The Herald

UO Herald - Game Updates

UO Herald Restoration

All the latest news and the archives have been restored on the website after yesterday’s issues. Due to limitations in our publishing tool, some news articles bear two time stamps – one of today when they were restored and one of the original publishing date.

We continue to work on the other pages like the UO Guide or the Account Center information to bring them back up to date as fast as possible. Please let us know if you miss content.

Thank you for your support.


UO Herald - Game Updates

Discussion of UO Changes

Associate Producer Bonnie “Mesanna” Armstrong is discussing plans for the near future of UO on UOStratics:

In approx 2 weeks we will be putting the following on TC1, I hope you guys have time to go check out the changes and give us your feedback.

  • Faction armor distribution – Faction Armor will now cost silver and we removed faction rank restrictions for wearing faction artifacts
  • Faction point system distribution – Points will now be distributed to multiple faction members when participating in killing faction enemies via healing and direct damage.
  • Three (3) new ways to gain City loyalty.
  • A new craftable improved version of the communication crystals.

To find out what other players think of the changes and join in on the discussion, check out the thread here.


UO Herald - Game Updates

June’s Treasure Hunt Challenge – Drachenfels vs. Legends

  The Treasure Hunt Challenge is going international!

  Last month the Gold Diggers of Legends Shard won a record third competition in a row by defeating a former two-time champion, the Blue Beetles of Catskills. The match was a close affair, with some added drama in the form of a surprise rule change designed to challenge the two veteran teams. Unbeknownst to the Legends team, however, another shard was already waiting for their turn…

Dearest Miko and Helios,
  I hope everything’s fine with you and the people of Legends. For a considerable time now I have followed Legend’s story of success in the Treasure Hunter Challenge. It made me think that the time has come to give you a real formidable opponent! For weeks Drachenfels has had Treasure Hunter team, waiting. After weeks of heavy training, The Pink Pickers are prepared to challenge you! Let’s say it quick and easy…
  Herewith I want to challenge you to compete with my Drachenfels Treasure Hunter Team! We are prepared for you! Anytime, and anywhere! Hopefully we get a positive response from you soon.
   Sincere regards,
   The Pink Pickers & EM Borbarad

  Helios and Miko responded without hesitation:

  This matchup should prove to be an interesting one, as it marks the first time a shard from outside North America will participate. Is Drachenfels up to the pressure of beating a three time champion? Will Legends be able to sustain their winning ways? Come to the Chessboard in Nujel’m and watch Drachenfels take on Legends to find out!


Date: Sunday, June 3rd
Time: 4pm EST, 10pm CEST
Place: Nujel’m Chessboard, Test Center Shard
Spectators are encouraged to come and cheer on their favorite team! Gates will be provided from the New Haven bank prior to and during the event.

UO Herald - Game Updates

New UO Player Guide

We had spent a large amount of time sifting through all the guide information on the UO Herald to consolidate and streamline the UO Play Guide. Through diligence and dedication we are proud to announce we have finished the newly revamped player’s guide and published links to download the pdf document.

Whether you’re a new player looking for answers to your questions or a veteran player looking to brush up some of your knowledge, the guide is full of great information! Follow the Playguide link in the navigation bar or click here to check it out.


UO Herald - Game Updates

Hot Fix Notes – 05/25

Fixes for publish 76 had been staged for the maintenance that was completed last night. 

The following issues have been corrected:

  • You can now place castle ladders. 
  • An issue with Cauldrons of Transmutations was corrected.
  • The issue with house addons not returning to their original location after house customization was fixed.


UO Herald - Game Updates

Producer’s Letter

Happy New Year Everyone!
 
Hope everyone had a fun and game filled holiday break with friends and family. 2012 is upon us and for Ultima Online it’s time to celebrate our 15 year journey. UO to me is the MMORPG that kick started this genre and we have so much to be thankful for it. I have much respect for the original Origin crew who got this ball rolling. UO would be nothing without the fans and passionate community it has. You guys and ladies are the best and longest supportive group of creative players I know of. You continue to amaze me with how you play within our little sandbox world. So many great stories to be shared, and new stories yet to be written. To all the players who have walked the lands of Sosaria I encourage you to join us this year for the celebration. An epic story arc has begun that will carry us till September when a new…. (Mesanna just gave me the evil eye again.) Well you’ll just have to play and see. 😉
 
The team is hard at work to do everything we can to make this year a year to remember. Thanks to everyone for all the constructive feedback from pub 73. Pub 74 has now gone worldwide and if you haven’t had a chance yet to check out the patch notes you can do so here. Pub 75 development is already well underway. Lots to do in support of the anniversary arc and a handful of long overdue bugs we plan to attack. Let us know what you think of the recent revamps to Wrong and Shame dungeons. We’re planning to continue to revamp the rest of the sins dungeons every other publish, so let us know which one you like to see next. Other items on the table for discussion this year (insert typical disclaimer here 😉 is finding more creative ways to deal with our hackers, improving our enhance and legacy clients, putting the challenge back into champ spawns and bringing value back to plate are just a few examples of what we like to get done. Revitalizing the old, celebrating 15 years and aggressively knocking out bugs is a major focus us over the coming months. Now I’m sure several of you are wondering what about the high res art for EC that was mentioned before. Well I just got a preview of it and it’s not ready for primetime yet. I know many of you are really looking forward to it, but we need this to cook a little longer. The highres art should look better, not different, so it’s turning out to be more challenging than originally planned.

On other news, keep an eye on the UO Herald for upcoming EM events tied to our anniversary story arc. You won’t’ want to miss it. Speaking of the herald, we are planning to relaunch UO.com later this year with an all new look. More details to follow on that in future posts. We also will start doing spotlight articles on some of our most passionate fans and their love for Ultima Online. It’s amazing what some of you have done and I’m happy to share it. On our Origin.com store we will continue to roll out a several new offers over the coming months. 30 day game time codes and a reincarnation token (gender, race and name change) are up to bat first. We hear you loud and clear about wishing for the ability to buy codes in quantity and are working with the Origin to get that functionality as soon as possible. For those having issues connecting to the Origin store in their region I urge you to check out PayByCash for another method for meeting all your UO shopping needs.

Before signing off I wanted to say one last thing… thank you. Thank you to all current UO players for helping us mold Britannia into what it is today and thank you to all the previous players who helped defined what Ultima Online will be remembered as for generations to come. Lots going on in 20-12, so buckle up and we hope you enjoy the ride with us!

Cheers,
 
Jeff Skalski
Ultima Franchise Producer
Tweet me anytime @jeff_skalski