Getting Started
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Getting Started: Character Creation
Written by MissEcho
Login
When you first open Ultima Online Kingdom Reborn (UOKR) from the
desktop icon, you will encounter the Patch Screen*. This
screen gives information on current patches and other important
information from the development team. It is often good to read this
screen instead of just clicking through it as you may miss important
information regarding any known issues or problems with the game. Clicking
OK will take you to the account login screen. Here it is a simple matter
of putting in your account name and password (case sensitive) and you will
experience your first glimpse of UO: Kingdom Reborn.
Select Server
You may play on any Shard* (i.e. server) however most players pick the
shard which is closest to their geographical location to have their main
characters. A good indication of which shard to play on is selecting
the shard with the lowest ‘latency number’ and ‘packet loss (preferably
0)’ in the ‘Select Server’ screen. When you have selected which
shard you would like to play on, left click on it so that it highlights white
and click ‘OK’. There are two shards, Siege Perilous and Mugen,
which are more difficult shards to play and have a ‘siege’ ruleset, (ie
no areas safe from player killers) it may be best if you learn to play on
a regular shard first before heading off onto either of these, at least
until you get a hold of the basics!.
(note: each account may only have ONE house,
irrespective of shard, so while you may create many characters on all
shards, you may only have the one house. If you already have a house and try to put another
on another shard it will automatically condemn the house on the first
shard you built on so if your not sure of which shard to play on, create a
few characters across a number of shards and see which performs best for
you before you get too established or start building houses!)
Character Creation
This is where the real fun begins! Now you get to create your
first character and begin your journey. Having selected your shard
the next step is to create a character. The main thing to remember when
creating a character in UO is that nothing is ‘fixed in stone’, so don’t
be afraid of picking the wrong type or being stuck with what you first
start with. You may start as a mage and end up as blacksmith or vice
versa. You also have a number of character slots, so are not limited
to just the one character.
To understand how the UO Skill system works, it is important to know
that each character will end up
with a total of 700 skill points once they are ‘completed or fully
trained’, how you choose
to use these points is up to you. You may have 7 different skills at
100 points, 8 skills (6 at 100pts, 1 at 60pts and 1 at 40pts) or more
skills at whatever amount of points you wish to allocate. Obviously the
more points allocated to a skill, the more proficient you will be in
it.. At any time you
may lower or raise a skill by toggling the skill arrow up or down, or lock
it at a certain point. This is only gained by experience so for now it is
enough to just be aware of how the points for skills are made
up. Each character also has a cap of 225 stat
points (i.e. points allocated between strength, dexterity and intelligence with the
maximum of 125 and a minimum of 10 points able to be placed against any one stat
). These are also
adjustable by toggling. There is a detailed listing of each skill in
the menu to the left, and a look at some professions in the menu on the
right which may assist you in making your selection.
Selecting Race and Gender
After you click on ‘create’ you will be asked to select which race/gender you wish to play. You
toggle between the races by clicking the arrow key next to human.
The choices at the moment are Human or Elf. Each race has its own
abilities as shown, however you need to have the Mondain’s Legacy
expansion to utilize these abilities.
Human In Summary: Humans have an increased
carrying capacity above what is determined by their strength., regenerate
hit points faster than normal, have a better chance at finding more
resources while gathering hides, ore and lumber and have a basic ability
in all skills, even untrained ones known as ‘Jack of all Trades’. This is a hidden default
to skills that does not count towards
character skill points (however this does not let you exceed the skill cap
of 100 nor add to skill points in any selected skill i.e. if you have
trained up 60 swords, you will have 60 swords not 60 + 20, whereas if you
have 10 swords it will act as 20 sword skill)
Elf In Summary: Elves always have the effect of a
full strength Night Sight spell. Have an increased energy resistance cap.
Elven players must still increase their actual resistances through normal
means (i.e. through equipment and magical effects). Elves receive an
increase to their chance of acquiring special resources such as colored
ore and gems when mining, or special boards when lumberjacking. They are
more difficult to track than humans and gain an increased chance to
passively detect hidden monsters and enemies. Elves also receive a bonus
to their maximum mana.
Selecting Profession
If you are a first time player, then this is perhaps the most difficult
of the creation screens. Not in design but in choice! You have the
option to select from one of seven standard templates* or to create a
customized character. I would recommend that first time players go
with a standard template, as there are some skills in the customize menu that would
be very poor selections to start with if you need to learn the
basics and are not familiar with what is and isn’t a ‘useful’
skill. Once you begin you may train in additional skills to add to your template.
Remember all skills may be
changed later.
All standard templates have 3 stats and
4 skills pre-set for the character class selected. The information for these templates is as follows:
Profession | Stats | Skills |
Warrior -Warriors are physically the toughest of adventurers, battling their foes in all-out hand to hand combat. Such individuals require great strength to wear heavy armor and survive battles with dangerous foes. |
45 Strength
35 Dexterity |
30 Swordsmanship 30 Tactics 30 Healing 30 Anatomy |
Mage – The Mage is an expert magic user. Though they have both defensive and offensive magic, mages are especially well-equipped to deal out damage in combat and are most effective at a distance. | 25 Strength 20 Dexterity 45 Intelligence |
30 Magery 30 Evaluate Intelligence 30 Meditation |
Paladin – Paladins are the holy warriors of the realm. These protectors of the virtues have a number of defensive as well as offensive abilities to them. | 45 Strength 20 Dexterity 25 Intelligence |
30 Chivalry 30 Swordsmanship 30 Tactics 30 Focus |
Necromancer – Necromancers wield the dark force of death itself as a means to find ultimate magic power. They use the power of the other side to both attack their foes and to protect themselves. | 25 Strength
20 Dexterity |
30 Necromancy 30 Spirit Speak 30 Fencing 30 Meditation |
Samurai – The Samurai is an elite warrior who seeks to achieve perfection through battle. They strike with great accuracy, can handle multiple opponents, and have mastered the art of parrying with weapons. | 40 Strength 30 Dexterity 10 Intelligence |
30 Bushido 30 Swordsmanship 30 Focus 30 Parrying |
Ninja – The Ninja is an assassin who uses stealthy tactics and summons deadly magic in combat to confuse and weaken their enemy. | 40 Strength 30 Dexterity 10 Intelligence |
30 Ninjitsu
30 Fencing |
Blacksmith – The Blacksmith’s job is to locate and mine ore, smelt it into ingots, and forge the ingots into weapons and armor to sell at shops or to other players. A new blacksmith should first find a public smithy to use. | 60 Strength 10 Dexterity 10 Intelligence |
30 Blacksmith 30 Mining 30 Tinkering 30 Tailoring |
If I had my time to ‘start’ again, I would create 2
characters as my first priority. I would pick a spell-caster class (mage or necromancer) or
a warrior class
(warrior, paladin, samurai
or ninja), and a trade class (blacksmith). In other words a fighting character and
a trade character. If I thought I may like to play a
warrior class I would start by creating a mage, and vice versa. The reason
for this is that in KR the new player tutorial and following new player quests, which
all characters may participate in, all allow you to train in each area very
quickly, and you receive a blessed ‘reward’ after completing each set of
skill training. By picking the ‘opposite’ of the character class you wish
to end up with you will maximise your learning experience and will also
gain knowledge of the alternate class at the same time, while ending up
with the class you want and a ‘reward’ for your effort!. By creating a
trade/crafter character when you first begin you open up a huge part of
the game. Crafters are slow to train, and resource intensive, so the
sooner you begin the better.
Should you wish, you may also create a ‘customized’ character. This
is done by clicking on the ‘customize’ button on the profession screen at
the bottom left.
Here you may slide the stat bars to whichever mix of str,
dex and intel you prefer and select any skills from the list to the
left. You may prefer to just have three skills instead of 4 however,
given that you can ‘buy’ 30 – 40 points of most commons skills once you
begin this is not really critical. It would be mainly used to alter the
mix on starting stat points from those in the standard templates or to
start with 50 skill (maximum) in any one or two skills.
Once you have selected your Profession you may continue to
Appearance.
Selecting Your Characters Appearance
This is one area where you need to be careful in making sure you are
happy with your character. Although dress, hair style and hair
color may be changed once created, you cannot change your skin tone or
face. So make sure you look at all the selections and pick something you
will be happy to look at for a while! Bright purple skin may be good
at the time you create but you may find that it will clash horribly later
on when you finally get your ‘uber’ armor suit!. All selections are self
explanatory, however only the Human Male has facial hair to select from.
Scrolling on the arrow keys will rotate through the selections and
clicking on the color bars will open a color palette to select your colors.
The Create Tab
Once you are happy with your race, profession and appearance it is time
for the ‘Create’ screen. Here you can check all you have
selected and most importantly give your new character a NAME! Once you
have named your character it cannot be renamed unless you spend additional
funds for a name change, so remember it is likely to be with you for a
while. You must also be careful to not use inappropriate names or
offensive names as this may result in your character being pulled into
jail by a gamemaster so ensure you have read the terms
of service if you are unclear on what is or isn’t appropriate.
Well now is the time to press ‘next’ and begin your Ultima
Online Journey! You will find yourself transported to Gwen, the new
player guide, who will start you off on learning the basic commands to be
able to get around and perform some basic functions.
GOOD LUCK!
2. Introduction: Gwen Tutorial
– Who is Gwen? – A Tutorial Outline – What do I learn? – Who is the
Dark Knight? – What is his Challenge? – What reward/s does he offer?
Glossary
* patch screen: this is the first screen that opens
when you log into UO. It will give details of any patch or publish
that is entered into the game by the developers to advise you of changes
to game play or ‘fixes’. It will also advise of anything that may be
causing a problem or to be aware of that may have been reported but not
fixed. When updates are made the progress of the patch as it installs on
your machine will be viewable here.
* shard: a shard is the term used for
the various servers available to play on (It is actually one of the pieces of the Shattered Gem of
Immortality in Ultima Lore and each shard contains a full replica of Britannia, only with different laws, peoples and such).
There are currently 18
shards and you may have characters on each if you wish (Siege
Perilous & Mugen only allow 1 character per account). There is also a
shard for the TEST CENTER , usually called TC1 with the current
publish number displayed. The Test Center is where you can go and
create characters and experiment with templates, housing, crafting
etc. The test center allows you to create a character with maximum
skills/stats by just ‘asking’ for them, which may be changed at any time
while you experiment. It provides access to large quantities of
resources/artifacts/gift tokens etc so you may view new items or include
them in suits for experimentation Any character created on here is not a
permanent character and will be deleted each time the TC1 resets for
another publish/testing patch. This is the ONLY shard you may place
another house on if you have house on your play shard. Houses on the
Test Center do NOT put your ‘real house’ into condemn mode. They are
used mainly for those wishing to experiment with house design.
* template: a template is the term used for the
skill ‘make up’ of your character. Each character has 700 skill
points which you may make up by using whatever skills you
like. Everyone’s character has their own template choices, however,
there are some basic type templates generally more common such as a ‘mage
template’, ‘warrior template’, ‘thief template’, ‘tamer’, ‘crafter or mule
template’ etc. For template ideas it is good to view the profession forums
where you can get ideas of effective templates to put together. So if you
are interested in a good ‘fishing’ template i.e. what skills should you put
on, what complimentary skills may be used etc, the people who are
experienced will generally help you out by giving you tips. You may
also ask questions of those who have played the type of character you
think you may like to create and gain information on the ‘best’ way to
train etc. Reading these forums can save you a large amount of time
when you are new to UO and want to make the most of your new character.
Last modified: March 26, 2011