My experience of resubscribing to Ultima Online (Atlantica)

TheScavenger

This will be a day by day thread of my experiences with the game, from the first day, today, (7 hours roughly of play time). To about a month of playing before the subscription runs out if I will keep subbed or not. I definitely won't play every day (never do that with any game) for the entire month. And as the month goes on, I may play less if I don't like it or play the same or more.

I also played UO so many years ago, I joined when they changed how PvP works. Which is the version I liked, because I'm not a big fan of sandbox PvP, and only sandbox MMO PvP I like is EVE. But this is a UO thread, so won't go into long winded post about why EVE PvP system/mechanics are a lot better than other sandbox PvP mechanics.

So onto my first 7 hour experience.

I did some reading into different builds (you have to do A LOT of research outside of the game, builds you can kinda just make your own as you play, but I wanted a build pre-planned) and went with a mage build. Especially focus a bit on summoning, since I love summoning in games.

Dex at 10, locked it. 15 might be better as a new player, but 10 seems good enough.
Str started at 30, dunno what it is now, but I didn't lock it
Int at 50 and obviously need it as a mage

Skills I started with were necromancy, magery, mysticism and spirit speak (needed for necromancy)

Skills I plan to level up to a high level or raise to a high level with items (over level 100 in each of these skills, again some will be with items) are Mysticism, focus, spirit speak and MAYBE spellweaving (dunno if I want to get it or not)

Necromancer I raised to 50, but its...kinda broken. As in, doesn't work. Its stupid, and the worst necromancy I ever used in any game. yes worse than GW2 necromancer and  I thought that was the worst I ever played, that one looks great compared to UO necromancy. Anyway, more on that later. I'll be lowering it to 30-40, just enough to cast wraith form without it being a pain to cast (wraith form is epic for mages, because it gives you mana when you attack in the form)

I'll need evaluating int, but only will take it to the mid-levels. And meditation I accidentally rose too high, so it will be lowered to 20, since I don't really need it too much with my build.

So, first. Magery and mysticism have epic summons. Mysticism especially has one of the best summons in the game, but I don't have enough skills for it yet and I'm working on magery. But its a collosus that makes a really good tank and is good for a lot of content. But magery also has a lot of summons, like daemons, elementals and some other fun stuff. Someone showed me a vortex summon and it worked really well and attacked all the nearby enemies (but you can't control it and can't move it from its spot). Its how I pictured necromancy "pets" to work.

So my first major disappointment. Necromancy. Holy shit is it the stupidest mechanic I've ever seen in any game with necromancers. In fact, the worst "pet" class I have ever had the misfortune to experience. You summon various undead I guess (though they aren't really undead, ones a horde minion that looks imp-like but without wings, ones a wisp, ones a wolf and some other stuff.). The problem is...

The necromancy pets don't attack the enemy. Even if you stand there getting beat on, they don't attack. If you are ranged (like a mage should be), they also don't attack. You have to run around (VERY CLOSE!) to the enemy and once in a while they'll attack the enemy...maybe...if you are lucky...probably not, they'll likely just do shit.

Can't tell them to attack. Can't tell them to do anything, and all they do is follow you by a mere inch and don't do shit. To be honest, it was so terrible and so broken I was about to quit the game and go "well this is the worst game, MMO or not, I have ever played. Even no mans sky is better than this crap"

"Luckily" some dude showed me his elemental summons, and they actually worked and attacked the enemy and they looked awesome, were actually useful and looked fun to use. Completely opposite of Necro summons. Then he showed off the collosus (the last, highest skill (summon) mysticism get) and it was awesome. Okay so he saved me quitting and never playing again.

Which I should say, the community is really nice. I see more people talking in-game chat than I do in GW2. In GW2 I barely see anyone chat at all, but UO has people talking sorta often. UO has a very social feel to it though, that only EVE has for me as far as more modern MMOs go. Ask a question, and people jumped up in chat to help. I even got some free starting stuff, and a couple free spellbooks (you need spellbooks because the spells you cast are inscribed in the book). Of course, everything requires ingredients to cast and bows/crossbows need ammo, but someone gave me a suit of clothing that with all the different clothing pieces added up decreases spell ingredient cost by 100%. Not really overpowered, because at endgame it becomes too weak, its kinda like...a balanced version of WoW's special account-bound armor, which in WoW that scales up with you when you level, but then becomes useless later on. UO sorta the same, but made for mages to help skill up easier, but doesn't offer any overpowered stats besides removing ingredient cost from spells.

Which is very helpful, because ingredients are hard to get, and merchants don't always have what you need. Playing a mage without a suit of armor that removes ingredient cost...well...I'd put that as a con, because they should give that to you at the start or through a quest, but maybe they wanted people to ask for it and actually socialize/trade with each other.

With that said about the community. Even on atlantic, chat is well kinda quiet  (but not dead) compared to trade chat in WoW. However, on the other hand, I see VASTLY more people in all the different cities and world itself than I do in WoW (partly because everyone is sitting in one place looking for dungeon/raid and doing instances non-stop). And like I said, the community is pretty friendly and awesome. 

From there, the game, 7 hours in feels kinda like diablo sorta. I remember UO was a lot different when I played. But unlike Diablo, UO has a huge open world open-ended system, with awesome sandbox-like elements to it. But a lot of the items have special stats on them that drop randomly in the world, dungeons and TONS of quests everywhere. Actually, a better example isn't so much Diablo. But it feels VERY similar to Asheron's Call back in its hayday. I think that is the closest example I can think of.

It feels kinda grindy raising skills, but at same time, it doesn't really feel that bad and skills raise at a nice speed. And there is TONS to do, I've really only done combat stuff because I want magery to get high enough so I can summon elementals. But I know there is a HUGE incredibly in-depth housing system and a lot to look forward to.

I'd say so far enjoyed my experience, mostly. Except necromancy. Holy shit is that a fucked up skill that they made. Only good to get to 30-40 for wraith form lol.

TheScavenger

Oh and right. About a lot of research out of the game. Well, there IS a minimap that has stuff located.

You will be looking for actual NPC locations, quest info etc. There is kinda a deep lack of information in the actual game. Its literally like I went back into 1999 era (UO is old, so makes sense) where I had to find all the information for myself, either ask people (which I do a lot), or read up and find the info on the web. Its not like a modern MMO where all the information is readily available, with a quest path to follow like a rat in a maze.

Though they did kinda modernize it with exclamation marks on minimap showing where quest NPCs are and (in enhanced client) hotbars to easily cast spells or use items or whatever else...thats fine. But overall, if anyone rejoins or is thinking of rejoining...yeah...lots of reading outside the game is likely necessary lol. 

And lastly. I noticed a severe lack of bots. On every free shard, I saw soooo many bots (or whoops, I mean macroers...same thing. Call a watermellon a tomato, still a watermellon! Can't fool me with that tricky renaming of botting!). I played for 7 hours, and either the botters (macroers, whatever same thing) are well hidden, a LOT less of them...or just not there at all. Everyone I encountered was an actual person playing the game who responded back. On free shards, I'd see people all over botting and barely anyone ever talked on any of the free shards I tried, it was always filled with so many botters all over the place.

I did see a single gold spammer in chat, but it was one who wasn't really even spamming. Once in a while he'd post his gold scam site. But guess even UO has those these days lol

Tiamat64

Are elemental summons in UO actually good now?  Before I left the game, for 11 years, they were pretty darn terrible.  The true "pet class" in UO, at least for the 11 years I played it, was animal tamers.  Just tame yourself a big ol' dragon and a nightmare for your mount and watch the carnage.  Later on as they added more tameable creatures you could use rune beetles instead of dragons or whatever else suited the situation (cause using a dragon in an area filled with cold damage was a baaaad idea, for example).

At least before I left the game many years ago, Necromancer "pets" didnt' do anything because their primary purpose was to cast a buff on the player.  If I recall correctly, you just had to have the pet out and your character would have some sort of special effect. THe horde minion looted items, and another one made all your attacks leech life or something.... I think.  Pretty much the opposite of a pet class in that you were expected to do everything yourself.  I always felt it was really dumb, though I guess by the time necromancers came out another pet class would have been redundant when there were animal tamers in the game.  Ironically though one of the few things tamers could not tame were undead yet necromancers weren't given any undead pets for that gap (it would have all just been mostly graphical anyways, I suppose.  Tamer pet range already covered most situations that they could cover under the limitations of pets).

TheScavenger

Well, I haven't got elemental summons yet, but the person showing me the different ones said most use the vortex one. Didn't say how good/bad. Tamers are still the "pet" class for the best pets, but I myself very much prefer summoning type classes, not actual pet classes like tamers. Though their pets are definitely better, summoners however get a better range of magic to use.

One thing Necromancers can do however, is if a dragon dies, they can reanimate it (if person is powerful enough) and it acts like an amazingly good "pet". The person said about on par with a normal dragon. I'm not sure if it turns to a skeletal dragon, or just a really powerful skeleton or something. because when I reanimate weak things, it just turns into a weak kinda useless skeleton (so there are actual undead "summons", but through reanimation). But he said you can also reanimate things to liches and stuff, so you can have liches following you around.

And as far necromancer "pets" giving a buff, nope, doesn't happen anymore. Must have been removed. Literally the most useless minions (probably a better term for them) in any game with summons/pets/minions ever made in existence. I can't think of a game with more useless minions/pets in the history of gaming.

TheScavenger

I should add though, the necro minions still have uses

The horde minion can store things, which is useful

The wisp leeches mana when it hits things (useless because it has to hit things, which it never does) and gives it back to you

And I stand corrected, the wolf gives +1 stamina every 2 seconds according to http://www.uoguide.com/Summon_Familiar

The wolf also allows taming of other wolves, so pretty useful actually. I really like that, and wolves are my favorite animal

then death adder does its thing. Vampire bat leeches health, but its useless and doesn't leech that much health to give you

Out of those, horde minion and wolf are most useful. Horde minion for TEMPORARY storage, and wolf is epic cause you can tame other wolves.

waynejr2

TheScavenger said:

you have to do A LOT of research outside of the game

I find this sad.  Here you have UO and instead of playing it and learning it you turn it into another metagaming situation.

seeyouspacec0wboy

waynejr2 said:

TheScavenger said:

you have to do A LOT of research outside of the game

I find this sad.  Here you have UO and instead of playing it and learning it you turn it into another metagaming situation.

Yeah thats kind of a problem with playing these classic games today. Same goes for most games made pre-2003 or so. They were made with the idea that you couldn't just find every single bit of information easily online. You were forced to be immersed, reading every clue in the game, talking to other players a lot, making your own maps etc. But you didn't think of it as being forced, you were just playing the game the way they were played. 

TheScavenger

So I played quite a lot today, and didn't look anything up. I did look one thing up, but it was a small thing because I didn't know you had to drag a scroll to a spellbook and I didn't want to waste my spellweaving ones, because they are really expensive.

Other than that, I played it just how it was (mostly) intended). To see how the game would be like without knowing where things were or quest guides or anything. Though not knowing where things are...well kinda pointless with the rune system (more on that later).

Toward the end of my play session, I joined a guild with someone who has been helping me quite a bit. I had major issues figuring out how to do the spellweaving class/skill, because my skills aren't really high enough for it and its a very tough quest for new players. Toward the end of "Patience" (which leads to spellweaving), have to fight really tough monsters. Even with his dragon and high skills, it took quite a bit of time. Though he didn't have much issues fighting anything.

So with that, I've decided to be a mage/spellweaver. Spellweavers are druid-like, with nature spells and turn into treants and what not. Perfect for me. I always liked Druid classes as well. The mage class line has awesome summons and other useful abilities. If I have extra skill points, I'll do Mysticism as well. And keep with my plan to lower necromancy to 30-40 to just use wraith form.

The guy helping me however did give advice on what spells to use, since I was using the wrong ones. And gave a lot of tips. He even brought me to a house that the game masters made in tribute of a player that died. And told me how to use the rune system to mark a location and recall to it. So I marked the outside of the rune library house, and can teleport anywhere from there.

Though that is a downside, since old UO (the one with trammel introduced) I don't remember it being like that where you can just go anywhere in the game with no work at all. But, maybe I'm wrong. That definitely feels like more a modern MMO kinda mechanic, where you can teleport everywhere through runes (even outside dungeons etc). Kinda ruins the exploration part, but guess that is how everyone plays UO these days. The entire house is filled with rune books that go all over the place in the world of Ultima. Still a nice tribute to the person that passed away, but does remove the exploration part of the game.

Outside of the rune/mark/recall system. It was quite an experience, since before the guild leader took me to the rune library place, I actually got lost and had to really remember landmarks and where certain houses were. Its kinda really easy to get lost in UO (which I like in games), but the rune system kinda removes that aspect.

But, for everything else, I asked in chat any questions or figured things out myself. Though a couple times people referred me to UOstratics or UOguides for questions, and the game as it is, doesn't seem like it used to where you do need to figure things out yourself. Everyone uses websites, refers to websites or just uses guides.

So while I love figuring things out on my own, I'll probably go back to reading anything I need, but still try and figure things out on my own before that. The rune library system kinda defeats the exploration part, so that was my major reason not reading sites outside the game because I wanted to find things my own.

But with a huge massive rune library, where you can go almost anywhere (some stuff you can't recall to)...not much point in figuring too much things out in-game.

However, I still have greatly enjoyed my experience. Joining a guild makes it even more epic, and its nice to have made a friend in-game as well. Since an MMO is about a social atmosphere. I am kinda actually enjoying my experience more than most modern MMOs, but some aspects of UO have been made a lot easier (like exploration).

Overall, I'm enjoying my 2nd day, kinda more than the 1st day because I know how things work more and I actually have a friend and a guild in game. necromancy kinda sucks, but spellweaving is really cool and I'm starting to get cool abilities with magery.

WoeToTheVanquished

just tame a cu sidhe/hiryu. that's all the tank you'll ever need.

mgilbrtsn

Sounds like you're enjoying and I'm enjoying reading it, so keep us posted.

TheScavenger

WoeToTheVanquished said:

just tame a cu sidhe/hiryu. that's all the tank you'll ever need.

Well, yeah the taming pets are definitely a lot better than summons are in UO. Like dragons are incredibly strong, except against cold stuff. But like I said, I always much preferred summons than having an actual pet. And I don't think I have room in my skills to raise the necessary taming skills to a decent level. 

Though the game does really "guide" you to making alts. I had to make an alt to do some cooking stuff, since spellweaving needed cooked fish steaks. So I might later down the line make a taming character. But, as said, I vastly prefer summons than taming things.

With that said, if I instead completely remove necro/spirit speak since I don't like necro anyway...I could actually have room for taming/lore skills. That would give me what I need to be both a summoner and a "pet class" type character, which sounds actually pretty fun and strong.

And I don't like necromancer at all anyway, and kinda useless to have for just one single ability. So I might actually keep my build I have, but remove necromancy and spirit speak in replace with taming/lore.

TheScavenger

So, I'm on my way of raising animal taming. Which happens to be the hardest skill (or one of them at least) to raise in the game. Especially if you don't start with it (like I did, since I thought necromancy would be better than it was). It takes a LONG time to raise animal taming though, each tame only raises it .1 skillpoints lol.

Definitely worth it though

Also, can summon elementals and daemons now since my magery is high enough. The elementals are awesome, and so far I've tried the earth elemental, energy vortex and the daemon. Summoning a daemon greatly decreases karma, but is really powerful and you can actually control it and it tell it what to do. Same with the earth elemental. The energy vortex just goes around killing stuff near it.

The magery summons are awesome though, and the daemon is really strong (at least early on). So later when I get better tames+summons+magic, it will be a pretty fun combo. A lot more fun than necromancy, which is kinda a rather weak skill. Not just the summons which really ruin it, but the spells themselves are kinda meh except for the wraith form. Though that is the only spells I've experienced that felt meh, everything else (at least for magic) has been really awesome.

Haven't done much crafting, though I always like cooking and fishing in games. And I have cooked some fish on my cooking alt. Its pretty straightforward.

Even though I got some higher end spells, I'm still pretty weak and there is still a lot to do. Crafting, getting better armor/weapons, the housing stuff which I really want to do and raise my skills a lot more since they are all pretty low lol. Plus, its gonna take ages to raise up taming rofl

TheScavenger

So, while this is my second day. Its quite a rewarding game. I won't talk about other MMOs that much...but it feels kinda like EVE in a way. The content is challenging, but not so much that its tedious or boring. And taming could probably be seen as tedious (really the only thing I've encountered that could be seen as that)...its actually still pretty fun. Tame animals, name them, release them, repeat...a lot...like a lot. To get to 100 skill, at .1 a tame is going to take a lot of time :P

I think I like it, just because I can tame a ton of animals and release them into the wild with random names. Like a bear named "A Bird" :P Won't ever get old. Though I do make legit names too and release them back to the wild with a new identity. And now I dunno if they de-spawn or whatever, but I've seen named animals tamers have released and some I saw yesterday were still in the game today before I logged off.

But I kinda like that you gotta put effort into getting stronger. I always really missed that in modern MMOs, and really only other one for fantasy I can think of that took effort (but still a lot of fun) was Vanguard Saga of Heroes. A lot of games, I get to max level in less then a day or in a few days, and then I have everything. The only thing to work for is just items, and then slightly stronger items. And while UO is like that, you still need to spend time getting better skills and getting stronger. And there is still a lot of other things to do. I'm not even close to high level skills, and I have only seen a tiny portion of gameplay.

My plan next time I play, is to change my playstyle a bit. I'm gonna hop on my cook/fisher/alchemist, and focus on playing that character. I don't want to just focus on combat and raising up my skills, and partly because one of my goals WAS to be able to get the epic magery summons and I did. Still a lot more to do, to make the summons stronger.

But I want to see more of the crafting system. And in games in general, I love cooking...fishing...and alchemy. So that will be what I focus on. Which is funny, cause I hate cooking in real life :P and don't like fishing either that much lol.

 Someone in the guild LOVES fishing in UO, which is the vast majority thing he does in UO I guess. Can definitely even make gold doing it, both fishing and cooking. I noticed some of the foods sell for quite a nice amount. And my little time I spent cooking fish steaks for the spellweaving quest, it was pretty fun actually. So it will be a nice change of pace from my usual combat I've been doing.

Plus just focusing on combat, seems like it does the game a de-service...I think thats the word? UO hasn't always been about combat (it is a big part), but also the crafting has always been epic too. And that hasn't changed. So, it will be nice to explore different things to do outside of the combat I've been focusing on.

TheScavenger

Plus as a small addition to the last update for today. And I dunno if I'll play tomorrow or not, might play my other games. Kinda want to play Warhammer Total War or some other strategy game.

But the community is amazing. Kinda reminds me of how Vanguard Saga of Heroes community was. Kinda small, but a lot more people in UO than in Vanguard. But really nice,  tight-knit even though population is I'd say medium levels, not low/empty but not as busy as in WoW (on the "full/high" pop servers), never see any trolls or rude people or 4chan-type people with terrible memes. And any time I ask a question, no one is rude or trolls, but gives advice on how to find the answer to question or answers it. And its not a fake niceness either, which I played one MMO (won't name it, since this thread isn't the place) and it felt very...weird in that the people being nice were kinda faking it. Just felt really off when they talked in chat. In any case, in UO everyone is actually genuinely nice.

At least that has been my personal experience on Atlantic.

TheScavenger

Since one of my friends on steam asked, I figured I'd put it here too.

Ultima Online IS still being updated, and an expansion came out toward the end of last year. That is actually one reason I decided to try it out again while kinda being bored of current MMOs (except EVE). Often an old MMO is just left to be dead and stagnant. But it appears enough people play they can still put out actual content for it. Maybe overhead costs are pretty low as well. In any case, to be honest, if I didn't see an expansion for years and updates were really small or not at all, I'd have skipped on by and been sad But no, the game is actually being updated. I was actually kinda surprised too, that an expansion came out kinda recently.

And as for population. Usually Atlantic is "medium", I NEVER see it go on low. Though I saw it go to "high" pop today. There was quite a lot of talking, about what I see on a popular WoW server in trade chat, just a tad bit slower. All the other servers are always on low as far as I've seen.

However, that obviously doesn't mean too much as low/medium/high could be anything. But in the actual game, I see more people talking than I do in GW2 (which tends to be kinda quiet for some reason) and its WAY more populated than Vanguard was, I often see people while I'm out exploring. Though there are crowded places that people congregate to in certain towns/cities. Haven is one that I often always see people at, the new player recommended starting place. So even though its just one server and others are probably dead, it does appear populated enough that I can see why they still update, especially if as said, overhead costs are low.

I also often see new players, brand new sometimes, but often returnees joining back UO. Guess a lot of people are disappointed with new MMOs, and at very least, trying out older ones (either because they played before or just completely new) like UO. Asheron's Call is another MMO I saw a lot of new players/returnees going to, but that is judging by the forums. 

Which is actually interesting, as I've noticed in my search for an MMO to play, a lot of the older ones a lot of people are returning to them if their forums are anything to go by. And I noticed that in-game in UO, a lot of returnees surprisingly.

Mavolence

TheScavenger said:

The guy helping me however did give advice on what spells to use, since I was using the wrong ones. And gave a lot of tips. He even brought me to a house that the game masters made in tribute of a player that died. And told me how to use the rune system to mark a location and recall to it. So I marked the outside of the rune library house, and can teleport anywhere from there.

Though that is a downside, since old UO (the one with trammel introduced) I don't remember it being like that where you can just go anywhere in the game with no work at all. But, maybe I'm wrong. That definitely feels like more a modern MMO kinda mechanic, where you can teleport everywhere through runes (even outside dungeons etc). Kinda ruins the exploration part, but guess that is how everyone plays UO these days. The entire house is filled with rune books that go all over the place in the world of Ultima. Still a nice tribute to the person that passed away, but does remove the exploration part of the game.

Outside of the rune/mark/recall system. It was quite an experience, since before the guild leader took me to the rune library place, I actually got lost and had to really remember landmarks and where certain houses were. Its kinda really easy to get lost in UO (which I like in games), but the rune system kinda removes that aspect.

Hey there, cool write up!

I just wanted to let you know that the rune/mark system was always in the game and most definitely in the game during the UO:R era which is when trammel was introduced, and was always intended to be that way. I always had like 6-8 marked runebooks in my inventory and a huge library at home with more places. A huge part of the game especially with PVP is having fantastic marked runes.

Octagon7711

Back in the day, games like that came with pretty thick manuals that just about covered everything you needed to know about the game.

TheScavenger

Mavolence said:

TheScavenger said:

The guy helping me however did give advice on what spells to use, since I was using the wrong ones. And gave a lot of tips. He even brought me to a house that the game masters made in tribute of a player that died. And told me how to use the rune system to mark a location and recall to it. So I marked the outside of the rune library house, and can teleport anywhere from there.

Though that is a downside, since old UO (the one with trammel introduced) I don't remember it being like that where you can just go anywhere in the game with no work at all. But, maybe I'm wrong. That definitely feels like more a modern MMO kinda mechanic, where you can teleport everywhere through runes (even outside dungeons etc). Kinda ruins the exploration part, but guess that is how everyone plays UO these days. The entire house is filled with rune books that go all over the place in the world of Ultima. Still a nice tribute to the person that passed away, but does remove the exploration part of the game.

Outside of the rune/mark/recall system. It was quite an experience, since before the guild leader took me to the rune library place, I actually got lost and had to really remember landmarks and where certain houses were. Its kinda really easy to get lost in UO (which I like in games), but the rune system kinda removes that aspect.

Hey there, cool write up!

I just wanted to let you know that the rune/mark system was always in the game and most definitely in the game during the UO:R era which is when trammel was introduced, and was always intended to be that way. I always had like 6-8 marked runebooks in my inventory and a huge library at home with more places. A huge part of the game especially with PVP is having fantastic marked runes.

ah, I wasn't entirely sure. But now I do vaguely remember, that was actually always a thing with runebooks/marking/recalling to locations. I didn't really remember too well though, and partly because I never really made use of that when I played ages ago. But, thank you for confirming that, that has always actually been a thing.

TheScavenger

Octagon7711 said:

Back in the day, games like that came with pretty thick manuals that just about covered everything you needed to know about the game.

Yeah, I remember my retail copy ages ago had a really big manual. Games don't really come with much of one (if at all) anymore. So, with that in mind, I think its okay to look things up. I mean, otherwise I'd refer to the manual for a lot of the things I already try to search to begin with. So, its kinda the same, except quicker to find things on the internet than a big, thick manual.

Probably why manuals aren't really made anymore, everything can be found googling it lol.

Scorchien

UO is still the best Virtual World available offering the player the most in-depth imeersive experience with  the most activities for players To flesh out a living world full of danger and oppurtunity ... imo

TheScavenger

Also, I made a new combat character. My first character I was kinda just learning UO and wasn't sure how things worked or what I actually really wanted to do. I mean, a Summoner is what I wanted...but in the end, my skills and stats were all over the place. 

I know I could spend time lowering them and what not, but I figured I haven't played that long and the time to raise my actual new build and a bunch of new stuff, would take longer than the time I've played. Plus on top of that, I spent a lot of time raising Necromancy...which I actually need in my new build. But then I spent a lot of time leveling it to 0...yeah...all over the place lol. Then I decided to raise taming, that takes AGES unless you start with it. So that didn't help lol. 

So, instead of a Summoner. And focusing on way too many spells/skills and going all over. I'm going with the kinda common Sampire build. Which I guess is a samurai vampire or something that makes heavy use of Bushido skill. So I'd use Necromancy (as I actually kinda planned to begin with on my first character), but vampire form would be my main spell. And I might make use of the dumb minions and some other Necro stuff and whatever else is useful for it. Necromancy actually has a drain life spell that goes on a weapon temporarily, and draining life is the main #1 focus on a Sampire. There are items with that ability too, which I found a cleaver that has quite a lot of drain life when hitting the enemy.

Which actually really reminds me of how my Warlock was in WoW Legion (my favorite class in Legion), since it plays nearly exactly the same as how my Sampire is. Except a Sampire uses melee, and only some spells, but its very similar.

Will be much more fun, and already I like the new build more. Its more focused, and I know how UO works a lot better...so...I definitely won't get sidetracked and go all over the place in my skills lol.

But the first character in an MMO is usually kinda just a "trial" one anyway, to figure out the game and test things out.

LynxJSA

waynejr2 said:

TheScavenger said:

you have to do A LOT of research outside of the game

I find this sad.  Here you have UO and instead of playing it and learning it you turn it into another metagaming situation.

That's what I thought also, especially when he went straight to focusing on his template and stats. Playing UO that way it gets very boring very fast. 

TheScavenger

LynxJSA said:

waynejr2 said:

TheScavenger said:

That's what I thought also, especially when he went straight to focusing on his template and stats. Playing UO that way it gets very boring very fast. 

Well, the problem is. Its not like I can re-spec very easily, I can't just buy a character wipe or buy a character wipe with gold, like WoW talents. On top of that, in Ultima Online has rather very limited amount of skills you can raise since the skill cap is kinda low in terms of all the skills you could get. If there was no skill cap or it was a lot higher, I wouldn't even worry about a build.

As it is, if someone doesn't raise their skills properly, they either need to grind for dozens to even 100s of hours if its completely wrong. Their character could VERY easily be incredibly nerfed.

I did try a free shard, and it didn't have a skill/stat cap. Now, there WAS a limit to each skill/stat you could raise of course. However, you could max every skill given time and every stat. In that free shard, I actually treated UO has an adventure to discover myself. I felt much rather figuring things out in-game, because I knew I couldn't actually ruin my entire character because I reached their was no skill limit. So I never bothered to look at templates or anything, or even find answers outside of the game (except a few things that were confusing).

Which is kinda a rather huge con to me so far, because I feel forced to work on an actual template because skills are VERY limited imo in how many you can actually raise. So it makes me want to read outside the game for actual builds. The free shard, I didn't look at anything outside to figure things out, because I knew I couldn't really ever ruin the actual character.

EVE Online has no skill cap...so if you train the wrong skill, no biggy at all. Just time lost training it. In UO, that is a HUGE problem, and if you raise a skill too high, that is also a big problem. Like I said, the only actual massive downside to UO I've experienced so far. And I kinda was always annoyed about that when I played last time.

With that said. I have actually played the game before (years ago), without focusing on a build. But it made me quit (think there were other reasons too, but I do remember that being one) because it completely ruined my character without an actual build to follow. I personally find that a huge con, but not one that makes me disappointed or any less fun in UO as I can just follow an actual build. I'd just rather not even worry about it, but that isn't how the game is designed.

And very few actually want to play an MMO with a nerfed character that can't kill anything or properly craft. Personally, that isn't fun at all to me. I don't want to be OP, but I also don't want to be as useful as a foam sword.

Scorchien

Not really that bad in UO to respec and nowhere near as bad as it used to be , to understand roll on Siege Perilous and try ..
 
  If you know what you are doing , UO is rather easy to change up now from caster to archer to tank and everything between , as long as you choose activities you enjoy  on the way of doing so, There are many many ways

TheScavenger

Scorchien said:

Not really that bad in UO to respec and nowhere near as bad as it used to be , to understand roll on Siege perilous and try ..
 
  If you know what you are doing , UO is rather easy to change up now from caster to archer to tank and everything between , as long as you choose activities you enjoy  on the way of doing so, There are many many ways

Well, it could very well be I don't understand the system properly. I know when I played ages ago, it took ages to do. It does go faster these days. I did lower necromancy pretty fast this go around, but taming went down slower for some reason, but could be cause I was lowering two skills at once (taming AND animal lore). Still rather new to UO, so maybe I wasn't doing it properly.

So you are right, you can take the time to lower skills and switch builds on one character not that hard. But for me, since my first character hadn't been played that long, it was just easier to make a new one. But as I said, I do agree that switching skills isn't nearly what I remember it being like.

Though builds imo are still really important. Far more important than games like WoW or EVE Online. The skill limit is kinda so low, that you can only really focus on 5, maybe 6 skills to raise to max and some have to be buffed to get there.

That for me still makes me want to focus on a build found on a guide site or UO. As I said though, if the cap was a lot higher and/or less room for mistakes, I wouldn't even follow a build. But not interested in playing a nerfed character.

Though, while I definitely don't want to be OP and own everything I see (thats WAY too boring, its a major reason I don't like WoW these days), I also don't want to be weak and frail. That isn't why I play games, I'm already weak and frail with bad health in real life. Don't need or want that or experience that in a game, unless its specifically designed with that in mind. In UO, its too easy to do that if you don't follow a build found online.

TheScavenger

In any case, I still have been enjoying UO as much as I was on day 2. First day was just being confused as heck, but still having a good time because the community is so awesome.

Even though the build/template thing isn't my favoritist thing in the world and guess some would rather see someone build their own character. That isn't how I play games with limited skill points to use. So I'm playing my own way, by following a build and find it FAR more fun than ending up with a sucky foambat character. That would just make me quit UO again lol. 

Besides that though, the game has been surprisingly awesome. Its nice to see on Atlantic how busy it is, and that is pretty surprising for such an old MMO. Though what I'm more surprised about is how often I see either new people (though not as much in truth), but all the people that have been returning to UO as well. I see quite a lot of new players in New Haven at any given time. And the game is still being updated, which is awesome and also surprising.

Honestly, I kinda expected the game to be on a lifeline, with minimal/no updates and kinda dead. But, no, that wasn't what I found out at all. Guess even though its really old, it still has quite a lot of life in it. Plus overhead cost I can't imagine being nearly as much as newer MMOs.