Ultima X: Odyssey Interview

GameSpot has conducted an interview with Origin’s Rick Hall, asking the senior producer quite a few questions about Ultima X: Odyssey. A snippet:

Q: 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?

A: 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.