Paying it Forward?

[Lord Nabin]

I thought I would take a moment and reflect after these 15+++++ years of playing Ultima on the original Mentor I had in game.

As just a young Mage wandering the land being pillaged by raiders and murdered regularly I finally came a across a sole who took pity on my circumstance.

His Name Tinhamowtek. He took me under his wing out in the deep forest and taught me the ways of the land and how to not get totally frustrated with population of rampant killers. lol

I think this was the true start of my years of solitude in the forests of Sosaria and the foundations of my becoming a wandering Sage across the land. Tinhamowtek would never accept anything from me in return except a simple thank you and always asked me to just "Pay it Forward someday"

This concept has stuck with me to this day.

His mentoring made a great difference for me and I loved the puzzle houses loaded with drakes and dragons he would create with a prize at the top room for those who could make it alive.

To this day my museum has an obscure Surcoat Crafted by Tinhamowtek sitting in it. I am sure many have passed it by wondering why it was something special. Well it might not be a true rare item, however the Person who crafted it Tinhamowtek is something trueley rare and unique. Thank You my old friend Where ever you are I hope you still travel Safe.

So Who were your mentors when you started in the land called Sosaria and how did they shape your future?

 

[Merus]

Onastica of Orders of Justice (Napa Valley). He was my mentor and sponsor into the guild Orders of Justice. I am not sure I would have played more than about six months if it weren't for his guidance and all the very close friends I made as part of that guild. Where ever you are out there my friend, thanks! That goes for you too DANTE and Natasha!

 

[Samaira]

I learned the joy of IDOCing from my hubby. Sitting at one of my first drops, on my own - or so I thought. Suddenly the chime of a mage recalling in... out pops this bloke by the name of Greybeard.

We got to chatting, hanging out at that IDOC. I told him I was a tamer, though my stable was bare of any truly fun pets (I think I was around 60-sih or something at the time). Away he goes, comes back with a drake, just for me! We ended up good friends, and although he left the game many years ago, I still remember him fondly, and our IDOC campings... like the one below, where we dug up a shadow ele to keep us occupied.

 

[MalagAste]

Is it just me or does anyone else have some obscene thoughts while looking at the to Cu's in that picture???

 

[Sauteed Onion]

Is it just me or does anyone else have some obscene thoughts while looking at the to Cu's in that picture???

Like they do it on the discovery channel.

 

[virtualhabitat]

The original doggie-style

 

[Lord Nabin]

Really that is what this thread evolved to.

Pathetic to all of you.

Petra Fyde

You might as well just close this out. Clearly I was wrong and there is no "Paying it Forward" here

OK I will send you the Tea I owe you on this one

 

[Samaira]

Goodness you folks have dirty minds!

 

[Eärendil]

Back then in the 90s I had a mentor named "The Illustrious Pess"... He showed me the graveyards for fighting, how to train skills, how to fight mages down in shame and how to build a house... I even became a co-owner of one of his houses - we called it a WG (Wohngemeinschaft = Housing Community?). After I left UO for several years and came back some years ago, the house was gone and I think Pess also left. I found my char in the middle of nowhere, where the old house stood... Unfortunately, I cannot remember more... Has been some time in between with some important changes in my life (e.g. finishing university, finding a job, marrying a wife, birth of the children...).

 

[Petra Fyde]

My mentor was my younger son, I've done my best to 'pay it forward' through the years. In essence that's what I'm doing now, as UOSS ME maintaining the playguide information on the site is pretty much an attempt to 'pay it forward' to the whole UO community.

 

[Frarc]

It was the guildmaster of AGB (Adventurers Guild of Britain) on Great Lakes.

After a week started to dislike the game. death , death death almost every few minutes we did stuff.
We had about 25 different skills on one character, got PKed on every corner or tricked in something stupid.
But when we met him we thought he was going to kill us again. But he helped us. Gave us a full bone armor costume and a silver weapon (Big deal back then)and showed us that we should focus on 7 skills only.
He also pointed us towards stratics to guide us.

We still died often, he even gave us the guild title Sir DiesAlot.
He helped us with the basics and never hold us back from doing things that where impossible. He did warn us but he never said don't do it, Just had to try, die and learn from it.

He never wanted anything back. Just a promiss to help others like he helped us and never want anything in return. In the end that would be a bigger reward.

I took al lthe knowledge with me to Drachenfels.

Still today (14+ years later) i play like that. I help others with what i can, not want anything back from it. Just to know that the enjoy what they doing.

When i do events, i rarely loot anything. I organise them for others, so they can have fun and they can do things that might not be able to be done alone.
All i want to hear is they had a good time, its all that matters.

 

[Farsight]

I had too many mentors to name them all, so I'll just mention two.

1. Pall Mall/Bloodstone of Napa Valley:
I already knew how to play the game and expressed interest in role playing a simple tailor. Pall managed to recruit me over from Lake Superior to Napa... From a comfortable start with houses and stuff to having absolutely nothing. He gave me a house (which to my knowledge is still standing thanks to IGM Twilight), no gold, and a promise of a difficult life of being stolen from and killed and looted. Together, we experimented with making a player town and somehow managed to make it work. The adversity which our town created influenced my role play style to the point where anything I did afterwards in the role play arena could be attributed to my relationship with Pall Mall and the Village of Virtue.

2. Zerver (many shards):
This is an odd one, 'cause when I met Zerver, I actually knew more about the game and how to play it than he did at the time. He rarely taught me anything about how to play the game (but together, we would frequently test out new tactics, game mechanics, etc to increase our knowledge of the game). Instead, he re-taught me that Ultima Online was a game, and should be treated as such. So he wasn't a mentor about the game, but rather a mentor about how to have fun in the game.

He taught me that community involvement does not have to be limited to just one area of just one shard, but can encompass all shards.

Together (with many other people), we managed to move mountains. We literally changed the game for a lot of other people.

And we were rewarded for it handsomely.

 

[MalagAste]

Really that is what this thread evolved to.

Pathetic to all of you.

Petra Fyde

You might as well just close this out. Clearly I was wrong and there is no "Paying it Forward" here

OK I will send you the Tea I owe you on this one

Sorry but you have to admit it was RIGHT there I couldn't help it. But I'll take you up on your story:


As for "Paying it Forward" ..... I started playing shortly after UO:R and at one point someone did give me a full suit of armor after welcoming me into their nice home. More often I struggled on my own but I always kept the philosophy that "What goes around Comes around." So I was Always nice and tried to help my fellow players.

I recall being in the woods one day chopping trees as I often did gathering wood to make my arrows (As I also always believed in being "self sufficient" and never relying on others for things I could get myself. When a young player approached me and asked if I could give him 1k in gold. Now at the time gold was hard for me to come by as I was rather new to UO myself. So I asked "Why would I give you 1k? What do you need that much gold for?" And he said to me "I'm just starting I'm going to be a Blacksmith someday! And I need to buy some picks so I can mine." I was like "Hum... Well alright that sounds like a worthy cause... You can have what I have here with me..." and I handed him the 600 and some odd gold I had in my pack from killing local Harpies and such. "Thanks!" He said with Glee and he ran of promising me that when he got to be a GM smith he'd make me a full set of Valorite! Now I never really thought I'd ever see the kid again honestly because really I hardly knew anyone in-game and I figured he'd just as soon forget me as quickly as he met me. However several months later when I was passing my favorite smithy in Brit I was chased down by a player screaming "Willa!!!!! Wait!!!! I have something for you!" With that he took me to his home and proudly handed me a full set of Valorite Heavy Archer armor. My first ever set! Was very sweet of him to remember me.

But I've always gone about the game that way. Quite often even now when I'm just watching General Chat float by I'll see someone genuinely asking for help with something and quite often I'll either put things on loan and ask that when they are done they simply drop them in my mail.... Or I just give out things to newer players. I suppose I'm forever hopeful that they will remember it fondly and continue to play UO and perhaps one day even join the RP community or at least attend our events and such.... or perhaps even "Pay it forward" to someone else in a few years.

 

[pumpkin_escobar]

***Great post btw

I've been playing on and off for years now, prob since 97 I think.
About 3 months into the game I was still skinning stuff and picking cotton for gold when I met Mr Bojangles on Catskills.

He probably wouldn't remember me, but he showed me tons of stuff and helped me make a bard at Glow cemetery.
He would protect me from being pk'd all the time..

To this day, because of him I always try to help the younger players out.

If its Mr Bojangles reading this thanks for the help.

*my character was Rocky Balboa back then