A rather lengthy missive to Lord British.

Hello!

Your games, and by and large the games put out by Origin Softworks are among some of my favorite pieces of media to date. Ultima 4, 5 and 6 were absolutely fantastic and Ultima 7 was an absolute masterpiece.

Ultima Online will always be the Corvette of the series. How many hundreds of hours I poured into that game from 1999 to 2003- I still ocassionaly play free servers. It is and will always be my absolute favorite game of all time, the intricacy of the world and the social dynamics and nuances that have developed as a result of pure unadultered, unmitigated human interaction is something that *no* piece of digital software has come close to replicating on such a large scale, as was seen in those few years. For me, it was the absolute pinnacle of PC gaming.

I never really even did much PvPing. I took hiding to avoid the PKers, and then I took stealth so I could loot their shiny goodies once they dropped. Then, I took stealing so I could pilfer their reagents before I could get corp-por-vas-ort-flam'd. I never played any other type of character, because there was absolutely nothing more engaging or exciting as stealing your first Broadsword of Vanquishing somewhere in the bowels of Despise, selling it, and using the proceedes to buy beers for the all the boys from the UO Stratics Thief Board AND all of the campers at Brit Bank, and having enough left over to tip the most assuredly male-played female avatars enough to take their doublets off in a ceremonous fashion.

Now, I'd like to show you, and whoever still lingers from the haydays of Origin- be they dev or player, something rather special to me, and I'm sure quite a few other folks as well.

Belan the Noble Looter- http://www.askcorran.com/belan/episodes.html (The original)

Crazy Joe - http://www.crazyjoe.us/crazyjoe.old/ultimaonline2/episodes.htm (The world's most famous thief.)

Looters Lair - http://looterslair.com/ (Home of Galad. All of the Galads. There was more than one Galad.)

The Joy of Viliany - http://www.wtfman.com/oldjov/ ('Legitimate businessmen' from the days of UO beta and onwards.)

Ask Coran - http://www.askcorran.com/episodes/episode.htm (An old associate, and sometimes rival.

UO THIEF http://uothief.com/ (Chad Sexinton, Rico, and dozens of other stratics old-timers.)

ROGUE JONES - http://looter.4t.com/ (They thought they'd be safe in Trammel.)

IMANEWBIE DOES BRITANNIA http://drachenfels.tipido.net/toon/toons.shtml.html (Perhaps the funniest and most famous UO comic of all time.)



If I can paraphrase a rather fantastic quote on all of this, "These stories that myself and many others have published over the years and more than just personal accounts, they are literally the history of Ultima Online." I think this is quite accurate.

If anything, enjoy the reading material. I hope it fills you guys up with all sorts of ideas about where to take the series, the OPO, and exactly what it was that made your game such a remarkable medium for all types of story-tellers- nefarious, incidental, unwitting or otherwise.


(Just don't forget about us thieves, huh?!)


Regards,

Kris of Atlantic,
One time guild-master of the greatest band of digital bastards, S|S.

 

This is worth restating:

 

Hear hear! Think of the thieves!

 

Yeah thanks for the rerun of IMANEWBIE episodes... Been a long time...

LOL

 

This!

Also, Chad Sexington is amazing <3

 

I'd also like to see some of those guys from OP's post in SotA.
Imanewbie does Sota, lol.
There are a lot of cool guys on free servers too, liek Franz Pfniffel from Secondage. You can google him and see some of his comics.

 

You want a link to Imanewbie? Google Imanewbie does Britannia.

 

You had me at hello...la

 

Hah.

While I personally was more of a fan of large PvP battles, thieving is one of those skills that really does get neglected in MMOs. Tell us New Britannia has a Buccaneer's Den

 

Unfortunately, it looks like thieves are indeed being neglected. There are going to be some subterfuge skills, but no real stealth mechanics. (And by "real" I mean environmentally based, as in light/shadow and sound.)

I believe they are going to have basic thieving skills, so u can steal from npc's (or other players, maybe, for pvp) if they aren't looking or whatever, but you most likely won't be able to break into a npc house or store after hours for looting or anything cool like that.


Granted, there has been no OFFICIAL word to confirm my statement, but I have been pressing for info on thievery for months now and received non-answers. The only real response has been, no matter how the question is phrased: "we have some subterfuge-type skills".

So, most likely, basic thievery will be possible but I don't see how I will be able to actually have thief be a viable "career" choice. Which is what I was really hoping for.

 

I don't think stealing should have anything to do with NPC's. It's not a fair fight. I'm always amazed that so many people are interested in combat against the equivalent of a broom stick. (PVE)

 

The more aspects to the game, the better.

Please include non consensual thieving.

 

Hey... I know you!!!
but...I can't remember anything specific. But I remember that "la", too!
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

 

Stealing from NPCs is like having a love affair with your right hand.

 

Don't forget www.wtfman.com

http://www.wtfman.com/mcd/saveplanet.htm

 

Isn't that what people say is one of the most fun parts of Skyrim?

 

this is an old post but may i point out you missed...

ADAM ANT!!!

http://uothief.com/about.html

 

other people's disdain for PvE mechanics notwithstanding, here is a link to some interesting info we got from DS today, dev+ only:

dev+ chat log

 

I will always remember the thieves, so I know how to look out for and stab.

 

That's probably the same people whos only woman is their right hand. No wonder they like stupid activities like stealing from NPCs.