Ultima Online - 5 Stories of Murder & Theft

PC Gamer's Ultima Online retrospective takes us back to the brutal age of griefing and murder that, for some, makes it a classic hardcore RPG.

Ultima Online turned 19 today and despite being so outdated, few PC games inspire nostalgia quite like Richard 'Lord British' Garriott's first MMO. Unlike most modern MMOs—ignoring EVE Online of course—Ultima Online is unique because it's the closest thing to a Dungeons and Dragons campaign gone massively multiplayer. It's sometimes bizarre, always hectic, and wonderfully intimate. Without all the modern luxuries of global chat or automated trade systems, players had to interact with each other in ways that gave rise to friendships, rivalries, and devastating betrayals. Oh yeah, Ultima Online was hardcore as hell too. Griefing and player killing were the laws of the land, and death wasn't just a slap on the wrist—you could lose everything.

Today, few people would probably ever want to spend their time playing in such a ruthless game, and later expansions would try and curb players' appetite for tears by discouraging slaughter. But of all the amazing stories spawned from online games, few are as memorable and hilarious as the ones that come from Ultima Online. To celebrate its birthday and the legacy that would shape an entire genre of MMOs, here are just a few of my favorites. They might not be the most sprawling tales, but the strength of Ultima Online was never how 'epic' it could be. Instead, it was all about those little moments that would happen week to week that made the world of Britannia come alive.

More.