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"Older" MMO Gamers (UO, EQ, etc.) tell your Stories
twstdstrange
Member Posts: 474
So I've been on MMORPG.com for nearly a year (different accounts) and every now and then I see a few posts of the gamers who've been around to play games like Ultima Online and Everquest, Anarchy Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Asheron's Call, etc. (aka, the "older" generation of MMOs) when they were in their prime.
These posts usually describe a very intriguing world that I don't really see exists in this day and age... Perhaps I'm missing something. However, the stories and experiences they describe really get under my skin, and so I go and try to play these games myself... And this is when I curse the fact I played WoW before trying these games, because I have undoubtedly been spoiled in every way by WoW and it's "modern" (if you will) and polished game play and controls.
Needless to say, I couldn't quite get my head in these games long enough to experience them for what they are.
But the intrigue for these old stories and worlds and game play mechanics is still fresh in my mind, and moreso when I get to read another great story from an "older" MMO gamer (albeit not THAT much older, of course) , and then all I want to do is jump into WoW and try to have my own experiences... Only it doesn't... FEEL the same. It's somewhat difficult to explain.
Regardless, to the point of this post, I wanted to ask you guys to tell some of your favorite "older" MMO stories, because frankly I just can't get enough of them.
Whether the game be DoAC, UO, EQ, SW:G (before SoE, preferably 
, I'm particularly interested in the classless system), what have you. Even the oldschool MUDs. I want to hear what made these game so special to you.
Comments
The first MMO I ever played was UO, and safe to say I still play it whenever I can find a chance. To be fair though, I couldn't be bothered with paying a subscription fee for EA's UO, which is incredibly different from what was termed "T2A" or "The Renaissance" before it. Trammel essentially killed what was so magical about UO, but aside from the open world freedoms it presented, there was a great deal of detail that you simply cannot find in a modern title.
The sort of things that I grew to accept as a norm, such as a vast array of dyeable clothing that held no other meaning than to provide individual appearances, have been almost completely over looked since the MMO genre entered the mainstream. Even housing (and boats), an amazing resource to allow players to fill an open world with hubs that they designate, design, and upkeep themselves has nearly been forgotten all together. The housing market alone was a huge part of the game, and there were entire characters whose sole purpose in the world was buying and trading real estate. Alone, the amount of time spent in-game decorating houses was staggering, and it kept players interested in their own piece of the map. Other details included a crafting system that actually put valuable and useful items in the players possesion (as well as items as simple as carpentered furniture), items that existed in the world for no other reason than role play (such as books, which could be written in, produced, and spread around), a skill system that allowed you to do whatever you wanted within the skill cap (seven hundred points total, with 100 being the cap for any skill, and a large list of skills to choose from), a wide variety of tameable creatures (such as horses, wolves, or even dragons if you were dedicated enough), treasure hunting (finding maps that would lead players to different areas of the world, which promoted a partnership between atleast one combat character and one crafter-type, treasure hunter) -- the list could go on for a very, very long while, but these are just the things that stand out in my mind.
And say what you will about griefing, but it too has it's place in a social game. Not only does it create villains and heroes, but the murder/death count system gave players the ability to police themselves. The world itself allowed for so many clever ways to promote conflict amongst the players, between an active and very useful stealing system (my main character was a theif, and stealing from players was one of the best adrenaline rushes I've ever had in a game), disputes over guild ownership over a territory or town, and made people question if they were ever truly safe. I can understand when people just want to play a game and enjoy themselves, but the enjoyable part of UO was constantly scheming and planning the demise of your enemies, or the next aimless victim. Even then, I represented just a portion of the community that consisted of rather cutthroat tactics, but the world gave players of all types a place to shine. I still believe the true beauty of Ultima Online was the amount of different play styles that permeated within the world, be it PvP, PvE, Crafting, Adventure, Exploring -- what have you. Everyone had a place, and everyone could succeed if they put in the effort.
TL;DR: T2A UO and earlier represented a time in gaming in which we focused on socially connecting with other members of the community, and provided an experience to a wide range of players that was less about holding hands, and more about discovery, with amazing attention to detail.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
My name is NovaKane
I have an alt habit.
It has been 10 days since my last alt. I just HAD to see what the other guy was using for skills! I mean come on! He was 1 shotting yellows man! 1 shot! Yellows! And they were like ack, ugh, arrrrgh. dead!!
I hit bottom when I found myself purching more accounts to have more alts and playing more than 1 at a time. Some people call it 2 boxin. I called it euphoria. I could attack and heal! Aww man it was exctasy!!!
I ended up farming gold and selling it to the Asian gold farmers. I was a mess. Then I found MMOAAA. I have been working to stay on my main since then.
Thank You.
Say hello, To the things you've left behind. They are more a part of your life now that you can't touch them.
Ah... *nostalgic sigh*
So many UO stories I could tell but a couple of incidents that stick in my mind came early in the games history and mine...
Firstly, after a couple of days in UO, learning to play and dipping a toe outside the "safe" zones of Moonglow city for the 1st time I came across a sweaty, panting chap who appeared to be unable to move.
"Help!" he cried..
I was a little reluctant but went over to help
"Can you help me carry some stuff to my house" he cried "I'll give you 10,000 gold if you help"
Well! Imagine that! After 2 days of playing 10,000 gold seemed like a fortune!
"Ok, sure" I gasped excitedly and opened trade with him.
He piled on some pieces of heavy armour, a few boxes and so on and I followed him to his house.
He opened the door and I went to walk inside...
BANG!!
What the...!! I was dead, stripped naked and dismembered and scattered about the field! (Literally, this was possible)
Since that moment I vowed revenge, training day and night to be good enough to dish out a cold plate of payback!
KRIG if you're out there, I'm after you!! (Yep, still remember his name LOL
)
Second story is about my stealth assasin, who after sneaking about with my mate outside Britain city I came across what seemed to be a guild meeting of about 10 people in a circle with the leader in the centre, talking.
So I went into stealth and hands shaking made it into the middle of the group undetected, drew my poison coated weapon and *SLICE* stabbed the leader, who, just before dying said "what the hell was that?"...
It was so quick and perfect I managed to sneak away, with the 10 other guildies scattering, trying to find me! What a buzz! A perfect mix of fun and danger!!
Ah... happy days!
You can't wake a person who is pretending to be asleep. ~Navajo Proverb
I was in UO for the first few golden years. I still pop into free servers from time to time just to see if I can get my fix.
Like others have mentioned, UO was all about the adventure. Everything was created by the user, and was exciting to discover. The system was set up so that everyone could participate in everything, right from the start. Sure, you might be way more terrible at some things than others, but you weren't exceedingly worse.
There were almost endless ways to make a character in UO. When i first began, I dealt with taming. People would buy almost anything. Walk into town with a herd of horses or dogs and sell the whole lot.
I can remember my first big steal on my thief: I was just meandering around the Brittain bank, snooping people's bags. Came across a guy with a bag full of checks. Snatched the bag and made a run for it. Everyone banded together and peeled off after me. I made it to the woods, hid as the group ran by me, threw on a disguise from my disguise kit (new name and appearance), walked back into town with people all talking about how pissed they were at me, not knowing that I was standing in the middle of them.
Having battles at sea with sea monsters and other players, exploring the map to discover new and exciting places... Never having a "plan" on what you were going to do, just logging in and falling into an adventure. No quests, no expectation of what was to come. Everything was exciting.
I never once thought, "Oh, if I could just do ___", because if I wanted to, I could find a way to do it, regardless of skill level.
Hey you kid.. Go near that NPC over there..
Who? Kizdean Gix?
Yeah.. Thats him.. get closer...
Why?
Hail him, he has a quest for you..
Really? I'll be right ba...
(kizdean gix makes quick work of the noob)
Thats one memory.. Gix munched on noobs all day long.. not to mention the giants that frequently romped around in the commonlands... EQ was a very good game.. lol
DAOC was my first mmo meeting most of my mmo friends there and giving me some things to remind, even if these memories are a bit unsharp nowadays.
One thing i remember is...that one day we got the message that a well respected member of a well respected alliance had come to death and there would be held a mourning ceremony in the rvr-zone.
Everyone painted himself black armor and we moved to the location where the ceremony should happen.
There was a huge crowd of dark dressed people streaming in from all directions and even the enemy realms looking for a good place to take seat and participate.
Wizards and Mages opened the ceremony with a lightshow using untargeted spells and eventually priests from the 3 Realms did a prayer for the departed one and it was something like "Christmas Truce" happen.
The truce held good for all the ceremony and the mourners returning to the home realm later.
PS: Daoc did not crash to often that day...but i guess some technicians had to work hard.
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
MWO Music Video - What does the Mech say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF6HYNqCDLI
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0x2iwK0BKM
My memories come from DAoC. I remember setting up a bunch of balistae in the woods near areas where people travel frequently, gettin some dark green dye and just waiting till it started gettin dark. Once the dark hit, my dark green dye would make me pretty hard to see in the woods unless you got close enough to see my name light up in bright red. I could use the balistae to target people as they ran by and peg them a few times before they figured out what was going on and try to take me on with half their hp missing. Sure enough my dwarven warrior would break out the 2hander and make quick work of whatever hp they had left.
Another memory was my friends and I holding a tower with repeated attempts by both Midgard and Albion trying to take it from us. As a single group we'd get pushed all the way to the roof and have the lord killed under us only to charge back down, kill the lord, trap the people in the tower and the slowly and systematically proceed to butcher them all without them having anywhere to run.
Then there was always fighting Team Wizzy. That speaks for itself.
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
I gotta say, these stories are brilliant!
Keep them coming, chums.
DAOC - Midgard Feeling
http://www.koboldin.de/demhibbies.swf/
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
MWO Music Video - What does the Mech say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF6HYNqCDLI
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0x2iwK0BKM
The thing you have to remember about these 'stories' is that they are told through rose colored glasses.
I played UO shortly before trammel and played up until AOS.
The really big thing that sticks out in my head is that there wasn't an arm's race for gear. I had a big guild of about 100 players, and on weeknights, there would be 30-50 on at a time and we would meet at my house. Nobody talked about where to go to get gear, or what quests we wanted to do. We would simply pick some random out of the way spot and go there and explore. Tera keep, the bottom of a dungeon, or we would go to a spot in an obscure place and 'make it ours'.
There wasn't any gear or level check, and we knew who to keep in the middle (away from harm) etc.
But that said, I don't want to get too misty.. you can do the exact same thing in WOW with a group of friends. Get 30-40 of your friends, form a raid and go camp the elites in southern Storm Peaks...it's basically the same thing we did. The only difference is that now there are OTHER things to do that are more fun.
The real reason I can never go back to a UO type game is the skill system. Your 'power' was just so skewed at 100.0 that anything less than that was basically unplayable. I cringe when I think about how many hours I spent on a boat, sailing north, to spam countless skills until they were effective... or God.. how long did I spend mining, so I could get enough ore to spend 3 hours making the exact same item 'plate arms' in order to go from 95.3 to 95.8 skill. Hours upon hours. Did you ever get a new weapon type in WOW and have to go raise a weapon skill from 1 to 400? UO was like that for every skill, but 20 times longer.
The best part of UO was the housing and player vendors. I loved it (once i had every craft skill at 100.0) having a fully stocked mall and every time I would log in, there would be people at my house. AOS changed all that though.. too many stats on dropped items. To keep a store stocked, you had to camp mobs for hours and hours.. crafting was dead.
To the OP:
Some of these fond memories are merely the result of the fact that most people tend to remember to good times, or really bad times, of their lives when they think back so things always sound better 10 years later (or exaggerately worse). The true fact of the matter is that because it was so new and because there were only a small number in existence we were all "forced" into subscribing into one of them and living our virtual lives there. Nowadays, players can simply ragequit and switch to another one of the dozens of MMO's. Because the games were not designed so casual-friendly back then we all like to tell stories about how it was like "walking 10 miles to school everyday, uphill both ways" or you know what I mean. Or to reminisce about how wonderful the community was, or how great it was to hang out with your guildmated and RP while you waited 6 hours for the boss to spawn. There are some current games are out there with the old school grind and other old-school mechanics but they are generally discarded by the masses as "unpolished" or poorly developed games.
Anyways, back to the topic at hand, and a story:
Jonaltzar, Everquest's Paladin
If you are not familiar with the Paladin of EQ1 he was a tank class with not the best tanking abilities but he was blessed with some medicre healing powers and buffs.
One some occasions Jonaltzar would find himselfself unable to join a party so he would head alone in search of adventure (and exp points). Soloing, however, is not a Paladin's forte...
I can remember trying to solo undead in the Pyramid area in Dreadlands. Jonaltzar has special abilities for handling undead so it seemed like the appropriate place to go. However, I can still remember to this day how difficult it was to carefully pacify each mob in order to pull one of them into a fight alone, while always having to watch my back for roamers. After pulling him, it took a long time to kill the undead mob -- after all Paladins are tanks not damage dealers. It was a careful balance of offense defense and CC abilities to get the mob down. Then repeat, and repeat, etc. Of course as it inevitably always was I would get adds and then either handle the multiple mobs, run for my life and lose aggro, or die. I think the third option happened more than I would like as my exp meter hardly went up by the end of each night. Retrieving the corpse was the added bonus(sarcasm), as there were many aggressive mobs guarding the zone (I had no armor, the corpse did) and the corpse would typically be inside one of the pyramids. But hey, as frustrating it was to spend large amounts of time retrieving your corpse, it made soloing very exciting while you lived. Because the death penalty was significant enough to make you respect the mobs and respect your own virtual life.
To really truly fear virtual death would be to particpate in an Everquest raid. It would take a raid party hours to get through a deep raid dungeon. If the raid party was to wipe out everyone corpses would be deep inside the dungeon along with everyone's gear. To add to the problem, mobs in raid dungeons would respawn rather quickly, so you would have to fight your was inside naked, or at minimun poorly equipped. On a few occasions the raid party would wipe and run out of time. They would log out, leaving your geared corpse trapped deep inside a raid dungeon. You would have to find another raid party that you could follow as they did their dingeon crawl in order to help you retreve your corpse. Another thing that could happen is that sometimes during the last boss encounter in the raid your would get DC'ed. Sometimes the raid party would not be aware on all of them would port out of the zone, leaving you stranded inside, dead or alive. In either case, figuring out how to get out of there was a stressfull and frustrating chore.
But I wouldn't trade those memories for the world! Too many exit "ports" and EZ mode when you die in today's games. They really and truly killed off virtual dying in these MMO's. I miss it.
I started my first MMO with i think it was Runescape which was alright that was back in the day before the graphics update and i spent years playing that lol. then i played guild wars and enjoyed that game played WoW, Warhammer,Age of Conan,City of heroes/villians,Lord of the Rings online, now not really playing anything all of these games were from i'd say starting from 98' to now for me i spent the most time on runescape,WoW, everything else was anywhere from a month to almost a year of playing but after awhile i got burned out on it all the last mmo i was paying for was City of heroes which i played for about 6 months this year and quit recently but might restart again after a month break and the expansion coming out might re-interest me in the game well i can only hope. lol currently bored as hell and can't find any good mmo's to interest me in playing.
i'll just say abit about each game as far as i remember what i loved lol.
all of these gamess had different things going for them to interest me most of it was graphics,crafting,quests, community, just all sorts of stuff that got me to play em lol. i mean in each game had something different i enjoyed
for example WoW had good graphics,interesting classes,specs,ways to travel, high end content.
then there is Age of Conan different but good graphics in comparison and you get to see lots of gore and blood in battle,fatalities,some T&A,cursing almost all mmo's don't give you these things which sets this game apart from the others.
Runescape had the skills covered over most games i mean you could work on anything and make good money and stuff on.
Lord of the Rings well who doesn't like lord of the rings really ? lol this was one of the few mmo's i played a main character as a melee class in most games i usually played ranged/caster types but when you get yourself some armor and a couple weapons and start tearing things up you really change your style lol especially since when i started playing there wasn't much in the way of casters to solo with.
I found Warhammer to be like WoW in afew ways with the graphics,the classes,the pvp was different being RvR so that was pretty interesting lol.
City of heroes was a change from my usual fantasy mmo with making super heroes/villians and doing more instances then other games but when you find your perfect look and powers it makes all the difference this was another game i converted from ranged/caster to more melee play style and just decimated all lol i enjoyed this for 6-7 months got to max lvl and all then needed a break lol.
Guild Wars was great when i played it when it came out it was new and interesting had good graphics,content all around was good,enjoyed the stories of all the campaigns and can't wait for the sequel to it not sure what class i'll play first though lol.
PSN-SlyFox5679
Xfire-Slyfox5679
raptr-slygamer1979
EQ 2000 or 2001
Me and my newb guild Vexxilarius - Druzzil Ro, finally had enough people (or so we thought) to do a raid on the Plane of Fear. For most of the people this was a first time event, and it was the talk of the week. Nay the talk of the month. We were all super stoked. We were a new guild that had formed out of a older guild that had collapsed and we considered ourselves competent players.
About 7pm EST we start forming up. The word was put out to meet at the zone in. At least 5 people died on the way there and had to be rescued. No problem. 90% rezzes. After an hour of rescuing and guiding people there we finally are ready. Our guild leader gives us a great speach about how this is what modern gaming is all about. How we have all worked so hard on our characters for this glorious moment. He sets up the entrance strategy. Group 1 is to go in first. About 10 people or so. Group 2 is supposed to wait 2 minutes then charge in. Group 3 is supposed to follow and Group 4 is the clean up crew.
We are all tensed and ready to face whatever hell SOE can throw at us. I am in group 1. The call goes out to zone in! I charge in ready for the worst.... or so I thought.
The healers in group 1 were slow zoners, dial ups probably. One of the paladins in the group goes link dead on zoning in and does the link dead auto run to the back of the zone... This aggros half the mobs in the plane. As soon as I finish zoning, I see me and a couple others looking around, and we see mobs starting to run towards us from really far away. We man up and get ready to meet them.
Instant death.
Group 2 zones in.
Instant wipe.
Group 3 zones in.
Instant wipe
Group 4 zones in.
instant wipe.
Attempt number two with alternate gear. It is just as bad, someone goes link dead again and runs off and agros a ton of mobs that we are no where near equipped and ready to handle. Mind you this is before many people had cleric epics. And the thing to know about the Plane of Fear was that on entrance you were bound to agrro a lot of mobs just by zoning in. There was no safe entrance area. You had to come in strong or not at all.
Anyway, this ended up as a great night to get to know your guildies... Cause it was a 6+ hour corpse run with many many deaths. We eventually had to enlist the help of a more experienced guild, HOSS (great guys) to come rescue us, who promptly showed us how inexperienced or ready we were for the Plane of Fear. It was a frustrating experience, but when we finally conquered the Plane of Fear a month or so later, it was a very sweet victory.
As hardcore and frustrating as that sounds, these were some of my best gaming experiences. Not the losses neccesarily, but the eventual victorys that resulted from them. They really meant something. It was a victory we had to earn, with dire consequences for failure.
Anyway, a salute to the old days /salute
Early early days of Everquest I, Rallos Zek sever, the only PvP sever available at the time. A new genre of game where people roleplayed. And boy was it hard. Rangers and Druids banding together to drive others out of our forest who would kill our bears and wolves.
If you were killed, you lost everything in your possession -- all your armor, weapons, coins, gear. That hurt! So you found good trustworthy friends to guard your back, and you guarded theirs. When a known villain was in the area, shouts went out and he was hunted down until he had left, or was a corpse on the ground.
Saving for weeks to buy my first Combine Longsword, a magical weapon! Now I could hit wil-o-wisps, and like the fry cook promoted to assistant manager - that's when the big bucks started rolling in!
Months of play to get to level 20. Big guilds and alliances forming that drove politics in the various regions.
Then the changes....wielded weapons unable to be looted, which led to the inability to loot bagged gear, which led to spells affecting NPCs and PCs differently, which led to silly expansions, which led to gear inflation, which led to a prevalance of no-drop/no-trade items, which led to PvP being utterly meaningless.
*SIGH*
But we still have threads like this one to remember the good old days.
In reply to the original poster.
Yes, it feels like you are right.
Only you forgot to mention Neverwinter Nights also...which kind of are lots of mini-MMORPG's on their own. A very different way of playing than I see nowdays...which is why I am still playing this old game even if the amount of players is not growing...
Buy Neverwinter Nights 1 here! | Unofficial NWN1 homepage | NWN1 guild on X-Fire
Have a lot of happy memories from UO and EQ1 days, but also a few from later games like EQ2.
For example - In the early days of EQ2 when you died you left a "shard of your soul" behind. Until you went back and collected it you had alot of XP Debt (so you lost XP) and your abilities were reduced.
Me and a friend went exploring in Thundering Steppes, near to the entrance to the dungeon Varsoons. We discovered a backdoor to the dungeon, guarded by a small group of goblins. Thinking nothing of it, we charged in, and discovered they were way more powerful than other mobs around. We died, and left our shards.
So, we went running all the way back, avoiding any mobs we could, due to our reduced stats. In front of the goblins was a small mound with a crater in front of it. So, we stood in the crater, our heads just peaking out, trying to work out how to get the shards which were lying in the middle of this group.
Tactic 1 - run in, click them, run out - failed horribly - now we had 2 shards there and massively reduced XP and stats.
Tactic 2 - one run in, engage them, while the other grabs their shards and runs back, also failed horribly, and now we have 3 shards, almost down a level, and no stats - plus our armour is about to break.
Tactic 3 - after standing in the crater with much discussion - try tactic 1 again, but be quick! We run in, only to find the goblins have a root ability we didnt know about - 4 shards, no XP left, no armour, no stats.
We run back again, almost dying to mobs on the way, and stand around discussing it for even longer, until a higher level player rides past. "Great," we think, "He can help!". After explaining our predicament to him, and enduring his mocking laughter, he agrees to go and kill the mobs for us while we get the shards!
10 minutes later the 3 of us are in the crater staring at all our shards, whilst the high level tries to find some of his guildmates online to come and assist us!
You just dont get that feeling of excitment, community, and self-created adventure in modern games any more.
"When people don't know much about something, they tend to fill in the blanks the way they want them to be filled in. They are almost always disappointed." - Will Wright
SWG was my first MMO. I'll never forget the massive battles of Rebels vs Imperials in Anchorhead. Hunting on Lok for Avian meat to sell to doctors for buffs. The first time I opened a Master Ranger camp which was a small city. The excitement over our guild planting it's own player city. Most importantly I remember the community. I'd be sitting in a camp grinding camping XP and someone would just pop in to heal some wounds and we'd strike up a conversation or while waiting for the shuttle to arrive. There was player interdepency to a scale which I haven't seen since and I doubt we ever will again.
Curse you for making me miss old EQ. Was so fun when leveling was not the concern, and politics were dominating.
In early UO, rampant with PKers, and I had been PKed many, many times. Then I found a guild of anti-PKers who built a Keep and many other buildings in this valley called "Rat Valley", or later on "Orc Valley", because of the unique and fun spawn that happened there for players to hunt. This guild, The Eldar, protected players hunting the spawn in this valley from PKers, looters, and basically griefers of any kind. We controlled that valley, made it our home, and sometimes PK guilds would come in force to do batlle with us. Mostly it was small groups trying to get away with something, using every trick they could, but we had a good tactical system down. That was OUR valley.
Once upon a time....
To be honest..... after my junky post on the first page.
UO had many PK hunting there. Lots of fun when I was the new guy to the guild being the bait for the PK's. Out tra la la-ing around with gold dropping out of my pockets and looking like a n00b! hehehe
Also fun going out adventuring and hunting in new spots and going down into dungeons and stuff. lots of fun there!!!!!!! I even enjoyed some of the nights where a couple of us would take a shopping list and go look for stuff in the various player towns that sprung up all over the place.
Jumpgate was fun in the early days. Where we formed a guild called UZI and were the first to incorporate voice comm in our battles. We ran all kinds of scenarios in protecting shipments and combat it was a blast. Also had many a good dogfight in asteroid strewn areas where piloting was more important than firepower!
SWG was one where I spent more time and had more fun. I enjoyed going out hunting for resources and ust hunting mobs in general. The game had a very good immersion factor to it. I liked that I could ride out to distant areas on a speeder and then use a mount to go hunting. The mount did not require you to put it up during combat, you could leave it at a spot, fight the mobs, then whistle and the mount came to you. That was FREAKIN KEWL!
We also spent the 4th of july on an island on Naboo before housing was in. A couple of us who were on call that weekend and nailed to the house ( damn IT ) camped out on the island, had a finshin tournament, drank jawa beer, and lit off fireworks that night. It was probably one of the most surreal and fun times I ever had in a game.
Say hello, To the things you've left behind. They are more a part of your life now that you can't touch them.
UO before the split. I was exploring the game, seeing what I could actually do. The only skill I had up to a usable level was hiding, and even that was only decent enough to hide *most* of the time. Basically an early survival technique for anyone leaving town.
I came across a field of houses, and just out of curiosity started clicking on some of the doors. Most of them were locked, but one of the larger houses with a double door actually had left the less commonly used side of the door unlocked. If I remember correctly, clicking on the set of doors would normally open the right side... but my memory on that is hazy. So, like any curious and greedy adventurer, I popped inside to take a look... lo and behold, there are dozens of containers accessible everywhere with tons of loot inside. I started scooping things up, ran back to town and threw them in the bank, then returned several more times. On the third or so trip, I was standing in the house and saw a name pop up on the side of the screen, so I immediately hid. Turned out to be the owner of the house. He came inside, walked around swapping out some of his inventory with supplies. Meanwhile I'm getting a surge of adrenaline because I'm hidden quite literally in the middle of the upstairs room, and if someone walks through you while invisible, it makes it pretty obvious that you're there.
A few minutes later, and the guy comes upstairs. He's still digging through various boxes... meanwhile I'm assuming that he noticed some stuff missing and is getting suspicious. He walks toward me, then turns. Walks to another box, narrow miss. Came as close to me as possible without revealing my location, then pulled out a rune (or whatever the travel items were) and disappears. I breathed a sigh of relief, then looted the house dry.
The rest of my time in UO was a bit more tame, learning skills and combat. After the terror of almost being caught by someone who could completely destroy me (and at the time, I believed my in-game reputation was at stake too), I was hooked. Never found quite the same treasure trove again, but I always checked left doors just in case.
I still remember being a paladin and getting that warm welcome getting off the boat to Kunark... Instant aggro by the guards..
Faction was so important in EQ.. Sadly faction and KoS is being phased out these days... I think Vanguard was the last game where it could actually get you killed...
UO. It was very early in the game near release. While most people were training combat and crafter skills a few people decided they would train up cooking. They would drop items on the ground and most people would roll by see the food and eat it. They would ask "What does food do? What purpose does it serve?" Nobody thought much of it.
As more people got used to eating the food on the ground something happened. People were picking up the food as they were coming back from hunting and then tick, tick, tick.....dead. All the loots on the ground which were scrambled over like raw meat. The once nice individual feeding everybody decided it would be fun to deadly poison the food. Only after he tricked everyone by serving up good food for a few days. Which made his dastardly deed more sinister since it got alot more people.
Thus for hours after you would see people run into town. Lots of people saying "Don't eat the food its poisoned." To which they would reply "Whatever!" Proceed to eat it and then die and have the same people warning them picking their bones clean. This hilarity ensued for a couple of days before people wised up.
One of the first lessons learned proved to be the one that has lasted the longest in my MMO career. Do not eat the food!
Well op you get a +10 in my book.
Honestly i liked uo and eq but they both lacked something... that i felt mudds had at that time. I think is was the team work Plus player vs player challenge.
I can remember a few times in daoc right at release playing a ranger and me and 4 other rangers wentinro midgar frontier to the low level area of it and just all started shots on whatever was out there. The game was so new and people didn't really fully understand the game yet.. but gettign those kills was so fun, it was what i had been doing in mudds for some time. Later with a max level eldrich we were roaming as a zerg and we had pushed the middies back to their portal keep (where they come from , everyone always fougth on the hibs land) and we had like 10 eldriches that were aoe spec'ed (a weak spec, but fun) anythign that moved, it was so funny to see these black magic orbs just fly over there much have ben 10-20 of them at any moment just flying into the enemies ranks. (think DBZ) was so funny and witht hat much ranged aoe we were doing quite well (also very earily in the games life). There so many stuiped and cool things i did in that game.
In a mudd i used to play (duris or one of its bothers) i can remember running into an illithid like 5 times in two days purely on accident and kill it. This was funny stuff, becuase illithid were a class and race on their own side, but VERY powerful. The down side when you die you can lose levels.. so our encounters were bad for him, but it was quite funny.
Overall theres gre times in all mmos i have played (other than the ones i never can get past 20 becuase they are bad . . . i don't know how some peopel play the trash thats out there).
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
I started playing Asheron's Call in Novemver 1999, right around launch. A friend of mine from work told me about it. I had been playing MUDs for the past two years or so (something to do while working).
I remember first stepping foot into the world of Dereth. I had made a Sho Crossbowman. I can still hear the portal space sound in my head. Anyway, I entered the tutorial dungeon, learned the basic controls and whatnot, and then stepped through the portal into the outside world. My friend was waiting there for me, since he had started the day previously. He had acquired some extra items for me, and told me about some additional features that the tutorial didn't cover. After that he had to log and I went about my merry way.
Mind you, most of the MUDs I played you played solo unless you wanted to go after some of the really nasty mobs. Asheron's Call was a solo friendly game, so I didn't put much thought into having to find a group.
So I ran around the woods for a bit, until I happened upon a small cave of Drudge, small cat-like humanoids, my crossbow and I made quick work of them. One of them was carrying a sword that had the name of an NPC I remember seeing back at the outpost where I had left the tutorial dungeon. So I picked it up and ran back to the npc, and after talking to him he had mentioned that the Drudge had stolen his sword, so I gave it back to him and earned some additional xps. From that point on I was hooked, and played for about two years. Actually I played until the release day of DAoC and I switched to that.
Asheron's Call was a great game because it was solo friendly, but also had numerous places where grouping was highly rewarding. There were no classes, but rather you selected your own skills. Each skill was controlled by one or two stats, so you also had to make sure that you had the correct stats for the skill to be the most efficient. Not all skills were created equal too, the more expensive a skill was to train and specialize in, generally the more powerful it was. At the time, the sword skill was the most expensive and had the most perks to it, but those with cheaper weapon skills had the luxury of having additional free skill points, so you could build a more diverse character.
Not to be all rosey the entire time, I'll also tell you why I left Asheron's Call. Ultimately, there isn't a real point to the game outside of hunting and obtaining loot. Darktide, the PvP server, had additional player created content in the form of various wars and alliances among different Allegiances, so there was some political intrigue. However, there really wasn't ever an endgame, so after awhile the game felt like a pointless treadmill. The game is great for what it is, and I still compare other mmorpgs to it, but it's also not something that everyone can play for years and have it feel fresh.
I went to DAoC after Asheron's Call, and lemme tell you, that was a real shocker. DAoC was an excellent game that offered a lot, but I couldn't get over the fact that I had to be grouped almost all the time. Sure you could solo, but depending on your class it was either slow or a real gamble since you lost xps on death. I only lasted until ToA in DAoC. The problems I had with DAoC was lack of soloability, over importance of Crowd Control in PvP, over importance of loot (starting in ToA), and of course over importance of buffs and those with buff bots had a distinct advantage.
During my DAoC years, which I played off and on, I also played Asheron's Call 2. While it was completely different than AC1, the game had it's charms. The class system used many unique elements, such as Tumeroks using Drums to cast magic, or using bees as a weapon. AC2 also had a good blend of Solo and Group play.
Between 1999 and 2004 I had played nearly every mmo on the market, with the exception of EQ, and I only briefly tried UO. I've been playing WoW since 2004 and have tried most AAA release titles. I have even gone back and played DAoC for a little bit. While WoW has a lot to offer, it just doesn't have a soul like Asheron's Call and many of the games of the era did. I've even pondered picking up Asheron's Call again just as a side distraction.
I'm not sure I'll ever have many "wow" moments in another mmorpg. There are times where I'll do something in a mmorpg and say to myself, "Huh, that was neat", but it's been awhile since I have said, "OMFG!!!!!" and I kind of doubt I'll ever have a moment like that again.