Ranger Archive

I wasn't here during the early days of the game, but I've been there, Calc. I've spent over an hour attempting corpse retrieval on UO, where both myself and my partner could heal and rez, and ended up losing the gear from both corpses... This was also before item insurance, so the really special items you had were gone-gone-gone.

As pissed as this made me, it's the risk I took. The only time I felt it was really unfair was when, due to the game booting me, or extreme lag issues (dial-up sucks.. AOL dial-up is Hell) I lost everything. Expedious corpse retrieval, and the art of thecombat rescue(where you'd call a friend who was across the world to come help, and he'd swoop in, by hook or by crook, to help you retrieve your corpse) was a vital skill to be developed.

When I lost that sweet sword that I found (I was pragmatic.. I never bought really expensive weapons) I would curse up a storm, rant and rave... And get over it. I'd go hit up the Hammer and Anvil in Brit to buy new GM armor and a sword. Later on, when items got really cool, and item insurance was introduced.. I insured a total of about 3 items. My sword, my bracelet, and my ring. Sometimes if I brought along a particularly nice shield or something, I'd insure that too.

Everything else was the cost of adventuring. Lord how I hated that new dungeon in Malas.. But after the first debacle, you can bet that this GM Warrior was a bit smarter when he went back.. and go back he did. Solo, grouped, didn't matter. The risk was what made it fun. The effort to think calmly when everything just went to **edit**, and the ability to walk out of that dungeon having lost a few of my "uber" items, but having saved those of my guildmates.. That sense of accomplishment tempered with the sense of frustration at my loss was what made the game come alive, even after 4 years of playing.

SWG is barely a year in. Will it have that sort of staying power? I think not, unless we reintroduce the risk.

Damn. Now I wanna go play UO again.

I would love to see this brought back. But as someone earlier stated, it probably won't happen due to all the grief and whine you will hear non stop. Too bad really, I liked the challange. But we can't have that here. Challange ruins the game for some of these folks.