Damn you, LeFay, you beat me to the main post!
I had a bad night of sleep and its really early here, so I wanted to post about my thoughts I was having.. anyway truth be told I play very little now but there are two big reasons I wont quit until the doors shut:
- The Ultima name still means something; its a brand ive played the games of since I was very young when my mum was very into games
- My mum, who has never missed any time out from UO, keeps playing even when I dont log in, so I dont think I can ever really "quit"
Aside from this, there is also the big big big reason that is unique to UO, and that is strong community. Ive talked to various UO players ive met with in real life over the years of making friends and going to meets and ive had some interesting thoughts on UO and what makes it different. And to me, this is the main big "thing" of UO - the other people around you.
You can essentially breeze through other online RPGs with the level-quest-goldfarm cycle, all on your own. Rarely are other players needed and level-restricted areas and activities highlight just how independant you really can be.
But what upset me the most the other day when I was playing was how my girlfriend found it hard to understand the game when she first logged in. She worked out how to do stuff but, there were so many questions and so few answers. So this reminded me of how I used to enjoy the game and how I can no longer play it.
Online games are just not like singleplayer ones; they will always be changing. Pick up your T2A/Shattered Legacy box and look at the manual and screenshots; it is no longer that game. No matter what you do, you can never relive or replay moments you once had. And this makes me very sad, as I cannot share that with anyone else. There are so few people from back in 2000 that still play and I feel that the community I once knew and was a part of is shrinking to nothingness.
All the time, I see places disappear or people leaving. Recently, Hemisphere on Europa had his accounts "hacked", but I dont even know if that is the case as hes totally dropped out of contact. Not only did a really nice collection of rares disappear, but so did a bunch of my own stuff stored there as well as my former best friend.
So with such constant change and sadness that I keep experiencing from UO, with such limited fun, what makes me still play? Hope. I hope that one day I will find fun in UO again, that players I used to have fun with will come back, that communities will revive. The EM program shows me that old things can and are being brought back, although it seems that more things are going away than coming back.
I have gigabytes of screenshots on another computer but have no access right now. Stuff going back to 2001/2000. I really want to post them sometime but just to finish, these are some things that I was thinking of that I really really miss and think that a classic shard could bring back out of the (Age of) shadows and remind us made UO fun to play:
- Armour Rating and Magic Resistance - a simple system meaning armour was armour and attacks that werent physical were reduced by magic resist.
- GM Armor - buying a set of regularly made GM armour was sufficient for most things. In addition, you could mix and match regular armour parts and still look good, whilst maintaining a good dexterity/armour rating
- Forge repairs - Totally destroying strong communities, repair deeds totally removed the need to rely on other players and reputations.
- No insurance - made going to new places risky and made having friends valueable. Also meant that people didnt always wear their best stuff and did rely on buying a 2k set of GM heavy archer/full plate.
- Lootable bones and non-instanced corpses - related to community trust and insurance; having that possibility to lose everything really made having a good friend worthwhile. You could prove your trust-worthiness by saving a players stuff when it went to bones, even if it meant waiting around for them.
- Fishsteaks - the staple of anyone going out to a dungeon. Fishing was fun anyway with MIBS and stuff, but at least all the fishsteaks (and bread for chefs) were useful.
- Item ID and Arms Lore - Skills that were useful and let you see the state and properties of items. Item ID or ID wands had to be used so you could see what something was, so you always grabbed magic items off bodies. One of the funnest parts was, after looting stuff, coming back and IDing it all in case you found a..
- Supremely accurate Katana of Vanquishing - Items just seemed better this way. No numbers, percentages or fractions, a sword was a sword and it was magic or not. If it was magic, it had a very subjectively sounding name like "Accurate" or "Vanquishing" that didnt make much sense for some perhaps, but that meant you had to find out. If you werent sure, you could of course just try it out.
- Non-custom housing - Custom houses can be nice but most look crap (sorry to anyone who might think im digging at them, but your house is probably a nice one). I hate seeing dirt plots everywhere or ugly out of style blocks. Removed something from the game I cant explain.
- MIDI MUSIC - Just a personal one, but I think it really changes the feel of the game. The old midi music was really nice to listen to if it was on and really just reminds me of when I first played.
Theres other things I thought of and then forgot, but I miss a lot of stuff in UO. So many changes have gradually changed UO, but looking back you can probably pinpoint where many started to really change the game to one expansion: Age of Shadows. The combat, resistance, housing and item updates all in one go totally changed the game for me, and it has never been the same since. I feel a lot has been irreplacably lost and only a classic shard can bring back such things.
Long post over.
tl;dr
Ill never quit because I hope it will be fun again.
