happy 27th birthday Ultima Online.

on september 24th, UO launched with a massive subscriber base, after two public beta tests and a pre-alpha a year earlier.

this is the UO launch page in september of 1997.

following that is the “chest opening” animation for the game login (with the Stones midi playing in the background).

the first year of UO was one of the most active and fascinating experiments in player-driven democracy, and live-patching exercises i’ve ever seen. the skeleton crew who was kept on to update the game ran “House of Commons” chats directly with players to get feedback on the game, and help make decisions on how to deal with problems with griefing/exploits/gameplay.

the cat-and-mouse game of players discovering exploits and developers patching them became a meta-game itself, forcing patches that changed gameplay on a weekly basis.

within a couple of years, the experiment in player-led design and open-ended gameplay would more or less be over: EverQuest and (to a much larger extent) World of Warcraft would turn a living world into a locked down carnival ride. MMO companies didn’t want to deal with the dynamics of a game that let players do too much, and the UO experiment was quietly decided to be a failure of design.

i don’t share that opinion, and still consider it to be the finest experience i’ve had in an online world to this day.

#ultimaOnline #retroGaming #gamePreservation