Thinking of trying this game, although im several years to late im a pvp addict and theres nothing out there atm for me, i dont really fancy playing on the old style UO but kingdom reborn how does it work? are there different servers for kingdom as apposed to the old one? if so i heard a lot of people dont play KR
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- Thread starter Walkerie
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Ahhhhh UO....the greatest MMO I have ever played. Did things 12 years ago that the "modern" MMOs can only dream of.
Sadly though, imo...its been ruined over the years and is now a very very pale shadow of the sheer immense greatness that was UO in the late 1990s.
Sadly though, imo...its been ruined over the years and is now a very very pale shadow of the sheer immense greatness that was UO in the late 1990s.
Like Persil said, KR is just a different client, you're playing the same game, just with (arguably) shinier graphics. To be honest I wouldn't bother with the KR client and use either the original or 3D client. Unfortunately you've also missed UO at it's best, as IMO they killed it's magic with Age of Shadows (or even with Renaissance =/)... damn those neon weapons and insurance >(
Edit: not sure if I'm allowed to say this, as its against the ToS of the game, but it would be worth finding an old-ruleset freeshard, much better than the state of the proper game to be honest.
Edit: not sure if I'm allowed to say this, as its against the ToS of the game, but it would be worth finding an old-ruleset freeshard, much better than the state of the proper game to be honest.
There aren't
It is
UO is (was =/) one of those games that you don't play for the graphics
I played UO for years and really miss it. Unfortunately, as already mentioned, it has been ruined over the years. Though if you do play it, original graphics are the only way to go.
There were some amazing RP guilds years ago which really made the game feel special, even if RP isn't your thing. A Guards guild near yew that would take a toll on the road outside their fort and cities being run by councils (Trinsic was always excellent for this.) to give a few examples. It would not be unsusual to walk into a town and see two large armies all in uniform engaged in a massive battle. No game since has come close to the excellence of UO.
There were some amazing RP guilds years ago which really made the game feel special, even if RP isn't your thing. A Guards guild near yew that would take a toll on the road outside their fort and cities being run by councils (Trinsic was always excellent for this.) to give a few examples. It would not be unsusual to walk into a town and see two large armies all in uniform engaged in a massive battle. No game since has come close to the excellence of UO.
/me bursts out crying at his long love of UO.
Tbh I don't know or understand how the hell the game hasn't died yet. I predicted it's death about 2yrs ago and the sod still remains alive thanks to EA. Their subs base must be minute now. Iirc my old Europa shard was pretty much deserted when I visited the place back in 2007 for a month. From what I could see people were just logging in to refresh their homes and logging back off for the most part.
KR I would guess is the new client that yet again tries to meld the good parts of the 2D and 3D clients together, whilst at the same time giving it a more modern look to try and look like the Daoc's and the WoW's of today. Can't see it being any better then the vanilla 2D client tbh.
Tbh I don't know or understand how the hell the game hasn't died yet. I predicted it's death about 2yrs ago and the sod still remains alive thanks to EA. Their subs base must be minute now. Iirc my old Europa shard was pretty much deserted when I visited the place back in 2007 for a month. From what I could see people were just logging in to refresh their homes and logging back off for the most part.
KR I would guess is the new client that yet again tries to meld the good parts of the 2D and 3D clients together, whilst at the same time giving it a more modern look to try and look like the Daoc's and the WoW's of today. Can't see it being any better then the vanilla 2D client tbh.
9 year played vet although accounts must be 12 + now . Tried Kr client and its not better than the crap 3d client . Vanilla all the way 
Let all my houses drop now but still have all my accounts (13) but just to quiet now .
Persil
Let all my houses drop now but still have all my accounts (13) but just to quiet now .
Persil
Oh god, I stumbled upon the site advertising the new Stygian Abyss content just last night and even though I gave up years ago it still got the old UO pangs tingling again. Took a few minutes to snap myself out of it. I knew they were supposed to be doing this expansion from reading stratics a year or so back, but when I formatted my PC I fotgot about stratics and thus lost track of what they were doing, I just assumed it would always be vapourware. Here I am thinking about it again now. Must convince myself it will still be crap, or go on that free shard that had its own thread on here a while back.
I actually played the beta of UO - US only servers at that time and I was on 14.4k dial-up here in the UK.
No game kept me as engrosed or interested as UO.
It was a game where risk equalled reward.
Go to the deppest dungeons and sure, the best equipment was to be found - bu so were PK'ers and the like.
If you wanted to be a Grandmaster Blacksmith it would take you 6 months+.
But did people moan about "the grind"?
No, they knew it was a long path and they just got on with it.
Nothing has come close, but becuase it isn't pick up and play friendly and possible to max characters in a few weeks (WOW) it has obviously lost popularity.
No game kept me as engrosed or interested as UO.
It was a game where risk equalled reward.
Go to the deppest dungeons and sure, the best equipment was to be found - bu so were PK'ers and the like.
If you wanted to be a Grandmaster Blacksmith it would take you 6 months+.
But did people moan about "the grind"?
No, they knew it was a long path and they just got on with it.
Nothing has come close, but becuase it isn't pick up and play friendly and possible to max characters in a few weeks (WOW) it has obviously lost popularity.
Hehehe, yup...I spent 4 years (97-01) on the US servers in UO. In the early days of that I was on 14.4 dialup too. Used to cost a fortune per month in phone bills, and yet people today complain when an MMO costs them £9 a month ! HA !
Fantastic times, most freedom in an MMO ever imo...most choice in an MMO ever imo...most fun ever in an MMO imo.
I first appeared in T2A (Still got the cloth map!). UO was my first online RPG experience (minus Diablo/Battlenet) and it is something I will always cherish and never forget.
Back then I had to plan my gaming time carefully as like most I was on the 1hr dialup ISP's like Xtreme UK. Timing out on Lv3 of Shame or Covetous was a nightmare scenario compared to todays dumbed down mmo's where you don't lose your stuff upon death.
My first steps into UO were pretty much shameful. I was born in Skara Brae. Immediately I saw a cat and thought I'd interact with the little git. I didn't know I had war mode on and got ganged up by 3 other cats, went gray and died
I then got res'd by a mate and he gated me to Vesper Beach - the place where I grew up as a mighty sword wielding warrior! No hide bearing animal was safe as I gathered and sold hides for money before realising that these hides were a resource used by tailors. Thus my career as a sword weilding/knitting tailor began!
What really made the great was that the internet in itself was in its infancy, and there were only a handful of MMO's like EQ, UO, and that Mu thing. RP'ing was massive and unmatchable in UO - WoW and Daoc put together couldn't even come close to the RP guilds that inhabited the lands - they made UO fullstop.
UO Stratics was proof of this. Players did some of the most amazing profession write ups that were a joy to read.
http://uo.stratics.com/content/professions/lumberjk.shtml
Right getting carried away so I'll stop here!
Back then I had to plan my gaming time carefully as like most I was on the 1hr dialup ISP's like Xtreme UK. Timing out on Lv3 of Shame or Covetous was a nightmare scenario compared to todays dumbed down mmo's where you don't lose your stuff upon death.
My first steps into UO were pretty much shameful. I was born in Skara Brae. Immediately I saw a cat and thought I'd interact with the little git. I didn't know I had war mode on and got ganged up by 3 other cats, went gray and died
I then got res'd by a mate and he gated me to Vesper Beach - the place where I grew up as a mighty sword wielding warrior! No hide bearing animal was safe as I gathered and sold hides for money before realising that these hides were a resource used by tailors. Thus my career as a sword weilding/knitting tailor began!What really made the great was that the internet in itself was in its infancy, and there were only a handful of MMO's like EQ, UO, and that Mu thing. RP'ing was massive and unmatchable in UO - WoW and Daoc put together couldn't even come close to the RP guilds that inhabited the lands - they made UO fullstop.
UO Stratics was proof of this. Players did some of the most amazing profession write ups that were a joy to read.
http://uo.stratics.com/content/professions/lumberjk.shtml
Right getting carried away so I'll stop here!
I think this sums up a lot about the path of MMOs over the last 12 years.
When UO arrived on the scene and blew so many people away, the internet and playing online was a pricey expensive affair. This meant that it attracted a much different userbase than today. That userbase had different personalities and different aims than many today.
This for me was the golden age of MMOs and indeed online gaming in general. It was very niche, you were ostensibly weird, uncool and nerdy. Over the years, online access has become very cheap and online gaming has become widespread and isnt really viewed as uncool any more, some might say quite the opposite. The result of the unwashed masses spreading forth online has meant an enormous dilution of the sorts of people who played UO in those early days and a larger expansion of the bickering, argumentative, insulting, "I pwn" crowd who at times seem to lack the social graces to hold a conversation with their reflection in a mirror , let alone with an individual from somewhere else on the globe.
UO was simply the greatest game I have played of any genre, online or offline. Sadly I dont think we will ever see its like again, not entirely due to the various devs but in part due to the changed userbase.
On a side note regarding Stratics, I remember being interviewed by Stratics during my time as leader of a well known player run town on Catskills. Bet that interview has long since disappeared from the Stratics archives by now
EDIT : hehehe, no trace of the interview, but managed to find an entry about the town still
http://uo.stratics.com/shard/Catskills/ca_KinshipHall.shtml
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I printed them all printed out and stored them in a folder should stratics one-day decide to dump all that infoOh my god! I spent far too long reading those things
Ahh UO the only mmorpg i ever played. I have no idea what the new games are like (WOW, WAR, AOC etc.) I used to love chilling in the towns with a few ppl then going on the edge to watch the reds hang around pk'ing new ppl and hoping they would take a few too many steps .... GUARDS! ... My character wasnt PVP ready at that time 
I've remebered the name of that free shard, UO:Hybrid. It had its own thread on here a long while back which got me back into the game for a while, though eventually I'm sad to say I did a bit of a rage quit due to the seemingly endless number of scammers on the shard. I still have the client installed old my laptop and occasionly load it up just to have a walk around. One thing I really loved about old style UO was the midi music. In particular the music that played when you went to Occlo/Haven, that is just a beautiful piece. I keep meaning to put together an audio cd of the music, I still have the midi files kicking about.
The one thing which I think has really buggered up games like UO is the emergence of things like Ventrillo and Teamspeak. When I took advantage of a free trial on the OSI shards a year or so back the one thing which struck me that even in crowed areas virtually no one said anything on screen. You could tell they were all in a teamspeak room, so it was impossible to pick up on any banter or get any random chat going, people seemed to be taken aback if text appeared above your head. That one thing alone puts me right off considering going back. Just not the same.
The one thing which I think has really buggered up games like UO is the emergence of things like Ventrillo and Teamspeak. When I took advantage of a free trial on the OSI shards a year or so back the one thing which struck me that even in crowed areas virtually no one said anything on screen. You could tell they were all in a teamspeak room, so it was impossible to pick up on any banter or get any random chat going, people seemed to be taken aback if text appeared above your head. That one thing alone puts me right off considering going back. Just not the same.
I played on Hybrid but lasted about 5 months before giving up. Everyone was either a scammer or a red and you just couldn't get anything done. What really ruined it was that I had a mage stood outside our sandstone just casting fire fields and meteor showers and there wasn't a thing I could do about it.