S
shawnee6d
Guest
So last night or this morning I finally reached GM lumberjacking 
Wow! What a huge and unexpected difference in my perception of the value of the skill! So first, a couple things I found were very helpful in reaching GM:
1. Maintain as low as possible max skill points. The difference between advancing .1 when your max is at 705 with a skill marked for decreasing, as opposed to dumping skill you aren't using into a soul stone is like night and day. I must have been wailing away on trees for at least 4 months or more before I picked up that bit of knowledge and actually used it.
2. To advance you have to lumberjack ... Alot. Unfortunately, it will seem rather pointless. It get's frustrating getting little more than regular and oak and the occassional Ash logs. I wish the Dev's would allow getting some of the other resources at lower skill levels, ie 85 instead of waiting till GM.
3. It doesn't hurt to couple carpentry or fletching along with lumber jacking as no one needs that many regular boards, LOL.
When I reached GM all these lumber jacking resources that I had heard about, but never actually recieved myself began to appear en mass. Bark fragments, parasitic plants, switches, luminescent fungi, I even got a brilliant amber right away (but haven't got another since). Point here, for me at least, is that until I reached GM lumberjacking was a far more limited skill. After GM, the reasons for toiling away with a luberjack char expand considerably.
Gathering wood and resources: For the vast majority of the time I developed the skill, I stayed in Tramel. I'd gone to felucia a few times, encountered the random bottom feeder who immediately attacks my beetle, kills it and lopes off happily. Enough to discourage anyone from wanting to go to this dubious side of Ultima. However, when the need for colored boards become great enough, I found that Felucia is really the only realistic place to gather logs/boards. So far, I've fared much better by staying away from roads and the sides of mountainous regions. I try to head out to felucia in the wee hours of the morning (My adventures in Iraq, the real world, have left me with far less mobility and far less ability to sleep so for me it's not difficult). Whenever I encounter any non-npc char I leap onto my beetle and make like a rabit back to my safe little mala's home with my boards. It blows to not be able to be open and friendly there, because that is how you'd end up meeting other lumberjacks and learning the lore and such in an in game and friendly way, but the reality is, you really can't afford to take the chance unless you're either keen on PVP type play (I'm not, but many are) or your more exploring than really lumberjacking
. Anyways, if your out for boards in felucia, it pays very much so to be paranoid as killing lumberjacks or at least their pack animal pays for bottom feeder type PVP-ers.
I found that while I want to keep my over all skill points well below the max, it's also important to be able to fight somewhat. Even once I became a bit better at avoiding eveil players, monsters and bandit's populate felcuia just as in Trammel. I tried magery but that alone didn't really do the trick. After all, I'm out to get boards, not be a real mage type char. But I did learn that beign able to cast Mark is kind of important. Building up a minimum competancy in one of the basic weapon skills is easy. I found that it's only neccessary to be able to take down bandit's, the occassional harpy/troll/ogre class of monster. Anything much more requires real effort in that direction and that's not lumberjacking. Then Stygian abyse came along and when I upgraded I got a couple of those Vollem in a crystal goodies. It's really hard to figure out what is in the crystal, in terms of it's value and if you've played UO long enough, you know some things are more valuable kept un-opened than afterwards. So it was awhile before I used the crystal and found a valued ally! That vollem, while not the ultimate tammer pet, is really a god send for mule type characters. It instantly bounds, has enough skill to wipe bandits and lesser monsters out of your way, and takes little play skill to use. Just tell it to gaurd you and your off. I went ahead and bought the max available animal lore and vet skill and have spent a tad bit of time getting comforable using it. Make a couple macros (enhanced client) to heal, cast heal, cast cure, and such. Word of warning. Vollem's are very weak against poisen so if possible avoid fighting critters that are keen on poisening their target. In that case, it's better to beam out, then cast cure till your vollem is not poisened. Happily, I've found most of the spots I end up lumbering away at are shy of poiseners, sans PVP chars.
So with my mighty Vollem pet protecting me, plus a moderate skill in archery, magery, and a Use best weapon skill axe I found that I was really able to get in and chop tree's!
Next I found that, despite them changign from time to time, it really pays to markt he location of tree's that yield Yew and Ash. I haven't hit any of the higher end woods yet, but I'm sure I will. FYI: you can't get those till your GM. Bummer, but there it is. Also I found that eve before you are GM you can get the new stygian rare lumber jacking resources at less than GM, if you are chopping tree's in TelMur. DOn't need a gargoyl char to do it, either. I got 1 crystal fragment, but hat was it. One forest later I gave up since I wasn't hitting much in the way of yew or ash and those were really waht I was after. I foudn that in Felucia not only do you get twice the boards, the trees that give more chop chances are much more frequent as well and since skill gain == chops, that makes felcucia the best place for skill gain as well, IMHO.
So there we have it. A semi-casual player can make it to GM, but it takes a while. Especially if you end up spreading your efforts accross different chars and skills. But honestly it was fun (else why bother). Now I'm gaining the resources that my alchemist needs to be able to make her own scroll's, etc. Very cool. I can now see why buying high end boards and other resources is very expensive indeed. It takes considerable effort to develop a workable lumberjack mule type char, then even more effort to actually accumulate boards, resources, etc. Unless you have infinite time on your hands you have to go to Felucia to mule and doing so rolls in a fair amount of risk, frustration, etc so in the end, the price is naturally quite high. Personally, anyone duping these resources should be shot and hung. The rest of us that are playing by the rules to come by this stuff end up putting quite a bit of effort to do it. ANywyas, for those chopping, happy chopping
Shawnee6d (aka The Mule - pacific)
Wow! What a huge and unexpected difference in my perception of the value of the skill! So first, a couple things I found were very helpful in reaching GM:1. Maintain as low as possible max skill points. The difference between advancing .1 when your max is at 705 with a skill marked for decreasing, as opposed to dumping skill you aren't using into a soul stone is like night and day. I must have been wailing away on trees for at least 4 months or more before I picked up that bit of knowledge and actually used it.
2. To advance you have to lumberjack ... Alot. Unfortunately, it will seem rather pointless. It get's frustrating getting little more than regular and oak and the occassional Ash logs. I wish the Dev's would allow getting some of the other resources at lower skill levels, ie 85 instead of waiting till GM.
3. It doesn't hurt to couple carpentry or fletching along with lumber jacking as no one needs that many regular boards, LOL.
When I reached GM all these lumber jacking resources that I had heard about, but never actually recieved myself began to appear en mass. Bark fragments, parasitic plants, switches, luminescent fungi, I even got a brilliant amber right away (but haven't got another since). Point here, for me at least, is that until I reached GM lumberjacking was a far more limited skill. After GM, the reasons for toiling away with a luberjack char expand considerably.
Gathering wood and resources: For the vast majority of the time I developed the skill, I stayed in Tramel. I'd gone to felucia a few times, encountered the random bottom feeder who immediately attacks my beetle, kills it and lopes off happily. Enough to discourage anyone from wanting to go to this dubious side of Ultima. However, when the need for colored boards become great enough, I found that Felucia is really the only realistic place to gather logs/boards. So far, I've fared much better by staying away from roads and the sides of mountainous regions. I try to head out to felucia in the wee hours of the morning (My adventures in Iraq, the real world, have left me with far less mobility and far less ability to sleep so for me it's not difficult). Whenever I encounter any non-npc char I leap onto my beetle and make like a rabit back to my safe little mala's home with my boards. It blows to not be able to be open and friendly there, because that is how you'd end up meeting other lumberjacks and learning the lore and such in an in game and friendly way, but the reality is, you really can't afford to take the chance unless you're either keen on PVP type play (I'm not, but many are) or your more exploring than really lumberjacking
. Anyways, if your out for boards in felucia, it pays very much so to be paranoid as killing lumberjacks or at least their pack animal pays for bottom feeder type PVP-ers. I found that while I want to keep my over all skill points well below the max, it's also important to be able to fight somewhat. Even once I became a bit better at avoiding eveil players, monsters and bandit's populate felcuia just as in Trammel. I tried magery but that alone didn't really do the trick. After all, I'm out to get boards, not be a real mage type char. But I did learn that beign able to cast Mark is kind of important. Building up a minimum competancy in one of the basic weapon skills is easy. I found that it's only neccessary to be able to take down bandit's, the occassional harpy/troll/ogre class of monster. Anything much more requires real effort in that direction and that's not lumberjacking. Then Stygian abyse came along and when I upgraded I got a couple of those Vollem in a crystal goodies. It's really hard to figure out what is in the crystal, in terms of it's value and if you've played UO long enough, you know some things are more valuable kept un-opened than afterwards. So it was awhile before I used the crystal and found a valued ally! That vollem, while not the ultimate tammer pet, is really a god send for mule type characters. It instantly bounds, has enough skill to wipe bandits and lesser monsters out of your way, and takes little play skill to use. Just tell it to gaurd you and your off. I went ahead and bought the max available animal lore and vet skill and have spent a tad bit of time getting comforable using it. Make a couple macros (enhanced client) to heal, cast heal, cast cure, and such. Word of warning. Vollem's are very weak against poisen so if possible avoid fighting critters that are keen on poisening their target. In that case, it's better to beam out, then cast cure till your vollem is not poisened. Happily, I've found most of the spots I end up lumbering away at are shy of poiseners, sans PVP chars.
So with my mighty Vollem pet protecting me, plus a moderate skill in archery, magery, and a Use best weapon skill axe I found that I was really able to get in and chop tree's!
Next I found that, despite them changign from time to time, it really pays to markt he location of tree's that yield Yew and Ash. I haven't hit any of the higher end woods yet, but I'm sure I will. FYI: you can't get those till your GM. Bummer, but there it is. Also I found that eve before you are GM you can get the new stygian rare lumber jacking resources at less than GM, if you are chopping tree's in TelMur. DOn't need a gargoyl char to do it, either. I got 1 crystal fragment, but hat was it. One forest later I gave up since I wasn't hitting much in the way of yew or ash and those were really waht I was after. I foudn that in Felucia not only do you get twice the boards, the trees that give more chop chances are much more frequent as well and since skill gain == chops, that makes felcucia the best place for skill gain as well, IMHO.
So there we have it. A semi-casual player can make it to GM, but it takes a while. Especially if you end up spreading your efforts accross different chars and skills. But honestly it was fun (else why bother). Now I'm gaining the resources that my alchemist needs to be able to make her own scroll's, etc. Very cool. I can now see why buying high end boards and other resources is very expensive indeed. It takes considerable effort to develop a workable lumberjack mule type char, then even more effort to actually accumulate boards, resources, etc. Unless you have infinite time on your hands you have to go to Felucia to mule and doing so rolls in a fair amount of risk, frustration, etc so in the end, the price is naturally quite high. Personally, anyone duping these resources should be shot and hung. The rest of us that are playing by the rules to come by this stuff end up putting quite a bit of effort to do it. ANywyas, for those chopping, happy chopping
Shawnee6d (aka The Mule - pacific)
