Why do Sosarians throw their shoes in the sea?

[Bobar]

This must be one of the great mysteries of UO. I have only fished since the booster and already i have fished up enough to equip every NPC with some kind of footwear.

Is there some kind of ritual of which I am unaware?.
An annual shoe throwing?.
Catch a fish with a shoe?.
Sink a ship with your shoes?.
Pave the sea bed with footwear competition?.

Or is it just Sosarian cobblers are too industrious and have to jettison surplus footwear.

There must be some logical explanation for these vast quantities of boots and shoes littering the sea-bed.

Whatever the cause I wish they would cease, it gets rather annoying when for every few fish you catch you are presented with a selection from Clarks.

 

[Mapper]

It gets rather annoying when for every few fish you catch you are presented with a selection from Clarks.

*writes that down*

Can't stop laughing.

Oddly, Even with a huge supply of shoes in Britannia, Most my characters wear none.

 

[Black Sun]

It's those jerks who play WoW. At night they sneak in and dump their unwanted footwear into our oceans. I'm sure it's part of some diabolical plan to destroy our lush isometric 2D paradise in hopes we will run off to their relatively footwear free (by comparison) realm.

 

[Megilhir]

Those shoes represent the soles of the drowned.

 

[Victoria Navarre]

I think catching footwear while fishing harkens back to old silent movies that were supposed to be funny. It would typically show some bumbling fisherman struggling to fish properly and he always seems to only catch the old waterlogged boot in the river.

 

[Yalp]

there are many a strange ritual connected with the waters that flow over the kingdom...

foremost in my mind's eye is the strange metal contraption designed to hold goods called a "kart". Tis often seen out of its natural habitat and sitting erect in the flowing rivers.

a hollow, black, perfectly round and bouncy item which I've never once seen in it's natural state but for which I am told you are in need of at least 4, and which act as a means to move a horseless carriage from one location to another also seems to inhabit the waters.

perhaps.. combined all these items form some strange and terrible creature we have yet to discover.

 

[Black Sun]

Those shoes represent the soles of the drowned.

Someone play this man a rim shot.

 

[Megilhir]

Someone play this man a rim shot.

But it works on a couple of levels.

Sheesh...Shakespeare does it....

And speaking of Shakespeare (obviously a Dexxer - Shake-spear...)

Professor's research allows audience to hear Shakespeare’s words in his own accent - KU News


Very nifty linguistic theatrical exploration of the Bard.

 

[Assia Penryn]

Theory 1...

Blame the bullies...

... they don't have lockers so can't stuff other kids in there
... they tried to put the kids head first into a trash can, but got in a lot of trouble when the kid completely vanished.
... No telephone lines to throw tied shoes onto
Throwing the other kid's shoes off a dock was the next logical step.


Theory 2...

Many years ago... there was a serial killer who made their victims sleep with the fishes. The rocks their shoes had been locked into break open by constant wave action.


Theory 3...

Shipments of shoes on sunken ships.



I personally favor the first theory. Man, that trash can thing was a mess with the guards... ~ Sitka

 

[Babble]

Wag the dog style?

 

[Assia Penryn]

Wag the dog style?

Hahaha... I loved that movie.

 

[DevilsOwn]

Those shoes represent the soles of the drowned.

thank you

 

[Babble]

Those shoes represent the soles of the drowned.

But did they have to throw both pairs in?

 

[Basara]

Once apon a time, there was a magical land called Ambrosia.

From it came the bobbits, with their knowledge of shoemaking, as their feet were tough enough to walk barefoot, but they saw the hardship the other races went through with their tender feet.

Alas, when they taught the humans, elves, dwarves and fuzzies how to make shoes and boots to protect their feet, it now meant that they could attempt to march on their oppressor, Mondain, in armies.

Those armies, led by the Stranger from another world, struck down Mondain, but not before Mondain used the power of the gem of immortality and his own forbidden magics to smite Ambrosia, and drive it beneath the waves.

To this day, we still fish up the contents of the footware factories of drowned Ambrosia.

(the storyteller falls asleep, satisfied that his total bull-hockey mesmerized the crowd...)

 

[MalagAste]

My thought was these come from the poor sailor of the numerous shipwrecks.... they drown and the shoes are all that is left after the fish are done eating them... this is why you also often times fish up bones... without clothes or shoes....

 

[Lord Gareth]

I like how players make shoe lines on Chesapeake. You cannot cross the server line because your boat cannot sail over a shoe, or a dolphin for that matter.

1. Make shoes, boots and sandals breakable by boats. Kinda like monsters smash containers.

2. Let my boat run over the flippin dolphin! Ill take a .01% damage...seriously 1ton boat vs 40lb dolphin!!

As my gurl Sarah would say "This is flippin fun!"

 

[Beastmaster]

Well just wait. When Mesanna gets around to adding rubber trees for gardeners then you can fish up some wellies.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

I'm gonna go with because they won't let us place a trash barrel on our boats yet. But, I guess it's better than throwing them at a President...

YouTube - Raw Video: Shoe Thrown at George W Bush in Iraq

 

[Uvtha]

Thats where footwear breeds

 

[G.v.P]

Or is it just Sosarian cobblers are too industrious and have to jettison surplus footwear.

Actually, for those who do sell shoes to cobblers, you end up having to find a new one after selling two batches. They don't like to buy too many shoes. Al Bundy syndrome, I believe.

Maybe there should be some sort of a shoe turn-in. Hehe. If only you could get a shoemonger quest. Get some shoe bait. Hey, who thought we'd have a yellow polka dot bikini? Might as well give us some louis vuitton heels or something we can really sell. Chicks seem to love buying deco.

 

[jack flash uk]

you would have thought at 105 fishing i would be good enough to know how NOT to catch shoes

however a pair of scissors are coming with me so i can cut them up for cloth to fix my ship!

 

[Aurelius]

Did mean I had a use for bods, though, footwear ones come in useful for sweeping up the soggy footwear I find. The turn-in reward is pretty low, but it saves on carrying capacity and weight for my poor fisherman.


Edit : If the storyline for the original 'Treasures of Tokuno' was the imperial fleet sinking and stuff being washed ashore, how come that shoes never wash ashore whilst pigments and minor artifacts never get fished up....

 

[Kiminality]

Shoes are indigenous to Sosaria's seas.

they allow themselves to be caught, on the off-chance that the fisher will wear them, allowing them to graze the fields and build up their strength.
When they have sufficient strength, they wait until the wearer walks them close enough to a potential cobbler, and psychically plants the idea of creating more shoes in their unsuspecting mind, in order to bolster the numbers of the shoe army, in readiness for the inevitable uprising.
They've already infiltrated the general population, and many of you play host to them willingly.

You doom us all!

 

[Lady Storm]

Long ago the Lord called forth the crafters of the world of Sosaria to a grand fair to be held at the fair grounds outside his master city Britain. Each crafter guild sent forth their best members. Smiths with the finest metals made into weapons to be marveled over. Tailors had the finest silks and brocades fashioned to the best clothing fit for a kings royal gaze. Tinkers with toys and gadgets that moved and made the eyes of all eyes turn to see. Carpenters made glorious pieces of furnature fit for a castle. Mages and Alchemists brought the finest potions and oils. No crafter was left out of this grand event.
Cobblers came with hundreds of pack animals filled to the brim from all over Sosaria with every style of footwear that could be imagined. The fair was all the Lord had hoped it would be. Our Lord was pleased. The last day of the fair the Lord decreed that he had selected a special reward for one craft that had made the biggest impression on the court.
That craft was the cobblers, and in so winning royal favor the Lord offered his flag ship for the return to their main citys. Alas 2 days out at sea a great storm so large developed and sent the ship and all aboard to the depths of the ocean. All hands lost to the storms fury. The tides and currents scattered the cargo and personal effects world wide. To this day we fish up these articles.

 

[Lord Gareth]

I'm gonna go with because they won't let us place a trash barrel on our boats yet. But, I guess it's better than throwing them at a President...

YouTube - Raw Video: Shoe Thrown at George W Bush in Iraq

Sooo...we should throw shoes at the Producer when he releases the next Producers Letter? (In the forums, not RL)

Oh the ideas forming in my head are endless!!

 

[Wenchkin]

A gentleman working for Moonglow Zoo has a theory. He believes there is a giant centipede roaming Britannia. It's a rather unfortunate creature in two respects. Firstly it has very soft feet, so it steals footwear from people to protect all those toes. Can you imagine how much a chiropodist would charge a giant centipede? Exactly. So it steals all the unwanted footwear it can find.

The second evolutionary failing of these poor creatures is that their mating rituals involve a rather clumsy underwater coupling. The males rate their mating prowess by how many shoes they can dislodge from the females.

Hence why we have a lot of shoes in our fishing nets but you never find any lying around the streets of Britannia.

(Yes, I've probably had too much coffee today )

Wenchy

 

[MonkeyDLuffy]

This must be one of the great mysteries of UO. I have only fished since the booster and already i have fished up enough to equip every NPC with some kind of footwear.

Is there some kind of ritual of which I am unaware?.
An annual shoe throwing?.
Catch a fish with a shoe?.
Sink a ship with your shoes?.
Pave the sea bed with footwear competition?.

Or is it just Sosarian cobblers are too industrious and have to jettison surplus footwear.

There must be some logical explanation for these vast quantities of boots and shoes littering the sea-bed.

Whatever the cause I wish they would cease, it gets rather annoying when for every few fish you catch you are presented with a selection from Clarks.

well... there were a lot of shoes in the sea to start with....
anyway, DEV, you got to start some kinda of rewarding recycle program to keep UO green.
or just give us a trash can on the boat..

 

[Legacyee]

Once upon a time, long long ago, when the Dev's and programmers were just starting to write the code for all Ultima.
They were discussing how there would be hundreds of people playing, fighting and using boats on the seas.
And at the meeting was a young programmer who was not paying attention but realizing that he had to make a impresson, he would take one thing that they had talked about and really make a good job of it, but he had a bit of trouble hearing what was said, and misheard the top man when he was referring to what he wanted for all the boats that would be used, when he said "make our fleet look good" and wrote a small programme to supply endless footware