Tell us a tale, you're the Tillerman!

[Viquire]

I thought about spoofing the song, but I have other things to do. Maybe Caspian can come up with something witty.

Serious Question though, do any of the long time vets know where I might find an archive of the old tillerman tales that we lost when first localization hit? That would have been either just prior or just after Renaissance.

I had a journal log of a good many of them but it now appears to be lost to me.

Contemplating a story line and wanted to see if I could find some support in here somewhere. Thanks!

 

[Cogniac]

As a pathological archiver of data, I, too, would be interested in finding the old tillerman tales.

 

[G.v.P]

Wow how old are those? I started with T2A, I don't remember them.

http://www.lyricsdir.com/billy-joel-piano-man-lyrics.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se9rfWucgeY

Hm...

I'm too tired hahaha.

It's ten o'clock on a Thurs-a-day --
The regular crowd shuffles in.
There's an old man posting after me,
Making love to his emotes and grins.

(Harmonica)

 

[Viquire]

I found a link to an outside blog hosted by the once prodigious poster Admiral Ruffle Windjammer. In it he makes reference to them being pulled well before the second age, but being reinserted for a brief time while ocean server boundaries were turned off in 2004.

It was at this time that I acquired both screenshots and a journal log of only some of the tales.

I know I am not crazy, but I have no idea if any of the current team know where to look for them, or if they would in any way be interested enough to make them available.

It is a lovely piece of lore that should be preserved if not reintroduced.

 

[Mairut]

It sounds interesting, and I wouldn't mind being introduced to these..tales.

What were they about? Just a spoof on the song with a UO twist?

 

[Viquire]

No no no they were um well short stories told by the tillerman on long ocean voyages apparently at random to pass the time. When I stumbled across them they were being triggered by the crossing (or attempted crossing) of a server boundary.

Just off the top of my head I remember something about a lad who went ashore to find a lady friend but had a nasty encounter with a female vampire among others. They all made seemed to point towards adventures that could be had, in the sewers of Britain, Paladin Isle to the east of Trinsic and places like that.

Like the old rescue quests and directions from (I remember) mage shop npc vendors if you gave them a low level magic item they would make mysterious references to buried treasure in such and such direction from whichever town you happened to be in. That was still in the game when I started in 99. I tried to follow up on this several times but I don't think the content made it into the game beyond these hints.

 

[ChReuter]

Wow, I had totally forgotten about this.

I don't remember exactly what they would say, accept for the fact that they would inform me of that accurate gnarled staff of feeblemindedness that the NPC's in town would also whisper about. Man, 12 years later and I'm still searching to the south of trinsic in the swamps for that fellow held hostage by a nasty group of lizard men and jwilsons in order to retrieve that most uber of weapons!

The only thing better would have to be the one hitter x bows created by "Notorious Npc"...

The Tillerman though were removed because in the days before drydocking, the docks where Harbormasters were located at would be packed full of ships and their Captains constantly going on with their "tales". I don't remember it being that big of a deal or very annoying, than again I didn't spend much time hanging around the docks. I guess DD and the other devs must have had a good reason for disabling it, maybe it just caused avoidable lag?

 

[GarthGrey]

Maybe Caspian can come up with something witty.

That would be a refreshing change..

Sorry, couldn't resist the softball...

 

[Viquire]

Maybe Caspian can come up with something witty.

That would be a refreshing change..

Sorry, couldn't resist the softball...

LOL well, I don't agree with him about everything either, but he does have a talent for poetry, and I was rather hoping for some comedic relief in light of recent events. Truth be told I'm disappointed he hasn't taken the bait.