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My Ultima Online Experience

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Panther: My Ultima(te) Online Alter Ego

Playing the MMORPG game Ultima Online is my favourite passtime and has been for many years.

Like many people, I work hard. I am self-employed and run several different online and offline enterprises. So, I don't get a lot of free time, but with what free time I do have, I like to really relax by escaping into my own little fantasy world called Ultima Online.

I'm not going to give a full history or description of the game, there are several good places to find that information. No, here I simply plan to describe what Ultima means to me; why I think it's just the best MMORPG out there; and indulge a little by sharing the fantasy.

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11 Years and Counting

My Ultima Online journey started about 11 years ago in 1998.

I had aways been a fan of the Ultima single player series of fantasy adventures and had played every single one (so I guess my total ultima journey has been around 18 years altogether).

After finishing Ultima IX: Ascension, I waited for what seemed like forever for the next great Ultima release, but, although there was talk of another it never materialized.

One day I was at a local computer store and I happened to notice the Ultima symbol I knew so well and stopped to pick up the box. It was Ultima Online.

I had not been on the internet long and had avoided anything social, I guess I was already getting old as I feared all this new technology, but I couldn't walk away from the product. Finally, I gave in and bought the package.

Yet, it still took me about another month or so to finally garner enough nerve to load it, sign up and try it out.

Well, what can I say - the reset, really is history. I have never looked back.

Videoed Screenshots of Ultima Online

This is a great little vid that edits several Ultima Online screenshots cut to a great track.

The Illustrious Panther, Elder Warrior

Panther wasn't actually my first character. My first character was Shade. Shade was a crafter. I had decided to start off with something that seemed like a safe option. She had a bit of fighting skills but mainly I used her to mine for ore and trained her up as a blacksmith and a tailor.

The thinking behind this was that she could make herself some great armour and weapons then later, I would build up her fighting skills. But she remained a crafter to this day.

Once I had learned a little bit and got the hang of all this (I mean, it was scary not having a save button!!), I finally bit the bullet and created my first warrior. - Panther.

With Ultima Online you can create up to six characters on the same account (it used to be five but now you get six and can purchase a further character slot, should you wish, on the official Ultima Online site), so i worked out a plan to create characters to specialise in various skills:

Panther:- Warrior specialising in swordsmanship and healing

Shade:- Crafter specialising in Mining, Armory, Tailoring, Tinker & Carpentry

Ruby:- Animal Tamer and Bard

Rikka:- Alchemist, Scribe & Woodsman

Arthur:- Pure Mage

This, I decided would mean that I could be totally self-sufficient, each character providing for the needs of the others.

This is one of the things that I love about the Ultima Online experience, it has so many interesting options that you never really have the time to get bored. If you get a little tired fighting dragons all day long, you can slow down the pace for a while and do some crafting.

Each skill and trade has many different options available that it makes for an almost endless list of possibilities.

Another great feature of the Ultima Online game is the ability to build your own house. In some other games I have tried out, you get a pretty boring space with perhaps some storage facility and very basic decorating options to individualise the space. But with Ultima Online, you can purchase either a ready made house, or a plot of land that you can develop by building and designing your very own, individual and unique space. But you can wander around that house, you can decorate it, you can store in it, you can entertain in it, it is totally unique.

I'm so proud of my OU House!

This is my current house in UO (Ultima Online). It's a bit too big to fit on the screen, but you can see what is possible.

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Warning - Ultra Addictive

In the first couple of years I got so addicted to the game that I would spend hours, sometimes even days at a time in front of the computer screen playing; designing and redesigning my house; developing and perfecting my characters; killing dragons; making items; selling my crafted wares and developing a second account.

Before long, my eldest daughter got to understand some of the game (she's spent so many hours watching me and listening to my rant) that she, too, got involved. Soon we were both online at every available opportunity.

Not long after, my youngest got hooked and so we would all team up and go on hunts together and we soon developed some interesting personality traits online that were never apparent in our real lives: my youngest turned out to be a great designer and a sharp trader (neither of which we had detected in her day to day existence); my eldest turned into a comical exhibitionist (her favourite character was "The Pink Poof" - an amazing male magician who dressed in bright pink female clothing!; and I found myself through Panther as an undefeated Paladin Warrior and femme fatale. We had great fun!

However, the other people in our lives would moan and nag at us. They could not understand how we could spend all day doing this. My mother would tut-tut relentlessly and got quite annoyed with us on several occasions.

But slowly, they all fell under the spell. My nephew, then my sister, then ----- MY MOTHER!!!!

When my mother finally got involved she turned out to be worse than all of us!

One day she came to my house and began bemoaning about her partner who was giving her a hard time about all the time she spent on UO. She was staying up late and logging on first thing in the morning to 'water her plants' (she was a keen UO gardener at the time).

She complained that he didn't understand then, like a bolt of lightning, she realised that she had acted the same way with us when we played and she didn't. She still plays to this day, by the way.

But we enjoyed playing together, three generations all able to take part in the same activities; all age barriers gone; all peers here in UO-Land, it was great.

And we were not alone. We met many others online where there were at least two generations involved. I often met, say, a trader, and we would get talking. Eventually the conversation would go 'off-game' and they would admit that they were, for example, in their 40's or 50's. I was also in my 40's so we would share something; then I would admit that my mother played - that one was usually the winner - lol. But I did meet players older than her!

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We all still play but most of us use it for a few hours at a time, or on a Sunday, as a means to relax and unwind and it still takes us off into an amazing world of adventure and fun (my mother is still the one who puts in the most hours online with Ultima, though), but nowadays we play on a free shard for two reasons; it's free, and it's still the UO we know and love.

There are some who feel that since EA Games took over the franchise for Ultima Online, that the game has gone downhill and the changes are not always welcome - but, at the same time, there are many who still enjoy it. But we have found our ideal world in the Demise Free Shard.

This was, at first a tough decision, because it meant abanding everything we had built up: our skills, our properties, our wealth, etc. However, now we are quite content and have almost competed our character profiles and we all have new properties (I still want to find that leather skirt with high specs to show of my gorgeous legs, however).

We have all tried other online multi-player games, I think just about all the best known and popular as well as a few more obscure ones; but nothing ever really compares to Ultima at least for us. So we always return. And the best bit is - when I am old and grey, I can still enjoy the fantasy of being young and heroic as the sexy Panther when I enter the wonderful world of Ultima.

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My Ultima Online Experience

Panther: My Ultima(te) Online Alter Ego

Contents at a Glance

Contents at a Glance

What You'll Find Here:

Other great lenses on Ultima Online

11 Years and Counting

Videoed Screenshots of Ultima Online

The Illustrious Panther, Elder Warrior

I'm so proud of my OU House!

Find Ultima Online on eBay

Warning - Ultra Addictive

What are people twittering about today?

Want more UO?

Nowadays...

Great UO Stuff on CafePress

Featured Lenses

visit some of my other lenses and those of some I love!

Share Your Links & Vote for Your Favorites

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