I came to Britannia (and Ultima Online) on the 10:th of October 1997. I had been waiting so long for the game. I preordered it in the early spring the same year, and I had about forgotten about it all when it finally arrived in the mail. My very first character was Diamond Dog, and I remember just logging in the game and heading out exploring like I had in the other Ultima games before getting into the actual storyline. Alas, I didn't read any manual and I was quite familiar with the Britannian map. I soon discovered that this world was different from what I was used to. Diamond Dog.. well, he ended his days in Dungeon Destard after he had been slayed by a drake and I couldn't figure out how to bring him back to life.

When you started out in Ultima Online at the release in 1997 you had to be able to make it on your own. As you were walking around in town and by any chance would stumble into other more experienced players, they would rarely talk to you. When I finally found a fellow adventurer that was willing to answer some questions, I  was advised to start out creating a character that would bring in money from crafting and selling material to vendors. And so I created Axl Doombringer on my birthday - November 14:th 1997. I gave him his first name from the singer in Guns'n'Roses. The name Doombringer I just made up. Axl was going to become a great warrior.. somehow.. although I didn't have much of an idea how. He started out as a bowyer/lumberjack. I strolled about in my hometown Trinsic chopping trees, but I didn't manage to raise much funds until I ran out of patience. One day I simply walked in one of the smithy shops in town. I bought some chain amour, a plain long sword and then I walked out through the town gates and headed out in the wilderness. I knew the surroundings, but little about the creatures or other players. It was out in the Sosarian wilderness where I made my first friends.

I do not have any screenshots from the very beginning, I didn't start to take any until after a few weeks. The first screenshot up in Britain at an inn. The second is from one of the existing moongates - the only transportation a new adventurer had in the beginning at this time.

I started to travel back and forth between Britain and Trinsic and just explore the surroundings. I couldn't fight much being a Neophyte Bowyer carrying a sword, but I was watching others and fought what I could. When my health ran low I had to run into the woods and wait until I gained back. One morning I was greeted by a fellow on a horse followed by a lady as I came to a clearing in the woods southwest of Britain. The fellow's name was Wyverek and I had heard that name before. I had actually heard the townsfolk of Trinsic (NPC's) talk about this guy. He was obviously a Great Lord of some kind and when I asked him about this he replied "They still gossip about it, eh?". The lady's name was Una, and she had the title "Dark Lady" but Wyverek said that she had gotten in trouble and the title was somewhat of a mistake. We were standing there talking for a while and I got some very useful advice from Wyverek about the lands and the people.

I already knew about the murderers (aka pkers or player killers). In fact, I got my first magic armor from one of them. If you were unlucky, you could get attacked outside the town gates of Trinsic. I had gotten attacked by a mage there one day, and I did of course not stand a chance in battle against him. However, after I had been defeated, he guided me to a healer in town and after I had gotten ressurected he gave me some magic armour. Some of it I wasn't strong enough to wear yet. He also suggested to help me doing the "log in - log out trick" to gather some money. At that time, you could create a character, log him/her in and give the start kit with gold and acessories to a friend. Then you logged the character out. When all the character slots were used, you simply erased the characters and created new ones on the spot. Back then there was no waiting time to create new characters. You got 100 gold on each new character, and believe me - 1000 gold at this time was alot of money for a new player.

I was staying in touch with Wyverek. (We had exchanged ICQ numbers and used to chat when the game server went down, which sometimes was a waiting for hours before the game came back up. There was a lot of problems with lag and a lot of downtime. Sometimes the game server rolled back several hours when it finally came back up. We just tried to adapt and took it for the game that it was. ) One day Wyverek invited me to come on a small hunt with him, Una and another fellow with the name Rebel.