UO: Fantasy World Simulator

Back when I played in the beta and early release of Ultima Online almost a decade ago, I almost couldn’t believe my luck. This would really be the game I’d longed for. I could meet people online in a fantasy world, and together we’d have emergent, collaborative stories unfold of derring-do, chivalry, and virtue.

And vice, of course! Mustn’t forget the vice. I eagerly looked forward to the duels that would take place when one character took in-character offense at another’s words. I contemplated a Robin Hood–style character who would help himself to the contents of rich player’s purses and earn fame handing out my ill-gotten gains to newer players.

I relished the thought of being a homesteaded in an isometric world, carving out a place for myself in Britannia through the work of my own two virtual hands.

I had a horrible time. My big mistake? Assuming that other players wanted pretty much what I did from such a game—or at least something compatible.

I tried to have fun. I didn’t worry about whether other players roleplayed the way I thought they should. Instead, I wrote a guide on how to speak “Britannian.” (Oddly enough, it’s still floating around out there. I wrote it as “Josephus the Scholar.” It even got mentioned in a book! I had no idea. Too funny.)

And when my young and idealistic animal tamer got killed seven or eight times in a row, I shrugged and started to gather feathers so I could make some more arrows. Mind you, I’m not complaining about UO being too “difficult,” even though a post at Tobold’s blog on that topic inspired this little ramble. (Oh, and I see it’s actually to the new Hardcore Casual’s first post. Good post, Syncaine!) In fact, I argued passionately for three freedom to stab my fellow players in their backs and rifle through their goodies.

I just didn’t count on people who played the game simply to dominate other players.

The PKers did ruin the game for me. The in-game law enforcement meant I could create my wicked characters, and the PKers themselves meant I couldn’t really function as a good guy. My hard-won equipment would be stripped from my corpse, and I couldn’t even get to the interesting places I wanted to explore.

And, of course, the “gamist” players cared mostly about advancing their characters, a more-subtle incompatibility to my own preferred style of play. (I wanted to level, but I wanted to do it while roleplaying.)

The PKers were a malicious minority who really did ruin the game for a vast number of others. But I was in a small minority, too, dreaming of a game that just couldn’t exist.

I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if a visit to Britannia today would show me a game much closer to what I hoped for back in the day. Can anyone still playing tell me?
Great gaming minds tried to make UO work, and basically they failed. (The game hasn’t failed. It’s still going! But for a while at least, it was nothing like what the creators—and I for that matter—envisioned)

Could a massively multiplayer fantasy simulation be made to work, one where talk of PVE and PVP were irrelevant, because the world functioned and you functioned in it? I now know the audience would be small. Most people don’t want a game where vendors go to bed at night or where the goodies on their corpses can be taken. And in fact I can fully understand why. But if someone set out to do it and make it genuinely enjoyable, could it be done?

Add comment June 29th, 2007