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Legends Players and Former Dial-up Players, a Toast to AOL

LokeaLokea Posts: 279
edited August 13 in General Discussions
Whether you loved it or hated it, used it or mocked it, saw the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan movie about it, or just received those annoying floppies and later CDs in the mail, raise a mug of ale to AOL.

And yes, it had an impact on UO, both because many players used it early on, and because of its own dedicated and exclusive shard and its associated UO forums (which were popular). I believe AOL was the only telecom provider to get their own shard.  I'd love to know the story behind that (I'm guessing AOL and EA had something going on, probably AOL paying for the shard's servers and internet connections).

For those of you who play or have played on Legends, aka AOL Sosaria aka AOL Legends, and well, finally Legends, AOL is shutting down their dial-up internet services next month.

AOL routinely evaluates its products and services and has decided to discontinue Dial-up Internet. This service will no longer be available in AOL plans. As a result, on September 30, 2025 this service and the associated software, the AOL Dialer software and AOL Shield browser, which are optimized for older operating systems and dial-up internet connections, will be discontinued.

For those of you who came along after 2003, from UOGuide:
Legends is a North American East shard and is named after an early online game called Legends of Kesmai.

Originally named AOL Sosaria, the shard was initially intended to be a shard exclusively for America Online(AOL) subscribers and was the 22nd Ultima Online production shard. OSI changed plans and renamed the shard AOL Legends just one day before the shard was scheduled to open on May 10, 2000. This was done in honor of Legends of Kesmai which was an early online, RPG-style game which first appeared in 1984. After some delays, the shard opened two days late on May 12, 2000.

The restriction limiting the AOL Legends shard exclusively to AOL customers was lifted on September 25, 2003 and the shard was then made available to all Ultima Online players. This change also included renaming the shard once again by shortening the name to just Legends. There was no wipe or reset done as part of this change so all characters and housing remained as before.

While I was able to  mainly avoid AOL, I did play UO on dial-up a few times and I had to spend a lot of time helping older relatives who used it. For them it was their internet.  Literally, it was pretty much a semi-walled garden for a lot of customers.

My only memory of AOL Legends (when it was AOL-exclusive) was running into some players at an official fan event (probably a World Faire or whatever they were called) and discovering that they were playing the same UO we were, just through a specific ISP.  Some of us had images of them having better connections to UO, while others joked that AOL Legends was a dumbed down version of UO.

Here's to you AOL!

  1. Did you use AOL?5 votes
    1. Yes
      80.00%
    2. No
      20.00%
    3. What's dial-up?
        0.00%
Tagged:

Comments

  • PawainPawain Posts: 11,133
    edited August 13
    We had a provider for a while, was supposed to be $60 for lifetime.  It lasted a year or two and they sent an email saying, Thanks, we are retiring to Hawaii. Try Juno for your internet.  After that I Used AoL.  Too cheap to pay so I would get a new trail disk every month for 30 days free service.

    Before UO, I played card games and other games on the Sierra Network with other people.
    Focus on what you can do, not what you can't.
  • Community ManagerCommunity Manager Posts: 668Dev
    AOL Legends was one of the shards that I would role-play on with my friends. It was the first time we could see our characters and interact in real time. No more rolling of dice to hit someone! hehe. Good times. :)
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  • mismis Posts: 432

    Lokea said:

    AOL routinely evaluates its products and services and has decided to discontinue Dial-up Internet. This service will no longer be available in AOL plans. As a result, on September 30, 2025 this service and the associated software, the AOL Dialer software and AOL Shield browser, which are optimized for older operating systems and dial-up internet connections, will be discontinued.
    Lokea said:
    The restriction limiting the AOL Legends shard exclusively to AOL customers was lifted on September 25, 2003 and the shard was then made available to all Ultima Online players. This change also included renaming the shard once again by shortening the name to just Legends. There was no wipe or reset done as part of this change so all characters and housing remained as before.


    Does this mean that all players on the Legends shard will lose all their houses and items that they do not transfer before 30 September 2025?

    I did not understand correctly.

  • firecfirec Posts: 54
    mis said:

    Does this mean that all players on the Legends shard will lose all their houses and items that they do not transfer before 30 September 2025?

    I did not understand correctly.

    This is actually a good point. I'm positive the dev's did a thorough scrub to ensure there was no lingering code or connections to these old legacy servers, and there's absolutely 0 chance that there be any issues once the AOL servers are shutdown.

    Right?
  • LokeaLokea Posts: 279
    mis said:

    The restriction limiting the AOL Legends shard exclusively to AOL customers was lifted on September 25, 2003 and the shard was then made available to all Ultima Online players. This change also included renaming the shard once again by shortening the name to just Legends. There was no wipe or reset done as part of this change so all characters and housing remained as before.

    Does this mean that all players on the Legends shard will lose all their houses and items that they do not transfer before 30 September 2025?

    I did not understand correctly.

    No, when whatever agreement Origin/EA had with AOL expired in 2003, as firec said, there was no longer any connection to AOL and hasn’t been in 22 years.  AOL closed most/all of their own services (outside of internet access) many years ago (RIP AOL Instant Messenger/AIM).

    It’s very possible and probable that the original Legends server hardware was hosted inside of an AOL facility alongsideAOL’s other services to facilitate a better connection for AOL members (and to help keep it confined to AOL-only subscribers).  However, in 2003 all AOL-associated features/exclusivity was removed. Since that era, and I believe they were on Sun/Solaris hardware then, but may have been moved to Linux, the shards have all been migrated to other hardware and now they are on a large cloud provider.

    That’s a lot of words to say you’re okay!
  • mismis Posts: 432
    Lokea said:

    No, when whatever agreement Origin/EA had with AOL expired in 2003, as firec said, there was no longer any connection to AOL and hasn’t been in 22 years.  AOL closed most/all of their own services (outside of internet access) many years ago (RIP AOL Instant Messenger/AIM).

    It’s very possible and probable that the original Legends server hardware was hosted inside of an AOL facility alongsideAOL’s other services to facilitate a better connection for AOL members (and to help keep it confined to AOL-only subscribers).  However, in 2003 all AOL-associated features/exclusivity was removed. Since that era, and I believe they were on Sun/Solaris hardware then, but may have been moved to Linux, the shards have all been migrated to other hardware and now they are on a large cloud provider.

    That’s a lot of words to say you’re okay!

    Okay, thank you

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