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Ultima Online was delivered late last summer, and since then has gained a large following of fans, a number of people screaming foul, and at least one lawsuit (which is silly if you read the particulars of the suit). Regardless of what you've heard, try to reserve judgement until you've fully read this review.

Ultima Online is set in the land of Britannia, during an undetermined time frame. In this game you won't be assisted by your faithful companions Dupre, Iolo, and the other old crew. You aren't even the Avatar, so don't go up to the gates of Lord British's castle and get all snooty, cause he aint gonna recognize you (BTW, Lord British and Lord Blackthorne are played by themselves in the game, so be nice). For those of you not familiar with Lord British's (Richard Garriot) tale, you may want to go pick up Origin's Ultima Collection (all the original Ultima games, 1-8), or the Complete Ultima VII (which should be available for about $15 or so), but it is not necessary to do so.

This game is HUGE! It is not uncommon for there to be 3,000 people on a single game server known as a shard (actually, it is a server cluster), and there are currently 10 game shards out there to play on (not counting a testing shard). Each one is a copy of the other as far as geography, but it is sort of a parallel world in that a player character exists in one shard, and one shard only, so when choosing which shard to play on (for latency reasons), choose carefully, because you cannot transfer characters from one shard to another (though you can have up to 5 seperate characters on each shard). There is a utility called UOTRACE written by Robert Simpson that you can download now to test your connection to each of the game servers out there, as well as to any server anywhere on the net. Download the program, because it can help you determine just where a bottleneck might be between you and whichever place it is you are trying to get to.

The worlds themselves are rather big. It can take you an hour or more to walk from one tip of Britannia to the other, and that doesn't count all the islands and dungeons that are scattered throughout the map. I tend to stay in the area of Vesper/Minoc myself, as it has everything I need to hone my skills and make money.

Once you choose a shard to play on, you must pick a name, and some physical attributes for a character. Here you see one of my characters on the Great Lakes server, Ajarel, the Alchemist. There are many pre-defined professions you can choose to play in the game, but there are many that have been player created and supported. For instance, Ajarel got pk'd in the forest on the way from Britan to Vesper. Lacking money, I spent time in town talking to other players, hoping to get some help. Somehow I managed to get into a Monty Python conversation (quoting movie lines, etc). Another player, thinking this was a street performance, came by and gave me 4,000 gold pieces, more than enough to re-buy all my equipment, and invest very wisely in my alchemy education. I have heard there are a number of player created professions within the game (actor/actress, singer, bartender, inkeeper, merchant, bounty hunter, etc), so there is a lot you can do.

The physical attributes tracked in the game:

• Strength - Determines not only how much you can carry, but also hit points, and damage bonus in combat. Also used to determine other skill bonuses.
• Intelligence - How smart U is... Helps determine the amount of magical 'mana' you possess.
• Dexterity - How fast you can move and attack, as well as determines your stamina (how quickly you become tired).

Some of the predefined professions you can start with are:

• Alchemist (yay!) - A difficult profession to make money at (you can't change lead to gold), it is better to start as something else, and then try alchemy.
• Animal Trainer - Tame local animals to sell, or to fight for you.
• Assassin - I haven't heard of too many players who are professional assassins, but Ajarel may become one once her poisoning skill is higher.
• Bard - Not a big moneymaker here, but the songs a bard plays can provoke NPC's into combat with one another (loot the bodies), or calm a raging fight.
• Blacksmith (yay! - my main character is a smith) - Makes armor and weapons for NPC's and players alike. Mining skill is essential.
• Bowyer (yay! - another character of mine) - Makes bows/crossbows/arrows to use or sell. Lumberjacking is a good complimentary skill.
• Healer - Generally not much of a money maker, but is very useful to a band of adventurers combing the dungeons.
• Mage - Another profession that initially is very expensive to maintain. I recommend another money making skill to suppliment your magery training.
• Ranger - A forest dwelling hunter. Generally not too much different from a bowyer or lumberjack.
• Sheperd - Similar to a Trainer, though specialized for herding animals like sheep or other livestock.
• Thief - A dangerous, yet often very highly profitable skill. You won't make a lot of friends as a thief, but picking locks in a dungeon is important stuff.
• Tinker - Tinkers make all sorts of things like clocks, but the most useful and profitable are tools for all the other professions (hammers, locks, etc)
• Trader - Just your simple merchant type person. Additional money making skills will help offset money losing transactions.
• Warrior - Just like a warrior in any RPG, stout, good with a sword, and typically not exactly genius material.

Now these are just templates, you are perfectly free to create your own type of character that suits you best. Skills tracked are as follows:

• Alchemy - Making potions (healing, poison/disease cures, agility, nightsight, poisons, explosives, refresh, strength)
• Anatomy - Evaluating a monster/npc for its strength/level of danger to you. Not a good primary skill in my opinion.
• Animal Lore - Judging an animal to sense its attitude (hunger, agitation, etc). Another non-money maker.
• Animal Taming - Just what it sounds like. This one can be profitable, but generally only if you are taming things like bears and cougars and such.
• Archery - Your proficiency with a bow and arrow. Very good for hunting animals without having to get too close.
• Arms Lore - Allows you to evaluate a weapon, to see how good it is, or state of repair. Will also allow you to see if a weapon is poisoned.
• Begging - Only useful on NPC's. If successful, an NPC will give you some of the gold they are holding. Very spammy profession.
• Blacksmithy - Allows you to make/repair arms and armor. Very profitable career, but requires a *lot* of practice.
• Bowcraft/Fletching - Your skill in making bows and arrows. Also profitable if you chop the wood and hunt the birds yourself.
• Camping - The only use for camping is to allow you to log off in the forest somewhere, without having to trudge to an inn in town. Not a money maker.
• Carpentry - Allows you to make chairs, chests, tables, and all sorts of other crafty items. You can sell furniture to players decorating their houses.
• Cartography - Mapmaking. You can make maps of dungeons, etc on paper, and sell them to players. Also essential for sea travel.
• Cooking - If you can't do it, you won't be able to fry up that llama you just hacked into tiny furry meaty chunks. Also used to make cookies, cakes, etc.
• Detecting Hidden - Only useful for detecting hidden player characters, either cowering from your might, or preparing to ambush you.
• Enticement - Allows you to lure monsters, animals, or npc's closer to you (for what reason I won't ask).
• Evaluating Intellect - Not very useful. Lets you see how smart/dumb something is.
• Fencing - Your skill with nasty big pointy sticks... or sabres, spears, etc...
• Fishing - How good of a hooker you are... erm... that is to say, how well you can hook a fish...yeah, that's the ticket. Provides food and income.
• Forensic Evaluation - Tells you who killed an animal/player. Usually used to hunt player killers down.
• Healing - How well you bandage a booboo. Not as helpful in my opinion as a healing spell or potion, but it uses cheaper materials, and every little bit helps.
• Herding - Your skill at keeping a flock of livestock in line. Not particularly useful.
• Hiding - Boo! Very important skill for thieves, assassins, and people who don't want to be found and killed.
• Inscription - A mage's ability to create scrolls for players to use. Like casting a spell on paper.
• Item Identification - Different from Arms Lore. Allows a player to determine what magical properties a weapon/armor piece might have.
• Lockpicking - Good for getting into a locked chest.
• Lumberjacking - How much wood could a player chuck if a player could chuck wood? Necessary skill to reduce costs of carpentry and bowyering.
• Mace fighting - Your skill at beating the crap out of things with large blunt objects like chairs and clubs and severed limbs n stuff.
• Magery - How good you can make things go *Poof*, *Splat*, or *Eeeeeaaaaarrrrgghhh!*. Lots of nifty lights and smells, but a bit pricey to undertake.
• Mining - The profession of Snow White's seven little ho's. Essential skill for blacksmiths to economize, unless they are independently wealthy.
• Musicianship - How well you can jam with the band. Necessary for a bard to do the voodoo that he-do so well.
• Parrying - Your ability to knock away that pointed stick being thrust at your person.
• Peacemaking - A very underutilized skill. How well you can make a monster/npc keep from killing you (or your friends).
• Poisoning - Not how well you can make poisons (alchemy), but whether you can apply them with skill to weapons or food.
• Provocation - What the hell are you looking at ya silly git? How well you can incite an NPC or monster into a fight.
• Resist Spells - I'm rubber, you're glue... How well you can keep from being affected by fireballs, lightning, etc. Like the old saving throw in D&D.
• Snooping - How skilled you are at looking into someone else's things without them knowing.
• Spirit Speak - Your ability to talk to dead player characters. Otherwise they just go, "Ooooo Oooo Oooo".
• Stealing - Your skill at pinching items that aren't yours.
• Swordsmanship - Have at ye, scurvy dog! How well you can swing a sword at your favorite monster.
• Tactics - Helps in combat regardless of what weapon you are using. Knowing where to strike and when.
• Tailoring - Take your inseam sir? This skill allows you to make clothing for wear or sale.
• Taste Identification - Your ability to sense poison on a piece of food.
• Tinkering - Tool making ability.
• Tracking - Allows you to see who has been through here, and what direction they are now.
• Veterinary - Animal healing.
• Wrestling - Unarmed combat.

Whew! That's it for skills in the game. As you can see, there's enough to keep you busy for a long time. You can train in any skills you wish, and while some are somewhat useless, others are real lifesavers. Once you've chosen some skills, you need to practice them so you can actually be useful. Getting up to mastery of any skill requires a lot of practice, so don't expect to become some sort of hulking warrior in a matter of hours. In the picture below, my character Ajarel (in red) is sitting on a log in front of the magic shop in Vesper, about to happily start grinding away on the mortar and pestle. You can see the reagents in Ajarel's bag at the bottom of the picture. Ajarel has become a regular fixture on the log there, sitting and grinding away, because alchemy is a very difficult and expensive skill to master.

By dragging items onto/off of Ajarel's 'paperdoll' below, I can equip her with weapons, clothes, armor, etc, or click on one of the buttons to the right, to bring up various information windows, all of which can be dragged around on the screen (in the shot above, you can see her closed backpack in the upper left, closed character 'paperdoll' in the upper right, closed skills box in the lower left, open pouch in lower center, and status bar in the lower right).

Monsters and wild animals are bountiful in the forests and dungeons. Below are pictures of just a few of the more dangerous monsters. They are not to scale (dragons and demons are much much bigger than skeletons and elementals). Don't let that bear or wolf in the woods fool you though, they can kill a newbie as well as any dragon. Clicking on the animated images below will take you to Origin's guide to flora and fauna, where you can see more of the inhabitants, as well as get descriptions of them.

A demon mistakenly summoned into a blacksmith shop!	A demon	A skeleton	A fire elemental	A dragon!

Don't expect to be led by the hand through the game. Unlike most single player RPG's, this game has no specific goal, other than survival. There are quests that crop up from time to time, but you are not required to do them. If you wish, you can spend your entire online time baking bread and cookies to sell to bakeries in towns, or, you can go on a psycho rampage and become a famous (and most likely dead) monster killer. There are towns to explore, dungeons to adventure in, seas to sail, and lots of things to fight and kill. This is what is so great about UO, the game is completely open ended. You want to buy a house (dwelling/shop/inn/tower/castle, etc)? No problem, they're in there.

This is a game that often evokes a love/hate relationship with players. It is very addictive and fun, but sometimes the issues that crop up can be maddening (lag, playerkilling, game bugs). Since UO is a commercial product, Origin has been regularly updating the game (sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse). If you aren't sure whether this is the game for you, see if someone you know owns it, and watch them play for a bit. Too bad Origin doesn't have more of a 'trial' version of the game on a seperate server so you can see what it is like without having to shell out 40+ bucks for it.

Price: about $44 for the game ($85 if you want the charter edition which has extra goodies inside, and 3 months of pre-paid game time), and $9.95 per month in addition to any ISP monthly charges. If you do not wish to use your credit card to pay the monthly charge, you can buy pre-paid time certificates in some software stores.

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