So with no other place to go, (figuring that there was miridian 59 and some NWN on aol.) Ultima Online had a collection of players. It had all styles of players because it was the only thing out worth playing for an MMO. You had your PK's, you had your adventures, you had your social players and crafters. The majority of the players couldn't stand getting murdered and losing their items, but what other game was available to them. There was none, that is why when EverQuest hit the market there were tons of non-PK's jumped ship to a safer world. So OSI/EA decided we need a safe place so we don't lose the majority of our adventurers. So they created the two facet world with a safe zone trammel. This pleased the sheep and some of the wolves died out.

So then you had a split player base and without enough sheep(non-pk's) to feed the wolves(pks) the game lost the whole heart racing excitiment of fight or flight for your life.

So as the MMORPG market kept opening up. The player base and game kept changing. Shadowbane came about, more wolves left. WoW came about, nearly everyone who could run WoW on their computers left UO.

OLD UO can not work in today's market. People have choices in their games now. What pu&&y is going to choice a safe RP wow server over a game where they can craft bad A&& gear but they have to worry about it being ripped away from them because their combat skills suck.

Basically games that have a realistic set of player vs player rules, that involving killing your oponent and enjoying the loot of their corpses; is not nearly as fun for the wolves without the sheep.

Wolves vs Wolves you might as well be playing arena in WoW or playing a first person shooter.

P.S. Tell your friend to check out UOSecondage.com
That is the closest as it will come to restoring glory days.

I want to barrage them with emails saying "So are you saying I cannot view this running Linux, with Totem, Using Firefox?"
O boy what gives. LOL