Darkfall: An old UO Veteran shares some fond memories

By Cain:

I can still remember my first pvp encounter in an online RPG (ok it wasnt my first.. we did lots of pvp in uo beta but that never really counted imo because it was usually the night before an announced player wipe and it never quite had the same effect) like it happened yesterday. I was playing UO. it was about 2 months after the final release (back when we all wore heater sheilds and viking swords! w00t! remember those days?) anyhow I had spent about 2 hours sitting at the bottom of the dungeon covetous harvesting loot. back then there was a room that had all these crates and you would sit there with a lockpick and wait for the loot to spawn then pick the lock and take the loot. so I was at maximum capacity... filled to the brim with sweet armor.

I was on my way out and heading to town when I happened apon two pk's who were killing some miner (hehehe) they saw me and were about to attack but then one of them said not to bother attacking me cause I'd put up too much of a fight (I was a gm swordsman and they were journeyman mages) so I shrugged and went on my way.. well I had been developing my mage skills a little bit but I still hadnt used it enough to be any decent at it and my cocky ass decided to try and paralyze them and kill them. I cast paralyze and bam it reflects back onto me.. they both immediately start attacking. at this point im having a heartattack because I was filled to the brim with sweet loot. my heart was litteraly racing.. my palms were sweating.. I was panicing! paralze wore off and I took off like a bolt of lightning for town. they gave chase.

So im halfway to town now and half dead (thank god for heal potions). bam I get hit with paralyze again.. shit. at this point im yelling at my monitor now.. my chest feels like I just ran 10 miles. palms? shit I never knew they could sweat so much. I decide at this point that running away wont work so I turn and fight. I nearly kill one of them but alas my pvp skills werent up to par and they killed me.. and I sat there and watched my 2 hours of loot fall into their hands.. I was livid.. I was pissed.. I swore left and right that I would never play this piece of shit game again!!!

Ha of course that never happened.. I went and got a res then went right back to playing.. it wasnt until another month went by until I fell victim to the darkside and became a dreadlord..

Basicly the point im trying to get at is in UO pvp was pure greatness.. no game in history has been able to compete with the raw emotion some of us got out of pvp in uo.. no other game in history has actually made me nervous while playing. its like rock climbing without a rope.. its like when you were a kid and you knew you were going to disneyworld the next day.. its like when you're at a bar arguing with some big fuckers and you know you are about to get into a fight....and it never went away.. I played from pre-alpha until UO:R and the feelings I got from pvp never eased up. every single time I fought I was nervous as hell.. and I did nothing but pvp once I turned dreadlord.

So ever since we left uo we have been searching for that one game.. the one that would bring back the adrenaline rush of pvp.. tried EQ.. HA that lasted about 2 weeks.. tried AO.. didnt make it past 3 weeks during beta. tried daoc.. sorry daoc but you just didnt make the cut.. pvp in daoc was so boring.. the only fear you had apon death was the 15-20 minutes it took you to get back to the battle. swg? trying that right now but I can already tell its not gonna live out the month. so I look back and think.. what was it about uo that made pvp so great?

I think it all stems from the fact that it was a skill based game and if you died you lost everything (unless someone didnt loot ya). and that kind of system was playable because there wasnt a heavy conecentration on "leet loot". there were magic items but they were so rare it seemed that if you had one you could kick ass for awhile and it was cool as hell but if you didnt have one you could still totally kick ass without it. it was all about the skill.. one man could take on 8 guys and if those 8 guys had no skill then that one man could actually win.. or at the very least survive.

I fought 8 guys by myself once and I managed to kill 5 of them before they took me down.. I can remember nights at the crossroads where I'd have 20+ newbies chasing me down for hours before they managed to kill me (back then I loved to toy with newbies... kal ort por is for suckers).

Anyhow theres my rant.. I hope DF brings back the fun in pvp again.
(sorry for my poor ass writing skills)

-Cain Dlots-
dreadlord.. atlantic server