^ top-Vet Rewards Update [ProQuo] November 30 - 8:48 PM EST

Cal updated the Vet Rewards info and was nice enough to post pictures. Take notice of the lack of bless deeds and the addition of yet another dye tub. Click me for the K3wl lIsT oF L33t TuBz.

^ top-New Essay Up [Nieves] November 30 - 10:42 AM EST

Gator's Scribe essay is up for your reading pleasure. Unfortunately the Lumberjacking is on hold as it needs to be edited and brought up to date. Hasta.

^ top-And it begins... [Nieves] November 30 - 12:33 AM EST

I am currently sitting in Trammel Side Great Lakes watching alot of fighting going on...you know, Chaos/Order style. Yep...it's ON! Hasta.

^ top-Adam Ant Goes LIVE! [Nieves] November 29 - 8:58 PM EST

Check it. Good ol' Adam Ant playing the Guardian role LIVE! Someone remind me to make a link to it to the left. Hasta.

^ top-OH MY FUCKING GAWD! [Nieves] November 29 - 5:38 PM EST

What the fuck is this shit? Thank you Watts for showing it to me. The folks at the Chosen broke the news first so they get first billing. I can't even think right now how this is going to change the game. Comments? Someone start a thread in the forum! I am off to kick and punch. Hasta.

^ top-Counselor Anonymous Speaks [Nieves] November 29 - 5:14 PM EST

Finally, I get an interview :) Check it! Nieves: How long have you been counseling? CAnon:2 years and a few months Nieves: Tell me your reasons for becoming one? CAnon: At the time, I wanted to give back to UO. Many had helped me, i had learned the system quite well, and I wanted to do something to show my appreciation. This is before counseling gave ANY freebies. Nieves: How do you feel about the removal of the freebies? CAnon: It bothered me at first. I always thought that a free $10 account per month was my "just due" reward for doing what I did. After calming down, I thought about it and it dawned on me that the freebie was not why I was doing this, so why should it bother me. I've since not cared about it. Nieves: Your opinion of those that filed a lawsuit? CAnon: I doubt that what I think about them would be appropriate for young eyes. Let's just say that it bothers me to see that some people are willing to stoop so low as to ask payment and back wages for something that they went in knowing FULL WELL what their compensation was. I feel pity for them, really. If they sunk so low to doing something this absurd, then I pity them. I really do. Nieves: General consensus from the current Counselor teams on the lawsuit? CAnon:I can't speak for anyone else, and it was not deemed an appropriate subject to talk about in channel. I would think they fell that it is wrong, but I could be mistaken. One of the original plaintiffs claimed he was still an active counselor. We have a lot of good people, but some, well, you just don't know what they think. Nieves: Ok, I can accept that answer :) Nieves: What caused the people at OSI to consolidate their Counselor teams and have them handle calls game wide as opposed to having shard specific counselors as before? CAnon: Well, it's not game wide. It is by region. East, West, etc. The current plan is to have a global queue that will basically allow a counselor on the West Region, for example, to take calls on Baja, Pacific, Napa etc and give a wider coverage. So if one shard is quiet, then those with more calls will get better coverage. Call it load balancing if you will. No word yet on when it will be fully implemented. Nieves: Interesting :) Nieves: What do you feel is the general feeling of players (IYO) towards counselors? What has been their attitude when they call (usually)? CAnon: It's varied. It ranges from a good attitude to a downright hostile attitude. Most players think we are paid by OSI and that I can somehow replace all the stuff they lost to lag death. Shit happens. Happens to me as a player. But when they ask for me to uncondemn their house or to tell them how many hours they have left to being blue and I explain that I cannot tell them (cause I don't have the info) and that a GM won't either ell, they start yelling at me, calling me useless, that I don't know anything, etc. Some players think we are gullible. So don't ask me to take you to Haven when you have 255 stat points and 700 real skill.....I know you do. I have that info. ;) But it's getting that one player who is happy with the info and that tells me I helped him out that makes me continue. It makes it worth while. Nieves: Awesome. Nieves: What is the general feeling at OSI about people that call in a harrassment request? Many have talked about the horror of they themselves getting warned or worse, banned, for making the call. Is it usually the case of the caller being the perpetrator/equally guilty or some other reason? CAnon:I hate harrasment calls. I really do. It's a pissing contest between two people and I am asked to arbitrate without the benefit of having all the facts. I don't have access to logs, I don't know what heppends, and I don't have a crystal ball telling me what to do. It's a horror situation for all parties involved. Harassement is always a case by case by GMs, and no one ever gets the same answer twice, hence the nightmare. My advice would be if you can't play with the other kiddies in the sandbox, then ya should not be allowed in it. As for who is right/wrong, ask a magic 8 ball. :) Nieves: I see :) Interesting insight. Nieves: As far as it being a necessity, anyway we can alleviate some player's concerns about using the system? Also, some information for proper use of the harrassment system? CAnon: Proper use comes from using common sense. First, look up the definition of harrassment in the dictionary. You have your first operational guideline there. Note that the definition does not include "He stole my kill", "He called me a bad name" or "He looted my poison elemental". Proper use is if someone keeps following you around, res blocks on purpose (greif tactic, and it's a form of harrassment) or does something along those lines. You do not want to be calling for harrassment if you goad someone into it or if you want to be an asshole. That WILL get you in trouble. If your claim is legitimate, you have not to fear reprisal. Only those who seek to exploit the harrassment options are the ones who need fear it. A word to all you players: Yes, 99% of the time you are justified. It's like a plane crash. When one does, it's BIG news due to the impact of the news, but more people die in car wrecks daily that in plane crashes yearly. Same with these horror stories. You hear one and think that they are all like that. That simply is not so. Nieves: Would you mind taking a couple of questions from a couple of the updaters? CAnon: Yup! Go right ahead! Nieves: COOL! :) Nieves: These next 3 are from Gator: Nieves: First one is-Any word on possible skill changes? ie. Cartography, Fishing? When Necromancy get's published. Next! Nieves: ACK! Shit...ok. Nieves: Also any word yet on possible improvements to the spawn changes on Ice and Fire Isle? CAnon: Check the UO boards. I think Designer Hanse has addressed that. It should be on test center soon (if not there already). Here is the link: Click me. Nieves: Cool, I will look at it later :) Nieves: Is MindBlast Damage based on real stats or spell/items/potion enhanced stats? CAnon: I'm not 100% sure, as it was never really told, but my experience on Test Center and talking to GM's has been it's based on REAL stats. Nieves: Ok, from me. Do Counselors/GMs ever hang out in hunting areas? Hidden of course :) CAnon: GM's, I don't know since they are invisible to me. Counselors? Depends on the counselor. :) I'll leave you to ponder that one..... Nieves: Aighty then...hehe. :) Nieves: Can a Counselor/GM step in if they see something illegal happen (ie-harrassment) without a player calling them? CAnon: Yes Nieves: Have you ever done it? What was the situation (generally speaking of course)? CAnon: Yes, I have. Usually involves blocking monsters for stat gain. :) Nieves: LMAO! Hmm...maybe you guys should visit deceit more often :) Nieves: Why did you decide to help us here at UOPG? CAnon: I read UOPG regularly and have found the info contained to be well structured and very informative, as well as up-to-date. I also saw it as a way to make sure that questions that most people cannot find the answer to could be answered. I also feel that it's time for counselors to step out of game and take a more active role in the community. Nieves: OSI's 'official' policy on that? CAnon: I chose Counselor Anonymous for a reason.......:) Nieves: heheh :) To copy a phrase from a fellow UOPG team member: WoOT! Nieves: Any plans for beefing up Felucca loot, losing statloss in Felucca (cause I see no need for it with Felucca now), or 1/2ing Trammel loot to make Felucca more appealing? CAnon: Nope. Nope. Nope.? Nieves: Bleh. Lame. Anyway... Nieves: Why is it allowed to kill nobles in Trammel without repercussion (kind of a stupid question but I am curious)? Cause if they removed that "right", a bunch of twinks who are too lame to fight a real monster for some pHaT l33t LeWT and 700 gp would go cry to OSI and whine that it's not fair. My opinion? You kill a noble, you go grey, I can smack your ass. Call it a PvP switch. You don't NEED to go grey, but if you do, you consent to getting you ass handed to you. I'd also make it so that nobles cannot walk outside of guard zones or enter a gate that leads to a non-guard zone. That way, they'd get their ass guard whacked......hmmmm, come to think of it, it's poetic justice. They kill nobles in one shot, guards kill THEM in one shot. No, wait, that's reverse harvesting........:) Nieves: hehe, funny :p Nieves: Ok, last question, kind of offbeat- If OSI really really allowed it, could they, return a player's items to them? CAnon: I am sure there are logs. So my answer is yes, most items they could return. Nieves: OK, thanks alot man :) I really appreciate your time. Can we count on you for more information in the future!? Always! Kickin'! OMFG! I have to link this again. That dumbshit Watts got the link wrong for the Valor Knights website skipping the original intro to it. I don't care if you hate Roleplayers, when you see this website, you will be fucking amazed. And the music?! My gawd. I feel like I am watching Gladiator again. (The site is loading as I finish this update!) GO LOOK AT THE SITE NOW!!!! Hasta.

^ top-New site to look at. [Nieves] November 29 - 9:08 AM EST

These guys at Wiredness.com created a pretty decent website. I liked their rants and the fact their site doesn't look like ours (like everyone else that made a web site montsh ago did). Check em out. They were kind enough to give us top billing in their links section. They get 3.5 PvMers out of 5 :) They don't look like Game Addicts. Know what? Neither do we. I guess that makes UOPG 3.0 PvMers out of 5, eh? Hasta.

^ top-I had an update but Ian beat me to it, but that's fine :) [Nieves] November 28 - 1:09 AM EST

Item 'Smashing' and Monster Movement Monsters may no longer be 'trapped' by barricading them behind various objects in the game world. They will now attempt to maneuver around the objects and in some cases may smash the objects barring their movement. Items that are locked down, secure, or strongboxes may not be smashed. Containers, if smashed, will spill their contents onto the ground. No more blocking in Lich Lord room for you :op Scroll down for the factions info from IAN. Maybe we will get factions before Gore realizes he lost? Maybe... Oh and with using ProQuo's essay, I updated the mage page. Hasta.

^ top-Cause I absolutely SUCK [Nieves] November 27 - 10:59 PM EST

Ok Counselor Anonymous, I was asleep because, like, you know my migraines won't go away unless I sleep through them (yes, Lord Storm Shadow, I still get my migraines; fuck). Icq me asap cause I am stupid and I deleted your email you sent with your ICQ number :( Hasta.

^ top-Dammit.. [Ian] November 27 - 8:43 PM EST

In light of an issue with the faction system publish, we have decided to delay the release of the faction system on the Chesapeake shard. The stablemaster and monster changes listed in Testing for Next Update will be published to the shard and will be active following the Chesapeake shard’s Tuesday, November 28th maintenance period. The factions system, however, will remain inactive on Chesapeake until further notice. Additionally, we will be publishing the monster and stablemaster changes listed in Testing for Next Update to all shards to be active following their Wednesday, November 29th maintenance period (local server time). As the Siege Perilous and Sonoma shards will be updated with the monster changes to be active following their next maintenance period. We will release a revised schedule for the activation of the Faction System on Chesapeake as soon as one is determined. I'm used to this by now.. whatever.

^ top-Chesa Get's Factions [Ian] November 27 - 5:16 PM EST

I remember this bastard of a motherless worm during my first 6 months of playing. I had oh probobaly the worst connection in the history of playing UO. Of course I didn't let that stop me from playing. What's a little 700 ping and 25% packet loss anyway? Ahem, I was trying to mindlessly build up my fame (yes at one time for a couple hours it was important to me) and get money killing white wyrms and all this guy did was lure snow ele's and everything else he could find on me and others at Ice Caves. Because I, having the afforementioned inferior connection could not move normally let alone with 4 snow ele's on my screen, I was usually the one to fall victim to this guy's luring. Needless to say, it upset me. After about 1 month of dealing with this shit I finally call a gm. His first response was a question. He asked me, "What is this person doing specifically in the game that is exploitive?" I told him for the second time about the luring and how it made my game play impossible. His response and I quote because I will never forget it. "This player is not abusing or exploiting, he is just a very efficient killer." How you like them apples Nieves? And OSI wonders why I and players like myself killed everything non blue in our sight when we got a connection worth a damn. Speaking of killing everything non blue. Guess what's coming my fellow Chesapeakians. Chesapeake Faction System Publish We will be activating the Faction System publish and stablemaster changes, as listed in Testing for Next Update , on the Chesapeake shard on Tuesday, November 28th. The publish will be active on the Chesapeake shard following its regularly scheduled maintenance period that morning. We will monitor the Chesapeake shard for any issues that may arise, and will continue to publish to all remaining shards as soon as possible. The changes will be added to Latest Game Updates once the publish is active on all shards.

^ top-New stuff [Nieves] November 27 - 1:40 PM EST

I added a new section to our site called Essays. This will be the repository for all the essays we here at UOPG have written. The first essay is ProQuo's essay on Mages. Read about it. Next comes Gator's essay on making a lumberho. Hasta.

^ top-Yes it is, no it's not, yes it is, no it's not... [Nieves] November 27 - 11:50 AM EST

2 GMs and a Counselor emailed me. Res blocking is illegal on the Trammel side of any facet. First time you are caught is usually a mark on account with 72 hour ban. 2nd time you are out of here. Well, I guess I will be waiting for my mark and little ban. Don't want it, but I takes my punishment with the best of them. It's ok, I won't be doing it again anyway. Oh...I ran into the guy this morning that looted my invul armor in Deceit on Saturday. He said he would give it back (since he can't sell it at all) for a trade in a silver weapon. I had a silver broad of force I "found". He got a sellable item, I got my invul set back. Thanks R. You aren't that bad after all...well, to a point anyway. Oh, and he's been banned once, another time won't matter to him. Erhm...well, he was training like mad this morning. Luckily, I am better than some Liche AI...AND I didn't run. I stood and fought it out. Off to kick and punch! Hasta.

^ top-What goes around comes around.... [Nieves] November 27 - 3:06 AM EST

And when it comes around, it bites you in the fucking ass.... So, many of you know how Loren got punked by luring idiots in the Deceit Lich Lord area and lost her invul suit and kat of force (both she has had for over 6 months). Today she was given a gift by a very nice person. Thanks Solemn. I took that silver katana of power to the lich room tonight to get some loot and test the sword for myself. After explaining to a "newcomer" to the Chaos/Order wars what those wars are about (QUIT CHAOS NOW TRIXY BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!<---bear in mind, she didn't realize how intense they were) to some folks two ghosts show up. We res them and they tell us about someone luring silver serpents, hiding, letting them die, then killing said serpent and looting their bodies. I tell my new "bud" let's go kill the silver serpent (cross healing is ur friend) and help them get their items. Little Tamer girl and her mare are there with 2 dead silvers and a few bodies she's waiting on looting. We tell her she sucks and I tell her I hope she dies. She says: "I won't". I run into the hallway to check on the other guy we resed (found more ghosts along the way) Tamer Girl comes back and opens the door letting the lich, lich lord, and silver serpent come in and she runs away and tries to cast invisible and fails miserably (sp?). All the while the silver serpent is biting her in the ass. She gets off a cure (spasms is not a form of dancing folks), then a heal, gets bit again, and...DEATHMOAN! Then the mare decides to go after the silver serpent while the lich and lich lord wait for the mare on the other side of the wall (maybe I should open that door eh?). This guy comes and is attempting to res her. I tell him NO (along with other folks) that she is a looter and lurer. He says no she's not. I stand on her ghost and he starts screaming that I am a bug exploiter and I will get banned. Um...not according to GM Uncle AL today. I asked him that very question tonight while working on a treasure hunting problem I had. It's not illegal in Felucca, so not illegal in whole game (but that could change after tonight of course). I figure I would ask him if it was illegal the shit the folks did last night to Loren. Ghost blocking, as of this moment, isn't illegal. Luring monsters and hiding is...anyway.... Dude is screaming he will call a GM. I tell him go for it and ask him if he wants his friend's account banned as well since she was luring...and I have 3 witnesses (which they rightly spoke up and said "YEP"). Val Res Por and they are gone. They leave, I wait near her body hidden with my new "friend". Tamer girl returns and I come out and tell her "now you know how that feels". Her response? "Think I won't do that shit again bitch ass whore"? I know you will...and you have a sad life. Too bad her mare didn't die. That would've been classic. Two lessons here, don't punk because, sooner or later, you will get punked. And 2nd, don't do anything that could possibly get you banned. We will see if I get a letter in my email from OSI about tonight. Frankly, I don't see the problem as I was told it wasn't bannable. I just wish they would monitor these hot spots and catch these guys. It's sad people would stoop to shit like that to get their jollies :( GO PK FOLKS IF YOU WANT LOOT FROM PLAYERS! I at least have 2 reds (yes 2) willing to do it that way. It's ok if I get looted. Not ok if I get "trained" (EQ term), get killed, then these guys loot my body. Dieing is part of the game. Getting punked isn't. Anyway...I see two keyboards right now... Hasta.

^ top-Mage Done, Warrior Next [Nieves] November 26 - 7:44 PM EST

With your comments/suggestions I upgraded the Mages section. Check it out and tell me what you think. The warrior and hybrid sections are going to get an upgrade next. I noticed that they needed it as well. Especially the Med-Warrior. Archery? bleh. Well, I think fencing would be a better fit. Cyas. Hasta.

^ top-Since there is no other way to get folks attention.. [Nieves] November 26 - 5:25 PM EST

KH please email me at your earliest convenience. Also, if ProQuo is around, please email if you could. I know you don't have ICQ at the moment, but maybe we can talk a bit through email. Nothing negative to either of you, just a chat. I need to have better communications with folks. To the people running Silver Serpent/Poison Elemental trains and blocking ressurection attempts by stealthing over ghosts, one day you will get caught and surely banned. That shit is WAY against the ToS. I hope the guys with Loren's Invulnerable Suit and Katana of Force chokes on the shit. Keep doing that in Deceit GL Trammel side...you will get caught one day. Hasta.

^ top-And Yet, More UO:3D Screenshots... [Gator] November 24 - 12:01 AM EST

Well, thanks to MarkeeDragon for putting out some great screenshots of UO:3D. Now once again these are all Pre-Alpha shots, so they may change some before we see the final product. But I must say they look mighty good. Oh did I mention there are 100 of them? And well its kinda late, but I hope everyone had a Great Thanksgiving. I know I sure as hell did. Until next time.... Later

^ top-Updater Positions [Nieves] November 23 - 11:39 PM EST

Thank you for all the emails regarding the opening(s) we have here at UOPG. Currently, I have not considered bringing on other updaters as I am concentrating on updating old information as well as working on the redesign of the site. I have not read any of those emails yet. They are still marked as unread so I can go back to them later. Fear not, for I will let everyone know when interviewing for the positions will begin. Hasta.

^ top-Mage Section Revision Take 2. [Nieves] November 23 - 3:15 PM EST

I have a NEW Revision of the Mage Section up. I added the Mystic (healing/anatomy) and Archer Mage to them. Check it out and email/icq (if you have my icq) what you think. Hasta.

^ top-Screw The Wall [Gator] November 22 - 9:36 AM EST

Thats right I said screw the "Wall". For all the younger readers out there, the "Wall" used to be the place to be for GMing melee skills. And I know this has been touched on before in the past. But I want to make a clear shot on it right now. I am making a new fencer for factions. This morning, in my power hour, I gained 4.8 Fencing to GM. In fact I started 3 days ago in The Jhelom Dueling Pit with a skill of about 31. Once you get into the 80's just grab a warrior with a broadsword, and Have At Thee. Be carefull, that Broad hurts, but its worth it as you can see. So you want a new meleer? Follow my Powergaming for Dummies Guide: Starting Out This guide is for folks who have the cash already built up. First of all make your character with 50 Healing/49 Resist/1 Melee skill of your choice. Now get a friend to hook you up with some gold. Preferably about 5k. Also see if you can find someone with extra character slots to get a few more "newebie" weapons that you will need. This is really simple. Say your buddy Roy in BF Egypt doesnt play on GL with you. But you still BS all the time. Have him make 5 chars on GL, all with the weapon you need. Then just have him meet you at the bank to give you all them weps. You will need them. While he is there grab that 5k from the new characters he made. Equipment You should have 7k in gold. The 1k you get from the start, then the 5k that your buddy Roy can give you from the characters he made to hook you up. Now just get your character an extra 1k, and BAM, 7k. I could go all into how a new character can make money to do this, but right now I do not feel like it. If you need that info, email me or say something about it in the boards, and I will work something out, and post it down the road. Just ICQ your buddy Ronny the Roleplayer and have him loan you 1k to make it 7k even. Take your 7k, and heres what you buy: 10 Bolts of Cloth Suit of Studded Leather (Store Bought is Fine) 1 Musical Instrument Stat Building After buying those items you should still have a cool 5k left over. Take this and buy up your skills, then spend the rest of your day doing the stat gain trick. Use Arms Lore for STR and the Music Instrument for DEX. Get all the way up to 100 STR and 100 DEX. Then you will be ready for the next days Power Hour. Power Hour Now for your first power hour. Head to the Dueling Pit in Jhelom. Once here you will see a load of warriors standing around waiting to be beat on. Now since your healing and melee skills are low pick out one with just a shield. Now for the very hard part, go into war mode and take it to him. But, make sure you are not standing here. Notice it says you are under the protection of the Guards. This means certain Guard Whack OoOoOoOOOoO Time for you. Stay away from the actual wall of the pit and you will be ok. Make sure you are healing yourself. Thats what all that cloth is for. Bring it all. And just cut bandaids as you fight. If you get low on health step away and heal up. But remember, your prey will come after you. Also ONLY use all the newbie weapons you got. If you follow that simple rule, your sparring buddy will never die, and you will never have to heal him. I dont know how many morons I see in the Pit killing warriors left and right. They carry no loot for the most part. Defiantely no Gold. Every now and then you may get a crappy weapon or piece of Armor. So let them live. Once your melee skills get into the high 70's/low 80's, it will be time to choose a different warrior. This time, pick this guy. But remember, that sword packs a punch, so you may be a little more watchful over your health. These guys will take you all the way to GM at a pretty good pace. Conclusion So there you have it. GM Warrior in 4-5 days without going to the wall and dealing with the damn twinks. My next update is going to be an indepth story on the Council of Mages faction. So be looking for it. Later

^ top-And UOPG just plain sucks now.... [Nieves] November 21 - 11:32 PM EST

Someone questioned our templates in our Character Creation section. Saying they suck. And know what? That person was right. I spent an hour tonight trying to fix up JUST the Mages section. It's WAY fucked up and the other character sections are probably just as screwed. I don't remember those templates being the way they were a few months ago but that's just making excuses and doesn't change the fact that they are messed up. Thanks to Epyon/Vegeta for spending the time helping me to clean it up. More changes, erhm...improvements on the horizon for the site I guess. So, everyone can go ahead and email me and tell me how much UOPowergamers sucks ass and is behind the times. Eck, even stratics (no offense) is better than us these days. Bleh. Hasta.

^ top-Forum [Nieves] November 20 - 9:01 PM EST

Ramirez and his crew are going to be making changes to the Blackthorn Forums. It will go down at 10PM CST (I assume, other wise it's 9PM CST). I apologize for any inconvenience. Will the gentleman that has created the nice UOPG revised front page PLEASE icq me or email me. I am having trouble with his code. Hasta.

^ top-For those interested. [Nieves] November 19 - 11:22 PM EST

A chat was hosted on UO House of Commons about UO3D. I found it pretty interesting. Go check it out. Hasta.

^ top-Since noone else posted about this... [Nieves] November 17 - 7:44 AM EST

Know all those little Order/Chaos guys running around in Trammel thinking they are cool cause they have free, "blessed" shields and have a different title than everyone else? Well, um...guess what? ...as it was our original plan to re-enable the Order/Chaos system on the Trammel facet of all shards, we will be leaving the system in place on the Sonoma shard. It was activated with Factions implementation. Currently, this is active only on Sonoma. It's coming soon to a shard near you. So...if you get ganked by people from the "other side". Deal with it. It's what Order/Chaos was supposed to be about in the first place. And, it looks like some people will lose those bets about about Factions being implemented after Christmas. We are currently targeting the release of the Faction System to all remaining shards following the Thanksgiving holiday (after November 23rd). The Order/Chaos system will be enabled on the Trammel facet on all shards as they are updated with the Faction System publish. It's not like it's over 6 months over due or anything... Hasta.

^ top-The most amazing website I have ever seen. [Nieves] November 16 - 11:16 PM EST

And to think, I thought our new site design was going to rock. Check these Valor Knights out. Let the introduction for each page come in and check the member listings. Every website should be this good. Hasta.

^ top-Gator Prophecy Rings True [Gator] November 16 - 7:24 PM EST

BAM!! I predicteded this one a few months back. And well its up now. It has the same kinda look and feel as the Council of Mages site. And its ran by GreyPawn. Who happens to be the same person that made the Council of Mages site. So there you have it my little faction addicts. Now a site for both True Brits and the Mage Council. I do not see a www.shadowlords.com or www.minax.com anytime in the near future since those sites are already being used. The Shadowlords site IS a PvP site, but it is for Shadowbane. One of the newer, highly anticipated, online PvP games that will be hitting the scene shortly. But hey, enough on that, its not UO damn't!! And if you care to get some Hawaiian Jewelry feel free to hit that Minax site. Afterall, your significant other will love you for it. Later

^ top-The Boy Who Cried Wolf.... [Gator] November 15 - 6:43 AM EST

This time I swear its true. Really I do. ::crosses fingers:: Well everyone, better start saying your prayers. We will be activating the Faction System publish, as listed in Testing for Next Update, on the Sonoma and Siege Perilous shards on Wednesday, November 15th. You can go and read all about it. Or in a nutshell it says that they will activate it on SP and Sonoma, then monitor it, and then eventually hopefully before one of these guys gets elected it will go live on the rest of the shards. So the way I see it, we should have Factions in on all shards sometime around the 2004 Presidential Election. But on a serious note. As I had posted in my last update, I have been doing alot of factions lately. And if you have yet to give it a shot, log on to your local Test Factions Shard(Catskills) and give it a try. Its a good time. I know that I have been having a total blast with it. Well that and wiping out Immature Ganking Reds that live near Watts on Pac is fun too. Hehe, but thats a story for another time. But just to inform everyone, that when a Crack Commando DS unit comes to your neighborhood. Lock the door and dont bother. Blue or Red, if your a ganker, your toast. Nuff Said. Moral of the story... Pray for factions, go test factions, and don't piss off neighbors that have friends in high places. Or low places, depends on what end of the spectrum you are on. And never, ever, ever, ever, cry wolf to many times. Because eventually nobody will come to help you. And the wolf will eat you. Later

^ top-Never ever piss off the boss. [Nieves] November 14 - 10:24 PM EST

There is an opening for the Updater position. Actually, with Red's departure, that would make 2. I might be opening it up for those that are interested, I might not. We will see. Until then, we are short 2 folks. Red, I will miss ya. Be good, and don't let Watts corrupt you too much. As for Paladin...well, let's just say it was interesting while it lasted. Hasta.

^ top-Worthless Update [Ian] November 14 - 4:35 PM EST

A few quick things.. Concerning the last part of Gators post. I heard this in a movie or on the radio one time and it sort of stuck with me. Here in America, you need a license for everything.. think about. To drive a car-license, To shoot a gun-license. Hell here in Texas just to be able to fish, you need a license! What is the one thing in this country you DO NOT need a license for? You guessed it. Having kids. Think about that one for the next few years. Secondly concerning Rum leaving the site again. He stated that his off topic posts are out of place here. I would like to point out that I have not had one post concerning powergaming (outside of my lessons on how to be the baddest motherfuc!!er in this game) in well...ever. Although he did say Watts was gay. Watts is a friend and I have it on good authority that he is heterosexual, but if Rum thinks differently it completely clarifies why he would in fact want to go there. Lastly, Dragonballz is the last fucking thing I know anything about but if any of you out there know of it, like it, like to make fun of it, whatever, check this site out. If you don't give a fuck about DBZ go there just because Carlos is a friend and an employee of mine and if you need further motivation do it because I said so. Thanks.

^ top-Note To Self [Gator] November 14 - 10:13 AM EST

Normally when playing factions, you do alot of waiting. In fact most of your time will be spent hanging out by the bank waiting for two things. The first being for a group to get a raid going on another city. Someone will then pop a Gate open, and off to battle you go. The second thing will be sitting at the bank waiting for another faction to raid your city. This is how it works for the most part. Well the proplem is with the first choice. Actually not a problem but just a touch of advice. If somebody pops open a Gate and starts screaming RAID!!! Dont go until you get all the information togther. Just a few minutes ago, myself and Nieves ran into one of these Raid portals. Found ourselves standing atop the Brit Bank, with nothing but a sea of Orange surrounding us as far as the eye could see. Needless to say I Recalled ASAP. Nieves wasnt as lucky. So the lessoned learned here is that, well its obvious. PLAYERS ARE DUMB. Well not all players, but what idiot opens a gate for the Bank Roof in Brit?!?! And the thing that really got me, was that he came through it too!! And needless to say was one of the first to croak. I saw him a few minutes afterward. His comment, "It was fun." WTF?!? How in the hell is getting your ass waxed by 30 Brits fun??? It just goes to show....Some Peoples Kids.... I think pregancy should be granted by the government via an IQ test on all the parents. "I am sorry Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, but you are simply too stupid to be allowed to reproduce." Well enough ranting, just be mindfull of the damn gates. They dont always lead to Success and Fame. Later

^ top-The future of UO, and this *3rd Dawn* issue. [Lord_Epyon] November 13 - 3:05 PM EST

*You are entering Brittainia* Little did I know in the summer of '97 that my life would change from a simple four letter sentence. Fresh out of high school and about to enjoy my last summer before college started I had been following a game that was suppose to change the way online games were played. It was called Ultima Online Oh how I loved the nights of taking over towns before everyone's favorite instant kill guards ever brought in. The nights of logging in the Great Lord Arronial to battle the forces of evil on atlantic... ...only to log in the Dread Lord Milamber later in the evening to battle the forces of good. Most of the people I ran with had both good and evil chars. The majority of my friends were in fact Dreads. Not the lame kind that prayed only on miners, but the real ones that would hit the dungeons hard. If they didn't have GL they had blue chars that could buy and sell stuff in towns for their reds. The battles outside of Wrong, outside of Covetous, and the brit graveyard were quite memorable. I found myself getting on the computer after work or after getting home from going out with friends and sometimes staying on til server down. Which was 11am server time long ago. I remember the joy of placing my first tent, then my first house. I remember killing people who had keys on them..and then searching for hours in the nearby areas for the house. Sometimes I found nothing and I would trash the key. Other times I would hit the jackpot, sometimes making up to 10,000 gold! Which was enough to buy a small house and a tent when housing first came out. Not all my memories of the first year of UO was good however. Dupes ruined the game even back then. It set the stage for later dupes and saturated the market with hoards of Vanq/Invul items which were once upon a time a sort of status symbol. I remember my first hard lessons learning not to trust people, since they dont have to look at you and deal with the backlash of their actions. Round about July of '98 UO changed forever. And it was for the worst. They introduced something called Fame and Karma instead of the current notorioty system. I still remember how the system came into play. All reds were made blue with 4 murder counts. Murder counts took 8 hours, not 40 as they do now. If you were at stat cap you got +1 fame level and if you were at skill cap you got another +1 fame. You also got +1 if you were a lord/lady Milamber came out to be "Wicked". I remember thinking how cool that was. Being alive and in town was amazing for me...I thought..hey maybe I can live to learn to relax on killing people all the time. I couldn't. It wasn't long before I was red..and stat loss hit me VERY hard. I almost deleted him..and then it happened. I got hacked. To this day, I dont know how it happened..I didn't take any files or any of that shit..but I lost milamber..and I took a break from UO. I came back and decided I needed a new start..this shard called Drachenfels just opened so I jumped to london and logged in. Starting my char, River Blackstar and decided not to do fulltime PvP any longer. Well again, that didn't last. But I made alot of good friends on DF and got involved with the community. Donating time and supplies to the Drachenfels Mage Tower(The Mage Tower project is a game wide collection of mages that discuss and try to advance the art, not all that different than UBB and UTB for their respective fields.) T2A came out in this time and I liked it...for about a day. To this day I only go to the second age if I must. I found that I was happy in not always fighting people..but the dogs of war kept biting at my heels and I looked to the rising sun. And I logged into the land of the rising sun, Japan. Hokuto came up and I grabbed some old Atlantic friends and made a warrior named Beryl. I got sick of being a warrior as I generally do and thus Vegeta was born. I grew into being feared and hated by the Japanese. We didn't murder them, we executed them. Guild after guild fell to my force, and then as Im sure you have picked up by now, I went red. The guild continued on doing quite well for awhile..but with me out of the town fighting and my leadership not being fully used..S*S fell apart slowly. Lag got bad on hokuto and I returned to Drachenfels. This puts to the end of '99 and my return to Drachenfels. This time was more or less uneventful. Its when I started to perfect my chars and get really into the mechanics of skill gaining as opposed to actually playing the game. Gm skill after Gm skill came under my control. All skills have been reduced to a science to me now. But still I enjoyed it. Enter UO:R I hate trammel, and thats all I will say on this worn out topic. I started making chars on other shards, Pac, Sonoma, Napa, and more recently LS and GL. Now we stand at the edge of this apperent 3rd dawn. The graphics to me are questionable. They need alot of reworking before even beta comes into place. They look awkward and unnatural (well not that deamons and dragons are normal but they could have done better.) What do I like the most about it? Easily the paperdolls. They look slick. What do I dislike the most? The HORSES What the hell is wrong with them, feed them for christ sake! They look like they may have been fed railroad spikes or roofing nails but damn it these are horses not some sort of freakish dinosaur! The system requirments were placed up today, 266mhz and 64 mb of ram caught my eye. Its funny how UO can run on 28.8 con..that must be laggy as all hell. Ive been around the proveribal block a few times, I know the ins and outs of this game, but I think that once again instead of working on projects that were already offered (FACTIONS) we got some eye candy to enjoy. Necro has been offically shitcanned so we can't bitch about that anymore, its sad...I was looking forward to that. But I can and I have adapted before. I will continue to do so. As always my mailbox is open for praise, accolades or any questions. Any flames direct at ProQuo, he likes the attention. Also I hear Paladin is now available for tutoring if any of you JoHnnY RoXXoRs wish to prepare yourself for higher learning.

^ top-This is off topic...but so what? [Nieves] November 13 - 7:50 AM EST

Well, it's not off topic. It's news. More pictures were posted on stratics about UO3rdDawn. I would have to say they are amazing. The guy on the paperdoll moves around and he goes in and out of combat mode. The armor on the guy just looks tight. And the magery graphics are Diablo Like. My personal favorite was the lizardman chasing the mage ;). Enjoy the pictures. Hasta.

^ top-This would be the 29th time that I left the site. [Redrum] November 12 - 11:06 PM EST

Not that I can help it though. When I have no job/life, I'm useful and play UO/update like crazy. When I have a job/life, I'm useless and never update or play UO and end up quitting. The latter happens to currently be the case. However, this time it's real and for good. Honest. The only difference is I'm not going to quit updating as a whole this time around, 'cause I always end up coming back if I do. I'm just moving over to UO Terror, instead. I may not have time for running an informational site, but I will always have time for making fun of Watts and ranting about pointless shit. It's better to do that on a rant site than here. It'll be kind of like the WTF, Man? deal. The only difference is Watts isn't cool, blows at making web pages and doesn't have his own domain. Not to mention he's gay. Ok, so it's nothing like WTF, Man? I won't go through the whole speech thing, because I did that 28 (thousand) times already. I'll just say thanks to the viewers and updaters. They really made the site what it is. Have fun.

^ top-If only every ISP was like mine. [Redrum] November 11 - 1:48 PM EST

I got my old ISP back. Apparently, they do have local access in this shitty town. They own so much that they set it up over e-mail within minutes without me having to sign any bullshit contracts, using a credit card or having some goon come here and set it up. Plus they are the fastest ISP ever. Now that's what I'm talking about. Anyway, my e-mail address is back to redrum@powerweb.net. I look forward to not receiving any e-mail.

^ top-More 3D Info... [Gator] November 10 - 4:20 PM EST

I don't know which news service is flying faster. Ours with UO3D or CNN's with the Voting Nightmare. But hey regardless I like our info better, and I have yet to get a headache over it. You want to know more about UO3D? Well heres your place to be. In fact heres the official URL, http://www.uo.com/thirddawn/. Enjoy!! Later

^ top-I don't care who has the news... [Nieves] November 10 - 4:03 PM EST

Damn. DOUBLE DAMN! Ok, all that stuff I said about UO3D's graphics sucking has to be taken back. :p You got to go see these images. YEAH BABY! BRING IT! Hasta.

^ top-More on 3D At 11...And Today Is Hug Your Local Marine Day, That Or Buy Him A Beer.... [Gator] November 10 - 11:52 AM EST

Well more info rolling in as the faire begins to get underway. Only source I got on this is straight from Stractics, so take it as you will. I feel like total ass robbing all these goodies from other great sites. But hey I have a job and can't run off to the faire so I gotta do what I gotta do. Here is the latest: Third Dawn Announced - UO Goes 3D! Here at the UO Faire, as the guests were just starting to arrive, a few computers off to the side of the room were on. And what we saw on them could very well be the future of Ultima Online. What did it look like? UO in 3D. The characters were living and breathing, like actual people running across the screen. The trees and buildings literally came alive, poking out of the monitor. We only caught a glimpse, and we are not yet sure what this is, but you can be assured that we will break this news right here the very instant it is announced. Stay tuned! 10:03am CST Update: OSI has just announced that the beta for Third Dawn is set for January 2001. Third Dawn is currently in an alpha state(which makes the screenshots look even better). They have no official release date set as yet. They did mention that the upgrade will not be free, AND will have new adventure lands (much like T2A). I try to avoid cuttin and pasting but in this instance I said screw it. There ya have it. We can only pray that the graphics will be much better than what we have seen so far. Thanks Stratics, we will keep an eye on you over the weekend. And on another quick note, today is the 225th Birthday of the United States Marine Corps. So go out and buy a Marine a Beer today, afterall he will thank ya for it, and its the least you can do. :) Later

^ top-Working Music and Provocation [Nieves] November 10 - 9:32 AM EST

My GF has been walking her bard from Trinsic to Yew hitting a last object macro all the while. It has taken her up to 87 Music so far this week. Granted it's not as good 8x8 (probably) BUT, it's not as boring either. Along the way you could run into the occassional spawn to practice Provocation on. The Cove Orc Fort and Moonglow Northern Bay are great places to work Provocation (if you don't know this already). Moonglow has lots of Mongbats you can get to fight each other. At the Cove Orc Fort you will have to have a boat to set it up near the fort. Just pick a spot and Provoke all those monsters against each other. A bit of advice when going to the Orc Fort. Don't leave your boat unlocked. Keep it locked. My GF's bard got killed by the mad spawn there when this guy kept closing the planks while she was trying to loot (asshoe). This leads to my 2nd point. Don't to there for loot. You are going there for training. I have done plenty of rescues at the Orc Fort for my friends that were trying to gather that 3l33t Orc and Ettin Loot. It's not worth it if you are seeing grey. Fighting off the spawn, and dealing with that server line is bad enough. Get a boat, park it, keep it locked, stay on the boat, and work your skills. Be ready to heal yourself as Orc Mages have this nasty habit of dropping lots of flamestrikes on you :). If you have anymore questions, send me a note in the forum. Hasta.

^ top-UO 3D [Nieves] November 10 - 9:01 AM EST

The hype these days is all about Ultima Online 3rd Dawn. I read the article this morning and got a chance to look at the images they had posted. Want my opinion? Sure, I knew you did. Personally, I think most of the graphics suck. The dragon looks shitty with that frilled shield behind it's neck and the Ettin and Cyclops look stupid and wimpy. From what I can tell, the character represented in the dragon shot looked cool enough, but I couldn't see it well enough to give too much of an opinion on it. Before you all go apekaka on me saying, "there you go, complaining like the rest of the powergamers" let me say this: I will upgrade. Why? Cause I always want the latest upgrades. I always want the latest patches. I don't like playing demos or partial games. I always buy or get the full version. My point? Even though I am probably going to hate the graphics (if it's not "spruced up" or changed later on), I will keep playing Ultima Online. It's not the graphics that make the game great. It's everything you can do in the game that makes it fun for me. That, and all the folks I run into. My thing is I like clean graphics. Not blocky looking stuff (a la the Demon/Balron represented). Baldur's Gate had the best graphics I had seen so far in any overhead game. And Blizzard's games always had great graphics. Anyway, I am getting wordy. So far, I give the upgrade 2 PvMer Stars. Only because of OSI's commitment to keeping UO around. Hasta.

^ top-This has nothing to do with UO, but it's quite funny. [Eric] November 10 - 7:40 AM EST

In spite of this unique and very close election, someone created this page. Check it out, it kept me busy for about 15 minutes. I know, it doesn't take much to amuse me. Cya Later.

^ top-Third Dawn Cometh, Better Make Another Pot of Coffee.... [Gator] November 10 - 7:10 AM EST

Thats right, you heard about it. And it seems like it is getting more official day after day. On a story I originally found on Lum's, it now seems as if this fabled myth will be coming true. Origin Systems is readying the most significant overhaul of its Ultima Online massively multiplayer online role-playing world with Ultima Online: Third Dawn. It features a cosmetic makeover that takes the existing top-down 2D game's sprite characters and monsters and replaces them with motion-captured animated 3D ones. The gameworld itself-the terrain and buildings-will remain in their existing 2D form, and the view of the game will remain nearly top-down. And unlike other sites, folks we have a link to back it up. You can read all about it here, and check out all the nifty screen shots while you are at it. Heres another interesting tidbit, for those of you whom were just to plain lazy to go READ the article. In addition to offering the 3D upgrade, Third Dawn also comes with new worlds to explore (according to Hall, it's 50 percent bigger than what was delivered with The Second Age), and as with previous new editions of the game, these areas will not be accessible to players that elect not to upgrade. Hall says the new land will use the Trammel rule set, it will be adventure-only (with. no housing) and your character's reputation (good or evil) will make more of a difference there (Hill gives an example of evil characters being more likely to be attacked by "good" monsters). And there you have it. Read all about it, discuss it. And most of all enjoy it. I would like to thank the boys over at Markee Dragon for breaking this story first. They get all the props on this one. Yes folks times are a changing. Hopefully for the better. Later

^ top-He lives. [Redrum] November 9 - 10:55 PM EST

I finally got the net again. Too bad this ISP blows, thus I'm probably going to cancel it very soon. I'll probably bore you with real life shit later, but for now I'll just give you my new e-mail address. It's redrum@netwurx.net. Also, like I said before I moved, don't send any e-mails to my old address. If you did at any time after my last post, I didn't receive it. Send it to my new one if you still have it. I would like to also mention that my brother and roomate (same one) are both fags.

^ top-Time to take a trip to Austin....... [Gator] November 9 - 4:57 PM EST

Yes folks the results are in the results are in!! Now I want to know who is making a trip to Austin this weekend? Hmmm? And no I am not talking about discussing with George W. about the ongoing political nightmare that is wreaking havoc on our beloved citizens. Even though if I was making a trip to the UO Faire this weekend, I wouldn't mind stopping by Mr. Presi...errr, Mr. Bush's house to tell him, "Hey big guy, great campaign!" But enough on that topic. So who is going to the fair?? I want to know. And no not right now. But if we have some readers out there that are making that faithful journey. I want to know about it!! While your there, take notes, snap off some jpegs, and send em to me. Even throw a little story with it or two, and I will post them over the next week. And if your REALLY good little boys and girls I might hop down your chimney this Christmas with a brand new 3D client!! Ok not really, but it sounded good. But to continue on with my post.... I want to know how it goes down there. And since I couldnt convince my fellow updaters to hook me up with some cash to go down to the promised land. I can only do the next best thing. Ask our readers to bring back some info. So send it in!!! On a final note. I am pretty disgruntled right now. Now that I think back, during house placement, I was robbed. When I went to place my castle, and I got the message, "Are you sure you want to place this building here?". Well I got confused due to the way it was setup with the yes or no. And I clicked no and lost my kickass spot. So does that mean we can do that whole housing placement thing over again??? Didnt think so. Maybe I will have better luck next time and ACTUALLY READ what I am about to do. Later

^ top-Doh. [Nieves] November 8 - 3:50 PM EST

Um...just read: EA has agreed to a deal with the appointed LoD Legal team. The team represented 8 players that were perma banned on or around 9-6-00. EA offered a deal to give 5 of those players their accounts back, which totalled 9 accounts between. The LoD reinstated are Rampagh, Gorechild, Murdock, Silent and EE. Why didnt we push for the rest of the accounts? Well simply, they would probably go straight to Ebay. It's not smart to pay for lawyers only to get accounts back to sell them. Well shit fuck and damn (see, I can't even go a day without the wonderful F word; my mom's going to wash my mouth out with soap one day), they got lawyers and got reinstated. Wow. You can read it directly from them here or read Lum's take on it at his site. Makes you wonder doesn't it? In other less important news, UOProstitute found this on the internet and posted it to their website. The internet-only fantasy world of Britannia takes on a new dimension in Ultima Online: Third Dawn. Now UO is more immersive then ever with fully animated, motion-captured 3d characters, each with enhanced gesturing and animations. Third Dawn has more then 700 motion-captured animations on nearly 200 different character models. A 3D terrian system, new land to explore, new particle system for spell and magic effects, and upgraded sound effects make Ultima Online look and sound better then before. Yep, this was less important than the LoD stuff. Not. Thank you Lum for both pieces of goodie news stuff. Hasta.

^ top-Are we there yet? [Nieves] November 8 - 9:13 AM EST

"Not yet." It's like taking a long trip with your parents and you are bored out of your freaking mind. Luckily I had a nack for falling asleep in whatever environment I was in and not having to suffer through it all. From the folks over at OSI: We will not be shipping the Faction System to Siege Perilous this week. Big surprise eh? We have decided to run the system through a couple of production shard backups before releasing this to Siege Perilous or any other shards for additional system and load testing. Duh. I would've done that anyway. Live shard before testing it on a backup? Not. We will be placing a recent backup of the Sonoma shard to a test server late tonight, to be available for play beginning tomorrow, and we strongly urge everyone from Sonoma and other shards to stop by and join in the final testing of this large and complex system. Your assistance and participation in these final beta tests of the Faction System are critical to its successful launch. Come do our work for us. Ok, I am being cruel...but at least these Sonoma players can test out a few things (tactics, game play, features) with the faction system and see how it's actually going to be (or is it "should be"?) when it's live on their home shard. Heck, go all out and play with all your vanqs and invulnerable items and beat folks down. It's just a back up of your shard. We are currently targeting to publish the Faction System to the Sonoma and Siege Perilous shards early next week. A detailed schedule will be posted as soon as the publish date is confirmed. Why is it taking so long? Is the Faction System that complicated? Is it that hard to fix any bugs that may have existed? You guys wrote the code...not too hard to figure out where the errors are occuring right? Yes, they wanted to make sure it was done right, but c'mon guys, it's been 8 months since the box came out. It's promised as part of the feature set. Get it done. I can say this because I am not up in the OSI's dev team offices getting the whip cracked across my back by the powers that be. I am only a customer that was promised something and have been waiting almost a year for. OH...and what about Veteran's rewards? How long do we have to wait for that? I mean c'mon... Nah, never mind... Hasta.

^ top-Magnumwhatthe...? [Nieves] November 7 - 3:45 PM EST

While waiting for THAT ::points with the middle finger:: computer to finish ghosting it's hard drive, I found this article written by Mianoumi, Adam Ant's Arch-Rival. I think it would be a great read for our PvPers. Tell me if it's a good read here. Hasta

^ top-Moving... [Nieves] November 7 - 10:47 AM EST

Siege Perilous East Coast Move We are planning to move the Siege Perilous shard to our East Coast server location during the week of November 13-17th. The East Coast location provides greater bandwidth capabilities and we believe it will offer more players access to the Siege Perilous shard. We will post an exact date for the shard move at least 24 hours in advance. This is what happens when I can't get access to UO and my boss wants to go do other things other than the tasks HIS boss gave us. Why this shit keep happening to me? Know what though? This time I find things to occupy my time that is productive. You know, like rearranging all the equipment and parts so that he can't find anything. ::starts moving stuff:: Hasta.

^ top-Get out and Vote! [Ian] November 7 - 9:41 AM EST

Thanks for all the supportive emails concerning my last post. I think I responded to all of them. For those of you at work surfing the net this is your friendly reminder that today is election day so get off your lazy asses and go vote. Far be it for me to influence anyone's decision *cough Ralph Nader *cough. If you don't like any candidate go scratch in a vote but do something besides sit there like a piece of tofu. Chow

^ top-Guess who's got houses? [Nieves] November 7 - 9:28 AM EST

Well, I am sure everyone is aware of my aweful experience during house placement. This past week some friends of mine were helping me work some skills with Hammer (he has a new focus; more on that another time). These 2 blues appeared east of his little house and came over (I found out later they were going to try and gank my Hammer; BOO! BAD PLAY!). My 4 friends and I walked over and I said "hi neighbor". They both stood there for a few seconds and one said: "Hi, want to buy a small house"? Um...SURE! How much? "200k". SOLD! I can bring you the gold in a bit. He told me to wait untill he got his loot out. I said ok and traded icqs with him. I was ecstatic (sp?). Another house, RIGHT NEXT DOOR TO MY REDS!?? I got the check, a small tower deed, and a sandstone deed (keep reading). We met up later in the day and I got the house. After he left, I checked the lockdowns and found 5 lockdowns still there. I destroyed the pentagram and one of my buds found a locked down bag in a corner. I unlocked it, tried to pick it up and was unable too. Something about 4000 stones being too heavy for me. Someone forgot to take their regs with them (JOY!). BONUS! We took the fieldstone up, put down the sandstone on my Loren account :). Yippee! I got Hammer's fieldstone redeeded and he now own's a small tower. YIPPEE! Both next door!? Fuck yeah. (Ok, I couldn't go a single post without saying the F word. Shoot me). What's the point? Even though I didn't have a house to my own and even though I knew I couldn't afford (read: didn't want to play inflated prices) a placed house, I didn't give up. I didn't get the 2 story I originally wanted, but I got 2 houses side by side in an isolated spot facing the ocean. It's just da bomb. Don't give up when you want to get something. Sometimes, it just might walk over and say "hi". Hasta.

^ top-Who left the front page blank? [Nieves] November 6 - 4:37 PM EST

Day one of Nieves' New Job starts today. I get to fix computers in a major University's Library. Not a bad job I must say. Only thing that sucks is I have to freaking be a temporary for a time. When the University is closed, I have to be off without pay. That means Thanksgiving and 2 weeks off for Christmas. All fine and good, but no money means no din din on the table. Gawd I hate temporary agencies. A necessary thing these days though. ::shrugs:: Thank goodness I put plenty of money into my 401k from my last job. I got to do some PvPing this weekend. My fencer went along with Hammer's guild on Trammy to do some guild warring. We walked into a freaking trap. If it wasn't for the invisible sash with 1 million charges I would've been dead 10 times over. It was supposed to be a "gentleman's" battle with no looting except for gold and/or a yellow bag (you can put whatever you want into it). My friend lost a vanq kryss and parts of his blue plate set. Asshoes. Oh, and guess what the opponents said about it? "They did it first!" Bullshit. It wasn't bad enough that there were 5 guilds allied against us and we walked into a serious ambush (we gated into a mini "island" and had to cross a bridge to get to them where the warriors waited being backed up by mages and archers), but they reskilled our folks and then proceeded to try and loot a few of us. Now if that shit ain't fucking bogus I don't know what is. In the words of the ever verbal and ever wordy Watts: "Lame". My fencer took down 5 of the enemy without dieing (read: invisible item) before I realized we were being looted. A macer and an archer had chased me around a bit while I did the healing/hiding dance. 2-3 others showed up and where waiting me out. I decided to use the ol' Recal/hide trick. I got it off without much fuss and the macer wandered off leaving the archer behind. I rushed at the archer, stuck him with a DP kryss, chased his ass as he ran off and finished him off as the others came after me. I hid and waited. I saw another archer and decided to pick him off too. I got him to 1/2 life when they said it was over. I backed off and let him heal up. I wandred around and realized I was the only "green" left in a sea of oranges. My fencer kissed her invisible sash for the good it did for her. The enemy guilds said I was good. Um..I ran and hid. There is nothing good in that. "Oh GET HER! AN ORANGE! GUYS HELP ME!" This idiot lumberjacker decides to come after me. Fine, "whack, die to my poison biyotch". He fell and I told the others, I was not fighting. "We know, he died, he learned". I hooked up with my guild and realized what had happened with the reskilling and looting. My GM is a very patient man. When he says: "let's go back", it's cause he's at the edge of his patience. He, and the other Tamers, got their dragons together and we planned on getting a little payback. We weren't planning on looting anything else...but you know how that can go. As we were getting ready to leave, we were starting to get messages that so-and-so guild has declared peace with us. :| How fucking convenient. When we got there, they were gone. Come to find out one of our own tipped them off. I found one of the leading Council members of one of the lead enemy guilds and took his ass back to our Castle. After some, at first, calm words, then an exchange of "ARE YOU CALLING ME A LIAR?", the lead council member headed off pissed at us (I would assume). Fuckheads. Every single time my guild acts more honorably than these little so called "Virtue Following Pansies" (yeah, I said it, and?). And we are the Evil Ones? Fuck shit and damn. I told the GM we should just say fuck it and move on. Forget about the dishonorable roleplaying asses (here comes the flames now). I assume he will iron out the differences with their leaders and we can continue on "playing in the sandbox". I hope it works out, but if it continues...I for one (and I have many others that agree with me) will be one of the first to seriousely put a smackdown (reskill/loot) on any asshoe enemy I see doing it. Hammer got to put the smackdown during his initiation into his formal guild. He got through the 4 elemental+Demon challenge pretty easily then came time for his arch-rival in the guild. I went naked and the Archer-Mage decided to go with his bow. Um...can you say DEATHMOAN? My 2nd challenger was a sword fighter. I thought I was through thinking he would be using Deadly Poison (which my guild is known to use). Either he didn't have it on his sword or he didn't get any apps on me cause I didn't get poisoned once. I did manage to break his shield, arms, and chest armor with my war axe though. Can you say DEATHMOAN part 2? All this with GM armor and weapons. That just fucking rocked to have a night PvPing like that. Anyway...enough of my bullshit. Maybe, just maybe, I can come up with some real news and some interesting game information for you....oh, yeah, I do have some. Factions is planning to go live on Siege next week. If you gain skills in a merchant skill without using up resources, you are using a bug and subject to being banned. For example, copying books is a no no (for the dude that asked me). You have been warned. Blocking monsters and players with boxes is a no no. (UPDATE: Eric posted it before I could get it out to you; scroll down to see that post). Alot of you should already know that. For example, no more using boxes to hold in Mr. Bladespirit while you gain parrying. But for those folks that are new to the game and/or website, you, also, have been warned. Get caught, and be prepared to be banned. Oh, and do watch your language and insults. I heard of folks getting banned for letting fly curses and personal insults. Who says I am all about personal experiences in game? Oh, who thinks that saying "You daddy is a dick" to someone's daughter is a bad thing? Tell me about it here Hasta.

^ top-And you say to yourself..."Eric actually updated?" [Eric] November 6 - 4:13 PM EST

That's right, I'm back. I actually posted a message about it on the message board, but I felt like mentioning it again, if anyone really cares. Word from FYI at UO.com : As a reminder to the players, "monster blocking" is considered to be an exploit and can result in GM intervention. Monster Blocking is defined as using items such as boxes or chests to block a monster or player into, or out of, a certain area thus allowing for easier combat. For more information on this topic, please refer to the Support Pages at support.uo.com . Thank you. Yes, praise my mad "copy & paste" skills. But seriously, OSI just loves to find new ways to get players in trouble. Think twice next time before you put a box in front of a monster. ;) Cya later.

^ top-Ian....... [Gator] November 4 - 7:41 AM EST

People like that bring a fucking tear to my eye and need to be held with the deepest respect. It was sad to see all of the little girls outside waiting to get an autograph or picture with me or some other no name actor who hasn't contributed 1/100th of what these guys did, rather than thank them for their respective bravery and devotion to protecting our God given rights. I don't want to get on too much of a soapbox here but come on people, have some vision, we pay athletes and actors obscene amounts of money to provide us with a few hours of entertainment while we pay the people who are essential to our basic functionalities as human beings i.e. teachers, coaches, police officers, enlisted service men, next to nothing and not only that, often don't even give them half of the respect we give other working citizens. Somethings got to change. If it doesn't, this country is in very big trouble. AMEN Brother. Later

^ top-For you power movie watchers [Ian] November 4 - 5:33 AM EST

Ok, finally got a little time to scan a couple of pictures to disk and get a little page together. Here's a run down of what happened. This was late August and early September. For the record, to the best of my knowledge and contrary to popular belief Ben Affleck is not homosexual. It will be hard to break the news to Rum when he gets back. I played a WW2 B-25 Gunner. For those of you who believe history only dates back to B.P. (before precasting) let me set up the events which this movie recreates. On December 7, 1941 the Japanese swarmed on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and bombed our naval base there. On December 8, America declares war on Japan. A few months later, Roosevelt put together a little morale boosting, you DO NOT FUCK WITH AMERICA message and decided to send a retaliatory mission to bomb Tokyo. This would prove to be a challenging feat as no plane had the fuel to fly that far into Japan and make it out safely. So what was proposed was that a special squadron of elite bombadiers led by Colonel James Harold Doolittle were to fly off an aircraft carrier a few hundred miles off of the coast of Japan. This had never been done before. The plan was to fly several B-25's off of the deck of USS Hornet, fly into Tokyo, bomb the shit out of it, and escape to China, (who were allies at the time) and land safely there. That is basically what we were filming. The events leading up to and during this raid on Tokyo. Alec Baldwin plays Colonel Doolittle. Ben Affleck plays some ficticious hot shot pilot brought in from England to assist in the raid. I play a gunner under Doolittles command. I do silent acting in this flick, basically at one point I'm supposed to look stunned that we're about to attempt to fly these Bombers off the deck and then let out a hooah when Alec Baldwin tells us we're about to bomb the holy rice cakes out of Tokyo. Chances of me making it into the actual film without ending up on the cutting room floor? Who knows but I don't care. I had a great time doing the movie, and meeting some of the few remaining Doolittle pilots alive today. Believe me this was more of an honor than meeting Affleck or Baldwin. These are guys who are responsible for all of our freedom and way of life. They did something that took something far more impressive than courage, what they did they did out of blind love and respect for their country. People like that bring a fucking tear to my eye and need to be held with the deepest respect. It was sad to see all of the little girls outside waiting to get an autograph or picture with me or some other no name actor who hasn't contributed 1/100th of what these guys did, rather than thank them for their respective bravery and devotion to protecting our God given rights. I don't want to get on too much of a soapbox here but come on people, have some vision, we pay athletes and actors obscene amounts of money to provide us with a few hours of entertainment while we pay the people who are essential to our basic functionalities as human beings i.e. teachers, coaches, police officers, enlisted service men, next to nothing and not only that, often don't even give them half of the respect we give other working citizens. Somethings got to change. If it doesn't, this country is in very big trouble. Anyway, if you get the chance to be a part of something like this, jump at it. I learned alot of history I otherwise not might have and had a great time doing it. I also looted quite a few gold pieces out of the ordeal. All in all a good week. The movie comes out Memorial day. It is to date the largest budgeted movie ever. They were right around 200 mil when we wrapped in September and they were only about 2/3 of the way done at that point. This promises to be a great flick so I expect all of you to shell out whatever outlandish prices your movie theater is asking for and be there on opening night and look for the guy with the small head..ok the guy with the big ears. :) Here are some pics. If you would like to educate yourself some on exactly what we were re-inacting GO HERE. On a UO note I will officially make my return to Chesapeake PvP in a few weeks when the dsl gods rain down their heavenly bandwidth upon my doorstep. My ace boon Bugsy is going to hand over a nice little 7x inscript/poison mage account for my utilization, and if you play Chesa, your ultimate destruction. Thanks to Vasilias for letting me use all 3,846 of his 7x gm accounts to help me get re-aquainted with the game, and to Wren for setting up the movie pic page, and breaking out his lame as hell tamer so I can make some coin to keep me in regs and horses when we start warring. I'll deliver to you the news of how my return to the land of prepubescant angst, and misguided youth goes hopefully within the next few weeks.

^ top-So Murderers, Want to Join Factions? [Gator] November 3 - 8:59 PM EST

Well great, because it looks as if you will be getting a one time murder reprieve. That's right. Trying to get rid of your 138 murder counts for factions? Don't worry about it, you will be ok. And here's the info about it. It's still in that "In Development" mode, but hey it's something right? I logged onto Siege this afternoon. Found me a Skell Knight north of Delucia. Gained 5.0 Fencing in about 20 minutes. Yep, ROT is dead. ::sigh:: I truly feel for all the Siege Perilous folks out there. Sometiems I wonder.... Later

^ top-R.I.P. ROT is Dead........ [Gator] November 3 - 12:54 PM EST

Well call it official, ROT is dead. Thats right hope you placed your house there. And if not, hop on tonight GM your character and get that house deed. House spots will not be there for long. That's if things happen like OSI want's them too. They want a population boost, well they are going to get one now. Also check out this interesting tidbit of info that is included in that link: In addition, we are currently targeting early next week to publish the Faction System to Siege Perilous. So there you have it. Siege is changing. And folks I can only tell you one way to get used to it. Adapt and Overcome. If your not having fun anymore, well theres the door. One day it will happen to me like it will everyone else. That's just the way it is. So who is going to Siege? Later

^ top-GM Scribe, It Is Finished Revision A [Gator] November 2 - 5:28 AM EST

**Warning** The information I am about to give you may not be the best way. This is how I did it. If you can do it better. Fine. Then post about it here, and let us know. Other than that enjoy the reading. Well finally my hours of writing the same damn spell over and over again have come to an end. And now I am here to share with you how I did it. Here you will find info on how many Power Hours it took. And special tips that may assist you in doing the same. For starters be prepared. And by this I mean, GM your Magery and Mediatation. GM Magery is not that big of a deal. But, since you will need a Magery of skill of 80.1 to make 8th circle, well you get the idea. Just make sure its up there. And as far as Mediatation goes, well this is a give me. When you can make 8th circle scrolls on a regular basis, you will see why. Thats 50 mana per scroll, which equals to ALOT of standing around waiting for your mana to rise up. Do yourself a big favor, and GM Mediatation before you even pick up a blank. Also make sure you have everything you need. When it comes to power hour, I take full advantage of the Hour. Whenever I log in my character is ready to go with everything he needs pre-staged in his pack. Remember that two minutes you waste getting all your scrolls and stuff together, could be a .1 in the high 90's that will slip away by hour's end. Blank's, Blank's, Blank's, Blank's. Guess what? You need them, in fact I needed 4495 blanks, totaling 26,970 gold. I highly reccomend buying these before you even gain your first .1. If you can for that matter. If you can't then just make sure that you have at least 400 per hour you train. That equals out to about 2 shop runs if you know what you are doing. But Gator where can I get all of them scrolls from? I found a total of 31 different locations on the Trammel Facet to purchase scrolls. Each of these places had at least one vendor, and another had a total of four scroll vendors. What does this mean? On a rough guess I would say that there is a total of 45 different NPC's to buy scrolls from on Trammel alone. Then multiply that buy two if you add in Felucca. Scrolls can be found at Magic Shops, Carpenter Shops, and in libraries. So you get the idea. What do I make? Easy. Follow this essay as it reads directly from our own skills section here at UOPG. I used this method the whole way through and had no problems whatsoever. Here is a breakdown of my road to GM. It covers how many scrolls used per session, what I was making, skill gains, and how many scrolls I produced to sell to reimburse my gold spent. I sold all of my scrolls I made back to the vendors. Summon Water Elemental Scrolls will net you 49 gold each. It adds up nice too. I started at 32.1 after I bought my initial skill from an NPC. Here's the format: Power Hour #/Resources/SkillGains/Scrolls Made of the Particular Type. Also take note of the following Abbv. FS=Flamestrike SWE=Summon Water Elemental RES=Resurrection PH #1 225 Blanks and FS Regs 32.1-53.2 0 PH #2 400 Blanks and FS Regs 53.2-68.8 17 PH #2 50 Blanks and SWE Regs 68.8-70.0 0 PH #3 450 Blanks and SWE Regs 70.0-78.9 13 PH #4 265 Blanks and SWE Regs 78.9-83.7 40 PH #5 275 Blanks and SWE Regs 83.7-86.7 68 PH #6 250 Blanks and SWE Regs 86.7-88.8 76 PH #7 250 Blanks and SWE Regs 88.8-90.9 83 PH #8 300 Blanks and SWE Regs 90.9-92.6 92 PH #9 275 Blanks and SWE Regs 92.6-94.2 93 PH #10 275 Blanks and SWE Regs 94.2-95.3 115 PH #11 250 Blanks and SWE Regs 95.3-96.5 102 PH #12 80 Blanks and SWE Regs 96.5-96.7 52 PH #12 100 Blanks and RES Regs 96.7-97.2 54 PH #13 200 Blanks and RES Regs 97.2-97.7 101 PH #14 250 Blanks and RES Regs 97.7-98.5 116 PH #15 225 Blanks and RES Regs 98.5-99.0 112 PH #16 175 Blanks and RES Regs 99.0-99.6 113 PH #17 200 Blanks and RES Regs 99.6-100 95 Total Blanks= 4495 Cost= 26970 Total Ash= 625 Cost= 1875 Total Silk= 3345 Cost= 10035 Total Root= 2720 Cost= 13600 Total Garlic & Ginseng=1150each Cost= 6900 Total Moss= 3870 Cost= 19350 Grand Total= 78,730 Profit From Scrolls Sold= 63156 Total Cost GM Inscription= 15574 Well there was the total breakdown. First of all if I would have started with 50 in Scribe from the start, I could have knocked off atleast another hour. Also once I had a few hours under my belt, I became alot more efficient. So all in all, I think I could have had it done in 15 Powers instead of 17. Once you hit 95, as you can already tell, the gains drop off dramatically. Usually what I would do is if I wasnt gaining crap, at about 15 minutes to go, I would haul ass everywhere I could. When I did this, I usually gained some skills. In fact once I gained on three scrolls in a roll. And this was in the High 90's!! So dont be afraid to recall around when you get up there. But once I started gaining somewhere I wouldnt leave until powerhour was up. Well, thats about it. I hope this helps the young aspiring scribe out there. Take care. Later

^ top-Official UOPG PvP Tournament [Gator] November 1 - 6:53 PM EST

Come one, come all!! Yes that's right, we are welcoming everyone to the 1st Annual Powergamers PvP Tournament!! First off let me say thanks to Lawyer, one of our Message Board regulars, on working this whole project into being. For more information on rules, times, and places, check here. As of right now, Lawyer has emailed and invited several big name UO personalities. More information on that forthcoming. Even if you are not a PvPer, come on out anyways and enjoy the fun entertainment. Who knows, you might get that "itch" for PvP. But I will not steal anymore of Lawyers thunder, go check out the forum and read all about it! It will be a good time for all. Hell just come on out and beat my ass a little bit. Not to many times in your life will you get to beat up on a Marine and get away with it. Hope to see alot of you there!! Later