Returning Vet Experience
It’s actually a little embarrassing (and frustrating) how I was forced to resubscribed to UO after being gone for several years. Since the game went free-to-play I logged in with one of my characters and ran around a bit. I was getting ready to log out when I double clicked my character instead of a door in Moonglow and dismounted my giant beetle which was packed full of stuff. I couldn’t get back on, due to free-to-play restraints and couldn’t put the stuff in the bank so I subscribed.
Being back in the world brought back a lot of great memories. I am a loner and love doing treasure maps and MiBs. A lot of them! Of course this means getting a lot of loot. I had the same problem now that I had several years ago, not knowing what is good loot and what is bad loot.
I was advised to install the enhanced client and Pinco’s UI. This help quite a bit in understanding the max attributes, but at the same time introduced a slew of other changes that I did not like.
Regardless, I was committed to playing with the enhanced client. I love many of its features. The richer macros, being able to double-click a MiB and automatically add a way-point to the map, the automatic popup of the health bars. So many great features over the classic client.
However after trying the enhanced client for two months I still could not adapt. I don’t think I can do a great job expressing myself what I don’t like about it, but it seems like I spent more time trying to get it working the way I wanted it to work than actually playing the game. I also experienced random crashes, most of which seemed to be related to the pouches and walking away from open containers.
I could not go back to the classic client after depending on some of these features with the enhanced client. The biggest being the auto-load of the health bars.
Also, and there is nothing that can be done about this, but the item properties is just too complex for my liking. So many variations. So many properties. So many numbers. Now this is strange since I am a numbers guy. I use Excel every day and am a full time web/database developer. I spent hours researching the best way to craft items and I never did end up crafting anything. It seemed like too much work to ‘craft 10 leather arms with a runic kit, keep only those that have 3 minimum base points, combine this that and the other thing until you total 70… etc etc’. Not complaining, just saying it takes quite an investment to start understanding all the features.
After three months, I once again repacked items into beetles and the bank and going back to lurker mode.
Being back in the world brought back a lot of great memories. I am a loner and love doing treasure maps and MiBs. A lot of them! Of course this means getting a lot of loot. I had the same problem now that I had several years ago, not knowing what is good loot and what is bad loot.
I was advised to install the enhanced client and Pinco’s UI. This help quite a bit in understanding the max attributes, but at the same time introduced a slew of other changes that I did not like.
Regardless, I was committed to playing with the enhanced client. I love many of its features. The richer macros, being able to double-click a MiB and automatically add a way-point to the map, the automatic popup of the health bars. So many great features over the classic client.
However after trying the enhanced client for two months I still could not adapt. I don’t think I can do a great job expressing myself what I don’t like about it, but it seems like I spent more time trying to get it working the way I wanted it to work than actually playing the game. I also experienced random crashes, most of which seemed to be related to the pouches and walking away from open containers.
I could not go back to the classic client after depending on some of these features with the enhanced client. The biggest being the auto-load of the health bars.
Also, and there is nothing that can be done about this, but the item properties is just too complex for my liking. So many variations. So many properties. So many numbers. Now this is strange since I am a numbers guy. I use Excel every day and am a full time web/database developer. I spent hours researching the best way to craft items and I never did end up crafting anything. It seemed like too much work to ‘craft 10 leather arms with a runic kit, keep only those that have 3 minimum base points, combine this that and the other thing until you total 70… etc etc’. Not complaining, just saying it takes quite an investment to start understanding all the features.
After three months, I once again repacked items into beetles and the bank and going back to lurker mode.
In conclusion I will say the players were great... very helpful and very giving! I hope UO is around for years to come, it has progressed a lot in the last several years and a lot of neat additions.
Warmly,
-Zolt
Comments
I am not complaining - UO has lots of things that appeal to different people, and there are many people who like that sort of thing. But there is a LOT more to do in UO while completely ignoring the numbers.
In any case, I am glad you enjoyed your time back in Sosaria. My advice, if you really do shut it all down, is to create another EJ account to carry/bank your items instead of a beetle. That way you will not run into the same problem if you ever decide to visit again.
And welcome back, Zylo