Bummer. From the UX:O Producer last night:
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
I was looking forward to this game, and I’ll admit partially from a selfish standpoint. EA Games paid for me to go to San Francisco for a weekend in October 2003 and promised me a beta tester slot. The graphics were brilliant, the game controls incredibly easy to learn. Everybody thought the beta would begin this spring.

Then EA did something stupid – they decided to close their Origin Systems devision and move everybody to California. The only problem with that is the employees of UX:O didn’t want to leave Austin. The entire development team quit.
So EA Games closed down *another* online game – Earth & Beyond – and tried to move all the developers to Ultima X. Apparently that wasn’t working, so last night Ultima X was canned.
The really stupid thing is that this is *twice* they’ve developed a sequel for Ultima Online. Back in 1999 they announce Ultima Online 2 and then killed that in early 2001.
I guess that means they aren’t going to fly me out to San Francisco anymore to play games. 😦

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