Back in the day.....

[Tangled Metal]

Back in the day....

...you had to refresh your houses every few days by you or a friend opening the door or it would fall!

...you could kill nobles for a huge sum of gold, about 300gp!

...having a gm tailor or gm smith was an accomplishment!

...even iron ingots were worth money!

...large towers were 30 mil!

...30 mil was a ginormous sum of money!

...pvp was equal!

...factions were fun!

...rares spawned!

...castles were rarely owned by individuals!

...servers were actually full and you had to wait to log in!

...when you paged for a gm one actually showed up 99% of the time!

...you could get lost by wandering around.

...west brit bank or wbb was the hottest spot.

...order/chaos meant more than just a shield.

...npc's had something to say!

 

[Llwyd]

I miss many things about the 'old days'... except for the PKs... don't miss them at all.

 

[Tangled Metal]

There are still PK's you just have to seek them out now! I remember when Tram first came out and there were PK's all over!

 

[Aristillus]

Back in the day....
...you could kill nobles for a huge sum of gold, about 300gp!

I will take thee....lol

Not only that, remember the Enticing skill that was used to lure the nobles out of the guard zone around Moonglow

Remember Moongates that were a craps shoot where you would end up...

The Bone Knight Wall...

Running fire fields to gain resist...

 

[Beer_Cayse]

... macing truly destroyed armor - quickly

... tank mages were the gods of non-craft classes

... a Silver Katana of Vanquishing was the weapon of dreams

... Liches would/could spawn in any cemetary - usually just as you needed to heal up!

... running the Yew Peninsula (Candalabra Peninsula??) area meant Orc camps with mages and Reapers - great resist gains

... you could get arms and armor repaired at the Brit Forge for patience and a bit of gold as a tip

... overland spawn was heavy enough to allow a battle on every screen

... you had to work the right skills to maintain stats - no locks

 

[Miriandel]

Best moment was 06:00 at Britain cemetary for huge FFA killing fests without fear of those invul/vanq stuff wearing off...

... or training a dragon up to flamestrike level!

 

[Mairut]

...
... tank mages were the gods of non-craft classes

... you could get arms and armor repaired at the Brit Forge for patience and a bit of gold as a tip

Thought I'd share my tiny tidbit...

I also miss Brit Bank sitting and Brit Forge Repairs... there were some awesome conversations to be had there while sitting around.

I used to have a tank mage named Gabrielle... suited up in shadow iron chainmail, heater shield and a plain katana.

Gathering regs in between vesper and minoc...just east of the minoc mines.

And I still say the Minoc Orc invasion was the most fun I've had ever, playing this game. Could be partly because that was the first "event" I was ever a part of... The great teamwork still stands out in my mind though.

ID items were pretty nifty back in the day too (after I discovered them, haha) and glacial staffs... those were awesome!

 

[Connor_Graham]

...pets and monsters could actually teleport

...getting an Orny in Doom meant something

...you hid in your house before you logged out

 

[Tangled Metal]

...gm weapons and armor had no mods but were the best!

...there were plenty of housing spots but you could not afford to place!

...tents!

...private/public housing was done by locking or unlocking your door WITH A KEY!

 

[Llwyd]

There are still PK's you just have to seek them out now! I remember when Tram first came out and there were PK's all over!

Found my most recent PK in my first (and last) two hours on Seige.

 

[BlackMagus]

...traveling the roads of Britannia you would run into PKs at most crossroads

...you could actually try to talk yourself out of such an encounter

...which would not work everytime

...and you still would not whine about being killed again, because you respected PKing for what it was - part of the challenge that made the game fun

;-)

 

[Dolphoenix]

Remember Moongates that were a craps shoot where you would end up...

Not true, the gates were set according to the moon phases. You just needed to use a spyglass to know when to enter.

 

[Beer_Cayse]

aye! I forgot about that one.

 

[Coragin]

...NPC's would not cast on you unless you damaged them first.
...One hit kill X-Bows
...Item ID to find out what something was
...Tab, Tab, Hide....nuff said
...Casting Reactive Armor on a blade spirit and if a dragon used fire breath on the blade spirit it instantly died.
...Dragons were not innately hostile
...Putting the keys to your house on your vendor.
...Grizzleys and other mobs highlighted RED
...You had to get so much fame to get a chaos or order shield. If anyone looted you and tried to equip it, KABOOM! And you just went to a guard and got a new one.
...Swords, Halberd, Magery = GOD
...No med skill
...No control slots (as it should be)
...Clothes were just clothes, so you could actually wear stuff that YOU liked, insted of the next best greatest thing everyone has but a different hue.
...Owning a house on every shard, or multiples on a single! I wish they would let us own one per shard now, have it scale if you own a castle, only 10x10 max on others, scaleing down to the old wooden houses!
...Sparring with a friend to gain weapons skills
...Red from snooping
...Perma Grey from snooping

 

[KoolAidAddict]

Back in the day....

...pvp was equal!

Not sure you and I played the same UO.

 

[BlackMagus]

... at major banks you'd see guard whacking like every 10 minutes or so

... and you'd see flocks of people trying to loot the good stuff of those guard wacked corpses

... everyone went grey in once and a while when he fell for the temptation of that nice loot off that unknown corpse over there near the liches

 

[Tangled Metal]

...moonstones to travel between fel and tram!

 

[Cruxshadow]

... enticing weavers in Jhelom for black sandals
... killing liches in deciet
... destroying with my LJ axer
... wearing plain clothes as a mage
... AR level 7 (am i remembering right? lol, wasnt that the max for val plate?)
... East Brit Bank
... getting PKed
... Cove Orc fort

just a few things i loved and miss

 

[smip]

Back in the day....

...you had to refresh your houses every few days by you or a friend opening the door or it would fall!

...you could kill nobles for a huge sum of gold, about 300gp!

...having a gm tailor or gm smith was an accomplishment!

...even iron ingots were worth money!

...large towers were 30 mil!

...30 mil was a ginormous sum of money!

...pvp was equal!

...factions were fun!

...rares spawned!

...castles were rarely owned by individuals!

...servers were actually full and you had to wait to log in!

...when you paged for a gm one actually showed up 99% of the time!

...you could get lost by wandering around.

...west brit bank or wbb was the hottest spot.

...order/chaos meant more than just a shield.

...npc's had something to say!

Back in the day haveing GM anything was an accomplishment.

Iron ingots are still the same amount as they were way back then on vendors. Only difference is the price goes up now when you buy them out repeatadly.

Large towers were NEVER worth 30 mil. 8 or 9 mil is more like it.

I don't think 30 mil would even fit in your bank box back then. Let alone someone owning that much.

They didn't have factions.

Only a few daily rares have changed. Like watter buckets and toolboxes are not there just a name a slight few.

Not necessaiarly a gm but a smurf showed up and helped. If the smurf could not help then a the next step was called. If all else failed THEN a GM would show. (I think it was blue robe, light color robe then red robe)

If you EVER got lost in UO then you just didn't know the game or you were new.

As I said.. facitons were not around back in the day. So neither were the shields.

NPC's STILL talk. You just have to talk to them.

 

[Kallie Pigeon]

...gm weapons and armor had no mods but were the best!

...there were plenty of housing spots but you could not afford to place!

...tents!

...private/public housing was done by locking or unlocking your door WITH A KEY!

Tents LOL yeah I used to have a tent deed never placed it. Yeah and the key thing. You had to drop your key in the bank box before you went to dungeons ect so you wouldn't be locked out of your house. You also had to get the timing down of recall, unlock door, open door, close door and lock it again so you don't get ganked at the doorstep and have your house looted. You never carried a rune for your house and your key at the same time or you would get killed an the loose your house. Whoever had the key owned the house and if they had a rune ot where your house is they didn't have to search the coutry side looking for the house the key they got went to. You also never cast gate in your house since a gang of unwanted people may suddenly show up through the gate.

 

[smip]

...traveling the roads of Britannia you would run into PKs at most crossroads

...you could actually try to talk yourself out of such an encounter

...which would not work everytime

...and you still would not whine about being killed again, because you respected PKing for what it was - part of the challenge that made the game fun

;-)

LOL.... remember an HONORABLE PK would rez you after takeing all your stuff from you. They were VERY much above smack talk. After all. There was no less a humbleing experience than being PK'd. There was no need for smack talk.

 

[smip]

Tents LOL yeah I used to have a tent deed never placed it. Yeah and the key thing. You had to drop your key in the bank box before you went to dungeons ect so you wouldn't be locked out of your house. You also had to get the timing down of recall, unlock door, open door, close door and lock it again so you don't get ganked at the doorstep and have your house looted. You never carried a rune for your house and your key at the same time or you would get killed an the loose your house. Whoever had the key owned the house and if they had a rune ot where your house is they didn't have to search the coutry side looking for the house the key they got went to. You also never cast gate in your house since a gang of unwanted people may suddenly show up through the gate.

OHH YESSSS the tents. They didn't last long did they? Not only would you get locked out if someone got your key, they got your house too. No rune books so had to have DOZENS of the same runes in different places. Or when rune books came out they were not blessed....

Ahhh.. this is pretty near the beginning. Couple years in. Around 99 I believe is when tents came out.

 

[Llwyd]

Ahhh.. this is pretty near the beginning. Couple years in. Around 99 I believe is when tents came out.

The tents were gone when I starting playing... about the end of '98 when T2A was new?

 

[Kallie Pigeon]

If you got 4 gold for an iron ingot (that's all there was) it was a good price since the NPC would give you 3 if you shopped around a bit. But blacksmiths would pay you 5 gold since they could make 7 gold from it while training. Tinkers could make 6 gold per ingot and never lost ingots if they failed so tinkering was a good way to make some cash if you couldn't kill the big stuff.

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

There were Blue anti-PK guilds large enough to combat the PK guilds successfully.

 

[LordDrago]

....taking a noble escort quest into the forest....then stealing all his money....then killing him and taking more gold off his corpse......

 

[Tangled Metal]

Back in the day haveing GM anything was an accomplishment.

Iron ingots are still the same amount as they were way back then on vendors. Only difference is the price goes up now when you buy them out repeatadly.

Large towers were NEVER worth 30 mil. 8 or 9 mil is more like it.

I don't think 30 mil would even fit in your bank box back then. Let alone someone owning that much.

They didn't have factions.

Only a few daily rares have changed. Like watter buckets and toolboxes are not there just a name a slight few.

Not necessaiarly a gm but a smurf showed up and helped. If the smurf could not help then a the next step was called. If all else failed THEN a GM would show. (I think it was blue robe, light color robe then red robe)

If you EVER got lost in UO then you just didn't know the game or you were new.

As I said.. facitons were not around back in the day. So neither were the shields.

NPC's STILL talk. You just have to talk to them.

My first large tower was 30 mil on Napa Valley, the only reason I know is because that is what I paid for it! And 30 mil fit into the bank of the 4 characters I had.

There used to be monthly rares like hanging chainmail and playing cards. Those were not just daily rares. And I still get Toolboxes out of chests!

Before moongates, before UO Carto it was quite easy to get lost.

Back in the day doesn't mean the first week of UO either. Back in the day would encompass a lot! I have been playing off and on since the beginning so my internal timeline might be off by a little bit but order and chaos shields have been around a very long time!

Forgive me if I feel as you are attacking my memory, which would be considered rude by some, but I have slept a little since I saw Lord British die in front of hundreds of people.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

PvP....equal?

I guess if you had lots of fellow reds to run with. But then again, if that's equality, PvP is quite equal now, for the same reasons.

Many of the other posts, correctly talking about the dominance of Swords-Mages, very much contradict the idea that PvP was equal.

Yes, the game is different now.

30 million is still a big amount of money to me.

Your post and others' posts in this thread along similar lines mix up many different eras of UO.

Can we also talk about PKs who could access their bank boxes from dungeons, through exploits, thus rendering you unable to get your stuff back even if you could somehow overcome all the fellow PKs and various lackeys they traveled with.

Can we also talk about the zero-damage spell bug.

Can we talk about the exploit involving the Ice Dungeon, where you could dupe castle deeds by dying to just the right critter right on the server line?

This statement:

Before moongates, before UO Carto it was quite easy to get lost.

has me puzzled.....Moongates have always been there, and UO:C is a very recent program.

This item:

private/public housing was done by locking or unlocking your door WITH A KEY!

it should be noted, led to thieves stealing your house key then dry looting your house while many blue friends stood by to make sure that "player justice" was not an option.

The Bone Knight Wall was fun until enough PKs got together to disrupt it.

One hit kills didn't exist....Unless of course your favorite PKer managed to find a heavy crossbow of vanquishing. Those could easily be one-hit kills, and often were.

NPCs giving hints about items' spawning in the dungeon, after being bribed with gold, as a nice touch....But does anyone remember how, most of the time, someone else would have gotten that item by accident before you got there?

*shrugs*

Each era of UO had its advantages and disadvantages.

-Galen's player

 

[Cruxshadow]

i dont think she meant before the moongate gump. although i dont remember exactly whether or not the town moongates have always been there, i do know that for a long time you didnt get to choose where you were being taken

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

i dont think she meant before the moongate gump. although i dont remember exactly whether or not the town moongates have always been there, i do know that for a long time you didnt get to choose where you were being taken

It was tied to the position of the twin moons.

Which was either very bugged or was very poorly designed, or both, because sometimes a destination would last for just a second or two.

Some locations would seem to never come up.

It is not much of an exaggeration to say that everyone had enough magery to cast recall.

Scribes could make a lot of money by selling Recall scrolls. As could people who played the buy/sell game well.

-Galen's player

 

[Trebr Drab]

i dont think she meant before the moongate gump. although i dont remember exactly whether or not the town moongates have always been there, i do know that for a long time you didnt get to choose where you were being taken

It was tied to the position of the twin moons.

Which was either very bugged or was very poorly designed, or both, because sometimes a destination would last for just a second or two.

Some locations would seem to never come up.

It is not much of an exaggeration to say that everyone had enough magery to cast recall.

Scribes could make a lot of money by selling Recall scrolls. As could people who played the buy/sell game well.

-Galen's player

Here's a Stratics page on the old Moongate system.

I miss these kinds of things.

 

[Pris]

No moongates, had to use Moonstones.
Power Hour.
GM made leather was best suit for Fel!
House Keys.
Brit Bank was the place to be!

 

[Magdalene]

Rocking a dungeon with a newbied lute wearing a plain dress and a hat!
7xGM - enough said.
GM LJ cutting mages in half, or dying if missed, alas.
GM resist magic actually resisting magic.
Never knowing what the loot was before IDing it.
VDP katanas.
Archer suits, valorite archer suits for show at WBB.
Taming horses for mates.
ICQing guildmates about every 0,1 skill gain.
Actually having guildmates to ICQ...

Good days.

 

[Jhym]

It wasn't poorly designed at all. The original strategy guides had the full table, it was based on the time and moon cycles. There would be spots where it would change quickly, but if you were patient and paid attention you could ALWAYS get where you wanted.

I would just sit and wait until my cycle was about ready to trip and then amaze the two or three newbs and vets nearby, telling them exactly where it was set to.

I'd like them to put it back, actually, it was a reasonable restriction on movement and if you were that upset about it you'd have runes to the places you required anyway.

 

[Spree]

The X road was always fun, Minoc mines where all ways crowded. The last hour before server down was any thing goes time because it never saved.

 

[Cear Dallben Dragon]

you got loot for killing people!

 

[five oclock]

when playing a red was a bad thing

stat loss. Can't get rezed. Get rezed at choas shrine. Get ganked by blues at shrine. etc etc.

 

[Kallie Pigeon]

It wasn't poorly designed at all. The original strategy guides had the full table, it was based on the time and moon cycles. There would be spots where it would change quickly, but if you were patient and paid attention you could ALWAYS get where you wanted.

I would just sit and wait until my cycle was about ready to trip and then amaze the two or three newbs and vets nearby, telling them exactly where it was set to.

I'd like them to put it back, actually, it was a reasonable restriction on movement and if you were that upset about it you'd have runes to the places you required anyway.

I had printed pictures of every moongate and memorized them. So instead of trying to determine the phase I simply ran in and out and back in till I was where I wanted to be. After a while I also could tell which phase things were in by simply which moongates I popped up in so then I knew how many times I needed to go through to get where I wanted to be or if it was impossible and I had to wait. I also knew how to get from point A to Point B without going on roads for the most part. I never got ganked leaving towns or moongates.

 

[Pawain]

Wearing clothes you bought from a tailor was nice. Cause you didnt wear your good stuff while in public.

Standing around the bank and watching the vultures prey on the snoopers corpse.

Standing around and deciding if you should go into the moongate that just popped up. You knew it was made by a PK group.

Going into the gate and hoping your hide skill would work so you could run and stand behind a tree and watch the mayhem.

Using a nightstand in Papau's Inn to switch items between characters cause you didnt have a house.

 

[Spree]

Filling house with traped chest. Then going to a dungon with a rune marked home and a house key to get pked. Return to house to loot guys body after he blows up.

 

[Spree]

Lighting camp fires at the Brit Bank.

 

[Kallie Pigeon]

If you had the 10 k to buy a house deed, you were freaking rich. There were still places to place houses when I placed mine. I loved my first house. It was a mining house, you could mine through the walls. Only problem was it was a place that my red neighbors and others liked to PK miners. When Trammel came you couldn't place a house there on Trammel because they changed the rules so I had to find another location. Lucked out because a guilmate knew of a place because she had a house in the same location before Trammel and told me about it.
I remember gettting guard whacked gating escorts and shooting birds for archery practice and feathers in Jhelom. I had just aquired the final amount needed to buy a house deed and shot a bird that had been tamed and released. I did notice it had been renamed before the screen went black. I rushed to the healers hoping no one would loot my corpse. They had not and in fact a player was standing watch over my corpse.

 

[Gareth_TBH]

...Spells could not do damage in towns...hence the phrase "townies" for warriors.

 

[Llwyd]

Lighting camp fires at the Brit Bank.

lol... and watching everyone run like the Devil himself was after them.

 

[Kallie Pigeon]

Mages used to macro stuff in town. You would see these mages casting water elementals over and over or ebolting themselves. There was a place you could go between the walls by the Trinsic bank that not many people knew about. It was a good place to transfer items if you didn't have a house or to mark a safe rune (a rune you were sure would be open when you had to get away in a hurry). I also marked a rune for the roof next to the bank in Trinsic since no one went there too.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Death meant something.
You could total up armour and know 75 was good.

 

[Kallie Pigeon]

You could out run an arrow or a fireball or at least for a long time anyway unless you flubbed it and ran into something.
Players used to have training pets, a bear or something they brough into their house and trapped with boxes. They would attack them and train weapon skills and after a while they became supper strong and skilled and real good at training up skills. Then the gods decided that was illegal. Nothing was illegal back then but the gods would find things they didn't like and declare them to be illegal then players would find another gimick. You could ask a gm if something you were doing was illegal and they would say yes or no and not ban your account. I remember UO assist before it was accepted the gm's would say it was questionable and warn you against it and because of that I quit using it for a while.
Back in the day Rat Valley was the place to go for PVP action.

 

[Fink]

All of the above, plus:

I used to make a living as a tamer by actual taming.

I'd get horses, llamas, and desert ostards and bring them back to the bank (one at a time via recall because I couldn't gate yet). I would have a dozen or more livestock lined up for sale and do a roaring trade as people frequently lost pets or bought spares. My taming mentor did the same with forest ostards, dragons and so forth, and we sat and traded and covered for each other when the other was away fetching more livestock. We became the tamer equivalent of Brit forge.

 

[Storm]

This whole thread just made me sad for all that we have lost :-(
But there also can be no growth without change

on the brighter side it did bring back good memories of friends long gone now and stupid things we did

 

[EricVT]

Back in the day...UO was an exciting, charming game based around adventure and player interactions.

These days...many people prefer to be totally self-sufficient and are more concerned about what pixel junk they can accumulate than what sorts of friendships they can foster or what sorts of adventures they can have with those friends.