Welcome to the strange, surprising world of Ultima Online

Today's headlines treat the metaverse as a hazy dream yet to be built, but if it's defined as a network of virtual worlds many can inhabit, its oldest extant corner has been already running for 25 years. It's a medieval fantasy kingdom created for the online role-playing game Ultima O...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Technology review (1998) 2023-03, Vol.126 (2), p.82-86
Main Author: Levin, John-Clark
Format: Magazinearticle
Language:English
Subjects:
ARPA computer network
Games
Herbivores
Monsters
Players
Role playing
Simulation
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Today's headlines treat the metaverse as a hazy dream yet to be built, but if it's defined as a network of virtual worlds many can inhabit, its oldest extant corner has been already running for 25 years. It's a medieval fantasy kingdom created for the online role-playing game Ultima Online--and it has already endured a quarter-century of market competition, economic turmoil, and political strife. So what can this game and its players tell about creating the virtual worlds of the future? Ultima Online--UO to its fans--was not the first online fantasy game. As early as 1980, "multi-user dungeons," known as MUDs, offered text-based role-playing adventures hosted on university computers connected via Arpanet. With the birth of the World Wide Web in 1991, a handful of graphical successors like Kingdom of Drakkar and Neverwinter Nights followed--allowing dozens or hundreds of players at a time to slay monsters together in a shared digital space.
ISSN:1099-274X
2158-9186