Ultima Online : Age of Shadows

After dying your character wanders around as a ghost until resurrected

Age of shadows is the fifth expansion pack for Electronic Arts classic, Ultima Online. One of the biggest Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, the game boasts a history that stretches back to 1997. EA have released expansion packs for this game to try to bring it up to date to compete on a level footing with other MMORPGs on the market and on the near horizon. Whilst new games, such as the upcoming Star Wars: Galaxies can start from a clean slate; UO must appease its army of fans as well as try to capture a new audience. This is proving to be a significant challenge.

The background story goes like this: Long ago, when the gem of immortality was shattered it created multiple copies of the world skewing history and time with imperfections in each shard of the gem. There have been many known shards on which different copies of the same world exist but now a new one has appeared. This contains the world of Malas. This new world used to be populated by two advanced societies, the Paladins and the Necromancers. These societies have long since disappeared and their world now lays empty awaiting settlers from Britannia.

Attracting the new

A bustling market in Ultima Online

This latest update brings the most significant changes that the Ultima Online game world, Brittania, has ever seen. The new landmass, Malas, has been created largely in response to the lack of land for new players to build houses. As was to be expected, however, all of the choice spots were taken shortly after the release of this new land. This means that players who missed the initial rush will still have difficulty finding somewhere to build their home. The construction of houses has been redesigned. EA has taken some inspiration from their popular series "The Sims" and the house design tool in Ultima Online is very similar to that of the Sims. Also new in this update are two character classes – the Paladin and the Necromancer. Both are magic warriors. The Necromancer uses his magical powers to summon the undead to do his bidding and the Paladin uses his skills for good with spells for healing and transportation. Existing characters can be converted into these new types by emphasizing the necessary skills.

Fighting has also been given an overhaul. Armour no longer protects against all attacks but specific types of armour are required for specific attacks. Weapons now have special attacks that can be unlocked with experience and can be upgraded with magic. Characters can also create their own weapons and can combine magical items to create new spells.

Appeasing the old

in the 3D perspective you can rotate the paper doll view of your character

In their attempts to satisfy the existing players EA have had to work within constraints. The system requirements for UO are modest allowing the new version of the game to run quite happily on older systems. The game was given a 3d makeover in the last add-on pack, Lord Blackthorn's revenge, which hasn't been improved upon in the new release. The game offers the choice between a 2D and a 3D perspective. The 3D view offers some additional features such as swaying trees and the ability to view your character from different viewpoints, while the 2D perspective gives slightly better response, especially over a dial-up connection. This will appeal to the existing players, as this expansion is unlikely to require many players to upgrade their machines just to run it.

There are many aspects of the game, which have remained relatively untouched since the late nineties. The user interface is much the same with extra windows opening to display additional information such as the "Paper doll" representation of your character or your inventory. The inventory still displays items as tiny icons. Although this will please the older players, as it means that there is no need to get to grips with a new interface before they can continue playing, it is bit cumbersome and irritating at times.

What they didn’t touch

As a necromancer one of the first missions is to infiltrate the Paladin city of light

The problem with a game where there is such a long history is maintaining backwards compatibility. EA needs to ensure that, whatever they do to it, Ultima Online stays as Ultima Online and does not become Ultima Online 2. This means retaining some of the more annoying parts of the system. The game needs to support dial up Internet access and so, even playing across broadband, it feels sluggish. This is especially noticeable when clicking on an item you have to wait a second or two for the tool tip to appear and tell you what the item is. The character can also be slow to respond to requests for him to move.

The graphics reflect the requirements for the game when it was first developed. In the mid-nineties the Internet was a slow medium for everyone. This meant that graphics had to be simple. By modern standards the graphics still fall below par. This can be partially attributed to the need for this game to run over the dial-up connection that many players still use. Despite the graphical polish applied over the last few service packs they still look poor. The sound could have been improved without degrading the network performance but this remains simple. A very limited score, which, a lot of the time is in fact silent, and some basic sound effects are all that this game has to conjure up.

A game with great scope

The warriors work together against a common enemy

Ultima Online is amongst the oldest and biggest persistent worlds on the Internet with good cause. It offers a fantasy version of real life to its citizens. The open game world encourages players to play real lives rather than just go out constantly to kill enemy after enemy gradually increasing their skills. Ultima Online has a full economy encouraging players to make a living for themselves. This can be done by killing baddies and plundering their corpses, taking on quests (although these mostly take the form of escorts and rescues) or by farming, making armour to sell, carpentry or any other activity that you could think of. Of course some people resort to conning other players or stealing what they need but these are valid professions too.

The game offers a real escapism for its players allowing a complete life to be played out over the Internet. This scope has won Ultima Online many fans and has seen houses and characters being sold over Internet auction sites such as eBay for real money. Since your character is considered "young" for the first 40 hours of playing these auctions are obviously attractive ways for gamers to leap ahead in their quest for online supremacy.

It’s not enough

The custom house tool allows you to build whatever home you like

Electronic Arts have gone to great lengths to make this expansion really give the game something to attract new players whilst still appeasing their existing fans. The result is a game that looks and sounds out of step with the times. This new expansion does nothing to try and solve the problems associated with Ultima Online such as lag and server crashes but tries to change some basics of the game which has angered some of the longer standing players. Any hopes that EA had for this expansion winning new players over are sadly unlikely to come through.

The game looks dated even with the 3D view, it sounds dated, its slow and clunky. The game is compelling and has a large, ready-made, user base and a vibrant online world for players to immediately step into.