Last week, some friends and I were discussing our very first experiences in UO as in right after installing the game and creating a character. Some of them had some pretty interesting/entertaining stories. Please share your stories of your first experiences with UO here.
Here's Mine:
On a late 90's evening after bringing UO home from the local mall, I had installed it, decided rather quickly that I wanted to be a swordsman and selected my three skills for the template; swordsmanship, tactics and healing.
I logged in for the first time and Zuckuss dropped into the world. I noticed a vast world around me with actual human being players running around. I was in Vesper. There were shops, taverns, inns, docks and lots of bridges. Players were talking, trading, sparring, stealing and griefing one another at a highly populated Vesper bank. Lots of random items; reagents, hides, ore, clothes were left freely on the ground. Boats lined the canals. The sound of instruments, recalling and fizzled spells were heard almost nonstop.
I ran around in my blue newbie shirt and picked up some of the abandoned treasures which I would soon sell to NPC's so I could begin to lay the foundation of my vast future empire. I did that for a bit, ferrying skullcaps and short pants to the tailors, a few boards and a jointing plane to the carpenter and so on. I did this for a while until my primal urge to "kill stuff" had gotten the better of me.
I took my prize possessions (my shirt, pants, shoes and newbie dagger) with me out in the woods, just off of the bridge to the west of Vesper bank. I found a rabbit. I thought that I may kill this rabbit for it's hide and meat so that I may sell them and put the proceeds towards building my empire.
I engaged this rabbit in a 90 minute brawl. I needed to run to town and heal up twice. I thought "man, how am I not doing any damage to this rabbit?"
After a long time of battling this rabbit, a player had approached me and had asked if everything was okay. I lost my concentration on the fight and nearly died to the rabbit several times during the conversation. I explained to him that I was new, I was a swordsman and trying to battle this rabbit. He laughed, as he healed me up. He said "wait here" and he disappeared, returning shortly. He handed me a scimitar and explained to me that a dagger was a fencing weapon, and that "if you are a swordsman, you need to use a swordsmanship weapon."
I equipped the scimitar and thanked him. It only took ten or so hits with the scimitar to kill the rabbit! He shared a few tips with me and we eventually parted ways. I was certainly going to remember that players kindness once I have assembled my vast empire.
After the battle, some more selling and a mental time-out to regroup and plan my next few moves, I decided that if I was going to really make some money that I would need an actual trade. Picking up items off the ground and selling them did not turn out to be as a profitable profession as I had previously thought.
I created a miner. When thinking of a name, the first name I thought of that made sense came to mind; Minoc. Yes, his name was Minoc. He was from Vesper though.
Anyways, back then I did not have a map other than the cloth thing that came in the box. I followed the directions the best I could. I meant to run into Covetous mountain, but instead I ended up over by a red shrine. After some quick internet research and referencing all two individuals on my newly acquired ICQ list, I had learned that I was in an area called "Chaos Valley."
I had decided that I did not want to run for what seemed like eons back to Vesper. So I found somebody's public house, and I made it my own. This was my first mining house. Miner's Glory, a 7x7 small brick house located on the eastern side of the valley next to the mountain. Determined to build my empire, I hid a small crate in the corner behind the wall using my recently discovered circle of transparency 'spell.' This would be the place where I stored all my mining goods. I was going to be rich.
The next several days were spent moving along the whole mountain side, all the way through the valley, leapfrogging ore two tiles at a time, and learning that every public forge in the game is a blessing. There were some very long gaps within the valley with no public access to a forge, so after so long, I would begin to get worried that if I didn't smelt and drop off back at the house soon, a red player might kill me and steal the hours of work I had just did. I mined for hours, leapfrogged ore for hours, smelted for hours. As tedious as it sounds, I was addicted to it. Yes it was work and it was grinding, but every day was a new adventure. Every run held something new and exciting, and on those few runs that nothing exciting happened, you were okay with that too because it meant that you didn't get your mining interrupted or ingots taken, and it was fun to not have your hard work made meaningless.
I continued to mine, and hunt rabbits, sheep, pigs, cows, mongbats and eventually zombies, spectures and wraiths over at the Vesper graveyard. More certainly occurred after after this in the coming weeks, months, years, but the above is my initial experience in UO and the beginning of a long story that still continues on today.
I would be interested to read some of your initial UO experiences or stories. The first day, or few days or even a few weeks would all be fine.
Thanks for reading.
Here's Mine:
On a late 90's evening after bringing UO home from the local mall, I had installed it, decided rather quickly that I wanted to be a swordsman and selected my three skills for the template; swordsmanship, tactics and healing.
I logged in for the first time and Zuckuss dropped into the world. I noticed a vast world around me with actual human being players running around. I was in Vesper. There were shops, taverns, inns, docks and lots of bridges. Players were talking, trading, sparring, stealing and griefing one another at a highly populated Vesper bank. Lots of random items; reagents, hides, ore, clothes were left freely on the ground. Boats lined the canals. The sound of instruments, recalling and fizzled spells were heard almost nonstop.
I ran around in my blue newbie shirt and picked up some of the abandoned treasures which I would soon sell to NPC's so I could begin to lay the foundation of my vast future empire. I did that for a bit, ferrying skullcaps and short pants to the tailors, a few boards and a jointing plane to the carpenter and so on. I did this for a while until my primal urge to "kill stuff" had gotten the better of me.
I took my prize possessions (my shirt, pants, shoes and newbie dagger) with me out in the woods, just off of the bridge to the west of Vesper bank. I found a rabbit. I thought that I may kill this rabbit for it's hide and meat so that I may sell them and put the proceeds towards building my empire.
I engaged this rabbit in a 90 minute brawl. I needed to run to town and heal up twice. I thought "man, how am I not doing any damage to this rabbit?"
After a long time of battling this rabbit, a player had approached me and had asked if everything was okay. I lost my concentration on the fight and nearly died to the rabbit several times during the conversation. I explained to him that I was new, I was a swordsman and trying to battle this rabbit. He laughed, as he healed me up. He said "wait here" and he disappeared, returning shortly. He handed me a scimitar and explained to me that a dagger was a fencing weapon, and that "if you are a swordsman, you need to use a swordsmanship weapon."
I equipped the scimitar and thanked him. It only took ten or so hits with the scimitar to kill the rabbit! He shared a few tips with me and we eventually parted ways. I was certainly going to remember that players kindness once I have assembled my vast empire.
After the battle, some more selling and a mental time-out to regroup and plan my next few moves, I decided that if I was going to really make some money that I would need an actual trade. Picking up items off the ground and selling them did not turn out to be as a profitable profession as I had previously thought.
I created a miner. When thinking of a name, the first name I thought of that made sense came to mind; Minoc. Yes, his name was Minoc. He was from Vesper though.
Anyways, back then I did not have a map other than the cloth thing that came in the box. I followed the directions the best I could. I meant to run into Covetous mountain, but instead I ended up over by a red shrine. After some quick internet research and referencing all two individuals on my newly acquired ICQ list, I had learned that I was in an area called "Chaos Valley."
I had decided that I did not want to run for what seemed like eons back to Vesper. So I found somebody's public house, and I made it my own. This was my first mining house. Miner's Glory, a 7x7 small brick house located on the eastern side of the valley next to the mountain. Determined to build my empire, I hid a small crate in the corner behind the wall using my recently discovered circle of transparency 'spell.' This would be the place where I stored all my mining goods. I was going to be rich.
The next several days were spent moving along the whole mountain side, all the way through the valley, leapfrogging ore two tiles at a time, and learning that every public forge in the game is a blessing. There were some very long gaps within the valley with no public access to a forge, so after so long, I would begin to get worried that if I didn't smelt and drop off back at the house soon, a red player might kill me and steal the hours of work I had just did. I mined for hours, leapfrogged ore for hours, smelted for hours. As tedious as it sounds, I was addicted to it. Yes it was work and it was grinding, but every day was a new adventure. Every run held something new and exciting, and on those few runs that nothing exciting happened, you were okay with that too because it meant that you didn't get your mining interrupted or ingots taken, and it was fun to not have your hard work made meaningless.
I continued to mine, and hunt rabbits, sheep, pigs, cows, mongbats and eventually zombies, spectures and wraiths over at the Vesper graveyard. More certainly occurred after after this in the coming weeks, months, years, but the above is my initial experience in UO and the beginning of a long story that still continues on today.
I would be interested to read some of your initial UO experiences or stories. The first day, or few days or even a few weeks would all be fine.
Thanks for reading.
