No. While at first glance this game may seem as have lot in common with UO, in reality is fundamentally diffrent and is only a fraction of what UO was due to design choices and target playerbase. DFO is more like Quake in persistant world with persistant characters. Closer to Planetside than to UO.
Originally posted by asmkm22 I still don't know why people think UO was so great.
I owned a house (Actually several over the years oO) in UO that was an extension of my personality. It was my bank, it was my home, it was where I displayed my most prized possesions (These changed through the years. At one point it was the heads of the more notorious griefers in the game lol), it was a gathering area for me and my friends. My house had everything you could thing of in it. A crafting station with parts I picked out and layed out the way I wanted it to be. Labeled chests for all my mats, gear, consumables, quest items, excess furtniture, items I was planning on selling, etc. My house had a garden that produced mats and consumables that I needed and could sale. My house had a stable so that I could store all my pets and I made the area look like an actual stables with wodden fences, bails of hay, a water trough, grass and dirt, etc. I had a mailbox at my house as well as a message board so that people could leave me both items and messages. Durring the holidays I would decorate my house for the season. Christmas I would break out my piles of snow, nutcrackers, santas, reindeer and sleighs, wreaths, and change the color shceme of my house to be more in line with christmas. Durring halloween I would break out the pumpkins, bails of hay, stack dyed bandages and such to make scarecrows and witches.
I owned pets. I had unique pets. Sure every tamer had a dragon but with the randomization in the pet stats (Within certain range limitations) no other tamer had MY dragon or at the very least so few did I never felt like I had the same dragon as everyone else. I culled dragons for months looking for the perfect one. Then spent a great deal of time training it to cap its skills and named it. My Greater Dragon was named Clifford oO. I had a large number of pets. A Rune Beetle that was superb at poisoning that I teamed up with a Nightmare (Pitch black) that was both my mount and a mage. I had a WW that was an excellent caster and a great deal sturdier than my Nightmare. I had a fire steed just for the looks of it and it did team up well with my imps from Spell Weaving. I tamed fire beetles and blue beetles to sale to crafters and others. Blue Beetles were pack animals and acted as a ridable back pack. Fire beetles acted as a walking and ridable forge for miners. I had a Cu sidhe that was a big wolf that was ridable and was an excellent melee fighter. He had healing skill so he could heal himself and me. They also had a nasty bleed attack. I had way to many pets to list to be honest. The variety in UO was insane and I had different pets for different reasons. I had a necro I used to RP with and he had 5 spiders as pets for RP purposes.
Non combat related activities were in unbundance. I use to hold chess tournaments in my house. Since there were actual board games in game that you could place on a table or anywhere really and interact with I once converted my lower floor into a chess room with several tables and chairs and chess boards. I did this because of a mild argument between me and some others about who was the better chess player. So we held a tournament and invited any that wanted to participate. This became a regular event for a little bit due to the popularity and success. We even gave out prizes and an engraved piece of gear. Crafting was another great part of the game. You could craft almost anything from practical to purely cosmetic. Social clothes, armor of all types, weapons of all types, consumables of all types, furniture of all types, ships, and the process was fun for many including myself. Sac ball was never my thing but many enjoyed it. Snowball fights were always fun in a pinch if you had a pile of snow in your backpack. The amount of non combat related activities to do in the game was more than any other MMO (That I know of) has yet to offer.
The community was the best by far. There was a guild of elves that roleplayed as elves even before elves were a playable race. They would hold festivals for the server and typed in elvish. They were a huge boon to the game. There was a guild of players that roleplayed as orcs. They used sub par gear but they attacked with numbers. They would only talk like the orcs in the game did and dressed like them. They too were a boon to the community. Lots of groups like this existed in UO and held a great number of events. Some times it would seem like the entire server came together to hang out. This was besides the Devs and EMs hosting live events as well. Getting an announcement in game was always a treat as well. The heralds would start announcing that Lord British (Richard Garriott the games creator) had an event to start, announcement or proclamation to make and we would all head to his castle. Players would gather around on the balconies and flood the castle. It was impossible to count how many were there.
Then there were the bugs and glitches. In most games these annoy me, in UO they could be fun and cool. The UO devs knew there were just some bugs and glitches you don't fix or completely remove. Some true rares came out of it as well as some fun things. The item bugs they fixed didn't effect items currently in game, it just prevented the bug or glitch from happening again making for some truly rare items worth a great deal of in game currency. Some bugs they just never fixed because players liked them like the random lama vortex bug. Every once in awhile when you summoned a Swirling Vortex which was supposed to be a pinkish purplish tornado looking thing it was a pinkish purplish lama instead.
This is only a fraction of what I liked so much about the game. No other game experience has come even remotely close. No game has offered even half of what UO offered.
Sure the graphics were dated, the combat itself was pretty lacking as well. What made the game shine though was that it felt like a living breathing world more often than not. You weren't constantly slapped in the face and saying "Man, I wish you could..... in this game" because there was little you couldn't do. If you wanted to do nothing but be a prankster you could and there was at least one I knew of that simply pulled pranks constantly. He would make tapped boxes and poison food and such and leave them places for new players to find. He'd use incognito and mess with people that he knew. If you didn't make your house private he would tame all kinds of pets and take them to your your house and release them so that when you came home you were in for an unpleasant surprise.
It wasn't really a game, it was more of a virtual fantasy world simulator.
That sounds utterly brilliant.
Thank you for sharing your fond memories with us.
Do you still play? If not, why not? - You've sold it to me!
No, I no longer play. I think I finally quit for good because I know Sosaria/Britannia (it's the name of the world) to well these days. I played the game for over a decade.
It was a very fun ride. The Devs even discussed development with us on a regular basis and asked for our imput. The last full expansion the devs went into very detailed explanations and allowed us a great amount of imput on it. Prior to development of it they actually discussed with us what we would like to see and what we might think is fun and implemented what they could and thought was appropriate.
I actually did another few month stint not that long ago but my time there is over. I was a Alpha and Beta tester, I was a GM as well as later a counseler (Volunteer GM with limited powers basically) and I forget what we were called before we were counselers or maybe counselers was the old name and I don't remeber what they called us after. In either case I was involved in that game as much as possible for over a decade. Met many long lasting friends that I still see in real life every so often. One buddy of mine I met in game lives in Canada and I go see him or he comes and sees me about once a year and we hang out for a week talking about old times and catching up on whats new with each other.
So, if you don't mind me asking, what game(s) do you play now then?
I'm intrigued because you're obviously a person with very good taste in games.
No, I no longer play. I think I finally quit for good because I know Sosaria/Britannia (it's the name of the world) to well these days. I played the game for over a decade.
It was a very fun ride. The Devs even discussed development with us on a regular basis and asked for our imput. The last full expansion the devs went into very detailed explanations and allowed us a great amount of imput on it. Prior to development of it they actually discussed with us what we would like to see and what we might think is fun and implemented what they could and thought was appropriate.
I actually did another few month stint not that long ago but my time there is over. I was a Alpha and Beta tester, I was a GM as well as later a counseler (Volunteer GM with limited powers basically) and I forget what we were called before we were counselers or maybe counselers was the old name and I don't remeber what they called us after. In either case I was involved in that game as much as possible for over a decade. Met many long lasting friends that I still see in real life every so often. One buddy of mine I met in game lives in Canada and I go see him or he comes and sees me about once a year and we hang out for a week talking about old times and catching up on whats new with each other.
So, if you don't mind me asking, what game(s) do you play now then?
I'm intrigued because you're obviously a person with very good taste in games.
I'm a gamer of varied taste so don't take the fact that I like UO as a sign I have good taste in games :P
Currently I'm playing GW2, Defiance, A little Rift and TSW every so often, MTGO (Magic the gathering Online and I'm playing this one more than the rest), Skyrim (The umpteenth play through oO), APB Reloaded (Hate the cash shop but love the customization), Red Dead Redemption (The umpteenth play through lol), and fiddling around with some others but not enough to mention.
Planning on jumping into Neverwinter Online for the foundry but haven't yet.
Beyond that, waiting for another virtual world in the spirit of UO :P
Originally posted by outfctrl I remember playing UO before Trammel went in. I worked on getting my hiding skill up. This gave some hope of not being ganked. DF:UW does not have a skill like this, so you are totally open. I wish they had the hiding skill in for crafters and explorers.
crouch + bushes = hiding.
Ahh...well that makes a difference. So your name doesnt show up on the screen or any indication that you are there if you hide behind something? Interesting
In UO...you saw a red tag
right. your nameplate is only visible if they put their crosshair over some visible part of your body.
Originally posted by asmkm22 I still don't know why people think UO was so great.
I owned a house (Actually several over the years oO) in UO that was an extension of my personality. It was my bank, it was my home, it was where I displayed my most prized possesions (These changed through the years. At one point it was the heads of the more notorious griefers in the game lol), it was a gathering area for me and my friends. My house had everything you could thing of in it. A crafting station with parts I picked out and layed out the way I wanted it to be. Labeled chests for all my mats, gear, consumables, quest items, excess furtniture, items I was planning on selling, etc. My house had a garden that produced mats and consumables that I needed and could sale. My house had a stable so that I could store all my pets and I made the area look like an actual stables with wodden fences, bails of hay, a water trough, grass and dirt, etc. I had a mailbox at my house as well as a message board so that people could leave me both items and messages. Durring the holidays I would decorate my house for the season. Christmas I would break out my piles of snow, nutcrackers, santas, reindeer and sleighs, wreaths, and change the color shceme of my house to be more in line with christmas. Durring halloween I would break out the pumpkins, bails of hay, stack dyed bandages and such to make scarecrows and witches.
I owned pets. I had unique pets. Sure every tamer had a dragon but with the randomization in the pet stats (Within certain range limitations) no other tamer had MY dragon or at the very least so few did I never felt like I had the same dragon as everyone else. I culled dragons for months looking for the perfect one. Then spent a great deal of time training it to cap its skills and named it. My Greater Dragon was named Clifford oO. I had a large number of pets. A Rune Beetle that was superb at poisoning that I teamed up with a Nightmare (Pitch black) that was both my mount and a mage. I had a WW that was an excellent caster and a great deal sturdier than my Nightmare. I had a fire steed just for the looks of it and it did team up well with my imps from Spell Weaving. I tamed fire beetles and blue beetles to sale to crafters and others. Blue Beetles were pack animals and acted as a ridable back pack. Fire beetles acted as a walking and ridable forge for miners. I had a Cu sidhe that was a big wolf that was ridable and was an excellent melee fighter. He had healing skill so he could heal himself and me. They also had a nasty bleed attack. I had way to many pets to list to be honest. The variety in UO was insane and I had different pets for different reasons. I had a necro I used to RP with and he had 5 spiders as pets for RP purposes.
Non combat related activities were in unbundance. I use to hold chess tournaments in my house. Since there were actual board games in game that you could place on a table or anywhere really and interact with I once converted my lower floor into a chess room with several tables and chairs and chess boards. I did this because of a mild argument between me and some others about who was the better chess player. So we held a tournament and invited any that wanted to participate. This became a regular event for a little bit due to the popularity and success. We even gave out prizes and an engraved piece of gear. Crafting was another great part of the game. You could craft almost anything from practical to purely cosmetic. Social clothes, armor of all types, weapons of all types, consumables of all types, furniture of all types, ships, and the process was fun for many including myself. Sac ball was never my thing but many enjoyed it. Snowball fights were always fun in a pinch if you had a pile of snow in your backpack. The amount of non combat related activities to do in the game was more than any other MMO (That I know of) has yet to offer.
The community was the best by far. There was a guild of elves that roleplayed as elves even before elves were a playable race. They would hold festivals for the server and typed in elvish. They were a huge boon to the game. There was a guild of players that roleplayed as orcs. They used sub par gear but they attacked with numbers. They would only talk like the orcs in the game did and dressed like them. They too were a boon to the community. Lots of groups like this existed in UO and held a great number of events. Some times it would seem like the entire server came together to hang out. This was besides the Devs and EMs hosting live events as well. Getting an announcement in game was always a treat as well. The heralds would start announcing that Lord British (Richard Garriott the games creator) had an event to start, announcement or proclamation to make and we would all head to his castle. Players would gather around on the balconies and flood the castle. It was impossible to count how many were there.
Then there were the bugs and glitches. In most games these annoy me, in UO they could be fun and cool. The UO devs knew there were just some bugs and glitches you don't fix or completely remove. Some true rares came out of it as well as some fun things. The item bugs they fixed didn't effect items currently in game, it just prevented the bug or glitch from happening again making for some truly rare items worth a great deal of in game currency. Some bugs they just never fixed because players liked them like the random lama vortex bug. Every once in awhile when you summoned a Swirling Vortex which was supposed to be a pinkish purplish tornado looking thing it was a pinkish purplish lama instead.
This is only a fraction of what I liked so much about the game. No other game experience has come even remotely close. No game has offered even half of what UO offered.
Sure the graphics were dated, the combat itself was pretty lacking as well. What made the game shine though was that it felt like a living breathing world more often than not. You weren't constantly slapped in the face and saying "Man, I wish you could..... in this game" because there was little you couldn't do. If you wanted to do nothing but be a prankster you could and there was at least one I knew of that simply pulled pranks constantly. He would make tapped boxes and poison food and such and leave them places for new players to find. He'd use incognito and mess with people that he knew. If you didn't make your house private he would tame all kinds of pets and take them to your your house and release them so that when you came home you were in for an unpleasant surprise.
It wasn't really a game, it was more of a virtual fantasy world simulator.
That sounds utterly brilliant.
Thank you for sharing your fond memories with us.
Do you still play? If not, why not? - You've sold it to me!
Why dont you try out Richard Garriotts, maker of UO, new coming game instead? Seems to be pretty much like old UO/Ultima.
only thing that game(s) have in common with UO is Richard... other than that, no its nothing like UO. Or maybe you could try to sell it to us... why do you think this supposedly heavily instanced game, which you can also play offline, is gonna be 'just like old UO' ?
Nothing like UO, have you seen the feature list?
It's very much as UO. Features seems to be as interesting and deep as old UO with guildwars, guild villages, castles, keeps, full loot (is discussed), PK:s, thiefs, bards, taming, different type of crafters, placeable vendors, boats, fishing, weddings, theater performances, arts and on and on. Is not that close to old UO feature list then i dont know? Add that the best weapons should be playermade and not found in a dungeons as in WoW and you see similarities to old UO where restocking upon death was done in 5 minutes.
And what really interesting is that you can play it only PvE if you dislike PvP or play it full PvP. You can make your guild a full time PvP guild. You set the game so you meet your similars online.
Just Richard you say?
To help Richard build his new masterpiece, a team of proven industry veterans has been assembled. The average team member has more than 10 years experience and a half-dozen shipped games to their credit. More than 50 titles have been shipped between the team, including almost a dozen games that reached number one on the sales charts.
David Watson that created "stones" for UO will make a new musical composition for SotA -
only thing that game(s) have in common with UO is Richard... other than that, no its nothing like UO. Or maybe you could try to sell it to us... why do you think this supposedly heavily instanced game, which you can also play offline, is gonna be 'just like old UO' ?
Nothing like UO, have you seen the feature list?
It's very much as UO. Features seems to be as interesting and deep as old UO with guildwars, guild villages, castles, keeps, full loot (is discussed), PK:s, thiefs, bards, taming, different type of crafters, placeable vendors, boats, fishing, weddings, theater performances, arts and on and on. Is not that close to old UO feature list then i dont know? Add that the best weapons should be playermade and not found in a dungeons as in WoW and you see similarities to old UO where restocking upon death was done in 5 minutes.
And what really interesting is that you can play it only PvE if you dislike PvP or play it full PvP. You can make your guild a full time PvP guild. You set the game so you meet your similars online.
Just Richard you say?
To help Richard build his new masterpiece, a team of proven industry veterans has been assembled. The average team member has more than 10 years experience and a half-dozen shipped games to their credit. More than 50 titles have been shipped between the team, including almost a dozen games that reached number one on the sales charts.
David Watson that created "stones" for UO will make a new musical composition for SotA -
only thing that game(s) have in common with UO is Richard... other than that, no its nothing like UO. Or maybe you could try to sell it to us... why do you think this supposedly heavily instanced game, which you can also play offline, is gonna be 'just like old UO' ?
Nothing like UO, have you seen the feature list?
It's very much as UO. Features seems to be as interesting and deep as old UO with guildwars, guild villages, castles, keeps, full loot (is discussed), PK:s, thiefs, bards, taming, different type of crafters, placeable vendors, boats, fishing, weddings, theater performances, arts and on and on. Is not that close to old UO feature list then i dont know? Add that the best weapons should be playermade and not found in a dungeons as in WoW and you see similarities to old UO where restocking upon death was done in 5 minutes.
And what really interesting is that you can play it only PvE if you dislike PvP or play it full PvP. You can make your guild a full time PvP guild. You set the game so you meet your similars online.
Just Richard you say?
To help Richard build his new masterpiece, a team of proven industry veterans has been assembled. The average team member has more than 10 years experience and a half-dozen shipped games to their credit. More than 50 titles have been shipped between the team, including almost a dozen games that reached number one on the sales charts.
David Watson that created "stones" for UO will make a new musical composition for SotA -
Comments
So, if you don't mind me asking, what game(s) do you play now then?
I'm intrigued because you're obviously a person with very good taste in games.
I'm a gamer of varied taste so don't take the fact that I like UO as a sign I have good taste in games :P
Currently I'm playing GW2, Defiance, A little Rift and TSW every so often, MTGO (Magic the gathering Online and I'm playing this one more than the rest), Skyrim (The umpteenth play through oO), APB Reloaded (Hate the cash shop but love the customization), Red Dead Redemption (The umpteenth play through lol), and fiddling around with some others but not enough to mention.
Planning on jumping into Neverwinter Online for the foundry but haven't yet.
Beyond that, waiting for another virtual world in the spirit of UO :P
right. your nameplate is only visible if they put their crosshair over some visible part of your body.
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Corpus Callosum
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Nothing like UO, have you seen the feature list?
It's very much as UO. Features seems to be as interesting and deep as old UO with guildwars, guild villages, castles, keeps, full loot (is discussed), PK:s, thiefs, bards, taming, different type of crafters, placeable vendors, boats, fishing, weddings, theater performances, arts and on and on. Is not that close to old UO feature list then i dont know? Add that the best weapons should be playermade and not found in a dungeons as in WoW and you see similarities to old UO where restocking upon death was done in 5 minutes.
And what really interesting is that you can play it only PvE if you dislike PvP or play it full PvP. You can make your guild a full time PvP guild. You set the game so you meet your similars online.
Just Richard you say?
To help Richard build his new masterpiece, a team of proven industry veterans has been assembled. The average team member has more than 10 years experience and a half-dozen shipped games to their credit. More than 50 titles have been shipped between the team, including almost a dozen games that reached number one on the sales charts.
David Watson that created "stones" for UO will make a new musical composition for SotA -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X1gC3BLq2w
My favorite version of Stones -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k26rXxiRhc8
Tracy Hickman, author of Dragonlance and Deathgate series is the Lead Story Designer of SotA.
That seems to me as a very experienced team.
Game will start with 1 big island and be followed with 5 more. Feature list will continue to grow.
I agree that the overlay map was disturbing to me at start but the full real world will lie under it, i see the overlay map as a shortcut.
Darkfall is far from UO. SotA is very close to UO as described above.
I have to admit Stones is probably my all time favorite game music.
Yeah i agree. Stones bring alot of memories.