Ultima Online – Grey Shard Programmer

My programming career started when I was still a youngster, without knowing much about computers! It was summer 2007 and I was playing Ultima Online on VenuS, one of the biggest shards in Italy, with more than 400 players online on average. I am quite sure it wasn’t strictly legal, but i was young and naive, and I just played with friends. Willing to help the staff, I became an apprentice GM, and among other duties such as answering pages and creating quests, I learned how to code. We had a lead scripter who desperately needed a hand, and with a bit of patience I got to the point where I could write my own quests. I spent many years working on that game, learning that weird (but in hindsight innovative) language that the POL95 was using, and I helped the shard move forward in time.

Like all good things, even our Shard came to an end at some point around 2015, but it was a great experience, and it helped me understand how much I loved making games!

Even the national tv ran a piece on VenuS!