Another Interview – Massively, Paul Barnett, Ultima Forever

Another hour, another interview with Paul Barnett 🙂 This time it’s Massively.

This time around, Barnett compared it to BioWare’s Dragon Age and Baldur’s Gate franchises:

And what about the gameplay? Is Ultima Forever an MMO?

No, though Barnett says it has “a lot” of players in it. “It’s very tribal in the way we’re building it,” he explained. The game is a small-group affair, with “tactical, positional” combat that is less about hotbar abilities and more about where your characters stand, what kind of equipment they have, and how you use your abilities together.

Barnett compared the game to the hunting areas in older BioWare titles like Baldur’s Gate, and he pointed out that the essence of Ultima Forever is focused on improving your virtues through a BioWare storyline and plenty of dungeoneering. “It’s very much a classic RPG adventure. It’s more in Dragon Age’s territory than that of an MMO,” he explained.

Yes, BioWare describes it as an action RPG (which conjures up images of Diablo), and while the online play makes some automatically think of Ultima Online, I’m surprised nobody is talking about Ultima X (Codex of Ultima Wisdom). Granted, that’s not a good comparison since it was canceled.

For those of you who play Ultima Online, you should be taking note that the gaming media very much loves to cover major Ultima news. I imagine that a major upgrade to UO would generate just as much press, if not more.