Question of the day: 11 June 2008

[Vallend]

Well its the middle of the week on yet another warm morning here. I hope everyone is enjoying Publish 53 and have started turning more items in. (If you have more points then you need just send them my way I have a long way to go to get my full set of armor. j/k) Todays question has to do with way back when you began your trip into UO.

How did you find out about Ultima Online and why did you start playing the game?

I know I started playing the old pen and paper role playing games when I served in the Air Force. From there I gained a passion of fantasy worlds and bought a C64 computer and played the original Ultima games along with the Bards Tales games. I use to pick up computer gaming magazines just to see what was coming out soon. When I saw a story about UO. My thoughts were wow a living and changing world that I can play in that is online I got to get involved with this. So I purchased the game and even got a online hookup just so I could play this game. Boy was I excited with anticipation while I waited forever for all the patching to end so I could play. So from my first few seconds of entering the Catskills shard I have never left, and have enjoyed living in this world the entire time.

 

[Mish o sha]

My Kids where playing,and almost eleven years later i am still playin,took over their accts,and still enjoying the game

 

[Bob_the_fart_guy]

I never really cared about computer games for the longest time. There was of course the doom explosion but for me first shooters are only so fun for so long. Computer games for me still did little to grab my attention as I was just turning 18 and there was girls and beer and cars blah, blah blah. Until one day I walk into my baby brothers room and see him playing a pc game called Myth the Fallen Lords I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I was additcted to the game and part 2 was even better. Then I bought a copy of The Sims I enjoyed it. And finally purchased a copy of The Sims Online which was my very first MMORPG. One day while playing The Sims Online a player was telling me about this other game she had been playing called Ultima Online. I've since tried a few other MMORPG's (EQ2, DDO). However UO seems to have just so much that you can do.

Well, I may have been a bit long winded, but there ya' are. Good question Vallend, was fun to answer.

-Hagrid

 

[Dixie]

My brother in law played in college when UO was brand new. Many years later, after he married my sister, he continued to keep his account up and running, even though he rarely hopped in to play. I saw him on one of those rare times play, and I was hooked. He gave me his password and now I have all my characters on Catskills, while his old chars are on Napa.

This is also the story about why I can't place a house.

 

[Lorelei]

My husband and I started in UO about six years ago... well technically he started a few months before I did. A friend had told us about the game, and he went in to try it out. It absorbed all of his time for a couple months. I finally made him the ultimatum.... it's the game or me!! And... well.... uhmmm.... yeah..... . I joined the game!

We started out in Oceania because that is where our friend played. We got used to playing with a slow connection! However, as the new expansions of UO came out, we decided that we really needed to find somewhere to play that we could move around a bit better. So, we packed up our things, said goodbye to our guild and many friends, and took off for the faraway land of AOL Legends. We ran another small guild there for a couple of years, and made some great friendships. But, the UO world grew a little stale, and we were pulled off to try some other games (VanGuard and Hellsgate of London). Of course... we were never coming back to UO.. it was over and done. We sold off our accounts (when account sales were about as low as housing sales!). But, the other games were fun to begin with, but didn't hold the same feel as UO.

So, now I have travelled back to the land known as Catskills. I'm still learning my way around, but it feels so good to be back!!

 

[AxeMaster]

This is a worthy first post I think...

Anyway back in middle school (dang I am in college now) a friend would tell me about a game he played on his computer all the time. The game was UO. He always asked me to join but I had no way to pay money every month and my parents would NEVER do that for a silly video game. I also thought paying monthly was stupid too. Well one day after 8th grade graduation he came over and gave me a free thirty days. We installed Blackthorns Revenge. Ever since then I was addicted all through high school. I was sent to an all boy catholic school... I'll never forgive my parents LOL... so I really just played UO when I got home. I used game time cards from gamestop when they used to exist lol. Well as you can tell doing nothing but playing UO wasn't the best for me health wise lol. So after high school I stopped. I got back together with friends from elementary school which was good. I started working out which was good. I also went through a whole huge personal dilemma with myself and regardless of how bad I thought it was I succeeded in getting through it and now three years after high school I have never been in more shape and happier than before. And even though it seems UO was bad for me it actually wasn't. It gave me the community and friends I needed during high school. But I realized if I wanted to improve my real life I would need to face facts about myself and make real life friends and stuff. So now that that is done I am coming back to UO for the first time in years woohoo! Once I get my computer all fixed up that is! LOL. Anyway I see the forums have been nuked...LOL but hey its good to be back. ALSO sorry for the long post lol.

 

[Aedon Durreah]

Our son Peter was playing far too much online. It was left to me to get him to stop and get into something more interesting and stimulating. So I sat and had a talk with him. He got me to at least give the game a shot, so I could see why UO held his interest. So, John McDermmot and Aedon Durreah were born.

I have to admit I was captivated quickly and soon he and I were both spending time in game together. After a bit his mom joined in as well and we began to adventure through Sosaria together.

We started the RP Guild Connemara and at its peak it had over 180 members and 40 homes making up the kingdom. I ran The Umbra Tavern for a bit, then McDermmot's Pub and finaly took over the Knight's Rest. I soon found out that running a guild, a tavern and holding weekly events was far too much like a full time job.

As I became more and more interested in the RP aspects of the game I started to notice that Malac and Llyrwech, my sons characters were not around as much.

Peter moved on to Wow and Final Fantasy online as well as trying a few more titles. His mom lost interest in the game and for the most part stopped playing.

I played UO for more then six years until health issues convinced me it was time to move to a less stressful passtime. I left UO and my friends who I still hold dear and moved on to Middle Earth. My house in Aegis still stands and the account remains open. It is hard to close completely that chapter of my life.

From time to time late at night or early in the says I will log in to check my house and take a short walk through the lands that for years was a second home to me.

The streets are quiet now, and the path from my house to the Knights Rest is neglected and over grown. But when flights of fancy come to call on me late at night, I am still there with my people.

 

[Ally Oop]

Hi all!!!

I was at my daughters house one day and she had this game going and I was watching for a bit. She asked if I wanted to play and I said sure. She put me on her husbands computer and logged onto UO. Then she said to pick a name. Her chars name was Redella so I said Ella. We played for a bit mostly me following her around. My husband and I got the book on UO and I still use it to find thngs mostly in the towns. A bit later we got the game and I mostly played. We had one computer then. When he played that ment I couldnt. Later we got another computer and since he has retired he has his own acct. We are on almost every night playing here on Cats or more lately on Siege. Im keeping my house here and so is he. My daughter doesnt play anymore as she has 4 kids now the youngest being 3 months old. She played Esa Stewart, Redella, Magdaline Louche, LeannaHolly Smee.
I have tons of friends here and they have helped a lot these past months while I went through surgery, chemo and now radiation, Im almost done with that. Ill be here for a long time more. See you around. Or not.

 

[Branwyn of Errol]

Greetings everyone,
I heard about UO from my summer intern in the research lab. It had just been released. Up til then I thought computer games a bit boring or else too hard for me to figure out. But his description of UO made it sound like D&D only more animated or a virtual Ren Faire. We worked on Macs and so we had some games like Tetris to amuse ourselves with but my husband had a pc at home so I got the game and had a go at it. I spent most of my first three logins trying to understand how to just get around. I also spent a lot of time as a ghost wandering the forests. I decided that UO was not much fun and the guide booklet not a big help. When cold weather arrived I tryed harder to learn my way in the game, but the key was meeting some people in Moomglow after I killed (unwittingly) a blue chicken in town. These folks guarded my body from predators while I got rezzed and then took me to their guild house, the "Sit-a-Spell Tavern. So I was part of Yggdrasil (YGG) for a long time, followed by The House of Rosmar(THR). There was a lot more drama on Cats in those days, more rp guilds and more interaction between players it seems to me.
I still play UO but on Siege for the most part now.

 

[Ashlen]

My nephew was one that played every computer game he could find
and read about. He started reading about Ultima Online before it hit
the stores and was so excited about it, so him and my husband both
started during beta as Prince Darien and Alzartar on chessy.

I started the first of Oct 1997 on chessy and the day Catskills
opened we moved to the new shard hoping for a land were we could move around more
freely with less lag, little did we know, NO ONE moved around in those
days without lag.

But we all played day and nite sometimes with very
little to eat and almost not sleep but those things were not required
in those days. So now after all these many years I am
still here and still loving it.

Ive seen so many people come and go. Ive meet some really great
friends that I would never have meet without UO. This game can
has been a great part of my life and familys life as well.

 

[Kittie]

Been playing on Catskills for nearly 5 years (off and on). My husband and I started dating he got me into Dark Age of Camelot when it first came out. Almost a year later he turned his old UO account on to show me it and ever since I have been hooked.

 

[Farsight]

Way back in 80-something, I started playing the Ultimas starting at U3.

U4 is still one of my top games of all time, since it's the first one I've played that is about something besides "collect better things and kill harder monsters." It opened up a whole new world of possibilities in gaming.

When UO came out, I was overseas and didn't have access to a good enough connection to play. I remember trying to play on Diablo servers and having everyone swear at me for lagging them! So I wasn't about to try UO. When I moved back to the states, one of my co workers did play UO, and he got me hooked. I swapped shards like mad for a while, trying to find my place, but find it I did.

9 years later, I had quit (from boredom, not from thieves/trammel/AoS/whatever) for several years and come back. When I came back, my friends had moved to Catskills, so I did as well. I'm pretty sure I'm here to stay.