Hello,
I know this topic probably has been beat to death. But like most, I am a returning player and probably have not been in the UO world for about 2 years or so. I'm contemplating on coming back but unfortunately the last expansion I bought was AOS and I think I bout what was it the 7th anniversary edition (the one that came with Ultima 9). I used to love the game, started out back in 01 so not as long ago as most but still a while ago.
With money beign tight and seems after calls to Gamestop and EBgames no one has any UO expansions so I can't even upgrade right now, can I participate in some of the events with only AOS? And with the upgrades without the extra expansions, how did that affect skilling up your character? I know right now my char probably is deleted so i'll have to start up a new one, so also I was wondering if there were any good popular US shards up with enough people to bring back the old RP UO experience.

I guess any help or inspiration from anyone would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

You can download the latest client from http://www.uo.com/uoml/downloads.shtml
and upgrade your account at https://www.uogamecodes.com/

They have added alot of new stuff with the mondain expansion and you probably have noticed the latest UO: Kingdom Reborn press release.

How much does it cost to download the latest client? Unfortunately i'm at work now and the main uo site is blocked.

Good tips Feral, thanks

As Feral said, you can download the latest client for free, but you'll need to upgrade your account to be able to see/use all the latest goodies
But, from what I know (I'm not playing UO right now) everyone can take part in the events.

Welcome to the forums to, both of yas

Free, but you will need to upgrade your account to visit the new lands and/or use the new items etc.

Well is there any cost besides the monthly fee i'm going to occur? like how much would it cost to upgrade the account? And what is the monthly fee now for UO? Haven't played in so long I dont remember

The upgrade costs - Price: $29.99 (mondains legacy upgrade code)
Which also includes a new player code,

I can't find a price for the single upgrade code, which is odd.

Price per month, from memory, is $13.99?

Ouch 29.99. Hmm maybe i'll keep my fingers crossed for a while to see if EB will carry it soon again hopefully. Trade some stuff in and try to get it for free.

Back to the fact I only have AOS right now. I take it the land is pretty well filled up? Just wondering how easy it is to get gold and get a house and all nowadays. Always loved that part of UO, buying a house, decorating it, the likes.
Also, I forget as far as specs. Is the 2D Client still pretty decent? I remember I used to live by the 3D client, but the problem I always had was that it jumped around a lot. I know my system can handle it (was a WoW player for quite some time and that ran fine). But I can't really tell if some of the screenshots in the forums are 2D or not. If they are looks pretty decent. (don't think I used 2D since I first started playing UO than quickly switched to the 3D client).

The monthly fee is 12.95 I believe, and you can buy a Mondain's Legacy upgrade code on ebay for real cheap. I think I saw one for 10 bucks?

Anyway, with AoS you can pretty much access anything you remembered back in the day still. There are certain areas, items, and things you can only do/have if you upgrade though, but most of it is arbitrary. I was in your shoes as well. I got back into UO after a 3 year abscence at the end of June and didn't know anything going on.

I moved to Atlantic because everyone I knew from my old server was gone, and the reason being was because was that I get the best ping on Atlantic, ironically, and there are more people there to interact with. As for housing, it is still relatively cheap. If you get about 100k you can buy almost any decent sized house. The hard part is finding a spot to put it in. If you don't care what size house you have initially, then you can find a spot pretty easily. I just found a plot near the yew gate in Fel on Atlantic that was 9x14, so it is possible to get a decent sized house in a good area still.

The 2D client is still what I use, and yes, it is still quite good. Most screen shots that you see are from the 2D client.