http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...aken-virtues-0
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/
I watched the stream from today (3/9), sounds very promising. Typical kickstarter as in it's a long ways off (Oct 2014), but it's the first one I've pledged to. Loved the Ultima games, never got a chance to play UO, and I can certainly appreciate that Garriot completely changed the landscape for video games with some of his creations. I pirated enough of his games when I was younger that I probably owe him some money anyways.
It's going to be single player(completely offline) with a multiplayer option that has a persistent world. They mentioned some sort of validation of the client for being able to play online. They talked about a 'relevance' system of sorts, basically if there's 10,000 people around you in the persistent world it won't draw all of them, only the ones that are 'relevant' to you. The main aspect of the persistent world is the housing / real estate from what i can gather.
They mentioned there would be some open PvP, similar to UO, specifically around rare resources. They seemed to indicate some sort of incentive system to PvP(Not only for just killing people, but for killing griefers etc).
Also seemed to bash the whole micro transaction idea while also saying they would have some sort of similar system, hoping that gets cleared up at some point. He did say they want to release a new 'Episode' each year, which would 'basically double the scope of the game'. Sounded like expansions to me, but once a year. I think more about this will come out in the stretch goals.