One Shots: Back in the day...
A few weeks ago I asked everyone to send me in screenshots of pre-2004 MMOs... and only Brad delivered. Seriously, people, you've been shown up by Brad. Brad gets the gold star. Brad gets the golden ticket and can come on a once-in-a-lifetime visit to see the fabled Massively word factory. Brad is my hero.
Brad (if you didn't catch his name) sent us in this shot of Ultima Online: "So much fun with vendors! This is a shot of Angelica's on the Chesapeake Server -- a popular shopping spot in Felucca to grab gear on the go. It was one of the few player-owned vendor spots in a protected zone near Lord British's Castle. This would have been taken around 2002. Notice the detail of the fish tank made from stacked cloth and the flowers made with an onion and two cooked eggs!"
Yes. Notice Brad's eggs, people. In them you can see the reflection of your failure. Aw, just kidding!
Reader Prantik is a little more recent with this screenshot reflecting the futility of war. "I decided to call this screenshot 'Return Fire.' It shows two catapult missiles flying toward one another in the Eternal Battlegrounds in Guild Wars 2's WvW," he writes.
I like to think that there was at least one soldier on each side of that battlefield who had a brief jarring moment when he thought that his side's own flaming ball of death had just boomeranged back at him. Then he'd get a good laugh and die in a crater with his pals.
Back when Glitch was a thing to be experienced and not to be mourned, players routinely saw the bizarre and inexplicable in their everyday journeys. Reader Vexia sent us in this off-kilter picture.
"I stumbled upon this work of public art in my wanderings," she said. "It appears that the sno-cone vendor and yeti cubimals were going on a lemming-esque migration."
Well... of course they were. That's what cubimals do.
Sometimes a good photographer takes notice in the small details and not the big picture. Reader George has an eye for these things and sent us this picture from Lord of the Rings Online.
"This one is from the Limlight Gorge gate camp in the Great River. I stumbled across this one recently and noticed that this table has unlabeled versions of the Great River zone map and the Stangard (the zone's social hub) map. I thought it was a nice touch to see the maps used in-game."
Thank you to everyone who responded to our call for new One Shots a couple weeks back -- we got a truckload of screenshots and I'm looking forward to sharing them with you!
Want to be featured in a future edition of One Shots? Send your favorite MMO screenshots to oneshots@massively.com, and don't forget to include your name, the name of the game, and a description of the scene. Large, colorful, UI-free shots that tell a story and really show off the game make for the best images. Look ma, we brought back One Shots!
