As we approach the *gasp* 18 year mark...

[Emil Ispep]

Share some of your moments in UO from the past 18 years. How many out there have been along for the ride the whole time? When did you start? What kind of impact on your life has this game had?

Always love reading these =)

Myself, I started July 8th, 1998. I was 14 at the time, going into my freshman year of high school. Just got a new PC, with AOL 3.5, on a 28.8 modem... (ugh) Watched a friend playing UO at his place, and was hooked instantly. Started a toon on Pacific/Minoc, because thats where my bud had his character. Played the hell out of the game that summer lol... Didnt do too much else. I do long for those days.. not having to work, not too many responsibilities haha. The first char I played, I kinda messed around with skills, seeing what I could and couldnt do.. learning the ropes of combat and whatnot... Saved up enough gold to buy that first 5x5... that felt like a huge feat. Took a few weeks of rl time to get up enough gold. Now I can go out and get that in a couple of minutes haha.

One thing I miss dearly about UO is that n00b feeling... where the game is new, huge, scary and open to the explorer. *sigh* I also miss the population that we had back then too, since UO was really the only MMO at the time. I did get that feeling back for a few months when Skyrim came out, but no matter what I play, I always come back to UO.

Fast forward 17 years later, im 31, married, a father, a house, and still am playing (when i can hehe). Ill be here til the end... then ill probably make a freeshard of some sort lol.

 

[Alexander of ATL.]

Greetings,

How I came into playing Ultima Online is that at the age eight, I watched my father, grandfather, uncle, and aunt play this game. I started off on my fathers account at the age of eight playing around and just running the forest killing animals. I had no clue as to what I was doing. I played on and off like that for about two years. I always had the nostalgia of entering the game and finding out what chaos I can get into.

At the age of ten years old, I had received my own account for my birthday. It was then, that I started my adventure into the world of Ultima Online.

I turned down most help from my family that played the game. I wanted to earn everything and explore on my own. I started off my first character, Alexander, that was initially a smith. I went out and mined ore and then sold it. This was easy to do for me because my father was/is the leader of the guild BMC on Atlantic. I had placed my first house, which was a 9X11 at the cross roads of Minoc. I always had the fear of logging in to see an ogre at my doorstep that would eventually kill me.

After about a year, I had earned my first veteran award, which I chose the Soulstone. At this point, I was getting bored of being a smith and so I created a new toon. I remember waiting each 24 hours to transfer the skills from one character to another. I then transitioned Alexander to an archer. Now looking back, I have no idea what I kept transferring skills, but it gets better. At this time, I was still with the guild BMC. It was also at this time that I was losing interest of the game due to the fact BMC was simmering down because of inactive players. Most of my time consisted of exploring the lands and gather gold/recourses/equipment/weapons.

At around the third year, I had decided to make changes to save my interest in the game. I re-changed Alexander into what he is today: Mage/Tamer/Weaver.

I decided to break apart from the BMC and join UWF (United We Fight). It was then that the nostalgia was restored when we did daily night hunts. I had players to interact with, things to do, monsters to hunt, and new content to explore. At this time, I had become great friends with Emily the Tamer and Yible. There was so many memories made from hanging out with these two. It saddens me, now looking back, that Yible has quit the game and Emily has moved one and rarely logs in.

Every day, Yible and I would hang out and, go hunt, explore, etc. In 2009, he got me into attending Event Moderator (EM) Events. The EM’s of Atlantic at the time was EM Nestor and EM Eris. My first event was by far the best event I had ever attended as of current. We were in the depths of Dungeon Doom recovering a page of a book for an RPC named Seth. At this event, I experienced nostalgia more so than I have ever while playing. I remember looting a corpse and obtaining my first ever Event Item: Garkins Dreamed Elixer.

I had then started attending EM Events on a regular. When I got the gold accumulated from hunting peerless, I expanded my characters to other servers. I loved the RP sense of the Event Moderator system so much, I decided to go to other servers and interact there.

In 2009, I, along with Yible, Queen Arya, Ender, and Lanfear created the town of Toad Town. This town would be home to many events, many memories, and many friendships. It wasn’t until 2014 that we had to close down that part of our playing lives because the stress got to overwhelming. We endured so much grief that wouldn’t go away after many reports. Much responsibility based on past reputation of our event records. Much responsibility in being a host of the Rares Festivals for three consecutive times. We all decided that it was time to close those doors to save what little left we had in this game. The town was taking all of our time and efforts. To those that enjoyed Toad Town with its owners, I, as one of the founders, thank you for being a part of it.

So now here I am. July 20th, 2015.

I am attending events on all servers because it is the only thing left in this game that I find joy in. I have explored and fulfilled all current content that this game has to offer. I enjoy the story fiction provided by all Event Moderators game wide.

I have been playing Ultima Online for 9 years, and will be until the plug is pulled.

 

[OREOGL]

Started around 16 in 2000 with a buddy and we were hooked while playing my brothers account. We would run around on 26k trying to kill wisps and ogre lords (we failed miserably).

We met a couple guys, captain pan and Gellor, and we joined their guild, The Chum Guild. eventually they moved on to other things as life became more busy for them.

My friend passed away late in 2002 and I ended up taking a break from the game.

Came back a couple years later and joined Keepers of the flame who later joined the Outcasts. This is where I was introduced to Pvp. It is here I would meet a lot of good friends and other ones that have slipped away with time.

Few Years later I would meet my future wife that also played uo. This was 8 years ago and we now have two kids. Who would have thought?

My five year old now tries to get Dad to let him play where he likes to run around and is particularly fond of the Royal City for some reason.

 

[Larisa]

So I haven't been playing since day one, but I'm coming up on my own 12 year anniversary.

Saw Age of Shadows at a second hand store for $8 so thought I'd give it a try.

The first few days I spent trying to figure out how to get around, silly me didn't look anything up online, I like to figure stuff out on my own...figured out how to die real fast!
I don't remember much about my very first days but I do remember the few friends I had made on Napa that helped me tremendously. Korick the Blacksmith turned me on to smithing. He had me fill bods for him so I could train and learn the craft. When I made the first platemail gorget with my name on it I gave it to him and he locked it down in his house.

Ty and his wife...I forget her name introduced me to Fel and PvP. My first time setting foot in Fel was through a gate and straight into Despise....back then Despise was THE place to be and I died instantly. I was rather upset lol but quickly learned the names of all the people who killed me and got my revenge eventually.

Yew Gate fighting, house hiding, fielding at Spawns, raiding...I didn't do much *Trammie* stuff.

12 years later and UO is still the only game that can hold my attention. I've played MANY other MMO's, even liked some of them...but none compare.

 

[Gamer_Goblin]

I actually lost my best wife (1 of 3 What can I say? Ladies dig me and not the games.) to this game. Well... to my addictive (Non-drug/non-Alcohol/non-Gambling) nature and this game. Who wants to go outside when you can play UO?! Amiright?!

My favorite time in UO was camping earth eles in Despise and making friends while doing so. People were always there and it was usually a good group... then it moved to Titan Valley, then Wind City Demons, then Fire Island, then Efreets in Ilsh, then Fan Dancers in Tokuno. I left shortly after.

 

[Longtooths]

I was there at the beginning, AOL dial up and all (I remember having to run another little program that would keep you logged into AOL Grrr).


I started On Napa Valley with some friends, my character name was Labyrinth. I fondly remember the days of mining ore in Britain pass. Trekking it up to the blacksmith shop in north Britian and selling it all to the smiths that everyone knew by name. Bagging your armor to get it repaired. Trapped boxes in the middle of the road. Thieves-a-plenty at WBB ready to snag anything of value from your pack. Cutting up corpses. Hunting PvPer's and defending the innocent. GUARDS!!! GUARDS!! Those were the days (except for the dialup blech)!


I remember the day we upgraded to DSL...trumpets sounded, doves were released and I swore I would never subject myself to AOL again.


The last time I returned to the game was a couple years ago. I was sad to see that Napa Valley, a once prosperous and active shard was a mere shell of what it used to be. I had heard tell of one shard that was still active and thriving, Atlantic. Before committing to a costly move and leave my home shard I made a character and looked around on ATL. They were right, it was way more active than Napa. So I bought copious amounts of Transfer Tokens, loaded up 4 castles, a Luna house and a keep worth of stuff onto 7 full accounts and moved everything to ATL over the course of a month.


I started acquiring houses on ATL and getting acquainted with all the new faces. I generally played with my nephew (Malik) or by myself. Slowly but surely I met people and got more involved in Rares collecting and eventually bought a Luna House. My nephew set up a shop at my Luna house and made quite a name for himself making crazy time consuming suits for people. But eventually RL made him quit UO and again I was growing tired of the UO. It was around this time that I sold my Luna house thinking I would probably be quitting again shortly.


It was also around this time that a couple of friends convinced me to attend an EM event. I really wasn't interested, I had of course bought plenty of the drops from these events but I have never thought I would like the competitiveness and time associated with the events. I was greatly mistaken. I was so nervous and did sooo many things wrong, but I still received the tall glacial statue drop as a reward and I was hooked. I was screaming like a crazy man when I got the drop and then was told it was a billion dollar item. I woke the wife up and told her all out of breath and excited......she could not have cared less....

Since then my interested in UO has rejuvenated! The opportunity to buy my Luna house back (albeit at a substantial markup grrr) came up and I jumped on it. It was when I decided I will have this house when Broadsword turns the lights off.


I've spent the last year churning out event characters to send to the far corners so I can participate in more events. As for the drops, I consider myself a little unique in that I hardly ever sell any of the drops and instead prefer to hoard away any drops that I get. It might explain why I am constantly having to improve/upgrade/increase my real estate holdings just to hold it all.


Now-a-days I busy myself with collecting Dread warhorses, Glacial Spellbooks, Rares, doing EM events and helping returning players and friends with whatever I can.

 

[MalagAste]

I bought UO:R from the store. I'd gotten divorced and was raising my 2 kids alone and thought it looked like a fun "escape". Back then my son was 12 maybe and my daughter was 7 or so...

I told my son he wasn't allowed to play UO... Stated right on the box 18 and up. Well I played on GLs and later he played on Pacific.

My first Character Willa was named after about 20 min of me wracking my brain trying to come up with something. I knew what I wanted her to be... she was a wood-elf... I didn't really know anything about the Ultima games since this was my first computer... I bought UO:R and the Sims... I probably played Sims 10X more than UO at the time. But once I got hooked on UO that was it. Suppose it was the MMO nature of it.

My kids grew up with me playing UO in the livingroom where I could watch them and keep an eye on everything while I wiled away the hours and met so many wonderful people.

As my kids got older I had more and more time to devote to UO. Never one to socialize much I found UO a happy medium. I kept my "work" life and my "Home" life very separate. Still do.

I always say UO kept me sane raising two kids alone. I could escape into Sosaria and forget all the stress of the real world for awhile. Kept me sane through the death of both of my parents... and many other terribly stressful things in life.

Certainly there have been a great number of stresses in-game and with the game and such but it all seemed so small compared to RL. Found a lot of wonderful friends along the way, had some great loves and losses... Seen friends come and go... but I'm still here.

 

[Kojak]

I've played every day for 17 years - you guys are all weak minded with your quitting this and quitting that - noobs - hehe

 

[MalagAste]

Longest I've ever gone without UO is about 2 or 3 weeks when I moved and had to wait for internet..... almost went insane...

 

[Captn Norrington]

It would be interesting to see who the "most dedicated player" is, meaning the person who has been logged in for the most hours since the game was created. Not counting script accounts of course. I wonder if the devs could do that and give the person some sort of award for the 18th anniversary.

 

[Kojak]

oooo - me me me - i want a prize - hehe