It was then the negative hype that has surrounded every MMORPG released since began to emerge on the Internet. UO was a lagfest. In UO, you could not take 10 steps without being jumped by 30 player killers. No one in UO spoke English, they all spoke some mangled sort of monosyllabic internet dialect that took years to learn. None of the players of UO used shampoo. I’d heard it all from multiple sites, and my interest was no longer. That which you cannot have, because convincing your parents to pay $10 a month for another of those video game things is impossible, is easier to deal with if you start to dislike it. And so, as if it were so much steaming pile that follows in the wake of horses, I stayed my distance from Ultima Online. Meanwhile, Everquest and Asheron’s Call emerged. At the same time, Origin took a long look at their game and began to improve it, once with Second Age, once with Renaissance and now again with Third Dawn.

For a computer game, age usually means extinction. In UO’s case, its longevity provided an opportunity to fine tune the intricate balance and augment the content that a MMORPG’s quality depends on. Third Dawn is the next step in these additions, and though any kind of change to a game with thousands of dedicated players is bound to attract a faction of disgruntled fans threatening to PK and loot its designers, it is hard to deny that Third Dawn is, at the least, certainly another solid step forward and an improvement in UO. It will not, for most people, have the impact of Renaissance. It does not revolutionize Ultima Online as we know it, nor does it stand much chance of preparing it to compete with the onslaught of flashy new MMORPGs for anyone except the already addicted.

What it does do is add a piecemeal 3D engine atop slight tweaks here and there and a new world designed for the 3D client offering a needed sense of something new for jaded players to explore. New player models, better looking monsters and flashy little spell and lighting effects help curb the boredom with visuals playing a persistent world for years can invite. None of it is really impressive by today’s visual standards. The player models have an average look from farther away but zooming in (another new feature) shows that Britannia’s drinking water comes straight from the sea of ugly juice. Animation, however, is smooth and fluid and watching battles becomes at least temporarily less tedious through the graphical improvement. The new three-dimensional monsters and scenery do add to the appearance and blend fairly well with the two-dimensional world and viewpoint previously in place. It should be noted that no actual ability to look around as in fully 3D games exists in Third Dawn, and so visually, the game still fails to rival competitors in immersion. Enhanced spell effects are a nice touch, and they reminded me somewhat of the console game style bursts of light and magic the simpler spells produce in polygonal Playstation RPGs.

Part of Ultima Online: Third Dawn’s aim was to appeal to new players. At this, it wins some successes but still ultimately will struggle to draw players from promises of titans like Star Wars Galaxies or technologically more impressive addictions like Everquest. I found the changes in the interface to be beneficial; the initial learning curve was simple and everything was easy to find and figure out given a few minutes of time.

Companions, as the volunteer-type helpers are currently called, came fairly quickly to my aid and offered assistance and insight to a newbie like myself. The town of Haven that lets you ease the transition to the new world and the great amounts of helpful players makes life Third Dawn a place that is welcoming enough to people who have never tried UO. Unfortunately, there’s little to really pull in new players in the first place. Ultima feels like an old game, despite the revamps. It’s not so much the 2D viewpoint, because I myself love 2D games and my TV and monitor are displaying pixelated sprites as often as high-res voxel quad-linear alpha-filter bump-mapped polygons. It’s a matter of a game that was once innovative really having nothing too exciting to offer right now. I’ve heard testimony from a lot of people who have burnt out on the other first-generation MMORPGs and have switched to UO for a few months, and those people are often very satisfied just to have something different but equally addicting. Third Dawn will certainly fill that role for some who have never been on UO.

Another feature Third Dawn it adds is the exciting ability to crash many computers and generate hundreds of griping threads on UO message boards everywhere. This is not to say Third Dawn will not work perfectly on the average 300 MHz computer. There are merely many incompatibilities, a problem mitigated somewhat by how easy it is to patch UO and how ready the team seems to be to do so if needed. The older 2D client from UO: Renaissance is included on the CD as well, so if you’re a new player and discover an incompatibility, at the very least you’ll still be able to play sans the new world. If you’re an older player and you took advantage of their temporary offer, you’re only paying $10 for the upgrade, so at least it’s not too great a loss. Still, such bugs are irritating. My guess as to why Third Dawn was launched when it was, without further testing and tweaking, is to somewhat stave the loss of players in response to the canceling of the promising UO2. In any case, like so many games these days, UO: Third Dawn is a slightly risky purchase compatibility-wise. Most systems will be fine and the complaints are often just showcasing the enraged and vocal minority who is unfortunate enough to have troubles with running the game.

It’s still a shame that Ultima Online 2 was cut down before its prime, leaving us only with memories of wonderful screenshots, teasers and promises of an amazing MMORPG, but if anything is to benefit from that loss, it is Ultima Online. So long as the game remains a good moneymaker for Electronic Arts, the community will be supported and further updates like Third Dawn are certainly possible. Expansions can hardly turn Ultima Online into a new game, but they can undoubtedly enhance the experience.

As a $10 upgrade, this is a worthy package, assuming you have a higher end computer with no compatibility problems. As a $40 introduction to UO, it really comes down to your priorities in a game. Ultima Online still maintains a strong community. It still is largely a social game, and the clan systems and organized conflicts are certainly enticing. There’s a lot of world to explore, the skill-based experience system offers a nice contrast and freedom to standard RPG, and the new additions to the world Third Dawn brings only add more reason to play. For the thousands of players who still pay the $10/ month fee, Ultima Online is a satisfying experience. It’s not for everyone by any means, and if you don’t mind sacrificing the 3D client and new world, purchasing Ultima Online: Renaissance will allow you much of the same enjoyment without as much of an investment. Going at the price of a full retail game and still requiring the monthly charge, yet being a dated game with a few enhancements, Third Dawn does create a slight feeling of something lacking. A more substantial update would have further justified the cost and eased over the mourning of UO2. Nonetheless, this is an expansion on a title that created a genre and thousands of loyal fans, and given a little time in Britannia, you’ll discover why.