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What makes UO the best ever?
smaku
Member Posts: 67
My first MMO was EQ1, when i was 16 years old, pre-LDON, (i believe it was right after "kunark" arrived, or else it was after Luclin, not sure which came first but both were there when i joined :P)
Anyways, i was quickly addicted. I remember when i was on my first character, a druid, and of a very low level, and readin in guild chat how a couple of my guild members had just killed a hill giant after kiting him for a very long time... at the time they became my heros, it was so exciting to think about when i would , if i would ever, be killing these hill giants.
Nothing, to me, ever compared to the feeling eq1 gave. I eventually had a 60 wizard, and a 65 beastlord, although the wizard was my favourite.
Anyways , what i'm saying, is that i have a hard time understanding how UO could blow EQ1 out of the water :P (although i don't necessarily doubt it did, i just havea hard time understanding :P)
So, in your eyes, why was UO better? did it give the first-timers that same magical feeling that eq gave me?
Thanks 
PS: for reference sake, i have played SWG, SB, L2, SoR, WW2OL, FFXI, CoH, EQ2, EQ1, Planetside, and for the past 14 months, WoW.
Comments
Freedom to do damn near anything you wanted to do, No levels so you could be playing for 5 minutes and totally kick someones ass who's been playing for years. Best customization Ive ever seen in any game Character & House. PVP Was The BEST!, no game has yet to even come close IMO. Nothing was more fun then being in the top war guild with the least members and taking out tons of people every night. However this game has been destroyed sadly. Nothing that was good about UO is still there everything has been changed.
Also all of the skills so many different types of characters you could make.
My favorite thing about UO though has to be
IDOC (In Danger Of Collapsing) Houses, So much fun camping houses that were going to decay and collapse. Nothing gave me a bigger thrill in the game then that one thing
R.I.P UO
DarKMaN [GH] Pacific 97-02/03
I think anyone's first MMO holds a special place in their heart, honestly. Having never played EQ1, only the closest thing I've played was EQ2 (which was very fun).
Ultima Online was my first MMORPG and RPG game I had ever played. UO got me into the fantasy world and got me into MMO's. I started UO way back in 2000 (t2a patch) and I absolutely LOVED this game. I had never been in a MMORPG world or even played a RPG. This game allowed me to do ANYTHING I wanted. I don't think to this day there was a more free game than what UO offered. The chat systems was awsome, I love how you could only see what people around you say (I don't like the chat system in every game today, where you can hear people in different cities, take the "depth" out of the game for me).
I have so many fond memories of UO that their almost hard to talk about, there is so many. My first guild, loved them, we would go on so many hunts in dungeons and get loot. And of course, camping out at a house that was about to fall, priceless. I also remember my very first house I got, in the field north of Minoc, I would sit in my house for hours and never get bored, just doing whatever. That's another thing that was good about UO, you could do anything you wanted and not get bored. I feel like games today are just based on Gaining levels and "pwning" everyone. UO was like a big family. Recently I've been thinking about returning to the game, UO. But I'm afraid it would just be a waist of my time and money. Currently I'm playing WoW (which isn't that great of a game). I've played them all though, I've been through so many different MMORPG's that I can't even remember them.
I would have to say that the game that reminds me of Ultima Online a bit is Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. Right now I'm keeping my eye on this game, it brings housing back, and ship voyages, plus I'm sure you can fight on your steed. If this game fails, I guess I'll kiss the MMORPG goodbye, because WoW isn't going to keep me interested long enough.
Long live UO Pre:EA
Total time played: 9125 Days, 21 Hours, 29 Minutes, 27 Seconds
Time played this level: 39 Days, 1 Hour, 24 Minutes, 5 Seconds
I totally agree with both of you. I started playing UO back in 1999, wow that was a long time ago. This was the first MMORPG game that I ever played. It was always hold a special place in my heart. But like you said this game was slaughtered by EA(BOOOOOOOOO). Then they were gonna make UO2 witch was gonna be like older days just with more stuff to do, but as soon as EA took over they canned that idea. I stoped playing once the Samuri stuff started poping up. Pre trammel days were the best. The game just slowly went down hill and died. Everyone now a days loves the lvling and grind of the game.
Also with the pvp it wasnt highly revolved around items like 99.9% games are today. It was based on skills you had in game and experience in pvp. To get good you had to practice at it A LOT. Well now im ready to cry cause i cant believe this game is finally completely destroyed.
Anyway R.I.P. true U.O.
NorthStar, Dragon Tamer of Pacific.
UO was my first MMO when i was a wee 13 or so years old. I would be in school day dreaming about my guilds and friends in between boobie staring.
The game truly rocked my socks off, and no game yet has come even close to bringing back the sandbox that UO was.
PvP truly rocked. Having two dragons do your bidding for you really makes for a fun day. Opposing war factions, where there was absolutely NO carebearing in the old days... You step out of town, somebody will eventually try to kill you... Playing in a factioned guild? Somebody will attack you.
The classless system and the sandbox style gaming, with the amazing chat system truly set this game above the rest.
Imagine if they made a UO with real polish.... New graphics....
I think all the UO buffs should check out www.fallenearth.com
Seems to be the 3d UO i've been dreaming of.
Praying for a Fallen Earth
^
I
I
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What he said
But I would add just a few more things,
1. THIEFS - Truly the only game that ever actually let you play a rogue or thief the way it was meant to be played. You could steal stuff from people in town, if they caught you or happened to notice you and yelled "GUARDS", then some Burly guard would run over and put the smack down on you in front of everyone in the town. Very funny and loud. I really feel sorry for anyone who didnt get to try a thief in the early days of UO. No other game comes close.
2. Would just like to add about the lack of levels. Another great thing about UO, was where there was no level rat bash taking place. When you logged in there wasnt 500 messeges "48 HEALER SEEKING GROUP". Most people where chilled out in town, or at there houses. You didnt even have to hit a monster if you didnt want. Very relaxed game, certain times, I would just log in and spar with my guild at the guild house.
I loved that game
(1) Skill Based System: No stupid leveling to eat up your time. Once your skills were maxed and your skill points used up, then you got to enjoying and playing the game.
(2) Corpse Looting: When you died you could have your corpse looted by another player or even a monster would take a thing or 2. Gave meaning to dying.
(3) No UBER items: Sure there were magical items that gave you some bonus but player made weapons and armor were viable for combat.
(4) Good Economy: Again, without so much uberness, player made items were quite affordable, even the magic items werent so expensive. Player crafters were really meaningful to the community.
(5) IDOCS: If people quit the game or didnt refresh there house in 10 days then it would collapse and all the items would be left on the ground for others to get, fight for or place a house when housing was scarces.
(6) Open Character Development: You could make anything you wanted. EX. Fisherman/Smith/Swordsman/Scribe/Tactics/Healing/Cooking. 7 Skills at 100 pts each. You could make any combination you wanted.
(7) Thieves: They could steal things from you at anytime. Really kept you on your toes
(8) Open PVP : Outside of the cities unprotected by guards, you were open game. Great thrill ! You never knew if a person you ran into was a friend or foe.
(9) I could go on and on but those are some main points. This was all around circa 1997-1999 before they started incorporating safe zones.
(10) Griefing, looting, stealing, pking : All these horrible things made you adapt and learn to survive. Having friends and a Guild meant something. They taught you survival tactics and how to avoid getting yourself killed. People frown on these things but thats what made for a stronger community base and added even more excitement to the game. It sucked when it happened to you, but you licked your wounds and kept playing. Great challenge.
There you go, that should give you some good reasons why UO was the best and still to this day, unmatched.
What made UO so special?
1) It was the first real MMORPG. Sure M59 was out there and we had some small MMO's on AOL and GEnie way back in the early 90's (Neverwinter Nights, Battletech, etc). But UO was the first MMO that truely fit the title.
2) Open PVP with both player and NPC consequences.. Granted the PVP system got abused from time to time but the way it was done in UO made the game extremely intense and a lot of fun. The PVP system in UO added so much depth to the world.
3) Complete customization of your character. From facial hair to weight to what color your clothes were to what kind of clothes you wanted to wear. Only SWG had as many things you could do to make yourself unique. (which is why so many UO players loved SWG as well).
4) Crafting was, and still is to this day, the best I have ever seen. It was challenging without being painfully monotonous. It was rewarding without commanding insane prices and bankrupting players who wanted items. It spawned an economy all of it's own with players gathering resources and selling them to smiths, tailors and other crafters. SWG was similar and in some ways better but anytime someone touts a 'fun' crafting system and I try it I always come away feeling like they tried to do too much. Everything you can do in any crafting system out there could be done in UO's and UO's crafting was actually FUN rather than an endless excercize in boredom for the crafter.
5) First MMO to have player housing, and for a very long time the only MMO to do so. And in later iterations the housing became very detailed and a lot of fun with players able to completely customize their homes even to the point of building their own style house if they wanted to, which was very cool. To this day I haven't seen a housing system quite as good. Even SWG's, which was top notch as well, didn't compare. The only problem with housing was the world was relatively small so we had p retty terrible problems with urban sprawl
Eventually every square inch of land was covered with houses if it wasn't water, swamp, mountain or forested. Zoning really would have helped UO... not to mention a larger 'world'.
6) First MMO, and again the only one for a very long time, to have player mounts that were completely player controlled.
Those 6 things were the core that made UO so great. The other part was the interface. It lent itself extremely well to roleplaying. Even people who didn't typically roleplay got into the spirit of it because the game was so well designed. NO other MMORPG inspired me to roleplay the way UO did. None, zero, not a single one. UO was truely unique. I really wish someone would make a modern version of it. Even if they took every single mechanic from the original and kept it like it was pre-trammel with a 3D graphical environment it would have a HUGE success.
NOBODY has made a game quite like it. SWG was closest but it was plagued by a development team and production team (SOE & LEC) that lacked direction and vision, eventually killing the game and replacing it with NGE which isn't ANYTHING like the old SWG was.
I still play UO to this day. It's dated, ugly by today's standards and not nearly as many people play... but it's STILL the best game out there. If the graphics were modern 3D I wouldn't play anything else.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Nothing like UO....
I've played EQ, DaoC, GW, etc...
But, every time I look to the UO-metal-pin on my hat; I remember suffering on my 486 dial connection while hunting in Wrong, Deceit, or Blading Dragons at Wind Entrance. Even escorting NPCs from one city to another was a business.
I have many critics to the game (like macroing, casting while moving, or un-habitat huge areas or forest), but today; UO is, and was the Godfather of all. I was very sad when they canceled UO2; but, I hope one date someone will take over UO2.
A game like this, where I remember starting as a figther, then, change my skills to a ranger; and finally, as a caster; you don't find anywhere.
Amadis The Glorious Grandmaster Warrior / Cheaspeeke
UO's immersive chat system is what every other mmorpg lacks.
Also the fact that UO was an immense success without lots of lame scripted quests for you to trawl through. Those were the days when people MADE THEIR OWN QUESTS. I dont mean RP events (although many did, love to them) but just doing what you felt like, whenever you felt like it.
I miss UO. A helluva lot. Im still waiting for my next mmorpg since quiting in 2004.
I have my hopes pinned on Darkfall.
Pretty much everyone has posted my reasons as well.
Started UO day 1 retail and never looked back. It had SO much freedom in what you can do and "Get away" with in game. The PvP was simply the best. it was all about player skill and knowledge of the game instead of uber rare items.
You could attack ANYONE "levels" didnt matter or limit who you could attack.
The recall and gate system was amazing. You decided where you wanted to mark runes to and could recall/gate their in seconds. Travel system was great. Used boats to get to small little islands to make your hide out for "pkers" etc.
Stealing was a skill and it was FUN
Hiding and later Stealth were both fun to play.
FULL LOOTING and being able to take over peoples houses due to looting their keys/runes.
Horses/mounts made pvp even fasterpaced and fun.
the population was HUGE. it was the first MMORPG and that in itself was an amazing thing . being able to play with 1000s of others on the same battlefield 24/7 !!
Being able to roleplay however you wanted. EVIL/GOOD/Shopkeeper all day/ ETC
NO LEVELS. you could quickly have a very decent playable character in 30 days by simply PLAYING he game and using the skills you wanted to make better.
Eventually as we all know the game died when osi put in statloss for pks and later completly ruined everything with the Ren patch.
i started playin UO from day one, even went on to beta a few of the extra's for the game, lol
i used to love UO, it may not have had the best gfx in its day but the gameplay and flexibility more than made up for it. then EA came along and the game went to hell...
buy an advanced char..... buy a sex change.... buy a new name.... buy. buy. buy.........
i hung around for AoS hopeing it would make me stay in game but it was just a housing addon with a dungeon and not much else tbh, but one thing i will say is that im glad i left game before the ninja stuff happened. it just didnt fit in with the kind of game it was, im still suprised its still going, lol
I was a counselor in Ultima Online (Counselor Bouncebunny), and I remember one day I responded to a call where two thief buddies were practicing on each other in a tiny house. I remember feeling kind of weird responding to their questions (the reason they called me...mainly just to get some skills information). The reason I felt weird was I beamed outside their house and when I entered, there were two naked guys stealing from each other and didn't seem to see anything strange about it.
I was kind of "woah, get a room...oh wait, you already have one."
My blog:
http://www.littlesarbonn.com
R.I.P UO Blink of Siege Perillous
Life is a game - Play it!...
The "great house rush" when they opened up Trammel. I had 8 runestones in order of my favorite spots in order to place a house. I managed to get my 3rd choice
I played from November of 97 until Dec of 2004 and then I went to SWG
SO now SWG is completely screwed up.
Do they save your character at UO? Can I come back
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
I too was fatally in love with UO the day I got it back in 1998. I played it up until about 2002 and finally (but sadly) let it pass. A game I'm currently watching is called Roma Victor, it's going to debut late 2006 and seems to be a lot the way old UO was. I recommend it to any fans of old UO.
"Time.." I chuckled "I hold no secret to time, though it's mystery puzzles me. Deny it's existence and lie to myself not with hopes of a quickened pace."
Interesting topic.
I personally began my MMORPG'ing career with UO, at the age of.. around 13 I guess. I played UO for a good few years I beleive before beginning EQ1. I started EQ I think shortly after the ruins of kunark were released (I remember ordering that box set, at least).
Now, personally I'd say UO is just a tiny little bit better, however this could well be simply because it was my first, and I do beleive your first MMORPG will have more of an impact upon your life than your second, or third.
That isn't to say EQ isn't an amazing game. EQ had all of the elements of gameplay that UO lacked, and visa versa. EQ was awesome for it's HUGE amount of content, brilliant PVE/grouping system and decent graphics (for it's time). UO, on the other hand, was famed for it's unbeleivably exciting PvP and the fantastic social aspect that surrounded the game.
The way I see it, EQ and UO were the mother and father of the MMORPG genre. UO was the father, EQ the mother. From EQ and UO, many lesser MMORPG's have spawned, gradually dilluting down to the stage which we find ourselves at now. The likes of Guildwars and RFOnline.
In summary, asking which is better, if EQ or UO, is much like asking "which parent do you prefer?". It's an impossible question to answer, you love both equally, for very different reasons.
I started in Dec 98 with UO. I started with the guys I worked with, we all played at work with the T1 line, so no problems running with a 14.4 modem. lol
I do have to clarify one point made though. brewster22 said "Then they were gonna make UO2 witch was gonna be like older days just with more stuff to do, but as soon as EA took over they canned that idea.". EA was ALWAYS in control of UO, even back when it started. (Origin had also turned over all the CS to their games to EA, just dealt with UO CS) Its also that RG had more control over the content and style of UO. UO was never intended to last as long as it has, as evidenced by the sloppy original programming. (Even updating in later years was hampered by the original code) UO was supposed to only last a few months. The players forced EA to take another look, and once EA started seeing all the money they were making they started calling UO their "cash cow". Instead of making UO better by fixing bugs, they used UO money to fund those other failed or unrelased games.
I quit UO shortly after the AOS expansion, which I was sadly involved in brining to market. I was one of the external OSI/EA testers. Don't confuse this with a beta tester, I was an OSI/EA employee with a paycheque. I just happened to work from home. AOS completely ruined UO for me. They turned a skill based game into a Diablo clone. Even though it added probably the best feature to UO, customisable housing. All the external testers I worked with made the same comment, that UO was turning into a item based game, which was bad.
What did make UO enjoyable enough for me to play 6 years of though? Housing. Player made content. PVP (although I wasn't a pvpr). Players and what they did to the game, in ways the developers had never imagined is what made UO special. Who would have thought of using Nightshade and rols of coloured yarn to make a rose plant? Who would have thought of using death robes, which decayed very quickly, to raise up items and lock them down in your house? Rares? Mistakes in the game created an exonomy that the Dev team had no idea to create. Of course when the Dev team started seeing the potential of rares, they flooded the market and ruined it.
At my highest point I owned approximately 70 houses across 11 shards and 30 accounts, shared with my wife. (people leaving just kept giving me accounts that I didn't have the heart to close because of the memories.) I had one account that had 14 houses across 9 shards. (double grandfathered) The 5 houses on one shard, Napa Valley, were all next to each other, which took me 3 years to get. I had two golas in UO that I never got to finish. One was to own all the houses NE of Hythloth on Fire Island in Napa. I ended up owning around 15 of the 18 houses in teh area at one time. So close... The other was to give away a house on each shard. I was only able to do it on 9 shards.
I used to be an IDOC'r, then just a plain house placer, then I transformed into a merchant. I met endless people online, some of whom I still talk to to this day. I met my wife on UO, and we are still happily married 5 years later.
One of my best memories, and one of my greatest honours in-game was to be able to marry Adam Ant & Jade of GUL. I was completely shocked when they asked me to, because I was not a GUL guild member, but just a sponsor of some of their PvP tounaments. It was great though, because I greatly admired both Adam and Jade for bringing something great to the Napa shard. Not only role-playing pks, but ones who held large 'find Adam and kill him' tournaments, that drew people from other shards to participate in. They also held PvP tounaments and encouraged people who would not otherwise eneter into Fel to enter. None of these people were ever ridiculed or laughed at, but only encouraged, even by grizzled PK veterens.
The 'Fall of Trinsic' was another memorable episode during my UO days. So many players battled to keep the dark forces from keeping Trinsic as their own that the Dev team had to change what they had planned.
So I guess what made UO the best for me, was the people.
Of course the worst thing about UO was the people. And the Dev team for listening to the whining.
Felix, Napa Valley, Fire Isle Realtors
Qikdraw
2. Would just like to add about the lack of levels. Another great thing about UO, was where there was no level rat bash taking place. When you logged in there wasnt 500 messeges "48 HEALER SEEKING GROUP". Most people where chilled out in town, or at there houses. You didnt even have to hit a monster if you didnt want. Very relaxed game, certain times, I would just log in and spar with my guild at the guild house.
this is an excellent point. i can't say that i've ever had trouble getting into a party nor have i had to listen to morons go "are you a healer?" um, if you want a healer LEARN TO DO IT; otherwise, shhhhh.
not saying that people don't play healers, but um, there's only so many healing skills and then you have to take something else.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
..and a chat system where you could talk to people that were miles away and ubeR-loot and camping and and and....EQ was a knife in the belly of the "RPG" in MMORPGs. WoW was the merciful shot in the neck.
god this thread makes me want to cry...
just like others listed... i started playing in 1997 when i was in middle school!!! I freaking PRINTED OUT EVERYTHING on stratics and other sites and READ them during class.... i had my group of friends on ICQ... dude we are hitting up covetous... get together alot of us... kill some monsters etc
got WAYYYYY better
7x GM on 3 servers... ahd some "reds" and some "anti-reds" and it was GREAT
97-99 was the greatest... no safe zones, lots of PvP with ANYONE youw anted didnt have to ask if they wanted to dual.. and dieing MEANT SOMETHING... you lost EVERYTHING and they may even cut up your body
then there was that one server, it was only up for a couple hours a day... sometimes never... free skills and free weapons.. huge faction war!!! that was AWESOME
id pay to play that server all day long
hanging out waiting for houses tro collpase... that coule lead to a huge PVP battle and who could place their house first... and jsut like int he real world... real estate prices went up.... then PLUMITTED because i guess Japan opened up theri real estate market to anglo-saxons
Plus there was dyeing clothes... dyeing hair.. then custom colors like TRUE BLACK... how many people REMEMBER TRUE BLACK
then that ice color was made available for a limited time... those sold like crazy for crazy money.. christmas gifts that most people trashed... not realizing that poeple would want them later
i had ALL christmas gifts from all years i played
And the best ever... the way ur heart races... you got LUCKY and your 56.6 modem connected at 48.8!!! Wow that was GREAT... fighting off those harpies in covetous.. what... why am i not moving.... WTF.... thw window closes and whatever service you use tells you it has diconnected.... NOOOOO hurry reconnect... DAMNIT i only got 36.6 connection... "IT DOESNT MATTER I COULD BE DEAD"
sometimes you were dead... sometimes alive... but the way your heart raced was amazaing... i eventually played UO on cable modem... never got quite the same experience
ONLY true OLD OLD OLD original UO players will understand this and prolly puts a smile on their face because it happened to them too!!!
there are so many other fond memeories... this makes me want to TRY and play again
RIP
Titanium Alloy - 7x GM Lake Superior Caster/Archer
Rufus T Firefly - 7x GM Atlantic Caster
Otis B Driftwood - 7x GM Atlantic Smithy/Bowcrafter
poopy - Atlantic GM Rogue
And my many other random characters that alot were GMs but these were the only that really mattered to me!!!
Old Skool Ultima Online Junky
Bring back the OLD UO so I can play again
Everquest is a game, Ultima is a world. If you want to "play", you play Everquest, if you want to live vicariously through virtual reality, you play Ultima.
There you go.