Former UO player with several questions

[George Guest]

I haven't played UO since about 2004. I have quite a few questions:
What precisely is the difference between the two games? I'm not asking about skill sets, equipment, etc. I mean the look, feel, game play, etc.
It appears UO is still going, and still carries with it a monthly fee. Is there a cost associated with UOF is some shape or form?
Is there any major advantage/disadvantage of playing one game over the other?
Has there been a solution to the "housing crisis" since I last played UO in this game?
Does this version require endless hours of gameplay to GM skills like it used to for certain skills, such as taming, provocation, etc?
Has PvP become rampant in this version like it was early in the days of UO?

I know a lot of these questions could be answered if I just downloaded the game, but I would rather not bother if the answer to some of these questions are not to my liking. Thank you in advance to anyone who takes the time to answer these questions.

 

[jkg8787]

The difference between pay-UO and this shard is the pay-UO is full of ******** shit like Necromancy/Ninjas that "ruined" UO after Trammel was already strangling it dead.

No cost on UOF.

Advantage/disadvantage. One costs money?

The housing crisis on actual pay-UO is because the game is 17 years old. This server has only been around for a bit over a year. While you won' t find any large plots for free, you can still find places for small houses.

Dungeons give a + 50% chance for skill gain. Animal taming is probably the most tedious skill to gain, other than that a 7x dexer can be made in less than a week if you know what you're doing, when you are new.

PvP is decent here, but not the main focus for most I'd say. Everyone likes different stuff.

 

[George Guest]

The difference between pay-UO and this shard is the pay-UO is full of ******** shit like Necromancy/Ninjas that "ruined" UO after Trammel was already strangling it dead.

No cost on UOF.

Advantage/disadvantage. One costs money?

The housing crisis on actual pay-UO is because the game is 17 years old. This server has only been around for a bit over a year. While you won' t find any large plots for free, you can still find places for small houses.

Dungeons give a + 50% chance for skill gain. Animal taming is probably the most tedious skill to gain, other than that a 7x dexer can be made in less than a week if you know what you're doing, when you are new.

PvP is decent here, but not the main focus for most I'd say. Everyone likes different stuff.

Thank you for that. I was one of the first guys in UO to build a "dex monkey" in UO, when everyone went hard on tank mages. DP was my best friend in the world. I think I might give this one a try.

 

[jkg8787]

I'm a bit over a month in here. I started out by making a dexer, made gold from the Newbie Dungeon/Brit GY, bought like 2k bandages with that gold, then from there it's easy. Just smack stuff and start saving for your Mage character by getting money for regeants.

The dexer character literally only needs store bought weapon and bandages while you train/gain money.

 

[Capt Cid]

Jump in, its free. Use your time when starting out training weapon skill in the newb dungeon ( healing can be afk macroed overnight, which is allowed here). Use your first 9 (young time) hours bringing up skills in the newb dungeon you cannot afk macro like fencing/anat/tactics. You can bring up healing resist and poisoning later. Just so you know poisoning is pretty slow it seems. You can gm your weapon skill pretty fast, afk your poison/healing, and train a second character if your interested in that.