It's good that you mention UO. I didn't want to bring that up by myself, but let's talk a bit Ultima Online (a good, old, hugely successful MMO that is still ALIVE! after almost 20 years!)
In UO you just dealt more damage with weapons/magic by raising skills. Yeah, equipment empowered you a bit (quite a bit if you're a warrior), but the PLAYER SKILL and the TEAM you play with were such a huge parts of the balance that you could sometimes really get into the fights almost naked on a horsey. Some reagents, a spellbook and a horse and the mage was ready to take on a fully geared warrior (pre AOS). And ofc farming monsters, cause we're kinda PvE here, was easy with a mage, not the cheapest way in terms of reagents, but still good and NAKED except for the strongest monsters in the game. Cast some blade spirits/vortexes couple of walls/fields, all depends on a monster/spot. The best PvE class to kill dragons tho? Well, that's Archery/Taming or Mage/Taming or Mage/Archer. They never needed armor with some great mods. Not even in the latest versions of the game. You can get a mediocre leather set and a bow and go farm some regular dragons carefully.
[
U]Even in PG you don't have to have awesome armor and can even have missing pieces and you can kill regular mobs your lvl and do the same in a group to many of the bosses [/U]
Shall we compare some details related to combat/crafting/skills?
UO: As of now, you're officialy allowed to macro in UO, even if most of the skills are not that hard to train anymore. Not 1998. On top of that what is resource gathering in UO? Right, you go into a mine and mine there being at least semi-afk, or you to any tree in any town and chop it. How much do I have to travel and fight in UO to get a 100 of iron ore and 100 logs in UO? That's pretty damn right, not at all. I don't have to fight anything at all, I can even be afk. I don't care about characters movement speed or combat skills.
PG: How much do I have to do and travel in Gorgon to get 100 Redwall Crystal or 100 oak wood? I can't do it in afk mode, I can't do it in the semi-afk mode, I actually have to put in some effort and fight some mobs and travel through the entire map. maybe even multiple times in circles for wood.
UO 1 : PG 0
Ok, so to me this is a plus to PG and not UO because it sounds like you put in no effort and lazy game play not to mention unengaging.
UO: Can I get the best metal/wood in the Britain? Yes, if my skill is high enough I just have to find the right mining nod/rock or tree and get it. Not even leaving the guarded zone most of the time.
PG: Can I get the best metal/wood in Serbule (IK that Serbule is not the capital, but it's the center city of the game atm)? Haha, ofc not. I have to travel half a world and freeze my ass in Kur or Dehydrate in Ilmari to get any decent amount of best metal slabs/ores. Wood? At least Eltibule for Cedar.
UO 2 : PG 0
Again sounds easy mode as hell with a lot of playing in the same area
UO: If I level my magery to 40% or 45% out of 100% (120 later), I can cast Kal Ort Por, almost without fizzling, on any recall rune in the game that is marked by any player in the game, teleporting me in 2-3 seconds to any town, island, dungeon entrance, player house, any single square tile of the game world really (yeah, except for inside of dungeons (later versions of the game tho, lol) obviously). That's having level 40-45, hell, even 50 teleportation in PG. And when I'll raise my magery to 60-65-80% (6th circle of magic fizze and no fizzle), I can mark any number of runes almost anywhere I want. Next time I want to get to an NPC on the outskirts of the world: Kar Ort Por, small delay, I'm there. Talk to the NPC, Kal Ort Por back to the city/house.
PG: Having level 50 teleportaion in PG gives me..hm.. nothing actually. The latest Teleportaion recipe atm is lvl 28. And even that only allows you to recall to ONE bound location for 2 aquamarines and a scroll. And yeah I get like +5 power or smth for lvling it from 0 to 50. Very rewarding teleportation skill and system.
UO 3 : PG 0
PG is still in development and so there maybe new teleport spells and there will be mounts and it really isn't that hard to traverse the PG zones in a timely manner
UO: Equipped items are on the character and don't take up the backpack space.
PG: Equipped items still take up the slots in your inventory.
UO 4 : PG 0.
Again in development, when the new UI comes out this may be a way of the past but yes I don't care for this either
UO: Crafting wasn't random up to AOS+, which was the breakpoint when the game began to die off, because of EA and their "new" ideas. Even then tho, most items were not random, you've only got the random runic enchants.
PG: Completely random.
UO 5 : PG 0.
I played Ashron"s Call and for this sort of game which has a lot in common with AC, I think the random loot system is perfect and I love it.
Do we want to continue the comparsion? UO is one of my favorite games of all time. I've played it for years! Even when EA bought it and released AOS and stuff, they didn't manage to kill the great game right away, which is surprising, given how bad EA is atm. But, time and EA eventually did their thing, the decline of population, because of stupid overpowered artifacts, which killed the crafting almost completely, insurance and other stuff that influenced PvP, and well, parts of PvE. Community hated it all quite a bit. Hell, even Trammel wasn't such a drawback for PvP lovers as insurance, artifacts, etc were.
Hell, man, UO was truly great and fun to play. One of the best games ever created.