Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar - won't last forever

the_dagon

Watchdog
Joined
August 4, 2009
Messages
67
Seems Ultima Forever won't last forever...

With Mythic's shutdown we could foresee the game closure, ...but it could have been maintained for a few more months.

However, it's official, the game will shutdown on August 29th 2014.

Ultima Forever was far from being a real Ultima, but was not really bad. It has suffered mainly from its' awful business model (F2P + heavy microtransactions), but also from bad game support (no updated, no new content). With a fixed price and better support its' fate could have been really different.

Quite sad to say goodbye to another Ultima... Let's hope Shroud of the Avatar will be better and more Ultima-ish.

As seen on the game facebook page :

Strangers, Seekers and Avatars all,

While the past year has certainly been quite the adventure – in Britannia and beyond! – that adventure is now drawing to a close, as the time has come for us to say goodbye. As of Aug 29th 2014 (11:00 AM EDT), Ultima Forever will be shutting down its online services, and will no longer be available to play.

This was a very difficult decision for us to make. We’ve seen the game through ups and downs, and hope that you’ve enjoyed playing it every bit as much as we had making it! Through it all, it’s been players like you who’ve made it all worthwhile.

To thank everyone for their loyalty and support, for our last month of live operations, the following changes will be made to the game:

• Significantly boosted Virtue and Reputation rewards
• Equipment degradation to be disabled (no damage to worn/equipped items)
• Increased drop rate of Gold keys
• The in-game store will no longer sell premium currency (Silver and Gold keys)

We invite you to share your favorite game memories with us here in this very thread!

From Lady British, the Gypsy, and all the other citizens of Ultima Forever’s Britannia: Thank you for your time spent in our world; we’re going to miss you very much!

Remember and uphold the Virtues, always!
- The Ultima Forever Team
More information.
 
Joined
Aug 4, 2009
Messages
67
Who could have seen this coming.

First, ripping off brand names for use with gameplay that heavily departs from what the brand name conjures up fails over and over again.

Second, online only games are showing their dirty side exceedingly often when 'business models fail' and games go away entirely. I can still pull out my 1993 Legends of Kyrandia, stick those 3.5" floppies into my USB floppy disk drive, and with a little tweaking with DOSBox play that game. On 08/29/2014 nobody will be able to play Ultima Forever.

This is another huge red flag for fans of 'games as a service' which mostly serves the vendor while only offering minor conveniences to the customer... conveniences that is right up until they pull the online plug.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
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Location
Oregon
Didn't this thing only launch originally (and maybe at all) on iOS or something? I signed up for the beta, but never got an invite and really had no interest after that.

I did download some nice wallpaper from their site though!
 
Joined
Jan 10, 2008
Messages
4,353
Location
Austin, TX
Who could have seen this coming.

First, ripping off brand names for use with gameplay that heavily departs from what the brand name conjures up fails over and over again.

Second, online only games are showing their dirty side exceedingly often when 'business models fail' and games go away entirely. I can still pull out my 1993 Legends of Kyrandia, stick those 3.5" floppies into my USB floppy disk drive, and with a little tweaking with DOSBox play that game. On 08/29/2014 nobody will be able to play Ultima Forever.

This is another huge red flag for fans of 'games as a service' which mostly serves the vendor while only offering minor conveniences to the customer… conveniences that is right up until they pull the online plug.

Well, it is fine to pull the plug, because none would want to play it anymore anyway..... Kyrandia on the other hand.......
 
Joined
Oct 25, 2006
Messages
6,292
Good riddance to this disgusting cash grab that raped the Ultima name.
 
Joined
Sep 26, 2007
Messages
3,444
If it hadn't been an online game, people could still play it.
Now the term "shut down" to games really means then : "You cannot play it anymore". Sad if this were true to board games also ...
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
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Location
Old Europe
Should've been called "Ultima For A Little While".
 
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