I used to play UO back around Y2k then left after a year or so, to me UO was one of the best games out there and it still is in my opinion, and I’m glad to pick UOEX to continue my UO life. Since I haven’t played the game for years most of game contents are new to me, I just want to share my experience as a newbie and be helpful, please correct me if you see any misinformation, tyvm
IMPORTANT: Yes, UOEX is mainly a PVE shard, so if you are keen to PvP this may not be the best shard for you, however you are always welcome to give it a try when you like changes.
~A WHOLE NEW WORLD~
First things first read UOEX wiki ( http://www.uoex.net/wiki ). It will tell you game basics such as how to install the game, create account as well as IMPORTANT SHARD RULES. There’s also a newbie guide which I found very useful to get you started. BTW UOEX forum (https://www.uoex.net/forum/ ) and UO Guide ( http://www.uoguide.com ) also provide valuable information about UO.
After you log in the game, this is what you see, we call the place Town Centre (usually referred as TC, located in Trammel world).
- World teleporter is where you go places in UO, including different facets of the world.
- Bank area is where you can type ‘bank’ to open your bank box, it’s actually quite large area near any bankers in any town.
- Player shops are places for shopping your gears and much more once you made enough gold
There are NPCs around the area selling general items, you also find more portals here leading to different places, you can figure them out yourself. BTW reading signs is a good habit, it’ll tell you a lot of information just one click away.
- Newbie room (keep reading)
Usually the first thing I’d try to figure is how to communicate when I start a new online game since surely I’ll have tons of questions to ask. In UOEX you can type ‘# ‘ + space + words for global chatting which everyone in game can see, or use '[c' to bring up chat gump (Graphical User Menu Pop-Up) for more options. UOEX also holds a portal ( http://portal.uoex.net/ ) for global chatting outside the game if you game screen is flooded with system messages. I like to hang around there to know others and what’s on. You may also refer to UOEX wiki for other customized command like ‘[c’, ‘[ach’, ‘[account’, etc. They are making things much more convenient for new starters.
TIPS:
- EXEX is a good place to visit, it's like a stock market where you can bulk buy or sell regular goods, you can also use it to store extra cash. Type '[exex' to open the gump, go visit UOEX wiki for detailed information.
- You can single click on any player/npc/pet/yourself to activate action menu and select them. To buy or sell just double click the items from relevant section and use '+' or '-' to adjust quantity.
- Right click on most of the gumps to cancel them or make them disappeared.
Now let’s get to know your game interface, the following screenshot shows most of useful gumps, open them by single click on menu bar on top of the screen or double click scrolls/bag in your portrait gump (also called paperdoll). Everything can be dragged around including gears on your paperdoll and items in your bag. If you want to close gump, just right click on it.
There’s a portal in TC leading to newbie room as long as you consider yourself YOUNG (UOEX wiki has the details). I think this is a great idea to help new players out, however at this stage you probably have no idea what to pick, so just grab whatever fit and leave everything else behind since you can come back later. You also have bank access here, pretty handy
~BASIC TRAINING~
Next part is training room, you need to step in the middle of the world teleporter pad to bring up destination gump.
Click blue gem at front of ‘Custom’ and hit arrow icon for ‘Training room’.
Voila!
Walk downstairs you’ll find trainers and skill daggers on benches. You can train all weapon skills to 75 for free and AFK is allowed.
Beware even though the trainer can’t hurt you but they’ll damage your gears except skill daggers. So you know what to do right? 
~NEWBIE DUNGEON~
Once you have your weapon skills up to 75 (you also gain tactics, anatomy, STR & DEX while training), you can equip yourself again and find next challenge - Newbie dungeon. Walk through yellow portal next to the world teleport in training room, here you are.
Dungeon map
Giant rat room (location D)
Location E, walk through sparkle to port back to dungeon entry.
Ratman room (location G), different colour jacket on ratman means different class (warrior/archer/mage), have fun fighting mage ratman.
Undead room (location H), you'll find newbie skeletons or mighty liches (for newbies) here.
Bank on level 2 (location I)
Newbie dungeon consists of 2 levels, level 1 is paradise, mobs don't aggro and don't fight back even when you attack them, but beware they'll kill your pet on sight ! Level 2 is more challenging, mobs still don't aggro unless you attack first, therefore it'll always be 1 on 1 fight unless you lose the YOUNG title, so pick your target carefully. Some mobs (Searing elemental, orc mage) on level 2 can cast nasty spells and kill you easily.....
There are some neutral npc healers around the dungeon but they only heal you once a while, so don't rely too much on them. 
TIPS:
- Double click doors to open it, stand on portals to teleport or bring up destination gump.
- You can kill mobs on level 1 to raise attacking skills safely to 100 with appropriate weapons.
- Killing mobs or dumping unwanted items in that 'A safe trash 4 tokens backpack' in your bag will earn you tokens which can be used to buy nice items in Trinsic at token vendor stone.
- Use TAB key or click 'Peace' button on your paperdoll to toggle peace/war mode.
- Double click mob to start attacking, or click mob and hold then move cursor away to drag its stat bar out so you can target stat bar instead of mob itself. You can also do so for players or pets if you want to heal/buff them in future.
- In case you can't find items/mobs/other objects on screen, press Ctrl + Shift keys to see whole lists of object name tabs and right click to cancel those useless ones. You can also target/drag stat bars from those name tabs
- On dungeon level 2 mobs will fight back so pay attention to your gears' durability, once it reaches 0 it'll be gone or useless.
- Use command '[claimall' if you like to collect everything like me
, or '[claim' to just loot gold. If you are grouping with others better don't use '[claimall'.- Mobs and chests will respawn after certain time, so you can come keep hunting and looting.
Wait, did I mention bandages? You can buy a pair of 'scissors' and 'bolt of cloth' from npc tailor in TC not far from newbie room portal. Double click 'scissors' in your bag then target 'bolt of cloth' to make 'cut cloth', then double click 'scissors' again and target 'cut cloth' this time to make 'bandage'. Now if you start to lose HP (red figures start to pop up on your head
), you can double click bandage then target yourself to heal, soon you'll learn how to auto heal yourself. 
You do need higher 'healing' skill to be efficient, so start to bandage yourself as early as possible and as often as possible and relevant skills will raise up.In addition to killing random mobs, you can receive newbie quests (location C) which will reward you nicely. There are also treasure chests scattered around waiting for you to open (cast 'unlock' spell or use 'lockpicking' skill), one of them is very special but I won't tell you!
~NEWBIE QUEST~
Finding killing ratman and undead too hard? Let's try something easier. Go to the quest npc area and find the first guy you see called 'Joe the Apprentice' and talk to him. You should know how to access the action menu by now.
After that you'll see system message at bottom left corner of your screen saying quest starts.
Giant pesky rats, we are coming for you ~~!
Once you killed enough number of rats, a system message will pop with a sound.
Now go back talk to Joe and claim your reward! Gold and stack of organic materials.
Not bad isn't it considering organic materials are selling at decent price on EXEX. When I first started this quest can be done once per 30 mins or so, after quest system revamp just few days ago the timer is gone, so you can make load of profit within short period of time easily and safely. Therefore I strongly recommend all newcomers to farm the quest as much as possible while you can before you are blocked out.
TIPS:
- You can check quest status by click yourself and choose 'View Quest Log'. Quest log gump will pop up with quest progress.
Besides Joe there are other 2 quest givers not far away in the same room, Kachine & Tim the Tool-Man. Kachine gives 'Dungeon Hopper' quests which ask you to kill particular type of mobs in various dungeons or wherever you can find them. Beware there's time limit for finishing the quest. They are not easy for newbies since you need to be a little bit stronger to kill most of the quest mobs as well as knowing places, therefore I don't suggest fresh newbie like me to do it at this stage. Tim the Tool-Man offers 'ToolMania' series quests which are trade skills related and rewards are normally useful tools for newbies. On the contrary these quests have no time limit, thus you can finish anytime you are ready.
For ‘Dungeon Hopper’ quests, walk close to Kachine and hail her, you get following gump.
Hit 'Ok' and a golden scroll will appear in your backpack. Don't worry too much about it, it can't be opened or moved at all.
Then walk close to Johann the assistant standing next to Kachine and say 'work order', you get following response.
Now you'll find that gold scroll gone and instead a green book appeared in your backpack. Double click the green book to get quest details and it'll automatically update quest progress too.
'ToolMania' quests are pretty straight forward, you'll be able to figure it out yourself
BTW to track how many quests you have collected you can click ‘QUESTS’ button on your paper doll to open the quest log gump.
~HOUSING~
(To be continued)
