Ultima Online/Trivia

Screwed by the Network: As the first game of its kind, marketing estimates for the 'Multima' concept, as it was originally called, were based on pre-internet multiplayer games, a niche hobby, at best (even generous marketing estimates predicted only 30,000 sales over the lifetime of the game). After pitching the game for a year and a half and actually refusing to leave the boardroom until he got funding for the project. They gave him a quarter million dollars and all the developers nobody else wanted. They ran out of money before they could print beta copies of the prototype, so EA's first web site asked $5 for anybody who wanted to be in the beta. After that sold 50,000 copies, Ultima Online became Adored by the Network, while every other Origin product got screwed.
What Could Have Been:
- Ultima Online 2 would have been a 3D "2nd generation MMORPG" to compete with games like EverQuest. Its name was changed to Ultima Worlds Online: Origin, and was planned to have been released around 2000-2001.
- Tabula Rasa, code named Ultima X, was intended as a Spiritual Successor to Ultima. The first version was going to be a fantasy MMORPG, then was scrapped to make a second fantasy MMORPG, then it was scrapped entirely and made into a completely different MMOFPS.
- Ultima X: Odyssey would have been an MMORPG set on the world of Alucinor, continuing where Ultima IX left off. It would have featured more colorful graphics and a virtue system.

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