I attribute alot of my success in the professional/tech industry to MMOs. I started playing games like Asheron's Call, Everquest, and UO as young as 3rd grade. I helped organize pvp events, traded constantly, communicated on forums, participated in guild/clan events, recruited new members. Sounds silly and I can't really explain it but made me more resourceful, social, and generally comfortable in ambiguous situations.
We Burned Down Players’ Houses in Ultima Online
221–230 of 265 posts
Re: We Burned Down Players’ Houses in Ultima Online
#222This reminds me of the assassination of Lord British: [1] "Lord British was a player character created by Richard Garriott, the producer of Ultima Online. Using this character, Richard acted as Ultima’s King and would sometimes interact with other players. Lord British had considerable protection from an entourage of bodyguards and was even explicitly coded to be invulnerable to virtually any attack. During the game’…
Rainz was allegedly was banned from Ultima Online and all other OSI games for life. Rainz had used a Fire Field scroll on Lord British without any real hope that his assassination attempt would be successful. When Lord British died Rainz admitted he was in complete shock and even burst out in laughter. Rainz faced immediate repercussions from Ultima Online programmers and was summarily banished from the game. The off…
Rule #1: Do not embarrass the dictator.
Re: We Burned Down Players’ Houses in Ultima Online
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
Um, 20 years ago MMOs were also full of racists, misogynists, and others engaging in harassment and “spewing their shitty political opinions” both in-game and out (e.g. guild sites).
>Way more than there used to be If you played 20 years and today, you can surely notice the difference in the community?
There's just more players which means more bad apples.
Re: We Burned Down Players’ Houses in Ultima Online
#224Man, I ran across PK Ghost the other week. So many memories. Actually, looking back, it was a pretty innovative webcomic.
Re: We Burned Down Players’ Houses in Ultima Online
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think Garriot said originally he stepped out of the fire instinctively. Then remembered "Wait I'm invincible I can stand in fire." Then proceeded to stand in the fire and die. Which is kinda funny as it's become a meme about WoW players standing in fire and dying when they couldn't just moved. (To much frustration to healers) https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Stay_out_of_the_fire
Don't think it's related in any way to wow thing aside from a fact you can stand in fire in both games... But I remember telling our DPS "THE GREEN FIRE DOES NOT HEAL YOU" in some boss fight...
In UO standing in fire walls was a method people used to skill up. UO was skill based, not level based. And you gained skill points by doing those actions. A good way to have a group build up spell resistance was to cast fire field, everyone stands in the fire, and have someone cast heals. Casting the field and the heals also improved casting abilities
Re: We Burned Down Players’ Houses in Ultima Online
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
I spent a bajillion hours flying helicopters. Really loved 3 & 4. Haven't played since, though. What happened?
It’s hardly even battlefield anymore It’s like some unholy amalgamation of every shooter genre that’s been popular with kids in the past few years. It’s like hero shooter meets battle royale meets call of duty meets the battered corpse of what used to be Battlefield. It really feels like some out of touch suits said “see what kids like these days and rip it off”. The previous game had its own controversies, and many…
Just an addendum for anyone who clicks the video: the actual content starts around 2:40.
Re: We Burned Down Players’ Houses in Ultima Online
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
Um, 20 years ago MMOs were also full of racists, misogynists, and others engaging in harassment and “spewing their shitty political opinions” both in-game and out (e.g. guild sites).
>Way more than there used to be If you played 20 years and today, you can surely notice the difference in the community?
Not really, proportionally it seems about the same to me. Or did as of last year when I stopped playing MMOs again.
Re: We Burned Down Players’ Houses in Ultima Online
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah it worked like that. Saying "guards" would instantly summon the guards if any criminal was present and subsequently murder the criminal(s). Nothing about incorrect summoning though. Most people had a macro invoking "guards" "bank" abd "vendor buy" all at the same time. The interface was mud like and the first (?) command in a statement that was valid would execute.
Though at the beginning the guards didn't teleport and instakill you, instead they would have to chase you - I don't remember if their hit was an instakill but I do remember a before/after of when suddenly you could not escape the guards.
Originally they were just standard NPCs. They did not instakill. And while quite tough, they could be defeated. So a strong enough group could go in and clear out the guards until they respawned. At which point the town became lawless. I think the shift towards effectively being deities smiting criminals was complete by the end of Beta test though.
Re: We Burned Down Players’ Houses in Ultima Online
#229I missed UO's hayday, but when I've played the big modern MMOs I find myself instead attracted to the idea that individual characters shouldn't be able to do everything. I feel like forcing players to interact if they want to gather specific resources or craft vital items would really help a game feel "massively multiplayer". Are there any modern MMOs with mechanics like this, e.g. life-skill limits or some other sou…
One of the challenges is finding the right proportional scale. If the difficulty or fun of say blacksmithing nice items for the community. And you have it balanced out that you expect 20% of players be blacksmith. But then either 10 or 30% be blacksmiths either items skyrocket in price and make it unobtainable to most or the floor bottoms out making it not viable for most to engage in a market. I think its solvable b…
In early UO, say Beta through the first few months of production, I knew a lot of folks who were primarily crafts folk. The town blacksmith, that sort of thing. After a while most players developed mules who had GM blacksmith skill or whatever so it became less of a thing.
But even then there were people out there. One woman I knew spent most of her time as an interior decorator for people's houses. It was a fun element that I never really saw in other games.
I do think to a large extent it came from the genre of game being new and every play style getting mushed into one game. People looking for the more pure social RP type role will congregate in a game catering to that, while the hack & slash adventure types will go elsewhere.
Re: We Burned Down Players’ Houses in Ultima Online
#230Still hopeful that someone will make a new exciting sandbox MMO that fills the gap left by UO.
Sadly I don’t think it can be done. I mean sure, the game could be written, that’s not a problem. The trick is to get people to show up and in particular get players to play who aren’t “UO fans.” UO was amazing because a ton of people played it who weren’t UO fans or even MMO fans because such things didn’t exist. The players were simply RPG fans wanting to try something new and what happened was magical and serendip…
It doesn't help that the majority of people who bemoan the loss of games like UO quickly reveal themselves to be the sort of psychotic players who are the exact reason games like that no longer exist. You'll hear things like "I miss being able to slaughter dozens of people and take all their stuff". Ok great, but your average player hates that sort of game. And you need a high prey/predator ratio to satiate such desires.
I say this as someone who thinks of early UO as the best game they've ever played. I didn't mind that type of player, even spent most of my time fighting with/against them. But I also recognize that this segment is why we can't have nice things.