For the past 20 years, the Ultima series has stood as the high water mark in roleplaying games. The first three were great, but with the release of Ultima 4: Quest of the Avatar, Origin Systems brought the Ultima series to greatness. Ultima 5: The Shadow Lords, Ultima 6: The False Prophet, and Ultima 7: The Black Gate all pushed the envelope on what a roleplaying game could be. When Ultima 8: Pagan was released, many gamers were dissapointed. The game was not like the previous Ultimas, and was not nearly as good. So, thousands of Ultima fans turned their collective eye's to Origin's next and final Ultima game: Ultima 9: Ascension. In development for over 5 years, Ultima 9 was released in the winter of 1999. What Ultima's legions of fans thought would be the greatest ever turned out to be a buggy, unfinished, barely playable game. Electronic Arts, Origin's publisher, wanted to make a holiday release to boost sales. So, with Ultima creator Richard "Lord British" Garriot's grand finale to this great series nowhere near completion, EA shipped it in its terrible state. Lord British is no longer with Origin, no new Ultima sequel is being made, and the Ultima series will now only continue in its online incarnations, Ultima Online and the upcoming Ultima Worlds Online: Origin.
The purpose of this petition is for Origin to Realize what went wrong with Ultima 9 and to try their best to fix this. By this, I mean release Ultima 10. If Ultima 10 could be developed without EA's interference, and with Lord British in the mix, it could easily be the best game ever. If Ultima 1-7 is anything to go by, Ultima 10 could really be better than Diablo, Starcraft, or even Half-Life.