Ultima Online Communication Crystals

Anyone remember communication crystals from Ultima Online?

I remember having these before the party system in UO. These allowed you to communicate across vast distances. In the old days it was one of the only ways to communicate, IM and IRC wasn't quite as popular in those days. The communication crystals also required gems to power based on how many words you wanted to say into it I think.

I remember we had one in our house on Catskills. We used it to communicate with our guild members when organizing events. I look back on it now and I realize that some of these things helped actually add a layer of immersion that's absent in more recent MMORPGS and with third party tools like IM.

Some questions to think about are is the new way of doing things actually better?

What are some pros and cons of modern methods compared to something like a communication crystal?

Have you ever used one?

 

The only time i had used one was just to spy on the people visiting my house. It was interesting but it didn't last long cause Guild chat soon followed. From then on i used them just for house Decor.

 

I once used them in conjunction with what I was calling a Hexahedron Generator in UO. The generator it's self was 24 barkeeps hidden with stacked and raised black cloth pillars with a place to stand in the middle. The communication crystals came in a later version for one of my more $ affluent patrons. She had gobs of them and placed them under all the barkeeps. This resulted in the same effect that the generator, where if your standing in the middle and say some secret words, the bar keeps create a display in a very large area of text... back at her home on the receiving end, she had fun seemingly drawing large amounts of text out of thin air. Some quests and great strange effects were made from such

~Time Lord~

 

Sounds somewhat similar to the concept of Linkshells/Linkpearls in Final Fantasy XI, where when you started their equivalent of a Guild you bought a Linkshell (item) and that you used to create Linkpearls (another item) to invite people to your Guild, so to speak. You could also use them for special events (like Dynamis runs) or small groups of friends to just chatter on. Rather than setting up chat windows, you just equipped the linkpearl of the group you wanted to speak to at that particular period of time. It got a bit cluttery tho so we'd keep all except the common use ones in our Mog Houses and pull out the rest when we were going to head out and do that certain event.

Nowdays, the magical chat window of tabs takes that role instead. But in those days it had a weighty feel to it that sounds like your communication crystals here. Like a physical symbol of your group of friends / event folks etc, where you did the whole creation of the pearl and handing it over to your new friend / recruit etc.

 

Somewhere in all the tech gizmos of todays internet... there seems something missing doesn't it?
~TL~