Ultima Online Chronicles, or My Adventures on Pacific in 2000 Year. Игорь Бойко

myself a panther fighting with a living magic tree.

      The dragon is taken from the stable, where he was during the absence of the owner

Professional growth

      There is no point in trying to become a multi-tasker, the more often you apply a skill, the higher the corresponding skill becomes. At the beginning of the game, it is better to spend the night (in real time) in the training room, practicing basic combat skills on dummies. Or, for example, your character can try to talk to spirits on each cycle (which also increases Intellect) and strike the dummy with the weapon of his choice. Other times, put him on the sidewalk and let him play the lute. In addition to the art of music-making this way is pumped up Dexterity. Just do not forget about the food. With available macros system (adjustable for each game session) and unsophisticated software UOLoop! which can be downloaded from the Internet, you can automate the training process and do in parallel other things. And do not be tormented with reproaches of conscience, in this case it's just a time saver.

      Almost every NPC is able to train people in several ways. If only there was money. Pay the requested amount in cash (or as much as you have in your pocket at the moment) and your abilities instantly increase by the corresponding sum.

      One "but" – it's impossible to get above a certain level in this way. All serious achievements are based on the constant practice of skills in the field. That's why I'm no longer surprised at the sight of a mage who casts a wall of fire, then walks into it himself, stands and grunts, and increases Spell Resistance. Or materializes polar bears one by one with a few memorized gestures.

      UO is fashioned in the best fantasy tradition – all the female characters are beautiful

What is good and what is bad

      Like it or not, but you can't avoid communicating with other players in Ultima. And you play, by and large, to establish yourself in the society that has developed in the game, to gain a certain influence in it, to change it in some way to your liking. Of course, without knowledge of English, the pleasure of the game shrinks.

      Like any social system, Ultima has its own ethics, which most players honor. So, if you become a witness to the player's fight with monsters, you do not need to rush to the rescue, most likely he can handle it without you. Another thing is when a player is trying to get away from some creature, and it does not work. In such a situation, you can first get involved in the course of events, and then ask if anyone will be against it. The fact is that for ridding the world of any monster characters get an increase in Fame and Karma. I, for example, was hurt when a couple of gawkers finished off the ettin I'd mauled. Only the blow that puts an end to the monster's life counts. And when I said what I thought of them, one of them threw back, "This is life".

      Maybe that's how the first PK appeared?

      Who wants red dragons? Cash payment only, only 8 thousand a piece…

      During the last "immersion" in the game I was offered to join a guild. I thought it over and over, and I didn't refuse. Now my character's name consist of "two lines" and is drawn in green. The objectives of the guild are quite noble: to do good, to earn good and not to give our own in offense. With time I will gain experience, accumulate gold, secure a site with a log cabin and create my own primary organization. This goal, from the looks of it, is not hard. And I also want to buy a ship because I am curious to sail around the sea, fighting sea monsters.

      And what of this endeavor has turned out, I'll tell you next time. Only at once I warn, the next time will not be born quickly. After all, as one bastard remarked, this is life.

      Part II

      What was supposed to happen happened. A month flashed by, and the game time I had paid for when I bought the box came to an end. Naturally, I was not happy with this turn of events, so I tried to get things back on track. To begin with I checked a few retail outlets that sold UO, asking the same question everywhere about the availability of 90 game days special coupons. Everywhere I was turned away. True, in one place I ran into an old trail – in March they were sold for 1250 rubles. A simple recalculation disappointed me: this method of payment was twice as "painful" as using a credit card. The final call to Soft Club confirmed that I should not look for coupons, it was not worthwhile. Selling games – yes, selling game time – no. Do not blame them for that, who knows what kind of difficulties in this business.

      Looking ahead, I should say that I got a credit card in one of the Moscow banks. VISA Classic. I had to pay two hundred green portraits, but the reanimation of the account went off without a hitch.

Illegal UO

      It so happened that the credit card issuance was delayed for a couple of days, the cashier forgot to do some operations. But I had time to poke around the Internet "Ultima" resources. And then I found out some pretty amazing things.

      And the world is quite three-dimensional!

      It turns out that there is an Ultima Online emulator in nature, or rather, on the Internet. It's called The Ultimate Server, which, according to the FAQ posted on the site, is very clearly denying any connection to Origin Systems or Electronic Arts. And it seems they are pretty good at it. Judge for yourself, currently this emulator is installed on almost a hundred servers around the world.

      Searching through Russian-language resources (starting point was http://www.ultima.ru/) also yielded results. For a start, I realized that, despite the newly appeared prefix "Respectable Master Warrior" to my character's name, I still look at the Ultima world with my eyes wide open. It also turned out that a lot of my compatriots use those very emulator servers. Naturally, curiosity got the better of me, and soon I got free logins on Zuluhotel (http://zuluhotel.dynip.com/uo) and the local The Lost Fort (http://www.lostfort.ru/).

Tribal UO

      The Zuluhotel is completely free. Updating the client part of the fun happens in the process of communicating of the client program with the "native" patch service of the game. The first impression – the most favorable. In appearance – the same UO, but viewed from the side. From the side, in the sense that the original universe is there, but the accompanying service is at a complete standstill. It's understandable – the universe is written in the client, and in order to organize a normal game process you need a server based on Sun with a full-fledged team. As a result – constant glitches, lag periodically appearing, a lot of standard features don't work. A kind of ersatz, but people who are hooked on UO gobble it up and even smack their lips. Character development here is going at an accelerated pace. After all, not many people hang out here, and that's why the leveling of skills and characteristics of heroes goes "by the hours, not days". That's how the game works – the fewer characters use a skill, the faster it grows. A lot of players become blacksmiths and miners here. For ore is never depleted in the hillside, which is located 10 seconds walk from the "forge" in Britain. And the ore is mined at once of all the colors and shades, regardless of the level of the Mining skin. With one cycle of "mining/production of armor," a beginner can get 400–500 coins. No other occupation is able to give such income.

      An example of the mayhem on Zulu. If you look closely, the victim character is standing right at the intersection of the conjured walls. Only his helmet is sticking out

      Except for PK'illing, of course. On Zulu, there's a lot of mayhem. Guards are often simply impossible to summon, you are killed, and they look the other way, three meters from the scene of the crime, pretending that the screams "Guards!" are not for them. The server has a "PvP" feature, Player vs. Player. Each player can set the appropriate flag for his character. If its value – Yes (which is set by default), it means that this character agrees in advance to participate in any combat. As a result, all the newbies are constantly being "pummeled" with impunity (and not only in the john), and they can't understand anything. A guy walks through town, bang! – Lightning, and the guy's gone. And so on, time after time, until some kind soul enlightens