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Ultima Online
It took Ray about
six months to convince
me to try this game he had found, Ultima Online. He ended up buying the
software for me and showing me around. Somehow though, I ended up far
more involved in it than he did.
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The First
Character I created for Ultima Online was named Barthew Vols. He ended
up being the Primary Tradeskill character. He was a Miner, a
Grandmaster Blacksmith, and a Grandmaster Tinker.
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Mordecai was
intended from the beginning to be a warrior, and ended up being my
Primary Character. Most of the people on Sonoma shard knew me by this
character. He was Knighted as the "Knight of Valor" in the Order of
Tendai Guild, and eventually became the OTE Paladin Commander. He
was given a swamp dragon by a Guild Tamer, which Barthew made
barding (Armour for a Mount) in metal of Valorite; and named him "Ryo."
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Porthos was my
attempt to make a Treasure Hunter for UO. I did though make fun of his
literary namesake by engaging in Piracy. In fact he stole so many ships
that the Game Masters eventually put up warning signs in the places I
frequently took the ships from. When a ship was stolen by Porthos, he
left behind a book with an apropos poem for the owner of the ship. In
addition to locksmithing and cartography, he was a Grandmaster in the
use of Poisons. |
Ray and I had set out to build a house together on Sonoma. The problem
was that at the time there were no places left to build. Eventually we
did manage to find a spot just south of the Yew Moongate where we built
a small stone tower. The trouble was that it was in the FEL facet. (For
those who don't know UO, each shard was originally split into two
duplicates, Trammel and Feluca. The two facets had different rule sets,
with FEL having a Player-vs-Player ability... you could be attacked by
other players in FEL but not in TRAM)
 I did eventually manage to buy a log
cabin from someone in the OTE guild who was leaving the game. It was
located in the valley north of Britain, near the shrine of Chaos. There
was a reaper that would on occasion spawn near the front of the house
and the occasional gargoyle that people would lead from further in the
valley.
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to visit my UO pictures gallery.
![[Seperator Bar]](images/CBAR-BBB.GIF)
The Order of Tendai (OTE)
A few months after
I started playing UO, I met several of the members of the OTE. We
talked for a bit as I tried to find out what it was all about, and
eventually I was invited to go on a hunt with them.
That hunt turned out to be a real eye opener, as OTE's Paladin
sub-order had developed a very special melee combat technique. One
which allowed them to magnify their abilities massively. As I talked
with them I learned more about the guild, and that the main purpose of
the guild was to help new players. It had originally started in the
early days of UO before the Trammel rule set when new players needed
protection from the rampant "Player Killer" types. (There was actually
a complete back-story about the Guild originating from an order of
Monks, but I wont go into that here.)
Liking the sound of all of this, I did apply for entry in the Guild and
was accepted. I started out as the Squire to the Guild Knight of
Valor (who was the person I had originally met, as it turned out.) Over
the next year I attended the weekly hunts and also during the week
participated as much as I possibly could.
Over time I myself became the Knight of Valor and lead others on the
hunts, and eventually became commander of the Guild's Order of Paladins.
Alas, As there always is, there was a snake in the grass. And I of
course I wasn't watching where I was going and stepped right on it. The
Guild started to come apart due to internal politics. As the Guild was
disintegrating the Guild master decided to bail out and somehow I ended
up in that post. Apparently mad that her plans to take over had been
foiled, the person who started the whole mess broke the guild apart and
took many of the members to start a new guild. Totally disgusted at
what had happened, I also left. But I never forgot.
UOX (My Private Shard)
Ray and I briefly
played with setting up a private shard using a UO emulator called UOX.
However We were not trying to duplicate Ultima Online exactly. Instead
we were using the basic UO game engine but with our own map and
parameters.
I actually managed to get the server online and the basic terrain built
but that is about as far as it got. (Like many of our projects, Ray
quickly lost interest and I couldn't manage such an enormous project
all by myself.)
Medieval Dreams Shard (Current UO)
About the middle
of 2008, Ray had found a private shard called Medieval Dreams and had
started playing UO again. Naturally, he invited me along.
I have a house on the shard, which is on the Edge of the city of
Vesper. I have vendors at the house which sell kegs of potions and
spell books.
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