Publish 83 will be released to all shards during your next maintenance cycle.  On the 15th of September you will receive your Anniversary gifts in your back packs when you log into the game,.  We  hope you enjoy the first part of the Global Arc and look forward to your feedback.

UO Team!

During the normal maintenance cycle tomorrow  we will be publshing  both Origin and Izumo, below are the changes made from TC1.

Exploring the Deep

A New Quest & Encounter have been added.  Visit Hepler the Salvager Master at the Sons of the Sea in Trinsic. This is the first part of a three part content Arc which will be developing over the next few months.
• Luck plays an influence throughout various portions of the quest, including the chance at receiving an artifact from the final boss encounter

New Item Property Bane is  found on certain weapons. This on hit property will only trigger when the targets health is below 50%. As the targets health decreases the chance for the property to fire will increase along with the damage inflicted.  Bane has the potential to damage the target for up to 30% of the targets max hit points in physical damage. This damage cannot exceed 350 physical damage.

Added a new title upon completion of the Exploring the Deep quest.

Ultima Online’s 16^th Anniversary Party

Date: September 21^st, 2013

12:45 till 5:00 pm CST

Location: TC1 – Luna Fairgrounds

Agenda

12:45 pm CST – Opening Ceremony at the Luna Fair grounds

1:00 to 2:00 pm CST – Hedge Maze Scavenger Hunt (see details below)

2:00 to 2:15 Return to Luna for announcement of winners for the Hedge Maze Scavenger Hunt

2:15 to 3:00 pm CST – Fool Hardy –Join us to preform and show how creative you are

3:00 to 3:30 pm CST Award prizes for the judging of the Cultural Center Design Contest and Story Contest

3:30 to 4:30 pm CST Trivia Contest

4:30 to 5:00 pm CST Magic Show

Details and Rules of Events

Hedge Maze Scavenger Hunt

• Teleporter located at the Luna Fairgrounds to location of the event
• Location is in Tram
• Books with hints as to what objects to look for will be provided
• After all items are recovered turn in all items to Lady Tia at the Fairgrounds in Luna (use gate to return)
• There will be a 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd place winner (awards given on shard of your choice)

Fool Hardy

• Prepare a 6 minute skit – this can be a monolog, skit, or just tell jokes. Please remember to be tasteful and respect the diverse audience members.
• This will be judged by three (3) devs
• There will be a 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd place winner (awards given on shard of your choice)
• Location is at the Luna Fairgrounds on TC1
• Pre enter via email to LadyTia@stratics.com

Cultural Center Design Contest

• Send designs to LadyTia@stratics.com or barmstrong@ea.com before Sept 21^st.

• Winner will have their design built on the shard of their choice with your name as the designer
• Location to be built is in New Magincia
• Winner announced September 21^st.

Story Contest

Mesanna’s Ascension
In the third and final chapter of the Mesanna Trilogy you will decide how this once servant girl from the Twin Oaks Tavern becomes one of our lands most famous and deadly goddesses.

• Submit story to LadyTia@stratics.com or barmstrong@ea.com before Sept 21^st.
• There will be a 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd place winner (awards given on shard of your choice)

What you need in the story:

• Characters: Mesanna and anyone you want (Be careful not to offend anyone)
• Setting: Ultima Online, any shard you wish
• Place: She can go anywhere, but one location must be a unique area on the shard. (Any player town, establishment, NPC building or EM Building can be used)

Other Information:

1. you may use pictures

2. you must stay true to the first story

3. Original story link:
http://stratics.com/community/threads/ne…er.196697/ The Golden Age Story Winner (Book 2 of 3)
http://stratics.com/community/threads/me…st-1814705

4. Should take place 10 or more years after the first story.

5. -You must leave it open ended. This will be book (3 of 3)

6. -Mesanna cannot die or lose any limbs but she can be scarred.

7. Contact submission email: ladytia@stratics.com

8. Contest ends: 9/15/2013

9. Winner Announced: 9/21/2013

Trivia Contest

• Pre sign up required
• This will be a bracket type event using this program http://challonge.com/tournament/bracket_generator
• Be prepared to answer trivia questions, if you answer it correctly you move forward.
• This will last till there is only one winner …reward announced after contest is over.
• Location is at the Luna Fairgrounds on TC1

     The waves lapped against the side of the BSV Menagerie as they made their way across the ocean, but Isaiah had eyes only for the storm front that cast shadows across their intended destination. It’d been two long months since he’d last seen Isabelle, and the ring he was twirling inside his pocket had taken most of his pay to buy…but he knew it was the perfect ring for her. It was everything he’d ever wanted to give her and knew she’d love it. The only problem was the look of the storm ahead…if it was as bad as it seemed, it could delay them from being able to use the pillar. “Waterspout to starboard! Hard to port, lads, and work them sails!” Isaiah’s voice rang strong out from the bow where he stood, and he turned to see the other crew swiftly moving into action to put them in a safe path.

    Their journey towards the pillar was filled with strange sights…sea life seeming to be fleeing away from it, and the weather getting increasingly worse…darkening the afternoon skies to the dimly lit air of dusk in but a moment, and causing the once gentle swells to slam against the boat. “We’re almost there, boys, don’t slack now!”

     “Isaiah, we’re not going to make it past that typhoon a-brewing! We have to call this off, and try to make for shore!” The captain’s voice had a pleading quality instead of an ordering one…being one of the few who knew Isaiah’s reason for wanting to get back so desperately. 

     “We can make it, Captain!” His reply was ripped away by the wind though as the storm suddenly surged to new heights. All the crew clung to whatever was closest to try and hang on, when a tremendous tearing and shredding noise ripped through the air, raising the hackles on their necks. An instant later the worst of the storm was gone…the typhoons had vanished…but the rain still pounded down and the waves crashed against their ship. As Isaiah worked to clear his vision and tried to catch sight of the Serpent Pillar again something caught his eye with a shock.

     Ahead and to port was a vessel similar to many he’d seen before, though a few of the adornments were new to him; but that wasn’t what caught his attention…instead a splash of blood on the deck and the massive hole in the hull that was sucking in water did that. A moment later, however, it was seized by the sight of the dead body on the deck, and the realization that there may still be someone else inside.

     There was no hesitation on Isaiah’s part, and he leapt to the edge of the decking, and dove towards the other boat. Pumping his arms through the water, he had a vague thought for the safety of the ring in his pocket, and quickly thrust his hand inside and grabbed it…slipping it onto one finger as far as it would go, and clenching the hand into a fist to protect it. He thought he heard voices shouting for him from the Menagerie, but he shoved them aside and focused on the task at hand as he came alongside the unknown ship.
 
     With effort he managed to get onto the ship during a large swell, but it was already listing heavily…it would only be a matter of minutes before it threatened to sink beneath the ocean. He spared a glance to the bloodied body being pressed against the deckwall  and shuddered as it looked as if it was not incidental damage, but some sort of blunt weapon used against it. He made his way to the cabin and swept the door open, to find yet another body…no, two more inside. They looked as if they had somehow been slammed against the walls and possibly even ceiling repeatedly, leaving it smeared with their blood. Blanching, he managed to close the door and prevent himself from retching with effort. With only one place left to check, he ran for the hold, even as the entire vessel tilted treacherously beneath his feet.

     It took a massive effort to get the door to the hold open, and his eyes boggled at the sight…inside was an absolute horde of crates and treasures, but amidst it was one man, and though he had blood on him…he appeared to be breathing as he floated on his back in the shallow water starting to fill the hold. He began to head down into the hold when the entire vessel lurched in a sickening manner, and started to tip on end.

     In a panic, Isaiah quickly reached for the man, extending his one hand down and grabbing for him desperately, but unable to haul him up with a single hand. Isaiah quickly grabbed him with both hands, the ship turning as he dragged him out. His own vessels crew was fighting to keep their ship from being swamped…and a cheer went up as they saw him emerging from the doomed vessel.

     Gripping tightly, he hefted the unconscious and bloodied passenger of the ill-fated ship, pausing only at feeling a strange sensation along his finger…before realizing too late that it was the ring meant for Isabelle sliding off. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as he watched the glittering emerald ring drop through the air, to be missed by his attempt to snatch it, as it dropped into the sinking ships hold. For what felt like an eternity he held his gaze upon it, for a moment even considering dropping the unconscious man…but the Isaiah that Isabelle fell in love with wasn’t that kind of man. With a bitter fist seeming to hold tight to his heart, he scrambled across the ship into the water, carrying the one living passenger up to their own boat, and trying not to think about the loss of the ring.

     “Who do ya suppose it is, Isaiah?”

     Isaiah had hardly said a word since he’d returned and the BSV Menagerie had docked in Papua. As the healers looked over the unconscious man, Isaiah found himself staring at the strange clothes…trying to figure out the fabric. He’d never seen it’s like before, and the color was a new one as well… “Probably some sort of noble or merchant…hopefully we’ll get a reward for saving them. But let’s find out…there’s only one place it could have come from.”
Standing up, Isaiah headed onto the docks and shouted, “You there, Lad! Lad…how many ships left by way of the Serpent’s Pillar this eve?”

     “Err…none, mate. There ain’t been a ship that wanted to brave the storm…frankly surprised yer all came out here as well.”

Happy 16^th Year Anniversary!!!!!!!!

Ultima Online’s 16^th anniversary gift bag will be delivered between midnight Monday, September 15th, 2013 and midnight October 14th, 2013. Characters need to be 30 days or older to receive the gift bag which contains :

• a 16^th anniversary pony statuette (no it is not a pink pony)

• 16^th anniversary gift card

• 16^th anniversary plant deed

• 16^th anniversary silver serving tray.

New Potted plant deed will create a specially hued Japanese maple tree, a wall mount staghorn fern deed, a potted dieffenbachia plant or a specially hued enormous Venus flytrap plant. The Venus flytrap plant functions just like a trash can which allows you to have more than one trash can in your house and is tied to the Clean up points.

Cleanup Britannia Update

Based on player feedback we have added four new cleanup Britannia rewards. These items include the Refinement Amalgamator, Nature’s Tears, Lune Rouge and Soleil Rouge. We have also added back all of the old dyes.

We have also added many items to the cleanup turn in list:

Exploring the Deep

A New Quest & Encounter have been added. Visit Hepler the Salvager Master at the Sons of the Sea in Trinsic. This is the first part of a three part content Arc which will be developing over the next few months.

City Government Changes

• Daily treasury taxation has been removed.
• Citizens may now donate items directly to the City Heralds, Governors can access those donations by using the City Stones.
• A bulletin board for intra-city communication has been placed in proximity to the City Stone in each loyalty city.
• Governors may place a ballot box to poll their citizens by accessing the option from the City Stone.

Halloween 2013

• During the month of October (October 1^st – October 31^st ET) Butchers can be found in Graveyards throughout Britannia.

• Butchers have a chance to drop a “Carving Kit.”

• Carving kits can be used on new carveable pumpkins to craft 9 different Jack o’ Lanterns.

• Carveable pumpkins can be found on Grimms, randomly spawning in pumpkin patches throughout Britannia.

• Some old and some new items have been added to Trick or Treating, including the heads of the UO Dev Team on a pike. GM Begging is required to have a chance at special Trick or Treat rewards, including the Heads on a Spike.

Character Transfer and Character Copy Changes

Due to some issues that have popped up recently with the cancellation of character transfers we have added the following protection to the system.

• The 24 hour waiting time between character transfers will now also applied to character copies
• In addition, each cancelled character transfer or character copy will be followed by an increasing waiting time based on their number of recent cancels. The first cancelled transfer or copy will be followed by a 5 minute waiting time before another transfer or copy can be attempted. Each additional transfer or copy which is attempted and cancelled within 60 minutes of the first cancel, will add an additional 5 minutes to the waiting time.

Misc Changes:

• New Item Property Bane is found on certain weapons. This on hit property will only trigger when targets health is below 50%. As the targets health decreases the chance for the property to fire will increase along with the damage. Bane will damage the target with  30% of the targets max hit points in physical damage.

• Refinement Amalgamator – Allows refinements of the same type and level to upgraded to the next level. Purchasable from Cleanup Britannia.

Level Requirements:

• 2 “Type” of Defense required to upgrade to 1 “Type” of Protection.

• 3 “Type” of Protection required to upgrade to 1 “Type” of Hardening.

• 4 “Type” of Hardening required to upgrade to 1 “Type” of Fortification.

• 5 “Type” of Fortification required to upgrade to 1 “Type” of Invulnerability.

New Titles: Veteran

• Unlocked at 2 years : Explorer of Darkness

• Unlocked at 4 years: Avenger of the Enchantress

• Unlocked at 6 years: Slayer of Exodus

• Unlocked at 8 years: Quester of the Avatar

• Unlocked at 10 years: Warrior of Destiny

• Unlocked at 12 years: Fulfiller of the False Prophecy

• Unlocked at 14 years: Destroyer of the Fellowship

• Unlocked at 16 years: Survivor of Pagan

• Unlocked at 18 years: Ascendant of the Guardian

• Removed account age limit to use vet reward items. This change does not remove the account bound limitation set on some vet rewards.

• Houses with rental vendors will now fall once they cycle completely through two IDOC states.

• Rental vendor owners will now receive in game messages if the houses they are in go into a collapsing state.

• Added a new cooking recipe, a craftable 3 teir cake recipe can be found on the Orge Cook, Fezzik, in the Wrong Dungeon. These cakes can be dyed by the natural dyes.

• All footwear can now be dyed using standard dye tubs, leather dye tubs and natural dyes.

• The non-meddable armor pieces of the Virtuoso’s Set, the Fisherman’s Set and the Bestial Set can now have the mage armor property applied via a mage guildmaster.

• Players will no longer erroneously receive wall tiles from the Heartwood fletching quests.

• Added five additional dungeons (Blighted Grove, Painted Caves, Palace of Paroxysmus, Prism of Light and Sanctuary) to the Corrupted Crystal Portal. The Felucca location for the Palace of Paroxysmus cannot be accessed through use of the Corrupted Crystal Portal.

• Updated the Exodus encounter stolen item list to include Dread Horn Mane instead of Pristine Dread Horn.

• Removed several blocked locations from the Despise call to arms landing zone.

• Added several items to the list of items that are dyeable by the metal dye tub.

• Corrected the gaman’s command acknowledgement sound effect. The pet should no longer whistle like birds.

• Added the ability to use Tokuno and/or Haochi dyes on the Shroud of the Condemned robe.

• Added salvage bags to the list of items that are sold by the Ter Mur gargish provisioners.

• The quest system will now recognize more of New Magincia for escort NPCs that are travelling to that city.

• Hit curse item property now uses constant power and no longer uses player skill to determine duration.

• Container’s contents are now viewable in the trade window.

• Reforging packages – Mage weapon has been added to Wizardry and Quality packages.

• Re-enabling House dueling with non guild mates. Attacking player outside of house while moving will still result in ejection.

• Secured containers that are created from deeds (Alchemist Bookshelf, Fountains of Life, etc.) in houses will remain secure after house customization.

• Gargoyle players can no longer use a bola attack and essentially fly at the same time.

• You will no longer be able to track a player after his death.

• You are now able to save macros using the number pad on non US keyboards

• Trial accounts are no longer able to use shard transfer tokens or character copy.

• Invisible players will now have to pass a stealth check to remain invisible when using any type of teleporter.

• Cliloc Changes
• New Art Additions

• Cliloc Changes
• New Art Additions

We are in the process of fixing the patcher which may or may not have caused some of you some problems logging into UO. That should be fixed in a few moments. Origin store has also fixed the issue of emails not going out when you purchases items. Please remember all the formatting of the codes you receive are incorrect, they should be formatted to 6-5-5-5 for the game to accept them correctly.

As must of you know we are coming up on UO’s 16th year Birthday. We are testing and putting the finishing touches on the next publish so please stay tuned for the Patch notes from the team.

Thank you everyone,

UO Team

Good morning everyone,

As everyone knows there was an exploit dealing with the Mythic and Advanced Character tokens.  We put out a publish last night to delete every token that was created between June 20th, 2013 and August 1st, 2013.  We are aware that there are some legit tokens that were purchased from the Origin store during this time period, we know how many were sold, so if you bought a token during the time listed and had not used it, then send me your receipt , a house location and shard. If you do not have a house we can set up a location when you contact me at barmstrong@ea.com.   I will not do this without a receipt for proof of purchase.

Considering we have already deleted over 8000 tokens and counting it was a necessary action to take for the game.

UO Team
 

We have fixed the Merchants Trinket you should see the fix tomorrow July 31st.  European shards will see this change tonight during your normal maintenance cycle on your shard.  All existing trinkets will have their charges reset to max 5% to 90  and 10% to 40.

We would also like to recommend you do not purchase Mythic or Advanced character tokens from anyone in game out of of game at this time.  Purchasing from the Origin store is acceptable.

Thanks everyone!

We are putting out a publish to fix a few bugs that have been called to our attention.  These changes will be seen after your next maintenance cycle,

• Corrected an issue which prevented the imbuing of the Gargish Amulet and the stone Gargish Amulet.
• Corrected an issue which broke auto-defending attackers once a player had multiple aggressors and had healed themselves.
• Corrected  an issue with north facing Compassion Virtue tile.

Looting rights distribution update

Healing now only applies aggression towards a healed targets aggressors,  if the healed target is not a pet, the healed target is not the healer, and the healed target has attacked the aggressor.
Example 1: Warrior A is fighting Mob B. Healer C heals Warrior A and now has aggressed Mob B.
Example 2: Tamer A’s pet is fighting Mob B. Healer C heals Tamer A’s pet and does not aggress Mob B.

I was just told by Origin that they know what the problem is that resulted in multi codes not being sent.  The good news is the charges for the 2nd and 3rd item failed .  They are removing the ability to purchase the Kings Collection and should be back up and fix after 5 pm EDT. 

At the return of the store everyone that purchased more than one code will be sent their codes.  So please wail till tomorrow to insure you get an email if you do not then please let me know.

I am sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you guys and thank you for being patient with us while we fix this issue.