New Player with a couple of questions

Hi folks,

although I registered on this forum a few years ago RL catched up with me (namely my 2 year old daughter ) and couldn't find the time to get back to UO. That has changed and I am very eager to get started (after not having played for about 10 years). I am currently deciding wether to join UO Renaissance or UO Forever. As I understand (at least two years ago), West Bank Britain is nearly deserted on UO Renaissance as most players bank in Occlo? Sounds odd, but this is a huge drawback for me, as I have very fond memories of the WBB bursting with life. On the other hand, there is no T2A on UO Forever. And as Delucia is my favorite town this is huge drawback too...

I have a couple of questions and I hope that someone finds the time to answer these:

- Hows the shard doing? Is the population rising, steady or in decline? Is Renaissance considered to be the most populated freeshard?

- Are Dexxers still viable?

- Are thieves still viable?

- I understand that champ spawns are active but no Powerscrolls? How does this work? Is there some other kind of reward to get people starting champs (which on OSI always generated a lot of PvP when Reds were raiding)

- Is there a lot of custom content? And if so, would someone point out the most important ones?

- are crafters doing well?

- If I put my heart/time and perhaps money in this server, will I be able to log on in - say - 2 years / 5 years? Or is the staff planning to close down the shard at the end of the year

Thank you very much!

God, it nearly causes physical pain, because I am missing UO sooooo much.

On this shard everything is fine, the world is slowly filling up, thieves are many (my tower was robbed a couple of months ago) champions spawn flowers blossom!

Yes, there are no scrolls of power, but this server has everything that would be called the best. The community here is terrific and on the agenda are always topical themes aimed solely at improving the gameplay and enjoying the game!

Dexxers, thievers, crafters and PVP, Thrive !!!!

Refer to the site uorenaissance.com and evaluate how meticulously and step by step on every aspect of the staff work for our with you a great immersion in the world of the game of childhood!

I do not persuade you to stay, but I can say with confidence and pride that this server is cool and promising!

This is the server you're looking for.

Heya, and welcome!

To try and answer your questions...

- Hows the shard doing? Is the population rising, steady or in decline? Is Renaissance considered to be the most populated freeshard?

The shard is over four years old now and recently just set a new peak record for most players online at once, so the shard is growing. People come and go but the trend is upwards. I have no idea if it is considered the most populated freeshard, but it is probably up there.


- Are Dexxers still viable?

Not really, at least for PvP purposes. Magery trumps everything pretty much here, and there is need for some balancing in this respect. You can still use a dexxer, just don't expect to do as well as a mage in PvP, and nothing beats a tamer for hunting. Dexers have a small niche for holiday events since they can use slayer weapons for specific holiday creatures, and same goes for some specific custom content like 7th level dungeon maps. But otherwise, they are rather subpar.


- Are thieves still viable?

My understanding is that stealing is fairly broken here and not really as good as it should be, but there are still plenty of them out there. I am sure someone more knowledgeable of the mechanics can chime in on this one.


- I understand that champ spawns are active but no Powerscrolls? How does this work? Is there some other kind of reward to get people starting champs (which on OSI always generated a lot of PvP when Reds were raiding)

Champ spawns give Platinum coins (the "vet" reward currency, which can be had by other means as well) which you can use to buy nifty things - they are the only way to get blessed runebooks or ethereals for instance.


- Is there a lot of custom content? And if so, would someone point out the most important ones?

The holiday events are all pretty good and are custom (especially Halloween, which is probably the biggest and most looked-forward-to event of the year). In more recent times there are more staff-led quests/RP style events which involve usually anywhere from 10 to 30+ players. There are some other custom content such as the tamer's quest, ancient MIBs and 7th level dungeon maps, holiday maps, occasional staff-led PvP tournaments, etc.


- are crafters doing well?

Yes and no, but mostly yes (could use some new craftables). If you want to do BoDs, then go for it, you can make some good money and get nifty things. Otherwise, gone are the days of standing at the blacksmith looking for a GM blacksmith to help repair your armor (much is the pity). I will add an addendum (edit), that some players do very well running vendor shops if they keep them well stocked. I know I personally have ventured around to vendors looking for good carpentry ones so I can stock up on counters and tables and what have you.


- If I put my heart/time and perhaps money in this server, will I be able to log on in - say - 2 years / 5 years? Or is the staff planning to close down the shard at the end of the year

I absolutely think so. The server owner is very committed to this shard and I think it will be around for some time to come.


At any rate, again, welcome!

Bank sitting isn't as popular as the old days, as most buying/selling happens on the forum or IRC (Definitely get into IRC)

Growing! There have been a few recent influxes from other shards, which is great.

Absolutely. We even have instanced dungeons and events where dexxers are actually the best.

viable and plentiful

Champs serve as a main source of Platinum, which is a currency earned from playing that essentially replaces vet rewards - no waiting for a year to get that ethy, go earn it as fast as you want.

Yes

Ancient MIBs - Fished up, 4 custom instanced dungeons
Level 7 Treasure Maps - Found in level 1-6 map chests, 4 custom instanced dungeons
Holiday events, including Christmas scrolls - found by killing overworld spawn, 4 custom instanced dungeons
Battle mining - Gargoyle shovels act similar to picks, but are color matched. Kill the golem for ore

There are a few who do quite well with well run shops

No risk of that at all

Welcome aboard! I see you've already got answers to your questions, so I'll just add that the community here is top notch and the staff is stellar.

This is the best UO experience I have ever had. Hope to see you out and about soon!

We just hit a new peak less than 10 days ago. Shard is doing just fine.

Depends on for what, and who you ask. Fencers seem to be a viable PvP template (stun).

I don't have one, the ones I do see seem to be doing very well for themselves, but have seen a lot of discussion about improving the stealing skill.

YES!! Platinum is what you're after at champ spawns.

This is some of the custom content but if I had to list it, it would be: Ancient Messages in a Bottle, the zoo keeper's quest, lvl 7 treasure maps, events, and pretty much everything is awesome!

Yes, they can do VERY well.

I don't see this shard going away any time soon. @Chris is as dedicated as they come, and I think he loves the game too much to even consider closing shop.

Here is some of the custom content!

AMib's

Pet Bonding

Night of Horrors

Christmas

Valentine's

Easter

Treasure Hunting

Wow, thank you very much! Unbelievable!, So many answers in such a short time!!

Sounds all to good! Yeah, unfortunately, those days are gone, standing at the blacksmith, looking for a GM Blacksmith to repair your armor. But this was already gone when I first logged on to Defiance freeshard in 2005. And it was long gone, when I was playing OSI hardcore in 2003 - 2005.

So, Dexxers? Seems I have to try it!

- Are all the champ spawns are active? Even those in T2A?

- Whats the IDOC timer here on Renaissance?

- Are there a lot of neons or is it like in the old days?

- Is there are lot of champ raiding and IDOC fighting?

- Are rares implemented (daily rares etc.)?

- @Kiryana: Your tower was robbed? So someone stole your house key? Or did he get in any other way?

- Runebooks are not blessed?


Thanks again to you all!

Yessir. This guide details them all.

Roughly 15 days

Not at all. There are special hues, but they are neither VERY flashy, nor very abundant.

No clue. Haven't done one in ages.

Yessir.

People are VERY creative at getting into others' homes. Most of the time it involves either gates to public places from inside the house and/or stealthing through the front door behind the owner as he waltzes in.

Not normally. You can bless them with platinum.

Don't believe the hype about dexers. Nox fencers can kill it in pvp and lumberjacks with slayer axes can whoop some top level mobs. Play whatever style you like. But tamers are great for farming gold.

Welcome!

Seems like our awesome community has gotten back to you with answers.

I would also like to comment on the dexxer issue. I main a peaceddexxer and I have a blast, BUT I dont make money with him, for the most part. So my opinion is that dexxers can be really fun to play (you get to use all the nifty physical weapons in the game), it has that classic " I am an adventurer with a sword!" feel to it, and front line tank or dps machines are always needed.

Tamers for sure are the way to make money when farming mobs, however, getting a tamer skilled up is tedious and will take a bit of work what with learning macros for raising said skill, and finding a solid place to do it with out getting killed. A dexxer, on the other hand, can be skilled and geared up in a day or two, and you are off to fight things!

So it comes down to if you wanna make a ton of money, or get adventuring quickly, or just care about the experience of it all. Your choice, but trust me, you will find a way to succeed here with most templates.

Finally, barding is a huge thing here. Taking a barding skill (music + provo, peace or discord) is a vast amount of farming builds. For the most part the barding arts are easy to raise up, but do take 200 of the 700 skill points you have available. I find it very worth while in any hunting template.

Also, get into IRC right away, as its the best way to meet and interact with the community in real time. Feel free to join the channel #PS, the new player guild channel, and we will help you out with anything else you need.

Cheers.

~Krake

So many GM Forum Warriors here. We love to ramble on incessantly.

Welcome!

You called? Gotta pad the post count!

Farming likes since 2015

Oh, and welcome to UOR.








Question about idoc timers noted.

- @Kiryana: Your tower was robbed? So someone stole your house key? Or did he get in any other way?
<<<Haha, they came to me in the tower solely because of my carelessness! There is even an instruction to protect and properly check houses when going inside, and I ignored the case and now I'm caught! As a rule, immediately after the entrance, it is necessary to create a buffer zone, this is usually achieved by installing tables and screwing them to the floor. I went into the house, closed the door and then you begin to check the room in addition, if everything is clean, then you remove one table and pass! Well, if interested, be sure to refer to the instructions.

The thief just walked behind me, and I was so carried away by something that I just did my things and left, the next day my chests were empty! At first I was a little upset, but then I realized that it was cool and really.

Now I'm doing everything right and it's difficult for me to get into, I have several boundaries!

And between the case is very cool implemented skill "Detecting Hidden", Even if this skill is 0% of the experience, then it works on the territory of the house and 100% shows the lurking. (But I repeat, only on the territory of the house !!!) To work behind the chapels at home, this skill must be trained! And also when checking with this skill, you can see which doors in your house are not locked, which is also very appealing!

Detecting Hidden >>> http://uorforum.com/threads/detecting-hidden-for-dummies-by-atraxi.2498/

Renaissance Guide to Home Ownership>>>
http://uorforum.com/threads/renaissance-guide-to-home-ownership.6057/

Well, since such a topic has gone, read more of this, an interesting study by @Cynic >>> http://uorforum.com/threads/post-patch-73-a-study-in-tracking.21845/#post-205188

Thanks for the question @Kalvasflam , learn from other people's mistakes!

Regards,
Kiryana

Once again, I am speechless! Thank you very much for all your responses!

People here in this forum are so friendly and helpful, that I already made my mind. Friend of mine is thinking of joining this shard too btw!

However, yesterday I logged on to UO Forever to compare whats going on in the (european) evening hours. There was so much (faction) fighting at the WBB, several gates to shops etc. it really felt alive and thriving. Dunno, maybe they were all bots. However, I think I would miss that very much. Then again I would miss the lost lands on UOF... Nethertheless, I created a new char on Renaissance too and visited Occlo. There were a lot of players around the bank, but no fighting at all and no Vendor Gates.

- Is there no bank fighting on Renaissance?
- Where are all the gates to the shops? At first I thought, ok, maybe most players already have them in their runebook, but I saw so many players with new player status that it would make sense to gate to shops? Wouldn't it?
- How about factions on Renaissance?
- Where's the fighting on Renaissance? (Brit graveyard? Yew Gate?)
- Are there (large) Pk guilds on Renaissance?

Don't get me wrong. I'm hitting 45 this year, so I am not that much into pvping anymore; actually I am planning to concentrate on crafting, treasure hunting, collecting rares, perhaps setting up a shop etc. But I still - after all those years - love the thrill! When I am mining near Minoc, when I am gathering feathers in Covetous, when I am farming in Ice or Destard, I expect to get PKed

Oh, you will get PK'ed, you can count on that!!

I am not a PvPer, so maybe those who are can provide more info.

The shops are there! If you walk around the outskirts of Occlo you will notice many player vendors. The other good spots for player vendors are Moonglow and the Yew bank/gate corridor. Since you have the moongate right there in Occlo, you really don't need a gate to shop, just jump it and go. Most don't though because you loose young status.

I think the reason you don't see many people gating to vendors and such is because the majority of good vendors are located very close to the moongates. You have Yew which is a vendor haven all around the moongate stretching to the bank. You have the shops all around Ocllo itself, you have the vendors at Britain gate, etc. Most vendors are in convenient locations that don't require gating to.

As for bank fighting - I rarely see it. I have seen a couple of faction clashes around the Ocllo bank and in Britain, but they are not a common occurrence at all. Faction fighting overall isn't super active, though I couldn't tell you why. Someone who knows more about factions should be able to fill you in on that.

Most PvP seems to take place in or around Ice Dungeon, and sometimes at other dungeons as well.

Hello @Kalvasflam ,

I'm a sort of thief bard here, and local papuan representative from the [cA] guild. I think some of the answers here aren't entirely accurate (but of course that's my opinion) so I will go through your questions in an effort to help you understand the current situation and why you may have decided correctly in choosing UOR to play. It's important to understand that this is just my (correct) opinion.


West Bank Britain is nearly deserted on UO Renaissance as most players bank in Occlo?

Yeah I don't know why this happened exactly. Yew used to be the happening place, but perhaps the new-player systems caused newer players to become more familiar with Occlo, and now that's "the" spot. I don't think it makes much of a difference really though, you remember the active crowds, people selling, stealing, noto-pking and all of that, something which is heavily reduced on any Ultima Online freeshard these days. You won't find it on UOF either, but during peak times UOR can come close-ish.

Delucia is my favorite town

That's nonsense. Papua is the premier T2A town.

Hows the shard doing? Is the population rising, steady or in decline? Is Renaissance considered to be the most populated freeshard?

When I began playing 3 years ago or so, it was much lower but healthy as the server was new-ish. I think the population has been steadily increasing, but the online count shown here isn't very accurate. The "plat" system gives incentive for people to stay logged in 24/7 as "gametime" is rewarded with a currency that has value. Given that 3 accounts are allowed, and assuming nobody is cheating and has multiple accounts on different IP's or through a VPN/Proxy, then we can assume that the minimum number of "online" players is the count divided by 3. So last week there was a peak of 830, which means "at least" 830/3 =~ 277 people.

But as anyone who has logged in has seen, a large number of these players are AFK. Or they might be doing things like crafting bods or training skills in their house. The dungeons and other hotspots are not as populated as you would expect, but that doesn't mean there won't be PKs, there will be PKs.

I have no desire to log on to UOF and check their population, but it's difficult to fine even their numbers. I will say this though, UO shards pop up occasionally that launch with impressive ad campaigns on facebook and similar sites to attract numbers, at least initially. They all have donation shops and things like that (UOF is no exception), and excessively custom, unbalanced systems in place. A sort of "add whatever script from runuo.com people want until the donation money stops coming in" server. You would be surprised if you knew what their earnings are. Is that a bad thing? No. But this sort of biased democracy leads to a server that I don't care to play on. UOF is essentially "trammel" with PKing allowed. Homes cannot be looted, nearely everything is blessed/newbied making stealing a PVP skill more than anything else. It's just not worth my time due to how I prefer to play.

Are Dexxers still viable?

Yes, but you're going to need to put some magery on it and know how to play it. It's not as viable as in the actual renaissance era where dexers were overpowered, which is what I think people expect here. But a fencer hitting with a para blow and dropping a spell combo for example, can be very good. A few of the best pvpers play nox/scribe/stun mages, and I think that's the de-facto template that most people try to emulate for OMG LEET PVP. But I think these players could do well with any character, and so when someone tries out a dexer and dies to one of them, they seem to think that it's a problem with dexers and not their own skill if that makes sense.


Are thieves still viable?

Yes and no. Stealing skill checks the range of nearby NPCs to determine success. All banks and places seem to have extra guards that do not leave on all of their sides. This makes stealing at a bank mostly pointless. There is never a chance for you to steal and remain blue like there was on OSI. If players want to trade items, they can wait for an event (or use the event gate that is currently open 24/7) to go into an instance and trade without any risk of theft, and yes they do this. So there is very little to steal actually using the stealing skill.

If you want to steal 15 mandrake at the bank in a deathrobe, you can do that if that suits your fancy though. So what is there to steal? There are regular events for holidays and whatnot, something similar to champ spawns, and there may be rares or valuables to be had there. Unfortunately, nearly all valuable new items being added to the server are blessed, newbied, or simply to heavy to steal. The valuable currency "platinum" is a stackable item, and there appears to be some issue with stealing from stacks causing a fail even if a GM thief attempts to steal 1 single coin that has a weight of 1 stone. It's possible, but it was definitely nerfed unjustly. Players here are very anti-thief, and essentially want "trammel" for all aspects of the game except for PVP/PK.

Fortunately however, stealing works for other things. If you want to be a thief/pvper (bleh), you can do that, stealing weapons and things is fine. Some weapons can be extremely valuable as well with runics and slayers fetching prices up there with large houses.

Items do not decay in houses, so T2A style house looting is possible if you're clever. Most people are not. That's the one saving grace for me and another reason why I feel UOF is a waste of my time.

I understand that champ spawns are active but no Powerscrolls? How does this work? Is there some other kind of reward to get people starting champs (which on OSI always generated a lot of PvP when Reds were raiding)

You get some platinum coins and rare junk or whatever. It's a popular thing for people to do, but it's not really the hotspot you are expecting and more a thing that guilds organize to do together.

Is there a lot of custom content? And if so, would someone point out the most important ones?

Yeah, and actually custom. Other servers have a bunch of downloaded crap they just install to the server at random. But UOR seems to think out their systems rather well. My complaint is that it leads to an environment that is too "safe", but it's not too bad. There are Ancient MIB's and other things which open an instance to a special map people can go kill monsters and whatnot. It's not trammel rules in there, and you can PK/Steal/PVP inside, but people open them from their houses or other secure place, and the chances of an uninvited guest attending are slim.

There is a custom BOD system in place if you like crafting stuff. Some of the rewards are worthwhile and many players sit in their house all day crafting stuff for BODs and selling the clothing bless deeds and other stuff on vendors or the forums.I mean it's.. whatever.

Fishing has some features like fish have weights and things. There's an achievement system for PvM people in place similar to what you might see on XBOX of whatever. I basically ignore all these things, but it's a welcome addition to the server.

There is truthfully a lot of content. It's like a server for PVM and Crafters, that PKs and thieves are also allowed limited access to.

are crafters doing well?

You aren't going to open a shop selling GM made items if that's what your asking. You wont find many people crafting in towns and selling goods. There are repair deeds which mean no smith has to actually "hold" your weapon to repair it for example. GM weapons aren't very valuable at all. Most things crafters make won't net you more than a mediocre income. Anyone saying otherwise is just stretching the truth. This is going to be the case on any server where macroing is allowed though, as everyone can have crafters of their own rather easily.

There is a big BOD trading community, if you count all that as crafting. There is also some things that only crafters can make. For example, you can't buy a boat from the NPC, you have to buy a "ship plan" and a crafter uses that to build a boat. So you have to get boats from other players. Not a bad idea, works pretty well to keep some carpenters busy who, in UO, would otherwise be unemployed.

There's a LOT of special furniture and stuff that can be crafted. But primarily the "catch" is that you fight monsters to get the materials. Houses near mining caves that spawn special golemns are all the rage right now.

Material gathering is typically done by recall macros that people watch. They recall to buy regs and re-sell them on vendors, or they recall and mine regular ore for ingots. Other's will just recall and buy the ingots directly from NPCs, that sort of thing. This makes the golemn stuff pretty nice since it gets these bozos out of their house/town for a while.

If I put my heart/time and perhaps money in this server, will I be able to log on in - say - 2 years / 5 years? Or is the staff planning to close down the shard at the end of the year

Even with all my criticism, I have to say that yes, this one is nearly a guarantee. Admin and I may not see eye to eye on mechanics, but there is no question as to whether they are serious about running the server in the long-term even if they must pay themselves to maintain the servers etc. You probably can't go wrong with this one. UOF will die out along with the other sort of temporary pop-up servers. Only a handful have ever made "long term" goals. AI, IPY, UOSA, Metro, and the old RunUO default servers like Demise and UOgamers. All of those are dead or gone now though. UOR is my best bet for what will be around in the long term.


Is there no bank fighting on Renaissance?

Not too much really. IRC and other forms of chat have helped to replace banks as THE hangout spot. It does happen though, but there's not much combat there. You can flag grey and will probably get attacked occasionally if that's the thing you're after. But if you are looking for Order/Chaos fights and stuff, that's lacking. There is a smallish PVP community that actually does "factions" and the faction you're in is largely meaningless as it usually comes down to whether or not they are friends, and chances are they are. So the actual fights occur via organization it seems, or takes place in trammely duel pits. PVPers here are super lame for the most part. But I can't really blame them since they do this BECAUSE there are no hotspots of PVP, unfortunately it just makes the problem worse.

Where are all the gates to the shops? At first I thought, ok, maybe most players already have them in their runebook, but I saw so many players with new player status that it would make sense to gate to shops? Wouldn't it?

There's a few vendor spots that have mostly a monopoly on sales. [Young] players are limited on where they can go, and a gate would likely do no good for them. Other players don't need a gate to get somewhere. I think gating to a shop as a form of advertisement is a good idea, you should do that. It's just not happening much here, but it's a wise idea.

How about factions on Renaissance?

See by above answer to bank fighting. You won't find many factioners just hanging around to right, but join the right channels and you won't have any trouble figuring out where to fight people for faction stuff. Nobody really bothers with controlling the towns and all that mess though. It's mostly just for the LEET PVP.


Where's the fighting on Renaissance? (Brit graveyard? Yew Gate?

Go grey and be near Occlo. Farm literally anything of value and you will get some (unfair) fighting. Come across another blue player out of town and there's a 20% chance they will get a PK to come after you. Go to one of the 4? duel pits if you like that kind of crap. When there is an event (and there are A LOT) of them, that will be the hotspot. At valentines day for like 2 weeks there was PVP going on nearly at all hours at the event location. There will be overland pvp going on soon when whatever St. Patricks Day stuff happens. People hang out near the bucs den teleporter sometimes. Other's fight on Wrong Entrance rooftop. The Graveyards are mostly empty though.

If you want to fight, what I would do is go on IRC and simply say you are farming some boss monster (that spawn randomly) at some location. PKs will be there to help you with your pvp needs shortly.


Are there (large) Pk guilds on Renaissance?

Ah this is a funny question. I guess there are 1 or 2, but I wouldn't call them "PK guilds". Since you are rewarded for being online 24/7, people just leave 3 PK's logged in so that thier short term counts decay at a rate of 3 per day. That means they can kill 9 people or more each day (since some don't give murder counts) and not get any statloss. They will do this when they are not playing, or when they are playing another account and are out PVPing for factions or whatever, or maybe out doing PVM stuff or whatever. Then when they are sufficiently bored, they get a group of 3-4 and gate around to the hotspots murdering people until they have their max short term counts for the day.

It's pretty pathetic really, but it means there's no reason to really try to anti-PK since they can just res a second later and aren't too worried about death. There's a lot of this that goes on, as well as a lot of random sort of solo PKs that do the same thing at late hours when most Americans are sleeping. There is the rare PK that actually takes statloss like Pork Fried Rice, and good on them for it. That guy understands the excitement of playing and murdering people when death actually means you will be put out of commission for a while and need to re-macro skills and is confident enough or skilled enough to do it. Those players ARE PKs, the other guys are just PVPers or PVMer that have a PK character built.


Don't get me wrong. I'm hitting 45 this year, so I am not that much into pvping anymore; actually I am planning to concentrate on crafting, treasure hunting, collecting rares, perhaps setting up a shop etc. But I still - after all those years - love the thrill! When I am mining near Minoc, when I am gathering feathers in Covetous, when I am farming in Ice or Destard, I expect to get PKed


Oh boy this is the server for you I think. If that's your plan, this is the server you should stick with. Tons of treasure hunting, crafting, pvm, rare collecting, shop setting-up-ing, and all of that, with a thrill of being PKd occasionally. This is probably as close as you're going to get to a server that still has what makes UO great, a little bit of danger, some exploration, all sorts of characters. At the time I am writing this, I think it's the ONLY server worth playing on even if it has it's faults.