UO was an amazing game and a huge part of my adolescence. I couldn't even begin to tell the stories and lessons I learned playing the game. Making macros was my gateway drug into programming. As the article says, it is one of very few MMO's where you can truly live an alternate life.

It completely ruined all MMO's for me. I haven't been able to play an MMO since because they all feel like single player games that you're just playing together, not an alternate universe full of risks and rewards. I tried WoW during it's beta and gave up within 2 weeks.