I admit when I came to the Lair of the Sorceress, I had no idea what the hell I was doing in UO. I came because a friend of mine at school had told me about some of the whacky things he'd done, and it was more than enough for me to put up with the laag and out-dated game just to have that much fun.
For the record, the friend was right. Everything he had described was fun stuff, however, they were all non-typical UO actions - bugs, jokes, testing the law and so on. There's nothing fun about mining rocks, believe me - NL

I started off like everybody. Kill monsters, get gold, buy better weapons and armor. Maybe save up enough to buy a cute house or something. I did some skill-raising, and so on. By my third day, I had quite a bit of money, some pretty good items (still not very good in the skill department, but hey, it's UO - I wasn't in the mood for automacroing my skills all night) - when lo and behold, a GM shows up and gives me a newbie gift. I wound up with a full suit of dyable plate mail, money, spell components, and a bank book that actually let me use my bank account any where in the world! I also noticed just how much everybody wore silver armor. At first, I thought this was great, because it made my newbie life so much better. Weeks later, long after the newbie stuff went away, I was going insane with boredom.

Seeking entertainment, the very same friend who got me started in UO and I got to do some whacky things together. He let me into his guild, allowing for some pretty funny scavenger hunt quests, and we also got to be pirates and steal people's boats and hunt for treasure. That was cool, but it's not like either he or I would be on there every time we played, so again I had to find something else to keep me busy. So I did what most players do when they're bored of UO - learn how to cheat in it. Sadly I was a little late on that bandwagon, as most cheats and exploits no longer apply to most games of UO you'll play. But damn, just looking for that tiny little bug that'd let me do something fun, just trying it out, was so much fun. I never regret a second of it. I never did it for the money. Why would I? So I could just buy a bigger house? Nah, it was all for the thrill. I learned a lot about the 'other side' of the UO community while I worked, too.

I tried a guild dedicated to jestering and revalry, and that flopped. Tried a merchant guild, as mining rocks became my sad hobby, luckily that flopped too. My best guild was the Pirate Guild, dedicated to having fun and making other players in the shard more aware of the life they have and the potential fun out there. I have killed NPC vendors, stolen from players and their houses, made fun of lame-ass characters, and all in the name of fun. Some people could not differentiate their character from their real-life, and some of the staff would use their powers for their own accord. One person threw a hissy fit because I made fun of her Elven accent (I've never liked Faerie Folk since I played DnD), a GM once jailed me just to 'talk' to me (I wish I had the power jail players arbitrarily), another GM '.kill'ed me during her hissy fit, the Admin publically criticized me and let her staff run free all over other people too. As you can see, the abuse was starting to chalk up. Not to mention, one staff following me around invisible-like or monitoring my conversations, male players always hitting on female characters and then denying it, hipocrits, shallow characters, really bad player names, and underpopulated shard world, laag, and the occasional whiney player. Just what good is screaming 'laaaaaag' during a quest when we're ALL feeling it too???

On the up side, that wonderful feeling you'd get stealing from another player, knowing you could get caught any second. A player once returned to their home just as I was using the old 'stack the tables up through the balcony trick', but I suppose my 'Magic Baja Shard of Incognito' slowed her down long enough for me to get away, and she never came to me about it afterwards, either (I never knew how the name of the wand got to be that name). I'm also fortunate enough to have left interesting impressions on almost a dozen other players, so that in the future, I can't help but think they might play a teensy bit differently, and a little bit more like me - to have fun, screw most of the rules, and show everybody else the fun they could be having. As for so many of the other players, well, I know I sure as hell affected them too! Whether they hate me or love me, laugh at me or scream at me, either way, I left my mark on the Lair of the Sorceress.

Some will read this an be inspired. Some will read this and gnash their teeth. Tell me that's not cool.