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History
On January 6th, 2001 developer Krystal Myth opened a legendary free-shard that would touch the lives and imaginations of players around the world. Imagine Nation was truly unique. The world was detailed and customized, the Sphere scripting was top notch, and the staff was dedicated and professional. Custom crafting and role-playing took a front seat focus. The customized client gumps were red, bold, and carried the theme of the shard in game. KM clearly was a fan of the Ultima series and included the lore in his shard. IN took steps to avoid problematic players by being a private community. They only allowed players that were willing to submit a role-playing story of their character to the team with their desired account name and password, and if approved their account was added. IN pushed the boundaries of what was possible with Sphere 0.51a and the development tools at the time. At peak it had over 120 players online at any moment. The staff members became community staples in their own right. Many moved on to other projects or iterations of IN, and Aarya went on to develop Pandora's Box, one of the most widely used decoration tools in the free-shard community. Sphere 0.51a was closed source, and had many game and immersion breaking bugs that were never able to be fixed without access to the core code. Despite this, IN was considered a highly successful and long running Sphere shard and ultimately closed in 2004, due to being obsolete after the launch of Imagine Nation 2. Fans of IN remember back fondly to IN1 as the golden era of the now long running franchise, which following shards strove to capture a glimpse of the magic the original provided.
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On April 5th, 2003, Imagine Nation 2 was released. It didn't replace the original IN, both shards ran side by side. Krystal Myth, now Coldrake, wanted to offer a customized shard using the much more stable RunUO core. With less bugs came core gameplay changes, as RunUO by default was set in the AOS era. Coldrake wasn't as concerned about the gameplay era as much as providing a place for role-players to express themselves. While it was a good shard, the player base and staff were now split between two servers and play styles, which prompted the closure of IN1 in 2004.
In 2006, Imagine Nation Reborn was launched in an attempt to provide a new home to a divided community. INR was the first attempt by the IN team to recreate the Sphere 0.51a playstyle in the RunUO engine. The task was monumental, and the team lacked a developer that could bring the shard closer to providing an IN1 style experience. With a long bug list, the shard closed.
IN 2007, IN merged with the Xtreme Ultima Online team to become Imagine Nation Xtreme. Much of the initial code to bring the project closer to Sphere was written by Makaveli, who retired by the beta release. The shard had a dream team staff, Coldrake was still the shard owner and Taran was brought on as lead administrator. They had a full team of developers and GM's of various time zones to assist the growing player base. Although the shard was successful, critics found the world building lacked the polish and detail of the original IN shard. The shard was designed as a blend of the IN themes, weapons, and armor with XUO's Sphere 0.55i style of gameplay known to many as "fizzle pvp". Unlike 0.51a, spells were disruptable in combat by using other spells or attacks, which greatly affected the way combat was performed. While the XUO community was used to this, the IN community was not, and a rift developed that couldn't be reconciled. In 2010, INX closed.
IN 2011, Taran with developers Shade and Eru reforged the INX codebase to bring the community a shard that was much more than a passion project. Imagine Nation UO marks the first time Coldrake didn't take a lead role and the torch of Imagine Nation had officially been passed. Over several months the world began to look much more like the IN players had been missing for nearly ten years. New features such as quests and daily events were added and the community responded well. The shard peaked in February 2012 with over 200 players online, a huge milestone for the somewhat niche Sphere era of Ultima Online. The fizzle pvp system of 0.55i was removed in favor of a customized version that more closely represented 0.51a. Although imperfect, the shard did well and many agree IN UO was the best use iteration of the official IN RunUO codebase to date. As time went on, the lead admins began to grow apart from the project. It was rumored that Shade had passed away, but was never confirmed. By July 2012 the shard was officially closed and the source code was released a year later, which is still available on Github.​
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In the summer of 2008, late night on the dusty streets of the Burning Man festival in Nevada, two brothers and a life long friend were discussing the glory days of Imagine Nation and Ultima Online. With a clear vision to create an accurate Sphere 0.51a experience, they began to take matters into their own hands. Development began as soon as they returned home on CataclysmUO, the spiritual successor to Imagine Nation. The team started from scratch with a blank canvas of RunUO 2.0, a dream, some free time and plenty of ideas. While IN Xtreme was still running strong, Klysmos, Insidious, and Tantrik worked behind the scenes quietly coding, designing and building, and testing. Much of the world design was based on memory, but in 2009 the team was given the original leaked IN server files and Tantrik found a copy of the client files on an old burned CD. UO:98 was used to test against The Second Age to fill in the gaps of content Sphere was lacking. The team now had what they needed to create an accurate experience. On December 13th, 2014 Cataclysm launched. There was no beta release, and players attended on launch day. Several hotfix patches were required and once stable, additional patches for content were added. A community began to grow of old IN players and newcomers. Despite pushing from fans, the team never was swayed on their vision.
In February 2017 some of the Cataclysm admin team attended the Ultima Dragons 25th Anniversary party at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. There they met Lord British Richard Garriott and Starr Long of the original Ultima Online team, Denis Loubet of the Ultima art team, and Origin programmer Dr. Cat. When Tantrik introduced himself to Garriott, he expressed his passion for UO and told him he worked on the free-shard UO Cataclysm. Garriott replied "ahh yes, I've heard of that one." The party was a culmination of the hard work the team had put in for nearly a decade on the project. They had a chance to personally sit with Garriott and a small group of gamers where Tantrik asked about the early development of UO. Garriott told the story of UO's humble beginnings in an under construction hallway at EA.
Throughout the lifespan of the server, three expansion releases and 37 patches were added. Cataclysm had completely unique content to the free-shard community. Most notable was the Dungeon Boss and Treasure Chest system, promoting player interaction by randomly spawning world treasure or dungeon bosses which had a chance to drop the best rares in the game. Featured was a robust automated event system, in which prizes could be distributed and events could be run at times ideal for the diverse player population. Loot, rares, and rewards were carefully considered to keep consistent with the replicated era and lore of the shard. Cataclysm was the longest running iteration of Imagine Nation and was live for over six years. In July 2020, Tantrik left the project, and in March 2021 the server had closed. A heartfelt farewell was written by Klysmos where he expressed the torch of Cataclysm was not extinguished, mearly dim, waiting to be reignited in the future should the time be right.
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In April 2023, Tantrik decided to begin toying with the code and world of the server he dearly loved and missed. As a solo developer, Tantrik learned to wear many hats and worked slowly to bring a new version of Cataclysm to life once again. The project was rebranded as Cataclysm Infinity, now able to claim it's rightful place in the history of IN. The seventh iteration of IN blends the unique features of Cataclysm with a more accurate representation of IN's crafting and history. Tantrik decided to name the shard Infinity to represent the posterity intended to be produced with the server, as well as respect the roots in which its descended from. With many redirections and redesigns, CUO Infinity is positioned to be a home for UO fans old and new, and the next generation of gamers. With the announcement of Infinity, one can't help but be reminded of IN's old saying, "Oh, It's True!" The torch of Cataclysm UO burns once again now as the blue flame of CUO Infinity.