(lurks)
I still think quite a bit of UO. Talked about it yesterday with a friend, talking about the actions you can do in game that you can't do in other games.
I have visited time to time, but Stygian Abyss isn't enough to lure me back to the game. While the UO team has put in a lot of work the past several years, I still feel they are playing it a bit safe by taking already established ideas from other MMOs into this one. They need to take what makes UO unique and make new ideas from that. I've already given my thoughts on this too many times.
I've tried every MMO there is, and I am unsatiated. Some folks mention Darkfall, but it is not the gem people cut it out to be. I can say a lot of negative things about the game, but it's best summarised by this extremely long
forum thread. People are first excited by the hype, later to be dissapointed by a buggy, unpolished game that has a dwindling population.
The only one that comes "close" to the charming UO experience is
Fallen Earth. It retains the same sense of community, as everyone has to survive by relying on others. It's a game where you need crafters as much as soldiers (90% of all items in game are crafted). The game is imperfect though, as it's buggy with poor network code (the game lags really bad in towns, or when surrounded by groups of people).
But I am not playing this game either (the game had a patching bug that really "struck a chord" with me).
I've tried EQ2 (PvP and Non-PvP Servers/I've seen your EQ forum posts, Spyderbite), Tabula Rasa before it died, WAR, DAOC, EVE, Guild Wars, CoH/CoV, SWG, DDO, LOTRO, Lineage 2, Aion, and every other Korean MMO you can shake a grindy stick at.
And yet, here I am, the only game I am continuously am playing is WoW (The sacrilege!). While I always rant at Blizzard about it, they have the most polished game, and (eventually) admit mistakes they make.
To get back to the original topic though, I still think about UO, and I still think about the folks here on Siege. I still hunger for a deeper game experience. There might be a day I will come back, but for now I will just reminisce about the good times, past and present.