How did you make your UO fortune?

[Bort of Atlantic]

I've played UO for years and have collected gold via different means. I'm nowhere near "rich" in UO terms, but I've usually had enough gold to get my characters 120 skills with enough left over to buy the gear I want.

Here are a few of the ways I obtained gold over time, and I'm curious how other people have done the same (if you don't want to share how you currently make your gold, maybe let us in on old secrets you no longer use):

Luck Gear - My tamer never got so much use as when luck was the hot mod. I did a bunch of blood elemental, shadow wyrm, and elder gazer killing and returned to my tower to hold my breath as I tried to enhance items.

Barbed Runic Kits - When people started realizing resists were important, I made a killing buying runic kits, crafting armor, and selling it. I even bought and completed BODs (I have done this in quite some time).

Doom Artifacts - This wasn't fair. I was one of the first to collect doom artifacts on Atlantic, and it's a case of the rich get richer. I had spirit of the totem and other artifacts pretty early on, which meant my DPS was at or close to the top of the list. That meant if an artifact dropped, it was likely coming to me. I used some artifacts and sold the rest, and early on, even crappy ones were selling.

Beetle to Doom - I started taking a beetle filled with arrows and bolts to doom around the time you could guarantee 5-6 people were doing the gauntlet. I could buy a skull for 40-50k and could unload the beetle at the vendor down there for a 250k profit b/c people pretty much had to buy consumables there.

Peerless (solo) - Right around when sampires were becoming a little more known, I employed a similar theory and used a vampire archer to solo Paroxysmus, Dreadhorn, and Grizzle. Although not as quick in the killing as your standard sampire, I went this route to ensure I didn't die so my time gathering keys wasn't wasted. Ingredients sold like hot cakes, and Crimson Cincture and Paroxysmus' swamp dragon were my road to gold. They still sell for a decent amount today.

Recently, I've been doing Medusa and mini champs (Tinker Legs on 3rd Devourer kill, woot) and plan to move onto Stygian Dragon and Navrey. I may even give Fel Champ Spawns a go. Although boring, it appears essence farming is pretty solid income.

 

[PitrGri]

I interacted with the players and got to know people from lots of different countries... thus making me a very rich and lucky guy... from 97 until today, UO taught me I was a teacher at heart... and then I made my RL fortune...

 

[Righteous]

The most gold I made with the least amount of work was selling em event items 500M.

But where I made most of my gold was buying resources (cloth, arrows, bottles etc) and selling them to vendors that where buying it for more than I paid for it. It was tedious at times but I made alot of gold doing it, unfortunately this method of making gold has been removed.

Now I make gold the old fashion way farming it off monsters. Gotta love the Reknowned Wyvern spawn.

Righteous

 

[temu]

I made pretty much all of my gold off of peerless and other boss monster rare drops. It's kind of a crappy deal though because the drops rates on the high-end expensive items is so low that you never know when your next pay day is coming. Some things I've sold include slithers, small soul forge, tangles, crimsons, and gladiators collar.

I always found it interesting how people made fortunes off of buying low and selling high at auctions and at luna, x-sharding, EM item selling, BOD rewards and all that. I never had the patience to do any of those things. It's more fun to hunt and do the big monsters with friends, in my opinion. The drawback is that it's not a steady source of income!

 

[sayler04]

I suck at this game. I'll be honest. Played since 99, and it wasnt until 06ish that I banked my first million gold. And that was only because I successfully snagged one chest, one single chest, from an idoc that had like 15 checks for a million each.

Bought a house of decent and unimpressive size, started selling consumables of various sorts. Potion kegs were pretty hot at the time, as gardening was really popular, and I spent alot of time reselling reagents from npcs. Also got into the buy low sell high rotation for a while.

These days I sell imbuing ingredients to the new commodity vendors. I don't have alot of time for anything else, really, and its always a great decompress after work. I don't have the patience anymore to operate my own vendors, so the commodity vendors are really a godsend.

I do okay now. Not rich by any means-- I always put alot of thought into what I spend-- but I have enough to play the way I like to play.

 

[Kayne]

I still haven't made my UO fortune...

 

[yars]

i was born rich

 

[Sevin0oo0]

started after tram opened, always played in a group to farm Anything, then we split the loot when we got done (FUN!), we all just kinda went our separate ways, including leaving the game. Buy low, sell high, sell osti's/frenzy, - LIVE @ WBB! When Luna Mall opened, got a house 'nearby' - broke.
I looked at weapons as 'tools' of my trade, and those tools had to pay for themselves. just kept upgrading & upgrading til I could hit 100-150k an hr min, and I'm old school, plain jane swords/hide/heal.
As of a few months ago, I had a whopping 30mil, then started selling Everything I have, now around 140mil, w/ an easy 100mil more to go (singing ball, xfer tokens, ethy polar, etc). Mostly I sell essence now as well, because it's what "I" want do, and kill, in the game, Solo, just enjoying "my" time that I have left in UO.
I used to schit myself every time I saw a blood ele, unless on my tamer w/ my crew handy, now when I see one in SA, it's just boring, I just leave it for some other enterprising adventurer.

 

[Tanivar]

I made my fortune selling orange petals and green thorns over the years. Now it's imbued armor sets, cannon supplies, and seeds of renewal that are the money-makers

 

[Percivalgoh]

Just recently I made some headway in the getting rich department but obviously not so rich as most of you not that I care about that. Within the last couple months my fisher crossed into the million plus gold mark which is the first character I ever had with a million gold in 13 years of playing. Just recently I had my treasure hunter and my smith get more than a million gold in the bank too. But I am far from rich and I really don't care. I don't need no stinking multi million gold items or whatever. Been playing and enjoying it without them for years.

 

[twoburntfouryou]

Idocs........and Lady Mel

 

[Flutter]

They say the first million is the hardest.

 

[Melissa Rohan]

S.O.T s mainly. Either doing spawns, or buying from small out of town vendors and reselling at Luna. People havent the time or patience these days to build their characters it seems.

 

[G.v.P]

Back in the day, Elder Gazers.

Nowadays, Fantasy Football, baby! Bahahaha

 

[Ender]

I haven't. I think I've got about 25 million on my account at the moment (in gold at least), and I'm about to spend all that on a thrower.

I just don't get anything to drop. Tinker Legs on 3rd Devourer kill? Still waiting on my first drop after 90ish.

 

[Lady Storm]

well... one gold coin at a time.
Then having my son raid my houses for all the horded rares he didnt know i had hidden... one mans trash in the day turned out ot be worth $$$$ in the end.
(to be honest all of us old UO timers learned the fel way of life... let nothing go to waste... You wouldbe surprised what use to get tossed out on the ground year one.)

 

[Luke Carjacker]

Way way back when I started, I made money selling full rune books (towns, dungeons, etc.) Stood and Brit Bank spamming my wares; I made 1m a week doing that when I didn't know anyone else with a million gold in the bank.

The real boon for me was when Stygian Abyss came out. I locked onto imbuing, filled my house keep & bank boxes with stuff to unravel before the expansion and was one of the first to get through the abyss to Ter Mur the day of release, where I promptly marked a rune, recalled my crafter in and started training imbuing (no home soul forges yet of course). Made it to 120 by the 3rd day and started crafting high-end weapons and armor, primarily for pvpers, and eventually woodland armor to Sampires. Banked at least 6-7 billion gold doing that since SA came out, and doled out hundreds of millions to friends who farmed resources to fill these imbuing orders (there were no ingredients for sale on vendors in the early days of imbuing). These day I still get requests for imbuing orders regularly even though I have been actively turning them down for 6 months; guess people remember quality work for a long time.

So, with that gold bought a luna house & fel castle, outfitted all the characters on both my accounts with elite scrolls, gear & pets (not to mention 10+ similarly equipped sent to other shards) at an average of maybe 150-200m per char. These days, I solo spawns for fun and monetary gain. Can solo most in about 45 minutes (not Bedlam, Oaks or Weald, yes Lich, Abyssal & original spawns) to get 12 scrolls, a pile of pinks every spawn and a drop every 3-4 spawns. No idea what the total value of this stuff is, but I've got 10 detective cloak replicas and 8 Lt. Sashes that I picked up myself not being worn right now (among tons of other high end stuff).

Other things that were clearly profitable include the Primeval Lich Spawn early on when the deco was available much for frequently and a lot more valuable. I also had a great time at the Halloween event a couple years ago with the Conjurer's garbs. Just returned to UO after a 3 year break, finished grad school and was looking for a job. Played a lot, racked up 15 garbs (about 1/2 luck, 1/2 non).

I guess crafting was the super big money maker, but spawning has be making up ground.

 

[Raptor85]

define fortune? at the rates of inflation on the main UO shards no matter how much I made it was nearly worthless by the time the next expansion rolled around.

I had a decent amount of gold from my pre-tram days though, killing reds and reselling their gear, or "tips" from escorting and protecting other players, everything I had saved then combined though couldn't pay for a single arty after AOS. From when I rejoined after AOS to when I left shortly after ML launch I'd probably worked up about 1 billion gold total, mostly from power scrolls and artifact sales, dropped it all when I left the prodo shards for good though, and with how dead the areas my houses were in was i may have even all decayed without anyone noticing.

 

[Shinobi]

i was born rich

I actually was, lol. When I created Shinobi, I opened my pack for the first time to find a mini castle deed laying in it. I sold it for, I think, 4.5mil (it was a good bit at the time).

Everything I own in UO I have either stolen, bought with gold from selling stolen items, or was given it. I'm not exaggerating in the least when I say this, haha.

Honestly, I don't know any other way to make gold other than stealing. Pretty nice when you go from having a few mil to having a 50mil+ item over the coarse of like 10min...that's always fun, lol.

 

[Uvtha]

I've never been rich. I think the most I ever had at once was like 10 million. I got that because I had collected a scad of blackrock pieces and turned them all in to the "strangers" who gave you back high end items (at the time) like uncursed doom arties and the rarer smith hammers.

I traded a pile of stuff I got from them for 10 mill and a nice black cu'shide.

Now a days I make my money off of essences. Usually only have 4-600k.

 

[Farsight]

1st 17 million was a gift on my return to UO in 97.
After that, I got lucky in a few champ spawns for another 35 million in scroll sales (in my first month back. And we were raided about 2/3 of the spawns we did, thus losing the rewards from 2/3 of the time. But 1/3 of a fortune is still a fortune. But losing also gave me contacts in a few raiding guilds which helped me out in the long run).
Since then, I never cared for collecting gold. But I do have around 200 million in the bank and about that in uncollected debts (which I'll never collect, having quit the game).

 

[DirectorDoug]

I was in on the Luna housing boom. When Malas was first introduced, I spent three days and nights placing an 18X18 inside Luna (I would get placed, then the shard would crash and revert...then get screwed out of a location, but the shard would crash and revert. I kid you not...3 days and nights of that). I finally built a white Marble Mansion, but had no real desire to do vendors, so I just decorated and enjoyed it. Three years later someone saw me come out of the house and stopped me and asked if I would sell. I said" no, I like my house". The guy said "If you ever want to sell, my friend will pay you a lot for it...he owns the two vendor houses next door" Me - "how much is a lot?" him - 120M Me - "What the $^@&!!! Are you $^@&ing kidding me??". Next thing I know, I have sold the house I paid a couple hundred thou for, and got another 18X18 outside Biritain thrown into the bargain. 120 M. I am still working to spend all that, though now I make about as much as I spend...money may not buy happiness, but it buys a lot of 120 scrolls...

 

[georox]

I interacted with the players and got to know people from lots of different countries... thus making me a very rich and lucky guy... from 97 until today, UO taught me I was a teacher at heart... and then I made my RL fortune...

We all know teachers don't get paid!

 

[Theo_GL]

Just recently I made some headway in the getting rich department but obviously not so rich as most of you not that I care about that. Within the last couple months my fisher crossed into the million plus gold mark which is the first character I ever had with a million gold in 13 years of playing. Just recently I had my treasure hunter and my smith get more than a million gold in the bank too. But I am far from rich and I really don't care. I don't need no stinking multi million gold items or whatever. Been playing and enjoying it without them for years.

I guess I just never understand this. Do you live paycheck to paycheck in RL too?

A clothing bless deed sells for 500k and powder of fortification sells for 200k+.

If your crafter did any bods at all you'd complete a couple of those a week or month at the least.

Since everything seems to cost 100k plus anymore - gathering items to get a million in gold is simple.

My first million came from selling a valorite anvil bod reward. It was about 9 years ago when people cared about them.

Now with fully developed characters - its pretty easy to gather a mil value in items every day or two with just casual play.

 

[Widow Maker]

I'll be very honest; I duped the crap out of castle deeds and sold them back..when that bug was rampant. That gave me my first couple or so billion. That was back late 97 / early 98..if memory serves me correctly.

After that, never did anything like that again, altho we all certainly could. Just looting spawn gold and selling scrolls / items.

Gold became unimportant.

Don't go all High and Mighty on me..there were a LOT of folks who did it.

 

[Percivalgoh]

I guess I just never understand this. Do you live paycheck to paycheck in RL too?

A clothing bless deed sells for 500k and powder of fortification sells for 200k+.

If your crafter did any bods at all you'd complete a couple of those a week or month at the least.

Since everything seems to cost 100k plus anymore - gathering items to get a million in gold is simple.

My first million came from selling a valorite anvil bod reward. It was about 9 years ago when people cared about them.

Now with fully developed characters - its pretty easy to gather a mil value in items every day or two with just casual play.

I live well but not like a king. I am much richer in game than in real life but I own a home and have money in the bank. I don't care to sell stuff in game . It's way too boring and time consuming for me. I only play a little every day. It might be easy to make a million with well developed characters but mine are all less than that. However being less than that I find it more challenging to do things. Who needs gold? not me.

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

I'll be very honest; I duped the crap out of castle deeds and sold them back..when that bug was rampant. That gave me my first couple or so billion. That was back late 97 / early 98..if memory serves me correctly.

After that, never did anything like that again, altho we all certainly could. Just looting spawn gold and selling scrolls / items.

Gold became unimportant.

Don't go all High and Mighty on me..there were a LOT of folks who did it.

Not many would BRAG about it though ...

oooo Snap!

​

 

[5% Luck]

My 1st million was made before AoS came out. There was a bug on 4th level t maps where all the items were either vanq or invuln!!!! I sold a few hundred invuln suits at 500k a pop. Whats worse is just when it died down and my sales started to drop bam AoS came out. What a ticket that was LOL!

Another of my favored gold making memories was back after ML launched and arrows were a big commodity, I farmed arrows and bolts either at ratmen or centaurs and of course the gypsy camps had a great stock. What I did and it was kind of a chore was sell bundles of 10k. It got to the point where I had a stiff competitor and back and forth we fought....All the way down to 9 gold an arrow on atlantic!!!!! I would say between us we sold 250k arrows a day easily!

For a while I spent some time farming pets for specific stats/skills/resist by order. I was fairly well known for great pets and even had quite a few x-sharders transfer over to atlantic just to buy my pets. On that ticket I made a ton of gold. Now a days, that market is wreathing with nasty players who constantly mock and ridicule other tamers attempting to play it, and for me it was enough to set up a bazaar vendor and simply undercut the prices on high quality pets by 90% as a way to "give em the bird" in return.

Today, I make most of my gold on random drops and arties. Pscrolls pinks and artis. I dont really have a profession as I once did and it keeps me busy and I dont get into a monotonous role in game. Oh and imbue ingreds too! Cant forget those!

 

[NuSair]

I started out selling ingots @5gp each to blacksmiths at the Britain forge. Used that gold to fund my scribe/alchemist. Was one of the 1st players on Atlantic with a full spellbook, which I sold copies of for huge sums of gold.

Got the cash up to buy several houses and opened up a scribe/potion/reg vendor in Ocllo.

 

[Nonel]

Pickpocketing.

I'm far from being one of these UO billionaires... but I've got all the gold I'll need for my purposes from selling back the scrolls and equipment I've stolen in Fel.

Anyone who tells you thieves in Fel are only good for stealing potions and bandies are full of it. Though bandies are still my favorite!

 

[THP]

IDOCS as always been a winner.. lot work.. finding them..timing them//etc etc

Placing keeps and castles and selling em good too...again hard on full shards ....but loads of gold...bloody easy but worthless gold on lesser shards.

****Best way to make gold is doing as many EM Events as u can....if u live in the USA definate easy as u have a large pool of shards at regular times....nothing can compare...crazy gold for pixel crack...and peeps want it bad...just need to get lucky and keep ya nose in the incrowd. ****

 

[Otis Firefly]

1 lucky day! lol
i was able to stealth into magincia fel on napa during the magincia invasion...i had all the rift pillers to myself!! sold for a pretty pennie!!, wish i woulda hung onto 1...and a few good idocs.

 

[Ludes]

Pretty much every gold piece I have came from killing monsters.

 

[ACB1961]

Several things contributed to my success. I've always been in business and those principles work here as well as in the real world. I have one major problem though, I won't cheat. Its been the difference in a few billion at any one time and say 100 billion.

That being said here's what worked for me. Massive amounts of storage have been several billion. I have the first item I ever got in uo, some flasks of oil. The things that people threw on the ground in the first couple of years have made incredible amounts of gold long term. They are about to make even more...

Monster gold. Just straight monster gold, can make you a billion over time. It will take a long time though. Luck is very very good no matter what anyone tells you over say 10k of loot items dropped. It's not all that noticeable for the casual player, but serious folks will definitely be able to tell say 800-1200 luck over time on their suits with the right monsters.

Town attacks, God I LOVE a town attack. The drops from those things made our family an incredible amount of money.

The most money I ever made in the shortest time was selling millions of imbuing ingredients to large dealers. This was back when I'd get 2k gold for a magical essence. Oh, those were the days.

The second largest amount of money I ever made in a short period was from events like the blue, red, & yellow essences. They are the gift that keeps giving.

Its basically like this. Most of the time you can't make all that much in uo without vendoring things. Then, suddenly something will happen. It will be a shortlived window of time so you have to play a lot. Then, it will be over. Selling items cheaply is good, I do that a lot, but you have to consider the long term.

UO is like anything else in life. You get back what you put into it. If you cheat yourself to billions of gold what have you really gained. You can't run from yourself. No matter what anyone else thinks, you will know you just cheated. It's like 5 guys that run up and gank a real good guy and spend all night telling everyone how great they are. Its just confusing. When you work hard and succeed here or in real life, you get real satisfaction in your accomplishment.

No matter what game we're playing, we always come back to uo because no game has ever completed with the richness or the diversity we found here. This is our home. Our kids grew up in our keeps and castles. We love this game and we have been so blessed that it hasn't closed.

LONG LIVE UO

 

[ACB1961]

I started out selling ingots @5gp each to blacksmiths at the Britain forge. Used that gold to fund my scribe/alchemist. Was one of the 1st players on Atlantic with a full spellbook, which I sold copies of for huge sums of gold.

Got the cash up to buy several houses and opened up a scribe/potion/reg vendor in Ocllo.

Those were good days out in front of the main mage shop in britain selling scrolls and scribing books to people who actually needed our work to stay alive. Thanks for reminding me of it.

 

[Miri of Sonoma]

I am rich beyond imagination because I have made many friends here in Sosaria. Many of whom I have known for over 10 years!

The other riches, eh not so much but I am content with that *smiles*

 

[nynyve]

Through 3M--Miretar's Mining and Manufacturing. I sold many ingots, logs, rocks and stone items when I started out.

Through the tailor bod system--people used to pay a lot for flowered tapestries.

Through selling rare items found at IDOCs.

Unfortunately I don't have the time for any of these at the moment, and I have a large spending habit to support, so I am looking for suggestions.

 

[Uriah Heep]

I'll be very honest; I duped the crap out of castle deeds and sold them back..when that bug was rampant. That gave me my first couple or so billion. That was back late 97 / early 98..if memory serves me correctly.

After that, never did anything like that again, altho we all certainly could. Just looting spawn gold and selling scrolls / items.

Gold became unimportant.

Don't go all High and Mighty on me..there were a LOT of folks who did it.

Yeah there was the castle deed thing. And a fortune to be made in ingots, when the bug existed where you could smelt bods...or so I heard
Nowdays, buy and sell, trade, idoc, Sots and SoAs.

 

[Widow Maker]

Not many would BRAG about it though ...

oooo Snap!

​

You have made the commoner's mistake of confusing "bragging" with being "truthful".

The OP asked..I answered..truthfully.

But then..you have been making a lot of mistakes lately Fayled..

 

[Uriah Heep]

LOL...in the words of Will Sonnet, "no brag, just fact"
We just play with what they code for us

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

You have made the commoner's mistake of confusing "bragging" with being "truthful".

The OP asked..I answered..truthfully.

But then..you have been making a lot of mistakes lately Fayled..

You are making the mistake that "truthful" = not the BAD duping ...
not the bad hacking
not the bad speeding ...


After all ... a LOT of people did it ...

 

[AesSedai]

You are making the mistake that "truthful" = not the BAD duping ...
not the bad hacking
not the bad speeding ...


After all ... a LOT of people did it ...

- Having fully comprehended the thorough definition of 'truthful', all I have to say is...
- So true, as usual, FD.



- Now, I made my 'fortune' by way of due diligence and honest gameplay (my fortune is in the eye of me, the beholder). Truthfully I feel we are all so much the more poor when we have to cheat at a game in order to gain.
Cheating is not a skill / cheating is the kill, imho.

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

- Having fully comprehended the thorough definition of 'truthful', all I have to say is...
- So true, as usual, FD.



- Now, I made my 'fortune' by way of due diligence and honest gameplay (my fortune is in the eye of me, the beholder). Truthfully I feel we are all so much the more poor when we have to cheat at a game in order to gain.
Cheating is not a skill / cheating is the kill, imho.

"AesSedai. Guy killed me, AesSedai. He killed me with an accounting program. How weird is that? I got a short span here. They destroyed my ability to pay for the game, but I have a backup unit. Bottom of the complex, right over the generator. Hard to get to. I know they missed it."
"apologies Firefly"

I'm fading to the void from whence I came AesSedai, better in soul for having known ya ...
*shrugs* just the zeroith law of foundation
a natural turn of the wheel of time

time is the simplest thing, simak


the code must flow


Just in case they didn't

[youtube]mEszTzdUMcY[/youtube]


and the new beat ...
[youtube]vJsEYwguuj8[/youtube]
S_1PssU1a9U

Stay young forever, my Friend
sixminutes at a time
mhcdw0XhUJU

Fayled