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June 2002 News:
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^ top-Welcome to UO 2k.2
[Nieves] June 30 - 11:54 PM EDT | 
Hasta. |
^ top-More Public 16 Madness
[Nieves] June 30 - 2:32 PM EDT | KNOWN ISSUES We are aware of several issues that have been reported on Pacific (note that these issues should only be relevant to the Pacific shard at this time). Please do not call a GM or submit bug reports regarding these issues, since they are already being addressed.
We do, however, encourage players to continue to report any new issues to uobugs@uo.com.
- Currently, stabled pets with two names separated by a space cannot be claimed. (Using the "claim all" command may solve this issue for now in some cases, but we are addressing this currently.)
- Stealing is still considered an aggressive act. (This is considered a priority.)
- We are looking into issues with the Minax stronghold sigil.
- The flaming head is not flaming while not locked down. (The fact that Vet Reward banners, Holiday trees, and Flaming Head are no longer able to be locked down is actually as designed. These items do not need to be locked down to keep them from decaying. The bug, however, lies in the fact that the Flaming Head is supposed to be flaming while not locked down, and it is currently not.)
- Escorts are not going into gates properly.
- Some Felucca runebooks are not functioning properly. (This is the case with runebooks that have a default location set in the Felucca dungeons or Lost Lands servers. To fix this, simply set a new default location outside of the Dungeon and Lost Lands servers.)
Thanks to Blietz for the info.
People losing old pets, pets they have had for a long time (Even though I have an issue with TWINK Tamers, I understand the loss of a long time 'pet').
'Rares' not functioning as designed.
Flagging when stealing not working right at all. Sad for those of you that have (Maybe) turned red because of this bug.
Message to OSI: Revert the damn shard to Thursday morning's back up. Take the publish out. And this time, finish the freaking thing. To hell with the schedule. If you want to shove this shit down our throats, then do it right
Hasta. |
^ top-Pacific Publish 16 Notes
[Nieves] June 30 - 12:05 PM EDT | I thought you might want to know some of these things
about Pacific now...
- Bards haven't been hurt that much.. they still rule
the gold market.. still provoke just fine..etc
OSI didn't change that much with bards.
- Tons of new Slayer instruments... just kill
Lizardmen.. the instruments are EASY to get.
- All the BODs that aren't Exceptional or higher are
dull colored cloth... anything higher are Neon
shades... Large Cloth BOD have a chance of Sandals...
Large Leather above are sandals and slight chance of
Bear rugs, etc...
- PvP is trully ruined... when 5+ GM Mages run around
casting Global spells
regardless of the Blues around, that is just
mindless... all your enemies die.
- Powerscrolls are EASY to get for sure. It isn't as
difficult as they say. Stat Scrolls are difficult.
So far I've only known 1 person with +5 stat.
- Stats are jacked up hard... if you don't lock your
skill for instance... and you already have GM Magery..
you might gain +1 Int... to 101 int, 99 str, 25
dex..etc... it's tough without seesaw.
- Emma Frost
Thanks for the info Emma. It's appreciated.
Hasta. |
^ top-Some Thoughts on Scripting In Neverwinter Nights.
[Nieves] June 29 - 9:38 PM EDT | At IGN, there is a Scripting Tutorial series of courses you can take to teach yourself the NWN Scripting Language.
For those of you that have taken C or C++, realize that the NWN Scripting Language uses some of the same principles but the language is different in many ways. Think of trying to code in C and trying to code in Java. Although the languages are similar in many 'aspects', their conventions and syntax are different enough that you need to actually learn the language's fundamentals, rules, and it's own specific syntax before sitting and down and punching out code.
One of the most interesting things I have found out about this scripting language is the way it 'behaves'. You see, programs run sequentially. Which means the commands in a program execute one at a time. They go onto the program stack with their pointers and code that will be executing next. It's not that cut and dry or EXACTLY that way, but it's the simplest way ol' Nievesy Pooh can explain it so bear with him ::winks at Watts::.
Well, let me give you a different way of looking at it: When any program is executing, it does so sequentially: meaning, the processor can only do one job at a time. Even though we have "multi-tasking" operating systems, the processor is still only doing on command at a time; the operating system merely "shuffles" the jobs that the processor should be executing so many different programs can all share the processor at once. (This is related to the notion of a task's priority; in Windows, for example, setting a task to "high" causes proportionally more of that task's executions to be sent to the processor than others).
The "program queue" is essentially the list of commands that the processor will execute. Think of a queue like a line of people (in fact, in Britain they use the word "queue" in place of what we call a "line" in America). If you're waiting at the grocery store, and you're forming a line, the first person to enter the line is "served" (and therefore exits the line) first. An abbreviated way of thinking about a queue is by saying that it behaves "first in, first out."
So, essentially, every line of code you write gets added sequentially to this list of executions to run, referred to henceforth as the "program queue."
Did you get that? Good…now…
Now, NWN Scripting uses TWO stacks. Along with the Command Stack, it uses something called an "Action Stack". In fact, they operate independently of each other, as though they were being added to two different queues. And in effect, that is exactly what is happening. They being the command and action stacks/queues. According to the above linked document, the particulars of how that stack works are not known (I have to read it again to be sure; but even so, the inner workings of it are still to be discovered). But, with help from a friend (Thanks T'Koda), I postulated that maybe the reason for these two stacks is to allow for faster processing in the executing of tasks NPCs and monsters are programmed with.
A quote: The reason for this is because unlike script executions (referred to as "commands" so far) will always operate within a fixed amount of time (usually in nanoseconds, dependent on the speed of your processor). Actions take longer to complete, so they can't be run "instantly."
If actions were computed like script commands, and were only run on one central stack, imagine how poorly that would run! Since we can have many NPCs doing many different things at once, it is clear that the BioWare engine evaluates script commands like a multitasking operating system running many tasks at once, which works quite nicely as long as all of the operations are being calculated incredibly quickly (and consistently in regards to execution time). But what happens when you have an NPC walk across a 32x32 map?
If his "walking across a 32x32 map" were inserted into the command queue with all of the other commands, your game might freeze up; nothing would be moving, or doing anything, except for that one NPC walking across the (large) map. As soon as he was done, the game would universally freeze again until the next NPC who was lucky enough to get an action on to the command queue finished his action. And so on, and so forth. You would basically have a game that is entirely unplayable.
So, it makes perfect sense why they would've created this 'work around' to make the game run smoother.
The problem is the game has a memory leak (thanks again to T'Koda). The game isn't flushing itself from memory as it moves along. If anyone remembers, Diablo II and Ultima Online: 3rd Dawn had big memory leak problems which eventually locked up your computer. The problem was the code would load all the data required for say, Shame, then when you left Shame and went to Destard, instead of flushing the data from your memory, the data for both Shame and Destard would be there and start hogging up resources in a major way. What happens is your computer locks up and you will need to reboot that machine and allow it to come back up in a "clean state". Which means all that other data is now gone and all that is loaded is the information that comes up when you start up your computer (Windows, misc. Services, ICQ, etc.). So when you restart your game, you are fine (usually) and can run your game again. Until it once again uses up all your resources and locks up your computer.
Not all computers are experiencing this type of memory leak, but some are. So, I am thinking that maybe, just maybe, this type of processing is foreign to some of the computer processors and RAM we have out today. And it also makes sense why the system requirements for the game is so high. It needs all that processing power to run the game smoothly.
Yes, we can use multiple stacks when programming applications, but this is sort of like having TWO command queues running at once. It’s hard to explain, but if you understand any type of hardcore programming (not drag and drop stuff) you will understand what I am saying as to how ‘weird’ this is.. Everyone else will just have to trust me.
My theory is the computers that are having this problem are having a problem with the way NWN Scripting works.
Granted, this is ONLY speculation and if I am wrong, I am wrong. But it could explain it.
In the world of Computing, there is something called F.M. Translated, "Fucking Magic". That's a term many computer professionals use to describe what happened when a computer wouldn't come up all day, then all of a sudden it does. My thinking on that is computers are powered by one of the most volatile forms of energy on this planet: Electricity. If you have ever studied electricity, you would know that it is some crazy acting shit. It's a wonder man ever got it to work for him....
Anyway, I am blabbering.
I am going to dig into this scripting stuff and see if I can figure out exactly how the 'dual command stack' processing works in NWN and then dive into the coding of the game.
There are a lot of good guides out there. NWN.Stratics actually has links to some VERY good sites. Maybe NWN Stratics will not go the way of one of it's predecessors and not fall behind in staying current in it's content and information.
One of the most interesting scripts I found was this one. Just click it. You will see why that's interesting.
One of the most interesting features a Dungeon Master (think Seer with Uber powers) has available to him is: dm_cowsfromhell - Cows burst forth from Hell and kill everyone in range. If anyone remembers Blue Bolts from Heaven or "make your 3d6, six times saving throw" you will know what those Demon Cows mean...
Also, for those that have NWN already (NOT ME! :( ), and want to PvP, here are some PvP Modules you can download and use.
Hasta. |
^ top-Warlord <-- Is Da Shit
[Nieves] June 29 - 7:17 PM EDT | 
No promises as to it's final release...but it's being worked on.
Hasta. |
^ top-Sensitivity Training
[Nieves] June 29 - 2:59 PM EDT | From PvP Online comes, Sensitivity Training.
And if you give a shit about the underground music scene, check out this girl. He fucking rocks. Now if he would just get a new website that matches his mixing talents.
Hasta. |
^ top-Some MORE Pub 16 News
[Nieves] June 29 - 2:41 PM EDT | Reset the default rune location of your runebooks. If they are set to a spot in the Lost Lands or the Dungeons, they will not work. That might be what is causing the problems when you are trying to use them and you can't recall.
If the house is owned by an inactive account, it has been set to a state of "inactive." Players do not get to see the actual house state, you only see the refresh type. In this case, a refresh type of "condemned" is correct -- it means that after we turn decay back on, the house will decay. However, before that happens, we will turn on coowner claiming, and you should be able to take ownership of the house.
MrTact
Enchanted harps are being found on Lizard Men. Some with a high number of charges.
Um, Lizardmen are spawning powerful magic items? Does anyone else see this as a problem?
You can find a FAQ about housing here.
On a non-UO related note: Blockbuster (in my town anyway) is selling Lord Of the Rings Rental Cards. You pay 24.99 and you get 1 free DVD or VHS a week for ten weeks. If you miss a movie in one of those weeks, you forfeit your free movie for that week. Here is the cool part: You get a free copy of the Lord of the Rings DVD coming out on August 6th. And you can choose letterbox or regular format.
Own...if you can get it.
Hasta. |
^ top-Found On A Pacific Shard Near You
[Nieves] June 29 - 8:32 AM EDT | +10 Scrolls (Fencing, Swords, and Eval) were found early on. And Thalen can't sell them for a high price.
Also, Fire Horns. From what I saw have this really cool Flamestrike effect when activated on a target or on targets..
Anyway...I guess those powerscrolls and Fire Horns aren't as rare as previousely stated.
Hasta. |
^ top-Stat Cap Method Not Working?
[Nieves] June 28 - 11:31 PM EDT | There are indications that gaining stats in what has been the 'traditional way' since skill locks were introduced is no longer viable.
Anyone know if this is true?
UPDATE: I can confirm that the see saw method on Pacific is broken since we revieved Publish 16.
I was working Strength for 2 hours trying to gain using the see saw method, ,and for 2 hours I didn't gain JACK! This is either planned by OSI or it is a bug. Either way, it's fucked.
Pathos (Pacific)
Thanks Pathos.
Hasta. |
^ top-Pub 16 Pacific News
[Nieves] June 28 - 2:12 PM EDT | system message on Pacific: In order for you to recall in Feluca, you must remove runes from the runebooks, as they don't work inside the runebooks.
.....
Hasta. |
^ top-Publish 16 On Pacific
[Nieves] June 28 - 8:47 AM EDT | It's on!
No wait! We can't do it. Storms!
Oh, hold on, it's Friday, they can't patch it in. People don't like to work on the weekends! Wait! They will do it next week.
OH NO! We can't. It's a holiday weekend! Woops. Sorry.
OH! Friday! Perfect! And since next week is a holiday weekend, they will put it in now so you can truly enjoy the holiday in UO!
Whew.
I am glad that is straight now.
From Blitz: This will suck like it never sucked before!!!
Hasta. |
^ top-More nerfs to tamers revealed
[FrozenFire] June 28 - 1:05 AM EDT | Or not. . .
This is what Oaks had to say about tamers:
"With publish 16, pets will no longer walk through moongates by themselves. They will follow their owner through a gate, however."
Thats right, now tamers wont have to have to fear that their poor (and soon to be ressable, I might add) pet dragon will be killed by any bad evil players that stands up to them in peeveepee.
Bards will be toned down soon. Fine, it was overdue, at least since UO:R. Tamers? They wont go the same way, instead theyve been annointed by the "gods". Newsflash: They are now the freaking preferred class in UO. Bad news for the game, if you ask me.
|
^ top-Too Bad I Wasn't There
[Nieves] June 27 - 8:21 PM EDT | I am sure Blackened would find this damn hilarious had I been there.
I hope you got your jollies Bill/Blackened/Darkken Rabbi/Jerry Garcia/Infestus/Slap Your Face/Jarlaxle/Creeping Death/Darkken Rabbi/ Wolfbrew. I mean, I would surely be happy if I went out of my way to gank someone and totally fuck someone in the ass in game that paid my "real life bills, kept my roof over [my] head, kept [me] fed, helped [me] with [my] computer by sending [me] computer parts, and helped [me] keep [my] Ultima Online accounts active".
Pay that woman back that helped you all this time. It's the honorable thing to do. Oh wait, "[you] have no honor nor integrity". My bad on that.
Oh, and you surely are a big fucking man NOW! I mean look at you. You are with the King Gank Squad of Great Lakes! Too bad you couldn't even handle RP PvPers solo. Oh, that's right, it was because you were lagged all the time. My bad. I take that one back.
Go ahead, gank me, my friends, everyone I know (just make sure it REALLY is me you are getting this time k?thx). I could give a shit. Why? All that means is I got to go and get resed and reequipped. It means nothing because it's just a fucking game. Do you realize that? A fucking game.
Oh, and you SURELY are a big man when I tried to confront you about the shit you said about me to others. I mean, really, ignoring me but crying to your little friends? I especially loved it when they came back and said: 'could you please leave Bill alone'? Lots of balls there 'bro'.
Yeah bitch. Big fucking tough guy. Not.
Oh, "who is the new girlfriend this month"? I mean, have you met a "new virtual babe that feels sorry enough for [you] to want to take care of Poow Wittle Bill"? Oh I am sure your little circle "feels sorry for PWB, because you know, he's the fucking victim". PWB never does anything wrong, does he?
"[Have you] posted anymore logs to your friends lately"? I mean, "[you] keep everything and just HAVE to share it with people just to show how much of a victim you really are". Wah.
"[Have you] found a job yet after a year? Or are [you] still sitting in front of the fucking computer crying to people about your bills? Or did you find a virtual 'Big Momma' to pay your bills? Or did you find some other 'thing' that will pay off big for you?"
Laugh Bill. Laugh all you want.
You are nothing.
You are pathetic.
Oh, and some advice (if you care to listen): "Go take your fucking pills so you don't keep having panic attacks and quit getting flat faced drunk around your kid."
Maybe if you had a job and "kept current on your emotion control pills, you wouldn't feel like such a victim. Maybe, just maybe, you would have a real life."
Kiss my ass and suck my dick backwards.
UPDATE: Lest I forget, Pepper, Regulus has some information for you.
UPDATE2: For the record, Alana had nothing to do with this post. It was all Nievesy. All the information above was gathered by various sources. These sources have saved information (contained within logs) about said individual. The information also includes direct quotes from this individual. What was spoken here was spoken in open forums and discussion groups. I merely summarized and repeated them here. I modified the above post to show the quotes as given to me by those various sources. They contacted me and demanded their information be given proper recognition and I have done so.
Hasta. |
^ top-Powergaming NWN
[Nieves] June 27 - 2:09 PM EDT | And it begins....
Quick Leveling in Chapter 1
I was playing through with my second character (Gnome Wizard) and was just playing as normal, and defeated the Yuan-Ti in the graveyard. I then decided it would probably be a good idea to go through the part of the dungeon I hadn't explored and get all the items from those parts.
I noticed I missed the Mummy Room at the entrance of the crypt. I went inside, Tomi unlocked the chests, disabled the traps, I took the armor out of the sarcophagus and the mummy instantly spawned. After defeating it, I had a hunch.
I took the armor, and placed it back inside the sarcophagus. Voila! Another mummy spawned. Hmmm...
It seems as though EVERY time you take an item out or put an item in, a mummy spawns. At level 7, these give + or - 250 exp EACH. Since I was a wizard, I found I could kill up to 6 of these at a time (Myself, Tomi, and my Panther summon, that is) which was 1500 experience every minute or so. Needless to say, I went from level 7 to 8 pretty damn quickly.
Though when you hit level 8, you only get about 150 exp each... hell, it's still enough to level like crazy.
So.. happy leveling everyone.
Thanks Albi.
Feeling it yet?
Hasta. |
^ top-NWN Graphics Rock.... Sorta...
[Gator] June 27 - 11:12 AM EDT | Just like many others I rushed out for a copy of NWN last night. And let me tell you, just the intro movie alone had me VERY impressed. But immediately encountered the black screen of death. :/ No biggie. I exited the game and tried again, and this time I got the game menus, ALRIGHT, now we are in business. Character creation setup was very easy and worked quite well for someone who has no experience with the AD&D III ruleset. Finally got into the game and it started. I experienced a lag worse than any time I ever played with in UO. I am talking worse than the first night housing was allowed in Trammel. Anyone remember that night? ::shudders:: So anyways, I quickly saved and exited and checked out Biowares web site for more info. And there it was...
3DFX is no longer in business; although some Voodoo 5 cards may work occasionally they are no longer supported by 3DFX and available drivers do not generally include complete OpenGL support required for Neverwinter Nights. Hence, 3DFX graphics cards are not supported by NWN.
Once again my $300 VooDoo 5500 bites me in the ass. :/ Ohh it will run alright, but personally I would have more fun shaving my nut bag with a rusty razor then dive into a swimming pool of Isopryl Alcohol than to play through that again. Not gonna happen.
Moral of the story?
Plan on spending $170 bucks on thsi game if ya got a VooDoo. $59.99 for the game... $110.00ish for a GEFORCE III.
Later |
^ top-Why Publish 16 Hasn't Gone In Yet.
[Nieves] June 27 - 10:03 AM EDT | Due to a storm that produced repeated power outages throughout Austin last night, we were unable to complete the necessary backups and maintenance necessary to bring Publish 16 live on the Pacific shard.
We will post another update once we have determined the new date and time for the publish, but our current forecast is early next week. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused!
If UOPG's forum hadn't been down twice in two days for the very same reason, I would question it. Kudos for being quick with this news.
Now OSI has time to work out more bugs, and we, the players, have time to GM out more characters. WOOPEE!
BTW: From what I am reading and hearing in our forum, Anatomy+Eval Int isn't as effective as Wrestling alone is. Something to think about.
Hasta. |
^ top-NWN Scripts
[Hennarr] June 27 - 9:50 AM EDT | If you're like me, and a little moronic, the scripting for NWN might have frustrated to the point of sobbing uncontrollably. NWNscript lets you do just about anything. It fucking rocks, end of story. Well it's not the end of the story because it's pretty hard to work with if you're a total coding newbie, and/or a little too lazy/busy to take a course on C++ or go through the massive tutorials that some sites have posted. So instead, you should just see what other people have done, take their scripts, and put it into your modules. Cut and paste can go very far in scripting, and I've even been able to tweak things quite using the foundations of other scripts. Check out this really great NWN scripting resource that is definitely the largest I've seen so far, chock full of amazing scripts, and growing daily.
|
^ top-Publish 16 Is Not In Yet.
[Nieves] June 27 - 8:57 AM EDT | Tools are not showing durability.
Houses are not going condemned.
Justice virtue is not active.
Etc.
I am sure OSI has had some issues that need working out. That's a good thing. Fix it before it's released.
Hmm...I think it's be nice to OSI day today.
BTW: Next time I want to talk politics, someone shoot me.
Hasta. |
^ top-What's Wrong With Publish 16?
[Nieves] June 27 - 6:39 AM EDT | Well, how about I just list some of the taming bugs again?
+ Loyalty decrease too rapid
+ Pets unable to return (be summoned) when gated away.
+ Undecayed pet ghosts may block control slots for a lengthy period of time.
+ No disobey sounds
+ Z-axis bug still in effect when healing/resurrecting
+ Choppy Nightmare graphics
+ Fire Steed armor class changes reason for no apparent reason. Both Fire Steed and Nightmare stats reset to the lower defaults when the character logs out or stables the pets. (Additional details would be appreciated)
+ Nightmares and Fire Steeds lose their ability to breathe fire
+ Blue bonded pets are attackable in Trammel (Additional details would be appreciated)
+ Pet skill and stat gain appears to be broken. Unicorns have difficulty gaining tactics, ‘mares with evaluate intelligence, and frenzied ostards won’t gain strength (Additional details would be appreciated)
+ Successful commands no longer raise loyalty
+ Pack instincts don’t appear to have an effect on attack damage (Additional details would be appreciated)
+ Second taming attempt brings up the message “someone else is taming this” even when no one else is
+ The number of days required to bond with a pet appear random; seems to take more than one week to bond.(Additional details would be appreciated)
+ The loyalty level would be more helpful on the first page of the lore gump
+ Pets can become stuck on regular ground (Additional details would be appreciated)
+ Fire Steed spawn is very slow
+ The character stamina controls the stamina of his or her mount
+ Pet ghosts regain health
+ Dragons don’t respond to “guard” command (Additional details would be appreciated)
+ There does not appear to be a “[pet name] looks around desperately message any longer, when the owner is out of LOS.
Publish 16 has been released to the Pacific shard and I am waiting to hear from the players their impressions of it on a production shard (hint). Now, you see the list above? Well, do YOU, the players, think Publish 16 is ready to be released just based on the above? I would hope you agree when I say it is -NOT- ready to be released. It's bad enough they are releasing changes many of the players do not want. But because of corporate deadlines and other Corporate America bullshit, it's going out now.
Thank you for your attention to quality. It's appreciated.
You have to excuse me, I am getting ready for a Chess Match (scroll down a bit) being played on the Lake Superior shard between a player and a dev team member. Normally, I would say "COOL!" But then, due to my nature of having to find something to bitch about, I realized something. They modified the Nujel'm chessboard so the two opponents could have the chess match. They are going to have a GM (or GMs) on hand to help monitor the event. I am positive there will be other OSI reps there watching the event. Hell, I am going to be there myself.
But what concerns me is this: Time, effort, and resources were taken to run a chess match. Does that mean they can do that on every shard? I mean, it's fair right? And if they are going to do it for this chess match, why can't they take the time to help run 'Seer run" quests? Kind of like Vasul and his undead henchmen a few weeks ago.
Excuse me while I go grab some toilet paper. ::looks:: Hmmmm...I better get the whole roll. This reeks of BULLSHIT.
Nope. Noone at OSI plays favorites.
Oh, another thought crossed my mind. Release the announcement about this chess match, but fail to tell us until the day before, and after I mention it, about Pacific receiving the (BROKEN) Pacific 16 changes? Skewed priorities maybe? Nah, can't be.
It's ok. You can now all go back to playing Neverwinter Nights. I hear mine is coming for my birthday. Joy of joys!
Hasta. |
^ top-And here it Is!
[Lealla] June 26 - 8:09 PM EDT | We are targeting to publish the “Publish 16” changes listed in General Testing to the Pacific shard, to be active following a modified Thursday (June 27th CDT) morning maintenance period. This maintenance period downtime will begin at 8:00am CDT (6:00am PDT) and may last around 90 minutes.
We will monitor the shard closely, and barring any unforeseen issues, will announce a publish schedule for the remaining shards as it is determined.
Till Next Time...
Lealla |
^ top-Court Rejects Pledge of Allegiance.
[Nieves] June 26 - 3:15 PM EDT | The Pledge of Allegiance is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion and cannot be recited in schools.
Totally unrelated to UO, but I need to say this.
What next? If I am praying before my meal at McDonald's, someone is going to come up to me and tell me my execution of Freedom of Religion is clashing with his rights as a citizen.
I guarantee you that because of ignorant motherfuckers that have to make an issue of every fucking detail of their pathetic lives, we will see the ideals of Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Expression clashing in a court room and our ideals as a nation go flying to holy hell.
Common sense should prevail here. Simply replacing "under God" with something that you are more comfortable with (i.e.-under Allah, under Jehovah, under Yaweh, under Buddha) or simply not stating that at all is fine.
Anyway, whatever, I am starting to sound like a conservative instead of an intellectually honest person.
To the person that first had a fit over the Pledge Of Allegiance and the "under God" portion, a big fuck you too.
UPDATE: A few things I failed to mention. Thanks to those that brought it to my attention and made me feel it was necessary to bring to you here.
In it's original form the Pledge of Allegiance did not have 'under God' in it. That was added some time ago and became the 'normal' way of saying it. Although I agree that there should be a separation of Church and state, our country as "under God", "in God we trust", etc. in many of it's documents, and coinange. What's the difference between now and then? I don't know. Maybe it needed to be brought to light and dealt with now, or maybe someone was born.
BTW: I hear that person that originally filed the lawsuit was found dead with her, also dead, daughter. I understand that the same 'liberalistic' friends she hung out with responsible for her death. Sad. Really.
People hungry, dieing, sick, and we worry about 'under God' in a simple statement that, with common sense, can be rectified. I am glad my tax dollars are hard at work.
Hasta. |
^ top-Taming Bugs
[Nieves] June 26 - 2:31 PM EDT | There are some hefty taming bugs on Test Center 2 right now.
Some of them include: Not being able to summon a bonded pet that has died and still having the control slots assigned to that pet, being able to get pet owners guard whacked, or being able to freely attack a tamer and kill him or even giving them murder counts (I believe this includes Trammel too), and pets losing their loyalty way too fast.
Anyway, if you can, read the link, there is some serious interesting information in there. Hell, even Sir Bart of Great Lakes' Black Company makes an appearance.
Maybe this is why Publish 16 is delayed? Has it even been released to Pacific yet? Has anyone seen any public announcements about the delay anywhere? I haven't. I know Stratics hasn't because I haven't seen it posted on their site yet.
Hmmm..::checks::..nope. Not announced anywhere. Damn. I guess it's not important really. You can go back to playing Neverwinter Nights now.
Hasta. |
^ top-More Forum News
[Nieves] June 26 - 10:58 AM EDT | Welp, another power outage took out our forums again :/
The host is working on it as we speak.
UPDATE: And the Forums are up again. Fry is working on acquiring a UPS backup power device.
Hasta. |
^ top-Forums
[Nieves] June 26 - 7:20 AM EDT | The Forums came back up yesterday afternoon.
Stay tuned for some more news to our forum and a possible upgrade in the near future.
Hasta. |
^ top-The Epiphany
[Nieves] June 25 - 10:57 PM EDT | NWN is much better than UO
Argue with me if you want, but NWN just fucking smokes UO like a crack rock at a re - hab clinic.
It has soo much more potential as far as satisfying the various factions within UO's neurotic and self centered gamers. Its the fix.. the epiphany.
That is all.
-Spion Kopp
Hasta. |
^ top-UOPG Boards Update
[Nieves] June 25 - 1:40 PM EDT | Power outages and bad storms in the Houston area are keeping us from getting our boards back up :/
We will continue to work the problem.
Hasta. |
^ top-Client Patch Today
[Nieves] June 25 - 12:10 PM EDT | They are changing Enticement to read Discordance. But it won't work like Discordance untill after Publish 16 is live. So when you use Discord, it will still function like Entice.
Hasta. |
^ top-UOPG Boards
[Nieves] June 25 - 10:44 AM EDT | I know I know. It's down.
It seems the whole server is down. Fry is on it. From Fry: Yea.. but it's not the os on the box.. the hub or the fuck there has assigned my ip to another box by mistake or something else... could be that the power flickered something fierce and it's paused on a file system check...
Hopefully we can have the boards back up soon.
My apologies to the readers.
Update:Update: #1
[...] there was a big storm that took out the power for a short period of time... This caused the machines to cycle... Falsehope should be back online shortly, it paused at the filesystem check as I assumed...
Hasta. |
^ top-This just crossed my desk
[Lealla] June 25 - 9:36 AM EDT | While sifting through a few stories the following one caught my eye. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!!
Hail friends. Pull up a stool and pour yourself a tall one. For the tale I shall tell thee tonight is a testimony of our guild mates Of the Knights Of Britannia. On the night of Kildair' Axeman’s Knighting, we retired to our usual festivities of beating the newly honored Knight into submission. Although I must confess, I did not take part in this horrid behavior due to the kindness in my heart. I knew it would be a long night for our would be hero so I gave him his first taste of victory by tripping on the stone floor of our tower and faking to be beat into submission myself. For is a Knight's duty not to sacrifice when need be? So I willing gave of myself to my guild mate.
Ah duty, but back to the tale at hand. As the night wore on and many of our numbers diminished, a few of our guild stayed to continue the time honored dance of death. With only four of us left the stage was set for the fight that would be seen by few but known by many. Beowolf stood in the eastern circle with his armor dented but by no means less strong. For if Beowolf knows anything, it is the quality of his equipment that makes the difference between life and death. How many times have we seen this warrior cheat the mages flame of pain and destruction by throwing an explosion potion or by drinking a timely heal. This man knows the ways of the warrior.
In the corner facing him stood the mage known as Jim. Little is known about Jim by this story teller but I am beginning to see the errors of judging a book by its cover. I see mages from time to time. They hurry about town with their silly llamas trying to barter for a few more precious reagents. This man did not seem to follow this template. Instead his arms and hands were steady as his face showed not the arrogance of most casters. This is not a house mage at all this man is a combat mage a warlock.
This captivating tale continues at the Knights of Britannia website.
Till Next Time...
Lealla |
^ top-Fishing Submissions
[Nieves] June 25 - 9:02 AM EDT | From OSI:
Have you ever felt that you could write better game information than the tips at UO.com? Well, now’s your chance! If you think you’re the expert on everything related to Fishing, or if you just want to share your particular secret to fishing your way to the top, we want to hear from you! Selected guides may be featured in the UO.com Playguide and Game Wizard, along with the author’s name and shard.
Here is UOPG's submission. But we all know that will never make it to the UO.com playguide. I mean, it's from UOPG, and they can't support us anymore. Awwww....
You know, I couldn't stop laughing for two minutes when I saw their request for skill submissions.
Oh and: We will be covering other skills in the future. The work is already done. Yes, it will need to be updated a tad come Publish 16, but the bulk of the work is done (thanks to Phazer). Hmmm... Any guides containing exploits or the abuse of game mechanics will not be used. Interesting. How would we ever know if they are exploits or abuse of the game's mechanics if they refuse to answer or give us consistant information in the first place about exploits? Nice. Very nice.
Hmmm...I just thought of something else. Why are they asking for guides now? I mean, they are changing the way we gain skill because of Publish 16. Oh wait. That works in my favor. They will get outdated guides and will still be behind the Power Curve.
Oh, and another thing, this is THEIR game. They maintain it and make changes to it. Why would they need skill guides from the players? I mean, shouldn't they know what the best, legal ways to grandmaster skills in the first place?
Does OSI ever ask themselves these questions? Doesn't somebody over there THINK? You know, the thing your brain does when you use it?
Thank you again OSI for making my job easier. And thank you again for the laugh. I surely needed it today.
Hasta. |
^ top-I Hate To....
[Nieves] June 24 - 3:01 PM EDT | Click , and help me keep UOPG up.
Give what you can. Anything will help.
I won't get into the particulars of what's going on because it's personal.
But it boils down to this, if I don't get this resolved, UOPG goes down in 3 weeks.
Hasta. |
^ top-Inhale the Deep Dark Blue
[Fixxxer] June 23 - 11:44 PM EDT | Ah, where to start... I've been rather busy the past couple weeks and failed to keep up on these posts. A lot has happened since. A lot. A few new games here and there. And a couple old games I personally recently discovered.
Eat it up and inhale the Deep Dark Blue:
Adellion- Major Update.
Adellion has hit a few speedbumps. And a newsletter was sent out by Paul Hutson:
"Since I started Adellion with Andrew in 2000 we have worked hard to get the game up and running. We have both been strongly committed to building a different, immersive world that will enable true roleplaying instead of what is currently on offer. We are both still committed to that goal.
We are well along the way to this. Seven of the cultures are highly developed and improving as time goes on. We have a lore team that has worked very hard to create societies that players can immerse themselves in. The basic maps are done and more realistic detailed maps are in progress. The music is pretty much complete. The skills and combat systems are in place although there still remains much to be done. There is a fine portfolio of art and design. The basic workings of the game - GUI, character creation etc.. are mapped out.
BUT, as those of you who follow the Stratics site will know we have had a problem with the programming. The Java engine no longer seems the right basis to go forward on. This is a great disappointment to us and obviously puts things back. We have to get a new game engine and get the programming re-started. On the other hand we can make use of some programming already done.
At the same time both myself and Andrew have qualifications to obtain and need to devote more time to our careers. That does not mean we are abandoning the game - far from it. But we are taking more of a back seat role.
I am pleased to announce that John Bates (aka Crydee) has agreed to take on the job of Adellion Team Leader. This is a project management role for which John is highly suitable given his experience in the army and the law.
John intends to hold a House of Commons on the Stratics site on Sunday 14th July at 10pm BST and will also provide bi-monthly progress reports starting on 1st September 2002.
Our next steps are to decide on an engine, licence it and then re-start programming. At the same time we will continue the landscaping design, town design and town modelling. We have started work on non-player characters and this will also continue.
To reduce the programming load we have decided to remove the Bahhiran and Pollyian cultures from the game for the time being. The Rhallyns are likely to be confined to one of the poles only. We will restore these cultures after the game starts.
I appreciate that this news is not altogether welcome. But this is a big project and, for volunteer workers who have jobs and families to sustain, a difficult one. We owe a deep debt of gratitude to those who have worked long and hard to try and realise our goal. In such a project as this there are bound to be upsets on the way. But we are determined to continue and release the game. I look forward to seeing all of you in the Adellion world."
The After- New Publisher? Races and... Underground.
The After came back from E3 with a few publishers in mind. They will likely announce who will be publishing the game in the next few months.
The races section will be completed soon per the website. "It will include 2d and 3d versions of each race, as well as detailed information on each." They will also be expanding the lore sections by the end of the month.
Also:
"The After will be going underground at the end of June. Basically, public interaction is going to be very slow and rare as we work heavily on the game for the next three to four months. When we come out from being underground, we will have plenty of updates as to the progress of The After as well as new content for the website."
Ages of Athiria- Newsletter 6.
In the most recent newsletter, there is a sneak peak at the magic system. Also thrown in is a quicktime sample of the High Elven music, a beastiary update for the Rock Troll and an interview with Bhel Khazul:
"I think the industry and its fans are ready for more immersive experiences in their MMP games. It's not enough to just go out and kill things. It's not enough to just chat with your friends. Those things have already been done. Future games that just repeat that formula might be successful to varying degrees, but they are really missing the 'big picture'. What sets AoA apart from our competition is that we see the "bigger picture" and are bringing that to reality."
Nothing different than what every other game is saying. We'll see who can actually back it up.
Age of Mythology Online- Alpha Playtest.
Ok, so you played Warcraft. You played Age of Empires. You played Civilization. Well here is the newest of the genre. And you can alpha it.
"Sign up for a chance to be among the first to experience the wrath of the gods. Microsoft Game Studios and Ensemble Studios are inviting 10,000 gamers to participate in the Age of Mythology Online Playtest.
Between Friday, June 21 to Sunday, June 30 (11:59 PM PST), fans can enter to participate in this epic multiplayer event.
Participants will be selected via a random drawing from all qualified entries received and gamers from around the world are eligible to enter.
If you are selected, you will receive an alpha version of Age of Mythology which will contain two of the nine civilizations that will be available when the game is released this October. Up to four players will be able to compete head-to-head as a follower of either Zeus or Poseidon on one of two multiplayer maps. Fans can enter both here, and at the Ensemble Studios site."
So, sign up.
America's Army- Soldiers and Operations.
This one kinda snuck up on everyone at E3. Using the Unreal game engine, this game will be similar to Counterstrike; except more realistic ie you aren't going to get shot 4 times and be fully functional. Check out these screenies, they aren't too bad.
Now you can virtually be all that you can be...
What's real nice is that it is following in Project Entropia's footsteps in that it is totally free to play. You will find it in magazines or as downloads off websites. Buh bye Counterstrike.
The game is divided into Soldiers and Operations. Soldiers being single player game and Operations being the MMOsomethingG.
Gamesdomain wrote a preview of the game here which states:
"While portraying an experience of modern infantry combat with unparalleled realism is a motive for the Army's first videogame venture, the primary objective is actually much more interesting. Sick of wasting millions of taxpayers' dollars on ineffective marketing campaigns (like expensive 30-second spots during the Superbowl), the Army believes games can be their new recruitment tool to encourage today's game-addicted youth to take an interest in pursuing a military career.
America's Army is actually the name given to the
overall package that is comprised of two separately developed projects: an RPG style career advancement sim entitled Soldiers and an online, squad-based first-person shooter, Operations. Although individual games, there are plans for the two to be intuitively linked later down the line; something akin to allowing you to bring the soldier you develop in Soldiers directly into Operations, with particular benefits based on whatever skills he's acquired"
No more TV commercials, the US Army has a new way to make you want to be all that you can be. Do ya blame em? I don't.
Anarchy Online- L33t Dolls and SE.
I r0xxx0r j00. Anyone who has played AO knows what a Leet is. It was comical at first; I mean, ya gotta laugh at the fact that someone actually put this into their game. But did you like it so much that you want a plush Leet laying next to you in your bed telling you how much you suck? If so, then vote on it. So far, 'yes' is winning at a 6 to 1 ratio.
The Special Edition is available to order.
Asheron's Call 2- Macros, 3rd Party Programs, Quests, FAQs and others.
The AC Team has taken public input and expressed their views on macros and 3rd party programs in this press release.
Also, plenty of info has been released on the games quest system. A tale from the Wandering Scribe has been posted. New screenshots can be found in the Multimedia section. And lastly, the FAQ has been updated.
A Tale in the Desert- New Client.
From the main sites news page:
"We have officially switched over to the new client, which supports pixel-shader effects on GeForce cards, and runs faster on some systems. "Granny Errors" should now be a thing of the past. Also, we have revamped the terrain system - much more variation in terrain is now possible."
ATITD is an open beta. This means that anyone can join in whenever they wish. What is nice about beta testing this game is that the Dev Team is immediately available for tech support during beta test sessions in #ATITD on the Stratics IRC server.
Atriarch- Q&A and Beta News.
Atriarch is chugging along nicely after a several month absence:
"To let people know what to expect on our site, our current mode is to update Atriarch.com once a week. We will continue to bring you an update every week (sometimes more often) with some new content or with a brief summary of what is occurring behind the scenes."
The Atriarch Vault is releasing weekly Q&A's with the Dev Team. Each week World Fusion (makers of Atriarch) will choose 3-5 questions to answer about Atriarch, World Fusion, or the Volcano Engine. The questions are submitted each week by you or whoever else is interested. If you would like to submit questions for the weekly feature, then email DQ at: DavidQuick@vaultnetwork.com.
And news on beta:
"It has been a long while since our last technical beta play session. We are slowly, but surely exterminating some nasty technical bugs before beginning another play session. We know that many people are anxious to get testing regardless of the bugs. We thank you all for you incredible support and eagerness to jump right in!
For those who have signed up for Technical Testing... we had many more people sign up to test than our current bandwidth capacity will allow. We accepted a number of people for the Stage 1 Technical Test and have closed the sign-ups for this stage.
However, we still encourage you to sign up for future stages. Anyone who is already signed up or submitted an application previously will not need to sign up again.
New Email Testing Application: A few people who have signed up for testing have had errors with the form. For those of you who would like to sign up, but the testing form is not working, you can now sign up via an email registration form here.
If you have already signed up, then there is no need to do so again. If your information has changed, for example, you have a new email, then you can email your changes directly to: jaruh@worldfusion.com
Again, thank you to everyone who is so eager to help with Atriarch. We have had a lot of people offering services... everything from art to programming. This is so encouraging to us and thank you so much. We all know this is a long process and thank you for your patience!"
BigWorld: Citizen Zero- Now Hiring!
BigWorld is 'ramping up' their development team. Apply here.
Blackmoon Chronicles- Newsletters and New Client.
No MMORPG in the making puts out newsletters like Blackmoon. My email gets more Blackmoon info sent to it than any other game. They really keep their fans informed.
Since my last post, newsletters #18, #19, #20 and #21 have been released.
The new BMC client has been made available to download. "This version will make all future patches more efficient and will take up as much as 500 MB less disk space than previous clients!"
Computer Games Online- Road to Nowhere.
Interesting article has been posted about vaporware. Give it a read.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon- Announced.
Oh yea baby, you heard me. No website yet, but the press release states:
"Phantagram announces its upcoming massively multiplayer online game based on the popular kung-fu fantasy film.
Phantagram Interactive has announced that it will develop and publish a massively multiplayer online game based on Ang Lee's popular kung-fu fantasy film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The game will feature fast-paced kung-fu fighting and an involved storyline.
We are very excited to bring this unique property to life in the form of a massively multiplayer online game that will redefine the genre," said Sangyoun Lee, chairman and CEO of Phantagram Interactive.
Phantagram plans to launch an official Web site for the game with more details in the coming months. The Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon game is scheduled for release near the end of 2004. We'll post more information about the game as it becomes available."
I look forward to shoving Green Destiny up your dewd ass.
Darkfall- Screenshots and HoC.
Some new screenshots have been posted. Not too bad though the trees still look like they are melting.
There was a Stratics IRC HoC as well, the log can be found here.
Darkspace- New Version.
From the website:
"Palestar Inc has announced that the release of DarkSpace version 1.472. Several new fixes and features have been included in this release, for full details of what has been added check the development log."
Dominus Online- AVI Animation and Concept Art.
From the website:
"We are getting closer and closer to the next build for Dominus. We are releasing an AVI format animation of one of the races (Domins). You can download the AVI here. Soon we will be moving into a much more interactive phase of the alpha series.
Our team has also developed a new zone creator to bring more zones with much nicer detail online soon. We look forward to the next phase of our alpha series, and we thank the community for your ongoing support of Dominus Online."
The concept art page has been updated.
Dragon Empires- Dev Chat and Diary.
The latest Dev Chat can be found here.
An E3 Dev Diary has also been posted.
Earth and Beyond- Beta Phase 7 and IGN news.
E&B is hitting beta Phase 7. In short:
"The Plan(tm) as I have it from this morning's meeting is to push all dates back a week. Which means CDs shipping next Thursday and Download Instructions going out the following Monday (July 1)."
IGN.com had a lot of nice things to say about the game and a new AVI movie.
Elancia- Beta Announced.
Just found yet another MMORPG, an anime. An overview of the game per the website:
"Elancia is a Massive Mulitplayer Online Role Playing Game. It is an internet game where people such as yourself lead a virtual life in a graphical, colorful and dynamic ever changing world.
It is a world that never sleeps, even when a player logs off, life in this virutal world carries on. It is also a place where you meet other people from different cultures, make long lasting friends and have fun together.
Elancia, unlike other games, is a place where skill and strategy play a very important role. Be it skill in combat or trade skills such as fishing.
Learn to cook, fish, blacksmith, mine and most importantly, learn to be best that you can be.
For the seasoned player, you will be delighted to know that Elancia is unlike other MMORPGs. You'll need food to be efficient. Trading with other players is very important as no one player can master all the skills in the game.
You can fish, cook, blacksmith, pickpocket, tailor and more. Choose from the many occupations available such as pugilist, knight, archer, ranger, assassin and professional trader/merchant.
Read the Elancia story. Or start learning how to play Elancia now.
Did I mention you can fish? The beta client was released this past week, download it here. And the forums just recently opened.
Endless Ages- Launch.
They have extended the pre-order date of the Gold version of Endless Ages till June 25th.
EVE Online- Gamespy Interview and Stories.
Gamespy sat down with LD Kjartan Pierre Emilsson and talked about the current status of EVE. They tackled an interesting question:
"GameSpy: A lot of people feel that you'll be going toe-to-toe with Earth and Beyond. What key features are going to make your game shine brighter in the eyes of gamers in the long run?
Kjartan Pierre Emilsson: We think that the two games are taking two different approaches that will appeal to slightly different crowds. Earth & Beyond is aiming for the more casual gamer, that likes to level off in some finite amount of time. Our approach is slightly more hardcore, with a lot of high-level gameplay and freeform character advancement that will appeal to a more resilient crowd. This might lead to a longer lifetime for EVE, though it's really hard to predict. As we see it, both of us are kind of introducing the genre in the massively multiplayer field, and hopefully that will make the market larger for both of us."
A 'peek' of short story about dopplegangers was posted, and then one of the Amarr Nation.
Everquest- On Tour.
From Gamespot:
"Sony Online Entertainment has announced that it's kicking off the EverQuest Invasion Tour starting today in San Diego. Sony Online representatives will be traveling the country in a 26-foot EverQuest-branded trailer equipped with a dozen high-end PCs to publicly demonstrate EverQuest at fairs, shopping centers, and college campuses."
Read the whole article and the schedule here.
Horizons- It's Back.
The Horizons (dull) main webpage is back... can't say much else about it. There is a FAQ, some assorted screenshots, and some very small tidbits about the game. In fact, you can find more info from it's fan sites, such as:
HomeLan posted an interview with Producer Steve Snow and Designer Paul Peterson. The Horizons Vault had an interview with... someone. And Gamespy posted a preview.
Jumpgate- Expansion Pack.
A new expansion pack has been released titled Episode 2: Attack of the C.......onflux. Thought I was gonna say Clones didn't ya?
erm
Lineage- HoC and Off-Line PKing.
The Lineage HoC occurred, the log can be found here.
So, let us say you are in Korea, just for shits and giggles, and you are inside a PC Cafe getting your drink on. You are at a computer playing Lineage. Your good buddy is sitting next to you sharing some laughs, and his character is fighting next to you, in game. You are fighting some l4mer that you decided to PK. He drops, and you high-five your buddy. Suddenly, Paek Jung Yul of the clan Strong People Blood Pledge comes up from behind you and beats you, and your friend, to death. R0xxx0red.
It's called 'off-line PKing' and it happens.
The website for Time Magazine posted an interesting article about off-line PKing.
"The game has also caught on with the loan-sharking gangsters active in the Korean entertainment industry. Some have seized control of Lineage castles, gamers say. They do a brisk side business trading in virtual weapons and levying taxes in the game. In between off-line heists, they boast among themselves about their online exploits. 'They guard people for money in the game,' says the sweet-faced girlfriend of one gangster, as she leans back into a red plush couch at a Seoul bar. 'It's just like reality.'"
Yea. No shit. But it isn't.
Lineage II- FAQ Updated and a New Story.
The FAQ was updated. A nice story was posted as well.
Lunatix Online- Say Wha?
Ok... this is one hilarious game. I just found it today and tried it out. From the webpage:
"Lunatix Online is a web-based multiplayer role-playing adventure game. Players assume the role of a mental patient, locked away in a wacky mental institution (called “Imenz Aine”) on a crazy quest to escape.
Lunatix Online includes an awesome feature called “IGM” (In-Game Module) support. This means anybody with the inclination to do so can use our FREE developer's kit to create add-ons for the game. Not only will this allow the institution to grow, but it also paves the way for new places and adventures created by Lunatix Online players -- even you can do it!"
There aren't any classes. No warriors. No Mages. No Rogues. Instead there is Homicidal Maniac, Paranoid Schizophrenic and Manic Depressive.
I found myself in some pretty funny situations: Realizing I have not had ANY sex since being committed (I could tell by the lack of 'notches' in my bedpost), fighting shadows on my walls in my closet, attacking lunch ladies, grabbing the nurses tits, buying weapons from Socrates (I bought a toothpick) and armor from Napoleon (I bought fluffy bunny slippers). Yea, your character actually thinks he is dealing with those historical figures.
Oh yea, this game is focked up. Go try it, you will definitely get some good laughs.
Magic: The Gathering Online- Launched.
The game will launch on June 24th. Read the press release here.
Microsoft- Playtest Program.
Do you live in or near Seattle and love to play PC and XBox games? If so, then today is your lucky day. You can apply to be in Microsoft's new Playtest Program:
Be one of the first people to see future Microsoft games by participating in our Microsoft Games Playtest program.
* Novice and experienced players needed!
* Play UNRELEASED Microsoft PC and Xbox games!
* Make your opinions heard!
* Brief sessions that fit your schedule!
* Get FREE stuff!
Apply here if you are 16 years of age or older. Apply here if you are younger than 16.
Middle Earth- Stratics Site Relaunched.
Now now, don't get too excited. There isn't an ME MMORPG... yet. Until then, settle for this. I am sure you will spend countless hours playing.
Stratics relaunched it's ME page which now focuses on any games and/or movies involving Middle Earth and/or Tolkien.
Monsters! Monsters! Grendel's Revenge- Public Beta Announced.
Yea, that is a real name. And yea, that is a real game. From the site:
"Grendel's Revenge is an online storytelling game created by Worlds Apart Productions in conjunction with Skotos Tech Inc. It first opened for beta release on May 6, 2002. It is a game set in a high fantasy world where monsters are the heroes and evil adventurers need to be put in their place. It contains strong roleplaying and achievement elements.
Grendel's Revenge is similar in technology to a traditional MUD on the Internet with significant innovations, particularly in its use of a dynamic graphical map and its empowerment of players to extend the world through lair building. An intricate combat system and a highly granular ability system allow for considerable achievement within the game. However, like many MUSHes, it also provides ample opportunity for roleplaying. Clans are the hearts of social play in the game, and regular events further encourage interaction. Thus, it's able to enjoy the best of both worlds."
Basically it's a MUD. But creating your monster is hilarious. Some of the descriptions for your character are too funny.
Motor City Online- Update 6.3 and the Woodward Dream Cruise.
Update 6.3 is on test center. The State of Motor City was posted recently:
"In summary, we have identified 3 major areas that need our immediate attention:
1. Social Experience - Improve ways for players to interact and help each other. Also features that foster and enhance our community.
2. New Player Experience - Assist the new players as they learn the game and protect them from falling. In addition, ways for the community to be involved in this process.
3. Content - Add more appealing content, content that players of our demographic can relate to."
I'd like to take this moment to tell you about Woodward Avenue, the historically famous road in Detroit that MCO, among other things, and the whole hotrod theme is based upon. If you live in Michigan, or even if one of your parents or relatives once lived there, chances are they have Woodward vintage stories to tell... and they tell them often. Stories about how their '69 Dodge Super Bee beat out a '68 Mustang 428 Cobra Jet on Woodward Avenue. Stories about how your dad proposed to your mother in a '64 Merc Comet Caliente. Stories about Hemi Cudas, GTOs, Shelbys, Chevelles. Whatever.
This was/is life in Michigan. Detroit is not called the Motor City for nothing.
Now to my point. Something special happens every year on the third weekend of August. It's known as the Woodward Dream Cruise. About 1.5 million of those people bring 30,000 cars of all types to the 16 mile stretch of road. And boy is it a sight to see. If you live in Michigan, or even in Ohio, Indiana, Ontario or any other nearby state, I highly recommend attending. If you are into cars of any type, then it's worth even a longer voyage to witness this (some people come from Europe and Asia for this cruise).
Neocron- Players Guide and Neocronicle #3.
A Players Guide has been released, download it here. The 3rd issue of the Neocronicle, a fanzine, has been released. It's a fockin pdf.
Neverwinter Nights- Mac, PvP Module and a New Patch.
NWN is now available on Mac per this press release. ETA is fall of 2002.
Bioware has made it's first PvP module and it is ready to download. It's called the Contest of Champions. "This module is designed to allow a group of players to jump into combat against each other on up to for 4 different teams. Anything goes within the two different battle arenas. The last team standing at the end of combat wins the round."
And if you have not already done so, download the new patch v1.18.
The Path to Zenrai- HoC Log Posted.
The Stratics IRC HoC log has been posted, DL it via their news page.
Planeshift- New Server.
Planeshift has gone to a new, more powerful server provided by GAMIIX.COM.
PlanetSide- FAQ Update and a Team Comment.
The FAQ has been updated with new information on Characters, Group Play and more.
A Team Comment was posted by PlanetSide's producer, Dave Georgeson.
Project Entropia- R0xxx0r.
BIG SURPRISE! It happened. It was bound to happen. Everyone knew it would happen. That is, everyone except MindArk. Ahem:
"Some initial bug and balancing problems have affected the participants of Project Entropia. Some items have been lost and recently a problem with a battery back-up system during a blackout of the electricity supply caused the economy server to fail. This is not the way things should be, and the situation has to be corrected. MindArk takes participation satisfaction and security issues very seriously and therefore some new ways of progressing are under review.
Due to the nature of these errors and problems, there is no way for MindArk to compensate only those users who actually lost items. In the future, after the Commercial Open Trial Phase, this will not be a problem, as we are currently working on solutions. This may have only affected a few users. If we restore the accounts to what they were, this would mean restoring them to an original state, thus restoring the PED balances, but also restoring all skills, attributes and items acquired to zero."
HA! So, I went to their website to pluck some quotes off their FAQ only to find them removed. It has been a long time since I have read the FAQ, so I do not know when they were removed. Anyhoo, the FAQ once read something along the lines of "Every item is accounted for. We have a system that is 100% immune to bugs and exploits. It will never happen." Like I said, they may not have said exactly that. But it was damn close.
In the mean time, a Stratics IRC HoC occurred on June 6th. And once again, Stratics failed to post the log of their own chats. I hate that. So, some off the wall fansite posted it unedited. It's messy.
Purge Online- Beta Begins and 2 Interviews.
Closed Beta has begun this past week.
Gamers Hell caught up with Richard Cheung, one of the programmers, for an interview. RPG Vault also interviewed the programmer.
The Realm of Ralnar- MP3 Demos.
Two new demos of music have been released, find them here and here.
Redwyrm- New Screenshots.
A few new screenshots have been posted. They aren't much yet.... let's hope they'll end up like the concept art.
Rubies of Eventide- New Concept Art and Screenshots.
Some concept art and screenshots have been posted in the 'Whats New' section. The site sucks ass.
The Saga of Ryzom- Beta Signup.
Beta will begin soon, sign up here. From the site:
"A third-generation, science-fantasy, massively multiplayer on-line role playing game in a persistent world featuring:
• Intuitive, deep and subtle role playing game rules designed specifically for the MMO genre.
• A sumptuous, authentic and unique new world.
• An evolving, dynamic game environment.
• Ground-breaking community play.
• An unprecedented depth of role play.
The game design knits these features into a single coherent concept: Players actively participate and contribute to the life of a civilization: its conflicts, its federating needs and its constant drive for expansion, exploration and discovery in an awe-inspiring new world in perpetual evolution."
Just like what every other MMORPG is doing... only worded differently.
Shadowbane- Beta News
The two hundred and fifty testers who did not make it into beta are still first in line for the next wave of testers. Among those currently in a holding pattern for beta entry are the Laugh Out Loud Contest contestants, including the five winners. We also have many visitors from our Electronic Entertainment Expo booth in May who will be starting their entries into the beta test.
LOL contestants will soon start receiving emails asking for their beta Database user name. If contestants do not have one, please fill out the Online Beta form.
The new version of Shadowbane, including the new graphical engine improvements of terrain and textures, have been slowly getting prepared for beta launch. Upon the release of this new version, we expect over a thousand new testers will be selected and admitted to the greatest MMO to ever grace the Internet.
Shining Lore- Beta Announced.
Another MMORPG for you anime lovers. The game has recently announced beta.
"Mini-games are integral parts of Shining Lore. There are arcades within Shining Lore where you can enjoy many different small games with your online pals.
You will have your own house in Shining Lore. Regardless of the character's class, you can build your house and decorate it, then use it as a storage place or a place to hang out with your friends.
The environment and objects don't stop at being just a backdrop. You can pick up, carry, or use everything you see. And there are plenty of locations to explore or visit. Enterole, a land of fire and desert, is the first place to start off, and four more continents will be added soon. Each continent will feature different climate, inhabitants, culture, and environment, and they all have at least 5 major cities."
The Sims Online- SIMM and HoC.
The State of the SIMM Address has been posted for June. It states that internal testing has begun.
The first ever Stratics IRC HoC of the Sims Online will occur on June 26th at 6:00pm PST, 7:00pm GMT, 8:00pm CST, 9:00pm EST. It will be held in the #simsonlinehoc channel.
Starminer- Starnaming.
Want your name to be in an MMORPG? Here is your chance. Enter your name in the field on this webpage and a star in the game will be named after you.
heh.
Star Wars Galaxies- FAQ Update, Sweepstakes, Dev Page and a Petition.
The Smuggler and the Marksmen profession have been added to the FAQ.
SWG announce an Alien Species Sweepstakes where the winner will receive real concept art of the game.
So you don't have to search the forums for posts by the Dev Team, they made it easy on you by putting them all on one page.
A petition has begun for a German Server when SWG is released.
And uh.... from the newsletter, SWG in the news:
GameSpot - Awards SWG “#3 editors choice of E3”
CNET Electronics- Awards SWG “Most Anticipated for 2002”
IGN - Awards SWG “Best MMOG of E3” and runner up for “Best Graphics” and “Best Presentation”
IGN - Preview of SWG
IGN - Interview with SWG Producers
WRE - awards SWG as one of “Best PC Game of E3”
CNN - Mention of SWG
Computer and Video Games - Interviews Technical Director Jeff Grills
E! Online - Mentions SWG as one of the top games of E3
Gamers.com - Preview of SWG
GameSpy - Preview of SWG
HomeLan - Preview of SWG
OuterSpace - Portuguese preview of SWG
Penny Arcade - Preview of SWG
PC Magazine - Mention of SWG
PC Magazine - Another mention of SWG
TechTV - Preview of SWG
Unknown Player - Preview of SWG
VG Nett - Norwegian preview of SWG
WarCry - Preview of SWG
Washington Post - Mention of SWG
Hope that's enough for your dose of Star Wars.
Steppenwolf- Episode 2 of Chapter 5 Released.
Ok, this isn't exactly an MMORPG... but it is an online (browser-based) story game. It's not shitty and slow like all other browser games. In a way, it reminds me of the first Monkey Island game. Anyways, Episode 2 of The Chupakabra (Ch5) is out. If you are bored, give it a shot.
Trials of Ascension- Timeline.
A timeline has been posted that follows the Age of Shadows.
Unknown- Relaunched.
Well look at that. It's alive and kicking. On June 22nd, the website was relaunched... with info this time. They have done some updates since the launch, but only to correct spell errors and dead links. Though, they did get in a java IRC client.
UGO- Top 11 Online Games.
UGO released it's top 11 Online Games. Can't really say it's a big surprise who #1 is.
Venise- Relaunched.
Well, I just figured I would throw this in for ya if you wanted a good laugh. Seriously.... want a chuckle? Go 'play' this.
That's all for this weekend. Now tell me, am I full of shit? I spend a lot of time digging through emailed newsletters, game websites, popular news websites, small news websites... Though I learn a lot about these games, I often wonder... is anyone else getting use out of all this? Are my posts informative or do they spam this news section? Want them shorter? Suggestions or ideas?
Please send some praise or shit upon me.
dabu |
^ top-More NWN News.
[Nieves] June 23 - 10:19 PM EDT | Mao (10:15 PM) :
btw....i don't know how you feel about recall but they give you a recall stone that brings you back to the hall of justice (you can get healed here and buy/sell equipent) also dead henchmen wait for you there......unlimited charges on that stone...not sure if its just a chapter 1 thing
Starting to sense a trend here?
Hasta. |
^ top-NWN Module Hack
[Nieves] June 23 - 10:10 PM EDT | Okay folks - Here is the single most important information World Builders can have. There is a way to open up all the Original Game modules without playing the game. Reading the scripts in these modules is really nice - and we are going way overboard in our complexity.
HERE IS THE HACK: Simply open the nwm directory and COPY the Chapter file (Chapter1.nwm or any other) to the module directory. Rename that file with the extension < .mod > and then you can open it.
No I do not feel guilty - but I will say - you can copy any of the scripts (I place them in MSWord) and then modify them to fit your world. It really makes life nice and its easy to build modules.
Hope Bioware does not hate me forever for this ... I really love the game.
I got this information here.
Oooh yah....NWN is here...
Hasta. |
^ top-Neverwinter Nights Memory Leak
[Nieves] June 23 - 10:02 PM EDT | According to this thread, NWN seems to be suffering some sort of memory leak. I am sure Bioware's folks are on it and going to have a fix out soon.
Hasta. |
^ top-Siege Essay by Lasandra Silvers
[Nieves] June 23 - 5:17 PM EDT | New To Siege? Need the low down? Read this!
Hello Everybody.
Lasandra Silvers of
The Imperium Ludicrum Familia
of Siege Perilous here.
If your reading this. Your probable new to Siege. or your just wondering what makes siege so different from the other shards.
In any case I hope this helps.
First lets take a look at the enviroment.
Siege is best defined as being the last remaining image of UO before The Changes brought on by UO:R. but with some differences.
For example.
Siege is comprised of ONLY 3 lands
Felucca,The Lost Lands, and Ilshnar
The Land isnt Devestated By war here aswell.
There is NO Trammel or its goofy rule set .
All 3 Lands are governed By a refined Felucca Rule Set. by "Refined" i mean that its different from your production shard's Fel rule set
Siege Rule Set In General:
1. There is NO stat Loss of any kind here Period.
2.Reds Are Allowed in guard zones with out punishment.however if red commits a crime WACK!.Reds Are Also freely Attackable regardless of guards.
Theives may steal from reds with out punishment aswell.
Reds will only recive 1/3 the gold from monsters.
3. your have ONE Char Slot Per Account on Siege. Thus pick a quality name kEwL Do0D5 names as well as stupid stuff like FudgePacker Newb Killa SLAYER stuff like that is pretty lame on any shard.more so on siege give your char name some thought as he/she will be known.
4.NPC's Will NOT Buy items from you and they sell some of their good's at 3x the amount of normal shards. house deeds are 10X there normal price on siege.
E.g a 50k house deed cost's 500k on Siege
5. Spells Like Recall and Telekenisis are useless.If you want to travel quickly then you need at the very least 40 Mana and gate scrolls or the abilty to cast gate.The reason being is that Recall is disabled on siege. And to be a treasure hunter or chest picker your going to need remove trap as telekenisis is disabled aswell.
Gateing In/Out a dungen is also disabled if you want dungen action your gona have to walk it.
Thats just a quick walk trough on some of the more important factors of siege.
Skills and Stats work differently on Siege then other shards aswell.
On Siege Skill training is Different because we have whats called "Rate Over Time"
Rate Over Time Kicks in at 70.0 REAL for ALL Skill's. Basicaly after you hit 70.0 real the amount u can gain in that skill per day become's caped.
At 70.0 to 79.9 real skill you can gain a total of 3.6 points per day in that skill or other skills in this range.with a minimum of 20 minutes in between gains
At 80.0 to 98.9 real skill you can gain a total of 2 points per day in that skill or other skills in this range.with a minimum of 40 minutes in between gains
At 99.0 to 100.0 real skill you can gain a total of 1 points per day in that skill or other skills in this range.with a minimum of 60 minutes in between gains
Dont get confused and think that if you have all your skills in the 80's that each one is allowed 2 point's for that day its not your allowed 2 points for the day in those skills.How u spread those points is up to you. E.g .5 in magery 1.0 in med .5 in resist equals 2.0 points and thats it. even if your eval is in the 80's your now gona have to wait for the next day to gain there...got it? ok
Stats are pretty much the same except that the stat system is in effect apon entering siege.
Your Allowed 6 points a day for stat gains with a minimum of one hour in between stat gains.use them as u see fit!
all you do is right when u log in the first skill you use will give you a gain in its related stat SS=int snoop=dex etc.
Skills below 70.0 real raise as normal and powerhour (while its still around has an effect up to 70.0 real then it means nothing
if your an all day player you can GM ANY skill from 70.0 real in 13 days! all it takes is time
The Anti Social Element is much harder to live by on Siege.
With only one char slot you have to have some form of allys or another account.
All in All as things stand right now Siege is the BEST shard running at the moment. and pub 16 is going to only elevate that position.
this is not a tell all document but a run down of what you should know. the rest of the goodies is for you the player to learn as ill be damed if i kill the enjoyment of learning a new enviroment.
I hope this info has been of some help to you
Thank you
Lasandra Silvers
Also, you can find ALOT of Siege Perilous information here.
Hasta. |
^ top-Markee Dragon Down
[Nieves] June 22 - 11:19 PM EDT | Markee Dragon: FYI: My server appears to be dead and no one is around to reboot it. It's been down since 1 am. I don't know when it will be back up.
So no worries all you Dragonites. MD is working on the problem.
Hasta. |
^ top-Lawyer Is Da Shit
[Nieves] June 22 - 8:32 PM EDT | Congratulations on your new DOMAIN NAME, [nwnpowergamers.com], your unique address on the Information Highway! You'll be happy to know your Domain registration is complete.
Your complimentary "Welcome Page" web site will appear
within one business day.
OWN OWN OWN OWN OWN OWN!
Lawyer is owed much love from the Nievesy Pooh! But you don't get the mansechs. Sorry. You will have to talk to Redrum for that....
Guess what that means???
Anyone want to write for NWNPowergamers.com?
Hasta. |
^ top-Faction Reprieve
[Nieves] June 22 - 5:13 PM EDT | I have preliminary reports that you cannot enjoy the benefits of Faction Reprieve anymore with Publish 16.
A reader went red and went to the Yew Crypts to get a reprieve. It didn't.
Anyone else find out about this, let me know.
Hasta. |
^ top-Nieves Gives an Interview
[Lealla] June 22 - 4:12 PM EDT | Well seems our Little Nievesiepooh has been busy. He sat and had a chat with Lust over at the The Royal Britannian Post
This is my interview with Roxanne, leader of RES and R*S. Roxanne is also Nieves, the webmaster/Owner of the UO Powergamers website. If there is anything about UO you need to know, UOPG is the place to go. Below is a bit about Nieves and his opinion on current events in the UO community.
Lust: Thanks for doing this Rox, I appreciate it. *smile*
Roxanne: *nod*
Lust: so, give me a brief history of your UO life over the past 4 yrs.
Roxanne: Me, the player, started with the encouragement of some friends that lived in town. I started in Moonglow with a character named Anastasia...she attacked a bear after a time running around... Her bones are still a part of the moonglow landscape (she got deleted) I created Loren of da wood as an archer I forget exactly how I got to Delucia but that's where the game took off for me.... after a few months, I got tired of the a$$^&@*s on Great Lakes and I gave everything away. and went to Europa for over a month. then I came back. From there, Loren took off and I started meeting some of the RP community. Kat of HtD, Romalyne of *SB, etc. Then I met BDA and got to know them...the game changed for me when the virtuos guilds backed out in their invitation to join. I created a 2nd account and Maxy Pooh was born.... he was to be a murderer and joined BDA then Roxy was born the rest is history.
You can read the rest of the interview Here
Till Next Time...
Lealla
|
^ top-First Publish 16 Shard
[Nieves] June 21 - 11:21 PM EDT | The first production shard to receive Publish 16 will be the Pacific shard. Once it’s live on the Pacific shard, we will monitor it for a few days before making a final decision on the schedule for the remaining shards. We’ll post an update when the exact publishing schedule is set.
Plan is to go live on the 24th. We shall see.
Pray for the Pacific players.
Hasta. |
^ top-Something not about Publish 16: Roleplaying
[Hennarr] June 21 - 7:19 PM EDT | Before I begin, I'd like to offer my thanks to all those who took the time to write me email, spam other boards with links to my publish 16 rant, and post shit about it on those boards. Special thanks go out to Jade of GUL, Nieves, MrFenris, and the asshole from the forums who called me a lich lord hogging bitch (I know who you are). Publish 16 is a pretty big thing, and something that will alter the game quite a bit until the next wad of bugs and poorly thought out systems get shoved down our throats by the next dev team. UO does need to change, for better or worse, and if you've been playing the game for longer than a few months, you know that every year or so you just have to bend over and let the dev team of the moment have their way with you. Even though I could continue discussing publish 16 issues (just wait until it goes live), I'm going to switch gears and tackle a topic that has been controversial in UO since day one. Why the hell do people roleplay in UO, and who are these dorks that do it?
I am one of these dorks. When little Hennarr took his first laggy steps into Britannia, I didn't want little Hennarr to be me. I wanted that character to be something different. UO is a game, yet it's a highly immersive, highly addicting game. It took me about an hour of gameplay to realize that I'd be dedicating a lot of time to this silly distraction, and I wanted to get the most of out it. As lame as it might sound, I've always felt that UO was much more than a game. It's a virtual world. It's a world that most of us escape to, leaving our real world problems and concerns behind, to sit hunched over our keyboards basking in the glow of our monitors. The true magic of UO is that you can come home from a lousy day at work or school, yell at your significant other or parents, kick the dog out of the way, slap your ass in front of your computer, double click the UO icon, and enter a fantasy land you share with all the other wackos who would rather dedicate weeks, months, and years to a game instead of doing something productive with their spare time.
Many roleplayers played pen and paper roleplaying games in their past, some still do. You know, the games with the weird four hundred sided dice that many people play as an alternative to having sex or having fun outside of their house. Before you start snickering at these people you should think about all the time you've spent cemented in front of your computer playing a stupid online game and downloading porn. Some UO roleplayers have not experienced the joy of sitting in a dimly lit room of pimply-faced, Doritos-gorging losers doing nothing but rolling dice and feverishly tinkering with their character sheets for hours at end. Roleplaying history aside, the one thing that links all roleplayers in UO is a desire to add some depth and story to their actions in the game. Actually there are two things that link all roleplayers in UO, a desire to add depth to the game and a general, nose-in-the-air disdain for non-roleplayers.
I’ve personally been on both sides of the fence. I found creating a story and fictional persona for my characters to be tremendously fun. I found being in a guild full of like-minded players to be even more enjoyable and definitely aiding in the escapism from the real world that an online game provides. However, for many people, there is a limit to how many times you can say “Hail!” before you start to get burnt out on it. I know I’m not alone when I say that UO can become incredibly boring if you don’t change your activities once and while. Some roleplayers just make another character, join a new roleplay guild, or try to roleplay something really difficult, like a four-headed demon. I’m not one of those roleplayers. Little Hennarr has gone from being a mighty warrior, dedicated to eradicating the make believe world of roleplayed Orcs and Undead to a neon-haired dewd who said little more than “lol” and “sup” on more than one occasion. I always have come back to roleplaying for one reason. Roleplaying is fun as fuck.
I have been in many guilds, both roleplay and non-roleplay. Roleplay guilds are much better. You simply won’t find the fun, friendship, and support in other guilds. In many RP guilds, PvP is quite regular, organized, and the focus isn’t solely on winning but having fun and fighting for a reason within the context of why your guilds are warring, as opposed to shit-talking and staying alive no matter what. Bullshit like rez-killing, dry-looting, house-fighting, ganking and all the other crap that can make PvP annoying is looked down by most RP guilds. There is always a nice story to everything you do; it’s a much “deeper” experience. Sure it was fun PKing people in Shame or aiding in the O/C, and later Factions, ganks, but I’ll take raiding a horde of Shadowclan orcs at their fort over hitting a Factions stronghold any day. I won’t downplay how fun gathering all your elite buddies to roxxor some shitheads at the moongate or their house can be. It’s just fucking cooler to gather your band of friends to stage an attack on Necropolis, City of the Dead, which is inhabited by tons of people roleplaying different forms of undead, from skeletons to zombies to liches. I’m paying $10 a month to play this freaking game, and I’ll be damned if I’ll ever put my spare time into chasing house-fighting pansies, being ganked in Factions, or killing some shit-talking high school kid in O/C ever again at this point. Been there, done that, sure it’s fun but it’s missing quite a bit in comparison to more PvP-based RP guilds. After spending a relatively equal amount of time as both a dewd and an RPer, I can definitely say that roleplaying wins the contest of which is the more rewarding playstyle. It tends to be more engaging, the friendships I’ve developed with other roleplayers have been stronger, and you always have a strong feeling of being part of a “community”.
Of course, not all roleplay is PvP-centric. Most of it is centered on stories and that kind of shit. This can be incredibly fun too. I have a very short attention span, I blame that on a life of video and computer games, but I need something to aid in maintaining my powergaming interests. I don’t get people who can just do monotonous UO shit over and over and over again without pulling out their hair after fifteen minutes. Give me some fiction and I can do boring UO crap until the cows come home. Interacting with other people is nice too, but I prefer to play UO as escapist romp in fantasy land, as opposed to being myself with my pixilated representation talking about real life shit while chopping at monsters or other players. Sure, I do “break character” all the time, but having an underlying story behind the stuff I do in the game is what makes UO for me. I’m quite aware of what derelict I am in real life, I prefer to interact with the other derelicts that play UO in the context of fantasy land as opposed to actually getting to know any of you people. I don’t want to hear about how you gave your make believe girlfriend twenty orgasms last night or that your dog just shit on the floor while I’m camping a moongate with you. I’d much rather have the sugar coating of a story behind the admittedly silly stuff we do in UO constantly as opposed to just logging in to powergame, PvP, or bullshit with people. I’m the type of UO player who rants about quitting every few months due to boredom. I take a break, make my triumphant return, and get back to roleplaying. If it wasn’t for the roleplaying net being pulled over my PvPing, powergaming, and talking to other players, I’d be bored to tears with UO. I know many people do just fine without the roleplaying crap, but roleplaying adds another level to all UO activity, and it’s a freaking great “player mod” for UO.
The people who roleplay in UO are also perhaps the most entertaining bunch of people in the game. Sure they are creative, artistic, and generally intelligent, but the best part is that a lot of them are certifiably insane. I’m no Mr. Sanity, but damn I’ve met a shitload of total nutcases while roleplaying. It’s great. The behind the scenes soap operas between individuals and groups in the RP circles, the deep-seated hatred between people, and the amazingly vicious flamewars are perhaps the most entertaining facets of being a roleplayer. I’ve seen people honestly threaten other players’ lives over disagreements about how to roleplay. Now that is fun. Even though I’m in another one of my burnt out and sick of roleplaying phases at the moment, I wouldn’t trade all the fun flamewars and psycho crap I’ve been exposed to and part of in the Catskills RP community for anything. When RPers aren’t focusing their impotent rage on each other, they focus on their natural enemy – the non-roleplayer.
I never was one of these players who freaked out about PKs, thieves, being “griefed”, or any of that. I never really cared when PKs used to get their rocks off trying to take out an RPer who flagged during a big battle, even if it was me. I never really cared about the looter who made off with some of my GM shit. After all, being in an RP guild generally meant that you became friendly with a lot of people, and most guildmates jumped at the chance to log in with their blacksmith, replace all your shit, and get in a bit of roleplay with their mule. Many roleplayers did freak the fuck out about all of this stuff. It still colors how many RPers feel about Felucca (even though most of the really good RP groups are still found in Felucca) and just people who don’t roleplay in general. I know that many RP groups have been legitimately griefed by fucking idiots, but those are isolated cases where OSI should really be doing their fucking job and enforcing the Terms of Service when it comes to clear harassment of people.
Many RP groups, especially those in Trammel, have rules against looting, attacking others without warning, etc. Unfortunately, aside from these rules being horribly outdated and causing many more problems than they fix, it has also made many RPers extremely “soft” players. I can’t begin to count the number of times I got ICQs from fellow RPers having a meltdown about being PKed and looted. After you PvP enough you stop caring about being suddenly attacked or stolen from by another player, and you stop caring about being dry-looted and having the prick who killed you put on your hat and dance around right before rez-killing you. Many RPers PvP quite often and are quite skilled at it, but the absolutely idiotic rules many of them have totally polarizes the upset about having shit happen to them that is a day to day occurrence in Felucca. Hence, many Trammel RPers fixate on how horrible non-RPers are, especially those in Felucca. From relishing the dreaded act of breaking the mood, to giving RPers shit about the way they play the game, some non-RPers are total fucking pricks. Many RPers are total pricks too, and will completely shit all over another person if they aren’t roleplaying “well enough”. Many RPers need to realize that a very large portion of those who say RPing is lame have been blown off or treated like shit by some self-proclaimed RP masters when these RP newbies tried to learn how to roleplay or see what the playstyle is about. Many RPers need to realize that some of those griefers who tortured them in the old days were actually people from within their own community, just using different characters. The RP scene can be a very strange community, and I strongly feel that many of those who bust on RPing are reacting more to some of the assholes in the RPing community instead of RPing itself. I know, most of the time I am one of those assholes. When some douche bag stands by watching me tie up and drag along a Shadowclan Orc for a little questioning and torture (all done with emotes of course) and then blurts out “Nice RP fag!”, sure I want to leap through his monitor, grab him by his scrawny, brittle neck, and pulp his goddamn face while reminding him that addictive online gaming is just as geeky as roleplaying. Then I just remember that I’ve played the game just like him in the past, and it’s lame as hell compared to the amount of fun I’m having roleplaying.
To those of you who think RPing is “gay” or lame, you either have no clue how diverse the roleplay community is and how many different playstyles and types of types of roleplay there are in the community, or you should be doing homework or working on getting laid instead of playing UO. How many nights can you spend popping zits and camping moongates? For the older or more mature that simply don’t think RPing is for you, all I can say is that you don’t know what you’re missing. For those that do roleplay, keep on living in fantasy land and keep up the good work. Not only are you capable of really playing and relating with others in a multiplayer game, but you also create a living, breathing virtual world that most of the idiots who play UO are totally clueless about. Many roleplayers don’t want to have anything to do with non-RPers, even if they are interested in giving the whole roleplay thing a try. I’m not as clannish or territorial as many RPers are, so stay tuned for my “Idiot’s Guide to Roleplaying in the Robo-Blackthorn Era” sooner or later.
Note: After writing this article I purchased Neverwinter Nights. This game -might- be the RPer wet dream many of us have been waiting for. Keep an eye out for Neverwinter Nights articles by the staff of UOPG. It does appear that NWN might actually live up to the hype, but we're not going to review it until we've had the chance to really play the shit out of it and give you honest impressions without the fanboy bull. |
^ top-Housing Update
[Nissa] June 21 - 3:12 PM EDT | The following was posted to the UO Development Board:
First off, I should mention that we are planning to set Test Center 5 ("TC5") external with a recent Pacific shard backup for this weekend. I will also set the housing mode on the test housing server to "global" (this is equivalent to being in phase 3, where actions on one shard affect your houses on all other shards). Let me stress that this does not affect the production shards at all! There is no danger of your houses being condemned in production because of what you do on test centers. In other words, feel free to condemn your Test Center houses without worrying about your real houses on Pacific, Europa, Yamato, Siege Perilous, etc.
Second, I plan to update the housing docs very soon with more details about coowners and claiming houses. There have been a lot of questions on this topic recently, so I feel some clarification is in order. I would do it today, but Prophet is out until Monday and there are some detailed issues I am not 100% comfortable addressing. I want to make sure anything I post on this topic is definitive, since it is the source of great anxiety for many players.
Finally, some speculation as to what the housing rollout will look like. This is Prophet's baby, and he will ultimately be responsible for making the decisions about what happens when. However, based on what I know about how the housing system works, I think I can paint a picture of the rollout process that is pretty accurate.
First, Publish 16 will go live. We will want to wait until it's live everywhere before we start registering shards. This is the process by which we iterate through all the houses on the shard and add them to the housing database (popularly known as "Phase 1"). Registering a shard takes a good deal of time, and we have to keep the shard internal while it happens, so I don't anticipate we will be registering more than one shard a day (although this may change as we gather more information on the system's needs). That means that phase 1 should take 20-odd days to complete.
Based on the way the inactive account handling works, we will have to wait about ten days once the last shard is registered to turn on the ability to claim "ownerless houses" (phase 2). Then we will want to leave the claiming phase active for at least a week before we turn on phase 3 (where housing events on one shard may affect one's houses on other shards).
Once again, that is not the hard and fast PLAN, but how I BELIEVE the rollout will work. We should be able to announce an official rollout plan sometime next week .
MrTact
Don't get me started on housing. While I agree that something needs to be done, again OSI's lack of information over the past 2 weeks has been very frustrating. Many posters at the boards suggested that OSI compromise on this issue and allow people to place houses on 2 shards. There are people out there that shard their account with their spouse/sibling/child. One plays on one shard and one plays on another shard. No chance for either of these people to ever upgrade their houses. I for one would have liked to seen a response from OSI stating why this compromise couldn't work.
I would love to see the schedule of Pub 16. *cross fingers* Please let Chessie be last!!
MrTact goes on to post a few more tibits. Someone asked when Pub 16 would hit a shard near you, he replied "Roughly next week." Well, it is now Friday, and we are getting roughly next week. Hmmm
Question posted: If I only own 1 house on 1 shard will it become automatically refreshed and made my primary house? Will I need to opt in for it or will it automatically become autorefreshed?
MrTact's answer: All existing houses will be registered into the "grandfathered" refresh type (even if they aren't technically grandfathered houses), so you will have to refresh them manually.
If you want your house to be primary (and if you only own one house, there's no reason not to), you have to go to the house control panel and set it to primary.
Question posted: For clarification, does this mean that we can buy/sell/transfer houses without condeming those we own on other shards until Phase 3 goes active?
MrTact's answer: That is correct.
Question posted: I also have places on Pacific and Siege. If these go live long before Drachenfels how will I go about making them all refreshable? Will each shard get a gump to choose auto or manual refresh?
MrTact's answer: You do not get a gump. All existing houses will start out as manual refresh, even if you own only one. New houses placed after Phase 3 goes into effect (or likewise, transferred to you) will be autorefresh by default.
Phase 3 will turn on simultaneously for all shards (it is a global setting), so there is no chance of affecting some of your houses because certain shards are active and others are not etc.
Sometimes, I hate this game. |
^ top-UO Faire News.
[Nieves] June 21 - 1:07 PM EDT | From an interview with Tajima at UOLS.net:
First off, he broke the bad news that there would be no FanFest this calendar year - but hopefully there will be one in 2003, if all goes well. The planning and manpower that goes into putting on a FanFest is vast, and with all of the new things in the works, OSI cannot spare the resources at this time.
I met Tajima. My impression was he was very reserved and a seriousely focused guy. He seemed to listen more than speak. Good qualities in a team leader.
But even so, after talking to some friends about this piece of news, something was asked: "here's my question: why the fuck are we hearing the news there will be no fan fest in a freaking impromptu interview on a fan site and not from OSI themselves in a formal goddamn announcement?"
Thank you.
In the words of another friend: "in truth "lets hit them with publish 16 and hide out for a year"'
Nah, can't be.
Hasta. |
^ top-UOPG Boards Have Moved
[Nieves] June 20 - 6:45 AM EDT | Well, after working with Fryguy for a few weeks, the day has come.
UOPG's new boards are live and ready for you.
Please point your browsers to the new board and mark over your bookmarks.
The old board should be down within a week to allow for posters to find the new board as well as giving us an opportunity to move locked threads.
Hasta. |
^ top-Six Days
[Nieves] June 19 - 9:51 AM EDT | That's all that is left before the first production shard is slated to get Publish 16.
This is to be the most anticipated change in the history of Ultima Online since UO:Renaissance. Wow. Can you feel the excitement in the air? ::shudders::
Right.
With every major change made to an Ultima Online system, a new set of bugs come in that should not have gotten past the testing stages. A lot of bugs have been squashed and 'fixed'. But some things are still broken in the Pub 16 "system". It's going to be interesting and funny when they hit. People are going to get hit with these bugs and think "WTF JUST HAPPENED!?" Well, it's broken. What do you expect?
I have been working on Resist on a number of characters with friends and, frankly, we have run out of time. There is only so much time in an evening with everything else going on. Working resist is a test of endurance and patience. People getting irritated because one isn't helping enough (or anymore after they are done), or another upset they aren't getting a turn fast enough doesn't help the situation. It can cause major burnout. And I don't like sitting there for hours working a skill. That is some major boring shit. Even so, it needs to be done. And we will see who we can have finished or in high levels before then. Did I mention it's expensive and time consuming to get the resources and supplies for a resist session?
Also, I have been looking at all the characters I have and trying to prioritize who gets done with what. Then I gave up. Too much to do in too little time. So, characters get pushed to the side and left for after Publish 16. It's ok, they become research projects to see what skill gains are like (riiiiight!).
I had been working Discord on another character. I went back and checked the provocation difficulty values. Jeesuz, you can't provoke dragons without power scrolls, GM musical instruments, or slayer instruments. Good and bad for the game? Yeah. The changes were needed, but damn, bards really did get the shaft. All a Tamer needs is GM Taming/Lore and some decent Vet to use two mares to do the job (and still be able to ride a horse or an ethereal mount). A Bard needs to be GM Provoke/Music/Discord/Peace (maybe), a GM or slayer instrument AND a power scroll to even be effective. Nice. Thanks. Wow. I don't know if I will continue on this character for Discord. It might not even be worth it.
Especially if I can just take my Warrior with GM resist, a silver power katana, and valorite armor and go wreck some liches. The 'new' monster AI (insta-casting) will only last as long as the 'main playerbase' (see below) complains about the monsters being 'too hard'. After the last major update to monster AI, I loved it. Monsters teleporting on you, coming up to you in 'stealth mode', healing, curing, casting mini-combos, etc. It owned. But, people complained, and others said they were bugs, and things got toned down. Just because it was 'too hard'. Wah. Go play Diablo or Dungeon Siege if you can't handle UO Monster AI. Oh, and if you EVER die in a Trammel dungeon for any reason other than insufficient character skills (i.e.-resist), lost con, lag, or a bad connection, then you need to stay the fuck out of the dungeons anyway.
And then there are the housing changes. Thankfully I got a house on Pacific upgrade and another house on Napa (THANK YOU GUL!). The GUL house is a loner, but I would never have been able to get it with the Pub 16 changes. Again, thank you OSI.
Many people are complaining about the changes and how it's going to "RUIN THE FUCKING GAME"! Well, for some of us, that is true. For many more, it probably won't be.
UOPG has a consistant, unique, readerbase of about 60,000. That's a lot of readers right? Well, UOPG touches only 30% of the playerbase. I would say about 1/2 of the readers are HARDCORE PvPers and solely Feluccan denizens. The other 1/2 just come to read about our tips and information and my colorful use of the word "fuck" and leave.
Hardcore PvPers are in the minority folks. Our playstyle is being crushed. Pushed out of the door to appease that part of the playerbase.
Do we go ahead and give in to the devil, adapt and overcome, or just say fuck it and "Play The Fucking Game"? That is up to each and every one of you.
My best advice to each of you is this: When Publish 16 hits your shard, put a mark on your calender 30 days from it's release. Then make a decision at the end of that 30th day.
I know I will. And then, I get to decide if Neverwinter Nights has me enthralled enough to game for FREE (after the inital purchase). As opposed to giving my money to people that are really only interested in appeasing a select group of individuals while ignoring the original vision of Ultima Online.
Hasta. |
^ top-Felammel By Sever
[Nieves] June 19 - 9:17 AM EDT | Felammel =(
Hello, I have been reading the forums about Pub 16 and what it is going to do to Fel/PvP when it arrives. Just thought that I would share my opinions on the subject.
I have been playing UO for 42 months, I own a Villa in Fel on the Cats shard and I am a hardcore PvPer. I've played as a Mage, A Nox Warrior, and a Hybird without resist (very effective if played right). I have chars on multiple shards, Seige/Atl/Cats/LS/GL and Legends. Before Pub 16 I had no intention to quit, I believed I would probably play UO for at least a year or two longer. Now that I read these changes and what they are planning to do I am selling my account as soon as my chars are finished up. Why? Because my playstyle is being dumbed down to the point where I don't find it fun to play anymore. I've been through alot of changes in the game (Anatomy, Eval, Med, UO:R, Trammel, countless other patches and game changes) but through it all I still managed to have fun in the game and play how I wanted to play. Now with Pub 16 on the way I do not feel like making a Fencer with hiding to compete in PvP. What we have now is basically a "I don't have to die if I don't want to" trend in PvP. People run indefinately, they run corners and hide, they recall away during a fight, this isn't a new thing UO, but lately it seems to have grown to the point where I don't find PvP fun, I want to go out, find people to kill and fight them, I don't want to see whose horse has more stamina and who can run the fastest and not get caught on a branch. Now we have a growing number of no loot fencers armed with a tribal spear and bandaids. I took a screen shot of an O/C fight in Bucs i was on the arch with my Nox Warrior and there were 4 tribal spear/bandaid fencers down below, and 2 others off the screen. They couldn't teleport after me because they had no magery, just a tribal spear and bandaids.
I considered moving to Siege as I have a 6x char with 85 resist there but Siege is all group fighting and ganks, I enjoy going solo for the most part, or with a friend or two, I don't like fighting 20 UDL and getting para whored to death.
What really makes me upset is that they are attempting (passively) to move all the Vet players over to Siege so that Trammel players who don't own houses can take what the Vet players leave behind (one house per account) when they move, and the fact that anyone who doesn't want these changes is getting moved to Siege or out the door. I do not wish to RP a Trammelites monster, that is in a way what Pub 16 is doing. If I am red and wish to play in the LL what I am doing is RPing a monster of sorts to a non-lootable Trammie looking for a new rare.
Most PvPers may have fun for a few weeks, who wouldn't want to kill some innocents without risk of stat? Then what? People will get bored of killing non-lootable Power/Vanq totting Trammies then they will stop hunting the dungeons, which then causes more powerscrolls to enter the game. The no-loot tribal spear warriors can only benefit from these changes, most of them are no more than 3-4x anyway, they wont need to rework thier char to fight, they will be more effective than ever. Imagine a fencer with 110/145/25, sure he is highly MBable but what does it matter if he is just going to run after the first Explode/MB anyway? If you manage to kill him youre only getting a spear and aids. Then theres the LJs who are still getting 2 shot kills with Force axes, a nice Tact bonus is all it takes.
Anyway, its not that I blame Trammelites for all this, I blame OSI for what has happened to PvP (or will happen still). Trammel was a quick fix to a problem and brought them a nice profit to show for it, but they knew there would be long term problems. Now they are attempting to correct the problem by adding more land to Trammel (Fel LL) and moving anyone who doesn't want to play under the Pub 16 ruleset off the production shards. You can say that Trammel consist of roughy 80% of the playerbase, therefore they should please the majority, but what about the Vet players who don't like PvM and want to keep PvP how it is, or was? Should the Vets be ignored simply because we are not the majority of the UO population? Anyway, just my thoughts on the entire thing. Like I said I don't want this to sound like a debate about Fel/Tram, I just wanted to voice the opinions/concerns of a Vet PvPer. =)
Thank you for your thoughts Sever. Too bad it's for naught...
Hasta. |
^ top-Pub 16 Updates
[Nieves] June 18 - 2:27 PM EDT | At 120.0 skill, a bard with a dragon-slaying instrument has approx. 60% chance of success to use an ability against an Ancient Wyrm, or to provoke two Ancient Wyrms to fight. At 100.0 skill, with the same instrument, the chance is approx. 20%.
Weee...fun isn't it? Now bend over Mr. Bard...I got a lute with your name on it.
Anyway...
Establishing Ownership: This phase will begin phasing out the possibility of "ownerless houses"-those houses that are owned by an inactive UO account-and allow co-owners the option of claiming their respective ownerless houses as their own. Those co-owners, in order to claim such an ownerless house, must not already own a house on any shard.
The bold part was a recent addition.
Well...I guess we can just forget about automatically getting those houses that people have left behind.
VIVA LA TRAMMEL PLAYERS!
If you feel like it, go to the forum about some tidbits concerning people's opinions regarding Publish 16. Some of it is interesting.
T Minus 6 Days and Counting...June 24th is coming. Are your skills GMed yet?
Hasta. |
^ top-Adam Ant Tells a Post-Publish 16 Story
[Nieves] June 16 - 4:50 PM EDT | Loot what?
And a quote from one of his readers:
The price of armor is going down.. now..
In a short time the smiths will complain that they are not selling any armor.. no one will need any anymore..
no weapons to buy.. nothing..
this change has a far reaching and evil result. than anyone has touched on..
The biggest pain will be felt by vendor owners..
whos gonna buy your trammel goodies now?
It is my contention that most equipment is purchased by pvp Fel ..
I allways go to Trammel to buy my stuff for all my char even the reds..
Now.. there is no reason unless your red.. and there will be few of us soon
Hindsight is 20/20. Too bad some of us don't have any. But what do we, the players, know anyway? All we do is play the fucking game.
Hasta. |
^ top-Virus Alert
[Nieves] June 16 - 3:19 PM EDT | It seems someone or the Klez virus itself is sending out emails from my UOPG email account with the Klez virus in it.
Normally, I only reply to emails from that account. If you are not expecting an email from me, delete it. I won't feel bad. Really.
I have been hit twice and had to reformat my harddrive both times. If you can afford it, pick up Norton Security/Antivirus. The software is amazing.
Anyway, my apologies if you were hit by a virus from my Nieves@UOPG email address.
Hasta. |
^ top-Bone Armor Rating
[Nieves] June 15 - 7:45 AM EDT | All bone armour suits give -13 dex loss.
Bone armour found off skeles gives 27 AR.
To make bone armour, kill zombies, then use scissors on any 'bones' found
on their body. Bone armour can be made with any leather type, selectable in the tailoring menu.
Barbed - 48 AR
Horned - 45 AR
Spined - 42 AR
Leather - 33 AR
(all suits GM)
Dr. Acula
Interesting. Thanks Acula.
Hasta. |
^ top-We Brought it on Ourselves? Bullshit.
[Hennarr] June 14 - 1:21 PM EDT | If there is one line of thinking that drives me up a fucking wall it is blaming the players when the game is significantly altered. There are two kinds of people who play UO, people who are going to play the game as it is designed, and people who are going to exploit and cheat. Part of the money we all pay is supposed to go towards tracking down and getting rid of fucking cheaters. Massive game changes shouldn't be made around people who are breaking the TOS. People who do that are supposed to be kicked out of the game, that's it.
A player is supposed to play the game how it is designed. It is NOT the fault of the player if he or she takes part in playstyles or behaviors that other people don't like, as long as it is a legal playstyle. Saying that players are at fault for what happens is the biggest fucking cop out in all of these debates about why changes happen to UO. The dev team has the power to change the game, no one else. The dev team is supposed to design systems that don't result in a ton of fucking problems when players actually play in those systems. That is what the dev team is PAID to do. That is their job. They have the power to change the game, and they have the responsibility to make game changes that take player behavior into account. People jumping in front of the dev team to defend them is one thing, turning around and fucking blaming me or other players for playing the game in a LEGAL manner is a whole other sack of stupid shit.
I never complained about Trammel's existence. I complained about a past dev team going way fucking overboard and not thinking about what would actually happen when the shit hit production shards, which is a large part of my concern with Publish 16. A player doesn't have a fucking MMORPG civic duty to hold back when they play the game. They can play the game however the hell they want to, as long as it is legal. Why the fucking hell should players be blamed for farming gold, PKing, effective theivery, etc. when THE GAME DESIGN ALLOWED THEM TO DO ALL OF THIS SHIT? Saying that gold sinks were ruined by exploits is meaningless to me. Don't fucking say 99% of the players should be fucked for this or are to blame. If the neon hair bullshit proved anything, it's that EA Austin fucked up again by pushing shit out the door and that they need to stop worrying about banning people for saying "rape" and having purple spellbooks and focus on the people who are actually fucking with the systems of the game in a way that screws the entire playerbase. All blame lies with the dev team and QA team, the players do nothing more than play the game.
Coming up with new ideas is secondary to the dev team's job of making sure that their systems WORK in a massive multiplayer setting. I really do not understand people who are dev team sycophants and fucking cheerleaders, and then when shit goes wrong with dev team designs they blame the players and how the players played with those systems. What a fucking cop out. There is a whole world of marketing and "demographic shift" behind a lot of these changes, not player behavior. People can point fingers at certain players and call them "griefers", but they are just playing the game as it is designed by the dev team. The whole Trammel vs. Felucca debate and the hatred between the two sides is, in my opinion, something that has been promoted by EA Austin for some very important reasons. That is something for an upcoming rant.
-Hennarr
|
^ top-Back To Work.
[Nieves] June 14 - 12:27 PM EDT | Now that the drama is passed (for now):
"We Brought it on Ourselves"
by Muad 'Dib of Atlantic
I read the post recently in which the author complained and blamed
everything on the developers for ruining the Felucca facet. It was amusing to say the least. Although he did have a few good points I couldn’t help but become a bit outraged as he continually trashed the developers with blame for everything from Trammel’s conception to the complete ruin of Felucca, a facet that he himself claims to neither live in or play much.
What he failed to understand is the reasoning behind UO:R, Trammel and the complete and utter destruction of my beloved homelands, namely Felucca. The developers didn’t ‘wake up’ one day and decide that Felucca was perfect the way it was and that UO was bringing in mega bucks for the company.
They didn’t just say “Hey, let’s screw that up and ruin everything because we’re bored.” No, what they did was respond to the public outcry of the unfairness of being harassed, pk’d, and exploited within the original game’s rules.
If he had spent those early days in Felucca, he would understand the attempt by the game’s designers to create a world that was more user friendly, more appealing to the mass public, and of course create the ability to generate more profits for the company by reaching a new audience and keeping them a bit longer by offering them a world that was free from all this grief.
When the game originated, there weren’t such things as skill locking.
Skills decayed at such an alarming rate that it was hard for the average player to get a firm foothold in the land. You couldn’t make gold with a warrior or bard as you can these days. Worker characters were a necessity in order to be able to afford the supplies needed to adventurer as a mage, warrior, or any other class. Yes, power hour and the ‘make-last’ technique have ruined the worker class in my opinion as well, but let’s not simply blame the developers for ruining this. They just failed to realize the potential misuse of the systems they put in place to attempt a fix for these issues.
Yes, they destroyed Felucca, and it really, really sucks for me. All my homes are in Felucca. I sold my vendor house quite some time ago due to lack of traffic, and the inability to sell anything other then basic PvP related merchandise. My vast collection of rares, semi-rares, highly valuable weapons and armor sat on the vendors for months with no offers. No one wants to buy these things in Felucca because thieves hiding nearby the vendor house could steal them. These items can be easily purchased in a Trammel vendor with no fear and no risk.
Trammel is the direct result of the continual grief play-style of the past.
Due to continual exploitation of every possible situation, rule, or
play-style found there. Field spells were quickly found useless in Felucca due to the pk’s who used them to flag against the player and kill them, loot them, and then gloat over them with their childish attitudes of “I ownz youz newb.”
He complained about the ‘push-through’ effect in Trammel that allows players to pass thru others with no stamina loss, yet fails to realize it’s there because it was exploited in Felucca for years by gangs of grief players who used it to trap players in areas where the ‘stupid monster AI” could easily kill them. They also used it to trap players in order to make them thief bait. I can remember a time when gangs of thieves held me at bay in the bone magi room by surrounding me constantly while they picked my pack clean.
I remember the early days of duping, which caused most of my friends to leave the game completely s it gave us no chance to compete with such an immense influx of unlimited possessions and supplies. It also destroyed any possible chance of finding an open spot of real estate to place a house when you finally could afford one.
You can complain all you want about Trammel’s existence and the continual efforts of the development team to fix the issues they missed during the conception stages of the game, new materials, and recent patches. Just keep in mind that Trammel exists because we made it into reality through the continual exploitation of our world given to us by these developers.
I for one, applaud the efforts of the developer’s. In spite of all their mistakes, lack of foresight and ignorance of the complete lack of morals of a lot of their customer base they have still presented me with a game that I have played and mostly enjoyed over the past 5 years. I had no idea what I was getting myself into the first time I logged into Ultima Online, for if I did, I might not have started. I never dreamed that I would play this game for so long and still find it fun, at times exhilarating, and yes, at times very, very frustrating.
Let’s put the blame where it belongs. We are the ones who made Trammel a necessity for OSI to continue to make profits, keep players returning to this world and their accounts active. After all, they do run a business and profits keep them in that business. When the Korean shard closed recently, it gave some of us a slap in the face that this world is in reality only a game, one that will disappear completely should that company fail to continue to realize those profit margins due to their inability to adjust to the ever changing needs of their customers. No, they’re not perfect, yet neither are they the mindless ignorant persona that the author of that rant
embellished them with. They are simply trying to react to the continual misuse of the rules and TOS. They tried to create a gold sink to help the economy, and how did WE answer them? Lord Anon’s hair style program which allowed young characters to go directly from the inn they were ‘born’ in to the hairstylist and adorn themselves with something that was supposed to be put in place to assist the sagging economy of the realm.
Wake up and face the music my friends, you can complain all you want, but the continued exploitation of our realm is leading directly to the changes we now all face. Indeed we are all paying the price for the few that exploit grief-play and continue to look for these loopholes in the rules to give ourselves an unfair advantage in the game. Not because we’re ‘power gamers’ but because we’re lazy, and lack the morals to play the game within the TOS and rules.
I may not agree with a lot of what's said, it is still food for thought.
Hasta. |
^ top-And UOPG Loses OSI's "Support"
[Nieves] June 14 - 10:55 AM EDT | I am not one to "air dirty laundry," so to speak, so I would typically handle something like this behind the scenes.
But given how far over the line this post was, and the fact that it was made publicly by the representative of a site that we held in high regard, I feel it necessary to make it clear that this was highly inappropriate. One of the best things about UOPowergamers has always been its ability to provide valuable information that is beyond the simple cut-and-paste from our news sections, and the editorials - while not always geared for a family audience
- have usually been informative and thought-provoking.
But personal attacks and insults fall outside the realm of game-related editorials, and while I will be the first to admit that we are not accurate 100% of the time, we do try, and we will not support a site that misrepresent us as malicious. It's not good for us, and it's not good for our community.
Regards,
Cynthe
Community Manager
ORIGIN Systems"
Yes, my comment was out of line and out of context for what I was trying to convey. For that, you, Amy "Cynthe" Sage, get my public apology.
Even so, I, for one, will never kiss OSI's ass or say something like this: "Lady you could not have said it better. I too would love to see more involvement with the UO staff but i must say i was so suprised to see that they even posted here, makes me feel honored to be a part of this group". As you can see, that follows in line with what Watts was saying yesterday...
Fuck that. That goes against my whole being. Do it right, I will praise you. Fuck up, I will let you and the community know about it. No bullshit or ass-licking from me.
A thought was relayed to me when I read the above: 'I guess I should have brushed up on my ass-kissing skills while they still liked me so I could get true information from them instead of bullshit.' Did OSI ever really support UOPG or did they pay UOPG lip service? And it's interesting that they would admit now they were never 100% accurate. But call them on something and watch how quickly they turn on you.
How often were things followed through upon that UOPG was promised? Did OSI go ahead and inform UOPG about different things we had discussed in the past? Anyone that knows me knows I don't like asking for something more than once. Nor do I like being put off or fucked with by stupid "run-around" games.
You held me in such high regard? Yah, right. How many times have I asked for specific things from you when the 'in line' sites have gotten them time and again? For example, I have been asking for a PvP/Combat specific IRC chat for months. I have asked various people in their community 'group' about it and just got the run around. Oh, and please don't bring up the "20 question interviews". You know I wanted a live interview. But I see other sites getting interviews time and again. I guess I wasn't important enough for that.
I tried to be patient. But you can only put someone off for so long before they lose total patience. And I am a bad tempered, impatient son of a bitch to begin with.
Am I jealous? Maybe. But mainly I am disappointed. I was told at the Faire OSI didn't play favorites. It's obvious they do. Play by their rules and all is well. But go against it and lose their 'support'.
Call me malicious or whatever. At least I am honest and able to admit when I am wrong without threat to my public image.
All I ever asked was that OSI played straight with me and give me straight answers without the bullshit.
Well, I guess I lose out on your support. Big deal. I already walked away from you yesterday. There are only so many times I allow someone to play games with me. Besides, who is UOPG here for, to appease OSI, or to help the players?
Not like you gave a shit about UOPG in the first place. If you did, you would have given UOPG the same attention and respect as you give to your 'favorite' Fansites. Thanks for being consistant.
Hasta. |
^ top-Another Watts' Quote
[Nieves] June 14 - 7:11 AM EDT | Hey I just wanted to apologize to Nieves for feeding his anger earlier today. He was upset, and rather than offer a placating and sensible suggestion, I fueled the fire and prompted him to say some things that in the scope of things to come, probably were not the best idea however hilarious they were.
To the UO E-Groups: Those comments were in fact made by me, not Nieves. Should he have posted them? Doubt it, but you know what? Fuck you. It was a joke to lighten a tense situation from getting out of control. But just like usual, you fucking idiots blew it up out of proportion. Your elitist attitude is constantly the center of dissention, and you refuse to see a situation as having two sides. You are all blinded by the nerd hero-worship that someone from a game company would send an e-mail to your shitty e-group. Get over yourselves. It is a game to be enjoyed, and enjoyed by everyone, and made by real people. People who sometimes make mistakes. And that means that smetimes the game company needs to be told they are making a mistake for the betterment of EVERYONE. Not just your happy group of OSI asslickers, and elitist, overbearing asses. That means that other opinions and ideas may have merit. And if it is clearly obvious from the evidence presented that OSI was in the wrong, no matter how small, grow a spine and tell them about it. It's not that I think they are shit and blah blah blah, it's the simple fact that if we as players do not tell them when they are in the wrong, no one will. NO ONE. STAND UP FOR YOURSELF. It's the only way your voice will be heard. Sorry for bothering you, you can all go back to your pubs and weddings or whatever it is you think the only way to play the game is.
To OSI in General - This is exactly why I no longer play your game, and when asked if someone else should, I respond in the negative. It is obvious that Nieves had communication from your staff validating the skill gain method as legitimate. Yet suddenly it becomes an exploit. Is it that no one in your office talks to each other? What exactly goes on over there? Why is there such a horrendous disconnect between who is working on what? Cynthe constantly releases information, yet when pressed on specifics, the answer is always "someone else is working on this" or "so and so is out of the office until Monday" or something equally spin-doctorish. Well guess what? Not everyone enjoys being placated and treated like idiot children who can't walk across the street with out a hand to hold. You constantly say you as a company are committed to the player, yet when someone asks for notice, and carries the voices of a large group of your player base, you ignore them or patronize them because their opinions are different. Their ideas on the game are different. Sometimes they disagree with you, and you shun them for it.
I know for a fact that Nieves worked hard at trying to be in your good graces and strived to get the best information possible for your player base. He asked me several times what he needed to do just to get noticed by OSI and what he could do to get them on his side. He was so frustrated just because he wanted to do the right thing. To help out the people who played the game he loved. I told him just to be himself. So he did. And OSI ignored him because he swears and has a temper and spouts off in Mexican and talks about himself in the third person, which is incredibly annoying as fucking hell admittedly. But one thing never changed through all the stupid shit he says; he has an honest desire to help people understand, succeed, and most importantly enjoy their experience in Ultima Online.
So to E-groups: Fuck you.
To OSI: I am disappointed in you.
-Watts
Someone get Nievesy pooh a tissue...
Hasta. |
^ top-UOPG Publish Update
[Nieves] June 13 - 6:35 PM EDT | Fixed Bowcraft skill page (thanks guys!)
Removed Make Last Method from main Skills Page.
Hasta. |
^ top-Why do I bother?
[Nieves] June 13 - 5:22 PM EDT | I sit here at the Cingular Wireless store waiting my turn to pay my phone bill and contemplating life and Ultima Online.
My significant other and Watts helps puts things into perspective and get my collective thoughts flowing.
I was told this morning: "change focus".
I think it's time for that.
At first, I was so incensed over feeling lied too that I was ready to cash everything in and close up shop. I am ignored, made to feel insignificant, and just out and out li..er, misinformed by these people that I thought was 'cool as hell' at the UOFaire.
When UOPowergamers was under Redrum's charge, I don't remember him bothering with contacting OSI about anything related to Ultima Online. His information was based on research him and the players playing the game actually did on their own.
So why did Nieves try to change UOPG and get away from that focus? Because I thought I could do better. I thought getting with OSI's good graces would help make UOPG better known and make it a ligitimate site. Redrum already made UOPG a ligitimate UO site.
To Redrum, I apologize. I ran away from your vision.
To Hanse: Thank you for always answering my questions when I ask.
To Adrick: I don't know why, but thanks for never returning my emails anymore.
To Sannio: Well...sorry.
To Kerowyn: I still owe you a drink girl. You will get it at my first opportunity.
To Cynthe: ....
UOPG doesn't need a dev team to get the information it needs. It already has a great resource. That is you, the players. I will use the players as my source of information for Ultima Online. It's apparent that OSI doesn't know about things from the way they always tell us when they find out something new: "oh, I didn't know that". You should know that. It's your code. You have your own testers. Nothing should get passed you that is broken or buggy. Ever.
I used to feed OSI information about different bugs and things in game. No more. Why? I get the shaft and their replies are either cryptic or inconsistant. They can just find out about the bugs on their own.
Am I going to start breaking the Ultima Online Terms of Service? Nope. No bugs or exploits here.
I will just quit wasting my time on unattentive, inconsistant, misinforming and vague people.
I will stick to those that make the game what it is. And won't deceive or play word games about things in Ultima Online. Again, that is you, the players.
I told Cynthe that UOPG will change. I thought I had the vision in mind. Now it's clear. Thank you Cynthe for helping me find that vision today.
It's time to "Play the Fucking Game".
Hasta. |
^ top-Exploit????
[Nieves] June 13 - 2:24 PM EDT | Rapid skill gains exploit resolved Jun 13 2002 12:21AM CST (GMT -06:00)
A recent crafting-based exploit that allowed rapid skill gains through the use of multiple crafting tools has been resolved.
WAIT A MINUTE!
First you tell me it's not a concern: You're right in that it's not illegal to try to pursue a fast skill gain by preparing yourself in this way (a method which, it could be noted, includes taking significant preparation time to secure the enormously large amounts of resources which would need to be available for your technique to be a success-and with that in mind there is at least some external time/effort balancing factor coming into play from outside the immediate skill gain session), but we'll keep continue to keep an eye on the uses and results of such techniques.
Now you say it's an exploit? Am I the only one that sees a problem with this? Thank you for following through on the open communication we are supposed to have about things.
Jeesuz freaking funk encrusted green monkey balls!
I know I know I know!
"JUST PLAY THE FUCKING GAME!"
Right.
Note: For the record, the text from the email above was dated April 24th.
Hasta. |
^ top-Shard News
[Lealla] June 13 - 2:23 PM EDT | Well it seems As Great Lakes Turns will now be Shard News. So if any one out there would like their guild adventures posted send me a line!
KoS Will be recruiting on Saturday June 15th. Here is your chance to join a guild with 6 Clans within.
Also, beginning at 7pm Central time, we will be holding the guild games after recruitment and meeting. These Include the Naked Country Long run, All out brawl, Clan sparing competitions, Scavenger hunt, Naked beggers run, Dungeon run, and MUCH more.
After the competitions, a Guild hunt will be launched to take on a champion! This is a wonderfull guild growing in size. Currently 55 members. This is a very active guild! So reserve your spot to be a part of a very active known guild. Prizes will be passed out to those climbing the ropes of success. We do have a very detailed ranking system per clan, and the championships do reflect on your rank gains.
The clans are as such: Mages, Paladins, Assassins, Druids, Bards, Rangers and merchants. Each clan is divided by rank and status. So if you're ready for a guild that keeps its family together and always gives them something to do for fun, then the Bank in Vesper at 6pm Central, trammel side Pacific shard is where you need to be.
Time: 6pm on
Date: 6/15/02
Shard: Pacific
Faucet: Trammel
Location: Vesper Bank
Guild: KoS Keepers of Shadow
Guild Master: Da'car Spellbinder
Sounds like a Fun evening is planned! Good Luck in the Recruiting!
While Over on Great Lakes, The Quest for Britannia looks to be getting underway.
All I can say is IMPRESSIVE!! The first Quest for Britannia Council meeting was held last night at the Nujel’m Theater. Present were 50 delegates from 16 guilds, representing Virtue, Evil and Balance.
Although the meeting was a bit late getting started, no one seemed to mind. Most were busy mingling and greeting others who had come together for a common goal. Brother Marcus began the meeting by thanking everyone for their dedication to the Quest and stating
"I am not the leader of Quest for Britannia... You are... "We" all are"
You can read the rest at The Royal Britannian Post
It also seems our own Lil Nievesy Pooh and his band of rangers have been at it again!
Roxanne fed her lizard mount an apple and watched out of the corner of her eye as T'Koda groomed his horse's mane. Araxas was behind them oiling Destiny, her magic war axe.
The search for Rath Stonesoul proved fruitless. His loyalists refused to give away his location.
They continued to shout effaces of dedication and reaffirm their belief that Rath should be, would be, king. There were but a few Enforcers and many from the House of Stonesoul. Yet the Enforcers prevailed time and again. Not one Enforcer was taken in any skirmish with the Stonesoul Knights.
......
The crowning ceremony for the new king was held a few nights ago. The were going to show and wait for the announcement. If Rath was announced King, The Enforcers would dispute the confirmation. The Enforcers arrived, dismounted and Roxanne tied her mount to a sconce in the back right of the room. The Highland Guard were in positions around the room that spoke of security, and not spectatorship.
A Highland Guardsman came over and demanded that the mount be removed from the room. Roxanne pointed to a horse in a dark corner that was already present when the Rangers arrived. The High Guardsman looked at the horse, looked back at Roxanne and then stalked off in frustration.
Roxanne and The Enforcers set behind the throng of onlookers on the right side of the throne room.
The same Guardsman came over and told Araxas that she must remove her bear hat. Roxanne was becoming extremely agitated with this Guardsman. Finally she recognized him as the Guardsman that had challenged Roxanne to a pair of duels. He found himself flat on his face...and back.
The story continues Here
Till Next Time...
Lealla
|
^ top-Barding Updates
[Nissa] June 13 - 10:40 AM EDT | This was posted to the Bard Forum by Greywolfe:
Hi all! Thanks for all of the feedback that you're all giving on the barding changes coming up in Publish 16. The information that has come from this forum has been outstanding. We also could not have accomplished the strides that we’ve made toward the final form of the barding changes without the help of our external testers. Their testing and desire to work with us in a constructive format provided valuable insight for a number of the proposed alterations to the barding skill. Because of their—and your—valuable assistance, the following bugs were able to be fixed:
+ Fire Horns were damaging the pets and summoned creatures owned by the bard. The fire horn will no longer damage the pets and summoned creatures owned by someone the fire horn cannot directly damage.
Didn't know it was doing this. I couldn't find any fire horns.
+ Area-effect Peacemaking caused tame pets to forget their orders to follow a target. Tamed pets will now continue to follow targets after they have been in range of an Area-Effect Peacemake.
+ Non-magical musical instruments were not displaying their durability. This has been corrected.
+ Debugging messages have been deactivated.
+ Spell casting creatures were continuing to attack targets after being calmed by Peacemake effects. These creatures will now stop fighting as expected.
+ Provocation skill gain rates were tremendous. This has been fixed and Provocation skill gains will return to a more normal rate.
+ Discordance wasn't properly making a Musicianship skill check, meaning the skill could be used with 0.0 Musicianship skill. This has been corrected.
In addition to these fixed bugs, the following bugs are in the process of being fixed:
+ The rates at which provoked creatures damage each other are incorrect. This is due in part to the bug that impacted with shard-wide melee damage rates.
+ When calmed by a Peacemake effect, some creatures continue to move toward their target. This will be corrected.
+ Creatures are breaking out of targeted Peacemake effects far too quickly. This will be scaled back quite a bit.
And, because your input does matter to us, here is a list of additional alterations that will be added to the barding changes due to the feedback that we have received:
+ Range limits for bard effects are changed as follows: The minimum range is increased by three tiles, and the maximum range is increased by three tiles. Under the old design, the range 5 tiles at 0.0 skill, 9 tiles at 60.0 skill, 11 tiles at 90.0 skill, and 13 tiles at 120.0 skill. Under the new design, the range will be 8 tiles at 0 skill, 12 tiles at 60.0 skill, 14 tiles at 90.0 skill, and 16 tiles at 120.0 skill. These new ranges apply to targeted effects as well as the radius of area-effect Peacemaking.
Very glad to hear this. With magical monsters attacking on site and the addition of LOS and difficulty based provoking, having to be so close to the suckers to get them to fight was rough.
+ Requirements for initiating a bard effect on a target will change as follows: The bard must be within range of the target, the bard must be visible, and either line-of-sight must exist between the bard and the target, or it must be possible for the bard to reach the target by walking.
+ Requirements for maintaining a bard effect on a target will change as follows: The bard must be alive, visible, and within range of the target. If ten consecutive seconds pass where all of these conditions are not met, the effect terminates.
+ For Provocation, the two targets no longer need to be within range of each other. Each target must individually meet the range requirements described previously.
Glad to see this change too. When I tested my treasure hunter, I was getting killed over and over because the damn monsters, while being in range to me, weren't in range to each other. Which meant I had to have the monsters practically on top of me inorder to get them to fight.
+ Chance of success for Provocation attempts will be increased by 10% across the board. This will be accomplished by slightly reducing the difficulty of all Provocation skill checks.
+ The spawn frequency of Fire Horns will be increased by a fair amount; they are currently spawning far too infrequently to be of much use. After Publish 16 goes live, the number of Slayer Instruments will be observed carefully and their spawn rates may be adjusted at a later time.
We appreciate all of your continued suggestions as to how the barding changes can be updated; however, at this point, we are close enough to the release date so that the majority of the design is complete. After the additions listed above have been made, we will not be making any further changes to the design, except where absolutely required to by a "show-stopping" bug that disrupts game play to the extent of a system being unusable.
Even though we will be focusing on fixing bugs after this, your input is still valuable. We need to hear from you about any bugs that you might find: what we might have missed, or bugs that you may be concerned about. Please post to this thread about anything that you may have noticed that doesn't seem "quite right," and we'll look into it. Thanks for everything you are doing to assist in making the future of the bard in UO to be a bright and entertaining one!
|
^ top-Make Last Method Is Dead
[Nieves] June 12 - 4:12 PM EDT | Preliminary reports from various sources are stating that the Make Last Method is now gone.
Interesting. I was told initially that it was not really a concern:
You're right in that it's not illegal to try to pursue a fast skill gain by preparing yourself in this way (a method which, it could be noted, includes taking significant preparation time to secure the enormously large amounts of resources which would need to be available for your technique to be a success-and with that in mind there is at least some external time/effort balancing factor coming into play from outside the immediate skill gain session), but we'll keep continue to keep an eye on the uses and results of such techniques.
Sannio
Thanks for telling us you 'fixed' this.
My suggestion was to put a small check to determine whether or not you were crafting and send a message back stating: "you are too busy to do that".
I guess someone did listen to Nieves after all...
So that means I can get credited for an improvement/fix to Ultima Online? Yippee. I am happy!
And now, a UO Public Service Announcement:
::runs off to chase purty pink purple-polkadotted butterflies::
Hasta. |
^ top-Cuz you can never look too 133t.....
[Nissa] June 12 - 8:22 AM EDT | While many people took advantage of the neon hair bug and were able to dye their hair all different colors, there are those that didn't. While crusing the UO Boards, I found a link to a cool site that lets you check out all the colors before you dye your hair and find out that you just don't look 133t enough!!
Enjoy! |
^ top-Publish 16
[Hennarr] June 10 - 10:39 AM EDT | As those who care log into test to see all these changes that are right about to happen whether we like them or not, it's quite clear that UO is evolving in some major ways. We have not seen changes like these since UO:R. I dare say that publish 16 has some changes that are much bigger than anything done in UO:R. I'm not happy about some of these changes, and before you tell me to "adapt or die" give me a moment, or longer given the length of this rant, to explain why I feel this way.
Parts of publish 16 are freaking great, other parts are coming way too late and probably won't fix the problems they are attempting to. UO:R really damaged the game. Trammel was a godsend for a lot of people, and I have to admit it did lead to increased revenues for EA which is a good thing. Power hour, factions, and a good number of the PvP changes really screwed things up. As did allowing certain skill templates (bards and tamers) to go unchecked in Trammel. There are a handful of things that made UO utterly amazing before UO:R, some of them definitely did not click with portions of the playerbase and some of them are probably too broken to ever fix. We can't understand the future changes without taking a brief look at the past.
UO used to be about freedom in action, a very unique system that has yet to be, and probably will never be replicated in another MMORPG. UO was a true virtual sandbox, and unfortunately, this was abused leading to an exodus of players from the game. It didn't take too long to figure out that it was easy to murder other players and take their things. A large portion of MMORPG players are powergamers, and powergaming means taking the path of least resistance to success in the game. Sure you can roleplay that you are Bilbo Bowman and travel Sosaria for years relying on your trusty bow as your skill levels slowly rise, but you can also buy a few thousand arrows and spend a few days shooting at rotting corpses. It used to be the same way for a lot of murderers. You kill other players and take their stuff, which resulted in you having a lot of stuff: another goal of many MMORPG players. A large number of people didn't like being virtually mugged on a regular basis, and they walked, taking their ten bucks a month with them. The powers that be continued to alter the game to the point where they created an entire duplicate world where players were safe from everything aside from consensual guild wars and slow moving monsters with horrible AI.
Unfortunately, they went a little overboard. They decided that nothing blocked you in Trammel, making the PvM even easier in that facet. They decided that criminal activity was a no-no, so theft (and an entire flourishing and fun player profession, the thief) was outcasted from those lands. Evidently, the idea of other players being unable to "ruin your fun" was so strong that they preferred to allow people to harvest gold by killing NPCs instead of allowing other players to attack criminals. In the end, they dealt with this particular problem by turning the NPCs carrying big sacks of gold and magic items (nobles and seekers of adventure) into mini-PvM spawns when attacked. This was a sign of the PvM fixes for PvP issues to come.
UO used to have a vibrant player economy where other players relied on each other, prices were stable, the rich were rich and the poor had the opportunity, through hard work and dedication, to become rich themselves. The skill gain was slow, and it led to players really specializing in one or two aspects of the game. Murderers forced players to group up to hunt in dungeons effectively. It was a multiplayer game. Power hour was introduced, and it led to a game where players did not have to specialize. They could make any character they wanted, quickly too. It was powergaming at its finest. Screw checking vendor after vendor or having to find a blacksmith specialized player to make you anything, just make your own craftsman character. Fuck even talking to anyone but close online friends. UO went from being a game with people actually concerned about how they related to others, because varied friends specializing in different aspects of UO meant success in the game, to a game where most communication turned into "MINE".
There were always adventuring templates that were great at PvM, but two things kept them in check. Slow skill gain and PKs sweeping dungeons looking for bards and tamers fat with gold and other loot. Trammel and power hour allowed bards and tamers to flourish, and flood the economy with gold beyond belief. The dev team seemed to just sit around for a year with their thumbs up their ass, offering no fixes or even a proposal for a true money sink. I would mention the amazing effects that 125k trophy kits had on fixing the economy, but it's too hard to type while laughing hysterically.
The net result of the creation of Trammel was an increase in accounts, although a very large portion of this can be directly related to the need to purchase more accounts to own multiple homes on the same shard after they introduced the UO:R house ownership changes. The UO:R changes also created a very large portion of the playerbase that seemed to be coddled by the dev team. For instance, before UO:R, doing a criminal activity such as killing NPCs flagged you in a manner where other players could then attack you with no negative effects, unless the attacker lost of course. UO:R created a place where people could kill NPCs solely to get “kewl” and “evil” titles on their paperdoll, with zero risk from other players. They created a side of the world that wasn’t just a sanctuary from PKs and thieves, but where there were no consequences for anything or any need for players to really interact to be successful.
On the other side of the world, you have Felucca. Let us see how the dev team(s) treated this facet. First off, it looks like shit. Felucca, the place where my characters were born and raised, looks... like... SHIT! Sage must have had a nice chortle to himself thinking about making Trammel all lush with plant life, while making Felucca look dead as shit. The facet looks dead, maybe it's just a personal preference, but how the hell are you going to truly populate a place when the place looks like shit? I can try to get a house in Trammel or I can settle for a place in blood and ash town. Hell, if you dig dead trees (I know they make PvP 1% easier or so when fighting in the forest), piles of bones, puddles of gore, and tombstones everywhere, more power to ya. For me and a large number of players, it's as if Sage's dev team took a giant, steaming dump all over our virtual homes and communities. I know you can turn desolation off, but it’s simply not the same. This is a multiplayer game, I’m not playing this game to be in a solitary fantasy world where I see flowers in front of my house and leaves on the trees while everyone else sees tombstones and blood puddles.
As if making the original facet of the game look like crap wasn’t enough, they introduced factions. I won't mince words here, this system sucks ass. Faction taxes have done two things, ensured that no one shopped for anything in any Feluccan cities regularly, and gave some people in factions the ability to get tons of shit for cheap. Factions was and still is bugged as hell, boring, rewards ganking, is easy to exploit, and the addition of blessed factions runic weapons just makes me shake my head. Hello, Adrick, do you even think about factions related shit while game changes are being made or are you trying to forget the system even exists?
So Felucca looks like shit, they tried to jam PvP into a horribly shitty system that helped to vacate the facet, and the same exact monsters and rewards are there, even though other players can steal from me and attack me. They also decided that all new players/characters start in Trammel. Internal bias against Felucca by some on the dev team? Mayhaps lads and lasses.
Okay, now we see how the community, economy, and Felucca are pretty fucked. Here comes Publish 16 to save the day, right? Well, right?!
If it was only that easy. GGS is a good thing with one unavoidable problem. It really screws new players. If I was told that a game used to have extremely easy skill or level gain, most of the players had a few characters totally maxed out, and now the skill gain is slower and more difficult, I wouldn't play the game. It is going to be hard enough to catch up to the vets when they nerf the major gold-farming skills, GGS will only make it that much harder. The only thing that would fix this problem is if a very large number of veteran players quit or becomes inactive, paying EA rent for make-believe homes. Think about that for a moment.
Bards and tamers, the changes were coming. Tamers, it must have been great to reap the benefits of power hour and Trammel, and now have the dev team making changes that simply punish the twinks and add some great things to being a tamer. If you are a tamer and whining about any publish 16 changes, you're an idiot. Oh, so in order to get the latest bank sitting mount of the neon orange variety, you need a taming power scroll. Cry me a fucking river. Tamers are still going to be uber gold farmers, they get all this cool stuff like resurrecting pets and building up their skills like UO Pokemon. Bards, poor, poor bards. I feel for you, I really do. Being a "good" bard takes skill and time. However, you guys are way too powerful, it's way too easy for you to take advantage of the Trammel ruleset and make millions in a few weeks.
The problem is that UO is supposed to be a persistent-state world. It is simply atrocious that the dev team allowed this unchecked barding activity to go on, and allowed people to dedicate untold hours of time and effort to suddenly decide to nerf the crap out the skill. We're not talking about a new game here, we are talking about an established, old MMORPG. Do bards and tamers need to be controlled? They sure do. Is it kind of odd that tamers received a ton of great changes and nerfs that mainly effect twinks, while bards had their entire "class" gutted? Sure is. Taking a system that has been more or less unchanged for years and completely and utterly changing it is a very screwed up thing to do in a MMORPG. It speaks of very poor design capacity and a "fuck the current players" attitude. No sir, I don't like it, and even if you hate bards, neither should you. To Oaks and any other dev team members involved with the tamer changes, bravo. As far as Vex, all I have to ask is if he shares an office with Adrick. Sure, bards are over-powered under the Trammel ruleset, but to pretty much chop the balls off the skill is pretty whacked, especially when you compare the bard changes to the tamer changes. If you were one of those people that struggled through barding, and who loved their bard/mage, their bard/warrior, or their bard/t-hunter I honestly feel bad for you. Trammel + twink bards = an out of control economy, but to be playing in a persistent state world and have a four year old, beloved character get utterly neutered shouldn't happen. Everyone who is flat out applauding the bard nerf, and not questioning the difference in the tamer and bard changes, all I can say is that it could happen to you and your most beloved character. The bard changes opened my eyes to the fact that the kid gloves are off, and this dev team is happy to completely change things around. In a very old persistent-state world, mainly supported by a base of multiple account holding veteran players, massive existing skill alteration is a scary paradigm to hedge your bets on.
What we have is a situation where the dev team can take credit for finally nerfing those pesky gold farming skills, and where a vast majority of the players will find at least one of their characters gimped as hell when publish 16 goes live. Hooray for me, I don’t have a bard. The funny thing is that these changes will not affect the economy very much. Anyone can snag a silver weapon of vanq and farm shitloads of gold per hour. Most tamers will still be able to farm gold in massive amounts. In the end, the only things this major portion of publish 16 will accomplish is forcing people to rebuild characters, and for people to shift their hatred towards another skill that can earn tons of gold easily and safely under the Trammel ruleset. I'm looking at you dungeon chest lockpickers and lich camping warriors. Let us also not forget that during one champion spawn test, it was estimated that a good 250k was just lying on the ground. I don't know about you, but I'll happily make a specialized character that does nothing but picks up the gold dumped on the floor, runs out of the dungeon, recalls to the bank, and repeat. Everyone screamed about bards and tamers because they ruin the economy, but absolutely none of the issues that led to a broken economy are being dealt with by these publish 16 changes. Even if by some miracle they did stop the flow of gold into the economy, would you want to be a new player or someone who didn't gold farm when the faucet turns off? It would only make the currently rich that much richer because the value of gold would increase, and you would not have a shot in hell to ever get the amount of gold many current players have collecting dust in their bankboxes because the dev team would rather greatly alter skills instead of come up with goldsinks.
That brings me to the most disturbing part of publish 16, and I'm not going to pull any punches here. What the fuck is the dev team thinking? How fucking dare they take the PvP facet and turn it into the PvM Advanced facet! You sick, twisted mother fuckers. Factions was the biggest waste of development time in the history of the game, but damn if the dev team won't be shooting that record out of the water with these latest Felucca changes. UO:R might have royally fucked Felucca up, but at least Felucca was still there. I haven't even fully comprehended the idea that when you die in a FELUCCA dungeon as a blue, your shit is blessed and you are teleported out of the dungeon area. Don’t even get me started on the looting changes affecting both facets.
All the things that could have been done for Felucca, the PvP facet, and Feluccans get this PvM bullshit that is completely candy coated for Trammelites. Instead of trying to promote Feluccan playstyles and rework or remove factions, replacing it with something fun, Felucca gets to be gutted for Trammelites and their concerns. People who shun PvP were given an entire facet. People who liked PvP were given a horribly bugged, pathetic PvP system and a facet that has all the rewards of Trammel with a hundred times the risk. I've got news for Feluccans: not even the dev team cares about your playstyle or concerns any more. The rape of what was once UO will be close to complete; your account will be replaced by a Trammelite who is probably buying another account to own a house in the new, Trammel-friendly Felucca. Am I being melodramatic? Sure, but the thought of Lord Evocare with his little robed avatar watching wide-eyed, anti-PvP Trammelites test the Feluccan changes makes me sick. I'm someone who has a house in Trammel and mainly plays there, but Felucca has always been a link to my UO past. Huge portions of Felucca will be changed forever, mainly to give Trammelites something new to do. Alas, poor Felucca, I knew thee well. Now bite down on this stick while the dev team bends you over a barrel. I bet when the idea of making Felucca a more fun and rewarding place to play was first mentioned you never thought it would mean turning the dungeons into big PvM playgrounds. Oh well, now squeal like a pig, and lets nerf macing so evil Feluccans can't break Trammelite armor while we are at it.
I predict that this change to Felucca will be met with great Trammelite approval when it first hits production shards. It will also be met with great Feluccan approval in some circles because a freaking ton of people will kill any blue that attempts to enter a dungeon or that they see in a dungeon. Hey, I am pretty much a Trammelite thanks to most of the Catskills RPing community running to Trammel with their tails between their legs, and I know that a tiny group of skilled Feluccans can take down a massive number of Trammelites, especially when the Trammelites are all engaged with hordes of monsters. Slowly but surely the Feluccans will grow in strength until Trammelites simply won't want to attempt to fight champion spawn any more. It will be like Khaldun, fun for a while then just under-utilized by small groups of people. It doesn't handle or fix any fundamental problems; it's too little, too late, and destined to bore most of the playerbase to tears after the newness factor wears off. I guess that the idea of implementing things that are received with acclaim and then simply bore the players was the fate of the scenario system, so why buck that trend? Select groups will collect power scrolls, and many people will buy them or join these select groups to get them. People will burn out on this new addition just as quickly as people have burned out on everything else, yet chunks of Felucca and some Feluccan playstyles will be cast forever into the void of UO past.
Some of the changes in publish 16 are fun tweaks. I never thought the dev team could come up with colors more visually irritating than those that can be made with a dye tub, but some of the tailor BOD reward colors are nice. Hooray for the qstaff changes, insta-hit, and so on. All in all, even though it's massive, publish 16 is too little, too late when it comes to fixing the fundamental problems with the game. It’s the same old shit rehashed yet again, without a glimmer of anything truly new or ground-breaking. It's another massive game change that will have some players screaming about UO coming to an end. It's another massive game change that will piss off more players than it makes really happy. There will be new character templates, some more things to do and craft, and life in UO land will continue to chug along. The truth is UO will be around for a while longer. UO players have always been notoriously easy to please, and the biggest mistake ever made was the deluge of new crap put into the game. It made many people cynical and frankly bored with it. If you would have introduced the plant growing system before UO:R, the entire playerbase would have shit themselves with joy for months. Hell, if you introduced a single colored weapon that had no additional advantages back then, people would have freaked. Now, who really cares anymore? Can you remember the collective community reaction when they introduced the ice staff? If they did that now, no one would really care. Just keep the crap items, scenarios, and game additions coming. Considering the player attention span has dwindled to almost nothing thanks to dev team decisions, the changes better come fast and furious. We're seeing that with publish 16. For the love of God, the bugs, the bugs, the bugs!
Soon people will adapt, some people will quit, and the frenzy of pre-pub 16 gnashing of teeth will be just another forgotten memory - like UO before localization. Once you are hooked on a MMORPG, you are pretty much the dev team's bitch. You can adapt or die. Or you can decide death isn't very palatable and just quit the game. In the end, no one has a clue how the game will be affected by massive change until it hits production shards and sinks into the playerbase. Unfortunately, if you use UO:R an example, what might look good on paper and initially be very helpful to the game results in major problems that need to be fixed down the road. Sooner or later, the constant fixing will result in something broken beyond repair. Only time and production shard response to publish 16 will tell us if the dev team fixed or broke large portions of the game.
-Hennarr
|
^ top-Time for this Trammelite to introduce himself
[Hennarr] June 8 - 9:24 PM EDT | I'm the guy who wrote the content in "Trammelites Owned By...A Trammelite" and now I'm the newest guy writing stuff for UOPG and I'm honored. UOPG is definitely the best character building resource around, and you won't get editorials and articles that really say it how it is, whether you agree with them or not, anywhere else. You too can write some bullshit on the official UO forums and then start writing regularly for UOPG. Well maybe not you, but I am at least. I'd like to thank Nieves for the opportunity to have a place to showcase my rants and feelings on issues relating to UO and MMORPGs in general.
As far as introductions, I started playing UO around the time T2A came out. I logged into Catskills and that has been the one shard I've played ever since. When I do play, which has been infrequently as time has gone on and OSI/EA have continued to fuck up the game, its been relatively split between Felucca and Trammel with more focus on Trammel due to the fact most of my friends have moved there and I placed a nice, big villa there like a jackass.
I'm one of those people who feel that UO just hasn't felt "right" ever since the UO:R changes, and I am highly skeptical about publish 16. I've predominately roleplayed in UO, but I've taken many extended breaks from saying "thee" and "thou" to powergame and PvP heavily. I'm pretty opinionated, but I try to be rational and have an open mind about many UO issues. After all, it is a game. A game that sometimes makes me want to throw my monitor out the window and strangle a certain dev team, but instead I'll channel those feelings into writing some rants, the first of which should hopefully be posted in a few days.
-Hennarr |
^ top-The Future of MMOGs... what's next?
[Talanithus] June 7 - 7:52 PM EDT | Last month the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) was held in Los Angeles, California. As an avid gamer and fansite reporter in the MMOG industry, I made my way there to check out the next generation of MMOGs for myself... and I must admit, I was pretty disappointed. Now that is not to say that the new MMOGs aren't beautiful, the advancements in graphic and online bandwidth have allowed Developers to create richer and more beautiful worlds with a striking level of detail... but there was something most definitely lacking. I couldn't quite place my finger on it until Joshua Rowan (of UO Stratics) said something along lines of "there are lots of evolutionary things here, but nothing really revolutionary." Bam. Nailed on the head.
Basically, it seems that MMOGs are simply treading water with the current "mindset" behind MMOG development. Sure, some have bells and whistles that others do not, but there has been nothing that has truly pushed the envelope of what a MMOG is for some time. So I sat down and began to think, what IS the future of MMOGs? Once we have reached the level where unique character customization and development has hit as close to perfect as the industry can achieve (which I believe is very close) where will we go from there?
People play MMOGs in particular for one main reason... to interact with other people. Of course, the guiding motivations of these players is quite diverse, ranging from competitive sport, socialization, a feeling of belonging, and even malicious intent behind an anonymous mask! Yet the one unique bond that encompasses all players, be they PvPers or RPers, Socializers or Explorers, is the fact that they have chosen to do so in a world where dynamic content is created via the very foundation of the players themselves. Therefore, once players have achieved the ability to customize their characters to their heart's content, does it not hold that they will seek to then personalize the world around them?
We see this, to a degree, in current MMOGs. Quests, scenarios, plotlines... all attempts by the developer houses to involve the players in the interactions that define those worlds. Yet they are curtailed by their need to retain consistency within their world's history, fiction, development, and background, ultimately resulting in interactions that always leave the players thirsting for more. So where is the answer to this dilemma? Let's take a look at some of the existing gaming genres that offer the ability for players to modify the very worlds they interact in:
= FPS Mods =
In the First Person Shooter genre, player crafted mods are a valuable asset. They allow players with the skill, motivation, and creativity to expand the boundaries of what players can interact with. In many games, player expansions have been so successful that they have spawned their own mini-games within the greater rule-set. Even though the underlying structure of the game remains consistent, the actual graphics, items, characters and even game-play can vary drastically. This depth of creative customization has given the genre the ability to grow beyond the industry's budget-based barriers, with the players themselves pushing the envelope on drafting new ways to play, and new ideas that are implemented along their own schedule, without the restraints of a development house's priorities and schedules.
= CRPG Mods =
Computer based Role Playing Games have jumped on the mod wagon as well, with titles such as Neverwinter Nights, Dungeon Siege, and Morrowind all allowing players to build the world around them, and share it with others. In many ways, this is a foretelling of what I believe the future of MMOGs holds. The basic principle upon which these games are built relies on players to craft new content to keep them interesting and dynamic. In fact, one of the NWN developers even stated in a recent press release that they fully expect the players to build better adventures then the ones they have included within the game's original content. This genre, with the unique ability to not only create new superficial content, but actual stories, holds the most promise for what MMOGs could grow to achieve.
= RTS Mods =
Some Real Time Strategy games also allow the ability for players to craft their own modules, thus providing new experiences for them to conquer and dominate in. New units, geographical landmasses, fortifications... they all add to help create a more compelling world that changes at the needs and potential of the players who invest in them.
All of these genres began as static as the MMOG world is currently. They crafted games with frozen content, and to expand their worlds a new title was released. Yet there was no true continuity, a hallmark of the MMOG genre, allowing players to grow and expand WITH those new modules by retaining their existing characters/armies/etc. I remember the old TSR/SSI boxed set of AD&D CRPGs, which was one of the first games that allowed players to move their characters from game to game... growing as the storyline progressed through multiple titles. It was only logical that this step would lead to the creation of tools where players could not only keep their characters alive, but create the worlds in which they adventure. I believe the next step of MMOGs follows this same pattern, by allowing players to build and create pieces of the worlds around them, and SHARE them with others within the Massive Multiplayer environment.
Of course, this path does have its pitfalls. As I mentioned previously, MMOGs do have a vested interest in keeping control of the fiction their world creates. If players decide to warp and influence the world, say by creating a "Star Wars Rebellion Facility" within a Fantasy genre game world, then of course it will dilute the effective influence of that world fiction. Yet these are not insurmountable goals... they simply require the forethought to create these "World Building Tools" with these issues in mind. The easiest path to this goal, in my opinion, is to keep each player created world-set local only to the communities that build them. Let me give an example of how I see the interface being used, in generic terms that should apply to any game.
= Scenario Example =
A guild in a MMOG decides they wish to host a quest/event. Their guild leader activates a feature on whatever his guild interface is to "buy" a scenario section for 10 days. Now "buy" is a loose term, and could be either for real cash (with the cost added to his account subscription for that month) or in game assets, as a permanent gold sink. Once he has purchased the account, he sets who has the ability to influence this scenario setting, choosing from his existing guild-mates. The Editors accounts/characters are then flagged and are allowed to enter and modify the scenario setting via their guild interface (be it a guild stone, command, or whatever.)
The scenario setting is located on a separate server from the normal game, and is inaccessible by normal means. All players flagged as Editors enter the setting area (via guild menu or command) in Edit mode, with functions equal to what the Dungeon Siege and NWN: Aurora editor tools offer for customizing the area and creating specialized items/NPCs. The main key here is to allow a huge selection of options, but to keep them limited to the genre upon which the game is based. The full capabilities of each scenario setting are dependent on what "level" of service was originally purchased by the leader of the guild, thus allowing communities to create everything from specialized one evening encounters to month long quests. Once there, they "build" the world, or choose from pre-existing sets, placing monsters and NPCs for their community to interact with, as well as setting out items and unique points of interest throughout the scenario setting.
After building the setting and populating it, the Editors activate a feature allowing them to set "portals" into the world. Then they re-enter into the normal game world and place the opposite side of those portals in various areas throughout the world. These portals are clearly visible to everyone in their community/guild, but completely invisible and undetectable by anyone else. From the point when these items are placed, they can be toggled on or off by any Editor, allowing passage for regular (non-Editors) within their community to participate within the worlds that they have created. When the term purchased by the guild leader expires, an option to save or extend the setting will be displayed the next time they log in... again, with additional fees attached.
This model allows the creation of new content within a local setting, but even more importantly, it is a self-policing model. Giving players the ability to create monsters could very easily lead into a situation where a player with less then honorable intentions creates death traps. However, by making these features limited to only the communities that build them, you prevent that abuse from becoming an issue. A guild that had a player who built such death traps would quickly either lose its members, or get rid of the offending player. Thus, the potential for exploit is removed by making each community responsible to themselves for the content they have built. Even more importantly, it shares the responsibility of keeping players entertained with the players, not just the developers, thus providing a more satisfying experience simply by the selfish nature of the players involved. If they want the content, they can build it... or they can join a guild that builds it for them.
This does somewhat limit the ability for new players to get involved in community based quests/adventures/hunts, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. Promotion and encouragement of group related activity via this sort of method is prime example of how MMOGs can stimulate community interactions and promote additional methods for their expansion. I would fully expect numerous meta-communities to develop specifically for special event creation.
This is, of course, just one example of how such a setting could be created, yet with it one of the most daunting limitations of MMOGs are surpassed, and the creative freedom of its players are set loose to truly build. By limiting their influence to local communities they not only prevent mass dilution of the game world's fictional content, but they also reinforce the draw of creative communities to attract and keep player members interested and excited in their game... and thus, the subscriptions that keep a MMOG running. The specifics on how this is integrated into a game system are really immaterial, as long as it retains culpability via local community development. Ideally, I would love to see the ability for cross community alliances to even allow guilds/communities to "share" quests with each other. Particularly exceptional player modules could even be submitted to the game developers and incorporated into the Editor tools as one of the options, thus allowing players to help in the growth of the game world, as well as have an influence that could truly make their efforts immortal. The possibilities are truly endless.
Of course, there are other revolutions that are on the crest for tomorrow's MMOGs as well. Everquest Legends broke one of the first barriers in creating a personalized "character" web site for each of their members, with customizable content allowing them to show their equipment, stats, and locations. But I believe the next generation of MMOGs will take this one step further, by allowing communities to create "fill in the blank" web sites for their guilds and towns, with integrated news syndicates run by the developers themselves to make certain that new information regarding the game is published universally. Furthermore, a locally integrated communications network could very easily allow the creation of meta-communities for all the guilds on one server, categorizing them together with common resources and contact methods, and thus enforcing the community wide network not only via local communities, but on a more universal level.
Basically, it all boils down to community. The current MMOG industry stresses individualized creativity in their gaming worlds, but has not yet seen the greater light of enhanced community interaction, and even more importantly, community world development. Players do not only wish to just "live the life" of their characters, they want to be the heroes of the lands. They want to tell their stories, and see the visible affect those stories have on the world around them. The 4th generation of MMOGs, if they truly wish to be the revolutionary advance that Joshua and I were speaking of, will embrace this concept and bring it to life. And I, for one, will be there creating away.
But that is just my idea of the Future of MMOGs. What do you think?
Talanithus Tarant
UO Lake SuperiorTel'MithrimUO Powergamers |
^ top-Pet Resurrection
[Nieves] June 7 - 2:11 PM EDT | To: Sannio
Subject: Question
So what is the answer to this:
Kehleyr - *Tras* Will resurrecting bonded pets require vet?
Evocare - Hmm, none of us remember for sure. Oaks has the answer and he's not here. Sorry!
Hasta.
Hi,
Just checked with Oaks. You'll need at least 80 Veterinary and 80 Animal Lore to resurrect your bonded pet. (Healing/Anatomy won't help, nor will Magery. It's purely a Vet/Animal Lore consideration)
Sannio
=========
Sannio
Online Content Coordinator, UO
Origin Systems
|
^ top-Diary of a Newbie (continues)
[Lealla] June 7 - 12:36 PM EDT | When last we checked in on young Khan, his "HERO" Bane had just been guilded to the Knight’s of Britannia, he was given a house and encountered a bit of role-play battle. His skills continue to grow as does his confidence.
Lets take a peek...
I was rushing about my house finishing some last touches on my secure chests. Specifically trying to decide on what color I should dye the bags in the chests. I had spent 175k on a black dye tub and its now my pride and joy, but unfortunately everything is being dyed black now because it looks so good! The guild meeting was in a few minutes and I just threw up my hands in disgust, threw on my plate and zapped to Knights of Britannia’s Tower. (on Trammel).
A few people there greeted Bane and once again I couldn’t see half their speech. Unlike previous times though I totally didn’t care last night. (I blame the three days away from UO for the sudden apathy!). I wasn’t going to get worked up if I couldn’t read their messages. I must be the only person suffering as I don’t ever see the topic brought up. Not improbable, I’m 98% color blind and I’m glad I wear contacts or my glasses would be so thick id need a chain to keep em on my head.
I stray.
The story continues Here
Till Next Time...
Lealla |
^ top-UOHoC
[Nieves] June 7 - 10:23 AM EDT | Only relevant info to me was:
[19:58] [Kehleyr] *Fenix||Nate* Is there an estimated time so far, as of when Pub 16 will be release?
[19:58] [Tajima] We're looking for a Pub 16 release on one shard the week of June 24th.
Someone out there posted the whole log.
You can go read it there.
I got too many things to do in 17 days. And it doesn't include complaining over a bullshit Publish.
Oh, before I forget. Jade of GuL got to mess with The Harrower on test.
In her words: i just didn't find the whole thing very impressive And, after about 400 of each reg and however long i was there killing it, I wouldn't have gotten any scroll except that Evocare went around and gave them to everyone that didn't get them. I think 3 people got one out of all those that had been there the whole time fighting it. It was mega easy, the thing stayed in one spot behind a rock.
Fun.
Hasta. |
^ top-Could You Use $20,000USD?
[Nieves] June 7 - 9:31 AM EDT | And you guys thought D&D was lame. There is money to be made!
These entrants will be awarded a one-time development fee of twenty thousand dollars ($20,000). All work submitted at this point shall be the sole property of Wizards and entrants will be required to execute an agreement to that effect with Wizards prior to payment. Ten thousand dollars ($10,000) will be awarded upon execution of a work-for-hire agreement with Wizards. The final ten thousand dollars ($10,000) will be awarded upon actual submission of the 100-page setting bible.
Read the rest here
Thank to Fryguy for the info.
Hasta. |
^ top-Trammelites Owned By...A Trammelite
[Nieves] June 6 - 1:45 PM EDT | Ummm, first of all, I've played Trammel pretty much 75% of the time because I'm a RPer and my entire community moved to Trammel after UO:R housing hit. I was PKed right and left back in the day, but I never felt like a "victim". As far as many Feluccans are concerned, I am a Trammelite. I am also a rational Trammelite (not saying that you aren't), and I realize that many of the changes of publish 16 have been done due to exploitation of the Trammel ruleset (Bards and Tamers being unchecked) or for protection of Trammel players (Macing being nerfed into the worst weapon skill by far).
I will never understand the whole victim thing, but I will not belittle your feelings on this topic. However, when being completely rational about these changes, it is clear that the Trammel ruleset does have some significant problems, and changes are being done to the entire game to make up for these problems. I never attacked Trammel, I wish people would stop seeing every negative comment about Trammel as an attack on Trammel or Trammel-only players. Most of the true attacks are just trolls, but any intelligent discussion about actual issues with certain facets have been destroyed by many Trammel players. I can't blame them due to the obvious pro-Trammel slant on the boards promoted by the moderators and OSI/EA itself, but its getting to be a bit too much. Trammel has caused a LOT of problems, fixing things for protecting Trammel-only players or due to problems with the Trammel ruleset is upsetting. And this is coming from a predominately Trammel-based player, me.
I know that many people feel as though they were somehow victimized or personally attacked by PKs in the days of one facet. I personally think this is rubbish, my characters were attacked and victimized, and make-believe stuff taken at worst. However, I will respect other opinions. But, Trammel-only players need to realize that Feluccans have had their home turned into disgusting looking pits of inactivity aside from OSI's actions which served only to promote the worst parts of Felucca.
Now even more of Felucca is being destroyed and being altered to fit the playstyle of people who don't like it there, don't play there, and after a few weeks of experimentation with Publish 16, won't play there in the future. You have to understand the anger and frustration at OSI's many short-sighted, vindictive attacks on Felucca or on skills like barding, taming, and macing due to Trammel-only concerns. I know many Trammel-players who have such hate in their hearts for Feluccans, even though most of the griefers and attempted victimizers have long since quit or moved to Trammel. Many Trammel-players truly hate Feluccans for the past, which I find bizarre and unhealthy to no end. Feluccans hate that their facet has basically been destroyed, and publish 16 is like a second wave of attacks after UO:R and factions. For many of us, even those of us who moved to Trammel. Felucca was our home, Felucca was our community, and now its an ugly, dead world that serves nothing more than a testing ground for different short-sighted dev team ideas catering purely to Trammel-players.
Felucca is being turned into a PvM disneyland, and its sickening. Many Feluccan playstyles are being utterly destroyed, and while many might say "good riddance". Many of those playstyles didn't effect any of those saying "good riddance" since they play in Trammel. Many of the playstyles and things being cast aside by the current dev team is what made UO the best MMORPG ever made. Unfortunately, the march towards being a 2D skill-based EQ clone with housing that started with UO:R is not only continuing, but picking up steam.
-Hennar
You can find the original thread for the above post here.
Thank you to Jade of GuL for pointing that out to me.
Hennar, UOPG has a home for your writings if you want it.
Hasta. |
^ top-Nieves Takes Back What He Said
[Nieves] June 6 - 12:08 PM EDT | I have to apologize.
I think there is a very good reason to hunt exclusively in Felucca Dungeons.
When you die, what stays on your corpse? Gems, gold, and resources right?
You keep everything else.
Balrons spawn what everytime?
Tentacles of the Harrowers spawn what all the time?
You can get what kinds of things from Khaldun Chests?
Say I don't care about the gold a monster drops. I just go get the magic weapons/items/maps/regs from those monsters and chests.....
Then I go run into an ancient lich/balron/harrower...and poof, back into town nice and safe with my loot. And we all know, the good loot is the items you get off those monsters. And the real gold is made when you sell said items.
Thank you OSI. You have just given me a reason to take my Lockpicker into The Tentacles of the Harrower room.
Or my Super PvMa and her Uber Katana of Undead Doom into Khaldun to hunt the Spectral Armors.
Life will indeed be grand for me in those dungeons.
I told you. I don't agree with a number of things OSI is doing with Publish 16. But I will adapt. And I will overcome.
Hasta. |
^ top-Scammed
[Nieves] June 6 - 11:26 AM EDT | Some people will do anything to get something...
Check it.
My only question is: will those that got 'scammed' get anything they may have lost back?
Hasta. |
^ top-More Poison Resistance Information From Flower Petals
[Nieves] June 6 - 11:14 AM EDT | 
Interesting.
You can read about the testing here. You need a UO.com logon to see it.
Well, this goes to show the UO.com boards aren't totally full of shit.
Hasta. |
^ top-Nieves Reviews Publish 16 Part II
[Nieves] June 6 - 9:36 AM EDT | ::rubs hands::
First, let's put this out there again:
Create a risk versus reward model that encourages non-consensual pvp based around resource control rather than profit from the deceased.
Risk versus reward...rather than profit from the deceased.
I was thinking about what I said in the past and a new thought occured to me. When I am in Shame 4 or Deceit 4, how am I to get my loot out of the Dungeon? Walk all the way up or find a teleporter to a more convenient location so I can have a shorter walk out of a dungeon and recall out? I complained that not being able to loot is wrong. I am now complaining that not being able to leave the dungeon through say a gate spell is wrong. Looks kind of contradictory doesn't it? Either way, it's inconvenient.
I had a long thought written out for you, then realized: 'fuck it, next topic'.
GGS
What UO:R should've done. Powerhour was a factor in ruining the integrity of the Grandmaster in Skillname title. Could be too late for our current playerbase. And any new players coming in after Publish 16 will be SERIOUSELY behind the power curve. Even as casual gamers. ::shrugs:: I am indifferent about this. My characters are good to go for the most part.
Changes to Combat
Oh boy.
Unarmed “to-hit” changes (chance to get hit while unarmed is now the better of either Wrestling skill, or an average of Anatomy & Evaluate Intelligence).
Very cool. This has opened a NUMBER of different options as far as templates are concerned. You can see some testing done by some UOPG readers here.
Tactics will not influence damage when above 110.0 skill as much as it previously did.
I was under the impression Tactics was about how often you could hit, not damage. Well, learn something new everyday right? I am thinking this is to take into account +25 skill scrolls along with +25 magic weapons. +50 tactics? Scary. I would think a jacker wouldn't miss often...
125 Tactics/Anatomy/Jacking/Swords/GM Resist/GM Healing
Who needs magery? Who needs balanced stats? Get 100dex, and decent str and you are cooking. You are killing in two hits. Oh, and the Protection spell and the new armor won't do much if you are getting hit each time a battle axe is swinging.
Anyway...
Players will no longer be able to “run away” from arrows/bolts.
Ah! Finally! Something discussed at the UO Faire being introduced into UO! ::looks around:: Does anyone see anything else from the Faire coming?????
The dexterity stat will no longer affect at what point in the swing animation a hit or miss occurs.
Remember: "We will not bring back pre-casting"?
Does anyone remember: "We will not bring back insta-hit"?
Interesting....
Say hello to the Tank Mage version, 2k.2.
Mace weapons will now do less damage to armor then before (but still more then other weapon types).
OSI does listen! They heard the PKs talking about pulling out their Macer PKs with Vanq War Hammers to put it to the "red hunters" wearing Invulnerable armor....thanks. :/
Staff weapons will do the extra stamina damage that “true” maces do (they still do not get the extra armor damage that “true” maces get).
Eek. 3 hits to 45 stamina = zero stamina on the target. Ouch. I have always said Quarter Staves are still a good mage killer. Now? Ouchies! Medi-Macers are going to own "pure" mages.
Another thing everyone figured OSI would never revert...
The damage done by the earthquake spell has been increased.
From what I have read, it's a significant amount of damage. Could you use this to kill oranges in a house? Anyone? Anyone?
The 8th circle summoning spells will now have a normal spellcasting delay.
Nice. Quick casting of demons....too bad you can't control but one...when you aren't mounted :/
Did I mention Demons are beefy again? Yet another thing they reverted.
Makes you wonder if the statement: "if it ain't broke...." is ever heard or believed in Austin.
Purple potions deal extra damage based upon the thrower’s alchemy skill.
Initial testing of the 'new' Stun Grenade Mage is underway. It seems solid enough. It may sound lame, but PvPers on the oriental shards have been using explode potions for a long time. It works. Expect this to be a required tactic to know how to use as well as how to counter. Buffing and debuffing become even MORE important. If you don't have enough life to survive an Explode+Stun+Explode+Curse/debuff+Fireball/Ebolt+PotPotPot...well, it probably won't matter even with the debuff...
Ethereal mounts will now have a 3-second “summoning” delay.
At first, I was not happy with this one. But, who cares? If you are a skilled Pvper you won't be using your con to fly across the screen(s) anyway right? You can deal with this :)
Bolas will now deal damage when successfully dismounting their target.
See above my notes on the Ethereal summoning delay.
Bolas will no longer require the tactics skill to use.
Bola+Explode+Stun+Explode+Curse/debuff+Fireball/Ebolt+PurplePotPurplePotPurplePot....
HEY! I just thought of something!!!! What if I have a demon!? Oooh.....
Players will now be able to gain in the Justice virtue.
NO RISK FOR GREAT REWARDS!
All reds can now bend over. Please do not expect a reach around. You don't get one.
“Young” characters will no longer be able to travel to Felucca. Young characters logging into Felucca will be sent to Trammel.
How about: "you are not old enough to enter that dungeon..."?
Player “bones” will now follow the same rules as player corpses for being looted.
Oh bullshit. Yes, I mentioned it before, but I just had to say it again. "Bullshit".
If you don't like being looted, go play EverNewb.
Sandstone houses will no longer have a “hole” in one of the wall segments.
Yippee! It only took two years! Hmm..wait, this is something else mentioned at the Faire. Ok, so there have been TWO things from the Faire that's being implemented. Yippee! Can they get a cookie now???
Items should no longer “fall” through the steps of a log cabin.
What's the point? Even if they 'fall through' or go poof, you won't replace them anyway?
All items that can be used for crafting will list their number of remaining charges.
Thank you.
Players will now receive a message when the archprotection spell fails to take effect on a target in range.
Since when did Archprotect fail?
Bolas will now properly dismount players on Unicorns, Ki-rins, and Ethereal Mounts.
I used to sit there and think, 'how the heck do you dismount a rider on an Ethereal!?' Then I realized, you target the player. Duh. Even so...
Players will no longer be able to use items that are stored on stabled pack animals.
Ouch. There goes some macroing tricks.
Players will no longer be able to steal from Guards.
Aw.
A bug that could prevent locked-down forges from working correctly has been fixed.
Sure. Fix it a year after the bug arose.
Players will no longer be able to use items of teleportation to gain unauthorized access to faction strongholds.
How about blessed runics?????
Players will no longer be able to use health potions unless they are damaged.
A minor, but annoying bug.
Treasure chests will no longer appear below ground level or upon invalid terrain.
I assume this is to fix problems like in Buc's Den. Monsters would spawn and 'fall through' into the dungeon. If you have ever hunted chests on Buc's, it's a bitch even without the spawn. Fucking trees, shrubs, etc.
Players with over 100.0 mining skill will be able to use mining specialization books.
Um...I thought you could anyway? ::shrugs:: Another minor, insignificant change. Did I tell you I had 4 client crashes last night?
Various “rares” that were improperly renamed to seem like normal items will regain their proper “rare” names.
Well, that's important. Did I tell you I had 4 client crashes last night? Just checking.
-------
Take out the Sole Housing system, no looting/corpse looting change (not the going grey part), skill/stat scrolls, no gating in and/or out of Feluccan Dungeons and Lost Lands, the horrid 30 minutes out if you die function, and the amount of time and work it takes to get the champions to spawn (who has 4 hours??) and kill and Publish 16 is a work of art.
As long as the above stays, it's purely a piece of shit.
NOTE: The Stun Grenade mage is discussed as a purely possible new template right now. The nuances of it is being worked on. At best, it could be a PK template. Also, the Archer mage seems to be king when not fighting a 7x Macer/Parrier. As with any new template, go to Test Center 2 and test them fully against a variety of templates and conditions.
Hasta. |
^ top-Some Tidbits
[Nieves] June 5 - 4:10 PM EDT | The Undead Champion is supposedly cool. Rides on the undead mount and carries a cool red sword. If it's hurt it runs faster and throws bones. You can cut up the bones with scissors. If you are not fast enough, they turn into Random Undead. I hope they are all Ancient Liches. They might as well be. I mean, who is going to fuck with 256 monsters in 10 minutes? Just make it one mean ass bitch that says: "die" and you keel over. There is no difference if it's 256 mean motherfuckers or one big mean motherfucker. If you die in game you are...dead.
Also, one of the new resources from the plants is some kind of leaf that seals books so you can't edit them.
Cool enough. I have seen some decent writings fucked up by stupid players. Awesome. I am glad this went in before fixing the hole in the sandstone. Someone has their priorities straight.
Hasta. |
^ top-Faster. Cheaper. Stronger.
[FrozenFire] June 5 - 3:50 PM EDT | Thats exactly what the concept of PowerGaming means to me. A PowerGamer is always looking for the best way to achieve his/her goals, whether its about speed, power or cost.
I am currently working Tailoring before the dreaded publish 16 hits us. To illustrate what I mean by "Faster. Cheaper. Stronger.", theres basically two methods you can use to work tailoring. Either you use the "multi-tool method" and churn out whatever youre making (I made leather armor, as difficult pieces as my skill would let me, until I could make oil cloth) by the 100s every hour. Thats speed for you.
Being a cheap bastard, I chose the cost effective method, which is basically a UOA macro which makes last item and then has my scissors cut up whatever you made. I wont make nearly as many items per hour, but (when making oil cloth), I get a nice supply of bandages to use for healing and vet later on. If you feel like it, you can combine the methods, simply cutting up the oil cloth bag by bag after the PH has ended.
Also, if you can live with GM Tailoring in a few more hours than really necessary, you can get a smooth (and cheap) ride doing oil cloth to GM. Im currently at 99.1 and I gained 1.3 during my last PH. If I had gone with studded tunics from the early 90s Id be done well before now.
But cheaper works fine for me. I have plenty of time to do what I need until pub 16 hits. Powergaming isnt always about speed. Its about achiving your goals faster, cheaper or stronger. The choice is yours.
UOA macros are very nice. Just remember to always attend your macros if you value your account. |
^ top-More thoughts
[Fixxxer] June 5 - 12:44 PM EDT | More thoughts from another old friend:
I'll be straight forward and honest and try to keep this brief, though everytime I say "I will keep it brief", I tend to ramble endlessly. I've never been to this site before; someone directed me to the URL so I can read Raistlin's post. I've heard of it before, of course, as people in IRC would occasionally say "Nice post on uopg, Fix". I guess I just never thought to go and see what UOPG was.
Maybe the reason why I never went to look relates to what Raistlin said in his rant. I tend to hang in IRC or work on redlow.net moreso than I do go in game and roleplay or chat. Why not? The most fun I have in UO is talking to other people and horsing around. Now, that's not really roleplaying, I suppose. Polymorphing into a dog and barking and woofing and having people throw sticks for me to fetch is weak roleplay at best. So again, why don't I do much of that in-game anymore? Where would I go? Who would I talk to? Everytime I log in, I find myself standing in an empty world. There's nobody else around! Where are they? Heck if I know. They used to be at Kazola's. Then they were at Krista's. Then they were at the Sandlewood. Now? Beats me, I've been out of the loop. I suppose there's a hangout somewhere out there. Maybe it's in Serpent's Hold. But I go there and see no one. Are they at the Bloodrock fort? Yes! There's sometimes quite a few players there. But hey, I can't go there and have fun because they'll kill me. Where are the characters I can interact with? Here's a thought: Maybe they're in Trammel.
But, unfortunately, I don't want to go to Trammel. I really probably should, but it's ugly there, and I hear trammies smell funny. I'm an old old old old player and new things like Trammel scare me. Going back to what Raistlin was talking about, there are "new" groups and "old" groups. The thing Raistlin may or may not have realized is that this splitting community thing is nothing new. At all. Maybe he knows this already, but this is something I wanted to talk about in this post...
People, this has been going on for as long as UO has been around. It isn't that the community has JUST NOW split in half, it's that it splits on a fairly infrequent, but regular basis. Old players like Edguardo, Fixxxer, Kazola, Krista, and others I'm sure (you guys change your nicknames and primary characters so much, it's hard to tell) know this already. The first major rp community I was involved with was the group that hung out at Kazola's. Before Kazola's, I'm fairly certain there was the Yew Town Council (I'm not quite certain which came first). As Kazola's grew, YTC gradually died out. By the time Krista's was in its hay day, YTC was effectively gone. Oh sure, there were members still and I was one of them, but we all knew that the decline was so great that it couldn't be reversed. Once Krista's was in full swing, Kazola's started really dying out as well. I found myself hanging out at the ranger station more than the tavern.. because.. well.. that's where the people were to chat with. After Krista's came the Sandlewood.. I hung around there a little.. not as much as the places in Yew though. That eventually died out.. to be seemingly replaced by GLRPC. It was about then that the community really seemed to become nothing but a bunch of warring guilds. Perhaps it's better rp, as what I was used to was just chit chat.
But somehow, it didn't really have any appeal to me. There was intrigue and plots and battles for control.. sure that's one style of play, but I like to relax and just have fun when I play. So I kinda just faded out and lost touch with what was going on. Now comes this sudden split in the community? I'm telling you, it's nothing new. It's happened before and it'll happen again.
Raistlin is on to something in his rant. I don't think it's entirely right, but parts of it ring true. There are "old school" roleplayers just as there are "new" roleplayers. But I look at those who are supposed to be "old school" and they seem new to me. Nick Seafort is old school? Unless he changed his name, he's a fairly young roleplayer in my eyes.
I've really lost track of where I planned to go with this, so let me stop trying to describe community splits. They will go on happening as far as I can percieve. *shrugs* I guess I seem apethetic to this all, but I've seen it happen before.
Az mentioned that posts should have a described problem and a suggested solution. I don't really think it's neccessary, but I'll go ahead and humor him.
Raist and Az are more on track with each other than they probably realize. Az suggests doing small things; running tiny quests; spur of the moment RP. Raist says that the community is splitting because the old school players won't let the new guys in. Az's suggestion is the answer to Raist's problem. And I'll come back to that here in a second.
Let's look at RP on GL today. Or at least, RP as *I* personally know it. There's probably more going on in Felucca and especially Trammel .. but I wouldn't know. I don't go there much. It's a scary place, Trammel. RP on GL seems to me to be nothing more than wars and fighting.. and just.. well, good versus evil. Good guilds against evil guilds. Is this roleplay? How do you interact when you're killing each other? Seems everyone does most interaction in IRC. I could be way off track there, but that's just how it appears to me.
Now, going back to what I said two paragraphs ago that I said I'd come back to: Az's suggestion is the answer to Raist's problem. If you guys want the community not to split, we need to stop with bickering/fighting/RP-war and sit down and just... interact. No threats. No attempts to place people under arrest. No plots to take over the world.
The plot/storyline/quest (whatever you want to call it) to become King; and now what has evolved into the Britannia Council; is a step in the right direction. Even if it is something you can't change, who says roleplaying has to be about changing something? Storylines and quests involving INTERACTING rather than fighting each other will always be more enjoyable.
Take a look around at some of your fellow roleplayers. Look at Desdemona. How long do you think she's been around? A long, long time. Me and her other character, Krista, have been RPing marriage for um.. jesus, THREE years now. She's survived the community splits I talked about. And yet, you all still know who she is, don't you? How do you think she survived it? She hasn't been involved in any rp-wars. She just plays the game and has fun. Look at Kazola. One of the oldest players on GL, and one of the best known. She STILL plays. And she STILL has fun playing and we STILL all know her. And she STILL runs her tavern. It's not as active as it used to be, but it still gets visitors, especially wednesday nights. Has she ever been involved in all this bickering that's going on? Ranted and complained about how RP is on GL? Fought in any RP Warfare? No. She just plays and lets people do what they will. Des and Kaz both are more into the interaction than the intrigue/backstabbing/warfare. They play to have fun. Part of it is their fame, but their fame stems from their ability to endure and take the game as a GAME. Take myself as another example. I stay out of pvp and I typically stay out of disagreements. I play to have fun. I play to interact. But rarely, do I think, you see any three of us in game unless you come to US! Why is that? As far as I can tell, you guys just login to fight wars and then log back out and talk about it in IRC.
Maybe I'm crazy.. maybe it's also the fact that it is way past my bedtime. But to me, it's the pvp, the focus on good vs. evil, and the inability to just keep an easy going attitude towards other players that has caused this most recent split.
Good vs. Evil, attacking other player's ideas and PvP are all forms of conflict. Any time you have conflict, you're going to drive a wedge. Roleplayed or not, conflicts create wedges. I'll admit it, I think the community is going to split anyway. It has before, and it will again. Old players fade away, new ones take their place. That is the main point of my post. But if you want to prevent it, My suggestion is this then, and it's almost the same as Az's:
Create more diverse guilds and character ideas, and not just a "good" guild or a "good" character and an "evil" guild and an "evil" character.
Cut back on all this constant PvP.
Leave other players alone out-of-game.
And just log into UO, stop killing each other, and have fun.
-Tired Redlow
dabu |
^ top-PvP With A Purpose
[Nieves] June 5 - 11:31 AM EDT | Instead of giving you a long drawn out essay, I figured I would just show you how it's done.
Battle for The Books.
Who needs Factions?
Hasta. |
^ top-A thought from an old friend
[Fixxxer] June 5 - 6:50 AM EDT | From an old friend:
Just some thoughts on this whole affair.
I will put my time and effort into almost any worthwhile endeavour. Some thoughts on rants and people. Firstly, rants need two things a problem and solution, without either they are pretty pointless. Just a few things to get out of the way, Black Dragon is a fine guild, I know, I have a hand in starting it and creating it's mythos. But just because it is a great guild does not mean anything. Bloodrock is a great guild, but that does not mean anything. Each guild wants what is best for the guild, many times not the community. Noleeens told me it best, I asked her why she was playing DAOC so much, you know her response, "Because I am tired of the fighting." And you know what I AM DAMN WELL TIRED TOO. The problem is not so much as egos, although that is a problem, the problem is inherently are you enjoying what you are doing?
People like their names on the billboards, sure it is only natural. But do you need billboards, do you need irc, do you need messageboards or do you even need structure to roleplay? Here is where my friends I go out on a limb. Here is what you need to roleplay...you and someone else.
...
....
.....
Do you need a plotline? Do you need l33t items? Of course not, you only need more than one person. I have conducted several small quests. I call them Bob's Quest. They are simple, with no forthought, entirely improvisation and hilarious to join in, and their are no exclusions, no ifs and buts. The premise was that from DM days, grab a group of people and go adventure.
Me and Noleeens usually are the ones to start it but we often gain a few roleplayers and some who aren't so keen on roleplaying but we make it fun. The last one we did involved moving some ale from Yew to Britain without using magic. It was fun, it was enjoyable and I smiled. The plot had no significance beyond what was there.
But I digress, roleplaying is dying NOT because people are not roleplaying but because people are argueing! Run a quest, damn the bridges and the railroads, announce it if you must but go on with it, if it is closed ended do it, if it is open then do it, but by all means do SOMETHING. Start small and simple, let the community gain trust. The problems I see is everyone wants to do large elaborate events. Things that are global, unfortunatly no one trusts anyone enough for that to happen. We do not have a sense of community, you know why the Seers worked? Is because they had power over players!
They could give you wealth or fame, make you heros or villians,
and they did not post on messageboards or irc. They were not accountable to you, they did not explain their actions to the players, they did and played.
Some of my fondest memories of seering or playing is sitting around
Sandlewood talking and having mad fun. Lets bring back the fun. Quest for Brittania is fine, Quest for King is fine, but call me a naysayer but I doubt they will last. I will be the first to toast them if they make it last, and to apologize.
Fixxxer roleplays, Raistlin roleplays, telling someone they do not roleplay is not very good or nice. Some do become more in character than others.
Even closed endings are roleplayed, this may be a reversal of what I once said, but it is like watching the same play with different actors, or the same movie with different actors. You know the story but what does the actor bring to the scene? What matters is that you are having fun....with others.
-Az
dabu
|
^ top-Where To Get The New Hides From
[Nieves] June 4 - 1:22 PM EDT | Favorite monsters to get leather from:
Spined - Lizard Men (12 hides per)
Horned - Drakes/Wyverns (20 hides per)
Barbed - Dragons (20 hides per)
I made a GM suit of each type, consisting of Sleeves, Leggings, Tunic,
Gloves, and Gorget.
Armour Rating
Leather Studded
T Leather 12 18
Y Spined 21 26
P Horned 24 29
E Barbed 26 31
-Dr Acula
Thanks Doctor! :)
Hasta. |
^ top-First Plant Resource
[Nieves] June 4 - 1:14 PM EDT | The very first Plant System Resource has just been discovered and
reported by Wynterhart. Here's what we just posted to Stratics:
=========
Hail all!
Congratulations to Wynterhart from the uo.com forums for being the first
to get plant resources and test them out!
URL: http://www.sapsar.addr.com/orngptl.jpg
A couple of days ago, her orange plant gave out an orange petal...
..and after a a lot of persuading from her friends at uo.com, she ate
her petal to test out what effects it would have.
Here is what she had to say:
eat it and it says * you eat the orange petal you feel more resistant*
After drinking lesser - greater poison it says: *you feel yourself
resisting the effects of the poison*
deadly killed me right away
okay been 2 mins still resistant
tried deadly twice still don't resist
still resisting greater 3 mins later
will tell ya when it wears off
oh this is on a 99 str gm alchemist btw
okay wore off so appoximately 5 mins or so +/- 1 min
==========
Very very cool and congrats to Wynterhart :)
Joshua Rowan
Thanks Joshua :)
Hasta.
|
^ top-To Raistlin (who also hangs in #GLRPC)
[Fixxxer] June 4 - 12:38 PM EDT | And I quote:
"What is our community really? People like Megyn and Fixxxer sit in #glrpc, a channel on the irc stratics server. They barely make appearances in game, and when they do, do they role-play? Fuck if I’ve seen either one of their characters more than once in the last year."
Let me tell you something. The character 'Fixxxer' does indeed exist. He is a mule and is not a roleplayed character and I rarely ever play him (once every few weeks). That is all.
On the other hand, I roleplay "Grool," Elder of the Bloodrock Clan. He is my main character and has been for 3 years. I have other RP characters, but Grool and Bloodrock are 95% of my in and out of game computer time.
In the past, I've ran or participated in The M'kabi, Minions of Death, The GL Town Cryers, LeDucks Bucs and other guildless characters. And I know most of you know the M'kabi, and a good portion of the vets remember the Cryers. The others were less successful.
Not a few days go by when I do not log on Grool. I run internal quests within Bloodrock and I help run the clan. I used to run quests for the general public community on GL (Dragon Knights -yes that was me-, The Soulless), but as you have been reading, the community is nothing but mudslingers. So I will do my part within my guild and let the community worry about itself.
I do not pretend to know you. So please do not pretend to know me and pass judgement on me.
BTW Raist, I have not seen you in game since the Dragon Knight Quest. I am assuming you do nothing but sit in IRC just as you accused me of. Get my picture?
Just because I do not participate in these monsterous "QUEST FOR THE KING" quests does not mean I do not exist.
dabu |
^ top-Associations
[Nieves] June 4 - 11:22 AM EDT | I sit here thinking about what's been going on at The Herald and the Quest for Brittania website and it amazes me what egos and pride can do to people.
Here we have three groups of people involved. Those on the left, those on the right, and those in the middle wondering what the fuck is going on.
And which camp am I in? I am standing outside of it looking in and thinking to myself: "and they let it happen again..."
What did they let happen again? They let people that are full of shit ruin some perfectly good fun.
You see, Nick of The Herald had this big Whomever For King going on. It was a closed quest. Well, just recently I found out it was actually closed in the beginning stages. Now, the 'later stages' are supposed to be open ended. Um...aight.
What do I mean by closed quest? It was scripted. The story was already written. In otherwords, the people involved were playing parts in a play, instead of playing out a scenario. If you refer to yesterday's post, you will see how I don't like being involved in 'scenarios' that are scripted. They just plain suck. Give me goals and boundaries and let me run with it. That works for Roleplay.
I have been reading for the last 5 days the bullshit these people have thrown at each other.
You had Nick getting blasted for his closed quest. I could've said what I wanted to Nick about it, but I kept mum. It was his gig and those that were playing ball were having fun so I guess that's ok for them. Then Marcus started his own thing and people started giving him shit about it and people were talking behind 'closed doors' about Marcus wanting to ruin Nick's quest. Jealousy? Egos? I don't know. But it reeked of bullshit. And you know how I feel about bullshit.
Then I get Raistlin's rant and started looking again at the rants and mudslinging. You see, instead of going against anyone's ideas, I tried something different (also posted yesterday) and it's working purty durn goot. And then I got an offer to join QfB. Sure, why not. Then, it got ugly. And I was thinking: "You know, I could fry these fucks". Then I asked myself: "why bother? What's the point? Just do your thing Nieves and leave them behind."
As I said, I started my own thing on GL and I am having fun. I will be fucking damned if I am going to let some fat headed people ruin shit for me. And I will be damned if I am going to associate with folks that are just going to throw mud at each other. In fact, I had to put in my two cents into two of the ones that have been notorious for fucking up events on UO. They are as bad as the griefers. Of course, you know what the griefers are coming to do. You can look at them in the face and know what they are about. The people that lie, cheat, and manipulate and just out and out fuck with people's minds are the ones you should really look out for.
And you shouldn't be afraid to tell them, "you fucking suck" and then ignore them. Obviousely, I am not afraid to do that.
With that said, UOPG is no longer supporting The Herald website and have removed it's link as of 5 minutes ago. I don't have time to be involved with a bunch of people that can't respect other's or listen to reason. And I definately don't have time to associate with a site that allows a writer to put up so much bullshit.
As for Marcus: fix it bro. Or I move on too. I don't have time for petty bullshit.
Ignore the pricks and dickheads and bitches and go after what your quest was going to be about: Fun.
Or, even better, take Raistlin's advice (see below). His rant is right on in what's needed.
I leave all of you pendejos and confused people to make a decision, stick to it, and Play The Freaking Game.
Hasta. |
^ top-Raistlin's Rant
[Nieves] June 4 - 10:47 AM EDT | I don't often rant, and when I do it usually causes an up-roar. For once though, I’d like for people to actually read my rant, and really read it. Don't scoff at it, and call me arrogant, because you'll notice in this post, as in every other rant I've ever made: I don't just point the finger at others who I believe are doing wrong, I point the finger at myself as well. And so it goes...
When I first entered the role-playing community of Great Lakes, there was a young man named Zeph Wightfyre that I ran into as Gwydion, my first character to enter the scene. He was scoffed at, and even I made the harsh mistake of criticizing his every move. Time wore on and the Kingdom of Toran, starting with only Zeph and Dragon Knight II became part of a rebellion started by Kurgan DeLacey. Eventually, their guild became the Scarlet Legion, and I have no idea what they may have changed to now. But for all the slack Zeph received, and for all the critical harassment he took for his strange brew of Ki'nasa warriors and images from a realm far beyond Britannia, he persevered. Zeph is still around today, and though he changes his alignment from time to time, he is still trying to be let in, and to my knowledge no one has opened the door yet. Not even myself. And Zeph, if you read this, I'm truly sorry.
Now flash forward to March of 2002. A new young guild makes an appearance on the scene of the role playing community on the Great Lakes shard. I don’t know much about the Ankh guild, which was part of CDB, but I can assume that at the time they entered they were not experienced in player versus player combat. They were what we mages like to call ‘mind-blast fodder.’ Built for PvM and not PvP, and non-balanced stats, they looked fresh and very new. Unfortunately, their first run in with a guild in the Great Lakes role-playing community that involved PvP combat was with one of the most controversial RP guilds on the shard… that’s right, the Cult of the Black Dragon, the guild I’ve been in now for well over a year. The interaction didn’t go well, and the Ankh members took offense to the truly chaotic and unruly behavior of the villains from B-D. Sometimes its hard for new people to distinguish the difference between out of character and in character play… and evil guys are generally not nice to good guys. So a young man named Minion took the incursion to the message boards of the community and began a campaign against Basil Stag Hare. This was a problem, because Basil is a prominent figure in the community, and he did what he does best when he doesn’t like you… he buried Minion as deeply as he could.
Basil wasn’t alone; he had help from Nick Seafort, the man behind the Daily Herald news site. For those of you who don’t know, the Daily Herald is a new site full of player run information, quests, and activities for the Great Lakes shard. The only reason I mention Nick, is that we’re about to flash forward again, to the present. Four names stand out, and I will mention them now: Marcus of =B=, Dovolick formerly of HSS and now of =B=, Nick Seafort of the Herald, and Basil Stag Hare, former leader of B-D and now a ranter on the Daily Herald. For those of you who haven’t a clue what has been going on recently, the current regent of Skara Brae is Lord Rath Stonesoul. At one point during Nick Seafort’s quest, which involved choosing a new King of Britannia from a list of 5 heirs to the throne, Rath Stonesoul decided that he would like to make a claim to the throne himself. He did this. And that day and every day after that he was criticized and hounded by Nick. Nick would probably like to deny it, but he was more than ready to use his weight with the ‘community’ to push Rath’s bid away… he made statements to the effect that he would simply ignore Rath’s bid, as it wasn’t allowed at this point. The quest for the new monarch was closed.
Now there is a new ‘community’ filled up with some of the people the former ‘community’ has scorned. I notice Bregan D’Aerthe, the Temple of Mondain, and a few others that have been all but ignored by the old ‘community’ for years, have joined up with QfB. HSS and =B= are part of it, so is the current Trinsic Town Council. And suddenly Great Lakes role-playing is in shambles. Oh, what’s that? You think your ‘community’ is doing fine? Here’s where the rant actually starts.
It takes a lot to dash the hopes of a young guy like Dovolick. I was a lot like him when I first came into the community. I was full of huge ideas and Ku Kullin really made me feel that we could make them possible. But then I met Nick Seafort and General Nero, and realized Ku hadn’t told me the whole truth. Those of us guilds who were left after the fall of the Trinsic Town Council decided that we wanted to put a vote to freeing Trinsic from the burden of the crown… and because I was a young upstart, Nick Seafort appeared and tore our plan to shreds. One of my good friends from the game, Caleb, the guildmaster of BDA will surely remember that. I do. It was upon threat of military force by General Nero on a guild who had no members, that we backed down and simply threw our hands up in the air. So upon my first visit to the community I had lost not only a battle for Trinsic, but I had lost the thrill and excitement I first felt.
So I look at Dovolick now, and I think about what it must have been like for him and Rath and Marcus, to be told by this guy who was just another player, whom they had barely ever heard of, that they were not allowed to change a story involving who would eventually govern them in this community they role-play in. Nick would like to believe that his High Council idea would have solved this whole issue had HSS just stayed out of it… but again Nick, even the High Council has been chosen for them… it was no one’s choice but yours.
And Nick… I’m sorry no one told you this before, but you are not God. You are not OSI. You are not EA. You are not Richard Garriot. And you have no right, as a person outside of the game, to tell anyone, no matter how new they are, what they can and cannot do.
That said… its time to dig really deep. The complaint is now that we have driven the ‘community’ on Great Lakes into two halves: Those of the ‘old guard’ who are the people who have been around forever and are popular among the small clique that has sprung up among those who role-play, and those of the ‘new guard’ who are excited about the new possibilities of being in a community and having rules and quests and interaction. Some people blame Nick for the split. Some people blame Basil. Some people blame Marcus and Dovolick. But anyone reading this who is in the ‘Great Lakes Role-Playing Community’ should stop, print this out, and take it to a window that isn’t in direct sunlight. When you find that window, look a little to the left and notice that you’ve got a small reflection there… very few colors… only what’s reflected in the low light. Yeah, that’s who’s fault this is: Everybody who role-plays on GL, new guys and old guys alike.
What is our community really? People like Megyn and Fixxxer sit in #glrpc, a channel on the irc stratics server. They barely make appearances in game, and when they do, do they role-play? Fuck if I’ve seen either one of their characters more than once in the last year. Then you’ve got EdGuardo and Nero and the other guys who make up the Order of the Silver Serpent guild, one of, if not the best role-playing PvP guilds on the shard. Are they mean guys? No. They’re great. They love having new people around and are willing to help, but with one small issue. They’ve been in so many fights over PvP conflicts between the RP guilds that they’re often skeptical, pessimistic, and apathetic towards any new ideas.
Let’s face it. The role-playing community that OSS, B-D, RKR, URK, HCD, and other guilds like them belonged to, is not dying. Its dead. Stick it in a coffin and bury it because it has kicked the bucket and will not return.
Marcus and Dovolick have gone on to create a NEW role-playing community? Not really. They’ve just taken those guilds who want to survive and moved off to a place where they can survive. They’ve removed themselves from the hateful nature of GLRPC that causes people like Zeph to be stomped all over, and they’ve created a place where dreams can live once again. The only division between these communities is the fact that among the newer guilds, we have no name. We’re not famous, and those of us who have already made our mark are wondering why we should have to do so again. A lot of people talk shit about White Lotus, but the fact of the matter is, when that girl quits UO, the whole fucking shard will remember her. For bad or good, Lotus will go down in memory because she was known by so many people. Those of us who sit in IRC… go ask 12 people in Britain Trammel, or 12 people in these younger role-playing guilds who Boromir is. Ask them who Ra’Dian is. Ask them who EdGuardo is. Ask them who Saimanius is. And they’ll shrug at you. They have no idea. They have no idea because we stopped role-playing when they were just starting.
And that’s what this all comes down to. Those of you who want to embrace this new community and move on with things and work together with them towards compromises in history and events and quests that benefit everyone’s wants and wishes, then by god get off your asses, turn off IRC and go play the game. Those of you who want to continue to be popular members of the little clique you’ve created, and to treat UO like a chat room with gumps and toons, go right ahead. But if you are a role-player, then role-play.
Its our fault that we’ve driven the younger players away. And I also have to mention Marcus’s idea has a major fault. He has helped to drive a wedge, simply by naming his community Quest for Britannia and making statements like this one in the rules:
“Please, you must be very careful not to act upon any information you receive outside our own community. While many of the news items, articles, and forum posts you see may seem to apply to our own quests and storyline, they may or may not be accurate, and are definitely not authorized by our Quest for Britannia Council.
Furthermore, it is not always easy to know which characters in game are actually part of the Quest for Britannia community. You may very well find yourself engaged with a player who is not part of the community and neither you, nor he or she, may realize that you are not following the same quest.
Be careful not to act upon information that has inadvertently come from outside our own community. When in doubt, you may want to ask a player if he is a member of QB. ...'Sir, may I ask what quest you are embarked upon?', and he may respond, 'I Quest for Britannia, naturally', or something to that effect.
Then of course there are those player/characters who feel that they have an inherent right to influence our quest, and our community, without becoming members, and without subscribing to our rules of play.
Our best advice is to simply ignore their existence. They do not play the same game, regardless of the fact that they exist on the same shard. To us, the members of Quest for Britannia, we acknowledge the existence of characters outside our community simply as 'atmosphere', or 'extras' in our own self made movie. We advise you to make every attempt to remain uninfluenced by their actions and claims.”
What you’ve done here is the same thing Nick was doing to you, and it’s childish and destructive, and if it is true that you’re an adult, then you know better. You’re setting a horrible example for younger people. In every aspect of life in a game and life as it comes each day we live in reality, we are forced to compromise and act in an impromptu manner to cogs thrown in our wheel. You’ve basically told the people that have joined you not to participate in any quests but those you control.
Marcus = Nick Seafort
That’s the honest truth. You may disagree, and you may ignore me, but one day people will see through it and QfB will end up the same way the last community did. Dead.
People. Knock off the popularity game. Knock off the giant ambitions of creating grand quests to promote your character’s fame. You want to make a difference in the community, here are some guidelines:
1. You are not the only person in this community and what you do today may affect someone else tomorrow. Be conscious, and be courteous of other people’s wants and wishes before you act on your own.
2. Don’t let anyone tell you what you can or can’t do. Your character can do anything he or she feels necessary. He or she doesn’t need permission from an out of character source to take an action.
3. Don’t stop role-playing. The minute you do everything you’ve done in the community will disappear. Fame atrophies faster than any muscle.
4. And last but not least, don’t trust anyone who tells you there are separate communities… this isn’t high school with the Jocks and the Stoners. This is the Great Lakes shard of Ultima Online and we are role-players, and we all should interact with one another.
It’s been long winded, but that’s really all I have to day. At this point I’m fed up with the war going on between Marcus and Nick Seafort. I’m fed up with seeing the apathetic chat room sitters in IRC bitching about events and changes taking place in a game they don’t even play anymore. I’m fed up with the way I’ve treated Zeph and other new blood in the past. I’m fed up with everything that is wrong with Great Lakes, and now I want to see something go right.
Dovolick told me in a recent conversation that I had to choose a side: The side of the Old or the side of the New. I chose neither, and I will continue not to choose. While you are all squabbling out of character about what you will ignore and what you won’t ignore, Raistlin has been in game, infiltrating your guilds, finding out your deepest secrets, using money, blackmail, fear or any other means necessary to manipulate every part of your in game world. If you really want to fight, and if you really want to make a difference, go after him. The true evil in the community is in character, in game, and right now he has an upper hand you can’t even see. Seriously.
I leave you with the words of a good friend of mine, who time after time has told me that we’ve both been saying the same thing, and that no one has listened; here’s to hoping someone listened this time Nieves, ‘Shut up and play the freaking game.’
-Raistlin
::Nieves strums his fingers on his desk slowly::
I am starting to get that feeling I had when Bitchwilde decided to fuck with me.
I will be back when I have my thoughts together.
Hasta. |
^ top-So You Want To Ebay Your Stuff Eh?
[Nieves] June 3 - 1:42 PM EDT | From a trusted source:
We just heard from our friends in Korea that several rumors about Baekdu being shut down are true. It has officially been posted on the official UO.com Korean site.
We are still awaiting a full interpretation from that site and should also be receiving an official statement from Electronic Arts shortly.
I have been saying for 2 years now that you don't own SHIT on the UO.com/EA.com servers.
Noone ever listens to Nieves.
Hasta. |
^ top-Champion Spawn News
[Nieves] June 3 - 11:26 AM EDT | On around level 2 you need to kill 256 monsters in under 10mins.
That’s the EXACT number and Evocare said it is impossible to do this with under 5 people and even with 5 nearly impossible to get. With more spawn you need more people thus he said 6 is a good number.
Scary.
Anyone up for some UltimaQuest hunting when Publish 16 hits?
You can read the rest of the news at Stratics.
Hasta. |
^ top-"Comedus Cannot Rule! He Must NOT Rule!"
[Nieves] June 3 - 9:45 AM EDT | Or something like that.
There are always two sides to a story. Well, at least two anyway.
For now, read this first.
I know, I know. More Great Lakes drama.
What it boils down to is egos. And the fact that people don't want to play in a 'set' quest. If you are creating a campaign/quest/whatever where the story line is 'set' or the ending is scripted, then that is not a RP storyline. That is a novel. Go write a book then. That kind of stuff doesn't work in what are supposed to be roleplayed stories.
For the record: I am involved in story line the author talks about. I found a side plot that worked. I talked to the GM of the guild I wanted to work with, told him my idea and we ran with it. The goals are two fold: He would be king, I would not allow a puppet to be king. The rest is being played out in game. And it's working.
The intrigue and fights are awesome so far. I am sure they will get even better.
I used to be a Dungeons & Dragons DM. What made me so good was I created goals and 'encounters'. Enounters evolved as the campain did. And if the group went in a direction I didn't expect them to, I played it out until they got to an area I didn't have any good info on and called it a night so I could do further research. It worked so well the guys always told me : "damn you are good!"
What they didn't know was they had me sweating bullets trying to figure out what to do when they went north instead of south. I was like: "oh shit! I don't know what's up there!" I did a quick look to see what towns were there, what the environment was and what major things was going on and pulled out the random tables! And it took awhile to get good at it. A few months in fact. I would sit there thinking: "shit I am stuck" with 8 guys saying: "well...?" "WAIT! I am thinking!" "Gawd you suck!" "I suck? Aight...have at thee!"
But I digress. As always...
Anyway...
If you don't like the quest or storyline you were/are involved in, leave it. Find something else to do. Don't start a bitching war. Especially with likes of people like the author of above linked article. It won't get you anywhere.
Oh...and to the author: Don't bother ICQing me. The topic is closed.
If people would just let their egos go and Play The Fucking GameTM, life would be so much better for us all in UO. Especially on Great Lakes.
I don't know why I continue to play on the Young & The Restless shard...
Hasta. |
^ top-Nieves' Reviews The Publish 16 Document, Part 1
[Nieves] June 2 - 5:15 PM EDT | Bear in mind, I am looking at what’s ‘on paper’ and what I got 2nd hand from various sources that have done testing and reports I have read about Publish 16.
Shall we begin?
Resource and Crafting Changes
Several new rewards have been added to the Blacksmith’s bulk order system.
New things are always cool. If they are functional and other more important things are taken care of first. You know, like a buggy client?
-Prospector’s Tool.
Thanks to aloneworld for those pics. Very cool. And I am sure that OSI will really turn on the random ore “generator” now. Why else would they introduce such a thing? I am also glad it has charges. I hated getting mining gloves because they wound up taking up a lot of space. Now you have an incentive to get some and you have to use them wisely (if they are as useful as I think they 'might' be).
Everything in UO should fall apart over time. Yeah yeah, I bitched about my newbie mortar and pestle going poof; that’s because I had it for almost two years and my alchemist was attached to it.
-Powder of Temperament.
Don’t have a freaking clue what this does. Maybe make armor “harder”? I don’t know.
-Blacksmith Scrolls of Power
First, let me say this: I think the Power and Skill scrolls are STILL the suck. It’s not reason enough to go to Felucca. Sorry. But, I am glad it’s a reward. And this particular reward should be about as hard to get as a Gold or Agapite Runic Hammer if not harder. BTW: I saw an Agapite spear and katana for the first time today. It had a Power rating on it. Scary when you think about what the Valorite hammer could make.
-Gargoyle’s Pickaxe.
Very cool reward. If I got it, I wouldn’t be upset. It’s a lot better than an uber-durable shovel or pickaxe.
Blacksmith bulk order system changes include:
The reward value for items with an exceptional requirement has been increased.
Okey
Large bulk orders will now be received for sets of weapons.
THANK YOU HANSE! I won’t be seeing hundreds of weapon BODs laying around smith shops now.
Grandmaster smiths will now have a greater chance of getting bulk order deeds with color requirements.
THANK YOU! My poor little smith couldn’t compete with the player that had 30 smiths….
Players will now be able to collect the following new stackable resource types.
Spined, Horned, and Barbed leather
Yeah, ok, but off what though?
Bones
Erf. Bone fragments or just bones??
Players with an appropriate amount of tailoring skill will now be able to craft bone armor.
Who uses Bone Armor anymore? It was good back in the day, but now? Eh. And what’s the benefit of wearing bone armor?
Players on shards with Siege Perilous or IGR rule sets will now be able to receive bulk order deeds.
I want to say, "great, wonderful", but there goes Siege’s PvP now. Can you say blessed runic faction weapons?
Armor crafted with colored ore now yields better armor ratings the more rare the ore type.
Almost kick ass. I mean, it’s great that better ore yields better armor, but we still have the faction blessed weapon and armor problem.
And this is bad because you can’t loot it in Felucca Dungeons or T2A. I will get into that later.
Tailoring Bulk Order Deeds
The whole system is nice. So far, anything Hanse has his hands on works great.
Barding Changes
They are doing this right IMHO.
Taming Changes
All good until you get to the part about controlling summons. 5 slots for a demon? Um. Right. I see why they would set the requirement so high, especially since demons are offensively powerful, per Kandalor’s research. But why 5?
Anyway, Kandalor had some good tactics using a demon within that post.
Here begins a pattern of ‘old school’ UO things coming back. First Precasting, then demons, what next? Stay tuned. Almost makes you think: “what the fuck did you change it for then?” Then again, hindsight is 20/20 right?
::looks at the OSI Dev Team Member:: Let me clean off those pop bottles for you….
Next!
Felucca Changes
Oh, now this is where it gets really interesting.
(unlootable).
Risk versus reward right? Fuck that. You take whatever risks that come with crossing over to Felucca. Deal with it or stay in Trammel.
When a Murderer is killed in the Dungeon/LL areas of Felucca, 50% of the character’s items (random result per item) […] will remain on their ghost (unlootable).
You know, a number of dedicated ‘red players’ I talked to said they would take 100% loss of their items if the victims lost just 50% of their items. I mean, really, how much stuff does a PK carry anyway? And they always carry what they feel they can risk losing. Anyway…
I am of the mind that if a PK kills you, you lose 50%, random, of the items you are carrying. If you attack a PK, you risk 100%. I think that’s fair. Don’t you?
Any player that dies in the Dungeon/LL areas of Felucca will immediately be given a mandatory “stuck player” option (forced to leave the dungeon and lost land servers).
As I said before, give me the OPTION of accepting this option. Don’t force me out! Dammit.
A player that dies in the Dungeon/LL areas of Felucca will not be able to return to those servers for 30 minutes.
More bullshit. Forcing me out for 30 minutes is dumb. This is NOT factions. Yes, as far as "Dungeon Wars" go, this forces a climax, but all you are doing is giving people an incentive NOT to hunt in Felucca. The point in making Felucca changes is making it so people will want to come to Felucca without losing the spirit of the facet in the process. Hold up… ::takes the glasses off again and polishes them:: You had a spot in that eye glass.
Ghosts not entering into dungeons? Fine.
No Recalling and Gating into Felucca dungeons or T2A area (The Lost Lands that include Papua and Delucia for you newer folks)? Not. Allow me to Gate. Fair enough trade off IMHO.
Linking the dungeons via teleporters? Nice. If you can get into them. Not all will be camped, but enough will be.
A thought just struck me. Why would I want to war with Order/Chaos or Factions when I can just wait in Felucca dungeon entrances or T2A for folks to kill. The kills will be easier with the Trammel Population coming in droves! ::starts laughing::
::picks himself up from the ground:: Sorry…where was I?
Good on the stat loss counter and stat loss penalty in those areas.
When stealing from innocents, thieves will only be able to steal gold and gems in the Dungeon/LL areas of Felucca. Thieves will continue to be able to use the full range of their thieving abilities against consensual-pvp opponents (guild wars, order/chaos, factions).
Um, excuse me. If you are in Felucca, you chose to take the risks. Why only some things in some areas and penalize the Warring Status folks? More Trammelization of Felucca.
::grabs the glasses and spits on them then wipes them off::
Evil in a can, blah blah blah. Fine, ok, whatever.
Stat/Skill scrolls? Don’t even get me started? And what’s this about Justice folks getting scrolls for killing reds? THESE GUYS AREN’T TAKING ANY RISKS BY KILLING REDS!!!! THEY CAN’T BE LOOTED! Why should they get all benefits with ZERO risk!? BULLFUCKINGSHIT! If they are going to take on Reds, then they should have to risk it all!
::grabs the glasses and throws them on the ground::
Not being able to directly affect Blues with area effects is fine but…well, read Jade’s write up on it.
Next.
Double resources in Felucca is perfect. There should be a benefit for taking the risk of gathering resources in Felucca.
With all that said, I want to quote something from the Intent of the Felucca changes page: Create a risk versus reward model that encourages non-consensual pvp based around resource control rather than profit from the deceased.
Now you will see WHY the various changes to Felucca have occurred.
::jumps on the glasses::
Housing Changes
The Sole House system sucks because you are FORCING IT ON US! Allow me the option to upgrade, don’t force it on me. Let me end this right here and now.
I will just get more upset and not be able to write an objective write up. (YEAH RIGHT NIEVES! YOU RIGHT OBJECTIVELY!? HAHAHAHAHA!)
Publish 16 is a work of art. It has this nice little scene depicted on it. Sort of like that mural in the Sistine Chapel. Too bad it has some shit thrown across it.
Look for part two later…
After I have calmed down.
Note: Tempering is something used in the production of blades, not armor. Interesting...interesting indeed.
Hasta. |
^ top-A Publish 16 Opinion
[Nieves] June 1 - 11:19 PM EDT | It seems to me they are trying to balance everything out again, but it won't work. Colored Armor gives more AR to balance the ub3r runic weapons. To that end, mages get the new leather (which is a good thing) making them able to survive the weapons somewhat better. Think about 2 fencers dueling with just GM made weapons with valorite armor. That'd be pretty damn boring without eval/magery. The anat/eval = wrestling is also a balance to give mages some added potential for defense, almost encouraging healing/anat on a mage.
I think they then assume that stat/skill scrolls will somehow balance each other out between mages/hybrids/pure warriors and between people in pvp. I think this is a seriously WRONG assumption based on the fact that, as OSI stated, it will not be easy to obtain these scrolls. Okay, maybe 5 +20 scrolls are out on the shards. Its not too unbalancing until you meet up with someone who has +20 dex or +20 eval. Balance is good, but initial someone will have it and others won't creating an imbalance. This coupled with the new dungeon rules, the waiting period and no recall/gate, will seriously impact those who 'choose' to come to felucca. I think it would encourage happier, more interesting pvp from hardcore vets, but would seriously hinder an attempt by someone new to pvp to effectively obtain a power scroll. In the end, it could end up discouraging people from going to felucca. Its pretty easy to get people trapped when the spawn balloons, and its pretty easy to jump people if they're fighting PE's or Drag's, especially if they're not on a fast connection or came straight from trammel.
The main purpose of this patch, in my opinion is to 'change it up a bit' and in doing so, try and somewhat relieve the shard population imbalance. IMO, it won't work as intended. I can make gold and whatnot from trammel dungeons much more easily. Why do I need stat/skill scrolls if I don't want to PvP? and if I do want to PvP, then I may already be outclassed totally with people who have the power scrolls. The learning curve will become so much sharper with people even using the +5's.
The looting rights are a big pile of shit. They help in one in that they could be an item sink. Some Lord Twinky, journeyman bard will have a much harder time. He may die and lag out. His friends are around but can't loot the bones. His stuff goes bu-bye. The felucca rules are very bad. Die in a dungeon, keep all your good possessions, reags/weaps. Its balancing the no gate/no recall policy but in a bad way. The entrances and everything might be camped so we'll just give you your weapons/reags back. You have nothing valuable on your body, you died and can't return, might as well just go happily off to trammel.
Double resources - good thing but too late. Need to hinder trammel in some way.
Changes to archery/maces - good good, long waited for really. Archery is viable, yay.
Housing changes - pile of BS IMO, reasons already stated.
Taming - Did an Okay job on this.
Barding - Needed to be toned down (Yes I have a bard, 97.6 provo)
Tailor BODS - Yay, good, havn't gotten anything from blacksmith BOD's
Changes to BODS - Yay, good, my smith might get something better than 120 GM verite plate.
All I can think of -
-Rojerath
Found in our forum.
Hasta. |
^ top-Test Center News
[Nieves] June 1 - 7:07 PM EDT | Just wanted to share with all the pet owners that the new Animal Lore on TC2 is awesome. Basically, it brings up a scroll that has just a ton of information on it. As an example, here is what it shows for my horse:
ATTRIBUTES:
Hits 76/76
Stamina 67/71
Mana ---
Strength 76
Dexterity 71
Intelligence 10
MISCELLANEOUS
Armor Rating 18
COMBAT RATING
Wrestling 43.2
Tactics 38.5
Magic Resistance 25.4
Anatomy 0.0
Poisoning ---
LORE & KNOWLEDGE
Magery ---
Eval Intelligence ---
Meditation ---
PREFERRED FOODS
Fruits & Vegetables
PACK INSTINCTS
None
LOYALTY RATING
Wonderfully Happy
============
Wow, big improvement on what we had before, to say the least ;)
-Joshua Rowan
Sweet.
Er, wait.
I HATE TAMERS!!!!
Ok, I feel better.
Hasta. |
^ top-Gawd I Need To Stay Away From Email.
[Nieves] June 1 - 2:32 PM EDT | Email is the devil.
Evocare shows two guys the Harrower and how to spawn him.
Ok, time to get some RL stuff done.
Hasta. |
^ top-Evocare On Summon Control
[Nieves] June 1 - 2:10 PM EDT | Actually, the update center does mention that all the 8th circle summoning spells have been updated as part of the pet changes. You'll notice several changes when you try them out.
For example, all summoned pets require some number of pet control slots. However, their power and difficulty to dispel is reflected in how many control slots they take. In addition, they no longer take an
extraordinary amount of time to summon. This provides a system of
tradeoffs that should make for some interesting decisions regarding what type of creature to summon depending on the circumstances. I'll
summarize...
Daemons - These have fierce offensive capabilities, both physical and magical. In addition, they're very difficult to dispel. However, in order to control the demonic forces, the caster must devote all their pet control abilities (remember, mounts now take a control slot) to the continued control over this creature.
Fire Elemental - The Fire elemental is the most powerful of the age's arsenal of elemental beings. Although they don't match the capabilities of a daemon, they're highly agressive, very difficult to dispel, and are slightly easier to control then daemons, requiring only four pet control "slots". This confers the caster with the tremendous advantage of being able to control the elemental while riding a mount.
Water Elemental - This elemental has powerful magical abilities and is relatively difficult to dispel. In addition, it is clever enough to attempt to avoid its opponent while casting spells from a distance. Although it is not as powerful as a Fire Elemental in single combat, it is easier to control, requiring only three control "slots". This provides the benefit of being controllable while the summoner is mounted and in control of an Energy Vortex. Or, of the summoner so chooses, they could remain dismounted while controling both the Water Elemental and an Earth or Air Elemental.
Earth Elemental - Although this creature is not as powerful as the Water or Fire Elemental, it is highly aggressive in physical combat and relatively difficult to dispel. In addition, it requires a mere two control "slots", confering the summoner the option to summon a second Earth or Air Elemental while remaining mounted or controling an Energy Vortex.
Air Elemental - In much the same respect as the Water Elemental, this clever being has potent magical abilities that it uses while remaining at a distance from its enemy. Although it is more comparable in power to the Earth Elemental, the Air elemental is also relatively difficult to dispel, and requires a mere two control "slots".
Energy Vortex - Although this being is relatively easy to dispel and guided by forces not directly under the control of the summoner, the caster does appear to have some influence over it, causing it to ignore the energy aura of the caster and their friend(s). When it has chosen its target, the Energy Vortex is highly agressive and quite deadly, damaging opponents very effectively. Fortunately, due to its almost completely autonomous nature, the Energy Vortex requires a mere single control "slot".
Have fun! ;]
-Evocare
Well...I guess.
Hast a. |
^ top-Plate Armor Values on Test Center 2
[Nieves] June 1 - 2:00 PM EDT | These Armor ratings are from the Test Center 2 Schard. I'm not sure what a full set of invulnerable plate is, but I think Valorite would be easier to get.
Exceptional Full plate/with same color Exceptional Heater shield
Valorite - 64/86
Verite - 62/83
Agapite - 60/80
Gold - 58/77
Bronze - 56/74
Copper - 54/71
Shadow - 52/68
Dull Copper - 50/65
Iron - 48/62
Eth
He's right. A colored armor set is easier to get than magic armor.
Say hello to players being able to control the economy a little better again.
Magic armor will pale in comparison to colored armor now. And magic weapons are not as good as GM runics in most cases. The slayer weapons being the exception of course.
OSI, you get 20 cool points for this.
Hasta. |
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