UO Second Age

Let me start this by giving two thumbs up to Derrick and all the people that help out on this server. The idea and implementation are excellent, and it's clear to anybody who plays here that they put a lot of time and care into this. For that we should all continue to express our thanks.

I started my time on secondage much like I did back in the day, with a fencer that went out and beat up bad guys and slowly made gold. Buying better weapons, using bone armor, and eventually getting a house were the same steps I took now as I did then. I didn't macro my skills, just like I didn't macro them on OSI, and was frequently running for my life until I had built up my strength and dex sufficiently.

It wasn't until my character was strong enough to take on higher level monsters that I really started to notice the increased PK threats on this server. At first I didn't think much of it, I remember plenty of PK's running around OSI too. But as I started having to dodge (and die) more often, I realized that there are just too many reds compared to blues. Not only that, but the reds are much harder to fight than they were on OSI.

Yeah, it's been 10 years, yada yada yada, but I know this...there are more reds, stronger reds per blue than there ever were on OSI. This is a double problem, because you used to be able to hold your own against most reds back then, without being 7x GM, and even if you couldn't, you usually had at least a couple of other blues that would jump into a fight knowing that they wouldn't be alone. Building a character and bankroll was dangerous, but not like it is here.

As much as this server emulates the Second Age game mechanics, and the gameplay overall is very accurate, I just can't get past the difference in HOW people play on this server. Having 3 accounts, Razor and (I'm guessing) a lot of grudges against PK's on OSI, people are just too happy to PK for a living, a living that fewer CHARACTERS would have made back then. Really, how many people had 15 available slots back then? Few, very very few, most people had 5 slots, and the time it took each character to develop meant that multiple reds for each PERSON was even more unlikely.

I'm not suggesting changes in this post as I don't believe changes can/should be made. As it's been stated by Derrick and others, they aren't trying to replicate the era's interactions between players, they are trying to replicate the mechanics. How the players play is up to them. For me, unfortunately, I'm having trouble connecting to this shard as a role-player, in large part because of how much I wanted the experience to be similar to what I had on OSI way back then.

Nostalgia is a $itch

Breaks are your friend.

This complaint has been made quite a bit and i am sorry you are leaving. I ask that you give it another shot after taking a lil break.

Heck...do what the pks are doing lately and start a tamer. Best hunting to be had.

If you insist on hunting in some specific area at some specific time, you may be out of luck if PKs come by frequently.

If you want to play without the threat of PKs killing you, it's not too hard. Here are some tips:
http://forum.uosecondage.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=10055

Pk's hunt the best hunting grounds.

If you can't fight them off at those hunting grounds, take others.

That is the joy of an open style mmo like this. The strongest take whatever they can, the other's take the scraps.

It's a ladder. You can climb if you'd like, but the higher you get the more chance you have of falling. Or you can chill on a lower rung where its safer, but there is less glory.

The world is huge, and the population isn't. You can avoid pks, you just won't get rich as fast. And that's how it should be. There should always be reward for the a better player, or a more cunning player. The others players envy it, want it, and strive for it. Or they learn to be content with what they have.

Yeah, what Tron said.

its also fuckin easy to recall

take a break, come back

weird. ive had no problems fighting back 1v1 against a red and i play a pure dexer.

The downsides to being red just aren't really there when you're allowed 15 characters.

I'm still loving it here, but I agree with pretty much every one of your points.

poogoblin wrote:The downsides to being red just aren't really there when you're allowed 15 characters.

I'm still loving it here, but I agree with pretty much every one of your points.

Several players here rotate through pks, so if one happens to die by chance, they have several other backups until the original gets out of stat. Very easy to play a pk if you macro up two or three characters to switch between.

There are plenty bad pks, though. The ones who will run if they don't open up flawlessly with a "Flamestrike->Hally->Explosion Pot".

Point is, if you just plan on running, always keep reflect up, force game window to something a bit bigger, and bring some heal/stam pots to burn while you run if you can't recall away.

hiicha wrote:

poogoblin wrote:The downsides to being red just aren't really there when you're allowed 15 characters.

I'm still loving it here, but I agree with pretty much every one of your points.

Several players here rotate through pks, so if one happens to die by chance, they have several other backups until the original gets out of stat. Very easy to play a pk if you macro up two or three characters to switch between.

There are plenty bad pks, though. The ones who will run if they don't open up flawlessly with a "Flamestrike->Hally->Explosion Pot".

Point is, if you just plan on running, always keep reflect up, force game window to something a bit bigger, and bring some heal/stam pots to burn while you run if you can't recall away.

I have no problem with PKs here, I hunt very often and I have been PKed twice. Once due to my own stupidiness. I was just commenting on the fact when alot of people had one account with 5 characters and one of their characters was in stat loss, their choices were stay on the stat loss character and wait for it to deteriote (with afk macroing as a ghost being illegal still) or jump on another blue character on their ONE account.

Like you said, here people just rotate which is why I concurred with a lot of IdleBlade's comments.

To survive a PK encounter do these:

As mentioned above, carry potions. Heal/Refresh but I'd also add gstr. A strategic way to use them is to wait until the pks load up a bigger spell then chug a str/heal so that you are +20hp, forcing them to either drop their sync in order to weaken you or to go ahead and drop it while you have a health and speed advantage assuming you're on the run.

Trapped pouches are an excellent reply to pks who try to paralyze.

Reflect up at all times as mentioned. There are so many pks who don't count on people keeping reflect up you can use those few seconds to cast a recall while their own spell hits them.

Teleport is another great spell that seems to be overlooked. Sure, with supersonic mounts it doesn't give you tons of distance but you can use it to zig-zag away from multiple reds. Ditto for wall of stone.


With all that said I wish players would man up and throw an ebolt at reds if they show up. Evil wins because good is stupid and all that. Whenever I've fought back against some reds I've seen blues who were hunting at the same spot simply recall away instead of trying to put up a defense. FFS, I've had more help from other reds who show up looking for some kills.

Why does everyone try to keep giving him pointers how to survive a PK encounter? That isn't what his post is about.