New player with questions.

[Axekicker82]

I've been playing online games since the original Diablo. After many games and adventures I have found myself sifting through a vast desert of F2P garbage in search of a quality MMO. This path eventually lead me to UO. At first glance UO seemed to be a an obsolete, lumbering dinosaur, but after a few minutes of exploration I began to notice the detail of the environment and the complex subtlety of UO's gameplay and I'm actually excited to play an MMO for the first time in years.

While I would love to spend what free time I have playing UO, I am faced with a unfortunate dilemma. Before I discovered this game, I began playing another MMO with several friends. My time is rather limited, so I will either have to cut back on the amount of time I play with my friends or quit altogether. While I am prepared to make this decision, I have a few questions about UO that I have not been able to answer reliably.

1. From what I have seen this game seems to have a small but dedicated community. While this does not bother me, I am concerned that I will have trouble finding people to play with who are at a similar point in the game. I don't really like the idea of being carried by vets and soloing can be boring or impossible at times. Will I be able to find groups of new players or characters to do dungeons etc. with?

2. How long will UO be around? I've had the plug pulled on games I played in the past and its a disappointing experience to say the least.

3. Do I have to worry about UO going free to play? I much rather pay a monthly sub for a game and get a square deal than get scammed by a cash shop, but unfortunately the entire industry seems to be headed in the f2p direction.

I apologize in advance if these questions are the sort of irritating thing new players constantly ask on the forums, but I have had little luck in finding decent information about UO and I thought it would be best to ask people who actually play this game rather than take the word of some blogger or moronic game critic. These questions are probably rather subjective and difficult to answer as well,but I want to be sure this game is viable if I'm going to let my friends down over it.

 

[Longtooths]

Atlantic is the most populated shard. Just straight numbers if you are looking for peole to play with, then ATL is it. There are many begineer guilds and people of all levels of play. I know that you said you do not like being carried but ICQ me and I will get you a headstart.

UO has been around for 17 years and my hope is it will be for another 17. Everyone speculates on its future but in truth, no one really knows.

Welcome to the game sir!

 

[Veldrane]

1. From what I have seen this game seems to have a small but dedicated community. While this does not bother me, I am concerned that I will have trouble finding people to play with who are at a similar point in the game. I don't really like the idea of being carried by vets and soloing can be boring or impossible at times. Will I be able to find groups of new players or characters to do dungeons etc. with?

2. How long will UO be around? I've had the plug pulled on games I played in the past and its a disappointing experience to say the least.

3. Do I have to worry about UO going free to play? I much rather pay a monthly sub for a game and get a square deal than get scammed by a cash shop, but unfortunately the entire industry seems to be headed in the f2p direction.

Firstly, welcome to UO! I've been back for a few months now and have been loving it.

1. Depending on your shard and how outgoing you are, you'll either find there is nobody to play with or that there is a nice selection of things to get involved with. It does take a little effort on your part to take the steps to get involved. There's EM events on almost every shard now I believe and there are quite a few community events on most shards too.

Obviously Atlantic is going to have more people to interact with while Sonoma (my home) is a quite a bit quieter. I'd look to some of the more populated servers if you're looking for greater opportunities to make new friends and get involved - Atlantic or Great Lakes.

2. Nobody can answer that question, could shut down tomorrow, could be another 16 years. Given that UO has been online since 97 and was recently bought by Broadsword, I have a feeling that it will be around for at least another five years.

3. Nobody can say for sure. However, the Dev response has been pretty much a "not likely" to F2P. If anything, I see them building on their hybrid model they are currently using with a monthly sub and non pay to win items available via the store.

 

[DJAd]

1. From what I have seen this game seems to have a small but dedicated community. While this does not bother me, I am concerned that I will have trouble finding people to play with who are at a similar point in the game. I don't really like the idea of being carried by vets and soloing can be boring or impossible at times. Will I be able to find groups of new players or characters to do dungeons etc. with?

Atlantic is the busy shard. Saying that the best thing to do is make a character on every shard and login and check each one out. Head to Luna in Malas which is where most people hang out these days. If your into PvP then head to Yew gate in Felucca to see if that floats your boat. You might find certain shards "dead" but remember the different timezones. It might be prime time for you to play, but the middle of the night for others.

2. How long will UO be around? I've had the plug pulled on games I played in the past and its a disappointing experience to say the least.

Who knows. As long as the game keeps making money I can't see any reason for them to close it. People have been saying UO is dead for years. Its still here alive and kicking.

3. Do I have to worry about UO going free to play? I much rather pay a monthly sub for a game and get a square deal than get scammed by a cash shop, but unfortunately the entire industry seems to be headed in the f2p direction

There have been a few hangouts, letters from the dev team, and even the games producer herself saying they dont have any plans to go F2P. At least not anytime in the near future.

 

[Uriah Heep]

Atlantic for the most people. For vets and friendly people, try TWT or any guild in their alliance.

For Legends, most any guild can help you.

I had good experiences on Great Lakes interacting with -Y- I think is how it's abbreviated.

 

[weins201]

don't forget siege is always fun , it is a little different but if you want and ICQ me I can get you started there and would be happy to bring you into the Siege fold

 

[Kyl Drysden]

I'll have to echo the statements already made. Atlantic is the most populated shard for sure. As was already stated though, know the timezone in which the shard you pick is based in. Atlantic is East Coast, but having insomnia, I'm up all night and I always see plenty of people running around, regardless of the hour.

UO is definitely a deep game. There's a lot of freedom in what you do, where you go, and how you build your character. I've known people who have played for years and have only played as crafters. I myself initially started playing back in 1999 and I've never played a crafter. Finally working one up and I must say, it's a nice relaxing change of pace.

I have played off and on since 1999. Like you, I've played many MMO's, but my experience back in 1999 really spoiled me, so I always came back. Now, I'm back for good. After playing Eve Online heavily for the past few years, I just began to get bored, and I just wanted to finally settle down with a game. So I decided to, as I say, come back home.

 

[Naxatilor Feluka]

I started in 97 and have quit many times but I always regress to my ultima addiction.

I will be honest for new players this game is a nightmare if you don't know somebody or have a guild that can help you. I recommend using uoguide.com and uo.stratics.com to find easy answers and UWF is a great guild on Atlantic for newer players trying to find their place. I strongly recommend steering away from pvp guilds until you start to know the community as they are flooded by toxicity and misinformation. Icq 60932767 if you want a hand with anything. Goodluck

 

[RockoNV]

Welcome to UO. If you are a new player and you want to be around A LOT of players then Atlantic or Great Lakes would be the place to go. If you go to any of the less populated shards you will find quite a lot of people that are willing to help you out, you just have to be persistent (usually Luna in Malas is the typical hangout.) As far as Siege Perilous is concerned, it is a lot closer to what Ultima was than what Ultima has become. It has a fanatical community that is helpful but it might not be the best place for a newcomer (I am sure our SP friends will disagree, and thats OK too.)

No matter where you go, you will discover that Ultima has more to offer than any other MMO in existence.

 

[popps]

I've been playing online games since the original Diablo. After many games and adventures I have found myself sifting through a vast desert of F2P garbage in search of a quality MMO. This path eventually lead me to UO. At first glance UO seemed to be a an obsolete, lumbering dinosaur, but after a few minutes of exploration I began to notice the detail of the environment and the complex subtlety of UO's gameplay and I'm actually excited to play an MMO for the first time in years.

While I would love to spend what free time I have playing UO, I am faced with a unfortunate dilemma. Before I discovered this game, I began playing another MMO with several friends. My time is rather limited, so I will either have to cut back on the amount of time I play with my friends or quit altogether. While I am prepared to make this decision, I have a few questions about UO that I have not been able to answer reliably.

How about trying to talk to your friends to also play Ultima Online ? They might as well enjoy their time playing it !!

1. From what I have seen this game seems to have a small but dedicated community. While this does not bother me, I am concerned that I will have trouble finding people to play with who are at a similar point in the game. I don't really like the idea of being carried by vets and soloing can be boring or impossible at times. Will I be able to find groups of new players or characters to do dungeons etc. with?

Atlantic is the server most populated, but other servers also have a decent population, some have indeed a low population so, it also depends on what server you might have joined or be thinking to join. It also depends on the server's time zone as some hours are most played that others during the day depending on the time zone for that given server. So, depending on what time of the day you find yourself most likely to be able to join Ultima Online, you should then see which server is better populated at that time of the day (consider also the time zone for the server as, sometimes, your 8 PM might not be necessarily the 8 PM time for that server....). You ca always transfer servers using transfer tokens so, even if you pick a server that you later on might want to change, this is possible.
One other thing, the Ultima Onlina world is very, very vast and that is also why there might a feeling that not many players might be online at a given time, especially now, with the Global Vendor Search, bank sitting is no longer much popular and so, even at banks it is possible not to see many players around because they are in dungeons, collecting resources or doing things somewhere in the game.

The General Chat is your friend. Keep it on as much as you can or want to and use it to call for others, to organize hunting parties and so forth. Even at times you might think that noone is online, chances are that if you ask in General Chat you will get some other player answering back....

2. How long will UO be around? I've had the plug pulled on games I played in the past and its a disappointing experience to say the least.

When Ultima Online first started, some thought that it would last about 1 year, it is now 17 years and going.... for how long will it still keep going ? Who knows, but given the history, and the solid core player base that it has, I would guess it still has life to go.....
Personally, I think there is no game out there like it, it has a vast world to adventure, is extremely deep and at he same time flexible as one is free to choose what to do, how to play and all that, the patch now released is going to revamp PvP and there is players returning to UO so, things look good....
But noone has a future telling crystal ball so, that is a question hard to answer....

3. Do I have to worry about UO going free to play? I much rather pay a monthly sub for a game and get a square deal than get scammed by a cash shop, but unfortunately the entire industry seems to be headed in the f2p direction.

F2P has been brought up in the past by players here on Stratics but, at least from my understanding, it has been answered that there is no plan to bring UO to F2P, if I understood it wrongly someone might correct me. Personally, I wholeheartedly disagree with F2P, particularly in UO and I explained my point of view in this regards in previous posts (an archive search will likely find all the discussions on Stratics on this topic...).

I apologize in advance if these questions are the sort of irritating thing new players constantly ask on the forums, but I have had little luck in finding decent information about UO and I thought it would be best to ask people who actually play this game rather than take the word of some blogger or moronic game critic. These questions are probably rather subjective and difficult to answer as well,but I want to be sure this game is viable if I'm going to let my friends down over it.

No problem at all, you should consider one thing, as new players, if you get your friends to come over to UO and play together with you, you will most likely need powerscrolls to advance your characters. This means having to hunt at Champion Spawns in Felucca where, if you join a too much populated shard like for example Atlantic, the chances to get raided will be higher....

So, the options are several :

1) - join a crowded shard like Atlantic and risk getting raided at Cham spawns,
2) - join a crowded shard like Atlantic and do not do Champ Spawns, buy the scrolls you need...
3) - join a crowded shard like Atlantic and a Guild which might help you at Champion spawns to get protected against raids while gathering the pwerscrolls you need
4) - join a not so much populated shard (lower chances to get raided) and get the powerscrolls with your group by yourselves

Also, one more thing, try to keep in touch with Event Moderators' events on the shard you decided to play on and attend them as much as you can. If you get lucky to get a drop, those Event items are considered rares and sell for many tens of millions, sometimes even over 100 millions and more which could bring you resources to speed up your progress in the game.

Good luck and welcome to Ultima Online !

 

[Uvtha]

I've been playing online games since the original Diablo. After many games and adventures I have found myself sifting through a vast desert of F2P garbage in search of a quality MMO. This path eventually lead me to UO. At first glance UO seemed to be a an obsolete, lumbering dinosaur, but after a few minutes of exploration I began to notice the detail of the environment and the complex subtlety of UO's gameplay and I'm actually excited to play an MMO for the first time in years.

While I would love to spend what free time I have playing UO, I am faced with a unfortunate dilemma. Before I discovered this game, I began playing another MMO with several friends. My time is rather limited, so I will either have to cut back on the amount of time I play with my friends or quit altogether. While I am prepared to make this decision, I have a few questions about UO that I have not been able to answer reliably.

1. From what I have seen this game seems to have a small but dedicated community. While this does not bother me, I am concerned that I will have trouble finding people to play with who are at a similar point in the game. I don't really like the idea of being carried by vets and soloing can be boring or impossible at times. Will I be able to find groups of new players or characters to do dungeons etc. with?

2. How long will UO be around? I've had the plug pulled on games I played in the past and its a disappointing experience to say the least.

3. Do I have to worry about UO going free to play? I much rather pay a monthly sub for a game and get a square deal than get scammed by a cash shop, but unfortunately the entire industry seems to be headed in the f2p direction.

I apologize in advance if these questions are the sort of irritating thing new players constantly ask on the forums, but I have had little luck in finding decent information about UO and I thought it would be best to ask people who actually play this game rather than take the word of some blogger or moronic game critic. These questions are probably rather subjective and difficult to answer as well,but I want to be sure this game is viable if I'm going to let my friends down over it.

Play Siege shard!

 

[Axekicker82]

Thanks for the input everyone. After reading your responses I put a few more hours into the game and found that the community is fairly active, in fact I even bumped into a few new people. The vets I ran into were quite friendly and helpful as well. Most of my impressions of this game were probably colored by the fact that I was playing at an odd hour and the fact that trial accounts cannot use global chat, which made the game seem rather empty.

I know a lot of the questions I asked were rather subjective and difficult to answer, but from your answers and what I have seen, this game should be around for a while yet. I am also going to do my best to convert my friends. This game my not have flashy graphics, but its gameplay, character progression, and community are vastly superior to anything I have seen recently.

Thanks again for all the great answers everyone!

 

[popps]

.... the fact that trial accounts cannot use global chat, which made the game seem rather empty.

Speaking of that (trial accounts and General Chat...), perhaps some ideas should come up to find a viable solution ....

I mean, I guess that the reason for trial accounts not to enable General Chat is a good one, I imagine to avoid gold spammers just jam the General Chat with gold for sale and the like......

Still, General Chat can be an important tool for new or returning players to find others in game and not feel too alone when they try out Ultima Online .....

So, what could be a brilliant idea to allow trial accounts to make use of General Chat so as to allow new or returning players to find other players in the game and still not have this become an annoying problem because of Gold spammers ?

Is there a way in this case to have the cake and eat it too ?

 

[Rhiannon]

There are so many things that keep ME playing UO, I can't afford the time to list them. But when I am trying to describe this "game" to someone who doesn't know of it, I basically tell them you can do and be anything you want to do and be. It is only limited by your imagination. That's a hard thing to wrap your head around and quite daunting for beginners.

My suggestion is to take a look at these forums. Look at the ones that talk about professions. Obviously not every profession (i.e. chosen path in the game) is listed there but it gives you an idea of some of the basic choices. Want to be a PvPer and get rich? You can do that. Want to have a quiet life of a gardener? You can do that. Want to be a scribe and sell spellbooks for a living? You can do that. Want to be a hero and save a town from an invasion? You can do that. To me, I love the options open to me and not be forced to do quests to earn gold.

I'm glad you found some new people and vets to talk with. The learning curve will be vast. 17 years is a long time to have stuff added to an already complicated game world. Others have given good suggestions for you. I also suggest thinking about what you might enjoy doing in the world and seek knowledge about how to best do that.

Enjoy your stay. Hopefully it's a long one!
Safe travels.

 

[Troll The T Hunter]

Id suggest siege perilous but compared to atlantic its a ghost town.

 

[Ellie]

You might not see any people on siege but start chatting in gen chat and that is where they come out of the woodwork. We have a lot of hiders and stealthers here so we can get around better with out being pked. It can be an exciting shard and there are place to put down a foundation for a house.