This month, Ultima Online celebrates its 26th birthday. During the beta phase of the game, there was a memorable moment that profoundly influenced the MMORPG genre. A player managed to kill Lord British.
Who is Lord British?
- He is the fictional ruler of Britannia.
- His creator is the developer Richard Garriott.
- Lord British appears in several games of the Ultima series.
- He is nearly invincible.
- Players still try to kill him in every part of the series.
In the community, it became a running gag to kill Lord British in each of the Ultima games. In Ultima III: Exodus, for example, he was lured to the docks and killed by a cannonball.
Ultima VII contains an Easter egg that allows you to kill Lord British by standing under a golden tablet at the castle gate, which then crashes down on him. This incident is even a reference to a real accident that developer Garriott had, where a metal rod fell on his head and he had to go to the hospital.
Even today, there are MMORPGs that are several decades old but still have active players:
How did the death in Ultima Online happen? A month before the game’s release, there was a stress test for the servers. The beta test took place on August 9, 1997, and the game was released about a month later, on September 24, 1997.
Developer Richard Garriott was even personally on the servers, taking on the role of Lord British.
However, one of the beta testers named Rainz sneaked up as a skilled pickpocket and stole a scroll from another player, with which he could cast a fire spell. He cast a large fire area on the bridge, from which the GM seemed unimpressed.
Rainz feared that in the next moment, a lightning bolt would strike him or something heavy would fall on him. But instead, Lord British began to grunt in agony and die in the fire area.
Two bugs led to this kill being possible at all:
- The guards that would have punished the thief for his pickpocketing were turned off due to lags.
- Due to a reset, the developer lost his “invulnerable” status and forgot to turn it back on.
Thus, even before the release of Ultima Online, it was possible to kill Lord British. This incident still reminds GMs today that they should double-check if they have the correct status.
Moreover, this event established a postulate that goes as follows:
If it exists as a living being in an MMORPG, someone, somewhere, will try to kill it.
And indeed, this postulate still holds true today. In Baldur’s Gate 3, for example, there is a player who has killed 583 NPCs and stuffed them into a teddy bear. There will always be players who will attempt to kill innocent NPCs in video games.
What is Ultima Online? Ultima Online is the first game to describe itself as a “Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game.” Even today, there are still fans playing the title.
Currently, Ultima Online is trying to attract new players by introducing legacy servers: The very first MMORPG wants to reinvent itself after 26 years, testing servers with new rules.
