The History of Crazy Joe

I anticipated playing Ultima Online ever since it was announced back in the late 90's, however I was in college at the time and a 36.6k connection in the city of Lubbock Texas wasn't the most ideal connection to the internet. I read up on it often, and I read up on such events as all cities getting banks, Dread Lord Era, Elimination of Tents,  and even the murder of Lord British.  Eventually I gave up thinking about it and life went on, and I missed out on a wonderful time.  

Christmas of 1999 I went out and bought Ultima 9 hoping it would be a fitting end to the entire Ultima series. I have been playing since Ultima 3 and consider myself a pretty avid fan of the entire series.  I was greatly disappointed that the game didn't run, and I had to wait for patches to be released one after the other. Finally I was disgusted things didn't get better and threw it in my closet on top of my entire Ultima collection. A few weeks went by and OSI sent out all registered Ultima 9 customers an Ultima Online CD with a month free. It just so happen that the month before I got a cable modem, so I popped it in wondering if I can finally get on the bandwagon. 

After playing the "Avatar" for so many years, my first character was a noble fighter named "Joseph" that upheld the virtues. I was a generic warrior, and joined up in a guild of folks which I forgot the guild name of. (I always wanted to go back and see how they are doing).  I was visited by a companion after a week I was playing, and he helped me through what I didn't already learn. While he was helping me out, I saw a man run by on foot, chased by two other warriors. They killed him near us, and laughed and walked off. The companion told me that man was a thief - the worst possible player available in Ultima Online. I asked why there so horrible - he told me they would steal anything of value, be hated and chased often, and pretty much ruin the game for me. The only thing worse than a thief he told me was a Player Killer. My first response was that sounded like fun - and asked him how I can create a thief. The companion was disgusted, and actually took off leaving me there confused. 

I asked around, and someone pointed me to Stratics, where I read up on Thieves. That night, I created my first thief on Lake Superior, Lotus - a female (we all know women get away with more than men, so why not?). After a month of playing, I wasn't getting too good at being a thief, and met ChaoticJelly over Stratics. He lured me over to the Atlantic Shard, where I created "Crazy Joe", after a nickname I had in College.  My thief did improve over time, and we started the guild, "The Legitimate Businessmen's' Social Club", but were unable to place a house due to OSI locking down all house placement. We even helped start the Shard-Wide guild "Secret Society of Thieves". The lack of a house didn't slow us down, and we became pretty famous. 

With the opening of Trammel, my thief saw most of the marks leave, and it got pretty lonely in Felucca Atlantic, and I never looked back to Lake Superior. We finally placed a small tower near Skara when they finally opened up house placement, and our guild was finally official. Over time, I was upset that the marks left Feluca, and most of us stopped having fun. Since most of the loot was in Trammel, I created a Bard-Tamer very much like Belan, and took off to seek fortune.  I made quite a few enemies roaming around Trammel, and getting rich - however it didn't compare to the fun I had as a thief. I still popped back to Felucca often, and even played alongside Galad the Looter in Deceit -- however whatever Dungeon players still were around in Felucca  were scared off when OSI decided to double the monsters.  My thief no longer had any places to steal from in Felucca, so he was thrown on a shelf while the bard looter in Trammel became my "Main".  

Velona was a disarm-thief that still played in Felucca, and was a member of our guild. She taught me that even though the marks were fewer, they were still there - we just had to go look for them. I came back to Felucca with my thief, and sure enough in time I was stealing again, and my Bard-Tamer went to collect dust. With the opening of Khaldun, I finally saw the traffic in dungeons that I missed since Deceit, and I've claimed Khaldun my stomping grounds.  

With the introduction of Third Dawn, for some reason my connection to Atlantic was getting worse - and I found my thief unplayable. I started to look around at other Shards, trying to determine where I should start over. I didn't like the idea at all - I had everything I needed on Atlantic, but it was no longer acceptable to play there. I knew Belan the Looter and Adam Ant were both on Napa Valley, so I checked it out first. It was not as populated as Atlantic, but seemed to be heavy on the role-playing player environment. After careful consideration, I decided to move to Napa Valley - and joined Adam Ant's guild, "The Guardians of the Undead Lords". I was the only thief in the guild full of Player Killers!

I started to read Battle Vortex some, and started a thief on Seige Perilous. I was able to steal enough gold off nobles in town to finally place a small house outside Delucia passage. Someone posted a contest on the forum - find his house and win it! I found it within 30 minutes, and was given a Small House near Minoc with a few rares and other items. I was set up well on Seige, but never made any episodes there. 

After a few months with GUL, I sadly had to announce my retirement from Ultima Online in April.  I had my second son in real life, and I no longer have time to play Ultima very much. Maybe in a few months when life returns to normal and I can get some sleep through the night I may return to once again. ChaoticJelly quit UO in March, and so the LBSC Page  finally came to a close -  the founders weren't able to play anymore. I handed the stone over to Velona who will keep the guild alive, and this website dumped the LBSC theme and is now bearing only my name.  

Shortly after this all volunteers for OSI were fired. No more counselors or seers were to ever be seen in game again. Several key programemrs also left the company for "Destination Games", led by Richard Garrior, the founder of everything Utlima. Consumer Confidence in Ultima took a serious nosedive at this time. I saw prices for E-bay items plumment, (as did Galad who used Ebay often to sell loot), and it became harder for most thieves, including myself, to get the same prices on magic weapons. Belan actually quit UO and sold her account on Ebay, and I was actually getting ready to do the same.

 I put my Tower on atlantic up for sale, but ended up getting a good tip from someone that I may be able to trade my tower for a large house located on Magincia Beach. Sure enough, I traded and moved out of the Tower into what used to be "Goodman's Rune Library". There were two small houses also on the beach near me for sale, and ChaoticJelly, who came back, and Zip bought a house there. More houses came up and almost all the original LBC members moved onto the beach. Our old guild, the S|S was able to secure a house there as well, and we called it "Scoundrels' Cove". Even without Seers or the ability to bless our town, we consider it a great Thief town, and I believe at this time only 2 houses don't belong to us. 

Since I liked the idea of having a more functional house than I did with the tower, I decided to trade my Napa Tower with Jade's Tower - one located in a nasty swamp! I traded that tower and some gold for one of the only two large marble houses located on Moonglow Island, which ironically enough is located right next to the guard zone as well, where a NPC merchent sells packhorses! 

You'll notice Episode 116 is titled, "Crazy Joe's Last Episode?". Several episodes that followed were some I dug up off my harddrive and put together at work. A few others were some I made in slow-time at work as well.  However after 1 1/2 months from the birth of my son, my wife took the kids to visit her mom for a weekend, and I was able to get online for several hours and make several more episodes at home to go with the slow-paced boring ones I made while at work. However, in the middle of June we sold our house and had to move into rental home, and I turned in my cable modem, thus really ending my UO career until October, when our new house should be done. I can still macro and play a little if it's slow at work, but not much - so expect a few episodes every now and then to pop up. Even though I don't play much, I still own the large house at Scoundrels' Cove, and pop in every now and then. 

Until then, the thief Crazy Joe isn't to be seen in action, that's why you don't see new episodes with him doing any stealing.  If you do see me, maybe it's me in some spare time macroing up a new thief that will return to wreck havoc once again one day! The rental home did have a halfway decent modem line, and I averaged 56kps. In my boredom, I decided to make a pirate, Yblarbo Janks. Since I stink at PVP, and I hate it when I'm macroing at sea and see others AFK while macroing, I made a simple fisherman with archery and swords (later dropped swords for resist). He's been tons of fun, and it turned out AAR was founded on Altantic -- a guild for pirates! 

Late in the year, I finally moved into our new house and got a cable modem! ChaoticJelly quit for the second time, and this time the final time - he put EVERYTHING on Ebay. A week later, I got a nasty notice in the mail and owed a hospital provider a few thousand dollars! Sadly, I announced my retirement, and started to Ebay everything as well. All my rares, houses, and gold went to Ebay, and I did make enough money to pay off about 50% of that bill. Then in December I got good news, and my financial problem was over...however I was already done Ebaying everything of worth to me...so I basically was with all my developed characters, but dirt poor! The only house I owned on Atlantic was a villa that my Accounts were to be sold with if that time came, and ethereal horses for my characters on the 2nd account..so all wasn't lost!

Adam Ant let me know that my site was pulling in a large amount of traffic, so I stopped making episodes and started host-hunting. Thanks to Zip, I registered www.crazyjoe.us , and got my own host at a reasonable price, and stopped leaching off Adam Ant. I appreciate everything he did for me, but after almost three years and 400 megs of Episodes, I had to find my own host.

A few months down the road, OSI introduce new houseing rules. One House, PER ACCOUNT. I already sold the Villa near Hythloth and owned a Villa at the Chaos Shrine, and on Siege I got ahold of a L Shape behind the Britian Cemetary. I quit playing Napa, and was concentrating on Siege and Atlantic - so I thought I was set ok. But the nail in the coffin for my thief on Atlatnic was that NO dungeon stealing from blues was made possible. Khaldun, my favorite dungoen of all, because uterllly useless. Then, after the new housing rules were in place, a new shard opened - Lake Austin. I got in on the first day, and was able to place a small house on Magencia Island and then a Keep on the Vesper beach, right at the town bridge. I later sold the Magencia House, and bought a villa near the Trammel Britian Moongate and built the best damn Rune Library the shard ever saw, and founded COW guild in Felucca with ChaoticJelly!  (But then a few weeks later, Jelly quit again, Damm him!)

Even with Power Hour gone, I had GMd characters in no time. I first made a fisherman, simply to make more money, then started on Janks. Once Janks is fully finished, I'll probably consider making a thief - however there are so many thieves on this shard already, I don't know what to think. Then, I felt quite old in December 2002, when my original account turned Three. My Disarmer on Atlantic can finally have an ethy, but I haven't loaded him in ages. My mule on Siege can look JUST like my thief, and dish out counts. That's handy.

So, that's the Crazy Joe history. Big Whoop. 

So whats to come? Who knows. OSI just announced in Janurary 2003 Stat Loss will be removed, and thieves will be able to steal once again in Dungeons!

With that said, I will go ahead and highlight the best things that I can remember. 

When I first started out, that exact month is was discovered thieves could steal items from trade windows. Since I was a pure newbie, I didn't realize it was actually an exploit, and ran around 'buying' expensive items, only to steal them and run off. After a few days I learned it was an exploit, and Lotus wasn't seen again - I used the disguise kit on her and stayed that way. 

With the opening of Trammel, the game resources were overburdened. The biggest plus we saw was that guards would spawn three tiles away from us in town when they were called on, but if you were quick you can take off and actually out run the guards! This was totally awesome, we would go stealing in town and even if we were noticed we knew we could take off running, and the guards wouldn't kill us. 

After they patched the guards to run faster, a few thieves still learned that if you could disarm, you could fix it where you had over 100 STR with a white potion, and sometimes you can disarm the hally out of their hands, and the other one would hit  you for 100 damage, but you still had enough hit points to continue running away. I myself survived ONE guard wacking. A month later, they made it where guards would cast lighting as well, and that ended the fun. (Actually that patch was to fix an exploit where folks were Grandmastering Archery near Moonglow attacking the stuck guards at the Zoo!

Another kink I loved when I started is folks would go gray and be guard-killed if they snooped a pouch on the packhorse. I would put valuable items in a bag on my packhorse, and steal from the bag. Folks would see messages like, "You notice Lotus stealing a black dye tub from a packhorse" when in fact it was just a book renamed, "a black dye tub". Folks always would come and snoop the packhorse, then look in the bag for the dye tub, and sure enough I would call the guards and loot them. 

Ever curious what prompted me to make a webpage with all my adventures? When I moved to Atlantic I heard of "Galad" the Looter of the LuT guild. I checked out his website, and sure enough he was a nasty individual that would loot folks, and he made funny episodes of it. I thought it was a grand idea that he did that, because there were so few websites that actually showed you the adventures of someone (most were comic sites that didn't involve real Ultima adventures, ImaNewbie for one). Even though I liked Galad's site and his guild, I never joined them - I wanted to make my own path in this game, and not be a follower. 

Gate Portaling folks to stuck locations or areas of instant death was extremely fun when I started. Sure it was mean as hell - but the folks I gated were normally people too lazy to walk to a moongate or wouldn't find it necessary to get 30 magery and cast recall from a scroll. Galad of course started this mean trick, but I had to follow him on this one, and got lots of loot gating folks to dungeons instead of the town they asked for. It was deemed a bannable offense soon, and I had to give it up.

Speaking of rooms of instant death, there was one area I will truely miss - the Shroom Room in Deceit. It was a room on the 3rd floor, that had mushrooms that explode and do up to 100 points of damage to you. We would gate folks in there or lure them to run into that room, then pick up so much loot it was crazy. However, folks started to catch on and they did it in Trammel as well - soon OSI blocked off the room and deleted the mushrooms.

When Trammel opened, it was sad to see more than half the population leave Felucca. At that time there was no Factions, and folks were sick of rampant PKs and thieves. However, many folks did frequent dungeons in Feluca and it wasn't a serious issue. However OSI decided dungeons were too easy in Trammel, and they doubled the spawn and added even more monsters to dungeons, things got MUCH harder. (There never used to be silver serpents in Decent FYI, plus very few floor traps existed). Even players in Feluca found Deceit too thick with Liches, and it's practically dead to this day. Deceit was by far the best dungeon for Player Killers, Thieves, and other players - it was the Britian Bank of Dungeons. If there is one thing I miss more than anything, its playing in Deceit.

With the increased dungeon spawns, Feluca was getting more vacant by the day. However, Khaldun was opened, a Felucca-Only dungeon. It was great! There were monsters worse than Lich Lords, another one that only mages and archers could get close to killing, and plenty of undead creatures that made folks carry silver weapons. Khaldun is the best apology OSI gave us for killing Deceit, and to this day I love that dungeon. It's a Shame that it's only 1 level, it was never finished and they blocked off the 2nd level.

Being a Pirate was fun. Yblarbo Janks was proof even the worse PVPer could PVP and have fun. Only drawback is that you sail for HOURS at times looking for one victim. Well, the best trick in the book was the spell Telekensis. You could kill a person standing behind their boat mast, get close enough and cast this spell on the corpse to open it up. Now, you were too far away to loot it of course, however if you saw a boat key - you cast Recall onto it, and end up on their boat! Nice trick indeed!

Another thing I learned at sea was looting Ore off peoples boats - now there are actually three ways of doing this, and only one is being addressed by OSI, so I better not go into detail on the other two!

Thieves are hated by most players. However most thieves still cry that OSI nerfed us to hell. I totally disagree. In the one year I played, the following things changed :
1.) We were able to steal during combat - I can't believe that thieves were not allowed to steal in combat before this. Totally mindboggling.
2.) A thief could finally go red and not kicked out of the thieves guild. Wonderful - seeing how I went red twice.
3.) We were given the ability to snoop while hidden. A monumental bonus.
4.) We can Disarm. This ability is almost too powerful to be allowed, but it's there and I will use it.

However the 'nefs' include

1.) House Robbing was eradicated - I think that's understandable, stealing from a house was pretty severe. Maybe I say that because I own two large towers.....
2.) You could not recall or use gate portals when you are gray - a thief used to be able to steal something and instantly recall, which if you think about it is totally unfair - what if I stole a silver sword then another theif stole it from me right then and recalled, I would be pretty pissed as well.
3.) You couldn't loot bodies anymore while hidden - this is sad, but had to happen I guess.
4.) Trammel. Enough said.
5.) Ilshenar.
6.) Malas.
7.) Publish 16, which made thieves basically able to steal just gems, gold, and power scrolls in dungeons. Joy. We got to sit next to glacial staff and vanquish weapons holders and couldn't do jack shit. However, Age of Shadows expansion supposedly will revert back to our old ways.
8.) Publish 16 also on Siege Perilous screwed up stealing, it had the normal shard rules ( #7) for Siege, and that wasn't right. They fixed it - MONTHS later after the publish was on Siege.

Actually one other Thief perk came around with Publish 16, one that OSI has stated they will NOT Fix, and I hate them for it. Any thief that steals OUTSIDE The guardzone can die within 30 seconds, and they will ress with that item in their pack. So basically, I can steal the best damn weapon in this game, then kill myself, and casually go to a healer, ress, and have the item in my pack. Where is the "Risk" in that for the thief? There is none. Why the hell would OSI put that in? They didn't, they had to have screwed up and are too busy with their new expansion to go back and fix it. Even though I'm a thief, this sure isn't fair to our victims.