No bro, UO was the very first MMO ever created.. Still to this day nothing compares to the classic version of Ultima Online. Iv played about every single mmo out there.. and to this day none have ever created the INCREDIBLE memories I had playing Ultima Online. UO still exists.. Just not the UO that old school players call the perfect game. Which is was literally.... PERFECT
I was feeling a little nostalgic and started looking up UO and I found your channel, and have watched a few of your videos on the subject and am feeling major nostalgia. To be one of the lucky few to work on a new UO with Richard would be a mmo dream come true.
Ultima Online was and still is the best MMO I've ever played. Also, the PvP is the best I have EVER to this day experienced. Just to clarify. The oldshool skill cap was 700 skill points. Bear in mind a skill point is made up of tenths as well. I miss this skill system. I don't like levels. Later on the cap went up by a bit. Regarding the accusation of a glorified chat system, sure, it was in some ways as you could do things not possible in other games like making your own house. PvP...you MUST keep that. Player killers in UO was what made the game. Risk v Reward, in an ultimate way. Perhaps a different take on it, or perhaps not losing all your gear to a PK...or joining a guild to stop PK's. Nothing can replace UO as it was. It was the first of a kind and is something my pals talk about in the pub to this day!
I never understood the hardon for UO pvp (always found it choppy/chunky/laggy) but I agree very much with all the other points. I don't understand why levels are such a "demanded/ordinary" part of every single game design now. All it does is segregate a big playerbase into tons of tiny tiny little groups capable of grouping or playing together. In UO a character could be weaker or stronger, but you could pick up and take your whole guild somewhere, with the stronger members taking care of the weaker ones. No level requirements, no xp penalties for players of different levels grouping together, etc. To me that's the whole fun and point of an MMO. Games like WOW and all the other MMO's designed just like it basically call themselves MMO but more or less play like a large number of games of Diablo 2 going on concurrently where, really, you are only able to do things with a small number of players close to you in level and power level, often in instanced areas where you are cut off from the rest of the game anyway. It might as well be just a hub for making Diablo 2 games.
I recently installed UO again after playing Archeage, a great game as well. I skilled up fast and I am no noob, but wow, what a game. I get WTF PWNED and I HATE the people who did it. I need to know how to beat them...I will never leave UO...
I don't think there will be another UO because the UO experience was defined in part by the community. Not only was it a very different and much smaller group of people, but because there was no real competition everyone who wanted to play an MMO played UO. PKs, Care Bears, role players, looters, crafters, people who just wanted to play dress up and hang out at the bank, everybody. Now all those groups would be playing different MMOs that better suit there play style. So even if the game designers nailed it, it would be the same because it wouldn't have the same mix of people.
Even better was having to ask people in game, forming friendships that lasted beyond the game. The sense of community when sitting at the bank showing off your full set of valorite or ranger armor, or perhaps your newly tamed dragon or nightmare. Having to really form communities and guilds to succeed was awesome.
One of the things I always loved about UO - you don't even have to be a warrior, mage, or rogue to have fun. You can just be a crafter (blacksmith, carpenter, tinker, miner, lumberjack, alchemist, cook, bowyer, tailor, poisoner I think that's all of them) and then even after that you got fisherman (who can fish up sunken treasure) and treasure hunters. This game has it ALL. Google Second Age it takes you right to it.
I would love to see UO again. Best game ever made, hell I still have the cloth map of Britannia proudly displayed on the wall in my gaming room. No other mmorpg has come close. Fighting in Britain's grave yard with 100's of people at server wars, X-roads battle, huge chaos/order guild battles, battling in the lich lord room of deciet, and leveling up in the skele knight room....And who could forget the houses, boats and PK's. Now im sad lol, thanks for the videos and nostalgia markeedragon.
700 point cap. Man I miss it. I remember getting a +25 tactics, indestructible, katana of vanquishing, and got jumped right outside of town and lost it.
I agree with Markee, that no matter what game is created, it will not be the same as the first time playing Ultima Online. I will never feel the same passion and emotion for a game like I did with Ultima. The extreme sadness(and anger, only game where I have broken actual hardware from rage) I would experience when dying, was alongside an overwhelming sense of accomplishment and happiness when I did succeed. Without one, the other cannot exist. You never knew what was coming next.
Ugh. I had a 56k modem but our lines were so slowly would only connect at 28.8. I had to make a warrior because I was too slow. My friend had the brand new DSL and he could walk faster than I could run on a horse 🚶💨🐎
In Ultima Online the journey was always the fun part, not the objective like in modern games. There were so many random things that could happen along the way that made every experience memorable, it was fantastic. Also one of the major differences between the PvP in UO and other MMOs is that if you were good enough, you could always survive any encounters, even against multiple players - but if the skill difference between two players was great enough, one could crush the other.
I remember putting on my Phoenix armor riding around Britania, Jhelom, Trinsic, Magencia and the other towns on my nightmare beggin people for money, was one of the better nights of my playing time.
The more risks a game has to its players, the greater the need those players have to develop social relationships to help mitigate those risks. That was, I think, the best part of Ultima in its prime was the deep sense of community. That can be emulated in other games if only they allow players to feel a real sense of loss.
sooo miss the rush I got from running like hell from a PKer as a noobie. Then finally being able to hunt down PKers with guildies. Those were the days.
Yeah I first played UO when I was 17, and It really captured my imagination, I loved going to Britannia bank and shopping about, the thrill of being in a dungeon when It was raided by PK's, play run towns, etc. I tried playing Darkfall but they really cocked that one up, one of things I liked most about the whole Ultima series not just UO was attention to detail, and creating a fully functioning sandbox fantasy world. I think Garriott is the only one capable of doing it properly.
I once stealthed from the upper tip of the map to the furthest point south. My brother and myself started on day one and he still plays to this day daily. He hated pvp and while I didn't pk I liked fighting them. Once I accidently hit someone and got greyed and had a guy chase me for a long time. That was as close to being a bad guy I ever got. I still tell the story of my first moments in UO were to be robbed of my starting gold and murdered while mining.
I played UO on Osi shards from 1998 - 2006. Years later I played it on UOSA again. And the experience comes pretty close to the Second Age area back in the late 90s. I also showed it to my brother who didn't play back then and he liked it a lot. It might be worth checking out for you.
The great thing about UO for me wasn't even really about gaining skill, hunting monsters, etc. It was actually the player interactions. One of the major highlights for me at least was player housing. Pretty much no other MMO does this and it adds SO MUCH to the game. I know I'm still waiting for a true sequel. :)
Spoken like a true UO player. Those of us who were around during the UO golden years understand the true beauty of MMO open world PvP. The random events, the sense of community, the feeling of danger - no other game has been able to replicate what UO had.
The number was 700. I remember being one of the first 7x gm mages on the server. Magery, Evan Int, Anatomy, Wrestling, Bandaging, Resist Magic, Focus. Magery and Eval int were direct impacts on my damage. Anatomy and Wrestling let me disarm melee Bandaging let me heal using bandages "free non cast heal" Resist magic is just that resisting spells "and melee poisons" And focus was how fast my mana regenerated. I miss this game soooo much!
Wow I can't believe that 250k was the high water mark for this amazing game.. UO was insane fun in the early days. Best PC game of all time imho I'll never forget my first day logging in back in 1997 and seeing people talking about me as I warped into the world in N. Britain ("There's another newbie now") After the first few expansions came out it started to deteriorate fast. I remember how tapping the combat key and then hiding always beat the No-Hide rule they administered later lol
After leaving EA's UO I had ran a private server for 4 years that had a real loyal player base. I really miss UO and the people yuou would meat. 16 years of UO and I still talk to a few old guild mates. I've litterally watched some people grow up lol. Amazing stuff!!. AoH Angel of Honor / S%D Sacred Order of Divinity for life!
The skill cap was 700 The good think about 700 skill cap is skills work together. You had to have tactics and anatomy to make your weapon hit and do damage but anatomy is also used to calculate points healed in combination with the healing skill. Anatomy also was needed for mages along with wrestle to do stun punch. Nearly all the skills had to be supplemented by another so characters could be varied depending on what they are wanted for. AMAZING GAME.
Originial Ultima Online with the PVP and the openess of being able to do anything you wanted without set guidelines to 'win' the game is what I loved. I play on shards that are player run the Original way, none of the add ons. The Original is the best. I beta tested Everquest and WOW and was extremly dissappointed in what they had to offer and was heartbroken with the changes that Ultima did to 'match' the WOW gameplay. UO got me into a world that I had always wanted in gameplay to explore.
Markee there is a Minecraft server exactly as you described called "Lost Shard", but most of the admins are immature and the owner of the server seems to be the only one with a head on his shoulders. The players are ridiculous, but it's got the skill/guild/housing system and much of the most useful spells from Ultima Online.
i've never had the same sense of "community" as i did in UO. the pvp system has never even been close to being matched. I played Catskills from about 1999-2005ish. i totally agree about the "chat" aspect. remember bank sitting? another aspect that was amazing was it was really open world your house could collapse and you could place a plot.
Uo was kind of item based, if you had a dexxer with weapons with weapons from a Vanq runic hammer you pretty much owned! Along with armor from mass barbed runic kits till you built the perfect set.
Totally agree with your first time anology, UO was the first MMO I ever played and I really do miss it. I really hope it comes back and blows our minds! :)
Pathfinder Online is being developed by a team headed by Ryan Dancey from Eve Online and Paizo, creators of the Pathfinder tabletop RPG. First fantasy game in a long time to model itself on the Eve and UO (with a TTRPG feel). I'd give it a look as it's the only MMORPG I've looked at twice since leaving UO.
I would love to play this game you speak of. I'm 36 and have been playing games my whole life ever since games came on a real floppy and had 8 discs in all lol. I have played many MMOs including wow and now swtor and the grind and elitest attitude are always the things that kill it for me in the long run, even though swtor has a great storyline with amazing voice over acting that had to take so long to do. So, yes please bring me a game like you talk about because I would play it for sure.
I really do miss UO. Playing some of these newer style games I will often ask if anyone has played UO and amazingly a lot of the new players these days havent. Or in world chat I will toss out a Kal Vas Flam to see if anyone will respond to me. UO is truely a unique game and pretty much started it all. I often think about reactivating my account and going back to look. I left a guild of 100+ people that was once in the top 10 guilds on Great Lakes. Those 100 other people pretty much left too
though i have never played UO myself, it sounds like exactly what i have been wanting to play since like... forever. sounds like what a dark souls mmo could be, though that would definately have a pretty dark tone.
Some examples of combinations, and Markee is right, HIDING is good to have in any template but here are some basic ones. Swords, tactics, anatomy, healing, parry, magery resist. Magery, evaluating intelligence, meditation, resist, wrestling - throw 2 more skills in here and you have a classic version of a mage, lots of people used swords/tactics and we called them hally mages because they used halberds to supplement their spells. Still popular on UO second age! Google it it's free to play!
A small dev team came to my favorite forum and announced intentions to create a shard for UO based on the Thief series from Looking Glass Studios. They are working quickly and producing some neat stuff. They don't have much support from UO players, however, so I hope for an infusion of players, not just moral support and cheerleading texts. :D
I think I remember UO even have a forensics skill. It was really complex if you wanted to be more than the traditional warrior and mage archetypes. I think it is time for something like UO to popup again, just so we could have something different in the market.
This may interest you really well. Have u heard of kickstarter right? There is a game called Greed Monger which has mechanics similar to UO. It first posted around the end of October and asking to reach there goal to 30,000 dollars. Currently they are at around 26,000 for the game to be made. A percent of ppl that backed this game are old UO players that are very interested for it to be complete. Any cash past 30,000 will be used to improve the game even more.
Was luring people with trapped pouches with some fish inside so that they had some weight, and was walking by britain bridge while drag and dropping the pouch on the ground like if it was too heavy to walk with. Ppl open it, of course, then die and I loot... Haha you have no clue what I would give to see it revive or help developing on it. Best game ever. Nothing else.
i have done very cool combonations of skills like necromancy and mystism stealthing and hiding on one and i did an animal tamer and swordsman. the game is still very unique and i still go back to the game to chat. and when it come to chatting. you can form familes with guild mates. it's truely truely unique in it's own nature and should come back up out of the ruins.
in argentina one mayor fan of ultima online created(in 2001) a game popular here called argentumonline, and they are a lot of the mechanics as "Hide" and the pvp as the most dificult part of the game, also a good player can take down a player 10lvls up if he knows how to play it, the game looks 100 times crapier but the gameplay is awesome
Markee is obviously describing Wurm Online in the first 8-10 minutes. Yes it exists and Notch, the guy who created Minecraft, was working on the game before he left the team to create his own. There are several Ultima style games being developed as of now, one of them being by Lord British himself.
Ultima Online: The Second Age ... is the closest server I've ever found to 100% fully realized Second Age gameplay. No restrictions on PvP.. all skills exactly as they were-- NPCs in individual shops named /exactly/ as their UO counterparts. It's awe-inspiring. And it's so active that.. I literally just got murdered while farming.. twice in 15 minutes at the Yew Bandit fort. The server's always busy. x . x; uosecondage is the webaddress.
UO was amazing. It had a very good comunity and sence of adventure. I was in an Role Play guild and had some amazing times. They need to take a step back and look at the older MMO's. Maybe not an isometric style game but UO remade in a new 3D engine with the same base ruleset would be amazing. I would like to see Britania from first person like Elder Scroles.
I remember when you would roll a new UO character, you would go hide in your house or a friend's house and grind up your skills before you ventured out into the world so you weren't an easy target.
I really beleive that UO was a perfect social game already. You where a 60min into the game newbie and joined this guild; yet you could go end-game events with your guild; help cure people/whack monsters (you woudn't pull agro from a GrandMaster swordsman) and still do damage and contributed to the evening in question. Take any class&level games today, you have to level-match and in most case, class match to partake in anything. End-game is far away. that sucks. Yes, new UO would rock
Got my tinker to gm and dropped trapped boxes in the dungeon where boxes would spawn. Players would think it was spawned by the game. They opened and died. I came out of invisibility and looted their body. That was awesome.
On another note, it was Computer Gaming World that gave UO the "Coaster of the Year" award. And later added it into their Hall of Fame. Irony at its finest.
Its was 700 points when I was on. I did 100 in Lumberjack, Axe, Anatomy, Tactics, and Swordsmanship each. I would one hit with the Exectuioners Axe! Loved it. I also would get 50 hiding and 50 stealth and sneak up and one hit these guys with insaine armor. Oh ticked them off. Nothing but death robes and Executioners Axe.
Alcedess Appreciate it friend... I knew I was close. I just remember earning that Legendary power scroll in blacksmithing... I must have wen through hundreds (if not thousands) of Valorite Ingots to fill the order the yielded said power scroll!
UO was awesome, there was always someone doing something silly at the WBB! I loved going after the guy who would polymorph and go gray at the bank. My thief was da bomb.
The fact that your basics were easy and abundant to find. This game had a low cost of entry, allowing the player to maximize his enjoyment for very little of his time. The drive wasn't to find new items or gear but to collect rares and buy a castle. No other game has done his and that is why mmorpgs are dying.
I feel a bit teased about your comments on these games that are bigger than WoW, yes I could look it up and I'm sure I'd find information and overviews of them, but I think it'd be interesting to hear your insight on the topic aforementioned.
At release: 700 point skill distribution... Str = hit points, ability to wear armor types (needed 60 str out of 100 to wear the highest tier, platemail) Dex = attack speed / stamina (that you lost while running) Int = mana pool.. 1-100.. equal to your intellect 1:1
i had never heard of ultima online until you mentioned something about it, and then i looked up a playthrough and it looked really great. but i couldn't find it anywhere.
I remember thinking, Mining and smithing will be so much better (easier) once Trammel comes in, and once it did things like mining suddenly became boring, almost over night. and the demand for player made items dropped right off. So I can see why people would be so resistant to full loot PvP because I was too, but I got to see the same game with and without it and experienced the differenced it made. And that is what changed my mind about it.
You guys should check out Ultima Online Forever if you wana get some nostalgia. Course not like in the old days, then again back then part of the "risk" was having you character lag for 2 minutes cause of the crappy modem connection...I use to get so emotionally involved with this game it wasn't funny! The thing about most new sandbox games is they are too sandbox oriented and crappy graphics, we need one that is a good action game but sandbox also. Everquest Next looks like it might have some potential, but might be instance based :(
Yup... Richard Garriot, should buy it back, and remake it available for PC, Mac, Droid, and iPhone... great way to gain massive multiplayers by allowing all devices. You look at your watch, and have a few minutes to spare. Whip out your phone, head to Fel Yew gate and start killing, or join in on a champ spawn raid, or maybe sit through a player run auction.
To start out with it was 700 skill points that you could have. So your equivalent to a max level guy was a 7x Grand master, he had 100 in 7 different skills. You mixed and matched those skills to create your build *kind of like a skill tree but more complex*. Anything from a sword and shield using warrior, a mage with poisoning abilities, or a tank mage *mage with weapon skills* hell you could just me an all around crafter. Then Age of Shadows *not chaos* cranked it to 725 skill cap,
You guys should try Darkfall (the people behind the game wanted to revive Ultima), or maybe even Mortal online (kinda similar free sandbox game with no levels)
LONG LIVE ULTIMA! Hey... Dude... I love you blogs but this one hits home... but missed. ULTIMA ONLINE 2, was EA's attempt to solve what it lost and panicked thinking it would do more damage to the original sub base. After Richard Garriott left Origin Systems he didn't leave alone. The entire team went with to create Lineage II. They made good friends with Mr. Jake Song of NCsoft! BTW, now working on ArcheAge online. Yes... this the official rebirth of the UO mechanics we all loved and enjoyed.
it might be hard to get a perfect replacement for it. but i swear that Shroud of the avatar is going to be the best thing since UO! this game is amazing! :D
danz409 SotA has tons of problems in a post-WoW and post-Minecraft world. It is still in Alpha so it remains to be seen if is going to be sucessfully both financially and from a game design POV.
The main reason why I, and other people I assume hate open pvp is that the majority of it in every game I've played that had it has been getting 1 shotted by someone 2X-10X your level. In a game with massive death penalty it just feels horrible.
Tora Hepler That was precisely the problem with UO. Most players didn't find getting griefed fun so they moved onto other games. No one gives a shit getting killed in Team Fortress 2 or other first person shooters because there is no dickwad stealing your stuff which you had to invest time into acquiring. Context is very important if players find an action fun or not.
ofcourse UO can be born again, but not with OSI/EA - just take a look at player made shards with skillset and balance created by players itself + roleplaying which is required. Modern shards use UO as a backbone/background for a roleplaying and this works really nice if you are indeed into RPG
One of my brothers was one of many people that would take a "full" magic book and sell it for 20k then run away like hell. Of course the buyer would then look in the book only find a few spells in it.
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
No bro, UO was the very first MMO ever created.. Still to this day nothing compares to the classic version of Ultima Online. Iv played about every single mmo out there.. and to this day none have ever created the INCREDIBLE memories I had playing Ultima Online. UO still exists.. Just not the UO that old school players call the perfect game. Which is was literally.... PERFECT
I was feeling a little nostalgic and started looking up UO and I found your channel, and have watched a few of your videos on the subject and am feeling major nostalgia. To be one of the lucky few to work on a new UO with Richard would be a mmo dream come true.
Dude if Richard Garriot bought the Game Back you do Realize HOW MANY PEOPLE Would Join that Very Same Day W/ A Subscription??? I Know I would!
Ultima Online was and still is the best MMO I've ever played. Also, the PvP is the best I have EVER to this day experienced.
Just to clarify. The oldshool skill cap was 700 skill points. Bear in mind a skill point is made up of tenths as well. I miss this skill system. I don't like levels.
Later on the cap went up by a bit.
Regarding the accusation of a glorified chat system, sure, it was in some ways as you could do things not possible in other games like making your own house.
PvP...you MUST keep that. Player killers in UO was what made the game. Risk v Reward, in an ultimate way. Perhaps a different take on it, or perhaps not losing all your gear to a PK...or joining a guild to stop PK's.
Nothing can replace UO as it was. It was the first of a kind and is something my pals talk about in the pub to this day!
We still play free shards man, best PVP ever.
I never understood the hardon for UO pvp (always found it choppy/chunky/laggy) but I agree very much with all the other points. I don't understand why levels are such a "demanded/ordinary" part of every single game design now. All it does is segregate a big playerbase into tons of tiny tiny little groups capable of grouping or playing together. In UO a character could be weaker or stronger, but you could pick up and take your whole guild somewhere, with the stronger members taking care of the weaker ones. No level requirements, no xp penalties for players of different levels grouping together, etc. To me that's the whole fun and point of an MMO. Games like WOW and all the other MMO's designed just like it basically call themselves MMO but more or less play like a large number of games of Diablo 2 going on concurrently where, really, you are only able to do things with a small number of players close to you in level and power level, often in instanced areas where you are cut off from the rest of the game anyway. It might as well be just a hub for making Diablo 2 games.
Holy Crap YES Risk V. Rewards is the BEST!
I recently installed UO again after playing Archeage, a great game as well. I skilled up fast and I am no noob, but wow, what a game. I get WTF PWNED and I HATE the people who did it. I need to know how to beat them...I will never leave UO...
Are you playing UO Forever?
I don't think there will be another UO because the UO experience was defined in part by the community. Not only was it a very different and much smaller group of people, but because there was no real competition everyone who wanted to play an MMO played UO. PKs, Care Bears, role players, looters, crafters, people who just wanted to play dress up and hang out at the bank, everybody. Now all those groups would be playing different MMOs that better suit there play style. So even if the game designers nailed it, it would be the same because it wouldn't have the same mix of people.
Even better was having to ask people in game, forming friendships that lasted beyond the game. The sense of community when sitting at the bank showing off your full set of valorite or ranger armor, or perhaps your newly tamed dragon or nightmare. Having to really form communities and guilds to succeed was awesome.
One of the things I always loved about UO - you don't even have to be a warrior, mage, or rogue to have fun. You can just be a crafter (blacksmith, carpenter, tinker, miner, lumberjack, alchemist, cook, bowyer, tailor, poisoner I think that's all of them) and then even after that you got fisherman (who can fish up sunken treasure) and treasure hunters. This game has it ALL. Google Second Age it takes you right to it.
I would love to see UO again. Best game ever made, hell I still have the cloth map of Britannia proudly displayed on the wall in my gaming room. No other mmorpg has come close. Fighting in Britain's grave yard with 100's of people at server wars, X-roads battle, huge chaos/order guild battles, battling in the lich lord room of deciet, and leveling up in the skele knight room....And who could forget the houses, boats and PK's. Now im sad lol, thanks for the videos and nostalgia markeedragon.
700 point cap. Man I miss it. I remember getting a +25 tactics, indestructible, katana of vanquishing, and got jumped right outside of town and lost it.
Such an adorable man! Want to just give you a big hug!!!
I agree with Markee, that no matter what game is created, it will not be the same as the first time playing Ultima Online. I will never feel the same passion and emotion for a game like I did with Ultima. The extreme sadness(and anger, only game where I have broken actual hardware from rage) I would experience when dying, was alongside an overwhelming sense of accomplishment and happiness when I did succeed. Without one, the other cannot exist. You never knew what was coming next.
I loved this game and remember it fondly as you do.. but Nobody seems to mention trying to play it on a 56k modem =)
Ugh. I had a 56k modem but our lines were so slowly would only connect at 28.8. I had to make a warrior because I was too slow. My friend had the brand new DSL and he could walk faster than I could run on a horse 🚶💨🐎
In Ultima Online the journey was always the fun part, not the objective like in modern games. There were so many random things that could happen along the way that made every experience memorable, it was fantastic.
Also one of the major differences between the PvP in UO and other MMOs is that if you were good enough, you could always survive any encounters, even against multiple players - but if the skill difference between two players was great enough, one could crush the other.
I remember putting on my Phoenix armor riding around Britania, Jhelom, Trinsic, Magencia and the other towns on my nightmare beggin people for money, was one of the better nights of my playing time.
The more risks a game has to its players, the greater the need those players have to develop social relationships to help mitigate those risks. That was, I think, the best part of Ultima in its prime was the deep sense of community. That can be emulated in other games if only they allow players to feel a real sense of loss.
sooo miss the rush I got from running like hell from a PKer as a noobie.
Then finally being able to hunt down PKers with guildies. Those were the days.
Yeah I first played UO when I was 17, and It really captured my imagination,
I loved going to Britannia bank and shopping about, the thrill of being in a dungeon when It was raided by PK's, play run towns, etc.
I tried playing Darkfall but they really cocked that one up, one of things I liked most about the whole Ultima series not just UO was attention to detail, and creating a fully functioning sandbox fantasy world. I think Garriott is the only one capable of doing it properly.
Dayz brings back some of the feelings I had playing UO back in the day.
I once stealthed from the upper tip of the map to the furthest point south. My brother and myself started on day one and he still plays to this day daily. He hated pvp and while I didn't pk I liked fighting them. Once I accidently hit someone and got greyed and had a guy chase me for a long time. That was as close to being a bad guy I ever got. I still tell the story of my first moments in UO were to be robbed of my starting gold and murdered while mining.
I played UO on Osi shards from 1998 - 2006. Years later I played it on UOSA again. And the experience comes pretty close to the Second Age area back in the late 90s. I also showed it to my brother who didn't play back then and he liked it a lot. It might be worth checking out for you.
The great thing about UO for me wasn't even really about gaining skill, hunting monsters, etc. It was actually the player interactions. One of the major highlights for me at least was player housing. Pretty much no other MMO does this and it adds SO MUCH to the game.
I know I'm still waiting for a true sequel. :)
Also remember when it started with 4 servers that crashed every hour. Still checked every five minutes to see if the server was up....sooo addictive.
Caskills here. Hunted the Shadowclan Orcs and the Undead in the Yew region. It was awesome taking over the Shadowclan fort. Best times....
this game sounds like it was full of awesomeness!
lets keep our fingers crossed for a game similar to this in the future!
Spoken like a true UO player. Those of us who were around during the UO golden years understand the true beauty of MMO open world PvP. The random events, the sense of community, the feeling of danger - no other game has been able to replicate what UO had.
The number was 700. I remember being one of the first 7x gm mages on the server. Magery, Evan Int, Anatomy, Wrestling, Bandaging, Resist Magic, Focus.
Magery and Eval int were direct impacts on my damage.
Anatomy and Wrestling let me disarm melee
Bandaging let me heal using bandages "free non cast heal"
Resist magic is just that resisting spells "and melee poisons"
And focus was how fast my mana regenerated.
I miss this game soooo much!
Wow I can't believe that 250k was the high water mark for this amazing game.. UO was insane fun in the early days. Best PC game of all time imho
I'll never forget my first day logging in back in 1997 and seeing people talking about me as I warped into the world in N. Britain ("There's another newbie now")
After the first few expansions came out it started to deteriorate fast.
I remember how tapping the combat key and then hiding always beat the No-Hide rule they administered later lol
700 skill points and more depending on how many years you played , and stats depending on if your char used a +25 stat scroll or not
After leaving EA's UO I had ran a private server for 4 years that had a real loyal player base. I really miss UO and the people yuou would meat. 16 years of UO and I still talk to a few old guild mates. I've litterally watched some people grow up lol. Amazing stuff!!. AoH Angel of Honor / S%D Sacred Order of Divinity for life!
The skill cap was 700 The good think about 700 skill cap is skills work together. You had to have tactics and anatomy to make your weapon hit and do damage but anatomy is also used to calculate points healed in combination with the healing skill. Anatomy also was needed for mages along with wrestle to do stun punch. Nearly all the skills had to be supplemented by another so characters could be varied depending on what they are wanted for. AMAZING GAME.
Originial Ultima Online with the PVP and the openess of being able to do anything you wanted without set guidelines to 'win' the game is what I loved. I play on shards that are player run the Original way, none of the add ons. The Original is the best. I beta tested Everquest and WOW and was extremly dissappointed in what they had to offer and was heartbroken with the changes that Ultima did to 'match' the WOW gameplay. UO got me into a world that I had always wanted in gameplay to explore.
Markee there is a Minecraft server exactly as you described called "Lost Shard", but most of the admins are immature and the owner of the server seems to be the only one with a head on his shoulders. The players are ridiculous, but it's got the skill/guild/housing system and much of the most useful spells from Ultima Online.
i've never had the same sense of "community" as i did in UO. the pvp system has never even been close to being matched. I played Catskills from about 1999-2005ish. i totally agree about the "chat" aspect. remember bank sitting? another aspect that was amazing was it was really open world your house could collapse and you could place a plot.
Uo was kind of item based, if you had a dexxer with weapons with weapons from a Vanq runic hammer you pretty much owned! Along with armor from mass barbed runic kits till you built the perfect set.
Totally agree with your first time anology, UO was the first MMO I ever played and I really do miss it. I really hope it comes back and blows our minds! :)
Well due to the karma system in place, being a PK was hazardous due to stat loss.
Pathfinder Online is being developed by a team headed by Ryan Dancey from Eve Online and Paizo, creators of the Pathfinder tabletop RPG. First fantasy game in a long time to model itself on the Eve and UO (with a TTRPG feel). I'd give it a look as it's the only MMORPG I've looked at twice since leaving UO.
Great video made me have nostalgia feels
long live Fel!!
DayZ, Eve, and The WarZ are all excellent examples of the sandbox game type he talks about in this video.
I would love to play this game you speak of. I'm 36 and have been playing games my whole life ever since games came on a real floppy and had 8 discs in all lol. I have played many MMOs including wow and now swtor and the grind and elitest attitude are always the things that kill it for me in the long run, even though swtor has a great storyline with amazing voice over acting that had to take so long to do. So, yes please bring me a game like you talk about because I would play it for sure.
I really do miss UO. Playing some of these newer style games I will often ask if anyone has played UO and amazingly a lot of the new players these days havent. Or in world chat I will toss out a Kal Vas Flam to see if anyone will respond to me. UO is truely a unique game and pretty much started it all. I often think about reactivating my account and going back to look. I left a guild of 100+ people that was once in the top 10 guilds on Great Lakes. Those 100 other people pretty much left too
though i have never played UO myself, it sounds like exactly what i have been wanting to play since like... forever.
sounds like what a dark souls mmo could be, though that would definately have a pretty dark tone.
8:09 PVP "Getting Killed by other players IS Part of the Charm" YESSSS
Some examples of combinations, and Markee is right, HIDING is good to have in any template but here are some basic ones. Swords, tactics, anatomy, healing, parry, magery resist. Magery, evaluating intelligence, meditation, resist, wrestling - throw 2 more skills in here and you have a classic version of a mage, lots of people used swords/tactics and we called them hally mages because they used halberds to supplement their spells. Still popular on UO second age! Google it it's free to play!
A small dev team came to my favorite forum and announced intentions to create a shard for UO based on the Thief series from Looking Glass Studios. They are working quickly and producing some neat stuff. They don't have much support from UO players, however, so I hope for an infusion of players, not just moral support and cheerleading texts. :D
I think I remember UO even have a forensics skill. It was really complex if you wanted to be more than the traditional warrior and mage archetypes.
I think it is time for something like UO to popup again, just so we could have something different in the market.
225, was the starting total stats. you could max 2 with 25 remaining.
This may interest you really well. Have u heard of kickstarter right? There is a game called Greed Monger which has mechanics similar to UO. It first posted around the end of October and asking to reach there goal to 30,000 dollars. Currently they are at around 26,000 for the game to be made. A percent of ppl that backed this game are old UO players that are very interested for it to be complete. Any cash past 30,000 will be used to improve the game even more.
Was luring people with trapped pouches with some fish inside so that they had some weight, and was walking by britain bridge while drag and dropping the pouch on the ground like if it was too heavy to walk with. Ppl open it, of course, then die and I loot... Haha you have no clue what I would give to see it revive or help developing on it. Best game ever. Nothing else.
i have done very cool combonations of skills like necromancy and mystism stealthing and hiding on one and i did an animal tamer and swordsman. the game is still very unique and i still go back to the game to chat. and when it come to chatting. you can form familes with guild mates. it's truely truely unique in it's own nature and should come back up out of the ruins.
if ultima was remade like the original UO but with todays graphic's and more end game content i would play it in a heartbeat
in argentina one mayor fan of ultima online created(in 2001) a game popular here called argentumonline, and they are a lot of the mechanics as "Hide" and the pvp as the most dificult part of the game, also a good player can take down a player 10lvls up if he knows how to play it, the game looks 100 times crapier but the gameplay is awesome
I don't think that new UO would be too successful, but at least I would give it a try. Keep up the vids!
Markee is obviously describing Wurm Online in the first 8-10 minutes. Yes it exists and Notch, the guy who created Minecraft, was working on the game before he left the team to create his own.
There are several Ultima style games being developed as of now, one of them being by Lord British himself.
Originally it was 225 stat cap (str/dex/int) and 700 skillcap. Most players did 100str, 25dex, 100intel.
Ultima Online: The Second Age ... is the closest server I've ever found to 100% fully realized Second Age gameplay. No restrictions on PvP.. all skills exactly as they were-- NPCs in individual shops named /exactly/ as their UO counterparts.
It's awe-inspiring. And it's so active that.. I literally just got murdered while farming.. twice in 15 minutes at the Yew Bandit fort. The server's always busy. x . x;
uosecondage is the webaddress.
What was your hotkey for hiding? F8 was mine. Hiders represent!
CTRL+H!
Haha, too funny! Mine was also F8 :-)
thenekom f1 lol
Haha, mine was also F8!
i played great lakes for 12yrs, would like to get back in it but i think its jus changed way to much nowadays
UO was amazing. It had a very good comunity and sence of adventure. I was in an Role Play guild and had some amazing times. They need to take a step back and look at the older MMO's. Maybe not an isometric style game but UO remade in a new 3D engine with the same base ruleset would be amazing. I would like to see Britania from first person like Elder Scroles.
I remember when you would roll a new UO character, you would go hide in your house or a friend's house and grind up your skills before you ventured out into the world so you weren't an easy target.
I really beleive that UO was a perfect social game already. You where a 60min into the game newbie and joined this guild; yet you could go end-game events with your guild; help cure people/whack monsters (you woudn't pull agro from a GrandMaster swordsman) and still do damage and contributed to the evening in question.
Take any class&level games today, you have to level-match and in most case, class match to partake in anything. End-game is far away. that sucks.
Yes, new UO would rock
I'd be interested in joining a large build world. With mc mods it is possible to create a voxel ultima online.
Got my tinker to gm and dropped trapped boxes in the dungeon where boxes would spawn. Players would think it was spawned by the game. They opened and died. I came out of invisibility and looted their body. That was awesome.
On another note, it was Computer Gaming World that gave UO the "Coaster of the Year" award. And later added it into their Hall of Fame. Irony at its finest.
Markee hes totally into the idea of browser games so the next UO will likely be a simple browser game.
I don't think any game will ever be as great as UO was.
but the thing with UO is that there is/was no "end game"
Its was 700 points when I was on. I did 100 in Lumberjack, Axe, Anatomy, Tactics, and Swordsmanship each. I would one hit with the Exectuioners Axe! Loved it. I also would get 50 hiding and 50 stealth and sneak up and one hit these guys with insaine armor. Oh ticked them off. Nothing but death robes and Executioners Axe.
its 700 total points so a 7x gm
Until they released power scrolls that would make your skills top out at like 725 or whatever the value of the particular scroll was.
Scott Bodkin
105
110 Elder
115
120 Legendary
Alcedess
Appreciate it friend... I knew I was close. I just remember earning that Legendary power scroll in blacksmithing... I must have wen through hundreds (if not thousands) of Valorite Ingots to fill the order the yielded said power scroll!
LodinDraws "Club 700" FTW :-)
Great piece Marcus,I mjiss the UO days as well.Maybe perma -death is what people are headed towards.Look how fast Dayz took off.
I like all your stories :) amazing channel i subbed.
UO was awesome, there was always someone doing something silly at the WBB! I loved going after the guy who would polymorph and go gray at the bank. My thief was da bomb.
The fact that your basics were easy and abundant to find. This game had a low cost of entry, allowing the player to maximize his enjoyment for very little of his time. The drive wasn't to find new items or gear but to collect rares and buy a castle. No other game has done his and that is why mmorpgs are dying.
I feel a bit teased about your comments on these games that are bigger than WoW, yes I could look it up and I'm sure I'd find information and overviews of them, but I think it'd be interesting to hear your insight on the topic aforementioned.
There's a game called Greed Monger that's taking a lot of inspiration from UO. It looks pretty good.
i always wanted to play UO in the 90s but never did. there was a kid in my grade 9 math class who played and said he was a tailor.
I never played UO but if there was like a offical relaunch or something like that, I'd be really excited to try it out.
look at uoforever its totally free and an awesome server
up till before the age of shadows patch. i quit after age of shadows. ya gotta keep it strict pvp. no trammel.
Fencing, tact,anatomy,healing, cant remember the rest for the base warrior but it was 700 skill points.
At release:
700 point skill distribution...
Str = hit points, ability to wear armor types (needed 60 str out of 100 to wear the highest tier, platemail)
Dex = attack speed / stamina (that you lost while running)
Int = mana pool.. 1-100.. equal to your intellect 1:1
i had never heard of ultima online until you mentioned something about it, and then i looked up a playthrough and it looked really great. but i couldn't find it anywhere.
I'm curious as I haven't played in a couple years -- why is this game now considered "dead"? I was looking to start playing again.
I remember thinking, Mining and smithing will be so much better (easier) once Trammel comes in, and once it did things like mining suddenly became boring, almost over night. and the demand for player made items dropped right off. So I can see why people would be so resistant to full loot PvP because I was too, but I got to see the same game with and without it and experienced the differenced it made. And that is what changed my mind about it.
to anyone curious, just google second age, you can download the entire package of files you need from the first site you see.
it's free and it's fun
You guys should check out Ultima Online Forever if you wana get some nostalgia. Course not like in the old days, then again back then part of the "risk" was having you character lag for 2 minutes cause of the crappy modem connection...I use to get so emotionally involved with this game it wasn't funny! The thing about most new sandbox games is they are too sandbox oriented and crappy graphics, we need one that is a good action game but sandbox also. Everquest Next looks like it might have some potential, but might be instance based :(
This game already exists. It's called Darkfall Online and it's awesome.
The max amount of skill points was 700 points. You could have 7x GM or 6x 120s
UO was a bright shining star and we likely won't love another game as much ever again. I have the Midus UO parody CD. ;)
Yup... Richard Garriot, should buy it back, and remake it available for PC, Mac, Droid, and iPhone... great way to gain massive multiplayers by allowing all devices.
You look at your watch, and have a few minutes to spare. Whip out your phone, head to Fel Yew gate and start killing, or join in on a champ spawn raid, or maybe sit through a player run auction.
Markee I have a question for you. Did you make a character on UO Second Age? I saw a person using the name Markee Dragon a few days ago.
Sounds like The Bloodrock Clan you're talking about, they were on my server (Great Lakes) as well as a few others, good bunch of people there.
To start out with it was 700 skill points that you could have. So your equivalent to a max level guy was a 7x Grand master, he had 100 in 7 different skills. You mixed and matched those skills to create your build *kind of like a skill tree but more complex*. Anything from a sword and shield using warrior, a mage with poisoning abilities, or a tank mage *mage with weapon skills* hell you could just me an all around crafter. Then Age of Shadows *not chaos* cranked it to 725 skill cap,
You guys should try Darkfall (the people behind the game wanted to revive Ultima), or maybe even Mortal online (kinda similar free sandbox game with no levels)
it was 700 skill points with around 50 different skill to choose from. most people would choose 7, making them a 7x grandmaster
LONG LIVE ULTIMA! Hey... Dude... I love you blogs but this one hits home... but missed. ULTIMA ONLINE 2, was EA's attempt to solve what it lost and panicked thinking it would do more damage to the original sub base. After Richard Garriott left Origin Systems he didn't leave alone. The entire team went with to create Lineage II. They made good friends with Mr. Jake Song of NCsoft! BTW, now working on ArcheAge online. Yes... this the official rebirth of the UO mechanics we all loved and enjoyed.
Can anyone tell me if there are other games today with a system similar to UO (with no char levels and skills that are like a "trade" like in UO)?
it might be hard to get a perfect replacement for it. but i swear that Shroud of the avatar is going to be the best thing since UO! this game is amazing! :D
danz409 SotA has tons of problems in a post-WoW and post-Minecraft world. It is still in Alpha so it remains to be seen if is going to be sucessfully both financially and from a game design POV.
The main reason why I, and other people I assume hate open pvp is that the majority of it in every game I've played that had it has been getting 1 shotted by someone 2X-10X your level.
In a game with massive death penalty it just feels horrible.
Tora Hepler That was precisely the problem with UO. Most players didn't find getting griefed fun so they moved onto other games. No one gives a shit getting killed in Team Fortress 2 or other first person shooters because there is no dickwad stealing your stuff which you had to invest time into acquiring. Context is very important if players find an action fun or not.
ofcourse UO can be born again, but not with OSI/EA - just take a look at player made shards with skillset and balance created by players itself + roleplaying which is required. Modern shards use UO as a backbone/background for a roleplaying and this works really nice if you are indeed into RPG
One of my brothers was one of many people that would take a "full" magic book and sell it for 20k then run away like hell. Of course the buyer would then look in the book only find a few spells in it.