browser-based MMORTS released in 2010 by EA Phenomic. It was the first release in the Ultima series since Ultima Online, and also the first title to have no involvement from series creator Garriott or founding company Origin. It has been criticized for having slow-paced gameplay and very weak connections to the Ultima franchise lore. EA announced on February 12, 2014 that Lord of Ultima would be shut down and taken offline as of May 12, 2014. Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar Announced in summer 2012, Ultima Forever was a free-to-play online action role-playing game. In contrast to Lord of Ultima, Ultima Forever returns to the lore of the original game series. As of August 29, 2014. Ultima Forever's servers were shut down. Other media Several novels were released under the Ultima name, including: The Ultima Saga by Lynn Abbey (Warner Books) The Forge of Virtue (1991) The Temper of Wisdom (1992) Ultima: The Technocrat War by Austen Andrews (Pocket Books) Machinations (2001) Masquerade (2002) Maelstrom (2002) In Japan, an Ultima soundtrack CD, two kinds of wrist watches, a tape dispenser, a pencil holder, a board game, a jacket, and a beach towel were released. There were rumours of an Ultima anime cartoon, but its existence has been described as unlikely. Three manga comics were released in Japan: Ultima: EXODUS No Kyoufu (The Terror of EXODUS) Ultima: Quest of the Avatar Ultima: Magincia no Metsubou (The Fall of Magincia) Ultima: The Maze of Schwarzschild PackagingUltima game boxes often contained so-called "feelies"; e.g. from Ultima II on, every game in the main series came with a cloth map of the game world. Starting with Ultima IV, small trinkets like pendants, coins and magic stones were included. Made of metal or glass, they usually represented an important object found within the game itself. Not liking how games were sold in zip lock bags with a few pages printed out for instructions, Richard Garriott insisted Ultima II be sold in a box, with a cloth map, and a manual.The Official Book of Ultima, page 23 Sierra was the only company at that time willing to agree to this, and thus he signed with them. Copy protection measures In the Atari 8bit version of Ultima IV one of the floppy disks had an unformatted track. In its absence the player would lose on every fight, which would not be obvious as a copy protection