Official Site:Â Ultima Online
Studio:Â Broadsword Entertainment/EA (formerly Mythic)
Launch Date:Â September 24, 1997
Genre:Â Isometric Fantasy Sandbox
Business Model:Â Subscription (Cash Shop)
Platform: PC
ultima online
Massively Overthinking: Why don’t MMOs try harder to foster great guilds?
MOP reader Mahaf1089 posed an interesting question beneath a WoW Factor column earlier this month, one that clearly resonated with our readers because it...
BioWare finally confirms Star Wars The Old Republic’s move to Broadsword
This announcement is almost redundant at this point since we've had so much confirmation from Star Wars The Old Republic developers already, but here...
Working As Intended: My 20 years of Star Wars Galaxies
Last year, when Ultima Online turned 25 years old, I did a piece reminiscing on those early days and marveling that so much of...
Vague Patch Notes: Examining the MMO tiers, from the Big Five to maintenance mode
I've mentioned many a time that one of the ideas behind the Vague Patch Notes column here on MOP is to have a place...
MMO dev Richard Garriott’s Explorers Club joins search for missing submersible at the site of the Titanic
As part of our 2021 recap, we counted among our "weirdest stories" articles representing the weirdest things MMO developer Richard Garriott did that weren't,...
Vague Patch Notes: So why didn’t crowdfunded MMOs save the genre?
The past few weeks we've been following this freakin' thing because... well, obvious reasons. But that has me thinking about crowdfunding in general, because...
Massively Overthinking: When an MMO has everything and so much of it
Last week, when No Man's Sky released its native Mac client, MOP's Chris and I fell into a discussion about the game being so...
Perfect Ten: MMOs that ghosted us after talking a big game
There's nothing worse as a fan of games to buy into all of the hype and previews of a promising-looking project only to see...
Star Wars: The Old Republic development is moving from BioWare to Broadsword
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, BioWare poured an insane amount of money, developers, and voice talent into making Star...
The Daily Grind: Which MMOs offer great treasure hunting systems?
A post on Nomadic Gamers a few weeks back caught my eye because it was about treasure hunting in MMOs. Now listen, I don't...
Perfect Ten: 10 old MMO promises that never happened
Developers like to talk a big game. It's expected, it's encouraged by all parties, and it's part of the fun. When a game or...
Perfect Ten: What FFA PvP has to offer the MMO space
Before any of you look at the title, the author, and then at your screen again in disbelief, let me disabuse you of any...
The Soapbox: MMO housing is so much more than a frivolous feature
When The Sims launched in 2000, what seemed like a dull and laughable concept on paper proved to be one of the most compelling...
Casually Classic: Eight legacy MMOs to satisfy that old school craving
It was just five years ago in 2018 that MassivelyOP formally recognized an interesting and heartening trend in the MMO space: the rise of...
Massively Overthinking: What should MMOs do when guild leaders vanish?
Last week, we covered that wild story about a "heist" in EVE Online that allowed the perpetrators to make off with trillions of ISK...
The Daily Grind: What are some demonstrably wrong things about old MMOs that people insist were true anyway?
A while back, there was a thread on the MMORPG subreddit arguing that "minmaxing an information abundance has ruined MMORPGs" and posited that devs...
Massively Overthinking: How to alienate your MMORPG playerbase
I am not a Pokemon Go player, but I can't help but stare at its many trainwrecks thanks to the detailed coverage of our...
Ultima Online’s Richard Vogel discusses the horrors of player behavior in an open PvP sandbox
Gaming historians have long documented that Ultima Online was something of a communal wild west when it created its open FFA PvP sandbox -...
Massively Overthinking: The times MMO developers admitted they were… wrong
Earlier in March, Jagex did the unthinkable for an MMORPG company: It admitted it was wrong about something. If you're used to the Blizzards...
Interview: The Wayfinder team on group size, customization, monetization, and more
Perhaps you're interested in Wayfinder because you like the idea of a small-group dungeon-running game published by Digital Extremes. (The studio made another game...