Camping
Camping
Camping is the wilderness logout skill — the means by which an adventurer in the open field can establish a temporary safe zone for safe instant logout. It is almost never used by modern players, who logout at taverns, inns, or their own houses, and is widely classified as a Useless Skill. Yet it persists as one of the original launch skills, with a small but loyal niche among Siege Perilous players (who lack instant-logout housing) and roleplayers who want their character's world-presence to feel diegetic.
The skill itself does only one thing: it allows the character (and anyone nearby) to logout without returning to the Login screen — instead displaying a Connection Lost message and treating the disconnect as a clean session-end.
How to make a camp
- Acquire kindling and a bedroll.
- Use the kindling — double-click it to attempt to ignite a campfire.
- Wait roughly 30 seconds. The skill check completes.
- If successful, you (and anyone near you) receive a system message that the camp has been made secure.
- Anyone receiving the message — not just the camp-maker — may now use a bedroll: drop it, double-click to unroll, double-click again, accept the logout confirmation gump.
The 30-second window is when the skill check resolves; gain ticks may be granted at this moment.
Where camping works (and doesn't)
| Location | Camping allowed? |
|---|---|
| Most outdoor environments | ✅ Yes |
| Player-house interiors | ✅ Yes (but redundant — house owners log out instantly anyway) |
| Town tile (city limits) | ✅ Yes |
| Doom | ❌ Cannot camp |
| The woods of Ter Mur | ❌ Cannot camp |
| Combat — even when flagged | ✅ Yes |
The Doom and Ter Mur restrictions are explicit anti-exploit rules; the rest of UO is camping-friendly.
Hidden camping
You can Hide while the camp is being made secure, and logout while still invisible. This makes Camping a unique stealth-friendly logout — the only skill that lets you leave the world from a hidden state without the Hide-out gump revealing you. In Felucca PvP it is a small but real defensive option.
Logout outcome
| Logout method | UI consequence |
|---|---|
| Inn / tavern / house | Returns to Login screen. |
| Successful Camping logout | Displays "Connection Lost". The diegetic difference is subtle but real: you don't see the launcher, just the disconnect message. Your character is logged out cleanly either way; it's a presentation difference. |
For Siege Perilous players (one character per shard, no housing for many), Camping is a real practical skill, not just decoration.
Tools
| Tool | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Kindling | Required ignitor. Stack-friendly. Buy from NPC Provisioner or chop bushes/scrub for free. |
| Bedroll | Required for the actual logout. Single-use? No — bedrolls are reusable. Begging-acquired bedrolls lose their "Acquired by Begging" tag the first time they are unrolled (a known bug-feature). |
| Tainted Tree Sample | Can be used as kindling — a useful alternate source from the Tainted Tree event. |
Training
| Range | Method |
|---|---|
| 0 → 30 | Train from an NPC Gypsy (any Gypsy Camp, or wandering Gypsies in towns). |
| 30 → 100 | Carry a stack of kindling. Each successful camp-secure attempt gives a chance to gain. The 30-second timer means GM Camping is slow — figure 1+ hour per 10 skill points. Keep yourself near other characters or even pets to maximise per-attempt yield (a camp's "secured" message is broadcast to nearby characters; secured camps are one event regardless of how many it benefits, but the gain rolls anyway). |
Why Camping is "Useless"
Modern UO offers superior alternatives:
| Need | Modern alternative |
|---|---|
| Instant logout in a city | Visit any inn or tavern. |
| Instant logout in the field | Recall to your house — house owners always logout instantly. |
| Hidden logout | Doable via Hiding + standard logout; no Camping needed. |
| Reset from PvP combat | Recall away first, then logout normally. |
The skill survives only because (a) backwards compatibility, (b) Siege Perilous, and (c) the small contingent of roleplayers who treat their character's wilderness existence as part of the simulation. There is no quest, artifact, or item bonus that requires Camping — making it the cleanest example of UO's "Useless Skills" category.
See also
- Hiding — pair for invisible-camp logout
- Tracking · Detect_Hidden — wilderness scout suite
- Siege_Perilous — the shard where Camping has practical value
- Tainted_Tree_Sample — alternative kindling
- Doom · Ter_Mur — the no-camp zones