(WARNING: This is a long post)
First off, let me say that I played Ultima online for 11 years. From late 1998 until 2011, I paid a monthly subscription and played daily. I lived in the San Francisco Bay area near where they were headquartered and would even go to team meetings and contribute to how the game was developed. It was a joy to play. But here's the catch; I did not play pvp. Nor was I a member of any guild. I played by myself, building my characters to the very highest levels and doing my own quests. I worked in the trades with certain characters, and funded my other characters such as tamers, mages, samurais, paladins, etc. It was a true joy. I can remember luring ancient wyrms into the small pen and running around taking shots at them until they were dead. It was an amazing escape from reality for a young combat vet, back from multiple deployments, who needed a peaceful way to get out of his head. When I wanted to live life on the edge, I would go into Felucia. 99% of my time was spent in trammel, on baja. I owned a huge house that was beautiful right on the water's edge with another lot next to it, that I had turned into a beautiful waterfall garden in memory of my late younger brother. It really was an amazing part of my life that I look back on with such great fondness. I never got bored with the game and don't feel like I ever needed the challenge of PVP, or whatever it is that draws people to that style of play. I had a few run-ins with PVP folks when I would go to felucia, which was enough to let me know that it was distasteful and not for me. I would only go to felucia to kill demons and gather silver coin and certain things like that that we couldn't get in trammel.
But then, my wife and I began to build a family. I had two children who really were the greatest part of my life and I no longer had time for ultima online. So in 2011 I made the painful decision to quit. I didn't look back, and generally just enjoyed the fond memories. Fast forward to 2024 and watching my son play video games. I have described to him in depth many many times about how amazing Ultima online was and decided that it was time to show him.
I tried numerous shards but never really found anything that felt like a real fit, that is until I discovered outlands. I've been playing for a little over a month now and have brought my characters up to legendary status through tons of hard work. I have donated quite a bit of money to the outlands folks as a show of appreciation for the amazing shard that they give us, free of charge. But along the way I have had to deal with PVP people who routinely ruin my playing experience. Yes, I could build a character and kill them and fight with them and run around and spaz out in large groups. But that's not for me, it's not what I enjoy and it's not my style of play. And I'm certainly not the minority.
There are tons of pvm people out there. There are tons of people out there who enjoy building a home and building skills in trades and creating things. It's not all about killing another person. It's not about robbing from another person after they have worked for hours to fill their backpack with gold, gyms, rares, and whatever else that they think is going to look nice in their room or their home. And then, in the blink of an eye it's gone. Some thoughtless selfish person comes up and chases you down relentlessly, kills you, then loots all of your hard work that he or she didn't do anything to earn and leaves you standing there watching. It's not right. Some of us love the game so much that when that happens it is a true buzz kill. To some of us who have hard lives filled with jobs that we hate and duties and responsibilities that drag us down on a hour by hour basis, games like Ultima online are a great source of escape. And then, here come the pvp'ers. Outlands really should include things like bags of sending so that we can at least send our rares and wealth back to our bank box if they aren't going to provide a safe shard. Providing us one dungeon filled with blues that really is lame in comparison to some of the other dungeons is not the answer. If you're not going to provide us with a facet like trammel, then provide us with an equitable means of transporting our hard-earned spoils back to our bank box. Bags of sending are awesome. Are they not in the game? Why does outlands seam so anti-pvm as a style of play? It seems like they are just that, as they will not give us an alternative other than finding somewhere else to play.
I really don't want to go to uo alive. It's not the same. I'd like to stay in outlands, and build my characters, and enjoy the game and donate money as a way of saying thanks. I like helping young new players. But I don't know what to tell people who tell me they are going to quit playing because of pvps. There is so much that I can say rude and hateful about the PVP folks to describe the way that they make me feel, and how I see them in my mind as pimply faced little geeks and their mother's basement, with no hair on their nuts and no girlfriend. Or groups of said boys gathering together and going out having a contest out of ruining other people's experience.
I could say a lot, and use a lot of hateful colorful descriptors. But it's not going to do anything but polarize people against my stance. I'm asking that people write to the outlands staff and pose alternatives. Even if you are in the PVP camp, you have to understand that this game is comprised of people who aren't exactly like you. It is because of us who are not like you that give you the ability to play. We come back and spend money and work hard to build characters and if we all leave, you guys are going to be left to feed on yourselves and that's not going to last very long. Because even you people who enjoy ruining other people's nights, are capable of having your night ruined. And it will happen when you are the only people who are left. So, you should stand up as well and say to the people who are the developers, let's have an alternative. Let's brainstorm and come up with ways to enrich this game further, for everyone. That's my two cents. I'm sure some of the immature people will read this and have nothing but criticism or insults, but I hope that the thoughtful ones can see the validity of my points and take this discussion further.
