Bite the hand that made you
Our next subject is one that is either pure comedy gold or absolute lowest of the low, depending on your view of MMORPGs and goes back to what can arguably be lauded as the genre creating Ultima Online. Some say that this was creator Richard Garriott’s finest hour and, having been a near obsessive UO player back in the days of free 56k with two hour timed connections, I’m inclined to agree.Launched in 1998, Ultime Online took the well established and hugely popular Ultima series, gave everything a then up-to-date detailed isometric view and opened up the world of Britannia to the masses and set some MMORPG precedent such as skills improving with use, selective PvP, guilds, players housing, player shops and the like. Sure, games that followed refined these ideas and added some brilliant new one but I think you’ll find the slightly lawless, edgy realm of Ultima Online is what strikes a chord with most long-term MMORPG players.
But Ultima Online was of course dogged by bugs and exploits, the use of which saw a beta-test player, Rainz, banned from the server. But that was to happen to Rainz after he committed what has to be the most tongue-in-cheek attack in the history of MMORPGs… by killing Lord British, the avatar of Ultima Online creator, Richard Garriott.
Click for larger imageAs part of the beta testing the servers were being stressed tested for large groups of players in small areas, so Lord British, played by Garriott, was addressing a crowd at Lord Blackthorne’s castle. Rainz entered the area and, playing as a character with a high stealing skill, managed to nick a fire field scroll off a nearby mage. He cast the scroll on the bridge and was as stunned as anyone else when Lord British slumped to the ground, dead.
Click for larger imageAfter the event, Garriott explained that the servers had been taken down ready for the stress testing and a bug in the game code meant that his usual invulnerability had been deactivated. So when the spell was cast, he responded with ‘hehe nice try’ and then died. Many innocent bystanders were killed as Lord Blackthorne summoned 4 fire daemons into the area, who went on a massive killing spree in a futile attempt to kill Lord British’s murderer, but Rainz had long since done a runner. Rainz was later banned from UO for exploiting rather than reporting bugs in the beat code and Garriott is reported to have taken the whole episode good naturedly… though I bet he always checks his invulnerability flag is on now.