Ultima Online's Greatness

[dwight]

I've been reading some wiki texts about Ultima Online and sometimes I find some curious facts. I decided to share for those like me that didn't knew such stuff.

The orginal idea before ultima online was releasead 8 years before i was even born:
Akalabeth: World of Doom

Did you also know Lord British name is Cantabrigian British:
Lord British Assassination

Also Issues with Ultima Online release in gaming world.

and there is more more curious on same pages!

[Charha]

Cantabrigian? That's very interesting... I used to read Computer Gaming World in the 90s, but the issue where this Cantabrigian name is mentioned seems to be from the 80s.

Akalabeth, heh. I used to play that. I really admire the way Richard Garriott was so ambitious when it comes to developing his game series. You can literally see that each game in the series is in someway more advanced than the previous one. I'm sure they had high hopes even for Ultima IX, but some things are just not meant to be.

My favorite "did you know this about the Ultima series" trivia is that the song "Stones" has lyrics and it was composed by Iolo & Gwenno who are IRL friends of Richard Garriott. This Iolo guy, David R. Watson, actually makes bows and such - and he even looks like his character. Gwenno was his wife, Kathleen Jones. I remember that Ultima VI was particularly ripe with references to people IRL. You can even find Garriott's ex-girlfriend there...

[Xerxes]

Let aside both Iolo and Gwenno were quite important characters in Ultima 5 : Warriors of Destiny

[aldath c'om]

Gwenno's Harp
Gwenno's Harp is a Lap Harp classified as a Traditional Minor Artifact. It can be obtained by either killing Paragons/Leviathans, or by extracting chests located via Level 6 (Ingeniously Drawn) or Level 7 (Diabolically Drawn) Treasure Maps.
Gwenno is the wife of Iolo, and likewise the harp is the counterpart of Iolo's Lute.