Holiday Wishes
The UO Team would like to wish everyone a safe and Happy Thanksgiving. The team will be out of the office from November 21st thru November 25th but will be keeping an eye open for any issues that may come up.
A New Shard for a New Legacy
The UO Team would like to wish everyone a safe and Happy Thanksgiving. The team will be out of the office from November 21st thru November 25th but will be keeping an eye open for any issues that may come up.
In addition to the normal set of Ask and Answer questions this week, there is also an interview! UO Forums did a very informative interview with the Ultima Online producer, Bonnie (Mesanna) Armstrong. There are questions that range from a typical day in the studio to future plans for Ultima Online, so be sure to check it out.
UO Auctions
Question: The new 15yr Robes are a fantastic addition and reward for players being creative. i’d like to see this bcome more than just a 15yr event. have you ever considered holding art based competitions as well as writing? it’d be nice to see this sort of reward for submitting UO fan art too. (Treasure Seeker)
Mesanna: After speaking with our Artist Onifrk he stated jpg, png or 3d files would be acceptable to do something like this. I really like the idea of this but there will NEVER be another contest like decorating banks.
Ultima Online Bibliothek
When will I get my ridable Great Hart? Tameable, plase, and chance to find a white one, please. (Pcuvush)
Mesanna: Ridable Hart, probably not but a special spawned hued one is a possibility in the future.
Once there was the idea to add pixies as a playable race – there was a poll, if I remember correctly, dwarves and orcs as other options. Has this been shelved, or is there still a chance to add them? (Pcuvush)
Mesanna: Right now a new playable race is not on the plans. I am not saying we will never do one again but have a lot of other things in front of it right now.
UO Stratics
I roleplay as an orc on Europa (Xug’Klerg) and he wants to know if he will ever fully become an orc? We would both like this…(Velvathos)
Kyronix: Adding additional playable races is an extraordinary task that requires a lot of development time due to the far reaching impact of such an addition. Consider how different gargoyles are than humans/elves and how they have their own equipment, skills, etc. So to do it right would take a great effort that may not benefit the entire player base as effectively as focusing elsewhere. There are currently a number of ways that players can roleplay other races (Which I’m sure you are already utilizing) so enhancing that ability would be more feasible than a full blown additional playable race.
UOForums
Since the addition of the Raised Garden Beds into the game, the need for fertile dirt has increased. However as best I can tell, the spawn rate has not. I love my raised beds, especially when I can plant them all with the fertile dirt, I just don’t like buying it in Ter Mur. Is there anyway we can get some more dirt? OR reduce the number of dirt piles it takes to grow each plant? (Kahlan)
Kyronix: This is a reasonable request and will consider it when adding it future loot drops to various areas.
Can you tell me how iron beetles are supposed to work? I thought they mined ore but when I bring mine out, it does not mine or do anything really. I’ve stood alongside mountains, inside caves (Where you can mine the floor), and still, it does nothing. The owner is a GM Miner. (Thumper)
Misk: The Iron Beetles likes to dig up and eat ore so it tries to mine when it is in an appropriate area. They will attempt to mine in the immediate area at random intervals (maximum of 5 minutes). Sometimes they don’t like the taste of the ore that they dig up and simply leave it on the ground instead of consuming it. When the beetle eats ore, its body hue changes to the ore color that it has eaten. The Iron Beetle can only mine near valid mining tiles and the mining skill of the owner does not affect the types of ore that the beetle will dig up.
We have staged Publish 79 to be released on Sunday evening, 11/18 during Maintenance for the European servers and Monday morning, 11/19 during Maintenance for the US servers. Please note we are turning housing decay back on when this publish goes live.
For your reading pleasure, here are the completed notes:
Those loyal still to Minax and Mondain’s creation work fervently to rebuild the mechanical demon, in hopes of once again summoning Exodus into Britannia.
Exposed the following functions to LUA for Enhanced Client Custom UI:
PlaySoundByID()
Plays a game sound.
Parameters
type (int) The type of sound: ambient = 0, action =1 id (int) The id of the sound file to play x (int) The x coordinate of the target location. y (int) The y coordinate of the target location. z (int) The z coordinate of the target location. Returns
Nil No return value Example:
PlaySoundByID( 1, 23, WindowData.PlayerLocation.x, WindowData.PlayerLocation.y, WindowData.PlayerLocation.z)
GetDistanceFromPlayer()
Returns the distance in tiles from the target to the player
Parameters
Id (int) The id of the target used to measure distance Returns
distance (number) The numbers of tiles from the player Example
local distanceFromPlayer = GetDistanceFromPlaye(WindowData.CurrentTarget.TargetId)
GetTerrainType
Returns the terrain type id on the given coordinates
Parameters
x (int) The x coordinate of the target location. y (int) The y coordinate of the target location. Z (int) The z coordinate of the target location. Returns
type (number) The terrain type id of the tile at the given location. Example
local terrainType = GetTerrainType(WindowData.PlayerLocation.x, WindowData.PlayerLocation.y, WindowData.PlayerLocation.z)
Once again, Ultima Online has made it to the top! Time recently posted a list of the 100 greatest video games of ALL-TIME and Ultima Online made the list. We are honored to be listed with so many great games and are truly proud of Ultima Online being “The Best of the Best”.
Greetings everyone,
I wanted to give everyone a heads up that after further review of the reward items for the House decorating contest, I have changed the reward from a Snowman to a hued Reindeer with the text, “Winner of the 2012 Holiday House Decorating Contest”. The reason for the change was due to the fact the snowman was not fitting for such a contest as only the hat and scarf could be hued.
Complex Gaming recently published a list of the best PC games. We are very proud to see that Ultima Online was ranked number 8 of the 50 Best PC Games of All Time!
It is time for another Ask and Answer. This week we received a lot of questions regarding adding features and items to the game. Here are the answers to your questions:
UO Auctions
From Purple Pixie, Atlantic
I totally think the bag with 3 snow and 3 grass tiles will be a miracle to those of us who love to decorate for the seasons and don’t want to go into construction mode and destroy our establishments. I just have one small request of wish for an addition… or even divide it 2x, 2x, and 2x… with sand tiles. We don’t have sand tiles in our house construction AND these could be used for “festive reasons”… not to mention in gardens to show off fancy cacti. Could you please consider adding them? Thanks (Lady Frany Flame)Mesanna: Currently there are not any sand tiles in the same tile format as the grass and snow but I hope to get some good ones in the future *makes note*
Question: Have the Dev team ever considered adding Fossils to the game? it seems an angle that could be added to luck based mining that the art is already in place to add. something that would also expand saltpeter mining as its also luck based. could create some nice decoration just outta shell and skull n bone art already in the game. with the possibility of a very rare fossil finds and getting your name attached to the find? (Treasure Seeker)
Mesanna: Hrm interesting idea but no we have not thought about adding fossils to mining. We have been talking about how to make resource gathering more exciting though.
UO Mania
It would be nice to be able to receive a “secure shard transfer crate” from a character on some other player’s account, that only the characters of that account on the destination shard can open. In this way we could securely organize shard transfer shipments for third parties (clorenz )
Mesanna: This would be a very difficult thing to put in the game, the risk is way to high for us to address this type of transfer.
UO Japan
Certain pet seems to have skills which can’t be shown by Animal Lore skill. Could you tell us what those “hidden” skills are? Is it possible for pets once being resurrected to reach skill cap again? (Nickname: kann)
Mesanna: There are the basic set of 8 skills that show up in the pet’s Animal Lore skills gump. We will put it on our list to review this and update the list in a future publish. As far as the pet reaching skill cap after resurrecting there is no reason why they should not do that, if you are having issues please let us know.
The color of antique wedding dress is very nice. Is it possible to add dyes of the same color or similar white color as a Clean Up Britannia reward?(Nickname: Tru)
SIDE NOTE: The hue# is 2953.Mesanna: We are always looking to add new dyes, at this time I will only say its possible.
UOForums
When going from the Abyss to one of the Abyss Champ (who are on the Feluca facet), one gets a PvP Warning that can be switched off through the context menu. Could you include into this system the PvP Warnings when going through house teleporters? I own two houses, one of them in Felucca and the constant warnings get old fast. Any possibility to switch them off would be appreciated. (Merion)
Phoenix: We would like to research this before making any commitments but it’s a reasonable request.
High Seas was a big hit when it came out. Even tho still played to a degree, alot of folk wanted to play “Land & Sea” fights, where a ship can fire its cannons on shore in an attack mode. ( of course this would mean the cannons on the fortress would take damage or even some of the structure). Maybe have it like damage to a ship where you have to repair and attack the structure when defense is lowered like a ship…. Question is: Will the opportunity ever arise for the chance to have “Land Cannons” that fire in order to build Fortress’s and have the chance for land and sea conflicts? That way someone can attack a fortress and the Fortress can fire back in defense. (Eyes of Sosaria)
When we were doing High Seas we talked about Land Cannons and came up with a lot of ways to exploit them, We figured it was best to not put them in the game.
Ultima Online Bibliothek
Hello again, recently I remembered the thing about the gypsy camps and the moonstone jewelry. Is it possible to get the camps back to get a chance for it to drop again? Or maybe you could add the jewelry to another monster or another mini-boss? (Medea,)
Mesanna: The gypsy camps were causing some side issues in the game so Phoenix added the chance for the moon jewelry to drop on the Cook in Wrong.
Now I’m really curious – is it really true that no one on the production shard has managed to fetch a Void Lobster yet? After 3 years it should be possible to get one of those bloody critters, right? Can you give us a hint (even a small one will do) how to catch one of those? Thanks! (Medea, )
Mesanna: Funny you should ask this question now, Bleak just fixed this bug for Pub 80. And yes no one to my knowledge has fished up a Void Lobster.
The Epiphany armor that dropped from Blackrock Golems states to grant a ‘mana burst’ effect. To my knowledge that ability is not active at the moment. Since the armor is marked ‘exceptional’ and has 255 durability I assume it is meant for imbuing und wearing this
armor. Is the effect simply undiscovered as of now or not yet implemented? (Pcuvush, )Misk: Both the epiphany set (mana burst) and the regeneration set (health burst) effects are active and do function in game. The virtuous pieces are aligned to positive karma players and the villainous pieces are aligned to negative karma players. Both sets can be imbued, however they cannot be enhanced. The burst occurrence rate scales based on the number of pieces you are wearing (up to a maximum value of 5) and the power of the burst scales based on your karma level. The burst effects are triggered by being attacked. Currently the regeneration set spawns on Charybdis and the epiphany spawns on Niporailem.
Today is my last day as Community Manager at Mythic. I’ll face a new and very exciting challenge from Monday on.
It has been great to work on Ultima Online and all other Mythic products for the last 2 years. I met amazing people here in the teams as well as out there among you players. My only regret is that I had to spread my attention over 5 different titles and never had the time to be really dedicated to one of them. But I take a lot of great memories with me.
I thank you for being the awesome, annoying, loyal, critic, understanding, demanding community that you are. The support you continue to give UO is really appreciated, and I know I leave the game in very good hands.
Until we meet again – thanks for all the fish, and no, you can’t haz my stuff.
It’s the time of the year that everyone gets creative and decorates their homes to reflect their feelings of the holidays. UO would like to announce a Holiday House Decorating Contest. Petra from stratics has been kind enough to help out with gathering and setting up the voting page for the contest. There will be 10 winners total and you as the players will help pick the winners. The rewards will be a special hued Reindeer with the text, “Winner of the 2012 Holiday House Decorating Contest” and the top voted design will have their house go down in the history of UO by making it a mini house that will be available next year. This time you guys are the judges!
Rules
1 entry per account
10 winners total
Submit pictures to uocontests@stratics.com
Submissions close December 5th, 2012 and Voting closes December 15th, 2012
All entries must have a character name, shard, facet and location
All pictures submitted must be in jpg format
We look forward to seeing your creative decorations!
In the wake of a new focus our studio has recently changed its name from BioWare Mythic to Mythic. Everything else stays the same – our passionate teams will continue to support and develop our existing titles as well as working on some new and exciting projects.
If you want to learn more about our studio, visit our new website, our dedicated Facebook page, or follow us on Twitter @MythicNews.