Old player returns to Chessie & gets dirtnapped by Reds

[Tanivar]

I just returned to UO & am on the Chessie Shard. What is with all the Red [Hostile] Innocents in Britain, the Crimson Dragon who just stood in the door of the Moonglow regeant shop and killed my Pally/Archer, and why have the red named Wandering Healers turned aggressive? One decided about two hours ago to be different and nuked my passing Crafter with a beetle-load of Anniversary & Seniority items under him then stayed by the body until I lost the gear.

Whats the storyline with all this and what else is laying in ambush for returning players? <g>
I loved being able to put up a 14x14 house in a good spot in a matter of fifteen minutes of play, but I'm developing a bit of paranoia about using the runebooks I have. I arrive in towns with only blue & yellow NPCs or with reds included.

I'm using the Samuri Empire level Client until KR goes for sale.

 

[Tancred RedStar]

Welcome back Tanivar!

The War of Shadows has begun(began last month). Whenever an "evil" faction(Minax or Shadowlords) captures a town in Felucca, the same town in Trammel comes under attack by their forces. This invasion corrupts all the NPC townsfolk into being either aggressive(Hatred) so they attack you, cowardly so they run away from you, or false to where they will attempt to steal items from you(insured and blessed items protected of course). Sounds like you encountered a town that was under attack and all the residents had been corrupted by Hatred. In addition, there will be enemy troops to be found in the towns with varying levels of rank(and loot, if defeated). When the forces are on the brink of defeat, a Crimson Dragon is sent to help them, namely kill you and any other nearby players.

Some towns are outside of the conflict and always safe, such as Jhelom, Nujelm and Serpent's Hold. As a word of caution, Skara Brae, Moonglow, Britain and Trinsic are the most often under attack.

Also, the Kingdom Reborn client is completely free to use. It is just a new game client, more 3D, initially meant to replace the old 2D client, but many people still prefer 2D to the new one. It's free to download and try from UO.com and your username and password to log into the game are still the same.

Perhaps you were thinking of the Stygian Abyss expansion? It will cost money when it is released sometime in 2009 and will feature new lands, skills, dungeons and even a new playable race - Gargoyles. Not sure how long you have been gone from UO, but you can currently be an elf, altho this will require the Mondain's Legacy Expansion, but also allows you to use some of the new craftable item recipes, enter the new Peerless dungeons, wear quivers on your archer and use talismans for added crafting and slayer benefits.

If you have any questions at all, please post them here! Glad to see you back

 

[Tanivar]

I left when the Punkbuster patches for the Client were about to be done. I didn't like the idea of having anything other than an anti-virus program freely exploring my system. ML had recently been released.

I've currently got a full cast of six characters though I may shift some skills around. If I add an Elf I'll have to get the 7th character setup. Might be worth it since it includes 20% more storage. Shoot, I might need the seventh character if they added more Crafting Skills.

Your name seriously rang a bell. My T-hunter and Bard/Tamer went on some of the hunts the Guild your with did. Good UO memories there. Once I get macros set back up and get used to the game interface again I'll wander that way again. I was registered on your Guilds message board and the IMs are still good.

I'm a big fan of the 2D clients. Unless KR 3D is a lot better than the past ones were, I'll stick with 2D. Since KR isn't a buy item I'll get ML and see what it did for Crafting. That's *the* big plus to UO in my opinion. Guess I'm more of a Maker than a Breaker.

Back to mugging monsters so I can finish the House.

Later

 

[Tancred RedStar]

You might also want to consider soulstones to save skills you have worked up, then delete a character to free up a slot and start a new one and put those skills on him rather than buy the 7th character slot. Soulstones, especially the fragments which are good for 5 uses, can be had fairly cheaply for gold if you shop around.

Also, since youve been gone a while, an excellent resource for learning about new items and such is UOGuide.com which is the largest UO-related Wiki out there and often very up to date.

I was away for a while myself, but have returned and even had a few events at the Red Wolf Cafe. Keep your eyes open if youre interested in upcoming events, especially once the holidays are over. Be sure to let me know if you need a hand or some advice.

 

[Tanivar]

You might also want to consider soulstones to save skills you have worked up, then delete a character to free up a slot and start a new one and put those skills on him rather than buy the 7th character slot. Soulstones, especially the fragments which are good for 5 uses, can be had fairly cheaply for gold if you shop around.

Also, since youve been gone a while, an excellent resource for learning about new items and such is UOGuide.com which is the largest UO-related Wiki out there and often very up to date.

I was away for a while myself, but have returned and even had a few events at the Red Wolf Cafe. Keep your eyes open if youre interested in upcoming events, especially once the holidays are over. Be sure to let me know if you need a hand or some advice.

I got ML, the 7th character/Storage boost pack, and two soulstones last night. Gave me three whole soulstones to transfer skills with, and the five fragments that hadn't been in the nuked beetle to store skills in.

My Archers skills are now stored and he's back to being a spellslinger. All six are going to be magic-users again. I'll have a father & daughter pair of Crafters, a T-hunter, a Bandage & Spell Healer Combat-Medic type who likes to fish, a Tamer with good magery and a Bard who will need to relearn his magery.

UOguide.com didn't have anything about the current macro system. Is there a How-to on macroing somewhere? I'm rustier on it than I had any idea I'd be. Seems to be changes to the selections as well. Fighting with icons from the spellbook at the bottom of the screen is to slow.

 

[Tancred RedStar]

Wow, sounds like you have a great plan and know where youre headed!

The macro interface is badly in need of an overhaul. It's scrunched up and the descriptions for the various functions are a bit cryptic. I know for setting spellcasting macros, go to the Macros tab in the Options menu, click New, assign a key for the macro, select CastSpell on the left dropdown menu and then choose a spell in the right dropdown menu and click Apply.

The same pretty much goes for using various kills. Having a macro for Hiding and Detect Hidden for use in your home are handy.

LastSpell and LastObject are both useful in many situations as well.

Hope this helps get you going, sorry I'm not the expert, I bet some of the pvp-type people could provide more insight on some of the other possibilities.

 

[Tanivar]

The spell attack macroes were easy enough. My problem was the more elaborate ones which also proved easy once the thought of UOAssist strolled out of my memory. My Combat Medic and Tamer characters had their bandaging rigged up using UOA and my resource gatherers had some macroes set up to cut down on the keyboarding involved in play. My old hands just don't like all the key pressing so anything I can automate into a few keypresses is a good thing.

I was trying to get an idea of prices for Vendors last night and today. There are no longer vendors everywhere anymore other than around Luna, and even that has lessened or the vendors are empty. Did running vendors get changed over the last few years to discourage them? I built the house to allow for 12-18 vendors in front and should be able to find products to put on all of them with ML's added items.

I rolled up a 7th character today and found that the soulstones won't trim off the excess points, but just require the character be powerscrolled enough to take them. Right now my elf is using magery until I can turn up a vendor somewhere that carries 110 powerscrolls for when I have the gold again. I moved the fishing to him to restore my Medics Focus skill.

My only real gripe with the game so far, other than the nuked betle, is that logs and ore no longer pile up on the ground once the pack is full. That had been a nice feature. Made foraging much less hassle. Hopefully they resore that with SA.

Off to fill some potion kegs for the vendors. A Crafters work is never done. <g>