UO Nostalgia

[rouss]

HAHA! I used to be at work and would think about what I was going to do in game when I got home. It really made my day go by faster.

I still do that. I sit at work and think "I'm going to go home & knock out those MIB's & Treasure Maps" but then I just go home and fall asleep.


/oldagesucks.

same here

about a week ago, I lost my large brick house this way

[bubu]

My first UO experience was in 97 or 98 year with article in game magazine about release
I was really crazy about Ultima series before, and was finally happy to get "Ultima without story line!!! and HUGE!" but at this moment i had 486 dx-2 66 mhz without even modem =) so... "read and fantasy, my boy".
Thanks to editor of magazine (who was totally "Lord British"-addicted) he post experience of their guild ("Navigator Dragons", btw) every month in big articles! Yummy!!!!

After was T2A when i first try ultima "alive" with my friend and fall totally in love with it. I remember how funny was to lost in forest, run to the desert near brit (i was smart enough to avoid it and run near) and try to attack with my newbie "fencer" lizardman oh, sh*t! he was quick! and strong! i died almost in two-three strikes (lags included) and do my way to britain as ghost =)

ahhh, sweet times...
But dark time come near and near... UO was ruined more and more, my friend lost ability to pay for it (technical more, because shop where we buy game time was closed) and in 2000-2001 we move to "sphere-styles" free shards...
yes, it was ultima, but perverted, crazy and twisted will all this 7000 skills all-rounders, GM cheaters and stupid "An Ex Por", stone walls cross, "Kal Vas Flam" PvP... But it was fun, it was aggressive and it was ULTIMA! where you still can "live"... Later i try sometimes EA/OSI, but... their game was ruined and twisted even more than this free shards... and i continue to dream about "oldschool" freeshard... and i find it... yes, i think you know that shard i mean =))) UOSecondAge, message about it i find on little forum (THANKS BY GOOGLE! ) and i'm here... and happy... and I hope it is forever! !!!!!

PS Thanks, guys!!! Keep your work and may God and Lord British bless you!!!

[Wise]

Welcome to Secondage!

[Arcott Ramathorn]

Just bumping in the hopes that more people share.... I remember, back before i played UO, reading about the game and wanting to play. I worked at Toys R Us at the time and had access (and more time to read than the managers would like) to a bunch of computer and video game magazines. They all mentioned UO in passing, but one day i was put in charge of the "Clearance Tent" which essentially was a giant tent they put up in the parking lot that was filled with all the broken, outdated, and crappy toys noone wanted at full price.(cant beat an open package of Gak for 48 cents) Anyway, as i sat in this tent making sure noone stole any of the mini stretch armstrongs or red ranger action figures, i found a magazine with an in depth article of like 5 pages all about Ultima Online. I read that article over and over and looked at the pictures and was like "that is fregin' awsome!" I got paid $6.75 an hour to daydream and read about ultima online for 5 days. Most of the pics were very misleading...There was one picture of a player rescuing someone from a burning building.(same pic was on the t2a box i bought) One pic was of someone battling ettins and dragons on the side of a mountain with piles of gold & SILVER and gems piled on the ground like it was the dragons horde and the players were trying to claim it. Another picture that i remember was 4 players set up like compass points defending each others backs from ophidians as they rushed them from all sides like an ambush. The pictures worked because i totally wanted a game that had monster AI that would set up ambushes, Monsters that had their loot laid out in their lair and dared you to touch it, and mundane things that any hero would do: Like rush into a burning building to save a damsel in distress "c'mon Tess...Follow me!"(quote from the pic on the box which i no longer have but remember)

If a couple more people post Ill tell you about my brother in law stealing a house and my most memorable pker! haha

[hectorc2w]

the first time I logged into the game on october 97 I started in brit at the salty dog inn( i think) Right upon spawning a thief stole my wooden shield...When I realized what had just happened, I deleted my char and made a new one lol.

fast forward a little bit I was a carpenter and hanging around the carpenter shop in brit. This Lord comes to me and says "are you a carpenter?" to witch I replied "yes I am". He told me he'd give me 1000 gold for 20 tables and that he'd meet me back here in 1 hour exactly. I said ok and promptly ran to the woods next to the GY to chop wood. 5 mins later I try to walk to another tree and wtf Im stuck on place. I check my stam and its at 0.

At the time my english was very very bad. I was 14 years old and only knew the basic words so I coudnt understand when it was saying "you are too encumbered". So I called my buddy on the phone and I tell him "OMG I cant move quick come to the woods next to the GY and give me food my char is hungry!"

2 mins later my friend is here killing rabbits, making fire camps, cooking the food and handing it to me(lol newbies). I eat move a bit, then bam stuck on place again. We just didnt understand what was the problem. Needless to say I missed the rendez-vous with the dude at the carpenter shop and didnt make the 1k my bank account was a whoopin 200gold or so

[Ulor]

If a couple more people post Ill tell you about my brother in law stealing a house and my most memorable pker! haha

I'm holding you to it!

This is not my story, but one that was told to me last night on TeamSpeak. Some friends and I talk a lot about what we believe to be a stale MMO gaming landscape. We all play WoW and LOTRO to varying degrees and are disappointed by the games' lack of hardcore gameplay, like losing all your stuff when you die and lootable housing on the actual map. We have fun a lot of times gaming now - even if the titles are lacking, but these experiences hardly compare to the gaming perfection that was UO in the day, and the stories that came about in the wilds of Brittannia.

A long time ago, back before Trammel existed, my friend, Onyun, worked for a solid three weeks to scrape up 10,000 gold to buy a power sword. His efforts paid off; he visited the vendor who had the sword of his desire and he paid the hefty coin that he'd toiled so hard to gather.

Onyun was elated by his new purchase and he headed to his meager home to stow the weapon so that he could show it off to his guildmates when they visited. A power sword during this age was a rare, coveted piece, and Onyun knew that his friends would envy him for his possession of such a legendary item.

By foot, he traveled to the moongate and at the right moment, he was teleported to Yew near the location of his dwelling. As soon as he exited the moongate and stepped out of its protective boundary, he was caught unawares by two brigands who attacked him without hesitation. Emboldened by his new, powerful sidearm, Onyun wielded his sword and felled one of the brigands. He was about to turn the bloody edge on the second when the miscreant charged Onyun, disarmed his blade and stole it from his backpack. The thief recalled away, leaving Onyun shocked and utterly despairing over the loss of the blade that had taken so many careful hours to gain. He returned home, where, in the throes of his loss, he left Brittannia for three whole days until he could muster his serenity and return to tell the awful tale to his companions, who understood his loss having been victims of many an unscrupulous lout. Much later, they would all laugh with him over the woeful event and remember it as more comical than tragic.

******

I wish someone would develop a great 3D MMO using pre-Trammel UO as a foundation for gameplay and mechanics. *sigh*


Ulor

[SoundofGod]

I started when there was no meditation, no eval int, no colored ore, and I'm almost certain you had to "target" your magic reflection. Reactive armor was useless, along with Protection. You also could not "lock" your skills up or down and people would set fires everywhere to kill your GM status and raising your camping skill. Therefore having GM smithy was kind of hard to get (and keep for that long). Skills would randomly go down if not used.

[Sissypants]

I started in Oct '99 so caught the tail end of T2A. Those few months before UO:R came out will always be the best. Glad I found this server..

My first in game experience... Made my first char, and started in Britain. Thought "Well, it was the big hub in the single player Ultima's so I'll start here!". Five minutes into wandering around town I see a crate sitting on the ground. I click it and it says there are a few items within. "Great! Maybe there's something I can use in there! What luck!". I then double click.. BOOM.. Grey screen. My ghost standing over my corpse. I had NO idea what to do next, as I had only read the control interface section of the booklet. Fortunately for me someone ran up and said "Say something so I can see you if you're still there". So I type a message and I see "An Corp". Yay! This kind guy is going to resurrect me!

He asked me what happened and I told him about the box, and that I was brand new. He said "Yeah, don't open strange boxes.. Welcome to UO! Here this may help you". He gave me 3,000 gold coin and wished me luck.

Not long after that I made my first group of friends and started adventuring. One day we were out in the woods east of Britain hunting. A player named "Domina Drak'zul" comes running up to us and greets us. All of my buddies were super PK Paranoid and instantly started acting afraid. She said "Hi, I'm quitting UO and would like to give one of you my house". My buddies go "Yeah, classic trick.. She just wants us to go to her house so she can PK us without getting a murder count".

She says "No, I don't want to do that. I'm serious. Just trust me.". With that she drops her key ring on the ground. I picked it up immediately. I say "Ok, I'll trust you." I gave all of my possessions to one of my companions and followed Domina to her house. She says "Come inside, my neighbors aren't the best in the world." I start to think bad stuff is going to happen, but whats the loss? All I had in my pack was her key ring. So, inside we go and then bam. The house was mine. She gates me to the East Brit Bank and gives me everything in her bank box too. A boat load of regs, about 60k gold (a princely sum for a noob of only 2 weeks!).

I ICQ the guy holding my stuff and say "HOLY CRAP! She wasn't joking!!!". My companions were amazed and pissed at the same time "Aww man, I should have trusted her".

But being the good sport that I was, I shared the spoils with them.

Then I learned that yeah.. The neighbors sucked. They were constantly trying to PK me. Then, through a noob mistake on my part my house got looted. I had decided to throw up a vendor to sell off some of the stuff I didn't think I would use. Didn't lock down any tables or anything to keep people from having access to all of the containers. I logged in the next day to find everything that wasn't in the secure gone. Learned my lesson. Wound up selling the house to the evil neighbors. They were PK's and thieves, but not scammers!
Bought a house a friend had on Dagger Isle.


Logged in one day to find a pile of orcs piled up under the sign of the tower behind me. I went and killed them, and on one there was pack full of reagents, recall scrolls, gold, and blank scrolls. I noticed there were a couple people in the tower. The doors were unlocked so I went in and asked if the bag belonged to anyone. Someone says "YES! It's mine! The orcs killed me and took it, and I couldn't get it back". The tower owner had res'd her and kept the orcs from coming inside the tower (Don't ask me why he didn't kill them for her..) I returned the bag and she was ever so happy. Little did I know that one simple gesture would start a friendship that would turn out the way it did....

Been married to her for 10 years now, and we have an 8 year old daughter.

[Ulor]

Your story.

Epic. Thanks for sharing!

[Sissypants]

I wish someone would develop a great 3D MMO using pre-Trammel UO as a foundation for gameplay and mechanics. *sigh*


Ulor

Someone did. It's called Mortal Online. However, don't know about the great part. It's made by an Indie Game Company, and it has a lot of issues. I have two copies of it but haven't played it since Block A of the closed beta in 2009.

It's played from first person perspective, no "floaty names", twitch combat a la Oblivion, full looting, player constructed houses/towns etc.. etc...

What it doesn't have is stability and a lack of bugs. Reading the forums you get the feeling that it's another game that has a lot of potential but the Devs being a small company are struggling to fix the issues. There is a big patch in the works but there is lack of faith. Some people love the game, others hate it.

[Douns]

My most memorable moment in UO was being sent to jail -- and coming out with rewards. Its unbelievable and don't expect anyone to beleive me -- obviously with the word 'unbelievable'.

I got sent to jail because of macroing in-town, upping my magery casting water elementals (probably a huge waste of regs back in the day). Anyways, nobody could offer an explanation to me, thus, I logged off. The next day before I had to head into school, I login to see where I'm at with the sentence. Low and behold there was a chest in my cell, which was pretty bizarre being that there were 4-6 cells back in the day. I was weary at first, but then just opened it and saw all the loot... I had no idea why it was there or why it was confiscated, I mean, why bring the chest into the cell? Why not delete it on the spot?... Regardless, I'm frantically grabbing things here and there, getting weapons, see a castle-deed, take that... At this point I grabbed so much crap that I was overloaded.

Then... a message comes on in the color of the GM/Concilour. "Take what you can and I'll teleport you back into town".... SAYYY WHAAAT? I get giddy and start shaking...Being kinda rushed... The last thing I filtered through was the 1,000,000+GP pieces and thought... wait... if I grab this and just hang it in midair -- would this work?!?!...

It DID!!!.. At this point I get teleported to one of the houses in Britain where newbies started off.. I call my friend and we had to port 10k lots to east brit bank until we had it all... in our banks... that took a while lol...

[BobDobbs]

I remember getting UO the day it hit the shelves. I was so excited, because I had been playing MUDs for quite awhile and the idea of a "graphical MUD" was an incredible concept for me.

I remember feeling so excited when that chest opened up on my screen. My gateway to adventure and treasure!

My first thought after creating my character and logging in was "I have absolutely no idea what I am supposed to do."

I ran around simply amazed that all of these people I was seeing were real people, and none of them really seemed to have any more clue what they were supposed to do than I did.

I see a cat on the streets of Brit. I thought "well, I'll attack this cat." Big mistake. That cat kicked my ass and followed me all over Brit. I'd go offscreen and flee into a building, come back out and that damn cat was still there! It wouldn't go away! Finally, it killed me.

Well clearly I need some training I thought. Someone told me that there were training dummies I could practice my skills on. Great! I go to where the dummies are and it is packed. Absolutely packed. Two people for every dummy, sometimes a third. I put on my weapon, went into war mode and clicked the dummy. It responded with a satisfying "thump" and began to swing. I'm on my way I thought. That cat will pay.

So I'm happily clicking the dummy when its my turn, listening to satisfying "thumps" all around me, reading the various chatter from others clicking dummies. It never really occurred to me that no one else was in war mode.

Of course, I eventually accidentally double click on the guy sharing the dummy with me. Poof of smoke, the sound of a "CLANG!" and I am dead. I was so upset I started over and made a new character, because I knew that damn cat would be waiting for me. Forever.

[Downs]

My first toon was a swordsman/tracker/tamer/mage. My idea was to have a bunch of tamed animals help me fight. I was quite horrible back then.

Now I'm slightly less horrible

[BobDobbs]

Mortal Online

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3tVXpLyMx8

[Sissypants]

Bob, thanks. I was looking for another paperweight.