I’ve got a long video covering Ultima Online releasing on Massively OP today. I’m essentially touring all my favorite places and activities in the game while discussing the game’s development history as a lesson in sandbox design. It’s one of my favorite soapboxes.
And making the video was so much fun that I thought I’d go back through my video files to see if I had anything else worth a second look. I found a few, though both are quite low-quality in terms of framerate, such that I think there’d be riots if I posted them to Massively OP. But I figure my long-time readers here might appreciate them once put in context.
Here’s the first — a bit depressing. After learning that Star Wars Galaxies was due to be sunsetted in 2012, I had a rough time enjoying what was left of the time that remained to me. Over many years, I had built up a crafting empire and a set of homes and businesses that I was truly proud of and still miss being able to visit to this day — I think I miss my creations more than anything. But at the time, I apparently made a low-res video of some of my buildings on Starsider. I desperately wish I’d sorted out the quality at the time, but alas, I didn’t, so it’s hard to follow and really get a clear view. This is what I’ve got, plus some lucky screenshots I remembered to hang onto.
00:00 My chef enters our medium Tatooine building at our base on Dantooine. I used this building as a shop primarily; it’s heavily decorated as a teahouse and nightclub, and it’s where I sold everything from food and drinks (at the bar) to bio-engineered items, armor, and component crates (from the jawa vendors). I was pretty proud of the use of bubbles, lights, and rugs on the walls to create a nifty atmosphere perfect for entertaining and roleplaying. Also, that hot tub room rocked!
05:00 Heading into my diner, which I used as a crafting building. Every one of those cabinets holds millions of resources. I loved relaxing in this building while crafting. Folks familiar with Star Wars Galaxies (and the crappy default look of the diner) will note that I am using my own texture mods here to completely change the appearance of the diner’s interior walls, floors, and even the cabinets themselves. At 06:40 there’s a random detour back into the teahouse.
8:00 Logged into my droid engineer and moisture farmer over on the Bria server. A bit of dull resource collection, a flip-through the trading card system, and a quick ATV hop, and by 10:30 I’m back at her shop, also a diner, on Naboo. Her building was also tricked out with hundreds of rugs, pallets, and what I seem to recall were some sort of massive concrete thing that I used to hide the walls and ceiling and divide the building into three rooms.
Even now, the urge to walk through some of those doors grips me, as if I’m logged in. I need to check on my factories and harvesters out back, you know.
Next time? A video from Paragon. And here the much higher-quality (and brand-new) video from today’s MOP piece on Ultima Online.
Dammit, now I’m all nostalgic for SWG too.