phase of Ultima Online (UO), Origin moved most of the Ultima IX team to work on that game in late 1996. By the time work resumed on the game in late 1997, corporate interest in Ultima IX had greatly diminished, many of the original team members had left Origin, and the 3D engine was already becoming out of date. Ultima IX had a technically impressive game engine, but it was completely software-rendered and would not be able to compete with newer engines taking advantage of 3D hardware acceleration. The 3D models were built in LightWave 3D with 16-bit textures, but when rendered in software the textures had to be reduced to 8-bit. Once Ultima IX resumed production in late 1997, Origin hired Ed del Castillo, who had produced such hits as Command & Conquer, as producer of the title. The third version of the game was developed between 1997 and 1998. The Ultima IX team experimented with different camera angles in the now hardware-accelerated 3D engine and decided that a third-person over-the-shoulder perspective, similar to that used in Tomb Raider, made for the best view of the graphics and could run well even when rendering the full 16-bit textures. Over the next few months, it was revealed that the game would no longer have a party of companions for the Avatar and would once again be a single-character game. The amount of art and voice recording work required meant that there would not be a female Avatar option. The plot had changed as well. Many aspects of the previous plot still seemed to be present, but Britannia appeared to be a world much more firmly under the Guardian's grasp. The player would control the Avatar throughout most of the game, but some parts of the game would put him in control of Lord British, Shamino, or the female pirate Raven. In early 1998, several designers of the game, including lead designer Bob White, left Origin. By the middle of 1998, del Castillo resigned due to "philosophical differences", Garriott took a more active role in the production of the game, and Seth Mendelsohn joined the team as lead designer. They re-wrote the entire story for the game, now focusing on the Avatar's final visit to Britannia, and the reaction of the people of Britannia to this news. Some elements of the previous storyline were kept, presumably to make use of the