Darek Steele - If you don't mind, where are you from in Real Life?
I reside in sunny Northern California currently, but will be moving to Houston, Texas sometime next year.

Darek Steele - What is it you do outside of playing Ultima Online? Your job so to say?
Thalian - I’m currently working as a professional illustrator for RPGs.

Darek Steele - How long have you been playing Ultima Online?
Thalian - I’ve been playing almost 3 years now. *amazement at this!*

Darek Steele - How did you get suck...erm...introduced to the game?
Thalian - My mate in Australia wanted a game to play together. We attempted Vampire: the Redemption, Baldur’s Gate and a few others but settled on Ultima Online because it offered more. I soon became totally enchanted with it, while he found he didn’t really like it. To each their own, he left and here I am, looking forward to another year of fun.

Darek Steele - What is it you enjoy most about UO?
Thalian - Ultima Online has so much to offer to players. It can be a great role play environment with others or simply a solo event where we can fight or do a zillion other things without having the structure of a single-player game. I find that spending time with my friends in game is what makes it most pleasurable for me. I tend to be reclusive in nature so making friends in game can be difficult for me (I’m shy!), but I’ve learned to come out of my shell more and have met the nicest players inside of Ultima Online.

Darek Steele - What kind of player do you consider yourself in-game? a PvM'er, a PvP'er, or a role-player?
Thalian - Oddly enough, I came from a very strong PVP environment prior to UO; I RP’d World of Darkness online and was one of the games most feared assassins. I thought I’d enjoy the PVP of Ultima Online just as much, but after seeing the effort people put into their characters, I don’t have the initiative to PVP them or promote that environment for myself or my guild. If others wish to, it’s their choice, but it’s definitely not for me any longer, so I’m definitely into PvM.

Darek Steele - How would you best describe your main character?
Thalian - My main character… that would be hard to decide on in itself! I would say for the past year, my main character is Thalian. He’s a GM Mage (going for elder), and I am working endlessly to get him to GM taming. He’s just now able to control dragons and mares and that’s opened up a world of fun for me. I dress a bit flamboyantly – moreso than any of the other chars I play and if I were to roleplay him, he’d definitely be a bit of a snobbish pretty-boy type. He’s a lot of fun and I love my ‘all kill’ macro. ;)

Darek Steele - What sort of activities do you enjoy doing in-game?
Thalian - I enjoy almost everything but taming. I hate taming with a passion, I think it’s driving me insane. Other than taming… I love to hit the dungeons with my guildmates. Actually I love doing anything with my mates as long as they’re enjoying themselves as well. I run a vendor mall which is my pride and joy, and I spend a lot of time with the other vendor suppliers within it doing various merchant activities together. I think the most fun I’ve had lately is running into Deceit and summoning creatures from the brazier, then calling out to get the fighters in my guild to save me from the dragons and firesteeds I always seem to summon. They come running to help, then end up summoning things themselves. It’s a great time and a lot of laughs. Whatever puts a smile on faces is what I like doing most in Ultima, and amazingly UO offers so many smiles to achieve that it’s an endless possibility.

Darek Steele - What's your least favorite thing about the game?
Thalian - I hate taming. I really, really hate taming. It’s mind-numbing. I dream of it. I hate taming. I’ve calculated that by year 2004 I will get my character from his 91.5 in taming to 99.9! I’m hopeful! Really though… about the only thing I truly despise about UO are the ego players. Some will think I’m a PK basher for this; I’m not. I don’t mind PK’s. If I’m in Fel and get PK’d, well… it happens. I expect it. But the players in Trammel or Felluca that simply like to bash others for any reason whatsoever, then cuss bother me greatly. I’m 31 years old, I’m a retired deputy sheriff, I don’t need to assuage my ego by condemning others, and I really don’t see why anyone else has to either. It’s like a loud scream of “I have no self-esteem so I’m going to fake it by degrading you, so I can feel better of myself!” I can’t respect that from an adult or a child… they know better, and if they don’t, they should.

Darek Steele - What sort of home do you own? And which facet do you consider your home? Trammel of Felucca?
Thalian - My personal home is a tower in Felluca. High spawn but no neighbors, and right on the water. It’s beautiful. I ride for 10 seconds and there’s a patch of flowers in the barren landscape. I like that! My guild house is a large marble in Trammel, right on the most perfect corner of land imaginable, right on the water. It has no other houses close by, except a small tower owned by a guildmate. It’s just the nicest place for a house. I’d love to have my own home in Trammel as well, but the tower was a gift by a guildmate to me for Christmas. What a gift!

Darek Steele - Which city would you consider to be your "UO hometown"?
Thalian - Delucia! Definitely Delucia! I live there (it seems) with nearly all of my characters. I’m most assuredly a Delucian.

Darek Steele - What's your earliest memory of UO?
Thalian - Oh boy… The earliest may not be the best, but here goes: It was me and my mate and we were brand new in UO. We’d saved enough gold by bashing skeletons at Brit Cemetary and ele’s in Despise that we bought the deed to a small marble house. We found someone who knew of a bit of land and he took us there so we could place the house.
The thing was… neither of us knew what the heck a recall rune was, so we smiled at our house, admired it… then ran (yes, on foot!) all the way from Minoc where it was to Britain. We then forgot where our house was and never found it again. About two weeks later, we discovered the beauty of horses and runebooks. I feel I have to put this other memory in though… It’s not the earliest, but it’s definitely the one memory that was branded into my mind forever after, and earned a guildmate a title for a looong time…
My guildmate Darek decided to eat my fruit basket (the rare!). I get an icq from him telling me he ate it and “oops, sorry bro!”, so I rush in and see an empty basket. I was gaping, about to kill him, when server went down. When server came up again, there was the untouched fruit basket and my guildmate was laughing hard. I labeled him “eater of rares” thereafter and have watched him like a hawk whenever he gets near my home.

Darek Steele - last but not least, what do you consider your crowning moment in UO?
Thalian - This is hard, I have many crowning moments, depending on which character I’m working up. I think though, the current crowning moment would be to control the dragon and nightmare I own. I’ve worked a long time to do this and it’s finally a realization (even though I HATE taming!). The ultimate crowning even for me as a player of UO though, would be to have my four cherished friends alongside me after all these years, each of them having been convinced to play UO by me. That just chokes me all up inside.