Ultima Online is a classic MMORPG, and one of the first big names in the category.
While it was first introduced in 97, and has survived until today. While official servers still require subscriptions, there is a thriving community of free servers... The most notable of which (UO Gamers: Hybrid) sees a steady 800 clients every day.
Ultima Online offers many features not seen in other games, but it is most know for its PVP, housing and character development.
UO is one of the few games to offer nonconsecutive PVP. Players may attack each other at any time, however there are draw backs. Players start out as innocent (designated by a blue name, and a highlighted blue when targeted.) Performing negative acts on a blue character in town will allow guards to be called on the criminal player, and they will be killed instantly. Criminal actions will turn your player gray for 2 minutes. Grey characters are freely attackable, even in town. Killing blue players gives them the option to give you a murder count. 4 murder counts turns your character red. Reds cannot use banks in guarded towns, will not be resurrected by normal healers and can be attacked at any time. Each murder count lasts 40 hours of in game time, so murders can turn a new leaf... but only after a long wait.
When a player dies a corse is left on the ground, and all their items (with the exception of blessed clothing, and supplies that come with a new player) fall on their corpse. Anyone can loot the corse, but looting a blue corpse is a criminal action.
One noteable exception to the criminal system is Thieves. Thieves can view the contents of another players backpack with the snooping skill (based on skill the player being snooped may be alerted), and steal items with the stealing skill. Based on skill, the weight of the item being stolen and the number of players near by the player can be successful with out being detected (remain blue, but still attackable with out consequence), can be successful but turned gray, or can fail all together... giving them nothing but still turning them gray. Thieves can hide, removing them from other players screen... stealth, allowing them to take up to 10 steps while hidden (per 10 seconds) or reveal other hidden players to find players to steal from.
Character skills and traits are handle quite differently then many games. Rather then having classes, races and ranks character development is free flowing. Skills ranging from magery to animal taming to blacksmithing or carpentry are trained individually. As they are used skill points in them are gained, from zero to one hundred. Characters can work on any combination of skills they want, but the maximum skill points a player can have is limited to 700. This gives great flexibility, you can create a mage who can attack with spells and weapons, craft characters who can kill, or a theif who can defend himself with a crossbow.
Hybrid features quicker skill gains, allowing a character to reach maximum potential in a few days to limit the grinding needed to have a successful character.
Characters can be customized with clothing of different styles that can be dyed in a variety of colors, and rare clothing can be found/traded with other players. Skin and hair color can also be chosen as well as hair styles.
Outside of towns houses can be built. There are many "classic" styles that can be chosen from, or custom houses can be built piece by piece from a variety of wall and floor styles to create any design you want. Houses store extra items for your character, give you a place where you can log off instantly (otherwise your character will remain where you log out for a few minutes), allow you to run a vendor and sell items to other players, or give you a base to place a guild stone so you can start a clan.
Being a game made in 1997 the graphics are nothing spectacular, but they are sufficient... especially for a free game.
Here are some examples of housing and game play.
The guild house of the guild I belong to
Mages fighting...
Killing miners
Someone getting guard wacked in town.
Animal Tamer killing people with his pet dragon.
Full map... There are probably 15 or so towns in all.
Most popular character types are:
Crafters: With a variety of different skills crafters can make most items in game. Alchemists can create potions to give instant hit point, strength, and dexterity bonuses. They can also create explosion potions that will blow up on a target, and potions to cure characters of poison. Blacksmiths can make armor and weapons, Tailors can make clothing and leather armor. Scribes can create magic spells that can be added to spellbooks. Carpenters can create house add-ons such as beds, stoves, spinning wheels, looms.. as well as chairs, tables and boxes.
Mages: The most popular for PVP. lots of different mages, with the right combination of skills they can paralyze enemies with a punch, cast higher levels of poison on targets, or add bonuses to defensive spells like reflecting magic spells back on the caster.
Tank mages: Tank mages combine normal mages with weapon skills. These mages sacrifice some mana for dexterity to swing weapons faster. This allows them to still fight when they run out of mana, giving them more staying power in fights, and giving them some of the bonuses that weapons offer.
Dexxers: Melee fighters and archers. Poison can be applied to bladed weapons to poison the victim when it strikes. Larger weapons offer bonuses depending on the category. Large sword weapons give concussions, which temporary cut a mages available mana in half. Mace fighters have a crushing blow, that deals extra damage and ruins the enemies armor faster. Fencers can paralyze the enemy temporarily, keeping their victim from running away.
Tamers: Tamers can tame animals and some monsters and keep them as pets. They can control these pets and use them to attack players or other monsters. Pets can be trained to make their attacks more effective. Dragons and Nightmares (magic horses) can kill most players EASILY when trained, but move slowly.
Fishers and Treasure hunters: Fishers can pull up clues to hidden treasures, and hunt them down to get money, items needed to cast spells, or magic weapons that do extra damage.
Thief: Many types of thieves. Some can disarm an opponent and steal their weapon out of their pack, some can sneak around without being seen, some just steal to get attacked so they can kill the person and take the rest of their items.
How to play:
The client has been made free to download. Once downloaded allow it to patch fully.
To play on free shards you need a program called Razor. Razor offers a lot of additional functionality, letting your record complex macros and assign hot keys to different skills and spells.
UO download links:
http://games.mirrors.tds.net/pub/ea-gam … _setup.exe
http://www.uo.com/uoml/downloads.shtml
http://www.download.com/Ultima-Online-M … 32237.html
All should be the same, pick what ever is best for you
Razor download here:
http://www.runuo.com/razor/download.php
With a guide here if you want it
http://www.runuo.com/razor/guide.php?tab=general
Shoot me an PM if you decided to play, and when you launch Razor change the shard (their name for servers) to "Hybrid" (most populated one with best rule set)
Depending on how many take me up on the offer I'll help show you the ropes, show you how to build a charicter, and get you started.
Last edited by VicktorVauhn (2009-08-13 01:50:17)
