Ultima Online: Lord Blackthorn's Revenge

The Good
I'm going to do reviews for the add-ons to the series starting here and ending at Mondain's Legacy. This represents the un-reviewed (by anyone on Moby anyway) portion of the series. Come along if you like, but if you've never played UO don't expect to enjoy it!

I won't be doing my bullet format for these.

Positive Changes:

Renaissance was not a graphics powerhouse in 2002 - 2D isometric everything and a 'keep-it-simple' approach to terrain and lighting (to deal with dial-up internet and average chipset limitations) were hurting sales in light of newer MMORPG's. While this meant that a lot more players (including adult players using work computers) could enjoy UO - Origin marketing realized they needed to up the graphical draw. Third dawn did feature 3D material, but sales were hindered by customer feedback.

So they hired McFarlane to do character designs and monster artwork to make UO more 'edgey'. A strange direction for anyone steeped in Ultima Mythology (and if you're not, I now a guy who'll help you catch up: 0, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7). The visual style was changed dramatically from the traditional 80's Dungeons and Dragons style of straight-forward monster to a more angled and gnarly look. The proportions of the avatar characters remained realistic in 3D, and the color palette became less pastel with heavier focus on texture.

Another new feature was the additional of a mechanical/steam-punk atmosphere with the new elements surrounding Lord Blackthorn. I liked that, because it added a facet to the world that was different. This is the point of an add-on, isn't it? Adding something to keep it new and fresh?

The music for the game did not change, existing locations (for the most part) did not change. The interface changed graphically a little bit - understand that this was not a mandatory upgrade, they didn't want to make Renaissance obsolete (especially with the large number of international players out there who might not have access to high-end machines).

The Bad
Changing the art for the 3D avatars and monsters and NPC's was neat, but the buildings, dungeons, and terrain stayed the same. I played on dial-up back then with an adequate computer ($1,200, one year old), and although I didn't get processor lag from drawing the 3D material the server lag was much worse with the 3D on. Ultima Online isn't like World of Warcraft when it comes to combat - there aren't 'levels' or standard baselines of power, you will hit your player cap of 750 skill points pretty quick and you have only your wits and equipment (which back then was very standard stuff - a sword is a sword, plus what it is made of, perhaps a bonus for the person who made it, or a magical attribute). You couldn't afford to lag, and I turned the 3D off most of the time (which meant I was looking at legacy Renaissance graphics with slight interface changes.

So for me - other than the ability to see what things looked like in 3D (if my connection was good), and a few new monster designs that there was no legacy art for - not much changed.

The new 'quest' system introduced was hit-and-miss. It didn't work for me because I played a straight warrior (meaning no magical ability, nothing to do with sexuality) character. Most of the quests were lengthy affairs that required travelling with an NPC to a different location. Well, NPC's couldn't terrain find and would simply 'break' a mile out of town and reset to where they came from. That's my strongest memory of the new 'quest' system.

The Bottom Line
I should have saved my money on this expansion - I was never hard-core enough a player to play in the land that they expanded (you needed to group to survive there, or be a tamer). The direction they tried to go in was good - but they should have done a new set of 2D graphics to compliment McFarlane's work. This was a half-assed graphical change that only a few people could enjoy without sacrificing their gaming ability.