UO Compendium - News Archives

UO Compendium - Ultima Online News, Info, and Rants.

UO Compendium News Archives:

Forgive the condition of the archives, the older posts may at times be harder to read, that's because I changed styles since they were first written, and well, they've suffered from it.

The archives go back to January 3rd, 2002, the day I broke them last. *sigh*

Publish 37 - What I like {By: Orion - Nov 5, 2005 12:39:49}

Okay, I'm reading through the list of stuff being fixed, here is what really stood out to me:

▪ You can now rename ship keys again. To do this, double-click the key and then target it.

▪ Various server stability and other back-end fixes

▪ Escort NPCs can now follow players through gates to different facets

▪ Ring mail Gloves can now be smelted

▪ Smelting ore when your backpack is overweight no longer causes the produced ingots to drop to the ground

▪ Ambient jungle sounds no longer persist when you leave the jungle

▪ Fixed windowed wall tiles that weren't aligned correctly

▪ Help menu text is now less bright is 3D client

Well this helps. {By: Orion - Nov 5, 2005 12:28:39}

I just looked at the UO site and saw that Publish 37 is all about bug squashing. I have to admit that right there is huge. Heck the list is huge!

Kudos to the UO team.

An age past? {By: Orion - Nov 5, 2005 12:27:54}

Well I have a confession. I recently canceled my UO account, after not logging into it for about 4 months. My reasons are pretty simple:

1. Mondain's Legacy (Never ordered it, had no want to order it).
2. The game engine.
3. UO no longer satisfies.

Let me explain, Mondain's Legacy did look like it brought some nice new content, the improved AI stuff sounded good. But EA's statement they had no intentions going forward with the game engine really disappointed me. 3D game engines are not a must in my opinion. But it has become more and more clear to me that 3D engines really do provide nice features for a game. I don't demand eye candy, but I do like to see the "modern" changes that 3D engines have brought.

UI's interface (outside perhaps the crafter menus) has for a long time looked horrible. There is a reason I always prefered the bags, they didn't make me want to cry when I looked at them. The gumps "stone" look has for a long time drove me nuts. Add some color people!

In a way this goes back to UXO being canceled. It was a step forward, it wasn't the same game as UO, but it didn't have to be. I didn't want it to be.

I think I'm going to, do some work on what I just wrote to be more clear. I just took a survey from EA and answered a ton of questions, all about why I left and what I'd like to see to come back. There is much more to it than the UI (though I'll be honest that's a huge portion). I like UO, and I would actually consider coming back, so I'll be posting later this week a bit more cleary on why.

Updated Links {By: Orion - Oct 30, 2005 04:28:06}

I updated the links section today, most notable I added UO Forums. It's odd I haven't linked them before since I've gone there a few times and known about it for a while. It's a great forum that stays pretty active. Definitely a nice change of pace from the Statics boards.

The biggest changes is how it was gutted. No BOD sites listed anymore, I almost left one but it's only active for what seems two shards and dead empty for the rest. I also downgraded a couple of sites for useful information. For that matter I suppose I would have had to downgrade my own site if I linked it. I still like UO, I'm just not satisfied in the direction it has gone. UXO had so much of what I wanted to see, and heck so much of what is in WoW. I really think it had a shot.

Hrm, perhaps I'll write on that next time. I play WoW often and it surprises me still on how much UOX was similiar. In August of 2003 when I played it at their convention it seemed WONDERFUL, it definatly was not finished, but man did it have great points, from what I saw it sure seemed like it could have been out before WoW and it was definitely innovative enough to have grabbed a nice market share.

I'm Here {By: Orion - Oct 13, 2005 04:33:47}

I'm here, just very busy with my main source of income. That's a good thing I assure you.

I know a lot of you bought UO:ML, but as of right now I can't say I did. Some of it looked like a treat indeed. But, overall I didn't see anything in it for me. That may change of course, as I find things that I see others have and I don't.

Umm, that's all. :D

Just how big is the landmass of UO? {By: Orion - Aug 26, 2005 02:48:28}

Sometimes odd things cross my mind. Today's odd thought, was "Just how big is the land mass of Ultima Online?". This thought was triggered by another mmog in beta, Irth Online, that claims a world map that is 192km by 192km, or a whopping 36,864 square kilometers.

For some perspective the Earth is approximately 360,000,000 sq km (140,000,000 sq miles). The United States is 9,631,418 sq km and the Netherlands are 41,526 sq km. So with that you can see that Irth Online is a bit smaller in total land mass than the Netherlands.

So great, but what about UO? Well I openned up UOAM and started counting tiles, I didn't count dungeons in Tram/Fell and Malas, but did in the other worlds, because of how the map is laid out, I'm not trying to be super exact, just close enough. Anyhow here are the findings (:

Trammel and Felucca are each 5119 by 4095 tiles.
Lost Lands are 1023 by 1791 tiles.
Ilshenar is 2303 by 1599 tiles.
Malas is 2046 by 2047 tiles.
Tokuno is 1447 by 1447 tiles.

Now for these measurements, I'm calculating the width of a tile in UO as about two feet. It could be up to three feet I suppose but two seemed more reasonable. So armed with that "exact" information here is the area of each land mass in square kilometers:

Trammel: 7.78 sq km
Felucca: 7.78 sq km
Lost Lands: .68 sq km
Ilshenar: 1.36 sq km
Malas: 1.55 sq km
Tokuno: .77 sq km

For a total of 19.92 sq km. That's about 1/3 the size of the Manhattan (you know in New York). That makes sense, since you can easily run across all the lands of UO in no time at all. Which isn't a bad thing at all really.

So the point of this? No point really, UO is not worse off being such a small game in terms of land mass that's for sure. At 36,864 sq km of land mass in games like Irth, I have to question how you get around, that seems pretty huge, though still smaller than most states the in the US.

Well I Didn't Expect This {By: Orion - Aug 25, 2005 12:33:07}

I have to admit, I wouldn't have thought that if you didn't buy UO:ML, and didn't care to be an elf anyhow, that you wouldn't at least get the racial traits being introduced to humans in UO:ML. However, I seem to be wrong. Have a look at this forum post on stratics and you'll see that I was wrong.

I don't mind content being left out to those who don't buy an expansion. That's the way the game has always worked. And by game, I mean the release of expansions across every MMOG. However, certain aspects of expansions, like Age of Shadows change of weapon system can't be left out for those who don't upgrade. I would have seriously thought that racial traits would be one of these.

Five Accounts? {By: Orion - Aug 9, 2005 04:11:29}

I'm curious how many people still have five accounts in UO? I imagine there are a few out there, otherwise you wouldn't see discounts like this from EA. But I haven't actually known anyone with more than two accounts for a while it seems. I myself only have one account now, peaking out at 3 during the hight of BOD madness.

It also seems EA is planning to stress test UO:ML. Unfortunatly this is only for those with Ultima Online: Mondain's Legacy Beta Codes. I was hoping that by now they'd release a few more codes, I've had the beta installed for a bit now, sitting there waiting for something (*cough* like a code *cough*).

Oh well.

UOML {By: Orion - Aug 5, 2005 03:18:46}

I've been very quite about UO lately. Frankly I'm trying to decide if I like the direction of UO. Anyhow...

If you haven't noticed, the official Ultima Online: Mondain's Legacy site is up. There is a virtual treasure trove of information there if you've been left out of the beta (*sob* like me). Good stuff overall, they really are adding a lot, new race attributes, quests, collections, pixel crack, pixel crack, and lots of other stuff.

They talk about the Pre-Order Promo item some too, but frankly I have to ask, why bother pre-ordering a DOWNLOAD ONLY game. I mean seriously, pre-ordering has always been a thing for companies to insure profits, never something really for you or me, but now it's an all new things. Before, under the frase of making sure a store has enough games in stock, we would pre-order a game. But it has slowly evolved into locking you into a purchase when you're feeling great about a game. Because they know eventually the euphoria will wear off and you'll start to notice stuff that doesn't look so super-span-dacular. So that path has eventually led us to pre-ordering a game that will not run out of stock, because it's just a download. Wow.

Beyond that, the Promo item is a new mount. That's it, that's all they are saying about it. Not even an ingame picture of the new mount, just a warhorse of some sort. Nice...

My one last nitpick about this whole expansion is the price. When you go to a store and spend $29.99 for a game, you get the box, a pathetic manual, and a damn CD. To me a CD is a nice thing, because on that CD is my code, forever etched in a place I'm 99% sure I won't loose (I say 99% because I have a tendancy to loose things, hehe). I suppose the codes don't matter too much, once you enter them online you're hooked up. But don't you see? You're paying the same process, and now the task of putting the game on a CD is in your ball park. You're paying for something you used to get for free. No more pretty box, no more CD, no more manual. EA doesn't pay any retailer to carry their game, they have no shipping costs or packaging costs, yet the game is still $30 bucks. That seems awefully tacky to me.

Okay, that's it for my complaints I guess, they mostly center on how EA has chosen to distribute the game, not the actual content itself. The new crafting stuff looks great, I think the racial attributes are a nice touch too, to me elves just look like hippy humans with zanny hair styles, but whatever. To me what looks best is the new dungeons and quests, more content = good in my opinion. And making use of places like the long forgotten zoo near Moonglow is very nice.

Anyhow, I'll probably pick up a copy for myself. Err download it I mean, it's no fun being left out in the cold when new content rolls around. =)

Mondain's Legacy Code {By: Orion - Jul 31, 2005 10:55:55}

So I'd love to get a chance to play Mondain's Legacy Beta, I've got the client, but no code. I'm wondering if anyone out there has a spair code somehow they could send my way. =D

Yes I'm begging.

Digging beneath the surface. {By: Orion - Jun 6, 2005 05:17:57}

As I sat here idly wondering just what was happening down in Fort EA, I happened across a post from Hanse to the Ultima Online Discussion Group (unofficial via Yahoo Groups). This group like the other much more known (and official) group is practically up in arms over recent news about UO and the direction it�s going.

Since I�m still passionate about UO after all these years, I of course assumed the worst too, you can tell because I�ve started posting again. But then I started to wonder, perhaps I�m in the minority on a few things I assumed I was in the majority for. Perhaps I�m viewing things from WoW colored glasses and not UO colored classes? Let me explain.

First off for me, and it seems like a lot of others, though it could be a very loud minority, there are three things going on in UO right now that are making us collectively have seizures. These things are: the announcement of no real 3D plans for UO, Elfs being added to Ultima Online before other more obvious races like Orcs, Gargoyles or Meer, and finally what seems to be a sudden influx of developers abandoning ship. So I�ll tackle those three topics and see if I can put some sanity into my own thoughts and perhaps make sense of this mess.

First off, no real 3D! What can they be thinking? Do they think that the UO:3D client is actually good, perhaps they think we all like keeping our games in the stone age? Well perhaps that�s all partly true.

I�m a fan of games written in 3D engines. What you can do with them quite often will look visually light years beyond even a good 2D client. But I do know that a 3D engine is not the end all, if a game lacks convincing game mechanics than it�s really not going to last. Look at Doom 3, visually the game is stunning, but the mechanics of the game are kinda boring, scripted monsters pop up behind you, very linear game play, etc. Heck even the amazing game of World of Warcraft, while visually stunning, really drives me nuts. Right now, when I play my level 25 Paladin I feel I�m being force fed down a specific path of kill A, then kill B, so I can gain another level to kill C. These games look great, but many feel that their mechanics really are found lacking.

But does UO need Doom 3 style graphics? NO! In fact it�d be refreshing not to have them. I think something along the lines of Neverwinter Nights or Dungeon Seige is perfect for Ultima Online. Keep the 3D isometric vantage point, but put everything in 3D and please for the love of all that is pure, give us descent 3D textures! If you do that then UO would look fantastic. Of course this means a huge investment into Ultima Online. It�d probably take a couple years, but the advantages would be you could add things like player races much more easily than the current 2D client, and you�d have something people would love to show off to their friends. I say that because I specifically will never show UO:3D to people, I made that mistake just once.

Okay, so I�ve made what I feel is a strong argument for a 3D client, a 3D client that probably doesn�t come into the mind of the average Joe UO. Joe UO who loves his 2D client probably thinks of Doom when he hears 3D and he says �Hell no will I play that! Don�t hurt my lovely UO!� But if you put it into terms of Neverwinter Nights and Dungeon Siege well then maybe he�ll think that a 3D client isn�t so bad. So is that it? Could EA have really missed the boat and when they went out and asked people if they wanted a 3D client presented them with the likes of �Doom UO�? Or is there something else?

Well yes there probably is. Even a client like Neverwinter nights needs more horse power than what it takes to run UO:3D. In fact, it probably wouldn�t run all that well on a lot of integrated graphics chipsets. So how many people would be forced to do a major upgrade to continue to play UO in all its full glory? Good question and only EA can say for sure, but at the end of this question may very well be why we�re not seeing a major UO upgrade to 3D. It could possibly be that the niche EA wants to cater to have budget eMachine computers. EA may see it that they don�t want to push their user base to upgrade their computers, fearing people just leaving instead.

I don�t know, but the reality is, after reading a few posts I wonder if I�m not in the majority wanting a 3D client, but perhaps in the minority, or even worse it�s 50/50 and EA knows they can�t please anyone.

Okay second issue, why on earth are they adding Elfs! Well sadly I can�t make heads or tales of this one. My best guess is to keep up with the Johns next door. The art for Mondain�s Legacy screams early Everquest artwork. Perhaps EA is keeping the UO client as is, and focusing on old EQ people who don�t like the direction EQ is going (i.e. requiring bigger and badder computers). So they are banking on the fact they feel EQ�ers who can�t buy new computers will at least be able to play an Elf in UO. Boy I hope that�s not it.

I do know it�s probably easier to advertise though. Say to someone, �Hey we have elfs!� verse, �Hey we have Meer�. The first remark will be something like �Gee how unique� but at least they�ll be able to identify with it. The second remark will get you something along the lines of �Meer, what�s a meer? Blah you�re game is lame�. Okay well maybe not that, but outside of UO no one has a clue what a Meer is. And lets face it Elfs are way more sexy than a grunting Orc or a winged Gargoyle. Elfs are must much more marketable. Even though adding Elfs just tosses UO�s fine traditions and history into the wind.

And finally the last issue, who�s left manning the ship? Well lots of people and after reading a post by Wilki, perhaps it doesn�t look as bad as it really is. First off Sunsword seems to be out of the picture for good, in his place is Lady Lu as the producer. While I haven�t heard much from Lady Lu we can assume he (she?) is doing their job, since they still have it. So Lady Lu is manning the ship, okay but what about the crew, five devs have left our cherished baby!

Well Wilki recently stepped in on that one for us and shed some UO colored light on things. �Vex left several months ago. Hanse moved to a different project inside EA in March. Oaks and Speedman left within a week of each other.� This was before the announcement by Leurocian obviously. So that puts the score as one dev left over two months ago, one dev left UO but did so internally to EA, and three devs left out of the blue all rather quickly during the same time period.

Oaks and Hanse were especially beloved by the UO community, so their departure is staying very fresh in people�s minds, but them leaving and the time frame they did so, isn�t really anything special or remarkable. Make it a company you don�t care about, like the shipping department Applied Plastics, Inc., and you wouldn�t even comment. So you have these two departing EA and bam out of no where three others leave. SAVE US! SAVE US! UO is sinking (I�m repeating myself here, haha). Why would they leave? Well I�ve read twice today that perhaps they are leaving because their year is up.

Year is up? What year! You know when evil EA dissolved Origin, they moved everyone to San Francisco. It�s quite common for a company to agree to move you and your family lock, stock and barrel at no expense if you agree to stay a year. Perhaps that�s why. Leuricon did specifically mentioned moving back to his family was his a reason for leaving. We could very well just be seeing the result of a one year contract coming to fulfillment. So maybe there are other issues at play other than the ship sinking.

In my mind things are settled that UO isn�t sinking. I currently see it as the following; UO is catering towards a user base with older computers. We have Elfs because they are easier to market, and perhaps easier to create in the 2D client. The ship isn�t sinking, a couple people left for normal reasons, and a few left because their contracts ended and they wanted to be closer to family, or hated San Francisco. There are lots of rational answers, ones I haven�t mentioned. Sure it seems fishy for all this to happen at once, but I�ve come to realize EA is just a fishy company, you can never guess what they�ll do. But the same is true for UO. I would never have guessed we�d have been given a mirror, err a new faucet like Trammel.

The things I�m more concerned about is why the next expansion of UO appears to be download only. Why people won�t give me my 3D client for UO, even though I understand in all likely hood why (hey I love 3D), and why fishing and the seas can never get a fair chance. I�m sure they all have rational answers though.

So I hope I shed some light on things, that I didn�t bore you too much, and that I perhaps made the waters less murky. Of course I could be completely off and the ship is sinking, haha.

And then there was ... ? {By: Orion - Jun 6, 2005 12:29:24}

Well another one bites the dust, looks like Leurocian is saying farewell to UO.

It is with great reluctance and heartfelt sadness that I tender my resignation to you � The Ultima Online Community. My last day at EA will be June 17th.

My wife and I have decided to return to the �Shire� (Indiana), buy a house, perhaps have children, and live the simple life. My main reason for leaving is to be close to our family.

I wanted to take this moment now to thank each and every one of you for your many years of devotion and support to Ultima Online and its community. For it is you, that I will miss most.

There is a light inside the darkness, ever bright and full of selfless love, and that light has a name. That name belongs to all of you.

Sweet water and light laughter until next,

Patrick �Leurocian� Malott

That's five now that have recently left the UO team. Six if you count that Sunsword isn't just UO anymore, but the head of EA's online gaming division (or something like that).

It could just be that a it's a coincidence, or that a major update was just finished (i.e. the next "expansion") and the team is just cycling. But I can't remember any other time in UO's history that so many have departed all at once. I'd love to hear something from EA that they are still alive and doing well.

I keep thinking of the saying "The rats are leaving the sinking ship".

Mondain's Legacy {By: Orion - Jun 2, 2005 09:30:43}

Hrm, not sure of my opinion yet on this new expansion. Mondain's Legacy introduces the first new playable race to UO, the elf. Here's a link that cover's all the highlights: Mondain's Legacy info at Stratics.

I just don't know what to say. I like the whole spellweaving idea, and the Peerless monstesr intrigue me. But the one thing that I crave the most has been shot down. Apparntly UO is not to get a new 3D engine. At least according to the news I'm hearing from the Washington DC event today.

UO:SE was to me a nice expansion, but it lacked the polish I was hoping for (the tilesets look really goofy to me in 2D). And it left me feeling a UO void in a lot of ways. So hearing that they will not in fact revamp UO's 3D makes me very disappointed.

Well as time gets closer we'll see I guess. =)

Sorry to rant but here it comes. {By: Orion - Apr 26, 2005 10:30:45}

In a discussion on the Ultima Yahoo! Group mailing list we've been discussing UO, or rather why the devs seem so dang quiet and nothing seems to be happening to UO (minor upgrades and changes don't count). From this discussion I dropped this rant and thought I'd share it with you. It covers a lot of what I've felt lately about UO, and some of my ponderings about EA's two failed attempts at creating a successor to the Ultima Online tradition.

Rant Begin...

I hear ya Teich. I've been saying the similar thing on my UO site. UO needs to evolve and move on, do something. The devs are all dead quiet. There has been no major news after all the big UO sites met the devs down at EA. Everyone was saying something big is happening, but we can't talk about it, blah blah blah. But here we are months later, and still nothing.

But then if they did finally announce something "big" would you or I believe them? They canceled UO2 and UXO something I followed and was very interested in. Heck I played UXO and loved the feel of it.

You know, the funny thing is UXO was EXTREMELY similar to WoW.

- Both are cartoony and have a new fresh feel away from the "realistic" aspect most other games take.
- Both had a portrait of the players face in the upper left corner with information.
- Both allow you to talk in chat, click an item and everyone else see the items properties by hovering the mouse over it.
- Both have instances.
- Both use vertical space a lot more than any other game has.
- And so much more.

(did they cancel UXO because of the similarities?)

The funny thing is, UXO should have beat WoW to market (at least from my player experience it seemed rather good, beta quality at least), but once again EA pulled the plug.

I remember UO2, heck I still have the preview movie on my desktop! It used vertical space like none other (Yew looked shwank), and it had a more involved combat system, where it actually looked like you were in combat, rather than swinging in the air. You could leap across the screen kicking opponents and more. Heck they had dancing emotes that meshed together and more. I would have forked over big bucks to upgrade my system then to play it.

I'm fed up, and it's sad. Because I've tried other MMOGS (EQ, Asherons Call, DAoC, and so many others) but UO is the only game I've truly felt passionate about, and they seem to be more willing to settle for 2nd, 3rd, 4th place than actually innovate. As if they (not the devs perhaps, but corporate EA) are afraid of loosing customers. The funny thing is, they have lost customers. The game hasn't really had any substantial growth in a very long time, and it now appears to be actively going down.

So in the end what will they have? A shell of a game with a shell of a user base and have missed the grand opportunity to move their users to a new game?

While I'm on this, I think the devs behind UO are great, I think they've done a lot of traffic stuff to a game engine that is very dated. They've probably rewritten more code to update it than we want to know about. But what is it with the 3D client still? Why can't EA hire really good 3D artists for UO? We know they can for other titles. A friend of mine at EA works on an EA game and their game looks damn beautiful. But the character models in UO:3D still are a farce. Compare them to any other major MMOG out there and everyone of you will laugh. What is it with EA that they can't move UO in any direction but none?

/rant

Orion
the UO Compendium
http://uo.gamesentry.com

PS: Why am I so dang passionate about this game?

Nieves is Logging Out {By: Orion - Apr 21, 2005 05:52:20}

Nieves of UO Powergamers fame is signing out of UOPG and Ultima Online. I'll miss Nieves, but truth be told you could tell he signed out a while ago, just now it's official. Well I wish Nieves well and know that UOPG is still being left in very good hands.

Will it catch on? {By: Orion - Apr 20, 2005 08:19:33}

So I've been talking about Sony's new Station Exchange for Everquest II. If you care to read my full thoughts on it head over to the main page of this site and read this.

What I wonder is what if OSI had done this years ago. What if, instead of saying "It's okay to sell items on Ebay" they instead had cashed in on this years ago. What if they had created a Ultima Exchange of their own, and then said "This is the only sanction place to sell UO goods for real money".

Think about it. The players would have been able to sell stuff, just like they have been able to. But, think about the scamming that could have stopped. OSI could have linked your selling account to your gaming account. Then they'd have a string to chase immediately when all of a sudden an account has millions of gold. It would have been noticable much faster, and they would have been able to stop utter gluts of gold hitting the market that much faster.

Of course that's a bunch of what if's. I was just thinking how interesting today's market would be if OSI had done this back in say 2000.

It's not earth shattering, but it's nice. {By: Orion - Apr 11, 2005 05:39:29}

Well, it is not earth shattering, but it's about dang time!

Highlights of Publish 32:

* Fix for ghost cams at Felucca Champ Spawns
* End of the Despise Invasion
* Guild/Alliance chat
* Alchemy addition
* BOD timer changes
* Many major and minor bug fixes

I have to say I'm almost amazed that true guild chat and alliance chat is being added to UO. Apparently I'm out of the loop a bit right now because this one hit me out in right field.

In games such as Dark Ages of Camelot, Everquest, and World of Warcraft these are main parts of the game. Ultima Online has had for a while party chat, which was so very much needed. But not guild chat, which was something I craved early on in my UO playing (about 5.5 years ago for those counting).

It's funny actually, some guildmates are currently discussing the pros and cons of chat. Our guild has a non-swearing policy in chat, recently this has become a small issue, and so in discussing chat, guild chat, etc, a few of us lamented how we miss the quiet aspect of games like UO. Where you only saw what was on screen.

Of course when you have what UO has (soon to be had) you find that it's hard to grow group dynamics, something that can happen in chat intensive games a lot faster. Ultimatly I think what UO has is best, where all local talk happens on screen, and guild/party stuff down in the message area portion of the screen. Where as World of Warcraft has gone overboard and you can soon find yourself in conversation overload (since all local converstation is in your chat box).

Ho-hum {By: Orion - Apr 7, 2005 10:27:33}

Who's ready for big news from EA about UO? I sure am. Just a quicky post. I'm in the depths of World of Warcraft right now. Still love UO, just feeling a bit burnt out on it right now. I know, I know, you've all heard it before.

I just want something really exciting to happen with the UO franchise. I really really do. I love the format of UO, with skills, tradeskills and more. I want EA to push the franchise forward. UO2 looked like it, then UXO looked like it.

Please OSI, keep the world of Britannia evolving. Don't settle.

Fairwell Hanse {By: Orion - Mar 28, 2005 05:25:57}

Ahh man, it appears Hanse is leaving UO. He has been by far my favorite developer in UO, and definatly the most communicative on the team. He's brought in great changes for the crafters and fisher and countless other things. Man I'm going to miss him.

I think you know the rest!

I'm leaving Ultima Online. Thank you for five great years on Ultima Online. I'll miss being part of such a great game!

- Hanse

Well Hanse, cheers to you. Happy landings wherever you go!

Site Changes {By: Orion - Mar 11, 2005 04:03:57}

So you may or may not notice the changes to the site, that happen just above what you're reading right now. I figured I'd toss the headlines of the main Game Sentry web site up there for you all to see. Just in case you care to read my ramblings even more. ;-)

Update 3/18/05: Woops, the new links were not pointing to the right page. My bad. Anyhow it's fixed. And there's a review of Lego Star Wars up now.

Publish 31 {By: Orion - Mar 7, 2005 10:20:37}

I'm five days behind the UO news it seems. It's dead week for me right now, thankfully this quarter I only have one final, but I do have four programming assignments to finish too. Blah.

Anyways, the real point of this post is to point out the design notes for Publish 31. Not super thick yet in new stuff, but it does bring forth the Tokuno artifact trade-in system. Trade in 10 minor Tokuno arties and get one major one. It sounds like you get to pick which one you get too, which is good I suppose. Also this is apparently a limited time frame event, that's interesting.

In other news, a test center for this is up already too. Not bad.

Let's get this party started. {By: Orion - Feb 26, 2005 07:23:10}

So, over on the main page for this domain, gamesentry.com, I've finally started using it as I originally envisioned, kinda. Basically, I'll be talking about other games I find enjoyable outside of UO. I've wanted to talk about games other than UO for quite a while, but ever time I started I tried to reinvent GameSpy, or it's ilk. Which is funny because I generally don't like those sites!

So, if you like games like UO, World of Warcraft, Battlefield 1942, Half-Life, Civilization and other great games. You want honest review and commentary, occassional timely news. Or you're bored at work and need another site to waste time on, head on over!

GameSentry.com may be the site for you. Or it may not be. I'm cool with that.

Dev Chat - Publish 30 {By: Orion - Feb 23, 2005 07:44:13}

Hi guys, my game rut is fading, my work load isn't, but hey, there is UO news and that's what I'm here to cover! Yesterday marked the 103rd UO House of Commons Chat, with the main subject being Publish 30. Anyhow here are my favorite parts

Brekkee - *Robdadct* Looking at Ghost Cams. I heard that you were looking into making a necro with spirit speak able to see the dead even while they are not in war mode. Also i heard that you were looking into making a possible exorcism spell that would send all spawned dead players to a graveyard is this true and if so will it be posibly comming out in publish 31?
MrTact - That is indeed in the works.
MrTact - However, I will not be able to get it done in time for pub 31, so probably 32.

Wow, what can I say, I really dig this. Being able to kick out all the ghosts will be a major plus. And I like the way they go about it big time.

Brekkee - *JCtheBuilder* Are there plans to further reduce lag when there are a lot of players in one area fighting? At harrowers especially, the server will sometimes grind to a hault.
Fertbert - We're currently in the middle of a shard hardware upgrade. Faster hardware may help the situation if the problem is that the server iteself is getting too busy. If it's a matter of too much data being sent for your internet connection to handle or for your client to render, there are no current plans to do additional optimization there in the next couple publishes.

New hardware is always good in my book.

Well, there is a lot more to the chat, but it's mostly about people wanting their chosen profession to be made better, or about arti's. Two topics I don't care too much about, arti's seem to me as a dog bone, and I like the professions as they are, I don't mind changes generally either, but I don't find that my blacksmith is useless as some do. Just personal taste really.

Woops {By: Orion - Feb 1, 2005 01:09:37}

Yah, so if you noticed the site was missing the last couple of days that's what happens when you forget to renew your domain name. :P

Game Rut. {By: Orion - Jan 29, 2005 11:19:24}

Have no fear, I still live. I'm just in a major game rut right now. UO, meh. WoW, meh, Desert Combat, Meh.

Not sure how long it's gonna last hehe. I think at this point the graphics of UO have me disappointed more and more. It is finally beginning to feel aged for me. WoW is fun, but it's not as easy for me to jump into and play like UO always has. Desert Combat is my quick endorphine fix, but I've been playing Battlefield 1942 and it's mods for quite a while, and while teamwork and strats can be fun, eventually it grows boring too.

I've actually been wanting to play OLD SCHOOL games lately. Once upon a time there was this Macintosh game where you had tanks, troops, planes and ships on this grid like map. It was a turn based very simple little war game, but lots of fun. I remember it had a menu option that said something like "quick the boss is coming" that would blank out the screen. Ahh funny stuff. The reason I've thought of the old school stuff lately is I've got my hands on an older Palm Pilot. I'm really finding it very useful to keep work and school organized better. But the ability to play little games on it is a plus to help pass the bordem in some of my classes. :P

Merry Belated Christmas {By: Orion - Dec 31, 2004 12:53:24}

Well I just got back from a nice eight day break. In time to hurry and do some work and get back to the college grind. Joy.

I hope your holidays were merry and bright and that you have a happy new year.

~ Orion

FireFox 1.0 and why I care. {By: Orion - Dec 16, 2004 10:00:31}

I'm proud of my readers, you've ditched Internet Explorer at a faster pace than the average web user, in fact 25.6% of you now use FireFox! As you may know FireFox 1.0 is now out (a few weeks ago), this is the first major major release of my favorite browser. I'd love to see everyone switch to FireFox, it's got great plugins, it's fast, and it renders CSS in most cases better than IE.

Now some of you may be wondering why I car about this so much. Many of you may have noticed that newer versions of Internet Explorer have been VERY slow in coming out. You may also have seen or been affected by many of the IE exploits. You may also have heard that Microsoft doesn't plan any major upgrades for IE for some time. Well all of the above is true, and each one is important, let me explain.

1. Slow Releases - Microsoft has been like a slug moving on new features with their browser. The browser is one of the most important interfaces out there, and it's ever so slowly changing. Why? Because this is not Microsofts platform of choice. (more in point 3)

2. Security Threats - Every browser has it's weaknesses. Because browsers rely on other code (you can't avoid that) there will probably never be a browser without problems. But no other browser is intergrated into the operating system like IE is. Thus you get these insane vulnerabilities that you have to generally wait months for a fix for, or usually at the least for the 2nd Tuesday of every month when MS releases patches. This is horrible for something so intergrated into the Operating System.

3. MS is dedicated to selling software. Particularly MS Office and Windows, but more recently into other areas as well. They use their own programming languages, that you pay thousands to use the development environtment. Making IE was their way of squashing Netscape and adding a bonus feature to Windows, to make you want an Windows computer of say a Linux or Apple computer. Because of this they very vocally said not too long ago that they would not release a major update to IE until their next version of Windows came out in a few years. When that date got pushed back they released a few much needed features to IE with SP2, but only made it available to those WITH Windows XP, thus making more people buy a new Operating System.

Why is this a bad thing? Because the browser still has much more potential as a user interface. No not games, but business apps yes. There are many things that can be done with markup languages, CSS (cascading style sheets) has really changed how things are done, but boy does IE screw it up (FireFox has a couple annoying bugs but not nearly as many, plus FireFox releases MUCH more often to fix those naggy little things).

Anyhow, the point of this is that I'd love you to try out FireFox, click that link above. Over 10 million downloads of 1.0 in just a few weeks, that's a whole lot of users now.

PS: I think I need a blog or something so I can stop bothering you guys about none UO things. ;-)

Buy seperatly what you bought 7AE for. {By: Orion - Dec 15, 2004 04:11:38}

I'm not sure what to make of this yet. But I'm sure a lot of people will be buying more 7AE gifts.

Only at www.uogamecodes.com, get the perfect gifts for that special UO fan, especially if that fan is you. On sale now are 6th Character Slot Codes and 7th Anniversary Item Codes! An Ultima Online 6th Character Slot Code will give you a sixth character slot on all shards. (If you all ready have six character slots, this code will not give you another one.) For more info, go to www.uogamecodes.com. Add another character to your UO family without having to eliminate one of your favorites!

Also, until January 5th only, you can buy a 7th Anniversary Item Code for only $1.99. Now�s your chance to collect the items you don�t have, or get more of the ones you want. This code will let you choose from one of the seven rare in-game items created to celebrate the 7th anniversary of Ultima Online. This offer will end Jan. 5th, so act now. Go to < for more info.

From uo.com.

Most interesting. {By: Orion - Dec 10, 2004 11:29:30}

Because the beginning of December is a very hectic time for me, with finals, and the Christmas festivities setting in, I tend not to notice what goes on around me much. Which is funny because each year I'm always surprised once I peek back outside on the world that continues to move-on with or without me.

This years surprise is only a day old news wise, and what a surprise it is. I never expected a new server launch.

Origin Lives!
On Thursday, December 16, between 5:00 � 8:00 PM PST, a new shard will be born -- Origin. This shard will be a place where you can get a fresh start, claim that prime piece of real estate you�ve always had your eye on, or just rediscover the lands of Britannia.

Because we have many demo and free trial programs available, this shard will only be available to Ultima Online: Samurai Empire account holders for the first month. By limiting access in this way, we can ensure that our loyal customers have the first opportunity to claim the real estate and goods provided by the launch of the Origin shard. This restriction will be lifted in mid-January.

A few things you should know about the Origin Shard:

* Origin will be located on the West Coast of North America
* This Shard will be the first to receive most publishes and updates
* Character Transfer will be disabled to and from Origin for the first 30-days
* Advanced Characters will not be available for the first 30-days

We�re looking forward to seeing you on Origin!

Not at all what I was expecting, that is for sure. I tried out Lake Austin when it first game out, even had a nice sized house. But after a few weeks I disappeared from the Lake. Why you ask? Well because the friends I have in UO still played on Sonoma. And while I largly enjoy the changes that OSI makes, what keeps me on is my friends. Even if I rarely see them, knowing they are there is what keeps me playing UO.

I like that they are making this available to dedicated players, excluding those without Samurai Empires and those who are on a 30-day trial. I wish those who are moving on to Origin a happy move. Hopefully this new server will not be plagued my mad cash schemes like Lake Austin was, and that you make new friends at your new home.

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King Extended Edition Trailer! {By: Orion - Nov 30, 2004 01:24:40}

Not UO news, but damn good needs, the trailer for RotK is out. They've added lots of good scenes, totalling to 50 more minutes of footage. Click here to watch it!

Good to be a gamer. {By: Orion - Nov 27, 2004 05:26:51}

Hello all,

Boy it's good to be a gamer right now. I've been blessed this past couple months with lots of new goodies software wise. UO: Samurai Empires is out and finally in my hands, World of Warcraft is out (and man is it nice) and on top of that Half-Life 2 *boggle*. That's a lot of gaming goodness to handle, but that's not all, Knights of the Old Republic 2 is out soon, Dec 6th releases LotR: Battles of Middle Earth, and Sid Mier's classic remake of Pirates! is out now too. Sadly there is no way I can fit all this goodness into my budget and my time (wife, family, work, school, games definatly come last, hehe), but the bright side is come this Summer if there isn't anything good out I can come back and buy some of these great titles.

Publish 28 & Holiday Gifts {By: Orion - Nov 22, 2004 04:51:04}

Well Pacific got Publish 28 today, and tomorrow Pub 28 will get rolled out to the other shards as well. This years holiday gifts again come in a randomly colored gift box like last year. In side you'll find four items: A Snowy Tree [Blessed, Winter 2004], A Pile of Glacial Snow [Blessed, Winter 2004], Light of the Winter Solstice [Blessed, Hand Dipped By RandomDevTeamMemberName, Winter 2004], and a Mistltoe Deed [Blessed, Winter 2004]. The text in the brackets is what appears below the item name when you mouseover the item. RandomeDevTeamMemberName is not what actually appears, hehe.

The gifts look pretty nice, I especially like the tree, however the size of the candle is kinda weird, as it seems HUGE (especially the bow). But still they look pretty shwank.

Publish 28 is pretty huge, instead of copying the entire thing here you can click the link to read the whole thing. I'll just cover the highlights as I see them.

1. There are tons of minor game fixes, that in itself is cool to me.

2. Instanced Corpses for loot division. I really like this idea, if you make the top damagers list than the loot is divided up into instaneced corpse containers only you have access to for three minutes. Say goodbye loot scripts!

3. They removed damage penalties for distance with hit area effects. That makes my favorite halbred that much more enjoyable.

4. They fixed the "target cannot be seen" but with Vortex's.

5. Looks like the GGS system is fixed for high levels of skill now.

6. Big Fish now come w/ a variable weight. The max weight hasn't been revealed, so this gives fisherman something to work for.

7. Lots of other stuff including new Artifacts.

In my hands. {By: Orion - Nov 21, 2004 06:45:05}

Finally, three copies of UO:Samurai Empires are in my hands. Tomorrow I can ship out the two copies to the prize winners and I can finally you know, play the expansion.

Of note, I may never preorder a game again. What a fiasco this turned into. In the end I ended up buying them from the local Target retail store. :P

My problems resolved. {By: Orion - Nov 21, 2004 11:36:49}

Well, EA Store finally replied to me. Even though their site still says my order has a status of "Ordered" their CS people are saying my order was canceled. It only took me telling them I was going to report them to my States AG to get a response. Now I'm off to town to see if I can find three copies of UO:SE.

I'm glad they finally canceled my order, but once again they highlight everything that is wrong with their store. They do not know how to communicate with their customers and to use their automated system as a tool for them. On top of that their left hand doesn't know what their right hand is doing. How can one person say my order has progressed too far for someone else to cancel it and not let me know?

Oh brother.

EA Says everything is shipped (yah right). {By: Orion - Nov 18, 2004 06:35:45}

So Wilki (UO Online Community Rep) posted on Tuesday, that according to the EA Store all the shipments of UO:SE have been fulfilled.

EA Store Information:

All orders should have been shipped, refunds for shipping should be processed this week, and refunds for those who refused delivery will be processed in the days ahead.

You can read the whole post here.

On that thread others have posted that they too have not received a thing from EA Store, and I'm not the only one having their emails ignored.

So anyone care to share their exploits in UO:SE so I can play vicariously through you? hehe .. *sigh*

Anyone home? {By: Orion - Nov 18, 2004 09:44:59}

Why yes I am here, but it's now the 17th and my UO:SE shipment has not been actually shipped by EA Store. Let this server as a lesson to each and everyone of you. Never buy from the EA Store. Ever.

I just want to report on UO:SE {By: Orion - Nov 14, 2004 02:09:47}

So what I really want to do is report on UO:SE and how it rocks, etc. But, guess what? My copies of UO:SE have not been sent to me yet. My credit card hasn't been charged yet, and according to the EA Store site, the status is still sitting at "ordered" not shipped or anything else to let me know things are moving forward. It's been a full month since I preordered the game, and come this Tuesday it'll be two weeks since the launch of UO:SE, yet I can't do a damn thing, except look in all the menus and see the cool items I could be forging if I had my damned copy of UO:SE.

...frustration...

First I can, Then I can't. {By: Orion - Nov 9, 2004 08:07:01}

Sheesh, what a fiasco. So last week a public apology was issued from the EA Store. Apparently they had nor ordered enough copies to satisify preorder needs. This was fine because I could thankfully cancel my order they said. So I did just that, last Thursday I followed their instructions and sent in an order cancellation. I waited for a reply on Friday and got nothing, then I moved this weekend and they replied to me on Saturday. Their reply was an apology and that yes I could continue to cancel my order (which was confusing since I thought we went through this already with me asking for them to cancel my order). So I logged into their system and replied again saying yes, just cancel my order thanks. To get a reply two days later that it was now too late to cancel my order. I would assume that this meant that my items were shipped, but NOOOOOOOO, according to their site my 3 copies are in the same state of nothingness, having been Ordered but not actually shipped.

Has anyone else actually been able to cancel their orders? Or was that just a ploy to cover bad press? At this point I'm completely disgusted with this whole mess. Not only did they NOT ship me anything, not only have they said they'd do one thing, and then do another, but NOW they are offering free shipping if you use OTHER stores.

That's like rubbing salt in my wounds, you won't ship me my items, you won't give me a refund, but you'll give other people a discount for NOT shopping with you. Nice.

Oh just splendidly delicious. {By: Orion - Nov 4, 2004 07:16:21}

So, a rumour has been flying about today that people buying copies of UO:SE who didn't even preorder are still getting Soulstone codes at their local retailers. Then a friend sends me this link: Confirmation on Stratics Forums

Nice. I have a few friends ICQ'ing me about this and they are pretty annoyed. But you know what really gets me. What gets me is that the EA Store hasn't even shipped my UO:SE copies yet. How is it the company store that creates this game is behind even Amazon? Oh wait here is why:

Dear EA Store Customers,

We must regretfully inform some of our EA Store customers that their order for Samurai Empire was delayed due to the great demand for the title. The orders will be fulfilled as soon as additional inventory arrives. We are expecting more copies to arrive for shipment next week.

We understand that some who did not receive their order may choose to purchase the game from a local retailer. If you placed an order at the EA Store and have not received the shipping confirmation and, wish to submit a cancellation request, please go here:

http://eastore.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/eastore.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2591

In addition, those who placed a pre-order for Samurai Empire before November 2nd will receive an e-mail with a Soulstone code and further information regarding their order.

We apologize for the inconvenience and delay.

Sincerely,

The EA Store Team

For the record, I pre-ordered my copies on Oct. 14th, a full 19 days prior to the launch of UO:SE. How do you not order enough copies to cover the PRE-orders! I already got my codes for each pre-order purchase and I've already dolled them out to the "Haiku Like I Do" winners. But what I wanted to do was actually ship them the game already.

I have no clue how tomorrow I'm going to get to the store to buy 3 copies of UO:SE (I'm moving this weekend!), but I for one doubt I'll order from the EA Store again.

One last thing, would it hurt the EA Store to you know... Send me the above message to my email account? Why did I have to find this out by reading Stratics? Why when I checked on the EA Store page today, under my order history did it not have a note about this there?

Ianstorm.com's 14 UO Stormchat- TONIGHT!! {By: Orion - Nov 4, 2004 05:51:51}

IanStorm is pleased to announce their 14th UOSC (UO StormChat) with EA:Origin. It will take place at 8pm CST (6pm PST, 9pm EST, 1pm AEST, 1am GMT) TONIGHT, November 4th in #UOSC.

To access the network, you will need an IRC Client (like mIRC or Pirch) and use one of the following servers:

# irc.ianstorm.com

Don't have an IRC client? Never fear, you can access our network via our Java IRC client, here.

If you require help with IRC commands, please see our FAQ.

The topic for this month is General Discussion, so if you have a question to ask, come prepared!

We will also be taking questions pertaining to the new expansion, Samurai Empires.

You can access logs of our former chats here.

Hope to see you there tonight!

Go Vote! {By: Orion - Nov 2, 2004 09:50:07}

If you live in the US, you're a registered citizen, and you've registered to vote, PLEASE GO DO SO! I don't care which way you vote, but please your vote does indeed count, so get on out there!

Haiku Like I Do Winners! {By: Orion - Nov 2, 2004 08:10:28}

Sorry for the slight delay, it took a bit of time sorting out the contest winners. First off, there were a lot of awesome haiku submitted, you guys are a creative bunch of UO players. I'll definatly be doing something like this again.

And the winners are...

Ranguvar of Baja
The Llama saunters,
His thoughts of lush shrubbery,
Then quickly forgets!

The humor in this one is what one me over.

Charon of Baja
Young samurai seen
Healing under the cold moon
Cursing katana.

My weapon of choice has always been a katana in UO, this haiku quickly recalled how many times I have cursed my own katana.

Congrats you two, emails are on the way!

Some honorable mentions for their great haiku are:

Sid of Great Lakes with
Crowds gather about
town crier whispers soft words
chaos brews throughout

Ar-Pharazon of Chesapeake with
Exiled ninja,
In the land of sun and snow,
In search of a home.

Saph'yre of Oceania with
Lich Lords in the dark
In dungeons no seasons pass
Constant, silent, death

Gewurtztraminer of Sonoma with
A warm night at sea
You are already fishing!
Tell me why again?

Tiffiny Case of Atlantic with
Stranger shattered Gem
The Lands under Tyranny
A danger filled realm

Boy I could go on and on, I'll try to get these all copied to a UO Haiku page this week. Again you guys did awesome, by far the best contest I've run to date!

Two more days to Haiku Like I Do! {By: Orion - Oct 29, 2004 04:47:51}

Remember all Haiku submissions must be in by October 31st. You have to midnight that night to get them on in. That gives me a day to read over all the great submissions and then contact the winners to get their addresses so I can forward their copies of UO:SE to them!

UO Storm Chat this Thursday {By: Orion - Oct 25, 2004 12:40:49}

I just got this from TrinityX from UO Ianstorm:

IanStorm is pleased to announce their 14th UOSC (UO StormChat) with EA:Origin. It will take place at 8pm CST (6pm PST, 9pm EST, 1pm AEST, 1am GMT) on, THIS THURSDAY, October 28th in #UOSC.

To access the network, you will need an IRC Client (like mIRC or Pirch) and use one of the following servers:

# irc.ianstorm.com

Don't have an IRC client? Never fear, you can access our network via our Java IRC client, here. If you require help with IRC commands, please see our FAQ.

The topic for this month is General Discussion, so if you have a question to ask, come prepared! We will also be taking questions pertaining to the new expansion, Samurai Empires.

You can access logs of our former chats here.

Hope to see you there!

Haiku Submissions! {By: Orion - Oct 14, 2004 10:17:48}

Man you guys are writing some great Haiku! This is going to be tough. Anyhow keep it up, this is turning out pretty good.

Oh, and to clarify, the contest ends on October 31st, 2004. Not the 1st, sorry about the typo on the haiku contest web page.

Do you Haiku Like I Do? {By: Orion - Oct 13, 2004 03:22:08}

Do you Haiku like I do? Do you have a way with words, well then this contest is for you! It is simple to win, and you can enter
as much as you like. Here is how it works.

The UO Compendium is giving out two (2) copies of UO: Samurai Empires (once it is released of course). You can win them by writing
the best Ultima Online based Haiku. You can read the complete rules on the Haiku Contest page.

It is pretty simple though, write the UO based haiku, send it to me by Oct. 31st, 2004 and if you write a damn good haiku you could win a copy of UO: SE!

So go read the full haiku contest rules and start writing! Send as many haiku as you like, as long as they follow the rules.

UO:SE NDA Lifted {By: Orion - Oct 12, 2004 10:41:31}

Ultima Online: Samurai Empire News Okay guys, the NDA is officially lifted so I can finally talk about UO:SE, and sadly the beta is finished tomorrow morning.

So I was in the beta for umm, a month I think, towards the end. I managed to play a lot as a Ninja and really enjoyed it. I'm not so sure I'll ditch my trusty Paladin ways, but hey you never know. Just a couple of impressions here before I head to bed, more tomorrow with pictures.

- As you may know, there are a lot of new craftables. And yes they are all japanese themed. They look pretty dang nice.

- There are lots of new tile sets for houses. Most of the walls have new windows including stained glass ones. Most of the new tile sets looked good, unfortunatly some of the new ones didn't seem to line up with the old ones right. Could be a beta thing so we'll see. While 99% of them looked awesome a couple looked dorky, like the zen sand garden, definatly could use a bit more texture. But some of the floors really rocked, as do most of the new walls.

- While on the new tile sets, there are some awesome looking roofs coming our way. No more faking it. They do take up a floor, but you can use them as quasi atics, as a beta tester cleverly discovered.

- Being a ninja was fun, but it takes a lot of points in hard skills to raise like stealthing.

- Miners finally get portable forges via a new ridable = pretty damn cool.

- The new lands look sharp and have a great variety, including a couple places w/ new stealable rares.

- PvM'ers will have a great time with the new additions to UO, there are some great things to hunt.

Man I can go on. It's looking to be a great game!

So good in fact that I'll be giving away a couple free copies. But more on that tomorrow also.

House designs like never before. {By: Orion - Oct 7, 2004 09:07:28}

A friend just sent me this link, I didn't get it at first until I looked at the radar window in each screencap.

House Art Like Never Before

I think my favorite is the llama.

Win a copy of UO:SE and a SoulStone! {By: Orion - Oct 7, 2004 05:39:05}

Straight from uo.com:

Do you want a chance to win a free copy of Samurai Empire, including a free Soulstone, and help us improve Ultima Online all at the same time?

All you have to do is log-in to the UOSE Beta test shard and play on Friday, October 8th, between 4:00 � 8:00PM PDT (11:00 � 3:00AM GMT), when we will be conducting a server load test. Sometime during this special test, we will randomly select 5 players who are actively playing (killing monsters, PvP�ing, crafting, etc) in and around the town of Zento in the southern part of the Tokuno Islands to receive :

* A free copy of Ultima Online Samurai Empire.
* A Soulstone code.

The 5 lucky winners will have their prizes delivered after Samurai Empire has launched and is on store shelves November 2. If you win, you will be contacted via email and given instructions on how to claim your prizes. Make sure the email address associated with your Beta account is up to date and accurate!

Tell everyone you know in the Beta to log-in during the play test window on Friday between 4:00 � 8:00 PDT to help with the load test and get a chance to win a free copy of Samurai Empire, including a free Soulstone!

Remember, in order to have a chance to win, you must be logged in at the time that we select the winners and be actively playing in or around the town of ZENTO in southern part of the Tokuno Islands. We will pick the winners any time between 4:00 � 8:00PM PDT. Be sure to engage in normal gameplay for as long as you can during this time to increase your chance of winning!

See you in the Tokuno Islands!

Good luck and see you there!

Fishing {By: Orion - Oct 6, 2004 03:19:28}

Fishing! Boy I love to fish. Really I do, I've got a pretty nice fishing setup, 3 polls, two tackle boxes, one for fresh water and one for salt. There is nothing like reeling in a nice fat rainbow trout.

Oh, I bet you thought I meant fishing in UO. Well I actually did. UO fishing is perfect for me in many ways. It is what I like to call the perfect study companion. I'll get my Calculus out, or perhaps program in C on my tablet, all the while my character is fishing away in the UO seas. Obviously some interaction is needed, but not enough that it detracts from the actual studying. This works out very well for me, since long study periods REALLY suck, and this makes it a bit bearable from time to time.

Anyhow, today I thought I'd share about my fisher, who was my third UO character I ever made. I started him back in '99 and his original skills were just fishing and enough magery to recall home. Fishing back then was extremely easy, maps and MIBs just popped into your backpack. You just sailed north fishing and the occasional sea serpent that popped up once you reach 80 fishing would stay well behind you and eventually disappear. This is what I call the hay day of fishing. I'd start fishing and an hour later I'd have 8 or so MIB's which I could sell for a cool 20k each!

Not too long after I GM'ed fishing (which I did on a bridge in Vesper) they made it so each time you got a MIB a sea monster would pop up, again, no problem, this resolution lasted if I remember right, just a few days or weeks. Soon OSI got smart and made it so you had to fight off the sea monster to get the loot. Boy do I remember the complaints from my fishing friends. But really it only helped the game, by that time the value of a MIB was around 5k because of the glut of MIBs on the market. So in many ways I welcomed the change.

So where does fishing stand today? Well pretty good actually. It definitely is not THE way to make money anymore, that is for sure, but it is still a fun way. Of course you have to be willing to have dry spells while fishing. Yesterday, during a very long bit of calculus I fished from 3:00pm to 4:35pm and only had 4 sea serpents spawn for me. I managed to get 1 SOS, 1 T-map, and 1 Net. Unfortunately one spawned with nothing on it. Now do you see why it's perfect for me? I basically fished for one and a half hours and only fought 4 monsters, so UO really only took up about 10 minutes total. Not too bad.

Of course later that night I went fishing again and managed to get 14 sea serpents in about the same amount of time. I managed to get 6 T-maps, and 4 SOS's. Four of the stupid sea serpents carried zilch on them. Again, it only took up about 15 minutes to fight all these monsters with my fisher. Not too bad.

So how do I fish? Well first off I use UOAssist quite extensively. Why? Because my object when I fish, is to play UO and at the same time do something else at my desk. Remember, it isn't against the rules of UO to macro as long as you are at your computer. So I do exactly that. My macro for UO Assist looks like this:

Use Item
Target relative
Pause 9000

That's it, of course it repeats quite a bit, so I don't have to hold down the play button all the time. I also do something else. I fish in four resource squares at once. As you may know, the landmass of UO is divided up into 8 tile by 8 tile squares. These resource squares are why mining spots may not have ore for a time, why you may find a group of trees next to each other out of wood to chop (that always makes me laugh), and why when you're out fishing a spot doesn't have any fish to catch. So if you can place yourself at the point where 4 squares meet then you can fish four resource squares at a time, and rarely find yourself getting a message about no fish to be caught.

Another reason I like UOAssist is the "Stack ore/fish/logs" feature. You can have UOAssist automatically stack the fish at your feet this way. Just put down a few at your feet and UOA will automatically add the newly caught fish to those stacks. It's very helpful when you're managing piles of 900+ fish.

Now I have tried many templates for fishing and I honestly thing that the best fishing template is the archer/paladin. When combat was forced upon fishers I tried out a variety of things, swords just don't work, you have to open up the gang plate to fight the serpents. And to make matters worse you take physical damage from the serpents as well. It's just a quick trip to the monotone lands of grey. Magery was nice, but rather costly to acquire to make battles quick and simple, so I ditched my magery down to 50 or so and went with Archery. Now I have completely dropped Magery for Chivalry, as Enemy of One is devastating combined with a good bow of some sort.

So what stats do I suggest? Well here they are:

GM Fishing
Duh, you can't do a dang thing with that pole until you know how to use it. I guess that can be said about many things...

GM Archery
By far the best way to kill a sea serpent. You can stand in the middle of your boat and not have to worry about being hit with physical attacks. Of course their fire attacks are a different story.

GM Tactics & GM Anatomy
These two go hand in hand with combat skills, you just have to have them.

80 Healing
Being able to apply a band aid is much better than relying on the paladin healing abilities. You get a much better bang for your buck. I don't GM healing, as I'd rather use the extra 20 points elsewhere.

70 Chivalry
Enemy of one is your main paladin buddy. It just rocks, add in the ability to recall, consecrate weapon, healing, cure abilities and the rest of the paladin arsenal, and you are all set. I only ever have 70 chivalry on my characters, it's enough to cast EoO easily and your other main paladin abilities.

Sub 100 Hiding and Sub 100 Magic Resistance
All of my characters have some way to hide. I'm a full time student and a parent. I need a quick way to get out of the game FAST! So I often have 90+ hiding and whatever else I can afford goes into Magic Resistance to make those hold spells be as short as possible, etc.

That sums up my fisher pretty well. In actuality he's a good overall warrior. I can take him out to a lot of places and he's pretty good against the Kraken when I'm fishing up nets. Being able to use a band aid well and use Chivalry to heal myself is a must. Which reminds me, my fisher has 51 Int. This way I can keep EoO going and still cure and heal myself. I don't bother with using the special attacks.

Well I guess that sums things up. In some ways this is an essay about fishing, in another way it is apparently about how I have poor study habits, but really it's just one of my rambles about a feature in UO I enjoy.

Oh BTW: I don't condone AFK macroing. It's just stupid, you're not playing the game. But if you want to try it while fishing, go right ahead, you'll find you die rather quickly. =P

UO House of Commons Chat. {By: Orion - Oct 6, 2004 01:42:15}

A new UO:HoC chat is tomorrow night (the 7th of October) at 5PM PDT (7PM CDT) on the stratics network. Here is the important stuff:

The next UO House of Commons Open House chat between the players and developers of UO is scheduled for tomorrow night, October 7th, at 5 PM PDT (7 PM CDT, 8 PM EDT).

The chat will be available at #uohoc on Stratics IRC, on the following networked servers:

irc.stratics.com 6667
stratics.frws.com 6667
irc.glowfish.de 6667
irc.epaxsys.net 6667
stratics.afraidyet.net 6667

This month's topic is Samurai Empire. Remember that this is a development chat, and as such only questions relating to the monthly topic will be answered.

If you are new to these chats, please visit the UO House of Commons webpage for information on how it all works.

See you guys there.

New Poll! {By: Orion - Oct 3, 2004 05:30:51}

Okay, so my last post got me thinking. Where do you guys hunt the most? No not hunt for bargains at the WBB, but get out and do some PvM. I spend a lot of time in Ilshenar, ever since I found the lich and lich lord spawn I've spent 90% of my PvM time in Ilshenar, the overlands have a lot of great areas, from Titans to the Undead, it's just a great place. Now everyone and their beetle is spending time in Ilshenar so I'm spending time elsewhere mostly, but I'm sure as time goes on people will spread back out.

So where do you get your game on? Let us know by selecting a choice in the poll on the right.

Mmmm, mini artifacts. {By: Orion - Oct 1, 2004 10:54:35}

I have to say I am really enjoying the paragons in Ilshenar. While I haven't spent a lot of time hunting them I have been lucky so far. I do a lot of solo hunting so I tend not to be facing a paragon dragon very often (if at all) I've mainly focused on the paragon ratmen near the Compassion moongate. The other night while out saving a buddy of mine who had died to a paragon ratmen archer I managed to land myself my first good piece from a paragon.

The image on the left is my main character Orion Do'Meric (Sonoma). The Blaze of Death is a pretty nice weapon. The SSI of 25% and the hit fire area 50% make it a wonderful weapon. Add on top of that the 10% fire resist and it's cake. While it's not on par with say a full fledge doom artifact I am very happy with it and tonight I used it to kill a couple more paragon ratmen.

I was out cleaning up the rat menance when I managed to have two paragons spawn right after eachother. It was quite the run. The paragon ratmen archer kept running away from me while the paragon ratmen mage kept running after me with its cursed spells. Thankfully both my fire and energy resists are very high. I almost managed to kill both of them, I had the archer to no blue left and worked on the mage till I killed him. By the time I killed the mage another group of warriors came by with a dragon and killed it. It was an "ahh damn" situation, but as luck had it I pounded that thing to have looting rights. I gave half the gold to the guys who finished it off (it had healed a bit) and there were not any cool items on it.

So that's my big paragon story. I haven't been spending a lot of time on these guys mostly because the current story arc going on Sonoma has Orc Brutes out and about in Yew and Cove. So I have been spending quite a bit of time working them over with my Orc Slayer Katana and my 70 physical resist. They really are right up my Paladin's skill set. The loot is pretty good on them as is the gold. I'd give it a 4 out of 5 while a ratmen mage would get like a 2.5 out of 5.

Also in that picture you'll notice I'm wearing two 7AE gifts. I was tempted by the tapestry, but really what do I do in UO? I bash stuff. So I went with the Samurai Helm and the Royal Legs of Ember. Both are pretty good items. I have the Helm of Insite doom rare that I switch back and forth with when I want more mana. But all in all I'm pretty happy. Really my character looks kinda dorky right now with that orange, the AOS surcoat I got is the exact same color, so with that black and orange them I'm kinda in the October mood. Go figure.

Soulstones! {By: Orion - Sep 29, 2004 02:29:27}

Ultima Online: Samurai Empire News I know a LOT of people who really have been wanting to get their hands on one of these soulstones. And finally the cat is out of the bag, soulstones are the next "shrowd of shadows". That's right, if you preorder UO: Samurai Empires you get a code for a soulstone. Anyways here's what OSI has to say:

From UO.com
Soulstones give you the power to change your character without losing your work!

When you pre-order Ultima Online Samurai Empire from a participating retailer, you�ll get a Soulstone, an amazing in-game device that gives you the power to store skill points or to move skill points from one character to another.

A Soulstone gives you a great deal of flexibility in managing your characters� abilities without losing the skill points you worked so hard to get!

They have a nice little FAQ and a list of participating retailers, you just need to give the link above a click.

Be there or be square! {By: Orion - Sep 29, 2004 02:23:53}

Ultima Online: Samurai Empire News In just two hours the UO: Samurai Empires test server will be back online for play! It'll be on from 4pm to 8pm PST for stress test. To encourage everyone to get online and actively play they're giving away some cool stuff too!

From FYI @ uo.com
Win a house on Tokuno Islands, a Soulstone and a free copy of Samurai Empire! Play in the beta test!

Want to build a castle on one of the large, scenic housing lots on the Tokuno Islands? Here�s how!

Play in the beta test on Sept. 29 between 4:00 � 8:00PM PDT (11:00 � 3:00AM GMT), when we will be conducting server load testing. During this playtest window, we will randomly select 5 UOSE beta testers, who are actively playing on the test server, to receive:

* An 18x18 house plot on the Tokuno Islands on the shard of their choice.
* A free copy of Ultima Online Samurai Empire.
* A Soulstone code.

All the prizes will be delivered after Samurai Empire has launched and is on store shelves November 2. If you win, you will be contacted via email and given instructions on how to claim your prizes.

Tell everyone you know in the Beta to log-in during the playtest window on Wednesday between 4:00 � 8:00 PDT to help with the load test and get a chance to win. See you on Tokuno!

Seems like a pretty sweet deal to me. =)

UO Compendium is 3 (as of last June). {By: Orion - Sep 25, 2004 12:05:48}

I just realized the 3rd anniversary of this little UO site came and went last June. Kinda cool in a way. Three years, not too bad for a hobby.

2 Points to OSI! -1 Point to them too. {By: Orion - Sep 24, 2004 01:56:19}

Okay, read below first, then come back here.

So I went to the support site and at the top is an article named "I'm having an issue with my in-game gift!". I read it AND it solves my problems, apparently I just need to log back in and log back out.

Okay, I just did so and I've got my choice screen again.

Great! Give OSI 2 points for doing it right! But -1 point for the following reasons. How hard was it for GM_Wolf to just say "You will find your answer at support.uo.com, it is on the top of the "10 Most Viewed Articles" list, in the future please check here first as we are honestly putting in a huge effort into this site".

There, then they would have gotten the full 2 points, and they would have made me aware that the support.uo.com site isn't lame anymore, that it actually has support questions that are useful. They are obviously putting an effort into this site which is VERY cool, and obviously want to raise awareness. They just come off like the old OSI when they try to raise that awareness.

Warning about 7th Anniverary Codes {By: Orion - Sep 24, 2004 01:38:52}

Okay, I just learned this the hard way. I'm writing to you as I wait in the help queue (number 23 now). Anyhow, today, like many of you probably, I received my 7th annivsary code to receive one of the 7th anniversary gifts. I followed the instructions to enter my code in game, and when I got to the screen with all the options I realized I had forgotten what I wanted. So I clicked the option to "cancel". Then I went to the link above, read over everything and went back in game and entered my code. To find it is now being counted as USED! Even though I never selected anything.

Here is the message that popped up informating of this.

PROMO_AGENT tells Orion Do'Meric: Promotion redemption failed: specified promotion code has already been used. Please contact a Game Master if you need additional support.

So I'll write back to you all letting you know what happened. I'm #19 in the queue now, make sure you know what you want before you use your code!

Update:
Okay, so the GM staff is not even remotely helpful. Here is the message I got in game (obviously rather generic).

GM_Wofl tells Orion Do'Meric: Greetings, though we appreciate your page, this issue does not require the presence of an in-game GM. In-game support addresses only game impeding concerns that can be resolved on the spot. For this issue it is appropriate to make use of our web support. We handdle all manners of concern via our web based support, and you will find that using these sites keeps you more informed and increases your overall enjoyment of UO. I am going to provide you with the info for a few areas we find help the most.

Our Knowledge Base at support.uo.com has a searchable format and covers all aspects of UO. Use the keyword search to find your information or select the "Find Answers" link and do an advanced search with categories and sub-categories.

The Playguide has very useful information that explains different aspects of UO from beginning to end.

Honestly, we find that your fellow players are an incredible source of information. We always recommend reading or posting on our Official forums. Please keep in mind that we only sanction the forums on this site. All other information on this site is posted independently and thus is not official or guaranteed. We maintain all of our official documentation in the play guide and Support Knowledge Base mentioned above.

If these sites just aren't resolving this for you please return to support.uo.com and send us an email using the Ask a Question form there. Our same staff that handled your in-game requests will address your query as soon as possible.

Thank you for allowing us the time to get to those players in-game that needs hands-on assistance. We appreciate this very much, as do your fellow players who are awaiting a GM. Take care.

Well that sucks, off to "Ask a Question" and pray I get a reply. It's by the "same staff", so why can't it be done in game via message? Eh, whatever, I just want my code fixed, I'll jump through the hoopes as requested I suppose.

More UO: Samurai Empire Beta Codes {By: Orion - Sep 20, 2004 02:13:49}

Ultima Online: Samurai Empire News If you tried to nab a beta code for UO:SE and found they were unavailable then you better head back over to FilePlanet and get one quick becaues more codes are in stock!

From FYI @ uo.com
FilePlanet has been replenished with a new batch of codes for the Ultima Online Samurai Empire Limited Open Beta. Head on over to FilePlanet and get your code while they last!

Don�t forget to check the UOSE Beta Test F.A.Q. Here for information about the beta.

Good luck!

Have you had a beta today? {By: Orion - Sep 17, 2004 09:19:51}

Ultima Online: Samurai Empire News Come one, come all (limited numbers available) to the UO: Samurai Empires Limited Open Beta Test!.

Head over to FilePlanet to download the UOSE Beta client and get your Beta test upgrade code to join Phase 2 of the Ultima Online Samurai Empire Beta test! There are a limited number of slots available, so get your code today!

You will need to have a FilePlanet account in order to download the file and get your code, but you can register at the link above.

For information regarding the UOSE Beta, please visit our UOSE Beta Test F.A.Q. page.

Please note that this is a Beta test and you will experience bugs and downtime. Please report any issues with a detailed description to UOSEbeta@ea.com.

Please note that there is an NDA with this, it's not open as in you can talk about it to anyone and everyone. Also once you get in the beta head over to UOLS.net for their semi-official beta forums (semi-official because that's all there is and the devs have said it's okay, hehe). Thanks UOLS for putting up some great forums for this. Read the link above about how to get access to the forums.

Publish 27 - Can it get any better? {By: Orion - Sep 15, 2004 02:34:46}

Man, what a great end to my summer! Sorry for the lack of updates this last month, I have been busy riding my mountain bike over anything and everything, went to the mandatory summer weddings, and went on a great camping trip. Beyond that I'm working on a lot of new projects right now with my company, so fun projects, or ones that don't make a lot of $$$ tend to get the back burner. Anyways, that's my "How I spent my summer" report.

Now, onto the good stuff. Publish 27. All I can say is wow, this is a great publish, more than enough for me to ignore the length between publishes for sure. You can of course see the complete details of Publish 27 on FYI @ uo.com, so I'll just be covering my favorites.

� Serpent Pillar Restoration. Wow, it only took two years, but at least they are back. I for one love this feature of the seas and really missed them. But not nearly as much as much as the Admiral has.

� Fishing Enhancements From the new Leviathan, to fabled fishing nets, to sea serpents and deep sea serpents being susceptible to snake and reptile weapons and instruments, fishing has received a HUGE bonus. That's without even taking into account ancient fishing nets!

� Paragon Creatures Well the champ spawns in Ilshenar didn't get fixed like I wanted, but hey we've got new creatures to fight. Well the old creatures, just rehued but with higher stats and sweet minor artifacts. A nice touch indeed to attract people to Ilshenar.

There are lots of other things, but the above 3 items are by far the big ones in opinion. All in all, it's a great publish.

Decline in UO Subscribers? {By: Orion - Aug 3, 2004 12:12:41}

Could it be that the number of UO's subscribers has dropped over 70k? From what used to be 225k subscribers to around 153k subscribers? Apparently Alyssa W. of stratics delved into the latest quarterly reports from EA to find this staggering figure (page 14).

You can find more info over at UOPG (thanks Nevyn).

Take into account how many people have multiple accounts and 153k players seems even crazier. Also keep in mind, when was the last time a UO Dev said how many subscribers were out there.

I imagine there is always a lull in subscribers between new expansions, and that with the next expansion they'll pick up more players, but these numbers certainly explain why all these new gimics to get new players are out there.

UO:SE Preview at GameSpy {By: Orion - Aug 2, 2004 02:24:59}

There is a UO: Samurai Empire preview over at GameSpy right now.

Samurai Empire begins, naturally enough, with the introduction of the Samurai. This long-awaited class looks pretty cool, dressed in tradtional ceramic armor and wielding one of many new Japanese-inspired weapons that will be included in the expansion. Since Britannia is a world of magic as well as martial prowess, player-Samurai will be able to wield up to eight fantastic new abilities stemming from their study of the art of Bushido. Some of these new abilities include "Honorable Execution" which gives the player a chance to kill a foe with one blow, "Lightning Strike", a blindingly fast move with a 50 percent greater of hitting, and "Whirlwind" which increases the Samurai's abilities the more foes he fights.

I suppose this starts the media blitz. Woo.

24% of you are happier {By: Orion - Jul 21, 2004 11:56:29}

So for those 24% who don't use IE, you'll obviously see that I finally fixed the site! I'm ashamed to say I've used IE until about a month ago, when my laziness to switch browsers was finally beaten down by FireFox, a really slick browser that has built into it google search, tabbed browsing, and a pop up blocker. And best of all it's not so vulnerable to the numerous exploits that seem to browbeat IE. Also it's just as clean looking as IE and will import your favorites, cookies, etc right on over without a hitch.

Just in case you missed the link two posts down you can get FireFox a Mozilla browser right here: http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

MrTact: No 3D Perspective Change {By: Orion - Jul 20, 2004 07:11:46}

You may ask why I think the following is good news.

Actually the argument doesn't have anything to do with game balance, it has to do with the fact that with a first-person view, you can see to the horizon, which might cause you to see enough dynamic objects to swamp your network connection.

In any case, UO is a top-down game. If we were ever to do an updated client, I doubt we would change the perspective.

MrTact

Well it is good news. UO really is a top-down game, and one of the benefits is less system lag and network lag. There are all sorts of benefits really. However, I have to say no hint at any graphic improvements is disappointing. I'm sure my new video card I'm ordering could do an awesome job in an all 3D environment. I can hope at least.

UOC Updates {By: Orion - Jul 20, 2004 10:55:16}

Well about a month ago I switched away from using Internet Explorer to using FireFox a mozilla browser, I've quickly fallen in love with it as a browser. But dang this site looks funky with it! I obviously need to work on my style sheet. About 24.2% of you use a browser other than IE, you guys are obviously a patient crowd since no one has mentioned how funky this site looks without IE. So I'll be touching up the HTML on the site to accomodate alternate browsers, in hopes that everyone will ditch IE. If you're interested in FireFox (it really rocks as browsers go) you can download it at http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/.

Okay upwards and onwards. Obviously I have yet to say anything about the new expansion for UO, well I DO have lots to say, and lots to write. Quickly, I think it looks cool, sadly though it doesn't seem to have a new 3D client with it, perhaps they just haven't done any of that stuff yet, I can hope though. My main two comments are:

1. The samuri kill thingy, I hope that doesn't have ANYTHING to do with PVP and that in PVM it's like a you loose all HP and Mana but like 1 pt each for 30 seconds and it only works .01% of the time. Who knows, maybe it won't be as insanly unbalancing as it sounds (though it does sound pretty cool).

2. Housing. Please don't do a land sprawl, place trees and what not to break the house clusters up! Malas sucks because of this. My house is in Malas and I feel like I live in downtown urban UO (minus the gangs I suppose).

Oh, and I like spawn next to my house thanks, so feel free to do that (I know that's like the #1 thing people in UO don't want, but I can always hope).

More later. =)

UXO Discontinued! {By: Orion - Jun 30, 2004 07:56:34}

For crying out loud! What is it with EA and canceling UO sequels!!!

Today, the decision was made to discontinue the production of Ultima X: Odyssey. This was done in order focus resources and talent on Ultima Online, the upcoming expansion, and an unannounced Ultima Online project.

�With Ultima Online thriving, and with plans for its future taking shape, we made the decision to focus all our resources on that game world,� said Anthony Castoro, producer of Ultima Online. �We look forward to making more exciting announcements about Ultima Online very soon.�

Binky - Online Community Manager - All Things Ultima

More later when I'm not so angry. You can rant at EA here where Binky posted this.

My Unofficial 7AE FAQ {By: Orion - Jun 21, 2004 10:03:49}

Okay, so I was getting tired of not really having a clue what 7AE meant to UO. I know it comes with Ultima IX: Ascension, and some new gifts, but I wasn't sure who got them and how. I looked at the UO site and it described stuff, but I found that the UO forums had even more info, if you were willing to search for it. So being the nice guy I am I decided to help you out and fill in some blanks. ;-)

My Unofficial Ultima Online 7th Anniversary Edition FAQ

Corpnews interviews Sunsword. {By: Orion - Jun 19, 2004 01:07:13}

There is a new interview over at the Corporation. It's actually a good interview with more abstract questions then about particulars in UO. Here's a snipit:

Corpnews.com: When the 7th anniversary box is released, it will have been almost a year since the monthly subscription fee has been raised. In that year, there has been zero new retail boxes, and five content publishes (we're ignoring the for-pay only character transfer publish) at about one every two and a half months. Are there any specific changes being enacted to prove to your subscribers and any potential subscribers that the new fee has been and will be worth it?

Sunsword: The increased service fee was a business reality. We didn�t increase the cost of running the service because we intended to provide �X� new features. We increased the service fee because over the 7 years of operating the service, it�s gotten more expensive. That said, the UO development team is currently bigger than it was during the Age of Shadows development cycle, the live service has a separate team dedicated to updates and up-keep, and there are now more GM�s on staff than there were a year ago. We certainly have plans that when announced will reinforce our commitment to UO in the public�s eye.

You can read the rest here.

Updated Links Section {By: Orion - Jun 13, 2004 07:12:59}

Hi all, I made an update to the BOD Trading links in the links section today. I've added the uo-bodsexchange.m6.net to this section. It's a newer BOD trading site that needs users, but since some of the older BOD trading sites are either gone or not currently available definatly give the new guy on the block a try. One nice feature it seems is that bod's entered expire, so you're not going to get stuck looking at stale BOD's.

Hanse on Intelligence Stat {By: Orion - Jun 10, 2004 03:32:50}

Hanse had the following to say about max Intelligence when someone asked recently, on the Ultima Online Newsgroup", what the max you can get is.

I'm not changing the stat caps. With a +25 stat scroll and items (+8 ring and +8 bracelet), you can get your intelligence up to 141. You can temporarily get it higher than that, as well. The maximum is 250, but that is not achievable through any method currently in the game.

With mana items, you can extend your mana another +12 (2 per armor piece
- shields do not get this bonus). This can get your mana up to 153
without temporary effects.

The Helm of Brilliance has an intelligence +8 bonus and a mana increase of +15. That would allow max 149 int (you get +1% damage for every 10 int) and max 174 mana. It also has lower mana cost of +8 and mana regeneration of +2. Most mages don't use it because you can't meditate in it. It's good for paladins, though!

Divine countenance has a +8 intelligence bonus, lower mana cost 8%, and
mana regeneration +2. It's not as good as the helm. It would allow max
149 int, though.

The most popular of the artifacts is the Hat of the Magi, of course. +8 int, +4 mana regen, +10% damage increase, with a couple extra (but good) resistances (+15 energy and +15 poison). It gets you up to max 149 int with a higher regeneration than Divine Countenance...

So, the highest without temporary effects is 149 intelligence and 174 mana. Although, it's doubtful a mage would use that helm.

- Hanse
UO Designer

Then a slight correction to what he just said:

I meant to say the +10% damage increase on the hat of the magi to be spell damage increase. Just want to make sure there's no confusion. :P

Thanks Hanse, that's some useful information!

Patch Day {By: Orion - Jun 9, 2004 12:40:20}

It's been a bit since the last client patch, and they've been up to a lot (end saracasm)

Both the 2D and 3D Game Client
- New art for the 7th Anniversary gifts
- Support for a sixth character slot
- Localization updates
- Players will no longer be able to bypass the EA and UO logo screens when starting the UO client.

2D Client
- Fixed a client crash issue related to Archery

The bold item is my doing, I can't believe they even bothered with this. Seriously, do they think gamers give a flying fig? I know it's not something the UO devs probalby wanted to add, I'm sure it came from EA. But sheesh! You think that when a guy looses connection he wants to watch those HORRIBLE annimation. Which by the way have never played properly on my AMD 2000+, 1GB ram, ATI 9500 Pro system.

Oh, and if you, like me, can't stand the intro movies, just navigate to your Music directory within the UO directory and rename the three .bik files.

Okay enough of the trash talk, kudos for fixing an archery bug!

Happy Memorial Day {By: Orion - May 31, 2004 12:24:35}

Here in the US it's a time of celebration to honor those who have served our countries military. This is a somewhat interesting time for me, having grown up with my dad in the US Navy, and one grandfather serving in the Europe front of WW2 and another grandfather serving in the Pacific front of WW2. I think about how my grandfathers served my country to help others and I think how my own Dad while never seeing combat spent 21 years in the Navy. Myself, I have never served in any of the armed forces, but none the less I feel an extreme pride for my countries soldiers.

This gets me to my point. Regardless of your thoughts on today�s current military actions please remember those who served and serve your country, they've put themselves in harms way and they disserve your respect.

UO 7th Anniversary {By: Orion - May 22, 2004 11:59:03}

Wow, UO's been around for almost 7 years?! WHEW, time does fly. To notice this special event EA is coming out with a special 7th Anniversary Edition of UO. While it doesn't include any major additions to UO, it does give the following:

- New items for those who buy it (You get 1 of the 7 items they'll add I guess).
- A 6th character slot.
- A copy of Ultima IX (apparently it's been remastered, so does that mean it'll run? WOO!)
- 7 Buddy registration codes & other misc stuff.

For $20 bucks it doesn't really sound like a ton, but none the less it'll sell well, I kinda think the 6th character slot is worth $20 bucks. Anyhow the biggest/best part about this box is that it'll put UO back on the game shelves! I always see DAoC and EQ, but never a UO box, I've lemented for a while, and wondered why EA didn't do something, I guess they finally got it. =)

Anyhow, I guess we'll find out more Thursday the 27th.

I just talked to Richard Garriot {By: Orion - May 12, 2004 06:06:52}

My good friend Casey just called me from the floor of E3 and who should he put on the phone to talk with me?! None other than Richard Garriot! Hehe, true it was more of a hi, nice to talk to you conversation of all of 30 seconds, but still, woo hoo!

Publish 24 News {By: Orion - May 12, 2004 01:29:09}

Just in case you missed it the details of Publish 24 are as follows:

Gameplay
� Players with max Valor points will no longer be inundated with the "You have achieved the highest path in Valor and can no longer gain any further" message at Champion spawns.
� Saplings will no longer impede movement.
� Changed pack animal looting. All objects placed on a pack animal will NOT fall into one bag should the creature die.
� Peacemaking will now decrease uses remaining on instruments.
� Fixed an issue with cutting a large number of bolts of cloth that would result in a stack that exceeds the maximum amount allowed.
� Fixed an issue with combining ore that would result in a stack that exceeds the maximum amount allowed.
� Young players will have their "young" tags properly displayed on their item properties again.
� Fixed the ability to gain magic resist above 90.0 on Siege Perilous.
� Fixed an issue that caused victims to not be cleared properly from a player's "aggressor victim list" once the victim has been dispatched, which could impede the player's ability to instantly log out, recall, use gates, or re-enter his home (with the new house fighting balance changes - see below).

Game Balance
� Increased the spell delay of Holy Light to 1.25 seconds.
� Increased the spell delay of Wither to 1.25 seconds.
� Added a 3 second remount delay for bola usage.
� As part of the house fighting balance change, players will no longer be able to enter a house if they attack another player that is not in their guild or in a warring guild.
� Murderers can now enter guard zones on non-Siege ruleset shards (Only in Felucca).

Service Improvements
� Higher bandwidth efficiency for spell casting and item properties.
� Anti-speedhacking improvements

Well it's not a huge publish, but a couple things do stand out. I applaud all efforts to stamp out speed hacking, so that's really cool to see. And of course seeing the poor bluggers on Siege finally being able to 90.0 magic resist is very good to see. I'm very much for murders being able to go into guard zones in Felucca, I'm pretty sure that came about by player request, so that's very cool.

The rest are okay, nothing that doesn't sit well with me at least, so I suppose this publish gets an A-, hehe. Not that it matters. =)

The US shards should be going down right about how to get this patch, so in a couple hours we should be able to see how the patch goes.

Farewell Alai {By: Orion - Mar 31, 2004 05:57:54}

Ahh man, Alai won't be staying with OSI. Alai was the oldest member on the UO team, and I've interviewed him not once but twice.

Well, it has been almost six years, but it appears that my long tenure working on UO is finally coming to an end. This is a mixed blessing as I have been caring for the game for so long it is hard to let go. On the other hand, I am looking forward to seeing what comes next � besides perhaps a vacation. I started working at Origin while I was still in college and my time here has been the bulk of my working life thus far. I feel very much like I am about to take the step into discovering what the afterlife is like. It is both a scary and an exhilarating prospect.

I started on UO when it was still a young game with less then 100,000 players. I started as a world building intern and rose through the ranks over the years: World Builder, Designer/Scripter, Programmer, Lead Client Programmer and finally Associate Producer. I have worked on countless projects; some of them were big initiatives and some of them were little �weekend� features I probably should have gotten in trouble for. I have worked in the trenches and led teams to success. I lost some battles, but won most. In all, it was a good run - but I don�t think I�m going to have the patience to oust Sunsword out of the Producer spot. It�s a shame; I would have liked to try being at the wheel for a bit.

Chief amongst the bittersweet aspects of leaving now is the enormous potential of the projects the dev team is currently working on. Sunsword has invigorated EA�s interest in our game and now EA is starting to really invest in it. Moving to Redwood Shores should also help the team in accomplishing its ambitious goals. The Live team now has a chance to realize possibilities and execute on projects that were never before feasible. I hope that these initiatives meet their full potential; if they do, UO will truly experience a renaissance period of unprecedented value, fun, and quality. I will be sorry not to be a part of it.

I hope the dev team and the players will still see fit to keep me nearby. I would hate to find myself without all the friends I have made over these many years. But just in case �

Farewell and thank you. It has been a pleasure.

-- Alai
Associate Producer, UOLive

Well Alai, thanks for taking your time out and answering interview questions. Good luck on that vacation and future products.

Sunsword on the OSI Move {By: Orion - Mar 31, 2004 05:52:40}

My inbox was graced with the presence of a UO newsletter. These things come out rather randomly it seems. Anyhow, Sunsword used the letter to commend on the move. It's a pretty generic letter, but it's a good one none the less. It's nice hearing from the top that things are a-okay. Especially for something you shell out 12+ a month for.

As you probably know, the Origin studio is moving to EA headquarters in Redwood Shores, CA. I know that there has been much concern about how this will affect UO and UXO, so I want to clear a few things up and answer some questions you might have.

First off, I am completely committed to Ultima Online and its citizens. The moment I heard about this change, I knew I would make the move to the San Francisco area to continue the important work of improving and growing UO.

In addition, I am pleased to announce that we have been able to keep almost every key UO team member and they are busy getting ready to move game operations (and their homes and families) to Redwood City. This team will eventually become the largest UO development team since the original game shipped. Moving to Silicon Valley will help tremendously in recruiting the talent we need to take UO into the future.

I'm also excited by what the UXO team is working on. Seeing that game in action, and knowing what we have planned for UO, makes me confident that the Ultima legacy of online adventure will continue to grow for years to come.

Please keep watching the website for the latest news and updates. There are some amazing announcements on the horizon. Meanwhile, see you Britannia!

Anthony "SunSword" Castoro
Producer, Ultima Online

If you're not already signed up for the UO Newsletter from OSI you can do so here.

Gamezone Interviews Sunsword {By: Orion - Mar 30, 2004 01:49:18}

There is an interview of Sunsword done by GameZone up right now. It's a pretty broad interview, covering quickly the new expansion, what makes UO great, and it seems they wanted Sunsword to give away all the reason why UO still rocks. I don't know, it just seemed they wanted trade secrets or something. lol

Q: UO has definitely seen its share of expansions, all of which have added to the game experience. Is there anything in the works for another expansion? Will UO be undergoing any facelifts in terms of interface or graphics in the future?

Anthony: As you probably know by now, yes, there is an expansion in the works. It focuses on a new unified PvP system, 2 new professions, as well as introduces a new aspect of the world with an Asian influence, complete with new land, weapons, and house customization options! Will UO undergo a facelift? Remaining visually competitive is critical to UO's long-term success, however I also recognize that many of our fans still prefer the 2D style of graphics. If we do "upgrade" UO's visuals, we'll have to carefully balance our current players' desires against those of our potential audience.

Tin Foil Hats {By: Orion - Mar 30, 2004 01:24:59}

I like how Sunsword sums things up on this stupid Americans getting banned issue. Straight and too the point ... don't be stupid idjits.

Okay everyone, take off the tin-foil hats.

Our Japanese GM's are extremely professional and curteous. They are not banning American players for being American. While it is possible that some players have been banned or jailed as a result of a mis-understanding, I guarantee that there is no policy nor pattern of banning foreign players. Any GM doing so would be fired.

If it happens to you let us know, but somehow, I'm guessing it won't.

Anthony Castoro
"SunSword"
Producer, Ultima Online

Seriously, do you guys think GM's would ban you for being an American on an Asian shard? That's a bit over the top. I, knowing a few red necks, could see a stupid idjit mouthing off and getting himself banned on an Asian shard. But then, that's perfectly acceptable, and not because he's an American. But perhaps because I'm not wearing a tin foil hat Sunsword is manipulating my words...

Character Transfer, Housing, and Veteran Rewards Services Unavailable {By: Orion - Mar 30, 2004 01:21:57}

Hot off the presses of FYI @ UO.com:

The Character Transfer, Housing, and Veteran Rewards services are currently unavailable. There is no current ETA on when they will return to service, but we are working diligently on the issue and will have them back as soon as possible.

Until the services are available again, players will not be able to place new houses, trade houses, or set houses as Primary. Those houses that are already Condemned through normal means (due to the owner having recently placed or been traded a newer house, or having set a Primary house) will still continue to decay. Players will also not be able to claim any new Veteran Rewards, and the account ages displayed on your characters' journals will not update properly until the Vet Rewards system is restored to service.

We will be keeping a close eye on the Character Transfer system, but do not expect any issues to arise due to the downtime. Players that are currently in the middle of the Character Transfer process should be able to continue the process once the service is back up.

As always, we appreciate your patience and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. We will post again once we have more information.

Today in UO {By: Orion - Mar 29, 2004 08:02:06}

So I thought I'd post some news, and since it seemed the devs were talkitive today I figured I'd do a journal type of news post and summarize the highlights all at once.

Hanse needs your feedback on how skill gain should be handled on Test Sosaria.

With publish 24, we're not addressing skill gain issues on non-Siege shards (magic resist skill is being fixed for SP and Mugen above 90, though).

What we'd like to know is if you folks would prefer keeping the current system configured as if it is a live shard without the "set" command for skills/stats or not. We've seen a good deal of complaints to set it up as a test center instead of a production shard.

I have a feeling that many folks would not like to see it wiped, as some folks have established themselves on there. This is up for discussion, though.

Also, we'd like to see feedback on the bolo change.

Hanse
- UO Live Designer

No, according to Platinum you won't get banned for being an American playing on an asian shard.

I wanted to take the time to comment on this issue and clarify some things regarding recent posts made by players that they were banned for simply playing on the Asian Shards. The GMs will only take action against a player in the game when they have violated our Terms of Service and Rules of Conduct. We will not take unnecessary action against an American player simply because they decide to play on an Asian shard. I have reviewed all of the suspensions and terminations that were done over the last several days and I do not find anything that looks out of the ordinary. If someone feels this has happened to them and wishes to provide me with a specific example I would be happy to look into the situation further. Please send all details to platinum@uo.com. In addition, please send the User ID of your account however do not send your password as EA employees will never ask for this information.

Platinum
Customer Service Manager
EA Player Relations

Hanse discusses some Archery stuff. Read that as nothing is going to happen right now, and possibly nothing in Publish 25. Though something could possibly happen in Publish 25, hehe. Really, I'd love to see Archery tweaked again, they say it's a skill not used by as many people, so not as much attention goes into it, but isn't that a catch-22? It's broken, doesn't work all that great, but perhaps if they spent time on it more people would use it? *shrugs* I just know my Archer is quite valuable when it's time to kill Sea Monsters.

Hmmm, we've discussed runics for bows, but never given any final word on them. MrTact has outlined ideas that we'd like to do, but we have not committed to them. "We'd like to do ..." means we're unsure if we will.

As for other archery issues, we'll have more information on publish 25 when we get closer to the date. I expect archery tweaks will be in publish 25, but I do not have an exact list, yet. We have discussed many issues with archery for fixing, though.

Anyway, I'd not say anything is promised. We have a schedule for publish 25 and list of tweaks for it that's fairly long and will be a challenge to balance. At the same time, we deal with issues with the service that come up and require immediate attention. Anything can change and that means promises are not easy to make. If anything, our promises extend to only one definite feature: the expansion. It's not easy to hear that your favorite part of the game may or may not receive attention, but we will have definite information when we get closer to working on a publish (such as the list of items for publish 24).

And with that said, Hanse now answers some heat generated from his previous post. Seriously, I like Hanse because he bothers to reply, not only when people are happy but when their torqued off.

Woo, a slightly negative post, but I don't mind answering.

"-Translation, you will not see your archery fixes in pub 25"

It's too early to say either way. As my post stated, we have discussed changes and fixes. I do have an archer and I do know the bugs and tweaks I'd like to see for archers to be as fun again as I remember the old days... (I was into PvP on Chessy with an archer for a long time - infact, that is probably one of the fondest memories of UO I have)

"At the same time, we deal with issues with the service that come up and require immediate attention.
-Translation, your not that large of a class, so other classes take priority "

You've misinterpreted my statement. Issues include shard crashing, exploit fixes, etc... This is not a skill or feature specific problem. Major problems do crop up that take development time to fix and can push everything else or take up more time that we could have spent on a publish.

As for brush-offs, there are many features in the game that require attention that we'd like to do. As I stated, it is not easy to hear that features in the game that are not your favorite get attention (although, those features are the favorites of many folks).

As for red-headed step children, how about thieves, murderers, bakers, alchemists, etc? There are many feature sets in the game that have not received attention in some time and are not as fun to as wide an audience (ie: tamers; murderers are getting a little bump in publish 24). We'd like to get to each and every one of them, but we're limited by how much we can do in a publish. We are looking at archery changes to possibly go into publish 25, though. We'll post more information once we get definite facts. That's not a brush-off. That's a statement that we'll keep you updated.

Whew...and I don't mind answering negative posts... Although, I usually answer constructive criticism.

Hanse
- UO Live Designer

Well that covers most of the good stuff. Looks like Pub 24 is coming soon. Regardless of my feelings about the upcoming move, I'm hoping the new location speeds up the Publish process, I'm not sure but I only think one publish has met the six week target.

Farewell OSI Luncheon at Excalibur, Sat Mar 27 {By: Orion - Mar 20, 2004 10:27:58}

Nieves from UO Powergamers asked me to post this.

As you should know by now, Origin Systems, Inc. here in Austin, Texas, creators of Ultima Online is being shut down. All projects (UO and UX:O) and some but not all of the Developers are moving to Redwood, CA, HQ of Electronic Arts, within the next 60 days. The Texas US Players Community has banded together and will be hosting a "Farewell OSI" Players Luncheon on Saturday, March 27 out of Excalibur Faire.

The faire is not as big as Scarborough or TRF, but we feel it is still the right atmosphere for this event. The faire is about 40 miles outside Austin. We will be renting a tent for two hours, starting aroudn 10:30am and will have lunch around 11. Any employees of Origin, past or present, are invited to be our guest at this event. The players are pooling resources to provide food and drink. Some of us plan to camp out and continue the party through the rest of the day/night.

We are getting fair tickets at the group rate, $8 per person. Players are asked to make donations (suggested $25 per person) for food and drink. You can pay at http://www.paypal.com, send to heather@playerslunch.com. For more information please contact me, heather@playerslunch.com icq# 6079693 or Keven and Brenda atown_1@msn.com icq # 74665862.

Please RSVP with your real name and online handle, so that I can add you to the guest list. If I have to have a final count by this Thursday, March 25 to order tickets.

Thanks!! and I hope to see you there!!
~Heather
Player's Lunch

Those who once created worlds {By: Orion - Mar 7, 2004 01:49:36}

I have been silent on UO�s happenings over the past month. A lot has happened, I was going to post part two on what I thought was wrong with UO, but every time I was about to post it, I read it again and decided to rewrite a portion of it.

Then the bomb dropped. News started trickling on a couple sites (most notably UO Stratics) that OSI was going to be dissolved and relocated to EA�s headquarters in San Francisco.

I have never been happy with the OSI / EA relationship. I�ve often felt that EA has guided Ultima Online down the wrong path. And I�m not the only one. But the thing I feared worse is that EA would dissolve OSI. My fears are true.

So why is it that I hoped that this would never happen? And think it�s generally a bad idea? I think for me it comes down to two reasons.

1. Uprooting a business and moving it to a distant place is never a good business decision. When you uproot a business and move it all around you create problems. The largest problem is that your talent doesn�t always move with you.

Blockbuster (you know the movie rental place) once did this. They uprooted and moved from Florida to Texas (3rd paragraph). What happened? For two years industry analysts wondered why Blockbuster kept making the same mistakes they had made before the move. The reason is quite obvious; those who knew better were no longer with the company.

While we don�t know the total list of who is staying with EA we do know that some talent has been lost already: Mike �Avi Stetto� Howard � UO Server Programmer, Kai �Helios� Steinmann � UO Live Designer, Jonathan �Calandryll� Hanna � UXO Lead Designer, Rick �Stellerex� Hall � UXO Senior Producer, Amy �Cynthe� Sage � UXO Designer, and Jason �Wolfen� Spencer � UXO World Designer.

That�s quite a list, but seriously can it hurt the games? Well for UXO it could quite seriously hurt the game. Sure, all the docs have been written for the design, and TONS of code is done, along with probably much of the world design. But what is now missing is the core people who created the games vision. Who led it from an idea, to paper, to an actual game.

Ever wonder why it seemed every year Ultima Online picked up and changed directions? Simply look at all the people who have left. Every person who leaves a company takes with it some of the games original direction. This can be good and bad, but a company should never do anything to speed up the process.

2. This move in my opinion destroys genre specific creativity. The idea behind the OSI move is to consolidate all of its development houses. So when one project is done they can shift people to a new project. Technically speaking they don�t need as many people, and could possibly churn out more games with less people.

The problem with this is that is you no longer have a game house that has a genre specific core. You start mixing and matching all the time. Sure this can bread new things, but it also can easily start pushing out games that are all extremely alike. While this is great on a small scale, can it be good for a game house as large as this? I seriously see a risk in producing games that cross genres but always have the same stale look and feel.

So that�s why I think this new move is a horrible thing, but what good can come of it?

Well it is quite possible that EA can shift more talent to UO. Of course we won�t see any benefit from this for quite a while. First the move has to take place, the people who move have to get situated in their new surroundings, and then of course new talent brought in has to get up to speed. We�re talking six months to a year for the benefits to really be evident.

UXO may also get some additional help, perhaps expand the current game more before shipping, or even more polish (it�s already shiny too me). Honestly you just can�t tell what the change will do in the long run. It could very well be a great thing for UO and UXO.

But no matter what it�ll be an end of a line for a company that once created world.

Poll Time {By: Orion - Mar 7, 2004 12:02:17}

No, I didn't drop off the face of the planet. Yes, part 2 is still coming. *grin*

Anyhow, before I introduce the new poll, let's go over the last one, "Which client do you use?� The overwhelming majority of you use only the 2D client. This is not too surprising to me as I abhor the 3D art. Anyhow, here is how the poll broke down.

The Previous Poll Results

Out of 691 Participants:
- 72% use only the 2D client.
- 21% use only the 3D client.
- 8% use both clients.

These are pretty interesting numbers to me; it shows that the 3D client definitely does have a strong following. I honestly would switch to the 3D client if the models were on par with other current games, since the 3D client does have some nice features.

The New Poll
Okay, the next poll is about the current news in UO. OSI is being dissolved as a separate development house and being merged, and moved, to EA's main headquarters.

Personally I think this is a horrible move, but it could possible work in UO's favor (I'll share more with this later).

So what do you think about this move by EA?

Part 2 Delay {By: Orion - Jan 26, 2004 12:09:13}

Part two of my series on "What is broken in UO" will be delayed till tomorrow. As I wrote it I decided to change a few things and turn this into a 3 part series. I wanted to research a couple more things for some choice quotes, mainly in item dependency and apparent trends in UO. Part 3 of this series changes pace a bit, and looks at the OSI/EA relationship, corporate masters, and comparisons to other current MMOGs. Again, sorry for the delay, in hindsight I should have written these all at once, but I�m impatient that way. *G*

What�s so broken with UO -- Part 1 {By: Orion - Jan 25, 2004 06:31:25}

Calling something broken when it comes to a MMOG can be misleading. MMOG�s by their very nature are huge beasts, with many facets, many of which have to work to keep the subscriber base in tact. So obviously a MMOG with over 200,000 subscribers can�t be broken, right?

Well, not exactly. After a point, and really it�s an imaginary point, a game can feel broken, even though it has many engaging features that work perfectly. To this point I have written this article, to first go over what�s broken in the game, and then to go over what�s fundamentally wrong. Of course some of this is just my own opinion, so like everything you read on the Internet, take it with a grain of salt.

1. Serpent Pillars
It has been over a year now, and the serpent pillars in the sea are still broken. Not much to say here, but it�s quite annoying to say the least. I know many people who used them to go to T2A with their boat for mining and pirating.

2. Guild Stones
Large guilds are still fussing about the guild stones. They still get corrupted; they still lack features and still are a pain to use. How long have people been asking for updates? Years.

3. Archery Crashes
I still get crashes in archery, these seem to be mostly AoS introduced, but AoS is almost a year behind us now, so it�s quite annoying. The dev team does seem to be taking notice on this now, but how much longer till they are gone?

4. Ilshenar Champ Spawns
This one is one of my biggest pet peeves. I could care less if they dropped power scrolls, in fact I�m very glad they don�t. The concept is quite fun without uber loot. I just want the dumb things to advance properly. I�ve heard the devs say they work, I�ve heard they don�t work. Personally I can�t find anyone who can get them to advance past a certain point (they seem to stop well before the end boss).

5. Luck doesn�t work properly.
By bringing up luck I�m opening a can of worms really. So many people don�t understand luck. It�s not a guarantee to super uber loot, nor is it a guarantee that you�ll always get more items, it�s not. However, things still don�t add up, and in a UO House of Commons last month Mr. Tact admitted there is a bug. I just wish they�d get this fixed, so people could stop pointing to bugs and just realize what Luck really is.

6. Ilshenar Dungeons
Three things are wrong with Ilshenar Dungeons. First off, the chests don�t spawn anything. So why even have them? And of course, what�s the point to most of the dungeons if there is nothing to fight in them? Ilshenar is a great place, my two favorite hunting spots are there, but both of those spots are outside of the dungeons. And the third problem? Some of the dungeons that do have things are so dang crowded with monsters what�s the point of going there, even a crowd of people can�t control the spawn. In other words dungeons in Ilshenar are broken.

7. Archery and Accuracy
I have archery on my fisherman, it�s pretty handy to be quite honest, but it�s amazingly inaccurate, and everyone else I know says the same thing? What�s wrong with the citizens of Britannia, can�t they hit a bull�s-eye on a barn twice in a row?

8. Use Best Weapon Skill and Bows
I�ll hopefully be able to take this one off the list by Pub24. But since it was supposed to be off the list already I�ll mention it. Where�s the replacement for this property? It never worked on bows in the first place, it�s been taken off finally, but it was supposed to replaced with something new. What�s the delay? (I�ve heard it�s something like Use Less Ammo, but since I can�t find a quote I�m not 100% sure).

9. Item Counts
This one is elusive. But why oh why don�t item counts show up properly since AoS? It�s gotten better, but it still happens and is still just as annoying.

10. Items in your Backpack
Speaking of item counts, just how many items are in my backpack? Again, since AoS you can�t click on the paper dolls backpack (I hate the phrase paper doll). The only way to tell how many items you have is count them up manually. In a game where you have a max item count you think there would be an in game method to tell how many items are on you, besides putting all your items inside a bag, inside your backpack.

11. Runebooks
There are three things about runebooks that I�ve tossed in all together. One, why do they show 0 weight? Two, why don�t they show how many runes are in the book when you mouse over them? Three, why do some people get 5-15 second delay when opening one up? Enough said.

12. Two Clients, Two Different Games
When I open up the UO:3D client I feel like I�m playing a different game, and not a better one. My recent poll here on this site showed that out of 407 people, 71% don�t even use the 3D client. Wow. So what makes it so different? Well, why isn�t the 2D client being improved? The 3D client makes use of mouse scroll, the 3D client has a nice feature to show all items (Pressing ATL and Shift I believe), the 3D client�s paper doll window makes it easy to take jewelry off. In fact, the 3D client has quite a few nice features to make the game more accessible. But, the 2D client stands still in time apparently, even though the majority of people use the 2D client.

13. Virtues
Umm, Austin we have a problem. To quote a really old commercial for Wendy�s, �Where�s the beef?� It�s been quite a while since they introduced Virtues, what is going to happen to Honor, Honesty, Spirituality, and Humility? Anyone? I thought so.

Well, that�s thirteen current and mostly old broken issues in UO. Many introduced within the last year, but quite a few introduced years ago. Some are much smaller than others, but the most striking thing is, that�s just the tip of the iceberg.

Tomorrow I�ll finish up with part 2, discussing what broken fundamentally with UO. Many of the above issues outline where UO is broken, so in some ways it�ll be taking the small things and expanding on them. Some things, like factions, I haven�t discussed yet, don�t worry I didn�t leave them out.

It sure is fun to be a backseat developer. Quite easy too.

The cost of PvP? {By: Orion - Jan 23, 2004 11:05:44}

UO Powergamers has a good article on the cost of PvP. It has some great points in it. If you think about it, after all the Powerscrolls, stat scroll, armour, etc you need to develop a good PvP character, you have burnt through MILLIONS of gold, and at todays rates for gold values, they suggest it'd cost you $910 bucks to create a great PvP character (if you were to go buy the gold). Yikes, talk about making PvP non-accessible to many people.

Hanse on BOD Scaling {By: Orion - Jan 22, 2004 04:10:02}

Today in the UO Email Discussion Group Hanse (UO Live Designer, OSI) had the following to say about color distribution in Smith BOD's.

The scaling is not a curve.

Blacksmithy small deeds:
Below 70 skill: No colored items
At 70 skill up to below GM: Color appears on only colorable items (50%
chance, if it is colorable)
At GM and above: Color appears on only colorable items (60% chance, if
it is colorable)

Weapons and armor are not separated when choosing random items. The system would need to be revamped to take them into account, if we were to make such a change.

Large deeds are always colored unless it's a weapon large deed. This is
a bug and I've pinpointed where it is occurring.

- Hanse
UO Live Designer

Well that's pretty good information, 60% isn't so bad really for color distribution, of course with so many weapon BOD's given out, it doesn't seem like it's as high as 60%, oh well.

What do you think UO needs? {By: Orion - Jan 21, 2004 12:39:44}

Kerowyn (Online Content Editor, OSI) just sent me the following:

Tell us what you want in the next UO!

Are you a current or former Ultima Online subscriber? Do you live in the San Francisco area? Do you want to tell the Origin team what they should do with the next Ultima Online project? Now�s your chance!

Origin, through a contracted research firm, will be conducting focus groups on Feb. 4 and 5 in Sunnyvale, CA (near San Francisco and San Jose). There will be six groups, with 10 to 12 people in each.

The groups, about 90 minutes each, will discuss what they like and don�t like about UO. They will also be asked to comment on new ideas.

Participants will be paid $100, and they will have to sign a legally binding non-disclosure agreement. That means they won�t be allowed to discuss anything they see or hear during the group sessions under penalty of law.

If you are interested in participating, call Nichols Research at 1-408-773-8200, ext. 2020, or email erecruiting@nicholsresearch.com. Mention �Project #C3032� when you contact them.

It�s important that we get current AND former players, so if you�ve stopped playing UO, please contact us anyway.

See you in Sunnyvale!

I think this is a good idea, but limiting it to just those in the Sunnyvale area isn't really a good idea. And of course, what you do with the data is entirely another thing.

UXO Exclusive Screenshot {By: Orion - Jan 19, 2004 01:07:26}

Just a bit of UXO news. OSI was cool enough to send me an exclusive screenshot of UXO, you can see it over on my UXO Compendium page.

IDOC'ing {By: Orion - Jan 19, 2004 11:03:17}

So amazingly, after 5 years of playing UO, I attended my first IDOC last night, then my second, then my third, and this morning my fourth. The things are dropping like flies. I was even able to place an 18x18 next to 3 of my friends.

(IDOC = In Danger of Collapsing, it's the last phase for a condemmed house, before it falls down and it's loot spills out)

The idea of standing around for HOURS waiting for a house to fall a few years ago just didn't really sound fun for me. And honestly it's still not too fun. But this time, the news about IDOC locations seems to travel faster, and the longest I've had to wait is 30 minutes, which isn't so bad with 2 monitors.

Anyhow, for those of you wondering (because I sure was yesterday). From the time a house goes IDOC to the point it falls down is about 6-8 hours. For the houses I went to, they seemed to all drop right around 7 hours.

If you're looking for a condemmed house, the only way to find them is to wander around and hover your mouse over every single house sign you see, I can think of better ways to spend my time, hehe.

So happy new years! {By: Orion - Jan 13, 2004 06:24:35}

Happy new years everyone, just a couple quick notes:

1. IDOC's start tonight, or are starting, or something. Just go wonder around and pick up some loot. ;-0

2. Magic Moments are no longer Moments, they're canceled. I'm not too surprised, it seemed I kept hearing people complaining about no shows by the staff, etc.

That's all, nothing else to see here folks. hehe

He's back! No wait, he's gone! {By: Orion - Dec 29, 2003 05:07:53}

Well, in a twist of events I didn't expect, it seems Lord British has left the lands for good this time.

Word has spread quickly throughout the realm that our King, Lord British, has bid his final farewells to Britannia. Many of his subjects were present during his final noble act�

Well okay then...

Merr Christmas! {By: Orion - Dec 25, 2003 11:58:33}

Merry Christmas everyone, hope you and yours have a joyous and wonderful day.

UOC Site Update: Property List Database {By: Orion - Dec 23, 2003 11:55:13}

Howdy all, I've updated the Property List Database to include the intensity levels properties can have and whether or not the property is a stackable property.

Enjoy

Any phpBB gurus out there? {By: Orion - Dec 15, 2003 01:57:59}

Hi all, I'm curious if there are any phpBB forum gurus out there in my reading audience (all 30 of you, hehe). I've got a few questions about some mods out there that's I've been looking at. If you know some stuff, about phpBB, or about what you think is a better forum then phpBB then drop me a line please at orion@gamesentry.com.

Thanks!

Publish 22 {By: Orion - Dec 15, 2003 01:56:28}

So Publish 22 is now live on Sonoma (my home shard) and so far I haven't see any show stoppers, we may be in for a smooth publish launch. This publish is a bit smaller then previous ones, but it wasn't delayed, and seems to be going smoothly. Frankly I'd much rather have smaller publishes if they could all go smoothly.

Of note the holiday gifts are out, and I think these are probably the best ones since the year of the potted plants and piles of snow. New art is definatly appreciated.

What's also appreciated, well a fix for last publishes broken sacred journey use (costing 2x it should and the last page not even working), Blade Spirit fix, faction-aligned creature fix, pet fixes, and lag optimization. Here's a complete list.

Happy Holidays! {By: Orion - Dec 13, 2003 01:50:16}

Happy Holidays everyone. Just thought I'd add a bit of cheer to the site. I'm feeling a bit of cheer right now, finals are over and my University has officially started Christmas break. WHEW!

Child's Play {By: Orion - Dec 10, 2003 09:49:20}

If you haven't heard, Penny Arcade is running a toy drive to benefit the children at Seattle Children's Hospital & Regional Medical Center. This is pretty dang cool and I'm so impressed with my fellow gamers. So far PA has raised probably around ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND in toys and donations. My wife and I plan on buying a few things for this drive, I think it's great that gamers are proving that we're not all a bunch of uncaring, killing machines, rather we're proving that as a whole the gaming community is rather giving and caring.

So take that popular press and parents who use movies & games as baby sitters. =)

Anyhow, click on the logo above to see what it's all about, see tons of pictures of the tons of toys. Read a thankful letter from a parent at the Seattle Children's, read a letter from Seattle Children�s themselves. The setup PA has put together couldn't be easier, they have a wishlist put together with Amazon.com, just buy stuff there and it's delivered to PA for you. Like I said, it can't be any easier.

Life continues without me. {By: Orion - Dec 8, 2003 01:31:57}

Life in Ultima Online really does continue without me. The past few weeks have been filled to the brim, and unfortunately not with much gaming. I've been keeping an avid eye on a few games, including UO of course.

I read today the latest UO House of Commons Chat today. In the chat they mention that Ilshenar champ spawns are indeed working, so I hope to trek out there this next week and see for myself, my last indevour wasn't worth my time.

In related news, t-maps are not really fixed. I've got a friend who's an AVID treasure hunter so he keeps up on this pretty well, level 5 maps still don't shine like they should, I mean, your best bet of good loot is off the monsters that spawn, not the chest itself. But from the sounds of it the loot distribution is being changed, so no more mounds of wands. I hope it's really fixed this time, I thought the current publish was supposed to do that */me rolls eyes*.

Then there's the news that EA/OSI will be offering a UO/UXO combined pricing plan. $20 bucks a month gets you an account in both games, hey that's a savings of like 6 bucks a month, sounds pretty good to me. I'm following UXO closely, not that you can tell currently. But as Christmas break approaches I do have plans, we shall see what comes of that (don't hold your breath!).

So that about wraps it up. Ultima Online's 21st Publish is out, with quite a few bugs this time, Publish 22 is supposed to be out before Christmas, included with that is brand new graphics for the holiday gifts. I smell pixel crack on the horizon.

Banning Exploiters {By: Orion - Nov 13, 2003 03:24:10}

This was posted today on UO.com's FYI section today:

Banning Exploiters
We have recently gained information that an exploit is being used to alter characters and gain illegal in-game items.

We feel it's important to let our players know that we are monitoring this issue closely, and our team of developers and testers are working diligently to resolve it as quickly as possible.

Exploiting in Ultima Online is an issue we take extremely seriously, as it affects the community as a whole by taking time away from our development, community, and support schedules. Any player found in possession of any character or item created through this exploit may have severe action taken against their accounts. We have already removed several players from the game, who were found to be abusing this exploit, and we will continue to permanently suspend the accounts of any and all we find to be abusing exploits in Ultima Online.

Well that works for me. If you go to UO.com's FYI section you can see pictures of the items.

Fairwell to the Admiral {By: Orion - Nov 12, 2003 08:33:07}

Looks like the Admiral, over at The Turbulent Waters, is drydocking his site and UO play time for good. His love for UO's seas will be missed. So long and happy sailing.

UO:HoC Chat - Special Events Staff {By: Orion - Nov 12, 2003 08:22:17}

A new log for the UOHoC Chat on EM Events is up. It's actually a pretty interesting read:

[QT]Nadia - Will EMs be given latitude to do more small scale quests, in the style of old Seers?
Nikademus - Not during this evaluation period of the EM program. If the program is extended, things will be re-evaluated
kieron - Here's a little bit about the program that is moving behind the scenes. The EM program is under a 24 event trial period. When the trial period is over, the program will be evaluated for extension.

Hrm, I didn't even realize it was still under a trial period. I hope it does well.

Gallahan - *Noxin* On some shard events that have moved to Felucia have been invaded by PKs, how do you feel about this? Does it discourage running more events there or show that there is popular interest from all types of player?
* Sannio notes that Zilo means "with less players attending *per event*" *
kieron - The purpose of the EM program is to provide events for all playstyles, whether they be primarily PvP, PvM, RP'er, Pk'er, etc.
kieron - We cannot have events on facets to the exclusion of Felucca, as this would shut out the players that participate in PvP. The PvP interaction in events has proven heartening.

I know I felt great about this, I know a lot didn't, but hey the people in Fel are UO players too, not just the Trammel/Malas people. I had a blast at the Hyloth event in Fel, not only did I die to the EM stuff a half dozen times, I died outside at least twice too. Hehe, I had a ton of fun dieing to PK'ers. Yah, I suck at PvP hardcore, though I did learn some interesting tricks I've been dieing trying out (not dieing TO try out, dieing trying out).

Gallahan - .Reminder: To Ask a question /msg or /query [QT]GD or [QT]Nadia.
kieron - Also, the EMs are contractually limited to 10 hours per week and to start supporting player driven events would push us way over that time limit.

Apparently the job is part time.

Gallahan - Has there been any consideration given to making the course of plotlines decided by player actions? (ie: if the players beat monster X, event Y occurs, if the monster escapes, event Z occurs instead)?
GM_Zilo - Yes, it was given, and is given great consideration. When creating the fiction we debate this choice nearly every event. It has already happened to some degree in events already run. For example, some shards imprisoned Ramuz the Mage, while others just took his word for what occured in that Moonglow house.
GM_Zilo - If we were to make this an institution for every event, we would need to restructure the way the events are managed. This will be something that will most likely be addressed/resolved, should the program continue.

I like content better than no content, I really think it'd rock to find a happy medium between the old scenario's with a more "we decide the end" and the current EM ran events, with the human touch behind everything. Perhaps with the EM events being a success and passing their trial period more time can be put into this, you never know.

Vex's Comments on UO Economics {By: Orion - Nov 12, 2003 09:38:17}

So on Monday Vex (OSI Designer) posted a pretty interesting write up about Economics in UO. Here's a snip:

So, what solution have we settled on? Well, it's a hybrid between the original closed system with simulated supply and demand and the new system of unlimited quantity. We will be bringing back the idea of prices adjusted by supply and demand. NPCs will still have unlimited supplies of resources (both commodities and currency) to draw on. This time, however, the supply and demand will be driven solely by player action and not by fixed algorithms. Here's a description of how the system works:

All in all it's a good read, and if you want to understand how NPC vendors will be selling items you'll want to read it.

I'm very happy that they are doing this, it honestly sounds like a balanced idea. It's much better than the constant tweaking of how and at what price vendors sell items. I just wish they did this quite a while ago, how many buy/sell tricks have there been?! Let's see house deeds and world maps come to mind. So seeing them take a larger step rather than another round of tweaks makes me happy.

UO has changed a ton since I started, you can now almost always buy regs in quantity, when I started that was a joke. You can buy ingots, boards and leather in huge quantities, when I started the only real way to get these was to have a miner, lumberjack or kill lots of cows. I'm all for this idea, I just hope enough people will sell to vendors to make the prices fair, but hey, if ingots are selling for 11gp each, I'd seriously consider selling off ingots at 10gp each. Least 1k of them.

An Update! {By: Orion - Nov 10, 2003 11:25:10}

Figured I'd update things on this site, for those faithful 50 or so readers, hehe. I'm busy with college right now, gearing up for finals in 4 weeks. I also started a new job (well old job, I've had this same contract before, but this time I get to work from home). But even larger I've been expanding my MMOG horizons, hehe. I picked up DAoC again, I haven't gotten their new expansion Trials of Atlantis, but I'm having a lot of fun, since I have a lot of friends over there. I also picked up Final Fantasy: XI for my b-day. Of course ad in my normal Desert Combat (Battlefield 1942 Mod) and I'm a game happy maniac.

Of course, I've got to fit all this into my reduced gaming time (it's hard to fit game times inbetween family, work, and college, haha). So I thought I'd comment on a few things UO and other game related.

Pub 21
So this thing called Publish 21 is getting loaded up to Pacific tomorrow. It's got some nice features in it, and some ones I'm not very happy about.

I'm a bit dismayed the randomness of BOD's is going out. I like the fact that Smithy BOD's are damn hard to land. Yah, I do hate hoping for one thing and getting another. And for the record I've never gotten a Smith PS, even with my 4 smiths running for BOD's all the day long.

But on the plus side enhancing will get a bonus for your skill! And ASH's give a bonus too, increasing their usefullness greatly.

There are some faction updates, some changes to NPC's selling items, and all sorts of other stuff.

I have no idea really if I like or dislike the healing changes, only a few hours of game time will truely let me know. I expect some will like it and some won't. Like about every change in UO, lol.

I've been saving my BOD's up and items to enhance for Pub 21, looks like I won't be disappointed I suppose. =)

DAoC
I have a love hate relationship with this game, hehe. I love the way it looks, man I wish UO could look like this. But my first two characters where never meant to be solo players (it's very class based), and much to my chagrin, I had no idea these classes sucked for solo play until I hated playing. But because I have so many friends in DAoC I gave it another shot, and wow Paladin's rock the house! I'm having a good time, it's very item based, which I like, but dislike. I like UO's system of keeping a good weapon, even if you're a newb. You could go on forever on which game is better, each have their ups and downs really. I rate DAoC a bit lower than UO in my book, crafting in UO is way better. However, it's different enough to make lower = still a lot of fun.

FF:XI
Oh boy, where to start, hehe. Let's first start off on creating a character. They have this load balancing thing for their servers, where you can't pick your server. So you get randomly put on a server, unless your friend on the server you want to get to purchases an ingame thing called a worldpass, which lets you create a new character on that server.

Let me say this right now, along with thousands of others. This is the lamest system EVER!!!! I spent over an hour creating characters and deleting them trying to get on a server with my friends, I gave up in frustration. 3 days after buying the game I still have yet to play it much.

But what I have tasted, tastes so good. You enter the game into a customimzed cut scene that FF games are known for. It gets the plot going right off, and drops you off in the city. The game looks amazing and is rather fun (from my limited experience). Suffice it to say I'll probably play it for quite a while.

Downsides, worldpasses (YUCK) and they didn't open any US servers on their US release. You immediatly feel like a second class citizen from that very fact. My pings very around 100-400 (it shows you in game thankfully) and the game still feels very smooth, so it has great net code at least. Finally the controls are weird at first, it's kinda made for a control pad like a PS2 one or something. But you get used to it. The logic behind menus seems odd to me. But really these are small things in a great game. Least that's what I think for now.

Hrm, I suppose that's about it. Hope you enjoyed my ramblings. =)

Auto-Distribution Loot Proposal version 1.1 {By: Orion - Oct 21, 2003 12:38:31}

So, I gave some more thought to my Auto-Distribution Loot Proposal and came up with the following.

The following is a proposal for an automated loot distribution system in UO. The idea being to level the playing field for those who have slower internet connections, computers, and to eliminate the threat of suspected auto-looting programs.

Overview:
The main concept of this system is not to automatically have items deposited into a players backpack, but to instead have items stay on the monsters corpse, but have a system that only displays certain items to certain players, based upon the total damage to the monster they dealt and their luck.

All players who dealt damage would have a chance to receive items, with the player with the highest luck and damage dealt total having the larger share of the items.

Player Contribution Total:
Once a monster dies, the system would create a number for each player that dealt damage to the monster. The Player Contribution Total is based upon the players total damage dealt and luck. The numbers are then totaled together and a percent for each player is formed. This percent is the total percent of the loot they will get.

The percent of items is based upon a weighted number for the items on the monster, not an actual number of items on the monster.

Note that no additional points are given to the person who hit last, that's just absurd. Also, the system gives a higher weight to damage dealt then a players luck.

Item Evaluation:
Each item on the monster is given a value based upon its properties and attributes. Base items, such as reagents, a corn, a pumpkin, a bandage are worth 1 point each, so that 40 Black Pearl are individual items worth 1 point each. Items such as a magical katana would be worth a number derived from their stats.

The system then totals the points each item is worth and creates a total number for the loot on that monster.

Item Distribution:
The items are then randomly put in an order. Going down the list from the player with the highest percent, each player receives a portion of the loot. This will become much more clear in the following examples.

The items stay on the corpse, but when a player with looting rights double clicks the corpse they only see the items the system is giving to them. They can then pick and choose what they want, leaving behind any items they don't wish to take. Once the corpse goes gray anyone who double clicks on the monster will see all of the items left behind by the players who had looting rights.

Example One:
Player A and Player B slay a monster.

Player A does 60% of the damage and player B does 40% of the damage.

Player A has 823 luck while player B has 240 luck.

The system (using a formula based on damage dealt and luck) assigns player A 70% of the items and player B 30% of the items.

The monster they killed has a total of 7 items that are assigned values and randomly ordered as follows:

- Katana with 40% Damage Increase (80% Intensity), Faster Casting 1, and 100 Luck, worth 200 points.
- 28 Daemon Bones worth 1 point each for a total of 28 points.
- 20 Black Pearl worth 1 point each for a total of 20 points.
- 43 Nox Crystals worth 1 point each for a total of 43 points.
- Kite Shield with Spell Channeling, No Negative Casting Modifer, and 2 resists, worth 42 points.
- Black Staff with Spell Channeling, No Negative Casting Modifer, and 18% Damage Increase (36% Intensity), worth 76 points.
- 1 Corn @ 1 point each for a total of 1 points.

So the loot on this monster is worth 410 points. Using this system Player A gets 287 points worth and Player B gets 123 points worth.

The system assigns items from top to bottom, and from highest player percent to lowest player percent. Thus Player A gets the first 287 points worth, and player B gets the last 123 points worth.

So Player A sees the following items on the monster when he double clicks it:

- Katana with 40% Damage Increase (80% Intensity), Faster Casting 1, and 100 Luck, worth 200 points.
- 28 Daemon Bones worth 1 point each for a total of 28 points.
- 20 Black Pearl worth 1 point each for a total of 20 points.
- 39 Nox Crystals worth 1 point each for a total of 39 points.

And Player A sees the following items on the monster when he double clicks it:

- 4 Nox Crystals worth 1 point each for a total of 4 points.
- Kite Shield with Spell Channeling, No Negative Casting Modifer, and 2 resists, worth 42 points.
- Black Staff with Spell Channeling, No Negative Casting Modifer, and 18% Damage Increase (36% Intensity), worth 76 points.
- 1 Corn @ 1 point each for a total of 1 points.

Example 2:
Player A, Player B, and Player C kill a monster.

Player A does 50% of the damage, player B does 30% of the damage, and player C does 20% of the damage.

Player A has 823 luck, player B has 240 luck, and player C has 677 luck.

The system (using a formula based on damage dealt and luck) assigns player A 50%, player B, 25% and player C 25% of the items.

The monster they killed has a total of 6 items that are assigned values and randomly ordered as follows:

- 67 Blood Moss worth 1 point each for a total of 67 points.
- 69 Mandrake worth 1 point each for a total of 69 points.
- Scythe with Damage Increase 35% (70% Intensity), 60 luck, Use Best Weapon Skill, Faster Casting 1, Swing Speed Increase 20 (67% Intensity), worth 237 points.
- Leather gorget with 45 resist points, 20% durability bonus, and a strength bonus +5, worth 115 points.
- Plate Arms with 40 resist points, Mage Armour, Lower Reagent Cost 18% (90% Intensity), worth 150 points.
- 33 Nox Crystals worth 1 points each for a total of 33 points.

So the loot on this monster is worth 671 points. Using this system player A gets 336 points, player B gets 168 points, and player C gets 167 points worth.

The system assigns items from top to bottom, and from highest player percent to lowest player percent. Thus player A gest the first 296 points, player B gets the second 148 points, and player C gets the final 147 points.

So Player A sees the following items on the monster when he double clicks it:

- 67 Blood Moss worth 1 point each for a total of 67 points.
- 69 Mandrake worth 1 point each for a total of 69 points.
- Scythe with Damage Increase 35% (70% Intensify), 60 luck, Use Best Weapon Skill, Faster Casting 1, Swing Speed Increase 20 (67% Intensity), worth 237 points.

Note: Player A is actually getting 373 points worth of the items, not 336, that's because the Scythe is the first item on the list that completes his required 336 points. The count now resumes after this item for player B.

So Player B sees the following items on the monster when he double clicks it:

- Leather gorget with 45 resist points, 20% durability bonus, and a strength bonus +5, worth 115 points.
- Plate Arms with 40 resist points, Mage Armour, Lower Reagent Cost 18% (90% Intensity), worth 150 points.

Note: Again player B is actually getting 265 points worth of the items, not 148, again because the Plate Arms finish the required points to meet the 148 points. This leaves player C out in the rain. =)

And finally Player C sees the following items on the monster when he double clicks it:

- 33 Nox Crystals worth 1 points each for a total of 33 points.

Final Notes:
So, as you can see, when the next item on the list is worth more than the needed points to satisfy the players earned points, the system adds that items to the players loot, and then moves on. This continues down to the last person, possibly leaving off a few players from having a chance at getting anything.

However, it is entirely possible that the system could randomly order all the reagents and junk as the first items, so player A could have gotten a bunch of junk, and player B and C, etc could end up getting all the good items. But really that wouldn't happen all that often.

If you're wondering how I assigned points to items, I gave 20 points for things like spell channeling, no negative casting modifier, use best weapon skill, faster casting 1. I gave 1 point each for resists, 1 point for each percent of intensity, and 1 point for each luck. It's a pretty simple system that could be quickly used for all attributes items can carry. I completely ignored % physical, fire, etc damage done by weapons.

This system does not replace how many items and their properties are placed on a monster, the current system with tables and using luck would stay in place. This just changes who has the rights to what on that monster.

So there you have it, version 1.1 of my Auto-Distribution Loot Proposal.

Porposal for an Auto Loot System {By: Orion - Oct 20, 2003 09:42:35}

So today in a discussion on a possible auto loot system in UO I came up with the following idea. First off, the idea of an auto loot system at first displeased me greatly; I didn't want to see my pack full of junk items that I normally would have left behind anyhow. But, someone mentioned perhaps the loot would stay on the corpse and the game would divvy out what you could see at first. And that got me thinking.

What if the game gave loot items weighted numbers, based on their number of attributes and the level of intensity for those attributes. So an item with 4 attributes all above 80% would be worth much more in a point system than an item with 2 attributes around 20% intensity.

Then, based on the damage you dealt against the monster and your luck, the game would give you a percent of the loot upon the monster. Instead of automatically dropping it in your bag, it would stay on the monster corpse, but only be viewable by you, until the corpse turned gray to others.

The total weighted numbers are divided up between players based on their percents determined above. The items are randomized, and starting from highest percent to lowest percent given out to the players.

So here's an example.

Player A and Player B slay a monster.

Player A does 60% of the damage; Player B does 40% of the damage.

Player A has 823 luck, and player B has just 240 luck.

So from a magic formula Player A gets 70% of the loot and Player B gets 30% of the loot.

The monster has the following 7 items on it (already in a random order).

- Katana w/ 40% dmg increase (80% intensity), FC1, & 110 Luck @ 210 points.
- 18 Daemon Bones @ 1 pt each (base item)
- 20 Black Pearl @ 1 pt each (base item)
- 43 Nox Crystals @ 1 pt each (base item)
- Kite Shield with Spell Channeling + 2 resist points @ 42 points.
- Black Staff w/ Spell Channeling and 18% dmg increase (36% intensity) @ 76 points.
- Corn @ 1 pt each (base item)

Note on how I determined points. The 40% dmg increase was worth 80 pts (80% intensity), FC1 20 pts, 110 luck 110 pts, 18% dmg increase was worth 36 points (36% intensity), Spell Channeling 20 points, no negative spell channeling modifier 20 points, resists points worth 1 points each. Base items of course are worth just 1 point each.

So the total points the loot is worth is 410 points. Player A gets 70% of the points (287 points) and Player B gets 30% of the points (123 points).

So Player A gets the following items:
- Katana w/ 40% dmg increase (80% intensity), FC1, & 110 Luck @ 210 points
- 18 Daemon Bones @ 1 pt each (base item)
- 20 Black Pearl @ 1 pt each (base item)
- 39 Nox Crystals @ 1 pt each (base item)

And Player B gets the following items:
- 4 Nox Crystals @ 1 pt each (base item)
- Kite Shield with Spell Channeling + 2 resist points @ 42 points.
- Black Staff w/ Spell Channeling and 18% dmg increase (36% intensity) @ 76 points.
- Corn @ 1 pt each (base item)

There, the loot has been divided, each player is presented this loot only until the corpse turns gray, and then the loot not taken by Player A and Player B is shown to everyone who clicks on the corpse.

If in my above example the limit of 287 points was reached say by adding a single item, the item would go to Player A, and player B would be short a few points. But hey, Player A fought harder and had higher luck. =)

So that's my proposal, for an automatic loot system that doesn't leave your pack full of corn. =)

10th UOSC Chat Tonight {By: Orion - Oct 16, 2003 01:52:57}

IanStorm is pleased to announce the 10th UOSC (UO StormChat) with EA:Origin. It will take place at 7pm CST (5pm PST, 8pm EST, 10am AEST, 1am GMT) TONIGHT in #UOSC.

To access the network, you will need an IRC Client (like mIRC or Pirch) and use one of the following servers:

- irc1.ianstorm.com
- irc2.ianstorm.com

Don't have an IRC client? Never fear, you can access our network via our Java IRC client, here.
If you require help with IRC commands, please see our FAQ.

The topic for this month is General Discussion, so if you have a niggling question to ask, come prepared!

You can access logs of our former chats here.

Site Update: BOD Databases (yet agian!) {By: Orion - Oct 6, 2003 04:14:29}

Quick change to the smithy database, Kite Shields are now defined as the following two types "Kite Shield" (this is the metal dyeable type) and "Kite Shield (Wood)" (yes this is the wood type).

The changes have been made to the scripts and the actual data already, so you can now do searches on these.

Here It Comes! {By: Orion - Oct 6, 2003 03:53:13}

Publish 20 is here for your consumption! As I type this out it's actually being applied to my home shard Sonoma, I know this because I was busy boat mining, err studying for my next exam when Sonoma went down, so a quick investigation said it was for the Publish.

So, I havn't really commented on this publish, but there are a few choice things in it.

1. Vendor Upgrades - About freaking time. They've needed a nice overhaul for some time, that's for sure. My favorite feature is that the money you pay them to work is in the same total as the money they hold for you. I once dropped 40k on a vendor by accident (no I don't know how I was that dumb), and it was rather annoying, all be it he never did decay by non-payment on my part!. So this should be nice, the access to the vendors via the house sign is also nice, especially since you can leave a nice little description. The one thing I hate people doing on their vendors is leaving a bunch of bags with items inside them, with no visual clue or named back to let you know resides in the bag. Yah, yah, I can click on the bag and find out, but it's annoying. So anyways, perhaps this will give people a clue.

2. House Runestones - This is a nice little addition, something that would have been nice back before UO:R in fact. I remember pre-secure containers that I'd put all my chests behind a locked down wall of tables. I remember trying to mark a rune behind those tables a couple times, hehe.

3. Bulletin Boards - This is great, but really should be taken a few steps forward and combined with group chat, to create a MOTD and Guild Chat setup.

4. Night Sight Fix - I hope this is it. =/

There are 30 other changes that are good, I hope they can keep this up.

Publish 20 - No Go This Week {By: Orion - Oct 2, 2003 03:50:03}

Bah, the Publish 20 rollout was stopped, as of right now Pacific is the only shard with it and will remain so until next week.

We discovered an issue with Publish 20 that has caused us to decide to not release this publish at this time. The only shards brought down as per the previously mentioned schedule were the East Coast, Central, and Australian shards (Atlantic, Catskills, Chesapeake, Legends, and Oceania). The Central shards have already been returned to service, and the East Coast and Australian shards should be up momentarily�all of these shards are returning exactly as they were prior to their downtime, without Publish 20.

The issue concerns Bulk Order Deeds (BODs) purchased from within BOD books that reside on vendors. The gold that players pay to player-vendors for these BODs is currently not being added to the vendor�s collectible revenue and cannot be retrieved by the vendor-owner. Please know that the gold payments for these BODs are not being lost and this gold is still being stored for the vendor-owner. DO NOT dismiss your vendor in an attempt to fix this issue yourself.

We are working on a fix to merge the gold collected from BODs within BOD books sales with all other collectible revenue on that vendor, and will implement it on the Pacific shard as soon as it is made complete. At this time, we expect to reschedule the release of Publish 20 for next week.

I'm not too terribly surprised, redoing the entire vendor system like they've done has got to be a huge undertaking. I could go on and second guess how they test things at OSI, but I won't. I feel forgiving right now.

Pub 21 and BOD's {By: Orion - Oct 2, 2003 03:09:52}

Think Runic Hammers kinda suck? >According to Hanse, come Publish 21 think again:

I've posted information about runics in threads on here, although the information is somewhat buried. There are two fixes for runics in publish 21 that make them more attractive.

1) They don't choose the same magic effect and lose a roll for an effect.

2) Their intensities are linear instead of curved. This fixes the issue of runics making consistently low intensity properties (within their percent range). Ie: a 50-100% intensity runic currently rolls 50 luck very often with the current system.

-Hanse

If you're an avid BOD Collection, such as myself, this will greatly interest you to hear. If you use to collect BOD's but stopped, because your Agapite Runic gave you utter crap, then this will greatly interest you. If you wanted to collect BOD's but heard high end Runics were crap, again this will greatly interest you. Hehe.

Why do high end runics suck? Here's Why.

Site Update: BOD Databases (yet agian!) {By: Orion - Oct 2, 2003 01:12:13}

Just one last update for the databases, there is a new "Report" column in your search results. Clicking on the field will let you report a BOD to me, so I can look it over and see if it needs changing or deletion.

This should help clear up the few stupid entries.

Happy Birthday UO {By: Orion - Oct 1, 2003 06:24:26}

Funny how time flies. UO is now six years old. Wow. I thought I'd reflect on this just a bit, please don't mind my ramblings.

Come February I'll have played UO for five years (that's real time not the Profile time, hehe). I haven�t played five years straight though, in fact there's a couple times where I didn't play substantially for 3-6 months straight. And now that you don't have to refresh a house, there's been a point where I didn't play UO for four months straight.

In fact I just got back into playing UO. Here I am, writing about a game I didn't play much for 3 months after the launch of AoS. Well that's not exactly true; I guess I played for 2 months after AoS was introduced. Then stopped for pretty much the entire summer, and then got back into it this last month. In fact I've been playing a lot of UO, I've GM'ed a couple skills in the last month, and I�ve started a brand new character form the ground up and more. I've fought new things in Doom and Ilshenar and generally had a good time.

It's odd how games like UO, EA, DAoC, and SWG evolve. The game I played five years ago, and for some of you six years ago, is not the same game. Is it better or worse? That really depends on your point of view; I have to say its better in my opinion.

I started well before UO:R and the Tram/Fel split. One of the things I honestly miss is the tension, the unknown of just having what is now the Felucca facet. But to be honest it was broken beyond belief. Sure the tension added to the game, but damn playing on a 28.8 connection meant not wearing the Vanq sword and other great gear you had, because more than likely you'd loose it to a red.

No, this isn't a Tram v. Fel debate.

I think UO is now too soft to be honest. I suppose it's a pendulum thing, swings wide one way, then wide the other, just like national politics. Heck, it even has as much drama as national politics.

The other day I engaged in a bit of PvP, something I haven�t done in quite a while (read that as in 2 years). Woo what a rush! I had my good gear insured, but I still didn't want to die. I was with a bunch of other unwashed trammies at the time taking part in the Minax quest. Let me just say this. Wow we sucked! Yah the guy had blue healers, but still he rocked, he knew exactly what to do and when. Heal now, run now, attack now, wow, kudos to the Red on Sonoma (sorry forget your name) who rocked it up. I was quite impressed, even when I had to go get rezzed (doh I hate admitting that!).

So what�s the point of this rambling? Well not much really, just a few odd paragraphs thrown together to reflect on the past five years for me. UO�s changed, I actually like where it�s gone. If UO was the same it was five years ago, no I wouldn�t be playing anymore. Yah, I rant just as loud as others about having to change my character or learn vast new systems. But really, the very reason�s I rant, are really the reasons I play. I think if you look at it that may be true for you too. Sure some people quit with too much change, but perhaps they were already dissatisfied prior to the change?
So in closing, happy birthday UO, I hope you change again over and over, just give us time to digest and get used to things first. I need stuff to rant on.

Oh, and the interface is still ugly, who ever wanted the ugly grey bumpy background on every single gump?! Make the interface skinable like DAoC is doing, now that�d rock, I�ve got some great ideas. ;-)

Site Update: Tailor BOD Database Fixes {By: Orion - Oct 1, 2003 05:57:28}

While adding in the Rewards search to the BOD databases, I noticed a couple search problems with the Tailor Database. So I fixed them. =)

1. You can now use "All" as a search option for Materials. How I missed that the first time I'll never know, let's just say the gremlins in the keyboard did it.

2. The search option "Type of Deed" (Small BOD or Large BOD) wasn't working properly, unfortunatly the database was trunkating the result, so it wasn't searching right. It's fixed now, and we'll chalk up one more for the gremlins.

3. I went through the database and cleaned things up a bit, mostly in the materials part, so that things matched up better to the now cleaned up materials list.

Enjoy

Site Update: BOD Database Updates {By: Orion - Oct 1, 2003 03:58:20}

Thanks to "Dark Spirit " for prompting me to add something to the BOD Database. Its usefulness has been added to quite a bit now, as you can now search by the reward. So if you want to find all BOD's that give you a Bronze Runic, just leave all the fields to "All" and the Rewards field to "Bronze Runic Smithy Hammer" and bam-o presto you've got a list of the rewards.

Hope this helps make this database more helpful to you. Oh, and yes, this is for both the Blacksmith and Tailor Databases.

I count myself lucky. {By: Orion - Sep 29, 2003 10:04:50}

I count myself lucky that I can actually put an update on the site right now. For the past week my internet has been, umm, crappy. I can view web pages, after it takes 10 minutes to load them, I can log into UO, say after 15 minutes it takes to finally get in, sometimes I can check my email even! Oddly, sending ICQ's seems to work fine, hehe. Anyhow, the point of this, is that I'm here, I'm doing as much programming as I can on the site. It's a bit hard to work on features that require internet, when said internet doesn't work. I better finish this up before my internet dies again.

Later

Site Update: BOD Database Updates {By: Orion - Sep 24, 2003 11:44:06}

You can now enter in LBOD's properly for 2, 5, and 6 item weapon LBOD's. Also I cleaned up the materials for tailoring, to reflect how they show on the BOD (i.e. a Bone Armour BOD says leather on it for material, even though it takes leather and bone to make it).

Enjoy

Cutting up leather {By: Orion - Sep 22, 2003 04:54:41}

Sheesh, my pack is chock full of individual pieces of leather. To make matters worse the dumb stuff doesn't stack. To make it even worse, the combine cloth function of the tailoring kit doesn't combine my leather.

I remember this problem from a year ago, I'd love to see it fixed.

So great, you can recycle leather products (I'm GM'ing tailoring right now) but it leaves your pack an utter mess. Anyone have a solution?

Update: So weird, apparently it's just with leather gloves. Possibly other items, but I'm making leather bustiers now and the leather from them stacks, woo.

AOL Legends Now Open to the General Public {By: Orion - Sep 22, 2003 01:30:39}

Well this is interesting, in the wake of AOL Time Warner dropping the AOL from their name, we now have AOL Legends dropping the AOL from it's shard name.

Along with the slight rename, Legends is now a fully public shard, available to those with and without AOL service.

Opened in May of 2000, the AOL Legends shard was the first and only Ultima Online shard available exclusively through the America Online service. It was initially called AOL Sosaria, but was later renamed to AOL Legends in honor of Legends of Kesmai, one of the forerunners in the online role-playing game industry.

Today, Origin is pleased to announce another change to the shard, one that we hope will help nurture its tight-knit community, as well as help it to develop the cross-culture diversity found on other UO shards. Legends, as it will be called from now on, will open its doors to all players worldwide, beginning Thursday, September 25.

Aside from the slight name change and the new faces that will be visiting, the shard will remain the same; everyone who has been playing this shard can continue doing so. So welcome, everyone, to a bright and fun-filled future for Legends!

Well that's interesting, I really know little about Legends, I hear the community is pretty tight, but I have no idea about populations. I'm kinda curious what the faithful Legends players think about this change.

Calling all BOD Collectors! {By: Orion - Sep 18, 2003 12:13:30}

Okay guys, I need to fill some holes in my BOD Database. It came to my attention a couple weeks ago, that I don't have it right on a couple things with the Weapon LBOD's.

I now know they come in 2, 5, & 6 varieties. Does anyone know what the items for these can be? i.e. I know the weapon LBOD for 5 mace items, but what about 5 bladed items? Axes? 6 Axes?

Your help would be much appreciated.

Also, am I missing anything for the Tailor BOD's? Just let me know!

Milking the Population {By: Orion - Sep 17, 2003 01:11:03}

Oh dear, OSI/EA has come up with another way to milk the population. I'm okay with a few of these like character transfers, but holy crap, exploiting in game weddings, birthdays, and remebrance ceremonies?! Hehe, kudos to OSI for creative money making ideas! And at only $39.99 this must be a great deal. Heck, didn't counselors used to do most of this for free? Sure now you can get a cool engraved ring, official certificate, and even a certificate mailed to you, but damn, this just seems wrong. What exactly does the $12.99 a month pay for?

Update: I like how Nieves with UOPG took the news.

Site Update {By: Orion - Sep 15, 2003 01:17:38}

Just a quick note, I've added a new page on Stat Gains. There's some good information there on how to best gain stats, and get your 10-12 points per day in just four minutes.

If you're an astute reader, you'll notice 80% of the content is what I have written just two posts down. ;-)

Poll Time {By: Orion - Sep 15, 2003 01:14:21}

It's time to take down the old poll, and put up a new one. But before I talk about the new poll, let's look at the last poll.

The previous polled question was "To you, is UO worth $12.99 a month?". 725 of you voted, and 63% said no, in fact UO wasn't worth $12.99 a month. Now I know a lot of people who've perhaps gone down from 4 accounts to 2 accounts. But frankly, I know very few people who've actually left UO, and most people I know who had 2 accounts, still have 2 accounts. So what's that tell you? People may not think UO is worth $12.99 a month, but they will pay it. Speaking from an entirely economic point of view, then UO is priced perfectly.

Okay, the next poll question is, "Which client do you use?". I recently loaded up the 3D client for the first time in a while. I was pleased to see that zooming in didn't blur everything, but beyond that I still feel no compelling reason to use the 3D client except for a couple reasons. The first is to find items that've dropped behind things (pressing CTRL gives tags for everything you can target with) and the second is you can take things out of a stack one at a time (Shift+Alt and Click and Drag). The latter is great for splitting your piles of ore into piles of one, when smelting high end ore like Verite and Valorite. But really, beyond those two reasons I still just don't like the 3D client, it's improved a lot, but boy, the avatar's arms are damn small looking and the heads are damn huge, hehe.

So which client do you use? I'd like to know, my guess is that most of you use the 2D client 99% of the time.

Trouble with Stat Gains? {By: Orion - Sep 15, 2003 11:49:08}

Thankfully this will be fixed come Publish 20, but currently not all the skills that normally would raise stats will actually raise them. You may already know this of course, but much to my frustration the past few days I havn't been able to raise a single stinking point in Int.

Anyhow, so my search began, on how to fix this problem. First I noticed that in Publish 20 skills that should be raising stats, but seem to be broken, will work again. Joy.

So what skills will get you stat gains? Anatomy, Arms Lore, Camping, Lumberjacking, Mining seem to be the sure bets right now. And since stats are no longer tied to skills, any of the above skills can gain stats for you, just point up what you need to go up, and down what you don't need anymore. And lock what you want left alone of course.

Finally, you can gain around 11 or 12 stat points per day, with one point every 15 minutes. But if you want to just gain your stat points quick and not goof around waiting for that timer, simply jump facets and server sections with a moongate. Gain a point, jump in a moongate and change facets and servers, rinse repeat till you've gotten your max gains for the day.

BTW: I used Camping to work my Int up, I just went and got some kindling and tried making fires, each time I'd gain 1 Int (each time at a new locations). I gained my Int on the first attempt at making a fire each time, this worked exactly 11 times, but for 4 minutes worth of work, going up 11 points in stats is pretty dang nice. =)

Next Site Update {By: Orion - Sep 12, 2003 04:10:47}

The next site update is a bit different. This one won't be directly on this site, but it's database driven and involves BOD's. That's about all I will say now till probably Sunday. Just want you to know, yes I'm still coding like mad for the good of the site. ;-)

Character Transfers {By: Orion - Sep 8, 2003 04:39:15}

As predicted shard transfers for your characters will soon be available as the newest "PowerUp!" service offered by OSI. This one has been asked for ever since I first started playing UO 4 and a half years ago, so I'm sure lots of people will probably purchase the service. Here's what the annoucement has to say:

Transferring a character from one shard to another. It�s long been on your wish-list, but such a system could never be possible � or could it?

If you have ever yearned to be able to move your character from one shard to another, you may soon able to do so.

Can you imagine being able to migrate your favorite characters to new shards without painfully recreating them from scratch? And it�s not just their appearances, stats, and skills that would move across, it�s most of their equipment as well!

The character transfer process would be fairly simple:

- Purchase a �character transfer promotion code� from our web page or telephone support representative
- Log into the character-to-be-transferred and use the �help menu� to activate the code
- Select the destination shard�you�ll need to have an open character slot in the new shard for the process to work
- Confirm the items that belong to that character�these items will be transferred along with the character!
- After starting the transfer process, your character will enter a non-playable �limbo� mode. You�ll be temporarily kicked from the game as the character begins the process of moving from one shard to another, but you�ll be able to log into and play any other character as normal during this time. Once the process is complete, the old version of your character will no longer exist on the original shard.
- Within an hour, you�ll receive an e-mail notification once the transfer is complete.
- Log into your new shard with your old character!

If you�re worried about unforeseen issues that might arise during the process�for example, if your computer crashes while starting the transfer�we�ve got that covered. You might feel comforted knowing that, if anything goes wrong, the entire process cancels itself and no change is made. In such instances, your original character is back, safe & sound, right where you last saw him or her.

Transfer from any shard within the same territory would be possible. You can transfer your character to any shard in that same territory except Siege Perilous and Mugen.

But let�s not forget that your character�s collected a lifetime of custom gear, crafting resources, rares, and other items. Your character won�t be moving over to his or her new home without their gear. Here�s a list of what can transfer with the character:

- Character name
- Appearance (skin, hair, facial hair)
- Stat & skill points
- Reputation (fame, karma)
- Virtue points
- All pets, including any equipment carried by pack animals
- All the �monster points� you�ve accumulated by participating in champion spawns, including your special champion spawn title
- Most equipment on the character, in the character�s backpack, and in the character�s bank, with the exception of a few shard-specific items (such as Hooded Shroud of Shadows)

However, there�s a few items that will not be transferred with the character to its new shard:

- Guild/guild affiliation
- Faction affiliation
- Houses/house affiliations
- Some shard-specific items (such as Hooded Shroud of Shadows)
- Items locked down or secured in your house, including house add-ons
- Vendors & barkeeps

Character Transfers would be offered as our newest PowerUp! service. As with those other enhanced character services, there will be a charge for character transfers, but we haven�t determined the exact cost at this time.

Well that sounds a lot better than just transfering your characters look and stats. I have no clue how much this new service will be and I'm not honestly surprised they are going to charge for it. Heck, I'd do the same thing if I were in their shoes.

Sannio on New Vet Rewards {By: Orion - Sep 4, 2003 09:39:27}

In a discussion about Vet Rewards in the Ultima Yahoo News Group Sannion had this to say:

There will be one new reward added to the 1st year reward set. It's a new miniature house, and it's based upon a contest-winning custom house design that a UO player created. There won't be any other vet reward designs added this year, although, as always, players will continue to accrue vet reward "points" that can be spent on vet rewards.

More information on vet rewards can be found here:

http://guide.uo.com/miscellaneous_6.html

http://uo.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/uo.cfg/php/enduser/std_alp.php?p_search_text=vet+rewards&p_new_search=1

=========
Keith "Sannio" Quinn
Online Community Relations
Ultima Online (www.uo.com)
Origin Systems

Well I figured as much really, I didn't see them adding vet rewards to inifinity, did you?

Catch Up Time: Publish 20, Patch Messages, Vendor Changes {By: Orion - Sep 1, 2003 10:23:32}

Whew, time to get caught up on the UO news.

Publish 20 on Test Center
P20 is now on Test Center, using a Lake Superior backup. A couple key features are new house runes, major vendor changes, bulletin boards in houses to leave messages and receive messages, and I assume more. There is not feature list yet, I'm just eager to see what bug fixes we can expect this month. I thought that they were thinking about some faction fixes for pub20, but I haven't heard anything yet.

Client Updates
The last client patch has to be my favorite in a long long time. The need for a better patch message system has been MUCH MUCH needed, and they did a bang up job on this. Showing current news, current issues and more, whew, about time!

Also UO:3D is looking much better now. Zooming in no longer sucks, yay! I hated how blurry the tiles would get when zoomed in. Things look rather pixelated now when you zoom in, but wow, talk about an improvement!

Grief Play
I have mixed feelings on the new anti-grief policy for events. I'm pretty much in favor of the policy; it just seems anti-play style in some ways. But then I suppose griefing those at an event is anti their play style.

They should have a context menu to "squelch" a player on the spot. So you don't have to do it via the options menu. Perhaps have an option in the game, the first squelch expires after 15 mins, then the second time is 3 days, the third time is permanent.

Home again. {By: Orion - Aug 30, 2003 07:32:45}

It feels good to be home again, my daughter is in her room playing with her Lego�s, probably building a castle. In what feels like months, we have only really been gone for four days. But I suppose that's how emergencies for everyone feel.

I thank everyone who sent in words of encouragement. That and your prayers are greatly appreciated. It�s good to be home, and it�s very good to be working on bringing things back to normal. Your initial feelings when a loved one is hurting are so strong, but those feeling turn into strength so quickly, especially when the loved one is your own child.

In the past four days I have learned a lot, that juvenile diabetes has no 100% known cause, and that if you ask three doctors you�ll practically get three different answers. All they can tell you is it�s nothing you did, which is comforting, but makes you scratch your head and go, �Sheesh, in an age of computers, space travel, giant space telescopes, atom smashers miles long, nuclear power, how is it we don�t know the cause for some of these diseases that effect millions and millions around the world?�

Well, we may not know, but the current technology being put to bear for a cure is astounding.

Anyhow, this is my last post like this, you didn�t come here to worry about childhood diseases like Type-1 Diabetes. But again, if you have a spare dime, or some volunteer time, find out what you can do to help others. I have found a great starting place at www.jdf.org (Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund International).

Thank you once again.

Please Read This {By: Orion - Aug 28, 2003 12:41:10}

The UO Compendium is about a hobby of mine. And the hobby is about your hobby, playing UO. And because of that, I try to keep my personal life out of the news. Except for an occasional rant about my ISP, I do that pretty well. You don�t come here to read about sob stories.

But sometimes, something happens that I just cannot leave out, that I must say something about, and today is one of those days.

You see I�m a daddy, and today I found out one of my little girls is sick. I�m not looking for sympathy, I simply want you to take a second and go to sites like this www.diabetes.org and see if there is a way you can help out. My little girl is only four, she�s an angel in my eyes, and I want the best for her, as everyone wants for their child. So, if there�s a way you can help a children�s fund, a research fund, be it for diabetes, or one of the many other funds out there in search for one cure or an other, I would appreciate it, as would millions of others.

Thank You

UOC Site Update: Property List Database {By: Orion - Aug 27, 2003 02:06:18}

Item Properties Database
As I have mentioned over the past few weeks, I have been working on a new Item Property List for the UO Compendium. This new database, lists all properties (attributes) that items can have since the additions of AoS. These items can be displayed in mass, by category, by the items they apply to, or a single property at a time. I have put quite a few ways for you to display them.

You can view the new Properties List here or by using the newly reformated menu on the left.

Reformated Menus
Speaking of the reformated menus, you may have noticed today I added a "Network Sites" section to the menu. Along with cleaning the menus up to make them easier to navigate, I also removed some old information pertaining to armour that was seriously outdated.

New Site Backend
This officially starts the launch of the new database backend running the UO Compendium. The official roll out plan is to have one new section release per week, including a new section where you can enter your characters stats and skills, and have personalized information appear on pages. I hope you enjoy all this.

Enjoy

Lord British returns to Sosaria! {By: Orion - Aug 26, 2003 12:04:51}

Well wonder of wonders, Lord British, the king of Sosaria has returned to UO. I missed the main event, but got there soon afterwards. Thanks to Lord Murdok of Sonoma I was able to get a screenshot of LB standing on a table. (No clue what he said, nor why he was table dancing, hehe).

In a non-fiction aspect of things, it's interesting to have LB back, it possibly means the agreement between Richard Garriot and EA/OSI must have expired, and now this puts Lord British back in UO and also in the game Lineage.

I just wish I was able to get a pic of him on the throne, apparently people can't get to the throne anymore and GM's are saying stay back.

Update:

In this thread Sunsword (Producer, UO) had the following to say about LB being back in the game.

I know many people have asked whether or not we have permission to use the Lord British character in UO. Indeed we do.

Richard and I got together a month or two ago and roughed out the fiction involving the return of LB over lunch. I think he was very pleased to be approached about it and we had no difficulty coming to an agreement about it. Richard still owns the Lord British name and likeness, and we are using it with his permission.

I just thought I'd clear that up since so many people were asking.

Anthony Castoro
"SunSword"
Producer, Ultima Online

Well that's pretty cool to hear. Apparently this shin-dig was put on by the new Event Moderators. Interesting.

UXO Overview {By: Orion - Aug 24, 2003 12:53:38}

After two days of reading everyone�s thoughts about UXO, I�m frankly amazed. For people who have never even played the game (there are only 100 or so who have) the feelings about the game are strong in both directions. First off I have actually played the game. It still needs much balancing, but I played a quest, I felt the seamless private areas, I did the combat, and I saw something I actually liked quite a bit. With that said, I feel I�m capable of answering a lot of the questions and accusations I�m reading out there, hehe.

First off, UXO is a continuation from Ultima 9. Just because it�s a continuation with storyline does not mean it will inherit the bugs that plagued U9 because of it�s premature launch. Come on that is just silly. It�s made on an extremely stable 3D engine, you may have heard of it, Unreal Warfare by Epic Games. The game played extremely smooth with my hour at the controls.

So, to state the obvious, the X, is a roman numeral. Yes, this is Ultima 10 people, it continues the story arc, and if you watch the new demo real you�ll understand what happened. If you know Ultima lore, in 9, the avatar and guardian went up in a bang. They went poof and everyone thought that was that, good canceled evil, and evil canceled good. WRONG, you see now, they are both on an ethereal plane, constantly fighting it out, and the avatar is not winning. So to aid the avatar he creates a new world, Aluncenor, that is based on the virtues, to teach the virtues, to create those who will follow in the path of virtues and aid him.

That is why UXO does not take place in Britannia (and it�s not the first Ultima game to take place elsewhere). And to make the demo realer make even more sense, the guy you see in the beginning is the Avatar, and the location of Alucenor is in his mind. Yup, and at the very end you see the guardian change places with the Avatar, anyone notice they look close to the same? Well the Avatar and Guardian, as I understand are either the one and the same, or are merging right now.

The overlying theme of UXO is to have your character gain in the virtues, you do this by doing quests. And the neat thing about quests, is they come to you, you don�t go to a board and find that a princess is in the need of rescuing. No while you are out adventuring you come across someone, or they run up to you, in need of aid, etc. Via these quests you gain in the virtues. By launch UXO will have at least 300 quests. And these are not your standard linear quests al-la other games like EA and DAoC. Via cut scenes that everyone in your group can see, you have many choices to do in the quest. Think of the quests kinda like the books you may have read as a kid, you know the ones, where you chose what to do, and depending on your actions you flipped to a different page in the book. So this way if you have a character you want to play as the ultimate justice type character, you know, brash and the law is the law, you can do so. If you want to play a character as compassionate, you can do so, and by your choices at the end of a quest you�ll earn different points in the virtues. On a note, during the Q&A session with the dev team, Cal stated that those 300 quests are quest types. So a quest in one region to go kill 5 frost giants, is the same quest type as in another region where you have to kill 5 beetles. The quests I saw were rather interesting, someone was trapped in an amulet, but turned out to be something you�d rather keep locked up. And another quest where you had to free someone from the frost giant citadel.

Back to the virtues and storyline of the game. Your purpose is to help the Avatar, so you quest a lot and gain lots of virtues, and max out in all eight. What happens then? Why you Ascend of course! And then you start a new character. But wait, it�s not as bad as it sounds!!!! Because your new character is a follower of your first character (in fact there is a special title your followers get). By being a follower that character gets special abilities based on the main virtue of your ascended character, only characters that are followers of previously ascended characters get these abilities. And it goes on, you Ascend your next character, well your third gets to have the abilities of two of the virtues, again picked based on the results of your last two characters. This continues till your ninth character, who has all 8 special abilities based on the 8 virtues, gained by the previous 8 ascended characters, is available to play. At this point, once you max out the virtue abilities for this character you do a full Ascension to aid the avatar, but they didn�t say exactly what would happen, that�s a secret for us to find out eventually.

So there is the overlying storyline, now lets talk about game play. UXO is not turned based. I keep reading this and I don�t understand where people get this idea. Here�s how combat works, by clicking on the left and right mouse buttons you raise your attack value and defensive value. By focusing more on attack you lower your defense, and visa versa. By doing this it lowers your power attribute, which does regenerate. This ads a tactical point to PvM and PvP that I thought was quite interesting. You also no longer engage in combat and just automatically swing. You only swing or cast, or use abilities when you tell the game to. You swing as fast as your weapon swing speed and dexterity allow. But once you swing once, you may want to hold off a second or two and swing, thus making your swing count more, or you may want to keep swinging as fast as you can, making for weaker hits, but interrupting your opponent more. It�s your choice, and it feels quite natural. As in all games, connection will matter some, but now it is much more about how you handle fights and the tactics you use.

Furthermore, UXO moves fast, you always run, and it feels GREAT! It�s kinda arcade�ish in this aspect and I love it for it. You slide on ice, can get blown up to higher elevations in some maps, and more. The game looked great, and the controls and interface felt so damn smooth it was hard to believe it was just pre-alpha.

UXO is a sister game to UO. It�s not for the same player base, it will steal some customers (probably me for one), but not everyone will go over. Think about it, UO has like 240,000 players right now, in a market that has DAoC, EA, AC, (kinda) AC2, and more. Yet UO still thrives, and that with a 2D program, and a 2D/3D program. Why? Because UO is a very different game from the others, and UXO is very different from UO. UXO is about taking a single player feeling and adding your friends to it, but also having thousands of others around too. You get the feeling of single player games, where YOU are the one who matters most, but at the same time you get everything else a MMOG gives you, it�s rather hard to explain, but when you play the game, see how it works you�ll understand. I don�t have a hard time believing that EA/OSI can sustain both games, they are two different beasts.

EA/OSI does have a history, and when I read peoples negative feelings about UXO I contribute these feelings to that. Though I have read just as many positive posts about UXO than I have read negative. Anyhow, I only touched the surface of UXO, but let me tell you, it was a very smooth and crystal like surface. Imagine it�s 6am, you�re out on a lake, about to go knee boarding, think of the best water you could ever want, so damn smooth it�s like a mirror, it�s a wonderful feeling, and that�s the impression I got from UXO.

Only time will tell what UXO gives us, it�s scheduled for a Winter launch, which is only 4-6 months away. It really is a different type of MMOG, it takes the best from single player games and puts them in a PSW so you can share that with your friends. So when they say it�s a sister game, it really is.

I still have only scratched the surface of what I learned about UXO, but I hope this answers some questions for you.

For more UXO information visit the UXO Compendium.

Announcing the UXO Compendium {By: Orion - Aug 23, 2003 04:14:40}

I'd like to annouce the third game site on the Game Sentry network, the UXO Compendium!

The UXO Compendium, is now up and online, and located at uxo.gamesentry.com. I welcome you by to stop and see and learn about Utlima X: Odyssey.

I just posted 18 ingame shots of UXO along with 9 pictures from the EAX Event and 9 mini-movies of the EAX Event.

Furthermore, this means that news on this site will stay just UO news, as UXO is a completely different game. I will however, for a while post an update here saying there is new stuff up on the UXO site, so you don't forget about it. ;-)

UXO {By: Orion - Aug 23, 2003 02:54:43}

I'm home! What an adventure, I was going to post last night, but it was 1:30 and I couldn't finish my random thoughts. But now I have. This is part 1 of my UXO report, it's just highlights, I have 8 pages and tons of pictures and small videos to put up tomorrow, so please come back in the morning as once I get up, out comes the info!

PART 1: UXO HIGHLIGHTS
----------------------------------------

Whew, talk about info overload. First off, I missed the first 3 hours of the event. On my connection stopover in Seattle my flight was canceled when a piece of the FLOOR had a hole in it, it was then 'discovered' there were structural integrity problems or some crap. Anyhow, my 1.5 hour layover stretched to a near 6 hour event. YUCK.

BUT, I'm here now, and I got to talk with Rick Hall, lead producer for UXO, and many others. Tons of info to dispense here, and will have more in-depth stuff once I get home, but for now here is what I know (that I remember at the moment at least).

1. Races: UXO will have six races, they are: Humans, Elfs, Orcs, Phobo's (sp? They are like ratmen but shorter, kinda), Pixes, and Gargoyle's. Each of the races can be male of female, except for Orcs (male only) and Pixies (female only). At least for now says Rick Hall. I�m not to excited about Elfs honestly, yah-yah, you gotta keep up with the johnses, but I�ve always liked the non-elf theme of UO, but that�s just my opinion and I know it�s the minority.

2. 3D: UXO does use the Unreal Warfare engine, just as the rumor from two E3�s ago. What does this mean? Well besides an outstanding look, it means zones and zoning. I�m not a fan of zones, but from the sounds of it each area is huge, so the verdict is still out on those I suppose.

3. Quests: The game seems very quest orientated. The real cool thing is personal quest type setup they are going with. You can have private dungeons or zones to do some quests. This way your party can do a quest without having it ganked or kill steals ruining the event. Guilds can have private areas for RPG events, or whatever, and guild wars, or groups wars can be done in these personal zones too. Which leads me to PVP.

4. PVP: The idea behind UXO and PVP is to get rid of non-consensual PVP. It�ll all be via duels, guild wars, group wars etc. Private areas can be setup, so if you dual someone on say an 8 vs 8 dual, only those 16 people can get in. Thus getting rid of the surprises of blue healers, and other crap. Plus apparently you can setup a dual to wager things. Before the dual starts you can put items, etc up for wager, winner takes all style.

5. Classes: UXO has four main classes, err paths. Path of the Blade, Path of the Arcane, Path of the Naturalist, and umm Path of the Spiritualist or something. Apparently the name was changed last week. Anyhow, each class/path has sub-classes. Like the Path of the Blade has Paladin, Barbarian and something else. You can pick and choose skills specifically in your sub-class, or branch out some. But you can�t say have a barbarian with path of the arcane skills. So you can go the pure route, or mix it up some.

6. Travel: Some of you must be saying right now, BUT WHAT ABOUT RECALL ON MY WARRIOR. Umm, there isn�t a recall spell. There are still moongates, and they work rather similar to how they are now in UO, any moongate can get to another. Furthermore, for those of you morning the loss of recall, you will have a friends list, and with that friends list you can have them invite you and thus transport you immediately to where they are. So as in some games (like DaoC) you don�t need to find your friends and then run to them for a half hour to get to them. However, travel is more restricted now. I give this a thumbs up, recall in some ways have ruined UO, it�s too easy to get in and out, lowers risk, etc. It�s good in a non-consensual PVP environment and times though. Anyhow, moving on, no mounts at first, that�s for an expansion down the road.

7. Expansions: While on the subject of expansions. UXO does not have houses or crafting skills.

I can hear the growning now. Rick Hall says that�s expansion material. I just worry they will go down the road of DaoC, look how long it too them. Only time will tell.

But UXO should have enough quest content, etc, etc.

8. New Game: Make no mistake, UXO is a NEW game, not an expansion for UO. At this time there is no way to make your character travel to UXO, and from the sounds of it, it�s not very likely either. It makes sense, the game introduces too many different way for things to work, for a character merge to happen. Sorry charley.

9.

There is a lot more all to this, but for now covers what I have time do write, it�s 1am and if I want to get into the PVP tournament, I�ve got to be up early. =)

------------------

Well there you have it, all written last night, after a few drinks, and well after my bed time. ;-)

C-ya in the morning everyone.

Well laid plans never work. {By: Orion - Aug 20, 2003 05:39:38}

So I had this plan last week, I'd role out my new database for you all to play with. Then once a week I'd release a new portion of it.

haha

Well I managed to get my computer hosed along the way, first I got some stupid pop-ups that wouldn't go away, and were of the kind that made my wife blush. No clue how they got there, but Ad-Aware and 3 other programs couldn't keep them off.

Then I managed to get a rather nasty trojan downloader virus. That my anti virus software said it cleaned, but each time I rebooted it was back at it again. So no luck there either.

With those two things nailing my computer down I decided it was time for a reformat. So I spent a day backing things up carefully, then wrote 0's to my HD, fdisk'ed my MBR and reinstalled windows. And the 30+ programs I use to do graphics, program, play games, and general computing. Of course things are not back to normal, I can't for the life of me get my Sidewinder 2 joystick to work in Battlefield 1942. That being my current quick game of choice, is really beginning to irritate me.

Anyhow, the one nice thing that did happen, is I found that the patching process for UO went VERY fast. That's one very good thing about a new release.

Speaking of a new release tomorrow I shall be flying to San Fransisco for the Ultima X: Odessey event they are holding. I will have my digital camera, laptop, and mini recorder in tow of course.

What this all means is that my promise for an update to the site content will not happen this week. Sorry. =/

Back from vacation. {By: Orion - Aug 11, 2003 11:07:55}

A bear looking for campsite treats. Ahh, that was a nice break, four days of camping, swimming in a beautiful lake, playing disc golf, riding my bike, watching my kids chase every bug in existence, and of course wondering when the bear will come back.

Anyhow, I'm back from a much needed 4 day break, and I have some goodies in store this week for UOC, so check back daily.

Site Update: Powder of Temperament {By: Orion - Aug 6, 2003 02:46:14}

Hey guys, thanks to a reader I've updated the Powder of Temperament section in the Blacksmith BOD Section. The guide has been revised with the following info:

Powder of Temperament
This wonderful powder allows you to raise the maximum durability for weapons and armour. Each use of the powder raises the items max durability by 10 points. So if you had an item that started with 56 durability and used Powder of Temperament on it 10 times the item would now have a max durability of 156. This is important because as an items wears out it will not work as well. If it was a weapon you would no longer hit as hard, think of it as the edge getting dull. But if you have a really high max durability it takes longer for the weapon to wear out, percentage wise, the higher you have durability, the slower the percent goes down, which is good.

PoT is really useful on items such as shields, as they take a lot of damage fast. It's a great to use on weapons also, but would be a waste on anything that has the attribute "Self Repair". Furthermore, PoT is known to lower the max durability on Artifacts, so do not use the powder on any of your doom rares.

Sunsword on Player Races {By: Orion - Aug 5, 2003 06:45:15}

Sunsword posted today on the stratics forums the following on player races.

I have often heard the suggestion that UO should have player races.

Now, before I go any further, the purpose of this post is to foster some discussion about what you all think a player race IS, what about player races is the most meaningful, and which player races you'd like to see.

This isn't a promise that we're adding player races to the game. I know some of you won't be able to just leave it at that, but you guys know the drill, right? Players sometimes bring up that races would be good to have in UO, and we are wondering what exactly it is that YOU feel player races would bring into UO that you don't already have.

Anyway, there's been some debate in the office about which races would theoretically make sense if we were to add them one day, and what the implications of being one race or another should be. For example, in some games, choosing your race is almost akin to choosing a class. If you want to be a fighter, you might as well be (totally arbitrary) a half-ogre. Otherwise you don't get the strength bonus and special move!

Given UO's focus on flexibile characters, this doesn't seem like the direction we'd want to go. On the other hand, if there is no difference between races other than the cosmetic, they might not feel "substantial enough."

So, how meanginful would additional player races be to you?
Which races would you want if you could have them?
What differences between the races should there be, if any? (stat cap differences, skills, racial abilities, cultural assets, etc...)

Anthony Castoro
"SunSword"
Producer, Ultima Online

So what's your take on player races? Honestly it could be interesting but what place do races have in UO? The skill system just doesn't support player races in the traditional RPG sense. Traditionally races really do match up with classes, but UO really is a classless society.

Yes, there are your Warriors, Mages, etc, but you can switch your entire character if you wish to. So how can races be used in UO, and for that matter what races could we use, how could they make an effect in UO?

Right now we have 1 playable race, humans, but UO currently has a few other races that are worth mentioning. The Juka and Meer pop to mind quickly, they were the "other two races in UO 2", those, of course Orcs come to mind too, Dragons I suppose another game is doing that, but I don't think it'd fit in with UO to be honest. There are Savages, they'd make a cool race, and perhaps Trolls, though their existance in UO is not very notworthy like Orcs.

Elfs, Vampires, etc just don't fit with UO, and I'd honestly hate to see them in the game. But I think if we could play Savages (not just the paint), Orcs (not just the masks), Meer, Juka (not just their bows), and Humans, that'd be pretty nice. That is five different races. Of course, besides cosmetics how do they stand out?

Well UO has hardly tapped the stats game. Good or bad, what we have no is still pretty simple. Perhaps a new stat could be "affinity", certain skills are more powerful for certain races. Meer could have an affinity of +20 to Arcane stuff, so it'd affect now only their attack and defense stuff, but also how fast they learned (though once you hit stat cap who cares), Juka could have an affinity to all things mechanical, so they'd get a bonus with bows, explosive potions, and tinkerings. You get the idea.

Of course, there'd have to be disadvantages too, so that when you think Mage, you don't have to automatically think Meer. Perhaps Orcs are normal but have a decreased likability, so all shop prices go up, or something, but they gain perhaps faster natural healing.

You really could go all over the place with affinities and natural characteristics for player races. But does UO need/want them? So late in the game, after 6 years of playing a human or a human? Think about the balance issues that will arise, PVP will once again be turned on it's head, as well as PvM. Is it really worth it?

Let me know in the forums!

UOC Interviews Alai (again!) {By: Orion - Aug 4, 2003 04:52:18}

We sent some more questions to Alai now that he's moved to a new position within OSI.

UOC: Quite a few people enjoyed the final fall of Blackthorn, however we were all told don't expect this to be the start of new content. Was this just to tidy things up with that story line, or is it a foretelling of new content? Or perhaps more ant and hag style quests?

Alai: Mostly we're just trying to control expectations. The Blackthorn event was something we wanted to do to liven things up for a bit, and was not a kick off event to a new series of ongoing fiction. We were concerned that players would expect a new barrage of ongoing content, and we didn't want them to be terribly disappointed when/if it didn't come. Everybody supporting UO is a fan of ongoing content as well as in-game events and what they add to the game; we're presently investigating how both can be provided in the future.

You can view the entire interview here.

I did ask him a question about UO X: Odessey, but unfortunatly I got no reply on that. However, I will be attending the UO X Event in 3 weeks, so I guess my questions will be answered there. I sure did want something though, I didn't even get a "wait 3 weeks" hehe.

OSI wants you! {By: Orion - Jul 31, 2003 12:16:24}

Now this is interesting:

Origin Systems/EA Online is looking for a few good Event Moderators to help facilitate in-game events. If you have a passion for fiction and feel this is something that interests you, please e-mail the information listed below to uoevents@uo.com with the subject line �Event Moderator.� Applicant must be 18 years of age or older. Submissions must be received by Friday, August 1, 2003.

- Your name.
- Your home address.
- Your main account username (please do not send your password).
- How long have you played UO?
- Which shard do you play on?
- Have you been a �Seer� before?
- If so, tell us about one event you participated in or helped create.
- Rate this event on a 1 to 5 scale (5 being the best), and tell us why you chose that rating.
- Why do you want to become an Event Moderator?

Wow a return of Seer like events to the shards would be AWESOME! Man, I'd love this job. =)

UO X: Odessey Early Renders? {By: Orion - Jul 30, 2003 09:41:06}

Looks like Ianstorm got the jump today. They have a few shots slipped from the Liquid Development.

Anyhow, view the shots here..

They are of a cartoonish look, and quite appealing I think. They make me think of WoW, which isn't a bad thing.

Publish 19 and T-maps {By: Orion - Jul 28, 2003 06:53:48}

Tajima Posted on the stratics forums today that Publish 19 will go live tomorrow Pacific.

Houston, we are a go to re-launch pub19 on Pac at shard up tomorrow.

:-)

MrTact

In related news, it looks like there will only be 3 out of 200+ t-maps blocked. And even those three may get fixed. Really then, 3 maps? Sheesh, who cares, that's not a big deal at all. The 20 something people were talking about was over blown apparently.

Yeah, apparently I'm failing in my micromanaging abilities, QA has all
of this well in hand. :)

They did indeed check all 200+ spots and only found 1 definite problem
and 2 possible ones. I wasn't aware that they had already done so.
Good for them! Given the magnitude of the changes we are doing in this
publish, fixing the 3 spots wasn't given priority.

It's been taken care of.

--
Anthony Castoro
Producer, Ultima Online

Hey I can live with that.

UOC Site News {By: Orion - Jul 26, 2003 09:31:30}

Just a quick note, the Blacksmith BOD Database and the Tailor BOD Database are now fixed. Sorry I missed that so long.

Dev Talk: Sannio Reports from GenCon {By: Orion - Jul 26, 2003 09:20:20}

Sannio checked in from GenCon today, with this to say:

As mentioned in a previous post and an FYI on UO.com, a number of the Dev Team (including myself) are here at GenCon!

Things are going great! Last night we had a live Q&A session at the Crown Plaza Hotel's Pennsylvania Room. Fifty-four players were there, in addition to seven Origin staffers. Anthony "SunSword" Castoro lead the way, launching the Q&A with a short speech and then opening up the session to questions from the attendees.

Dozens of questions were asked, and various members of the Dev Team stood up when their expert answers were called for. Now a question was left unanswered. I jotted down notes as the session progressed, and here's a small selection of the points that came up to give you an idea of what we talked about:

- We're going to look into addressing the concerns about the high level of competition to obtain Dungeon Doom rares. Suggestions from players included randomizing the spawns or making some spawns more or less rare than currently.(By the way, did you know some Doom rares appear months after it's previous spawn?)

- Several players asked about the possibility of adjusting insurance to not accommodate so many item types, and limited insurance could be a boon to thief characters. It's something to consider, but we also shared our observation that one of the biggest complaints against thieves has been that there's no defense against them--even when you literally know you are being stolen from you often can't do anything to stop it. If any adjustments were to be made to insurance in this direction, we'd have to also consider other methods to counter thieving.

- Concerns were brought up against the recent test center "nerfing" of Peacemaking. We reiterated for the attendees that, as stated in several posts, that change was actually a bug. However, we do recognize some legitimate concerns with targeted Peacemaking, and will be looking into this.

- Some players wondered about the possibility of including some additional abilities to Chivalry. (We've heard a number of suggestions prior to GenCon along these lines as well.) We don't have any specific changes for Chivalry coming up, but we don't want to dismiss these suggestions as a possible course of action at a later date. Right now we need to keep an eye on Chivalry as it is and make sure that any such changes would be appropriate for the balance of the game.

- When players asked about us fixing bugs, we mentioned that both Publish 18 and Publish 19 included about 200 bug fixes apiece (you can see a summary of these in UO.com's Update Center). Our goal is to keep up this pace with future publishes.

- Players asked about Bulk Order Deeds, hoping that BODs were in the cards for skills beyond Blacksmithing and Tailoring. We've given some thought to this, and would like to expand the BOD system to other skills. But before that can happen we need to make sure that there's enough diversity in how you might collect the BODs before proceeding in that direction.

- We were asked if we'll one day re-allow any players to view the decay status of a house. In truth, there are some circumstances when you can. If the house has the potential to collapse, you can see the state. In other words, if a house is Condemned, the decay state is viewable, but if it's a Primary House and is being automatically refreshed, the state remains visible only to the house's residents.

- We're looking into the possibility of having a dedicated Test Center shard. No promises, but we'd like to have one up and running for players as often as possible.

- Questions were asked about some faction bugs, and we noted that a large number of faction fixes were being resolved with Publish 19. (Check out the Update Center for more details.)

- Players wondered if it was possible to improve looting rights for Champion Spawns to reward you for all the effort made prior to fighting the boss, and not just from killing the boss himself. In other words, working your way up the champion spawn ladder would give you improved loot at the end, whereas people who just showed up for the finale would receive a lower level of loot.

There were a number of other topics that came up, but there's a small sampling for you. Let us know what you think!

=========
Keith "Sannio" Quinn
Community Relations
Ultima Online (www.uo.com)
Origin Systems

First off, I have to say 200 bugs fixed for the publishes 18 and 19 is VERY VERY nice. And I do have to say Kudos to OSI for nailing them down. In my opinion a bug or two introduced from a publish is worth having 400 fixed. However, having 400 bugs in the game for quite a few number of months is another issue, and you have to wonder how the game got to a point where there are 400 bugs killed and more still there. But still, 400 fixed is a great thing.

I'm definitely all for randomizing some of the Dungeon Doom rares. Leaving some static is fine; perhaps making a few more frequent is good too. But I honestly really do like ultra rare 'rares'. It's a good thing; it leaves me with something unknown about UO. Not having one of everything in a game is GOOD for the populous. What I'd really like to see is the discontinuation of some of the rares, pull a few, and add a few, mix things up. Then say a year later, put some of the old ones back in.

I didn't know the status of a condemned house would show when it's in that state. That's got to be great news for the 'condemned house profession'.

It used to be when I first started playing UO, that there was practically ALWAYS a test shard, the only times I remember there not being one was when they were updating it for a day or so with new stuff. Having that back would be great.

Finally, YES YES YES, having looting rights at champ spawns count in how long you've actually been there would be a GREAT thing. I honestly haven't been to a champ spawn in forever, it's pathetic, you sit there hacking at crap forever, then the champ spawns, 50 people from no where appear and bam, it's over. Have the looting rights count how many pre-spawns you killed or some such. Make it a combo, so mages with EV's can't dominate it totally. Do something.

All in all, it's good stuff to read.

Something special in my mailbox. {By: Orion - Jul 25, 2003 07:05:25}

Something special arrived in my inbox today. And contained within the email was a link to:

eaxevent.com.

You will quickly see this is the first ingame footage of Ultima X: Odessey to be released.

Joy.

{By: Orion - Jul 25, 2003 07:01:20}

So, what's going on with Phase III of the house publish (talk about a long publish).

News on Phase III next week. We're obviously pre-occupied with getting 19 out...

Anthony Castoro
"SunSword"
Producer, Ultima Online

Uh-huh. Well stay tuned next week!

Spin Master DJ Sunsword {By: Orion - Jul 23, 2003 01:25:19}

In a post titled "It's easy to lose perspective sometimes", Spin Master DJ Sunsword puts a different perspective on yesterdays revert and "new" bug found on the test release of Publish 19.

I know it's frustrating to wait on something you desire, especially when it seems you've just about got your hands on it, and it is basically yanked away. But for those of you that have been around online games for any significant amount of time, I think it's important to put an event like today's in context.

A bug didn't "get through." Just the opposite, actually. The final step of the QA process is to publish a release candidate to one shard. For a game as large and complex as this, there is no better test than the thousands of people that play the game in the live environment. Most of you, I think, are well aware of this.

Today's case is perhaps even more particularly annoying because the issue that cropped up was actually reported over a week ago. We got a lot of feedback that we were able to act on, and unfortunately, this one slipped through to the final stage. I've met with some of the QA leads and I think we've tracked down what happened and we're working on ways to minimize such failures.

Our goal is to try and publish every 6 weeks. The point of the goal is to provide substantial, high quality and positive updates on a regular basis. If it takes 7 or 8 weeks sometimes, I think that's okay, as long as you all are aware of what's going on and why. There's not a big difference between 1.5 and 2 months. There's a huge difference in 2 months and 6. I don't think any of us wants to go back to a longer term schedule.

If you look at the huge amount of changes for this publish and the new features we're introducing, I think it's apparent that waiting the extra time is worth ensuring the quality.

We appreciate your patience, understand your angst and look forward to seeing you in-game.

(minor typos)

Anthony Castoro
"SunSword"
Producer, Ultima Online

In reality, it's a good post by Sunsword, 6 or 8 weeks on a publish is okay, but that's not the point.

QA didn't miss a bug until it was put on a production server, it ignored a bug that was reported weeks ago. That's the real point a lot of people bring up, they want to know what the process is, and that someone on your end is actually reading the bug reports. It's bad enough the GM's hardly make you feel as if they listen, but bug reports too?

Ianstorm Interviews Kerowyn {By: Orion - Jul 22, 2003 06:51:05}

Ianstorm has an interview of Kerowyn up.

Do you have your own special wishlist for Ultima Online?

Kerowyn: Aside from Kerowyn Isle? Sure, I do. I'd love to see more done with the sea and sailing in general. There just seems like there's a lot of potential there. Of course, I'm no designer, and certainly not a programmer, so I have no clue as to what issues or challenges might arise with such a project.

Bug Tracking {By: Orion - Jul 22, 2003 01:36:22}

Nieves of UOPowergamers is talking about today�s shard revert due to a bug with pricing of BOD�s on vendors.

This isn�t a news post to rant on OSI. It�s a question to OSI about their bug tracking. How exactly does it work at OSI? We all know the tcbugs@uo.com and uobugs@uo.com email accounts, setup for us to report bugs. Or at least we should know. But what happens when you send a bug report in? How soon is it read? Is it automatically entered into a bug tracking system as soon as it gets in? How are categories figured for each bug? What about priorities?

I�ve worked for the biggest software giant on the earth, and I�ve worked for the smallest software midget in the world (myself), if anything I know everybody tracks bugs differently, and with different success rates. I�m curious on how OSI tackles this issue compared to the rest of the software industry.

I�m not a fan of submitting bugs via email, I firmly believe someone who�s not tech savvy should have a form they can use to enter their bug. That way it�s automatically assigned a category. It�s just one more hint for a dev who�s looking at the bug. Furthermore, in a game like UO, a bug report should really be in game, that way other system metrics can be taken at the same time as the user reports the bug. Such as location, this way the dev may get an extra jump reproducing a bug (because honestly, if you can�t reproduce it, you�ve got nothing to work on).

Yes, I know, being on the outside makes it infinitely easier to be a judge of code quality. When you�re staring at 1000�s of lines of code, it can be like searching for a needle in a haystack. But seriously, how is OSI tracking things, what is their order of operations when it comes to bugs?

I think AoS on the scale of just number of bugs was a D- (on the scale of new content, stuff to do, game changes I give it an A-). But I think the last publish was fairly good, and it looks like pub 19, minus this one glitch will come out good too, as it�s being player tested, not just QA tested. But I still think there is room for improvement.

Quake 4 Shots {By: Orion - Jul 20, 2003 08:27:00}

A friend sent me some goodies today. These are actual screen caps of models for the upcoming title Quake 4. A few concept art pieces too.

Many bothans died getting these.

First Screen Shot of Ultima X: Odessey {By: Orion - Jul 19, 2003 11:42:37}

Looks like stratics was able to nab the first screenshot of Ultima X: Odessey, what is looking to be the next, umm, something from OSI. I say something because no one knows if it'll be a new world, seperate from what we have now, or what.

Anyhow, click on the link to go have a look. It's not too shabby.

The search for Publish 19 {By: Orion - Jul 18, 2003 08:12:34}

The ever so crafty beast known as Publish 19 is still at large. Hold fast that you the player are still finding bugs so that the dev team can squish them.

Yah, anyhow, no Pub 19 this week:

For those of you waiting for an update on Publish 19, we caught a few important issues during the last week of testing, and we're fixing those before we make the Publish live. We encourage players to continue trying out Publish 19 on our external Test Center over the weekend, and assuming all goes well, we hope to release it to one shard early next week. (To see an updated list of the bugs fixed in Publish 19, go check it out here; it was updated just a short time ago with several additions.) We'll keep you updated if anything changes!

I'd rather see it delayed and have less bugs, then shipped and pulled, or shipped and have a bug stay for the next 1-3 years. ;-)

Markee Dragon updates his UO Rares and Items Database. {By: Orion - Jul 18, 2003 08:08:59}

I just got this from Markee Dragon, seems they've updated their Rares and Items database.

UO Rares and Items Database. Version 2.0 Released!

UO Items / Rares Database: http://www.markeedragon.com/uoitems/

Announcing the new version of the UO Items and Rares Database!

*It's bigger. This version not only has rares. It has all UO items that can be bought, sold, traded, owned or interacted with. This even includes Tamable animals and monsters!

*We added categories to include Artifacts, BOD Rewards, BODs, Plants and Seeds, Powerscrolls and more.

*The buy and sell values now cover ALL UO shards (American, European and Asian)
The database is now much more dynamic. We have the ability to edit and modify categories on the fly as new areas are identified or removed.

*The database still uses the same great method of player submission and updates of all the items.

*Anyone who submits an item gets credit within the item details. If you know your stuff you will be able to show it.

UO Rares and Items Database. Version 2.0: http://www.markeedragon.com/uoitems/

Tajima is no longer with OSI {By: Orion - Jul 7, 2003 02:14:17}

Well folks looks like Tajima is no longer with OSI. Looks as if he has landed at Retro Studios.

I hope you all see this, hehe. {By: Orion - Jul 2, 2003 04:53:32}

Well, by now the DNS should have populated and UOC is now on a new server. I'm going through now and checking all the subpages for script changes that need made, enjoy everyone. =)

PS: I broke the forums, but since no one hardly reads them I doubt it will matter too much. =)

Server Move {By: Orion - Jun 30, 2003 01:08:57}

Well today is the day all, the site will be moving to a new server, my own in fact. I meant to do this like 2 months ago, but got side tracked. Anyhow, if the site goes down for a bit, have no worries, it'll be back up.

See you on the other side.

So, the site turns 2 today. {By: Orion - Jun 13, 2003 11:20:35}

Well, well, well. The UO Compendium has a birthday today, two years ago this day I started the UO Compendium. Can't believe it's been two years already.

In that time the site has had three different designs, with the current being by far everyone�s favorite so far. In the past two years I also got married and my new wife had a baby little girl. I've also gone back to college to complete two degrees, on in Biotechnology and another in Computer Science (and a minor in math). And to top it all off I started my own company a few months ago, Orion Seven Systems. It's doing quite well, so if you need some web design or custom programming (hint hint).

In other words, it's has been quite a busy two years. Of course you can't tell it around here as most of the content I start never gets finished and put on the site, hehe.

Anyhow, the site is still fun to run, and I do actually have updates planned, execution of these updates is another thing entirely.

New Avatar Faces? Where'd they go? {By: Orion - Jun 9, 2003 10:21:53}

Okay, anyone remember last fall when a sneak peak at the new avatar faces? Where people could pick and choose what face they wanted on new characters and possibly your current characters. What happened to that? =/

Tugsoft pulls the plug on UOASpeed {By: Orion - Jun 7, 2003 11:54:07}

I just noticed this today, it seems yesterday Tugsoft, makers of UO Assist, pulled the plug on UOASpeed. UOASpeed was a program that helped out modem users to increase the speed of the game like us high speed internet users have. From what I know it worked as a proxy system, caching certain data or some such, all in all a great idea.

Anyhow here is what Tug had to say:

The UOASpeed beta server has been shut down. On March 31st OSI emailed a list of concerns about UOASpeed to which a response to each was made. Since it had been so long since a reply to the concerns was made with no reply from OSI a little over a week ago another message was sent to OSI asking about the status. The response from OSI was the answer still was no which was surprising since they never sent a message stating that before. Another message was sent to OSI asking why they decided on no but they have not responded for a week so the beta server has been shutdown.

So it boils down to this. OSI has rejected UOASpeed approval. I do not have details on why they came to that decision so if you'd like to find out you'll need to contact OSI directly.

The good news is OSI has made some changes that do help modem users (and others as well). But even with those changes UOASpeed still benefited a number of the beta testers (there were also a few that it did not benefit). A big sorry goes out to those modem users that had dreams of a little less 'lag' in UO.

Well I have to say this kinda sucks. I'd be interested in what concerns OSI had, they probably were concerned of exploits etc, but Tug did try to answer their questions, it just sucks that they obviously didn't want to work anything out or seemed to even answer him.

Anyone at OSI want to shed some light on this?

UO House of Commons Chat Tonight {By: Orion - Jun 5, 2003 03:55:25}

Just a friendly reminder that tonight at 5PST / 7CST there is a new UO HoC Chat. You can find info about it here.

MyUO Changes/Info {By: Orion - Jun 5, 2003 03:53:55}

Some more MyUO Changes/Info in the mix:

- The issue where the number of guild members weren�t displaying the same as the in-game guildstone menus is now fixed.

- On the character pages, skill flags aren�t being shown for skills 49, 50, and 51, and the respective links aren�t pointing to the proper pages. These flags should soon displaying the Necromancy, Chivalry, and Focus flags, and point to the correct skill pages.

- The new Age of Shadows weapons do not yet appear on character displays. Also, there are some new AoS hues that are appearing incorrectly, displaying as multi-colored spots instead of solid colors.

- Character pages are incorrectly showing the �guild name� as that character�s own name, and linking that name to an incorrect page.

I'm sure a few people will be happy to have guilds reporting members properly. =)

Hold on to those +5 Stat Gifts {By: Orion - May 28, 2003 02:06:16}

The word from the street (I can't believe I just used that phrase) is that the +5 Stat apology gift is broken.

... Dramatic Pause ...

Apparently if you use it first and then at a later time apply a stat scroll (say +25), the two don't add up like they are supposed to. So as in my example you'd expect to have +30 stats, and instead get +25. However, if you use the +25 scroll first and then the gift scroll of +5, you do get +30. Yah...

I'd just hold on to those for now and wait for a patch for the apology gift, which was an apology for needing a patch for AoS. Anyone see the irony?

Factions {By: Orion - May 28, 2003 09:40:15}

So last night I picked up Planetside, a game that charges $13 a month (oh wonder of wonders as SOE led the pack in the $13 a month brigade). As of yet I�ve only seen about 4 other living beings, but I�m assured by friends more people are around. I�ve done the initial training, gotten comfortable with the interface, etc, and really I�m ready to go rock and roll.

The game seems enjoyable, and yes $13 does seem steep for an FPS game, but hey it�s something new and fresh, so we shall see how long it lasts.

But whether I enjoy Planetside is not the main reason to this post, the real reason is Factions.

You see, Planetside in essence is UO�s factions. And from what I can tell so far OSI could learn a few lessons from Planetside on how to fix factions. Really UO�s factions are on the right track, but they need a few things.

UO has a basic faction balance system, but what they really need is a balance system similar to Planetside. Where the number of hours played by each side effects your sides abilities.

Oh there are others, I just thought that one was pretty good, instead of shear numbers of people the quality of what they do counts the most�

RealLifeComics {By: Orion - May 28, 2003 09:30:20}

Real Life Comics has a strip up today about the price increase in UO. It's pretty funny as it sums things up quite well. Even thought people are voting no they don't think UO is worth $13 a month, it doesn't mean they will actually STOP playing UO.

I do think a lot of you have canceled extra accounts and such. But when it comes down to it, from what I've read, it's people who had extra accounts they hardly used.

In the end it's what you are willing to pay, are you willing to pay $13 a month? If UO is still entertaining to you besides everything else that happens, then of course you will still play. That's the bet EA/OSI made, they know how many hours you guys are logging, they know the ones logging those hours will still play. Anyhow I ramble, and this subject has been talked to death.

Go play UO you loyal minions. I await a better day though.

133 votes so far. {By: Orion - May 27, 2003 10:36:41}

At the time of this post there are 133 votes in the poll if UO is worth $10 a month. Of those 133 73% vote no. Ouch. I expected the no's would lead, but by less of a margin, but hey, it's still early in the poll, time can change anything!

So, why all the votes for no? Well let's looks at a few questions many of us are asking right now:

1. Why are factions still broke?
2. What happened with the virtue system?
3. Where are my scenarios?
4. For that matter where are more quests?
5. Why did it take 3 months to fix the bugs in AoS?
6. Why are there still bugs in AoS?
7. Where are the more frequent updates?!

On the point about more frequent updates, shouldn't we really be at like Publish 20, not 18? I mean, imagine if OSI had released one publish each month since AoS. Imagine each month more and more bugs got fixed. Arguably fewer bugs could be fixed since more time would be spent on the testing and updating process, BUT having something to gnaw our teeth on over the last 3 months would be far better than what we got.

So, that's just a few gaps in the legend of UO, I won't get into how it took 4 years to get necromancers. Or how about the age old promises to upgrade Alchemists? Err, sorry, I won't go there into the past.

HTML in UO {By: Orion - May 24, 2003 09:14:59}

So I was reading today that you can use some HTML tags when you name your house. Well it's true. You can use the bold and italics HTML tags.

I also noticed if you used the font tag that it would list your house name, but wouldn't show the owner's name or if the house was public/private.

And finally, the effects of the tags only show when you mouse over or single click on the sigh, it will simply show the tags when you double click on the sign.

Have fun.

Poll Time {By: Orion - May 23, 2003 04:09:38}

Okay all, the current poll has been up for 82 days. And since Publish 18 is about to come out, it is high time that we put up a new poll. But, let�s look at the results of the current poll first.

Of the 624 of you who cast a vote 352 of you don't like AoS. That's 56%! Ouch. But it's not that gloomy, of those 352, 50% (177) don't like AoS because of all the bugs/lag it introduced. So really the numbers will be much more favorable after Pub 18.

Anyhow, here is the full break down:

- 95 Votes (15%) think it's the "Best Expansion Ever"
- 111 Votes (18%) think "It's good, but could be better"
- 66 Votes (11%) think it�s just �Okay�
- 177 Votes (28%) think �I�d be saying great if not for the lag/bugs�
- 175 Votes (28%) think �Grr, *(#&% stinking AoS�

And now onto our new poll

�To you, is UO worth $12.99 a month? �

Please note I say TO YOU. Not to me, or to your cousin, but do you think UO is worth $12.99 a month. If you do, cool. If you don�t, cool. I�m just curious. =)

So, look to the right of the page and make your vote known!

What a great news week {By: Orion - May 23, 2003 03:45:42}

Oh man, this has been a fun news week.

So a friend of mine asked a pretty simple question, "What do Stratics Plus members about the new game rates they have to pay along with paying for Stratics Plus".

The response? The original post was deleted and a warning was sent to my friend about making posts like that.

I'm sorry, that's hardly disparaging of the Stratics Plus service. It's a question, for those who pay for UO and an extra service to match UO, what do you think, is it costing too much for you now? It's a question, and a simple one.

Hrm, sounds like a new poll.

Open Letter to Morons {By: Orion - May 22, 2003 02:08:00}

This is an open letter to the morons out there:

Dear Morons:

I am glad you want to give EA/OSI more money. More power to you. As you have said "it's only $3 more", yes it's only $3 more, but have you thought about that a bit more. Let us take a peak at things.

First, off, it is actually $3.04 more a month, which equates to a price increase of 30.6%. If you divide the 30.6% increase over six years, that is an average rate increase of 5.1% each year. That is well above the average 3% inflation our economy goes through each year.

So, technically EA/OSI is making roughly 18% less than they did six year ago. However, six years ago they did not have 230,000 some odd customers. So their per account cost was much higher than it is now. Unfortunately without better analysis of their quarterly reports, or better yet, a breakdown, no one outside of EA/OSI will know exactly. So with a much better ratio of cost per account than they had before, where is this money going? Have you given this a thought?

EA is simply following the market trends with their new cost structure. Many of the new games and soon to be released games are around the $12.99 mark. But, these games are also a lot more up to date graphically speaking, if not also in the server backend. These games also look to offer rich player experiences along the lines of what UO has (look to Horizons and Star Wars Galaxies). So with the same content, but better graphics you pay the same price?

Face it UO is broken. If you disagree could you kindly point me to a working faction system, a working quest/content system, a working server without lag, and a working young system that isn't constantly being exploited by its veteran user base. I ask you this, because I would like to come play your game.

I could go on, I could talk about how bandwidth costs are much lower than before, I could talk about how there are pre-created 3D engines out there that you can lease for less than what a brand new one costs to make. I could talk about a lot of things. But what it boils down to is that UO does not cut it when you come up to a $12.99/month subscription rate. It�s not about providing a better game, EA�s own financial statements clearly show they are raking in lots of healthy profits from UO. They are now cutting into greedy profits. EA is not your friend, they don�t want to provide one more ounce of entertainment for your $12.99 if they don�t have to. They will simply continue along with our current system of making you buy an upgrade for $30.00 and then making you wait 3 months to fix it partially.

Do not be fooled, they want your money, they want to increase profits by 30.6% so that next quarter they can enjoy even healthier stock options.

I hope you have something to say about this, I�d love to hear your arguments against this. If you do let me know here (no registration required).

Putting your money where your mouth is. {By: Orion - May 22, 2003 11:00:02}

Oh dear, do you think UO in it's current state it worth another 3 bucks a month?.

Apparently EA/OSI does. This morning when I read this I popped a cork. I was so damn mad.

Now that I've had a bit more time to think about this I'm still damn mad! Let's go over things a bit.

Six years ago (or there about) Origin Systems released Ultima Online for $9.95 a month. Since then, inflation has gone up a tad, BUT, and I mean this with huge capital letters, the cost of servers, etc. have gone down drastically.

With the tech bust, programmers are a dime a dozen, well not that cheap, but average wages have decreased. I know, I am a programmer.

Cost of bandwidth?! Oh my gosh, I can go out RIGHT NOW and buy bandwidth at as little as 1 penny a GIG! 1 penny! Six years ago I seriously doubt you could find bandwidth that cheap. And don't get me wrong, that's in a VERY nice datacenter, with power backup, and the whole nine yards.

So, why should I give OSI six more bucks a month (I have two accounts) to get delivered the same shoddy code over and over? Good question. Let's look at this a bit more.

AoS was released just 3 months ago. Since then we've dealt with bug after bug after bug. We are JUST getting the fix for AoS (well Baja is). Three months! That's an awful long time to have to deal with bugs.

Could it be that they need more money to beta test their shit? Buy more programmers so their current ones don't have too much to do?

That could be, but what about the profits they just got from selling AoS in the box? It cost me $30 some bucks, you can't tell me some of it doesn't go back into the company.

What about those record number of subscribers?! Let me tell you guys something about economics. Here is how a healthy product sells. The more you sell (in our case monthly subscriptions), the lower your bottom line costs per sale. So with more customers their profits should be going up, way up, it's on an exponential curve for crying out loud!

Perhaps they are prepping us for the new subscription rates for Ultima-X. Or more like it, perhaps they want to up their profits even more for the corportate a-holes at EA.

You heard me, I just called the suits at EA assholes. Feel the loving guys?! I hope so.

230,000 subscribers x $9.95/month x 12 months = $27,462,000 / year

230,000 subscribers x $12.95/month x 12 months = 35,742,000 / year

Bah, I�m sorry, the graphics are dated, there are LONG lasting problems still in the game, yet we are asked to pay more? Funny how that works isn�t it?

Yah, I have over simplified a few things, and costs of development for new games are damn high, but guess what, this isn�t a new game! It�s six years old and it looks like it too!

I know, lots of people will get real pissed, say they are quitting, etc. Know what? Not that many people will quit over this. Oh sure, those with five accounts may go down to 4, but those with 2-3 accounts? Probably not. In the long run, it won�t hurt EA/OSI.

They�ve run the numbers, they can say they are following industry standard. In the end they will have more profit, and the same damn product.

While most people with 2 accounts will keep them, I know for damn sure I�ll be running just 1 account now.

Tell me I'm wrong, Tell me I'm right ... No Registration Required

Publish 18 {By: Orion - May 21, 2003 07:04:12}

Well, it's like three months after AoS, and according to OSI it's time to fix it! Haha, seriously though OSI is putting Publish 18 on Baja tomorrow.

We will be publishing the �Publish 18� update to the Baja shard that will be active after that shard�s morning maintenance period on Thursday, May 22, CST. This publish will contain the following:
The �Publish 18 Bug Fixes� listed here.
The �Publish 18 Wearables� detailed here.
The �Age of Shadows Launch Gift� mentioned here.
If no issues arise, we anticipate rolling this out to all other shards beginning with the morning maintenance periods on Tuesday, May 27, CST.

Check out that list of fixes, sounds good to me. =)

Publish 18 Bug Fixes {By: Orion - May 7, 2003 08:48:37}

There are 90+ bug fixes scheduled for Publish 18. A few tweaks I'm sure will displease many, but the publish is finally shaping up. I was going to post them here, but then I read the top again, the list may change between now and the release. You can view the entire list here. But be warned, to meet the deadline some bugs may get cut from the fix list, or others may be added.

My impressions? Just wait till you know exactly what's in it, and then tell us. Don't get any hopes up.

Oh yah, Vorpal Bunny loot is on the chopping block, hehe. I'm not too surprised there.

Ultima Online 2.0 = Ultima X ? {By: Orion - May 3, 2003 06:26:10}

Ahh, I love speculating. So last year at E3 there was a big rumor that EA/OSI has licensed the Unreal Warfare engine. Tight lips have prevailed on what exactly Calandryll is working on, but now more speculation has come to light, this is currently being posted all over:

According to several reports on our U.Hall Forum from the players, the latest issue of GMR Magazine (found at your local Electronics Boutique) has the following quote in their June 2003 Issue on Page 21, written by Jeff Green of Computer Gaming World:

"The really exciting news this month should be going public as you read this. For over a year now, Origin has been quietly woodshedding Ultima-X its new MMORPG. And it's going to surprise you. I can't say anything just yet except maybe three quick words: Unreal Warfare engine. Watch this one. EA surprised everyone when Battlefield 1942 showed up out of nowhere last year. They may do it again." No official comment from anyone at OSI or EA at this time, but if we hear anything more you can trust that you'll read about it in our news. A special note of thanks to BORED for bringing this to everyone's attention.

How interesting. I've got a few friends who are going to E3. I'm going to see if they can spy for me. =)

Tonight's UOHoC Chat {By: Orion - May 1, 2003 07:01:26}

Tonight was the 88th UOHoC hosted by UO Stratics. It had a couple interesting points, or you can skip my points and read the complete chat log now:

*Lord-Xanthor* *LordChaos* How about making colored anvils useful, thus making BODs more attractive at all levels, like
making them give a slight bonus to enhancing in the corresponding color (not enough bonus to make it unfair to those who
don't have, but enough to make them attractive to own)

*OSI-Vex* We are planning some cool BOD-related stuff for Publish 19, though it's too early to give out any details of
exactly what it will be.

...

*Lord-Xanthor* *Rocky70* The UO world is quickly getting super-saturated with all kinds of magic items. Is it intentional
that armor and weapons never wear out? Currently, they don't break when they reach 0 durability, and never lose maximum
durability when repaired, so everything can effectively last forever.

*OSI-Vex* Yes, it's intentional that the items never wear out. However, there will be items more powerful for quite a
long while, simply because of the extremely low chance of getting items that:

*OSI-Vex* Items that have high intensities in multiple desirable properties in combination. It'll be a long time before
anyone is equipped with seven or eight "perfect" items -- and in the mean time, as players obtain more desirable stull,
older items will probably be discarded or retired to collections.

...

*Lord-Xanthor* *Rocky70* Since armor and weapons are no longer supposed to wear out or break, why are durability ratings
and repair contracts still in the game? And is there still a purpose to using powder of temperment?

*OSI-Vex* Weapons still do wear out and need repair -- and if you abuse them then they'll be destroyed. However, items no
longer become steadily weaker each time they are repaired, like before. So, as long as you take care of your magic
armor and weapons, you don't have to worry about them breaking from becoming old.

...

*OSI-Vex* There are a lot of tweaks to combat coming in Publish 18, which is due out within the next three weeks or so. I
don't know right now the details of all of those tweaks.

...

*Lord-Xanthor* *Friagrim* Can Felucca players expect new land/dungeons some time? Seems to me that all the new things are
geared towards trammel rules. We could use some new stuff as well.

*OSI-Vex* Ahh, wouldn't it be nice if we could find a way to have a single unified rule set? However, we will certainly
offer new content for both facets as we move forward.

Okay, that was about half the chat, hehe. Anyhow, things to think on. I find it extremely lame that items are not breaking like that used to and are not wearing out like they used to. Just another risk taken out of the game with lots of rewards added, *sigh*.

The highly touted Publish 18, the fix for AoS (hehe), should be out in 3 weeks. And that last comment smacks of UO 2.0 talk, don't you think?

Anyhow, click the link below to view the entire UOHoC chat log.

Complete UOHoC Chat Log

Doom Puzzles are Puzzling {By: Orion - Apr 30, 2003 03:40:28}

So Platinum the "Player Relations Lead for OSI" has commented again on the Doom Switch Puzzle that lets you into the lamp room.

It is not intended for players to be able to do any portion of this puzzle with a ghost. This is considered an abuse of the game mechanics and is not allowed. I have consulted with each of the GMs and they are all consistent with how this issue should be handled.

Okay, so great, that's two items on the table that are "against game mechanics". For the record, if you log out in the lamp room, that is also against game mechanics.

I fully understand why this is "against game mechanics", I just wish stuff like this didn't make it past QA, or at least could be fixed faster. We'll see I guess.

Oh, and I don't like the idea of these things only being posted on UO Stratics site, come on OSI, update your Intro message to the game, put it in HTML and use it to pass on VITAL information.

Mr Tact on Fiction {By: Orion - Apr 30, 2003 03:35:58}

So Mr. Tact, not being too tactful said in an earlier post "fiction doesn't work". *grin* He quickly started a small uproar and to clarify what exactly he meant he posted this:

Boy, I really kicked over the anthill with my "fiction doesn't work" comment, didn't I? I wanted to wait a few days until the furor died down to clarify my point a little bit. I don't mind if people are annoyed with me because they don't agree with my position on an issue, but I feel that in this case I didn't properly represent what my position IS, and I'm concerned that people may be interpreting it more broadly than I intended.

First off, that particular post was a statement of MY opinion, not the dev team's & certainly not OSI policy. I thought I was pretty clear about that with the way I chose to word it, but I think I need to be more explicit about that in the future (particularly if I am saying something that is likely to be controversial, as this was).

As to the comment itself, I'd like to share a couple of things we've learned from doing scenarios, which may illustrate why I said what I said. From doing exit polls, one of the most important things we've learned is that the vast majority of players have no idea what scenarios are, why they exist, or what they are for. I realize that probably seems incredible in this forum, but it's true. Most players don't visit these boards. Many of them don't even read uo.com. So obviously, until we solve the problem of communicating about the scenarios to a wider audience, their impact will be limited.

Another key factoid we learned from the Fall of Trinsic scenario was that people hate being railroaded. Nobody wants to take part in a scripted event where they have no impact on the outcome. Hence the more recent scenarios have revolved around players solving problems that DO have such an impact. The trouble is, the designers who created these scenarios had to build these effects from scratch.

When you make these kinds of vast, sweeping changes, the development cost is pretty steep, and the QA cost is enormous. This has been a contributing factor toward why these scenarios have taken longer than we anticipated to create. Hence my remark about building this kind of functionality into the world -- if altering the rules in a particular region is built into the game infrastructure, so all you have to do is change some data, that becomes a much less expensive proposition. This dovetails nicely with some of our long-term goals for the game, which is why IN MY OPINION it would be good if such a technology made an appearance before we do any more scenarios.

Finally, when I said "fiction doesn't work," I should have made it clear that I wasn't talking about background fiction. Certainly I don't believe anyone wants to play "Generic Fantasy MMORPG," and I do think that the backstory behind UO is part of what makes it compelling.

On an unrelated topic, I wanted to mention that I'm going to be out of town for the next few weeks, and I will not be posting on the boards. I am also going to turn off my PM starting tomorrow. Just trying to forestall any conspiracy theories . . .

MrTact

Ahh, so that clears things up... yah.

Changing Hosts {By: Orion - Apr 21, 2003 05:45:32}

Hello All, just a quick FYI for you. I am beginning to transfer the site to my own hosting service. Everything should be done over the next couple days, including the databases and site content.

So bare with me if nothing seems to be updated (worse off than now, lol) as DNS can take a couple days to point to a new server.

UO's Future {By: Orion - Apr 21, 2003 03:01:15}

Now this is interesting, Sunsword, UO's current Producer in charge posted this today on the Stratics UO Forums.

UO is not coming to an end. Far from it. However, it has been changing, and some of that change has been difficult.

I don't have much time to post on this subject at the moment, but I read this and felt I have to say something. I will elaborate more on it in a "Comments from the Producer," soon.

1st of all, scenarios are not dead. The UO Live team is undergoing a transition in process and form that has two goals:

A) To increase overall quality
B) To update the service more frequently

In order to do this, we have to be more disciplined in both planning and execution. We have already headed down this road, and so far, the planning has resulted in the need to do more feature revision, bug fixing, and infrastructure development than pure content (scenarios) for the first 2 publishes (18 and 19). Once we have accomplished this, we will have put the service into a state in which we can add content (scenarios) with the quality and frequency that you and I demand.

When I returned to UO late last year, I examined the scenarios and it became clear that we couldn't justify the man-power given the content we were producing. Based on our resources, we just have to be more efficient, so that's part of what this is all about.

This isn't a small undertaking the team is doing. We are juggling a very large number of tasks, many of which you will never see as an end user. We are changing the way we do things in almost every area (which I'm sure is somewhat frustrating for many of the developers because it appears to slow things down). All of this is required in order to be in a position to take UO where it needs to go in the future.

I'm aware of the concern that many of you have for the changes with UO. The team has been working to rectify most of those concerns with Publish 18, and you'll hear more about that in the coming weeks.

A couple of interesting facts:
- UO has more *paying* subscribers than it has ever had at any point in the past.
- UO's simultaneous users, number of log ins, and total minutes of playtime reflect a healthy play pattern by the community.

I'm not saying your concerns aren't warranted at all. What I do know is that because I'm not allowing the dev team to talk much about what they are doing, it feels like we may not be doing much. Unfortunately, this "black out" is necessary in order to force the dev team to perform to our new standards. Over the years, we've defintely shown a deficiency in our ability to predict when a certain thing is going to be available for consumption (either by date or quality). That has to stop. In a month or two, you should all be able to see the results of the dev team's hard work, and I'm sure you'll tell me what you think. If nothing else, it will be that we accomplished some very important things with good quality.

We have got to get this game to a point where the only thingsl you guys are talking about is how much fun the game is and what you want to see added to it next.

P.S. - I may have *really* interesting things to talk about regarding the future of UO in the coming weeks. But for now, we'll focus on the business at hand, because there is plenty of that.

Anthony Castoro
"SunSword"
Producer, Ultima Online

Well this clears up a few things, scenarios are not dead, they're just on hold. And with SunSwords explanation I'm glad to hear this. It did seem that Scenario's were constantly being delayed, bug this bug that. And AoS was anything but bug free.

So, is SunSword the real deal in fixing UO's production problems? I hope so. Are we being fed a line to keep us paying? Probably, but there's probably truth behind it too, and if that's true UO has some good times ahead.

It's easy to be optimistic about a game I enjoy. But of course the wait and see game is awfully damn boring.

And then there was one {By: Orion - Apr 17, 2003 02:50:16}

As you may have noticed, on occassion Grog would post here. Being my only volunteer on UOC it was nice to have another poster here, even if his posts were infrequent.

But today he has left UO, why you ask? Because of the bugs. Bugs that are completely ruining the UO economy (was it already ruined?) and making gold and ingots beyond easy to come by.

With that said, farewell Grog, I appreciated your posts as I'm sure others did.

Fansite Chat Tomorrow {By: Orion - Apr 16, 2003 10:00:14}

Hey all, tomorrow, UOPowergamers is doing a Fansite Chat tomorrow. And guess what I'll be there.

So tomorrow at 9pm CST, meet me and Nieves and some more Fansite operators to talk about stuff, on the Stratics IRC server (irc.stratics.com) in channel #powergamers.net.

See ya there!

New Luck Information and a Luck Calculator {By: Orion - Apr 16, 2003 08:37:25}

Ahh thankyou Mr. Tact (Lead Server Programmer, OSI), finally some Luck information we can sink our teeth into! Posted here on the stratics boards Mr. Tact sheads the like on Luck.

Luck translates directly into a % chance to get a bump in number of items, number of item props and property intensity. The % is calculated very simply: it's luck ^ ( 1/1.8 ), which ends up being slightly better than the square root. As you know, luck maxes out at 1200, which gives you roughly a 51% chance of getting the bump.

MrTact

Ah-ha! So there we have it, luck maxes out at 1200 not the original 900 mentioned, and we have a forumla to get some hard numbers with! Woo hoo!

And with that information I introduce the UO Compendium Luck Calculator, find out exactly how much of an increased chance your luck will bring get you!

Click here for the UOC Luck Calculator

Exploiting your user base. {By: Orion - Apr 15, 2003 06:38:26}

OSI is at it again, I just got in my email box their latest promotion to bring a friend to UO. *sigh* From a company standpoint I can understand this, but you know what really pisses me off? This does...

You get that necklace and one month free play time if your friend signs up and stays for ninty days. I find it supremely annoying that in-game items that actually matter are being given as a reward. Hooded cloaks, robes, sashes, whatever are fine, they don't give any stats, let alone HUGE stats.

Come on OSI, give me a break, this is the lamest tactic yet to get us to pimp your game! As much as I want a 200+ luck necklace I don't want my friends laughing at me for inviting them to this game!

Furthermore, whatever happened to the 900 or so max luck one could have? With the rare items in Doom and this you can have well over 1100 now! So what is the max, eh?

An Update to the Previous Story {By: Orion - Apr 14, 2003 02:49:54}

In an update to the previous story, Hanse had this to say as a follow-up.

The earliest it could get in would be Publish 19, if we get some time to work on it then. Publish 18 is full.

- Hanse

So, don't look for this feature anytime soon. =/

Bulk Order Deed News {By: Orion - Apr 11, 2003 10:01:09}

Tired of having to sell 30 ingots or skull caps in a row to get that BOD? Hanse (OSI Dev Member) had this to say today, on the Ultima Yahoo Group, about future plans for getting BOD's.

The reason BOD's are randomly offered from vendors is for new players. It is intended to be a surprise for them. For veteran players, it's not a surprise and is tedious.

We'll most likely make the Bulk Order Info context menu option work the same as it does on SP on all shards. I'm not sure on the ETA on that, though.

Which was in reply to:

This is growing into a pet peeve....

Why is it that we have to "vendor sell" repeatedly? Seems a pointless
waste of time to me, the only thing I ever "sell" is cloth or ingots. Any time I'm working my skill I'm smelting/unraveling, not selling one at a time to npc's.... What was the point here?

I know it can be done better! I have char on SP.. you can't sell to npc's there. You go to npc context menu click "Bulk Order Info" and there it is, you get one immediately. Unless your time isn't up of course. But still, I've stood in tailor shop and sold 20-30 pieces of cloth one at a time only to get a really really bad bod. I understand getting the bad bod part... what irks me is having it take a couple dozen tries to do so.

Boadicea Sun

I sure hope they do end up implementing this. It's quite annoying to sell ingots and skull caps in quantities of 30, four times in a row. Addicted? No I just want to stand a chance to get a semi descent reward for my time and effor. =/

Beta test some hardware {By: Orion - Apr 10, 2003 11:20:12}

This is really off topic, but go here and signup for the limited beta test of Philips portable MP3 player. It's free and easy, and it'd be damn sweet if you got a free portable MP3 player.

I was a very early adopter of portable MP3 players with the Rio 300, it only had 16mb of ram on the thing. That was about 10 songs at not so great sampling, hehe. BUT, it was portable, and plugged into my computer via USB.

I've often eyed the Apple iPod, but I can't drop 400 bucks on one, but dang it would be so so nice. I prefer MP3's so much more than CD's. With the higher sampling now you get great sound, and with all the different formats you can pick and choose to get the best sound (OGG, WMA, MP3, RMA).

Sadly I used my Rio 300 extremely hard, and it died after little more than a year. Unfortunately for me the warrenty was only for a year too.

But that was over four years ago now, and they are MUCH better now, I know a few friends with iPods and the things are SUPER reliable.

So, now that I've all told you what you should have known already (lol) go back to your regular scheduled UO playing. ;-)

Ianstorm: UO Camp-Out {By: Orion - Apr 10, 2003 06:18:26}

I was asked to post this by the Ianstorm crowd. So here goes.

We are looking at organising a huge player meet, in the form of a camping weekend in September. Imagine talking tactics around a real campfire, telling stories of your adventures or swapping recipes for that favourite pizza you make, except it will be in real life, not ingame!

Right now we are looking for suggestions and just guaging interest, so if you think you would be interested, please visit this thread and leave your thoughts :)

*goes off to find some marshmallows*

Hehe, I can just imagine it now, everyone is curled around a campfire, all snug in their bedrolls, wondering why they don't log out. Did AoS ruin the real life camping skill too?! ;-)

Use Best Weapon for Archery = Useless {By: Orion - Apr 10, 2003 04:10:33}

Fertbert (He should be in Dilbert with a name like that) explained the deal with Use Best Weapon not working for Archery weapons.

Right now Use Best Weapon Skill will let a person with swordsmanship, fencing, or macing use any sword, mace, or fencing weapon. It has no effect on ranged weapons...which means that having use Best Weapon Skill on a bow or crossbow is meaningless right now. This is by design. As it was explained to me, we didn't want melee folks to gain a ranged attack with no skill point cost, nor did we want ranged weapon folks gaining a melee attack with no skill point cost.

Cheers,
Fertbert

Hrm, I guess that makes sense, but of course, this wouldn't be an issue if Archery weapon never had the "Use Best Weapon Skill" label on them in the first place, hehe. Thought, wasn't this declared a bug at first? Oh well, such is the way with a "live" game. Even if it shouldn't be.

Give UO Compendium some love! {By: Orion - Apr 9, 2003 08:46:37}

Hehe, well you don't have to, but if you want, you can go here and let people know you visit the UO Compendium.

Of course, you could vote for another site too, lol.

Now back to our updates {By: Orion - Apr 8, 2003 05:47:18}

The last two weeks have been VERY slow around here, the short of it was that I was on spring break, and then I came back to college to find a heap of stuff to do, hehe. Anyhow, with that said, now back to our normally scheduled commentary on all things UO.

The Impact of AoS on PvP has been posted on uo.com today. It's a very short Q&A really, not a scientific fact finding mission on what currently is known about PvP.

There have been some questions here and there asking how PvP was impacted with the coming of Age of Shadows. Here�s a short Q&A that tries to help explain some of the reasoning behind some of those changes.

Question: There are players saying that Ultima Online is more item-based than skill-based now. Is that true?

Answer: Items definitely impact UO more than they used to, but the game isn�t necessarily more item-based than skill-based these days since you�ll need both items and skills to be as effective as possible. Low-skill characters that are loaded up with the best items can be formidable, but they�ll never have the same potential as their high-skill counterparts. The difference these days lies in that you have more options in character development, both long-term with skills and short-term with item management.

Question: Why are stats no longer counted when determining success for skills?

Answer: In the past, many players have been puzzled by the �real� and �modified� skill values, and a frequent question asked by players was, �Do you mean real or modified skill?�

Age of Shadows brought a great deal of complexity into the UO combat system with Age of Shadows�new skills, spells, special moves, items & item properties, etc.�and we felt it was important to balance the learning curve and intricacy of combat by simplifying other aspects. With this in mind, we lowered the complexity of the skill system by allowing Stats to only influence degree of success, and not the initial chance of success.

Since AoS, players only have one relevant number to watch regarding their skills (the real one), rather than two (a real one, and a modified one), which we feel will be a lot less confusing overall.

Question: There�s been some pretty big changes to resist � is magic resist ever going to be changed to be more like it was before?

Answer: It�s already part of our plan to continue checking back on the AoS changes, and it�s probable that we may be taking a more critical look at the Magic Resist skill in the near future.

Okay, well, to be honest, I was hoping for some numbers. Like, "Since the release of AoS, PvP related deaths have gone up 500%". Something you can sink your teeth into, hehe. Still, knowing the reasoning behind the fun madness is nice too.

And the finalists are!!! {By: Orion - Apr 8, 2003 04:30:25}

*drum roll please*

The finalists are for the UO Compendium House Design Contest...

Rose Cotton of Lake Austin

and

Skyelar of Drachenfels

Congrats you two! By getting this far you both win an AoS poster signed by UO Dev team, as well as advancing into the final round.

Again, thanks go out to everyone who submitted a house design.

Start Voting Now! {By: Orion - Apr 2, 2003 11:03:31}

Round 2 of the House Design contest has now started (I apologize for the delay).

To vote click here!

To view better closeup shots of the house designs click here.

So everyone, message your friends and tell them to start voting and Good Luck to everyone!

House Design Contest Update {By: Orion - Apr 1, 2003 04:14:33}

The top 10 _are_ picked, but I have yet to receive the link to go post for them, so you will have to be patient, I imagine I'll hear something later today.

Thanks,
Orion

PS: Here's the list of top 10 contests (pictures later w/ the voting link).

In no particular order here they are:

1. Jade of Sonoma
2. Skyelar of Drachenfels
3. Rose Cotton of Lake Austin
4. Brian DeSpell of Chesapeake
5. Melkor of AOL Legends
6. Thalestin of Pacific
7. Silkswift of Chesapeake
8. Warrick of Oceania
9. Van Holst of Atlantic
10. Soken of Napa Valley

Update: Seems the email w/ the entries never made it there, the file was apparently too big. But the files are now sent and things are being worked on. Should be up tomorrow, sorry guys. =/

Back from vacation, working on the entries. {By: Orion - Mar 26, 2003 07:50:45}

So I'm back from vacation, I've got all the house contest entries and I'm sticking them together right now to show everyone.

The vacation was good, but it's good to be home, six days is a long time, funny how that works.

House Design Contest Update {By: Orion - Mar 25, 2003 09:27:46}

Okay everyone, the time has passed for accepting house design entries. I have a lot of entries to sort through, something I'm quite happy with, not being a huge site I was curious how many I'd receive.

Anyhow, over the next couple days I'll pick the top 10 entries.

On the 1st of April (no joke) you all will be able to vote on which one of the houses is the best! So stay tuned.

Last Day for Entries. {By: Orion - Mar 24, 2003 09:48:38}

Today is the last day for entries into the house design contest, you must have your entries submitted by no later than 12am tonight! I've gotten a ton of entries so far and just want to thank everyone.

For more details click here.

Or to submit your pictures click here.

Let's discuss armour. {By: Orion - Mar 24, 2003 09:46:58}

I saw this posted a few days ago and asked permission from Gew�rtztraminer to post it here, as I feel it has some great information. I would have gotten it up sooner but I'm about 300 miles from home right now and getting my laptop plugged in hasn't been my number 1 priority. Anyhow:

Each piece of armour starts with 15 (or 16 in bone and studded) resist points. A generic piece of plate has base resists of 5,3,2,3,2 (physical, fire, cold, poison, energy) A generic piece of leather has base resists of 2,4,3,3,3.While having the same total resists, plate is better on physical, but weaker in other areas than leather. Ring is best in poison, chain is balanced except is weakest in poison, studded, is the same as leather except it gets a minor energy upgrade over leather. Bone is pretty balanced, and dragon scale is perfectly balanced, 3,3,3,3,3.

When an exceptional piece is crafted, it gets 6 extra resist points, which are distributed randomly. You could make an exceptional leather tunic that was 8,4,3,3,3 or an exceptional plate tunic that was 6,4,3,3,4. The leather has the higher physical. The colored ores, leathers, and dragon scales add base resists to this. An exceptional iron plate piece has 21 total resist points. If it had been made out of valorite instead, it would have 34 total resists.

Say you have a magic plate piece with 32 resists. If you successfully imbue it with valorite, it goes up to 45 resists. The only thing that is guaranteed for any armor piece is the base resistances of the armor type (5,3,2,3,2 for plate, a magic plate piece will never have an individual resistance lower than any of these numbers). It is much easier to get to 70 physical with plate than with leather, though both are doable.

Gew�rtztraminer

House Design Contest {By: Orion - Mar 20, 2003 12:17:19}

Hello everyone, just a friendly reminder that there are only five more days to submit your house for the UOC House Design Contest. Remember THIS next Monday the 24th is the last day to submit your pictures.

For more details click here.

Or to submit your pictures click here.

Today's Client Patch {By: Orion - Mar 18, 2003 12:38:25}

Version 4.0.0e of the patch is being released today, you can really sum it up as a "lag patch". In otherwords its main intent is to fix a lot of the new lag AoS created. Here's what's inside:

2D clients only
- Macro creation combo boxes will no longer display �clumsy� when no value has yet been selected.

3D clients only
- A crash related to resizing the chat interface was repaired.
- An improvement to chat scrolling was implemented.
- Targeting pets� status bars will execute the target function instead of going into edit mode in the text area.
- The scrollbar in the skill list should behave better when opening/closing skill groups.

Both 2D and 3D clients
- Item property requests are now sent in smaller batches, which will help resolve some perceived �lag� when entering areas with lots of objects. This also means, however, that some objects may not immediately have visible item properties�although this should not generally be noticeable.
- Networking fixes/buffer improvements to prevent blackholing*, unintended behavior, and crashes.
- The game client should no longer close when encountering errors while playing intro movies.
- Updated localization files.

Looks pretty good. Here's some of what Fertbert had recently to say about lag over at stratics:

First of all, we're aware that some of you are experiencing lag since the publish of Age of Shadows. For that I'd like to apologize and explain what we're doing to improve things.

While reading this explanation understand that bandwidth usage and lag are related... more bandwidth usage tends to create more lag for low bandwidth users.

Here are the Age of Shadows features that do and will continue to use more bandwidth than Event 5 did:

- Customized houses are about 500 to 2000 bytes each and are cached client side in a persistent cache

- Item properties are about 20 to 100 bytes each and are cached client side in a temporary cache

- Floating damage numbers are small number of bytes (< 20)

Some details about what we're doing or have done to reduce the impact of these:

- Customized houses are about as optimized as they're likely to get right now. Each house is broken into slices and encoded using one of several algorithms, then each slice is compressed. The only further optimizations that can be made with regard to housing is for us to gradually ship each slice to the client instead of sending all the slices at once, and to turn off the standard packet compression/encoding for housing packets. Since I have yet to read one single complaint about customized houses causing undue lag, I have no immediate plans to implement those further optimizations. Further more the majority of the house-related lag appears to be due to the lockdowns and vendors�

- Items properties are the current target of our optimization efforts... these appear to be the major cause of the increased lag, and are what have been causing people to be blackholed. The size of the average item properties packet caught us by surprise, we had not originally intended to send so many properties, so our initial impact analysis was way off. We have a fix in QA right now to address this problem. We're now throttling the rate at which these packets are sent to the client so that when people enter vendor malls or recall to a popular place their available bandwidth is not overwhelmed.

- Floating damage numbers do not appear to have a significant impact upon lag, are are already as optimized as they're likely to be.

Those same features that can cause lag, can also cause the client to be completely overwhelmed with data resulting in a character becoming blackholed. We have a patch in QA to address this problem. I have refactored the server side buffering code to behave better in these situations. Once this patch goes live, naturally occurring blackholes at champion spawns, banks, and vendor malls should be rare. Also in this patch is a fix for the packet corruption problem that plagued many users (especially modem users.) This corruption is likely the cause of the majority of the recent random disconnects, seeing the character select screen in the middle of gameplay, and other miscellaneous weirdness. The reason why this bug appears to be more prevelant now is that it is only triggered when one of the server side buffers in near capacity� as we�ve been seeing lately with the increased bandwith usage of Age of Shadows.

In development is a fix that should address the famous multiple door problem (as it applies to regular buildings in UO) as well as a related cause of blackholes around places with too many candelabra, communication crystals, the Delucia bank, etc.

Right now I am focusing on more item properties optimizations, and weeding through out data stream to remove duplicate information. I anticipate having another batch of fixes in Publish 18.

Thank you for your patience in this matter,
Fertbert

Hrm, I know I sure could use a lot less lag, my cable provider causes enough of it, I don't need two sources of it. *g*

EA Reserves the right? {By: Orion - Mar 18, 2003 10:09:53}

It just came to my attention that EA put this gem on the back of the AoS box, "EA RESERVES THE RIGHT TO TERMINATE THE ULTIMA ONLINE SERVICE AFTER 90 DAYS NOTICE." That's what it says on the back of the AoS box, this is quite interesting, as I can't find it on the back of the LBR box.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not out to lambast UO, nor do I think it's going under. I think it's actually responsible of them to say this. UO is still EA's number one money maker it seems, so don't get any hair brained ideas they are going down.

It just seems odd for this to suddenly appear on the box. Protection for a future lawsuit in case they decide its no longer profitable to run UO? A service notice to new buyers who may think the game will be there forever? *shrugs*

Talk about the Notice here on our forums.

OSI discontinues boards.uo.com {By: Orion - Mar 17, 2003 04:48:24}

In what most of you already know, OSI is closing the UO Forums. Officially they will be held at UO Stratics. This may seem quite familiar to those who've played for a few year. It used to be that Crossroads of Britania was the home for the official forums, but in a good move OSI created their own. So is this a bad move? Time will tell.

Here is some of what OSI had to say about this:

The Online Community Relations (OCR) team here at Origin feels strongly that communication is crucial when running an online game. When we first opened the MyUO forums in the year 2000, our goal was to provide players with a central place to gather and exchange feedback with each other and with developers. Over the last three years, though, we�ve learned that it takes a lot more time to moderate boards than to simply post on them! In an effort to spend less time as �the police� (locking and deleting threads, sending warnings, finding lost passwords, etc.) and more time on effective communication, we�re going to allow one of our oldest and most dedicated fansites, UO Stratics, to handle message board moderation and administration for the Ultima Online forum community on the currently established forums at uo.stratics.com.

There you have it folks. It's official I guess, they UO boards close in a matter of days.

Of course there are MANY other solutions, one of which is our own forums for Ultima Online housed here on gamesentry.com. I hope you come and chat with me. *grins*

Sannio clarifies Luck {By: Orion - Mar 17, 2003 04:36:21}

Hello all, recently I've been a bit confused on what exactly luck does. It seemed that Vex and the uo.com playguide on luck contridicted each other. So wanting to get some clarification I went to a third source from OSI on what luck does. This is what Sannio had to say to answer my question.

Hi,

Both statements are correct. Here�s one perspective of the Luck and magic item creation process that I believe will show how both can statements can be true: Let�s say you and I are fighting a monster. Even before it�s killed, the monster �knows� that it will not leave any magic items. No amount of luck can change this. If the monster isn�t prepared to drop any magic items, there�s nothing that can change this. We kill it, loot it, and move on. Vex�s statement is shown to be true, in that luck is not affecting the chance to get one in the first place.

We begin battling another monster, but this one is predetermined to have 1 or 2 magic items. (Some may have 0 or 1, others may have 0 to 2, etc.) Again, luck has no say in this. Being a far more efficient fighter than I, you end up doing the most damage to the creature. When the monster dies, a number of checks and effects happen. First, the monster�s loot is created. As this loot is created, it checks to see who had the most impact on the kill, and as mentioned before that was you. This means your luck will come into play for the magic item checks, and mine is completely ignored. This backs up the playguide statement you references.

I�ll continue, to help give a complete example of luck�s place in the loot system. The number of magic items are created next. There was a certain chance of getting 1 magic item, and a certain chance of getting 2 magic items. Your luck, however, has increased our chance at getting two items (although, since this creature can only have 2 items, we can never get more than 2). Let�s say luck is on our side and 2 magic items are added to the loot.

The system then sorts decides how many magical properties the first item has, and how many magical properties the second item has. Your luck may influence how many properties each item may have, up to their maximum possible properties.

Lastly, the system will look at all the magical properties and give each of them an intensity rating. Again, your luck will come into play with each �intensity rating� check, and may boost those intensities up to (but not exceeding) their maximum potential.

Sannio

=========
Sannio
Online Content Coordinator
Ultima Online (www.uo.com)
Origin Systems

So there we have it, from the horses mouth. Both are right it seems, and Vex just confusingly added information to what Mr.Tact was saying, not overriding it. So luck can help you get more items, which is good because my luck is now at 675. *grins*

Talk about Luck here on the UO Compendium Forums

The queue is shrinking. {By: Orion - Mar 15, 2003 04:06:19}

Amazingly, today I when I clicked on the help button I was only #98 in the queue. Seems the tidal wave of help requests is subsiding. Of course, the reason I'm looking for GM help is because all 11 of my vendors are standing beneath my house sign. I failed to notice the OSI's Known Issues list that vendors may be booted out of the house when I change my foundation. Oddly enough I don't find myself too displeased, quite the difference when the queue is only 98 long instead of 980.

Of course, had this been tested would I be in the queue right now?

Announcing UOC's Design a Dream House Contest! {By: Orion - Mar 14, 2003 05:11:06}

Design a Dream House Contest

Have your decorating skills reached Legendary status? Is your new custom designed home bad ass?

Well then, along with other UO Fansites, OSI is sponsoring a house design contest. So here is how it works.

1. Send me some pictures of your custom designed house. Send as many as needed to show off your house. Include your character name, the shard you play on, and the location of your house (UOAM can help you there).

2. House pictures can be sent in no later than the 24th of March. Send your pictures to orion@gamesentry.com.

3. The top 10 houses (selected by me) will then be voted on by YOU. Voting lasts from the 26th of March to the 2nd of April.

4. The top 2 houses get sent to OSI, where the Dev team votes on the best one (out of all houses from all fansites).

The grand prize is:
- The winning house design will be turned into a miniature house collectible that will be offered as a first year Veteran Reward

- The winner will get to suggest 3 possible names for the new collectible � the final name will be chosen by the Dev Team.

- A signed copy of AoS by the Dev Team

- An AoS poster signed by Brom and the Dev Team

All finalists recieve
- An AoS poster signed by the Dev Team

Sounds cool to me, get out there and take those snapshots.

Oh yah, speaking of which, if you need a program to take screenshots I recommend JPEG Clipper 3.1. It's free and easy to use, you can get it at download.com or just click on the link above.

You're too busy. {By: Orion - Mar 14, 2003 01:59:35}

"You are too busy doing something else and cannot hide". Does anyone know when this particularly annoying message started happening? I'm pretty sure this feature was added in with AoS, but I want to make sure. It's driving me nuts.

I'm more curious about what triggers it (recalling seems to) and for how long it seems to last.

If you do let me know here.

Because getting accurate information is hard. {By: Orion - Mar 14, 2003 11:53:22}

There are fun things about having a website about UO. What isn't so fun is figuring out what you hear from OSI. As you know my luck guide says that Luck does not affect the number of items dropped by monsters. I got that information from Vex in the last Ianstorm Chat. Here's what he said:

I think MrTact meant to say that Luck increases the quality of the magic items you get, but not the chance of getting one in the first place.

Okay, but here is what the UO Playguide says about Luck.

Luck can affect the number of magic items the monster drops. The higher your luck, the more likely the monster will drop an additional magic item.

Umm, okay. SO which is right? Good question, my own research showed that killing 100 liches with 0 luck got me 36 items. And that killing 100 liches with 338 luck got me 36 items.

But, a UO Compendium reader the other day said without luck he gets no magical items from Earth Elementals. But when he wears a luck suit he does get magical items.

So it seems that perhaps luck does affect the number of drops a monster will give (if their lists allow).

*sigh*

Luck Update {By: Orion - Mar 11, 2003 11:41:14}

It seems 900 is NOT the max luck you can have. Looking at some of the champion drops there are you see items with over 100 luck on them. And you can find other drops with more than 100 luck on them.

So this changes a couple things:

1. An item can have more than 100 luck. This goes against what OSI's own "updated" playguide says, and goes against what OSI's dev members have been quoted saying. So it possibly is a bug? *shrugs*

2. It's quite obvious you can now have over 900 luck, which makes me wonder just how much can you have? I'm running around with 540 right now, with pretty descent resists too (finally). Just gotta keep findng luck items, then enhance them with gold (you'll loose a lot so don't cry, hehe).

UOC Site News {By: Orion - Mar 10, 2003 03:59:26}

I updated the Blacksmith Bulk Order System Page today with new information for AoS (runic hammer info) and some new pics of the rewards.

Enjoy.

UOHoC Chat Tonight {By: Orion - Mar 6, 2003 08:44:48}

Stratics is hosting a UOHoC Chat tonight at 5pm PST. The topic is Age of Shadows. You can find out more about the chat by clicking the link.

In UO Compendium news, today is a site update day, hehe. I've got some updates I'll be posting throughout the day, so enjoy, and I'll ttyl. *grin*

Update: Err, no updates today, sorry. This is why I shouldn't say stuff like this. =/

UOC News: Tailoring BOD Database {By: Orion - Mar 2, 2003 07:31:58}

The Tailoring Bulk Order Deed Database has been updated so that you can enter in Spined, Horned, and Barbed Runic Sewing Kits as rewards.

Poll Time {By: Orion - Mar 2, 2003 06:58:46}

Okay, I left up the last poll a bit too long, I mean you can't really take votes on if you will preorder AoS after its been published to most of the severs.

Anyways, 77% of voters said they preordered AoS. That's a pretty good chunk (of 176 total).

So now the question stands, what do you think of the Age of Shadows expansion? Is it the best expansion ever? Did the bugs detract from it too much for you? Are the changes too much for you to overcome?

Let us know!

The low down on Luck {By: Orion - Feb 28, 2003 11:42:03}

So, in my previous post I thought going out and killing a couple hundred liches would solve the question about luck. Guess what I did today? I went out and did just that.

Wearing gold armour that increased my luck to 338 I went out and slayed 100 liches. Those 100 liches gave me 36 enhanced items, 1 lvl 3 tmap, and 21,265gp.

Wearing a mix match set of armour (to get high energy and fire resist) that gave me no luck, I again went out and slayed 100 liches. These liches gave me 36 enhanced items, 2 lvl 3 tmaps, and 22,873gp.

I sure didn't expect exactly the same number of items dropping (ignoring tmaps), but it sure helped make a point. As I killed each list I made a note of what it dropped, such as "Chainmail Tunic - HP Increase 1, Luck 47" and "Basicnet - Mana Increase 4, Mana Regen 1, Luck 60, Lower Reagent Cost 11%".

From that information I can quickly see that the items dropped while I had 338 luck, had in general higher modifier properties, than those that dropped while I had 0 luck.

I'm putting all the information from the 200 kills into a table right now, and then I'll be using a basic formula I came up with to assign a base value to each set of items, in hopes to see just how much luck increases the 'phat lewt'.

So to summarize this information.

1. Luck just increases the modifiers on items dropped by monsters.

2. Luck does not increase the frequency or the number of items dropped by monsters.

3. Luck does not increase the amount of gold dropped by monsters.

4. Apparently it does not help you stay alive to the torrent of flamestrikes from five liches (even with 49 fire resist!).

I hope this helps everyone understand a bit more on how luck works in UO.

Update: Just a couple more points.

5. Luck doesn't seem to increase the drop of tmaps on monsters.

6. Luck does not increase the items given, or their properties found in treasure chests from either Treasure Maps or SOS's.

Update 2: And another point.

7. Luck is spread out in a group. So if you have a group of two guys, one with 900 luck, and one with 0, the game would treat it as if they each had 450 luck (more or less). In otherwords, it takes the middle ground (thanks Mitar).

Luck be my lady tonight! {By: Orion - Feb 28, 2003 12:35:47}

So, you're asking yourself, how does luck work? Does it make creatures spawn with more 'phat lewt'. Does it make the loot on monsters better? How about the quantity of items on a monsters, does it bump that number up? We�ve all been asking ourselves that for the past couple of weeks, and thanks to last UOSC chat at Ianstorm we know the answer.

MrTact - OK, so let's be clear on the whole Luck deal
MrTact - Luck gives you a % chance to get one additional item per "loot list" on a creature
MrTact - Higher level creatures (e.g. the Dark Fathers) have 3 or 4 loot lists.
MrTact - Then each item has the same % chance to get one additonal property, and have the property bumped up in its intensity" by a small amount.
MrTact - I've seen some theories flying around about how luck works that were . . . humorous, to say the least
MrTact - But that's EXACTLY what it does
MrTact - As far as looting rights go . . .
MrTact - We see a lot of players that are unhappy with the current situation, so there's a good chance we'd revisit that in an upcoming publish.
MrTact - Can't say exactly when, though
Vex - I think MrTact meant to say that Luck increases the quality of the magic items you get, but not the chance of getting one in the first place.

Uh, huh. Okay, so that wasn't exactly clear. But from what I gather it boils down to this.

Monsters have loot lists They are basically a list of possible items you can get, ranging from a raw rib to that super elite weapon you've been wanting for so long. Depending on the dificulty of a monster it may not have any raw ribs in its loot list, it may be all weapons, or shields, etc. Or if the monster is super weak it may not have any weapons, shields, etc in its loot list.

Monsters can have multiple loot lists Again, depending on the difficulty of the monster, it may have multiple loot lists. The more lists the better, and the more lists available on the monster, you can be assured it is harder.

Luck increases the potency of the items So, a monster has multiple lists, but Luck (according to Vex) apparently does not increase the number of items you can get, it just increases the bonuses on weapon.

But, wait a minute, is Vex right? I'm not totally sure if Vex is totally right, MrTact seems to think it ups the items you possibly get from the lists (by a %, which goes up with the amount of your luck). I have yet to do a scientific study on this, but I know a lot of people who think that they are getting more items dropping from monsters, when they wear lots of luck items.

So there is still some confusion to matters. I suppose the only way to find out is to go out without any luck, kill 100 liches, count what you get, then go out and kill 100 more liches with luck items on, and see what you get.

Hrm, sounds fun, be back later. =)

So what's the point of Ilshenar? {By: Orion - Feb 27, 2003 11:18:15}

The over lands in Ilshenar are quite entertaining. There is plenty to do and see, and the land is quite varied, if not too full at times with rocks, etc. With that said, the dungeons suck. They seem to have lots of neat gimmicks with no point. Has anyone been to Wisp dungeon SE of Humility and done the teleporter maze? It�s quite interesting, but when you get to the goal you go, ummm, why did I do this?!?!

Its stuff like this that makes me grumble. Things that could have been great, but turn out lack luster.

Speaking of lack luster, watch out, it turns out your new personal bless deed is smelt able too!!! And while we�re on the subject of smelting, would OSI please stop the people who are pouring 200k plus of iron ingots into the economy? I know about everyone has smelted a BOD or two, but it�s the people smelting hundreds that really push the limits and drag everyone down with them, sheesh.

Public Service Warning: Stop Smelting BOD's {By: Orion - Feb 26, 2003 01:14:20}

Usually I lean away from talking about current bugs, but as I personally am affected by this, and many of my smithing friends are too, I have this to say.

Stop smelting your BOD's!

OSI has tagged this as an exploit so please watch out, in fact they've posted it on their boards (where what, 2% of people will see it? Come on OSI).

Smelting bulk order deeds for ingots is indeed a bug that shouldn't be exploited. It's possible that you'd have some kind of action taken against your account if you got caught doing it, so why take the risk?

They went on to clarify that, no it does not mean you will be banned right out, but you could be penalty boxed (do we play UO or hockey?) or if your account has had further 'transgressions' you could possibly be banned.

OSI's stance on exploits has always puzzled me. Lets look at the current situation. Many smiths I know make their main pack at times the smelt back when they use UOAssist. That way they can put what they want in a safe spot and smelt back the 500 tunics they created to make that one GM one. In their pack is often a few other things, such as... BOD's, so it is quite likely that a few people will find this particular bug quite easily. And I know this is true, because I can't find very many BOD vendors that have a single low level BOD on them anymore.

OSI knows there are always a few people who will go out and exploit something to its max. And that there are those who will do it just a couple times, to "test" the waters. Yet sometimes you feel they don't care about a bug, of course, until they decide later down the road its a problem. Then, and only then, do they say something and wave a ban stick around.

Anyhow, I'm rambling, the failure to produce a semi-bug-free product has me a bit annoyed at the moment, which is why I'm typing so much about a little 'ol bug like this one. What with the other 50+ bugs introduced with AoS why should I care?

Ianstorm Chat Tonight {By: Orion - Feb 26, 2003 09:21:49}

I just got this from Ianstorm, and figured I'd remind you all.

IanStorm is pleased to announce the Sixth UO StormChat with the teams from OSI. It will take place at 7pm CST (5pm PST, 8pm EST, 12noon AEST) TONIGHT in #StormEvent.

To access the network, you will need an IRC Client (like mIRC or Pirch) and use one of the following servers:

-irc.ianstorm.com
-irc2.ianstorm.com

Don't have an IRC client? Never fear, you access our network via our Java IRC client, here. If you require help with IRC commands, please check out our FAQ.

The topic for tonight's chat will be focused on the new expansion, Age of Shadows, so if you have a niggling question to ask, come prepared!

You can access logs of our former UOSC chats, here.

Wonder where your Shroud code is? {By: Orion - Feb 24, 2003 06:37:53}

If, like myself, you preordered from Amazon.com, your Hooded Shroud of Shadows code was given to you when your originally purchased the item. However, the link to it was easily missed. Since I'm seeing and getting a lot of questions about this today I figured I'd post the steps on how to retrieve this off the Amazon.com site (if of course they did properly give it to you).

Hope this helps someone, with all the people who seem to not have gotten a code. =/

Anyhow, if you preordered from Amazon.com do the following.

1. Go to Amazon.com

2. At the top of the screen, click on the button that says "Your Account".

3. On the new screen that appears click on link that says "View Digital Orders". It will be under the area "Where's My Stuff". For me it's down towards the bottom right corner.

4. You may have to log in, if not go to step 5.

5. You will now be in your "Digital Library", and hopefully you will see an item under "Title" called, "Hooded Shourd of Shadows code".

Good Luck =)

Feeling sorry for myself? {By: Grog - Feb 24, 2003 08:05:57}

Like many, I eagerly looked forward to the release of AoS. But...

I decided not to run off to Malas to attempt to place a huge house in which I could finally do some serious decorating. I decided to not throw away my 17 grandfathered vendors and 2 barkeeps.

I decided to not customize my cabin. I could not see throwing away 250 lockdowns.

I have not played much with seeing what kinds of magic weapons I could make. I do not wish to throw away my runic hammers.

I can not see trying out making magic armor. ASHes are broke and I do not wish to throw away my hard earned ingots.

I see a pattern here. So must others. My vendors have been pretty much bought out of everything that I can no longer make and sell at a fair price. I just went into UO for the first time in 2 days to see if the last revert cost me my last skill gains. It did not. I had all but given up before that happened.

I will give OSI a couple weeks. If I am not happy with AoS by then I will have to decide if I want to try to sell my account or just let it die.

Today's Publish {By: Orion - Feb 21, 2003 12:05:29}

Today's publish to the AoS enabled servers may be the worst in UO history. Three major bugs arose with this publish, which is most likely why the are currently doing an emergency rollback to the last version and a data rollback to the last server maintance.

Let's see what new 'features' OSI added in:

1. 16x GM Characters! This is a great one, I saw a screenshot of a guy with 16 skills GM'ed, talk about a removal of the skill cap! I guess it was not to real points, but still, GM'ing 16 skills, and who knows how many was possible.

2. Disappearing Ethy horses. This one bit me in the a$$, my ethy horse was there, and then not. *sigh* The boards are full of people wondering where their horse was, it seems most lost it in telestorming nightmares.

3. Stealing from secures in Malas. Wow, what can I say, if a chest is secure, shouldn't, it be umm, secure? Hehe.

Well, thankfully OSI is rolling things back, but wow, 3 major bugs in one publish. Ouch.

Bugs - 3
OSI - 0

Eth Horse Bug? {By: Orion - Feb 21, 2003 11:30:59}

Watch out everyone, I just lost my Eth Horse. I was standing there, just finished off a lich, and my horse was gone. I look in my pack, nothing, I log out and log back in, nothing. I die and get ressed, nothing. I page a GM, 648 in the queue (wow a lot lower?!), and then the shard goes down for an emergency patch... Boy I hope this fixes my horse.

Good luck out there everyone.

Update: I just read this on the FYI page of UO.com.

Because of a problem found with the latest publish, we are re-publishing all shards with the previous code version and reverting to their last maintenance backup. Please see for your shard's scheduled maintenance times. Thank you for your patience, and we apologize for any inconvenience.

So it appears I'll get my ethy back, but loose the 4 hours of tailoring work I did while I studied biology. Hehe, give some and take some. =/ At least now I don't have to stay in the queue for 4 hours.

{By: Orion - Feb 21, 2003 05:47:52}

Just a quick not for you all, Tugsoft the makers of the ever popular UOAssist, now have their own forums.

Comprehensive Guide to Malas Secret Locations {By: Orion - Feb 20, 2003 01:41:28}

Well, since the "cat is really out of the bag", I figured I'd go out, get some screen shots, some exact directions, and create a map of the secret locations in Malas.

The map also shows which spots lead to the secret locations, so you know where you're headed. I took some screenshots too, so you can see exactly where the pouches are, and to my surprise I only died once in Doom, while I was trying to res someone (how ironic is that).

Hope you enjoy this everyone.

The Sphinx gives bonuses? {By: Orion - Feb 19, 2003 10:52:22}

I'm hearing rumors that you can click once on the Sphinx (In the Malas Desert) and for 5k he says a riddle. Apparently there are a few different riddles and depending on what he says your stats are modified for a day or until you die. Sounds interesting.

Secret Housing Locations {By: Orion - Feb 19, 2003 08:59:01}

Well, after hours and hours of searching, I placed an 18x18 house!!! As you all probably know, Hanse let slip that there are eight super secret spots in Malas that you can only recall to, and the way to get to each location is scattered around Malas.

Here's a hint, use transparency and look everywhere for pouches.

Hope this helps someone, I'd say more, but well, I'm not sure that'd be fair.

Email me or ICQ me at 7309102 if you object to me not giving out locations. ;-)

If you do some searching on uo boards I'm sure you'll turn something up.

Runic Hammers {By: Orion - Feb 17, 2003 05:17:56}

I just read this on the UO site.

In the new Age of Shadows Runic system, runic hammers now have the potential to produce extremely powerful items, in terms of new magic properties. To balance out this increase in power, many runic hammers were converted to have fewer charges. This was an intentional change.

However, we discovered an error in the conversion, which caused *every* hammer to have only 15 charges, instead of a number of charges based off of their color. We will be publishing an update in the future to correctly convert the old hammers to the new system, which will once again base the maximum number of charges a runic hammer may have on its ore type. This update will also restore all pre-AoS runic hammers to their new maximum number of charges based on the list below, fixing the problem where all pre-AoS runic hammers were set to 15 charges, regardless of color.

Maximum number of charges on runic hammers in the new system:

Dull Copper: 50
Shadow: 45
Copper: 40
Bronze: 35
Golden: 30
Agapite: 25
Verite: 20
Valorite: 15

Please note that our top priorities are currently stability and housing issues, which means that the change to runic hammer charges may not come right away. However, it will be in an upcoming update, so we encourage all of you to hold onto those hammers!

Hrm, well too late for me, I used my dull copper runic up the first day, woulda been nice to have 50 charges instead of 15 though. If I were all of you I'd stop using my current runic hammers until they get the extra charges added on. Which means of course you need to get some BOD's in soon so you can get new hammers to hold you over. =)

Of course, had they done more extensive testing, wouldn't stuff like this have been fixed right off the bat? You have to wonder why type of "internal testing" and "closed beta testing" took place.

Tired of the EA intro? {By: Orion - Feb 16, 2003 07:00:13}

Hey all, my friend Hawk pointed out to me that if you are tired of the dumb EA games intro and the OSI intro you can get ride of it (whew). Just go into your UO directory and to it's sub-directory "music". In there you will find three files with the extension .bik. Just delete those three files, and you are all set. No more annoying "EA Games, blah blah blah" every time you start up UO.

A little more on luck. {By: Grog - Feb 16, 2003 05:19:45}

Wearing golden armor and carrying a golden shield all raise luck by 40 each, but also a weapon made from golden ingots also add 40 to luck.

My thief has been working lockpicking in the Yew crypts wearing all spined leather armor for a total of 240 luck. Today I found in a chest a longsword of snake slaying with 50% cold and 50% energy damage. It is a glowing green color. I have a few pieces of armor with varying attributes that I will enhance with my smith.

I have played with color ingots and weapons only a bit since AoS. There are a wide range of possibilities when you consider making weapons from different colors. Making weapons using different runic hammers from different colors. And enhancing found magic weapons with different runics and different colors. If I could get to Stratics (been unavailable to me for weeks) I suspect there should be some lists started already.

Have fun.

Luck be my lady tonight! {By: Orion - Feb 15, 2003 10:55:19}

I'm seeing a lot of question about the new stat "Luck". So I figured I'd toss out a couple important pieces of information for you.

1. The stat "luck" ups your chances for monsters dropping you enhanced items. The more luck you have, the luckier you get. Get it?

2. Instead of waiting to find a luck item out in the wild, go get some armour either made with gold ingots or spined leather. Both give 40 points of luck per piece worn. So if you wear a full set of armour, made out of the gold ingots you could have 280 luck (gloves, arms, tunic, legs, gorget, helm, and shield). That's a lot of luck to begin with.

3. Stated previously by an OSI dev (sorry I can't remember who), the max luck a person can get is 900. Since necklaces and earrings no longer seem to drop, then I assume the 900 points in luck would be from, nine pieces of gear at 100 each (gloves, arms, tunic, legs, gorget, helm, shield, ring, bracelet).

4. Once you've got your 280 luck from your first set of gear, get out there and find more, eventually you'll find that 900 points of luck! And if you do send some my way.

Hag Quest {By: Orion - Feb 15, 2003 03:12:17}

Hey all, if you're doing the Hag quest, you should note that you no longer are guaranteed a fencing weapon. I just did it and instead of a wand or staff I got a ring (Fast Casting Recovery +1), no weapon, but everything else was the same.

Now if only my AoS upgrade code would kick in, I only entered it in 13 hours ago!!!!

RealLifeComics.com does UO {By: Orion - Feb 13, 2003 01:10:41}

I'm not sure if anyone of you read Real Life. It's a comic about just anything, but generally games and such. Anyhow, over the past few years they've done a few comics on UO and for the last couple days they've focused on AoS. It's a funny comic, go give them a read.

UOC Site News: New Weapon List {By: Orion - Feb 12, 2003 10:15:41}

Hello everyone, I just compiled a nice list of the blacksmith made weapons and their stats when they are exceptionally made. You can find the list by clicking here or in the menu on the right under Weapon Guide.

Here's a short exert of the list:

Weapon Name Physical Dmg Dmg Range Weapon Speed Str. Required Handed Skill Used Durability Sample
Axe 100 14 to 16 37 35 2H Swordsmanship 40,76
Bardiche 100 17 to 18 28 45 2H Swordsmanship 56,56

AoS Update #4: Jewelry, the interface, and Siege {By: Orion - Feb 12, 2003 09:18:11}

Good morning everyone. Once Sonoma came up last night around 11:30 I was online checking out Sonoma up close, and more specifically doing SOS's and TMaps. I'm VERY please with what I'm seeing so far, I managed to get some very interesting jewelry, Provocation +3, Increase Physical Damage 5%, Reflect Physical Damage 3%, Provocation +3, Intelligence +3, Dexterity +3, and tons more.

I also noticed that Orcish Bow's seem to be MUCH stronger now. The one in my pack killed a Sea Serpent in no time flat, much to my fishermans pleasure.

Next up are the new mouseovers in the game. OSI THANKYOU! No more double clicking everything and anything, plus go figure, it runs smoothly. I'm quite pleased with the mouseovers, they really make the interface shine.

Finally, Siege will get AoS updates but umm, no clue when. Ouch. First they have to share their shard for a day with every person in North America, then they don't even get AoS on time.

AoS Update #3: Cartography, Ban Lists, & Vendors {By: Orion - Feb 11, 2003 07:40:24}

If only they had done this BEFORE Lake Austin went live. Looks like world maps are now selling for only 6gp each instead of 26gp. Since blank maps cost 5gp the opportunity cost of making maps to make your UO fortune really isn't worth it. Of course I did use cartography a couple times to make 200k quickly once, but who wants to sit in front of UO Assist forever (if you want to do it legal)?

Anyhow, all your housing ban lists are going to be wipped, and the servers will be up in an hour, err make that ASAP, err wait, only the ban lists for Lake Austin will be wiped, so no one else worry. If you didn't follow that go here and see the latest revision of FYI. The "House Ban" topic must have changed 2 or 3 times at least. Third times a charm?

According to Sunsword (UO Producer) the current solution for vendors taking up lock down spaces is a temporary one.

It�s clear the vendor and lockdown issue has generated a great deal of concern among some of you. Let me take a moment to explain why we�ve done what we�ve done, and what it is we plan to do.

Q: Why do Vendors need to count towards secure storage?

A: With some of the changes regarding the item properties system, plus the addition of a significant number of houses, it became obvious during testing that we needed some new restrictions on the number of items players can keep in their houses. The change to vendors was the first step, but we will use the feedback you�re giving now over the next several weeks as we develop the complete solution to the vendor/item count issue.

Q: Why are you grand-fathering current Vendors?

A: We predicted that changes made to current vendors would adversely affect many players� current homes and establishments. To offset the difficulty of the transition period, we decided to allow players who currently have vendors to keep their current vendors with no changes.

Q: Why did you wait to announce the grand-fathering initiative?

A: Announcing ahead of time would�ve allowed players to abuse the vendor system to maximize their storage ahead of time, which would have negated the benefit of the change in the first place. And in situations like this - where announcing a change ahead of time would undermine that change - it�s standard operating procedure to wait. We wouldn�t intentionally do anything to make players not want to play our game. That wasn�t our intention. Actually, it was the reverse; we wanted to make sure this change succeeds in keeping the item count in check.

Q: Is this the way it�s going to stay?

A: Absolutely not. Our intention is to address Vendors holistically in the weeks after Age of Shadows, along with any other AoS issues. As many of you have probably read, the live team will be going back to smaller, more frequent publishes after Age of Shadows. Doing so will allow us to address the vendor issue in a timely manner. Whether the solution is to increase lockdowns across the board, lower the maximum number of vendors, or something else altogether, we will come up with something that will benefit everyone.

I know many of you are concerned about this issue, and believe me, despite the fact that we�re ferociously working on the AoS launch, we�re also paying attention to your concerns. I�m sure you�ll post them here J.

--
SunSword
Producer, Ultima Online

Well that's good news I suppose. But putting a limit on vendors in a house is pretty lame, my old 1 story plaster house used to house 6 vendors, it's why I could afford a bigger house.

I can understand the need to keep item count down, but seriously, if it's pushing the servers that hard was it a good move? Don't get me wrong, the new items seem to rock, BUT, at the cost of other game features? The multitude of game features in UO are what make the game stand out, right?

AoS Update #2 {By: Orion - Feb 11, 2003 04:56:31}

I just read on the UO boards that player made Golems are getting the nerf-a-roo. Mainly it seems they take damage faster than before, meaning they have lower physical damage resistance. They're still immune to poison, but seem to take damage from monsters that use poison melee attacks (weird).

Anyhow, check out that link about for the rest of the percieved changes.

AoS Update #1 {By: Orion - Feb 11, 2003 04:39:13}

Well, I had promised lots of updates today, but as you all know, the servers for North America have been very slow to come up, in fact the two that did come up (Pacific and Lake Austin) are now down again!

Anyhow, I did manage to gather once piece of info, 18x18 plots of land go for 179k. That's not too bad. Of course who knows how much building a house around that will cost you. =)

AoS Goes Live Today {By: Orion - Feb 11, 2003 12:05:41}

Well right now the North American servers are down, presumably to upgrade the servers to AoS.

While I don't have AoS on my desk at the moment, it will come tomorrow, but I do have a few friends geared to send me pics and info on new stuff they see.

Additionally, lots of other stuff has been posted about AoS in the last few days, unfortunately my baby girl was sick keeping me away from the website. So expect lots of udpates today and over the next few weeks on AoS.

Exhausting all options {By: Orion - Feb 6, 2003 02:50:04}

Well, as you may or may not know (or care about) my current ISP for broadband sucks. They�ve got a million and one ports blocked, including port 8888. The port used for getting patches for UO. Doh.

So after all my other options failed, my solution is a dialup connection, which thankfully is free via my school. But it�s coming in at a whopping 28.8. So, I have this to ask, how many dialup-ers feel horrified when they get presented with a 15+ MB patch for UO? LOL. I�m patching UO:LBR right now, at the current rate it should take 20 minutes to get the 2-3MB patch. So I�m thinking it�ll take around 2 hours to download the 3D patch, ouch.

Least I don�t have to play at 28.8, right?

So in closing, I tip my hat to all of you stuck with dialup. You guys are a brave and patient bunch. hehe

Those poor faction guys {By: Orion - Feb 4, 2003 05:05:38}

I havn't touched factions in a LONG time, I keep wanting too, but every time I do I hear of this problem, or that problem, or this weakness, etc. So of course AoS as an expansion brought hopes to faction people that they'd get some attention. It's apparent now that no changes will go in, but umm, there's hope for after.

Are there faction changes in Age of Shadows?
Yes and no. There aren�t any faction-specific changes in AOS, but many of the changes will affect combat and the way people fight in Felucca, which will have major impact on the way factions is played. For example, the changes to weapons, combined with item insurance, will make a big difference in the balance issues with faction-blessed runics. For more information on some of those changes, please check out the Features section of our Age of Shadows site.

No changes? What about Lake Austin?
We do know that the faction system on Lake Austin isn�t currently working properly, and that�s something we will fix as soon as we can. We�ve already investigated a few techniques to fix things in a way that would have been invisible to the players, but they didn't work out. As soon as we�ve managed to get the Age of Shadows expansion out to all our players, we�ll be taking another look at this.

What about faction changes after Age of Shadows?
We�re definitely aware of some issues with factions that we would like to fix, but we haven�t made any decisions yet on what we�ll be doing right away after Age of Shadows. Two of our goals this year involve a shorter turn-around time for publishes, as well as focusing more on things players have been asking for � and faction changes have definitely been requested, along with a lot of other things.

Once Age of Shadows has been launched, and we�ve wrapped up any loose ends, we�ll be making our decisions on what areas to focus on first. We�ll keep you informed, and we look forward to hearing your feedback!

__________________
Cynthe
Community Manager
ORIGIN Systems

Eh, well, that sucks. They obviously havn't paid much attention to factions for a while if they can't do an interview. I sure hope they get an update in '03. Perhaps the next publish after AoS could be: boats, serpant pillars, factions, and more boss type monsters. =)

Lets talk about Before and After {By: Orion - Feb 2, 2003 09:57:53}

Tonight I went fishing. I loaded up the 3D client and started fishing. As normal while playing UO I receive ICQ�s, people send me links, etc. In other words I do stuff. Especially lately, as I gather new information for the site. But you know what I always leave with? I leave with a bad taste in my mouth (that�s metaphoric, not literal). Is it from UO itself? Nope, quite on the contrary, UO still is a great game. What it is from, is the 3D client. The 3D client has come a long way, but lets face it, the thing is far from perfect.

So, I figured today was a good time to go over a few �nit picky� things about the 3D client, since we are just eight days from the release of AoS. But before I go on with the bad, let me say something, there are good things about the 3D client that I do like, keep reading and you�ll see them, this isn�t a total �whine� about everything 3D rant.

1. When you zoom in the tiles are blurry and lines are visible between each tile.
Ugh, if you zoom all the way out the models look bad, but when you zoom in even just a bit the tiles get blurry and an annoying grid shows up between the tiles. Blech.

2. Targeting is still off at times
Speaking of fishing, in the 2D client when I pick a target to cast my line, the splash effect is right on. In 3D? LOL, I�m lucky if the thing lands within 4 to 5 tiles where I aimed!

3. Memory Bloat
While my computer has ample ram to run this beast, I still find it disturbing to be using ram in excess of 160MB for the game. And that�s just on startup.

4. Colors
Reward cloth for the Tailoring Bulk Orders is disgusting!!! For that matter so are many other colors.

5. Lighting
The effects of multiple light sources in one area are still eye wrenching. Try this, place 2 lanterns just 2 tiles away from each other. Wait for nighttime and watch as this super white green nimbus appears, bleaching out all that surrounds the lanterns. Yuck, yuck, yuck.

6. Torches
I think all the NPC�s must be using blow torches or something. When they carry them the flames shoots out constantly at a 45 degree angle, lol. Well actually it looks like they are holding some sort of weird, umm, triangle thing. *shrugs*

7. Computer Performance
This is the one that makes me totally dislike the 3D client. When the client is open all other programs suffer, often crashing the other applications or the client itself. ICQ responds usually 5-10 seconds after clicked, MS Word takes forever to copy and paste, browsers pop up a minute after opened, web sites take forever to render and more. Why is it when other unnamed competitors applications are running I can still do these things?

Finally, before you say, �Hey Orion, it�s your computer�, it�s not. I have an AMD 2000+, 512MB DDR PC2700 ram, an ATI 9500 Pro w/ 128 MB Ram, and a Western Digital SE 80GB HD w/ 8mb cache. This is not a slouching computer, it does everything else out there at top notch rates.

There are more issues, but some are being addressed, like the player models. I sure hope the insistent heavy breathing goes away, or the huge feet.

So if the 3D client is so bad why do I keep using it now and then? Well for one the interface is better organized, mouseovers on stacks of items in your pack display their quantity, the ability to bring up tags to better click on things (very nice for barding), some of the very nice 3D models and more. So now, it�s not totally bad, it just lacks in performance and usability I guess.

So, that�s the Before, AoS comes out in 8 more days, I sure hope it holds some major updates to the 3D client, I�d hate to see UO stuck in 2D forever.

Don't drop Magic Resist just yet. {By: Orion - Feb 2, 2003 07:27:08}

A lot of fuss is going on right now about whether MR is getting nerfed back into uselessness right now. To clear up some of this Hanse and Evocare have spoken out quite extensively on this subject over on the official UO boards.

In this case, Hanse's character had no resist, and let's imagine he had an Intelligence of 35 (providing a modest amount of mana for special moves). If my character had 100.0 Eval Int, the formula dictates that I would take 35 mana from Hanse (offsetting most of the 40 mana cost of the spell).

The end result? I lose very little mana casting the spell, and Hanse has no mana (no special moves for him!). As you can see, if a player were to cast Mana Vampire on another player, and realize that the spell only had a net mana cost of less then 20 mana, then you could exploit the player's lack of resistance by casting the spell over and over, until they have no mana. At this point, the player would most likely find themselves trapped at very low mana for the entire fight since a player is smart enough to exploit this weakenss "ruthlessly".

In the case of PvM, the monsters aren't coded in such a way that they sniff out a weakness like that and exploit it until the player is pinned at no mana. This is why Hanse was able to work around his lack of magic resist without being excessively punished, yet still suffering a distinct disadvantage from not having the skill.

The thread is definitely worth reading over, even if you just skim for comments from the reds. Personally, I'm not touching MR right now till I AoS comes out. It looks to me like it is very much needed, if not as much in PvM, definitely for PvP.

BOD Database Pages {By: Orion - Feb 2, 2003 07:16:17}

Looks like a bad style sheet property had the Blacksmith and Tailor BOD Database pages all goofy. Thanks for the tip guys, it should be fine now.

Site Update Part 2 {By: Orion - Jan 31, 2003 11:42:51}

Well I bet you thought that updating the look of the website was all I was going to do. Wrong. The Blacksmith BOD System page just got a major update. New info was added, incorrect info was deleted, the format was changed, and new pictures were put in place.

Enjoy!

Site Update {By: Orion - Jan 31, 2003 07:14:30}

Hey all,

My DNS is changing for the site, I just found out I need to change this info, and that my current DNS may go 'poof' any day now. I've updated my DNS with the registrar but it could go down before the new DNS info takes over.

So umm, if the site disappears it'll be back real soon. It shouldn't go down, but umm, you never know I suppose.

New AoS Fiction {By: Orion - Jan 30, 2003 02:56:55}

There is new fiction up on the AoS site for those who care about the back story for AoS (which I do). This story will surely wet the appetite of all the sea faring friends in UO.

The ship, nothing but a speck in the tempest, rushed towards the whirlpool faster and faster. The Highwater hit the edge of the massive vortex and was jarred hard to its starboard side by the deadly spinning waters, nearly throwing the brothers from the deck. The ship shot faster and faster around the edge of the swirling ocean chasm, building up speed and howling through the winds. Through the piercing rains, Mordin could see the edge of the whirlpool stretching further away as if the boat had fallen from a massive cliff. As the ship fell deeper, darkness folded in around it and covered the vessel, burying it in the black seas. The last thing Mordin heard was the mast snapping into splinters.

I really think OSI's stories are getting better all the time. I just hope (knowing it won't be this way) that getting to malas requires a boat trip through a whirlpool in the ocean.

AoS: Crafting Info! {By: Orion - Jan 29, 2003 06:28:42}

The AoS site has been updated with Magic Item Crafting information.

As mentioned in an earlier feature spotlight on Item Properties, Blacksmiths and Tailors will gain the ability to craft armor and weapons that are imbued with special magical properties. This new ability will allow for a greater diversity of equipment that Blacksmiths and Tailors can create, while at the same time, add a little more challenge and risk to both professions. Choosing the right type of armor you wear and the weapons you use will be very important in Age of Shadows, as your effectiveness in combat will depend upon the strengths and weaknesses of your equipment. So, understanding the basics of magic properties and the process of creating them will help you make those vital decisions.

It seems there are three areas where armour will differentiate: Base Properties (i.e. Physical, Fire, Cold, Poison, and Energy), Material Bonuses will add to the Base Properties of a piece of armour (i.e. Valorite Ore, Horned Leather), and finally, Runic Crafting Tools (i.e. Runic Hammer or Runic Sewing Kit) that can increase swing rates, mana, strength and more. Okay, so how do you do it?

This new way of crafting challenges even the most accomplished crafters, making the results quite unpredictable. While you are certain to get a better item from crafting with a Runic Hammer, you cannot choose which bonus properties will be applied to the item.

Add in the fact you can upgrade items dropped by monsters, and wow, but you do run the risk of destroying the weapon when trying to enhance it.

I'm really liking the random factors they've put in this system. Lets say you're making armour, and say you make it with a Runic Hammer, you are not guaranteed that it will be a bonus to str, you could end up with something makes you swing faster. Or the exceptional bonus you're hoping goes mostly to physical damage, could get spread out over Fire and Poison (6% bonus to base properites for exceptional crafted armour).

Definatly check out that link about, they've got some great charts about what each type of item will give you for bonuses, etc. You'll see that Dragon Scales have more of a use (WOO) and choosing the color of the armour you want will matter even more.

But remember, enhancing items is risky business, especially if the item already has magical properties. The more property bonuses you try to force into an object, the more likely you'll fail. For instance, Valorite adds a bonus to 5 properties, whereas Dull Copper only adds to 3. So, it would be easier for you to successfully enhance an item with Dull Copper than it would be to enhance it with Valorite.

This also applies to increasing a property value that already exists on a magic item. For instance, if you have a piece of armor with 15% physical resistance and you try to enhance it with Dull Copper, which adds 6% to physical resistance, your chance of failing is quite high. Alternately, enhancing a piece of armor that only had 5% physical resistance on it, instead of 15%, would be substantially easier.

You just have to love the risk factor in this! No more handing out everything, you can build it, if you're willing to risk it!

Crafting an item using a Runic Crafting Tool results in a random magic item property (or properties) being added to that item. The number of properties that are added to the crafted object and the minimum and maximum % intensity of each property are determined by the type of material the Runic tool is constructed from.

ABOUT TIME! Runic hammers are cool, but always seeing the same damn weapon out there all the time definatly isn't. Now seeing a verite war hammer doesn't mean seeing a Indestructable / Exceedingly Accurate / Power, it could mean a lot more, or even less if you've got the right gear on to resist it!

I'm quite impressed with this system. It really mixes things up, and if OSI tweaks it right we may not see a huge deluge of 1 or 2 hit killers, which is what we all hope.

In many ways this is a larger addition for warriors and mages, rather than crafters, but this really should help crafters out. To make really good weapons people will have to go out and find them, and then risk destroying them making them better. I'm hoping this takes some of the items out of the market too. I can hope.

Exceptional item tags are changing. {By: Orion - Jan 29, 2003 01:31:12}

Greywolfe let a bit of AoS info out today. The way Exceptional tags are displayed on items is going to change. It seems that no longer when you click on an exceptional crafted item will it say something like this "exceptional ringmail tunic Crafted by Lord Rhuarc Do'Meric", but instead just "ringmail tunic". When you mouseover (as in the picture to the left) it will display all of the previous information, plus the new additional statistics. My question is, when I mouseover gear someone is wearing, what will it say? Anything at all? If it doesn't say anything then the whole "Crafted by" prestige goes out the door.

It'll be interesting to see the final results that's for sure. Crafters could get really upset about this or not. It's not like they are not getting any improvements out of AoS. We'll see I guess.

Banned, what do you mean banned!!! {By: Orion - Jan 28, 2003 08:08:20}

First off I have this to say, ROFL. Okay, now go read this story at UOPG. Read that?

Now tell me, after the long history of people getting banned by posting bugs on websites, why did they think they would get off scott free? *shrugs*

From what I gather, to get access to the chopper forums you had to submit a bug. It looks like OSI got access to the forums, then started tracking people down. My big question is what bug did OSI submit to get access to the forums? *grin*

I've said this before, it just isn't worth using a bug. Not unless you want a banned account. Same for AFK macroing, OSI has for years been using the "ban stick" for AFK macroing, what says they can't start using it again without notice or with notice.

New Tradespot {By: Grog - Jan 28, 2003 06:53:33}

Tradespot has information different from what is provided here so I will not feel guilty about mentioning the "competition". :)

Tradespot has moved. The new site at www.rpgtradespot.com loads much faster than the old site and does not appear to have popups. The new site is arranged better for my tastes for ease of use as well.

If you are interested in buying or selling UO items or just like to keep up on the scammer alerts but gave up on Tradespot, give it another look. Let's see if I can provide a quick link here.

Have fun.

GameSentry.com Network News {By: Orion - Jan 24, 2003 01:49:07}

I'm glad to announce that after over a year of providing UO news, info, and rants, that the GameSentry.com network (i.e. Orion, lol) is now providing news, info, and rants for the upcoming MMOG Horizons.

So drop on by and read all about Horizons, at the Horizons Compendium.

It's Wednesday! {By: Orion - Jan 22, 2003 10:41:16}

It's Wednesday, err, for some of you it's Thursday, and that means it's Age of Shadows spotlight day!

Nothing ground breaking was revealed today, just the rules of bagball. In reality this is quite interesting, a game formed inside of a game getting attention by the original games developers (follow me on that?).

In addition to the annoucement of an arena in Malas for bagball and other events, OSI released some new screenshots of what's possible with the house design tool.

Honestly, everytime I see this I get excited, the possiblities are endless. But what really makes me happy is the revamp of combat, which will hopefully bring more to the game to do. Speaking of stuff to do, when was the last scenario?! Anyone remember?

Browser Wars Suck {By: Orion - Jan 21, 2003 01:58:44}

Hey all, just so you know I have seen what the site looks like in browsers other than IE. I've tested Netscape 7.0, Mozilla 1.2.1, and Opera 7. All three of these other browsers are broken in some aspect or another when it comes to how style sheets are used. Opera comes the closest with Netscape 7 and Mozilla 1.2.1 tied (for obvious reasons).

Anyhow, the differences vary a bit and do make the site a bit skewed when you view it with other browsers besides IE. But since 95% of you use IE, I should be okay.

For you other 5%, I am tweaking things and will continue to do so until all four browsers show the same thing. This of course may mean waiting till browsers update their code some, lol.

AoS Housing Tool Demo {By: Orion - Jan 20, 2003 07:02:10}

On the left you can see a sample house I made using the AoS Housing Demo Tool. All in all it shows a TON of potential. The actual demo only lets you build a 7x7 or 12x12 house, lets you place walls of sandstone or cabin walls, two door types, sandstome 'extras', two types of flooring, and teleporters. But even with those I quickly had a nice three story 12x12 house I'd LOVE to move into. Of course the demo crashed before I could save the picture, but still, it makes me really look forward to AoS.

The interface is very easy to use, point click, select, point click. It's actually VERY easy to place a nice looking house and doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out. I'm quite happy with the look and feel of this and I'm SURE everyone and their dog will be making some great looking houses... And some houses that deserve a visit from the Demolition Man. But hey, who cares, it adds variety and should if anything break up the endless urban sprawl feel of the UO wilderness.

New Look {By: Orion - Jan 20, 2003 05:11:49}

As you can probably tell, the site got a major overhaul. I started the graphics Friday evening and plugged away my evenings this weekend to get this thing out. I had decided to not update the site, but Friday night when I got an idea I couldn't close Photoshop if I wanted too.

I took the time to change some layout things, minor for you, major for me. I rewrote and updated some scripts, so they are easier to handle, etc. All in an effor to get ready for new content, that has been much delayed.

I hope you guys all like the new look, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, not far from my original concept.

If you experience any problems with the new layout please email me at orion@gamesentry.com and let me know about it. Please give me the version of your browser, your OS version (i.e. Windows 98, 2000, etc) and explain what you're seeing wrong.

Thanks!

Site Update {By: Orion - Jan 19, 2003 10:10:45}

It's 9:49pm, the site will be in general disarray for a bit as I do an extensive update. Enjoy.

Update (11:52pm): Slight Delay, I'm doing most of this on a remote install first, making sure it goes smoothly, the news engine isn't cooperating as much as I thought it would.

Update to the Update (12:33pm Next Day): Well I stopped working on the site at 2am last night. Picking it up now, just have to convert the beastiary and the tailor database and it gets updated. Getting close!

15.4% of you use a modem. {By: Orion - Jan 17, 2003 01:14:53}

Around three years ago I was a modem using UO player, I was lucky, my modem connected at 52k. I imagine around that time that the larger portion of UO players then did use modems still, but guess what, not anymore. Or at least, according to my not so scientific, scientific poll. *grins* The results right now are really interesting for me, as right now I play on cable access but am forced to use my modem to update UO. The state of broadband in the US is surprisingly pathetic, in comparison to South Korea and much of Canada; it's expensive in comparison and often lacks features (such as mine). But hey, it's better than a modem right? It should be at an average price of 3 times what modem users pay. Anyhow, here are the results of the last poll, "How do you connect to the internet?"

Total Poll Takers: 343
Poll Length: 53 Days

80.8% (277) have broadband via cable or DSL.
15.4% (53) connect via a modem.
3.8% Connect via other, I suspect ISDN, Satellite or such

Quite interesting, games are still developed for modems, yet the LARGE majority use broadband. From a game companies perspective this does make sense though, because you don't want to leave out potential new customers, and games such as UO were one of my main motivators for going broadband.

Okay, time for the new poll.

OSI/EA obviously wants you to pre-order UO, in fact I already have. Never before has there been such a push, with all the promotions to pre-order it's quite obvious.

So the question is, will you? Answer the poll on the right, let�s see how well OSI is doing in getting you to pre-order.

No GM I am here... *pause* No GM I am here... {By: Orion - Jan 16, 2003 07:38:39}

What do you do when your game design is broken, and uncontroled Billions of gold is flooding the market? Making it so anyone can afford to buy the most expensive housing. You crack down on unattended macroing!!

Unattended Macroing Policy Update

The Ultima Online policy on unattended macroing has been updated, and our Game Masters will now be taking a more active role in eliminating unattended macroing from UO. Players who are determined to be macroing in the game while not at their computers will now face an immediate suspension from the game of at least 72 hours. Of course, players with multiple offenses, including confirmed use of unapproved third party applications, may find their penalties escalated.

It is our goal to provide an enjoyable and exciting co-operative gaming
experience for all our users, and we feel that unattended macroing does not help us achieve this goal. For additional details regarding these account actions, and for information on the process by which we determine unattended macro users, please read our Game Master FAQ by clicking here http://support.uo.com/gm_8.html.

Better than nothing I guess. Though in truth, it's quite easy to read a book and macro Attenned.

*&^$^@ Cable Internet! {By: Orion - Jan 14, 2003 02:31:58}

So, just because I'm back online doesn't mean I'm having fun. It seems my new cable internet provider (my only choice for broadband) is a bunch of bastards. You see, they have blocked all VPN and most gaming ports. Why is this? To save bandwidth. So no more Battlefield 1942, Counter-Strike and a few other favorites. I can get into UO (whew), but I cannot get to the patch server! Which means once the new version goes boink I'm screwed.

I have heard you can save patches and move them to another computer, but as of yet I'm not sure how to go about this. Anyone out there know? If so PLEASE OH PLEASE email me at orion@gamesentry.com.

I have posted on the UO boards to no avail. I have looked at the EA/OSI support site. I have even used their "live" chat help, and was told I had to get my ISP to open the port, have a nice day. *sigh*

So, for the love of UO and all things good (i.e. games) please help me figure this out!

I'm back!!! {By: Orion - Jan 10, 2003 07:37:40}

Well, I moved 300 miles last week. Much has changed for me. I'm once again a college student and the freaking temp outside right now is like 19 degrees!!!! BRRRR

Anyhow, I'm back, expect updates on a semi-regular basis again. =)

AoS update. Woot! {By: Grog - Jan 8, 2003 07:16:18}

From the beginning of my time in UO I have strived to be a crafter. I have 5 characters on GL all named Grog (all Lords as well) and between them I can make anything makeable and mark everything markable. My smith is an elder (115) and my tailor is legendary.

The latest on the AoS website is about the weapon and armor modifiers as they will soon be. Among the modifiers are resistance to physical damage (AR now), durability, regeneration (!), defense (foe can miss), stat and skill bonuses, etc. There are also additional effects such as night sight and luck. Items made of different materials will have different strengths and weakness. I intend to sell a lot of weapons and armor!

The first thing in the new information that excited me was a thumbnail which when clicked and viewed in full size, shows a character paperdoll named "Ellira, Legendary Alchemist"! Smiths and tailors will craft magic items and also be able to enhance a regular item using different materials. Not without risk though. Again I got excited as I read that smiths will make magic items using runic hammers (not new) and tailors will make magic items using runic sewing kits!

Each item will have a wide variety of attributes from regeneration (!) to stat/skill bonuses. Addition effects such as night sight and luck are also involved. There will also be an option to insure items (nonstackables) for a one-time fee so that the item stays with you if you die. You have to reinsure though after death.

And if you preorder the game you will get something called a "Hooded shroud of shadows". I preordered through Gamestop.com but AoS can also be preordered at other online sites as well as at a local bookstore. I forget which store but you can find it on the website.

Have fun!

I am getting hot for AoS {By: Grog - Dec 21, 2002 10:08:21}

Everyone by now should have the Age of Shadows site in their favorites so I won't bother. But if not you can find it below or at UO.com

I am a craftsman in UO through and through. So my main interest in the upcoming new release is in the new landmass and the new housing. If you too are interested in those (or in the new skills and monsters) you really need to go check out the AoS website.

Under wallpapers there is now a very nice map of the new land of Malas. In the sceenshot section are some interesting house pictures. I have already determined that a second floor must be supported from below if it extends more than one tile beyond a lower support. What that means to me is the second floor (and third and roof) can overhang the steps at the front of the house. It also means that by using the various columns in the customizer tool (there are some nice screen shots of that as well) a floor can have columns that are spaced 2 tiles apart rather than solid walls. I plan on vendors being in those open spaces.

I am hot for AoS. I am watching the website for the "Order online" section to show other than "Coming soon."! I am not going to make a mad rush for Malas but rather at first I am going to explore what I can turn my cabin's 8X13 tile space into. A well done house may eventually be tradable for an empty but larger plot.

Have fun.

UOC Site News {By: Orion - Dec 16, 2002 09:50:50}

Just a quick announcement, news will be even more sporadic on the site for the next few weeks (more so than now, hehe). I'm about to move 300 miles or so to attend a new college, so between packing, moving, unpacking, and starting school, things for the next few weeks will be crazy. I expect to be able to keep the updates rolling, but I wouldn't be surprised to see 5-6 days between posts.

Unless of course there is anyone out there wanting to be a news poster here. *grin*

Tossing the old dog a bone {By: Orion - Dec 16, 2002 09:47:33}

Okay, give some and take some, that must be the game.

Necromancy reagents are going to spawn in SOS and treasure map chests. We'll have more information on the new magic item system on our AoS site. I'm not sure when, though.

-Hanse
UO Live Designer

Now, personally, I don't take that to mean, that the only place to get Necromany reagents will be via the chests, I think it just means an extra place to get them, and to toss the fisherman a bone. Still, seeing something new in the old treasure chests will surely be relief too many.

Hanse on Malas {By: Orion - Dec 16, 2002 09:43:19}

Well, it's official, boats will not work in Malas. I have to say I'm fairly disappointed. I'm an avid fisherman in UO (and real life) and the very first thing I wanted to do in UO when I found out about it was to fish. So I have to say, I'm once again disappointed to see that boats will not be allowed on new waters.This new landmass is for housing. We felt that previous landmasses that were surrounded by mountains and/or water was getting repetitive. Fictionally, a landmass in the void would be a very intriguing and unique idea for Ultima Online (although not for Ultima fans...).

There's also a few issues with water. The main one is that it takes time to build properly. I was tempted to not even put in the lake, but I spent a couple days fixing the errors with it (technical errors that required many hours of hand fixing them). There was a river, but it fell into the void, so to speak... The void now crosses where a river once flowed into the lake (and the lake is "drying up"...thus the desert in the warm southern area of the map).

There have been boat fixes, but it's been some time and many were transparent to players (aside from those players that were affected). Boats could not be drydocked. Boats were causing shard crashes. Boats could not be recalled to if the mast faced a specific direction. Yes, it's been a while since we've focused on bugs with boats, but they were improved between UO:R's release and UO3D.

Creatures have been focused on for Ilshenar and scenarios. All of which were for the landmass so the most players could explore them. Seahorses were an exploiter's dream and we felt would be difficult to resolve all the issues with them.

Vex has been working on other things that may affect boats down the line, but he's been very busy with the last two publishes (Bard changes, veteran rewards, factions, and many other things).

So, just like many parts of the game that seem ignored, we're focusing on areas of the game that are experienced by the most players for this expansion. The largest being housing and combat.

There are many communities that would like more tools to use and content to explore. I understand your concern. We do have some changes in line for fishing and fishermen in AoS (hinted at in UOHOC).

-Hanse
UO Live Designer

And then this.Yes, it's frustrating to not know what's going to be updated. I did try to get large water turtles added, though. :)

Also, I had some ideas for new sea creatures, but I've been unable to get them added (3D model would be needed...2D rendered...etc). The resources to add new monsters are not small. With AoS focusing on Necromancy, the theme was dark and foreboding. The creatures you've seen screenshots of are pretty nasty looking. Although, that wanderer of the void kinda looks like a flying jellyfish. :)

As far as boats, the multi's they're made out of can move, but the implementation needs to be updated. Basically, a ship is a moving house...drawn to look like a ship. The client seems to be moving pieces of the ship one at a time (lag can cause you to see some of these pieces "jerk" around - and cause other issues such as incoming allnames to spam). There's a few issues that would be great to clean up. We're plowed under AoS, though. Maybe we'll get to them for the next publish, but I have no idea what our schedule will be.

-Hanse
UO Live Designer

Hrm, five years and they still have water problems, talk about not caring about an in game issue. And if you doubt me, it has been 124 days since the Serpent Pillars were deactivated. Oh well, little I can do about it I suppose, unless they need a C++ developer that is. *grin*

Not all of what was said is disappointing, Malas does sound like quite an interesting place to see, with quite a bit of variety, and the whole void thing is pretty interesting, even if the back story makes me wonder when the whole thing will disappear.The landmass was assigned to me. I really haven't been able to go into detail on it yet. I know some of the information has been posted on the AoS mini-site, but I think they want to wait for more information from players (explorers). I do believe in surprises. :)

The little hostel thing was an idea I had because I felt there wasn't enough on the road between Luna and Umbra. I made a little inn on the side of the road. I had no idea what to call it, so I called it "Hanse's Hostel" as a joke. I had expected it to be shot down, but it stuck. :)

The rest of the buildings I left as generic names. QA shot down that idea and considered it a bug (since all the other buildings in the game have signs that outline what the shops are). So, as of this week, all the buildings were renamed.

QA's done a tedious job of making sure the landmass looks good. I had reports of things that look out of place that you folks may be accostomed to with the older maps, but spent the time to fix them.

There are lots of neat quirks about the landmass and things that may seem plain, but that's because we had to make sure housing was available. Gromm and Augur did a great job in decorating areas of the map. Augur decorated the void moat around Umbra (the necromancer city) with skulls of failed necromancers. I think that's one of the nicer touches.

Anyway, the rest is up for y'all to discover. It took me many iterations and ideas that we wrangled back and forth with to get the map as it is now. It evolved from the ideas we had to the void landmass of Malas.

-Hanse
UO Live Designer

I rather like the idea of a place called "Hanse�s Hostle", it has personality, and for those who know "who's who" on the UO dev, it is a kinda cool easter egg.

Adrick on AoS Special Moves {By: Orion - Dec 16, 2002 09:31:10}

Adrick had this to say on mana usage for special moves.

further clarification

There is a base mana cost for a special move. For example the move costs 30 mana base. To lower the final mana cost a character could take on more skill points in weapon skills. So for example if a character had 95 sword, 89 macing and 90 parry they would pay a lower mana cost for this move than if they only had 95 swords 0 macing and 0 parry.

The weapon skills are swords, mace, fencing, archery and parry.

This was done so as to make pure warriors (those devoted to fighting and doing a majority of their damage with weapons) able to do moves cheaper thereby requiring less int/mana while making special moves fairly expensive for more hybrid oriented charactrers.

Thats as detailed as I can get at this time as playtesting may dictate changes and giving out the exact numbers at this early a stage will only cause further confusion.

Adrick

Personally, I like hybrid classes, and I fully agree with this. The more a person specializes in a skill set, the easier related action/skills/etc should be. However, if someone specializes in multiple skill sets, such as Magery and Weapon skills, they should sacrifice greater abilities in both, in favor of more versatility from having both skill sets learned. It's a good thing for balance, as long of course it doesn't completely make being a hybrid worthless. So in the end, its about balance.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH {By: Orion - Dec 11, 2002 10:25:49}

FREAKIN AYE!!!! DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN.

Too all you people who write viruses, you are bastards, and you deserve to be wrung up by your thumbs, then drawn and quartered. I'm serious. Yah I know you probably get a rise out of stuff like this, but someday you guys are going to regret this shit, and I hope its cuz you're in jail or paying fines out the ass.

New AoS Feature Info: Malas {By: Orion - Dec 11, 2002 01:03:52}

This weeks info is on Malas - Go check it out.

Boo! {By: Grog - Dec 7, 2002 04:08:57}

On the MyUO Discussion Boards , Greywolfe (Online Community Coordinator) explained that you do not need to cook food one at a time for skill gains.

You don't need to cook fish steaks one by one anymore. If you cook a stack of raw fish or ribs that you have in your backpack, the system will calculate the number of successes and failures you would have based by the number of items in the stack. The gains you receive will be based on those calculated successes and failures.

Phooey! I have in my cabin 40k loaves of bread that I baked one at a time to GM cooking. Now anyone who can afford 50k raw fishsteaks can "buy" a GM chef? I don't complain much but this one just sux.

Have fun (if you can afford it)

Getting ready for AoS. {By: Grog - Dec 5, 2002 04:44:24}

Orion has a link below to the latest Age of Shadows information. I have been doing a few things in anticpation of this major new release.

I now have 10 bonded pack horses stabled. I have zero taming on all my characters so I am limited to 2 stabled animals per character. All my characters have at least minimal magery to be able to recall using charged runebooks. Bonded pack horses mean that each of my characters can at a moments notice take over 3,000 stones worth of goods to any locations I have runes for.

New weapons! I mostly did this for fun but I see now I may have anticipated something here. My warrior character is now an elder swordsman as well as GM in fencing *and* macing. If he can swing it, he can fight with it. GM anatomy and tactics and as of now a master in healing may make my dexer a fighter of some worth.

New magic! My mage has gone over GM as well as GM in eval. He is my elder t

Reporting UO News since June 13th, 2001.

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