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Bloopers!

This guide was a lot of fun to make, but as with any large endeavor there was a lot of discovery, and much of it didn't go according to plan. Admittedly most of the bloopers in one way or another involve a player (me) dying (repeatedly) Not all of them revolve around that (most of them do), and in some cases it took me some time (a looooonnggg time) to find the humor there. Such as the night I recalled into Deluca for a bank run/pit stop and ended up being invited by the orcs to stay for a kill-rez kill/BBQ over, and over.., and over.....and over again.

Shopping in Trammel

I was doing some shopping with my tamer/bard one afternoon in Trammel with one of my Dragons in tow. The nice thing about Trammel is that unless you intentionally do something dangerous there are very few things that can harm you.

Of those few things tho, someone else's dragon that went wild is definitely one of them


I would have taken a screen shot of me being killed but I was too busy soiling my armor over the shock of being attacked by a Dragon in Trammel!


After I was already dead my Dragon whose name was Wotan, but was since re-named to Nincompoop decided that he had better do something about it. He has been trained up some (see the chapter on animal training) and dispatched the wild dragon with little effort while I went and found a healer.


A similar thing happened to me the night that house placement became available in Trammel. For those of you who don't remember what fun that was... It was like the great land rush of 1845 (or some such year...) everyone lined up in advance of all the choice housing spots, and waited until "H hour" (HOUSE! Hour), the only thing that no one really considered was how many people were going to log in hopes of placing some property to call their own, we had the normal players that were expected, and the casual players which were also expected, then we had the occasional players, the once in a blue moons, the freak of nature players that have had an active uo account for the last 2 years but never used it, basically everyone and their brother, and their brothers 3rd cousin's niece's great uncle once removed was logging in to place a house.

The resources of OSI were pushed to their breaking point, I remember when "H" hour came, I literally moved 6 Steps in that first hour the lag was that intense. That is Move..wait for 10 minutes..move...chat on icq...move...drink some soda...move..not to much soda tho!...move...because you don't dare leave the computer screen...move.

They finaly decided that the shards could take turns and killed most of bandwidth to all the shards but one (so that shard would be able to function), My shard was Baja and I think the second on the list and at 1:18 am (or about that time) when the lag storm broke and we could move, the shard went from start to stop and back. Towers, and Villas, and Two Story's were being plunked down by the dozen every second. To add to the mayhem there were Dragons that were tamed and released in many areas by players looking to cut down on the competition for a house, hoards and hoards of lured monsters like trolls and Ettons (not that they would be all that effective) and other things like obstacles placed on the ground. As fortune would have it I ran into one of those player released wild dragons, which attacked me to within 6 hit points of my life, but was able to recall away to my next spot..

My first choice for placement was taken (and their was that dragon milling around the area), my second choice, which was also taken, again I recalled to my 3rd spot. There were a pair of players there discussing which one of them should place a house at that spot, not wanting to intrude on their discussion I placed my first house ever on the spot they were discussing. (First house that I placed on my own and didn't buy on a normal shard).

Training an animal for combat is Extremely effective...

In the Guide for the Animal lore, and *clears throat* 1st 1/2 of the Veterinary section I took to the high seas with two polar bears, got them fighting, and healed them to practice my trades. I had them fighting and healed them for about 5 hours to GM animal lore, I took a short break then came back to see what could be done to raise veterinary.

Now this has to be done in felucca as bears wont damage you in trammel (Unless your in a guild, but since a lot of people are not in guilds I needed to do it in a way that would work for everyone) so I'm in felucca, I ordered one of the bears to kill me, theoretically its a snap, one bear guards you, you order the other one to kill you, then the guarding one attacks it, you get out of range and invis for a moment (to keep the attacking bear from targeting you) then you heal them as they fight. Well, animals are just like players in skill gain, and in that 5 hours time they had been fighting earlier they had each built up a great amount of tactics, strength, and dex (probably some other skills as well). When I ordered the one bear to kill me he tore into me, and put me beneath 100% dex so I was pinned between my other bear and the rest of the boat. In seconds (and before I realized just what was happening)I was dead!


The other bear guarding me now began attacking the first bear, but I had to land the ship and find a shrine. Fortunately you can maneuver a ship as a ghost (wasn't always like that in UOs earlier days...lol) and I beached on ICE island and ran off for the shrine while my bears fought each other.


While I was running for the shrine one of my bears managed to kill the other one, and I gained some fame....*rolls eyes*


I got to the shrine and ressed, in the process of coming back to life I lost some fame...lol


Luckily I had a charged rune book on me, and recalled to the bank, then recalled from my spare boat key in the bank and back to the boat.

Oh, the bear that managed to live was the stinker that killed me in the first place!


Savage Ridgebacks

Savages spawn in great numbers in the swamp that is west of Destard Dungeon, having heard of the new rideable I promptly suited up and went out there. Since I was as guilty as every other buffalo hunter slaughtering scores of noble beasts for their hides....ummm oops, Since I was as guilty as everyone else slaughtering noble savages for their masks (almost 100 of them stored on a boat) I already new better than to show up at the swamp on a horse, or with a Dragon. Savages will promptly knock you off your horse with their bolas, and against dragons they get a special attack, which allows them to kill a Dragon, Nightmare, or Wyrm in as little as 6 hits. Alone and on foot I recalled into the swamp, and immediately saw what I was looking for, and Corp Pored it to death! Victory :)


Well, not quite. Apparently when you kill a Ridgeback Rider, his mount disappears with him.

Un shaken it didn't take a rocket scientist to see a possible connection between the Bola balls and separating a rider from their mount. Having killed many of the primitives in search of the masks I had a goodly amount of bola balls on hand which I paid a tinker (500 gold a pop ouch!) to make into working bolas for me. I will have to develope a tinker on this shard sometime... they are really handy!

Armed with my Bola arsenal I recalled back to the swamp and found just the right unsuspecting target, wound up and...

STRIKE -1-No worries that's why I brought 4

STRIKE -2-
STRIKE -3-

Not exactly baseball, so with my 4th and final bola I attempted to dislodge a new rider (I found a new rider just in case the last one was "holding onto" his mount really tight or something)

STRIKE -4-

Exasperated, but nothing that some nachos and a diet dr pepper couldn't help I regrouped and had "another go at it"

This time came back with my tamer/bard. Having been knocked of my own mounts more than once I wondered if it might be possible to provoke a savage onto a a ridgeback rider and see if they could do it.

Boy was I pleased with myself as the Savage rider hit the dirt! Since the Rider and the Savage who knocked him off his mount were busy settling their dispute I moved in to try and tame the odd creature


Success!

About the time I had tamed it, the Savage Rider and the Savage had settled their dispute, but the de-throned savage rider objected to my appropriating his mount, rather than recalling to safety I settled it with Corp Pors and dropped him quickly

That's not all that dropped quickly, as soon as he was dead the mount I was seated upon vanished back into the ether, and I crashed to the ground with considerable injury to my pride.


Gone this far there was NO WAY that I was going to be denied my beast!

I found another rider, had to provoke SEVERAL savages onto him (about 1 in 6 times a savage warrior will successfully knock a savage rider from his mount) then Tamed the mount


Taking no chances I recalled to the stable in Briton (even on a different server) and stabled my prize!



I then went back to "finish" off the rider, (I peacemaked as soon as the beast was tame just to make sure that he wasn't killed while I was still there with the mount). I quickly dispatched the rider, (they're not as tough when they are not mounted for some reason, maybe there a little like Bikers. Well...no Bikers can be pretty tough even with they are not on their motorcycles especially when you throw things out of the car window at them). Anyway, he died fast and my victory was complete!


I recalled back to the Briton stable, claimed my new ride and learned that somehow it had slipped back into the ether (AGAIN!)when its owner (the savage I went back to kill) died.

ARGGGGG!!!!!

This was going to take more Diet Dr pepper than I thought.

I restocked my equipment, then went back to the swamp in search of yet another of the illusive and sneaky creatures, having found one then went through the process of Provoking savages onto its rider was able to knock the rider off and tame it.


This time I recalled back to town, took a quick screen shot, then re-mounted and insta-logged at an inn.


I have an idea that if I was logged into UO on the same server when the rider died that I would loose yet another (this would be the 3rd) mount that disappeared, so I took a break, actually went to the store to re-stock now depleted soda supplies, did some other things then came back about 2 hours later. My mount was still there!.. and is still there.

When you get a ridgeback, recall to an Inn and insta-log for a while (long enough for the savage rider you took it from to be killed or re-spawn) and it will be yours :)

Min taming requirement for a Savage Ridgeback 78.3, min patience requirement 99.99994

Just some good clean Mischief

One of the commands that is available for a tamer to give their pets is the "follow" command, you say its name, and follow in the same sentence, and the next Player, Animal or NPC that you click on, your pet will follow. Heh.

Your going to need some things for this:
1-A pet that you would probably be releasing anyway
2-A good place to do this (one that is not dangerous
for you or for the person your going to play the joke on)
3-A newbie that is running by :)

Ok, now compared to some of the heinous stuff I have read about that people do to other people in UO this is pretty tame, but the object is to have fun, not ruin someone's day! This is just a funny little gag that most people find mildly amusing.

Having one more polar bear than I could stable, I renamed him "Hey Wait Up" and went to the Brit bank in search of just the right person.


Nigel was just the right person :) He was walking out of town with an npc in tow, so I ordered "heywaitup" to follow him, and follow him he did!


Nigel stopped, started even gave the bear a few orders to stay, but the bear stayed with him for a little while



More messing about on boats

On my way out to the T2a Icq caps (the northern most part of the UO T2a map) I for the millionth time forgot about that part of UO physics that anything you "run over" on a boat, suddenly becomes a "passenger". Today's guest was a stone gargoyle, probably not as bad as having a RL skunk trapped on in a small area with you, but in UO terms this is a serious monster. Dispatching him was done with a series of paralyzing, g-healing (me) and lightning bolting him, since this character was a newbie to magery there wasn't much else that was doable. Took a while but this is one of the few bloopers that I didn't actually "Die in" WHoohoo!


Well what can I say

This pic does not need much narration at all to explain what's going on. In my defense I do want to say that im wearing leather armor and not "streaking" as sooo many of the socially challenged do in UO. The split second before you die if you take a screen shot it looks something like this, you're naked and a few spaces from where you body will end up. Being a person that has done a healthy share of Dying in UO I can speak with some authority on the issue :)


White Wyrms and Mass Curse....

On Siege I'm fortunate enough to have 2 legacy pure white Wyrms stabled (The Wyrms that are a "pure white" color are not currently spawning), the are gorgeous animals but will occasional rip out a mass curse from their considerable arsenal of spells. In this case when I claimed them an orc from the invasion going on at that time caught her attention, and she went over to kill it.


Kill it she did, but not before casting Mass Curse *groans* Mass curse is a volume spell, it effects everything in an area not just a single target, My other dragon happened to be in that area. Normally what happens when a "Mass Curse" spell goes off in town is the guards come and kill the Wyrm, and You. And I was sure that is what was about to happen here, but by some freak of nature the guards didn't show up.

My Dragon and Wyrm were tearing into each other fairly hard tho, and with considerable effort I was able to get her (the Wyrm) out of the pen and shut the gate before He (the Dragon) came after her. He still shot her with a fireball or two, and she still was casting on him, but I was able to get her far enough away that they stopped that. (AND BEFORE she let loose with another "Mass Curse".

Wyrms are great! But not in town!!

Orcish hospitality

I was out recording some training methods for the guide when I came across a piece of land that I thought a small house might fit in, so I figured what runes I had that are near a bank and provisioners. Because I could get some gold, buy a "Land Survey Tool" then come back and "check it out". Never ever wait around on possible opportunies.

Deluca was appealing, the Orc invasion had recently started and I was aware that Deluca was under attack. I failed to appreciate how effective the orcs could be, especially since I had a new (57 hit point character) that I was developing specifically for this guide. I recalled in, withdrew money from the bank, and raced to the provisioners, In a rush I pulled up the vendor buy menu as an orc archer and another orc of some sort were closing in on me, I quickly scrolled down selected the Land survey tool and hit "buy" The vendor thanked me, I opened the door, took two steps and died


My Horse was in trouble, so I quickly ran to Rez at the healers a few screens off and came back. Horse was already dead and now one of the orcs in the area (probably the archer) shot my newly rezzed behind once and I died again. How long could this go on? heh well....



As I was Dying I succeeded in leading them from my corps with the hopes of being able to get back and collect my loot. Apparently I wasn't the only one who had hopes of collecting my loot.


Having been killed repeatedly but still in a short period of time I went to the bank to get the regs to cast "invisibility", so I could go to my corps, invis and get my stuff that way.


Some enterprising orcs had similar plans


But I'm not one to give up easily


No indeed!


Finally I was able to escape the death trap of Delucca. The orc invasion was one of the greatest town invasion scenarios ever in my opinion, even tho the orc archers refined rez-killing to a new standard (killed 17 times in Deluca that night) First ever being other than a grief player that rez killed that effectively lol. Notice I have my land survey tool in the pack? :)


I jogged the long way back to town, (forgot to have the rune books charged grrrr) but I passed a nice tailor vendor along the way, and even found a horse.


The piece of land that i wanted to survey was just a hair to small for a house lol but I was able to spend the rest of the evening with my sweetheart.


That's all for now :)