Ultima Online: Welcome to Sosaria
MMORPG.com Ultima Online Correspondent writes this at-times amusing introduction to the world of Ultima Online and your character's early experiences.
Congratulations, by logging into Ultima Online you’ve made your first step toward a life of confusion, rewards, and freedom on an epic scale.
But what now?
You’ve created your character, tried to make your elf (let’s be honest) look as close to some anime character as possible, picked your starting skills, and you’re ready to be dropped off at the town of your choice, right?
Wrong. This ain’t your daddy’s Ultima. Get ready to travel to New Haven, which is a lot like the old Haven, just newer and with that fresh ostard smell. Here you’ll gather all of the skills necessary to set out and carve your own little piece of history. Why, before long you’ll be dying at the hands of paragon ancient wyrms and wondering why every other elf in the world is wearing sunglasses. But enough of filling your head with dreams of adventures to come, snap back to the present!
Upon logging into your character you’ll be graced by the lovely Gwen, who will welcome you warmly as you wonder why the Everquest chick is greeting you.
Her first few missions for you are easy enough. Use the left mouse button to walk forward, move the icon farther away from your character to run. Left clicking your backpack icon in the lower right corner will open your bag, and you are tasked with your first criminal act - taking food from the crates nearby. Left click and hold the button down to grab the fruit, drag it into your backpack, and release. You now have a scrumptious meal for later.
Now comes a real task for ambitious young adventurers - taking hand outs. Hogarth, the keeper of Old Haven, is ready to assist you. Double click on him, read the quest, and get ready for the ride of your life. Grab the katana on the table, and once it’s in your bag hold down Shift, right click on yourself, and click on the quest item option. Left click the katana in your bag and voila, it’s ready to be transferred back. Double click on Hogarth and accept your reward he same katana. Did you know that Hogarth moonlights as a bag man for the Britain mafia?
If you’ve played games like World of Warcraft you are probably used to sheathing your weapon when you’re not using it. Unfortunately, UO never got the memo that people didn’t walk around with weapons in their hands at any given time, so we’re going to have to improvise. Go to your menu option, which is the little house at the bottom right of your screen, and click on Macros. Hit create, and I’ll show you how to set up a macro that will draw and sheathe your weapon as you attack, giving you a little more dose of realism.
)
First, choose an icon that you like for it. I prefer the one with WAR written over a sword, but I’m kinky like that. Go back to your menu and click on the Actions option, this will allow you to drag actions and abilities into your macro. For the first empty spot put in the War/Peace action, then Arm/Disarm goes next. Right click on the icon for Arm/Disarm and edit it so that you’re putting on and taking off the right equipment. Left hand is for swords, right hand is for shields. After the first Arm/Disarm action put in a Delay action, set it to about 0.1 seconds, although that entirely up to you. Seems to help with that annoying ‘you must wait before performing another action’ error message. If you’re wearing a shield make another Arm/Disarm after the delay, and set it to your other hand. Once the macro is set up, look in the Macro window and right click on the one you just made and set it to the key of your choice. I prefer the space bar, but again that’s based on personal choice. Now whenever you hit that key you’ll go into war and arm yourself. Hitting it again will disarm and bring you back to peace.
Moving back to the questing, open your map by clicking the little N icon in your bottom bar, or by hitting M on your keyboard. See that extremely faint purple marker on your map a tad north of you? That our next objective. Get moving, champ.
Go through the cracked wall north of you and head left towards the iron gate. A white glow should tell you that you e in the right spot. Now comes a real test - combat. Double click the gate to enter, and hit the War/Peace icon at the bottom left of your screen to enter combat mode. Or, if you created the macro earlier, hit whatever button you set it to so your character will draw their weapon and enter combat mode at the same time. Click once on the skeleton to target it, double click to attack. Your first kill will drop faster than the Dow Jones and you e probably feeling like UberSlayer2009 right now. Don’t worry, that will fade soon.
Double click the corpse to check out its loot, and drag the items to your bag. Even though you’re not hurt you’ll have to drink the potion down, so double click it. Oooh, she got you! It doesn’t use up the potion assuming since you’re fully healed.
See that scroll that you looted? Drag it onto the hot bar. This will allow you only use, but it’s good for what we need it for at the moment. Later on, if you’re so inclined to follow the path of mage, you’ll drag spells into your spell book to learn them permanently. Using scrolls is fast and requires less skill than learning it though, so keep that in mind.
)
Make your way around the broken down walls and toward the next iron gate. Don’t worry, the skeletons aren’t too bright here and won’t attack you. You’re safe, for now. Up next are some rotting zombies, but you came equipped with your super katana and one extremely weak offensive spell, so you’re about as ready as you’re going to get for these guys. Left click a zombie to target it, and then either click on the scroll in your hot bar or hit the corresponding key to UNLEASH HELL. And by that I mean basically throw a grape at the corpses, because you’ll notice you’re not exactly setting their world on fire. Before too long the whole pack is coming toward you and you can run all you like, there is no escape.
Much like a boxer in a Don King fight, you’re going to have to take a dive. I suggest enjoying the company of a loved one, or scratching an adorable kitten behind the ear as the zombies tear at your flesh and eat you alive. You are now a ghost, as you probably guessed by the sudden emo color scheme of your world.
But don’t worry, as Gwen herself explains to you death in Sosaria isn’t the end of the world. There is no true death in UO, just as there are no height or weight differences, children, or jumping. It’s just an intensely painful period of pure hell that can easily be remedied. In fact, let’s do that!
The red dots littering your map now are wandering healers. Learn their names and buy them gifts, because these guys will be life savers in the future. Literally. Running up to one gives you the option to come back to life in your death robe. You only have 15 minutes to reclaim the stuff on your body, but luckily the zombies won’t attack you now so you can retrieve your stuff and be on your merry way. Double clicking your remains will fill your bag with your stuff.
Rearm yourself and notice Gwen’s gift in your bag - a token of passage. This will allow you to go through the electrical gate north of you, which just happens to be our next objective. No clicking needed this time, just walk right through the gate and get ready to meet the Dark Knight himself.
No, it’s not Batman, and yes they decided Dark Knight was a good name. He’s bad ass, but not bad ass enough to be named Sephiroth or Goku.
Double click on him to talk to him, accept his insults (has there ever been quest giver in an MMO that didn’t underestimate you?), and he’ll give you a rune to face him in the future once you’re strong enough. But that’s another battle for another time.
)
Walk through the gate behind the world’s greatest detective and follow the road west into New Haven. Once you enter town say goodbye to Gwen, as our generic looking busty guide has to get back to every foreign made MMORPG ever made.
Before she leaves sh’l l mark your next guide on your map with a purple dot. But don ‘t just stop there and think you're ready for the rest of the world. There are a lot of people in town to help guide you and raise your skills, get you some pretty good starting gear, and even pay you for escorting them around town (and earning you points in your Compassion virtue in the process!).
This is just the start of your journey, and it’s the easiest you ‘l have it in your travels, so take your time and enjoy the new experience. The island of New Haven is rife with activity, as the undead and bandits make their homes west, and south of the town there are plenty of trees to cut, mountains to mine, animals to tame, and the occasional ettin to run from when you get in over your head.
Oh, and welcome to Sosaria!
