Some time ago Marissa (Marion’s niece and my gaming-friend) were discussing the games we placed in the past. And so I told her about the first real online game I ever played: Ultima Online.
As I played this game a very long time, there were many stories and facts to tell about it. Ultima Online is based on the old standalone games series of Ultima.
By all the details I told Marissa she got curious about the game. So I did the only thing I could do to show her really the old game and that was re-activating one of my old accounts (this account was created in 2001). I showed her around in the game (one has to love fast Internet connections and screen sharing :P). And yes, the graphics are not like modern games as Everquest II or even Grand Theft Auto V. But Marissa was impressed by how detailed the game was. And even I forgot about that.
Running into a dungeon made me realize how hard this game is compared with modern games.
To keep the story short: The Ultima Online-virus got hold of Marissa… and I have to admit, I was captured by it as well again. And now my 3 old accounts are active again. Dimrost picked up his swords again (Dimrost was my main character). Marissa felt in love with Femke, the elven paladin archer on the oldest account (extremely effective and deadly when played well). Sadly Dimrost and Femke are on the same account, so they cannot be play together (you can only play one character of an account at the same time). But on one of the other accounts there is a necromancer called Lucifera who can team up nicely with Dimrost. And yes, they rock and die a lot… as said, this games is so much harder as many of the other games we played together.
The crafters have picked up their jobs again… mining, lumberjacking, carpeting, tailoring, alchemy, tinkering, blacksmithing and more.
We have placed three houses close to each other on the location where I had in the past my house. So it is almost a small village. One house a dedicated as meeting place and the other two are for crafting and storage. For now the three house are kinda empty, but that will change over time. Decorating houses is a real art in Ultima Online.
There has been many changes to the game during the years that I was away. New lands and dungeons were added. Existing dungeons where changed and updated. New races and professions were added. New monsters are roaming the lands. There are new animals to be tamed (one of my main characters is a tamer).
It also nice to show Marissa all the places through the lands, the secret passages and places to see…. And of course the places were not to go (at least not alone). Marissa was in for an surprise when she ran into the dungeon Hyloth and found herself surround by dragons, an occasion her character did not survive. Luckily I could free the place with my tamer and her white wyrm so Marissa could collect the items from the corpse of her character.
It was nice to see that people still meet at the bank of Britain to chat and have fun together. It was a real surprise that some of the old guilds are still around.
The game has not lost its magic and it feels good to be back again.