I'm back, but only to share this with you...

[Derium of ls]

Soul Harvest's Goodbye

you'll have to click through the story until the flash starts. It's really old, but those who remember it will love it. For those who do not remember it, just give it a chance.

 

[PsychoKinetic]

It's really old, but those who remember it will love it.

Yeah, that about sums it up.


Truly one of the best tributes to UO of all time.

 

[Telen]

For a majority of it, that was just what it was like.

Bodies everyone, murderer's all over the place. You could go into dungeons and Reds ans Blues would hang out and not instantly kill each other. (But when the fighting began, it was all for one and one for one! Everyone died.)

There wasn't a day I played UO from 1996/7-2001 that was NOT a blast. Because every single day was a BLAST. You logged in and you had fun, you killed people and they killed you. Long dungeon runs, fighting Anti-PKs. (And there were huge guilds of Anti-PKs ready to jump on any PKs that showed up.) It wasn't some one sided contest, full of ganks and killing "trammies."

It was a two sided coin and both sides always got involved. Everything you did in the game was great.

Warrior classes could wipe the floors with mages. Mages could wipe the floors with warrior classes. Anyone could kill anyone in the game, as long as they thought about it tactically enough. It had almost nothing to do with how high your skills were. But everything to do with how good of a player you were.

People hate Felucca now. But Felucca was all we had.

Where are the Britannia graveyard server down PK parties now? Where is the moment when everyone, no matter who they are comes out and has a server wide Battle Royal in the Brit Graveyard, knowing it'll all get reset and there's no risk?

Every. Single. Server. Down. There was a huge melee and people had a blast. In fact, people waited for the moment the server was going down and EVERYONE, even the people who hated being PKed or hated PKs would run out and just, for a moment, live.

Dungeons weren't just active. Dungeons were full of players having battles, or helping each other to kill the PKs so they could go back to farming Lich Lords and Dragons. The "trammies" of our day FOUGHT BACK -- AND WON a good deal of the time.

They kicked PKs asses and then went back to farming mobs.

I miss when "trammies" weren't trammies. When they were just players who played. And when they realized they could win against PKs by sticking together.

People had team-work then. Even if they didn't know each other. Those unwritten rules made the game amazing. If you saw a Red/Murder you either ran or you stood your ground. And everyone else around you either ran or stood their ground WITH you.

Where are all the Anti-PKs now? Where are all the people who stomp out the PKers and protect the weaker players from them?

What happened to all the wordless, silent rules of Britannia? *shrugs*

 

[LadyNico]

 

[Derium of ls]

wow, I come back after many years and find my stratics account is gone.

Still the old complaining about some fantasy of a gameplay style that existed so many years ago almost no one remembers and almost no one cares.

Hundred of thousands of players have similar fun in other games now.

Other than EVE, I can't find another one. What games are you speaking of? And EVE is the closest I found, but still too different to be fun.

 

[DeathNote]

Other than EVE, I can't find another one. What games are you speaking of? And EVE is the closest I found, but still too different to be fun.

Might not be your cup of tea, but just about all the same things happens in other games. Rift for instance, I've played that since Beta and every day have been fun with the guild, lots of PvP action and well balanced game.

Dutch greeting over and out.

 

[Tazar]

wow, I come back after many years and find my stratics account is gone.

The forums were rebuilt after a crash. The old accounts are mostly still there, but you will need to send a PM message to Petra Fyde to have the old account merged with your new one. (Most likely the account is currently named "imported (whatever your old name was)".

Welcome back.

 

[DeathNote]

Thanks ^_^

 

[Metalstorm]

Where are the Britannia graveyard server down PK parties now? Where is the moment when everyone, no matter who they are comes out and has a server wide Battle Royal in the Brit Graveyard, knowing it'll all get reset and there's no risk?

Every. Single. Server. Down. There was a huge melee and people had a blast. In fact, people waited for the moment the server was going down and EVERYONE, even the people who hated being PKed or hated PKs would run out and just, for a moment, live.

That really brings me back. I remember well everyone bringing out their best weapons for the Server Down Party Bash every night. I kept an exceedingly accurate katana of Vanquishing just for that occasion.

We will most likely never see days like those ever again. All I can do is cherish the memories and take pride in that I was around to witness the world when it was young and full of magic. Player made magic.

Though UO is vastly different now but I'm not anywhere near ready to give up on her.


p.s. This brought back my favorite memory of when bards were originally able to work their songs on other players. Surprised was I one day to find my self suddenly hacking away at a friend. He was screaming "Stop!" I was screaming "I Can't!" And behind a tree was a red bard screaming "HaHAhaHAhaha!!". It was a fun & shocking introduction to the dark side of barding

 

[Percivalgoh]

There weren't ever any real anti-pks only roleplayed ones. Basically you had pks who killed reds and pks who killed blues. Eventually that distiction changed too since reds would use blue helpers and players needed to kill them to try to roleplay anti-pk in a game which never alowed any player to stop a pk for longer than a few minutes.

 

[Gunga_Din]

Might not be your cup of tea, but just about all the same things happens in other games. Rift for instance, I've played that since Beta and every day have been fun with the guild, lots of PvP action and well balanced game.

Dutch greeting over and out.

Rift is a joke.

 

[Picus of Napa]

I hate watching that video...every time I smile at first and end up depressed.

 

[5% Luck]

The one thing I miss the most was "magic hour" the time when the server stopped saving but stayed live for a full hour. Everyone, even hard core tammelights headed out to fellucia to go red or loot bodys or whatever they couldn't do in tramel! And after server up it all was reverted back.

Yea.... Magic hour...

 

[temu]

1997-2000 ruled.

Bone wall in Deciet and all the crap that went with it.

Losing house keys, watching Pks loot your whole house. Then getting good and doing it to other people.

Chaos / Order fights at the north Trinsic bank.

Pks fire fielding the bridge between Brit and Trinsic.

Actual huge guild fights, all over the shard. Precast tank mage dueling. Hally rushing, ahhh.. the memories. I better stop before I get all misty.

 

[Vlaude]

Bone wall in Deciet and all the crap that went with it.

Actual huge guild fights, all over the shard. Precast tank mage dueling. Hally rushing, ahhh.. the memories. I better stop before I get all misty.

I miss the other items you listed but these 2 things right here I had an especially good time at. I have so many memories (good and bad) at the deceit bone wall on Catskills, way too many to start listing. The huge guild fights were a blast too, especially back then since so many people had no clue what they were doing it would always end with the most hilarious stories afterwards. It's too bad we'll never have those times back, but the memories will live on.

 

[Ziggers]

I wish I played UO back when it all started. Instead I was going to bed angry at my husband for staying up playing a stupid game. I was always hearing the same thing every night... Hun, I'll be there in a cpl minutes promise. Love ya. Then after hmm cpl hrs, he would try to stealth into bed. There was always some sad story about a guildie, a buddy, or a bleeping red. Now that I play I can say I get it.

 

[Ludes]

The Bone Wall... haven't thought about that in years..

And I was one of the people that would travel in a small group and help keep the
Reds in check... We were NOT Blue PK'rs.

Aaah... Server down parties, what else can be said?

 

[Ludes]

I hate watching that video...every time I smile at first and end up depressed.

Ditto... btw

 

[Raptor85]

*sigh* now if only EA hadn't spent the next 12 years after that ruining a perfectly good game :/

There's just no game, period, these days that could even compare to what UO was pre ren

There was no grind, no real need for all that much gold, most of the decisions you had to make about your equip had to do with the colors. Roving bands of reds ambushing blues on the roads, bands of blues paroling for reds, and escorting players. Everyone wearing actual clothes and armor, not just tons of robed figures. Wasn't a huge deal if you died and lost everything, could just get new gear from the local tailor or blacksmith quickly. You just logged into UO and PLAYED, talk with your friends, interact with the community, and be whatever you wanted your character to be.

The game had a life of it's own back then, now i log in and 99% of the players i see are stealth farmers, using EV's, RC's, or greater dragons to farm items for hours on end while completely safe. The others are busy in Excel planning out the next suit of armor they're going to build, which will cost 30 million gold and take a few hours of crafting alone, or exploiting poorly thought through modifiers to endlessly tank some high end monster every time it spawns. The only talk going on between players now is complaints and, of course, the "who's a bigger *******" contest in general chat contest always going on.

I'd say biggest difference between today's uo and yesteryear's uo, is that now for every hour of play that's pretty much a requirement for a few hours of "support" play, doing things you don't want to do, which kinda defeats the purpose of playing a game. (granted, once you have a good supply of gold, this goes away to some degree)

 

[Ivor_MacGregor]

trammel+insurance=uo r.i.p.

This thread speaks volumes. Ultima Online, just before the introduction of trammel, will forever be my #1 top game of all time.

I remember being apart of those anti-pk groups, trying to hold the Cove Orc Fort's "newbies" from the impending doom of pks.

Oh the days of when my Celtic RPer Ivor MacGregor would set aside his differences with the Shadowclan Orcs and Undead Necromancers to stave off the hordes of PKs that would invade the Catskills Yew Orc Fort.

In all seriousness, it would be something else if Electronic Arts made the bold decision to shut down Trammel and nerf the insurance system. I would bet my ancient UO account that 10s of thousands (if not more) of players would return to the game. There is a new poll idea! Funny though, I bet the EA big wigs would request, no demand, the devs to revert trammel if they were shown serious profit increases. That is the unfortunate irony of it though - corporate suits decide what makes profit and in doing so, they cut off the legs of a legendary online game/society. World records could have been made and untouchable.

Oh well, the fact is Ultima Online is the god father of MMORPGs. Unfortunately, it was not allowed to remain the greatest and most played.

-Mac

 

[PsychoKinetic]

The others are busy in Excel planning out the next suit of armor they're going to build, which will cost 30 million gold and take a few hours of crafting alone

*laughs*

Yes, I just did exactly this. Except it was to make two suits for my guildmate and myself. They ended up costing 65 million gold each and they are awesome. And you know what? I had fun making them and it is still Ultima Online to me.

I have played since the very beginning, and no, what we have today can not compare to what UO was back then. Our virtual world is still special and unique though and easily capable of generating memories like Soul Harvester's that are cherished into the future.

 

[Picus at the office]

*sigh* now if only EA hadn't spent the next 12 years after that ruining a perfectly good game :/

There's just no game, period, these days that could even compare to what UO was pre ren

There was no grind, no real need for all that much gold, most of the decisions you had to make about your equip had to do with the colors. Roving bands of reds ambushing blues on the roads, bands of blues paroling for reds, and escorting players. Everyone wearing actual clothes and armor, not just tons of robed figures. Wasn't a huge deal if you died and lost everything, could just get new gear from the local tailor or blacksmith quickly. You just logged into UO and PLAYED, talk with your friends, interact with the community, and be whatever you wanted your character to be.

The game had a life of it's own back then, now i log in and 99% of the players i see are stealth farmers, using EV's, RC's, or greater dragons to farm items for hours on end while completely safe. The others are busy in Excel planning out the next suit of armor they're going to build, which will cost 30 million gold and take a few hours of crafting alone, or exploiting poorly thought through modifiers to endlessly tank some high end monster every time it spawns. The only talk going on between players now is complaints and, of course, the "who's a bigger *******" contest in general chat contest always going on.

I'd say biggest difference between today's uo and yesteryear's uo, is that now for every hour of play that's pretty much a requirement for a few hours of "support" play, doing things you don't want to do, which kinda defeats the purpose of playing a game. (granted, once you have a good supply of gold, this goes away to some degree)

This. I'm currently in second place and working hard to get to number one in that contest.

 

[Yalp]

Instead of moaning about "the good old days" why don't you recruit 10 friends to come play with you. In turn they might recruit 10 friends, and before you know it, you're creating a whole new set of fond UO memories.

For a majority of it, that was just what it was like.

Bodies everyone, murderer's all over the place. You could go into dungeons and Reds ans Blues would hang out and not instantly kill each other. (But when the fighting began, it was all for one and one for one! Everyone died.)

There wasn't a day I played UO from 1996/7-2001 that was NOT a blast. Because every single day was a BLAST. You logged in and you had fun, you killed people and they killed you. Long dungeon runs, fighting Anti-PKs. (And there were huge guilds of Anti-PKs ready to jump on any PKs that showed up.) It wasn't some one sided contest, full of ganks and killing "trammies."

It was a two sided coin and both sides always got involved. Everything you did in the game was great.

Warrior classes could wipe the floors with mages. Mages could wipe the floors with warrior classes. Anyone could kill anyone in the game, as long as they thought about it tactically enough. It had almost nothing to do with how high your skills were. But everything to do with how good of a player you were.

People hate Felucca now. But Felucca was all we had.

Where are the Britannia graveyard server down PK parties now? Where is the moment when everyone, no matter who they are comes out and has a server wide Battle Royal in the Brit Graveyard, knowing it'll all get reset and there's no risk?

Every. Single. Server. Down. There was a huge melee and people had a blast. In fact, people waited for the moment the server was going down and EVERYONE, even the people who hated being PKed or hated PKs would run out and just, for a moment, live.

Dungeons weren't just active. Dungeons were full of players having battles, or helping each other to kill the PKs so they could go back to farming Lich Lords and Dragons. The "trammies" of our day FOUGHT BACK -- AND WON a good deal of the time.

They kicked PKs asses and then went back to farming mobs.

I miss when "trammies" weren't trammies. When they were just players who played. And when they realized they could win against PKs by sticking together.

People had team-work then. Even if they didn't know each other. Those unwritten rules made the game amazing. If you saw a Red/Murder you either ran or you stood your ground. And everyone else around you either ran or stood their ground WITH you.

Where are all the Anti-PKs now? Where are all the people who stomp out the PKers and protect the weaker players from them?

What happened to all the wordless, silent rules of Britannia? *shrugs*

 

[RawHeadRex]

amazing times to be cherished

 

[temu]

Instead of moaning about "the good old days" why don't you recruit 10 friends to come play with you. In turn they might recruit 10 friends, and before you know it, you're creating a whole new set of fond UO memories.

I actually try and get people on UO. Hell, I even pay for my best friends account, but he's just not into it like I am. There was a huge group of us in the Seattle area playing UO several years ago, but most of them went to Warcraft, and it's been really hard to get them back. Still, I always suggest it every time the topic comes up.

 

[Willard]

Pretty Awesome!
Thanks for sharing.

Fortunatally, I still enjoy UO as much today as I did in 1999...I will admit my play styles as well as the shards that I haver played on have changed many times over the years, but I always manage to find something fun to do and people to do it with. I hope to continue having fun for many more years to come!

 

[Bman]

Thanks for sharing...

Brings back a lot of good memories... those really were the days!!

 

[DeathNote]

Rift is a joke.

Pre-Trammel UO is a joke and I played heavily back then. Did much PvP/PK action.

And so we can go on.

 

[Derium of ls]

Pre-Trammel UO is a joke and I played heavily back then. Did much PvP/PK action.

And so we can go on.

what I meant by nothing really being the same was all games are item based and require no skill. I miss skill based MMOs. Darkfall and Mortal promised to deliver, but missed the target by miles. I thought you meant you found other games that were as good as UO and formed strong bonds like UO did.

UO back in the day had a special charm no other games have given us. The feeling of excitement around every corner. It required you to stay on your toes, you were not safe even in your own house. No game has actually raised my heart rate while playing since... I miss that dearly

 

[Prince Erik]

I had the opposite reaction watching that video - It also brought back memories ... memories of all the friends who left for EQ to escape the "fun" depicted in that video. Entire guilds were gutted whenever an alternative to that video was finally available - your "fun" was by no means universally loved by the masses back then.

I am one of those who stuck it out and even enjoyed a scrape or two now and then but I'm always surprised at the glorification of what was not a well loved play style for most people I knew who played UO back then.

-PE

 

[Picus at the office]

I had the opposite reaction watching that video - It also brought back memories ... memories of all the friends who left for EQ to escape the "fun" depicted in that video. Entire guilds were gutted whenever an alternative to that video was finally available - your "fun" was by no means universally loved by the masses back then.

I am one of those who stuck it out and even enjoyed a scrape or two now and then but I'm always surprised at the glorification of what was not a well loved play style for most people I knew who played UO back then.

-PE

If you had only won one fight you would have been hooked like the rest of us.

 

[DeathNote]

what I meant by nothing really being the same was all games are item based and require no skill. I miss skill based MMOs. Darkfall and Mortal promised to deliver, but missed the target by miles. I thought you meant you found other games that were as good as UO and formed strong bonds like UO did.

UO back in the day had a special charm no other games have given us. The feeling of excitement around every corner. It required you to stay on your toes, you were not safe even in your own house. No game has actually raised my heart rate while playing since... I miss that dearly

There's much skill in Rift, both gameplay wise and skill point wise I enjoy playing my Miner/Weapon Smith/Artificer character,

You over romanticize and old era that died 11 years ago and was never really popular sadly.

 

[Derium of ls]

There's much skill in Rift, both gameplay wise and skill point wise I enjoy playing my Miner/Weapon Smith/Artificer character,

You over romanticize and old era that died 11 years ago and was never really popular sadly.

rift has levels and item stats. a level 20 can not beat a level 30. period. no matter how skilled you are. that's the issues I have.

And to me it died in 2003. At least until AoS there was still fun things to do IMHO.

You're opinion is yours, mine is mine. Neither one of us are "right" or "wrong". There is probably 3x as many UO players who like the item based grind better than the skill based player driven game, and I understand that. But there is still 10's of thousands of players who want the old game back. And that's 10's of thousands more than Garriott had hoped to reach. So to me, the demand it there. I just think it's like the old Devs said, game companies are too scare to give players free will because they can't control them.

Did I enjoy being murdered by PKs in my house? it wasn't enjoyable, but it was still fun. And that's not just nostalgia talking either.

 

[Kael]

There's much skill in Rift, both gameplay wise and skill point wise I enjoy playing my Miner/Weapon Smith/Artificer character,

You over romanticize and old era that died 11 years ago and was never really popular sadly.

...or perhaps you under romanticize that old era

That video always make me yearn for the old days...not just the start of the game but really up to AOS

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

it makes me laugh that so many people are jealous of the mad fun we had in these years...

it's funny, because others invited me where I'm not supposed to talk about it... where thousands of players think alike.

We are not alone... dum dim dum dum diiii dooooom *music from some UFO show*

 

[Tox The Murder]

Loved the video. it reminds me of Atl and GL days in 97-99... On Atl i would log in and i had the SSJ Guild house right outside so there be 5-10 on me alot. real fun. On GL it was insane in server wars and others. Dungeons where a blast and if u died u just could go buy and get right back in. Not like it at all anymore