My idea is simple: I'll be a mage with alchemy. I'll make cash with my trade to fuel my escapades throwing explosive potions and spells all over the battlefield. The problem being I have no experience with OSI PvP, that with being a freeshard hopper. Luckily, I can join this beta test on a free account, so my cheapskate ways continue unhindered.

The first half hour is spent navigating the town of Occlo, learning a couple of gameplay concepts. There's quite a number of people roaming about, although the vast majority talk very little. Most social interaction seems to happen through the global help chat. I'm adding a "seems" because, as a free acount player, I only have access to that chat.

After a lot of busy work, the mayor gives me a letter of recommendation and I'm off to become a mage, but there's a problem:

No alchemy mentioned. I check the crafter and warrior paths. No mention either. Then I realize alchemy is an advanced path, which only opens once the initial quest line is complete. I carry on with mage as the urge to hurry grows.

A couple of quests later (like killing X rats and protecting a tomb from waves of attackers), I'm teleported to Moonglow, island-city of mages. On the way to town, I learn how to use night sight and unlock spells, save a merchant's wagon and bounce over to the Lycaeum on the adjacent end from where I started. And after another mini-quest where I learn to use telekinesis and teleport, making these two spells seem much more useful than they unfortunately are, this is where the real brunt of the game more or less begins.

And what is the real brunt of the game, you ask?

Endless side-quests!

Skill gain now comes from completing side-quests rather than mindless repetition of the same action. Yet another feature I've been partial about implementing for years. This is a great way for players to explore the world, earn some loot and reach skill objectives much faster. Except, as of the second beta test weekend, it's impossible to learn new skills outside the quest line or complementarily train them up the old way.

Before sending me off, the arcanist guildmaster gives me better leather armor, a spellbook with nearly all spells from first to fourth circles (out of 8) and a bag with reagents.

I made my way to the docks and through some deduction figure out how to use the ferry. I'm now in dagger isle which, in my memory from playing a certain freeshard, is one of the most dangerous, PK-filled areas in the game. This stuff varies a lot from shard to shard, but some traumas stay with you. I make some quick macros for the few spells I have (fireball, lightning, cure and heal) and venture forth, secure in the knowledge I can't be PK'ed yet like a bona fide trammy.

My mini-quest, which will grant me 4% skill to allocate to whichever of my mage skills as I wish, is to kill a number of monsters in the second floor of Deceit. The dungeon is lively and it's relatively easy to get it done. Still, I lose a couple of HP on occasion, but it's nothing a friendly passer-by won't fix.

I see a lot of people on horses, as well as a lot of people using spells I don't have -- notably summon blade spirits, which is rather helpful in clearing out the dungeon. Running back and forth from Deceit to Moonglow and from Moonglow to the Lycaeum is a huge waste of time, so I decide it's about time I get a horse.

Except my memory of Moonglow is one where steeds aren't sold. I finally stumble upon the Moonglow moongate, now within the town itself, and make a quick detour to nostalgic Skara Brae, which I know for sure has a place that sells steeds. They do, and I capitalized on being there to finish a different side-quest which grants me a bit of money.

People have spells I don't, which means they got them somewhere. Possibly from progressing through the main quest, but can I get them from monster loot? Now on a horse, travel is much quicker. Instead of returning to Moonglow, I hop on the Vesper moongate to check their graveyard. There used to be a lich there. Those drop scrolls

To be fair, I ran into plenty of monsters in the places they usually spawn along the way and dungeon covetous looked so foreign to me that I took two steps in and immediately stepped out without time or courage to return and take pictures. I resigned myself to following the main quest-line... But not before buying recall and blade spirits scrolls from player vendors near the docks in dagger isle and adding them to my spellbook.

I look at the clock and realize I've been playing for a little over three hours. It's been at least a decade since I dedicated this much time to a videogame session.
With that, I call it a day. The weekend is still young.

Day 1 set the stage, defining my expectations and what I have to do to progress in the game: finish mini-quests to raise my skills; once I reach a certain skill limit (70%, then 80%, then 90%, then 100% in all skills) a new chapter of the main quest is unlocked. Rinse and repeat.

The quests are always the same, with a sprinkle of variety added in:

The quest board would provide three mini-quests at a time. Usually Quest A, then either one of Quest D or E (structure destruction), and then one of either Quest B, C or F (slay quests), although I have a faint memory of getting two slay missions. The wagon protection mission was always a constant, that I am sure of.

Some of these quests are slightly more difficult than others, explaining why some would only show up after reaching a certain skill level. Each of these quests provides 4% skill to be allocated however we wish through the skills of our chosen class. Each main chapter unlocks in integers of 10% skill raise. As there's 5 skills to raise (Magery, Meditation, Evaluating Intelligence, Wrestling and Inscription), that means I need 50% skill points. As I can apply to three quests at a time (12% allocatable skill points), that means I have to perform five runs. A hassle, but not a mind-numbingly tedious as having to write some ten thousand scrolls to earn enough skill to get inscription to 100%. I've heard I can also take quests in other towns but, considering my fruitless affair looking for scroll-dropping monsters, I decided to stick to the rails entirely. UO is the type of game where you make your own fun, anyway.

Having reached the required skill levels to unlock the next chapter of the story, I went on with it. I won't speak at length about it, but it is rather well done within the confines of what this almost thirty year-old engine allows. There's a bug here and there which, unfortunately, if you're familiar with how the game works, you'll solve on your own relatively easily. Those who don't might find themselves lost for a while, but that's the thing with beta testing. Nevertheless, there's always the global help chat which has been very successful at explaining how to get past those issues.

With another chapter of the story behind me and with a better grasp of what to do, I call it a day.

I know what to do. The routine is set and I get on my way to Decei

WHOA

You see dear reader, a couple of steps after entering Deceit, there is a brazier that spawns a random creature among those that can be found within the dungeon. Including a dragon. It seems like someone decided to test whether or not it would be a lucky day and this was the result. I was wondering how no such event had yet to transpire and figured the brazier was not active. I certainly wasn't going to test my luck trying it.

At this point, I had already completed another chapter in the main story and achieved 80% skill in magery. Which means I can cast a couple of more powerful spells. I created a couple more macros for spells that I had since acquired, such as explosion and energy bolt (the most popular spell combo). I decided this was a good opportunity to test my abilities. Always at a safe distance, as dragons can cast spells and breathe fireballs that can do upwards of 40 damage.

I'm not alone in my wish to fell a dragon. Nastea either joins the fight or continues what he started. Attacking from a distance with his crossbow while I throw explosion-energy bolt combos. The attention of the dragon divided, the damage taken becomes easier to deal with. The dragon seems to focus on him more and I throw him a couple of heals. The dragon's health continues to decrease little by little and, after about five minutes, the dragon is no more.

We exchange some high fives, him blurting out his keybound macros and me typing out a bunch of gibberish as I rush for the screenshot button. I go check the corpse and realize I have access to the loot. In New Legacy, you only have the right to loot the corpse if you deal enough damage. If you try to check the loot on a corpse you haven't killed, you will be denied outright. This means Nastea doesn't have access to the loot despite working so hard to kill it.

I urge him to wait before he goes on his way. "Let's share the loot", I offer. He definitely deserves at least half of the money in the corpse.

Then he starts dropping loot on the floor that's different from what's on my menu.

I completely misunderstood the way the looting system works. It seems like it's provided to each player who has done damage enough to deserve it. Then the way I worded the arrangement in my hurry to write quickly made it seem like I wanted to partake in his share, which he graciously acquiesced to, without any time to explain myself. Everything was ok so I wasn't about to run after him to elaborate and make an awkward situation worse. I drop a final "gg" and leave it at that.

A little before this eventful encounter, the unprecedented happened:

A Japanese player was asking for help through the global chat.

It's the first time I'd seen this. Probably someone who has yet to be informed of whatever communication channels the japanese playerbase is using.

As usual, I decide to be helpful:

The unprecedented continues:

A player is asking for help and accepting it. Furthermore, he's Japanese.

In an environment where this...

... Is the normal reaction when I offer help, this was completely unexpected.
I make my way to dagger isle docks but my help was no longer necessary.

There goes a perfectly good chance for a quick practice of japanese communication...
The house was pretty easy to find, specially if you have the map open while standing in front of moonglow bank, so I figured this would happen.

My altruistic fix gone, I decide to head back into the grind.
Enter Witchcraft.

Witchcraft is doing what any sane human being would do when given a quest to destroy giant spider webs in dungeon Deceit: he's looking for spider webs and throwing fire fields at them. What Witchcraft doesn't know is that 90% of the people who play ultima online have at least a faint grasp of how the mechanics of the game work, to the point even the dev team is building up the game with the expectation that their game-brained audience will get everything they mean. Not the best methodology when the entire point of this server is to attract new players.

Busybody mode: engaged.

He's a little lost so I end up explaining most of the gist of the shard's gameplay.
And considering this is seemingly his first time navigating the dagger isle quests, he probably needs a couple of other things.

Feeling that my altruistic high is sated, that I've honored my predecessors and that my work is done, I take my leave.

Except...

While waiting for more spider webs to spawn in areas that were close enough for him to reach by foot, I come to the realization this would be a lot easier on horseback. Off to Skara we go, as I impart on him a piece of knowledge that, much later, I'd learn is flawed: there are steeds for sale in Moonglow now.

After a quick stop in the Lycaeum, I gate us to dagger isle and we proceed to complete the spider web quest. He confesses he was almost about to quit, I share I believed he'd ignore me. I teach him how to use the help chat and we finally part ways: I go to the second floor to complete a slay quest that's about to expire, he's off to have breakfast.

And so, me and Witchcraft part ways with a casual farewell, never to see each other again. There is a charm to that which I'm keen to. Strangers banding together by happenstance, helping one another on the crossroads, then going their separate ways. Who will I meet in my next crossing of paths?

The answer is is Morph Immelax, who happened to be doing the same part of the main quest I was on.

He arrived just in time to see me fail on my first try. We joined forces, with 4 blade spirits rampaging about, while placing fire fields all over the place, paralyze fields around the character we're supposed to protect in case any melee hostiles get too close for comfort.

It always becomes funner and merrier with more people, so we ace the quest.
The main quest branch is finally coming to a close, but I have to grind some more quests before the finale. Bored and hearing much about an orc champion spawn in Deceit level 3, I decide to go check it out. As I enter the level, I get this message:

My mind short-circuited here. I'm not in a guild, so does this really apply to me? Will this area become off-limits if I refuse? Saying yes should allow me to indulge my trammy ways while accessing this area. I'll be able to... Have my cake, and it it too...?! I press yes.

In UO, one moves by pressing the right mouse button while pointing in the desired direction. An annoying issue is that the right mouse button is also for closing menus. As I press the right mouse button to begin to run, to my horror, my mouse cursor is exactly over the place where a new message popped up, deleting it forever from my sight. Suddenly, my name's color becomes an unfamiliar orange. I turn tail. Engaging in PvP with an unfinished character, solo in a group battlefield, without even hiding to navigate unnoticed, as a complete OSI PvP noob against people with a 20 year head-start is not a clever thing to do. I ask on help chat if there's a way to untoggle this.

Teph teases me for a moment before informing me it disappears on its own after a couple of hours. Earlier, some guy who made the same mistake I did but ventured further was complaining about another guy res-killing him non-stop. That's not the future I want for myself, but so long as I stick to my usual routes, even if I get attacked, I have plenty of escape routes and options to resurrect myself away from res-killing eyes.

Fortunately, nothing happens and I continue my quests unhindered, even spotting a couple orange-named characters and nothing happens. At last, I'm 100% at all 5 skills and the final portion of the main quest begins: to kill an orc champion spawn located in buccaneer's den, in what amounts to the convergence of the warrior and mage quest lines.

It's my first time doing one of these and I have no idea what the rules are, but I assume we're supposed to kill as many mobs as we can fast enough that the champion appears. The more mobs we kill, stronger mobs will spawn until finally the champion spawns.

It's an open field with a large number of orcish spawns. The strategy is to throw blade spirits, fire fields, poison fields and multi-target spells such as chain lightning and meteor swarm, all the while keeping yourself and your allies healed. Things seem to be going OK, as more and more candles spawn around the altar pictured above. I die once, but manage to get resurrected, buy a new horse and get all my equipment back.

Enter Provincia.

A fellow orange-named player, belonging to a guild. I keep my eye on her for a moment, but she seems to be here for the champion spawn. Between taking screenshots, making sure everyone else is healed and keeping the pressure on the mobs, self-preservation falls to the wayside. Someone else was keeping a close eye on my HP and, as soon as I hit 50HP she shoots her crossbow my way.

I target her and attempt to throw a poison spell, but a second crossbow bolts gets me on death's door and I focus on healing and fleeing. It's too late and I die.

In hindsight, it's possible my chain lightning was hitting her, since she, being orange, is subject to hostile action. Chain Lightning and Meteor Swarm don't pick targets, which makes these spells not as useful in felucca rulesets, as the risk of hitting other players and becoming a criminal is much higher. The new legacy ruleset makes it so I don't have to worry about hurrying up back to my corpse, as loot is all mine to get back and my body won't decay for a good couple of hours. The issue lies somewhere else.

Somehow, it doesn't seem like I was killed in retaliation for my actions. I get the feeling someone wants to farm whatever score there is to be earned in Virtue vs Vice mode (VvV). Right next to the only healer around, Provincia begins casting poison fields, which are sure to kill me as soon as I resurect with little more than 5 or 10HP. Seeing what expects me, I decide not to res, or even reveal my position to them, as ghosts may choose to remain invisible to the living.

Not Nazgul joins the fun with a couple of tamed drakes and Miranda casts mass dispell, possibly to get rid of the poison fields.

I don't know how VvV works, so they could be allies or even enemies. A lot of running back and forth but they don't seem to be attacking each other. Whatever the case, I have no urgency. I've already given up on the champion spawn. Even if I am to lose anything, it's almost all trash besides the reagents for spellcasting. The best way at getting back at Provincia is waste her time waiting for me. At this point, I've been playing for ten hours(!), and decide it's high time I get something to eat. When I come back, Provincia is still staying put. After about fifteen minutes, she goes away.

I take the opportunity to finally resurrect and get back to my corpse the long way around. I get my stuff back, recall back to Moonglow, cast invisibility and log out. No point in stressing myself over completing the final quest in these conditions. I'll wait it out until my character toggles back to normal.

An hour later, I log in to check my status. I'm back to normal, blue name shining in the trammy sun. As I'm about to log out, Buhurt says in help chat that he's setting things up at the champion spawn. One thing leads to another and I'm back in buccaneer's den.

Buhurt, Pepin, Slugwina and Scribe are on the scene. No need to reinvent the wheel. As long as everyone stays consistent, we're sure to get it done.

Peachy joins the fray, along with MadMartyr. Him and Slugwina, both rangers, comment that they're precariously low on arrows. I'm struggling with low mana.
A couple of fire fields, poison fields, blade spirits and many chain lightnings later, it finally happens.

The orc champion spawns. We surround him with more fire and poison fields. After taking some damage, he performs some kind of area-of-effect attack with dismounts all of us for a couple of seconds. I'm suddenly surrounded by mobs and, low on HP because I'm more focused on Slugwina's, MadMartyr's and Peachy's health bars than my own, coupled with the screenshot macro becoming more important than the self-heal macro, I die. Buhurt resurrects me and I'm back in. Now without a steed, but still too focused on taking screenshots, I die a second time and, once more, Buhurt does the honors.

And then it's back to the fray.

Slugwina and MadMartyr throw whatever they have at him. Peachy goes up close with melee attacks. We've been joined by Jix, Morph and akemi (japanese player) some time ago, who add to the barrage of spells the rest of us are throwing at the orc champion. It's only a matter of time...

Until finally...

The orc champion is no more. We throw high-fives all around until I notice akemi might feel excluded, so I throw a "yattane" that comes out in katakana.
Adventure finally over, it's time to collect our rewards in Serpent's hold. As I reach the gate that leads to the big ship, I notice Slugwina is a little lost.

Not wanting to a fellow player stranded in a mess of my own doing, I propose we go to the Lycaeum, where there's a gate that I can use which will lead me to Serpent's hold. I'll take the gate, then from Serp's hold open a gate that leads to the Lycaeum. As gates cast by mages work both ways, Slugwina should be able to reach Serp's hold this way...

...It could be that gate travel works only in the direction in which we cast it towards. New shard, new rules, you never know.
So we walk to the Lycaem.

At which point you ask:

スレナガ, if you can open a gate to the Lycaeum, why not open one right now and save yourselves the trek?
Furthermore, why not test that same gate to check if you can move back and forth?

...Because I'm roleplaying an airheaded mage, alright? Lay of my case for a second, jeez...

So we head to the Lycaeum and I take the gate to Serpent's Hold. Once there, I open a gate back.
It's the moment of truth...

Thank goodness.
And so, at long last, we reach the final stop in both our quest lines.

More high fives all around. I thank Slugwina for being patient, I'm thanked back for the ride.
We exchange quick good-byes before showing off our quest-end reward equipment and we go our separate ways.

And with the main events of the day behind us, I recall back to Moonglow.

Before closing the curtain on Day 3, there was one more thing I needed to check.
Having completed the full quest for the mage path, the game was now fully open to me.
This means I can train other skills. Such as alchemy!

I immediately went to the advanced skill trainer in the Lycaeum to inform her of the good news.

... And I see no Alchemy skill available for training. She provides seven skills, of which five I already have at 100%.
What gives? Alchemy's supposed to be one of the advanced skills.

A quick query on the help channel tells me I have to go talk to alchemy trainers to get it.

... And I learn only people with paid subscriptions can access that content.
It's perfectly legitimate and I have nothing against it. I'm already stoked I get to play an OSI server without spending a dime.
... But this is the kind of thing that should be stated clearly in advance.

Free accounts are also barred from placing houses, which again I understand. What's strange is that, even though I can't place houses, the house placement quest is suddenly open to me.

With a lot of money in the bank and nowhere to spend it, I do what every other person in my situation would do: I join a yacht club.

... Even though ships won't be available most of beta.

And thus ends my third day, dancing the night away.

Day 4 (for real)

Not much happens in the fourth day. With my choices for new skills limited to what the mage advanced skill trainer can offer, I decide to focus on the magic resistance skill, which should come in handy both in PvM and PvP. My first quest, to raise magic resistance by 10%, is to slay 20 magic-using monsters. I make my way to Deceit and continue the grind.

I go to the trainer again to show I have proved my worth.
My second qeust is... To slay 20 magic-using monsters for another 10% skill...

And again... And again...

Deep in Deceit, there is a room with bone mages. These are obvious magic-wielding monsters, but they cast some formidable spells in rapid succession and there's about three in the room at the same time. Attempting to tackle them head-on is inviting pain into your life. They also tend to un-summon whatever blade spirits I summon at them.

Having 100% magery, a bigger arsenal of spells at my disposal and the damage boost that Eval Intel at 100% grants me, I decide to check for a faster way to kill them.

As it turns out, one flame strike is enough to down them immediately. And what is this?!

There's spell scrolls in the loot of bone mages!
First the game betrays my expectations, sets me up to expect nothing, and then right at the end of the beta period for the second weekend, it raises my hopes again.
I decide to farm the bone mages to check what spells they drop, make some cash and complete the magic resistance training quest.

I get it done with 9984 gold in my pocket. If I kill one more bone mage, I'll make it past 10k.
Should I stay or should I go?

I stay, try to wrap things up quickly and instead forget to notice I'm at low HP, my flame strike fizzles and I get killed.
There's a lesson here about not obsessing with numbers. It's all the way back to the healers and then back to deceit for me...

Scribe saves me part of the trip.

He throws me some heals and follows me. Not wanting to be more of a hassle, I thank him again, do a bow and tell him he doesn't need to bother any more than he already did.

As if fate wants to make me more of a fool than I already am, a nearby monster, of all the spells it can cast, casts poison, an uncommonly cast spell for this type of monster, on me. Meaning, I indeed need more help. Scribe, who remained following me, throws an arch cure poison spell my way. We make it back to the bone mage room and get to talking for a bit.

Done sharing information and having given proper thanks, I go on my way while I assume Scribe stays behind to test his flame strikes.

Having reached 50% magic resistance (that's five times a 29 monster-slaying quest, meaning I killed 100 monsters in succession), I'm too fed up to go on with this. This is not how I want the final hours before server shutdown to go.

Someone's activated the orc champ spawn on buccaneer's den and I figure it's a better way to go out than grinding in deceit.

I won't delve in details already mentioned on day 3. I know what to do and the champion's dismount attack doesn't catch me off guard. It's big time japan hours in the server and there's plenty of them performing the spawn. Daenerys riding the red ostard, Jeanne d'Arc on the green ostard rocking the deer hat. Legend has it the l337 jap PvPers all rock the deer hat. Here we see them spamming "all stop" and "all follow me" in japanese, to keep their steeds under control after the dismount attack. Mariah de Wiki and I believe Xyrthyra complete the japanese roster, while me and Rubyloks seem to be the only westerners on site. There's two others whose name I didn't catch. Forgive me.

And so we're back full circle. The orc champion is felled, we share a round of multilingual high-fives and everyone goes their separate ways.

We beat the orc champion just before the server closed its doors. I know exactly where to spend these last two minutes.

Nowhere else than minoc bank. Because humble origins are best left unforgotten.
Me, Rubyloks, Shaydo and Olric face oblivion together, sharing goodbyes.
So ends the second weekend of beta testing.