Ultima Online: Third Dawn

The Good
On the plus side, it was more Ultima. It added features and expanded the scope of the game. Most importantly though, the 3D client introduced with the 3rd Dawn expansion was optional. Players could still use the original client, though some of the features implemented with the new client were inacessible. And to this reviewer, irrelevant anyway.

The Bad
The original 3D client was atrocious. Character model scale was grossly exaggerated: whereas it used to be that the characters were of a comparable scale to buildings, the new 3D models were too big. I can imagine that was done simply because if they'd drawn the already poorly drawn 3D models the right size they would have just been a muddle of colors bleeding into themselves.

The Bottom Line
It's Ultima. The first and best truly MASSIVE massively multiplayer game. Hundreds of thousands of players were a part of this world at one point. But now, in 2009, not so much. This expansion technically did add to the growing world, but was mostly a marketing scheme to try to lure back those that had left for Everquest. Even the name was a morbid attempt at deception: "Ultima 3D!!!!! cough cough that is, 3rd Dawn... cough"