Just how good is it?

SantaHoe

Just shopping around in Virgin today, I was thinking about buying Ultima (whatever).
But is it realy that good?
If you had the chance would you have not bought it?

What I'm interested in though, is the level of interaction you have with the "world".

[¥] When you 0wn a house, can you build/design that house or do you select it from a teplate, or is it already there?
How

[¥] How much can you customise the appearence of your player? Are there any skins?

[¥] How vast is the world? Can you download new villages etc.?

[¥] Are there Player-Bots running in the game all the time? And how do you know a Bot from a player?

[¥] How many hours do you spend playing per week?

Thanks -Sir~Dead{o}Santalot

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Hobbes

I think your confusing it with Quake.

[¥] When you 0wn a house, can you build/design that house or do you select it from a teplate, or is it already there?
How

You have to purchase a house and there are different kinds. Houses are pretty expensive so don't expect to get one anytime soon if you start. Your only allowed one house. I think the kinds are...

Small house (box), House with Patio (2 room), Two Story house (4?5? room), Tower (has most space), Castle (has indoor garden).

Price range from 44K to 200K ? (Ask Venom or Rev they are the property owners)

[¥] How much can you customise the appearence of your player? Are there any skins?

you pick your skin color and hairstyle and gender when you first create your character. You can't change these after that. But you can change your hair color, numerous different kinds of clothing/armor/weapons to choose from.

You also have skills to customize your character. I can't remember the total number but you have a maximum of 700 skill points to set to skills (you start with 100 and build from there). So you can be Top level in 7 skills or have a couple of average/above average skills.

You also have stats which effect your abilities. So if you learn a lot of combat + magic related skills then your not going to be good at dex related skills (eg. thieves). Or if you pick good dex and combat your magic combat will suck.

[¥] How vast is the world? Can you download new villages etc.?


It doesn't work that way. The world as such is kept on the server end. The static stuff is kept on the client. You can't change anything. There are fixed towns in the lands, but you also have player run towns (from people buying houses).

The world is BIG, really big. They are releasing an update where the land will be mirrored (one evil land, one good land) so it will be twice the size.

Kind of hard to explain about the size, but some places you can't get to without magic or a boat, with monsters and player killers roaming the lands it makes the journey longer (more so if you haven't a clue where to go). Sometimes just walking is way too long and people take a transport called "Moongates" which were designed for people who like being ****ed off.

[¥] Are there Player-Bots running in the game all the time? And how do you know a Bot from a player?

They are called NPC's (Non-Player Characters) and they are easy to spot. It's not like Quake. Running a client bot (which is really only used to macro up your skills so you don't have to play to build the skills) will get you banned permantly from the game.

[¥] How many hours do you spend playing per week?

Not as much as I used to. The game can be extremly addictive though.

I play a couple of hours during the weekend. They have changed the game recently to stop people from leaving a bot running to macro skills. Basically you get good skills gain within the first hour of playing for that day. So I bop on for an hour build up the skills then log off, and just play on the weekend.

One of the main things you have to realise is that it is not like other games where say prehaps you start at a newbie dungeon and build up to the advanced. You could turn up at a newbie dungeon and get jumped and the crap beaten out of you by other players. This doesn't happen much anymore though...

Some Aussie TV show did a spot on UO, and when the reporter left town she was jumped and killed by 4 guys, they cut up her body, put on her clothes and trash talked to her ghost... about one month later they added new rules to stop people doing this freely.

Also you can't save and restore. If you loose stuff, you've lost it for good. But death is cheap and stuff is easy to get once you figure out how.



[This message has been edited by Hobbes (edited 22-03-2000).]

SantaHoe

Thanks Hobbes,
Sounds good, I hate those newby areas anyway
I've played my share of RPG's, would my l33t sk1llz in FF5, FF7, FF8, Zelda3, etc, be any use to me?