Hi All,

I haven't played active since 1999 or 2000. I have a few questions I will post below and if you can help me out with any of them, thanks.

1. I want to create a character mainly for PvE (I saw in another post they call it PvM, care to explain whats the difference?") I'm interested in making a mage more than anything with the new spellweaving abilities. I also enjoy PvP occasionally and would like to know recommended/preferred builds for both PvM, PvE, and if there is such a thing a combo character PvM/PvE.

I never got to good at the game back then and my character has both swordsmanship and mage skills. I assume you can't have a good/great character who is mixed in melee/magic?

2.
I ran into a player upon reactivating my account who told me

"people no longer really use reagents" "items have the ability"

I would like to know how and where to get/find/purchase items and what type of items should I seek for (for the meantime and eventually when I work back up the ladder) Sort of "get by items until your back into good stats" and "heavenly items I should start researching"

3.
Where can I find essential items? A friend once gave me 2 runebooks for both cities and dungeons. I'm sure there has been many additions I do not know about. Whats a good way to get items like that and are there any other essential items a modern uo player should seek out?

4.
Are all shards as active as each other? I saw a bit of activity on the Great Lakes shard, but less for the one I'm on (Lake Superior). I'm on the east coast.

5.
Where can one find a house? Are there websites where people trade/sell/buy uo items? I can't seem to find anything on eBay. Maybe thats due to my shard not being so active anymore? I read via wikipedia that there are approximately 125,000 osi users. My main purpose on this one is to make sure I don't work up a character on a shard that's not nearly as fun to play as perhaps the Great Lakes.

Any help would be much appreciated

Thanks