Massively multiplayer online role-playing games have grown and changed over the years. They first appeared as text-based "multi-user dungeons" (or MUDs), though later games like Ultima Online and EverQuest added colorful graphics and fully realized, persistent online worlds that helped these games become even more immersive and addictive. Though the premise is similar in most of these games--you create a character of a specific race and profession, then go off to fight monsters and acquire treasures in an online world with other like-minded players--online RPGs have grown and changed over the years and have offered adventures in both high-fantasy and sci-fi settings. EA Games' Origin Systems studio is working on an all-new online RPG based on the Ultima mythos--the fantasy universe, created over a decade ago, that helped lay the foundations for modern role-playing games. We sat down with senior producer Rick Hall for more information.

Ultima X: Odyssey will offer diverse environments and equally diverse quests and opponents to face.

GameSpot: Thanks for joining us, Rick. What aspects of Ultima X: Odyssey is the team working on now? We saw that the game was already in a playable state at its unveiling, so is the team currently working on building out new content, or tweaking network code, or something else entirely?

Rick Hall: All of the above. We've got some great ideas for modifications and additional features from the players who attended the event, and we're already hard at work on these. These things involve some tweaks to the combat system, a lot of interesting ideas for guilds, some creature and ability ideas, and some thoughts people gave us on questing.

In addition to that, yes, we're adding in lots of content. Since the unveiling, we've added a horde of new monsters, about two dozen new maps, quite a lot of new quests, the basic guild creation and management features, some enhancements to the party system, item imbuing, some new special abilities, and a few other things. And, yes, we've also been working hard to optimize everything from the network code to the frame rate.

GS: Could you describe how character creation will work in the game? We know that you can choose to specialize in different character skills, like swordfighting and sorcery, but will the new game have a character development system that's as open-ended as that of Ultima Online?

RH: When you initially create your character, the first thing you'll do is choose your character race. You can be human, elf, gargoyle, orc, pixie, or phoda. You can be male or female in every race, except pixie (which has no males) and orc (which has no females). You'll also be able to customize with options like skin tone and face choices. And, finally, you'll be able to choose your character's path, which will be either the path of the blade, the path of balance, the path of the arcane, or the path of nature.

Each of the four paths encompass three different "disciplines," which are similar to what you might think of as "classes." For instance, the path of the blade contains the disciplines of barbarians, fighters, and knights.

Each discipline has its own themed set of skills associated with it. These skills are arranged in "tiers," with three choices in each discipline available at first level. In other words, a first-level follower of the path of the blade has three barbarian skills, three fighter skills, and three knight skills to choose from. But that character will not have access to any skills from the paths of the arcane, balance, or nature.

As players accumulate experience points, they will be rewarded with ability points. These ability points can be "spent" on the skills noted above. New skills can be purchased, or existing skills can be enhanced. After enough skill points are accumulated, the next tier of skills will be unlocked. There are six tiers in each discipline, with three skills per tier.

While there will be some benefits to choosing the majority of your skills from within a single discipline, there is nothing to prevent the player from choosing skills from any discipline within his class. This allows for better customization of the character's capabilities, while still adhering to a general theme.

You'll be able to aspire to the same level of virtue that the Avatar attained.

GS: We understand that players can attempt to aspire to the same level of virtue as the Avatar. How will the system work in practice? Will this kind of advancement take place primarily through quests? And will players have the option of eschewing virtue in favor of vice in order to serve the Guardian and advance as an evil character?

RH: Since the ascension system is still in its prototype stages, we don't want to release a lot of details that might change before we go into public beta. With that stated, I can verify that you will indeed be able to achieve the same level of virtue as the Avatar, when he ascended, and this advancement will heavily involve questing.

And in answer to your remaining question, we're not planning on supporting an antivirtue system in the initial release. However, if players express enough interest in this, we can certainly undertake it in an expansion. As you know, massively multiplayer games evolve and take on a life of their own after launch. We plan to solicit feedback from the players as much as possible, and we'll base our decisions for additions and enhancements on that.