My new favorite excuse for U9

[suraimu]

"Years ago, my ship was swallowed by a massive whirlpool. The remains of
my ship washed up on this isle with myself and three others. When I
recovered, I explored my surroundings, and found a great gem broken into
three shards. The Shards, full of evil, drove me to kill my three
companions, and from their blood sprang the three Shadowlords. Taking
the Shards deep into this underworld, they entrapped Lord British, and
hold Blackthorn in their power. They spare me only to taunt me with such
news until my dying day."

When the Avatar smashed the Gem of Immortality into thousands
of pieces, they all contained another Britannia inside of them, a small
Universe of their own. The three largest shards, which found their
way into the Underworld (above) and created the Shadowlords, must
have also had Britannias in them, right? The large size of the three
shards retaining most of the evil of the full Gem of Immortality, the
Britannias inside would most likely be affected.

What I suggest is that everything that happened in Ultima 9, happened
to the Britannia inside the Shard of Falsehood.

[Stephan]

Hehe, good suggestion - BUT that would require that you followed Ultima Online's storyline, and that is, in my opinion, a worse crime than going along with U9's.

[GeniusLoci]

Also, the Avatar didn't shatter the shards, he incinerated them.

[suraimu]

He incinerated the shards, he didn't incinerate the gem.

As far as I'm concerned, there's no reason you can't follow UO's
storyline, since the 'storyline' is that the gem had other universes
in them. The rest is incidental, as it all happened in alternate universes
that don't matter.

[Los Schaboss]

besides , when you play martian dreams , the shadowlords explain that they where created when in ultima4 , they where are parts of the soul of the avatar , but they where seperated , because of the virtues - this is one of the reasons why i dont like ultima online and ultima 9 ( the shadowlords can not exist without avatar and virtues , and the thing with avatar related to guardian is just stolen from martian dreams) and besides the virtue stories on the u9 homepage , remind me strangely to rashomon

[Andy]

Ah, but perhaps the 3 defeated shadowlords (3 parts of the Avatar) eventually united into the form of the Guardian... hmm....

[Oblivious]

Hmmmm.....

[suraimu]

Martian Dreams is not part of the traditional Ultima saga, nor is Savage
Empire. Anything that happened in them doesn't really impact upon the
main storyline as far as I'm concerned, and I don't think they were
intended to. Thus the whole 'Worlds -of- Ultima' thing on them.

[SB-X]

The WoU is not part of the main storyline? UO is even less so then.

[Stephan]

UO has -no- part of the Ultima storyline. Plain and simple.

[suraimu]

Exactly.

[Kurt]

UO's storyline entirely takes place on a different plane of reality inside fragments (shards) of the gem of immortality. so it is linked with the main ultima plot up until the end of Ultima 1, after that it's completely different. Minax is still alive and kicking, Exodus has actually been killed though after he enslaved the gargoyle race, Lord British hasn't been seen in years but for the purposes of the story he still exists, and he's just opened up a gateway to yet another alternate reality from Britannia, and Blackthorn tried to kill everybody and now he's a psychotic cyborg thingy. Not Ultima.

[Darkfist Dragon]

I play UO with a passion (as does my wife who hasn't played the original Ultima's yet).
I agree with you Kurt, and you others, UO is more or less a "What if". On that worlds the shrines exist (With a 9th Chaos Shrine), but its the players that give the Ultima feeling, many I know there are true Roleplayers, who play a good Ultima thingy. Sometimes I feel it has more Ultima touch than U9.

[Stephan]

No game where players are allowed to say "USUC NOOB LOLOLOLOLROTFL!!!!11111111" can be called an Ultima, in my opinion. I used up my 30 free days, but then I was utterly disgusted with the abomination the UO team calls Britannia and its denizens. While I have to admit that I did meet one or two who actually roleplayed, and did it good, the clear majority of UO players seem to think that "Sup thou!!" or "Vendor buy the bank guards recsu recdu!!!" constitutes good roleplaying.

And what happens now? As if the player base wasn't bad enough, the UO team insists in implementing a perverted Virtue system where Virtues are gained for personal gain and rewards through some very, very odd means. Want to be more spiritual and humble at the same time? Go kill some monsters! Want to show that you have understood the Virtue of Sacrifice? Go kill some monsters! Sheesh.

[suraimu]

I think that says it all.

[Dominus]

hm, if you really want to see great cartoons making fun of UO take a look at IMANEWBIE's adventures at http://www.imanewbie.com/

[Kurt]

I've hardly played UO in a while now, I'm in the beta for dark age of camelot, which so far is quite interesting if a little repetetive.

UO can be great for roleplayers IF you find a good place to roleplay. I live in a player run town called Templewood, which while is not strict enforced roleplay, it's a nice environment. I have three characters that live there - Kurt, a cleric/bard, who serves as chaplain for the guild he is in, preaches the ways of virtue to others and leads pilgrimages to all the shrines... Bacchus, a blacksmith, miner and tinker, who drinks too much... Woodstock Dave, who is an alchemist and mage, who enjoys sitting in the tavern smoking nightshade, and chatting up women...

that's the great thing about UO, you CAN do whatever you like. Unfortunately for most people this means "yell LOLROFL U SUKZ NUBI when they and five friends have killed you whilst you were out mining for ore with a character who has no combat skills"
Ultimately, any place that has real people in big numbers will spiral out of control and become unbearable.
Already in my two days of Dark Age of Camelot, I've been called a 'kill stealing nubi' because I saved some guy's life, and I've been called 'a child molesting nubi' because I happen to wear a cloak (??????).

I hate people.

[suraimu]

You mean you hate prepubescent teenagers.

I really think there should be separate servers for online RPGs based
on age. Or a separate server for people of a certain age, to get rid
of 90% of the idiocy that happens like that. Additionally, there really
needs to be separate servers for different regions of the world, and
it should actually be enforced. There's nothing more irritating then
when you're playing a game, and a band of 60 koreans comes by,
start yelling something in indecipherable SJIS, and then pk you when
you don't respond.

[Darkfist Dragon]

>>No game where players are allowed to say "USUC NOOB LOLOLOLOLROTFL!!!!11111111" can be called an Ultima, in my opinion. I used up my 30 free days, but then I was utterly disgusted with the abomination the UO team calls Britannia and its denizens. While I have to admit that I did meet one or two who actually roleplayed, and did it good, the clear majority of UO players seem to think that "Sup thou!!" or "Vendor buy the bank guards recsu recdu!!!" constitutes good roleplaying.>Want to show that you have understood the Virtue of Sacrifice? Go kill some monsters! Sheesh.<<
I kinda like the new proposed virtue system, as it does not solely exist of killing creatures. You get virtue points for helping new players. (I hate the term newbies.) And Sacrifice gains points by NOT killing certain monsters, but giving up what they would give you as "loot" for getting killed, and your Fame and Karma, which of course, is gained by killing monsters. *smile*


Every RPG has pro's and con's. Especially online games. I Love Ultima Online and I will stay there for a while, because I found people like me who love to Roleplay. My wife loves to rp as well.
If any of you will try it, then I would be glad to show you around on the UO - Atlantic shard, and introduce you to the rpg there.
I am maybe an easy going guy, who generally tends to ignore bad stuff in life (I kinda liked all Ultima's including U8 and U9) and who doesnt take stuff to serious.

[Stephan]

Well, I did enjoy both U8 and U9 - despite U9's obvious flaws - but I couldn't bring myself to think of UO as an Ultima. Sure, the game mechanics and the character development were okay, but while playing, it felt like I was on a public Counter-Strike server with all the idiocy floating around.

As for the Virtue system, it does not solely exist of killing creatures, no, but it's close enough. My above example with gaining Spirituality and Humility points for killing monsters and not gaining fame for it is a good example. And Sacrifice -is- gained by killing creatures and 'sacrificing' your right to loot them. Honor irks me as well - you gain Honor by killing people in an arena. Funny how the Shrine of Honor in U4 failed to mention that during my meditations.

[Darkfist Dragon]

Ultima Online is not an Ultima Ultima.. I would give it at most 3 out of 10 ultima points. and those 3 just because it has Britannia as world, shrines and because of the RPG I am in.
There is much idiocity around, but thankfully the creation of the two different facets, one PVP, one Non-PVP helped to keep the rpers in one side and the idiots mostly on the other side.
I agree that not all virtues are as they should be, but its also a difficulty how to check them. Its easy in a 1 player RPG. But I think its difficult in a multiuser rpg. UO is not perfect, my no means. But I love it.
My Favourite UO comic is

www.imacat.org

most UO comics/screenshot episodes are how the cool l33ter gets all the nice stuff and/or scams n33VVbs! ImACat is fortunately different.