I had the pleasure of writing and directing this intro for the UO Charter Edition release. Starr Long and Raph Koster came to me with their fictional construct of a "shard" to support the need to run UO on multiple servers around the world. Drawn from the Ultima I Gem of Immortality, the conceit was that, while the gem had been destroyed, its shards each contained a world of their own. Apparently today, programmers use the term "shard" to identify an instance of a database in the cloud.
Omg, thank you for this incredible, most awesome intro. It created so much of the magic that was Ultima Online, and it was one of my main sources of inspiration for becoming a game developer.
No game has ever made me fear my characters death like early patches of UO. What a well balanced amazing game. Has not been topped by other MMOs yet. Skill based system wqs top notch. Social rank, economy, wealth all worked so well in early UO.
Absolutely! When I began playing it I was about 10 years old and English was not my native language. I remember how dangerous it was to cross certain lands in fear of Player Killers (PKs) :) . Some strong players would exhibit the body parts of their victims in their houses in a flex of their murderous reputation.
Man, I often wonder what all my in game friends are doing. I can remember the days and nights spent together guarding Shadowlord's Crypt. Or raiding CoM or the Castle. Fighting a protracted guild war on Ice Island against some leet dudes for dominance and real estate. The first year of UO running around having idea where I was going and getting chased half way across the map by a band of Dread Lords. But most of all, I miss the people I met there.
I played UO when the client was renaissance. I got introduced by my friend and never looked back. UO:R was the best game I've ever played. I started playing trammel and eventually moved fully into Felucia doing only pvp. This game was magical. After the age of shadows update when the game became more item based rather than skill It lost it's magic for me. I played on the Chesapeake server using the name Graham. I'll never forget using IRC and teamspeak to guild war. 15v15 battles with a "leader" calling out targets.ill never forget dueling in the farms practicing 1v1s. The rush of traveling Felucia looking for enemies to fight. What a time.
Loved the intro. Watched it every time I started the game. Damn, I miss the feeling and excitment I felt when I was logging in to Britannia. It was awsome!
Ultima Online has somehow survived over 20 years now, perhaps at least in part due to being the first major MMO. Obviously it is far far less active than it once was, and you could argue whether or not updates have helped or hurt. But it isn't something that needs to be resurrected.
Everyone looking to play UO again with a THRIVING population and feeling of old school mixed with next generation mechanics needs to check out Ultima Online Outlands. Two years strong, largest population of any shard osi or otherwise combined. Fresh new map still based on all of Ultima Lore. It's how UO should have been. Before EA ruined it.
I still love watching this intro! It's so epic, which is certainly very fitting for a game like this. I honestly don't believe I will ever grow tired of this game. The community is great and the original art is top-notch in my opinion. It's a game that won't just let you walk away. Somehow you always find yourself coming back to Sosaria. It's a shame UO doesn't get the attention it deserves from more gamers today.
Sadly I took this directly off the game folder... if a higher res version exists somewhere, it hadn't been distributed to the players at the time of upload :(
+John Brusher What server? Just curious if I spent any time running for my life in Shame from you lol... I was on Baja in UO from 1998 to 2003. I went to SWG as well on the Radiant server.
some serious nostalgia going on here.. the 'net and the gaming community was so much more pure back then. a few years after the release of UO, it started going downhill with all the kids, but what wonderful memories of what was a brand new, groundbreaking frontier at the time. the first few weeks of beta was incredible, despite the many bugs.
Still the best intro of any mmo so far, past or future. Narration still sends a chill down my spine. With Tabula Rasa coming a close second in terms of Backstory. Shards/Servers explained, something modern MMOs don't even bother with.
1997-1998 were the very best years of this game. Back when the game developers hadn't had time to respond to the complaints about what players lost. Back when even leaving town provided real risk and real excitement. Back when the character of your character meant more than the materialism you could amass in as little time as possible. I made real friends, even fell in love in this game. It was digital crack cocaine.
I've been playing this game for 11 years. This is still the best and most diverse MMORPG out there. You have to play Pre:UOR shards though, it's not some repetitive level up WoW bullshit.
Ahhh I remember playing UO!! Holy crap do I miss playing it so much! I have so many great memories from it! Like going into the graveyard and watching a HUGE PvP guild battle going on for like 2 hours!
Cant belive its been nearly 10-11yrs since i last played UO. And to this day its still the only game that ever had real impact on me. Every mmorpg today i quit after a few months. But UO lasted years. =/
Sadly, I recall the first time I watched this video. I remember when the login interface was a chest that opened up and the different servers were listed. I completely agree with milkmit, the internet was so much different then. There was no Myspace and there were very few graphical MMORPG's such as Ultima Online. It was the beginning of a new era, something that was fresh and new. The internet was just beginning to evolve and become more appealing to the masses.
i started playing uo in 1999 and finally quit 3 years ago, it was real bad ass back in the day but it started to suck...my life will never be the same after that game
I love this game, I just started playing it in my own let's play series. I'm gonna link this to my first Ultima video because for some reason the movie wont work on my game. This game is nostalgic to no end.
haha what an awesome intro. actually explains reason for multiple servers. always wanted to play this but didnt have internet back in those days! Used to read about it in magazines though. Always wished i could of played it
You all should check out Mortal Online if you were fans of UO back in its heyday. The developers were also fans of the game. It is due to release at the end of the quarter. Very similar rules to old school UO, only in first person. =)
oh Oct 97... Not knowing much about MMORP then, I was wandering in the wood near Vesper. Came this guy LimP, I still remember his name till this day, with his Halbard. That was my virgin PK. lol. After UO, beside shadowbane and AC 2, I would say WOW is good. However, compare to UO, WOW has much to catch up. People who never played UO has no idea when an hour worth of ingots got pickpocketed by a thief! Nevermind the despair inside the cave where many chaos were in incognito.
There will never be a game like it. For years I have searched for a mmorpg that had the magic the beautiful the memories like this but no game comes clsoe to how UO was before it got ruined.
everytime i see this video i get the chills, i can´t believe i dont have the box of the game anymore, with the original map and all, i would put it on my wall if i found it stored in my stuff
Haha I remember watching this the first time I installed UO back in 99. I played it from then til about 07.. I played OSI about a year after AoS came out.. And then free shards until about 07.
It's going to absolutely suck for UO by the time Ultima V: Warriors of Virtue rolls around. The Stranger (by then, the Avatar) has to destroy the shards of the Gem of Immortality to kill the Shadowlords that have poisoned Lord Blackthorn's mind.
Unfortunately the release of Everquest and the numbers of players resulted in something like WoW. Games such as this are a thing of the past apparently, all we have now are memories and hoping for something in the future.
UO's gameplay still beats WOW by far, You can do so much in it. And those that have played UO and WOW know that for sure. Graphics dont make a game good or sh*t. Its the gameplay
that voice... that molevelant voice... (I am neither the begining nor the end...) what ever happened to the second part of the movie? Anyone out there have a copy of it?
The new UO? Do you speak of Kingdom Reborn? I really don't like the interface and the graphic. But there are still shards (and free-shards) left, that use the old version and only changed some things for the better. I myself play on the German fun free-shard Vetus Mundus. And I still like to watch this intro from time to time to remind me of the origins of the world I love.
The guy in the video is the Avatar, not Lord British. UO is based on the Ultima series of games, in which Lord British sometimes called upon the Avatar for help. This is where the popular internet game term "avatar" originates from. Ultima actually has a cool story. Look it up on Wikipedia.
Since you seemed to love it. Do you think it is a good MMO to play? I am currently downloading a SLOW download of UO (1.8 Gig patch) and might not be able to play tonight. I am not interested in todays games really. So do you think I will enjoy UO? :P
@Giblar Rune Scape was preaty much a solid copy of Ultima Online. It had a play run economy, if you died evreything could be looted from you (exept 4 most valuable) and PvP was preaty much evreywhere exept in towns. I dont realy like PvP so Runescape with wilderness PvP was my fav. Nowerdays its just dead in my opinion. The economy is shattered, there aint any people left etc. Kinda like Ultima Online nowerdays...
More realistically, if he were to be killed it would be by a much older UO player who has had an account for the last eleven years. Remember, today's twelve year old WOW player would have been crawling around in diapers when UO was already a thriving online world. That said, UO is quite a different place today. PvP is essentially consensual these days and can be avoided by staying out of certain areas.
I had the pleasure of writing and directing this intro for the UO Charter Edition release. Starr Long and Raph Koster came to me with their fictional construct of a "shard" to support the need to run UO on multiple servers around the world. Drawn from the Ultima I Gem of Immortality, the conceit was that, while the gem had been destroyed, its shards each contained a world of their own.
Apparently today, programmers use the term "shard" to identify an instance of a database in the cloud.
Omg, thank you for this incredible, most awesome intro. It created so much of the magic that was Ultima Online, and it was one of my main sources of inspiration for becoming a game developer.
lordskeletorde
Aww. Glad I could be of some service. :-D
Michael Morlan Thank you for this piece of art, one of my favorite Intro ever, it inspired me for years :)
Played Ultima Online for most of my childhood...
And here i'm making my final paper, which is a game and using it as a reference.
Thanks for this man.
I still play this game
This is probably the best explanation of an online game storywise. Very clever.
No game has ever made me fear my characters death like early patches of UO. What a well balanced amazing game. Has not been topped by other MMOs yet. Skill based system wqs top notch. Social rank, economy, wealth all worked so well in early UO.
Absolutely! When I began playing it I was about 10 years old and English was not my native language. I remember how dangerous it was to cross certain lands in fear of Player Killers (PKs) :) . Some strong players would exhibit the body parts of their victims in their houses in a flex of their murderous reputation.
Man, I often wonder what all my in game friends are doing. I can remember the days and nights spent together guarding Shadowlord's Crypt. Or raiding CoM or the Castle. Fighting a protracted guild war on Ice Island against some leet dudes for dominance and real estate. The first year of UO running around having idea where I was going and getting chased half way across the map by a band of Dread Lords. But most of all, I miss the people I met there.
So so many years ago. Pure magic back then and all the purpose one needed.
Come check out Outlands.
I played UO when the client was renaissance. I got introduced by my friend and never looked back. UO:R was the best game I've ever played. I started playing trammel and eventually moved fully into Felucia doing only pvp.
This game was magical. After the age of shadows update when the game became more item based rather than skill It lost it's magic for me. I played on the Chesapeake server using the name Graham. I'll never forget using IRC and teamspeak to guild war. 15v15 battles with a "leader" calling out targets.ill never forget dueling in the farms practicing 1v1s. The rush of traveling Felucia looking for enemies to fight. What a time.
Thanks for posting. brings back good memories... it WAS the greatest game ever...
This is one of the most epic OP's ever made. Anyone from that time understands.
1997 LS shard representing.
Best intro movie ever for an MMO. UO was ahead of its time and had one of the best implementations of a living breathing world in an MMO to date.
Thanks!
man i miss this game..it was great back in the day! had great times on chesapeake pk'n with my friends
Loved the intro. Watched it every time I started the game. Damn, I miss the feeling and excitment I felt when I was logging in to Britannia. It was awsome!
So many feels for UO, I miss it, *An Corp* EA! please
Ultima Online has somehow survived over 20 years now, perhaps at least in part due to being the first major MMO. Obviously it is far far less active than it once was, and you could argue whether or not updates have helped or hurt. But it isn't something that needs to be resurrected.
Everyone looking to play UO again with a THRIVING population and feeling of old school mixed with next generation mechanics needs to check out Ultima Online Outlands. Two years strong, largest population of any shard osi or otherwise combined. Fresh new map still based on all of Ultima Lore. It's how UO should have been. Before EA ruined it.
This was the game that initiated the dawn of the MMORPG genre that is today. Ultima Online was the first, and in my opinion the best MMORPG to date.
havnt seen this in so many years! LOVE IT!
I still love watching this intro! It's so epic, which is certainly very fitting for a game like this. I honestly don't believe I will ever grow tired of this game. The community is great and the original art is top-notch in my opinion. It's a game that won't just let you walk away. Somehow you always find yourself coming back to Sosaria. It's a shame UO doesn't get the attention it deserves from more gamers today.
can I just say, we need an HD version of this nostalgic Video. Always loved it.
Sadly I took this directly off the game folder... if a higher res version exists somewhere, it hadn't been distributed to the players at the time of upload :(
I’ve thought of trying that from the original 3D Studio R4 files. Alas, I suspect they are lost to time.
That was one of the best games i ever played!
I played it for about 2 years and loved it sooo much! :-)
Good old Times!
Still the best MMORPG since 1997
amen
or whatever
Awesome, many that game was great 1997-1999. RIP pretrammel UO.
Played this game hardcore as a Red from September 1997 till November 7th 2003 when I joined SWG
+John Brusher What server? Just curious if I spent any time running for my life in Shame from you lol... I was on Baja in UO from 1998 to 2003. I went to SWG as well on the Radiant server.
Most epic game ever
zenowarrior169 fuck yeah
damn that takes you back. Catskillz 4 ever!
some serious nostalgia going on here.. the 'net and the gaming community was so much more pure back then. a few years after the release of UO, it started going downhill with all the kids, but what wonderful memories of what was a brand new, groundbreaking frontier at the time. the first few weeks of beta was incredible, despite the many bugs.
Still the best intro of any mmo so far, past or future. Narration still sends a chill down my spine. With Tabula Rasa coming a close second in terms of Backstory. Shards/Servers explained, something modern MMOs don't even bother with.
Yep, BIll Johnson knew how to hit those beats. He was a pleasure to work with.
1997-1998 were the very best years of this game. Back when the game developers hadn't had time to respond to the complaints about what players lost. Back when even leaving town provided real risk and real excitement. Back when the character of your character meant more than the materialism you could amass in as little time as possible. I made real friends, even fell in love in this game. It was digital crack cocaine.
I've been playing this game for 11 years. This is still the best and most diverse MMORPG out there. You have to play Pre:UOR shards though, it's not some repetitive level up WoW bullshit.
Ahhh I remember playing UO!! Holy crap do I miss playing it so much! I have so many great memories from it! Like going into the graveyard and watching a HUGE PvP guild battle going on for like 2 hours!
actually I would think all UO players are of the same world. where we meet is that world(except the unsolisted servers that are not allowed)
Cant belive its been nearly 10-11yrs since i last played UO. And to this day its still the only game that ever had real impact on me.
Every mmorpg today i quit after a few months. But UO lasted years. =/
i cant believe how fantastically they interpreted the realm system(shards) of the game.
i just bow before the creators of ultima online.
Man this brings back some good memories. Talk about a company having something great and not doing anything with it today.
Goose bumps! Wow... This video brings back a lot of memories.
Auch heute noch! Absolute Gänsehaut! =))))))))))))))))))
Sadly, I recall the first time I watched this video. I remember when the login interface was a chest that opened up and the different servers were listed. I completely agree with milkmit, the internet was so much different then. There was no Myspace and there were very few graphical MMORPG's such as Ultima Online. It was the beginning of a new era, something that was fresh and new. The internet was just beginning to evolve and become more appealing to the masses.
Joshua Grant imagine now eleven years after your comment, with facebooks, coronaviruses, tiktoks, tinders and sluts and hailings to loneliness
i started playing uo in 1999 and finally quit 3 years ago, it was real bad ass back in the day but it started to suck...my life will never be the same after that game
Funny, I remember the first person I met too. Some guy named Kyle on Pacific helped me get a hang of things in Yew. Feb of 1998.
I love this game, I just started playing it in my own let's play series. I'm gonna link this to my first Ultima video because for some reason the movie wont work on my game. This game is nostalgic to no end.
haha what an awesome intro. actually explains reason for multiple servers. always wanted to play this but didnt have internet back in those days! Used to read about it in magazines though. Always wished i could of played it
I am from the future here to tell you that you still can!
You all should check out Mortal Online if you were fans of UO back in its heyday. The developers were also fans of the game. It is due to release at the end of the quarter. Very similar rules to old school UO, only in first person. =)
Loved this game man!!
oh Oct 97... Not knowing much about MMORP then, I was wandering in the wood near Vesper. Came this guy LimP, I still remember his name till this day, with his Halbard. That was my virgin PK. lol. After UO, beside shadowbane and AC 2, I would say WOW is good. However, compare to UO, WOW has much to catch up. People who never played UO has no idea when an hour worth of ingots got pickpocketed by a thief! Nevermind the despair inside the cave where many chaos were in incognito.
the graphics way ahead of it's time i use to play this game when was 3
they should make a new one!
cause I was fuckin addicted to this game
the narrator voice I think was "Seer Hawkwind" in Ultima IX. sounds a bit like Lord British's voice too.
I joined this game in 98, back when it was cool. Xbows ruled at the time, I believe.
Still great in 2021!
Yes indeed, each realm or server had a unique name but they were each "shards" from the intro vid you just saw. Pretty clever.
There will never be a game like it.
For years I have searched for a mmorpg that had the magic the beautiful the memories like this but no game comes clsoe to how UO was before it got ruined.
i remember the days of wondering the world, alwasy having something to do, now, having done all and been all, it doesnt feed me fire it once did :'(
that's pretty good cg for 97
Damn this is great. Good time memories coming back!.
Mondain: “why are you wearing an ankh?”
Stranger: “don’t ask perfectly logical questions…”
everytime i see this video i get the chills, i can´t believe i dont have the box of the game anymore, with the original map and all, i would put it on my wall if i found it stored in my stuff
MULTIVERSE, I think they did this so we could fit ultima lore in the context of multiple shard
Haha I remember watching this the first time I installed UO back in 99. I played it from then til about 07.. I played OSI about a year after AoS came out.. And then free shards until about 07.
I love how one of the most related videos is "what is the best MMO" - how fitting. UO fucking ruled.
LoL, The fist one i met in this game was called "Anjo Vingador". Best Online game ever
it still is the best game allways will be
the best MMO ever created, and the first probabily lol
in 2007 none has surpassed this
2024 and still no MMO has beaten some of the concepts this game brought IMO
It's going to absolutely suck for UO by the time Ultima V: Warriors of Virtue rolls around. The Stranger (by then, the Avatar) has to destroy the shards of the Gem of Immortality to kill the Shadowlords that have poisoned Lord Blackthorn's mind.
Completely agreed. I miss this game something awful. Kids these days don't know what they're missing.
I just realised.. UO is a multiverse that exists in our own potential shard, within our own potential multiverse. This is heavy shit.
"Whats a Paladin?"
Unfortunately the release of Everquest and the numbers of players resulted in something like WoW. Games such as this are a thing of the past apparently, all we have now are memories and hoping for something in the future.
Google "In Por Ylem" for classic UO being remade and improved upon!
My childhood.
the legend
The best MMORPG ever.
UO's gameplay still beats WOW by far, You can do so much in it. And those that have played UO and WOW know that for sure. Graphics dont make a game good or sh*t. Its the gameplay
@PowerSeer666 When Richard Garriott left, so did I.
that voice... that molevelant voice... (I am neither the begining nor the end...) what ever happened to the second part of the movie? Anyone out there have a copy of it?
I remember when they said that about darkfall
The new UO? Do you speak of Kingdom Reborn? I really don't like the interface and the graphic. But there are still shards (and free-shards) left, that use the old version and only changed some things for the better. I myself play on the German fun free-shard Vetus Mundus.
And I still like to watch this intro from time to time to remind me of the origins of the world I love.
one amazing game
@SeTiDaYeTi I'm talking about the original neverwinter nights. Dude, please google stuff that you're going to talk about if you're not sure.
The guy in the video is the Avatar, not Lord British. UO is based on the Ultima series of games, in which Lord British sometimes called upon the Avatar for help. This is where the popular internet game term "avatar" originates from. Ultima actually has a cool story. Look it up on Wikipedia.
Since you seemed to love it. Do you think it is a good MMO to play? I am currently downloading a SLOW download of UO (1.8 Gig patch) and might not be able to play tonight. I am not interested in todays games really. So do you think I will enjoy UO? :P
your whishes came true, he is making a game called shroud of the avatar.
@SkInHoUnD
hahaha,i remember everyone used to give each others ICQ accounts on UO. Oh good times
i played uo since i was 7 too and now im 13
Now your 25 lol
Played chessy too. Owned a tower in bucs den in the woods. PKed there daily.Did you hang around there at all?
omg ...i must go play :D
::sniff sniff:: i miss UO
UO+tibia=best mmo ever
thraximus was here
@UOTox Yeah, I agree. :D
Best Game EVER!
@Giblar
Rune Scape was preaty much a solid copy of Ultima Online.
It had a play run economy, if you died evreything could be looted from you (exept 4 most valuable) and PvP was preaty much evreywhere exept in towns. I dont realy like PvP so Runescape with wilderness PvP was my fav. Nowerdays its just dead in my opinion. The economy is shattered, there aint any people left etc. Kinda like Ultima Online nowerdays...
that's because it was your first mmo - you compare everything else to it. It's like that no matter what game you play
tee hee, the Avatar's greatest mistake was the accidental creation of Ultima Online, j/k this was a fun game ;-)
And it still is. Just play on free shards..
More realistically, if he were to be killed it would be by a much older UO player who has had an account for the last eleven years. Remember, today's twelve year old WOW player would have been crawling around in diapers when UO was already a thriving online world.
That said, UO is quite a different place today. PvP is essentially consensual these days and can be avoided by staying out of certain areas.
Man i miss the old game, i quit after SE came out, EA has ruined two of the best mmo's ever UO and Earth and beyond.
Best MMO...ever
What happened... they sure don't make them like they used to. =(
@RicoNuko Neverwinter nights was first
Vas Flam EA!
show me the treasure chest opening dammit
Ah in the 90s Ultima was great until it became to crowded and then it dropped and just got worse and worse and worse.
that man saved our world from horrible CGI Effects man