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This section presents fan art I have either enhanced or created for Ultima Online. But before we go into the images themselves, let me just briefly share my analysis of Ultima art - something which will enlighten most of you on understanding what drove me to do all this!  In December of 2005, I launched a thread which was to become by far, the most viewed and commented thread in the history of the Stratics U-Hall. In addition, this single thread was active for over two years and still today, people refer to it. For years I'd watched as the quality of UO's art declined, but had never complained - assuming the UO team was aware of the issues and would in time fix them. Sadly, I was wrong and that fateful day when I first layed eyes on the new bonsai art launched with Samurai Empire - that was when I knew I had to do something. First I ranted in my blog, but soon realized it was not reaching the right audience. So, I decided to write a collective rant in the Stratics U-Hall, notorious for it's sharpe tongued members and exclusive culture. But the art of UO had never been very highly prioritized - not by developers nor by the players themselves. In fact, if one were to have posted a sensible and short complaint about the art, a flock of angry people would stormed down to shush and crush the thread, their biggest excuse being that there are much more important things that need to be fixed in the game than art. And whilst I agree that playability issues and major bugs are more important, art cannot be kept on the back burner, patiently waiting for it's turn forever. When would it ever be time for art considerations? Thus, to get my point through, I'd have to do something dramatic and memorable. Something right up there in your face. So to accompany my complaints, I launched a challenge: Name any new art which you find badly done, and I shall make an improved version! Indeed, "new" art, meaning that I had no complaints about UO's legacy art. On the contrary that was one of my biggest complaints: that any new art brought into the game was straying - utterly inconsistent with the original stuff. At first, the readers were dumbfounded, not quite knowing how to react to such an arrogant, yet intriguing post. I was an outsider to U-Hall - was I to be received with contempt for such bravery or with delight and admiration for the example I'd set. Luckilly, for the most part, this thread was received with anger and disgust as the readers realized just how bad the art had become, and with jubilation as I and other artists started to show examples of how things could be. Eventually there were several artists all working together to set UO's art straight and as the thread remained persistently active, the status of art in UO rose to be one of the most talked about subjects. If I achieved anything, it was raising the art issues to a much higher priority level. I have saved the entire thread, which you can read in the following link. Below that, are links to the images I posted to the challenge. 
  ue to my disappointment in how UOKR had turned out, I pondered the "what-could-have-beens" of the UO art. One of the ideas floating in my head was a curiousity to see what the legacy UO art could have looked like, had it been simply doubled in size and polished. There were many benefits to this type of solution: most likely, the graphics would be 100% compatable with the code (unless dimensions were hard coded), alignment and positioning of items in the game itself would be 100% compatable and everything would work automatically. People's paperdolls, houses and decorations would all look like they should. I'm a firm believer, that the last thing you should mess with, are people's creations - be they real or virtual. And lastly: it would look exactly like UO, only bigger and better! I mean, the only reason people ranted about the art being outdated, was simply because screen resolutions have roughly doubled in 10 years and now you have to squint to see the game world and tiny objects. This in turn, makes playing the game much less immersive. But there is absolutely nothing wrong with the art itself, it had simply become too small. This was the perfect solution. So, mimicking the style of the first challenge, I asked people to give me resize tasks, and I would scale them up, polish and show how nice UO could have been.
Here is the thread and below links to the art.
  've been worried, watching how UOKR is moving UO into a different direction visually. Like myself, many believe the new style has lost some of the classic Ultima characteristics and has become much more generic. Mainly due to the new UI, the look now resembles that which can be seen in many of the current MMOs. This is a good thing in a way, since it makes learning the game more familiar for new players. But if UO is trying to get a part of the Big League action, it needs to have a look which is stunning and at least comparable, if not superior to other current games. But does it succeed in that? Or does the quality leave much to be desired? Many fear the latter - which means that taking that brave step into the boxing ring with the heavy weights will only result in ridicule, humiliation and failure. If there is one thing that has kept Ultima Online afloat for ten years despite it's outdated engine and look, it is the unique and special character - a game like no other. We shall see in the coming years, what the fate of this game is as they continue their journey in melting this into the rest of the crowd.
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