Ultima Online is still receiving updates as it celebrates its 25th anniversary
Veteran rewards and Valentine's Day roses are coming to the classic MMO.
Thread: Ultima Online is still receiving updates as it celebrates its 25th anniversary
Ferdinand the Cowfish
Member
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I'm still friends with people I met playing UO.
Some of them I talk to literally every day online and we get together in person at least once a year. I've been to their weddings, parties, and even a couple of christenings.
Some of them I talk to literally every day online and we get together in person at least once a year. I've been to their weddings, parties, and even a couple of christenings.
Ultima Online has a special shield if you've been playing for 25 years
A quarter of a century.
5 stories of murder and theft that prove Ultima Online was one of the best MMOs ever
Looking back at armies of deer and brutal murders that shaped one of the greatest PC games ever made.
Ultima Online’s 25th anniversary
Well, twenty-five years is a long time. Half a life, in fact! Given that I actually started work on UO on September 1st 1995, it’s actually more than half. The fact that the game is still run…
www.raphkoster.com
Stifler's Mom
I've got some Scotch
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Optimus
Member
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I miss the friends I had made in UO. I've lost touch with so many people over the years. -sigh- All my old IRC Warez buddies and UO buddies, some of which eventually became my GameCube buddies, and now I have contact with none of them...
Epic Nemesis
Needs No Introduction
Still the best delivery of the MMO promise. Loved that game, the only potential issue with it was there wasn't really much of an "end game" to it, but it honestly didn't need it.
Pr0cs
Member
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I remember playing it at work and on the weekends, insanely addictive.
Sadly for me it was ruined by exploiters and cheaters abusing the rules of the game to get away with murder but I did have some really great experiences in there.. Breaking into people's houses undetected and hidden and robbing them blind. The game didn't hold your hand at all and you could effectively lose weeks of work if you weren't careful.
Besides DAOC I can't think of another game that I spent as much time in as UO.
Sadly for me it was ruined by exploiters and cheaters abusing the rules of the game to get away with murder but I did have some really great experiences in there.. Breaking into people's houses undetected and hidden and robbing them blind. The game didn't hold your hand at all and you could effectively lose weeks of work if you weren't careful.
Besides DAOC I can't think of another game that I spent as much time in as UO.
Optimus
Member
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I lost about 5 months of my young pointless 18-year-old life to UO. I was so hooked that I got even more addicted to helping build an unofficial shard. I loved creating new content on that thing and having players discover and fulfill quests I tried to bury deep within the world lore. Just awesomely great fun for a hopeless teen who had just been uprooted and moved and no friends within a thousand miles.
I do not long to return to that part of my life, but I would certainly love to have something like UO in my life today.
Pr0cs
Member
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I don't think I have the time or patience for these types of games, if anything UO exposed a fatal design flaw in these types of games and MMOs in general.
How do you keep everyone playing?
Too grindy and only the most dedicated of players will continue.
Too easy and it's shelf life will be limited
Too punishing and it's lack of mainstream appeal will ensure it's demise
How can you rope new players in, those that only have a few hours a week to play, but still keep the basement dwelling cretins (myself 25 years ago) playing and giving a sense of community.?
Optimus
Member
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Well, you're not wrong. For me, and this could draw some criticism my way... for me, it's about that BotW-ness of a sandbox RPG.
Go at your own pace.
Do what you feel like doing.
Let the world show you what it has to offer.
Don't forget, however, that there's a princess holding the fate of the world with her magic power that is slowly draining down... lolz
1. How do you keep everyone playing?
A. You don't. Just make a game engaging and interesting enough that they will want to come back as opposed to "needing" to come back.
2. How can you rope new players in, those that only have a few hours a week to play, but still keep the basement dwelling cretins (myself 25 years ago) playing and giving a sense of community.?
A. I feel like it's the same general problem employers have with really good senior level talent versus new talent. You can't have too much of one or the other for "reasons" (for businesses it's generally costs that are the limitation). For an MMO, you need the constant influx of new players because without it there's no growth of the userbase. So what you ultimately need is The Ladder. It's like providing a career ladder but for the player. Veteran players need something to vie for. Something that will keep their interest stoked.
When I was still playing UO, on a certain private shard I had amassed such wealth that I began something of an underground cult. Our private shard of a couple hundred players allowed PvP in many places. I once got revenge on an asshole who would kill me early on, so I started my little gang and I left books in a lot of places for people to leave the names of PK'ers. We would take those names as quests and hunt the player killers. I loved it. Sure, they might kill me. They might even kill all of us. But we always come back. We never stop.
I loved that shard.
I feel like the best way to keep your veteran players is to give them veteran options for how to engage with the game. If you've been at it for years, then your role in the world should become something more tangible to the world. There is a balance, of course, and the worst part about MMO's is that they continue to play and live without you, and if you can't come back for a month you are basically out of the world for a month.
This is why I ultimately desire the single player fully immersive experience like Elder Scrolls.
QuantumZebra
It’s just basic anatomy
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Old school MMORPGs (I draw the line at WoW) were amazing at bringing people together. I miss those days.
I literally met my wife and some of my best friends on EverQuest.
OuterSpace
Member
Loved this game all through T2A. It was such a blow when they put out the Renaissance expansion. Splitting the worlds killed a lot of the world and player dynamic and all my friends and co-horts didn't last too long after that. Least when I quit I could still ebay my house for a few bucks.
Pr0cs
Member
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Oh shit, I forgot about that too. I had a medium house on a popular German server (Drachenfels). When I quit UO I sold it for $250 usd which surprised the hell out of my girlfriend at the time that consistently gave me shit for playing the game
Dreamlord
Living the...
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Did you take her out for a nice dinner with that money, or did you buy yourself a joystick or something? You know, to teach her a lesson.
Pr0cs
Member
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I was dumb enough to marry her and in turn divorced her and in end she got pretty much everything in the process.
No, I'm not bitter
Dreamlord
Living the...
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Got it. You got yourself the joystickI was dumb enough to marry her and in turn divorced her and in end she got pretty much everything in the process.
No, I'm not bitter
Sorry to hear, tho.
OuterSpace
Member
Yeah at the time gold fetched a decent price on ebay too. People used to say UO's gold had more monetary value than the currency of some countries. I believe it.
Hinedorf
Member
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I've tried several times to get back into it, this was my OG foray into both PC and online PC gaming as I had bought the game before I actually owned a PC at the time. When you've owned castles and had min/max'd characters and PK'd to your hearts content it's really hard to go back and start over and I just can't do it again.
