Ultima Online Launches in Europe

Origin and Electronic Arts announced Tuesday that Ultima Online: The Second Age will be launching in Europe. While European-based servers have already been in use, this new European launch will offer The Second Age in European stores and the benefits that follow.

Current and upcoming European players can now make use of European-based customer support, instead of having to make long distance calls to the United States. The launch also features a more thorough European infrastructure for Ultima Online, helping to reduce latency.

"Ultima Online is the first online-only game to be set up in Europe with local servers and local player support," said Michel Cassius, European director online at EA. "Establishing a local infrastructure to support this revolutionary product enables European users to truly experience all the wonders that exist in the persistent world of UO. Latency is still the main issue with playing an Internet game while being geographically distant from the servers controlling that game. With this launch, we're providing a solution for our European players."

Origin currently estimates that there are around 15,000 European players, with an estimated 124,000 players worldwide. Players play on the average of 17 hours a week, and half the estimated player base plays on any one day.

With the launch of an official European version in retail, Origin obviously hopes to significantly boost its player base, which has been on a slow but somewhat steady increase since the initial fervor ended after the game's initial release in September 1997. Since then, Origin has released The Second Age in late 1998, an expansion and add-on of sorts that many users thought should have been the original version to begin with (see the GameSpot review). Ultima Online has suffered from numerous teething problems since its inception, and even with the release of The Second Age, and with a newer version of the Second Age for European users, Origin is betting on garnering a much larger European player base.