Days of Yore

[Guest]

There use to be a monthly rag by the name of .."Computer gaming World"
Recently it has transmuted into some windows based gaming magazine.
Games for Windows...or something like that. This month one of the contributing editors wrote a nice little piece about small old school guilds from back in the Days when UO was the biggest and brightest thing out there! He even mentions his old Guild the Black hand {BH}..I recognize the tag from back when I started playing about 6 years ago. The piece is only a single page but it brought a tear to my eye. The author speaks of a time when small close family guilds ruled the game...when you would yell for "help" on icq and 8-10 people would drop what ever they were doing and rush to help you.

All that seems to be gone now...Zerg guilds rule the shards and most of the effective/active small guilds have joined alliances and made secret packs and deals trying to compete. Membership in these old small family style guilds required 100% acceptance of all new members...because lets face it...guilds were tighter than many families. I would have let my old guild mates have my account name and password in a heart beat. But Not my real family..lol!

Fact is I just don't think there can be trust needed to maintain that level of intimate friendship in todays larger alliances and zerg guilds. I guess there can be small groups within larger groups...that are close...but there just isn't that same feeling.

Back in the day there was nothing I wouldn't do for my old mates and vice versa.....but as everyone gets absorbed into part of something larger...the "greater good" becomes..."well what works best for me"!

Lets face people pay good cash and this is their recreation time...if you aren't getting what you need...then why bother.

So I will raise a glass and salute my old guild mates...and old friends. I hope each of you find what ever it is you need to keep this game fun! You are all missed!

Salute
TW

 

[slasherofveils]

aye im recently returned (bout 5 weeks now) and while it is good to be playing again, I miss my old guildies and friends I made hereon catskills prior to t2a

 

[Guest]

Here,Here *raises his glass to toast those that survirved and those the didn't*

The old small knit guilds were the best. I remember a few when I was on Serpents Hold (yes some of us actually lived there) in the early days of cats. I know GOL was one of them. Unfortunately I can't remember the others. One sticks out in my mind as an actual family of mom and brothers. All good times in this game.

 

[Guest]

Cheer up TW, there are still a few of these guilds left. Actually Senior Citizens of Britannia was formed from a handful of "survivors" of the early close knit guilds. And we are sooo there for each other that you would not believe it! And I am sure we are not alone in this. As former members of THR, KIN, and YGG we understand the value of complete trust and mutual sharing in this game (and in rl). For me personally, it means logging in to UO means seeing friends who live too far away in rl to chat with at the coffee house. And we all enjoy the game together too.
But guilds like ours are not for everyone and that is why I expect we will remain small (which is okay).
One thing is for sure, there is something for everyone in UO!

 

[Bob_the_fart_guy]

TimberWolf...This is the most "true-to-heart" post that I've ever seen from you. You may not realize it, but for...well, years now I've been trying (at least just once) to do a champ spawn or even peerless with you. Without you TimberWolf I wouldn't have my GM in lockpicking. I miss the old tower. *sobs*

BarefootPrincess, I love your post. While I only discovered UO in probably um... 2004 you have taken me into your community with open arms. And I hope that at least one of my alts can one day be invited to your guild.

And as far as "family" goes in UO...Who in Catskills, or any of the many, many shards he appeared in. Could ever forget the late, grate Grog. I miss him. But for me, he made the community. Gone, but not forgotten ****Raises glass****.

 

[Lord Franklin]

Every now and then they throw a little something in that magazine about UO. They usually trash any new expansions, and they really slammed KR, but then they'll have a piece about some writer remembering how great the community was. They never seem to focus on that part... I'm guessing because they don't actually play the game enough to know. That's a shame. There's still so much that you can do, and it is a wonderful break from the real world.

Peaceful Journeys,
Lord Franklin

 

[Vallend]

Back in the day (God I sound old) my guild was my family. We did everything together. The entire guild mostly placed houses in the same area so we were always around each other. You could log in game at any time and there would be guild-mates outside training skills and just hanging out with each other. You did not have to go to a town to see people they were right there and they were all your friends.

We all use to go on dungeon runs together, mostly because there was safety from PKs in masses in those days. Plus we had mastered the arts of cross healing each other and keeping our mages to the rear to cast combat and healing spells when needed.

If a member was training a craftsman other members helped gather raw materials for them. Matter of fact we had one house just for the craftsmen to train in. It was not as boring training smithing and tailoring when you had someone else to chat to while doing it. In those days not everyone had a craftsman so those who did were highly valued by the guild to repair and make new armor for all the members.

The guild would rush to help anyone who got PKed, slayed by a monster or had their key stolen. All you had to do was say you were in trouble on ICQ and as stated above people would rush in to help you. I remember one time most of our guild stayed up all night on a Saturday waiting for a PKs who had taken a members house key. They thought they were safe recalling in at around 3 in the morning to loot his house. (Yes the fool had his key and a rune to his house on him. A huge no no in the old days. Always leave those in the bank when you hunt was the rule in those days.) Needless to say they were surprised when they recalled in and were pounced on by half my guild.

I also remember the days when people did not have runes to every place in the world and treasure maps had just came out. One of the guild members had recovered a map on a island and eight of us piled on a small dragon boat and sailed to that island. It was a funny sight you no longer see in game a big group of players and their mounts sailing off to adventure.

I can also remember when my old guild grew to fast and let almost anyone in. We had a few problems with dirty players wanting to join to kill guild members. Those nights if the guild GM wasn't online members were calling his real house to get this scum booted from the guild. I really do think smaller close knit guilds are the best kind. You tend to have problems when a guild gets to large.

In many ways I really do miss that feeling of family, and how we really did rely on each other for support. I look back on my guild in fondness in those lawless early days they were what kept me in the game.. friends.

 

[Bob_the_fart_guy]

Vallend...I love reading that post. I wish I had been around when UO first hit.

I did have the luck of being one of the very, very, very first people to play another MMORPG when it first hit (which I won't mention, don't know if that'd violate the RoC) and yeah...those are always the best time.

Oh my goodness, I'm going to be late for RL work. *Waves and runs off to work*