I just got an email from a friend saying "OMFG UO is closing down for good"

So as a 6 year vet who no longer plays I was very surprosed and pretty skeptical because it seemed to be travelling along as per normal last time I looked in and there is no mention of it on the official site.

Anyone heard anything to confirm or deny this ?? 

UO closed down after the summer of 2000.

Very amusing and pretty hard to dispute as someone who saw Trammel as the begining of the end.

But seriously lol....

I have asked them where the hell they got that from and as yet they havnt replied thats why I came here to the oracles of online gaming for the TRUTH!

I haven't heard anything to answer your question. However, as to discovering truth here, all you will learn is the "WOW RULES!" and "DARKFALL IS FAKE!" and not much in between.

Oh I forgot: "AOC HAS INSTANCES!"

But seriously, my little brother opened one of my old UO accounts the other day to see what was on it, and it still worked as recently as yesterday as far as i know.

Proof???

We got at least a year left...With around 50,000-60,000 accounts x $10 or so a month = about $600,000 a month  plus very popular micro transactions ,  I would think that would be pretty profitable for EA....

Looking over a few pages of info and some of the publishes and storylines going on they SEEM to be gearing up for some big stuff , they are currently doing a massive clean up Britt ( For old school players) , could UO be going less item based...

But hey it's EA you never know...

http://www.uoherald.com/news/

Yeah just got a reply from them saying they heard it from someone else too....

Looks like urban myth gone mad as per usual.

I hate the way I always end up considering going back everytime someone mentions the game though lol...one day Ill get over it.

Those of us that enjoyed UO while it was still an incredible free world, will never forget it.

But EA will never bring that back.

Like the previous poster said, UO died in 2000, when Lord British and team left, and EA put their minions in charge to try to copy EQ and completely change the game.

Makes you wonder if thats all UO is now a profitable training ground for future devs of EA , think about our dev cycles over the years , almost like a college degree path..

From one statement uo has about 100.000 accounts and is still highly profitable.

More than half of the playerbase is in asia though.

I do not think there is any truth to that rumor.  I keep up to date with UO quiet frequently and have not came across anything to lead me to believe they have made plans to close soon.  I will speculate that when Darkfall finally releases that UO will be forced to shut down, as the whole UO population will likely jump to Darkfall.  That is just speculation though.

I think UO will be around for awhile.  Hell, look at all the crap MMORPGs to the left of this post that are still in the released games that haven't been shut down yet lol.  It doesn't take a lot ot keep a heart beat in the MMORPG world. 

Originally posted by sempiternal

Those of us that enjoyed UO while it was still an incredible free world, will never forget it.

But EA will never bring that back.

Like the previous poster said, UO died in 2000, when Lord British and team left, and EA put their minions in charge to try to copy EQ and completely change the game.

I agree. Nothing will bring back the UO experience from 1997 to 2000. Bad design choices and expansions brought that to an end. You also can't have a Ultima without Lord British. UO is Ultima in name only now days. I wouldn't be surprised if the rumour is true. First the failure of Kingdom reborn. EA won't be happy about that after funding it. Following that the latest expansion just fallen quiet. Yet more funding wasted. I guess only time will tell, but it wouldn't surprise me at the least if this rumour is true.  Unless EA have plans for a new server that's just the new client with a new free to play, but micro payment system from things. As a free to play UO will find a place to thrive.

what sucks is that they can't merge the servers because of the housing. Some servers are just sitting there dead.

Originally posted by cantjump

what sucks is that they can't merge the servers because of the housing. Some servers are just sitting there dead.

Yeah storage servers for the people who have 8+ active accounts