Ultima Forever is F2P RPG from BioWare

BioWare and EA have unveiled Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar, a browser and mobile title currently in beta.

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BioWare and EA have unveiled a new game in the Ultima series today: a free-to-play, browser and mobile title called Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar. The RPG is due for iPad and PC later this year, complete with cross-platform play, but the game is currently accepting beta sign-ups.

The official site sports a large beta sign-up button, which requires an Origin account. The game lets you choose between a Fighter and Mage class. The launch date for the closed beta wasn't detailed in the announcement, but EA promises more details for attendees of the San Diego ComicCon this weekend.

This game reveal comes just after Richard Garriott, who originally created Ultima, announced funding for his new Ultimate RPG for mobile platforms. It will have social hooks as well, but it seems that EA and BioWare will likely beat him to the punch.

"As huge fans of the Ultima franchise, the team at BioWare Mythic is not only excited to be able to bring this reimagining of the original rich world to the fans of the classic RPGs, but also to introduce a new generation of gamers who have never had a chance to discover why this is one of our industry's most beloved worlds," said BioWare Mythic general manager Eugene Evans, in the announcement.

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From The Chatty
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    July 12, 2012 7:30 AM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Ultima Forever is F2P RPG from BioWare.

    BioWare and EA have unveiled Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar, a browser and mobile title currently in beta.

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      July 12, 2012 7:36 AM

      As long as you can loot players I'm in.

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      July 12, 2012 7:37 AM

      So, it's Mythic doing it. In other words, one of the fake BioWares.

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        July 12, 2012 7:53 AM

        [deleted]

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          July 12, 2012 8:01 AM

          He means it's not the same studio that created Baldur's Gate or anything. It's under the "Bioware" umbrella, but has no real substantial ties to the golden age of Bioware.

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            July 12, 2012 9:56 AM

            And none of the core staff. That being said, there isn't much of the core staff from the golden age left there now anyway.

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            July 12, 2012 7:02 PM

            It's funny, because I remember when EA LA announced that they were renaming themselves to "Danger Close" (after the RTS part of EA LA closed down after C&C4's crash-and-burn), and "EA Visceral" renamed themselves to "Visceral", there was some EA executive interviewed as saying that the studios were going to take on names without "EA" in front of them, to solidify their own unique style and identity.

            ...up until they decided that they were going to throw the "BioWare" prefix in front of a bunch of studios, and now the BioWare brand is getting devalued.

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      July 12, 2012 7:46 AM

      Cross-platform action rpg? By Mythic. Hmm. Since they're targeting the iPad I guess the action will be rather light (can't really do Diablo style click mashing on a tablet).

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        July 12, 2012 7:50 PM

        Ultima was never about button-mashing, so yeah.

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      July 12, 2012 7:50 AM

      I guess I shouldn't be annoyed because the Ultima series went to shit a long time ago but this sounds like a bad idea.

      • Ziz legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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        July 12, 2012 8:00 AM

        I'm always excited to visit Britannia again. But yeah i hope this doesn't suck. I was hoping this wasn't what Richard was working on but sounds like it is.

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          July 12, 2012 8:21 AM

          No it's not or it would probably mention Lord British instead of Lady British on their website

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      July 12, 2012 7:57 AM

      I hope this is reasonably deep. It could be cool.

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      July 12, 2012 8:19 AM

      MMORGPS have been done on mobile and tablet devices with some pretty great successful. to name a few: Order & Chaos Online, Pocket Legends, and The World of Magic.

      this has the potential to be great.

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      July 12, 2012 8:22 AM

      nope.avi

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      July 12, 2012 9:02 AM

      Normally I would be excited beyond description will all this Ultima news coming out lately.. but I have a bad feeling about both of these 'games'.... I don't think these are the Ultimas I'm looking for.

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        July 12, 2012 2:04 PM

        Been waiting so long for UO2...I just want to play house and pk again in my little sandbox. Is that so wrong?

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          July 12, 2012 6:56 PM

          No! No it is not. I just want to mine my way up to poverty again.

          God damn why isn't Garriot or EA on that.

        • Ziz legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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          July 12, 2012 9:09 PM

          Yeah i was bummed when they canceled UO2. I still play UO.

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            July 13, 2012 8:08 AM

            Yeah, the game looked so far along and had a lot going for it. I was following that thing on a weekly basis before it went down. Damn shame.

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          July 12, 2012 9:11 PM

          Not only that but they canceled Ultima X as well. EA is just incapable of making another Ultima MMO apparently.

          • Ziz legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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            July 12, 2012 9:13 PM

            Yeah i was just looking at some of the videos on Ultima X. Didn't look too bad, a full 3D wrold of Britannia to explore would be nice. That was one reason i looked forward to Ultima 9. Though the towns were no where near as big as they was in Ultima 7.

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      July 12, 2012 10:21 AM

      Hey everybody, remember WAR? :)

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      July 12, 2012 11:45 AM

      God I hate EA's trend of renaming all their studios "Bioware ____".

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      July 12, 2012 11:59 AM

      And let the arse raping of Bioware by EA begin...

      I wish, I wish, I wish Bioware had remained independent.

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      July 12, 2012 7:55 PM

      Is this the one he called a "social RPG"?

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