Ultima has (arguably) a richer and longer history than Warcraft as well.The premise is that when the Stranger shattered Mondain's Gem of Immortality, each of the fragments of the gem held a perfect copy of Sosaria in them. It was much more “real” than later games like WoW and most of the free MMOs out there. Or you could form a gang on a PvP server and take over an entire area. If you wanted to build a house and just chill out Second Life style, you could. It’s been at least ten years since I’ve played UO, but from what I remember, it was literally whatever you wanted it to be. There’s really no reason to buy a new subscription unless you just want to raid 24/7.

No one wants to talk to lowbies because the game doesn’t really start until level cap, there’s no sense of community any more (I found this to be true across several servers), and overall it’s just dull. I tried to pick it back up last year on a whim, and it’s just so boring now. When I played back in 2005-2008, I had more fun following the stories for each race/class combo than I ever did in instance dungeons (though some of the lower level dungeons, especially the pirate-themed ones, were quite fun). WoW has become the poster child for “it’s not about the story, it’s about endgame” despite having a very rich and entertaining set of stories from level 1 up. Still I would prefer an isometric style like that over WoW (which I could never get into). I stepped through once just to try it out and was immediately pick-pocketed by a thief. Last time I played it though (admittedly a few years ago) they had implemented moongates to transport between ‘PvE’ and ‘PvP’ areas. It didn’t have any of these ‘challenge to a dual’ or anything like that, which most MMOs have now, it was free for all. I played Ultima Online for many years, and it is where PK was defined as Player Killer. Ultima IV pioneered that, though admittedly you had to better yourself to become the avatar, or you couldn’t actually win, on the other hand Alternate Reality would let you become evil and join evil guilds, it was great. Ultima 4 has been given away free for a while, and there are mods to make it look a bit less dated, but it is positively still one of the greatest CRPGs ever made.Įveryone was so impressed by The Witcher, where they say your actions have consequences.

Poor bastards who have never played an Ultima game.

Ultima online