My fondest gaming memories are all from Ultima Online.
EDIT: I forgot to share my very first experience with the game and I have to share because it's short and hilarious.
I made a new character and started in Moonglow. Barely a few minutes later I walked out of the gate with all of my starting items and gold on me. I think I made it 10 steps out of the guard zone before a group of guys jumped me and took everything I had. I was in shock. I had no frame of reference for what had just happened to me.
I made a new character, started in Britain this time, and got to work building him up so I could go back and get those guys. After that, I was hooked.
I converted from The Realm (Sierra Online, anyone?) to UO:T2A and never looked back. Played on Chesapeake with my brother, a neighbor, and a middle school buddy of mine. Was pretty heavy into PvP in the form of guild wars, Test Center, Britain graveyard fights (in the 30 mins between server saves and shutdown) and anti-PK. Then I learned about Shadowclan via the official UO game guide, rolled a new 'toon on Catskills and I became a hardcore UO RPer.
I roleplayed an orc, then an undead, and an evil mage in the Crimson Alliance. Then I joined up with various other guilds of the day such as The Free Corps, the Yew Militia, the Paladins of Trinsic, the Goblins (so much fun annoying the Shadowclan Orcs), Kingdom of Winterfell, VvV, the Romans, the Wahju (a tribe of traitor orcs), and probably a few other groups I'm forgetting, all over the span of roughly 8-10 years.
In college I migrated to private RP shards: Teiravon, Khaeros, and even got involved in founding one of my own with a group of guys I played with called Requiem.
Ultima Online is the game that taught me about story, roleplay, community, and true sandbox gaming. I've never found anything that's come close since and, given the way the market is going, it's likely I never will.
I feel like I wrote this. I came from The Realm, don't even know HOW I discovered that game. I remember being so excited to become a Helper and getting my green Helpers bardache. I used to run around killing (jumping) Gus Clan members because I was a firebrand little 10 year old who didn't like newbies getting attacked. I also had hacked stats, but I digress. I had a phase where I'd sneak into peoples houses using belts/boots of invisibility. I was such a little shit.
Then I got the UO Alpha and Beta. Man, the game was a serious Alpha. Eventually discovered Catskills and Siege Perilous when it was color wars. It was amazing. I'd hop on and RP on Catskills, mostly Paladins of Trinsic or the Undead, then I'd hop over to SP to get my action fix. Then they turned Siege Perilous into a regular test server. Absolutely broke my heart.
You would laugh your ass off if you knew how simple it was for me to hack my stats in The Realm. They eventually fixed it, but man, I was a little 10 year old whose computer experience at that point was running a couple Quake servers and making Doom wads.
All of these instanced MMOs break my heart. GW2 is fun.. but its so simple, or I've just never played it enough. The instancing kills it for me.
EDIT: I forgot to share my very first experience with the game and I have to share because it's short and hilarious.
I made a new character and started in Moonglow. Barely a few minutes later I walked out of the gate with all of my starting items and gold on me. I think I made it 10 steps out of the guard zone before a group of guys jumped me and took everything I had. I was in shock. I had no frame of reference for what had just happened to me.
I made a new character, started in Britain this time, and got to work building him up so I could go back and get those guys. After that, I was hooked.
I converted from The Realm (Sierra Online, anyone?) to UO:T2A and never looked back. Played on Chesapeake with my brother, a neighbor, and a middle school buddy of mine. Was pretty heavy into PvP in the form of guild wars, Test Center, Britain graveyard fights (in the 30 mins between server saves and shutdown) and anti-PK. Then I learned about Shadowclan via the official UO game guide, rolled a new 'toon on Catskills and I became a hardcore UO RPer.
I roleplayed an orc, then an undead, and an evil mage in the Crimson Alliance. Then I joined up with various other guilds of the day such as The Free Corps, the Yew Militia, the Paladins of Trinsic, the Goblins (so much fun annoying the Shadowclan Orcs), Kingdom of Winterfell, VvV, the Romans, the Wahju (a tribe of traitor orcs), and probably a few other groups I'm forgetting, all over the span of roughly 8-10 years.
In college I migrated to private RP shards: Teiravon, Khaeros, and even got involved in founding one of my own with a group of guys I played with called Requiem.
Ultima Online is the game that taught me about story, roleplay, community, and true sandbox gaming. I've never found anything that's come close since and, given the way the market is going, it's likely I never will.