The Ultima Online team has received another set of questions last week. Here are the answers.

Concerns

People using high Seas boats, moored along side each other, to ‘house hide’ in PvP.  
Mesanna: We have written this up as a bug and hope to have it fixed soon. 

Questions

Are there any plans to make gargoyle horn dye and/or restyle available on hairdressers? Daslo, Neverplay UO, Cerwin Vega
Mesanna: After speaking with the team we think Horn Dressers is a good idea…Thanks  for the suggestion.

Are there any plans to revamp Doom? By this I mean changing or evolving the bosses, changing the loot, artifact pool or drop mechanics. There are several problems, for one an increase in players causes more bosses to spawn, however there is no obligation to complete a full round (which would be my definition of running a gauntlet), so people do the 5 rooms then leave before the Dark Fathers, usually leaving one skilled soloer to spend 30 mins plus killing each of them. Now we have gargoyles some gargoyle drops should probably also be included. (CKTC, ask the devs)
Mesanna: CKTC,  Doom is on our list, it needs updated as much as champ spawns, dungeons and  peerless do.

So awhile ago, I inquired about this and someone said the refer a friend program would be making a return. I recall someone saying the program would be back, but now I can’t find where this was said. Is there any chance the program will be making a return soon? I am asking because there are many players who gave their accounts away or sold them. Some of them that I have pestered mean to return via the trial so it would be really great to get referred by them if the referral program returns. (Sablestorm, Stratics)
Mesanna: Sablestorm, at this time we are not starting up the Buddy Referral program.  With all the account management changes this is something that was not moved into the new system and would require.

A while back I read about EA’s plan for WAR/UO/DAoC: They planned to switch from ‘continuing content patches’ to so called ‘booster packs’. For UO that resulted in the ‘High Seas booster’ and the ‘Gothic’ and ‘Rustic’ theme packs. My question is: Will you continue to add boosters? And if so, will they be more in the line with the theme packs or the High Seas expansion? What is the timeframe in which you will add new content (other then differently colored items…  . (from Knuckleheads.dk)
Mesanna: No UO is not going to be working on a booster pack or a theme pack for a while. We want to take the time to do a big bug push. We want to put in an in game Vendor Search, we want to be able to update the outdated armor in the game, we want to improve the fishing rewards, we want to finish virtues, and we want to finish the high res art.  So at this time we don’t have a booster pack or expansion in the works. I am not saying we never well but just not at this time.

When will the Virtue system be completed? (from Knuckleheads.dk)
Mesanna: We have come up with several ideas but just don’t feel they are worthy of the last two virtues.  We have read some of your ideas on stratics but would love to hear more.

Will the “brainstormed” Order/Chaos involve Warfare in usual None-PvP areas, Such as trammel? (from Knuckleheads.dk)
Mesanna: We have not gotten that far in the discussions with this, hopefully we can talk to everyone during the 15th Anniversary Party and get a good discussion going.  Since a lot of you are not able join us we will also start a thread when we are at the point of go or no go on the project.

Non-medable armor is underpowered compared to medable armor. Is there any plans to boosting non-medable armor without ruining the usefulness of leather? (from UOForums.com)
Mesanna: We are in discussion regarding updating armor, making all armor useful again. We are going to do our best not to mess up leather but still make the other materials a viable option.

It is very bad impression goldspammers leave on newbies and returners, with the default channel being help, trials unable to change, and returners often not know they can switch channels. Could you at least make the default channel “General” if the account privileges grants access to it? (from UOForums.com)
Stephen: If you account is not a trial account we will make the change to have the default as general instead of help, this will be made in one of the upcoming publishes. Trail accounts will still be placed in the help channel. Please keep in mind the gold spammers are trial accounts those have to stay in the help channel.

Is it possible to see if your character is friended to the Ants? If not wish they could make something on the character sheet.(Ingame Question from Drachenfels)
Mesanna: Currently there is not a way to tell if your friended to the ants other than not getting attacked. It is something we can add in the future so I will add it to the backlog.

Still I must ask, Will you please fix houses to allow more than 10 Co-owners? Many of us have multiple accounts and are sick and tired of being nothing but a Friend in our own homes… I know I’m not alone and I know I’ve asked time and time again but PLEASE can we have at least 70 co-owner slots on our house. From MalagAste, Uhall. Risso, Ask the Devs (Clarification: Only the owning account characters are all counted as owning. Subsequent account characters are treated individually. Therefore it is not possible to co-own more than 8 characters from other accounts, any above that number can only be friended.)
Mesanna: Everyone will be happy to hear (or I hope they will be) that we as a team have talked about it and want to make a change to the housing co owners.  Instead of 10 co owners we want to change it to 10 accounts which is 70 players total. 

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.

Yarrr!

Prepare yourself for adventure when Ultima Online: High Seas sets sail October 12, 2010

For $14.99 USD, players will enjoy:

• Brand new NPC Ship Combat with enhanced ship-to-ship combat and damage states
• Bank/Character Storage Increase, Sea Markets, new fish, fishing buffs, and recipes, paintable boats, Level 7 Treasure Chests and new boss encounters: the Scalis and Corgul the Soulbinder
• All new ship combat! Features include new ship to ship combat,  ship weapons and ammunition, and NPC Ship Combat (Pirates and Merchants)
• New ship types, Tokuno, Orc, and Gargoyle with customizable hues. New cannon types and ammunition!

Buy it today!

* After purchasing High Seas, consumers will receive a retail registration code to be entered into the account center at: https://accounts.eamythic.com.

Have you visited1Up.com’s website today? They posted an interesting article about Ultima Online.

“It’s actually this near-total anarchy that most sets UO apart from what came after. Nobody had done anything quite like this before, and it shows. While today MMOs have become mostly formulaic and carefully manage player progression, interaction, class balancing, and just generally make sure that the entire experience is a known quantity, Ultima Online faced no such constraints. There was no “common sense” when it came to this sort of thing, and while the kitchen-sink approach of providing everything one would expect from a single-player RPG and then letting a few thousand people play with it at once had occasionally disastrous consequences, it also led to the kind of freedom and surprise that one doesn’t often encounter in a modern MMO.”

 Check out the complete article.

We will perform an extended maintenance on all Asian shards tonight, starting at 6pm EDT (10pm GMT). At this time we expect the additional downtime to last no longer than one hour.

Thank you for your support.

   Having defeated the Purple Llamas of Great Lakes to open the 2012 Treasure Hunt season, the Gold Diggers received a well-earned break from action. Such rest is temporary, however, as they have been called upon by a new Challenger – Lake Superior shard!

It has been many years since the Legend shard’s prejudicial past. But, one cannot forgive the way the people of this shard once looked down upon others simply for being different. It is unjust. It goes against the very Virtues that this game has tried to instill. In less than two weeks after UO: Renaissance was introduced, in May of 2000, the home shard of the Gold Diggers was formed. A shard…exclusively for AOL users. Bah!

      Lake Superior. One of the original four shards. A place of rights. Respect. A place where no man should be looked down upon, merely for his choice of ISP. We’re the unmarred shard. We got the lakes that’ll give you the quakes. Enough roleplay to fill Norway. And we’ve got the sublime rhyme that’d make a mime chime.

    For the good of Sosaria, no matter which shard of the Gem you reside, Lake Superior challenges the Gold Diggers of Legends. Your past as despicable AOL’ers is as inescapable as our future as the Cross Shard Treasure Hunt Champions.

Having been roused by this upstart, the team from Legends responded strongly:

Will the deeds of the Lake Superior treasure hunters be as great as their professed ideals? Or will they join Great Lakes in a pit of foes vanquished by the Diggers? Find out Saturday, March 3rd as the Cross Shard Treasure Hunting Challenge continues!

Date: Saturday, March 3rd
Time: 8pm CST, 9pm EST
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.

Greetings,

The login servers are now available.

We are experiencing an issue with the UO login servers. The login servers are temporarily down. This will not affect those already logged in to UO. We will have more information on a fix shortly.

Thank you for bearing with us

The UO Team

Update 1am EST: The issue has been corrected and the access to the shard is restored.

We have been informed by our service provider that there are issues to connect to shard Oceania.

The situation is under investigation. Keep an eye on the Herald for updates.

Update: The issue has been resolved and you should now receive your codes again.

If you want to buy codes for Ultima Online on Origin today, you might encounter a noticeable delay between the purchase and the delivery of the codes.

The store team is investigating this issue and we will inform you as soon as the situation returned to normal.

We are looking at fixing the issue regarding faction points and the deterioration of faction points. To fix these issues properly it will require us to wipe all faction points.

The fix will soon be available for testing on Test Center 1. We invite all of you to transfer your characters to TC1 and experience the changes as soon as it is ready.

Keep an eye on the Herald.

If you have visited the shard Baja you might have encountered a quite original being called The Yattering. With Mesanna’s help we were able to address him, ask him some questions, and get away without getting bitten – although he was constantly eyeing our notice book. Here are his answers:

How do you keep your teeth so sharp?
Mama say “no more bitings.” yatter gnawing guardy bones now.

How do you like living in a tree?
loves yattertree!

Can you tell us what it was like being part of the town guards and why you quit?
no quit! yattering best guardy ever! ON OR! coooo-rage! doo-teee!*

[*Yatterese for Honor, Courage and Duty. The editor]

If you were to have a pet what would it be?
yattering want a Seppy-pet! Mama make a Seppy-doll for yatterbed please?

People seem to either love you or hate you, do you know why that is?
no Mama. yattery adorable! how no lovings me?

Where did you live before you came to Britannia?
yatter was livings in Abyss. they say yattery annoying.  big demons toss yattery out.

Where is the rest of your family?
demons throw yattery out. no family but Mama now. yattering have gobliny-friends though. missings Bom Evilstench.

How did you become Mesanna’s Pet?
was bitings knees as faire. bit Mama. Mama bite back. LOVE!

What do you like to do that you enjoy the most for fun?
makings fire, bothering guardys and killing Seppy. *cackles*

We have noticed that you like collecting Guard items of clothing, which ones are you still missing?
needings pair of looker-helpers from funny-eye guardy.

If you could do anything in this world what would you like to do?
cuddling Mama while she kills everyone with herd of super-killer fire-breathing greater paragon ice cows of death.

How much money did you make in your kissing booth that was a part of the Fall Festival?
yatter get ball of yarn, chewed cookie, and kissy from very ugly boy. yuck!

What do you feel is your most valued possession of all your treasures?
yattery cuddles Brackybones when Mama no here.

Is there any truth to the rumor that you can’t handle your spiced holiday Cider?
*hic* juice makes world do spinnings, yattery walk funny and fall out of tree. no likings fishys either. make yattertummy sick. only yatterberry brandy and yatterfish no make sick.

Last but not least is there anything you want to tell us about yourself so everyone can love you as much as I do?
people thinkings yattering a gobliny. no gobliny. yatter a demon! everyone should love yattery! Mama kill ones who don’t! *cackles*

PS: mean peoples take all yatterberry bushes away. Mama make one grow for crunchys and munchys? Also Mama turn Godivy into pink squirrel? *cackles*