UO has pioneered many things. One that really occupied me for years is the ethics of online communities. Stuff like PK behavior, in-game organization of playe

UO has pioneered many things. One that really occupied me for years is the ethics of online communities. Stuff like PK behavior, in-game organization of players motivated by very simplified but still human-like wants and needs. But, I think, they invented the term "sharding" rather than the technique itself. Another thing that kind of got me into automation was UOPilot. I think, this kind of automation wasn't welcomed (esp. on official servers), but I never played the game on an official server :) UOPilot scripts were sometimes a good source of game gold too. Which was another interesting aspect of games like UO, and sort of a dream of a lot of game developers: to get players to do something that's challenging them to learn more about practical subjects (programming being one such subject). It's kind of a shame that this path wasn't really more explored. Somehow the games that try to have practical application always end up being boring and poorly designed in general. Successful games tend to cater to the leisure aspect of human nature and try to stress players as little as possible, so it's hard to squeeze any real-world challenges into the game.