What did YOU do on the 24th of September 1997?

[Ron Silverbeard]

Post your stories here, what did you do on this day besides WAITING the server coming up and start the greatest and longest lasting MMORPG of all time!

How old were you by this time?
What happend the last 15 years?
What shard did you log on and created your first char?

COME OUT, COME OUT and post your stories here if you like to, to let us all know how it was on that SPECIAL DAY if you managed to log in

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

I was 25 by that time, working as logistics specialist and in my head was Baseball, Baseball, Baseball all the time - playing as a Semi-Pro Catcher and Outfielder with my team, playing Diablo and moved on to UO a couple of months after it launched - so i wasnt here form the first day on, but i was reading about it

Made my first char on Pacific, a Tank Mage, and had the hell of a time with all that LAG, The WALL at Skeleton Knights for training, defending myselfe from PK's (useless hehe) staying up all night until early in the morning (other time zone) to participate on events (Orc Invasion you can say at Yew oohhoooo!!) and with my guidlmates..

GREATEST TIME EVER I HAD IN MY LIFE!

 

[SinDee]

Sadly I was in school and in 5th grade it would be till 05 before I took my frist steps in to a new world.

 

[cazador]

I was 13 at the time and my first character was a Mage and I'm pretty sure the first week I spent my days reg-less wandering the vast world and feeling that nervous feeling every time I heard the grunts of those damned ogres

 

[Taylor]

I was eleven, and I wouldn't discover UO for another year or two. ;_;

 

[outcry]

Heading to the hosptial to give birth to my son
and did not start to play until Nov of 1997 and Catskills

 

[Joey Porter]

I was a sophmore in college, did not start playing until a few months after launch. First character was on Chesapeake, Archer Mage.

Still remember hanging out in Minoc and training(dieing) at the hunting grounds outside of town. Remember the first silver weapon I got and how killing a liche was sooo awesome.

 

[Taylor]

. . . killing a liche was sooo awesome.

A crowning achievement of my early years playing. GM verite platemail, black half apron/body sash/cloak, and a silver katana. Killing dat lich.

 

[Surgeries]

I was at work...at a place that was selected to help do the Beta test for UO. It was a different sort of gaming place with 33" Gateway monitors...and a T1 line to the server. It kicked ass pretty much.

I literally got paid to play UO a bit. It was amazing then...it's still fun, but amazing would have described UO very well in 1997 for me!! I got started in August, though...

 

[Eärendil]

I was 22 and I have absoultely no idea what I did that day... Most probably I drank beer or had sex...

 

[Ludes]

Well lets see I would have been 33 then.. I remember trying to log in when I got home from work and the lag was so terrible on my dialup I kept getting booted off the server.. It was several days later when I was finally able to get on..
I spent most of my time exploring.. got killed by a hind. Got PK'd several times before I learned how to avoid people wearing deathrobes and carrying halberds.

I remember seeing someone say "Kal Ort Por" and wondered what the hell they kept saying that over and over for.. Then they disappeared!

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

I was 22 and I have absoultely no idea what I did that day... Most probably I drank beer or had sex...

Rofl!

 

[Sean]

Was 44 at the time, my son had just left for college earlier that month, daughter still in high school. It was a Wednesday, so definitely was working and awaiting my UO package. Had played beta with my 3 brothers, all of whom spent about 5 years playing UO. I finally got my package and entered the game on October 1st, 1997. First char was on Atlantic, Ches wasn't around. That char is still sitting there. That account has never closed since that day. I added another, which also has never been closed on Oct 4, 1997.
Of course the other super important event of that year, was my son's college team winning their 14th Div 3 hockey title up in Canton, NY.

Look forward to seeing some old friends at the 15th gathering down in Virginia

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

I remember seeing someone say "Kal Ort Por" and wondered what the hell they kept saying that over and over for.. Then they disappeared!

Hahhahaha help i cant stop laughing hhahhahahahahajajaha

Thats why i made this post, Stories like that!

 

[Faeryl]

I was only seven at the time

I didn't know about UO until my dad started playing... I think it was around '00/'01. Didn't start myself until December of '06.

 

[Felonious Monk]

Post your stories here, what did you do on this day besides WAITING the server coming up and start the greatest and longest lasting MMORPG of all time!

How old were you by this time?
What happend the last 15 years?
What shard did you log on and created your first char?

COME OUT, COME OUT and post your stories here if you like to, to let us all know how it was on that SPECIAL DAY if you managed to log in

Elk hunting in Buffalo Valley Wyoming. Look that area up very incredible place. Sounding the dinner bell for ursus horribilis.
I didn't join UO until about 2 months before the t2a pub.
Joined Baja

 

[Tzadkiel]

*cringes* I was playing Diablo and Ceasar. I am such an old fart.

 

[MalagAste]

Well I won't say how old I was... but I was a single parent of 2 young children who just finished College (the second time, this time actually finishing)... and just starting a new job in my field.... I wanted a computer but I couldn't afford one yet... But perhaps that was fortunate because my Brother did have a computer and did play UO in the early days and quit hating it passionately...

So years later when I bought UO:R shortly after it's release and mentioned it to my Brother..... and told him how much I loved it....... I got an earful and then some about how the game doth sucketh.... and we never talked about it again. I believe he plays WoW now... *gags* At any rate I think I got the better deal.... I'm still playing and I don't think he hardly ever logs into WoW anymore.

Now my kids are all grown and I have a Grand-daughter who loves to come and count horses and stuff with her Grammy.

 

[Hunters' Moon]

On that date,I was working on my last semester of a six-year college stint.

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

Its amazing to read so much stories - so much changed in peoples life - well, 15 YEARS GONE BY!

Dont stop, continue with your stories peeps!!!

 

[NBG]

I was checking my dorm mailbox for my collector's edition after every class...

 

[Aibal]

I was watching my oldest nephew trying to log into the game over and over. He'd finally get on and it would crash. When he managed to STAY on I was mostly unimpressed. It would be 7-8 years later before I started playing...right around '05. Thought it was a lot more fun than it originally looked, and I'm still playing it.

 

[Poo]

i was 23 and working in the city on the ambulance.
i was playing Diablo and i remember being told by my best friend and co-worker in hushed tonnes one night that a new game was coming that was going to be the king of them all.... Ultima Online! and that we would be playing it online with thousands of people at the same time!!!! i called him a liar and a dreamer and told him to save some of the drugs he was taking for the hurt people we needed to pick up.

next day we took lunch and went and picked up the game.
cloth map and UO Pin baby! and i have them framed on the wall!!

remembered the dial up, started in yew, outfront of the abby.
remembered the music and the footsteps.
remembered having to re-log in like 50 times cause i kept getting booted!

hehe, i remember we use to take home radios from work and go to a quiet channel so we could talk to each other while playing.... the days before ICQ and TS and VENT, hahaha

i remember Enticing a guard to follow me out of guard zone so we could kill him.... holy hell that took like a entire day! and that damn skill isnt even in the game anymore, thats scary!

i remember going down from yew into the orc valley with my bone armour on and the orcs use to spawn with a Orc Lord and 4 orcs and a mage along with some trash, couple barrels and a cauldron over a fire, only the problem was that they REspawned whenever you killed them all and the cauldoron and the barrels and trash STAYED! so after a while it was like a maze of death down in the orc valley!
we would be in there farming the orc lords for their Ring mail tunics to sell for gold, ya baby!
then all of a sudden a pack of Reds would roll in!
they all had the same name, SpAwN, and they all had uzi bows (ya, some of you remember that hack!)
and you had to try to run out of the maze of cauldrons and stuff to get out of there before they picked you apart with those bows!
then, once we got really bad azz with our bone armour and axes we went off to shame and got DESTROYED by the earth elemental's in there.

and joining my first guild, haha, having to wear guild colours at ALL times!
pooling all our gold with other guild mates to finally be able to buy a small guild house!

holy smokes, 15 years.

and you wanna know what i do for fun when i get bored?
i strip naked and run down from yew with a skinning knife and kill skeletons to get armour, then i head down to the orc valley!
hehe, granted having 120 swords and such makes it easy, but it still brings back the old memories.

so many names come and gone.
so many nights playing and having fun.
hell, i know im not the only one that ever did this, but im embarrassed to say it..... i can remember taking my holidays when i was young and spending the entire 2-3 weeks doing nothing but playing UO, hahahha, that was back when the wife and me couldn't match up our holidays because neither of us had seniority enough to get the days and months we wanted.

holy cow, that reminds me of the days before we had kids when the wife would leave for a 12 hour shift (nurse) and id watch her go, then id go play ALL DAY and then she would get home and ask me if i played all day long and id laugh at her and tell her not to be silly.....

 

[Poo]

haha, reading that all just reminded me of the days before we had locks on our skills and stats.

where youd be on your guy running by the bank and some fella would start a fire then all of a sudden youd loose some of your skills and youd gain in camping and youd be like NOOOOOOOO, damn you camping!!!

oh god, remember the Tents!!!! and that damn chest we would have in there that anyone could pick open and take all your hard earned loot!

 

[cazador]

Ahhh no skill locks! The good ole days Ty poo for reminding me in such a short story how awesome UO used to be..item ID'in hallys and maces for hours trying for the perfect vanq..the good ole days of every MOB u killed being an accomplishment! I still sometimes check my HP when I hear that ogre grunt

 

[Rhiannon]

Post your stories here, what did you do on this day besides WAITING the server coming up and start the greatest and longest lasting MMORPG of all time!

How old were you by this time?
What happend the last 15 years?
What shard did you log on and created your first char?

COME OUT, COME OUT and post your stories here if you like to, to let us all know how it was on that SPECIAL DAY if you managed to log in

Interesting: Wikipedia says the first day the servers went live was the 27th. *shrug*
Either way, I was working that day, being a 30something responsible adult. I think my game at the time was Daggerfall but I was getting real frustrated with it. If I recall, it had a bug that you prevented you from finishing the game. They patched it but that was much later. Regardless, I was looking for something new to play. I had played all the Ultimas with UVII being the only game I played start to finish.

About Nov. '97, I discovered they were doing an online version of Ultima. I ordered a copy, waited patiently for it to arrive, loaded it up, created Brianna Knight on Atlantic and off I went on my adventures.

I think it was around December I wondered away from Trinsic for the first time and ended up in some dungeon. I was SCARED TO DEATH. I had no idea what was in the dungeon; who might be a killer; who might be a friend, WHAT might be in there further down. I hid behind a rock hoping no one would see me. I had lost my way and didn't know how to get out. Then this nice guy ON A HORSE of all things, stopped and asked if he could help. He told me that while my nice dress was lovely, it wouldn't protect me much and I was sure to perish if I stayed where I was. For some reason, I trusted him enough to get me to safety. He told me to follow him.

Fortunately, MoshThrull was a nice guy. He got me back to Trinsic, gave me some leather armor (that I didn't have the strength to wear), and magically transported me to a place called Moonglow. He told me to stay there while I learned the trade of tailoring. He said that would earn good gold that I could save to eventually earn gold by being a scribe. Then he left and I had no way to contact him or thank him for his kindness.

A few weeks later, while tailoring my fingers to the bone, I noticed this quiet young man named Tolken. We eventually struck up a conversation and he told me that he had some friends he would introduce me to.

He did and low and behold, MoshThrull was one of them!

I had many adventures with MoshThrull, Tolken, Mordred and Zeeto. They taught me how to train my skills (sorry about that dirt nap I gave you Mordred - it really was an accident). When our magery was high enough, we all went to Wind together for the first time together! My how exciting that day was! Those liches scared me to death (literally sometimes). We created a guild, bought a guild house and enjoyed so many adventures together.

All my friends left within 6 months or so due to their distaste of being PKed all the time. We all had very little time to play and to spend all day Saturday working hard at saving your gold only to have your keys stolen and everything removed from your house - they just wanted no part of it. I stayed in touch with them off and on.

Then in spring 2000, I got a call from Tolken. He told me that Zeeto's RL counter part had gotten killed in a freak car accident. I had been gone over a weekend and they didn't know how to reach me. I drove from RL IN to OH and went to his grave. I thanked him for the support and fun we had for that short period of time, and for accepting me as a "girl", taking the time and patience to show me how to play, for teaching me how to kill a liche.

I haven't talked to any of the rest of them. They lost interest and moved on to other things. But those first days of making friends via pixils on the screen are priceless. And they
are why I keep coming back.

Life goes on. Mr. Feral Knight in RL left so Brianna Knight officially changed her name to Rhiannon. RL Mr. Knight passed away this year. Lots has happened in 15 years. There are no constants in life. UO changes all the time, some of it for the better, some not. New friends come. Some go.

I personally will be forever grateful to the brilliance and creative mind of Richard Garriott. Long Live Lord British!

 

[Lady Silverbrook]

I was still in school, and had a few more years before things like 'house', 'job', and 'reality' set in.

 

[Samaira]

I was celebrating my 13th birthday... and the total extent of my video game knowledge was watching my brother spend Sunday morning clocking Sonic II on our tired old Megadrive lol!

It was my final year at university (2006) when boyfriend-now-husband introduced me to UO. He had a friend who'd played beta, and I remember listening to him tell stories of the anitpodean protest at WBB on Pac which crashed the shard and thinking 'wow, this game has a history?' The very idea was mindboggling. I've been a UO girl on and off ever since.

 

[Viper09]

I didn't really start UO until sometime around late 1999/early 2000. My friend is who really got me into this game, we spent hours upon hours exploring. I remember my first time venturing out into the open, I was scared of every monster and was nervous enough walking from Britain to Minoc but I actually loved that journey too. I felt so relieved once I entered the town, feeling safe again.

The public moongates mystified me greatly too, I was also so nervous of entering them because I had no idea where they would take me. I eventually understood the phases and realized they proved safe and quick travel throughout the world.

Funniest moment looking back was someone had their name "pk coming." When that popped up on the screen my friend and I ran like hell. We thought it was the game warning us a pk was coming lol! It turned out later to be just the name of a player (who was not a pk).

 

[Ruppy2]

Fed my wife's cats that are now dead.

 

[Uriah Heep]

I'm so old I can't remember what I was doing yesterday, much less 15 years ago...

 

[Flutter]

I didn't discover the game until January of 98. I do remember waiting for gamestop to open to get my pre-ordered expansions though. Meeting other people who actually played UO... I mean actual walking talking people LOL! It was awesome. We all got there early before the store was even opened, talked about shards we played and how excited we were for the expansions. Carried out multiple boxes for me and my fella so we could upgrade all of our accounts (we each had two at that time but ordered extra for the preorder gifts).

I was going to enter the "most fondest memory" contest with a real life memory regarding this, but something in life came up and I wasn't able to get anything written in time. I honestly think it is one of my top 5 memories of all time for Ultima Online though. It's one of the reasons I am so bitter about UO not having any shelf presence anymore. The only reason I even bought UO was because I saw it on a shelf while looking for something new to play on my computer. I had no idea what an MMO was. It just "looked cool" and I liked the "theme".

My first character was named Ecam because she held a mace. I don't remember what shard she was on. I know I had AOL as my internet provider.
I remember the first time I saw Oceania on the list I made a character there because I love the Ocean. I had no idea about shard locations and stuff. (I didn't discover posting on forums until much later in my UO career. First it was the "official" my uo forums, where you couldn't post without an account. Then later I was all mad because they made us come to Stratics. Even then I didn't post like I do today.)

I can't tell you all how much I miss UO. I have 5 accounts. But I miss UO something fierce.

 

[Pawain]

34. I read the book that came with the game. I decided to be a vendor. It said we could sell stuff to others. Pawain of Minoc was born. (I actually wanted to play a tavernkeeper and sell drinks in Minoc) After exploring and finding out the vendors were NPCs, he decided to try tinkering at the local shop. The market for gears and clocks was very slow. He decided to kill a cat that kept screaching. The cat won. He found the healer and then hung around the bank and dug in the mines. Opened a bedroll, made a fire and fell asleep.

I played around Minoc until Christmas when I got a watch and decided I was brave enough to run to Vesper, Covetous, and finally Britain. Never had a ride for more than a few hours because bonding wasn't around or I didn't know about it. I hunted past the stables in Minoc. Wrong was a favorite place for a while, killing lizardmen alone and having to get a group to kill the Ettin that spawned. Had fun hanging around the banks and calling guards on snoops then joining the buzzards who grabbed everything. Walked thru blue gates that people made, hid behind bushes to watch the fights. New lands came out so I found Delucia and began fighting the Lich and his minions near a grey building. Bonded an ostard and a horse so I could move faster. Finally got a silver sword but never used it because PKing became rampant. I quit for a couple of years after someone stole my house key and lost my shadow suit to a PK.

I returned a couple of years later when I heard about Trammel. My skills were terrible. I never stuck with any single thing for long. My highest skill was 90. Had points in just about everything. All my armor had weird numbers and my weapons had new names. I was in Fel and all my runes went to Fel. I made it to Trammel and found skills go up much faster. Earlier this year I finally made it to GM tinkering. I have made the most gold from my vendors. If that is the measuring stick then I did become a vendor. Only took 8 years or so.

 

[DJAd]

I think I was still playing Ultima VII back in 1997!! After playing most of the old Ultima games I signed up to UO with a friend in 2003. I then sold my first account on eBay then created another one in 2005 which I still use today.

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

Right on i am sorting a lot of stuff, and i came up a bag of moonstones - i just LOL'ed so hard!
That one day, later in the game in 2000, at the Moonglow Cemetary, i decided to use a Moonstone and ended up on the Fel side...
Needless to say, i transported myselfe right in the middle of a hughe PK meeting held at the cemetary - i FROZE - but only to se every PK there FROZE too!
I remember i wrote: "Umm, sorry to interrupt your conversation, but do you know the way to the Lyceum?" The guyz all went LOL and one of them told me to head North.
I thanked them and took my first step as one of them typed: "BUT HE IS A BLUE TRAMMIE!!" And the hell went lose - i than made my way back in town to the healer hehehe

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

Interesting: Wikipedia says the first day the servers went live was the 27th. *shrug*

hehehe, well my researches gave me the 24th of September, i also saw the wiki with 27th of September but i also found a german wiki talking about the 30th of September...

Is there any DEV out there, still ALIVE (heheh) who can confirm the right date?

 

[Vlaude]

I got this game a few months after it released (was 13-14 at the time). I had played the NES version of Ultima III. A friend and I heard about UO through GamePro magazine. We thought it sounded great, a game that never ends and where you can play online with hundreds of other players. It's crazy to think how much things have changed since then and that UO is still around.

 

[Athelas]

I didn't start till December of that year. I had just moved to a new place and the only person I'd met so far was a next door neighbor in my grade that played it. Because of that I started out on Sonoma, the shard he played. It was a busy shard in those days, tons of people. My character's name was Darby Crash and I was the leader of a guild called GERM. I lived in a small house just outside of Trinsic and spent a good portion of my in game days making armor and running to the bank (and from the pk's that hung out just outside the city gates).

I quit when I graduated from High School, just a couple of years later. I knew if I continued to play through college I would never have experienced anything (probably never would have met my wife if I hadn't quit playing). But it always stuck with me. I came back, *thinks* several years ago and have been going strong ever since, only this time on Atlantic.

 

[Athelas]

Incidently I remember my first day back in game after quitting. I placed a small house in Malas on Atl and decorated it with things that were given to me and things I found. I logged in the next day and discovered that everything was gone! I thought I'd been robbed. That was how I learned about lock downs.

 

[Lady Storm]

I was at home, it ws my day off. Nephew and son were playing in master living room on the desktop and I was on my laptop. Yes I had a lappy back then.. cost me a bloody fortune... I digress sorry. When the game fully opened I had a character on each shard on the list, one by one. I wanted to see what would be the best home place, Chessy then Catskills, nephew settled there so I kept a steady worker there. Then Napa when the shard opened up. Had I not had some time in beta it would have been hell to know what to expect.. I worked mostly on cats and Chessy for the first day. You know nephews can be such slave drivers! Good thing I had work the next day or id have been on all the shards till they poped off and then some. I miss the crouds, its too quite now.

 

[Uvtha]

Post your stories here, what did you do on this day besides WAITING the server coming up and start the greatest and longest lasting MMORPG of all time!

How old were you by this time?
What happend the last 15 years?
What shard did you log on and created your first char?

COME OUT, COME OUT and post your stories here if you like to, to let us all know how it was on that SPECIAL DAY if you managed to log in

Went to high school! I did't get my own account till Christmas.

Xmas afternoon, lagged my way out of Britain (took like an hour) promptly stepped in someones fire field and died. Didn't play again for a while cause of lag issues. Got my own phone line (56k baby) 2 weeks later on my B day, that's when I really started playing.

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

Yes the old 28.8k or if you were the KING 56k FLEX - either a Zyxel 28.8 or a US Robotics 56kflex - and horrible Phone-Bills were comming up!

Yeah i miss the crowd too....but than, less people, less lag - while we wouldnt have that lag monsters now anymore with all that high technology servers and networks...

Still have my 56k flex USR Modem, but i cant run it because i got no more phone line hahaha - everything is mobile now or with high-speed lines...

Not only the games changed alot the past 15 years - TECHNOLOGY ran HAVOK the past 15 years - unbelievable if you look at this, we still play on a 800x600 max CC on high end machines - now whos behind lol

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

BTW History!

Check THIS out - and checkout the chars having their backpack ON THEIR BACK heehe

Ultima Online Beta Test Screen Shots

ROFL:



PRE ALPHA:

Ultima Online Pre-alpha Test Screen Shots

 

[Angel of Sonoma]

in Sept 1997, my husband of 3 months and i were Magic the Gathering players. in the spring of 98, a MtG player from Belgium told us of a new game he was playing...Ultima Online. husband bought the game and stayed up til all hours of the night playing UO. it was a little over a year later that i decided to finally set up my own account to find out what the allure was. Mr. BiPolar (the husband) had no patience trying to teach me anything ingame. luckily i was part of a guild that helped me.

now, 15 years later, UO lasted longer than my marriage (which is a GOOD thing ). the legacy continues b/c my 14 year old son has recently started playing UO too.

 

[BeaIank]

I was 17 and in high school, was addicted to Ultima VII and wouldn't have internet access until Christmas of that year, because there was no Internet provider around the little town I lived on with my parents in Brazil.
I and my friends read about it on local gaming magazines and got quite excited about the game, but none of us ended up playing by that time, due to either the lack of internet, or the lack of international credit cards to buy the game and pay the monthly fee.
Cue to August, 2011, when I was bored and decided to check if UO was still alive. Lo and behold, it was and I started my UO journey at Legends, and shall continue as such until UO ends or I pass away, whichever comes first.

Edit:

BTW History!

Check THIS out - and checkout the chars having their backpack ON THEIR BACK heehe

Ultima Online Beta Test Screen Shots

ROFL:

PRE ALPHA:

Ultima Online Pre-alpha Test Screen Shots

Wow... I see graphics straight out of Ultima 8 in those pictures.
They just palette swapped the Avatar from red to blue for some of those NPCs.

 

[Joey Porter]

Incidently I remember my first day back in game after quitting. I placed a small house in Malas on Atl and decorated it with things that were given to me and things I found. I logged in the next day and discovered that everything was gone! I thought I'd been robbed. That was how I learned about lock downs.

Hilarious, same thing happened to me about 9 months ago after I came back.

I was msging my guild telling them I though I had someone hidden in my house stealing things. My guildmates were like, "did you lock them down" I was like, "what do you mean by lock"

Good expensive lesson.

 

[Slickjack]

I remember walking down the hall of my college freshman dorm.. this guy named Jonathon's door was open and he was yelling at his computer.

Asking why he was so upset, he explained he just got killed by SOME monster (I forget which) but someone was trying to help him..

After a minute of watching him, he explained that the other character on the screen was ANOTHER REAL PERSON SITTING AT THEIR COMPUTER...

MY MIND WAS BLOWN!

I left and went to the store immediately and bought UO. We spent the next several days skipping class and running back and forth to each others room to see our player on the other guy's computer monitor... lmao!

Pretty much been here since then!

 

[the 4th man]

I was months out of truck driving school in Memphis, TN, and residing in North Florida.....I was probably driving an 18 wheeler somewhere across America. I didn't get into Ultima Online until....actually, it was ten years, this week. I opted for UO over The Sims, my only 2 choices after my game, (I'd go back to in a heartbeat), Motor City Online went belly up.

I mess with Need for Speed world online, but I just started that. Back in the windy city.....getting ripped off by the mayor, screwed by the taxes, and shafted by these teachers........outside of that, I hven't stopped playing UO for ten years......not once.

 

[Jade of Sonoma]

I started playing UO on Sept 24, 1997. My son was in Beta.

I'm so old I can't remember what I was doing yesterday, much less 15 years ago...

AYE Uriah Heep! I'm ancient too.
How old were you by this time? *shhh*

One of my 22 year old twin sons who played all the solo UO games, and passing them on to me, was so excited when UO started he gave me a slot in his UO Game which he gave to me to play while he was in University saying it would give me something interesting to do in the evenings. I was care-giving 24/7 so Ultima On Line became an escape into a different world at night while my patient slept.

What happened in the last 15 years?

UO was unique and Fascinated me, not just by the animations and artwork, but from learning a great deal about human nature and associating with players from all over the world, plus all the puzzle solving and interesting quests. I became addicted to UO.

I began taming every animal in the world and left them standing tame.
Many Players hunted me down and threatened to kill me for not releasing my tamed animals.
I didn't know how to release them. No one told me how.
So I kept on taming and kept on being killed.

Fortunately, while wandering around as a ghost the first time, I bumped into a strange person in a robe who brought me back to life. After that, my ghosts would look for those strange players as I continued taming and exploring every inch of the world and getting killed .. while bent on looking for the two most important things in UO from solo games: DRAGONS and FLYING CARPETS. So I explored every cave and dungeon and later even got a small dragon ship to travel the oceans and explore distant Islands.

What shard did you log on and created your first char?
SONOMA. Stayed on Sonoma ever since.
Jade (bard) and Jade (tamer) both MALE CHARACTERS.
Gardening, TAMERs and BARDS are my favorites.

 

[NBG]

While most people have to deal with dial up connection in 1997, I was zipping around on university's high speed connection in the dorm.

My first production shard death was to a pk that used a single fireball. I could have easily out ran him but I didn't have anything on me at a time so I could careless since I can just zoom back to town fairly fast. The pk was really surprised that I did not bother to run..... Before he sent the fireball my way, he hesitated and asked some questions.

PK - "Why aren't you running?!"
PK - "Don't you see that I have a red name?!"
Me - "So what !"
PK - "........."
PK - "Vas Flam"

The pk was still scratching his head only to be surprised that I was ressed and ran back in no time and he called me a cheater.... I asked him if he wants to give it a go again and he just walked away.