Did any of you ever play it?

IMO, it was the greatest mmorpg ever. I played in the early days when it was brand new (97-98) and it was the wild west of gaming. I don't think EA was properly prepared for how evil people become when there is no accountability and everyone is anonymous. It had suicide bombers, con-men who could steal your house, people who would kill you and steal your clothes just so they could throw them away and leave you naked in the street. But people bitched that they were being raped and looted and EA changed things to make the world a little safer... which ruined the game in many people's opinions. I quit playing around then.

Years later came IPY. It was a free shard recreating the golden age of Ultima Online. I have to say it was most fun I've had playing video games in my entire life. Here is a brief history of IPY followed by a description of its downfall.

http://www.freshtasting.com/
http://azaroth.org/ipyuo/ipyuo.html

Anyway, I'm getting all nostalgic because IPY 2 is in the works. I assume that with all the classic gamers around some of you would be interested. Its still in the development phase but you can monitor its progress here:

http://azaroth.org/[/url]

Atma wrote:

Oh yeah Hippo, Nothing I feared more than seeing a red name on the "horizon" knowing I was probably about to get Ganked. Had a blast exploring the world, trying to collect my first set of Skeleton Armor, or taming a random cat. Seriously, I loved that game. And thank you for bringing this to light, I certainly want to check it out.

Hell yea! I haven't found another gaming experience that got my heart pumping like being attacked a red in UO. Those assholes would always kill me in a dungeon and take all my hard-earned loot. Then I'd have to run all the way back to town to get resurrected.

I'm pumped for the new IPY. They've been talking about it for months so it could be a long time before its running... if ever. The main discussion seems to be whether to just re-release IPY 1.0 or to implement changes to curb the number of assholes & griefers. Either way I'm playing.

Atma wrote:

Keep us or at least me informed, and I'll see you on the server. I actually went back home to my parents house not too long ago and found my old copy of it sitting on the shelf. I had never heard of the IPY though. How does it work? and is it a pay server still?

Do you still have the cloth map? I'd hang that on the wall!

As for IPY...

For some reason, EA allowed people to create their own free Ultima Online servers. Thousands were created with 99% of them being terrible and having no population. But there was generally 1 good free-server for each different era in UO history. IPY is considered the best clone of the early years of Ultima Online. There really hasn't been anything to take its place since it shut down so its great that they're seriously looking into starting it up again.

I check it regularly to see if they have a launch date so I'll keep you informed.

Also, I'm not sure when you played Ultima but if it was 2000 or later there's probably a good clone you can play now. I gave a few a try but the game had changed so much from when I played in 97-98 that I didn't really like the newer stuff.

Trammel came along around 2000 you must've played pretty early. UO Gamers: Hybrid is pretty popular if you're interested.

Here's their site: http://www.uogamers.com/

I swear they used to have a guide on how to get started but I couldn't find it just now. I'm sure they've got it on there somewhere. Basically you have install UO and patch to a certain point then install a program called Razor (http://www.runuo.com/razor/). You need to enter some info into Razor so it sends you to the right server. Its gotta be on that wesbite somewhere.

REzzzed.

UO Gamers runs the best free Ultima Online servers and they're attempting an original world with a few tweaks on the classic rules set. Here are the details if anyone is interested;

http://www.uodivinity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26230

It launches tomorrow so anyone who plays will start on equal footing.