The new Ask and Answers has arrived! The holidays and a business trip had caused a delay in our answers. We now return to our regularly scheduled Ask and Answer posts with a very creative set of questions and answers.

UO Stratics

Moonstone Jewelery – Can a dev please make another statement on this drop? Specifically where does it actually come from now? Is it Fezzik the Chef or a cannibal mage or a chest in Fezzik’s area? all ove the previous? Has the drop % been altered because of the increase in difficulty of the target now? Thank you. (Mentiras)

Phoenix:  It drops off Fezzik the Chef in a full moon when Venus is in the house of the Orion and the flaming pulsar has crossed the horizon on the first Tuesday of the Month of May.  Silly Friday,  it is a rare drop as in 1 in 1000 chance.  We do not want to make this item a house hold name but we will review it.

There were always rumours about secret halls/rooms/whatever in the Stygian Abyss.
As of today I never heard of anybody know more about this “mystery”… is there really a secret part of the Stygian Abyss/Underworld or is this just what it was – rumours?  (MedeaDF)

Mesanna:  All false, total rumors *grins*

I was wondering if it would be possible to darken or offer a different color altogether for the journal in the classic client. Some text is very difficult to read and without having to go and change a lot of various text colors simply darkening the journal background color would solve this issue. (Vercingitorix)

Bleak:  Even though this is an option in the Enhanced client, the only option we have is to make the journal always default to black.  Feedback on that option?

Could we please get a token/code to buy from the origin store, that would allow a player on a younger account to get the 720 skill cap? (mikni)

Mesanna:  How about we just raise everyone to 720 ?

The Bookcases you buy from the UOGameCode store you can engrave but not dye.
-The Bookcases you make from stealing Academic book cases you can dye but not engrave.
I know the Academic bookcases are suppose to be a little more special since you have to steal them but why cant we engrave them? Then the ones you purchase for $3.25 per case….you can engrave but cannot dye? For the Library I am planning to open I purchased over 40 bookcases spending approximately $130.
Now I would buy more to replace the Academic ones except you cant dye them. I would craft more Academic books but I cannot engrave them….
Any chance one of the two could have the ability to do booth? (Lord Gareth)

Mesanna:  I cannot answer a question about an item not sold in the Origin store. (psst UOGameCode store does not exist any longer)  No one on the team has any objections to allowing  these to be dyed or engraved.

UO Japan

I love new art items such as soulforges, Nexus, Harpsichords and Davies’ Lockers. They look very cool! Unfortunately, they are so large, that I can’t place all of them in my house. Is there any chances to add options which allow me to select smaller version of them? (Nickname: MESORIN)

Mesanna:  Maybe in the future but not at this time

House ghost image which appears when you place a house is very good guide to determine where you place it. Unfortunately, house add-ons don’t have those images. I often have to retry placing my add-on several times because I misplace it. Is it possible to add such ghost image guide to house add-ons? And, I have another request about house add-ons. Please show add-on image instead of deed image in crafting menu. I sometimes create add-on deeds which don’t face towards direction I expect. Visual guide would help me see if it is the one I wanted to make. (Namako)

Phoenix:  This is not as simple as it sounds and it’s not a task we really want to undertake at this time.  The second part of this is also a no at this time for the same reason.

If we took long time to perform the ritual, the Exodus could be defeated before we arrive at the boss area. Do you have any plans to address the issue? (a Twitter user)

Mesanna:  This is already fixed

UO Mania

Can we get a way to dye an Artifact with its original color? The bleach can dye an item with the color of its basic item type, but why not restore the item to its original color (at least for Artifacts for which the original color is known) (clorenz)

Kyronix:  Sorry we can’t do that without redoing all the dyes in the game.  So at this time it is not an option.

UO Auctions

Since we now have Town Loyalties, a great addition, are there any plans to open up a system for Ter Mur Loyalty? perhaps just titles based on reputation with the queen? (Treasure Seeker)

Mesanna:  Not a bad idea we will look into it.

We will be performing an extended maintenance on the following shards today, January 28th starting at 6:00 pm EST (11 pm GMT):

• Yamato
• Izumo
• Wakoku
• Hokuto
• Asuka
• Mizuho
• Mugen
• Sakura
• Formosa
• Arirang
• Balhae

At this time we anticipate that the shards will be back online no later than 11:00 pm EST (4:00 GMT).

Greetings Everyone,

   It’s been a while since I sat down and wrote to everyone so bare with me.  In this letter I will be telling you about some issues that we are going to be addressing and what is in the next Publish.  But before I do that I want to address all the “extended maintenance” we have been going thru.  As I am sure some of you might have already noticed we are moving off the old servers onto the Cloud.  With a game as old as UO it has been challenging but we are working hard to iron out the kinks.  Both the East Coast and West Coast servers have been moved in addition to Europa, Oceania, and Drachenfels. 

Current Issues

• Please be cautious of buying spellbooks from vendors that might look like this xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxDemon Slayer.  It is not a valid Demon Slayer book and has just been engraved to appear this way.  We are fixing this so all engraved text is hued in some fashion in the next publish.
• Please do not try to resize your house immediately after placement.  There is a known issue that you will not be able to please wait till the next maintenance cycle to attempt to resize.  We have not worked out all the details that cause this so any additional information would be helpful.
• Please know that fighting your pets to drop pools of blood to block house placement is being viewed as a griefing tactic.  If a GM is called he will warn you, if you do not stop you will be removed from the area.  This will be fixed in the next publish.

Now for the exciting news!

Next Publish

• Revamping Weapon System –  Reviewed and adjusted all weapon damage based on weapon speed, as well as updated various special moves.
• Revamping Armor System –  Made all armor types useful again.
• Introducing a new Housing Theme Pack which will consist of:
  • New couches, chairs, tables, beds, lots and lots of lamps, pictures, and tapestries. (46 new pieces of art total)
  • Advanced Tinkering – This will allows players to create new gadgets, one example is being able to create a light switch for your house to turn off and on your lamps
  • Changing the Co Owner status from 10 co-owners to 10 accounts as co-owners on one house (70 players)
• You will no longer be able to place duped items on vendors. 
• New Player Council and City Voting system – Players with city loyalty will be able to run for the Ambassador for the appropriate city.  This will allow them to enhance role play and manage activities in and around their cities.  And new Ambassador titles.
• New Instruments – 3 new Bells, Cello, and Trumpet
• New Aquarium art – New sponges and Coral types
• We are looking into the possibility of allowing players to have a house on Siege and on Production.
• Continuing to work on High Res art..currently working on all the wall pieces.  These will not be released till all pieces of a house are finished due to the fact they look horrible together with old and new.  We still have many wall sets to update including doors, signs, and the roof before any high res art will be released.  Please understand its taking us 3 weeks from start to finish to get each wall set type in the game.  So yes this is slow going but we are going to finish it  *grins*  Remember now there are 45 wall sets total and we have totally completed 7.  Below is a sneak peak of what you can expect to see in the future.
• Adding additional turn in items such as bones, jack o lanterns, harpsichord rolls for turn in points
• Adding 2 new dyes to the turn in reward system

We will be working on a new Global Arc for the future (of course it will not run for 8 months) but we hope you will enjoy the evilness of it anyways *grins*

Bonnie “Mesanna” Armstrong
Producer UO

Due to a few issues on Great Lakes this evening we are sorry to inform you that we are having to revert the shard back to 6 PM EST today.

The following fixes have been staged for publish on all shards during tomorrow’s maintenance:

• The issue with teleporters and doors not working inside customized houses has been fixed.
• The issue with the Garden shed having their items deleted when replaced from the moving barrels has been fixed.

We will perform an extended maintenance on the following shards, Tuesday January 15th, at 8:00 am EST (13:00 GMT):

• Lake Austin
• Baja
• Napa Valley
• Sonoma
• Pacific
• Origin

At this time we anticipate that the shards will be back online no later than 1:00 pm EST (18:00 GMT).

We will perform an extended maintenance on the following shards, Thursday January 10th, at 5:00 am EST (10:00 GMT):

• Chesapeake
• Catskills
• Siege Perilous
• Legends
• Europa
• Drachenfels

At this time we anticipate that the shards will be back online no later than 11:00 am EST (16:00 GMT).

We will perform an extended maintenance on the Oceania shard, Today January 9th, at 1:00 pm EST (18:00 GMT).

At this time we anticipate that the shard will be back online no later than 3:00 pm EST (20:00 GMT).

We will perform an extended maintenance on the Lake Superior, Great Lakes and Legends shards, Wednesday January 9th, at 5:00 am EST (10:00 GMT).

At this time we anticipate that the shards will be back online no later than 9:00 am EST (14:00 GMT).

We will perform an extended maintenance on the Atlantic shard tomorrow, Tuesday 01/08, starting at 5am EST (10am GMT). At this time we expect the additional downtime to last no longer than two hours.