I never played UO, but I heard it a lot from other ppl who played it. 99.999% of them agree that it is the best online game ever, and the rest few ppl believe it is the origion of the online games. Just from that, I know that game is awesome! Just here to show some respect to UO, the mmo ancient giant!
I was going to say whay this game was so good but another poster did it for me:
"The sheer amount of play styles UO catered to was stagering. One of my friends was a miner/blacksmith. That's all he did--mine and sell his items to other players. Every once in a while, he would ask me to escort him through a dungeon so he can mine there. I know another guy who would tame and sell mounts to players. People would hunt for burried treasure and it was actually more involved than just looking at a glowing circle on the map, you actually had to figure out where to go. Some people would be pirates and sail the ocean and attack other player ships. There were PKs, anti-PKs, RPers, grey-PKs, thieves. I really loved faction warfare, when it was introduced. People would take over major cities, defend them, raid other faction bases... It was a great time for MMO gaming."
Compare that to led-by-the-hand quests, PvP matches in confined spaces and crafting that is not even worth doing. Don't you want more than a game "your mum could play" which according to EA's CEO is where games should be going? Lets face it, we are already there, the next step will be making sure all games can be played by six year olds.
I was just a little lad when I first got UO for my birthday and got the internet. I never played a MMO before and so I was inthralled by this new and mysterious world I had been thrown into. I met so many cool people over the years I played. I own several houses, and knew many people, and shared many memories with my guild.
I remember when they first made the Test Shard and you could make your a 7x GM character. I would make a dexer and there would always be a huge PvP battle between reds and blues at the Brit graveyard, but there was also a few months where there would be a big battle of red and blue at the guard zone of the city of Trinsic. So many fun times....
No game to this day has given me that feeling that classic UO did and I most likely will never get it again. It's like a first kiss. You'll never have another like it and it won't feel as special as your first time(Hopefully....). Too all of us who got to experience that feeling. I salute you. To those of you who never got to experience this game like we did.. I feel bad for you.
RIP UO..
Oh man I had almost forgotten about the test shard pvp antics! There was a point where i was playing on it almost exclusively haha. Indescribably fantastic free for all madness that would sporadically become organized chaos. It was like a game within the game and was great for it's sheer action-packed fun. Ahhhhh those were the days..... And then when the faction testing was going on it got even crazier! Hard to recall all the details but i know you got some crazy powers depending on the faction you chose. It was lunacy and I relished every minute of it.
Another thing I just remembered was the fact that 'somehow' *cough cough* a guildmate got hold of a recall rune that led to the GM testing area known as 'Green Acres' which was just a giant flat grassland where they presumably tested things.
After a little while some runes started circulating 'somehow' and once a couple dozen of us had them we started holding various events there like the UOlympics which consisted of all kinds of wacky events like teleport races, pet dragon battles, hide and seek, left-handed pvp (right-handed if you were a lefty) and the like.
Ridiculousness ensued and we had a BALL! Some people went so far as to build houses there (including an idiot who built a castle which cost an arm and a leg haha) even though they quickly got deleted. Eventually we were tossed in counselor jail and they fixed the whole thing but while it lasted it was such a blast. We continued such events in the regular world sometimes for awhile afterwards but those first few in green acres were the best.
One more crazy memory! For about an hour one day after a patch early on in the game's life almost everything in the game became dyeable. The. Insanity. Right away Britain resembled a nauseating circus of blues pinks greens and browns and we loved it haha. Naturally they took the shards down and reverted the items back to their original colors but it was highly entertaining while it lasted.
Ok.....one more lol....After an early patch, Magic Arrow (a 1st level spell) became the most powerful spell in the game by a huge margin and leather armor became better than all others including plate. I think they were attempting to implement a damage-type system where lightning hurt plate wearers more etc. Obviously there were some serious problems with it and it actually went on like this for a week or two before they managed to fix/scrap it. It was crazy because you could go into Despise or Destard and lay waste to dragons almost immiately after you made your character! Seems like reactive armor might've been involved somehow too... Anyways despite being a pretty severe situation it made for a funny little memory for those that were there.
Another thing I just remembered was the fact that 'somehow' *cough cough* a guildmate got hold of a recall rune that led to the GM testing area known as 'Green Acres' which was just a giant flat grassland where they presumably tested things.
After a little while some runes started circulating 'somehow' and once a couple dozen of us had them we started holding various events there like the UOlympics which consisted of all kinds of wacky events like teleport races, pet dragon battles, hide and seek, left-handed pvp (right-handed if you were a lefty) and the like.
Ridiculousness ensued and we had a BALL! Some people went so far as to build houses there (including an idiot who built a castle which cost an arm and a leg haha) even though they quickly got deleted. Eventually we were tossed in counselor jail and they fixed the whole thing but while it lasted it was such a blast. We continued such events in the regular world sometimes for awhile afterwards but those first few in green acres were the best.
One more crazy memory! For about an hour one day after a patch early on in the game's life almost everything in the game became dyeable. The. Insanity. Right away Britain resembled a nauseating circus of blues pinks greens and browns and we loved it haha. Naturally they took the shards down and reverted the items back to their original colors but it was highly entertaining while it lasted.
I was just a casual novice player so I never had the joy of experiencing these things, so thank you for sharing. In particular, the ones above made me LOL hard... especially the thought of psychadelic Britain.... groooovy, man ;D
This article was a great idea to write, because we need to let other people who have never played it take a look at some historical gaming and compare the value of the gameplay then to what is released now.
Part of me suspects that Skyrim will help developers build a game much like UO, but modernized and incorporate the much need immersion missing from nearly every single online game out today.
Ultima Online is a classic one of a kind game for sure. I have many great memories of it. I would love to see Richard Garriott make an updated "Ultima Online" game being that he said that he is making a new online fantasy game. But sadly he seems to think crappy social games are the future. I think that I will have to pass on that one.
I would recommend checking out Pathfinder Online. Also read Ryans dev blog @ Goblinworks.com
First mmo in a long time based of PnP and that resembles UO in concept.
It's a real gem and other keeping an eye on, and if your interested enough go to Paizo.com and look for Pathfinder Online message boards for further discussion and questions being answered by the devs.
"It would be awesome if you could duel your companion. Then you could solo pvp".--Thanes
Comments
RIP as in Classic UO.
I never played UO, but I heard it a lot from other ppl who played it. 99.999% of them agree that it is the best online game ever, and the rest few ppl believe it is the origion of the online games. Just from that, I know that game is awesome! Just here to show some respect to UO, the mmo ancient giant!
I was going to say whay this game was so good but another poster did it for me:
"The sheer amount of play styles UO catered to was stagering. One of my friends was a miner/blacksmith. That's all he did--mine and sell his items to other players. Every once in a while, he would ask me to escort him through a dungeon so he can mine there. I know another guy who would tame and sell mounts to players. People would hunt for burried treasure and it was actually more involved than just looking at a glowing circle on the map, you actually had to figure out where to go. Some people would be pirates and sail the ocean and attack other player ships. There were PKs, anti-PKs, RPers, grey-PKs, thieves. I really loved faction warfare, when it was introduced. People would take over major cities, defend them, raid other faction bases... It was a great time for MMO gaming."
Compare that to led-by-the-hand quests, PvP matches in confined spaces and crafting that is not even worth doing. Don't you want more than a game "your mum could play" which according to EA's CEO is where games should be going? Lets face it, we are already there, the next step will be making sure all games can be played by six year olds.
I blogged some glosses, annotations, errata, and clarifications.
http://www.raphkoster.com/2012/02/17/making-of-uo-articles-at-mmorpg-com/
Made your link clickable. Thanks for adding more details/info. (;^__^)
Oh man I had almost forgotten about the test shard pvp antics! There was a point where i was playing on it almost exclusively haha. Indescribably fantastic free for all madness that would sporadically become organized chaos. It was like a game within the game and was great for it's sheer action-packed fun. Ahhhhh those were the days..... And then when the faction testing was going on it got even crazier! Hard to recall all the details but i know you got some crazy powers depending on the faction you chose. It was lunacy and I relished every minute of it.
Another thing I just remembered was the fact that 'somehow' *cough cough* a guildmate got hold of a recall rune that led to the GM testing area known as 'Green Acres' which was just a giant flat grassland where they presumably tested things.
After a little while some runes started circulating 'somehow' and once a couple dozen of us had them we started holding various events there like the UOlympics which consisted of all kinds of wacky events like teleport races, pet dragon battles, hide and seek, left-handed pvp (right-handed if you were a lefty) and the like.
Ridiculousness ensued and we had a BALL!
Some people went so far as to build houses there (including an idiot who built a castle which cost an arm and a leg haha) even though they quickly got deleted. Eventually we were tossed in counselor jail and they fixed the whole thing but while it lasted it was such a blast. We continued such events in the regular world sometimes for awhile afterwards but those first few in green acres were the best.
One more crazy memory! For about an hour one day after a patch early on in the game's life almost everything in the game became dyeable. The. Insanity. Right away Britain resembled a nauseating circus of blues pinks greens and browns and we loved it haha. Naturally they took the shards down and reverted the items back to their original colors but it was highly entertaining while it lasted.
Ok.....one more lol....After an early patch, Magic Arrow (a 1st level spell) became the most powerful spell in the game by a huge margin and leather armor became better than all others including plate. I think they were attempting to implement a damage-type system where lightning hurt plate wearers more etc. Obviously there were some serious problems with it and it actually went on like this for a week or two before they managed to fix/scrap it. It was crazy because you could go into Despise or Destard and lay waste to dragons almost immiately after you made your character! Seems like reactive armor might've been involved somehow too... Anyways despite being a pretty severe situation it made for a funny little memory for those that were there.
I was just a casual novice player so I never had the joy of experiencing these things, so thank you for sharing. In particular, the ones above made me LOL hard... especially the thought of psychadelic Britain.... groooovy, man ;D
This article was a great idea to write, because we need to let other people who have never played it take a look at some historical gaming and compare the value of the gameplay then to what is released now.
Part of me suspects that Skyrim will help developers build a game much like UO, but modernized and incorporate the much need immersion missing from nearly every single online game out today.
Ultima Online is a classic one of a kind game for sure. I have many great memories of it. I would love to see Richard Garriott make an updated "Ultima Online" game being that he said that he is making a new online fantasy game. But sadly he seems to think crappy social games are the future. I think that I will have to pass on that one.
First mmo in a long time based of PnP and that resembles UO in concept.
It's a real gem and other keeping an eye on, and if your interested enough go to Paizo.com and look for Pathfinder Online message boards for further discussion and questions being answered by the devs.
"It would be awesome if you could duel your companion. Then you could solo pvp".--Thanes