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I used to Love this game .. now .. well its a sad story ...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 23 / 24
Date: January 27, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I have been playing RPGs since I can remember. I Love them. From DnD to MUDS to Everquest and Asheron's Call not to mention the myriad of single player RPGs I've played, I have always enjoyed them. Then came UO (Ultima Online). I began playing UO the first month it was released. The world was new, and it felt huge compared with other computer games I had played. I remember countless hours hunting in dungeons with friends. I played for over a year, but unfortunately technology passed UO by, and the culture deteriorated to random mass killings and basically pure anarchy.

ONE: I love the diversity of professions/skills and other aspects of the variety of skills available. In UO you can become a chef, or a blacksmith or a scribe, or any of several other professions. This is really unique to UO as the other MMRPGs out there don't do professions nearly as well if at all. This aspect of the game adds a sense of "realism" of the world.

TWO: The anarchy in UO is too much to handle. Basically in UO there are no laws. If you wish to walk up to someone in the wilderness, kill them and take whatever they have on them, go for it. The only repercussion is that you will become known as a murderer and will have a slower time of resurrecting and what-not. Origin never understood that if player killers are allowed to walk the land, then they should have a legal system, court system, and prisons. That same player that killed you will be "out on the streets" again in a day or two. This is the largest flaw in UO that I can see. Innocent citizens are not protected from random killings except in town. In town, guards will kill anyone who attacks you, but there are loopholes that the PKrs (player-killers) know about and exploit to avoid the guards.

THREE: the graphics in UO are severely behind the times so much so that they bring down the over-all play experience. Essentially in UO there are no 3-D elements whatsoever, and your view of the world is an isometric (almost top-down) view of your character and immediate surroundings. The trees and undergrowth all look alike, and the monster graphics are quite limited with minimal animations. In essence, the graphics are abysmal compared to today's standards.

FOUR: The economic system in UO is in disarray. When I first started playing UO, a small house cost me 4000 gold. Now, nearly 3 years later it is over 1 million gold. If we had that kind of inflation IRL (in real life) governments would collapse and anarchy would take over. Even if you can afford to buy a house, there is no land left where you can actually place it, so the idea of housing., although a great idea and unique to UO vs Everquest and Asheron's Call, is unusable in its current form in UO.

FIVE: Character development. UO is completely a skill-based system. This means to improve something you must do it over and over and over and over (you get the idea). This would be OK except that origin has all sorts of skill caps so that at some point you cap out and are afraid of even seeing someone make bake a cake as it may raise your baking skill which would automatically lower your hard-earned, cap'ed-out, magic skill. Essentially once you reach the caps you have nothing to strive for. The other MMRPG games allow you to almost indefinitely strive for new heights giving you one more goal to continue to game for.

SIX: Cheating. It is well known that there are "cheat" programs available for UO. Inevitably the same characters randomly killing other characters in the wilderness are using these to gain an unfair advantage. Also, because of these and other "macro" programs available. It is possible to "cap" a brand new character in a matter of days. "Cap" means to get a character trained in skills all the way to their maximums. The fact that it can be done in a few days is distressing to other players wishing to enjoy a more level playing field and to actually earn the skills vs. using macro programs to get the skills maxed.

SUMMARY: If you already have a large group of friends playing that you can use to help protect you, if you like the idea of professions, and you have some extra cash burning a hole in your pocket, perhaps give UO a shot. However, due to the anarchy, the terrible graphics, and the overall player culture, I do not recommend this game to anyone looking for an enjoyable on-line RPG experience. My suggestion is to try Asheron's Call and perhaps even Everquest, NOT UO

Great Game if you Have the time...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 15
Date: December 06, 1999
Author: Amazon User

I have been playing Ultima Online for over two years. This game is advertised as a "Role Playing Game" where it should be advertised as "Alternate Reality". I spend about 2-3 HOURS a day playing this game- No joke. If you have children, I would not recommend this game because unless they play it everyday, and for at least an hour, they will get nowhere. This game is rated Mature Audiences for a reason. I have met some of my best friends thru Ultima. We have luncheons and talk about various UO subjects. One of my close friends is Danish, and I have learned how to speak danish from a game; amazing, isnt it? You can NEVER stop finding new things to do. From slaying dragons to taming them. Guild Warfare, Stealing, Fishing, Ultima Online has it all. If you are a serious RPG fan, go for Ultima.

Yeah, I've Felt that way at times. . .

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: March 14, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Ultima Online is a truly diverse game. I have played it for over a year now and am entirely pleased with it. "Former UO Player" expresses feelings I have had with the game perfectly. HOWEVER, I usually only feel that way after I have been PKd ;-). There are a lot of mean people that play this game only to frustrate us "roleplayers" it seems, but it is easy to avoid them.

If you play this game long enough, you will meet a core group of people to hang around with. whether you are a starry-eyed, neophyte adventurer or a grimy, grey-faced blacksmith, you WILL fill some niche in this HUGE and diverse society. You can join a guild and hack through a dungeon with a group of friends who are striving to eliminate evil, or you can band together with thieves and brigands to intercept some poor inexperienced group of adventureres. Its all up to you.

It is worth $19.99 just to check this game out for a month, trust me. You have to pay $10 a month to play, but they put this to good use providing patches every month to deal with player-reported bugs and problems. In reference to "Former UO Player"'s complaint that it is too easy to macro and have a grandmaster character in a week, Origin just provided a new patch that completely eliminates the effectiveness of macroing (trust me, I have tested it! ;-), among other things. All $$ is well-spent $$ with UO.

The best game I've ever played!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: March 06, 2000
Author: Amazon User

When I first began playing Ultima Online SOO long ago, I had never played an online/multi-player game before and had no idea what to expect. I almost instantly came to love this game. It is extremely addictive (you will find the hours from evening to morning flying by in a blur) and vastly entertaining.

There is no "one way" to do anything. You can aim for a craftsman, a monster-killing warrior, a PvPer, a pure mage, or a hybrid of the above. yOu can buy a house (there's a housing patch going in soon for more land), buy a boat, buy a horse, whatever.

Contrary to popular belief, you do not need a cable modem to play this game well. I have a 56k modem and an AOL account and have had no problems with running the game. Lag is a slght problem if you play at busy times (Saturday night at 7 pm) but I generally don't have too many problems with it.

You even get Counselors and GMs to help you with your problems. I have heard MANY people say that they have received terrible service from in-game support but I have never had longer than a 5 minute wait for either a Counselor or a Game Master.

I highly recommend this game to anyone who wants an alternate reality to "escape" to. =)

What a nightmare

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: March 04, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Let me start by saying this COULD have been a great game. It has decent graphics, a decent interface, and a really awesome skill system.

Other than that forget it, the skill system is so easily maniuplated by macroing, basically you could have a Grand Master in less than a week. And everyone basically makes up the same tank/mage with the same exact skills or else you are basically dogmeat to the PK's.

PK's are Player Killers. Some say they are 'roleplaying' killers, but when a guy named Vanilla Ice or SwEEtPiMp decides to kill you for no reason and loot all your belongings, all feelings of roleplaying go out the window. It seems 3 out of 4 people open up every conversation with "Corp Por" which basically means you are going to die unless you can run away without the lag 'rubberbanding' you back within their range.

The game is overrun with childish "DooDz" who have nothing better to do than to ruin the game for everybody else. They get their kicks off of killing someone and then taunting them afterwards. Sounds like a case of the bullied becoming a bully, only difference is they are hiding behind their monitor free to do and say whatever they want to make themselves feel better.

I've played just about every online game thats out now and I can easily say that Ultima Online has to be the worst as far as enjoyment goes. There are just too many kids who are out to upset people, the players ruined this game.

Everquest is a step up but again there are quite a number of "DooDz" who act childish and immature ruining what could be a great game.

Asheron's Call on the other hand seems to have a pretty good player base of mature people. Dont get me wrong there ARE "LeeT D()()D$" who play it, but it isn't nearly as bad as the other 2 mentioned games.

So I'd skip Ultima Online and Everquest and probably put my money with Asheron's Call. You'll thank me later =)

Fun for awhile

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: March 08, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I enjoyed Ultima Online immensely when I first started playing over two years ago. There is a wide variety of activities in which your character can participate including spell casting, tailoring, blacksmithing and joining a guild. The world is large and diverse and it's fun to interact with real people from all over the world. Player killers can be an annoying inconvenience if you enjoy traveling outside of towns but luckily aren't too numerous. In my opinion, money is too easily obtained making items worth very little. You can literally gate travel or 'recall' from bank to bank, city to city, picking up items dropped by other characters and make a profitable living! Also, the graphics, although attractive, are now outdated. My experience with online GM help was very positive, unlike the horror stories I was told. In conclusion, this game was fun for awhile but lost it's appeal over time. Then again, that can be said about most games, right?

GREAT GAME

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 19
Date: October 25, 1999
Author: Amazon User

I've been playing this online game for a little while over a year now, and I plan on playing it for a great while more. It consists of many hours of fun, daily. There is endless possibilities, you can hunt monsters, be a blacksmith, be a carpenter, make friends, tame monsters, etc. There is endless possibilities.

UO is a good one.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: April 10, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This is the most addictive game I've ever played. I will caution you that once you start playing, you won't be able to stop. $10 a month is pocket change and it's well worth it. The game is however very laggy, and this can be very, very frustrating. UO is a skill based game. This means that each character (you can make up to 5 characters on each server) has 36 different skills (swords, magery, blacksmithing, animaltaming, etc.). Each skill will be between 0 and 100 (each character starts with 100 skill points which can be distributed among either 2 or 3 different skills). Depending on the level of each of your skills, your characters can do different things (practicing skills will raise them). Also each character has strength, dexterity, and intelligence between 0 and 100. BE CAUTIONED: All 36 skills added up can cannot exceed 700. Also your strength, dexterity, and intelligence added up cannot exceed 225. This means you shouldn't make one character, for example, a mage, a blacksmith, and a tamer. But you can, for instance, make a mage, a blacksmith, and a tamer with 3 separate characters. This game will seem complex when you first start, and there are tons and tons of lots of tricks most good players know about fighting and increasing skills. But you will learn them as well. It takes a massive time commitment to make a few good characters, but it's a very fun game.

Not as good as could be

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: January 10, 2000
Author: Amazon User

The game is very addictive this is true, It has the potential to be great, however don't expect to do all the things it claims. Yes you have the option to buy houses in the game but the land space is limited and there is simply no more room for them. Yes you can use a meriod of skills but you are limited to how many and how high you can get them. Skill gain is slow and mindlessly reparative, yes some skills can be raised while adventuring but most are raised by siting there and performing the same action over and over. You'll spend long periods of time building skill. Skills points are raised in increments of .1% 100% being the goal and at the higher levels it can take many hours to gain just .1% and you can be banned for using an outside program to macro skills. The mechanics of the game change from month to month this is due to the constant tinkering by the administrators at times it'll be like playing a beta. Grand improvements are slow (they've been promising necromancy for two years) while minor changes are added and removed at an annoying rate(things like the way skills are gained and weather offensive magic can be used in town ,that one changed 3 times). Finally in-game support is there for only the most miniscule of problems (you get stuck in a server crack and can't move) but for most anything else the game masters are useless and right down rude.

great if u got the right equipment

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: September 12, 1999
Author: Amazon User

Great game, if u got the right hardware and software to run it, u can only play it online, u haveto pay $10 a month to play it and u cant run it on AOL. other than that it's an awsome game, total person to person interface, thousands of options great game

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