It’s been a while since we’ve done one of our weekly adventure logs. We fell out of the habit when gaming dried up a bit and all we were doing was hanging out or traveling. Now that things are settling down and I’m investing more time into specific games, I can do a weekly writeup for us. This week I’ll just touch on what I’ve been doing, but next week I’ll wrangle Graev into preparing his thoughts.
Just about everything I’ve done has revolved around a new Ultima Online shard. I’ve enjoyed watching the server start fresh, and experiencing the beginning weeks of the scramble to max professions, establishing a position in the economy, and seeing how organizations vie for a reputation.
I’ve already expounded on how an older game like UO has been able to do things right that future games haven’t replicated, but there are plenty of drawbacks to its age. My biggest gripe is the chatlog, and a lack of any ability whatsoever to see what was said more than a few seconds later. I like the lack of chat channels, but when my guildies speak and I miss the message it becomes a game of “can you repeat that for me?”
Playing something so old also gives new insights into what isn’t necessary in future games. I really don’t miss mail or auction houses at all. People are forced to take an active approach to commerce. If you want to sell something, come up with innovative ways to raise awareness, or rely on the good old yelling from the street corner tactics. (Note: Remember, UO doesn’t have a chat log so there’s really no spam. You only see text above people’s names.)
I’ve enjoyed making furniture to decorate my house, and figuring out what other people will want to buy from me. For some reason candelabras sell really well, as do pewter mugs, but for some reason no one wants to buy spoons. Something that left a good impression on me last night was setting up a barkeep in our guild house. We placed the Barkeep vendor then placed tables and stools in front of him with some food and drinks on the counter to create atmosphere. Now we actually have a place to hang out. Next step will be to create a room with a lot of chairs as sort of a ‘meeting room’ for us to use. I like those things.
Anyway, that’s enough rambling. UO has been a neat experience so far. I’m glad I’ve had to opportunity to go back and play.
Not sure if this is just on the shard that I played on, but we had a Journal, located on a bar at the top of the screen, also had buttons for Paperdoll, Map, Inventory, Chat, and Help
Journal saves back quite a ways and you can also have it set to save to a file.
UO is definitely lots of fun when you have friends to play with – the social housing aspect is unparalleled in an MMO, and I still have many fond memories of roleplaying on Europa (the only game I’ve ever bothered with roleplaying in!).
I think I would miss the AH – I’ve always hated having to interact directly with people to sell something. You could do that in WoW if you wanted to, and indeed it’s a better idea for some deals, but for some reason it makes me uncomfortable! I much prefer an anonymous system.
UO is the best mmorpg ever made. i’ve spent countless hours in the warm glow of my computer screen bashing baddies and clomping hummies. All fun times. most fun times i’ve had gaming.