How did your UO Jorney Begin?

[Anabolic]

Here is how i got hooked on UO.

One night in 1997, i saw my cousin (who was well know as the murderer IXIrredescentXI) murder someone in a dungeon. we both started laughing to the point of crying. The next day I log on to UO.
....and it began from there

[Hamrlik]

A friend (who I met playing Diablo) came over to my house for the week-end, some time in '97 and brought his UO CD with him. He thaught me how to mine (the mountains just West of Trinsic...), I mined for him every time he wasn't playing his account, before I actually bought my own game.

[Anabolic]

Hamrlik,

Thats actually kinda funny. He got you mining for him lol. What a friend

[kwhiz73]

Got the game for xmas I think in 1998--it could've been 97 but not sure. I remember loading it up and not being able to get it working---I was missing the internet connection thing. Once I started I was hooked right away playing a warrior around yew on Lake Superior. Developed many good friendships with several other "new" players and it always was fun to log on and see the same people day after day. I remember making the long walk to Britian one day to buy a new set of shiny plate armor. I was told "go to the forge and a blacksmith will make you a set for 3000 gold". After saving up 3k, and not knowing the bank in Brit (I had never been there before) was the same as the bank in yew, I put the money in my pack and headed SE along the trail. Surprisingly I made it ok, found a very kind smith wearing armor with his own name on it (Imagine that!), and traded him my 3k for that shiny plate set. I started back to yew very excited that everyone would be terribly impressed with my new armor. As I approached what I later would know as the xroads I saw two other friendly players running in panic as they were being chased by an ettin. They were screaming "help me!" help us!" Knowing I could dispatch this creature, although it would take effort (I was feeling a bit invincible wearing my new armor), I began my attack. The ettin turned into a person at this point and I started seeing the words "Corp por" pop up all over the screen. In an instant I was a ghost and watched them loot my beloved brand new plate set from my lifeless body. I must have been looking quite glum by time I made it back to yew (the white robe musta gave it away), when some finely dressed maidens asked me if they could be of any assistance. I said "yeah, what the heck is a Corp por Corp por Corp por?, cause I want one".

Many many good times came after that..

[Anabolic]

kwhiz73,

hahah yeah man. thats some funny stuff. I remember ettins raided vesper back in the day. some dude did the same thing. tricked a new guy into attacking him

I think i big thing about UO was the fact that i was playn online with a ton of other players. Mind you this was before Xbox live and all that. It just blew my mind to think soooo many people were in this world and it never shut off haha.

[Hamrlik]

Hamrlik,

Thats actually kinda funny. He got you mining for him lol. What a friend

Hehe, I know... It was a small price to pay, I guess, to thank him for introducing me to this game. Then again, the first quality a UO player MUST have to make it in the pre-Trammel era is patience. Nothing spells patience like mining for 40 hours on an account that isn't even yours.

[nightshark]

Me and a RL friend took shifts on my account for weeks mining when I first bought the game in '99. I dunno wtf we were doing, just two teenagers ADDICTED TO INGOTS

[Atraxi]

I actually didn't play UO back in the "good ol' days". This is my 1st UO server.

I drive a cab for a living and was bored sitting in my car all day. So, about a year and a half ago, I mounted a laptop in my cab and was about to try WoW, but my uncle told me not to. He said he had a game I might enjoy even more. Then he got me on UOSA. Considering the age of the game, I thought there was NO WAY I would be able to stand up against the Vets that had been playing 13 years, but my uncle helped me with that by co-owning me to a house in Ocllo, and providing me with weps, gold, and regs. We went hunting together almost every night until I got the hang of things.

I will never forget my 1st major encounter with a PK. I had just bought myself a house and placed it. My uncle hadn't given me enough warning about pks, so I made a major mistake. I loaded up a caravan of pack mules with everything I owned, then gated them to my new house and left them standing around the front porch. (You know where this is going.)

Sure enough, as I was unloading everything, pk's (NoSeCaNdY and another) came by, killed me, took my key, and looted me dry. Literally took everything I owned, except for the house. I almost quit right there. I stood there as a ghost and watched a month and a half of work vanish in the blink of an eye.

Luckily, my uncle talked me into staying. He scolded the hell out of me for bein a dumba$$, then we moved my house to another location (closer to where he lived), then he restocked me, and I kept going.

I don't mean to ramble, but I'm hoping that will help new players reading this learn the same thing I learned then. Even if you lose it all, almost everything is replaceable. As much as it hurt back then, these days, I don't even feel it. I hate when I see new players quit because they got pked and lost everything. I understand the urge, but if you will just push past that and rebuild, you will thank yourself in the long run.

[Zelek Uther]

In 1998, a friend of mine invited me to his place to see a new game he was playing... Ultima Online! I was in awe... hundreds of players playing a game online!

In early 1999 I bought a new PC which was capable of playing UO, and by that time T2A had been released, so I bought that. My friend bought the expansion, so we could play T2A together. Good times!

My first character, Zadok, was a Miner/Blacksmith. I spent about 2 months mining, then I decided I wanted to see what the world was like beyond the town limits of Britain. So I created Zelek, my Warrior. I got Zadok to create the best armour he could. I wanted to make chainmail, but I think I ended up making ringmail, with some chain pieces. Equipped with this, and a trusty Cutlass, I proudly took Zelek out hunting rats and rabbits. Tough little critters!

After a few weeks, I got tired of beating on barnyard animals, and took the chance of running out of town limits. I had been out of town with my friend, who had a mage, but never by myself before. I ran out the road East of Brit, and crossed that guard zone line. Oooh, scary! I found a monster, a giant two-headed Ettin, ran directly up to it, and started slashing with my cutlass. Hmmm... I don't seem to be hurting it! It was pounding me into the dust, so I turned and ran. No point risking this wonderful suit of armour that took me so long to mine ingots and craft!

I was on a 56K modem, running on foot (of course), and barely keeping ahead of the Beast. I spotted a couple of warriors on the road up ahead. Hooray! As I ran toward them, they called out "Hey!". I thought, "great, some nice people to help me!" Nope... they killed me!

I ran into town as a ghost, found the Healer shop, got myself resurrected, and ran straight back out to where I had died, naked except for my loin cloth. (I don't remember having a death robe at that time). Too late, my gear was gone... but the two PKs were still there, loitering around my corpse. I didn't know what to say, so I said "thx for pking me". They said "np".

I played T2A for about 4 months, then left to travel overseas. Over the years, since 1999, I've occasionally wondered how UO was going, and looked it up on the web. I did the same recently (about 6 months ago), and for the first time saw that there were free shards! Wow! I stumbled upon UOSA, downloaded the client and connected... excitement, happiness, nostalgia... "it looks just like I remembered"!

After playing for a few weeks, I got in touch again with my friend who I played with all those years ago in 1999 - the friend who introduced me to Ultima Online. I was able to introduce him to UOSA. He created a character called "Gribblys Cash", and together we (eventually) formed Nova Zelandia [NZ].

[Theograd]

It was the only online game that could get through my college firewall back in 98, and we only knew this because we convinced someone to buy it before us. Once confirmed we started playing on Drachenfell because it had the best ping (somehow). My first character was either Theograd or Agamemnon. I remember joining up with some Britain based merchants with Aga so I suppose I've been a merchant from the start.

Placing our first house was awesome. We did all sorts of odd jobs and such to get enough money to finally buy a small deed. Problem was that there was no place to place it. My friend came screaming down the hall one night saying "WE HAVE A HOUSE!!!" so I bolted off after him. He had paid someone who said they knew of a spot, and it actually turned out to be legit. So there we were, sitting in our two chairs in our house all proud of ourselves. Then directly behind our house some PK chased down a blue and slaughtered him. We'd known PK's existed but had never seen one in action. My buddy had put us in the ghetto.

We eventually managed to move the house near Cove. He then deeded the house and sold it without telling me. Years later he copped to it, saying he bought a vanq katana with the money. He then lost the katana about fifteen minutes later.

[Anabolic]

seems like a lot of people started off as miners lol. Thats probably the smart choice.

i remember wasting some much time on pointless skills, and changing my 1 char around 40 times. then someone took me under there wing and guided me in the right direction.

[Drunk Monk]

A friend got me hooked also. He made his little brother mine and smith/tinker for us though, which was pretty sweet. Seemed like all we did was spar and Xheal for skill gains. Then I had the buddy that bought his accounts and thought he was a pvp god becuase he bought a 7x gm hally mage account. He was horrible lol

[Anabolic]

Drunk Monk,

Yeah i hear that bro. A lot more too pvp then just being 7x.

[Klavis Verge]

Being a strategy gamer fanatic, around that time in the late 90's I suppose it was Civilization, Stronghold, and Settlers, etc..but Rage of Mages, and other RPGs weren't multiplayer, and I wanted to experience MMO. I really wanted a multiplayer Baldur's Gate. In the late 80's early nineties I had played Forgotten Realms, my fav (for the intro) being Pools of Radiance. I noticed UO in Electronics Boutique, and asked some players about the game. They said to wait for Second Age so I waited a month and got on the preorder list.

Once I ran UOT2A for the first time, my definition of cool game intro drastically changed. I chanted back the narrator's words until I had it memorized and made friends and family think I was crazy. (And that's a different story altogether)

I started out gathering grain for the mill, which was fairly safe labor back in the day. I was paid for flour sacks but can't remember how much (the pay increased after they saw my dedication). Someone mentioned that smithing was more profitable and that Minoc was the place, so I focused intently on Mt. Kendall and made it my home.

After having garnered much strength and skill, a female mage dressed in black riding atop a dragon came upon me, and I was absolutely terrified inside. At first she was as cautious to words as I was, but once she learned of my inexperience with magic she was so kind to give me a full set of black wizard's clothing, staff and a full spellbook. She spoke of the new lands, and it peaked my interest. So I set foot to the lich lair in the new lands, and did some battle, when I met a good man who became my fighting partner. We split the loot from all we killed, and no one bothered with us. Those were the days. The days of delight...

Klavis Verge

P.S. I had a 233MHz Pentium I Sony VAIO (with a 19" Trinitron monitor) with 100 MHz real front side bus (right when you could go from 66 to 100 stepping) running Windows 95 then 98. It had an ATI Rage 3D and never failed (Go AMD!). Before that it was a 66Mhz (FSB) SCSI Swan with DX Evergreen chip and Windows for Workgroups.

[chumbucket]

I saw a story on the beta in a magazine, bought it on day 1, logged in, saw a naked man run through Britain and tried to call the guards on him.