Re: The How Is A UO Player Thread
25-27
I was quite young when I learned about Ultima Online. I occasionally bought game magazines, and one of them had like a 6-page spread about UO and all the amazing things that you could do. I always wanted to play, but we didn't have internet, nor a fast enough computer at that time.
Nevertheless, UO was the first game I ordered by mail. It cost like over $100, as it had to be imported and the shops didnt keep stock of it. I got the first edition, with the cloth map and the pewter pin, which I still treasure. I went to owo.com at my school to read as much as I could about the game. They were working on intelligent NPC behaviour, in which NPCs had daily routines and would reply sensibly to player questions, such as "What is your job?" and "Where do you live?". They were also working on custom shield sprites for guilds, so each guild could put its emblem on their shields. Both fascinated me a lot.
Nevertheless, I still couldn't play. Later on, I bought the Second Age, which included a singleplayer variant, which I played a lot, even though the game ran very, very slow at my 486 machine. It also had a big manual which I enjoyed reading, while fantasizing about all the stuff I'd do in UO. My parents didnt want me to pay a subscription for a game though, and with me needing their creditcard to pay there wasnt much I could do.
When renaissance was released, I could convince my parents. My first character was a pretty ****ty fighter, who kept losing money due to dying to wolves and such. I created a second character, a miner (and later in, smith) to get the money I would blow on the fighter (like, 1k/hr income). Later on the fighter became a mage too, as my skills were no-where near GM anyway.
I joined a small guild and made some friends. Someone co-owned me with a small marble tower in fel, which I could decorate, yeeeey! Got PKed/robbed often but never carried much of value. Eventually the guy moved to east Skara and I'd gather crops from the fields and bake bread there.
When 3rd Dawn came I adopted the 3D client, which looked amazing back then. My fighter didnt suck as much anymore so I made money farming earth ellies in Shame with the guild. Sometimes I'd go to destard to carve scales from dragon corpses left behind by the tamers.
I worked a long time to get enough money to get a boat, and we'd do guild trips in moonglow harbor to kill sea serpents. Magery sure came in handy on a boat, even though I could only cast lightning effectively.
Just before AOS, they released the solen. Best time of my life. The guild house was close to the woods where they dwelled and I made some nice money. As every house spot was taken and even the tiniest house would command over a million gold, I was forced to live in Fel, south of Yew. Had a small stone workshop which I spent 500k on...
AOS royally ****ed up the 3D graphics. The avatars became an ugly mess and the terrain tiles were changed to something nasty too. I didnt like the new combat dynamics at all, everything dealed much more damage now, making battles go way too fast. Killing monsters wasn't special anymore, with the good gear it was just slaughter...
It had good things too. When the server went up, I raced east, even though the screen went black for a long time at the moongate. I managed to place a 16x16 in the east of the continent, close to the mountains. I made a beautiful piramid house out of standstone, which would be the prettiest thing in the hood for a long time. I started playing a paladin, which would be my most succesful character. I didn't like Malas much, so I turned to Ilshenar to farm exodus overseers and even minions.
However, over time, all my friends quit and the guild disbanded and the servers started going empty. There was a live event, which had royal guard sashes being handed out. I didn't get mine. There was a hint in the throneroom that an other event would soon be held. I didn't sleep, staying up for 2 nights staring at the screen, so I wouldn't miss it. Eventually we were told it would happen at a later time or something. There was an event I could attend later on, and we were taken to Fel and had many of us killed by PKs. And at the end, the EM told us that the royal tailor had strained his hand, and there would be no sashes!
I was so increadibly angry, that I left the game and played on a freeshard for years, only coming back every once in a while, such as for the Ophidian event, which I did enjoy. When the 3D client was discontinued, I pulled down my house and quit completely, as I hated both 2D and the kingdom reborn client and the freeshards would let me play with the 3D client without problems. That, and I really, really hated the Elf expansion and the stupid quests, item grind and recipies.
Last year I came back, found that the shard was completely desolate and I could put up a house wherever I wanted. Erected house outside Luna, but still couldn't bring myself to playing, as the 2D client had too tiny a game screen and too small backpacks, and the KR client had way too many performance (and visual) issues. Hoping I could come back now that the new client is finally getting a bit more polish, but the account management site wont accept my payment...
NOT KIDDING! 
? Yes!
