Of the 13 entries from the Pacific shard, there were 5 entries that made the biggest impression on our judges. We hope you enjoy these most memorable moments as much as we did!
Here are the 5 winning UO memories from Pacific:
I have been playing UO since February, 1998. The time was not really late from game beginning, but it was hard to find a good place to build a house. I lived my friend’s house which is only 4×4, and there were five people live in the same house. With the time of playing growth, I earned some money, however, the houses was still expensive because there was no space to build my own one. The only way to get an own house is buying from other player. The main reason of hard to get a house for myself was because I lived in Taiwan, but my playing shard is pacific. The shard ping was very high that around 200-900. I missed many chances to build one. Therefore, I was like hermit crabs that always live in friend’s home. Finally I had a chance…

2004, the new edition “samurai empire” released. To me was not only a new update, but also a big moment in my UO life. The Island of Takuno opened few spaces for building houses, and each shard had different opening time. I had been thinking my own house for a long time, and my bank was very full of each character. The desire made me to have a strong determination that I want my own house. I tried to use house placement tool in the test shard, went to each shard to measure the distance of the house, tried to find a absolute point to make sure the target would be correctly, and finally, I set a hot key for building house. I didn’t have UOA on that time, so the hot key only works for place the house, and I must click yes to make sure the house is built.
My ping was still high, and I was so excited because the place of the house is what I like, and I only had one chance to get it. The website only had a date of opening house system, but there was no exact time for sure. I had a different time zone; my time zone was 12 hours more than EST time. It made me to have more challenge for getting my house. I back home and took shower quickly, set in front of my computer when shard opened from daily maintained. That was 8pm in my time. I took my dinner and hide in front of the place I want to build. Time went by, I was so sleepy, but I still in front of the desk. My left hand was still pressing the hot key, and my right hand finger was ready on the mouse of left click.
The 4AM of my time, it was 4PM of EST. I took a lot of energy drink, but the most significant reason of making me awake was because there were 7-10 people stood in the same place, and that was the people shown. I was one of players who didn’t show up.
Around 10AM of my time, I almost fell sleep, I didn’t go to work because I felt very tired. Suddenly, I shocked, I could feel my heartbeat stopped for 1 second because I saw the pop up window that showed ” are you sure you want to build the house?” I waked immediately and clicked the mouse. The house popped up, people around my screen. I saw many people wanted to go inside of the house. I wasn’t sure if the house is mine, so I did same thing, and I cried. I had had no sleep for over 24hours, and finally I made it.
Now I still live in the Takuno Island, Pacific, and left site of the city. Go by left, and turn left for count for the third one. That is my sweet home, and welcome!

I recall eagerly anticipating the launch of Ultima Online. I had never played an online game, but was very familiar with the classic Ultima games I’d played on my Commodore 64. I didn’t know what a beta test was but I followed reports about it in the computer gaming magazines. They all warned about PLAYER KILLERS who would attack from ambush any unsuspecting player and kill them simply because they could. When UO finally launched I went in, keeping all those PK caveats in mind. Back then you didn’t have a choice of where you were born, and the UO Gods delivered me into Yew. I wasn’t happy about this because Yew is a fairly remote place, buried deep within the forest. I knew this from having played the classic games, and then as now there was nobody else in town. I spent the first couple of hours attempting to master te rudimentary game mechanics ie: walking, speaking, arming, ec. Once I felt reasonably confident I armed my trusty dagger [that they had so kindly provided me with] and ventured forh into this strange new world. I hadn’t gone far when I noticed a building on my “radar”. Suddenly, as I approached it a name appeared on my screen. I saw some guy standing in front of what appeared to be a house. I immediately remembered the articles and thought, “it’s a PK!” I veered off and began running in a different direction when it happened AGAIN! Another name loomed overhead and  just like the magazines said they appeared to be lying in wait. Changing course I ran again and almost ran into the NEXT one head-on. The accursed woods were teaming with PKs! All I could do was to run back to Yew. I arrived breathless, and as luck would have it there was a town guard wandering around. I ran to him and began yelling HELP SAVE ME THE PK’s ARE COMING!….no response, he just kept moseying along. I tried again “yo Guard! PK’s KILL…nada. At that point I was ready to quit. Stuck in a dead town with a useless guard and beset on all sides by PKs. It was then that Providence intervened, in the form of a girl who rode into town. Her name was Laura and I asked if she could help me. She said of course so I told her in exact detail about my harrowing, near-death encounter with the murderous PKs. At first she smiled, then soon she began LOL, which annoyed me no end. I said “what’s so funny? I could have been killed!” She finally regained her composure and patiently explained that there was a BIG difference between a PK and a vendor that somebody had placed on their steps. She told me how it was “All Names” that was causing the vendor’s names to appear. Well needless to say I felt like a complete idiot, having run for my life from a bunch of stationary player vendors. But fortunately I got over it. Thanks to one player taking the time to explain things I stayed with UO, and still do to this day. All this happened in January of 1998. Thanks, Laura, I hope you’re still around. I know I am, which proves that Paul Simon had ME in mind when he sang, Still CRAZY After All These Years:]…

At the time, I had been playing UO for close to a year, my bank boxes, and my backpacks were full on all five characters.  My roommate and friend that I got signed up for UO nine months ago was in the same situation as I was.  We needed a house, and we needed one badly.  Yet everywhere we looked had a house already. Both in felucca and trammel, we scouted and tried to plot any house we could.  We checked the obvious places close to cities.  We hoped to find any spot along a road leading from place to another, then maybe someplace along any mountainside.  We even tried the areas outside the dungeon entrances.  It got to the point we went to the farthest points of every peninsula throughout the land, and any island our boat could bring us. As we grew discouraged, we resigned ourselves to trying dangerous places surrounded by monsters that easily ran us down with our slow internet connection.  So we searched the swamp near the Britain crossroads, the swamps and jungles around Trinsic, the desert by Compassion, the arctic landscape of Dagger Island, and finally the demonic temple ruins of Fire Island.  It had to be the hardest thing we ever had to do, we only had mere moments to use our house deeds, before we got killed, and sometimes lost the deed. I cannot tell you how many months we searched and died while searching.  There were times we almost gave up.  One day, while searching, a player asked us if we wanted to go hunting.  We explained we were busy trying to find a place to put down a house.  To our shock and amazement, this mysterious stranger opened a gate, and said, “Follow me”.  He brought us back to Fire Island, where he proceeded to walk and stop, walk and stop, walk and stop, until we found ourselves on a beach pointing west towards Serpent’s Hold.  It was on this site our first small tower was born. That Good Samaritan, I can no longer remember his name, because after placing the tower, and giving it to us, he said his farewells, and recalled away into the ethers.  Later that day we met our neighbors on Fire Island in the large marble house next door to us.  A little over a year later we would be visiting our neighbors in the state next to us, a 45 year old Father and his 14 year old Son who only lived 4 hours away. Owning our first house was triumphant, but the quest to find the house was unforgettable.  UO brings people together.  It also hosts players who are infinitely kind and charitable.  It’s a place I can call home.

Please let me tell you a story of Trisha the Tamer … back in around 1998 1999  i had a small home in cove  where i would mine in the city .. to keep from being killed by the reds running around outside the gates…  i was a single father of two girls …..i started playing uo  simply for some adult conversation ..well eventually my girls were old enough to show interest in what daddy was doing..always asking whats that ?….can we play ….. so i set them up on their own chars i know i know supposed to be 18 to play but they were closely monitored by me …in the house at cove i had a naked mage i was working on  and anyone who played back then knew that  if you were to see a naked mage it was best to hide or take cover …so this mage had 10 hit points i had only built the magery skill at that time  ..anyway  my daughter Trisha wanted to play for a bit she was 6 yrs old at the time ..so i let her log onto her char while i made them lunch  ..she had a tamer  she was so proud of her first horse and  she loved her little kitten she had tamed all by herself  she named her zoey ..so i told her to mess around in the boxes of all the way kewl stuff dad had  lol yeah mostly junk I’m sure…….all of the sudden i hear her  saying yes! like she had found something awesome ……then again i hear yes!..callin from the next room i asked her did you find something you want and she says to me yeah  dad this guy is dropping all kinds of neat stuff on the ground ….so before i could get into the room i hear her death cry from her char ..then from her …. as i watched her tears coming down he continued to kill her little cat as well ..she was devastated  omg it took me hours to convince her this was a virtual cat after it was all said and done … so here comes dad to the rescue …on a naked mage  i rush outta the house and after this blue i go …here i am with a small bag of reagents  no armor at all with 10 hit points…I’m sure i will let her down once he kills me… she watches the screen yelling get him daddy …so i run up to him and he says wait!  don’t kill me i was only playing… i was so angry at him for making my little girl cry  …. i look at her again and the excitement in her eyes was like  he’s gonna get it! … so i begin to cast …starting off with paralyze  then flame strike  and he begins to run  then i cast e-bolt and another e-bolt and down he goes…… my kids both were jumping up and down screaming yeah we got him! i run up to his corpse to see if i could retrieve her belongings  the whole time he was oOooooooooOOOOOooo trying to talk to me …my daughter kept saying whats he saying daddy ..i tell her i dunno i don’t have spirit speak lol… so to my amazement on this guy was his house rune and a key ring loaded with keys…. so i tell my daughter i think we may have hit the jackpot…… on the ring were keys to 4 boats and a small house ..so first i looted the house  giving it all to my daughter  then we emptied all the boats  giving it to her as well  she was once again happy  …so all in all i got to make my point to my daughter that she always has to listen to daddy or she may get hurt doing something I’ve told her not to do …and also i hope that i taught the guy (wish i could remember his char name) something i have been saying to people that play this game for along time …never run….. stand and fight….. and 9 times outta ten you will win ….had he only hit me once  i would have certainly died  but he got scared  and chose to run

Ultima Online had a huge impact on my early gaming experiences; it was the first and only game I played that allowed me to become involved with other people from around the country, and later on, the world. In my early years I made a lot of friends throughout Britannia, but once I left and all my free time was now dedicated to university, my connections were cut and online friendships lost. It wasn’t until my return to the Pacific shard and the world of Britannia in 2006 that really got me thinking how much of my life was impacted in those first 4 years of playing UO in my early teenage days. I came back to the game, a noob, not knowing what to expect. I entered the world as a mage, as this is what I knew before I left many years prior. Entering the New Haven area I ran directly to what I thought was a guarded zone, somewhere safe, having no idea that the facet of Trammel even existed at this point.  I saw many blue names entering and exiting my screen, at this point I knew I was in a safe area. After about 30 minutes of familiarizing myself again with the classic client I was off to the edge of the city.  I had not even made it two screens from the bank when a brightly colored, funny hat wearing character charged up to me stating my intentions. I said, “Excuse me?” he replied, “Sir, I see you have a (young) player tag, may I assist you on your travels?” I took the mystery man up on his request and sent a barrage of questions his way; I must have sat there for 2 hours talking about the old days, the new days and what has changed within the lands of Britannia.  If was a refreshing feeling to see that there were still people within the game that shared the same interest as I did when playing, community and player involvement, isn’t that the point of a MMO game? After that night I met many great people, and befriended even more. My journeys throughout the lands of UO have not stopped, and I still find myself enjoying the game every time I login. Outside my Ultima Online days, at university, it was interesting to meet people who had once dwelled within the realm of Ultima Online and how much of an experience it was those first few years (97-2000), there had never been anything like it, it really changed the online gaming world. I had the same feeling and when I made my return, even though the game play style had changed, the same feeling of community, I once had, was still present in the game, making my return to UO in 2006 and the first player experience I had the most memorable. Long Live UO!

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