Yarrr!

Prepare yourself for adventure when Ultima Online: High Seas sets sail October 12, 2010

For $14.99 USD, players will enjoy:

• Brand new NPC Ship Combat with enhanced ship-to-ship combat and damage states
• Bank/Character Storage Increase, Sea Markets, new fish, fishing buffs, and recipes, paintable boats, Level 7 Treasure Chests and new boss encounters: the Scalis and Corgul the Soulbinder
• All new ship combat! Features include new ship to ship combat,  ship weapons and ammunition, and NPC Ship Combat (Pirates and Merchants)
• New ship types, Tokuno, Orc, and Gargoyle with customizable hues. New cannon types and ammunition!

Buy it today!

* After purchasing High Seas, consumers will receive a retail registration code to be entered into the account center at: https://accounts.eamythic.com.

Verbal Harassment

Verbal Harassment is almost by definition a frustrating experience for those affected. Unfortunately we continue to see a few mistakes that turn many potentially valid harassment reports into situations we cannot assist with. As your glorious GM overlords we suggest following the steps below to avoid these problems:

1. Do not exchange insults or taunts with the harassing player. This is by far the most common mistake we see. If both parties are involved in harassment or the reporting player instigated the situation then it becomes mutual harassment and a GM will not intervene for either side.
2. Ask the player politely, by name, to stop. For example: “Please stop insulting me.”
3. Stop talking to the player. You may also want to leave the area.
4. Add the player to your ignore list (In Options under Filter Options.)
5. Wait a few seconds and if the harassing player still does not stop then you should immediately report them. Do not wait more than a minute or two after this point to report them and do not log out of the game before reporting them. Open your Help menu, choose “Another player is harassing me”, then pick “VERBAL HARASSMENT”.
6. You will be prompted to enter some details about who and what you are reporting. Keep this short and to the point. For example: “Acheren will not stop calling my llamas fat”.
7. Select the harassing player as a target.  There are a number of ways to add targets, the most common methods are “Target Involved Players” which allows you to simply click on the character you wish to report and “Type Names of Involved Players” which allows you to type in the character name even if they are no longer online.  You can always include a target, even if the other player has left the area or gone offline. This is the second most common mistake because with no target included the GM cannot see the chat logs and may not even be able to determine who exactly you are reporting. As a result the GM will not be able to investigate your report in any way and your petition will be closed.

Disruptive Behavior

Be aware that in addition to the Verbal Harassment policy there is also a seperate Disruptive Behavior policy. Disruptive Behavior applies to the use of Vulgarity, Racism, and Objectionable Content in public chat channels such as the General channel. Unlike Verbal Harassment you do not need to ask players to stop or take any other additional steps prior to reporting this behavior. Unlike the default channels we do not tolerate the use of profanity in public chat channels so for Disruptive Behavior you may simply witness a player using vulgarity a few times in a public channel and skip straight to reporting them. For rather obvious reasons this means you should avoid responding to such players with more vulgarity in those same public chat channels lest you both end up in jail.

Physical Harassment

Physical Harassment can present itself in many forms, from luring monsters to grief play. It is considered physical harassment when a player performs an act that has no other purpose than intentional malice or annoyance. This includes but is not limited to luring, casting unwanted spells, opening “death gates”, and releasing dangerous pets, also using game mechanics to flag others criminal, following players to multiple areas or trapping players as well as trapped boxes.

The steps to report a player for physical harassment are identical to verbal harassment apart from selecting PHYSICAL HARASSMENT instead of VERBAL HARASSMENT in the Help menu.

You may find a great deal of additional information on harassment here under Policies and Rules.

Have you visited1Up.com’s website today? They posted an interesting article about Ultima Online.

“It’s actually this near-total anarchy that most sets UO apart from what came after. Nobody had done anything quite like this before, and it shows. While today MMOs have become mostly formulaic and carefully manage player progression, interaction, class balancing, and just generally make sure that the entire experience is a known quantity, Ultima Online faced no such constraints. There was no “common sense” when it came to this sort of thing, and while the kitchen-sink approach of providing everything one would expect from a single-player RPG and then letting a few thousand people play with it at once had occasionally disastrous consequences, it also led to the kind of freedom and surprise that one doesn’t often encounter in a modern MMO.”

 Check out the complete article.

We will perform an extended maintenance on all Asian shards tonight, starting at 6pm EDT (10pm GMT). At this time we expect the additional downtime to last no longer than one hour.

Thank you for your support.

   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*