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After the WoW client crashed twice trying to fly back to Orgrimmar, I gave up and tried playing some Ultima Online, connecting to a new player-run shard. I had been in a couple nights before, but the client had crashed moments after getting in game (I guess fullscreen doesn't work so well). This time things seemed to hold a little longer and I was able to hit some skill gates and pick up some equipment to get me set up. I talked with one of the GMs and met up with some guildmates.

So here's the thing, while some things are different since I played in the late '90s, most is the same... and that's not a good thing. Most of all, the interface is seriously problematic. I often find myself having to click very small objects or drag objects onto small hot spots with very little feedback as to whether I've hit my target. The interface is also sluggish, so any sort of click or drag action takes a beat or so to display any sort of acknowledgment that I've attempted an action. Keep in mind, when I was playing this game more than ten years ago I was playing on a Pentium 500 (I think). Now I'm playing on a Core 2 Duo 3.16GHz. Apparently, local CPU speed has no impact on client performance. There are also the replication issues where a player will try to move somewhere and you'll see a delay or stuttered attempt. I could see this as a problem with the bandwidth or processing power of the player-run shard, but these exact issues existed with the regular commercial version as well.

I make these same sorts of discoveries every time I go back to play an "old" game. While the original gameplay might be sound, trying to adapt to and accept old and broken interfaces from days of yore is generally just too much. I don't care how much fun I used to have with this game, I simply can't put up with this crappy interface long enough to enjoy the game. Unfortunately, I really can't see myself sticking with UO much, if at all. The crappy interface simply detracts from the experience and makes me feel like I am wasting my time fighting the interface instead of enjoying the game.

I haven't figured out if I should feel bad about that or not...