Ultima Online: Lord Blackthorn’s Revenge
Announced:
Shipped: February 24, 2002
Previous Expansion: UO: Third Dawn
Next Expansion: UO: Age of Shadows
Related Books:
- Ultima Online: Lord Blackthorns Revenge Official Strategy Guide (2002)
Notes/Features/Additions:
- One of the two “dark” expansions (UO: Age of Shadows, the next year, being the second).
- Introduced pseudo-cyborg characters created by Todd McFarlane for the now-defunct Ultima Online 2 project.
- MIDI music files replaced by MP3s.
- New player tutorial upgraded.
- Minor interface changes
- Promotional Cyborg-Blackthorn action figure came with first editions. Also, a seperate line of action figures came out feature characters from UO:LBR.
- Second release later in the year, sans action figure.
- “Powerhour” Above a certain level, you can really only gain skills the first hour you play everyday.
- New character templates.
- Virtue system being worked on
- [Young] player tag - for your first 40 hours in-game you can’t be attacked.
- Todd McFarlane mini-comic in the box.
- “Over 30″ new monsters.
>> LBR Development Team
Storyarc - Lord Blackthorn returns (in Ultima V, he took Lord British’s throne)
Reviews: GameSpot - March 22, 2002. They gave it 6.7 out of 10 (their readers gave it 7.2) Whether or not you’ll enjoy Ultima Online depends on whether you find appealing the prospect of establishing your own objectives within a virtual sandbox and then constantly repeating a number of relatively mundane tasks to achieve those goals. That’s not tedious to players who are excited by the prospect of living a virtual profession in a gaming world that’s not entirely focused on battling monsters. However, the graphics, interface, and combat system are so cumbersome and dated that Ultima Online’s appeal is becoming increasingly niche. Its uniqueness has allowed Ultima Online to boast an unprecedented record for commercial longevity, but the game is finally running out of steam.
