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*

Written by the EM Team

    “Blast it! Blast, blast, blast!!!” Callie snarled in frustration as she threw a stack of papers from the small desk she’d been using at the Britain Library, once again feeling as if she’d hit a brick wall. Her efforts in Skara Brae had shown no results and inquiries in the capital city weren’t faring any better, despite having uncovered even more support for her theories. She glanced to the staircase as one of the scribes, an elderly gentleman who appeared to be peeking from the stairwell to see that she was alright. Seemingly satisfied that she was, he descended once more. The energy suddenly seemed to drain out of her and she collapsed into the chair and ran her hands over her face, brushing her blonde bangs to one side.

    In her mind’s eye she went over how she came to be at this juncture. Her father and mother had researched this same issue for years and were on the verge of a breakthrough…but both had been killed during a  Crimson Dragon attack of Queen Dawn’s reign. Since then Callie had been doing her best to pick up where they left off but, without many of her parents’ connections, her options were limited. She was swiftly going through what money had been left to her and she had to produce something tangible before all of it would be for naught. With a lengthy intake of breath she sighed, and began picking up her papers and stacking them neatly once more. There were still a few avenues and options left to explore. Tucking her things inside the shoulder satchel she carried Callie made her way down the stairs, oblivious to the world around her. She strode towards the West Bank, planning to use the old Britain Crossroads to make her way to the moongate.

    Lost in her thoughts she turned a corner and practically ran into a rough looking fellow with a few days growth of beard who was brandishing a well-used pike. His expression held that manic kind of gleam that could only be interpreted as malice or madness, and either was equally dangerous. Her senses seemed to return all at once as she realized she could hear the sounds of weapons clashing, the smell of smoke and fire, and the sight of scorch marks and trash heaps. In a panic she grabbed the little holdout dagger she carried at her waist and threw it inexpertly at the man, eyes widening in fear as the tumbling dagger only hit him with the hilt, his face contorting in fury as he readied the pike for a thrust. Heart hammering in her chest like it was threatening to burst, she swore that she was losing her mind as she felt the very ground beneath her tremble in turn with its pulsations. Only a split second before it occurred did she realize the truth of the matter.

    Clad in a robe, cloak and what she swore was a jester’s hat, a man suddenly tackled her to the ground while shouting “Don’t Move!”, and with a roar that rattled her to her bones an enormous dragon lunged through the space she’d just occupied and closed its jaws upon the pike wielder. Its heavy footsteps echoed through the cobblestones and shook her body as it halted its forward momentum and lifted its prey up high. The man who had tackled her shouted to the great beast, though what he said she couldn’t hear over her own shock. She heard a shrill, panicked scream followed by a loud impact and silence. “You…You just killed him…How could you…”

    The man’s robe and cloak were in bright, garish colors that seemed to match perfectly the jester’s hat that sat at a slight cant upon his head. The bells jingled lightly as he started to get up and looked down at her horrified gaze and hesitant words, and he held out his hand expectantly with a smile on his face that came so easily it had to be his natural expression. “I assure you that he will live, fair lady, though your sympathy might be a bit misplaced…I think he held little regard for your life. Talratha here just picked him up and dropped him, nothing more.” He held out his glove clad hand until Callie took hold of it, and he helped her up. “You really should be more careful though…the streets are very dangerous lately, and the guard force in short supply.” A crash in the distance and a lazily drifting plume of smoke arose to the east, and the peculiarly dressed tamer looked over to it with an expression that conveyed anxiety and indecision.

    Callie looked to him and saw that he was still eyeing her with worry, and after a moment realized that he was waiting on her. “I’m fine…you can go.” She had barely finished saying it before he took off at a run with the dragon flapping its powerful wings, soaring above and just behind him as they ran towards the source of the smoke. Shaken, Callie picked up her dagger and let her sights rest on the bloodied and unconscious raider. The dragon had deposited the raider none too gently, but had aimed him precisely into one of the piles of trash that had become frequent in the cities as of late. With a slight sense of revulsion she pulled her satchel closer to herself and exited the city with a much brisker pace than she had started with. This time she kept her ears open and her wits about her, but she’d still feel safer once she’d put the larger cities behind her…

For each city, each player character has individual ratings for Love, Hate, and Neutrality. These values are numeric and the raw values are not displayed.

• Performing beneficial acts in a city causes the city to gain Love for that character
• Performing negative acts in a city causes the city to gain Hate for that character
• Any time a city gains Love for a character, a small fraction of the city’s Hate for that character is converted into Neutrality
• Any time a city gains Hate for a character, and that city already had Love for that character, some of that Love is converted into Hate
• Any time a city gains Love for a character, all other cities will convert some of their Love for that character into Neutrality.
• Hate for a character decays at the slowest rate
• Love for a character decays at a moderate rate
• Neutrality for a character decays at a rapid rate

A character’s loyalty rating from a city consists of two parts: how well the character is known, and how “pure” the character’s actions are. There are essentially three possible outcomes:

• If the character only performs beneficial actions for one city, the character gains positive ratings
• If the character only performs harmful actions for one city, the character gains negative ratings
• If the character performs a mixture of actions for a city, or performs beneficial actions for multiple cities, the character will tend to gain positive or negative ratings to a lesser degree or will gain distrustful ratings.

Here are all the possible ratings:

• Tier 0
  • “Unknown” – this is the default rating and all characters will remain Unknown until they have taken several actions to modify their loyalty rating from the city
• Tier 1
  • Positive: Commended
  • Neutral: Doubted
  • Negative: Disfavored
• Tier 2
  • Positive:
    • Respected (most positive)
    • Esteemed
  • Neutral:
    • Distrusted
  • Negative
    • Disliked
    • Detested (most negative)
• Tier 3
  • Positive
    • Adored (most positive)
    • Admired
    • Honored
  • Neutral
    • Disgraces
  • Negative
    • Loathed
    • Despised
    • Reviled (most negative)
• Tier 4
  • Positive
    • Venerated (most positive)
    • Revered
    • Exalted
    • Lauded
  • Neutral
    • Denigrated
  • Negative
    • Scorned
    • Shunned
    • Vilified
    • Abhorred (most negative)

Notes about the system:

• It is possible to shift a city’s favor slowly over time, but this is much more difficult for those with checkered pasts
• Negative deeds are worth more hate than positive deeds are worth love
• Negative deeds are remembered longer than positive ones
• While the world is in chaos, all cities distrust each other. This is why trying to be devoted to multiple cities will just earn neutral ratings from all. However, this will not always be the case…

We have improved the way to contact our Billing Support for Ultima Online. If you have a problem that you need help with you can either email support@ultimaonline.com, or visit help.ea.com. This website offers you a form to make sure that all necessary information get to our billing advisors.
If you are based in the US, this website allows you to leave your phone number for us to call you back. We are actively pursuing expanding phone support outside the US.

To use help.ea.com, login with your EA Account and click on ‘Talk to a Game Advisor’ on the right side of the page. On the following page please:

1. Enter Ultima Online as the product
2. Select “Billing/Purchasing” as the category
3. Select the contact option and enter your details