Ultima Online (UO) was my first MMO experience and was one of greatest MMOs I’ve ever played.
Nothing has matched it to date when it comes to the Freedom / Immersion / Sandbox / Emotional / Emergent feeling you get from the gameplay, I have very fond memories of the game. The world felt very realistic at times, you could just lose yourself in the game for hours at a time, it just had a Real World / Life quality to it.
I played on the Atlantic Shard from 1998 to 2000 and quit when they did the Trammel / Felucca thing. Was very disappointing.
I remember my first time playing the game, buying Ultima Online:T2A at EB games in the local mall where I live. Reading the instruction manual on the way home being very excited to get in and play.
I made my character and started in Vesper, I headed out the NW gate to explore and see the new world I was in and came upon a mountain pass, there were 3 people mining, I stop to talk to them for awhile when it happened for the first time, I was a brand new character, first time playing UO, haven’t been in game and alive more then 15 – 20 minutes and a Red named character came running through the mountain pass and killed all four of us.
At first like most people I was a little mad, but I also thought wow this is fantastic the freedom this game has. Being a complete noob at the game and the mechanics I hit the option to rez myself instantly rather than turning into a ghost or whatever, and he killed me again. I then insta-rezzed one more time and tried to haul ass back to town. He gave chase and ended up catching me right before I could get back within the Vesper city limits and kills me.
At this point my heart is pumping and my hands are shaking and wow it was a awesome feeling, you had that feeling every time you left the city limits away from guard protection. World felt real and alive, filled with danger and mystery, anything can happen, you have to stay alert, it also helped to show that death mattered.
But at this point I must ask to the people that actually played UO, Was dying really that bad in the game? Was having player bodies fully lootable that bad? I mean the way they designed the game there was really no EPIC gear like other MMOs, no irreplaceable gear. Money and gear in the game was relatively easy to make and come by. Inside towns you were pretty safe, if any trouble happened you could just call guards and they would appear and take care of the situation. But of course that didn’t make them 100% fool proof, which at times could be annoying if someone got a quick kill on you or stole something from you with thievery and ran away off screen quickly enough. But that just added all the more flavor to the game.
I truly believe the 3 stage (Blue, Grey, Red) criminal system along side the Reputation / Karma system was excellent. And it worked really well as a hands off development type way to allow the player base to police themselves. It added a lot of flavor into the game, most games nowadays get so boring and repetitive. UO seemed like there was always something going on, anything could happen, it was dynamic, random and fun, I can remember a lot of times even at Brit bank with my hear pumping.
That moment when your at the bank trying to get some really valuable loot into the bank before someone steals it and you get the message over your head * is looking through your bag* * just stole something* and you see them turn Grey and you chase them down and kill them and get all there stuff in return. I remember so many awesome cat and mouse chases like that in Brit alone.
People worry about PKs thinking nothing could be done, but really the game, the people in it, just the whole community can police themselves if the game gives them the tools to do so and the developers / other fellow gamers could just give it the chance to happen organically like it can and should. It felt like it did from my side of the fight on the Shard I played on.
UO also had a Bounty System where victims could put bounties on their killers heads and people could collect on them which was a fun way to make money as well and helped as players to police themselves.
I played on Atlantic Shard from 1998 to 2000, in a Anti-PK guild called Lords of Krynn, My character’s name was Kendal I was part of the Paladin group. Yes this is before there were classes in the game. I was a 6x GM (Swords, Tactics, Parry, Anatomy, Healing, and Resisting Spells) had Magery at 70 and Hiding at 30. It was great fun, my friends and I just roaming the lands killing all the reds we see, saving people, helping people, we RPed alot back then.
I miss those days terribly, so many stories I can rant on forever, but the Freedom in UO made it the best MMO there ever was. And no levels to grind, it was all skill based, you could live your whole life in UO as a craftsmen, trader, treasure hunter, fisher, doctor, gatherer, animal trainer, chef, a bard with magical musical powers, whatever without fighting or killing a single thing if you wanted.
I had a Treasure Hunting alt and a Crafter alt, mainly for Blacksmithing.
But another thing UO had that most MMOs don’t was a really good economy and a crafting system that actually mattered, plus like I already mentioned there was really no irreplaceable gear. Plus gear in the game could be destroyed and items would deteriorate and wear over time / use and need upkeep / repairs.
Crafting in UO and all the skills were relevant you could accomplish what you needed to accomplish with them, you could make a living on them, they seemed very well thought out, detailed, and everything about them pretty much made sense.
The crafting system was so good that GM stuff you could get from them is really about the best stuff you can use, there was some rare magical gear out there as well but it really wasn’t that overpowering like the crazy gear gaps there are with in most other MMOs.
Full loot kind of helped the economy on top of the crafting system and Player Vendor system because goods were always in motion, there was plenty of supply and demand, by having real loss in the game created that. Having real loss in the game also helps to strengthen the concept of death mattering. Player bodies also disappeared over time removing items from the economy.
Loss in the game was punishing but not overly damaging or painful again because nothing was that irreplaceable. And it wasn’t hard to have / earn / get money in the game to replace whatever you loss.
Some people have had bigger things stolen like houses and boats, it sucks a lot, it makes you want to rage quit forever at times, I was one of them, my boat got stolen, it sucked, after awhile I got another, life went on. Luckily it never happened to my house.
Also Adventuring and Exploring in the game was tremendous amounts of fun and very rewarding as well, it like crafting seemed to “matter” more in the game, I would just sail for hours on my Treasure Hunting Alt and fish and find treasure chests with friends it was awesome.
UO just had that magic, just that you can do anything you want spark, that every other MMO since has missed, no other MMO has captured the hearts and minds of gamers everywhere like UO. It truly was like living in another world, another life in another universe. The Origin “We Create Worlds” slogan was so very true back in the UO Golden Years before Trammel / Felucca.
And look at that the game is still alive 15 years later, happy anniversary UO, Richard Garriott has to be proud even if he hasn’t had any say in anything in a long time, his baby is still alive and kicking.
What game other than UO has had this dynamic, immersive, random, player driven content that was only possible due to the tension caused by organic player interaction in a open sandbox world with non-consensual PVP? Other than maybe DayZ, can’t really think of any others at the moment. Just completely Emergent gameplay.
Chaos can be fun, real life is repetitive enough on its own.
All Developers talk about building a community in the game, a sense of society, socialization, etc. But then they try way to hard to artificially create it, UO had none of this crap MMOs have nowadays to hand hold players and shield noobs and care bears from harm, all Devs jump through hoops trying to FORCE it, FORCE things, when back in UO it just worked and happen naturally and organically.
Sometimes you have to stop the hand holding and just let go and let players take care of themselves. But of course you have to put the right tools and the right systems into the game to make it possible for the players to take care of it by themselves and I believe UO had those tools during the time period I was playing it.
PoIsOnMaN's Blog of Random Thoughts. 
