Be Happy!

[Merth]

So now that I have officially made 1 month back I thought I would share some observations. This game has changed a ton in the last 11 yrs since I last played!

My playstyle previously could be considered hardcore as I typically spent a minimum of 3 hrs a day but usually at least 5. Real life only allows me about an hour or two at most now.

I have never been good at PVP so tried to stay away from that when possible. Really enjoyed gathering and crafting. Mundane chores but I had every gathering and crafting skill at gm so was totally self sufficient. My tamer generally grabbed hiryu, cus,ww, nightmares and beetles for sale. Also ran the solennquest for powder a zillion times.

This life let me afford the things like PS’s I couldnt go farm myself.

So today, I dont see any of my prior habits affording very many opportunities. I just finished gm’ing lumberjacking and never found a tree higher than yew. Mining is at about 80 and havent found anything higher than dull copper so far.
Tamed a couple cus just to get the timing back down but need to figure out the keepers vs recycle and dont see much market.

So basically it appears the game has evolved to being all about the high end content and whats the latest event. So its either adapt my playstyle to whats currently relevent or quit again.

 

[Xris]

So now that I have officially made 1 month back I thought I would share some observations. This game has changed a ton in the last 11 yrs since I last played!

My playstyle previously could be considered hardcore as I typically spent a minimum of 3 hrs a day but usually at least 5. Real life only allows me about an hour or two at most now.

I have never been good at PVP so tried to stay away from that when possible. Really enjoyed gathering and crafting. Mundane chores but I had every gathering and crafting skill at gm so was totally self sufficient. My tamer generally grabbed hiryu, cus,ww, nightmares and beetles for sale. Also ran the solennquest for powder a zillion times.

This life let me afford the things like PS’s I couldnt go farm myself.

So today, I dont see any of my prior habits affording very many opportunities. I just finished gm’ing lumberjacking and never found a tree higher than yew. Mining is at about 80 and havent found anything higher than dull copper so far.
Tamed a couple cus just to get the timing back down but need to figure out the keepers vs recycle and dont see much market.

So basically it appears the game has evolved to being all about the high end content and whats the latest event. So its either adapt my playstyle to whats currently relevent or quit again.

There's lots of gold to be made in lower content as well. Example: some of the best splintering weaps drop from medium strength monsters ie dragons, daemons ect. Also there's a HUGE market for cu's, but the stats have to be right (high hp, low cold/energy resist). Obviously blaze ones sell for plats, but even non rare colored ones can sell 50m+ if the stats are right. I came back a few months ago, and yes everything leads you to believe the only content worth doing is high end, but it's not true. Plenty of other stuff to do (most can be solod too) you just have to find the less talked about gems hope I helped in some way.

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[Tina Small]

Something you might consider is training up a core group of characters on other shards. Maybe find a shard that doesn't have many vendors and aim to set up a vendor selling basic crafted items. Or give Siege or Mugen a try.

 

[Draza]

There is still a market for bags of sending, trap boxes, and pots. Make apples and sell em

 

[Merth]

Thanks ya’ll I guess I worded my ending wrong what I meant to say was games evolve so either you have to be willing to evolve with them or you wont be happy.

 

[Merth]

There's lots of gold to be made in lower content as well. Example: some of the best splintering weaps drop from medium strength monsters ie dragons, daemons ect. Also there's a HUGE market for cu's, but the stats have to be right (high hp, low cold/energy resist). Obviously blaze ones sell for plats, but even non rare colored ones can sell 50m+ if the stats are right. I came back a few months ago, and yes everything leads you to believe the only content worth doing is high end, but it's not true. Plenty of other stuff to do (most can be solod too) you just have to find the less talked about gems hope I helped in some way.

Sent from my XT1609 using Tapatalk

Can you explain why low cold/energy resists is better? This sounds counter productive. Is it due to there being a total resist cap which would mean you cant make the other resists higher due to cap?

 

[Xris]

Can you explain why low cold/energy resists is better? This sounds counter productive. Is it due to there being a total resist cap which would mean you cant make the other resists higher due to cap?

Exactly, there's a resist cap, and you want to put those points into different resists. Hp and strength are costly to add to pets, so the higher base the higher the value. It's all about saving training points. Look for cus with high Hp, low cold and energy resists. That's where the money is.

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[GarthGrey]

So now that I have officially made 1 month back I thought I would share some observations. This game has changed a ton in the last 11 yrs since I last played!

My playstyle previously could be considered hardcore as I typically spent a minimum of 3 hrs a day but usually at least 5. Real life only allows me about an hour or two at most now.

I have never been good at PVP so tried to stay away from that when possible. Really enjoyed gathering and crafting. Mundane chores but I had every gathering and crafting skill at gm so was totally self sufficient. My tamer generally grabbed hiryu, cus,ww, nightmares and beetles for sale. Also ran the solennquest for powder a zillion times.

This life let me afford the things like PS’s I couldnt go farm myself.

So today, I dont see any of my prior habits affording very many opportunities. I just finished gm’ing lumberjacking and never found a tree higher than yew. Mining is at about 80 and havent found anything higher than dull copper so far.
Tamed a couple cus just to get the timing back down but need to figure out the keepers vs recycle and dont see much market.

So basically it appears the game has evolved to being all about the high end content and whats the latest event. So its either adapt my playstyle to whats currently relevent or quit again.

There's no rule that says you have to be enjoying the latest and greatest content or events all of the time. High Seas is many years old, it's pretty much all I do lately, that's the main reason I'm still playing this game that's older than my son.

 

[Siabra]

doing bods as changed a ton - now you can bribe up the npc to help you get better bods look at uo.com page 7 for the rewards..
as several have said selling cu's
right now making cadelite infused pet treats are selling for about 10k each on ATL ..
many things .. just look around

 

[Tina Small]

Something you might enjoy doing, Merth, is getting all nine city banners by running trade orders. If you start from the same city each time, it takes a character exactly 40 trade runs to raise loyalty to that city to the "Adored" level required to be able to purchase a banner for that city, at a cost of 250,000 gp. And if this is the character's first time running trade orders, all 40 of those runs will be one-line orders, which helps to keep the cost down (a couple thousand gp total). You will also end up with quite a few SoTs and crafting resources. If you don't use moongates, you may also end up with some of the signs and books and a higher amount of crafting resources. After 40 trade runs, you also raise a character's unlocked karma by about 8000 to 8275 points.

Yes, you can also get to Adored status by donating 20,000 boards to a city. But I think running the trade orders is a lot less boring and you end up with usable resources and sellable items as well.


Another fun thing to do is the Collector's quest to see how many different obsidian statues you can get.

 

[Merth]

Something you might enjoy doing, Merth, is getting all nine city banners by running trade orders. If you start from the same city each time, it takes a character exactly 40 trade runs to raise loyalty to that city to the "Adored" level required to be able to purchase a banner for that city, at a cost of 250,000 gp. And if this is the character's first time running trade orders, all 40 of those runs will be one-line orders, which helps to keep the cost down (a couple thousand gp total). You will also end up with quite a few SoTs and crafting resources. If you don't use moongates, you may also end up with some of the signs and books and a higher amount of crafting resources. After 40 trade runs, you also raise a character's unlocked karma by about 8000 to 8275 points.

Yes, you can also get to Adored status by donating 20,000 boards to a city. But I think running the trade orders is a lot less boring and you end up with usable resources and sellable items as well.


Another fun thing to do is the Collector's quest to see how many different obsidian statues you can get.

Very interesting! Thanks for the suggestion. I will look into this as I have no clue what you are talking about lol (so many changes).

 

[Tina Small]

@Merth, there's some information in the UO wiki here about the trade minister quests: Trader Quests – Ultima Online .

Some information about city loyalty: City Loyalty – Ultima Online

A picture of the nine city banners, in case you haven't seen them yet:


From left to right, the banners represent Jhelom, Britain, Yew, New Magincia, Skara Brae, Vesper, Moonglow, Minoc, and Trinsic. You can put up more than one banner per city.

 

[Xris]

@Merth, there's some information in the UO wiki here about the trade minister quests: Trader Quests – Ultima Online .

Some information about city loyalty: City Loyalty – Ultima Online

A picture of the nine city banners, in case you haven't seen them yet:

View attachment 88017
From left to right, the banners represent Jhelom, Britain, Yew, New Magincia, Skara Brae, Vesper, Moonglow, Minoc, and Trinsic. You can put up more than one banner per city.

This is something that I haven't tried since I've been back. I get the general idea, but roughly how long does 1 trade order take without using moongates?

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[Haidon]

This is something that I haven't tried since I've been back. I get the general idea, but roughly how long does 1 trade order take without using moongates?

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Depends on how far apart the cities involved are, (you will have to walk or use a boat) and whether you want to fight the ambushers or not. Also, you start needing only one item, but you will work your way up to needing five items on that character to complete the quests. I usually don't fight the ambushers and I would say it takes 5 to 10 minutes per quest although I have never actually timed it.

 

[Merth]

Depends on how far apart the cities involved are, (you will have to walk or use a boat) and whether you want to fight the ambushers or not. Also, you start needing only one item, but you will work your way up to needing five items on that character to complete the quests. I usually don't fight the ambushers and I would say it takes 5 to 10 minutes per quest although I have never actually timed it.

When you say walk is this literally or can you ride? Also can you use a pet in ambush encounters?

 

[Tina Small]

When you say walk is this literally or can you ride? Also can you use a pet in ambush encounters?

You can ride a pet and use it to kill ambushers. Note that you normally don't have to kill the ambushers. There was an event last year in September that required you to kill the ambushers, because they stole the chest you carried and you couldn't get it back without killing them. If you use the moongate, what you are giving up is a chance at receiving any of the wooden signs or some rare books or greater amounts of the crafting resources, and more gold going to the treasury of the city where you started the quest. You might want to reserve cities like Yew, Minoc, and Trinsic as the originating cities for your characters that are able to fight the ambushers and fight them on runs where you don't have to use a moongate and you want a chance to get the rarer rewards.

I don't recommend going by sea for these quests because the sea-based ambushers are pretty miserable to fight (tougher than their normal versions and they cause a lot of lag when they spawn) and getting away from them without fighting can be tricky if they block your way; peacemaking might be helpful. If you want to get to Jhelom by sea, I've heard that using a rowboat is a good alternative because supposedly you get the land-based ambushers instead of the sea-based ambushers; don't know if they spawn on the rowboat or walk on the water. You can't take the ferry to Skara Brae, so you have to get to or from there using the moongate or a boat. I have never encountered the sea-based monsters using a boat for the short hop from the mainland to Skara Brae; however, it isn't unusual to have the ambushers spawn on the mainland as you are preparing your boat to go across to Skara Brae.

 

[Basara]

If you get High Seas, you can use a Rowboat from the Floating Emporium's vendors to bypass the Skara ferry, or to go to Jhelom from the coastline of the jungle south of the Del entrance/Honor Shrine area. The nice thing is that only land ambush spawn can occur on a rowboat, and you don't have to dry dock the rowboat (it goes away on its own, or when you use the rowboat deed again, so you don't have to worry about it being cluttered.)

I do most of my trade orders from Britain - it's centrally located, and only use a moongate if it is an order going to moonglow or new magincia. I've gotten over 150k for my city off some trips, and up to 180 valorite, barbed or heartwood. OF course, I've been doing 5-line runs forever.

 

[Tina Small]

@Merth, you can do all your trade runs with one character. There are two disadvantages to this, however, if you are doing the trade runs primarily to build up loyalty to buy the city banners: (1) after 40 runs, the number of items you have to buy increases; and (2) you have to wait one RL week between each banner purchase made by the same character. I've always wanted to get all nine banners as quickly as I can, so on the several shards where I've collected them, I've used nine different characters to complete the required 360 trade orders. However, if you stick to using one character only, it will eventually reach Adored status in all the cities so you can buy banners from all of them. (You can also increase loyalty by turning in BODs in a city, which would give your crafter characters a headstart.) Or you can go the route of donating 20k of boards to each city where you want a banner. I just happen to think it's more fun and advantageous to do the trade runs instead.

The number of lines in the orders (i.e., number of different types of items you must buy) increase as follows, per character:
Runs 1-40: 1 line
Runs 41-60: 2 lines
Runs 61-80: 3 lines
Runs 81-100: 4 lines
Runs 101 and up: 5 lines

 

[Tina Small]

@Merth, another idea for you to consider is hunting down merchant or pirate ships, if you've purchased the High Seas expansion. I've only done the merchant ships to get resources. But a lot of other people hunt the pirate ships. You'll have to use your miner in different places (caves, Ilshenar, cliff sides) to mine niter deposits found only in those areas to get saltpeter and then use your alchemist to turn it into black powder to make cannon supplies. The mining can be a bit tedious, but if your miner has a luck suit, that will help increase the amount of saltpeter he gets. Look for posts by @GarthGrey if you want to know more about the pros and cons of the High Seas expansion.

 

[Merth]

You can ride a pet and use it to kill ambushers. Note that you normally don't have to kill the ambushers. There was an event last year in September that required you to kill the ambushers, because they stole the chest you carried and you couldn't get it back without killing them. If you use the moongate, what you are giving up is a chance at receiving any of the wooden signs or some rare books or greater amounts of the crafting resources, and more gold going to the treasury of the city where you started the quest. You might want to reserve cities like Yew, Minoc, and Trinsic as the originating cities for your characters that are able to fight the ambushers and fight them on runs where you don't have to use a moongate and you want a chance to get the rarer rewards.

I don't recommend going by sea for these quests because the sea-based ambushers are pretty miserable to fight (tougher than their normal versions and they cause a lot of lag when they spawn) and getting away from them without fighting can be tricky if they block your way; peacemaking might be helpful. If you want to get to Jhelom by sea, I've heard that using a rowboat is a good alternative because supposedly you get the land-based ambushers instead of the sea-based ambushers; don't know if they spawn on the rowboat or walk on the water. You can't take the ferry to Skara Brae, so you have to get to or from there using the moongate or a boat. I have never encountered the sea-based monsters using a boat for the short hop from the mainland to Skara Brae; however, it isn't unusual to have the ambushers spawn on the mainland as you are preparing your boat to go across to Skara Brae.

I did 4 last night from moonglow. (Actually forgot it was an island duh) used a boat on first one easy to outrun spawn until I hit land then spawned 3 krakens and a water ele. Died pretty quick and stole my chest. So did 3 more and used moongate. Got leather as a reward on first two (horned i think) and a SoT for fletching .7 which was very nice.

 

[Xris]

I did 4 last night from moonglow. (Actually forgot it was an island duh) used a boat on first one easy to outrun spawn until I hit land then spawned 3 krakens and a water ele. Died pretty quick and stole my chest. So did 3 more and used moongate. Got leather as a reward on first two (horned i think) and a SoT for fletching .7 which was very nice.

It says you get more/better rewards if you kill the mobs. Does anyone actually do this? Is it not worth the time?

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[MalagAste]

It says you get more/better rewards if you kill the mobs. Does anyone actually do this? Is it not worth the time?

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I've always killed the mobs... I don't know about more or better but I get decent stuff. I do like the pinks a lot. I also like getting the house signs...

 

[Tina Small]

It says you get more/better rewards if you kill the mobs. Does anyone actually do this? Is it not worth the time?

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Unless I'm using my tamer and running overland (i.e., not using moongates), I don't bother killing the ambushers.

The amount received for stackable resource rewards, as well as the amount paid to the origin city's treasury, is affected by several things:

- The number of lines in the order.
- If you don't use the moongate, the distance between the origin and destination cities. (If you use the moongate, the quantity received is the same no matter in which city you start or end the delivery.)
- The type of stackable resource rewarded, i.e., more is received for non-imbuing resources vs. imbuing resources.

Killing the ambushers only affects the amount of gold paid into the treasury of the city where you started the run.