Ultima Online: Lord Blackthorn's Revenge Official Strategy Guide

This was published in 2002 to coincide with the release of the expansion, the fourth for Ultima Online, which was noteworthy for none other than Todd "You're Damn Right, I Created Spawn!" McFarlane joining the design team to populate a new zone within the now much larger map of Britannia with all sorts of twisted nightmares from his imagination.

For some reason, the two expansions that happened prior to Lord Blackthorn's Revenge (Ultima Online: Renaissance and Ultima Online: Third Dawn) both dropped without getting corresponding strategy guides, official or otherwise. Because of that, the guide to Lord Blackthorn's Revenge had to cover an awful lot of territory, as the playable world within the game had more than doubled since Second Age, with entire new continents now populated with extensive new dungeons. But in addition to covering all the updated content, this book offers a slew of extra content of use/interest to fans of Ultima who couldn't care less about playing the MMO. This includes an overview of the grand Ultima timeline featured in all the games which had released up to that point, a character glossary for major NPCs, significant events that had taken place both in the online and off-line games, a guide for new players, an interview with Todd "Did I Mention I Created Spawn?" McFarlane, and a bunch of other goodies. Even if you couldn't care less about a twenty year old expansion to an MMO, you'll probably find something worth reading if you have even a passing interest in the Ultima world or RPGs in general.

This is a remarkably well put together book, with a lot of great information. Obviously it's more useful if you're familiar with Ultima Online, but even if you don't know much (I never played the game myself, though I had friends in college who did, so most of my knowledge comes from their accounts), it's still a really cool book that deals with far more than just stat tables and skill progression lists.

Enjoy!