New games like old school Ultima Online

[Deleted]

I will never understand why games removed the ability to loot other players when you kill them. That was the best part about PKing in UO especailly when you got someone's house key and cleaned them out. Other than maybe EvE there isnt a single MMO out right now where PvP has any consequence. PvP in games today is nothing more than zergfests because you know you have nothing to lose. And to people who are saying "WTF. Why would I want all my gear stolen that sounds fun". QQ more and get better.

Probably because most people do not get any enjoyment out of seeing hours of work ruined and taken away when life is already stressful enough. Morality isn't only limited to the real world, after all. It has less to do with 'whining' and more to do with the simple fact that in this day and age, many gamers simply do not have the time or urge to start from scratch each time someone scores a major victory over them.

Let's not forget that such games were full of blackmail, harassment and bribery that led many players to be ruthlessly hunted down and killed until they lost everything. Usually because they dared say something an influential player disagreed with. I'm glad that mentality can no longer exist in most current games.

[Davlin]

Probably because most people do not get any enjoyment out of seeing hours of work ruined and taken away when life is already stressful enough. Morality isn't only limited to the real world, after all. It has less to do with 'whining' and more to do with the simple fact that in this day and age, many gamers simply do not have the time or urge to start from scratch each time someone scores a major victory over them.

Which is a roundabout way of saying people have just gotten lazy. =]

Let's not forget that such games were full of blackmail, harassment and bribery that led many players to be ruthlessly hunted down and killed until they lost everything. Usually because they dared say something an influential player disagreed with. I'm glad that mentality can no longer exist in most current games.

And those exact methods aren't utilized in WoW? I've seen entire guilds belligerently troll, berate, harass (what have you), a single player (or groups of players) for nothing more than a general dislike for their name or chosen guild. If anything, World of Warcraft has provided the biggest, most extensive, outlet for cyber harassment/bullying. I say this because I've been a victim of it on the forums, as well as having it transfer in game. Blizzard is incapable of handling such events, and in most cases, it never gets resolved. Meanwhile, in UO (most notably free shards), that sort of conduct falls under a strict no-tolerance policy. Outside of PvP (which you're not forced to partake in), there really aren't many ways for a player to harass you. So begrudging the style of play that came with UO solely because you're intimidated by a particular style you were never obligated to participate in, just doesn't make any sense.

[blackt96]

Koreans got the thing! They made a game that is really close to Ultima and is gonna be improved because he is in beta its called ArcheAge Here is a place for informations: archeagesource. (com) /topic/636-archeage-cbt4-review-and-extensive-game-info/
I loved Uo but this game have better graphics and almost the same gameplay soo.... it my view point. (Excuse me for the bad english i'm french) Cant post link until a time so i divided it just paste all the parts

[Davlin]

There have been many wannabes attempting to replicate Ultima Online, and all have failed. The only successful MMO that has used bits of UO, would be World of Warcraft itself. Runescape probably being the most notorious failure. This "ArcheAge" won't fare any better, I assure you.

[Grable]

Probably because most people do not get any enjoyment out of seeing hours of work ruined and taken away when life is already stressful enough. Morality isn't only limited to the real world, after all. It has less to do with 'whining' and more to do with the simple fact that in this day and age, many gamers simply do not have the time or urge to start from scratch each time someone scores a major victory over them.

Let's not forget that such games were full of blackmail, harassment and bribery that led many players to be ruthlessly hunted down and killed until they lost everything. Usually because they dared say something an influential player disagreed with. I'm glad that mentality can no longer exist in most current games.

Oh boy. "Seeing hours of work ruined and taken away" - or perhaps just hours of fun that he can have again? Maybe it is your fault that a game feels like "work" to you.

[Davlin]

Oh boy. "Seeing hours of work ruined and taken away" - or perhaps just hours of fun that he can have again? Maybe it is your fault that a game feels like "work" to you.

lol... Utterly true.

[Restos3]

I know UO only by name, but I always wanted to try it. It was some years ago when I didn't have money to buy games, but now that I see this, I WANT IT.
If people are still playing this game, could you please lead the way!

[crazyb]

Oh boy. "Seeing hours of work ruined and taken away" - or perhaps just hours of fun that he can have again? Maybe it is your fault that a game feels like "work" to you.

It only became work because unless you were part of a large pack of PK'ers running around destroying anything in it's path, the only thing any of your play time benefited was the PKers. I always loved those that justified it with "L2Play n00b!", as if 6 pker's attacking a miner/lumberjack/herb gatherer was something that anybody could overcome. lol Knowing that anything you did made you just a temporary resting place until the PK'ers/thieves took it from you was very disappointing. Granted, you could guard against a lot of it (magic box opened, but locked!), but for the most part, if someone wanted your stuff, it became theirs. The game was a haven for thieves and murderers.

With that said, it was an absolutely great game. Played the Ultimas in my early teen years (IV and V being my favorites, though some hex editing of III on my Apple II computer was fun for god mode), and came across UO when it was just released. The entire game was awesome (Trinsic is under attack!!), Great Lags, err, Lakes was my server of choice. Was definitely ground breaking stuff *sigh* ahh, the good ole days.

[Skizzit]

Oh boy. "Seeing hours of work ruined and taken away" - or perhaps just hours of fun that he can have again? Maybe it is your fault that a game feels like "work" to you.

Yeah I am sure that when the person who finally put together a full set of magic armor/weapons or was carrying a full sack of regs, but then lagged when exiting a gate and was ganked and killed by 6 PKers are lots it all, the first thing he thought was "Oh boy, now I get to spend another few hours replacing all of that. Yay!"

These types of games don't exist anymore for a reason. Being a thief or PKer is only fun when you have marks and being the mark is never fun. As soon as they started making games where the average player could lo in and spend a few hours fighting monsters and collecting items and gold without then having to worry about other players coming along and taking it from them, they left games like UO is a hurry. This is coming from someone who spent the majority of him time in UO as a thief/looter. UO turned into a game where a bunch of PKers and thieves spent most of the time either killing and stealing from each other or just standing around doing nothing.

Another thing I see people looking back upon UO with the nostalgia goggles and talking about how great it was because it was an open world where you could do anything and the players really built the world. Sure, I also fondly remember all the crazy things my friends and I came up with to have fun in that game like creating pirate blockades and making player run towns. We even made a guild named Lords of Laughter (LoL) were we all dressed in different colored jesters outfits with guild titles of different Kool-Aid flavors and ran around performing practical jokes on people like "flooding" the largest player run mall on the server, but the reason we had to come up with all those things to do was because there was nothing else to do in the game. There were no dungeons or pvp battlegrounds or raids or anything like that. Your options were to farm gold, level your various skills, stand around in town bullshitting with other bored players and that was pretty much it.

UO was a great game for it's time, but a game like that would never work today. The game industry and in particular the MMO market has just changed way too much since then and gamers look for very different things in an MMO these days.

[Ighox]

UO was a great game for it's time, but a game like that would never work today. The game industry and in particular the MMO market has just changed way too much since then and gamers look for very different things in an MMO these days.

There's still more than enough gamers looking for that in an MMO, games don't need millions of players to work.
And there's still many UO emu's with a healthy population so it sort of still works today.

[Davlin]

I know UO only by name, but I always wanted to try it. It was some years ago when I didn't have money to buy games, but now that I see this, I WANT IT.
If people are still playing this game, could you please lead the way!

See my first post in this thread, here.

Yeah I am sure that when the person who finally put together a full set of magic armor/weapons or was carrying a full sack of regs, but then lagged when exiting a gate and was ganked and killed by 6 PKers are lots it all, the first thing he thought was "Oh boy, now I get to spend another few hours replacing all of that. Yay!"

The problem is, too many posters in this thread are referring to pre-T2A, when the only available facet was Felucca. What makes the reference to that era so silly, is that pre-T2A is nearly 20 years ago, and 5 new facets have been introduced since. The game has evolved over the years, and players who don't enjoy the dangers of PvP, simply don't go into a PvP-enabled facet. What's the first response a player receives when complaining about PvP in WoW? "lawlz reroll on a non-pvp server nub". The same concept applies to UO now. If you don't like PvP, don't venture into lands where it's permitted. Your only other risk would be being PK'ed by a guild member, or being caught up in guild wars (something WoW is seriously lacking).

Your options were to farm gold, level your various skills, stand around in town bullshitting with other bored players and that was pretty much it.

Again, you're referring to a primitive era. The server I currently own supports a number of different customs/concepts. Have a look at our advertisement thread on JoinUO: Imperium UO - For the players, by the players!. (Don't worry, JoinUO is a legit site... it's a voting service that allows members of the free shard community to vote for their shard to increase their ranking and recognition on the list.) We have everything from a casino, to a PvP Bounty system, to Pirates on the high seas. UO's first few expansions were a bit dull, but classic.

Also, I should mention that Champion Spawns are akin to raids.

UO was a great game for it's time, but a game like that would never work today. The game industry and in particular the MMO market has just changed way too much since then and gamers look for very different things in an MMO these days.

As Ighox mentioned, the UO community is far from dead. Most people are too ignorant to believe that a game 20+ years old could still be going strong. It may never compare to WoW in terms of subscriptions, but I'd estimate there are still a few million players left (with at least half being part of the free shard community). I could name at least three privately owned servers, hosted by the average joe, with 1-2k players.

[bals]

As Ighox mentioned, the UO community is far from dead. Most people are ignorant enough to believe that it's impossible for a game 20+ years old could still be going strong. It may never compare to WoW in terms of subscriptions, but I'd estimate there are still a few million players left (with at least half being part of the free shard community). I could name at least three privately owned servers, hosted by the average joe, with 1-2k players.

maybe 500k at most.
UO never got above ~250k subscriptions even at it's height. However, it was hugely successful for it's time. MMOs back then weren't even expected to have like 100k subscriptions. WOW was the first one who shattered that number. (Well, Western MMOs at least. Eastern mmos like Lineage/can't think of some others had huge million+ subscriptions).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_online
http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-2.png

[Fortera]

So, what you're saying is, you wish games still were incredibly difficult and required patience and determination to do even the most basic thing, like buy an item or ride a horse? Oh, okay. Yeah, I'd love having to find and tame a mount and then have to be really careful not to get it killed so I wouldn't have to go back and do that again each time. Or even better, track down a player just to buy an item every time I wanted one. Yeah, we stepped forward from that, I don't want to go back. I bet you like xp debt too.

[Davlin]

maybe 500k at most.
UO never got above ~250k subscriptions even at it's height. However, it was hugely successful for it's time. MMOs back then weren't even expected to have like 100k subscriptions. WOW was the first one who shattered that number. (Well, Western MMOs at least. Eastern mmos like Lineage/can't think of some others had huge million+ subscriptions).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_online
http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-2.png

I rarely trust content provided by Wikipedia considering it's freely editable by anyone who simply signs up. I've seen several fudged statistics provided there, and it's less likely that a game as old as Ultima would have accurate statistics. You'd be surprised at how many folks still actively play the game, and even more surprised at how many still log in from time to time. There isn't a single other MMO with the same tenure that could lay claim to the same level of success. As I said before, it may never reach WoW's numbers, but Blizzard has also tapped into a much broader market.

So, what you're saying is, you wish games still were incredibly difficult and required patience and determination to do even the most basic thing, like buy an item or ride a horse? Oh, okay. Yeah, I'd love having to find and tame a mount and then have to be really careful not to get it killed so I wouldn't have to go back and do that again each time. Or even better, track down a player just to buy an item every time I wanted one. Yeah, we stepped forward from that, I don't want to go back. I bet you like xp debt too.

This whole post was incredibly asinine. Buying items was as simple as gathering gold and going to a vendor (same with WoW), and "riding a horse" was as simple as a click of the mouse (same as WoW). Both of those examples are naive. The very fact that you're unaware that once tamed, a pet will "bond" with you via the use of a deed or one real-world week, implies you haven't any clue what you're talking about, thereby rendering your post irrelevant. That basic functionality has been a part of the game since launch. Bonded pets turn into "ghosts" on death, and can be resurrected by players (which isn't a concept so very different from WoW's).

The problem is, players have become self-entitled and dependent on cookie cutter guided gameplay. People are intimidated by the very real prospect of being able to do anything. Today's generation of gamers need to be told to do "Objective A" followed by "Objective B" to finish up "Objective C", in order to comprehend the "goal" of the game. Ultima has never had an "end game", which allows for so many alternatives on a daily basis. The only people who bash the game, are young teens who got their first taste of an MMO via World of Warcraft. I love playing WoW, but it'll never hold a candle to Ultima.

[bals]

I rarely trust content provided by Wikipedia considering it's freely editable by anyone who simply signs up. I've seen several fudged statistics provided there, and it's less likely that a game as old as Ultima would have accurate statistics. You'd be surprised at how many folks still actively play the game, and even more surprised at how many still log in from time to time. There isn't a single other MMO with the same tenure that could lay claim to the same level of success. As I said before, it may never reach WoW's numbers, but Blizzard has also tapped into a much broader market.

ignore the second link then. which I guess wasn't quite up to date: http://www.mmodata.net/ (think what i linked was the old version of the site)
and wikipedia is fairly accurate, sorry to say.
if you're writing your thesis paper I wouldn't recommend it though.

[Davlin]

ignore the second link then. which I guess wasn't quite up to date: http://www.mmodata.net/ (think what i linked was the old version of the site)
and wikipedia is fairly accurate, sorry to say.
if you're writing your thesis paper I wouldn't recommend it though.

It's hard to nab an accurate number for any MMO really; Ultima being one of the hardest. It's fairly difficult to pinpoint Ultima's number primarily because EA's quarterlies are based on the assumption of multiple accounts per user, and they don't tally accounts that went inactive in the last 30-60 days. Could you imagine if Blizzard used the same mathematics? Their quarterlies would be far less than 10-11 million. It doesn't help either, that there will never be an accurate count for the free shard community. Not every server is listed on voting sites, and there are literally hundreds of foreign servers that receive little to no recognition. But I understand where you're coming from.

I'm not here to argue semantics over subscriptions, though. There are a great number of games with just as few, if not fewer players, still going strong. Ultima will always hold a special place in the hearts of true gamers. My whole purpose in this thread is to refute the nonsense that UO is allegedly "dead", as well as the clarify the bashing of a particular era dating back to the late '90s.

[WinninOne]

So, for the record, I used to play a text based MUD called Dragon Realms. It is one of the most extensive games I have ever played. EVERYTHING was skill based and driven entirely by players. Nothing was given too you. Guilds were hidden, level requirements were not available in game, and no items had math ready stats. Everything was done in character. To illustrate the nature of the game, at one point I played a Rogue. Among other things the game allowed you to steal from player characters. So, I went to where the Warmages were training their skills and started robbing them. The only metric available to be able to guess on success was the amount of clothing the target was wearing and its quality. Older characters typically had fancier gear and, based on that, I would have to make a judgement about whether to attempt the robbery. However, a second mechanic in the game is the ability to teach ranks of one skill to other players. With some patience I was able to listen to these classes and train up magic ranks on my rogue. Eventually my ranks were high enough I could teach my own classes. Once everyone was convinced I was a Warmage they would ignore me and I could basically steal from them at will.

The reason I share this story is because I went back a few years ago to see if I still enjoyed it. The experience was miserable. I had forgotten how much work was required to develop your character. Because everything was based on skill ranks the entire game revolved around grinding up those skills. After a certain point it would take literally months to advance one level. I believe it was 7 years before the first player reached what was considered to be maximum level. Gaming isn't about that anymore. More and more gamers are not spending 6 hours per day playing these games. They play in their spare time for an hour or two and then go days without touching it again. Even if a small percentage of players still want to play non-stop there's a bigger market, especially globally, of people who want to be casual players. It's not that they couldn't learn to be hardcore players. They don't want too. They see it for what it is. A game meant to keep you busy for a little while not be the center of your day.

[Grable]

These types of games don't exist anymore for a reason.
UO was a great game for it's time, but a game like that would never work today. The game industry and in particular the MMO market has just changed way too much since then and gamers look for very different things in an MMO these days.

Wrong. May I point you to games like Haven&Hearth / Salem and DayZ Mod (which is currently EXTREMELY popular). All 3 games have permadeath, a much harsher death penalty than UO.

I could also point you to EVE online where dying also matters - if you didn't know yet, EVE online too is extremely popular.

Just because most of the players of today are carebears, doesn't mean there's no place for games with harsher death penalties. And to be honest the best time I had (and still have) playing games was in those. Just knowing that you can get killed any time completely changes how the game works and adds a whole new layer of depth to the gameplay and social interaction.

[Davlin]

Gaming isn't about that anymore. More and more gamers are not spending 6 hours per day playing these games. They play in their spare time for an hour or two and then go days without touching it again. Even if a small percentage of players still want to play non-stop there's a bigger market, especially globally, of people who want to be casual players. It's not that they couldn't learn to be hardcore players. They don't want too. They see it for what it is. A game meant to keep you busy for a little while not be the center of your day.

You can't equate the "hardcore" concept in WoW, to Ultima. Sure, the game takes time to develop, but there is really so much more time investment required with World of Warcraft, than there is Ultima. The beauty of Ultima is, you can step away from the game for a few days. With WoW, you run the risk of falling behind everyone else in content, and never getting to experience it before the next expansion. WoW has never presented much dynamic gameplay - you quest, you gather gold, you farm resources for your professions, all culminating in reaching the maximum level to redo the same dungeons over and over in hopes for that one single piece of gear that's eluding you.

To make matters worse, each and every character you choose to level follows the same cookie cutter routine. While in Ultima, each character can take a different route to reach "profitability", "sustainability" or whatever term you want to apply to being "near the top".

As I said above, with Ultima, there are a plethora of goals you could set for yourself. Just for the heck of it, let me paste a brief overview I provided in an advertisement thread, for the server I currently own:

- SA/HS Enabled (playable Gargoyles!)
- PvM/PvP Balanced
- No Skill Cap
- 300 Stat Cap (350 w/ scroll)
- Fast skill gains (check out our Training Area for even faster gains to 75!)
- An expansive New Player Dungeon, accessible only by players under 21 days old - 4 customized quests (with additional crafting quests), all culminating in a fun and challenging Newbie Champ.
- Helpful starting items: Newbie Scroll with tons of information, including a free set of LRC gear (plus more!)
- Felucca - High risk, high reward. Double the loot, resources, PS, etc in Felucca
- Fully spawned Ter-Mur (vendors, NPCs, quests, Stygian Abyss, etc)
- Fully spawned Underworld (complete with stealables)
- RP content as well (ongoing quest chains that last for months!)
- 5 custom Ores, 11 custom Woods, 7 custom Leathers; all based on a 120 skill cap.
- Smith/Tailor/Taming/Fletcher/Carpentry BODs
- Animal Breeding w/ Bio-Engineering (as well as custom tamables)
- PvP Points (Points, Rankings, Credits for Rewards, Duels, Challenge Games, & more)
- PvP Tournament system w/ 1v1 duels & arenas
- PvP Bounty System
- Pirate system (the waters aren't so safe anymore... yarr!)
- Voting Rewards (for each vote you earn a credit. Credits can be exchanged for great rewards!)
- Guild Travel (travel to guildmates, or have them come to you!)
- Custom fishing (complete with new fish, new rares, and a variety of other treasures from the depths)
- Staff Ranking system (your feedback will never go unnoticed)
- 2+ Houses per Account
- Yard & Garden system
- Automated Auction System
- Account Vaults
- Dozens of custom Stealables with varying Artifact Rarities.
- Townhouses (rentable/purchasable NPC homes scattered throughout multiple facets)
- Multiple professions: Beekeeping/Waxcrafting, Winecrafting, Whittling, Seafood, Toy Crafting, & more.
- Custom currency: Imperium Coins (used to purchase Donation Rewards!)
- Casino Royale (Poker, Slots, and more!)
- Multiple Staff events including: Paintball, Battle Chess, Bomberman, Skullball, Grab All, Bingo etc.
- Automated Staff (these auto-GMs can handle nearly all of your average help requests. Live Support is still available!)
- Mail System (send gifts directly to friends' banks!)
- Variety of custom 'mini-champs', each with their own challenges and loot!
- Druid, Cleric, Spellweaving, and Mysticism spell systems are available.
- Large selection of custom addons for your home, located in our Deco Mall!
- Rune Chanting (a system completely custom to Imperium! Not to be confused with "Runecrafting".)

Everything listed above is barely scratching the surface of what's available. That's not delving into the actual gameplay involving PvE/PvP/RP. So to say that players need to be "hardcore" to enjoy Ultima Online, is just silly.

[Skizzit]

The problem is, too many posters in this thread are referring to pre-T2A, when the only available facet was Felucca. What makes the reference to that era so silly, is that pre-T2A is nearly 20 years ago, and 5 new facets have been introduced since. The game has evolved over the years, and players who don't enjoy the dangers of PvP, simply don't go into a PvP-enabled facet. What's the first response a player receives when complaining about PvP in WoW? "lawlz reroll on a non-pvp server nub". The same concept applies to UO now. If you don't like PvP, don't venture into lands where it's permitted. Your only other risk would be being PK'ed by a guild member, or being caught up in guild wars (something WoW is seriously lacking).

Again, you're referring to a primitive era. The server I currently own supports a number of different customs/concepts. Have a look at our advertisement thread on JoinUO: Imperium UO - For the players, by the players!. (Don't worry, JoinUO is a legit site... it's a voting service that allows members of the free shard community to vote for their shard to increase their ranking and recognition on the list.) We have everything from a casino, to a PvP Bounty system, to Pirates on the high seas. UO's first few expansions were a bit dull, but classic.

Also, I should mention that Champion Spawns are akin to raids.

I am not sure what point you are trying to argue. I am well aware that EA/OSI has tried to make UO more appealing to current MMO players by adding what they look for in a game with end game combat and thief/PK free areas, but that is not what this thread is about. This thread was talking about how people missed the old days of UO where it was a much more open game that relied on the players for almost everything. My point was that people left UO and started playing games like EQ and WoW because they had those things when UO did not. The fact that UO added them in later doesn't chance that fact. Just mention the dreaded Pub 16 and the start of Age of Shadows to any really old school UO player to see what I mean. Pre Pub 16 UO and Post Pub 16 UO are very different games.

As Ighox mentioned, the UO community is far from dead. Most people are too ignorant to believe that a game 20+ years old could still be going strong. It may never compare to WoW in terms of subscriptions, but I'd estimate there are still a few million players left (with at least half being part of the free shard community). I could name at least three privately owned servers, hosted by the average joe, with 1-2k players.

An MMO where over half your player base is playing on non-sanctioned player run servers really doesn't sound like a great success to me. That's fine for the people playing on player run shards and the people who run them, but I highly doubt EA would claim it as a success.

Sure, there probably is a market for a UO style MMO in today's market and there are a number of small MMO companies out there working on them, but the vast majority of the time when I read these kind of threads by UO fans, they want a WoW sized game with WoW's budget and UO's style of rules and gameplay and that is not going to happen any time soon.

Wrong. May I point you to games like Haven&Hearth / Salem and DayZ Mod (which is currently EXTREMELY popular). All 3 games have permadeath, a much harsher death penalty than UO.

I could also point you to EVE online where dying also matters - if you didn't know yet, EVE online too is extremely popular.

Just because most of the players of today are carebears, doesn't mean there's no place for games with harsher death penalties. And to be honest the best time I had (and still have) playing games was in those. Just knowing that you can get killed any time completely changes how the game works and adds a whole new layer of depth to the gameplay and social interaction.

You are correct, I worded that badly. There is a market for those kinds of games, albeit a small one.

I do find it insulting to call fans of more forgiving games "carebears" though. There is no reason to resort to name calling just because someone enjoys a different style of game then you. The fact is video games are a business. They exist to make money. If a style of game was not popular, they would not be made. The MMO market is very competitive right now and people vote with their wallets.

Some day down the line, the popularity of "WoW-clone" MMO games will fade and maybe companies will be more willing to take chances with MMOs for all types of players from the really hardcore to the really casual. I really hope that time does come. More variety in the MMO market can only be a good thing. But for now, those harsher kind of games are mostly only going to be made by the smaller developers for smaller, niche markets.