Ultima Online: Renaissance

THE GOOD:
The overall gameplay is original, being that this was the very first MMORPG.

The other games have managed to copy everything, and at the same time, nothing. I still haven't seen a game that gives you quite the same class creation freedom. UO gives you a great number of skills to choose from, but you can only have 7. These 7 are entirely up to you...you can create your character however you wish.

Best thing - private servers.

THE BAD:
The worst part UO in general; the expansions. Each one destroys the game bit by bit, to the point where you're forced to be one specific class or else you can't do anything that everyone else can do.

Most of the community. People are overly aggressive and rude.
Of course, you may run across a group of decent people to play with...but it's too few and far between.

SUMMARY:
This is an updated review as of November 26, 2007...heh.

To fully experience the highlight of Ultima Online is to find a private server that doesn't use any expansion sets, and keeps it in the 'Renaissance' version of the game...except keeping the much needed updates that have come along. The best server I've found so far is UOgamers.com, then play on Hybrid.

I think a 3.5 is about right in general... if you fully patch the game and play it on an EA server, the rating will drop to about 1.5 and if you play it on a private server like I mentioned, it'll go up to about 4.0 or 4.5.