I often think about this and how I used to LOVE uo.

Here's my breif history through time of how I found UO and loved it.

I'd never heard of the game before, but my cousin told me to buy a copy as he was going to join his friend on it.

I ordered a copy, but got sent two instead, one I threw in the draw because I was to lazy to send it back.

We both started playing before LBR, but I can't remember when, maybe 2001?

I got perma banned in about.....3 days, because I used the old See Saw trick to raise my stats, even though it was supposedly "legal"
Luckily, I had the other copy, so opened another account, hehe

When I started playing the game, I loved it, I couldn't stop playing it

My first character was a warrior, as was my cousins
The game, back then, was simple and fun
Our favourite spot was Shame level 1, we daren't go to level 2, as there were Air elementals (Ahhh!!)

At this point in time, we used to run away from orc mages and even giant spiders, because we couldn't cure with our skills, heh

We spent hours and hours in Shame, eventually hitting the magic 100.0 in Swords, Anatomy and Tactics.

I remember my first memory of visiting Terathan keep and being to scared to go in there, lol

Ah, it was then I discovered the barding class, I created my first provoker (Prometheus) and LOVED it.
Getting GM provoke was a great feeling, being able to provoke anything with 100% chance of success was fantastic and alot of fun.
During this time, I also created my tamer, which took a while to GM as well....thankgod for powerhour.

Of course, then things changed....AOS came out.
At first and this is the same for everyone I speak to, AOS ushered in a new era for UO, new life and a radically different system, but it, for me and my cousin, kinda finished UO for us.

So many changes, so many nerfs, it made me lose interest and no matter how many times i "came back" to try it again, I just couldn't get that thrill and excitement of playing UO again.

In the old days, only bards and tamers could solo anything like a dragon and then, it was hard....
Present UO, should anyone be able to do THIS and THIS?

Those were taken by me, I hunted literally for hours, to get a "good item", like a 20% lrc or some rubbish, but of course, the chances of getting the "best" item were uber rare
I never had fun doing it, which surprised me, probably because there was zero danger, especially with insurance

UO, imo, has become way to item based and quite frankly, way to complex.

In the old days, I'd head out to destard, or terathan keep and all i'd need is a standard instrument, 100 of each reagent, gm leather suit and that'd be it.
Now it's all about elemental resists, provoke chances, exceptional/slayer bonuses and god knows what else.

I dunno, after powerscrolls and AOS, the whole game and people in it changed
All of the big, PVM guilds dissapeared and were replaced with greedy, powerscroll hunting pvp'ers.
The level of greed in the game shot up a hell of alot, people no longer hunted for fun, they did so for items and it's sad to see people argue, fight, grief and scam so much since AOS's arrival.
I guess the figures speak for themselves though, at UO's peak, when AOS was brand spanking new, the number of active accounts were near 250k, since then the figure has dropped alot
According to that mmorpg chart, it's down to what? 130k-150k?

I thought a few weeks back i'd reactivate my original, first account and give it ago again
Tried to access it via account management, couldn't login
I then found out it'd been "hacked" without my knowledge and had been taken over by someone else
I have no idea who and the password I had on it, could not have been guessed, but somehow, someone, got into my original account
EA won't give it back to me, even though I have the original CD key and whatnot, as far as they're concerned, if someone pays for an account for 30 days or more, it becomes theirs.
Oh well

So I gave up on UO for good
I haven't logged into the game in ....well must be close to a year or more now.
It's a shame, I wish EA would open a classic shard, maybe a Pre LBR and a Pre UOR one.
I would love to go back to the days of real danger and real risk.

Wow that's a hell of a rant, think i'll throw this in spiels and rants

As much as i appreciate how much time and effort the devs are putting in to fix all the problems of this game.. i have to agree with you 100%.. the game is just way to damn complicated.. and all the items, greed, and scamming.. really kill any joy one can get out of this game...

its really sad, but i guess all good things eventually come to an end....

I remember when a balron was the toughest thing in the game. Back before control slots and pet summoning balls, some fellow tamers and I would take about 5 wyrms each and go into hythloth lower levels. By the time we were done we would have been lucky to have only died a few times each, and to have a wyrm or two left.

Ahhhhh
God yea, I Did that once as well
I took a bunch down to the lower level of terathan keep, it killed each of them in about 4/5 seconds! lol
But, then came the era of targetting peacemaking, that, imo, was a mistake
Even though I used it extensively as my main template, it's to overpowering

I remember I used to lure a bunch of spiders into the hallway there, they'd auto attack the ophidians behind the wall, thus blocking the corridoor, so teh balron couldn't get past
I'd then provoke monsters onto it
Ah those were the days

You know Adam, I hate to reccommend other games on your forum. But you really must check out Infantry. Uo is not where you want to be. Give me a PM and I'll help you out if you want. But if you go Infantry route, it's all geared towards PvP (risk, gain all that stuff).

Sounds interesting man, i'll send ya a pm.

I am still interested in UO.
I am getting less and less interested in playing with the people in UO.
As the years go by the total disregard for other players gets worse and worse.
I tell ya it's a good thing that I don't have a [remove player from game permanently] button.
If I did there wouldn't be a lot of people on Catskills... but the ones that would be left would be a bunch of awesome people.
You know who you are!

Agreed Flutter. The people in-game can kill it more quickly for me then anything else. I don't understand how ppl like that survive in a game such as UO really. I know that since it is open to the public (or at least to anyone willing to pay) it cannot be a perfect utopian society. I do think steps could be taken to make it less of a negative experience tho.

I am sick of the negativity. The dev haters. The game haters.
I hate playing a game with people who say "UO Sucks"
"Then don't play" I say!!
I'm tired of trying to do things only to find I can't because someone else is ruining it for me.
Just for an example, I went to the Ice Fiend spawn area a couple of days ago. I went on my bard to regain karma from killing all those paragon cu sihes and to work my discord (114.2!!) I get there and there is a tamed cu sidhe just standing there in the middle of where the fiends spawn all by itself....
A few fiends spawn and I pull them off so they don't target the dog and kill them. In comes the owner of the dog. Apparently she is "training" her cu in the art of spell resist. Apparently this doesn't mean she actually has to be around or anything....
Then I read on the tamer forums at some other site that people are recommending this method of pet training. Go leave your pet somewhere....
Holy .... God that bothered me.
You want my advice on how to train your pet? Go out and kill stuff! Play the game!
*big eye roll*

And that's just one example of how the people in this game are making me want to quit.

ive been playing solo for like 4 years now.. people piss me off... but i just gotten so board with the game lately... oh well.. in 3-4 months ill prpbably be logging back in to give it another go..

deci... you should be able to get the account back. Re-ring them... unless they went to the extreme of passing it through the uo account system thing you should be able to get it back as it was your account. I know people who have been sold an account only to a few months down the line not be able to log into it because the original owner decided they wanted it back, called up uo and got the account back because they had the original credit card it was on..

i think really it all depends on who you talk to at EA some people let you have the account back and others dont.. its all freaky.

I totally agree with you Flutter. I quit playing with other people a good while ago. I have more fun going solo, or if one of my very good friends wants to do something I'll go but that's hardly ever.