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Ultima Forever: Quest For The Avatar Shuts Down This Month
Today a representative from developer Mythic announced that the free-to-play PC and iPad MMO Ultima Forever: Quest For The Avatar’s servers will shut down on August 29. Some final changes and in-game bonuses are being added into the MMO for its last month.
Ultima Forever’s in-game store no longer sells the premium silver and gold keys. Instead, the chance of gold keys dropping has been increased. Equipment degradation is disabled, and players will earn significantly greater virtue and reputation awards. These changes will be made available soon and will remain in effect until the game is shut down.
Ultima Forever: Quest For The Avatar released for PC and iOS on August 7, 2013. The MMO is a continuation of the venerable Ultima video game series. Ultima Forever returns to the original series in-game lore and features the MMO staples of single-player content, player-versus-environment cooperative dungeons, and player-versus-player combat.
This news follows the shutting down of Ultima Forever’s development studio Mythic earlier this year. The studio also developed Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, which was taken offline in December last year. If you’re feeling wistful or nostalgic for Ultima, you can read senior editor Matt Bertz’ Fourth of July celebration piece on Ultima VII: The Black Gate, or watch this video feature in which Richard Garriott, Felicia Day, and Greg Kasavin talk all about the influential RPG series.
Our Take
It's always a shame when game servers are shut off, particularly when the game is relatively new and still has a devoted group of players. It was a nice touch to include the last few changes, which seem to be all about rewarding players who stuck around and speeding the game up so it can be more fully experienced before it's over. Hopefully fans will be able to use these updates to squeeze a bit more enjoyment out of the title before it's shut down.
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