What is your favorite memory of playing in UO?

per AoS and hanging out at the cross roads

Pre AoS and hanging out at Brit bank

Victim_Of_Siege said:

😂 *Laughing*

Playing a couple of standalone UO games on my Nintendo 64 back in the day.  They were as good as the other best role playing games of the day, and had basically the same map and locations as Trammel has today.  And, you got a great map in the box.  The musical score was great including the same themes I hear today’s version.  Very few bugs.  They are the reason I am playing UO today.  I still have one of the boxes and it brings back fond memories whenever I look at it.  Both games included story telling at its best leaving the player with a real sense of accomplishment when finishing the game.  I know not quite what you were looking for as an answer.  But they were among the best games of their time and my fondest memories of UO.

So many memories flood back, blending recent ones with those from long ago. Yet, if I were to pinpoint a favorite moment from my time playing Ultima Online, it would undoubtedly be the summer of 2000. My adventures of UO started in 1999, but it got serious when I was able to finally secure an account of my own in May 2000.

My brother and I managed to persuade our parents to let us dive into the world of online gaming, paying a modest $10 per month. It was around the time of the Renaissance expansion, or perhaps just before it. Acting on a friend's advice, we snagged The Second Age at a discount and dove straight into Felucca, bypassing the safer confines of Trammel without a second thought. At the time we didn't even realize the difference between Felucca and Trammel as we were just awestruck by interacting with people online.

I vividly recall stumbling upon a friendly stranger who helped us secure a prime location near Minoc on the Napa Valley, I had said something like "how do I get a house?" and he purchased a small marble for me and found a spot. I didn't realize until later just how difficult it was to even find a spot for a house back in UO's prime. That summer, between part-time office work, I found myself constantly checking myuo.com, monitoring my character's progress and keeping tabs on my brother's adventures. Also following ImaNewbie's comics and stories when I wasn't looking at our paper dolls online. Ultima Online became an obsession; everything revolved around it. Whether we were patrolling Mt. Kendall in Minoc, fending off PKs to protect miners with my loyal companion, or engaging in other escapades, the game had us firmly in its grip.

But as our UO addiction grew, so did our parents' frustration. They eventually banned the game from our home, citing the constant tie-up of the phone line and our marathon gaming sessions lasting six to eight hours each. Sneaking in a few illicit sessions became our only option and eventually we had to find a way to play the game without a parents credit card. We got creative.

Looking back, I realize that Ultima Online's true magic lay not in the acquisition of items or grinding skills, but in the vibrant community interactions it fostered. In those early days of online gaming, we were all pioneers, shaping the rules of virtual engagement together. It was a unique time, never to be replicated, and I'm grateful to have been a part of it.

Mage Qwerty spawning elementals right outside Moonglow, and seeing Chaos and Order knights fight.

InLor said:

Mage Qwerty spawning elementals right outside Moonglow, and seeing Chaos and Order knights fight.

Chaos vs Order was hands down the best PVP option in the game, I miss watching those battles around town.

Its a tie between 3 or 4 but I’ll just name one...

Watching the entire HI5 guild & their friends get destroyed by spawn lured in Tera Keep by Legendary Chester Rockwell (Judge Smails/Burt) & I. Burt worked up terra to lvl 4 then soon as it hit 4th he dipped & switched from sampire to stealth herder. Both of us then filled the entire area around the teleporter into Star Room with everything in the dungeon using herding. Our guild was doing the Ice Dungeon champ & we were doing prep for being raided in Tera Keep.

We knew a raid was coming from seeing bot ghost cams & figured they’d prob head to Star Room when the couldn’t take the spawn outright. As we’re finishing up in Tera we hear in vent a mild panic from some guildies, ‘They’re HERE ! Oh CRAP theres ALOT !’  Of course they waited for the champ to pop before raiding so now its a rush to drop it before they can take it. Burt dips outta Tera to get his sampire & help smash the champ FAST while I stay behind to block the teleport spot near the drop down into Tera with spawn so its impossible to pop thru the wall & escape.

I’m listening in vent while a mad fight rages wishing I was there to help but keeping busy with the Tera set-up. Then I hear our GM Jen say, ‘ It’s DOWN ! Everyone in the gate NOW !’ By this point the Tera bridge is entirely full of matriarchs, dread spiders & other nasties. The pit is full of blocking spawn, the area on both sides of the wall at the drop down is full, & I’m sitting near the drop down eating orange petals with dismount toggled.

30-45 secs later the fun started. Some died instantly at the drop down. Some immediately teleported to the bridge then died. Some tried to teleport thru the wall then died. Some ran around chugging pots then died. Some almost made it but got dismounted... then died. Couple folks used self res in the outside halls & tried to get their team back up but since I ran spirit speak on my stealth archer/herder... they died. Literally every single raider that dropped into Tera died. I was roflmfao so hard.

Took buncha screenies, 1 is enuff to show tho.  Ahh, good times....

  

Growing plants when they didn't have RNG other than some white/black seeds.

A more recent memory is when I came in back in 2016 and managed to place a keep, then furnishing it. It was my first keep and it made me take an interest in several activities I never did. That, by the way, is the beauty of Ultima Online. That you can be a veteran from 1997, but if you never took up fishing and boats, you can come back after all this time and discover a whole new aspect of the game.

The original Fight Nights in Oasis on Sonoma, late 1997 to 1998. Back then the place was ran by Lord Jonas and my IRLs friend's (now deceased) mother Lady Rei et al. We were regularly overrun by mobs of red DLs gating in and popping EQ scrolls, or another favorite at that time was opening gates in dungeons and bringing dragons and demons and having them go ham on the crowds.

But it was the most magical time in UO, especially when the GM's finally got involved and started locking down and blessing Oasis "city" structures. I actually ran out there this morning to see the castle (still there) and probably the last or most latest iteration of the fighting pens.

It was the first player-run city I had ever seen in a game and that place had BROAD support among not only GMs, but Origin staff and devs at the time, who saw Oasis and those Fight Nights as exactly what their vision of UO looked like, realized.

I've been here for a long time 🙂

PS - here's a link to my old partner's page from Sonoma. There's a few screenshots here, one that'll take some of you back is us plate mages in the bottom of Shame for some Blood Ele hunting. In those shots I'm the plate mage speaking in orange (Drake) lol

Also, server down death in Deceit I think, ah the days!
http://www.daxx.net/Uopics.html

Back when lady Mel just hopped on the scene and going in there with a crew. Cross healing then dropping party right at the end. The first time I got a crimson everyone in the house new about it. I felt like I won UO.