Give me one of your best memories from the Classic UO period

[Fin of LS]

Let me start and share one.

Back in the day we had many, many PK's. Some were very skilled, some were not. Many were honorable and enjoyed the challenge of the game. One of the ways that emerged to honor a particular opponent or to deride someone who really pi$$ed you off--was to take their head and place it on your vendor.
You got a head by Skinning the body of a dead opponent, the torso, arms head etc would fall into the loot bag. The head, retained the name of the opponent.

I got into a fight with a skilled mage, at the time I was GM swords and I had a GM made Halbard ( very rare as GM smiths were rare-very powerful as player Smith made products were superior to 99% of anything that dropped) In addition i knew about the bug with Fireball, the premier casting choice of PK mages. ( this bug reversed the damage count based on the armor you wore--the more armor=the more damage--solution : go naked under a robe )
In any event I caught this PK alone with an Axe in his hand--why I do not know since he could not cast that way--and killed him in two Halbard hits. looted him dry and when I opened his boxes and bags--I found a complete collection of heads--some friends of mine. Long storey short he enriched me greatly and I had great fun returning my friends heads to them--and telling the story.

One more thing--about a week later the same PK caught me at a distance and sent me on a dirtnap with lightning strikes ( I guess he knew I knew about the bug since his previous FB's had bounced). I found my head on his vendor 2 days later.

 

[Dryzzid of Atlantic]

When I just started out on Atlantic in 2000, I chose Minoc as my start town. It didn't take long before I noticed the stream of miners flowing from the mountains to the north to the Minoc smith shop. It looked profitable.

So I picked up my pickaxe and shovel and headed north, not realizing that north of Minoc was on lockdown in those days. The area was disputed between 2 guilds (One was called Lords of Illusion, can't remember the other), and for weeks I had to pay each guild 100 iron ingots a day to mine their unharassed. The constantly fought all over the area, but as long as you stayed out of their houses (which made you grey to the owner back then) and paid your ingots, they left you be.

Needless to say, I paid a lot of tolls

 

[Renyard Foxenwyle]

Too many memories to pick from. If I had to pick one I would say it was when I GM'd Swordsmanship about 3 months after starting the game so around July of 98. I didn't even realize that I had broke the 99.9 that I had been stuck at for a week and a half until a guild member pointed out that he could see it on my paperdoll. We had just gotten back to our guild house after a fight with PK's at the Brit Crossroads and were grabbing some regs and potions to head out to the entrance of Despise where a couple friends had been killed by PK's. We proceeded to get our butts handed to us because the PK's had dropped boxes at the entrance so we couldn't get to them, or get out.

 

[Gellor]

I'd go for the "me and a friend saving enough money to finally buy that small stone cottage".

Best but frustrating was "sitting in the above small stone cottage and watching an orc camp spawn IN the house and destroy/loot EVERYTHING out of the house"

 

[Renyard Foxenwyle]

You know, thinking about the old days brought another thing to mind. We would go out and fight PK's, run dungeons, explore, etc... without having a completed template. Now days you don't think to do anything, especially PvP until your template is complete. "Go out and raise my combat skills by fighting Ettins and Earth Elle's? No thanks I have my Golem."

 

[mjolnir131]

Release day for Pub 12 and pub 16 are two of the best days in UO but there have been so many good ones

 

[SchezwanBeefy]

Oh man...
I remember in about 2002 ormaybe before then I was out with two of my buddies from my Pirate guild. We were roaming around in our boat and we came upon some unlocked ones and managed to steal their fishsteaks and gold. Then we PKed a few of them. =] Best moments of my life...

 

[Renyard Foxenwyle]

Release day for Pub 12 and pub 16 are two of the best days in UO but there have been so many good ones

Pub 16 is what made me quit for almost 8 years. I've only come back because it seems like there's a chance the devs will make a classic shard, so I'm going to support them.

As for Pub 12...you sure you aren't thinking of 11, the release of Third Dawn? I really enjoyed it when it first came out. I even beta'd the 3d client. I remember dancing Jigs over and over at the Inn north of the spirituality gate.

I haven't set foot into Ish since I've came back I think i'll have to head there once I've hit GM carpentry.

 

[Derium of ls]

Ill be quick, Trinny invasion!

 

[Zalan]

First one:

I just had gotten Swords to 50. Asked another established player were I should go to get better skills, & loot. He told me to go to Fel. So, I planted the only moonstone I had into the ground & crossed over. After being in Fel for 5 mins another player came up to me. Asked me if I had another moonstone. I told him no. He said I lied killed me, & dry looted me. Was speaking in ooOOooo saying told you so.

Second one:

I rolled my first archer. I attacked a bear outside the city limits of Brit. Ran into town shooting the bear. Yelled for help a few players watched as the bear killed me. & then the crowd dry looted me in Trammel lol.

 

[EricVT]

Dungeons were full of people...totally and completely full. And people worked together to kill the tougher mobs and avoid getting PK'ed. I remember spending hours down at lich lords just helping people take them down. Never got much loot or anything, just enjoyed the thrill of going toe to toe against such a powerful monster.

So many people these days are just interested in things they can solo. It's disheartening to find someone doing a champ spawn in Fel and approach them only to have them try and kill you so that they don't have to share the spawn.

 

[Derium of ls]

Dungeons were full of people...totally and completely full. And people worked together to kill the tougher mobs and avoid getting PK'ed. I remember spending hours down at lich lords just helping people take them down. Never got much loot or anything, just enjoyed the thrill of going toe to toe against such a powerful monster.

So many people these days are just interested in things they can solo. It's disheartening to find someone doing a champ spawn in Fel and approach them only to have them try and kill you so that they don't have to share the spawn.

quoted, because everyone should have to that twice.

 

[mjolnir131]

While on the topic who doesn't think about getting a tram or fel stone when cracking open a headless?

 

[mjolnir131]

Pub 16 is what made me quit for almost 8 years. I've only come back because it seems like there's a chance the devs will make a classic shard, so I'm going to support them.

As for Pub 12...you sure you aren't thinking of 11, the release of Third Dawn? I really enjoyed it when it first came out. I even beta'd the 3d client. I remember dancing Jigs over and over at the Inn north of the spirituality gate.

I haven't set foot into Ish since I've came back I think i'll have to head there once I've hit GM carpentry.

that was 11 i though 12 my bad

 

[Uvtha]

I miss those old days of camaraderie between strangers, but I think that was more about the general climate of online gaming than anything. Back then we were all raised on rpgs where you came across strangers and said "Hail friend! Care to travel together?" rather than "MINE MINE" etc.

 

[Vercingitorix]

Ill be quick, Trinny invasion!

This!!!

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

My best memory from Classic UO:

Logging on and wondering what was going to happen today...any day.

That NEVER happens now.

 

[Taylor]

Rollo the Viking, probably my first character, at the Delucia Inn (my home for many, many years) on Great Lakes. With GM Verite armor and black accessories, I thought I was the sh**!

Ark, my first blacksmith, shortly after receiving his AOS cloak. Notice the jet black robe - jet black was novel and cool back then. ^^

 

[Bman]

My foundest memories were the days when you could play a thief and stand at the bank waiting for an unsuspecting fellow player to show up and plan to drop off their house key in the bank... not so fast as I would steal it and put it in my own bank before begin guard whacked... then I would run around with a key ring full of keys clicking on every door until I found one I could open and loot it clean!!

Even better was to stand in the carpentry shop and wait for unsuspecting players to drop in and buy that house deed that they had worked the last 3 - 6 months earning money to buy and as they purchased the little ole deed... I would steal it!

 

[Felonious Monk]

Ill be quick, Trinny invasion!

This
No Insurance in an unguarded Trinsic invasion.
Juo'nar was a gm run chr with about 1k hp. He didnt hit hard but had Massive mana.
He basically Fs'd the crap out of everything. 2 or 3 spell most folks tipped over.
I had a spell reflect item on with about 100 charges.
he cast about 6 fs spells and couldnt figure out why I wasnt dead.
Must have noticed his health bar actually had some damage showing and ran like a girl scout that was out of cookies. Good Times...........

 

[G.v.P]

-Opening Log-in Chest
-Paladin AI outside Delucia
-So many people calling guards in Brit at once that sometimes they didn't work
-Likewise, timing with a buddy to try and combo-kill a guy in town before insta-whack, lol

Ok, one of the best, hmm... this isn't a one time thing, but a group of us on Chesapeake used to have fight nights out in the middle of T2A, but this isn't ages and ages ago, this was back when disarm stealing and early specials were coming into the game I think, stun mages, etc. Every week people from random places would come to duel each other and set aside order/chaos wars etc, and if anyone ran by to cause trouble we all ganked them.

My favorite time out of all of those times was this one time when we did a FFA, and Draktyr, who, to me, was one of the best PvPers I had seen back then, owned everyone lol and it was this screen full of ghosts running around to see if Draktyr would get the last guy standing. I probably have a screenie somewhere. Wonder what ever happened to him.

 

[wee papa smurf]

Dunno if its my best but its def my funniest, was way south of trinsic (tram)and all my guildies (A^K woot) dared me to use a moonstone so i did, got to fel and had to run to the moongate, along the way 2 reds started chasing me, managed to outrun them got near the gate and this blue stopped me and was asking questions, then i happened to notice my backpack was empty!! As i stood in shock watching the thief run away, the scoundrel even stole my bag of runebooks! Dont ask why i kept them in a bag lol!

 

[Derium of ls]

This
No Insurance in an unguarded Trinsic invasion.
Juo'nar was a gm run chr with about 1k hp. He didnt hit hard but had Massive mana.
He basically Fs'd the crap out of everything. 2 or 3 spell most folks tipped over.
I had a spell reflect item on with about 100 charges.
he cast about 6 fs spells and couldnt figure out why I wasnt dead.
Must have noticed his health bar actually had some damage showing and ran like a girl scout that was out of cookies. Good Times...........

if you have any other screenshots PLEASE Pm them to me! I lost all my old screenshots due to a hard drive meltdown =(

p.s. I got an open book from the invasion, I had to loot it off my own corpse at least 7 times until it was safe... my heartbeat NEVER ran that fast before!

 

[Schuyler Bain]

I miss those old days of camaraderie between strangers, but I think that was more about the general climate of online gaming than anything. Back then we were all raised on rpgs where you came across strangers and said "Hail friend! Care to travel together?" rather than "MINE MINE" etc.

I miss this too...

 

[Renyard Foxenwyle]

-Opening Log-in Chest

That plus the haunting melody that is Stones...also the tune that would play while you were creating a character. To this day I still get shivers in my spine when I hear those. While I applaud the quality of some of the newer music, the only one I really think is outstanding is the Trinsic theme (Honor). I wish they could have remade a lot of the old midi's into mp3's and just kept them, they were great...unfortunately I can't blame the music on AoS since that happened with LBR.

 

[Evlar]

I miss those old days of camaraderie between strangers, but I think that was more about the general climate of online gaming than anything. Back then we were all raised on rpgs where you came across strangers and said "Hail friend! Care to travel together?" rather than "MINE MINE" etc.

I miss this too...

Ditto this too.

Although how people play and approach online games today is very different to back then, I can't help but feel that game mechanics have contributed in no small part.

Once you make a game item-centric, it becomes little more than a chase for the best items... very shallow in depth in my opinion. If someone asks me what UO was about before... I could write pages. Ask me what UO is about today and it's simple really... whatever the best item of the day is.

Add to that the introduction of Trammel, you make the environment uber-safe, rather than actually maintaining the heart of the "challenge" and giving players a good reason to group together, not drive them apart.

Is lack of any risk, any significant challenge, or lack of real reasons to interact greatly with other players, what UO is about these days?

UO should have stuck with its core. With its sandbox environment and gameplay. Not tried to hang on the coat-tails of whatever other game was popular, in a half-hearted attempt to compete with it.

Sadly, the more I think about the classic age of UO, the more annoyed I feel about what's happened to it over the years. Players who couldn't handle losing from time to time, thus wanted changes. Players who chose to play a game which featured combat on many levels, then complained they didn't like confrontational elements of the game. Worst of all, knee-jerk reactionary developers, who listened to the whiners, then turned the game into something it should never have been, instead of having the cajones to stick with what made the game great in the first place, or put some real effort into fixing genuine problems with better solutions.

Either let the game die its slow, malingering death and let the Chinese company give it a good breath of fresh air with the 3D graphics, in a completely new game, or give us the classic servers, so that we may recapture at least some of what made UO a great game.

Cheers