Before Trammel UO was a complete world. I started out playing just like everyone else. I was a newby blue who couldnt figure out how in the hell to get off occlo island and who was terrified of the HUGE masses of mongbats on the western side of Moonglow (...hey, they kicked my ass!) Orc mages were the bane of my existance, I thought only rich people rode horses, and my guild was a fairly large group of newbies and carebears called "VaH". We did all the same little goofy things that Trammel people do today. The difference was, there was real excitement and accomplishment in the world.
The sense of danger brought about by pks fostered a very strong sense of comradeship and community. When a red guild would roll through a dungeon all of the blues there, whether they knew each other or not, would band together to heal and help each other and fight the reds. Sometimes we won, sometimes we lost, but it was always an adrenaline rush.
One day after T2A came out, 14 of us went to Oasis to gain some skills fighting the spawn around there. To make a long story short...3 pks took us out. 3 reds vs 14 blues. We didnt whine or cry or page gms, we stood there in ever increasing numbers of ghosts in absolute awe of the skill of these 3 players (Absolute Zero, Sex Machine and Milk Man by name from the Napa Valley guild TLC). It wasnt the first time i had been pkd, but it was by far the best. First there were two of us as ghosts, then 4, then 6...the rest of our group regrouped to fight back against the reds who were still outnumbered by a long shot. Before long, we were all cheering on the reds who had killed us. Their teamwork and tactics were nothing short of amazing. None of us were upset at having died..they were GOOD and it was fun. It was one of the best fights I have ever seen in many many years of playing uo.
When Trammel came out, I was still a blue, I had never been red yet. Like everyone else I waited and waited for it to come out. New lands, no crime, lots more housing...it was a big thing for me. It turned out to be the biggest disappointment in the game. Within a couple of weeks I packed my bags and moved back to fel. Trammel didnt have that same sense of danger. Everything was too easy. When i went to a dungeon, instead of having to watch out for every person coming by I fell into a daze of repetitive action. Instead of wondering if each name that popped up was my next battle, i stopped paying any attention to them. When i took my boatloads of gold to the bank, i didnt feel like I had beaten any odds nor earned anything.
No monster, no matter how good the AI, will ever give you a battle of wits and skill like a player will. Standing in a dungeon mindlessly spamming "All Kill" then picking up the loot doesnt accomplish anything you couldnt do with a simple script. The skills, money, items and housing are meaningless when they are so easy to acquire and so many people have them. A staged duel with rules and preparedness will never require the same fast thinking, instantaneous reactions and knowledge of your character that an ambush will. You'll never feel the same sense of accomplishment over an "honorable duel" that you will when you have beaten someone when the odds were against you.
Back in "the day" it was not uncommon for one person to take on and beat 2-3 opponents. It was not uncommon for a good player on a half built character to take out a cocky but underskilled player on a 7x gm character. It wasn't your items that mattered, it was the skill of the fingers on the keyboard and the mind that drove them. Money wasnt an issue, it was skill and not items that mattered in a battle. People were much more polite back then. There wasnt the animosity between players that there is now. It was simply red vs blues and reds & blues vs thieves. (the poor thieves have always gotten the short end of the stick) There was a LOT less shit talk because back then, if you ran your mouth you got your ass kicked.
Today..god, today most of the griefing occurs in trammel. People are so rude, childish and greedy. There is no sense of comradeship. It is all about keeping up with the Jones's. People whine to the GM's about the most ludacris issues (OMG, mr GM! he killed the dragon i wanted to kill! that was supposed to be MY uber loot!). Yes a lot of the people in fel are childish griefing loud mouthed jackasses....maybe even most of them. Those aren't real feluccans in fel any more...the real ones are mostly gone now. A dying breed. I really do hope i find a few here
Thats what im looking for.