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[Mighty Midget]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Bastos @ Apr 13 2007, 10:45 AM) [snapback]286872[/snapback]</div>

I believe that original, Ultima 9 was planned using the same engine as Ultima 8.
I remember seeing a screenshot on a Fansite, some time ago, wich they got from a developper at Origin at the time.

Too bad, this version got canned, and they made this 3D version....

L8r!
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True. It was intended to use the U8 engine, but at one point they turned towards 3d.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(zaphod_x86 @ Apr 13 2007, 02:24 PM) [snapback]286886[/snapback]</div>

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mighty Midget @ Mar 26 2007, 06:17 AM) [snapback]284994[/snapback]

Also: Many Ultima fans hated it so much for the breach of Ultima traditions, that that was a major factor why no X was ever released.
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AFAIK they never thought about making an X. Ultima has always been planned as three trilogies (age of darkness, age of enlightenment and age of armageddon) and the series was finalized with number 9 (IX) as it should have been.
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They did plan on the X, but it was shelved and U Online was made instead. I'm not sure how much of the planned X made it to Online, or if Online was made completly from scratch.

[Borodin]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mighty Midget @ Apr 13 2007, 05:26 PM) [snapback]286899[/snapback]</div>

They did plan on the X, but it was shelved and U Online was made instead. I'm not sure how much of the planned X made it to Online, or if Online was made completly from scratch.
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None, according to a friend of mine, who was working on UO at the time. He said U9 effectively killed the company, since it represented a great loss in money, and that's the one sin EA wouldn't allow. EA started dismantling Origin Systems at that point, piece by piece, until finally the let the entire UO team go bit by bit, bringing in their own folks to handle it.

Sad, really. But after the devastation that was U8, U9 was a complete disappointment, both to the critics and the fanbase. I remember being disgusted with the game, at the time. I think he showed just how out of touch Garriott became with the Ultima community, how obsessed he was with pushing the envelope and with action titles, and how stubborn he could get in the face of overwhelming evidence that his ideas were wrong.