Ultima Online Play Guide

Ultima Online is more than just about combat - it is an entire world itself where players interact with each other and various NPCs including vendors and monsters.

Players can travel between the many towns, explore the wilderness, and delve into dungeons full of monsters.

Paperdoll

You can view your character by pressing Alt-P. This opens up your character's paperdoll wish shows what your character is wearing and holding.

Stats

Pressing Alt-S will open up your stats bar which shows your character's vital information including strength, dexterity, intelligence, hitpoints, stamina, and mana. Your hitpoints are directly based on your strength, stamina on dexterity, and mana on intelligence. Strength not only improves your hitpoints but increased your melee damage and carrying capacity as well. Your stamina determines how quickly you can attack with melee or ranged weapons. Stamina decreases when running, overloaded, or when taking damage. If your stamina reaches zero you will not be able to move momentarily until you regain some stamina. Mana is the pool drawn from when you cast spells. The higher the circle of the spell the more mana is used.

Each stat is capped at 100, while the total of all three is capped at 225, so it's important to find a good balance for your character. While your stats gain based on your character's activities, you can restrict how your stats change by utilizing the icons on the left side of your Chracter Status Window. See the notes below on managing skills.

Skills

Pressing Alt-K will bring up your skill list. Characters are free to learn any combination of skills they want (with the limitation of only a couple of skills the require another skill first). Each character is limited to 100.0 points in any one skill and 720.0 total skill points. As you use a skill you will increase in that skill, as long as you have room for it to increase. To help manage your skills each skill can be locked in one of three positions:

• Up - the skill will gain as normal when you use it.
• Down - the skill will only drop as other skills increase.
• Locked - the skill is locked to prevent it from changing.

Items

Players can acquire items as loot from monsters, buying from vendors, trading with other players, treasure chests, or even just laying around on the ground. As with most containers, your backpack can hold up to 125 items, however, your are limited to the amount of weight you can carry based on your character's strength. You can also have containers within containers, but still the outermost container is limited to 125 items total within it. To pick up an item on the ground or in another container, simply click on it and drag it to where you wish to place it. You can open your backpack by pressing Alt-I for Inventory.

Bank Boxes

Each character has their own bank box which only they can access. Your bank box can be accessed from any bank in any town. While having the 125 item limit, they can store unlimited weight. Your bank box is your only guaranteed secure place for storage.

Weapons and Armor

The weapons you start with are merely practice weapons and do very little damage. These are ideal for practicing against your friends with in order to increase your combat abilities. You will eventually need better weapons and armor which you can purchase from an NPC vendor, a player vendor, or from other players. Some weapons and armor are of better quality than others. Items stamped with the name of their maker are of the highest quality and inflict more damage. There are also items that are marked as being exceptional quality but just don't bear a maker's name. Magic items can also be found. These vary in effectiveness - some are even better than the best weapons made by players.

Magic Weapons

In order to learn the properties of magic weapons, you must identify them using either the item identification skill or a wand of identification on them. Even if not ID'd, they still function the same. Magic weapons can have up to three main magical properties:

• Durability - enhanced durabilities allow the weapon to last longer before requiring repairs. Each level of durability is better than the previous. Note that "indestructible" does not mean the weapon is truely indestructible, it's just the highest level of durability. Durability enhancements include:
  • Durable
  • Substantial
  • Massive
  • Fortified
  • Indestructible
• Accuracy - for melee weapons this enhances the character's tactics skill when wielded, or for ranged weapons this increases the character's archery skill. Accuracy enhancements include:
  • Accurate
  • Surpassingly Accurate
  • Eminently Accurate
  • Exceedingly Accurate
  • Supremely Accurate
• Damage - increases the amount of damage done by the weapon. Possible damage ranges include:
  • Ruin
  • Might
  • Force
  • Power
  • Vanquishing

Magic Armor

Magic armor can have up to two main enhancements, and like magic weapons, must be identified in order to see the exact properties. Also note that invulnerability armor does not truely make the wearer invulnerable. Armor properties include:

• Durability - similar to the magic weapon durability properties:
  • Durable
  • Substantial
  • Massive
  • Fortified
  • Indestructible
• Protection - amount of added protection, or armor rating (AR) granted by the piece of armor:
  • Defense
  • Guarding
  • Hardening
  • Fortification
  • Invulnerability

Combat

You can engage combat with another player or monster by pressing tab to enable war mode. While in war mode your cursor becomes red. Then by double-clicking a target you will attack them with whatever weapon you have armed yourself with. Mousing over a person or monster while in war mode will highlight them in one of five colors depending on their current reputation:

• Blue - Attacking this character will flag you as criminal. In town this means the guards can be called on you.
• Grey - This character is criminal and can be attacked freely. Note that a character that is grey to you is not necessarily grey to other people.
• Red - This character is a murderer! There might even be a reward out for their death.
• Green - This character is a member of your guild or an ally. Attacking them will not flag you as criminal.
• Orange - This character is a member of an enemy guild. Your guild at some point declared war on them. Attacking them will not flag you as criminal.

Houses

Players can buy house deeds and place their own house on vacant land. Houses generally need a nice flat space devoid of trees and bushes. They also cannot be placed in the vacinity of dungeon entrances or in towns. Houses have lockable doors and keys to go with them. Keep your house key safe, as anyone who gets ahold of the key can unlock your door. Items in a house can be locked down so that only an owner or co-owner can remove them. Containers can be secured whereas only owners and friends of the house can access them, even if someone else acquires the key to your house. Owners include the character who placed the house and all other characters on the same account. Friends can be added by accessing the house sign (double click on it). The sign can also be used to permanently ban people from the house. Interior doors can also be locked by using the master key to create new interior door keys. House deeds can be purchased from an NPC architect which are found in some towns.

Each house has a maximum lockdown limit as well as a maximum number of secure containers. Securing a container also subtracts 125 lockdowns from the available number. Housing is limited to one building per character with a total limit of 4,930 maximum lockdowns per account. This means you could place two large towers and a small tower, or a castle and a sandstone patio house, amongst many other possible combinations.

Building	Footprint	Lockdowns	Secures
Small House/Shop	7 x 7	425	1
Small Tower	8 x 7	580	2
Sandstone Patio House	12 x 9	850	3
Two Story Log Cabin	8 x 13	850	3
Large Brick House	14 x 14	1100	4
Large Patio House	14 x 14	1100	4
Two Story Villa	10 x 11	1100	4
Two Story House	14 x 14	1370	5
Large Marble Patio House	14 x 14	1370	5
Tower	16 x 14	2119	12
Stone Keep	24 x 24	2625	18
Castle	31 x 31	4076	28

Account

A character must be at least five days old before they can be deleted.

Commands

The following is a list of text commands that can be issued in the game:

General
Bank	Opens up your bank box when used near a banker.
Guards	Calls the guards if you're being attacked by an agressor (or robbed) within a guarded area.
I must consider my sins	Displays your murder counts.
Reflect upon life	Displays recent PvP kills and deaths.
Vendors
<vendor> buy	Buy from an NPC vendor (you can use "vendor" or the name of a vendor).
<vendor> sell	Sell to an NPC vendor (you can use "vendor" or the name of a vendor).
<vendor> bods	Displays the time until you're elegible for a bod from certain NPC vendors.
<vendor> status	Brings up the status and configure menus for a player vendor owned by you.
Player Houses
Remove thyself	Removes a person from your house.
I ban thee	Bans a person from your house.
I wish to lock this down	Allows you to lock down an item in your house.
I wish to secure this	Allows you to secure a container in your house.
I wish to release this	Releases a locked down or secure container in your house.
I wish to place a trash barrel	Places a trash barrel at your current location within your house.
Jail
Jailtime	Displays the time at which your character will be released from jail.
NPC Training
<npc> train	Where "<npc>" is the name of an NPC, they will give you a list of skills they can teach you.
	*This list can sometimes scroll out of view, so use your journal to check their response.
<npc> teach <skill>	Have an NPC teach you a skill (must be one that they can train in).
	*Skill name should be just the first word from the list of skills they can train.

Skills

Alchemy	Create potions from reagents.
Anatomy	Evaluate a person's or creature's health. Enhances melee combat ability.
Animal Lore	Check details of an animal, useful with veterinary and taming abilities.
Animal Taming	Tame animals, have them fight for you, defend, or even ride some.
Archery	Skill with bows and crossbows.
Arms Lore	View details about weapons and armor.
Begging	Beg for some coins, maybe some NPCs will take pity on you.
Blacksmithy	Forge weapons and armor.
Bowcraft and Fletching	Create archery equipment and supplies.
Camping	Log out in the wilderness without a delay.
Carpentry	Craft items such as furnitures, containers, and other mostly wooden items.
Cartography	Make maps and decipher treasure maps.
Cooking	Cook a variety of food.
Detecting Hidden	Locate hidden characters near you.
Enticement	Entice creatures to attack other creatures.
Evaluating Intelligence	Determine the intellect of a person or creature.
Fencing	Skill with fencing style weapons.
Fishing	Catch fish or worse from bodies of water, maybe even locate sunken treasure.
Forensic Evaluation	Determine information about corpses, locked containers, and thieves.
Healing	Ability to heal a player of damage, or even cure poison and even death.
Herding	Herd animals about.
Hiding	Hide and become invisible to players and monsters alike.
Inscription	Inscribe books and magic scrolls.
Item Identification	Identify magic items and their properties.
Lock Picking	Pick open locks.
Lumberjacking	Chop wood for lumber.
Mace Fighting	Fighting skill with mace type weapons and staves.
Magery	Cast magic spells.
Meditation	Meditate to quickly regain mana.
Mining	Mine for ore and smelt it into ingots.
Musicianship	Learn to play various instruments.
Parrying	Skill in using a shield in combat.
Peacemaking	Cause players and creatures to cease combat.
Poisoning	Enhanced poisoning with magery skill and poison blades or food.
Provocation	Provoke creatures into attacking each other.
Remove Trap	Remove traps from containers and portals.
Resisting Spells	Improve chance of avoiding spell effects and damage.
Snooping	Snoop through another player's or a creature's pack.
Spirit Speak	Speak with the dead, and understand what they're saying.
Stealing	Steal items from the packs of creatures and players.
Stealth	Move while remaining hidden.
Swordsmanship	Skill with swords, axes, and pole arms.
Tactics	Enhance melee ability by understanding techniques.
Tailoring	Turn cloth and leather into clothing and armor.
Taste Identification	Identify potions by taste.
Tinkering	Create small, mostly metal items.
Tracking	Track creatures and people.
Veterinary	Heal, cure, and even resurrect animals.
Wrestling	Bare handed combat skill.