Ultima Online

I have been living in a fantasy world, a world I have lived in on-and-off since 1992 when I bought my first real computer game Ultima VII. Now this game that I played was like a world in which I could escape my every day existence and adventure in an unknown land with magic and strange languages I had never seen and meet people and creatures which fascinated me, but above all else, what I loved about the game were the books. The books in Ultima VII were fairly simple, but there were literally hundreds of them, found in all sorts of locations across the lands.

Now I should explain a little bit about Ultima VII, it came in two parts, well, four really, Ultima VII - The Black Gate with the Forge Of Virtue expansion, and Ultima VII - Serpent Isle with the Silver Seed expansion. The games were set in two different lands and with two different story lines. Ultima VII was set in the lands of Britannia and Serpent Isle was of course the Serpent Isle.

Anyway, one thing that stood out in the game was the various signs and books which were written in a strange text that I could not read at the time but which I quickly learned to. I learned that they were called runes and that each rune represented both a letter and an idea, also within the game world the runes each had a name or sound which when spoken aloud would have a magical effect.

I have an old website that I'd almost forgotten about, it's at http://geocities.com/vardath. I have kind of a shrine to ultima there, the runes of which I speak are here for you to learn if you wish.

THE RUNES OF ULTIMA

Now I must mention, that these are almost the same translations of the runes as are used in J.R.R.Tolkien's The Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings books, the main difference being that the letter H and the letter W are backwards here, as should be obvious by simply looking at them.

So, what does any of this have to do with the game Ultima online? I answer, history. I find it important to know why, I have always found it important to know why. Why are things the way they are, why have they changed, why were they how they were, why is this person rambling on and on and on about a game I've never played...

Ultima Online was the final creation in a long list of creations by a man named Richard Garriott, or Lord Brittish as he liked to be known. Lord Brittish was the name of the king in the land of Britannia. There have been 12 games with the name Ultima attached to them and about 3 other games with the same play style and similar if not the same characters. I could list them all here for you, but I won't, I'll simply let you know that I have played all of them, I have copies of all of them and I love each and every one. If you are interested enough you will seek them out and find them.

So, I haven't really said much have I... I should start mentioning all the things you can do in these games, but I'll be a bit more specific, I'll start mentioning some of the things you can do in Ultima Online.

Some of the major things I find interesting and time consuming in the game are the trade skills, the game allows you to become whatever you wish to be and create almost any object that can be found within the game, you could be a tinker and create tools for any of the other trades along with some interesting items such as a telescope which tells the phases of the moons Trammel and Felucca, a globe which looks kinda cool, a clock to tell the game time, etc. You could be a blacksmith and make your own weapons and armour, a Tailor to make clothes and armour and items, a Carpenter to make furniture, containers, beds, bulletin boards, ballot boxes and more, you could specialize in resource gathering as a miner or lumberjack or a fisherman.

In addition to the trades there are a lot of other interesting abilities to use such as magic, animal taming and tracking, musician skills and you can even buy blank books and fill them with your own writings or copy other books you find in the game.

The fact that the game is online means that you will be dealing with other people who play the game. This opens up a whole facet of play which I have yet to fully understand. The game works a bit like this in relation to player interaction, you are able to steal off another person if you join a thieves guild, but it is almost impossible to get your stealing skill to the point where this is possible. You may kill other players, but each time you do your murder count goes up, if it reaches 5 kills you will be marked red and will be freely attackable by other players, in addition to this if you are a murderer your virtue system will no longer activate. This facet of murderer creation brings about two seperate cultures within the game. You will find that there are blue players who band together and join guilds of blues, they do this at first to protect each other and then later to organise raids and retalliations upon red players who attack them. Red players may band together or stay alone. There are benefits to both facets of play, the reds will gain loot from killing blue players, while the blue players are free to wander around towns without fear of being attacked and have the ability to level up their virtues.

On that note... The Virtues:

There are eight virtues within the world of Ultima online and they spring from the Three Principles of Truth, Love and Courage. The eight virtues are, Honour, Honesty, Humility, Valor, Sacrifice, Compassion, Justice and Spirituality.

It is possible to level up your skills in each virtue within the game, but it is very difficult at times and I will not go into full detail here. Suffice it to say that each town within the land of Britannia, or Felucca or Trammel as it has become known, is aligned with a virtue.

I could keep writing... There is so much to say, and the more I say the more I want to write, and perhaps I will, because I keep thinking I have forgotten something, left some small detail out which will inspire you to play this amazing game for yourself. But for now I must sleep. I hope that if you do play this game, that you will play Ultima VII and experience the full glory of the land of Britannia as it was before it was invaded online by hordes of people from this world.