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UO in Review -- 3 Nov 2006 Wilki Becomes Dev, No Longer Community Coordinator UO Week in Review--29 September 2006 Server Maintenance UO Week (or thereabouts) in Review--16 Sept 2006 Unavailble at this time. February 2003 News: ^ top-Finally [Nieves] February 28 - 7:21 PM EST We are moved all nice and cozy in our new home on Falsehope.com (the server that hosts the boards). I apologize personally to everyone that couldn't get their fix of UOPG. We are back, and hopefully better than ever. I have added some updates to the site. Special Moves is on the left under Information. Wrestling and the 4 weapons types are updated with AOS information. I am adding Aryn's VERY well written Chivalry and essay Gyb's meditation information to our meditation and future battle focus page. I am also putting together Magical Resist and Resist damage pages as well as updating the Parrying and Magery pages. The last things I will be working on is the item properties page and fixing numerous problems with the site (old pages not updated to the black and red layout, little fixes here and there, etc.). You will also notice that we are also at the domain http://uo.powergamers.net or http://www.powergamers.net. Use any of the 3 URLS to get to UOPowergamers. Hasta. ^ top-Publishing Fixes to Lake Superior [Alexandra] February 28 - 4:18 PM EST On FYI this afternoon .. We will be publishing an update to the Lake Superior shard that will be active after that shard’s Saturday morning maintenance period. This publish will contain the following fixes: A number of server optimizations and fixes. Note: this includes a fix for the largest cause of shard lag & instability. Customized house doors will no longer become “static” and unusable. This fix will also retroactively fix any doors currently affected by this issue. If no issues arise, we anticipate rolling this out to all other AoS-active shards, except for the Atlantic shard, as of their respective Monday morning maintenance periods. (We are currently monitoring the Atlantic shard regarding other fixes, and if no issues arise there then Atlantic will also receive this publish). Note: Characters that log in with spellbooks (“classic” spellbooks only, not runebooks, Necromancy, or Chivalry books) in their bankboxes may see them transferred into their backpacks, but if their backpacks are full these spellbooks will subsequently drop to the ground. ^ top-Early settlers promotion extended [JC_The_Builder] February 28 - 2:30 PM EST Cynthe just posted on the UO boards that the Early settlers promotion will be extended: There will be an extension, and Sannio's working on the FYI announcement now. It was delayed a little while so we could get the info on how long the Japanese period will also be extended. Just so you know, the new deadline for NA and SAP Early Settlers is March 12th. The FYI should be up soon. :) __________________ Cynthe Community Manager ORIGIN Systems Yay, two more chances to delete and remake characters. ^ top-Testing... [Fryguy] February 26 - 2:32 PM EST Testing... Appears to be working properly, let me know if you have any problems... *waves* [Update: Fri Feb 28 06:51:52 2003 CST] It appears that the domain transfer and DNS updates are completed. However, it will take some time for the entries that are cached in the various ISP's name servers around the world to expire and collect the new data. Please be patient. Thanks Board Topic [/Update] ^ top-Armor 101 (Reposted) [Nissa] February 25 - 2:59 PM EST Shortly after I originally posted this info, UOPG went down. I thought it was interesting and informative, so I am posting it again to give everyone a chance to read it over and comment on it. Thanks! ------------------------------------ Since logging to the game these days is hit or miss (mostly miss), and once I do get in I can’t play because of the lag or the constant shard going down syndrom (Chessy went down twice last night, when it finally came back up, it took me over ½ to get in, not to mention once I did get in, recalling and gating we broken, which sucks when you live on an island), I found myself again reading the UO Boards. As you know from my previous post, I am very confused as far as armor and weapons are concerned. Many folks have posted in the thread in the Front Page Forum. White Fangs posted the following armor information to help people like me who are totally confused: I'm posting this because of all the armor questions I see... Ok, so you need armor to go out of the house. You're getting your butt stomped by lizard men. Imps are 2 hit killing you. What do you put on? What's good? How can you make decent armor at home? how can you make decent armor you find even better? Note before hand. For resist numbers, the following format %/%/%/%/% represents the 5 resist types in order as listed in game, physical/fire/cold/poison/energy Better armor - Just putting armor on your back isn't going to save you. You have to have an understanding of addition. I''m comfortable you all have that. The totals of the 5 types of resist is the easiest way to measure the quality of a piece of armor. Standard off the shelf carries 15 - 16 points of cumulative resist. GM made bumps that to 21 - 22. Given that you can wear up to 6 pieces of armor, a GM set (6 (pieces of armor) X 22 (resist per piece) / 5 (types of resist)) will give you roughly 26 - 27 in each catagory. That sux. Bottom line, I wouldn't fight a skittering hopper in that. Now you can get away with 30 physical, so long as you're a mage or an archer and can avoid being hit, but 20s don't cut it my friend! That brings us to colored ingots/hides. These, depending on the type can add anywhere from 5 (spined leather) to 13 (Valorite) more to the total on EACH PIECE! I don't know about your shard, but we had a guy on cats the other night doing Valorite attempts for 1k each. A full set of valorite enhanced armor gets a 78 point bonus total. that's a lot. Even just the spined bonuses of 30 total, across a 6 piece set are helpful. so lets say we go middle of the road on a set of leather for our mage. Horned GM made leather is going to offer roughly 32 total per piece, meaning 38 - 39 per resist type. Now you can leave the house. So now you're out of the house, and you're still not having an EASY time, but you're surviving. Find monsters that give magic items! Get those magic armor pieces! Some of them will have upwards of 30 total resist on one piece! Now this you can take home and embue with whatever you have and all of a sudden you could have something that gives 40+! a full set of 42 total resist armor will leave you with roughly 50 in every catagory! You're going to blow up a lot of stuff doing this. I've wasted more pieces of armor than i've created with the embuing system and I have a 112 smith and a 105 tailor. It's not easy, but acquiring really good stuff shouldn't be. Even with magic items, you have to watch those numbers. If it has a total less than 22 or so, it's junk. Even embued. Just because you find a pimp helmet with "mage armor" written on it, doesn't mean you should be wearing it. Logically it's plate, it should offer better protection from harm, this however is AOS. I have a tricorn hat with 8 physical resist, where many of those "Mage Armor" plate hemlets sport 3s across the board. Even with a valorite embuement, it's still only a 28 total resist piece. Less than good leather. Also, with those mage armor items, watch for the faster casting -1. that - isn't a dash, its a negative. There is mage armor out there without this, and those are the desirable pieces, not the pieces that reduce your casting speed. The speed reduction armor is great for a fighter who uses magery to heal though. Same goes for weapons with Channeling., These allow you to cast with the weapon armed, a huge bonus, but one that'll cost a good mage in cast time. some of the coolest enhancements i've found are the reduce spell cost stuff. I love this stuff to no end. Casting that heal at 9 instead of 11 mana is a huge bonus in a pinch. the ev going off at 45 instead of 50 mana is a blessing, both in casting it sooner, and leaving you mana to play with afterwards. At first I thought they'd put in a new feature, begin casting when you'll prolly have the mana needed to cast it by the time you're done, but then I realized this was due to rings and armor. SWEET! Last thing... rings, shields, and bracelets. Rings and bracelets that give skill bonuses are great for many reasons. That townie who can't recall consistantly, slap a +8 magery ring on him. Now he recalls. You're at 97.4 anatomy? Slap on a +3 ring, now you're GM, and the sweetest part is, you'll keep gaining as if the ring wasn't there, even when you're wearing it! So you can get your last 8 points of taming from the ring, and then go and tame the dragon, and gain a .1 off him while you're doing it! These are truly great tools for allowing skill gain while actually playing the game as opposed to macroing on a boat somewhere. *edit - forgot about shields* My mage goes everywhere with a big honkin heater shield on. Many magic sheilds found in dungeons offer resist in one catagory, or none at all. Embue a shield that already has Spell Channeling and all of a sudden you have a little 11 resist bonus on your mage. More if the shield itself offers any. Just make sure you find one without the casting speed -1, or suffer the slower spells. (they aren't THAT much slower, but sometimes every half a second counts.) That's all for today, if you have any questions, feel free to throw em up! Just watch out for my shoes, they're italian leather... Some one then posted a question regarding spined leather and getting better luck wearing it: spined gives a +5 physical bonus. Ok, cool, you're doing ok for physical, but hand to hand critters don't give good stuff. The rest of your resists suck. Go with either barbed or horned. Horned if it's dragons/drakes you're fighting, barbed if it's anything else. Screw luck is what I say. I now have 80 luck, but only because i've embued stuff I found with luck on it. Luck as a trade off for armor is a wash. Yes luck might get you better loot, but if you can't kill the creature, how are you going to get the loot?????? As time passes and you find and embue stuff, you'll get stuff with luck, and from there, your luck will go up and you'll find more cool stuff, until then, get the base armor squared away and worry about luck later. I almost find this armor process akin to working on a new character. You have to go out and start with crap and work your way up to having something really really good, equivelant to GMing your armor skill... Oh, and one other thing... EVs, Energy Vortexes are a mages new best friend. Even things that dispel get beat up by these. I can do more damage with one EV dispelled than I can with that 50 mana used in any other way, in most cases. They also work great clearing out all the piddly crap strewn around the dungeon. Bats, skeletons, zombies, all fall in under a second to an EV. Liches, if they miss that first dispel, are dead. If they get the second one you might need to lightning them. For me, regs just got cheap, cuz 2 EVs can walk though a line of liches. While I can't say that everything he posted is correct, I found that it seemed to help clear up a few things which will help if I ever can get in and really play AoS. I haven’t been able to get into the game long enough to even try fighting tough stuff. And the couple of times I did, the lag monster got me! I would love to find a piece of armor that could resist that! Hope this helps others out there. You can comment further in in the thread in the Front Page Forum. Good job White Fangs. ^ top-Incorrect Acct. Expir. Dates & Acct Age FIXED [Alexandra] February 25 - 2:36 PM EST Cynthe posted here: We're seeing lots of reports of accounts that are set to expire within the next couple weeks - accounts that should not be expiring. We're also seeing a related issue, where some accounts are not showing the correct account age (especially young accounts). We're on both of these problems right now, and we'll get it fixed asap. As of right now, please don't do anything until we tell you... you do not need to go re-enter your information in registration. We'll let you know if there is anything you need to do, but for right now, don't worry about it. The housing changes that would make your house inactive once your account expires are not in the game yet, so your houses, items and characters will be fine even if - in the worst case scenario - your account did lapse for a day or two. However, our engineering and billing depts are working on it, and we don't think that will happen. I'll get back to you guys once I have more info! Well the she got the info .. Yay - I just got the confirmation from engineering that they've fixed it. Sorry about all the excitement. :) Cynthe(Community Manager) ^ top-Armor 101 (from the UO Boards) [Nissa] February 20 - 5:03 PM EST Since logging to the game these days is hit or miss (mostly miss), and once I do get in I can’t play because of the lag or the constant shard going down syndrom (Chessy went down twice last night, when it finally came back up, it took me over ½ to get in, not to mention once I did get in, recalling and gating we broken, which sucks when you live on an island), I found myself again reading the UO Boards. As you know from my previous post, I am very confused as far as armor and weapons are concerned. Many folks have posted in the thread in the Front Page Forum. White Fangs posted the following armor information to help people like me who are totally confused: I'm posting this because of all the armor questions I see... Ok, so you need armor to go out of the house. You're getting your butt stomped by lizard men. Imps are 2 hit killing you. What do you put on? What's good? How can you make decent armor at home? how can you make decent armor you find even better? Note before hand. For resist numbers, the following format %/%/%/%/% represents the 5 resist types in order as listed in game, physical/fire/cold/poison/energy Better armor - Just putting armor on your back isn't going to save you. You have to have an understanding of addition. I''m comfortable you all have that. The totals of the 5 types of resist is the easiest way to measure the quality of a piece of armor. Standard off the shelf carries 15 - 16 points of cumulative resist. GM made bumps that to 21 - 22. Given that you can wear up to 6 pieces of armor, a GM set (6 (pieces of armor) X 22 (resist per piece) / 5 (types of resist)) will give you roughly 26 - 27 in each catagory. That sux. Bottom line, I wouldn't fight a skittering hopper in that. Now you can get away with 30 physical, so long as you're a mage or an archer and can avoid being hit, but 20s don't cut it my friend! That brings us to colored ingots/hides. These, depending on the type can add anywhere from 5 (spined leather) to 13 (Valorite) more to the total on EACH PIECE! I don't know about your shard, but we had a guy on cats the other night doing Valorite attempts for 1k each. A full set of valorite enhanced armor gets a 78 point bonus total. that's a lot. Even just the spined bonuses of 30 total, across a 6 piece set are helpful. so lets say we go middle of the road on a set of leather for our mage. Horned GM made leather is going to offer roughly 32 total per piece, meaning 38 - 39 per resist type. Now you can leave the house. So now you're out of the house, and you're still not having an EASY time, but you're surviving. Find monsters that give magic items! Get those magic armor pieces! Some of them will have upwards of 30 total resist on one piece! Now this you can take home and embue with whatever you have and all of a sudden you could have something that gives 40+! a full set of 42 total resist armor will leave you with roughly 50 in every catagory! You're going to blow up a lot of stuff doing this. I've wasted more pieces of armor than i've created with the embuing system and I have a 112 smith and a 105 tailor. It's not easy, but acquiring really good stuff shouldn't be. Even with magic items, you have to watch those numbers. If it has a total less than 22 or so, it's junk. Even embued. Just because you find a pimp helmet with "mage armor" written on it, doesn't mean you should be wearing it. Logically it's plate, it should offer better protection from harm, this however is AOS. I have a tricorn hat with 8 physical resist, where many of those "Mage Armor" plate hemlets sport 3s across the board. Even with a valorite embuement, it's still only a 28 total resist piece. Less than good leather. Also, with those mage armor items, watch for the faster casting -1. that - isn't a dash, its a negative. There is mage armor out there without this, and those are the desirable pieces, not the pieces that reduce your casting speed. The speed reduction armor is great for a fighter who uses magery to heal though. Same goes for weapons with Channeling., These allow you to cast with the weapon armed, a huge bonus, but one that'll cost a good mage in cast time. some of the coolest enhancements i've found are the reduce spell cost stuff. I love this stuff to no end. Casting that heal at 9 instead of 11 mana is a huge bonus in a pinch. the ev going off at 45 instead of 50 mana is a blessing, both in casting it sooner, and leaving you mana to play with afterwards. At first I thought they'd put in a new feature, begin casting when you'll prolly have the mana needed to cast it by the time you're done, but then I realized this was due to rings and armor. SWEET! Last thing... rings, shields, and bracelets. Rings and bracelets that give skill bonuses are great for many reasons. That townie who can't recall consistantly, slap a +8 magery ring on him. Now he recalls. You're at 97.4 anatomy? Slap on a +3 ring, now you're GM, and the sweetest part is, you'll keep gaining as if the ring wasn't there, even when you're wearing it! So you can get your last 8 points of taming from the ring, and then go and tame the dragon, and gain a .1 off him while you're doing it! These are truly great tools for allowing skill gain while actually playing the game as opposed to macroing on a boat somewhere. *edit - forgot about shields* My mage goes everywhere with a big honkin heater shield on. Many magic sheilds found in dungeons offer resist in one catagory, or none at all. Embue a shield that already has Spell Channeling and all of a sudden you have a little 11 resist bonus on your mage. More if the shield itself offers any. Just make sure you find one without the casting speed -1, or suffer the slower spells. (they aren't THAT much slower, but sometimes every half a second counts.) That's all for today, if you have any questions, feel free to throw em up! Just watch out for my shoes, they're italian leather... Some one then posted a question regarding spined leather and getting better luck wearing it: spined gives a +5 physical bonus. Ok, cool, you're doing ok for physical, but hand to hand critters don't give good stuff. The rest of your resists suck. Go with either barbed or horned. Horned if it's dragons/drakes you're fighting, barbed if it's anything else. Screw luck is what I say. I now have 80 luck, but only because i've embued stuff I found with luck on it. Luck as a trade off for armor is a wash. Yes luck might get you better loot, but if you can't kill the creature, how are you going to get the loot?????? As time passes and you find and embue stuff, you'll get stuff with luck, and from there, your luck will go up and you'll find more cool stuff, until then, get the base armor squared away and worry about luck later. I almost find this armor process akin to working on a new character. You have to go out and start with crap and work your way up to having something really really good, equivelant to GMing your armor skill... Oh, and one other thing... EVs, Energy Vortexes are a mages new best friend. Even things that dispel get beat up by these. I can do more damage with one EV dispelled than I can with that 50 mana used in any other way, in most cases. They also work great clearing out all the piddly crap strewn around the dungeon. Bats, skeletons, zombies, all fall in under a second to an EV. Liches, if they miss that first dispel, are dead. If they get the second one you might need to lightning them. For me, regs just got cheap, cuz 2 EVs can walk though a line of liches. While I can't say that everything he posted is correct, I found that it seemed to help clear up a few things which will help if I ever can get in and really play AoS. I haven’t been able to get into the game long enough to even try fighting tough stuff. And the couple of times I did, the lag monster got me! I would love to find a piece of armor that could resist that! Hope this helps others out there. You can comment further in in the thread in the Front Page Forum. Good job White Fangs. ^ top-Locking Down Necro and Paladin Spellbooks [Alexandra] February 20 - 4:33 PM EST Some more news from FYI We've discovered an issue that players should be aware of: If you lock down a necromancer or paladin spellbook, the spell scrolls inside may decay. This is something that will be fixed once we've addressed any remaining shard stability and housing issues, but for now, we ask that players please not lock these items down. ^ top- Minoc Moongates Temporarily Removed [Alexandra] February 20 - 3:22 PM EST FYI: In our investigations into a server memory issue that's been causing some shard instability over the last week, we've determined that the moongate near Minoc could be a culprit, due to its proximity to server lines. While we check this out further, we're going to temporarily remove the moongate near Minoc. Players should still be able to gate to that area despite the gate being removed, but players will not be able to gate from that area using that moongate. We apologize for any inconvenience, but this is only a temporary change, and we feel the positive will greatly outweigh the negative if we're correct. More information coming as we get it! Temporary like the Serpant Pillars? In other News ..The Bestiary guide on UO.com has been updated with tables of monster damage and resist stats. I hope that this information will help all of you who are having trouble finding out what your pet can hunt these days. ^ top-Sunsword comments on Age of Shadows [Alexandra] February 20 - 1:53 PM EST The Age of Shadows launch has obviously been a hectic one. I’ve put together this State of the Service address to give you an idea of how we got here, what’s currently going on, and what the near future will bring. Our Online Community Relations team has been posting on individual items, so I may not cover everything explicitly but I do want you to know that we are working to fix things as quickly as possible. The UO team knew that the AoS expansion was going to be a big one from very the beginning. The feature set was well received and everyone was really excited about the possibilities. What we didn’t know is how big it was going to be! We planned for increased memory usage on the hardware, and we upgraded almost all of our servers to their physical maximum for memory. We spent a lot of time upgrading the housing database and server applications to be able to handle the higher load. But it wasn’t until the weeks before launch that the real implication of this expansion’s success began to come to light – and even in the last week before launch, our numbers rose significantly higher. Our pre-orders soared to company record levels. We looked at our capacity for handling logins and registration, and felt that, while stressed, it should be able to handle the load. As it turns out, we were wrong. It took us 2 or 3 days of working 24/7 to iron out all the capacity issues regarding registering and logging in after our North America launch. We built up the login servers beyond their normal maximum capacity, and for the next 4 or 5 days the login servers were slow, but many players were definitely getting through. I personally spent several hours touring different shards and checking out some of the customized houses. Read the rest on Comments from the Team ! ^ top-Client Patch 4.0.0c [Alexandra] February 20 - 12:45 PM EST This morning on FYI : We are releasing a client patch today, on Thursday, February 20th CST, which contains the following changes: Both 2D and 3D clients When customizing a house, surrounding objects will not draw if they are higher than the player. This will make sure you can see what you are doing while building your house. A memory leak in the AoS 3D client has been plugged. (Please note that we are still researching a memory issue on the server in an attempt to continue to improve server stability.) The current version should now be 4.0.0c for both the 2D and 3D clients. There is also a Q&A on GM Call Times and Phone Support, check that out it might answer a few questions . ^ top-eeny meeny, miny mo... [Nissa] February 19 - 1:42 PM EST I saw this post from a fellow poster Ciggy, on the UO Boards: can anyone explain to me what it means when a piece of armour is self repair +2 to all five resistances..i understand the self repair but i have yet to c a piece of armour say +2 to all resistances..how do u know what the resist is supposed to b to know if it has pluses added to it. sorry that i'm so slow about it but i have no clue what armour is good anymore. also what exactly is mages armour? what does it do and how do u know if its good? and what about the weapons that dont have +% to hit, damage, or durability but have other atributes like a % of phys damage, a % to fire etc. how do u know wich ones are good and what percentages are high and wich are just garbage? sorry for the lot of questions but i realy m very confused. i read up on stractics and aos website but i still dont have much of a clue other than 35% damage bonus means vanq lol pls help :) thx And it made me think that I too am completely lost since AoS on what to keep and not what to keep. Spell casting, +1 or -1? Which is better. Fast casting? Is that good? Between armor and weapons, I am now very confused. What does the different colors on weapons mean. Is purple good? Or does it have nothing to do with the quality of the weapon? And what about all the jewelry out there? How do I get luck? So, I thought I would start a thread where people could post their findings. Perhaps it will help show the light for some of us slower players. I would like to get as much information in one place so that perhaps there is a way we can pull together a comprehensive guide for this site. Thanks!! Please go here to post your findings and/or questions. ^ top-Enhanced Weapons Guide by Lydia Brightblade [Alexandra] February 18 - 11:15 PM EST Lydia sent us her enhanced Weapons Guide... Dull Copper: Lower Requirements 50% Shadow Iron: Physical Damage 80% Cold Damage 20% Copper: Physical Damage 70% Poison Damage 10% Energy Damage 20% Want to read more? Check it out here in our Powergaming Forum ! Thanks Lydia ! ^ top-Japan Launch and Increased Login/Registration [Alexandra] February 18 - 10:25 PM EST Tonight on FYI: Late tonight, local Austin time, we should see seven of our Japanese shards return to service, complete with the Age of Shadows publish. As with the North American release, the game will also be available for purchase in Japan very soon after, which means that we should start to see another heavy influx of account registrations and logins as our Japanese players log in and begin to populate Malas on their shards. Please note that this will increase the load substantially on our login servers and account registration pages during the first couple days of the Japan launch. Please understand that this is a temporary thing, and we want to emphasize again that it's important to allow the process (whether it's logging in or registering a new account) to take the time it needs, rather than cancel out and re-enter the process repeatedly, since that can actually slow things down. We appreciate everyone's patience during the first few days of each of these launches as we work to get everything running smoothly. Last week was one of the biggest we've ever seen before in the history of UO, and we're only getting bigger! ^ top-Blackholing [Alexandra] February 18 - 7:27 PM EST There is an update on FYI about" Blackholing" . {..}We’re working on a fix that will prevent this from happening to any more characters, but this fix will most likely not affect characters that are already experiencing this. These players are asked to log in with a different character and page a GM. For best results, be sure to explain your problem clearly in your page (for example, "I cannot log into another character on my account; I need a GM to move me.") Please note, though, that our GM call times are still currently very long (up to 5 hours or more), so if it is not a character you play regularly, or if you have another character you can use for a few days, we highly recommend that you wait a few days if possible, or page during a slower time (such as between 9 AM and 11 AM CST).{..} Wonder if my employer will give me the day off so I can page a GM? NOT! Anyway... read the complete FYI update here . ^ top-Q&A: Housing Space, Decay, and Phase 3 [Alexandra] February 18 - 4:26 PM EST Did you turn on Phase 3 of the Housing Changes yet? Nope, Phase 3 is not yet active. Since it will mean the fall of many inactive houses, that's not something we'd do without a LOT of warning! Are ANY houses decaying currently? The only houses that should currently be decaying are houses that have been condemned through the act of placing or acquiring a new house. This only applies to people who already had one or more houses on their account before they placed or acquired a new one. In these cases, the old house(s) will be the ones that are condemned, not the new one. But I have a brand new account with only one house and it says condemned! If this is the case, you probably placed your house before the account registration process had time to update, which meant that the housing server didn't recognize your account as active yet. There's no need to worry if this is the case - even though your house may say "condemned," it's actually being refreshed, and we'll fix the problem before turning off auto-refresh. Read the rest on todays FYI Update ! ^ top-Replacing Doors and Costs for Home Customization [Alexandra] February 18 - 2:04 AM EST Cynthe stated in the Dev Forum : Working on your dream house can be greatly rewarding, but no one said it would be cheap! When you exchange house tiles with new tiles (meaning doors, walls, floors, staircases, etc), you’ll be refunded the value of the old house tiles. However, as soon as you re-commit your house design, you’ll be charged a remodeling fee, consisting of 10% of your home’s total value. Since we’re aware of an issue with doors on customized houses, we want to emphasize to players that this remodeling fee also applies to replacing doors! We’re currently testing a fix for the door issue, so we’d like to take a moment to recommend that anyone considering replacing their doors may want to wait for the fix, since the fix should eliminate the need to replace them. ^ top-So, you want to become a Paladin do you? [Alexandra] February 17 - 8:09 PM EST Aryn posted an awsome guide to Chivalry a.k.a the Profession of a Paladin here in our Powergaming Forum . Here is a snip: {..} The biggest set of questions I've noticed coming from people is the most obvious one. How do I get started? How do I get the spells for becoming a Paladin? How do I tithe, for that matter? I shall answer that here, as well as give impartial advice towards this as well. This applies for the veteran player as well as the new player. The first thing, is obvious. You will need an upgraded Age of Shadows account in order to not only see the Chivalry skill in your skill list, not to mention being able to visit Malas and purchase the Book of Chivalry, which, on average, costs about 140 gold. The first thing needed, will be a visit to a 'Chivalry Keeper'.{...} Intrigued ? Read the rest here ! Thanks Aryn ! ^ top-The Aventures of Galad the Looter [Alexandra] February 17 - 7:22 PM EST I just got some good News !Galad is back to posting new episodes regularly of his adventures in the game and adding lots of new content to his Site . Go check out the ... Aventures of Galad the Looter ! Cuz we all need a good laugh ..don't we? Warning - Galads Site includes some profanity and immature images. All screenshots from the game are real and unaltered. The names of the innocent have not been changed. ^ top-Changes to Runic Hammers [Alexandra] February 17 - 6:23 PM EST Posted to FYI : In the new Age of Shadows Runic system, runic hammers now have the potential to produce extremely powerful items, in terms of new magic properties. To balance out this increase in power, many runic hammers were converted to have fewer charges. This was an intentional change. However, we discovered an error in the conversion, which caused *every* hammer to have only 15 charges, instead of a number of charges based off of their color. We will be publishing an update in the future to correctly convert the old hammers to the new system, which will once again base the maximum number of charges a runic hammer may have on its ore type. This update will also restore all pre-AoS runic hammers to their new maximum number of charges based on the list below, fixing the problem where all pre-AoS runic hammers were set to 15 charges, regardless of color. Maximum number of charges on runic hammers in the new system: Dull Copper: 50 Shadow: 45 Copper: 40 Bronze: 35 Golden: 30 Agapite: 25 Verite: 20 Valorite: 15 Please note that our top priorities are currently stability and housing issues, which means that the change to runic hammer charges may not come right away. However, it will be in an upcoming update, so we encourage all of you to hold onto those hammers! ^ top-UOPG Question of the Week - 02/17/03 [FrozenFire] February 17 - 4:28 PM EST Now that AoS is here. . .on which facet will you spend the most of your time (and why)? ^ top-I just realized. . . [FrozenFire] February 17 - 2:25 PM EST . . .that with AoS we need to think about templates in a radically different way. What started out as a trickle, gloves to add mining skill, then a steady flow of ancient smithing hammers, is now washed away by a virtual flood of skill enhancing jewelry. From what Ive read, a lot of people look at skill jewelry as cheap skill scrolls, but they are quite different in what they can do for you. Scrolls are needed to increase the individual cap of a skill beyond 100, but the total skill cap for that character remains 700-730. There is also, from what I understand, a hard individual skill cap at 120 for each skill. So skill jewelry can do two things for you. First, lets say you bought a skill of +20 magery but want the boost now, and not waste time training. Throw on a set of magery enhancing jewelry amounting to +20 and youre set. As you train, you can loose the jewelry piece by piece and pick up stuff to boost whatever else you want. But the true power of skill jewelry is that whatever is added does not count towards the total skill cap. So. . .that means, I can buy 7 +20 scrolls, train my char to GM in each skill and then find myself a set of jewelry that adds +20 in each of my chosen skills. Presto a 7X120 char. . . Thats assuming there will be enough slots to equip 7 skill items. Earrings, necklace and ring would only count for three skills, so Im basing this on the guess that sashes, hats and possibly weapons, shields or armor will also add skills. And if the latter is true, I dont see why you cant have a template with 9 skills trained to 80 (assuming 720 skill cap) and then use skill jewelry to polish things off. And even if theres not enough slots to max all 9 skills, carry the jewelry for all skills and max those you need depending on what youre fighting. Versatile and powerful. Wow. Its been on the AoS site for weeks, and its only now I realize the potential. And its huge. Normally I usually worry about giving players too much power, destroying game balance. But with the new combat system and all, Im beginning to wonder if theres not a reason why we all fret about not having enough slots to fit needed skills into our templates. To be honest, most of you know this much better than I do. Since I play on Europa, Im nowhere close to even try out what AoS combat means and so my theory is based on what I have heard and read. So what do y'all think? Did I just have my heureka moment, or is this the ravings of a madman who has played UO for too long? Or am I the last guy on earth to realize what youve known for ages? ^ top-Improperly placed Housing... [Alexandra] February 17 - 1:07 PM EST Designer Vex enlightend us over here : Please note that when a house is improperly placed, that simply means that if you demolish the house you won't be able to place the same size house in the same spot. Impropoerly placed houses will not be deleted, moved, or otherwise messed with at all. It is clear that there are some issues with newly placed houses causing previously placed houses to become improperly placed. We'll be looking into this and working on a fix. Since houses that have become improperly placed are in no danger, there is no need to be worried over this. Having an improperly placed house will not prevent you from converting it to customizable, or customizing it. (That also goes for grandfathered classic houses placed in guard zones and other now-illegal locations, as well as classic improperly placed houses.) It is also worth noting that before AoS, it was possible in some circumstances to illegally place a house next to another and cause that other house to become improperly placed. This was most often seen when a small tower was placed corner-to-corner with a large tower, though it did work for various other combinations of houses. In these cases, the more recently placed house would be properly placed and the other house became improper. In Age of Shadows it is no longer possible to place houses corner-to-corner. For pre-existing houses placed like this they will *both* now show as improperly placed. Vex ^ top-Necro Recall [Prophet] February 15 - 8:22 PM EST Okay, we all know that Paladin's got their little Sacred Journey spell that basically lets them recall. Well did you know that Necromancers got a recall ability as well? It's not as obvious though. When you are in Wraith form, you have a 100% success rate of casting Recall, even if you have 0 Magery. Neat huh? And it is not a bug or an exploit. This is straight out of the context help thing that pops up when you hit F1 (when you don't have anything else macro'ed to F1, if you do then I haven't a clue how to get it to open). ^ top-Trade Window Bug &Character Suicide [Alexandra] February 15 - 7:02 PM EST MD gave us a heads up over here : I have had a few reports today that there is a secure trade window bug where items disappear as soon as the trade is completed. So far I have verified that this happens with Necro books and gold checks. When the trade is finished and both people accept one or both of the parties may find that the items they expected are not in their backpack. This is especially disturbing if it is multiple 1 million gold checks. But fear not if you are number 1800 in the GM help queue. There is a very simple way to fix this. Kill yourself.( your charactor) That's right. You need to off your charactor . Commit suicide. don't know how to kill yourself? An easy way is monster assisted suicide. lol. Just attack a monster and then don't fight back.{...} Thanks MD ^ top-A good thing gone bad? [FrozenFire] February 15 - 3:41 PM EST OSI had a good thing going a while back when they arranged the shard wide pvp torunaments. Before everyone mails me. . . I know, I know, the arragements as far as viewing the duels could have been better. Ok, a LOT better. But still, the basic idea was sound, and in the end I think a lot of people enjoyed themselves. I hope they make a recurring event, say every 6 or 12 months. Anyways, the two winners on each shard apparantly received a white sword with a flashy label. Was blessed too, I understand. Kinda makes sense in a world where disarm thieves would gladly suicide a thousand times for a chance to snatch a nearly unique weapon. It would have been even better if they made the swords non transferrable, and we wouldnt have to see this. . . I dont know about you, but if each million is valued at around 20 bucks and they are bidding over 30 million. Wouldnt that mean that someone out there has entirely too much cash on their hands? I could live a nearly a month on the cheap for 600 bucks, dammit. But then again, Im not blaming the seller, only the buyer. If I was the winner and that sword could pay my life for nearly a month Id do it in no time. So, Unreal, good for you. Its not exactly the forst time E-bay and "pixel crack" has been debated here, and it wont be the last either. You know you want to. . . ^ top-Downtime for Housing Fixes on North American and Asia-Pacific shards [Alexandra] February 15 - 3:40 PM EST Posted to :FYI : Before our scheduled publish last night (which was to be active after server maintenance this morning), we discovered an issue that was causing some players to crash. Since stability is always paramount, we decided to push back last night's publish until this afternoon, allowing us to fix the crash issue last night. In order to make this publish live as soon as possible, we will need to bring the servers down this afternoon at 3:15 PM CST. Barring any unforseen issues, we expect this downtime to last no more than 2 hours. Note: This downtime will affect all North American shards (with the exception of Siege), as well as our shards in Australia, Korea, and Taiwan. You should see the following fixes live once these servers return: An issue which allowed banning of items within houses has been fixed. The 7-day waiting period required between being traded a house/setting a Primary House was temporarily reduced, but has now been reinstated. The 7-day waiting period required before re-placing a house has been lifted. However, you will still incur a 7-day delay if you set one of your houses to primary, or if you have a house traded to you. We have only removed this delay for players placing a new house. This means that for the time being, players will be able to place, collapse, and re-place a new house in a new location without an enforced delay. We apologize for the change in schedule on this publish, and we'll get you back in and playing Age of Shadows as soon as possible! ^ top-LS’er Joins UOPG [Alexandra] February 15 - 1:42 PM EST *I hate writing these things but Nieves is making me .. * I’m Alexandra and I will be keeping you good folks updated with all News that are "Ultima Offline" related. I play on Lake Superior if the shard is up and available. I’m 23 and stationed in Arizona. I have been playing UO since 98. Yes and here comes the kicker …my main is a Tamer *gasp*. I’m looking forward to working with Nieves an the great Staff here. Take care .. Alex ^ top-The Doom Gauntlet..... [JC_The_Builder] February 15 - 11:11 AM EST is hard. Really hard. 100x more hard then the harrower. So you cross the moat and come upon a giant room with 7 smaller rooms surrounding it. In the center is pentagrams which tell you the status of each champion room. You must defeat each champion room in order to spawn the hardest creature in UO. And on top of that, there are 2 of them. There are 2 factors which make this so tough and I have to applaud OSI for this well thought out design. The first factor is you can't leave to get supplies. Well you can but it is a real pain to get back. You better come with all the reagents and bandages you can carry. The second factor is how the monsters were desgined. For instance there is one champion room which has a bone type monster. He has 5000 hp and the best attack is flamestrike which does 35 damage. This one room used most of our reagents and we were a party of 10! And you are probably wondering what you get out of completing this. Well I can't tell you because we were unable to finish. We didn't have what it took to kill the Mega-Champion. He was as strong as the harrower but moved as quick as a player on a mount. And everytime he took damage he would spawn monsters such as lich lords and rotting corpses all over the room. Talk about it Here. ^ top-Um... [Nieves] February 14 - 10:02 PM EST Didn't OSI say there were going to take care of the one hit killing problem in UO? Yeah, right. You know, if they are going to add all these item properties, at least let me gain more than 100 in each stat without having to use a scroll or a item. I mean, if we are going to play Diablo II, might as well go all the way right?? No one hit killing my fucking ass. Thanks Jakob for the link. Hasta. ^ top-Nieves Gives an Interview [LeallaRBP] February 14 - 7:39 PM EST Recently our very own Nieves sat done and did an interview with Mekere over at Markee Dragon. During this week, even with the all encompassing excitement and disappointments of the introduction of UO:AoS, Nieves, the creator and owner of UO Power Gamers, was nice enough to take some time out to give me a great interview. Thanks Nieves!! Mekere-Hello Nieves!! Ready to be interviewed? Nieves-Sure. But I didn’t create UOPG. I just own it and have molded it to what it is now. Mekere-Well you have done a great job of molding it into a very nice site! Mekere- Ok, first of all, Markee said I had to ask you a hard question so here it is! Who is Nieves? Tell us a little about yourself. Nieves-I am a mean SOB that hates people. It’s and interesting read, revealing a bit about Nieves that only a few may know. So to continue reading head on over to read the entire interview Till Next Time… Lealla ^ top-A Player's Frustration. [Nieves] February 14 - 11:09 AM EST After two days of experiencing frustration, sadness, anger, outrage, and downright disappointment, I figured I'd write up a little something trying to take a somewhat objective view of the whole situation. Of course, it might be hard to stay objective after having to spend 6 hours just trying to get through the registration website, but I'll do my best. Okay okay, I'm sure my opinion will be in most of this post, I thought I'd just try and make it sound like I'm being impartial. Hasta. ^ top-AoS Spoilers [Nieves] February 12 - 12:33 PM EST Sakkarah of UOTreasure Hunters has a GREAT AoS Spoiler page up. Check it out. That's if you care about UO anymore of course... Hasta. ^ top-+Skill Jewelry [Prophet] February 12 - 8:55 AM EST Some discussion of it on the UO.com boards. Flutter (wearing full spined leather for 240 luck) found a +8 Taming bracelet off of a Blood Ele. The highest +skill jewelry she's found has been +12. Other things found have been +6 fencing, a bracelet of +6 tactics, a ring of +3 peacemaking, a bracelet of +2 provocation, and a ring of +5 animal taming. Of course, you still can't go over your skill caps. Still, does that mean overtime, I can have a character with 70 in 10 skills and then just throw on jewelry according to what I need to do? If anyone finds a Stone of Jordan, then let me know. I'm calling Blizzard. eof ^ top-One hell of a day [JC_The_Builder] February 11 - 8:18 PM EST How are you doing? I know I am doing just great! <----is lying This was just posted on uo.com FYI: Previously it was stated that it would be necessary to clear the ban and friend lists of all houses due to an issue that arose during the conversion process. We’re happy to say that we’ve found another way, and that earlier statement won’t exactly be true. Since the Lake Austin shard has been up and running long enough for the data to be saved, we’re afraid that both friend and ban lists will still need to be cleared on that shard. However, on all other North American shards, we will be able to fix this before they are made live to the public. It’s likely that this fix will add some additional downtime, which we would prefer to avoid, but it’s preferable to the inconvenience to the players of having to rebuild those lists. We'll keep you informed as we know more, and thank you very much for your patience. This is the third revision to this FYI post. The first post stated the ban/friend list would be cleared and the shards would be up in about an hour. The second revision took out the hour part and added an "asap" part was added. Now this revision says we will be able to keep our ban/friend lists but it will take additional downtime. OSI = Chicken with head chopped off. ^ top-Sunsword Speaks About The Housing Changes [Nieves] February 11 - 7:55 PM EST And gets blasted. In reply to: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Why do Vendors need to count towards secure storage? A: With some of the changes regarding the item properties system, plus the addition of a significant number of houses, it became obvious during testing that we needed some new restrictions on the number of items players can keep in their houses. The change to vendors was the first step, but we will use the feedback you’re giving now over the next several weeks as we develop the complete solution to the vendor/item count issue. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For the past year or so, when we have asked for BOD books, a new Clean-up Brittania campaign, stackable stone, bola-balls, seeds, etc... and to stop introducing collectable series in favor of other types of items.. you were either silent or intimated that server load was not a big deal. You pointed to reduced maint times, no need for character clean up... etc. Now suddenly it is an issue? In reply to: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Why are you grand-fathering current Vendors? A: We predicted that changes made to current vendors would adversely affect many players’ current homes and establishments. To offset the difficulty of the transition period, we decided to allow players who currently have vendors to keep their current vendors with no changes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A transition period entails informing the playerbase and working towards acceptable solutions. This was handled very badly. In reply to: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Why did you wait to announce the grand-fathering initiative? A: Announcing ahead of time would’ve allowed players to abuse the vendor system to maximize their storage ahead of time, which would have negated the benefit of the change in the first place. And in situations like this - where announcing a change ahead of time would undermine that change - it’s standard operating procedure to wait. We wouldn’t intentionally do anything to make players not want to play our game. That wasn’t our intention. Actually, it was the reverse; we wanted to make sure this change succeeds in keeping the item count in check. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The 'players are the enemy' mentality is getting old. When we treat you likewise, you get huffy. Understand how we feel now? What would have been wrong with announcing this several weeks ago and then suspending vendor deed sales until AOS went live? What about asking some questions of the players to get some ideas on how to handle it? Limiting the number of vendors based on house size? Any would have been reasonable solutions and would have not caused this furor. All that was accomplished here was to alienate, and most likely lose revenue over cancelled pre-orders and accounts. It was discovered on Test, loaded to the playguide late last night. People began questioning the change with ever increasing degrees of concern. What would happen to present vendor malls was unclear. GMs in-game refused to answer questions on the subject. Members of the Development Team were watching (as witnessed by posts during the time frame). But you LET people drop vendors and destroy rune libraries, player run towns, museums, vendor malls. You LET this situation run amok until 8 hours after I politely PMed several of you that there was a great deal of concern about this issue and it really needed to be addressed. You LET all that happen because 'the lowest common denominator' would take advantage of the situation. Meanwhile we still have all the European and Asian shards up with time to react... not to mention Seige. I see so many respected posters, merchants and community builders, so let down by these changes that they are leaving... or at least seriously evaluating whether they want to continue. Others destroyed months or even years of hard work last night because of your silence. You turned what could have been the biggest boon to UO, and lot's of excitement and anticipation, into fury and betrayal. Can you not see that? It doesn't even matter that you are making this change. You did it in such a way that it guaranteed hostility. Do you enjoy being misled or lied to 'for your own good' when that 'good' is determined by someone else? In reply to: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Is this the way it’s going to stay? A: Absolutely not. Our intention is to address Vendors holistically in the weeks after Age of Shadows, along with any other AoS issues. As many of you have probably read, the live team will be going back to smaller, more frequent publishes after Age of Shadows. Doing so will allow us to address the vendor issue in a timely manner. Whether the solution is to increase lockdowns across the board, lower the maximum number of vendors, or something else altogether, we will come up with something that will benefit everyone. I know many of you are concerned about this issue, and believe me, despite the fact that we’re ferociously working on the AoS launch, we’re also paying attention to your concerns. I’m sure you’ll post them here J. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You have an abysmal track record for following up on issues. You start great and glorious projects and then never finish them, or by making decisions seemingly on a whim. Look at the anti-climactic wrap-up of the Lord Blackthorne scenarios, look at the Virtues, look at Barkeeps being the first step to a series of initiatives to bring back quests, look at multiple doors, the Serpent Pillars, Looting rights, Choosable titles, Title decay, Ilshenar Champion spawn, Invisibility Items, hands-off scamming policy... do I really need to go on? I really am not trying to flame you here, SunSword... but why in God's name should we trust anything you guys say anymore? Do you honestly feel that you have treated the playerbase with respect and earned their trust? Do you think this was the best possible move in maintaining a community? Pwned. Sorry Sunsword. I honestly like you. But you can't rationalize this. OSi screwed up. Accept it. Apologize for it. And fix it before the servers with AoS finally goes live. Read more here. Yeah, you need a damn myUO.com account. Hasta. ^ top-Mandrake Schools Us On Vendor Malls. [Nieves] February 11 - 4:12 PM EST Mandrake helps 'run' Impy's Vendor Mall and Auction house on Great Lakes. He makes some damn good points. An excerpt: [...]what of the little guy? What of the new player, or the one who owns only a small 1-story home? New players get their start in UO, in most cases, by the generosity of other players. In many cases they are allowed to place a single vendor at someone's shop to get themselves some starter gold. Say goodbye to that generosity, because now it takes my lockdowns away. Oh will some do it? Surely. Will most do it? Hell no...and you know it. And the guy with the small house? He has 300-400 lockdowns, lives near a mine or a forest, sells pickaxes and shovels and other such tools as might be useful to passers-by. Under the new rules, thse little guys can no longer do that. Why? Because you just killed a third of their lockdowns with 1 simple vendor. How are these people ever going to get enough gold to upgrade housing...or buy one if you're new? Sit at a bank daily? You'll have to do so. You'll have nowhere to sell items, or store them if all of your lockdowns are gone. Oh wait! You can always sell them to NPC vendors for pennies on the dollar. I forgot. My bad. [...] Want to read more? (Scroll down to Mandrake's post towards the bottom). Hasta. ^ top-More AoS Info. [Nieves] February 11 - 12:47 PM EST The UO.com Playguide is actually updated with AoS information. Gee. Thanks. Anyway... A friend got a goodie in the mail today. It's telling her about the Upgrade to AoS. It's funny in that it came today a day after one of the promotions ended. Hasta. ^ top-Cynthe On Vendors And Lockdowns [Nieves] February 11 - 12:33 PM EST Sorry Nissa, but this AOS Info is too important. Hasta. ^ top-Isn't Life Ironic... [Nissa] February 11 - 10:37 AM EST I saw this article on CNN. Just thought it was pretty ironic. Plus it is a nice change not to post something about AoS. When does the hacker become the hackee?!?!?! ^ top-Hooded Shrouds - FAQ [Nissa] February 11 - 10:25 AM EST Another FYI posting. This one has to do with the Hooded Shroud of Shadows There's a lot of information out about redeeming the mysterious Hooded Shroud of Shadows, but we wanted to just put out a few reminders to get people ready for the big day tomorrow! Will players still need to call a GM to get their Hooded Shroud of Shadows once they have their confirmation code? That was our initial plan, but as our pre-sale orders skyrocketed far beyond our expectations, we decided to develop an automated system for distributing these shrouds. So how exactly will I get the Hooded Shroud of Shadows? The first thing you'll need to do is either upgrade your account to Age of Shadows or start a new Age of Shadows account, since shrouds will only be given to AoS-upgraded accounts! As soon as you log in with your upgraded account, you’ll get a gump that will ask you to enter your validation code for the shroud. That’s the code you got from the retailer – either on a sticker when you picked up your copy of AoS, or on the shipping confirmation email if you got it by mail. Type it in carefully! Once you enter that code, you’ll find your Hooded Shroud in your bank box. Depending on the number of people claiming their shroud simultaneously, the gump may take a few seconds to appear, so please be patient. Shouldn't I have gotten my code already? We’ve heard that a few retailers gave out the stickers early to people who pre-ordered, but most of them will be waiting until the actual day their shipments come in. So don’t panic – you should get it when you get your game. What if I get my game, and I’ve still gotten no code, and no sticker? If this happens, you’ll need a scanned or faxed copy of your pre-order register or shipping receipt. Then go to this link. Choose Ultima Online and Age of Shadows as the product. For fastest service, choose Ultima Online Billing & Accounts as the category, and Buying/Joining Ultima Online as the sub-category. (Keep in mind that it’s still one shroud per AoS purchase! Any players who try to claim more than one shroud per purchase may lose all shrouds and find their account disciplined.) Is it one shroud per shard? Per account? Per box purchase? We’re awarding one shroud per purchase of the Age of Shadows box – but it’s also limited to one per account. In other words, if you buy 2 boxes of Age of Shadows, you will get two shrouds – but you will not be able to redeem them on the same account. If you buy only one box for Age of Shadows (even if you have two or more accounts), you will only be able to collect one shroud. Can I transfer these between characters or shards? Once the shrouds are claimed, they are transferable between characters – but not between shards. In other words, don’t pick a shroud on a shard that’s not your regular shard! Can I give my shroud code to a friend? You can, but with a few caveats. One - each code is only good for one shroud, so you and your friend can't both get a shroud off of your code. And two - shrouds will only be awarded to accounts that are upgraded to Age of Shadows. And three - remember only one shroud will be awarded per account! I am trying to optimist about this whole process, but I am not getting a good feeling. It's the little things that scare me. We can't get on the forums because of increased traffic. The total testing besides beta, was a couple of hours. They are popping new little "gotchya's" like the vendor going towards lockdowns. Everytime OSI does something large that affects everyone, there is major problems (think the first night of Vet Rewards and Trammel house placement). I really hope OSI proves me wrong. ^ top-UO Forums [Nissa] February 11 - 10:16 AM EST This was posted to to FYI: Happy Age of Shadows Day! Two quick notes this morning: First, there are currently 12 shards down right now, receiving the Age of Shadows publish. When these shards return to service, it's very likely that we'll have thousands of people logging in at once, which will put a major strain on our log-in servers. If, after your shard returns, you are trying to log in this morning and find you can't, please just wait a few minutes and try again. And second, due to the high traffic, the official MyUO forums are currently not responding at all. Our team's working on this, and we'll get them back up as soon as we can. Thanks for your patience! BTW, I just checked my order on EB Games (11:00EST). It hasn't shipped yet and I haven't received any emails regarding the status. Yep, starting to get a little antsy. I am planning on taking off the day tomorrow. *crosses fingers* NOTE: 11:45EST - Forums appear to be back, but they are very very slow! Enter at your own risk. :) ^ top-Vendors Take Lockdown Slots... [Nieves] February 10 - 10:18 PM EST OSI always has a knack for sneaking in important changes without telling their playerbase. From Jade: Vendors (empty) take up 10 lockdowns. Each item on your vendors count against your total storage space for the house as well. This sucks -Jade Fuck yeah it sucks... Read more here. Funny how I didn't see that in the FYI Misc Changes update today... Hasta. ^ top-The Master Speaketh [Nieves] February 10 - 6:49 PM EST "EA believed this was true for all games. The counsel -- and sometimes it was more than just counsel -- I would get from EA was that the schedule was the dominant issue. Once we started down the path on Ultima 8, I decided I would be a good corporate citizen and walk the walk and talk the talk. And as Ultima 8 got into scheduling trouble, as every Ultima always did, rather than make a decision as we had in the past to hold the game until it was polished, we began to cut things out to stay on schedule. And we cut and we cut and we cut and the game that was finally released was not only shipped early even for the cut version (and therefore buggy), but also had its guts ripped out as far as being an Ultima. " Lord British pwned. Read the rest right here. Hasta. ^ top-More AoS News [Nieves] February 10 - 6:32 PM EST Gawd I hope I don't eat today's "What Good is AoS Anyway?" update :/ Read this and know what I am talking about. Hasta. ^ top-Guest Editorial By Thurston-GL [Nieves] February 10 - 4:28 PM EST Why the hell doesn't segregation work? I mean, here's a thought.. if you want to own a gun, live in VA, or TX.. if you hate guns, live in New Jersey, or CA. Why does everyone have to waste so much energy hating people for living their way in their own space? And so that Bronze doesn't get his panties in a wad, I'll stop using real-life references at this point.... What the fuck does a person who plays in Trammel, likes playing in Trammel, hates playing in Fel, have to offer in the form of commentary on what should or should not be with Fel, or it's existance. By the same token, why the hell should any hard core Fel player be running around the West Brit bank in Tram shouting "trammies suxor". Your characters are not pixel-trees planted in the UO landscape and repressed into serving a facet that you don't like. MOVE! Stay out! Get your ass on a fast moongate to the facet of your dreams and forget that another facet exists if it's such an offensive concept to you. Why waste time hating people for wanting a different life? And, mostly, why the hell does it suck to have a choice? You can even get the benefit of playing both sides when the mood strikes you. Maybe today you just don't feel like dealing with another shitty person crapping on your afternoon... or maybe you feel the need to crap on someone else's for having no fucking manners and running at the mouth too long.. much like I'm doing here... Get over it.. stay where you like.. move around if you like.. but stop bitching that other's get a part of the world their way when you have a part that is your way. Maybe offer some constructive criticism on fixing your facet.. instead of constantly griping about someone else's. To the man who said close Fel.. I offer the following out of character, yet only appropriate thing that comes to mind: FUCK YOU! This was in response to something Vile of the UO.com boards said... Pheal it. Hasta. ^ top-What Good Is AoS Anyway? [Nieves] February 10 - 12:14 PM EST We have sat here and analyzed and bitched and complained about what we don't like about Age of Shadows? Is Age of Shadows worth buying? Is it worth upgrading for our accounts? Well, from a UO gamer's stand point, yes. And here is why. Hasta. ^ top-UOPG Question of The Week - 02/10/03 [Nieves] February 10 - 8:43 AM EST Let's try something different today. What, in the last year, was the 3 most memorably quotes you can remember? Rules: They have to be only from the last year, and have to be UO related. Talk about it! Hasta. ^ top-AoS For Europe Correction [Nieves] February 9 - 12:21 PM EST "So when you going to tell us? I mean, the 12th is when? Oh, and you do realize the 12th hits that part oft he world before Austin, Texas right? Unless OSI doesn't care that someone like me could log on to a European shard and yank a Malas plot. My advice to you guys that can afford it (or would want too) is to get a copy of the box from an American supplier or through an American friend." There not actually activating AoS on the european shards untill the box is available in stores .. i believe that was previsously going to be feb 28th ? Is that true!? Anyone know?? Probably confirmed now: While it's indeed irritating for Old World players that Europe is getting a delay in the AoS release, remember that Malas isn't going to get activated on the servers in that area until AOS is released officially. One might be able to get a slight jump on others by getting a US version (being able to place the second AoS goes active on the server as opposed to when a comparable European box might show up- and that could be the same time!) but the situation is not nearly as bad as you make it out to be. All the same, I think the game would have been better served by an early release of the AoS box itself (so we could all play with special moves for a bit,) and a minor delay for Malas' activation to allow everyone a decent shot at placement (given that there's only 1800 or so house spots for each server...) --Robert Himberger Thanks guys! More Housing information: From here: "Housing availability for the land of Malas will also work in a similar manner. Before the new land of Malas will be active, all shards will need to be published with the Age of Shadows code (although you'll still need the Age of Shadows expansion to access Malas and the new features). This publish will be released in each territory to coincide with the release of the game in those areas. That means that European or Asian players don't need to worry about all the housing space on their shards being taken before they can buy the game, since there won't even be a Malas on those shards until the game is on the shelves in those areas." Also in this thread: Cynthe says "I've talked to our marketing group, and as far as I know, the release date for Europe is still Feb. 28th. I'm still waiting to get the final info on the participating retailers in Europe for the shroud promo as well, but I haven't received that yet." And, thanks again! Hasta. ^ top-Recalling/Gating in AOS [Nieves] February 9 - 12:14 PM EST Picked this up in GLRPC from some people that were reading the UO Boards: [18:21] Basically the no recall/gate area rules are still in place. For example you cannot gate or recall in the Felucca dungeons, this still is the case. For example you cant recall or gate into Ilsh - this still is the case. The old rules still apply, cant recall as an ageressor so all of those conditions still exist. [18:21] The change is you can recal directly across a facet if the rules would otherwise have allowed it. You can also make a gate that goes from one facet to another using the gate Travel spell. Not to worry there is a warning gump and the endpoint is a non consensual pvp ruleset. [18:21] As a result of rewriting the teleportation code the bug where you lose mana recalling or gating to a blocked location has been fixed as well. -Lydia I guess you still have to use the teleporters to get around. Hasta. ^ top-Animal Resistance Values [Nieves] February 9 - 12:11 PM EST Everyone seems to have missed this thread on changes to pet resist: Copied from UO.com Development Board: All pets will retroactively gain the elemental resistance stat values that the new monster templates have. You won't need to go out and get a new version of the pet for this to happen. However, the elemental resistances on monsters do not change over time through training, whether they're tamed or not (although we're not ruling this out as a possible future enhancement). You'll still be able to train the resisting spells skill as you did before, and the skill will work the same way it does for AoS monsters/players. Andd then Sunsword said: I'm not sure, but I *think* we are confusing magical spell resistence with elemental resistences. Is that the case? These changes don't impact your creature's ability to learn and get better at the skill "resisting spells." But just as they can't _currently_ advance in AR, they cannot advance in elemental resistence (which is essentially what AR is being turned into). -- SunSword Producer, Ultima Online Find the thread here. Aeife Thanks Aeife! Sheesh...lots of info today huh!? Hasta. ^ top-It's In The Patch Files [Nieves] February 9 - 12:07 PM EST So what? Doesn't mean it will go in! About that information found in the newly patched files... sandstone fireplace (east) sandstone fireplace (south) grey brick fireplace (east) grey brick fireplace (south) stone fireplace (east) stone fireplace (south) [...] Please don't get too excited about these yet. They aren't going to be live at the launch of Age of Shadows, and like any feature that is in development and hasn't been officially announced, it's subject to cancellation. [...] I hate to be a party pooper, but it's better to let you know up front that fireplaces aren't guaranteed to actually be added to the game. Don't assume that because strings make it into the localization files that the feature is guaranteed to be published. [...] I'm not trying to bring doom and gloom here -- I do want the fireplaces to go in. I'm just clarifying that they aren't going in immediately and there's always a slim possibility they won't make it in at all. [...] -Vex At least he's honest. So don't get excited about the new pixel crack or Soul Stones just yet...if at all. Thanks to Alex for the info. Hasta. ^ top-Stat Guide Update [Nieves] February 9 - 12:03 PM EST Nieves, Can you please update the Stat Guide with the info that the stat timer counter is reset for the entire server at 6PM local server time. So that if you gain 6-points before 6PM, you can gain 6-points after 6PM, but to gain after that, you have to wait until after the next 6PM. Here's some data below to substantiate this claim. There was also a thread somewhere on the message board that said the same thing but I can't remember it. Also, please don't post any credit for this find, I wasn't the one that found it first anyway. Thanks for updating. Date Time Stat 2003-02-06 4:27 PM 101 2003-02-06 5:27 PM 102 2003-02-06 5:57 PM 103 2003-02-06 6:27 PM 104 2003-02-06 6:57 PM 105 2003-02-06 7:35 PM 106 2003-02-06 8:07 PM 107 2003-02-06 8:37 PM 108 2003-02-06 9:09 PM 109 2003-02-06 9:39 PM 110 2003-02-06 10:09 PM 111 - JakFrost No, but you were the first to bring it to light. If you wish, you can post additional credit in the forum. Thank you for bringing this information to UOPG and allowing me the opportunity to share it with the other players. Hasta. ^ top-Solution to Non Patching of UO [Nieves] February 9 - 12:01 PM EST Nieves, I'm honored that you quoted a post I made on the MyUO boards about the recent patch to UO and the error I was getting. I actually did find a cure for the out of memory problem. The solution is to uninstall UO, use Norton Utilities to delete any registry entry that it finds as a problem via Win Doctor, defrag and then reinstall UO to a different directory. I just thought you'd like to know the cure. :) Enjoy! Ayla Thanks! Some effort to fix something that should work anyway... On a seperate topic: AC is back. Hasta. ^ top-Um, Any Mage Players Out there? [Nieves] February 9 - 11:41 AM EST Yes? Here is a bone for you. Concussion Blow formula: 10+absolute value of( Max HP - Maxmana)/ 5(capped at 10)+ absolute value of (currentHealth- current mana) / 4 (capped at 20) Basically it adds a additional 10 - 40 points of damage. And nowhere can it be found where concussion blows, or any special attack for that matter, cuts intelligence in half anymore. Would you like honey mustard or barbecue with that? Thanks to Lestat for that information. Hasta.