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Fact: Ultima Online was the only MMO ever worth playing.

Anoregon

The flight plan I just filed with the agency list me, my men, Dr. Pavel here. But only one of you!
This!

/thread ends

I'm actually considering giving Darktide a reasonable effort after the big feb patch hits. I figure people will be busy enough farming new gear and experimenting with builds that I can sneak up to a semi self-sufficient level.
 
I played UO for several years, I was pretty popular I guess... I had a dexxer named Rick James, started on Baja, then shard transfered for awhile and killed a ton of people.

:D

Edit..

I think I had screenshots... lets see..
lolwtfpwned.jpg

(yes I ended up playing in 3d, i felt it was faster for melee, but played 2d as a mage)
eh thats the only one... I loved screwing up peoples houses.
 

SpacLock

Member
Oh boy... I remember playing this just a few days after launch, I was salivating for this game the idea of more than 4 players at once... not to mention I was a HUGE Ultima nerd. Years before Hi Speed was even close to my area I got ISDN hooked up for this game.

I remember just figuring out how to play the game, I made my way out of Britain and was trying to find my way to Minoc. Along the road a met a fellow newbie and we decided to go to Minoc together. We walked along the road talking about how amazing this game was and other Ultima things... not to mention how lost we were. We came to a bridge/guardhouse type building, and some player was hanging around. We said "Hi! Do you know how to get to Minoc?". After a moment of silence, his response was "Do you want to die?". Well, we weren't quite sure what he was on about so said "Ummm.. no...", to which his reply was "Too bad... for you.". Then he started shooting fire at us. Well me and my new friend ran like crazy trying to get away from this guy!

We finally did manage to make our escape after losing him in the forest, say what you will about PK and Risk vs Reward, but all these years later I remember that event very clearly.

I finally did make it all the way to Minoc and the famed "Happy Hunting Grounds", only to find it was routinely camped by PK's. Yeah FUCK YOU Dread Lord Peachy! That's the other thing I clearly remember from this game hah hah!

Losing people in the forest was an art form.

I miss this game.
 
I don't necessarily want a full-on return to UO exactly as it was. I want a return to seamless worlds, and yes, risk vs. reward gameplay, and yes, player-driven events instead of yet another raid to push through, and PKing would be involved with that, though maybe with much more risk for the PKer somehow. I want an MMO, not a hub world for personal instanced content that I can get in any half decent dungeon crawler, or in different formats like Dungeon Defenders.

There was nothing better than the thrill of being chased by 3-6 people and killing them all off slowly, at the same time you are fatiguing your mounts, using bolas to slow people down, dismounting, stoping to kill someone and chugging pots to stay alive as you get bombarded and you take off again. It was totally nuts. No other game has ever gotten me going like that. WoW pvp came close, but not nearly as fast paced and exciting.

In UO battles and fights would drag across the world and people would pop up all over the place and try to join, people incept you at moongated spots, city gates all kinds of crap. Went on for-ev-er.

Risk reward is where its at, I mean insurance was cool, but when I killed you the game took 3500 gold and gave me half of it as a reward for killing someone, and if you didnt insure your stuff, then you lose it all.

I quit like 6 months after all the ninja bullshit came out. It got a little old after that.
 

TheContact

Member
I remember buying this game at my older brother friend's request at an Electronic's Boutique in the mall. I played the shit out of this game. My first memory just being in awe was when I figured out how to dye clothing. I stopped playing when the Third Dawn came out or whatever when they ruined the game. I used to play on Lake Superior (anyone here play on that server pre Third Dawn?).

The game was punishing, but in a way that's what made it so great.

I still play the game on free shards by connecting via Razor. There is one out there that mimics T2A almost perfectly and adds a lot of cool features, but I mostly go back just for the nostalgia and the music.

Anyone remember reading the UO comics? My favorite ones were ImaNewbie, BonesUO, ALBE Comics (site doesn't exist anymore but was very good), Razoric, and Bone d00d and Plate d3wd. There were more too..lost in time somewhere.


Anyone remember these songs from Midas?
http://www.digiphobia.com/ultimasongs/html/songs.html
Don't Hurry, Be Laggy
Don't Bank So Close To Me
r0xx0r
etc etc

Use to rock out to this shit lol.

YES! Pre Patch Day is probably my favorite. Message in a Bottle was really good too. That guy was amazing, his site isn't working too well and a lot of the songs don't work anymore. Couldn't find them anywhere else, I think YouTube had only a couple of them. Magic Corp Por ride was funny too.

Edit: Actually it looks like in late January 2012 someone uploaded a lot of his songs on YouTube: Link here >--- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4FN_mGUzms&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL2D6D575572C1A7C6
 

Clydefrog

Member
Anyone remember reading the UO comics? My favorite ones were ImaNewbie, BonesUO, ALBE Comics (site doesn't exist anymore but was very good), Razoric, and Bone d00d and Plate d3wd. There were more too..lost in time somewhere.




YES! Pre Patch Day is probably my favorite. Message in a Bottle was really good too. That guy was amazing, his site isn't working too well and a lot of the songs don't work anymore. Couldn't find them anywhere else, I think YouTube had only a couple of them. Magic Corp Por ride was funny too.

Edit: Actually it looks like in late January 2012 someone uploaded a lot of his songs on YouTube: Link here >--- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4FN_mGUzms&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL2D6D575572C1A7C6


aaaahhhhhhhhhhh awesomeness
 
Anyone remember reading the UO comics? My favorite ones were ImaNewbie, BonesUO, ALBE Comics (site doesn't exist anymore but was very good), Razoric, and Bone d00d and Plate d3wd. There were more too..lost in time somewhere.




YES! Pre Patch Day is probably my favorite. Message in a Bottle was really good too. That guy was amazing, his site isn't working too well and a lot of the songs don't work anymore. Couldn't find them anywhere else, I think YouTube had only a couple of them. Magic Corp Por ride was funny too.

Edit: Actually it looks like in late January 2012 someone uploaded a lot of his songs on YouTube: Link here >--- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4FN_mGUzms&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL2D6D575572C1A7C6

The Belan stories are pretty funny.
 

EVH

Member
Best MMORPG ever.

Played WOW, Ragnarok and this. Nothing else is close to the kind of experiences you get in Ultima Online. The fear, the feeling of being actually lost in a huge forest.

I have so many adventures and I only played during a few months, maybe less than 3.
 

Wolfe

Member
Hmm I can't find it at the moment but my old WoW guild leader posted on the guild forums some of the old screencaps/stories from their UO time and man it sounded like a blast*. UO was a bit before my real PC gaming began so I never tried it out but damn if it didn't interest me.

Being someone that played Diablo 2 almost exclusively on Hardcore mode I was fairly bored with the PvP in WoW overall, I mean I had great fun but as has been said there was no risk/reward to it and I really find stuff like that enjoyable when done well.

*I found the post on the forums but you wouldn't be able to see it without forum access anyway. I'm pretty sure they were still going by TM/The Mafia back then, looks like they played on Pacific Shard.
 
I'm actually considering giving Darktide a reasonable effort after the big feb patch hits. I figure people will be busy enough farming new gear and experimenting with builds that I can sneak up to a semi self-sufficient level.

Very unlikely :)

Last time I was on Darktide I spend 3 months hiding in the desert!
 
I'm actually considering giving Darktide a reasonable effort after the big feb patch hits. I figure people will be busy enough farming new gear and experimenting with builds that I can sneak up to a semi self-sufficient level.

As someone who played on Darktide religiously from 99-2003, don't do it bro. You will only disappoint yourself. AC is only a shell of its former self.
 

NervousXtian

Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
Corp Por on anyone who doesn't think UO was the pinnacle of MMO design.

Corp Por on you all.
 

Struct09

Member
Some fun bugs I can remember:

-When Magic Arrow (In Por Ylem) was bugged and would kill anyone in 2-3 shots
-Snooping someone's backpack to make your notoriety to go down from Dread Lord to Dark Lord. Which basically allowed you to be as evil as possible and still be allowed in towns.
-Breaking into houses
-Being able to dye anything, including other player characters. I believe this bug only lasted a day before it was fixed, but I had tons of fun going around dying people against their will.
 

bitoriginal

Member
I remember when I started getting some cash in UO I got my hands on a pair of these. Not massively rare but it definitely felt like a status symbol lol.

images
 
It was amazing.

Most of the time I traded semi rare stuff like fruit baskets, true black dye, ranger armor etc. and I spent nights wandering around looking for free spots for houses to sell them the next day. I bought myself a big tower with that money.
 

NervousXtian

Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
Game just really felt like a living world. People really role-played, and the game didn't hold your hand.

I got PK'd plenty of times, but nothing extreme. Died many more times getting my ass handed to me in dungeons.

Also, remember setting up scripts to train. Good times.
 

bitoriginal

Member
I remember I was in a big RP guild, and they kicked me out because they caught me training at Jhelom Pits during power hour. Then I started hanging around Yew gate...
 

Clydefrog

Member
It was amazing.

Most of the time I traded semi rare stuff like fruit baskets, true black dye, ranger armor etc. and I spent nights wandering around looking for free spots for houses to sell them the next day. I bought myself a big tower with that money.

I love those random locations in the forest that just barely fit a house. I had a small house like that in those palm tree-like forests west of Trinsic.

Also had:
- Smithy patio house right outside north Britain mines (sold that for a buttload)
- Small house on the southern tip of Moonglow. I called it my beachfront property.
- 2 Story house near Cove. This was stolen from me by a friend.
- Invested in a tower with a guildmate. So spacious!
- Small house right outside a mine near Covetous. My PK lived there :)
 

Darkmakaimura

Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
Okay, so hearing about Ultima Forever has gotten me into a serious Ultima mood. I'm on a low end netbook and was browsing around and saw free 14 day trial for Ultima Online. I haven't played UO in 10 years or more and it was my first MMO and one of my first multiplayer games ever. So, here I am downloading the client. So far, it hasn't asked for CC info which is good.

My question is since I can't afford a subscription (I'm still surprised it is pay-to-play after all these years) are there "free shards" should they ask for a CC after these (extremely slow!) downloads are complete or after my 14 day trial? I might want to kill time with this if it runs on my netbook (it's the classic client - I mean it's a decade old game, it has to, right?) and like I mentioned, I'm itching for Ultima.

Edit: Holy cripes, this download is crawling and I have a pretty good connection speed!
 

Darkmakaimura

Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
Yup, that would be nice if I could run WoW on this netbook and get back into playing my 85th level Forsaken Warlock without the charge but looks like I'll have to settle for something this piece of crap netbook can run. Thanks for all the help there!
 

Proc

Member
Read through this thread last night. Glad to see that a f2p server is fairly lively with about 550-600 active players on the second age.

Going to give a whirl tonight and see how this nostalgia trip goes. I have so many great memories with this game. The people who commented on how this was a truely social mmo nailed it on the head. I haven't had a similar mmo guild experience since.
 

Darkmakaimura

Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
Read through this thread last night. Glad to see that a f2p server is fairly lively with about 550-600 active players on the second age.

Going to give a whirl tonight and see how this nostalgia trip goes. I have so many great memories with this game. The people who commented on how this was a truely social mmo nailed it on the head. I haven't had a similar mmo guild experience since.
I'm going to have to hit up the f2p server once my trial is up. Right now, I'm on the Atlantic shard and this is really bringing back some memories. I'm finding it a bit easier than I did 10+ years ago which is a good thing. I hope you're able to transfer characters to other shards (I'm guessing not) because I'd hate to have to start over fresh again on the f2p one.
 

antitrop

Member
Years ago, when I tried the game out, I rolled up a mage and was having a terrible time getting any exploring and leveling. I could never get enough funds to keep my spell regents well stocked, and I was too weak to really take on most enemies directly in combat. Then I discovered that I met the requirements for the animal taming ability. After initially trying it out on a random chicken and leveling the ability up enough, I felt confident enough to try to tame something out in the wilderness. A deer was the first thing I came across, and it fell under my command really easily. Then, curious to see if I could have more than one pet, I tried to tame another deer. It also fell under my command. So I kept going until I had an army of at least twenty deer following my every command. With my army, I was able to just walk around the wilderness and slaughter high level ogres and trolls with little effort, allowing me to finally keep a healthy supply of spell regents...which I would turn around and use on spells that would buff the attack and defense of my deer army. Eventually, I would continue to build my army until to the point that, one day, I forgot to tell them to wait outside the main city. Apparently, the server began to massively lag for anybody who was remotely nearby, resulting in the skill being massively nerfed in the following week.

Ultima Online was pretty awesome.
This is one of the best posts I've ever had the pleasure of reading on GAF.
 

Darkmakaimura

Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
UO is such a bore when compared to MMOs or gaming in general nowadays. Had a lot of fun building and owning a house, but it wears quick.

Edit: Still can't believe they charge $10-$12 a month for a 15 year old MMO when most newer MMOs are going f2p. And yes, I know about the "free" servers but enjoy all of 200 or so people on it. Anything but the Atlantic server is pretty much dead.
 

TheContact

Member
This game was in its prime during T2A, it took a slight dive during Renaissance and every expansion after that severely ruined the game, especially when they tried to do the 3D engine client. I play every once and a while on the free server, it generally has around 400 people on it. I wish it was more, but it's still a decent amount, you usually run into people pretty often, and some towns are populated. Back in the day this was the best MMO, but too many people complained it was too difficult and punishing and they tried to appeal to a wider market which ruined the core sense of the game. EQ came out and that was that. I like DAoC better than EQ actually, but even DAoC was ruined with the Trials of Atlantis expansion. WoW is truly the only expansion that is consistently good, although I prefer vanilla WoW because I don't like when games hold my hand.
 

lvclix

Banned
Awesome game!

I remember logging in after the server down time to spawn and get a rare fruit basket lol.

My house was in a wooded PK area. I used to run there and lock my door lol.

Early on, I negotiated to buy a book that had key teleport locations saved. I went out to a wooded area and was promptly PK'd. They kept revivng me and killing me lol. I was finally able to get them to pity me and give me the book after they had there fun.
 
Awesome game!

I remember logging in after the server down time to spawn and get a rare fruit basket lol.

My house was in a wooded PK area. I used to run there and lock my door lol.

Early on, I negotiated to buy a book that had key teleport locations saved. I went out to a wooded area and was promptly PK'd. They kept revivng me and killing me lol. I was finally able to get them to pity me and give me the book after they had there fun.

I probably did this if you were on Baja, sorry I was a jerk. I killed many thousands of people.
 

Killroth

Neo Member
Hey guys, I would like to attempt to Call To Arms all old Ultima Online players to check out a new Age of Shadows era freeshard that is being developed right now.

They have some truly amazing changes to the game, like the entirely revamped guild system, and really interesting new world economic systems in place.

I'm convinced this will be one of the greatest freeshards of all time.

Here's the promotion info from the forums.
________________________________________________________________

It's been 17 years since Ultima Online was released. For those who have played it before, I'm sure you remember the blood-pumping nostalgic thrill of the game. Much has changed since the glory days of UO, some for better, some for worse.

It is time to relive the thrill, the nostalgia, the blood-pumping
adrenaline rush that we remember so long ago.

Introducing,

b3mGrrY.png

CURRENTLY IN DEVELOPMENT


First things first, What is Ultima Online?
Ultima Online (UO) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), released on September 24th, 1997, by Origin Systems (Now owned by EA). The game is played in a fantasy setting similar to the other Ultima games that preceded it.

Ultima Online was the game that opened the door for the creation of many new massively multiplayer games. It is online-only and played by thousands of users on various game servers, also known as shards. It remains today, as the longest living MMORPG to date with a still active playerbase.

Because it was released before the DMC Act (1998), technically minded users are able to create and host their own freeshards using various UO emulators, like RUNUO. Those people are able to create, modify, and remove content as they see fit, without repercussion. Because of this, Freeshards have been growing and evolving since that time.

UO Shadow Age's era, AoS, was release in February 2003, and with it, brought a number of changes that many veteran players did not approve of, but also a number of changes that evolved UO into its highest subscription count.

What is UO Shadow Age?
Ultima Online Shadow Age, is a brand new freeshard created by seasoned UO veterans, professional developers, and UO enthusiasts. With the introduction of some brand new features never seen before, UO Shadow Age will provide the most attractive features for every type of player. We will be taking and fortifying the features that have become staples of AoS, and we will be changing and/or removing the features that majority of players didn't like, like trammel.

Our vision is simple, we will provide you with the best freeshard experience, period.

Because we are a new freeshard, we are trying to build our community from the ground up. We have an extremely talented dev team working with us. Please, if you've ever played on a server that didn't end up the way you like, voice your opinion on the forums. Give some suggestions so we can hear you out. A lot of what you see when we are live will have a lot to do with suggestions that we see.



zOdsyL7.png


GENERAL

Shadow Age Staff
Professional, dedicated, and enthusiastic staff. 100% Trustworthy GMs. ALL staff members will be available to players for in-game help. Look forward to staff that's actually online.
The UO Shadow Age staff is comprised of 2 professional developers, 1 professional web developer, 1 graphic artist, 1 market research analyst, 2 GMs with coding knowledge, and 1 GM with extensive AoS mechanics knowledge regarded as one of the best AoS PvP'ers of all time.

Community
Since UO Shadow Age is new, it's time to build a brand new community together.
A community that doesn't plague itself, promotes growth, and loves the systems that we can build for it. Become part of that community and spread the word to others. It starts with you. We are built off our communities suggestions. When enough people want to see a certain system in game, we will do our best to bring that system out. In this community, the players have the power to shape the game with their own suggestions!

Basic Mechanics
* AoS (2003) Style Combat
* AoS Style Item System
* Felucca Only
* 225 Stat (250 With Stat Scroll) / 700 Skill Cap (720 with 4 Months Gametime Reward)
* Insurance included (Modified Costs For Higher End Armors)
* Order/Chaos and 4 Factions (CoM, TB, SL, Minax) with enhanced systems

Completely REVAMPED Guild System
Out with the old and in with the new. The old system was simply a way to chat with your guild members and turn green to each other. We have completely revamped the way the Guild system works. Now, guilds are able to choose whether 1%, 2%, or 3% of all gold looted off monsters from members will be deposited into the guild treasury. Guilds can use this treasury to purchase different guild levels that give access to different perks. Perks (or buffs) last 1 week, their intensity increases as guild levels increase. You will also be able to use the Guild Treasury currency if you are a Guildmaster to purchase Guild Aid Items. You can get bonus Treasury by completing guild Achievements.

Fully Immersive Achievement System
Other servers have achievement systems that just don't cut it. Nobody participates in them fully and the rewards are meager. UO Shadow Age will be creating the first immersive achievement experience. Greater rewards for accomplishing in game feats. Rewards that scale with difficulty and make players want to go out into the world and complete them. Some will even be linked with the revamped guild system to offer treasury reward bonuses and other guild rewards.

New Housing System For Prolonged Server Health
We will be revamping the current housing system. There's a problem in today's servers. Players quit, and only log in once every few weeks to refresh the house that they have. This doesn't help the server or the server's economy at all. We will be adding a tax associated with the value of the deed for the house, or the value of the house's customization cost. The tax will be a small fraction of the house's worth per week. We believe that players that quit or log in once a week to refresh their house, then log out shouldn't be able to keep their home without playing the game. If this system makes them log in and hit up a few dungeons, then we've done our job. For those who are on extended leave, or going on vacation, gold will be automatically withdrawn from your bank to pay for the tax. So keep your bank stocked and you will be fine!

IDOC will be changed from the current way it works. Players will have 2 weeks and 3 days without paying before their house decays. The system works like this: Players pay tax at the end of each week from the time they placed the house. If the tax isn't paid that week, they will have another full week to pay the overdue balance and the current new balance. If they still haven't paid for the house after the second week, the home goes into foreclosure. You will now have to pay all the remaining balances for the home within the next 3 days. If that is still not done by the end of the 2 weeks 3 days, the property becomes owned by "The Bank" and will be demolished between 1-3 days later randomly.

This system will help promote in game activity, remove old houses from the game who's owners don't play anymore, and be a active recurring gold sink that will CONSTANTLY be removing money from the game.

Again, the tax amount will be small compared to the houses worth, so don't worry!

Factions Buffed
We will be focusing on promoting more PvP systems through the faction system. During the beta stage, we will be asking players what they would like to see the most with factions and will attempt to make some of the suggestions reality in game. Suggest some cool systems!
We will be asking the community for feedback on a lot of the systems that we propose before we go live.

Newbie Friendly
There will be 2 anti-PK, less loot dungeons available in the game for newer players to enter.
One of these dungeons will even have a champ spawn available. This champ spawn will still give out powerscrolls, however they will not go past +10 scrolls. We will also give aid to any players who plan on creating a main [NEW] guild. The headquarters of this guild will be in Britain, and people will be able to donate any items they want and new players will be able to use these items to help them get started in the game faster.

Doom And Artifacts
Doom and Artifacts are in. Artifacts will be scaled down slightly to not give players an overwhelming edge against other players. There are still stealable artifacts and rares throughout the game. Doom will be activated and will be a non-PvP zone that all players (Blues and Murderers alike) can participate in.

++ MORE
Not every new addition will be listed here, just some highlights. Rest assured, the dev team here will be working diligently to keep new content coming.

THE GOLD RUSH
Perhaps the biggest reason to play the game at launch. There's nothing like the exhilarating feeling during the beginning stages of a large shard. This is the time where players let their inner-gamer out, spending countless hours devoting themselves to the shard to become the richest person, the largest guild, the fastest 7x gm, the highest level guild, the highest achievements completed, the first 120'd out character. This only happens once in a shards entirety!

______________________________________________________________________


Important Links
* http://uoshadowage.com < - Main Website
* http://uoshadowage.com/forums < - Forums
* http://facebook.com/uoshadowage < - Facebook
* https://kiwiirc.com/client/irc.stratics ... #ShadowAge < - IRC

UO Shadow Age Is Currently In Development! Be Sure To Register On The Forums!
 
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