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

[GarthGrey]

I didnt start until Nov of that year. But I was working for a VW/Audi test driving facility. I would get out on the interstate, log all of my miles for the shift and head home as fast as i could so I see that mesmerizing chest open with that incredibly cool music. My first day I ran around with a bow before I realized I had to have arrows....oh, and I did this on my brand new 19200 baud modem.

Oh, I also started on Great Lakes, and I remember that THE place to have vendors was the long stretch of road coming out of Vesper. The small houses and vendors were wall to wall all the way down....I remember when you could have a pet guard a door, and anyone that opened the door turned Grey and got smashed by everyone around. then we would stand there and laugh like we had done something great. I remember being north of Minoc mining like everyone that wanted to be someone was doing. A guy came up (dont recall his name) and he said "hey, whats your strength? And i said uhh...51 (i dont remember the exact but it was low)...he said "ah cool, me too, and proceeded to pound me into monochrome).

 

[NBG]

I remember gating monsters into area blocked off by houses (before house placement rules) and innocent people going through my gate in town gets mobbed by Orcs, Trolls and Ettins. They then get trapped in that area until I decide to send another gate to let them out..... (I was young and that was fun)

We also had dungeon craws where we run through and kill everyone in the dungeon and we blocked the entrance with boxes since ghosts back then can still be blocked by objects.

Thinking back, man! I was a mean person in my early UO days.

 

[Rhiannon]

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.

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the tents. I had a blue tent on Atlantic just south of the Moonglow gate. After I finally got the last scroll to fill my spellbook, I setup a VENDOR! I sold scrolls and empty and full spellbooks and did quite well! Unfortunately, you couldn't lock things down yet so I had thieves constantly stealing chairs I would sit on when I visited my own tent. Made me so mad...

 

[Jade of Sonoma]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the tents. I had a blue tent on Atlantic just south of the Moonglow gate. After I finally got the last scroll to fill my spellbook, I setup a VENDOR! I sold scrolls and empty and full spellbooks and did quite well! Unfortunately, you couldn't lock things down yet so I had thieves constantly stealing chairs I would sit on when I visited my own tent. Made me so mad...

Tents? Yes. We lived in tents for a long time. We sure couldn't afford a tent when the game started. It took months before I found out a player could buy a tent. At that time it was easy to hide and rob chests in Destard and that is how I made my money but I would run all the way from Destard to Britain West Bank to deposit gold in the bank with hopes no one killed and robbed me on the way. Those were the days when, as NBG posted, dial up connections were so slow.

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.
.

I wondered how players could suddenly appear in front of me, kill and rob me, then disappear. If a camp of monsters spawned nearby anywhere, or a group of PK appeared, my game crashed.

 

[Athelas]

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.

Another fumble I remember upon returning happened a few months later. I had been working on magery and had just gotten to the level where I could polymorph. The spell is just as useless as it was back then, but still has its moments of fun. I polymorphed into a chicken while hanging out with Eru The Miner. I waited and waited and waited and the spell wouldn't time out. In the old days the spell had a time limit, when it was over your character returned to normal. I started to freak out because I thought my character was going to be stuck like that forever. Eru let it go on for a lot longer than I thought was funny, but he eventually told me to recast the spell to return to normal.

Oh and once I got stuck on a tiny island...

in my first week back...

because I ran out of regs...

for 4 real life days.

I logged into other characters and begged random people for rescue to no avail. They all thought I was playing a joke. I had no idea what LRC was. After the 4th day I pretty much just gave that character up for dead. I thought of buying a boat and trying to find it, but I didn't have the slightest idea of where the island was. It was again Eru who helped me by introducing me to the help feature.

 

[Emil Ispep]

Wow, lots of amazing stories and adventures...

My turn =).

I was 13 at the time, just started 8th grade. Was playing Goldeneye on the N64 when UO when public. I didnt hear about UO until a RL friend started playing it and I was hooked instantly when he let me make a char on his account. Unfortunately, my computer at the time was a Macintosh LC 2, with a whopping 50mb HD... so no luck there. Spring of 98 we got a new PC with a 9 gig HD, and a 56k AOL connection that kicked me off everytime the answering machine got the phone. "Hey its your uncle tommy, dont pick up!" ... "gd it"

Didnt create an account until that summer, July 9th 1998 at 1:10 am if my memory serves me correctly. My RL bud played on Pacific, so thats where I made my home.

14 years later: Now im 28, married and work in inventory managment. I still play UO, but like many have stated, the glory days are long gone. Few can say theyve been playing this game for 'half of their life.' =). I still have my original account, and a second account for storage mainly. My RL friend quit many years ago to play WoW, and has quit playing that as well.

My most memorable moment was cooking bread for several hours a day for about a weeks time in order to save up enough gold to buy a small boat. (45k for a small house was insane!). Needless to say on my second voyage, EdDernnis/Ooji of FL stole my ship key, and I was stranded on the marble island south of Brit. My RL friend recalled out, and I was stuck there with 3 PKs trying to take me out. I succesfully evaded them and hid in a tent on the island, and paged that I was stuck.. then the phone rang.. and i got booted while these guys were searching for me lol. When i get back online, i was standing in a fire field, because they had found me, but couldnt reveal. I ran out of the tent and got away and hid someplace else. Finally i got teled to Trinsic by a blue-robed counselor.

Was too little too late. Lost the boat, and the week of time cooking bread. =(

12.5k back then took me a week to make... now i piss around millions at a time haha. Great to look back and reflect on how things have changed.

I look forward to the next 14 years to come in UO.

I keep saying it, and ill say it again: UO isnt going to die; at least not for years to come. We all have Rl friends. If you want to keep this game going, and keep/make it more enjoyable, recruit a RL friend to the world of Sosaria, and show them the ropes. If they decide to stay on, tell them it is now their task to recruit a RL friend to the world of Sosaria, and show them the ropes. EA isnt going to do effing shiet as far as increasing the player base, let alone anything to do with mentioning the name Ultima. Eff EA.

Its always been about the players, and the community; and the people.

Its in our hands now.

(RG if you read this post, buy back Origin)

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

I remember taking days off work and camping the Wrong Area 24/7 and trying to get the Evil Mage Camp spawn to get Blood Tiles - managed 3 sets - and also managed troubles at work, and in my relationship because i did that LOL

 

[puni666]

I was a freshman in high school... I had no idea you could play video games online. I was probably still playing Final Fantasy 3 over and over or Chrono Trigger.

 

[Petra Fyde]

in 1997 I was being a responsible mom to my two teenage boys. No internet and the closest I got to gaming was watching my sons play Zelda.The newspapers and TV became full of horror stories about the phone bills teenagers were running up for their parents. Local calls aren't free in UK, worked out at something like £1.80 per hour. That's $2.93 at today's exchange rate. It wasn't until much later that the phone companies made other arrangements for internet access. My sons started playing UO in summer of 2000. By December my husband and I had an account between us and the whole family was hooked.

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

Yes Petra, we didnt have flat rates in the beginning here in Central Europe too - i remember i got monthly phone bills ~400 US$ or more - my (ex) wife almost killed me hahaha - you can be lucky all of your family enjoying UO - i am the only one in my family playing and enjoying UO - its hardcore, especially for women who dont understand how i can be that addicted and are not interrested in the game and start to HATE it ROFL

 

[MalagAste]

I tried and tried to get some of my family interested.... My Son actually used my account and played on Pacific for I think the first two or three years... but when Final Fantasy took to the Online industry he left.. he beta tested it and was hooked... he never returned to UO. Funny I had bought him an account so I could get a bigger house.... since at the time we had grandfathered account with a house on GL and one on Pac... but his was 3x mine... He had I think a villa and I had a small 7x7 tower... After I bought the other account and got me a villa he quit... I kept his house for another year or so waiting for him to get tired of FF and come back to UO but he didn't... so later I was like..... well..... since you aren't using it..... I'm just going to pack up your house over there on Pac and get me a new one here on GL... OMG what that started. He didn't care but that started my insanity I think... now I'm up to 8... *sighs*. Oh well... The way I see it is I don't drink or smoke or go to the bar.... I do occasionally hit the movies.. but normally I am right here having fun with UO. So if I want to spend my "fun" money on that it's ok. Let others enjoy their addictions I have my own.

 

[Joey Porter]

Wow, lots of amazing stories and adventures...

Was playing Goldeneye on the N64 when UO when public.

That is hilarious. The guy who introduced me to UO was a college friend that I used to play goldeneye with all the time.

 

[Ludes]

I like the stories about whole families getting into the game.

After about 6 months of watching me play, my wife started an account of her own..
Eventually every single one of our seven kids played, and still do.

 

[MalagAste]

I like the stories about whole families getting into the game.

After about 6 months of watching me play, my wife started an account of her own..
Eventually every single one of our seven kids played, and still do.

My daughter looked at it and she kinda thought it was ok but she's not a gamer. I often wonder how she can be "my" child. I've always hoped my son would return to UO but he never has.

 

[Lady Mal]

In 1997 I was in AIT in the ARMY. I'd never had a computer, didn't really know what the internet was back then. I had my Playstation and I thought that I was set.

That all changed in 2000, when I happened to be shopping for a new PC game ( to go with my company laptop >< ) and I saw Ultima Online Renaissance on the shelf at CompUSA or Circuit City ( I can't remember which ). I didn't realize it was for online only, I thought I was buying a regular PC game. Imagine my surprise when I got home and it told me I needed to be online for the install. So, curious, I let it do what it wanted. I soon discovered other players were actually in the game with me ( amazing ) and that the DSL line at work ( I was a DSL installer ) was much faster than home's dialup.

I was blown away by the many different things I could do in game- make clothing, cook, fight, cast magic, steal, treasure hunting, attack anything ( even NPCs back then if I felt suicidal in guard zones ). There is just so much interaction with the environment.

Of course, now my son just turned 13, and I've been telling him for a while now that he can't play til he's 13.. so there may be a family member playing with me in the future.

It struck me the other day, though. I would never have even bought UO if it hadn't been on a store shelf. EA doesn't even sell it that way these days, while WOW and the rest have huge artistic covers advertising their latest expansions. The last Ultima disk I picked up at a store was either Samurai Empire or gold or one of the anniversary editions. I wonder how many new players we are missing out on because of this.

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

While is was reading your Post Joanna, the Mist of Pandaria commercial from "that other game" anoying me on TV - but than, well, thats how you get players (back)
*sighs*

 

[Rhiannon]

I like the stories about whole families getting into the game.

After about 6 months of watching me play, my wife started an account of her own..
Eventually every single one of our seven kids played, and still do.

I'm loving the stories of the gaming families. My 30something year old daughter is a gamer. She played UO on my account for a month or two in '02 but lost interest. Turns out, she likes to kill stuff. Exclusively. She has played all the shoot-em-up MMOs out there. WOW, Star Wars and a dozen or so I've never heard of. To her, growing plants is boring and tedious.

My 20something year old son has always loved games but not too many online. Single player. And at 26, he decided to go to school to design games. He is in his 3rd semester (with a 3.89 GPA I might proudly add) and has promised he will design games his mom will like as well as other games that he will like (totally combat stuff but must have a deep plot).

My step-son played UO for a couple of years around '01-'03 and I still have an email he wrote me as a kid playing UO at night at his house in which he was begging me to come rescue him from some mess he had gotten himself into. That's when I got him into a guild that would be able to watch after him since I wasn't online ALL the time. Now he's also into WOW and shoot-em-ups like Assisan's Creed (although he also loves the Elder Scroll games along with me).

So I guess we are a gaming family too. My husband is amused by it all. To him, unless there's money involved (like online poker), he doesn't see the point. He will be even more amused when he meets my friend Tabi who has promised to visit me in the next year. First time ever he will meet one of my gaming friends!

 

[Viper09]

I remember another one of my first adventures that involved me killing a player for the first time. I was playing an archer, my first ever character named Viper on Sonoma. I was outside Minoc and there was someone constantly trying to snoop me, I warned him several times and eventually I ended up attacking and killing him. This was before I even knew about the flagging system or anything like that for that matter. After I had killed the thief my friend told me I go grey for attacking players and yet I was blue. So I was scared I was going to slowly turn grey after killing the thief and I hid for like 10 minutes, lol. (turned out the thief was perma grey looking back).

I think ignorance of the game makes for the best adventures

 

[muxloe]

I was not in on the beta... but pretty much visited the old website during the lead up to Sept 1997 every day...
Ultima Online - Are You With Us?

Oh, that takes me back...

I was in on day one though... If I remember correctly me and a friend both picked up our discs (still got my maps!) headed back to my place and called in sick to work...

 

[Poo]

took me a while to find this pic, it was buried in my pic file.
back from the old account website where it told you right at the top when you had joined.

 

[Jade of Sonoma]

took me a while to find this pic, it was buried in my pic file.
back from the old account website where it told you right at the top when you had joined.

Oh yes .. pictures! Wish more players would post OLD screen shots in here like that one.

 

[Rhiannon]

Oh yes .. pictures! Wish more players would post OLD screen shots in here like that one.

Ok.

I used to have a tower in the Trinsic Swamps. I don't think you can place there anymore.

This picture is tiny but it's the only one I have. Lizardmen used to spawn inside the tower. This particular day, after I killed him, he landed on the bed. Looks like he's napping. I don't think creatures spawn in houses anymore (thankfully).

Long ago, you could have tamed creatures without having high taming or animal lore skills. I LOVED Amber my dragon. I don't think you can have creatures like this unless you are a tamer.

And just for those who don't know me, I used to be known as Brianna Knight. This was my outfit I wore 99% of the time (unless I was going to a wedding). This was before they had something called "meditation" in which if you wore this stuff, you couldn't recover your mana very well (which they later fixed by having mediable metal armors). This character is the same character that I've had since November 1997. Her name was legally changed in 1999. It was the ONLY character I had until maybe 2004 or so when I decided I wanted to try some crafting. That's when the "sisters" came along, aptly named Rose, Robyn, Rachel and Rienna Telemnar. But this lady below was the beginning.

 

[Rhiannon]

I remember another one of my first adventures that involved me killing a player for the first time. I was playing an archer, my first ever character named Viper on Sonoma. I was outside Minoc and there was someone constantly trying to snoop me, I warned him several times and eventually I ended up attacking and killing him. This was before I even knew about the flagging system or anything like that for that matter. After I had killed the thief my friend told me I go grey for attacking players and yet I was blue. So I was scared I was going to slowly turn grey after killing the thief and I hid for like 10 minutes, lol. (turned out the thief was perma grey looking back).

I think ignorance of the game makes for the best adventures

This reminds me of an interesting story. I have never ever been a PVPer. EVER. And I don't think I've ever actually been killed by one. OF course, this means I kinda hang out in safe areas and did so from the very beginning.

One Saturday afternoon, I was killing some orcs at the orc fort and some kid came running up and hit me with a fireball. HE HIT ME WITH A FIREBALL. By then, I was a GM mage so I blasted him with a couple of spells and down he went. He was standing there as a ghost and couldn't speak to me. As I looted his body, I lectured him on killing people, how it wasn't nice, I had done nothing to deserve that, and maybe he should go pick on something his own size - like a rabbit. I took what little he had including his sandles. *laughs* Poor kid. ALMOST feel sorry for him NOW.

 

[Arrgh]

I was fondling my copy of U.O. while extremely inebriated and arguing with an N.P.C. at Yew Healers on Atlantic server. I then spent the next several weeks indoors on the computer playing Ultima which resulted in what I can best describe as mild P.T.S.D. from all the mass PKing. I remember one day going out to my vehicle and looking both ways and over my shoulders until it dawned on me I was looking for PKs. ...I layed off the game for a few days after that.

 

[Arrgh]

Speaking of strange experiences, I used to walk home from Skara to my Yew home every night at the Moor Complex. Every night there would be this male and female character step out somewhere along the road as "highwaymen" and demand ransom or death in order to pass. I never liked being pushed around plus the male character had this really sweet invuln armor set I wanted so bad I couldn't stand it sooo I'd try to kill them. Now nothing about that is strange...but the way the female character would get a rush and start spouting off Ol' English tart-talk "while" in battle and almost always nearly dead was. What was even more strange was every night I'd wonder if the female character was likely a guy playing a female and that chances were that the fella with the invuln armor more than likely had no idea.

Ahh, the good ol' days!

 

[Surgeries]

When my wife and I first started playing UO I had the benefit of being able to play together with her after the game place I worked at closed. She would come over and we would play into the wee hours that way, on their T1. It was great.

We only had one PC at the house, though. Right after she started really getting into UO, she took a week off of work to develop her archer. She would sometimes be up late at night, and she would definitely play ALL day...with a blanket over her had and the monitor to help her be able to see, due to the awful glare where our computer was.

One night I was sleeping...it was like 1 AM or something, and suddenly I was startled out of bed by a VERY loud "OH...My GOD!!!!"

I ran out to the living room, wondering how the house intruder that must be there would feel about me running into the room in my skivvies...and when I asked my wife what the hell was wrong, she replied:

"This guy just gave me 10,000 gold pieces!! Ten Thousand!! Oh My GOD!!! He also gave me armor and weapons...I didn't have room for all that!! Can you IMAGINE!!?? TEN THOUSAND GOLD...ALL AT ONCE!!"

We still talk about this moment...she thought he was a God or something...way too funny.

 

[Minerva Foxglove]

That day must have looked like most days back then. Off to work in the city hospital. Using the computors the only way I knew of: Making X-ray pictures. Food shopping and most likely picking up one or both sons from scool make dinner help hubby with the cows , checking the boys homework and do the rest of house keeping. If someone had told me that day, that my angels should get me addicted in a computor game feb 1 2000 and give me their 5th char slot ... hehe..very funny. And here I am , never left. I was no gamer , still isnt. Im just an UO player . Cant see me play games if UO dissapears.

 

[Buddy Lee]

In 97 I was still playing Diablo and kept hearing stories from people playing UO. I initially didn't like the graphics for UO compared to other games so I kept putting it off. Then when Blizzard anounced they were working on DII and it would not be out for another year. I decided I needed something to hold me over so I bought UO in the summer of '98 and pretty much lost the next few years of my life. I think I've quit 3-4 times and I just came back again after being gone for 6+ years. Things have definitely changed...

What I remember most about the first time I started was starting as a warrior and heading out with my practice sword and shield and attacking a bunny. Then coming back to town as a ghost trying to find a healer. Other memerable moments were having place my first house right by the Jhelom bull pit. Recalling from the bank to my front door with my key and having some naked guy run in the door after me. We just stared at each other for a minute and just as I had decided to attack him he ran out the door. My heart was racing and my hands were shacking.

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

Buddy Lee this story reminds me of my first PvP combat hahaha
I had this guy following me around Moonglow, not answering any question i asked him, not typing any word, nothing and i was realy annoyed.
So i went out of guard zone and stoped, turned around and yelling at him: "OK, THAN ATTACK ME, OR SAY SOMETHING OR WHATEVER YOU MAKING ME SICK FOLLOWING ME!" He just stand there....and me too...i heard about that stories of PKing and stuff....so i went into attack mode and walked up to him - no reaction..
I decided to run away...he ran with me! Near the water at Moonglow West, than we started our battle...i flaged and RIGHT IN THAT SECOND he yelled:"Ok THAT was your last mistake Mister, i KNEW you are a PK in desguise! I KNEW it!" I was WT....this guy is NUTS! So we were both about the same strenght it seemed, me with my Broadsword and he used a Mace...we fought for sure for 5 mins, and than he seemed to ran out of bandaids lol - he started running away...he went for the guard zone..i started to block him, he ran out of stamina...i thought ONE LAST BLOW and he is history - than it hit me! I attacked! I would get a murder count! So i decided to run away into the other direction....and i never seen this guy again...my heart was jumping, i tried to hide somewhere still was grey, as i turned blue i decided PvP would be nothing for me, and so my fellow Mule was born out of this Char heheh

 

[Acid Rain]

The 24th was a Thrusday so I was taking my paleontology class w/ Dr. Walker, then Greek history, finishing with Calculus. I was starting my sophomore yr at UGA in Athens. For the previous 2 weeks, everyone on campus was talking abt this new game online where u could play w/ folks ALL over the world. At the time it was hard to believe. I wanted to get the game but the closest place they shipped was Atlanta Ga not Athens Ga. So I had to wait a couple weeks until the local stores got UO.

Soon as I got my game I made "Hu Gadarn" on Atlantic, starting in Yew. Finding the graveyard in Yew, the orc fort, and the heavily spawned coastal area west of the Yew mountains was where I spent most of my time. Saving enough gold for a blue tent, then a green tent beside it took time. Eventually I cashed them in for a small fieldstone cottage. MAN, I hated recalling into my tents only to get destroyed by spawn and lose everything cause those F&#$ing orcs, gargoyles, and harpys LOOT !

Two things I'll never forget :
1) someone breaking into my cottage using the "gate on ur steps" bug and stealing like 10k greater and deadly poisoned cooked fish steaks I had been training poison with. Every day for weeks, when I logged on Id get more murder counts. The rat bastiche was going around dropping them all over the game & folks were picking them up, eating them, and dying. I got counts for all of them. Eventually I gave up and just deleted "Hu Gadarn" and made "Hu Gadarn II" who I still have and play.

and 2) The 1st dungeon I ever went to was of course Shame, right near where I lived. It was dark cause never having been in a dungeon b4 I didnt realize the need for nightsite & Hu started as a swordsman/poisoner not a mage that he is now. Back then there was no "P.C." gaming. There was NO names filter. There was a red hidden against a wall near where I was and I was clueless. Im cutting down earth elems when I see across the bottom left side of my screen :
"A Big Smelly (Insert Horribly Wrong Racial Slur Here) is attacking you !"
The guy sat there for like 5 mins attacking me hidden so I just kept getting the message over and over...
I couldnt believe what I was seeing on my screen as it was so offensive I was pretty much in shock, then after a few mins I just started laughing so hard at how terribly wrong this was that I almost peed myself.
He finally poped out and killed me in like 3 seconds. I never even moved cause I was laughing so damn hard.