The Herald

UO Herald - Game Updates

Holiday Season Contest

It’s the time of the year that everyone gets creative and decorates their homes to reflect their feelings of the holidays.  UO would like to announce a Holiday House Decorating Contest.  Petra from stratics has been kind enough to help out with gathering and setting up the voting page for the contest.  There will be 10 winners total and you as the players will help pick the winners.  The rewards will be a special hued Reindeer with the text, “Winner of the 2012 Holiday House Decorating Contest” and the top voted design will have their house go down in the history of UO by making it a mini house that will be available next year.  This time you guys are the judges!

Rules
1 entry per account
10 winners total
Submit pictures to uocontests@stratics.com
Submissions close December 5th, 2012 and Voting closes December 15th, 2012
All entries must have a character name, shard, facet and location
All pictures submitted must be in jpg format

We look forward to seeing your creative decorations!


UO Herald - Game Updates

Publish 79 comes to Origin and Izumo

Publish 79 will be on Origin and Izumo after tomorrow’s maintenance.  In an effort to get more feedback from all our players, we will be sending publishes to both Origin and Izumo shards.

In addition to the Publish 79 notes the following changes have been made:

  • Artifacts obtained from the Exodus Encounter cannot have powder of fortification applied
  • The New Haven Mine has opened on the Southern Edge of the island
  • The trade window will no longer be empty when trading a tamed turkey

 


UO Herald - Game Updates

Ask & Answer No. 9

In this week’s Ask and Answer we have a interesting mix of questions that the developers answered. Here they are for your reading pleasure:

UO.stratics

Has there been any thought as to letting us use any of the boats in the huge lake in Malas near Umbra, or sail in any of the waters in Ilshenar? (Bazer – Apr 2011)
Could rowboats only be allowed in Dungeons, Ilshenar, Ter Mur and Malas? (Basara – October 2012)
Will you allow us to use rowboats in dungeons please? There is so much wasted water in like ice dungeon and I need to catch Winter Dragonfish and Blue lobsters so….thats all (Lord Gareth – June 2011)
Maybe it would be nice to allow rowboat placement in dungeons? There some dungeons where a rowboat can be handy to fish. Otherwise rowboats don’t realy have a good use cause they are slow and have no hold.(Frarc -Mar 2011)I wouldn´t mind rowboats in Ilshenar, Gravewater Lake etc either …. (Ertai Vodalion – Mar 2011)


Kyronix: Using Rowboats in dungeons and Malas/Ilshenar is something that isn’t as simple as flipping the “rowboats on” switch.  As far as dungeons go, all the areas where you’d presumably place a rowboat would need to be checked given the new level of accessibility, basically the dungeons weren’t built to be sailed, the same, albeit to a lesser degree, goes for Ilshenar.  Malas however, that’s a pretty straightforward body of water and we’ll discuss the matter further.  As far as fishing goes we’ve made some passes at various aspects of fishing that will be visible in the Pub 80 bug squashing extravaganza.

Essentially back when they increased the chances for lower end creatures to give relic frag generating loot they broke the loot generators ability to drop single mod items like 20DCI/HCI, 4MR, Stats, 150 luck, 35 EP, etc. Can they somehow undo what they did or give the loot generator better chances of dropping single mod items with max intensity? (DEVs can you please take a look into the loot generator?) (silent)

Phoenix:  Such items are currently produced by low-end runic tools. We do not have plans for the near future to revisit monster loot generation.

(I rewrote the question into a more concise form – MMoore)
Will you take a look at the contents of the holds of pirate ships, the loot of pirates, and the rewards for capturing pirates? The time investment, cost, and risk are not commensurate with the reward.

Phoenix: Yes, we will have a good look at these in a near future publish.

In the SA Dungeon, to the right of where the Slasher of Veils spawns at the Destroyed Monument/Statue in center of other buildings. When fighting the Slasher Of Veils in this area and a hell hound is on the statue area, provoking the hell hound on the Slasher can cause the Slasher to teleport on top of monument base then teleport players up also, killing them, leaving them with no way down and unable to retrieve items from their corpses. Will this be looked into in the near future? (From Trokip – submitted via PM) Also (asamdan, Ask the Devs Jul 2010)

Kyronix: I will submit an unconfirmed bug into the system, and if it checks out (which it sounds like it will) will look to altering the world building in that area so this no longer occurs.

Will we ever be able to use soulstones that we find from other people for something besides deco? Like maybe using them in the creation of fragments or being able to wipe the stone empty to use them again, maybe with limited charges? (PowerFullPete, Jan, 2010)
We all have a few odd unowned Soulstone’s gotten from housefalls or found in luna. These unowned stones are good for deco but Id like to see perhaps a trade in. Red ,Blue an green ones litter uo, tons of dye tubs,statues stc.. so to clean them up Id like to see something like the Holloween mask lady set up perhaps in luna to except the rewards trade in. Old for new choice. Would go along way to clean up unwanted rewards and get something we can use. (Lady Storm, Jun, 2010)
Will we ever be able to re-link full soulstones or soulstone fragments to different accounts similarly to what is possible with teleport tiles? (Forte~, Sep, 2010)
Can there be a way to use old soulstones? Especially when the players who originally owned them (and paid for them, real money here) have quit the game? They are already paid for? Why can’t we re-use them? I understand they are account bound. But why can’t the skills be re-moved and the stone be re-newed? It seems pointless to have hundreds of soulstones in game, that we ALREADY PAID FOR, be completely and utterly unusable. It’s real money floating around in a game, and being worthless. EA (as a last resort) could even sell us a tool that would un-bind them and wipe the skills from them for a couple of bucks. So that at least it could be used again. It costed someone money to purchase in the first place. Why can’t they be re-used if the player who bought it has quit the game entirely? (Templar Asarhi, Jun, 2011 )

Phoenix: We are currently evaluating ideas for what to do with these, including implementing an exchange program that will allow multiple soulstones to be turned in and exchanged for new soulstones.

Siege Shard General Chat

Is it possible to get a better explanation of ‘drift speed’ and ‘turn delay’ on large ships? In other words, which ship type is fastest, and which is slowest? Also could we get these figures, plus ‘durability’ and ‘cannon damage’ figures for the Britannia Boat?

Phoenix: All ships move at the same speed, except rowboats.

The Tokuno and Orc ships have 100,000 hit points. The Gargish ship has 140,000 hit points. The Britannian ship has 200,000 hit points.

 


UO Auctions

Question: Has the Dev team ever considered adding further higher levels of ingot and stone that could be extremely rare but give material bonuses similar to that of heartwood? this may open up slightly more deversity on how you can kit up a human/gargoyle melee fighter, as the material bonuses of wooden armor often outshine metal/stone?
(Treasure Seeker)

Phoenix: We do not have plans to add new types of special materials at this time.

Question: Have the Dev team thought about ways to bring back dragon scales as a recourse now that the armor is obsolete? i think perhaps an item crafted by tinkers that adds +1 resist or +5luck to a crafted armor piece would be a good way of bringing back the scales and also making balancing crafted sets a bit easier .
(Treasure Seeker)

Bleak: We are currently working to bring back value to all types of armor including Dragon Armor

UO Mania

could you let us use the Retouching tool on an ethereal mount statuette in the trade window, so that other players don’t need to give us their ethereal mounts to make them transparent? (clorenz)

Phoenix: We will take this idea into consideration.
 

If you have something you want to know about Ultima Online and the team, post your questions on your fansite. All interesting questions will be collected and send to our team, so we can continue to answer them.


UO Herald - Game Updates

Essential Maintenance for Europa and Drachenfels – 11/06

Update 11:30 am EST: Europa and Drachenfels are back online.

Greetings!

We will be bringing the shards Europa and Drachenfels offline tomorrow, Tuesday November 6th, at 7:00 am EST (12:00 GMT) for essential maintenance.
At this time we anticipate that both shards will be back online no later than 12:00 pm EST (17:00 GMT).

Please be sure to check this post for updates regarding the downtime.


UO Herald - Game Updates

Publish 79 for TC1 Notes

Publish 79.0.0


New Veteran Rewards

  • 15th Year: Garden Shed House Add-On

    • Contains two secure containers that do not count towards house storage limits
    • Each container holds 125 items with no weight limit
    • The shed has standard house security settings controlling container access
    • To access the containers, stand near the door of the shed and double-click it
  • 13th Year: Exodus Statuette
  • 11th Year: Navrey Night-Eyes Statuette
  • 9th Year: Virtuebane Statuette
  • 8th Year: Davies’ Locker

    • This is based on a real-life glass top table containing a three-dimensional map of Britannia, created by Alan Davies. The table resides in the front lobby of Mythic Studios.
    • The in-game item is a house add-on that looks like the real thing.
    • Davies’ Locker can store up to 500 treasure maps and/or SOS bottles!
  • 5th Year: Metallic Leather Dye Tub
  • Moved ethereal horses to  one year, all existing horses will also be one year to ride

Holiday Gifts

  • Players will receive a gift bag on login during the month of December. This only applies to paying subscriber accounts and characters that are 30 days old or older.
  • The bag contains:

    • 3 Snow Tiles usable for house decoration
    • 3 Grass Tiles usable for house decoration
    • A Metallic Cloth Dye Tub
    • A random small decorative holiday tree: either a “winter tree”, a “festive tree”

      • And rarely, an “infested tree”. What is it infested with???
    • A card from a member of the development team

Thanksgiving Horn of Plenty

  • A new Horn of Plenty will become available through unknown means during the month of November
  • Has a maximum of 10 charges. Regains 1 charge per day during November.
  • Double-click to obtain food from it.
  • New food items:

    • Sweet Potato Pie – contains six slices of pie
    • Mashed Sweet Potatoes
    • Turducken Platter – contains eight servings of various food items, including Roast Turkey, Roast Duck, Roast Chicken, Turkey Legs, Giblet Gravy, and plates of food.
    • Basket of Rolls contains a baker’s dozen dinner rolls
  • Chance of something special happening when used outside of your house

Castle Courtyard Ownership

  • Castle owners are now able to lock down and secure objects in their castles’ courtyards

New Fortune’s Fire Casino Game – Dice Rider

  • Place three bets. The dealer rolls dice to make a five-die “poker” hand. During the course of the game, you may pull back up to two of the bets.
  • See the casino dealer for payout information and complete rules of the game.

The Exodus Encounter

Those loyal still to Minax and Mondain’s creation work fervently to rebuild the mechanical demon, in hopes of once again summoning Exodus into Britannia.

  • Visit the NPC Exodus Arch Zealot outside of what used to be Ver Lor Reg in Ilshenar to learn about how to gain the Keys to the encounter and how to perform the Summoning ritual.
  • Keys may be collected via three paths, the Warrior, the Rogue, and the Craftsman.
  • In order to perform the Ritual you must party up with those you wish to play the encounter with.  You do not need to party to acquire the keys.
  • Everyone in the party must have their own set of Keys to perform the ritual.
  • You may perform the ritual at any shrine in Trammel or Felucca, except the Chaos shrine.

    • Due to the restricted architecture of the Spirituality Shrine, a “satellite” shrine has been constructed in front of the original, use that Shrine to perform the ritual.
  • Exodus may be summoned so long as Exodus has not been killed in the last ten minutes.
  • If at any time during the Encounter Exodus’ HP drops below 60%, additional groups will not be able to join the encounter, if Exodus’ HP regen to 75%, additional groups will be able to join the encounter.
  • Players will be teleported to a random Ilshenar shrine if they opt to not leave the area within 10 minutes of Exodus’ death.  There is a two minute warning message before this happens.
  • Defeating Exodus will give a chance to receive powerful rewards:

    • Scroll of Valiant Commendation [Replica]

      • Gives the character who eats it a +5 permanent gain to maximum stats
      • Cannot be stacked with a previous Scroll of Valiant Commendation
      • If the scroll has been used it will have a “Claimed By” item property
    • Bracers of Alchemical Devastation [Replica]

      • Hit Fireball 35%
      • Mana Regeneration 4
      • Faster Cast Recover 3
      • Physical Resist 10%
      • Fire Resist 8%
      • Cold Resist 8%
      • Poison Resist 8%
      • Energy Resist 8%
      • Mage Armor
    • Hygieia’s Amulet [Replica]

      • Alchemy Bonus 10%
    • Asclepius [Replica]

      • 15% Bandage Healing Bonus
    • Clockwork Leggings (Platemail Leggings) – Imbueable

      • Dexterity Bonus 5
      • Stamina Regen 5
      • Defense Chance Increase 25%
      • Physical Resist 5%
      • Fire Resist 3%
      • Cold Resist 2%
      • Poison Resist 3%
      • Energy Resist 2%
    • Clockwork Leggings (Gargish Platemail Leggings) – Imbueable

      • Dexterity Bonus 5
      • Stamina Regen 5
      • Defense Chance Increase 25%
      • Physical Resist 8%
      • Fire Resist 6%
      • Cold Resist 5%
      • Poison Resist 6%
      • Energy Resist 5%
    • Dupre’s Sword (Viking Sword/Stone War Sword)

      • Hit Mana Drain 50%
      • Strength Bonus 10
      • Hit Chance Increase 25%
      • Swing Speed Increase 35%
      • Damage Increase 100%

 

Bug Fixes


  • Tinkering  Bonus  Talisman will no show the correct success rate.
  • Rioters and Protesters have left all the cities
  • Players will no longer be trapped inside the card table at the Casino
  • Raised garden beds and plants inside the bed will be deleted when a IDOC house falls after the next server maintenance.
  • Halloween masks that had one strength requirement will now display the correct requirement
  • Players can dye display cases after it has been returned to deed form and replaced.
  • Players can now dye metal chests with the metal dye tub
  • Gargoyles can now complete the Hag’s Quest

 

 

Classic client 7.0.27


  • Cliloc Changes

Enhanced Client 4.0.27


  • Cliloc Changes

Exposed the following functions to LUA for Enhanced Client Custom UI:

PlaySoundByID()

Plays a game sound.

Parameters

type (int) The type of sound: ambient = 0, action =1
id  (int) The id of the sound file to play
x (int) The x coordinate of the target location.
y (int) The y coordinate of the target location.
(int) The z coordinate of the target location. 

Returns

Nil  No return value

Example:

PlaySoundByID( 1, 23, WindowData.PlayerLocation.x, WindowData.PlayerLocation.y, WindowData.PlayerLocation.z)

 

GetDistanceFromPlayer()

Returns the distance in tiles from the target to the player

Parameters

Id (int) The id of the target used to measure distance

Returns

distance (number) The numbers of tiles from the player

Example

local distanceFromPlayer = GetDistanceFromPlaye(WindowData.CurrentTarget.TargetId)

GetTerrainType

Returns the terrain type id on the given coordinates

Parameters

x (int) The x coordinate of the target location.
y (int) The y coordinate of the target location.
Z (int) The z coordinate of the target location.

Returns

type (number) The terrain type id of the tile at the given location.

Example

local terrainType = GetTerrainType(WindowData.PlayerLocation.x, WindowData.PlayerLocation.y, WindowData.PlayerLocation.z)


UO Herald - Game Updates

Decays Turned Off & Shard of the Dead

Due to a lot of our players being without power due to Hurricane Sandy we are going to turn off City Loyalty decay and Housing decay for two weeks starting tonight.
We hope everyone is safe and our thoughts are with all of you.

If you are fortunate enough to play, please keep in mind that the Shard of the Dead will end tomorrow. If you are looking for some in-game Halloween action, visit TC1 tonight!


UO Herald - Game Updates

Ask & Answer No. 8

This week’s Ask & Answer had to fight its way through wind and rain. Here are latest answers to your questions:

UOMania

Can you add the timer for the spawn of the next token to the item property display of the veteran reward Shard Transfer Shields? Right now I need to write down the date to remember when the next token will come out. (clorenz)
uo.stratics
Also the number currently held on the shield (Tazar)

Kyronix: This is something we can easily do and will add to the backlog, thanks!

Currently we can only get Bulk Order Book Covers buying the full 11th anniversary collection pack from the origin store. Can we get them in some other way, for example with a separate purchase? (Zangar)
Mesanna: This is something we can add in the future.

Can we get the ability to remove and recover powerscrolls and recipes from a character, to apply them on another character? (clorenz)
Mesanna: We as a team all feel this would not be a good system to put into UO due to the fact it cuts out the need to do champ spawns.

Can you make all items stackable? There’s still a lot of stuff that requires infinite storage space and is unstackable. (clorenz)
uo.stratics

We already have clockwork assemblies and arcane gems that are stackable. Can we get the power crystals to stack as well? (sablestorm)
I can remember when clockwork assemblies weren’t stackable and they were fixed at some point in time. It would be great to be able to stack power crystals too. (Trixrnt4kids)
Tasty treats – We are getting a lot of these now from the new Treasure Chests, and just wondering why they don’t stack? Thank you (Old Man of UO)
Acid slug, Tasty treats and “scared fire ant goo” All 3 doens’t stack. Please, fix it because there are too many items (Ivory Norwind)
Monster Stealables are barely used in game (from my experience talking to people) because they take so many lockdowns in a house to store due to the fact that they are unstackable. Please consider making them stack. Thanks (Nero Blackraven)

Kyronix: There is a number of bugs related to stackable items in the system that we will be squashing during the Publish 80 bug sprint. 

I’d like an item to open my bankbox from home. Similar to the chest of sending, but when you double-click it it opens the bankbox. (clorenz)
Kyronix: This is certainly something we can discuss, maybe it’s time for a Britannian heat wave?

Can we get the ability to transfer money from a character on one shard to a character on another shard? Maybe with a “gold transfer token”. (clorenz)
Mesanna: I guess I am not understanding the question, are you asking to be able to just transfer money?  I guess my confusion is why not just do it via character transfer?

Red & Purple Pixies

Has the staff thought about making the seasonal change that removes the green from the trees and sets the ground in snow, something we can turn off by option? Frankly… I’m sick to death of it in real life and would rather not see that landscape in the game. Thus the option, so people can make a choice.  (Lady Frany Flame)
Bleak: This is a good suggestion and one we will keep in mind for both clients going forward.

UO Auctions

I find that the game can occasionally seem a little linear as far as dress codes go for the player hoping to achieve best kit. For example everyone ends up wearing sunglasses from library donations. Have the Devs ever considered adding any artifacts to the game that are actually random in which art they drop as. Ie a helm that could compete with the goggles, but can appear as a norsehelm/closed helm/samurai helm/dragon helm and a caster hat that could appear as any of the cloth hat art. etc i feel applying this sort of idea to some new drops might aide diversity in the way players end up dressed and make use of great in game art that ends up somewhat redundant. (Treasure Seeker)
Bleak: We have considered doing this but there are several factors that need to taken into consideration for example the actual name of the artifact that may need to be changed based on the selected art or some are may need to be eliminated as a possibility due to meditation restrictions. This is something that we will keep in mind as we go forward in creating new artifacts.

UO.stratics

I know it was stated a long time ago that we would be able to un-alter items. Is this still in the works? Also, could we get the option to alter any similar item to any race? For example, rings and bracelets could be altered, but necklaces and earrings could not (unless there’s a similar artifact for the opposite race) (yadiman)
Mesanna: After further research into this matter we are unable to put in the ability to un-alter items.  There just isn’t a way to keep track of the original item.

If you have something you want to know about Ultima Online and the team, post your questions on your fansite. All interesting questions will be collected and send to our team, so we can continue to answer them.

 


UO Herald - Game Updates

Account Center Maintenance – 11/01

Update 10:45 am EDT: The maintenance is over. All functions of the account center are available again.

Greetings,

We will bring down the Account Center for a short maintenance tomorrow, Thursday November 1st, at 10am EDT (15:00 CET). During the maintenance you will not be able to change subscription or redeem game codes.

At the moment we anticipate the Account Center to be back online at 1:00pm EDT (18:00 CET).

Thank you for your understanding.