I thought I’d share my personal story of how I managed to make my first billion. I’m hoping newer players will find it useful for their journey. For the vets, hopefully you read this and find it entertaining as you probably forgot what it's like to be a noob! It’s a long story so grab some popcorn and relax! Here it goes.
Starting out: I began my journey on the Atlantic server because I read it was the most active. I also read that a pure paladin was able to slay the nastiest of bosses. I was sold! So Tabin was born as a mace-paladin. Having awful armor, 1k gold and low skill, I wasn't able to do much. I knew the best thing to do was try to get my skills as high as I could by training off skeletons/zombies till 50, ettins till 65ish, earth eles till 70+ etc. I looted all the gold from my kills and prioritized my spending to buy a horse, 40 skills, bandaids, and armor from NPCs.
My first 100k: I managed to save up roughly 30k gold from farming earth eles. I was 80+ fighting skills and healing with both chiv and bandaids. I felt ready for the next step. Time for some better gear. I galloped around towns to player vendors and HOLY-chivalry-smokes! Things were insanely expensive. I asked a player at New Haven bank, how can I afford some better gear? "Behold!" The vendor search option…I found a juicy demon slayer cleaver, picked up the map, compared the map location to a world map, and galloped my noob self over there! (Ya, I didn't know you can recall with the map) I bought that cleaver and was ready to start butchering some demons. I looked up where to find them and it seems demon temple was a good spot. Someone helped me find a rune library and off I went. That's where I started farming demons and made my first 100k. Each slayed demon had 500+ gold and they dropped pretty quickly in a few hits. Soon enough, I bought and placed my very own plot of land.
My first mil: At this point, I joined a guild. Someone was recruiting on general chat and I figured why not! I asked on my new fellow guildies if anyone would like to join me for some demon hunting and demon dinner. I think I heard crickets chirp. No response. So after farming demons by myself for the next few hours, I finally caved and ask, what I should be hunting next. I was told succubus or Miasma. I tried succubus and was successful there. After farming that, I bought a Scorpion slayer scimitar to try out Miasma. (still had no idea about ele wep dmg, dbl strike, and armor ignore). I sacred journeyed to it's lair and sure enough, I got wrecked when I couldn't heal myself. I gave up and went back to killing succubus. Also did Troygs since it's easy and perfect for skill training. I did some reading on stratics and looked at artifacts that I could get. Tybalt's Shadow apparently dropped a robe that would give me free stats. I figured out how to get into The Abyss and I managed to make my way to Tybalt. Not without dying at that tricky invisible walk way though! It took about 5 kills to finally get my first artifact drop worth 700k-1mil!
My first 10mil: One day, I attempted to participate in a guild hunt and was kindly told to sit out because of my gear. A fellow guild mate saw my ridiculous noob armor and offered to give me a new set and explained to me the importance of HLL, HML, and HSL. After he hooked me up, I was rocking a new set of 60s all resist, +HP, +mana, + stam gear. He said the gear he gave me cost about 5mil. He also told me I need to use a weapon with armor ignore. After he told me the best end game weapon and armor typically consist of some crafted gear, I contemplated making my own. I honestly wasn't thrilled because crafting felt like a chore, but I reluctantly created one anyways. (a human crafter...oops!) I was also suggested to try Narvey as a good first boss to defeat. I bought myself a crafted spider slayer bladed staff and off I went. I met up with another newish player and we took her down by jousting her! The entire time he was yelling at me, ROCKS! ROCKS! and running around in circles. I had no idea why until later. I continued to farmed Narvey with other random strangers. I also met my first toxic player...this female character that would call me names and get easy loot/art drops by teleporting in right when Narvey was about 20% HP. Anyways, eventually I got my first Tangle! Took me a week or so of farming it, but it felt great to earn my first big ticket item. I still didn't have 10mil in the bank though. Nope! I didn't want to part with my precious new apron. I kept farming, hoping for a second Tangle while looting every magic item. Every single one. Why? For training my crafter/imbuer of course! After a Narvey kill, I would even sacred journey back for left over loot that other players didn't pick up. Some nice folks realized what a bum I was and started leaving the junk on the ground for me. Then another day, I found a new goldmine for magic loot. My guild did a Scali run and there was sooo much left over loot, I came back with my pack horse. Ya...I was THAT guy. With all the unraveled residues, I looked up how to transfer the material to get 120 imbuing scrolls. I under cut the market and started selling the scrolls for 400k each and that's when money really started raking in. Soon enough, I reached the 10mil mark.
First 100mil: Trying to make 100mil was a huge milestone. A decent set of crafted armor cost 35mil. Slayer bladed staffs were 2mil+. My gear was preventing me from killing anything stronger and at the same time, I couldn't afford better gear! I was stuck farming Narvey for weeks trying to get that second Tangle. To progress, I knew I needed to finish my crafter. I spent a good chunk of gold buying ingots and the 120 power scroll to work my way to legendary status while slowly working on imbuing. Farming Narvey got boring so I started exploring other options. I made a spreadsheet of every valuable artifact drop with info about the boss, weakest resist, where to find it, and the difficulty level. I did more research and figured the next easiest place would be Blackthorns Castle. I found my way to the Captains and got wrecked. I asked stratics pros for help and got some answers, but I still couldn't solo Blackthorn Captains. I did meet another paladin and we were able to farm Blackthorn Captains together by cross healing each other. I also started farming Balrons as an alternative way to get blackthorn arts. I eventually saved up to get a metal version of the mace and shield helm. Around the same time, I hit 3x legendary (BS, tailoring and Imbuing) with my crafter. The world changed for me. I imbued left and right! I crafted budget version of weapons for every specific encounter. I finally had enough LMC to switch builds and try out a sampire. I was envious of how easily they soloed Narvey. After getting past that learning curve of keeping yourself a live and healed with life leech only, I was finally able to start solo Miasmas and Narvey. Next up on the chopping block were Dreadhorn, Paroxy, and Medusa. With some research on stratics, I eventually figured out how to key and kill each of them. Of course, I failed many times along the way. I unfortunately never got anything from Dreadhorn or Medusa but I did get the Crimson Cinture from Paroxy as well as the swamp dragon. I was still far away from breaking 100mil though since I didn't want to part with my treasured loot. I continued my UO research and found other legendaries to farm. I got another crimson cinture, more tangles, and another animated legs of tinkering. I sold those and broke the 100mil mark
First billion: After breaking 100mil and finding a few reliable farm spots, I started optimizing my gear and dropping loads of gold to upgrade everything. I used a spreadsheet to design my armor and artifact set and tested various different setups/builds. I felt good enough to join guild runs with my improved gear. I was excited to end my mostly solo career! ShadowGuard was semi new at the time and it was serious end game content! I took some time to gather the courage and make my first attempt (about 2 months after it came out). I tried it with the large guild and it was a huge disappointment for me. I was the only melee player in the party and everyone else was a summoner/tamer/bard or archer. It wasn't their first time so they knew better. Not knowing what slayers to use or anything, I couldn't do enough damage to keep myself healed. Being in a large group, I also wasn't able to honor any of the bosses. To top it off, I also created a TON of spawn whereas pets for some reason didn't create any. I died and remained so when my guildmates killed the last Shadowguard. Everyone was too busy to res me. A guildmate also complained about the spawn I created and suggested I make a new toon for roof. Afterwards that, I vowed never to do a large group run. I did more research and found out the amount of spawn I created, scaled with the size of the party. Because the spawn was so annoying, almost everyone was using a tamer to farm roof. Still, I guild chatted to see if any one was willing to try a smaller group, but no luck. I felt like my only option was to find a smaller guild, so I reluctantly said a few goodbyes and resigned. I went back to farming crafting material and Narvey, where I bumped into a friend of mine. I convinced him to do Shadowguard with me. He used his tamer and I was on my Sampire. After keying for what felt like an eternity, I suggested we wait for maybe 1 or 2 other players, but he said "lets just try it." When we got in, and we thought "Oh ****. If we die, we wasted our keys" which is typically what happens with other Boss encounters like the peerless. Turns out, you can leave and re-enter...Anyways, not knowing that fact, we powered through it and together (ok 90% of it was all him) and we managed to beat it! It took us 3 long gruesome hours! I didn't run back to town to grab a proper set of weapons so I ended up being the off screen resser. We both didn't get artifact drops (so we thought) and logged out shortly after from UO exhaustion. The next day when I checked my bag, I found a cameo in my backpack. HOLY SMOKES! For some reason, when an artifact from the shadowguard room drops in your bag, it doesn't say "ARTIFACT" in the middle of your screen like I thought it would. I must have missed the text in my chatlog. Getting that cameo was like a drug. I was HOOKED. I was determined to farm ShadowGuard. I did some research, made a new sets of weapons, and convinced some other ShadowGuard-virgins to go with me. I went in with two other tamers. With the proper weapons, the shadowguards dropped much faster! We started doing runs once every other day. The drop rate for artifacts was nuts. Each of us was getting a drop out of every 4 runs. Plus the legendary loot sold for boat loads of gold back then. I ended up joining my friends guild, which really consisted of just 4 or so active players. We got good enough to the point where we could start farming it with just two players and you'd get more loot that way. I sold two arachnid cameos and saved up to afford the ones I needed (demon, undead, repond, reptile). Eventually, I was comfortable enough taking first-timer tamers through and after a run with a really new/under geared one, I realized I could probably solo it. It took me 3 attempts but I did it! ShadowGuard felt end game for me and trying to farm anything else just wasn't economically comparable. With everything I needed for my sampire, I eventually hit the 1bil mark from all the legendary loot and artifact drops. There wasn't much to look forward to beyond that so I gradually started playing less and less. That's when my journey ended, 8 months from the day I started. Thanks for taking the time to read all this =)
Starting out: I began my journey on the Atlantic server because I read it was the most active. I also read that a pure paladin was able to slay the nastiest of bosses. I was sold! So Tabin was born as a mace-paladin. Having awful armor, 1k gold and low skill, I wasn't able to do much. I knew the best thing to do was try to get my skills as high as I could by training off skeletons/zombies till 50, ettins till 65ish, earth eles till 70+ etc. I looted all the gold from my kills and prioritized my spending to buy a horse, 40 skills, bandaids, and armor from NPCs.
My first 100k: I managed to save up roughly 30k gold from farming earth eles. I was 80+ fighting skills and healing with both chiv and bandaids. I felt ready for the next step. Time for some better gear. I galloped around towns to player vendors and HOLY-chivalry-smokes! Things were insanely expensive. I asked a player at New Haven bank, how can I afford some better gear? "Behold!" The vendor search option…I found a juicy demon slayer cleaver, picked up the map, compared the map location to a world map, and galloped my noob self over there! (Ya, I didn't know you can recall with the map) I bought that cleaver and was ready to start butchering some demons. I looked up where to find them and it seems demon temple was a good spot. Someone helped me find a rune library and off I went. That's where I started farming demons and made my first 100k. Each slayed demon had 500+ gold and they dropped pretty quickly in a few hits. Soon enough, I bought and placed my very own plot of land.
My first mil: At this point, I joined a guild. Someone was recruiting on general chat and I figured why not! I asked on my new fellow guildies if anyone would like to join me for some demon hunting and demon dinner. I think I heard crickets chirp. No response. So after farming demons by myself for the next few hours, I finally caved and ask, what I should be hunting next. I was told succubus or Miasma. I tried succubus and was successful there. After farming that, I bought a Scorpion slayer scimitar to try out Miasma. (still had no idea about ele wep dmg, dbl strike, and armor ignore). I sacred journeyed to it's lair and sure enough, I got wrecked when I couldn't heal myself. I gave up and went back to killing succubus. Also did Troygs since it's easy and perfect for skill training. I did some reading on stratics and looked at artifacts that I could get. Tybalt's Shadow apparently dropped a robe that would give me free stats. I figured out how to get into The Abyss and I managed to make my way to Tybalt. Not without dying at that tricky invisible walk way though! It took about 5 kills to finally get my first artifact drop worth 700k-1mil!
My first 10mil: One day, I attempted to participate in a guild hunt and was kindly told to sit out because of my gear. A fellow guild mate saw my ridiculous noob armor and offered to give me a new set and explained to me the importance of HLL, HML, and HSL. After he hooked me up, I was rocking a new set of 60s all resist, +HP, +mana, + stam gear. He said the gear he gave me cost about 5mil. He also told me I need to use a weapon with armor ignore. After he told me the best end game weapon and armor typically consist of some crafted gear, I contemplated making my own. I honestly wasn't thrilled because crafting felt like a chore, but I reluctantly created one anyways. (a human crafter...oops!) I was also suggested to try Narvey as a good first boss to defeat. I bought myself a crafted spider slayer bladed staff and off I went. I met up with another newish player and we took her down by jousting her! The entire time he was yelling at me, ROCKS! ROCKS! and running around in circles. I had no idea why until later. I continued to farmed Narvey with other random strangers. I also met my first toxic player...this female character that would call me names and get easy loot/art drops by teleporting in right when Narvey was about 20% HP. Anyways, eventually I got my first Tangle! Took me a week or so of farming it, but it felt great to earn my first big ticket item. I still didn't have 10mil in the bank though. Nope! I didn't want to part with my precious new apron. I kept farming, hoping for a second Tangle while looting every magic item. Every single one. Why? For training my crafter/imbuer of course! After a Narvey kill, I would even sacred journey back for left over loot that other players didn't pick up. Some nice folks realized what a bum I was and started leaving the junk on the ground for me. Then another day, I found a new goldmine for magic loot. My guild did a Scali run and there was sooo much left over loot, I came back with my pack horse. Ya...I was THAT guy. With all the unraveled residues, I looked up how to transfer the material to get 120 imbuing scrolls. I under cut the market and started selling the scrolls for 400k each and that's when money really started raking in. Soon enough, I reached the 10mil mark.
First 100mil: Trying to make 100mil was a huge milestone. A decent set of crafted armor cost 35mil. Slayer bladed staffs were 2mil+. My gear was preventing me from killing anything stronger and at the same time, I couldn't afford better gear! I was stuck farming Narvey for weeks trying to get that second Tangle. To progress, I knew I needed to finish my crafter. I spent a good chunk of gold buying ingots and the 120 power scroll to work my way to legendary status while slowly working on imbuing. Farming Narvey got boring so I started exploring other options. I made a spreadsheet of every valuable artifact drop with info about the boss, weakest resist, where to find it, and the difficulty level. I did more research and figured the next easiest place would be Blackthorns Castle. I found my way to the Captains and got wrecked. I asked stratics pros for help and got some answers, but I still couldn't solo Blackthorn Captains. I did meet another paladin and we were able to farm Blackthorn Captains together by cross healing each other. I also started farming Balrons as an alternative way to get blackthorn arts. I eventually saved up to get a metal version of the mace and shield helm. Around the same time, I hit 3x legendary (BS, tailoring and Imbuing) with my crafter. The world changed for me. I imbued left and right! I crafted budget version of weapons for every specific encounter. I finally had enough LMC to switch builds and try out a sampire. I was envious of how easily they soloed Narvey. After getting past that learning curve of keeping yourself a live and healed with life leech only, I was finally able to start solo Miasmas and Narvey. Next up on the chopping block were Dreadhorn, Paroxy, and Medusa. With some research on stratics, I eventually figured out how to key and kill each of them. Of course, I failed many times along the way. I unfortunately never got anything from Dreadhorn or Medusa but I did get the Crimson Cinture from Paroxy as well as the swamp dragon. I was still far away from breaking 100mil though since I didn't want to part with my treasured loot. I continued my UO research and found other legendaries to farm. I got another crimson cinture, more tangles, and another animated legs of tinkering. I sold those and broke the 100mil mark
First billion: After breaking 100mil and finding a few reliable farm spots, I started optimizing my gear and dropping loads of gold to upgrade everything. I used a spreadsheet to design my armor and artifact set and tested various different setups/builds. I felt good enough to join guild runs with my improved gear. I was excited to end my mostly solo career! ShadowGuard was semi new at the time and it was serious end game content! I took some time to gather the courage and make my first attempt (about 2 months after it came out). I tried it with the large guild and it was a huge disappointment for me. I was the only melee player in the party and everyone else was a summoner/tamer/bard or archer. It wasn't their first time so they knew better. Not knowing what slayers to use or anything, I couldn't do enough damage to keep myself healed. Being in a large group, I also wasn't able to honor any of the bosses. To top it off, I also created a TON of spawn whereas pets for some reason didn't create any. I died and remained so when my guildmates killed the last Shadowguard. Everyone was too busy to res me. A guildmate also complained about the spawn I created and suggested I make a new toon for roof. Afterwards that, I vowed never to do a large group run. I did more research and found out the amount of spawn I created, scaled with the size of the party. Because the spawn was so annoying, almost everyone was using a tamer to farm roof. Still, I guild chatted to see if any one was willing to try a smaller group, but no luck. I felt like my only option was to find a smaller guild, so I reluctantly said a few goodbyes and resigned. I went back to farming crafting material and Narvey, where I bumped into a friend of mine. I convinced him to do Shadowguard with me. He used his tamer and I was on my Sampire. After keying for what felt like an eternity, I suggested we wait for maybe 1 or 2 other players, but he said "lets just try it." When we got in, and we thought "Oh ****. If we die, we wasted our keys" which is typically what happens with other Boss encounters like the peerless. Turns out, you can leave and re-enter...Anyways, not knowing that fact, we powered through it and together (ok 90% of it was all him) and we managed to beat it! It took us 3 long gruesome hours! I didn't run back to town to grab a proper set of weapons so I ended up being the off screen resser. We both didn't get artifact drops (so we thought) and logged out shortly after from UO exhaustion. The next day when I checked my bag, I found a cameo in my backpack. HOLY SMOKES! For some reason, when an artifact from the shadowguard room drops in your bag, it doesn't say "ARTIFACT" in the middle of your screen like I thought it would. I must have missed the text in my chatlog. Getting that cameo was like a drug. I was HOOKED. I was determined to farm ShadowGuard. I did some research, made a new sets of weapons, and convinced some other ShadowGuard-virgins to go with me. I went in with two other tamers. With the proper weapons, the shadowguards dropped much faster! We started doing runs once every other day. The drop rate for artifacts was nuts. Each of us was getting a drop out of every 4 runs. Plus the legendary loot sold for boat loads of gold back then. I ended up joining my friends guild, which really consisted of just 4 or so active players. We got good enough to the point where we could start farming it with just two players and you'd get more loot that way. I sold two arachnid cameos and saved up to afford the ones I needed (demon, undead, repond, reptile). Eventually, I was comfortable enough taking first-timer tamers through and after a run with a really new/under geared one, I realized I could probably solo it. It took me 3 attempts but I did it! ShadowGuard felt end game for me and trying to farm anything else just wasn't economically comparable. With everything I needed for my sampire, I eventually hit the 1bil mark from all the legendary loot and artifact drops. There wasn't much to look forward to beyond that so I gradually started playing less and less. That's when my journey ended, 8 months from the day I started. Thanks for taking the time to read all this =)
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