One of the greatest accomplishments of OSI (Origin Systems Inc.), the creators of the classic Ultima series, is the MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) Ultima Online. To put it bluntly, it was the first main stream success for this now quite large subgenera of games. Ultima Online was first released to the public in 1997, and it has been going quite strong ever since. The reason for this is the evolving world, the constant changes, and the fact that it is a truly multiplayer game. The game that you buy in the store is the client of the game. The game it's self is played on servers, known as shards. Each shard has it's own history, culture, and players. There are no two shards that are the same, with the exception of the map, which is, with the exception of player built housing, an unchangeable area in the game.

The plot of the game is a rather a point which cannot be rated. There have been several attempts for OSI to introduce plots into the game of their own design, but, for the most part, it is up to the players to create their own fantasies. The game is built on the imagination of the players, more or less. The sound in the game isn't great, but it is useful. In a world where your adversaries are computer generated and human alike, sound gives you an insight to whom is standing just off screen. The game provides Midi music to be played in different situations and different parts of the world, but it gets old fast and I would say that, as impressive as some of the soundtrack is, most people turn off the music.

The game is so realistic that you can build a house and even bake bread. The housing has become a highly valued point by most players. The game has started to enter the real world even more than it has with the recent craze of selling in game goods on EBay. Accounts, gold, housing, rare items. You can sell most any items from the game on EBay and, if your price is right, get a good amount of real world gold for it. Housing has become a rarity in all shards. With the almost 150,000 total accounts in the game world, most of whom want housing, it has become the most expensive part of the game. UO's gold has such a high exchange rate that recently, an OSI representative told a group he was speaking to that the UO gold had overtaken the Italian Lira in exchange value. Not bad for a few pixels on your screen.

In the game, you can have one of the massive multitude of carriers. You can be anything from a powerful wizard to a lumberjack. There is a huge array of player made goods that can be built by different skills. A carpenter can craft anything from a wooden stool to a training dummy to a stone oven. Many skills in the game have become more highly valued than others. An example of such a value is blacksmithing. Blacksmiths, epically grand master (the highest skill level you can get in any skill) blacksmith, are in constant demand by the players most of whom are fighting almost constantly. You aren't restricted to only fighting NPC (Non Player Characters) monsters generated by the game. You can do PvP (Player Vs. Player) fighting as well. Many complain about PvPers who kill people who don't wish to participate in PvP, commonly known as PKs (Player Killers) and there are constantly plans in the work to restrict them further.

In this evolving world of Britannia (the world UO takes place in), change is a way of life. In many ways, reviews can't do the game justice. I tried to make this review so that it can be accurate for some time in the future. But, by the time you read this in the future, it could be so out of date it is laughable. There is always something changing in the game and it will continue to do so indefinitely. I suggest this game to anyone who enjoys playing RPGs with others in the game at the same time. Though it may not have a set plot, this game is a true RPG. The major difference between this and other RPGs is the fact that in this game, you set your own role. I give this game an over all rating of 85%.