Idea's to help new player's

[Wojoe]

I miss the days when most shards were full, And I remember when you could not even place a small house. I think the curve's to high for new player's and I think some of these idea's would help.

1) Give new accounts a advanced character token but not until they pre-pay for 3 months.

2) Make scrolls available, if they can not compete they will not stay...this is and has been one of the biggest failures by EA IMHO.

3) Consider adding Voice Chat to UO..

4) Do something about the game's inflation...prices are impossible to reach as a new player.

5) Advertise. Even if it’s a link to the site, you should try.

6) Do something about cheaters.


I'll add more as I think of them..

you thought's?

 

[Woodsman]

1) Give new accounts a advanced character token but not until they pre-pay for 3 months.

2) Make scrolls available, if they can not compete they will not stay...this is and has been one of the biggest failures by EA IMHO.

You mean powerscrolls? Do you realize how cheap they are these days? I agree that they were a huge mistake, but most are very cheap since there are far fewer players than there were say 5 years ago. New player problems are not tied to the powerscrolls though, the problem is getting new players to care enough to even get to 100 in anything.

3) Consider adding Voice Chat to UO..

Voice chat - there are so many options for people outside of the game to pick from, and it would add more complexity to the UO code to build it in, and the dev team couldn't handle it, not without hiring more people.

What they do need though is a good communication system in-game for people to contact each other. Make the mailboxes more than just fancy looking containers with slightly different permissions. It needs to be system-wide for all players as well. It doesn't have to be fancy - Warcraft shows that simple works just fine for most people.

5) Advertise. Even if it’s a link to the site, you should try.

You have to have something to advertise. IF they update the graphics, then they start to have something to advertise.

As for inflation and cheaters....well, they don't appear too concerned about the first, and as for the second, it would be nice to see another mass deletion/banning.

 

[aarons6]

the main problem with new players isnt anything about gold, or skills, or all that..

its how do you play.. there is NO information on this game straight from EA. no help no guides, nothing..

and that stupid quest the ec gives you when you make a new char isnt that great.


i tried to get my friend to play and first she accidently quit the new player quest and she was wondering why the game was black and white.

she kept saying she cant find out how to turn the color on..

when you cant figure out how to do the simple stuff, the hard stuff isnt even an issue.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

1) Give new accounts a advanced character token but not until they pre-pay for 3 months.

This is too easy button UO. Gaining skills isn't hard.

Better to start new players out with 100K, a decent suit, and some sense of how to earn gold.

Some sense of how to actually play the damn game might be a good idea too.

Also, all new players should start in the EC. Period.

2) Make scrolls available, if they can not compete they will not stay...this is and has been one of the biggest failures by EA IMHO.

Make scrolls more available. As a lure to Fel they failed, and many are still wildly over priced (120 Mysticism, 120 magery).

3) Consider adding Voice Chat to UO..

Hell. No.

Global chat is bad enough since we can't create controllable channels of our own.

Just think of the vile, potty-mouthed cross talk that would go on...

I’ll keep my vent, thankyouverymmuch.

4) Do something about the game's inflation...prices are impossible to reach as a new player.

Absolutely impossible to achieve without server wipes.

5) Advertise. Even if it’s a link to the site, you should try.

*sigh*

I am in favor of some sort of advertising for UO. However, UO isn't really marketable. The CC isn't marketable AT ALL, being stuck at 800x600 windowed. The EC is barely marketable, but only if they "shipped" it with Pinco's UI preinstalled, and did a REAL bug squashing and feature-fixing "sprint."

The biggest screw up EA has done is make it a digital download only. The lack of shelf presence, even if that presence is just a DVD in a fancy sleeve, has hurt it immensely. There are people who like retro games still...

6) Do something about cheaters.

What?! Cal's magnificent spreadsheet wasn't enough?!

/extreme sarcasm

I agree. Mythic needs to do something about this problem other then give us BS lip service.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

there is NO information on this game straight from EA. no help no guides, nothing..

I add NO in-game GM support to all opinions I give out

 

[Tanivar]

You have to have something to advertise. IF they update the graphics, then they start to have something to advertise.

The game has a lot it can advertise.

No levels. You can make friends and can always hunt with them.

Your not locked into a set series of fixed quests to advance in UO.

It has an elaborate in depth crafting system.

Your not locked solid to one character class of skills, you can vary skills.

It's got so much you can do after 13 years of game additions.

There's a quick half dozen features UO could advertise. Many of them features other games don't even have. All they need to do is advertise and point these things out to potential customers. Any gamer who likes more than combat to his game may well stop in to check it out. Not everyone is fixated on super-graphics. A lot of us prefer games that require thinking, tactics, and only insist the graphics are clear & clean. Games that lock you into a set-in-stone path from the instant you create a set-in-stone character are of no interest.

 

[Woodsman]

The game has a lot it can advertise.

No levels. You can make friends and can always hunt with them.

Your not locked into a set series of fixed quests to advance in UO.

It has an elaborate in depth crafting system.

Your not locked solid to one character class of skills, you can vary skills.

It's got so much you can do after 13 years of game additions.

There's a quick half dozen features UO could advertise. Many of them features other games don't even have. All they need to do is advertise and point these things out to potential customers. Any gamer who likes more than combat to his game may well stop in to check it out. Not everyone is fixated on super-graphics. A lot of us prefer games that require thinking, tactics, and only insist the graphics are clear & clean. Games that lock you into a set-in-stone path from the instant you create a set-in-stone character are of no interest.

Sum that all up in 30-60 seconds as if it's the back of a game box, or better yet, since UO is digital distribution only, sum that up in a 300x300 pixel ad or a 720x120 pixel ad. Account for the fact that even though you can have a really nice painting, such as what you see on the Japanese UO site at times, at some point potential customers will come into contact with the actual graphics.

I agree with everything you've said, but we are not the target audience since we are already hooked.

People leave Warcraft and other MMOs all the time for other MMOs. Many are restless and bounce around from MMO to MMO. I personally think that if you can get a lot of them into UO, that they'll stick around, especially those who are looking for some kind of presence.

Take housing for instance - most MMOs do a rather crappy version of it, such as Lord of the Rings Online or UO's sister MMO, Camelot, which is slightly better than LOTRO. Neither of those offer any kind of permanent housing and LOTRO's housing is crippled beyond belief. UO on the other hand, you could have a house that was placed over a decade ago and you can do an incredible amount of things with it.

But how do you sell that in a short blurb or a small image or Flash ad to today's MMOers? Without updated graphics, you don't. You sure don't use the CC - people have phones that support higher resolutions than the CC but even the EC without Pinco's mods isn't that much better without newer artwork. With Pnco's UI, you can at least get newer MMOers into an environment that they are somewhat familiar with.

Still, the graphics are going to be a tough sell as they are. It's 2011, we've left our 800x600 and 1024x768 CRTs far behind, and anybody using those resolutions are most likely on a netbook or other smaller notebook.

 

[Jirel of Joiry]

Give them a trial account for any other online RPG. I would not recommend UO. We have no support. Not in-game, not phone, NOT AT ALL.

When a player can harass me for 8 months in game. I have pleaed with EA for help and followed their rules and instuctions to the letter and still nothing.

I'm sorry but I would not subject anyone to EA's lack of support, there for I can not reccomend anyone playing UO.

 

[Madrid]

Some kind of Quest Chain to get a full spellbook, necro book (if chosen), runebook, and full LRC suit. Kind of like the Humility Cloak Quest but on super easy mode.

Too many players return just wanting a full spellbook and an LRC Suit.

Something comparable for other classes: Warrior, Archer, Thrower etc. Some decent weapon and armor that can be viable and get them started.

Similiar one time Quest chain getting those players somewhere in the range of 500k to 1M gold pieces.

I've started over a number of times on other shards and have had a hell of a time getting my characters up and going. I consider myself a powergamer and a good one at that... I know the tricks of the trade but without some proper tools and equipment it can be very slow going.

 

[Madrid]

Still, the graphics are going to be a tough sell as they are. It's 2011, we've left our 800x600 and 1024x768 CRTs far behind, and anybody using those resolutions are most likely on a netbook or other smaller notebook.

I totally agree with this. I'd like nothing more than to see UO get some higher resolution. If anything the option for UOKR or some form of a Titan Quest graphics game engine which is what I thought UOSA was going to be.

When they announced the SA Client I was excited and expecting an improvement to what UOKR offered. Instead it was the opposite the game actually regressed from a visual standpoint.

Bottom line is higher resolution is needed in order to attract new players.

 

[virtualhabitat]

Hey everyone, I am so qualified to give an opinion on this topic. I have been reading extensively for a couple of months here on Stratics and among the very few things on which the posters on this forum agree is that opinions matter most when given by someone who has played longest.

Well, I started my UO journey at the end of this last January. About two months now. Never played before. Heard about it from a co-worker a number of years ago -hey, you can do a search on all of this, I mentioned it in a previous post a few weeks ago. I hope some of you see the humor in that true, but very frustrating last statement.

Anyway, I can report on a few things that address this topic. I finished my scribe mage to all GM. What a useless template that turned out to be. It was my first and it was the recommended mage template given in the game, so I fell for it.

My next was a pure (4 bard skills) bard. Loads of fun that one. I GM'd all her skills in about a week thanks to these forums and the wealth of good information the Stratics netizens donated for my edification.
Seriously, a great template for a newb would be a Bard. They could add it to the menu when you create a character.

My first week two very kind individuals helped me out. I had almost GM'd inscription when I was given an all 70's LRC suit and a check for 60k Also a charger horse statue. This helped me get on my feet pretty quickly.
As of today I have around a three quarters of a million in gold pretty much from hunting and crafting. The 60k was perfect to get me started.

Reading these posts I can say the one thing I wish there was more of is people who are doing stuff I am doing. I want to go to places where my characters can go and I want to go there with other people.

Everyone wants to give me items or gold -even still. I refuse them and I feel bad because I know they are trying to be nice. Then its off to the Abyss with them. Or where ever it is they go to play their game. They know I can't contribute to killing a peerless boss, hell I've never seen one. so I hunt alone and use global chat to ask questions about stuff I encounter.

I went to the EM event last night with my bard. It was a waste of time. the Demon thing was immune to all my GM skills and my earth elementals were doing 5hp per hit. I left to do something else, alone -again.

I don't fault people as I know they try to be kind in the only way they know how -by giving me more stuff/gold. I don't need more gold at the moment, I need people to play with interested in hunting at my ability.

As for game information, I don't think a tutorial could hope to cover it. Maybe something on basic manipulation of menus, avatar and movement, but for the rest of it, it would be a task herculean in magnitude.

First rule in the tutorial should be: When in doubt, click on it to see what happens.

Sorry for the confused mess of thoughts, I might revise or add later.

 

[olduofan]

Some kind of Quest Chain to get a full spellbook, necro book (if chosen), runebook, and full LRC suit. Kind of like the Humility Cloak Quest but on super easy mode.

Too many players return just wanting a full spellbook and an LRC Suit.

Something comparable for other classes: Warrior, Archer, Thrower etc. Some decent weapon and armor that can be viable and get them started.

Similiar one time Quest chain getting those players somewhere in the range of 500k to 1M gold pieces.

I've started over a number of times on other shards and have had a hell of a time getting my characters up and going. I consider myself a powergamer and a good one at that... I know the tricks of the trade but without some proper tools and equipment it can be very slow going.

and rune books like we get on test shard

 

[aarons6]

Hey everyone, I am so qualified to give an opinion on this topic. I have been reading extensively for a couple of months here on Stratics and among the very few things on which the posters on this forum agree is that opinions matter most when given by someone who has played longest.

Well, I started my UO journey at the end of this last January. About two months now. Never played before. Heard about it from a co-worker a number of years ago -hey, you can do a search on all of this, I mentioned it in a previous post a few weeks ago. I hope some of you see the humor in that true, but very frustrating last statement.

Anyway, I can report on a few things that address this topic. I finished my scribe mage to all GM. What a useless template that turned out to be. It was my first and it was the recommended mage template given in the game, so I fell for it.

My next was a pure (4 bard skills) bard. Loads of fun that one. I GM'd all her skills in about a week thanks to these forums and the wealth of good information the Stratics netizens donated for my edification.
Seriously, a great template for a newb would be a Bard. They could add it to the menu when you create a character.

My first week two very kind individuals helped me out. I had almost GM'd inscription when I was given an all 70's LRC suit and a check for 60k Also a charger horse statue. This helped me get on my feet pretty quickly.
As of today I have around a three quarters of a million in gold pretty much from hunting and crafting. The 60k was perfect to get me started.

Reading these posts I can say the one thing I wish there was more of is people who are doing stuff I am doing. I want to go to places where my characters can go and I want to go there with other people.

Everyone wants to give me items or gold -even still. I refuse them and I feel bad because I know they are trying to be nice. Then its off to the Abyss with them. Or where ever it is they go to play their game. They know I can't contribute to killing a peerless boss, hell I've never seen one. so I hunt alone and use global chat to ask questions about stuff I encounter.

I went to the EM event last night with my bard. It was a waste of time. the Demon thing was immune to all my GM skills and my earth elementals were doing 5hp per hit. I left to do something else, alone -again.

I don't fault people as I know they try to be kind in the only way they know how -by giving me more stuff/gold. I don't need more gold at the moment, I need people to play with interested in hunting at my ability.

As for game information, I don't think a tutorial could hope to cover it. Maybe something on basic manipulation of menus, avatar and movement, but for the rest of it, it would be a task herculean in magnitude.

First rule in the tutorial should be: When in doubt, click on it to see what happens.

Sorry for the confused mess of thoughts, I might revise or add later.

what shard you play on?

 

[Calis M^N]

you dont even need shelf space for CD sized box!

i was in my local 'Game' store and saw little hanging cards with codes on them for
Farmville
Facebook
treasure isle i think
and the one most like uo... Rune Scape!

now i aint played RS in a long time but if I remember it was less than bad!

these codes were for game time and like credit things

why couldnt UO do that? one arm on a stand beside the till

thats more advertising than iv seen in about 10 years!

or we as a community could do it hehe

 

[a slave girl]

A lot of good ideas here.

To attract new players though some form of advertising is needed.

In game I idoc and often have items that I don't need myself that I wish I could drop into a community box for newbs or low level players to use.

Set up a couple of drop boxes in New Haven and allow brand new players to take one item from each box.

Maybe set up a small guidebook at each container to recommend what item would work best for their template.

Allow any player to add any amount of the allowed item, for example full spellbooks in the spellbook container. (0 spells being of little use to a new player)

I recall wishing for such high end items as a boat and a full spellbook when I started Pac four years ago, I have plenty of both now that I don't need.

So set up some specific needs donation containers for players who are less than 24 hours old to equip themselves from.

I'd be able to help keep the ones on a couple of shards stocked with new player helper items.


Separate containers for all full basic spellbooks (not specialty ones)

Boat box

Head armor box
Neck armor box
Chest armor box
Leg armor box
Hand armor box
Arms armor box

Ring box
Bracelet box

Weapon box
Shield box

 

[Woodsman]

you dont even need shelf space for CD sized box!

i was in my local 'Game' store and saw little hanging cards with codes on them for
Farmville
Facebook
treasure isle i think
and the one most like uo... Rune Scape!

now i aint played RS in a long time but if I remember it was less than bad!

these codes were for game time and like credit things

why couldnt UO do that? one arm on a stand beside the till

thats more advertising than iv seen in about 10 years!

or we as a community could do it hehe

EA has quite a business revolving around those codes:

EA Store (US) Online Store

 

[silent]

Hey everyone, I am so qualified to give an opinion on this topic. I have been reading extensively for a couple of months here on Stratics and among the very few things on which the posters on this forum agree is that opinions matter most when given by someone who has played longest.

Well, I started my UO journey at the end of this last January. About two months now. Never played before. Heard about it from a co-worker a number of years ago -hey, you can do a search on all of this, I mentioned it in a previous post a few weeks ago. I hope some of you see the humor in that true, but very frustrating last statement.

Anyway, I can report on a few things that address this topic. I finished my scribe mage to all GM. What a useless template that turned out to be. It was my first and it was the recommended mage template given in the game, so I fell for it.

My next was a pure (4 bard skills) bard. Loads of fun that one. I GM'd all her skills in about a week thanks to these forums and the wealth of good information the Stratics netizens donated for my edification.
Seriously, a great template for a newb would be a Bard. They could add it to the menu when you create a character.

My first week two very kind individuals helped me out. I had almost GM'd inscription when I was given an all 70's LRC suit and a check for 60k Also a charger horse statue. This helped me get on my feet pretty quickly.
As of today I have around a three quarters of a million in gold pretty much from hunting and crafting. The 60k was perfect to get me started.

Reading these posts I can say the one thing I wish there was more of is people who are doing stuff I am doing. I want to go to places where my characters can go and I want to go there with other people.

Everyone wants to give me items or gold -even still. I refuse them and I feel bad because I know they are trying to be nice. Then its off to the Abyss with them. Or where ever it is they go to play their game. They know I can't contribute to killing a peerless boss, hell I've never seen one. so I hunt alone and use global chat to ask questions about stuff I encounter.

I went to the EM event last night with my bard. It was a waste of time. the Demon thing was immune to all my GM skills and my earth elementals were doing 5hp per hit. I left to do something else, alone -again.

I don't fault people as I know they try to be kind in the only way they know how -by giving me more stuff/gold. I don't need more gold at the moment, I need people to play with interested in hunting at my ability.

As for game information, I don't think a tutorial could hope to cover it. Maybe something on basic manipulation of menus, avatar and movement, but for the rest of it, it would be a task herculean in magnitude.

First rule in the tutorial should be: When in doubt, click on it to see what happens.

Sorry for the confused mess of thoughts, I might revise or add later.

Thanks for the look into how a new player sees the game now. Just be thankful you don't have to run around chopping wood and making tables and shields to sell to NPCs. And also bashing slimes and rats.

 

[Viquire]

Thanks for the look into how a new player sees the game now. Just be thankful you don't have to run around chopping wood and making tables and shields to sell to NPCs. And also bashing slimes and rats.

cutting band aids one by one. Gor blimey I hated that.

 

[olduofan]

cutting band aids one by one. Gor blimey I hated that.

Maybe some day they will nerf making aids. I say make it so you have to shear sheep then use wheel after that loom and cut cloth combine saltpeter 25 per a aid with a 75% fail rate at 120 forensic evaluation and a 1% bonus to success if you have 120 camping. I really fill making aids has gotten FAR TO EASY.


edit also if pure warriors want to use aids they should have to have 120 forensic evaluation and can only carry 5 MAX. nobody in uo likes the melee type any how.

 

[Tanivar]

I don't fault people as I know they try to be kind in the only way they know how -by giving me more stuff/gold. I don't need more gold at the moment, I need people to play with interested in hunting at my ability.

Most playera have been in this game for years and hunt high-end monsters. Try talking with people you see mining or logging in game, someone into playing Crafters. They would tend to hunt low-end monsters.

I have played since 2000, and since I'm heavily into Crafting, I tend to hunt dragons on down for hides, harpys for feathers, and things I run into mining & logging. I imagine their will be other players like me on whatever shard you play. Not all of us old timers are into supermonster hunting.

 

[Calis M^N]

yea i remeber the one by one method that was fun....

 

[olduofan]

We also need to change the opening movie. I is very miss leading if you watch it one would be lead to believe its about alchemy and melee warriors BAHH HA HA those are the weakest combat skills in UO. lol

 

[Tox The Murder]

IMAO all EA cares about is their money....they've sent this game down...Yes i've had LOTS of fun with it but it is not the same as it was 13 years ago. I'm not saying to bring back all fel but they got to do something soon.... , ADVERTISE People will come back. Rates will be soaring again... Just my opinion

 

[virtualhabitat]

To address a couple of posts:
@ Silent and Tanivar- While I haven't had to bash slimes or rats, I did run around and chop wood. At least half my gold came from selling bows and plain wood. Too expensive to buy the stuff. I also have spent a few days doing nothing but gather cotton. I gm'd tailoring for free and bought a 120 scroll for 99k from wood profits and now I have a 120 tailor.

All of this isn't because I especially like crafting, but rather I need to make my own stuff because either no one sells it (as in the case of ordinary horned/barbed armor) or it's too expensive. Not much to choose from on most vendors when a piece of armor starts at 10-20k and can go as high as, well pretty high. There are exceptions of course, but very few and far in between.

Some of these things are not as big of an issue now. I have what I figure is good enough armor for PvM on all my characters.

So three days ago I started a tamer with an advanced character token. Up to 90.8 skill so far. Maybe in a couple of weeks I will be able to take on something bigger. I was intending to make an archer too. Perhaps I will have better luck with them.

I still like the bard though. Too bad it's no good for large game.

 

[Tanivar]

I still like the bard though. Too bad it's no good for large game.

I am training up a Bard that has the four Bard skills, Mysticism, Focus, and Resist magic. He should be able to kill things fairly easily.

Use Provoke to make other monsters target the large game your hunting to keep it off you and to wear down it's hit points.

Discording your target will make it more vulnerable to the other monsters attacks.

Peace your target and you will have several seconds to whomp on it or have time to heal yourself.

I don't know what combat skill you gave your Bard but Mysticism, while it has no travel magic, winds up becoming very powerful once you can cast Bombard reliably. It only needs Focus to go with it, unlike Magery which needs Evaluate Intelligence and Meditation or Focus. Travel can be accomplished by using a Runebook charged with Recall Scrolls, which is what I have my Bard using to get around. Your Scribe can make the Runebooks and the Recall Scrolls to vharge it with.

A Bard can be a very potent hunter by using other monsters to fight his opponet, provided he has a way to finish off the last aggressive monster.

If it gets to the point your Bard is in deep puppy chow, do an Area peace by casting Peace on yourself which stops all combat for a few moments and head for the hills. Once you catch your breath, go back down and try the fight again.

 

[Tanivar]

On the cost of things. You can make some serious gold at times by watching the Alchemist Vendor bottle prices in Luna. A NPC vendor buys things for 75% of the price he sells things for. I have found Luna Alchemist vendors paying 40 or 50 gold per bottle sold to them and taken a pack animal to other towns, bought bottles at 5-10 gold each and taken them to that Luna vendor and sold them there.

The NPC vendors price changes by one gold up or down for every 1000 pieces that he sells or buys, but buying 1000 bottles for 5 gold each and selling them (in batches of 499 or less) at 40 gold each turns the 5000 gold you spent on the bottles into 40,000 gold once thier sold. Make the trip between vendors selling bottles cheaply to the Luna one paying a higher price several times and it will add up. With rich players willing to drive up the bottle price at Luna, watching that price and selling cheap bottles there can do wonders for the pile of gold in your bankbox.

 

[aarons6]

On the cost of things. You can make some serious gold at times by watching the Alchemist Vendor bottle prices in Luna. A NPC vendor buys things for 75% of the price he sells things for. I have found Luna Alchemist vendors paying 40 or 50 gold per bottle sold to them and taken a pack animal to other towns, bought bottles at 5-10 gold each and taken them to that Luna vendor and sold them there.

The NPC vendors price changes by one gold up or down for every 1000 pieces that he sells or buys, but buying 1000 bottles for 5 gold each and selling them (in batches of 499 or less) at 40 gold each turns the 5000 gold you spent on the bottles into 40,000 gold once thier sold. Make the trip between vendors selling bottles cheaply to the Luna one paying a higher price several times and it will add up. With rich players willing to drive up the bottle price at Luna, watching that price and selling cheap bottles there can do wonders for the pile of gold in your bankbox.

i thought they changed this awhile ago so vendors no longer buy back things at a higher price no matter what the selling price was?

before you could make over 1m a day buying cloth from a tailor and selling bandages to the healers..

i wonder if a newer patch undid this?

 

[Tanivar]

i thought they changed this awhile ago so vendors no longer buy back things at a higher price no matter what the selling price was?

before you could make over 1m a day buying cloth from a tailor and selling bandages to the healers..

i wonder if a newer patch undid this?

The change was made a few months back raising the price a NPC vendor paid for a specific item up to 75% of the price that specific item is being sold for. It makes selling crafted goods a profitable venture now.

I haven't tried the cloth/bandages idea but I would imagine if the bandage price has been driven up enough while the tailor's price for cloth hasn't been, it could be a moneymaker.

 

[virtualhabitat]

@Tanivar- I paired magery and med with the bard skills. In the spellcasting forum there isn't a thread for learning mysticism. or if there is I don't know where. I understand how a bard works, and I would be happy to provoke something on something bigger, but as in the case of last night's em event, nothing to provoke onto the big demon. Discord at 100 has no effect. direct peace has no effect, and area peace just pisses off all the tamers.

I was in destard today with the bard. dragons are not too much of a problem. Greater dragons are. Bard skills at 100 simply don't work on greater dragons -at all. area peace being the exception. Unfortunately area peace is not really good for killing greater dragons. I was able to provoke a drake onto a greater dragon once (it actually lets me attempt that combo) the drake died really fast. I will save money and buy bard scrolls.
until then I will use a tamer when I get a pet that can kill one. Hoping an archer will do the job too.

It's not a rant against bards, just pointing out how weird it all is.

As for buying and selling, I spent considerable time going to felucca towns buying some things and returning to trammel towns to sell them. works well. At one point I was in luna selling bottles to the alchemists and I went over to buy a bag from the provisioner. I saw bottles for sale @ 3gp per on the provisioner and sold them on the alchemist for 20gp just a few steps away. I guess people forgot that provisioners sold bottles. This is not sustainable however. there comes a point where you exhaust vender buying and selling as the prices start to equalize.

I am responding to this and a couple of other threads like it with the intent to offer a point of view. Many of the templates suggested when making a character seem to be marginal at best. The mage template as mentioned before. I appreciate the advice on how to look at making character templates, making gold, etc, but have a look in the profession forums here and you will see that I am following advices already. (take no offense, I will look into the mystic too)

What I have noticed on suggested templates on the profession forums, is that very few primary skills are designed to be at 100 skill points. This is fine I suppose, if this was intended, but in the case of my bard, I will have to save somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 or 7 million gold just for skill scrolls. -And that's a cheaper template. For a mage template it's easily triple that. So I save money...

In no way does this detract from the fun I am having learning the game. After reading many posts here on many subjects, I want to point out that my observations are not meant to be construed as frustrations.

I will eventually find a guild, people to play with regularly, and so on. What my goal here on this thread is to say that from my perspective, UO is a somewhat solitary experience. I can see that it isn't intended to be so, but until I catch up, it is for me.

 

[Kellgory]

I remember starting out about 6 years ago, and creating a char in Haven and doing the mini-quest for chiv. It basically gave the basics and the rest you had to learn on your own. I remember someone giving my char 1k in gold the first day and I ran over to the NPC and bought armor and weapons. Then I started buying skills. Swords...check, blacksmithing...why not, archery...cool. When I ran out of money I would run out of town and kill monsters and then run back into town and buy more skills. That is until I got the message about reaching the 700 skill limit. That would have been nice to know before I spent all my gold. I think I played a month before I had enough money to buy a 7x7 house. And it wasn't until about 3 months later until I ran into a guild doing a group hunt and ended up joining their guild and they took the time to teach me about resists, skills, training, and the most important lesson...there is a thing called a runebook and you can recall to places. Before that I was running everywhere. I did end up buying a UO Blackthorne's Revenge guide book but it was a little outdated but still helpful. The UO website really didn't help and eventually I found this website. You should have seen some of my first posts...talk about dumb questions. Good thing Stratics crashed and those posts are gone.

 

[Tanivar]

Closest thing I know of to a guide to training Mysticism is at Mysticism - UOGuide, the Ultima Online encyclopedia . I usually just NPC train in a skill and let it go up using it while playing. Why some skills took me years to train up all the way.

Magery gets a power boost from Evaluate Intelligence which you are not using. That makes your main Magery attack spells Mind Blast (uses intelligence stat, not eval skill), Poison, and the 8th level summoning skills.

Myticism requires the Stygian Abyss expansion and can be NPC trained up to 25 to 30 skill at the magic shop in Ter-Mur which has a moongate just outside it. The NPC Ortlem, outside the shop, has a quest that will give you a useful item for training most skills.

Another place you can hunt dragons is at the Fire temple on Avatar Island. If you have a Dungeon Runebook, it is in the center of the island the rune to Hythloth Dungeon takes you to.

Greater Dragons are not easy to kill. I've only done it once without using a tamer with another greater dragon to do it. There are those who can do it without much trouble, but I'm not one of them. <chuckles>

UO is a sandbox game, a world your characters will be living in. it's not got the standard set series of quests you do to advance in most games so it's got a serious learning curve. You sound willing to climb that curve so I suspect you will do well. If you have questions that don't need an immediate answer, click on my name on a forum post, choose the contact info tab, and send me a PM (personal message). I'll answer if I can.

Have fun.

 

[Tina Small]

So three days ago I started a tamer with an advanced character token. Up to 90.8 skill so far. Maybe in a couple of weeks I will be able to take on something bigger.

Virtualhabitat, just in case you decide for some reason to start another tamer on the same shard or another, you may want to read two rather lengthy posts I made in the Tamer's forum about a year ago regarding how to start such a character off very cheaply without the use of an advanced character token.

The first post about how to get the character started and acquire your first good pets for hunting with to make some gold is here: http://vboards.stratics.com/1594112-post2.html and the other one with some ideas on what to tame when is here: http://vboards.stratics.com/1737829-post4.html.

These are certainly not the definitive answer on how to build a tamer, but might be of interest for someone who doesn't mind a slower pace and a lower total cost for the process. I've followed these general guidelines many, many times in my quest to eventually have a peace tamer on every shard and to do it as cheaply as I possibly can.

 

[Cailleach]

@Tanivar- I paired magery and med with the bard skills. In the spellcasting forum there isn't a thread for learning mysticism. or if there is I don't know where. I understand how a bard works, and I would be happy to provoke something on something bigger, but as in the case of last night's em event, nothing to provoke onto the big demon. Discord at 100 has no effect. direct peace has no effect, and area peace just pisses off all the tamers.

I was in destard today with the bard. dragons are not too much of a problem. Greater dragons are. Bard skills at 100 simply don't work on greater dragons -at all. area peace being the exception. Unfortunately area peace is not really good for killing greater dragons. I was able to provoke a drake onto a greater dragon once (it actually lets me attempt that combo) the drake died really fast. I will save money and buy bard scrolls.
until then I will use a tamer when I get a pet that can kill one. Hoping an archer will do the job too.

It's not a rant against bards, just pointing out how weird it all is.

As for buying and selling, I spent considerable time going to felucca towns buying some things and returning to trammel towns to sell them. works well. At one point I was in luna selling bottles to the alchemists and I went over to buy a bag from the provisioner. I saw bottles for sale @ 3gp per on the provisioner and sold them on the alchemist for 20gp just a few steps away. I guess people forgot that provisioners sold bottles. This is not sustainable however. there comes a point where you exhaust vender buying and selling as the prices start to equalize.

I am responding to this and a couple of other threads like it with the intent to offer a point of view. Many of the templates suggested when making a character seem to be marginal at best. The mage template as mentioned before. I appreciate the advice on how to look at making character templates, making gold, etc, but have a look in the profession forums here and you will see that I am following advices already. (take no offense, I will look into the mystic too)

What I have noticed on suggested templates on the profession forums, is that very few primary skills are designed to be at 100 skill points. This is fine I suppose, if this was intended, but in the case of my bard, I will have to save somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 or 7 million gold just for skill scrolls. -And that's a cheaper template. For a mage template it's easily triple that. So I save money...

In no way does this detract from the fun I am having learning the game. After reading many posts here on many subjects, I want to point out that my observations are not meant to be construed as frustrations.

I will eventually find a guild, people to play with regularly, and so on. What my goal here on this thread is to say that from my perspective, UO is a somewhat solitary experience. I can see that it isn't intended to be so, but until I catch up, it is for me.

If you're playing on Europa, shout on general chat for a SAOR member and we'll help you get sorted with the bard scrolls you need, as well as anything else.

The other thing we can do is take you along to hunts. I've had 'young' players out smacking on high end spawn, just cos they were with us and that's where we happened to be. You might die if we can't get a heal on you fast enough, but there's no reason you shouldn't come along as long as you're with folks who'll watch your back

 

[Wojoe]

I think revising the options and skills screens would help also, The skill screen should be more like what UO Assist offers. The macro screen has the giant list from hell that should be broken into sub groups. Better maps would be great to, maybe one that shows the dungeon locations.

Information should be in-game not on-line. You can not expect a new player to understand anything and the more information they can get in-game the better.

Site's like Stratics, UO Guide even voice chat programs all take away from the game, the point is to be able to play and excel without discovering you need outside help (no offence) You cant expect new people to go outside the game for information, Something all us vets take for granted.

I think Skill Scrolls need to be made available to everyone. The dev's should never have limited peoples ability to gain skill and should have thought up something else to PVP for. Back in the day, The cool thing about Order/Chaos was people just joined to fight. Factions failed to keep that alive and now PVP is item/reward based, Hence the massive guilds that new players are excluded from. I cant think of one leet PVP guild that takes on new player's so that part of the game is hopeless for them.

More to come...