In your opinion what makes Ultima Online different from the other online RPG's?

In my opinion UO is so very life like. You have good times and you have hardships. Somtimes more hardships than good. Just like real life you must work to get anywhere. UO is my escape from reality and my boring job. It is a place where I can live my alter ego. "which isnt much different then who I really am" When I log onto UO its like a real world. You have your theives and bandits, you have people that are still learning, people that are fed up with it...yet keep playing, people that are imersed in the glory and will never leave, your rich tycoons that just keep farming gold, your people obsessed with rares and collecting.

I must say this is not that to far off from what the real world is like. Good and bad things happen to the world all the time. It takes just a few good people to make it good again.

I guess fall into that category of people who will never leave...I have played just about every game coming and going...but have always come back to uo
for me it's the diversity i guess...always something different to do...and those good people you mentioned...i've met a lot of those too

I hafta add another thing though. If UO were just liek real life no one would play it. But its almost life like world that gives you the option to be somthing different than what you are in real life. I work my boring job to get money to live and play ultima. Because in real life when you kill monsters they dont drop loot.

Without any doubt, the sex appeal of UO is the huge amount of ways you can develope and custom your character, its huge amount of content, and a very good crafting system.

The fact that it has an entirely world dedicated to PvP is also a good atraction for people.

the freedom of PvP in the early days

Well I started playing UO in hmm Feb of 99. I stayed in UO 6years + because there was nothing out there I liked. I dont play space games and I dont like the realistic graphics of the EQ stuff ect. Then wow came out which I had beta tested. I had fallen in love with it and sadly I left UO for about 2 years. I have just come back now and I sorry I ever left actually. I am still in wow as we run a guild but I wish I had keep my accts open here too.
UO offers things that no other big mmo does as far as I know. I am not sure any other big mmo offers actual dungoens like UO: they are all instance form which require a certain amount of people to do them, and then you have the bigger raid dungoens. Its nice just to be able to go out on your own or with a friend and just hunt again. Its also nice not to have a limit on the people that can come with you as well.


Leveling skills and not chars gives you access to all the lands as well. In wow you level your char from area to area and in the end when you hit 70 you have just a small part of the actual word suitable for your char. So you have to start new chars and do it all over again to hunt in the other lands again. After a while this gets a bit old.

Crafting. Well I can say WoW comes no where near it. The only thing you craft in there is armor that usually is either not worth it or so expensive to make again its not worth it. Since there is no houseing in wow the only thing really to do is farm for materials and raid to get better armor.
In UO there is so much more. At least when you go out and chop down all those trees you can make something nice with them. Then you have all the rare spawns ect. House design in this game is also awesome.
UO is not a MMO its a world simulator because of all the things you can do in it.

I have always said if they would take all the content of this game, put it in a new graphic engine, adding more quests ect this game would rock. Again though graphics is only part of it, if the gameplay suxs a pretty game is worthless.

I'm convinced housing is one aspect that keeps alot of people either playing or at the least keeping their accounts active. There is a sense of ownership in UO. And for a mutliplayer game to have any chance of also being an RPG, there has to be places for those players to roleplay. And what better than to allow the players to create and modify these places.
In my limited experiance, SWG came closest to sucessfully copying this aspect of UO. Which makes me think.... UO with the SWG 3d graphic engine would be kinda cool.

Players needing other players is a big plus. The crafting aspect needs to be worked on a bit to get it back to what it was Pre-AOS, when crafters were needed. Well blacksmiths were needed.

The board communities is another aspect of UO, while not unique is integral, IMHO, to having a active and succesful MMORPG.

But what makes UO different for me is that there is so much more to do in UO. More types of viable characters, more activities to participate in and more housing options than any other game (aside from SIMS).

Peace,

Making your way in the world today
Takes everything you've got
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot
Wouldn't you like to get away

where everybody knows your name
and there always glad you came

TITLE: Where Everybody Knows Your Name from the t.v cheers

I’d say Uo stood out more pre AOS. It was a true virtual medieval MMO back then with a bit of King Arthur and Merlin because of the magic element but, that’s what Ultima always been about. These days I say not much of that is left. It’s been ruined by silly idea’s that allowed things that took Uo on a U turn away from the medieval feel Ultima was so famous for which started with LBR with the final nail of being AOS. Now with KR it’s gone even further away as they’ve done away with one aspect that goes back to the single player games which is the container & pack system foolishly and lazily replacing it with a grid and a poor substitute mode trying to imitate the original system in a square box.

AOS really did a lot of damage to the Ultima feel in UO. It ruined a great crafting system over night with the item based system and to add insult to injury turned people in to Joseph and his tech colour dream coat with all the stupid colours on weapons and armor. Not to mention it ruined PVP as you have to uber rich in order to compete. Gone are the day of throwing on GM made armor and weapon and heading in to battle. The old magic weapon & armor system was so much better than this item stats based crap we have now. Also with the absence of a Lord British a huge part of Ultima’s identity is gone with it.

Also the development team are being unrealistic if they think the can upgrade UO but still make it work as well as 2D for people still running 4 to 6 years old Pc’s for god knows whatever reason when a today medium range Pc’s don’t cost that much to put together that’s double the power of what they’re clinging on to. The average Pc gamer has upgraded at least 5 times in the last 10 years.

Uo still retains it great skill system even though how some skills work have been changed this is about the only thing that’s been retained from its golden days besides housing. I returned earlier this year after leaving not long after AOS and playing since then I rediscovered why I had left. The spirit of Ultima is just not there anymore. When I play it I don’t feel I’m in the Ultima universe anymore. I can see how roleplay communities still thrive creating their own content and enjoying each others friendships.

If I had to play a MMORPG today it would be UO just because it's more RPG than any other game out right now (even in its sorry state). As mentioned previously the housing, skills, and crafting really set it apart.