Twenty Years Today

Twenty years ago today, my brother, his friend, and I left Starcraft and joined UO.  We created our first characters Banjo, Big Dogg, and Dizzy, and huddled by the east bank of Britain, trying to kill rabbits but avoiding eagles because they were too hard, and avoided the forests because of the PK's lurking there.  It was several days before we realized we were in Trammel.

Eventually, I ran Treasure Hunters of Britannia across multiple shards as Sphyr, a treasure hunting guild for hire.  Many nights I was so busy appointing people cross-shard and arranging treasure hunts that I didn't even get to play myself.  We had I think 45 treasure hunters on Lake Superior and over a hundred across the shards.  Most of our work was documented on Stratics' Treasure Hunters of Britannia (THB) site.

Eventually, the game changed, people moved on.  I "retired".  Big Dogg and Banjo left the game.  I might go for years without playing, but then I'll come back for several months.  I have a job, wife, dogs, etc, and free time is scarce.  For years I played for 20 minutes at server up before work - just enough time for a t-hunt - but I changed jobs and that 20 minutes isn't available now.

Through it all, I've kept my house, Mesanna made it a historical landmark some time ago.  Kudos to this game that gave me hours of fun for many many years.

Thanks, Ultima Online.

Shh, you're raining on Dizzy's parade.

Rock said:

Congratulations!  Here's to 20 more.  🙂

I hate to be "that guy", but ... I'm going to be.  I'm curious.  According to the Ultima Online Wikipedia page, the Renaissance release (debuting Trammel) occurred 4 May 2000.  Either Wiki is wrong, you were playing on a test server, or you are mis-remembering being in Trammel during your early rabbit hunting days.  I looked it up because I thought Trammel didn't exist until like 2002.

 In May 2000, Ultima Online's second expansion Ultima Online: Renaissance dramatically altered the game. It split the game world into two parts called Trammel and Felucca

I believe 2002 was the LBR era which is when i started playing.  Then in 2003 AOS came out.
Maybe he started a month or two before tram which is why he's remembering hiding from the PK's.  Memories of a video game can get pretty fuzzy after 20 years lol.

Either way Congrats to Dizzy on 20 years!  
Dang we're getting old!

GrimswindSisters said:

OSI Tyrant came to Legends of Kesmai to tell us we were losing our lands but that we would have exclusive access to a wonderful new world, Ultima Online, on a thing called a shard which would be named Legends.  Kes shut down in March 2000, we logged into UO, ran around not having a clue what to do and got murdered a lot. About to give up and we heard rumblings of a safe land coming, so we stuck around.

I remember LoK!!! I played via AOheLl for a bit before getting introduced to UO in 1997.
Damn... memories...



And THB is what inspired me to make a treasure hunter in the first place all that time ago.

I was thinking i bought Ren in Oct/Nov of 99. 

Well, my player profile on my paperdoll says it's been twenty years.  I tracked the date only to remember to claim vet rewards (which I don't do, I have nearly all of them still left to pick).

So I didn't write down the actual start date, I'm relying on my paperdoll.  

When Trammel was created, where did existing characters go?  It's possible I started in Felucca (or the only existing land), and then there was an patch/upgrade and I was in Trammel automatically.  I was new and didn't understand the game yet.  I was never PK'd either way because I was still running from the eagles.  I felt it took an hour to kill a harpy, I didn't dare go up against a PK.

The memory is a little hazy, but I remember something connected to Veteran rewards whereby all accounts were attributed 2 months extra time.

I think Mariah is right.  I may have been credited 2 months, some snafu - was it from those months we telestormed from lag?  In that case, my 20 years is in two months.  At my age, though, that's close enough. 

Hey guys, I was around playing back before the Renaissance expansion. Fel/Tram was introduced shortly before the summer of 2000. A lot of my friends left for Everquest Ruins of Kunark when fel/tram hit.
I only remember because it was when I graduated high school, and real-life began for me

Rock said:

@ Dizzy The date is not important.  For all I know, the Wikipedia is wrong (it''s been wrong before).

IIRC (for this whole spiel), players remained in Felucca after the Trammel facet existed.  Each town had temporary one-way gates to get to the same spot in Trammel.  I believe these gates were near the banks.  Originally, a normal moongate only allowed travel within its facet.  To change facets, you needed a special stone (moonstone?) some monsters would carry.  When you were ready, you would drop the stone somewhere outside of a town, and it would bury itself.  About 10 seconds later, a gate would appear to the other facet in the same spot.  I think multiple people could use that gate, and it lasted about as long as a mage-cast gate.

Runes would not allow you to travel between facets.  I'm not sure, but I think runes would bring you to the same coordinates on whichever facet you happened to be on.  Because the geometry and foliage placement was (and is) not the same on Trammel and Felucca, sometimes a rune would not be functional on the "wrong" facet.

Banks have always been cross-facet, so anything you had stored there was available whichever one you happened to be on.

(Anyone, please correct my mis-memories.)

You are correct, we used to have to collect stones (I vaguely remember it being something like a light stone and a dark stone or something like that) from mobs in order to travel between the two worlds. I do not remember the rune situation myself, I do remember however the huge land rush for housing the night that fel/tram was opened up and the server crashes.

When using moon stones you had to use a spyglass to check the moon phase if I remember correctly the color and phase opened a gate to the corresponding facet 

maybe I’m just old but I think that’s how it worked 

I also remembered being able to get NPCs to attach to you by talking to them 

long time ago very cloudy memories 

The stones were Trammel moonstones and Felucca moonstone.   You collected the Felucca moonstones from Trammel mobs.  As a t-hunter of both facets, I collected plenty of both, still have a dozen or so under the mistaken belief they'd eventually become rares.

Prior to the Tram/Fel moonstones - back when there was only one facet, early on, in a time almost forgot, Skett says it correctly. I believe then they were simply called moonstone.I believe a plan moonstone is rather rare.

Their function was changed after the facet discovery so one could go to the same exact spot in the opposing facet. Moonstones themselves became trash, because the gods saw fit to make moongates predictable.

Which brings to mind, even before the moonstones, the same graphic was used as a Pagan Reagent, the Pumice. Another item uses the graphic, a Token of Passage.

I still have 2 moonstone and even have a unmarked fel rune