First of all, just download the 14 day trial and play that for 2 weeks.  Then if you decide to subscribe, you are only missing the Stygian Abyss expansion and the High Seas Booster, though you don't need to get them right away unless you want to play as a Gargoyle or have ship to ship battles.

Atlantic is the most populated, but I play on Great Lakes.

Originally posted by RefMinor
Alternatively you could try the old school private server as discussed by Garret in his recent article.

I think that might be against the rules, as private servers are illegal.

Originally posted by Fendel84M

Originally posted by RefMinor
Alternatively you could try the old school private server as discussed by Garret in his recent article.

I think that might be against the rules, as private servers are illegal.

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/12/feature/7052/Lessons-Learned-from-a-Free-Shard.html

I was just pointing him to this article published by this site, I do not know the legal status of the "free shard" in this review/article, I leave that to MMORPG.com to analyse.

Originally posted by Fendel84M

Originally posted by RefMinor
Alternatively you could try the old school private server as discussed by Garret in his recent article.

I think that might be against the rules, as private servers are illegal.

Nothing illegal about private servers for any MMO, since there is no real criminal action available for the publishers to take on the private guys.  It's just against ToS, which is irrelevant in this case.  The one exception would be if the private host was somehow making money on the free servers, at which point *they* could be held liable for some infringement, but the players are still not part of the picture.

Originally posted by Fendel84M

Originally posted by RefMinor
Alternatively you could try the old school private server as discussed by Garret in his recent article.

I think that might be against the rules, as private servers are illegal.

It is... even though they did that article on it, it is still against the rules. 

Besides the official servers are the way to go in any case. Do the free trial as others have suggested, you can subscribe from there with all the expansions with the exception of stygian abyss and the high seas booster like another said. 

Definitly try before buy.

To me, it's just so dated.

As much fun as I had playing it back in the day, I don't think I'll ever go back.

Originally posted by jpnole
Definitely trial. You will see the graphics and likely run for the hills.

If you can see past the graphics, it has everything other games cant offer.

Originally posted by csthao

Originally posted by jpnole
Definitely trial. You will see the graphics and likely run for the hills.

If you can see past the graphics, it has everything other games cant offer.

Agree 100%

Originally posted by EccentricPenguin

Originally posted by csthao

Originally posted by jpnole
Definitely trial. You will see the graphics and likely run for the hills.

If you can see past the graphics, it has everything other games cant offer.

Agree 100%

The new Enhanced Beta Client pretties things up a bit.

Originally posted by outfctrl
I would play again, but I know my huge house is gone with all my valuables.

If I know I'm going to unsubscribe, I usually throw everything i can into the bank on all my characters

Yes, UO really hurts with a shrinking playerbase.

Check out the trial. If you can live with the dated graphis of the classic client but dislike the itembased system check out  freeshards that use the pre age of shit  (AOS) rules.