Keep an eye on your pet's loyalty level!
Too many failed commands wil drop your pet's loyalty fast and
it will not listen to you anymore. If this goes too far, your
pet loses all loyalty and is returned to a wild (untamed) state.
Use Animal Lore on your pet to find out what it likes to eat,
if you don't know already. One piece of food will be sufficient
in most cases to make your pet "wonderfully happy".
Crossing Server Boundaries
Sometimes crossing a server boundary can be tricky, because
your pets tend to get "stuck" on them. The easiest
method to get them across is to mark a rune on the other side
and gate your pet from the side it's stuck on. If you can't
cast Gate Travel yet or don't have a blank rune on you, the
best solution is to start running with your pet following
you from about half a screen away, in a 90 degree angle to the
server boundary and keep going until you crossed it. This might
take some practice, but you will soon get the hang of it. If
you have a [bonded] pet, this is easier, since the pet recalls
with you.
Gate Travel with your pets
Unfortunately, gating pets around is still a somewhat risky
thing to do for Tamers, since pets are lost because of bugged
gates now and then. At least publish 16 changed the game mechanics
so that a pet will only go through a gate after it's master,
so other people "petnapping" your companions by gating
them out is a thing of the past. Just be aware that once you
step into a gate, it now might take a second or two before your
pet shows up.
Getting pets onto boats
There are two ways to accomplish this, only one if you have
no Magery. Neither pets nor NPC's will follow you onto your
boat unless the gangplank and shore are perfectly aligned in
height and the plank must touch the shore. They do not step
over open water. Go aboard your boat and open the plank and
tell the pet to follow you. The easiest way is to use docks.
Unfortunately the waters around docks are often cluttered with
ships, so you might want to find a less popular spot. Buccaneer's
Den is usually empty.
If you have the skill to gate, mark a rune on the shore and
tell your pet to "stay". Then go aboard your boat
and gate on the newly marked rune. Walk out the Gate, tell
the beast to "follow" and step right back through.
Bonded pets will recall with you.
Getting a pet off the boat is simple, they don't seem to mind
jumping onto the shore. If you have multiple pets, you might
have to return to the boat for each one and walk off again.
Two-part names for pets
Don't delete the spaces, but work around them. For example:
'a timber wolf'. Position the cursor just to the right of 'a',
backspace, type, repeat. This way you get two-word names with
a space between words. However, pets will not respond if you
use this kind of name. Your only possibility will be using "all"
commands, which can be tricky if you have more than one pet
with you.
Taming aggressive creatures
The most important fact here is, you can not tame a creature
that is receiving damage of any kind and the creature must
be able to pathfind to you. The only result from a taming attempt
you would get is "The animal is too angry to continue
taming". Now what to do? Stay out of the creature's
melee range, if need be paralyze it, then try again. Be aware
that if you use a paralyzation spell, the pet's skill loss upon
being tamed will be greater than if you just lead-tame.
If you are out for "bigger game" like dragons,
drakes, white wyrms or nightmares, you might want to take
an experienced Tamer with you to show you the ropes. If you
have just the minimum skill to tame one of the "big four",
there is a good chance you will spend an hour or longer trying
to persuade the beast to become your new friend.
Some of the most intelligent creatures do not take kindly
to being tamed. "You seem to anger the beast"
is most likely the result you will see quite often before
you can actually start a (not necessarily successful) taming
attempt. Keep trying, and eventually you will succeed. If
not for the long hours of getting to this level of taming,
here your "tame/last target" macro will come in
very, very handy.
Pet flagging
Just like your character, your pet is subject to the flagging
system of the game. It is recommended to be guilded if you are
a Tamer, mainly because it gives you more feedback on what your
pet is doing. There is actually no difference in how the pets
act when you are in a guild or aren't. However, when you are
in a guild there is a third color to give you more information
on the status changes.
- Criminal - this flag
outweighs all others, and you need to be careful when dealing
with gray pets, since you won't know what status they are
actually in.
- Normal - regular blue
NPC (normally attacked by aggressive creatures). If the
pet kills anything, you will not gain fame or karma from
the kill, if it kills a person, you won't be given a murder
count.
- Aggressive - green,
which you will only see if you are guilded (if you're not
guilded, you will just see blue).
This color comes up with any "Guard", "Attack",
or "Kill" command, and sets the controller flag,
so if it kills anyone, you can get a murder count. Also
if it is in this condition and it attacks something within
a guard zone, and the guards are called, you will be killed
right beside your pet. You will only get fame and karma
from your kills if you are set as the controller of your
pet. If you release a pet that flags green, you are fully
responsible for it's actions until the controller flag wears
off - and you cannot command a released pet anymore!
For more in-depth information consult the UO
Tamer Forum
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