As you may know, I was a long time thief in Ultima Online. I retired from the game about 6 months ago now, but have maintained a presence on Stratics in the OT forum. I recently have been perusing the UO forums again and have been helping out some of the players who are interested in joining the ranks of my former in-game profession.
Over the years of posting on Stratics I would see posts here saying how unfair an advantage thieves had. Many of those times, I would comment that people should learn the mechanics of the game. This was a completely honest way of telling the poster that if you knew how the game mechanics worked, you could easily play the game without being stolen from. After my initial run ins with the thief profession early in my playing days (the reason I became a thief, lol), I don’t believe I was ever stolen from when I didn’t want to be. I recently decided that I would help out those of you who for years were tormented by me and/or my brethren. Some may say I have broken the thieves code, and maybe I have, but to those players...I don't play UO anymore, and thus the code does not apply.
So here goes:
Be advised, no matter what you think, if you are in a facet that allows thieving, there is a high probability that a thief that has gone through your pack and you haven’t even known it. There are many of us who will/would only show ourselves when we are in the process of stealing, so by that time, it’s usually too late.
These are just a few of the tips I have and will come back from time to time to add more, but this is a good start for now…Enjoy…la
Over the years of posting on Stratics I would see posts here saying how unfair an advantage thieves had. Many of those times, I would comment that people should learn the mechanics of the game. This was a completely honest way of telling the poster that if you knew how the game mechanics worked, you could easily play the game without being stolen from. After my initial run ins with the thief profession early in my playing days (the reason I became a thief, lol), I don’t believe I was ever stolen from when I didn’t want to be. I recently decided that I would help out those of you who for years were tormented by me and/or my brethren. Some may say I have broken the thieves code, and maybe I have, but to those players...I don't play UO anymore, and thus the code does not apply.
So here goes:
Be advised, no matter what you think, if you are in a facet that allows thieving, there is a high probability that a thief that has gone through your pack and you haven’t even known it. There are many of us who will/would only show ourselves when we are in the process of stealing, so by that time, it’s usually too late.
- If you play on a production shard, keep everything you don’t want to have stolen, insured. It’s as simple as that. Keep your insurance in constant renewal, if not, you can bet, if a thief is around, they will attempt to steal something.
- Don’t waste your time with a bunch of seeded packs inside your main pack, a good thief can snoop through them all in a matter of seconds, and if your packs are all seeded together, a looter can come by and take everything in on grab.
- You may or not know of the thief “feature” which allows a thief to keep a stolen item even after death. The only way you will be able to get this item back if they haven’t insured it is to kill them again. Once the item is stolen, it will stay in their pack. I used to make sure I never took a rez from one of my marks because I knew if they killed me, they could loot the original item I stole from them from my fresh corpse.
- Never give a player one of your items for them to look at. You may think “duh”, but too many times have I heard stories of players simply giving a high end item to another player who turns out to be a scammer or a thief.
- Stay moving. If a player pops out of stealth or hiding, move in the opposite direction. If a thief is not within a single tile from your pack, they cannot steal anything from you, and will get a message stating so. This causes their stealing timer (8 seconds) to reset and gives you time to get out of the area, or kill the thief.
- If you are in an area you plan to hang around for a little while, to prevent a thief from keeping your pack open, use hide or the invis spell to make them re-snoop you. The minute you do, your pack will close on their screen.
- If you are shopping at a vendor house that is in Fel, know your surroundings before you buy anything. Know the quickest route to the bank. If you are going to recall out, have your book open and cast the spell as soon as the purchase is made as there is a short timer that won’t allow items recently purchased or traded to be stolen. Also, while shopping, stay hidden. If your pack is hidden, a thief cannot steal from you. When I would see a message on the forum that a specific item was for sale at a specific vendor, I would run there and hide. I would open the vendor and set the item as my last target while it was still on the vendor. Once someone came to buy it, I could do a run by steal of that item after I saw that the sale was made. Again, if the player was not visible, I could not do this.
- If you know a thief is in the area, and you know there aren’t any notos around. Kill the thief. Most thieves have used most of their skill points to build up stealing, stealth, hiding and snooping. Most thieves cannot kill a typical fighter or mage without assistance.
- Mages: Keep your regs (if you carry them) in multiple piles. A thief can steal a large number of regs, but if they are piled in multiple groups of 10 or so, it doesn’t allow them to take all of a particular type of regent and eliminate the use of a number of different spells.
- Fighters and healers: Same thing goes for your band aids keep multiple piles of them so a thief cannot take all of your aids in one foul swoop. This ploy also makes it more difficult for players to dry loot your corpse since they will have to take each pile of band aids or regs separately.
These are just a few of the tips I have and will come back from time to time to add more, but this is a good start for now…Enjoy…la