By the end of the year, it had surpassed competitor Ultima Online in number of subscriptions.

Games such as Meridian 59, EverQuest, Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot were routinely called graphical MUDs in their earlier years.

Players interacting in Ultima Online, a classic MMORPG

" It was originally envisioned to be an " Alternative to Ultima Online " and was mentioned in an article on the Slashdot news website, which became a major source of interested developers.

The success of Ultima Online opened the door for the creation of many new massively multiplayer games.

Ultima Online is a fantasy role-playing game set in the Ultima universe.

Several expansions have been released and the release of Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn in 2007 brought a new game engine which offers a newer visual experience.

As of April 2008, Ultima Online held a market share below 0. 6 % of the massively multiplayer online game subscriptions.

Quoting directly from the Electronic Arts press release announcing the Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn expansion, Ultima Online was " The first MMORPG to reach the 100, 000 subscriber base, far exceeding that of any game that went before it ".

Ultima Online is the product of Richard Garriott's idea for a fantasy game involving several thousand people who can all play in a shared fantasy world.

There were a number of prior games that allowed hundreds of people to play at the same time, including The Realm Online, Neverwinter Nights ( the AOL version ), and Meridian 59 ; however, Ultima Online was intended to be a significant improvement over the previous games, both graphically and in game mechanics.

Ultima Online initial features included persistent player housing, skill-based character progression ( without levels or classes ), a crafting and player-driven economy, and unrestricted player-versus-player combat.

Upon release, Ultima Online proved to be very popular, reaching 100, 000 paying subscribers within six months of release, despite severe lag problems.

Origin was able to make a great deal of money from the monthly fees required to play Ultima Online and many other companies took note and began development of their own massively multiplayer games.

The most successful games after Ultima Online have been EverQuest ( released in March 1999 ), Asheron's Call ( released in November 1999 ), Dark Age of Camelot ( released in October 2001 ), Final Fantasy XI ( released in May 2002 ), World of Warcraft ( released in November 2004 ).

Ultima Online continued the tradition of previous Ultima games in many ways, but due to advancing technology and the simple fact that it was Origin's first persistent online game, there were many new game mechanics as well.

Beginning with the first expansion ( Ultima Online: The Second Age ), the original world gained the " Lost Lands ", with additional land, dungeons, creatures, and terrain.

The worlds in Ultima Online include:

* UO. com – The official Electronic Arts Ultima Online site.

* UO Forums – Ultima Online forums.

Ultima Online: Renaissance is the second expansion to the popular Ultima Online ( UO ) MMORPG.

We feel that Ultima Online is where we need to focus our online efforts and most of my team will be moving to the UO expansion pack, the UO live team, and an unannounced Ultima Online project.

Around 1998 / 1999, his focus shifted to Ultima Online ( UO ), an early graphical MMO first released in 1997, and one of the first to become well known in popular culture.

With the unexpected success of the beta phase of Ultima Online ( UO ), Origin moved most of the Ultima IX team to work on that game in late 1996.

* Mars is the setting for Worlds of Ultima II: Martian Dreams RPG by Origin Systems released in 1991.

Might and Magic is considered one of the defining examples of early PC role-playing games, along with the Bard's Tale, Ultima and Wizardry series.

Ultima is a series of fantasy role-playing video games from Origin Systems, Inc. Ultima was created by Richard Garriott, a. k. a. Lord British.

The main Ultima series consists of nine installments ( the seventh title is further divided into two parts ) grouped into three trilogies, or " Ages ": The Age of Darkness ( Ultima I-III ), The Age of Enlightenment ( Ultima IV-VI ), and The Age of Armageddon ( Ultima VII-IX ).

In 1963, at the suggestion of his publisher, he changed the name to Ultima, by which name it is also known.

The Last Supper ( or L ' Ultima Cena ) is a late 15th century mural painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria della Grazie, Milan.

In Spite of Wishing and Wanting is a soundscape David Byrne produced for the Belgian choreographer Wim Vandekeybus's dance company Ultima Vez.

The term " Ultima Thule " (: most distant Thule ) is also mentioned by the Roman poet Virgil in his pastoral poems called the Georgics.

The game is played online, in a fantasy setting similar to that of the other Ultima games that preceded it.

The original Ultima Online client is 2D and, while it was state of the art when released, it is intended to be used on low-end machines that cannot support the more taxing 3D client.

The support for this client is ended on 9 September 2009, to streamline the patch process prior to the release of the Ultima Online: Stygian Abyss expansion.

In May, Ultima Online: Shattered Legacy is shown at the 1996 E3 Expo.

This is the first time Ultima Online allows for more than one player race, as Elves are added.

Along with Pathways into Darkness, Ultima Underworld and System Shock, it is considered one of the first FPS-RPG games.

Lord Cantabrigian British is the name of the fictional ruler of Britannia, kingdom of the fictional world of Sosaria, created by Richard Garriott for his computer game series Ultima.

He is still known as Lord British even after his departure from Ultima maker Origin Systems: Garriott retained the trademark rights to the name Lord British with its associated symbols, and the character appears in his new game, Tabula Rasa as General British.

In 1997, they released one of the earliest and most successful graphical MMORPGs, Ultima Online.

* Ultima Online, a graphical massively multiplayer online role-playing game

In its early years it was commonly conceived of as a graphical MUD, though this term, and M59s preferred " MMPRPG ", was eventually displaced by the now-ubiquitous Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, a term coined by Richard Garriott of Ultima Online in 1997.

* When discussing Virtues of Ultima and Codex of Ultimate Wisdom, discussion of the symbol is warranted, and graphical version of the symbol makes it easier to grasp.