Obligatory WUA UO post! Game free through the 12th!

[Soulflame]

Gawd, this is absolutely terrible.  We actually paid for this at one time?

I more or less have no idea how to play this anymore.  Or even why I should play.

[Chinchilla]

I tried downloading the newer client, but damn I can't get past the login screen.  I type in my info and hit login, but nothing at all happens.  WTF!

[Soulflame]

Tried Sonoma, went to Wind.  Got overrun pretty fast by two daemons and a couple liches.  Ran out.  Poor nightmare died.  Fortunately I had the nightmare on a orb thingy, got nightmare back out.  Considered grabbing white wyrm and letting them all know who is boss, but said fuckit instead.

Tried looking in on Pacific.  Laggy.  Actually had the client freeze from lag at one point.  Close out client because it won't let me log out and back in.  Log in, freeze stutter step back up to Moonglow, where I log out in frustration.

I don't think I can even play this for free.

[WindupAtheist]

I tried downloading the newer client, but damn I can't get past the login screen.  I type in my info and hit login, but nothing at all happens.  WTF!

Just a hunch, try changing your password.

[Chinchilla]

I tried downloading the newer client, but damn I can't get past the login screen.  I type in my info and hit login, but nothing at all happens.  WTF!

Just a hunch, try changing your password.

I'll try that now.  I even tried creating a trial account and even that account won't log in.  when I hit the login button nothing at all happens.

[Arthur_Parker]

Firewall?

[Rasix]

My UO account name/password aren't tied to my current email address.  I don't think there's any way to recover it.  Ohh well.

edit: Ohh hi, unlimited tries.  Got it.  Hah.

[Nebu]

I've thought about playing UO again, but it would be like ruining a wonderful memory.  I think UO is one of those games that is more fun in retrospect than it was in reality. 

[Rasix]

The point is not to play, just to dick around for an hour and be left with your memories.   I would never do this if I actually had to pay money.  My last resub was a LONG time ago. 

[Nebu]

The point is not to play, just to dick around for an hour and be left with your memories.   I would never do this if I actually had to pay money.  My last resub was a LONG time ago. 

You're probably right.  I'm just weird.  When I quit games that I really was passionate about, I usually delete all of my toons.  It's like putting closure on a chapter in my gaming life. 

[WayAbvPar]

I am the opposite- if I really liked the game but got burned out, I want something to return to if the urge strikes.

[Soulflame]

The point is not to play, just to dick around for an hour and be left with your memories.   I would never do this if I actually had to pay money.  My last resub was a LONG time ago. 

My experience is, at least so far, underscoring this in bold red ink.

There's plenty of open world stuff I could be doing, but the thing is, there's no one left to do it with.  My experience last night is UO is largely a poorly done single player game, with an interface that tries hard too hard to crib from WoW.

[Slayerik]

I actually had fun on some freeshards. Just PVPed and macroed and did IDOCs and shit. Had a few f13ers there too, was pretty cool. Brought Chinchilla here, from there ;) I always sold my accounts when quitting. I like money.

[Samwise]

I always sold my accounts when quitting. I like money.

Wise man.  I really wish I'd sold my SWG account when I quit; my resource stockpile was worth something like a couple hundred dollars at the time.  Then the CU happened.  

[Cheddar]

Pretty much echoing what was said earlier.  Not sure if I can survive a run on a public shard - something about macroing was one of the few reasons I could return to UO (albeit free shard style).  Plus, gear based shit.

[WindupAtheist]

Yeah it helps to have a buddy who's a crazy UO fanboy as well. We both came back from WoW a few days ago and he's already plunked down a small house, opened a shop selling archery gear/ammo, and asked me "Why did we ever leave?" I've put down the foundation for a somewhat larger one on Buc's Den (because we're gonna pirate NPC merchants when the mini-xpac comes out, yarr) and did resisting spells from 0 to 100 in like two hours without any third-party programs.

[Dren]

Pretty much echoing what was said earlier.  Not sure if I can survive a run on a public shard - something about macroing was one of the few reasons I could return to UO (albeit free shard style).  Plus, gear based shit.

If they seriously boot you for macro'ing these days, I'd be amazed.  Why would they care at this point.  Hell, I macro'ed on public shards during my 7 year stint from public launch on.  I even had a house next to one of those players that had an "in" with the GM's so they could run player-run events back in the day.  He would flip me shit about it sometimes, but nothing ever happened.

"Dren was up all night last night working on something.  He's VERY dedicated!"

[Soulflame]

I thought I had mentioned this, but UOAssist is pretty much built right into the new client.  There's even an option for writing LUA, although I have no idea how much can be done with it.

I hadn't played with it much, but from what I saw, it'd be trivial to Use Last Object, Use Last Target, and there was even a number of times to repeat var.

[WindupAtheist]

Actually interesting thought. What provided UO longevity while couple much newer titles are already in the grave? My theory is that key to UO "success" is socialization meta-game, in a way UO is closer to Facebook/Tweeter than any other title.

Amazingly enough a tower in good location, off-color mare and blessed black sandals will keep person logging in and subscribing a lot longer than entire dungeon set WoW has. The same thing was true from the very beginning - I still remember how big of a deal were duels and who PKed who on miner and how it could determine your standing in a PvP social ladder. It wasn't so much for PvP aspect of it, but for socialization involved in it and status of "best dueler in X" that came with it.

Newer titles following a lot more "guided ride" approach and as a result I don't expect nearly as much longevity out of them. For example WoW will die moment they stop pushing expansions. I think designs that came after UO missed key points with push of instancing and compartmentalization and complete lack of "attachments" like house and social symbols.

This is actually pretty astute. I just talked to a girl on Atlantic today who was just starting UO for the very first time. In 2010. Her previous gaming experience consisted of Facebook stuff, and she pretty much peed her pants when I explained that you could customize a house and decorated it and use it to grow plants and stuff. Someone tried to get her to play WoW but she wasn't interested.

And of course WoW would implode if they quit putting out expansions. Anyone arguing otherwise must have never played it. The whole thing is designed from the ground up in such a way as to require it. Too many months between raid tiers and people start getting antsy. Of course even UO is still cranking out expansion content, so there's no reason to think WoW would ever stop. It could shed 95% of it's users and still be bigger than almost everything else out there. There will likely be WoW expansions coming through 2025 at least.

[WindupAtheist]

Just came from a "meet and greet" with Atlantic's new Event Moderator. Nothing big, but they're soliciting for story/event suggestions. Got the URL for their website. http://atlantic.uoem.net/

It's nice this sort of thing is still going on.

Screeny.

[palmer_eldritch]

I know I always say this, but someone needs to set out to create a modern version of latter-era UO with the intention of grabbing maybe a few hundred thousand subscribers and then keeping them for 15 years.

I very much agree, and not because I want to go back to azzraping noobs, but because I am honestly sick and tired of DIKU clones showing "teh ride" down my throat. Now, we will violently disagree on what shape this sandbox going to be and what kind of rules, if any, need to be enforced, but it is nice to see 'the enemy' too getting tired of EQ clones.

The roleplayers I used to run poetry contests with would probably all agree with you.

[Chinchilla]

I made Sure the windows firewall is allowing it. Made a 14 day acct. Still no luck ;-(.  I wish they had some tech forums or something. The knowledge base has no info on my issue. It's as if it isn't register the fact I'm hitting to login.

[Dren]

I really am surprised WoW still doesn't have player housing and other fluff like this.  That game is really ripe for it.

[Segoris]

Housing is kind of an ace up their sleeve, so I think the longer WoW goes without player housing the better. They could easily add it, but why when they don't need to and can play that card in a time of desperation?

As for UO, it's weird, looking at WUA's screenie actually got me excited. I didn't play this much at all so I'll give it a go while waiting on Rifts/GW2 since I just couldn't get hooked into EvE.

That said, is anyone else playing? If so, room for a nub to leach a bit of info and maybe some gold from you?

[Xuri]

I would still be playing UO if it wasn't for all the weird shit that reduced the "Ultima/medieval fantasy world simulator"-feeling. By weird shit I mean things like transparent horses (really old weird shit, but it was what started the downfall for me), neon-colored ridable beetles, glow-in-the-dark dye-colors.

Also, the reduced/completely different quality of new creatures/animations added to the game after... uh...second age? Don't even get me started on the "enhanced" client...

[Chinchilla]

Welp still can't get in.  I even disabled my firewall.  I will just create a new 14 Day account when I get back from my mini-vacation and see if my new desktop will not run into the same issue.  If it does then I may just say screw it.  I just wanted to revisit my old character for nostagia reasons.  I'm loving Darkfall and gonna love it even more once I get my new desktop setup.

[WindupAtheist]

Housing is kind of an ace up their sleeve, so I think the longer WoW goes without player housing the better. They could easily add it, but why when they don't need to and can play that card in a time of desperation?

As for UO, it's weird, looking at WUA's screenie actually got me excited. I didn't play this much at all so I'll give it a go while waiting on Rifts/GW2 since I just couldn't get hooked into EvE.

That said, is anyone else playing? If so, room for a nub to leach a bit of info and maybe some gold from you?

I'll be around on Atlantic. I'll admit that the event staff actively soliciting for lore/story input has me intrigued. Especially since these guys have the power to do things like make permanent changes to the landscape and give out custom titles.

[Azaroth]

I thought I'd poke my head in here since some of you were following IPY 2's development. I don't necessarily want to hijack the thread from the EA UO direction it's had, but our beta website just went up at noon today.

www.inporylem.com

Holy fucking hell, I'm downloading 1889 MB of data?  I guess I'll play tomorrow then.

Oh, and our client is only ~350mb. So. ;

[Falconeer]

Uh? This seems very interesting, Azaroth. How many average players do you have there? Is it stable and fun already, or everything is still super-beta and "about to be implemented"?

EDIT: "Enter Game" button leads to a 500 error. I guess I just gave myself an answer to that question.
EDIT2: And beta starts November 1st. Ok see you there.

[Azaroth]

Beta is starting on November 1st.

So no, no download for you just yet. ;)

[WindupAtheist]

Behold, even the Sinister Lord Nythrax cares about breast cancer.


Anyway, High Seas mini-expansion hits in a couple days. I hear it's unsurprisingly buggy but my buddy is all ZOMG WE SHALL BE PIRATES so I guess I'm getting it anyway.

[koro]

All those newer mount sprites end up making that screenshot look like it's from a bad Flash game and not the UO I knew and loved for three-ish years.

[WindupAtheist]

UO never looked good. Even if we restrict ourselves to isometric sprite games from the late nineties, Baldur's Gate and Diablo both came out around the same time and looked much prettier. Don't kid yourself, it pretty much always looked like a Flash game.

It's like all those people who think George Lucas magically turned into a shitty writer when (and only when) they themselves were 30 years old instead of 8. Then when they see a decades-old review ripping apart Mark Hamill's wooden acting and bitching about shitty dialogue in the old movies, well fuck you all that eerily identical criticism only coincidentally became true about movies that came out after I quit being an uncritical child!

[Rasix]

Don't do that again. I'm saying this with my serious face on.  It's not even remotely amusing anymore.

On topic, I never minded how UO looked.  It was functional for the most part, and that's all I really care about in a MMO.

I haven't gotten to log in yet, and may not before this is all over.  Just haven't had the time.

[sinij]

UO never looked good.

I disagree. Back in 98 when I was cooking WUA jerky outside of X-roads I had zero objections to how it looked. I mean it was little bit gristly, but I didn't mind.