PaxLair, Chesapeake (PaxLair Times) – January 19, 1999 – by Winfield — Hail to one and all! I am Mayor Winfield, an old man and servant to all in PaxLair and on the Chesapeake Shard of Ultima Online. Today, PaxLair is One Year Old!!
Mayor Winfield
The Mayor Deep in Thought
On this joyous day, I would like to say a few things about where PaxLair has been and where it is going. I offer my ideas to continue PaxLair’s well established role in offering openness and opportunities to players on the Chesapeake Shard. The second year of PaxLair should prove to be a period of reaching out with our limitless imaginations to new and unique ideas for a player-town. With this in mind, allow me to reflect back a bit about PaxLair in 1998, then on to ideas for PaxLair’s second year .
1998: PaxLair was Firmly Established
PaxLair was established on January 19, 1998 by The Band as a town to focus diversified interests within a guild of over 100 members. After a few months, we noticed PaxLair proved to be a “hot spot” for not just The Band, but for many guilds and non-guilded people passing through the wilderness area between Vesper and Yew.
In May 1998, after several months of proven accomplishments and ideas to enhance the Ultima Online environment through a player-town, we received the attention of an Interest Game Master (IGM), IGM Goatboy. With Goatboy’s trust in us and open heart to the players, Goatboy spent numerous hours improving PaxLair for all to enjoy. His and many other gods’, Seers’, and Counselors’ interest in PaxLair has helped all people on the Shard enjoy an open and interesting place in the wilderness.
IGM Goatboy Setting Up the Mage Tower
Allow me to thank everyone for supporting PaxLair in its first year of history. You have proven time and again that player towns, quests, events, and a whole host of activities on the Chesapeake Shard can be entertaining, intriguing, and of significant value to a great number of people. In 1998 we saw many Seer and player quests involving PaxLair and the Shard, a growing number of player-controlled shops making PaxLair one of the greatest commercial crossroads in Britannia, and people of all walks of life working together every day in the wilderness. Without such sincere dedication by all of you, PaxLair would be nothing more than a cold group of buildings offering little more than a place to ocassionally visit while passing from place to place.
Lord British with Mayor Winfield at the Spring of Knowledge (corrupted by the evil Mazrim)
Looking back at 1998 we had several indications our combined efforts were worthwhile. On November 11, 1998 Lord British honored our town with a personal visit and presentation of a plaque hanging now over the mage tower’s front doors. On August 20, 1998, we received the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Britannia stamp of approval for enriching the UO environment.
In 1998, we developed some of the first true player-shops with real people standing behind the counter for countless hours waiting on customers. Several shops operated by player-teams exist today in PaxLair offering everything an adventurer, questor, craftsman, or groups planning events might want or need.
After these shops drew crowds of people to PaxLair, we focused on new and ingenious ways to generate mystery and intrigue each day in our lives through quests. The Cheasapeake Player Seers organization was established, PaxLair officials hosted unique player quests, and many groups and guilds generated small and epic quests to keep people enthralled for days, weeks, and months. Seer quests touched PaxLair many times as they were generated throughout the entire lands. We, as simple players, found creative ways to use of our own capabilities to make quests realistic, interesting, and fun. Some took us to dungeons and others to great places around Britannia. Each was unique in its design and many times received a “how’d they do that” reaction from the participants.
To keep information flowing and documented about the many happenings in and around PaxLair that affected the entire Shard, we established close relations with Father Time of Ultima Online Chesapeake, a player-established, shard-wide information source for anything and everything dealing with the Chesapeake Shard. Tacitus, our Seeker of Knowledge in PaxLair, established a huge library in the mage tower as well as a virtual location to record as many world Britannian books, Seer books, and player books discovered and written in the realm. More than 100 books are now recorded and maintained.
Fern Kidnapped
The interest that grew in PaxLair during 1998 brought new people and groups together. Many friends were made and many groups demonstrated the art of roleplaying. These people and groups focused on non-combat and combat roleplaying situations in and around PaxLair. They used PaxLair to present their stories, launch their quests, bring attention to their efforts, and offer diversity and adversity through carefully thought-out combat, abductions, and special events giving people unique challenges, riddles, and entertainment. These people and groups are what placed PaxLair on the map as a great place to visit or call home.
1998 proved to be a year establishing PaxLair with a firm foundation, foothold, and cornerstone for much more to come as we now enter PaxLair’s second year.
1999: Moving Into the Second Year of PaxLair History – A Focus On a Complete Virtual Town
Ultima Online provides players a diverse and open virtual environment for thousands of people to meet, establish goals, work together, work against each another, and help build the world of Britannia for themselves and others to enjoy. PaxLair itself has also become an environment within Ultima Online that is limitlessly open to the imagination. With a firm foundation laid in 1998, PaxLair is ready to meet new challenges and goals for 1999 and a primary goal I have is to pursue all aspects of making PaxLair a complete, virtual town with all the trimmings. But first, allow me to describe my continuing philosophy for PaxLair.
The philosophy I hold closest to my heart for PaxLair is one of openness and opportunity for all people. PaxLair is a Town–and as such, it should be viewed as a town: not as a guild, a group of self-proclaimed elitists, nor a group of haves and have-nots. All people are welcome to participate. The physical aspects of the town which the PaxLair caretakers maintain (buildings, tables, chairs, and other ornaments) do have inherent limitations on participation for everyone in the realm, for example, not everyone can have the keys to a shop or specially locked chests. But these things really do not make the town of PaxLair. The people do!
I wish for PaxLair to always be open to people who wish to have fun, meet new people, create something challenging, and advance themselves and their groups in a place that has some focus of attention in Britannia. To give this openness some framework for opportunities, we continue to work with three tenets in mind:
- Peace – a wilderness place where peace is sought so all may use their imaginations rather than their muscle to be creative.
- Neutrality – neutral ground for all people to meet, whether evil or good, murderer or bounty hunter.
- Roleplaying – an environment where people can intricately take on a fictitious role of an imaginary character.
Opportunities are primarily generated by the people who come to PaxLair, not by the small group of PaxLair caretakers or a special group of “townmasters”. Since PaxLair is a virtual environment offering a place for people to meet and do things together, all people hold in their hands the endless opportunities to stay constantly entertained in Ultima Online. Even without daily events, PaxLair is bustling with life and new ideas each day. A beggar, town drunk, shopkeeper, warrior, guard, villain, mage, and mysterious people are nearly always in town interacting with people. Some people come to PaxLair and claim it is “dead” and no one is around; such times can exist during non-peak times for players on the Shard. PaxLair, though, is open to everyone 24 hours-a-day and anyone can use the many open facilities for their own events and quests and as a gathering place for friends.
In 1998, our small PaxLair government of 7 or 8 people focused primarily on maintaining and upgrading the town’s buildings, experimenting with shops and quests, and establishing some virtual government operations following our three tenets.
In 1999, my number one goal as Mayor is to make PaxLair really “feel” like a town. My vision is that when you enter the town, you meet craftsmen, rogues, great lords, humble priests, judges, tavernkeepers, duelists, guards, healers, questors, adventurers, caravans, pirates, storytellers, partiers, sages, vampires, necromancers, orcs, elves, knights, and (to round out a proper town) government officials. A combination of all these types of characters and more constantly being roleplayed in all situations is what I believe will make PaxLair’s virtual environment a complete reality.
My specific role as the Mayor of PaxLair is two-fold. One is a “primary caretaker”, along with several other founders, to maintain and coordinate improvements in the physical features in PaxLair. This has been a very time consuming task for me and others as the physical nature of Ultima Online capabilities continually changes, the most recent being the building patches. As a caretaker, I also host the PaxLair website which as you can imagine, is an endless task in itself to keep current, interesting, and informative.
My other role is that of the “roleplayed Mayor”. This is the most rewarding role I have. I enjoy meeting people and helping them understand and participate in PaxLair. My goal here is to offer advice and ideas for people to pursue; to help them create their own opportunities. Some of these opportunities are to be involved in PaxLair in an official “government” roleplaying role. Such things involved commerce, diplomacy, defense, society, council, news reporting, and more. When you think about becoming involved in PaxLair in an “official” capacity, think about a real town and what goes into a real town: what services a town should offer its citizens and visitors; what advice and counsel should be given to the Mayor or the town council; what role should each government official play or not play. When thought of this way, PaxLair has room for a lot of growth in opportunities. Opportunities for people who wish to dedicate portions of their time becoming directly involved in a virtual town government.
These opportunities to help build a complete virtual town with all the trimmings is at our finger-tips and are open to your creative minds. To be involved and take on roles in government positions requires a degree of dedication, honesty, and balanced thought when dealing with people of all walks of life. Since I am but one person with many responsibilities, I have several people as Chancellors and Vice-Chancellors assisting me with roleplaying “authority” as my personal aides. I will increase the list of Vice-Chancellors in PaxLair so there is more Mayor-level representation daily in PaxLair. More roleplaying government positions are available, such as court justices for roleplayed trials, commerce officials for coordinating shop activities and trade caravans, event organizers and coordinators for handling weddings and tournaments, treasury officials to manage a growing number of gifts and contributions to the town of PaxLair, and roleplaying guards to look out for the safety and well-being of the townsfolk in events, ceremonies, and quests.
There is still an ever increasing number of possibilities for non-government roles in PaxLair. These are left to the imagination of you good people interested in participating in a virtual town open to people of all natures and spirit: tavernkeepers offering food and drink to the public; races of orcs, elves, and more; street artisans selling their wares; storytellers and songsmiths entertaining people in scheduled and unscheduled performances; adventurers forming groups to adventure to the new lands or a dungeon; and many, many more sorts of roles.