Ultima Online Chronicles, or My Adventures on Pacific in 2000 Year

UO fashion

Pacific

VISA Classic worked flawlessly, it took only a couple of minutes to pay for the next month. Another half hour, during which the server rehabilitated my rights, and I was back.

Immediately I faced the choice of choosing who I should be. If I kept pumping up the Fletcher profession, I'd make a lot of money. If I focus on Archer, I'll get a lot less money, but my life will be richer. Anyway, I still haven't bought a house yet.

This is the kind of pretty scenery you find in Second Age territories

There is a lot of money in the woods and dungeons. The problem is getting them to the bank. In the dungeon, you need to be extremely careful that the character is not jammed somewhere in a bottleneck. In the woods, fighting one monster, keep a close eye on whether others are coming to his aid. Especially you need to calculate carefully the strength when fighting with casting opponents. Some orc-mage can foolishly use a couple of the most powerful spells in a row, of which he never run out. And if you're not careful, the screen will soon turn gray.

When in the backpack lies any decent amount of money, expendable reagents are about to run out, the weight of trophies is close to a critical point – in general, it's time to go back to town.

Thrifty chars have a couple of recall runes that allow them to use a spell to travel to a predetermined location. Even more thoughtful players have a Recall Scroll, a magic item that works 100 percent of the time.

The funny thing about our town: there are only six coins in each pile. But the idea of putting money in front of the place where the murdered are brought back to life is priceless:)

Such a kit – rune+scroll – is called SOS kit because it almost always allows getting out of the most threatening situations. For example, to escape from a sure death at the hands of a player killer.

However, on one condition, the character must not be hindered: with fists, swords, spells – whatever.

I love PKs – they make us stronger

The phrase, by the way, was plagiarized. In the original, it was issued by the reddest PK, and it was spelled out on the screen as follows: "I love players – they're…" You know the rest.

Ultima once again showed me how well it reproduces relationships between people. Just like in real life, there's no all-bad and all-good characters here. And I'm no longer surprised to see a group of blue characters interacting peacefully with a red PK. There can be many reasons for that, for example they can just be "friends at home" in a neighborly way or belong to the same guild. Or maybe there is a process of "debriefing", for example, I witnessed such a conversation after having just been killed PK brought back to life and have quietly continued to clarify relations. Revived PK – a harmless PK, no weapons and reagents, his health is undermined – in this state he is not dangerous even for the one-day newbie. By the way, as it turned out from numerous conversations, most of the murders of novice Ultima citizens are committed by "blue" players.

Stand here, my children. Did you bring the temporary rings?"

"Yes, Counselor."

"Groom, pass the ring to the bride. The bride give it to the groom. Put the rings on."

"Done, Counselor."

"I now pronounce you man and wife. You may now kiss."

As an example, my Sotnik was attacked near a cemetery on the outskirts of Britain. While I was checking out a bow for sale in one of the lodges, a horsewoman named Kali came along. A disquieting name from the Hindu pantheon, the first "bell". About thirty seconds passed (apparently, during that time my character was evaluated by Anatomy and Evaluating Intellect skills), and I was attacked by macro-assisted attack spells. After putting an arrow into my attacker, I darted away, as the odds were stacked against me. Ten seconds later I felt safe in the city. Kali stopped a few meters away and encouraged me to keep fighting. I explained to her that I hadn't had time to write my will yet, or I could have. In response, she completely opened her cards – give me, she said, your crossbow because I like it so much. I had to write her "Kiss my ass." And what do you think? This girl goes behind my back, and on the screen appears *Kissing ass. Give it to me NOW!* I almost gave her a crossbow after that. But at the last moment I felt greedy, good weapons are not found on every corner.

Organized harassment of SirCrono ended inconclusively on the doorstep of the killer's residence

One of the favorite tricks of the "blue" PK is provocation. Outside the city limits two chars are fighting, one of them shouts to a passing newbie: "Please help! He's PK!". The names of the fighting men are blue. As soon as the passerby joins the fight, the former opponents will immediately beat him up. The point is that they are members of the same guild, who are permitted to spar freely – the exchange of blows does not lead to a change of "color".

Another lesson, learned from my own sad experience. A draconid roams the forest – a large lizard, an attractive enough object to hunt. Only its name is strange, not the usual meaningless string like Gorkhub, but quite readable – Trinity. After a double click a picture appeared – the monster is like a monster, but the name – with the prefix Honorable. While I was curious, I was attacked with spells, and finished off with a poisoned halberd. It was really just that Trinity had cast a Polymorph spell, turned himself into a lizard, and began to prey on newcomers with impunity.

Winter. Evergreen forest. Cold. Killed again, and then my robe was somewhere lost too

A lot of players fall victim to their own carelessness. I witnessed a pretty huntress cast a wall of fire outside of town and stand in it to pump Spell Resistance. Out of nowhere, a character appeared and ran through the fire. The hunter's name immediately turned gray. After a couple of seconds a "blue" knight in armor appeared next to the girl and attacked her with his halberd without any foreplay. She rushed to run, but the attempt was in vain.

But what a pleasure to finish off a blue PK! The other day I was walking through the woods, shooting trolls and slaying orc mages. Stopped making arrows, and next to me came some char, who in front of me tamed a brown bear. Suddenly, he nudges his bear at me. Tally-ho, so to speak, tally-ho! I killed the beast with three arrows, and the gray-haired tamer took only two. That would teach him a lesson.

From time to time in the game world occur unique events. So, in the first days of the new millennium from the portal near the dungeon Covetous suddenly burst evil creatures. About this unanimously broadcast heralds in all the cities. But that's not what happened, and that's not what happened at all. No one saw any evil spirits, but plenty of PKs showed up. And so began the battle between good and evil, in which, I must say, evil prevailed at first. As you might expect, PK attacks of this scale are always organized. Only after a couple of hours, the Reds, feeling that they were starting to lose, teleported back to their apartments, taking the loot

I had to look for the trouble a couple of times to take the screenshots you see here. I didn't spare my stomach. Personal score was 3:1, this most CHUEN once I shoot when he got carried away in pursuit of another victim and away from the main battle

True PKs are a special contingent. It's not easy to be in the constant crosshairs. At first, I recklessly attacked all the "reds" in a row, and then I got smarter:). It's stupid to go to the trouble without good reason. It's one thing when a red char is attacking you or chasing a blue char. That's when you have to stand up and take action. It's another to fight the same monster together, crammed into a tight spot in a dungeon.

Aware of their special nature, PK'ers also join together in guilds and help each other to do dark things. "Ultima" section also exists on the official PK website at http://www.pk-hq.com/. It's a cool, I have to give a lot of credit to the site, it's responsive. Its creators suggest that all killers honor the three commandments:

* Kill by staying alive

* Destroy, demolish, harm

* Not to touch fellow killers

And, by the way, I have to admit that I was wrong to think that our Russian PKs are tougher than any other. There are plenty of calculating and competent scoundrels around. It all depends on the individual. There are those among them, for whose head there is a price on which you can (theoretically) build a small neighborhood in the suburbs.

By the way, the path to the title of Murderer is not so short. For five consecutive murders the name of the character becomes red, the massacre of such a character is welcomed by the game as a good deed. After that, the backward counter starts – after a certain time "red" will become "gray", and then "blue". Permanent bloody coloring killer acquires in the event that he managed to turn red five times. And the stigma of "killer" replaces all the other titles previously obtained.

A special position in the game belongs to advanced thieves. Everyone hates them, but there's little they can do about it. They appear out of nowhere beside your char, and just have time to read the message on the screen that he was pulling stuff out of your backpack. I was once near a harpy cave, and a Pink Flamingo came at me, snooping around in my pack. She's all cute as hell. I first warned her, I said, go away, or I kill you. And she responded with an offer to try.

You have to be a very talentless, pushy, insolent and stupid thief to get yourself killed four times

I tried it, and I could barely get away. I was saved by the three armored horsemen in the vicinity. I – to them, saying, please save me, bros, she kills me! She – to them too, saying, please help, this bastard attacked me. The reply was that, "you better shut up, you pink professional bitch, we know you." After that, I was healed, and the thief was driven into the little house, which turned out to be her residence. This was the end of the pursuit, for the simple reason that no one is able to get at the owner in his house. And she was such a nice-looking girl.

Real Estate

The Ultima Online is a very crowded place. On the Pacific server alone, there are currently about five and a half thousand people playing. Once a huge virgin space is now built up, as they say, up to the eyeballs. Houses, cabins, lodges, castles sometimes stand as densely as dachas of new Russians in the built-up areas near Moscow. In some places it's simply impossible to push through. And wander among them fauna, both harmless and monstrous. Sometimes, you can see a picture of a whole crowd of monsters trying to get the owner who is put on the "macro" training. You get to the side of them and start a systematic shooting off.

Good Doc recounts how, not far from the guild, an entire crowd was waiting for a decaying house to collapse

Having saved enough money to buy a house, I began to wonder about the accompanying questions such as "which house is more decent?" and "where is the best place to settle down?" And then I was "delighted" to learn, that all the available areas for the placement of dwellings are occupied. One of the locals told a sad story of how he spent three months wandering around, but could not find a free site. They say, however, that the gamemasters are soon going to allocate land for housing. Well, there's no harm in hoping.

In the meantime, people walk around and look for houses, which, because of the progressive deterioration are about to collapse. And they watch them, hoping to be a second ahead of the competition.

Dungeons

I can't boast that I've been to all of them, so far – only to three. And even in those, I didn't get to the very bottom. It's a particular feature of the archer – he can make his way forward only if he has a stock of arrows. As supplies come to an end – it's better to "take off your feet," because the monsters are respawning with enviable consistency.

In the dungeons, you go for the money, loot from the hacked chests and boxes, reagents, and to pump the character. The fact is that as you increase the skill of mastering of a particular type of weapon, you can only get a further appreciable increase if you start effectively dropping more and more powerful monsters.

To hone Archery on Earth Elementals is a nice thing to do

Dungeons are a favorite place for PKs to hunt. Only they go there not for monsters, but for players. And they go there in mixed companies – fighters supported by mages, red killers with blue escorts. They try not to fight with monsters at all and dash at full speed through the mazes looking for victims. Sometimes at the entrance to the dungeon cast a pair of "locking" walls, so that someone doesn't accidentally leave. I've walked away a couple of times:). Once – into the depths of the dungeon, the second time – with the help of recall SOS-kit.

Working on the mistakes

There is a limit to perfection in UO. The sum of the main characteristics – Str, Dex and Int – cannot exceed 225 points. If the limit is reached, the value of any characteristic will drop as the value of the other one continues to grow. Similarly, the situation with the skills – they are allotted 700 points. As selected – the further development of some of the skills is carried out only at the expense of the other. You'll ask – but why pumping unnecessary skills? First, out of curiosity, to see and tell others. Second, there are skills (musicianship, fishing, etc.), which can be pumped with the macro, while you go to sleep. The musician plays music, and Dexterity grows along the way.