[jghn]

My understanding was that part of the problem was that they expected more of the RPing MUD crowd to show up, not the typical gamer crowd. Whether or not their calculations would have been similarly incorrect even if their userbase predictions were spot on is another question altogether

[swozey]

The Catskills server was the roleplay server and it had actual die-hard roleplayers, the Origin storytellers (counselors? I forget) did a lot of work to help them with events, etc. For instance an entire clan (Shadowclan Orcs) took over the NPC owned Yew Orc Fort. There were big Pirate groups too in Buc's Den. I remember the Paladins of Trinsic, Yew Militia and the Undead (they may have been called something else? They had the Necropolis).

It was some of the most fun I've had in a game ever.

The servers really had different cultures. I really loved Siege Perilous while it was doing the Color Wars. The map was 4 castles with 4 different teams, you'd spawn inside your team castle surrounded by chests full of GM weapons/armor that made you immediately become a GM of that item (say Grandmaster Halbredier) then run out and fight the other teams. It was almost like a Battlefield game. Then they changed it to some boring mode for beta testing.

I was 11-12 when I got into UO in 1996. I could talk about it all day. I miss it.

The 2nd Age I think is when I quit. Whenever they added riding cockroaches and neon colors and all that other stuff.

http://www.shadowclan.org/about.html

[jghn]

I remember it well. I played on Lake Superior which had a smaller but also prominent RP scene at the time, albeit more villain oriented. For instance one of our more well known RPing PK guilds was featured in Wired: https://www.wired.com/1998/05/ultima/.

The two groups had a bit of a rivalry on the then main message board, Crossroads of Britannia. LS called the Catskills group "Care Bears" and they called us "The Biker Gang". To my knowledge that was the first usage of care bears in that manner, but I'm sure it predates us. I remember one time when they all came over to our server with "care bear" characters and "invaded" the main player run tavern, Silk's Tavern.

My roommate at the time was a prominent RPing PK on Catskills, I was a prominent RPing anti-PK on LS. Folks from both groups made road trips for a house party/gathering at Catskills own Elawyn of Yew's RL house.

On the LS side it often was the case that both sides of the RPing PvP world would concoct RP reasons to band together to combat general asshattery regardless of if they were red/blue.

Siege Perilous & T2A was right around the time I was getting out of the game. I was still playing, but much less as college was over and real job had begun. Combined with the game rapidly becoming less fun for me and I just found myself playing less and less

[swozey]

Aurics Moongates.com is still around if you want a trip down memory lane. During Alpha/Beta it was a place where a lot of us went to chat while we waited for discs to arrive.

Unfortunately most of the music doesn't load any longer. I always loved the Ultima soundtracks.

http://moongates.com/

edit: https://soundcloud.com/mmomusic/sets/ultima-online

edit2: This sounds terrible not as a midi

[jghn]

Realized I meant Chesapeake. I was thinking that the Orcs were on a different server and sure enough I was the wrong one.

[Raph_Koster]

Cockroaches and neon colors are definitely after Second Age. I led the design of that first expansion, and the only new ridables were ostards. :)

[omg_ketchup]

That was Abyss, not Siege, right?

They were so ahead of their time with pretty much everything. Abyss was cool and all, but do you remember Santa's Slay?