Since this place is a little sleepy these days, I figure I should ask some of my essential Dragony questions here. The FB group is the highest concentration of Dragons in one place these days, but I did a tally and out of its more than 1000 members,
upwards of 40% aren't Dragons or aren't on the Roster, and at least 10% more are what I'd consider newbies ( <3 years, pretty much since Shroud was announced, the largest uptick in new joins in over a decade.) Many of the oldbies aren't on often. So the
conversation skews toward younger Dragons, or those who joined longer ago but only became active on fb. Recently there seemed to be some confusion over the fundamental nature of Dragons - people feel they have to apologize for posting about things that
aren't related to Ultima, or worse, some telling others they should only post about Ultima. This makes me kind of sad, since Ultima is why we came here, but not all of what keeps us together...

Most there know that Cinnabons are a Dragon "thing", but some seem to think that Dragons are only "Ultima+Cinnabons" from the impression I get. But how did we even get to have them as a characteristic? Someone started doing something silly that was non-
Ultima one day, and it caught on. That's all that's really required I think.

So my question is: What other essential Dragon "things" are there? Some conventions were around when I was in 1995, some were invented later. We could still invent new ones now if we wanted to. Some of the things I have observed or heard of are:

Get-togethers with funny acronyms (my SADSAC was in the vein of MADCAP)
Indigo Girls
Enya
The Never Ending Thread
Beards as age designators
P*
GVT (or lack thereof)
Greeters
NMPR
Pink Bows
The Weyrmount, both as the actual MOO and the mountain in our lore
The Ultima Dragons' own backstory, mostly based on and chronicled in Core of Darkness
Pie throwing, SPLUTting, as a way to greet newbies
Dolphins
Mono's invented language for the Dragons, Dragish
Exodus (the Prodigy event)
Steve (the Avatar from Nakar's Let's Play, she has been made as a bot on the MOO)
The -==(UDIC)==- symbol itself, or its predecessors from Prodigy
Propensity to discuss real-world politics, literature, movies, operating systems, other computer games, or anything else on our minds...
General silliness and fun

None of these things is specifically in an Ultima.

I know there are more. What have I missed over the years?


Gallara Dragon
-==(UDIC)==-

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What is UDIC to me? It is a lot of things for me but I'll share one thing that I tell on occasion with RL friends.

Erimess Dragon (who I don't see on our roster on FB or did I miss it?) was talking some years back about her torn cornea (think that was what it was) and her talking nearly daily about how things were going with it, Optician Dragon jumping in (I miss him
so much) and joining the discussion and progress. It was a bad situation, that could have become very ugly, leaving her blind, but I read, heard what she was going thru, felt invested in hoping for her full recovery, and listened to her progress and was
so thankful when she got the 'all clear' from the doctor. I got to share in her experience.

What she doesn't know is shortly after her experience there was a call a co-worker received and their symptoms were exactly like Erimess's so I told the co-worker, call your family member back and have them go to the hospital immediately, this could be
very serious and cause them to become blind if something is not done now. That callback saved that person's vision. So even the mundane stuff we often talk about in UDIC can sometimes do great things in the RL and we don't always know.

So, Erimess, thank you for sharing your experience, due to it, you saved another person's sight. :)

WyrdWeb Dragon
-==(UDIC)==-

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On Wednesday, December 16, 2015 at 12:25:05 AM UTC+13, cran berry wrote:

I know there are more. What have I missed over the years?

*pokes nose out of the hibernation chamber in response to a little activity*

There's a compilation of terms as of my day at http://www.ultimainfo.net/Misc/UDICtionary.htm

Enjoy, though sadly many of the external links are dead.

--
Paulon Dragon
-==UDIC==-

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On Thursday, January 14, 2016 at 11:14:47 PM UTC-7, cran berry wrote:

I don't know Erimess, but I see people asking about her from time to time. I don't think she's on facebook either. Her real name isn't on the Roster either, which makes me a little sad - harder to get ahold of people that way, such as long lost friends.

But surely someone knows her real name or current e-mail? I hope she does come back, she seems much-missed and well-liked when she was here. I know a few like that, names I knew a long time ago but I don't know what happened to them now.

And where is Pibbur? I don't think he is on FB, but he lurks in here somewhere. I miss Pibbur! And also, Pibburs are wonderful things! :)

WyrdWeb Dragon
-==(UDIC)==-

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Le Thu, 07 Jan 2016 02:00:20 -0800, cran berry a écrit :

Maybe I should start a new thread. What do the Dragons mean to you?

I don't know.

It's been so long.

To me it's an excuse to go back to Usenet, because for some
reason I am really into retrocomputing and I try to keep Facebook to
family and friends I lost contact with interaction. I absolutely can't
post on the UDIC Facebook Group because, last time I checked, it was set
on public meaning any post you do there appears on all your contact
list's feedback. Also, some of the stuff there is sometimes downright embarassing.

Let's see what UDIC did to me :
-It served as a catalyst to my most embarassing internet moments, most of
which will stay forever thanks to newsgroups archiving. Thank god,
they've been relayed to the biggest depths of search engines.
-It fueled my interest in nerdy computer games and in finally being able
to write in a somewhat decent english.
-It was the motor of my first real gaming disappointment, Ultima IX,
which I came to see as the years went by as "something that wasn't so
bad".
-It was the root of my biggest "game" project ever which ended up dying
because of procrastination, too much ambition, and general incompetence.

And yet, the overall feeling is pretty good. I keep coming back
to it, like a magnet. I'm shocked to see UltimaCodex being updated with
such regularity and to see things so much alive in the Ultima world. I'm shocked everytime I check in there and I see new posts.

So I guess that's what's UDIC to me ; a part of my teenage years
and of my growing up in the world that still somehow exists, survive, in
the Internet years. I definitely am not a fan of Ultima the way I was in
the past, although I've decided to play through the whole series. I did
the Apple II versions of Akalabeth, Ultima I, and Ultima II and I grew
bored while starting Ultima III. I should give it some more thought, considering it's after this one that the series start to get really
exciting.

Moa Dragon

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My first reply vanished, so here is my second try...

On Tuesday, December 15, 2015 at 7:09:23 PM UTC-7, Paulon wrote:

There's a compilation of terms as of my day at http://www.ultimainfo.net/Misc/UDICtionary.htm

Enjoy, though sadly many of the external links are dead.

Even sadder, this one is now too. I managed to find it on the Wayback Machine, and it seems it happened sometime between November of last year and now. May the Dragons never die!

The site is a work of art. I missed much of what happened in the UDIC between 1996-2011, especially in the late 90s when webpages became more, ah, colorful. :) So many little things, so many facets of our culture that seem lacking today in our most
populous venue on Facebook. (Note, I do enjoy the connections to other Dragons I am able to make and maintain through there, and to me they are indispensable. A lot of the "real-life" conversations between Dragons do happen there - just mostly on our own
personal walls, with Ultima- and Dragon-specific things in the group set up for the UDIC. Nothing wrong with this, but there seems less in between these days.) Some things on this list are lost to time but still remain part of our history. Some are still
referenced, and folks do know what they mean. I SPLUTted my first newbie recently. :) They didn't have things like spluts, beards, or the Dragon Code when I was around before, so it was surprising when I got back to the Internet for good five years ago
to find all the things that had been added - along with about 10,000 new members! Of late I am also learning about UGs and circles and ranks and the inner workings(?) of the G@C, and even though no one has been NMPRed since we last had a GVT, it's part
of who we are. Lots of things get added to Dragondom, but just as no name should ever be removed from the Roster (you can never NOT be a Dragon), nothing really gets taken away. The only thing universally agreed on at the founding of UDIC was that there
would be no government, and no Dragon would have power, control, or authority over another, or any special privileges. Most places on the Internet now must be adminned by somebody, one who does have the power to do things like delete posts, but if they
adhere to the tenets of the UDIC, it's their responsibility not to.

Anyway, if there's any point to this long ramble, it's my plea that Dragons remember who we are and where we came from. And what we have the potential to do. Stay silly. Talk about Ultima. Talk about your Hot Wheels collection or horseback riding or
astrophysics. Be yourself. Be a Dragon. Roleplay. Keep the old traditions, but feel free to invent new ones if you like.

(I came up with a whole new bearding system, you know? And it's catching on! I posted an illustrated guide to beard-ownership based solely on age, with the disclaimer that if you were awarded a beard before you can keep using that or wear both beards,
etc.... but lots of people are enjoying their colorful designations!)

So my question to everyone is, what have you experienced through the Dragons? Not just what you read in a FAQ, but what was going on when you joined, or over the years that you were there for? Be it on Prodigy, the newsgroup, IRC, Weyrmount, in-person
gathering, or other forum.

Maybe I should start a new thread. What do the Dragons mean to you?

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Err.. what's NMPR? I'm horrible with acronyms. Finally figured out GVT is government though. :D

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On Thursday, January 7, 2016 at 8:40:01 PM UTC-5, wyrdweb wrote:

What is UDIC to me? It is a lot of things for me but I'll share one thing that I tell on occasion with RL friends.

Erimess Dragon (who I don't see on our roster on FB or did I miss it?) was talking some years back about her torn cornea (think that was what it was) and her talking nearly daily about how things were going with it, Optician Dragon jumping in (I miss

him so much) and joining the discussion and progress. It was a bad situation, that could have become very ugly, leaving her blind, but I read, heard what she was going thru, felt invested in hoping for her full recovery, and listened to her progress and
was so thankful when she got the 'all clear' from the doctor. I got to share in her experience.

What she doesn't know is shortly after her experience there was a call a co-worker received and their symptoms were exactly like Erimess's so I told the co-worker, call your family member back and have them go to the hospital immediately, this could be

very serious and cause them to become blind if something is not done now. That callback saved that person's vision. So even the mundane stuff we often talk about in UDIC can sometimes do great things in the RL and we don't always know.

So, Erimess, thank you for sharing your experience, due to it, you saved another person's sight. :)

WyrdWeb Dragon
-==(UDIC)==-

Fantastic story, WyrdWeb. I'm really glad I've been able to connect with you on fb, good-acquaintances as we are. :D It's amazing how every little thing we do in this world can have potential repercussions, both good and bad. We can only endeavor to make
things more for the good. I know I'm not perfect, but I try my best!

I heard about Optician. I have a Memorial Glade on the Weyrmount, and he is one of the statues.

I don't know Erimess, but I see people asking about her from time to time. I don't think she's on facebook either. Her real name isn't on the Roster either, which makes me a little sad - harder to get ahold of people that way, such as long lost friends.
But surely someone knows her real name or current e-mail? I hope she does come back, she seems much-missed and well-liked when she was here. I know a few like that, names I knew a long time ago but I don't know what happened to them now. And there are
some I do know what happened to... but that is another story. Actually, Paulon, I didn't know you "before" either but you once tried to help a non-Dragon friend of mine and that meant the world to me. So I wanted to extend my gratitude since you did all
you could.

I still feel like I'm putting together pieces of an old life I should have lived. Even though I've been back for years now some patterns in my brain are not aligning with reality. The Internet is a different place now, louder, more chaotic. It's my hope
that the spirit of the Dragons lives on since there is still nothing else like us on the Internet.

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On Friday, May 20, 2016 at 2:31:42 AM UTC-4, Miracle Dragon wrote:

Err.. what's NMPR? I'm horrible with acronyms. Finally figured out GVT is government though. :D

Hey there, Miracle. NMPR means No More Public Replies, which Prodigy used to mark messages that were about to be deleted. I'm not clear on the specifics but it sounds like you'd be given this message after you composed your post, in response to a
conversation thread it deemed unnecessary to continue. As I understood it this could happen for offensive content or profanity but more often for no discernible reason. Usually the person who got NMPRed had to compose their entire message again. Quite
different from the UDIC today, where there are no real restrictions on what can be said, just general guidelines on respecting others and using common sense.

I'm still compiling my Dragon history, and it seems every new person I talk to has a new story or new information that helps the pieces fall into place. I'm especially hoping to find Prodigy Dragons, but will soon have a survey for UDIC members too. It
will be presented at the 25th anniversary party next year but I hope to have a repository of UDIC history for all time. :) Share your stories!

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On Thursday, June 23, 2016 at 5:58:34 AM UTC-4, [email protected] wrote:

So, long time no post, but it's me, Dracos Dragon (sans the Revoker for the time being). I thought I'd check in and see how the group is doing, after watching a long play of Ultima Underworld II. My, but my account is dusty, dusty, dusty.

I've been busy since whilst I was away; wrote a PhD, turned that PhD into a book, took some of that material on tour in the US and Europe, and am about to go spend a year at the University of Bucharest as a Fellow. Busy, busy times.

Dracos Dragon

Welcome back! I don't think I knew you before, but checking the roster, you're almost as old as I am. Congrats on your books and your writings! It's true most of the Dragon activity on Facebook these days, but the Weyrmount MOO is still going strong, and
there are a couple other places like Slack that have UDIC chatrooms. Hopefully you can make it back to the US for the 25th anniversary party, which I had the idea to have after realizing no one did anything for the 20th, and 25 years of an online gaming
community is pretty significant. :) It's why I've been delving deep into Dragon history to try to chronicle everything of note. In that regard, I have seen your name come up recently, but now don't remember specifically in what context. I've been reading
a lot of old posts from a.g.u.d. and here. What can you tell me of what you remember about UDIC history? I'll present my findings at the party. :)

Gallara

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So, long time no post, but it's me, Dracos Dragon (sans the Revoker for the time being). I thought I'd check in and see how the group is doing, after watching a long play of Ultima Underworld II. My, but my account is dusty, dusty, dusty.

I've been busy since whilst I was away; wrote a PhD, turned that PhD into a book, took some of that material on tour in the US and Europe, and am about to go spend a year at the University of Bucharest as a Fellow. Busy, busy times.

Dracos Dragon

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Well, I was behind the persona known as 'The Revoker', who initially revoked spluts against newbie dragons, and then just opposed all spluts in general. The Revoker sort of took on his own life eventually, starring in a version of 'Jesus Christ,
Superstar' chronicled here, ran a pub, had a host of siblings, etc.

I was also involved in several of the fiction threads for a long while. Also, as Musashi and co. will undoubtedly say, I was one of the proponents of both dark and sometimes lewd humour in the group.

I'm going to be in Romania about the time of the anniversary, so I'll see if I can manage a flight over.

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Didn't even realize you could undo a splut. There were the Unspluttables, but I'll have to make an entry for the Revoker on my timeline!

Drop me a line at [email protected] if you are interested in the party. You don't have to commit just yet, but it will help to have a tentative head count as well as keep you updated. Also mention if you are bringing any other adults or
children.

Thanks!

Gallara

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On Tuesday, December 15, 2015 at 4:25:05 AM UTC-7, cran berry wrote:

Since this place is a little sleepy these days, I figure I should ask some of my essential Dragony questions here. The FB group is the highest concentration of Dragons in one place these days, but I did a tally and out of its more than 1000 members,

upwards of 40% aren't Dragons or aren't on the Roster, and at least 10% more are what I'd consider newbies ( <3 years, pretty much since Shroud was announced, the largest uptick in new joins in over a decade.) Many of the oldbies aren't on often. So the
conversation skews toward younger Dragons, or those who joined longer ago but only became active on fb. Recently there seemed to be some confusion over the fundamental nature of Dragons - people feel they have to apologize for posting about things that
aren't related to Ultima, or worse, some telling others they should only post about Ultima. This makes me kind of sad, since Ultima is why we came here, but not all of what keeps us together...

Most there know that Cinnabons are a Dragon "thing", but some seem to think that Dragons are only "Ultima+Cinnabons" from the impression I get. But how did we even get to have them as a characteristic? Someone started doing something silly that was non-

Ultima one day, and it caught on. That's all that's really required I think.

So my question is: What other essential Dragon "things" are there? Some conventions were around when I was in 1995, some were invented later. We could still invent new ones now if we wanted to. Some of the things I have observed or heard of are:

Get-togethers with funny acronyms (my SADSAC was in the vein of MADCAP) Indigo Girls
Enya
The Never Ending Thread
Beards as age designators
P*
GVT (or lack thereof)
Greeters
NMPR
Pink Bows
The Weyrmount, both as the actual MOO and the mountain in our lore
The Ultima Dragons' own backstory, mostly based on and chronicled in Core of Darkness
Pie throwing, SPLUTting, as a way to greet newbies
Dolphins
Mono's invented language for the Dragons, Dragish
Exodus (the Prodigy event)
Steve (the Avatar from Nakar's Let's Play, she has been made as a bot on the MOO)
The -==(UDIC)==- symbol itself, or its predecessors from Prodigy
Propensity to discuss real-world politics, literature, movies, operating systems, other computer games, or anything else on our minds...
General silliness and fun

None of these things is specifically in an Ultima.

I know there are more. What have I missed over the years?

Gallara Dragon
-==(UDIC)==-

Thanks for turning me on to the groups!

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