UO/Linux

a.k.a. Ultima Online: Shattered Legacy / UO

published by author, running on Linux

type: role-play
genre: Fantasy, Massively Multiplayer Online Game, Sandbox
series: Ultima
perspective: bird's-eye
player options: Internet

languages: eng rus

Technical specs

display: raster

Editor note

UO/Linux is project that is both an unofficial client for Ultima Online and a server for UO clones and other homebrew games.

It is worth noting that shortly after the initial release of Ultima Online, the server portion of the game was ported to Unix and an as of yet undisclosed database system in an attempt to eliminate technical, reliability, stability, scalability issues of their cluster of Solaris servers, Oracle Enterprise Database, and the unexpected rapid growth to 100,000 players. This was done on-the-fly without time to plan it well. Many early gameplay changes were thought to be reactionary to the numerous social based problems that manifested. However, the majority of these changes were actually a result of getting the server being ported as quickly as possible. As time past, the servers migrated again, but with more careful planning. By 2003 UO was running exclusively on Red Hat Linux. The open-sourceness of Linux allow Electronic Arts to make changes to their server software to fix problems rather than making changes in the game that would be noticed by players. After 2003 three, all changes were gameplay driven rather than technical workarounds. Since 2003 a variety of Linux distros have been used on various servers but Red Hat remains the majority solution. The database software used is unknown but most certainly is one of the Linux database solutions that allowed for snapshotting in 2005. Since EA has made contributions to Red Hat for the purposes of improving their product, it seems likely they would also choose an open source solution for their database.