The game developers first started showing their true intentions with the release of trammel (AKA Carebear land). They started taking all the Risk Vs Reward out by letting people go somewhere to make money and PVE without the risk of some guy coming up and ruining thier fun, but these PKs (although I hated them

) added a huge amount to this game by making you REALLY value your life and the posessions you had worked hard for. Without bad guys UO became a stale boring monotonous pile of crap IMO. I quit a couple months after they first introduced Felluca/Trammel and am glad I got out before all the new crap came in like insurance.
What was great about it as well was that the bad guys weren't just greifers (although there were a lot), they were roleplaying a bad guy and playing within the rules of the game. We had evil murderers and thieves. I loved my thief

. i remember how I stealthed into some PK's house in Britain and stole a 3 roomed house deed once lol, and me and a fellow thief used to love coming up with ways to rob people in the streets of Brittain - traps, cons. Most of the time we died, but there were a few times we struck lucky and robbed a few ship deeds and of course plenty of Reagents. It was great fun. But it wasn't griefing which is why I think trammel first came in - all the victims of murder and thieves didn't realise that it was just another proffession - one that added to the atmosphere and immersion of the game
Shame that people complained so much that the devs decided to put a carebear land in. I think the game lost a lot of character and became just another PVE game without any form of Risk vs Reward when they did that.
UO when it was all Felluca was pretty much the best MMO ever released, including the games we have now.