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It's another one of those emotional times in Ultima Online - and oh yes, you can get emotional about a bunch of pixels...
I've been playing for over ten years now, and the game has become a major part of my online life. People I've played alongside have moved on, lured away most likely by some other shinier world of "pixel crack", and establishments in my neighbourhood have fallen down, their contents scavenged by absolute strangers, who have no idea of the attachments that may come with the items they're rifling through...
I can't save everything. It's just not possible, no matter how hard I might try - but then I have to remind myself of all the times I've manned the bar at the local tavern (a building soon to be no more), and no-one has come. Could I have done more publicity? Sure - but I don't have the time to devote to the game that I had when I started, and some days, I'll just log on long enough to feed the fish.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not giving up on the game. I'll most likely be there when they close the whole thing down. Seeing pieces of that virtual life fade away still hurt, though. With every house that falls, you hope that someone will move in, and be eager to make a little bit more of our corner of the world than just a bunch of houses that just happen to be next door to each other - but more often than not, you'll never see a soul, and the house is just a place to store "stuff".
Ah, hell. I'm not going to mope about it. If I won the lottery, I'd offer to finance every old friend's return to the game until close-down, and we'd have dragon fights and darts competitions again, as well as "local" role-playing, and a true sense of community that's been missing for too long...
I miss those good old days, when all this was wild and new, and where a helping hand was moments, not minutes away. I'm thankful that this game came along, thankful that my old computer could handle it, and thankful for all the friends I made, even though sometimes I never knew their real names, or where they came from. None of that really seemed to matter.
And so, however, another page is turned - but look at it like this: now you have another fresh page to write on.
I've been playing for over ten years now, and the game has become a major part of my online life. People I've played alongside have moved on, lured away most likely by some other shinier world of "pixel crack", and establishments in my neighbourhood have fallen down, their contents scavenged by absolute strangers, who have no idea of the attachments that may come with the items they're rifling through...
I can't save everything. It's just not possible, no matter how hard I might try - but then I have to remind myself of all the times I've manned the bar at the local tavern (a building soon to be no more), and no-one has come. Could I have done more publicity? Sure - but I don't have the time to devote to the game that I had when I started, and some days, I'll just log on long enough to feed the fish.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not giving up on the game. I'll most likely be there when they close the whole thing down. Seeing pieces of that virtual life fade away still hurt, though. With every house that falls, you hope that someone will move in, and be eager to make a little bit more of our corner of the world than just a bunch of houses that just happen to be next door to each other - but more often than not, you'll never see a soul, and the house is just a place to store "stuff".
Ah, hell. I'm not going to mope about it. If I won the lottery, I'd offer to finance every old friend's return to the game until close-down, and we'd have dragon fights and darts competitions again, as well as "local" role-playing, and a true sense of community that's been missing for too long...
I miss those good old days, when all this was wild and new, and where a helping hand was moments, not minutes away. I'm thankful that this game came along, thankful that my old computer could handle it, and thankful for all the friends I made, even though sometimes I never knew their real names, or where they came from. None of that really seemed to matter.
And so, however, another page is turned - but look at it like this: now you have another fresh page to write on.
