First read "The In-game Economics of Ultima Online"[1] which I just submitted to HN for comment[2].
The hiccups of developing UO's in-game economy along the way are incredibly interesting in their own right.
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I'll try to summarize some of UO.
UO was divided into Trammel (safe from PvP) and Felucia (not), and some servers only had Fel. In Fel as soon as you left a city you were more or less fair game to die from an extremely hostile environment, and (I think it was) PC Gamer described the learning curve as "A frozen wall of acid." Brutal, but very exciting. A goddamn wild west MMO.
(In Fel) UO was a rare RPG where anyone could kill anyone, for any reason, but with the repercussion that they would be branded a "Bad person" (visible with a gray or red name instead of blue). Stealing from good people corpses also did this. Anyone can attack and kill bad persons, and if you killed even more people you were a murderer and it took a very long time to return to normal.
This Blue/Gray/Red name system created a sort of cautiousness among travelers. Being near a pack of "blue" people might be safe, since any person that tried to steal or kill would turn gray and they'd immediately kill him.
Unless of course, all those blue-named people were conspiring, and you are the target.
You want to use super awesome powerful gear? None of this sissy MMO stuff. Die and you lose it, and your enemy (or his enemy!) gets the spoils.
The problem I have with a lot of MMOs is that the power of your character is simply how much time you sink into the game. Essentially, MMOs are games that reward wasting time.
UO had so much more than that. UO was a game where treachery and sneakiness really paid off, if you wanted it to. Lots of ways to nearly instantly kill or entrap people lead to a lot of very exciting plots where guilds might be laden with spies. Absolutely nothing like the ridiculously limited PvP found in games like WoW.
In a lot of ways it was the Diplomacy (diplomatic back-stabbing board game) of MMOs. And it was great.
Btw, Trammel and Felucca was a distinction that came later. Apparently, because Origin wanted to attract more players, which would be known as 'carebears'.
The hiccups of developing UO's in-game economy along the way are incredibly interesting in their own right.
--------------
I'll try to summarize some of UO.
UO was divided into Trammel (safe from PvP) and Felucia (not), and some servers only had Fel. In Fel as soon as you left a city you were more or less fair game to die from an extremely hostile environment, and (I think it was) PC Gamer described the learning curve as "A frozen wall of acid." Brutal, but very exciting. A goddamn wild west MMO.
(In Fel) UO was a rare RPG where anyone could kill anyone, for any reason, but with the repercussion that they would be branded a "Bad person" (visible with a gray or red name instead of blue). Stealing from good people corpses also did this. Anyone can attack and kill bad persons, and if you killed even more people you were a murderer and it took a very long time to return to normal.
This Blue/Gray/Red name system created a sort of cautiousness among travelers. Being near a pack of "blue" people might be safe, since any person that tried to steal or kill would turn gray and they'd immediately kill him.
Unless of course, all those blue-named people were conspiring, and you are the target.
You want to use super awesome powerful gear? None of this sissy MMO stuff. Die and you lose it, and your enemy (or his enemy!) gets the spoils.
The problem I have with a lot of MMOs is that the power of your character is simply how much time you sink into the game. Essentially, MMOs are games that reward wasting time.
UO had so much more than that. UO was a game where treachery and sneakiness really paid off, if you wanted it to. Lots of ways to nearly instantly kill or entrap people lead to a lot of very exciting plots where guilds might be laden with spies. Absolutely nothing like the ridiculously limited PvP found in games like WoW.
In a lot of ways it was the Diplomacy (diplomatic back-stabbing board game) of MMOs. And it was great.
[1] http://www.mine-control.com/zack/uoecon/uoecon.html
[2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4890481