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August 2001 News:
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^ top-So that's why Siege is changing...
[Nieves] August 31 - 10:29 PM EDT | The new SP changes being put into effect were DEMANDED by Korean players who wanted their game with a harder edge. They are opening a new SP server in Korea in Sept. Because they couldnt keep track of 3 codes bases, they changed SP to have the same hard edged rules as the Korean hard shard. This way they have the same 2 codebases as they do now and Korea gets its tougher rules and more violent shard.
How much you want to bet the Korean folks complained about this for a shorter amount of time than the American folks complained about bringing back precasting.
I understand that breaking into the Korean market is a good thing for OSI, but dont't make them feel more important than the American Market. We started it for OSI. And we have stuck with Ultima Online throughout all the bad times.
Adding RoT back to Siege is a good thing, but this kind of disappoints me.
Either way, we get Siege back as the hard shard...and Korea gets a Siege shard of their own.
Now, do we get to play on that shard? Or is it going to be like Legends?
UPDATE: [...]going to be like legends. No americans allowed.
Isn't that special?
Hasta. |
^ top-Will it happen?
[Nieves] August 31 - 9:36 PM EDT | Just as a quick update, we believe that the connectivity issue regarding the Veteran Rewards server has been resolved, and the fix is in the testing stages. We hope to be able to continue re-activating the system on the UO shards very soon, and will notify the players once the new schedule is determined.
Hmmm...Watts...you might have lost the bet after all...
Hasta. |
^ top-Blizzard is making an MMORPG
[Nieves] August 31 - 8:33 PM EDT | Don't believe me? Ask Redrum.
Who says we don't break em before anyone does?
::hands Redrum a bag of chips, and a 6 pack of coke...you just noticed a video in a black case underneath the 6pack as red puts it behind him::
Hasta. |
^ top-Looking away from UO for a moment.
[Eric] August 31 - 1:28 PM EDT | Today, I came across Atriarch. The word was out that they're now accepting beta applications, so I figured "what the hell, I'll check it out." Let me highlight some aspects of the game that I found interesting.
What kind of game is Atriarch?
Atriarch is a strategic role-playing game currently in development. It is massively multiplayer. It is persistent. Examples of other massively-multiplayer games currently available are Everquest, Ultima Online and Asheron's Call.
In Atriarch, your Character can learn skills, go on quests, adventure throughout the world, become a merchant, solve puzzles, build an army, join a faction, construct a city, or strive to become an Atriarch. The possibilities are vast.
This all happens amidst an evolving plot line, an alien world, environmental conditions, politics, and cultural expectations.
In spite of that description, I said to myself, "Well shit, another UO/AC/EQ wanna-be MMORPG." I read on...alien world? Ok, a science fiction MMORPG...it's possible. Now days, MMORPGs seem to be a dime a dozen. And many have failed. So, I wanted to see what this game had to offer that the vast majority of other MMORPGs did not.
Since Atriarch is considered science fiction, how far into the future does Atriarch take place?
Atriarch takes place current day on a planet somewhere in our galaxy. The alien and organic world of Atriana is real and does exist. We just haven't found it yet
Umm...ok.
How does your Character advance in the game? Skills? Levels and Experience?
Atriarch will be a skills based game. Your character will advance through practice, use, apprenticeship, and quests. You will receive rankings, titles, badges and honors to show you relative mastery at various skills, including combat and trade skills.
This is very similar to UO, in that it is skill/rank based. In UO rank/titles has very little affect on your character, but skills are everything. In my opinion, level-based MMORPGs suck. Think about it. You aren't playing to GM sword fighting to defeat a dungeon...you're killing x amount of bats or rats or whatever the fuck else to achieve level 61 so that you can now proceed in killing x amount of ANOTHER type of critter to advance to level 62. Yes, I know I'm being narrow minded and maybe not looking into other aspects of level-based games, but these are how many games seem to operate. It's fun at first, but how many slugs can you kill before saying "this sucks."? (Fallen Age) Moving on...
I hear my character can spawn offspring? Is this true?
Yes, it is true. Each species will be capable of asexual reproduction to create one or more spawn. Your Character's spawn will be born in one of two forms. Either your spawn will be a new Character coming into the game (yes, that means another player), or you will be reborn as your spawn should your Character die.
Interesting (and original, from what I have seen). The FAQ also goes on to mentioning that if you die, you are reborn as your offspring, and inherit the belongings, land, armies, and power that you had before you died.
I have to admit, this was a shocker to me:
What happens to my character when I log off from the game?
Your character remains in the game.
Later, it explains:
There will be a lot of effective ways to protect your Character while you are offline. You can have personal bodyguards. You can set traps. You can log off in a safe city location. It is unlikely that your Character will die while you are offline unless you direct it to do some risky behavior in which case, yes, it could die.
Can you say, LAG? And get this:
Massively-multiplayer means that thousands upon thousands of people can play Atriarch at the same time in the same world. Atriarch will have one game world rather than multiple mirrored copies. We plan for everyone's Character will live and thrive in the very same world.
One world. One server (that's what it sounds like). AND, your character remains IN THE WORLD when you go offline. How they are going to manage thousands of characters in the game at ALL times (remember, your character stays when you log out) is beyond me. OSI can hardly manage to keep the lag down, and characters in UO are only present when the owner of the character is logged in.
Anyways, you can read the rest of the F.A.Q. to see more information regarding Atriarch. I also signed up for the beta testing. Will I play if I get accepted? Maybe. I figured I'd just sign up to keep my options open for right now. Judging by the FAQ, this could be a very unique and interesting game, but I assume we'll eventually find out for sure.
Remember, many MMORPGs are created. Few succeed.
Cya later. |
^ top-Some People Have Too Much Time On Their Hands.
[Nieves] August 31 - 12:35 PM EDT | Ever wonder how often you get loot while fishing?
Well, go check out what the Statistic Fishing Guru at FCB.com has "fished" up.
Yah, funny. I know.
Hasta. |
^ top-Cause I am Cool Like that Part 2
[Nieves] August 31 - 11:48 AM EDT | I told Silk how bad his Character Creation section sucked and gave him some tips on the different character templates.
Wouldn't you know it? An hour later, he made the changes and even gave me props (link backs) for the information.
And to think, I dissed him and all in that email.
You should've seen it, it was ugly.
(Seriousely Silk, thanks for not telling ME *I* suck and taking the information to heart. BORIQUA FOREVER!)
Hasta. |
^ top-Upgrading Windows.
[Nieves] August 31 - 9:36 AM EDT |
Windows 95 users who have not upgraded their Winsock to
Winsock 2 may see an error message with the updated client.
This may not be the case once the patch is reverted out (a
revert patch went up today), but it will be necessary again once
the patch is put back in. The error message will say: "missing
winsock32.dll”
Here's how to fix it:
- Go to
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/bin/W95ws2setup.exe
- Download file to your desktop
- Double click on W95ws2setup.exe
- Click Ok
- Winsock2 will be installed, you should restart your computer
after the process finishes
Everyone should update their Windows software. Just go to: Windows.update.com and download any and all of the recommended patches. Even if it takes forever, it's worth it.
Hasta. |
^ top-Patch? What Patch?
[Nieves] August 30 - 4:59 PM EDT | We don't need no steenkin' patch.
Login Server Issues
We are currently experiencing difficulties with the login servers. This may affect the ability for players to log into the game. We are aware of the issue and are working as quickly as possible to resolve it. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
Login Server Update
Due to the issues with the login server, the latest patch will be reverted at 4:30 PM CDT. This revert will not result in lost play time. As a result of the encryption within the last client patch, players attempting to use UO Assist while playing Ultima Online may have received an error message reading "IGR time limit has been reached". Reverting the patch may temporarily resolve this issue; however, once the patch is reapplied, UO Assist will most likely not work properly until the program has been updated
by its parent company.
Hasta. |
^ top-More on UOA
[Kaara] August 30 - 2:51 PM EDT | This in from tugsoft:
UPDATE August 30, 2001 -- All non-OSI shard keys have been disabled. I am tired of getting flak from people that think it is somehow Tugsoft's duty to provide service on non-OSI shards so the gift has been removed. Do not email anything positive or negative about this choice unless your intent is to make sure UOAssist never supports non-OSI shards again. If you have legit OSI accounts as well you'll need to remove all non-OSI server keys or you will not be able to use UOAssist on the OSI shards either.
You can read more on their page here. Non OSI shards are not being supported anymore it seems.
|
^ top-Using Scrolls
[Nieves] August 30 - 2:39 PM EDT | The use of an earthquake scroll is still a bug. [It's] Been around a while, but use of a bug, no matter how trivial, is still a bug. I don't recommend it, and I will make sure that the GMs know now to tell players that they should [not] be using bugs of any fashion.
My contact at OSI resurfaced and answered my question about this EQ scroll thing being a bug or not. So, to all of you that emailed or posted in the forum that a GM or Support/Help@uo.com said it was ok to use a scroll to gain skill: THEY ARE WRONG!
Do it at your own risk. Hopefully, GMs and OSI Community Reps. will be on the same page about this now.
Anyone else want to doubt me? Didn't think so.
And I thought it was going to be a slow news day.
Hasta. |
^ top-Important News From a Reader
[Nieves] August 30 - 2:03 PM EDT | Today's Patch, according to W., disabled UOAssist.
Either Tugsoft will get a patch out quick or OSI will do a revert.
::holds comment::
Hasta. |
^ top-Question and Answer Period.
[Nieves] August 30 - 1:52 PM EDT | Um...guess what?
I have scheduled the UO Powergamers interview for September 28th. This means that I need you to start collecting the questions that you, the fansite's staff, and/or the fansite's readers are most interested in regarding the topic you chose.
Kerowyn
And know what else? You the readers get to choose some of the questions. What I need is for you, the readers, to start posting in the forum, or emailing me, questions you would like asked.
UOPG will get to submit up to 20 questions. They will answer roughly half of them. Which is fine by me. That is surely better than nothing. UOPG's updaters will choose the best questions you, the readers, can come up with and we will fill in the gaps if we don't get a full 20.
Who says I don't care what 'yall' think?
I WUVS ALL OF YOUS! Especially you, you and you in the back over there! YAH YOU!
But I am still sore at OSI. BRING BACK REWARDS BIYOTCHES!
Hasta. |
^ top-Patch!
[Nieves] August 30 - 1:38 PM EDT | We will be releasing a client patch on Thursday, August 30th at
approximately 1:30 pm CDT. This patch contains the following changes: We will be releasing a client patch on Thursday, August 30th at approximately 1:30 pm CDT.
This patch contains the following changes:
- 2D Gameplay window can now be resized without restarting the client
-When in a party in 3D, the player's status bar will have heal/cure buttons
- Improvements to the "Last Shard Used" button functionality in the 3D client
- The character creation templates have been revamped
- Many crashes and other bugs have been addressed in this patch
- Book crash fixed
-Players are not always put in Britain when not using Advanced creation
mode. They are put in a random starting city.
- No notoriety queries in Trammel
Er...um...well, I will, um...there is a problem here. Houston (Austin), there is a problem here. I don't know what it is yet, but this seems like something bad is going to happen. Anyone guess what it's going to be?
-Increase in maximum number of starting stat points.
So, will they sneak something else in on us?
All I ask is that the Siege Changes don't hit untill next Friday. It's a long weekend, and a Powergamer can get alot done in 3 days.
UPDATE: I added a few items that was missing in the original patch list. I KNEW it. They trying to sneak some stuff in on us.
Hasta. |
^ top-Neverwinter Nights Update for August 30, 2001
[Nieves] August 30 - 12:02 PM EDT | There is SO much information over at NWNVault that I could make posts for the day or so.
I highly recommend everyone that has not been to the NWNVault do so and read up.
Some of the highlights include:
Their explanation of how they will be implementing sounds, that you can indeed add your own sounds, some tips on using external sounds, and some software they use to create and manage sounds within the game.
A scripting 'University' so you can learn how to use NWN's scripting engine.
Featured Function Tips of the day. This is where they take a scripting function and explain it's use and samples on how it can be used.
Featured Spell of the day. Where you get synopsis to D&D spells. Here is something alot of you Ultima Online players aren't aware of. There are literally thousands of spells in the D&D world. A few years ago, they released a 4 Volume set of spells for the game. And that was just for the Wizard class. A couple of years after that, they released the Clerical Spell set. And they have since added ALOT more spells since then.
I wonder what spells they will allow in the game and if they will allow us to add new spells with the scripting engine. Anyone got an answer to that? If yes, email me.
I remember in a campaign Vasilius ran, he decided he would get cheeky with us and introduce a completely "alien" element to our adventures.
People had been disappearing from an area north of this village. We were to go investigate what the heck was going on. We set up camp near where these "monsters" had been seen.
One of our members saw these large, spider like things coming through the brush and placing "eggs" near our encampment.
My Elven, Archer-Blade Singer was in the tree watching what was going on. I had already called to the group to be ready when, suddenly, she heard movement to her left and a hissing sound. She looked and there was a big black, long head with long silvery teeth bearing down at her through the branches. I was like "wtf is this thing?" When Vas told me it had an inner mouth that shot out at me I called him all sorts of entertaining names. I fell backwards out of the tree as it "spit" at me and my Elven Chain started to smoke. I rolled out of the way as it jumped down after me and shot at it's legs keeping it from coming after me. That's when I was told my Elf was in extreme pain and there was smoke coming from her chest. She threw off her elven chain, shot at the "thing" and decided she needed to leave. Now.
I told my party we needed to go NOW and grabbed one of my fellow adventurers. I had never left my party behind...but I knew this was a lost cause.
Luckily, we only lost one of ours. The Dwarf wasn't happy of course. But oh well.
The rest of us lived. When we got back near the village, we told them, they needed to move.
We never did go back to that village or forest.
I still hate you for that Vas. Bastage.
Hasta. |
^ top-Thanks Nieves!
[Kaara] August 29 - 7:00 PM EDT | I don't know how I could give myself a better introduction than Nieves has already.
As Nieves has already said, I am formerly from UONewbie and was very happy to still be involved in the community with everyone here at UOPG. I will mainly be cruising the forums and updating the news.
*whew* Okay my first post-a-phobia has passed... Feel free to drop me a line!
|
^ top-OH HOW I HATE YOU!!!!
[Nieves] August 29 - 6:02 PM EDT | This following was just posted to FYI:
---
Since we began activating the Veteran Rewards system, we have been carefully
monitoring the usage and performance of the Veteran Rewards hardware. The
release has gone smoothly thus far, but we have found some connectivity
issues with the rewards server. As more shards get rewards and the server
is
accessed more, these connectivity issues will result in packet loss,
creating longer wait times for the rewards gump to appear, and for the
reward selection to take place. If more shards are activated and the problem
is left unfixed, it could eventually result in packet loss on the servers
themselves, creating lag on the shards.
To resolve this problem before this happens, we will be temporarily halting
the activation of Vet Rewards, and re-evaluating the current schedule for
release. As previously scheduled, the system was successfully activated
on
the Pacific and Lake Superior shards today, but we were unable to activate
them on Siege Perilous at this time. Shards that have previously had Vet
Rewards activated will not lose the ability to choose those rewards, but
the
system will not be activated on any new shards until this is resolved.
The connectivity fix is receiving top priority, and we anticipate that this
will be resolved soon. We will post a new schedule as soon as the problem
has been resolved.
---
Until tomorrow... :)
Kerowyn
UO.com Content Editor/Writer
Origin Systems
kerowyn@uo.com
::THROWS HIS KEYBOARD ACROSS THE ROOM::
Hasta. |
^ top-Because I am cool like that.
[Nieves] August 29 - 4:12 PM EDT | Welp, I managed to snag Kaara from the now defunct UONewbie.
Kaara plays on the Catskills shard (I see Updater's eyes lighting up now) and has been playing UO for years (longer than me even). Her essays and news reports were always solid. Additionally, I think her insight into the female side of Powergaming will be a positive, new and different addition to our "staff". ::blinks at the stares::
Don't worry all you hard core "ME MACHOMAN" Powergamers. It's ok. Don't be threatened. It's just a girl for goodness sake. And girls are good things. Really.
Also, she is a roleplayer at heart, but she knows ALOT about powergaming and grandmastering skills. So don't give her a hard time or I will have to come to your house with the rest of the updaters and kick your ass.
Please welcome her aboard and make her stay here at UOPowergamers.com a good one.
If I get a chance to talk to her, I will get another female Updater on here. That girl is slippery to catch. Must be all those Maps and Musical Instruments she keeps playing with. I will find you Ms. N. Just you wait!
Note to Redrum: Since I have been around, I have had two female updaters. You never had any.
Makes you wonder doesn't it?
Hasta. |
^ top-Vet rewards!
[Phazer] August 29 - 3:33 PM EDT | Vet rewards are now active on the Lake Superior shard! yay!
"This account is 24 months old"
-phazer |
^ top-Vex Clears Up The Craftable Changes
[Nieves] August 29 - 9:33 AM EDT | People always tell me that cutting and pasting news isn't news. That they can go to other places to get the same things we post. But where else can you get such great commentary? Moving right along...
Stratics has posted some answers to Craftables. Vex of the OSI dev team was so kind as to answer alot of them. I will highlight some of the more notable questions and answers.
PLAYER: Will any other carpentry or other craftables be added along with these changes if they go through?
VEX: That is still up in the air at this point. The overhaul itself means a complete regression test for QA, and right now we might not have any spare bandwidth for any new items. However, this system will make expanding and adding on to the crafting system much easier to code and test in the future.
I give them 3 months at most for new craftables to start entering the game. Anyone want to take odds?
PLAYER: Will the metal working choices default to not having to click the color metal if you only have one color in your pack? Same with tailoring and the cloth in your pack?
[...] As far as color goes, when you attempt to create an item, the system will automatically use the color of cloth that you have the most of. So, if you have 200 yards of blue cloth and 150 of uncolored, the item will be made with the blue cloth. This way, you still don't have to target the material. Also, it should be easy enough to control the color of the resulting item just by juggling stacks of cloth in and out of your backpack.
There is more detail in the answer but the above caught my eye. Personally, I would think they could "code" it in where you could get a list. Or, to keep it at a KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid) level, they could just leave it where you pick the cloth. Of course, we can all get around it by just having the appropriate cloth color in our bags and leave the other cloth in a chest.
PLAYER: And you left out Cooking, If Crafting is going to be overhauled, then this is the time to overhaul cooking as well.
VEX: I'm still working out the details of how to do cooking properly, but I do want to get it on the list. Sannio thinks we should introduce "a cookbook" as cooking's tool, and I wanted to use the frying pan graphic. Of course, we could do both -- all crafting skills that use tools now use multiple tools.
Argh, Cooking? Give me some cooked fish steaks and I am happy. Well, in Ultima Online anyway. This is the one thing I don't like about the changes: having to use special "tools". The Tinkers benefit the most because they get to make all these neat little things for everyone else. I tell you, it's a Conspiracy. The Tinkers are starting to take over the world. They already own Siege Perilous. Your shard is next.
PLAYER: This would also be the time to make paper, books, spell books, blank maps, and blank scrolls craftable.
VEX: I'm still not sure about how many new items we can get in at this point, but these are good ideas. I am not promising anything, but I will keep this in mind.
Oh hell no! Don't just keep it in mind. Make it HAPPEN! I would love to be able to make my own blank scrolls, maps, and spell books. That would just RULE!
It would give Lumberjackers more of a reason to exist (someone has to get the wood right?) than to beat on poor defenseless mages.
PLAYER: Since all targeting is getting rid of I guess we won't be able to copy books by inscribing anymore.
VEX: Targeting is getting rid of where feasible. Book copying will continue to use the old interface, where you invoke Inscription from the Skills Window, target the book to copy, then target the destination book. You'll also have to target a container for tinker traps.
HAH! No exploits for JUUS!
PLAYER: Is the chance for exceptional items the TOTAL chance, or the chance to make something exceptional IF one makes the item in the first place?
In other words...
Does 50% and 5% mean
50% failures
45% success
5% exceptional
... or...
50% failures
47.5% success
2.5% exceptional
(5% chance only for success results)?
VEX: The first one. Actually we've decided to add a third line to that display:
Failure Chance: 50%
Standard: 45%
Exceptional: 5%
This should make the meaning more clear, since the percentages will add up to 100%. 50% of attempts result in failure, 45% in normal success, and 5% in an exceptional item.
Oh, how freaking quaint. 5% for exceptional? Bite me.
PLAYER: With regards to scrolls not stacking: I noticed that the scrolls don't stack properly when I inscribe using my faction character. When I inscribe using my mule, they stack fine.
VEX: This is a side effect of the prompt to make the scroll a faction item. It actually has to keep the scroll separate until that prompt is answered. I believe I can fix it so that if you don't imbue the item, it will be stacked with any other like items.
Ah HAH! More Factions Bugs! GO GET EM ADRICK!
PLAYER: While these new changes seem long overdue, they don't include any changes that UO-Assist hasn't already done for the last year. Well, with the exception of the target metal type.
VEX: UO Assist is not an OSI product and not all players purchase it. We can't allow the existence and capabilities of UO Assist to influence how we modify the UO interface.
Erhm...want to save time and money OSI? Start including UOAssist as part of Ultima Online's CD and support it in house (hire those guys that create UOAssist; they do great work). UOAssist OWNS JUUS!
PLAYER: I saw the option to 'repair' for smithing but didn't notice the new repair option for bowcraft/fletching (bows, etc.) or the repair option for tailoring (clothes, leather armor). Any plans to implement one?
VEX: This is up in the air, and really depends on what the rest of the team thinks. (Thanks, Evocare, for thinking this overhaul was a good idea in the first place!!)
What's there to think about? JUST DO IT! Repairing clothes/armor and bows would rule. Also, can we have Composite Bows now?
PLAYER: Are there any plans to incorporate secondary skills into the crafting process? Integration of Taste ID for Alchemy, Arms Lore for smithing/tailoring. Lumberjacking possibly for bowcraft/carpentry. (wood comes from somewhere)
VEX: I can't answer this right now. Calandryll has hinted at some special crafting stuff for upcoming scenarios, though. The thought is on our minds. :)
ACK! Pure merchants classes!? I.E.-My alchemist would have to take up a stupid skill that noone uses just to be an alchemist? BLEH! OMG! And lumberjacking on my Smith? BLASPHEMY! ARMANI DOES NOT CUT WOOD! Not for Joe Schmoe and definately not for you. ::sighs::
PLAYER: I see the tinkered golden goblet in the screen shot. This item is currently 'rare'. Not much of a question, but since you are destroying this rare, why not make some other rares craftable too?
VEX: Actually, that is the goblet you can tinker currently, made out of verite. It looks a bit distorted because it's at high zoom-in with the Third Dawn client.
See, there it is! Tinkers are going to take over I tell you!
I could go on for the next hour entertaining you with lots of neat commentary, but someone has to finish this project I am working on. And it's why I get paid anyway right?
The best thing I like about the whole Craftable Changes is less time to make things. Can you say a full Keg in 1/2 the time!? Thank you UOAssist and OSI for these changes!! Well, most of them.
Damn Tinkers.
Go ahead and head over to Stratics for the rest of Vex' answers.
Oh let me leave you with a quote from Vex: "In other words, I understand that the barriers in place for crafting suck, and make the process tedious. But those barriers need to be there. The real challenge to the UO Live team is to transform those barriers in a manner that make the game more fun and makes them seem less like ugly obstacles. :)
Hasta |
^ top-UO Faire 2001
[Phazer] August 29 - 5:20 AM EDT | The "Online Worlds FanFest" webpage is now online..
We are pleased to announce that the Online Worlds FanFest registration page is now available. We apologize for the delay and thank you for your patience. You can find complete information on the FanFest as well as register for the event by visiting http://www.onlineworldsfanfest.com.
|
^ top-My Reward: DAoC Beta Account
[Ian] August 28 - 8:17 PM EDT | To say this is a good game does not really do it justice. You'll have to forgive me as over the last week, I've fallen helplessly addicted to a game called, Dark Ages of Camelot. I'm sitting here trying to figure out what to exactly say about it. I'm rarely at a loss for ideas so I'll figure it out as I go.
I am playing what is for all intents and purposes, the "Next Big One." EQ, your daddy just got home, and he's pissed that you were bad. For reference let me put it like this. Before Lum sold out and went to work for a company that any of us would go work for ourselves, he stated that DAoC is "Like EQ, except without all the parts that suck." That, in a nutshell, describes this game. Since I hate nutshells, let me describe it in more detail.
For starters their NDA (non discloture agreement) pretty much tells you everything you need to know. Outside of letting people who shouldn't be in the beta play the beta *cough* there isn't anything they won't allow us to tell you. That means that they KNOW they have a kick ass product. And let me tell you boys and girls, they do. What is good about the game? Oh I don't know let me name a few.
1) The best, most abolutely real graphics you have ever seen grace your computer. (Screenshots do not do justice to actual gameplay. You will just have to take my word on that until you play it.)
2) Quest engine that not only works, but is somewhat fun and beneficial to your character.
3) Being a newbie in DAoC is not daunting whatsover, but still challenging enough to not insult your intelligence.
4) Grouping in DAoC is an absolute must.
5) Easy to use interface. Gumps are readily accessibly. After an hour of playing this game you will be almost completely familiar with how to use the interface, and hot keys.
6) All the send, tell, say, group, chat, options you can ask for in a game making grouping extremely easy for those that have the gumption to actually get on and communicate with other players.
7) Monsters that completely own all of humanity. My friends you all by now know, I pvp. It is the reason I play any game, but the pvm is incredible. Very easy to tell which monsters are right for you and which aren't. Monster bashing is a requirement to gain experience so I would have to get used to it anyway.
8) Penalty for death. This is something I actually like. They have a unique death system where if you die, you must either be rezzed or release to a "bind stone" which will take you back to the place where you last, "bound." When you do this a grave erects and you must go back to your grave and "pray" to regain half the experience lost. After you do this it's really not a huge loss, but enough of a distraction and time killer that you will tread carefully the next time.
9) Character and classes are so many I can't even begin to list them. There is so much diversity in this game that you can literally never get bored of playing a character not to mention that each one is vital to a group and will become crucial to pvp warfare.
10) The game is designed for the sole purpose of inter realm, pvp warfare. Enough Said.
That's 10 just off the top of my head. I could go on for hours about the game and I most likely will in the weeks to come. Something else to consider is that it's still in Beta, and the game is only going to improve. Wow.
I must say that for the most part people are pretty cool. You get your snobby ass veterans that don't want to talk to you but whatever.. They'll be kissing my ass all the way to Hybernia and Midguard wanting me to help them when the game goes live and pvp warfare is in full swing in October.
Do yourself a favor. Read up on this game.
If you really want the nitty gritty and a better overall explanation of the game read this interview. |
^ top-The mystery of powerhour is solved!
[Phazer] August 28 - 8:15 PM EDT | For those of you who haven't figured it out yet, OSI posted a current powerhour reset schedule.
Normally, the first hour that each character is played on any given day allows that character a special possibility of some bonus skill point advancements, and this time is known to many players as the “Power Hour.” The Power Hour time frame should reset each day at midnight, related to the shard’s local time. Currently, however, all North American and European shards are incorrectly resetting their respective Power Hour times based on Midnight GMT. (Please note that Power Hours are still occurring properly for all shards, albeit off-schedule.)
We are working to resolve this situation. In the meanwhile, we ask that players who enjoy managing their time around the Power Hour schedule to please refer to the chart below. This chart shows when Power Hour is currently resetting on all shards.
East Coast Shards: 7:00pm EST
AOL Legends, Atlantic, Catskills, Chesapeake
Central Shards: 7:00pm EST
Great Lakes, Lake Superior
Siege Perilous Shard: 6:00pm CST
West Coast Shards: 4:00pm PST
Baja, Napa Valley, Pacific, Sonoma
European Shards: 12:00am GMT
Europa, Drachenfels
Asian Shards: 9:00am JST/KST
Hokuto, Yamato, Asuka, Wakoku, Izumo
Arirang, Balhae
Formosa
|
^ top-Crafting System Overhaul!!
[Gator] August 28 - 12:53 PM EDT | WOW!!
Crafting System Overhaul Aug 28 2001 11:56AM CST
Several updates and changes will occur that will eventually affect all of Ultima Online’s crafting systems. The goals of these changes include: creating a consistent interface for all crafting skills, allowing the player to understand a greater level of detail about his crafting activities, greater CPU efficiency, and adaptability & expandability as crafting systems are modified at later dates. The following skills will be affected by these changes:
Alchemy
Bowcraft/Fletching
Blacksmithy
Carpentry
Cartography
Inscription
Tailoring
Tinkering
The specifics are listed below.
All crafting skills will be able to be invoked by double-clicking a related tool. All tools must be equipped or in the player’s backpack in order for them to be used.
Bowcraft/Fletching will use “Fletcher’s Tools” (this tool will appear as the “arrow fletching” graphic).
Cartography will use a “Mapmaker’s Pen” (this tool will appear as the “pen and ink” graphic).
Inscription will use a “Scribe’s Pen” (this tool will appear as the reversed “pen and ink” graphic).
All materials must be in the player’s backpack for them to be used. No materials will need to be targeted. Instead, they are searched for in the player’s backpack whenever a crafting attempt is made.
Some item skill requirements may change slightly.
All crafting skills will use a universal menu system. This menu system will be similar in both the 2D and 3D version of the UO client.
The “gump” window will be 50% transparent, with a dark background and bright text.
The top bar of this window will show the skill name.
The left bar of this window will show:
A “Last 10” list. This list will display the 10 most recent usages of that skill, allowing quick access to those usages.
Up to 10 categories of items which that skill may create.
The main area of this window will show:
A selection list, one item per row.
Two buttons per selection:
“Make Now”: left-click to attempt to create the respective item immediately
“More Info”: left-click to bring up a “Details Window” related to the listed item.
The item’s name (note: the graphic for that item will not display here, but will display in the “Details Window”).
Up to 10 items per page, up to 10 pages per category.
A “Notifications” area will show information that would normally appear in the “system message” area of the gameplay window.
The “Buttons” area will display a subset of buttons appropriate to the skill/tool being used.
“Exit”: appears on all skill menus. Left-click to close the menu. (Note: any menu window may be still be closed by right-clicking that window)
“Make Last”: appears on all skill menus. Acts as if “Make Now” was clicked on the first item in the “Last 10” list.
“Metal Selection”: appears only for skills that use ingots as components for craftable items.
Players may choose which metal color to use. This will eliminate the need for players to specifically target materials, and eliminate the possibility of using the wrong metal type.
The system will only consider metals of the selected color in metal-using crafting attempts.
A “Details Window” will indicate if an item retains the color of the metal used.
“Mark Item”: appears for most skills; controls the automation of Maker’s Marks on crafted items that allow for such marks. Left-clicking this button will toggle through three options:
“Do Not Mark”: the Maker’s Mark will never be put on crafted items while this is selected.
“Always Mark”: the Maker’s Mark will always be affixed to exceptional-quality crafted items while this is selected.
“Prompt for Mark”: the player is prompted for a Maker’s Mark whenever an exceptional item is crafted while this is selected.
“Repair Item”: appears only on the Blacksmithy menu. Players may left-click this button, then target a weapon or piece of armor to attempt to repair that item.
“Unravel Item”: appears only for Blacksmithy (as “Smelt Item”) and Tailoring (as “Unravel Item”) menus only.
Allows blacksmiths to smelt weapons and armor down into ingots.
Allows tailors to disassemble leather armor back into cut hides.
Quantity Selection: appears only for items which may be crafted in bulk.
Turning logs into boards
Making arrows and crossbow bolts
Selections
“Make 1”: create only 1 of the selected item.
“Make 10”: create (up to) 10 of the selected item.
“Make 100”: create (up to) 100 of the selected item.
“Make All”: create as many of the selected item as available materials allow.
When using a craft, the crafting window will close, the creation will be attempted, and the crafting window will reopen.
Upon re-opening, the crafting window will display the results of the crafting attempt.
The window will include the details of any success or failure messages. |
^ top-Not all French people are bad.
[Nieves] August 28 - 12:37 PM EDT | A press release:
DuelField beta test : end of subscription
There's only one week left for gamers wanting to subscribe to DuelField's beta test to do so. The deadline to register has been set to Friday August 31st 2001 at midnight (GMT+1:00 ). The beta testing period will last around 8 weeks. A thousand gamers will be selected at first in September. Then, others will be invited to take part in the phases that will follow.
Sismoplay invites the last-minute testers to register at once at
www.duelfield.net.
----------------
Céline VARENNE
Public Relations
SISMOPLAY
www.sismoplay.com
www.duelfield.net
-----------------
Someone tell me what they think about Duel Field. I have no time to test another game right now :(
Bleh.
Hasta. |
^ top-More Treasure Hunting Information From The Experts.
[Nieves] August 28 - 11:39 AM EDT | If someone loots my from chest in Fel, they DO go gray and cant recall. Little Ol Mule Boy has several non-murder kills to verify this. Usally I cast para, pump the spawn until an OL or two is out, then inviso, and let Fattie do my work for me. Other than that, very nice essay. Yes the level 3 loot is inane and wortless. Decoded maps are newbified. They stay in my pack and are with me when i rez. Only DECODED.
Tattereds stay on the corpse and prolly are stealable.
Also, the Treasure Island east of Brit with spots 7-16 on it(numbers
from the stratics map archive) is heavily camped by reds in Fel. Bring lotssa of friends if you are going to dig here.
Mule Boy, THB
Chesapeake
Thanks for the information Mule Boy.
Those reds on that island sounds like B*C on Great Lakes Felucca Horseshoe Island. Go there to do a treasure map, expect to get ganked and looted. As they like to say: "nothing personal, just business".
Hasta. |
^ top-Updates
[Nieves] August 28 - 11:26 AM EDT | I removed the image and my last update as it seemed to be cluttering the page a tad. Ok, alot. I also updated my last update (that's still up) with what happened with Frenchy.
Thanks to Silk for the plug this morning.
I got two more essays from Phazer to put up. I hope to have those up by Saturday morning.
Also, a guildmate of mine told me how badly our Character Creation Section (specifically the mages) sucked. I told him to give me a write up and he's working on it.
I think I got a "financier" for the UOPG T-Shirts. Hopefully that goes through and you will see T-Shirts available here on UOPG.
More goodies for you in the future.
Now, if I can just convince other folks to turn in some updated information that's been promised I will be really really happy.
No pressure, really.
BTW: The crown of Super Powergaming goes to Vasilius. 4 Days and a character with GM Wrestling, Evaluate Intelligence, and Music exists. All using legal methods. He just doesn't stop when he starts. The guy is an Ultima Online Playing Fool. And he's all OURS! MUHUAHAHAHA.
Give Vas his props.
Oh, no offense to Epyon as the deposed King of Powergaming. I am sure Epyon will give Vas a run for his money. All Epyon needs is time and opportunity.
Any bets on who stays on top?
I love friendly rivalries. Don't you?
Hasta. |
^ top-I am ok now.
[Nieves] August 28 - 8:18 AM EDT | Really.
Warlord and I are doing what we have to do to take care of ol' Frenchy there. I am sure he will appreciate it when Tripod does their job and pulls his plug.
Got to love the Internet.
On to another topic.
Seems Teak isn't happy with my busting him out yesterday. Well, I am sorry.
Sorry that you feel that way.
You see, people think they can get away with anything on the Internet. Eventually, you WILL get caught. That one time you think you can be rude and arrogant and not feel the consequences WILL be the one time you run into someone that can have an impact on you. If you make that bed, sleep in it. It's yours. Deal with it.
It all goes back to what I have been saying for over a year.
Play Nice.
Be respectful of your fellow players. I am famous for my total lack of respect and trust in a few people on Great Lakes. But do I treat them with disrespect in game? No. If they are in my way, I remove them (think: guild war). If I cannot remove them, I move on.
Words are powerful. I know. Look what it can do here on UOPowergamers. Hell, look at what Lum The Mad can do. Lum can say the world is flat, we are the center of the universe, and the sky is falling and someone will believe it. But someone in game calling me a newbie or saying they "own" me after ganking me with 5 of their buddies? Not. Nowadays, I do a number of things to avoid my personal frustration.
We can go talk about newbies in Felucca. I do what my buddy Loki does: Hunt them down and kill the lot of them 1 at a time. Or, most likely, I will go back to my virtual house, log out of my virtual world, and go do something else.
Anyway, I am rambling.
The point is. Play Nice. You never know who you might run into in game.
UPDATE: The perpetrating site is gone from the Internet. He also emailed me and apologized. Gotta love it.
Hasta. |
^ top-Damn the French! (Well, at least one of them)
[Lawyer] August 27 - 6:43 PM EDT | Well whaddya know? I check my wonderful UOPG email today and find this very informative message from a loyal fan. He seems to have found an Ultima Online website masterpiece. It seems that this guy, myself, and Warlord from www.gameterror.net had the same idea, at the same time, only he is about a half a year late. That is his original work, because... he says so. I am sure Warlord would have to disagree, considering he did all of the imaging.
Its amazing how fucknuggets feel the need to rip off popular UO fansites. I guess they cant fathom the idea of someone visiting their ripoff and us, then noticing it looks almost the same. I mean damn, its pretty obvious who the shithead is, whether or not the page is in another language or not. What really amazes me is that "copyright" is plastered all over the page... hell, just right click, you will see what I mean. Copyrighted my ass.
I want everyone to do me a favor and tell him how much he sucks, mmkay?
freddubeoct@hotmail.com
Oh yeah, Conan:
Embrassez mon âne vous morceau pathetic de shit et essayez au moins de créer votre propre website. Baisez-vous. |
^ top-New spell damage data!
[Phazer] August 27 - 6:24 PM EDT | I just finished testing most offensive spell damage vs 0 and 100 resist. Check out the full results here.
| Spell | 100 Resist | 0 Resist | | | Min | Avg | Max | % Resisted | Min | Avg | Max | | Magic Arrow | 3 | 5.72 | 12 | 66% | 6 | 8.88 | 12 | | Harm | 5 | 10.92 | 22 | 56% | 10 | 14.56 | 19 | | Fireball | 6 | 12.1 | 21 | 46% | 10 | 16 | 22 | | Lightning | 3 | 15.88 | 28 | 38% | 6 | 16.48 | 28 | | Energy Bolt | 13 | 26.84 | 39 | 24% | 17 | 30.5 | 41 | | Explosion | 13 | 26.14 | 36 | 24% | 19 | 31.46 | 39 | | Flamestrike | 16 | 34.7 | 46 | 12% | 32 | 37.4 | 47 |
Have fun interpreting these numbers however you wish ;).
-phazer |
^ top-I don't normally post here, but...
[P-Nut] August 27 - 4:06 PM EDT | Vet rewards are in on Chesapeake. Booooyah. Thank you.
blata. |
^ top-Treasure Hunting Changes.
[Nieves] August 27 - 12:25 PM EDT | As some of you might be aware, Treasure Hunting got a host of "little" changes, that when added up, change the way we play our Treasure Hunters.
Which also means, I get to change the information within UOPG's own Cartography and Tips page. Whee!
Anyway, here is a summary of those changes with some you might not be aware of.
Treasure Maps now are identifiable by their name.
Level 1 - Plainly Drawn
Level 2 - Expertly Drawn
Level 3 - Adeptly Drawn
Level 4 - Cleverly Drawn
Level 5 - Deviousely Drawn
Neat, huh?
I have yet to trade decoded Treasure Maps with anyone. I am not sure if that was even in this patch. But I say this: If it has, protect your maps. I don't believe them to be a Newbie Item (correct me if I am wrong Blackheath/Magellan) and they can be stolen by thieves/PKs. Be careful in Felucca.
Oh, as a side note, I have seen level 4s go for 35k and level 5s go for 45k. Greedy motherf...dangit!!! Ok, no f word. But you get what I mean. Anyway, I will never buy a map from people like that. Continuing on...
You now have the ability to destroy the chest when you are done with your "dig". BUT, the chest must be COMPLETELY empty in order to do this. A pain, but worth it. The way you do this is by double clicking your shovel, then targeting the map, and finally targeting the chest. It's EVERY Treasure Hunter's responsibility, in my not so humble opinion, to destroy their chests when they are done with their hunt. One day, you will get to a spot where a chest wasn't destroyed and curse and moan at the last Treasure Hunter that was there.
If you do not want the scrolls/gems/regs and anything you consider junk that is in the chest, bring an extra bag and dump the items into that bag. Just leave the bag there. The next hunter or a passerby will thank you for the loot later.
Also, you can no longer put things into the chests. This makes it more of a pain to spawn monsters, but not impossible. Take items out one at a time. Take gold 10 at a time. Ok, 100-1k at a time. Leave a shield for last if you can. Drag that shield across the chest. It won't move, but it "triggers" the spawn check for the chest. Blackheath did that this weekend and seemed to work fine.
Now, here is the most interesting part. The loot for level 4 and 5 chests is insane. I pulled out 4 power/vanq weapons out of ONE level 4. Two of them silver. Now before you get all excited. Realize this: 2 of those weapons were Pickaxes. In fact, on subsequent level 4 and 5 hunts Blackheath and I completed, we pulled 2 more Vanq Pickaxes. Sick, I know. OSI needs to take Pickaxes and Crooks out of the rotation for Treasure Chest spawns. All I am going to do with my supremely accurate, durable silver pickaxe of vanquishing is give it to my smith so he can go dig up ore. What a waste of a potentially good item. The loot is broken to a point. Some Treasure Hunters will say the loot is now more "balanced". They worked hard to get there. And believe me, getting to the ability to dig up a level 4 is a pain in the rump. I hate making maps with a passion. Moreso than mining. And I am famous for my hatred of mining. But, does it have to be that easy? I don't know. Granted, having 4 Lich Lords spawn on you in one spot isn't fun but a Bard will laugh and make the Lich Lords do the "JU WANNA FIGHT? FIGHT HIM, NOT ME!?" dance. And if you can't have a bard, running to a boat and using it as a fort isn't that hard to do either. It's all about checks and balances, and although it's going to prove profitable for me, I feel it's just a tad too much.
Hopefully it will drive the price of Magic Items down, but I doubt it. Ultima Online players are greedy. And they will try to cash in.
By the way, the loot in the Level 3s I completed this weekend was pathetic. The most expensive thing I got out of them was the gold. No bull.
Also, you can now achive 99.5 Cartography by doing world maps. (No, wait, it's 98.5. No, it's, 99.5 again! ARGH!)
Very nice. Very nice indeed. That is until you do all those maps for a few power hours. THAT could make you want to quit Ultima Online.
Some tips as a Treasure Hunter.
1) Check the surrounding area to see if someone else is doing a chest. We had a group running around from the monsters they were spawning from a Level 2 chest. I sort of laughed at them because my T Hunter owns Level 3s solo. But it got annoying when they were intefering with my own hunt. In other words, be courteous to your fellow hunters.
2) Kill off your damn spawn. I hate logging into Macy's (The Tower) with a Dread Spider, Lich and 2 Fire Elementals sitting there waiting for my smith to come out. And everyone knows Liches like to open doors. I can only say "I ban thee" so fast. Asshoes.
3) Have someone hang around your chest if you are in Felucca. People are famous for coming up and taking your stuff and running away. I wish they would make it so someone taking something from your chest gets flagged like a thief. Grey and can't recall. Yeah, steal from this! If you do have folks hanging around and they take something, and you have a bard around, don't be afraid to provoke on that grey. He earned it.
4) Invisible spells and items are your friend.
5) Empty the chest and destroy it.
6) Smelt anything that's smeltable into ingots. It's free, and it's worth it.
7) PUT YOUR FREAKING WORLD MAPS IN A BAG AND THEN PUT IT IN A TRASH BIN!!!!
You have no idea how that irks me to no end and finding World Maps all over the place stacked as high as the top of that bank. That is irresponsible. You must realize that when you come into an area the game has to load every single item that is in that area. That means LAG for alot of folks.
People like Teak in Trinsic, Great Lakes, Trammel Facet, just needs to learn not to do that. (Yes, BH, I said his name. He's still at it. The little bastard. And my friends have seen him do it as well.)
If you are hiring a Treasure Hunter, that little irresponsible jerk is not one to hire. Feel it idiota. Get an attitude with me in game, will you? Dammit.
I don't think I can go another week without the F word. My eyes are starting to hurt with the stress from within my brain.
Hasta. |
^ top-Back so soon?
[Eric] August 27 - 11:59 AM EDT | I said I'd pop in with some news when time permits. Anyways, UO Stratics posted a link to this interview that was held by http://www.siegeperilouswar.com. It's an interview they had with Evocare, the Lead Designer for UO. He touches on many of the most common questions that players would generally ask a staff memeber of OSI, given the chance. Here's a clip of that interview...
2. What, in your opinion, makes PvP combat fun?
It is our belief that on the whole, players interested in PvP want an outlet for competition that pits their knowledge, tactical decision-making abilities, and strategic choices against those of their opponents. When implemented properly, these qualities lead to a heart-pumping experience that leaves the victor with a powerful sense of achievement, and the defeated with the belief that the next time they meet, the outcome will be different. =]
Many of you will agree that this is NOT how the PvP combat system is within Ultima Online. The "When implemented properly" implies that OSI has yet to properly implement the ideal fun PvP combat system, I assume. If the Lead Designer knows the definition of fun PvP combat, one would hope OSI will eventually come close to providing that for its players. This struck me as interesting...
14. Other than a retooling of the system, what sort of incentives will be added to participate in PvP combat?
I’d venture to guess that some sort of dueling system, where players can reasonably control the conditions and level of risk involved in a fight, would encourage more players to take a stab (no pun intended) at PvP on some level.
I could see that being a pretty good addition to the game, but I highly doubt OSI has touched on that idea quite yet. Anyways, go ahead and check out the rest of the interview.
As for vet. rewards...yahoo. You can expect me to be logging in on Friday. Aside from house refreshing, I really haven't logged in for the past month or so. Hopefully that will change this Friday.
Cya later. |
^ top-FINALLY!
[Nieves] August 27 - 11:15 AM EDT | After monitoring the Veteran Rewards on the Napa Valley shard over the weekend, we have determined a tentative release schedule for the system on the rest of the production shards. We are targeting to activate the Veteran Rewards system on each shard at some point during the day designated below, which means that players should not expect the system to be active immediately following their scheduled morning maintenance. Please note that this schedule is subject to change, and may be extended should any unforeseen issues arise with the rewards system.
All dates listed are Central Daylight Time.
* Monday, August 27th: Chesapeake and Sonoma
* Tuesday, August 28th: Yamoto and Atlantic
* Wednesday, August 29th: Pacific, Lake Superior and Siege Perilous
* Thursday, August 30th: Baja, Catskills, Izumo and Wakoku
* Friday, August 31st: All remaining shards
Figures, I have to wait till Friday for Great Lakes rewards. Oh well, as long as it hits.
Watts, get your prose ready!
Thanks Keo for the information!
Hasta. |
^ top-Smoke Break
[Nieves] August 27 - 10:28 AM EDT | Aight, I ain't got much time so...
Before I begin: Netscape sucks. Just thought I would share that with you. I get a new computer, but I can't use anything but Netscape. Yah, right. Dangit.
Let's start shall we?
These are comments made by Adrick in various threads.
All things considered the monsters are dropping the exact same loot they always have for reds they are just dropping 3x as much for blues (spending power wise) which is all that really matters.
I wonder if this is better for the Blues or the Reds. You can't recall on Siege anyway. Also, from what I understand there is no gating into Dungeons. If the Blues are getting much more loot, they become tastier targets for Reds. And, as everyone knows, the absolute best loot in the game is, on average, carried by Players. Heck, the silver broadsword of vanquishing my PvMer uses was "acquired" from a player that lost it at the City of The Dead. Poor guy...anyway, as always, I digress.
"...because it will cause those reds to stop PVM, and concentrate on killing blues" - why isnt this happening now? shops charge 3x for everything after the change there wont be any difference in spending power. I could see this argument if prices werent dropping.
As always, people have to complain about something. "I can't get better loot from monsters because I am red". Well, damn, if you want more loot go kill some players. It's not like you have to worry about statistic loss anyway right? But, of course, I am sure what I just said will cause some people to stand up and say: "NIEVES YOU ARE ADVOCATING MORE PKING!!! I THOUGHT YOU WERE AGAINST IT!". Actually, I am not totally for nor against PKing. My point is: I just wish you would all quit bit...er, complaining and start being positive in your criticism. Also, come up with a freaking solution (dang Gator, I used an F word. Sorry)! A complaint without a solution is just a bit...er, someone whining.
It not fair to say we dont care what you think [...]
If we didnt care what the playerbase wanted there wouldnt be these boards and there wouldnt be any changes coming to siege.
Other than not having a contact at OSI to confirm bugs (dangit), OSI's team of folks are doing the best job they have ever done. And it takes alot for me to say that. Everyone knows I hate OSI. Well, except Cynthe. I want to marry her. Anyway, again, I digress into something else.
OSI has gotten some positive changes to Factions, Precasting is back (sort of), Mages got their spells beefed up (Harm hurts dangit), Siege is becoming the hard shard (again), and Rewards has actually been released. You have no idea how hard it is to not want to grab a few things on Napa Valley. But, I resist. Really, I do.
Give OSI a chance. They are listening. I see it in what's been done.
Right now my primary focus as a designer is to fix bugs - i don't pick and choose bugs I fix and I enjoy fixing them all. Why do I enjoy it? because as a player it was the single most frustrating experience for me playing a game.
If there was a prize for Player or Dev Team Member of the year, Adrick would get my vote. Why?
For a long time, he used to bit..er, harp and moan about the problems with Ultima Online and it's insurmountable list of Bugs. He was one of "us" and then got a change to be one of "them". I am sure there were many that figured he would turn his back on us and forget who he was. Know what? He's stayed the course. He's stayed true to who he is. He probably still isn't happy with some things within Ultima Online or OSI for that matter. But he puts up. And that's what is important. He hasn't forgotten where he came from. He's visits the same boards and STILL posts and comments as he did in the past. Plus, he has the ability to take REAL concerns and solutions to the right people to get them fixed. Heck, he fixes them!
What amazes me is now he's on the other side and, I think, realizes how petty the naysayers can be about Ultima Online. Whine this, and whine that. He has to hear it from us, the bastages, that don't know any better. Who has the hard job? The people maintaining and fixing Ultima Online? Or we that pay to play it? Think about that for a second.
....
....
Ok, let's continue now.
So, to Adrick, I hold up a cold one and say: "thank you". Keep the ship sailing.
And for those thinking I am biting on Adrick's gonads to get some cool points, I hold up a finger Eminem Style just for you.
The man deserves the praise he's getting from me. Don't dilute it with petty BS.
Hasta. |
^ top-When Hosts Go Down....
[Gator] August 27 - 9:48 AM EDT | Man this sucks,
As you can see, UONewbie is no longer working. Early Wednesday morning all UOGuilds and UOGuilds related sites went down.
My email no longer worked, and I never got warning or notice that this was going to happen. 3 days later I've lost faith that the servers are coming back. Unless the UOGuilds servers return, UONewbie will not.
UOG was our last chance at free hosting. I always claimed that I wouldn't invest money into UONewbie, because the service we gave the community was great enough. I'm not going to expect people to give money either. Not only that, with the sudden departure of UOGuilds, I couldn't retreive any of the recent updates to the guides, as well as ALL the news over the past year. Since news was updated and stored server side, I never downloaded it.
I've changed the nameservers back to the company where I bought the domain in the first place. They offer a small amount of space if they can plaster their banners all over it. It's just not worth rebuilding. I can't imagine how much traffic we lost after being down for 3 days, and quite frankly with classes coming up once again I'm not sure I would have the dedication to rebuild it.
It's an unfortunate way of closing, since I didn't intend it and I didn't want anything like this to happen.
I'd like to thank all the updaters who helped make the site what it was, and I'd like to apologize about the way it has gone down. I've still got my fingers crossed that UOGuilds will in fact come up, but even if it does, how much damage will have been caused? UONewbie wouldn't have been around without your help, and I greatly appreciate that. I'd like to extend even greater thanks to Kaara, who was with the site for almost as long as it was up, and who stuck with it the entire time, through it's ups and downs.
As for the content, it will stay down. As almost every guide was written by myself except for one, I'm not willing to let it become outdated on any other site. I have yet to find a site that agrees with the same principles as I do, and therefore I don't deem any home good enough for my guides. I'm not going to re-post them on UONewbie, because the site must either be active or non-existant. As it cannot be active, it will not exist.
Once again, Thank You very much for all your help and time you've invested into the site, and maybe we'll see it come up again sometime in the future.
Regards,
Scott, AKA. Swissie
scott@thebrilliant.net
If this were to happen to us, I dont even know where we would start. Lets pray that UOPG keeps going strong.
Later |
^ top-FYI
[Nieves] August 27 - 9:43 AM EDT | About the Faire:We are still working to complete the official Online Worlds FanFest 2001 website, along with the registration page, Host application page and session schedules, and anticipate that it will go live early next week. In order to ensure that people still have plenty of time for the early registration price, we will be extending the early registration schedule.
Thank you for your patience, and we'll have plenty of FanFest details available next week!
Good. Get the site up.
Also, at Stratics they have posted some comments by Adrick. Since I don't have time for a proper update at the time you can go on over and read about it.
You know me, I will have comments to Adrick's brand of wisdom. What may surprise alot of you is that what I have in mind is actually positive.
Note to Watts: Rewards is still up. Got it ready yet?
Hasta. |
^ top-Popping in for a moment.
[Eric] August 26 - 5:01 PM EDT | Hey everyone - I realize I haven't been around much in the past 2 weeks be it on the front page or in the forums. I've been busy in and out of town, and the time to spend on UO or updating UO news is quite limited at the moment. ;) My apologies for this to all of you, but especially to Nieves and the other [active] updaters. Nieves has done a hell of a lot for this site, especially during times when the majority of the updaters have been fairly inactive. I of course can't go on without mentioning Gator as well, who lately, has put forth nearly equal time and effort. With the recent addition of Phazer, UOPG skill information is finally being corrected and put up-to-date. You guys kick ass. Don't assume I'm excluding the other updaters, because I'm not. Everyone needs their break from UO and UOPG, but you've all put forth an outstanding amount of effort at one time or another.
No, I'm not saying goodbye to UO or UOPG if it sounds like I'm implying that. I am however, taking a break to concentrate on some RL issues, which hopefully everyone will understand. Despite that, I'll probably still pop in every once in a while if I happen to come across some news that hasn't been mentioned yet.
Anyways...Some UO news maybe?
To give you all another quick update. We're finalizing testing on the first part of the scenario. Right now, we're waiting for a patch to clear QA before we can build/patch the last scenario patch. All of the content is done for the patch (there is a LOT btw ), we just have to put it together and test it. Unlike server publishes, client patches are the one aspect of working on multiple projects that do affect each other since we can't build two patches at the same time, otherwise the second patch would revert out all of the stuff in the first one.
As soon as this patch is released, we'll build the scenario patch and then we'll have a pretty clear idea when the scenario will start.
-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
Designer, Ongoing Content
It sounds like OSI has a larger scenario in store for us (hopefully more than orcs running around killing people). All we can do right now is just wait, and hope that vet. rewards are published to a shard near you, shortly. Stay tuned, as I'm sure there will be a lot of shouting and excitement by Nieves once vet. rewards hit all of the shards.
Bye for now. |
^ top-Phazer Does UOPG Skills
[Nieves] August 25 - 12:23 PM EDT | Go to the Skills Pages, and then Email Phazer and tell him how much he rocks.
He updated most of the Skills from Anatomy-Parrying. It just took me a month to get the on the site.
You can send me hate mail for that.
Aight Phazer, where are the rest of them!? ::cracks the whip::
Hasta. |
^ top-Contest
[Nieves] August 25 - 11:46 AM EDT | I am considering having a contest.
Actually, 2 of them.
Here is what I am looking for:
Someone to write up a Siege Perilous Guide. Granted, with the new changes coming, this will take awhile to do a write up on.
I will take submissions in the Forum. When you create your essay, submit it as a post then email me a link. Be prepared for the UOPG Forum Denizens to critique and they will be the frontline judges. I will ask the Updaters to see which one is the best (grammer, tips, correct information) and that is the winner.
The second contest is a Factions Essay. A guide to being in a specific Faction, their weaknesses and strengths. Best Templates for each of the following classes: Thief, Mage, Fighter AND Mule. Also, how to fight with those classes. Taking a city, keeping it, etc. Also, the benefits of having higher titles, etc.
You will also be required to submit your Factions essay to the Forum for review with an emailed link to me.
What are the prizes? We will let you know in the future. Right now, it hinges on the UOPG T-Shirt, or alot of gold (FYI: 100k is NOT alot of gold to me).
Most likely it will be the T-Shirt. And it WILL be kick ass. Gawd I wish I could show you what we are doing behind the scenes here. But I want to do this right this time :)
Email me and let me know what you think of the contests.
Hasta. |
^ top-A semi-good read.
[Nieves] August 24 - 1:45 PM EDT | The Night talks about being an Assassin.
It's not a bad read. Just ignore the following statement:
I read Stratics several times a day. It is THE complete source of knowledge in the game, because it is
forged BY players, and FOR players.
Obviousely, there is a flaw in that statement. Can you guess why?
Hasta. |
^ top-Pop-up Ads Suck
[Nieves] August 24 - 12:38 PM EDT | Yah, you see them every once in awhile. I wasn't aware that Pop Ads would pop up when coming to UOPowergamers until Watts, bless his heart, told me about it. I told him "no, can't be happening", he said: "bullshit, check your shit". So I did.
After some investigating, the Pop Up Ads have been coming up every 20th page view or so. (LUCKY MR. 20 YOU ARE THE WO/MAN!). Again, I didn't know that was something that happens on a normal basis.
Now, is it my host's fault that I wasn't aware? Or mine because I visit our "Host Forums" as often as you see me in the UOPG Chat Room (which I hope to change soon. I promise)? It doesn't matter.
The fact is, they are there. And I don't like them. But, I don't have to like them, and neither do you. They are helping to pay my bandwidth and my hosting fees. With the deal I have with my host I don't pay anything out of pocket. Unlike other sites, I am a lucky website owner. I don't pay anything for what you see here. I don't make anything either (which would be nice) but I don't complain as it works for you the readers. Right? Right.
If you noticed, other sites have had to "beg" from the public to help them pay the bills and keep the sites you know and love up and operating. Well, the network I am on isn't doing that well revenue wise and is doing some aggressive haggling so people like me don't have to shell out the big bucks to keep the site up. If you see Pop Ups come up, or more of those space hogging banners that totally destroy the beauty of a decently designed website, don't be upset with us. It's something we have to do.
The beauty of UOPG is it's content, the writers that entertain you, and the frequency we update the front page and it's content. Ok, alot of the content is out of date, but we are trying. Real lives have a tendency of getting in the way of things. Bastards. Anyway, I digress.
We give you a pretty site to view just so it's not only informative but, you know, entertaining to the eye.
We don't have as many little neat features other people do (Pendejo, I hate you SILK! J/K Much love to you and great work man!) . But that's not the point of UOPG anyway. Our focus is to inform and every once in a while try to entertain. Even if we suck at it. We try.
Without going into a State of UOPG address, I will summarize here.
1) Bear with the big ass ads. Especially the pop ups. They are here to stay (for now I hope). It pays the bills. Click on a few of them. Heck, buy something. It goes to a good cause. Really.
2) UOPG's content is getting a major update soon. Believe it dammit.
3) UOPG is getting a MAJOR facelift. MUCH love and hugs and kisses go out to Warlord. NO Warlord, I don't do johnsons. See Redrum for that. Homosexual that he is. But, don't be mad if you have to wait in line behind Watts. Red's got it like that.
4) We are going to the UO Faire. If anyone wants to put a few people up for a couple of nights in Austin, we would be much obliged. Just a place to sleep. The dog house works for that crazy marine, Gator. I will take the couch thank you. You know how spoiled us Army pukes were/are. While we are at the Faire, we WILL convince Cynthe, Adrick, and Cal the Pal that we are worthy enough of a CONSISTANT direct line with SOMEONE at UOPG so we can get good, and correct, information out to you. If not, I got a Vanq War Hammer for dat arse.
5) If my network don't start turning a profit soon, I got to come up with my own revenue base to help support the cost of operating UOPG. And it's NOT cheap. I was hoping to start a capital base with the UOPG Store, but it's not happening. I guess the T-Shirt Store will have to get created as promised (damn me) and hopefully that will create the capital base needed to support the fees in the future.
If I had a few million in the bank (just 2, I am not greedy), UOPG would be it's own network on it's own server. Hell, I would invite other people to come play with me and have some fun. Hey, I am cool like that. People like this I would charge triple, just because I can be vindictive like that. Someday, remind me, I want to just let loose about that. Someday.
Anyway, that's it for now.
Enjoy your weekend.
I got lots of work to do myself. Pray for me.
NOTE: Gator, two posts today, no F-Words. ::head twitches a bit:: Must-control-the-urge!
Hasta. |
^ top-Rewards Info
[Nieves] August 24 - 8:37 AM EDT | Here's the latest update on Veteran Rewards (posted to FYI):
---
Due to widespread network issues, the Veteran Rewards server was unable to communicate with the Napa Valley shard for much of this afternoon. We have resolved this issue, and will be bringing the Napa Valley shard back up with the Rewards system active in just a few minutes.
Due to the high number of accounts simultaneously logging in and checking their account age, the server may become backed up, and the gump may take up to 5-10 minutes to appear. We anticipate this time will shorten considerably once the initial rush is past. Players are being asked to please wait patiently for the gump, rather than log in and out repeatedly.
IMPORTANT: Rewards are chosen per account, not per character, and are not transferable between shards once chosen. Do not accept a reward on the Napa Valley shard if you do not play on that shard regularly.
---
Kerowyn
UO.com Content Editor/Writer
This is posted mainly to give people information in case they are wondering what happened with the Rewards System on Napa yesterday. When I logged in last night, it was fine. My update (scroll down) was submitted after the date on the above email.
I wonder if Adam Ant got a Ethereal Mount. Would make it really interesting wouldn't it? GM Stealther with a mount. Joy.
Hasta. |
^ top-We Have A Winner!!
[Gator] August 24 - 7:17 AM EDT | Last nights guest update was Paladin, congrats to War Child for guessing the right answer in the forums. 5k will be delivered to you on a shard of your choice. Be prepared folks because I am gonna try to pull one of these every week. So stay tuned.
I read something scary over at uodotcom this morning. Basically a player was wheeling and dealing into some high dollar rare items. Anyways, he was told to vist a web page where a listing of the rare were available. Needless to say after visiting this site, his system crash, and his account was hacked for all its worth. A few players took a closer look at the source code of the web page. Basically the web page automatically started a download sequence all the while tapping into this and that and sending account info to a ICQ user. Luckily they got the bead on this person. The story cant be told on having a good firewall and virus files all up to speed. And watch out for shady folks, especially ones that tell you go to a site to see their items.
This off topic, but has to be told. This week I have been pulling the 5am showtime at work and I have been hitting up the Wendy's on base for breakfast at about 6am. This morning I pull up to the window. This "woman" speaks to me the standard speil, "Welcome to blah blah blah blah....". I am like Good Morning Maam, Can I get blah blah blah." Pull up to the window, the "woman" was a MAN!!! ACK!! I mean really what can you do in that type of situation, it was a complete accident that this guy sounded like a chick, and I addressed him as such. Now I probably got some loogy in my Bacon Egg & Cheese Biscuit and all because this guy most likely audtioned for the Vienna Boys Choir. Sheesh!! Dave don't put chick sounding dudes on the DRIVE-THRU!!!
So got a Loogy in your Bacon Egg & Cheese Biscuit?
Later |
^ top-Hmmm...I want this, and this, and this and ths....
[Nieves] August 23 - 9:03 PM EDT | 
Need I say anything?
Hasta. |
^ top-Guest Updater
[Gator] August 23 - 8:49 PM EDT | Now I am going to provide an update to you presented to me by a Updater of Olde. The FIRST person that can respond with the correct answer in this forum post, will get 5k on any shard. So get ready...
I just want to make a comment about the Ever Quest "quest system." First, the bonafides: I beta tested the game, I played the game at release, I just finished playing it for 3 MORE months with the expansions in place. I will now describe for you a quest that I undertook for a ghoulbane, a sword that procs DD for undead [that is EQ speak for the sword randomly casts an undead only direct damage spell when you swing it].
This one is ludicrously easy. I saddled up my level 49 wizard friend and he teleported me across the land to talk to people and kill a total of 4 critters for 4 items and combine them into yet another item to produce the ghoulbane. Total time 16 game hours or so. Yes, 16 game hours, and that's an easy quest. I crisscrossed the world of EQ 4 times to complete the quest and, since I already knew the whole thing, I did it in the optimal path.
Now, the hard quests take you weeks and weeks of camping. Camping is sitting in one spot, waiting for a certain critter to spawn, hoping he is carrying a certain item, and hoping that his placeholder spawns. Some spawns are as rare as once a day, meaning if 2 people want an item, they can only be guaranteed of getting it if they want to stay up 48 hours and hope that both times the guy appears he has the item in question.
EQ is an endless series of repetative stuff. Mobs change in appearance, but the tactics are the same, the spells are the same, just more powerful, and you have more HP, so it balances out.
Essentially levels 30+ are same thing, different day.
The quests are sometimes buggy, and mainly just annoying.
UO definitely doesn't need that.
It has what keeps a game fun, competing with other players. In EQ, he who plays the most wins. He who plays for days and weeks is the king daddy of them all.
In UO, with a modest time investment you can be a good player relatively quickly, and in 2 months can be exceptional, losing only to the truly skilled or the truly connection blessed.
People talk about coming back to UO, "even though I know it sucks." Well, yes, it has been known to suck equine reproductive organs, but it still has an element of fun to it that EQ can't match because of the ridiculous amount of time required to advance in the game.
Some EQ players will say, "EQ is SUPPOSED to be hard", but they are missing the point. Eq is so simple a 3 year old on quaaludes could play it. It's not hard, it's just incredibly drawn out and boring. They talk about the size of the game, but fail to mention the amount of content relative to the size of the game. The fact is, EQ is now, and has always been excruciatingly boring to play. Some people play it, and somehow manage to enjoy it. Some even play immense amounts of time that I can't fathom, but, unless you have the patience of Job, or really nothing better to do, just play UO for an hour or two a day, and save yourself from keyboard face when you fall asleep and smack your keyboard on the way down.
Ok folks there it is, first person to post with the correct answer wins 5k. Present Updaters are not eligible. Hey I know it isnt much but damn I am not rich on EVERY shard. Well not yet anyways. Hehe.
Later |
^ top-Damn Yankees
[Nieves] August 23 - 7:26 PM EDT |
The cut on the east coast was probably in Manhattan. Empire City Subway has been digging up all of downtown Manhattan. Today at work I experinced no internet. I called our ISP, and they confirmed there was a cut in downtown nyc.
Figures someone in New York would do something to mess up the whole world.
Thanks Moridin for this update.
Note: No F word here either Gator. And believe me, I wanted too.
UPDATE: I just had a thought.
You know what's sad? I am quicker with this information than OSI is. C'mon Cynthe! YOU ARE MY HERO(INE) GIRL! GIVE US THE INFO!
Hasta. |
^ top-Adrick Layeth The Smacketh Down....
[Gator] August 23 - 5:40 PM EDT | Someone over at the UO Forums did a survey of folks that play Seige, and in his survey it said that 93% of players on SP disapproved of Reds only receiving 1/3 of Monster Loot. So Adrick being quick and witty in his response, said this:
The fact that players dislike the 1/3 loot for murderers indicates that it is indeed a penalty - I dont know of many penalties that people would say *heck ya love it*
You get red by killing other players - this is a profitable arena to be in - to be able to kill anyone you want and not choose your tagets based on consent.
We have pretty much removed every single penalty on siege for being red - you can now go to town, you can now have friends heal you in a fight, you can bank - I mean if we removed all penalties we might as well remove colors from siege and simply let everyone attack everyone.
- Current Penalties
Vendor inflation
Cant deal with vNPC endors
1/3 loot
Attackable by anyone
Newbies dont have much loot - why wouldnt reds simply farm monsters and kill newbies anyway if the monsters gave full loot? at least this way they will have to work at the bank end of pking more and some blues might like the extra bank and killing reds over less bank :).
- Adrick
I have to say that I agree with him, I mean really, Reds have no Stat on SP, they can go into any town, I mean really, come on. I think the new changes rock. All of them from the top, down.
Later |
^ top-Er...oops.
[Nieves] August 23 - 1:57 PM EDT | From the UO.com Boards:
"We recently got word of a fiber cut somewhere on the East Coast. This is rerouting some of our traffic through Chicago and other unusual routes. You may experience some packet loss or latency until this is resolved. At this point we have no ETR."
Thanks to Gren for this update.
Someone needs to sit and think before they dig. It's not hard. Really.
Hasta. |
^ top-A Jolly Good Read
[Gator] August 23 - 12:01 PM EDT | Go give Watts some love, he wrote a beautifully orchestrated article over at The Chosen. Tired of hearing Video Games causing violence throughout the nation? So am I...
Later |
^ top-How do we drive "good quests"?
[Nieves] August 23 - 11:00 AM EDT | In EverCrack, there is a continual quest system (hence the name EverQuest) whereby you can go out and experience these "set" adventures and get to do some neato things while beating up on bad guys and then getting some neato reward.
Something we here at Ultima Online lack. I am not advocating for the implementation of a quest system like EC (EQ) in Ultima Online. I am saying that maybe we should have something alot more dynamic than a spawn of new monsters and have some new kind of item spawn on their bodies. That gets old and bores me out of my skull. That's why I had such a problem with Seers. They come in with a purple hued name, drop some "adventure hooks", hope someone is interested enough and then spawn the shit out of that area with monsters and FORCE the players to react or die. Most times, they die. Then the looters come in force...anyway, different topic. And don't get me started on Elite Guilds and their Elite Quests. ::bites tongue::
That's why the GL RP community does their own thing now. And, for the most part, are doing a kick butt job at it. Too bad too many personalities and personal feelings get involved. Get over it and play the game!
Give me a quest that is world affecting. Save Lord British, or Brittain goes to blazes. Or, give me a quest where saving the tailor's daughter gives me the ability to craft a new item in the game.
Calyndryll is doing a good job. I mean, he's TRYING. And that is what matters. He said he's learned alot from the last scenario. Well, I hope so. I really do. Even though the Savage Scenario had it's points and it was interesting with it's "story line", it was rather limiting.
What if, I wanted to stop the Savages? What if, by helping the Orcs and driving the Savages back to the Jungles of T2A, I ensure the "balance" of the Orc and Human population and keep things the way they were. The Orcs would have their fort for me to hunt and slaughter them in, and humans stay safe in the town with the Guards to instantly guardwhack them if they get to close. Joy! Then, I run into the big bad ugly Savage and his 3l33t Minions (think 13th Warrior) that she/he lays waste to my "SAVE THE ORCS" party and starts to make a bead on my town of Delucia. Oh man, now what? You see, all the Big Bad Ugly Savages wanted was the Orc Fort. Since I got in the way, my town takes the fall for my wanting to be a "hero". I could go on and on, but I hope you get the point.
And what is that point? Let me let ol' Tick at Lum The Mad tell it to you in his words:
Let me start by saying there's a difference between interacting in a game with a story behind it and being involved with the story behind a game. Interaction is fairly easy to implement; it's mostly like an electronic book where the reader gets to stand in the scene and activate each turn of the page. You keep them amused between turns of the page by letting them hack and slash on the extras. Involvement is... HARD. You put the reader of the book into the shoes of one of the characters, and you write the book as he or she goes. It's the difference between LARPing (ask Myschyf) a recreation of the Athenians trying to hold the Persians at Thermopole and being one of them. In the recreation, everyone knows what's going to happen. When the player is creating the story, the immersion is that much deeper and- get this- people care about the result.
Thank you Tick for the inspiration for this post.
SPOON!
Note: Not one F word in this post Gator. Worship me.
Someone remind me to pull up an old update on The Fall of Trinsic and what I did. I will say this much right now, I spent most of my time in Cove chasing after and running from a Golden Gazor. Punk bastage. Anyone know who it was that played that guy on Great Lakes? I want to have a talk with him.
Hasta |
^ top-Vet Rewards FAQ and TMap Issues
[Gator] August 23 - 4:55 AM EDT | The following info was posted by Cynthe on the UO Forums Development Board.
Why only Napa Valley?
We wanted to start with one shard to make sure that the hardware withstands the initial response, and Napa was a good choice due to its population size and distribution of players. We will monitor it for several days, and once we’re certain that it’s operating as it should, we’ll announce a schedule for activating the system on the other shards.
When will the other shards get rewards?
We will monitor the system closely on the Napa Valley shard the rest of this week, and once we’re certain that it’s operating as it should, we’ll announce a schedule for activating the system on the other shards.
How many rewards will I get?
Originally, each player received two reward choices once they reached their one year status, and one reward choice for every year after that. As a way to say thank you to our veteran players for their patience as we completed the system, we will be giving out an extra reward choice to all players. This means that when the system is activated, one year veterans - who would previously have been allotted two rewards - will now be eligible for three. Two year veterans will receive four, and three year veterans will be eligible for five. All players will receive this extra reward choice once they reach their one-year status. Essentially, a player can calculate the number of reward choices they are eligible to receive by adding two to the number of years they have been playing on their account.
Why are you giving out extra rewards?
We feel that our players have shown a good deal of patience as we complete the system, considering that we initially launched the system last year before taking it back down to resolve several major issues. We feel that an extra reward is a good way to say thank you for the patience of our veteran players.
Will I still get the extra reward if I already chose my rewards the first time?
All rewards that have been chosen so far will be counted in the totals, meaning that players who selected extra rewards previously will not be eligible to choose new rewards, and will not receive the extra reward choice (since they already received extra rewards when the system was first released). Players who have chosen fewer rewards than what they are currently eligible for will be allowed to choose new rewards until they have reached the total number they are currently eligible to receive (this being three choices for one-year veterans, four choices for two-year veterans, and five choices for three-year veterans). Players will not be able to choose new rewards until they are eligible for a greater number of rewards than they have already chosen. For example, a three-year veteran is currently eligible to choose five rewards. If a player has already chosen seven, then that player will not be eligible to choose another reward until they have reached their six-year veteran status, when they would be eligible for eight total reward choices.
Will I still get the extra reward if I reach one-year status after the initial release of the system?
Yes, all players will receive this extra reward choice once they reach their one-year status.
If I took extra rewards previously, can I get more next year?
All rewards that have been chosen so far will be counted in the totals, meaning that players will not be allowed to choose new rewards until they are eligible to receive more than they have already taken. For example, a three-year veteran is currently eligible to choose five rewards. If a player has already chosen seven, then that player will not be eligible to choose another reward until they have reached their six-year veteran status, when they would be eligible for eight total reward choices.
Can I choose rewards on different shards?
Rewards are allocated per account, but they do not have to be selected on the same shard. Rewards will not be transferable between shards once chosen, though, and will count towards your total, so be sure to select them on a shard you regularly play.
Are rewards given on a per character basis?
Rewards are allocated per account, not per character or per shard, so be sure to choose rewards on your regular playing shard, and not on a separate shard. Rewards will not be transferable between shards once chosen.
My account was hacked, or my rewards were stolen/disappeared. Can I choose new ones?
The database records how many rewards were taken by each account, and these are the numbers we must go by. The total number of rewards available is determined by how many rewards that account has accepted in the past, not how many is in their possession at the time.
I bought this account, and there were no rewards on it! Can I still choose rewards?
Buyers are responsible for verifying that what they are buying is what is advertised. The number of rewards taken on an account will not be wiped when an account is transferred, so it is the responsibility of the buyer to ensure that the rewards chosen are either still in the character’s inventory, or that the previous owner did not choose all the rewards they were eligible to receive. The total number of rewards available is determined by how many rewards that account has accepted in the past, not how many is in their possession at the time.
How do I figure out my account age?
For information on the Veteran Rewards system, determining account age, and a detailed listing of the rewards that will be available for one, two, and three-year veterans, see http://update.uo.com/design_350.html. If your account age listed is incorrect, please contact support@uo.com.
My account's almost 4 years old. Are there four year rewards?
There will be four-year rewards, but they are not yet complete. Any player whose account reaches four years in account age before the four-year rewards are complete must remember not to use all of their reward choices on first, second or third-year choices. We will see that this information is readily available before UO’s fourth birthday, to avoid players using their four-year reward choices before the four-year rewards are ready.
Do I have to choose all my rewards at once, or will I be given an option to choose more the next time I log in?
You do not have to choose them all at once. The gump will reappear each time you log in, on all shards, until you have chosen the number of rewards you are eligible to receive.
Will the rewards gump appear every time I log in?
Yes, the gump will reappear each time you log in, on all shards, until you have chosen the number of rewards you are eligible to receive.
Do I have to choose a first, second, and third year choice, or can I choose between the three levels however I want?
Players can choose from any level that they are eligible to receive. One-year veterans can choose only from the one-year rewards. Two-year veterans may choose from all one-year rewards, all two-year rewards, or a couple of each. Three-year veterans can choose from any level.
Are different levels of rewards worth more in reward choices?
No. For example, a two-year veteran may choose four one-year rewards or four two-year rewards. The level of reward chosen does not affect the total number of choices available.
Will rewards taken on Test Center after the system is activated count toward the total number of rewards available?
No. If rewards are chosen on a Test Shard, they will not count toward your final total of rewards chosen.
Where can I get information on the reward choices?
For more information on the Veteran Rewards system, as well as a detailed listing of the rewards that will be available for one, two, and three-year veterans, see http://update.uo.com/design_350.html.
My account age is wrong, or I can’t choose rewards. Who do I contact?
For questions regarding Veteran Rewards and determination of account age, please see the Knowledge Base at http://support.uo.com/, or mail support@uo.com.
__________________
Cynthe
Community Manager
ORIGIN Systems
That should pretty much sum up all of the questions players may have. I didnt comment much on this story yesterday, but you did notice that you will be recieving an extra award didn't you? Tell you one thing, I am HAPPY that this reward thing is almost through. Mainly because now the Dev team will be able to move on to bigger and better things than besides Pixel Crack.
This is interesting:
Someone hired me to do a level three map. He handed it to me and I double clicked it. It woudln't let me see it. It had been decoded by someone else. I have 99.5 cartography, I should have been able to dig that previously decoded level three map under the new rules but it would not allow me to see the map.
Jade THB
There is a bug with this right now - basically, the map is checking back to the person who originally decoded it instead of the person who is holding it. This means that as long as the person who decoded it is still in the area, it will work fine, but if the person is not online or in a different area server, then the map may not work.
It's a known issue, and we'll be putting a fix for it in with one of the publishes coming soon.
Sorry about that!
__________________
Cynthe
Community Manager
ORIGIN Systems
If it isnt one thing there is another, thats a good thing, gives me something to write about.
Later |
^ top-Merry Christmas Everyone
[Gator] August 22 - 6:45 PM EDT | Veteran Rewards Update
After resolving a multitude of code and hardware-related issues, we will be activating the Veteran Rewards system on the Napa Valley shard on Thursday, August 23rd at 12:00 PM CDT. We will monitor the system closely on the Napa Valley shard the rest of this week, and will begin activating the Rewards system on the remaining shards once we are certain the system is operating as it should.
We're extremely grateful to our veteran players for the patience they have shown as we complete the Veteran Rewards system, and as a way to say thank you, we'd like to offer an extra reward choice to all players on all shards who are currently eligible for a Veteran Reward. This means that when the system is activated, one year veterans - who would previously have been allotted two rewards - will now be eligible for three. Two year veterans will receive four, and three year veterans will be eligible for five. All players will receive this extra reward choice once they reach their one-year status.
All rewards that have been chosen to date will be counted in the totals, meaning that players who have chosen more than their allotted share previously will not be eligible to choose new rewards, and will not receive the extra reward choice (since they already received extra rewards when the system was first released). Players who have chosen fewer rewards than what they are currently eligible for will be allowed to choose new rewards until they have reached the total number they are currently eligible to receive. This will apply until the player is eligible for a greater number of rewards than they have already chosen. For example, a three-year veteran is currently eligible to choose five rewards. If a player has already chosen seven, then that player will not be eligible to choose another reward until they have reached their six-year veteran status, when they would be eligible for eight total reward choices.
IMPORTANT: Rewards are allocated per account, not per character or per shard, so be sure to choose rewards on your regular playing shard, and not on a separate shard. Rewards will not be transferable between shards once chosen.
For more information on the Veteran Rewards system, as well as a detailed listing of the rewards that will be available for one, two, and three-year veterans, see http://update.uo.com/design_350.html. For questions regarding Veteran Rewards and determination of account age, please see the Knowledge Base at http://support.uo.com/, or mail support@uo.com.
Can I get a WOOT WOOT? Come on LOUDER?!?! CAN I GET A WOOT WOOT?!?!
Also dont forget folks Power Hour resets for East Coast servers in about 10 Minutes, get them chars ready.
Later |
^ top-Strongboxes - Bugs On Parade.
[Lawyer] August 22 - 3:24 PM EDT | I found this posted by a great friend of mine, Relvinian, in the forums; in regards to Gator's most recent update:
"Those co-owner strongboxes are being stolen via a bug. It involves a 3rd party program which also allows you to illegally access guildstones, and kick all of the members off, change abbrev, and guild name. This happened to my guild on napa, The Resistance. The only advice I can give is to lock your doors ASAP!!"
This source is very credible, so take heed. If you have any co-owned strongboxes in your home, take everything out and put it in the bank or a secure chest for your buddy. Im sure they will understand once you explain whats going on. Its a hell of a lot better than letting some exploiting piece of shit run off with all of your goods.
I better not hear any whining when these fuckers get banned. But you know, like most before them... we will. |
^ top-Atlantic Reverted
[Nieves] August 22 - 2:57 PM EDT | Due to a faction stone issue that happened late yesterday, the Atlantic shard experienced a revert early this morning (August 22nd). To ensure that players do not lose their homes due to having refreshed them before the revert, we have refreshed all houses on the Atlantic shard one time. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
---Thanks!
Kerowyn
UO.com Content Editor/Writer
Origin Systems
Thanks Kerowyn for the info.
And I see Cynthe responded to our inquiries into the Power Hour Problem. Thanks.
To Ashen: A big fat :P. Not that he will see this anyway since we aren't 3l33t enough for him to read. Neh and DOUBLE :P
Seriousely...
Write Jinx and Watts over at The Chosen and tell those nutty bastages that we don't care what they write about. Just update dammit. No matter what they write about, it's always entertaining and informative. Besides, their updates are full of new and exciting examples of how to say "fuck you". And everyone knows I like the word: "fuck". They are my heros.
DON'T GIVE UP THE GOOD FIGHT!
JUST FIGHT THE POWER EH EH!
Hasta. |
^ top-Strongboxes Missing
[Gator] August 22 - 2:18 PM EDT | Reports are coming in that Co-Owned Strong Boxes are missing on GL. Now this doesnt mean that ALL the boxes are missing, just some of them have disappeared with all the contents included. So watch yourself. I dont know if the servers are eating the boxes, or players are bugging boxes. But some are going poof!
And finally I got a firm answer emailed directly to my box, of course it wasnt what i wanted to here, but nevertheless it was a reply:
Thank you, I have passed this on for review!
«¤»¥«¤»¥«¤»¥«¤»¥«¤»¥«¤»¥«¤»¥«¤»¥«¤»¥«¤»¥«¤»
Amy "Cynthe" Sage
Manager of Community Services
ORIGIN Systems
Thanks Cynthe, then also today she posted this info on the UO Forums:
We are aware that there is a problem causing power hour to reset at the wrong time, and we are looking into it right now.
Thanks!
The best part of the last one was that she mentioned "a problem causing power hour to reset at the wrong time". That totally made my day. The community has been heard!
Later |
^ top-Spell Changes and Avioding Scams
[Gator] August 22 - 8:21 AM EDT | Sannio recently posted the reg changes incorporated with the latest patch:
A small addition was made to the "Latest Updates" article called "Combat Damage Changes," at http://update.uo.com/design_346.html. That article now notes new reagent costs for the following four spells:
- Magic Arrow: 1 Sulfurous Ash
- Fireball: 1 Black Pearl
- Lightning: 1 Mandrake Root, 1 Sulfurous Ash
- Explosion: 1 Bloodmoss, 1 Mandrake Root
Canyon also released a nice post on how to avoid scams in UO. Trust me scamming sucks when it happenes to you. I recently lost a Lg Tower and a Two Story due to my own stupidity and trusting someone I believed I could trust on ICQ.
GM Carbon contacted me the other day, and wanted to offer some suggestions to our customers on how to avoid being scammed. His comments are very useful, and I suggest that everyone take them to heart. Carbon, thanks for providing this information. -Canyon
At some point in time in UO someone is going to try and scam you. I'm willing to guarantee it. Here are a few tips that might just help prevent that scammer from being successful.
One thing that applies to all types of deals, and might make the difference in them succeeding is their name. Write down their name exactly as it is spelled and capitalized. Also note guild titles, notoriety titles, clothing etc etc. Anything that identifies them as an individual. "His name was Steve something!" doesn't really give you much hope. Don't rely too much on journals as they scroll off pretty fast.
** House Transfers.
Your best friend when buying a house is the sextant. When the house deed appears in the trade window it is going to have sextant coordinates on it. These coordinates are for the very center of the house. So before you trade, stand in the center of the house and write down these coords for comparison. There is no reason why you can't get inside the house if they are the real owner. While standing in front of the house ready to trade have the house owner change the house sign to a name you pick. If you're confident of your sextant coords this isn't vital, but never hurts.
** Pet Transfers.
Ok, so JoeScammer is selling you a mare. Have the seller rename the mare to a name you pick, lets say Mary. Then standing in a clear area right before the trade have him say "Mary follow me". This should clarify that the mare you have in sight is the only pet he is transferring to you. Please feed your new pet right away. Did you write down JoeScammer's name first?
**Ground Trades.
You spent a month mining up 10k ingots and now that you're about to sell them you're going to save 60 seconds by just dropping them on the ground instead of trading them in a few smaller trades. As soon as your half the trade involves setting something on the ground you are essentially throwing your items away. It'll take you 1 extra minute to do 3 smaller trades for those ingots, but don't you think that minute is worth actually getting the gold? The secure trade window is there for this very reason, use it.
**Blacksmith repairs
This one is a matter of good judgement in picking a smith. Watch for smiths that are already repairing other players armour, or that has tagged items with their name on them, or titles. Really though there is no sure way to avoid picking a scammer to repair your items. Luckily though you wrote down their name, right?
**Paging tips
Ok, so after all your precautions you still got scammed. Page for a GM right away, not later. Do not tell the scammer you paged. Include the scammers name in the page and that it was a "such and such" scam. Use your message space wisely. Things like, "he suxxors" might be better used conveying info on the scam.
**Out of Guard Zone
If someone opens a gate to take you to a house they are giving you for free, and they actually do, you are the first I've heard of. Do not carry rare items to trade, or valuables other than checks or newbified/blessed items, out of guard protection. If you are trading rares for a house agree on a gold amount and trade the rares for a check for that amount, then carry that check to the house.
**Secure Trade Windows
Take the time in the window to make sure you're getting what you expect. Use an ID wand or the item ID skill, look at what you're getting. Most the time there is no reason why an item needs to be in a bag. Many scams can be alleviated by looking at how the item highlights under the cursor.
Detect hidden skill, not the spell, works 100% of the time in your house, or a house you are co-owned/friended to. This is regardless of skill. If you are unlocking an item, or stocking vendors or something similar use detect hidden. Make a macro for it so it is nice and easy to do. Let me restate this: Detect hidden SKILL works 100% of the time in your house or a house you are co-owned/friended to, even at 0.0 skill.
If the other trader is not willing to do simple things such as rename the pet, or let you in the house: drop the deal. There are a million houses and pets and this person is probably hoping to scam you.
ICQ logs, screenshots and similar out of game evidence will not help with your scam. These things are too easily falsified or inaccurate. Don't rely on them to be your saving evidence if the deal turns out to be a scam.
Most websites that are used for buying/selling UO items have a system in place for reporting scammers. Make use of that if you intend to be even a somewhat active trader.
Also, this is very important. Let's say you have a small house and you have recently discovered that you can indeed place a small tower in the spot of your small house. So you want to redeed and place your new house? First and for most ensure that your old house is properly placed. I can't state that more clearly than what I just did. If it's improper then you stand a good chance of not being able to palce there at all. Second of all, raise your Tracking skill up to about 25, I believe at 21.1 Real its just as effective. Then before you do anything with your house, use the tracking skill to see if any other players are around. At the skill I stated above you will always suceed at finding other players in your area.
Take note of everything that was just stated here....
Later |
^ top-Reflections and Changes
[Ian] August 21 - 9:54 PM EDT | After some boredom on this last night of relaxation before what I believe will be a whirlwind of life before me in the coming months, I have just finished going through some of the original Ultima games. I sit here listening to the music with some reverance. I so often criticize this game we play. Rarely do I take the time to truly marvel at it's achievment.
For you to comprehend what I'm saying I think you need to go out to your local Electronics Boutique and spend the 10 dollars on the "Ultima Collection" and see how far the game has come. Listening to the music takes me to a time when I first logged into Ultima. This wonderful world of Ettins, Dragons, and Pimp Da Killa'z. It was a much simpler time. In school, with no worries other than trying in vain to get my swords to 70. It was during this time I met some of the nicest people that one could hope to meet. C Lui, who left shortly after to play Everquest, took me under his wing and showed me how not to get pkd. My good friends, Thalsa Doom and Anthonor, feeding my pvp appetite by letting me practice non stop, 600 ping and all while going through countless regents.
The game is fun because of it's social dynamic. Somewhere along the lines alot of us have forgotten that and think that the fun to be had is hearing someone else's constant death moan, or seeing how miserable we can make someone else's experience. The beauty of the game can never truly be reached and it's sad because the blame for that lies soley on the shoulders of us, the player base. We are so consumed with ourselves we fail to see the greater vision of the game as a whole. This goes for taming, skill gain, pvp, amongst many other things. There are alot of people who care only how fast they can build a character, not what one could actually do with the character they play. I have a saying and I want all of you pvpers/elite bank sitters/master pvmers/hardcore powergaming character creators out there to listen to it. I stole this from Baja Resident of UOU. "Being the best player in UO is sort of like being in the special olympics, no matter how well you do, you're still a retard." That just means we're all in the same boat. No one is truly better than the next when it all comes down to it. I kill alot of the people I fight in pvp, but there is always someone better than me, and always someone better than them. It doesn't really mean anything to me in the end. I just love the game. It's social dynamic is one of countless, and I mean countless proportions.
The game is going through changes right now. I love changes. I love that I am dueling around with people at the farms that normally I would try and kill or who would try and kill me just for being there. We're all new to the precasting concept again. The UO:R version. True, I ripped it the other day but that doesn't mean it won't be good for the game. It just happened to rub me personally the wrong way. After a few days you see guilds getting together to work new skills, and a newness to the pvp circa. How can I not be for that? I would be a fool.
Whatever changes come our way, we invariably need to adapt and play with them. Even if we don't like them. Most of you won't remember that when UO:R came around I was actually for it, because of the change it made. While dying to 2 hit axers may have jaded me some, I realized then, and still realized that is was for the better of the game as a whole. Because of that change many new people came to play, and as a consequence money and effort was put into fixing a lot of the bugs, crashes, and other obstacles that made the game at times unplayable.
I want OSI to continue doing what they're doing. Continue to make the game fresh. Do what you can to update and fix bugs as soon as possible. Allow me to say thanks for working on a game and doing what you can to make this game fun and enjoyable for all of us non appreciative, never happy gamers. |
^ top-We're still looking into it.
[Gator] August 21 - 7:36 PM EDT | Ok, finally I got something to go on. The "Power Hour" problem was just asked about over at uodotcom, and this is what Canyon had to say:
I don't know. I've heard enough complaints and concerns to think something is going on. But I haven't seen anything officially stating there is a problem. We're still looking into it.
Earlier today I posted gains in Smithing that I had obtained during the Power Hour I usually have at lunchtime. They came out to 1.6 in gains for one hours worth of work. I just logged in my Smith again and so far in 33 minutes I have gained 2.2!! And 5 of those gains were off of failures!! Stay tuned to this post, when I am done I will be updating my gains that I am currently making. The election may be to close to call, and OSI surely wont call it, but I am saying it now... ALL POWER HOURS ARE RESETTING AT 8PM LOCAL SERVER TIME ON ALL NORTH AMERICAN SHARDS!! There I said it, don't believe me? Test it out yourself. Paul the Player may not have noticed it because everyday he logs in at 4pm and plays out his PH first then he goes hunting for mongbats south of glow. Hell this may not affect ALL PLAYERS, But if you hop on tonight right now, and work your chars Power Hour, I dont care if you worked it 2 hours ago, YOU WILL GAIN. Run along and check it you will see.. More to come...
Later
UPDATE: Ok folks I finished up my REAL POWER HOUR now, and here are the results. I kicked it off at 8pm Local Shard Time and gained a total of 3.5!! This was far better than what I gained eariler during what was supposed to be my real power hour. I gained a whole whopping 1.6 earlier today. I used a total of 2621 ingots and went from 87.9-91.4. Which gave me an average gain of .1 every 74 Ingots!! Earlier at lunchtime my average was 204!!! So folks reset them clocks, POWER HOUR STARTS AT 8:00PM LOCAL SHARD TIME!!!
Later, really I mean it this time... |
^ top-Port 5000 Change
[Phazer] August 21 - 6:44 PM EDT | I just noticed the latest update (also see Gator's post below - EDIT: oops, looks like it just disappeared in digital hell) on Update Center, and this is great news for me, and I'm sure a lot of other Roadrunner/AT&T/Mediaone users.
For those of you not affected by this, and not reading the Connectivity board, some braindead network monkey in roadrunners network center decided to block port 5000 - used by UO clients to connect to the servers - to slow down a variation of CodeRed.
This means I can only connect to my main shard, Lake Superior, about 1 out of 10 times, and not at all to most of the other shards.
Thank you OSI for fixing roadrunners fuckup ;)
-phazer |
^ top-Thrown For A UOLoop
[Gator] August 21 - 6:38 PM EDT | For those out there that use the nifty UOLOop Program please take note that it is indeed illegal. Canyon, the Player Relations Guru just posted this:
For now, UO Loop is still considered illegal because it is not an approved program listed on our UO Pro page. Until it receives official approval, it should be considered illegal, and players should not use it. I've forwarded along the main thread on this issue to QA as well as the Live Team, so they can see your feedback.
The Live team could always choose to approve it at a later date. However, at this time it is still an illegal program.
Keep in mind that it would be almost impossible to test every single utility or program that players put out. Every main program might have several variations, and those could always be changing. If the Live team were focused on evaluating these programs, they would have less time to add new content and fix existing coding issues. It's a tradeoff, and evaluating all of these programs is not high on the priority list.
Canyon
So there is still hope, though I seriously doubt that program will be approved. So be careful, you have been warned...Canyon also posted this in reference too gating:
There are certain checks in the game code that do not prevent players from being gated into houses. In theory, anyone gated into a house that is not friended should be immediately kicked outside. However, that no longer happens.
Gating players into your house in order to pk or steal from them is not acceptable. When we have instances of this, GMs will attempt to educate the player first. If players ignore the warning and continue, their account will be penalized.
So there you have some more info to brighten your day.
Later |
^ top-FYI
[Gator] August 21 - 6:00 PM EDT | This just added to FYI:
In the past, the Ultima Online servers have utilized port 5000 for
connections. Because some ISPs have begun blocking that port, some players
have been experiencing difficulty connecting to Ultima Online. To resolve
this issue, we will be discontinuing the use of port 5000, and will continue
to accept connections on ports 5001-5010.
These changes will be applied to the Test Center 4 shard this afternoon
(August 21st, CDT). Barring any unexpected issues, the port changes will
be
added to the Siege Perilous shard on August 22nd CDT, to be active following
its next scheduled maintenance period. Once we are certain the changes are
working properly, they will be enabled on all remaining shards. We apologize
for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Later |
^ top-Well Technically It's Not Broke...
[Gator] August 21 - 5:10 PM EDT | Last week I was on a nice well earned vacation, paid by you all the gracious taxpayers of America. Well actually I paid for my own vacation because I am a taxpayer as well. I didn't go anywhere though, I just took some time to relax, so I had some pretty damn good UO time. For everyone that plays that is still in school, u suck. I wish I could play like that, even if its just for the summer. Anyways, one night during power hour on my miner/smith the shard went down. In fact 8 shards went down. Well the Miner/Smith I have noticed most of my problems with PH on was logged on one of those shards. It was the shard of Catskills. Today I found this nice discussion.And here is a quote from that very article, though its not from a OSI Employee, still searching for that diamond in the rough. But regardless, it does clear up some info.
several people are experiencing power hour problems, someone suggested that those 8 shards taken down for early maintenance the other night have had their ph's reset at 8pm instead of midnight.
See I am not crazy.
See I am not crazy.
Post your Power Hour problems here. Even tell me if you were logged in that night the lights went out on most of the American Shards, I believe it was last Thursday.
Later |
^ top-The more things change, the more they stay the same.
[Epyon] August 21 - 12:12 PM EDT | UO hasn't changed...at least not like I thought it would.
The very first thing I noticed and very much so to my joy was the fact that you use scissors once on cloth, and thats it. You don't have to click over and over and over..I almost weep out of pure joy.
I proceded to buy some equip and headed out for the Jhelom fighter pits. Garbed in full studded I equipped the axe into Quattro's hand and started my life anew on Baja.
Just a quick few things I want to note.
1) Power hour isn't broke..I went from 91 tacts to 96 tacts in one hour..id say thats far from broke.
2) Is on a more personal note, id like to give a big thanks to all of those who have offered assistence with my return to the game. Its much appericated.
3) I will continue my game reviews and will expand into computer games now as well..by thursday ill have a review for the new shooter Max Payne.
Finally, Baja has some of the nicest people ive met(so far). In times past when I would attack a npc in the pits some people would get quite upset, they really don't care...give yourself a pat on the back Baja.
-Epyon
|
^ top-Power Hour Problem Continues, OSI Speechless
[Gator] August 21 - 11:49 AM EDT | Ok folks like I promised I worked Smithing again today at lunchtime to see if indeed my Power Hour had reset last night at midnight like it's supposed to. Let's recap my gain findings over the past few days:
Saturday
Logged in on Saturday afternoon in what I believe was my Power Hour to GM my mining skill. I quickly went from 99.8-GM. This was right around 2-4PM eastern. At 6:09PM I said what the hell and decided to do some out of Power Hour Smithing work. I began with 28826 Ingots and a skill of 31.9. I worked making daggers until about 6:59PM and gained a total of 10.2 to get my skill up to 42.1, all the while burning about 557 Ingots. At this time I changed over to making Cutlass’s. I made these from 6:59PM until 8:29PM. At 8PM I did notice some better gains than usual, but I figured it was because I was being more successful. I went from 42.1 to 58.5 during this entire time period. I was amazed at how well I was doing and so far I had only used about 2016 ingots while gaining a whopping 16.4 Points!! At this time I switched over to Scimitars to see if my luck would continue, it did. From 8:29PM till 919PM I went from 58.5 to 65.8, for a gain of 7.3. At this time I did notice that my gains slowed down a lot… That’s because I am damn sure from 8-9PM I was in PH!! Read on. So far total ingot usage was 3155. I then started making Katana’s and Kyrss’s at 9:19PM to see if my incredible gains for the night would continue, they didn’t (go figure) and I stopped at 10PM to go do some PvP. During this time period I did gain an additional 4.5 to go from 65.8-70.3. So overall I was pleased, in 4 hours I had gained a total of 38.4 Points of Smithing skill. And only burned 4152 Ingots in the process for an average gain of .1 per 11 Ingots used!
Sunday
At midnight after my PvP adventures were over I hopped right back on with my Smith at 12:57AM. Immediately I started making Spears and gained from 70.3-73.6 the Entire Power Hour. That just wasn’t quite right. Earlier that evening in my last hour of work I had gained 4.5!!! And that was out of Power Hour!! And here I am with a whole 3.3 Gain!!! With 3330 Ingots used!?! BAH!
Sunday Morning I tried again from 10:59-11:59 and only squeaked out a 5.4 so this was better overall. I used about 2895 Ingots and went from 73.6 to 79.0 Skill.
Monday
Good ole Monday. I logged in at 11:37AM and got to work. Take Note that on Sunday Night I didn’t use this character!!! From the moment I logged in until 12:37PM I gained a total of 3.7 to get to 82.7 skill. Now Sunday Night I did log in with this character for a little bit to do some mining and whatnot. So I may have cut into Power Hour some if indeed it did reset at 8PM like my theory says it currently is.
So after seeing some very enormous gains out of my Warrior Monday evening, which happened to fall between 8-9PM I decided to try out smithing again to see what I could do. So Smithing I did, last night I smithed from 9:03PM-10:03PM and gained a total of 3.6 points which wasn’t too shabby for that particular skill level. I burned a total of 3103 Ingots during this period.
Tuesday
Which brings us to today. I log in at 11:00AM and got started. I burned through a total of 3235 Ingots and gained a total of 1.6!!! I went from 86.3-87.9 Skill.
Last night when I rolled with the 3.6 gains I had an average gain of .1 every 86 Ingots. Today I experienced a gain of .1 every 202 INGOTS!!!
Folks that is all the info I have. Is Power Hour Resetting at 8PM on all shards now? I can’t honestly say that it is, I have no factual information, and all I have is the numbers. Has anything offical come out from OSI on this ongoing problem? Nope. Some of you may believe there isn't a problem. But do this, play your character at say 9-11PM. Keep track of any gains you might get, then at your server reset, see what kinda of gains you get during PH. If you only log your character in once a day for an hour just to work PH, then you probably wont notice a problem.
Something is definitely amiss in Sosaria, mainly PH missing its standard update time...
Later |
^ top-I know it's late but...
[Nieves] August 21 - 11:17 AM EDT | The items that were listed in Testing for the Next Update and published
to
the Baja shard last week (treasure map changes, tutorial/Haven changes,
and
combat changes), were published to all remaining shards on Sunday, August
19th. This publish became active on the East and West Coast shards following
their Monday morning maintenance period, and will become active on the
European and Asian shards following their scheduled Tuesday morning
maintenance period. These changes have now been added to Latest Game
Updates.
Figures. I got this last night and it was added on Sunday Evening.
Hasta. |
^ top-We're Sorry....
[Gator] August 21 - 6:29 AM EDT | I have been tracking the thread that Nieves has posted about below me, and well it has gotten interesting. The major complaint within the thread was that there was no indication or warning of the new patch. And well needless to say if you didnt read l337 web sites or uodotcom, then you would have had no idea that a publish to the shards was completed. And even then, uodotcom never posted anything about the publish until 10 hours after the publish was already done. Well, I could see how the palyers would be frustrated over this sort of thing. And so does Cynthe:
*settles down for a good meal of crow*
Well, I suppose I could try to come up with some convincing reasons for the late notice, but they'd all be rubbish... the fact is that the publish was passed by QA faster than I had previously anticipated, and I was out of town Thursday and Friday.
Sannio and Kerowyn stepped up and took on multiple issues on their own, and Calandryll was available to help out with major issues... but this is something that I had not prepared for before I left, and it slipped through until today.
We are working to improve our notification methods, but this one fell victim to too much going on, and a momentary short-handed state of the department.
I'm sorry.
__________________
Cynthe
Community Manager
ORIGIN Systems
Ok I forgive ye, only because you folks have done some kickass things lately.
On that note, whys everyone bitchin? True, Pre-Cast is back, but is nothing without Insta-Hit. But still it adds something more to PvP. SP is gonna go back old style on jou Azz and then some. Why all the sudden changes to PvP? SP? PvM? Magic? RP Scenarios?
Why?
Because someone woke up and smelt the coffee.
About 50% of the player base enjoys PvP, whether it be through Factions, O/C, Guild Warfare, RP/Guild Warfare, or good ole peekayin. And out of that 50% about 99.9999% knew that PvP suXXoRed. "Bring back Pre-Casting.." and "Pre UO:R Shard" have been screamed out for at least a year now. Folks were getting tired, people were leaving, and finally OSI woke up and said hey lets fix PvP. Cha-Ching. Now dont mistake what I am saying here, I am NOT saying PvP is fixed. I am saying that they are working to improve it. And that is all that matters.
SP, was the veteran shard. Then they went through and nerfed the hell out of it. But now they have learned from there mistakes and are going back through with an un-nerf. And from what it sounds like the new SP will be better than ever. Die Hard SPers have been crying out forever to see this change made. And now it is coming true. Personnaly I think after the Nerf the population on that shard dropped dramatically and OSI saw that is something wasnt done, they were gonna have to shut her down.
RPers have been enjoying the benefits of the new scenarios, which has alos incorporated the abilities and talents of craft makers Sosaria wide. The market has enjoyed the availabilty of new items, whether made or found in game. And RPers have gotten the chance to enjoy a whole new story line running strong.
Magic casters have seen some new changes. The nerfing of BS was something that should have been done loooong ago. Thats right I support the hell out of it. Spell changes have also been pretty nifty, now if they could just polish up those 8th circle bubbas some we would be making some money.
PvM has seen a change most recently. Not only with the advent of new creatures found within the scenarios. But also through the addition of special attacks with two-handed weapons. This makes so much sense. Why are you allowed to do something within the PvP environment but cnat recreate the same special attack within PvM? That makes no sense. Well done on adding the special attacks.
This may sound like a "State of UO" speech. But alot of good things have been happening. Is UO perfect? Not hardly, but I think UO and OSI have posed themselves to be around for a little while longer than what anyone has ever expected.
Later |
^ top-A very upset Player.
[Nieves] August 20 - 9:23 PM EDT | They snuck it on us again, and Talbot isn't happy.
Go read what he has to say about it. I found it VEDDY INTERESTING. Of course, Adrick had to come and put on the spankage. YOU GO ADRICK! (scroll down to his post).
Oh, before I forget. I got word of two rumors. One a strong one, the other just dust in the wind. 1) Lowering of Mana Requirements for certain spells. 2) Lowering of the insta-hit requirement to 75Dex. I will let you hash out which one is which in regards to "strength" in the rumor and truth departments.
Hasta. |
^ top-Power Hour Observations
[Gator] August 20 - 9:22 PM EDT | Well I ran some different trests today and here is what I experienced overall. OSI has yet to state anything, hell even acknowledge that fact that there "may" be a problem with the "Power Hour" on the servers. Well I tried to find some proof in the pudding and here is what I experienced overall today.
I logged on at lunch today and did some smithing work. During this period I spent about 2861 ingots making Plate Arms, Gloves, Helms, and Female Plate. I went from a skill of 73.6-82.7 overall. Total gain was 9.1 overall with a average ingot usage of 31 ingots per .1.
This afternoon I logged in a Brand New Melee character at 4pm. Immediately I started buying up and working his stats. By 530 I was done with the stats and found a warrior to beat on. I had roughly 32 Fencing when I started. I was gaining pretty decently up until 8pm server time. At this time I was 85 fencing, by 9pm server time I was GM. In one Hour I raised my fencing skill 15 points. Sounds like a Power Hour to me, but I was logged on at 4pm? Why didnt I use the hour then?
I hopped on with my Smith (again) at 10pm server time. This hour I spent 3103 ingots making Plate Gloves, Helms, Arms, Gloves and Legs. I was gaining occasionally on failures. And overall I went from 82.7-84.8 for a total gain of 3.6. Average ingot usage was 86 ingots per .1.
Tommorow at lunch I will log on again to see how it goes overall with my Smith. So is PH starting at 8pm on the shard I was playing? Or was the 15 points of Fencing in one hour a freak occurance? Sure my smithing gains tonight werent great, but they werent bad either. Something smells fishy...
Later |
^ top-As if it wasn't easy enough killing Liches...
[Nieves] August 20 - 7:52 PM EDT | From email: 2h special moves now work on monsters! I've been whacking earth eles with my hammer of vanq all days, and getting plenty of crushing blows... This will be very handy with axes versus lich lords, dragons, and other such mana heavy creatures.... one whack halves their mana!
::sighs::
Where is the challenge in...nah, never mind.
Hasta. |
^ top-More Changes
[Gator] August 20 - 5:11 PM EDT | Well the latest update has once again brought upon surprises that were never announced. Starting equipment has been increased more than what is normal, this of course was announced as part of the New Player/Haven Changes. To test this new system I made a newb with Magery, Healing, and Lockpicking, just to see what kind of starting equipment the UO gods would give me. And right on the money I ended up with the following items:
30 of each reg
Spell Book already preloaded with 3 of each 1-4 circle spells
Standard Three First Circle Scrolls
20 Lockpicks
30 Bandaids
and the Standard 1000 Gold
Interesting eh?
Also Sulphorus Ash is now spawning in the wilds of Britania, this is a feature that players have been calling out forever. Why do seven of the 8 regs spawn, but one doesnt? Makes no sense. Well my campers it is all coming together now.
Don't be surprised when you go to Entice an NPC within the guardzone of Trammel and you arent allowed to do it. Any negative action whatsoever within city limits against a player or NPC is no longer allowed. This part of the update was noted on UO's Website. Also while training with the Jhelom Fighters, you have to be out of a guard zone. I accidentally ran back into the zone and noticed that I was neither dealing or taking damage from the NPC. But also my gains had totally froze up until I ran back "out of bounds". Once out of the guard zone, the damage continued and my gains returned.
So far that is all I got, but if I get more, of course I will be letting you know of those "new" changes.
Oh and still no word yet on the whole Power Hour fiasco. Which is really starting to disgruntle me. See they made Power Hour with the whole purpose of providing players a specific time to gain skills with maximum efficency and yet, here we are, its all jacked up and we get no word about it. With all the great things OSI has done as of late, this may scar their record. And personally thats a record that doesnt need any more scarring. ::cough::Vet Rewards::cough:: ::cough::Name Change Deeds::cough:: ::cough::Factions::cough:: ::cough::New Housing::cough:: ::cough::Necromancy::cough::
Whew glad I got rid of that congestion.
UOPOWERGAMERS always bringing to you the latest and greatest ground breaking info. Hey thats why we get paid the big bucks. ::Lays out hat for donations::
Later |
^ top-Milking The Chest For All Its Worth...
[Gator] August 20 - 12:37 PM EDT | On a previous update my good pal Lawyer posted some info on the new treasure chest changes, check it:
Posted by Ignatz on UOboards:
"Also you won't be able to leave the used map in the chest any more, because you won't be able to add any objects to the chest."
Update by Lawyer on 19 Aug 2001: "Now this is not a very powerful change to the game, but it does effect those people who enjoy milking higher level map spawns (read:me). All this change does is lower the overall loot a group can recieve from a T-Map. Joy."
Well, well, well, never fear my Powergaming friends, becuase today Ignatz released a little info on this Time Honored THuntin Tradition. Say that 5 times really fast:
Time Honored THuntin Tradition
Time Honored THuntin Tradition
Time Honored THuntin Tradition
Time Honored THuntin Tradition
Time Honored THuntin Tradition
Anyways:
Actually, in this case, I specifically made sure the extra treasure chests guardians could still be called up before making the "can't add items" change.
To accomplish this, all you need do is attempt to move one of the items in the treasure chest. Yes, the item will snap back to it's original position, but it will still trigger the check to spawn an extra guardian... whether or not the item actually changed locations doesn't matter in this case. (By the way, this guardian spawn check will also happen when you remove an item, same as it always has)
The guardian spawn check itself is unchanged... with the same chance to spawn a guardian and the same limits on the maximum number of them.
Iggie
YIPPIE KI YAY!! wOOt. Damn is it just me or are them OSI fellas getting smarter and smarter by the update?
Ohh and a little Power Hour update. Well no word yet, but alot more folks are coming out of the woodwork with PH Gain Problems. Much to the surprise of there fellow uodotcom boardites that respond to their gaining woes with:
"nOOb a$$ whin3r, now you know what it felt like to gain skillz Pre-UO:R. wAAAAAAAAA now you cant make yur l33t 2 pOw3R oUr mAgE"
Um like does that mean shit or what? The really funny part is that the folks saying that probably never seen a day of Pre-UO:R in their life. Sheesh. And don't make me get started on the UOAssist thread they got going over there...
Later
|
^ top-Some interesting tidbits from Stratics/UO.com
[Nieves] August 20 - 10:02 AM EDT | Hmmm...I likes me some Canyon. Shall we begin?
Being in the Minax or Shadowlord factions, and therefore being Evil, does not mandate you be red first, nor will you turn red just by joining up; you will not become red by being Evil, but you will become red if you receive enough murder counts to turn you red. In this way it is the repercusions of your actions that turn you red, not your affiliation.
So no worries mate. Just join up and be good, or bad.
Both running onto steps and using water barrels are considered legal. They are part of the placement competition, and GMs will not intervene.
There you have it. Regulus, I hope you are seeing this. I got your answer (if you haven't seen it already).
I expect GMs to put forth a reasonable attempt to answer a question that is asked of them. They should not be jumping to conclusions about questions, nor should they give you an answer that barely relates to your question. There are certainly times when a GM won't be able to answer a question, but I do expect them to at least explain why they can't answer you. Players ask some questions we can't answer, but the GM should still give a satisfactory reason as to why the question can't be answered.
So, the typical GM responses don't cut it anymore. :) Get 'em Canyon!
If a GM is not paying attention to the question, or gives an answer that obviously does not answer the question, that needs serious improvement.
Hmmm...no more 1/2 ass service for juus baby!
Finally, having hero/evil items are fine these days. Back in the old days, only heroes could have hero items, and evil characters could have evil items. Now, it's fine to buy, sell, or trade them.
I see a new Rares Market opening up. Great. More UO stuff on E-Bay.
hasta |
^ top-Morning Full of News
[Nieves] August 20 - 9:07 AM EDT | 1st circle spell Magic Arrow now uses Sulphurous Ash instead of Black Pearl and Nightshade
3rd circle spell Fireball now uses Black Pearl instead of Black Pearl and Sulphurous Ash
4th circle spell Lightning now uses Mandrake Root and Sulphurous Ash instead of Black Pearl, Mandrake Root and Sulphurous Ash
6th circle spell Explosion now uses Blood Moss and Mandrake Root instead of Black Pearl, Mandrake Root and Sulphurous Ash
Veddy Interesting. I can't wait for Great Lakes to get the spell changes. It's going to make mages a bit more fearsome. I think I will drop Poisoning on my Nox mage and pick up Wrestling (he's GM Scribing and Alchemy right now). From what Ian says, you can use Harm to finish a Dragon. If that's the case, then he should be able to continue to own those pesky Jackers. And I hear Harm is easier to cast than Mindblast and Energy Bolt.
A quick note on PvPing in Buc's Den. 1) Don't flag grey 2) Don't go alone if you are going to flag grey. 3) If in doubt, see #1.
This munchnut decided to get in the way of a Treasure Chest hunt a friend of mine was conducting for some folks. I convinced him he had to leave. Unfortunately, a Mage decided to kill me while I was convincing the "beer man". Luckily, the internet is a very fast communication device and some guild members showed up to rescue me (MY HEROES!) and allow me the opportunity to relieve the offending party of his items.
Hasta. |
^ top-Power Hour Broke?!? EGADS!
[Gator] August 20 - 8:06 AM EDT | Ok, I have been hearing some rumors about PH resetting earlier or later than usual. The other night I was working some smithing, in what I believed was out of power hour. It was around 8pm server time, and I worked till about 10pm. During this time I raised my smithing from 32-70.1. All the while only using about 2500 ingots. I had already used that days power hour earlier in the day to GM my Mining. When I logged on at midnight to work my new power hour with Smithin, I only gained a whopping 3.1 using about 5k ingots. I wasnt gaining off fails or anything. This all ahppened on Saturday night. Also last night I did some minor lockpicking work around 8pm. I had already used this guys PH earlier as well, but still managed a gain of .1 last night just foolling around. Me theory is this, Power Hour is resetting 4 hours earlier than normal. Any confirmation on this?
Discuss Here
Later |
^ top-New server publish..
[Phazer] August 20 - 7:55 AM EDT | Well, Lakesuperior also received the patch.
I played around with the new uber-spell damage for a while, but I'm still undecided what my mages next template is going to be.
I love the treasure map changes, you can finally tell what level maps you have. I'd log in and macro my cartography up another point, but for some reason the login server just decided not to accept any passwords.
-phazer |
^ top-Changes
[Ian] August 20 - 7:01 AM EDT | The latest patch was just released to Chesapeake. I'm not sure if any other shards have been patched as well.
The best thing to come of it so far is that I'm finishing off dragons with harm on my bard.
More to come I'm sure. |
^ top-T-Map and SP changes: The Flipside.
[Lawyer] August 19 - 12:29 PM EDT | You know, its great to come back after a couple of months and see some pretty significant and real upcoming changes to Ultima Online. I half expected the game to accelerate it's downward spiral while I was gone. I was wrong.
Since I have nothing better to do when im bored than lurk on those happy happy UOboards, I bring to you two small changes that were not included with OSI's initial update descriptions.
Posted by Ignatz on UOboards:
Also you won't be able to leave the used map in the chest any more, because you won't be able to add any objects to the chest.
Now this is not a very powerful change to the game, but it does effect those people who enjoy milking higher level map spawns (read:me). All this change does is lower the overall loot a group can recieve from a T-Map. Joy.
Posted by Sannio on UOboards:
During previous iterations of the "Rate Over Time" (ROT) system, the ROT rules only applied to certain skills. This update will apply ROT to all skill advancements on the Siege Perilous shard.
Now this is OSI dropping the bizzomb on you once again. I just dont understand it, RoT was a relatively effective tool that governed character advancement. Then they took it out, in order to promote SP to the "un-hardcore". Now they are putting it back in. I personally believe RoT was a major influence on SP, one of the defining factors. Now they are putting it back in, but royally fucking it up. Its a case of OSI making a classic move and fixing something that isnt broken - also known as fucking up. RoT was designed to differentiate between time-resource and material-resource based skills. It capped the gain on time-resource skills but allowed resource-based skills, such as trade skills, to raise as much as your resources allowed. Now everything is on the RoT system, and it looks as if new merchants will be far and few between. I would much rather jump on SP right now before RoT is put back in, make a multiple GM dex gimp in a couple of days, and make more money in one day than a new merchant can in a month. God bless OSI, they never stop surprising me.
Moral of the story: If you are a Siege vet and plan on coming back when the new changes come in, remember RoT has changed and dont be too surprised when it takes you a couple of months until you can actually make the good shit.
Comments? |
^ top-Take Precasting Back Biyotch. But Thanks Anyway.
[Ian] August 17 - 3:53 AM EDT | Ok. With all due respect to my friend Arcadien. He doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about concerning precasting. I've never read something so wrong, and completely without factual content or knowledge of a particular situation come from any Lum updater. Yes, including Myschief. Note to Arc: Stick with the stuff you know, which is anything not related to UO pvp. Kthx.
Ok let's just dispel one myth right now. Precasting is not coming back in the way it left. The ability to precast means absolute dick without an instant hit. And for those hybrids that want to do the 80 70 75 Stat template. Let me be the first to say HAHAHAHAHAHA *Des Sanct* You've got to be fucking kidding me. With that Curse I just lowered your str to 69 your int to 60 and your dex to 65. (That varies with the new hp system) That means you're going to die in 3 ebolts to me while failing on your instant hit. The only way this character will be fun to play is if you are fighting another "Hybrid." (See: Sucker ass chump)
Let's take another look at this. UO:R MOTHERFUCKING POS AXER's are going to now have the ability to precast cure and or heals and then double click and follow. Thank you ever so much OSI for making the games most powerful EVER character, even MORE powerful. Mages are not better off by this change. They are being bent over yet again. This is nothing more than a scheme/gimic to get older players back in the game or an attempt by OSI to be able to tell their players "Hey, we listen to you, we brought back precasting." Like FUCKING HELL you did. You bastardized it. I went on test and dueled with my normal template 95/95/35 stats. 7x gm mage. The only difference was I played a Scribe/Heal for my 6th and 7th. In 2 hours of duels I didn't lose once to any sort of hybrid whatsoever. I never even came close to dying. Not once. This does not mean I roXXor. It means that hybrids are a fucking joke wether they have completely balanced stats or more traditional stats.
The only good precasting dueling template is the archer template. Precast poison and arm your weapon. But guess what I'm precasting if I see you precast that? Yeah.
In conclusion pvp is not taking a turn for the better. I do admit that it is -fun- fighting as a hybrid against other hybrids. But you just won't get that much of that on a production shard and honestly, dueling isn't something that means well, anything anymore. Nowadays if you want to duel you have to build a completely seperate character for dueling. I can just see it now. "Dude, duel my secondary, once removed 3lit3 dueling char and I'll k1ck y0 azz n00b."
Thanks but no thanks. I'll most likely be to busy running from an axer.
|
^ top-HORSES TO THE LEFT!
[Nieves] August 16 - 11:13 PM EDT | From Sannio:
No, it's not griefing. Nor is using silver, magic, or pets in the bone knight room. That spot is a hotbed of problems, and players too often think anyone not standing in line is a griefer.
The question was this: ok Im at trammel bk room attempting to get some wrestling, when I move to the right tile , people start getting mad and say "keep griefing" and stuff to me (If you sat at the bk room for an hour you'd get 12 people banned from harassment lol)
Anyhow , is it griefing to stand in a tile that a player dosnt tell you to in the bk room?
Because I was on a horse they were getting all angry-- I dont think this is griefing but I'd like to ask anyhow
So, if I don't move, I am griefing you in the BK room?
Look, let's get something straight. Granted, the BK Room Wall Concept is designed for one thing: To maximize skill gain. The actual BK Room wasn't designed with skill gain in mind. It was a place where a certain monster type spawned continuously. Then people figured out you could gain with BKs/SKs in that area and started using it.
If you go to The Wall and it's not working properly, don't waste your time yelling at folks to move or to "get in line" or even to "do the right thing". Leave. That's right. Leave. You are going to waste your power hour, make yourself not enjoy your time, and maybe get frustrated. And I don't know about you, but I ain't wasting my 1 penny that power hour on these dick heads (it costs .013 for one hour of UO in a month without factoring in scheduled down times. That makes it 1.4/hour).
Go find a Paladin/Ranger and lure them to a quiet spot. Hit the Harpy Room. Hit Jhelom. Or go to the City of Dead and lure a BK. Fuck trying to make people "conform". This is UO. People don't conform, they do what they want.
And um...ROT is coming back to Siege. Shit. Time to finish my char on that shard NOW. :p
An excerpt-These changes include Stats changes, ROT, the Hero/Evil system, NPC training, Taming, and other items. [...]
“Red” characters will be allowed in all towns. Guards will not kill them on sight, but will kill them if they perform any criminal acts. It will still be a criminal act to heal a red within town, but it will not be an act which guards could be called for. Reds will also be attackable by anyone while in town—faction enemy, “red” character, or otherwise.
Yah, you saw it. And I HIGHLY recommend ALL Siege Players read the changes that are proposed. The shard is going to be THE Veteran shard. Personally, I think this is a good thing for the most part. Why? They are saying: "we are going to support Siege and are going to keep it as the Veteran Shard for Ultima Online". No more newbie bullshit for juus guys!
Anyway...first Precasting, now ROT. What's next?
Hasta. |
^ top-Precasting has gone live.
[Nieves] August 16 - 11:04 AM EDT | Don't believe me? Read Arcadian and UONewbie's latest posts.
OSI snuck it in on the last patch we got. I was wondering what that patch was that hit the computer as my gf logged in. I actually missed that one.
Anyway, here are a couple of quotes:
Arcadian
The precasting beta test has ended, and it is now a live feature on the Baja shard (according to UONewbie.com - take that for what it is worth to you). God Bless you, Developer Obi-Erkel. You're our only hope.
UONewbie
You saw it here first on UONewbie (look below). Baja now has the precasting and strength patch. This is yet another example of how much power the players have, and how little they really should have. It took literally years of petitioning, but they did it, they brought back precasting, byotch.
Expect to see alot of new Medwarrior/Eval Warrior-Fencers soon.
A few things I wanted to note on UONewbie's website. He uses a white background! ::smirks:: All of you "UOPG Purists" wouldn't let me! Bleh. Anyway, he's a sort of UOPG type website with UO "Powergaming" information and states:
PLEASE NOTE, ALTHOUGH WE POWERGAME, WE DO NOT USE EXPLOITS THAT MAY HINDER THE EXPERIENCE FOR OTHERS. UON IN NO WAY CONDONES BUG EXPLOITATION. IF ANY METHODS HERE ARE BELIEVED TO BE DAMAGING EXPLOITS THAT ARE BANNABLE OFFENCES, PLEASE CONTACT THE UONEWBIE WEBMASTER AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!
Hmm...
Nice...but, I found some "iffy" information in one of his essays. Someone email those folks and tell them to review their essays.
He's got great information, but...well, I won't disprespect someone's effort.
To UONewbie, nice site. Keep up the great work.
In other news: Epyon is back. Go say hi to him in the Forum :D WOOT!
Also, give Game Terror some love today. I feel kind of bad as I told Warlord I would do somethings for him and I haven't been able to lately. Sorry Warlord. Life's been busy.
Oh, dang, almost forgot. Arcadian at Lum's pointed out a proposal for Enchanting Weapons on the UO Boards. One of the best to date. And, I do agree with Arcadian about the use of Gems in enchanting an item. Maybe scale the Gem needed to what's going to be made. IE-Force = Ruby, Vanq = Diamond. And require like 250 of each gem. Go ahead, cry. "That's too many gems". Jeesuz, it's NOT hard to gather gems. Spend an hour killing liches. You will see.
Hmmm...Epyon came back to UO and Galahad is coming back soon. ::looks at Watts, Jinx and Cloud:: You know you wanna.
Hasta. |
^ top-PvP Macros
[Ian] August 15 - 6:01 PM EDT | I've gotten a lot of emails from people who simply want to know what my PvP macros are. I've avoided putting them up because they're not really "scientifically" set up . I can't see as how anyone would be better off changing their macros to the following. But for those who asked, here you are.
F1=Poison
F2=Greater Heal
F3=Recall
F4=Cure
F5=Explosion
F6=Flamestrike
F7=Teleport
F8=Ebolt
F9=Mindblast
F10=Paralyze
F11=Small Heal
F12=Drink Greater Heal Potion
`=Clumsy
\=Harm
]=Weaken
[=Feeblemind
;=Stun Punch
Insert=Arm
Delete=Disarm
Home=Target Self
End=Arm Alternate
Page up=Drink Cure Potion
Page Down= Target Last
Space Bar=Open Doors
MouseWheel Up= Bandage Self
MouseWheel Down= Drink Total Refresh
I don't use Alt+keys in PvP. All of the icons in this picture are easily double clicked, and none are any that I couldn't live without if I had to.
I don't recommend you put your list as such exactly. There are some quirky setups that I've had since my first days of playing and I'm just completely comfortable with them. Witness my Teleport right in the middle of my FS and MB macro. But, you all asked and so you have recieved. |
^ top-W00T!
[Eric] August 15 - 3:35 PM EDT | I'm loving this:
It will now be possible for players to reach 100.0 in cartography through creating world maps as well as through decoding treasure maps (previously, a player could only reach a skill of 98.5 through creating world maps).
That was just added to the "In Testing For Next Update." Cool. It's about time they did something about that. With that said, get ready, because you'll soon (I don't know how soon) be able to GM what has appeared to be a near impossible skill to GM.
Nieves Note: It's in Testing for Next Update. It's not on a production shard (I.E.- Great Lakes) yet.
Hasta.
Eric's Note: I did mention that it is in Testing for Next Update, but I guess I got ahead of myself writing, "With that said, go out and GM your cartographers...it's no longer impossible to do." [I corrected my original post.] Thanks for pointing that out, Nieves.
Cya later.
|
^ top-Siege by Nate
[Nieves] August 15 - 3:05 PM EDT | So you want to start on SP but have no funds? So you want to start on SP but have no friends? Reading this guide will leave you on your own with the knowledge you need to make it successfull on the veteran shard. This guide will be broken up into steps instead of days and hours since the time you spend on a task will vary from person to person.
The first question everyone asks in starting on Siege is how do I make 18k to buy up my skills to hit the cap? You don't. That many can very well be placed elsewhere. So you are wondering how to do it? Read on.
If you are going to be making a mage, which I hope you are follow this guide and it will be more mage specific in the end. For thy scum out there just follow the essay until it starts branching off into a mage.
Create your mage with 50 Swordsmanship and 50 resist, 45 strength, 10 intelligence, and 10 dexterity. Since you will be coming red fairly soon if you follow this guide (:P) you will not need to put 1's in wortheless skills to get newbie stuff that will be lost when you die red anyway! Start off in the town of Yew.
Run to Empath Abby. Pick up any spare armor that you see laying around. Take off to the Northwest, you will find a series of vendor houses with extremely cheap prices compared to what you are acustomed to. What you are looking for is 1 pair of scissors, and 2 hatchets or daggers, anything cheap that can be used to skin sheep. Once you get those supplies go back to Empath Abby and bank your scissors and gold. Throw your book on the ground and arm you candle along with your already equiped newbie katana. Turn on UO automap and head down to the sheep farms.
Now that you are at the sheep farms attack 5 of them, skin them while they are all beating on you, and proceed to kill them 1 by 1. The logic behind this is that your stats are very poor at the moment, along with your skill cap every bit helps. Once you get full of whool head to the Abby and bank your whool, and head back for another full trip.
Do this until you have enough whool to make 3,000 bandaids. To do this go use the moongate and hit up vesper. Running back and fourth making your whool into cloth, and finally into bandaids.
With your remaining money in your bank buy a quarterstaff, a dagger and a hatchet (can be bought at vesper or many local smiths will be willing to help you out, try Minoc). Go hit the moongate and head to Jeholm fighing pit.
If needed go escort 2 nobles, or with the remaing money in your bank account go hire a npc shield fighter with no weapon skill. Bring him back to the bank, tell him to guard you, and then have him attack you. You will need to run and heal for a bit, but soon you will be able to stand and take their attacks. That is where the laying around armor comes in handy.
Raise your combats until you reach atleast the following skill levels.
Swordsmanship 75
Mace fighting 75
Tactics 85
Wrestling 75
Parry 65
Healing 80
Anatomy 85
Lumberjacking 75
Once again you may need to go escort another noble or 2, but that is a piece of cake with the new moongate system. Go to any town stable and buy up taming to 35.
Your stat cap should now be 700, easier then you thought huh? Now is the time where you decide which combat skill you will be taking up for shortly. I prefer katana nothing beats its speed and great damage. Also you will be keeping parry for obvious reasons. See-saw your stats to 100 strength, 25 intelligence, 100 dexterity.
Go out and tame yourself a horse. There are plenty south of Minoc moongate.
If you have run out of bandages go hit up the Sheepy pen again for another 3,000 bandaids. Escort a noble if you need some cash to buy supplies for heading to Shame. While there is risk in this you didn't join SP to have Trammel rules did you? You can run to Shame from Yew by going South and around the mountain, if you don't know where it is turn on UO auto-map. With all of the money you bring out save it up only spend your money on supplies you need to continue farming Earths.
2 trips and you will have enough money to buy your 21k boat! Continue the process of farming, no one said it was going to be easy, OR fun :P. In Power hour you should be wrestling either a broadsword wielding shields fighter or Earth elements, or you can go to the City of the Dead north of Delucia and battle the skele knights.
By now you should have a feel for player run vendors from running around, when you see the following scrolls buy them; Energy Bolt, Flamestrike, Gate, and Earthquake.
(numbers may be off depending on your 8x8'ing skill and the luck you get for runs, those are just guestimates)
When you get enough money to buy 2500 Flamestrike reagents go on and collect Eq.
When you get 2500 Eq reagents start collecting yourself 500 of every reg for hunting purposes.
Now you are ready to hopefully take the transformation into a mage, cause you know point and click just is too boring! On SP a healing mage is the best way to go. Cheap, and extremely effective. See-saw stats to 100 strength, 100 intelligence, 25 dexterity.
Flamestrike your way to 82 magery in ph's. From there you want to work out of ph sailing around on the open sea casting Flamestrike for meditation purposes, you will gain magery extremely good though, when you do stop 8x8 your streak and continue on with your meditation.
In power hour you should be doing Eq and soon be the following..
100 Str, 100 Int, 25 Dex
100.0 Magery
100.0 Meditation
100.0 Wrestling
100.0 Anatomy
90.0 Evaluating Intelligence
90.0 Healing
50.0 Resisting Spells
Now you use your reagents and go back to Shame. Now you can mark a rune and Gate yourself and gold back and fourth from the bank, saving yourself a 5 minute run. You will Corp Por those Earthies over and over yay!
This will be your main source of income, it is fairly easy to dodge the pk's if you are agile, as always the golden rule is still the same. Never take what you cannot afford to loose out of the bank. If for some reason you do run out of money, nobles are your friends! Remember that.
Soon enough you will have enough reagents to GM Your evaluating intelligence. I like casting Magic Arrow over and over to find my gain instead of poisoning because of less mana consumption, but others prefer poison because of the price, choose what is best for you.
Healing is slow going unless you find a friend, look in the UOPG forums for someone else needing help in that area and help eachother. Other then that you will be happy to get a few .1s a day through regular game play.
Raising your resist without the daemon method is extremely dangerous. You must take a lot of equipment to do it effectivly and if you get pk'd it can set you back in recourses and loss of Power hour.
I hope this guide was useful for you, and I look forward to seeing you on SP! Now get out there! Murder, rape, pil... err, have some fun!
-Natas aka Hootie-Hoo
I found this buried in my email. I haven't read it through to check for errors or grammaticals. Life is hard again.
Someone start a thread to correct anything wrong with it.
Hasta. |
^ top-Treasure Map Changes
[Nieves] August 15 - 12:05 PM EDT | Let me just comment as we go along.
“Level 0” treasure maps are being made available for young characters while they are in the Haven area. The details on these new level 0 maps are:
It will produce fewer monsters, and weaker monsters;
Nice idea. But, well, hrm...how much weaker can you get than a Skeleton, Zombie and a Mongbat? Other than the Ratman, the other 3 are not difficult to deal with. Even for a new character.
It will produce less treasure (typically including another level 0 map);
The treasure chests are not locked or trapped;
The treasure chest will not open until all three guardian monsters are dead;
Er...if the monsters spawn as the chest comes up, this is different than a normal level 1. On a level 1, the monsters don't spawn when the chest appears. They spawn randomly as you take items from the chest.
Once the map owner is no longer a young player, the map transforms into a level 1 map the next time the owner uses it.
Hmmm...I see a problem here. I will let you figure it out.
If a treasure chest is empty, another map for that same location can be used to remove the empty chest.
About damn time. I hope this is for the rest of the world and not just Haven. Here is the thing though, does the chest have to be completely empty? If yes, then it doesn't do what we need. We all know that most treasure hunters leave undesirable items in the chest. Then the chest will either have to be moved by a GM or let it decay. Maybe make it so that if you do another chest in that location, the original chest "moves" 8 tiles to the north/south/east/west? I don't know. There is no real, easy, fix with this. Even if the ability to take the chest was added like you can with an MiB. Can you see that in Felucca? Someone comes up and takes your chest as soon as it spawns.
Anyone got any ideas? Anyone? Anyone?
A label will identify the level of the treasure map.
a youthful treasure map – level 0
a plainly drawn treasure map – level 1
an expertly drawn treasure map – level 2
an adeptly drawn treasure map – level 3
a cleverly drawn treasure map – level 4
a deviously drawn treasure map – level 5
an undecoded treasure map will still have the addition of “tattered”—plus one of the above notations—until being decoded
Although, I would rather the Cartographers in the game be able to ID maps with their skill this IS sweet. The treasure map trade can have a 'real' market. BUT, I am NOT paying 20k for a fucking level 5. Screw that. 5k tops per map level for me.
They are working on it, and that's what matters to me. Real and honest effort is all we can ask from the Dev team.
::blinks while looking at Blackheath:: Yah, you know what I am thinking.
And, to end this post: Bring back Veteran Rewards Biyotches!
Hasta |
^ top-Scenario spoilers...you know you want them.
[Eric] August 14 - 10:53 PM EDT | Pieces of information regarding the most recent patch have been floating around the UO boards, and I came across some information that hint what may be including in the next scenario.
Was browsing the latest patched files in UO3D
(lots of nice new 3d artwork btw) and 'discovered'
the following new Monsters.
Golem_Iron
gargoyles_gargoyle_shopkeeper
gargoyles_gargoyle_slave
gargoyles_gargoyle_guard
gargoyles_gargoyle_enforce
There are also lots of "Arcane" clothes, even a Robe with "Cowl" up and down.
Karl
Very interesting, if you ask me. If you go here, you can view images of these new monsters (3D). At least we'll be under attack by gargoyles...it sure beats orcs. If you browse around the link I posted, you'll notice various other new pieces to the game, such as golems, an arcane outfit, and new architectures. As you'll notice, the arcane outfit contains art for the 2D client, which will make 99% of all UO players happy. The monster art is strictly for 3D, by the looks of it. As for when we'll see these...
"So does this mean we can expect the scenerio to start next week?"
Nope. This patch was a step in the right direction, but we still have more to do before we start.
-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
Designer, Ongoing Content
Don't go crazy with excitement quite yet. It's looking good though. Where the hell are vet. rewards?
Just a quick note:
We are doing performance tests on Veteran Rewards over the next day or so. This means on Test Rewards it could take a long time for your selection screen to come up. As well there are known issues with some rewards during this period. Just wanted to let you all know.
Prophet
PS: So far the tests look really good.
That's all for now. Cya later. |
^ top-I'm back.
[Eric] August 13 - 11:09 PM EDT | If you noticed, I was absent for a week. Yes, you can end your days and nights of sorrow. Wow, gone for only a week, and it seems as though a lot has been thrown around by OSI (some only in development). Since I'm not sure what has and has not been posted in the week I was gone (I haven't read the week's updates yet), I won't repeat what may have already been posted.
What I did find today though, are the following pieces of information from various OSI employees:
Speaking on the proposed Barkeep:
1) How much will these guys/gals cost?
-Right now we're looking at around 5,000 gold.
2) Do they require a daily fee to maintain or is it a one time fee
and they wll stay till you dismiss them?
-One time fee and they will stay till you dismiss them. Since the barkeep doesn't make or collect money for you there is no upkeep or time limit.
3) Is there a limit on how many can be in a house, besides floor space?
-2 per house.
And on orc bows and tribal spears...
-Actually, they have the exact same scripts (code) attached to them as force weapons. But you are correct, niether the tribal spear, noe the orc bow do extra damage to certain creatures.
I really have no comment on the Barkeep yet, because I don't think it's going to affect my game play. As for the info. on these scenario related weapons, I'm glad I know what they do now. I can finally throw away about 20 of the orc bows.
On a side note, I just wanted to welcome Phazer to UOPG. (As you realize, I just found out about this last night.) I've always noted your post-worthy information in our forum, and it's great to have more of that talent on the front page.
That's all for now - cya later. |
^ top-Forum Rules
[Nieves] August 13 - 1:48 PM EDT | Many of you know UOPG's philosophy about our forum.
No bug/exploit posts*. No links to bug/exploit sites*. No links to illegal applications/files*. No extreme insults or flames (this one is a bit lax, but don't push the envelope; it will burst on you). And, finally, no selling or trading of items, whether it be in game or on sites like E-BAY. Sites like Tradespot handle that just fine. Since that is not within UOPG's focus, we let other sites do their job while we do ours.
I have seen a trend of people asking for a "skill group" to get together on a shard. People getting together on a shard to do a resist session, for example, is a wonderful thing. I see no problem with those types of requests continuing. I think the Mods/Updaters would agree.
Just don't take advantage of it please.
If, for example, you are looking to train a skill like tailoring and need resources, go to Tradespot. If you want to do something like get some mages together to cast bladespirits for you for parrying or summon demons for resist, then post the request in the forum and leave your ICQ number. Any more than that is stretching it.
I hope you respect those rules.
Hasta.
*-Note: Bugs, Exploits, Illegal Applications and Files are those as defined by OSI. We at UOPG do not make the final determination as to the status of an 'item'. We simply enforce it within our area of influence. |
^ top-Because I am fair
[Nieves] August 13 - 11:00 AM EDT | I got an essay from a reader over a month ago on becoming a Grand Master Chef.
I really really really didn't want to post it as I feel, in my not so humble opinion, Chef's suck. But, with the introduction of the Tribal paint, the requirement to have 80 cooking to make a batch, it's only fair that UOPG provides that info. Right? Right.
Eventually, I will put Cooking back into the Skills List.
So, here it is:
to get from 0 to gm if you want to
you need to go though they say around 35k of bread ( lotta loaves good for poisoning pratice )
and for seeing helpless newbie running around well they might get the hint and stop runing up and grabing every thing in sight
well you need 1 jug of water a over and a water surplie and flour
all this at brit or get it at you own place
macro is simple even for the uoa newbie
jus rember to open your sacks of flour
and do a count resource`s
or it won`t reconise the flour
hit record
click on jug ( use item )
click on flour ( target ) convert to target type
pause ( depending on system and isp ) from 1000 to 5000
do this 5 times
then click again on jug (use item )
then on water troff (target )
pause 1000 to 5000 again depending on specs
now click on dough ( item )
and covert to item type
then on to heat source ( target )
pause ( 1000 to 5000 ) again
do this 5 times
there you have 5 loafs
each bag will make 20 bread
for 80 skill for paint an average of 200 bags or so did not realy keep record as got tunnel syndrome and was on auto mode
or like fish/ribs just place 1 1 by 1
and try cooking them off for gains that is more
boring ( thinks provokeing again )
well hope that helps a bit
You will notice all the typos and grammatical errors. I normally don't take the time to fix everything I find wrong with an outside generated essay. Please, when you submit an essay to UOPG, do some spell checking and some editing. It makes life easier for me here. From here forward, I will send it back to you for editing.
Thank you Pandragon for the cooking information.
I need to run to the bathroom now...
Hasta. |
^ top-Well now....
[Nieves] August 13 - 10:39 AM EDT | I got this Little Gem via email. It's an interesting read. An excerpt:
(I just know someone is going to say, "Hey, many of the EverQuest developers came from a DikuMUD background and they have 400,000 subscribers. Doesn’t that make your opinion, well, stupid?" Indeed, 400,000 subscribers is a mighty achievement and not to be taken lightly. It is also begging the wrong question. The correct question would be: EQ has sold something close to one million units at retail in two years and has 400,000 players; where are the other 600,000 and why did they leave?)
Where did they go indeed?
Go read the original article.
UPDATE: I just went through Skotos.Net website. The people that host the above mentioned article. That site is tight. Not because it's a visual treat, but because of it's content. The one area that caught my eye was it's offering of online games. I am going to do some more research and check their games out.
Hasta. |
^ top-Tinker Traps and Their Use in UO.
[Nieves] August 13 - 8:32 AM EDT | It is legal to trap a chest as you describe. [read about what methods were described on Stratics.]
However, it is illegal to use these to kill someone in Trammel, unless you have highlighting with them. Otherwise, you are pking someone in Trammel, which is a clear rule violation.
Remember that kiddies. PKing in Trammel is an exploit.
So:
It is legal to carry these in Felucca.
It is legal to carry these in Trammel.
It is legal to set these on the ground in Felucca with the intent of killing a curious person.
It is illegal to set these on the ground with the intent of killing someone on Trammel.
It is legal if the looter on Felucca is killed by looting your corpse and opening the chest.
It is illegal to use one for the clear purpose of killing a looter on Trammel. If you are minding your own business and you die, that's okay. It becomes illegal if the support team recognizes that your character just "happens" to die with trapped chests on them all the time. I don't want players making kamikaze newbies that carry around trapped chests and die just so they can blow looters up. I hope the distinction for this one is clear. We're looking at intent as much as outcome.
In the dread lord days, I was a mad bomber with tinker trapped chests, so I'm happy to see them (mostly) legal again.
Canyon also discussed the problem with Mare and White Wyrm spawn stating it was a known issue and is being looked at. Well, the White Wyrm spawn was just fine in Great Lakes-Felucca Ice Dungeon on Saturday night. As soon as one died, another spawned no more than 30 seconds later.
Hasta. |
^ top-GM Animal lore - the Tsurai Kuraku way..
[Phazer] August 12 - 7:51 PM EDT | "A poor trammalite tamer spotted me in Skara as i went to deliver some goods and asked me how i achived my gm lore/taming combination. I explained that i had used a bug involving cabbages..she asked me to write it all down for her after all it was going to take her her next 4 power hours and she wanted to get is perfectly right....."
Here's how she did it! *laughs*
Thanks for sharing that story, Tsurai ;)
|
^ top-UO Gamemaster helps Tamer
[Nieves] August 12 - 12:06 PM EDT | I am in Trammel Fire Lich Lords farming gold and looking for maps and magic items.
I met a tamer there and after spending some time hanging out, she relates to me a story of how she almost lost her dragon.
She was gating herself and it somewhere and wound up telestormed to the little wooden island in the middle of UO Nowhere. She wound up in the Britain graveyard minus her pet. She couldn't get back to her pet and called a GM about it.
The GM went to the wooden island, picked up the dragon and asked, "is this him?" Well, my friend and her companion wound up getting eaten by her pet. It took so long to get to her dragon that it had gone wild. The GM left soon after.
Leaving the two to deal with a wild dragon. Very nice of the GM. Oh, and the GM asked them to rate his performance. :|
Goes to show you how intelligent some people really are.
My only questions are, What was this GM thinking? And how many people died to that wild dragon on the wooden island?
Hasta. |
^ top-::yawns::
[Nieves] August 11 - 9:59 PM EDT | Heather of XRGaming and Cove's Merchant's Guild: Great Lakes sent me this link of the new UO3D Weapons.
Other than the Lich staff, the rest are boring.
Woopee. The 1% of you that can actually play UO3D can enjoy it. The rest of us will go on our merry way playing in the Stable Client.
Thanks again Heather.
Hastsa. |
^ top-For Your Enjoyment
[Ian] August 11 - 5:16 PM EDT | Ok well I'm pretty settled in from my move, with time enough to give you one of those pointless, but never entertaining updates. For those of you looking for UO news or the 50 ways to gm lockpicking or whatever kindly scroll down and or go to an essay section. This is good old fashioned, off topic, weekend edition indulgence.
I, in my neverending quest to deliver to you, the uopg reader, entertainment, (insert nauseum) have scoured the internet (found while surfing porn) to bring you some cool sites for your web perusing pleasure.
First, for all of you girly gamers out there, hmm or for you guys that like to pretend you are girls, *shudders* here is a site you might like.
Now, I am as deeply saddened by Napsters death, as much as you all most likely are. Well, I have been using the next best thing. It's actually pretty easy to download and use. So, if you're not familiar with Gnotella, and want some more free music, give them a looksy.
How come cool shit like this never happens to me? That courtesy of Ice Man. Linked if no other reason, for his selection of the song "Music" by Erik Sermon on his main page. Nice choice.
Something that's always fun and scary at the same time is viewing rl pics of UO players. Pics courtesy of Juice.
Trippy.
Enjoy. |
^ top-PVP AO Style.
[Nieves] August 10 - 4:10 PM EDT | Want a PvP guide for AO? Go here. Careful, it's a long read.
Thanks to Fear for posting it.
Anyone interested in coming along on the Powergamer train and work for AOPG?
Email me as I go back to reading the guide.
UPDATE: I just read Phazer's update. This is the part that is most interesting to me.
Information about its magical ability:
“It lacks any true magical abilities”
“It has only minor magical abilities”
“It has some magical ability”
“It has rather well developed magical abilities”
“It has strong magical abilities”
“It has extremely powerful magical abilities”
“It has nearly mastered the secrets of magic.”
“It has mastered the secrets of magic.”
Information about its training level, for tamable animals:
“It has only just begun its combat training”
“It is somewhat trained in the art of war”
“It appears fairly trained in the ways of combat”
“It has excellent combat training”
“It has superior combat training”
“It has nearly learned all there is in the ways of combat”
“It has mastered the art of war”
“It has learned all there is to the art of war”
Talk about kick ass. You can tell the level of a creature (full trained or not).
Hey Caleb, if this goes in, tell me what it says about your dragon. Damn thing. It keeps trying to eat me.
OK OK! I know. Don't beat on the Lizard!!!
Hasta. |
^ top-Changes to animal lore..
[Phazer] August 10 - 4:02 PM EDT | Something new in concept!
I expected a huge tamer nerf, but instead they are just going to make the animal lore a little bit more useful.
|
^ top-Blachawk's guide to hunting the toughest creature in game.
[Nieves] August 10 - 4:00 PM EDT | Mongbat
Preferred Class: Newbie with 5 strength
Tactics: Sneeze or blow hard on it.
Loot: 5-15 gold.
Shadow Mongbat
Preferred Class: Mage
Tactics: Since shadow mongbats often inflict greater to deadly poison and breathe 60hp fireballs, it would be wise to avoid them at all costs. If one feels compelled to fight them, let them cast on you until they run out of mana and begin summoning bladespirits and energy vortexes.
Location: Despise level 6
Loot: 1200-1500 gold, chance for lvl 5 map, magic plate armor, chance for virtue weapon.
Please email me when you decide to hunt this creature. I want to watch and um...you know, just take down notes for the site.
Yeah, that's it.
Hasta. |
^ top-Magic The Gathering World Championship
[Nieves] August 10 - 11:37 AM EDT | For those that care, you can follow the final two days of the Championship. I have been following it since it started Wednesday.
I am all for Selden winning it all. Why? When he was 17 he won World's in 1998 (I believe) and took home 25,000. Plus, his deck, Recur-Survival, was an amazing deck. I loved it. Still do. If I have a "hero" in M:TG, it's him. I am still disappointed that Kuykendal (sp?) who knows Selden personally didn't agree to have my Recur-Survival cards signed by him. Oh well.
My dream was to play in that event this year. Financial instability stopped my "run" at playing enough tournaments to make it. At least I went 3-1-1 in my last tournament appearance. My loss was due to my having to quit since I had to run to a Hockey Game whose start time was an hour after the Semi-Finals were to start. An M:TG match lasts 50 minutes. A promise is a promise right? The guy I conceded too wound up winning the whole thing. And my deck could crush his. Dammit.
Anyway, thanks to Fear for motivating me to post this.
Hasta. |
^ top-Be all you can be, Be a Bard.
[Nieves] August 10 - 9:46 AM EDT | Read about 'em.
Thanks to Mephisto for all of the info.
Hasta.
|
^ top-"Damnt Jim! I'm a Doctor not a Bricklayer.."
[Gator] August 10 - 9:16 AM EDT | The quote in the subject line has absolutely nothing to do with this update. I just couldn't think of anything, and that is like my most favorite quote from Star Trek. And please don't email me, I am not a "Trekie". Anyways on with the news... alot of shit happening, alot of stuff going down... Check it.
Push Through Bug No More
There was a new incorporation put into Pacific with a publish, that wasnt meant to be there. Basically you could'nt push through vendors. This has been fixed according to latest reports.
Damn Tamers Jacking Us Again
Rumor has it that on the Pacific shard monsters are disappearing. From what it seems, the creatures are spawning in the AM, and if they are tamed none will spawn to take their place until server maintenance. If the creatures are killed outright, then the spawn works as normal. At one time on Pacific the entire first level of Destard was empty. So far no comment from "Big Brother" on the UO Forums. Trust us that UOPG will stay on top of this issue, because we are like credible and shit. Rumor has it that when the "No Push Through" bug appeared this one tagged along with it. Once again this only affects Pac shard and Test Center 1. This affects all animals, everywhere that can be tamed.
NPCs, They Sell, They Don't Sell, And Oh Yes, We Don't Want To Ruin The Player Economy
Do read:
When the resources were changed recently, we saw quite an outcry, and we realized that an entire group of resource gatherers had been severely affected by this, and we acted to see that the player-run economy was not shafted by this (no pun intended).
But the outcry against the propsed changes were so much vehement and much more unanimous than the previous outcry, so it's apparent to us that perhaps our change wasn't the best solution. I'm not sure what the final answer will be... maybe it will be a raised price, maybe a raised cap on numbers that spawn, or maybe both. But we are acting based on player feedback, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly clear in this case, telling us that our solution is too extreme, and that there is certainly a better solution that can be found. -Cynthe
Hmmm so will you still be able to buy 999 Ingots at your leisure? This may be answered along the same time Vet Rewards are incorporated, which will happen to be around the time my Great Grandsons first words are "Bring Back Pre-Casting BIOTCH!!"
"if the loot stinks and there is no other compelling reason to fight the monster,"
The HELL you say!!
Folks are concentrating on the monster AI, which is fine, but the other part of these comments was about monster loot...and more importantly, loot that doesn't involve gold, rare items, etc. Again, if the loot stinks and there is no other compelling reason to fight the monster, nobody is going to fight the monster regardless of it's AI (ie: the orc brute - which by the way, has been changed and will be in the first week of the next event publish).
I'd really like to hear some feedback on this, other than titles (which is something we've done already to a degree) from all of you. -Calandryll
And yet another Creature to be raped and give up the goods. But still a very valid point. I really wish they would beef up Mongbat loot. They are easy to kill and frikkin everywhere!!! ACK!
Hi, I'm new here!
Phazer, once again welcome aboard. If you ever looked up PowerGamer in the dictionary you would see Phazer's pic next to the definition. His assistance in keeping the state of this site at such a high level of accuracy will be invaluable.
Dats it for me, oh and don't forget to be a good Samaritian when you can. We need some more "love" in this country. I am tired of everyone looking like they are pissed off 24/7. Remember folks no matter how rough it gets, how hard the times may be. Youa re still breathing, and that means your Alive. And life was the greatest gift ever given to you. So LIVE damnt.
Later |
^ top-Neverwinter Nights Update for Friday, August 10th
[Nieves] August 10 - 8:27 AM EDT | I caught the final report on GenCon by SpaceLord of NWNVault.
What caught my eye was the ability to play on a LAN.
One aspect of Neverwinter Nights that has not been discussed much is a local LAN setup. Using what I believe will be TCP/IP, one can network multiple computers to a network and run NWN with no problems. Having played network games with my friends at LAN parties, NWN has huge potential for this setting. Talking in person about the goings on in a multiplayer game is a huge draw for me, as I am sure it is for others as well. NWN could turn out to be a big hit at LAN get-togethers.
Very very sweet. With my mini-LAN setup (3 computers) I put together at home last year, I just might be able to get a gaming session together with a couple of folks. Or, hell, maybe even my two kids. They would love that.
SpaceLord did post some screenshots towards the bottom of the report. The toolset looks VERY easy to use.
Again, I am getting more and more excited.
Welcome Phazer to UOPG. He has done a great job updating most of UOPG's skill pages. It's really appreciated man. With the information he had, he could've done his own thing but decided to donate the information to UOPG for our reader's use. I highly recommend you guys and gals give him lots and lots of love. He deserves it.
I have downloaded the current set of skills pages and created the individual essay pages. I have proofread about 5 of them afterwards and decided to take a break from it. I will proofread the rest and hopefully have them up by Sunday. By then, I will probably have cross linked the current skill page links to these new skill essays since it's the most current information.
Enjoy your weekend boys and girls. I know I will.
Hasta. |
^ top-Hi, I'm new here!
[Phazer] August 9 - 9:25 PM EDT | Hello, my name is phazer and I'm an UO-Addict.
Most of you probably already know me from the forum.
Well, from now on I'm going to post here too! *evil grins*
Since I don't have anything UO-related to post about right now, why don't you check out the k3wl-d00d version of Romeo and Juliet! |
^ top-Sometimes I read into shit...sometimes
[Nieves] August 9 - 8:33 PM EDT | I just have an itch in the ass and speak from the hip.
Since people seem to think I should get rid of that update like "now", I did.
Anyway, maybe he will ICQ me and we can talk about it a tad.
Noone appreciates my jokes.
I am going to go finish chewing on some shoe leather now.
Hasta. |
^ top-Pay close attention...
[Nieves] August 9 - 5:39 PM EDT | We have published the change listed in Testing for the Next Update to the Pacific shard, to be active following its next scheduled maintenance period. Note that a previously posted change to the spawn of resource items on vendors has been removed from Testing for the Next Update. Due to player feedback, we have decided to re-evaluate the problem and will notify the players once a new solution is decided on. Once we are certain that this publish is operating optimally, we will publish it to the remaining shards, and the change will be added into Latest Game Updates at that time.
Veddy intedesting!
Hasta. |
^ top-Male Fashion Show.
[Nieves] August 9 - 4:57 PM EDT | And now, the guy's duds.
Thanks again Heather.
Hasta. |
^ top-Lord British Himself
[Nieves] August 9 - 1:51 PM EDT | For those of you interested:
#Ultima-Online and Stratics IRC are proud to announce (a little ahead of time) a special Ultima Online Celebrity Chat September 3rd, at 7:00PM CDT in #Ultima-Online.
Our Special Guests will be none other than Richard Garriott, creator of the Ultima series as well as Ultima Online and co-founder of ORIGIN Systems, Inc., Starr Long, former Producer of Ultima Online, and Jake Song of NCSoft. Richard and Starr will be joining us to reminisce about their Ultima Online days, answer your questions and of course, with Jake, slip in a plug or two here and there about Destination Games and Tabula Rosa, as well as their new partnership.
Mark that on your calender and go in there and tell Richard, "bring back brecasting biyotch!".
Oh...and Sannio had something else to say over at Stratics. I don't really remember anything he said other than being at the UO World Faire this year.
Hmm...I am going to have to go up to him and say: "golly gee, you're like, cool and shit".
Update: Oops, I had to correct a typographical error in my post. Some folks have a problem spelling/typing correctly. **koffsanniokoff** I will strive to be better than that now.
Hmm...I think I need to write a rant on that. Shit, I can't. I promised someone something. Oh well...
I will just diss him here. Yah, I said it.
Hasta. |
^ top-UO3D Wearables
[Nieves] August 8 - 9:20 PM EDT | The ninja and samurai armor looks great.
Too bad I can't play it for more than 1/2 hour before crashing.
Thanks Heather for the heads up.
Hasta. |
^ top-The prodigal child has returned...
[Nieves] August 8 - 9:05 AM EDT | Or rather, he posted. One of the better articles on Lum in awhile. In fact, one of his personal best.
Go read what he has to say about the state of gaming and marital bliss.
Speaking of bliss:
Some of you are waiting for news on my personal situation. Things look like they are going to work out after all. What's the outcome?
We get to talk to alot of people. Or is it they talk to us?
Hasta. |
^ top-Updates
[Nieves] August 7 - 10:54 PM EDT | Well, I got the August Archives up. But all the archives pages didn't get the "fix" I had implemented for the rest of the site. If you scroll down you will see what I am talking about. What an eyesore.
All my other updated content work gets put on hold 'till that's repaired.
Oh well. The life of a website owner I guess.
At least I fix my stuff faster than other folks. Well, I think so anyway.
Adam Ant has a mini "movie" set up on his site for this past weekend's event. It looks pretty tight and the music is nice. Go give Adam some love and check out the movie.
If anyone is interested, one of the MD updaters got the Tier 3 Title by helpig to defeat the Arachnid Champion. That mofo was HUGE! Go check it out.
Hasta. |
^ top-For all you Faction Playas.
[Nieves] August 7 - 8:32 AM EDT | Go read Zima's List of Factions issues and resolutions.
Thanks to Fear at BV for bringing us Zima's List.
Hasta. |
^ top-"House fighting/sieging is the second lowest form of PVP in UO, bested only by moongate fighting."
[Gator] August 7 - 7:29 AM EDT | I recently stumbled upon this LS Fel Guild called theUnited Brotherhood of Dungeoneers Basically this Guild is a RP PvP Guild that charges folks to hunt in Fel Dungeons. From what I have got so far if you are caught hunting in any Fel Dungeon by these guys they will ask to see your permit. This permit allows you to hunt under their protection in any Fel Dungeon. It costs 20k, they give you the permit, then they will mark your name down as paid. I got a serious kick out of it, and thought it was a great idea. Hey read for yourself:
For 20k per month one may pass through our homes in safety and receive benefits such as resurrection on sight, healing when needed, help with spawn, and protection from PKs. If someone does not pay, we shall do everything within our power to get them killed or force them to leave the dungeon. We do not allow trash talking, "dewd" talking, or rezz killing. We encourage the murder of all pets excluding regular horses, ostards, and llamas. We expect that ALL UBD members show the utmost respect to their opponents and their victims unless they deem themselves unworthy of it. Even then, we expect
there will be no trash talking of any kind.
They even have a listing of what members patrol what Dungeons. And they keep a listing on their site of who has paid up. Indeed this an outstanding idea, and I truly appreciate how they are trying to bring back a fun PvP system.
Later |
^ top-From a fan
[Nieves] August 6 - 10:40 PM EDT | scifi.com/farscape
Crichton, Jool, D'argo and Pip found an adrift Leviathan. The ship had
been a prison ship several decades past. Who... or what... they were
carrying was a creature that could duplicate anyone, as well as having
rather nasty carnivorous tendencies. Unfortunate side effect of the
dulication
is that the duplicates are never complete... duplicate often enough, and
you're
left with a sort of deevolved lifeform (he had a bunch of
semi-intelligent
Peacekeepers with him... formerly his guards).
The only person who didn't get duplicated was Jool... but the only
duplicate that wasn't killed (or was it the original?) was Crichton's.
They
then got split up when a Peacekeeper force came looking for Talyn and
Moya's screw decided to split up.
Here's a link to the specific journey log:
http://www.scifi.com/farscape/journeylogs/season3/eatme.html
As I said, I haven't been following too closely, so perhaps his
counterpart
on Moya has died. Somehow I doubt it... makes for too interesting a
story line when he meets up with Aeryn, who has now loved (quite well
from all evidence :) and lost him already.
Kurt
Oooh, very nice :) I wuvs it. Crichton isn't dead. WoOT! :)
If you have never watched Farscape, and are into Sci Fi, you should. It's one of the best Sci Fi shows I have ever seen. Go to Sci Fi's Farscape page to read up on it.
You can read a story I posted in the stories section.
Also, I saw White Crow at 12th yesterday on the UO Top 100. Congratulations man.
Why UOPG is 2nd behind Markee Dragon is beyond me. But it's all in the family right?
As far as Lineage is concerned, I got my "press" account started back up. All I can say right now after playing for an hour tonight is "eh".
Hasta. |
^ top-And now a word from our sponsors....
[Gator] August 6 - 1:24 PM EDT | Ohh tons of goodies to share with the masses today, so where do I begin? Rewards shall we?
The following was recently published to FYI:
=========
Vet Rewards Delayed
---------
Due to a new bug just found which allows players to collect more Vet Rewards (http://update.uo.com/design_350.html) than they should, the re-implementation of the Vet Rewards program is being delayed. We regret having to extend the schedule, but this bug, which involves the use of a third-party program, would negate the benefits of the entire system if left unfixed.
We believe we have solved the issue, and the system is now being retested, but we do not yet have an estimated date as to its release. We will update the players as soon as we have more information, and we apologize for this necessary delay.
=========
Sannio
Online Community Coordinator, UO
Origin Systems
**Warning** **Warning** UO3D News **Warning** **Warning**
Remember the whole deal with 3D that if you could kill enough rats you would earn a special title like "Mauler of Cheese Eaters" well these new "titles" have all Trammel Bank Lingerers in a tissy because they have yet to acheive the 3rd Tier of the special titles. Why this really matters is beyond me. The titles only show within the 3D client, and since nobody plays the damn thing anyways... well... you get the picture. Well the spoiler is OUT. Players have been trying to solve this puzzle for weeks. And finally FierY iCe showed some compassion and released some info. Why? I have no freaking idea, this game should be HARD damnt!! For you l33t title fiends, I leave you with....... The Secret:
If you want to figure out how to summon a champion yourself then stop reading this message!!!
Spawn Control:
1) Killing enough creatures will cause the spawn area to shrink.
2) Killing too few creatures will cause the spawn area to grow.
3) Spawn area size is directly related to creature toughness. ie: Bigger Area = Harder Monsters
Criteria to summon a champion:
1) The spawn area must grow to a certain size before it is eligible for a Champion.
2) The spawn area must then be pushed back (ie: shrunk) to a random lower size. (ie: You may have to push it back just a little bit, or you may have to push it back quite a bit.)
3) When the area is eligible for the Champion and you push the spawn back to appropriate size there is a 25% chance that the Champion will appear.
-FierY iCe
Programmer: Ultima Online
Soooooooooo you do the hokie pokie and you turn yourself around... is that what it's all about?
And now back to our regularly scheduled program.
What? Didnt actually think they were going to really work did you?
Later
Nieves- Didnt mean to step on you, thought the-ever-so-hard-to-release-without-jacking-it-up-rewards were more important than the One-Eyed-Purple-Eater... :P |
^ top-Purple Pain
[Nieves] August 6 - 1:22 PM EDT | ILLEGAL PURPLE-HUED SIGIL ITEMS
In a strengthened stance against exploits, and due to the high number of support calls generated, we are now taking a stronger stand on illegal purple-hued sigil items. As of today, any players found selling these items, either in-game or out-of-game, will receive an automatic 72-hour suspension from Ultima Online, a final warning on their account, and the items will be deleted. Any accounts that have already been placed under final warning will be terminated.
Players with these items already in their possession should note that these items are illegal, and should dispose of them through the nearest waste receptacle, or place them in a backpack and hand them off to an NPC Cobbler to be disposed of. |
Arcadian stated his opinion on who should and shouldn't get banned.
Me? Dump all the purple items. Do a game wide delete of anything that has that specific color code. It's a unique enough color to target. If you do that complete wipe, you avoid having to "investigate" whether or not something was taken "legally" or exploited. From that point on, anyone that has items with that color gets popped and removed from our game play experience.
UPDATE: Dammit Gator, wtf you get in my way for? Kidding.
Veteran Rewards pushed back huh? Why am I not surprised?
Hasta. |
^ top-Nissa Does Khaldun
[Nieves] August 6 - 11:03 AM EDT | From January to about June, I was going in just about everyday doing these chests for treasure maps trying to get my cartography up to GM (he is currently 99.1).
I would guess that I have done around 1200 chests. I only have 95 lockpicking and I can do one of these puzzles faster than someone with GM Lockpicking. The trick is to get a system that works for you and stick with it.
The chest opens and you are shown 8 colors (light blue, medium blue, green, orange, purple, red, dark blue, and yellow). The goal is to determine the order of the colors in 5 slots.
If you have 95 lockpicking, you get some clues. It tells you the color that goes into the first slot. It also tells you 2 colors that can go in anyone of the remaining 4 slots.
With GM lockpicking, you get the color of the first slot and 3 colors that can go into any of the remaining 4 slots.
So, let's say I have 95 lockpicking and I open the chest, I will get the clue that tells me that Green is used in the first slot and that Yellow and Purple are also used, but I don't know where.
What I do is first determine where the 2 colors (Yellow and Purple) go in the puzzle. This really just takes time and process of elimination.
For example, I put the first color (Green) in the first slot and Yellow in the second slot and click okay. The puzzle will now tell you how many colors are in the correct position and how many are not.
You will now get a message similar to:
Thou hast 1 of the correct color and in the correct position, and also 1 of the correct color, but in the wrong position.
So, I know now that my first guess was not correct. I now put the same color Yellow into the third slot (the chest now has Green in the first slot, and Yellow in both the 2nd and 3rd slots) and click okay and may get a message similar to:
Thou hast 2 of the correct color and in the correct position.
So now I know 2 things:
1. I know the 1st and 3rd place colors.
2. I also know that the color that I just used (Yellow) is not used any place else in the puzzle. Because if it was, I would have gotten the following message:
Thou hast 2 of the correct color and in the correct position, and also 1 of the correct color, but in the wrong position.
I now go on to the next color (Purple) and figure out where that one goes. Once I have these 2 colors placed, I just go through the colors for the last 2 places and by process of elimination, can quickly figure out what the last 2 colors are.
As you takes guesses, if you do not correctly guess the solution to the puzzle, the puzzle chest is trapped and you get hit with either lightening, a dart, or poison. None of these traps are very powerful and keeping healed is not very difficult.
The loot for the chest varies but you get a level 2-4 map about 1/3-1/2 of the time. A bag with 50 of each reg about 1/3-1/2 of the time. Gems, jewelry, magic weapons/armor and miscellaneous stuff like magic bear masks which varies with each chest. I take everything and I mean everything out of the chest, ID everything and sell what I don't want. I have made over 1.2 million gold just from these chests.
Now on top of concentrating on the chest and knowing what colors you have used, you also have to keep an eye out for red NPCs and monsters.
Some of the monsters down there are:
Ancient Liche - he is the worst of the bunch and you should not take him on alone. I have seen the ancient liche kill a white wyrm and still have 1/2 his hit points left. Ancient Liches cannot be provoked.
Sprectal Armor - this guy really sucks. Picture the invisible man with just a helmet, buckler, gloves and sword walking around. He is a bitch to target and I have seen nightmares have a hard time killing him. Last time I was in Khaldun, he was just a sword walking around. Stay far away from him.
Zealots - there are 2 kinds, one with a sword and one that casts magic. He can be taken on if you are alone, but it takes a while to kill him and when you kill him he turns into a boni magi or skeletal knight. Zealots cannot be provoked.
The Cursed - I believe there are four types of these folks. They are red NPCs and one has a kryss, one a bardiche, one a bow/crossbow, and one that summons. The one with the bow is rough. He hits you fast and hard. Taking him on alone is very difficult and you need to have good strategy. The best thing to do is hit, run, heal and repeat. I have died to this guy often.
Skelton varieties - you have skeletons, bone knights, bone magi, skeleton knights, etc.
Shadow Fiend - not tough at all, using can kill him with one corp por. He is just annoyiing. He looks like black water elemental.
Other - you will run in other types of monsters in there. Zombies, lizardmen, and orcs.
Tentacles of the Harrower - this guy is way in the back in a big pool of blood. He doesn't move but if you get too close, he can wallop you in 3 hits. There is a chest back by him, but usually there are a ton of people around and he can hurt you while doing the chest. I usually don't even bother with this one. The loot of the Harrower is very good and people are always back there trying to kill him. I think it takes about 15 or so chain lightenings to kill him.
And of course, you have to be on the look out for pks. They are there because they know weak ass cartographers are in there trying to get maps. Have macros setup to safe places if you have to make a fast exit.
If you are going to try to do these chests, bring only the most essential items because you are going to die A LOT!!
My bag looks like:
Regs: 40 of GH regs - root, garlic, gin and silk -- 30 of moss, pearl, and shade -- 20 of ash (it is not used that much)
My newbie instrument (being a bard is a BIG help)
2 bags: one for the gold and loot that I want to keep and/or identify and one for stuff that I want to sell or that can be dropped if I need to.
One or two invisible items. You will get a lot of these from the chests and it is good to keep them just in case.
You don't need lockpicks for puzzle chests, so I don't both bringing any.
2 Greater Heal potions
2 Greater Cure potions
3 Total Refresh potions - these are a must, especially if you play Trammel alot and are used to running through everything.
1 Greater Strength potion or a strength magical item.
Well, that is all I can think of right now. I know there is more, and I will add as I think of it.
As I said, I am at 99.1 cartography. It has taken me approximately 45 maps per .1 from 98.4. Which means at this rate, I will need about 400 more maps to GM which is about 800-1200 more puzzle chests!! OUCH.
Damn this girl rocks. Think I can get a date with her? I should've stayed on Siege with her. Ya think?
Still think we can hang on SP Nissa?
Jane of GL and my Map Digger did Khaldun a month or two ago. We had a pretty decent time solving the chests and picking up the regs, gold, and magic items. Jane did most of the solving for us. I swore I would go back with my Map Digger and now I have a shot at figuring these chests out.
Khaldun absolutely rocks. I am glad this Veteran Dungeon exists.
My guildmates and I made a run through it on Saturday night and had a great time.
Tip on fighting the Spectrals: Use Magery. Those bastards don't take much damage from melee. Took 4 of us 2 minutes to kill one. Our mages were done in about 30 seconds. The loot of the Spectrals falls to the ground so be aware that you will have to loot quick. I still want to know what the hell that katana was one of my guildmates snatched. Greedy bastage! ::pouts::
Shadow Fiends are annoying. The Grimmochs and company hit hard and you would do best with a mage or an archer.
An Ancient Lich can go down to ~10 fighters and ~4 mages pretty easily. Come to think of it, I think anyone would.
Or if alone stay alert and have a macro set up to recall you out if the Gank Squad appears. I have found it's harder to disrupt a macroed recall spell that targets a location in your runebook than if you were trying to "hard cast" it. But that's my experience. Don't take it as Gold. We all know how some things work for some and not for others. Having an invisible cloak would really be a life saver as well.
If you see someone just walking around "shadowing" your group, assign one person to watch him/her. They might be a precursor to a PK attack, a notoer for any of you that go grey, or a lone thief waiting to pluck something from one of your characters.
Hasta. |
^ top-IT'S ON NOW!
[Nieves] August 6 - 9:43 AM EDT | The UO Faire is going to be in October.
All updaters, email me at your earliest convenience. We got some planning to do.
You can find out more about the UO Faire at UO.com
Ack...got to get T-Shirts done!
OH WARLORD!!!???
Hasta.
|
^ top-While Ian was watching Rush Hour 2
[Nieves] August 5 - 6:42 PM EDT | I took my daughter to see Princess Diaries for her birthday. Know what? I was actually entertained. Am I saying go out and see it? Not really.
But it's definately a movie to take your kids to see and probably a movie your girl could appreciate. If you are a girl, get your guy to take you.
While we are talking about entertainment.
What's with Xena being in the 20th Century? Yah, right. Totally fucking lame.
Also, the supposed last episode of Farscape was shown Friday evening. What the fuck is up with killing off Criton? Dammit that was stupid.
My Trial Period for Lineage ended. That was a quick 30 days. It started July 24th. Math seems odd to me. Anyway, I will try to get it restarted. I know you are all excited about me testing it out for you.
Hasta.
|
^ top-FYI
[Ian] August 5 - 12:38 PM EDT | Just a little FYI that I found interesting. I've been asked several times about how long it takes for a house to decay and never really bothered to find out for sure.
Houses generally decay (delete themselves) if they have not been refreshed within 9-14 days. The range is wide depending on where your house is placed. Some areas have elements that put more stress on your house and causes it to decay at a faster rate.
It is also advised that you not try to refresh your house only every nine days. It is possible that you may try and refresh your house before a server goes down for maintenance or for some other unexpected reason. If this occurs, the server may not back up the information that the house was refreshed and when you next log in, the house may have decayed. For this reason, we suggest refreshing your house at least once every two days if your schedule permits.
There you have it. This is in conjunction with this released on the patcher today.
** 07/24/01 ** 3:00 PM CDT *** HOUSING DECAY REACTIVATED ***
Housing decay has now been reinstated on all shards, to become active
following their next maintenance period. For a list of the normal,
scheduled maintenance periods for each shard, please visit
http://support.uo.com/downtime.html
|
^ top-Haha
[Ian] August 5 - 3:46 AM EDT | HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH
AHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHA!
Thus concludes my review of Rush Hour 2. Go see it.
|
^ top-Thanks to Lord Cool.
[Nieves] August 4 - 5:34 PM EDT | We have 23 pages of Crap in the Forum. For now, just hit this link to view the latest forum posts.
When I get with the CBT folks, I will have them prune all his crap from the UOPG Forum and hopefully things will be back to normal.
Maybe now that his IP is banned, we can have some peace around here.
Oh, and Lord Cool, if you are listening, don't be upset when the boys in blue suits and mismatched ties comes to visit your ass.
Say hello to Bubba when you see him.
Hasta. |
^ top-Testing for next update.
[Nieves] August 3 - 11:45 PM EDT | Like you expected it to last?
To ensure that player-created materials retain their value, a fix is being added to vendors that will allow only up to 10 of each of the following items to be available from that vendor (until it restocks its inventory).
-boards
-arrows
-ingots
-bolts
-hides
Thanks to Mabia/Jane-GL for the heads up.
hasta. |
^ top-Link me, I link you back...
[Nieves] August 3 - 7:01 PM EDT | This Shadowbane site kicks ass. Not because they linked my BDA article from yesterday. But because ...well, just go look at it.
Hasta. |
^ top-Some GM's are downright awesome in their pursuit of customer service!
[Vasilias] August 3 - 6:43 PM EDT | Ok, for starters this will be a sort-of rant/praise posting. A few days ago Gator posted about a lil thing that happened when he was bartering a deal for a xshard trade for some houses. Thursday night we both hopped on his accounts to change a marble back to a tower, as the earlier deal was nullified with that incident. Well, the very same thing happened yet again. House was pulled and a house was placed. Not our house though. The little shark was there again. How this is so is beyond either of us as the only person's who knew about this deal was myself, Gator, and the person the deal was bartered with. But sure as shit this little assmuch was hidden right there, and as soon as the marble was pulled, he placed another.
Needless to say, the whole incident was and still is fishy. Gator paged a GM. Of course we were expecting the " I can not help thee with that " routine that we have come to expect as the norm. The GM arrived, GM Roryn to be exact. He patiently listened to Gator as the tale was told. Surprised we were when he turned around and asked for certain bits of information in order to help us collaborate and get to the bottom of this story. That proved nil and void. So...as standard, a party was formed and then without further delay the GM asked a series of questions to Gator and myself. Answered promptly the GM then sought out the house placer. He had, by this time, got on a second account.
The stink of this was this turkey was very sly. The house placer that is. He knew things that were not even mentioned ingame. Certain things that only 3 people knew about. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what I am saying here. The GM was equally sly in his questioning routine. The end of the it was certainly not what we would have liked, however, we felt a little better about game support with the lengths this GM went to help us get to the bottom of the situation. It was not resolved as we had hoped as I said. Still, in my mind, there were too many coincidental things that went on for this to have happened randomly. The GM agreed with us on this point. But, we do not know at this time, and may never know. This GM was quite insistent upon us letting him know after Gator and I concluded our own lil investigation what we found out. Even though he could do nothing at the moment he did not want to let this be and open and shut case.
Now, of course, Gator and myself are highly upset about it. We did experience one thing last night and have GM Roryn to thank for it. He was talking to us as people, not as an idiotic dolt we have all seen from time to time when encountering a GM. He took the time to help us. Well beyond the amount of time I have ever seen any GM take. For that he has earned both mine and Gator's respect and thanks.
GM Roryn, whom we turned to this site as he had not yet heard of it, we salute you for your patience and diligence. And applaud your reserve for being as human as we are and taking the time to help us even if it did not work out as we all would have liked. Be assured you will hear from us in the future. Nothing can deter the tenacity of .... well us military minded souls. |
^ top-Extended AFK.
[Eric] August 3 - 3:16 PM EDT | For those who care, I just wanted to note that I will be out of town until next Sunday (not this coming Sunday).
I'm not too sure how long it takes for a house to fall, but I hope it's longer than 8 days. ;p
Until next Sunday...Cya. |
^ top-Neverwinter Nights Update for Friday, August 2nd
[Nieves] August 3 - 2:23 PM EDT | From Neverwinter Vault.
The encounter system is a dynamic method for spawning different types of creatures into the game. Instead of placing a mob of specific creatures, you can now simply place a single encounter. Each encounter has a creature heirarchy that it selects from and a difficulty setting for that encounter. When the players come across it in the game world, it checks the number of players nearby and spawns in an appropriate group of creatures from the hierarchy. The entire system is designed around the D&D 3rd Edition "Challenge Rating" system. A CR of 1 means this encounter would be a good fight for four first level characters. For example, an Orc has a challenge rating of ½, meaning two orcs would be a good challenge for a first-level party of four players. As a Troll has a CR of 5, it would be a good fight for four fifth-level characters. Through the system you can create an exciting and scalable adventure quickly and easily.
In effect, you don't have to create a different module each time you want to restart a game with different characters. You can scale your module to be used by a wide range of character/party levels.
This is awesome. Another idea is if you got a module where the characters have to revisit a dungeon they had in the past. They won't necessarily be running into another band of goblins as when they were at 1st-2nd Level. If the party returns as level 5-6 characters, a Carrion Crawler could be in that area where they first found and defeated said goblins. This Carrion Crawler could be feasting on the goblins' remains and notices the party coming it's way. And if you ever played D&D, you don't fuck with a Carrion Crawler.
For you Ultima Online players ignorant of what a Carrion Crawler is, it's a big ugly worm that has multiple attacks in a round, can paralyze with any of those attacks, and likes to eat things. Lots and lots of things.
I still hate you for that Carrion Crawler Vasilius.
Hasta. |
^ top-Top 10 of All Time
[Nieves] August 3 - 1:56 PM EDT | Game Spy has their Top 50 Games of all Time.
I was surprised that Diablo II wasn't in the Top 10. I thought for sure it was #1. I was surprised at what is at #1, but that game probably deserves it.
Also, count the number of Ultima Games in the Top 10...and smile that you keep the Legacy of Ultima alive playing Ultima Online.
Update: ooh..check this out.
Kevin Lambert
Monolith Productions
1. The Secret of Mana (SNES)
2. The Legend of Zelda (NES)
3. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
4. Phantasy Star 2 (Sega Genesis)
5. Ultima Online (PC)
6. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PSX)
7. Final Fantasy 3 (SNES)
8. Diablo (PC)
9. Prince of Persia (SNES)
10. Super Mario Bros (NES)
Anyone notice what's at #5?
And as you go through the Top 50, notice how many times Ultima games are listed in the invididual voter lists.
Where did Ultima Online fall? 48th.
Hasta. |
^ top-Kat/Saro
[Nieves] August 3 - 11:35 AM EDT | Hey Caleb, mind forwarding this to our "kitty"?
Canyon clears up some issues regarding harrassment on UO Stratics.
Showing up to a player run town and killing pets or attacking players is fine. Repeated instances of this with the intent of driving people from the game isn't acceptable. What you describe sounds like a pattern, and if the GM team recognizes that pattern, we may get involved.
Interesting isn't it? And what happens if the parties won't leave each other alone after the GMs get involved?
1) The GMs involved will talk to representatives of both sides, and tell the players to stop ALL interaction.
2). Anyone, from either side, found breaking this no-interaction rule will be penalized heavily, up to and including account closure.
Stuff like this is always ugly. In fact, Canyon admits it is:
. It's tough telling players they can't visit parts of the UO map, and explaining why they can't use skills like stealing towards all eligible targets.
Canyon also gives you tips in avoiding people that harrass you:
If you are being harassed, there are several things you can do. You can leave the area...If you don't give the other players the satisfaction, they typically leave within a few minutes.
He even says to fight fire with fire. This is all good and dandy. I am all for Frontier Justice ::winks at Ratticker:: but alot of times you wind up being a harrasser yourself.
There are a lot of options available to your group, and I encourage you to try them all, rather than expect the GM team to intervene on your side. If there is a pattern of antisocial behavior, we'll deal with them eventually.
My recommendation if you are harrassed repeatedly is to take screen shots. Save any and all logs. Make a folder on your computer and gather as much information about the prepetrator(s) as you can.
Call a GM, tell them you are being harrassed and that you have ALL the information they need saved in a file and can send it into the UO Support team.
I keep telling you guys to play nice. But if someone won't, and is doing something against the ToS, start gathering information. Nothing hurts more than the written word...and a picture is worth a thousand words.
Hasta. |
^ top-Essays from our Forum
[Nieves] August 3 - 9:46 AM EDT | UPDATE: For some stupid reason, I can't get the tables in the essays below formatted properly using Newspro. For some reason, it doesn't like alot of spaces. Look for these essays in a "cleaner" format later on UOPG.
These are the days I hate Newspro.
Some people are really motivated these days...and I appreciate it, really.
You go Phazer!
Armslore
--------
Armslore is the study of armor and weapons. Using this skill on a piece of armor/clothing/weapon will tell you the approximate statistics of the weapon.
In combination with wrestling, armslore can also be used to disarm an opponent (Minimum 80 wrestling, 80 armslore). To disarm someone, create a macro for WresDisarm in the UO Config.
It can be useful for blacksmithes to determine which items should be repaired, an on disarm-thiefes who need armslore to disarm weapons.
Item Healthpoints
-----------------------------------------------
100% Brand new
90% Almost new
80% Barely used, with a few nicks and scrapes
70% Fairly good condition
60% Suffered some wear and tear
50% Well used
40% Rather battered
30% Somewhat badly damaged
20% Flimsy and not trustworthy
10% Falling apart
------------------------------------------------
Armor Rating
-------------------------------------------------------
31+ Is superbly crafted to provide maximum protection
26-30 Offers excellent protection
21-25 Is a superior defense against attack
16-20 Serves as sturdy protection
11-15 Offers some protection against blows
6-10 Provides very little protection
1-5 Provides almost no protection
0 Offers no defense against attackers
--------------------------------------------------------
Note that these values are the raw AR values, and are not equivalent to the displayed ARmor rating.
Weapon Rating
----------------------------------------------
26+ Would be extraordinarily deadly
21-25 Would be a superior weapon
16-20 Would inflict serious damage and pain
11-15 Likely hurt opponent a fair amount
6-10 Would do some damage
3-5 Would do minimal damage
0-2 Might scratch their opponent slightly
----------------------------------------------
Again, these values represent the unmodified average damage done, which isn't equivalent to the actual damage done.
When used on faction items, armslore can be used to determine how many days the faction-blessing lasts.
Skill training:
Arms lore is a target-based skill and therefore affected by the anti-macro code. To raise amrslore you need a LOT of different items. If you're training in powerhour only, 300-400 different targets should be enough, but after powerhour you're going to need 600 or more targets to reset the anti-macro code.
Unless you already have a large weapon collection, it's easiest to tailor skullcaps (they are considered armor and can be lored), to tinker knifes or to smith daggers. Place 66 different items in one bag, and then record an UOA macro armsloring them all. Add 1500 ms pauses after each "Target" line in the macro.
You should create about 6-8 of these bags for best skill gain. Once you've that many targets, you can GM the skill in a few days (let the macros run after powerhour until you've armslored every item without gain, then wait for the next powerhour.)
Tips & tricks:
- Armslore magic weapons on playerrun vendors before you buy them
- Armslore will tell you if a weapon is poisoned. (Not very useful now that it always shows when you click a weapon)
------------
Version 1.0: Initial draft
Animal Lore
------------
The animal lore is pretty much a requirement for every tamer character.
It is used for..
1] Use the skill directly on an animal or monster to receive information about the creature, as well as it's loyalty in case it's tame.
2] Animal lore as well as animal taming are checked every time you give a pet a command (with the exception of the 'guard me' command). Animal lore only counts 30% in this check, while taming is counted for 70%, so it IS possible to play a tamer without animal lore.
3] Animal lore increases the amount of hp restored per bandage whe using veterinary. 61 animal lore is also required to cure a pet with a bandage.
Here's a list of the pet loyalty messages, from highest to lowest:
* Wonderfully happy
* Extremely happy
* Very happy
* Rather happy
* Happy
* Content
* Content, I suppose
* Unhappy
* Rather unhappy
* Extremely unhappy
* Confused
Skill training:
Because of the many different uses there is also more than one way to raise this skill.
1] Active use of the skill: You can gain by using the skill on different creatures, however because of the anti macro code, this becomes pretty much impossible after 40-50.
2] Passive gain through taming: Whenever you talk to a pet that you're taming, the animal lore skill is checked, and there's a chance of it increasing. Since taming raises rather slowly, you can get 90+ lore by the time you GM taming just from passive gains.
3] Passive gains though veterinary: Take a frenzied ostard and a polar bear on a boat, and tell them to fight. (If you're in trammel you've to be guilded; Use "all guard me" before giving the attack command.) You can use other creatures, but these two work great because you only have to heal the polar bear. Use bandages on the bear until you gain 0.1 animal lore. Now stop the boat and lock veterinary. Keep applying bandages to see if you gain again, if not go 8 forward or backwards. You should gain 0.1 lore about every time you apply a bandage from now on, and it's not uncommon to gain 10 points before it stops.
This is similar to the anatomy/healing trick.
Tips & Tricks:
- When you lore your pets, a lot of "spam" appears over your char. Single left click your avatar once (or twice if you don't have a guild title) to scroll it off the screen.
---------------------------
Version 1.0: Initial draft.
A comment from Sinister Saint:
Sinister Saint I highly recommend the passive gains through vet. I went from 0 to GM in 2 days using this method. I gained form 0 up to about 94 one day and then gained from 94 to GM the next time I attempted this. Once again, nice essay.
Anatomy
=======
Anatomy has many different uses and can be found in many different templates.
1] Sucesfully using this skill on another player, npc or monter will give you information about the targets strength, dexterity and amount of stamina (if your skill is high enough)
2] The skill is used as a damage modifier for all melee skills (Swords, Maces, Fencing, Archery and Wrestling). At GM Anatomy the bonus is +20%, lower anatomy means a lower bonus (50 anat=10%).
3] Anatomy is checked when you apply a bandage. You must have at least 61 Anatomy+Healing to sucesfully cure poison, and at least 81 Anatomy+Healing to resurrect a dead player. High anatomy also increases the effectiveness of your bandages, however it doesn't affect the time it takes to finish the bandage.
4] With 80 or higher in both Anatomy and Wrestling you can stun-punch another player. To use the special attack you've to create a macro for it in the options, which toggles between stun-punch and normal attack mode.
When using anatomy on a creature the following results are possible:
code:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stat Level Strength Dexterity
-------------------------------------------------------------
1-10 Rather feeble Very clumsy
11-20 Somewhat weak Somewhat uncoordinated
21-30 To be of normal strength Moderately dexterous
31-40 Somewhat strong Somewhat agile
41-50 Very strong Very agile
51-60 Extremely strong Extremely agile
61-70 Extraordinarily strong Extraordinarily agile
71-80 Strong as an ox Moves like quicksilver
81-90 One of the strongest One of the fastest
people you have ever seen people you have ever seen
90+ Superhumanly strong Superhumanly agile
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Skill training
--------------
There are a few different methods to train this skill:
1] You can gain by using the skill on a creature. This method of gaining is affected by the anti-macro code and is pretty much impossible after 40-50 anatomy.
2] Passive gaining through fighting: Every time you hit someone/thing with a weapon (or your fists), you can gain anatomy. This is not affected by the anti macro code, so you can just spar until you've GM anatomy without having to switch targets.
3] Passive gaining through healing: Whenever you apply a bandage, you can gain anatomy. This is the fastest and easiest way to raise this skill. It is possible to "8x8" anatomy: Go on a boat with a ghost and start attempting to res the dead player. Start sailing around and watch the screen for anatomy gains. As soon as it increases, stop the boat and LOCK healing. Now try to res a few more times. If you don't gain again, try in the previous and next resource square (or just go 8 forward/backward). Once you find the next gain you can just remain in that place until you stop gaining, usually about 10 points later
This works like the veterinary trick for animal lore, so it's not true 8x8 because you don't have to move 8 after every 0.1
4] "Magic" monsters. Sometimes when fighting a monster/player you can gain 0.1 anatomy pretty much every hit. Most reports of this have come from lizard men or aligators in swamps. I belive this happens when players stand on the steps of a house while fighting. Since the anti macro code prevents you from gaining fighting skills in a house, they are "locked", and the priciple behind this is the same as the healing or the veterinary trick.
------------
Version 1.0: Initial Draft
Version 1.1: added note about bandage speed. thnx ramalama
Version 1.2: Fixed damage bonus to weapons
Archery
=======
Archery is one of the four basic weapon skills in Ultima Online (Swords, Fencing, Maces, Archery.) It is required to shoot Bows, Crossbows and Heavy Crossbows, as well as the new orcish bows.
Archery is the weakest fighting skill, and only useful in few situations. It's advantage is that you can hit monsters (or players..) without having to stand directly next to them and getting hit back. The only other skill that allows you to do this is magery.
The drawbacks are the slow firing delay and long equip delay of the xbow and heavy xbow, the VERY limited range of bolts and arrows, the fact that you can't move until your weapon hits (or misses) it's target (Moving stops the shot, and that you can outrun arrows and bolts (!!).
It's main use is on warriors fighting monsters, since archers can hunt even heavy-hitting monsters like balrons without getting too close.
Skill training:
Archery can be raised by sparing, like all the other fighting skills. It takes approximately 3k-4k arrows, using only powerhours. The best weapon to use is the bow, since it's the fastest archery weapon. If you still have some pratice bows, even better: The monsters you're shooting will live longer when you're using one!
* bone/skeletal knights in deceit or the city of the dead (t2a)
* blade spirits (cast them on the other side of a fence )
* any other monster with high fighting skills..
* Terathans outside the terathan keep
* The paladin (naked white one, not the one's in plate) in the fort by Delucia. Lure him outside guard zone, and then teleport on a hill. When the paladin gets low on health, he will heal himself via In Vas Mani, so no healing required!
[ Insert Lawyers executioner trick here, if that still works. I personally don't like wrong, l2, and wouldn't include it ]
Tips & Tricks
--------------
- Switch to a new bow every 200 arrows for the maximum damage. Bows wear out pretty fast.
- Bows and xbows aren't repairable, however Heavy Crossbows can be repaired by smithes.
- You only need about 35 bowcraft to make your own exceptional bows!
- After shooting at a monster, move back a few steps while you reload your bow.
------------
Version 1.0: Initial draft.
Version 1.1: Fixed bowcraft tip and added paladin + terathan keep area.
Blacksmithing
-------------
Blacksmithing is probably THE most useful mule skill, since you can create such a wide variety of items that every warrior must have!
It is also required to repair damaged armor, and especially expensive magic weapons. Carpenters need at least 80.0 smithing to make blacksmith addons.
When you sucesfully repair a piece of armor or a weapon, the items healthpoints are reset to the maximum, and the durability is decreased by 1. When you fail to repair the durablity is lowered by 1 point for 90+ smithes, 2 points for 70+ skill smithes and 3 for all others.
Here's a list of all items creatable with the blacksmith skill, sorted by minium skill:
code:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name Ingots Min. Skill
=======================================
Bronze Shield 12 1
Buckler 10 1
Dagger 3 1
Kite (Wooden) 8 1
Metal Shield 14 1
Kite (Metal) 16 4.6
Bascinet 15 8.3
Gloves 10 12
Coif 10 14.5
Mace 6 14.5
Sleeves 14 16.9
Leggings 16 19.4
Maul 10 19.4
Tunic 18 21.9
Cutlass 8 24.3
Heater 18 24.3
Viking Sword 14 24.3
Hammer Pick 18 25.6
Large Battle Axe 14 28
Long Sword 12 28
War Mace 14 28
Double Axe 12 29.3
Battle Axe 14 30.5
Scimitar 10 31.7
Two-handed Axe 16 33
Axe 14 34.2
Executioner's Axe 16 34.2
War Hammer 16 34.2
Broad Sword 10 35.4
Kryss 8 36.7
Leggings 18 36.7
Close Helm 15 37.9
Helmet 15 37.9
Nose Helm 15 37.9
War Fork 12 37.9
Tunic 20 39.1
War Axe 16 39.1
Armor (Female) 20 44.1
Katana 8 44.1
Bardiche 18 45.3
Short Spear 6 45.3
Halberd 20 49
Spear 12 49
Gorget 10 56.4
Gloves 12 58.9
Plate Helm 15 62.6
Arms 18 66.3
Leggings 20 68.8
Breastpiece 25 75
===================================
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Source: uo.stratics.com, 06/15/01)
Colored ingots:
To work with colored ingots, you've to have a certian minimum skill:
65.0 Dull Copper
70.0 Shadow
75.0 Copper
80.0 Bronze
85.0 Gold
90.0 Agapite
95.0 Verite
99.0 Valorite
The success/fail rates when smithing are the same when using colored ingots, you just have to have the minimum skill to use them. When weapons are made out of colored ingots, they still appear in the normal iron hue.
Skill training:
code:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Skill lvl What to craft Resources
-----------------------------------------
30 Bascinet 15 Ingots
50 Longsword 12 Ingots
55 Broadsword 10 Ingots
60 Chain Tunic 20 Ingots
65 Short Spear 6 Ingots
68 Spear 12 Ingots
75 Plate Gorget 10 Ingots
80 Plate Gloves 12 Ingots
89 Plate Arms 18 Ingots
94 Plate Leggings 20 Ingots
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the high 90's mix in some platemail tunics.
You should already have high mining before you start with smithing, since the mining skill determines how much metal you get back when you smelt the items you make.
If you've UOAssist you can either incorporate the smelting directly into the macro, or use the smelt agent to do it (set your main backpack as recycle bag )
Use item type (smith tool)
Menu select (item to make)
Target item type (ingots)
pause 4500 (probably too long ;P )
Use item type (smith tool)
Menu select (smelt)
Target item type (item you just made)
It should take between 20k-40k ingots from 0 smithing, if you resmelt your ingots.
Tips & tricks:
- Be careful when you use the "make last" option on the smith menu, it is different for every tool! When your hammer breaks you've to reset the "make last" option.
- UOA's recycle agent can both repair as well as smelt. Set the recycle keys in the key tab and then just SAY "-set rbag" in UO to set the recycle bag
------------
Version 1.0: Initial draft.
Version 1.1: added repairing, carpentry.
Version 1.3: added platemail tunic (duh)
Alchemy
=======
Information:
Alchemy is used to turn reagents into potions. To use the skill you need at least one mortar, a potion bottle or keg, and the apropriate reagents required for the potion you want to make.
code:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Potion Reagents Min. Skill
-----------------------------------------------------
Agility 1 Bloodmoss 15.1
Agility, greater 3 Bloodmoss 35.1
Cure, lesser 1 Garlic 00.0
Cure 3 Garlic 25.1
Cure, greater 6 Garlic 65.1
Explosion, lesser 3 Sulphurous Ash 5.1
Explosion 7 Sulphurous Ash 35.1
Explosion, greater 10 Sulphurous Ash 65.1
Heal, lesser 1 Ginseng 00.0
Heal 3 Ginseng 15.1
Heal, greater 7 Ginseng 55.1
Nightsight 1 Spider's Silk 00.0
Poison, lesser 1 Nightshade 00.0
Poison 2 Nightshade 15.1
Poison, greater 4 Nightshade 55.1
Poison, deadly 8 Nightshade 90.1
Refresh 1 Black pearl 15.1
Refresh, total 5 Black pearl 25.1
Strength 2 Mandrake root 25.1
Strength, total 5 Mandrake root 45.1
------------------------------------------------------
Skill training:
code:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0-25 train from npc alchemist (guildmaster)
25-45 Strength potions (2 Mandrake root)
45-55.1 Greater strenght (5 mandrake root)
55.1-65.1 Greater poison (4 Nightshade)
65.1-90.1 Greater cure (6 garlic)
90.1-100 Deadly poison (8 nightshade)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Using only powerhour and making these potions you're going to use about 10-12k garlic plus 10-12k nightshade. To get to 55 you might need 1-2k mandrake root.
The fastest way to powergame alchemy is to line up 3-4 mortars, and then record a macro in UOAssist:
Use Mortar #1
Target Mortar #1
pause 1200
Use Mortar #2
Target Mortar #2
pause 1200
Use Mortar #3
Target Mortar #3
pause 1200
Use Mortar #4
Target Mortar #4
pause 1200
You've to use each mortar once to make the correct potion, after that it 'remebers' the potion type and you can just target the mortar instead of the reagents and going through the alchemy menu.
Place 100 bottles into an empty backpack and then put that backpack into your main pack. Now when you run the UOA macro it's going to run until you run out of regs or bottles. When that happens put the bag with the potions into a secure container or just place it on the ground and grab another bag with another 100 bottles. Wait until after powerhour to fill the potion bottles into kegs.
Alchemy can be gm'ed ih 3-4 powerhours with this method, however if you also have a poisoner/assassin I wouldn't go for the 'fast' GM with deadly poison. You're only going to make maybe 200 DeadlyPoison bottles with the 10k++ nightshade, that's the price for the fast skill gain. If you chose to make Greaterpoison instead of Deadly poison, you get many many kegs for poisoning training, but you won't gain more than 0.5 alchemy per keg. Of course, you can also GM with greater heals or greater cures.
After 90 you can make all potions (except DP) without a lot of failures, so you can just keep making kegs as you need them and gm slowly over time, without wasting 10k nightshade.
Tips & tricks:
- The first time you've to target the reagent type with your mortar and select the potion to be made, after that you can just target the mortar to make the last potion.
- To automatically fill potions into a keg, remove all empty bottles from your backpack. Now when you create a potion you get a chance to target the container to fill it into. You can make an UOA macro out of this: Use item (mortar); Target item (mortar); Target item type (keg); pause 1200; The problem with this method is that you can only use one mortar, and that the macro stops for a few seconds when you fail to make a potion.
- Carry a newbie mortar on your pvp chars: When you are paralyzed and have no pouches, make a lesser poison potion and drink it! The damage from the poison will unpara you. Since the minimum skill for lpoison is 0.0, anyone can make the potions.
-------------
Version 1.0: Initial draft.
Version 1.1: Fixed Code tags (ugh)
Version 1.2: Added newbie mortar/poison trick.
Version 1.3: Reworded the "slow" method, hth
Note on Alchemy: You can GM making just Greater Poison or Greater Cure above 90. But it's SLOW. I recommend doing Deadly Poison if you can afford it. You get much better gains. If you are into saving gold, go with Greater Cures and Greater Poison (mix them in).
Yes, this is a LONG update. But with news being scarce in our particular "genre", might as well give you something to read this morning.
If you decide you want your essay posted. Please put a copy in the forum and email me one. That way, it can be reviewed and edited as needed, then added to our essay sections if deemed worthy.
Any essay submitted to UOPG becomes the property of UOPG and all that legal stuff. If you are going to send one in, realize that before you do.
To Phazer: I think I got a job for you. Interested?
Hasta. |
^ top-About time.
[Nieves] August 2 - 11:05 PM EDT | Revolution Studios has made deals that will pair international action stars Jet Li and Jackie Chan in an action film for the first time. The duo, long the reigning Hong Kong action kings before becoming staples of Hollywood films, will begin work together in fall 2002.
Both stars are heavily involved in the construction of the untitled action vehicle, with a script now being written by Robert Mark Kamen, co-scripter (with Luc Besson) of ``Kiss of the Dragon'' and ``The Fifth Element'' Li and Chan will also serve as executive producers.
This was originally reported July 19th. I had missed it...but either way, to me, it's good news.
Also, if you can, give. It might save a life.
Hasta. |
^ top-Ubisoft Publishes to Krush
[Ian] August 2 - 3:05 PM EDT | Well a game that I am highly looking forward to actually has someone to you know, make sure it get's to my local Best Buy sometime in 2002. The new publisher is Ubisoft. For those that care about that sort of thing. This marks their first venture into the multiplayer online market.
It also pretty much ends any speculation that Shadowbane's development will be canceled. If you haven't read up on the game, I suggest you do that. |
^ top-Post Worthy
[Ian] August 2 - 1:25 PM EDT | I shamelessly ripped this directly from Azaroth's latest article. Mainly because I like it.
This from "Talbot":
No, our ideas do not count our ideas are tertiary to profit/customer subscriptions and the personal objectives of the design team in creating the game that they want which is at times a very different game than the players wish to play.
Trying to placate the people who take the time to conceptialize, construct, and publish ideas in these forums is as meaningless as the forums themselves. Little if any change comes about as a result from our input unless it mirrors something that is rotting in the festering localized synapses of a developers mind.
But you know what...that's how it should be, this is not a democracy, it is not a game or gaming system created by individuals for the joy of it, the purpose of UO is to generate income for the parent company in exchange for a playerbase too adicted to the illusion of entertainment to cancel their subscriptions.
The day that "our ideas" count is the exact same day that UO ceases to be a commercial product, untill then our ideas in their infinite diversity pan out to "he who yells the loudest gets heard"...a situation where mental cacophony stands victorious and dominate to "ideas" that require rethinking some of the choices that the company who publishes this game has made.
You cannot make a stew with 200,000 cooks throwing ingrediants in the pot...just like you cannot say that "our ideas count" in any tone other than one that reeks of placation.
Ignore the numerous spelling errors because this guy pretty much summed up the way it is. Like it or not.
|
^ top-News from the top
[Nieves] August 2 - 11:53 AM EDT | Hi, I'm new here, and I was wondering if you could help me get up to speed on some of these Tamer concerns that have been coming up. There's a whole lot that I need to read, and if you could help summarize some things for me, that'd be awesome.
::slaps his knee::
Well, golly gee, Sannio wants help with Tamer issues. You can now go tell him all your concernts (100/60 twinks, etc.) and stuff.
(My own Tamer character never was able to get past Taming horses and creatures of that level. :]
So, you know, he doesn't know much about Tamers. Go help him in the main UO and Stratics Professions Forums.
Also, BJ "Quixote" Morton posted his comments:
Since joining the team, I have focused on working with the Game Masters to define their roles, managing customer call volumes, and establishing a consistent guideline for policies and procedures for in-game support. The last point is by no means an easy task considering the complexity of the community we support, but we have seen continued improvements and we are dedicated to helping this area evolve. You, the player, are on this team with us. By posting on our boards and sending us your concerns you help turn the focus of our efforts to those areas that impact you the most and, as a player, I can empathize with many of these same issues and concerns. As we pursue this quest together, perhaps we can remind each other why we are here and take our game and community to the next evolutionary stage. I look forward to seeing what we accomplish.
He hasn't played UO that long, but he sounds like he's got a solid technical background. Someone that could relate certain game issues between the GMs and the Dev Team. This guy actually sounds intelligent and coherent of his environment. Someone I could probably respect. Unlike, well, golly, other people.
Note to Blackheath: Shucks man, I think you should've gotten that groovy job 'man'. But what do I know?
You can go read the rest of BJ's comments on UO Stratics.
Hasta. |
^ top-Eh?
[Nieves] August 2 - 11:27 AM EDT | DuelField will be developped for the PC platform, at first.
That's a direct quote from their FAQ.
Er...um...someone? Anyone?
Hasta. |
^ top-If it applies...
[Nieves] August 2 - 10:11 AM EDT | ...take it to heart.
If it doesn't, just go to the forums and continue your delving into the depths of the Powergamer's Soul.
As everyone knows, I am in a Roleplaying Guild on the Great Lakes Shard. This guild, one of the most respected IMHO in the shard, is an evil guild called Bregan D'Aerth. It's main membership is Illythiri (sp?). Translation? Drow. Dark Elves. The Dungeons and Dragons anti-thesis to Elves. If you are saying "huh?" Think Romulans to Vulcans and maybe you will understand a bit better. Even though most members are Drow, there are "human characters" within it's ranks. Great Lakes BDA chapter patterns it's membership straight out of the books of R.A. Salvatore. A group of Mercenaries for hire.
If a new Wanre (candidate; literally translated, "Slave") is deemed a "beneficial addition" to the guild, they are given a chance to join, hunt and fight with us, and then earn the right to undergo the Trial of The Elements.
The guild's overall mission? Profit and Power. If it's profitable, we go after it. If a city holds our interest, we are going to go in and take it. If you want an assassination, send us a ring and we will go in force. If you need help in a war against another guild, call us up. We will gladly help you beat that ass. But, be prepared to pay. 100k was the asking price last time I checked. Of course, with inflation in Sosaria being the way it is, it could've doubled since then.
That's a SMALL introduction of what our guild is about. But it really doesn't begin to sum up what BDA is about. We are a "family". We stick together and back each other up. Our guild isn't just about running around and speaking in Illythiri (sp?) nor is it about killing every elf we see (although we try ::winks at Calista::). We do PvM, are heavily into PvP, and have some of the best 1 v 1 PvPers on the shard. I don't have to say it for you to believe it. Just ask any B*C or D-I member. We aren't the overall best PvPers, but dammit we can hold our own. We are respected by PvP guilds. And that's all that matters.
We aren't there for PvP solely for the sake of PvP. Our events have to have purpose and have a definate goal in mind. Playing to Crush is fun sometimes, but knowing something is going to be yours at the end makes it even more appealing ::thinks back to Trinsic before the fiasco:: No, I don't just mean loot. I mean a "goal".
Why am I telling you all this bullshit? Just to give you some background to what I really want to say.
BDA has been the bastard child of the Roleplaying Community of Great Lakes for a long time. I saw this before I was a member. In fact, I had a low opinion of them before I got to know them better. A BDA member showed me what BDA was really about.
Gawd I wish Cloud was still around...anyway, I digress.
When something bad happens, BDA gets fingers pointed at it. We are told we are liers, trashtalkers, cheaters, looters, reskillers, suck ass PvPers, non Roleplayers, etc. But noone rises up to admit the little boo boos they have committed. They just rise the flag of "you suck cheating ass BDA".
In fact, a few have it out for us to make our lives miserable. I have the ICQ and MIRC logs to prove it. But that's not for you to see.
You see, in our Guild Wars, we have rules. Rules that allow us to determine an outcome in a war. Rules that allow us to get away from the everyday Notoers, Order/Chaos and Faction ganks and "Cool Dood" behavior*.
Saying "I owned you" is a no no. Saying "you suck newbie" is a no no. Saying "you suck" is a no no. There are "gentleman's rules". No reskilling. No looting. You die, you are out for a set period of time. Fighting within agreed upon zones. Etc., etc., etc.
Has BDA broken those rules? Yes, we have. On rare instances someone gets a hair up that ass and does something stupid and has to attone for it. ::raises up his hand as a guilty party:: But attone for it we do. And I am trying to do better. I have my own work to do to follow some of those rules (especially the staying in character part ::winks at Caleb::).
When a rule is broken, we are supposed to send a message to a guild officer and say, "hey, someone broke a rule, this is who, and what happened". That doesn't always happen. In a battle when blood is running hot and things are going at the speed of Internet Light, it's hard to stop, deal with a transgression while trying to fight off would be killers.
BDA has been known to handle some of these badly, too. But usually, we (BDA) get over it quickly and move on. Grudges aren't worth holding. They aren't worth getting upset over. We got a game to play, and dammit, we intend on playing it.
But, when it's BDA, alot of the RP Community on GL rises up and then says: "see, I told you, BDA isn't to be trusted". In fact, people have it out to "expose" and destroy BDA. And it's always the same group that does this.
People have to point out, "if I break a rule, we get kicked out of our guild or have to pay a penalty, what does BDA have to do to attone?" First of all, it's none of anyone's fucking business (that's not in BDA) what our guildmembers have to do to attone for our actions. The only time you should know about it is when your GM tells you how it's handled or if you are given something given to you as a raparation to what you lost. Other than that, shut the fuck up and move on. The only reason I put up with you asshoes** in the first place is because I get to hang with my homeys and continue to enjoy their time and company.
Ok, I am moving on past the main point I have yet to present.
What's the point in everyone in the Great Lakes RP Community cutting each other off at the knees? We are no better than the "you-suck-newbie-cool-dood" running through the streets yelling at you because you have a different play style. We want to be respected right? Well, we need to respect ourselves and each other first.
We should be bringing each other up and supporting each other.
If someone breaks a rule, and it's brought to you, deal with it in the nicest manner possible. Screaming "prove it!" doesn't help. It just incites anger and/or resentment. Yes, you can't always just go on someone's word. You should look into it. Find out exactly what's going on and get all the facts. Yes, suggestions have been made to help make dealing with the situation easier, but some are unreasonable and unrealistic. Am I saying don't believe your own guildmates? No, I am saying be nice about it. I am saying look into it and investigate and BE POLITE. Don't sit there with a bad attitude about it in the first place and have it tainted with bullshit "it's just so and so guild crying again" (this includes BDA as well).
And all this backbiting and backstabbing going on is bullshit. If all the RP guilds on Great Lakes decides to peace each other and say, "fuck you", who do you have to be good guys to your bad and vice versa? You wind up running "inner guild events" all the time which, personally, start to suck ass and become boring after awhile. In a roleplaying sense, I want to help my guildmates move forward against the "goodies", not against my own guildmates. Alot of inner guild events are great, but they get stale with the same players all the time. And I want to move forward as a Roleplaying Community intent on improving our events and game play in those events. Not bring all of us down. And, right about now, I am all for peacing the whole fucking lot of you. But I want to have fun and I think it CAN work out for the better.
It's time the RP community stood up and said: "fuck the bitching and whining, let's rise above it and make it fun for us!!!" That's why we play UO in the first place right? To have fun.
I would hope that we all move on from this attitude of animosity.
I for one am ready to drop it and forget about everything before today and start anew.
I am willing to rise above the petty nonsense and once again have good events.
Are you?
*Note-Not all Order/Chaos nor Faction members behave in a Cool Dood manner. I am simply making a generalization to present a point.
**No, not everyone in the GL RP Community is an asshoe. Of course, those that I feel are, have already heard as such.
Hasta. |
^ top-FA attempts to give back to its beta testers...
[Eric] August 1 - 10:13 PM EDT | I received the following from the producer, or should I say, ex-producer of Fallen Age, Savant:
Hey everyone,
We're now offering a survey for you to pick your choice on if you want to be considered for the Dark Age of Camelot Beta, or if you want 2 months free of Underlight, or only a free t-shirt, or nothing at all. You must fill out this survey in order to qualify for any of the above. You can find the survey at: http://www.fallenage.com/survey
Please understand that we need to see the turnout of people requesting
DAoC Beta's before we can finalize the arrangement on just how you will be considered for admittance. In other words, this doesn't guarantee you a slot immediately.
This survey will be closed tomorrow afternoon, in exactly 24 hours from now. It's pretty short notice, but as you can guess, we're pressed for time, and we also need to act pretty quickly in order to make things easier on the very generous folks over at Mythic.
Thanks everyone, we miss you already.
Regards,
Daniel "Savant" Manachi
(I received this e-mail 7/30/01)
I guess after they had thousands of MMORPG CD submissions (remember back when Savant guaranteed you a beta slot in FA if you sent them an original MMORPG CD?), they didn't want the players to walk away empty-handed. It was a shit piece of game anyway. As you probably guessed, I went to the website and selected the DAoC Beta option (which also came with some sort of t-shirt). If I get into the DAoC Beta, I'll be sure to report on the quality of the game. If you've heard anything further on DAoC (I haven't yet read into it), please do drop me a line.
Cya later. |
^ top-Well lookee here.
[Nieves] August 1 - 8:46 PM EDT | Watts thinks he some kind of hot shot celebrity or something now.
In this interview given by the folks over at Fallen Realms, Watts talks about his on again, off again homosexual relationship with Redrum, his inability to get laid by a real woman, and his submissive relatinships with Jinx and Warlord.
Go give some people some love. That Fag needs it.
::blinks as you look at him::
What? So what if noone interviews me. I ain't fucking jealous.
::mumbles:: 'Asshoes'.
Hasta. |
^ top-How'd They Do That??
[Gator] August 1 - 2:52 PM EDT | Our fellow gamers over at IanStorm have hooked up the eternal almighty MMORPG game god Lord British aka. Richard Garriott himself! Damn, I need to start emailing some people. Maybe I can hook up an interview with that peekay I saw in Destard the other day. But anyways, if you have a question for Da Man, get on over to their live chat with him on the 8th of August. I am going to do my best to be there.
Not a good gaming night for Gator last night. Loosing a 2 Story while trying to place a Large Marble suxxors. All I can say is, Slim, get a damn life man. I mean dont get me wrong if a house is IDOC and it falls then it is very much so fair game. But as it was, this guy just came hopping along and after the 2-Story went poof, he plopped down a small before anything could be done about it. Oh the reason why he made it so easy is because I was trying to log in on a 2nd account to remove a log cabin that would have been in the way of the Marble. And what did he have to say after all this, not much he replaced another 2-Story, I logged in today praying for a revert, only to find the 2-Story with a sign that says "ty gents". Slim I hope you live a long miserable life. I would wish death upon your sorry ass, but that would be too short and painless, and afterall it's just a game and I am over it.
Later |
^ top-OSI employee eager for Vet Rewards
[Eric] August 1 - 8:43 AM EDT | Maybe he can help speed up the process to publish vet. rewards?
Remember, I was a player like all of you less than a week ago. I knew the same frustration as..wait, strike that...I *still know* that yearning for Vet Rewards! I didn't give my my account just because I got hired! No, sir-ee, bob! I'm eager to get some of that swell Vet Rewards myself!
I'd like to spread the good word, on this and other topics, but, I can't do much of that until I meet something like 3 dozen OSI team members and read as much of the 1000+ message posts that I haven't read yet. And, even moreso than when I worked on player news sites, I need to make quadruple sure that any details I post or e-mail is not my speculation, supposition, or presumption. My goal is to post facts or nothing. Thanks for being patient while I make my way through all this new info.
(Today was only my "day 4" on the job, and my second day posting. How'm I doing so far? I'm liking alla you guys, just so's ya know. :]
=========
Sannio
Online Community Coordinator, UO
Origin Systems
Sure, he sounds excited for vet. rewards... I guess even while working for OSI, he can still keep a player account open. Makes you wonder what other OSI employees run around the game as normal players.
Cya later. |
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