Ya'know

[Savagefire]

Azalen-
I had better luck finding high spawn areas in the woods and killing elementals, gargoyles, ratmen Ettins etc.(slow I know, but I was able to take away all I earned)

You can even buy 30ish lockpicking from the tinker and check the bulletin boards for the Kidnapped Ransom Quests at the bank and do those for 500-800+ gold and Items( kill the Orcs/Ratmen/Brigands, sell every item you dont need, pick the chest, it has gold and 30+ regs and magic items**I got a power war axe out of one**) escort the kidnap if you feel like it by saying "I will take thee" and unlocking the cage with the key from the chest you picked.
Once I had enough skill to reliably cast recall from a scroll(less then 50 mage), i bought a few stacks of recalls and a small stack of mark scrolls, marked a few runes to the bank, and put all my extra scrolls and runes in the bank. I made an "Escape Recall" macro for when I hunt in Dungeons and High Traffic Areas and set it to a Hotkey.
I take only the one scroll and rune, cover it up with a deathrobe, and I hunt till I get about 3-5K or I feel/see Danger and I leave. ( my bard is defenceless, i can cast Poison and fireball but thats about it with Regs, so Its better to leave with something then nothing at all and have to buy another horse and equipment.

Just hunt what you can, where you can until you can defend yourself(I still cant). I was able to buy a 152K Large w/a Patio and train Skills in 7 days while working IRL doing this. Ive been PK'd 4 times (1 Red and 3 Blues), Ive been attacked at least 10 other Times and Escaped (thanks to the "Escape Macro" and "trapped pouches" set to Hotkeys)
My acct is 15 Days Old, Its hard, but its not impossible, the first day I was here a Lady training fletching gave me a few Bows to sell to help buy skills, other then that I've had zero help and know not a Soul here.
The challenge is what you make of it, some days I do alot better then others, on my off days I macro more or chop wood and mine. Watch those Nasty Blue's, I dont trust anyone when I have gold in my bag. * twitches*

P.S. People leave scrolls and Gems and all kinda crap on the ground in Dungeons and banks like Papua, I pick up everydamn thing I see and sell it, youd be surprised how quick that adds up, those Thigh Boots and Fancy shirts off Brigands are worth 22-27 Gold each, Ive filled 3 spellbooks so far with scrolls and sold all extras, Gems are a Mint by themselves.... all lying on the ground......

[Akells]

Get recall.

Recall quicker.

You are a real smart guy huh? I'll do that just hook me up with a spell book and enough gold to buy the regs to train up my magery and then we will see yah? But that doesn't change the fact that the population is so skewed that its more or less a waste of effort to train up without begging for gold or having other people set you up on the new server so you can macro full up.

1. By comparison to you I may very well be a real smart guy, considering I came onto this shard less than a month ago and have already bought two houses and made several worthwhile and competitive characters -- all without running to the forums to complain. I've gotten PK'd plenty of times, but thats what makes this game great. If you don't want to lose your items, World of Warcraft is just a click away. Just check your dignity at the door.

2. Don't talk about this shard like you know it -- Roadkill is right, your estimates are way exaggerated. Saying that it would be 'more or less a waste of effort' to train up without begging for gold is laughable and worthy of only pity for someone as lazy as you. Come to the forum to ask for help and other established player's opinions, not talk out of your ass about a server you know next to zero about. Its alright though, I doubt anyone would bother taking your opinion seriously anyways.

3. You may be beyond help if your primary money-making character doesn't have recall. We all had to start somewhere with absolutely no money on this shard. Sell some bows. Sell some fancy shirts. Do something other than complain on the forum.

4. Stick it out, you'll likely be happy you did.

[Silverfoot]

My opinion on all of this is that part of the problem stems from the fact that a free shard like this tends to attract people who enjoyed pvp during the t2a era disproportionate to the amount of people who enjoyed the pvm/merchant skills aspect. Even if the population here continues its upward trend I expect there will always be a large gap between the number of people running around ganking and the number of people camping spawns for gold and skills.

[HamburgerPimp]

Sounds like you just got unlucky. If you want to hunt together sometime, PM me.

[kill drizitz]

best advise i could give would be to get your skills up before you venture out. make a second character, and go gather the wool and cotton from glow, occlo, skara and cove. get about 3000 bandies and have them attack eachother, while your healing. you will gm tacs, weapon skill, anatomy and get to about 80+ healing by the time tactics is finished. then, you should be able to venture out to higher end monsters, and find good places by yourself. pks go everywhere, but with better skills you should be able to find places that are less common. macro hiding as well so as soon as you see the name, hide. then hit recall.

[Xukluk Tuguznal]

covetous, deceit 3x, shame....

Are all hot spots. =/ Picking up barding on your char. A bard is dirt cheap to make and pratically the best return for the time put in to it.

Does seem like a bit of bad luck though. I've not been pked once and have farmed Destard 3x's amongst other places. Mind you the only thing I have worked on that char is music/peace/provo

[RoadKill]

I'd like to make an addition. Just for fun today, I decided to go to Britain Sewers. The hardest thing I had to fight was a GIANT RAT! In the end, after 5 minutes, I had 500 gold and 4 gems.

I think this is a very good spot for anyone who needs to make some fast starter cash (clean the sewers 2-3 times and you've got enough gold to get to 100 combat, tactics, anatomy, and 70 healing, especially if you collect wool & cotton)

[Mjolnir]

yeah, i'm not too sympathetic myself. i created my first account here yesterday after not playing t2a uo for yeaaars. as of right now i have a character with 90ish fighting skills, gm music/90 provoke. i am currently working on a character who has 99 tactics and 91 swords... almost 70 magery/resist. i've not been pked once, and i've been all over the dungeons getting starting gold. it's called being smart.

how is this you might ask?

i started 50/50 magery and resist. camped the glow cotton fields until i had about 10k bandages and macroed swords over night on 2 characters. today i sat in shame 1 killing earthies with blade spirits (failed alot) and hitting them with my axe. i made about 20k doing this and bought some reagents to hopefully get me to 70-80ish magery/resist. pks were in and out of that place, but you have to remember recall is but a .5 second spell. hell, i had 2 pks on me and fizzled once, but still got away. i don't plan on dying on this character anytime soon from a pk.

be smart, not stupid. you'll have a far better experience.

[Azalen]

yeah, i'm not too sympathetic myself. i created my first account here yesterday after not playing t2a uo for yeaaars. as of right now i have a character with 90ish fighting skills, gm music/90 provoke. i am currently working on a character who has 99 tactics and 91 swords... almost 70 magery/resist. i've not been pked once, and i've been all over the dungeons getting starting gold. it's called being smart.

how is this you might ask?

i started 50/50 magery and resist. camped the glow cotton fields until i had about 10k bandages and macroed swords over night on 2 characters. today i sat in shame 1 killing earthies with blade spirits (failed alot) and hitting them with my axe. i made about 20k doing this and bought some reagents to hopefully get me to 70-80ish magery/resist. pks were in and out of that place, but you have to remember recall is but a .5 second spell. hell, i had 2 pks on me and fizzled once, but still got away. i don't plan on dying on this character anytime soon from a pk.

be smart, not stupid. you'll have a far better experience.

Well you are thinking that your experience is the norm though right? I mean, you have went to "a multitude of dungeons" you say and not had many problems. The difference is that I have had the direct opposite. My experience and the characters that I have are a lot like yours minus macroing a musician. You had the opportunity to bank some cash to get a mage going which is what I am trying to do but I have maybe gotten to actually bank 2k from doing dungeons because I have yet to enter one including harpy room in covetous where I haven't gotten ganked, you mention that recall is a .5 second spell and I'd do it if I could afford to yet.

I suppose I will join the macroers on the server in AFK land on a second and maybe third account and just macro money to be competitive but it really is a bit much to not be able to go to any dungeon on the game because of the vast outnumbering of reds over blues. And worse yet because of the stat loss I have only ever died to a single red most times its 3+.

[Mjolnir]

now you're just being a damned crybaby. i haven't even used my bard yet, hasn't even left the island of moonglow since creation. our experiences differ only because i play intelligently, you need to just wise up to the reality of a t2a ruleset. trust me, i run into pks every damn place i go -- i'm too lazy to go search out the mystery spots that no one ever visits. i started my character with 50 mage/resist like i said for the very reason of escaping with recall. even comes with enough reagents to toss in my bank and pull out just enough to cover recall and failures. you're really preaching to the choir in the sense that i've probably been here far less than you and i'm playing the same damn game you are.

the afk lullaby world you speak of is kind of a moot point, do the same thing i do and macro when you're not planning on playing anyhow. i play while i'm free and then macro when i'm busy or asleep. bam. mission accomplished. +10 valor points

[Slimeball Jasper]

ATTENTION ALL DUNGEON GOERS:

When you enter a dungeon DO NOT attack the first thing you see (such as shame) - Go deeper into the dungeon, away from the entrance, and THEN start killing monsters.

As a pk I will only bother exploring a dungeon if I walk into an entrance/hot spot and see corpses of monsters, If I don't see corpses at the entrance or the hotspot, I will not waste my time exploring every cavern and pathway in a dungeon and I instantly move to the next hotspot, as from past experience, if I don't see corpses in the entrance there is a very small chance anyone is in that dungeon and is a complete waste of time.

[Mjolnir]

funny, that's the exact reason why i DO kill stuff at the entrance. i thrive off of interaction.

[Slimeball Jasper]

Also make sure when you do get pked that you count the murderer.
I know some of you think "well I won't count him and he will get pissed off more as it was a kill worth nothing"
But statloss adds up, after 20 kills thats 20% of skills and seeing as they made skills harder to gain(such as combat skills on players, etc) when they die (and they eventually all do die one way or the other) its a lot more frustrating.

[Hoots]

Azalen, i dont want to discourage you from playing or pile on here but what you are going through is classic UO...

Getting on your feet is the challenge! Embrace it and fight back against it! You will feel much better in the end...

Things going for you... 15 accounts to create as alchem/mage/scribes = 1500 gold and a couple hundred reags.

Basically free bandages.

free bone armour off of spawns.

PLENTY of players willing to help you (myself included)

i cant even say how many less players in dungeons but lets guess at 250 uniques maybe 10-20% so 25-50 players to avoid in all of UO and t2a???

come on man. If you cant over come this then i am sorry to say but you wernt meant to be here... Start Char with 50 magery... PM me and ill give or buy you 50 recall scrolls and mark you some townie ruins...

I took some dirt naps here on my newbie bard... all part of the game my friend.

good luck! Stick with it!