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Ultima Online Journal One
The Making of a Hero
I started with standard gear, shovels and a tool to make items
out of ignots, I was actually rather excited because I started
with a smith's hammer and not a tong. That meant I also had a
weapon. I quickly banked my 100 gold. My memories are a bit fuzzy
at this point, I don't think players had bank boxes at this point
in UO's history, but instead we dumped gold on banker npcs to
deposit it, and then said 'Balance' to see our income,
and used words like 'withdraw 100'; to get 100 gold
back. It could certainly be a bit nerve racking to dump gold on
the npc because if he moved the gold would wind up on the floor
for an unscruplous person to snatch. Actually unscruplous isn't
totally correct, more to say an oppurtunist to take. So early on
in UO's history the rights and wrong of normal society were not
fully realized in the online world. Seeing 100 gold on the floor
meant you took it, not because you were an evil person but
because it was there for the taking. Once I had banked my money,
I set off to the Covetous Mountains to get ore. Once I was there
I quickly stripped naked to free a few stones of weight, I threw
my newbie clothes on the ground, although I kept my little smiths
apron for modesty's sake. They did decay, but I wouldn't have
been surprised if someone happened along and took them, thinking
they were worth something, even 3 years later in UO people still
snag discarded death robes.
If I recall correctly I could carry 10 large ore at a time,
meaning I could make 20 ignots on perfect smelts. Some
miners had taken to leap frogging ore, meaning they'd mine 100
ore than drag it back to town to be smelted. Vesper was too long
a way off, but I realized if there was a forge closer to the
mountain, leap frogging ore would be beneficial. Its amazing how
a simple task like clicking on a mountain and getting ore can be
fun. Those first couple weeks of mining and smithing were extremly enjoyable, I would get home from college and immediantly start playing. Everything was new and exciting, even when I was attacked the first or second day of mining, by a PK whose name I can barely remember, but it had the word Thrash or Thrasher in it. He wasn't much of a pk, he
appeared to be a cookie cutter 50/50 swords tactics guy, he had
his newbie clothes on what looked like a long sword. My character
had raised his dex and str several points and using my smiths
hammer I easily beat him to death. That was the only pk encounter
I would experience for awhile.
My mining was going up steadily, there wasn't a big secret to
increasing that skill. Hit rock get skill gain, smelt ore get
skill gain. Blacksmithy was a different issue, I got some advice
from other blacksmiths, but I'm proud to say for the most part I
mastered the art of skill gains on my own. These days were very
different than UO is now. There wasn't "power hour" no
skill locks and rate at which skills went up were affected by how
many people in the world were using the skill. Plus we had that
horrible learn by watching technique that made you gain skill in
something by being around someone doing it. I wouldn't say I was
a fixture at the Vesper forge, as I mostly kept to myself,
repairing some items and occasionally making an item for someone.
But mostly I churned out whatever item I needed to raise skill. I
got to about 60 or 60 blacksmithy in Vesper, but was still a journeyman
miner because my mining was around 61. It was about this time I
was churning out chain coifs when I heard two people talking at
the Vesper market area about two forges placed near the Britain mines. After
having run repeatedly from Covetous to Vesper Forge, I decided doing
it the hard way was for the birds and set out for Britian.
The game is Afoot
I can't remember how I got to Britian, either by moongate or
walking, but it was most likely uneventful since I can't remember
it. My memories of Britian are plentiful and colorful. For instance my first character in beta started in Britain. I got my beta-cd in the mail, quickly installed it, then logged in with default
alchemist with default skill pts. At which point I was completely
lost in the big city. Later on my forays into Britian were
both adventerous and fraught with peril. The problem of thievery was a major issue on the streets of britian in Beta. I
lost many of my items, though worthles as they were, being stolen
from even in an online world makes you feel somewhat violated. Regardless, I
was plenty familiar with the layout of Britian, I knew where the bank
was, mage tower, and main blacksmithy near the graveyard. In beta
that outdoor forge was surrounded by a fence, so many people
crowded around it you could literally get stuck in the crowd and
trapped. Luckily that fence was removed and the forge was no
longer a tourist trap. The britain graveyard is another infamous
locale from UO's history. At this point in time there weren't any
skeletons or zombies that spawned there, but there were plenty of
rowdy players, they weren't quite PKs but you weren't safe just
standing around them either. The graveyard would also eventually
become the place for wanton slaughters right before backups,
because the server would always lose an hour or two of progress
when it saved and restarted.
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