Ultima Online - Europa ....anyone still there?

[avec]

Played on Europa for far too many years.

Server wars were great, after the server finished backing up for the night everything that happens after gets reverted. Everyone just went nuts, mass combat and carnage.

UO had it all really, the skill system allowed for so much flexibility. It was also excellent that you could still die to practically anything if you screwed up. It wasn't like a level based game where at a certain point half the game runs away from you or can't hit you.

Most of all it was purely player driven and that made it something that no game has been able to replicate since. Although Eve Online has come close, it's a completely different game despite being player driven in it's own right.

Don't forget to check out Galad: http://looterslair.com/

Memories!

 

[Kainz]

As I play Tera Online on a daily basis (boredom is setting in now) with my Lv60 char, it amazes me when I put UO alongside it.

Tera's economy is one gigantic gold sink. It isn't easy to farm gold in that game and everything you do (even crafting) involves large amounts of gold being dumped onto an NPC. To enchant weapons and armour (very much essential) you need to buy a special powder which costs a lot of gold - and success rates are extremely low. You end up spending thousands of gold just to enchant an item by ONE level out of the possible max 12. Pathetic.

With UO, everything revolved around player trading. Selling stuff to one another, and that built up a colossal community spirit. WBB Smithy for example had all of Europa's best smiths who would repair items for a modest fee - who remembers Lord Ulysses for example?

It is a shame todays MMO's will never ever touch on such aspects.

 

[Sasso]

hehe yea those orcs were killer.... think i first came across them in the AoS lands, they had a fort along one of the main paths.

anything with poison if you didnt have pots was such a *****! i never had pots on me (i swear officer ) so it would be putting my 100+healing to good use, one bandi to cure the poison and another to heal up the damage.... however..... it never worked out like that.... would usually be the case if stuff was going crazy i would heal one poison, about the finish the second bandi when i would be poisoned again so heal that... and so on.... my health being whittled away xD

oh god! getting your first horse and being able to actually out run stuff efficiently!!! CHARGGGEEEE!!!!!!!!

another great memory i have is randomly there was a dude called "a spartan" wearing a red robe, helm, sandals and a spear/lance.... then another popped up.... then within 10 mins there were about 15 of us all with "a spartan" dressed the same next to the BS south of the brit graveyard xD

twas a sight to see indeed..... all letting out our war cries and saluting as people went past..... then storming the grave yard casting the evil out and swarming around new players letting them know that there was no need to thank us for "rescuing" them from certain doom......

 

[Jonnybmac]

My player towen tavern, could farm the npc's there or buy the regs and kill for a quick respawn :]

Memorys of brit bank houses

I was GM for a popular server with about 300 constantly online average and thousands of accounts

This was when i house looted someone (yes i used to get bored, change my name for 1mil gold and backstab people as id get sick of logging on and being friendly with everyone and no one to fight )

 

[Jonnybmac]

looking through my images i miss uo so much. being a noobie was best not knowing anything. farming in jhelom graveyard for mere few k an hour with a full steel and steel katana and heater, another newbie there also tryint to get each other killed/waiting for one another to die so we could loot the kit and log out lol. paying 40k for someone to show me the way to t2a so we could farm orphidians with blade spirits as they were good money on my server. me and my friend taking it in turn to carry money and recall out if an enemy came as we didnt have enough magery to gate at the time.

our player towns had walls round them and you could upgrade and stuff, we used to do guild raids on player towns as people sometimes used tocarry their town rune on them so we could invade once we looted it, was awsome

 

[dirtybeatfreak]

It is a shame todays MMO's will never ever touch on such aspects.

Indeed. I find it ironic that UO was arguably one of the very first mmo's that sparked the 'craze'. The two most successful that I know of (UO,SWG) both had skill systems rather than levels and both relied heavily on player crafting. Why aren't the developers realising this lol.

 

[Tombstone]

Indeed. I find it ironic that UO was arguably one of the very first mmo's that sparked the 'craze'. The two most successful that I know of (UO,SWG) both had skill systems rather than levels and both relied heavily on player crafting. Why aren't the developers realising this lol.

I think its because developers discovered the amount of $$ that could be farmed from players by appealing to the lowest common denominator. WoW was largely at fault for that imo. I think the thing is, as much as I miss UO, and consider it to be by far the best MMO experience I've ever had...the vast majority of todays MMO players simply would not last a week in UO. They would find it too harsh, too tough and lacking in direction for many MMOers today who cannot use their imagination to come up with their own goals rather than being told when and where to go by npcs.

 

[Kainz]

Indeed. I find it ironic that UO was arguably one of the very first mmo's that sparked the 'craze'. The two most successful that I know of (UO,SWG) both had skill systems rather than levels and both relied heavily on player crafting. Why aren't the developers realising this lol.

You mention SWG having a skill system like UO's, is that worth looking at then? I think it has gone F2P recently or something?

 

[Sasso]

You mention SWG having a skill system like UO's, is that worth looking at then? I think it has gone F2P recently or something?

yea it was similar in the respect there were just loads of skills and you could choose just which ones you wanted to increase for your play style. also they had player house too which was cool. <<<<<going back again to 56k days haha!!!

i think this had a similar downfall, they changed some pretty major game mechanics and the ease of leveling certain skills... I remember first seeing my mates characters and running about... if you saw a jedi you were in awe! they were pretty uncommon.....but then after some patch releases it seemed really easy to get to jedi and then everyone was... :\ ....from what i remember anyways. not sure if they still have official servers?

was trying to make a tamer on atlantic last night..... but no matter what name i chose it said it was invalid

 

[AHarvey]

Razor won't work for me


As for SWG, check out SWGEmu

 

[DailyGeek]

I played on Europe from pub 14 onwards for several years. Ahhhh.
Going to try and find a decent free shard in a bit. Perhaps we should all get together?

 

[dirtybeatfreak]

I think its because developers discovered the amount of $$ that could be farmed from players by appealing to the lowest common denominator. WoW was largely at fault for that imo. I think the thing is, as much as I miss UO, and consider it to be by far the best MMO experience I've ever had...the vast majority of todays MMO players simply would not last a week in UO. They would find it too harsh, too tough and lacking in direction for many MMOers today who cannot use their imagination to come up with their own goals rather than being told when and where to go by npcs.

Agreed, but what about us that don't want our hands held

You mention SWG having a skill system like UO's, is that worth looking at then? I think it has gone F2P recently or something?

Not sure on the F2p thing, but AHarvey has it right. There is a SWGEMU server which is about. It's without a doubt worth looking into if your interested, game is also awesome

 

[MotherMayI]

I think its because developers discovered the amount of $$ that could be farmed from players by appealing to the lowest common denominator. WoW was largely at fault for that imo. I think the thing is, as much as I miss UO, and consider it to be by far the best MMO experience I've ever had...the vast majority of todays MMO players simply would not last a week in UO. They would find it too harsh, too tough and lacking in direction for many MMOers today who cannot use their imagination to come up with their own goals rather than being told when and where to go by npcs.

The subscription numbers of Eve (and Second Life) beg to differ. While perhaps not the mind blowing levels of WoW, they are the only ones steadily growing.

(Also, site note - lol @ Rift's)

 

[dirtybeatfreak]

Snip!!

OMG just noticed 2 hot 2 trot from your pics, SpunkydaMonkey??? From Burstfire?? lol

I can't remember my main char names but I was a counsellor under the name fearless. Think I was given to you by Wig and Wren after I had just been promoted and you told me off coz I was buying from player vendor on my staff char lol

 

[Sasso]

Agreed, but what about us that don't want our hands held

wasn't a problem when the community was huge always people about to help

Razor won't work for me


As for SWG, check out SWGEmu

yea razor didn't work on the official shards for me neither :\ sucks

I played on Europe from pub 14 onwards for several years. Ahhhh.
Going to try and find a decent free shard in a bit. Perhaps we should all get together?

definitely some of the UOGamers ones are good, think they have 3 at various levels of publish. or could just re sub and grab ya toon

 

[Luckystrike123]

I'm surprised that so many other have such vivid memories of this game as both my brother and I too have great memories.

Like others have already said, it was the original and greatest MMORPG to have existed.

A couple of weeks ago I was looking for a free shard but all of the populated ones I found were based in the USA and therefore a bit to laggy for my modern day expectations which is ironic based on how the game ran back in the day.

I think though that this game is best left were it is now, in the past. You only risk killing your nostalgia as it has aged a lot.

P.S - I even remember the PC Gamer review summary - "Strange, and strangely beautiful" which sums it up exactly for me.

 

[Scotty123]

As I play Tera Online on a daily basis (boredom is setting in now) with my Lv60 char, it amazes me when I put UO alongside it.

Tera's economy is one gigantic gold sink. It isn't easy to farm gold in that game and everything you do (even crafting) involves large amounts of gold being dumped onto an NPC. To enchant weapons and armour (very much essential) you need to buy a special powder which costs a lot of gold - and success rates are extremely low. You end up spending thousands of gold just to enchant an item by ONE level out of the possible max 12. Pathetic.

With UO, everything revolved around player trading. Selling stuff to one another, and that built up a colossal community spirit. WBB Smithy for example had all of Europa's best smiths who would repair items for a modest fee - who remembers Lord Ulysses for example?

It is a shame todays MMO's will never ever touch on such aspects.

I remember Lord Ulysses! There was a two storey villa within the guard one near East Brit Bank. I was friends with a guy who helped run it as a shop. Think he was called Thor. He gave me a gold shield when I was new. I was amazed.

 

[Muban]

WBB Smithy for example had all of Europa's best smiths who would repair items for a modest fee - who remembers Lord Ulysses for example?

Geee I remember those guys, used them all the time. I'm fairly sure he was one of the ones who I'd also give a tip (a bag with cider, a ham and some sort of confection etc ).

I played for a long time, left, came back, left, came back, left.............I haven't played for years. In the end I had a full set of every plate, dragonscale and bone armour (with matching mounts ). I also had no room left to put anything in the bank or my house.

This was right towards the end of when I played:

 

[Scotty123]

Bank sitter much?

 

[MrJohnSherry]

Ah UO, I spent most of my time on a freeshard called 'Casiopia'. Some great great guys there, non more so than a PK'er called Keke Radiation. He used to sit at Britains bank, and kill more or less everyone and over time he followed a cult sort of following with PK'ers proving themselves to him, Incubus and Nox.

My God, I am shocked I can still remember the names, I was only 10 when I played this game and played until I was about 14 - 15.

UO really spoiled me, and no game has ever came close, I am hoping GW2 not being a WoW clone can recapture the magic for me. Used to love the GM events though, PVP Tournaments, great days!