we'll go dancin in the dark walking through the park and reminiscing

Ultima Online + Player-run shards = free fun

Once upon a time, there was this idea. It was a simple idea that was roughly ten years ahead of the technology that would be required to support it. It was an infantile idea that believed in the goodness of mankind, and relied heavily upon the notion that by and large, mankind was prone to do good, to act with honor, and to hold on high such noble notions as mercy, charity, compassion, and fellowship.

This idea was called Ultima Online.

The mistakes, failures, errors, and outright meanspirited administrations that drove this idea in to the ground weakened even the staunchest resolve. I myself had vowed to 'be there when the lights were turned off' only to cancel all my subscriptions five years later. The game had devolved into a walnut oatmeal cluster of bad programming, misguided management, and half-implemented features that ran poorly on a good day. Which was all perfectly fine until they raised the price by half. I don't mind paying for substandard quality if it comes at a discount. I eat McDonald's hamburgers for crying out loud, and there's a Checkers right next door. Sometimes, that extra buck and a quarter in my wallet makes even the stalest beef patty taste just a little sweeter.

So my departure from Ultima Online was not borne from an exhaustion of tolerance, patience, and abuse tolerance, but more of a financial 'cut back' - which is never really a heart-felt kind of decision for one to make. It almost smacks of remorseful reluctance and so I found myself periodically looking at Ultima Online's latest box at the store shelf and saying to it, in my best New Testament voice, "almost persuadest thou me" and then walking away.

I never played any player-run server. The number one complaint I had with UO was the uncontrollable cheating that went on, and I just naturally assumed that a player-run shard was going to be nothing BUT uncontrollable cheating. Because I had no personal friends running any UO shards, I had no real desire to be the training dummy for someone else who DID have such friends. I also had little desire to buy another copy of Ultima Online so that I could enjoy being a training dummy.

Then get this, right? I hear that you can download the software for free as part of some kind of 15 day trial. So I google around a bit and I find the link and sure enough, after about 20 minutes, I had a compressed zip file full of Ultima Online installation. I installed the 2D client and then installed what I guess you would call the "GameSpy for Ultima Online Servers" that basically will list a bunch of player-run servers for you, and then auto-configure your uo client to attach to them. In some cases, some files have to be dropped into the Ultima folder, and in most cases, you'll find yourself on a shard whose total population is under twenty players, but if you look around enough, you can find an Ultima Online that is right for you. Some have thousands of players at any given time, and some have deployed "UO Old School" as things were in the hallowed "Dread Days."

Total hours spent playing Ultima Online this weekend: almost 35.
Total dollars spent: zero.
Total moments spent laughing out loud at Electronic Arts: countless.

If you quit UO because you finally got fed up with shoddy expansions that never got completed, guess what: the UO you are looking for is still out there, and Electronic Arts is all but inviting you to give it a try. The only guess I have is that they assume that once you see how poorly-run the player-run shards are, you're one mouse click away from playing on an officially poorly-run server.

Word of caution to server owners: Electronic Arts will come after you if you charge an access fee, and right now they consider 'paypal donations' a 'grey area' - so here's a tip: open up a cafeexpress t-shirt shop and charge $20.00 for t-shirts. What you do with your t-shirt money is nobody's business.

The way I see it, for a half-hour worth of time spent downloading the software for free (do your own google-ing), what really do you have to lose?