

Pimps and Dragons (2001) - klenwell
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/05/28/pimps-and-dragons

======
mdisraeli
One of the old Stratics crew here, I used to run the Ideas Den back in the day
;) And my housemate is still involved with Stratics, although not UO these
days. Both of us are old Europa players, and used to have a house near the
Fyde's and Barian! And the housemate was involved in the Trinsic RP scene.
Feel free to drop me a line if you remember us ;)

In a strange way, the community that formed around Ultima Online saved my life
in more ways than one.

As a hacker, there's a lot we can learn from UO's ups and downs, and
especially how much emergent gameplay appeared, and how the developers
reacted. Clean Up Britannia being a great case in point, along with Trammel.

And from a pure tech point of view... what the hell was with the low latency
of the old 2D client? For some reason it always offered a better connection
than any of the multiple attempts to re-write it. That in turn resulted in the
community sticking to said 2D client, and the developers cancelling the first
'3D' client (still fixed isometric, just 3D rendered). What's fascinating is
some of the directions it didn't go in - back before the Kingdom Reborn client
was developed, there apparently was a Warcraft 3 style engine under
development.

When it comes to game design, Raph Koster is one of the people who literally
wrote the (a) book on the subject, having started out in MUDs and then being
hired for UO. His blog is extremely worth reading, and if you have any
interest into the history of UO's game design, check it out:
[http://www.raphkoster.com/tag/ultima-
online/](http://www.raphkoster.com/tag/ultima-online/)

Also from a hacker point of view, let's not forget psychology. Nick Yee
studied the minds of players of many of these 'first gen' MMOs, and I strongly
recommend his Daedalus Project site -
[http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/](http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/)

~~~
mdisraeli
And as mentioned in the opening to my post above, there was a huge roleplaying
community on some shards (servers), who would use the static NPC towns as
bases for huge roleplaying communities. One of the most notable features of
UO, and one that few other games have ever replicated (I'll come back to
this...) was that you could drop anything onto the floor. So people would set
up player markets in these towns, placing tables and laying out their wares.
Players would roleplay guards, and then deal with any thefts, and sometimes
players from another faction would raid and make off with a trader's daughter
(another player on an alt character).

In the PvP areas you could effectively run a toll bridge by laying out a road
block, and fight those who tried to just push past.

A major difference with later MMOs was that (originally) when you died, your
possessions stayed on your corpse. You would have to wander off as a ghost to
get resurrected, then somehow get back to your body to get your kit back - a
tall order in the middle of a dungeon!

Without any form of global chat, the best you could manage was party / guild
chat, but often this wasn't enough to get the help you needed. It became
commonplace amongst the community to build a metagame community - you might
not be in the same guild in game, but you were friends in the forum or in real
life, or perhaps you met eachother in game and wanted a means to stay in
touch. This posed a problem - no player-to-player system was really in place,
and generally minor roleplaying was common - exchanging email addresses felt
wrong and out of character. Thus the "pigeon number" was born - ICQ was the
staple communication tool. When gAIM, the open source AOL/ICQ messenger (and
others), renamed to pidgin, I can't help but think this was deliberate.... ;)

The huge downside to these interesting mechanics and heavy freedom was the
opportunity to grief. Kill someone, loot their stuff, ransom it back. Let
monsters kill someone, loot their stuff, ransom it back. Tell a ghost you'll
only resurrect at their corpse and... you get the idea ;) I always was a big
fan of some of the griefer stories, even if I didn't agree with their ethics -
Belan being a prime example
[http://www.askcorran.com/belan/episodes.html](http://www.askcorran.com/belan/episodes.html)

Ultima Online was classless - you developed skills through their use. This
also lead to some of us who roleplayed beggars trying to build the ultimate in
useless characters - every single skill point up to the cap spent on skills
that offered in total no benefit in terms of gameplay mechanic. Begging in UO
was a real artform, and there was so much fun to be had roleplaying a widow
and seeing what people would offer you.

And finally, these mechanics that few other MMOs have ever implemented? Ultima
Online inspired two UK students to build their own version, which became
Runescape. Runescape inspired Wurm Online. And one of the Wurm developers, was
Notch of Minecraft fame. For all UO's faults, it is truly an important piece
of gaming history

------
sciencerobot
No game that I know of can compare to UO.

Nowadays, MMORGPs are about grinding in dungeons and leveling up. In Ultima
Online it was possible to become successful without having to level up more
than enough to survive.

My main character could be described as a "real estate broker." I made
millions in gold by finding vacant lots, placing houses and then selling them.
It was a lot more satisfying and exciting than killing the same dragon over
and over again hoping to get a rare item.

I haven't looked at Richard Garriot's new game, Shroud of the Avatar. Maybe it
has a similar dynamic? I hope not for my sake.

edit = type-o.

~~~
kevinkimball
star wars galaxies?

~~~
mdisraeli
Good call - that was lead by Raph Koster, if I recall correctly, who did a lot
of the early UO game design ;)

------
klenwell
One of my favorite articles on MMOPG economics and social behavior. It's
usually behind a paywall so I thought I'd take this opportunity to post it
here today while paywall is disabled.

It pairs interestingly with this HN thread from a few days ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8020954](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8020954)

There seems to be some minor formatting issues but otherwise it looks like
it's fully available.

------
danielweber
In an alternate universe I became a homeless man from playing this game too
much. Fortunately this is not that alternate universe.

~~~
Wyndsage
Glad you were fortunate enough. I decided to drop out of highschool and hit
the fast food workforce when I was 15 so I could play this game more often. I
may have had a slight addiction :P I did end up selling my in-game property
and account for around $1000 so that was cool.. but those years I will never
get back.

~~~
danielweber
I was not at the right stage of my life to get into UO, being very busy with
school and starting a company. If the timing had been slightly different, I
would have wrecked myself upon those shores.

At this stage in my life I try to active avoid things to which I may become
addicted.

------
NoMoreNicksLeft
I had to look up UO on Wikipedia... it's still going? God, if it was a person
it'd be old enough to smoke.

~~~
zhemao
This article is from 2001. If it was a human, it would be starting to notice
changes in its body and becoming interested in the opposite sex (or same sex,
whatever).

~~~
jghn
UO was released early 9/97.

