I’ve been meaning to write this post for a good while but have struggled to, not due to lack of time, but simply because of the same feeling you get having to wish a good friend farewell. I’ve been on Oblivion for a long time, under many alias to the point very, VERY few people actually know who I am. I’ve stayed, played and a good portion of my happy youth was spent on Oblivion. During middle-school, shortly before Oblivion converted to 55i, being that my house only had a single computer at the time which was in my brothers room, I would wake up at the wee hours in the morning just so I could play with everyone I had befriended. This was the start of what has become a very good memory in my life.
I loved UO for how shallow it appeared and how deep it really was. I enjoyed doing the simple hunt, the thrill of my first “duel”, to simply bank sitting with my seventy-five K trashite plate mail suit. The early days were certainly much different to what UO is now and to be brutally honest, they sucked. Did you know if you healed or moved at ALL in a duel, you were disqualified? Everyone knew the game very well those days. What was truly memorable was the people.
You had all sorts of people, from a variety of cliques, from a variety of play styles. You had people that knew the game inside out and never died because they knew how imbalanced vampire blood was (you could setup a certain macro since the death packet was slightly delayed, meaning if you went below 0 HP you still lived if you had the macro running), you had people that were friendly to absolutely anybody from new player to veteran, you had the despicable, ruthless, and hated players, and then you had the players that appeared good whom everybody loved, then got onto staff and deleted peoples items for fun (roleplayers).
Oblivion was a shard, even to this day that has always been shallow in appearance, and deep in actuality. It troubles me that we stand at this point in debate, that we forget, Oblivion has always been about rewarding players that play now-and-then, but also, further rewarding those players that are willing. Very few people achieved what Muggz was able to achieve with legendary items, no person complained, we all simply accepted that he deserves what he gets for working that damn hard. Oblivion was about the attitude.
Oblivion was a place where you could never achieve everything. There was always something out there you could strive for, and most importantly something you could WORK for. You could spend days and days collecting diamonds to try and get lucky with making a legendary piece of armor, you could kill the fire llama continually hoping for a drop, or you could simply work on a kick ass bank sitting suit. Whatever your play style was, no matter how shallow or deep your goal was, there was a place for you on Oblivion.
Unfortunately times change, people know less about the game, less about why they play, less about how to remedy things. People don’t understand mechanical changes aren’t a solution to systemic problems. Nor do people understand that correlation doesn’t equate to causation, people are wrapped up about doing a good job at the wrong time, and people forget to question could this “possibly” be nonsensical and unproductive? You have people playing various new games and thinking it would work for UO (lets implement Entropia’s systems while we’re at it, idiots).
This doesn’t mean I’ll be gone for good, nor are other people though I will not speak on there behalf. This simply means I shall be withdrawing from any sort of communal activities and drastically reducing my play time. I shall simply become just another vet that logs on sporadically not giving a flying fuck about anyone else or the shard. I have worked too damn hard, helped far too many people, developed too many relationships to see that all evaporate because of two months of nonsensical stupidity.Chances are I will eventually return but for the foreseeable future that is unlikely.
I don’t wish to be bitter, nor do I resent anyone on the shard besides Degore (go fuck yourself). I have always strongly believed in our staff from good times to the bad. To the current staff I wish you the best, you have done an inspiring job from Fester’s well thought decisions, Erast’s brilliant technical support, Animata’s joyful disposition that leaks onto those she touches, Nox’s brilliant mechanical knowledge and sensible approach to problems, Tyr’s maturity and poise upon adversity, Tremor’s I’ll be sober tomorrow attitude and anyone else I’m forgetting, great job keeping this amazing community going. Last but not least thanks to Electro for keeping the shard up for so long and showing interest in getting the shard back on track (though you took bad biased advice). I wish the best to Oblivion and all the people that continue to play there. I have many fond memories that I will sincerely treasure for the rest of my life. So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone that has made Oblivion, an amazing, wonderful experience.
In no particular order I’d like to thank the following players:
- Ironfist and Sir aZn for being my first real UO buddies and being great people. Wherever you guys are I hope you’re doing great and wish you the best in life if you read this.
- Ryan for teaching me about taking my game up to the next level with theory crafting and applying technical knowledge. Also, thanks for maintaining my UOProxy server for all these years and supplying me a US IP.
- Knights of Honor for being a great guild of people bar Marduk for cheating horrendously (BTW I killed your shadowlands zostrich and fire llama, oh and I cursed your invulnerability plate.)
- Himuro Kenshin for not giving a shit about UOs cliques and destroying the “best” of Sphere. You beat Sphere, congratulations. Except, you got banned, idiot.
- Magnus for supplying me with unlimited +13 weapons and being an all round baller.
- Blaze for smelting spectral plate mail in the middle of Vesper. Good times.
- Tahu for helping me start up on RunUO after an extended break. Yep, surprise, we were actually good friends on Sphere but I chose to start with a fresh identity after a while.
- Inferno for being a general good guy.
- Sevros&Co. You guys are amazing people and have always pushed for the best of the shard no matter what happens. I wish you the best in your military service and University studies.
- PKF&Co. Also, amazing people. I’m sorry for anything ill caused but truth be told, my original plan was to build up a strong, solid guild, then turn them against me to solidify PvP here. Almost worked till someone got banned and someone got a girl friend.
- Galahad for being the among the only people on RunUO that knows how to play. I don’t like you still but credit where credit is due.
- Auggy. My man, you play sporadically but we’ve had many a good times here. I wish you all the best.
- The EU (DB and Caleb&Co) for being great people and bringing life to an otherwise dull shard while it was in a down swing. Akago, I found out you PK’d me when I was macroing ninjitsu, you fucker.
- Sanosuke for being an inspiration to many people to fight for what is sensible, though your tactics weren’t entirely sensible, you said and did what we all thought was right. Congratulations on having more balls than anyone else, and actually getting on to staff you sly, sly dog. See you on SB.
- Thalandor for giving me Kindals gear after my hiatus, it helped me much more than my 4×70 DB Mage plate.
- Bruno for actually teaching people you can play a warrior well. But, screw you for causing the majority of the shard to play warriors for the next 3 years. Also, thanks for hacking that account and stealing an entire spectral plate suit (lol he obviously earnt it)
- Marco for being a great person and having sensible decisions whilst doing the best for your guild. I wish you all the best and will probably see you on Paradise.
- Mr. Morgan and Mr. Christopher. I’ll see you guys on Revelation and vent. Congratulations on winning RunUO.
- Everyone else for making a good shard great.
I will perhaps sporadically blog as I do occasionally receive emails urging me to blog more but this is still relatively undecided. I wish everyone the absolute best with their lives and wish Oblivion all the best in pushing forward.
Again, fuck you Degore.
Atox and I rotating killing the stone beetle
What I was working on till shit hit the fan
Auggy asked Morgan and I to deco our soon to be opened vendor house
“End-game” level stats. Price: 750 million
Whiplash's UO Blog of Awesomeness 