I think I may no longer be playing UO anymore.
As all of you know, I’ve been playing Ultima Online off and on for nearly 7 years now, give or take. There have been rough times, but I decided about 2 years ago that no matter what, I was going to keep paying for my UO account so that if I ever decided to play, it would be there for me, waiting and welcoming. And since 2001, they’ve had the houses in the game automatically refresh, so I never had to worry about losing my house.
However, about a week ago, I got an e-mail from UO customer support saying that decay had been turned back on for houses. When I get home, I try to log onto my account to make sure my house is okay. I can’t. When I log onto the UO website, I find that my account was inactive, due to a problem they had processing my card a month or two ago. I had Liz log on to check my house, and it was still there, but condemned. I tried to reactivate my account, but their server for account reactivation seems to be down at the moment (repeatedly tried to reactivate, always being told the server had timed out). The next day, I managed to find the number to customer support and actually called them to reactivate my account. I was told that within 20 minutes, my account would become active again, and things like my house and other belongings would be switched back to active status. Whew. So, I logged in tonight to check my house.
Not there.
Now, I don’t know how long many of you have been reading, but I’ve had the same house just outside of Vesper for three years or more. I was incredibly proud of the spot, and it was basically my pride and joy in the game. To log on to find a locked house belonging to DeVaStAtOr was like taking a physical blow to the head. Everything I had worked for these past 7 years was contained in that house. I had nothing in the bank but my gold.
So now I sit, thinking about things, and wondering if I even care anymore. I really want to. I loved UO, it’s been part of my life for nearly a third of my existence here on earth. I poured my soul into that game, and for what? I stood there, an empty husk of an avatar, owning nothing but the armor on my back and the gold in my bank. I could never afford to buy a house the likes of the one I had, so what’s the point anymore? I’m going to have to do some soul-searching to see how I feel, but there’s the likelyhood that Sagus’s footsteps may no longer fall on the shores of Brittania in Napa Valley.