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UO in Review -- 3 Nov 2006 Wilki Becomes Dev, No Longer Community Coordinator UO Week in Review--29 September 2006 Server Maintenance UO Week (or thereabouts) in Review--16 Sept 2006 Unavailble at this time. 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,