Lol, yep. I remember those. In Ultima IX: Ascension, the computer in the Avatar's Earth house had an advertisement for UO 2 on it. I remember everyone asking if they could copy their UO characters over to UO 2, and being told no, because they had two totally different character systems.
Funny thing is, UO 2 probably would've murdered EQ in it's cradle, allowing EA to shape the future of the MMORPG genre. Imagine how much different MMOs would be today then. Probably alot different.