Ultima Online Comments by Alexander Gambotto-Burke

There are still people playing UO?

Interesting to see that UO is still around and has even evolved over the years.
I used to be a hardcore player, but they lost me after the Felucca/Trammel split destroyed player communities and the 3D client was just a mess.
While it may be tempting to give it another go, I think I'll pass (I simply don't have the free time anymore)...

I played for many years on a german roleplay freeshard named Cimmeria. Good times.

WOW just doesn't do it for me. I like MMOs only for the social aspect and I don't care much about fighting and grinding. Cimmeria was great, because for me, it was a glorified fantasy chatroom with great people.

"notices the pharphrase of workingclass hero".... "nods in approval"

I was really thinking of trying this again after the first few paragraphs but the vendor plague sounds horrible.

Free servers? I've heard of this, but as a late arrival to the P.C scene I've not tried it. As long as it's not as shit as that browser-based game I downloaded. Time to give a dying game the honour of my presence.

One of my most ever played (and favourite) games alongside Quake2, 3, Duke Nukem, Red Alert & Bubble Bobble. Ahh, the memories.

Nice article. Ultima Online is one of those games I hear of in hushed tones, as if the people who played it can't share their divine knowledge with outsiders. Although it's not for me now, if I'd known about it when I'd first played Diablo I'd have loved it.

Awesme MMO. This and WOW are the two MMOs that have had me hooked from the second I first logged in! Fond memories of both. Such a time sink though!

Fond memories.

In particular the summer of `98, when a buddy of mine and I ensconced ourselves in my father's home office, he and my mom were on vacation, and had conveniently left 2 respectable PC's, and company expense dual ISDN lines at our disposal.

Gaming bliss.

Far too many smokes, drink, and only a spot of sunbathing in the garden between massive UO sessions left us dreaming about one halberd's prominence to another's, and driving out bleary-eyed for supplies I actually almost hit the brakes once to kill a bird I saw out the window, to pluck it's feathers and craft more crossbow bolts.

Oh yeah.

Shame EA wrecked it all.

UO was my first MMO and like everyones first time, you never forget.

I could write an essay full of plaudits for this game as it was when I first started and continued to play for some years. It was like nothing I'd ever played before, the level of player interaction and ruthlessness of the world was fantastic.

UO was and still is the definitive MMO.

It got ruined, but back in the day those first moments of leaving town will never be forgotten. Nor will the Taming, Thievery, Forensic Investigations, ruthless murdering, scamming, IDOC camping, PvPing, dueling, looting and overall exploration of what was a wonderful game.

For those of you who did play UO, don't forget to look up Galad and read through the archives, despite his mostly evil attitude, the intelligence and crafty nature of Galad and his cohorts was pure genius.

I was a GM on this game many moons ago. Happy times. UO is truly seminal. God bless all Griefers, Gankers, Scammers and Murderous reds.

Tossing deadly poison trapped chests on the ground in front of Britain's bank for all the newbies to pick up...
Ah, fun times indeed!

I used to play BBS MMOs back in the early 90s, with almost no graphics whatsoever. This is hitech stuff in comparison.

A small correction: the Stygian Abyss was the setting for Ultima Underworld 1, not 2. And it was first explored in Ultima IV, I think.

Sigh... I miss Ultima. (Never played UO, though.)

@levitate
You mean MUD's?

My really gnarly, old, friend gamer, the gnarliest of all the gamers in my circle, speaks in hushed tones about Meridian 69, so there's always something older school than yours.

And there were the MUDs of course.

Still, UO was the first MMORPG where you really saw and got the taste of what could be done and experienced.

And my first love.

Sigh...

Everyone but everyone knows that the recall spell is KAL ORT POR.

Still the best MMO ever made, although SWG came close (in both cases before idiots wrecked them).