•Happy New Year! (Stay away from the police)

I wish you all a kickin' New Year and nasty hangovers. Remember, cold showers and coffee wont help you, its the price you pay. =)
Drink, smoke, get laid, and be happy. You will probably regret waking up near Olga in the morning, but I guaruntee you wont remember how she got there. Remember, drinking and driving is bad, and Law forbids you to do it. Also remember, getting drunk and doing stupid shit is fun.. but dont get caught. If you are unlucky and forced to play UO on New Years Eve, go red for me. You wont regret it.

Law is out for the night. Yall party hard - I will. :)

•Lum's UO:3D alpha cd contest has been concluded. Move along now, theres nothing to see here.

Lum had a contest a couple of weeks ago for 20 UO:3D alpha cds. To participate, you needed to post a pic of you in the game that shows why you are worthy to win the contest. Today we can see 20 worthy shots, and a few of those are pretty damned funny.

BRING THE WHIP!

•What do you get when you mix UO and 3D? Isometric AC!

It looks good. The character will look a hell of a lot better than they do now and in this pic. But, this is strikingly similar to Asheron's Call graphics, except you know... integrated with the old shit. Not a bad move.

I would also like to point out Markee Dragon's gameshots beta. It allows people to watch what you are doing in game, and in other games besides UO. Check it out and see if anyone is on; you might catch Markee playing UO:3D. If you would like to help test the game cam, sign up for the beta, instructions inside.

You love that Brit bank lag, doncha? Imagine it in 3D!

•Remember Kentar? You will.

I am sure you all remember Nieves' link from the 25th, right? If not, check it out now, or you reading further is pointless.

To set the record straight, this comic, created by Kentar, was originally posted here as a gag for his buddies. He was trying to humor his fellow GL PvPers, not start an anti-OSI movement. Well, he did. What else would you expect from the guy who sold a regular "orange potion" on eBay for $5,100? (you remember that don't you?)

Kentar posted that strip for his friends, then woke up to 1700+ hits the next morning. CoB, PK-HQ, and UOPG posted links to the strip, some believed(me), some did not. He was offered legal representation by two different people(not me). Not only did the players notice, the game noticed:

"Please reply to this e-mail directly...I wish to talk to you about the other night and your interaction with GM Asroft. Thanks

12/26/2000 11:19:16 AM - Gm Magnus II Character: Kentar World: Great Lakes
Went back to macro room.....Player still macroing...removing them from the game...

12/26/2000 11:03:50 AM - GM Magnus II Character: Kentar World: Great Lakes
I went to talk to this player about a reported GM incident the other
night. Found the player unattended macroing Med and Kal Vas Flam on his boat. Took him to the macro room & sent a tell message "I came to talk about your problem the other night. Please page me when you are through unattended macroing...."

GM Magnus II"

Kentar also created a flash movie about this incident at his website. Check it out, it has a lot of my comments... just broadcast my idiocy... Oh well. The movie is 1.38mb, so give it a minute unless your a con-monkey(PhalanX). The conclusion is worth it.

Remember, there is a little Boy George in all of us.
(Let it load you impatient little prick)

•UO:3D Alpha screenshots.

As the CDs ship and people actually get them, naturally we are going to see more of the 3D client everyone loves to bitch about. I found these shots on the UOboards, courtesy of biggie_fries:

Outpost | Fireball | Imp | Troll | Swamp tentacle | Swamp tentacle2It looks promising to be in Alpha stage. I guaruntee you the interface and characters/monsters will be looking a hell of a lot better than they do now before it is released. Its currently in alpha, so they can test the mechanics and tweak the client, not woo the testers with eye candy. I think the graphics suck hard, but I know they will get better once beta ships. Give them half a chance.

With my luck, my comp wont be enough to play it.

•UO:3D Beta CD contest.

Corpnews is hosting a contest for UO:3D beta CDs. All you have to do is send them a picture in .jpg or .gif format of you PKing someone.
Now dont stand over a slaughtered bank thief in your bright pink apron, be creative. If you enter the contest make sure to post your entry in the forum so we all can see your mad skillz. Good luck to all!


Courtesy of LtM and Corpnews. Fear Mr. Poppinfresh.

•Upcoming moongate changes.

I have the pleasure of breaking some very good news to everyone. Those damned moongates are getting a revamp. The changes are currently on UO:3D alpha test. Create a character in Jhelom and run to the gate to see it for yourself. When I did I recieved "null string errors" in place of facet and city names, but it is functional. Once impemented, walking in a moongate will bring up an interface which gives you a choice between eight cities and Tram/Fel. I am sure if my account was UO:3D enabled I would also have the option to choose the new continent. This is a welcome change, considering I am sick and tired of moonstones.

Praise OSI, they did something right. Now we need that magic system revamp.

•Merry Fucking After Christmas to you too.

GL and LS are moving to the east coast servers. They say:

It has been the ultimate goal of OSI from the very beginning, to build the best, most redundant network presence for UO. This move will allow us to take advantage of our expanding network infrastructure by allowing us flexibility in our peering partners, which in turn will provide our customers with Extensive information on our future network and peering plans may be found on our Connectivity message board . Additionally, this move will allow us to transition the Lake Superior and Great Lakes shards to new and upgraded hardware.

Um, yeah right. Going to be a long January I think (the planned date of the moves). And it's not about making a great move, it's about money. You move out of a place, consolidate your servers and you save in rent, overhead, etc. etc. MAYBE, they will upgrade the old hardware and it will work better. Maybe.

They also say:

To ease this transition and to help us address any connection issues prior to the move, Great Lakes and Lake Superior users may wish to use UO Trace to test your connection to the Atlantic, Catskills, or Chesapeake shards.

44 MS and 12 hops to GL
90+MS and 13 hops to each of the above. You do the math.

Bah.

Hasta.

•Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had a safe and happy Christmas. Let me introduce myself. I am Jane and play on the GL shard. I quit about 4 months ago, and started an account again today. I've already got callen a newbie and a kid. I thought I did pretty well.(This is all for killing bulls. Note: The guy that called me a newbie followed me around and Flamestriked every bull I attacked. Note: If you have under 70 fighting skills and want to raise them, you want bulls.)

Now, you may ask yourself, why the hell did Nieves let me be update. Good question. I am helping him with a project you will see in a couple days. I have no really duties here. Just right up some essays here and there, make sure everything is working, help Nieves, and thats about it! Icq is 41894650 if anyone has a question.

•Christmas, Camelot and other odds and ends.

I hope each and everyone one of you has a very Merry Christmas and safe and happy New Year. Please don't drink and drive and if your friend's drink, don't let them drive. You might just save their lives.

I have been reading all about the Dark Age of Camelot over at their official website. The game looks tight and looks like alot of fun. If it's as good as it's touted, there might be room for a DAoC Powergamers :). Too bad I can't into the Beta :( I wonder if the game is first person or overhead view. Anyone want to give me that info?

A friend sent me this link today. All I could do is shake my head in disgust. If it's true, it's a travesty.

Hasta.

•Well since it hasnt already been said.....

Actually I will just be early to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. Hopefully Santa will bring you all Vanq weapons a plenty!!

Later

•MMORPG cost analysis, Santa, and Music.

I would like to take this time to wish every single one of you a very Merry Christmas. While im at it, have a Happy New Year; I know I will. Just dont get killed or anything, and dont wake up next to Helga naked (drink safe and drive safely).

Picked up an MMORPG cost analysis (part 1|part 2) at Lum's. This article is a very good read. Part 1's Player behavior vs. cost section states some very strong points. This part is also a good read because it showcases earlier MMOG's pricing history. Part 2 gives you somewhat of an "insider's view" on how the money is allocated, I found that interesting. Its surprising just how much money the dirty bastards make, and just how much keeping the game alive costs ($1.5 million a month for Everquest). You will also find Myschyf's solution... I am glad that will never happen. Then again, I dont see a problem with the Customer Service departments; they arent the problem, the players are the problem. Thats where pre:UOR days shined. You could kill the morons instead of waiting in a qeue for 134 other people. Anyways...

Anyone catch the Christmas Disney special on ABC that went over at 9pm EST? Was Santa really flying or what? I mean damn, the people who were actually there were watching that sucker divebomb Cinderella's castle... and there was a reflection in the water. How the hell did they do that? I wish I could fly... *grins*

Does anyone remember the old music (flame) thread that Slinky started? If you do you would remember that I was constantly plugging Linkin Park... well I decided to actually buy the CD and you know... Linkin Park kicks ass. If your into alternative/rock/heavy metal check them out. If dont trust me enough to buy the cd, fire up napster and search for "One Step Closer" and/or "A Place For My Head". They have other great songs on the CD, so its definately worth it! I foresee these guys going at least triple-platinum.

Peace.

•Movie and Game Review

Welp, I went and saw Dracula Y2k and Dungeons and Dragons this weekend.

Dracula Y2k

Interesting Plot twist. Some pretty cool special effects and decent punch lines. What do I think? It's worth renting when it's in the 2.00 for 3 nights section. In the words of the guy in the back row: "Wes Craven Sucks"

Dungeons & Dragons

I have been playing D&D since 1988 and we used the Red and Blue books then (if you know what I am talking about, you understand the signifigance of it all). I went to this movie without any expectation to it being anything like the actual game itself. I was hoping to be entertained. I can say my son liked it very much. What do I think? I almost fell asleep 10 minutes into it. I wanted to leave when they found the Dwarf in the middle of a junk pile. If you want an example of what D&D is really like, watch Willow.

Why is it that Hollywood takes a really good concept and just fucks it up. They did great with Blade. They did a pretty good job with the X-Men. Why can't they do just as well with everything else they touch. Fuckheads.

I guess my tastes in movies has changed. I might've liked it at 8 years old.

Final Fantasy fans are getting a treat. I saw the trailor for the first time last night. The movie visuals look FANTASTIC! And the story concept looks pretty tight as well. The trailor had the look and feel of a Final Fantasy game. I think this will be a big hit next year.

Magic the Gathering Fans should keep their eyes on this game: Magi Nation. If the Alabama's top M:TG player says it's a great game, I would have to believe him. I happen to have gotten an early Christmas present of all 5 precons and a booster box (JOY!). I checked out the rules and it seems very easy. The art is a bit on the cheesy anime side, but I don't mind because the game seems pretty good.

First off, there are no lands. So you can't get land screwed (not enough land) or land hosed (too much land). The game is about your 3 little magi and the energy they posses. Not too mention you attack the magi and the creatures the magi can create. You take down the creatures and the magi, you win :). Go check it out. I think you might get hooked as I did.

Hasta.

•Something someone sent me...

I guess this is why you don't fuck with Watts...

Gotta love it.

Hasta.

•Amazing Interview.

Paul sage speaks.

Here is a snippet:
Paul Sage: The most important change we could make will be one of the hardest. We have to get rid of anonymity in the PSW environment. Right now, poor behavior is hurting the communities people are trying to build, and that behavior is not socially discouraged if people don't know who the perpetrator really is. Troublemakers tend to be troublemakers no matter where they go. If being banned from one service were likely to get miscreants banned from multiple services, I think we would start to see a rapid decline of troublemakers. Reputation in-game would start being a lot more important as well.

We need to move as an industry toward understanding that rules and mechanics can be bent and broken, but it is much harder to fool players in the game than the game itself. Many of the answers lie within your community, but you have to place trust there. Ten or even forty people may misjudge someone, but when hundreds of people start telling you someone is a problem, you need to listen to those people.

Hmmm...now wouldn't that be a trip if you knew the person that just scammed you on a Black Dye tub scam lives just down the street?

What if OSI shared their information on banned players (and why they were banned) with EQ and AC? Gets you thinking doesn't it?

Hasta.

•Cause I am too freaking lazy to read the news myself.

From email:
Added to General Testing on Dec 20:
Nobles and Seekers of Adventure will have the following changes:
When a Noble or Seeker of Adventure is attacked outside of town limits, they will call "henchmen" for assistance.
Henchmen that can come to the aid of a Noble or Seeker of Adventure will have increased fighting ability. Some will use archery.
The Noble or Seeker of Adventure cannot be killed until the henchmen are dealt with (killed).
Henchmen will carry some of the gold from the noble or seeker of adventure as payment for coming to their rescue.
After a short time, the henchmen will leave the noble or seeker of adventure and return from where they came.
About time I say. Now people will have to earn their gold.

Elyssa

Oh well, no more free gold for folks. All that means is that the Lich Rooms across Brittania will be even more crowded.

Oh, and dieing to a fucking Terathan Avenger sucks. Damn thing spawned in the pool near the front. I was in the pool. Can anyone tell me how you cast teleport to get out when a Terathan Avenger gets a bead on you? To Paige that first attacked my kills, then went ahead and resed, then told me I was stupid after she invisibled me after ressing and the Terathan ganked me again anyway, (she told me she wouldn't res me again): Fuck you, too.

Sometimes I hate this fucking game.

Hasta.

•Cant Log Into UO Tonight?

This afternoon at around 5:30PM OSI brought all the shards down for a patch. Immediately after this patch everything came back up. But everyone was encountering problems logging in. Well the problem lies with whether or not you are running UOAssist. If you are, start your UO without using UOA. Yeah this sucks, but until UOA gets patched you are S.O.L. Just a little tidbit for everyone out there. Hell if anything, enjoy the history of the game. Afterall, this is how ALOT of folks started playing this game.

Later

•Ophidians

I take a stroll to Terathan Fort and start looking for Ophidians. Last time I had been there the Ophidian spawn was nonexistant. As soon as I recal in, I hear their hissing sounds. Party time...

I run around looking for Matriarchs hoping to get some resist gains. I find a Zealot. Hmm..I remember him from the days of the Town Invasions. I killed him then. Well, it notices me and gives chase. I swear it is faster than a Silver Serpent. I back away from it a few times to check. Sure enough, the bastard is faster than the silver serpent. Thank goodness he does not have the same level of poison. He hits hard and fast and drops magic up to 7th level on your head. After killing the damn thing (took a few potions and my share of bandages to take it out), I got a good amount of fame and karma along with 250+ gold, some regs and a couple of gems. My GM MonstaKilla doesn't get fame from regular liches anymore... ::grins:: And these guys are ALOT more fun to kill.

I also ran into an Ophidian Justicar. Another monster from the Town Invasion days. This guy is just a tad slower than the Zealot and packs a decent magic punch. He had a bit more gold and the same amount of regs and gems. Did I tell you I used to farm Ophidians when I was low on Arrows? Great monster to gather arrows from if you can stay away from the Knights and Avengers.

I know the Justicar and Zealot have been around for months, I just didn't realize how beefy these two have gotten.

In toughness, I would rate the ophidians like this (lowest to highest):

Warrior
Enforcer
Apprentice Mage
Shaman
Justicar
Matriarch
Zealot
Knight Errant / Avenger (interchangeable).

The Zealot runs faster than the matriarch and hits you 20 times a second (ok, it felt like it). The knight errant and avenger have level 4-5 poison...and hit for 30-40 points. Need I say more about them? YOU DON'T MELEE THEM! You run, teleport to a safe spot, and drop a blade spirit on them (NO, ENERGY VORTEX DOES NOT WORK ON THEM! AND YOU GOT TO USE EVALUATE INTELLIGENCE ON A MATTY/ZEALOT TO MAKE SURE THEY DON'T HAVE MANA SO THE ENERGY VORTEX CAN DO IT'S JOB ON THEM!!!) Poor guy never came back for his stuff ::shrugs:: I have seen knights/avengers kill Dragons that have gone wild. Oh, and I saw a Knight Errant tear a Wyvern he was provoked on apart. Is anyone convinced yet? If not, go fight them and figure it out.

What gets me is the idiots that do it over and over and over...::shakes head::

Just makes my pocket fatter when they don't get back in time to get their stuff.

Hasta.

•A perfectly understandable guide to 8x8

Searching the boards a few days ago, I came across this. I found it understandable, which is uncommon for a forum post. If your one of those L33T people, then this is old news. If your one of those people flooding our forum with "8x8 is a hoax" spam, please click here.

Thank you.

•Changes...part duece

The Hybrid character section is getting an upgrade. Anyone other than ProQuo got any suggestions for it?

So far I have this for the Assassin Template:

GM Fencing or Swords, GM Anatomy, GM Healing, GM Poisoning, GM resist or Parry, GM tactics, and GM Magery.

and this for the MedWarrior:

GM anatomy, GM fencing, GM meditation, GM magery, GM resist, GM tactics, and GM healing

Hasta.

•Bug fixes...

I am hearing the Protection Scroll+Armor Bug no longer works. I am also hearing that an Earthquake scroll will go -poof- when it fizzles.

No more GM Meditation, GM Evaluate, GM Magery freebies for juuz.

You can no longer stable pack horses with anything in there bag.
There is a new menu when Co-owned. It lets you accept or decline it and also a menu to be removed from Co-ownership.

Statloss gains work on every skill tested.

And from email:


MEMORANDUM


To: Roleplaying and Trading Card Game Fans

From: Wizards of the Coast

Subject: Wizards of the Coast Reorganization Plans

Contact: Jack Sabin
Director of Corporate Communications
Wizards of the Coast
(425) 204-7655


Yesterday, Wizards of the Coast announced the implementation of a
reorganization plan driven by the future needs of its business and
customers.

Regrettably, one facet of this reorganization involves the elimination of
some positions. Approximately five percent of Wizards’ workforce (about
100 positions) were eliminated across the company. These moves were made
after carefully reviewing all aspects of our business.

Effective January 1, 2001, Vince Caluori, current President, will assume
the duties of CEO. Peter Adkison, current Wizards of the Coast CEO, has
made the decision to leave the company and enjoy some well-deserved time
off to pursue new interests.

The reorganization is attributed to several factors. For the past few
years, the Pokémon® trading card game has experienced success beyond our
wildest expectations. However, as with the case of most popular products,
Pokémon has reached a maturity point. While sales are still strong, we no
longer require the resources we once did to support the product. Due to
the slowing economy, we also anticipated lower revenues for 2001. After a
review of all aspects of our business, we felt it was necessary at this
time to make these difficult changes to ensure the future of our company.

Wizards of the Coast has grown quickly in recent years and is proud of
what has been accomplished. The company is looking forward to 2001,
anticipating healthy sales from existing brands including Magic: The
Gathering®, Pokémon and Dungeons & Dragons® as well as new trading card
games, such as Harry Potter™ and MLB™, NFL™ and NBA™ Showdown Sports™
brands.

For additional questions, contact Jack Sabin, director of corporate
communications, Wizards of the Coast at (425) 204-7655.

Copyright © 2000 NBA Property, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
™ & ® Nintendo. ©1995–2000 Nintendo, Creatures, GAMEFREAK. resented by
The Pokémon Company.
Major League Baseball trademarks and copyrights are used with permission
of Major League Baseball Properties Inc. ©MLBPA Official Licensee — Major
League Baseball Players Association.
©2000 Officially Licensed Product of National Football League Players Inc.
HARRY POTTER, characters, names, and related indicia are trademarks of
Warner Bros. © 2001.
Wizards of the Coast, Magic: The Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons and
Showdown are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast Inc. ©2000 Wizards.


Ok, the CEO is leaving, not the President. I stand corrected.

Hasta.

•Because someone told me to update my freaking page...

Well, I come back from Carolina (missing those lovely Tornadoes in Alabama) and find UO has changed a tad.

Gifts hit. I am hearing a full set of Crystal Ball City whatchamacallits are going to be the most popular item(s). I got my new tree, a bell (that was the coolest shit the first 5 times I heard the bong; after that I was like "eh, whatever"; and Occlo and Magincia Balls. ::Shrugs:: I guess.

I can recall/gate to and from T2A. YAH! Awesome. I was able to save 3 regs making the jump to and from. Oh, and I don't have to do the recsu recdu crap anymore. Gotta love it :).

I saw a ton of Ostards running around Deceit this morning. I popped into Delucia, got a regular Ostard for free and jumped back into Deceit. It was great. Gotta love them fast as hell Ostards :)

Some guy told me Ostards went down in price and was going to sell me a Frenzy for 5k. ::grins:: Dude, I used to pay 1k for one back in the Pre UO:R days :) hehe.

One thing did stay the same...dunger heads in Deceit. Bah. Stand and fight the liches. Quit running away when I try to heal you!!! And you wonder why you were seeing grey 2 seconds later. :/ OH OH!!!

I saw "a poison elemental" corpse today. I was like "OH COOL! AN ELEMENTAL CORPSE!" The guys around me just laughed at me. ::shrugs:: Oh, and the looting rights problems have been fixed.

In the words of my gf: "It's about time they did something to earn my 9.99". Hehe.

Hasta.

•I am bored so I am updating...

It's that time of the year again.

Exams.

Fucking exams. Why should one test that takes 3 hours count between 30 and 75 percent of the total grade in a class? What the fuck is that bullshit.

Now that I have vented, on to more random stuff.

If you all didn't know, Epyon quit and sold his account. Flame him for leaving and then thank him for all he has done for all of us. Veg / Epyon = True Powergamer. Simple as that. Even I can bow to that stud. Ep...email me. I want to know how much you got for it if you don't mind.

In other news, I used to play Magic the Gathering. I quit right after Legends came out. Fucking reprint of cards. It was the equivocal of applying stat loss in Sosaria. Made lots of people mad and made lots of people (like me) leave. Those were the days. When Moxes were only normal rares to everyone. I had a full set of those mutherfuckers and a lotus and the 3 big blues. Hell I remember when Chaos Orbs were legal. If you ever played then and saw a person play a Chaos Orb in a tourney it was some funny shit. People would yell at each other over that card and where it landed. People would measure the wind / air conditioning / newbie rating of their opponent / size of the girl's boobs next to the table / level of alchohol drank the night before when throwing that card. Shit I saw a kid once throw that thing 10 feet away from the table determined that he could land on a person's 4 mishra's workshops, 4 juzam djinnes, and 4 birds of paradises at the same time. He hit a forest.

Factions still roxors and Shadowlords(gankers) across the board are taking over every city from Skara to some other city I can't even comprehend. I left Shadowlords because winning 95 percent of the time is not challenging, everyone with has 100 kills, and everyone drobes because "Its the thing to do" and "Everyone else is doing it". Unless you are getting flamed by newly rezzed oranges -- don't drobe. Fuck that bullshit. If you care about score -- you suck. Yes. I am talking to you. If you camp Brit healers -- you are a newbie,need to quit and play a game like Everquest because they like people who take it up the ass like you do. Score means nothing when you can't back it up. Sorry.

As you can see I am in a great mood. You know who is one funny muther fucker. Redrum. Let me reinforce UOTerror roxors and if you are not reading those posts go now. You have 5 seconds. Go. Why are you still here? Fucking go. One thing though. Christina > Britney. Any day.

In other news, you gain mad skill in faction stat loss. Instead of waiting around (jerking off in your bathroom) you should be gaining skill. Talk about powergaming. I gained some mad points of ei, magery and stealing bc the system -- I think -- see's your skill as faction stat loss skill. Like 60 or something. For magery, cast FS in powerhour and you'll gain. Do 8 by 8 and you'll gain fast.

Has anyone been getting a lot of packet loss lately? Why damnit? WHY! I can't say I have a bad connection. I ping 8 - 10 ms but with a 7 - 15 % packet loss whats the point. The dexers (now on their ostards. What homos) are on my screen, looting my regs, picking meat from my body before I can say "Ho Sale since 1869". Yea thats a poster I have in my room and had to quote it because I am unintelligent and am not original. You are welcome.

Can you crazy mutha-fuckers believe its almost Christmas? What the hell happened to 2000? Some memorable moments :

1. Fucking Christina Aguilera
2. Writing this update

Now only one of those actually happened. What a crappy year. To top it off, my computer says that there is no CD rom drive. But Mr. Computer there is a CD drive. Look. I am looking at it right now. It blinks and whirz and everything. But your dumbass says it doesn't exist. So you know what that means for me? No more Leisure Suit Larry 78 for me. Fucking A.

And yes I will get it fixed before UO3d comes out. Don't you worry children.

Holiday gifts suck. Maybe the new tree is cool. I got a 2 globes, 2 trees, and a holiday bell. You know what cities I got? Serpent's hold and Serpent's hold. Now ain't that some shit. I think the last time I went to Serpent's hold was in 98 when treasure maps were just a tattered treasure map and boat models were just called a ship model.

One last point. If you want to be a real dickhead, camp Occolo mage shop and wait for newly rezzed (or newbie) rival faction members to buy regs and then kill them. You'll laugh and all will be well.

Happy Holidays and have a fucking good New Year.

•Lum reported it, I corre...er, add to it

Wizards of the Coast, makers of the Magic the Gathering, Pokemon, Major League Baseball and Dungeons And Dragons games (yes, they own TSR), had to lay off about 5% of their work force (WoTC has approximately 900 people working for them in their local area plus regional reps/employees). Well, ok, Hasbro, the parent company of WoTC (as of almost 2 years), layed off those employees. The rumor was Hasbro cut WoTC's budget by 90%. That is not true. But it is a cut of a significant portion (my contact at WoTC wouldn't specify) of their current budget (speculation by outside sources is over 10%). The same contact at WoTC additionally confirmed the President, Peter Adkinson, will be resigning at the end of the month and moving on to other ventures (SHIT DAMN AND FUCK!). A friend of mine in my local area, who WAS the regional representative for WoTC was part of that lay off. It looks as if the whole Regional Representative Program was terminated by WoTC (if all the Regional Reps are let go, what else can you make of it?).

I put a call into Jack Saban, PR guy for WoTC, to contact me and possibly forward the formal press release on this whole situation to me when it's going out to the public. Hopefully he will.

For the record, the cancellation of Magic the Gathering's Pro Tour Columbus is not related to this budget cut. All those moneys are being reallocated into the other Pro Tours and into the World Championships for Magic the Gathering. In all, over $400,000 (yes there is 5 zeros there; it's not a misprint) in prize money will be awarded as part of that championship event. The other $100,000 will probably be allocated to the other Pro Tour events overseas.

These changes probably occured because the Cash Cow (Pokemon Trading Card Game) has bombed recently (I am no longer a judge due to teaching karate more; in the last few months, attendence has been 1/2 of what it was and card sales have dwindled). Hasbro probably decided that it would be best in cutting the budget of WoTC since they aren't making as much money as they once did. Or so they think. Personally, I think it's bullshit. M:TG is back on the upswing sales wise and interest is climbing into the game. People make their living playing on WoTC's (read: DCI's) Pro Tour. And these "pros" put alot of money into the game. It's sad that some money crunching butt fuck decided it would be best to cut WoTC's budget. Bah....asshoes.

I report this on a UO website because A)I know alot of you play the game, B)dispel some rumors, and C) because I, myself, love this game.

Thanks to my local M:TG in the know friends and to the WoTC reps for bringing me correct information (as well as their personal insight).

Hasta.

•::waves at Angry Bob::

Email me and I will get your login name and password reset so you can update if you wish.

How much easier than that can it be?

Hasta.

•Typical Hollywood Crap, but don't give up quite yet

Ok, since the topic of the hour is movies. More specifically,movies that suck, I thought I would bring you news of a film that will most likely be nominated if not win the Oscar for best picture, and get this... it's a martial arts flick. I shit you not. This film has been met with standing ovations overseas and got rave reviews out of the Cannes film festival. After you wait the 4 hours for the page to load, watch the demo. It's coming soon to a theater nowhere near some of you backwards hillbilly Rper's that actually thought D&D the movie would be anything like or even come close to the game we used to play.

•Let it snow let it snow let it snow..

Looks like all of UO is down for the count today. 3-4 inches of snow fell on the folks in Texas totally wrecking their day. I guess you can include those of us that are looking for that UO fix today as having their day wrecked. No power hour for me this morning before work.

Hasta.

•Changes...

I added the factions forum link to the left as well as added a new essay to our essay section.

Yes, I know some of our links are broken and only listed on our front page. We are working on correcting them. Having the menu listed on every page is inefficient in maintaining the site although easier for the user to navigate the site. Hopefully with the redesign it will be easy to navigate as well as easy to maintain.

Hasta.

•PSST Want Some Blanks?

Here is my semi-official guide to every location of blank scroll seller in the lands of Britain. This was in Trammel on LS by the way but it should be the same everywhere else, for the most part. Note that there may be 2-4 different vendors in each of these locations that can sell scrolls. And there there are times when there may only be one seller. I have all these locations marked in two rune books.

Britain:
The Sorcerers Delight: Shop, Library, & Guild
Incantations and Enchantments
Britain Public Library
The First Library of Britain
Sage Advice
The Saw Horse

Bucs Den:
Violente Woodworks

Delucia:
Hut O' Magic's

Jhelom:
From Tree to Yew
Jhelom Mage
Jhelom Library

Magnica:
Magnica's Magicka
The Tic - Toc Shop

Minoc:
The Oak Throne

Moonglow:
Moonglow's Finest Alchemy
The Mage's Seat
Encyclopedia Magicka
Illusionist's Guild
The Sorcerer's Guild

Papua:
The Carpentry House
Tricks of the Trade

Serpent's Hold:
Serpent's Spells
Tinker of the Isle

Skara Brae:
Mages Menagerie
Builder's Delight

Trinsic:
Encyclopedia Magicka

Vesper:
The Hammer and Nail
The Magical Light/The Circles of Magic

Yew:
Bloody Thumb Woodworks
Empath Abbey

Enjoy!

Later

•And he has spoken...

I found this "essay" written by Lawyer (a mod from our Factions Forum). I present the question then his response. I think this deserved posting here and as well as a spot in our essay section (tomorrow or later, whichever comes first) as a "MedWarrior in Factions Synopsis" or "The MedWarrior and his place in Factions" essay.

hasta.

Lawyer, I was curious how you have liked your med warrior in Factions. I have been working on one myself and he is about a week away(will be gm everything but resist, it will be about 85 by then). Factions is much different than any fighting I have seen in past. Alot of large group fighting. How has the med warrior held up in these types of fights and how are you using him.
Thx for any info =)

Mbogo
-----

Truthfully, I have not had the time to play hardly any lately. Real life does get in the way sometimes, especially with Christmas near. I have not had the time or motivation to give factions a good try yet. I cant really help you with any of my experiences, I apologize.
Theoretically though, the Med-War is formidable, however in group warfare there are better templates. In my opinion the Med-War is primarily for 1v1 fights. That does not mean it cannot hold it's own in a group situation, but there are equal or better uncommon templates for that. A good majority of everyone you talk to will tell you Archery is not for PvP. In group warfare archery is very good. The same goes for magery (yes I know magery is not uncommon). Both allow ranged attacks, and in numbers, could be lethal within the first shots. I believe a good factions only character (group PvP only) does not comform to the standard PvP templates.

A truly great group PvP character is one that is versatile. You need to be able to make up for the weaknesses and contribute to strengths. Your friends/fellow group members also mean a great deal. The group as a collective needs to be able to stay alive and kill at the same time. If you manage to learn how to accomplish that, you will be a hell of a lot better than many others. Most groups are suicidal and concentrate on killing you. It is much easier to keep one person alive than kill one person with friends, especially if you have company that have no idea what they are doing.
A good group, in my opinion, would consist of ranged and melee, with good healing capabilities. You are useless if you are seeing monochrome. Spear users are preferable for group melee because of the stun - keeps the dying from outrunning you and keeps damage down. A person with three spear users on them is pretty much dead, then the mages and archers add to the lethality. You do know you should concentrate on one person right?

General stragety, or common sense, would be to take one person out at a time. Considering 1 person cannot handle 4+ people on them at one time, its not hard. The spear users are close to each other so they better be keeping each other alive. This is easy with the short delay for healing another. The mages in the back, or running, depending on how the enemy reacts, should provide cures and critical heals, but I would say they should concentrate on keeping the victim poisoned and everyone alive in general. Just make sure you dont lose all of your mana, if you do that you are useless. Supplemental damage is OK, but the weapons do it much better than you do (no offense to mages). Archers - well they just rock. If you have 2 or 3 archers, against a non-parryer, they are dead. You would be experiencing the medieval M16. The main goal is to keep everyone alive. Killing the opponent comes second - a very close second. If you lose a group member, you will be at a great morale and tactical disadvantage. As I have stated before, many concentrate on killing and ignore healing. Take advantage of that.
Also remember to pack light. A good death is an inexpensive death - if such a thing exists. Dont take out that l337 blue armor, dont take out anything magical, and you sure in the hell dont take out a load of regs. If you are a mage I would suggest a junk rune in your book so if your group gets low on supplies, you can mark in a safe place and gate to your HQ, then gate back. That could happen because an organized group is lethal - and rare.
As for supplies, I dont see a noticeable difference between studded and GM studded. If you expect to die, go to a shop - not a PC vendor. You will save a lot of money in the long run and factions truly is a resources game. I can go for GM weapons, there is a noticeable difference there. If you want to use lesser poison, which is a good idea (interrupts), use it on a store bought weapon. 25 pre-made bandages will be good, but if you want more go for it - cloth is cheap. Potions are a matter of personal preference. If things go right you should not need any, except for a TR or three. If you want to take the expense, be my guest, it might save your ass. Just try to keep your expense low, and your kill : death ratio high!
I am not going to post templates because whether or not the template is effective depends on your skill, your connection, and your opponent. If you do not enjoy playing a warrior, do not make one, because you probably will not be good at it. Play something you are comfortable with and can easily adapt to. If you hate archers, dont play one - you will suck at it. Archery is great because of the range. Also if no one is on you, you can step away and heal yourself while dealing out damage (this should not happen). Healing is crucial. If you want to be a awesome support character, go with a healer mage - if your con is great. If you want to live a lot longer, take hiding. If you want to throw fish at them - take fishing (if you do I will kill you). If you want to have some good fun, take snooping and stealing. Make sure you dont lag though. It all comes down to what you are comfortable with - you will be more effective with a character you enjoy than one you do not. Realize that the commonly accepted PvP templates are not group PvP templates.

Nevertheless, a Med-War is good in groups. They allow raw damage, keeping friends alive easily (bandages and spells), and um.. well if you can do that your good.


I apologize for the lack of information you requested. To compensate for this, I gave you other shit so I didnt look like a total moron (hopefully). I will try to get Epyon in here to talk shit about me and tell you whats up.

•News from the front....

Information added to "Testing for Next Update" on Dec 6:
Placement of house add-ons will be changed, to provide a cancel/confirm window before the add-on is placed. Players will be able to use a targeting cursor to place the house add-on, and after the placement attempt is made a confirmation window will appear asking if this spot is the desired location. Cancelling the placement will cause the house add-on deed to remain with the player.
Um..ok, cool. I guess I can destroy and move those beds I placed 6 months ago.

Elemental Corpses
Melantus, the UO Online Community Coordinator, sent us the following:
Added to Testing For Next Update on Dec 6:
All elementals will now leave a corpse upon their death. The loot items contained on the creatures will now be within this corpse, and subject to normal looting rights.
All in good...but what about the problem with folks being able to loot monsters I killed while they didn't do a point of damage to them?

Why doesn't OSI reps just say "hey, there is a problem with such and such, we are working on it" like they used to in the past? I find out about a bug, I make my "call" to Counselor Anonymous about it, and he confirms it. If the GMs know about it, surely the dev teams and OSI Custumer reps know about it. Darnit, KEEP US INFORMED! It's all I ask.

Speaking of which, would the gentleman that called me from OSI a few months ago email me again? I can't find your darn email address for the life of me. Hell, I can't find or remember anything anymore. I didn't even remember that you need 50 lockpicking and 50 detect hidden before you can get a single skill point remove trap. Bah, I suck.

Hasta.

•Rezkilling is K3wL.....

I’m enjoying faction warfare totally and am having few problems with it. I’m in the majority in that opinion as it seems the system is a resounding hit. However, I’m seeing a lot of people complain about the same things. They believe that these faults need correcting or that they have "ruined" the game.

The number one complaint is with Rez-killing. A lot of players are asking for a special "state" for those that die: A period of invulnerability, a temporary [young] status, and even a invisible time span.

They seem to believe that the rezkilling is rampant and wrong and that this rezkilling is the fault of the killer. I disagree. I believe, as does the Dev team, that the responsibility lays squarely on the shoulders of the "victim".

The desire to retrieve items, the need to get back a pet or horse, the urge to talk to your enemy, and lastly to return to battle are the few reasons to res while an enemy stands nearby . If you are honest with yourself, you will know that the above reasons are the only reasons for coming back to life near an orange player.

If you carefully examine those reasons, you will see that they are foolish and based on the "victims" greed, laziness, and pride.

If you are coming back to life in an attempt to retrieve items, you are doing so because you do not wish to put forth the effort of re-equiping. You are being foolish in expecting the enemy to return the items he earned from you. The same goes for pets or horses.

If you are returning to the world of color to merely converse with the enemy, do not be surprised if he doesnt wish to talk. Factions is after all a war and chatting with the an enemy soldier does not keep other enemies from striking you down. This is especially true if your vital comments consist of "gay ass ganker phags".

The most compelling reason to rezkill is that the "victim" will attack again if given the opportunity. When faced with striking down a weak enemy or allowing the enemy to grow strong, a wise combatant will strike them while they are still weak. This is merely smart warfare.

When viewed like this, its impossible to deny that rezkilling is an unfortunate necessity in online combat. It is most likely that those complaining are the same that are repeatedly rezing near enemies, expecting a different result each time.

My advice is to have a fully charged rune book with default set to a safe spot (i.e. Home or guild house) and to bite the bullet and rez with a wandering healer out in the woods. Use out of the way banks in towns like Jhelom or Occlo. Dont carry anything you can’t afford to loose. If you follow those simple rules, you wont find yourself repeatedly rezzing at Brit healers so you can retrieve that trapped pouch and floppy hat from your completely looted body.

Comments?

•Factions: Pro's & Con's

Ok for starters. Props to OSI for at least pulling this off. They get enough static from us when they screw things up and don't get anything implemented but at least this was. Ok as far as I see it right now there is one major pro and one major con to the faction system.

I'll start with the con, the rampant rez killing. I called this from the get go, I can't think of a way you could implement code to actually make someone unattackable right after a rez but I do have a solution. That solution is transparency after death. Basically if you are killed after death due to factions you are translucent to everyone. Meaning you cannot attack, nor be attacked for 20 minutes. During this time you would be able to be rezzed by a healer and or faction mate, you would also be able to bank and equip without fear of getting killed. You would suffer no statloss because there would be no reason. Now with this translucency players could walk right through you so you couldn't block either. I know the code for this could be implemented and seems like a logical solution.

Now for the pro, this is where I'm excited about factions. Yesterday I saw players working together who would otherwise have never been talking to each other. If you want to be in a faction interaction with other players is an absolute must, and I think that is perhaps the best thing to happen to pvp in this game. I look back on what osi has done for the last year and it's starting to make sense. They are encouraging group play in both pvm and pvp, no not encouraging, making it a must. That is what this game should have been about in the first place. There are of course many subtelties to the faction system that will be taken out because they just plain suck. "Showscore" needs to be dropped quickly. Daily rankings can be posted on the osi website.. we don't need minute by minute analysis. Also, someone on Chesapeake (-S-, OIN, DSR, AOD, any other influential guild I forgot to mention) please grow a sack and go some other faction beside Shadowlords. I hear this is problematic on all shards. Be that as it may, SL's have by far the best organization and are kicking everyone's ass on Ches. Not suprising. Anyway, I don't have the time to write up a complete essay and give you my full diatribe on factions as I'd rather play them for now but you can expect much more to come from me concerning all of this.

Jinx has a comment on factions and a few links worth checking out.

•COOKIES!!!!

COOKIE MONSTER!!! If anyone knows me, I am a sucker for cookies. Apparently, these guys weren't....

Hasta.

•I must be important or something.

Sometime yesterday I noticed that the site was down and the main page was replaced with a friendly (index disabled) message. Ok I am thinking I just need to call my webhost (prohosting) and see what is going on. So I call tech support and tell them what is going on, they put me on hold for a few minnutes and then someone else anwsers and I am put on hold agian; I hear people mumbleing in the backgroud followed be a few minnutes of silence. By now I know its something serious or that Prohosting is comprised by incompentant rejects.

Finaley I am told that my site has been taken down because osi was threting to sue them because my site was distributeing downloads of software that allegedly infringe copyrights of EA. So I am like damm... I decide to tell the tech guy I will take down the files section until we get things resolved, but no they refuse to do anything until I get approval from Karen Nations (the attorney osi hired).

So I call karen Nations offices in the morning and I am told she is busy, ok I call back and she is still busy. Finaley after several calls and e-mails I get a responce stating that osi dident even specify which files they want removed, expect that the good people who made "UO ASSIST" are going to sue me as well if I dont remove "UO ASIST from my files section. After a little work I got them to agree to allow prohosting to re-instate my website as long as I agreed to temporaly disable the files section.

So the site has just been restored minus the files section, at least for now... I promise that the files section will be restored evently most likly with a disclaimer or terms of service agrement.

Copys of some of the e-mails I recieved from osi will be included below, although something is telling me I shouldent do it but, what the hell...

Here is the letter I recieved

Karen Nations
Senior Attorney


Via Electronic Mail: theprostitute@uoprostitute.com

Uoprostitute.com

Re: Notice of Alleged Infringement from Electronic Arts

Dear Sir/Madam:

AboveNet Communications, Inc. received notice pursuant to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. 512) (“DMCA”) from Electronic Arts (“EA”) that your website www.uoprostitute.com is distributing software that allegedly infringes copyrights of EA.

The DMCA requires a service provider to take certain actions when it receives a valid notice of alleged copyright infringement. These actions include removing the infringing material or disabling access to the infringing material. We have notified your Hosting Provider, Pro Hosting, of the alleged infringement and instructed them to take all required actions pursuant to the DMCA.

Once you have resolved the issues with the copyright holders, please contact me with a copy of the resolution prior to restoring the sites. To the extent you believe that no copyright infringement is occurring, you have the right to provide us with a counter-notice in accordance with the DMCA and we will thereafter take appropriate action.

Please contact me if you have any questions or would like to discuss this matter further.


Sincerely,


/s/ Karen Nations


My reply

Hellow

I have tried to phone you several time regarding my site(uoprostitute.com) but you where always on the phone with someone else. As you already know I run (uoprostitute.com) and plan to continue runing the site. In your last e-mail you stated that my site was distributing software that allegedly infringes copyrights of EA. I am asking what software and or files (please be spefic) are allegedly infringing on the copyrights of EA, "UO ASSEST" was mentiond in the e-mail you sent to my web host, is "UO ASSEST" the only file you are requesting me to remove? If not please send me a detailed list explaining what files you are requesting removed.

Furthermore I contacted my webhost (prohosting) and they stated that they did not want to restore my site until they recieved an ok from your offices. To temporaly solve the problem I am willing to take the files section down until we can determin which files need to be removed, if this is anexecptable solution please e-mail my webhost (prohosting) and let them know that it is ok for them to restore my site if I temporaly remove the filessection. As I am sure you understand I am trying to keep the amount of time my site has to be down to a mininum so expediant service would be paramount.

Thank You In Advance
The Prostitute

There Reply

The owner of (uoprostitute.com) and I have shared e-mails today. He has agreed to remove the file section of his web site until we can determine exactly what sites and links need to be disabled.

With that understanding you can restore the site. I will be monitoring it to make sure that the files section is not restored until we have confirmation that the infringing material has been permanently disabled.

Please call me if you have any questions. Thank you for your support in this matter.

Karen Nations
Senior Attorney
Metromedia Fiber Network Services, Inc.

Do you have something to say about this? If So Click Here!


Yeah, I guess I am. Well, he's back, and um...well, whatever.

Hasta.

•And here to defend Factions...Galahad.

Sorry Epyon and whoever else says factions suxors.

Factions rock. Yes rock.

For the first time in 4 months I played UO for more than an hour yesterday. And I played 4 hours. Factions bring me back to the Dread Lord days. Man its fucking insane. 15 on 15 fights at any given time and if your faction is actually organized you can have some fun.

I want to comment on what Epyon said.

Temporary stat loss is vital to the system. If it wasn't implemented you would have fucking newbie drobe fighters (who already lost and died) come back for revenge with no penalty. For the first time since the loss of fame was instituted, OSI put an actually penalty on people dieing. The 20 mins may be a bit excessive, yet it has to stay or a winner to battles could never be decided.

The town system has not been institued yet. It still isn't active and I feel that when it is...people will start learning that if you just res kill people and not help defend / get faction sigils your gonna have to pay alot for town supplies in faction controlled cities. Also when you tote a score of 62 or something like that people get the feeling your a res killer. I had 0 when I logged out last night and I could kill 95 % of the people with 20 plus kills. I think a lot of the 12 year olds are going to be concerned with showscore points and that is why they are 12 year olds.

Last night I saw some of the old school pvpers that supposedly left the game. Example : Cupilix from SSJ on the Atlantic Shard. Now that guy was a bad ass. And if you email me saying you can kick his ass blah blah then your lying because I couldn't kick his ass and I know I can kick your ass. I met a lot of great people last night too. UO needed something to unite the player community and I think this is it. Yes the lag is increased...so shoot me ; one bad thing...but overall everyone should get a character in factions. I am on Shadowlords Atlantic. I am using my mage theif (Casper is his name). Holla if you see me.

Lates.

•Correction of minor detail of major proportion.

It is the 59th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, not 61st like I mentioned.

Also to note, that days such as these shouldn't honor just the American soldiers that served their country in the past, but all soldiers of all the nations of the world. Be it Great Britain, Japan, Russia, or France.

You are the true heros of this world.

•UOProstiWHO?

UOProstitute.com got yanked. OSI threatened to sue their webhost if they kept hosting UOP and their bug pages. Well, so long, farewell, good bye. In the word of the ever popular, ever arrogant and bigheaded, ME, "HASTA!"

Note: Post bugs, and the cheaters will come. Keep posting bugs and exploits, and OSI will come. 'Nuff said.

On a related note, if you post a Bug/Exploit in our forum, watch it get deleted. Do it twice, watch yourself get banned. Gator done put the smackdown on someone already in our forum.

You have been summarily warned.

Ciao.

•Factions..the winner of OSI's disappointment of the year.

Ill start with a good thesis statement.

Factions suck.

I log on and head to Magincina to join CoM, and I join up..all pumped up to kick some ass. I procede to the bank, which is controlled by CoM at the time, and there is 2 CoM's standing there talking..2 Minax people run up and I attack one, I chase him off, and then the other one attacks me, and I get killed. Ok, that would be fine..normally..after all I had like 70 str when I started to fight him..but my other two "defenders of magic" just watch and keep saying LOL as I fought them. Well I got a laugh when I saw those fuckers run to the healers a few moments after saying "this sux"

Then I noticed that this temp stat loss on death thing sucks ass, it does nothing but help reskillers which there is a overabundance of get more "3l33t p01Nt5".

I think perhaps there might be a danger of "balance" being the most oversaid word in UO, now its "Show Points" after every reskill people would say this over and over just to show off their points.

I got a handful of kills..but the total point of factions, to protect the towns and take them over is lost on the general populace.

Ive been reading around and Arrow Fireforge of Drachenfels was speaking of faction members camping banks when they didn't own the city, and there was alot of members of his faction in the town..anyone see anything wrong with the picture?

Remove the stat loss thing OSI, Please!

That would be a step in the right direction.

Also, last but most definatly not least, at some point in the day spend a moment of silence in rememberance of all the soldiers that gave their life in defence of Pearl Harbor 61 years ago today.

God bless all our service members, they are the reason we can bitch about this game in english instead of German or Japanese and later on Russian. Im going to take my grandfather out for dinner tonight, he survived the D-Day invasion, its the least I can do. Go out of your way to celebrate their sacrifice.

•Bugs, bugs, and more bugs.

Remember those nice little looting rules you have in Trammel? Well, they don't work right now.

Example: You kill Creature, I walk up, without having done a point of damage to Creature, loot it and walk away. I believe this is happening on both sides. Beware of the superlooters.

As of this time, the corpse looting code is still working properly.

From what I hear, OSI is working hard on this one.

On a positive note. You can tell us all about your Factions Experience in our new forum. Come here to tell us all about it.

Hasta.

•Let loose, the dogs of war....maybe

The Faction system detailed at http://update.uo.com/next.html will go active on all remaining shards on Wednesday, December 6th once the servers come back from their regularly scheduled maintenance. The shards which have not yet begun factions and will thus be affected by this publish are Baja, Napa Valley, Great Lakes, Lake Superior, Catskills, Chesapeake, AOL Legends, Formosa, Oceania, and all European, Japanese and Korean shards.

And so it begins...barring a natural disaster in the name of "oops, can't put it in yet".

The following was posted to "General Testing":
The current travel restrictions that exist between T2A (Second Age lands) and Britannia (Old Lands) will be lifted in the following manner:
Players will be able to recall and gate between the Lost Lands (T2A) and Britannia.
Passageways and connection points between the Lost Lands and Britannia will be open to tamed creature travel.
Players will be able to use stablemasters in both areas with T2A or Britannian creatures. Players will be able to remove Lost Lands creatures from the stables while being within the Britannian lands, and vice versa.
Players will be able to ride a mounted ostard or rideable llama across Lost Land/Britannian access points.

OOH!!! NO more recsu/recdu. Be prepared to see people add Colored ostards to the things they show off at the Brittania and Moonglow Banks.

Hasta.

•Factions opening up at a shard nearer you...

We will be activating the Faction System publish, as listed in Testing for Next Update, on the Atlantic and Pacific shards on Tuesday, December 5th. The publish will be active on the Atlantic and Pacific shards following their regularly scheduled maintenance period that morning.
We will monitor the Atlantic and Pacific shards for any issues that may arise, and will continue to publish to all remaining shards as soon as possible. The changes will be added to Latest Game Updates once the publish is active on all shards.



Thanks to markee and the boys in the UOPG forum for the info.

Hasta.

•News from the front...

As a reminder, you may not bring animals from T2A to
the old lands (Britannia) if bringing them requires
the use of a bug or exploit. At this time, it may not
be possible to mount these creatures while in Britannia.
Using a bug to bring your T2A animal to Britannia
could result in action being taken against your
account.

The Development Team is working on systems to allow
players to bring animals (such as ostards) from the
T2A lands to the old lands. Once these systems are
designed, we will post them on the site. Until then,
please do not call a Game Master regarding issues
with these animals.

Be aware that some GMs like to delete things...I have seen it happen already. Also, Fire Island Temple on Great Lakes (Trammel side anyway) was nuts with Dragons, Drakes, and Demons. Continuous spawn. Beware of luring/hiding idiots. Got to love 'em.

If you aren't watching Dune on Sci Fi Channel, GO WATCH IT NOW! THE FREAKING THING ROCKS!

Hasta.

•If I killed the God of Death, do I get his job?

I just got done looking at Wiredness.com and I think I start to see where alot of the kewldoods from our forum are migrating from. Go check it out you will see what I mean. I think I lost interest around the time they suggested that when you buy a boat you must buy the 3l33t3st one you can afford.

What brings me to my first topic...Boats clogging up the ocean.

Is it really that hard to drydock your boat when you are not using it? I was just minding my own buisness today, sailing the wild blue yonder...well trying to at least as I had to tell the faceless tillerman "left" or "right" about ten times every ten minutes. I think some GM's just placed boats that never decay so people can't macro..not that I ever would of course. If they are actually boats owned by players show some consideration for...oh shit I forgot this is UO. Nevermind.

Topic Two:
Vet rewards.

I can't stress how happy I am about the removal of bless deeds. PvP is fucked up enough as it is..we don't need the newest batch of spoiled JoHnNy RoXXoRs have even a easier time with the 2 day old Gm Warriors that they make without Magery Anyone who makes a char for PvP without Magery is a fool. (ie: Suev Raylap.)

Fucked up PvP brings me to my next topic.

Everyone go to UO Terror and laugh at Watts for suggesting Mana Refresh Potions for a pvp change. Watts my man, you have no idea how fucked up this would make the game. We are talking about machine gun mages here. Fire off 5 eb's, drink a potion and repeat. Thats not even close to being balanced. The rest of his ideas are quite good though...but Mana Refresh..No I think not.

I had a great time in UO today. I was running around outside of Moonglow on Great Lakes with a new thief I made when I see the burr in my ass Pluto himself. This guy is a bank sitters bank sitter. He has the sterotypical Glacial staff, Ranger armor, blessed black sandles sitting on a nightmare, which is of course pure black, and flanked by two white wyrms who are named, and quite originally I might add, Dragon and Dragon. Sitting next to him on a slightly lighter hue of a nightmare is his "wife" whos name escapes me at the moment. But I remember that its his "wife" because that was her guild title. I wonder if Pluto knows that his "wife" is no doubt some truck driver on layover between loads of pork and beans and moonshine. Why do I hate Pluto so much you ask?

Go ahead..ask Ill wait.

Well I hate him because I was in this lich spawn that I go to now and again and I was getting close to being overloaded so I decided to head to bank my gold and a lich spawned right next to me, I recalled and I was blocked. So I take off running and kill the lich only to find that I used my last pearl killing it. So I look for one laying on the ground or a vendor. I find 3 on the ground and recall. Its blocked. I use the next two over the course of 15 minutes..still blocked. By this time im getting pissed because I know..I KNOW who in the hell is blocking me. I remember distinctly thinking "Its that fucking Pluto I bet." Well I go to a vendor house, and hit a rune to Moonglow. I run to my spot and sure enough dickhead is sitting there talking with his wife and two other people whom im sure is his kids. I tell him to log out and just chat on icq if he wants to sit around and chit chat at this point he calls me a newbie. Well is it just me or is "newbie" getting a bit old and overused? I just rifle off a "lol whatever" and go to recall and he asks if I want to duel him? I tell him that I would love too and he tells me to go to felucca outside glow and he will be there in a few moments. I grab a stone and wait. And wait..and wait for 20 minutes...nothing. I laugh to myself and go to bed.

That was on Monday.


Back to today..my thief comes running into town and lo' and behold its Pluto! I ask him where he was on monday and he acts like he doesn't know what im talking about and you know what he called me?

A newbie.

But not just any sort of newbie..he called me a newbie thief!

Well fuck me, I guess I am a newbie than ain't I? I ask him if he cares to fight and he agrees (see a pattern here?) I go log in Relena, who is already red and wait hidden by a house. Much to my shock he comes, he is next to his wife of course and he only has one dragon at this point. I pop out and his wife yells *GUARDS!* Well I almost lost the fight before it began merely because I nearly pissed myself laughing. She must not be very faithful because as soon as I whipped out my long spear she took off leaving me with One dragon and One Asshole.

Im thinking to myself, Ok self..you have won under worse odds...I para the dragon right after he says all kill and I take off into the woods knowing he will follow thinking that Im scared. He does and leaves his dragon behind. I realize at this point that the fight is over, I turn the corner of a house, hide. He runs by and now he has to get past me to get back to town protection. I pop out and hit him with my long spear of power. First hit took off a good 30 points, he starts to run back I hit him again and para him. I smile to myself knowing that its over, two hits later he is dead and im one happy son of a bitch. Sure I got another 40 hours but thats ok ..factions are coming. It was easily my most satisfying kill in over a year.

I got some email I want to share with you all.

First one is from King James of Napa Valley:

Epyon, how long have you played UO?

Well King James, I was lucky enough to participate in the beta test of UO. The games was alot different then. My favorite part of the beta test was the fact that there were no guards in towns at the beginning, I use to take over Trinsic with a handful of friends nightly. We would have to start over daily though, but at the time there was nothing even remotely close to UO.

Next we have one from Cyric:

You Suck Ass.

Well actually no I am not really into rim jobs whatsoever. I can not really think of myself getting any enjoyment from licking around someones ass. No thanks. Next please!

Watts of Pac writes:

Epyon, you are so cool, I really would like to be like you someday, is it possible that I could be as powerful and as strong as you are?

Well, Sorry Watts..its not.



Keep that mail coming for the next installment of .....

Ask Epyon!