We have corrected the following issues on the Origin shard:

•  Infected gargoyles will no longer spawn.
• The raiders will no longer spawn in Ilshenar and/or Malas.
• Players should no longer be teleported into invalid locations when answering the Call to Arms.
• Players should no longer be ejected from the Despise boss encounter if they enter specific regions of Despise Level 4.
• Negative karma inhabitants of Despise will no longer aggress onto negative karma players, however they will still fight back if attacked.
• Andros and Adrian encounter changes
  • There should now be a leash on their wisp lieutenants.
  • There should now be a 5 minutes notification before the Doom Spell is casted.
  • Players will now be given 5 minutes to loot and will no longer be teleported back to their base immediately after the encounter.
  • If a players possessed minion is conscripted more than 1 minute after Call to Arms is answered, they will not be transported to the battlefield and will need to wait until the next Call to Arms is called.
  • Conscriptions will only be accepted for one minute after the Call to Arms. If you conscript after a Call to Arms is answered, then you will have to wait until the next Call to Arms.
  • When players fail to slay Andros or Adrian the Doom Spell will now be cast properly.

  Here ye here ye…the great race is back! Following a string of impressive victories over some of the best treasure hunters in the realm, the Gold Diggers of Legends Shard received a well deserved rest as other shards prepared their teams. They are prepared, and the Diggers’ rest is over. A Challenge has been issued by the shard of Europa:

Dear Legends,

Europa has been busy. For weeks we have grown a team of Treasure Hunters that are now ready to challenge you, Legends, and your team to a race of seven dangerous chests. The Elven League of Virtues team from Europa is primed and raring to go… But do you accept?

Regards,
The Elven League of Virtues, EM Adris & EM Emile Layne of Europa

  Eager to compete once again, there was no delay from Legends in issuing a response:

  Will this group of Virtuous Elves be able to succeed where many have failed? Or will the Gold Diggers prove once again that they are in a League of their own?

  Find out as these two teams meet on the sparkling island of Nujel’m for the latest match in the Cross Shard Treasure Hunt Challenge!

We have just added 3 fantastic items to the Origin store.

An Instant Pet Bond Potion

• This Potion will instantly bond your pet without waiting 7 days

A Set of Three Garden Beds

• You will be able to purchase a set of 3 garden beds without having to buy the Rustic Pack (still requires entitlement)

A new Mythic Character Token

• This is an improved advanced character token, gives you 5 skills at 90 points (no templates) and 225 stat points.

To help us celebrate our 15th year anniversary we have come up with a nice piece of art that will be the reward for this writing contest. We will be picking 5 winners from each shard. The players that write the best story about their most memorable moment in UO will be sent a code to redeem for one of these robes.

The rules are as follows:

• Must be between 250 to 500 words
• Deadline September 15th
• Essays will be judged based on originality, content, and how well they capture what is special about the memorable moment they have chosen to describe.
• Winners and their essays will be announced on the Herald
• Codes will be mailed to you by Mesanna by October 6th
• Mail your entries to your shard Event Moderator. If you do not have an EM on your shard, please email your entries to barmstrong@ea.com

Good luck to everyone and we look forward to reading your stories. Here is a sneak preview of the reward for this contest.

Psst!!! Notice ladies we have a robe that fits us!!

Our Internet Service Provider in Australia will perform a maintenance today between 10am EDT and 1pm EDT (12:00am AEST to 3am AEST). During the maintenance window the connection to shard Oceania might get lost for a short time.

We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause.

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Hello everyone,

There is a lot going on in UO, so let me tell you all about it.  First, there is Publish 78 which is on its way to all shards soon. We have revised Despise, placed the artifacts on Siege only on Cora and level 3 in Covetous, relocated some of the monsters everyone is missing in other areas, and for the younger players we have earth elementals and more! The Anniversary rewards will be given out starting the month of September. As some of you know the Harpsichord is among one of the items; additional music can be found on monsters in Ter Mur. We have removed the Bless deed and added a Steward to the list, since this is an ongoing clean-up system we will be changing out items on it from time to time. Remember nothing is gone forever *grins*.

We have already started working on Publish 79! I am sure everyone will be happy to know we are working on a method to distribute the Scroll of Valiant Commendation. We have come up with new seasonal content for Halloween and added a few new items to the pumpkin patches, so have fun and remember to visit your graveyards *evil laugh*. For this publish we are getting Christmas gifts and Veteran rewards put in so I hope everyone enjoys what we have come up with. Yes, sneak peeks will come later!

As everyone is aware we are quickly come up on our 15th year Anniversary. To start celebrating this we are bringing back Return to Britannia for the whole month of September. I hope to see old friends and new ones! Let me go ahead and assure everyone that they cannot place houses (see we have learned from past mistakes =P).

I have received a lot of emails regarding the Party here in Fairfax on the September 29th, everyone that has written in so far has a reserved slot already. We have a block of rooms reserved for you at a discount rate if you will be spending the night. Here is the link to the motel. I will be posting an agenda for everyone soon on the Herald.

If you want to enter our writing contest announced on the Herald (we love to read how creative our players are), please send them to your EM’s so they can compile all the entries and send them to me.  I will be sending them to the judges without names on them to avoid concerns about favoritism.  The judges will be one person from the Japan team, one from the community team, EM team as a whole (EM’s will not vote on the shard they work on),  Petra from Stratics, a mystery judge, and myself.  Please remember it has to be between 250 and 500 words, the ones I have gotten directly have fallen a little sly of the requirements.  I look forward to reading all your memories!

Last but not least I wanted to tell you what we will be working on after Christmas.  Publish 80 is going to be a bug fix as I promised.  All we are going to be working on for this publish is bugs, both our team and the Japan team are all looking forward to being able to take a breath and fix as many bugs as we possibly can for this publish. Misk has been going thru the Stratics boards and looking for open issues that are not written up.  If you do write a bug please give details so we can reproduce the issue.  The whole team is really looking forward to this as much as I am sure most of you are.  Will be nice to get the most pressing bugs off our plates!!

Now for the exciting part of the letter.  Remember what you are going to read after this is not written in stone….*takes a deep breath*  This is a list of things we have been talking and brainstorming about:

• Vendor search
• High Res Art
• New Art pieces such as new furniture ( if we don’t break the new artist to much maybe even new armor and new monsters/tameables)
• New Paperdoll  (time to change the diapers)
• New tasteful hues on tameables other than cu sidhes
• Enhanced UI Improvements for EC client
• Currency Conversion (gold would be on character/account, no checks)
• Revising UO Armor to make all types useful again
• Revising pet slots
• Pet Revamp
• Chaos/Order and doing away with factions
• Reworking champ spawns (improving mobs, loot etc)
• Add new items to fishing and fishing quest rewards
• New sea creatures and encounters
• New wearable’s for both male and female
• Working closer with Stratics to streamline the search  to help filter out duplicate questions so the team can address some of the player questions weekly
• Meer/Juka Loyality quests
• Battleground shard

So my friends this is what the team has worked on, is working on and wants to work on in the future.  I will be putting up some sneak peeks to finish out what Jeff started in his letter to you guys so see if you can guess what the puzzle is.  I know everyone will have a lot of questions, especially about the last list.  When we make our decision as to what we are going to work on each publish I will give you guys a heads up.  Thank you for reading this and if your coming to Virginia.  Please have a safe trip!  I will be putting up an agenda of what we are going to do and what you can expect of the day soon, so please keep an eye open for that.

This is the second piece of the puzzle… good luck!

Thank you everyone!

Bonnie “Mesanna” Armstrong
Producer UO

As Ultima Online, forerunner and pathfinder of the MMORPG genre, rapidly approaches it’s 15th Anniversary, so too does www.stratics.com, possibly the oldest continuously active MMORPG fan site on the internet.

Why is it the oldest? Because it was launched in October 1997 by Ryan(Den Dragon)Finlay to support this awesome game and its players.

The ‘tree’ that is Stratics has developed other ‘branches’ over the years, supporting later games and is now owned by George Vanous of TGN.

The strongest, and oldest, ‘branch’ is still uo.stratics; continuing its staunch support of Ultima Online over its full 15 year history through comprehensive play-guides and news features on the portal, http://uo.stratics.com and through message boards at http://stratics.com/community.

Now, in a move to strengthen this already long established bond, Petra Fyde, Managing Editor of uo.stratics, senior administrator of stratics.com/community and avid UO player, takes the title ‘UO Community Liaison’. In this role she, ably supported by a select group of uo.stratics staff and Airmid Cecht,TGN community manager, will form a conduit between the UO team, led by Mesanna, and the player base.

All UO Fan sites will be invited to feed into this conduit to communicate their user’s questions and concerns. These questions will be compiled by Petra and sent to Mesanna to be answered on a weekly basis. Fansites should appoint one person to be a contact person for that site and introduce yourself to Mesanna.

We will push Publish 78.0 to all shards during the maintenance this evening. 

For your reading pleasure, here are the completed notes:

Publish 78.0.0

Anniversary Items

Anniversary items for the 15th Anniversary of Ultima Online have been added. Considering these are a gift from us to you, we will drop a few sneak peeks in the upcoming weeks.

• All Characters older than 30 days will be eligible to receive Anniversary Items beginning September 1st, 2012 and ending September 30th, 2012

List of Anniversary Gifts

• Harpsicord and Harpsicord Rolls
• Heritage Token (due to request for ladders)
• Sands of Sosaria (16 unique historical items, hint: dbl click them when you pick one)
• 3 exploding muffins (just for something to go boom)
• A new Anniversary Cake has 10 pieces of cake each. Careful once you eat all the pieces the cake will disappear.

Despise Dungeon Revamp

This was the premise for the two brothers which serve as the Boss mobs in Dungeon despise.
         Two brothers, both well learned in the arcane arts, lusted for the same woman. She was but a simple maiden, tending to the ranches dotting Britannian countryside, her beauty, however, was without equal. Both men knew should they compete against one another, neither would succeed in bearing fruit with such beauty. So the brothers conspired, and began to corrupt the very fabric of her love. Together the brothers conjured a powerful Polymorph spell to transfigure themselves into the perfect man for the maiden to love. For months they would deceive her love, the maiden unknowingly accomplice to a corrupt triangle. Finally, she gave birth to twins. Despite the powerful magics the brothers used to pursue their ruse, the mother’s love for her children was too great and the brother’s trickery was uncovered. Outraged at such a thing the maiden cast away her lovers forever, cursing them to the Abyss. As the twins grew and their mother aged they would learn of her hate towards their fathers. As each twin grew to adulthood and became their own man, they would blame the other for their own father’s fate, and come to despise one another. Already practiced in their fathers’ art and fully possessing their arcane talent the twins began bartering with the mysterious Wisps. Eventually each convinced the Wisps to conjure an army with which to destroy the other. Their mother, bearing witness to this feud and knowing the dangers of the likely outcome, pleaded with her sons to reconcile. Corrupt with rage, there was no foregoing their anger and so she mediated at the Shrine of Compassion, hoping in her heart of hearts for her sons to end the feud. As she meditated a mysterious Wisp appeared to her and in an instant an eternal pact was struck. The mother’s love was enough to save Britannia from impending war, but her sons, filled with despise would be cast there forever…

• Note that this new content is on Trammel only
• There is a mysterious wisp near the entrance to Despise. Double-click it to have a conversation and learn something of the new dungeon content.
• The top two levels of the dungeon are now aligned to Good and Evil and are at war
• Look for the stone ankh inside the dungeon, and use it to commune with a Wisp
• Your purpose is to help out your side in the war by building and training your army
• The strongest army will periodically be transported to the Final Battle in the depths of Despise
• Collect Putrid Hearts (the Dungeon Crystals of Despise) and spend them with the Mysterious Wisp on powerful rewards
• The Final Fight can yield new artifacts!
• Siege only – Artifacts will drop on the Covetous mobs and Cora

Despise Artifacts

Compassion’s Eye
Ring

• Intelligence Bonus 10
• Mana Increase 10
• Mana Regeneration 2
• Luck 250
• Spell Damage Increase 20%
• Lower Reagent Cost 20%

Unicorn Mane Woven Sandals/Talons

Human: Sandals
Gargoyle: Leather Talons

• Nightsight
• Random Damage Eater 2%

Despicable Quiver / Despicable Vail

Human: Large Quiver
Gargoyle: Leather Wing Armor

For Quiver:

• Archery +5
• Damage Modifier 10%
• Dexterity Bonus 5
• Reflect Physical Damage 5%
• Hit Chance Increase 5%
• Random Resist 10%
• Lower Ammo Cost 30%
• Weight Reduction 30%

For Wing Armor:

• Throwing +5
• Dexterity Bonus 5
• Reflect Physical Damage 5%
• Hit Chance Increase 5%
• Random Resist 10%

Hailstorm
Human: War Fork
Gargoyle: Gargish War Fork

• Random Super Slayer
• Hit Lightning 15%
• Hit Mana Leech 30%
• Hit Cold Area 100%
• Hit Chance Increase 20%
• Swing Speed Increase 25%
• Damage Increase 50%
• Cold Damage 100%
• Durability 255/255

Cleanup Britannia Dyes

Two new and two old dyes have been added to the Cleanup Britannia Collection.
Players may choose the following dyes:

• Black and Green Pigment
• Shadow Blue Pigment
• Vibrant Crimson Pigment
• Reflective Shadow Pigment

Halloween Masks Added

Two new Halloween Masks have been added. Beware of the pumpkin patch between October 1st, 2012 and November 10th, 2012

New Casino Games

• Visit the Fortune’s Fire Casino at the base of the volcano on Fire Isle
• See the Cashier to buy Casino Chips or to cash out your winnings. The exchange rate is 100 gold for 1 chip
• Bet your Chips with one of the two dealers in the Dice Tent:
• Chuckles’ Luck: Bet on a number between 1 and 6. The dealer rolls 3 dice. You win your bet amount for each time your lucky number comes up!
• Hi-Middle-Lo: Place a bet on “High”, “Middle”, “Low”, or “Outside”. For the real gamblers out there, the “Outside” bet pays 5:1 on a win!
• Enjoy a mug o’ Fortune’s Fire Grog, and don’t forget to tip your waitress

Stewards

Some of you asked for this type of NPC and here it is. We have added a Steward to the Clean up Britannia system, it will cost 10,000 points, and we have replaced the Bless Deed with the Steward. Below are the requirements for using one.

• Requires 125 house item storage and one vendor slot to place.
• Can only be placed in public houses
• Can be named
• Can be dressed
• Can be programmed using give words to will give items out to other players when spoken the correct word or phrase.

Bug Fixes

• The rockslides preventing passage into Central Ilshenar have been cleared.
• Act II of the Awakening has been disabled.
• The Afflicted Gargoyles of Ter Mur have been healed
• Seedboxes will now hold up to 300 unique seeds and 5000 total seeds.
• Rare hued vanilla plants are available from completing the Naturalist’s Quest.
• Lava Lobster traps will now retain the correct name when returned from buoy form.
• City Raiders have been added to the Brigand Fort between Yew and Britain.
• Ghosts will no longer get stuck in the Experimental Room within the Abyss.
• The maximum price of an item on a player-run vendor is now 175,000,000gp
• Players who kill certain creatures in other parts of Covetous will no longer receive score credit on the Void Pool scoreboard.
• Mannequins can now wear faction armor.
• Removed the restriction for the Advanced Character Token and the Mythic Token on Siege.
• Increased the artifact drop chance on Cora from 10% to 30%
• Mannequins and stewards cannot equip Holy and Vile items on Siege Perilous/Mugen
• Infected gargoyles will no longer spawn.
• The raiders will no longer spawn in Ilshenar and/or Malas.
• Players should no longer be teleported into invalid locations when answering the Call to Arms.
• Players should no longer be ejected from the Despise boss encounter if they enter specific regions of Despise Level 4.
• Negative karma inhabitants of Despise will no longer aggress onto negative karma players, however they will still fight back if attacked.
• Andros and Adrian encounter changes
• There should now be a leash on their wisp lieutenants.
• There should now be a 5 minutes notification before the Doom Spell is casted.
• Players will now be given 5 minutes to loot and will no longer be teleported back to their base immediately after the encounter.
• If a players possessed minion is conscripted more than 1 minute after Call to Arms is answered, they will not be transported to the battlefield and will need to wait until the next Call to Arms is called.
• Conscriptions will only be accepted for one minute after the Call to Arms. If you conscript after a Call to Arms is answered, then you will have to wait until the next Call to Arms.
• When players fail to slay Andros or Adrian the Doom Spell will now be cast properly.

Classic Client 7.0.27

• Cliloc Changes
• Fixed issue where the sitting animation and a chair can allow the classic client to become out of sync.
• Fixed classic client crash related to Gargoyle throwing weapons

Enhanced Client 4.0.27

• Cliloc Changes
• Fixed EC crashing periodically when dealing with loading and unloading dynamic objects.

Update 11:25am EDT: Both shards are back online.

We are taking down the shards Drachenfels and Europa at 10:45am EDT (16:45 CEST) today to re-publish Publish 78.0 which didn’t get to these shards during the regular maintenance. We expect the shards to be back online no later than 11:45am EDT (17:45 CEST).

At the same time we will visit each shard and unlock the gates to the casino.

See you in the game!