Hello all,
As someone else below, my name is also Sam.
I started playing Ultima Online in 2000 with the release of Renaissance, which means yes I missed the 'golden ages' of Trammel-less Sosaria. Even though, in my year and a half of playing, I only managed to GM Swordsmanship and Tactics, I still had a fantastic time and vividly remember the terror of being taken down to the Lich's in Deceit to harvest gold for my first tower (small of course ...). Unfortunately school / college caught up with me and I had to stop playing to focus on my studies, and Ultima sat on the shelf for a while. Once the exams were over, I did return to Sosaria, but in the form of running my own free sphereserver which was so remarkably unpopular I can't even remember its name anymore, however we did have about 5 regular players for about three months and it gave me a chance to apply some of my knowledge of programming (albeit limited!) to something seemingly fun that others could enjoy.
Around the time I was running the free sphereserver (55i I think it was ...) I was also playing Star Wars Galaxies, a game which I very much enjoyed due to the fact it was a Sandbox just like UO. You could do anything, or be anyone, you wanted (even if that meant being akin to a poorly trained swordsman failing miserably to kill a lich with his Silver Longsword of Power!). I moved on from Star Wars Galaxies as soon as the infamous combat upgrade decimated the population! I was, however, still quite saddened to hear about SWG being shut down recently ..
From Starwars Galaxies to server firsts in World of Warcraft where I met many good and decent people at the expense of a social life (does chatting on the internet count as a social life?).
Towards the end of my time on Warcraft I began playing Ultima Online again, maybe it was something to do with hearing that SWG was having the plug pulled I'm unsure, but I downloaded both the new clients and resubscribed my account. I had popped on now and again during the release of new expansions in Ultima Online as I'd always had to see what new stuff was being introduced, however I never really played seriously since 2001. I returned fully towards the end of the Mondain's Legacy expansion prior to the release of the Kingdom Reborn client, and during this time built up quite a collection of gold and artifacts, ready for the new expansion when it was released. Managing to place two castles (something I'd only dreamed of back in 2000!) and thoroughly enjoying my time on the game. I have had periods of inactivity since then, but have very much kept up my presence in the world of Sosaria and look forward to keeping it that way in the future!
I look forward to contributing to your forums in a way more than simply telling you about myself!
Sam
