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Home » Web Directory » Graveyard » Ultima X: Odyssey

Contents

• The First Rumours
• Cancellation
• Concentrations
• Information
• Previews
• Interviews
• Screenshots & Media
• The UXO Team
• Trailers
• The X-Event
• Nitpicks

The First Rumours

It all started on 4th May 2003 when the first rumours of Ultima X leaked and were announced by Stratics. On 16th June 2003, a screenshot of the Ultima X title leaked, revealing the full name of this mysterious product - Ultima X: Odyssey. A screenshot from the trailer leaked soon after, showing a mage, a fighter and a gorgon (see the screenshot at UltimaDot), bringing up more discussion and curiosity as to what it may be all about.

In August 2003, a lot of previews, screenshots and a trailer were released, and these came flooding in especially when the X-Event took place between 21st and 22nd August 2003, giving the people who attended the chance to know more about the game and play it firsthand. The event is now over and the flow of information about it has slowly died down; and this Ultima X resource page had been made as a centre to find any desired Ultima X information quickly and easily.

As of around 11th October 2003, Ultima X could already be preordered via GameStop. The preorder page had some information about the game as well as a picture of the box art. The address of the preorder page now seems to produce a 404 error.

Cancellation

On 30th June 2004, the main page of the official Ultima X website was replaced with a redirection to the following press release:

June 30, 2004

Dear Ultima X: Odyssey community members,

As of today, development on Ultima X: Odyssey has ended. We feel that Ultima Online is where we need to focus our online efforts and most of my team will be moving to the UO expansion pack, the UO live team, and an unannounced Ultima Online project. Development on UO will be greatly enhanced as we consolidate our resources behind that franchise.

This isn't an easy decision but it's the right move for the future of all things Ultima, including the community and the team. We look forward to sharing our plans for the future of Ultima Online very soon.

I would like to thank all of the Ultima X: Odyssey supporters who have been with us from the beginning. I hope you will continue to support the Ultima franchise and the development team as they transition to new projects.

Thank you,
David "InQWis" Yee
Producer, Ultima X: Odyssey

The official Ultima X website is still accessible via the main page after the splash page.

Articles:

• GameSpot: "Electronic Arts kills Ultima X: Odyssey"
• GameSpy: "Ultima X: Odyssey Cancelled"
• U3Project
• The Corporation News
• HomeLan Fed: "Ultima X: Odyssey Interview"

Opinions:

• Exult forum: "Ultima: Odyssey is dead"
• Dino's Ultima Forum: "UXO is Dead"
• UltimaDot news comments: "EA Cancels Ultima X: Odyssey"
• Ultima IX: Redemption Forum: "UXO"
• The Wayward Avatar: "No More UX:O"
• Time Immortal: Furies ("The Demise of UXO")

Articles and opinions together:

• Mythica HQ Forums: "UX: O Cancelled"
• Ultima X OGaming Forums: "UXO is cancelled!"

Concentrations

Websites dedicated to Ultima X: Odyssey include:

• The Official Ultima X website
• "Ultima X: Odyssey - A Winterfell News Site" (launched 25th August 2003)
• Ultima X OGaming at the Online Gaming Network
• UXO Stratics, part of the Stratics Network
• Ultima X: Odyssey Online
• UXO Compendium

There is also a section of La Legende d' Ultima dedicated to Ultima X: Odyssey.

Information

Markee Dragon attended the X-Event, and some interesting information has been added to his website, including information about:

• classes and single-player questing
• classes and races
• news that the UXO development team will be adding crafting and housing after the game's release

Various information can be found elsewhere, at:

• The Ultima X: Odyssey section at La Legende d' Ultima which has loads of information about Ultima X.
• The Ultima X FAQat UltimaDot
• GameSpy's interview with the development team (which can be downloaded as a 104MB movie, which has 5 pages of information about the game
• The Ultima X FAQ at the official Ultima X website
• The official Ultima X website, which has a section about the game's features, including:
  • The Odyssey Adventure System
  • Paths and Disciplines
  • Loot Distribution
  • Player Races
  • Bestiary

Previews

Previews of Ultima X: Odyssey can be found:

• Here at the Online Gaming Network (6th August 2003)
• Here (3 pages long) at GameSpy (24th August 2003)
• Here at HomeLan Fed (24th August 2003)
• Here at Real Life
• Here at GameSpot
• Here at ActionTrip

Interviews

Ultima X: Odyssey interviews can be found:

• Here at The Adrenaline Vault (17th September 2003)
• Here at GameSpot (24th November 2003)
• Here at GameBanshee
• Here at Gamer.no (26th November 2003)

Screenshots & Media

Ultima X: Odyssey screenshots can be found:

• At the Ultima X preview (6th August 2003) at the Online Gaming Network
• At the gallery at Ultima X OGaming
• At the gallery at Ultima X: Odyssey Online
• At the X-Event Report at Worthplaying
• Here at GameSpyDaily
• At the X-Event Report at a Japanese site
• Here (2 pages long) at GameSpy
• Here at RPGDot
• At the Ultima X Gallery at La Legende d' Ultima, which has lots of pictures, including the logo, gameplay screenshots, trailer screenshots and concept art
• At the Ultima X preview at Real Life
• At 4Gamer.net where there are 6 pages of screenshots (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) and 3 pages of concept art (1, 2, 3)
• At the Ultima X Gallery at ActionTrip
• Here at the UXO Compendium
• Here at GameSpot
• Here at the official Ultima X website

The Media page at the official Ultima X website has quite a bit of media, including:

• AIM icons
• Screenshots
• Movies
• Wallpapers
• Music

The UXO Team

Information about the Ultima X: Odyssey team can be found:

• At a topic posted by the Lead Designer on the UXO Stratics forums where he introduces the design team
• From the UXO Stratics forums themselves - since the UXO dev team visit there, you can read posts written by themselves or else view their profile
• At the UXO team page at IanStorm where the team is listed
• At two interviews with the dev team at UXO Stratics
• At the UXO media page at Gamespot where you can download an interview with Rick Hall, the Ultima X project lead
• At GameSpy's interview with the development team (which can be downloaded as a 104MB movie
• At the Team page at the official Ultima X website, where you can currently read a biography of the following team members:
  • Rick Hall (Senior Producer)
  • Jonathan Hanna (Lead Designer)
  • Kevin Saffel (Client Programmer)
  • Jonathan LeCraft (Game Designer)
  • Rebekah Stone (Quest Designer)
  • Karina Simons (Quest Designer)
  • Eric Le Saux (Lead Server Programmer)
  • Cody Russell (Quality Assurance Tester)
  • Scott Carpenter (World Builder)
  • Amy Sage (Designer)

Trailers

A movie showing the making of Ultima X has been released on the movies page of UXO stratics on 22nd September 2003.

An Ultima X trailer was released around 22nd August 2003 by EA. It is 2 minutes and 34 seconds long, 22.3MB big and shows various things in Ultima X, including the Avatar, combat, a female gargoyle, several monsters and the Avatar/Guardian hybrid. It can be downloaded from:

• Gamer's Hell (download page)
• Worthplaying (download page)
• FilePlanet (download page)
• The Official Ultima X site (direct FTP download link)
• Ultima X OGaming (link to main page - the download link is in the left navigation menu)
• The UXO media page at GameSpot
• The Videos page at the UXO Compendium

Another 8-second long trailer containing a few combat scenes from the actual trailer leaked out on 16th August 2003, and can be downloaded (direct link) from UO Stratics.

Another trailer was released even earlier, on 26th July 2003, at http://www.eaxevent.com/, as a kind of preview for the game and hint to the X-Event, but it has been taken down since the X-Event is now over. It can now be found here at the UXO Compendium (thanks Natreg for finding this).

The X-Event

The Ultima X Premier Event took place in San Francisco between 21st and 22nd August 2003. The people who attended, from EA employees to Ultima Dragons, were told in detail about the upcoming game, and given the opportunity to play it themselves. If you want more information about it, you can read:

• The X-Event Report Report at the Official Ultima X website (22nd August 2003)
• The X-Event Report at HomeLan Fed (21st August 2003)
• An article about "Ultima X: Odyssey Unveiled" in the X-Event at Worthplaying
• A Japanese X-Event report (it's in Japanese, but has screenshots too)
• SirBruce's report on the UXO Stratics forum (23rd August 2003)
• The X-Event Report at UltimaDot
• A short article about the X-Event containing 35 exclusive pictures of the event itself - this article is on Dino's Ultima Page, but only thanks to the Origin Museum (25th August 2003)
• An X-Event Report at RPG Vault
• A short article about the EAXEvent with more pictures than words at the UXO Compendium

Most of the above links also have pictures, which are either in-game screenshots or photos of the X-Event.

Nitpicks

Ultima X is not considered canon for Ultima nitpicking at Hacki's Ultima Page, so I'm just going to collect the nitpicks myself for fun. Even though the game was never released, nitpicks have already been found:

• There are female gargoyles! This directly contradicts what we are told about gargoyles in Ultima 6, where there are supposed to be no female gargoyles! The mistake of having female gargoyles has been repeated from Ultima 9 where there is a gargoyle queen (see New Magincia nitpicks at Hacki's Ultima Page), but on a larger scale: in Ultima X, female gargoyles are a common thing! If you don't believe me, see this screenshot or this other one.
• The female gargoyles wear a bikini! See the screenshots above. This is plain ridiculous. This is meant to be a medieval world, not Hawaii.
• Again nitpicking the gargoyles: they have always been of a reddish colour. But nooo, according to the screenshots in the above two links, gargoyles are blue! (pointed out by green bamboo mystery peanut)
• The Guardian/Avatar hybrid bears a striking resemblance to Diablo.
• I can't understand how The Avatar/Guardian hybrid is a Diablo clone rather than a kind of wisp. At the end of Ultima 9, both the Avatar and the Guardian melted into pure energy and merged before ascending into the sky. Therefore, they should be floating pieces of energy, not a living creature!
• Slithe points out that as this FAQ answer explains, gaining eighths in virtues is treated as leveling up, not as the classic ritual involving runes, mantrae, shrines etc. Sad.
• Kobra Kai wonders where the spellbook and reagents are when we see a gargoyle cast a spell in the trailer.
• In this new world, there are new creatures (such as frost giants) and long-gone creatures (such as Ettins). One might argue how Ettins have reappeared suddenly, totally disregarding their disappearance since Ultima 4, while new creatures can be explained by the fact that this is a totally new world. However, we are told that Alucinor was made up from the Avatar's memories. Therefore, I must conclude that Ettins are excusable since the Avatar encountered them in Ultima 4, but new creatures such as frost giants, on the other hand, are not, because they were never encountered before.
• The Gargoyle fiction on the official site reads:

  and grown gargoyles boast large bat-like wings. They cannot fly, but use their wings and tails to ensure a keen sense of balance while fighting.

  Just in that bit there are already 2 nitpicks:
  1. Having wings never depended on the age of the gargoyles - winged and wingless gargoyles are just two different species!
  2. They cannot fly? They have always been able to. Lame excuse to limit the movement of gargoyle players.

© by Daniel D'Agostino 2002-2007