I realize that NeoGAF tends to be focused on the console side of the gaming house, so this thread may have a limited audience, but this is an idea I've had for a while and wanted to see if it resonated with others. I'm a huge fan of all things Ultima, going back to secret gaming sessions of Ultima VI during computer lab class in 7th grade, but that's for another discussion. This is about UO and my history with the game.
I don't remember how I got into the UO beta back in 1997, but somehow I've managed to keep the CD despite the fact that it serves no function other than as a curiosity.
I gave up on UO after that because the hassle-factor was high and other games like Quake 2 ran much, much better online. I wouldn't get back to UO for another two years and from an unlikely source.
Ahh, Ultima IX. So much hype. So much potential. So much...fail. I remember being ridiculously excited for this game. I nearly bought the big-ass "Dragon Edition" version, but instead just settled for the regular one. Glad I did because the game was nearly unplayable. There was better performance depending on your video option (D3D vs 3dfx's "Glide"), but in general low framerate + tons of bugs + bad story = shitty experience. (It's sad, but even today the game continues to run like turd on a treadmill.) As part of a "We Fucked Up" campaign, EA sent a bunch of us free copies of UO: The Second Age. It came with a free 30 day trial so I figured why not see how things have progressed.
Turns out UO had gotten a lot better during that time. Not only that, but my Internet connection was now a wicked fast 768k DSL connection. About a week into the trial I was hooked. I was single at the time and showed the game to my roommate and he got sucked in, too. I played on the Great Lakes shard and was a complete newb when it came to MMOs. But back then, so were most other people and it was incredibly fun learning together. I soon came across a group of players that I liked and we started a guild called "Grandwarriors of Virtue." Yeah, that's the actual front page of our guild website. Seems so quaint now. These were great times filled with exploration, discovery, and in-game entrepreneurs. Most of my UO webpage links are long since dead, but I found a few images that brought back a lot of memories.
My time on the official OSI servers, like all good things, eventually came to an end. In search of a different experience, I came across the world of private shards and settled on one that had an active group of players that was run by a mature group of admins. It was called The World of Dreams (from the Wheel of Time book series). I didn't know it at the time, but shard happened to be founded by Jeff "Dundee" Freeman who would later go on to work with Raph Koster and Star Wars Galaxies. After two years as a player, a need developed for someone to take over the server hosting responsibilities. Being a geek (and a glutton for punishment) I volunteered and took over the role of keeping the shard running. In truth, I loved UO, tinkering with computers, and helping people, so it was a great fit with one exception: the expenses involved. We kind of take cheap hosting for granted now, but 15 years ago it was still a pricey endeavor. Some of my greatest memories come from the years I spent there and I don't regret a single penny spent on it.
What does the future of UO hold? I have almost zero faith in EA's ability to do anything sensible with it. For the longest time players have been asking for a classic shard that would give them an official place to play without all the post-Age of Shadows crap that made the game very unlike UO. Even though there are hundreds of players on a variety of private shards still playing, it hasn't been enough to move them into action. Two years ago UO was Greenlit on Steam, and I thought we might finally see something, but Broadsword Games has done absolutely nothing since then. Not only that, but the MMO market has shifted significantly over the past 10 years and many players expect a F2P option for such an old game. UO stubbornly holds on to the subscription model. Personally, I'd be willing to pay a subscription for a classic shard - it blows my mind that "amateurs" can pull this off for free while we get nothing but crickets from EA.
In the end I admit Ultima Online may just be a "gaming moment in time" that I'll have to let go - and for the most part I have. UO was hugely influential to me and what it meant to play games online. I'd love to see someone find a way to successfully reboot it, but I'm not holding my breath.
I don't remember how I got into the UO beta back in 1997, but somehow I've managed to keep the CD despite the fact that it serves no function other than as a curiosity.
I was a junior in college with a Pentium 200 and a Diamond Stealth II S220 video card (I <3 Rendition!) Even though I had what I thought was a pretty decent PC for the time, the game still ran like absolute crap. It was slower than a slideshow and over the course of 30 minutes I only managed to chop a few logs from a tree. The game was still far from being optimized, but a lot of the problem was self-inflicted due to the fact that I was using a program called Slirp to turn my college Unix shell account into an ISP. Yes, there was a 56k modem option, but being a poor student I was trying to avoid having a ridiculously high phone bill every month. College kids these days are totally spoiled with their high-speed Internet and wifi connections.
I gave up on UO after that because the hassle-factor was high and other games like Quake 2 ran much, much better online. I wouldn't get back to UO for another two years and from an unlikely source.
Ahh, Ultima IX. So much hype. So much potential. So much...fail. I remember being ridiculously excited for this game. I nearly bought the big-ass "Dragon Edition" version, but instead just settled for the regular one. Glad I did because the game was nearly unplayable. There was better performance depending on your video option (D3D vs 3dfx's "Glide"), but in general low framerate + tons of bugs + bad story = shitty experience. (It's sad, but even today the game continues to run like turd on a treadmill.) As part of a "We Fucked Up" campaign, EA sent a bunch of us free copies of UO: The Second Age. It came with a free 30 day trial so I figured why not see how things have progressed.
Turns out UO had gotten a lot better during that time. Not only that, but my Internet connection was now a wicked fast 768k DSL connection. About a week into the trial I was hooked. I was single at the time and showed the game to my roommate and he got sucked in, too. I played on the Great Lakes shard and was a complete newb when it came to MMOs. But back then, so were most other people and it was incredibly fun learning together. I soon came across a group of players that I liked and we started a guild called "Grandwarriors of Virtue." Yeah, that's the actual front page of our guild website. Seems so quaint now. These were great times filled with exploration, discovery, and in-game entrepreneurs. Most of my UO webpage links are long since dead, but I found a few images that brought back a lot of memories.
Player-run treasure map service.
Might not hold up to today's webcomic standards, but at the time I thought this was great.
My riches were only surpassed by my great sense of style.
My first (and last) attempt at a UO "comic".
I managed to place this tower after spending hours and hours the night that Trammel opened. What a fiasco that was - lag, chaos, errors. In the end I was pretty thrilled with my little home.
My time on the official OSI servers, like all good things, eventually came to an end. In search of a different experience, I came across the world of private shards and settled on one that had an active group of players that was run by a mature group of admins. It was called The World of Dreams (from the Wheel of Time book series). I didn't know it at the time, but shard happened to be founded by Jeff "Dundee" Freeman who would later go on to work with Raph Koster and Star Wars Galaxies. After two years as a player, a need developed for someone to take over the server hosting responsibilities. Being a geek (and a glutton for punishment) I volunteered and took over the role of keeping the shard running. In truth, I loved UO, tinkering with computers, and helping people, so it was a great fit with one exception: the expenses involved. We kind of take cheap hosting for granted now, but 15 years ago it was still a pricey endeavor. Some of my greatest memories come from the years I spent there and I don't regret a single penny spent on it.
What does the future of UO hold? I have almost zero faith in EA's ability to do anything sensible with it. For the longest time players have been asking for a classic shard that would give them an official place to play without all the post-Age of Shadows crap that made the game very unlike UO. Even though there are hundreds of players on a variety of private shards still playing, it hasn't been enough to move them into action. Two years ago UO was Greenlit on Steam, and I thought we might finally see something, but Broadsword Games has done absolutely nothing since then. Not only that, but the MMO market has shifted significantly over the past 10 years and many players expect a F2P option for such an old game. UO stubbornly holds on to the subscription model. Personally, I'd be willing to pay a subscription for a classic shard - it blows my mind that "amateurs" can pull this off for free while we get nothing but crickets from EA.
In the end I admit Ultima Online may just be a "gaming moment in time" that I'll have to let go - and for the most part I have. UO was hugely influential to me and what it meant to play games online. I'd love to see someone find a way to successfully reboot it, but I'm not holding my breath.
