Hi bank

It was 1997 I think... the three of us found a way to set up a modem in our office to dial in to the UO servers (was this beta?) and we would play, after work and all weekend long. I remember one stretch, we must have played over 30 hours straight, with occasional breaks to go up to the restaurant\cafeteria in our building. The lines between reality and UO were blurring and I could hear the bank opening sound in my head when Sean kept saying "hi bank" on our stroll up for food. I remember when they first introduced snow and apparently forgot to add repaint to the screen so, as it snowed, it would paint the entire screen white so you couldn't see anything... can't remember if they fixed it the same day after it was introduced or not.

But most of all I remember the countless hours of fun the three (and as we got other people hooked more) of us had playing on Catskills as an incomplete four horsemen of the apocalypse pk squad... I was Death so, of course, spirit speak was part of my repertoire so I could talk to and offer suggestions as to the closest shrine for our unfortunate victims. The panic we inspired when our red names showed up in the dungeon you were in was exhilarating. But we got as good as we gave and there were many mighty players who fought back - hard. Casting explode (which had a delay) and energy bolt immediately after would be a double whammy hitting at once - add in that tossed explosion potion and it was devastating. OooOoo ooOo ooo.

Later, I played in a blue guild called c8v - crusaders of the 8 virtues (siege perilous) and all we did was rescue people and battle red guilds. Our KOS list (called Siege Pyschopaths) was pretty epic and some pkers would approach us to get removed from this list by turning "good". Such great fun.


Over the years I have always sought to recreate those early days of pure excitement and adventure going from mmo to mmo. And some were amazing! EQ (train @ Crush!!!), Asheron's Call, DAoC. Wow, Lotro, GW2 and on and on... but none ever seemed to match the experience of UO. Of course this is likely the "first effect" that we all experience when we immerse into something amazing for the first time.

So here we are, SoTA. I have played about 30 hours and think this is shaping up to be an incredible game. I will be staying to see how this goes and working to help promote it. It needs a lot but it feels like it could be a close successor to those old days of glory. It's got the virtue system, it has some great depth. There is a hyper focus on housing and decor (as it is purchasable?) which is fine for all the roving bands of interior decorators looking for an mmo to call their own. I am very hopeful the team will hyper focus on other content too - game play content, skills, large group content, crafting fixes, UX improvements (maybe let me dump a quest I don't want to do?) but I know it is a massive undertaking and they have to make a living and a profit to sustain it.

Very glad RG got this thing finally going so many years after the teaser of the original UO2 gameplay video got us all excited way back in the way back. So, Guards!!! buy vendor, sell vendor and hi bank to all of you in the comunity - looking forward to seeing this world grow.

 

Welcome to SOTA!

 

Welcome home twohawks! Seems we are chasing the same memories

You've arrived at the perfect time. The dev team here works very hard to improve this game every day. I've been here about 8 months and the progress in that time has been amazing. Somehow they have managed to push the technology forward and still hold on to that certain thing we all loved way back when. The community here is superb too. Really great people here. I can't even begin to tell you how much help and encouragement I have received from other players here in SOTA. Of course many of them are also UO veterans, so really not surprising. I played Great Lakes from 1997, and SOTA feels like the next chapter in my MMO life. I'm happy to hear you are sticking around. See you out there...

 

Welcome to Sota! I played on Catskills myself during those times. Great to hear some of your stories, brings back a lot of memories. We might have had some run ins back then, but I didn't get heavy into the pvp scene until a year or two after the game started.

Couldn't even tell ya what my character names were back then, I ended up trading my first account to my neighbor because his parents wouldn't buy him the game. If I recall correctly i received baseball cards to pay for the game and his subscription fees.

Glad to hear you're enjoying the game, look me up in game (same name) if you have any questions or just want to reminisce about the old glory days.

 

Welcome to the game @twohawks. I played Pacific shard and also have some great memories. If I can help in game anytime my in game name is Majoria. Whisper or mail me in game anytime. We do have a nice mail system and also we have a music system where we can solo play or group play with others. I'm happy to teach anyone also. Happy journeys.

 

Very nice to meet you all and great to hear of your reflections on UO back in the day as well as your thoughts on SotA.
I will definitely be looking forward to sharing this interesting world with all of you!