If you wanted to get better at swordsmanship you had to equip a sword and start whacking enemies.

Instead of gaining levels and assigning skill points, the player gained skill by actually completing the activity you wanted to improve in. Unlike modern MMORPG's such as World of Warcraft players had quite a different method of advancing their character. Each player could create (from memory) five characters per shard. When you started the game you got to choose which shard you wanted to connect to, and then customise your character including their gender and appearance, clothing, and you also got to choose two skills to raise up to apprentice level. This game set the tone for all MMORPG's that followed. Game servers were naturally called 'shards' which was a nice touch. According to the game lore, each of the shattered remnants of the Gem of Immortality contained within it a completely parallel universe. Anyone who knows the history of the Ultima series knows that in Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness the hero defeats Mondain the Wizard and shatters the Gem of Immortality. Origin did create a plot device to explain the fact that there were multiple online servers each with a complete instance of the world. Richard Garriott's Ultima Online was the first hugely successful MMORPG game in history, set in the world of Britannia. And some of those games I didn't play in great depth. The intent is to remember the games I've come across in my life and share the nostalgia, nothing more. It doesn't contain critical analysis, just the subjective opinions of one person.

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