Thinking of trying, but i lack info

HairyGoatBoy

Im thinking of buying Ultima Online, however before i do i would like to ask the people of this forum a few questions.  Before i ask away i will state a few things about me that might help you in your answers. First thing is that im a casual player. Game time might only be 1 to 3 hours a night if that. The only MMOG's i have played are FFXI for a year and WoW for a year and a half.  1. As a brand new player will i be able to start a character and level him up without being overwhelmed by the players who have been playing for 5 or 10 years. What i mean is, considering everyone else  has been playing the game for years will i just being ignored by them or pk'ed by them just becase im a newb? Is it still possible to start UO this late in its life and be successfull in it?

2. Roughly how much time does a person have to invest into a character to make him good. When i played FFXI, the level 50+ grind is what forced me to quit that game.  As i am casual player i dont expect to be super uber dragon slayer but i would like to not die from the first flea bite that i recieve. 

3.  What is the economy like and how does it work.  How will money be earned in UO? Is it easy to be financialy viable in this game? When i played i had no problems making money from crafting and dungeon running. I always had 1000+ gold in WoW.  However when i played FFXI i could barely support my myself financialy. I certainly couldnt afford the +1 of any armour in that game.

4. How dificult is the crafting in this game? I hated crafting in FFXI as it was to difficult  and time consuming for me to do. However in WoW i was a very successful alchemist.

5. Is housing affordable? Is it worthwhile? I dont want to own a mansion or anything like that but maybe a little cottage out in the boondocks. Will housing take me year to save up for?

6. I read that you can own and sail ships. What influence apon the game does ships have? Will i have to have one? Will only certain places be accessible to a ship? Are there different types of ships?

7. Are busy servers better then empty ones? Will i need a busy server to find people to group with for dungeons and stuff? Or is a empty serer better so i can get a housing plot? Any recomendations for a server?

8. Can i solo? Or am i forced to group? The way WoW was set up was perfect for my playstyle for grouping and solo content.

9. Im not looking for a extremely hard game to play however i dont want it to be to easy either.  How does UO rate? How comparable in difficulty is UO to the MMOG's i have played already.

10. How is death handled? Is there a penalty?

I would like to thank anyone who chooses to respond to this post. Any answers would be greatly apreciated.

Unknown

1. There is an area called Tram, it is the newbie area. It is a carebear tree hugging area. It is safe from all pvp. If you enter Felucia you will be overwhelmed and killed pretty much instantly. At least thats what I did on my red. Though the game is completely different now that when I quit over 4 years ago.



2. Its all about exploiting game mechanic flaws to lvl. 8x8ing along with other tools will allow you to max your character quick. If you don't know how to manipulate game mechanics it may take you longer (well a lot longer).



3.kill monsters earn gold. The economy was fubbared by the time I quit due to the introduction of these super items called Artifacts.



4. Crafting system is amazing and simple. Had a 7x mule who I just adored, and their reward system is quality (or was)



5.  Housing is incredibly affordable if you can find a lot of land to place on, but with all the expansions of land it seems like it would be incredibly easy to find a housing location.



6. Anyone can ride a ship, but its mainly for fishing and 8x8ing. Some people in felucia will sail boats looking for people sailing and kill em, then proceed to laugh at them.



7. Busy servers have better economies, along with more player interaction. No server is overcrowded like the old days due to a lot of the garbage they have released.



8. Yes, you can solo pretty much anything in the game outside of dungeons. Even with the right character stuff is soloable when dealing with different monsters.



9. It's an easy going game, that they have made incredibly newbie friendly and all around not very much fun for people who played when it was only felucia. I hear new people love it though.



10. You die, you die. You have to be resurrected by either a player or a wandering healer. Then walk back to your body and loot your corpse. If your away to long it becomes grabs to anyone who wants it. In felucia you will get looted dry.



They did put in a newbie friendly thing called Insurance where you pay to keep your items blessed to you.





Best I can respond since it used to be my favorite game before they did pub16 hell I even dealt with it till AoS then I just had to quit due to the complete change for a completely different game which wasn't the original UO I had enjoyed and played.

vengeful85

Originally posted by namelessbob

1. There is an area called Tram, it is the newbie area. It is a carebear tree hugging area. It is safe from all pvp. If you enter Felucia you will be overwhelmed and killed pretty much instantly. At least thats what I did on my red. Though the game is completely different now that when I quit over 4 years ago.

  Trammel is the area set aside for pvm  if that makes it "carebear" so be it, and yes Felucca is the PvP area and there is more than a few goons willing to hack an unskilled new player down and then boast the usual garbage such as "pwned"(whatever the hell that means) etc

2. Its all about exploiting game mechanic flaws to lvl. 8x8ing along with other tools will allow you to max your character quick. If you don't know how to manipulate game mechanics it may take you longer (well a lot longer).

  There is no exploits to use to gain skills as mentioned above, at one point (along time ago) there was a way to take advantage of the movment based skill gains by moving 8 tiles at a time  but that has long since been removed. Skill gains are usage  based and the more you use a skill the more chances you have to gain.

3.kill monsters earn gold. The economy was fubbared by the time I quit due to the introduction of these super items called Artifacts.

   The best ways to earn gold are monster gold/loot  drops  and  player item crafting/sales.

4. Crafting system is amazing and simple. Had a 7x mule who I just adored, and their reward system is quality (or was)

    Crafting is very amazing yes and can be profitable as well  if ya find a niche market for your goods. There is a great rewards system as well for crafted items.

5.  Housing is incredibly affordable if you can find a lot of land to place on, but with all the expansions of land it seems like it would be incredibly easy to find a housing location.

   Yes player housing locations are quite affordable and easy to find  if you take the time to do so.

6. Anyone can ride a ship, but its mainly for fishing and 8x8ing. Some people in felucia will sail boats looking for people sailing and kill em, then proceed to laugh at them.

  Anyone can indeed own a ship and sail anywhere, there are some islands accessable by ship. Once again the 8x8 info is moot.  the player killers in Felucca will indeed play "pirate" if ya give them the chance.

7. Busy servers have better economies, along with more player interaction. No server is overcrowded like the old days due to a lot of the garbage they have released.

  Most servers have the same economy, it is lead by supply and demand  of course the more rare the item the more  gold is asked for it. Server populations are pretty evenly split, with more players on the asian servers than the north american ones.

8. Yes, you can solo pretty much anything in the game outside of dungeons. Even with the right character stuff is soloable when dealing with different monsters.

   There is ALOT of solo dungeons and content  and a huge amount of dungeons and areas with monsters that are far from solo-able.

9. It's an easy going game, that they have made incredibly newbie friendly and all around not very much fun for people who played when it was only felucia. I hear new people love it though.

    Yes it i a very casual player oriented game, Very much alot of fun for new and old players alike, those that like to bash and hate the game with stories of former glory are the ones that found with the addition of Trammel they lost thier easy picking victims  and had to deal with other pvp'rs  on a regular basis and couldn't hack it. (Its way harder to kill another player killer  than it is a resource gathering un armored  non fighting skilled character.)

10. You die, you die. You have to be resurrected by either a player or a wandering healer. Then walk back to your body and loot your corpse. If your away to long it becomes grabs to anyone who wants it. In felucia you will get looted dry.

  The addition of insurance for your items you deem worthy has made it much less intimidating  to be killed,  and there is no penalty/stat/skill loss involved with dying. as was stated you simply return to your corpse and retrieve your items within the time limit.

They did put in a newbie friendly thing called Insurance where you pay to keep your items blessed to you.

   insurance is more of an older player  friendly "thing" since  new players rarely have items worth insuring.



Best I can respond since it used to be my favorite game before they did pub16 hell I even dealt with it till AoS then I just had to quit due to the complete change for a completely different game which wasn't the original UO I had enjoyed and played.

      Some of us adapted well to the changes and some couldn't deal with them at all,  either way the game has managed to stay popular with  150k  people, and will be sure to garner many more players both new and old, with the addition of a new vastly improved graphic engine as well as a much more mainstream style of user interface system. 

      There is plenty of room for new players to learn and grow with the game  and no reason that anyone should feel like they are behind the times starting the game at this point. We  were all new players at one point and the great community in this game make it easy to get a foothold.

     All in all i give this game a strong reccomendation to anyone that  has yet to tread in its waters,( join us on the Pacific shard)  few are disappointed many are very supprised by the vastness and seamless un-ending world with no endgame and virtually no limits to you adventures other than imagination.    UO-  is like any other MMO ,  its what you make of it!

WarsongLS

I think that vengeful85 covered everything quite well.

ColinIRL

I've played UO on and off for about the last 4 years and Wow. I love it. The movement is like Diablo 2. But the game has so much to do.



Like anything you can want to do you can. You can hunt treasures, your can fish, craft, tame monsters, PVP, PVM, Decorate houses. IDOC Hunting (IDOC means "In Danger of Colapsing" And is when a house of another player (that got banned or quit) is about to fall down and all his stuff will go on the ground, again this only appens if you quit or get banned and dont empty/sell your house), Your can be a theif, You can do Champ spawns (These require a guild or group of people). And so much more



I have honestly seen all sides. I love to hunt IDOCs, I love to craft, I LOVE Fel (pvp), I even do stuff in tram once in a while. Alot of people are mad about how it has changed and it is kinda because people are sour. It used to be really really hard to have a good character with good gear but now they have added alot of items that can help people make suits (full set of gear) that is almost as good as the people that have 100million gold suits.  I'm not sure how the new upgrade is going to go, hell I may end up as on of those sour people but we'll see.



Try this game, Get a friend to help you/ try it with you. JOIN A GUILD. This is  a must it will help so much. Join one of the bigger guilds that will have people on alot. It will help alot.

Unknown

You played on pacific then you must remember my tamer Guy Larson. I had the market cornered on white wyrms and pure mares with my buddy old grand bob for over 6 months till we got bored bought castles and quit heh.