[ Retro Scan of the Week ] Ultima VII Immortality Contest

July 9th, 2007 by Benj Edwards
Ultima VII Contest Flier

Once upon a time, Origin ran a contest in conjunction with the 10th anniversary of the Ultima series. The developer included a “black orb of the moons” (a piece of polished obsidian) in most boxed copies of Ultima VI, released in 1990. But in the case of ten lucky owners, they included a reproduction of an Ultima rune (I assume ten, anyway — it’s the number of runes pictured on the flier). Folks who found a rune in their box automatically won a spot as an NPC character in Ultima VII. Click on the image above to see the full flier describing the contest.

I’ve read about people winning the Ultima VII contest somewhere before, so I assume Origin went through with it. Did anybody out there get a rune or otherwise become an NPC in Ultima VII? By all means, let us know!

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5 Responses to “[ Retro Scan of the Week ] Ultima VII Immortality Contest”

  1. Jason Scott Says:

    Informative links about this:

    Google Groups

    Gamespy Forum Link

    And from http://www.bootstrike.com/Ultima7si/Online/spec.html

    “The pictures of the 12 winners of the Ultima VII contest are actually used in the game (obviously doctored a bit to put them in proper costume).”

  2. Benj Edwards Says:

    Awesome, Jason. Thanks a ton for the links.

  3. Dennis P Says:

    Who besides me remembers when Lord British’s online avatar was offed by someone who’d hacked the game? IIRC, it was when they were rolling out an expansion or some such.

  4. Benj Edwards Says:

    Dennis,

    Lord British was killed during the UO beta. For more info, check out this cool site, which even includes a screenshot:

    http://www.aschulze.net/ultima/stories9/beta.htm

  5. Dennis P Says:

    Benj,

    Great link! I’m happy that I was able to recall that bit of trivia ten years on.

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