•UOPG Revision

Person helping me with this revision, please email me. I need to talk to you.

Hasta.

•Shard of Screams

Well, well, well, its that special time of year. Thats right all the good little boys and girls from coast to coast getting free candy to jack up their parents dental insurance policies. Gotta love it. While some of us, still do what we do best, play UO. Well OSI, being the kind good hearted folks that they are have opened up a special shard, appropriately named The Shard of Screams. Go ahead and click the link you know you want to. Well? Not gone yet? Good because if you would have left right this second you would have wasted your time. Why? Well being the good little UO player that I am, I thought WOW, a special event. Let me go see whats going on in the land of Ghouls and Goblins. So I logged in and made my character. The rules there are basically the same as the test center. You can set your own skills, so I took a mage template, got decked out in my orange and black, and selected my starting point for Skara Brae. And then the world waited. After 15 minutes of looking at the Entering Britannia screen I gave up. Mainly since I was having flashbacks of my shard LS. It's gotten to the point where I can count every pixel in those famous words. So I quit on it. So what comes next? Never fear, the shard will be around for your playing enjoyment for the next few days. Me? I will be there at 5am.

While your "Stuck at Entering Britania" you can bitch here.

Later

•Gotta love it when your own people put you on the spot.

Gargamel has been changed.

Here are samples of what "we" are thinking about for the site. Many thanks to the guys that did most of the work.
Anymore questions, comments, concerns? Go here and tell me about it.

Hasta

•I think Crescent knows what Im talking about.

The Wall.

The single most infuriating place inside the world of UO, it has to be the gathering spot for the most annoying people to ever leave Brit Bank. Every day I find myself slack jawed in amazement at the variety of morons that manage to gather in one place. I hate going there with every fiber of my being but since the Skara Brae Rangers were ruined, the wall is a mandatory stop in the creation of any character. Since I’m tired of telling people how it works, I’m reposting Angry Bob’s fantastic (if a little dated) guide to using The Wall and other guides to the most common wall destroying skills and telling them to come here. Besides, it’s my turn to update.

Since the most infuriating Wall destroyers are the wanna-be Parry people, here is a friendly guide to gaining parry as fast as possible. Please refer your friends to it and save me from punching my monitor in frustration every time some kid drags 3 bone knights away.

Another thing that’s been upsetting me is the sudden surge of Bards. I really can’t tell you how much I enjoy looting them after they fail to provoke a Poison Elemental. For some reason, a number of bards are using Bone Knights for provoke gains. If they would only go to the Terrathon Keep and provoke Avengers and Matriarchs, their skill gain would triple. The Fame/Karma and the loot would be nice bonuses as well. And they would be out of my hair. Ill post a guide to Provocation later next week.

That ends my refresher tour of Deciet’s Wall. If I forgot anything, head to the forum and tell us what.

On another note, Nieves is supposedly working on a desperately needed facelift of the site, at least when he’s not watching cartoons. Flood his email with suggestions, corrections, or complaints that you have with the site. As my AA councilor would say, “Help us help you.”

•Why can't I do Interviews like this?

Good ol' Jinxie got Moi to speak to him. Go read about it here.

I was supposed to have an interview with our Counselor Anonymous during the time that the lawsuit was big news. You know, the one where Papa Smurf tries to put the smack down on Gargamel (OSI). Yes, I am that old. And yes, I used to watch it...with my sisters. It was either that or lose out "my turn" to watch Spiderman, Iceman, & Ariel, Thundar the Barbarian and Blackstar. THOSE were cartoons dangit. Not this other crap. Well, Johnny Bravo cracks me up. And the laughter I got from Dexter's Laboratory almost broke my spleen first time I saw it.

Anyway...I seriousely digressed.

Here I am with my PvPer on Pacific. Her anatomy is finally something to respect and parry at a decent level. I get some supplies and decide to hit Moonglow for some Chaos/Order stuff. I know I am going to die so whatever. No Chaos at all. Cool. We hit Brit. I realize I still got my extra supplies and hide them behind a wall. I head out, there is a Chaos, he gets gang raped. I loot all his armor and run over to my hidden stash. Find another chaos and I get another set of armor. Awesome. I go after a Chaos, in comes all our Order peeps and I lag, and double click a guard. He didn't like that. DEATHMOAN! Know what happens? My own Order folks loot my ass. What a bunch of fuckheads. Who says there is such a thing as loyalty? I get resed, yell at the mage that was with us, and Mr. Chaos Fencer rapes my ass. I get resed again, find my stash and say fuck it and log off. Looting your own team? Lame. You guys straight up suck.

If you haven't been following them, Adam Ant has some new stories. Go into his message boards and read about his other GuL member's adventures as well. Go in with a good attitude. The group is tight and are always willing to help...although their PvP philosphies differs from ours a bit they are all in all knowledgeable and nice folks. Be nice to them or I send Adam to cut your tongue out.

Oh Shit!!! My gf was escorting a noble and this message appeared at their destination: "I fear I have lied about a reward, however, I lack any funds". Why the lieing...! ::logs on, finds the noble, entices her out of town and kills her:: DEATHMOAN! Dumb bitch. Watch ur noble killing now :) hehe.

And to all of you guys getting those high profile interviews...you suck. I won't mention any names or anything... ::KOFFGRYNNKOFFSTORMSHADOWKOFF:: Dammit! WILL SOMEONE GIVE ME AN INTERVIEW!!!! AAHHH!!!!

Hasta.

•The legal stuff

Here is what you can use to "enhance" your Ultima Online Experience:

UOASSIST, UO Auto-Map, UO Calculator, UO Curse Tool, UO Journal Convertor, UO Magic Tool, and UO Spawn Map.

You can find links to these utilities here. Personally, I use UOASSIST and UO Auto-Map. My game play experience increased 10 fold after getting those 2 utilities. Go ahead and pay the 15 bucks for UOASSIST. It's a one time fee and it's invaluable in PvP.

Alot of of you will know about all of these. There have been alot of newer players hitting our site asking for the 3rd party programs everyone talks about in our forums. So, I decided to list them. If anyone decides to link any other utility download page other than the ones listed above, the links will be deleted. Sorry but "it bees that way sometimes".

Hasta.

•Just because everyone else updated...

[Photo of good-looking guy]

Yup, there's a picture of me...it tends to not load in on...well...any browsers. :) (That's probably because there really is no picture there.)

Anyway, I've been absent for a while, this I know. My computer actually just came down with a virus recently, and it corrupted a few files important for Windows 98 to work efficiently. Anyway, I'm in the process of burning my important files onto a CD, and then I will proceed in formatting my hard drive. Lots of fun there.

Just thought I'd inform you on my current "status." (I'm figuring the majority of you don't care, but "oh well.")

Cya later. (Assuming my computer recovers.)

•I am not showing my Mug Damnt!!

President Reagan once said Americans go through life wondering if they have made a difference, Marines don't have that problem. I didn't quote it because I am not sure if the wording is correct. So I am not going to stand here and give you my picture and history like my updater friends. Nooo Im gonna do what Gator always does best, pass on some news. There is a new factions website out. So far its pretty dead, there is a news section and forums for each faction. But it's still brand new and with factions STILL sitting somewhere on the horizon, I would'nt expect it to be too busy anyway. But when that holy times comes, the day factions opens full speed, look for this place to be a buzz. So keep an eye on it, if you are planning on entering that whole factions thang. Other than that, nothing much left to say. Have a good safe weekend, and hopefully on Sunday I will have a nice purty essay on Inscription for all you inspiring blank scroll buyers out there.

Later

•If Paladin can....

For those that don't believe I am really a Puerto Rican. And a quote from a good "friend" of mine:
Take care of your family and cut your fat ass out
of the chair for a change. Games aren't everything, and gaming forums
certainly are not either.
Hmm...sure, I guess I need to get out of my chair and do some exercises, eh? Not like a fat ass could do anything like this anyway. Or even win one of these (the plaque on the trophy reads: "First Place-Sparring"). Nope, not at all.

Am I high on myself? Nah, just damn proud of who I am and what I have done.

Hasta.

•Why You Can't Hit With Your Melee Weapon

This is a subject that seems to pop up on a regular occasion. I have addressed it on the message board, but I thought it would make a good regular article.

First, a little background. The combat system in UO is based on the attacker's skill in a weapon, and the defender's skill in a weapon. The formula for this is: (A+50)/(2(B+50)), where A is the attacker's skill, and B is the defender's skill. This will result in a total between .17 and 1.5 or, as a percentage, 17% to 150%. This is your chance to hit an opponent of skill B at Skill A in a single, discrete event. For this article, this equation will be represented by the symbol PH(Probability to Hit).

Many people expect that they should hit every other time they swing a weapon, at least, when they are at GM skill level, because their minimum chance to hit is 50%, which is the same as 1/2. However, this assumes that the first event is factored into the second, and subsequent events, which is not true. Those are discrete events. The first event's probability is 50%, so for a given first swing we have a 50% chance to hit or a 50% chance to miss.
Now the second event is, intuitively, equal to the probability to hit in the first(50%) and the second(50%) for a total of 100%. Unfortunately, you have to exculde the possibility of missing in both cases, which is represented as the product of the two chances to hit, for 25%. This means that the probability to hit once over two swings is .50+.50-(.50*.50) or .75. 75%.

Now, we can establish a few things from this. The first is that as the number of events gets larger, the probability of hitting goes up. Observe that for a three events, the probability of missing all 3 times is equal to .50*.50*.50, or 12.5%. This is less than the probability of missing for 2 events, which we established as .50*.50 or 25%. This leads us to a new expression, the Probability to Miss(PM) which is equal to (1-PH)^X where X is the number of events in the sample. Now, if we can find what the probability to miss over X events is, then we can find what the probability to hit is by subtracting the probability to miss from 1. This leads us to the following formula: f(X)=1-(1-PH)^x where PH is a constant representing the probability to hit on the interval [.17 to 1) (remember that the minimum chance to hit is .17 and for any value of PH where PH>=1 you will always hit) and x is the number of events.

By evaluating this expression as x approaches infinity for any value of PH we can see that the value of (1-PH)^x approaches 0 because, by definition, for any number(C) on the interval [0,1), the limit of C^x as X approaches infinity is 0). This means that the total value of the original function approaches, but does not ever equal one.
We can thus draw another conclusion, that being that the probability to hit for X swings will never be 100%.

So for a GM fighting another GM the chance of either hitting the other over 1-10 events is represented by this table:
x F(x)
1 50.000%
2 75.000%
3 87.500%
4 93.750%
5 96.875%
6 98.438%
7 99.219%
8 99.609%
9 99.805%
10 99.902%

Now that we know the chance to hit, next time we can discuss average damage over time.

•Let's get this right.

Paladin_VT:Militant Lesbian Man Hater

•Yep, the seasons must be changing.

Thats the only reason I can see that im making a update.


Well last Sunday I started a new character on Great Lakes. Why? Why not, I have good characters on every other shard. GL has a great ping for me so I thought "Hm, why not?"

I started with 50 Resist and 50 Poisoning, Some may tell you to start with 50 inscribe instead of 50 resist, but the time it takes to get to 50 resist from 0 is considerably longer than getting to 50 inscribe. (Hint: Use a book on another book to get to about 40. But you should know this.)

I bought a small boat and headed out to the sea. I found a nice spot and grabbed my Abnormal Social Pyschology book and started reading as I watched myself sail.

A few hours and chapters later, I was a GM Stoic. Alright easy enough. Not to mention I had about 78 eval.

By Tuesday of this week I was:

100/100/25

100 Med
91 Eval
68 Magery
50 Resist
50 Poison
58 Scribe
0 Wrestle

So I started Magery training yesterday and hit 80 before I went to bed. Allow me to quote ProQue
"Fizzle is your friend." At least in Powerhour that is true. For example, when I was at 45 magery I took 200 FS regs and got to 58 magery in about 35 mins. This is only in Powerhour remember, otherwise you are just wasting time and regs.

Ive come to the conclusion that no matter what shard you visit, Moonglow is the cesspool of humanity.

There are 3 types of people there.

Sitters, kewldoods, and RP'ers

Lets start with everyones favorite, the kewldoods.

Kewldoods are easily identified by their names. Example: Suppakilla, HoRsEmeaT, and my personal favorite Da pAlAdiN. I thought perhaps that was this our esteemed Paladin, but he didn't start a argument with me when I used pronouns at the wrong time. They are almost excusivly PvP'ers. The kind that tell you that you suck when their posse kills you 10vs1. Also the same one that accuses you of cheating when you beat them.

RP'ers are also easily identified. They have names such as Aragon, Biblo, and other names. These can be easily confused with people that have no imagination for naming their chars. They are found often in the many player run taverns around the world.

My least favorite, the sitters. These people are the bane of bandwidth. Nothing is worse than recalling into a laggy town to find a bunch of people sitting around on their nightmares with the lord/lady titles. Talking about all the money they have and the rares they collect. These people are a waste. They don't even play the damn game they sit around bragging about their virtual belongings.

Quite Sad.
Ah well, talk to you sometime after New Years I imagine.

•Who Am I?

ProQuo posted a VERY good (and funny) summary of who we are at UOPG. It's hilarious. You got to go read it.

I started thinking about it and while going over the continual posts of "you suck Nieves, I am better than you NUUB!" Ok, it's not all like that, but it might as well be. Do these people even KNOW who I am? Or who we at UOPG are? Do they even think about what they are going to say before they post it? Before I lower myself into a "fuck you and die" rant...let's take a different approach.

You say your way is better. Fine, post it. You say ours isn't. Fine, tell us about it. But don't come to our 'house' spouting bullshit. It's not what we are here for. You got UOStratics Speils/Rants, UOProstitute and the like to do that shit at. No, I am not saying we are against free speech or don't advocate the sharing of ideas. But we look for POSITIVE ideas and exchanges of said ideas. If you want to flame one of us, send us an email. If you never hear from that person, they probably did the "delete" thing and ignored it. Don't get mad, they have the right too. But if they reply, then you have what you are looking for, an ear for your "I am right, you're wrong voice".

OH, and BEFORE you post your "best way" information, pour through the archives and different sections. You just MIGHT find your way there. Maybe...go look. Trust me, you will like what you find.

With the advent of the internet people think they can say what they want without worry of consequence of their posts. What they fail to realize is that there are appropriate ways and places to do those things.

UOPG's forums has always been about asking questions related to playing UO to it's fullest. Every once in awhile people share their game play experiences and we talk about them. That's all fine and good. I don't really mind. What I mind is blasting each other back and forth over stupid shit. And YES, I have been guilty of it. I am human, catch me on a bad day, and I turn into my mother and throw the Puerto Rican flag at you (yes, I am really hispanic; ProQuo li...erhm, he was joking; he's honest, really, he is). But that doesn't make it right. I hope you all understand what I am saying.

Constructive criticism is ok. Saying you suck, is NOT constructive criticism.

To all of you new folks visiting our site for the first time (or first few times), welcome. We aren't Nazis or Communists or even Pink Fluffy Bunnies (I still like Puffy bunnies :p). We are just a bunch of guys with too much time on our hands playing an addictive game. We have alot of information to share and are very willing to share it. Enjoy the ride. We do.

Hasta.

•"Im not dead yet..."

That's right folk's your's truly is still alive and kickin. And just what have I been up to? Well besides my secret plot to take over Lord Brit's castle, I have been doing a little bit of everything. Mainly I have been concentrating on my scribe. Hopefully by the end of the week I will be GM in less than 15 power hours from a starting skill of 32. And don't worry as soon as I finish I will be pasiing that info along to all of you. I will also include information on how many materials I used. But one thing I would like to add to the whole Scribe discusion is this. I hear it all the time on how people just can't find the blanks. Well heres some information. I found today 31 different locations to buy scrolls at. All in Trammel. And that is just places, not the amount of vendors either. Some of them places have three vendors, others just one. So what does that mean? On a rough guess I would say that there is at least 45 official sellers of blank scrolls in Trammel alone. Just something you can chew on until next time.

Later

•How not to use a Blade Spirit for Parrying.

Deathmoan times 10. That's what happened to my fencer. Her body was all over the place. Trying to do this with 2 computers and my 2 accounts was WAY hard :( (I don't think this is bannable as I was attending the whole session and was not using multi-UO--I am sure I will get an email from my OSI rep if it's iffy or a bad thing to do).

Even with near 90 healing, GM anatomy and 100 dex, my fencer's body parts were quisinart all over my front lawn :(. I got 2 friends to help me do it and he informed me that 32 resist is NO where near what she requires to do it. ::Sighs:: Oh well. I am going to get more parry for my fencer at the BK room (she's at 95) and try to finish it in one power hour (not likely). Either way, I will GM her parry and get her resist up.

Last night I took PvMer out and worked parry on Pacific (thank you Watts for the help). After notifying a GM of two offensive char names (one being Nut In Ya--lame asshoes), and after they were promptly taken care of (YOU GO GM SO-AND-SO!), I grabbed some BKs and loaded a shield up without using a weapon. Talk about a beating. BKs are damn tough when you aren't beating them back. I got to 79.0 real Parrying. That is a serious Power Hour (yes kiddies, that's just ONE power hour). If all you want is parrying, get a good healer (GM anatomy, preferably above 80 healing so he can res you :), and 100 dex or just get a good mage [Thank you WATTS! I WUV YOU!]), and use no weapon. The BK will beat your shield senseless giving you some seriousely rediculous gains. And it works better. I have tested it with my parrier above (the fencer) and with this char on Pacific. Gains are better without a weapon cause the BK isn't getting any weaker cause it's taking no damage and can knock you around with it's full fury!!! Sorry, I am a bit excited. Heheh...running from my own bladespirits isn't all that fun.

Hasta.

•Hey Nieves -

I was going to send you this as an email, but since I really don't want to end up rewriting this thing, I'm posting it as an update on UOPG.

I read your Alchemy update, then the thread in the Forum on Saturday. In the course of doing my own Alchemy update some weeks ago, I had looked at the difference in gain between making Greater Cures and Deadly Poison through the 90s, but of course I never bothered to write down any hard numbers. Luckily, I'm just about finished GMing a second Alchemist on a different shard, so last night I did two comparison Power Hours.

All values are in real skill totals and exclude stat bonuses.

The first PH, I made nothing but Greater Cures. I started at 91.6 with 2000 Garlic, and by the end of the hour my skill was 92.4. I let the macro play out for the remaining Garlic, which took about another 15 minutes, and ended up at 92.5.

After the burst clock reset, I ran a second PH, making nothing but Deadly Poison. Using 3000 Nightshade, I went from 92.5 to 94.2. Again, I let the macro play out for the remaining regs and ended up at 94.8

In roughly the same amount of time, GCs gave me .9 in gain, while DPs gave me 2.3 in gain (or .8 in a burst hour vs 1.8). I don't know about you, but I measure efficiency in UO by however much real-world time it takes to do a certain thing, whether that means reading a book and nursing a Alchemy macro or buying regs so I can run that macro. If these are the sort of gains I can expect to see up to GM, making DP is more efficient on both counts (total time and time-per-reg).

I'm going to do another 2-3 double burst sessions to see what gain is like at the mid and upper 90s, but I remember from last time this is pretty much the way of things.

•Ok, I got past a bit of the boredom...

But I think I am getting over it...one hopes anyway.

I found that powergaming characters over and over (restarting shards, deleting and recreating, etc) can be tedious AND boring. Also, the fact that it's hard for me to find consistant playmates to get on with is a pain in the ass. Yes, there are people that I can play with at night, but, by that time, I am tired of UO and either want to do something else or have other, more important things, to do. I think a bit of a break is in order. No, I am not quitting. I would regret it. I know I would.

It's been a month since I have worked and things are getting really tight. 401k can only go so far (if it ever gets here in the first place). I have bullshitted and procrastinated enough as well.

Priorities are going to start taking over. How does that affect you? I am going to get this fucking website updated, redesigned, and upgraded now. It's been past time for a make over. I added a couple of new monsters and still looking for reports from you folks about how to fight certain monsters (I.E.-Shadow Dragons, Acid Elementals, etc) so I can add it. Why don't I do it? I don't have the time and I for one, can't fight a Shadow Dragon alone. Destard is a death trap for me. Just ask the guy that got ate by the Ancient Wyrm a few weeks ago. His mom wasn't happy when I took back his arm to her for burial. Anyway...

There was a guy that was helping redrum and I with the redesign. If he would email me so we can continue that would be great.

Please realize that the information we post here is from our experience. If you don't accept it as truth or agree with it, do one of two things. Talk to us in our forums or email about why you think the information is wrong, flawed, or why you don't agree with it. Or go to stratics. I am sure they have all the most up to date information you need.

What we do here at UOPowergamers is given to you at NO cost. We don't get paid for this. We are VOLUNTEERING our time and effort. This collaboration of Ultima Online guides, strategies, and tips is something that is 3 years in the making. Thank goodness redrum did this. Otherwise I would be in the dark about alot of things in our game world. Please appreciate that effort. It's the least you could do. If you want to send money, let me know and I can give you a P.O. Box. Otherwise, a simple thank you is sufficient.

Flames in the forum about how the information sucked or is invalid will be met with serious ridicule and without the necessary respect required of a, possibly, valid arguement. And besides, Paladin is always looking for a fight. He's always right and will show you why you're wrong and personally flawed. I would avoid that type of experience if I were you. Anyway, I digress. Speak intelligently and avoid the insults. Yes, sometimes I get caught up in that mess and I just got to watch it. Shit is stressfull enough as it is without getting into a kid's debate.

Hammer stories are forthcoming. I played with a bit more than usual. Had some good times and a couple of bad times (Sir Bart, your dragons suck).

I got to spend some time with Watts on Pacific last night with his bard. In his own words: "Bards OWN!". Yep. For player versus monster in high traffic monster areas, they freaking rock. And with the magery to back it up, they can be unstoppable forces even in one on one scenarios versus monsters :). If you have a spot, make one for your mass monster hunting (Dungeons, Papua deserts, Yew Forest, etc).

Well, that is enough blabbering for now.

Hasta.

•I can't believe I am saying this...

I logged onto Ultima Online tonight and I was...bored.

Hasta.

•Juust no lika my talking eh!? Pues, mira, juus know que?

Lots to talk about...

How I GMed Alchemy in two weeks
Well, more like a year. I made this alchemist back in fall of last year but never sat down and worked him much. I decided to go ahead and finish him.

From 65-GM this is what I did.

I got regs for Greater Explosions, Greater Cures, Greater Heals and the Highest Poison I could make. I ran through the four of them using 4 different thingamajigs and empty kegs to put the made potions in them. When I reached 85ish, I stuck to Greater Cures and Greater Poisons. Once I got to 91.0 I started Deadly Poison and continued with Greater Cures until 95.0. From 95.0 I rode Deadly Poison on up to GM. It was a LONG, expensive process. Well, I mean long cause it was boring as hell (did I tell you I hate making merchant characters?). I spent over 100k in regs mainly because I kept getting to the NPC vendors late. You sure you don't play Great Lakes ProQuo? I managed to find plenty of nightshade when it mattered most.

I wound up with 5 Greater Poison Kegs, 3 Greater Heals, 5 Greater Cures, 1 Greater Explosion and 2 Deadly Poison Kegs. All those Cure and Poison kegs will come in handy when I make my run at GM Poisoning (ugh).

Some tips: Do this only during Power Hour. Some of my colleagues suggested doing it outside of PH just to finish but I didn't agree with the reg expenditure. In all, it took me roughly 10-12 Power Hours. Also, never, EVER double click on a Deadly Poison potion when you only have 31 strength (no, I haven't stat capped him yet; doing alchemy & poisoning first, then Magery/Eval/Med, and finally Inscription). Thank goodness my greater cures were of sufficient strength to cure me of the ailment. Damn lag...yeah, that's the ticket.

So, ProQuo doesn't like my "eloquent" use of the Spanglish language eh? Pues, sabes que mijito? At least I don't get my lady's pets killed :p Neh.

Hasta.

Note: ProQuo and I love each other very much. All this is meant in jest so quit sending me the "ProQuo sucks, You rock" emails. We all know it's true but I, nor ProQuo needs to hear it anymore often than we already do. ::super grin::

•Boy, your'n a heap a trouble now. Oh yeah, Vet rewards too!

According to the banner above, this still is a powergaming site. With that in mind, I give you this tidbit. To GM meditation in one day, use the stat trick commonly referred to as the “ping pong method” to get intelligence to 100. The next step is to find a place where your boat can sail ahead without hitting land. There is a spot just East of Ice Isle that lets you do just that. Head out to sea and tell your annoying tillerman to go “slow forward”. Now cast whatever you can to keep your Mana supply low. After a few hours, you should hit GM meditation. If you don’t, you suck. Don’t blame me, blame your parents.

On a side note, If I ever write a post like the one below, feel free to flame me. Much love to Nieves and all that but please stop with the Puerto Rican speak. I don’t go writin’ in no country boy talk cuz I be knowin’ it bothers some folks, and that ain’t right.

And finally, NEW Veteran Rewards are listed here. Go drool.

•No juust no say dat chit to me!???

This is tonight's experience at the Keep Merchant Vendor next to the new Treasure Hut (I believe near Minoc) on Great Lakes, Trammel: "got any shade"? "yeah, these vendors". "um, I checked those, they are empty". "oh well" "Oh well?" "nope" "you call that customer service? you suck" "Fuck you..." remove thyself...ejected

I for one will never shop there again. What the fuck is up with those people? They obviousely have no freaking idea what customer service is. "Sorry sir, we are out, please check back another time". Or even a simple: "sorry, we are out". Not, "oh FUCKING well"!?

Oh, and what the fuck is up with people selling surp accurate katana's of ruin for 25,000??? Since when is a katana of ruin worth 25k? Massive Acc Spear of Power 45,000? Maybe. Sup Acc durable kryss of Ruin 25,000? Hardly. Massive Silver Katana 12,000? Fuck no. Substantial accurate katana of silver and weakness 25,000? Oh my fucking gosh are you nuts? A 250-350gp GM Katana is better than that surp acc katana of ruin. I am kind of appalled at the people selling at those prices, but the real idiots are those buying the shit. Oh wait, I forgot about the durable acc viking silver sword for 6,000. Oh yeah, that's a fucking steal :( Since when!??? Anyway...you keep buying those things at those prices one and all. I will keep selling and giving shit to my friends at PreUO:R prices. Greed...in a game? ::sighs:: Sooner or later, the humanity comes out.

Update: Went back to the keep to let them know I will let all my friends know how they treat folks and shit. They told me to quit bitching and just do it. Allrighty then. That's when I decided to let you folks know about it.

Hasta.

•Thank you WATTS for this morning's laughter!

GO HERE NOW! Don't ask no questions. Just GO HERE now. It's one of the most hilarious things I have EVER seen.

Hasta.

•Patches patches patches

Let's see, today we got a patch that makes the windows easier to use for newer players (no, I didn't say newbies, so hush).

ProQuo is telling me the Nerfed Tamer's...err, Stabling patch is coming in tomorrow. I told him to rant about it, but he told me it's old hat and just to put it up. Ok...there you have it. Go get ur patches today and wait 20 minutes to get logged into UO. My current wait time to get into the game after the Newb...err, Windows Patch.

Also from my friends over at stratics: Electronic Arts is working on an Ultima Online-derivative title for PS2. Since the game'll be ready before the broadband strategy for PS2 is in place, it'll come with a 56k USB modem in the box...Hmmm, the PS2 is becoming quite the home for online RPG's. Everquest, the other major online RPG, is definitely PS2 bound...

::groans loudly:: Just what I need..more 8 year olds playing the game.

I just thought of something...how are you going to play UO on a PS2 with just a joystick?

Ok, I have been mean enough for today.

Hasta.

•Yo Quiero Taco Bell

Give me some meximelts and I am happy as a button. Anyway...

So my daughter gets hit in the face by a swing at school Friday. She has a serious 2 inch cut on her face. About 1 centimeter deep. Bleeding all over the freaking place. Ok, now that you are all disgusted by that...

I get to the emergency room and I have to sign in. Not tell a receptionist "hey, my kid has a really bad cut, can you look at it". Nothing. Just sit there for 1/2 hour. Hmm...there are 2 other people in front of me and I am waiting for 1/2 a fucking hour? When we get called back there is a docter and two nurses shooting the shit at a stattion. Um...wtf? You ain't got anything better to do? Someone tell me why the fuck we have to wait so long in every emergency room in america? Ok, only the ones in Ohio, Texas, Georgia, and Alabama. I have been in emergency rooms in each of those states and they all suck ass with waiting times. I don't know about you, but if I am coming to you in the emergency room, I am there for a fucking reason and need some fucking help a.s.a.p. Oh, and someone tell me why they have 20 people working during the day and only 8 at night? That's like ignorant...

Girlfriend just made a comment to me about it. "It's like waiting for a GM to respond to a call". Well, I think going to the emergency for help is a step above calling a GM cause a vendor disappeared in our tower (yes, it has happened since the last vendor patch; be aware).

So Dr. Tweedle-Dum comes in and asks us what's wrong. My daughter tells him and he pokes at her. She winces and he tells her to not be a wimp. I glare at the fucker and start wondering where he learned his bedside manner. He pokes her again, and again she winces. Again he says don't be a wimp. I start thinking how a deadly poisoned katana would look in his ass. They numb her face and put in this new fangled glue that chemically shuts the wound. :/ Again, while the doctor has my daughter's face in his hands, I start wondering what he would look like with that katana in his colon. ::sighs:: I hate being so fucking patient with folks. But he's got my daughter's face in his hands. Do I be a dick or just go home? I tell him he sucks and we go home. She's going to have a scar, I know it :( My perfect baby's face. What does this have to do with UO? Absofuckingloutely nothing.

I get a call from watts the other night. He tells me about his neighbors killing his red char. Allrighty then. I put a call out via ICQ and Suev meets me at his house. After some "blocked rune" problems we get to the twinky house. HIm and 2 of his friends had done killed them 2-3 times. So, I get ready for some action. His 2 friends leave and it's just us 3 versus the 4 twinkies. We kill a couple while they do the house fight dance (lame). After a bit Watts disappears and they kill us off and we have to go get resed. Don't blame Watts. Just that I wish he told us what he was doing. We get to Watts house, reequip and I get a bright idea. I grab all of Watts Greater Explosion potions, a exceptional Heavy Xbow and tell them to keep me healed. We run to the house and they start coming out. I start throwing pots as they run and drop one of them. I lag out, drop a potion on myself, and then hit Suev AND Watts with Potions. They died soon after. :/ Lame. I killed my partners with out own pots. :/ I was trying to fight off the Lumberjacker but the Pot that went off on me dropped me low in life, and he hit me twice and I took a dirtnap. I kissed my partner's ass and apologized profusively and they said it was cool.

We got requipped hooked up with another of Watt's buds and ran back to their house. Plan this time was straight archery on their asses. Well, we got their, charged into their house and, 2 minutes later, were looting 4 corpses :). Not bad eh?

Well, that's enough for the day...remind me to tell you how Elyssa and Loren killed a grey today...

Hasta.

•"git up there and piss in the radiator!"

Everyone remember the movie "Red Dawn"? It was basically a story of the Russians taking over the whole great US of A for the folks out there who do not know. Well now there is a new Dawn in town, and no its not the "Red" kind either. How about UO:Third Dawn? Sound good? I like it. Our dear friend Lum broke out with this exciting story today. And it looks like things are getting even better on the horizion. This whole new development is considered to be the famously rumored 3D client that alot of people have been waiting for. Now what kind of 3D client? I am not sure. I am praying that it is something along the lines of Baldour's Gate. And I mean the whole deal. When casting spells, mages go into a entire bablling fit with bolts of power flying around. Thats what I am talking about. But it looks as if we will have to see. But the rumor-mill is churning more than ever. I believe that OSI will have to ship a new disk for this type of project. With new art and everything else, they would just have to. A patch would be to HUGE, and with the way Patch servers work, I would be here till about 2007 trying to get it to fully load. Even with a cable modem. But hey campers, this is GREAT News for everyone. Now I will have my fix around for a whole lot longer than I planned. So "git up there and piss in the radiator!" We got a new UO coming to us sooner than we though, April 2001 is what is posted, we shall see.

Comments and thoughts? Piss Here.

Later

•Well I tried...

I screwed up...really really bad.

If you have been paying attention in the last 1/2 hour you would've noticed some really freaky things happening to the site. I was trying to add a new PvM page and when I uploaded the template to my editor, I hit "Auto-Correct" and it pretty much fucked some of the links and pages. Redrum, where are you when I need you!??

Anyway, I will muck around with fixing it and hopefully get it right.

UPDATE: Ok, it's fixed and working now. Thanks to Redrum's ghost for coming to me and threatening to cut it off if I didn't get it fixed soon.

Hasta.

•I think I am quitting.

Well...it is 2:40 am and I am drunk as fuck. Coming home from a very fun frat party I decided to play my stat loss red that was somewhere around 40 short terms. And guess what? Some newbie killed him bc I am so disoriented right now to drink a pot or cast In Mani. WTF am I doing playing drunk? WHY! WHY!...Well with all that I dunno what I am gonna do...that was the only char I played...maybe take stat loss? ewh that would suck...god damn! WHY! WHY!...

Lates.

•New Item Is Found!!

Well it seems as if there is a new armor to be found in the lands. So quickly rush on out and kill some Efreets and get your very own set of Deamon Bone Armor!!! That's right no need to walk around in a sissy set of regular Bone Armor, get your Deamon Set and amaze all your friends. I would like to personally thank all of our friends at Blackdagger for coming out with this news. Now it's time to ask a request from you, our beloved readers. If you see or hear about anything new that comes out in the game, Please Drop Us An Email At The Very Least. We would very much appreicate it. Other than that, it's your standard Friday here at Powergamer Central. Either everyone is playing or out pimpin. Quiet I guess, to say the least.

Later

•"Well let me beat the dead horse a little..."

Well, looks like the nerf wagon maybe coming to an advanced shard near you. If you can't think of which one, I will make it easy for you. Siege Perilous. The true home of every "old school" UO veteran that couldn't stand UO:R life. This place is not, nor has it ever been a place for the weak. Right as you log in to the shard it informs you that if you weren't l33T on a regular shard, then do not even bother. And the people that live there love it. Want Big Guilds? They Are There. Siege players have no problems, they don't experience nearly as many twinks as a normal shard does. Twinks fear Siege. Why? Easy. ROT. The only way to gain skill. Well most of them anyways. You aren't guarenteed a 5x GM in two weeks on Siege, but you could get one in 2 months. And everyone loves it. Hell, there is even no stat loss on Siege. Want to be Red? Have at it. Just enjoy the ROT. I personnaly love ROT, and it isnt hard. It just takes time. Thats what makes Siege special. You cant log in and be a bad ass in two days. You have to, hold your breath, WORK to be someone on Siege. Thus no twinks. Which is good, because Siege is just about the Who's Who of PvP. You go there to PvP you have to be serious, and be good. Trust me, if you suck at PvP why spend two months of your life to make a Siege char just to get your ass kicked. Thus Siege is the advanced shard. Some thoughts on OSI's ideas:

The Rate over Time (RoT) system will be removed from the shard entirely. Skill gains will function as on regular shards.

This right here is the official slap in the face. If this goes through. Good bye Vets, hello Twinkville U.S.A. Ever played on test before with Twinks running everywhere causing just plain anarchy. Welcome to the future of Siege with no ROT. Remember no Stat Loss, a twinks wet dream. Siege will no longer be hard. Siege will become a joke. Once the total anarchy of twinks sets in, guess what nobody will want to play there. So therefore you are back to square one. Nobody playing Siege(personally I like it this way.) with twinks leaving because there will be nobody to twink.

Shopkeepers will no longer charge three times the regular shard price for reagents.

This change however rocks. Since the spawn changes, Moonglow is no longer the Reg heaven that it used to be as far as picking them off the ground. This will help out greatly. As we all know, Reg Shopping is a pain in the ass. Now try to imagine doing it with Regs costing 3x as much. Viola!! That's present day Siege.

Upon release of the faction system, guards will cease to exist in non-faction towns.

I like this as well. Red vs. Blue battles are great, and now that Reds can run into town and take care of business it should make things alot more interesting. Great idea here also.

I didnt hit on all of them. Just the three, I liked and absolutly hated. So what can we do. Not sure if there is much that can be done. But look for alot of senior players heading out the door whenever this comes out. I guess the thing that pisses me off the most is that SP players do not complain about the shard at all. In fact they love it. The economy there alone rocks. People are great. Hell I was playing there with my newb the other day. I got jumped by like 10 players at the crossroads. Well needless to say I died. But they ressed me, I grabbed what I had left and went about my way. It rocked!! The only thing I can recommend is to go here and let them know how you feel. Then you can always drop by here and rant with us as well. Thanks to Dregoth Do'Kaal for kicking this thread off. Read on down to Paladin's update as well. It's a great one. And hopefully not his last.

And on one other note. This kinda hits close to home for Gator. Say some prayers.

Later

•An Open Letter to OSI

I have played this game since February of 1998(According to the account services page, I actually started in September of 1998, but what's 3 months here or there?). I got the internet specifically to play UO. I had heard about it from a friend, and since I had played all the Ultima games(Ultima 1,2,3,4,5,6,7a,7b,8, Worlds of Ultima 1-2,Ultima Underworld 1-2) I thought it would be incredible. And it was.

For the first time, I was playing a game where the interactions were real. Somewhere, someone else was playing the same game and seeing the same thing with me and we were interacting with it. The first thing I noticed was that the game did not live up to the Ultima series' treatment of virtue. The shrines of virtue were irrelevant, and many people played with malice in their hearts, and mischeif on their minds. Right away I wanted to fight these people, to defend the eight virtues against assault. So I created Tynian Granger, who still exists on the Catskills shard today. I joined a guild of 8 people called "Marked of Brotherhood" MOB. Some of those guys I still talk to today, almost 3 years later.

After a year or so on Cats, with all my friends gone, and me beta testing EQ, I quit UO for 3 months or so. Then I came back and went to the Atlantic shard. This was the hotbed of pking and I wanted to come back with a vengeance. There I met Serathnal. This guy is now one of my best friends, period, in game or out. Any time I need help, I know I can count on him, and he on me. I also met Loves Arrow, the Guildmaster of VoV, who is one of the nicest people ever born, bar none. And so I kept playing, and I had fun. Then came statloss.

Statloss wasn't that big a deal then, because the majority of people that were red really were guys who went around killing newbies and miners, and I thought that was really stupid. It had a negative affect on the people that just liked fighting, but the number of pk's didn't really reduce, but the group ganking method sure did increase. I still think Gonz Gon Goobler is a loser, and so were the other 5 guys that went with him. Never saw them alone, except as a corpse, but no one survives 5 e-bolts, twice. It's just not done.


So now, I became a pvper. I fought and learned with the new weapon abilities (maces doing STA damage), I learned about EXP/FS/Hally. I learned about trapped pouches, and I learned about fighting as a team.(In the old days, you just slapped on a heavy crossbow, and then shot people up and fired off e-bolts) Somewere along the line we fixed weapons, which was a good thing, bows had been too good, and melee sucked. But, when melee became good, a new character was born, the Dex monkey. As a mage, these guys really bothered me right at first, but I adapted. With the hally rush, you could still wreck one of these guy's days, but if you screwed the pooch, you were going to die.

Slowly they took away some of these tactics, and, with the combat patch, severely took mages down the crapper. Someone on high corrected and mages got a new toy, Mindblast. Now poison was a useful combat spell, and so was mindblast, but the addition of abilities for warriors, that they hadn't had before gave them a new edge. I adapted, I kept playing, I had friends, I gm'd smithing finally.

Then came Instant characters and UO:R and UO as I knew it was ruined. In this new Candyland, people could do what they wanted to, bother you, annoy you, screw around and piss you off, and there was NOTHING you could do about it. The economy went straight down, because money was so easy to get now, it was scary. It was never hard, but now, with no threat of any pker, you could loot as much as you wanted and there was no threat to you. I started to hate the game, but Serathnal invited me to SP, and I started playing there and had fun. No twinks or idiots, because SP was hard, and they didn't like hard. I moved on and adapted.

Now, OSI, you want to take SP away from me. Not this day. Not this time. This time I draw the line. You want to turn SP into instant characters, with impunity everywhere, without statloss, so all the twinks everywhere can come to SP. No, sir, not today. Taking away RoT is the worst thing that you could possibly do. The population of SP is small for a reason. We like it that way. Everyone knows everyone else. We know who can be trusted and who can't. The shard is hard, and the small population keeps lag down. This is the best place to play UO, and you want to take it away. I'll quit first. I will turn in my account, I will tell you to shove it. I, and many others on Siege, will turn my back on a game I have played so long, rather than see you destroy the last good place to play. I will flame you, I will rant, I will rave until you do this. And, rest assured, I know you will do this, because, in the past, you have ignored the veteran players in favor of the new players, and so many have fallen by the wayside. You have sown the seeds of destruction, and now you will reap the rewards of attrition. It saddens me, but again, I will adapt, and I will move on.

•In the words of a Gator...

Siege is getting nerfed.

Do I need to say anything? ::sighs::

I see another exodus coming...

Hasta.

•Yes, I am still alive

Well, today seems to be a GOOD connection day. The cable guy is in and running a new line. The main office is kissing my ass apologizing for the shitty service. Which they should. I am paying for this shit. Well, they are crediting me for the time I have been down so I should be happy.

I am still job less and trying to get through the unemployment blues. My 401k isn't going to be disbursed for another 4 weeks so I am hurting there. I am starting to teach more karate classes and their might be an opportunity to earn some real money doing it (1400 in bonuses each month can't be too bad can it?). Oh, and someone told me today that making 16,000 / year is poverty level. Um...fuck you too. I used to live very well with that kind of money up north. Granted, I would love to continue making 43k a year as I did last year, but how much money does anyone person need? I just want to pay bills, buy kid's clothes, take em out every now and then and stay healthy. Everything else is candy. Know what I mean? Doesn't mean I won't strive for more, just that "driving a Porche" isn't as important as just being able to drive in some cases.

I am going to make some changes to the PvM pages soon (cable connection is down as we speak) and update it with one of the new monsters I have been up close and personal with. I will also continue from where Redrum left off in redesigning the site. Him and a currently unnamed person have done a GREAT job with their ideas. I love it. Hopefully they will both be implemented very very soon.

I did do a Treasure Map today with my Hunter, Clyde. Here is what he got: 1 chest: silver hvy xbow of ruin, 2 mace of force, 1 shield of fortification, 1 small xbow of vanq, 1 mace of vanq. Oh, and 7k+ gold. I think Hammer will love the maces. ::Grins::

My jacker has been spending alot of time in Deceit lately. Liches are everywhere after the 2nd level. It's nuts. Heck, I spent more time getting resurrected then I did actually playing. To the guy that looted my scimitar of power, I hope you got looted today (I saw him dead) and don't get resed for hours.

Um...I got a question for people. Why is it that I walk up to someone selling their wares they decide to ask someone else for an opinion on the sale?

Here I am banking, ingotseller comes up and says: "ingots for sale, 7gp minimum bid". Hmm..."how much for iron you say?" "7gp". "Well, good luck selling em." Ingotseller walks off and says: "ingots for sale 5gp minimum bid". "Hold up...5gp now?" "yeah..." "Ok, how many iron you got?" "248" "5gp per ingot ok?" "Hmm..how do you call a GM?" "Why do you need a GM?" "I want to see if that is a fair price". "Um, LOL. GMs don't answer those kinds of questions". "Hold on..." "Wtf?" "I am asking a friend GM smith if that's a fair price". Whatever...

"GM friend says don't sell for less than 6gp Each". "Fine, 1500 for all 248 ingots sound, ok?" "um..someone offered me 10GP per ingot" :| Kal Ort Por.

If you are selling something, research and set a price. Get a minimum and maximum you are willing to deal then keep that in mind when you are going to hit banks selling things. I don't have the time or patience for people that work that way. That's just ignorant and will get more Kal Ort Pors from me than I can shake a stick at.

Hasta.

•Reason for the delay? Well, you could have probably guess that.

Posted by Calandryll on the UO Boards:


Let me try to make something really clear. The fact is, many players expressed dissapointment with the rewards. If most players liked the rewards, if the system was welcomed with open arms, we would be publishing it very soon, possibly even this week. But again, there was enough dissapointment from the community and we decided it was best to add a few more items to the list, items that were not given out in the past.

We have no plans to remove any of the current rewards from the list. I know there has been some debate about some of the rewards (like bless deeds), we have read both sides of the debate and feel we should leave them in the list.

We'll be working to get the new rewards designed and announced as soon as possible...nobody here wants to delay this anymore than we have to...but when enough players expressed dissapointment in a system that is supposed to be a reward system, we have to take action. This was not a decision we made lightly, we talked about it for quite some time before making the final call.

I don't expect that everyone will like every reward we come up with, even the new ones. With so many people in the community, it is impossible to please everyone. But we do feel we can come up with a few more rewards that should make people feel better about the system.

While I know there are those who will say we have no plans to implement this system (citing necromancy and alchemy as examples) and unfortunately, I can't stop that, but I can say that rewards is going to be published. Of course, that's just words, so I'll leave it at simply stating wait for the announcement and then we shall take it from there.


That's the news, folks. Oh, and you can go back and post about this issue here.

•Those Darn Vet Rewards...

The following was posted to FYI today:


Update: UO Veteran Rewards
Over the past several weeks, we have been paying close attention to player feedback regarding the UO Veteran Rewards. While we are pleased that everyone has shown such enthusiasm over the rewards program, we have also noted many concerns regarding the uniqueness of the rewards for each level of game time. In light of these concerns, we have decided to return the Veteran Rewards program to development status while we determine, and add, additional rewards to the program.

All of the current reward options listed in In Development (http://update.uo.com/indev.html) will remain as options, but we will be added a minimum of one new item to each reward level.

While these new items are being designed and tested, we will be focusing our testing efforts toward bringing the Faction System online.

We apologize for delaying the UO Veteran Rewards program at this late date. However, as the program was designed specifically to reward our long-term players, we feel that it would be unacceptable to offer rewards that aren’t pleasing to our players. We will update you with additional information regarding the UO Veteran Rewards program in the future.

-----
This was a comment on the UO boards from Calandryll:


I don't have an ETA on this yet folks and I do want to say that while we have been listening to all of your feedback, I cannot say right now what or how many additional rewards there will be. We have no plans to remove any of the rewards though at this time. We'll keep you updated as much as we can. Thank you to all of you who posted comments about this.


Uh oh...Now what? Click here and post your thoughts.

•I am the man.

Bleh bah boo, yeah, I'm supposed to be gone. I just came in to get some shit. Anyway, I got the job (woot!), and should be starting early next week, so I should be back online in a few weeks.

One quick note: DON'T e-mail me anymore, because I'm disconnecting from my ISP right after this post. If you e-mail me at my current address, I will never receive it. I put up a shitty hotmail account for the time being, so e-mail me there. The address is bleh44@hotmail.com.

Cya in a few weeks.

•"What the Hell are you still doing here?!"

I guess I wasn't leaving last night. It's this morning instead. Anyway, I got in one last update. That is, the parrying page. Oh my fucking god... I have never, ever, ever, ever been so confused in my life. It took me 3 hours until I finally got it all sorted and figured out, actually. I hope it's right. If not, tell me before 11am CST and I'll fix it. Otherwise, tell Nieves and he will not fix it. Har har, I kill myself.

Update: The archery page has also been updated with the information that Lawyer posted on the boards recently.

•"Where the Hell have you been!?"

Living baby, living. That's where I've been. For those of you who are new to the site and have no idea who I am I'll give you a little history. I used to update this site infrequently...very infrequently. And when I would update it was only to shed some much needed light on whatever particular problem was plauging UO at the time. I felt it my duty to attack everything from the abhorent patches to the mass ignorant UO populace whose intelligence I could generally equate with that kid with the funny limp who always got to leave school early and ride home on the short bus. If that hits close to home and you're offended. Good. Moving on, I've been away now for several months and to be honest, I've missed it some. I got on the other night jumping on to one of my good friends accounts.(He has 4, 2 of which are formerly mine.) I quickly tried to set up my macro's and remember everything I would need. They were talking about this "new dungeon" everyone hangs at so I went with them to check it out. Well we get there and My boy Bugs dies doing something stupid. Keep in mind, I'm a pvper. Old school, and I'm not used to losing. "Pain" starts to loot my boy so my instincts kick in and I attack him. Let me add before I go on that before I left I didn't have the chance to really familiarize myself with the new style of pvp, not to mention the fact I had not so much as logged into UO in 4 months, plus I was playing on an aol connection with the minimum download so I was running my disk. Anyway, with those excuses preloaded, I attack "Pain" and proceeded to have my ass handed to me. What macro did I forget to put on of all things? That would be cure. Point is I had fun just hanging out with the old boys causing mischief so I think I will be making my return as soon as I get a new system. (anyone selling a good system for around 500 needs to email me.) Anyway, before I left those that followed me know I was cast as a featured extra in the new movie "Pearl Harbor" coming out in May. I will be including full commentary and pictures of my week long endevour in the next update. It was hard work sitting under a tarpon eating fresh fruit and shooting the shit with Ben Affleck, Alec Baldwin, as well as the original Doolittle pilots that actually bombed Tokyo. Anyway, that's a little teaser. I will fully break my confidentiallity agreement with the next update.
Flashicl711@aol.com

•Going away.

Well, for anyone who checked my pointless section a while back, I said I'm going to move in with my brother and work where he does, which is a good 45 miles away. Since then, laziness has taken over and I enjoyed it, so I decided to wait a few weeks (months) before I actually decided to call the place. To make a long story longer, I called them up and they called me back a day later, which is today, and they set up an interview for tomorrow. Obviously, this means that I'm leaving tonight.

Now, my brother sucks and doesn't have the internet (he's not a loser like yours truly) or even a phone jack (we just give his celular number out to everybody - he likes it), so that means that once I get paid, which is 2 weeks from after I start working, I have to buy them to get back online. Lame.

Anyway, I'll be gone for awhile. You will miss me.

•Siege guide up.

You can find it over on the menu, under "Strategy". Gaining skills and finishing up is basically copy and paste, but I added some other tidbits of information and explained stuff better for a change on the rest. This common sense tip needs to be mentioned, as I forgot to mention it earlier:

The only skill that you want to GM is archery, unless you're planning on using the other skills in the long-run (remember, this is just our starting mule). If you're making a mage, you won't need 100 lumberjacking, for example. Only use lumberjacking to get logs when you need them. The same goes for everything else. You will waste a lot of time and work if you try to GM skills that you won't use later.

•The last step.

Once you get 60+ strength, 90-100 archery, 60+ healing, 50+ anatomy and tactics, some hiding and a handful of gold, it's time to actually spend some money. First buy magery and resist skill from an NPC mage. Then buy a cure scroll, some cure reagents if you didn't pick any up like you should have and a cheap silver bow from SP Tradespot or a vendor in the old lands. Once you have all of that stuff, go to the city of the dead and kill liches. Now, don't sit there and fight one toe-to-toe. Instead, bring one outside where it's safe, then stand just where you can see it and it can see you and fire. If you get knocked down to half