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Server Move UO in Review -- 3 Nov 2006 Wilki Becomes Dev, No Longer Community Coordinator UO Week in Review--29 September 2006 Server Maintenance Unavailble at this time. June 2001 News: ^ top-Orc/Savage info...you know, to keep you busy. [Eric] June 29 - 10:50 PM EDT Talanithus Tarant from our forums posted this link. It's an excellent guide to information about all of the new orcs and savages recently added to the game, as well as information about the new items these creatures have been dropping. There's also a pretty cool timeline showing week by week events that have taken place in the game with the whole orc/savage scenario. Definitely check it out. Cya later. ^ top-Best wishes to Melantus. [Eric] June 29 - 5:33 PM EDT Thanks, everyone. :) You will hear from me again someday. Melantus has left the building. Melantus Online Community Coordinator Ultima Online Melantus@uo.com Well, he's officially said goodbye. Best of luck to him; he will be missed here in the UO community. What made him a great OSI employee? He was really there for us, the players. Reading the UO message boards day to day, you could always look for a response from him on most questions that were asked. Now...let's just hope someone else fits in his shoes. Cya later. ^ top-Yikes [Nieves] June 29 - 5:19 PM EDT Talk about a raging debate. Go give em some love. I am sure they will appreciate it. I only ask you act intelligent and mature when you go there. Posting there just to be an asshoe is weak as hell. Hasta. ^ top-Chesapeake Reverted [Vasilias] June 28 - 7:00 PM EDT SHARD ISSUES Chesapeake Being Reverted Jun 28 2001 4:51PM CST (GMT -06:00) Due to an issue with the publish interfering with the event-related data on the Chesapeake shard, the shard was brought down at approximately 3:00 pm CDT. The shard is being brought back up now, and will be reverted to approximately 11:30 am CDT. We regret this necessity, and we will work diligently to see that all issues are resolved as soon as possible. We will update as to the publish schedule when we are confident the system is working optimally. ^ top-More wisdom from our forum. [Nieves] June 28 - 2:47 PM EDT First the question: I heard a rumor that... You don't need tactics for wrestling to work with a mage. Any truth to this? Ok, there are two variables to melee combat, one is your weapon skill and the other damage modifiers. Wrestling, Swords, Fencing, Maces and Archery are all combat skills. Depending on what kind of weapon you're holding, a different skill is checked. If you aren't holding a weapon, wrestling is checked. Your combat skill is compared to your opponents (player or monster) combat skill. 100 Swords vs 100 Swords Both player will hit each other approximately 50% of the time. 100 Swords vs 0 Swords One player will hit the other player every time, while the other player never hits the first player. 50 Swords vs 50 Swords Both players will hit each other approx. 50% of the time. So.. With 100.0 Wrestling: - a GM swordsman will hit you 50% - a 50 Swordsman will hit you 25% - a 0 Swordsman will never hit you With 0.0 Wrestling: - A Gm Swordsman will hit you EVERY time - a 50 Swordsman will hit you 75% - a 0 Swordsman will hit you 50% As a mage you obviously want to avoid getting hit (and your spells disturbed by the attacks) so you should have 100.0 Wrestling - GM warriors will only hit you half the time. Now, Tactics is a damage modifier. Each weapon has a specific base damage. A character with... 0 Tactics will do 50% of this base damage 50 Tactics will do 100% of the base damage 100 Tactics will do 150% of the base damage As you can see, tactics doesn't improve your chance to hit, or to get hit. It only changes the amount of damage you do when you hit. For a mage this damage is completely insignificant. Anatomy is another damage modifier: 0 Anatomy = 0% damage bonus 50 Anatomy = 10% damage bonus 100 Anatomy = 20% damage bonus Lumberjacking is similar: 0 Lumberjacking = 0% bonus when using axes 50 Lumberjacking = 12.5% bonus 99.9 Lumberjacking = 25% bonus 100.0 Lumberjacking = 35% bonus The reason why old tank-mages had tactics is because they also used swords. Swords without tactics does little damage (50%), you need GM tactics to be effective with a weapon (150% base damage). It never had still does not have any effect on wrestling (except for a little more or less damage when you hit soemeone..) Thanks Phazer. Why go anywhere else? Just visit The Forum. Another essay for our essay section...and more work for me. Bleh. Hasta. ^ top-Just a few updates to get you through the afternoon... [Sinister_Saint] June 28 - 12:13 PM EDT Veteran Rewards on Chesapeake Taken from FYI We have published the changes listed in Testing for Next Update to the Chesapeake shard, and the shard will be brought down for a brief maintenance at 12:00 pm CDT, allowing these changes to take effect. We will update further as to the publish schedule for the remaining shards, and the changes will be added to Latest Game Updates once the publish is active on all shards. Orc Scenario Lasting for 9 Weeks Calandryll gave us a quick FYI about the ongoing scenario and that it will stay a little longer than actually planned: Just wanted to make sure everyone knew that this scenario is going to be 9 weeks long (instead of the planned 8). I’ll explain why (basically it had to do with splitting up week 4 into two weeks to give QA more time on week 5-8) when I write up my scenario document. But next week is not the final week. -Jonathan “Calandryll” Hanna Designer, Ongoing Content ^ top-Just as I was going to put up my experience with Savages [Nieves] June 28 - 11:54 AM EDT Saint has one up. Well, since his was more about the fun he had, I will tell you how to fight these bastards. I got a call that a friend of mine was hitting the Savages in the Orc Fort north of Delucia and asked if I could come. Sure, let me deequip. To the bank goes the vanqs, silver vanq, and invulnerable armor set (worship me). Out comes the Gold GM Plate/Chain mix armor, a GM katana, a GM DPed katana (for the "living" bad guys), and a force bow and 150 arrows. Check potions and regs. Alls good. Instead of getting into a story that could be deemed boring my some, I will give you my observations of them. When I got there, a single mage was hunting them down. In UO2D (since I STILL can't play in UO3D), these Savages look like regular brigands with the following exceptions. They are all carrying long spears, bone arms, and bone leggings. When they throw their bola at you, it looks like a spinning crook. Yes, a crook. The key to keeping your horse alive and away from them is to have the horse follow you and jump on it ASAP. I got booted no less than 6 times off my horse, but was able to save it each time. These guys hit hard enough. I would put them in the Troll category in the damage they can do. Of course, to a seasoned warrior (that means any of you), they are not hard to kill. Now, if you are fighting 3-4 Trolls, they can start to bring you down. So, when fighting against a group of Savages, take care to watch your life and don't take them lightly. And don't get trapped. Carry Total Refreshes just in case. A couple of times they got some decent hits in. I had to run off once to get a quick greater heal in. The mage was killing them in one Flamestrike. Not bad I think. So, if you have a high level mage, take him and collect your masks if that's what you want to do. Speaking of which, the loot on these Savages was pitiful at best, unless you want to collect masks. I got a hold of 2 silvers, a blue, and a red one in the 1/2 hour I was there. I was also able to acquire two Orc Masks. If I was into the rares trade, I would say I made a decent haul. But, all that will happen to these masks is they will be locked down in my museum in Felucca. I have no clue why you would sell a common item for over 20k. Yes, if they spawn that much, they are common. Whatever. Note, the Felucca Orc Fort was EXTREMELY quiet. I counted no more than 6 players there. I am sure on the Trammel side, the place was probably PACKED with warriors, tamers, and the like fighting to get a mask. More power to you all. My take on these Savages? Personally, I would've made them a bit different. Calyndryll did a GREAT job creating this quest. It makes things a bit different and makes for great roleplaying with the other RP guilds on my shard. The Orc Clans and the "goodies" have been having a ball with this. Hmm...come to think of it, I am going to have to see how the Orc Clan on Great Lakes is reacting to the Savages on their home turf (hey Bidash, give me an update on that). These Savages are weaker than Brigands and their loot (except for the masks) is pathetic. But, if you want fun, go fight them. They will make it interesting. The only weapon these savages carry is the bola and their spears. Nice "primitive" weapons. Maybe Cal (if he's listening) could code in some extra weapons and savage types (or maybe it's already in the works). My ideas: Savage Hunters-The ones you have now. But mix them up. Make 1/2 with spears and 1/2 with Clubs and Wooden Shields. Savage Scouts-Non-Magical Archers that have the same loot as a Rat Archer. Savage Shamans-Orc Magi Who? These guys would poison...alot. And they believe in paralyze+explosion :). Loot a higher than the Orc Magi (something like Rat Magi). Also, if they hit you, you are stunned for 2 seconds (not along time, but enough for you to say "ruh roh"). Savage Infiltrators-They have healing, they stealth, and use "blow darts" that inflict you with Greater Poison. Loot could be a non-functional blow dart (for you rare collectors), poison pots, gold, misc gold and junk. Savage Chief-Big Axe weilding dude that hits as hard as an Ice Troll. Loot comparable with a Stone Harpy along with some "surprises" (maybe a level 2 treasure map; yeah, that makes sense :) ). All in all, I will give the UO Content Team an A for this. It's something new, different, and can be fun for alot of people. Realize you newer players that, for about a year, we didn't have any new "content" in the game (Seer run events don't count). That's why UO players all over loved the Trinsic Invasion and Minax Take Over that led up to the UO:R release. It shook up the whole of all the shards (well, not Siege) and made it different for awhile. Now, if Cal could just convince people to let the Ancient Lich loose once a day (random location and time) in Deceit, the Ancient Wyrm pop up in the Fire Temple (once a day), an Ice Balron take a walk through Despise 3-4 or Ice Dungeon Rat area, and a Blood Elemental pop up in a random spot throughout Shame (once a day) that would really be fun. OH, before you looters extraordinaire get all happy, these guys would be special. Hiding/Invisible doesn't work. They would "smell" you out :) That's my 6 Pennies. Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions? Go to the forum and tell me about it. Hasta. ^ top-Last night... [Sinister_Saint] June 28 - 11:04 AM EDT Well, I was alone last night for about 4 hours so I decided to get some play time and I am glad that I did. I didn't feel like hunting so I grabbed my fencer and hopped on the boat for a wee bit of training in hiding. I gained from 93.4 right up to 97.0 hiding in a matter of about 4 runs. I figure that 1 more night and I will finally reach Grandmaster Rogue. After my Powerhour was up and I had stopped gaining, I recalled to my villa and suited up to check out the new savages. I hit a major lag spike recalling to Cove, but when the lag subsided I was still standing. There was chaos all around me. Dead orcs and player corpses littered the ground, and in the distance I could here the distinctive sounds of orcs grunting. I was not there for the orcs though, I was in search of the savages. Well I looked around and was preparing to leave when someone came running after me. I stopped and guess what? I was asked the often heard question, "Saint, are you Sinister Saint from UOPG?" Aye indeed that was I. Low and behold, one of our fellow posters had spotted me. Xen, I want to thank you for all the fun that I had last night. Xen and I hung out for a little while killing orcs and savages alike. Seeing as how my experience with the orcs was limited and I had yet to even see a savage, Xen was not only kind enough to show me the spawn points, but he also gave me two masks of orcish kin. So once again, Xen, thanks. It is always fun running into people from the board while playing and it certainly makes the playing experience all the more richer. For now, Peace. ^ top-Pop-Up Ads Suck. [Nieves] June 27 - 5:25 PM EDT I need to know from all of you whether or not your are having problems with our current email system. Sometimes I send emails and the people I wrote too don't get them. I am sure there are some emails that have been sent to me by 'yous' guys that never hit my mailbox. I would like to know if that has happened. I am known to reply to ALL my emails so that shit would irk the hell out of me if I didn't get them in the first place. And I need to know if you have gotten any errors (the Inbox button not working and some mumbo jumbo shit is on the screen; I have to hit Compose, then the Inbox buttons just to straighten it out). My name in this post links to my hotmail address which seems to be a bit more stable. You can email me there and help me with this "survey". Also, I need to remind myself that we do have a Chat Forum set up in IRC. It's sad that it doesn't get used more often. It's a good tool for sharing information or just bullshitting. Hasta. ^ top-OH SHIT THIS IS FUN! [Nieves] June 27 - 2:47 PM EDT On Monday night, Watts asked me if I wanted to get online with him to deliver some "ownage". I was like: "yeah, let's bring it to these bastards". We got into the woods and started popping off the first fa...er, jerk offs we found with reckless abandon. An axe swipe from me, a hurled spell from Watts and that biyotch fell to our onslaught. Another axe swipe from me and hell from Watts' hands didn't give that pendejo a chance in hell of surviving. And their weak fighting skills couldn't get through my elite parrying skills!!! We ran around clearing out the woods of everything we could find. Noone stood a chance of standing to our elite powergaming skills. We then ran into a dungeon and started laying waste to every idiot we could find. At one point we got overrun by some bad bad peeps (I guess they decided to call in some reinforcements) and I got hit with a lost connection error and had to reconnect asap. When I got back I saw death around me and asked Watts what happened. He said: "Yeah, you and I got the bad mothers". HELL YAH! Even disconnected we kicked ass. Wow. Anyway... We went to town to bank our loot and reequip and Watts gave me a new magic weapon. "Now we go get some REAL LOOT!" "WoOT! LET'S GO SHOW SOME OWNAGE!" We got to another part of the woods adjacent to where we were before and started running into even more baddies. Whack, woosh, BOOM! Deathmoan. YEAH! CAN YOU FEEL IT! HUH?! CAN YOU FEEL IT!? After losing Con a few more times, I told Watts I am calling an end to our night of total carnage. He was like cool. We would do it again. And that we would have more fun as we got farther along in our quest to lay waste to everything we find. But damn that was fun. I love playing Diablo II. Hasta (Admit it. I had you didn't I?) ^ top-some info on savages... [Sinister_Saint] June 27 - 2:19 PM EDT Calandryll made several comments about the new "Savages". When asked on UO Discussion Boards how "Savages" could kill dragons, Calandryll remarked : Well, the fiction for it is that savages are adept at taking on large (think things like wooly mammoths - or in UO terms, dragons) and/or deamonic creatures (deamons, nightmares, etc.). They understand where the weak spots are and are able to do more damage. I don't consider this a nerf though, but it does represent some challenges for tamers. You can't simply bring in two dragons and let them run into the fort...they'll die. Now you have to keep track of your pets, heal them, and make sure they don't take on more than they can handle. When asked how many different coloured tribal masks there are, Calandryll said : Close to 30 total. An interesting bit of information on the "Savage" names. Calandryll said : The majority of savage names are named after OSI staff, mostly Dev and QA. I changed the names to make them sound more in keeping with what a savage might be called. There is one called Kahl too. :). ^ top-If only I had the time. [Nieves] June 27 - 1:53 PM EDT Alright, this is the best way to Gm Lumberjacking. This is not a bug/hack or crack. This was tested by me and it works. On to the point: -1) Gm swords and lock tactics at 0. -2) Buy 1.5k bandages and 15 hatchets. -3) Go to jhelom, hire a wrestling fighter (wrestling fighters already have gm swords/tactics, except they spawned with a shield and a two handed sword that they had to get rid of [bardiche]). -4) Go to some secluded part of town and have it attack you. -5) Now make a macro with UOA --> Use Bandage, Pause 4500 <-- Also, make sure you watch your hatchet and make you always have one equipped. -6) {edited} attend it for 3 days straight. Re-set yourself with supplies everytime the server goes down. -7) Since you have 0 tactics you will never harm the NPC, you might also gm anatomy and bring healing up to about 80. Thats it, enjoy. ----> "Shade (Chessy)" Another way to lock a skill to gain in another. Hmmm.... Hasta. ^ top-Additional savage info, from OSI [Eric] June 27 - 12:06 PM EDT My update below was becoming way too long, but here's some more info.: Also, the savage males are supposed to have bola balls as loot. They don't right now. It's a bug mostly due to the fact that I am a coding newb (stupid out of place parenthesis!) and I made a last minute change. It'll get fixed though. -Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna Designer, Ongoing Content And to clarify how many different colors the tribal masks come in...: Close to 30 total. -Calandryll Wow...these are becoming like colored sandals. It amazes me about how OSI brings out newer items. With the exception of the bola balls, it seems as though all they do is take an item in existance, changes its color, and everyone goes crazy over them. I know, they can't always patch in new artwork...but can't they be the slightest bit creative? In this situation, yes, tribal masks make sense for the savages. The next scenario will probably be an attack of wild grizzly bears leaving different color bear masks for loot. Then, a clan of mystical deer will chase them off...and can you guess what they'll give for loot? *sighs* It's not even worth thinking about. ;) Cya later. ^ top-When Da House Speaks, You Should Listen. [Nieves] June 27 - 11:43 AM EDT Two good articles. An excerpt from this one: 8) OSI flatly refuses to add a warning about such "bugs" ( Not a bug a flat out oversight on thier part. Their fault we all take the fault ) in a place everyone can see ( like the uo log on message ) therefore not every player even has a clue whats going on in game. Some lose thier accounts to simple ignorance. To illustrate this lack of knowledge by the average player, back when cloth was changed to all cut into bandages at once, a post was made on the ideas den on stratics to have this " bug " left in as a feature. The average player has NO CLUE whats coming, whats not, whats a bug and whats a feature of the game. And unfortunately OSI is tightlipped about all that so innocents are paying the price. They buy new accounts and get back into the game only now theyre not as nice as before. In fact, they have a personal grudge against OSI and take it out on the players as a way of revenge. What harm would it be to go ahead and post that doing "this" will get you into trouble? I mean really. You don't have to describe the method. It's easy. Watch: Gaining skill points in a resource based skill without using up resources is bannable. See? I stated what could get you banned without saying how or what. Anyway, go read the two great articles they have posted. Well, one is a story, the other an article. Either way, they are good reads. Hmmm...maybe Dead One and I should hook up and combine our efforts? Maybe. If he ever ICQs me back :p Hasta. ^ top-Umm....run. [Eric] June 27 - 10:37 AM EDT I had a very short but very intense battle with the savages this mornings. TAMERS, take warning. My friend Lisa was using her nightmare to attack the savage...the savage killed it in FIVE swings of its spear. I don't know if they only hit like this towards nightmares, or possibly any and all tamed creatures. And to all of your twink tamers out there...*laughs*. Now, when the savage attacked me, it probably hit just as hard as if you were being attacked by a player with GM fighting skills and a GM spear. Hard, but not nearly as hard as it hit the nightmare. I was shocked to see how fast it killed it. Warning #2? These guys use the bola balls. While fighting one, I was knocked off my mount, and my horse was killed. Again, be careful with these guys. As for loot, it mostly sucks, unless you like the masks. You can tell which ones you'll receive a colored mask from, because the savage wears it while you fight him or her. Other loot includes 30-100 gold, bandages, bone armor, and the spear. Nothing special. Unless these tribal masks prove to have some kind of special ability in the future, these savages are not worth fighting. If anyone tries a dragon or drake on these guys, drop me an e-mail and let me know how it goes. Because Sinister Saint wanted more info. on these bad boys (see forum), let me give you some. Where can they be found? Probably any orc fort. The first orc fort I recalled in at, had them. Savages are not monsters, but "red" NPCs. Town Criers speak the following on these savages: "Strange humans have driven the orcs from their homes!" So basically, these savages are an addition to this orc scenario. I assume once again, since the orcs were "driven from their homes" that most orc forts (or maybe all) will have these savages. And from Tharin in our forum: WARNING TO ALL TAMERS THAT LIKE THEIR PETS!!! Do NOT, under NO circumstance whatsoever, attack a savage! Their damage is based on the strenght of the opponent they're fighting! They always give, to whatever they are fighting, 30% of the total amount of HP damage! They will slaughter dragons, mares, unicorns etc. in just a few hits, so fast that no vetting can help! If anyone can confirm that this damage is indeed 30%, let me know. It makes sense though, because the savage didn't hit me nearly as hard as it hit the nightmare, as stated above. Watch out guys, OSI has thrown a curve ball at us. :) I'll try and go back the fort and grab a screen shot. UPDATE: I found a mask of orcish kin off a savage...apparently, like orcish mages, they give these masks as well. ALSO: I was incorrect when I stated they were red NPCs. They APPEAR to be red NPCs, but have no paperdoll when you double click them AND they can be provoked (unlike brigands.) They appear as NPCs, but seem to be taken as monsters. This is just a pic of me killing the savages, and one that knocked me off my mount (and proceeded to kill my mount). The mask I'm wearing is one of the masks that these guys give for loot (about 20% of them have them, and they come in a few different colors). Cya later. ^ top-SAVAGES!!! [Nieves] June 27 - 8:52 AM EDT Ianstorm has some great images of the Savages running around in the realm. He has some great tips on hunting them as well. Now it makes sense why the Orc Masks have the ability to make you immune to the Orcs. Hasta. ^ top-Always good to get feedback from those you have helped. [Vasilias] June 27 - 1:27 AM EDT As some of you know from reading the forums we got a little guild started up on Catskills. The brainchild of our one and only Sinister Saint. While working on my characters there I have run across some great people on Catskills. And it always does me good knowing that I have imparted some knowledge that I have gained onto others. What really makes this gratifying is when I recieve words back from these individuals that I have helped. It makes me feel good....so sue me! Here is what a few people have said. And for what it matters, I felt compelled to post this so the readers know that yes we are personable in game to total strangers and we do generally care about your gaming experience. Not only with up to date information but also with helping you build the character you want to achieve whatever goals you set for yourself in this game. I recieved this from a young man I met in Shame while working on my new archer for the guild on Catskills. Myself and fellow powergamer Catlyn, also in B&A, took him under our wing and helped him. Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 19:28:34 -0500 From: Deleted for Anonyminity Add To Address Book To: Subject: Rain -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I just wanted too thank you and Cat for helping me out It was much appreciated I have come a long way since we met just working on maxing my str, dex and int I was wondering which guild r u from? well thats it for now hope too get too fight along you again thanks William This kind of thing makes me happy. Not because I got an email. But because I made a difference in this person's gaming experience. Because I could impart some of my knowledge to him. Because I helped someone. Now I have no idea what type of player he will turn out to be. Quite frankly, that doesn't matter. I am just happy that I could help and that I was. If anyone of you out there have a particular question, by all means email any of us on the staff with your questions. We enjoy what we do and it makes us feel good to know we helped. Guess that is it for now...til NwN has something substantial to report or til I decide to finish up my new essay of replication of the feat I accomplished on Napa on Catskills that is all. Take Care and Latahs! Vas. ^ top-The end of an era. [Nieves] June 26 - 5:49 PM EDT Fuck shit and damn. He will be missed. Let me give you a bit of history of how cool this guy really is. It's not that he can write well, it's that he goes out of his way to help people. Even though he says he hates stupid people (which he really does), if you are in his circle, he will take care of your ass. When we started the UOPG Death Squad on Pacific, Watts put up a Guildstone, volunteered a house deed, GAVE us misc. supplies, and GAVE us approximately 500k gold to start with. Later, when I started another character on Pacific, he gave me another 100k gold. Not too mention when we did factions and red neighbor gank fests together, he would let me take whatever I wanted from his supply chests without a complaint or nasty word. THAT people is a cool person, and real friend. (Note: I did return the favor on Great Lakes). I had fun with you Watts. And I will miss you in Ultima Online. Maybe I will see you in Anarchy Online. And I know I will see you in DiabloII (yes, I have it now--Wallmart Credit Card baby!). By the way: Everything he said about the current state of UO is correct. It could've been done much much better. And finally, some nostalgia for you. Hasta. ^ top-OSI finally pays attention to mages... [Sinister_Saint] June 26 - 2:25 PM EDT Spell Changes Several spells will have their power increased, particularly low-circle spells. Spells such as Magic Arrow, Fireball, and Lightning Bolt will do noticably more damage then before. The energy bolt, explosion, and flamestrike spells will be given a small damage increase. In addition, some spells will have lower reagent costs (note: until players receive a client patch these changes will not be visible in the spellbook). The Harm Spell The “Harm” spell will have its damage scaled based upon the caster’s distance to the target. The closer the caster is to the target, the more damage it deals. This combined with the reduction of the damage bonuses for GM lumberjacking and anatomy should help in some small way to help balance the Mage/dexer issue. ^ top-Melantus Explains the In Development Changes [Nieves] June 26 - 12:45 PM EDT Ok, a bit of a lack of communication here. As I understand it, this change will make it so that when you cast a spell any weapon you are carrying will unequip. Re-equipping during the spell will cancel the spell. However, the spellbook will not go into your hand. The spellbook isn't required to be held to cast the spell, but you do need hands-free to cast. Sorry for any confusion on that part of it. I went back to talk to the designers about this. As I understand it, when you cast the weapon you are holding will un-equip. The book will not go into your hand automatically, but you do need hands free to cast the spell. Re-equipping during the casting will interrupt the spell. After the spell is over, you can re-equip the weapon. Melantus Welp, sorry, still no precasting for JUUS! But, that's 2 seconds the eval / warrior won't be using to unequip the spellbook and equipping a weapon. Just cast, target, hit equip, go to town. Hasta. ^ top-this just in.... [Sinister_Saint] June 26 - 11:39 AM EDT Now new in In Development: These changes are currently active on "Test Center 6t". We encourage players to test these changes and provide feedback. Hit Point Calculation The following change will be made to the manner in which hit points are calculated for players. Hit Points = (str/2) + 50 Note: Any spells or effects that modify strength will also modify the target’s maximum hit points equally. For example, under the new formula, a player with 80 strength will have 90 hit points. However, if they drink a greater strength potion, their strength will be 80+20 (100) and their maximum hit points will be 90+20 (110). Anatomy Damage Bonus A bug causing the anatomy damage bonus to be doubled against players will be fixed. However, the maximum damage bonus for anatomy will be increased to 30% upon reaching 100.0 skill (the damage bonus will still be 20% for players with less then 100.0 anatomy skill. This change will have the following consequences… Under the current system, a player with an anatomy skill of 100.0 can receive a 20% damage bonus against monsters, and a 20% damage bonus against players. Under the new system, a player with an anatomy skill of 100.0 will receive a 30% damage bonus against both monsters and players. Similarly, a player under the current system with a skill of 80.0 can receive a 16% damage bonus against monsters, and a 32% damage bonus against players. Under the new system, this player will receive a 16% damage bonus against both monsters and players. Lumberjack Damage Bonus The lumberjack skill will now add a damage bonus to axe weapons using the same formula as described for the anatomy damage bonus. The bonus is 20% of the lumberjack skill until 99.9 skill and 30% for 100 skill. Spellbooks Players will no longer be required to equip their spellbooks while casting. They may continue to do so if they so choose (holding a spellbook will not prevent you from casting a spell). Players will be able to gain wrestling and/or tactics skill while holding a spellbook if the appropriate skill is marked to go “up”. ^ top-Rock, Paper, Scissors. [Nieves] June 26 - 11:34 AM EDT If anyone has ever played Magic the Gathering, they would understand where I am coming from when I make the above statement. There is always one [decktype] that will beat another. Discard+Suicide Black raped Control Blue, Sligh handed Suicide Black it's own ass, Green could conceivably beat Blue and Black, White Weenie could wreck both Sligh and Suicide Black but had to sneak in an Armageddon to completely destroy Control Blue otherwise trouble was coming in the form of Morphling, et al. Anyway, I know I got all of you good ol' UO Players confused. Ultima Online's PvP system seems to have that same formula now. Jackers can wreck mages, Parriers give Jackers the finger, Parriers could get wrecked by mages if they don't have pouches or decent tactics. Then you have Fencers that can beat Mages but have problems with Jackers and Macer/Parriers if the Fencer himself isn't using Poison or a shield (whose shield will die to a macer anyway). And I could go on and on with variations of above themes (Macer/Fencers, Sword/Poisoners, Fencer/Poisoners, etc.). My point? There is VARIETY in Ultima Online for Player Versus Player combat now. We aren't all Tank Mages. Is the Mage as powerful as it once was? No. But he's not a push over either. If a Mage has GM Inscribe and Healing or Poisoning, he's a force to be reckoned with. And Mages still, pound for pound, can put out more damage faster than any dexer in the same amount of time. Yes, even a Jacker. Time the amount of time it takes to swing those big axes along with the time it takes to cast. You will see what I mean. Yes, there are variables, but I am not talking about that here. You can go on and on about this sucks or that sucks. But know what? If you lose a duel, don't bitch. Figure out why you died and how and what you can do to prevent it. Obviousely, that Nox Mage I punked Sunday wasn't taking the time to figure out how he lost to me. Me? I kept paying attention to his different spell combinations and when to use a cure and when not too. I am Greater Poisoned with 10 seconds on my heal clock, I let my healing do the work. Of, if he just poisons me and can't get a poison off, my healing does the work there too. If you can't do anything other than bitch about UO's PvP system now, go play on a player run shard that has old school mechanics, or quit. Whichever makes you happier. ALL character templates aren't invulnerable (if Suicide Black got a Nev's Disk out against Sligh and discards most of it's burn with a Persecute or other discard effects, Red could lose badly), learn what makes that character type strong and remove that strength. If there is a weakness, exploit it (no, I don't mean cheat or use bugs/exploits). Use whatever you can to win. That is what it's about to me. One of our characters has to die. I would prefer if it was yours. Precasting is gone. Jackers can bust a mage. Parry/Macers can own a Jacker. Assassins (Blade/Poisoning) can own a Parry/Macer and a Mage but could get wrecked by a Jacker. UO PvP isn't the same anymore. And it never will be. Adapt, overcome, and get better. If you want to flame me in the forum, or email me hate mail that I don't know what I am talking about and "PRECASTING OWNED YOU!" Go for it. It won't change the fact that things are the way they are. While someone is calling me a newbie for using a current built in game mechanic for beating them, I will be adapting and looting that ass. Someone start a thread so they can tell me how much of a newbie I am. Hasta. ^ top-Been A Long Time. I Shouldn't Have Left You. Without a Dope Rant to Step to. [Ian] June 26 - 10:46 AM EDT So anyway I was playing this game called Ultima Online the other night. I've recently dropped my scribe/hiding template for healing/anatomy. I thought since reactive armor works even with 0 scribe, I might as well get some healing. Besides there are times when reactive armor goes away in 2 or 3 hits anyway, and I'm forced to run from a throng of townies. So after trying out my healing I found out that hey, reactive armor works um, much better with scribe, and healing anatomy does exactly 0 for you when a guild full of townies instantly converge on you with axes. I'm sorry but I cannot help myself. Whenever I see a townie, of any sort, I feel disgust. I mean, it may not be your fault. I know some people just prefer to play a townie, but I've died far to much to people who do absolutely nothing except run up to me in war mode, get 2 axe blows in and say owned. This has ruined it for the rest of the townies who secretly know that their character is doing ALL their work for them. Prime example of the intelligence of your average UO axer, This guy attacked me with another axer, and called me gay because I parad them as opposed to you know, not standing there and letting them whack on me with their axes. Hopefully this causes some of you other bitch made ass lumber hoe gimps to do some introspection. If you pvp on your townie, and know you're gimping it up by doing so, and don't brag, that's one thing. But when you don't do shit except let the actual game mechanics win every fight for you, then proceed to brag about it you are a pathetic piece of redrum enhanced dog shit. I mean that sincerely. I hate you, die in rl. No issues. At any rate, since I was sick of being the victim to the countless townies on my shard, I decided to log onto the test center to see if there was a difference. Big mistake. I kid you not, at one point I counted over 20 townies (almost all of whom had axes) to 0 mages in moonglow. I mean, that is just plain ridiculous. Note to OSI: If you are reading. The damage done to me by axes is completely and utterly ridiculous, with gm scribe I had ra casted and could sustain exactly 2 hits from a lumber jacker before the next one did upwards of 70 damage a pop. I know you're trying to dumb down pvp for your coddled Trammelites but jesus give me a break. You are directly insulting the intelligence and smacking in the face every veteran player of this game. I am compiling a huge email to Adrick in the coming days on the state of PvP and why it's broken and I can actually say, for the first time in a long time, I think we have someone who might listen. Time will tell. At any rate, after killing 4 or 5 people on test as CoM, I am not ashamed to admit, I got told. It doesn't happen often and when it does, I'll admit it. I was in glow as the only CoM of course and there are about 30 or so oranges around. I'm getting busted on and it's all I can do to stay alive, I'm in the middle of the maze and someone while still running, dismounts off his horse and blocks me in, with his avatar while casting harm. Where all the mages came from I don't know but I was dead very shortly, tele was not an option because he was disturbing me, all I could do was cast in mani, to no avail. I was actually smiling after that because I died to a good tactic, mostly to mages. Thank you whoever that was for showing me there are some smart players still left in the game. If not dickless because you all played on a faction that had limited oranges but I'm so happy I died to mages I can't fault you. Oh well, can't have everything I guess. So, I go and get rezzed and log for a bit. The next time I log on the server had reset and I was back to square one. I now felt the urge to pk, so.. I went to the graveyard to do some of that. It's always funny to me how the worst pvpers in the game have names like Bling Bling and others that reveal their ongoing identity crisis. Question. Was "Bling Bling's mistake A) Attacking me in the first place. B) Having the name Bling Bling C) Both A & B. If you guessed C, you are the lucky winner. He died in about 3.5 seconds. He was red to, how he got red I have no idea. Maybe his friends let him kill them over and over, ya know, so he could be down wit da boyz. My next fight someone actually asked to duel. I agreed and he flagged. Ok.. not the smartest thing to do with a bunch of test rats around but oh well, I cast and redbar him but he doesn't die (see:lucky bastard) he heals up and says he needs regs, (see:bullshit.) I say ok I'll wait when the 2 people who were watching decided it would be fun to kill him, well, they do. I tried to heal but got caught on some annoying brush and they had him dead before I could catch up. Next up, I decided to attack a grey, some other guy on foot decided to join me and to the guy's credit, he died nobly only asking that we rez him right before the final blow. He runs off before I had mana to rez him and comes back. No smack just hey, want to go again. I said fine and in fact I'd duel him. He was good with that so I we go at it, he comes close to death a few times and I ran out of reggage. We go to jhelom I re reg and we head to farms. I don't know what your idea of a good UO name is, but I hope it's not this. As soon as I got there I knew I wouldn't like this guy, so instead of hearing anything come out of his mouth, I started to pk him, my new side kick must have thought it looked like fun so he joined in and we dispatched of him quickly, even with his friend healing. We attack his healer afterwards and he runs to town, comes back once to yell newbies and then runs off to where ever it is someone runs off to after they come back just to call you a newbie. At any rate, we start dueling, and it's a fairly good duel, It lasted a few minutes. At this point KKK is rezzed and is a tad upset. He proceeds to get ownzorred in 3 straight duels to the same person, much to my amusement. All in all a fun night, and I have to promote a new template for all mages. 6th and 7th skills being inscribe & healing. You don't need anatomy. I was doing 40 point heals with bandaids with just gm healing. That's alot and if you're able to have scribe and bandaid healing, you have the potential for badassness. Scribe is a lot of work but hey, you are powergamers right. Ok, if you read through that entire update you obviously have time to kill so go check out Azaroth and his idea for a pre uo:r shard. There is much funny in the "idea thread" as you witness an allstar cast of Vasilias, Redrum, Omnipotent Human being, and I, take on what is most likely, the biggest accumulation of ignorance ever before seen on a message board. (Note, it's worth registering just to read that thread. It's the one titled: What is the first goal to a pre uo:r shard) Beware, reading some of the comments can actually make your I.Q. shrink. Also, over at GameTerror we're live. We just don't have email set up but that will be rectified soon. You all need to go check it out and get involved with the forums. The site is amazing. I daresay one of the best gaming sites I've ever seen. It takes a little time to get to know how to move around but once you do it's quite amazing. We're also looking for writers on games. Not just UO but all games including single person. This might disappoint some of you, but the use of an intelligible form of English is required. For those that have wanted to write for a website, come give it a try. It's easy. I promise. I won't bite.. hard. ^ top-Cal, Your OSI Pal, Speaks About Idea Submissions. [Nieves] June 26 - 9:01 AM EDT An excerpt: Stat/skill increases - we have no plans to permantently increase skill or stat caps at this time. Aside from the balance issues this would create there are also tons of code issues as those caps are inherent to many other systems. New wearables and art - not possible in the 2d client because of the issues with making them work on your avatar. Unless you wanted us to make wearables that ONLY worked in the 3d client, we cannot add new art like this to the game. Note that Blackthorn and British armor are not wearables. Most new art has these limitations at the moment. Blessed deeds/weapons - we removed the bless deed last year because of balance issues. While we know there are some in the world still, adding more (that are only available to vets) will not help. Name changes - again, Name Change Deeds were removed because of balance and support problems (mostly support). No plans whatsoever of ever putting these in, either as a reward or a general update. Stables - a great idea, but one fraught with peril. The stable master or hitching post idea has issues with the spawner that until resolved keep it from being considered. In truth, should those ever be resolved, this would probably be a general update, rather than a reward though. Cal also goes on to say don't take this as a slap to the face. I will just take this as well as when you told me to email Melantus about in game issues. AFTER I had just finished emailing you about not hearing anything from Melantus. Oh, and I haven't heard from OSI since early last week about the open Melantus position, or the UO website positions for that matter. In fact, I had to ask them if they received my resume. My friends got little tests and replies. Me? Nothing. I think OSI just hates my ass. Well, I should be used to being hated. Half of the UOPG readers hate me anyway. Yeah, I know, "wah". I will just keep giving them my 20 bucks, run one of the best websites for UO there is and forget about the dumbshit. end vent; Hasta. ^ top-Fear and Mianoumi Interview Adam Ant. [Nieves] June 26 - 8:23 AM EDT Here is Fear's. Here is Mianoumi's. Hasta. ^ top-Those mistaken bastards. [Eric] June 25 - 8:22 PM EDT Don't you love OSI? Wait, that was stupid of me to ask...of course you don't - or at least I don't. Why, you ask? Well, I could give you a million reasons, but I have a specific one in mind. This morning, I was minding my own business in my house working cartography (75 skill now...it's a bitch to raise). You see: Lord Eric [squelched] There were walls all around me, it was dark, and it hadn't been a long time before I finally realized I was in UO jail. GM XXXX appears after about 2 minutes of my waiting. (I don't remember his name, so he'll be GM XXXX). GM XXXX: Greetings. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to ask you a few questions. I have a few for you as well... Lord Eric: Sure, go ahead. GM XXXX: Have you done any trades recently? Lord Eric: I do trades all the time, sir. GM XXXX: Have you sold any masks of orcish kin? Lord Eric: Who hasn't? It's a very common item to buy and sell at this moment, sir. I figured if I was in some kind of trouble with OSI I might as well be polite. GM XXXX: Have you sold a glacial staff as well? Lord Eric: No sir. GM XXXX: Thank you for your time. Lord Eric: Am I in some kind of trouble? What's this about? GM XXXX: I'm not quite sure at this time. And the issue right now is a scam that is in question. Lord Eric: I assure you I would never commit such an act, sir. GM XXXX: Thank you for your time and cooperation. You will be teleported back to your previous location in one moment. ***POOF*** To clear things up, I have never scammed anyone. I've killed, I've stolen, and I've had my share of trash talking, but have never scammed anyone. Why was I in jail?? Apparently they are accusing me of scamming someone. As for the mask of orcish kin, I sold that to a good friend, and I assure you that there was no scamming involved. Oh well...those jackasses over at OSI better not suspend/ban me for something I didn't commit. All I can do now is move vet. rewards to #2 on my list, and pray for this right now. Speaking of veteran rewards... It's been delayed just a bit. We think it should still be in before the end of the month. However we want to be sure to get it right as opposed to trying to make an end of the month "deadline". There isn't really a deadline, because if it goes in on July 1 then it's still the same patch and the players will still get all the benefits from it. It's a rather large publish, too. -Melantus Tyrant then added: Not tomorrow folks, but they hope very soon. :( You don't want it until it's ready. I guess it's best that we wait. No sense in them releasing it when it's unfinished and all bugged up. Cya later...and don't let the GM's bite. ^ top-From Cynthe [Nieves] June 25 - 7:19 PM EDT There have been several threads here relating a possible housing bug, in which houses that have been refreshed have fallen, decayed or switched owners somehow. We have been unable to identify or repeat this, but it's important to see that all possible issues like these are investigated. If this has happened to you, PLEASE send your information to bugs@uo.com. This mailbox is read by our QA members, who make sure that each issue received is put into the bug database. The more information they receive on a particular bug, the more likely they are to be able to pinpoint the validity or the cause. If this has happened to you, on one of your own accounts, please send the relevant information to bugs@uo.com, including your name, account id (we will not ask for your password), the shard you play on, the facet and coordinates where your house was located, type of house, character name, and any relevant information such as whether or not it was a public or private home, whether or not it contained a guildstone, and any other info that you feel might aid us in the investigation. Please do not mail us to relay the story of this happening to a friend, or a friend of a friend... we need first hand information to determine how to address it. There you have it. More housing bugs. Thanks for the exploits fa...er...jerks! Yeah, that's the ticket. Also, the Senior and Arch-Companions got canned. Like we didn't know that would happen. Sucks really. They did great work. Sometimes they knew more than the Counselors. Quick heads up. Careful when going to the White Crow link I posted last night. In some of his sections, you will hit a pr0n page. Unfortunately, it saves that page as your home page. All well and good for you perverts out there. But for me to fire up my browser and have to hit the monitor button A.S.A.P. because I didn't want my daughter seeing a girl on her knees doing something to some guy wasn't a good thing. Hasta. ^ top-My experience with the new orcs.... [Sinister_Saint] June 25 - 2:20 PM EDT Well I logged on to UO for my third hour in about 2 months, and I decided to give the new orcs a shot. I wanted to take my warrior out but my stats are pretty screwed up(87str/67int/etc...) at the moment due to my desire to add magery to my template, so instead I grabbed my tamer. After all my tamer is the only character that I have at the moment that isn't undergoing much needed surgery. So I logged in my tamer and grabbed my mare out of the stable and headed to deluccia. What a sight. There were corpses everywhere. I immediately set myself to making deluccia safe for all. Actually I just wanted to test the new orcs and see what was up with the loot. I killed 10 orc mages, 10 orc scouts, 10 orc choppers, 10 orc lords, and 10 orc bombers. I didn't get any masks, I didn't get single bow, I got 1 magic hatchet (silver of ruin), but I did get 6 bola balls for my effort. Over all, I would have to say that the orc bomber seemed like the most difficult. It was the only one that could really damage my mare. The orc scouts were fun to fight and posed little to no difficulty since I was able to reveal them. When I was done checking out the orcs I took my new found bola balls home and had my GM tinker make me a bola. I don't know how effective it is but I must say that it makes an excellent decoration next to my forge. For those of you that haven't fought the new orcs, the orc choppers pack a hefty punch but it is the bombers and their molotav cocktails that you have to look out for. They have a great arm. (I had a bomb follow me for 2-3 screens) Also for those of you that care, I got sick of losing conn with my free Bluelight.com service, so I broke down and bought Netzero premium for 10 bucks a month and I love it. I stayed connected for the entire time and I only lost conn because my PC crashed. Netzero sure as hell has AOHell beat and its cheaper than most other services. The best thing about buying a service is that I no longer have that stupid banner taking up a quarter of my screen. :D -Peace ^ top-If anyone cares.... [Nieves] June 25 - 1:04 PM EDT What Roxanne and Hammer did this weekend to the left. Also, go give Lum some love. He's feeling some heat. Hasta. ^ top-Monday? Maybe not. [Eric] June 25 - 10:57 AM EDT Here Nieves: While the publish was scheduled for Monday, it's possible some last minute fixes may make it a bit later than that... not sure yet. But it's coming out as soon as it's ready, and it's a major priority to get it out asap. :) Cynthe There you have it. We all knew that it wouldn't come out on its scheduled time, right? Come on, you guys should know OSI by now. Cya later. ^ top-Someone Confirm This Please. [Nieves] June 25 - 9:51 AM EDT From Email:this is from ianstorm.com Vet Rewards Patch in on Monday 8:18 PM - Posted By NewtonD From Evocare at the Ultima Online Disney Luncheon which was held today: The next major Patch, with veteran rewards, faction fixes, and other general fixes is slated to go in this Monday on at least one undisclosed shard. I attended the luncheon, and more information from the Ultima Online Disney Luncheon will come tomorrow. Anyone? Anyone? Hasta. ^ top-I guess he doesn't hate me that much... [Nieves] June 24 - 10:49 PM EDT Say hi to him for me. Hasta. ^ top-OSI snuck one in on us. [Nieves] June 23 - 7:55 PM EDT Any runes marked within the guard protection boundaries of Moongates are now blocked. This is true for the Great Lakes shard and I am sure it's true of the other shards. If anyone finds out different please feel free to email me about it. Off to kill some folks... Hasta. ^ top-House Deco for the 4 year vets. [Nieves] June 22 - 5:30 PM EDT Check it out. Thanks Nissa. Hasta. ^ top-Just an update on blues in strongholds [Sinister_Saint] June 22 - 3:16 PM EDT "Blue"Players Stuck In The Minax Stronghold Jun 22 2001 2:48PM CST Blue players within the Minax stronghold will be able to become “unstuck” from that location. Some blue players may have possibly logged out inside that stronghold before certain recent changes were put in to restrict blue player entry. This has caused some blue players to become stuck within the location. ^ top-Oooh...4th year vet. rewards. [Eric] June 22 - 12:54 AM EDT The following 4th Year Veteran Rewards were added to "In Concept": Dyeable Spellbook (a special spellbook that comes completely filled with all 64 spells): Only players whose accounts are 4 years old or older will be able to equip it. It can be dyed using the Leather Dye Tub. House Decoration Kits (bags containing eight decorative items suitable for use in player-owned houses): These will be deed-style add-ons. Some will consist of multiple pieces, and they cannot be manipulated using the Interior Decorator’s Toolkit. Others will be single-tile pieces and can be flipped and floated using the Interior Decorator’s Toolkit. There will be three themed sets to choose from: Day of the Dead - this set will include Halloween-themed decorations, including a skeleton in a coffin, a pool of fake blood, spiderwebs, skull candles, and scattered hay Gardener’s Delight - this set consists of several plants and cacti (some potted, some not) and a decorative rock Tavernkeeper Set - this set includes a large fishing net, suitible as a wall hanging. Additional treasures include dyeable wall-mountable shields, a saddle on a saddlehorse, a large ship’s anchor, and a bar complete with openable half-door Magic Hat Intended for emergencies, the user can pull out desperately needed supplies, like a recall scroll, a small number of bandages, a few arrows or bolts, an orange, yellow, or black potion, a few magic reagents, an apple, or even a cute fluffy white bunny rabbit. This stylish treasure can be used once per day. :::drools::: Enjoy. ^ top-Well this kind of sucks. [Nieves] June 21 - 12:03 PM EDT I wanted to give everyone a heads up about this. We've changed the bola to not work against Ethereal mounts as we have gotten a few reports of them going wild because of the bola. After looking into it further, this is not actually the bola, it's the same bug that we are fixing for the next major publish. We're erring on the side of caution on this one. The change to the bola is temporary and as soon as the bug is fixed, we'll change the bola back. -Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna Designer, Ongoing Content Not like most of the best PvPers are the 3+ year vets anyway. Hasta. ^ top-First Anime review... [Epyon] June 21 - 11:27 AM EDT Neon Genesis Evangelion is now available to the right --> ^ top-a few tidbits... [Sinister_Saint] June 21 - 8:20 AM EDT Just a few tidbits that might interest people regarding the new spawns. FieryIce on UO3D Titles In response to a query about UO3D titles on UO Boards : Will the title system ever be fixed?? So long ago Mel said that there were some key parts missing to it, will those parts ever get fixed or put in?? FieryIce inidcated HERE The rest of the system will be published with the next major server publish. Expect some cool surprises. And with these cool surprise I highly recommend going to the spawn areas in groups. :) More recently, FieryIce added on UO Boards HERE The rest of the system will be going in with the next major server publish. Hopefully it will be before the end of June, but I do not know for sure. And here is your teaser: Evil will grow in size and power if left alone, Evil will shrink and weaken if properly opposed, Champions of Evil will awaken if their minions are overwhelmed... Also worth noting is the debate over 4 year rewards. There is no word yet as to the nature of what 4 year rewards are going to be, but apparently people are causing a ruckus over having already picked their 4 rewards. There have been questions asked about trading in old vet rewards for the new 4 year awards, but once again, that would open up rewards to exploitation. What could OSI possibly make that can beat an ethereal horse to give to 4 year vets? If you want to check out the whole article, then jump over to Stratics. There are also links in the stratics page to the original thread discussing vet rewards. ^ top-A quick warning... [Eric] June 21 - 1:15 AM EDT Just to let you know, stealing from orcs while wearing the mask of orcish kin will cause the mask to disappear. On a more personal note, I lost my mask when trying to provoke two orcs. Apparently, the mask goes away if any offensive/negative action is taken on the orcs (yes, I know, I was stupid to even try). Fuck it's actual use - they make good house decorations. Goodnight. ^ top-o000oo 00oo00oo!!! [Nieves] June 20 - 12:31 PM EDT As anyone that was online last night knows, the shards went whacky and died. And alot of people died. Especially those guys in Deceit. ::holds up a Silver Scimitar of Power:: Gee, for me? Thanks. When I took a stroll through Deceit, a couple of ghosts were floating around having a conversation (I assumed they were because they kept oo0o00oo-ing all around me). And a thought struck me. Why were they still there? Were they waiting for someone to come rescue them? Hmm, if they got rescued, the rescuer sure would've done a noble thing. But, we know how UO Players can be. ::heaves a bag of gold over his shoulder:: Now, on Monday, I was minding my own business and a lich lord decided to kill my Assassin (BOO!! BAD FORM!). And looted a bag of mine (WAH!). Of course, the people there killed the lord and took off with my bag of weapons and gold (thanks...). I sent an all call on my ICQ and 1/2 my guild showed up (YAY TEAM!). Not everyone can get that lucky. (DAMMIT! NOT THE SPEAR OF POWER!) If you die, and don't get a reply within 30 seconds about an impending rescue, open up the paperdoll, hit the help button and use the stuck option (you can only do this like 2 times a day so use it sparingly). I recommend Delucia as the healers are REALLY close to where ever you "recall" into that town. Note: Watch out for lingering Orc Scouts and his kin. They like killing newly resed characters. Once that's done, grab that emergency back pack you keep in the bank and hit the recall scroll you have in your FULLY charged runebook and get back to where you died and can loot your stuff. I hope that helps. You will have to excuse me. I have to make a bank deposit and try on this Fortification Armor set and Invulnerable shield I ... acquired. Yeah, that's the ticket. Acquired. Hasta. ^ top-New information on the bola.. [Sinister_Saint] June 20 - 9:23 AM EDT I was over checking out the latest on stratics and ran across this info. Enjoy. New Craftable Item: Bola The Bola, a new craftable weapon, has debuted on Oceania and will becoming to all shards very soon. Here's our own Stratics researcher Feenick's report on it: Bola balls have appeared as loot on Orc Bombers. Balls on Bombers are rather common, around a 50/50% chance of getting a ball or not. They are only appearing as loot on bombers. First bomber - had ball 2nd bomber - had ball 3rd bomber - no ball 4th bomber - no ball 5th bomber - had ball 6th bomber - no ball 7th bomber - had ball Here are a few of the pics they had, check em out. or if you are to lazy you could just hop over and see the original article here: http://uo.stratics.com/news/QuestandEventNewsFrames.shtml Pics: http://uo.stratics.com/secrets/archive/orcbolaball.jpg http://uo.stratics.com/secrets/archive/orcbolaballhowto.jpg http://uo.stratics.com/secrets/archive/orcbolaballmade.jpg http://uo.stratics.com/secrets/archive/orcbolaballuse.jpg http://uo.stratics.com/secrets/archive/orcbolaballmade2.jpg 4 balls and leather and a tinker (under 90 skill) can make a bola. Tinkering skill was only 87 or so and I made the bola on the first try. When I tried to use it I got a targetting cursor, but I had to dismount my horse and unequip my spellbook before I could do so. I have not yet tried it on anyone, but in theory the weapon will be used to unmount a mounted opponent. - Feenicks Thankye, Feenicks, for this news. ^ top-Because I'm in a copy & paste mood... [Eric] June 19 - 10:58 PM EDT I thought this from Hanse (UO Live Designer was interesting, but probably also expected: Yes, there are many more items than what is posted in General Testing. We have not announced all of them. If there are items that are holding the publish back that are not critical, then they may be pulled from the publish. We do not want to raise expectations. Also, there are some items that are purposely not being announced as they are discovery items. :) -Hanse UO Live Designer Get ready for another quest/scenario, because that's what this is beginning to look like. On a side note, I'll quit my mad copy and pasting for the night. It's very tiring. Goodnight. ^ top-Buggy Steeds [Eric] June 19 - 10:42 PM EDT Posted by Vex, from OSI: In order to facilitate testing a possible bug with the ethereal steeds, I have set up special objects on the Test Rewards 1 shard. These items are ankhs, located near the southeast corner of the West Britain Bank on both facets of that shard. When you double-click the ankh, you will receive an ethereal steed (random type). This item doesn't count as a Vet Reward choice and can be used by anyone, regardless of account age. Please feel free to log onto Test Rewards 1 and play around with an ethereal steed. Use this thread to report any strange behavior you find. We are also logging them, and to gain as much information in these logs as quickly as possible, we need to have a lot of people using them. I'm going to consider this a definite good thing that OSI is doing. First of all, if you're a newbie or someone no where near 3 years of age (account wise), here's your chance to ride the l33t ethereal steeds. This will also hopefully fix whatever bug is affiliated with the ethereal steeds. Many times in the past, OSI has released things into the game without working out the bugs (I won't even bother to give you an example), so this will be one less item that exploiters will exploit. I don't even know exactly what the bug is or if it's harmful, but I'm glad OSI is taking the time to work it out. This also means they are probably very close to releasing veteran rewards, so jump on the Test Rewards shard and test these out. UPDATE: I just realized that Vex also posted what he's looking for while testing the ethereal steeds... Specifically, I'm looking for unexpected dismounts and instances where the character dismounts but the steed doesn't vanish. Of particular concern are instances where a character is dismounted but doesn't get the statue back. So far, the only instances of "unexpected dismounting" I've found in the logs have been due to use of the polymorph spell. There is no problem with that, and the dismount is being handled properly -- it's just that the logging code thought it to be an unexpected dismount. We have published some changes to Test Rewards that prevent the ethereal steeds from being targeted in the fraction of a second during dismount. We've also prevented the steeds from being targeted by players as well. Cya later. ^ top-Ok, I thought I would have work to do this week. [Nieves] June 19 - 3:21 PM EDT Someone asks: "Which creatures carry Silver/Vanq Weapons? " I just had to tell him (yes, he would be better off Fishing MiBs and doing chests, but he asked about monsters so I talked about that): Monsters that carry magic items Balrons have a magic weapon everytime. Harrowers, Executioners, Nobles, Spectral Armor, Ancient Lich, Elder Gazors, Titans Lich Lords, Liches, Ophidian Matriarchs, Ophidian Zealots, Terathan Avengers and Matriarchs, Ogre Lords, Rat Magi, Blood Elementals, Poison Elementals, Demons, Shadow Wyrms, Ancient Wyrms, Dragons usually have magic items. Fighting Balrons: Run. Found in Hythloth lower levels and Lower Level of Terathan Dungeon. Ancient Wyrms: Pray. Found in Lower Levels of Destard Harrower: What? Are you nuts? (seriousely, you just have to find the right spot and Chain iIghtning/Meteor Storm it to death). Found in Khaldun, Felucca Facet. Spectral Armor: Mages best way to kill them with. Found in Khaldun, Felucca Facet. Exectioner: Paralyze it, and blade spirit it to death (less mana than an energy vortex). DO NOT MELEE IT IF YOU WANT TO LIVE. Found in Wrong 2. Nobles: Expect his party of 4 to come and kick your booty. As soon as you attack him, put on an invisible item and then provoke them on each other. Be prepared for the karma loss. Fighting Elder Gazors: If a Tamer, use a Dragon. If a bard, have everything beat it till it's dead. If a mage, Meteor Storm it through a wall. If a Fighter, bring friends. Found in Covetous 2 and Shame 2-3 (I forget). Titans: Warrior-High resist, good weapon (macer's can use a good quarter staff), and potions. He packs a punch...and that's before he flamestrikes you to death. Dragons can deal with them easy enough. Provoking everything on them works, too. Found in Titan Beach, Papua Desert, Ilshenar, and Wrong 3. Fighting Lich Lords: High level Silver weapons, high resist, decent armor. I prefer going without a shield so I can use potions. But, if on with my jacker or macer (he uses a silver vanq warhammer), I run through them or hit and run avoiding their cane hits. Found in Fire Dungeon (watch for lingering demons and hellhounds) and Level 4 Deceit (watch out for silver serpents and the occassional lurer). His resist is insane. He's not even worth fighting with a mage. Dragons work though. Liches: Low-Medium level silver weapon, decent resist (65+), decent armor. Ditto on my fighting style with these. Found in 19 different locations throughout the lands. I will let you find them. Oh, those 19 locations are just in Trammel. There are 19 more in Felucca. Ophidian Matriarchs: Lots of Resist, good weapon and good armor. Ditto on my fighting style with liches. If a mage, blow her up and keep her off of you. She hits hard and fast. Bringing a friend helps. Found in groups with 20-30 ophidians in The Gauntlet (road north of Terathan Fort), lower levels of Terathan Fort and in the Papua Desert/Ophidian Lair. Ophidian Zealot: And you thought Silver Serpents were fast. Dont' be surprised if you see them on the other side of a mountain and 2 minutes later, he's on you. If a warrior, hope you have lots of resist, and keep healing. If a solo mage, sorry. Papua healers is a hell of a walk. Use the stuck option to get resed. Realize, you can only do this 2-3 times a day before GMs get unhappy. Found in same spots as the Matriarch. Terathan Avengers: Find a safe spot and let it mana dump and stay healed. High Resist helps. Blade it to death or provoke it on other Avengers. Do NOT let it touch you. Lethal Poison+Avenger Hit+Flamestrike=Deathmoan. If you bring a Dragon, be prepared to tame another 2 minutes later. Found in front of Terathan Fort and inside of it. Terathan Matriarch: FIght it like the Ophidian version. Found in same places as the Avengers. Ogre Lord: Paralyze+Bladespirits(at least 2)+Invisible spell. If you are a warrior meleeing it, let me know and I will be sure to keep your weapons for you when you get resed. Rat Magi:Decent resist, GM weapon and just beat him to death. Found in Ice Dungeon and Ilshenar. Watch for lingering spawn. Especially in Ice. Note: You get lesser magic stuff from Rat Magi Blood Elementals: Meleers bring friends. If you got low resist, don't be mad if you die. Dragons work against them. Mages can work in teams to kill them but best done when you have GM eval/magery to avoid wasting regs. Found in Lowest Level of Shame. Poison Elementals:Can be done with meleers, but you will die every once in a while. Mage can kill one with patience and [staying] mobile. Dragons work but keep them cured or be prepared to get a new pet. Found in Shame and Deceit 3. Demons: Same as Lich Lords. Found in Hythloth, Fire Island Temple, and the Fire Dungeon. Shadow Wyrms: Provoke everything you can on them. Or use 2 of your own dragons. This guy is tough. Melee? Can I have your loot first? Found in Destard (I am told this is the best monster for magic items right now; you just got to survive the Dragons, Wyverns, and Drakes running around...oh, and the other Shadow Wyrm). Dragons: Melee at your own risk, but can be done (I have a friend that is Fencer-GM Poisoner and hunts them solo). Mages can bring them down pretty fast. Of course, you can bring a Dragon of your own. How FUN!? Bleh. Found in Destard and Fire Temple. I hope that helps. Hasta. ---------------------------- UOPowergamers I see stupid people. They are everywhere. They don't know they are stupid. They just walk around like everyone else. You know that feeling when the hairs stand up on the back of your neck? That's them. Take a guess why I use Watt's quote? Note: Yes there are other ways to fight these monsters and Balrons and Ancient Liches, and Ancient Wyrms can be killed, but I was hoping to keep these "newer" players from getting a surprise...of course, to you and me, that would be funny. But we can't let them have that impression of me now can we? Hasta. ^ top-I want GM Magery, but dangit, I don't want to drop that skill! [Nieves] June 19 - 2:40 PM EDT So you got a kick butt Warrior and are starting to feel what it's like not to have GM magery and really want it, but don't want to drop your already GMed skills? Know what? Just do it. Let me tell you a story. Ms. Roxy had these skills: GM Parrying, Fencing, Tactics, Archery, 90ish Anatomy, 85ish healing, 65ish resist and the rest of her points in Magery. I would win some fights, and lose alot more. I started saying these things to myself: "if I only had GM Magery, I could gate my loot out of here or get in a 50 point heal", "if I could poison, I wouldn't be looking for a Deadly Poisoned Kryss all the time", "well what the heck do I have archery for if I am not going to use it???" I didn't want to drop skills I worked to GM. And I knew GM magery was a long road. Plus, I realized having poisoning would give Ms. Roxy an advantage against other dexers in Combat and maybe keep Mages "honest"... What do I do!?? Oh heck with it, I want GM magery and having Poisoning would probably be cool. JUST DO IT! I worked her intelligence back up to 100 and got on a boat and started my run to GM magery. I pointed Archery and Parrying down and pointed Meditation up. After a month of doing this (hey, I am slow; hush!), I got that WONDERFUL message: "you have gained .1 in Magery, your skill is now 100.0". And I left that character alone for a week. I needed to keep my sanity. My baby had REALLY bad stats at this point. 49 strength, 100 intelligence and the rest in dexterity. Talk about sad. After my break, I picked up Poisoning. I had run out of skill points in the process and had to make room. I dropped Tactics because I knew it was the easiest skill to work back to GM. After working for 2 solid weeks, I got to 83 Poisoning and was going insane. "Use skill, target poison, target fishsteak number 1000" will make anyone crazy! Even with UOAssist, sitting there hitting a macro over and over and dragging fishsteaks to and fro is not an exciting thing to do. I fixed her stats, GMed her tactics on a Bone Knight (after going down to the low 80s), worked her Resist up over 80, GMed her Anatomy and got healing up over 90. I have been having fun every since. If you read the story at the left and my essay written on the same night, you will see how much fun I have been having. My point? I made sacrifices in the short run to make a better character in the long run. I chose to drop skills I didn't need and to lower skills that would be easy to Grandmaster later. Good luck. Hasta. ^ top-Where are the news reporters? [Nieves] June 19 - 12:41 PM EDT Calandryll provided some information about 4 year awards: Remember, we added about 2 months to everyone's account age. Technically, nobody could possibly actually have a four year old account until the end of September, since that is when UO shipped (Sept. '97) :) The team is working on designs for the fourth year rewards though. -Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna Designer, Ongoing Content. Also:As reported this morning by Ianstorm.com, Stratics has confirmed that three long time OSI employees will soon be leaving and heading to other pastures. They include Jack "Kal El" Wood, Mike "Scorch" Zupan and Matt "TRasa" Gutierrez. We here at Stratics wish them luck in their future endeavors! This is significant, because I believe Anon worked for Scorch back when Anon was still a counselor. Hasta. ^ top-AOL sucks.... [Sinister_Saint] June 19 - 11:07 AM EDT I have recently run into a little bit of a dilemma. I use the LAN at college during the school year (seeing as how T3 lans are pretty sweet, when people aren't using Napster anyways) and when I need to get on the modem, I use free internet services. I am currently using BlueLight.com and Netzero and apparently they are only "free" for a little while. I have recently started getting messages that my "free" service is almost up and that I have to start paying. Hmmm, me thinks bullshit. So I was out shopping at Target yesterday and they had free AOL cds at the register. I really truly hate AOL, but shit, if you wanna give me 700 free hours then I guess I could lower my standards for the summer. So a grab a CD and head home to give it a whirl. Well to begin with, it took about 45 minutes to set it up. I popped it in and let it do its work. Well when it finally finished I had to go through the registration and membership and then I hit it... please enter your credit card number for billing purposes. HELL NO. What part of free did they missinterpret? So after sitting around for almost an hour I ejected the CD and promptly shattered it into about a dozen pieces. (In hindsight I would have refrained from doing this seeing as how the shards of the CD could have easily taken my eye out...) I then spent the next hour fixing everything the AOL installer did to my PC. It changed all of my settings and configurations, it changes my drivers, and most importantly it changed my homepage from UOPG to AOL.com. By the time I finished screwing with AOL, I had just about 10 minutes to actually play UO before I headed off to bed. The bright side of it all is that I managed to log in and buy a brand new villa. If you are ever on Chessy go down to the Vesper Beach south of the ironwood inn and you will see my villa. I offered 6 mil for it because I liked it soooo much. I have wanted that house since trammel opened up. (Yes, I do live in trammel, if you don't like that then thats just tooooo bad.)For those of you that care, as soon as the secure and locked container bug is fixed I will be making my rune library open to the public featuring: all t-map locations, all mining location, all creature spawns for each dungeon and tons of other great runes. In conclusion, AOL sucks and I highly recommend throwing your PC out the window as opposed to loading AOL on it. Beleive me, you will be doing yourself a favor. Peace ^ top-Don't fuck with a UOPG updater. [Eric] June 19 - 12:24 AM EDT Yesterday afternoon, I put my dragon statue up on Tradespot.net. If you didn't know, Tradespot is a very popular place to buy/sell/trade items on UO. Anyways, I was looking for maybe 1 mil at the most for this statue, which would have satisfied me. Moments after I added it to Tradespot, I received an ICQ message from a guy saying that he’ll pay 1.3 mil for it. Too good to be true? I thought maybe it was, but then again, there are some crazy rare collectors out there who will pay outrageous prices for simple things. The strange thing was, he said (these are exact quotes) “id like to buy the drag statue may i see and hear it?” See and hear it? Hmm...I figured if he owns over a million gold, he would at least know what a dragon looks like and sounds like. Who knows, maybe he was one of those eBay UO players. (You know, those who buy their accounts and gold off eBay, and no nothing about the game itself.) So, I ICQ the guy and tell him I’d be glad to sell the statue for 1.3 mil. What did I have to lose? He messages me back saying. “I need to hear it. So what town you meet then so we go look at it?” Just to make sure he wouldn’t be able to do anything, I first removed the statue from the bank and locked it down in my house. After, I met him at Britain West bank in Felucca (facet where my houses are) and gated him to my house. We go inside my large marble, and sees and hears the statue. Satisfied? “Yes, this is good. I have to log on all my other characters first to collect all their gold together so that I’ll be able to buy it. Give me 30 minutes.” Fine, I’ll wait, no big deal. Then, he tells me there is a tower falling in trammel that he’s going to go to for a little while before he comes back to buy this statue from me. When he left my marble, he didn’t recall out, but asked me where the closest town was, so he could run to it. Hmm? I offered to gate him to town, but he replied with, “No thanks, I prefer to walk.” At the time, I didn’t think anything of it and just said “Fine,” but it was apparent that he must’ve been planning something. Once I saw he was gone, I released the statue and put it back in the bank, since that would be where this transaction would take place. About 30 minutes later, the guy messages me back telling me that there is something else concerning him. “I hear there is a bug preventing the statue from turning on and off, and I have to make sure this turns on and off.” What the fuck are you trying to pull here? “Seriously, just let me see it and hear it once more while you turn it on and off.” Whatever. He told me he was waiting in Britain West bank for me to gate him back to my house to see it once more. Now, in order for him to see and hear it again, I would have to go back to the bank, grab the statue, back to the house to lock it down, and then back to the bank to pick him up (to gate him there.) Being the intelligent being that I am, I first go to my house.. I use detect hidden, and guess who is there? The fucking idiot who told me he was waiting at the bank. Sorry pal, I don’t deal with people who try to fuck me over. “What the hell are you trying to pull buddy?” I bet he felt like a moron, because I was a step ahead of him. He said to me, “Fine, let’s just go to the bank and finish the deal then.” I knew he couldn’t pull anything there, so I opened the gate. At this point, you’re probably thinking, “Eric, what the hell is wrong with you? Don’t you realize he’s trying to scam you??” Yes, I know. I wanted to see how far he could drag this thing out. As I opened the gate, he attacked me. PKing me in my own home? I don’t think so. Quickly, I ban him, and proceed outside to whoop his ass. Let’s put it this way. I was a mage and he was an axer. His first hit on me cut my mana in half, and this surely didn’t help me. Not to mention I was now at half health. I drank down a GH and and ran a little, but lag got me….and so did he. I’ll admit it…I SUCK at mage PvP. I’ll be the first to admit that. Lucky for me, and unlucky for him, I’m good with a warrior in PvP. I quickly logged on my axer (it’s on another account, so I didn’t need to log off my mage inside the house or anything) and went after him. *BAM* He was 1/3 health down. Not long after this, I realized he owned the log cabin right above my marble. Some fucking luck I had. Not caring, I chased him inside his house. “I ban the” Sorry buddy, wrong command. BAM, BAM…*death moan* He was seeing gray, and I began looting his corpse. I got all of my stuff back as well as 100+ of each reg from his pouch. I’m a kind guy, so I ICQed him and thanked him for his regs. Well, I followed that with, “Never fuck with me.” You don’t think I could post a long story without some kind of lessons, do you? These are them: 1. Don’t mess with a UOPG updater. We will own you…or at least Nieves will. 2. Most importantly, watch for signs of scamming. You noticed in my story that there were clear signs the scammer was up to something unusual. Watch for signs like these, and think before you do anything when in a deal like this. By the way, the scammer’s name was Bubba, of the ELV guild on the Great Lakes shard. If you know who he is, watch out. If you’re is friend, don’t be. I’m pretty sure most of his guild scams others, so watch out for that as well. It’s late, I’m off to bed. (NOTE: You’ll notice this story is in the Stories section as well, so that it can be read for a longer period of time.) ^ top-News corrected. [Nieves] June 18 - 8:37 PM EDT Actually, we’re moving the looting fix over to testing for next update. We don’t generally move stuff over to that section until they are 100% confirmed for a publish. If we moved all of that stuff to Next Update now, it would have caused confusion as, technically, the next update is the scenario publish, which of the things listed there, only has the looting fix. The looting fix should be moved over to next update today. And, what you have all been waiting for: We've stated that the next major publish is targeted sometime before the end of June, assuming it passes QA by that point, and it should contain veteran rewards. […] Cynthe Origin Systems Hmmm...Lich Statue, Dragon Statue, and Furniture Dye Tub Please. Oh, and yes, I want fries with that. Hasta. ^ top-Midday news. [Nieves] June 18 - 2:46 PM EDT Hit Points One of the concerns I've heard over the new hit point formula surrounds the potential "nerf" of buff/debuff spells and effects. In order to ensure that those spells/effects related to strength (weaken, strength, curse, etc... ) aren't made less useful by the hit point calculation formula currently in concept ( HP = (str+100)/2 ), the buff/debuff effects will also directly modify the target's maximum hit points. Therefore, imagine we had a target named "Fey" with 50 strength. Under the new formula, Fey's maximum hit points would be 75. If an object (monster or player) with 100 magery skill were to cast a weaken spell on Fey, his strength would be modified to 39 (-11) and his maximum hit points would be modified to 64 (-11). If Fey were to gain 1 point of strength while under this effect, his natural strength value would be 51, his natural maximum hit points would be 75 (the formula rounds down), his modified strength (from the weaken spell) would be 40, and his modified maximum hit points would be 64. Looting Rights Not sure about the major publish, but looting rights fix will actually be going in with this weeks scenario publish. -Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna Designer, Ongoing Content Hasta. ^ top-Posting made easier [Sinister_Saint] June 18 - 1:18 PM EDT Over the past 2 weeks there have been a few questions regarding how to post pics in your sig as well as other issues related to HTML and UBB usage. For those of you that aren't familiar with all of the posting options here is a little tip. On the little toolbar above the box where you type your post, you will find a button with a cursor arrow and a question mark. If you press that button, a page is displayed that should answer some of your questions. For instance, it shows you how to apply HTML and UBB code for making links to web pages and how to post a pic. If you haven't clicked that button before, then be sure to do so when you make your next post. Peace ^ top-Monday News [Ian] June 18 - 10:21 AM EDT Melantus is going the way of bye bye. This doesn't suprise me in the least. I've talked with him on a few occasions in the forums at Lums and the poor guy always had to be on the defensive. Most likely he'll go team up with Richard Garriot, and for those that are a little behind the curve, that makes RG the Phil Jackson of the MMOG Circa. He'll collectively hold what is arguably the most experienced, talented dev team one can have. The reason I'm excited is that whatever he does, it will be revolutionary as opposed to evolutionary which in the words of a wise man, is good. I've got to say exactly 0 has been going on lately. The amount of enjoyment I've had in the game of late is basically consistent with how much insight I get out of an icq conversation with Redrum. One thing I did is download the entire AO beta, for those that haven't done this, allow me to save you the trouble and tell you to just wait for the damn thing to be released on June 27th. Or unless you don't like being bent over and pimped like one of Supafreek's uglier hoes, pass on the game altogether. Every accounting I've gotten from the game so far has been negative. Thank God for ranting. I feel the pain of the people who constantly have to put up with the community in what Jinx refers to as, "our little corner of hell." I'm about to show you what could possibly be the funniest thing I've read over in Lum's forums. This was G. Bob responding to "Binky". >>>You know the worst thing about the community job is? You can't say things like "it's amazing that somebody with that much man-dick in his mouth is still able to say such stupid things". Instead all you can say is "I disagree with what you said". Hey Binky, I disagree with what you said. G. Bob Community Manager NetDevil<<< That is what is referred to as, funny. Ok that's enough mindless drivel for one Monday. Go to Azaroth's to continue your search for more of it. He's now pr0n free. The over/under on his site staying up this time is 3 weeks. Any takers? ^ top-I applied. [Nieves] June 18 - 10:14 AM EDT Wish me luck. Hasta. ^ top-Some info on Orc Bombers [Sinister_Saint] June 18 - 8:21 AM EDT There have been a lot of questions lately about the new orc choppers as well as the orc bombers. Here is some info gleaned from the stratics main page that might answer some of your questions. I went out and fought a few myself over the weekend. The bombers pack quite a punch but all of the other orcs were no problem. One thing that I noticed about the bombers was that even after I had run offscreen I was still being hit by bombs. For some reason the oil flask just wouldn't stop following me. I lost conn while in the midst of a group of Orc lords and died just as I logged back in. I almost made it out alive. Oh well. Just a note for the weaker warriors, you might want to steer clear of the bombers. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Orc Bombers Have Entered the Fray We have had numerous reports on the newest Orcs to join the battle, Orc Bombers. Here's what we know about them and several pictures: Orc Bombers are red hued orcs. They seem to be somewhere between normal orcs and orc mages in difficulty level. They throw bombs at you that do 20-30 pts of damage each. The bombs look like flaming oil flasks. The bombs also remove stamina from you when you are hit by them. Making it difficult for you to escape. There was an early bug in which the bombs were only causing big damage to unarmored players, this has now been fixed and they cause equal damage to all players, armoured or unarmoured. Orc bombers also appear to be provoking pets, with great success, onto their owners. Dragon tamers and Nightmare riders should beware. When killed, their corpses appear as a charred orc corpse. Their loot varies greatly. They have two piles of about 80-120 gold pieces. One pile in a backpack on their corpse. They sometimes have purple explosion potions on them. They sometimes carry mortar and pestles. They sometimes have piles of various regs(generally sulpherous ash, mandrake, black pearls) ranging between 3-10 each in the backpack. Some have also been found carrying iron ingots. Essentially everything they might need to make their bombs. They have not been found to be carrying any new 'special' items. Here are some pictures in both the regular and 3D client of the Orc Bomber, its bombs, and its corpse. Additionally there is one update for you all on the Orc Choppers as well as a picture of the Orc Choppers from the 3D client. If you are interested in the screen shots, just hop on over to the stratics main page and check em out under "Quest and event news." Low-mid level magic axes(silver ruin, force and accurate of power) are sometimes found on the Orc Choppers. This includes the War Axe which is a weapon that uses the macing skill, not swords. ^ top-PvP Nieves style [Nieves] June 17 - 11:53 PM EDT Well, if you look over to the left you will see a little story that I wrote about my day on Ultima Online today. The template I use with that character is straight out of the Character Creation section: "The Assassin". This template is absolutely amazing! I use the power of a Deadly Poisoned Kryss', a greater poison cast if I need it, along with a mindblast or two and a greater heal and guaranteed cure against opposing opponent's poison. Standard equipment for my Assassin is: 15 Greater Cures, 15 Greater Heals, roughly 10 Total Refreshes, 10 Deadly Poison Potions, a couple of night sights (better not to cast night sight while you are fighting right?), and roughly 5 greater agilities and 2-3 Greater Strengths (loot gets heavy). Standard attack pattern is to drop a Greater Poison with my magery and move in with a Kryss. Even against a mage, the kryss is enough to keep the mage from casting along with leaving you the ability to use potions as needed. I use a spear for runners and people with a better connection than I. When I cannot open with a standard attack, I go ahead and move in with a kryss and try to get a DP hit in and keep them on the run. If they stop to heal, I will either cast poison on them or hit them with a mindblast. If they take a chunk of damage with a mindblast, I will cast another mindblast, mana permitting. Otherwise, I will finish with a spear hit to keep them rooted and let the poison do it's work. You would be amazed at how many people are NOT ready for Deadly Poison. People just don't seem to carry enough greater cures these days. Or they don't use them (I looted Cure potions off both reds I got). Either that or my GM alchemist makes some very good Deadly Poison and their Greater Cures can't cure it. I can almost see the fear in their eyes and them saying "fuck" when the Deadly Poison hits them. It's so nice to see. The key to being a PvPer is to be Agressive and Confident (ok, the main thing is connection, but being agressive and confident is right after that). Do NOT let up. If you have to heal, you have potions, magery, and your healing skill. USE THEM. Set your macros early and make SURE they are working BEFORE you go anywhere. In UOASSIST, my macros are as follows: F1 Drink Greater Cure F2 Drink Greater Heal F3 Drink Total Refresh F5 Last Target F8 Heal self F9 Pop trapped pouch, cast magic trap, target pouch (as long as I have mana and regs, they can't stop me from retrapping my pouch). F12 Clean blade, wait 2 seconds, use poisoning skill, target blade. If you change weapons, it's a good idea to to reset your target blade part of F12. The reason I use the above keys is because I can keep my right hand on my mouse while popping my macros with my left. Most of my macros used to be on the number keypad and I wound up nearly dieing MANY times. Better to use both hands if you can. If fighting a mage, stay on him. Keep him poisoned and paralyzed (spear) if you can. If he's got a great con, use the spear to keep him honest and from getting away. Do not be afraid to run a tad, heal and get back into the fray. Stay on the offensive as much as possible. And if you can stay on the mage even IF you are healing up, he won't be able to cast (one would hope). Casting a quick harm spell will disrupt anything they might try to cast that takes more time than a poison spell. Don't be afraid to cast a poison on him to keep him from casting. Even if they cure, that's a second or two he's got to take to deal with that while you move in for the kill. If the mage paralyzes you, you have a couple of options. A) Drink a Greater Strength, start healing, and drink a Greater Heal (or hold the Greater Heal potion for when his first spell hits you). Cast Greater Heal once you get out of the paralyze and heal up. B) Pop your pouch and stay on them. Sometimes I will wait to see what the mage will do when I am paralyzed. If the I hear the mage meditating, I will pop my pouch and run up to him and keep them on the run. Also, remember, NOONE CAN disrupt you from casting a regular heal. At GM Magery that's up to 15 points of guaranteed hit points regained. And it'a quick spell to cast. Some people have that as a macro and I plan on setting it up the next time I get on with my assassin. The time it takes them to cast explosion+mindblast/poison/ebolt, you could've casted 4 regular heals. 15x4. Do the math. And you can be on them before they get another spell off. Dexers There are different ways I will fight dexers. Lumberjacker-Your biggest problem as they can effectively kill you in two hits. Keep your blade poisoned and keep them poisoned so they have to disarm often. If they disarm to cure, cast poison and poison him again (hopefully you are close enough for a Greater Poison hit). Keep him poisoned until he can't deal with it. Use a spear to keep him from running off. Parrier- Macer: Take the fight to him early and finish fast. You do NOT want an extended fight against a macer. Make him lose his shield to cure and keep him down with your Deadly Poison kryss. I haven't lost to a macer yet, and that's because I kept the macers on the defensive and finished the fight as quickly as I can. Sword/Fencer: Fight as you wish against them. Even with their parrying, all it takes is a successful poison hit and they are going to be on the defensive. I usually start by casting Greater Poison on them and making them lose the shield early. In the time they are curing and reequipping their shield I am moving in with a DP Kryss and popping Deadly Poison off in their ear. They make a nice gurgling sound when they die, too. If fighting against an opposing Poisoner, hope you DP first and keep them on the defensive. This fight could go either way and it's all based on the successful hits of Deadly Poison and Connection. First person to make a mistake WILL die. Time your healing if you are poisoned yourself. Even if Greater/Deadly Poisoned. If you are at around 10 seconds, drink a Gcure and let your bandage bring you back to full health. If it's against a mage and he's having trouble casting as you interrupt him, just let your healing cure you (unless you are Greater/Deadly poisoned, drink a pot then), and drink a greater heal ASAP to bring you up in health. Start a heal with a bandage again and keep at him. If against another poisoner, do not let youself stay poisoned if you can. Use a spear to get the paralyze hit in and keep the poisoner in place while you cure, heal, and get your weapon back in hand. In big fights, you might be at a disadvantage without parrying. Your best bet IMHO is to float in and out and poison who you can with your kryss and hope you can seperate a fighter or mage from the action and take them down quickly. I have yet to lose a 1 v 1 duel or fight with my Assassin and have duked it out in a 3 v 1 killing one and redlining the other two before I took a dirtnap myself. Oh, and I am coming on Napa Valley with the same type of character. Beware the Assassin with the Green Colored Kryss. I hope this helps some folks. Maybe Eric will get motivated and post the story he told me about :) Note: If you are paralyze with a spear, you CANNOT use a pouch to get out of the paralyzation. You are stuck for 4 seconds. Remember that. You can still heal/cure with potions and bandages though. Maybe that's why Healing/Anatomy mages do so well against fencers. You have no idea how many times I have seen someone hit a pouch and say: "wtf?" when they can't run. Comments/Questions/Concerns? Hasta. ^ top-Tomb Raider [Nieves] June 17 - 10:32 AM EDT I went and saw it with my kids yesterday. Anyone remember my mini review of The Mummy Returns? Remember how I said I didn't like it? The Mummy Returns was a better movie than Tomb Raider. What a waste of 32 dollars. At least my kids liked it. Oh, for those that like Toons, Atlantis was pretty cool. My kids liked that too. NOTE: The number of updates I do during the day will be less than the previous weeks (dammit). I am hearing that certain people at work don't particularly like me. No sense in giving them fuel to that fire eh? It's ok, I know the other updaters will take up the slack. Hasta. ^ top-UO's time to shine or to lay down to rest [Anon] June 16 - 4:55 PM EDT Hail to thee citizen of Britannia Charles Swidoll once wrote "The secret lies in how we handle today, not yesterday or tomorrow. Today...that special block of time holding the key that locks out yesterday's nightmares and unlocks tomorrow's dreams." UO is at a critical time. And understatement for sure, and we have all said this at some point or another over the last 3 years, but I think that we have truly reached critical mass, the point where the game will succeed or will slowly lie down for it's final rest. With the departure of Melantus, it has come painfully clear that UO has reached the above mentionned critical mass. Melantus, like him or not, was the final link between the players and OSI/EA. He "lied" to us about many things not through his own free will, but for corporate policy. Let's face it, ideals or not, the man has a family to feed....and you can only feed them with money. His decision to leave UO finally means that he has had enough and that it is time for him to go. Period. But where does that leave UO? There has been a complete turnover in key personel at UO for a few months now, and one must wonder how long this exodus will continue. Will this hemoraging wound be the fatal one for Ultima Online or will they staunch it in time? Was this fatal wound delivered long ago? We could debate that point for many hours to come and still not reach a consensus, but what we are all in agreement with is that Ultima Online will only survive if the next few months prove to be the best months it ever had. It will need a clear discourse from OSI/EA as to the direction the game is going, it will need to answer for all of it's blatant shortcomings (UO:TD comes to mind) and it will need to present us, the players, with a structured plan for revitalizing this sinking ship. Many of my friends are leaving or have left UO. Uncertantity over the future has been the main reason, and I find myself asking myself the same question: Do I ride it out or do I leave now and salvage whatever I can for almost 4 years of playing? This reminds me of yet another saying about time: "The difference between insanity and genius is measured only by time". Let's just hope I make the right decision. Fare thee well and good luck in thy travels ^ top-Word of warning [Eric] June 16 - 10:54 AM EDT Good morning... Just to warn any of you orc hunters out there, the new orcs (orc scout, chopper, bomber, etc.) are unaffected by the additional damage orc virtue weapons such as those of orc slaying, orc's bane, and any other virtue weapon suffix that would be applied to the damage of orcs. The orc bow (dark blue one) is supposed to do extra damage to orcs from what I've heard, but I have never tried it out nor heard confirmation from anyone if this is true and which orcs this actually works on. The fact that these orcish virtue weapons DO NOT work on the new orcs is completely irrelevent to the "orc quest" and is actually due to the fact that OSI failed to script these new orcs to work appropriately with the virtue weapons. Cynthe of OSI comments on this: That's actually an oversight on our part (much as I hate to admit it) and I'm not sure when we'll be able to correct it. I need to look at that code again. Well, at least they can admit when they screw up....some of us can't. ;) Just don't run out with your orcish virtue weapons thinking you can lay the smack down on these newer orcish beings. Personally, I don't know why you would bother anyway, since most of these orcs are fairly easy to kill. ::winks at the "twink" tamers:: Cya later. ^ top-Bye Melantus [Eric] June 16 - 1:37 AM EDT Here it is, straight from the man himself: I wanted to talk with the players for a bit, to let you know some information about a change here. I will be leaving my position as Community Coordinator here at Origin/EA to pursue opportunities elsewhere. I have enjoyed my time with Origin/EA, and the UO team has been like a family to me. A lot of really talented people work here, with the full intent of working hard to make UO even better for you – the player. Before the rumors start spreading about why I am leaving, let me just clear up a few things. I like working with this UO Live team, and I like my job. I have another opportunity, and that’s it. In no way should this be taken as a “sign of impending doom”, or anything else of the sort. Stellerex’s comments about the UO team being larger than ever before are definitely true, and there’s more momentum here now than there has been since I can remember. UO will continue to grow and improve, and there are some really good ideas being considered here. Calandryll’s Event Design team is moving in full force and has only just begun to really shine. More great things are coming from them in the future. Evocare is heading up the Design group, and is a very capable Lead Designer. Prophet is showing his talent and abilities in his Lead Programming position. Cynthe has been working to see that communication with the players remains a vital part of the service, and is stepping up as Community Manager. This is a good time for UO, because the future is bright. In this industry, people change jobs a lot. You have seen it this past year quite a bit. remember that the online MMORPG business is growing as well, and is bound to have growing pains along the way. The bottom line is: Does the team that supports your game, have a passion for what they do and are they committed to the product? Do they take player feedback, and make changes based on that feedback? I believe the UO team is does just that. TIt’s a good group, and it wasn’t an easy choice to make. Ultima Online – and this industry – will continue to grow, and the lessons I have learned here will always be with me. I will continue to be here for a couple of weeks to help transition this position. Melantus Online Community Coordinator Ultima Online Melantus@uo.com I'm not sure if this is good or bad, but I suppose we'll soon find out. Goodnight, because I'm very, very tired. ^ top-Hmm, they have time for barkeeps... [Sinister_Saint] June 15 - 2:59 PM EDT Final List of Barkeep Titles Gromm just posted the following on the official UO.com Discussion Board: Here it is, the final list of titles! Big big thanks to all of you who made suggestions, some of you will see yours in the list. We actually never planned on the list getting so big, but what the heck. Unfortunately I had to take "Coach" and "Norm" out to make room. Now remember, if the title you were really hoping for isn't on the list you can always use the "No title" option! 1. alchemist 2. animal tamer 3. apothecary 4. artist 5. baker 6. bard 7. barkeep 8. beggar9. blacksmith 10. bounty hunter 11. brigand 12.butler 13. carpenter 14. chef 15. commander 16. curator 17.drunkard 18. farmer 19. fisherman 20. gambler 21. gypsy 22. herald 23. herbalist 24. hermit 25. innkeeper 26. jailor 27. jester 28.librarian 29. mage 30. mercenary 31. merchant 32. messenger 33.miner 34. monk 35. noble 36. paladin 37. peasant 38. pirate 39. prisoner 40. prophet 41. ranger 42. sage 43. sailor 44. scholar 45. scribe 46. sentry 47. servant 48. shepherd 49. soothsayer 50.stoic 51. storyteller 52. tailor 53. thief 54. tinker 55. town crier 56. treasure hunter 57. waiter58. warrior 59. watchman 60. No Title Enjoy kids! So, I'm thinking about the vet awards and the fact that they have been kept from those of us that deserve them for quite some time, and yet somehow they have time to make barkeeps... I seriously hope that the barkeeps do more than just stand around and emote silly little messages or tell tall tales. Of course I can't picture myself buying a contract for a barkeep anyways. When asked if working on other projects is slowing down vet awards they say that there are several teams working different projects. That is all good and well, but what if they all collaborated and just finished one project before starting another??? In other news: FierYiCe about the titles you can gain in Ilshenar: How fast does new Heroes Title decay? I can't really go into specifics too much, but killing more difficult creatures will allow you to keep your title longer. The more you kill, the longer it will stay... -FierY iCe Programmer: Ultima Online Does this mean that Glorious Lord Expert Stoics that bladespirit Ogre lords will retain their titles longer than the 4XGM warrior that fights off hordes of ratmen? I think that I am done here. Peace ^ top-Evil has a name... [Nieves] June 15 - 1:18 PM EDT His name is Adam Ant. Title: Chronicle of Evil body: Hail dark friends, The evil of our lands are braggarts and enjoy nothing better then to tell grand tales of pillage and plunder. There is a place I know of, where the cutthroats and brigands tell their tales and boast of their adventures. There are many new tales that fill these archives, 225 to be exact. Ah, we Guardians have been very busy! Come read this Chronicle of Evil, but be discreet, for you would not want to draw the attention of this crowd! --Adam Ant Go give Adam Ant some love. And from email: Hi mate, Just reading yur monsta essays and I noticed for Titans is says: "These are only found scattered around T2A in the desert Northwest of Papua and across the "bay" from the desert on Titan Beach". Technically wrong, because they also spawn in Despise, level 3 (the one beneath the Ettins/Elementals) sort of a far left and down a bit... There is a small alcove with a crystal ball, just down from that Titans and Cyclops spawn, almost always one at a time, so they are easy to kill. You can also teleport onto the 'shrine' and blast em with magic for safety. Gandilus Draco of Napa THANKS MATE! Man, those Napa valley folks are busy! ::rubs hands:: Titans in dungeons huh? ::fires up his SupaPvMa Note: I understand Titans/Cyclops also spawn in Ilshenar. Anyone confirm this for me? I still can't go there for more than 1/2 hour before locking up :[ To Eric-GL: You think Internet Explorer is any better? Bah, you are hypnotized by the Microsoft Demon. Hasta. ^ top-You have been knocked off of your mount! [Eric] June 15 - 11:43 AM EDT There has been recent talk about a new item that will allow a player to knock another player off a mount with the use of a "bola." This discussion has sparked with the recent discovery of text in some of the recent localization files including the following: a bola bola ball You begin to swing the bola With 4 of these and 3 strips of leather a good tinker could make a working bola. Your hands must be free to use this You cannot use this while riding a mount You can't throw this at yourself You have no reason to throw a bola at that The bola must be in your pack to use it. You must wait a few moments before you can throw another bola That is already being used. You fail to knock the rider from their mount. You have been knocked off of your mount! You are still too dazed from being knocked off your mount to ride! You make the bola and place it in your pack. You do not have enough bola balls to make this. You do not have enough leather to make this. You fail to make the bola and ruin the leather in the process. What can we make of this? It looks as though this bola will be an item crafted by tinkers, using leather as one of the main resources. Also by the looks of the above messages, one will not be able to throw this "bola" while riding a mount. In other words, you wouldn't be able to knock someone from their mount before dismounting your own. Very, very cool. OSI of course, has made no direct comment on these new messages, but Melantus recently spoke about the bola: Someone asked me what a "bola" was. Just as an FYI, a bola is a weapon more recently used in I believe Spain and Mexico a couple of hundred years ago or perhaps farther back. I wouldn't be suprised if central or south American, or African tribes or groups used it. It is a rather old weapon that was used often. It is 2, 3 or 4 weights (that could fit in the palm of your hand), connected via some sort of string. The ones I have seen are connected in a plus-sign shape pattern between the weights. When thrown right, it spins as it moves toward the target. When it hits the target (neck or legs) the weights cause the string to wrap around the victim's neck or legs, due to the forward motion. It happens very fast and could trip something that was running. Melantus Online Community Coordinator Ultima Online Melantus@uo.com There's no doubt that the bola is going to be used to knock a player off his or her mount. Looks as though OSI has some pretty neat toys in store for us. TO NIEVES: Netscape sucks; use Internet Explorer, dammit. Cya later. ^ top-What happens if they change the stat system? [Nieves] June 15 - 11:34 AM EDT Remember my article about Evocare submitting his proposal that changes the way hit points are determined? I put a link in there about the proposal made last November for upgrading the WHOLE stat system (go find the article you lazy bum). Ok, we saw that a character with 25str/100dex/100str still winds up with 100HP, 81Mana, 81Stamina. I mentioned a Theif Mage, but what about the Archer Mage? Thinking what I am thinking? Cast bless, you have 111 HP, 92Mana, 92Stamina, Mana Dump, Arm Bow to finish. Someone start up a thread and tell me what they think about it. I still hate Netscape. It used to be the best Web browser. Now we don't have a best browser with Netscape corp. bowing out of the browser business. All that's left is Internet Explorer. Hasta. ^ top-GM Lockpicking [Eric] June 15 - 9:53 AM EDT While we're on the subject of skill gain (with Nieves' 8x8 method recently posted), I thought it'd be nice to throw you a link to a guide to GM lockpicking. Browsing through webpages, I just found it this morning, and it seems fairly accurate and very in depth. One of the nice things about it, is that it gives you specific locations and screen shots of where to practice lockpicking when the red boxes no longer get you gains. Check it out. Cya later. ^ top-8x8 Nieves style. [Nieves] June 15 - 9:34 AM EDT Everyone has their own way of using the Resource Grid to their advantage. A friend of mine, Nazrel I believe, gave me a method to Grandmastering skills. It's a variation on the other 8x8s you might've seen. In fact, alot of you might even know this particular method. The first part is known to everyone. Get a boat, get on the water, and make sure you have enough resources of what you need to train your skills with. Your skill should be set up in a macro. UOAssist is better for this than the regular macro system in UO. It's worth the 15 bucks and it's legal. Go get it now. I usually stand behind the mast. But that's just me. It shouldn't matter. Start sailing west (say: 'left'). Immediately type in 'stop' but DO NOT hit the enter key. Start using your skill macro and as SOON as you get skill gain hit enter. You got to be paying attention to stop as soon as you get a gain. At higher levels you will get bored trying to find a thread, but stay on top of it. When you miss it, it's frustrating trying to find another. Use your skill macro in that spot. When you don't gain after 4-5 uses of that skill, say: 'forward one' eight times. No more, no less. Each Grid is 8 tiles wide/long. This ensures you are in a new Resource Square. Use your skill again. Rinse, repeat. If you don't gain after going forward through 4-5 squares, start sailing west again. It's that simple. Good luck in GMing your skills. Tips: Obviousely you need unobstructed space to do this with. North of Fire Island, West of Skara Brae and West of Ice Island works for me. Also, West of Fire Island is ok, but you will eventually run into Moonglow and/or Ice Island going West (if you aren't far enough North). Quit leaving your damn boats in the water. When you are done, dock them. Don't leave anything in the hold. Anyone can get to it if they can get to your boat. Keep your boat locked. If they can get onto your boat (last I checked you could get on a boat even if locked), they can take your stuff. Also, you don't need to have to key to sail a boat away. This guy wouldn't leave me alone while I was on a Treasure Hunt. He kept taking my spawn. I wonder if that guy's boat is still sailing. Hasta. ^ top-A new PvP essay. [Nieves] June 14 - 3:31 PM EDT YOU GO KEITH! I'll give this a shot, going to be a long post so bear with me. Excuse my grammar because I'm just going to ramble. To pvp you have to be ready to pvp, and that involves having a decent amount of money to begin with, having the necessary mules of, GM alchy, tailor and smith, poisoners are optional. After that is out of the way, the next important part of being ready to pvp is actually being well prepared for longterm battles, which means stocking up to the hilt in my opinion. I stock up to the hilt all the time, kill me right away you got some pretty decent loot, I tend to die when I run low on pots usually I can escape most situations. EQUIPMENT - This is what I carry Mage New GM leather 80 each reg 40 pots, 10 gheal, 10 gcure, 10 gagil, 5 tr, 5 gstr 5 trapped pouches 50 bandaids Dexer New GM leather (med warrior 90/45/90) 50 each reg 40 pots, 10 gheal, 10 gcure, 10 tr, 5 gagil, 5gstr 1 spear 3 DP krysses 80 bandaids 5 pouches Excessive it might be, but I can afford it and I usually use it all before I die. I'll go into the basics of how *I* Mage pvp and dexer pvp, I play a 7x Healer mage who is unbalanced, yes I can hold my own, I have tried different stat combos and I can go with 100 25 100 and be fine, I don't wanna debate that fact. My main dexer I play right now is my med warrior is who is also 7x, I also have an axer and a 7x fencing/archer dexer and all my dexers have GM magery and have balanced stats. Now, lets get into fighting each character type, this is generally how I go about things, you may not agree, if you have any input let me know. Mage vs Mage - Dueling situation(no pots, para, reflect, etc) There are so many different styles of going about this, I am no where near the best by any means, I probably win 80% of my duels and thats fine with me, of the 20% that beat me I'd say I could beat 50% of them if I got lucky, and the other 50% are just better than me and I accept that. Offense, first you have to get a feel of your opponents stats, start the fight off by tossing 1 or 2 mb's at them and see how balanced they are, if they are balanced then you're going to have to really resort to expl eb's in my opinion. If they are unbalanced, do the basic weaken, clusmy, poison mindblast routine with appropriate interrupts to block curing or heals. If they are balanced I like to curse them, to lower their mana regen, lower str, and I really don't care about their dex because I will only mb to finish if I'm low on mana. Expl eb is now an underated combo, but to someone who has 79 str from a weaken an expl eb combo could leave them really hurt, followed by a poison and another eb or two could be their demise. Defense is more important than offense in my opinion. Everyone can have an offense, but who has a defense. I can't stress this enough, cast PROTECION, even if you aren't a scribe, it really helps. I have to defend aganist the mb poison combos because of my unbalanced stats, which is tough when poisoned i might cast agil then cure to counteract any MB damage I can. Little tips, if you see you're poisoned and about to cure with bandaids, cast a heal spell and wait for the bandaids to cure. The key to a good defense is breaking up the person who is on offense' combos, if you see them lead with an expl, cast poison or weaken or some short casting spell to cast on them as they go to cast their following spell to interrupt them then heal the damage done to you with that expl and you've thrown off their offense preventing them from getting started. Another tip for healer mages, try to get punched by the opposing mage to start your bandaid, never know when that bandaid will save you. Learn what is best that suits your playstyle. only way to really learn is not through reading a tutorial, rather go out and play and don't be scared of dying, just get re-equipped and go back out, its only a game. Mage vs Dexer - (Assuming pots are being used) If I'm fighting someone I don't know, basic faction hiding char, someone I don't have any respect for, then I don't care what I do to win. If they are using pots so will I. I like to use my gstr pots here to give myself another 20 HP to work with. Parablows and conc hits are the bane of playing a mage, RA, armour even arch prot are totally needed here. As for offense, test their stats, see if tehy are mb'able, cast a poison see if they have pots or not. If they are apot chugging whore, try to waste their cures. As a healer mage, I have the ability to stay on screen and circle when i'm hurt and conserve all my mana for offense, I don't like to stop when dexers are on me to cast heal, you are a sitting duck then. I'd say 1/20 dexers I fight actually have magery and use it as defense, those are the suckers I worry about, a dexer with magery healing and curing, plus bandaids and pots is pretty much the hardest type of character you can fight in my opinion. Keep the poison flowing on the dexers as much as possible followed by appropriate offensive spells with debuffers, weaken is my favorite. If you get para hit, I like to use a pot right away to get that hp back and if i continually get para' hit I might have time to use a second gheal before I die and my bandaid my come through too. If you get hit with a bix axe hit, use your pots and circle til you are 100% again and go for the kill. If you're conc hit, might as well run I guess, I do Only will kill unbalanced low resist chars with 50 mana. Mage vs groups Group fighting, watch your partners health bars and hopefully they watch yours, I'm pretty good at this, so is the group I fight with, we always have that heal waiting, our rule of thumb is, that you are responsible for curing and we'll have heals ready, thats what we try to do atleast. Fighting groups, use that gagil pot, use the gstr pot, run aruond firing off spells at everyone, dropping those heals on people, buff up with cunning run from the groups you can't handle, try to separate to 1 on 1's and take them out that way. I find it easier to stay alive vs groups of mages, I utilize lesser heal as much as possible with healing and pots I usually can do alright as far as living, rough to form an offense fighting multiple groups as a mage, it can be done, but its not the easiest. This is where I think healer mages shine above all other type of classes, fighting in group battles and fighting uneven battles. This is where I die most of the time when I'm the target of a mana dump and so on, lots of dexers weilding two handed weapons. As I said before it takes practice, stock up well, don't conserve your supplies use them, can always go home and get more If you die, restock and head back out. Dexer vs mage (I assume pots) The way I design my dexers are all to be anti mage, I use my med warrior more than any other dexer I have right now, he's a true mages bane. I like to bless myself, start that bandaid, I'm balanced 90 45 90, I will never let myself go below 90 str, I don't wanna fall over to an expl eb combo. A lot of mages DONT have experience fighting med warriors and get surprised by them, which is why I use mine a lot. Magery is also a must, I can't stress this A dexer with no magery is worthless. Offense Point, click and follow. Defense For my med warrior I have a lot of options here, here I can usually heal through any mage dump without pots, but if I need them I will use them, even tho I have 0 wrestling you can still get cures and gheals off. My favorite tactic is when the mage lines up for an expl eb/mb combo i let him dump on me provided i'm full health and as the 2nd spell lands I just cast gheal, its hard for them to get interrupt spells off, and if they do, I just lesser heal myself over and over instead and I have just wasted their mana and put them back on defensive. The key to beating mages with dexers are to keep them on the defensive long enough til it becomes the point where all mana they are getting back is used to heal themselves, then they are yours if they stay on screen and choose not to run. Dexer vs Dexer If you're fighting a mace parrier, and you aren't a macer parrier, you're screwed in my opinion, that is the dexer bane class. What I do since I'm a fencer is atleat try to get that shield off and utilize my magery. If I get a pra blow, take a step back and curse them. Then if i get another step back and poison them or heal myself. Switch to the 1 handed dp'ing weapons force them to drop that shield, cug your gstr and gagil pots and keep using those trs til you run out. If you do run out, you're in trouble. As being a fencer and a med warrior, if I can't use my magery I'm giving up 200 pts that the other char is using. Utilize the para blows to cast spells and you have a chance, I've beaten mace parriers, its rough but it can be done. Avoid the two hit axers, 90 str is kinda low, but I haven't been two hit yet, I just switch 1 handed and start using those pots. Dexers vs groups Med warriors good support chars if they aren't being attacked by dexers, work best with a group of mages. If you are outnumbered, always go 1 handed and use your pots, bandaids and run around trying to separate as you would try to on a mage. Sometimes you have no other options than run, I try not to do it, but sometimes it can't be avoided. I also like to target mages while I'm fighting before dexers, let the mages clear out the dexers, I'll go after the other mages, especially since I'm designed to kill mages. I dunno how helpful this will be, but I will say getting well prepared before battle is the most important thing in staying alive to fight. Any comments, please share them. hAsTa ^ top-Sure, we have orcs...but what about vet. rewards? [Eric] June 14 - 12:36 PM EDT This new orc quest...Is OSI actually interested in making the game interesting for us? Or is this simply their new method of trying to get our minds off the veteran rewards? I'm sure we're all enjoying the orc scout, the orc bomber, the new orcs bows as well as the mask of orcish kin. I'm even more sure that we still want our veteran rewards too. Well, Calandryll addressed this issue: Re: Orc quest is slowing vet rewards. Different teams are working on vet rewards and the content updates. The content updates are not holding back vet rewards at all. Actually, most of the work on vet rewards is being done by server programmers while the content is mostly designer and client programmer. So in reality, this orc quest should have no affect on the development of the vet. rewards....we hope. Also just in from Calandryll, which might be some kind of hint...: Everyone is referring to this as the "orc quest", which I understand of course, considering the orcs are the ones attacking. However...the orcs are the least of your problems. ;) I'll leave this one for you guys to ponder. Cya later. ^ top-One of the reasons Sinister Got picked. [Nieves] June 14 - 12:27 PM EDT For all you would be Tamers. If you are talking to me about taming it is quite simple. I tamed Great harts, grizzley bears and bulls all the way to GM taming. It took me just under a month of at least 1 hour per day. Some days I spent as many as 3-4 hours taming non-stop. I have tamed for a 3 hour block without a single gain and I have tamed for 10 minutes for a solid point of gains in the 90s. Taming is a long and tedious skill to GM so I would follow these suggestions: 1.)Go out and mark 1-2 books full of runes to different locations with a high spawn of Great harts, grizzlies and bulls. The more targets the better. 2.)Have your tamer ready to go before powerhour. No point in wasting a single minute if you want to GM in the short amount of time possible. 3.)At lower levels don't eat. The more you fail the better (in powerhour). If you can follow or trap a creature and attempt to tame it for an hour, then that is just great. (I trapped a grizzly bear for a solid hour and gained a ton of points off of it. ) At higher levels such as in the 90s eat all the time. You will find that in the 90s the majority of your gains are going to come from successfully taming a creature. 4.)stay away from taming monsters. You will waste more time staying out of their grasp and healing than you will taming. If you die, you will lose a lot of time. 5.)Have patience. Without this, you will go insane and you WILL quit. Taming is a tedious skill, but if you stick with it, you will succeed. 6.)Tame out of Powerhour if you can. I found that for the most part, you could gain just as well out of powerhour as you could in. 7.)When you finally reach the coveted title of GM tamer, don't turn into and asshole. 8.)Have fun and enjoy. Maybe he will review the Taming/Animal Lore, Music/Provoking skills pages and update it for us? ::hint hint:: ::you see Nieves putting his whip away:: Let me ask you a question? What if Nieves wrote a PvP essay on his personal experiences in duels, wars, and PK situations? Would you believe it? Or would you think I wouldn't know what the hell I was talking about? The latter, huh? Yah, thought so. Hasta. ^ top-They love me, they really, really love me.... [Sinister_Saint] June 14 - 10:19 AM EDT Well ladies and gentlemen, Nieves has been sooo gracious as to give me a position here at UOPG as an updater/mod so I guess I am in for the long run. I want to say thanks to Gator for putting a good word in for me, I'll try not to let you down. I look forward to being able to continue to help the UO community and there is certainly no better place to do so than here. In other news, I logged in to UO for the first time in about 6 weeks. Of course it was the first time that I had even had my computer turned on in 6 weeks as well. I checked on all of my characters and you would be surprised at what I found. I logged my mule, my lumberhoe and my bard in and then logged them all out properly in the Vesper inn. Then I logged my tamer in for the shock of my life. I figured that since I was ingame I might as well see what was happening. I went by the stable and my dragons were still stabled. 6 weeks later my dragons were still around. Well if you think that was the highlight of my day, you are wrong. Here's why. I recalled to my old vendor spot and guess what. My vendor was still standing. I mean I haven't been around in 6 weeks to pay my vendor and there he is, all fat and happy. I went to check his status and my ISP crashed on me. Thats what I get for using a free version of netzero. So I rebooted and logged back in and I must say that I am glad that I did. I had 657K waiting for me on my vendor. How is that for a nice little present. Anyways, I am now set up so I might get a chance to login every now and then and get some play time. I look forward to playing on Cats with Spion Kopps archer guild and I hope that I can serve you guys to the best of my ability. For now, Peace. ^ top-Nieves tries to understand UO with Chopper's help. [Nieves] June 14 - 9:56 AM EDT My questions:>Exactly what is the "skill wall"? Does it really exist? I have felt for a long time that each characters is different and has their nuances. Is that more of a "personal" thing or a real in game thing? And finally, why do you have to do something else, or die, in order to reset a "skill counter"? Does a skill counter exist? Hasta. Choppers reply: Skill walls do exist. As to why they happen exactly I can only guess.. The way UO's skills work is that the skill you're trying to gain has to muscle a skill you have down. An OSI rep said some time ago that one skill must lower before another skill can raise. (It seems instantanious in the game, but you're effectively forcing yourself to forget a skill before you can gain another). This is why you seem to gain quicker in a skill when you set a skill close to GM to lower. It loses points much easier at the higher level in the same way a skill in the lower levels will gain fast. I can only assume that when you hit one of these skill walls dying and being ressed at a shrine (the best way to do it - A GM told me to do this when I was stuck once and it worked a treat, still does) for some reason resets your character.. As far as I know there are no Rate over Time skill limits in the game (especially now; they're gone on siege), but who knows.. OSI are constantly working with old code written by many different programmers over time (can't be easy). Maybe there is some strange old rate over time barrier that exists.. To be honest I think it's just one of many weird programming glitches.. Of course there is always the chance that it's all in our minds and it has as much relevance as eating food whilst gaining skill, or wearing lucky underpants on a night out ;) To be honest though I doubt it. The shrine method has always got me out of skillgain ruts.. As far as characters being different I find that highly improbable. We're all created by the same code. It may simply be the order in which you gain certain skills that makes these glitches appear.. Hope that helps :) Chopper Yes, it does. Thanks. UPDATE: Welcome Sinister Saint to our team. There have been many emails in the past that have asking for a shot as an updater. When I tell you we don't need one, that is not because I don't think you are not worthy. That just means, we aren't actively looking for one. in fact, we haven't looked for a new updater in awhile. Although, every once in a while someone will stick out in our forum and someone will recommend them for a spot. The Updaters and I will then converse as to whether or not that person can add their talent and knowledge to our team. In fact, I have in the past asked some of you "applicants" to hit the forum and make posts there and let me know when you do so I can view them. What am I saying? Our talent pool seems to come from our forum (Redrum found me there and asked me to update). P-Nut, Gator, and, now, Sinister Saint all came from the forum. And that is how UOPG finds would be updaters and asks if they are interested. So, if you are interested in writing for UOPG, start writing little essays in the forum and show us what you got. We might just give you a shot. And if you find your essays on the front page, we are definately looking at you. ::winks at a certain player from siege:: Hasta. ^ top-Midmorning Coffee and last night's midnight snack. [Nieves] June 14 - 9:33 AM EDT And now...the news: We have published an update to all shards to be active following their next scheduled maintenance period. This publish contains the following changes: * Addressed a lag issue related to faction lists * House deed prices when reselling to real estate agents raised to the correct level on Siege Perilous * Orc bombers will now deal damage to players wearing armor These changes will be added to Latest Game Updates once the publish is active on all shards. I would assume that's happening this morning on the American Shards. I saw an Orc Bomber with my assassin in Skara Brae last night. He was colored a mix between brick and blood red in the 2D client and was flinging bombs at everyone. I was able to plunk him to death with some help with some "opportunistic" players. I grabbed the bag which had some regs and 128 gold. He also had 100 gold in the main pack and an explosion potion. Whoopee! Anyone gotten anything interesting from them? I don't get what they mean by: * Orc bombers will now deal damage to players wearing armor. At 48AR (magic armor) I was taking decent damage. Now about this Tribal Paint and Bola thing I posted last night. It seems the Tribal Paint will let you polymorph into something. I would assume into an animal or something. Um...doesn't sound too exciting to me unless it has some special properties. The Bola thing makes me REALLY excited. Think about it. You get a group of Order Mages riding in and you have some hidden Chaos guys laying in wait. You use the Bola, kick them off their mounts, and your Chaos Mages pop their mounts. (Forget about the fact that some might have Ethereal mounts and can just get back on). At that point, the warriors start running mages down and killing them where they stand. I know, this is an ideal situation, but I hope you get the idea. I could go on and on about this new weapon. My only question is: what skill would this tie in with? I hope you won't need a new skill. Some folks in the UOPG forum has suggested archery. Makes a bit of sense. We will see. Hasta. ^ top-I did a lil work...not a lot, but enough! It's a long read. [Vasilias] June 13 - 9:21 PM EDT A while back I took it upon myself to do a lil powergaming and chose Napa Valley as my test shard. The result was great! Using a shard in which I had virtually no friends and no help I decided to build from scratch a character. Keep in mind it has been forever since I had done this and doing so from scratch was...how shall we say...interesting. Everyone knows, or at least it has been said that a townie character can be built within a weeks time. Having never done so, I decided to give it a whirl and see what happened. I started the character of in Brit. Easy enough. Skills chosen for this particular character were Lumberjacking { yes the flamed lumberhoe } and Evaluating Intelligence. Why you might ask? The template I had chosen for this character was rather odd, but given my playing style I liked the possibilities. Magery, Eval, Lumberjacking, Swords, Tactics, Anatomy, and Healing were the skills I had chosen for this character. I recorded every nuance of this character right from the very beginning. Ok, back to the beginning. As I stated, I started this character in Britain. Trammal, of course. And since I am not really one who likes Trammal I moved him to Felucca with haste. Day 1 with this character saw him change vastly. The fun thing about Napa Valley is their faction warriors. It seems no one really likes to loot anything. I helped myself to all I could carry on more than one occassion. Set myself up a nice handy little "hot sell" bag using UOA and commensed to selling my rightfully pandered loot that these factioners so generously left behind. Within about 2 hours I had accrued, including my 1k startup gold, enough money to sufficiently stat cap my new character. For those of you new to the game Stat Capping involves having NPC's train your characters in a multitude of skills until you have reached the magic number of 700 Skill Statistics points...hence stat capped. For the best desired results...do not train in Arms Lore, Snooping, Item Identification, and Spirit Speaking, more will follow on why later. From there you can work on your attributes of the given class of character you wish to play. Since this character is a hybrid warrior/mage balanced stats tend to work best. For my playing style a straight balance is what I want for him, but in the building stage I want the best for the skills I planned on working. I started off with his main warrior skills so I worked his attributes likened for that skillset first. Not sure how many have used this before but will add it to this just for the giggles of it. I found that combining Arms Lore with Snooping yields the best results in achieving the 100 strength, 25 intelligence, 100 dexterity. Ping ponging these two skills Arms Lore ( I set a hefty macro on my UO Assist using my newbie hatchet ) and Snooping ( again another hefty macro set using UO Assist on a Faction vendor since he does not move away from you )I achieved the results intended in less than 40 minutes. Great...my character now had 100 str, 25 int, 100 dex. He was ready for his warrior training. But where do I train. I know absolutely no one with whom I can train with. As I said I wanted to work this guy from scratch. Some say Jhelom Training Pits. I say Delucia. I moved him to Delucia hopping the moongate outside Brit to Trinsic and running to the passage in the mountains south east of Trinsic. Having arrived in Delucia I set about and bought 10 hatchets from the local weaponsmith and commensed to sheering sheep for my all important bandages for healing. I set my Swordsmanship, Lumberjacking, Tactics, and Healing all in the up position. Notice Anatomy is still locked. There is a reason for this. Explained later. Having my bandages at hand and my trusty hatchets I then started in on attacking bulls. I would attack them til they ran off then went after another bull. I was fortunate enough to meet a couple tamers and discussed with them what I was trying to do. They were quite amicable and released the bulls after they tamed em instead of using them as training aids for their mares. I worked on bulls til I hit about 80 Tactics. At this point I had 75 Lumberjacking, 72 Swordsmanship, and 61 healing. Still having some money left over, I then hired me a Paladin. Paladins hit pretty hard to an unarmored person so you must be up on the healing. I worked with the Paladin til I GM'd Tactics, and Swords. My Healing up to this point was 82 and my LJ was 95. Course of events so far took 12 hours to complete. So after day 1...already a 2x GM in Swords and Tacs. Day 2 involved again ping ponging stats. This time I wound up with 75, 75, 75. I aquired a boat someone was unlucky enough to leave unlocked which was perfect. (This part has been edited upon request....I did it I know...I did a no no, so...ummm...sue me. All jokes aside I prolly should have read an earlier post and would have known this issue was a bug, however, I did not. If you seriously want to know how I did it...drop me a line.) Now I needed to get regs, and spent about 4 hours hunting to collect money in which to buy regs. Was PK'd once which set me back some but not a lot. after those 4 hours I had about 1200 of each reg which brought me up to par and sitting pretty for the faned power hour. I did the standard 8 x 8 with power hour and worked my magery up to a decent level of 82 and med which I had unlocked up to about 80. So ended day 2. GM Swords, Tacts, 95 LJ, 82 Heal, Magery, 97 Eval, and 80 Med. Not too shabby for being 2 days old. Day 3. Day 3 presented problems. Lack of funds and lack of direction. So this day I hunted for the most part with only LJ and Healing locked up and collected monies for regs yet again. This time I collected enough money for regs and enough for a boat since the one I had used previously I could not find. Go figure. Gained a nice point in LJ throughout the day and 4 points in healing by the time power hour came on. Again I did the 8 x 8 for magery. Med soared and was GM within 30 minutes. At the end of PH Magery was up to 89.7. Almost where I wanted it. I trudged on doing what Gator had mentioned a while back about thought of the resource grids resetting themselves. After about 2 more hours I reached 92 Magery, all regs exhausted. So I was sitting on day 3 with GM Swords, Tacts, Med, 96 LJ, 86 Heal, 98 Eval and 92 Magery. Day 4 was my turn around. Back to Delucia I went. Armed again with Hatchets I hired another Paladin after working my stats to 100, 25, 100. I unlocked Med and set it to the down position and released Anatomy into the up position. And pounded on the Paladin for about 14 hours straight with my UO Assist macro pounding away at the paladin as well to the tune of Anatomy. Day 4 brought on GM Lumberjacking and 92 Anat when finished and 93.6 Healing. As it stands....I am about Powergamed out now. But the character is a well defined offensive powerhouse now in about 50 some-odd hours of play. GM Swords, Tacts, LJ, 98 Eval, 93 Heal, 92 Anat, and 92 Magery. His stats currently are 72 Str 100 Int and 53 Dex. When I next hop on him I will balance em out to prolly 90 Str, 50 Int, 85 Dex. This has been an experience, and I hope any player out there can gain a small amount of incite. It can be done. I heard people talk about it and had to try it. These are my results from working the character. Anyway...given the template, as odd as it is, I am sure that creating a true dexer character will take less time than this character. Any feedback is always appreciated. And for you Napa players....no need to write me asking for a character name...if you habit the PvP circuit then I am sure you will meet him eventually. Anyway...take it sleazy, 69 different ways is easy! Vas ^ top-Nieves Cooks Dinner [Nieves] June 13 - 6:27 PM EDT ? Okay, you must really want to know what several players have already discovered. Keep in mind that these things are NOT live yet, they have simply been patched into the Client for future use (if that). With that in mind, the following messages have been added to the client: savage kin paint tribal berry You cannot disguise yourself while wearing body paint You cannot polymorph while wearing body paint You cannot use incognito while wearing body paint You now bear the markings of the savage tribe. Your body paint will last about a week or you can remove it with an oil cloth. You wipe away all of your body paint. Your body paint has worn off! Your skin is scorched as the tribal paint burns away! With a sack of flour a cook could make this into the body paint used by the savages. You combine the berry and the flour into the tribal paint worn by the savages. a bola bola ball You begin to swing the bola With 4 of these and 3 strips of leather a good tinker could make a working bola. Your hands must be free to use this You cannot use this while riding a mount You can't throw this at yourself You have no reason to throw a bola at that The bola must be in your pack to use it. You must wait a few moments before you can throw another bola That is already being used. You fail to knock the rider from their mount. You have been knocked off of your mount! You are still too dazed from being knocked off your mount to ride! You make the bola and place it in your pack. You do not have enough bola balls to make this. You do not have enough leather to make this. You fail to make the bola and ruin the leather in the process. It has also been pointed out to us by several of you that there may possibly be a new ridable mount someday soon. For you Ultima Online 2/UWO:Origin fans, you'll be very familiar with the word Ridgeback. I will be back with a proper update later. UPDATE:From: Evocare Date:6/13/2001 14:43 Subject: Re: Evocare, a non related request: "Is there any thought of removing the need to equip the spell book while casting?" Yes. It's being considered. Hasta. ^ top-Siesta [Nieves] June 13 - 12:43 PM EDT Evocare posted his proposed changes to determining hit points in the UOBoards. The current formula: Maximum Hit Points = Strength The "new" formula: Max Hit Points = (Strength/2) + 50 Here are some examples of the results.... Str Hit Points 25 62 50 75 75 87 90 95 100 100 120 110 NOTE: This formula only applies to str/hit points... stamina and mana would continue to be derived from dex/int in the same manner we have now. General impacts: 1) New characters won't die as easily. 2) Low-strength stat combinations become considerably more playable. I think this is either an actual formula to the stat changes discussed last November or something new. Either way, I think this is good for the game. Can you say "true" Thief Mages? Adam Ant's Template actually gains mana for his deadly arsenal. Someone start a thread for me and talk about it. Oh, Patch day again today! We will be releasing a client patch on Wednesday, June 13th at approximately 10:30 am CDT. This patch will contain new and updated scenario-related files. Someone please tell me why these "non-emergency" patches happen in the middle of the day? Hasta. ^ top-Lunch. [Nieves] June 13 - 11:15 AM EDT If you remember, a few days ago, Lum posted an article about Everquest's support team's wonderful way of handling compromised accounts. I have some friends in town that absolutely love the game and play it constantly. I asked him what he thought about EQ's in game support. Here is what he said: I haven't had any problems with in game support. As far as the "compromised" concept, I think it is meant to prevent multiple people from playing the same account and then creating problems for the GMs. For instance, I know of a character that is played by 4 different people. One of those people is a complete moron and got the character killed multiple times. One of the other people complained to a GM. This is a big waste of time for the GMs. Sharing accounts is illegal by the EULA ( Note: ToS to you UO Players). Other than situations like this where you have intentionally given out your password, your account should never be compromised. Sony runs the game in a strict manner that actually works out really well. They seem interested in keeping the game fun for everyone, not just their higher level players. There was a big situation recently where a guild cheated (took advantage of some game bugs) to try and kill one of the big dragons in the game and got caught. Their punishment was severe (I think 8 accounts banned, 20 suspended, and the guild permanently disbanded) and they complained a lot, but I think that in doing so, Sony is making the game better for the rest of us. [edited for brevity] From what I can tell EQ is still on the way up. Another expansion is coming out at the end of the year. They added a whole new free zone earlier this year with another coming out in a few months. They keep adding servers, but the active number of players on each server continues to creep up. The server I play on used to max out at about 2,200 players at a time, but lately we've been as high as 2,500. Thanks Dr. B. for the information. Hasta. ^ top-*explosion* [Eric] June 13 - 11:10 AM EDT Yep, another new monster. I sighted it with the usual orc spawn (in this case, it was outside of Vesper.) They're red in color, and they throw what seem to be explosion potions. Watch out, these guys hit hard. Loot includes regs, 100-150 gold, and an explosion potion. I haven't seen or heard if these new orcs carry anything special or rare as some of the other new orcs have. Check out a pic of it below: If you find any further info. on these new orcs, feel free to drop me a line. Cya later. ^ top-Mid-Morning Snack. [Nieves] June 13 - 9:45 AM EDT Hello, I'm Memento Mori from Atlantic. I recently GM'd bowcrafting on my mule character. He's now GM bowcrafting, smithing, tailoring, carpentry, tinkering, 75 magery, 45 music, 80 mining. Now let's get down to the task of bowcrafting. I've looked all over the net for help with bowcrafting help, and there's simply none to be found. I will admit that the stratics archery forum did help me out some. What they got me started on is using 10 knives at one time to carve bows. I had trouble getting this to work, but finally figured it out and I'll share that info with you. If you have 50 bowcrafting then you will be where I started. It took 53,596 boards to get from 50.3 to GM. Now I'm sure you can optimize this some because I started right off making Heavy Crossbows (50.1 skill required) from day one. That wasted some boards but I had plenty :) and was more concerned with GMing it quickly. Setting up for using bowcrafting the day before basically involves making sure you're as light as possible and having 10 cleavers or other knives in your pack. I'd use the same ones every time because I haven't had one blow up yet. I would keep them in a separate bag; the reason for this is it's easier emptying your pack out this way. You don't have it getting picked up when you drag bows off you, or you can pull the bag off and kill yourself get rezzed and your pack is instantly empty. I also use this trick for tinkering. The next thing you need to do is drop about 9000 boards on the floor of your house (lock your doors). This is the only way to get the macro to work without getting an error message when trying to carve with 10 knives at once. Setting up your UOA macro: Double click on the first cleaver, Then the boards, Then select "heavy crossbow" Pause 1000 Do that 10 times, and stop your recording then lock the macro. That's it. Run that macro for your power hour. In your first power, hour or two you may not fill your pack up twice. However, the closer you get to GM you will fill up your pack 4-5 times in your hour. What to do with all those crossbows? Well what I did at first is dragged them into a bag in one of my secure chest (allows the bag to hold over 400 stones). Then I would drop the bags on the floor until I was done. Afterwards I took them into town and sold them to the NPC bowyers, surprisingly enough they bought a lot of them. I could usually sell 100 bows to just 3 vendors (if you're going to do this I would keep the bags below 400 stones otherwise you'll be moving the bows again to go sell them, packhorses don't even like to deal with the full bags out of the secure chest for some reason). There are NPC bowyers in Britain (3°30'N 10°28'E) Vesper (72°20'N 108°04'E) Skara Brae (51°39'S 49°58'W) Serpents Hold (153°60'S 121°34'E) Yew (56°34'N 52°51'W) (2nd one, I have no idea where) Another way to get rid of them that I explained earlier, Kill yourself. Runto the nearest healer and attack something besides the healer (Duh!), and get rezzed. This is the fastest way to empty your pack if you're rich and have a healer close by. Another way to get rid of them is what I did in the end. Take the bows and put them on a vendor. Then use those bows for GMing arms lore. Maybe that essay will be next :) I really should explain how [edited for brevity] Skill gains are as follows. Show real skill PH time Boards Used 50.3-57.3 0:40 2012 57.3-67.5 1:00 3149 67.5-72.3 1:00 2435 72.3-82.3 1:00 7500 82.2-86.4 0:40 4600 86.4-93.1 0:45 6200 93.1-97.6 2:00 14000 97.6-99.0 1:00 8400 99.0-GM 0:40 5300 No go out and CHOP THAT WOOD! Hasta. ^ top-Morning Coffee [Nieves] June 13 - 8:01 AM EDT I got an interesting email yesterday evening. Hiya :) Good article (as always) I'd just like to point out though, that whoever it is you are talking to at OSI is either completely unaware of this bug and has misunderstood you/skipped what you read, or has no grasp of UO game mechanics. You can GM music in that way on a town crier without moving from the square you started on (I have just done it in 2 hours and 10 minutes). The bug has NOTHING to do with 8x8. It is a bug based on the way secondary skills react after primary skills are locked once you get a gain. The trick isn't to move when you get a stop in the gains (This goes for vet too), you re-raise the primary skill and keep trying until you get another secondary gain. Then lock again. It works every time. The trick is to keep your main skill as low as possible, making those initial secondary gains come easier.. (The bug isn't with using 8x8 to get an easier vet gain (although it will help), the bug is locking the other skill causing the skill you want to rocket). The fact of the matter is it's a bug. You can GM a skill in 2 hours with no risk or effort whatsoever. That by Melantus's own past definition of a bug, is a bug. The reason they're starting to ignore it is that it'll be a total bitch to fix (On a huge scale due to the fact they'd have to completely change the whole secondary skill gain system). Just thought I'd show you the other side of the coin :) (But what the hell, if they aren't banning for this then go for it. It makes the game easier for newbies to leap into and that's exactly what OSI want) I'd wait for a response from someone with more authority at OSI before you go recommending people run out and do this though.. You know how widely varied GM reactions can be.. Chopper Do I really need to say anything? Hasta. ^ top-Now I lay me down to sleep... [Nieves] June 12 - 11:03 PM EDT As I go to bed, I leave you with these two things to ponder. For today- The less you care about seeking approval, the more approval you seem to get. For tomorrow- People are drawn to those with a quiet, inner confidence, people who don't need to make themselves look good, be 'right' all the time, or steal the glory. I need to check my calender more often. These definately apply for me this week. Hasta. ^ top-And in other, non-dramatic, news [Nieves] June 12 - 10:18 PM EDT Good evening! Just posted to FYI at UO.com: We have published an update to all shards to be active following their next scheduled maintenance period. This publish addresses NPC shopkeeper inventory pricing issues and the way house deeds will be bought from and sold to vendors. These changes include: * NPC real estate brokers will now buy house deeds back at 20% below the base price of the deed, or the original price paid when the deed was purchased from a vendor (whichever is lower). * NPC shopkeepers will no longer inflate the prices of their inventory when their stock begins to run low, and prices of items will be consistent on all shopkeepers. These changes will be added to Latest Game Updates once the publish is active on all shards. I will let you figure out what that means. Hasta. ^ top-For the Forum in You... [Nieves] June 12 - 3:38 PM EDT Everyone has to have drama in their life right? Hasta. ^ top-Bugs Defined [Nieves] June 12 - 1:54 PM EDT I just got this in via email. Yes, I got a contact at OSI now. Surprisingly, Melantus, Leilo, Calyndryll, nor Adrick from OSI were the ones to help me with this information. Imagine that. No hard feelings though, right? Hi Nieves, Did some checking around and here is what I found out: 1) Scroll for magery to get from 50-60. This has been around for sometime. Bug. 2) Double casting: Dev team is aware of the issue and they're on it. Bug. 3) Entice to GM music. Do not believe this is a bug as entice is part of barding skill set. However, without more info about it I cannot tell you for certain. 4) Pking in Trammel: Not as designed - bug Hopefully this clears some air. Thanks and have a good one! [Name and Title Deleted] Origin Systems, Inc. Well, I hope that clears the air for alot of people. I will work on getting my contact more information on the Entice/Music thing and verify it's legality. Tapion's PvP essay is officially deleted from UOPG's archive. I would ask him to rewrite it but it doesn't matter. He doesn't think UOPG and it's newbie, ignorant, and moron of an owner is worthy of the essay anyway. He said he was going to send it to Stratics. Good luck getting it posted buddy. You think he was kind of bothered by such a great piece having to be deleted? Sowy. Bear in mind that the Game Masters in UO are not the most knowledgable people in the game. Trust me, they aren't. I suggested that an online database be available for Game Masters to be able to look up the information. If OSI wants, they can hire me and I will be glad to help them with it. For the record: What you or I think is or isn't a bug is irrelevant. What OSI says is a bug is what determines whether you get banned or not. You have been warned. UPDATE: I got some information on the Animal Lore and Music "bugs". First the email I sent-Entice/Music Described Two ways to do this. 1) Find a Town Crier or NPCs and entice (moving around of course) until you get a music gain. Lock Entice and ride the gains to GM Music. 2) Get a horse and a boat. Entice the horse on the boat moving west ('left') on the boat. When you get a music gain, stop, lock entice, gain. Sail north 8 spaces to get the next gain spot. People have GMed music in 2 hours this way. Also, the Animal Lore thing. Is that a bug? Tame two animals and get them on a boat. Have them fight each other and heal them. Sail west. Once you gain in Animal Lore, lock Vet. 8x8 to GM. GM in 2 hours if you get a thread. And the reply- All of those things are what can be considered the 8x8 method. This is specifically how the system is set up, and it certainly allows for all of these. Having said that, I highly recommend keeping an eye out on the Update Center for any possible changes that may be on the plate. The UO team does have the prerogative to alter the system or the rules. Now please don't read anything into this statement - it's just a disclaimer to keep people on top and aware of the game rules :). [Name Deleted] Origin Systems, Inc. Welp there it is...I CAN GM MUSIC AND ANIMAL LORE FAST NOW WITHOUT WORRYING! ::sits back down:: Hasta. ^ top-What kind of Treasure Hunter will I be? [Nieves] June 12 - 1:08 PM EDT I wrote an article a few weeks ago about the different Treasure Hunter templates. This essay will give you an overview of the different templates available. I will also list the values you would be best to start with and what to do to train this character up. Mage Treasure Hunter Grandmaster in all: Wrestling, Meditation, Evaluate Intelligence, Magery, Magic Resist, Lockpicking, Cartography I started with 50 Lockpicking/50 Cartography. These two are the hardest skills on this character to train up. This template has the flexibility to take on any monster in the game, as well as do a bit of player versus player combat if he wants too. It also allows him to defend against a would be attacker and chest stealer in Felucca (wrestling helps against dexers). Only draw back is it will take you an hour (estimated) soloing a level 4 or 5 Treasure Chest. Bard Treasure Hunter GM Meditation, Evaluate Intelligence, Magery, Lockpicking, Cartography, Music, Provocation. 50 Cartography and 50 Provocation (if you can even choose it without Music; last I heard you could. If you can't choose Cartography). The most POWERFUL Treasure Hunter in my humble opinion. You can do ANY level chest as well as hunt in all the dungeons. I think this character is the representation of the True Dungeon Crawler. He can open dungeons chests and take monster loot (my friend says he can get 50k an hour doing level 4 dungeon chests only). Provocation to keep multiple monsters busy. Magery skills to deal with lone monsters. The drawback is a single casting of explosion plus ebolt from, say, a Blood Elemental, could kill you. Training If taking the Bard Treasure Hunter Template on, Grandmaster your music using the 8x8 Method (jury's still out on whether a method for GMing Music is a bug so it's not listed). This should take you about a week of dedicated work. And you can work on it out of power hour above 95. It almost doesn't matter then. You can gain Provoke on anything right now. So provoke, provoke, and provoke some more. At 75-80 the skills comes into it's own and you hardly fail. Although, being GM is important if not just because you have it GMed. You fail ALOT less at GM than at lower levels. Why not GM it? NOTE: People say get Peacemaking instead of Evaluate Intelligence on the Bard. It's entirely up to you what you want to do. Bear in mind, Mindblast 'can' do damage to a monster and I believe damage from that spell is based on stats as on players. Personally, I would rather do damage with my spells. There might be times where you can't get another monster to spawn and have to deal with the Poison Elemental on your own. Magery 4/5 For Magery, Evaluate Intelligence, and Meditation, I recommend the 8x8 method on a boat. It should take you roughly 2 weeks to Grandmaster those skills. If using the Mage Treasure Hunter, go and Grandmaster Wrestling with a bone knight. Wear full plate if you can get it and be prepared to cast heal on yourself often. Potions help. If you are in Deceit at the Wall, you can gain without 'much' worry of taking damage or dieing. If you don't have any friends to help train Magic Resist, you can train it on your own. You can get to 50 from 0 with Fire Fields. From there, you can let Gazors dump on you to 70. Above that then go find a "safe" spot and let Ophidians and Terathan Avengers dump on you. When you get above 91 Cartography, the magic casting monsters from the level 4 and 5 chests will give you plenty of opportunities to gain Magic Resist. Once you Grandmaster your base Magery skills and have decent Magic resist, begin alternating days training Lockpicking and Cartography. Why? Two reason: 1) To avoid going insane. You will go batty training these two. Unless you get carpal tunnel first. I suggest using UOAssist and visiting the http://www.shatteredcrystal.net/blackthorn/cgi-bin/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum=Attended+Macroing&number=12&DaysPrune=45&LastLogin=" target="new">Attended Macroers Forum for tips on setting up macros. 2) When you get to the skill "wall", people say gain skill in something else to "break" the wall and "reset" your skill "counter". Alternating will ensure you are doing that often enough to keep you gaining at a steady pace. Lockpicking Buy up 20 GM Locked Picked ORANGE chests. Start training it. You should be at 70 after the first Power Hour. From there it gets harder. Hit Covetous Gazor area behind the Harpies on level 1 and pick those chests after one rotation through your 20 GM Locked Picked Orange chests. Rotate between the 20 GM chests and the spawned chests. Whatever happens, try to continually pick your chests (think: UOASSIST). Gazors will be an annoyance, but a quick Ebolt or two will deal with them. If you can, get a friend that needs to work resist and let them keep the Gazors busy while you work your skill. Never stop picking any chests. If you see a chest, run up and pick it. Doesn't matter where you are or what you are doing. Just PICK THEM! If you can afford it (money and lockdowns), get 200 GM locked picked chests and lock them down in a house. Here is what Nissa said to do: I setup 200 boxes in one of my houses. I have 2 secure chests with 10 bags in each chest. 5 bags across the top and 5 across the bottom. Then I put 10 GM Tinkered red boxes in each bag. I put the keys to 20 boxes on one key ring. I used one bag from the top and one from the bottom and put the key ring directly between the two. I now setup a bunch of UOA macros to lock and unlock the boxes in 2 bags. I have 10 macros setup. I run the macros one by one. As soon as I get a gain, I finish the bag, then move back to the first bag. Since lockpicking is target based, you have to keep trying new targets until you gain and the counter is reset. I did get to 95 this way. (And I am still at 95. blah!!) I find it ssssooooo boring. I hate it. Yes, it's boring. Insanely boring. Hence my advice to rotate training Lockpicking and Cartography. If you are lucky, you will have access to a Lockpicking House. The Treasure Hunters of Brittania have one set up on Great Lakes shard and maybe a house on other shards. You can ask them about it. They are nice enough to lend these houses out to their members and close associates. From 95.?+ you need to be out there picking every chest you can. Note: People have Grandmasterd Tinkering first before picking up Lockpicking. You should wind up with thousands of lickpicks from working Tinkering. Might as well put them to use right? Cartography Now comes the hard part. In your non-training time, I hope you have been buying up 100s of blank maps along with the other supplies you need. You will need them. I highly suggest standing next to a trash bin in a town or your home while training this. OR, you could sell off "drawn" maps to a NPC (Moonglow and Trinsic has one in it's Provisioner Shops. Papua has one as well near the docks/smith shop). Please don't leave all your maps lieing around. It can cause lag if you have 1000 maps lieing around. Since you should've started at 50, you should be able to Draw the hardest map you can draw, the World Map. Yes, I said it right, you can draw the hardest map at 50 skill. Sad, but true. Hopefully OSI will be improving this soon. Any chance you can get to grab a map and decode it, DO IT. You can gain skill with decoding treasure maps. Some people feel they need to buy up every treasure map they get a hold of to train up their skill. The time wasted in trying to find these "bulk map sales" could go to training. But it's up to you. Level -------- Skill Level to Decode (last I checked, these are displayed #s) 1 -------------- 0+ (you will fail ALOT, but you can) 2 -------------- 71 3 -------------- 81 4 -------------- 91 5 -------------- GM Note that if you are not of sufficient level to decode a map, you can't read it. That's why you can't GM Cartography off Level 5 maps. At 95+ you HAVE to read level 4 maps. Again, hopefully OSI will improve this. I hope this guide helps everyone training to be a Treasure Hunter. Next time, playing a treasure hunter, it's benefits, and it's draw backs. Hasta. ^ top-Treasure Hunter Compromise. [Nieves] June 12 - 8:18 AM EDT From the UOBoards. I want to thank everyone who added their thoughts to this discussion. You've all helped out a lot and contributed a lot of very good and interesting ideas. For now, I'm only going to go forward with the level labeling: (undecoded) Level 1 - a tattered, crudely drawn treasure map: Felucca Level 2 - a tattered, expertly drawn treasure map: Felucca Level 3 - a tattered, adeptly drawn treasure map: Felucca Level 4 - a tattered, masterfully drawn treasure map: Felucca Level 5 - a tattered, flawlessly drawn treasure map: Felucca (decoded) Level 1 - a crudely drawn treasure map: Felucca Level 2 - an expertly drawn treasure map: Felucca Level 3 - an adeptly drawn treasure map: Felucca Level 4 - a masterfully drawn treasure map: Felucca Level 5 - a flawlessly drawn treasure map: Felucca Btw, the quality of the map is not (in my opinion) what makes decoding it more or less difficult. The difficulty comes from how well the map's creator was able to hide (or encode) the information that lead's to his/her buried treasure. After all, most people will not want some stranger digging up their loot. [...] Map ownership will remain unchanged from the way it now works. There have been many good suggestions in this thread: requiring some amount of cartography to dig up a chest whether the character decoded the map or not; allowing GM cartographers to use any decoded map and dig up the treasure; letting level 1 and 2 maps be transferable; and so on. And I'm storing these away for reference. I'm not forgetting those who were in favor of transferable treasure maps or in favor of more easily accessible treasure hunting, but it has become obvious that those ideas need to be given more thought and need to undergo more research before any changes along those lines are made. I still want to find ways to bring the kind of excitement that treasure hunting holds to more citizens of Britannia, which a big part of why I proposed this change in the first place. In the end, though, I do not feel that this particular proposal was the right fit. I'll continue looking for that, and I'm always interested in your ideas. Thanks! Ignatz 20 Cool Points to Ignatz. Now we can at least tell the map level. And now we can price them accordingly if selling them on vendors. BTW: 25k for a level 5 map is STILL a rip off. Hasta. ^ top-As if you didn't already know. [Nieves] June 12 - 7:55 AM EDT Yes, it's true: Runesabre and Sage have moved on from our development team. Want to read more? Click here. Hasta. ^ top-The Console [Nieves] June 11 - 1:34 PM EDT Epyon begins telling us about Console Games and Anime with a review of the console game Red Faction for the Playstation 2. Touch me or click on The Console on the upper right. Hasta. ^ top-You think we got it bad with OSI? [Nieves] June 11 - 8:21 AM EDT Be glad you don't play Evercra...er, Everquest. Hasta. ^ top-In Testing: Player's Gullibility [Ian] June 10 - 1:50 AM EDT "Now that UO2 is no longer in production, we will now be able to concentrate all of our resources to UO." ^ top-What is a mage for? [Nieves] June 9 - 8:23 PM EDT From Jonathan in our Forums. Here it comes....... alright, given the fact that there is always the mage 5 (wrestling/magery/meditation/eval/resist) there is always at the least two skill slots open. with these two skill slots open there are a variety of ways to play your character. These two slots really just help to suit your play style. some are better then others in situations but all are at least decent. 1 on 1 duels with other mages (to get the facts straight....duels do not consist of pots) 1. Nox mage - the Nox mage uses poisoning and inscription as his two skills of choice. Poisoning gives you the ability to greater and sometimes even Deadly Poison your opponent. Inscription gives you the bonus of the spell Protection which helps you to not be disturbed by your foes spells. Both are extremely helpful in duels and could predict the outcome of the match. a well time poisoned that hits with as DP could very will finish the mage off or even a well timed combo that is not interrupted (due to inscription) could finish him off as well. Some duels though are without Protection because some people think that it takes more skill to fight without that spell. (My personal Favorite in Duels) 2. Healer/Inscription - Now this template comes with the same bonuses of Inscription but puts a new twist to the duel. Healing enables you to heal approximately 50 pnts of your life without anat. This also depends on how many times you are disrupted while in the process of healing. Unfortunately healing isnt very effective when your opponent starts to attack you with a barrage of spells since you get disrupted alot. Also since you cant cure with Gcures a well timed poison can stop your healing everytime. The best part about healing on this template is after you survive your opponents attack you can kick it back and heal yourself to full health without wasting mana. 3. Archer Mage - This mage holds one benefit that all other one on one mages dont have, Constant Damage. Since you can survive in battles without inscription and healing this becomes a very viable template. Mainly the bow on this template is used if you dont have mana and wish to keep on the pressure or to start off a combo which usually consists of (Bow hit, Poison, blah blah blah blah). not a bad template and one that i like to fool around with. each of these templates are very viable and are one of the best to use in duels vs mages. Group Battle Templates (alot of these) 1. Healing/Anat - This template comes with only one bonus, to be able to heal upwards of 80 pnts of life. This can be very helpful at some times but it costs you the benefits of protection and RA. 2. Healing/Inscription - yes i know this is in the duels section but its also very viable in regular groups fights as well. This is mainly because you can heal yourself very easily and not being worried about your life too much enables you to go more offensive then defensive. Plus inscription gives you the Extremely powerful defense of RA which helps you to not get ganked by dexers. (since nowadays Ljers can kill you in two hits.....its pathetic) 3. Hider/inscription - this template of course gives you the defensive capabilities of RA. Hiding gives you the ability to totally evade oncoming hordes of enemys or sneak up on people without them knowing. This can give you extreme tactical advantages. The first downfall to this template is you cannot heal while your running away since you dont have any healing capabilities other then magery so you have to rely heavily on hiding. The second downfall is anyone with a little bit of tracking can and will be able to find you. although you can still get away from these people if you use your smarts its still a downfall. Hiding is not full proof so get ready to run alot with this template. (This is also my personaly favorite) 4. Archer Mage - I also mentioned this template in the duels section. The main reason this guy is good in groups is because if hes out of mana he can still belt out powerful hits with his bow. This is extremely useful in groups when you run out of mana or your main goal is to just heal your friends. Whenever they are good on life pop up your bow and take some shots at the people. then heal when you need to. This template is one of the better ones in group fighting. 5. Tamer/Mage - This template is THE BEST in group fighting. This is because you can control WW, Mares, Dragons, shit...whatever you want to kill people with. Dont have to explain much. 6. parry/Mage - Im not very into these guys but i have fought them and seen them before. This template was mainly made because the extreme increase in power the dexers had handed to em. Mainly, (imho) these are skilless mages that know nothing then to mana dump and put up a shield. you can add hiding to this template, healing, poisoning, inscription.....ive seen it all. yea these guys do somewhat well against dexers but if a dexer plays smart hell still beat the mage. This template is way to defensive for a mage and thus cannot work well enough to use. (imho) 7. Thief Mages - now these guys also come in every way shape or form, some with stealing and hiding, some with stealing and snooping, some with armslore to disarm weapons, some iwth only stealing. Either way your still playing a thief with mage skills so pretty much you lose any extra benefit a mage can have except you can steal sigils, regs, weapons, or money. These guys are extremely useful in factions but not too useful anywhere else. This template though is quite possibly the most fun to play. PvM 1. Screw mages in pvm make a bard tamer or just a tamer or just a bard. Go tell him whether you agree or disagree. Hasta. ^ top-First Nieves the Novelist, then Nieves the PvPer, now Nieves the Webmaster [Nieves] June 9 - 5:03 PM EDT Welp, busy day for me today. I got to rape two mages, then got owned by a non-Chaos Macer/Swords fighter. Sucked ass. I guess that's what happens when you bring 5 Total Refreshes and one shield to a Mace Fight. I was working my "diplomatic skills" with some "broken" Guild War Rules and my partner decided he wanted a duel. After getting raped by said offending mage, I asked for the duel. Hammer pulled out the War Axe of Steel and brought him down in life. War Hammer of Power and Mage's Bane finished it for me. Another of their mages said: "would you like to kill me Max?" Sure. I cast poison, and messed around letting cast what she wanted. I then went on her with my War Axe of Steel and popped her too. The non-Chaos guy wanted a duel as well. SURE! But...he had rules. No magic weapons and no armor. Just GM weapons and shield. He said the Shield could be magic. I got another War Axe of Steel, a GM Buckler, and a fort shield not thinking I should grab a couple of more shields. I grabbed some more pots and got ready for the SupaFight. That's when I he arms the Chaos shield. Great. ::checks for Chaos title:: None there. Nice. Thanks for using a bug. Anyway...2 minutes of going back and forth and me running out of refreshes, I died. Fuck, I hate that. Yah, I am sore I lost. But if you think I wouldn't have complained here about him using a bug, think again. I didn't say anything to him though. I just got resed, got my stuff, and killed my partner in another duel. Ahh...much better. Anyway. After all of that, I got to working on UOPG's sections. I added the Roach and Hiding Mage to the Mage's Character Section. I also did some 'linking' to that Mage page. I want to go back and add links throughout the website so that they go to the appropriate sections. For example, if I say, go GM Magery", it will be a link pointing to the appropriate section (as shown). It's alot of work. After working on the links for two templates on the Mage's page, I was like "damn". I also added May and June to the Archive's Page. Bear in mind, that until a post is pushed off the main page, it won't be in the Archives. I figured out how Lawyer had things set up. He's a smart kid. I love how he left a trail for me to follow and how nice and organized he left everything. I hope you are having fun getting down and dirty at Basic Training Lawyer. I guarantee you he will be a changed man (no longer a kid) when he gets back. Hasta. ^ top-More t-map changes... [Eric] June 9 - 4:38 PM EDT Ignatz, one of UO's designers, is now proposing some new changes to his recent cartography ideas: The primary reason I proposed the change of ownership to the digger rather than to the decoded was because of players who have never been able to go on a treasure hunt and don't have the time to create a full treasure hunter character, or for guilds and player events that would like to more easily make use of treasure maps. (Plus I thought being able to sell decoded maps on vendors might be a useful thing for cartographers.) At the same time, though, I definitely do not want to undermine the Treasure Hunter profession. I've always been a fan of treasure huntering so my goals here are to expand and improve. (Btw, yes, there are other issues surrounding treasure hunting, but this is the one on the burner right now.) So I'll propose a potential compromise: Treasure maps of Level 1, 2, or 3 can be decoded by a cartographer and then dug up by anyone with the digger being owner the treasure chest they've dug up. Treasure maps of Level 4 and 5 are owned by and have to be dug up by the character who decoded the map. It all sounds fair to me. Since level 4 and level 5 maps are technically more valuable (they give more loot), it's only fair for those to only dug up by the cartographer who decoded them. Cartography is a bitch to raise, and someone who takes the time to get 90+ and even GM, deserves this. Anyone who puts in a medium amount of effort, can easily do level 1 & 2 maps. Level 3's require a lot more work, but not nearly as much as 4 & 5. It looks to me like OSI might know what they're doing. ALSO: I just posted an orc story sent in by one of our readers, in the Stories section. Check it out, and be sure to read Nieves' as well. Cya later. ^ top-Gawd, writing is hard. [Nieves] June 9 - 2:23 PM EDT Welp, I got Hammer & Silk Part 3 up. I am starting appreciate a WHOLE lot more what people like Steven King, R.A. Salvatore, and Terry Brooks do. I hear it takes months, sometimes years, for a good story to be written. It seems this Hammer & Silk series is going to turn into a mini-Novela for me. Enjoy. Hasta. ^ top-Well Surprise Surprise [Gator] June 9 - 9:16 AM EDT OSI, hats off to you folks. After a massive "gold" bug reached the market, you have so to speak put the fire out. Outstanding work. I will not post what the bug was, but to figure out the puzzle yourself, go here and here. I cant believe how fast the reaction was on this one. Alot better than the "standard" they have been using. Anyways, good job folks. Later ^ top-Counselor Anonymous Speaks Again. [Nieves] June 8 - 11:43 PM EDT Gold, duping and a solution Ok, during the last 2 years or so, there has been an increasing influx of gold in the economy.....and with the ease of obtaining gold and with duping, we are now getting into a greater crisis......... I have thought long and hard, and have come up with the following possible solution..... Remove Gold Coins from the Realm in their "PHYSICAL" form and replace them with a simple counter. We all know that they store many things on our physical character......so why not store, in a simple variable, the amount of gold we have available? This would mean that once gold is dropped on the player, say, from a loot, it is removed and the money is deposited into that variable...... Now with this, you would no longer be able to dupe since there is nothing TO dupe....the variable is actively stored on the server and so the player could not use any techniques to dupe since the info is on the server at all times and never leaves into an aboject which can be manipulated and such..... Now, to transfer gold to someone, you would do so by using a verbal trigger, such as Give Gold and it would create a target cursor.....unless the target is a character or an NPC, the transfer is NOT completed and no gold is moved. Once you select a person or an NPC, another screen with the amount you have available and a box to enter how much to transfer appears and once all of that is appropriate, the amount is removed from one account and added to the other. If it is added to a player, an additional screen shows up just like the secures with a pile of gold and the amount is listed there........so it is possible to use that to sell items between players will be done in this fashion. Now, gold as loot on monsters, it works just like it does currently, but the second the gold is in the pack, it is converted into the variable and removed.....and to make sure that the gold cannot be duped using any exploits, if it is placed on the ground, it's deleted instantly so no using bags and such to dupe it and get around the system. For existing gold, prior to the patch, all gold NOT in check form since when the patch is put in, ALL non converted gold is nuked. I know the PvP community and the PK community of Fel will be affected by this, but at the stage we are at, we must act or we will simply be better off in wiping the gold completely. I believe it a small price to pay, and I apologize to those that I KNOW will be affected. I myself will be affected, but I feel it is in the best interests of the game. There are some things to work out in this, but please, feel free to comment or add to it and maybe this could be an implemented system. Anonymous Most amazing solution to Duping I have seen. Hasta. (Anon has a router out in his area and can't get to the UOPG update server). ^ top-GOSH DARNIT! [Nieves] June 8 - 7:23 PM EDT I removed my earlier update. Argh :( Anyway, here are some emails I have received and sent. In reply to craftables I wrote: Making blank scrolls has been screamed at for carpenters. Also, Farmers so you can farm your reagents. The thing is, to make it balanced, you would have to buy seeds and I think the one seed should only have a limited yield per seed, per day. In other words, 1 seed will yield 10-25 reagents (depending on the reg) . Also, the plant would only "bloom" 5 per day. So if you had a Pearl Seed and planted it, you would get 10 pearl the first day, 10 the next, and then have to go buy seeds on the 2nd. Now, you would also have to be able to "protect" your plot, so some "fencing" would work for Blacksmiths/Carpenters to make so you can keep your 10/10 plot protected. Here is the problem, with housing being the way it is, how would you place the "plot"? :( Or could we just have "reagent" plants? Maybe make it plants you can lock down till their usefullness is up and you have to go get another plant and pot to seed? I don't know, I am just spouting ideas. Some "balanced" ideas I think. A day in the life of a AOL Legend's Player. (edited for brevity and readability) Legends. Wonderful shard if you dont like too many people. Housing of course is near capacity in tram, but theres room in fel, no one likes it there. Dont get me wrong, there are people here, just not so many that you lag ALL the time. Even going to the brit bank often reveals only 2-5 at any given time. At night, no one. Its sweet. Most the people you find are nice, for the most part, theres player cities. White stone was a good one before [name edited out] left, now its in the hands of [name edited out], he is doing good, but there just arent enough people to really make a good player town. I.E. role players. But he is a great man. The PK is still alive here, in Fel of course, mainly in the dungeon's. Though if you actualy talk to most of them outside thier "turf" they are rather friendly, one even sparred my Guild Master, just to show off , but it was fun for all of us. The orcs are here of course. Delucia was actually thriving with people when they first appeared, alot of tamers on this shard going around killing everything in sight, even claimed kills, par for the course. But as I said, on a normal day, there aren't too many peeps in one place. Many have homes and are concentrating on getting those multi GMs before the shard really gets too packed. Even as far as housing goes, people are indeed buying large ones, but they are also, for the most part, trying not to pack them too close together as is found on other shards, so you can still walk about, even in heavily populated area's, which is wicked kewl in itself. All in all, my favoured shard due to lack of CHILDREN playing on it....I am not soley holding the term children to those under the age of 18 :::smirks:: You don't find many flamers who call out the cry of the unintellegent scream of "NOOBe" which is nice. Of Course in most cases, that will get you a rather handy fel stone handed to you and a calm "lets go talk newb in the real world Anyway Talk atcha later! Makes me want to go get AOL and try out the shard...ok, maybe not AOHELL, but I wouldn't mind checking out Legends one day. Oh well. Hasta. ^ top-I still think Watts sucks ass... [Nieves] June 8 - 6:13 PM EDT So he thinks he can write or something? Bah, fuck him. Let him have his day writing at a new website. WHAT THE FRACK do I CARE! REALLY! WHY SHOULD I CARE BECAUSE EVERYONE ASKS HIM TO WRITE FOR THEM AND NOONE ASKS ME!??? AH!??? No, I am not jealous. Really, I am not. Hasta. (It's a cool looking site and I urge everyone to read Watt's first/latest post.) ^ top-Cartography by Nissa [Nieves] June 8 - 4:08 PM EDT Ignatz just posted this to UO Boards: Identifying a Map's Level A treasure map's level will be identified when found based on the following adjectives: (undecoded ) Level 1 - a tattered, crudely drawn treasure map: Felucca Level 2 - a tattered, expertly drawn treasure map: Felucca Level 3 - a tattered, adeptly drawn treasure map: Felucca Level 4 - a tattered, masterfully drawn treasure map: Felucca Level 5 - a tattered, flawlessly drawn treasure map: Felucca (decoded would be the same without "tattered" and start with "an" where necessary) Treasure map ownership The player who decodes a treasure map will no longer be the automatic owner of the map and treasure. Ownership of a map's treasure will be given to the person who actually digs up the treasure chest. Any player holding the treasure map will be able to dig up the chest. Note: A decoded treasure map in a player's backpack will be safe from pickpockets. So: Players will know the level of a treasure map. Cartographers will be able to sell decoded treasure maps (on vendors, etc.). Cartography will remain a viable treasure hunting skill (decode your own maps), but treasure hunting will be possible without it (purchase maps that are already decoded). What do you think? Ignatz This was my response: The ability to know the level of the map before buying is important and I like the way you did that. I like the idea that the map no longer is owned by a single person and others can dig it up. That means I can sell some of the 600+ maps I am going to need to GM cartography. I hate the fact that anyone can dig them up. I think this is going to make cartographers just mule characters. Take a mule character and add cartograhy so the person that digs it up only need lockpicking. Cartographers would lose their value. All the work people put into their cartographers would be gone. What would be the purpose of getting a GM cartographer if all I have to do is buy decoded level 5 maps!! Or find a kind person to decode it for me. Please, think this out more before making htis change. I can see the value of the cartograher going down now. All the work I am going through to GM this skill. A cartographer is more than that. People have built a complete character around this. Perhaps the level of cartography need to dig the map up would be less than the cartography needed to decode the map. For example, 100 cartography needed to decode the map, 95 need to dig it up. How about giving cartograhers a skill check when they dig it up. Then they could possibly gain when digging it up. PLEASE DO NOT UNDERVALUE CARTOGRAPHERS!! I think I am going to stop working on my cartography until this is resolved. I am not looking for maps or spending money on maps if the value of this character is going to be diminished!! ------------------ Nissa - Chesapeake I agree Nissa. You should have the appropriate Cartography level to dig the chest up. Hasta. ^ top-Response to Gator's review of the UOHoC chat [Nieves] June 8 - 8:26 AM EDT Well, for once, I disagree with Gator. Special hits should require you to actively use it. And there should be a drawback to using it. This will do many things for PvP. You have to time your hits, decide when you want to use the move. It will make Dexers more about skill than just "autofollow and heal". It will make it much more exciting for me that's for sure. Ever see a Dexer vs. Dexer battle? 1/2 hour of waiting for someone to run out of stamina, bandages, or cures (if fighting a Poisoner). With the ability to activate your own special moves, you can do "combos". Think about it? I use a spear to paralyze you, then back off, drop the spear, pick up the war hammer, pop you with the Hammer's special hit, chug a TRefresh and repeat. Within 10 seconds (if you don't miss), you would be dead. Or rather should be. I hope you get the idea. About the gold sinks. Cool. Bring more of them. Factions? As Gator and I have said: you stay in Felucca. Paralyze spell is fine. Leave it as it is. Cartography fix is easy. Make the map "stained with the blood of an Ogre Lord" or something. Or, if you actively use the Cartography skill on a treasure map, it gives you a message with clues to it's level. Craftables? Bring on the new craftables. Carpets for tailors! YEAH! About time the tailor could make something cool all his/her own. Also, why not make a Masonry skill? Marble flooring and statues baby!!! And you can mine different kinds of rock to make these things like Marble Statues :) Also, Wood Flooring for carpenters! Damn, I need to stop. I am going to get all excited for nothing. Hasta. ^ top-Fix For Cartography and Other Information [Gator] June 8 - 7:46 AM EDT Well last night there was a UOHoC Chat. I have scammed through it all and now bring to you some of the important questions and answers brought to the front. How do you plan on making dexers more skillful to play as you stated on the UO Boards? Evocare-OSI: Really there are a number of ways to do it. The bottom line is that warriors need opportunities to make decisions during combat. For example, special hits could become something a warrior needs to manually activate during a fight while facing some consequence for doing so (like a stamina, mana, or life cost as examples). The real trick is finding a time to do it seeing as though our near-term schedule is already pretty booked. However, we do acknowledge that it is a problem right now. =] As time goes on though, you'll hopefully see us moving in the direction of giving players some interesting choices to make while they're fighting. So basically what you are saying is that for you to succesful issue a concussion blow you will have to do some l33t keyboard command followed by 50% stamina loss? I don't like it, Bring back Precasti... err.. nevermind. There has been word from OSI that there will be new craftables somtime in the near future, can we get word as to what skills this will effect? calandryll: There will be a couple of new craftables related to the scenario, and both should have long term uses even after the scenario is done. But as far as which skills will be get them, that I can't say...would ruin the surprise. :) No comment really, but I have saying for awhile that craftsman need some Love, bout time they get it. Is there any chance a clothing bless vendor will be used as a new gold sink? It would make alot of players happy and not imbalance anything in the game. Evocare-OSI: There is probably some question on the part of tailors as to whether it would or would not imbalance anything. Although it might not have any dramatic effects now, it could end up seriously hurting future tailoring improvements. How do you feel about the number of gold sinks in UO? and do you plan on adding more substantial sinks in the near future? Vex: Yes. Floor Tiles aren't dead. We are also exploring ideas to introduce recurring gold sinks. In order to bring the devaluation of UO's gold coin under control, we have to provide means to get excess currency out of the economy. The only question is, how can it be done in a meaningful fashion without totally unbalancing other parts of the game. We have nothing put together that we're ready to talk about, yet, but we are working on it! Lets see, want to fix the economy, well fixing the new dupe bug would be a start, then after that I have no clue.... how bout making cash a little harder to get in Trammel. I have said it once and I will say it again. The problem is not the current amount of gold people have. The PROBLEM is the amount of gold that can still be obtained with No Risk vs. Reward system. Cut the loot in Trammel by half, and keep Fel loot levels the same, or even increase them by 25%, this will definately have an impact on the economy. When are the problems with CARTOGRAPHY gonna be fixed... im sick of paying thousands for lvl 1 maps! I HATE being scammed CONSTANTLY! Adrick: Look for a fix not in the next publish but the one after that will address both scams and issues with gaining the skills at the upper levels for cartography. Well let's see, it took them what? 1-2 years to finnaly get a wrap on this. So this means we should expect a fix for Archery by 2005... roughly. Not that I am complaining they will finnaly fix Cart, but damn, it takes too long to fix these problems. An update on rewards please? Prophet_: The veteran reward system is scheduled to be released with the next publish. The system is still actively being testing on Test Rewards. We are confident the back end system has been thoroughly tested but we are still clearing up some minor issues with the rewards themselves. Well halle-frikkin-lua. NEXT!! OSI, is there any possibility of changing trap pouches to bring back the power of paralyze once again to mages? Evocare-OSI: Right now, the paralyze spell is pretty fundamentally imbalanced in pvp. If you paralyze an opponent with no trapped pouches, they're pretty toast since you could do it pretty much indefinitely. So, it would require some pretty serious changes to the paralyze spell before we actually went about making changes to the way damage affects paralysis. I've often heard players ask that we simply increase the chance for the magic resistance skill to resist the paralyze spell, but unfortunately that would really just end up adding to the "luck factor" in combat. I suspect that isn't something most players want to see right now. =[ "but unfortunately that would really just end up adding to the "luck factor" in combat." What?!?! Adding to? Hell PvP is about 99.99999999 percent luck nowadays, how can you add anymore to it. If anything you should be finding away to eliminate the "luck factor". Players have been screaming that since PvP was nerfed. Sheesh. Will the CONSENTUAL faction combat in trammel be activated? if not, arent you concerned about the trammel factioners draining available openings from people that want to actually fight? Adrick: We have decided for now NOT to enable faction fighting in trammel however we will be putting in some other changes to address the issue of faction players in tram withou oing into a lon and detailed list of reasons why I will say that we are going after the rewards rather than increasing the risk we do not want to spread the fighting out over three facets - rather we would like to encourage it to happen in fel and offer less rewards for faction players while they are in tram. Bah, only one way to fix the problem. If your in factions, you are like a red. You cant leave Fel. Period. Nieves has said. I have said it. Damn when will they ever listen. Are you planning to make magic item charges, rechargable? or is that just a rumor? Hanse: Not at the moment...it is a rumor... Put that fire out. Do you have any comment on the rumors of a new duping bug? Melantus: well, for one thing. it's not a dupe. Secondly, we aggressively looked into this. thirdly, I strongly suggest not using exploits lest we escort you out of UO for good :) ::grumbles:: If you wish to view the chat yourself, and read some of the other questions that were asked, check it out here. Enjoy!! Later ^ top-Purty Good Vendor Essay [Gator] June 8 - 7:11 AM EDT Top O' The Morning To Ya! Well after scanning our beloved forums, Brand SBG posted a damn good Vendor Essay. So I thought I would bring it to the main page, because it is good. And Brand with your permission I will see if we can add it to our Permament Essay Archives. Just drop me an email if you could please. Without furthur delay, here it is for your reading/gaming pleasure. Vendors I have been trawling the vendors of Europa looking for stock for my vendor. It has become clear to me that a guide on how to do it properly and what to sell is essential. Here it is, your (constructive) comments are appreciated. I trade on the Europa shard but I don’t think the principles on what sells changes that much from shard to shard. The prices however do vary greatly that is why I have not included any in this essay. Ok, you have a large pile of miscellaneous magic items to sell, a vendor deed and a house to put it in, instant cash eh? Well not quite, I bet most of those magic items are unsellable rubbish you picked off the ground in the first place and magic does not mean valuable, rare or even useful. If you want a successful vendor you be prepared to put a little regular work in and exercise some intelligence and common sense. But first things first, you have to place your vendor. Placing Your Vendor First, obviously enough you need to have a house or be friended to a house of someone you trust and who has given permission, preferably in a well-travelled area. (A house owner cannot add or remove items or money from your vendor, nor can they delete vendors not their own and you can’t transfer a vendor. You can’t reclaim a house deed while a vendor is present). The location isn’t all-important once you get established but if you are just a “casual” vendor some traffic is necessary, the nearer you are to a town, dungeon, road or mountain the better. To place your vendor stand exactly where you want the vendor to be and double click the deed. You will now have an empty vendor hopefully standing where you want them, don’t worry about them facing the wrong way. To turn them round just say “Vendor Status” standing where you want them to face. Saying this will also tell you how much money they have taken, how much money they charge a day and how much money they have left in their pay. Never ever let this get to 0, if you do and you have sold nothing they will disappear – with your entire stock. This can happen in the time it takes to recall to a bank and back. The amount your vendor charges is 1gp for ever 500gp worth of stock. The vendor’s fee is now for a “real” day and not a UO day as it once was. If you have placed your vendor wrongly say “Vendor Replace” you may or may not get your deed back. A Vendors backpack is limited to 400 stones and 125 items. Vendors should have about 1000 – 1500gp in their account to start off with. I would top that up with at least another 5000gp. Once you have given your vendor money you cannot get it back. You can get the money your vendor has taken buy saying “Vendor gold” if you have taken over 5000gp you will get a cheque. You turn a cheque into gold by placing it on top of a banker NPC at any bank. Stocking Your Vendor Never ever use 3rd Dawn to Stock a Vendor. It looks a total mess in 2D Put the stock in the backpack, type in a price and then a description (i.e. 10000 Durable Accurate Power) don’t forget the space between the price and the description and ALWAYS put the price first otherwise your vendor will sell the item at the default price, usually far less than the item is worth. You can label containers by just typing a description and make certain items unsellable i.e. bags, boxes and books by just pressing ESC (your customer will only be able to see a book title, not what’s written in it). Beware! If you use backpacks or other containers on your vendor make sure you press Escape to make them unsellable BEFORE you place anything in them otherwise people will be able to buy the container and everything in it for 12gp The most common errors in stocking a vendor are; 1. Putting multiple containers on a vendor with no indication of what is actually inside them. This REALLY annoys me and most potential customers will not bother to open those miscellaneous bags and boxes even if they are pretty colours. By all means use containers, but make it neat and put an example of what is in the container by it or at the very least a book saying what is inside, even if the bag is labelled. If you are selling magic weapons (or armour) there is nothing wrong with mixing them all up as long as there is some sort of order ie. worst/cheapest to best/most expensive (indicated by a book or marker of some sort). If you have a lot of good stock separate it up into weapon types, not magic rating. Always keep silver weapons separate in a light grey container. If you are a smith selling coloured armour use coloured ingots to indicate what colour armour is in the container. 2. Selling overpriced rubbish (see the list below for what actually sells). Have a look at prices of surrounding vendors and what they sell and www.uo-auction.com’s excellent price guide. I have a bag marked “bargain bin” where I sell lower level magic stuff at very cheap prices to newbies who will keep returning, hopefully buying more expensive weapons as they get richer. 3. Not actually labelling magic items. Although you have already identified the magic item your potential customer won’t of and so unless you say exactly what it is you are charging 10000 for the world won’t know or care. 4. Running out of stock. You will never get any trade if you don’t regularly restock your vendor. Check them every day and promptly replace anything missing. This is one of the most important aspects of having successful vendor. If someone goes to your vendor and there is nothing there they are unlikely to ever return. If you sell magic weapons make sure you have lots of stock or something else that they will want to buy. Successful reagent vendors spend their lives hopping between mage shops with their packhorse waiting for cheap regs to spawn. Before putting an item on your vendor ask yourself; Would I buy this? If the answer is no you probably won’t sell it. This means all those durable pitchforks and leather gorgets you’ve been saving up are total rubbish, take them to a NPC provisioner or find a victim and sell them in one job lot, go on, be ruthless. Here’s a list of what usually sells (at the right price) What Sells Best Bandages Recall Scrolls Arrows and Bolts Town/ Dungeon Runebooks Individual marked runes Empty Rune Books Complete (64 spells) Magebooks Exceptional player made metal armour (preferably GM) Exceptional player made leather armour (preferably GM) Exceptional player made weapons (preferably GM) Deadly Poisoned (DP) GM Katanas, Kyrsses and Daggers Greater Potions (especially Heal and Cure) Reagents Pickaxes (GM Preferred) Id Wands Food (even fish steaks) Gate/Mark/Level 8 Scrolls All Magic Katanas (preferably Reversed) Force/Power Broadswords, Scimitars, Kyrsses, Halberds, Double Axes, Bows, War Axes & War Forks Silver Weapons (see above) Fortification/ Invulnerablity Armour/Kite Shields Lockpicks, Carpentry/Smithy/Tailoring Tools (GM preferred) Thrones, Yew Wood Tables, Pentagrams, Abattoirs, Forges, Anvils, Beds, Pickpockets, Training Dummies, Spinning Wheels, Looms & Large Chests (Dyed furniture also sells well) Iron Ingots (in 100s or 250s) What Doesn’t Sell Magic Armour below Hardening Magic Shields (except Kite Shields of Hardening & above) Magic Crossbows and Heavy Crossbows Magic Mace Weapons (except War Axes) Magic Wands (except id wands) Magic Weapons& Armour with only a Strength/ Charges Bonus Magic Clothing and Jewellery Normal Weapons & Armour Leather Gorgets Useless Weapons (Pitchforks, Clubs, Crooks etc) Clothing (unless dyed with a Neon/ Special Dye Tub or blessed) Just because you have something worth selling and a vendor doesn’t mean you have to sell it on your vendor. I sell nearly all my more valuable items (over 15000) on www.uo-auction.com. If you are unsure what to sell or just want to top up your vendor as you only have 1 or 2 bits and pieces try the following and see what sells best, start off with 5 of each item and if they sell well increase the amount. You don’t have to be able to make the following, just be able to buy them cheaply. Recall scrolls (in groups of 5 and 10) Steaks (in 10s or 25s) Bandages (in 50s, you don’t need any any tailoring skills to make cloth, just lots of sheep and access to a spinning wheel and loom) Exceptional Armour and Heater Shields, if you have a 65% smith he can make these and they sell well. Exceptional Katanas, Kyrsses, Halberds, Double Axes, War Axes and Spears Arrows and Bolts (in 50s) Always take into consideration local conditions, if you are near a mountain sell pickaxes (please someone put pickaxes on their vendor), if you are near a dungeon sell black (nightsight) potions and LOTS of bandages. If you have a guildhouse or are near a large guild sell the uniform, training weapons, bucklers, bandages but stay off the deadly poison weapons – well actually on second thoughts just stock lots of greater cure as well. Publicity Getting people to visit your vendor is harder to do than you would think but once a few people have visited, have liked your stock they will return and if you are lucky tell their friends so always having your vendor stocked is important. You can advertise your vendor by marking runes for your vendor and leave them lying around well populated areas, stand at Brit bank making gates or stand at your vendor’s making gates to well populated areas, it is amazing how many people will jump into gates, also try this to the more dangerous, populated locations in dungeons (Deceit lich spawns, Destard 2nd level, Daemon Temple on Fire Isle). Someone suggested “accidentally” releasing a dragon at Brit bank or the Skeleton Knight Room before an accomplice opens a gate from your vendor. This will probably get you banned and you will get through a lot of dragons if you do it regulary. Damn fine job Brand SBG. Later ^ top-Well fuck. [Nieves] June 7 - 8:41 PM EDT Fuck. I hope all you asshoes get banned. Hasta. ^ top-Nerf Faction Twink Patch Versions 1.0- [Nieves] June 7 - 10:52 AM EDT Adrick posted some Faction information. Here are some excerpts I got off Stratics along with some comments: We believe that if we slowly start removing any benefit (visual or otherwise) from the trammel facet as far as faction players go those players who are in the faction system for no other reason than to show off will find no advantage to it and leave the system. Nerf Faction Twink 1.0 Neh to all the bank posers! The weekend warriors who are as important as anyone else will stay, they will visit felucca... Notice the spelling of Felucca :) to join the fight and when they want to hang out and take a break they will go to trammel. Something we dont want to see happen to the faction system is for the numbers to shrink down to ultra hard core pvpers and exclude every other playstyle from the system. At the same time we do have to look at load balancing both server wise and faction wise. It boils down to risk vs reward, instead of elevating the risk to far outreach the rewards we feel its best to lower the rewards but at the same time not remove them entirely for players who are actually participating in the system. Well, you can still hide out in Trammel if you want but I am of the opinion that if you are in Factions, you should not be able to get to Trammel. Most Faction fighters are able to get to Trammel with non-Faction characters anyway. It just makes too much sense to me to keep the Faction fighters in Trammel. Warhorses will require rank 2 to ride - no one with 0 kill points should be rank 2 anymore so you have to earn it. Twink Nerf 2.0 (HAH!) First off I am gathering some data on how many faction players are in trammel and in felucca. I will be monitoring this data to see the effect these changes have on the distribution. I know alot of people expressed the feeling that there should be faction fighting in trammel. The negatives of this: 1] Faction fighting will be spread out - so much so that we fear the real battles in felucca will suffer. 2] The idea that players have that they will be able to go to trammel and have lots of targets to fight will be true for about a week perhaps two - and then all of the faction players in trammel will leave the system. 3] The weekend warriors, moderate pvpers will more than likely leave the system - meaning less people to fight in felucca as well. 4] The load on the servers will not improve - it will actually put more of a load for a time on the trammel servers. Again, my fix is to not allow factions players to cross to Trammel like reds. 18] Moongates and player gates will no longer be usable by anyone who is an agressor. Wuss Faction Fighter Fix version 1.0 WOOT! WOOT! SUPAWOOT! No more puss...er, chickening out of fights! Start it, finish it, or die. You can read the rest of it (along with Forum Threads) at Stratics. Go ahead and read the whole thing at Stratics and someone make a thread for me in our Forum so you can discuss (Netscape sucks). Hasta. ^ top-Nieves' story is getting old. [Eric] June 7 - 9:58 AM EDT It's old, but still a good read. Why haven't there been any new stories? Most of us updators lack the talent to write a decent UO story (except Nieves, of course). That's why we're still looking for submissions from you, the readers. A story about what, you ask? Anything interesting, funny, exciting, etc., in some shape or form relating to UO. Be it the truth or a story you just made up, we want to hear about it. Topics may include an orc hunting experience you had, how you and your l33t friend just owned a pack of ratmen hunters, or any other experience you have had in UO that you think people would be interested in reading about. Story submissions can be sent to stories@uopowergamers.com. Thanks. ^ top-ACK! Orcs in town! Help me! [Nieves] June 6 - 4:26 PM EDT From email:The Orc attacks have started in Delucia and Cove at least on LS plus there has ben a new orc added- Orc Chopper, looks like the orc lords (in old client anyhow) hits about the same as a lord but has diff loot ( Executioners axe, ring mail tunic, 9 logs, some boards (didn't see amount) about 125 gold) rumer has it that they spawn the masks like mages do. Oh I killed this one at Delucia. Laters, Crystal Gazer of REM aka VampHunterD, Tommy Gear, Blade Dancer, and Seita all of REM THE ORCS ARE ATTACKING! Mommy, hold me. Orc Chopper? Er...um...ok. ::starts equipping his characters with the different dust covered Orc Virtue Weapons he has stored:: Update: I get a call that there are Orcs in Delucia. Of course, there are dead people everywhere... I walk into the Inn and notice a dead female character...Damn, that had to suck. ::starts whistling...bones...snatch snatch snatch snatch:: THANK YOU! ::recalls to the house:: ::starts counting loot:: GM light archer armor, 100 of each reg. Thank you for the loot whoever you were. And this after I got a Silver Hvy Xbow of Vanq out of a level 4 chest. Yeah baby! I did see an Orc Chopper but he was stuck in the walls of the Southern City gate so no testing for me. He looked like a golden orc lord in 2d. Hasta. ^ top-Since I have been cutting and pasting all week... [Nieves] June 6 - 9:52 AM EDT I might as well continue. GM Resist by Nissa: Last night, I finally got my character Nissa to 7x GM. Damn, it took me 3 1/2 years. Yeah, I'm a powergamer. Nissa first started out a tank mage. You know, archery, hiding, magery, tactics, magic resist, and wrestling. Played that way for a while. Then I decided that I had the room, so I decided to start taming. Play that for a while too, and got close to 80 in taming, which 2 years ago, was not an easy task. Well, UO changed mages, and I had to add meditation and evaluate intel, so I dropped the animal taming. Which left me with archery. Once they nerfed archery, I decided to try barding and I really enjoyed playing a bard/mage. Provoking was a bitch to GM. Magic resist was my last GM. And here are some tips on how I did it... 1. Everyone says use 2 healers and 2 casters. Well, I found it very difficult to consistently get that many people together. So I decided to use one caster and one healer. I have 2 accounts and 2 computers, so that meant I only needed one more person to help out. 2. Use scrolls. I can't stress this enough. Since I was only using one caster, I used scrolls to make sure he casted everytime. I didn't want to waste time with fizzles. With GM Magery/meditation, you will use about 110 scrolls in an hour. 3. Make sure the caster has GM Magery and GM Meditation. The GM Magery ensures that the daemon lasts the longest and with GM Magery the caster won't ever fail using scrolls. GM Mediation, obviously in order to cast 110 daemons in an hour, you have to be able to meditate each and every time. Also with GM Magery/Meditation you should have 12 daemons casting on you at all times. 4. I would have the caster start first and get about 8 daemons out there before I brought in my character. This way, I was starting immediately and not waiting for the daemons to build up. 5. Do not wear any good armor while doing this. I don't know if it is true with metal armor, but my leather armor was destroyed by the magic. I never knew this, I guess I always assumed the armor got damaged from getting physically hit, not with magic hits. Now I know it does, so don't wear anything you don't want to lose. 6. Since you have only one healer, make sure that healer is GM and is set to heal you every 5 seconds. Be prepared to help out with a cure or two. Things can occasionally get pretty hairy, especially in the low 90s. You don't want to die and waste your powerhour!! 7. I went from 90.2 to 100 GM Resist in 12 powerhours. I was averaging .8 per powerhour (my lowest gain was .3 and my highest was 1.2). Congratulations girlfriend. Hasta. ^ top-While we are talking about Politics... [Nieves] June 5 - 1:14 PM EDT From email: Subject: MILITARY PAY This is exactly what people who absolutely nothing about the military have the gall to say... check this out.. this kid who replied should get a promotion for this... On 12 Jan, Ms Cindy Williams (from Laverne and Shirley TV show) wrote a piece for the Washington Times denouncing the pay raise(s) coming service members' way this year-citing that the stated 13% wage gap was bogus. A young airman from Hill AFB responds to her article below. He ought to get a bonus for this! Ms. Williams: I just had the pleasure of reading your column of 12 Jan, 00, "Our GIs earn enough, " and I am a bit confused. Frankly, I'm wondering where this vaunted overpayment is going, because as far as I can tell, it disappears every month between DFAS (The Defense Finance and Accounting Service) and my bank account. Checking my latest leave and earnings statement (LES), see that I make $1, 117. 80, before taxes. After taxes, I take home $874. 20. When I run that through Windows' Calculator, I come up with an annual salary of $13, 413. 60 before taxes, and $10, 490. 40 after. I work in the Air Force Network Control Center (AFNCC), where I am part of the team responsible for the administration of a 25,000-host computer network. I am involved with infrastructure segments, specifically with Cisco Systems equipment. A quick check under jobs for Network Technicians in the Washington, D. C. area reveals a position in my career field, requiring three years experience with my job. Amazingly, this job does NOT pay $13, 413.60 a year, nor does it pay less than this. No, this job is being offered at $70,000 to $80, 000 per annum. I'm sure you can draw the obvious conclusions. Also, you tout increases to Basic Allowance for Housing and Basic Allowance for Subsistence (housing and food allowances, respectively) as being a further boon to an already overcompensated force. Again, I'm curious as to where this money has gone, as BAH and BAS were both slashed 15% in the Hill AFB area effective in January, 2000. Given the tenor of your column, I would assume that you have NEVER had the pleasure of serving your country in her armed forces. Before you take it upon yourself to once more castigate congressional and DOD leadership for attempting to get the families in the military's lowest pay brackets off AFDC, WIC, and food stamps, I suggest that you join a group of deploying soldiers headed for Saudi Arabia -- I leave the choice of service branch up to you. Whatever choice you make, though, opt for the SIX month rotation: it will guarantee you the longest possible time away from your family and friends, thus giving you full "deployment experience. " As your group prepares to board the plane, make sure to note the spouses and children who are saying good-bye to their loved ones. Also take care to note that several families are still unsure of how they'll be able to make ends meet while the primary breadwinner is gone-obviously they've been squandering the vast piles of cash the DOD has been giving them. Try to deploy over a major holiday; Christmas and Thanksgiving are perennial favorites. And when you're actually over there, sitting in a DFP (Defensive Fire Position, the modern-day foxhole), shivering against the cold desert night, and the flight sergeant tells you that there aren't enough people on shift to relieve you for chow, remember this: trade whatever MRE you manage to get for the tuna noodle casserole or cheese tortellini, and add Tabasco to everything. Talk to your loved ones as often as you are permitted; it won't nearly be long enough or often enough, but take what you can get and be thankful for it. You may have picked up on the fact that I disagree with most of the points you present in your op-ed piece. But, tomorrow from Sarajevo, I will defend to the death your right to say it. You see, I am an American fighting man, a guarantor of your First Amendment rights and every other right you cherish. On a daily basis, my brother and sister soldiers worldwide ensure that you and people like you can thumb your collective nose at us, all on a salary that is nothing short of pitiful and under conditions that would make most people cringe. We hemorrhage our best and brightest into the private sector because we can't offer the stability and pay of civilian companies. And you, Ms. Williams, have the gall to say that we make more than we deserve? Rubbish! A1C Michael Bragg Hill AFB AFNCC Vasilius and I are ex-military. In fact, we were in the same Unit for a little while. Gator is military. Lawyer is leaving in the next day to basic combat training (BCT; that's the proper term for it--and that's what it is). Vas, Gator and I can all tell you we were underpaid for what we did. Vas was a Air Traffic Controller and I was a Computer Repairer and Programmer. We both made nearly the same pay (time in rank and rank had Vas ahead of me in pay). He lived in the barracks and his food was paid for. He brought home roughly 1,100/month. So he was living good right? Some of you say that it is. Wrong. The average ATC made triple that monthly. It's a sacrifice we make to serve you say? I say fuck you. You have no clue what sacrifice he really made. Why? He was not only responsible for bringing down a plane safely, he was, under certain situations, responsible for guarding an area (when the duty called) and in danger of receiving a round in the chest, a grenade on his head, or a missle up his ass. And that is what we face daily. Now, let's add the fact that I, as a soldier as well, earned less pay. I supported 2 kids on a single income (that bitch to this day hasn't given me nor my kids shit). With Day Care, car note and food costs, I didn't make enough to support us. What did I do? I dove right in and signed up for food stamps. That's right. I am one of those soldiers that actually had to have food stamps to survive. So, if you think we made too much, come join the service and try to support a family on what we get paid for what we did. I love my country and I served and protected your right to say what you wanted. But dammit, think about and research what you say before you say it. For the record, I liked the Chili Mac and Ham MRE. Anyone want to trade their crackers for my Kool Aid Pac? Hasta. ^ top-Day Old News [Nieves] June 5 - 12:18 PM EDT I got it yesterday evening, but the power outage here in my town knocked me out of business for 6 hours. Reports are pouring in that the orcs have been spotted closer to the cities than ever before. Residents on the outskirts of the cities have said that it appears we're in for an attack within the next couple days. Guards have been called from all over Britannia to protect the larger cities, which we hope will prevent the orcs from attempting to attack these areas. This will be a dark time for citizens of the smaller towns, and we can only hope that by banding together, these attacks can be weathered until the true source of this uprising can be found. Some guards will remain in the smaller towns to see that anarchy does not erupt, and that citizens will be protected from other citizens. Stealing and attacking other players in town unlawfully will still bring the ire of the town guards. However, these remaining guards will be too sparse to defend the town against orc attacks. NOTE: These updates are related to the continuing scenario occuring in Ultima Online. For more information, read the associated fiction located here. The items associated with the scenario will continue to be available in game after the scenario is complete. Oh goody! I get to watch people die in towns!!! Anyone remember the town attacks before UO:R? Watching an Ophidian Matriarch and 20 of her Ophidians chasing one character as he ran by the Delucia bank screaming "HELP!" was some funny stuff! Hasta. ^ top-Damn you all, Damn you all to hell.... [Gator] June 5 - 9:23 AM EDT I posted a good read in the forums. I would have posted it here, but its rather lengthy and i didnt want to clutter up the main page. So go check it out. I think a good majority of you will not be disappointed. [Edited--Added to front Page by Nieves because I think it's important enough to share with our readers. You can still comment on it in the forum.] For 50 years, the Harvard Law School Forum has been sponsoring speeches by luminaries ranging from Fidel Castro to Gerald Ford to Dr. Ruth. Sometimes the speeches have generated a bit of media coverage, sometimes not. But one given by Charlton Heston has taken on a life of its own. Heston, the actor and conservative activist, delivered a stem-winder to about 200 listeners about "a cultural war that's about to hijack your birthright to think and say what resides in your heart." "He knew he was coming to a liberal environment, and clearly a group of his listeners was conservative and another was more liberal," said David Christopherson, president of the forum. "About half respectfully challenged him during the questions. It generated a lot of debate around the campus. But what happened [next] caught us off-guard. "What happened was Rush Limbaugh's radio talk show. On March 15, Limbaugh read the entire speech on the air, only to find himself bombarded with thousands of requests for a copy of it. The same thing happened at Harvard Law. "We couldn't keep up with all the requests," said Mike Chmura at Harvard. "It really didn't have legs and might have been forgotten if Mr.Limbaugh hadn't decided to deliver it." Winning the Cultural War - Charlton Heston's Speech to the Harvard Law School Forum, Feb 16, 1999 I remember my son when he was five, explaining to his kindergarten class what his father did for a living. "My Daddy," he said, "pretends to be people." There have been quite a few of them. Prophets from the Old and New Testaments, a couple of Christian saints, generals of various nationalities and different centuries, several kings, three American presidents, a French cardinal and two geniuses, including Michelangelo. If you want the ceiling repainted I'll do my best. There always seem to be a lot of different fellows up here. I'm never sure which one of them gets to talk. Right now, I guess I'm the guy. As I pondered our visit tonight it struck me: If my Creator gave me the gift to connect you with the hearts and minds of those great men, then I want to use that same gift now to reconnect you with your own sense of liberty of your own freedom of thought... your own compass for what is right. Dedicating the memorial at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln said of America, "We are now engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether this nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure." Those words are true again. I believe that we are again engaged in a great civil war, a cultural war that's about to hijack your birthright to think and say what resides in your heart. I fear you no longer trust the pulsing lifeblood of liberty inside you... the stuff that made this country rise from wilderness into the miracle that it is. Let me back up. About a year ago I became president of the National Rifle Association, which protects the right to keep and bear arms. I ran for office, I was elected, and now I serve ... I serve as a moving target for the media who've called me everything from "ridiculous" and "duped" to a "brain-injured, senile, crazy old man." I know I'm pretty old... but I sure, Lord, ain't senile. As I have stood in the crosshairs of those who target Second Amendment freedoms, I've realized that firearms are not the only issue. No, it's much, much bigger than that. I've come to understand that a cultural war is raging across our land, in which, with Orwellian fervor, certain acceptable thoughts and speech are mandated. For example, I marched for civil rights with Dr. King in 1963 - long before Hollywood found it fashionable. But when I told an audience last year that white pride is just as valid as black pride or red pride or anyone else's pride, they called me a racist. I've worked with brilliantly talented homosexuals all my life. But when I old an audience that gay rights should extend no further than your rights or my rights, I was called a homophobe. I served in World War II against the Axis powers. But during a speech, when I drew an analogy between singling out innocent Jews and singling out innocent gun owners, I was called an anti-Semite. Everyone I know knows I would never raise a closed fist against my country. But when I asked an audience to oppose this cultural persecution, I was compared to Timothy McVeigh. From Time magazine to friends and colleagues, they're essentially saying, "Chuck, how dare you speak your mind. You are using language not authorized for public consumption!" But I am not afraid. If Americans believed in political correctness, we'd still be King George's boys -subjects bound to the British crown. In his book, "The End of Sanity," Martin Gross writes that "blatantly irrational behavior is rapidly being established as the norm in almost every area of human endeavor. There seem to be new customs, new rules, new anti-intellectual theories regularly foisted on us from every direction. Underneath, the nation is roiling. Americans know something without a name is undermining the nation, turning the mind mushy when it comes to separating truth from falsehood and right from wrong. And they don't like it." Let me read a few examples. At Antioch college in Ohio, young men seeking intimacy with a coed must get verbal permission at each step of the process from kissing to petting to final copulation... all clearly spelled out in a printed college directive. In New Jersey, despite the death of several patients nationwide who had been infected by dentists who had concealed their AIDS --- the state commissioner announced that health providers who are HIV-positive need not.... need not.... tell their patients that they are infected. At William and Mary, students tried to change the name of the school team, "The Tribe", because it was supposedly insulting to local Indians, only to learn that authentic Virginia chiefs truly like the name. In San Francisco, city fathers passed an ordinance protecting the rights of transvestites to cross-dress on the job and for transsexuals to have separate toilet facilities while undergoing sex change surgery. In New York City, kids who don't speak a word of Spanish have been placed in bilingual classes to learn their three R's in Spanish solely because their last names sound Hispanic. At the University of Pennsylvania, in a state where thousands died at Gettysburg opposing slavery, the president of that college officially set up segregated dormitory space for black students. Yeah, I know ...that's out of bounds now. Dr. King said, "Negroes." Jimmy Baldwin and most of us on the March said "black." But it's a no-no now. For me, hyphenated identities are awkward... particularly "Native-American." I'm a Native American, for God's sake. I also happen to be a blood-initiated brother of the Miniconjou Sioux. On my wife's side, my grandson is a thirteenth generation native American... with a capital letter on "American." Finally, just last month ... David Howard, head of the Washington, DC Office of Public Advocate, used the word "niggardly" while talking to colleagues about budgetary matters. Of course, "niggardly" means stingy or scanty. But within days Howard was forced to publicly apologize and resign. As columnist Tony Snow wrote: "David Howard got fired because some people in employ were morons who (a) didn't know the meaning of niggardly, (b) didn't know how to use a dictionary to discover the meaning, and (c) actually demanded that he apologize for their ignorance." What does all of this mean? It means that telling us what to think has evolved into telling us what to say, so telling us what to do can't be far behind. Before you claim to be a champion of free thought, tell me: Why did political correctness originate on America's campuses? And why do you continue to tolerate it? Why do you, who're supposed to debate ideas, surrender to their suppression? Let's be honest. Who here thinks your professors can say what they really believe? It scares me to death, and should scare you too, that the superstition of political correctness rules the halls of reason. You are the best and the brightest. You, here in the fertile cradle of American academia, here in the castle of learning on the Charles River, you are the cream. But I submit that you, and your counterparts across the land, are the most socially conformed and politically silenced generation since Concord Bridge. And as long as you validate that ... and abide it...you are, by your grandfathers' standards, cowards. Here's another example. Right now at more than one major university, Second Amendment scholars and researchers are being told to shut up about their findings or they'll lose their jobs. Why? Because their research findings would undermine big-city mayor's pending lawsuits that seek to extort hundreds of millions of dollars from firearm manufacturers. I don't care what you think about guns. But if you are not shocked at that, I am shocked at you. Who will guard the raw material of unfettered ideas, if not you? Who will defend the core value of academia, if you supposed soldiers of free thought and statement lay down your arms and plead, "Don't shoot me." If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist. If you see distinctions between the genders, it does not make you a sexist. If you think critically about a denomination, it does not make you anti-religion. If you accept but don't celebrate homosexuality, it does not make you a homophobe. Don't let America's universities continue to serve as incubators for this rampant epidemic of new McCarthyism. But what can you do? How can anyone prevail against such pervasive social subjugation? The answer's been here all along. I learned it 36 years ago, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, standing with Dr. Martin Luther King and two hundred thousand people. You simply ...disobey. Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course. Nonviolently, absolutely. But when told how to think or what to say or how to behave, we don't. We disobey social protocol that stifles and stigmatizes personal freedom. I learned the awesome power of disobedience from Dr. King ... who learned it from Gandhi, and Thoreau, and Jesus, and every other great man who led those in the right against those with the might. Disobedience is in our DNA. We feel innate kinship with that disobedient spirit that tossed tea into Boston Harbor, that sent Thoreau to jail, that refused to sit in the back of the bus, that protested a war in Viet Nam. In that same spirit, I am asking you to disavow cultural correctness with massive disobedience of rogue authority, social directives and onerous laws that weaken personal freedom. But be careful... it hurts. Disobedience demands that you put yourself at risk. Dr. King stood on lots of balconies. You must be willing to be humiliated... to endure the modern-day equivalent of the police dogs at Montgomery and the water cannons at Selma. You must be willing to experience discomfort. I'm not complaining, but my own decades of social activism have taken their toll on me. Let me tell you a story. A few years back I heard about a rapper named Ice-T who was selling a CD called, "Cop Killer", celebrating ambushing and murdering police officers. It was being marketed by none other than Time/Warner, the biggest entertainment conglomerate in the world. Police across the country were outraged. Rightfully so-at least one had been murdered. But Time/Warner was stonewalling because the CD was a cash cow for them, and the media were tiptoeing around it because the rapper was black. I heard Time/Warner had a stockholders meeting scheduled in Beverly Hills. I owned some shares at the time, so I decided to attend. What I did there was against the advice of my family and colleagues. I asked for the floor. To a hushed room of a thousand average American stockholders, I simply read the full lyrics of "Cop Killer"- every vicious, vulgar, instructional word: "I GOT MY 12 GAUGE SAWED OFF. I GOT MY HEADLIGHTS TURNED OFF. I'M ABOUT TO BUST SOME SHOTS OFF. I'M ABOUT TO DUST SOME COPS OFF..." It got worse, a lot worse. I won't read the rest of it to you. But trust me, the room was a sea of shocked, frozen, blanched faces. The Time/Warner executives squirmed in their chairs and stared at their shoes. They hated me for that. Then I delivered another volley of sick lyric brimming with racist filth, where Ice-T fantasizes about sodomizing two 12-year old nieces of Al and Tipper Gore. "SHE PUSHED HER BUTT AGAINST MY ...." Well, I won't do to you here what I did to them. Let's just say I left the room in echoing silence. When I read the lyrics to the waiting press corps, one of them said, "We can't print that." "I know," I replied, "but Time/Warner's selling it." Two months later, Time/Warner terminated Ice-T's contract. I'll never be offered another film by Warner's, or get a good review from Time magazine. But disobedience means you must be willing to act, not just talk. When a mugger sues his elderly victim for defending herself... jam the switchboard of the district attorney's office. When your university is pressured to lower standards until 80% of the students graduate with honors ...choke the halls of the board of regents. When an 8-year-old boy pecks a girl's cheek on the playground and gets hauled into court for sexual harassment ... march on that school and block its doorways. When someone you elected is seduced by political power and betrays you...petition them, oust them, banish them. When Time magazine's cover portrays millennium nuts as deranged, crazy Christians holding a cross as it did last month... boycott their magazine and the products it advertises. So that this nation may long endure, I urge you to follow in the hallowed footsteps of the great disobedience's of history that freed exiles, founded religions, defeated tyrants, and yes, in the hands of an aroused rabble in arms and a few great men, by God's grace, built this country. If Dr. King were here, I think he would agree. Thank you. Later ^ top-Adam Ant's Event, and An essay from Stratics [Nieves] June 4 - 5:47 PM EDT Hello all, The quest was a huge success and several Guardians have written up detailed accounts of the evening's events. Many of these chronicles are jam packed with pictures and are quite entertaining to read. In case you're interested in Good vs. Evil role-playing, and wondering if it is even a part of Sosaria any more, I would have to say, yes, it's alive and doing well! You are welcome to repost anything from the following articles: Article 1 Article 2 Article 3 Support evil in Sosaria, Adam Ant Those posts up there are SWEET! Check them out. This essay is meant to give you a basic grounding in the skills needed to survive and prosper in Ultima Online. It was originally written for new members of the SBG guild http://www.btinternet.com/~trevi/ and it assumes you’ve done the newbie quests and have a reasonable basic knowledge of the game. If you have any questions, however silly ask someone. I was playing for a month before I found out how to use a spellbook. No doubt there are people who disagree with some of the stuff I have written here, after all there are many different ways of doing stuff in UO. Essential Skills There are skills, whatever trade you practice are essential for everyday life in UO Healing You won’t get very far (alive) if you can’t heal yourself, you can rely on yellow potions (and orange to cure poison) but you have to have one hand free to drink the potion. I think a far better way is to use the healing skill using bandages, this skill also requires Anatomy which is also useful in combat. Once you get to 60% healing you can cure poison and at 81% you can resurrect other players. You can get training in Healing and Anatomy from any healer. It will cost you up to 350gp but it’s well worth it. NPC Guildmasters in all trades give more training. You cut bandages from cloth cut up using scissors and you can buy cloth from tailors or make your own by shearing sheep by double clicking on a bladed weapon and then click on the sheep to get wool, double click on the wool, then click on a spinning wheel (find them at tailors) to spin the wool into yarn and then finally find a loom to turn the yarn into a bolt of cloth. Magery Another essential skill you will need is Magery, which is a pity as magic is a pain in the ass. You will mostly need magic for casting Healing, Curing Poison, Night Sight and Recall. Recall is a forth level spell which you cast on a Rune marked for the location you want to go too (you need at least 60% magery to Mark runes, to mark runes cast mark on the rune, double click on the rune to name it). You need at least 30% magic to cast recall from your Spellbook, you can use recall scrolls with a lower magery skill but that gets expensive. All my characters have at least 50% magery to cast recall reliably. To cast any magic spells without a scroll you need Reagents (or Regs) there are 8 different reagents; Mandrake Root, Black Pearl, Blood Moss, Spider Silk, Garlic, Sulphurous Ash, Nightshade & Ginseng every spell uses a combination of these. They can be bought from mage shops or picked up off the ground. I would recommend buying all the reagents you can find/afford but just keeping 20 - 50 or so of each reagent with you in a bag and the rest in your Bank box. Buy your Magery off a Mage Guildmaster in a mage shop, while you’re there buy Magic Resist if you have the money. To put spells in your spellbook simply place the scroll on top of the book. (It took me ages to work that one out). To put a rune in a Runebook do the same thing, you can also put recall scrolls in runebooks in order too cast recall without using reagents, this is useful for if you die, run out of reagents or are feeling lazy. Spellbooks and Runebooks stay with you when you die, you can’t use them when you’re dead though. If you are planning on making a mage character you will need Meditation (to get mana back quicker) and Evaluating intelligence (gives more chance of doing damage, especially on creatures and people with high magic resist). Wrestling is also useful, not for doing any damage (it doesn't) but for casting spells without being interrupted and if you have high level of Arms Lore you can disarm people (and get their weapon in your backpack). Inscription is also a good skill to have, there are a lot of people out there who need recall scrolls (40-50gp each) and making rune books and it gives extra damage to certain spells. Macros You can designate keys to use certain skills (ie. meditation, taming, hiding) without going through the Skills menu. Go to Options, then the 5th option on the left (on 2D menu). Click "Add" and chose your key (best not to make it a letter or number key, it won't work when you type). Then chose "use skill" from the actions menu (this can be a bit tricky, just left click then drag your mouse to the bottom of the list, you should get the full list of options). All you need to do then is chose the skill you want to bind to that key. Click apply, then ok. Starting Characters In my opinion the best character to start with is a Swordsman/Lumberjack, mages are too expensive to make your starting character (it costs about 250,000 gold in regs to get to GM) and craftsmen are boring to play and not much good for exploring the game. Don’t delete that mage you’ve started or that smith you got bored with though, you may decide you need them in the future. The reason I like lumberjacking is because you get bonuses to your attack when using axes (up to 35% extra damage at Grandmaster level). You can also make a fortune just cutting logs (and turning them into boards as boards are lighter) as there are people out there trying to raise their carpentry skill and to do that it takes HUGE amounts of wood. The going rate is 10gp a board which doesn’t sound a lot - until you have a few thousand boards, the result of a couple of hours cutting. Another good starting combination is a Mace/Miner, maces are the cheapest melee weapons and there are plenty of people who want ingots, again at 10gp an ingot. When you chose your starting skills I would advise having the highest Strength you can and just having 10 Dexterity and 11 Intelligence whatever character you intend to make, then put 49 on magic resist and 50 on the trade skill (ie. lumberjacking) you want. Put the remaining 1% on whatever looks interesting to you. Chose a name which is easy to spell or abbreviate, remember people will have to spell your name. Don't worry about not having any fighting skills you can raise these easily enough by fighting creatures near the towns. Start off with the easier animals like rats, headless & mongbats (which give you karma) goats, hinds, pigs and cows, don't forget to take the hides and meat. Sell the meat raw to dragon owners or cook it. Equipment Assuming you only have the 1000gp you start with go out and buy a fast weapon for the fighting skill you want (katana = swords, kyrss = fencing, war axe = mace), and a heater shield, don't bother with any armour to start with, it's too expensive and you would be better to spend your money on buying magery, healing and anatomy. Pick up what you find lying around on the ground, people throw away some surprisingly good stuff (and rubbish) which you can either sell or use yourself. Once you get a bit of money behind you, buy exceptional quality (GM) player made weapons and armour, there are many player vendors selling this stuff and you get bonus's to attack and defense over the standard stuff. Start off with studded leather or ringmail armour as you need all the Dexterity you can get. Different colours make no difference to your armour rating. Don't keep all your wealth on you, put EVERYTHING you don't need with you in your bank box. All you should have in your backpack are bandages, (and scissors to cut new ones) your magebook, runebook(s), food (including fruit for your horse), regs, healing and cure potions and your armour and weapon. It is also a good idea to keep the dagger you got when you started on you. Everything you get with a new character will be blessed and, like your magebook and runebook will stay with you when you die. To avoid a cluttered backpack get place your regs and everything you don't immediately need in another backpack. This will make recovering you stuff a lot easier when you die too. Selling To get rid of you hard earned boards or ingots (don't even bother trying to sell less than 1000 of wood, ingots or leather or any magic weapon below force) you can stand at Britain bank shouting out your wares or, a far better way is to use www.uo-auction.com this is an online auction only selling UO stuff for UO money and will cost you nothing, you can also find some good weapons there. Always check the person's profile who has won your auction to see if they are trustworthy, especially if you are selling items like boards which cannot be transferred in one go. Hints & Tips 1. To raise your Dexterity get your skills up to the 700 skill point ceiling, make sure that no skills except music or fencing are lowered. Then raise either skill to 10 (real) points, then invert the skill arrow and raise the other skill. You will find your Dexterity will go up quite rapidly. You can also raise your Strength by wrestling and mace and your Intelligence by spirit speak and music. You can, of course combine the skills you are raising (its essential if you are a fencer or macer :). It is a good idea to fight animals or guildmates instead of dummies as you can get anatomy, tactics, healing and parry gains at the same time. 2. Hints to new mages, or those who are either perpetually broke or lousy at transferring wealth from one character to another; *Don't* buy regs from player vendors. Spend the time to mark a mage shop runebook and persevere. 3. Instead of 8x8ing on the ocean, wander around the woods casting on animals, then collect and sell the hides. You don't gain as fast as with pure 8x8ing, but you still gain quickly and it's more interesting than sailing all by your lonesome on the ocean. Best of all you don't beggar yourself training magery, you won't need a boat and you will also gain wrestling. (those last 2 hints from Raxnixia). 4. Run away if you find you are taking on something too tough for you, retreat and heal before your health gets too low, no one will think any less of you for doing so. 5. Don't pester people for money/regs/weapons, its annoying. 6. When you die, go into war mode. Other players will be able to see you and if you are lucky you will be resurrected without having to find a wandering healer. No-one can understand what you say when you are dead. 7. Don't go to Fellucia (via town moongates) if you are not prepared to be robbed or die and be looted. You cannot walk through people or animals at will and be very careful not to break any laws. All (constructive) comments are welcome. Anyone wishing to use this essay for non commercial use please do, just give me credit :) Brand, High Counsellor of the SBG I like you, you remind me of when I was young and stupid I read it, realized this was a very good article/essay and will be asking it's author if I can make it a permanent addition to UOPG's essay section. I especially liked #7. If only I posted this 2 weeks ago...maybe things would be different. Tell me why you think this Essay Deserves (or not) to be in our essay section). Hasta. ^ top-Peach colored? [Eric] June 4 - 6:54 AM EDT I found this... The following was posted to FYI: Customer Support Advisors EA has arranged with a small group of international customer support representatives to aid in handling game-related customer support, as well as other tasks, for EA.com. As of Friday, June 1st, they will be spending some time addressing Ultima Online customer concerns on the Chesapeake and Atlantic shards from 5:00 pm to 1:00 am EDT as advisors, appearing in peach-colored robes. Please keep in mind that Advisors will only address game play issues. This is an experimental program, and we will post updates when and if the program is to be expanded. Just when you were crying because your blue robed friends were gone, here come the peach colored ones. Now, the last line of that paragraph states This is an experimental program, and we will post updates when and if the program is to be expanded. Expanded? Maybe OSI is realizing they need more in-game support representatives ever since the volunteers got the boot? I could be wrong, and I probably am, but this is something to ponder. Cya later. ^ top-From the grapevine... [Nieves] June 2 - 5:56 PM EDT Heard over the grapevine, no idea if this is true or not, but could be interesting: Orc special spawns have stopped everywhere since 12:00 last night A Gm has told eople that at 8:00 ct tonight, there will be an invasion in every city of about 150 per city Tram & Fel At that time, All guards will be removed. Pks will be alowed in the cities but it isnt advised. The Orc War has begun It's ON! Blackheath of THB stresses that this is a rumor so... Thanks BH. Happy Friday! Just posted to FYI: We will be releasing a client patch on Friday, June 1st at approximately 11:45 am CDT. This patch contains an encryption change and various bug fixes. The current versions should now be 3.0.2b (2D client) and 3.0.2a Build 64 (3D client). Please note: Once you have received this patch, you must completely shut down and restart your Ultima Online client before you will be able to reconnect to the game. If you have any difficulty receiving this patch, please check the following: * Check the "Patch" directory within your Ultima Online directory (the default location is C:\\Program Files\Ultima Online\Patch). This directory should be empty. Any files in this directory should be deleted. * If you are unable to connect to the patch server at all, and are using an original (Non-T2A) version of Ultima Online, you may need to update your verinfo file. For details on updating this file, please see the information posted at . * Run a virus scan on your computer. Undetected viruses may cause conflicts with patching Ultima Online. If after trying the above, you are still experiencing difficulty patching the Ultima Online client, please contact Technical Support at tech@uo.com . -------------------------------------------------- And posted to What's New: >From our Comments from the Team section: For exactly one year now, I've been working at Origin Systems as a designer for Ultima Online. As these are my first comments, I believe introductions are in order. My online name is Oaks, and, had I known how many times I'd be called Oats or Oak, there's a good chance I may have picked something else. But I like it, gosh darn it! Anyhow... who's seen the cool magic effects in Third Dawn? I designed almost all of them, as well as worked on the Ilshenar map, dungeon Khaldun, and many bug fixes, including the change to cutting bandages. Want to read more? Click here for the latest from the UO Live Team, now updated three times a week! Thank you Watts. Hasta. ^ top-Hey, look, it's a bandwagon....let's all jump on. [Anon] June 2 - 12:49 PM EDT Hail to thee fair citizen of Britannia, how can I help thee? The recent events in our beloved game world have caused an even greater rift in a community that is already divided. The biggest problem with the game right now is not the PK's killing Trammel players, not Feluccan players greifing in Trammel, but the damned bandwagon jumpers.....you know, the ones too stupid to form their own intelligent opinion and just uses everyone else's. This is the cancer eating away at our game. Let's just LOOK at the events of the last few days. Trammel guild plans hunt in Khaldun. Feluccan PK guilds decided to rOxXoR them and advertise it on their site and themselves say they wanted to harasse them. Trammel Guild gets massacred. PK guild does the PK dance. Trammel guild complains of harrassment. OSI agrees and bans Feluccan PKs for 48 hours. Trammel guilds do the happy dance. Shit hits the fan on the OSI boards. That is a pretty good cronology of the events of the last few days in which players were issued a 48 hour ban. Were they banned for PKing? No. Stealing? No. Res killing? No. RoXxOrInG a Trammel guild? No. Harassment? Yes. OSI's email to these people states repeated and continued harassment. All of you out there on the bandwagon thinking OSI is a freaking Gestapo need to get a serious cluebrick. OSI does not ban on site for the hell of it, no matter WHAT the stories you hear, so try to find a more rational explanation for the whole thing. The bandwagon is a scary thing. It causes mass hysteria, greif, prevents lines of intelligent and thoughtful communication and hinders any and all progress to resolves issues. This is a case in point. Felucca players saw "Banned for PKing" and the turned around and said "Hey, Ma, there's a posse a formin'. I'm a jumping on the wagon" and never bother to look further into the situation. End result: Well, you all see it for yourself. I took the time to read the boards, all the sites with all the info on this situation and I have my OWN conclusion to give. I HAVE NO CONCLUSION SINCE ALL THE INFO I HAVE IS BIASED! OSI's, OPP's, everyone's info is biased. So while everyone is busy on there boards complaining about quitting and stuff, I'm hunting Orc Bows. And thanks to you all, I just found 4. Maybe this bandwagon thins is not soo bad afterall. :) Take care and fare thee well in thy journeys! ^ top-Point of No Return [Gator] June 1 - 8:44 AM EDT Most folks know that I have been a true supporter of Trammel and UO:3D. (**Note** Enter Extreme Sarcasm Here **Note**) But with the recent 48 Hour Suspension of 3 Felucca PK Guilds, OSI has gone past the point of no return. Now there are folks out there that may say that the PKs interupted a guild event and deserve to be suspended. I say Bullshit. Felucca is the nitty gritty. The Down and dirty. Every player that steps into Fel excepts that risk. But now OSI has crossed the point of no return and is protecting Trammelites in Felucca, and that equates to complete utter bullshit. So the PKs posted some l33t photos on their site. Who cares?!?! Its their site, if they want to post pictures of them molesting sheep on their site, who cares?!?! Its their site and God given right to post whatever in the hell they want there. If there are situations where players are aggravating other players in game, then OSI has the right to step in and stop it. But OSI has NO right to get at players for what they have on their site. OSI stay in your own playground. But see now it all doesnt really matter anymore. OSI uses the "Use once, its policy" method. Now that they have done this, players beware. This will be considered "new policy" unfortunately it will not be added to the TOS until their next TOS update which is scheduled for May 2005. PKs this doesnt mean that you can't kill, the rule still stands, someone steps up to the mike, let em have it. But like everyone else has stated, keep your mouths shut about it, and dont post no trash. Because suspensions will now become the norm. Well I better be quiet before I get suspended for running at the mouth. I feel like I a Leader of a Freedom Fighter Orginization running around in Communist China (OSI). You know what? I dont hate this game, I just hate OSI. Later - FreeGameCam - Game Links - Markee Dragon Brokers - Markee Dragon News - Shattered Crystal Game Codes - TrustWho - Warcraft Bot - World of Warcraft Screenshots ©2000 - 2006 UOPowergamer Enterprises. The names, UOPG, UOPowergamers.com, Powergamers.net, NWN.powergamers.net, and all information contained within this site is Copyright UO, Powergamer Enterprises, and other respective Copyright owners. Mad propz go out to Warlord for UOPG's graphics. Without his help, what you see wouldnt have been possible. UOPG encourages and appreciates links in your own Web pages to uopowergamers.com. Permission is expressly granted to any person who wishes to place a link in his or her own Web page. 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