02) 2nd February – Ultima Online

Publish – February 2, 1999

The following was released as the February 2nd Publish on February 2, 1999.

Eight new varieties of minerals can now be found.
Each variety offers a unique color.
The different colors can only be found by miners of specific skill levels–only Grandmasters or near Grandmasters can find the rarest mineral, valorite.
Once a vein is located, it will always be at that location from then on. (It behooves miners to conceal this location!) We have seen the feedback from those concerned that these locations will become ambush points. If this develops into a problem, we will make the veins move. For now, however, they will remain where they are found.)
Even a known vein will not always yield the rare mineral.
You cannot combine ore of different colors.
You can only smelt the colored minerals if you meet the Mining skill requirement to do so.
Smelting more difficult minerals will result in a greater skill gain than smelting easy minerals.

You cannot work the resultant ingots unless you meet the Blacksmithing skill requirement to do so.
You can make colored armor and shields from the colored ingots. You cannot make weapons from colored ingots, and doing so will just make a weapon that looks like one made from iron ingots.
Known issue: making weapons from regular ingots will tell you that you are losing the color, even though it is not a colored ingot.

Mace weapons now cause stamina loss and extra damage to armor when they hit an opponent.
Your swing rate or firing rate with all weapons is now dependent on your current stamina, instead of your dexterity.
Damage for your blow is now assessed on your opponent on the start of the swing, instead of at the end. This change makes a fast connection less of an advantage in melee combat. This will apply to wrestling and attacks made by monsters as well.
Equipping a weapon now causes a short “prep time” before you can start swinging.
Being good at anatomy will give a bonus to the damage you do in combat.

Meditation goes in. This new skill allows faster regeneration of mana.
Your mana regeneration rate is now dependent on your level of Meditation skill, your intelligence stat, and the amount of armor you are wearing. This is termed the “passive use” of the skill.
The skill can be used from the skill gump, or via a macro.
The title associated with this skill is “Mage”.
You cannot be holding anything except a spellbook, nor be wearing metallic or bone armor to use it. You also cannot be drunk at the time.
If you succeed, your mana regeneration rate is doubled from your usual rate while you meditate.
You stop meditating if you do basically anything, including using another skill, trying to hide, moving, casting a spell, using or trying to pick up an object, etc.
A problem with the polymorph spell getting “stuck” was fixed. Spellbooks affected will be retroactively fixed.
The Magic Reflect spell now gives an error if the target already has Magic Reflect on, and does not consume mana or reagents.
The magic lock spell now works against unsecure locked down containers.
So does the magic untrap spell.
Magic unlock and magic untrap will no longer work on secure containers.

The one-room house which ramdomly changed appearance every time you tried to place it no longer does so.
Holiday trees and ornaments are deleted. Holiday tree deeds are unaffected, but are disabled until the holiday season next year.
You can no longer deed a locked-down holiday tree.
You can no longer attempt to pick the lock on a secure container.
The “large smithy” has been renamed to “large house with patio.”
Significant lockdown changes were made. Lockdown is no longer done with keys. Instead, it is done with spoken commands. These commands work only for the house owner.
- “I wish to lock this down” gives a targeting cursor and does basic lockdown.
- “I wish to release this” gives a targeting cursor and unsecures and releases the object from lockdown.
- “I wish to secure this” gives a targeting cursor and locks down and secures the object if it’s a container.
  - “I wish to unsecure this” gives a targeting cursor and only unsecures the container. It does not release it from lockdown.

Saying “I honor thee” will bring up a targeting cursor.
Targeting another player will remove karma points from you and give some karma points to your target.
You will automatically turn to face them and bow. Known issue: there’s a graphical glitch if you are polymorphed and honor a player. This will be fixed shortly.
You have to have a positive karma of a certain level to do this.

Using bandages will now unhide you.
Mapmaking now has a skill delay.
There is now a blacksmith NPC guild, and blacksmith guildmasters will appear in appropriate shops and halls.

Hair dye is now permanent.
The error message given when you selected the last color on each page of hairdye is now fixed.
Some cave entrances to the Lost Lands have been slightly adjusted in terms of where you end up when you exit.
Poisonous creatures should start poisoning at the correct frequency again.
Some map errors were corrected.
Redeeded vendor deeds will now weigh 90 stones. They can now be looted as well (they will drop to your corpse). Vendors must now be emptied before they can be redeeded.