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Felucca a Safer Place?

In Ultima Online we have the luxury of choice. We have the choice to play how we want, to have fun how we want, and most importantly, to find people who are like-minded and create a friendship that can grow into a team which makes up a guild. No guild can survive without dedication, perseverance and a lot of times, sacrifice. There are lots of wonderful guilds on Atlantic, guilds that have proven there worth by sticking it out for the long haul. There is so much diversity amongst the active guilds that you can do basically anything you want to do in the company of friends. Whether that means doing peerless, being a pirate or helping new/returning players get back on their feet.

Then we have my personal favorite, The Felucca based guilds. A lot of the "Fel" guilds are all about the spawns, faction fighting,"The Gate", etc... Then, every once in awhile, we get a breath of fresh air. Anyone who spends any amount of time in Fel knows how important "fresh blood" is to our community. Without new people to liven up the scenery we would get stuck in a rut with the same people, day in and day out. Who wants that!?!

I had the pleasure of meeting Chad Sexington, brand new to our shard, and Founder/Guild Leader of "Team Newb". This player definitely takes the award for thinking "outside the box" when it comes to Felucca.

How long have you been playing Ultima Online?

A: "The very first character I ever made was on the Pacific shard in 1998 (Or maybe it was 1999, I can't remember, I know it was definitely T2A.).... I then died 5 times with 5 different characters and didn't want to wait 7 days to delete one of them, so I then made my next miner on Napa Valley. (Someone should have told me you could resurrect. O_o)"

"That's the story of how I first made Napa Valley my home." This isn't the first time I've told this story. ^_^"

When did you make the move to Atlantic?

A: "15 days ago on November 13th, 2010. One day before the Atlantic Llama Festival."

"I've been away from UO for almost a year and I didn't have time to play my thief, so I decided to try something new. This new experiment was dependent on guilding as many people as possible, so Napa Valley was out of the question. Atlantic has always been known to have the highest population between shards so it was an obvious choice. It was also made sense to move to another shard to try something new. --And I hope you're going to ask about the Llama Festival because it's kind of important to this story. ^_^"

Well then by all means! Tell me about the Llama festival!

A: "Okay, so truth be told, I didn't even know the Llama Festival was going to happen the day I transferred off of Napa Valley to Atlantic. I just had this idea in my head and I just went for it. The day after I transferred, bank sitting at Luna Bank, I see a yellow NPC announcing an event while he stood next to a permanent gate. (Both of these things were foreign to me coming from Napa Valley & Siege Perilous.) So I went in waited an hour and the Storytelling event of the festival began."

"I ended up winning 2nd place with the prize being a Silver Llama Statue. I then sold that statue a week later for 350 million gold pieces -- 200 million of which has already gone into funding my new idea. So everything kind of fell into place. (I also ended up losing 1st to someone named "The Llama King." Go figure.)"

What was the inspiration behind founding "Team Newb" ?

A: "It's an idea that I've had ever since Virtue Armor was introduced into the game. It's an all 70's resist, blessed suit of armor. It's the same idea that popped back into my head when New Haven was created and even more blessed items were introduced into the game. And it was at that time when I opened my mouth in the original Stratics U.Hall thread about New Haven, about a potential "Newbie Army that wore nothing but Virtue Armor and blessed items." And if you remember, originally all of the New Haven items had different properties and were much better. One of the EA Mythic employees responded, "This is not intended for some type of 'gimp' army." And they then proceeded to nerf all of the equipment a few days later. So... I guess it was my fault it all got nerfed. (Oops.)"

"And I decided to do it now because like I said, I don't have that much time to play. The Mis-adventures has already come to and end with 300 episodes and if I ever wanted to do it, now would be the perfect time. This is the type of guild where I (hopefully) won't have to be online all the time."

Where are your guild's headquarters? Have you all established where you will be centrally located?

"With nothing to lose, no supplies to horde, and no gear to lose, we're not really in need of a headquarters. But still, I went ahead and bought a small Fel Yew house plot and planted an Ankh of Sacrifice to resurrect us from our many, many embarrassing deaths. It also serves as a place other people can donate an Virtue Armor or other blessed items to support our cause."

Are your "Mis-adventures" planned? Or do you plan to operate on situations of opportunity?

A: "I have some ideas about adding to the website, but I can't talk about it yet. But it won't be part of the Mis-adventures. That's going to remain strictly for thievery purposes only. And no, we don't use ventrilo (yet). Besides, in a guild where anybody from any guild can join, on a shard where you can have 7 characters per account, I think people may value their anonymity."

Do you plan to be a faction guild? If so, what faction alliance are you leaning towards?

A: "No factions for 2 reasons: #1 This is the type of guild where anyone from any guild can make a newb to join the guild -- no questions asked. And when you have people joining from many guilds (hopefully) it might be a problem. They might already have characters in a different faction. #2 (The more important reason.) Is that we're trying to make Felucca safe from murderers. This is an attempt to make red & blue matter again. All of the newbs are going to be blue (due to Noble Sacrifice as our only means of resurrecting each other) and that means a war on all reds."

Do you feel this is going to create some animosity towards your guild from reds that are in factions fighting opposing factions?

A: "Hopefully, *crosses fingers*"

"We're actually quite harmless is groups of 2 or 3... or 4... maybe 5? If not 5, then maybe 6. Potentially 7. Don't quote me, but I think we get deadly at 8. Maybe 9."

What kind of impact are you wanting to make in PvP?

A: "The impact that I'm wanting has less to do with PvP and more to do with Felucca. The goal is to have non-pvpers move back to Felucca. It always bugged me that today's UO treats Felucca as if it's an arena like Unreal Tournament or Modern Warfare. That's not was UO was when it first came out. And it's this same reason why I decided to move to Siege in the first place. But today's UO isn't going to change back to the way it was no matter how hard people shut their eyes and click their heels together. Everyone in favor of today's UO always tell others to adapt. This is just my adaptation. --At the very least, it'll be funny to die in Virtue Armor from time to time. (I have simple needs.)"

"(More to the point, convincing people to believe the garbage that comes out of my mouth and trick them into joining the cause -- and then watching them die in Virtue Armor from time to time whilst taking embarrassing screen shots of us all. But you didn't hear that from me.)"

What kind of templates are you encouraging your "newbs" to play?

A: "There are only 2 requirements for Team Newb: #1, 105 Chivalry and 55.5-75.5 Spellweaving as part of your final template. #2, You can only wear blessed equipment. The idea is to have an army of blessed newbs who abuse spells that were made for armies of blessed newbs: Noble Sacrifice, Gift of Renewal, and Summon Fey."

If you had the ear of a developer, what changes would you like to see made in Ultima Online regarding PvP? What changes do you think would bring more people to Fel, and more importantly,to UO?

A: "I would tell them to make a true Classic, pre-AoS server. That's the only change that matters. Everything else is just a bandaid. I used to have a pvp mage, but I haven't pvp'd in nearly 5 years. The day I got double flamestriked and e-bolted in less than 2 seconds from a guy -- while he ran circles around me -- was the day I quit. The day I quit pvp was the day I started thinking about the Mis-adventures. I would tell you the whole story, but that would take 300 episodes... (-_-')"

"Unfortunately, I doubt very much that a true Classic server will ever be created.If that's the case, then I guess people will be relegated into coming up with goofy ideas which may or may not interest other people (like mine) to keep them pre-occupied."

Do you have any advice for new to PvP players or anything else you would like to add?

A: "Just want to add that this idea will only work if other people participate, so bring friends.(How else will I take embarrassing screen shots of you dying? O_o) And as always, you can check us out at the forums at www.uothief.com"

I want to wish Chad and "Team Newb" the best of luck and to encourage you all to have the most amount of fun that you can possibly have!

by Tiny Dancer
UO Stratics Atlantic News Reporter
11-30-2010

uo.stratics.com

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