•Someone isn't very smart

It's been awhile since I have been on the Tradespot General Discussion board. When I got there the first post I saw was interesting. Here is the text:

Hello all,
I am Lord Tranix of the LS shard.
Today on tradespot I noticed a person selling UO Bugs for UO Gold. UO Gold
Duping for 200k UO Item Duping for 250k. I dont beleive in that crap so I went on a small mission. I paid for his "services" and he showed me. I did not dupe any items. Later on the server went down and the money I paid him was returned to my account but the knowledge I retained obviously. Later on my quest to bust him went in full force. I saw him talking to a person named Trinity and I knew what he was trying to do. I then invited her to join my party and we talked.
He was sitting there spilling his guts on how to do it in the Brit bank vault (none too smart). I asked Trinity to stall him until a gm could come and Trin kept him there for about 30 mins. A GM came to the spot where i was hiding out at (GM Aegis).
I told him the story and he changed his clothes and name "The
Illustrious Simplex". Then he went incognito into the bank where this person was selling his scams. The scammer was obviously short in the brain department as Miss Simplex gave him 275k for the "trick", all 3 of us in the bank talked for awile just waiting for the GM to appear in red robes and crap on the guy but it didnt happen....yet. He made sure it was verifiable and that he said all the incriminating words needed, and then he said "Magma...", Magama said "Yes?" BAM RED ROBED and GM Aegis simply said "Youre Busted". We all laughed except got the GM. The GM said to him that you have used an exploit and related an exploit to others. Then at last he said "Youre goin downtown". What happened down in the jails I do not know but I bet Magma felt quite the fool. When we asked if his account was banned the GM Replied "Sorry, were not allowed to discuss account related information", but made it clear in a subtle way that this player would have to buy another copy of Uo to play again. GM Aegis played his role perfectly using every word a fellow scammer would use..dude...freakin...well u all know the slang :) He later came back and thanked us for the help in this matter. This goes to show that GM's _ARE_ concerned about this sorts crap and will take action, sometimes the player community is needed however. I'd like to thank Trinity first of all for keeping the offender occupied during the
queue and to GM Aegis for the swift, accurate and detailed way he handled the situation. For more info including screenshots of the bust anyone can ICQ me at #17426852
I guarantee a good laugh indeed!!
Trinity can be reached at #27000452 (She is looking to buy a placed tower, if anyone is selling she is paying very well.)
We did not gain anything (items, cash etc) for this bust assist, I wouldnt want it like that. The GM's thanks was thanks enough. This made my day. Going through this I did learn of the bug and how to do it, I havent tried it nor will i. Please do not contact either of us if you want to know how to dupe. Youll just be tossed on ignore.
Just thought id post this to all boards, Im sure ppl are glad to know that at least SOME action is being done to stop these fools who are ruining the game and inflating prices.
Yours,
Lord Tranix

Stone Cold Busted. What a dork. I guess what I said before is true, all Cheaters should be banned (dupers, etc).

Hasta.

•Ostards, Nightmares, and Dragons....oh my!

Found a new link (well new to me). I looked through most of the site. And with the exception of one dead link, the site is right on! The United Tamers of Brittania web site has a TON of information for Tamers and those curious about Tamers. It even has spawn maps, what to tame and where, and Tamer Ethics (TAMER TWINKS READ!!!). It's awesome. I give it 4.9999 out of 5.0 PvMer stars (one dead link-Dragons vs. Wyrms :( ).

Go read about it. The site is important for all Tamers.

Hasta.

•Part II of the PvP tutorial

Well guys, here is another part for you guys to dissect. Remember,Christopher Kozub a.k.a. Kamikaze wrote it originally on Adam Ant's message board. I got permission and reposted it for you guys. Enjoy-
Well I believe I've covered all the basic rules of PvP. Now I will enter into some actual in battle tactics.
In Battle Tactics:
The key to winning is knowledge. You must know your opponent, what their strategy will most likely be and how to counter it. Much of how a battle develops depends on two things. The type of char you play (mage/warrior) and the type of char you opponent plays (mage/warrior)

a)Recognizing char type:
Simplest way to recognize the type of char your opponent plays is to look at the armor they wear. Mages need to recover mana at an optimum rate. Therefor they wear armor that does not interfere with their mana regeneration. If you opponent is wearing only leather armor or clothes you can almost be assured they rely mainly on magic to deal damage. Vice Versa if your opponent is wearing any combination of chain or plate armor you can depend that they will rely mainly on a combat skill to do dmg. If the char is wearing studded leather you can reasonably expect they are a warrior type especially if the studded leather is magical. In this case expect a fast weapon and high dex and most likely DP.

Initiating Battle:

Warrior/Mage: A warrior facing a mage must be expecting two things. Firstly damage en mass and poison. The best way for a warrior to survive a mages attack is to keep the mage from casting harmful or beneficial spells. To ensure this a warrior should have the fastest weapon (of their type, preferably lesser or deadly poisoned) at their disposal. In the best case scenario the warrior should have magic reflect precast on themselves. Next they should disarm a shield if they have any. Most, if not all damage you sustain will be spell based. A shield will just hamper your ability to effectively drink potions. Next drink a greater agility potion. The greater agility potion will do two things. Firstly your stats will become more balanced and therefore you will take less damage from a mages best and most mana efficient spell, mindblast. Secondly and most importantly It will raise your dex and therefore increase your swing speed. You will do more dmg and disrupt more spells. Next drink a greater strength. This allows you to increase both your maximum life and damage potential. Also it allows you to start applying a bandage even before you take spell damage. After you begin applying the bandage take stock of your situation. If you are low on life 30 hp from your new max drink a Greater heal potion. Drinking it now will rest your timer and let you drink one sooner later in combat. If you
are paralyzed or see the words An Ex Por get ready to open a trapped box.(I have a UOA macro for this) If your life is still low, back off and cast Greater heal. Or teleport and hide, then wait for the bandage to take effect. If you are poisoned DON'T wait for the bandage to cure the poison. Drink a greater cure ASAP. At this point you are in good shape the mage is lower on mana and you have the advantage. Step forward and do what you do best. MELEE. (more tactics in will be found in intermediate battle section)

Warrior/Warrior:
For the most part follow the instructions mentioned above, with a few minor changes. Juxtapose magic reflect for Reactive armor. If you have a shield you may keep it equipped, just be ready to disarm if need be. A warrior has a higher armor class and as such higher damage weapons are more effective. I would suggest lesser or deadly poisoned broad swords, war forks, or a war axe. War hammers, Halberds, and long spears are effective but you must disarm the weapon to use a potion. Because of low wrestling you will take more dmg while doing this and you will not be dealing damage while changing weapons. Depending on your int, you may want to start combat by casting poison on your opponent. Poison negates your opponents best advantage, their healing skill. Make sure you leave enough mana for GH. I would rather use lesser poisoned items on my opponent. This will seriously interfere with his strategy and prevent him from healing.

Next session I will be exploring mage openings and begin the exploration of intermediate battle tactics.


There you have it. Go ahead and talk about it in the forum.

Hasta

•Now THIS is good stuff!!!!

Aw yeah, new goodies from OSI. I will break em down for you.


General Testing Updated
The following was just added to General Testing on the UO.com website:

The following updates and changes are currently in General Testing:

When looting a corpse that is stacked on top of one or more corpses, the loot from any “buried” corpses that belong to you will be included.
About damn time. Got tired of liches getting stacked and not finding my kill. Only thing is, I feel bugs coming with this. Don't quote me.


On Trammel, only the person who digs up a treasure chest, or members of his/her party, will be able to open the chest and remove treasure. Treasure chests recovered from treasure maps on Felucca will continue to be available to all players.
Oh me oh my! Yes baby yes! To all you Trammel Twinks: Nah nah nah nah boo boo, you can't loot it! I loves it. And I agree with the allowing looting in Felucca. Makes for an interesting adventure. I once was on a chest run PRE-UO:R and some idiot comes up and takes something. Fine, we looted as fast as we could and he had a dread spider and 2 Ogrelords chasing him. Was hilarious.


An issue causing players to become ‘stuck’ when picking up hay in Haven has been fixed.
Crossbows will no longer incorrectly use arrows on archery buttes, but will use bolts.
Um, I never had any problems with those 2, but ok.

The protection spell will now provide greater protection at higher magery/evaluate intelligence/inscription skill levels.
There you have it you bad ass 7XGm mages. Now your Protection spell will really allow you to take hits from Warhammers (um...yeah, ok).

Finger slips from being hit while healing will have less effect. The damage healed will now be based on you dexterity and healing skill. Previously, this value was based only on dexterity.
About freaking time. I got tired of slipping while trying to heal. 75 healing and 100 dex, and I "barely" heal myself? Please.

Veterinary skill gain rate will be corrected.
An error that lowered the tracking skill level required to effectively track other players and NPC humans will be corrected.
Doesn't effect me, but ok.


The mining interface will be updated to help increase server performance.
To mine, double-click your mining tool and target the area you wish to mine.
To dig for treasure, double-click your mining tool and target a treasure map. You may then target the area in which you wish to dig for treasure.
Single-clicking a treasure map will now tell you the facet to which the map pertains.
Cool cool. Anything to lower lag. Why you have to click 1 extra time to find a chest is beyond me. Whatever. I will take it. Hmmm...[Felucca:Tattered Treasure Map]. ok, that's cool. But I can still dig em up in Trammel. You going to fix that? I don't mind that you can, but I know it's not supposed to work that way. I bet you they sneak that in. And why can't the map say: Felucca:Tattered Treasure Map from monster-name?

Weapons with the “ghouls touch” ability will now function correctly.
Um, what was wrong with them? Hammer will be pissed if they don't paralyze like they are supposed to.


The frequency of wheat spawn on the Trammel facet will be lowered.
Um...ok.
Summoned Elementals and Daemons will now be more in line with normal elementals and daemons.
Ruh roh...look out for Mages with Kick ass Daemons now. I agree with it, but now it's something you have to look out for when fighting Mages. I think mages got their "stick" back.

New locations at which Nightmares spawn have been added to fix some of the “spawn blocking” issues.
To all you spawn blocking tamers: NEH!

It will now be possible to gain skill by stealing from grey, red, and monster targets.
Stealing has been fixed so that stealing specific items is now more difficult than “random” stealing.
I thought stealing from monsters gave you gains anyway? Whatever. That works for me. Roxanne will be happy :). And stealing is getting it's difficulty code fixed. Awesome.

Wow, I love thi...er...no wait! What am I saying? ::stomps foot:: Sometimes I hate this freaking game! Whew! You ain't getting away that easily OSI!!! Nuh uh no way!!

::reads the list again and his eyes start to go glossy and lost in a far away land called Brittania::

Hasta.

•"It bees that way sometimes..."

Here is something I read at another site:
Hey all, I know its been a while since any of use has updated. Well my excuse is ive been furiously masurbat--- i mean ive been busy. Today I was given a wake up call by my parents. Incase you didn't know, Im 18, just graduated High School. Now if your like me, your fucking stressed about what your gonna do next. If your some 4.0 straight A honor roll fucking free ride scholarship to Harvard, then get the fuck out of here. Fuck me what the hell am i going to do this fall? Community College? Fuck that shit who wants to see your fucking high school reunion this early. Fuck shit liek Devry or ITT Tech, either end up a lucky bastard making 80 grand or end up in a dead end job never going anywhere in life. Fuck Military, thats all there is to it. FUCK THE MILITARY. Fuck authority and fuck anyone who thinks they need me to call them sir and kiss there fucking ass day in and day out so i can maybe just maybe not get fired. Why is it that parents can let you slide and let u live all easy through out your entire high school career and then day after you graduate they switch to Asshole mode and tell you its time to get the fuck out. I mean jesus a little preperation would be nice. Im sorry if they fucked up and let me become a slacker, whose fucking fault is that.. not mine thats for fucking damn sure. Ive had it easy for 18 fucking years and now they cant understand why im not motivated to go out and find a job or get into a college. If you can sense a little anger in this post then well your smarter than the average fuck that visits this site. And to the shit eating mother fucker who keeps posting on message boards saying I still play UO, burn in hell u cock gobbling inbred little prick. Right now im gonna go out and finds me a job and maybe find something in life and become a success. Cuz sitting around playing Counter-Strike and getting drunk is going no where fast. Seeya All...

Pudrick

Sounds like someone is having an early life crises. You know, when I was in my senior year, I was worried to hell wtf I was going to do with my life. I was 17 (yeah, I ALMOST graduated early) and living in Texas without any family (mom had moved back to Cleveland a few months earlier), my gf was pregnant, and I didn't know wtf I was going to do. I knew 2 things back then. I was NOT going into the military and I AM going to college. Guess what happened?

Age 18: I had to go to summer school to graduate because I was struggling with 2 jobs, and a girlfriend that didn't allow me the time for myself. What time? I just wanted to go to Karate. That's it. I never went to the club (which I found out she was doing while I was at work) or hung out with anyone. My fault for allowing her to get pregnant (I could've wore condoms). BUT! I got into college and managed 2B'S and 2C'S. All this after we had broken up over that summer school stint and I was all but homeless. Age 19: My gf and I had already broken up for a final time (we tried to get back together) and I am back in Cleveland. I am still in College but I wasn't studying as hard as I should've. Age 20: I am married (different girl) with another child on the way. I got a decent job and still going to college. Age 24: I am doing pushups in the middle of July, it's hot as fuck in Fort Jackson South Carolina, and this idiot in an ugly ass hat is yelling in my ear to push harder and faster.

The point to all this? I did exactly what I DIDN'T want to do. Does that mean Pudrick is going to do the same? No, not exactly. But if he doesn't do something about it, it's going to catch up to him and he will be doing things he DOESN'T want to do.

I look back and am grateful I got to be in the military. It was a good experience for me. Even at 24, I was young in the head and I grew up in some ways with the experience. [Although, now that I am in the UO community, I digressed 10 years. Price you pay I guess.] Thing is, I HAD to go into the military to try to make something better because I was struggling in the real world managing a full time job, full time college, and full time husband and parent. It was rough for all of us.

For my kids, I want them to have an education. I want them to go to college when the time comes. I tell them I don't want them to suffer my hardships. And I want them to have stability in their lives. Something I never had.

I am sorry Pudrick that you are suffereing the indignation of "your 18 now, do something with yourself". If you were my son, it would be like this: You are 16, start thinking about College son. I want you to succeed. I don't give a shit if you get a degree as a Sanitation Engineer. But you WILL GO TO SCHOOL! Now, you are 18. If you are in school, I won't bug you much. Just realize I can't afford to pay for most of the stuff you're used to with your college expenses (::prays he gets a scholarship::). You can stay in this house as long as you are paying your "expenses" (going out, etc.) and going to school. I will keep a roof over your head and keep you fed. The rest is your responsibility. Oh, and have fun doing it. Nothing like the College experience. I never had it."

Is that wrong? I don't think so. I think I would be fair with that philosophy. And notice, I would not push him out of the house. That is just unfair for our children. [I look at American parents throwing their kids out of the house and realize how fucked up that parent and family really is.] I am not saying they should get a fair ride, and I will be damned if I have a deadbeat living in my house. Oh, and don't forget, it's still my house. Some rules still apply (don't you hate that shit?). But I am not going to just THROW you out.

When you graduate from High School you deserve that summer to get out and ENJOY yourself. You earned it. You did 12 years of "hard time" and spent alot of time struggling to do shit you hated and couldn't understand why you had to. But come fall...welcome to the real world. It's a harsh one. If you were mine, Pudrick, I would do my best to help you make the transition. Just work with me and I will work with you to make it good.

I still don't have a Bachelor's Degree, a stable career (writing for a UO website is NOT a career), just recently had to take out a 3,500 dollar loan to try and get that career for myself (Web Designer in training) and save some money for my kid's college and my retirement. And to think, I will be 30 next month. I look back and say: "Fuck, if I only made this or that decision". Oh, and all this managing single parent home with 2 kids, Karate classes for the 3 of us, and other kid's stuff they want/need to do.

Sorry you are having it tough Purdrick. It only gets worse from here...if you let too much time go by. And make the decision NOW! 30 comes quickly.

Hasta

•I am having a slow update day and eveyone else updates. Awesome :)

Wow. Those Diablo II screenshots are amazing. You got to go see them. I wonder how they will look on my 17". Too bad I don't have this 21" HP monitor at home. I remember playing UO back when I was working Tues-Sat. in another building. All I did was monitor the systems and played UO all day. If I knew then what I know now about Powergaming, I would have 5 7XGM characters on my main account. Oh well.

Galahad wrote a PvP story in the stories section. Check it out. It's pretty cool.

Loren and I took a visit to shame. The numbers for the Elementals PvM section are starting to shape up. Once I have it all (I need to kill more Air Elementals and Poisons to get a decent average loot number). Chasing Poisons around Shame is too much fun (well, them chasing me). They are challenging. Run run, shoot, run, shoot again, try to keep from dieing. Get to the trap spot and hope to goodness you don't get teleported on. Or worse, lose con.

Check out what we did together at lunchtime in shame today in the stories section.

Hasta.

•I got Diablo II yesterday, and I beat it within 4 hours.

Here's some proof of Diablo himself:



... Just kidding... I didn't even get it yet. It should be here on Saturday. I took the screenshot from here. There's a lot more Act IV (last act) and Diablo screenshots there as well. That guy has 435 armor. Jesus. The most I got was about 60. I wouldn't mind that amount of gold, either. Must suck to be him if he dies, because he'll lose it all.

I know I haven't updated much, but I've been working (like I said a couple weeks ago when my gay roomate moved in). The good news is I get paid tomorrow night, so we'll finally get rid of ShitPowerup and get a better board. And I'm off on Saturday, so I get to play Diablo II all day long. No work, a paycheck and the first taste of Diablo II on the same day... You can't get any better than that.

•Pacific Protest

Got this in email:

There is gonna be a protest on Pacific tonight, at 7pm EST. We PvPers want our own shard where there arent special combat systems, we want precasting back!

No special attacks is cool. I can live without crushing blows, disarms, and paralyzation effects. Then melee isn't crap shoots anymore. I like them in a way as well. Gives that extra "Mystery" to what's going to happen. Once Warhammers are on par with Lumberjackers, it's going to be interesting to see what template rules PvP. Having your own shard would be cool. But I thought you had Seige for that? ::shrugs:: Maybe I am confused about what Seige is like.

Don't ask me to support precasting though. I am glad it's gone. It was never meant to work that way and I think magic should have it's limitations (to a point).

Protest if you believe it, even if I wasn't going to be at Karate tonight, I wouldn't go. Precasting being the main reason I wouldn't go. Sorry, but it's my opinion.

Good luck and I hope the protest brings out something good for everyone.

Hasta.

(Damn, that's 5 posts today! And I am busy as hell at work, did some DS squad stuff, and I got a 1 hour lunch in. My management skills must be getting better. That's a good thing.)

•NEWS FLASH!!

Well looky here, looky here! Hey RED! Check this out!!!

Although Blizzard's Diablo II has yet to make it on to retail shelves (look for it to begin hitting retail June 30), the company has already released a patch for the game. The patch fixes several serious bugs that slipped through the Quality Assurance (QA) department at Blizzard and made it into the final retail product. These bugs include serious crash bugs, bugs that affect multiplayer games, a install crash related to DirectDraw and attempting to skip the cinematic, a crash bug that occurs when fleeing from a Gargantuan Beast and picking up gold in act I, several bugs involving killing Lord De Seis (Act IV) that sometimes crashed the game, and a fistful of other crash and gameplay bug fixes. Grab the patch here. This patch may very well be a prerequisite to playing the game, as it deals with a lot of bugs that make the game unplayable.

On a related note, Blizzard's three new Diablo II action figures are widely available at retail and at the Blizzard online store. At the the store all three action figures are retailing for around $10 plus shipping and handling. For more information checkout www.blizzard.com.

Damn that OSI-itis is nasty ain't it?

Anyone else wonder why I wait 6 months-year before buying newly released software?

Hasta!

•Well Damn...

Well, the PvP essay is already shot down. ProQuo already posted his thoughts about the essay in the forum. Not dissing him at all. I mean he's MUCH more experienced than I am.

Well, boys and girls. It's LETTERS TIME! I know you love this part. So go ahead and get your goodies, sit back, and enjoy the read.

I'm not going to bug you all the time or anything, but I wanted to let you know that you're dead wrong when it comes to cheaters. Cheaters in UO prosper FAR more than regular players. Especially with this duping stuff. I remember when all you had to do is recall, recall and close your client and you had double what was in your pack. There were HUNDREDS of people that duped millions, and what like 3 people got caught? I know (and I'm sure you heard stories and know too) entire guilds built on duped gold. Now with checks cheaters can get away with even MORE money easily, and now they can never get caught because they just cash the checks.

UO is money, and OSI is just too dumb to check for the same ID number on items so they will never know. I mean jesus, how hard is it to see who has the most gold in their bank? I think if you have over 50 mil in your bank, it's safe to say you cheated.

Since the beginning of UO, cheaters always win. We just can't tell if that 7x GM just started that character a couple weeks before or not unless we kill them.

Cyas..... =-p

You know me, I had to reply to that. Here is what I sent.


Cheaters always lose. They didn't earn anything by cheating. So, they are losers. If you can't figure that out, then I am sorry. NOt trying to be a smart ass, but you said I am wrong. I think the winners of the game (if there is such a thing as winning in UO) are those people that work for what they had in UO.

Hasta.
Then he wrote back...
Aw come on man. You're bein' all moral. I guess god will be their judge or something like that. My point is, I just think its sad we have to wait until the end of creation to watch them get theirs when OSI could catch them easily now and make our playing experience that much better! =-p


And finally I said:
Yeap. "All Moral" That's me. Cheaters need to be taken out and shot.
Sorry if you dont' agree. But it's wrong. If you have to cheat to get ahead, then you suck. My opinion of it all.

I do agree that it's sad we have to wait. I think they want to do it right and fry the right people in the right way.

Cheaters suck. 'Nuff said. NEXT!

I feel your pain on the house placing issue. I logged in at 5 PM on GL and went to check my spots I had marked in Fellucia, they were all camped already, so I logged out my warrior and logged in my mage to mark a few more spots. Get them marked, try to log my warrior back in, "Entering Britania" for an hour. Finally get in, don;t get any of my spots I had for my Large Marble in Fellucia. Pissed off I drop my Moonstone and hit Trammel, prepared for Phase II. I find a sweet spot for my Marble with no campers, Yes I will have my Large Marble. AlasPhase II starts, I DClick my deed and Freeze. I wait 10 Minutes, still no outline and no deed. So I logout and waste the next hour and a half trying to relog. When I finally get back, someone had placed a Large Marble right where I was, shit. So I then spend the next 2 hours, moving 2 steps every 10 minutes trying to place. Not happening, Girlfriend is annoyed cause I'm still up at 4am so I give up and go to bed. Wake up at 8am and figure I'll be able to place, after 3 hours of no luck for my Marble I had to settle for a Sandstone Patio. This sucked because I originally had 3 smalls in Fellucia and sold 2 of them prior to UO:R. So I ended up losing Storage space, and my Sandstone is in the Boonies.


Dammit...I am starting to feel that pain in my chest again :(....This weekend sucked for alot of folks :[.

Let me move on before my heart breaks (Sometimes I hate this fucking game). NEXT!


Well Nieves..you have done it again..your post on the main page was
brilliant! I am a lot like you and am glad you have a voice in this gaming community.
I totally feel the same as you when it comes to people selling there
accounts. Fine let them! there will always be people like that in this
world. I have my guys on 5 different shards for 2yrs and when I quite for 3 months once..some people I knew asked me to give them my account..so they could sell it..hehe..Bull shit! My characters have all a little bit of me inside them and I have a little of them in me! I feel they are close...yes it's just a game..but the best damn game I have ever played! My characters have all different personalities...some role play..some just have fun...it's so cool!

Your partner that is GM tailor..what shard is that? I would buy leather from
her vender. :)

TIMEOUT! I don't advertise on here, sorry...but if you ever seen me in Trin...um, never mind :) TIMEIN!

I liked your good deed of handing down your magic sword to a wanna be paladin..that was cool..and reminds me of things I have done for others. and will keep doing.

well..take care and keep up the good writing!

your admirer,

Clay Bittermug, Snow Dwarf.

Wow! Admirers! Gotta luv it!!! Just don't stalk the tower. I will sick my partner and her Broadsword of vanq on you!!! NEXT!!!


Ok I understand you lost all you shit. Sorry about that. You say uo shit isnt worth anything, and ebay sucks etc. Well my question to you is why cry and have "dreams" about a game?

It is worth money, and it is more then just a game.
Review what your saying, and dont cry if its nothing more then a game.

NO JUUS NO....here is what I wrote back:

Go to the archives and read about it again. When I said "it ain't worth shit" I meant money. It's not worth anything if all you have to do is flick a switch and it's gone. My dreams were about the ingame goals I had. And what made me "cry" about it was all the time I put into it. I think you will find that written there as well.

The only thing that makes the game "worth" something to me is the in game relationships and the time I put into creating the characters and acquiring what I have acquired. Putting a money value on someone else's product (OSI owns those megabytes); read the TOS) and then selling it is kind of wrong and OSI could push to have it stopped. They are just too busy with everything else up to even try (IMHO). And to begin with, it's a game.

Anything else?

Hasta.

I think that covers it. NEXT!

I read your story today about your house placing woes, and since I have enjoyed your posting for a few months, I thought that I would offer you a 2-story deed on Pacific. I don't have a lot of cash, but I have at least one method to regain gold that works very well.

You don't have to accept, and I won't be pissed if you decline.

Natas - Guardians of Honor, Pacific
My money making method? I resell regs on tradespot when I need cash.

::silence, then quiet sobs in the background:: Sorry, I got to get a tissue. Be right back. ::sniffles...BRAAP throws the tissue away::

Thanks man. I loves you guys!!! :)

Well, that's the last one for the day. Keep them letters coming in! And don't think I am just going to FLAME you for giving me your opinion. I am a pretty decent guy if I keep the "Juus" personality in check. ::reaches for the Rydilin (sp?)::

HASTA!

•And here we go again...

From good ol' Stratics.net


06/27/00 04:53 PM CDT ·· ^top

Felucca Changes: Guards, Monsters, and Magic
Just saw the following update in the FYI section of the UO website:


Felucca Changes: Guards, Monsters, and Magic
The guards in the guard areas (towns) of the Felucca facet on all shards will be returning to their normal working orders in the next 24 hours. Felucca guards will once again ignore monsters in towns, and will disregard the casting of 'offensive' magic spells cast in their areas. It is important to note that guards, when called, will continue to defend any innocent travelers who are attacked by other players.

Please note: the guards will not return to 'Felucca style' guarding at the same time on all shards, but will be changing on a shard-by-shard basis throughout the evening. Thus, we recommend caution when choosing your actions in the towns of Felucca for the next 24 hours

I guess that means mages are able to kick butt again in town. Cool. Our mages on DS won't be relegated to heal and gate duties. Now they can fight like the rest of us. And watch out for those Ophidian Avengers while you bank. I hear they got a nasty bite :).

The other night my partner and I decided to do some sparring (she pissed me off more like it). Well, she's got this kick ass sword (broadsword of vanq) and a kick ass shield (Fortification) with a bitching AR (45) and decent Parry (80). To put a long story short, Loren got her ass kicked. She's on a 56K, a machine that's 200MHZ slower than mine, and was spanking me all over the Tower walls. :| I was embarrassed. I am 4xGM she's 2 (Tactics and Tailoring) and was able to wipe the floor with me. But more important than that, I have ALOT more experience playing this game. I shouldn't have been spanked like that. Well, my whiffing all those times with my new katana of force (thanks glacier) didn't help me ONE bit. Wtf is up with that? I turned around and told her: If I brought my Hammer, you would be dead. She didn't disagree, then she turned around and laughed. Fuck. Talk about embarrassing. This week just gets better and better in UO for me. No house, death and loss of the deed and my favorite sword ::stifles a sob:: and I get spanked like that.

Loren has been visiting Shame ALOT. I have been writing down all the loot I get from each elemental so I can do a proper update on the PvM monster sections. Hunting Poison Elementals is ALOT of fun. You got to be fast, and I have a new trap spot (no picture yet) and able to just RoXXoR them. Hey, I am the PvM king! I can trap anything dammit. Only thing is...I hope they never teleport on me. I am dead AND stuck if that happens.

I refreshed my PK's house on Felucca. He's pissed. Hammer keeps telling him he wants to meet folks. Problem is, I don't want him going red. All he said was: "Red? Wtf is 'Red'?". Oh well, I guess he goes hunting soon.

I will be "assisting" on an install of a new NT system today. If my boss doesn't shrug me off, I won't be updating much today. I will eat my lunch here and skip my lunch time fix and try to get letters of the week posted though. There are a bunch.

I kind of jumped the gun on the Markee Dragon/Vegeta thing. I removed the post I made. That's all I am going to say about it.

Hasta.

•As it all tones down....

I was starting to feel ok. I am still disappointed that I didn't get my 2 story, but I was not as upset this morning. The DS guild is coming along fine. People are training, we have 2 small houses and a small tower as guild "homes" for our guys (any ladies are welcome to join us on our Pacific tour). My partner's tower in GL is getting decorated with dyed furniture and we now have 2 vendors and a 3rd vendor run by a neighbor. After finding out you can do mule skills in our house, I am starting to work my Super Mule hard so I won't ever have to buy anything from anyone again. Self-sufficiency. There is nothing like it.

I was doing my normal round of web site surfing this morning when I came across Watt's last post about OSI/Tyrant's current solution to housing for the remaining shards. Then I started to get upset again.

Here is the original post as copied from Watt's:

Staged House Placement Update Jun 26 2000 3:07PM CST (GMT -06:00)
We are placing all further house placement stages on hold at this time, and are developing several mechanisms to address the situations that arose over the weekend. We are targeting Thursday, June 29th to open a test shard updated with these mechanisms. This test will be deployed on a current backup of the Catskills shard on Test Center.


A test shard huh? You are late. Oh wait, you had a test shard. But did you push that server hard? Didn't think so. No reason every person in OSI couldn't log on to test "load" now is there?


As a part of this process, we encourage players to set up in advance of house placement by having their deed at the top level of their primary backpack, moving to their proposed house location and logging out from that location, and removing themselves from co-owner status on any other homes. This will give you the best possible chance to quickly place your home in Britannia.


Thanks for the advice. Again, you are late.


The following mechanisms are being developed for the upcoming house placement test:
Limited Spawn: We will be limiting the shard to only essential NPC spawns (such as stablemasters) and will delete all others prior to opening house placement


Is it me, or is OSI all about "reacting" to problems instead of being proactive? This is a reoccuring theme for them it seems. They should've KILLED the spawn on ALL shards to lesson the load. Any idiot computer user knows the more you have going on in the background, the slower the machine. :/


Relocation: If a subserver becomes too crowded, we will ask players to relocate based on certain criteria. In the event that we are required to move players, we will be automatically relocating them to cities on Felucca and we will look at the following factors to determine which players may be moved:

If the player has no house deed
If the player has a house deed, but it is not appropriate to the current phase (for example, a small house deed during Phase 1 Castle placement)
If the player currently co-owns a house
If the player currently owns a house
If all of the above players have been removed from Trammel subservers and the situation continues to remain critical, we will begin randomly selecting players for relocation to Felucca.

In the event that we are forced to move players, the relocated players will be unable to recall or gate for a specified period of time. At this time, we have targeting 10 minutes, but that time period may change dependent on our test results.

Logout: Once a player has successfully placed a house, they will have 10 minutes to conclude house business before they will be automatically moved to a safe location in Felucca and logged out of the shard for a period of two hours.
Any player transferred to the Felucca shard will receive a moonstone allowing them to travel back to Trammel once they are able to return to the shard.

You know, at first I thought this was stupid, then I started laughing. All those [young] characters are going to be in for a rude awakening when they wind up on Felucca side and RoxXor J()hNnY and his buddies are all around the same spot you were camping on Trammel side. I am sure they would LOVE to show you their spot. Pretty freaking amazing if you ask me. And, you know, I honestly don't think most of these people wanted a house in Felucca. If they did, they would be trying to place there. Right? I guess. I quote Watts: e-mail them to tell them how fucking unbelieveably stupid and unfair that is.

There you have it folks. The greatest game ever created in the history of Online Gaming (look at the overall effect and impact of the game as well as what you can do compared to other games when you think on it) and it's run by a bunch of morons. How the fuck do they stay in business??

Sometimes, I hate this freaking game.

I need some Pepto.

Hasta.

•Xena Dragon..such a nice person

After examing your posts on our Forums and the Powergamer website we get
the impression that you are not the type of moderator we are looking for.

The amount of [censored] phrases in your posts on our Forums and your post
in the Powergamer website : "I found some interesting stuff at
Stratics..besides why go to that page anyhow? With all that out of date
info..bah. Here at UOPG we treat you right." made us believe your
interests lie with the Powergamers, and not with Stratics.

Regards,


Xena Dragon
Webmaster UO Stratics
http://uo.stratics.com/


Ah well..sure I have more interest in UOPG than UOSS..but I thought it would be fun to moderate at UOSS.. Sadly she cannot see that I know the difference between having fun and responsibilty..oh well..her loss.

•Now that I have ranted...

You guys thought I was kidding didn't you? This site is NOT for selling your accounts or items. It's not for you to say "hey I want to buy this, anyone help me"? This site is for POWERGAMING! If you know of a way to make gold, post it. If you know of a way to create a super character, post it. If you know of a way to help gain skill or have some cool, new PvP/PvM tactic, POST IT! If you are trying to buy or sell shit, go here or here. That's what THEY are designed for. Any posts are deleted asap. Think I am kidding? Try it.

I started getting ICQs from folks after the housing fiasco about houses being sold. :| WTF? Did you people just get extra accounts to sell them for ungodly amounts of gold? Hell, I am sure some of you got new accounts with 5-4XGM characters on them and this brand new tower just to sell them on EBAY didn't you? You greedy bastards. Talk about taking a hobby and turning it into a money making venture. American Democracy at it's finest. ::shakes head:: All you did was screw everyone with that shit. WhoTF wants to pay 940k for a Sandstone on an island? Well, someone bid that much. I kid you not. My reply when the guy asked me if I wanted to bid and told me about the latest being 940k? "Are you fucking nuts?"

My partner and I spent over 30k getting furniture and addons. It's starting to look great. She's even got a vendor there. I can't convince her that people want GM leather items (she's GM Tailoring) and really aren't interested in regular leather/studded (non-GM) items. ::shakes head:: Frustrating sometimes getting people to listen to me. Noone seems to. Anyway...

I started thinking and know what? I am not going to sell my main account. Ever. Just on principle. I can't see anyone playing Loren. It would feel like me going over to my ex-wife of 15 years house the day after we got divorced and this guy answers the door of the house you used to pay for and he's wearing one of your old bath robes. Yeck. Fuck that. And I would be a hypocrit. I bought this game to PLAY, not make money.

I hope you people that are done fucking everyone for a kilobyte of gold feel great doing it. ::shakes head::

I did do some lunch time stuff with Loren. Hunted Poison elementals in shame again (shush Glacier). Well, these mothers are FAST! You thought Air and Snow elementals were fast? These things outrun me on foot using an ADSL line. I think OSI added some stuff to the game without saying much. That's fine. I like surprises, but don't make things so fast that people on 56ks can't handle it. That ain't right. Thank goodness I got a horse again (not a White, but it will do). Careful with Poisons now. I will update the PvM page on elementals for you guys. Loot is wrong (yeah, I know, you already told me that; shush) and I got to update the Poisons now. Fucking a they are fast.

I remembered something that happened WAY before housing while I was waiting for my partner to log onto GL Friday afternoon. This guy walks by and says "hi". My first reaction was "great, a camper". I said "hi" back. I saw he was low on life and healed him. He told me a horde of lizards gave him some trouble. He also told me he was lost and trying to find Trinsic. He said he wanted to pledge to the Paladins and wanted to know how to become one. :\ Don't laugh...listen.

I thought for a second how I would reply. Loren had over her head "Ranger of Delucia" and he wanted to know how he can get "Paladin" above his. I explained to him that being a Paladin is an ideal. Not a title. That he just had to be true to himself and to everyone else and nothing can keep him from being the best of Paladins. He listened, and I knew he was confused by the questions he was asking. I explained to him that in UO there is no way to get those special titles via "pledging". I explained to him how you get those "special titles" (guilds) and gave him advice on how to do it. I started to smile. This guy had only been playing for 2-3 weeks and came from an Advanced Dungeons and Dragons background. So he was expecting to "pledge" to be a Paladin as in the paper and pen RPG. I thought that was great. I looked in my pack (I didn't want to leave my spot) and saw my +20 tactics broadsword of force. My oldest weapon. I had that weapon for almost a year. One of Loren's first magic swords. I walked over and gave it to him. I told him to use it well and NEVER lose it. It would take care of him if he took care of it. Off he went to Trinsic to start his journey as a Paladin. Damn I was smiling at the screen. And I am smiling now thinking about it. It just keeps me drawn in.

The night started well enough...you know the rest. Sometimes I hate this fucking game.

Hasta

•Still crying like a baby....

Man, this weekend sucked.

Everyone knows what a nightmare housing was this past weekend. Let me tell you about mine. And no, I am not writing this to the stories section. I don't feel like it.

I got on with Clyde at 5PM on Friday to double check my Tower and 2 story spots. Well, some shrubbery that wasn't there before just happen to be there that day. Fucking great. I looked at my cloth map and notice the Trinsic swamp area. Cool.

I get to Trinsic, walk around and mark 4 different areas for us (My partner and I; she's got the Tower deed) to place. I trade my house runes to Loren and started screwing around hunting with her. My partner gets home and she logs in. We get everything together and get ready to place. We recall into our spots then she logs off and I wait till she times out. I hide and log off.

The kids are fed and shooed off to watch Cartoon Network (quit fussing, better than having them bored to tears while I did this).

We try to get back in..."Entering Brittania". WTF???? After 1/2 hour Tina Hilfiger is on the screen. Great. Well, I am still looking at "Entering Brittania" on my screen. Great. After 40 minutes, I finally get in. 9PM...9:30...10PM. WTF? Then housing starts, Castles appear, and our first spots are partially covered up or campers appear. Tina doesn't like fighting with folks for things. We try to get to the other spots. I can't move. Not an inch. Well this is fucking great. After struggling and taking 5 minutes to recall around (that is EACH time I tried to recall) I find another Tower spot for Tina in an area that you have to place perfectly or no Tower will fit. She waits. I am still looking. That place is camped, I move on. Then I found it. My dream spot. Behind a castle and in it's shadow. I love it. We wait and start munching on food. People are screaming at me via ICQ that they can't get in and everything is screwed. I check the UO fyi board. Something about Internet connectivity problems. ::ducks the nose stretching his way:: Yeah, right. 1/2 the people I know on GL cannot log on, the other 1/2 are struggling with lag. People on other shards are screaming they can't get on either. WTF?

I read the FYI board again and get a solid time for stage 2. 2 minutes till Phase II starts and we start clicking our deeds. Then the lag hits. Worse than before. Fuck. Great. After what seems like forever, Tina gets her Tower graphic, she places. Great. I finally get my graphic, and I miss (fucking lag). The deed disappears. Great. 60 seconds to get it back. Fuck you, too. Then this guy walks in off screen. I see him, but I can't move. Then, I see a marble appear and covers a corner of where my 2 story is supposed to go. You son of a bitch. I was there for 2 FUCKING hour, and he comes in, and places? To this day, everytime I walk by that house, I get pissed.

Fine, fuck you.

Tina is all happy in her Tower. I am happy for her. I move on trying to find a spot. Any spot. Then I lock up in between 2 castles. 5 minutes, 10, 15, 20 go by. I STILL can't move. Fuck it. I log off, restart my computer and couldn't get back (I wasn't thinking straight so leave me alone). I wait, and wait and wait. 2 hours later, I get back on...and I am a fucking ghost. A GHOST!???? I go back to where I was and no body and nothing. I have already decayed. My guess is a group of lizards came in and kicked my ass. Oh, and they killed my white horse.

What makes it worse? I had my best sword. 2nd level durablity, +10 Tactics, Katana of Power. I loved that fucking sword. I get resed, no deed. No FUCKING DEED???? I guess it showed up in an inner pack or something when it "returned" when I logged off, huh? I am crying inside. All my work, my "dreams". Everything, gone in a cornucopia of OSI "we didn't anticipate the response" bullshit. Kiss my Puerto Rican dick you sons of bitches. I lost over 300k worth of items and that deed when Loren died. Not too mention, her dream is shattered. Ok, mine is. I got that deed BEFORE UO:R. Does anyone realize anymore how hard it was back then to make that kind of money? And NO, I didn't have any real mules. Loren hunted for that money. She went out in the wilderness and REALLY earned that money. I put off alot of in game friendships attempting to get the money for that deed. Not too mention the way I worked alot of Treasure Hunters to death getting treasure maps done (I got most of my money that way). (Thanks for the good work back then guys. I appreciated it.) Getting gold back then was not like this newbiezed (YES I SAID IT!) bullshit of harvesting gold we now have. Pre UO:R, you earned it.

Ok, let me back up. It's not the in game cost of the items that bothered me. UO gold and items aren't worth SHIT in real life. Yes, people buy UO items and accounts off EBay all the time, but if you can turn it off with a flick of a button, what is it really worth? All you people that bought your accounts are in for a rude awakening when UO dies. It's the time I put in. Alot of my life went into this game and it's gone in a "unanticipated" series of events (liers). And if you say that's why you are justified in selling those things for that much money, you are full of shit. Go build a car from scratch, THAT is worth your time and money you get for selling it. You are playing a game. We forget that shit in this MMORPG world. Where was I...?

I should be happy my partner has a tower and she gave me a floor to live in. I am and I am not. Why not? Because I wanted my own place on MY account. That's why. I have no house on my main account. My friends want to help. "Sure, got a 2story deed I can place?" I can't ask that of my friends and I won't. It's not fair. It's my loss and my problem (thanks for the weapons though Glacier; it was appreciated; I still miss my katana though :( ). A friend told me to call a GM. Why? So I can be number 20000, wait for 2 hours, and they just come in and tell me they "can't replace items lost?" Not mad at that friend, just that it was not worth the trouble.

People are still calling me via icq about how fucked up it all is. I feel with you guys. All of you. Alot of people quit this weekend. And I don't fucking blame them. OSI fucked up. Lag was horrid after the housing stages. I went to shame and almost bought it to a Orc Lord, Gazor and Ettin outside the entrance on Saturday. Loren doesn't get killed by much anymore (except the Poison, Air, and 2 Fire elleys that caught her in Shame Sunday Afternoon). But to get lag fucked, and lose all of that?

I almost quit. I really really did. I got a small on my second account ("Hammers" Pad) and a small house on my main account on Pacific. But it's not the same. I had dreams folks...and those dreams got fucked.

And I cried like a baby about it.

Hasta.

•Alls quiet on the western front.

I thought id take advantage of this little break in action to give you a few views on how things are in the UO community.

1) Housing

You know, ive run out of things to say about this..Three shards have housing, and the rest of us are left out in the cold. Literally. Now I personally am fine, but I feel for the others that are living in their bank box. In closing for this..ill quote someone "BRING BACK HOUSING BIOYTCH"

2) Mace Weapons

Mace is a joke, even at 50 percent 60 is to much damage for one swing, I think 40 per swing should be tops, at least that requires more than 2 hits to kill someone..still it is a step in the right direction. I doubt very highly OSI will tweak it any farther than that however.

3) Lumberjack/Swords

As you know this is the overall template for the majority of the Death Squad people. Its very good in both PvP and PvM. The one thing that stops it cold is shields. After Galahad reported on this I went with a friend to TC and tried it. I was surprised just how much ...it sucked.

4) Mages

LOL what mages

5) Factions

Sadly..this is getting wrote off like dear Necro and Alchemy, at least thats what I think...we will see it in UO2, I should say you will see it, I won't be in UO2.

6) OSI

I mean open your eyes people..Morale is low for the players..they see you only want the cash flow..I respect Tyrant for posting that letter, but it seems like to little to late. Will I be quitting? No..not yet..I have things to do in UO between now and then..will others? Damn right..and alot of them too.

•Let the madness begin (Updated!)

Since it's too late to go for beer and I can't log back in to UO to hear all the castle bitching going on in Trammel right now, I'm going to do something I haven't done in over a week - update on UOPG.

For anyone who missed the the restart of house placement on the Eastern US servers, it was... interesting. I got killed twice just running around looking for a spot, and lost a 3-way race for a small tower just outside Trinsic on Felucca. If you play on one of the shards that haven't started placement yet, I'd like to offer some advice - log in well in advance of the start of castle placement, and carry runes to back-up locations. As soon as things move on to the second stage of placement (towers), you will have a VERY hard time even logging in to the OSI main server, much less the individual shard servers. And bring lots for friends who don't mind getting a little red if you're camping a spot.

Now I guess we'll see just how much lag all the new houses will end up creating. It's a brave new world, people.

LATER THAT EVENING...

Well, looks like OSI has boned this one up real good. The message boards are full of complaints about deeds disappearing - not just for a minute, but GONE -, and it seems as though a large number of people (me included) are completely unable to log in. Chesapeake has gone down in the middle of Stage Two. The only thing louder than the calls to revert the servers and try again are the calls from people who managed to place & are pissed at the prospect of having to do it all over again (me included).

Is it just me, or did it seem a LITTLE unwise to do all the North American shards at the same time, and on a weekend night (traditionally a heavy time for Internet traffic... you know - porn 'n such)?

•Let the madness begins!

Since it's too late to go for beer and I can't log back in to UO to hear all the castle bitching going on in Trammel right now, I'm going to do something I haven't done in over a week - update on UOPG.

For anyone who missed the the restart of house placement on the Eastern US servers, it was... interesting. I got killed twice just running around looking for a spot, and lost a 3-way race for a small tower just outside Trinsic on Felucca. If you play on one of the shards that haven't started placement yet, I'd like to offer some advice - log in well in advance of the start of castle placement, and carry runes to back-up locations. As soon as things move on to the second stage of placement (towers), you will have a VERY hard time even logging in to the OSI main server, much less the individual shard servers. And bring lots for friends who don't mind getting a little red if you're camping a spot.

Now I guess we'll see just how much lag all the new houses will end up creating. It's a brave new world, people.

LATER THAT EVENING...

Well, looks like OSI has boned this one up real good. The message boards are full of complaints about deeds disappearing - not just for a minute, but GONE -, and it seems as though a large number of people (me included) are completely unable to log in. Chesapeake has gone down in the middle of Stage Two. The only thing louder than the calls to revert the servers and try again are the calls from people who managed to place & are pissed at the prospect of having to do it all over again (me included).

Is it just me, or did it seem a LITTLE unwise to do all the North American shards at the same time, and on a weekend night (traditionally a heavy time for Internet traffic... you know - porn 'n such)?

•AW DAMMIT!! I MISSED IT???

I got this email earlier in the week:
Dear Battle.net Stress Testers,

As we promised, we wanted to alert you that the Diablo II Battle.net stress test will be coming to a close this Monday, June 26th at 8:00 a.m. PT in order for us to prepare for next week's launch of Diablo II. We want to extend a sincere thanks to all the beta testers who have logged many hours helping us optimize servers during the last few weeks.

But, before we bring the test to a close, we want to push the servers to the maximum by getting as many players online in one day as possible. To that end, we are asking that all beta testers log on and play this Friday, June 23. We hope we can count on each of you to log on and take your stress test character for one more adventure through Act I.

Thank you again for all your time and effort in making our stress test successful. We hope to see you on Battle.net after the game launches.

Blizzard Entertainment


Um...I never got an email saying I was a stress tester. Does that mean I missed out on it??? I emailed them asking about it, but I haven't had a reply yet. Are they ignoring me? Are they saying "oops, we fucked up?". I could've played DiabloII early!??

::starts yelling cursing...you hear somethign falling on the floor...like the sound of a printer being pushed off a desk then a scream that sounds like a like a deathmoan in UO:: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Tell me I didn't miss out on this shit!!!????

::starts crying like a baby::

Maybe housing tonight will chear me up.

THEY BROUGHT BACK HOUSING BIYOTCHES!!

Hasta.

•The Hunt Continues...

I am sorry about not posting yesterday. My boss has been hounding me for some script he wants written. His famous words: "Fix it" still resonate in my head over and over. Fucker. Great, my boss's boss just came in asking about it. Whatever. If it was so important, he would've trained me along time ago on how to code it right? Anyway...

Death Squad is ready to make it's run. Go check it out.

I posted a story about Hammer's adventures in the stories section. I had edited it and added a screenshot. I hope you guys are entertained by it.

Hasta.

•A whole slew of new info.

While on my morning jaunt around the web I found some interesting stuff at Stratics..besides why go to that page anyhow? With all that out of date info..bah. Here at UOPG we treat you right.


Publish Update

We will be publishing the features listed in Testing for Next Update to all shards starting on Thursday, June 22nd (CST). The publish will be active on the North American and European shards following their return from maintenance on Thursday, June 22rd (local server time). The publish will be active on the Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, and Australasian shards following their scheduled maintenance on Friday, June 23rd (local server time). The features listed in Testing for Next Update are currently available on the AOL Legends and Siege Perilous shards.

Staged house placement has been moved from Testing for Next Update to General Testing pending the release of the current publish. It will be returned to Testing for Next Update following this publish release


Now is it just me, of is this OSI's sneaky way of pushing housing back even more? Man..this is bullshit..just plain bullshit.

Felucca Town Changes: North American Shards
Updates made during today's maintenance period have resulted in some changes to the guard areas (towns) on the Felucca facet of the North American shards. Currently, guards will respond to monsters in towns on Felucca, and you will not be able to cast any 'offensive' magic spells within the guard areas. We are working to return these facets to their normal state and will update again you once we have a timeline for the resolution.

LOL Mages get the old *pick up my soap* treatment again. Its bad enough for Mages to survive in town combat now that they really can't use weapons..but take the ability of magic doing damage away? And what you have is alot of free regs on the ground. The no more monster part is just great though, I hate going to get a key or a rune from the bank and getting mobbed by 10 ratman or 5 trolls. Its about damn time they clean up the mess from the Minax quest. You have to wonder if these that run quests like this actually have any desire for quests to work. Or are they just keeping the hounds at bay by throwing a chunk of rotten meat..think about it.



Ok, here is your chance to list the top 5 "bugs" currently within UO. I do not mean a client problem such as client crashing, rather an actual in-game problem. What I refer to specifically are ones that you see commonly, that you and your friends know about. Reproducible ones are great candidates, as well as ones that cause the most annoyances. Please send me these to my email address below. You can even title the email with the subject "top 5 bugs". Please do not reply here with ones that can cause harm to others, or allow for monetary, stats, or item gain in an unnatural manner. I will be taking the lists to the Dev Team.
*** Details and specific descriptions or examples are welcomed ***

Melantus
Online Community Coordinator
Ultima Online
Melantus@uo.com

Top Five Bugs:

1) Necromancy
2) Alchemy
3) Housing
4) Good Vs Evil System
5) Factions

I mean..a bug is something that is broke..or suppose to be there and isn't right??

•Weekly Interviews

Im going to be interviewing one person a week from both Hokuto and Drachenfels.

What im looking for is a standout..someone who believes they have made a difference in UO. Now im not only looking for a 3l33t pvp'er/pk If you started a tavern that is popular, thats great. Now I know this isn't UORP but we have a wide viewer base. If you see me around in game just come up and say hi.

On Hokuto find me as Vegeta, or Dr Blackstar

On Drachenfels I really only play River Blackstar anymore.

Ill likely do my first one this weekend so you have til then to let me know.

•The Soap Opera known as Ultima Online

I have always found guild politics to be interesting. I consider myself a born politician, but recently on Hokuto its just gotten plain silly. I recently pledged to join Guild *A* Now guild *A* and my old guild were rivals...but as I said..I play Hokuto for a release from Drachenfels. I pvp on Hokuto..I should pvp on a good shard but I dont feel like starting over. Anyhow Guild *A*'s Guildmaster and I were arch rivals..we came to a understanding and moved on. Now there is a guild called Guild *Z*...they are a bunch of..hmm guys with a warped sense of humor. In fact one of their members thinks he is going to replace Lord British..overall they are funny guys though..well they gave me shit for joining guild *A*. Then there is guild *B* who guild *A* is trying to war, but guild *B* isn't really a war guild like it use to be. To top it off there is guild *C* who guild *B* hates, and guild *A* are friends with. However, guild *C* fucked over Guild *A* Assitant GM. So therefore the second in command of guild *A* is mad at guild *C*

Now, I know this sounds like a college algebra equation, but I am trying to point out something.

Guild Rivals make this game fun. More often than not PvP is all about skills, and reflexes, and the like. But the one thing that escapes nearly everyone when they say whats the most important thing about PvP....

Your Intelligence. Keep that in mind when you ask whats the best PvP char..what to do about a slower con. Your mind is your most powerful tool.

*This has been a service announcement by Vegeta, have a nice day.*

•No juust no do dat to me???

Tina Hilfiger and I planned on going to the City of the Dead to work her swords (she's sub85 right now) on Bone Knights there. Was going to be chief healer to bring my healing up and play back up with my silver swords (katana for liches, long sword for extra BKs). That way I could work healing. Wouldn't you know it? The shards STILL aren't up yet? Fine, you think you're slick OSI? ::starts up Europa:: Uhn!!! How you like that shit OSI??? Think you are going to keep me from playing UO!?!?! NOT! I assume they are stress testing the servers for House Placement day. Yah, sure they are.

Anyway...

I have a character on there named Bubbles. My partners have Buttercup and Blossom. Give you 3 guesses who these are named after. Just something we thought up to do in our spare time when GL was acting flaky. It's a pretty neat idea. Anyway, you guys ponder that for a minute. I was in Europa's T:Moonglow beating on wolves and other small animals when people decided they could jump in on our training session. "UM...there is a wolf over there, a Hart over there, and a Llama over there". It's one thing to use wands, knives and daggers, but these guys were using freaking GM shit. I only had my newbie mace (yeah, Bubbles with a big Warhammer; that's freaking hilarious). Well, the guys were like "sorry" and moved on. Later we were beating on a hart taking turns healing each other when this guy runs up, says: "I newbee too" and starts wacking on it. "Um..sure, go ahead and jump in without asking". "Don't get all pissy about it". Point is, you didn't ask buddy. "NEWBIE!" ::takes deep breath...must control anger...:: I am going to find that guy someday with my Powerpuff Girl in Felucca (ok, I gave it away) and beat him senseless. First words out of my mouth after I cut his ass up is: "Who's the newbie now bitch?"

Isn't it amazing that the "NEWBIE" curse word is universal all over the planet? Fucking UO gamers. You guys suck!! :p

Gawd I hate that shit.

Anyway, pretty much a boring UO day. I have posted the pics of our DS event on the DS page. Go look at that if you are interested.

Hasta.

•Finally! A story...or 2.

I got the story of "Hammer" and Loren posted. FINALLY! Go read about it in the stories section. I have been so busy with personal, work, and Death Squad issues. Also, my work here has been taking away from my reading boards and getting information to you. I did get some goodies about Dragons and their loot. As soon as it's confirmed I will let you know about it.

I did get this email from someone about something Calandryll posted in relation to monster speed on SP:
This is a problem for people with dial up connections. Will the speed of monsters on SP be implemented on all shards when housing is scheduled? Will it be adjusted?

Calandryll:For now, that's the speed we will be publishing to the other shards. We are however, continually looking at the speed and could tweak it.
--Calandryll

I don't know what it's like on SP, but I know on Test Center, monsters were fast as hell. I don't think that is going to be fair to players on Dialups. Not one bit. I think OSI needs to REALLY rethink it. The game does not REQUIRE (per the box) that you play with an high speed connection. Someone is smoking crack at OSI again. Or is it Crystal now?

Personally, I think the AI should be smarter. Not faster. A Bone Knight can track you down if you have a slow con. And as anyone knows, you lag versus one of these, you could be seeing grey when your computer catches up with the server. ::shakes head:: Don't make them faster, make them smarter. Granted, I believe that someone on foot should NOT be able to outrun a Dragon. They fly. No way a human on foot would be able to out run that shit (but there should be options for getting away; ie-htf does a Dragon get through a small corridor after me?). But a person on a horse should have a chance to get away. Just my opinion. Any flames are welcome.

OMG! You have got to read the latest article over at Lum's penned by Arcadian Del Sol (I still want to know why we can't get stories like this; dammit). This guy lost his freaking Tower due to a bug and it won't be replaced. I KNOW GMs can replace shit. I KNOW it for a fact. If something is lost due to an identified bug, then the player should be reimbursed in FULL! There IS a way to look in the database and see what items a player owned. The problem is the people in charge are scared of "scams" (you can get around this by verifying player databases--even I know this) and that GMs will abuse this. Well, you make people accountable. You make the GMs fill out a form (whether electronic or on paper) detailing the whole scenario and get a supervisor to review it. He looks it over, check into it him/herself if need be. Once it's confirmed it's a bug, then you replace the players lost items. Folks, THAT is customer service. If my microwave blew up, I could take it back to Wall-Mart and get a replacement. Even if I bought the fucker (ok, I only went one day without the F word; sorry) a year ago. Yeah, this isn't Wall-Mart or Burger King (get it your way), but damn, what the fuck happened to customer service?

I hate this fucking game sometimes.

Hasta.

•My Findings on TC.

Well all you lumberjackers, I got some bad news for you. I was on TC today and could not beat a parrying warrior once as a GM lumberjacker with no parry. They would own me with any of the weapon classes, but whatever weapon they chose, I still couldn't win. DeathSquad members : Test this out for yourself. All these guys did was parry my hits and when they were low on hps would unarm the shield, and drink a G heal potion. I tried everything I could and could not beat my friends that were helping me with this. Maybe I just suck. Someone test this out for me and email me their results.

•Dupers Paradise

Well, lum posted an article by Markee Dragon here. Pretty interesting. OSI knows it exists (duh). And OSI knows it's screwing the whole UO economy (about time).

Quote From Markee:I have a verified auction on Pacific where a newbie deed sold for 50 million gold. How about Towers that are selling for 15 to 20 million gold. Heck it was only about 4 months ago that I verified a sale of a castle on Baja for 5 million gold. Now 5 million gold for a castle sounds about right but where the heck did the economy go wrong and we end up with 15 million gold towers? Not to mention a Newbie Deed that sold for an incredible 50 million gold.

Well hot damn. That's a seriousely broken economy.

Oh, and a great thing that most duping seems to occur on Pacific and the DS squad is on that shard and trying to get a large for our use there. :/ Speaking of which, Watts posted to the DS forum. :) Yeah, Watts of UOTerror. Pacific is his home shard and he's hanging with us. And you thought we were going to be big bad boys and girls on that shard? Now we got Mr. Terror himself. PacPlayers BEWARE! MUHUHAHA!

If you are duping. You suck. I hope you get banned. Cheaters never prosper I was taught while growing up. And in UO, if you are caught cheating by the men in Blue Coats, you get spanked, hard.

You can read my feelings about duping over at the DS page and how it relates to the DS Guild.

I am behind like 3 stories and 1 major DS Event post. I have said sorry enough times. I need to catch up. Real life is really starting to piss me off. It's getting in the way of UOlife :/ Priorities. Go figure.

Why can't we get information like Lum's group can? Dangit.

BTW: This post didn't have the F word in it. Wow. Maybe it's a new trend.

Hasta.

•Stealing.

Got this:

This method works only during power hour & is based on the gain from failure method. Pile a dozen or more dye tubs into a pack horse (the more items seems to gain more). Now instead of targeting individual tubs in the horses pack just target the horse & do a random steal. It also seems to gain more by taking a few steps after each gain. Last nite i gained 10.0 in power hour at 60 skill so gains are fairly often but it does work better if there is a few players in close proximity.

•Just when I thought it was bad...

It gets better :) Amazing what a good lunch, a couple of decent conversations and some kindness can bring to you isn't it?

I was on the phone for over an hour with a friend of mine that I served in the army with. And want to know what? He's been playing UO for over 2 years. The fuck. You never told me about UO??? BITCH! If anyone sees Furious or Vasilius on Chessy, tell him Nieves says: YOU SUCK! Hehe. We used to play AD&D religiousely while we served in the USArmy. It was awesome. We had a campaign we played for almost 2 years real time :). His template for Vasilius was one he used in my campaign. Supposedly Furious has over 100 kills. I am going to try and get him over to Pacific to join DS. We will see if he's REALLY that good.

I had a great time at lunch with Loren. Go to the stories section in about an hour to read about it. This is where the kindness kicked in for me.

Thanks to Cloud (both of them; Yes Cloud of BDA, I know 2 of you ::grins::) for helping. And a shout out to Shalan of Delucia.

Quick Reminder: Don't CALL ME NIEVES IN GAME! Call me by my character name. It's my personal preference thank you.

Oh, if you haven't been paying attention, the RAGING WALL debate is still going on in the Spiels/Rants section. It's taking EVERYTHING I got not to reply. And you guys know how I like to rant, rave, and write.

::must resist::

Hasta.

•Hey, while you are down, let me kick you a couple of times...

I am really having a great fucking day. Check this thread out.

Man, I believed in those folks. They were people I looked up to. Back when I was first starting to come into my own as a UO player and roleplayer (which is what I wanted to do in UO in the first place). It's all shattered with an attitude of "us" and "them".

Want to take a wild guess who 'lorendawood' is?

Please don't blast their board. They don't need that type of harrassment. Thank you.

Gawd, sometimes I hate this fucking game.

Hasta.

•It's pretty fucking amazing...

I am tired. Not because I was up late. Not because I got up early. I am tired because I am exhausted from arguing this freaking point.

Let me post what started it all here:
Something happened the other day that had me so peeved that I wish I could have jumped through my monitor and wrapped another players cloak around his throat. My husband's character is a GM Warrior, he doesn't really need the skill points and he's got money in the bank. He goes out and buys a Silver Scimitar and figures he'll go down to the dungeon and have a little fun with it. He's in the Bone Knight room when some guy yells out "WHO'S USING SILVER!?" My husband being the quiet type, doesn't respond but someone else did saying they were using Silver. This guy proceeds to yell out, "DON'T USE SILVER IN HERE MAN! THEY'RE NOT FOR MONEY, THEY'RE FOR SKILL!!!!" (talking about the Bone Knights) I thought.. "What the..." We watched as the other guy continued to use his Silver weapon and how Mr. Ican'taffordasilverweaponsoyou'renotallowedtouseoneeither ranted and whined over how you shouldn't be using silver in the dungeon. He literally started harrassing the guy using Silver. I'm sorry, where does it say that you aren't allowed to use Silver in the dungeons? Pardon me, but what are the silver weapons for exactly?? And what gives that guy the right to dictate the way other people play their game? (those are all rhetorical, I don't expect to get flamed over this)

Jeez.. people, it's a game! A GAME! This guy was so serious that I'm betting he was sitting at home getting ready to cry to his mother over how the other players weren't playing fair and he wants a "do-over."

Why do people feel the need to dictate how others play? How about you just be quiet for a little while. Go find yourself a corner to pick your nose in, but leave me alone with your petty whining. If you don't like it, don't play. Simple.

Ok.. got that off my chest.. I can continue with my day.. :)

Here is my initial reply:

I agree...and disagree with you on the BK room and unwritten rules

The Wall is an idea, a concept. People cooperate in there to GM their melee skills. It's existed for a long time even before UO:Rs release (forever in UO years). When people have the Wall going and someone shows up with silver or starts firefielding the BKs, it gets really annoying because you lost your opportunity to gain skill off of a particular BK or groups of BKs and the flow of what's going on in the room has been ruined. I agree that noone should dictate to you how you should play the game. They got upset because they feel you interfered with their playtime. If you are interested in loot, I recommend Liches. You get ALOT more gold and karma with alot less damage to your armor. Plus you have a chance for magic items and treasure map (which will lead you to more gold and magic items). That is an unwritten "policy" in UO. The Wall concept was designed with those rules. Trust me, if they could've been written down in game, they would've. And it helps everyone in the long run about the "wall".

The curteous thing I have always done is ask: "Do you mind..." or "can I jump in too"? Pre-Trammel, that type of questioning often kept you safe from being killed by a pissed off person or groups of players. Trust me, I have seen folks get jumped by EVERYONE in the Wall and looted dry. Another "unwritten" rule of UO. Ask to help or jump in. If they say no, move on. Just remember them when they come by asking for help or if they can join in and react according to your conscious.

If you are still interested in gathering the loot off of BKs in the room, ask the guys if you can take every other BK or keep the loot from the BKs they kill. Heck, you could even loot the BKs that fall. Not everyone is in their to gather loot. It's an extremely dangerous place and you can die. People pay close attention to life levels (they heal each other as part of the cooperative "nature" of the room) ignoring loot.

This just my suggestion and opinion of the whole scenario. People can tend to be nice but if they feel you're "twinking" their "show" and they can get really nasty really quick.

I hope that helps you a bit.

Good luck.

I got flamed but good after I said "I am done with this close minded debate" (go read the whole thread to see which of my posts she was responding to):
Haha, if you want to call us closeminded...

...then perhaps you should open your mind up. Just because we disagree with you, doesn't make us close minded.

Personally, I have no problem with players that wall up. I don't go there to twink skills, and I don't bother the players that are. In theory, I think it is exploiting the monster AI. I agree that cooperation is necessary at the wall, but just because another player is there to hunt, as opposed to skill gain, doesn't make them WRONG! Telling other players to go hunt somewhere else because your wall gets disrupted is no better than disrupting their hunting.

I prefer lich lords, and liches for loot, but how many walls do you see in the undead city? (Another place for good skill gain.) Umm... zero. Know why? Because liches and bone magi, and the occassional orc mage and orc lord have a nasty habit of sneaking up behind you while you are banging away on that bone knight. That's why I find the undead city fun, it can be challenging. The wall provides no challenge.

Monsters should block you. Period!

Only thing I disagree with what she wrote is if there are people functioning as a "Wall" and you come in there to kill BKs, then you are fucking the other players and not playing nice.

From there, people degenerated into rants on "unwritten rules" and I even saw a post like this:

Re: Wondering when the player written rules are being posted *laughs*

since I'm being told to follow the *unwritten rules* for the bk room,I have some rules of my own I wish followed now:

No hunting in shame unless your using it for skill gains with an archer char.Same goes for destard.

No tamers in lost lands.

No camping of any spot outside of bk room

no hunting orc forts with newbie tagalongs needing rezzed every 5 minutes

No hunting terra's from the *safe spots*

Since I have asked for these they must now be considered *unwritten rules* because I'm a player and I want it this way.

Anyone not following these new guidlines will be driven from area with scorn and humiliation.If in fell all players not following these guidlines will be killed because they are ruining my skill gains for their own selfish reasons.The fact that players may want to fight in ways other than what is outlined here is unimportant.I have declared these guidlines as *unwritten player rules* and expect them to be followed.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation in these matters.
17 empty missle silos,a mushroom cloud,and now its miller time

Last night I told Vegetta I was going to BLAST these folks on UOPG about how stupid they were for not agreeing. Then I started thinking. Are they really stupid, or they just disagree with me on it's use?

Here is my last post on the subject:
Now that you guys have ad your fun with your "unwritten" rules parodies, do you feel better?

You don't agree with the way the Wall concept is utilized or what it's "rules" are. Fine. I agree to disagree with you on it. But does it make you any different than a twink or kill stealer when you walk into that room and everyone is set up in the "Wall Configuration" and working skils and you start wacking off BKS? They were there first and you just showed up. If you asked and they said no, well, then it's your business what you do next. But at least you showed courtesy by asking first.

That was the WHOLE point of my replies to Avendha's first post. I was not trying to chastise nor tell her she was wrong. I was simply explaining why folks would get upset with her about it and I provided a solution (how many folks on this board complained without doing that?).

If you want to flame me because I believe in the concept of the Wall and it's unwritten rules, then go for it. It's your business. But I stand behind my belief in it and won't back down.

For those of you saying we are exploiting the monster AI, I ask you this: How many of you out there have ever trapped a monster? Whether it was preUO:R or after (you can still trap after UO:R). Wouldn't that be considered "exploiting" the AI? "Oh but it's different". My point exactly. At the wall we "funnel" the monsters through a tight doorway. You tell me how anyone can get through a doorway with 10 people standing on the other side of it blocking the way? OH, and about it being NOT dangerous there, there are lurking monsters (ie-Bone/Skel Magi) and knights sometimes DO spawn outside the room. They come up from behind and all hell breaks loose.

If you don't agree with "our" use of the Wall, at least respect those of us who do. We will have to respect your disdain for the concept of the Wall as well. It's only fair. Please be considerate of all those around you. The game becomes a MUCH more pleasant place if we all do that.

The Wall has been there for years. It probably will still be there years after (if UO is still around). It works. And it works well. It gets you GM in a reasonable amount of time and you "earn" your skills by working in a cooperative manner. That to me is the beauty of the Wall. You have to trust your neighbor to heal you and help you out if you are down.

Anyway..I could go on and on. My point is made...and so is yours.

You don't like the wall. I do. It's like the Trammel/Felucca debate. Let's agree to disagree and move on. These discussions/arguements are getting old.

Hasta,
Nieves
UOPowergamers.


Well shit, just now I saw people blasting away at my thread. ::shakes head:: I am tired. People are just so thick headed sometimes and they don't want to see BOTH sides of a fucking issue. If you guys want, go ahead and post all you want. I ask you this though. Do not call them stupid newbies, lamers, asshoes, whatever. Be respectful and do NOT resort to any low intelligence banter (is that a phrase?). Keep your posts succint (big word) and to the point.

The Wall works!!! If you don't want to use it, don't. But don't disrupt someone else's game play.

Oh, and a more general point. PLAY NICE DAMMIT! If you PK, res when done looting, leave runes and a scroll or regs. If you fight monsters, be polite. Ask if you can join in. I do ALL the time. If you see some kind of event going on, ask what's up. Don't just jump in. If they don't want you to be a part of it, move the fuck on and get over it. There are PLENTY more monsters and plenty more places to be on Ultima Online. Don't DICTATE to someone else about how the game SHOULD be played. Talk to them. Say, "hey, did you know...?" Then feel yourself through the conversation. If they become beligerant, stay calm and talk nice. If they persist, walk away not saying a damn thing. You have no idea how that just fucks someone's mind when you do that. If they persist, say:" I don't have time for your bantering" and keep going. That really messes with them. But BE NICE DAMMIT! Fuck.

I am done with this bullshit.

•A very special thanks to...

Hiyas!
My name is Bodybag! I just wanted to come and let you all know that I am Mr.Redrum's new roomie!!! Earlier this evening, Mr.Redrum wanted to give a very special thanks to the unbeleivably talented man who made this exciting new logo! But, it seems to have slipped his mind! So I figured I would come on here and thank him myself, Thanks Bodybag! Your the greatest!

My pleasure!

Good evening to all, I hope to post many more exciting things of unrelated topics here for your personal enjoyment!
Have fun in the Virtual interactive game protocol known as Ultima Online(TM)(R)(C)2000

•"Hi, my name's Ralph and I'm... a disposable PK..."

I haven't had a whole lot to post on in the last week or so, mainly because no one really needs to hear my grief about training Carpentry (final add-on skill for my magnificent mule and pretty much useless for anything else now that q-staffs no longer rulez the universe), but also because I've been spending a fair amount of time training up my Death Squad axer. I haven't made a disposable character since I did up my Bob (who somehow became less disposable the higher I got his Magery), so I haven't been able to appreciate how EASY it is to train up a half-decent killing machine until now, especially on Trammel.

Over the period of about 6 days (burst hours plus a few non), starting from 50 Magery and 50 Resist, I've ended up with GM Swords, Tactics, 90+Lumberjacking (never touched a tree), 92 Anatomy, and 81 Healing (from healing myself). I haven't really worked Magery or Resist yet, but I think most people are familiar with how easy it is to train Magery to 80-85. Aside from GMing Swords and Tactics on bone knights at the City of the Dead, the vast majority of this gain has come from (drumroll) fighting NPCs. Angry Bob's already posted an update on the cheesy goodness of training off of NPC rangers, but I find rangers can only take you so far. Eventually, you'll get to the point where even using practice weapons, or wands, or hatchets in my case, and even multiple rangers, you just become too lethal to spar with them. It was at this point I remembered the next best thing to rangers: the dueling pit in Jhelom. The NPCs there are armored and generally carry shields, so they last a hell of a lot longer. I have never been there that I haven't found at least one NPC equipped with a crossbow and a shield. This is the best sort to attack, since like rangers they cause no damage after the first shot. Unlike rangers, they carry shields and armour so they don't die after 2 wacks from a worn out hatchet.. If you can't find one of those, try a NPC with a shield and an empty hand. You'll take some wrestling damage, but not a lot. Hell, fight a couple. Work on Healing.

So you've GM'd Melee and Tactics... why do you want to keep fighting those wimpy little NPCs? Answer - Anatomy, (at least in my case) Lumberjacking, and if you can afford to keep hiring them, Healing. The best way to raise the first two after 90 is to test the skills during combat, and the NPCs in the pit are always there, never very dangerous, and always free.

It was during one of my little workouts that I, um, overheard, um, (from this guy, you know?) that the same system of 8 tile movement and gain that everyone is talking about for training Magery at sea works just as well for combat skills on land. You can continue to raise skills like Anatomy or Lumberjacking simply by moving around as per the method. And the dueling pit is large enough to do this in. Or so I hear.

Well, here's the one question I want answered: Is 8x8 considered an exploit? Damned if I know. Aside from Vegeta's post about his friend getting banned, I haven't heard much news one way or the other. You'd THINK it'd be rather hypocritical for OSI to start banning people from the game for using this method, since it's not exploiting some defect or unforeseen side-effect in the game like duping, insta-killing drakes or wyrms, resist gain from blade spirits, player stacking, or house break-ins using mushrooms. It works because it's SUPPOSED to work like this, it's is how they intentionally programmed the anti-macro code. It'd be naive in the EXTREME to think that out of a base of tens of thousands of players, no one was going to stumble on to the relationship between movement and skill gain. If I'm surprised at anything, it's that it took as long as it did before the "secret" got out...

•We finally have a logo.

I hope you like it. If not, too bad.

•Someone loves me.

Jaded Gamers interviewed me. The highlight would be:

I know you’re a person too. What does Redrum do for fun, that doesn’t involve a computer and a gopher?

-- Sit on my ass and get fat (honestly).

•WOOF!

I just got an email about a new Canadian Radio Website that a friend of hers has put together. Hell, I am listening to it now ::does the cabbage patch::

It's supposed to be a medium whereby independent artists can get play time. Well know what? This site absolutely rocks. Bear in mind it takes a bit to load because it uses Flash as the means to display it's pages, but when it's done loading, it's got this really cool beginning graphic. You know I hate long downloads, but it's worth it. When it comes up you can go on to read about up and coming artists. Personally, I like the radio portion to the site ::starts doing the Running Man:: It's just fucking amazing. The DJ is just pumping serious shit through his turntables. "Burn it up BOIEEE!!!!" ::starts doing the Pac-Man:: "yeah, feel it, uh" ::does a spin and starts doing the George Jefferson:: "UH!" Anyway...::sits back down:: They have a schedule of which kind of music they will be playing so you can listen in to what you want. Fuck local radio, GIVE ME WOOFUR!!!.

Go check this site out and write her and tell her what you think. Music is my love baby.

Oh, and if you are going to ask me if I got something for writing this review, it's none of your fucking business. :}

::gets up and does the Electric Slide:: "Uh...feel it".

6 out of 5 PvMer stars on this one. And that's just for the music. Wait till you see the site.

My question to you guys aspiring to write UO websites. Don't you guys have any originality anymore? I saw a site that looks VERY similar to Lum's. And you already saw the link to the guy that had a site similar to ours (scroll down). Lazy fucks. Quit cutting and pasting and write your own code.

Here is something a friend of mine sent me:

THE FINGER

Isn't history more fun when you know something about it? Read on.
------------------Giving the Finger-----------------
Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French, anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured English soldiers. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore be incapable of fighting in the future.

This famous weapon was made of the native English Yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking the yew" or "pluck yew"). Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won a major upset and began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the defeated French, saying, "See, we can still pluck yew! "PLUCK YEW!" Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say, the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodental fricative 'F', and thus the words often used in conjunction with the one-finger-salute are mistakenly thought to have something to do with an intimate encounter. It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows used with the longbow that the symbolic gesture is known as "giving the bird".

And yew thought yew knew everything


Well, pluck you, too! :p

In UO news...there is none. I am listening to Woofur. ::starts Voguing::

Hasta.

•How you like them apples?

Check THIS shit out (from Lum's):
Someone obviously tired of the usual Fix-This-Now posts on the various boards decided to take it straight to the top... the big guy... the CEO of EA his own bad self, Larry Probst, who until this point may or may not have been aware that a game called "Ultima Online" existed. Here's what he had to say.

Thank you for the information you provided me. I feel sorry that you have experinced problems with one of our games. I have visted the link you provided and I was shocked to see so many unhappy customers who buy our games. I have contacted Jack Hiestand General Manager at Orgin System Inc. about the problem and forwarded your letter to many other department heads at OSI to get this problem fixed.

So there you go. It's all going to be better now. Melantus, Calandryll-in-training, who isn't the CEO of EA, had this to say in response:

That's what I am here for, to listen to what the players have to say. Have you written me an email yet? If not, then you should write me an email first. I would be happy to listen to what you have to say, but I have to hear it first :)

Well fuck me. I am sure some of you have seen how a supervisor gets PISSED if you go over his head about a problem before seeing him. Well, I am sure folks at OSI are really upset over this one. Not too mention they are probably under the microscope now. As ProQuo would say: WOoT!!!

There was a link to the original thread. When I clicked it I got to a page that said this:

We cannot complete your request. The reason reported was:

The post you are looking for could not be found

This is not necessarily an error. If you feel this is an error then it could be something as simple as your browser not being set to accept cookies. If you feel this error is a problem with the server then please contact melantus@uo.com and let us know what exactly went wrong so it can be fixed as soon as possible. Otherwise, please use your back button to return to the previous page and try again.

Kind of funny ain't it? Go fucking figure. I sent an EMAIL to Mel asking him why the link is dead. I will let you know later what's up with that. Talk about Drama. I guess maybe we will get Housing, Factions, the alchemist additions, and Necromancy now, huh?

How you like that shit OSI? BEING BACK HOUSING BIYOTCH!

Hasta.

UPDATE! Ok, Lum and I have been talking, and here is what he posted to his site:
From the Department of Corrections: A mole inside EA informs us that there is no way Mr. Probst, EA's CEO could have written the email in the story below (to summarize, "Gee? UO sucks? I'll get right on it!"). We're pretty sure Melantus wrote his, though.

Well damn, talk about a wasted ... well, you know what I mean. :/

Here is the email Lum sent me why he couldn't have written the email and why the thread was killed:
Yeah, Calandryll nuked it. Other threads popped up tho. However I'm told it didn't actually happen (which is why the UO folks are nuking it) since the EA CEO is actually out of the country and not doing emails.

I bet he gets quite a few when he gets back, tho.

I bet he does, too.

•New sub-section.

I decided to make a bug awareness sub-section, and you can find it here. It's basically just warning you about major exploits that impact other players and how to protect yourself from them.

In other news, the Diablo II page was updated (for once) with some spoilers that other sites had but took them down.

•::opens his bag of goodies::

I wrote an opinion on what I think Necromancy should be like in the stories section. I mean, since we are on the subject of "delayed enhancements/additions" today, we might as well talk about that too, right? Right. :p.

Quicknote: For those of you that didn't read it yet, I deleted a post about seeling ebay accounts in the forum. Here is my original post on the forum:

This is not a place to announce your sale of your accounts whether via Ebay or other means.. There are places to announce those kinds of things (uo.tradespot.net being a prime example). I deleted the post and will do so to any future ones until Redrum says otherwise.

I am sorry if you are upset, but this isn't the place for that type of thing.

hasta.

I got the go ahead from Red to delete those types of posts so please keep them in their appropriate place.

Anyway, it's time for LETTERS! These are edited for content and space:
hi u dont know me but I read ur posts at powegamers ,in case u didn't know ,on europa , on the nice side of the shard , the water ele pits in deceit now have bridges over them so u can carry on fighting them and get the loot when they die , I made more gc and regs from killing water eles than liches and lords in today ,,,,,

sorry dont know if same on all shards ,,,,,,,

chris
mabden , tbo , europa

Awesome! Thanks for writing in! Anyone else confirm this on the other shards? As a footnote, teleporters have been installed in the Red Mage Tower in the Fire Dungeon (T2A) on Trammel Delucia Great Lakes shard so you can go outside the Tower and jump back across. NEXT!

Sup! I just wanted to let you know--I was reading Lum's site a month or two ago when he put your link in one of his stories. At first when I went to Powergamers, I have to admit, I thought it was sort of lame. You didn't have the links set up as nice as you do now, and it seemed to me you were just telling stories I told and heard years ago about UO (WAIT! It gets better honest!). Then I found myself going to it everyday, and enjoying them! I check it everyday now. I beta'ed UO, have been a member ever since. The people I know that started with me though had no need for boards like yours. Every old schooler I know taught themselves the game. Hell we didn't even have UOAM!! At any rate, I'll always be upset I didn't start a site way back then, but I was way too much into the game to spend even a minute on a website.

If I did start one though, it would be like yours. You talk about what new players bring to the game, how you are building up characters and where (with screenshots too!) and who the a-holes are. If you ever need another updater man, lemme know. You're making us proud.

Thanks!

P.S. You play on GL don't ya? Whenever you ask for donations it never seems to be for GL, but I'm sure you'd take them from wherever you could =-p
"Mark Hain"
Mon, 12 Jun 2000 16:52:23 -0500

Thanks for sticking with us. Redrum worked VERY hard and spent many hours getting the site updated to it's new format. Also, we do our best as updaters to keep this site fresh and new. Oh, and Donations are ALWAYS welcome. Just make sure you send cashier's checks or money orders. We don't accept personal checks :). NEXT!
"IroNovA"
Blessed items being stolen...
I've had it happen to me twice now. The first time was when I had a
character with a pair of blessed sandals in his main pack, and I noticed they were missing. Checking my screenshots I realized it must have been a thief that stood next to me for no more than like two seconds. My guess is he random stole them. This was about a week and a half ago. Other time was just two days ago when some jackass stole a runebook of mine. It's prepatch so it might be bugged and stealable, but either way, they're supposed to be nosteal, and yet they're stealable. I thought there might be an exploit in the second one because the guy stood there for a long time before stealing it. Luckily he went guard callable.
I don't know how it's done, or why it's allowed, but I'd suggest nobody carry blessed items around unless they don't mind losing them.
-WarGrind

There you have it. The Blessed Item Steal Bug. Let me say this, you do this, get caught by a GM and jailed, you deserved to be banned. It's an exploit and it's just plain LAME! If you can't steal the ol' fashion way (snoop, hit steal macro, and run like hell and hide), then you're a cheater and you suck. ::can't wait for the flames on this one:: I think this deserves mention in the bug section. I will see if Red will post it. Next!

There are 3 ways to kill an Ancient Wyrm right now... the first way is to cast paralyze on it and then cast explosion. It dies. No joke. I've tried this 3 times. The first time I did it, it worked. The second time i did it, it did not and I died. The third time I did it, I FIZZLED THE EXPLOSION after targeting the Wyrm, and it still died.
The second way to kill it is to poison it and run like hell off the screen. There is a bug where monsters do not cure themselves when they cannot see who poisoned them. So keep off of its view (maybe hide/invis???) and it will not cure itself. Do this 3 times and it will be so close to death a few corp pors will take it out.

The third way is my own, and quite clever if I may say so myself :-0 These fuckers break out of paralysis so damn fast its absurd. So what I do is cast a paralyze field (my new fav spell) lengthwise between the Wyrm and me such that when it breaks out of the first spot and walks into the second, the second line of the field will para it. You can usually get off maybe 3 explosions in this
time before you need to run, med, and repeat.

Other things that work are poison fields lengthwise in a tight corridor with an energy field at the end to repeatedly poison the Wyrm... it will repeatedly cure but that will take mana and will wear it down a bit.

Or you can just Energy field between you and it, then mana drain it til it has 0 mana (though this works about 1 in 10 times on a Wyrm). Then Energy field with an EV or BS. No more dispelling :-0

Watch out... before Renaissance I took 55 damage EVERY TIME from a Wyrm's breath at full health... I died one time since then from fire at 68 health. Oh yeah, and this bitch got SO much faster. I was down there once and the Wyrm was stuck on the side cliff and I paged a counselor to get it down for me... So the counselor did RIGHT NEXT TO ME. Stupid hoe. Anyways, I couldn't run I was so shocked at how fast it ran adjacent to me and tore me to shreds.

Wow, what an honor... Mr. PvM coming to me for advice on monsters :-)

Duncan

Your welcome. I am not the END all for PvM. I don't have the firepower in any of my "mages" to handle Ancient Wyrms...yet. Mages take a long time to develop. The first way of killing Ancient Wyrms looks like a DEFINATE bug. If it were only that easy for everything else. ::sighs:: I don't think it's bannable as it doesn't impede other players fun (unless you are a kill stealer, which means you suck in the first place). Either way, be careful when using it. As we know, these OSI reps read this site (think: Seer spawned Liches at our DS event) and could be monitoring our "folks" :p.

Well, that's it for today.

I was going to include my happenings on my lunch time fix but my ADSL just out and out crashed today. I couldn't connect with ICQ, IExplorer, UO, nada. It just sucked. So, I watched some HBO, ate my corn dogs, and came back to work. Now I got a headache. I must be in withdrawal.

Hasta.

•Housing Delayed Again?

I'm not even going to supply a translation of this announcement, since all I can think of is the kid from the Simpsons going "HA HA".

Think you know when Housing will come out? I'm starting a pool in the Forum...

•Once again, I update.

Once again I show my undying love of all mankind by giving you a step-by-step guide on how to make an Axe/Archery PK in less than 10 hours. You can find it here.

•ROFL!

All I can say is..Wow.

Ultima Online Housing Update

Recent shard stability issues have left us unwilling to introduce staged house placement, a major system change, until we are confident that we can provide acceptable stability during the transition period. We have isolated and addressed the major issues previously affecting our decision to delay housing, and we are confident that, once published, their effect will allow us to proceed with staged house placement in a rapid manner. Until these changes have completed testing and been released to the shards, we must withhold the opening of staged house placement by at least one week.

In the next several days, we will be updating all shards with a patch to include several fixes for housing related issues and changes to enhance server stability. We will release additional details on a patch schedule as soon as they are determined.

We are focusing on opening staged house placement on most Ultima Online shards on Friday, June 23rd. House placement on the Formosa, Arirang, Balhae, and Oceania shards will begin on Friday, June 30th, local server time. The schedule for house placement on Japanese shards will be released at a later date. AOL Legends and Siege Perilous will have open house placement available on return from an upcoming maintenance cycle to be announced at a later date.

A complete schedule of placement times for all affected shards is available here.

We will update this section of the site, at least 24 hours in advance of the opening of the first scheduled phase. We will release any revised schedules as they are determined.

Oh Nieves...where are youuuuuuuu...

•Man, this sucks...

I just read this on Lum's site:
"Thou, divine Death, to which everything returns and disappears,
Receive thy children into thy star-studden bosom;
Free us from time, number, space;
Give us back the peace that life interrupted."

Saturday, the Chesapeake shard lost a great friend, and a devoted leader, Richter.

You can read about it here.

I hate death. It sucks :{

I think the GMs/IGMs on Chessy should erect a monument in honor of his characters there.

Hasta.

•Well googoogilygoo!

I just read this on stratics (note: guy was on Pacific):

Screw this game, I just had my Blessed sword stolen and GM can't do anything about it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This is pathetic. I borrowed a friend's Blessed Vanq sword to fight some order guys in MG and had some fucka disarm me and stole the sword. I was like WTF. I thought it might have been something I did, but I checked log and it says it. I called counselor and GM's and [censored] but they all say they can't replace lost items. WTF is the point of having a blessed weapon if it can be stolen? I know it must be some bug, because other people have tried it and they could never steal it, yet this fucka did. I'm done with this shitty ass game. I'll place my fuckin castle and sell my account, there's no fuckin point playin this piece of [censored]

Well damn. That was interesting to know about. Anyone want to email me confirmation that this happens and under what conditions? I don't want to know how it's done, just the conditions.

I took Clyde to Wind today. I was wondering about where I should go, with whom and what I should do. I had already played into Clyde's power hour last night so I went ahead and logged on with him and went there. It's amazing!!! I killed some liche's (winces thinking about Adam Ant) and helped kill 2 Drakes. Some Drakes were even in town. I love this place! If you get a chance, GO! :)

hasta.

•New site.

Got this link in the mail. It looks like a news, informational and guild site in one. Most of the information isn't there, but it's still a nice site. I was actually going to use a layout very similar to that one, but I'm a dumbass who doesn't know and is too lazy to learn javascript. So, because of my laziness, we have tables within tables within tables within tables within tables within tables that makes the page load slower than others, instead.

•UOPGDS Post

Well, I updated on here, the story board and the UOD page. Go look at some pretty cool screen shots from the UOD event we had Saturday.

I got a question for the updaters? Who is going to do that full time? Or we spreading the work out and/or giving different commentaries about it?

Oh, and here are my ping times for you to look at and drool. Great Lakes, Pacific, and Atlantic. Eat my ADSL!!!! So this mean I can hang in their with you guys as a UOD member?

Hasta.

•Update 1

Dr. Twister's Site/Network is back up. Go check it out here. The layout is VERY clean and easy to read and the color scheme is pretty decent. Content is great (as always from Dr. T.). Granted he's gone commercial, but so what? I like it :). I think we need a link on our site to it (if it's not there by the time this post hits). ::winks at Red:: But only if they link back. I give the site 5 PvMer stars out of 5 :).

Lum reviews the Vampire: The Maquerade game coming out. I wish I could test some of these games :(. He gave it poor marks. He says the PC version doesn't match the way the pen and paper version played (according to his review). I would think it was something akin to Baldur's Gate ::shrugs:: Who knows? It looks great and I might just try it...if someone gives me a free copy. PvP Online is giving away free copies to 3 people that come up with the best caption for a comic they drew. Try it out.

UO Something posted a picture of the stats of a Seer on UO. 4k hit points. WTF?? And 4k mana? Shit. Oh, and the 450 stones are probably thousands of regs they carry :/ Wish I could carry 450 stones. If you read my post on UOD, you will know I am not happy with seers right now.

I just read this from a review of UO from Games-Extreme.net.

A section reads:

However the land split and a lot of the PvP changes have angered veteran players. Admittedly all these changes is one go have completely changed the orders of power between different combat characters (mace fighters especially), but true to the dynamic game this is some of the worst aspects have already been ironed out, with various smaller patches. Now that everything has calmed down and most of the glitches have been squashed I think that Renaissance patch was, on the whole a positive move from OSI. This kind of overhaul was definitely needed, especially to help out new players and increase the games popularity. And there is more to come. Soon to be implemented is the anticipated 'Faction System' which should provide some meaning behind the almost constant warring between veteran players. This will come complete with the ability to capture towns (in a CTF style) and then control the towns economy etc.

I totally agree!!! I have said it before and I will say it again. UO has changed. It's not the same as it once was. With the exception of the Warhammer and the problems some mages have adapting, I think PvP is balanced (NonPvPer opinion starts here). I know that some of my fellow updaters (IE-Ian) don't like the changes and are really upset. I understand perfectly. I don't think any of you should leave the game at ALL! I think you should just change your character or style and adapt. Granted, that's probably the part that pisses you off the most. I hate building characters from scratch. And I know in the old days it was a BITCH building a character like that (even now, some skills are crazy to get GMed). You are proud of getting that guy up to where him/her is now. Try the changes and see what you like. Go with it.

Housing will come. Factions as well. Granted it's late and I hate OSI for pushing them back. But I know this is going to be a stellar year for UO. Just you wait. Good things are coming.

I was at the Orc Fort with a friend while he GMed Fencing and I worked lumberjacking (this is NOT necessarily a story...keep reading). This new guy comes up and I let him join in. My friend desides that he is a total newbie (via party chat; the guy had been playing for 7 months and had zero healing and anatomy on his warrior) and I started thinking and then challenged him on it. I asked him how old he was. My friend said: "guess". I said 16. He was like "Yup, how you know?" I said because of his attitude towards the new guy. He was like "huh"? After a few minutes of talking about it, I asked him if he ever had sex before. I then asked him if he knew more about sex than a 30 year old man? I told him then: "you are a newbie about sex". I then asked him how he felt about it. You see, "newbie" is used as an insult so much that the original term (new player) has been blurred. Yes, I went on before about how I hate that word. My thing is, why even call someone that? Why not HELP that person!??

"Newbies" make UO more fun for me. You get to see the game from a "wow" perspective all over again. You get to show the "cool" things in the game to them. And they bring fresh blood into the game. They keep the game ALIVE! Yes, I hate that they can make 7XGM characters FAST and that they can have a castle deed in one month (fuckers), but blame OSI for that, not them. Take these new guys/gals in hand and TEACH them about the game. Show them how to play the game. You are not just teaching a new person, you are molding them into a good and honest player, or the henious of all PKs. But respect them. Because, at one point, we were all Newbies. And it sure does suck being one on Pacific these days.

I have been reading more and more reports of folks being harrassed and called vulgar names in game (especially Trammel side). Hell, some idiot did it to us at the City of the Dead while we were training Saturday. Why? What was the fucking point? Respect yourself, then everyone around you. They dis you, move on. They keep dissing you, say "ok" and hope you see them in Felucca to show them respect.

One day, you will run into these "newbies" or people you "dis" and you will need them.

Play nice. Whether it's PKing, PvPing, or PvMing.

Ok, now that you are bored, go read about Clyde and Loren's Story in the Stories board and my update on the UOD page.

Hasta

•Current number of NewsPro scripts on this domain: 50.

I made a different section for the Death Squad stuff, and you can find it here. It's just news, but I'll add whatever else when I get some information about it. In short - get off my damn main page, too.

In other news, the new and improved way to gain on a boat was added to the bugs section.

•PvP Sucks, period.

Well I just subjected myself to the utterly pitiful pvp experience that we all know and call UO. Let me just say this to start off with so you can look away if this is directed toward you. If you think the state of pvp is better now that a Townie can kill me in 2 hits with a way overpowered hammer, then you are a goddamn idiot. Yes that's right. If your main character is a Mace townie and you go around talking about how you own people because you play a character that any half lame gimp retarded 4 year old could play, then you my pitiful uo compadre, are a fucking imbocile in the worst way. OSI attempted to give what they thought their customers wanted, and I must say they failed miserably. The party system is full of bugs and causes people to crash for odd reasons. The pvp system implemented is a total failure and has caused a DRAMATIC decline overall in the pvp community, and there is no denying that. I don't care who says otherwise, this game is a complete joke and shell of it's former self. A few months ago I said for those that couldn't take it to leave the game. I was mistaken on that because I realize alot of people, myself included, love the actual game but hate the changes that have been made. Look the way I see it, if bitching and moaning from people got OSI to change it to where it's currently at then the same can help get us out of this mess they labeled UO:R. What a joke. The counselors hate it. The gm's hate it. The players hate it. (except for the aforementioned mentally impaired who do not have the mental capacity to play a character they simply don't have to run up on someone in warmode with). For those that want to say that I'm jealous because I don't have that character, you're wrong. When I break out my townie I absolutely dominate any and all those around me. I can take on 2 or 3 people at a time. It's insane. The only other competition when I play that character is in fact another mace townie. It's just soooo boring for me. My style of play is as a mage. I'm not even saying that mages didn't need somewhat of a nerfing, I always thought it a bit ridiculous that a mage could wield a haldberd. But to decrease mages capabilities that much and give that much power to townies was the most detrimental blow to pvp this game has ever seen. Maybe OSI just plain doesn't care about pvp. I very well could be pissing in the wind on this matter but oh well. I know there are ALOT of people I am speaking for. I am your voice. I will continue to be that voice until something changes.

•Boat Method + Gm awareness =BAN

My friend got his account blocked on Drachenfels 15 minutes ago for using the boat method. The Gm jailed him, informed him it was a exploit and boom...locked account.

I strongly advise to NOT use this method if you value your account.

•A better way to gain on a boat?

I got this, too...

What the guy said is true, but the reason he prolly had problems, is because he didnt do it quite right. I GM'd fishing from 93-GM in half an hour, non-power hour, less than a week ago. Here's the ticket:

Get on a boat, find a spot that you can sail north/south with out having to stop. I fould west of skara by the server line a good spot.

Sail backwards slow.
Now cast, fish or whatever skill you want to raise.
Once you get a gain, stop.
Now move back 7 spaces.
Use the skill.
If you gain, move back another 7 spaces and use the skill again.
If you gain, repeat.
If you don't gain, move back one.
Use skill, you should gain again.
Move back 8 spaces.
Repeat until GM.

You have to be successful in what ever skill you use, so if you fail or fizzle, try again with out moving.

•Here is a story about a Hunter named....

Ok, the story is up. Go to the stories section and read about it.

I haven't checked my email yet so don't fret guys. I will get to it at home later. Oh, and I haven't posted my emails of the week because not too many of you are emailing me. C'mon guys, fill my box up with goodies :).

I am gone for the weekend as far as updating is concerned. To the UODeath Squad: I will see you in Pacific Trammel Deluca around 2PM Central time. I am going to get my perfect stats for PvMer today dammit.

Oh, I have been meaning to talk about this all week. Anyone remember Braveheart with Mel Gibson? I am sure you do. I saw it on HBO this Sunday and paid attention to the types of weapons used, how they used them and what the results were. If you get to see it again, I recommend paying close attention to the scenes where 2 handed warhammers were used. Noone got up after being hit 1-2 times from those bad boys.

Kind of made sense to me reality wise how warhammers were killing folks in 1-2 hits. But this isn't reality, and we all know that right? We all play UO for balance sake. Right? Right.

Hasta.

•Well ain't that some shit?

The big thing nowadays is how GM crafted weapons are not really of the HIGHEST quality. I read about it yesterday at UOSomething. I didn't really understand some things about the whole "article" and I didn't want to look stupid bringing it to you. Watts at UOTerror and Stratics has already given this guy props. Watts went so far as to say it's going to change the way people do "business" in UO with their GM crafted weapons. And I tend to agree. Who wants a GM weapon that wiffs and doesn't give you that OOMF when you fight? I don't. I have noticed in my travels that certain GM Smith's katanas just plain suck and that others were just awesome. (I won't name names because that wouldn't be fair. So don't ask.) You can read about the article here. Now...could that article relate to ALL GM crafted items? Anyone willing to do a study on that? If yes, email me and tell me what you find. I will post it for you even.

As we all know, housing has been delayed AGAIN! I had my Saturday morning planned with getting my house decorated and stocked up. Well shit. All that means is that other week old, new players have the chance to upgrade to a Tower deed from his large brick house deed. Great, just fucking great. Bastards! BRING BACK HOUSING BIYOTCH!

I would bring you an update on how PvMer is coming along in the stories section but...there is NOTHING to update. You see, pacific just fucking crashed. Twice. I had PvMer above 65 str both times and working alone just fine then "connection lost". Shit. Now I got to go out and work ANOTHER 50 skill points and start over on the stat gains. ::sighs:: I hate this game sometimes.

I did spend time with my PvPer/PK. If you want to read about that. Go to the stories section. I will have it up in about an hour :).

Hasta.

•Get off my damn board.

I put up a forums section on the menu; just incase the UOPG DS forum news gets archived and you start spamming the main board again. Just kidding. I'll change the menu for the other pages when I'm in the mood for copying and pasting the same thing 200 times (IE: never). Also, I'm working on getting our own boards and domain. Give it a month or 12.

In other news, I got this tip to gain magery:

1) Get a boat & obviously start sailing (North or South)
2) Cast a spell until you get a gain, at which point stop
3) Sail either Forward 8 or Back 8(its only going to be one of them & it seems to be random on which way to go) from your gain point were you will get another point, this will continue on for a while.

That's it, keep doing this process until you get GM. I started at 91 magery and got to GM in 3 non-powerhours. I started casting FS's which got me to 96. I then cast earthquakes all the way to GM. Also cast about 250 Fs's and 250 earthquakes. I hear this process works well for Fishing, Music, and EI.

Thanks to Yallazon for the tip.

•UOPG:DS

Just exactly how ironic is it that when I go to create Merle Corey, my character for the UOPG:DS on Pac, as soon as I get everything ready to go do something, I lose con and can't get back onto Pacific? Oh well, color me unhappy about that.

In a related development, Vegeta has set up a board for the DS to use to communicate, you can find it here. This way we won't monopolize the board here anymore.

•Don't inhale, la?

So the elusive housing patch gets delayed again!

It's not as though this comes as a shock to anyone, now is it?

Nieves was good enough to reproduce the update below, so for any of you who can't read OSI-ese, please allow me to translate.

We have determined that we will need to delay housing at least one week and begin scheduled placement on Friday, June 16th.
(translation - You should plan on keeping your weekends open for "at least" the next month if you really want to place that kewl new villa.)

Housing itself, as an independent system, feels stable and ready for release. In fact, our delays actually have very little to do with the housing issues themselves. It will require minimal effort to complete work on the issues directly related to housing.
(translation - *cough*cough*cough*necromancy*cough*hack*hack*cough* )

What we face at this time stems from the overall growth of our service and the increased item count in the world that has been created as a result of doubling the land mass to provide non-PvP areas and more housing space for our customers.
(translation - ...and if you think the extra server-side lag is bad now, wait until people start dropping houses all over the place and locking down items. It's a damn shame we waited until only a couple days before the patch to try it out on a test server with a production back-up.)

Certain deep systems within the code structure of UO require maintenance at this time, as they were not originally designed to support the scope of the game world as it is today. Unfortunately, these flaws could not be revealed until they were stressed in real world situations on our production shards.
(translation - The test server we loaded up with Chesapeake exploded yesterday, killing 2 techies and horribly disfiguring another. The servers, they canna take no more, Captain! Let's not even talk about stressed real world situations like completely disrupting the in-game social system that's taken 2 1/2 years to develop. When 75% of the craftsmen chars move permanently to Trammel, PKs and PVPers will have loads of time to run around, searching out the remaining 25%, while they look for someone,anyone, to fight.)

However, now that we are aware of the situation, we are confident that we will find resolution and are devoting most of our energy to this matter so that we may begin house placement.
(translation - Now that we've gambled and lost on our present server system being able to magically double it's capacity and performance ("Kal Vas Ram... pffffffft"), we are frantically searching through used server networks on E-bay, trying to find something we can afford.)

Our goal is to provide a uniform transition during the opening of house placement, and we feel that the issue would have an unacceptable affect on our customers.
(translation - We ALREADY know that people are going to bitch and whine and complain -endlessly- when they aren't able to place that phat castle deed. Any more bitching than that, and I'm gonna have to kill someone.)

On the upside, we have recently completed hardware upgrades on several of our server machines around the world. When we resolve the above concerns, we expect to see improved performance, as well as a lower frequency of the issues that are gating housing at this time.
(translation - We bought Baja another 8megs of SDRAM. Man, when we figure this all out, I hope all our problems will go away... I hope, I hope, I hope...)

•DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN!!!

UPDATE: Previousely this post had housing coming out tomorrow with a schedule. I changed it as it's not right to post outdate information. Here is the new post (bastards!!):

We have determined that we will need to delay housing at least one week and begin scheduled placement on Friday, June 16th. Housing itself, as an independent system, feels stable and ready for release. In fact, our delays actually have very little to do with the housing issues themselves. It will require minimal effort to complete work on the issues directly related to housing.

What we face at this time stems from the overall growth of our service and the increased item count in the world that has been created as a result of doubling the land mass to provide non-PvP areas and more housing space for our customers. Certain deep systems within the code structure of UO require maintenance at this time, as they were not originally designed to support the scope of the game world as it is today. Unfortunately, these flaws could not be revealed until they were stressed in real world situations on our production shards. However, now that we are aware of the situation, we are confident that we will find resolution and are devoting most of our energy to this matter so that we may begin house placement. Our goal is to provide a uniform transition during the opening of house placement, and we feel that the issue would have an unacceptable affect on our customers.

On the upside, we have recently completed hardware upgrades on several of our server machines around the world. When we resolve the above concerns, we expect to see improved performance, as well as a lower frequency of the issues that are gating housing at this time.

At this time, we are planning to open staged house placement on most Ultima Online shards on Friday, June 16th. Additionally, AOL Legends and Siege Perilous will have open house placement available on return from an upcoming maintenance cycle. We will announce the scheduled date for these two shards at a later date.

House placement on the Formosa, Arirang, Balhae, and Oceania shards will begin on Friday, June 23rd, local server time. The schedule for house placement on Japanese shards will be released at a later date.

A complete schedule of placement times for all affected shards is available here.

In the event that we are unable to resolve the coding issue to our satisfaction, in time to open house placement next weekend, we will update you as we know more.

We will update this section of the site, at least 24 hours in advance of the opening of the first scheduled phase. We will release any revised schedules as they are determined.

This sucks. I guess I can spend more time on Pacific with the UOPG Death Squad. The rest of this post is the same as this morning...if you don't want to read it again, skip it.

I was out with Loren last night. Girl missed me. If you want to read about it, go to the stories section and read bout it :).

UOPG Death Squad seems to be coming along pretty well. I will be in PacTrammel Delucia from 11:00-Noon Central time working power hour if you guys want to come visit, help, or donate :).

Hasta.

•UOPG Death Bobs

Well Vegeta may say he doesn't own the Death Squad idea, but that's only cause I own it . You fuckers aren't fooling anybody by not calling your Bobs Bob, and nobody makes disposable newbie PK's without Angry Bob getting his thumbs onto a piece of that sweet, sweet pie. Just kidding. My UOPGDS guy is almost quad GM now and I'm looking to run rampant. I definately think PK is the way to go, mostly because I want to shoot miners in the butt with my heavy crossbow. I imagine that's the greatest feeling in the world. I love being able to GM multiple skills in under 4 hours of game time, most of which I spend watching TV.

Now the reward for those of you who kept reading through my crap: The easiest way to get a brand new guy up to trim on a shard you have no resources on is the Scara Brea rangers. Just run your ass to the mainland side of Scara Brea, find a ranger, equip a practice weapon, and attack him. You won't ever kill him with the practice weapon, he can only shoot you once so he can't kill you, and you're in Trammel so even if you're grey you're immune to other people attacking you. Just do this and you'll get to the mid nineties in tactics and whatever weapon in about two hours. Two hours that you could spend arguing that Piccolo could beat up Bruce Lee, or maybe eat some tacos. Regardless of what you wind up doing, you don't need to be very involved in the process.

•Nieves the PK, the adventure begins

Well, I logged onto Pacific during my lunch hour and spent most of it buying up skills. Thanks to ProQuo for "loaning" me 5k and giving me armor and a Qstaff.

My time during lunch hours will be spent building up PvMer (as I call her) and getting ready for action. I know I would be done in a week but with real life getting in the way (what a bastard), I will do the best I can to get ready by next week Friday to do some real PKing.

Anyone else want to donate to our cause, let us know. We are always open to donations :).

Everyone keeps asking the forums what the best monsters for building resist are. Well, number 1 (Trammel Side) is you. I was with Clyde hunting Orc chests when I cast Fire Field to deal with some Orcs stuck on a ledge. When I walked close to loot them, the field started hurting me. This I know. What I didn't know is that I could gain resist off of it. I think I gained .3 in that little bit of time it was up. Not great, but not bad either. I am going to mess around with it and see if that works better than fighting monsters. I will be moving around to see if that also helps the increases. Also, I will go ahead and test with Blade Spirits to see if that still works.

Number 2 Monster, IMHO, are Ophidians and Terathans. You want a ton of spells and serious mana dumps without getting comboed out by Dragons? Try those mothers. I had already posted my two trap spots near the Terathan Fort. Go out there and try it out. Nothing better than gaining skill, loot, and fame all at once :).

Go here if you want to read about my adventures with PvMer today.

I just read something over at Post Armageddon. He was explaining to his userbase what some of the reasons for problems they have had with their shard since open release/testing. Here is an excerpt:

7. What I might classify as a misunderstanding launched us into a political battle with a news writer of the influential UO Powergamers site, which thankfully has been completely resolved now.

Um...huh? How was that a political battle? I didn't get into a political battle over your shard. I expressed my personal view on your shard's philosophy. Then it was a discussion between myself and your staff on why I think certain things about your shard are not for me. And what did that have to do with your shard having technical problems? You know...I am starting to wonder if maybe I set myself up for some of these "debates" and shit. Maybe I shouldn't review sites and games anymore. I remember how bad I would dis Siskel and Erbert (God rest Siskel's soul). Maybe I won't get flamed for it...

On 2nd thought...I don't care. It's my opinion. I am entitled to it.

Hasta.

•Oh yeah, this is what I'm talking about.

Diablo II finally went gold and is supposed to be released in a couple of weeks. You can read about it here. Woot! It's finally finished. It's gonna be great playing something other than the lame Barbarian and the same levels 50 times in a row.

According to DiabloII.com, the stress test is going to last all the way up until the game is released. Here's what the Public Relations Director from Blizzard told them:

"Even when we do go gold, we will probably keep the [Stress Test] going until the game launches so we can keep optimizing servers (the server side optimization is seperate from going gold)."

On a similar note, if I ever see this again...

Best known for blockbuster hits including the Warcraft ® series, StarCraft™ and Diablo™, Blizzard Entertainment® (www.blizzard.com) is a premier publisher of entertainment software renowned for creating many of the industry's most critically acclaimed games. Blizzard's track record includes three consecutive number-one selling games and multiple Game of the Year awards. The company's free Internet gaming service Battle.net reigns as the largest in the world with millions of unique users.

... I'm going to blow up blizzard. They put that same shit on every press release and it's starting to get on my nerves.

•My Rant UO:R

Hey guys.

Sorry I've been not updating for the past week. I am working like a madman and between that, UO power hours with 4 characters, and Fox Re Runs I've been pretty limited in time.

I was thinking the other day. Yes, some of us still think. That OSI have prepared the eventual downfall of UO with one simple change. And I quote:

"Currently, melee weapons check for whether a hit is successful or not in the beginning of the swing animation. This will now be scaled based on dexterity. The higher your dexterity, the earlier in your swing you hit. At very low dexterities, you will not hit until the end of your swing."

Now like a lot of you out there I had the tank mage that I loved playing with. I loved going out to Deceit with 4 or 5 guild memebers and having one helluva fight with some oranges. Now the opposite happens. I hate taking my mage anywhere because I know that a 12 year old who has been playing this game for a month can wax my ass with his newbie dexer. And I don't wanna hear the bullshit about "Oh but warriors can't fight dragon, only mages can"..."Oh mages were always the best, now its the dexers turn"..."Oh tank mages were never part of the original mage class"...All I can say is that I read today that the subscriptions to Ultima Online in June are predicted to be less than they were in May. This would be the first time a drop in subscriptions has taken place in over a year. And it will be even worse. Right when housing opens many people are gonna sell their accounts on EBAY. As Nieves posted earlier, the game is getting boring and people are just going for skill now and not having fun. To counter this effect in myself I started a new char on Chessy. Anyone want to lend me 25k so I can place a house? Anyways I am having fun with her and Chessy is one great shard. Everyone is nice and PKs still exist. I know. I met the PK with the highest bounty on the shard yesterday. Very cool guy.

With that, I dunno why everyone is pissed bout the Battle Vortex staff becoming designers. I like those guys and yes some of their ideas are quite radical ( remove stat loss ) , they know a lot about the game and having been playing since the Dread Days. I think that if stat loss were indeed removed everyone would move to Trammel. Any of you play Siege? That place is sick. Mad Pking. But that is fun in some way too :)

Anyways, I predict that unless OSI makes some good changes for once (I have heard there may actual be some on the horizon) more people will quit and this game will be dead by Christmas.

•Im lazy.

So therefore ill transfer 10k from either Hokuto, Drachenfels or Atlantic for your 10k on Pac.

Yes you WILL tranfer first, but you can trust me not to fuck you over.

Email me.

•Questions on UOPG Death Sqaud

First off I want to answer a few questions..I was actually flooded with email, but they all asked the same thing so ill just answer here.

1) Can anyone join in?

Sure why not..the more the merrier. All that is asked is that you put forth some time and effort into the character and the squad. We don't need all your time, but me personally I use this while my shard isn't saving..and when we get going..ill be on more.

2) If I dont like Pac, can I do one on another shard?

As I said in the forum, we don't own the idea, it was the product of my wandering mind when I should have been working on important stuff (read *Not UO*) What can I say? The idea took. Now the offical one will be on Pac. It will have me, Pro, Paladin, and hopefully our loveable PvM Nieves. I personally have no problem with you guys branching out, as long as you don't suck.

3) Why did you make your name *UO is Love*

Heh well this is a joke that anyone who has played Hokuto, or well any asian shard knows about. The Asian people (Japan, Korea, China, Tawain, and Singapore) are *mostly* (Again I say mostly because there are some ones that would be normal by USA standards) very strange. At least to this all american young man. Now don't get me wrong, I have no racial problems with any race..but they say stuff in english that is so damn funny. Ive talked about my eb macro *Your mom is a yes girl!* Well instead of saying to thier horse *good*. They say *I love you.* ...I actually got the name orginally from when I got gangbanged by a few asians and I calmly asked for a res or gate and they spammed *UO IS LOVE AND I LOVE YOU VEGETA!* Over..and over..and over. Then I was talking to my friend on icq last night and he reminded me of the saying Uo is love. So I took it. And I found since I made a female character, I won't need bandages as everyone heals me. Must be alot of lonely guys on the west coast.

Now I have two questions for the people participating:

1) PK or PvP

PK would be easier..and probably more fun. But even considerng how easy it is to make a character, who wants to do it once every 10 days or so? Also if im going flat out PK im going to drop resist for like hiding or some dumb skill. Im not going to go alone so I rather have a skill that will protect me should I get caught alone then a skill that will take a year to gm only to lose 4 months of time when I lose connection. Either way, im up for either.

2) How many people are planning on doing this? And how much time could you give yourself from your normal shard?

Post on the board your feedback if you would, or as always my mailbox is open.

•I almost didn't post today...

I am bored. I have been playing power hour with my characters SO much that I am actually bored. In the old days prior to the skills patch release I used to actually PLAY the game. I would run around and beat up anything and everything I could conceviebly find with Loren. It was great fun. Personally, Power Hour plain sucks. Granted, it's great because I can build characters fast...but that's not what I want to do all the time. I want to have PLAYED the game and enjoyed doing it. Not too mention it cheapens the fact that I am a GM this or that and I spent a year building a character while you just started and took a month to have a 7xGM bad ass Glorious Lord/Lady fighter. Oh, and don't get me started on money. If some player that has been playing less than 6 months gets his tower and 2 story in my spots, I will be SORELY pissed. Hell, I might be so pissed I will make Loren go red if I find him/her in Felucca killing them over and over. Ok, that's a bit much. But it would make me feel that way.

Anyway...

I logged on and GMed my Macer's Archery at Terathans. That makes him GM tactics, macing, and archery. His offense is set. His anatomy is at 80+ and his healing is at 60+ (real skill; 70+ displayed). Those are low because the Macer was to be a Tank Mage with macing. Nerfing Tank Mages kind of put that in the gutter so I converted. I am going to have him have like 60-72 magery (72 so I can get into Wind) and like 40-38 hiding (damn thieves). His template will be VERY similar to Loren's except he will use maces as Loren uses swords. Even with Warhammers being nerfed a bit, I still think maces will be just as good. And it's better than lumberjackers ONLY because I don't have to have an extra skill for the bonus damage. :) I also got a house at a GREAT price from a friend on the Felucca side of GL so I can have a base of ops for him. His healing and anatomy should be easy to bring up with general game play. And hopefully this guild I have been looking at will pick him up so I can get some PvP practice in and attack guilds they are warring with on sight :). OH, and if factions ever get patched in, it will be even more fun as we will probably be in the Chaos (Minax?) faction. Will be great then :).

Next will come finishing up Clyde's cartography (UGH AND BLEH!!!!) and lockpicking. I was able to pick up another .4-.6 (got tired of trying to track it and wasn't in the mood) this power hour (lunch time) and after that I went after Orc spawns outside of Delucia so I could gain some magery. Which is coming along nicely. One thing, I couldn't Recsu/Recdu across from Papua to Moonglow escoring stupid nobles. :/ WTF? Oh...question: What were those Nobles doing out in the woods anyway to get their asses caught? It's quick easy gold if you can gate...but it's getting old ya know? Make the Noble a big badass that attacks you when you get him to the city of his/her choosing and you have to fight him/her to earn the gold. At least a 1% chance so it's random and guarantee a magic item everytime for the trouble. Too much to ask right? ::shrugs::

After Clyde will come my Merchants (Smith/Carpenter/Bowyer and Alchemist). I am tired of paying folks for repairs and supplies. Fuck that. WHERE'S THE MONEY????? Pay me mofo!!!

Housing is supposedly this Friday. Be ready for the land rush. Dammit it's going to suck if I can't place those 2 deeds (2 story and Tower). Suck big time ass. I will do my best impression of a girl having a SERIOUS case of PMS, experiencing a coniption (sp?) and catching the love of her life fucking her ugly best friend if I don't get to place that day. ARGH!

I think I need a vacation. Going to Tennessee this past weekend was cool. Got to see a Water Moccasson for the first time in the wild. I was 5 feet from it in a gazebo looking at the fish swimming around when I see this wavy thing swim up. It stuck it's head out and looked at me. I was like, OH SHIT! A water snake. It went back under and swam away. I watched it go just to make sure it didn't decide to circle around and come back after me. Glad it wasn't a Silver Serpent. I didn't have my Bow of Vanq to deal with it....um....

Did I just say that? Shit, I think I am playing to much.

Have a good one!

Hasta

•Lack of updates.

Well, I apologize for the lack of updates from the news, site updates, answering e-mails and forum. My best friend IRL came to visit from Texas a few days, but now he's going to live here. Because of that, both of us had to get off our lazy asses and get jobs. When Diablo II comes out within the next week or two or three, all of my time will be killed. All of that might not be so bad though. At least now I won't be bored out of my mind and I could get a half-assed forum, domain and other stuff for the site and the updaters are doing a pretty good job. Hopefully that will continue while I'm not around.

In a too small of Diablo II update to put on the D2 page, you always lose gold from your stash when you die. Sure, now they tell us. I died about a million times from players and everytime I was losing gold from my stash. Hell, I didn't expect it because they said it's not supposed to happen. But apparently it does. If you die from monsters, all of your gold drops and you lose up to 20% from your stash. If you die from players, half of the gold on you drops and you lose up to 20% from your stash. Bleh. Once you have 40k+ in your stash, it's a pain to die - especially if you die constantly. At least death has a penalty now. Losing only 20% of the gold on you when you died was pretty lame.

Also, only regular, NPC quality items are socketed. I figured as much, but I didn't know for sure, until Blizzard confirmed it. You either get the gem or magic advantages - not both. That's cool. Both of them combined would be pretty unbalancing. If you can get two one-handed swords that hold 3 gems each and you have 6 sapphires, I'd go with the gems. If not, stick with the magic.

•I should lead UOPG Death Squad! Woo!

Just kidding. Got this link and message:

Finally our site is up, www.trgames.com. I am letting most major sites know of this, your one of them Wahoo!
Cya Later
ZasheR

Weird site. But I guess a site called "turd rangers" is supposed to be weird. Oh well. He said my site is major, so I had to plug them.

•Death Squad

Is that the name?

Who cares.

Anyhow, yes this was my idea, but I have NO DESIRE to be the Guildmaster. Ive been the Gm of several good guilds, but this time..I just want to go along for the ride, no wish to drive.

Pro? Paladin? Either of you want to GM you have my support. Any reader out there want to come along and can find hte time, you are more than welcome aboard.

If we get enough people we can form a council and act 3l33t and shit.

Drop a mail, flame the lame ass wannabe SSJ member in the forum, do what you want, you guys do anyhow.

•UOPG Death Squad revisited

Looks like we are going to be organized on the Pacific Shard in Delucia in Candyland. The coordinator of this little excursion is Vegeta.

Also, someone from SSJ(Atlantic) has contaminated our board here with his laughable remarks. Go look at the forum and laugh at him.

•Nieves is a bad boy!!

Wow. I stirred up a SERIOUS hornet's nest over at PA. I got emails from like 4-5 people in various "departments" of their "company". They were very nice about it all and very professional. One guy via email had a problem with what I said ("Fuck that") the other one I didn't know I offended until I read their news page. I snipped it for your pleasure.


Our Recent Publicity on UO Powergamers.
Posted Friday, June 2, 2000 - 4:12 PM by Cecelik

I was initially delighted when I saw that this shard received publicity on the UO Powergamer news site, despite the understandable criticism in his initial post: "What gets me is the 'Roleplaying Police' they have in game. If you don't roleplay your character, you can get 'cursed' by GMs. Now ain't that some s---? If I am NOT in character, you curse me? F--- that." In light of the aggressive profanity used in his attack on this point in our philosophy, it was reasonable to assume that my comparatively mild defense using the words "powergamer" and "OSI contaminated", along with my noted respect for their gaming preference and tastes, would not have been taken with such offense as the author exhibited in his response. It looks like some people are able to endure far less insult than they are willing to dish out. It is to everyone's mutual benefit that the author of that post continue to play his game and leave us to play ours. And for the record, I apologize for my references to "powergamer" and "OSI contaminated" because it is not my goal to truly offend anyone, despite the offense that is inflicted upon me. All of the other elaborate defenses that I have to what he said are not necessary. Simply give this shard a try and if you like it after our test phases are over, play on it. If you don't, then don't. :)


He's right. If you don't like it. Don't play it. You know what though? I was thinking. Have I really given them a fair shake? I mean, I haven't played on their shard so I don't know what it's like. Maybe I should just so noone can say I am not fair. Well, even if I do, it is still my opinion of the whole experience. We will see if I get a whim or something.

BTW: in regards to your apology, none was really required nor necessary. I just thought it was funny that you called us UOPGers and Powergamers "OSI Contaminated". As I said, that is an OSI product you modified and making available to people. I was miffed at first, but later on I just laughed it off. Hispanics tend to shoot first then ask questions later. It's that hot latin blood. Damn, talk about a stereotype. I expect plenty of visitors with Machetes, Switchblades and 22s showing up at my house very soon :p.

Oh, and you are right ("It looks like some people are able to endure far less insult than they are willing to dish out"). I don't like people talking about me. I cry like a little girl when it happens. Oh, and I am the one that rated your site and talked about it. Please refer everything to me, not "they". The other updaters and the owner of the site had nothing to do with it :).

I think they bring something new and different to the people wanting to play in a "roleplaying safe" environment. And I think alot of people will play it. It's just not for me. I wish them luck and that they do well.

I read the log of the UOHOC chat. Here are some snippets.

Glamdring - *Naomi_Sunrider* Question : What are OSI's views on emulation software such as FUSE, UOX, Sphere, and the like? And are voluteered staff allowed to use them?
LadyMOI - Emulation software, the use and creation of it, is against our Terms of Service. We do not condone it in any way, shape, or form. Period.
Doh, I guess all those shards better be careful. I hope OSI doesn't get a "Legal" bug in their asses.

Glamdring - *C_Echodude_Catskills* is there any idea if and when you might implement the vetren rewards program? and if so is there going to be rewards every year?
LadyMOI - The exact scheduling of when the program will go live is not known at this time...
LadyMOI - But, I can tell you that the initial code backend is in development right now...
LadyMOI - It will not come in before housing...
LadyMOI - But whether it will hit just before, just after, or with Factions I can't know right now.
LadyMOI - I should have a better defined schedule for this shortly.
LadyMOI - As for the second part of the question... will there be rewards every year?
LadyMOI - That is the plan, and the next set of rewards is currently being discussed....
LadyMOI - Rewarding the veteran players is critical, and we don't want it to be a cheesy reward. A lot of thought is going into what the rewards should be. :)
"We are aware of it and are looking into it". How many ways can you say that? ::shrugs:: Housing and Factions first I say. BRING BACK HOUSING BIYOTCH!

Glamdring - *Gunther_of_EO* We need an alliance system for guild stones, the new restrictions on rezing and healing when your in a warring guild are killing us. A toggle on the guildstones to switch between old style (Pre UOR) war rules and new style would be great!
SageOSI - Yes. We are going to be looking at Alliances as a solution. However, they are not scheduled to go in any time soon, but I agree we need to reward teamwork and we will be looking at this. This is definitely on "the radar".
I am sure you know how frustrating it is to not be able to heal friends you play with that are in other, warring guilds. I hope it's fixed SOON!

Glamdring - *Web_Question* The issue of nightmare spawn blocking is the cause of much argument anddivision within the taming community. Are there any plans to address thisproblem?
SageOSI - Spawn blocking is a very difficult issue.
SageOSI - We don't want to have nightmares running around all over the place, nor do we want people to be able to prevent others from obtaining their goals.
SageOSI - We have looked at this issue several times, but we are not satisfied with any of the proposals. Once we have a satisfactory solution to the issue, we will be correcting this.

Glamdring - *Eddie* Nightmare spawn follow up, can't you just remove tamed animals from being checked in the spawn system?
SageOSI - No. That would lead to an overcrowding issue of the animals which are removed from the spawner.
If you are blocking Nightmare spawn, you suck. Greedy mofos. I hope they make it so there is only ONE Nightmare for EACH account, per shard. Go ahead, flame me. But that's ONLY fair to all the other Tamers that want a Nightmare. I for one would like one when my Tamer is ready 2 years from now. And THAT is being Pro-Tamer and not Anti. If you even think about flaming me for being Anti-Tamer, you are an idiot. I love Tamers. Didn't I say that once before?

Glamdring - *Web_Question* What ever happened to name change deeds?
LadyMOI - The fate of name change deeds is still on the table.
LadyMOI - Right now, there is not a hard and fast determination if we will go there or not.
LadyMOI - As you can imagine, the use of a name change deed could have serious implications for accountability within the game system.
LadyMOI - So we must give this a lot of thought. As we know more, we'll post it to the site. :)
I want 2 deeds for 2 characters so I would love to see this. One character I mispelled, the other I just want to change to sort of "start over". I got all my other character names exactly how I want them. Having it would be great, but it's probably not going in anytime soon (if at all) :(.

My lumberjacker is GOING SLOW! Killing off animals doesn't work as well as killing Orcs or meleeing Bone Knights. Maybe it's me. Or that I am using a double axe and not a hatchet. :/ Someone email me on how they GMed Lumberjacking AFTER the patch? My macer is almost at GM archery. That's after 6 hours. If I could just get to the Terathans, I would be done. I know it :). I might go with what everyone has been telling me and drop Parrying. That way I can keep Magery and not have to worry about recalling, etc. Not like you can't build it back up anyway right? I will wait till after they patch (nerf?) warhammers and see how it goes from there.

Hasta.

•UOPG Death Squad

That sounds kind of cool, huh? For those of you that didn't know, this idea has been bandied about on the forum for the last 2 days.
The idea is that some 10 of the UOPG elite should come together on a shard (Atlantic, Pacific, and Baja are mentioned) and make some lumberjack-warriors and do war upon the peoples of said shard. Oh boy, I love carnage. I will assume that we do have more than 30 readers here at UOPG, and since someone said the optimum number of characters in these guilds would be 10, it seems to me that we might want to expand on the idea to include all 3 of these shards.

I personally play on Atlantic and would be glad to donate Jorl Treecrusher to the cause there. ProQuo is talking about the West Coast shards, so I am sure we can prevail upon him to lead one group. If no one else wants to, I can lead the one on Atlantic, and I am sure someone would be happy to start a group on Baja.

All could be coordinated here, and maybe we can talk red into giving us a subpage here. Since Lumberjack warriors are fairly easy to make, people could easily be in more than one of the groups.
Anyone interested, send me an E-mail and I will contact ProQuo to see what he thinks, if I can find his E-mail. Hey ProQuo, E-Mail me.

•Lame.

So, I had planned on posting a nice, helpful update on GMing Parry... you know, what critters to fight, when to fight them, where the best spawns are for training purposes. The typical UOPG stuff. My plans kinda got sidetracked last night when I took my 98.4 Parry character to Covetous to collect some feathers. I was looking for some Anatomy gain off the harpies.

Who knew I'd GM Parry instead?

Yep, I GM'd Parry off of harpies. And not just 99.8 to GM, we're talking 1.6 points of Parry gain in less than 45 minutes. Off of harpies. Not even the stone kind.

As tired as I am of reading rants from people hopping in the wayback machine and complaining about how easy it is to gain skill (ANY skill) nowadays, I have to admit I'm not too proud about the way I GM'd Parry. It DID mean something to me to have had worked it up to 85 before the advent of burst hour. 85 represented a lot of solo work, dueling stone gargoyles and stone harpies up to about 75, then fighting wisps on server lines up to 85 (which took me around 3 weeks solo). Then along came UO:R and I went from 85 to 92ish in the space of a few minutes getting swarmed at an orc fort. Crazy.

Ask a player what he/she values about their character, and most people will talk about GMing skills that were traditionally hard to raise... Magery, Resist, Fishing, Taming, Parry, etc... It's no wonder that people feel a bit cheated; by making everything easy to raise, you not only devalue the skill for people just learning it, you devalue all the work people who GM'd it over the past 2 years as well. Ah well, more bitching about UO is really another post...

Back to Parry. It's been so long since I worked the lower range of Parry, I'll leave it up to people in the Forum to comment on this. I understand that schlubby lower-level critters like bears and orcs can take you a long way now. OR go to Delucia, hire a paladin and have him attack you (a good way to train Healing at the same time). For good gain at upper levels (above 75), I'd suggest fighting monsters like stone gargoyles, stone harpies (both of which gave me decent gains up to 95), Bone Knights (although at the Wall, I had few gains beyond 95), drained Ophidian Matriarchs (emphasis on the "drained" part), and at 95 or above, wisps.

Wisps were giving me very good gains, even out of burst hour, all the way up until the harpies. Basically, equip your shield and a spell book, double click the wisp, then drop out of combat. At this point the wisp is likely to dump on you, and with improved AI they can toss some pretty mean combos (FS, FS, Poison, EB is the opener that usually got me). Think of the Resist gain as an added bonus. Eventually they will turn blue, stop casting, and only deliver physical damage, which is when you can really go to work. You'll be able to hang in there a lot longer if you bring along a healer, but I was perfectly able to work this solo. My favorite spot for wisps on most shards (now that hanging them on server lines doesn't always work) is Jhelom. If you take the topmost of the 3 teleporters in the middle of town, you end up on a jungle island. The wisps usually spawn in the middle of the island, just watch for the silver serpent that usually spawns alongside. Close to the healer, close to the bank. Trap the wisp in one of the 2 corrals.

I understand some people recommend fighting summoned critters (blade spirits, earth elementals, demons). I've tried blade spirits, but the gain I got compared to the amount of time I spent healing wasn't so good. Something more to talk about in the Forum?

There are good gains to be had fighting demons and drakes in WInd, but looting (critter and player) is an issue. If you want to try this, best bring a friend or hide an emergency pack somewhere in the vicinity. Personally, I perfer wisps...

Or you can go to the first harpy room in Covetous. Worked for me.

What to wear - since at the higher levels you'll typically be fighting stuff that causes a good deal of stamina loss, I'd suggest leaving the full plate in the bank and taking GM Studded and lots of bandaids. I'd also suggest bringing a variety of GM shields - one buckler, one metal (round), and one metal kite, and maybe a heater. You can take your magic shields if you want, but realize that with the Parry revisions, your shield takes a lot more damage. Case in point - post-patch, I've lost metal kites fighting stone harpies and wisps. Heaters are less durable than kites, so I usually use the kites instead for training. Why take a variety of shields? Well, under the new Parry rules, a smaller shield will parry more hits than a larger shield, but absorb less damage. A buckler is twice as likely than a Chaos shield to successfully parry, but will only absorb 1/5 of the damage a Chaos shield can. More successes at parrying will mean more chances at getting gain. SO, what you want to do for training is find a shield that gives you a gain/damage taken ratio you can live with. Fighting wisps, for example, I took more damage with a metal(round) shield, but got much better gain.

•Riddle Me This

If a townie get's noto'd in the woods out of protection by 10 angry mages, does anyone care? Deep thoughts. Anyway on to less relevant topics there is a new way you can be a spineless grief player. Cast a moongate, flag grey, if someone attacks you, you can try your pitiful best to kill them. If said party starts wipping your ass, just run your bitch hiny into your moongate because that player you asked to attack you can no longer follow you. This is thanks to Fly Guy of the Chesapeake shard who did just that to me. I wonder if he misses his testacles. Anyway a few of my friends in blue places told me that the senior counselors met with the dev team and basically told them just how bad it actually is out there. I promised I wouldn't reveal any upcoming potential changes but you can expect an improvement in the way of your mage. Hmm a bit to late for most I think, and knowing who we're dealing with if they're thinking about implementing anything it should come to fruition sometime in the fall of 2003. Wasn't it a few months ago I was on OSI's bandwagon? Hmmm Anyway it seems that lietgardis, writer for Lum expounded on my UO is too easy take and broke it down with a few examples. While you're there check out what Raph Koster had to say about the state of online gaming.

•"No juus no say dat to me???"

I know you remember the review I gave Post Armageddon. I read their reply to my review last night. Here is what the shard creator said:

Keep spreading the word of this shard because it is working even better than I expected! Take a look at today's news post on the UO Powergamers site! The author gave us tremendous ratings for everything except our role playing policies, which is understandable coming from a "powergamer". This just shows you that even "OSI contaminated" players (with all due respect for their personal gaming tastes) are extremely intrigued by the Post-Armageddon concept! The significance of this is quite profound because their site receives thousands of hits per day!

"OSI Contaminated"? "Coming from a powergamer"? ::hispanic accent hits:: NO JUUS NO SAY DAT TO ME?? :takes a deep breath: You know, I am glad I don't have access to NewsPro at home. I was a bit "miffed" by that. "OSI Contaminated", huh? Umm...that is an OSI created product you are working there buddy. And you took all the time out of your life (quote: This is a free shard; you are not paying us for all of the VERY hard work we are doing for YOU) to take that OSI created product and implement it in a different manner. And according to you, alot of time out of your life was given to this project. I would seriousely consider who is the one that is really contaminated. I play the game, I don't recreate a whole new version of it. Also, I am the first to tell you I am by NO means a Powergamer. Hell, I would say 90% of the people that come to this site would say I am not a Powergamer. I don't macro, I don't use exploits, hell, I don't even PvP all that often. To the ones that say they Powergame UO, I am just a Newbie PvMer and Lame Roleplayer. Hehe. Now that I think about it all, I just laugh.

I did get a reply via email from the creater of the shard. Here it is (I numbered the paragraphs so I could reply to them later; and you know I got to reply to it:)):
Nieves,
1) I read through your news post on UO Powergamers and was pleasantly
surprised. I also read the e-mail that you sent Kain. I greatly respect your opinion about the Role Play Enforcement policy that we have.
2)Everyone has different feelings and tastes about many things. Some people don't like Ultima Online altogether. But there is a HUGE outcry for a more strict and well organized role-play environment, which shards seem to be universally lacking. Countless people told me that Post-Armageddon has given them a reason to install Ultima Online once again after quitting OSI two years ago. Several even said they have been waiting for such a concept to be implemented all their life!
3)I would like to elucidate on our role-play enforcement (RPE) protocols a little bit so that you understand that they are not as unreasonable as you may have originally thought them to be. Game Masters in the RPE division are instructed to give characters plenty of warning before applying a reversible curse to particularly obstinate players. Post-Armageddon has not turned Ultima Online into a fascist police state, but rather offers guidance and correction to those who become disruptive to the role-playing environment. Of course, there are extreme measures reserved for extreme cases.
4)There is one final thing that I want you to consider. It makes perfect sense for you to not want to play in character on occasion. We at Post-Armageddon do not expect this to be the only shard you will ever play on. Therefore, during the times that you desire to hang out with and meet real life friends, you can play on other shards. There is nothing keeping players from satisfying different gaming needs on different shards. But in order for them to optimally satisfy their role-playing needs to such a rich degree, our policy exists on this shard.
5)During our initial testing stages, players became so excited about the integral roles that they played in shaping the world that they forgot all about the real world and didn't seem bothered at all about the RPE policies. In fact, they didn't need them! I only saw one instance of non-role playing within the first intense seven hour period with dozens online! And indeed a large group enjoyed the option of keeping their UO client in a small window so that they could participate in the ongoing player IRC channel as well.

I hope this helps!

Cecelik
Founder of Post-Armageddon

::rubs hands together::. Now let's break this down for the kiddies ok?
1) Thanks. :) It's my job (I guess).
2) Great, I am happy for those folks. Now they can go speak their Thees and Thous all they want. That's a good thing. But is it ok to say: "geez man, hold on, I got to go get the kids settled down" without getting popped by a GM? Ok, I am being a bit picky about it. But anyone else see my point? And all those folks that are coming back to the "OSI contaminated" version of UO you created, good for them. I hope they have a good time (very sincere).
3) I don't know, still feels like "Big Brother" is watching. Gives me the creeps having to have to play the "right" way knowing a GM could come swooping down to slap me on the wrist and say: "Now, sire/madam, you know you must NOT speaketh about "other wordly" things". ::shrugs::
4) "Hang out and meet real life friends"? Um...er...I had typed in a number of responses to this, but none of them seem to fit. You guys figure it out for me. Email me when you do.
5) What happened to that guy that was OOC?

I also read his latest news here. Someone email me and tell me what they think of this guy's update on his signees rumblings of things not right in the PA world. Because, to me, someone is on a power trip.

My final word on this? I think he's got a GREAT concept. I for one would like to see him and his folks succeed. I hope anyone that goes to play on his shard has a GREAT time. Realize you have to play by his rules and they will be enforced (so I have read). I know I won't be playing on it. I pay my monthly fee for a reason. And if that makes me "OSI Contaminated", then light me up with Nukes baby. :)

Realize anything I say about the PA concept is just an opinion based on THE concept, not actual game play experience.

About Katanas and Broadswords and what is better. At one point I said Broadswords overall are better. Well, I have been playing with katanas more often lately. Three swings to one (on average at 100 dex) causes alot more damage IMHO. Take a GM katana and a GM broadsword and try them out for yourself. You decide what you think is better. What am I going to do? I am going to carry my Broadsword of Force and my Silver Katana of Might and use the appropriate one for the appropriate occassion.

I did go to Fire Island with Clyde and Tina Hilfiger last night. Tina used her magic Halley on the Trolls and Ettins she fought there while I picked the 10 GM chests I had. I pumped magic fire into any monster that wandered in while she killed them. Gawd I love Flamestrike!!! Oh, and paralyze+explosion+corp por is so COOL! (Ok, call me a newbie, and I cut you!) :) ). The Halley is a POWERFUL weapon versus Giant class monsters (not just poor little humans). I am NOT saying everyone go fight them with JUST Halleys, I am saying that with 90 swords, GM tactics, and high Anatomy, Tina was kicking the crap out of those Giants. The Halley seemed to work better (when she wasn't wiffing). Also, I was able to gain almost a full point of Lockpicking (at 80 real skill finally) during the first 1/2 hour. After that, I didn't gain crap. Lockpick for 10-20 minutes, then go do something else. You usually won't gain after that anyway at higher levels of lockpicking.

I will be going to a funeral today. An ex-Army buddy passed away and that takes priority over all this UO shit. Go hug your loved ones today. Turn off the computer and go stop by and say hi to someone you haven't seen in awhile. One day, you won't be able to anymore.

Hasta

•Angry made the right move.

I just read the news about Adrick being a designer and couldn't help but laugh. I never did agree with Adrick and personally, I thought he was a fuckhead. Mainly because he a.) cries too much; b.) threatens to quit everyday; c.) cries too much; d.) thinks that if you don't play on SP, you can't "hack" it. But if he quits SP, it's ok; e.) cries too much; f.) thinks that stat loss should be removed and pk'ing should be free (looks like he's the one that can't hack it) g.) annoys me; h.) cries too much. Oh well. At least he'll fit right in with the rest.

In other news, Grynn smokes crack for a living. He couldn't think of playing Diablo II for more than a couple of weeks? PFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTTTTTTT! Beating the whole game would probably take that much alone. Plus, you'd probably want to beat it on all levels to try hardcore mode (that is, if you're a hero, like me). And you have lots of skills to try out this time. And you get to play 5 characters that are all different in every way. Beh. That will last way more than a couple of weeks. Besides, the game is fun enough to do all of that in the first place.

Anyone who liked Diablo I played it for a good while (a few months to a couple of years). That game has what? 1 town; 4 dungeons - one right after the other; 3 characters; and no skills. Shit, I've been playing Diablo I not too long ago and it took me about that long to beat it on normal alone. 2 is much bigger and better in all aspects and it will be something totally new and fresh. 2 weeks? I think NOT. Beh. Send him hatemail immediately.

•Armageddon, Part 2

In case you haven't heard, OSI has hired half the writers at Battle Vortex to work for the UO live team. I can only assume Tyrant has lost his fucking mind or Adrick is so good at giving head, it makes Tyrant's toes curl. Unless you're a total fucking pud-pulling asshole who's bent on ruining the game of every other person on your server, this news should make you ill and cause you to cancel your account. As soon as I can transfer my stuff to the one person I know who still plays, I'm cancelling my account. Sorry about all the cursing, but putting a person who's written several times that he wants to remove counts and take out recall so people can't escape him in development makes me pretty pissed.

•Jesus.

Well, someone decided it would be cool to steal my old site design TOO. Blegh. What's up with this? Personally, I think my designs/motto's/whatever else the next person is going to take are pretty fucking lame. I mean, if you're going to take something, take something cool. But then again, the cool sites might know a thing or two or three or four about legal shit. Nobody has to worry about me suing them though. Not like I would anyway. It's still somewhat annoying when someone robs you though. The fun of web designing is creating/trying new shit - not copying the source word for word. Bleh. Oh well.

•Funny guy.

A friend sent me this link, and I thought this animated gif was pretty funny.

In other news, this guy can blow me. Not because he hacks servers or other "good" reasons that others may have, but because he stole my motto. It's ok though. He didn't have a l33t-looking planet in flames to back up his motto, like me. THUS, I'm cooler.

And the Diablo II page was updated. Go read it or I will come hunt you down.

•Play Swamp, Tap it, Dark Ritual, Necropotence!

Ah, my favorite play in all of Magic the Gathering. Some of you may remember I mentioned playing this card game. It's awesome. Hell, it's so popular, it has it's own REAL 1 million dollar a year tour. Even moreso, you can play it online for free. But let me go back a bit. Stick around, this is going to be a long one.

Necropotence is one of the most (if not THE most) powerful cards in the history of the game. It is an Enchantment that basically reads: you no longer have a draw phase (you can't draw a card at the beginning of your turn); pay 1 life and set aside one card face down; do this as often as you like; you may put these cards into your hand during your discard phase; any cards discarded while Necropotence is in play is removed from the game instead. It may sound like a stupid mechanic (paying life for cards when you start each game with 20 life and your opponent is doing all he can to bring that to zero), but when you have cards like Drain Life (this does 1 damage to target opponent/creature for each Black mana you use in addition to the casting cost, you gain 1 life for each damage done, you cannot gain more life than the opponent/creature has), Corrupt (this does 1 damage for each Swamp in play to target opponent/creature, you gain 1 life for each point of damage done), or Soul Feast (your opponent loses 4 life, gain 4 life), it turns into a VERY powerful card. You can draw mad amounts of cards for the drawback of losing life. In this game, Card Advantage is power. And the more opportunities to draw cards than your opponent usually means you win.

There was a cry in the Magic community that said: "Ban everything until Necro is good again, then Ban Necro". What was the point of that statement? There were many degenerate decks that won games inhumanly fast. Tolarian Academy (Or Tolarian Blue) was a deck that was born in Winter 1998 and could conceivably win on turn 1-3 and never past 4 if not disrupted. After that came Dreamhalls which won consistantly on turn 3. Then there was Memory Jar.dec. This thing went "off" on turn 1 and was gone. And that was at over 30-40% of the time. Think about it, you sitdown, shake hands, start playing, 2 minutes later, you are picking up your cards because you got spanked :(. Where the fuck was the fun in that? And that was just "breaking" the tournament environment(s). DCI, the people responsible for these high profile tournaments, banned certain cards to break these combo decks and make the playing field more even. Also, Wizards, the people who manage and create new M:TG sets, have changed the game rules (6th edition just recently) to clean up some problems and released card sets that help games last a bit longer and are more enjoyable to players.

Was everyone happy? Hell motherfucking no. People bitched, people complained. "My combo deck is broken; this sucks, etc etc". What did the best players do? They adapted. They learned the new rules and they learned to build new decks under the new system and available card pool. And what happened? Magic became a better game. It is more fun. No more watching my opponent "stroke me" to a win (if you played the game, you would understand that statement).

I took a deck built by Sol Malka (Pro Tour Qualifier regular attendee) after these changes and took it to a 3-1-1 finish at this one store that runs tournaments where I never finished better than 2 wins. And I lost that one match only because I forfeited in the final 4 having to be at a hockey game in one hour and I was on the other side of town. This was only possible because of these changes. I was able to become extremely competitive because I hated "combo" decks that won like that and refused to play them. I wanted good "fights" and longer lasting games that kept both of us entertained.

Now, you are sitting there and saying, "what the fuck does that have to do with UO?" Alot actually. As you know, UO has changed. I think this is the single biggest change the game is going through (if I know my history correctly). For those that can't adapt, move on. Not saying "get the fuck out". I am saying, if it's not fun for you, then find something else that is. But if you still love UO or still are interesting in playing, adapt, and overcome. You guys are supposed to be the BEST the game had back then. Take these new changes and bend them to your will. Find something that works for you and go with it. I personally am glad for alot of these changes. It evens the playing field out. I agree that the Veterans got FUCKED by alot of the extra shit. But, it's for the betterment of EVERYONE and ultimately for OSI's/EA.COM's pockets. That's why they do this. They are a business. And I think they care about their players to a point. If they didn't care, I don't think they would've done anything, said fuck it, and turned all the servers off ::sticks tongue out at the Ebay sellers::. I think their priorities are a bit screwed (Rewards Incentive Program instead of fixing lag/client crashes?), but in essence, someone up there cares. Even if it is to keep their pocketbook growing.

Anyway...adapt guys. PLAY the game for a month testing EVERYTHING. Hell, go to test center playing around with different types of characters and combos to see what works. Hell, it's the PvP shard anyway right?

Oh yeah, before I forget:

Ultima Online Housing Update
We are currently targeting Friday, June 9th as opening day for staged house placement within Ultima Online. The first stage of house placement (castles only) will begin on Friday, June 9th during each shard's 'peak' time, or traditionally highest usage time. This time frame will likely be different on each individual shard. Please note that this means house placement will not be available directly following scheduled shard maintenance on this date.

The exact start time, as well as the start times and lengths of each stage, will be announced at a later date. We will confirm all dates and times at least 24 hours in advance.

For details on Staged House Placement, please visit In Testing for Next Update.

Castle and Tower Pre-Placement

With the introduction of housing to the Trammel facet of Ultima Online, we will be pre-placing two castles and two towers on the Trammel facet of each shard. To avoid infringing on castle and tower placement space, these buildings will be placed in locations not normally available for castle or tower placement. The castles and towers will be placed in the same locations on all of the shards. These structures will overlap on a limited amount of housing space. These buildings will be used for future Ultima Online promotional events to be announced at a later date.

Oh, that's fucking smart. Take up some housing space for "promotional" events? Just when I defended them. ::sighs:: I assume these are Faction bases on the Felucca side so it might actually be a cool thing to have for Felucca. Don't ask me what they are for the Trammel side. If someone knows, please tell me. Otherwise, I will just have to wait and see.

UPDATE: My apologies, I didn't read it right. These Towers/Castles are supposed to be placed in areas where players can't place houses anyway. Sowy.

Hasta.

•My 2 cents on Detect Hidden

I did this a while ago for my treasure Hunter. Yes, I actually made a treasure hunter with detect hidden and remove trap. What can I say, I'm a masochist. You can do this much more neatly by putting all the trapped boxes inside one box. Stick that box on the floor and pop it with an axe. Voila, 125 trapped chests on one level, all on one tile.
Under the new way traps work, a different person may need to arm them though since you never set off a trap you set now. I don't know for sure, let us know. Also I got to GM detect hidden on traps made by a tinker with 91 skill.

By the way, your detect radius at GM is almost the full screen. It's a way fun skill.

•Detect hidden.

Got this:

I know detect hidden is a fairly useless skill but I find it useful on my rogue for both annoying people at banks and revealing twinks in dungeons. You also need it to be 50 before you can start removing traps, which in my opinion is one of the most under rated skills in the game. Anyway to the point, I got to GM detect hidden in 15 mins and also got about 9 other people in my guild to GM in a similar amount of time. There is no bug involved.

Basicly all you do is get a big stack of trapped chests and detect around them. You can only get detect up to the level of the tinker who trapped them so a GM tinker is best. Also you need to have at least some starting skill to detect the traps otherwise you will never see them. Because you get a skill check from each trap detected the skill flies up. You need to target the floor near the boxes rather than the boxes themselves. I have included a picture.

One thing to note is that under the new anti macro code if you ever fail to raise the skill at high levels then it will stick for the day as you will have detected all targets in the area and can't reuse them.

There was also a screenshot attached that you can find here.

This has been added to the Detect Hidden page. In relation to the stats & skills section, it seems that I left the links for strength, dexterity and intelligence open on all skills' pages. Just ignore them for now. I will fix it soon. (**Update: it's been fixed.**)

Thanks to Rochdale for the submission.