You can't go back to Ultima Online. *

If that's what Darkfall is designed to do, it will fail miserably.

I'm not talking about launch screwups (although they've probably unseated Anarchy Online for the distinction of worst MMO launch). I'm talking about gameplay.

Where Darkfall might succeed is in the differences. I haven't played it, and in fact I'd say nobody has played it in proper form yet. But their model isn't entirely a clone of UO's wild west 'glory days'.

Near as I can tell, they're going for the same feel, but that's a mistake too. It's chasing a ghost. UO's 'glory days' are some phantom PvP paradise that never really existed. It's been pumped as legendary, the bullshit stacks up and up and up. And that's why Darkfall is getting trashed by the likes of Lum the Mad. If that's what Aventurine is chasing, they're just adding another shovel to the pile.

I really hope they've had more than that planned. I can only assume there must be some kind of common sense at Aventurine, somewhere. It's just math, they can't all suck as much as whoever's in charge of servers and accounts.

* Technically you can go back to UO, it's still running, but in terms of going back to a mythical era, no you can't.

Nazrin gleefully exclaimed she'd found a game of Tag, just north of Bree-town by the fairgrounds. I had to check it out and we spent a few minutes chasing each other around pillars within some ruins. It's a simple thing really, I'm sure Turbine didn't spend a lot of time making it and we didn't spend much time playing it either. Sooner or later, when we've got a bigger crowd hanging around the area, we'll probably run around like schoolchildren, at least for a few moments.

This is the kind of thing that makes me love MMORPGs. Throw in a few toys here and there and let players make their own fun. It's not always about killing mobs.

In Ultima Online, I spent some time in an inn, playing backgammon against another player. They hadn't coded in the full rules, they simply provided the board and the pieces. In WoW, I had a hoot with the RC tanks at the Darkmoon Faire. And with the help of WoW's addon system, our guild organized several popular scavenger hunt races on our server.

I know there's a whole genre of mini-game collections, and UO's interface didn't lend all that well to boardgames, but MMOs are these huge social hubs perfect for this stuff. So with all these players hanging out, why not have a few little in-world distractions? I don't mean just for the roleplayers, I mean as added amusements and immersiveness for all of us.

And yeah, that's right, while Gandalf and Frodo are off trying to save Middle-Earth from the evils of Sauron and Saruman, we're playing tag. =)

I'm considering a revisit to Ultima Online after all of these years. What's prompted this treading down nostalgia lane? They're pushing a graphics update that looks quite good. It's not exactly on the scales with recent MMOs, but the isometric views are visually pleasing nonetheless.

With this push back to prettier 2D isometric, they are discontinuing UO's old optional 3D view, which shouldn't leave anyone crying as it was a poor hackjob attempt to compete with Everquest in the first place.

The details of my old account are probably buried in an email somewhere, but I don't know if I could revive my character from 1997 anyway. Geez, it's been an entire decade, I think his name was Semaphore, but I'm not even sure on recalling that correctly. My house is most certainly long gone by this point, hell I don't even know if the server Shard I was on still exists.

One thing I do still have is my UO original cloth map. =D

It's going to be incredibly mind-blowing for me to step back into that universe.

Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn is currently in beta, with no exact date for release other than RSN. I'm going to wait until it's out before using up a 14 day free demo account.