Yup I remember quitting the first time after they screwed my characters, then I made changes to adapt, then they screwed em again and had to change all my templates, then AoS came out and any decent gear I had was crap....so I quit. Came back and remade everything from scratch but the economy was good and boned by then. Now it's like 200mil+ to build a decent PVP armor set, and about 25mil+ for a decent weapon. So, not tough to say gbye to offical shards. The freeshard community pretty much has a like mind as far as ho UO SHOULD be depending on the genre of shard you play(oldschool pre-aos/SE/ML etc or pvp shard or clone servers). The economy's still young(not corrupted anyhow) and moderators aren't afraid to ban someone for exploiting or being a jerk just because they'll lose monthly service charges.
LOTS of options for templates anymore. Even on OSI if you have an oldschool tank mage or warrior with healing, anat, tact, weapon skill, resist...it still works just plays a bit different. Plus there're lots more options as far as adding something ELSE like chivalry, ninjitsu, bushido, necromancy to the same build to give an extra edge/complication depending on how ya think about it as far as a sway from simplicity goes.
