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Happy Trails

One of the first blogs that I read regularly was I Awoke In Britannia!, where Ghosty kept me up to date on all the latest Ultima Online dirt. Sadly, Ghosty is closing shop on I Awoke and (no doubt) moving on to bigger and better things. He says he’ll continue to post on UO Screenshots and UO On The Web, but I will really miss his insight and great writing on I Awoke.

See you around, Ghosty, and please send us a link when you start your next enterprise.

World Forging

The process of creating a new world for our Ultima Online game server has passed a mile stone. The map is finished, at least finished enough to start building towns and decorating dungeons. I still have some tweaking to do here and there to fix glitches produced by the map compiler program, UOLandscaper.

Other than tweaking the map, I need to finish drawing the “paper map” image that will be used for treasure maps, etc., and drawing a smaller version for the web site that players will use to learn their way around the new world.

I’ve already updated the new, unreleased web site with descriptions of the new races and classes, and I’ve finished my first draft of the world history that will be used as a back story for events and quests that we put together to keep the players occupied.

Mean while, on the live server, we’ve started the process of ending the world, so to speak. We kicked off an event this week that is the first in the story arc that we came up with to set up our move to the new server. I won’t go into detail, as I don’t want to give away all the goods in case any of our players happen across my blog.

If any readers think they might be interested in playing UO, check out the current game site and feel free to ask me any questions you have about getting started.

The Good Ol’ Games
Pong Battle Zone Pitfall

Any self-respecting geek should take a stroll down memory lane in this article: The 50 Most Important Games Ever Made. It lists all the greats from 1972 consoles, Atari 2600, Commador 64, and more. Several of my personal favorites are listed.

  • Pong
  • Space Invaders
  • Adventure
  • Battle Zone
  • Pitfall
  • Donkey Kong
  • Zork (the original text version)
  • Dragon’s Lair
  • Gauntlet
  • Tetris
  • And, of course, Ulitma Online

Wow… I am numb with nostalgia. It would take all day to read all the articles linked here and to consider how different our world would be if it were not for these cultural gems.

Does anyone know where I can find an emulator for pitfall?! I need some time on the vines!!

Via Apropos.

Grand project for Montis Draconis

Well, it looks like the time has come for our Ultima Online shard, Montis Draconis. My old buddy Phlegyas (not his real name) who started and hosts the server has finally had enough with all the ex-OSI players whining about how things “should” work. So we’re making a break.

There’s no time table yet, but this will be a dramatic change for the players on our server. I won’t give away all the gory details, in case any of my readers play on MD (or would like to *hint hint*), but I can say that I’m looking for good custom UO maps. Yep, the world is gonna be changin’.

Montis Draconis BannerI’m also working on a new look for the site. All I’ve got so far is this banner that we’ll use on the top shard lists to advertise MD. Dai-San (not his real name) is also a GM on the server and will be working on many many custom scripts. Basically we’ve got a lot of work to do before this big event takes place, but it’s going to be a lot of fun.

Everybody Cheers for the Underdog

<Game Geek Post Advisory>
If you’re not familiar with Ultima Online or other, similar MMP RP games, this won’t make any sense to you.
</Game Geek Post Advisory>
*Names changed to protect the guilty*
My guild on Montis Draconis has been the sole Order guild for months now. There are several Chaos guilds that have had a heyday beating up on the [GoodGuys], since we are only just learning to do PvP. All our characters have been designed for PvM and are really good at it, but when the Chaos guys started playing rough, we had to adapt. The other Order guilds changed to Neutral and ran off to Trammel (where PvP is a no-no).

It’s taken many weeks to tweak our characters for PvP and to train up new characters, but we are finally seeing some fruit. Last night, after drafting in yet another experienced, former PvM player into the guild, we had our first fairly successful raid and killed two of the “big boys” on the Chaos side.

[ToughtBadGuy1] (a.k.a. McButtHead) is one of those annoying, mouthy characters constantly sending messages about how everyone is a sissy and he “pwns” the Order guilds. Last night, McButtHead was beheaded and, just as we all predicted, he instantly logged off and spent the rest of the night pouting off-line. We know this because his cohort, [ToughtBadGuy2] , who is much cooler and a nice role-player, is his roommate and he laughed at [ToughtBadGuy1] right along with the rest of us. [ToughtBadGuy2] was also taken down, but was much more gracious about it. We’ll have lots of fun reminding [ToughtBadGuy1] that he’s not the king-of-the-world he thinks he is.

Yaaay [GoodGuys]!

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