1995. A man named Richard Garriott has an idea that will change the gaming industry forever. A fantasy game where a large number of people can share a world online. The idea culminates into Ultima Online, the first MMORPG. People could adventure, trade, interact with, and even kill one another. Within 6 months the game reached 100,000 subscribers. With critical acclaim and more money than they knew what to do with, others in the business began to look their way. Since then we’ve had other hits along the way, from Everquest up to today’s World of Warcraft.
Throughout these years, mechanics have changed as well as what was considered “the standard” for the genre. UO began with skill-based character progression (without levels or classes), crafting and player-driven economy, and unrestricted PVP. The progression of the genre brought in elements of table-top role-playing games and console role-playing games alike. Characters soon had levels and classes/jobs/professions among other additions.
The bar had been raised (or changed) over the years until our current World of Warcraft reigned king, it’s mechanics defining what the genre’s standards should be…or at least resemble. In today’s world where we have flourishing broadband worldwide, slews of companies and teams have sought to make or otherwise mimic their successful, established bigger brothers to achieve acclaim or otherwise cash in on this particular market. Many have come close, both in level of quality gameplay and/or fiscal success, and only a few have surpassed WoW, gameplay-wise. The words “WoW killer” are often uttered by the fresh recruit on his frigate before he’s immediately sunk by Blizzard’s ship of the line (Sid Meier’s Pirates! reference anyone? No? Okay. Moving on.).
The potential in many titles is strong, but in either one area or another, they lack that oomph needed to pass Michael Phelps to the finish (first use of Michael Phelps as a euphemism for Blizzard. You saw it here first, folks). “WoW Killer” seemed like an unattainable task to the point where the thought evaporated from my mind. Until one night…
“You! You’re playing Mortal Online when it comes out in 2009!” I’ve heard this before many times from my friends. “You! You’re playing <insert game> when it comes out in <insert date>.” The last time he said that, we played WoW and, like an old Buick, it went a few miles before going kaput. But I had a strange gut-feeling this time when he said it.
“Here’s the link!”
“Let’s see…” (clicks) “Wow, no leveling.”
“Yeah. 
”
“Oh God, not PVP.” (I’m more of a PVE player.)
“Yeeeaaah, don’t worry man, you’re rolling with us. I’m gonna try to get like a shitload of guys to play. Then it’ll just be awesome.”
“Normally, I’d say no, but rolling with you guys, I have no problem.”
“Yeah, we’re gonna be legendary.” (Not a boast nor a jest, he’s never once been wrong about his epicness.) “I’m gonna try to get at least like 20 friends to play.”
(still checking the game features) “Real-time combat. I expect it’s gonne be something like melee combat in Unreal.”
“Yeah, probably. Or like Oblivion.”
“Oh shit, looting player corpses.” (It’s at this point that Ultima Online comes to mind.)
“Yeah, dude. It’s intense. I love it.”
“First-person style…Unreal 3 engine, no problem for my PC.”
“Yeah.”
“Man this list of features takes everything I’ve noticed wrong with other games and addresses them.”
“Yes. Yes it does. It is the sex. It is UO (see, I’m not the only one!) but in 3d.”
“It certainly seems so.”
And this is when it hit me that this could be the one to topple WoW. Free-for-all-PVP with no safe zones from attack. Real-time FPP combat. Skill-based character progression system. No levels. No classes. Fully lootable player corpses. Non-instanced gameworld. Mounted combat. Siege warfare. Realistic creature loot (no more getting money from monsters who obviously don’t use it). Epic creatures that don’t respawn. No floating names above character’s head (non-invisible stealth is a-go!). Player housing system.
This is a true UO successor. It will bring back old school into the new school. Sure it’ll be a while from now, and there’s certainly every possibility that my hunches may be wrong, but I haven’t felt this much hope for any other title before. To the dev team at Star Vault, I bid you Godspeed.
