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Classic Game Postmortem: Ultima Online

GDC Festival of Gaming

555K subscribers • 54 videos on Hallway • Conference channel

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  • Recommended by 5 people: 5 on Hacker News.
  • A classic. People kept recommending it from 2018 to 2024.
  • May be out of date. Uploaded 8 years ago, in an area where tools change fast.

Intermediate. Assumes working knowledge.

183K views8 years ago5 recommendations

Game developmentHistory and culturePostmortems and making-ofGame designHistory of computing

The creators of Ultima Online discuss the development, server architecture, and unexpected player behaviors of the pioneering MMO.

In this 2018 GDC session, Raph Koster, Starr Long, Richard Garriott de Cayeux & Rich Vogel talk about the things that went wrong and right during the development and operation of Ultima Online. Register for GDC: ubm.io/2gk5KTU Join the GDC mailing list: gdconf.com/subscribe Follow GDC on Twitter: twitter.com/Official_GDC GDC talks cover a range of developmental topics including game design, programming, audio, visual arts, business management, production, online games, and much more. We post a fresh GDC video every day. Subscribe to the channel to stay on top of regular updates, and check out GDC Vault for thousands of more in-depth talks from our archives.

Why it's here

5 people recommend this

What people say. Recommended for its transparent and fascinating look into early MMO development, player behavior, and server architecture.

swozeyon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ultima Online spent years developing a system that was destroyed by players”

I'm loving this UO talk, I just found this Postmortem by GDC published in Sep 2018 (so I think it's new? I've never seen it) link to this video This is a much watch if MMOs fascinate you. They're very transparent. Absolutely great video. edit: Oh my god they bring up FlyGuys prostitution ring..
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chonglion Hacker News • Recommends

On “Custom Game Engines: A Small Study”

Fun fact: the word "shard" in this context was coined by the dev team of the first major commercial MMO, Ultima Online, as an in-universe explanation for why the game world was split into multiple servers. If you're looking for an exemplary server architecture for MMOs, look no further than UO. That game came out in 1997 and supported worlds with thousands of players and millions of persistent objects. Players could build their own houses within the game world, decorate (and later design) them to an incredible degree 1, and have other players visit (welcome or not). Players could run their own shops within their homes and sell their own hand-crafted, signed goods (weapons, armour, clothing…
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codetrotteron Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: Have you ever heard of users demonstrating against software?”

> While not rioting in real life, it feels familiar. The Ultima Online postmortem session from GDC 2018 has some similar stories about in-game protests. The stories in said session are quite entertaining, and there is a lot of other interesting information too in the session. The whole thing is worth a watch. link to this video
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NegatioNon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Database “Sharding” came from Ultimate Online?”

In a similar vein to the "War Stories"-clips, (even though I never played Ultima,) their Ultima post-mortem from GDC is a great watch too. link to this video
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ksecon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Database “sharding” came from Ultima Online? (2009)”

Classic Game Postmortem: Ultima Online 1, I think that goes into the origin of Shard. ( Sorry I didn't save down the time like but it is an interesting video for those into UO ) And if you do a search on HN you will see plenty of other links about UO and sharding. 1 link to this video
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Raph_Kosteron Hacker News • Mentions

On “Ultima Online spent years developing a system that was destroyed by players”

I was the original lead designer on Ultima Online and the key designer of this system. A few notes, because this article has MANY inaccuracies. 1. Ultima Online wasn't even in development for three years total. An early prototype was February to September 1995, done by Rick Delashmit. Starting late August and early September 1995, the core team showed up. We showed the game at E3 in spring of 1996 in alpha form. We showed it in beta form at E3 in the spring of 1997. And we launched on Sept 26th, 1997. The ecology was in the alpha test, and was removed during the beta after being rewritten by an engineer who didn't really like or understand it. 2. "Not many players know about" this is false.…
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stuu99on Hacker News • Mentions

On “Leaked stolen Nvidia cert can sign Windows malware”

…the gist of trusted computing they are building an alternative internet/mainframe computer inside yours that they only have access to. Where have you been the last 23+ years? The videogame industry has been stealing PC games since 1997 with ultima online. Hear it from the dev's themselves. Don't think MMO's killed local PC games? Listen here kids. link to this video EA killed ultima 9 when the UO beta got massive interest, that lead to the death of PC games as local applications, the industry from then on there was a massive war to back end all PC games, they couldn't immediately do that to quake and urneal because we'd been treated too good with Warcraft 1-3, Descent 1-3, Quake 1-3, and build engine g…
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stuu99on Hacker News • Mentions

On “EU Buried $400k Study Showing Piracy Have Almost No Effect on Sales (2017)”

…e same game. MMO's/F2P are literally just PC games with their multiplayer ripped out, don't think so? Listen to the ultima devs here, when Ultima online was successful, publishers and devs went over their entire PC game list to convert their local apps to client-server apps and stuck "MMO" on the front so they could steal PC games from the public. link to this video EA killed ultima 9 when the UO beta got massive interest, that lead to the death of PC games as local applications, the industry from then on there was a…
View on Hacker News

stuu99on Hacker News • Mentions

On “America produces enough oil to meet its needs, so why do we import crude?”

Two or more computers in a network become and behave as a single PC, so if you buy any client-server software you are literally stealing programs for yourself. Because all programs are the same to a PC. AKA all programs executables can be divided into two or more exe's and run over a network it's called the client-server or mainframe dumb client model of computing and you don't want that because that's the end of the personal computer you own and control. Client-server apps are the ultimate security risk because you can't audit the code. The last 23 years there's been a war to kill the general computer. link >This language seems unnecessary, It's not, the average gamer and PC buyer has bee…
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stuu99on Hacker News • Mentions

On “Latest build of Windows 11 has ads inside File Explorer”

" As longtime poweruser all the dark patterns and user hostile behavior was astonishing." Two or more computers in a network become and behave as a single PC, so if you buy any client-server software you are literally stealing programs for yourself. Because all programs are the same to a PC. AKA all programs executables can be divided into two or more exe's and run over a network it's called the client-server or mainframe dumb client model of computing and you don't want that because that's the end of the personal computer you own and control. Client-server apps are the ultimate security risk because you can't audit the code. The last 23 years there's been a war to kill the general computer.…
View on Hacker News

stuu99on Hacker News • Mentions

On “Intel Introduces New ATX PSU Specifications”

…forcement into the cpu so future applications won't run and your bios can be remote updated like a console to disable any pirated software or cracked exe's that are found on your PC. You all gave them this access to your PC, so why wouldn't intel and the rest just keep going? See here on EA and ultima, and the death of games as local applications: link to this video…
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cpetersoon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Do you remember Ultima Online?”

Related: a GDC 2018 presentation with Richard Garriott and other people from the UO dev team sharing stories from UO's early days: link to this video
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wolfhumbleon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Do you remember Ultima Online?”

Interesting :-) Seems like the word 'shard' when used to define splitting up DB's etc. on different servers, actually originates from this game: link to this video
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