Today I did a little experiment and wanted to share my results here. I'm hoping that other people will post their own personal results with skill gain since the publish here as well.

I'm currently working magery, meditation and eval on one of my characters. She has not eaten any powerscrolls so her skill cap is 100 for each of these skills. I used the magery guide posted here as my guide for what to cast. I parked my character on a boat near the server line on the west side of Ice Isle. I sat still on the boat casting over and over for 1 hour. After that hour was up, I started sailing north along the server line and continued to cast for 1 hour. I didn't try to 8x8, just continued sailing and dogding other boats when necessary. My results are as follows:

Starting Skill:
Meditation 96.3
Magery 82.2
Eval Int 77.0

At the end of 1st hour standing in the same spot:
Meditation 97.2 (0.9 gain)
Magery 84.4 (2.2 gain)
Eval Int 79.9 (2.9 gain)

At the end of 2nd hour this time continually moving:
Meditation 98.2 (1.0 gain this hour)
Magery 86.3 (1.9 gain this hour)
Eval Int 81.9 (2.0 gain this hour)

Total Gains in 2 hours:
Meditation +1.9
Magery +4.1
Eval Int +4.9

I'm pretty pleased with these results. If I have some more time this afternoon I'm gonna try some taming to see if I get any gains. At 108.4 taming, I've only been getting my GGS for a couple of months now.

Not to bad
Yea i'd definatly like to see if taming has changed, that skill used to bore me silly

There is no way Taming can NOT be boring. Even MINING is less trouble! :shocked:

Char 1:

Start 98.0 Magery (did not eat scroll)

Stood in 1 spot, cast earthquake for 45 min

End: 99.7 Magery

Net: 1.7 Magery

Char 2:

Start: 105 Spellweaving (scrolled to 120), 103.7 Eval Intel (scrolled to 110)

Stood in 1 spot, cast Word of Death/Mini Heal on self for 3 hours.

End: 105.7 Spellweaving, 104.9 Eval Intel

Net: .7 Spellweaving 1.2 Eval Intel

Note: From 104.5 to 105 Spellweaving it took less than an hour.

If we jump to conclusions off my little test we could say that there is a skill gain curve and from 90-GM there is relatively fair skill gain, from GM-105 it gets a little steeper, from 105-Elder an even steeper curve, Elder-??? I'm scared for IF that is true.

Ive been working healing today, on a naked skilled char with just anat and healing and tact on the server line in minoc, and its been a !!!!! all day to gain. I started at like 68 and just now got to 75. I have noticed quite a few runs of gains here and there. i would just move a bit and start it over, but not in the healing area, the other 2 were gaining.

So I guess, after the rambling. what is the quickest way to gain healing, as I am going to be needing to do this 2 more times, for other chars, that the skill got neglected on.

From my minimal observations it seems that movement based skills (formerly 8x8able) gain quite well and are finally able to gain under "normal" playing conditions. On the other hand difficulty based skills, i.e. taming, gain at the same rate or even slower. Also with 100 magery I fizzled casting 8th circle spells 22 times in a row (I counted) so something is wrong there as I should have a 50% chance of success.

The results I am reading sound pretty good, might actually look forward to working my skills.

I'm training inscription and meditation.

Meditation
Before pub 39:
My meditation seemed stuck at 94.something. I would scribe scrolls and just run around the map or recall to different places to get a meditation gain. Then I'd do 8x8 when I found a gain. For some reason, I wasn't even finding spots to gain on.

Since pub 39:
standing on the same spot, while scribing scrolls, my meditation has gone up like crazy.. Well, compared to before.
I've only worked inscription for about 3 total hours since pub 39, but my meditation has gone up from 94 to 97.6.

That's 3 hours of meditation from 94-97.6


Taming, on the other hand. No real difference, except in animal lore. Lore gains seems more constant.
I'm currently 105 lore, 101 taming. Post pub 39, my lore has shot up 2 points, while my taming has only gone up .5 (mostly from ggs). That might be because I'm taming tougher stuff though, with less successful tames, but lots of attempts that bring lore up. Still, I'm definitely gaining more animal lore than before.

I actually don't find training taming boring at all, since I'm just taming Ki-rins and Drakes for the zoo. Any successful tame gets me zoo points, and skill gains are just a bonus.. It beats bulls!

Ok, did a quick test of Taming post P39.
Here are the results:
Started 101.5 Taming(After GGS).
Spent half an hour taming Gammas, tamed 38 of them. Gained .2
Spent half an hour taming Bulls, tamed 37 bulls. No gains.
Spent half an hour taming Ridgebacks, tamed 30 ridgebacks. No gains.
Was also going to do Great Harts, White Wolves and another half hour of Gammas, but lag got so bad I couldn't even walk. I will finish off this along with Vet when I stop lagging so badly.
But wow, I gained tons....(no I am not joking). I know with Fox I have spent 3+ hours taming and not gained ANYTHING. .2 + .1GGS in an hour and half is very good for me.
Think I am just going to tame gammas from now on lol

Fuzzy llamas!

Ok some more results:
Did Gammas for 1 hour today. Gained .4(OMG WHOOO HOOOO!)

Vet/Pet Training Results:
Orc Brutes(200 Aids):
Used my Nightmare Sly Fox.
Went from 105.9 to 106.1 in Vet with 200 aids and about 1 hour.(no GGS)
Sly Fox Gained:
2.4 Med(97.0 to 99.4)
1.0 Magery(85.2 to 86.2)

Poison Elementals(200 Aids):
Used my most under used Dragon Firestorm.
Went from 106.1 to 106.2 in 45 minutes and 200 aids.
Firestorm Gained:
2.1 Wrestling(89.5 to 91.6)
0.7 Tactics(97.0 to 97.7)
0.6 Magic Resist(91.0 to 91.6)
2.2 Anatomy(83.0 to 85.2)
1.8 Magery(61.8 to 63.6)
1.3 Eval Int(86.4 to 87.7)
6.8 Med(80.4 to 87.2)
2 Dex(104 to 106)

Daemons(in Fel Wind I might add urg, 200 Aids):
Used Sly Fox(Died Once, due to NOT LISTENING TO ME).
Went from 106.2 to 106.4 in 35 minutes and 200 aids.
Sly Fox Gained:
.9 Magic resist(91.3 to 92.1+.1 loss from death)
.3 Magery(86.2 to 86.4+.1 from death)
.7 Med(99.4 to 100+.1 from death).

Now why did I test pets? Because I have been struggling with certain pets at high or medium levels of skill gain(especially in Med) since I have come back to UO(Begining of December).

All the pet training was done threw none "power training methods", just simply All kill vet vet vet repeat.
So it looks like simply just hunting with your pets now will increase their skills a bit quicker than they use to.

And Taming is rockin now! wooo hooo!

I may try poisoning next finally GM my Nox Mage(even though he doesn't need it GMed).......naw