Atlantic Roleplay Community Boards

[Jessie]

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Saw a Facebook group for Ultima Online pop up randomly, and it sent me on a nostalgia trip that lead me back to these halls.

I think it was 2003 when I started roleplaying on Atlantic. I was fourteen, responsible for my own welfare, living in an isolated area with no social contact outside of collecting classwork from a school miles away. The stories and characters created by the people here were my only defining experiences or meaningful interactions with other people until I was close to nineteen. I didn't just play UO. I lived in Sosaria and for a while, lived for it; as I'm sure more people than just myself did. My first true and die hard example of what a real friendship could be was forged in the dungeons and forests of Britannia.

I close my eyes, and those memories may as well be real experiences to me. Some days I wake up and think I must know how the Avatar felt on Earth after having been torn away from Britannia, wondering if the gate would ever open again, questioning whether it was all a dream. Friends I made, situations I was involved in and lessons I learned from the perspective of my characters during my time in Ultima Online influenced me more than anyone in reality for the longest of times, before I was able to strike out into an adult life that didn't have me living through a screen anymore.

I miss you all. Everyone I ever interacted with. The guilds, the roleplayers, the writers, the community, the serious and the fun... You were unknowingly my only family for over half a decade, though you never knew it and I would never have admitted it to anyone. I'll never forget the experiences I had with this community. It was far more than just a web forum and a group of gamers to me. For an extremely long time, it was the only thing I had, and few people will ever know how much they really meant to me.

I just wanted to say as much while there was still a torch lit in these halls, and hope that some of you might still be around to read it. We're all much older now, many of us have moved on entirely and rarely ever think about UO anymore, but to me the impact of this place helped make me who I am as a person, and left with me memories that will last until my deathbed. None of you will ever truly know how thankful I am for even the smallest of interactions we shared. Writing this has moved me to tears.

Thank you for everything.