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

She stands on the stage, almost naked, and plays the harp. I sat and listened, and even decided to pay for the performance. But she didn't take the offered 50 coins, the macros couldn't foresee that

By the way, on the "emulator" servers there is mayhem in this matter too, often the mentioned restrictions simply do not exist. On the other hand – it is often impossible to "unlearn" something.

Guild

I wasn't in my first guild (1st Ultima Rangers) for long. One day, I was shooting harpies in a dungeon when my guildmate Steve, a captain in rank, showed up. A minute later I was attacked by a powerful PK. The odds were stacked against me, but I bravely fought, counting on the help of a clanmate. In vain. Steve, as if nothing had happened, continued to hit the harpies five paces away from me. Then, he told me, "Sorry". Chickened out. I remembered the words "to do good, to earn good and not to give our own in offense," and realized I couldn't follow them.

The dream of my own guild became even more elusive – no real estate, no way to create a guild.

A safe haven outside the city limits is a must. First of all, I need to train, because Spell Resistance and Magery are more convenient to pump in a place where I can stand up and cast attacking spells on myself without fear that someone will sneak up on me and strike a treacherous blow.

The BW Guild gathered for a meeting. As you can see, everyone has dismounted and is nicely seated in their chairs

To exist as a loner in a world, even in a game world that has a well-defined community of players, and to be outside of it is to deprive yourself of a whole layer of experience. I received another offer to join the guild from a very pretty female rider with red hair, after we had killed a troll together. They call themselves the Black Watch (BW), and their four-story headquarters tower is located northeast of Britain, on the edge of the swamp. When I asked about local politics, I heard the following: "We are good and anti-PK." Well, that suited me fine.

This time no one was in a hurry to put me on the list. They were looking out for me, and I was looking out for them. Life became somewhat cyclical – slaying monsters for profit, buying reagents, and practicing Spell Resistance and Magery. Soon I was invited to hunt Cyclops and Titans in Second Age territory. Interestingly, the manual for this very UO: Second Age never told me how to get there.

Cyclops are being hunted, the hunt is on! The yellow predators…

I returned from the expedition alive, having fired four hundred arrows in one go. The Honorable prefix had changed to Admirable, and my Archery skill had increased by a few points.

The next day, however, was a nightmare for me. I lost the Bow of Vanquishing and the Heavy Crossbow of Power. People who know will understand. And in the second case, I was killed while practicing on the guild rooftop. Quite the "blue" Admirable TypeR rode up to the training area on horseback to see who was casting spells there. He even healed me up. And sort of rode off. The rest was done according to the classic scheme. He hid (applied Hiding), waited until I almost killed myself with the Fire Field spell, then appeared out of nowhere and rode over the spell I cast. Naturally, my character instantly "grayed out" and became available to be killed with impunity. A couple of spells were enough to knock the remaining few life points out of me. He offered to bring me back to life, and said it was all a lesson. To which I gave him a combination of words, which he could read on his monitor as "OoOo oOo". I think he understood.

TypeR still thinks he's the smartest

I told the guild leader about it. At the next meeting I was told that TypeR had paid for his treachery. He had been killed, and I had been asked to take the items he was carrying out of storage at the earliest opportunity. When I inquired as to how it was that they had managed to kill the "blue" and retain the high reputation, I was told how it was done. It turns out that TypeR was first persuaded to join the guild (members of the same clan can fight each other, which is often done for training purposes, and if there is a murder, it is not perceived by the game as a crime). Then, he was immediately killed, stripped naked, "expelled from the lists" and "banned" from entering the tower. They did not forget to say why they did that to him. His gear, though, went somewhere, in the end. But it wasn't about the equipment, was it? The lesson was mutual.

So my Sotnik became a Guildsman. No titles yet, but it's not over yet, is it?

As it turned out, I was allowed to put my own vendor in the tower, a vendor-NPC who would trade items I would give him for that purpose. The Good Doc immediately gave me a short lecture on how to trade competently. It is the duty of the vendor owner to take care of replenishing the assortment, to keep the "store" in order. It is desirable to sell goods of high quality and at prices that are acceptable in the region. No one is against all kinds of resales, for example, magical weapons can be bought in the neighborhood Moonglow, where they sell for cheap, add to the price of 50 % and put in the "showcase". Magic reagents and scrolls with spells are also in constant demand.

War

This grandmaster of the [HOK] guild is very aggressive…

A simple reconnaissance revealed a hidden pair of dragons…

And the next day the Black Watch guild was declared war by the [HOK] guild.

Part III

What was supposed to happen happened. A month went by, and I became a Grandmaster Archer. It happened while I was shooting Skeleton Knights near the orc fort in Ultima: Second Age. The Tactics score froze at 100.

This event once again raised the question of how to develop Sotnik further. By the way, I confess where this nickname came from. I had an ancestor, who commanded a hundred Cossacks under the hetman Sagaidachny. Together with the troops of Polish Prince Wladyslaw he took part in the march on Moscow. My heartfelt thanks to him that he managed to return alive:). But this is quite another chronicles.

The liches are laid out to the sides of the world. The backpack is full; a little more and I won't be able to move. Time to recall to the nearest town

I consulted with the guildmates and other chatty gamers and decided to implement the following plan. First, it is time to give up those skills that I was unable to live without at the beginning of the game. There is no longer a need for Camping, Cooking and Item Identification. In the first case, you can always get to the guild or inn, in the second – near the bank sometimes appear GM fishermen. From them you can buy thousands of fish steaks for a small sum (and sometimes get on SALE), in the third – in the game there are many multi-charged (up to two hundred charges!) wands and staves of Identification (in particular, these items constantly carry liches).

Second, it was strongly suggested that I should teach my character a second martial art. There's no arguing – arrows are good until they run out (especially on the bottom floor of the dungeon). And during close combat is not unreasonable to equip the shield. In general, I opted for Fencing, with my 100 Dex (by the way, the characters with such a score in the game are called Dexterity Monkey) to wield a dagger or a short spear should be a pure pleasure. Especially since the dagger stays with the hero even after the meanest murder. Further pumping should be done for Spell Resistance and Anatomy.

Ultima WANTED list. You can get over 400 thousand for the head of the killer Odysseus. He's put a lot of headhunters to death…

One day not far from Delucia, I almost automatically "saved" a pretty unarmed girl in full plate armor from a scimitar-armed skeleton knight. The lady was polite, almost silent – it turns out I interfered with her pumping of Wrestling. I was saved from being shot by a barrage of epithets by the fact that another knight was on my tail. When she started to wrestle with him, I stuck close to him and started… That's right, fix her up. We talked at the same time. It turned out that in her second year of play she had decided to "turn" her fighter into a tank-mage, i.e. a heavily armed mage. One of the reasons for this decision was a certain advantage of powerful mages over all other classes, which arose after another patch-up of the game. After hearing about my "crossroads" she told me about one possible option: to become a so-called "townie" – an urban warrior who joined one of the global clans – Chaos or Order. In this case I automatically join the global war, which is conducted throughout the game, including the cities. And the killing and other acts of aggression in this war is not considered criminal. There is just the eternal struggle between good and evil.

Tribal UO – return to the subject

I got an Email from Gazgolder – the guildmaster of the Russian guild Ice Friends on the Zuluhotel shard, who is also the Game Master there. He told me that the gameplay shortcomings mentioned in the article were largely corrected, and others are not shortcomings, but special features. For example, the guards respond to cries for help only if you can see them on the screen. According to gamemasters, it is more realistic. And ore from the nearest to the main city hill "pumped out" by the grandmaster in ten minutes. And lag will soon become less – with the transition to the new server. And impressive pile of scripts was written, and there appeared two dozen of new colors, and Capture the Flag was made, etc., etc. Everything is great, right?

It is only unclear what the local players will do, if Origin one day will shut down all these illegal servers.

War in pictures: Black Watch vs. HOK

Well, I almost forgot about my promise to tell you about our quarrel with the HOK guild. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find out exactly what caused all the commotion. But as it turned out, practically the entire HOK is made up of former Black Guards. At one time their guildmaster Vio was kicked out of BW for actions incompatible with the ideals of the guild. He held a grudge and became a nuisance. By hook or by crook.

War has been declared on us. Guildmaster Koric summoned the fighters and mages you see in this screenshot on the meeting The horses, as usual, were left in the anteroom. At the meeting it was decided not to "accept" the war, since the main purpose of HOK is to take revenge on the guild leaders for past offenses, and to get some booty at the same time. Most of the Black Watch are untrained craftsmen who do not stand a chance in PvP (Player vs. Player) showdowns. As a reminder, guild war kills are not considered player kills by the game.

Grandmaster-tamer from HOK tries to provoke our Good Doctor mage to attack, "Koric himself admitted that we can slaughter BW". But the doctor likes talking:).

Here comes the cavalry. The reason for the Tamer's overconfident behavior was only ten paces behind him.

A full-scale war has not been started. HOK begins to engage in so-called "hit-and-run" attacks. The first to die was Good Doctor, whose horse was also not spared. They started to beat him on his approach to the tower, and when he tried to take cover inside, a trap set on the door went off.

They want a war, they'll get one. Only by our terms. The Good Doctor stripped down to his underpants and went out to the enemy to be killed again. He kept setting himself up until the HOK remembered the player-killer counter. It was not in their plans to become red PKs or Murderers.

One of the killers would now have to go 40 hours without hurting anyone to get back to his original state – Doc did his best.

The killing stopped. My shootout with Ignoble Lifen was a draw. We were both great at taking health points off each other, but we never got to the point of killing each other. The episode ended with a little chitchat. In response to her "I'm so sexy it hurts," I had to point out that Ignoble title somehow doesn't fit that statement well.

A Willie flew into the guild tower at full throttle. The HOKs liked his blue GM plate armor, so they chased him for about five minutes, and he was lucky enough to come to us. As it turned out, Willie was a seven-time GM, including a blacksmith. The next day Koriс accepted Willie into the guild and made him a Friend of the House, so he could put up his vendor, selling cool armor and weapons at bargain prices.

Ambush! Somehow the main HOK fighters had been unbanished and given access to the guild. My Sotnik was not prepared for this turn of events. I took the fight in front of the tower, and when it was time to escape, there was nowhere to go. My pursuers came after me in the guild.

It turns out that there's an undocumented ability to use the Meteor Storm spell to hit characters that are hidden behind walls.

After reviving Sotnik, I returned to the tower and quickly banned all the attacking HOKs.

There came a moment when Vio realized that such a war was pointless. To begin with, he told us about the provocateur Willie. It was this "goon" who opened HOK's access to the guild. Moreover, he had hacked our Guild Stone, and as a result the titles of our fighters were changed to something like Chicken Rapist.