I pre-ordered Ultima Online back in September 1997 (well my parents did) but did not participate in the beta. My friends were all playing by the time I received the giant box filled with the cloth map, a dragon poster and the installation discs. I remember my first day just strolling around passing people outside Britannia and saying "Hail sir". What an amazing world it was, oh what are these 10 red names running at me? You are dead. Back then a lot of stuff was "broken".. my friends and I used to sit inside a building in town and steal items repeatedly from a spawning chest, selling them for much in-game gold. As the game progressed I remember many "exploit" sites and yes I too tried them out, gating around the outsides of houses with 4 of my friends until we were able to hit the right spots and be teleported inside, free to loot the contents. I also remember many times angrily losing my entire house and/or possessions to a simple thief hiding outside, waiting for the house door to open and the best chance to run in and kill me. There were many fun bugs for years until they managed to patch quite a few... and started to crack down on macroers and gold dupers. I owned a castle, many dragons, had countless PVP battles against 100s of foes at once (remember server downtime anyone?) and nothing will come close to it.
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Glad you were fortunate enough. I decided to drop out of highschool and hit the fast food workforce when I was 15 so I could play this game more often. I may have had a slight addiction :P I did end up selling my in-game property and account for around $1000 so that was cool.. but those years I will never get back.
I was not at the right stage of my life to get into UO, being very busy with school and starting a company. If the timing had been slightly different, I would have wrecked myself upon those shores.
At this stage in my life I try to active avoid things to which I may become addicted.
