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October 2001 News:
|
^ top-An Old Favorite
[Nieves] October 31 - 10:45 PM EST | Valor Knights.
Didn't think it was still up. And it's still as kick ass as the first time I saw it.
Watch the whole intro...then check out his site design.
Hasta. |
^ top-Lord Blackthorn's Revenge
[Nieves] October 31 - 1:30 PM EST | "You will have your vengeance on Britannia,” Exodus said. "Soon all humans will know you as Lord Blackthorn, ruler of Sosaria."
As Blackthorn turned and moved out of the chamber, he could not help but smile.
And check this out: AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 31, 2001--Origin Systems, an Electronic Arts (Nasdaq:ERTS - news) development studio, today announced that it has signed an agreement with Grammy and Emmy-winning producer/director Todd McFarlane, creator of Spawn, McFarlane Toys and Spawn.com, to create characters exclusively for Ultima Online(TM): Lord Blackthorn's Revenge, the latest version in the award-winning Ultima Online (UO) series. The company is also partnering with McFarlane and McFarlane Toys to develop both a line of six action figures based on the new UO creatures and two comic books based on Ultima Online: Lord Blackthorn's Revenge. [...]
Ultima Online: Lord Blackthorn's Revenge will bring players into a dark world under siege where they will discover more than 30 new and exotic characters created by McFarlane. Players will face evil forces that have aligned their powers in an attempt to destroy the virtuous and take control of Britannia. Integrated into the fiction as the evil tyrant who controls most of the new, fantastical monsters is Blackthorn, a character present throughout UO's history but who has now undergone a transformation which has left him half human and all evil. Blackthorn's forces, comprised of many of McFarlane's creatures, lend a dark, edgy twist to the game. Players will encounter and can elect to interact with other McFarlane characters as they wind their way through Britannia. [...]
McFarlane's creatures will be challenging to beat. Their AI will be oriented toward strategic combat tactics as opposed to simple skill gain. For example, players will have to discover which combat or magic tactical combination works on a given species of monster. As players immerse themselves in the game, they will discover a new strain of fiction unfolding, where their actions will determine the outcome of in-game events. For instance, if a group of monsters is trying to overpower a town, the players can band together and push the monsters back. However, without a strong player response, the town can be lost to the monster. A new Virtue System will be woven into UO, adding depth to the dynamic storyline. The system allows players to be rewarded or denied virtues based on their choices and behavior during the game.
HOLD UP! I was excited untill I read this: New UO players will quickly become engrossed in the latest version of the game with the assistance of an intuitive help feature and stronger starting character templates, which allow new players greater opportunity to strengthen their skills and abilities early in the game. Players will discover more than 30 new items to craft, collect and trade in the world of Ilshenar -- the backdrop for Lord Blackthorn's Revenge and location of Blackthorn's castle.
LET THEM PUT IT JUST IN ILSHENAR WITHOUT FIXING THE 3D CLIENT!!!
Watch me leave.
Ok....read the rest of the release here.
UPDATE:Actually, it's not in the press release, but the new package allows 2d access to Ilshenar. :)
Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
Designer, Ongoing Content
a wizard did it
JOY OF JOYS!
Oh, some Golem News (thanks Silk):
Here's some info on the recently added craftable golems:
Anyone can control it.
Can be transferred to anyone.
Repair (Heal) with tinker tools and 11 ingots. 1/4 health repaired per attempt with a delay in between.
Can be stabled.
GM Tinkered Golem is as powerfule as a wild Golem.
They still do their special stun move.
You lose 20 mana when your golem is hit.
You lose between 2 and 15 hit points when your golem is hit.
You lose karma if the golem dies.
Items needed to make:
1 Clockwork Assembly
1 Power Crystal
5 Gears
50 Iron Ingots
50 Bronze Ingots
If you have all the parts in your pack, simply double click the Clockwork Assembly, and the Golem is made.
Calandryll: "There's some interactions with golems that people may not have realized yet. They are by no means a simple task of just owning them like a pet."
Hasta. |
^ top-Some Interesting News
[Nieves] October 31 - 10:23 AM EST | With my patented Commentary of course:
In regards to the NPC price changes proposed by Vex:
…If you simply couldn't get an ingot for less than 30gp anywhere, all that means is smiths will have to adjust their prices upwards to match. If anyone tries to undercut the competition too much, you could make a profit buying their stuff and smelting it down and selling back the ingots. And, all those worthless metal weapons and armor pieces that are usually left on monster corpses would suddenly be more valuable than the gold found on the corpse.
First off, if you aren't already smelting weapons and armor you find, you are wasting valuable ingots (not too mention an ignorant fool). I can, on an average day (when I play a hardcore day) pull 500-1,000 ingots after smelting junk. That may not be as much as actually mining (which I hate with a passion) but when you add it up over a week's time (some of you play hardcore daily), you can pull in 7,000 ingots easy. On top of that, you are getting gold, and various types of loot along with the ingots. Didn't I already cover this? Yeah, I thought so. Anyway...
Vex goes on to propose a new system of "balancing" the economy. An excerpt:
So, here's the solution. For those commodities that can be gathered/created by players in bulk, NPCs will now adjust their prices based on actual activity and have unlimited quantities in stock. For now, these items are: boards, ingots, leather, arrows, and crossbow bolts. All other items (like reagents, etc.) will continue to be traded by NPCs exactly as they do now. But, for these five items, NPCs will trade them differently.
Who does this effect really? I play in a circle of friends that "harvest" all their resources (besides reagents) and don't worry about going to vendors to buy their products.
Vex also talks about inflation and how the UO economy has been affected by it.
Welp....I don't know alot about economics (I got a D; bleh screw macro/microeconomics), but I know that won't solve the problems with the UO Economy.
As I was saying....
The UO Economy was ruined by a number of things:
1) Duping. Need I say more?
2) Trammel. Risk vs. Reward. 60/60 Tamers and their "all follow me" macro spam. Note: No, Trammel didn't ruin UO, it just made it too easy to "farm" gold. As I said way back when, make a new land, dungeons are no man's land, and wilderness areas "no PvP". But hindsight is 20 / 20 right?
3) Not enough Gold Dumps. Taxes? Not going to happen. Maybe a Shard Wipe? (put the flame thrower away). Gold Wipe? (I said put it away). I can only buy so many Taxi-Heads before I have all I want. I can only buy so many Neon deeds before I have the colors I want on all my characters. Where are the new flooring tiles?
Hmm..maybe make food mean something? If you don't eat, your character dies. That way Chefs become meaningfull and they can charge 10,000 for a full course meal.
And how about termites? You got to hire a termite exterminator? New Skill Anyone? "Roy, Grandmaster Exterminator". Yeah. Cool huh?
Not. Sucks ass.
Cap the amount of Gold you can have like Diablo II? Sure. Right.
What's going to fix the UO Economy? I have no clue. There is too much gold out there. And too many ways to make gold pieces risk free.
Applying real world economics isn't going to fix UO's Economy. Giving them something to spend it on, might.
New Flooring Tiles, large statues (costing in the millions), real fountains, "house decorating kits", casinos (new town anyone?), SOMETHING.
Anyway, that's my take.
It's good something is being done...but is it enough?
I don't think so.
Hasta. |
^ top-Stupid Says As Stupid Does
[Nieves] October 30 - 11:30 PM EST | A transaction in Britain.
Stupid: "How do I buy the deed"
Me: "Vendor buy works"
Stupid walks over to the vendor and say: "vendor buy works"
Me: ::sighs::
Stupid: "Ok, I tried, brb"
And to think, that person might actually reproduce someday.
Hasta.
|
^ top-Trick or treat?
[Eric] October 30 - 10:20 PM EST | Well, OSI has thrown a shitload at us once again. Maybe not all at once, but since we haven’t posted most of the recent changes yet on UOPG, I’m going to fill you in on the latest from OSI. (You know, in case UOPG is the only site you read).
Shall we begin with golems? It’s a personal favorate of mine considering my mind has been brainwashed by Diablo II lately. When I think of “golem,” I think of the creature that my necromancer summons. Oh well, it’s all the same.
A few days ago, Nieves posted that Catlyn, from our forums, has created a guide to making golems. Calandryll gives us some more “hints”:
There's some interactions with golems that people may not have realized yet. They are by no means a simple task of just owning them like a pet.
Controllers have a much better understanding of golems than players do. ;)
So controllers are going to somehow “control” golems? Makes sense. Also, regarding golems…
Not going to confirm anything with regards to future updates, but they're not deaf, I clarified this before. They don't hear the same way that creatures do. They're not alive, nor were they ever alive. So they can respond to specific commands, but other sounds have no meaning to them.
If at anytime you find further information on golems, please do send it my way. I’m sure upon the release of this part of the scenario, we’ll have a lot more information (how the golem relates to the scenario, I suppose). When, you ask, are these golems going to be implemented to the scenario? (Just so you're not mistaken like I was, golems ARE in the game on all shards right now.)
Week 13 is the craftable golem and a new monster. Don't let week 13 confuse you with publish 13/14. Week 13 just means we are in the 13th week of the scenarios, going back to the first orc update.
UPDATE:
Blood Moon, from our forum, has posted the following info. about golems:
I can tell you a few things.
The power thingys needed to make them spawn on golems...They seem to spawn like t-maps.
I killed 30 golems and got one before I ran outta BP and my WW and mare both died.
They are nice to have but are NOT worth the time. The Clockwork kit seems to be loot on one outta three golems though.
Nearest I can tell they are as strong as the "wild" golems....I havn't had time to test but if you want I can post a screenshot.
Oh yes rumor is you need repair kits to heal them.
-Blood
There has also been a lot of information added to the Testing for Next Update, so I’m not going to post it all. This isn’t UO Stratics. If you really want to read it all, you know where to find it. Anyway, here are some tidbits I found interesting.:
Five specific resources will be affected in how they are purchased from, and sold to, by NPC shopkeepers. These five commodities are: leather, ingots (iron), wood (boards), crossbow bolts, and arrows.
These NPC shopkeepers will track the sales and purchases of these commodities, and adjust their prices based on how much of these items they buy from or sell to players:
-NPC shopkeepers will always have 500 of their respective commodity for sale.
-Each NPC will track prices individually for each of the five commodities.
-If the NPC sells more of these commodities to players than she has bought from players, her price for that commodity will increase.
-If the NPC doesn’t buy or sell any of a particular commodity, her price for that commodity won’t change.
-If the NPC buys and sells similar amounts of a particular commodity, his or her price for that commodity won't change.
-If the NPC buys more of a commodity from a player than he or she sells to players, his or her price for that commodity will decrease.
The update goes on explaining some more of that information, but then I found something I like:
All NPC shopkeepers will now have unlimited funds for transactions.
Does this mean I’ll be able to FINALLY sell back all of my maps so that Nieves doesn’t get mad at me for dropping them all over the Great Lakes shard? I hope so. Also, Vex continues to talk more about UO’s Economy here.
There’s a another new & interesting element to the game that UO has added to the Testing section. They’re called Context Sensitive Menus. Basically, they make different functions easier to operate within the game. There are various different options, including the following:
Bankers now have the following menu options:
Open Bankbox
- Player must be within 8 tiles of banker.
- Player must not be a criminal.
Shopkeepers now have the following menu options:
Buy
- Player must be within 8 tiles of shopkeeper.
- Player must not have the lowest level of karma.
- Player must not be a murderer.
Sell
- Player must be within 8 tiles of shopkeeper.
- Player must not have the lowest level of karma.
- Player must not be a murderer.
Escorts now have the following menu options available:
Accept Escort
- Player must be within 3 tiles of escort.
- Escort must be available.
- Player must not have an escort already.
- Player’s last escort acceptance must have been over 5 minutes ago.
Ask Destination
- Player must be within 3 tiles of escort.
- Escort must be available or escorted by you.
Abandon Escort
- Escort must be escorted by you.
Pets and Hirelings now have the following menu options:
(For all pet/hireling commands, player must be within 12 tiles of the pet/hireling, and be the owner of the pet/hireling.)
- Command: Kill
- Command: Stop
- Command: Follow
- Command: Stay
- Command: Guard
- Add Friend
- Transfer
Pets have the following additional menu option:
- Release
Hirelings have the follow additional menu options:
- Hire (NPC must not be employed; i.e. no master.)
- Dismiss
All animals that can be tamed will have the following menu option:
Tame
- Player must be within 8 tiles of creature.
- Animal must not already be tame.
- Player must have the required taming skill.
Stablemasters now have the following menu options:
Claim All
- Player must be within 8 tiles of the stablemaster.
- Player must have 1 or more pets stabled.
Stable Pet
- Player must be within 8 tiles of the stablemaster.
All NPCs who can train, including shopkeepers, will have the following menu options:
Train
- NPC must not be unemployed; i.e. no master.
- NPC must at least 60.0 in the skill to be trained.
- Player must have any prereqs for skill.
- Player must have less than 1/3 of the trainer's skill.
All human NPCs and players have the following menu option:
- Open Paperdoll
Your own avatar has the following menu option:
- Open Backpack
If you are young and going through the directed experience:
- View Quest Log
House Lockdown and Item Placement, House Banning, and Ship Commands are extremely complex systems, and the menus needed to access all the necessary functions would be huge and unwieldy. New systems for these may be addressed in a later publish.
Good system, in theory, but I’m not sure how many people would prefer this system over the current way all of these actions are performed. Once again, if you want the full text of what’s "In Testing," go here.
That’s it for now. I need to run out to a Walgreens and buy some candy. Some poor kids will be pretty disappointed if I don’t have a bowl of candy when they knock on my door tomorrow.
Happy Halloween…and don’t eat any candy that has a white powdery substance on it. Yes, pixie sticks are okay.
UPDATE: Just in from OSI:
We are targeting to publish the items listed in Testing for Next Update to one shard this week, provided that no unforeseen issues arise during the testing phase. The changes are currently on Test Center 6, and we encourage all players to participate in testing these items and to report any bugs you may find to tcbugs@uo.com. When submitting a bug report to our QA department, please remember to include the following information:
- Your UO account name (do not include your password)
- The time, date, shard, and facet of the occurrence
- What steps you took that led up to the bug
- Whether or not you tried to repeat the bug, and if you succeeded
We will post another update once we have more information on a possible release date.
|
^ top-You know you want virtues...(it's a spoiler).
[Eric] October 29 - 10:45 PM EST | Thanks to UO Stratics for this Virtue Gump Information.
Unless you hate spoilers, I would check this one out. It's actually pretty cool.
Cya later. |
^ top-Update From Noc
[Nieves] October 29 - 5:16 PM EST | posted on 10/29/01 at 02:16 PM
Okay, let me clarify this. The Siege changes are in...just not working.
1) Reds will be guardwhacked if called on, but NPCs won't call on them. Thus, if you're stealthy and red, you can use the bank.
2) ROT DOES NOT WORK YET. It supposedly is in, but you can still gain normally in skills above 70. I thought not to mention this because most of us won't have skills above 70 to worry about.
So, if you can get a GM skill really quickly (eval *cough*), do it now.
Hasta. |
^ top-Siege by Noc
[Nieves] October 29 - 11:06 AM EST | Another great essay by Nocturnal.
In an attempt to get fellow powergamers to try Siege out, I'll give a brief summation of what Siege is like. The first point that will apply to most of you is the rate-over-time system.
-----------------
Rate over Time
-----------------
Rate over time is a system where skill gain is limited to certain intervals. Unlike before, rate over time applies to *ALL SKILLS*. The interval is based on the level of your skill:
Under 70 - skills gain as normal. Powerhour applies.
From 70-79.9 - skills gain up to 3.6 total per day. You can only gain in a skill every 20 minutes.
From 80-89.9 - skill gain up to 2.0 total per day. You can only gain in a skill every 40 minutes.
From 90-100 - skill gain up to 2.0 total per day. You can only gain in a skill every 60 minutes.
While you may look at this and think it will take forever, this is not true. While each individual skill may take longer, there are many benefits as well. One, you KNOW when you are going to gain. Think of it as a 3.6 point run, stretched out over the entire day. Interspersed with that are gains in skills between 80 and 90, and skills between 90 and 100.
It would take you approximately 3 days to get each individual skill from 70 to 80, 5 days to get each individual skill from 80 to 90, and 5 days to get each individual skill from 90 to 100.
Thus, it takes a total of 13 days per skill, but those aren't layed end to end. Remember that while you are working on a skill in the 90s, you can still work on a skill in the 80s and one in the 70s, in addition to any skills below 70. If you are able to get every gain when you are eligible, here is a general timeline:
Day 3: First skill at 80.
Day 8: First skill at 90.
Day 13: First GM skill! You also have another skill at 90 and another at 80.
Day 18: Second GM skill.
Day 23: Third GM skill.
Day 28: Fourth GM skill. You have no skills below 70.
Day 33: Fifth GM skill.
Day 38: Sixth GM skill.
Day 43: Last GM skill! You are now 7x GM in a little over a month.
So after merely 3 weeks, you could have a character with GM tactics, fencing, and parrying! Or, magery, meditation, and eval. Better yet, GM taming, lore, and magery. Or blacksmithing, mining, cartography! Yes, ROT applies to ANYTHING. The skills that would take 43 days on the regular shards, like resist, taming, cartography, poisoning, etc, only take a mere 13 days to GM! It gets better.
How big of a bitch is resist? Taming? Poisoning? Skills that require a HUGE time investment (taming, anyone?) or a LOT of resources (resist, poisoning) are daunting tasks on the regular shards. Not so with Siege Perilous.
For example, to go from 70 to 100 magery on a regular shard, it may take anywhere between 1500 and 3000 of each FS or EQ reg. On siege, it takes 300. Yes, only 300 of each reg to go from 70 to 100 magery. Why? When you are eligible for a gain, log on, cast a spell, get your 0.1 and log off. (Or stop whatever else you are doing and cast a spell.) No need to sail slow forward, wasting a ton of regs, hoping for that gain in the 90s.
Or taming. Most tamers would consider it a great day if they gained 2.0 taming in a powerhour in the 90s. You are GUARANTEED 2.0 taming per day on Siege.
So, while ROT seems like an imposing system, working under it for a while can really liken a person to it. True, you can't get a 4xGM warrior in a week, but the difference between 4xGM and 7xGM on siege is much less than it is elsewhere.
You'll never be bitching on the boards about how your gains suck.
-----------
PVP
-----------
Some of the best PVPers in Ultima Online play on Siege. Guilds such as UDL, GC, -F-, Xie, and many others represent the best their shard has to offer in the pvp department. Why is this?
No stat loss for murderers.
For those of us who played back in the dread lord days, you know what this entails. It basically means the entire shard is at war with itself, in the form of pk vs. anti battles. You have guilds like Xie, BiH, WE and others who are constantly battling the murderers from across the shard.
No more feeling frustrated at that idiot who you really, really wish you could kill, but:
a) you can't afford a murder
b) it's in trammel, and you can't attack him anyway
Kill who you want! It's wonderful!
If you are looking for top-quality, "old-days" PVP, there's no where else but Siege Perilous to find it. If you really want to make a name for yourself, get your guild on Siege and whoop some ass. It's tough to earn the respect of the top-notch pvpers that call SP their home, but if you do, there's no greater victory.
-------------------
Roleplaying
-------------------
Some of the best roleplaying guilds call Siege their home. UDL and UND, for example, both roleplay the Undead. UDL has been a premier guild in SP since its inception, and if you can't beat em, join em.
There are also the Shadowclan Orcs, a very well established roleplaying guild. They may seem diminutive in stature, but believe me, they really can clomp da humies. Again, you can partake in the raids on their fort (and, even not using horses, they've been known to dirtnap even the best, horsed or bedragoned, pvpers), or join up with them. www.shadowclan.cx
There are many other roleplaying guilds out there (with our without pvp), look into them or start your own!
So, while SP may look like a daunting or impossible shard, once you get started, you may find it really to your liking. With the ability to make a 7x in just over a month, and a tightly knit top-knotch pvp and roleplay community, how can you go wrong?
Janos and I are looking into getting a guild or a group of people together who can mutually benefit each other, by sparring, newbie raids on dungeons (pks beware! now that's a feeling you haven't felt in a while to be sure), and the like, if you're interested contact me at:
dave@22xband.com
ICQ: 1573698
Hope you'll give Siege a try!
-Nocturnal
Hope you enjoyed it. The above was posted in the UOPG Forum. You can read the thread here.
Hasta. |
^ top-Not that I post much at all.
[Vasilias] October 28 - 7:39 PM EST | However, this was sent to me by Ices of the Catskills shard. One of it's players on this shard has suffered massive injuries from a motorcycle accident and is in a coma. Being that this kind of shit gets to me and this is, being a community in it's own respects, basically it's own family I decided it prudent to share so that you all may pray for this person in hopes he makes a full and quick recovery. Hands down to Ifrit of Catskills. Our wishes to you and your family. You are in our prays.
And you fucks thought I was all mean and shit.
Latahs,
Vas |
^ top-More Reasons NOT To play EQ.
[Nieves] October 28 - 1:25 AM EDT | I can't name my character Beowulf, Drizzt, or even Elizabeth (, because you know, those are names of famous people, and we can't have that.
I mean really. Queen Elizabeth might get pissed and sue EverFucked or something.
Thanks JC
Hasta. |
^ top-Solo resist gain alternative, by Faust.
[Eric] October 27 - 9:45 PM EDT | If you don't want to use reapers for solo resist gains, you might find this info. posted by Faust (in the UOPG Forum) pretty useful:
For those of you who don't/can't use resist groups to train, or prefer to just do it yourself, I figured I'd post the results of one of my char's solo training. Each line is one powerhour's worth of work. I rarely play this character, so no gains were realized during normal game play. This was done solely using Bone Magi in Deceit. Both facets were used depending on the crowd on any given night.
Staring skill / Ending skill / Increase
76.8 / 78.2 / 1.4
78.2 / 79.6 / 1.4
79.6 / 81.1 / 1.5
81.1 / 82.6 / 1.5
82.6 / 83.2 / 0.6
83.2 / 84.3 / 1.1
84.3 / 85.5 / 1.2
85.5 / 86.2 / 0.7
86.2 / 87.0 / 0.8
87.0 / 87.6 / 0.6
87.6 / 89.0 / 1.4
89.0 / 90.1 / 1.1
90.1 / 91.3 / 1.2
91.3 / 92.1 / 0.8
92.1 / 92.8 / 0.7
92.8 / 93.7 / 0.9
93.7 / 94.4 / 0.7
94.4 / 95.0 / 0.6
95.0 / 95.5 / 0.5
95.5 / 96.1 / 0.6
96.1 / 96.8 / 0.7
96.8 / 97.5 / 0.7
97.5 / 98.1 / 0.6
98.1 / 98.4 / 0.3
98.4 / 98.9 / 0.5
98.9 / 99.5 / 0.6
99.5 / 100.0 / 0.5
In the process, I made approximately 82,600gp. I didn't loot every single kill, but the majority I did get to. I tried to keep 3 mages casting on me at all times.
That's it. So, it can be done there, but it is noticably longer than summoning daemons.
Thanks, Faust. :) Reapers have shown to give better gains, but if you don't like to get blasted by them, you can use bone magi in Deceit, and make some gold as well.
Cya later. |
^ top-Daylight savings reminder.
[Eric] October 27 - 8:07 PM EDT | Remember to set your clocks an hour back tonight before you go to sleep.
Enjoy the extra hour of sleep.
Cya later. |
^ top-Reaper Valley and Resist
[Sinister_Saint] October 26 - 5:02 AM EDT | After letting resist raise passively for almost 20 months, I finally reached 6x GM on my fencer and decided that I might as well finish up resist. I used skelly and bone magi to get from 50 to about 74 and just recently I started visit a place known to many as "reaper valley." While this may not be news to some, hopefully this will help others. I have gone to reaper valley each day for my powerhour and I am happy to say that they have taken me from 74 up to 89. I am still gaining about 1 point per hour and I gained 1.1 points last powerhour to reach my current level of 89. People often talk about resist groups, but if you are not able to get one together or other circumstances stop you, reapers are a great alternative. They cast plenty of explosions, ebolts, flamestrikes and I even gain on fireballs. The best part about them though is that they spawn rapidly, often in close proximity to one another and they can't chase you. I have had as many as 5 reapers all within one screen and all casting on me. I walked away with .7 gains and managed to stay alive through a combined use of bandies, potions and magery... and maybe a good dose of luck. I am going to continue with reapers just to see how far they will take me.
Screenshot of reaper valley
There you go Nievesy-poo!
|
^ top-Phear My Cut & Paste Skillzz
[Nieves] October 25 - 7:09 PM EDT | Welp, I mosied on down to SlowNewsDay.Net to see what was cooking today. Then I found this little gem. Neat. Nice reading.
This evening, my buddy ol' pal ol' buddy asked if I read his update today.
Seeing as how he usually updates only when the seasons change, I was pleased to know he had updated twice in a week's time. Joy of Joys! I only hoped it was better than his review of some movie about a Gym and some Kung Fu Katas. Then I read what he said.
NOTE: Watts didn't tell me what he wrote. He simply asked if I had read it yet.
Um...a bit of advice to anyone wanting to post some news: Be correct.
If you don't, Watts will come for you. And you don't know Terror, until Watts shows up on your doorsteap.
Hasta. |
^ top-Chat with the UO scenario dev. team TONIGHT.
[Eric] October 25 - 5:24 PM EDT | I received this in my box today from IanStorm.com...
Ianstorm will be holding a moderated Q&A chat event, Tonight at 8PM EST (1AM GMT), with the Ultima Online Scenario Team.
To enter into this chat you can go to http://irc.ianstorm.com and join
#stormevent or use an IRC client (such as MIRC or pirch) and connect to
irc.ianstorm.com port 6667. And /join #stormevent.
This will be a moderated chat event. Open discussion can be found in the
#stormcenter channel. The topic of discussion will be on the ongoing
scenarios in Ultima Online.
IanStorm Events Team
If anyone attends the chat and finds something interesting said, send it my way.
Cya later. |
^ top-You Are Out Of Your Freaking Mind...
[Nieves] October 25 - 3:58 PM EDT | | If you think I am going to pay 35,000GP for a Level 5 Treasure Map! |
^ top-Two hot things. The shirt and myself.
[Epyon] October 24 - 6:43 PM EDT | There ya go.
Contact Nieves if you want one. Or ten.
 |
^ top-Rebuttal
[Nieves] October 24 - 12:41 PM EDT | Yesterday I posted a link to this article.
Shadow wrote a "rebuttal" of said article.
Nieves
First of all, I’d like to say that I’ve been a faithful follower of
uopowergamers since 1842, er well maybe not that long, but I’ve been reading for as long as I can remember. Keep up the good work.
Anyway, I generally don’t respond to articles on news sites, but your
article “Damn” hit a little close to home, so in the interest of helping me to resolve my own September 11th issues I thought I would send off a letter.
As way of background, I’m a licensed attorney in Illinois. I’m not
currently practicing; instead I’m working as a computer consultant/network engineer for medium sized law firms here in Chicago. As if the above wasn’t enough, I also work as a freelance photographer.
Recently, I got a commission to do a photographic fluff piece on the
Sears Tower for a South American travel magazine. The job paid $800 dollars so I loaded up my camera, headed over to the Sears Tower and started photographing. After photographing around the building, I went into the lobby and asked the security guard if I could take a couple photos the lobby for a magazine. He told me that I could not, so I walked out to the sidewalk shot the façade and got ready to leave.
As I was leaving, I was grabbed by a couple security guards and told
that they were going to confiscate my camera and film. Seeming how my
camera costs over 5 grand and the film in the camera was worth another $800, I told them that they had better call the police. Two officers arrived and told me that I would have to give my film up, including the 6 rolls in my camera bag that I had shot for other commissions. They said they wanted to be on the “safe side.” Given the jumpiness of everyone lately, I tried to remain calm throughout the encounter; policemen have a hard enough job already with out me acting like a prick. I asked them to call a Sgt. and if that Sgt. said that I needed to give up my film I would. While we were waiting, the security guard told me that I was “not allowed” to photograph the Sears Tower: not from the sidewalk; not from across the street; not
even from across the Loop. Anyway, the Sgt. arrived and immediately took me aside. He told me that they could not take my film and that I was free to go.
I was let go, so what’s the point?
The guess the point of this whole letter is that the Constitution and
Bill of Rights provides American Citizens with certain fundamental rights. These fundamental rights can NEVER be diminished or abridged. For the 45 minutes I was being detained I lost a whole slue of right: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom from illegal search and seizure, and to a certain degree the right to privacy. All of this was done without a second thought and with what a team of security guards and a couple police officers thought was total justification. I guess in their mind they thoughtI was taking pictures for some nefarious reason. Forget the fact that there are thousands of photos of the building already and that countless tourists take photos of the Sears Tower every day.
I guess at this point I should also point out that I’m NOT an Arab
American, I’m ¼ German, ¼ Irish, ¼ Filipino, and ¼ Japanese. I had
relatives that were interned in California during the 1940 so this issue of internment strikes a little close to home. O’ yeah, those same people who were interned lost their business, their home, and more importantly three of their sons in Northern Italy. So I realize that I may be a little hostile to the suggestion of internment. I know that you were not suggesting segregation or interment, but that trailing “but…” speaks mouthfuls. But I guess during World War 2 we “Needed to be Wary of Young Japanese Men.”
I read the article and a couple things struck me. First of all, if
I was an Arab American, especially a young male, I’d be pretty tired of people staring at me. I recently flew how to California and was seated next to an individual from Egypt. He was headed to California on business. Everyone on that plane watched this poor guy. He started to get nervous, probably because everyone was staring at him, so he started to sweat, and sweat he did. At on point, some idiot walked by and whispered to the guy that he was keeping an eye on him.
So imagine that you’ve been getting this sort of treatment. If you
don’t know what I am talking about go somewhere where you aren’t welcome, it's not a nice feeling. Back to the article, so you see this blond soccer mom staring at you, what do you do: stare back.
This lady’s whole article is based on what other people told her and
what her son heard in a chat room, because we all know people speak the truth in chat rooms and on message boards. This lady also, in her expert opinion, claims that there are a lot of sleeper cells and that she has formed the perfect profile of who wants to hurt us. Give me a break, she is not a security expert nor does she have credentials on international relationships.
Yet she wishes she had confronted these young men, called them
terrorists, and “if I had to, tackling them and screaming for help”
Seriously, what would you do if some yokel comes up to you and did the same thing. Also, its not just extremists in the mid east that want to hurt us, there are radicals in almost every country that have it out for Americans. However, none of this justifies individuals taking action in situations such as this. Don’t get me wrong, if someone makes a run for a cockpit door, I say you do whatever you need to to take them down, likewise if someone pulls a gun you take them down. However, as to “busting” people on the street based on the mere fact that they are Arab American, I’d say show a little common sense. If you are really suspicious call the police, let them deal with it. But for god’s sake don’t go questioning people and accusing them of being terrorists. It’s a good way to end up either in a fight or in jail. No matter how good your intentions if you are stupid enough “to, tackl[e] them and screaming for help” you are most likely going to spend a night in jail or end up with some sort of civil suit.
I know a lot of people will disagree with what I am saying. The typical response is we need to not worry about civil liberties in this time of war. What I worry about is that people are giving up their fundamental rights without so much as a second look. Once we give up these rights, we won’t just be able to get them back. We will have to fight for them, tooth and nail. One only needs to look at the legislation being rammed through Congress, without thoughtful debate, right now to see laws that previously would have been considered unconstitutional or even absurd. I understand that people are afraid, but we need to make sure that we temper that fear with reason.
******
“A society that will trade a little order for a little freedom will lose both, and deserve neither.
--Thomas Jefferson
piece of freedom is no longer enough for human beings…unlike bread, a slice of liberty does not finish hunger. Freedom is like life. It cannot be had in installments. Freedom is indivisible - we have it all, or we are not free.
--Martin Luther King, Jr.
If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort that it values more, it will lose that too.
--W. Somerset Maugham
To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men. --Abraham Lincoln
Hmmm...I should've listened to my Poli Sci teacher back in my first year of college and gone into politics. Maybe I would be a rich and powerful man by now. Can you see it?
Nieves for President!!!
Kind of has a ring to it, doesn't it?
OH! Before I forget, some publish went in today but 3 shards couldn't get it because of database issues.
Thanks to Kerowyn for that update.
Hasta. |
^ top-w00t...The t-shirt has arrived.
[Eric] October 23 - 10:19 PM EDT | As you probably have seen/heard, most (or all) of the t-shirts that have been ordered and shipped arrived today. If Nieves shipped yours and you didn't get it yet, don't worry, it's on its way. Anyways, the t-shirts rock as expected. I took a pic of it with my digital camera to give you guys an idea of what it looks like. Now, PLEASE REALIZE that my camera is a piece of shit and takes low quality photos, so the lighting/color of this pic is slightly distorted.
It's a nice t-shirt, and if you want one, please get in touch with Nieves. Supplies are limited.
Oddly enough, I received ANOTHER t-shirt today, from Fallen Age (well, the company who used to develop Fallen Age). It was a gift from them to all of the beta testers for their help in testing the game that went under. The shirt sucks, so I'll probably be using it as a rag to wash my car or something. Anyways, if you ordered a UOPG t-shirt, enjoy it. If you haven't and still want to, e-mail Nieves ASAP.
Cya later.
UPDATE: Thanks Catlyn, for hosting the pic. I appriciate it. |
^ top-Take a survey.
[Eric] October 23 - 4:33 PM EDT | I received this e-mail from someone over at Codemasters:
Hello. My name is Ted Carron and I head one of Codemasters development studios.
My studio is developing a new MMORPG called Dragon Empires. We are considering using a recognized author to help us flesh out the history of the Dragon Empires world. Before we choose an author we would like to know more about our customer's interests. In short, your opinions matter to us.
We have put together a quick survey to gather your opinions on a few authors. If you would like to participate, our survey is located at: http://www.realmserver.com/authorsurvey
Thanks in advance for your help.
Codemasters is the company that currently develops the MMORPG The Realm. Before playing UO, I played the Realm for about 2 and a half years, and in its time, it was an amazing game. With today's gaming technology and many of the advancements in the gaming industry, the Realm doesn't compare to most of today's games. The game right now has a very small subscriber base and I think they only charge $5.00 a month. (Back when I played, they were run by Sierra and had a fairly large subscriber base, and they charged $12.00 a month). I wouldn't recommend playing it, especially if you're into newer games.
Help them out though, and take their survey. Cya later.
UPDATE: Well, someone e-mailed me and pointed out to me that the survey is by invitation only. Oh well, I guess you all can't take the survey. Do check out
the Codemasters website, and you can find more info. there on this new game that they are developing. |
^ top-Calandryll Does Virtues....
[Nieves] October 23 - 4:08 PM EDT | Or rather changes them.
:The virtue systems listed in In Development have been changed in the following way:
Master System:
- Third Path title changed to "Knight" instead of Guardian.
Um. Ok.
Sacrifice:
- Removed karma requirements.
Hmmmm...
Humility:
- Changed gains (HPs, Stamina, Mana) to +5 at path one, +10 at path two, +20 at path three.
Very nice. Much much better. Thank you Cal.
- Once a veteran character helps a [young] character, they will not be able to invite another character from that same [young] account to become their squire for one week. For example:
- You invite a character to be your squire and s/he accepts.
- You can help that character as often as you want, but for one week you cannot invite another character from that account to become your new squire.
- You can invite [young] characters from different accounts to become your squires.
- After one week, you can invite a different [young] character from an account you have already helped.
Ok. That's cool. You can't cheat so neh!
Thanks for the feedback everyone! I'm also working on a change to try to cut down on the spam young players might get bombarded with and make it easier for them to accept/reject offers.
Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
Designer, Ongoing Content
a wizard did it
I can see it now. The Bank Posers running around asking all the youngs "BE MY SqUiRe BIYOTCH!". Or Youngs with Guild Title's Like: "RaIdEn'S SQUIRE BOIEE". Yeah. Fun fun.
I got better things to do than squire a new character.
Personally, I would rather just show a newer player what to do to get skill points and then point them to this really cool website I know, and then leave them to their own devices.
But that's me.
Hasta. |
^ top-We Told You The Sims Sucks...
[Nieves] October 23 - 2:16 PM EDT | Electronic Arts Inc. (NasdaqNM:ERTS - news), the largest U.S. video
game publisher, said on Tuesday it would lay off 200 to 250 people from its online unit toward a goal of reaching profitability for the
unit in fiscal 2003.
Well, I guess I can give up dreams of working in Austin for the company that maintains my favorite game.
Hasta. |
^ top-Stop Thief!
[Nieves] October 23 - 12:33 PM EDT | Read about it.
They mention a thief named Poison Ivy on Great Lakes. I had a few encounters with her.
One thing I hate are gate hoppers, and she is one. But know what? I respect her. She at least makes it interesting with her Roleplaying.
Unfortunately for her on one of those occassions she caught me in a bad mood with my Mage. Explosion+Flamestrike+Ebolt = Dead Thief.
She wasn't happy about it.
Just so you know, she used to frequent the Skara Brae Moongate. I have seen her at the Jhelom Moongate as well.
I can't wait for the aggressor=No Moongate For You Change. :D Thieves will have to do like the guy on Pacific. Earn it!
Hasta. |
^ top-Funnies...
[Nieves] October 23 - 12:51 AM EDT | Some things are just lame...
And some things just disappoint me...
NOTE: The guy that was unattended macroing was already dead.
Hasta. |
^ top-Krum Asks For Monster AI Ideas...
[Nieves] October 22 - 5:15 PM EDT | I give you Nieves' Ideas:
When the dungeon spawn was improved and monsters (ie-Liches) were made tougher, Liches had the ability to stealth up to you and hit you. I don't know if that was a bug or not but I don't see it happening anymore.
I think that would be way cool. Gives us a new sense of danger.
Also, Liches are undead necromancers, what about having them "spawn" other undead?
A Vampire? Please? They suck "life" taking Str away with each hit (5% per hit maybe?) which gives the Vamp life back. Abilities could include: Lightning Spell, Wind Spell (repulse people away; like one of the monter hits do <--I forget who), "Call Dire Wolves" (spawn 4 at a time), Paralyze Spell ("charm"), Can't be poisoned, morph into a mist when hurt, but can be killed still. They have the same amount of HP in the middle of a Lich and a Lich Lord. Spawn them in Covetous, Deceit, and Skeletal Ruins (see below).
Later on, when the virtues are working properly, you could make it so a certain virtue has a bonus to kill certain monsters. IE-Compassionate (read: Love) folks get a bonus to kill undead.
If a monster can't open a locked door, and can cast high enough Magery, it should be able to cast magic unlock, open it, and get going after the big bad adventurer (secret doors I wouldn't worry about).
Make an Uber Monster spawn randomly in dungeons. For instance, if in Destard, the Ancient Wyrm comes up to see what his brethren are doing. Same with the Ancient Lich (once a day; random time determined at server start up :) ).
Allow monsters to go through "levels". If I am running from the Ancient Wyrm, let it follow me through the "level door". In other words, if I am running from a Silver Serpent in Deceit and I go up to level 2, it can follow me from level 3.
Have monsters work together. If two Liches are chasing someone, one paralyzes while the other flamestrikes.
Spell combos on monsters. I remember when monsters would be able to cast mini-combos. They don't anymore :( Paralyze+Explosion+Poison would surprise the heck out of me.
No monster casts Mindblast. BIG surprise in Trammel. But it should be there IMHO.
A new NPC: "An Assassin". He stalks through dungeons stealthing and hunting down adventurers. He uses Regular Poison, a Dagger or Kryss and hits for twice normal on the first hit. After that he can't stealth. You can also add "A Veteran Assassin" that uses Greater Poison and uses a "force" Kryss to attack. Despise wouldn't be a bad dungeon for this.
Monster luring: if a monster is away from it's "home" spawn area for more than 5 minutes, it "teleports" home.
Add some loot that gives "clues" to something bigger. IE- The books in Khaldun books are great to read, but have them give clues to finding something in the dungeon. And then put that something there to be found or solved. :)
Make a different quest system "spawn" in the dungeons randomly everyday.
In other words, a set of quests are set up for each dungeon. [Or for all. You choose.] Add, say about 20 per dungeon (yeah alot of work, sorry), then they randomly "spawn" and can be completed. A character cannot complete a single dungeon quest more than once a day. He can go to a different dungeon and complete that quest.
Last I checked, spiders can climb walls....
For example, if I am on a cliff where a Terathan couldn't get to me because it's effectively "blocked", it just "climbs up" and gets to me. Make it so it gets close to the side of the cliff, then appears 1 tile next to me. Ditto on all spider kin.
And certain monsters, IE-the Harpy, can fly. they could fly over to me where ever I am :)
Let the monsters that spawn with a certain magic item be able to use that item. IE-if a Demon has a Sword of Repond, let it be able to use it against people. That would hurt players, but it's a Demon. It's supposed to be hard as hell.
Allow monsters to use special hits. IE-if a savage is whacking me with a spear, paral hits baby!
Add a new snake: "A Python". It's special hit is a paralyze hit ("SQUEEZE") that causes .5 more damage and keeps you rooted until you successfully hit (doesn't matter for how much damage, as long as you hit it) the creature to break free).
Blood Elementals are made of blood? Don't they feed on Blood then? So, if they do that, shouldn't they "suck the life" out of what they are fighting? (think Str).
Some Snakes Spit Poison. Nuff said.
Camouflaged Snow Monsters. Nuff said.
Spiders spin webs. Nuff said.
Last I checked in mythical monster lore, Ice Wyrms had an ice weapon... Nuff said.
Also, Blue Dragons (mountains mainly; electricity breath weapon) and Black Dragons (swamps only; acid breath weapon) would be cool.
New Giants!!! Maybe make "Ettin Valley" (east of Delucia) more Giant Infested and add new ones there too :0
The Skeletal Ruins just west of Terathan Valley could use some looking at.
Magical monsters should have a better ability of healing and curing themselves. Not something outrageous but even so. For example, Liches and Dragons are "intelligent" creatures. They wouldn't just run away...they would lick their wounds, use high level heal spells, and come back for some payback.
The Rats got mages, why can't the Lizard Men get something more as well? They could use a stronghold in the Papua Swamps (see Skeletal Ruins above). Maybe some spear throwing Lizardmen (mechanic similar to bolas but it causes damage)?
Also, there are ALOT of "empty" ruins in the lands (Northern Fire Island has one).
Also, how about adding a Dungeon at the Ophidian Lair? I think it's time we found out just what the big bad Ophidians have as a lair. Everyone picks on the Terathans' House, why not the Ophidians, too?
Terathans live very near the city of Papua...it stands to reason that city would see random attacks on it's populace (continue to allow guard whacking monsters). Ditto on Delucia.
Hammer Throwing Cyclopian Warriors :)
Scorpians have claws. They should be able to use them.
What about a new "race" ? "Can you say Scorpian-men"? Make their "home" on that Desert Island in T2A.
Have higher level Demons (Ice Fiends and Balrons) spawn gargoyles and elementals (I heard a rumor Balrons do, but I haven't seen that happen yet).
A new set of Elementals: "Lava" in Fire Dungeon Hythloth/Fire Temple. "Sand" in T2A.
Make it so monsters resist certain types of melee weapons but take .5 more damage from others. IE-Blades do nothing to an Earth Elemental, but blunt weapons hurt them bad. So if they die faster from certain weapons, it won't matter. Just something to spice it up. Additionally, how would I damage an Air Elemental with any type of Melee weapon? Just something to think about with that.
A new monster that feeds off magic. An Energy Vortex "living" monster maybe? Wind would be a great place for it.
An underwater world :) Not a "water" environment per se. Think a new continent under oceans with Water Type Creatures.
Hasta. |
^ top-What the...?
[Nieves] October 22 - 2:07 PM EDT | Watts has to tell us about some movie he didn't like, but would've liked had their been some homosexuality in it. I think he's been hanging with Redrum again. You don't know they are lovers? Hmmm...well, I won't give their secret desire to make a sandwich with that sheep that was cloned a few years ago.
Of course, Jinx has to punk Watts out and tell us how wrong Watts is about what qualifies as the worst movie ever made.
I am not the best writer in the world. In fact, people tell me that everyday. When Jinx and Watts talk about something, I am in the audience with a tape recorder and a boom mike. Today, I had to shut off the mike, take the tape out and throw the corrupted piece of media (read: shit) away. It would never record anything again anyway after getting inundated with the radioactive fallout it got hit with.
Everytime I get a chance too, I tell Watts, "Update your fucking site".
I asked for it, didn't I?
I wuv you Watts. I hope you love the shirt.
Oh, tell Jinx to email me and shit. I need an address for him.
Hasta. |
^ top-UOPG TShirt Update
[Nieves] October 20 - 6:07 PM EDT | I got the first batch mailed out today.
For those I sent tracking numbers too, throw them out. Express is 16 Bucks. Priority is 5 bucks (which is what it costs me to send to those in the Continental US). All of you got charged 5 bucks for shipping. Do the math.
Some of you haven't replied to my request for address. Please do. I got stuff to send you :)
DAoC: School money came so I got a copy. And, it won't run on my computer. Oh Happy Day. I got my money back and got school books. Joy.
Hasta. |
^ top-Best DAoC site so far...
[Nieves] October 19 - 11:24 PM EDT | We had our differences in the past, but I think Omni has a VERY nice Dark Age of Camelot website.
Give him a holler, tell him I sent you with love and kisses.
Hasta. |
^ top-GOD LOVES ME!
[Nieves] October 19 - 6:34 PM EDT | The T-Shirts are here.
The T-Shirts are here.
And they fucking ROCK HARDCORE!
Oh shit... ::sighs::
Ok, time to go wrap some packages.
Hasta. |
^ top-How Many Does That Take?
[KH] October 19 - 6:02 PM EDT | [from the Forum...]
We get asked this kind of question a lot: How many items to GM Arms Lore? How many ingots to GM Smithing? How many days to GM Taming? Gain rate can be pretty random, so the best way to answer these kinds of question is to ask people who have recently finished a skill & kept track of how long & how much...
If you've just finished something and kept some track of how many resources you went through, or how long something took, by all means - post what you found to the thread below. If you find some wildly successful way to reduce resource use or shave time off GMing a particular skill, it might also be helpful to post what methods you were using.
For example - I just finished a GM Smith last week on Pac, starting from 50 skill. Pretty much following the skill progression in the UOPG skill section, it took me roughly 33k (slightly less) iron ingots. Didn't keep track of the # of hours. All my items were smelted at 100 Mining.
The same character also GM'd Mining from 65 while digging up the initial 20k ingots, without any smelting individual ore pieces. Don't ask me the hours on that one either, as I did it over the period of a couple months, off and on.
Some things I'd certainly like to know: How many targets and how much poison to GM Poisoning? How long to work Detect Hidden, now that you have to target each trap individually? How long to GM Stealing? How many fish steaks to GM Cooking (well, maybe not so much).
You tell us.
|
^ top-Nieves Gets Answers
[Nieves] October 19 - 2:24 PM EDT | UO Powergamers Interview
Adrick
1) What is your Philosophy for PvP Combat in Ultima Online?
Adrick: I think that pvp needs more emphasis upon the choices and skills of the person behind the character. I'd like to see the randomness decreased and the decisions for the player increased. I'd also like to see pvp made more accessible to more players; I think we can do more to encourage players to participate, especially in factions.
2) Please tell me the rumors for Faction only PvP aren't true(?).
Adrick: They aren't true; however, consensual pvp systems will typically get more attention because far more players in UO have expressed interest in this element of pvp. We have specific shards such as Siege Perilous where the restrictions are not as severe; this sort of follows up question 1 in that we could do more to encourage participation.
3) Why give up on the Allied Guild System? If you can do something like Factions or UO3D, why not something like that?
Adrick: In a perfect world, allied guilds would form their own faction. As it stands, guild alliances directly compete with the faction system as a vehicle for players to participate in large scale pvp combat. Guild wars are an important part of pvp and I'd like to see alliances as part of a faction enhancement.
4) When could we see macroable special moves? Is it being worked on?
Adrick: We'd like to put macro moves in the game for warriors, but I can't give any definite answers on that right now.
5) New weapons? New moves?
Adrick: Nothing definite here. Although, through the event scenarios, new weapons may be introduced. What they might be, only Cal knows :).
Calandryll
1) Are we going to see world changing and world affecting events like the Trinsic Invasion? I applaud the Ongoing Content team's efforts and the things they have done, but I, like many UO players, would like to see more content and less candy (rares/special items).
Calandryll: You'll see larger world altering events than what you saw in Trinsic. Trinsic was fairly limited and didn't really alter anything. We simply added new objects to the city to make it look like it had been taken over. With the scenarios, we can actually add brand new areas, like the orc dungeon or some of the stuff you will see in the upcoming scenario, as part of a story. In truth, the items make up a very small percentage of the actual content when you compare the number of items to the number of new monsters. The story will be much richer in the coming scenarios as well.
2) Can we have the Ancient Wyrm or the Ancient Lich spawn randomly in dungeons once a day (not a set time)? This might sound like a stupid request, but I wouldn't mind seeing something like this.
Calandryll: We can change the spawn to work like that, but I'm not really sure we would want to. Spawn changes are very possible though, if they are part of the story.
Vex
1) The masonry and glassblowing ideas: are they skills or "abilities" tied into other skills? Which ones?
Vex: All will become clear as the scenario progresses. :)
2) Any new changes coming for Treasure Hunting?
Vex: None are planned at this time.
3) Why the Guaranteed Gain System? What's the point? Most of your players have been around since UO:R and are way past the "new player" stage. If you are going to do it, fine, but I don't see why it's necessary at this point.
Vex: New players are starting UO accounts every day, and veteran players create new characters quite often. Guaranteed Gain helps veteran and new players alike. We feel strongly that, while Burst Hour was enormously successful, Guaranteed Gain provides more benefits with less exploitability.
4) Are current skills that are never used going to be removed? Replaced with new ones? Changed so they become useful (like cooking was recently)?
Vex: Given time, anything is possible. Nothing has been decided about that right now, though.
With the exception of my Wyrm question, I think I asked some good ones. Someone start a thread and talk about it.
Enjoy.
Hasta. |
^ top-Who cares about being humble when you can just sacrifice yourself...
[Nieves] October 19 - 10:17 AM EDT | Humility sucks. It's dependent on Young Players. Even if it gives you 30 Stat points at Step 3 (10 at EACH STEP), who really wants to use up time trying to find Young Players all the time? Hard Core Veterans won't care for this. They did put in some good fail safes (I don't think you can use a Young Player/Squire to gain Humility Points more than once and you can only have 1 squire a week), but...well, it's tedious and powergamers don't like doing too many things that depend on others. Especially newer (you call them: "newbies") players. Hmm...maybe the Ex-Counselors, Seers and Companions will benefit from this more than others.
Hmmm...now if I could only come up with a better way of implementing it. Anyone?
Sacrifice rocks. Watch this:
Gaining steps in Sacrifice will grant a character the ability to resurrect himself a number of times each week, equal to the steps achieved in Sacrifice. Players will be able to access this ability by clicking the Sacrifice symbol on their own Virtue gump.
First step: Self-resurrect one time per week
Second step: Self-resurrect two times per week
Third step: Self-resurrect three times per week
And...
Characters which self-resurrect will instantly recover all the items they had on their corpse, except for any items which have been looted or decayed.
Self-resurrecting characters will not be able to recover items in this way if they move across a server boundary into another server region.
Characters will not be able to self-resurrect:
…within a “multi-object” (a house, boat, etc.).
…within a faction stronghold
…while flagged as a criminal or aggressor
Hit Macro, target Demon, poof, gain sacrifice. Nuff said.
Thank you Calandryll. We really really wuv you on that one.
Read the rest on Stratics.
I just realized something. That means all of Adam Ant's precious Red Magi will go Poof now. Damn Adam. Sowy.
Hasta. |
^ top-And here comes another PvP based game...
[Nieves] October 18 - 9:36 PM EDT | Good afternoon everyone,
We have some great news for you today! The Online Beta Database has been completed and tested and is now available at the Shadowbane website. You can find the login here:
http://shadowbane.ubisoft.com/beta/
At this moment, we are sending everyone on the beta list a verification email. This email will contain a personalized link to their beta account information so it can be updated. Once there, beta users will have to create an account name (which will also be their account name for the new Shadowbane forums and beta forums), change their password, and finally to update their personal and system information.
Obviously these email addresses are over a year old, and some of our testers won't receive this email. For users who absolutely know that they are Shadowbane Beta Account holders can contact Ashen Temper later this week at:
ashen@shadowbane.com
Please include in your email to Ashen: your full name, former email address, and your current forum account name. As a warning, do not attempt to use this process to try and obtain a Shadowbane Beta account if you do not have one. We are extremely happy and excited to have this service finally available for Shadowbane fans, and hopefully future customers!
If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to email me anytime at: chrism@ubisoft.com
Thanks!
Vosx
====================
Chris "Vosx" Mancil
Community Manager
Ubi Soft
Thanks Silk :)
Hasta. |
^ top-New Scribe numbers, and other ramblings by yours truly....
[Gator] October 18 - 9:07 PM EDT | ::Snaps out of his non-posting phase::
Whew, been awhile eh? But never fear, I am still around. Unfortunately due to the current world events that surround us now and a new position at work I have'nt been able to post as much as I would like too. But now that things have settled down, I am gonna try to post more often. Of course, figure in the fact that right now my connection is totally screwed and I have alot more time, I cant play for crap. But, anyways, I can ramble on that topic for a good hour. Ask Vas, he knows I bitch about it enough.
I recently GMd Scribe on yet another character. Let's check out these numbers shall we?
#PH START FINISH REGS/BLANKS TYPE MADE GAIN
1 31.0 44.0 156 Recall 59 13.0
1 44.0 51.8 137 Blades 44 7.8
1 51.8 65.1 363 Mark 94 13.3
2 65.1 66.1 65 Mark 20 1.0
2 66.1 74.8 451 FlmStk 103 8.7
3 74.8 80.1 326 FlmStk 127 5.3
3 80.1 80.7 58 SummDea 6 .6
4 80.7 87.1 610 SummDea 119 6.4
5 87.1 90.7 388 SummDea 112 3.6
6* 90.7 91.8 210 SummDea 82 1.1
7** 91.8 92.9 500 SummDea 170 1.1
8@ 92.9 94.7 290 SummDea 117 1.8
9@ 94.7 96.2 263 SummDea 121 1.5
10@ 96.2 97.2 281 SummDea 113 1.0
11@ 97.2 97.9 225 SummDea 115 .7
12@ 97.9 98.9 228 SummDea 101 1.0
13@ 98.9 99.6 225 SummDea 120 .7
14@ 99.6 100.0 87 SummDea 52 .4
* 35 Minutes Total
**2 Hours Total OUT of PH
@ Had Serious Lag Each of These Nights With Packet Loss, gains Could Have Been Better
Total Resources Used:
NS: 137 Cost: 411
BP: 721 Cost: 3605
BM: 3721 Cost: 18605
MR: 3858 Cost: 11574
SA: 3914 Cost: 11742
SS: 3914 Cost: 11742
Scrolls: 4323 Cost: 21615
Total Cost: 79294
I used all the methods prescribed by Phazer here.
I figure if it wasnt for my screwy conn I could have GMd this in 10-12 PHs, though thats pushing it.
Very soon I will have a nice Poisoning guide ready as well. Currently I am in the 90's so it should not take much longer. I hope at least, my alchemist is very close to going on strike.
Later |
^ top-T Shirt News
[Nieves] October 18 - 6:40 PM EDT | They were sent to me 2 day UPS yesterday. I should have them by Saturday at the latest.
For those that have ordered, I will be emailing you tonight or Friday for your complete addresses (don't email me, I will email you). I will send out the Shirts on Saturday if I have the addresses.
For those that have donated money, I am going to send that money back to you. I feel like a lame bitch taking your money just so I can play a game. If you want to donate to UOPG, buy a shirt. That is donation enough, and you are getting your money's worth, IMHO.
Send me an email with your name, size, city, state, zip and country if you want a T shirt.
Hasta. |
^ top-New Virus
[Nieves] October 18 - 2:41 PM EDT | There is a new virus with the subject Antrax Info and an attachment Antrax.vbs.
Delete it on site.
Hasta. |
^ top-I now own DAoC
[Epyon] October 18 - 2:38 PM EDT | Or does it own me?
Ill let you know tonight in about 10 hours.
WWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
For those that care,
My name is Casval Daikun, Avalon Mage, most likely going Theurgist.
Lancelot server |
^ top-DAoC
[Nieves] October 18 - 12:03 PM EDT | If you haven't already, you can read a decent write up on Dark Age of Camelot by Ian at The Chosen or Black Dagger.
Hasta. |
^ top-Sometimes You Just Got To Do It.
[Nieves] October 17 - 8:39 PM EDT | Ian is no longer an updater with UOPowergamers.
It's a decision I have contemplated for a long time. One I didn't want to make.
When someone goes out of their way to add to the stress level of your life by insulting you whenever the chance presents itself, it's time to make a change.
As a friend once told me: "Is he making your life better? Or is he causing you stress? If it's stress, fuck him".
On a different note, Silk interviews Vex.
Hasta. |
^ top-And I Thought My Favorite Pk Was Dead...
[Nieves] October 17 - 4:17 PM EDT | Provoke this.
And to the person crying about dieing to him. Wah.
Hasta. |
^ top-Got Lag?
[Kaara] October 17 - 1:30 PM EDT | Don't know how many of you have noticed the last few days that lag has increased but Tajima has posted this on the Connectivity and Tech board at UO.com regarding recent issues:
Folks, we've isolated a server-side issue related to the recent events publish that has been causing some lag. We're investigating it at this time, and I'll post an update in 2-3 hours.
-Tajima
That was posted at 11am est this morning.. hope things change soon!
******************
Update.. doh! heh Just noticed this on the FYI page:
Publish Revert Oct 17 2001 10:25AM CST (GMT -06:00)
An issue involving a merge with the latest server publish is causing an unacceptable amount of lag on all shards where the publish was activated. We will be reverting the affected shards to the previous server publish. This revert may cause a small "time warp" on the affected shards.
Note this will cause any clockwork assemblies players may have found to no longer give messages when used. Once we republish the servers with the fixed code, they clockwork assemblies will function as before.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
|
^ top-Things to do while DAoC is on backorder.
[Epyon] October 17 - 12:37 PM EDT | 1) Read about how cool the game is and how people say its the best thing since sliced bread. You do this of course while telling them to fuck themselves inside your circle of protection called the internet.
2) Look at screenshots and say "Holy shit that looks nice"
3) Try sorting out your love life and choosing between 4 beautiful young women
a)Current girlfriend with the realationship on the rocks
b)Best female friend who is going out with another friend of yours
c)ex-girlfriend that visted me during my marina job offering oral stimulation. Of course im talking about a rousing discussion...
d)Hot girl at the gym that works out with you and flirts nonstop
They all want me, its true. But hell I can see why, I know I'd do me if I was a girl.
4) Homework. (lol)
Yes indeed, ever since my girlfriend and I haven't been going out much I find that I have to much time on my hands since all my friends are lame asses and can't get away from their females for more than 20 minutes before they get yelled at. I want DAoC damn it!
Or a fivesome..that would be good.
On closing, I noticed that EBGames.com, where I ordered DAoC from, finally changed the limit from 4 copies a person to 1. Well jeez, thats just amazing! No wonder I can't get my fucking copy when you have some asshole ordering 4 at a time.
Bleh, im going to play Master of Orion 2, much love to you Kevin! |
^ top-Getting Into A Game Is One Thing...
[Nieves] October 17 - 9:17 AM EDT | But this is a bit much don't you think?
A reader sent that in to me when looking for WW2 Toys.
The only thing I see myself doing with that doll is sticking it in my daughter's easy bake oven. It just feels like Justice for me to do that.
Hasta. |
^ top-That's illegal!
[Eric] October 17 - 8:53 AM EDT | Or is it? Sannio of OSI clears some of this up for us...
In reply to:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Gaining resist by poison fielding stairs is legal..
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Gaining resist by this tactic is not legal, because while you may gain skill from this, you aren't suffering the damage effect. (If anyone is found using this tactic they may have action taken against their account.)
In reply to:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summoning Daemons to gain resist on shore while you are on a boat is legal..
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, this is a legal tactic, because the Demon still has the ability to defend itself, by casting spells back at the attacker.
In reply to:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Using EQ scrolls to GM Eval is however.. illegal..
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, this is illegal, as you do not use up the required resources. When a spell is stated to require the use of resources, those resources (reagents, scrolls, or the new Arcane Item charges) must always be used up, or that spellcasting method is illegal.
In reply to:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
But at 50 magery.. locked.. using gate scrolls is not illegal.. :)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
As long as the scroll is used up, you're good. :]
In reply to:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Music does not require any resources so there for you are not circumventing game mechanics to save yourself some gold.. You have merely found a means to an end.. A legal means to an end..
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This is correct.
The bottom line is, if you're raising a skill via a method that is supposed to do you damage or via a method that is supposed to use a given amount of resources, and DOESN'T, then it's most likely illegal. I'm sure we've been over this issue before, but it's nice to have a reminder. It's surely better than seeing "Your account has been blocked," and then you saying "What the fuck did I do wrong?"
Cya later. |
^ top-It's coming...
[Nieves] October 16 - 8:50 PM EDT | After getting all those wonderful Flag Shirts out of the door, they can get mine done finally.
Gotta love it.
Hasta. |
^ top-Thanks for all the emails
[Epyon] October 16 - 5:02 PM EDT | But ive found what I was looking for.
The overwhelming response brought tears to me eyes, and it made me feel all warm and nice.
Honestly though, mucho thanks to all. |
^ top-Thank you Kerowyn
[Nieves] October 16 - 4:41 PM EDT | OSI is updating their Play Guide for Ultima Online. I point this out mainly because of what I found in their combat section:
Practicing
Some of the larger cities have established combat training areas, where you can hone your combat skills.
There are practice dummies for hand-to-hand practice, and archery buttes (targets) for bow and crossbow practice.
Note: Practicing in this manner will only result in skill gains until you reach 25.0 in the practiced skill.
Note that you do not have to be in War mode to practice on inanimate objects. You may also spar with other players outside of towns and guarded regions.
I can see it now. "Would you like to help me gain skill?" "Sure, just hit this moongate and select Felucca, then Buccaneer's Den".
"Ok, cool".
Woosh.
"Ok, attack me". "Wow, thanks man".
"Sure, no problem".
-YOU SEE DUMBASS ATTACKING COOLDUDE-
5 Seconds later, Deathmoan. :YOINK:
Thankyouverymuchandhaveaniceday.
Welcome to Ultima Online.
Aren't you glad UOPG is here to help you avoid that problem?
I think they should just hire me and let me do all their Playguide work. Or, if they can't afford my 6 figure salary, just link us. It will save them alot of time and work.
::goes back to doing some Powergamer work for another unnamed website::
Hasta. |
^ top-Want a Thief Account?
[Nieves] October 16 - 4:06 PM EDT | Go give White Crow Some Love. Since he can't hack it in UO anymore, he's going to give his account away in a number guessing contest.
It's ok, we will still love him and will miss his whitty commentary.
Good luck in whatever it is you decide to do.
Oh, my guess is now 501.01 .
Hasta. |
^ top-OSI Is Your Friend.
[Nieves] October 16 - 11:45 AM EDT | While reading up on GuL's adventures, I found something.
Tegan of GuL Got Hacked.
Yup you heard me right. Earlier this afternoon my main account was hacked. As bad as this may sound, I am actually very fortunate.
Earlier this afternoon I logged on my account and found my mage definately not where I logged him off at. He was in the middle of the road. I immediately got kicked off. I logged on again to find myself 10 steps furter. I quickly paged a GM, saying my account was being hacked and to please jail me so no further damage was done. In less than a minute a GM responded and jailed me. Once again I got kicked, when I managed to log on again I saw the GM saying something like "Your account will be temporarily suspended, this will not count as a mark against you. It is for your own safety, we will contact you via email." And so they did. My account was suspended from mid afternoon until 6 PST.
Through email, they requested my IP. They compared that to the one of the other person using my account. They were able to track this to another account and are monitering and what not. OSI is being really cool about this, and they helping me out alot. They request that I don't copy any of the information they are sending me, but they are continuously keeping me updated. And because they are doing so much, I will respect their wishes.
As for my account, so far I see nothing of value missing. All my skills on my chars were marked down, but nothing was changed significantly, I lost some healing on one char and meditation on another. Other than that everything seems allright.
I just wanted to let you guys know. I haven't accepted any files lately or received any ICQs from people I don't know, so not sure how this happened. I guess I am lucky that I have all my stuff.
--------------------
Tegan
Guardian, GUL
Napa Valley Shard
Also:
Ah, but OSI wants to do more than just ban this guy. They want to take criminal action. His attempt at hacking me contained some key evidence they needed. Beats me exactly what that means and what not, but they do sound serious. So far OSI has sent me 9 different emails in the past 6 hours. They sound very serious, and have been of great help. This really changes my view on them. They helped me out when I needed it most, and did everything for me. They have awarded me with 5 free gaming certificate thingies, so thats 5 free months for me. And all I think I lost was 4.something healing and .7 medi.
--------------------
Tegan
Guardian, GUL
Napa Valley Shard
There is a lesson here and a "trick" if you will. If you realize you are being hacked, and can get on quick enough, send a help request and have him jail your character ASAP saying: "I am being Hacked, please jail my characters". Get all the information you can and then send it to UO.
If you are reading this Tegan, give me a shout, and let me know how it turned out.
Hasta. |
^ top-Lunch Time Laughter
[Nieves] October 16 - 11:30 AM EDT | Tanqueray of GuL cracks me up. Check out his latest adventure (you will see what I mean towards the end of his story).
You can give Tegan some love too if you would give his story a read.
Hasta. |
^ top-A odd trade
[Epyon] October 15 - 11:22 PM EDT | With DAoC coming my way this week ive decided to quit UO(again) and so ive come up with a rather odd thing to do with my account.
The first person that points me to a place to download the old game Master of Orion 2 gets my account. Plain and simple.
Its far from being special but there is a substantial amount of gold and items on Catskills and Drachenfels, and the only real character worth mentioning is Domon Kasshu on Cats. He is nearly 6xgm. If you are looking to pick up a extra account now is the time to do it.
Email me for any info. |
^ top-Hell yes.
[Eric] October 15 - 11:01 PM EDT | The new computer is in. The specs:
-1.4 GHZ AMD Athlon Processor
-512 mb DDR RAM
-80 gigabyte hard drive
-64 mb GeForce2 graphics card
I don't remember the other shit, but that doesn't matter much. Anyways, it's going to take me a day or two to catch up on reinstalling programs (ICQ & the rest).
I'll have to see how smooth UO:3D runs now that I have a decent video card.
Cya later. |
^ top-What part of...
[Nieves] October 15 - 5:03 PM EDT | no exploits/bugs, or describing illegal skill gain methods in the UOPG Forum don't you understand?
It is VERY clear in the UOPG FAQ what is and what isn't allowed to be posted in our forums.
And if you don't understand why we at UOPG don't condone or allow this, I will educate you. I don't want my account, or those of the updater's, banned.
Tell you what, the next person that gets caught doing it, I grab your IP and send a little message over to OSI. Think I am kidding? Fuck with me and find out.
Hasta. |
^ top-Changes Cometh Again
[Nieves] October 15 - 3:09 PM EDT | I was working on the Character Creation Section yesterday. I will be adding more templates and fixing the templates that are there. If you find anything you know is wrong or could use some "tweaking" feel free to email me so I can add that to the correction list.
Hopefully, I can get them done by the end of the week. I had hoped to have the Mages done last night but boredom, along with the tediousness of "fuck, this is taking forever" set in and I had to get away from it.
Not too mention fighting with Newspro for 2 hours didn't help my mood. Ask Acero. He got the brunt of my frustrations.
Hmmm...you know, I am starting to get a feeling in my stomach similar to the feeling I get when OSI announces a new, forthcoming change.
Gawd, I hate that feeling. I will shut up now.
Hasta. |
^ top-All your gamers are belong to us.
[Nieves] October 15 - 11:26 AM EDT | It's coming.
Phear it.
Anyone thinking about adding me to their Christmas List, all I want is this. Well, that and 1.7 million dollars.
Hasta. |
^ top-Leave the gun, take the cannoli.
[Epyon] October 14 - 7:34 PM EDT | The Godfather trilogy was indeed the reason DVD's were made.
Buy it.
You won't regret it. |
^ top-No, it's not Crouching Tiger-Hidden Dragon
[Nieves] October 13 - 2:17 PM EDT | But Iron Monkey rocked.
Hasta |
^ top-What the fuck...?
[Nieves] October 12 - 6:02 PM EDT | This has got to be the weakest, most stupid attempt at getting people to play an online game to ever grace our planet.
I mean, c'mon, do these motherfuckers actually think that two girls in a bar are going to be talking about playing EverQuest? And actually bragging that their "men" play the game? Oh please!
It's official, EverCrack is now, NievesWillNeverPlayEQ.
Update: Well isn't that special. Sony changed the website and killed the movie that I was referring to above. They actually have a decent ad website for the game. Personally, I still think the game sucks much hardcore green monkey peanuts and I will never play a game that has a shitty attitude as it's dev team. At least OSI does positive stuff and doesn't tell us "shut the fuck up newbie, you don't know what the fuck you are talking about".
Hasta. |
^ top-While you're all no doubt running from Virtue created Vanq's...
[Ian] October 12 - 4:48 PM EDT | Over the past few days there is a likely chance you’ve heard talk about a new online game on the market. Said game goes by the title of Dark Ages of Camelot. I’m sure you, as everyone else has heard the hype on it. To give you an example of the acclaim this game is receiving, head over to SND. This is a site that has historically bashed -every- game on the market the day it’s released. This is a site that if they don’t have anything bad to say, they just don't mention it. The fact that the founder of the site now works for the company that released the game means very little because, if it sucked, their fanbase would be even more rabidly against it and jump at the chance to tell Lum, just how bad in fact the game sucks. The simple fact of the matter, and to most people’s disappointment, is that it doesn’t.
So, is it all hype? Is the game really as good as everyone say’s it is? Should you quit UO to play it? Fear not, for I am here to hold your hand through the thought process.
Is it as good as everyone says?
More so. Here is why. Until a few days ago, most -gamers- I talked to had not even heard of DAoC. This is due to the fact that Mythic did not rely on a hype machine to sell it’s game. They relied on the most important advertising tool in the industry. Word of Mouth. They knew they had a good product. They knew their beta testers had nothing but positive things to say about their product. While I was in Beta, there nda (non disclosure agreement) didn’t prohibit anyone from talking about game mechanics or general impressions of the game or anything of the sort. Right off the bat, I knew this was going to be a good game. In this age where companies are actually censoring forum statements AFTER the game goes live, here is Mythic saying, even though we’re in Beta, feel free to give your honest opinion about what you think of our game. Let the game speak for itself? In this day and age of super advertisers, and a country full of people waiting to give their money to the first company that makes them laugh between timeouts during the Superbowl?
Is this game EQ done right?
One could look at it like that but here is the one glaring difference. I -tried- logging into EQ when it first came out 3 years ago. When I finally was able to login I was disgusted with the interface, and bored out of my mind with the gameplay. Upon logging into DAoC, (the first time I tried) I was in awe of not only how good the game looked, but the ease in which I was able to figure things out, and become engrossed in the overall mechanics. So, if that’s EQ done right, my money goes to the company that did it.
What is good about the game?
The first thing worth mentioning is the ease of figuring things out as a newbie. With your first impression of the game certain to be the most lifelike, loin tingling graphics interface to date, you feel at first a little intimidated that the game will be hard to command, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. After about 1 hour, not only will you be totally familiar with the interface, you’ll be at least level 2. After that, you get to explore a full world and battle creatures, and start your leveling parade. If you are a pro-active player, such as I am, you will find yourself grouped with other players, and learning by either asking questions, or observing the tidbits of info people talk about, or just simply, figure it out as you go.
Ok you convinced me, I’m closing my UO account!
Hold on there tiger. This game isn’t for everyone. In fact, it is the complete opposite of UO. For one, this is a level based game. This is also, after all is said and done, a PvP game. Make no mistake about it, level 15 comes quickly, and you will be expected to learn, and use strategy against other players. Back to it being a level based game, you will die to someone due strictly to their level. A lot of people just can’t stomach that. This game stresses that you must have a large, cohesive group to be effective. Swaggering, 3l1t3 solo players are going to find it very difficult in group settings because, the way you interact with others, leadership skills, ability to communicate, and other intangibles is what will set people apart in this format. The bottom line is, don’t go selling your UO account just because -I- and others love this game. I can definately see the average UO player dying 34 times to a Psuedo Basilisk at level 6 and having to buy back Con, only to start crying and run back to the safety of UO’s much simpler outlay.
What is bad about DAoC?
A lot. Don’t get me wrong, this is the best 3d rendered game, online or otherwise, I have ever played, but to say it has no flaws, would be a lie. The flaws in this game are innumerable. This isn’t going to be the uber game of the future. It’s simply a very stable, very addictive, fun game to play. Most of what is wrong with DAoC are bugs here and there, there are definitely some balancing issues between characters, the rewards for PvP are not much more than having "bragging rights." Overall the concept, stellar implementation, and playability are what make this game what it is.
Final Word.
With the exception of UO, which for all of it’s shortcomings, will always remain the Messiah of online gaming, Dark Ages is the most stable, engaging, and overall fun game this writer has ever had the pleasure of playing. If you enjoy engaging with large groups, joining for a common cause, be it monster bashing, leveling, and ultimately fighting against other groups of like-minded individuals, I highly recommend you give this game a shot.
If and when we get a DAoC powergaming site up, I will most likely take the reins as lead writer/ranter. (Just because I'm singing it's praises right now, doesn't mean I won't be bitching 2 weeks from now.) Obviously, I'm now playing a PvP only (for the most part) game, so chances are you will hear details of how I roXXored sum n00bs as well.
If all else fails you can always go to your local Electronics Boutique and grab a copy of EQ, I hear there is a new expansion coming out soon. Even more reason to talk to total strangers in detail about your 59th level Paladin. :) |
^ top-I hate 8x8
[Nieves] October 12 - 12:39 PM EDT | It's boring. Mundane. The life of a powergamer is hard. We do the most outrageous things to try to gain the most skill in the shortest amount of time. Then when we get there and roXXor everything in sight, and then think "what's next?" OOH! Another character template. I will go powergame that. Oh yeah, fun! More 8x8 madness.
I have some characters that have GM magery. But not all. This week I set out on a campaign to GM out all of my mages' (at least) primary Mage skills (Eval/Med/Magery). Why? Because there is no reason for me to not have those skills GMed out on those characters. I mean, it's not like I run UOPowergamers or anything right? Right.
I get my character on a boat and after 30 minutes, I am pissed because I can't find the elusive "gain thread". At 40 minutes, I find it and then 20 minutes and .2 in gains later, it dries up. "powerhour". Next power hour: 22 hours, 56 minutes. Oh great. Thank you very freaking much.
OSI is talking about adding the GGS system, to which all I have to say is: "what for and why now?" We have a system we are familiar with. "Because people just want to 'play' the game". Yeah, they can do that after a week of hard work anyway. I hate 8x8, but we know it and are used to it. Oh yeah, change is good right? Right.
The next day, I start to do 8x8 again, and I curse and moan and gripe.
From what I read, UO has the best skill gain system "idea" of all the big 3 (EQ, UO, DAoC <--notice what I left out) because you don't have to "level" to have a decent character. And ANY character can become any "class" without having to be stuck with an option (class) that, later on, you realize totally sucks ass when compared to your play style.
Is DAoC going to suck? No. Not entirely. I think Mythic has got it right. In fact, given time and financial stability, I will pick up DAoC and play that when I am bored with UO. Only because I can make my scout, sneak into Watts' Viking Realm and kill his ugly ass barbarian when he's not looking. Then I can dance on his corpse and scream "who owns who now biyotch!?" OH! Wait, that's right. Watts can't play DAoC yet. ::evil grin:: Anyway, moving right along and leaving Watts alone (for now).
I think DAoC is going to take away alot of the EQ crowd that want something different. Something with a different flavor. I see people leaving UO to give it a shot. Then you know what? The UO faithful will come back because they want to change their Elven Scout into a Camelot Knight, but they can't. They are stuck because the codebase ("ruleset") says you can't make an Elf into a Camelot Knight. Thanks for not letting me play outside the lines and keeping me stuck with my choice. Do you like being "stuck"? I don't.
People like options. And what the game makers don't realize, and one of the things OSI got right, was that UO gives you those options.
OH...and guess who else gives you options? I will give you
^ top-Calyndryll -IS- listening.
[Nieves] October 12 - 12:17 PM EDT | Woodeehoo!
Check it.
Also, I want to point something out. In defense of OSI opening up a new dungeon in Ilshenar, we have had two new dungeons added to the "2D lands" in the last 2 years. Khaldun and the Orc Dungeon.
I would still like Ilshenar available to me. Personally, I am all for OSI stopping work on everything else (besides maintenance and bugs) and making the 3D client work for everyone.
If it's not fixed by January, I will put it out there at the Faire.
You are still going right?
Hasta. |
^ top-They added a new dungeon?
[Eric] October 12 - 8:04 AM EDT | Wow, a lot gets by me. Oh well, it's in Ilshenar anyway.
Check it out.
Cya later. |
^ top-Oh Calyndryll....
[Nieves] October 11 - 4:28 PM EDT | Are you listening?
Alternate Virtue System Proposal -- follow up to my previous essay
After criticizing and dismantling the problems with the proposed virtue system, it is only natural to follow up with a system that would better fit the criteria with which I evaluated Origin’s proposed system.
I believe virtues such as compassion and sacrifice, and possibly others like justice and honesty, can never be gained through appropriate in-game fiction legitimately. The core reasons why I believe this are as follows:
1) A "happy medium" can never be struck between making the system worthwhile while not making it "too good". Why implement a system no one will use because the rewards are so negligible as to make the time invested worthless? Similarly, a too powerful system will upset delicate game balance.
2) The moment virtue becomes a “worthwhile” game mechanic, the moment it becomes status symbol: exploitable and power-gamed, and it loses any meaning it may have had.
3) Some virtues, such as sacrifice, can never be represented. If you give a bonus for becoming “sacrificial”, it no longer becomes self-less and therefore is no longer a sacrifice.
Reason #3 can actually be applied to nearly any virtue. The moment a
virtuous deed becomes rewarded is the moment it loses its virtuous nature. Virtuous deeds can only be virtuous if they are performed because the moral character of the doer does not allow anything else. If they are performed to achieve some end, it is my opinion that they no longer are virtuous at all.
So, then, what is the purpose of crafting a virtue system? While a virtue system in and of itself is conceptually flawed, I feel some positive things can be gained from such a system (even if some compromises regarding integrity and Ultima fiction must be made [but kept to a minimum]), and I feel that Origin could do a much better job in creating one.
I will strive to create a system that does not overly unbalance game play (which, without a proper test and multiple minds to think through it, is a difficult if not impossible task), while standing as strictly as possible by the Ultima fiction that is the true source of the virtues. This document will also focus primarily on the concepts rather than absolute numbers and equations with which to implement them (more in-depth game mechanics will be discussed in a future document, after this one has been “debated by the senate”, if you will.)
Before I begin, I will re-summarize the virtue system:
The virtues are founded upon three core principles: love, truth, and
courage. These three principles, when allowed to expand and combine with one another, form the basis of the virtues, which are compassion (love), honesty (truth), valor (courage), justice (truth and courage), sacrifice (courage and love), honor (truth and courage), and spirituality (love, truth and courage). Finally, the eighth and most important virtue, humility, is founded in opposition to the absence of all other seven virtues, whose absence leads to the vice of pride.
These are the key concepts behind my proposed virtue system:
1) All virtues are related back to their founding principles, and the game keeps track of both the character’s advancement in each virtue as well as their advancement in the three principles, which will be an internally tracked mechanism. Thus, a player who is very compassionate will have grown in the principle of love, and therefore the other virtues that are derived from love gain a small benefit from this (sacrifice and spirituality). Thus, all virtues are inseparable, intertwined together. This mechanic represents
the concept that the virtues are not mutually exclusive, for it makes little sense to have a very compassionate person who is also a miser. It is also much easier for a very compassionate person to become selfless and care more for others’ gain than for their own (i.e. sacrifice).
2) Before a character can become virtuous, they must learn to open
themselves to the three principles and the virtues they directly represent.
Thus, a character must first begin by exploring the avenues of compassion, honesty, and valor. To justify this, we will examine the real world briefly. To begin on the path of spiritual enlightenment, one does not immediately begin to experiment with the further reaches of their spirituality. A newly converted Catholic will not start with exorcisms. Thus, for a character to begin their growth in more advanced virtues, they must already have furthered themselves in the three principles. (Remember, by growing in each virtue, their principles will also grow.)
To justify these previous points, we will use an example. A person donates a large amount of their possessions to a poor citizen. While this shows virtue in sacrifice, does it not also make them compassionate? Does it not also make sense that only a compassionate person would make such a donation? Also, this donation says nothing of their honesty or valor (and therefore their truth and courage).
3) Once a person has demonstrated growth in many of the virtues (which, by our previous definition also gives them some amount of virtue in other areas, so, to make it simpler, have good truth, love, and courage), they may begin exploring more advanced paths in virtue. If a person has shown the ability to love and be truthful and courageous, they may begin on the road to spiritual enlightenment. It is only through demonstration of these three principles that deems them worthy of the greater knowledge of one’s existence. They must have the courage to discover the real truth within themselves, a labor of love. An untrustworthy, dishonest person has neither
desire nor the character strength to become spiritual. Likewise, a hateful and malicious person has little to gain from a greater knowledge of the spiritual workings of the universe. A timid, frightful, and closed-minded person does not have the resolve to discover that their view of the world may be shattered and replaced by a greater, more humbling view, which leads to the final virtue.
4) Once a person has challenged their view, and put them self on the brink of the inviting vice of pride and turned away, has enlightened themselves to the absolute truth of existence, and learned to love everything equally, has a person truly become to be humble. Humility is not a doctrine followed by those who seek a means to an end. Those that would “lower” them self to help the less fortunate cannot experience humility. The truly humble know there are no positions greater or less than their own. The last step on the road to Avatar-hood is not an easy one.
(Points 3 and 4 are an in-character way of saying you can’t gain
spirituality until you have a solid foundation in love, truth, and courage, and you can’t gain humility until you have a solid foundation in spirituality.)
5) Each virtue has a corresponding antithesis, or as some call it an
anti-virtue. While I believe that creating a system that rewards evil deeds is even more conceptually flawed than creating one that rewards good deeds (rewarding, evil deeds have been one of the primary forces for change in online games), having the opposite of each virtue be a game mechanic serves a purpose.
A rich man may give a poor man a sum of money. Is this sacrifice? Yes.
However, the rich man may also have unimaginable sums of money left over. Can this, then, truly be called sacrifice? It is my opinion that it cannot. Therefore, you can perform deeds that allow you to grow in virtues, and performing others (or, in some cases, NOT performing others) will have the opposite effect: you will become less virtuous. A few examples.
a) The cap, if you will, of sacrifice gain is inversely proportional to the gold a player has in the bank. A system of evaluating other assets will have to be implemented in order for there not to be a simple work around of storing wealth in non-gold form. In other words, you can’t be advanced in sacrifice if you are rich.
b) Gaining a murder count will have drastic consequences on your compassion and justice. It is perceivable that your level of honor will also suffer.
c) Stealing from innocents will have drastic consequences on your justice, honor, and honesty.
d) If you engage an enemy, and are forced to retreat without being engaged by other forces, your valor and honor will suffer as a result.
e) A humble person cannot be the leader of a party, the leader of a guild, or equip certain items or control certain creatures. (Glacial staves, as an example, are hardly the mark of a humble individual.)
f) Dying has a negative effect on your valor.
6) As you “grow” in each virtue, it will become progressively harder to grow further. While almost anyone can show token compassion from time to time, it is the rare individual who is always compassionate and never succumbs to hatred. Because certain actions that may allow you to grow in some virtues are the antithesis of others, it will be very difficult to be very virtuous in all virtues at one time. This relates back to the concept that all virtues are intertwined, and based upon common principles.
7) A non-absolute scale will represent “growth” in virtues. There will not be definite levels, or fixed points at which things change, but will rather shown to the player as a smooth scale, represented perhaps by an indicator on a slider bar for each virtue.
These, then, are the basis upon which my system is formed. In the next
installment (after discussions over this one, I’m sure) I will discuss
actual game mechanics that will allow you to grow in virtue (and
antithetical actions which will deplete your virtues as well), and, woe is me, the benefits that those instill upon your character.
-Nocturnal of Pacific
UPDATE: Additional Notes by Nocturnal-
One important point I forgot to add:
7) The benefit each virtue rewards is related back to the "class", if you will, that the virtue has always represented in Ultima lore. These are:
Compassion: Bard
Valor: Warrior
Honesty: Mage
Justice: Druid
Honor: Paladin
Sacrifice: Tinker
Spirituality: Ranger
Humility: Shepard
Of course, due to Ultima's skill system some of these will have to be molded somewhat into existing skills.
High virtue will thus give a benefit logical to that virtue. For example, high valor may give an increase in strength or tactics. High sacrifice may give an increase in crafting skills, such as success rates or quality of items.
-----
A rebuttal by Zathras:
Okay...I did post a reply to yr first note but as I posted I crashed so it went byebyes and as it was even longer than yrs I had no desire to rewrite it.
I agree with yr points in the first note but haven't yet truly analysed the second.
However there is one point with which i MUST differ. That is that dying decreases valor. This is empahatically wrong.
The examples in history/mythology are many but i will suffice with one(not Horace, he survived). If you have ever read Rider Haggard (King Solomon's Mines/She etc.) you may have heard of a person called Umslopogaas of the Axe(actually this is also my axer's name). He was a huge Zulu warrior who used a huge 2 handed axe.
In one of the novels(which one?) the party is trapped upon a plateau. There are 2 exits
from the plateau. One via a cave which has caved in and they are desperately trying to clear this and the main exit which is down a single flight of stairs cut out of a vertical cliff. It is at the top of these stairs that Umslopogaas makes his last great stand against an invading army who can only approach one at a time, so narrow is the defile. As they have no missile weapons or at least, ones which can reach him, he holds them off until the cave is cleared but although he is still alive he knows that he cannot retreat or he will be outflanked immediatel, so even though he could run to the cave behind the others his wounds will not permit it and he dies fighting when exhaustion and blood loss are too much.
I do not think death means a loss of valor.
In some cases it exemplifies it.
In WW2 look up: "the destruction of tank destruction unit Dora II" for a similar true story.
The real problem with any virtue system is the the UO ani will find a way to subvert them to their own advantage and with their massed cohorts of fellow ani vouching for them it would be impossible to see if it is really deserved.
On my shard i have come into contact with most of the PvP guild leaders at one time or another. Quite honestly although all are excellent PvPers and decent people once you get to know them, some had the morality/honour(ingame, that is and to all other nonfriends) of a snake.
Note that I am not whingeing here but I just suppose that it takes a certain sort of person to be a very good PvP guildmaster. It does not apply to all as there are several exceptions and it does NOT mean i am against PvP,as i live 99% in felucca. What i say here is from my own observations of their behaviour
All would use their guilds to enable them to gain virtue points in any area even sacrifice. We all know stories about pks waiting until they were worth 200k then getting another account to kill them and claim the money.
So I doubt that any system would be possible to reward virtue as no system is capable of separating true virtue from false virtue and the ani wanting the extra hps/str/dex/int for extra comat advantage would not hesitate to use any trick in the book. And you can guarantee that a new system would be heavily bugged initially and hence open to abuse even more.
Everytime something new comes into UO(weapons etc) It is almost always the ani who have it first. Why should the virtues be any different?
Summary great idea by OSI but even implementation? I doubt it
And Noc's reply:
In reply to Zathras' comments about dying and valor loss.
I disagree. I don't think it is valorous to die fighting. Honorable, definitely, but I don't think it has an impact one way or the other on the valor of any particular person.
Why, then, should your valor be reduced if you die?
While you bring up valid points about valor being exemplified by dying, I think other virtues better represent that same action, and those are sacrifice and honor. Valor, I believe, should be directly related to prowess in combat. This will also avoid it being totally overlapped with honor and thus becoming redundant.
Let's take a brief digression and discuss the UO mechanic of fame. When you die, you lose fame. It also decays over time. However, many people (in the real world) only became famous because of their deaths (Jesus, other martyrs), or afterwards (many artists). The reason you lose fame when you die can be summarized in two points:
1) Death is assumed in Ultima Online to be shameful. (Which will have to change when Honor comes into play.) Often, it is.
2) There has to be some way to drastically decrease fame in an avoidable, yet not easily circumvented manner.
I believe Valor should be in the same category. While some deaths may be valorous, it is safe to assume that most are not. There also has to be an efficient way of decreasing a player's valor, and unless you can suggest something better, the only plausible and related way I can think of is by death.
When presenting an arguement or presenting a problem that could, or could not exist, it is always a good idea to think about and present a solution. Your arguements tend to hold more weight and earn a bit more respect.
And if you wish to discuss this further, go here. Maybe Calyndryll or another OSI rep will grace us with their presence and talk to us about it. Maybe.
Hasta. |
^ top-Nocturnal's essay gets the attention it deserves.
[Eric] October 11 - 3:52 PM EDT | This was posted over at UO Stratics in regard to Nocturnal's essay that was post on UOPG a couple days ago:
Calandryll made a longer posting in an UO e-mail group regarding the virtues and the new system. He is actually referring to an article that can be found on UOPowergamers.
Read the follwing comments from Cal:
First, I think it was a great essay. I also agree that a lot of the issues are that we haven't unveiled the full system. A lot of the exploit checks haven't been mentioned yet mostly because I didn't mention them all at the player lunch.
The real problem though is we don't have the luxury of working on a single player game system. The virtue system that appeared in Ultima Prime games didn't have to account for other players or even the idea of a "humble PK".
Those notions don't exist in a single player game. So yes, if one is expecting the virtue system in UO to mimic the system in a single player game, they may be somewhat disappointed. Rather than get bogged down trying to emulate a single player game experience in a massively multiplayer game (something that has been tried before with disastrous results) we're going in a different direct, but one that I still very strongly feel will hold true to the meaning and spirit of the virtues.
With regards to the use of the word "level" I only use it for clarity's sake. Numbers are easier to explain and in truth, that's how code works. When one players Ultima 4, the computer doesn't "know" you are being humble...it simple knows you have answered the knight's questions correctly X amount of times. Basically, it's just tracking a variable. In fact, for those of you that will recall, gaining Humility in U4 was a simple task of macroing an answer to a guard as he asked you if you were the most valiant warrior in the land. Once you did it X number of times, viola! ...you were humble. I think the system we are proposing fits UO, and the virtue
Humility, far better than that. :)
Yes, people are going to be able to find things they would have done differently. And in many ways, as a player, I may even agree with them. But sometimes, design decisions are made keeping the big picture in mind. For instance, why are we doing Humility first? Honestly, there are two reasons.
First, I believe the Humility system will set the tone for the rest of the virtues, especially for those players that don't know them well. And that's another issue. I can cry to myself as long as I want that the virtues were not a big part of UO in the beginning. They should have been, but they weren't and I can't change that. But, what we can do is put them in now though and do it in a way that is fun, compelling, and interesting to as many players as possible. In so doing, we *must* account for the fact that many, many players have little to no understanding of what the virtues are.
I think what one will have to do to gain Humility will very much demonstrate to players a great starting concept for the virtues and what they represent as a whole. The second reason is because I am very concerned about the distance between most veteran players and most new players. In the beginning of UO, everyone was new. Even after the first two years of UO, the range between new players and vets was not so far. But now, as UO passes it's fourth year, I see a split in the community. A split that while it may not be as noticeable as the Trammel/Felucca split (please don't start
a Tram/Fel debate in this thread! :P) is very significant. That's not to say we don't have current players helping new players, we most certainly do.
But, it is my hope that the Humility aspect of the virtue system will encourage (but not force) more interaction between new players and veterans, something that is not only good for OSI (retention) but also good for the community as a whole. A community cannot grow (and by grow, I don't mean numbers) without new blood.
The last point I want to make is the idea that "The Humble KiLlAh" is somehow a bad thing. Again, this is a massively multi-player online roleplaying game. One of the key words in there is "massively"...lots and lots of people...and as much as we would like them to, not all of them are going to role-play. And I have always felt that the notion that they should somehow be forced to a bad idea. But, they should be encouraged to.
In the single player games there was only you. And since it was only you, you could role-play in the game (although I would argue whether any single player game is actually an role-playing in the true sense of the word) and have the world be exactly as you picture it, within the limitations of the design of said game. MMORPGs don't work like that. In these online games, you are going to have a mix of players. And each of those players makes a personal choice how to see a given system in the game. Some will use the system as a role-playing tool, others will power-game it, some will use it casually, and others will ignore it completely. I'm not looking to make a system that only caters to one part of the community. The best systems are those that have something for as many different people as possible. Sure not all systems can do that, but I believe the Virtue System can. And maybe, by using this system, a power-gamer just might get introduced to role-playing and give it a try.
Don't laugh; I've witnessed it personally. In the Lake Superior Divided Lands Role-playing Scenario that I ran as a player, we had lots of PvPers join. We encouraged role-playing, but we didn't force it. What wound up happening over time was players who used to post little joke threads, smack talk, and even rap songs on the DL boards, were suddenly writing their character bios and getting heavily involved in the intricate sub-plots. The Divided Lands increased the amount of role-playing on the Lake Superior shard. Maybe by only a little...but by some nonetheless. If one wants more role-playing in UO...then making a system that ONLY role-players would enjoy or use will *never* achieve that.
-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
Designer, Ongoing Content
a wizard did it
Good stuff. I'm glad that someone at OSI actually read the essay and responded to it. It's good to know that they're listening to what players have to say.
Cya later. |
^ top-Priceless
[Nieves] October 11 - 12:20 AM EDT | Sometimes, when you play with fire, you get burned.
I guess the flag showed him huh?
Hasta. |
^ top-Absolutely Beautiful
[Nieves] October 10 - 10:58 PM EDT | If you haven't seen it yet, go to Dwarven Forge.com and check them out.
Those folks have got some of the most detailed and beautifully designed dungeon setups for miniature gaming I have ever seen. And know what's even better? They come in "pieces" so you can interchange them. There is no assembly or paintion required. You do have to create your own dungeons, but that's the point of their product line.
Check em out and send Dwarven Forge.com some love.
Hasta. |
^ top-The Confession.
[Eric] October 10 - 10:12 PM EDT | Well, you haven't seen me around lately, and I suppose there is a good reason for that. *coughDIABLO2cough* Yes, I know, it's pathetic. I spent $70 on the Collector's Edition (pre-ordered) and only played it for 2 weeks. (This was back months ago when the game came out.) That really didn't feel too good considering I could have spent that money for 7 more months of UO. (During my period of Diablo 2 playing, I neglected to log onto UO except for house refreshings.) So, I was bored Friday afternoon and caught a glimpse of my D2 CD in my desk drawer. "What the hell, I'll give it another shot." One hour later, I find myself addicted to the game. That's pretty much where I am at right now, but I'm sure once I beat Diablo, I'll be back to the UO mind-set.
Anyways, I might as well copy & paste to you some news before I get back to my Diablo slaying. Here are some bugs that will be fixed in next week's scenario publish...
* Unreachable generator panels - this will fix all existing panels as well.
* Young players using control panels - since young players don't get damaged they will no longer be able to use the control panels
* Controller fame - lowered to be in keeping with their difficulty
* Arcane gem recharge - anyone, regardless of tailoring skill will be able to rechrage arcane items. GM tailors will be able to recharge them to 100% capacity, nonGMs will only be able to recharge them to 80% of their maximum.
* Arcane Controller clothing - Clothing worn by controllers will autotmatically delete when the controller dies.
* Cant use arcane gems on blessed items - this will keep people from losing their blessed items
* Null string errors - server localization text (such as barkeepers and arcane clothing) will no longer give null string errors
And as far as an "anti-virtue" system goes...
No plans to make an anti-virtue system at this time. No real benefit to the game for giving rewards to greedy or decietful characters. ;)
Damn. Anyways, I'll try and keep up with the latest news for UO while fulfilling my addiction to Diablo 2.
Cya later. |
^ top-Runic hammers and factions!
[Phazer] October 10 - 7:50 PM EDT | According to some players runic smith hammers can be used to craft faction weapons. This means it will be "blessed" for 21 days at the cost of 1000 silver. A exceptional weapon (+20% damage) plus vanq (+9) plus (possibly) an accuracy/durablity bonus plus unlootable = UBER!
"How did you get a runic hammer?"
I asked someone with 3 of them and he gave it to me, along with 250 valorite ingots....
"did you get all the pieces by yourself?"
No, but it should be fairly easy to get all the deeds for a large order via Tradespot...
"Did you faction 'bless' the weapons?"
Yes I did. I actually did about 6 of them....
But it was a bug being able to make Indestrctable/Supremely Acc/Vanq items. I believe it was fixed yesterday on Test.
Now, a hammer that can make Indest/SupAcc/Vanq weapons wouldn't really have bothered me. However a hammer that can make BLESSED vanq's is definately a LOT more interesting.
As much as I would love to PvP with blessed vanquishing weapons, I don't think you should be able to craft faction weapons with runic smith hammers.
I fight people with vanqs all the time. Usually axers with vanq axes, sometimes maces with vanq war hammers or qstaves. Once you kill them (and they do die just as much as everyone else in factions) they have to either play with a normal weapon or risk another vanq.
Once the weapons become blessed though it gets really unbalanced. Players don't have to worry about losing their weapon and can be a lot more aggressive. They also can simply res and run back into the fight with a vanq weapon (even if they are in faction stat loss they can still be VERY effective.)
It doesn't directly affect PvM since it's next to impossible to die AND not get back to your corpse in time. However you probably will see more players joining factions not to pvp but only to be able to use faction blessed vanqs.
I'm hoping this is only a bug/oversight but if this is patched the way it currently works on test center it will be just as dangerous as item bless deeds. |
^ top-Runic Hammer Vanq Weapon Better than Magic Vanquishing
[Nieves] October 10 - 7:22 PM EDT | The impact is negligible. We're talking maybe 4-8 players to get one hammer (capable of making vanquishing items) in a year (per shard). That's only an influx of around 400 vanquishing weapons over the course of a year. There are more vanquishing weapons made in a single week through loot.
Craftable weapons are slightly better than regular vanquishing weapons, if they're made with exceptional quality.
Runic Hammers are harder to get than other hammers. The particular hammer that can make vanquishing items is going to be extremely hard to get on production shards. Since we're testing these rewards on the test center, they're slightly easier to get (although, I haven't seen anyone get one yet). Once on live shards, we expect to see one once every two to four months
UPDATE: I am told it's more like once a year, not once every 2-4 months.
NO, I didn't list it in order because I am in the middle of doing something at home, but I found this on Stratics.
All I can is: JEESUZ FREAKING CRUST! SAY HELLO TO THE NEW UBER RARE!
EverQuest anyone?
Hasta. |
^ top-You Roxxorz My Heart!
[Phazer] October 10 - 7:15 PM EDT | Wedding Deeds are in concept! The deeds are fully automated ("Please click on your desired spouse") and wedding rings as well as wine and goblets are created should the other person accept.
Big problem: "There is currently not a way to become divorced." I know at least one person who has 'married'/'divorced' at least three times =P
Now if they could make these deeds also spawn some smurfs and create some sparkles it weddings would be just like they used to be ;')
-phazer |
^ top- Corruption of the Virtues -- An Essay
[Nieves] October 10 - 6:42 PM EDT | Lord British defined three principles, Love, Truth, and Courage, which he would later combine and reform into the eight virtues. The first three virtues come directly from their father principles: from Love comes compassion, from Truth springs honesty, and from Courage arises valor. Three more virtues come from the combination of principles: from Truth and Courage come Justice and Honor, and Sacrifice is created from the combination of Courage and Love. Finally, in Spirituality is found elements of all three. In the absence of these seven virtues arises the vice of Pride, the opposite
of which is the final and most important virtue, that of Humility.
These virtues were, in Ultima lore, incarnated into the form of the Avatar – the embodiment of good, the protector of Britannia, the savior of the people against those that would destroy them, be it Mondain, Minax, Exodus, the Guardian, and others.
Now, we have Ultima Online, a game that has historically shamed Ultima lore time and time again. Those of us who have played for a great while would know the shameful habits of those that called themselves “Great Lords” and aligned themselves as virtue guards. Virtue guards? This writer is firmly convinced that not one of them could name a virtue from memory, let alone all eight. Those of us steeped in Ultima lore could only shake our heads in sorrow as the name of the virtues was corrupted into a game mechanic that
allowed certain “Great” people to exploit others.
Since that time, Ultima Online has strayed further and further from the history, personality, and spirit of the Ultima games. So far, in fact, that it can barely be called an Ultima. Witness the “Second Age” lands and the dungeons therein. Observe the land called “Ilshenar”, which sounds more like a Tolkien derivative than a land that should be encompassed under the name Ultima. Both these lands could have been designed to fit within the realm of Ultima’s history, even if you ignore the blatant disregard for the Ultima
timeline that Ultima Online has shown. For example, Ilshenar could have been made into the Serpent Isle. For all most of the Ultima Online players know, it wouldn’t have made a difference.
Almost four years into the game’s inception, the Virtues are finally playing a part in the game mechanics of Ultima Online. The central tenet of the Ultima mythos during the Age of Enlightenment and the Age of the Guardian has been completely ignored up to this point, save for a few locations around the world which have little, if any, impact on the game. (What little impact they do have is not related to the virtues themselves in any way.)
Yet, one only has to merely glance at the surface of the new “Virtue System” to see many flaws; flaws that not only have potentially disastrous consequences on the game environment, but also more importantly, in this writer’s mind, fly in the face of what the Virtues themselves represent.
(The way in which “powergaming” templates such as tamers and bards, coupled with those who have significant advantages in the amount of time available, can “mine” virtue points is beyond the scope of this article. I will mention one thing, however, and that is how the Ultima Online dev team contradicts itself by implementing systems which cater to players with little time, such as GGS, with systems such as this which are oriented towards spending as much time as possible in game.)
The first breach lies in the order in which the virtues are implemented, which implies somewhat a disregard for the foundation of the Virtues and the principles they represent. Humility, as mentioned above, is the paramount virtue. Humility is the direct opposite of the vice of Pride, which exists in the absence of all remaining virtues. Therefore, humility cannot exist without its seven predecessors. Yet, humility is one of two virtues to be implemented first! This is an obvious indication that the virtues will still
mean very little outside of a game mechanic, and they certainly won’t be related to each other, as they should. It seems a pittance now to bring up the fact that sacrifice is derived from two principles, and should be implemented after the virtues which are fathered by only one.
How, exactly, does this make any sense? A player may gain “level 10” virtue in sacrifice, yet be totally inept and barren in compassion. Compassion, as we’ve seen, is directly sprung from love, and is therefore a precursor to sacrifice (which also relies on Courage). Yet, doubtless, we will see sacrifice long before compassion is implemented.
Furthermore, this writer finds it somewhat disparate that a supposedly
“in-character” mechanic is represented with a counter such as “level X”.
Gaining “levels” (groan) in virtues nets the player additional points in statistics. All avenues were explored, but no connection was made between humility allowing players to become stronger, wiser, and more dexterous.
It is difficult to see the line drawn between being exceptionally
compassionate, and becoming stronger, so that one can inflict more damage upon a target. One has trouble in seeing the parallel between being honorable, and having more health so that one can escape from death easier. How humble is it, O great Virtuous One, to be the party leader? “Let me command thee, young ones! My great humility has made me strong!” It is hard not to laugh.
It is maddening to see a virtue such as compassion potentially being used by player killers to improve their chances of preying on the weak, and not for something that remotely resembles the virtue of compassion.
Finally, with one last breach of poor, beleaguered, humility, we have the apogee of virtuousness: the renowned and revered title “The Virtuous Sir KiLLaH.” Yes, let us proclaim our great and humble nature with something that can only become a status symbol! Meanwhile, such an obviously developed character sits upon his black nightmare, dragons in tow, heaps and heaps of gold in his bank, watching the poor and less fortunate scamper to and fro,
trying to earn a living, with nary a second (better yet, first) thought of helping them out. Even though he has “level 10” sacrifice. And “level 10” compassion. And “level 10” humility. Oh, and how valorous he must be to use his noble dragons (posthumously named “a” and “b”) to kill the droves of monsters that are responsible for such a virtuous title.
- Nocturnal of Pacific
Now that's a mouth full.
Hasta |
^ top-Great Lakes and Oceania Revert
[Nissa] October 10 - 5:51 PM EDT | Due to an issue with the latest publish that became active this morning on the Great Lakes and Oceania shards, the prices of items sold on player vendors may have been reset to their default values. Because of the seriousness of this issue, it is necessary to revert the Great Lakes and Oceania shards to a previous backup made at approximately 7:00 AM CDT.
It is always a difficult decision to make when confronted with the possibility of reverting a shard; however, we feel the damage that could be avoided by reverting these two shards far outweighs the inconvenience involved with taking this course of action. We apologize for the necessity of this interruption and any inconvenience it may cause.
Wow, that is a big screw up. Glad they caught it early. It could have been a nasty one. |
^ top-UO News Evening Report
[Nieves] October 9 - 8:24 PM EDT | We are targeting to make three new updates, including Commodity Trading Deeds, Secure House Trading, and Service Repair Contracts, live on the Oceania and Great Lakes shards after their scheduled maintenance periods Wednesday morning (local server time). Barring any unforeseen issues, these changes should be made live on the East Coast, West Coast, and Central shards after their morning maintenance periods on Thursday, local server time. The remaining shards should see these changes live following their Friday morning maintenance periods (local server time). Information on these updates can be found in Testing for the Next Update.
Aw yeah, I get to play with my smith. Come one come all, get some elite Armani ARMOR! WoOT!
Also:
It'll still be far far easier to get the "superweapons" by adventuring, fishing, or treasure hunting (probably by a magnitude of 100 to 1). So, I'm really unclear as to why there is a belief that pvp'ers will only pvp with a valorite or verite weapon (there is an extremely steep dropoff in power as you progress down the ore types). Would you be willing to invest the time it takes to get about 100 vanquishing weapons to re-equip yourself each time you lost one of these items?
Oh how lame. GM weapons for me thank you.
I expect players won't be willing to do so, and will accept the fact that it isn't worth an extremely disproportionate time investment in order to gain a marginal advantage over using other high-end magic weapons. The weapons produced by verite/valorite runic hammers will almost certainly be used "for show" or in low-danger situations by the few players that own them.
Isn't that the freaking truth.
And finally:
Customer Service Employee Terminated
On Monday, October 8th, Origin Systems (OSI) was alerted to the possible misconduct of an individual employed within the GM Support Department. Upon investigation, OSI found reason to believe that this employee was engaging in activities that breached the trust that must exist between a company, its employees, and its customers. The decision by OSI management in this case was immediate dismissal.
Pheel it.
My only question is, did his account get banned too?
Hasta. |
^ top-Thank You
[Nieves] October 9 - 7:37 PM EDT | To those that have purchased items from the UOPG Store. It's TRULY appreciated it. That money is going to help cover my hosting costs.
If you haven't noticed, other sites are taking donations to cover their costs. I personally don't like taking your money for without putting something 'substantial' into your hands you can use.
Granted, alot of you feel you get plenty of substantial items (information/entertainment) from UOPG but, to me it's not the same. If you are going to send me money, I want to put something in your hands so you can use it on a daily basis (if a T Shirt, please wash it).
With that said, I have added a hardware link for your Computer Hardware needs and a few new titles to the UOPG Store. These include Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies Pre Order, Pre Order Tekken 4, some discounted software games and Console Game Cardridges, and the some new Dungeons and Dragons sourcebooks and material.
Listed is the new Oriental Adventures (OA) source book. IT IS AWESOME! It features all of your old favorites including the Shukenja and Kensai (my personal favorite of all the OA classes). On top of that, it features rules and background for playing a campaign in the Legends of the 5 Rings world. If you have ever played the card game, you will know it's history and background. I was STOKED when it got bought for me. People love me :)
Give yourself some love.
Hasta. |
^ top-New Stuff From OSI
[Nieves] October 9 - 10:02 AM EDT | Let's see, Adrick is looking into "fixing" the stamina bug with horses. Um...I thought a fix was on a test center already?
The crafting changes are in general testing. Expect it next week. Unless it needs to be reverted due to some bug that was missed.
And then they are looking into making the Virtues a part of the game. Sort of like karma/fame thing but different.
From what I am reading it gives you special powers/abilities.
Like getting your stuff (no loot) so many times a day or something.
Can you tell this is important to me? For those that feel it's important, go give Xena some love and check UOStratics out.
Someone want to fix UO3D for me? I will really be impressed then. Ok, the Blacksmith Order thing sounds cool cause I like making armor and weapons. You know, so I can beat people up with them.
Hasta. |
^ top-Adam Ant Rejoices
[Nieves] October 8 - 9:55 PM EDT | Guardians,
I do not have all the details, but there is something wonderful happening across our land.
The lich have begun their reincarnation and are returning to Sosaria in great numbers!!
I do not know how this is happening, but it is what we have been waiting for…
I have been called away to confer with the lich elders, and I will report back soon.
--------------------
Lord Guardian,
Adam Ant
Ruh Roh. U guys are in deep doo doo now....
Check out what Adam is doing, and saying about the Return of his evil brethren.
Hasta |
^ top-In Case You Don't Already Know...
[Nieves] October 8 - 4:07 PM EDT | Having high-GM lockpicking allows you to get a bonus to completing the circuit on the I-shockyou-thingamajigs. Thanks to B for getting me this info. over the weekend.
Also, if you use a Gem on a blessed item, it will lose it's blessing because it's new "state" replaces it's old "state". In other words, the blessing gets replaced with the Arcane ability. Catlyn on Pacific gave me a full set of clothing for my Med-Warrior (didn't know I was there did yah kitties!? MUHUAHAHAHA!) and it works fairly well.
Other than the lame cape (lag anyone?) the charges work fairly well. A friend of mine was upset that this would create "no-loot" mages (80 charges max anyone?). Me? I like it. It allows you to keep casting if you are running out of regs or a thief takes your 'stuffesed'. Too bad they can't be blessed, but beggers can't be choosers right?
Also, the potential of this for a PK Mage is incredible. If you die, you lose your clothing. So? You can make more easily enough. Go in, beat a "target" down fast, loot, get out. And you can carry more (regs can get heavy you know?). Anyway, you can see where I am going with this.
I got a lead on the scenario from a certain little ant over the weekend. Now, if that ant would see about getting my sign-on name "approved" and give me my password to that board, I can get logged on and look at it (hey, I emailed you on Friday, you didn't reply so...).
Get my logon approved Biyotches!
As soon as I do, I will post it.
Supposedly, Calyndryll is going to be adding more "Ultima" to the game. I wouldn't know much about Ultima fiction as I never played any of the games but Ultima: Pagan. And I hated fucking dieing to those guards and their halleys. Bastards.
Someone made some pretty cool comments about Ultima Online over the weekend:
[...] It is a sad testament to the second generation of MMOGs that UO still has the most in-depth and effective systems for avoiding the leveling monotony.
UO had the right idea. Create a world, give the world certain tools with which the playerbase could be creative with, and let the world evolve with the evolution of the players. Right now, too many games depend on the evolution stream that the devs dictate. “You will level. When you’re this level, you’ll do this. When you reach this level, you will get this loot, and you will fight these monsters. Then, you’ll go over here and do this. You have no choice. This is just what you do.”
[...]
Where is the freedom? Where is the choice? Where is the opportunity to let the players become creative and flesh out the online world in ways the devs could never dream of?
Well, that world is still in UO.
Worship us.
Hasta. |
^ top-Additions
[Nieves] October 7 - 3:26 PM EDT | Welp, after getting off my lazy ass, I added Phazer's Poisoning and Peacemaking Essays. Additionally, Gator's 8x8 Essay has been added.
You can find the Peacemaking and Poisoning Essays in the Skills Section and the 8x8 Essay in the list on the menu bar above under Stats and Skills.
Enjoy.
Hasta. |
^ top-Battle Vortex Temporary Board.
[Nieves] October 5 - 7:11 PM EDT | Go here and check out their temporary board.
Then tell Fear to get his website back up dammit.
Hasta. |
^ top-T Shirt Update
[Nieves] October 5 - 3:40 PM EDT | Well fuck.
I just got off the phone with the Sales Manager at the company I am purchasing the shirts from.
It seems that my saleswoman's last day was last Friday with the company. Of course, she neglected to let them know about my order.
Normally it takes 10 days to finish the T Shirts. He's going to push it through so that it takes 1/2 the time to get it done.
If this takes longer than a reasonable amount of time to get done, trust that everyone that has paid me WILL get their money reimbursed.
I apologize for the inconvenience.
Hasta. |
^ top-How to Log Using mIRC
[Nieves] October 5 - 1:25 PM EDT | How to log using mIRC
Well.. here we are again, talking about logging..
You can do this in a couple of ways.
Method #1:
1) Open the Options secion (the icon with a folder and hammer)
2) If IRC is not expanded, click on the + and expand it.
3) Go to Logging
Now.. you can configure how your logging is done. Here are your options:
- Automatically log - Chose to have mIRC log channels or chats that you're in, or both.
- Strip codes - This will strip any Bold, Underline, Reverse, or Color control codes from text that is being logged to a file.
- Lock log files - I didn't touch this.. basically, this will lock the file so that you can't open it and view it while it's logging.
- Trim log files - I wouldn't advise to check this. This will cause the file to do a 'rotation' log, so the file is never larger than the size you specify in kb.
- Timestamp logs - It will add a timstamp to each line in the log.
- Include network - Turn this on if you want the name of the irc network included in the log.
- Date filenames - The file name created will have a prefix of the current date. This helps when you're sorting through the files. You can chose, day, week or month. I use day.
- Except Status - Just telling mIRC not to have the status log time stamped.
- Log and Buffers folder - Where you want to save the logs.
Method #2:
You don't wish to save your logs by default. You just want to save the logs of whatever chat or channel you are currently interested in, but might not be interested in at another time. Well.. do the following:
1) left click on the upper left corner of the chat or channel window (in the icon).
2) Click Logging.
3) You will be prompted for a name.
4) pick the path you wish, and give the file a name.
When done, you should receive a message:
* Logging #bda-ultrinn to 'logs\'
Note: You -have- to do this at the beginning of when you want the logging to start. It will keep logging until you close that session, or you do the above steps again and turn off logging.
Thanks again Lady Alana.
Hasta |
^ top-How to Log Your UO Journal
[Nieves] October 5 - 1:23 PM EDT | How to log your UO journal
First of all, you need to realize that the UO Journal will not seperate days. You can, however, set it up for each char so the log is seperate in that way. The journal, will appaend to itself, growing endlessly. If you don't rename it yourself daily, it can grow to an amazingly large size.
In order to save your UO Journal, you need to edit your UO.CFG file. If you edit the one in each char's folder and give each a different path and/or name, then you have a seperate journal for each.
***
Here is what you should edit in your UO.CFG file:
journalsavefile=D Program Files\Ultima Online\Logs\Great Lakes\UOLogs-Alana.txt
SaveJournal=on
***
You have to have the path already created, UO won't create that for you. And, I'd create a blank text file with the name of your file. UO doesn't always create this file as it should. You can do this with notepad. Just open it and save it blank. Give it the name of the file you're going to use. In my example, it would be: UOLogs-Alana.txt.
If you're not going to change the name of the file each day, you need to realize that eventually you won't be able to open the file with notepad, because it grows very large. You can use wordpad or a text editor that handles large sized files (Which is what I do, and I rename the files every few days).
There's also the option of downloading UOJournal. It's found on the stratics site, under the Utilities & Tools section, under Journal converter.
This allows you to convert your UO log file (this huge text file), into seperate files. So, you start UOJC, and set it up. It will start UO or UOA for you (if you tell it where the executables are in the setup). And before UO is started (or you can run it and chose not to start UO), It will convert your UO Journal into an easier reading text file, allowing you to filter out 'noise', like the repeated, "You see xyz". And, you can have it conver the file into HTML format, with certain colors for certain things.
Thanks to Lady Alana.
Hasta. |
^ top-Why Neverwinter Nights Kicks Ass
[Nieves] October 5 - 11:28 AM EDT | 1.07 Will I have to pay a monthly fee to play Neverwinter Nights?
No. As with the Baldur’s Gate series, we will be charging no monthly fee to play the retail version of Neverwinter Nights online.
1.09 Do I need a Dungeon Master in order to play Neverwinter Nights?
Not at all. The Neverwinter Nights Official Campaign will be fully functional with or without a Dungeon Master. We cannot promise anything with regards to player-created modules but we intend to build the Neverwinter Toolset in such a way that encourages modules suitable for both forms of play.
2.03
[...]the areas you can create using our tilesets have no real bounds. They will include everything necessary to create the area surrounding Neverwinter, including urban centers, forest and grassland terrain, numerous types of dungeons, good and evil castles, rural hamlets, and vast subterranean caverns. We hope to make further tilesets available following our initial release.
2.05 What about dragons?
We are using the new 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons ruleset. As such, there will be dungeons and there will certainly be dragons. We intend to make them among the most impressive creatures to ever grace your monitor.
3.01 How many different races and classes can I play?
In full accordance with the 3rd Edition D&D rules, Neverwinter Nights allows you to play any combination of 7 races and 11 classes. Aside from the traditional Humans, Elves, Half-Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Halflings, you can also play the powerful new Half-Orc. Wizards, Priests, Paladins, Druids, Rangers, Fighters, Rogues, and Bards abound but are they any match for the new Sorcerer, Barbarian, and Monk classes? We’ll leave you to find out.
3.02 What method will be used to determine my character’s core statistics?
The official method of ability score generation in Neverwinter Nights will be the ‘Standard Point Buy’ system outlined in the 3rd Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide. In this system, you use a defined amount of points to purchase your ability scores, with the price increasing significantly towards the higher ranges. This results in a fair and balanced play environment, something that we consider very important for a multiplayer game of this nature. However, there may still be some cases, such as solo play, a homegrown campaign, or a fan-created persistent world, where alternative methods of generating ability scores might be desired. While doing so jeopardizes the official standing of the altered character and may limit some of that character’s portability to other servers, the option will still be there for those who want to make use of it.
3.04 What is the limit for multiclassing?
We will be limiting characters to a maximum of three classes. The primary reason for this is to keep the interface clean, easy to understand, and easy to use. Also, with the way the 3rd Edition rules are structured, characters having more than 3 classes find it increasingly difficult to progress and keep up with their peers.3.05 Can I play evil characters?
Yes. When creating your characters, you can choose from any of the nine traditional D&D alignments. We leave the choices between law and chaos, good and evil, in your hands.
3.06 Can my character wield two weapons at the same time?
Yes. In accordance with the 3rd Edition rules, wielding a second weapon adds one extra attack per round and is a skill that must be learned. In order to enhance the excitement of combat, we are also implementing a variety of special combat abilities including the ability to parry attacks, make called shots, and disarm your opponents. Not only do these inclusions better represent the new D&D ruleset, they also make playing a high-level fighter or thief an even more enjoyable and intriguing experience.
Do I really need to go on?
Go read about it.
Note: for those that have read the FAQ already, read it again...it's been updated.
Hasta. |
^ top-Bits and pieces of tonight's HOC chat.
[Eric] October 4 - 11:48 PM EDT | There are a few pieces of interesting information from tonight's chat, so I'll post information of interest and comment as necessary.
Glamdring - *Sub_Zero* With the responses recieved thus far--does it look likely that the new house decay system will some time be implemented onto production shards?
Evocare - it's still a strong possibility
Sweet. I'm lazy when it comes to refreshing houses, and this will most certainly raise the prices of houses. With all of the IDOCs (becoming fallen houses usually), so many houses are being placed and sold to a point where you can get some houses (Felucca usually) for extremely cheap. It'd be a good change in the UO economy, in my opinion. And to go further with the new house decay idea...
Glamdring - *Draegon* Why are you planning on putting in Auto-Refresh when you know it will destroy a huge market for peoples income and will make house prices 10x as expensive as they already are, making it near impossible for a new player to get a home.
Evocare - Well, it already is pretty much impossible for the new players to get houses out from under the IDOC campers right? The bottom line, though, is that we'd like to move toward positive methods of housing churn rather then negative.
Very good point, Evocare. And for those of you who are really into OSI's scenarios...
Glamdring - *Aleph* Will there be more fiction around Ultima Prime characters in future scenarios?
Calandryll_OSI - Yes. Can't say who or when though of course.
Changing subjects...horse stamina:
Glamdring - *Banana* What is horse stamina intended to be, in terms of number of screens ridden before a horse fatigues? And a war horse, compared to this?
Adrick-OSI - hmmm avg for a horse is brit bank to almost near the pass to the west - thats on a fairly good connection
Adrick-OSI - War horses have 3-4 times the stamina of a regular horse
And lol, here's a good question from Xena Dragon:
Glamdring - *XenaDragon* Can you give me a good use of the herding skill? Or in other words; will it ever be a useful skill?
Evocare - And ruin a perfectly good "rp skill"?
Evocare - Honestly, there are no plans for Herding right now. =[
Damn. Anyway, if you want to read the parts of tonight's HOC chat that I've left out (I did leave out a considerable amount), go check it out.
Goodnight. |
^ top-So far, The New Scenario Sucks
[Nieves] October 4 - 7:11 PM EDT | And here is why:
Follow me for a bit. You have to kill the generators to kill the spawn right? And the spawned monsters have those cool little Arcane Gems that allow you to make clothing with 20 charges (at GM tailoring) of spell "power". So why the fuck would you want to kill the spawn?
In 15 minutes, I pulled 4 Arcane Gems, 150 ingots, and 1900 gold. Who gives a shit about what would happen if I kill that generator?
I keep saying this over and over and over. Give me Quests/Scenarios with CONTENT! NOT EYE CANDY!
Ok, let me back up.
The results of this scenario might make PvP interesting. Why? If a thief steals your regs, so what. Blast him with 20 charges of spells till he/she is dead (if it's not a Moongate Thief).
Plus, A mage won't have to worry as much about running out of regs. Use the Arcane Clothing and keep plenty of charges on you.
Also, from what I understand you can recharge your Arcane Clothing. Neat huh?
Note: As of right now, you can't bless Arcane Clothing. My question is, can you use the Gems on the Vet Rewards cloaks/robes? Anyone? Anyone?
Monster Info:
The Golems die to 4-6 Blade Spirits (if you get them down fast enough). The Mage dies to Explosion+Ebolt+Ebolt.
Golem has ingots, some gears, and sometimes a Gem.
Mage always has a Gem, some crumpled up clothing, and 200-350 gold.
Now, where was I...?
Oh yeah, the Scenario sucks.
What's the point in killing Generators if it's going to stop the cool ass Gems from spawning along with the monsters?
I hope Calyndryll is reading this.
There has to be a serious consequence for not destroying the Generator. I say spawn a Big Ass Poison Mud Elemental that moves fast as hell and kills everyone in the area with a Paralyaze+Poison+50point per hit attack if the monsters "respawn" 5 times. If that doesn't stop them, next time, Spawn 2, then 3....
Really make it worth while to kill the generators.
Because right now, there is no point in it.
UPDATE: you cannot turn magic or store bought items into arcane ones, they must be exceptional player made
Thanks B.
Hey Watts, got that copy of DAoC ready for me?
Hasta. |
^ top-More info. coming your way.
[Eric] October 4 - 5:02 PM EDT | From my e-mail box today:
Trying to kill a Golem right now. Looks like a silver/grey earth elemental. When it hits you.. it's stunns you and says "You have been hit with a collosal blow!" did 45 points of damage to me in one blow (Unarmored) still trying to kill it.. more in a few.
Tinkermaster
More from Tinkermaster...
Finally killed one (two actually)
Ever see an energy vortex die? It did, 3 times. That's how many it took for me to kill the first one (Corp pors did very little damage) (Second golem took two EV's)
For loot it gives:
Ingots 25 and 12
An arcane Gem. (Both) (Looks like an over glorified ring to me)
Think I found some mages as well. I'll keep ya posted.
Thanks Tinkermaster for the info. :) And in addition to the info. Nieves posted earlier about the arcane clothing:
About the new gems:
My tailor is ... well awful (79.6) and he can make these new cloaks and such but it turns out 15 charges instead of the 20 reported. I guess this means skill matters. Not only that but it says his name as if he were a GM (only after he uses the gem on the clothes) Plus, the gems can only be used on exeptional clothing.
Stucky Sloan, Catskills Merchant
Thanks Stucky for the extra information. And thanks to everyone else who sent in their findings on the new scenario. If you find additional info. to what has been posted here on the front page, feel free to let me know. As always, we will keep you posted with the latest information.
Cya later. |
^ top-It's a beautiful day
[Epyon] October 4 - 2:36 PM EDT | Yes indeed.
Of course im not speaking of the weather here in the Upper Peninsula, im referring to the song by U2. This is one of the few songs I never tire of.
I moved a million over from Drachenfels to Catskills yesterday and the guy wanted to meet at the west Brit bank on Trammel. Upon recalling there I see columns upon columns of spam of people selling this or that. I noticed Vas standing talking to someone so I drop him the funds that he lent me to start Domon out, and we tried to have a conversation but it didn't work out to well.
Here is a good example, with the interrupting words in located within the brackets []
Me: Hey how’s it go[NIGHTMARE 4 SALE, MAKE OFER!!!!!]as?
Vas: Hey what’s up, been bu[L00K IN PROFIL FOR WEPONS!!!]?
Me: Damn, a lot of sp[SOME1 PLZ GIVE ME REGS] here.
You get the point.
I think that there should be some sort of limitations on how long you can sit in the area of the bank. Throw up some "No Loitering" signs and enforce it with the useless Trammel town guards. I realize that its primetime for a evening night but that was one of the biggest advertisements on why NOT to go to town. Give me Vesper on Fel any day, I can pretty much say that it will not be blocked by some Lord Pluto, Expert Ranger type person.
Oh well, at least in the meantime while I wait for that, I have some models to build.
|
^ top-A Little Bit More Information On The New Scenario
[Nieves] October 4 - 2:26 PM EDT | Howdy, I was off work this morning and did some extensive
exploration of the new scenario additions, and since I'm a big supporter of the 'information at your fingertips' mentality, I
figured I'd toss some info your way regarding the golems and controllers.
First off, the power generators/controllers/golems appear to be spawning at various locations in the forests of the old lands, both trammel and felluca.
The golems are tough mothers, hitting quite well and also have a chance to stun you with a hit. They have a large amount and hp out the ass, it's not even worth it to try to combo them to death. They also cannot be provoked, and you CANNOT tell your tames to attack them. They will flat out refuse. They WILL, however, attack your pets if there is nothing else around to attack (i.e. you're invised), but make sure you have your vet and baids ready. Their loot is piss-poor, consisting of ingots and or and what not, occasionally arcane gems.
The controllers are quite a bit easier to deal with, they can be provoked and can have tames used on them. They are a bit more resiliant than evil mage npc's, more on the level of evil mage lords. They can easily be comboed or meleed to death, but they like to cast eb and fs rather frequently.
Their loot consists of a set of arcane gear that will crumble when looted, and about 300 gold and an arcane gem.
The power generators contain a bit of a maze/like test when double clicked, which asks for you to choose 1 direction to move in order to reach the red square in the lower left corner. If you pick a wrong direction, you get zapped for about 75 points of damage and recieve about 25 more points of damage over roughly 10 seconds.
NOTE: when you get zapped by the initial 75 you will be stunned and not able to heal, so make sure you have a buddy there to heal you until it's worn off. When you get zapped you will have to start over. The power generators come in 2 different types that I have seen, one with a 3x3 grid which is quite easy, and one with a 9x9 grid, which is quite difficult. The reward from the 3x3 grid is 3 arcane gems, the reward for the 9x9 grid is 8 arcane gems from what my friend who did them told me. Once solved the generator will dissapear, leaving roughly 30 shadow iron ore. I believe you also get some diamonds and assorted other gems when you solve the generator. Once the generator has been destroyed, no more golems or controllers will spawn in that area, and I theorize that the spawn will move to another random location in the woods.
This was done I believe to cut down on the camper factor made so famous in the orc scenario.
Now to the part everyone is interested in - the arcane gear. The arcane gems can be used by a tailor of high level on one of the following items
- leather gloves, cape, robe, thigh boots.
Once used on it the item will turn into an arcane version of the item with 20 charges. This can be dyed and has the properties of the normal item, with 1 exception. This is the big one that not many ppl know about and I'll clue ya in on the secret : when you have no regs ou can continue to cast magic while wearing an arcane item. The spell will deduct an amount of charges from the arcane item equal to the circle of spell it is, i.e. greater heal would leave you with 16 out of 20 charges remaining. Not many people know about this, enjoy!
If theres something I forgot to include I'll send it your way, but these are just my preliminary findings. Have fun.
-Omega
Here is what I would like: Someone out there to test these Arcane sets of clothing out in PvP. See what type of damage you can deal and if it's decent enough for PvP.
Also, I would like to know if it gives you a message as to how many charges have been used and how many are left (of if you have to single click to know).
Also, has anyone been to the new city in Ilshenar? What are those monsters like?
Please keep the information flowing.
Hasta. |
^ top-Controllers
[Nieves] October 4 - 2:14 PM EDT | From email:
A friend and I were able to find a control spire pretty quickly and fought golems and controllers for a while. Here's the results:
1) Golems are incredibly tough. They have awesome resist, and deal "colossal blows" (which paralyzes you and removes a good amount of stamina), after which you "recover your senses" and can move again. Their loot is some ingots, 2 gems, 1 arcane gem, and some gears. So, in my estimation, it's not really worth fighting them as they can take a good chunk out of a fighter or a mage.
2) Controllers, on the other hand, are moderately more worthwhile to fight. They have the same gold as a lich (200-300), 1 arcane gem, and their "arcane clothing" (robe, boots, cloak, leather gloves). You can't pick these up, as they "crumble". Melee seems to be pretty ineffective against controllers, but they have about the same resist, magery, and health as a lich. (An explosion/ebolt will put them close to death).
3) Arcane gems allow tailors to use an arcane gem and then select an article of clothing, which gives it the title "an arcane [clothing], 20/20 charges" and makes it the same orange color as the controllers' clothing. These charges allow you to cast spells without regs. The number of charges it takes is equal to the circle, so an ebolt would take 6 charges. Once the charges are gone, the clothing turns white (or possibly the color it was before it was made "arcane"), but it still says "an arcane [clothing]".
For some reason, you can't dye "reverted" arcane clothing, but you can dye clothing with charges.
4) The control spire works as follows. It brings up a menu similar to the puzzle chest menu. On the right, there is a panel with up, down, left, and right arrows, which navigate your "charge" in those directions. The charge begins in the upper left corner of a 4x4 grid, and you have to get it to the lower right. Each wrong move nets you a lightning bolt which does a whole lot of damage to the person trying to solve it (easily upwards of 80 damage). Once you "solve" the puzzle, the spire is destroyed, leaving behind about 10 shadow ore, and it gives the solver 5 arcane gems. It gives you the message "You scrounge around the wreckage and find some gems" or something like that, the exact wording escapes me.
Now this is "unconfirmed", but I think the longer the spire is around, the heavier the spawn gets. That's what it seemed like, anyway. It started with 1 controller and 2 golems, and by the time we destroyed the spire it was up to 3 controllers and a lot of golems.
Hope this helps,
-Nocturnal KoY
with help from Lan KoY
Free spell casting with the Arcane Clothing?
Oh shit, talk about a boost to Magery in PvP!
Hasta. |
^ top-Got scenario?
[Eric] October 3 - 10:05 PM EDT | You will soon.
The plan right now is to publish the US shards tomorrow morning, so the content will be active after they return from their Thursday morning maintenance. Non-US shards will get the publish after their Friday morning maintenance
Coming soon, guys. My plan is to get you guys the most scenario information possible upon its release so that you'll be ready for action. Since I'm sure OSI has planned different pieces to this scenerio, not all elements will be apparent to everyone right away. This is why I urge you to e-mail me as soon as you have some new information about this new scenario, and I'll post it to the main page.
Where can I look for spawns, you might ask?
It's not one static area. One of the things we got a lot of feedback on was camping problems. So we greatly spread out the spawn for these particular groups of creatures
Woohoo, go OSI. I HATE CAMPERS. They basically ruin the fun for everyone else who wants to play in that area. I think it was a smart move by OSI to spread the spawn as they say they have done. I'm sure we'll find out soon.
Until then, cya. |
^ top-House Decay
[Nieves] October 3 - 6:54 PM EDT | Your houses will be refreshed through the end of the year.
And....well, you got to read it to believe it.
Hasta. |
^ top-For All Those Who Are Creative
[Nissa] October 3 - 5:29 PM EDT | This was posted to FYI.
Seeking Submissions of In-Game Creativity
Pianos made out of cloth.
Roses created from dyed balls of yarn.
A stone temple erected from pillows and bowls.
There is no doubt that Britannia is host to a myriad of creative minds. One only needs to step out of town to witness some of the most inventive uses of mundane game items.
We’d like to showcase some of these artistic endeavors. If you’ve ever created a masterpiece out of miscellaneous items in game, then we want to hear from you! Send us a story about your ingenious invention, or simply share with us the motive behind its creation and the work involved in its making.
Send your story as an e-mail, with a single screenshot attached, to uo-profiles@uo.com by Wednesday, October 10th. Please be sure your story falls between 500-1000 words, and include "My Creation!" in your subject line. The screenshot should be in bitmap format, and 640x480 resolution. Please provide a name and phone number for verification of the story. Submissions to “uo-profiles” become the property of OSI and may be used for special events, promotions, and/or advertising. All submissions must be made by the original author and are subject to verification.
Come on you he-man Powergamers!! Show us your creative side. (I dare you :D ) |
^ top-For the Pen and Paper Gamers
[Nieves] October 3 - 4:53 PM EDT | Check this out.
I found the link in this month's issue of Dragon Magazine.
A quote from Dragon Magazine: The floor-plans come complete with textures, helping the cut-out models look even more dimenstional and realistic.
The mini-article recommends using 160mg paper.
All that's needed is Acrobat Reader, a printer, and some scissors.
Hasta. |
^ top-For those that care...
[Nieves] October 3 - 12:35 PM EDT | There is a good review of Spy Hunter 2 by Epyon (the link is to the right you doh doh). Check it out.
Also, I fixed my Roxanne 2 Bad Guys 2 story (that one is to the left; scroll down a bit).
And for those complaining about the AO link. That is deliberate. That isn't a game, it's a travesty. So the "link not found" is more of a joke that says: "game not found".
Hasta. |
^ top-Scenario Spoilers from HeatherCMG/COBXRGaming
[Nieves] October 3 - 11:08 AM EDT | Summary: Golems and their Controllers start appearing around the lands in Trammel and Felucca. The controllers wear Arcane Clothing, which crumble when removed from their corpse, and they carry Arcane Gems in their loot . With these groups of Golem and Controller are Power Generators. They have a control panel which can be puzzled out by a crafty traveler. When the circuit is completed, the generator disappears and a reward of Arcane Gems is given. Puzzlers beware! the generator will zap you with electric shock if you guess wrong!
There is other information if you want to be "spoiled" by what's coming.
Thanks Gidget for the links.
Hasta. |
^ top-Bulk Order Deed Reward?
[Nieves] October 3 - 9:19 AM EDT | Well, the really cool rewards only come from doing the very rare, very hard-to-pull-off large orders.
Unless ancient smithing hammers that greatly increase your skill (even over 100.0), the ability to make colored weapons (valorite katana, anyone?), and other such goodies don't interest you... ;]
Of course, such rewards are oh so very difficult to obtain... will you be one of the few blacksmiths weilding that telltale valorite smithing hammer?
You want one. Don't you?
Hasta. |
^ top-"Man, That Sucks".
[Nieves] October 2 - 3:55 PM EDT | Easy to say right?
I have gotten plenty of emails lately how such and such game or such and such system "sucks" or is "lame". I like getting email. Really. But when you send me your review of a "product", please tell me WHY it is lame or WHY it sucks. That helps me make a proper determination as to whether or not I will take the time and go out and pick the product up.
Additionally, I have recieved emails and ICQs on how certain games suck because they don't play right or "aren't what you are used to".
Well, are you playing the game within it's ruleset or trying to compare it to older games?
Let me illustrate something.
Tie Fighter was a great game. Within it were different fighters that performed differently. The Tie Bomber absolutely sucked because it was slow and it's weapons systems were lacking. The Tie Intercepter was fast and could deal out decent damage. Problem is, it didn't have any shields. Bleh. The Tie Defender (I believe an add on product to the Tie Fighter game) was the best ship. It had speed, good laser weapons, missiles, and a shield system.
So...let's move on to a game I am playing now. Starfleet Command II. Federation Starships are slow as fuck compared to a Tie Defender (forget about warp engines; we are talking impulse here). I have to wait for my phazers to recharge and/or my photon torpedoes to arm. Annoying. But know what? The game is cool as hell (so far). There is strategy. I have to pick what weapons to fire when (the book says to fire all my weapons on a "pass" but I fire my front weapons when it gets close then fire my aft weapons as it goes behind me). All in all, completely different game with completely different rulesets.
When you pick up a game, even if it's part of a "series", realize there might be completely different "tweaks" that make the game different. Play them game WITHIN that ruleset, then decide if it sucks.
But, if the game has enough problems that causes it's playerbase to log complaints with the better business bureau, that is one I will not play nor support.
Hasta. |
^ top-Why Would You Play This Shit?
[Nieves] October 2 - 12:05 PM EDT | "Based on BBB files, this company has an unsatisfactory record due to unanswered complaints concerning product dissatisfaction. The Bureau processed 13 complaints about this company in the last 12 months. Of all the complaints 11 were resolved and 2 were no response. On 9/6/01 the U.S. Postal Service began returning mail marked "no longer at this address". If you have an unresolved dispute with this company you may wish to seek legal advice."
I will give you one guess what game that is?
Hasta. |
^ top-Bloodmoon's Rebuttal To Rocky's GGS Discussion.
[Nieves] October 2 - 11:39 AM EDT | There are generally two schools of thought on this system and its effects. One believes GGS will revolutionize the way the game functions while the second school of thought believes it will ruin the game. I tend to be a believer in the latter.
He's right you know. It will ruin the game for those of us who enjoy craming all our gains into one hour. Like me since I have school. I don't wanna log on five or six times durning the day to collect all my gains...I wouldn't nor could I. For those who have time coming out the ass I guess this would be acceptable. For me its not. For those who don't care if they ever GM. It is. I don't like it. >_<
First off, with GGS it is going to take 22 days to GM one skill if you work that skill at the apointed time and consistantly get the highest gain possible. To put it in perspective, it is now going to take 88 days do what it currently only takes a week to do: Create a 4x GM dexer.
Umm so? All of the vets have x6 or x7 warriors anyway. So tell me how this is helping newer players. Because they didn't buy UO until after powerhour was done away with they don't get the same benfits as say a two year vet? It doesn't add up. I wont go off into reasons why just think on it.
This patch will demolish all throw away characters, and yes, that includes PKs. No one is going to waste that many hours of gameplay working on a character that is so easily destroyed.
Yes it will. What little there are. No one will can't aruge this point but if someone wants to kill your ass bad enough they will.
Statloss will now set players back weeks instead of mere days. We have become a spoiled society. The life of post trammel has jaded us, and we have forgotten the past.
Statloss is avoidable if the person is smart and shit talks someone enough into attacking.
Most PKs are stupid.
Yes we are a spoiled society. What else is new? We've always wanted the easy life OSI gives it to us and we bitch about that.
Forgotten the past? No, those of us around back then will never forget the past.
However players who start post trammel will never know the hardships of life then.
I'm sure the vets remember what it was like to GM tactics and how excited you could get over that. I myself was overjoyed when I hit the magical 100.0 mark.
Yes and I still am overjoyed when I hit the 100.0 mark....doesn't matter how long it takes me to get there, just getting there makes me feel happy. Whos to say people don't feel the sameway now that they did then? Remember then you could macro, now you can't. :)
So GM means a little more work not time but work. All and all I think it equals out in most cases.
GGS is also going to cut down on the "Illustrious Lord Bob, adept stoic". Also, its going to make the 70/70 bank sitting twinks more rare. Its going to take several days to reach nightmare twink level (NTL). This is one of the few things I like about the Guarenteed Gain System.
Who fucking cares? I don't mean to be an ass but if someone wants to reach 70/70 taming sit in trammel by the bank on his pure mare in full daemonbone armor holding his ice staff talking shit all day let him.
Fame is pointless, it lost all meaning with the coming of trammel!
I wont go off on how broken taming is, lots of things need to be done to the skill to fix it but this isn't the place to list them.
The currently hard skills, such as provoke, are going to become even more difficult. I do think OSI needs to diminish stat loss or at least reduce it. This truely may be the final hours of the PK.
How so? You can easily raise provok to 70ish without much trouble(nonph). After that another 15 days to GM?
Statloss isn't going away. OSI wants Pks to die. They don't agree with Pking. They understand while a few enjoy it(like myself) the overall playerbase doesn't as a whole. Plus they want people to move back to fel. Point and case. But if people move back PKs come back then we start the endless waltz again. :)
Since UO:R the Pk has been dying a silent, painful death. They are fading away, and soon they will be a thing of the past. Having two PK characters myself, I am very disappointed in this. On the other side, though, I am beginning to realize an advantage to this.
No comment. Sorry nothing to really say here.
With little to no pks left, perhaps we may have some new people move to felucca. OSI has numerous reasons for GGS, only a few of which will they admit to. I believe this patch will make it in, despite what we me think or believe. Pks don't die, they simply fade away...
I agree that OSI has reasons for the new system. To stop the two week x6GMs.
Sadly it will and it will deny the newbies of UO the same skill gain chances we as vets enjoyed in the past. Pks don't fade away they join factions :)
Thanks rocky for making me think. ;)
-Blood Moon
Thanks to Blood Moon for the "break down" of Rocky's mini-essay.
Hasta. |
^ top-Coming soon...not as soon as before, but soon.
[Eric] October 2 - 8:02 AM EDT | Announced on OSI's Discussion board:
I wanted to give everyone a heads up on this.
We've decided to get back to an old procedure that we used to do with publishes in an effort to lessen the effects of a bad bug getting on the shards. We are going to be publishing the scenario content to one shard first, and then if all goes well, the rest will get the content the next day. Right now, we are targeting to publish the Mizuho shard tomorrow, active after it's Wednesday downtime, local server time (Tuesday night here in the US). The reason for choosing this shard is that we will be here when it returns from maintenance that night and it gives us over 24 hours to monitor it before the content is active on the majority of shards, including the US shards. This allows us to deal with any really, really major unforeseen issues before every shard is affected. We're not expecting anything like this, but it is always better to be on the safe side.
So basically, to sum up. If all goes well, the scenario will be active on all shards following their Thursday morning maintenance. If anything does delay this, I will post and let you know. Really, only a major issue would cause a delay though. Anything else can be fixed the following week, just like we did last time.
After this week, we will change to the publishes to the first shard on Monday's, active Tuesday local server time. Then if all goes well, we'll publish on Tuesday, active Wednesday local server time as usual.
Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
Designer, Ongoing Content
a wizard did it
Wow, it's only delayed one day (previously they said it would be active on Wednesday). Stay tuned, as we will keep you up-to-date with the latest scenario news and information.
Cya later. |
^ top-The official closing.
[Eric] October 1 - 6:39 PM EDT | Posted on the former CBT forum page:
Castle Blackthorn has closed
CBT has merged with Markee Dragon and can be found at http://www.markeedragon.com
The CBT forums can be found at the Markee Dragon Forums. http://forums.shatteredcrystal.com
UO Powergamers has moved their forums to Black Dagger. You may find them at http://boards.blackdagger.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=6
We want to thank everyone for having been here to be a part of Castle Blackthorn. The last year plus has been great and many good memories have been made. Please join us as we are now working with Markee Dragon doing the same stuff. We are just part of a larger team now.
CBT R.I.P. October 1st, 2001
Many thanks to Shattered Crystal (CBT) for hosting our forum for the long period of time that they did. As it has been mentioned several times, our new kick-ass forum is now in action, and you can access it simply by clicking "Forums" at the top of this page.
Cya later. |
^ top-Reviewing Different Things...
[Nieves] October 1 - 5:19 PM EDT | Band of Brothers
I have been following HBO's Band of Brothers. If you don't know about this, it's a show produced by Steven Speilberg and Tom Hanks about a group of soldiers during World War II during the time of the Normandy Invasion. Tom Hanks, if you remember, was in the moview Saving Private Ryan. Well, they are using the same photography in BoB as they used in SPR. It works VERY well. And the fight scenes are amazing. Although. extrememly realistic. This show is not for your kids.
In last night's episode, the Captain (dammit I need to remember names) of Easy Company (a Company under the 101st Airborne, Screaming Eagles, division that landed in Normandy) charged across a field at the German Position (damn he was lucky as hell he didn't get shot up by the Germans). He crested a hill and saw a German SS Soldier getting up. They both looked at each other for a moment and the German sort of smiled. The Captain aimed his carbine and put a round into the German's chest. Cold. Utterly cold blooded. That's when the rest of the Germans stood up and started running. The Captain just laid into them and was popping off cartridge after cartridge of rounds into them. Wicked. Then the rest of his Company charged over the hill and put the Germans on the run.
I will let you watch the rest of it this week as I am sure it will be run again before next Sunday's Episode. Only 4 new episodes left before the series ends.
This is a series I think I will pick up once I can afford the damn thing.
Dungeons and Dragons
I picked up the last two issues of Dragon Magazine (thank goodness for credit cards). If you don't know what that is, it's a magazine that covers Dungeons and Dragons gaming specifically and gaming in general. The reason I picked it up is for the map of the Forgotten Realms world (thanks blachawk) that is being released in 4 parts over 4 issues. But, it's got some good articles. This month's covers a new "demi-plane" called the "Dreamscape" or something like that. It also has new classes: the Fiend Slayer being one of them.
There is also a picture of a not too bad looking gamer in the Scale Male section. Go buy it if you want to look at her.
Next month, Oriental Adventures source book for DnD will be released. JOY! It looks tight (VAS! YOU GOT TO GET IT!) and I think I read that it will give some background to the Legend of the 5 Rings world (part of the original "source material" Collectible Card Game) so you can play using that source material.
I also picked up a copy of Terry Brooks' book: Part 2 of the Voyage of Jerle Shannara. If you have not read anything by Terry Brooks, go pick up the Sword, Elfstones, and Wishsong of Shannara. Then the Scions of Shannara (4 books), then the Elf King of Shannara and read them in that order. Reading them out of order might have you sitting there thinking "wtf they talking about?" (I read Elfstones first and then had to go back and then read them through again; my personal favorite of all the books is Elfstones, followed closely by Elf King).
Note: Anything with the word "Landover" on it by Brooks avoid like the black plague. Personally, I think they sucked.
I also got a copy of the first book in the Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan. Alot of folks tell me I should read them. I only bought them so I can figure out WTF Athena and Kat (both self-proclaimed Aes Sedai in UO) talk about all the time. Maybe now I can sit down and have an intelligent conversation about Sedais and what have you.
Also, the Sea of Swords book gets released this month (it's October for those that don't know). It follows Drizzt Do'Urdens journey in finding his long lost brother in arms, Wulfgar. If you have never read anything by R.A. Salvatore, go pick up the Dark Elf Trilogy and then all the books with Drizzt in them in order. THOSE are some of the greatest reads I have EVER had. And the fight scenes!! OMG they are amazing.
Granted, alot of the stuff I have covered above might not be for everyone, but I am sure, some of you hard core PvPers (Watts included) out there have read some of the books and enjoyed them. Or you will if you do read them. Give them a chance. They are NOT cheesy roleplaying pieces of shit.
Hasta. |
^ top-This Just In...
[Nieves] October 1 - 3:26 PM EDT | On November 3rd, 2001, Nieves will be walking down Graduation Aisle and earning his degree from Columbia. Additionally, he finished his HTML Fundamentals course and moving on to the hardcore programming courses.
Worship me.
If you want a resume, let me know Mid-November and I will send you one. Since I am a cool guy to have as an employee and all.
/end selfless promotion.
Oh, by the way, some patch got released today and starting this Monday, and ever Monday hereafter the Rewards Server will be down from 1PM till about 1 1/2 hours after for some kind of maintenance thing.
But who cares about that?
Hasta. |
^ top-What Do You All Think?
[Nieves] October 1 - 2:25 PM EDT | Guarenteed Gain System
There are generally two schools of thought on this system and its
effects. One believes GGS will revolutionize the way the game functions while the second school of thought believes it will ruin the game. I tend to be a believer in the latter. First off, with GGS it is going to take 22 days to GM one skill if you work that skill at the apointed time and consistantly get the highest gain possible. To put it in perspective, it is now going to take 88 days do what it currently only takes a week to do: Create a 4x GM dexer. This patch will demolish all throw away characters, and yes, that includes PKs. No one is going to waste that many hours of gameplay working on a character that is so easily destroyed. Statloss will now set players back weeks instead of mere days. We have become a spoiled society. The life of post trammel has jaded us, and we have forgotten the past. I'm sure the vets remember what it was like to GM tactics and how excited you could get over that. I myself was overjoyed when I hit the magical 100.0 mark. GGS is also going to cut down on the "Illustrious Lord Bob, adept stoic". Also, its going to make the 70/70 bank sitting twinks more rare. Its going to take several days to reach nightmare twink level (NTL). This is one of the few things I like about the Guarenteed Gain System. The currently hard skills, such as provoke, are going to become even more difficult. I do think OSI needs to diminish stat loss or at least reduce it. This truely may be the final hours of the PK. Since UO:R the Pk has been dying a silent, painful death. They are fading away, and soon they will be a thing of the past. Having two PK characters myself, I am very disappointed in this. On the other side, though, I am beginning to realize an advantage to this. With little to no pks left, perhaps we may have some new people move to felucca. OSI has numerous reasons for GGS, only a few of which will they admit to. I believe this patch will make it in, despite what we me think or believe. Pks don't die, they simply fade away...
-Rockie
Tell me what you think of this article.
Hasta |
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