New Players Guide

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Thank you for reading this new player guide. You might find some things here you already know, but probably most of these are custom to our shard. Take a look at the FAQ as that may answer many questions you may have. The Survival Guide is something else you should check out, it has quite a few very good tips. Make sure you read the rules in our codex before you get started. There's also a ton of information written on our forum, as well as important shard news and general chit chat - come join us!

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Shard Specifications

Account Info

You may have 5 characters on this shard. There is no skill cap. Only one account is allowed per person.

Player Vs. Player (PvP)

Excelsior is a No-PK (player killing) shard, and PvP is only possible in two locations: The PvP Dungeon and the PvP Arena Thunderdome PvP (See for more details). The Dungeon is accessible from Britain in Trammel, and the Arena is accessible from within the Dungeon. You may also PvP with guildmates in the privacy of your own homes, but doing so in public or in town is not appreciated.

Warning: These PvP areas are free-for-all, and you can be attacked at any time.


Housing

Houses placed by players do not decay according to normal OSI rules. The decay of a players house(s) on Excelsior is directly related to how long they having been playing on the server + how long it has been since they last logged in. The exact formula is not known but play it safe! Even if you can't play at all for several days, find the time to log in at least once as a way of saying "I'm still here!". It is not required that you directly refresh your house by opening the door or using the house sign; merely the act of being logged in keeps them refreshed. ****VERY IMPORTANT**** Items in a house that are neither locked down nor secured DO decay! Whatever you place in your house, make absolutely certain that you have either locked it down or secured it (with the "i wish to lock this down" and "i wish to secure this") before leaving! If you exit through the front doors of your home, you will receive a system message telling you the number of items (if any) that are in your home that are not locked down. Therefore try to make a habit out of walking out your front door instead of recalling/gating from the inside of your home and you'll never have anything to worry about.

Felucca

Felucca on Excelsior is different from the regular OSI shards. Some areas can be frustrating and result in death for newer or inexperienced players. There are very few resurrection points. Tread carefully, and make sure you're well prepared.

1. Felucca is under the same rules as Trammel, and players cannot be attacked by other players there.

2. You cannot mark any runes, and you cannot recall out of dungeons or T2A Lost Lands areas.

3. There are Custom Creatures, both good and evil.

4. Using the Recall spell to leave Felucca will leave you drained of all your mana for a period of time.

5. You may not log in with another character if you log out in Felucca. you must log back in on that character before you can log in with another character.

Commands

There are various tools and shortcuts available to you on Excelsior that you can access through keyboard commands. Included in this guide are some of the most essential commands:

[cs: You can macro any spell with [cs {spellnamenospaces}.

[exex: Custom system used to trade items/stackables. This will be discussed in greater detail later.

[help - Lists the commands in game

[c <insert text> - To chat in Global Chat. This will allow you to communicate with all other players. Click here for a web log of the global chat.

[chatoptions - To open the Chat Options Menu

[g - To open your Guild Menu

[g <insert text> - To chat in guild

/ <insert text> - To chat in party

[pm - To open your PM inbox

[pm <persons name> - To send a private message

[claim: Will auto loot some items from a corpse, including Gold, Ointments, Fertile Dirt, Arrows and a small reward for claiming

[claimall: Will auto loot all items from a corpse.

  • NOTE ON CLAIMING: This is both incredibly useful and helpful to the server. It gets rid of cluttered remains, and lets you remote loot. Be careful, though - if you are playing in a group, or there are others adventuring near you who help you in a fight, don't be greedy. Share the wealth, spread the love, and don't [claim everyone's stuff for yourself. Also, don't [claim Champ spawns or you won't get the gold. You have been warned.

THIS IS A VERY BRIEF LIST. Pet Commands, House Commands, Phrases you need to know - Check the dedicated section of the wiki for lots of important information.

Tokens and Excelsior Dollars

Tokens: You get tokens by recycling items and corpses and killing monsters - the harder the monster, the more tokens it will give. They are turquoise in color and resemble coins or checks. To receive tokens from kills, your token ledger MUST BE in your backpack. You can also get tokens by trashing items. But do not put tokens, token checks, or your token ledger in your TrashForTokens backpack. You cannot get more tokens by trashing tokens. You can spend your tokens on special items and deeds that can be purchased at the Token Stone in Trinsic.

Excelsior Dollars (ED's): You can primarily get them with a donation, though you can also get them in events and by buying them from fellow players. You can use them for donation rewards, and there are also certain player services that require an amount of ED. These look like white scrolls. If you hover your mouse over them, it should display " : Genuine : "

The Excelsior Exchange, accessed in-game through the keyboard command [exex.

Excelsior Exchange

This is an in-game method of resource sale and purchase throughout the shard. Avoid needless frustration - learn how to use [exex early.

Client Assistants

There are a number of incredibly useful applications that are approved for use on Excelsior. These tools can assist you in a number of ways, but always be aware of the codex rules governing different types of unattended macroing. Failure to do so will not be pleasant for your experience, and we want everyone to have a good time (within the rules).

UO Auto Map

This excellent tool will help you get around, giving you a full map and personal location whether you're in Britannia, a dungeon, or lost at sea. It will also show you important locations. It is invaluable, especially when you make it to Felucca. Be sure to check the link for installation instructions.

Razor

This is another invaluable tool, and its versatility is hard to describe in few words. It will keep track of your skills, allow you to set hot keys and macros, dress and undress weapons and armor quickly, organize bags, sell items - the list goes on. It can seem a little daunting at first for players unfamiliar with it, but everything is easier for having it. Be sure to check the installation notes because you must install it in a specific way in order for it to work with Excelsior.

EasyUO

Another excellent assistant that works differently from Razor. Its strength is that user-submitted scripts can make your life so much easier. Not all of them are perfect, and many are not oriented to free shards, but you'll see it referenced at other places in this wiki and the forums and that's because it's a very nice tool to have. You must register on their website, but the forums are where you can find some excellent user-submitted scripts such as CyberPope's Lumberjacking and Mining Radars. Check the Excelsior forums for further discussion.

TeamSpeak

This application allows you to voice chat with other players, and Excelsior has its own custom channel! Chat with the whole shard, or keep it to your guild/party, whatever suits you.

Character Building

A few tips for before you log in, when you're trying to decide what kind of character to make.
Limitless potential.

Stat and Skill Caps

Stat Caps: The stat cap for every character is is 300, and can be raised to 350 total with scrolls from the Harrower. The maximum you can have in a single stat is 125, but that can be raised by Stat Scrolls as well. See here for more details on Stats.

Skill Caps: You begin with a 100.0 cap on individual skills, and higher individual caps (up to 120 with powerscrolls, and 130 with essences for FIGHTING SKILLS ONLY) are available through adventuring or barter. There is no limit on how many skills you can raise.

Professions

Because there is no total skill cap, every character could eventually become the figurative Renaissance Man (or Woman), rivaling Leonardi Da Vinci himself in knowledge and versatility. That being said, in order to be a successful craftsperson it's important to know that crafting and harvesting tools, with the exception of the tinker's tool kit, are not readily available from NPC vendors. If you have plans of being a legendary craftsman of any type, plan to devote some time to at least one character who has Mining and Tinkering so that you can replenish the tools necessary to craft. Failure to account for the lack of tools readily available will leave you unable to sustain yourself with ingots or logs.

Stat distribution

Strength: In addition to the amount of weight you can carry, and the requirement for equipping armor and weapons, strength also determines your character's Hit Points. The number of HP you will have can be calculated by dividing your strength in half and adding 50. You can also equip items to raise your strength or HP. Please note that raising your HP alone does not affect your strength.

Dexterity: Dexterity determines the amount of stamina your character has. Stamina relates to your attack speed, how quickly you are able to perform certain actions, and how quickly you will heal naturally, among other things. Your stamina will be equal to your dexterity, unless you have an item equipped that boosts it.
Stat.png

Intelligence: Intelligence determines how much mana you will have to cast spells, your spell damage, and your ability to cast certain spells. Raising your intelligence will boost your mana, and you can equip items to raise your intelligence or MP. Please note that raising your MP alone will not affect your intelligence.

Unlike many shards, stat gain in Excelsior occurs roughly once every 15 minutes, assuming you are using a skill. The stat raised is determined by the skill used. Because of this, you may want to set your stat distribution more evenly when creating a character. Placing all of your stat points into one stat may leave you struggling for a longer period of time than necessary to create a viable character build. See Stats Guide to figure out which skills you may want to work on to raise particular stats.

Skill Raising

Most non-harvesting skills are allowed to be trained through unattended macroing, as long as you find an out-of-the-way spot to do it, so when choosing skills keep in mind what will require the most effort to raise. Choosing 'Hiding' instead of 'Magery' may be the most obvious wrong choice, but through a bit of careful planning you can get a good jump-start on your character build while leaving the easy skills to be trained in an automated or passive fashion. Further information and recommendations on skills can be found in the addendum to this guide.

An excellent template for raising each of your skills may be found here.

Trainers

Skill trainers can be found throughout Britannia, and will generally train their relevant skills up to around 30 for .1 skill per gold (~300 gold). Some trainers are everywhere, while others (such as thief trainers) are more scarce. Either way, you'll find the price excellent and the trainers easy enough to find, so don't fail to take advantage of these (and keep them in mind when building your character). When you join the shard, you receive 5 free skill raises using any trainer. These apply to your account, not to your character, so keep that in mind, although you should quickly be able to render any concern over the cost irrelevant.

A list of skills and their corresponding trainers may be found here.

Skill Ball + 60

After you've made your character, you will have one +60 skill ball to work with. While it may seem like a good idea to use it as soon as you begin, if possible resist the temptation. Likely you'll choose something that will help you immediately, rather than something that will help you in the long term. If you wait until you get a 120 skill cap powerscroll, you can reach the true cap of an important skill with a lot less hassle - say, taking carpentry from 60 to 120, rather than taking a lesser skill from 0-60 or from 40-100. You must weigh the benefits of using it or saving it, but proper planning (and patience) when creating your character will allow you to take advantage of the greatest potential gain from this item. Each character receives one, and it is usable only by that character.

Your First Login

Young Player Status

When you first start playing, monsters in the field will not attack you unless you attack them first, though if you wander into a dungeon you're fair game. Because of this, you may wish to explore the shard to discover where dangerous areas are, so that you may either avoid them until you are stronger, or try your luck with one monster while others ignore you. Since you will start out with a mount, you will be able to move quickly around the shard. Just remember, if you have a pet commanded to guard you, it may choose to attack creatures and be killed. If at any time you get lost, you will be able to teleport immediately to Haven as long as you have Young status. To do this, open your Paperdoll and click the Help button. Click the arrow next to "Young Player Haven Transport" at the top to be teleported.

Your young status will remain until you have met any of the following criteria:

  • Your account is more than 14 days old,
  • You have played for more than 40 hours,
  • You reach 1000 total skill,
  • You renounce your status by saying "I renounce my young player status"

You will also have access to the Newbie Dungeon, which is available until your account has been active for 21 days. It is discussed in greater detail elsewhere.

Your Inventory

Every character will start with the normal staples for their chosen skills in their inventory. You will also find a blue backpack and blue ledger. The ledger is to keep track of your tokens, while the bag is a trash can that will reward you with tokens for using it. Tokens will be discussed in greater detail later, but basically they're a reward for throwing stuff away, killing monsters, and [claiming dead bodies. In your bank you will find a pet bonding deed and your Skill Ball + 60. The pet bonding deed will also be discussed in greater detail later. Your first character will have a check for 10k gold in your bank. If your account is new, you'll also have a helm that will give you a 30% Lower Reagent Count (LRC) bonus while your young player status remains.

A first look at your bag
The Excelsior Town Center

Starting point

When you first log in with your new character, you'll be standing in the Excelsior Town Center. To the west is a red portal; This is your teleporter to every major location, and you'd do well to familiarize yourself with its contents. But first, look to the south of your character - that blue portal leads to the New Player Donation Room. So head through that portal, and search the containers to the west. Find some good stuff, but make sure to take only what you need. Veteran players take the time to replenish and organize it, so please show appreciation for their efforts. Depending on your luck or timing, you can find some truly great loot. If you happen to find a pet, be sure to read the Animal Taming section of this guide or the dedicated section of the wiki on animal taming before you unshrink it.
New Player Donation Room
When you've finished gearing up, run back through the Town Center portal that you came from. Skip the other portal for now. When you're back in the Town Center, run over to the red Exteleporter portal. Your menu immediately shows you Trammel and its cities, including the Town Center at the top. Take a glance at it but the Teleporter destinations will be discussed in greater detail later. For now, head to Britain.
Britain

When you arrive, you'll notice that the red portal you went through is now a red shield on the ground. You will find these at each of your destinations, and they are the same as the portal in the Town Center. As you look around, you'll see two important objects immediately:

  • Light Blue Box: [Exex Box - This is where you'll place items that you want to go onto the Excelsior Exchange, discussed in the beginning of this guide.
  • Yellow Stone: Voting Pillar - Two Convenient links to the UO Free Shard rating boards. Please take the time to vote as often as you can - we always want more people to join our shard, and if they see a thriving community they're more likely to check it out!


Run west past the bank until you come to the ankh and multi-colored pillars. Note each of their functions:


  • Red Stone: Pet Resurection Stone - Resurrect your bonded pet. Only a bonded pet can be resurrected, and you must have its ghost with you.
  • Blue Stone: Pet Summoning Stone - If you lost your pet or its ghost, and simply cannot reunite, this stone will retrieve it for you at a high cost (60k gold).
  • Grey Stone: Corpse Retrieval Stone - The contents of your last corpse will be retrieved (but only your last one)at a moderate cost (20k gold). If you have died more than once since you last retrieved your items, you must manually retrieve your items from that corpse and this service will not retrieve them.
  • Green Stone: Bank Stone - Redundant at this location, but this item is available for your house eventually. Ponder the possibilities.
  • Ankh: Resurrection - You can resurrect yourself and tithe gold for Chivalry and Cleric spells. You can also lock/unlock your karma. When your karma is locked, you can no longer gain positive karma, but you can still lose karma.


Head back to the Exteleporter and go to Trinsic. Take a look around, noting the boxes we already discussed, as well as the new objects:


  • Red Stone: Reagent Vending Machine - sells bulk quantities of reagents for magery, necromancy and druid spells.
  • Gold Stone: Vendor Stone - sells the more expensive/custom items you can purchase with gold. It also sells the Trash-4-tokens bag, and the Token ledger should you misplace or lose your original.
  • Turquoise Stone: Token Stone - sells rewards which you can buy with tokens. Tokens are gathered by killing monsters, and turning in Bulk Order Deeds. You can also get them by trashing items using your Trash-4-Tokens Bag. Keep your token ledger in your top-level backpack, or in a blessed item bag (which is purchasable with tokens from this stone) at all times, so you can receive tokens.
  • White Portal: Excelsior Dollar Reward Gate - This gate leads to the 'Excelsior Dollar Reward Stones', which sell special items that you can purchase with Excelsior Dollars (discussed in the beginning of this guide).
  • Blue Stone: UO Excelsior Websites - Opens a list of Excelsior's website, wiki, forum, etc.
  • Blue Stones on tables: Raffle Stones - Raffle Tickets for varying lengths of time and winnings.


Finally, head back through the Exteleporter and go to the Minoc Moongate. Somewhere on your screen should be a red keyring - grab it! It's a spellcaster's keys, and it will store your reagents as well as some other items - all without adding weight to your inventory! Check this section of the main wiki for more information about this and other items like it.
The invaluable spellcaster's keys.

Now that your character is alive and oriented, take a moment to fine-tune your options and hotkeys, if you know what you want. If not, or you already have, or you don't even know what I'm talking about, then please, continue on!

*Beginning Adventures*

There are a lot of open-ended possibilities at this point, and depending on your play-style and interests you can go in a lot of different directions. Generally speaking, though, you want to train and make some gold, which this section deals with. It also explains some of the basic and viable strategies available to you for progression and, ultimately, combat-readiness and home ownership. Crafting will not be emphasized in this section BUT, I suggest you have (or know) a good tinker and you can find it discussed later. You could very well call this section "Macro and Kill Rats" but luckily there's a little more to it.

AFK Checks

Currently there are 2 types of AFK checks.

- Gump checks. These will pop up as a window within your game screen, with a captcha to solve. These are primarily seen as part of gathering actions, IE: fishing, mining, spinning, lumberjacking, etc. You must enter the letters within the allotted time or your ability to gather will be disabled and you may be jailed.

- Manual checks. A staff member does rounds of all players actively performing tasks which are not permitted to be performed AFK. The staff member will spawn a large brightly colored item (IE: a monster, wall, statue, or animated sparkles) that will then ask you a simple question. The question will appear above your character's head. You get numerous chances to answer the question, spanning approximately 1 minute. If you do not answer the question, you will be considered AFK and punished accordingly. You must answer the question accurately (spelling isn't a major issue so long as it's close). Saying "I'm here", answering with a 'funny' response, or other phrase(s) are not considered an answer and can result in being jailed anyway. This is because some players do use auto-responding scripts.

Example:

AFK Check Example.png


Quest System

Excelsior has 2 types of quest systems available.


The first type of quest is the most common, and will be the system used in most quests you find on Excelsior. For this type of quest, you will receive a quest book. Double click the book to open the quest gump. There will be information explaining what is required and a list of tasks that shows your progress.

For "collect" requirements: Click the green "collect" button on the quest gump then target the quest item.

For "Kill" requirements: Make sure you are killing the correct mobs, according to what the quest book states. Note: The quest gump will not refresh automatically while it is open. You must close and re-open the gump to refresh the information.

For "Escort" requirements: Locate the specified NPC, then single click them to receive a menu offering escort information.


The second type of quest available on Excelsior will be done entirely through gumps. You will not receive a quest book, but will be able to track your progress via the "Quest" button on your paperdoll. An example of this type of quest is the Rat quest from Joe in the new player dungeon. Note: You can only have one of this type of quest active at a time. If an NPC tells you they are busy, or that you are already on a quest, single click your character and select either "abandon quest" or "toggle quest item" to abandon it. Once you have cleared your quest log, you will be able to accept another of these quests.


Other important quest information: Most quest items are temporary. This means they will decay a few minutes after you pick them up. Collect them into your quest book immediately to avoid loss.

Most quests have an expiration. This means that you must complete the quest before it expires or you will not be able to finish it and will need to start over. This information is displayed in green at the bottom of the quest gump.

If your quest book expires and you can no longer complete it, the gump will display this information in red text at the bottom.


Training Room

In this room you'll find a number of invincible monks who do no damage to you. In the southeast corner there are tables with special green daggers that each count for a particular weapon type and give a bonus to hit.

You can train your skills up to 75 skill points here, and are allowed to train while AFK. Your pets may also train here, but may not be left unattended.

As eager as you may be to hit the dungeons, it's wise to improve some of your skills here first.

Newbie Dungeon

As long as your account is younger than 21 days, you'll be able to access the Newbie Dungeon from the yellow portal in the Training Room. When you enter the dungeon, to your north is a group of vendors and past them are mobs that won't attack you, even if you attack them. You'll find the same to the east, past the resurrection stones. If you follow these paths to the next area you will find other creatures of lower and lower-mid tier, who will attack on sight but should be manageable provided you're prepared and have any half-decent loot from the Donation Room. To the south of your initial entry portal is a critical area for new players because it is the location of...

The Newbie Rat Quest

This quest is incredibly simple and it is available to you as long as your account is younger than 21 days. It is repeatable every 30 minutes and will be an early-game source of almost all of your wealth. Talk to Joe the Apprentice, tell him you'll help him with his rat infestation, and kill however many rats it tells you to. You'll want to run east from him; the rats to the south of him are easier, but they won't yield quest results. Be sure to loot the rats as well, particularly easily with [claimall. When you turn the quest in to Joe, he'll reward you with a bag of 1-2k gold and 60-120 'organic material.' You may also have received a few of these from the rats you killed. 'Organic material' is a late-game item that many veteran players will find useful, and therefore you can easily sell it through global chat or through the [Exex, discussed later. Return here as often as you can before you are no longer able to; this will get you 5-10k gold every time, and even on your 20th day when you're a 25x grand master with a gaggle of custom pets, "godmode" equipment, or your very own custom-built 3-story keep, it'll still be easy and profitable.


  • Troubleshooting: If Joe tells you he's busy for longer than the 30 minute cooldown period, this means you are already on another quest and will need to abandon it before speaking to him again. You may do so by single-clicking on your character and selecting "toggle quest item" or "abandon quest".


The Tool Mania Crafting & Exploration Quest

This quest is simple and available to you as long as you can access the newbie dungeon. You may repeat this quest every 3 days and it will be a significant source of your early-game tools and income. To begin this quest, say "hail" to Tim the Tool-Man, located south of the dungeon entrance, a few steps east from Joe the Apprentice.


Tim will first ask you to visit various master craftsmen around the shard to collect supplies that he needs. You can access these NPCs from the world teleporter menu, most are located under the "Custom" button.

Once you return to Tim, he will send you to hunt in the newbie dungeon to kill searing elementals and collect the hardened embers from their corpses. The elementals are located only on level 2 of the newbie dungeon, which can be accessed by going east from the dungeon entrance.

Upon completion, Tim will have you provide various crafting supplies to Nodin the Hobbyist, who is located in the Haven thieves' guild with his wife.


Each book you complete will reward you with 2 different crafting tools charged with 100 uses each. The final book will give you one crafting tool with 100 uses and also reward you with 100-150k gold.


  • Troubleshooting:

If you cannot collect items into the books or raise the kill count, check the bottom of the quest book gump. It is likely that you are attempting to complete the quest too often and will need to wait until the cooldown period is over. The gump will inform you of this. If you are having trouble with book4, please carefully read the information in the book. Not all quest steps require you to collect an item into the book, some require you to give the items to a specific NPC.


If you are having trouble acquiring grade-A logs, visit this wiki page: Grade A logs

The Dungeon Hopper Quest

This quest is simple and available to you as long as you can access the newbie dungeon. You may repeat this quest every 8 hours and it will be a significant source of your early-game income. To begin this quest, say "hail" to Kachine, located south from the newbie dungeon entrance, a few steps east from Joe the Apprentice.

Kachine will give you a work order, which you will give to her assistant Johann, located a few steps away. Say "work order" to Johann, he will then take the work order and give you an assignment to kill 20 of a random type of mob. Once you have completed your assignment, your quest book will automatically reward you with a sum of gold ranging from 10k-30k. Quest books will only last for 2 days before they decay - you will need to complete the quest before that time, or you will lose any progress made.


  • Troubleshooting: If you cannot collect items into the books or raise the kill count, check the bottom of the quest book gump. It is likely that you are attempting to complete the quest too often and will need to wait until the cooldown period is over. The gump will inform you of this.


Further Weapons Training

You can continue weapons training in the newbie dungeon. Take the training dirks from the training room and attack reapers south of Joe's house. They'll stand still for you and won't fight back. The training dirks won't damage the reapers, so you can keep hitting them for hours. You can train weapons skill to 90 or so on reapers. Tactics and Anatomy to 100.

Mistvale Safe Haven

Mistvale is an area for players from 21 days' account age to 120 days' account age. It includes 5 private dungeons and 9 quests. For more information, visit the Mistvale page.

The Newbie Champ Spawn

The entrance to the Newbie Champ Spawn
Map of the Newbie Champ Spawn location

This can be slightly misleading because it's not necessarily for brand new characters, but it IS only available for players whose accounts are less than 21 days old, so it is included here. Just inside the Felucca entrance, directly to the West, lies a special Master of Arts champ spawn - no veterans allowed. Assuming you already read about the champ spawns, you know this means powerscrolls. So make sure to utilize this when you've adequately raised skills, acquired pets, or have a group of players, as often as possible before you are no longer eligible to enter.

Item Insurance

At the point where you have any items at all worth caring about you should insure those things you deem valuable. Insurance is a way of protecting your good stuff - if your character dies, insured items will remain on your character or in your backpack when you're resurrected. Insured items are covered by gold in your bank account at a rate of 900 gold per insured item. Make sure that you have enough gold in your account (NOT in check form!) to cover the item insurance or they will fall to your corpse! By single left-clicking on your character, you'll raise a short menu. Choose "Toggle Item Insurance" and use the cursor to select any item you wish to insure. This menu option also allows you to uninsure an item that you no longer wish to insure; simply target the insured item with the cursor to de-select it. As a new player, you will likely die A LOT. Item insurance is a gift; take full advantage of it. **NOTE** Insured items MUST be worn by your character or in your main backpack to function properly. If you place an insured item in a non-blessed container that is not your main backpack, it will fall to your corpse when you die.

Blessed Items

Blessed items are specific items that will remain in your backpack if you die. Insured items become blessed, but only as long as they are insured; other items possess this status at all times.

  • Note: Blessed items MUST be either equipped, in your main backpack, or in a blessed container within. Otherwise, they will remain with your corpse.

Account Bound Items

These are items that are bound to your account. You can not trade them with others. Please note, this does not mean they are blessed or insured by default! YOU CAN LOSE THESE ON YOUR CORPSE. Please make sure you bless/insure them to keep them safe.

Bind on Equip Items

These items are items that will only become account bound once someone tries to wear them. Until then, they can be traded freely.

Player Vendors

Player Vendors are available at many of the major locations such as Britain, Trinsic, the Town Center, and at specific locations available to you through the Exteleporter. They often contain incredibly useful items, and even if you can't afford them yet, take a look to familiarize yourself with what is readily available and how much it's going to cost you.

Vendor Portal

Available at http://vendors.uoex.net/ is a searchable database of the shard's vendors and the items they have available, as well as their locations. It tends to work best with Firefox.

*The Anti-Virtues and Beyond*

This section of the guide deals primarily with what to do once you've grown comfortable on the shard and you're looking for more challenging affairs. Depending on your play-style you may find some of these easier and others harder, and this is merely an attempt to provide general information about and/or links to fun and profitable things to do on Excelsior.

Traversing Felucca

Felucca, as mentioned at the beginning of this guide, has modifications on this shard that make it, in essence, a frontier. No player housing, no rune-marking, and unique challenging creatures all provide a counter-balance to the rewards offered by traveling there. If you are committed to advancing your character, you will eventually need travel there, unless you're willing to devote an inflated amount of gold to improving your character without taking on the challenges offered. Included in this guide are a few important travel notes for Felucca.

Main Entrance
Say "forget" and Travel

The Main Entrance

Located through the World Teleporter, the main entrance to Felucca leaves you south of Britain at the moongate. From here a number of important locations are easily accessed.

Forget / Remember

'Forget' Entrance Map

In the mountains northwest of Covetous, there is a cave with a teleporter that will take you between Trammel and Felucca. When in Trammel, you must say "forget" while standing at the sparkle. When in Felucca, you must say "remember" and the sparkle is in the opposite cave at the same location.

Passages to the Lost Lands

Britannia Passages to the Lost Lands

These locations in Britannia lead to the Lost Lands, which you must take the long way to in Felucca. Keep track of these, and you can find more information here.

Powerscrolls

Powerscrolls will be a primary goal for an intermediate player, and will remain important and profitable for veteran players alike. They raise the skill cap of a particular skill to either 110, 115, or 120, depending on the scroll. Keep in mind that they will not raise the skill itself; merely your capability to raise it through normal means to its new cap. Obviously these are immensely important and valuable, particularly on this shard because it has no skill cap. 110 powerscrolls are readily available through player vendors, and some hunting should find you what you need for relatively cheap if your goal is simply to be able to push past 100. 120 powerscrolls are the ultimate goal, and can be had for hefty sums on player vendors or as rewards from...

Champ Spawns

Champ Spawns are the primary sources of powerscrolls and therefore should be very familiar to you as soon as you're battle-tested. As mentioned elsewhere, there is a Newbie Champ accessible to players with accounts less than 21 days old, but there are 14 in total and therefore it is wise to check those easily accessed often, and to eventually develop a route to travel in order to check on the availability of multiple champ spawns. Almost all of the champ spawns are located in Felucca, and therefore you cannot mark runes to their locations. Because of this condition, it is critical to familiarize yourself with their locations and the various shortcuts available to you in Felucca.

Advice

1. Remember the names of the people you talk to about important things. For example, staff members or other players that are causing problems.

2. Remember the exact date/time Type [time to get the exact server time. This way we can find what was going on very easily.

3. Take screenshots There are things that cannot be logged or described with words... if you feel like taking a screenshot, do it. It might also be good laughing material. :) To take a screenshot, hit Prt Scrn (Print Screen) on your keyboard. Then paste it into any image editing program, like Paint.

4. If you die and believe you were PK'd, contact a staff member. On 18th May 2006 we implemented a system that logs certain ways of player killing that can be done even in Trammel rules. Just don't get yourself killed again until a staff member investigates and takes notes on the matter.

5. Insure your items, bond your pets. You never know when you might get disconnected in game, or when the server might be disconnected... Many unpleasant things can happen at random times, so it is advised that you insure your valuable items and bond pets that are precious to you. Staff will try to restore as much as they can if there is a server problem, but are not held responsible for items you lose on your own. DO note: Events can be lag filled, and there may be several corpses stacked on top of yours at any time during a battle. The corpse stone can only do so much, and multiple deaths during an event can lead to loss of uninsured items. Also remember that blessed/insured items cannot be kept inside bags that are not also blessed. If you die with your blessed/insured items inside a regular bag, none of the items will stay with you but will instead stay inside the bag on your corpse and can be lost!

Addendum I - Critical Skills & Abilities

Balron.gif Ancientwyrm.gif Tsukiwolf.gif Run.png This section will be fully implemented later!

Animal Taming

Animal taming is an indispensable skill on Excelsior. Raising it and your animal lore should be a priority for every player. It is easily raised, and there is a dedicated Taming Forest in the Exteleporter for your use. If you begin your character with 50 taming, you can easily acquire jewelry that boosts it to 60, at which point you can begin making pet dyes. Through this method it is possible to raise your taming all the way to 120 (with powerscrolls). Either way, it's a great skill to have and the taming system in general is important to understand and familiarize yourself with. An in-depth guide can be found here, a table of taming craftables can be found here, a skill guide here, a taming difficulty table here, and a guide to ointments - which can be used to counter the stat loss of a pet's death - here.

Taming BODs

Taming bulk-order deeds are available from animal trainers every 3 hours. They can be turned in for incredibly useful and powerful rewards, and it should be a goal of every tamer to get these as often as possible. There are small BODs and large BODs, which require each individual small BOD to be fulfilled before turning in the large BOD. The rewards for fulfilling the large BODs are great, so it can be best to save your small BODs until you get a large BOD that matches them. Taming BOD rewards can be found here.

Pet Leveling

If you tame a pet, you will be able to raise its levels via combat. Its maximum level varies based on certain factors, and an in-depth explanation of pet leveling can be found here.

Custom Tamables

There are a number of pets which are unique to Excelsior. You can familiarize yourself with them here, but for the purposes of this guide you should know about the...

Mules

Since this is , the mules gets its own topic. Getting enough early gold and animal lore (and taming, though not necessary) to grab a few of these is a game-changer for a new player. These animals are far more powerful than even the most intrepid character will reach any time soon.

They originate as a mount from a champ spawn, but pet breeders and tamers also sell them at the player vendors and a "starter" (low stats, relatively speaking, but still exponentially more powerful than you once you have a few) mule is only around 10-12k gold typically, with better mules to be had for more. Pet bonding deeds can also be purchased for around 9-12k gold. So if you already have 100k gold accrued, and you don't have any mules, get some immediately! You will go from inching into starter dungeons to plowing through mobs of undead, hellspawn, and dragonkin like they were mongbats. I promise that you will make your entire investment back in an hour if you buy starter mules, bond them, get food, and then immediately head out to a previously-difficult anti-virtue dungeon like Deceit or Destard to hit up some of the tougher spawns there.

Be sure to feed them, and again, you need to have a high animal lore skill to manage them. Your best bet is to let them do all of the work in battle, with their health bars pulled up for easy healing. If you haven't trained Spirit Speak by now, it is a must; the heal Touch of Life provided by the access Spirit Speak gives you to Cleric spells is indispensable, and Sacred Boon is a nice heal-over-time for difficult and prolonged encounters.

  • Special Note: As a new player mules are awesome, and pets of their ilk change your capability completely. However, as you further your adventures, veteran players who have accumulated significant skill and power may find it a little frustrating if you flood a group's champ spawn with pets, for one example. In some cases, when you've powered your pets up enough, it could actually limit other players' abilities to receive loot from a spawn. Play with consideration of others! Further discussion can be found on the forums.

Pet Breeding

There is a fairly extensive pet breeding system which is not covered at length in this guide, but you can find all the information right here.

Newbie Squirrelkin - Echees

These squirrel-like creatures don't take any pet slots, but you can only have one of them - if you have two they will kill each other instantly. If it is alive and the owner is alive, it heals the owner. It cannot,however, resurrect players. The strength of its heals are based on how experienced the owner is (measured by Stat Points).

  • Points = str*5 + dex*5 + int*5 + total skills*10 .

It will heal only if you have under 3000 skill points, and the less points you have, the more it will heal and even restore your mana. The restoration will not happen instantly, but will cause your health to increase quicker. Echees are non-breedable, and already come as lvl 40 with a set of ability points you can distribute.

Imprisoned Pets

These special pets cannot be found in the wild and must be earned or bought. More information can be found here.

Chivalry / Necromancy

Cleric Spells

Due to their low MP requirements, cleric spells are incredibly powerful to have and practically essential for mid- and late-game play. The rely on your Spirit Speak skill (which makes them almost instantly accessable) and tithing gold at an ankh, as with chivalry.

Type "I pray to the gods" to bring up the list of spells. You do NOT need a book for these.

  • Using the shortcut macro [cs (spellname) - e.g. [cs touchoflife - is the most effective way to make use of your primary cleric spells.

Angelic Faith Tithing Points - 100 Required Skill - 80.0 "The caster calls upon the divine powers of the heavens to transform himself into a holy angel. The caster gains better regeneration rates and increased stats and skills."

  • At 100 Spirit Speak you get +20 to str/dex/int. Every 5 points of SS = 1 point to each stat, at a max of +24's. Will also boost your Anatomy, Mace Fighting and Healing, following the same formula as stats.

Banish Evil Tithing Points - 30 Required Skill - 60.0 "The caster calls forth a divine fire to banish his undead or demonic foe from the earth."

Dampen Spirit Tithing Points - 15 Required Skill - 30.0 "The caster's enemy is slowly drained of his stamina, greatly hindering their ability to fight in combat or flee."

Divine Focus Tithing Points - 15 Required Skill - 35.0 "The caster's mind focuses on his divine faith increasing the effect of his prayers. However, the caster becomes mentally fatigued much faster."

Hammer of Faith Tithing Points - 20 Required Skill - 40.0 "Summons forth a divine hammer of pure energy blessed with the ability to vanquish undead foes with greater efficiency."

Purge Tithing Points - 5 Required Skill - 10.0 "The target is cured of all poisons and has all negative stat curses removed."

  • Highly efficient poison cure

Resurrection Tithing Points - 40 Required Skill - 50.0 "The caster's target is resurrected and fully healed and refreshed."

  • Best resurrection in the game! Resurrectee returns to life with 100% HP & MP.

Sacred Boon Tithing Points - 5 Required Skill - 10.0 "The caster's target is surrounded by a divine wind that heals small amounts of lost life over time."

  • Heals 10-15 hp every 'pulse'. Great for long fights with many pets, as a compliment to Touch of Life

Sacrifice Tithing Points - 5 Required Skill - 5.0 "The caster sacrifices himself for his allies. Whenever damaged, all party members are healed a small percentage of the damage dealt. The caster still takes damage."

Smite Tithing Points - 60 Required Skill - 80.0 "The caster calls to the heavens to send a deadly bolt of lightning to strike down his opponent."

Touch of Life Tithing Points - 20 Required Skill - 30.0 "The caster's target is healed by the heavens for a significant amount."

  • The most useful and efficient heal in the game.

Trial by Fire Tithing Points - 25 Required Skill - 45.0 "The caster is surrounded by a divine flame that damages the caster's enemy when hit by a weapon."

  • Fans of Everquest and WoW will recognize this as the 'Thorns' spell.

Addendum II - Crafting

This section will be implemented later!

Addendum III - Macroing (Legally)

Information regarding AFK checks on this shard: http://www.uoex.net/wiki/AFK

Codex rules & penalties regarding AFKing: http://www.uoex.net/codex/penalties

This section will be more completely implemented later!