Old timers ?

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Duke Surak'Nar is/was a good friend of mine. He was part of the Britannian War Council (BWC) which is the ancient name of my guild now. He was greatly supportive when I took over as Lady Paladin. Grimrick passed it on to me and a friend when he left. It went through a few morphs but it is now known as House Gauntlet. Our guild website has the history if you are interested. www.housegauntlet.com
I miss him. Every once in a while over the years he would send me a Q but I have not heard from him in several years now.
Greypawn, a good friend still has his hand in the preservation of history. He helped us with the Atlantic Mage Tower which has been passed to me to keep for the community. He also helped with the History thread we worked on to try and preserve the history when the new format was released.
I also hold Leiah's Rune Library and I am aware of who holds Serpents Cross Tavern and I have his word if he should leave he will contact me to protect that too. History is not lost it is being preserved all the time. I still own several houses in Rivendell as does Zymdragon who still logs on every few days to preserve his houses.

Awesome !

I'm glad that you have the care of the mage tower and library... thats our two most sacred spots and I trust you will keep them corruption free !

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

What about the Regulators ?

Aye...I was one of the original...

Together with TideHawk, Silverthorne, Morgana LeFay, Lawthorne, El Stinko, and CouDrac.

Something tells me that you may remember MastaKilla? Or if you go back far enough...maybe Dr Deth, Brolly, or Autumner?

Perhaps you remember Scar, Lice?

Ton Loc? Grady? (Trinisc thieves?)

Or perhaps IBNShaun?

Of course I remember the regulators ! Awesome pvp with them too !

Remember Morgana, Coudrac

I was very good friends with Mastakilla, we lead AoD together for quite a while after Holycrusader got banned and quit.

Dr Deth haha indeed... I remember Grady from TB right ?

IBNShaun of course I met him on a freeserver he still kicks ass !

 

[MR_CLEAN]

Ton and Grady were sort of TB, although they were never members, they just hung around with Scar and Lice and the TB crew.

If you were higher up in AoD, then you probably fought my 2nd guild...PoV. We had Morgana (again), Darlathan, Byron, Evets Namrezy, Sexecutioner, Kendrexil, Xabolix, Jade, and Seiol...to name a few.

We used to fight AoD around Destard and the Orc Fort near Cove.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Ton and Grady were sort of TB, although they were never members, they just hung around with Scar and Lice and the TB crew.

If you were higher up in AoD, then you probably fought my 2nd guild...PoV. We had Morgana (again), Darlathan, Byron, Evets Namrezy, Sexecutioner, Kendrexil, Xabolix, Jade, and Seiol...to name a few.

We used to fight AoD around Destard and the Orc Fort near Cove.

Yes I do remember ! what does your abreviation stand for ?

The orc fort were the best fights ever, all around cove was amongst my best memories !

 

[MR_CLEAN]

Protectors of Virtue

Morgana had us kill all AoD around the Orc Fort on Thursdays for a couple of months...but we were not allowed to take the loot. We piled it in the middle of the fort, and surrounded it, and gave it to players that AoD had killed.

It was a great time in UO!

I called her today. She says she will join here in a couple of days.

On a different note:


Does anyone remember Fabulous Flee Mall Killer?!

I actually saw him in Fel Yew today!!!

Talk about a blast from the past! We talked for 20 min! He may join PoV, even though he is dedicated Red.

 

[MR_CLEAN]

Morg and I joined the Regulators late...El Stinko too. So we rode at the back.

The guildmaster would sometimes shout "REGULATORS! Let's Ride!!"

At the back, we would often repeate..."REGULATORS, Let's Regulate?" or...sometimes...we would call ourselves the 'Rough Riders' and repeat...

"Rough Riders...let's Ride Rough!"




Stinko was the one that started that one. He was too funny!

I miss the old crew!


Also, does anyone remember the ore thieves around Brit?

One of my other Chars, John Henry, spent hours arguing an ore thief into giving back my ore! That was a great night...and I was SO drunk!!!


I miss the old days sometimes!

 

[GreyPawn]

Ibn Shaun was an insideous practitioner of necromantic arts, and if I recall he was lampooned rather mercilessly in the "Another Mad Tower" comics. He remained a fixture of Moonglow for a long, long time. I remember trying, in futility, to get him to sign on to my Moonglow Town Council project.

His single room cottage with the Physician's guildstone stood for so long on our little island. I miss his presence, along with so many others.

With regards to the Eternal Flame of Mages. Let me tell you that as long as Moonglow and I are inseparable, I will champion its return.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Morg and I joined the Regulators late...El Stinko too. So we rode at the back.

The guildmaster would sometimes shout "REGULATORS! Let's Ride!!"

At the back, we would often repeate..."REGULATORS, Let's Regulate?" or...sometimes...we would call ourselves the 'Rough Riders' and repeat...

"Rough Riders...let's Ride Rough!"




Stinko was the one that started that one. He was too funny!

I miss the old crew!


Also, does anyone remember the ore thieves around Brit?

One of my other Chars, John Henry, spent hours arguing an ore thief into giving back my ore! That was a great night...and I was SO drunk!!!


I miss the old days sometimes!

Yes we definately lived something that might not ever happen again back then ! I was a very notorious thief killer around britain mountains, but I also killed the miners who didn't thank me. I remember a John Henry lol, always tought it was a funny name !

Is it my memory failing or Morgana was also in AoD for a while ? I remember talking to her alot... I remember less killing or fighting her than anything else. Always admired the camaradry in the regulators, and always faced them with the concentration they deserved

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Ibn Shaun was an insideous practitioner of necromantic arts, and if I recall he was lampooned rather mercilessly in the "Another Mad Tower" comics. He remained a fixture of Moonglow for a long, long time. I remember trying, in futility, to get him to sign on to my Moonglow Town Council project.

His single room cottage with the Physician's guildstone stood for so long on our little island. I miss his presence, along with so many others.

With regards to the Eternal Flame of Mages. Let me tell you that as long as Moonglow and I are inseparable, I will champion its return.

Yes your memory is quite impressive !

If I am to perform such a grandiose act in honor of Tiffric the wise it will have to be in response to a generous invitation by one or many of you to walk the land again. It would be running against my intuition to give money once again to EA considering how they treated me, especially that I paid many months for nothing because I got my account hacked. Even with all the money they got and the service I did that they got documented quite clearly, they wouldn't give me a lousy free month.

During those days I paid my UO with money I gained from much effort and sweat mowing grasses and babysitting every weekend. I realise the repercussions of my brainwash allowed me to live an extraordinary adolescence which is still going strong, but history repeated in my real life and I got stolen, scammed, and stucked in an administrative bourbier that left me without anything not even social security (I was considered "illegal" by some agencies that pay people, other that collected my money told me I was okay as long as I keep paying).

To underline my failure, and the fact I'm no hero, I am now back at my parents house, indebted and without means to even put gas in my car to go see my few friends that did not forget me. I'm not to pity however, at least I eat and I can work, but it's not soon I'd be able to pay myself a game or have fun in my life for that matter.

What is most funny is that I am not indebted because I have abused good things, because I have brought fantasies or anything. I never had anything exept an old car and the same old computer, all the money I made during those years went exactly like in UO, I didn't care about money, guess what happened. I created the like of a brotherhood guild in my life where all were welcome to visit my house with their friends, I shared everything and kept nothing to myself, even the woman that wished just this. Oh I loved many, but it was for them reliving the 60 I guess, although I could not judge their spirit. It turned the same way it did in UO.

Can you imagine your humble narrator paying a house from his own hard labor, and dozens of people coming and making the party abusing of good things in my circle of magical protection where no judgement of valor was given ? As you can most likely imagine I hardly can make myself realise one or two of them showed a little appreciation towards me that goes beyond their natural contribution of presence. Just like in UO we celebrated everyone's birthday, but when it came to mine I could tell everyone one week in advance because I was so used to everyone forgetting about me... and lo and behold, everyone forgot about my birthday even if reminded them, year after year, and we had the biggest parties for all my other friends, even those who did nothing to deserve it, and it was all my best friends organising, kinda laughing in my face did they ? We had over 120 people once in my bungalow, the lawns were filled and there was even a DJ in the basement with 4000 watts of sound. But at my birthdays, I was alone, and everytime had to call some people and almost force them to go out with me because it felt so depressing. This is still happening to this day !

So this went on for 4 years in that house, I was selling herbs and natural products and foods, had lots of very loyal clients that seemed to appreciate my business in a magnitudinal way. My friends tho often would forget I had such herbs, and complain of their health in my face while I reminded them many times I had easy solutions, a total aberation of communication. But as in UO one day they all began to forget about me, they even talk to each other sometimes how they forgot me, in front of me. They often told me how weird they tought of themselves for forgetting so much.

But today the time of questioning has long gone ; I have only silence as a companion, I'm glad I maybe still have friends on UO ! I appreciate how even if I wronged most of you you are still open minded to accept what I represent. One good thing got out of this isolation however, I can now play the traditional bass bamboo flute of india like not many can

Let it be symbolic that my first action if I am to walk back in sosaria will be to restore the lost eternal flame of mages and its magic upon the island reflected in the moon's glow.

Forever in passion.

 

[MR_CLEAN]

Is it my memory failing or Morgana was also in AoD for a while ? I remember talking to her alot... I remember less killing or fighting her than anything else. Always admired the camaradry in the regulators, and always faced them with the concentration they deserved

There was a Morgana in AoD, she and Morgana LeFay from PoV fought a bunch as I recall. I know Morgana LeFay IRL, she founded PoV in 1998, and we are still around on Atlantic, but no longer on Great Lakes. (back in the day, it made a lot of sense to have characters on two shards, because the servers didn't stay up that often!).

The Regulators was my first guild, I joined on the 2nd day they existed. Coudrac was the founder of that guild, I think...or he was a co-founder. Can't remember.

-----------------------

Ibn Shaun was considered an exploiter by some back in the day, as he had some things that few other players had...like a rune to Green Acres. I have only ever been to Green Acres on a production shard twice. Once was because of Ibn Shaun, the other was because a GM took me there to discuss my account being hacked.

 

[Lady Aalia]

Ibn's house in Moonglow fell beginning of the year in spring sometime.

Me and 2 friends where lucky enough to be there when it did fall, and we where able to preserve all of in it.
One of the things it held was his rose and the other are Runebooks made by his character.

They are all now on Display on the Second floor of My Zento Museum

Here is a screeny i made of the house before it fell

 

[Andrasta]

One of my guildmates arranged a field trip for us to Green Acres many years ago with someone who had a rune. No idea if it was Ibn Shaun but I think there must have been more than one rune to the place.

We were gated out so were not caught by GMs. That's Grounds Keeper Willy giving us a stern talking to after we had been eaten by his pets.

 

[MR_CLEAN]

I think most of the players that had runes to Green Acres got them from Coucilors. Silverthorne was a Smurf, and he had a rune to GA. I think some Smurfs, and some GMs for that matter, broke a few rules back then

Not sure where Ibn got his, but I would almost bet it was from Silverthorne.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

I think most of the players that had runes to Green Acres got them from Coucilors. Silverthorne was a Smurf, and he had a rune to GA. I think some Smurfs, and some GMs for that matter, broke a few rules back then

Not sure where Ibn got his, but I would almost bet it was from Silverthorne.

Haha definately... Although I know Ibn has been involved in many things, I had no real dealings with him since he was so modest about his things. Perhaps he was himself a counselor. I always thought it was funny how the red owners had blue friends, and that the moderators were in green. Why are those colors so universal ?

I had almost no contact with either the blue or the red, just the seers... there was a strange split in gameplay between those factions and it was just like that they formed, the shadowlords being the last faction created in the split of FoA on many servers...

It's very interesting to think that my account was worth something to the eyes of one of the richest players on atlantic back then. As I told you this was an honest trade. My account against "one of his" and a house, and a million in stuff so I would never have to buy anything to pvp again.

Now my account was quite good, but not that good... it wasn't worth it for him unless he knew about something else.

So I ended up with a character named Brainbug, 7x mage, well setup for pvp and thus my last attempt at shaking sosaria off the evil time-delayed spell mondain had casted. Explosion became oficially time-delayed around those days...

The night of armageddon I tought I had made the server bug with my brain... and now I'm playing a murderer called Brainbug with unique clothes, unique hair and beard dye (noone had that back then) unique jewels, and also I think a unique character skin hue. He was overall very strange, but also very powerful, I would easily kill groups of 3-4 without any help...

ok so has someone followed me around, listening to my ramblings and created this character for me, thinking my account had something magical... or was it another strange Nick-of-Time coincidence ?

Because lemme tell you about that... I managed over 3000 legit kills without one single cheat, all pvp kills, always letting my victims react before I attacked them officially. It still impresses me to this day, I never died in often less than fair circumstances, granted I recalled often !

This brought me about the second highest bounty on the server... it was well over 10 million, but I cannot recall exactly how much... it was a **** load of money worth at ****load in real cash... and with all the new rules I knew I was going to quit the game soon, so I tought I might cash in after all, at least refund what it had costed me to play the game !

Then that night came whence we all felt like the armageddon night, a very intense pvp night I spent with Nick hunting the dungeons and killing everyone. But that night they didn't just die as usual, and we met another friend which we told we were to continue for a while. Now obviously this guy didn't have my best interest at heart, because he most likely treasoned us. We were told to meet at the rune library and I'm pretty sure neither Nick or I even suspected what was waiting for us there.

Around 100 players all tightly packed and hidden with tons of pets... as you can imagine when I felt that much lag I recalled instantly, but it was already too late. When everyone unhid, the lag got so strong that I froze and died under 20 e-bolts and 40 halberds...

Now it starts to get strange again... Nick managed to run to my body, and even if 100 people were piled over it trying to get my head, he managed to snatch it off !!!

In the nick-of-time you say ? Awesome !

Then he said he would meet me at my house and give it back to me... I would have trusted Nick with my account back then, and he certainly proved to be a good guy to put my trust into.

What puzzles me and feeds our mystery is that I don't remember if I got that account and house from him, because he would play many characters that sounded like him but I was never sure if it was him... and there was of course Nikademus which had a strange resemblance, and would show up when Nick would magically dsapear...

Anyhow with your help people I will most likely remember, I never seen one brainwash to be seamless, I'm hoping to uncover more.

So we ran and met at my house, but the server started behaving worse than on the armageddon night...

Was it my brain bugging the server again I tought, everytime it was important something like this happened...

We started warping, not only in time but in space, it would feel like I was going in the past, but also in the future, it was really strange, anyone that remembers this night will agree.

So after one terribly long hour we managed to meet behind my house, and the moment he managed to res me and all seemed pretty much stable... I had decided to res and take the huge penalty (BTW EA, holy crap... 15% of all my skills ?!) because I knew I would quit because it was soo ridiculous and brainbug was all I had left. Nick knew this and this is why he remained to help me with so much diligence... So he tried to drop the head on me but I warped again ! I saw the head drop on the floor, got disconnected, logged back in , we all warped 15 minutes in the past again... but the head was somehow still there when we warped back in normal time...

I ran , almost grabbing it like 5-6 times ! As you can imagine I was terribly nervous and the server wouldn't listen at all...

Then when I finally got there, the moment I put my mouse on the head to grab it, it decayed in my face, one second too late.

I ran around a while trying to figure out f anyone was hidden there, but I was alone.

I have never seen Nick again... although he was on my ICQ all this time and I talked to him often, he vanished, like he didn't really exist.

See this adds to the number of improbabilities I lived along wit him...

Nothing of this makes sense, even today... it's just too much for one human to plan, and just not enough for the development team to plan...

Anyone has any idea ?

 

[MR_CLEAN]

I have an idea...


Drugs are bad...um-kay?

 

[MR_CLEAN]

Here's a name I hesitate to utter...

but does anyone else remember MoonlightMyst?

She and I had some...history...

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Here's a name I hesitate to utter...

but does anyone else remember MoonlightMyst?

She and I had some...history...

Vaguely familiar... I do remember seeing her.

You can well talk, everyone knows Mr.Clean is a drug addict !

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

We had 66 replies , did you do it on purpose ?

*looks at the bald man suspiciously*

We know from Gm Datura's interview that he/she was doing the party everynight with people dancing on electronic music, I doubt they were always sober ! I remember he always logged on at like 2 PM, prolly after sleeping like a slob...

And he was paid for that ! Lemme laugh !

I'm surprised that black ops have not found more ingenuity to lay my thread flat or derive it from its prime purpose, get people together under a new hope.

It's very real, but we all have to do our part !

 

[MR_CLEAN]

Me? Drug addict?

No...

I'm CLEAN

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Was it PoV's tower that was right by cove ? I remember attacking one that we seized, then we had to defend it from LLTS and PoV all at once...

Ahh how often I ran back between the orc fort and the town looking for you guys...

 

[MR_CLEAN]

Our guild tower was near the entrance to the Ice Dungeon...sort of near Wrong. But Lord Byron had a tower near Cover that we used a lot. My house used to be on the beach between Brit and Trinisic. Lost that in the great account hacking of 02!

Sucked to lose all those rares. Hell, I didn't even know most of that crap was going to actually end up being rare!

The only thing I didn't lose on my account was my Silver Vanq Katana, and that's only because it was in someone else's house awaiting repair.

--------------------------------------

There were several times we would end up being out numbered fighting AoD, and LLTS would help us out.


It's good you started this thread...brings back some really good memories of the way UO was before Ren.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Ah yes that was Lord Byron's tower ! That tower changed hands so often it was indeed very fun times !

That all happened before we learned to really roleplay...

Speaking of that I'm really frustrated that we lost all the AMT comics... I been looking for archives on the net, Ra seems to be a goner...



I never tought we'd loose so much evidence ! Someone has to have more of those great screenshots !

 

[Andrasta]

Sadly although I have many pictures, not a single one is of AMT. I made a few visits there and dearly wanted a Large Brick in the water because a Large Brick was my dream home for many years.

Here is a link to Markee Dragon's site where there is an old site preserved from 1999. You have to have some fortitude for the menu system but its worth the dig....there's some great pictures from those days here.

Ultima Screenshots

Awesome to have saved it...

Andra
GRL

 

[Cesspool]

I'm not sure if I'm enough of an old timer to count, but I started almost immediately after UO:R was released (close enough that I specifically remember having a dilema at the store, being they had both Second Age and UO:R boxes there and not knowing which was more recent, but I figured it out).

I started hanging out in Rivendell in the early summer during the Nostur'yl seer stuff and subsequently stayed there for a number of years. I recall seeing a Raistlin around, but I have no idea if it was you or someone else. I remember Stormcrow, Greypawn, Grishnak and the stormreavers, OES, NCR, Maub'dib.

As for the possibiltiy of Nick being Nickademus, I have no idea, however Nika was (fairly) recently on hand as the Atlantic EM (a poor replacement for the old seers, but the best we had) for a while. I'm not sure if anyone else can get in touch with him, but he was a great guy.

I've actually had it tugging at the back of my mind for years now, someone once told me he got the impression I tried to sell off a knife I got at an EM event and being disappointed, and its been driving me nuts because I remember saying something like that sarcastically to someone, but ultimately I kept it until I quit for real, and then gave it to Grifty's typhoon charity (2004 maybe?). Weird and a little off topic I know, but it makes me feel like crap that he might have had that impression (Locke and I busted our balls to figure out that damn password, I loved that stupid knife).

Anyway, back on topic, when I started I was about 14 at the time, so I think in a way I can see where you're coming from in how much the game affected you. Through a combination of my incredible gulibility and complete lack of knowledge of how the game worked, when a demon would show up and declare his intent to open a portal to the abyss and summon a balron army, I legitimately believed they'd do it if the players didn't do anything about it, so the game really sucked me in. I nearly failed Geometry because I'd be hanging in Riv until 4am and catch up on sleep in class.

Anyway, I don't play anymore but I always toy around with the idea of resubbing every once in a while. I'm not sure I've understood everything in this thread, but I'll be damned if I'm not interested in seeing where this goes.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Sadly although I have many pictures, not a single one is of AMT. I made a few visits there and dearly wanted a Large Brick in the water because a Large Brick was my dream home for many years.

Here is a link to Markee Dragon's site where there is an old site preserved from 1999. You have to have some fortitude for the menu system but its worth the dig....there's some great pictures from those days here.

Ultima Screenshots

Awesome to have saved it...

Andra
GRL

Haha sweet...

I always wondered where those "dragons" came from...

here is something very interesting I found on that website, VERY interesting.

-------

May 5th, 1998

A Story About A Tree

I’d like to tell you a story about a tree.

This tree grows in a different virtual world than Ultima Online—one of the many text muds that exist on the Internet. It grows in a Garden of Remembrance, and the ground around it is littered with flowers and boxes of chocolates and pieces of paper with heartfelt poems written on them. And there is a plaque there as well—"In memory of Karyn," it reads. The story I’d like to tell is the story of that plaque and that person, someone I never met.

Karyn first logged on to that virtual world quite some time ago. She was from Norway. She kept coming back, and brought friends with her—some of whom did not speak English very well, but for whom she served as an interpreter. She made friends. Eventually she ran a website all about that virtual world, and posted on that site pictures of herself, where all could see she had a lovely smile.

As her ties to the world grew, she started a guild. She called it the Norse Traders, and with a lot of hard work, she got it off the ground and developed it into one of the most popular and well-known guilds in the game. It was a merchants’ guild that also adventured together, and pretty soon the folks involved had made good friendships.

In March of this year, some of those friends started to notice that they hadn’t seen Karyn in a while. You know how it goes in the online world—people don’t leave, they just fail to show up, usually, and you never know what happened to them. But in this case there was her website to go to. So people went looking for Karyn.

A day later the news filtered out across the bulletin boards, via emails, and eventually onto the welcome message when you first logged in: Karyn was dead. She had died in a head-on collision while test-driving a new car. And it had happened two months before, in January, and none of us had known. Her parents knew that she had friends on the Internet—they didn’t quite understand what she did online, or who those friends were, but they knew that there were people out there somewhere who might want to learn the news. It took them some time to find her webpage, and to learn how to put a message up. But they did it, and they attached news items about the car crash, in Norwegian.

The outpouring of grief on the virtual world was immediate. People who had not logged on in months heard about it from the game’s email newsletter. A memorial service was organized. And eventually, a Garden of Remembrance was created, and a tree planted in Karyn’s memory. Players made the pilgrimage to the garden in order to leave tokens of their grief. Code was changed so that items left in this manner became permanent parts of the world. Throughout all the events, however, there ran a common thread. People could not get a handle on feeling grief for someone they had never actually met. They could not quite understand feeling a deep sense of loss over someone they "just played a game with." When describing their loss, they had to resort to "I once formed a party with her and we went into a dungeon." They couldn’t quite express the feeling that a member of their community was gone.

And it was that sense—the Norse Traders had fallen apart since January, and now they knew why. Because Karyn, the person at the center of it, was not there. In a very real sense, they came to realize that the strange unease they had felt about hearing of her death with a two-month time lag might have originated in the fact that the loss to the community was actually felt when she stopped logging in—not when the news finally came. In the end, that garden and that tree served not only as a memorial to a well-loved and much-missed person, but as a marker of a moment, a moment in which the players of an online game realized that they weren’t "playing a game." That the social bonds that they felt within this "game" were Real. There’s a children’s book, The Velveteen Rabbit, about a stuffed plush rabbit which desperately wishes to become Real. And in the end, the love of the little boy whose toy it is makes this come true. In the end, the social bonds of the people in a virtual environment make it more than just a game. They make it Real. Sometimes it takes a moment of grief to make people realize it, and sometimes people just come to an awareness over time, but the fundamental fact remains: when we make a friend, hurt someone’s feelings, suffer a loss, or accomplish something in an online world, it’s real. It’s not "just a game." Ultima Online was designed with a basic philosophy in mind: that we were providing an online world, one that could live and breathe and develop in new and unpredictable ways. We wanted to provide scope for players to develop online communities in a way that no other online world had done. It is amazing and gratifying to see some of the results today: volunteer police forces, roleplayer taverns, small-scale Olympics, and fledgling forms of government. And yes, sadly, a few places where funerals have been held, for in any community of this size, there will be losses. The thing that we should never lose sight of is that we, by participating in this new sort of community, are breaking new ground that will undoubtedly prove important over the next decade, as the Internet acquires more significance in business, education, socializing, and other areas outside of gaming. The dilemmas that players of UO wrestle with every day in the form of how reputation should work, what to do about harassment, etc, are the key problems of virtual reality for the next several years. And we are only able to tackle them because you, the citizens of this virtual Britannia, are more than just players—you are a self-aware community that reaches beyond "game" and into the Real.

I am not going to let anyone tell me that the Garden of Remembrance isn’t Real, or that the grief we all felt over Karyn’s death was not Real. And I hope that UO players aren’t going to let anyone tell them that their experiences within UO aren’t Real either, that it’s "just a game." It may be for some people, but we all know better, don’t we? For Karyn’s sake, and also for our own.

Designer Dragon

-----

We all know better, don't we ?

So Raph, where is Tiffric's memorial supposed to be ?

Why has this story been tempered off so brillantly ? Tiffric was the first of such legends on the first UO shard and we give the responsibility to a player about keeping the mage tower intact ?

You all have had plenty of time (talking to counselors, seers and gms) to consider this, to remember that it wasn't "just a game"...

You owe me explanations here. This is ZE forum and you cannot ignore us much longer.

I finally realised that the Odin I met isn't the Odin from AMT, another very brillant man who I will always remember, and Spudz, so great was his heart that his impact on the server will forever live.

We have no records, no screenshots apart that of Jenny's wedding... they are all missing. Is their death real too ?

We will get to the bottom of this people, if I must only suceed in one thing in my life, it will be to follow truth until it kills me too.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

I'm not sure if I'm enough of an old timer to count, but I started almost immediately after UO:R was released (close enough that I specifically remember having a dilema at the store, being they had both Second Age and UO:R boxes there and not knowing which was more recent, but I figured it out).

I started hanging out in Rivendell in the early summer during the Nostur'yl seer stuff and subsequently stayed there for a number of years. I recall seeing a Raistlin around, but I have no idea if it was you or someone else. I remember Stormcrow, Greypawn, Grishnak and the stormreavers, OES, NCR, Maub'dib.

As for the possibiltiy of Nick being Nickademus, I have no idea, however Nika was (fairly) recently on hand as the Atlantic EM (a poor replacement for the old seers, but the best we had) for a while. I'm not sure if anyone else can get in touch with him, but he was a great guy.

I've actually had it tugging at the back of my mind for years now, someone once told me he got the impression I tried to sell off a knife I got at an EM event and being disappointed, and its been driving me nuts because I remember saying something like that sarcastically to someone, but ultimately I kept it until I quit for real, and then gave it to Grifty's typhoon charity (2004 maybe?). Weird and a little off topic I know, but it makes me feel like crap that he might have had that impression (Locke and I busted our balls to figure out that damn password, I loved that stupid knife).

Anyway, back on topic, when I started I was about 14 at the time, so I think in a way I can see where you're coming from in how much the game affected you. Through a combination of my incredible gulibility and complete lack of knowledge of how the game worked, when a demon would show up and declare his intent to open a portal to the abyss and summon a balron army, I legitimately believed they'd do it if the players didn't do anything about it, so the game really sucked me in. I nearly failed Geometry because I'd be hanging in Riv until 4am and catch up on sleep in class.

Anyway, I don't play anymore but I always toy around with the idea of resubbing every once in a while. I'm not sure I've understood everything in this thread, but I'll be damned if I'm not interested in seeing where this goes.

How very intriguing... No it wasn't me, that was one of the many Raistlin that showed up with the new player wave during T2A... I carried on with Raislin into OES and it was during this time we had the most profound moments of roleplaying for the game, the most profound community-wide philosophical chats.

I wouldn't be surprised this was forgotten too, how we challenged the whole server, breaking the mysticism that was implanted by unknown forces into the realm, making it palpable for the masses. We understood what we did in those days, but I had to shake myself up to remember why we did it !

I had already traded off my account to the still mysterious stranger whom I now more likely know to be Nick-of-Time, Nikademus, Nika... or one of his dozen other names. Nostur'yl was around in those days as well, but he wasn't famous at all, manipulating the communities from a very dark and secluded place, maybe Cear will be able to add unto this thread about the balrons and time lords...

I was Brainbug in the days you joined, I would only play on the theme of the treasoned soul that was trapped between dimentions, consequences of my exposure to the abyss for too long.

Now we have elements from the Tolkien books, the dragonlance books and the UO lore... a very interesting mixup that makes for a complete mythology of sorts, creating the fabric of our precession.

I find it unique that seemingly soon after I quit the game, those quests resumed, like the break I applied on the wheel so diligently suddenly released, and shard mysticism was magically available to the public, you're not the first to tell me of those stories requiring the assistance of a profiscient human mage to open up a portal to the abyss.

This is becoming a community call for greater truths, and will transform into a petition if being ignored by the only people responsible.

Lets dig in the past, because it's all part of what we are now.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Here is some surprising info from the website of one of Designer Dragon, does not act like he preaches ?

-----

Koster's Theorem
Virtual social bonds evolve from the fictional towards real social bonds. If you have good community ties, they will be out-of-character ties, not in-character ties. In other words, friendships will migrate right out of your world into email, real-life gatherings, etc.

Baron's Theorem
Hate is good. This is because conflict drives the formation of social bonds and thus of communities. It is an engine that brings players closer together.

Baron's Law
Glory is the reason why people play online; shame is what keeps them from playing online. Neither is possible without other people being present.

Mike Sellers' Hypothesis
"The more persistence a game tries to have; the longer it is set up to last; the greater number (and broader variety) of people it tries to attract; and in general the more immersive a game/world it set out to be--then the more breadth and depth of human experience it needs to support to be successful for more than say, 12-24 months. If you try to create a deeply immersive, broadly appealing, long-lasting world that does not adequately provide for human tendencies such as violence, acquisition, justice, family, community, exploration, etc (and I would contend we are nowhere close to doing this), you will see two results: first, individuals in the population will begin to display a wide range of fairly predictable socially pathological behaviors (including general malaise, complaining, excessive bullying and/or PKing, harassment, territoriality, inappropriate aggression, and open rebellion against those who run the game); and second, people will eventually vote with their feet--but only after having passionately cast 'a pox on both your houses.' In essence, if you set people up for an experience they deeply crave (and mostly cannot find in real life) and then don't deliver, they will become like spurned lovers--somebecome sullen and aggressive or neurotic, and eventually almost all leave."

Anonymity and in-game admins
The in-game admin faces a bizarre problem. He is exercising power that the ordinary virtual citizen cannot. And he is looked to in many ways to provide a certain atmosphere and level of civility in the environment. Yet the fact remains that no matter how scrupulously honest he is, no matter how just he shows himself to be, no matter how committed to the welfare of the virtual space he may prove himself, people will hate his guts. They will mistrust him precisely because he has power, and they can never know him. There will be false accusations galore, many insinuations of nefarious motives, and former friends will turn against him. It may be that the old saying about power and absolute power is just too ingrained in the psyche of most people; whatever the reasons, there has never been an online game whose admins could say with a straight face that all their players really trusted them (and by the way, it gets worse once you take money!).

-----

Wow are we really juggling with A B C blocks down here ? Or is someone giving me a course in basic logic ?

Here's an exerpt from the Vault Network interview :

-----

Jonric: How important are community and community-building for an online world? Is the level of importance the same for all of them? Do different types of online worlds have different types of communities?

Designer Dragon: Community is absolutely critical. If you don't have a community in your game, its growth will almost certainly be stunted. Different types of online games of course have different types of community, but fundamentally, they all offer SOME degree of community formation, because they can't help it. As soon as you put people together in a shared space with some goals in common, they will start to form social bonds. Where they differ is in the character of the communities, in the tools and facilities that they provide to the players for community-building.

Jonric: Does a community just happen by itself? What factors most affect the extent to which a game develops a strong community?

Designer Dragon: Some degree of community does happen by itself. If the game doesn't provide enough facilities for community, then the community will move outside the game and develop on websites, mailing lists, in IRC channels, or whatever. You get community for free, simply because you have a group of people with shared interests and common goals. But you have to shape the community, and tie it to your particular game. Good communication structures, ways for players to forge strong individual and group identities, a sense of history to the environment... there are many tactics.

Jonric: About these tactics... what can designers do to promote the initial growth and the continuing vitality of a game's community?

Designer Dragon: As a rule, anything which helps a player quickly feel like they are a part of the world helps. Anything which helps them feel special or unique. Stuff that keeps them from interacting with other players tends to be bad. As far as ways to keep the community growing - you have to give it the facilities to grow within the game. If you don't have things like in-game guild systems or other ways for groups to define themselves, then they will have to do so outside the game, and that means that you're not helping them enough.

Jonric: Does the sense of community differ if a game encourages or requires coop group play compared to one in which it is relatively easy for a player to adventure solo?

Designer Dragon: You know, I am not sure it does differ. Yes, obliging players to depend on one another and forcing them to interact helps form those bonds, but they do happen without forced grouping or interdependence. So, encouraging group play is always good, since it is a multi-player game. But requiring it may be overkill, if just encouragement gets the job done.

Jonric: Do you feel the nature of a game's community is affected by the presence or absence of non-consensual Player versus Player combat?

Designer Dragon: I think it is affected a lot. A society encompasses many types of people, and the strongest societies are those that embrace that range of difference. Homogeneous cultures tend to die off. So conflict and different viewpoints are important. Whether the conflict takes the form of player vs player combat seems immaterial to me, as long as there are mediums for competition of some sort. Beyond that, I feel that the ability of players to engage in player vs player combat encourages group activity and socialization. The bad guys are forever getting together to do raids, the good guys are organizing police forces. It adds a very interesting dynamic. Of course, there's plenty of people out there who don't want to have PvP impinge upon their experience in any way, and if PvP gets out of hand, they will be very unhappy. It's quite a juggling act to have non-consensual PvP in your game.

Jonric: Can you perhaps elaborate on the community-building dynamic inherent in PvP?

Designer Dragon: Being attacked tends to form community bonds very quickly, and they tend to be strong ones. Facing any kind of adversity does that - how many Reader's Digest stories have you read about tragedies or adventures which resulted in the group being friends forever afterwards? PvP happens to be one way to get that sort of adversity in a way that matters. If you just have monsters attack a town, there's no real significance if you win or lose - but if it's a player-built town and actual players who will occupy it if you lose, then you've got something that matters that you're fighting for. And that's a very real psychological difference. Keep in mind, this is just MY opinion. Folks like Dr. Cat, who's currently working on Furcadia, disagree with me on this. It's hardly a settled issue, and there are lots of opinions on the matter!

-----

Juggling eh ? With our brains ?

However, we are all interested in the finality... Dear Raph. Even if you're staff, I don't think anyone hated you here :

-----

Jonric: If you were doing a UO report card, what grade would you give it in terms of community or community-building?

Designer Dragon: I'd give it a pretty high grade, but of course I am biased. I think the amazing amount of discussion surrounding every aspect of the game is a sign of the strong community. There's just so many people intensely involved in talking about the game and what they do in it... The fact that the community extends both within the game (in the form of player-run taverns and cities) and outside is pretty amazing.

Jonric: What aspects of the UO community are you happiest about?

Designer Dragon: I think it's probably the in-game community centers, the player-run taverns and the like. UO offers facilities for furnishing them and decorating them, and players really like that. The player-run establishments are what gives each shard its own unique flavor, and are a major part of the success of UO, to my mind.

Jonric: On the other side of the ledger, what aspects have disappointed you?

Designer Dragon: Well, we didn't live up to everything we wanted to do, of course. From a community side, I am still disappointed that we've had to step in administratively as much as we have in terms of handling playerkilling and the like. I'd really love to see an online world with enough facilities and tools for players to truly run it themselves. I think it's a great sociological experiment, and also really the future of virtual reality. UO has gone pretty far along that direction, but we're just not there yet.

-----

Oh no we aren't, of course, I still hold the key.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Good memories...

I found something very funny here :

http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Battlefield/3041/

It's a list of all the murderers, those on atlantic are noted by the Syndicate and Acolytes...

That brought back alot of memories, and as an interesting sideline...

In the unconfirmed list Nick-of-Time is listed as being AoD, and I am listed as being AoD circa 1998

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Google has spidered this thread already, it's punched through the most popular sites of olden days in a week... any UO keyword combined with any of the specific names or places gets the thread up.

This is amazing, that we come together once again under a unified banner.

I'm fairly certain someone is lurking in the dark and witholding now that he realises I'm not going to keep any secrets from the public, our brothers and sisters in community and dream.

Please if you are slightly knowledgeable about those days, don't be shy to jump in as your contribution is protected by the logic and slight madness of my resolve.

Anything that might be relevant is welcome, this thread is already a miracle in itself since everytime I brought up those subjects people used to fall back and run.

Today is different, is it that the powers have left us to our own demise ?

I still have to be briefed on what happened since my departure, I cannot do it alone, since I am not myself, I am who I used to be. I still have to be walked throught the new realm, someone has to show me the ruins Andrasta talked about, someone has to take me for what I am.

I realise this is not the days where people own 3-4 accounts and can lend one to me for fun.

Any people responsible enough to see that my nakedness to the community represents power in itself ? Do you see the purpose of my honesty and gift towards the human specie ?

I plead that you do not let me escalate, because it is inevitable, that is the nature of reality, isn't it ?

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Oh and does anyone have any contact with Grishnak ?

He was Odin in AMT and I kinda suspect his involvement as Odyn AoD, I would like to clear that up since I was so overrun by the IRL continuum of those days.

Can you beleive EA hired a 16 yo to act as a companion in a 18+ game... even if everyone I know had to sign and have a verified identity to be hired, I was such a hot potatoe in those days they they merely threw me there so I would be cooled by players.

It didn't work !

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

So Andrasta, see how much just one person with less than clear intentions can derive a thread with such deeply reaching proportions...

Thats what I call black ops, gladly I invented it unwittingly, so now that we're immune, I'd like to get back to dying.

Word plays on a forum... perhaps someday someone will compose songs with our poems, an interesting thought.

So who was your guild, your town that I most likely will not remember ?

I'm curious, because it's the next logical step.

 

[Andrasta]

Here is your first clue...

Such flattery is hard to bear.....we did laugh long and hard after we received this masterpiece. Not many had the distinction to sit for such a portrait. I am honored to be one of them.

There's an extra 10 points for anyone that can name the artist. (No, it's not me or anyone in my guild)

I collect many old things that no one finds much value in and I keep them in Goodman's Rune Library complex for all to see. I have the head of Lord Reaper of AoD locked down and on display.

I loved that UO Criminals site... I remember lots of the names and guilds. That site made me remember this picture.


Also, many are enjoying Mr. Clean's story very much and we will work on preserving that with his permission when he is done writing it.

Cheers,

Andra
GRL

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Here is your first clue...

Such flattery is hard to bear.....we did laugh long and hard after we received this masterpiece. Not many had the distinction to sit for such a portrait. I am honored to be one of them.

There's an extra 10 points for anyone that can name the artist. (No, it's not me or anyone in my guild)

I collect many old things that no one finds much value in and I keep them in Goodman's Rune Library complex for all to see. I have the head of Lord Reaper of AoD locked down and on display.

I loved that UO Criminals site... I remember lots of the names and guilds. That site made me remember this picture.

Also, many are enjoying Mr. Clean's story very much and we will work on preserving that with his permission when he is done writing it.

Cheers,

Andra
GRL

Wow masterpiece indeed ! Even if I didn't get it or what it means I exploded with laughter and couldn't help but laugh all the way I read your message...

Almost caught the hiccups

Well I'd guess it's Ra's artwork, because apart from him only ImaNoob could pull out such laughter from me...

So king and queen of a city hmm... I still don't have a clue...

While we weaved this thread you started to sign with GRL under your name, what does that mean ?

I'm already overwhelmed !

 

[Tazar]

GRL is one of the oldest player institutions on Atlantic. Andrasta has been entrusted with the duty of maintaining the site for all of the Atlantic players to use and enjoy.

Andrasta is the inheritor of the legacy left behind by Goodman and GRL is the guild that supports:

Goodman's
Rune
Library

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

GRL is one of the oldest player institutions on Atlantic. Andrasta has been entrusted with the duty of maintaining the site for all of the Atlantic players to use and enjoy.

Andrasta is the inheritor of the legacy left behind by Goodman and GRL is the guild that supports:

Goodman's
Rune
Library

Ahh yes... now I remember *shakes head*

How humbling it is to be reminded by a drunken elder, have you just jumped in ?

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

It was brought to my attention that EA gives a 2 week trial, so I should be able to walk the land again.

Greypawn, Andrasta, Avenhar, Mr.Clean, Molly, Sam, Chaosy ; all of you who participated... I would like for you to arrange an escort for me, because I will need to visit both Feluuca and Trammel before I can restore the eternal flame of mages to the AMT, and I do not think it will be easy.

I can be on during the day like 10-15h EST and usually during the evening 19-0 hours.

Any thoughts ? I will wait until there is something consistant before applying for the free trial...

 

[Cesspool]

If you're really going to restore the flame, I'd love to see that. Definitely be worth resubscribing for.

 

[MR_CLEAN]

You have my full permission to preserve my story.

I just hope I am remembering all the names correctly. I am consulting a couple of others that were formerly PoV and making correction as I need to.

For example...I thought the original guildmaster of the Regulator's name was Lawthorne. It was actually Hawthorne...with an H. So I changed it.

It's funny how much we remember from 11 years ago, and how much we actually forget as well!!

Mr Clean (PoV)

 

[MR_CLEAN]

It was brought to my attention that EA gives a 2 week trial, so I should be able to walk the land again.

Greypawn, Andrasta, Avenhar, Mr.Clean, Molly, Sam, Chaosy ; all of you who participated... I would like for you to arrange an escort for me, because I will need to visit both Feluuca and Trammel before I can restore the eternal flame of mages to the AMT, and I do not think it will be easy.

I can be on during the day like 10-15h EST and usually during the evening 19-0 hours.

Any thoughts ? I will wait until there is something consistant before applying for the free trial...

You have my sword!

 

[Lady_Rachel]

As a newb among the veterans who walk these lands I had no memories of yesteryear to share with you.

I would be most willing though to watch your back as you travel the lands again and seek to restore the flame, if you so desire.

Andrasta I promise to harness my e-bolts! Oh!...and I will bring my sextant...*rummages in chest* I so love a good wander!

 

[Tazar]

Ahh yes... now I remember *shakes head*

How humbling it is to be reminded by a drunken elder, have you just jumped in ?

*hic*

Just jumped in? nay... but I have been lurking in the background (for some reason, they expect that when you are one of the forum moderators... lol)

I have been around forever, and recognize many of the players mentioned, but I seem to have run in different circles and rarely (if ever) had any interaction with them. Until AOS came out, I played UO pretty much solo.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

*joyful exclamation*

This is starting to sound like a grand adventure, and interestingly I have choosen this coming Monday, the 8th of december to be the beginning of our quest. This means that the last day of my "trial" will coincide to be on the 21st of december, at the beginning of the winter solstice, which always had a very symbolic meaning for the "gods".

So at what times are you all available ? I will try to fix that up in messenger thereafter, so our moves cannot be snooped on.

I will most likely have to form two or three adventuring parties to cover enough space-time. Is anyone suggesting that I download the new client ? Or will the old ML client do fine ?

 

[Lady Aalia]

ML client will work fine , you will have a pretty big loads of patches coming in , so you may want to set time aside for patchurdays ...heh

 

[MR_CLEAN]

Monday's are generally not the best days for me. I play in a band in real life, and we have rehersals on Monday nights...so am usually not on UO until about 1 or 2 am EST...and normally only on for an hour or so after that. Pretty much after Monday, I am at your dispossal good sir!

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Aight ! I will try to download this without busting my bandwidith limit...

I will be there for the whole two weeks, so we will surely have more than one occasion to meet !

I hope to see you all there

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Greypawn, can we look forward to see you there ?

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Looks like I'm gathering a group of anti-heroes like me this time... this shall proove to be intresting !

See you there soon !

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Well it seems EA has once again put a major stick in my wheels...

Free trial... thats not free, you have to subscribe for at least one month, and pay them before you can have your free "days".

How cheap, how terribly deceiving...

Well it looks like the mystery will lay and rest for a while, I'm never going to get a credit card, and I'm never going to buy anything from EA again.

So unless someone has an idea...

 

[Cesspool]

Back in 2007 there was an amnesty program going on, saying if you had an old account you could come back for a free month. Not entirely sure if thats still valid, and you'd probably still need a credit card. The way I understood the trial was that you give them your card number, get your 14 free days, then after that if you haven't canceled they charge your card. I might be mistaken though.

 

[Lady Aalia]

i thought thats how it worked too, but i know we have done it without card before also , but we called EA and they opened it for us.

May want to try that.
they did have return to Britannia Programs every year so far but not this year (yet) so i do not know if thats an option eather