When I started Ultima Online I
had no idea what the game was I thought it was going to be a lot like Dungeons
and Dragons except Online, I was partly right.
I got the box home opened and installed then realized.. hey I have to pay for
this each month whats the deal with that I thought I’d be able to play on or
offline..... Well you probably already guessed I decided to try it and see if
it was worth a monthly fee.
I was reading a book by George Lucas called Shadow Dawn and I really liked a
character in there named Thorn Drumheller so that is what I named my first
character. I figured I would wind up picking a worthless skill combination and
have to “reroll” or delete that character anyway
I made Thorn into a warrior and worked his skills some. I get my skills up to
around 70 in swords I of course have anatomy locked cuz who needs it. I'm
killing spectres and skeletons like crazy so I figure I'll go check out the
woods and stuff I'm an explorer at heart after all. First death comes from a
Dire Wolf.
Well I interacted with other folks to find out how to make money and what class
fighter would be more powerful against monsters and found out about magery so I
thought hey Ill give magery a try here comes character slot #2 I create a mage
and wonder.. what name would be appropriate. I think and think and think and I
loose connection because I've taken too long thinking of a name. Then it hits
me I read a book once don’t even remember the title but the main character was
called Tempest and he was a half mortal half god wizard if I remember right so
I name my character Tempest and plan to be the greatest Mage I can possibly be.
I think I had about 2 thousand gp at this time and figure I'll transfer that
from my warrior to my mage and be able to get all the stuff he needed to start
kicking some butt and making mega gold..... as you can tell by now I've really
done my research on this game and I'm gonna have a house really soon. “errr.. how do you transfer items from one
character to another? Ohh well I’m a mage I’ll just go kill stuff and earn some
money real quick.” Reagents what the heck are those things? Why does it need
2,3, or even 4 reagents to cast a spell? Oh well they are only a couple gold
pieces each and they are lying all over the ground I'm in like Flynn. I'm
running around killing mongbats on moonglow baby I'm makin 10 - 20 gp per kill
I'm gonna be rich soon. I've built my skills up so now I'm off to the cemetary
to kill even bigger monsters. I'm almost 60 magery now this magery stuff rocks.
"Fizzle, Fizzle, OOoOooOO." I park Tempest on the side of the road
and log out.
This just isnt cutting it I think. I've heard all these people
talk about how much money they make with their blacksmith. Ever read the Lord
of the Rings? Well theres a dwarf in there named Flint Fireforge so thats the
name I'm gonna give Character #3 but wait... that guys name is Flint Fireforge,
ok I wont use that name I'll change it a bit.....errrrr.. hmmm.. oh well lets
just go with Forge he's gonna be a Miner/Blacksmith and make me rich within a
week. So I mine and mine and blacksmith and blacksmith I'm up to 70
blacksmithing and GM mining now I'm really close and Its only taken me ..... 4
WEEKS!! I see these guys at the minoc bank yelling "buying bulk
ingots". "Hey how much for ermmm 1000 iron ingots?" "I'll
give you 10k". Who needs a blacksmith when you have a miner who just sells
ingots? Well if you’ve ever spent much time around Minoc you know those mines
get pretty crowded so off I go to the Covetous mountains to be alone and get
more ingots without worrying about the crowds.
Ettin what’s that? Hey its
killing me….aaaaaaaaahhhhh run away. Ok
if I’m going to mine out here I need to be able to defend myself. Buy a sword shield and some armor. Use a training dummy and get the swords
skill up. “What do you mean I need
Anatomy?” Ok Ok fine I’ll have Anatomy, Swords, and yeah I suppose I need
healing… well you get the point I wound up with a warrior who has the mining skill. I’m making money hand over fist right at 10k per day cuz I can
only bear to mine for about an hour a day then I have to go out exploring and
killing stuff.
So lets see I have a warrior
named Thorn Drumheller who I haven’t logged in for over a month. I have a Mage named Tempest who I haven’t
logged in for several weeks. I have a
warrior/miner who I play every day however his name is Forge and everyone wants
me to do something for them with blacksmithing which I no longer have : ( .
I’m standing in the cemetery near vesper and overhear a couple of
people talking and one is talking about Provocation. “My provo is low this is a new char so I need to get it brought
up.” I see the monsters start fighting
each other and this person calmly goes out looting and nothing is attacking
him!! Revelation: Time to
research provocation. While I’m
researching provocation I think of another character that I think would be
awesome a Warrior with Magery so I create another character and name him Elric
yeah you probably read the stories about Elric of Melnibone, a great warrior/mage. I start working on his skills sort of idling
along and I have now found UO stratics and more information on
provocation.
I want to test this provocation thing so I create a “junk”
character and cant think of a name but I’ve been watching wrestling and the
name Kronic pops into my head, I figure why not its just a junk character I’ll
test out this provocation thing and see if its worth working on I can add it to
Tempest if it is.
I usually work on more than one character at a time and while I’m
playing with Kronic working on Provocation and growing to like it quite a bit,
I’m also playing Forge I’ve finally made enough money to buy a house deed so I
buy one for a small tower and go looking for a place to put it. I’ve also met this guy going by the name of
KillDog and he’s invited me to join his guild he has a house on fire island and
we can go there and train my fighting skills.
So I join his guild which now consists of me and him (heh) we go to his
house and he’s hitting me with fire balls and ebolts raising my resist like
crazy and I’m hitting him with a knife raising my swords skill. Ooops he has hit me with too many spells and
I’m dead. No big deal he can resurrect
and he does we start again and he unloads on me killing me again, and again,
and again, and I ask him to stop killing me and he says “what yur not havin
fun?” “Nope I’m not having fun.” “ohhh
poor thing come out come out wherever you are.
Look quit hiding I’m gonna find you and kill you again!” Meantime I’ve used my help option stuck and
requested to go to Britain. I make it to Britain and log out. I’m pretty ticked off but theres really
nothing I can do about it. I log Forge
back in and go on a quest to find a place to put this house deed. I walk and try placing for about an hour
each night for over a month and spend the other hour or two each night playing
Kronic working on that awesome provocation skill the only problem with it is
its so hard to raise. After a month or
more of walking every possible place I can think of to place a house I finally
get discouraged and call a GM. “I’m
having problems placing a house.” Is my help request. I stand in place and wait for a GM to show up, it only takes
about 15 minutes and this guy in red robes pops up and says “How may I help?” So I tell him I cant seem to find somewhere
to place my house I know you cant tell where to put or help me put it up but
can you at least tell me if there is anywhere left on this shard to place a
house? He responds that I don’t really
think theres many places left and if you find one you’ll be very fortunate, you
will probably have more luck buying a house from another player. At this point
he disappears, along with my hopes of owning a house in this game. I logged out and stayed out for about a week. I read some information on uo stratics and
found some message boards that dealt with uo.
I finally logged back in and started sitting at the banks trying to get
an idea of house prices. I spend a lot
of time mining and selling ingots building up my nest egg. I’ve discovered how to resign from a guild
and no longer have to worry about killdog finding me and killing me again, I’ve
made my trips to the bone knight wall and gm’d my swords and tactics. I have nearly 200k in my bank account and
Kronic is coming along nicely at 90 something magery and nearly 70 provocation.
So I’m up to a Warrior named Thorn Drumheller, A mage named
Tempest, a Warrior/Miner named Forge, a Warrior/Mage named Elric and a “Junk:”
character named Kronic who has managed to work his way into being my favorite
character. The orcs have invaded and
the savages have come I have gotten a
couple of Orcish bows and a couple bola balls, I have nearly 200k in the bank
and I’ve transferred that to Kronic, don’t ask about how scary that was. I noticed a guy one day in front of the Brit
bank “Selling Small Marble in Fel” I
ask him how much he wants and he says “how much ya got lol” I said well I can pay you 150k plus three
bola balls and an Orcish bow. He says
“the house isn’t in a very accessible place its on an island and has a lot of
spawn near it.” I said that’s ok I just need a house. We go to felucca pretty much my first time there for more than a
couple minutes. I’m nervous and very
cautious I have a check for 150k plus 4 “rares” on me after all. The guy is very nice gates me to the house
marks a couple runes and transfers the house to me with no problems. Later that I’ve managed to get most of my characters
to the house and I’ve decided that living in Fel might not be so bad after
all. I haven’t seen any other players
the only problem is all the blasted giant serpents that spawn all around my
house, I counted 6 one time all slithering around out front “banned” from my
house. Then suddenly I see a gate pop
up in the front yard and I curiously stand on the roof watching these three
people that have come through, none of them speak to me or each other and all
of a sudden I’m asked to join their party.
I of course decline, next thing I know one of them runs to the house and
tries the door which is locked. I ask
them if there is something I can do for them and they say nothing. One of them says “Use Meteor Swarm target
the walls.” One of them runs for the house again and I ban him as soon as he
hits the front steps. One of them casts
meteor swarm and it hits me, I hide and begin healing another runs to the house
and casts reveal as soon as I’m visible they cast on the walls again, again I
hide and heal. Then they find out that
they don’t even need to reveal me to hit me with meteor swarm so they all three
cast on me and pretty soon I’m dead.
I’m a little panicky because I’m
wearing some new armor and carrying about 2k gold. They can’t get in and loot me so they leave after a few
minutes. I run to the wandering healer
a screen away and get resurrected and run back to the house I get killed on the
way back by a giant serpent and have to go get rezed again. I cant get back into the house because
Forges copy of the key is on his corpse behind the door. I log out and log back in as Kronic and loot
Forges body. Did you know it’s a crime
to loot your other characters corpse?
Well Kronic is grey Forge is newly rezed and back in possession of his
stuff and life is ok once again, but I’ve decided that Fellucca isn’t for me.
I find out about the price of cotton harvested from the cotton
field on moonglow so I become a cotton picker.
Pretty soon I see a couple guys from KPD they come to the cotton field
and spar. I talk to them while they are
there and find out about their guild, I watch the way they interact and treat
each other and decide that maybe I would benefit from being a part of this
guild. I join KPD and meet a character
named Quaffer. He and I talk a bit and
I find out that he has multiple houses and is willing to finance me if I buy
one from him. I do it’s a nice small
tower a couple screens away from Trinsic.
I have to really work on my mining to make money to make payments. Quaffer was very patient and never asked me
for more than I could pay. I finally
paid him off and he transferred the house to me. I’m a proud owner of a Trammel house now. Somewhere during this time I manage to
change Thorn from a warrior to a mage and I actually work on tempest some but
I’ve changed him into a Fencer and Forge is still a warrior/miner, Elric is
pretty much dead to me, and Kronic is still nearest and dearest. During my time in KPD I start joining in on
pvp tourneys they held and found out that to be effective I needed to really
gear one of my characters for pvp of course this would be Kronic since he was
the highest level character I have. I
dropped the provocation which was nearly 70 and raise my inscription. I do fairly well in the tourneys and I’m
making money the whole time. Going on
guild hunts having loads of fun. Things
get slow in the guild so I become a loner again and start building up my money
again. I decide that I should have a
craftsman to make some money for me so I rediscover Elric and work on his
crafting. Time passes I’ve gm’d
carpentry and blacksmithing. I drop
mining from Forge and go for Archery.
Kronic is still Kronic, Tempest has become a Mage/Tamer, and Thorn
Drumheller is a Mage/Provocator/gm Fisherman.
I have met a couple of people who seemed very nice they were
Sunshine and Mr. E. they came to KPD and breathed some life into the guild as
far as I was concerned. They organized
some hunts and events and everyone was having fun. There were some major changes in the High Council of KPD and
things seemed to really slow down. Mr. E mentioned one time that he was also a
member of a guild called the Guild of Honor. I remembered that after he and
Sunshine made their exodus from KPD.
KPD seems pretty much dead again it seems to happen each
summer. Maybe the members are on during
different hours maybe they do a lot of other stuff in the summer I don’t
know. I did some research and found a
lead on the GOH and tracked down their message board, I jumped in there
introduced myself, made some inquiries and got to know some people I decided to
move on after nearly a year in KPD. It
was a hard decision but I think it was only hard because I’ve been KPD for so
long, had a lot of fun there and met some truly great people.
I have Characters who all had a reason for their names and none
of those reasons worked out in the end.
Forge always associated with
blacksmiths is actually a multiple GM warrior.
Elric who is named after a great
Warrior/Mage is actually a multiple GM craftsman.
Thorn Drumheller has traveled the
road from warrior to mage to bard to fisherman.
Tempest has gone from being
named after a great mage to a Fencer and back to a mage with taming on the
side.
And a Junk character who became
my favorite and most often played Kronic.
I’ve had a lot of pets mostly
horses and pack horses. I named my
first pack horse Skippy because I was talking to my son about what we should
call him. I suggested Skippy and he
laughed, since then all my packhorses are Skippy.
I’ve been fortunate to meet a
tamer who is much higher in skill than me and has gifted me with some wondrous
pets that I can control but not tame for myself.
I have one nightmare I’ve named
Storm this is the one that I ride all the time and is the most highly trained
it just seemed appropriate that Tempest ride a Storm.
Another mare named after my
benefactor is called Enchanter.
I have a dragon I’ve named Rage
it listens very well and kills anything I wish it to and seems to enjoy it. But
it’s a brown colored dragon and with those little whitish dots over its eyes it
looks like it is always mad.
I have a Kirin I’ve named
Typhoon partly because of the Tempest / Storm thing and partly because of the
way the Kirin fight.
This is my story of nearly 2 years in
Ultima Online greatly condensed of course.
I hope you enjoyed my tale half as much as I’ve had playing it out.
