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You Have it EASY! Back In My Day...

Tangled Metal

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
With the Mythic token and some gold you can easily be 6X Legendary in a matter of minutes. It is kind of sad to me really. Back in my day, just making it to GM was a real accomplishment. There were no White, Pink or Blue scrolls back then. Just hard work.

If you wanted to be a tailor you first learned to find cotton. You could not afford cloth on the NPC vendors for training. After you made it past cloth, you had to use your warrior to farm leather. Same thing with a smith. You didn't buy ingots and grind out a GM Smith in 8 hours. You mined, you smelted, you made lots of armor.

I think the term Skills is a misnomer. You don't have skills any more because a skill is something you earn over time learning how to do something. When you buy your skill it should be called something else because you didn't earn it.

When I started playing, there was no safe spot in the game. PKs could be lurking anywhere. PVP was a different animal back when everyone was on either a 14.4, 28.8 or 36.6 modem. Most of the PVPers today probably don't even have a clue what I am talking about.

Do I long for the olden times? Hell no, it was hard back then. And the servers were total crap. The servers crashed not just on a daily basis but several times a day. You'd spend hours working a skill just to wake up the next morning to find a 12 hour revert. I like it just fine today.

My gripe is when someone says something is too hard, or the drop rate is too sparse, or that their connection is too slow. This game is a million times easier now than it was back in the 90's. The only thing I really miss is not being able to log into my home shard because there were too many people playing. Bet you new players didn't know that back then there was a cap on how many players could be on a shard. That is the reason you had characters on other shards, it wasn't for transferring stuff from shard to shard, it was because you wanted to play and it didn't matter what shard you were on!

Alright, that was my little rant. What do you remember and/or miss/not miss from the humble beginnings of UO?
 

Hunters' Moon

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
You could not afford cloth on the NPC vendors for training. After you made it past cloth, you had to use your warrior to farm leather. Same thing with a smith. You didn't buy ingots and grind out a GM Smith in 8 hours. You mined, you smelted, you made lots of armor.
Am I behind the times? I still do this today.
 

Lythos-

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Some things were hard back then and some were extremely easier than today's methods.

For instance, the day i started playing i met a fellow noob, whom also started the exact same time i did, and we shared ideas and slowly learned mechanics. Enticing nobles out of guard zone would quickly earn you a million gold and the spawn rate was instant. Beating on fishermen and healing them would give you a solid 4x gm warrior in a matter of hours, but if you killed one, you got a murder count. Now it takes 2-3 solid days to 120 a warrior. How rude!!

How about killing the rangers in Skara for the immense amount of arrows they produced? Good times there!

My first smith took me months to gm. Mining was boring so i threw on some melee skills along with mining and smith to kill mobs to loot their finest metal weps and armor for a smelt later in the day. Do you remember the time before salvage bags? I do.

Primitave times indeed! Today, there's still that slight grind feel of the game but it's much easier to get to actually reaping the rewards.
 

Storm

UO Forum Moderator
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Awards
1
Being Telestormed because the server was overloaded
 

MalagAste

Belaern d'Zhaunil
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
I remember being ever so thankful that my main was an archer... Since half the time I'd lag out and have to log back in due to the numberous times my internet disconnected. And I'd log back in and find a pile of dead earth elementals at my feet...

I remember I had a system of logging in.... first this char.... then that one..... then the next.... so as to take FULL advantage of Power Hour..... and no one could distract me till I got my gains in for the day. Back when I only had 5 characters.
 

yars

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
taming 10 white wyrms and selling them at the bank, training my bards at the hedge maze farmhouse
 

Magdalene

Stratics Legend
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Having ingame friends and waiting for the moment when I'd come home, start up the PC and the modem, hear "Stones" and play...
 

Winker

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
My Fav memory is, out running the guards at WWB after you just stole some guys goodies he just pulled out of the bank. There was a short peroid you could out run the guards if you were fast enough.
 

cazador

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Taking 10 minutes to get from bank window to road due to non stop stam block..I don't miss that lol
 

T-Hunt

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Having random town invasions from some mobs.
Standing inline waiting to get armor repaired by a smith you knew .
Mage camp spawns and blood tiles. if lucky.
Wall to wall players in shame.
T-maps that actualy gave you treasure to keep..
Colored armor from npc smiths you could buy..
pvp were players cared more about the fight then trash talking you to death all day..
 

Mazulat

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I miss mining on my mace/mule, looking all squishy for the pk lurking around the mountains, then busting off his shield/armor when he pounced. No stamina and busted armor didn't prevent them from killing me, but it did make it a lot more satisfying when I ran off to find a rez. A little while later I'd see them at the forge with the iron the looted off my body, offering to pay me and tip to replace/repair the armor I busted up. Wash, rinse, repeat. :thumbsup:
Light/heavy archers suit for the win... for those that remember those sort of things. Smiths were regarded with a kind of status that few other things ever rivaled. It was a VERY slow skill to train up and it was incredibly important to have a smith available that you trusted. Handing over pieces for repair to just anyone was a sure way to end up naked. I can't count how many times someone would be searching for the 'smith' that took off with their armor.

I also miss something else even more, though not quite as 'old-days' as some of the other examples. Haven... real Haven. The small little town where I trained and equipped new players until some %$#&% decided to blow it up to make the new player experience more automated and remove the necessities of teamwork and community. Renn and LBR were some of the best times Uo ever saw and haven was the beginning point for almost everyone that experienced it.
 

Ashlynn_L

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I remember the subtly coloured metal armour that NPC smiths sold. There were some very nice colours you could get.

Mostly I miss how weapon attributes were expressed with a descriptive word rather than numbers. Surpassingly accurate, fortification, force, etc. It was far more immersive. I always thought even after AoS came around, you should have required Item ID or an ID wand (which could be made craftable) to view the raw numbers.

BTW certain skills were easy to work up even ages ago when I joined (with Third Dawn). I remember training many of my melee skills on rotting corpses in Ilshenar. Just wait for a friendly bard to provoke two of them near humility and then start hitting them. They were practically invincible at the time and there would be four or five of us just chatting while we training on these super zombies.
 

Hunters' Moon

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Having ingame friends and waiting for the moment when I'd come home, start up the PC and the modem, hear "Stones" and play...
A wave of nostalgia hits every time I hear that song.

Remember when...
*Lost key...lost house.
*You could actually die to a headless.
*Getting necro regs as loot was something new.

I still have the disc that allowed us to play around a little with house customization. Anyone else?
 

Poo

The Grandest of the PooBah’s
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Campaign Benefactor
the bone knight wall in Deceit!
don't let the wall fall people, cross heal!!!

then the pucker factor as you saw red names running up from the hallway to the west and you knew you had about 3 seconds to decide if you wanted to get sandwiched between the reds and the skel knights or if you had enough stamina to push through the mobs and try your luck at running and hiding in the lower levels!

what i miss most of all from what i use to do.... i miss the wild orcs that spawned.
they would spawn with 4 orcs, a orc lord and a mage.
with them would be a chest some trash and a cauldron.
BUT, heres the trick, back in the days the chest trash and cauldron would not vanish over time, they would stay, so they would pile up creating a maze that you had to try to get through.
many times i can remember being pinned in a dead end path in the trash with orcs blocking my way out and a orc mage bombing me to death with spells, hahahaha!
 

T-Hunt

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I still have my rune for the bone wall.
COD was a fun place also, so many new players there , was great training.
I still remember orc invasion there one day..
 

Picus at the office

Certifiable
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Stuffing sheep into my old two story and farming the wool.
Carrying 4 Katana's cause you never knew when your poison charge would wear out during PvP.
Killing people with a newbie weapon and a kilt.
Heater shield FTW.
Soloing a Drake, forget a dragon and a small guild for a ancient wyrm.
 

Viper09

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I remember when it was actually awesome to reach skill lvl, feeling a sense of achievement with each new skill title like expert and adept. Was really awesome when I finally hit "master" archer for the first time. Gaining skills actually took time and you felt a real sense of achievement when you finally Grandmastered a skill, not to mention making a 7xgm.
 

Gidge

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Sharing an account because we could not afford 69.99 to both have an account. I placed my first house and never could find my way back to it. Sparring in the farms fields in west brit fel. Our goal? Get everyone to gm. Counting your steps for stealthing.. no auto check! 50 would get you 5, 100 got you 10 steps! Then doubled at some point? Healing hill in east brit. bag in a key locked chest to keep thieves from stealing from you. Red grizzly bears. Having the server go down giving my husband and I time to run to bk and eat knowing we would be back before the server came back up! Looting every single items because if you couldn't use it surely the provisioner would buy it so you could afford more armor because you had NO CLUE WHEN IT WOULD BREAK! games almost babified. *pats the young ones on their heads* Would I go back? yup. yup I would.
 

Jade of Sonoma

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
taming 10 white wyrms and selling them at the bank, training my bards at the hedge maze farmhouse
No limit on how many animals you could tame and bring to the bank to sell, like a dozen horses.

Getting together with other tamers and taming a great number and variety of creatures for vocal parts in an orchestra that would take place in the Swamp just below the Papua Bank. It lagged everyone at the bank but the GMs would come to help stop players from murdering us, allowing the animal vocals to produce Christmas songs for about an hour. We had everything from the baratoned walrus to the screaching owls, giant toads, dragons, wolves, mongbats, parrots, horses, forest ostards .. can't remember all the sounds we used now. I think the bard drums helped.
 
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Orgional Farimir

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Back in the good ole' days you had to run from Trinny to Brit 1/2, from being attacked by a harpy life because you screwed up and started a character in the wrong town.

The 409 guild would recall into the bone wall while wearing orc masks and slauter everone there, then they would go to the poison pits and slauter everyone there.

You would use the old "drag, walk 2 spaces, drag and hold if someone walks by" to move ore from where you were mining to a forge.

You would not walk from town to town on the road because of PK's, but you would get lost when you try to cut thru the forest.
 

Uvtha

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Shrug. GM hasn't meant anything for like 10 years now. Legendary doesn't even mean much. And It's not like buying skills is new. When were advanced character tokens introduced? 7 years ago? More? I don't remember, but they have been around for forever now.

95% of the game is designed for not only completed, but also well equipped players, can't really make it take years to GM something anymore.

I'm fine with it honestly. I played back then, and yes, it was awesome to get to 100 taming or 100 smithing, and feel like I really DID something, but such an absurd power gap between new and old players just isn't good for the game.
 

Poo

The Grandest of the PooBah’s
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Campaign Benefactor
OMG stealthing... counting steps i had totally forgotten about that!

and drag and dropping stuff to move it.... WAIT SOMEONE COMES!
HOLD IT IN THE AIR TILL THEY PASS!!!!

hahahahaha

i know a thief who made a mill (back in the days when a mill was worth like $20-$30) just from taking gold that people where hiding behind the walls in dungeons (circle of transparency for the wi..... hey who took my damn gold!)
 

Uvtha

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
OMG stealthing... counting steps i had totally forgotten about that!

and drag and dropping stuff to move it.... WAIT SOMEONE COMES!
HOLD IT IN THE AIR TILL THEY PASS!!!!

hahahahaha

i know a thief who made a mill (back in the days when a mill was worth like $20-$30) just from taking gold that people where hiding behind the walls in dungeons (circle of transparency for the wi..... hey who took my damn gold!)
Heh I remember hiding gold in the static chests in dungeons in case I got pked. Usually worked heh.
 

kulder

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
i always liked the moonstones be anywhere and plant it and switch facets, and running around naked with a silver vang fighting Lichs when resist meant something
 

Lord Lew

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
When you had to sit at a moongate and watch the scenery change via text. It was important to know what your destination looked like if you wanted to get there and back.
 

RueTor

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Trapping

Stealthing (you had to walk and count your steps) around and trapping chests. This was back in the bounty and stat loss days. Fun times just waiting for someone to spring a trap, then to escape with GM armor as loot.

 

Good Grief

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
My gripe is when someone says something is too hard, or the drop rate is too sparse
Sorry, can't see your point there considering 90% of this game now is waiting for the RNG to do you a favor and give you that latest, must have item.

Exactly what drops were you waiting for back in the "golden days" that took months, if not years to get?
 

swroberts

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
-No lock on the skills so you had 20pts in everything, and never knew what was going to go down. Accidently wrestling some rabbit and your GM Tailor skill goes down .3 points. :mad:
-When seeing a GM mage was awe inspiring
-Running up the the bank saying bank, then hiding from the theives
-Wearing Crafted By...had status
-Living off a boat in Delucia
 

Olahorand

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Getting killed and dry looted (especially my nice sorted bag, since all items were clutter after double clicking the corpse, no autoequip) by an NPC Brigand on the bridge south of Trinsic, and then an NPC crying for guards killing the looter, so my items immediately vanished.
 

ACB1961

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
-No lock on the skills so you had 20pts in everything, and never knew what was going to go down. Accidently wrestling some rabbit and your GM Tailor skill goes down .3 points. :mad:
-When seeing a GM mage was awe inspiring
-Running up the the bank saying bank, then hiding from the theives
-Wearing Crafted By...had status
-Living off a boat in Delucia
I got stuck at 99.8 magery on my first real guy. Back then it took a couple of chars to make enough money to buy regs for us to even try to get one. I cast many many thousands of summons at my house. I finally paged a GM. One showed up and said "You know you might never get those last .2 we've never seen a GM mage." When it finally came you'd get mobbed at the bank any time you showed up.

Its hard for me to play now honestly. Its fun to just play of course. It always was, but the sense of accomplishment is gone.
 

Orgional Farimir

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
You had to go to the Moonglow mage shop with 8 pack horses to buy your regs, but because there were so many players you had to take refresh pots so you could just get into the shop.
 

swroberts

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
You had to go to the Moonglow mage shop with 8 pack horses to buy your regs, but because there were so many players you had to take refresh pots so you could just get into the shop.
Had to be quick on that mouse and not too greedy, or by the time you and the amount selected and pressed buy....the mage was empty...
 

Lady Storm

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
RowanElizabeth sugar I know exactly what you mean. Some of our dear friends here never had to endure the early days of UO. Where you would have worked hard for 4 to 6 hours on skills then have hte shard go down for a fix and have some if not all your hard work go bye bye..... People ask me how come I have homes all over more then a dozzen shards.... Each shard would be havign a different problem an go down to a Dev fix, you had to ether find another shard or stop playing and your home shard might be off for a day or two. (Napa went down for days at a time cause of bugs and it was not alone) 97 and 98 was the time in which most of us old timers went shard hopping just to have somewhere to play! I remember one week all that was on the list was test center.
 

Pfloyd

Colorblind Collector
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
RowanElizabeth sugar I know exactly what you mean. Some of our dear friends here never had to endure the early days of UO. Where you would have worked hard for 4 to 6 hours on skills then have hte shard go down for a fix and have some if not all your hard work go bye bye..... People ask me how come I have homes all over more then a dozzen shards.... Each shard would be havign a different problem an go down to a Dev fix, you had to ether find another shard or stop playing and your home shard might be off for a day or two. (Napa went down for days at a time cause of bugs and it was not alone) 97 and 98 was the time in which most of us old timers went shard hopping just to have somewhere to play! I remember one week all that was on the list was test center.
I still have characters named pacsdown or glsdown hehe.

fighters had no magery let alone chivalry to recall or move around so we had to take the moongate and you couldn't pick where you wanted to go...it was all based on the the two moons phases. So we spent half the night just wanting to get to the right city. I spent a whole night just trying to get the right color pieces of my plate mail from the different blacksmith shops.
 

Lady Storm

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Oh my, do I remember that!
I wish for a month ... just a month the kiddies who didnt have what we had to go through a small taste of the real 97 UO. No rune books had to be sooo carefull about your home and your stuff .....
 

Lord Nabin

High Council Sage - Greater Sosaria
Professional
Supporter
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Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Glorious Lord
I had to walk from my house north of Brit, thru the mountain pass, to the mage shop every day to get regs. Uphill, both ways... :p
That's just awesome.

Took me forever to realize. Once I had the regs I could recall or gate! :)

Oh wait No rune books. Ok Hiking back to my house. with a bag slung across my back!
 
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Lord Nabin

High Council Sage - Greater Sosaria
Professional
Supporter
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Glorious Lord
What do you mean now a days?

I have been working discord several hours a day for a month and still only at 110! :)

I got to go. Might get a gain soon!


*Wanders back into the forest in hunt of targets*
 
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