h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Now that PayPal accepts Solo, I can finally play UO!

I've completed the newbie quest and currently have two characters, a warrior and a mage. The warrior is making pots of money as a bowyer at the moment.

I've never paid for online gaming before, but UO is one that's tempted me before...

I've been a fan of the Ultima series since I inadvertantly purchased Ultima IV for the Master System years ago. I then got hold of the (now extremely rare, it seems) Ultima Collection (ie Ultimas 0 ~ VIII all on one CD) and Ultima IX (a forgotten classic, mostly because it was too graphically advanced for most computers at the time, and full of little bugs).

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"Inadvertantly purchased"? Didn't know that was possible...

My mage character joined a guild the other day. He's a demon now He looks much better though - in place of a blue robe, he now wears black leather armour, cloak, sash and kilt. They gave me a bone helmet too but it hides his face, so I'm sticking to my wizard's hat (now dyed black, of course ).

I'm just trying to figure out a way for the mage to make money - reagents are expensive. Today I went out killing monsters and skinning them, taking their hides to make into leather caps for sale. Seems I make more money just collecting gold off the corpses than selling caps!

Anyway... I died leaving all those expensive reagents (spell components) on my corpse, along with two rather useful runes (runes are things that mark a place for the recall spell, which is like long-distance teleportation). When I got resurrected and went back, I picked up the box of reagents, but was promptly killed again (I hadn't had time to fetch my armour). When I came back I was hounded by about half a dozen monsters I kept running up to the corpse and picking things up before they got too near, then luring them away and running round them and repeat. Finally another bloke riding a horse killed the monsters for me so I could loot in peace.

Then I discovered that my reagent box wasn't on either of the two corpses I'd left. The mounted guy said there are monsters that loot your corpse... fortunately he'd killed the one that took my reagents, so he kindly gave them back.

At this stage there were still some things on my corpse, including those runes. For some reason I couldn't pick them up So now I have to look for another two scrolls of mark (the spell used to 'mark' a rune with a location).

Interesting use of runes...

The "recall" thing is from Ultima VIII with the "recall item", a red stone that let you teleport to any "recall location" (sort of black squares with landing lights on). However, the runes thing is weird. In the single-player Ultima series the eight virtues are symbolised by their runes (compassion is a heart, humility a crook, honesty a hand etc), and in IX the Guardian successfully converts the runes to Glyphs (a glyph of Honesty causes everyone to lie, for example), so it's a bit weird to see them being something else in UO.

Please tell me you still have to mix spells on pentagrams...

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Nah, pentagrams are purely decorative, from what I can tell. Spells can be cast anywhere from a spellbook, but you need the right reagents on your person, unless you're casting from a scroll or a potion. Scrolls and potions can be made anywhere, providing you have the right tools and materials and enough skill in inscription and alchemy respectively. Also, you can only make scrolls for spells you can already cast from a spellbook.

Rubbish rubbish rubbish.

Is there no Ritual of Binding? A spellbook is bound to its spell by having the scroll of that spell, the necessary reagents, the spell incantation (usually written on the book) and being on a pentagram. Once the spell is bound, one can cast it as many times as they have mana.

Potions are made with one reagent, an empty flask and an alchemy kit.

I'm not settling for anything less!

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All you have to do to put a spell in a spellbook is drag a scroll to it... no reagents, mana or even Magery skill required. Potions are made the same way as you describe (except with a mortar and pestle rather than an "alchemy kit"). So there are only eight kinds of potion. I don't know about necromancy - that's another system of magic altogether, new in the latest version of UO. I think it's about the same, except with different spells and reagents (which are harder to come by) and no potions.

It's a pity (or not, depending on your stance) that spellcasting isn't as easy as in NetHack - just read a spellbook of the spell and you can cast it as long as you have mana and you still remember it. When you forget it, just read the spellbook to refresh your memory.

Interesting, Necromancy was the name of one of the five kinds of magic in Ultima VIII... can I remember the rest?

Hmm....

Earth - Necromancy
Fire - Sorcery
Air - Theurgy
Water - Tempestry (Ok, I had to look that one up)
AEther - Thaumaturgy

Ultima is great!

Although I am turning into a bit of a NetHack obsessee in recent times - it's replaced Final Fantasy V/VI in my RPG hall of fame, only battling with Unirally for title of "best game ever", and Unirally appears to be losing.

On the other hand, it has been said by several people that most computer RPGs aren't RPGs at all - just games. Statistics do not make a character - the player does. For example, people can shun statistically better items because they don't fit the character - my UO warrior character can wear bone armour, but it doesn't look right, so I stick with ring mail.

Have you ever played a pencil-and-paper RPG? I haven't, but it sounds fun. Neverwinter Nights was meant to be a true implementation of AD&D, bringing the RP back into CRPGs.

Strange magics. In UO there are 18 types of elemental (by name, at least). Earth, air, fire and water, but also one for each kind of iron and copper (except, strangely, ordinary iron) plus acid, blood, crystal, ice, snow(?), poison, and golden(??). Strange how RPGs supplement the classical elements with their own. Ice is surely water with no fire, and snow is ice with a bit of air. Then we have blood but not phlegm, choler or melancholy. (I suppose phlegm elementals are Slimes... ) Then metals are various combinations of earth (ore), fire (forge) and water (the water you plunge the hot iron into to carbonate it).

Very weird indeed. In Ultima VIII there are titans (gods of the elements) called Lithos (E), Pyros (F), Stratos (A) and Hydros (W) [yes they are the same names as the Ancient Greek pagan gods of the same elements, and there is a reason for this - the land the Avatar is banished to in VIII is called "Pagan" and people there worship gods, rather than believing in the virtues and their champion, the Avatar.]. The Avatar finds that the only way to leave the island is to become the titan of a fifth element that has been lost in the mists of time called "AEther", which is supposed to be the closest to the Avatar's virtuous ways...

(Of course, the Ancient Greeks had other titans too, most notably Chronos [or Kronos], titan of Time, and father of the Olympian gods [Zeus, Poseidon, Hades], and of course we get loads of our words from the titans' names... lithography, pyrotechnics, stratosphere, hydrotherapy, chronology etc etc etc.)

Ultimas VII+ also have another bad guy called The Guardian (disturbingly same name and capitalisation as a certain broadsheet newspaper) who appears as "natural balance" to the Avatar's 100% virtuous soul, so the Avatar discovers at the end of Ultima IX that the only way to rid Britannia of The Guardian is to kill himself. Dramatic stuff and clever ending to the story.

I really *really* hope that UO had this kind of depth to its story, and upholds the eight-virtue system the way Lord British (who, I believe, doesn't work on UO) would have wanted it.

(Oh, on a side note to that, a very amusing thing in Ultima IX is that in the dungeon of Lord British's castle, there is a prisoner who is played by [photo face and voice] the _real_ Lord British - Richard Garriot - and claims that he is Lord British and the one ruling the land is an impostor ... )

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Hang on... isn't Kronos the Greek name of Saturn?

Exactly, father of the Olympians... Zeus is the Greek name of Jupiter.