Spam Spam Spam Humbug 136 – Pulling a RuneScape
Subscribe on Anchor | Subscribe on iTunes | Subscribe on Google Play | Subscribe on TuneIn | Subscribe on Stitcher | Subscribe on Android
Podcast Topic(s)
WtF Dragon, flung by work to south-western North Dakota, sits down with Golem Dragon (and, later, Draxenath) to discuss GeForce Now, Nvidia’s new game streaming service, and how certain publishers are (for reasons that baffle) pulling their games from it. We also riff on Blizzard’s re-release of Warcraft 3, and how it…hasn’t been well-received. Then, a brief discussion about the leaked E3 website turns into a discussion about how nobody is actually developing System Shock 3; none of the team is employed by OtherSide Entertainment any longer.
Well…except, perhaps, Warren Spector.
The main body of the discussion, however, pertains to recent news from Broadsword Online Games, the developers/caretakers of Ultima Online. They have teased a plan to bring UO to “the largest audience ever”, evidently the team’s “biggest and boldest endeavor in over a decade”. This is all well and good — anything that expands the reach of Ultima is a welcome thing — but it does leave open the question of just what this grand, new initiative might be.
Inevitably, comparisons are drawn with Jagex’s MMORPG, RuneScape, which brought both of its variants — RuneScape proper and the more nostalgic Old-School RuneScape — to mobile platforms. WtF Dragon, at least, thinks that a mobile port of UO is rather more likely, because while Ultima Online was Greenlit on Steam several years ago, nothing has been done with that since then (and Steam might also have an issue with the fact that UO has dual clients; this is speculation more than hard fact).
On the flip side, the observation is made that the team at Broadsword is on the smallish side, so something as ambitious as a mobile port might well be beyond the capabilities of the manpower they have to put on a project. To say nothing of the fact that they might not — probably do not — have access to the original source code for the Classic Client; they’d likely only be able to port the Enhanced Client.
Community & Patronage
As always, this episode of Spam Spam Spam Humbug is brought to you by our Patreon backers; thank you to everyone who supports Spam Spam Spam Humbug and the Ultima Codex by that means. And, as always, a hearty thank you to our co-producers: Seth, Goldenflame, Chris, Brickbat, Dominik, Violation, Cranberry, Christopher, Bruce, Dark Wraith Dragon, Helgraf, Gronkh, Pascal, and Thorwan.
Support Spam Spam Spam Humbug
Patreon | Like Ultima on Facebook | Follow the Ultima Codex on Twitter
Join the Ultima Community
UDIC.org | Ultima Dragons on Facebook | Follow the Ultima Dragons on Twitter | The Weyrmount | Ultima Dragons on Discord
Send Feedback
Send Us an Email | Leave a Voice Message | Join Us on Discord
Get Social
WtFD – Twitter | Facebook | The Ultima Codex | About.me
Golem – YouTube | The Ultima Codex
Draxenath – Steam | Twitter | Facebook | Facebook Page | Twitch | Discord | Record of the Dragon Goddess
Music
Ultima VI Gates of Creation by OC ReMix
Ultima V – Stones 2001 Remix by DJ Lizard
Ultima Online’s developers have teased that something big is coming which will greatly expand the (potential) audience for the game. What might that be?