In the world of videogames we find authentic MMO exponents such as ‘World of Warcraft’, ‘Final Fantasy XIV’, ‘New World’ and ‘Lost Ark’, but the genre also includes titles that are several years old. ‘Ultima Online‘ is a clear example of this. The remnant community of this massively multiplayer online game refuses to give it up, and is even willing to spend money every month to stay with it.
As our colleagues from 3DJuegos collect, the Twitter user XaBi_Sides discovered that there are ‘Ultima Online’ players who have been spending money continuously on the game for 20 years or more. The reasons, according to the author of the Tweet, are easy to understand: they don’t want to lose their home in the virtual world. It is that these, being in a finite setting, are highly coveted by other players.
$12.99 a month to maintain your home
‘Ultima Online’, as we say, is a game with a story. It was originally released in 1997 by Origin Systems. Since then it has received several expansion packs and content updates, but it has remained true to its essence, even respecting the accounts that were created in the original servers. While the game has been free to play from the start, the entire experience is paid for.
Users with a free account, officially called Endless Journey, access the main features of ‘Ultima Online’. They can freely explore Britannia, the game world, including interacting with other characters and joining groups to engage in combat and so on, but they have one major limitation: they cannot own houses and can only enter public housing.
This limitation means that players with free accounts cannot access the mailbox and do not have their own place where save safely the items you have obtained. In addition, as explained by the official page of ‘Ultima Online’, “they cannot safely log out of a house” and, as an alternative, they must use an inn or tavern in the city, which are places of public access.
Those who pay a monthly subscription of $12.99 per month forget about the aforementioned problems, but they must continue paying if they do not want to lose the benefits. In case of not paying, Xavi says, “the house enters a dilapidated state, and a random counter is activated by which it is destroyed and all the items can be taken by anyone”. Imagine being able to get the items from a veteran user of the game.
As a result of this last scenario, since the state of the house is public, when the text “In danger of collapsing” appears on it, the characters usually gather en masse around it to try to get hold of some of the items that its former owner had obtained. As we can see, a particular but fast way and without spending money to expand your inventory of ‘Ultima Online’ items.
‘Ultima Online’ is available for Windows computers. Its recommended system requirements are Windows XP or Windows Vista, an Internet connection, an Intel or AMD processor faster than 1 GHz, 1 GB of RAM, a 128 MB graphics card, and 8 GB of available space. If you want to try this game from the 1990s, you can download the client from its official page and log in with your EA account to start playing.
Images: Electronic Arts
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