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April 2001 News:
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^ top-Who goes to these things anyways?
[Gator] April 30 - 1:50 PM EDT | I recently found the Player Luncheon Notes from the UO Forums. You can read the entire transcrpt here. I brought a few out to comment on and throw in my much needed two cents:
A way for scribes to make their own blank scrolls, perhaps the ability to make paper then make that into a scroll.
This is a great idea, and wood could be used as a resource. Now, not only can players make their own scrolls, it also provides another avenue for Lumberjacks to make some money. As if 20 gold per board wasn't already enough.
Players would like to see potion kegs with the maker's mark. Also mentioned was a revamping of some tasks that are rather "boring" to repeat over and over, sometimes hundreds of times.
Another good idea. Personally I could care less about Makers Mark on Kegs, but hey whatever. I like the fact of repititous tasks being eliminated. I.E. Double Click Mortar, Target keg with required Reagents in pack, Select USE ALL, and automatically the keg will be filled with potion. Or... Use Skill Inscription, Recall Spell, select USE ALL, target stack of blank scrolls, BAM 100 Recalls. They made cutting BandAids easy, you can make 100 Arrow Shafts if ya want, so how bout it?
The friends list for buildings needs to be larger, the players say. Perhaps a way to friend an entire guild, which would take up only the space of that guild in the list?
GREAT IDEA!!
Tinker trapped boxes, what is their usefulness?
Besides raising your healing to l33t levels, sadly I see this aspect of tinkering dying off. It's funny how things were made in the begining of UO for a purpose, and now suddenly they are dying off. I will leave that comment as is, you can use your imagination for what I mean. If that makes sense or whatever.. Anyways...
Players ask for the "Make Last" option to be added to more crafting menus. The players say also that the menus are not really as easy to use and maneuver through as they could be.
EXCELLENT!!
Smithing has a larger failuer rate then it should, the players say.
I agree somewhat. I think Plate Chests should be HARD. But I still think some twinking.. err I mean Tweaking should be done overall to the skill.
The players asked about veteran rewards. I said at the luncheon that we should have a test server up externally with the vet reward system on it. We got a little delayed in that, and it should be up early next week unless there are other unexpected delays.
In OSI time that means in the next 2 years roughly. Personnaly I cant wait to get my hands on my three year reward two years from now. But really, if this keeps going, will they offer a four year reward? I want my character to glow bright white, that way I can hang at the Trammel Moonglow Bank with all the other el33t 80/80 Tamers, with two White Wyrms, Ranger Armor, and Glacial Staves.
Players want the level of a treasure map more identifable on the map.
Excellent!!!
Guild stone alliances, players wish to have alliances put into UO.
Good Call!!
One player mentioned that pure warriors have a hard time versus mages. What he means is that the warrior doesnt have a smany options to deal with situations in a warrior/melee manner. For example, if the way out of a situation was to teleport up to a ledge to get away or to recall away, those are not melee solutions.
Umm can you say LumberHo or Fencer?
Players mentioned that colored ore and armor should mean more then what it does, and perhaps have special properties based upon the type of or/armor that it is
EXCELLENT. Iron Armor, Full Plate=30 AR. Valorite Armor, Full plate=80 AR. MUHAHAHA That would rock. Especially if you a lewter.
Playerw want to be able to choose their grandmaster title if they have multiple skills that are grandmaster.
I'm not big on titles, but this would be pretty neat, afterall I wouldn't want anyone to know that my GM Chef is a 6X Assasin. j/k.
Bunch of great Ideas presented there, surprisingly it wasn't entirely about rares and peekays. In fact rares and peekays werent mentioned once in Melantus' post. Here's my request. I wasn't there, but nevertheless it's my request.
I should be able to get more shafts from a board!! And the Bowyer skill is a Pain in the Ball Bag!! And fix how much wood and Iron weighs. Iron is like heavy and I can carry 3k ingots easily. So like make wood the same damnt. Only being able to carry 380 Boards sucks, when you can carry 3k ingots.
In other news, dont worry, my tamer essay is coming shortly, I know everyone is on Pins and Needles as to why I havent carried on with my essays over the weekend. Hey I am entitled to time off too, bastards.
Later |
^ top-Long Over due
[Ian] April 30 - 12:39 PM EDT | How much stupidity can one person take? How long before one is subjected to so much ignorance and desparing non sense making remarks before that person just gives up on humanity all together? Folks, I believe I'm testing those very limits. I don't know how much clearer I could have been on my rules and guidelines and in fact all through out the tournament. I know I left some things out and there were a few people with valid questions which I hope I answered clearly. But how many of you emailed me saying.. hey d00d i'm GoNNa own ur tournament." end of email. No name.. no skills.. nothing. Here's a hint. Over 20. Those are the type of people that will not be in my tournament. Furthermore, In preparing for this I thought it would be neat to go through uo.com and throw up a link to the tourney on the largest warring guilds message boards if they had one.. if they didn't I would email the gm of that guild. Well.. Let me share with you just how completely ignorant the average uo player is.
My email to him
To: Woodstock-TC@team-cow.de
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 10:17 PM
Subject: Huge PvP Tourney
> I played on Drach for a short while and remember you all as a decent pvp
> guild. Maybe some of you would like to test your meddle in my tournament.
> http://www.uopowergamers.com
>
> Click that link for more details.
>
> There is a large showing so far. Perhaps some of you might make it more
> interesting? Any questions you might have please respond to the email
found
> on that site.
>
> Regards
> Ian
> www.uopowergamers.com
Instead of just saying "no thanks" or "go to hell" here is what this walking example of a failed educational system replied with.
i have to laught of some things
1. i dont know uopowerdontknow.com. just another site. they come to you they
make you the rules and claim (of course) that this is the duel event of the
century. god i feel really blessed beeing in a decent pvp guild and i feel
blessed that i got the honor to be invited to that.
2. the duel rules: of course we as decent pvp guild werent asked, cause the
decent site used decent brains to make decent rules .. hm for themself. not
evne in trammel i would expect that.
3. even osi rules at the jhelom pits were good rules in comparation with
that.
powergamers? yes if you count configuring easy uo or whatever as part of it.
pvp? no
lol
Ok folks, is this not reason enough to keep your kids in school? Or to go that extra step and let them know that inhaling propane while simultaneously free basing crack is a bad thing. I'm not naive, I know not everyone can be the sharpest knife in the drawer but WTF? If you have an argument, or disagree with me, that's fine but like Jim Rome says.. have a take and don't suck. God what is it about this game (and others I've played) that attract the lowest dreg of society. I mean.. computers aren't the cheapest thing in the world to get a hold of. It takes a minimum I.Q. of 70 to operate the internet. How do these people live with themselves? Does someone know something I don't? Is it all a sick joke the world is playing on me? Maybe it's the age factor.. alot of kids have access to the net.. but then again I've met more mature, intelligent 17 years olds than most 24 year olds who are most likely still living with mommy and smoking pot all day. You all fucking scare me to the point where I'm almost about to give up on human kind. I was telling Watts that if I were that out of touch with reality I would WANT someone to put me out of my misery. I simply would not want to walk around with a veil of stupidity clouding my every neuron fire. Unfortunately I deleted all of my uopg email that I am not keeping for the tourney or I would have some more Nobel equivalent literature for you to read. As a treat to you all I will start saving it up, because I’m sure it won’t be long before I get my next. I only ask that you use a semi intelligible form of modern English so that I might understand at least 10% of the point you are trying to convey. That would be just swell thanks.
Why do people pretend they are "thugs" in UO? Why do people speak in Ebonics? Why do white kids use the word Nigga in a serious context? Why are their white trash racist red necks that feel the need to spew their racist beliefs in UO? Let me tell you why, they are confused, uneducated, lazy, ignorant, stupid little fuck wads that have no future, and have an anonymous outlet to vent out their anger at the world for being born ugly. Can you imagine them looking back on their life's greatest accomplishment and proudly saying how they gm'd magery? This is why I am scared. One day I will have a family. And my kids will no doubt be subjected to this. Can you say private school? Can you say AK-47 if you even think of getting within 5 feet of my daughter? We need to wake up. I'm not just being paranoid here. There are STUPID FUCKING SCARY ASS PEOPLE on the internet folks, and what’s worse is they don’t realize how stupid and ignorant they really are. You might be one right now agreeing with everything I say and as soon as you're done reading this you're going to log into whatever game/chat room/ message boards you frequent, and perpetuate the very things I'm talking about.
I’ll see some of you more intelligent people at my tournament. Until then, pick up a book, go to a museum, do anything besides staring blankly at your computer screen trying to be elite in a game that is completely inconsequential to your life’s productivity.
Because I care.
|
^ top-Corrections/Additions.
[Nieves] April 30 - 12:06 PM EDT | I corrected a link in the Tinkering skill page.
I added some monters (specifically Elder Gazor and Ice Fiend) to the monster section and corrected some errors. Don't ask me what, I can't remember right now. I just made the corrections, fired up my FTP program, hit the date key and moved everything over with a April 30th date in the date column.
By the way, I finished part 2 of Hammer and Silk. Go read it and tell me what you think.
Hasta. |
^ top-And So They Stepped Forward
[Ian] April 30 - 9:27 AM EDT | The following people will be competing in the first annual Tournament of Legends. Let it be noted that only 2 may rise victorious. But regardless of the victor, everyone listed below wins simply based upon the fact that they not only talk about their game, they have the intestinal fortitude to back it up. They are all to be respected.
And the competitors are as follows in order of email recieved : Kryphon, Legion, Stabo, Cadul, Natalie, Tobias, Phazer, Tomoyaki-qop, Cobez, Manji, Jerry Springer, Splyt-qop, Ba Ba Booey, Knifey, Hated-qop, Pestilence, Lacroix-atl, LordSoth, Blaine, Draktyr, Gafgarion II, Chaos, Egrahcrus, Ice-nose, Kata, Dr. Ownage, Haze, Xanatos, Gator, Tobias, Mission, Tapion, Caledor, Maltreya, Deathguard Watch.
35 people is almost to many but I just did'nt want to turn away people who are deserving of a shot.. For those not listed that emailed me with the typical "d00d like sign me up fer ur t0urney n1g" are absent for a reason. This was an application. Not everyone made it, I tried to weed out what I thought to be the best and I think I accomplished that. The rest remains to be proven on the battlefield. If for any reason you cannot make the tournament please have the courtesy to do what one has done so far and notify me that he would be unable to attend.
The ones listed will be receiving my email on Wednesday for some specifics and then again on Friday for final information. Those that are more behind the scenes type of people and would like to help coordinate this event can email me and tell me why you would like to do so. Keep in mind in order to be a ToL staff member you will need to be able to speak clear English and able to use Roger wilco.
Again thanks for all that applied to the tournament and congratulations to those that are in. This is going to be a great time had by all.
|
^ top-Say it isn't So
[Gator] April 30 - 7:21 AM EDT | After I wrote the essays on Anatomy and Animal Lore, I was promptly emailed certain "tricks" to raise those skills more quickly than what I had posted. This skill gain "technique", works respectfully with Anatomy, Animal Lore, and Musicianship. I got three notes on this "technique".
1. I already knew about them, was just awaiting a confirmation from OSI on whether or not they were legal.
2. These "techniques" are ILLEGAL and deemed banable offenses. So use them at your will, but don't say that UOPG didn't warn you. In other words, I got the confirmation. For the longest time they were discussed here, there, and everywhere. At one time you could find them posted all over Stratics forums as well. Last time I checked, they were disappearing.
3. Don't email me asking what they are. We are NOT a bug site. You want bugs, go somewhere else. Don't go on the forums talking about them. A few days ago Nieves stated our board policy, it will be ENFORCED.
And finally. I want the folks that knew about that "technique" to kick back for a moment, and think. Was that truly a legit way to gain that skill? I mean come one, what a joke. But some of you are probably saying, "but Gator, the 8x8 is cheesy as well." Your right, hell I never said I agreed with the present skill gains. In fact I hate them. But I will leave that rant alone all together.
I am going to throw in another quick rant before I depart for the day. I am currently working on a new Miner/Smith. I was mining away in Cove the other night and was toting along 1404 Raw Iron Ore. Well as I was moving along, I hit a slight lag pocket, and DROPPED MY ORE ON AN NPC!! So what happens? The NPC says "Your pack is too cluttered much like the ground" POOF. My Ore Disappears!!! Muther $%$@#! $!# @#!$%!!! 700 Ingots....GONE. I called a Counselor. He looked around.. "One sec let me get a GM." Ok. I wait. And Wait. Finanly I notice the little message on my screen, "Sorry, could'nt find it, if an NPC ate it, there is nothing we can do. Fare thee well." Yeah fare THESE well. Has anyone been to Cove lately in Trammel? It's a God Blessed NPC convention. For heavens sake Nobles are mosh pitting on the docks!!! They are EVERYWHERE. Umm. OSI. Can you like, turn down the spawn? So be warned folks, when movin ye ore, watch out for the NPC Whores.
Later and uhh Fare Thee Well.. |
^ top-Simple Arithmetic
[Nieves] April 29 - 5:41 PM EDT | I have seen Fishing Nets go anywhere from 9k-20k on Great Lakes. Big gold price difference, but it's what I have seen. The best you can get out of a Fishing Net is either a Level 3 Message in a Bottle (MiB) or a Level 3 Treasure Map (TM). An MiB will sell anywhere from 5k-10k. A TM can demand 5k if not more.
A level 3 MiB will have 3k gold in it and maybe a good magic item or two (I am hearing reports the loot sucks). Last time I fished one up I got a level 2 chest (2k gold) with 2 Force Maces (regular Mace). Think anyone will buy those from me? Not likely. So, IF I bought the MiB, I would have been out 3k. Not a good investment I think. IF I bought the Net to get an MiB, I would've been out 7k. I would have lost money big time. So fuck buying Fishnets.
A level 3 Map will get you 3k Gold, plus the gold from the monsters. You get 7k easy on a chest after killing off the spawn and looting it and selling the gems and scrolls and the dummy weapons at different NPC vendors (which, when I am feeling scrappy, I do). Then, I MIGHT get a good item. Then I might get pure shit in the chest. So this time, if I paid 5k for this map, I would have made 2k. If I bought the Net and gotten the Map from the Net, I would've lost 2k. I don't know abot you, but I don't like losing money.
Now, lets add to that. The randomness of these MiBs and Maps are such that you could wind up with level 1s and lose even more gold.
And then there is the issue with Nets providing nothing at all. Which to me is total and utter bullshit. I did 5 Nets with a friend on Saturday. Know what we got? I got the level 2 MiB I mentioned above, and a TM I gave him for his time. As of this time, I don't know what he got for TM level or loot, but it was probably shit as well. 5 Nets and 2 Chests. How shitty is that? If I found the Net and fought for it, give me an MiB or a TM for each Net. I earned the damn thing. GM Fishing is a bitch to get thank you very much. Reward me for it. Yes, I would like some good loot from them, but at least give up the MiBs and nets.
I don't blame the people selling the MiBs/Nets for the prices they sell at. I blame the dumbasses buying them. It's your gold. Do what you want and lose money.
If you come up to me selling your Maps, Nets, and MiBs and you quote me a price higher than 1.5k, don't be mad when I walk away laughing at you. There is no way, at this time, to guarantee I will get anything from the Net, and the minimum you can guarantee I get from a MiB and TM is Level 1. 1500 gold when you sell off the junk.
I don't know about you, but I like breaking even if not getting ahead.
Update From Blackheath of Treasure Hunters Of Brittania (my partner on the Net Expedition):it was a level 2, milked the spawn out of it for maximum value. not a single item above ruin or guarding, sold it all. total gold 5,332. if hadnt forced spawn, would have been 4,308 (and how many of us force level 2's? i only did because, well i dunno, but im kinda glad i did, cause one of the orc mages after the forcing started had a map on him..wheee)
Still doesn't add up. He got another chance with a new map (bastard) but nothing good in that chest.
Special thanks to Blackheath for helping me in all this.
Hasta. |
^ top-Come and go...
[Lawyer] April 29 - 12:19 AM EDT | Paladin is no longer an updater for UOpowergamers... I wish him prosperity.
And I have added almost all of 2000's archives. The format is a lot different, so I made do with what I could. I refuse to change every post in that 150k text file. ;) |
^ top-Hell yes.
[Eric] April 28 - 3:55 PM EDT | Check this out....
The information I have so far is that Vet Rewards will be on an external test server early next week. I'm sorry it's been delayed longer then I originally said.
Melantus
Online Community Coordinator
Ultima Online
Melantus@uo.com
Maybe Vet Rewards will be coming soon? I doubt it, but this is one step further.
Cya later.
|
^ top-Complete Rules and Guidelines
[Ian] April 28 - 12:43 AM EDT | Well this is the information the tournament page was going to contain, but since a certain person who shall remain nameless (Lawyer) told me he would build a page and never got around to it, here it is.
Tournament of Legends Rules & Regulations
Mages:
-No weapon skills allowed. Period. Wrestling is allowable. Bandages are allowed
-No Potions or magical clothing or items.
-You must stay within the confined area designated by the ToL duel supervisor
Melee:
-No potions or magical clothing or items
-No magic weapons
-No poisoned weapons of any sort
-Magery is allowed
-You must stay within the confined area designated by ToL duel supervisor
Sportsmanship: You are expected to behave in an adult fashion.
Enforcement:
-People found to be to immature to be in my tournament will be kicked immediately.
-Anyone using magic weapons, potions, or breaking the rules of their particular class will be automatically disqualified.
Miscelaneous Info-
-All duels will be on foot. Duels will take place in a remote location and be monitored by either myself or a ToL Staff member.
-Running out of regs disqualifies you from your match. Bring enough so that this does not happen. We will meet at a central bank after each duel for restocking.
How To Enter
-Entry Deadline is Monday April 30th. Once you turn in a complete application, and it is approved you will recieve an email from me that simply says, "confirmed." After all the entries are in I will construct the tournament bracket. Upon completion of the bracket you will recieve a follow up email on Wednesday, May 2nd that will explain to you that now would be the time to back out if you have plans and will not be able to attend. Another email will be sent on Friday, May 4th that will give you the meeting location and basic overview of how everything is going to work.
-You need to be fully prepared by 8 pm Eastern time Saturday, May 5th and be at the assigned meeting location.
Prize- The winner will get his or her picture, along with a bio of his or her character and shard they come from, as well as what guild they represent put on this website's front page. The winner also has the pride of knowing that they won what is most likely the best collection of pvp talent assembled at an Ultima Online tournament..ever. And, as promised, the winner, if they are so inclined, may request a duel with myself, and show the world just how fast you can beat my ass. I will also include the picture of my ghost on the front page if I'm beaten. I've played UO for 3+ years. I've yet to lose a duel on test center. I'm fairly certain that streak is in serious jeopardy.
Dig deep inside your soul and ask thouself if thou art ready for my Tournament of Legends. If thou art ready, submit to me thy application HERE Good luck. |
^ top-You can PK in Trammel
[Nieves] April 27 - 5:14 PM EDT | No Bullshit. Under certain conditions.
If you are in a warring guild and you see a another member of a warring guild, but aren't warred against them, you can attack them. As a consequence you take a count and go grey. Whether that count happens before or after you kill that person I don't know.
This one ally of mine was telling me about it. I told her bullshit. She said I will prove it. We went to look for some people I am warring but she isn't. We found them at their player run town. She was able to cast magic arrow at on of them. She went grey and her guildmates could attack her back.
One thing, you do that in a town, you get Guardwhacked.
Just a note for all you people wanting to kill that asshoe hogging up your kills in Deceit and is in a warring guild. You CAN do something about it. You just have to be in a warring guild yourself.
I am checking to see if this is a bug or as intended.
Hasta.
|
^ top-2 days late, but still a good read.
[Nieves] April 27 - 3:28 PM EDT | Over at Lum's I found a review of Ultima Online. Don't ask me who, I am too lazy to hit the back button on my browser.
What struck a cord with me was when I read this: " Well, it's interesting. It's kind of a strange thing to imagine, but the big thing that really separates online games from other games, and what makes UO better now than online games four years ago, is the fact that we can keep adding to it. UO started out... it was deeper than other games at the time, but you had to have a certain ammount of depth to keep people coming back day after day, month after month. But over the past three and a half years we have continued to add to it. We have added new systems and new monsters and new lands to explore, and all kinds of new things to do. And I've heard a couple people say recently that some of these companies that are trying to put out new massively multiplayer role playing games. The biggest challenge they have, when facing a game like UO, the competition is that we've continued to grow this thing. It gets deeper and deeper and deeper. So four years ago, the games just didnt have the depth that they do now. "
Deep? Deep where? How the fuck is UO deep? The only thing keeping me in the game is the freedom to do what I want (to a point), the fact that I don't have to "level up", housing, the different character types (smiths, fisherman, tamers, thieves, etc.) and the people I play with (probably most important). Where are the real Quests? Not the bullshit Seer run stuff. You know, where the Purple guy or monster says all this weird shit and then you wind up in the middle of 20 liches you lag up, and the liches kill you, and you die 5 times trying to get your stuff and this GM hider already has all your stuff because he's not trying to save the day, he just wants to get your stuff (talk about a run on sentence)? And then the Seer decides he will spawn 1000 more Liches because like, everyone is killing them off too fast and it's cool to watch everyone die and not give anyone a fucking chance to survive that type of onslaught.
UOQuest = Seer Statement+Lag+1000 Spawned Monsters+Looters+A shit load of dead characters+Lag (did I mention that).
Give me some substance DAMMIT!
BRING BACK PRE....er...sorry.
Want to do something cool for UO? Make an underwater contenant (SP?)incased in a bubble where you have to fight these neat looking underwater men and women and you get these cool looking suits of Coral Armor and Coral Swords and shit. Oh wait, that's right! I can't play with any new content anymore, because UO3D doesn't FUCKING work on my computer.
Sometimes I hate this freaking game.
Hasta. |
^ top-Tourney Update
[Ian] April 27 - 12:33 PM EDT | Ok, Lawyer said he would have the tournament page up this morning. He lied. I'm sure he's diligently working on it in between his "personal moments". Until then Continue to email me if you wish to submit an application for the tourney. We already have a huge
sign up for this thing..last count was between 25-30. I want that to keep growing. So.. if you're not signed up yet here is my original post. Read it over and if you have any questions, refer them to the forum. When you are fully prepared, and know you have the time, submit your app.
ORIGINAL POST
Ok here you go. You wanted it? You got it. A PvP tournament to be hosted by yours truly is going to be taking place on Saturday May 5th at 8 pm Eastern time, on Test Center II or whichever shard is live at that time.
Tournament Breakdown: There will be 2 tournaments. Mage Tourney and Melee Tourney. This is a simple enough concept. If you use a weapon, you're in the melee. If you're in the mage you may not use a melee of any sort.
To be qualified for this tournament all applicants must turn in their character names and skills you will use to compete in the tournament to me by e-mail. Be accurate, any incomplete applications will be rejected. And if you show up to the tourney with a name other than the one you submitted you will not be allowed to compete. (Remember, this is on Test Center, I need the name you will create.)
All applications must be submitted before Monday the 30 of this month.
That monday I will pair out the brackets and seed all players. I will submit to you, your bracket via email by Wednesday May 3rd.
I will gate each contestant to their dueling area and will either observe each duel myself, or one of my guildmates will. Anyone found cheating, or breaking any of the rules laid out below, will automatically be kicked from the Tourney.
The winner of both the mage and melee tournaments will have a pic of themself and a brief bio of who they are written by me and put on UOPG's front page.
FYI: Judging by the talent that is sure to be in this tournament I do not presume that I would win this contest, in fact I highly doubt I would, so with that being said, in order to properly coordinate this, I am not going to compete. I will however duel the mage and mellee winners of the contest provided they wish to do so, and if am beaten will also post that picture. (This is your chance :) )
Tournament Rules-
Mages) No Melee of any sort (including bows). No potions of any sort. Bandages are fine.
Meleer's) GM weapons only. No potions of any sort.
Sportsmanship: This is self explanatory. If you cannot behave in an adult fashion, do not come to my tournament.
Enforcement: Anyone caught using magic weapons, potions, or breaking the rules of their particular class, will be disqualified.
Note-If you are on my icq, you are not special, if you wish to compete you need to email me like everyone else.
|
^ top-You all think I am bullshitting don't you?
[Nieves] April 27 - 8:42 AM EDT | When we say there is a no bug posting policy in our Forum, THAT MEANS NO BUG POSTING IN OUR FORUM!
How fucking difficult is that to understand? If you want to post something and aren't sure if it's a bug or not, email one of us and ask. Fuck, email me and I will ask Counselor Anonymous.
If you want bugs, go to Chopper and "subscribe" to his private board. That's what they do. We don't. We are an information site for the best way to power game without bullshit bugs or exploits.
I bring this up because of the bugs I keep seeing people trying to post. Of course, at first, I was nice. I would edit it and say, "please don't do that". Then I would delete the thread. Now I find a new one this morning. Fuck that shit.
Just DON'T post bugs in the UOPG Forum. Please. I don't like having people removed from the board. But if you can't play by the rules, you can't play.
::waits for the flames of "YOU ARE A FAGGOT NIEVES"::
UPDATE: I need to clarify something. If you want to tell us about a bug or exploit without discussing how to make it work, that's fine. IE- There is a bug where people can loot your house by logging off in it, logging back in, and using an external program to remove your items. Please lock everything in your banks or lock your doors. That kind of stuff is ok. Thank you for correcting me on it.
Hasta. |
^ top-Animal Lore Revisited
[Gator] April 27 - 8:17 AM EDT | Introduction
A must-have-skill if you’re a tamer. A high Lore added with a high taming, will determine how much controllability you have over tamed creatures. Lets take the cover off and get a more in depth look shall we? Overall Animal Lore has 3 functionalities, and all of them can make or break you as a tamer:
-Animal Lore contributes 30% to your ability to control a pet. The other 70% is represented by your taming skill.
-Animal Lore is to Veterinary, what Anatomy is to Healing. To be a successful Vet, you need a high Lore.
-Animal Lore can be used actively to tell you what kind of mood your Pet is in.
Let’s go over item 1 first. 30% of your overall ability to control a creature… Doesn’t sound like much does it? But look at it this way, and consider your buddy Fifi the Dragon is involved.
Taming: 100
Lore: 100
Controllability: 98%
Taming: 50
Lore: 60
Controllability: 30%
Taming: 100
Lore: 0
Controllability: 70%
Taming: 0
Lore: 100
Controllability: 2%
Take all that in? Great.
Item number 2 describes how Animal Lore is essential for Veterinary. Well I will save the entire spiel for my Veterinary essay. But if you want to be able to heal your pet well as he is getting pounded by ye olde Balron, you will want that Lore as high as possible. The same formula used for determining how much health is healed with healing applies to Vet and Lore as well.
Minimum amount healed = Animal Lore/5 + Veterinary/5 + 3
Maximum amount healed = Animal Lore/5 + Veterinary/2 + 10
So at GM Lore/Vet you can expect to heal a maximum of 80 points and a minimum of 43 points. Which can be VERY handy.
Item 3 is VERY important as well. This item describes what kind of mood your pet is in. And that can very well save your ass. It sucks when your Dragon decides to run off on you while your fighting a blood elemental. Those levels of “moods” or “loyalty levels” are as follows:
"wonderfully happy" –This is where you want your pet to be.
"extremely happy"
"very happy"
"rather happy"
"happy"
"content"
"content, I suppose"
"unhappy"
"rather unhappy"
"extremely unhappy"
"confused" –This is NOT where you want your pet to be.
Now when you Lore your pet, and it comes up as “confused” don’t wig out. Just throw it a chunk of beef or whatever, and Lore it again. You will find that after feeding your pet will be at “wonderfully happy” again. Also you will find that after you newly tame a pet, the will be at “confused” as well. Once again not a problem, just feed them.
Macroing
There is really no true way to macro Animal Lore. UOAssist does have a skill agent. Just click on the Agents tab, highlight Animal Lore and ensure that you have a macro setup to use that skill. Then as you are walking around, hit the key and it will automatically Lore the nearest animal near you.
Skill Gain
Animal Lore is a target-based skill. Much like anatomy, if used actively it will require numerous targets to raise the skill. But, Animal lore raises passively much like Anatomy. This skill will rise while using Veterinary or Taming. There are no tricks associated with gaining in this skill, it just takes time. At the higher levels of Taming, you will find Animal Lore will raise much like taming will, slow but steady.
Conclusion
Hardest thing about this skill is one thing. Time. Be persistent and work at it and you will be attain GM. Gators easy skill scale of 1-10. 1=suckiest 10=cheesy I give this skill a 3. At lower levels this skill raises pretty efficiently, but as it gets higher it can slow down dramatically. .5 per power hour in the 90’s isn’t uncommon.
Later |
^ top-Just so we can avoid a recount...
[Nieves] April 26 - 4:04 PM EDT | OSI is in Texas, not Florida, so it makes for them to make an Election change to Factions.
Hasta. |
^ top-Anatomy Revisited
[Gator] April 26 - 2:12 PM EDT | Introduction
Anatomy... A must have for any warrior type character or for any character that chooses to use the healing skill. There are two benefits from having an adequate Anatomy skill.
-GM Anatomy will give you an extra 20% added to your damage when you are fighting an opponent.
-GM Anatomy coupled with GM Healing will allow you to heal a maximum of 80 points of damage with a single band-aid. The minimum being 43 points. The formula used to derive this information looks like this:
Minimum amount healed = Anatomy/5 + Healing/5 + 3
Maximum amount healed = Anatomy/5 + Healing/2 + 10
Plus for the high-speed-want-to-know-it-alls, you can use the Anatomy skill on an opponent to see how there stamina is doing. I don't know ANYONE that uses this, but hey if ya want, knock yourself out.
Anatomy rises passively while using a Melee or the Healing skill. Anatomy is target based, if you use the skill actively to gain it, which is pretty much worthless. But you can GM Anatomy off fighting Bunny Wabbits if you choose to do so. When it comes to gaining w/melee it doesn't matter what the target is.
Macroing
There is really no true way to macro Anatomy. I do recommend using a healing macro while working this skill. Once again, use UOA to assist you with this. It makes things a lot easier to just hit a button to heal yourself as opposed to clicking your stack of aids all the time.
Skill Gain
The key to GMing Anatomy is persistence. Now you can GM Anatomy by using the skill directly on numerous targets. In theory it is possible, but I do not know of anyone that does this anymore. Back before Power Hour it may have been viable, but not anymore. The best ways to GM this skill is through combat or luck.
Combat takes the longest but by far the most is the most reliable. Grab you a few weak weapons of your choice. Something like these:
Swordsmanship: Skinning Knife
Fencing: Dagger
Macing: Wand
Lumberjack: Hatchets
Archery: Suck it up and use one of the above.
Why weak weapons like those? Because the object is to hit a target as many times as you can as quickly as you can. You don't want to run around killing everything in sight, it will slow down your overall rate to GM. Grab a warrior in the Jhelom dueling pits, get your dexterity as high as you can and commence to beating. Boring? Yes. Mind Numbing? Yes. Worth it? You're damn skippy. Also remember to be healing yourself during this entire period as well. You will find some gains through healing. And hell, a gain is a gain.
The luck method can be the quickest route to GM any skill ever. But it can be a pain in the butt to accomplish. Grab your weak weapon of choice with a regular weapon and head to a high spawn area of lizardmen and alligators. These fellas will be well known friends by the time you are done. The key here is to use doorsteps of houses while you are fighting them. I have gotten this method to work for me 7 times. Of those 7 I have walked away as a GM of Anatomy 5 times. Use your regular weapon at first, and kill. Kill, kill, until you have to look some more. Eventually, you will start hitting a creature and will find yourself gaining Anatomy on every successful swing. BAM. You have just found you're lucky friend. Some unusual comments have been made about how these creatures get "lucky". Some folks believe that it's because they have "lived" a long time. Meaning that they are older spawn. I say hogwash, once I got this to work on a newly spawned lizardman. Immediately exterminate all the other creatures that are attacking you except for Mr. Lucky. Once they are all gone, equip one of the weak weapons mentioned above. And start hitting while watching your health bar closely. If he gets low, tab out so you don't kill him until he heals back up. If you are in Felucca you are in luck. Heal him yourself, but be warned that you will go gray, so make sure nobody is around that wants your stuff. This way can suck at times, but then again, when it does works it is very sweet. Once I went from 85-GM in about 15 minutes, how sweet that day was. This works on more than just Alligators and Lizardmen. I have had this work on a Spider and Orc Lord as well. A friend of mine GM'd off a mongbats. And some folks have even GM'd this way off of there guildmates. When you find that spot where you are gaining, REMEMBER IT!! Mark your coordinates through UOAM or a sextant, and if you don't GM that time, try the same spot again the next day. I have gotten gains out of the same spot, with the same character two days in a row. I didn't GM unfortunately, but I did get 93 Anatomy.
Conclusion
Hardest thing about this skill is one thing. Time. Be persistent and work at it and you will be GM in no time. Gators easy skill scale of 1-10. 1=suckiest 10=cheesy I give this skill a 5, mainly because the "luckies" are hard to find, and the regular method will take a few power hours.
Later
|
^ top-Archives up.
[Lawyer] April 25 - 8:27 PM EDT | | I have the March and April archives up. They are accessible by the "UOPG News Archives" button on your left, under the recent update panels. We are missing information due to newspro glitches and the hosting change, but we do have some information from a long while back. I will work on getting them up at a later time. |
^ top-Problems with UO....
[Eric] April 25 - 4:33 PM EDT | ...according to Redrum.
Redrum over at his "updating area" posted a rather long but interesting analysis of today's problems with UO. If you can't handle harsh criticism of UO, I don't suggest you read it. But, if you're like I am, and like to hear the shit that Redrum has to say, check it out. Here's a little clip:
See, whenever they add something, it just makes the game even more easy than before. A quick recap of events that made it easier: reputation system (not that I disagree with it, but it all adds up), T2A (unlimited magic weapons), fishing (see: T2A, only easier), treasure hunting, thief nerfing, housing (we all had to deal with getting our houses looted), power-hour, trammel. All of these just made the game way too easy from every possible stand-point. Supposedly the "new and improved" monster AI was supposed to replace the player conflict risk. Wrong.
He has a lot more to say than just that, along with what he thinks SHOULD happen with UO. As useless as it is, it's an interesting update. Check it out.
Cya later. |
^ top-New Shard Day
[Gator] April 25 - 1:36 PM EDT | Announcing New Shard at uo.com:
Origin is pleased to announce the public test opening of Mizuho, our newest Japanese shard, on April 26th (CDT). The shard will open for three days for testing purposes as we monitor the shard for any unforeseen problems. Once it has been determined that the shard is operating optimally, Mizuho will be wiped on April 29th, to be re-opened officially on April 30th. Mizuho is the 9th Southeast Asian Ultima Online shard and our 23rd shard worldwide.
The name Mizuho dates from ancient times, when Japan was called "Land of Mizuho". Mizuho stands for beautiful water, and Japan has been long famous for its rich rice harvest. The shard name was chosen from submissions to the official UO Japanese website and voted on by UO players via the website.
As per our localized shard policy, Mizuho will be available only to Japanese players for a short period of time. This will allow local players time to establish a solid foundation and community base on the shard. After this period, we will open Mizuho to the worldwide community of Ultima Online players, allowing the shard to develop the cross-culture diversity found on other UO shards.
Ok, so they get a new shard, GREAT. When does the good ole US of A get one?? I want a l33t Marble Table.
Alot of updates on the board today folks, make sure you scroll
D
O
W
N
Also to all the emails I have gotten the past two days, folks I am getting to them as quickly as I can. And you will get a response, and some of them have been so good I will post an update about them
Later |
^ top-1st Annual Tournament of Legends
[Ian] April 25 - 12:36 PM EDT | Ok here you go. You wanted it? You got it. A PvP tournament to be hosted by yours truly is going to be taking place on Saturday May 5th at 8 pm Eastern time, on Test Center II or whichever shard is live at that time.
Tournament Breakdown: There will be 2 tournaments. Mage Tourney and Melee Tourney. This is a simple enough concept. If you use a weapon, you're in the melee. If you're in the mage you may not use a melee of any sort.
To be qualified for this tournament all applicants must turn in their character names and skills you will use to compete in the tournament to me by e-mail. Be accurate-any incomplete applications will be rejected. And if you show up to the tourney with a name other than the one you submitted you will not be allowed to compete. (Remember, this is on Test Center, I need the name you will create.)
All applications must be submitted before Monday the 30 of this month. That Monday I will pair out the brackets and seed all players. I will submit to you, your bracket via email by Wednesday May 3rd.
I will gate each contestant to their dueling area and will either observe each duel myself, or one of my guild mates will. Anyone found cheating, or breaking any of the rules laid out below, will automatically be kicked from the Tourney.
The winner of both the mage and melee tournaments will have a pic of them self and a brief bio of who they are written by me and put on UOPG's front page.
FYI: Judging by the talent that is sure to be in this tournament I do not presume that I would win this contest, in fact I highly doubt I would, so with that being said, in order to properly coordinate this, I am not going to compete. I will however duel the mage and melee winners of the contest provided they wish to do so, and if am beaten will also post that picture. (This is your chance :) )
Tournament Rules-
Mages) No Melee of any sort (including bows). No potions of any sort. Bandages are fine.
Melee) GM weapons only. No potions of any sort.
Sportsmanship: This is self-explanatory. If you cannot behave in an adult fashion, do not come to my tournament.
Enforcement: Anyone caught using magic weapons, potions, or breaking the rules of their particular class, will be disqualified.
Note-If you are on my icq, you are not special, if you wish to compete you need to email me like everyone else.
Above all I want this to be fun. There is a lot of talk amongst pvpers about who is the best and so on and so forth, well this is your chance to prove it and have a great time in the process. Hopefully I can get all of the updaters of this site as well as a few others out and we can all have a fun evening of pvp and good natured competition.
The email to submit you’re application is
ian@uopowergamers.com I look forward to you all being there.
Let the appropriate smack talking commense.
|
^ top-Anyone got any Flu Medicine?
[Nieves] April 25 - 11:10 AM EDT | I could really use some right now.
I added two essays to the Essay Section. About time, eh?
Also, Lawyer is working on getting the Archives working and displayed with the current UOPG Template. That way you won't have to email me anymore about the update that came out 2 weeks ago.
Hasta. |
^ top-Alchemy Revisited
[Gator] April 25 - 9:10 AM EDT | I am going to try to turn out an update on every skill over the next few weeks on every skill that is useful in UO. These updates will consist of my own thoughts and information from our skills section. Now if someone out there knows a better way, then by all means email me. And we will incorporate that change into our essays. I am going to try to do one skill per day, but we will see how that goes.
Introduction
Alchemy is a great skill to have for the PvMer, PvPer, or obvious Merchant. Some folks choose not to carry potions on a PvMer. I say screw that, potions are especially good against some of the more difficult monsters that inhabit the lands of UO. Greater Cures and Greater Heals I always carry into dungeons because they can be incredibly useful. Using potions in PvP can give your warrior the upper hand via Greater Strengths and Greater Agilities. And a merchant can make a fair amount of money selling potions or the coveted potion kegs. I sold these on two vendors for a good amount of time. But be prepared to spend some time buying regs, because your potions will sell. Eventually I stopped selling potions and just stuck to selling kegs and made a fair amount of gold doing that.
Overview
Alchemy is a really easy skill to GM especially due to the advent of power hour. I have heard of folks GMing it within a week. And with a nice amount of regs I consider it truly viable. I recommend using Alchemy on a mule character. There is no need to have this skill on a Mage or Warrior type character. At one time, Alchemy was a famous skill among Fisherman. But when they made it to where fisherman had to kill to get the SOS and Maps it was less popular. Alchemy is EXTREMELY important if you choose to GM Poisoning eventually.
Macroing
First things first, unattended macroing is frowned upon by OSI and could lead to the loss of you're account, so don't do it. If you choose to Attend Macro your Alchemy skill (which I HIGHLY recommend) then do what you can to get UOAssist. This handy little utility will not only help you with Alchemy, it is wonderful with many different uses in UO as well.
There are two different ways to macro Alchemy. Both can be a little bit of a pain. If you choose to fill bottles, Macroing can be fairly easy. The problem lies in taking all of them bottles and filling up kegs. I believe Kegs should be a necessity if you are going to work this skill. Storing 1 keg is far easier on lockdowns or bank space than 100 bottles. In case you didn't know a keg holds 100 bottles of potion.
A good way to macro this is to "charge" your mortars. All mortars remember what the last potion they made was. So if you make a GA. Next time just double click that mortar, and retarget the mortar again vice the regs. It will automatically make the last potion type that was made with that mortar.
The other way to macro is to use your mortar and then target a keg. But if you fail then you will not get a target cursor. How I combat this is by using the hiding skill within the macro. This way if you fail at making the potion, the hiding skill will interrupt the Alchemy portion of the macro so you will not miss any attempts. I know it sounds confusing, but when done properly the macro looks like this:
Use Item (Charged Mortar #1)
Target (Charged Mortar #1)
Target (Keg)
Use Skill (Hiding)
Or if you wish to fill your pack with a large amount of empty bottles use this version that uses 4 mortars. Depending on your lag, you may have to adjust this somewhat. Using 4 mortars setup 4 UOA Macros:
Macro #1 (Mortar #1)
Use Item (Charged Mortar #1)
Target (Charged Mortar #1)
Macro #2 (Mortar #2)
Use Item (Charged Mortar #2)
Target (Charged Mortar #2)
Macro #3 (Mortar #3)
Use Item (Charged Mortar #3)
Target (Charged Mortar #3)
Macro #4 (Mortar #4)
Use Item (Charged Mortar #4)
Target (Charged Mortar #4)
It may take a little bit to get the feel, but once you get it, you can churn out some bottles. I use those four macros with my F1-F4 keys. Then I just fire them off with my left hand in that order, by the time you hit #4, #1 should be done. Then just hit them again. Make sure that you have a stack of about 100 empty bottles in your pack. and enough regs to satisfy the requirements for that many potions, including failures.
Skill Gain
Below you will find what to make at what level. I.e. At 50 Skill make Explosion potions, they cost 5 SA per potion made.
Skill Level: 50
What to make: Explosion
Reagents Needed: 5 Sulphurous Ash
Skill Level: 64
What to make: Greater Strength
Reagents Needed: 5 Mandrake Root
Skill Level: 72
What to make: Greater Poison
Reagents Needed: 4 Nightshade
Skill Level: 80
What to make: Greater Heal
Reagents Needed: 7 Ginseng
Skill Level: 90
What to make: Greater Cure
Reagents Needed: 5 Garlic
Skill Level: 94
What to make: Deadly Poison
Reagents Needed: 8 Nightshade
As you are making these potions you can choose what you wish to do with all of them. Explosions are pretty much a waste unless they are Greater, so get rid of them. GS, GH, and GC you can keep to use for your own characters or you can sell them. GP I would keep a hold of for Poisoning, you WILL need them for that skill.
Miscellaneous Information
A Greater Heal potion is just that. If you make it at 90 skill or 100 skill there is NO difference in the potion strength. This skill is not like Smithing or Tailoring. Where GM equipment is better than regular.
Another important note is that this skill is a Craftsman skill, i.e. It's not movement based. So work it in your house or at the bank, but there is no need to 8x8 it or anything crazy like that. I have heard too many arguments over 8x8ing this skill. Trust me, get nice and cozy in your house or at the bank, and work the skill. You will do just fine.
Conclusion
Well that's it. A skill that isn't very hard to work. All it takes is regs; I would say 200k worth and about 5 Power Hours. Last time I GM'd this skill was late last year so I may be a little bit off. But on Gators skill scale of 1-10. 1=suckiest 10=cheesy I give this skill an 8. Mainly because dealing with all of them bottles are a pain at times.
Next Skill: Anatomy
Later |
^ top-Neverwinter Nights update.
[Nieves] April 24 - 6:52 PM EDT | It's coming along..or so they say. All I can say is I am excited.
A quote from their latest update:Every day, I'm amazed all over again by the sheer number of criteria that have to be taken into account to run a single round of combat. Combat requires weapons, for example, and creating one within the toolset can involve as many as 60 different effects - everything from bonuses to hit and damage, to different forms of damage immunities, to level draining and electrical damage. In short, we're committed to making Neverwinter Nights one of the most in-depth Dungeons & Dragons experiences possible on your home computer.
You can read the whole article here.
Hasta. |
^ top-And Now... The Rest of the Story...
[Gator] April 24 - 2:39 PM EDT | The quote I made earlier from Evocare, that was soooo easy to understand::smirks:: Well it has been re-evaluated and commented on by Evocare in the UO forums:
Hello, my apologies for being kinda wordy in the comments. Having been a UO player before joining the dev team, I really can understand the desire to read detailed information about what we're planning for the future of UO. Unfortunately, giving out the details is exactly what we can't do, since doing so basically eliminates our design flexibility by commiting us to something that we can't always guarantee will happen. =[
In addition, I was hoping to avoid writing an essay that was totally uninteresting for the players to read, so I opted to talk a little about an overall design approach. The downside is that it can be hard to write something brief (but good) about an overall design approach without giving out detailed information about how we intend to apply that approach. So, the result is what you read, for better or for worse...
Ok Evocare you clarified it somewhat better. But let me warn you that you now have set yourself up for complete udder aggravation by all the boardites at UO.com message forums. Oh yes ask Melantus or Calandryll. If they ever let out a smidgen of a hint of what was “coming up on the horizon”, they were hounded relentlessly as if they were knocked down over China. Go ahead and ask them. But thanks for that clarification. Was beginning to wonder if I was on crack or not…
And good call on not committing the dev team to something they may not be able to design within the game. After three and a half years of working on this game they finally got that part right at least. Let’s see can I recount the ways? Vet Rewards, Necromancy, Vet Rewards, Housing Patch, Vet Rewards, Alchemy changes, Vet rewards… It goes on and on and on…
Later
|
^ top-Rational Thought 101
[Paladin_VT] April 24 - 12:47 PM EDT | Let's put this little thing about guns to bed early, before anyone gets hurt.
Imagine yourself sitting at a wooden table with a loaded revolver sitting on the table. The revolver sits upon the table, with the muzzle pointed in your direction. Now, ask yourself this question, "Is that handgun a danger to me?"
What's the answer? The answer is, of course, no.
Now, imagine yourself at that same table, in the same chair, but this time the gun is not on the table. The gun is in the hand of someone else, and it's pointed at your heart. Ask yourself the same question, "Is that handgun a danger to me?"
The answer is, of course, no.
"What do you mean no," you cry?
I mean no, and here's why: One of the three foundations of reality is the Law of Identity; that is, A is A, and cannot be anything else. You may call something differently than I do, but it's basic identity is not changed by that label. The gun in the above instance does not change its identity, it is an immobile, inanimate object that poses no danger to anyone, and posesses no consciousness.
The danger comes from the outside entity that uses the handgun. You are not in danger from the gun, but rather are in danger from the person holding the gun. If that person were not there, you would not be in danger. If the gun were not there, you still may be, after all, firearms are not the only way to harm other people.
In any event, it is a mistake to blame an adult, even a parent, for the volitional acts of a child. If a five-year old shoots someone accidentally, then, yes, it is the fault of the person who left a loaded firearm within reach of one who cannot make a rational decision on whether or how to use it.
If a fifteen year old does so, then he or she recognizes it's use, and must make a volitional choice on how or whether to use it. This is the law of causality, corollary to the Law of Identity. This means that actions(causes) have consequences(effects) that are predictable, and knowable.
The short version is that there is evil in the world, and it has nothing to do with an ephemeral God or fairy-tale devil. It is alive and well within men and women who choose to ignore identity and causality and believe that they can enforce their own ignorance on a merciless universe. In the words of Francis Bacon, "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed."
As Gator implied, it is a sin against morality not to accept the guilt for what you have done, but it is an even greater sin against morality to accept guilt for what you have not done. It's not the parents' fault people, because the parents didn't pull the trigger.
It's the kid's fault. |
^ top-Umm Yeah What He Said
[Gator] April 24 - 7:22 AM EDT | Isn't funny when you try to do a write-up on something, get all finished then you see another one that is wrote better than what you wrote yours... Well it happened to me. Go read about what Jinx and Watts had to say on Parenting in the 00's. Jinx hit's on the Lawsuit and Watts has his own spin on parenting in which he is 100% correct. It's a great article that REALLY nails it down. Of course you don't have to. But I love reading articles that make fun of Spock, so go check em. And by the way, I never saw those two posts until this morning. It just so happens that Jinx, Watts, and I are on the same wavelength. It comes with time, from being the l33t news updater/powergamers that we are...
In gaming news, Trammel Twinks suck. (Feels another Tram/Fel rant coming on) But I wont get into it... ::grumbles:: All I can say is, where are the consequences?
Evocare, a Designer for UO had something to say recently. All I can say is what? Speak in dude speak so the rest of us normal folks can understand.
One of my primary goals here at Origin is to take a holistic approach the design of game systems. In order to deliver the best possible play experience, it's crucial that we have a keen understanding of how each game system relates to other game systems. The idea is to create and maintain a web of essentially symbiotic game system relationships so that the combination of systems becomes dramatically more interesting and compelling than the sum of the value of each individually. Beyond creating an interesting and deep game world, one of the greatest benefits of this approach is the ability to deliver the aforementioned experience with a minimum of complexity and clutter when compared to a game of equal depth that is comprised of largely unrelated game systems.
So... Does that mean we are getting back precasting... byiotch??
Later |
^ top-Raising Kids Right Starts In The Home....
[Gator] April 23 - 2:46 PM EDT | Well it was coming down the pipeline. The thing is I get very upset at families that want to point the finger at this and that when little Johnny gets into trouble...
Mom and Dad both work full time jobs, while little Johnny began his career at age 3 going to Preschool. His first day at school in kindergarten he was given his very own house key. Because Dad was usually on his flight home from the office in the city and Mom is still at work as well when Johnny got home from school. They told him to grab something out of the fridge and turn on the TV for entertainment. And that 4 hours later when they got home, dinner would be ready. "Keep the door locked, and say no to strangers" they said as he boarded the bus. Once he hit 12 they bought him is very own Home PC, after all the Nintendo wasn't doing it for him anymore. And with his $50 per week allowance he could get the very best in gaming entertainment. His folks were still hard workers, doing what they could for the family and their retirement accounts, so usually Johnny would hit the store by himself to pick out the games and CDs he liked. His parents were never there to tell him no, and why should they have been. After all he was showing great signs of maturity. At age 15 Johnny discovered the Internet, and all that it had to offer. Now he could learn everything about anything, all from his desk in his bedroom. One day Johnny found the gun his Dad used at the pistol range on the weekends. Johnny admired it most definitely. He saw it used in numerous movies, TV shows and games. And now he held that very power in his hands. Very carefully he put it back where he found it. Then things got tough for Johnny at school. Some of the "cool kids" were giving him a hard time. Pushing him around, and calling him a nerd and a geek. I mean who were they to call Johnny that. Over time it began to eat at Johnny. He told his parents about it. But they told him that they were just "playing" and he should do the same. So Little Johnny did play... with the gun his Dad owned... one day on the school ground... killing 5 and wounding 6. And then Little Johnny finished the game that had begun 13 years before...
Folks it's easy. TV didn't make your kid fuck up. Games didn't make your kid fuck up. Movies didn't make your kid fuck up. YOU fucked up. If parents would take a more active roll in what there kids do, problems like this would never occur. Will my kid watch movies and play video games? Sure if that's what they want to do. But I can guarantee you this. It will be only the ones I feel he should watch or play. I will stay in tune with what he does and what he sees. Can I filter out everything? Nope. But I sure as hell can try. Society on a whole has failed because parents have failed. It's as simple as that. But yet everyone wants to take the liberalistic point of few and point the blame on someone else.
Be RESPONSIBLE for your actions. Take the blame for once.
And let me add as not to confuse. The families of the slain are doing that lawsuit. Not the families of the shooters. But just reading about it, made me think about how "some" parents can be so shitty nowadays. My thoughts and prayers will always be with those families of the people that were killed. And they have every right to sue. Does the entertainment industry need better regulations? Yes. But we also need better parenting. And better parenting can very well out do any regulation that could ever possibly exsist.
Ok I am ranting, and that was two from me today... But damn we live in a sick fucking world...
Go talk amongst yourselves, heres a topic: Parenting.
Later |
^ top-GuildMaster 101
[Gator] April 23 - 9:30 AM EDT | So want to run your own guild? Well I am going to give you a handy dandy guide on guild running basics. Now first off let me be quite open with you on my own guild running experiences. I failed. Not by choice but by time. In fact lets head straight into point number one.
Time
Running a guild takes just that. Have you finished up your own characters? Because unless you can play 4-6 hours a day, forget about it. You will find most of your time in game will be spent working on and with your guild. Of course all of this depends on how successful you want your guild to be. If you want your guild to consist of a group of folks that team up every Friday night at 10pm to do a dungeon run. Then your time devotion will not be as much. But still you can expect members to call on YOU from time to time to help them out. It’s just the way it works. One way you can help yourself out is to setup a Council or a few appointed officers below you to help run things. This way you don’t have to be “the man” 24/7.
Commitment
Taking up the responsibility of a guild takes serious commitment. Now depending on how many members you have this level may grow or decrease. If it’s just you and 5 buddies, your level of commitment may not be as much if say you had 30 members. The more members you have the more responsibilities and attention you will need to deliver. Mainly this is all because you are the GM and the guild expects you to be the most involved. And if you want to be successful, then why not be involved?
Guild Type
This is very important. If you want your guild to be PvP then you don’t want a bunch of role-playing PvMer's in your guild. That’s just the facts of successful guild running. You can find a good mix. But if you have 20 PvPer's and 10 PvMer's can make it a little hard when you want to do successful PvP wars and another part of the guild wants to go on a mission to exterminate all mongbats from Sosaria. So do your best to avoid this. However there is a way where you can mix the two. I know of one guild that Role-plays PvP. There are actually several. And this is fine. So there is somewhat of a happy medium, but make sure that all of your members are onboard with the same medium. Because if there not, problems can arise.
Disciplinary Actions
This is just the way it is. You must learn to be decisive and firm. If not, you will be run over. I am not saying to go on a power trip. But after all if you are a GM, you are the fearless leader. So lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way. If someone is messing up your guild or guild image, you must do something with that member. If not, your guild will surely fail. You must think of your guild as a well-oiled machine. The better oiled it is, the happier your members will be. AND the happier you will be.
Resources
I have yet to find a way to be successful at this. I now say let folks take care of themselves, or have members of the guild hook each other up with necessities. But there is NO way to establish a working system. That’s just the way it is. If there is a guild out there that has gotten this to work right. Has gotten everyone to give fairly. Then please email me cause I want to hear about how you did it. The only sure way I could see to make this work would be for the GM to devote A LOT of time, and raise the wrath when needed. I think a guild treasury is a good idea. This fund can lead to an official…
Guild HQ
Or whatever you want to call it. But do to the housing rules, be ready to get another account, or sacrifice your own house for this cause. This place can be used for all members to access chests and things. Or can be used as a training area. But most importantly, a place for your guild to meet and hang out together is what a Guild HQ is all about. But remember this, especially if you are a PvP guild in Fel. Don’t fuck with the neighbors. Unless you are just crazy like that. Myself totally banned fighting around the house because I didn’t want to log in with my mule and get pounded by my neighbors. I have been in factions and lived next to other factions. I didn’t screw with them, and they didn’t screw with me. But of course this is all just personal preference. If you want to be the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s by all means do so.
Guild Charter
As in any organization there has to be just that, Organization. Easy way of doing this is to set up a guild charter for all your members to live by. These will just be rules and regulations for your guild. Set these up to where they are fair and the members can live by them. If your Guild is composed of l33t n3\/\/bI3 kIll3Rs then don’t expect them to abide by the laws of Lord British because it isn’t happening. Make a charter and live by it.
Other
There are other things you can do to enhance your guild and create some good avenues your members you can use to participate. mIRC Chat is wonderful. Set up a room for all your members to meet and BS while they are playing. Roger Wilco is a real time chat over microphone deal that works splendidly in any combat situation. Your group PvP experience can be deeply enhanced with this nifty little utility. And it’s a free download as well. A Free Guild Web Site is a plus as well. All sorts of things can be done from there, plus it can assist you in future recruitment abilities. Yahoo will give you a free site, just get ready to deal with the annoying banners that pop-up. There are numerous free servers out there. And finally a Guild Forum is a good idea as well. Another freebie as well, here all your members can read important info about guild events or just BS about the weather or what happened Friday night in Bucs Den.
Conclusion
Hopefully all these tips can help you out somewhat. These are some of the things I took up when I led a guild and they may help you as well. What killed me was time and commitment. I haven’t gave up on that guild, just took a small break. But I totally misjudged what type of undertaking I assumed when I jumped into the race. And this can hurt a lot of your members, especially the new ones.
Later
|
^ top-It's amazing what a Trammelite will say...
[Nieves] April 22 - 9:46 AM EDT | I was talking to my girlfriend about some notos I ran into in Khaldun last night. I won't get into what happened as it's emberrassing to my guild to say the least. I will say this though: "everyone gets punked once in a while".
My Gf and I were talking about counts and how it works. She asked: "they still give murder counts in Felucca? WHY!?" I stopped and looked at her. I then asked her, "you don't think they should give counts or have stat loss?" "No. I thought that was the point of Trammel/Felucca split". Her thinking is you are safe in the towns and safe in Trammel from PKs. Why should you still take counts or go Red? Hmmm....and this is from someone that will never step foot in Felucca again.
I think you should still take counts. It's part of the cost of being a murderer. But should you have stat loss? Maybe not permanently. Why not make stat loss like factions except instead of 20 minutes, make it 8 hours? It's just an idea.
Adam Ant has a solution that he had written up well over a year ago. Go read his Angel Island Proposal. Tell him what you think and if you support it, sign his petition.
Hasta. |
^ top-Fallen Age Beta!
[Vasilias] April 21 - 8:40 PM EDT | OK OK OK...I know I am the NWN updater, but hey! I got the Fallen Age beta and figured I would drop a line to give my views of the game. Now first off I was lucky to get it...the mailman tossed it into another person's mailbox. Fortuitously, the neighbor kid brought it by and handed it over. Aiighty...now on to this update.
First off....in order to play this puppy you will need a 440 Celeron processor minimum, 64 RAM, 16 meg graphics card and 300 megs free on the hd(a lot smaller than the full install of UO surprisingly), and the all important internet connection.
Now, of course, to start things up you will need to activate the game. As with UO it does have a registration code. Then you set up your account. As of now there are only 3 character slots, so you can only create 3 characters. And you have but 3 classes to choose from...the warrior, the mage, and a cleric.
Once you create a character you log on in. The graphics in this game are smooth. Very detailed. The overall interface of the game is bulky and cumbersome. And given the fact that no manual came with the beta edition made finding things out interesting. Most of the players I met ingame we just like those in UO....mostly jerks and not very helpful. Then there were a few exceptions of course as with everything else.
As I said earlier the interface is cumbersome. The chat overlay is mildly reminiscent of EQ. It's is windows based in a sense. Very awkward to get used to if you are a hardline UO player. Your inventory overlays are transperant, but to me they seemed to get in the way more oft than not.
This is a level based game. Skills do not arbitrarily raise as with UO. You must spend experience gained through combat and "juno", as they call their gold, in order to raise levels. Once again a manual here woulda been helpful in understanding that right away instead of running around wondering wtf do I do. Once you get experience built up and have a lil "juno" you purchase training according to your level of expertise from the trainer of your class located with in the "town". There is a bank and a warehouse in town, but do not even attempt to use it. You can't until you have attained a level where you can create your colony. I will post more on that as soon as I can actually attain that. You have to reach level 30 in order to do that.
The cool part about the colony is that it is a guarantee within this game. There is really no fighting for territory to place a house as as soon as you reach level 30 you have a plot of land already. And from which you build your colony. I will hafta attain this level in order to report on it.
They do have quests. I didn't get around to exploring that area yet, but rest assured I will. I believe everyone on UOPG here have a beta slot and will look into this as well.
PvP? They have it. They also have a nice lil bit called a deathmatch. More or less this is a duel. There is no flagging...simply a challenge issued and challenge accepted. I personally like that. As of now, there is no PvP for anyone until they reach level 20 first. So basically, you have your trammal for the first 20 levels, after which you graduate to Felucca, figuratively speaking.
Now here is something I found I liked quite a bit. There was absolutely no lag or latency of any kind. No ping monkeys as far as I could see. Everyone pretty much moved along at the same rate of movement. This made the game very very playable and enjoyable. I would rate this game on a scale 1 to 10 as a 8. It is a very playable game, and although I am stuck in a UO state of mind, the interfaces within the structure work well with it. You just hafta get used to it.
Will bring you more as I learn and gain experience within the game. But overall, for those with an open mind, you will enjoy the atmosphere of this game. It is different.
Haster la Taters! With Catsup!
Vas |
^ top-Because people don't have anything FUCKING better to do..
[Nieves] April 21 - 6:09 PM EDT | they go and fuck one of my friends.
Well as some of you may know, myself and Warlord (the guy who helped redesign UOPG), and others have been working on a new site for months. It has been linked here on UOPG a few times, and if you went there, I am sure that you saw that it was pretty graphic intensive. We had a good feedback set up, a ranking system for the updaters, messageboards up the whazoo.
It was going to be a general gaming site covering all kinds of games, from all genres, not just online games. It was going to have my commentary and that of others you know from UOPG. Ian, Epyon, ProQuo all expressed interest in updating there when they had something to say about other games than UO. You will notice that I am speaking of it in a past tense. I will get to that here in a second.
I had set up interviews to premiere www.gameterror.net with several very cool people. Savant from Fallen Age, the lead producer from BioWare, and the lead producer from Blizzard. I had sent a general inquiry to several computer and online companies about the possibility of contests, for everything from computer parts to games, which were received very favorably providing we could show an adequate hpm (hits per month). Based on what I felt the direction the site was to go in, I didnt really feel that was a problem. Even those people working on the site with me had no idea I had these things set up. It was to be a suprise, not only to the readers, but to the staff as well. This was because we just wanted to talk about what we are passionate about, and that is games. I had a larger vision for it, and was working on realizing that for the benefit of everyone involved.
Since I am an HTML retard, I was doing the backend things. Writing content and trying to set up cool things for the readers of the site to enjoy, and make sure we kept people coming back. I write on websites for myself, but I take a certain amount of satisfaction in the fact that alot of people enjoy what I have to say. I also enjoy those people who say they hate me. It means that I am writing things that spark emotion, something that makes people think, whether they agree or not. That was what GameTerror was about. A place for everyone to speak their mind no matter what they had to say, and hopefully come away thinking that they were a part of something, even if it was only a messageboard flame war. I want people to write for the reasons I do, to get things off their chest, make a statement rightly or wrongly, and spark emotion in others.
But last night, GameTerror hit a snag I don't know if we can ever recover from. I am so fucking pissed off right now, it is going to take all I can do to get through this day without doing physical harm to someone. Last night, someone decided to hack our server. In doing so they completely wiped out www.gameterror.net. Completely. Gone from the server.
We of course have backup files and what not, but that is not the point at this moment. The point is someone took it upon themselves to smash the expectations of others for no more than their own sick, simple amusement. In talking with Warlord, who has worked his ass off on the site for months to make it not only work the way we want, but to be incredibly pleasing to the eye, we are not sure we even want to try to rebuild it. It just doesn't seem worth it right now.... And I am only feeling about one tenth the depression that Warlord has going on right now.
So, this is a message to say that for the moment GameTerror is gone. This is a message to say, something that could have been very cool for everyone involved is gone. And most importantly, this is a message to say, never underestimate the juvenile cruelty of people and their desire to destory hard work for their own twisted pleasure. This is a message for me to say FUCK YOU AND I HOPE YOU ROT IN THE DEEPEST HELL EVER DEVISED AFTER BEING SUMMARILY TOTURED AND GUTTED LIKE A FISH for whoever hacked our server.
To all those who wrote myself and War about the site, I say thanks from our hearts. Truly we say thank you for the appreciation. It could have been great.
Watts
You know, it's a fucking shame. I saw what Game Terror was going to be. Hell, I fucking saw it from concept to it's "near complete" state. Warlord had a good, solid design, and all of Watt's ideas were extremely tight.
You see, Watts is a friend. And I feel for the guy. That was his baby. His "dream". If I find the motherfucker that did this to him, I personally will send him to Watts (minus his fingernails and a nail in his penis).
UPDATE: From Warlord- Gameterror is not gone, its not defeated, it *WILL* be back. Currently we've suffered an enoromous setback. What goes around does come around and the day the son-of-a-bitch is paid back is a day that will come to pass like any other... But I am at peace with the knowlege its coming and it will hurt these people more then I could ( unless I was able to spend a minute with them in a dark alley with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch ) ...
In the end Gameterror will rise out of the ashes and our hell will be unleashed in all its heavenly glory upon the planet..
------------------
"Build it, they will come.. And they may destroy you..."
Hasta. |
^ top-By special request...
[Nieves] April 20 - 10:05 PM EDT | Although a year late, I started writing about Hammer again. I got many many requests to start writing about him again. I said I would, and I have kept my word to you, the readers. The first of four parts are in the stories page.
Read it. Then please email me with any comments, good, bad, or indifferent. But realize, if you just say "it sucks", I will probably delete it and move on. If you say it's "COOL MAN, YOU RULE"! I will probably email you back and say "thanks". Tell me how it sucked. Tell me why it was cool. And tell me how it could be better.
I am not a professional writer by any means. I just write what comes to my mind.
Check it out. Then tell me about it.
Hasta. |
^ top-Happy 4:20... have some links.
[Lawyer] April 20 - 2:07 PM EDT | We have added UO Chat and the UO Gamer's Network to our links section.
So you all enjoy some new sites and stay out of trouble. ;) |
^ top-Just for you Blachawk
[Nieves] April 20 - 10:36 AM EDT | Sometimes, you need something to make the day go better. Sometimes, you need something to just make you laugh and forget everything else.
I hope this helps your day go better.
Thanks to Ogur of UOSomething for bringing it to us.
::goes back to doing the hussle::
Hasta. |
^ top-Don't Be Scared
[Paladin_VT] April 20 - 6:44 AM EDT | Reading the little snippets below, I noticed the comment, about arguments for certain stats, "and all of them are very valid and im not going to sit here and tell you a specific stat setting." This is a perfect example of a logical fallacy, that is shared by almost everyone. I'm just using this example because it's available, and easy for the lazy to see, just scroll down.
To quote Ayn Rand, "There are two sides to every issue. One is right and the other is wrong but the middle is always evil." What she's saying here is that there is no good compromise. We've all been sold, ab initio, that compromise is good, right, and healthy. That is wrong, immoral, and irrational.
When the necessity for a decision becomes apparent, any decision, you must choos a path to follow. In the simplest terms, one can choose rightly, wrongly, or choose not to make a selection. Not making a selection is what compromise is. If you know, through the rational, intelligent processes of observation and deduction, that you are right, then choose accordingly. If your data is wrong, you may be proven wrong later, but don't change your mind because "they" said so. Don't give in for the sake of getting along, or getting something (the wrong thing, because it doesn't jive with the available evidence in this case) done. If you do, then you are morally bankrupt because you have abdicated the responsibility of choice.
Don't be afraid to make a decision, and stick by your guns. Like a major league umpire once said, "Just becaue they're yelling at you, doesn't mean you're wrong." |
^ top-Tapion's PvP Tutorial
[Lawyer] April 19 - 5:34 PM EDT | Tapion sent us a damned good PvP tutorial today. Unfortunately its somewhat large, so I am going to give you some teasers and put the guide up for download. This guide is very detailed, it tells you about macros, spells, double casting (legal), and stats. Its definately worth a read!
Here are some random excerpts from the guide:
Note: This tutorial will not teach you how to GM skills, use potions, or raise anything but your PvP skill. This includes every trick and tip I use. This guide holds NOTHING back, no secrets are kept.. this is all of it.
---------
Now for stats; there are hundreds of arguments to the perfect stats and all of them are very valid and im not going to sit here and tell you a specific stat setting. Just make sure that after you buff you have at least 100 int or your mana regeneration will be too slow to be effective. Also its a good idea to have at least 100 strength after buff as well. 100str 100int and 25dex is a great stat setting but do not expect to use it and survive unless you are a very experienced player, because Mindblast will do a lot of damage. On the other hand its obviously the best template against a warrior so feel free to use it when you feel that you have become experienced enough.
--------
Your settings are a very very very important part of PvP. Just remember my quote "Milliseconds matter." You want to make macros for every spell you use so that you can cast them quickly when you need them. Offensive spells that you commonly use (3rd circle and up, e.i.: Poison, Para, Explosion, Ebolt, Flamestrike, Mindblast) should be placed on the F keys (I will explain in a moment).
---------
Lets go back for a second and assume (because I do not want to leave anything out) he casted Cure very fast and you think that his greater heal will be casted before you kill him. If you unequip your spell book you can cancel the spell your casting immediately and cast another one which you can use to disturb his Greater Heal and Poison him again.
----------
Now heres where the problems come, when your fighting someone with stats designed to avoid Mindblast damage (Im going to teach you how to bring them to their knees). The first thing they are going to do in a battle is probably bless at the least they will cast cunning so they can gain mana at a decent rate. The first spell you want to cast is feeblemind to screw their mana regain rate...hell do it again if they Blessed or casted cunning so their int is as low as possible making their mana regain slow if they cast cunning again feeble them again rememeber that your gaining mana fast and spending less mana, they are gaining mana slow and spending more mana.
You can download Tapion's Advanced Mage PvP Tutorial here.
Comments?
|
^ top-The Reassurance.
[Eric] April 19 - 4:19 PM EDT | This was posted over at UO Stratics today:
This is an extremely exciting time to be a part of UO. Throughout the lifetime of the game, parts of the community have been very vocal about problems with bugs and stability. Historically, the dev and QA teams have been in a kind of Catch-22 situation: given a finite amount of time, they had to balance adding new features to the game with fixing bugs. Some bugs had to be left in, not because no one WANTED to fix them, but because the necessary resources had to be dedicated to adding and testing promised new features.
That's not the case anymore.
The upside to all the chaos of late is that many people and procedures from UO2 are now a part of the UO team. This is a big win for UO. There are more people working on UO now than at any other time since its launch. Additionally, with only one product, our focus as a company is very narrow. We can afford to pay attention to details that previously we would not have had the bandwidth to address.
From a QA perspective, we've never had the kinds of engineering resources devoted to UO that we do now. Where QA used to just mean "testing" (and black-box testing, at that, for those of you who know anything about software development), we are now fully responsible for improving the quality of UO from stem to stern. We are starting, slowly but surely, to get involved with development earlier in the lifecycle so we can help dev catch bugs sooner.
Add to that the renewed commitment by the OSI management team to stomping bugs and improving the quality and reliability of our service, and you can see why I'm so enthusiastic to be getting involved with UO at this point in its lifetime. I hope you'll stick around, because we're going to see some really exciting improvements.
Tim "MrTact" Keating
QA Engineer, Ultima Online
Origin Systems
Hmm....OSI sounding a little bit worried here? They "hope we stick around." Seems as though they have to reassure us that sticking with the game is the right choice. The upside to this is that maybe now we'll get certain things *cough* Vet Rewards *cough* *cough* that we've all been waiting for. We don't want too much of a rush though, because mistakes happen when products are rushed (UO3D). Anyways, let's all hope OSI holds a good future for UO. I myself hope to be taken away by Fallen Age. ;)
UPDATE:
To go along with the message above, Melantus recently posted this to one of the UO message boards:
From: Melantus Date:4/19/2001 09:31 Subject: Re: Treasure map levels AGAIN!!!!
This is one of the things I mentioned in my report yesterday, that goes to the Dev Team.
Besides the request for levels displayed on treasure maps, I also put in:
some healers giving murder counts
requests for certain crafting menu changes (like make last)
Blacksmithing concerns
craftsmen titles
Europa concerns
Other internal items relating to such things as exploits and so forth that I wont go into detail here.
concerns over our consistancy.
some Third Dawn feedback, such as the backpack and restocking player-vendors.
Melantus
Online Community Coordinator
Ultima Online
Melantus@uo.com
Folks, it really does look like OSI is getting to work on many of the issues/problems that players are having. :) There isn't much to say except, "Good job OSI, you're finally listening to the players." (I know, I know, they've listened to us other times than just recently.) Looking good.
Cya later. |
^ top-NWN Homesteads
[Nieves] April 19 - 10:16 AM EDT | I was just reading the chat NWN Developers Vas had linked in his last update. Here are some interesting tidbits:
could you have your own house on your own server but be able to lock it ?
Yes
When you build the door, you create a key
You give both the door and the key a password
The module creator can place the key wherever he/she wishes
That way you can make multi keys for that door.
That is one of the things that make UO Unique....and NWN is going to let you have them! WOOT!
They are even trying to address Lag issues:
Can Spell-Effects be Colored, at least via scripting? Could a spell's palette be changed for special scripted effects?
Sadly, we have to cook the colour into the spells
There is a large number of effects ...
Mark won't let us have the bandwidth to send spell colours
He's a bandwidth Nazi
He wants the game to play without lag, imagine that :)
Something about "you want 64 players, then shaddup"
We will see.
And they are adding things for you older D&D players:
will some of the older premade quests for Ad&D be remade for NWN after its release or will it be up to us players to remake them ourselves?
In a few earlier conversations with TSR, WoTC, Hasbro, etcc
They were interested in creating a number of the oldies
I haven't talked to anyone about this for a bit, but they were interested
You can go here to read the rest of the interview.
Hasta.
|
^ top-Finally, it's in!
[Eric] April 18 - 7:34 PM EDT | No, it isn't vet rewards. It's what you've all been waiting for....yes, that's right - Seahorses. (Please, feel my sarcasm.) Melantus posted this on the UO Boards:
Wait until you see someone riding the seahorse, which I saw on Test Center yesterday (Leilo was showing me what they looked like in motion.).
Melantus
Online Community Coordinator
Ultima Online
I don't think you can get them yet (even on Test Center), but they will be riding your way soon. I haven't read anything about whether it'll be on UO3D AND the 2D client, but I'm pretty sure that it'll only be implemented for UO3D. Damn it. It seems like anything new & cool that is added to the game (items/monsters) will be UO3D only. Honestly, this really sucks for any of you out there that can't play UO3D due to computer capabilities. *winks at Nieves* My computer will run it "ok," but it definitely could be better. Anyways, I stick to the 2D client.
Cya later.
ALSO: Check out the link in Nieves' update below. Not only is it funny, but it almost reminds me of the Matrix. ;) |
^ top-Watts is just the coolest...
[Nieves] April 18 - 7:01 PM EDT | It's because he finds the coolest and funniest shit on the web.
Go here NOW! You will laugh your ass off (if you are on a modem, be prepared to wait an hour for it to load).
Hasta. |
^ top-Vet Rewards, Titles, Upgrades, and more.
[Lawyer] April 18 - 2:01 PM EDT | I have a bad habit of scumming the UOboards for news, considering thats about the only place your going to find OSI posting anything new... it figures that I dont do it Mon or Tues and I end up missing a very important piece of information regarding new titles. Oh well, thanks to Da Killer from the forums to bringing this to my attention.
Quoted by Designer_Vex from the UOboards:
Currently some of the software engineers and I are working on Vet Rewards. We have them up on an internal test shard right now, and external testing should begin very soon. I also have a number of bug fixes going into the next publish. After Vet Rewards, I'll be able to take another look at Floor Tiles and I'll probably have another batch of bug fixes to handle as well. My next big thing after those is probably going to be a lot of bug fixes and enhancements dealing with houses and boats, and I am already beginning the research and documentation process for those items.
At any given time, each member of the design team will have a number of small projects in the works at various stages of completion, slated for the next couple major publishes and various small publishes in between. The nature of our live development cycle generally precludes focusing on just one thing at a time except in rare situations. The items I listed in the paragraph above are likely to take four weeks or more. As the next publish cycle draws to a close, we'll have more solid plans for what comes next.
That looks pretty good to me. Even though OSI's idea of "very soon" isnt anything close to mine, its nice to know the Vet Rewards are currently undergoing internal testing and they will be on the Test shard/s soon. House and Boat enhancements is an iffy subject... I really dont see why houses need to be changed, but boats do. I dont feel too creative right now, so if you can think of a way to enhance houses and boats, post some comments. Now you know what changes to expect in the near future from OSI.
Quoted from Melantus on the UOboards:
We have hardware upgrades planned for the Europe shards. I understand that there were some delays in getting that going, so I'm not sure on the current status on it. However I will check on that status and let the players know.
Damnit, we have servers from the beginning of UO and they have fresh ones, yet they get upgrades. Bah. No really, thats cool. You get less server lag. They need to upgrade me so I get less cpu lag. Hell yes.
Posted by Gewurtztraminer on the UOboards:
I spent most of the day yesterday annoying the demons and gargoyles in Ishlenar, killing gargoyles in all of their 51 flavors. I pulled up my paperdoll and was suprized to see: The Famed Diogi: Foe of the Abyss. Instead of The Famed Diogi Grandmaster Mage.
Melantus' response:
This is true and not a rumor. This has something to do with that "mystery" of Ilshenar that I talked about a few weeks ago, but theres much more to it. That's all I'll say about this for now. :)
The first person to send me a true screenshot of themselves with the 'Foe of Mongbats' title or whatever will have their screenshot posted on the site. :)
What a shame that shit only works in Ilshenar... making people use a buggy client is BAD.
Im also going to be posting a mage PvP essay submitted by Tapion once Paladin's essay is concluded. You should be looking forward to this guys. :)
Comments?
|
^ top-Heather, I love you.
[Nieves] April 18 - 1:18 PM EDT | Will you marry me?
Heather of CMG, Great Lakes has this great Ilshenar Journal she has been writing. I read through it and it made me want to play in Ilshenar until I remembered that I can't (DAMMIT OSI! FIX IT!). You know cause like, I lock up, die, and then get a blackscreen I can do nothing with but log back into UO2D and get teleported back to UO2D....
Anyway, enough about me. I could go on and on about Heather's Journal. But I think you would do best to go over there and read it your self.
As she makes more entries into her Journal, I will link them here.
I wonder if she wants me to wear white or black for our wedding....
Hasta. |
^ top-Because I love you guys...
[Nieves] April 18 - 11:31 AM EDT | I look for powergaming information everywhere. Hell, even from Stinky Urks.
Alright Vrish ya whinny stinky orc, here's how you do it.
#1 Get about 100 tubs
#2 Get a pack horse
#3 Make sure there is enough room in your bank box for the 100 tubs and the backpacks they are organized in.(you wont be able to put all 100 into just 1 backpack, there isnt enough visible space- you need at least 2 backpacks). I recommend you organize it like this: Have 1 be your 'main tub backpack'. Inside that pack, have several other backpacks each with as many tubs as you can fit into it and still be able to see a portion of each one.
#4 put the tubs ordered in some backpacks so you can see at least a portion enough of each one to click on them for when you make the macro.
#5 Once you have your tubs neatly organized in rows, you are ready to start recording the macro.
------------
Recording the macro
1.- go to the 'keys' tab in UO Assist, and set a key to use the command 'Play Macro 1'. You need to use a key that dosent already have a macro set on it, otherwise it wont work.
2.- click on the 'Macros' tab, and on the lower left corner make sure that the button labled '#1' is pressed down. Then input the name of the macro in the upper right blank space.
3.- Tell your pack horse to follow you, and most importantly to GUARD you. If the horse isnt guarding you, the guards will kill you when you steal a tub. Keep some food handy and remember to feed your horse once every hour. Make sure your backpack full of tubs is placed into the packhorse's container.
4.- Press record. Any keyboard key you press at this point while your UO window is ontop will be recorded, as will any text you say. The macro length is limited, so dont do anything that isnt part of the macro or you may run out of space.
5.- Press your stealing macro.
6.- Target the tub you wish to steal, do it in the order that you have your tubs organized because you need to click on a different tub each time you select to steal. Pay close attention.
7.- Once the targetting curor dissapears, double-click on the tub you just selected to steal. UOAssist has some problem where it dosent work this kind of macro correctly unless you do this, so remember to do it. Once you double click it, you will NOT get a targetting cursor, but the double-click will be recorded into the macro. This is absolutely necessary for the macro to work.
8.- Wait about 15 seconds before you press your stealing macro again. It'll just cause a bigger waste of time if you are continually pressing the stealing macro in an attempt to get the curor as soon as possible because you will then have to go and delete all those individual attempts to use the stealing skill from the UOA macro.
9.- Repeat steps 5 through 9 until you have used up 50 of your tubs.
10.- Once you have used 50 of your tubs, it is time to stop the macro. Say 'all follow me' and 'all guard me' at the end so that not only does your pet's commands keep refreshed, its a visual & audio signal that you can use to know when the macro is finished.
11.- Open your UOA window and press on 'Stop recording'
12.- You will not notice that the window under the macro's name is full of commands. The order of commands should look like this:
-Use skill/Cast spell
-Target
-Use Item
-Use skill/Cast spell
-Target
-Use Item
.. and so on.
13.- Now you need to MANUALLY add in the 10 second delay in between skill use attempts. However, you should make it an 11 second delay because the timer isnt exact, so you need to give it a little room to play with.
14.- To insert the first pause delay, click on the very first 'Use item' in the list of commands for the macro. The 'Use item' should now be highlighed.
15.- Now press on the 'Pause after' key on the left hand side. A window will pop up asking you how long you want the delay to be. Type in 11000, which is the equivalent to 11000 miliseconds, which is 11 seconds.
16.- Scroll down to the next 'Use item', and highlight that one, and put in the same pause delay as you did in #15.
17.- Repeat that until you have all the 'Use item' instances with a pause of 11000(11 seconds) after them.
18.- Once you are done, every single 'Use item' should have a 'Pause 11000' after it. If that is the case, the macro for the first 50 tubs is complete.
19.- To make the macro for the second set of 50 tubs, click on the '#2' button on the lower left of the macro window, and it brings up a new macro setup. Do everything you did to make the first macro, but using the 50 tubs that you havent used yet.
20.- Once you are done, you will be able to automate the stealing macro by pressing 1 key every 5 minutes or so instead of clicking a ton of buttons every single time you are working the skill. It is very tedious to make the macro, but take my word for it, it'll save you alot of work in the long run.
I hope that helps everyone that is trying to GM stealing. I know it will help me eventually :)
Thanks to General Nero of the Blood Rock Clan URKS on Great Lakes.
Hasta. |
^ top-Just cause I posted it, doesn't mean I wrote it :)
[Nieves] April 18 - 11:01 AM EDT | Paladin speaks to us again. This time about Magery.
What's wrong with magery? Well, there are several things wrong with magery, but the first is that mana costs are skewed. I mean, how undercosted is greater heal? 50 points for 11 mana at GM. How good is that? The first thing I would do with magery is change mana costs to a modified logarithmic scale, similar to the way the old single player ultimas were.
First Circle = 1 mana
Second Circle = 2 mana
Third Circle = 4 mana
Fourth Circle = 8 mana
Fifth Circle = 16 mana
Sixth Circle = 24 mana
Seventh Circle = 32 mana
Eight Circle = 64 mana
You'll see that I would lower the cost of the first 4 levels, and increase the cost of all spells above 4th circle.
You'll quite possibly be seeing red now because I just said that GH was overpowered at 8 mana, so I want to LOWER it? Well, not exactly.
My second step would be to move a few spells around in the spellbooks, eliminate a few spells, and add some different spells.
First circle: would remain as it is, without any changes, except heal would become "Minor Healing"
Second circle: would also stay the same.
Third circle: would lose "Wall of Stone" and get a new spell, "Heal" that would be a second stage heal
Fourth circle: loses recall and arch protection, and gains wall of stone, and Stoneskin (like old protection spell an AR boost) Greater Heal is replaced here by poison field.
Fifth circle: Poison Field was dropped to 4th, mind blast gets dropped in favor of a simpler direct damage spell. We'll steal explosion from the sixth circle. Greater heal moves here and is more appropriately costed.
Sixth circle: Goodbye explosion, hello Recall (Mark and Recall should be the same circle). Goodbye Mass Curse(does this spell suck or what?) hello Ice Blast. A second spell for offense that allows you to do extra damage to fire critters.
Seventh circle: Goodbye polymorph, hello Major Healing, a spell that can heal up to 75 life. Goodbye Chain Lighting(It's duplicated anyway), hello antidote, a spell that protects you from poisoning for a maximum of 100 seconds, based on your (poisoning+magery/2).
Eight circle: Combine the summon elemental spells into one spell with a menu option, like what polymorph currently has. This leaves us with 3 empty slots in this circle. I'd take the first up with
Mass Healing, since we have this cool party system, let's use it., Mass healing would apply the fourth circle greater heal spell to the members of your party. Second, Eighth circle really needs a powerful direct damage spell, let's call it, Incinerate, just because I like that name. It would be a single target direct damage spell.
Lastly, let's give the Grandmaster Mage a defensive tool, let's call it damping field, and it will reduce all physical damage to zero for 30 seconds. This is the basic, get me the hell out of dodge spell. You'd still be interruptable in this time, but could not be damaged physically. This spell would be part of the RA/Prot/Reflect family and could not be stacked with them.
One note, any of the defensive spells could be superceeded at any time by higher circle one, but not by a lower circle one, so long as it has not yet been activated.
Part three would require a reassessment of the damage that can be dealt by a spell. Simply put, the maximum damage that a spell can deal is equal to it's circle multiplied by 6, up to the 4th circle, and 8 for the 5th-8th circle. The minimum damage dealt by a spell is equal to half of the mana cost of the spell. So incinerate would do 32 minimum, and Energy Bolt would do a minimum of 12 damage. Now the maximum damage that a given mage can deal with a spell is simple It's represented by the following equation:
{[(Magery/100)*0.75]*Max Damage}+{[(Eval/100)*0.25]*Max Damage}=Actual Maximum Damage
so a GM magery GM eval that casts incinerate can do 64 damage max, but someone with 80 and 80 can only do 51 damage.
Resist stays the same, for the most part. If you resist a spell, you take half the calculated damage. Damage is calculated before resist is factored in.
Chance to resist is factored like this:
(Target's resist-[(Casters Magery+casters eval)/4]
Minimum chance to resist is 1% no matter what, and maximum is 50%
Spell Circle will no longer be a factor, it will be based on the skill of the caster, which makes more sense anyway.
Lastly, a Mage should get a damage bonus based on his inscription skill level. If he has 100 inscription, he should get a +10 minimum damage bonus, and a +5 maximum damage bonus; +9, and +4 at 90, etc. This way, dedicated mages don't have to do 12 damage e-bolts. This also makes the lower level spells more useful, as a lightning bolt that you can depend on to do 18-29 damage is better than one that does 8-24.
As always, feel free to respond via E-mail, or in our lovely forums. I'm way too lazy to do a link to them, but you can find one on the left there.
Send him the hate mail.
Hasta. |
^ top-Solo Training Healing
[KH] April 17 - 5:56 PM EDT | Talking to another player on Chessie this weekend, I got in to a conversation about how to GM Healing, especially when you can't find another player willing to hang around as a ghost on your boat for an hour at a time. While attempting to res a ghost is the fastest way to GM, it is entirely possible to finish the skill on your own.
What you'll need is; a) a boat (without a doubt the most useful item in UO); b) a tinkered Dart Trap + a lockpick (the trap will be your means of injuring yourself); c) a huge amount of bandages (this is pretty self-evident, right?); d) at least 90 hp. Since GM Dart Traps can occasionally do over 80 points of damage (70 is typical), you'll want 90hp to make sure you don't kill yourself AND so that you have a decent chance of getting gain out of burst, if you intend to work that way.
First off, enable the trap by locking it. If you're using UOA, you can set up the next steps as a macro - with your boat facing east-west, move slow forward for a UOA delay of 5500ms, then stop. This advances you exactly one resource square without having to worry about finding and DL that UOAutomap grid that's floating around. Use the lockpick and target the trap chest; the trap will go off, injuring you. Heal yourself. If you get a gain, turn the boat north and repeat until you stop getting gains, then turn the boat south and go over those same spots again. Healing runs turn back on themselves much like Meditation runs, and you should get additional gains. Stop gaining? Turn the boat east-west and start looking for the next run.
Of course, this works best in power hour, but you can also continue to get gains as long as you cause yourself sufficient damage out of burst. If you've set this up as a UOA macro, I'd also advise going to the very first line of the macro, choosing the "Insert extras" option, and adding a pause until hps reach at least 85. Crawling across the ocean hurting yourself isn't exactly exciting, and if you aren't paying attention, hit the macro twice at, say, 70hp and wind up dead, you're going to be kicking yourself.
Time-to-GM is slightly longer than GMing Magery. |
^ top-Where all the updaters at?
[Nieves] April 17 - 9:05 AM EDT | Here is part 2 of the Nox Mage essay from Paladin. I don't have part 3 from him yet. When I get it, I will post it.
This is part 2 in a series on how to become a poison mage. If you read part one and followed my directions, you have a decent amount of cast and have 100 Int, 100 Str, and 25 Dex. You should also have about 30k. stowed in the bank, and if you’re smart you’ve been picking up reagents on the ground for the last 2 days or so that it took you to get here.
First things first, go buy a boat, the smallest one you can find. At the very least you will need a Greater Heal, a Recall, an FS scroll and a summon water elemental scroll, but a full spellbook is best. Buy some mark scrolls, or get someone to mark for you, and mark runes to 10 mage shops, especially Occlo and the 5 on Moonglow island itself, then Magincia, and the 2 in Britain. Add one more of your choice, then let’s get to work.
Using your set of runes, recall around and get about 500 of each FS reg. Now, go place that shiny new boat and sail out onto the ocean blue, and using the 8x8 method, as lovingly described in the Stratics forums GM yourself magery and work on eval. Once you get magery to 70, switch to summon water to get gains. Do this until you are a 3x GM, med, eval, and magery.
At this point you’ll need to make some more money, more than likely. Gating NPC’s is fairly profitable for a GM mage and you can make reg stops while you do it. You need to buy up scrolls and make friends with a competent alchemist. Using the wonderful guides here on UOPG, work inscription, then poisoning during burst hour. As you work inscription, you’ll find that there is a decent market for recall, mark, and gate scrolls. So sell some and make some cash. Place a vendor if you can, so you can spend more time earning skills, and less time making money. Poisoning is an even bigger cash cow than inscription can be, and once you GM it, your days of worrying about money are all but over. Next,
You’ll note that, as much as possible, I prefer to work on one skill at a time. I think it’s most efficient that way, and it ignores those pesky skill timers. Now, go buy healing and anatomy to 30, and get a boatload of bandages. Go somewhere and cast firefield and walk around inside it until you get to 50 resist. Use the bandages to heal yourself. Even failing 50% of the time, it’s still cheaper than casting GH on yourself. Now, go GM wrestling on some critters somewhere, or on a kind friend or guildmate if possible. Getting wrestling to GM ought to only take 2 days or so
Now get back out on that boat, and following the resist guide here on UOPG, finish resist. This one is going to take a while, and you will probably want to start practicing PvP during this time, but you must devote every burst hour to raising resist. At this point you’ll be dropping healing and anatomy in favor of resist. Go ahead and keep healing yourself until you get to 70 resist, then you’ll have to rely on GH, which is more expensive, but you’re rich now anyway.
That’s part 2, next time we get into some specific tactics for you to use in battle.
In part 1, Paladin talked about a gaining gold method. Someone told me you can't take NPCs through "standing" gates. I will verify it soon.
Hasta. |
^ top-Post the damn essay about 56k
[Nieves] April 16 - 7:30 PM EDT | When I am ready dammit.
Here is the simple method of optimizing a 56k connection that I have used since UO started and I was on a lowly Lucent modem.
The first thing you need to do is go to Microsoft’s site and download the most recent update of DUN for your operating system. For the purposes of this article I will assume that you are using Win98 or Win95.Install the most recent DUN and it should overlay itself and restart your machine.
Next, you want to right click network neighborhood and look for the line in the box that comes up that says properties. Go ahead and select that and a new box will come up. Look for the one that says “TCP/IP > Dial Up Adapter.” Make sure that everything in there is properly set for your ISP. They should have the information for you, probably on their website. If any of it is wrong, your con might not work, or it might work badly. If there is any other protocol bound to the Dial Up Networking adapter in the same manner, I.e. XXXXXX > Dial up adapter, you can probably delete it, which you should do, just check with your ISP to see if they require it. If they do, get another ISP.
Now, you get to check the configuration on your modem. Go to Control Panel/Modems and select the modem that you are using, then click the properties button. Maximum speed on the first page should be set to 57600 because that’s as fast as you can get and trying to force it to go faster than is possible will actually slow the thing down. COM port you really don’t need to change, because if the modem is working at all then that part is fine. Next go to the connection tab and go to port settings. Unless you have trouble connecting to your ISP move BOTH sliders all the way to the right, then go back and click the advanced button. In advanced make sure that use error correction and compress data are selected, and make sure that you are using hardware and not software flow control. Click OK, and then, if you made any changes your PC should restart.
A note about modems, here. If you have a piece of crap modem, you will have a piece of crap connection. That’s a fact. Invest in a good modem, my personal preference is USR, but others prefer other brands. The simple fact is that if you bought a bundled PC for a bargain price, the modem is probably a piece of crap so get a new one.
Now you want to use some software to tweak your connection fully. The one I use is TweakDUN which you can get here. All you really need to do with this software is to select the recommended values for your dial up networking adapter and it will make the changes to the registry for you. Make sure that MTU is set to 576, RWIN is set to 4x, and TTL is 128. Now click OK and you will probably have to restart one last time.
Now when you connect, the actual listed speed may not be different, but you should notice a definite improvement in throughput. This will help when playing UO and when you are downloading files. If you have any more questions, you know how to contact me, so feel free.
Who says I don't do special requests?
Hasta. |
^ top-Paladin LIVES!
[Nieves] April 16 - 1:16 PM EDT | Paladin still loves us. He loves us so much, he has sent me sets and series of essays that I will posting throughout the week. The first set talks about the Nox Mage. There is a discussion on optimizing your 56K Connection. He talks about Armor Class and how it's caluculated in Ultima Online. How the combat system in Ultima Online calculates you hitting someone or something. And finally, A full blown discussion on Magery.
First off, The Nox Mage:
I'm supposed to educate everyone on how to be a poison mage. Since I'm not above stealing an idea or two from someone else, I'm going to copy the three part format that Gator has chosen to use for the lumberjack. One note before I begin: Mages are hard to play at first. You're not going to kick any and take any for at least a little while, because you will suck. That's just life.
If this is your first character, don't be a mage. Be a parry warrior or a lumberjack, because they have the fewest consumables. Mages have the most, and poison mages especially will go through some supplies. I am going to assume that you have no money and you are starting this character from scratch, or at the very least with a very small nest egg. If you can spot the character 10,000gp it'll be a lot easier. This will be for making a character on a regular shard, not SP. If you're on SP it's totally different, and I'll address that in the SP section at a later date. There are bugs that some of you might know to gain some of the skills that I will be talking about. I'm not telling you about them, and you shouldn't use them, because you can be banned for using them
Start your character with 45 strength, 15 intelligence, and 10 dexterity. Your starting skills should be magery at 50, poisoning 49, tracking 1. Why one point in tracking you ask? For the really cool newbie boots, that's why. I can't stand sandals and shoes. Start in Magincia, wherever you wish. Moonglow is also OK, but on most shards it attracts the dregs of UO society because of it's mage shops. the first thing you should do is put your three first level scrolls in your spellbook. next go take everything out of your pack and stow it in the bank. Keep your spellbook on you though. Now, go attack a guard and get killed. Go to the healer in Magincia and get ressed and now you have a nice new robe. Toss off your other clothes, and wear the robe and the boots. It's fairly light and covers a multitude of sins, such as leather armor.
The template we are aiming for is this one:
GM Magery
GM Evaluate Int
GM Meditate
GM Inscription
GM Poisoning
GM Resist
GM Wrestling
Yes, wrestling is still important. You can't keep protection up at all times. Trust me on this one.
Now, if you don't have any cash except your newbie stash, go to the beach and get an escort to Jhelom, or Skara, or Moonglow. Now go to the northernmost tip of Magincia Island, and using the excellent info on Stratics*, figure out when the gate goes to the appropriate town and go there. Then get an escort in that new town to Magincia, or any of the other towns on the above list. Do this until you get 10,000gp.
Ok, now that everyone has their money, go out and buy up skills, any skills except for arms lore and spirit speak, until you have 690 base skill points. Now, mark ALL skills as locked, then mark arms lore up and spirit speak down. Arms lore up to 10.0, then mark it down and spirit speak up. Spirit speak until 10.0 then mark it down and Arms lore up. Repeat until you have 100/100/25 as your stat set. This ought to take about 2 days of playing. You can do this while you walk around escorting NPC's so you can build up quite a stash in 2 days. You need to get about 30k before we can move on, so get to escorting darn it!
Next up, part 2, gaining those pesky skills.
*Note: Moongates will now take you to any other moongate on either facet. Ilshenar (YEAH THAT PIECE OF SHIT THAT CRASHES EVERYTIME I GO THERE) is accessible when in with UO3D (FUCK THAT PATCH).
Next comes Part 2 :)
Hasta.
|
^ top-SOMETIMES I HATE THIS FREAKING GAME!
[Nieves] April 16 - 11:37 AM EDT | Yeap, that's it. UO3D is the absolute WORSE thing to ever happen to ULTIMA ONLINE! I HATE THIS FUCKING PATCH!
I can't even play the game. Athlon 500, 32MB nVidia Chipset Video, 128MB of RAM and I FUCKING CAN'T PLAY IT!
Fuck you OSI. Motherfuck you.
Hasta. |
^ top-Difficulties.
[Lawyer] April 16 - 9:51 AM EDT | UOPG is currently experiencing technical difficulties with the news section. Please bear with us while we work things out. All other parts of the site are online.
Thank you. |
^ top-Brand new and stable Chat Client.
[Nieves] April 13 - 11:17 PM EDT | Lawyer was able to setup a new chat client for us that is ALOT more stable and uses the power of IRC.
If you go click on the little Chat button in the upper left you will get to experience it :)
Worship Lawyer's web dev skills.
I want to thank Tapion for his software knowledge and taking the time to help Lawyer with the new Chat Client. I wuv you man!
Hasta. |
^ top-What a level 3 treasure chest nets you now...
[Nieves] April 13 - 10:14 PM EDT | 6560 Gold
Durable Longsword of Might
Durable Quarterstaff of Ruin
Fortified Wooden Shield of Defense
Massive Wooden Shield
Durable Studded Sleeves of Defense
Substantial Crossbow of Might
Substantial Accurate Bow of Ruin
Substantial Kite shield of defense
Substantial Kite shield
Massive Viking Sword
Fortified Exceedingly Accurate Dagger
Durable Helm of Guarding
Nice haul huh? Hell, mother-freaking, no.
Do I want a vanq in ever box? No. But it should be better than the crap above. It's been like this for WEEKS. The best I have pulled is some hardening armor or shield. I don't remember. I smelted it for ingots. The only thing of value in that pile above is the metal for ingots (I don't mine anymore; why? When I get so much junk I could smelt!), and the gold. The gems and other junk get sold off for more gold but shit, what's the point? I do chests for the wonder and excitement and to get ONE, just ONE GOOD freaking magic item out of the bunch.
I hope they do make the chest loot better. Because this is fucking rediculous.
Sometimes, I hate this freaking game.
Hasta. |
^ top-UOboards - more useful than I thought.
[Lawyer] April 13 - 2:44 PM EDT | Quoted from Melantus on the UOboards:
Initially when some we received complaints about cartography, we took a look at it. World maps were getting players up to about 92.x but not higher. Treasure maps could get the player to 100, but that's a huge number of maps to go from 92 to 100. The designers looking into this adjusted it. Players can get to about 98.x now with world maps. Does it need further adjustment? We think it needs another look, to see if more adjustment is needed. We have taken action since the initial reports of the problem. We also fixed certain high level monsters to actually spawn treasure maps like they should, which increased the number of higher level treasure maps in the UO world.
Now how do you like that? OSI gives you hard facts and states they have made modifications and modifications are yet due. You now know that you can get to 98ish Carto by making world maps. That adjustment really saves players a hell of a lot of time considering they have two points of decoding treasure maps to go through instead of eight. Thats a major improvement. Not only that, they are considering re-adjusting the Carto skill to make it even easier. (The current skill gain system + decoding high level Tmaps = pain in the ass) Plus they increased the higher level treasure map spawn, which in turn further stimulates the player economy by introducing more high end magical items. Considering this has no chance at all to lower prices to the level the MIB patch did, its a good move. Digging up a level five treasure map with friends is one hell of an experience.
Quoted from Tajima on the UOboards:
Try changing the ForceModulate line in your UO.CFG to ForceModulate=on. That should fix up the problem with crashing when opening your paper doll.
So if you crash when you double click your paper doll, try adding ForceModulate=on to your UO.CFG file. All you have to do is look in your UO folder or do a find for UO.CFG, then open the file with notepad/wordpad and copy paste that line exactly as it is into your CFG file. Now if fixing all crashes was that easy...
|
^ top-Lets fix a faction bug.
[Lawyer] April 12 - 7:16 PM EDT | Quoted from Adrick on the UOboards:
I am investigating faction kill points reseting on death. Im looking for more information because it does not happen every time you die - if anyone has experienced this bug directly please email me at adrick@uo.com with a very specific account of what happened to you. How did you die? what messages did you see? how many kill points did you have? etc etc.
Now look at this. OSI is actively trying to fix a bug that affects the PvP community. I like that. Not only are they fixing something that is broken (nice change guys), they are fixing a bug that affects a "community" (I use that term very loosely) that believes they are always singled out and never get the attention they deserve. Well guys, you have just got thrown a bone.
Lo and behold, Adrick is assigned the task of getting information on the evil bug that keeps people from seeing how l33t you are. If you have experienced this bug, or experience it frequently, by all means throw an email his way and give him some information. You just might be able to help OSI fix one of the more annoying bugs that affect you. |
^ top-New stuff.
[Eric] April 11 - 7:23 AM EDT | Well, OSI just threw a bunch of stuff at us in the general testing...let's see what we have:
Ship Tillermen will now understand their voice commands in all supported languages.
Great...from experience, I noticed he never spoke english very well anyway, so I'm not sure how the hell he's going to understand any other language. *shrugs*
A bug with house owners being unable to remove co-owners from the house access has been fixed. Previously only the co-owner at the top of the list could be removed..
Players with “Young” status will now properly receive their invitation to Haven..
*shudders* A town DEDICATED to newbies...I'm glad I've never been there. Poor companions.
A sound effects problem with ghosts, specters, and wraiths has been fixed.
Problems with the statue enable/disable buttons have been fixed..
A problem with the guildmaster title grant option has been fixed. Guildmasters will no longer appear in the list for granting titles to other members..
Players who are not poisoned will no longer get the “cure” animation and sound effects when trying to drink a cure potion.
It's funny how they get around to fixing the pointless little things that some people couldn't care less about.
Problems with the Magic Answer Ball have been fixed..
Ilshenar creatures of “good” alignment will properly highlight to positive karma players in the same manner other “good” creatures do, with the blue highlight. Players with negative karma will still attract the creature’s aggression, which will then cause the good creature to become grey and attackable to the negative karma player..
Does this mean I can't kill pixies if I'm Glorious Lord? Grr...
Change to Weapon Skill Modification
A correction with how skill modification is displayed has been added. An example of the correction is as follows:
-Player A has 50.0 “real” archery, that is the skill before any stat modification.
-Stat modification adjusts the skill to be 50.9, which can be viewed by the player in their skill window (without “show real” checked).
-Player A then equips a magical bow that grants +20 to archery. The +20 is calculated as being added to the 50.0 (the real skill number) for a total of 70.
-Stat modifiers are then applied and calculated, for a result of 70.5. As a skill becomes higher, stat modification has less of an effect on the modified skill total.
-Thus, instead of 70.9 it shows as 70.5. This makes the net gain 19.6 in Player A’s perception, and not 20.
This change causes the applied bonus from the weapon or armor to read properly after all modifications are calculated. Thus, the player will see 50.9 + 20 (from the magic bow) as 70.9 and not 70.5 as before the change. Note that the above numbers are just an example of how the change will function for all items that have skill modifiers
Text information for Anatomy, Arms Lore, and Evaluate Intelligence have been processed for localization.
Faction speech triggers have been processed for localization.
Faction messaging has been processed for localization.
Technical demands, that the blade spirit and Energy Vortex spells require, have been adjusted so that they are less processor intensive. This gives a server-side performance increase.
Bladespirits no longer display a paperdoll when double-clicked.
Damn, and I liked the good old mystic llamaherder. (you'll know what I'm talking about if you've double clicked a bladespirits before.)
And in other news, along with the AOL Legends shard, Atlantic now has the new 5-15 minute shard backup time (the time the shard goes down for, for maintenance). If you're on another shard and you've never tried a server war and want to try a server war, you'd better do it soon, because this new system will soon be coming to your shard if it hasn't already.
Oh, and check out this l33t map of Ilshenar. Apparently these are the maps they're sending to those who upgrade to UO3D.
That's all from me today, cya later.
- Eric |
^ top-The banner contest results:
[Lawyer] April 10 - 9:27 PM EDT | We recieved many great submissions, although some did not meet the size and dimension requirements. Im sorry, but although there were a couple of banners that we liked, we had to ignore them due to not meeting the reqs.
Just because your submission did not make the top 3 does not mean it was not good, all of them were better than what I could have done! You just might see your work, or a slightly modified version of your work floating around the web somewhere helping promote UOPG. We appreciate all of the effort you guys put into this, and we sincerely wish we could give each and every participant a beta slot. But Savant would either laugh at me or kill me if I asked. :)
Thanks again guys/girls, you all did a damned good job.
These are the top three banners, in no particular order:
"Noob" - from Pfank
"Tech" - from Chad D.
"Rule" - from John K.
These are the top three banners, each one of these people will recieve a beta slot for the first beta phase of Fallen Age. Of course FA are hosting contests for guaranteed beta slots, but they arent neccessarily getting in the first phase. Pfank, Chad D., and John K. are going to be there to witness a revolution in MMORPG gaming; alongside us here at UOPG.
Thanks again for all of your time and effort, I wish you luck in getting accepted into the FA beta. You people deserve a round of applause.
|
^ top-"Duel my main cause you suxxor newb!"
[Nieves] April 10 - 11:10 AM EDT | "What is the hardest task in the world? To think."
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
I have been doing alot of thinking this past week about the state of PvP in our wonderful of Ultima Online. A week ago I posted a thread about my personal PvP template and a blurb on how he was (yes, the war is over) involved in a guild war. I get this via email:
Your guild's name is? Declare on Society of Vigilance. We are Chaos. Or just go Order. We don't care.
[Name removed]
P.S. if you want to be worth a shit in GL PvP, you had better declare
on GoD and D-I as well. Or you're just another chump.
And, since you know me, I HAVE to say something about it:
::grins:: Better, huh? Chump right? ::grins::
BDA. You know who we are.
The point of this guildwar we have going on is to have a series of
battles between RP guilds in Trammel and avoid the noto nonsense that happens in Felucca. The D-I guy I talked to today thought it was cool what we are doing. But I would assume I am wasting my words with you...because, like, we are just "chumps" to you.
Hasta.
So here I am thinking: "What a fucking idiot". I am a chump because I CHOOSE not to declare on you or some other guild? I am less of a person because I would rather fight a guild war in Trammel, thereby avoiding a set of nonsense from idiot thieves, looters, and the like? Sheesh, call me weak and stupid then. Oh, and for the record, my guild does 90% of their guild hunting and training in Felucca. Not too mention our last battle DID happen in Felucca (and of course, someone got looted thanks to a looter).
But I digress. I am NOT the best PvPer on my shard in any sense of the word. I am not the best PvPer on UOPowergamers. Those titles would be shared by Paladin, Galahad, Ian, or ProQuo. (Ian would say he's the best). But I hold my own. And I am learning every time I go out and PvP. So what if I do it in a "controlled manner". The point is, I do it, and I learn, and I am not scared to do it if I want too. Just because you say I SHOULD PvP YOU to prove I am worthy makes me worthy of you? Know what? Fuck you. I don't have shit to prove. I am not here paying 9.95x2/month for your enjoyment. I am here for my enjoyment.
I wanted to write about this a week ago. But I chilled out and said nothing. Then I see this in the UOPG Forum:
When all you people do is PvM. How the hell is that a powergamer. Powergamers are people who powerlevel their characters to kill other people, not to kill a damn earth elemental. You people are freakin sad, grow a pair and declare on D-I. Get your sad ass's out of trammel and come to fel where the real powergamers play.
Who the fuck are you to tell ME what a Powergamer is? To me, a Powergamer is one that wants to get from "here" to "there" in the fastest time possible. Whether that's creating a kick ass PvPer or a pure Merchant Character. So you know, I chill out again and ignore it. Then I find this shit:
Well, after two weeks of working on GL with zero resources we are ready to destroy you all.
You panzees are going to get seriously fucked.
We challenge you and every other gl guild to fight us, we're smarter, faster and better pvpers.
guild abbr: ATL
Send a war you little bitches
**Right, I know this is a RP board, but come on... you wimps will be at the end of our spears soon enough.
Oh whoop dee dum dee do. So you came from Atlantic to Great Lakes looking for a challenge. Fine, I will tell you what. Go Order and then go to Moonglow. Or go to the Orc Fort near Britain and attack anyone wearing Orc Lord Helmets. When the other 50 Orcs show up, write to me and tell me how that went. Oh, while you are there, head west and look for any guy with the B*C title in their name. Heck, find any guy with the OGD or D-I title in there name and say: "you fucking suck; I own you". In fact, look up any character with BDA in their title. I am sure those "Roleplaying Bitches" will let you show them what it means to get "fucked". Fuckhead.
And notice where they posted that. In a roleplaying forum. How "macho" of them.
My whole point? Just because some people choose to play a certain way, don't fucking knock them. They pay to play this game just like you do. If it wasn't for them, the game wouldn't be around. Why? There are ALOT more people playing this game "the chump way" than you play "the 3l33+" way. They pay the bills for OSI to maintain UO. Granted, I don't like alot of the shit they have done to the game either. But if they decide not to "duel" your main, don't whine about it or call them a "newb" for it. [In the same token, if you call someone out, show up; I hate going to Felucca and wait for 1/2 hour for some fuckhead to decide he won't show. You just wasted my time.] Just walk away and go to Felucca Brit Crossroads on Atlantic, the Felucca Orc Fort in Great Lakes or Felucca Britain Graveyeard on any of these shards. Make sure you go grey first though. You will find many players that will "duel your main".
Am I chump? Be honest...I don't care.
Hasta. |
^ top-PK Central
[Nieves] April 9 - 7:44 PM EDT | Well, the Protectors of the Dungeons, GUL and their overall leader, Adam Ant have announced the opening of a new website, GUL-PK Central There they feature adventures of famous PKers from the GUL Guild. Even people like Crazy Joe. While visiting Adam Ant make sure to check out his Next Episode and the Chronicles of Evil. All you PKers, PvPers will get a kick out of that.
While we are talking about PKs, Galahad wrote a little Precurser to...er, nevermind. You will just have to read the story and wait.
Hasta. |
^ top-UOPG's FA beta banner contest counting down.
[Lawyer] April 9 - 4:59 PM EDT | | If you have created a banner, or multiple banners, for the contest, please submit them to contest@uopowergamers.com. I will notify the winner(s) and ask for their real name and confirm that they filled out a beta app at Fallen Age (please make sure you put your real name in the beta app when it asks for it). The best banner, and most likely the runner up will recieve a guaranteed slot in the first phase of Fallen Age's beta. You have until 8pm EST to email your entries in. Good luck. :) |
^ top-Remember Server Wars? Forget it.
[Lawyer] April 8 - 5:51 PM EDT |
** 04/08/01 ** 5:15 PM CDT ** AOL Legends Backup Times **
We will be activating an improved backup system on the AOL Legends
shard on Monday, April 9th following its regularly scheduled maintenance period. This system is estimated to reduce shard backup times to 5-15 minutes.
PLEASE NOTE: As this backup system decreases the amount of time
required for a shard backup, it will also decrease the amount of 'warp
time' available prior to maintenance. We urge that players keep this
in mind when playing before a scheduled maintenance period.
For additional details, please visit:
http://update.uo.com/fyi.html
Now I dont know how many of you all play on AOhell Legends, but I feel sorry for you. If any of those little pricks from the chat rooms play UO, I bet they go there... now that would be a great server to be a peekay on!
This patch message means Server War no more! I dont know how many people on that shard actually know what a server war is, because I have a quality ISP, but still... Dont expect to get in some good ol' fashioned gankN'spank before the server goes night night. If this new backup system works (HAH!), im sure it will be moved to all servers, which will most likely mean the end to the time honored tradition of everyone amassing around Covetous and the Brit GY ready to lay the smacketh down. I actually miss the old server wars around Covetous. That was some great shit. Especially with those heat-seeking arrows and bolts of aZzRaP1nG. That was the best.
I find it very amusing that OSI thinks AOL people need a little more punishment. Blame it on those little guys/girls in the chat rooms, they make you guys look bad. |
^ top-UOPG's Fallen Age beta banner contest! (again)
[Lawyer] April 8 - 2:45 PM EDT | I changed "two honorable mentions" to "the runner up". Also, we might have extra beta slots to give away, which means the winner, and possibly the runner(s) up will get one!
If you are interested in beta testing a new, innovative MMORPG that starts in 13 days, I urge you to try your hand at creating a banner to promote UOPG. This also guarantees you being admitted into the first phase of beta, with the UOPG staff and staff from other famous websites. You know you want to, so hop to it! In case you missed the first posts, or just need a refresher course, here you go:
Details:
We here at UOPG would like you to crank up PSP or Photoshop and create us a banner. The banners will be judged by the UOPG staff and possibly in the forums by you all, the readers. The best banner (possibly two) will recieve a guaranteed slot into the Fallen Age beta, be used to advertise UOPG to thousands of players, and we will link to your website if you have one. We will also display the runner up and link to your webpage if you have one (No beta slot through). This contest is open from April 4th until Monday, April 9th. Please email your submissions to contest@uopowergamers.com before Monday. Good luck all!
Requirements:
*The banner must be 468x60 (WidthxHeight) and be .gif. (No Flash)
*The banner must be under 20k.
*The banner must display the following or any variation of: UOpowergamers.com, UO Powergamers, UOPowergamers, etc. Its purpose is to promote UOPG, so if you have more than uopowergamers, you will probably do better.
*There must be no nudity or illegal substances portrayed on the banner.
*There can be multiple submissions per person.
You can also post your submissions in this thread to show off or get opinions.
-all images submitted to UOpowergamers.com becomes UOpowergamers.com's sole property. They may be used to promote UOpowergamers.com at UOPG's sole discretion. Have a nice day! |
^ top-For all you NWN Lookers....I have this to toss at ya!
[Vasilias] April 8 - 6:17 AM EDT | NWN will be throwing up a chat for interested parties wanting to know more. Below are the details. Hope to see you all there.
Neverwinter Nights Chat
The time has come for a NWN Chat. Don't miss your chance to discuss the latest development with your favorite Bioware Developers.
The chat will be hosted 4/11/01 at 6pm PST #neverwinter on the IRC server frws.stratics.com. For more Stratics IRC alternatives, including a java based web version, go to chat.stratics.com. Once you get to the java based version on the left hand side scroll down and click on #neverwinter under Public Channels then type /join #neverwinter after connecting to the Stratics servers.
|
^ top-I need a favor.
[Lawyer] April 7 - 8:06 PM EDT | Does anyone remember Watts?
You know, the website slut? I mean damn, if the guy posts/ed for The Chosen, UOterror, and Game Terror! He is a promiscuous updater... if he was the president, im sure he would have been impeached already! I know that if he was my bitch, I would smack him a couple of times. Well, I guess thats up to Redrum, since you know, Watts is his bitch. I bet you didnt know Red was a pimp, not only does he have Watts, he just got Ian... wow! They dont call him Captain Spunky for nothing!
Whats the point of this post? Well, as you all didnt know, its Watts' birthday! We all love his mad skillz, his powerful style, and his Manwich Sandwich... now we get to tell him thanks man! If you appreciate Watts' countless hours of time and effort, let us send him Spam! Everyone deserves some good Spam on their birthday, and Watts shouldnt be singled out! Dont hesitate people, he is eagerly awaiting all of your sweet lovin. Spam him. Spam him with everything you have! Send him pictures of yourself, your dog, your grandmother, I dont care! Send him love letters! Send him your phone number so you can cyber, just send him something! |
^ top-Fallen Age, because I can.
[Paladin_VT] April 7 - 12:59 AM EDT | Just got this e-mail from the FA team, which was sent to everyone, I assume, but since Lawyer is doing that sleepy time thing, I thought I'd share it with you:
Silly me, did I forget to mention that if you can get us into the top 5 of
PC Gamer's Most Anticipated list that we'll do an Open Beta? Oops.
*wink*
[I know the link in the earlier message might not have worked, so all you
need to do is simply send an email to: eyewitness@pcgamer.com with the
subject line "Waiting is the Hardest Part" and "Fallen Age!" in the body.]
Sincerely,
Daniel "Savant" Manachi
Producer, Fallen Age
So, go do it, damn it. |
^ top-Fallen Age news and the UOPG beta contest.
[Lawyer] April 6 - 7:30 PM EDT | A new section was added to Fallenage.com. I would like to introduce to you an article from Comments from the FA team, which is quite reassuring. Savant illustrates the current state of MMORPGs and tells us FA will not jump on that bandwagon. He also formally announces that FA will not have an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement), which is awesome, because last I checked, every beta has an NDA attached to it. Also welcoming public criticism is great too, because I wont feel bad when I start ranting. ;)
The new section can be found here.
Also, I would like to repost our FA beta contest details and point out a change in the rules.(Yeah, its going to stay up until Monday, live with it.) You are now able to send in multiple submissions, so if you have a few ideas, or just want that beta slot really bad, send in everything you got! So far we have had pretty slim participation. I have seen two very good submissions so far, but there is still room for improvement. If you are interested in beta testing a new, innovative MMORPG that starts in 15 days, I urge you to try your hand at creating a banner to promote UOPG. This also guarantees you being admitted into the first phase of beta, with the UOPG staff and staff from other famous websites. You know you want to, so hop to it! In case you missed the first post, or just need a refresher course, here you go:
Details:
We here at UOPG would like you to crank up PSP or Photoshop and create us a banner. The banners will be judged by the UOPG staff and possibly in the forums by you all, the readers. The best banner (possibly two) will recieve a guaranteed slot into the Fallen Age beta, be used to advertise UOPG to thousands of players, and we will link to your website if you have one. We will also display two honorable mentions and link to your webpage if you have one (No beta slot through). This contest is open from April 4th until Monday, April 9th. Please email your submissions to contest@uopowergamers.com before Monday. Good luck all!
Requirements:
*The banner must be 468x60 (WidthxHeight) and be .gif. (No Flash)
*The banner must be under 20k.
*The banner must display the following or any variation of: UOpowergamers.com, UO Powergamers, UOPowergamers, etc. Its purpose is to promote UOPG, so if you have more than uopowergamers, you will probably do better.
*There must be no nudity or illegal substances portrayed on the banner.
*There can be multiple submissions per person.
You can also post your submissions in this thread to show off or get opinions.
-all images submitted to UOpowergamers.com becomes UOpowergamers.com's sole property. They may be used to promote UOpowergamers.com at UOPG's sole discretion. Have a nice day!
|
^ top-Por Corp W..hile you're at it fuck up the game some more
[Ian] April 6 - 5:44 PM EDT | After 12 hours of sleep, 1 mcdonalds breakfast, and 1 cup of coffee, I've decided to stop playing Ultima Online again. I'm not sure wether or not I'll ever log back in. I can't predict the future but I'm going to urge you all to do the same. I'm not a victim as I told Nieves yesterday. In fact I've told all of you before, if the game get's to the point where all you can do is bitch about it, you need to leave. I'm no different. My reasoning is simple. I don't like it anymore.
This game although once the epitomy of everything that is cool about online gaming, has gone the way of catering to people who feel that a game should be about the path of least resistance. Arcadian wrote up a good piece over at Lums house about how much UO has changed and how adversity is more often than not the tie that binds. I'm not suprised that the game has gone steadily down hill. What made this game so great (and bear with me if you've heard me say this before) was not only the adversity, but the fact that anything was possible. With the advent of Tramell, that delivered the death blow to UO. If you think I'm wrong, how about the creator of Ultima agreeing with me. Yes folks, Richard Garriot, Lord British himself did not like Tramell, or anything that inhibited the freedom of this game. Sure, there was pking, (that was severely reduced with the stat loss system) but so what, I would give every single uo posession I have for a chance at the excitement that someone would try and pk me. It doesn't happen anymore. Pking is impossible now, for the simple fact that EVERY DUNGEON IN UO (FELUCCA) IS DESERTED. You used to be able to wander the country side and pass groups of travelers, now you could walk for hours and see nothing but a few mongbats and maybe if you're lucky, an Ettin. Oh boy. There's nothing left to do in UO. If you think now that UO2 is done that they are going to concentrate on UO more, and you believed that spin, you are what I like to refer to as a... N3wb13.
There is nothing fun about being hit by an axe that takes you to 20 hp's the first hit and 2 seconds later takes off the rest of your life. (In other words, the pvp system is jacked.) Add to this: If Nieves is having any success at pvp..something is wrong. *flashback* A RED A RED! RUN INSIDE!!! (in Nieves defense I did hear it was a scary looking npc), moving on. I could play a lumber hoe. In fact I have one, but then again I could play Tekken, Put it on the easiest mode there was, and that would be about as much of challenge as playing a character like that. What really makes this game so bad these days isn't so much the pvp system as the ignorant player base. I just can't take that anymore. The average UO player is (and I'm sorry to say this) just plain dumb. I've never encountered a more selfish, ignorant, and overall just plain stupid community. No one is willing to sacrifice some things for the betterment of the game. Don't call me hipocritical because I realized back when instant hit haly's were taken out that it was a good thing. I was unstoppable, and it was ridiculous. The only person that had a shot in hell at killing me was in fact another haly wielding tank mage. There were a few townies back then that could kill me but they had gm resist, unlimited potions, and t1's. You're normal player couldn't even think about competing. So even though I loved my instant hit haly, I realized that it didn't fit in with normal game play and the fact a "magician" could wield one didn't always fit into my view of your typical mage. So, although I didn't like it, I realized taking out Haly wielding mages was better for the game and I accepted it and moved on. I just can't accept what has been done, and what is currently being done to the game now, which by every single account is nothing positive, so, for now at least I'm pretty much done. I'm not going to condemn OSI in this article because I realize business. OSI's business is to make a profit, even if it's at the expense of what they know to be a better game by catering to the simple mind's that play it. To the masses that screwed this game, I'm sorry you're stupid, really I am. I wish you had a brain cell and realized the potential this game has if you would allow it to be what the original creator envisioned. A world.
So what now? Shadowbane? AO, AC, DAoC, FA, wow and that's not even half of the ones coming out.. list seems rather long doesn't it. I'm not sure which one I'll get, chances are all of them. If any of you have been warped enough to enjoy any of my cynical as hell posts you'll be able to catch my take on all of them at Game Terror Yes, after 6 months to the day watts said "dude we're going live in 2 weeks" and every subsequent 2 weeks after that reiterating the same thing, it's happening, we're going live Monday. I'm also going to drop by and delve into other things besides games at Redrums New Site. If I do play UO or have something worthy of mentioning UO related (not that I have so far to date but ya never know) of course I'll swing back by here and drop a line or 3. That is if Nieves can handle the abuse he's left himself open for. He-HE
You all are the best and by far the most mature community in UO. How the hell did you put up with me for so long? Cya |
^ top-Do you read?
[Eric] April 6 - 5:04 PM EDT | Just nod your head, and we'll believe you. Straight from UO Stratics where I like to use my GM copy & paste skills, this was posted today:
One of the only ULTIMA novels ever written is finally available, based on the fiction surrounding Ultima, and specifically around the recently-cancelled Ultima Online 2. Austen Andrews, the same author that wrote the Prequel Fiction for UO2, spins a 344 page tale that takes us on a journey into The Technocrat War just after the Cataclysm caused by Lord British.
I'm not one to both play games and read. And when I do read, it sure as hell isn't going to be a book related to the game I play. It sucks that they have to cancel UO2, but to release a book in spite of that is simply pathetic in my opinion.
Anyways, if you're at all interested, go here and read the full scoop on this newly introduced novel.
Cya later. |
^ top-Now the little bitch can stop crying.
[Nieves] April 6 - 2:57 PM EDT | Ok, Ian's PvP essay is up on the Essay page. Go read it here and then email him all his props. He gets off on it. Really, he does. He told me how he has to change keyboards everytime he gets an email saying how much they love him.
One thing though. I think it's funny how Ian is the only one saying "POST IAN'S ESSAY BIYOTCH! IT ROCKS!" Noone else has emailed me yet about making it permanent on UOPG. Go figure.
Hasta
PS-Honestly, and seriousely, it's a good read and the tactics are solid. Check it out. |
^ top-Just make it yourself.
[Ian] April 5 - 4:59 PM EDT | Ok in case you're one of the 2 people that play UO and don't read Lum Check this happy horse shit.
While you're at Lum's scroll down to read Arcadien's "I miss my boys" rant. It's a good read. |
^ top-And the kicking, whining, screaming, and crying continues...
[Gator] April 5 - 7:46 AM EDT | Now, don't get me wrong. I want my Vet rewards just as badly as everyone else does. But really folks, has our community come to this:
UOPG is NOT responsible for any medical damages due to looking at this forum discussion
Sometimes I wonder why I punish myself by reading the UO Boards over and over. I swear it's worse that eavesdropping in on a pre-teen girls slumber party. I have lost count on how many subscribers there are for UO, but I would be willing to bet that a good 50% of our community is a bunch of cry babies. Personally I think the whole rares/rewards issue has gotten out of hand. ::dodges bullets:: And I know I have wrote about this before, but it really pisses me off. There are so many different ways that this game could be improved. But it seems at times all concentrations and efforts are laid upon Rares and Rewards. Let's recap shall we...
UO:R...........Hated It
Factions.......Hated It
UO3D...........Guess What?
Three prime opportunities to do some great upgrades to this game, and guess what, we are worse off now than we have ever been. Im not going to get into Trammel this and Trammel that. But it all basically boils down to one simple approach. Listening to the Players. And the sad thing is that OSI does listen to its players. See it all breaks down to the fact of the powergamers are always powergaming. Role Players are always Role Playing. And guess what, the whiners...are always whining.....and Winning.
UOPG does not support nor defend the arguements shown in this forum discussion
So how do we fix that? Easy. OSI needs to start paying some attention to the "other sites" out there and see what they are talking about more often. Mainly because the "other sites" out there represent the true UO players. Whether that be the Roleplayers or Powergamers either way. We represent the WHOLE. We represent what the community wants and needs. We represent the Past, Present and Future of UO. Not the whiners in the forums who are too concerned about there annual income from EBay sales.
For your reading pleasure the "State of UO"
SURVEY SAYS: QUIT YER BITCHIN
Later
|
^ top-UOPG's Fallen Age beta contest!
[Lawyer] April 4 - 6:45 PM EDT | We are proud to announce UOpowergamers.com is ready to hand you a guaranteed spot in Fallen Age's beta. Fallen Age is a new Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game set into the post-apocolyptic era, around 6415 AD, which introduces colonization, unique items, 126 skills (currently), and 501 levels of action packed gameplay into the MMORPG genre. Unlike other MMORPGS, Fallen Age doesnt keep you waiting to get into the beta, the beta starts in 17 days! You can read their HoC chat here and see some screenshots here. This contest is open to anyone who would like to enter.
Details:
We here at UOPG would like you to crank up PSP or Photoshop and create us a banner. The banners will be judged by the UOPG staff and possibly you all, the readers. The best banner will recieve a guaranteed slot into the Fallen Age beta, be used to advertise UOPG to thousands of players, and we will link to your website if you have one. We will also display two honorable mentions and link to your webpage if you have one (No beta slot through). This contest is open from April 4th until April 9th. Please email your submissions to contest@uopowergamers.com before Monday. Good luck all!
Requirements:
*The banner must be 468x60 (WidthxHeight) and be .gif. (No Flash)
*The banner must be under 20k.
*The banner must display the following or any variation of: UOpowergamers.com, UO Powergamers, UOPowergamers, etc.
*There must be no nudity or illegal substances portrayed on the banner.
*Please, one submission per person.
You can also post your submissions in this thread to show off or get opinions.
-all images submitted to UOpowergamers.com becomes UOpowergamers.com's sole property. They may be used to promote UOpowergamers.com at UOPG's sole discretion. Have a nice day!
|
^ top-I have been a BDA...er, BAD boy!
[Nieves] April 4 - 2:02 PM EDT | I have managed to start a guild war that spans the whole of Great Lakes Brittania. How? Simple, kill off some enemy (orange) guild members.
As it stands, I feel we are winning (we have won most our skirmishes), but I am sure they would say we aren't winning. Not too mention I haven't lost a 1 v 1 versus to any of their guildmembers. It's all good. That's not what I am hear to talk about though.
The template I have been using is as follows:
GM Macing/Parrying/Fencing/Tactics/Anatomy/Healing/80Resist/20Magery
Yes, GM resist is better than 80, and GM magery MUCH better than 20, but it's effective enough that I can afford the damage compared to the damage I am doing to enemy mages along with high enough healing and pots to offset damage. With the war axe, quarter staff, kryss, and spear, a mage has a hard time trying to cast.
I had run into a "GoGREYFIGHTME!" Fighter in Brit a few weeks ago with my fencer/parrier and went after him. His War Axe and GP Kryss' was murder on me and I barely got away (minus 1/2 my armor and all my shields). I paid attention to his tactics and modified "Hammer" to accomodate his tactics.
Let's break this template down.
If some of you remember, Hammer was a pure macer/parrier PK I designed when War Hammers would deal 80 points of damage. Well, with the semi-nerf (which balanced War Hammers), I realized I needed some sort of OOMF to keep him in the fights he started having problems with. War Axes and Quarterstaves was a good answer and helped me deal with mages along with hanging in their longer with Poisoner/Fencers. Still, I lost more than I was winning. Frustrated, I remembered the Fencer/Macer in Brit that evening and decided to drop archery on Hammer and add Fencing. I have been happy ever since.
Macing is for breaking down stamina and busting up shields. I use War Axes to break up armor and making them disarm to drink a refresh pot. I have used War Hammers on occassion, but War Axes fulfills the same purpose while allowing me to use a shield. Not too mention they are fast enough to bust up mages. 25-35 Dex doesn't allow for much Stamina. They wind up using up their Refresh pots and can't keep up.
Fencing allows me the uses of a DP kryss to make them do the same and keep them on the defensive. It also allows me the use of the spear which keeps GM Runners (I saw alot this past week) and mages rooted while I beat them down (wussy runners-At least I stand and fight and die).
Disadvantage: The low magery. You better hope you can keep that bandage going as well as pots. And in group fights, hope your friends realize you are about to die if they don't help out (cross-healing is your friend in group battles).
Tactics: Use the War Axe to beat down Mages' stamina. DP Kryss to keep that Mage on the defensive. And if he's a con whore, use a spear to keep him still. DON'T use a shield. No sense in that. You need access to your pots.
Versus parriers, beat down the shield and then stick them with the DP kryss as a finisher. Use a spear to keep them from running off.
Jackers: You will eat them with a War Axe and Shield. If they are of the parrier/broad sword variety, use a DP kryss to make him disarm and return to the war axe. Be ready to cure if they are using poison as well.
Swords-Fencers/Poisoners: Keep your shield up and beat them with a War Axe and be ready to cure asap. DON'T FREAKING PANIC AND RUN AWAY LIKE A BITCH. Just keep healing and you should be fine. I have yet to lose to DP unless it's 3 people DPing me. Noone can survive long in that situation.
War Hammer weilders: Have plenty of shields and beat down with the DP kryss. When they go for the cure (disarming the war hammer) pull the spear out to finish. They can't do much when they are paralyzed. Or use the war axe with shield to kill their stamina. Be ready to drink a refresh pot when they run off. Granted a war hammer will break down your shield in a few hits, they will have to back off to refresh.
Halleys give me problems, but they swing so slow that by the time they hit me again, I can usually DP them and make them back off. It's all good cause you can't beat everyone.
Yes, I took my dirnap this week. When your guildmates run off after 2 guys and you have 3-4 oranges behind on your ass, what can you do?
Hey Watts, guess what I am doing with PvMer on Pacific now?
Anyway, I am back to PvMing now. I mean, that's all Nieves does anyway, right?
Any thoughts?
Hasta.
NOTE: My apologies, I had to add parrying back in. Forgot about that :p |
^ top-Vet Rewards: The Waiting Game.
[Lawyer] April 3 - 9:47 PM EDT | Why are vet rewards not in at this time?
Vet Rewards is the first system in UO to tie items to an account, rather than a character. This was something that was very new for us, and while seemingly simple, was actually a very complex task. UO, while incredibly flexible, was not originally designed to support this kind of addition. It was clear after release that the Vet Rewards system was in a state we did not feel comfortable with keeping active. (i.e. Some people could get more rewards than their accounts merited.) The system had issues and we felt it was best to hold the system back to try to remove the known issues, rather than keeping it active and trying to fix it on the fly.
Why has it been so long?
While we could have held off on many aspects of development for Vet Rewards, it was believed that UO:Third Dawn took precedence over Vet Rewards. Third Dawn potentially reached more people, and was better for the ability of the game to maintain a longer life cycle. (In other words, Third Dawn would give us the ability to hold the interest of the players for longer.) While simultaneous development occurs all the time, the danger of working on Vet Rewards and Third Dawn together would have hurt both projects. Therfore, we gave Third Dawn priority.
Are Vet Rewards going to be implemented?
The current team is committed to having Vet Rewards come out and be stable. This may still take some time. The Vet Rewards system has been largely put on the back burner until Third Dawn could be published. This does not mean we will be putting Third Dawn fixes or enhancements to the side in order to do Vet Rewards, as we should be able to work on both simultaneously from this point on. Vet Rewards is currently back under development and we should have more information on when they will be back on TC soon.
-Courtesy of the UOboards and MD.
OSI to the vets: Love you long time!
I just cant understand why in the hell did they actually implement Vet Rewards on LIVE shards in the past. That was a stupid move. Tip to OSI: no matter how much we bitch, dont hand us shit. I would rather them have did actual testing of the system before releasing it (HAHA) and telling us something is fuxx0red than allowing total crap to go live and then pulling it. Its good they pulled it; but it shouldnt have ever been implemented.
Also, what gets me, is the UO3D joke. Thats right folks, its a joke. Im sure those EA commies push Origin to hand us more shit, but what the hell? Werent we promised Vet Rewards ages ago? If I remember right... yes. Does anyone give a damn about a buggy client that is completely incomplete and wont even run on Watt's Super Computer? I dont. Now UO3D would have been a great addition if it was done right, if they wouldnt have made the same mistake they did with the original UO client. I guess some companies learn from previous fuckups, and others dont. The move to ship UO3D was pure idiocy, considering that the only thing UO3D is doing right now is making a mockery of UO - much like Bush is making a mockery of the US. Thats right folks, if our beloved El Presidente cant do it, how the hell can Origin?
I really feel sorry for those people who were worked up about UO3D. The same goes for Vet Rewards. The Vet Rewards people got reamed so the UO3D people would have something new to sell on Ebay, and the UO3D people got reamed because well, EA is compromised of inept pushy bastards and pixies dont like you. But I guess those of you who have stuck around as long as you have are pretty much used to this. Uo has the largest community of masochists I have ever seen. =}
|
^ top-UO3D not looking too good...but did it ever?
[Eric] April 3 - 4:18 PM EDT | UO3D was recently reviewed at ZDNet's Gamespot and here's what they think of it...
Score: 6.9 (out of 10) - Fair
Difficulty:
Medium
Learning Curve:
about 1 hour
Stability:
minor problems
Hmmm...minor problems? I know many of you will disagree. And in my opinion, it takes a little longer than 1 hour to learn the basics of the game (attempting to remember my experience as a newbie).
The article also went on saying:
It's true that Ultima Online: Third Dawn is a solid update of a game that has evolved into a fine online role-playing experience. But compared with the competition--both currently available and forthcoming--Third Dawn doesn't have all that much to offer.
Well, there you have it. Gamespot doesn't think that UO3D is really worth your time or money, especially if you've never played UO prior to it.
Anyways, read the article yourself.
Cya later. |
^ top-Corrections
[Nieves] April 3 - 1:07 PM EDT | Well the corrections are coming in from different sources. Thank you to everyone that is helping us out here at UOPG.
PvM corrections were made in regards to Orc Mage, Orc Lord. Loot corrected and tactics adjusted on Titans.
Different skills sections were either corrected for broken links or updated information. Too lazy to link them all right now.
Information on Elder Gazors and Taming Tips forthcoming.
Hasta. |
^ top-A lil scoop for you NWN lookers!
[Vasilias] April 2 - 7:50 PM EDT | We can all thank Nieves for this fine addition. His Emminence did a lil surfing and came accross this lil link on an article about NeverWinter Nights. It's a sweet read. Thx Samwise!
I hope many of you enjoy it as much as I did. It's quite informative on the single player campaign as well as some tidbits on what is the bread and butter of this highly awaited game....the concept of trying to bring true pen and paper AD&D to PC. Once again, tenatively they are looking at a possible fall release. I am currently looking at getting more info on whether or not a beta will come into to play. Once I find that out I will toss you a bit more info.
http://www.zdnet.com/gamespot/stories/previews/0,10869,2701736,00.html
Enjoy!
Hastar la ta ta!
Vas |
^ top-Use Gear, Get banned, Volume III.
[Nieves] April 2 - 4:23 PM EDT | Account Bannings in Ultima Online
After extended logging, we have completed a search for accounts using
illegal third party programs to "speed hack". The programs are used to
exploit in Ultima Online and gain unfair advantage over honest players. The accounts logged exploiting in this manner have been suspended and e-mails have been sent to the account holders. Additionally, the ability to use this exploit has been addressed. The total number of players affected by this action is less than 300.
We are committed to removing players that choose to exploit Ultima Online and continue to work to provide a level playing experience for all UO players.
And you all doubt OSI's super powers? And you doubt my saying you will get banned because OSI can track the use of those "speed hacks"?
Bah, wtf do I know anyway? I am just a PvMer.
Hasta. |
^ top-"Your fishing pole bends..."
[P-Nut] April 2 - 3:36 PM EDT | yet another big fish! I have GMed fishin a couple of weeks ago, which was not all that bad. Took a couple of weeks of good 1-3 hours a day of 8x8ing (mostly non burst). After GMin I have ended up with around 12k fish. Anyways GM Fishing is cool, I love the SOS (doesnt take that long to get one). Oh yah the big fish. The price for that thing dropped from like 25k to 3 in about a week, those things weight 100 stones and barely sell anymore...*cough*nerf*cough*. Anyways if any of you guys are making a fisherman make sure you have archery or magery/medi (I prefer magery/medi, its useful for other things too). Otherwise you wont be able to get your MIBs and Maps. No UO:TD news from me...
blata. |
^ top-n3wBi3
[Gator] April 2 - 2:45 PM EDT | I can never get enough of the official OSI boards...
"Uo tillerman, from what ive heard is a program that makes it easier to direct your boat. its not UOPro but does nothing to harm anyone or create an unfair advantage. Bt even so..if its not UOPro you risk the consequences
Thats odd, Ive seen people " sailing and directing " thier boat while dead..... I would call that an unfair advantage.. if it is UO tillerman that allows this."
ROFL. Truly kills me.
I know its been said plenty of times already, but I give the boys a great round of applause on what they have done to the site. Other than that I do not have much more to say. I could get into a nice writeup about my thoughts on UO3D, but I won't. Did I mention that my Beta CD is still sitting in the same spot I left it in whaen I took it out of my drive? That was after a 15 minute trip into the realm of headaches. Never Again!! I could not agree with Counselor Anon more, scrap 3D and put in a good year designing a new client that truly rOxXoRs. Expand the lands 10x. Dont make new ones, just blow the current one up. Make it where a trip from Brit to Vesper would take you a good day on foot. Im talking RL day too. Better yet hire me to personnaly design a new client for you. But only if I could bring my fellas from UOPG to assist. And pay us all a nice sum of money, then you will have a good game. Yeah thats the ticket. Lawyer.....no pink bunnies though...mmmmk?
Later |
^ top-Counselor Anonynous and Nieves chat...
[Nieves] April 2 - 7:58 AM EDT | Counselor Anonymous and I had a long talk about UO3D a few weeks ago. Here is the transcript of that talk:
Nieves: You know it comes out Mar 27th right?
Anon: Ya.
Nieves: Fags.
Anon: I know. It ain't ready.
Nieves: No freaking way.
Anon: Now you see why I say it's a step back?
I think it's a mistake to take a product to "gold" when that product is no-where near complete. I know that the current client is also "unfinished" being a work-in-progress, but in the case of UO:TD, well, it's a step back for UO.
Nieves: How so?
Anon: We finally have a "stable" client, new features are being added and it is nearing it's end of useful life. I agree that a new client is needed. But this one is not the answer. The graphics are very bad by any standard. I have better definition on the current client. Look at the faces for example. The current client allows me to see my characters hair/beard well....the new one, well, I'd rather not comment.
Nieves: I just read Calyndryll's response to the Gold announcement on Lum the mad:
"The UO Third Dawn beta test is not over...we are continuing to take feedback and patch in fixes.
-Calandryll
Manager of Community Services,
Ultima Online and ORIGIN"
What do you think?
Anon: I repect Calandryll immensely. I do, however, think that his reponse should have been "We are releasing the client as is now and will continue to beta test it untill we get ready to launch a new client in 3 years since we are pressured into making loads of cash".
The have been taking suggestions and making fixes for 3 years now. It's a nice circle that continues unbroken. But the time it takes to implement anything is too long. After 3 years, they STILL haven't fixed the ID problem of items keeping 5 IDs only and subsequent ID's are not kept. Need I say more?
Nieves: So I guess this other response by him is moot?
"Actually, UO Third Dawn does include the 2d client as well.
As far as the release date, that is accurate. I just wanted to make sure people knew that going gold doesn't mean the beta is over and that testing/patching is done. It's not.
-Calandryll
Manager of Community Services,
Ultima Online and ORIGIN "
Anon: Quite moot. I think it's a fancy way of saying that OSI is sticking by the date no matter what. I hope this won't be a fiasco like Ultima IX was.........
Nieves: I feel like it's going to be. I saw my first Unicorn in game today on Great Lakes. I got excited and logged on with my UO3D client to look at it. It took 5 minutes to get in and then I could barely move. It took 2 minutes for my words to be seen if at all. Not too mention the Kiri-Horse that was there was totally ugly. The Unicorn was nice, but...er, I digress. I logged out of UO3D to go back into UO:R and I client crashed two times in a roll. That's sad. I don't think UO:3D is ready. I am on a Athlon 500, 128MB RAM, 13GB HDD, 32MB VIDEO RAM computer with cable as my ISP. Is my system not enough? If not, then I am not playing the right game anymore. I don't need a better machine for AO, AC, or EQ. And I have no intention of playing those games.
Quote: "I can't play a game where my mouse is not keeping up with my hand movement at least somewhat" I can go into UO3D and my mouse crawls across the screen. If I minimize the UO screen I can whiz across my Windows Descktop with the mouse. That's not a stable client.
Anon: Let's not get into the graphics. I'd rant too long on it. We'll leave graphics as 95% shitty, 5% impressive.
The lag is gonna get worse I think. You are gonna have 2 clients for shards now, new lands, and problems galore. OSI has bitten off more than it could chew. Me? I would have phased out the old client completely after EXTENSIVE testing on a new client. 3D may be the way to go, but this is NOT the way to implement it.
Nieves: Give me an example of a game with good graphics.
Anon: Online?
Nieves: Online fits our discussion better.
Anon: Graphically, the current client is quite nice. They do the job VERY well, but they are not optimized. The are prescripted, so dance moves and such are quite hard as it required tons of additional animation for EVERYTHING that would move. Evercrack, er, Everquest, has good graphics.
In the non-online world, I'd point to Half-Life, Soldier of Fortune (I am IMPRESSED with the graphics) are good.
Nieves: Well, personally I like Diablo II and the BG line of games' graphics. What do you think OSI should do with UO then if not this?
Anon: Expand it. Flesh it out. Increase the experience. Lose above.net.
Nieves: Explain those points one at a time for me please.
Anon: Expand it. New lands are ALWAYS good. I feel the scale of UO is "unrealistic" since running from Britain to Trinsic is not really expanded. The land scale should be 10 times more. It would also solve housing problems since you would have more open space. New lands like T2A are also nice since it gives a new place to adventure.
Nieves: Ok...continue.
Anon: Flesh it out. UO has a history, and nowhere is the history implemented of do we have a sense of the game being affected by players and their actions. Factions is just a PvP fix, not a way to affect the game. Why? Because of Trammel. Do your shopping in Trammel and you bypass the faction control of towns. Don't get me wrong, Trammel was a needed step, but it does make one wonder if Factions was properly tagged as affecting the world.
Increase the experience. It ties in with the flesh it out point. In the last 2 months, I logged in maybe 1 hour total to play. That's sad. What do I have to do? Make more money? I have millions (honestly earned). Titles? I am a Great Lord. Skills? I have a GM in virtually everything in 5 characters. What I don't have is a desire to log in and do new things case, well, there ain't nothing new to do!
Lose ABOVE.NET. Do I really need to explain this one? :)
Nieves: Yes please.
Anon: Up to the ABOVE.NET ISP, I ping sub 40ms......then it jacks up. ABOVE.NET is not the right ISP and OSI should look for one to support the traffic. UO relies on the internet to be played, and if your connection sucks, well, why play? It would be like buying a Ferrari but fitting it out with the engine of a Mini-Austin....looks nice, runs slow.
Nieves: : nods : I ping in the sub 30s, then when I hit above.net I jump 100-150ms. That is WAY sad. I think every UO player should send in their pings to OSI and prove to them Above.net sucks. Back to increase the experience: Any ideas?
Anon: This bi-weekly quest is a nice start, but not enough.
I remember a while back they were talking of real-time quests like the newbie quests. I think they could work on that and make it so that just walking in town could generate you a quest if you know where to look for it.
Nieves: Bi weekly quest?
Anon: Sorry...bi-weekly event.
Nieves: What is that? (some of our readers might not know this)
Anon: Bi-weekly event are planned events that run on each shard at a given time and date to allow people a chance to actually get into the quests. Read about it on UO's website.
Nieves: Those things where the Seers spawn a bunch of monsters, kills everyone off, and you get looted by griefers?
Anon: Yeah, those. They have some on Trammel so looters are rare. :)
Nieves: Yeah, great. Lagfest Sosaria is what those are. Everytime they have one of those things the shard comes to a freaking crawl.
Um..you would be surprised how many looters are out there. People die, alot, in those Trammel Quests. And bones appear and people get looted. I have a friend that got looted when she couldn't get to her corpse fast enough.
Anon: I agree with you. It IS Lgfest Sosaria 2001! I think dynamic quests would be ready.
Nieves: The #1 thing they should fix in my opinioin? LAG! There has to be a way to make the game run better. Hell, when I was on Diablo.net I was on a 200MMX, 80MB Ram, 2GB HDD computer and I was kicking ass. No, Diablo was not as sophisticated as UO, but damn, how hard is it?
Anon: Remember Diablo wasn't the server, the server was the players machines. And it allowed cheating.
The solution is lose ABOVE.NET.
Nieves: Also, these quests are stupid. A seer comes, says some "neat" (NOT!) things, spawns some monsters, and everyone dies. Then the whole shard shows up and makes the lag HORRID! Know what I do when I see a seer? I go to a dungeon to get off that server because everyone will be gone from the dungeons and the loot will be plentiful, or I log off. Those are not dynamic and far reaching quests. Give me some quests that affect the shards. When a "quest" ends, life continues on as normal. And don't force shit down my throat like Trinsic's take over. Let the players win or lose it.
Didn't know that about Diablo.net.
Anon: So all in all, I guess you agree that the priorities are misplaced right now.
Nieves: yeap.
What else does UO need?
Anon: That's a good question. I guess the introduction of taxidermy kits and such was a great start, so I guess keep running with it. The plan to maybe have floor tiles and carpets added is also a great direction to take. Expand spells, add more weapons and armor and I think you'll have a great start.
Nieves: Is there really new weapons and armor in UO3D? Or is it just the 3D client making them look different? I noticed they said they would have oriental armor and weapons. Well in UO3D, the currrent weapons and armor look that way.
Anon: There are new ones. I am not sure if they are currently active.
We talked about a few other things, but our conclusions can be summarized as such.
Nieves: All I can say is this: "it's too early and it's not ready". Cal, if you are reading this, you need a Zeta test bad before going gold. I am asking you this as a player and UO Website Owner. Don't do this yet....I hope EA or OSI's big wigs understand what a cluster this would be. The money will come. Just do it right.
Anon: Take your time, fix it before releasing it, and think of the players.
Hasta. |
^ top-Replacements at UOPG.
[Eric] April 1 - 2:07 PM EDT | We regret to inform you that all UOPG staff will be permanently replaced by fluffy pink bunnies. We feel now that the new site is up and running, it would only be appropriate to make such a change.
April fools. (Bet you didn't see that coming.)
Go prank your friends - http://www.aprilfools.com
Cya later. |
^ top-Redrum Loves me.
[Nieves] April 1 - 11:02 AM EDT | "I read Devil Man's latest update over at UO Something, and I must defend Nieves. Give the guy a break, jesus. He gets flamed more than he diserves for writing about shit that he likes/dislikes. He is right when he says he can't be me. And I can't be him. That doesn't make either of us lesser than the other. When I wrote, I appealed to the PvP/PK crowd. When he writes, he appeals to the RP/PvM crowd. Of course switching from totally opposite of what they like and are used might to piss some people off, but he's writing about what affects him. Everyone has their own style, and he does a good job with his and puts 110% into the site. Give the guy a fucking break and show him some support. I also have to respect him for staying around and being strong even though cocksuckers bash him."
Yah, worship me :)
Thank you for the support Red.
Hasta. |
^ top-Email downtime.
[Lawyer] April 1 - 5:49 AM EDT | Please Note: The UOpowergamer email service will be unavailable from 9:00 PM Pacific Time (-8:00 GMT) April 1, 2001 to 12:00 AM Pacific Time April 2, 2001 in order to perform routine system and database maintenance. All existing email messages will be saved. Any incoming email messages will be queued and delivered when service resumes.
If you absolutely must communicate with someone, use the forum. |
^ top-UOPG gets plugged.
[Lawyer] April 1 - 4:58 AM EDT | Lady Dez from CBT was kind enough to point out to me that we were plugged in Fear's interview with interview with Markee Dragon at Battle Vortex.com. I think thats pretty fucking cool. Because of this, I downloaded and listened to the audio show for the first time. Im such a newbie.
Hopefully this is going to be a trend. I very much like it when UOPG gets improved, and almost as much as when we get propz. So thanks MD, we appreciate the nudge.
You can listen to the audio show here. (In Streaming Audio or a downloadable mp3[3.7mb]) |
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The names, UOPG, UOPowergamers.com, Powergamers.net, NWN.powergamers.net, and all information contained within this site is Copyright UO, Powergamer Enterprises, and other respective Copyright owners. Mad propz go out to Warlord for UOPG's graphics. Without his help, what you see wouldnt have been possible. UOPG encourages and appreciates links in your own Web pages to uopowergamers.com. Permission is expressly granted to any person who wishes to place a link in his or her own Web page. As a courtesy, if you link to, or include uopowergamers.com in an index, please let us know.
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