/

y l'avais tu a l'E3 ?

Si EA donne un chiffre à Ultima, ça devrait être un jeu OFFLINE! Pas un autre calvince de MMORPG (on en a pas besoin, y en a déjà en masse, même trop).

De tout façon, la série Ultima n'existe plus depuis que Garriot n'est plus dans Origin. C'est rendu uniquement un objet de marketing.