The State of the Game

[Arma Renox]

This thread is meant as an ongoing discussion about the state of our beloved game.
I think it can honestly benefit and enlighten us all as UO players and consequently as BoC players.

So then, how do we think UO has turned out after almost 10 years now? There are some consistent gameplay and world issues people seem to focus on quite often, but how do you think it's lasted? It's grown, but for better or worse?

And what other MMOs have you tried; how do they compare? RP and community doesn't seem to be even nearly as rich in other games as it is on UO, Europa in particular.

Thoughts?

[Radek Wilkes]

Been playing UO since 2001, so this was before the introduction of magical armour, those times were good. Had a three year break, two breaks actually adding to three years, in which i played WoW (Yes i know ) for two years. And i tried a RP server at first, but the complete lack of RP scared me away.

Nothing compares to the game play in UO, the choice to customise your character is great.

Ten years old, and still has the best gameplay. =) UO ftw.

[Kas Valentine]

How do we think UO has turned out after almost 10 years now?

I think UO is a distinctly diluted version of what it once was 10 years ago. The game has tried to attract new players with new content too many times. As a result of this we have a lot of conflicting ideas which (in my opinion) taint the original fantasy world. Britannia for me is Ultima Online at it's strongest point and all the worlds we've introduced since then (besides the Lost Lands and possibly Ilshenar) weren't really worthwhile.

The increasing itemisation present before and since Age of Shadows has served to cheapen the originally rewarding PvP/PvE experience. Slowly but surely we've come to the point where you need a suit worth millions in order to compete against other players (and some monsters). This is such a world away from the days when you waded into combat with your platemail and shield.

The economy is also a large part of UO these days, due to the massive influx of new items in the last 10 years there is a huge market for buying and selling. As with the PvP suits your wallet is where it counts now, a purchase costing a million (or at least a couple of hundred thousand) is commonplace.

I could go on for ages like this so I'll try and come to a conclusion. Basically I think we've strayed too far from the original concept of Ultima Online which I interpreted as giving you the chance to play in slighty medieval fantasy world. A world full of wizards, warriors, dragons and bandits.

Of course Trammel played a large part in destroying this but I don't want to get into the whole facet versus facet quagmire. However I will say that the creation of this safe place meant the developers had to find new ways to keep people entertained (hence the avalanche of items). The exodus to Trammel left the people in Felucca concentrating mostly on PvP which in turn led to futher development (and dilution) of that area of the game.

In the words of Joe Pesci in Casino....

"But in the end...we fucked it all up. It should'a been so sweet, too."

How do you think it's lasted?

I think we've lasted so long because of the original depth of the game and the expansion of certain areas. The variety of roles you can play in Britannia is definitely it's strength. You can run a shop, wander the world as a healer, tame animals, tend a farm, be a bold warrior, study the magical, delve into deep dungeons, pick peoples pockets, discover treasure, go sailing and so forth.

I don't need to tell you guys how deep the game is but I definitely think that's fifty percent of what's kept us going.

The other fifty percent is the community and the roleplaying. I haven't been roleplaying as long as you lot but I've enjoyed the community here since I started playing all those years ago. The sheer number of people who will just have a lovely chat with you or stop to help when they notice you're in trouble is just tremendous. S'like the backbone of the already wonderful elements of the game.

The roleplaying I've only discovered personally in the last few years but it's such a rich and rewarding area of the game I'm sure it will continue to satisfy for years to come. When I first started playing I always used to be on the outside looking in as far as roleplaying goes. I'd hang around Deepwater watching all these people playing out their lives and not really understanding what was going on. A friend once explained roleplay to me as...

"You play your character"

And I said.....

"Isn't that what I'm doing now?"

Once I discovered what he meant a whole world of possibilities opened up. It really broadens your horizons and adds a new element to the game which helps to keep it fresh. For me the fact that the roleplay circles tend to exist within the world of a few years ago (GM equipment, simple life, etc) is a dream come true.

It's grown, but for better or worse?

I think we've grown for the worse, I don't think we know what we are anymore. It's very selfish to say and the game would probably have died a death but I'd have been happy if we'd remained at UO Second Age. I sort of feel like a fan of some obscure science fiction series that's suddenly become the most popular thing in the world. The fan no longer wants to be a fan anymore, because everyone else is, but he remains as dedicated as ever albeit somewhat disenfranchised.

What other MMOs have you tried; how do they compare?

Star Wars Galaxes: This was a great game with a great roleplaying community, just as strong as the one we see on Europa. However the game suffered some absolutely terrible patches which ruined the whole thing and caused the majority of players to jump ship. It had just as much depth as UO does when the times were good. Character diversity, intricate crafting system, vibrant enviroment, well balanced classes and so on. Of course having one of UO's former developers (Raph Koster) at the helm helped a lot.

I'd have happily continued playing SWG as my primary online game (I took a UO holiday of a year and half) if they hadn't destroyed it like they did.

World of Warcraft: Another great game but I don't really think you can compare it to Ultima Online. WoW is very much a game on it's own and a very good one at that. I haven't experienced the roleplay myself but a lot of my friends say it's not worth bothering. I personally can't even imagine WoW as a roleplay enviroment due to the nature of the players there, the community isn't much good for the same reasons (besides the friendship you get within guilds). Asking for quest assistance in general chat is as likely to be greeted with "LOL" as it is with actual help.

I recently stopped playing WoW as my primary online game due to the sheer amount of time you have to devote to it (raids, instances, gathering supplies for raids, grinding reputation, saving DKP for items, etc). Having said that the two years I spent on it were extremely rewarding and a whole kodoload of fun.

Asherons Call 2: Heh heh this was a cute game, I only played a trial but it was a right laugh. I was some kind of archer man who would go around getting monsters stuck on terrain and then killing them with arrows for massive chunks of XP. The idea of having destroyed towns and letting the players rebuild them was very noble but I'm not sure how it worked out in the end. I guess it didn't go too well since I have a page on the wall behind me about the day the servers closed.

Planetside: No roleplay at all but god damn the blasting was good. It went downhill with Core Combat and the stupid mech expansion that appeared a while after that, but the original game was good. I remember getting into the beta and podding onto a planet near some "instant action". Watching a Galaxy dropship fly over my head and then land was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.

My apologies for the massive post but I couldn't help replying.

I still love UO immensely, I just think we've taken a lot of wrong turns.

[Zoie Hayden]

Been playing UO since 2001, so this was before the introduction of magical armour, those times were good. Had a three year break, two breaks actually adding to three years, in which i played WoW (Yes i know ) for two years. And i tried a RP server at first, but the complete lack of RP scared me away.

Nothing compares to the game play in UO, the choice to customise your character is great.

Ten years old, and still has the best gameplay. =) UO ftw.

God Kas, get a life! - Good post mate.

Ith's situation is much like mine though. I played UO waaaay back when it first started up for a couple years, then quit when Trammel came into existence. My brother and I had too much fun randomly PKing people every time they left Trinsic to continue playing once that stopped.

So I haven't touched UO for 7+ years until just a few months ago. I thought I'd give it another go and see if the magic was still there. In the meantime, I'd played just about every other MMO brought to market, which all were very shallow except for WoW (the only game since UO to hold my interest for more than a couple months. Not because I wanted to play it, but because in WoW, you HAVE to play it). Even the recent Lord of the Rings Online with it's vast opportunities for RP was very shallow and just a WoW clone at the end of the day.

I was very pleasantly shocked to see after 10 years, UO still has such a rich RP community, much richer than any other game by far. And even with all the newbification and mass-media changes, it still has that UO magic and charm, and I have as much fun as I did when I first played it. I honestly don't feel that the changes have harmed the game itself at all; they've merely just changed the sort of player who plays it now.

No other game can hold a candle to the vast number of things that are possible in UO.

[Krieger]

How do we think UO has turned out after almost 10 years now?

I think UO is a distinctly diluted version of what it once was 10 years ago. The game has tried to attract new players with new content too many times. As a result of this we have a lot of conflicting ideas which (in my opinion) taint the original fantasy world. Britannia for me is Ultima Online at it's strongest point and all the worlds we've introduced since then (besides the Lost Lands and possibly Ilshenar) weren't really worthwhile.

The increasing itemisation present before and since Age of Shadows has served to cheapen the originally rewarding PvP/PvE experience. Slowly but surely we've come to the point where you need a suit worth millions in order to compete against other players (and some monsters). This is such a world away from the days when you waded into combat with your platemail and shield.

The economy is also a large part of UO these days, due to the massive influx of new items in the last 10 years there is a huge market for buying and selling. As with the PvP suits your wallet is where it counts now, a purchase costing a million (or at least a couple of hundred thousand) is commonplace.

I could go on for ages like this so I'll try and come to a conclusion. Basically I think we've strayed too far from the original concept of Ultima Online which I interpreted as giving you the chance to play in slighty medieval fantasy world. A world full of wizards, warriors, dragons and bandits.

Of course Trammel played a large part in destroying this but I don't want to get into the whole facet versus facet quagmire. However I will say that the creation of this safe place meant the developers had to find new ways to keep people entertained (hence the avalanche of items). The exodus to Trammel left the people in Felucca concentrating mostly on PvP which in turn led to futher development (and dilution) of that area of the game.

In the words of Joe Pesci in Casino....

"But in the end...we fucked it all up. It should'a been so sweet, too."

I still love UO immensely, I just think we've taken a lot of wrong turns.

*High fives.*

[Octiovus]

What we have to fundamentally understand is that UO is now totally in the hands of EA games (after the Origin period). EA games is a company with a passion for making money, rather than quality. It is true that naturally all companies aim to make money, but the size of EA's share of the market shows a real dedication. What this means in terms of UO is that EA games actually has no idea how to make MMORPGs (and thus, how to run UO). Outside of imbecilic sports games and repetitive first person shooters, they really don't know what is what. Therefore, it is natural they're going to run UO as they run all their products - they'll create gimmicky useless expansions like with the Sims series.

Having said this, that makes it sounds all rather hopeless. However, it isn't. What has made UO successful is the dedication of the playerbase to create their own fun environments such as BoC, and the game mechanics allow us to do that. You won't find such strongly organized and moderated guilds in WoW. And this will continue regardless of what happens. In addition the competition fields no strong competitor to the atmosphere UO has. The success of WoW was built on casual gaming, rather than the hardcore fun UO has. Outside of WoW, I've found all other MMORPGs to be almost entirely meritless. City of Heroes was a good example of a game where the novelty wore off extremely quickly.

[Arma Renox]

City of Heroes definitely, that's bang on Oct. I had far more fun (and spent far more time) designing my characters than playing them.

I tried Guild Wars, but the linear gameplay was frustrating and felt like a single player experience you needed about 10 players to actually be able to handle.

Final Fantasy XI is quite possibly THE most terrible game mechanic MMO. That aside, it has so many nice settings, races, fiction, etc. The only problem is you can't actually PLAY it to enjoy these things.

World of Warcraft consumed my 18 months away from UO. It's a great game, mostly. But it's way too big: there is NO sense of community (that I've seen). It's all about getting the best items and beating everyone else, being better than everyone else, rather than joining in with everyone else. Guilds are collections of people that NEED each other for the 20 to 40 man raids, not people who LIKE each other remotely. If you don't play enough, you get kicked out.

UO is piss poor compared to how it USED to be. Like Kas said, you have to have the suits to compete. Skill is worthless, items are everything.
But that's just the content they intend for you to play. The content we make for ourselves, the RP, the house designing, the aspects that rely on the player are beautiful, because we know what we like.
I just hope they fix things, because it's only gotten worse. In a few years, will it be too bad for even RP to survive? I hope not.

[Zoie Hayden]

UO is piss poor compared to how it USED to be. Like Kas said, you have to have the suits to compete. Skill is worthless, items are everything.
But that's just the content they intend for you to play. The content we make for ourselves, the RP, the house designing, the aspects that rely on the player are beautiful, because we know what we like.
I just hope they fix things, because it's only gotten worse. In a few years, will it be too bad for even RP to survive? I hope not.

I really don't think it's that bad, unless you're a hardcore PVPer. The items only really help in that respect, unless you're trying to compete with everyone to be the richest, or have the most rares. If you make the game into that, it's no better than WoW.

I don't think all the new changes have hindered or changed the core casual fun that UO provides, especially the RP. The changes have really only hindered PVP and PKing at the end of the day.

[Kas Valentine]

In the meantime, I'd played just about every other MMO brought to market, which all were very shallow except for WoW (the only game since UO to hold my interest for more than a couple months. Not because I wanted to play it, but because in WoW, you HAVE to play it).

It's a great game, mostly. But it's way too big: there is NO sense of community (that I've seen). It's all about getting the best items and beating everyone else, being better than everyone else, rather than joining in with everyone else. Guilds are collections of people that NEED each other for the 20 to 40 man raids, not people who LIKE each other remotely. If you don't play enough, you get kicked out.

Heh heh too right, especially the having to play and comments regarding guilds. I was in close contact with a large majority of the players in my WoW guild. My character was a Tauren named Roast and was generally treated in the same way Kas is (figure of fun, never very serious) with one exception....

We spoke to each other on Ventrilo.

Now when you speak to people on a daily basis you tend to form a closer bond than you do through the medium of text, or so it seems. Since I left WoW I've only been contacted by the one or two genuinely nice people within the guild. The world is almost self contained, if you're in WoW you'll have some great friends to do things with but as Arma says, only because they need you.

On a large scale the guild as a whole needs you to make up numbers for raids. The guild I was in was pretty friendly with only a minimum of fighting among members. But other guilds are a lot different, they straight hate one another and exist within it only to acquire loot. I even got kicked from one guild when I went back to UO for a few months.

On a smaller scale people need you simply for quests or for instances which are three to five man affairs (depending on the level of the instance). You also find yourself needed for PvP, quests and even resource gathering. People will ask you to make something for you and will be very grateful, after all you've just made their character better.

Arma isn't remotely lying when he says WoW is all about being better than the next guy. It is so bad that even having a particular item on a particular character will garner you abuse from complete strangers.

My character was a hunter, this class damages from range and comes into melee rarely (finishing off targets, trying to get range from attacking players). On my hunter I had a two handed axe called Gorehowl which comes from the end boss of one of the smaller raids. Generally this item would go to a warrior because they can make exceptional use of it and it considerably beefs up their melee moves (99% of their moves basically). For my hunter it just meant I did bigger melee hits on the rare occasions that I do that sort of thing, I also benefited from some statistic boosts.

The warriors on the raid where this dropped did not want the axe (or already had it) and were perfectly happy for me to have it. In the weeks following this raid I have received countless tells from people ranging from "LOL Gorehowl" to fully fledged essays on why my class should not have that weapon (not remotely politely either). I even had one guy stop where he was going, land next to me and say "you shouldn't have that" before flying off laughing.

This is the WoW community in a nutshell. Just visit Thotbot, pick a random epic item and read the player comments if you don't believe it.

My brother started WoW at the same time as me and we were in the same guild. I quit, but he is still playing. He stays in his room almost exclusively playing WoW and only leaves the house to get more dope or cigarettes. As Zoie mentioned this is how the game has to be played, if you stop for say a week you risk falling behind in several things....

• Equipment
• Raid points (which you use within your guild to bid on high profile raid items)
• PvP points
• Resources required for consumables

WoW is designed with the 24 hour player in mind and this is it's main failing.

As Zoie also mentioned I have no life, it may sound harsh coming from my own mouth but it's the truth and I'm comfortable with it. Since about the age of 15 (1996) the internet has played a large part in my daily life. Initially it was the film chat room of AOL, then it was film chat and IM's, then it was UO, then it was other online games and so forth. My social life dropped off somewhere in the middle of the UO years bringing us to the point I'm at now where sitting online is pretty much all I do.

Even despite having all this free time at my disposal I am utterly glad that I no longer devote one minute of it to playing WoW. As I mentioned in my earlier post I really enjoyed building my characters and playing the actual game but all in all s'not a nice corner of the internet in my opinion.

UO is completely different, the community is warm and inviting, even outside of roleplaying circles you'll find players willing to help you out or simply be friends. The world sucks you in and the players keep you there. When I return to UO it's not just the gameplay I return to but the myriad of friendly faces which I've come to know over the years.

In addition the competition fields no strong competitor to the atmosphere UO has.....What has made UO successful is the dedication of the playerbase to create their own fun environments such as BoC, and the game mechanics allow us to do that.....Outside of WoW, I've found all other MMORPGs to be almost entirely meritless.

No other game can hold a candle to the vast number of things that are possible in UO.

The content we make for ourselves, the RP, the house designing, the aspects that rely on the player are beautiful, because we know what we like. I just hope they fix things, because it's only gotten worse. In a few years, will it be too bad for even RP to survive? I hope not.

Ho yeah !

I always ended up missing these things when I've been on the other online games. I just didn't feel like I belonged, I was playing a game and not exisiting within a world. I play online games because I like to be able to live in a game that continues day after day and Britanna delviers in that respect.

I'll stop now because otherwise I'll just double the size of this already huge post.

One more thing though.....

I don't think all the new changes have hindered or changed the core casual fun that UO provides, especially the RP. The changes have really only hindered PVP and PKing at the end of the day.

This is true but PvP shouldn't just be the realm of the hardcore. Without all the crazy artifacts the "average player" would have another area of UO which they can jump into and enjoy without having to tolerate hours of dungeon crawling or cash accumulation. Putting together a suit is also a very singular activity, you tend to do it on your own.

When I first trained Swordsmanship and Tactics I did it in Deepwater Fighting School with at least five other people at any one time. You would spar on one another to gain skill and chat away the hours. This built great bonds with people and led to hunting groups or vigilante gatherings to "go get that damn PK". Now people just buy some gear (or hunt for it), select Yew Moongate and choose a target.

S'a very unfulfilling state of affairs.

(I could have saved myself the bother of writing these two huge posts and just written that last sentence, DOH)

Edit: Sorry just had to add something else. Arma you mentioned that in a few years things could get so bad that even roleplay may struggle to survive. Providing they don't force the KR client on all of us I think we'll be in the clear. If that happens I'll probably still roleplay but that client will drastically reduce my enjoyment of UO.

[Mercy]

The thing is pkers make up a large proportion of the game and people like a game that you can be competitive about.  They want to win.  In killing people with great equipment they've won and your the loser because of a number of things.  But thats just typical mentality of people.  For them the taking part is never enough they want something shiney to show for it as well.  Most likely the ones that when they run a race and get less than third place throw a paddy about it.

To me rpers need to be more mature in their thinking about a game, it not only takes a great deal of commitment but imagination, being sympathetic towards other's feelings and want to be involved but let others be involved too. 

I don't think any game can hope to attract enough of these types of people because its a mindset thats needed to create them.  People generally want to pick up a game have fun, feel they've accomplished something by getting the shiney thing and put it back down again till they pick it up again to get an even bigger shiney thing.

I've recently logged into KR again, and thankfully now it can fit to a windowed screen properly but i found it still made my eyes hurt because of the graphics.  Yes things are looking more tidy now.  The deco in my house doesn't look like a pile of crap piled together it looks like it should do, including my bed that at first looked like a heap of cloth, with the polar bear rug hovering on top.  So they are making progress with it, just like when UO was young and new it has things that need to be ironed out and its getting there.

Personally I don't feel there's enough advertisement outside of the USA to draw in new players.  I mean WoW was even played on South Park, how big an advertising endorcement can you get? No longer is UO on the shelves in stores in the UK, but games like WoW, Acherons Call, Guildwars, LOTRO and Archlord are.  People generally walk into a shop to pick up their new game.  To find UO you need to either stumble across the website or maybe a small advertisement on a website showing other games that look alot better.

I hope UO does continue to have a long life, although I'm slowly playing it less and less because of RL which may eventually take over the need to play a game.  Though UO has been more of a social thing to me as my friends have grown up and moved away or gotten lives of their own.  Or maybe as I've become more of a hermit and happier to talk to people at arms length.   

[Olchafa Serpernt]

Pkers vs Rpers anyone?
http://www.thenoobcomic.com/daily/strip106.html

Iv only been playing UO for about 2 years. I have only ever Rped so i have no idea of the actual game.
I did try and create a decent PvM char to make a little money but i found the whole thing way to expensive with all the insurance and decent kit, so i just said "fuck it" and went back to RP.

I did enjoy RP alot more when i was in CoY, it seemed more deep, the general RP was more fun and you never had a single PvP gimped character (unless it was a special char such as undead) so knowing it was about yours and the players personal skill in fighting just gave the rp pvp element more exciting. The guilds all being around the same place (Yew) was alot of fun becuase there was always someone around on your doorstep to RP with  (this is why i love the moots so much) the guilds were a lot more interwoven. Oh and also the "at least one skill devoted to RP" rule was a genius thing to do.
I only caught the last few months of CoY before it ended but i absolutely loved it.

[Farfar]

I played UO for 1 and a half year back at the time with renaissance. I then had a break for about six years, which means i started somewhere at the year 2000.
  Much has happened since then, and it took me quite some time to catch up (i still dont master a few things, and im a complete idiot of tokuno and malas yet).
   I think i have to agree with Kas here, considering the game experience from then to recent date. It was more fun back in that time.
  I remember standing smith at Britain north forge (when a smith was sociated with status, and were mighty),  the heart of Brittannia, Shouting out my services. Arms loring the items (which was needed to see how damaged it was), repair them, and make new sets of armor and swords for a fee.
   I remember being on a T-Hunt finding magic items, which we brought back to
"id fy". If we were lucky, it might have been a Vanquishing Katana, we found (known to be the best sword back then)
  About swords...

Being a swordsman or being a fencer?
 
If i knew about the changes in the game before i made my char, i would have chosen the fencer.
  The fencer was known for their speed in combat. Hitting often and fast, being good against the mages.
   The swordsman was known to somewhat less fast, but instead, he made greater damage and had a bigger variety of swords/axes he could use.
Today, a fencer can make equal or greater amount of damage, as the swordsman can. He has almost the same amount of swords to choose from.
   The "use best weapon skill" on some magic weapons, makes it a bit harder to define templates as well.

One more thing.

The ultimate meeting point in UO before, except the britain forge, was the Britain West bank. But being there now, there arent that many players at the bank, as it used to be.
   Is there a lack of players, or has the people found other meeting points?

with this extra said, i must agree with Kas

*Signed in thick handwriting*

Farfar.

P.s
      I dont like the overpriced ore men in fel. del. 

[Kas Valentine]

Ho ho I forgot about that Chaffers !

"Hey developer buddies what shall we implement today...? I know why don't we weaken the thief profession massively while at the same time confusing the area of PvP and making your death to anything expensive. Great idea what will we call it, I know how about insurance."

Why have an avalanche of items if you can't keep them safe from the demon of loss, eh eh...? Dear me.

STORY TIME;

I once went to the Lost Lands in full valorite plate with my favourite power halberd. I was just getting started in my "big hunt" when I died to a wyvern....

Hey, take one in melee back when they didn't look like an explosion in a graphics factory.

Anyway....I don't know if you've ever hunted up by the lighthouse in the Lost Lands but if you have you'll know that there isn't a healer for bloody miles. In the end I went all the way to Papua and then all the way back to my corpse. When I arrived I saw a man run from my corpse and hop into his boat, clearly I'd been looted. I tried talking to him but he was too busy giving orders to the tillerman to get away.

I was pissed !

I'd lost my valorite plate and my power halberd !

Would I have prefered to have been insured to the hilt....? Would I chuff !

Some of the best times I had in UO were when I lost everything and had to go around the provisioners, Britain smith and the mage shop to restock again. Loss of your belongings was a risk you had to take and it built a circle of life kind of deal that I found very rewarding. You never had too much stuff because you'd always lose some through encounters like my wyvern one. You could also gain stuff from killing murderers, or innocent people, and vice versa (they could gain it from you).

To be honest Mondains Legacy has more to answer for in killing my thief (stupid Jack of all Trades gives everyone an innate 20 Detect) but insurance still played a part.

We were better off when we had;

• People able to jump in and get the killing blow to steal karma and fame.
• Universal corpse looting of monsters and players instead of "rights".
• Dismemberment of player corpses

The last one is more of a personal preference, heh heh, but it fits in with the slew of game mechanics that died to the whole "lets protect the player from loss and harm" vibe.

(Look Ma', I can do smaller posts)

[Zoie Hayden]

We spoke to each other on Ventrilo.

Hmm why don't we do that in Cove?

My wife and I used Ventrilo with our raiding guilds in WoW as well, and you're right that it brings everyone much closer together. One of the most fun nights of my life (yes, my life) was when my wife and I nearly had a heartattack laughing ourselves silly at a guild mate's antics on Ventrilo.

It can be a pain in the ass sometimes, especially if you're not in the mood to talk to anyone, but for the most part it's fun and I'm sure it'll bring us all together more.

[Anari/Gareck Hallows]

Well, I've chosen to fool myself into a few things.

Remember UO at its best.. For me anyway..

I only started playing UO when AoS came out, and many people say thats the first major cockup-of-an-expansion for UO, but I think it was still an amazing game in AoS, i remember being in awe of Lord Ulysses hehe and furiously training my blacksmith to compete with the best of the North Forge.. Getting past level 70 was tedious so i left it in the end...

Also, something that was such a small part of UO for most, was a bit part for me, I loved the player-run casinos just on the northern edge of Britain bank. The ideas some people would come up with to get people to play on their casino were a legendary skill outright, i remember earning my first 500k and losing it that week by running a casino.. Anyone who says the house always wins is lying! *Mutter*

Back to fooling myself...

I have a hope that one day, UO could be like that again, ive often thought about getting my dice out and setting up somewhere to gamble, but I honestly dont think that there is any player to player trust anymore, I would have, back in the day, happily passed over a 500k check to a casino owner, because there used to be so much more trust, nowadays i reckon the bugger would tele off... but still, i live in hope, and thats what gets me through, oh... and RP.