Publish 12

The following is a list of changes deployed as Publish 12 on July 24, 2001.

Veteran Rewards

The Ultima Online Rewards program is designed to reward our long-term players for loyalty to the UO community. It is our way of thanking you and showing our appreciation for your long-term support of UO, and for your contribution to making UO the most popular virtual world in existence today. Screenshots for most of the rewards can be found at the end of this update.

Determining Account Age

The age of an account will be determined in the following manner:

• Any account created before November 30, 1999 will automatically be credited for all of the time from the date it was created until November 30, 1999. In other words, if you created your account on October 30, 1998, your account would be credited for 13 months of time, regardless of whether your account was inactive during part of that time.
• Following November 30, 1999, only the months in which you had an active account will contribute to the total count of months qualifying you for rewards.
• You can check your account age by logging a character into the game. (Note: Until the Rewards Program has been released, this method may not work, or may return an error message.) To check your account age:
  • Double click your profile scroll.
  • Scroll to the bottom of the scroll window.
  • A horizontal bar will be at the bottom of the profile text. Your account age in years and days will be displayed under that line. The account age will display the same value for all characters on the same account.
• Updates to your account (such as reactivations) are updated every Sunday, but may not be displayed for several days.

Reward eligibility is determined on a per-account basis. Multiple accounts may not be “combined” to increase eligibility.

Rewards

There are three categories of player reward levels currently identified as part of the program: players who have been in the game for 12 to 23 months, players who have been in the game for 24 to 35 months, and those who have played for 36 months or more. Each of the three designated categories of long-term players will be offered a different selection of in-game rewards. All reward options are ‘no loot’ and ‘no steal’, and clothing items will never wear out.

12 – 23 Month Players may choose two of the following rewards:

• Black dye tub
• Bronze +2 AR cloak
• Bronze +2 AR robe
• Copper +2 AR cloak
• Copper +2 AR robe
• Furniture dye tub
  • Furniture to be dyed must be locked down in a player-owned house.
  • Furniture Dye Tub may only be used by the “prime” owner of a house, and not by any co-owners.
• Choice of one of 14 mini-monster statues:
  • Dragon
  • Skeleton
  • Troll
  • Orc
  • Deamon
  • Ettin
  • Earth Elemental
  • Gargoyle
  • Gorilla
  • Crocodile
  • Lich
  • Lizard Man
  • Ogre
  • Ratman
• Special Dye-tub
  • Using normal dyes on this tub (double-clicking the dyes then targeting the special dye-tub) will bring up a menu listing special colors not available through a normal dye-tub.
  • After selecting a color, the dye-tub will then have that hue.
  • Double-clicking the dye tub and targeting an article of clothing will dye that clothing the special color.

24 – 35 Month Players may choose three reward options (two for being a one year player plus one more for being a two year player) from the list of one-year rewards above and the additional two-year rewards listed below:

• Agapite +2 AR cloak
• Agapite +2 AR robe
• Golden +2 AR cloak
• Golden +2 AR robe
• Banners
  • Banners can be placed in houses and have areas that can be dyed using a dye-tub.
  • When selecting a banner as your reward, you will receive a banner deed.
  • To place the banner, double-click the deed. A targeting cursor will appear.
  • Targeting a wall inside a house will place the banner on that wall. The banner cannot be picked up once placed.
  • To remove the banner, the owner or co-owner of the house can double-click the banner. After clicking the confirmation window, the banner will be removed and a banner deed will be placed in the character’s backpack.
  • Using a dye-tub on a banner will dye portions of the banner. Each banner has a different area that can be dyed.
• Flaming Skull
  • The flaming skull is a house decoration that can be placed on the walls of a house.
  • When selecting a flaming skull as a reward, you will receive a skull deed.
  • To place the skull, double-click the deed. A targeting cursor will appear.
    • Targeting a wall inside a house will place the skull on that wall. The skull must be placed on a south-facing wall. The skull cannot be picked up once placed.
    • To remove the skull, the owner or co-owner of the house can double-click the skull. After clicking the confirmation window, the skull will be removed and a skull deed will be placed in the character’s backpack.
  • After the skull is locked down, when a character walks near the skull, it will begin spewing flames. The flames do not cause any damage.
• Leather Dye-tub
  • The leather dye-tub can be used to dye leather or studded leather armor.
  • Using normal dyes on this tub (double-clicking the dyes then targeting the special dye-tub) will bring up a menu listing the colors available to use on leather armor. The colors are similar to the colors currently available for metal armor (copper, shadow, etc.) with the addition of some other hues such reds, blues, greens, etc.
  • After selecting a color, the dye-tub will then have that hue.
  • Double-clicking the dye tub and targeting a piece of leather or studded leather armor will dye that clothing the color.
  • Hides unravelled from dyed leather armor retain the dyed color. However these hides will not become dyed leather armor if crafted.
• Any of the 12 – 23 month reward listed above.

36+ Month Players may choose four reward options (two for being a one year player another one for their two year reward, plus one more for the third year) from among the one and two-year reward choices as well as those additional rewards listed below:

• Ethereal mount (horse, ostard, or llama; one per reward choice)
  • Transparent hue.
  • Appears as a statue in your backpack.
  • Double clicking the statue will cause the statue to disappear and create the mount and your will automatically mount it.
  • Once on the mount, double clicking yourself will dismount you and automatically transform the mount back into the statue which will reappear in your backpack immediately.
  • Ethereal mounts never lose loyalty and can’t be transferred.
  • The mount can never appear without being mounted, therefore it cannot attack or be attacked.
• Verite +2 AR cloak
• Verite +2 AR robe
• Valorite +2 AR cloak
• Valorite +2 AR robe
• Choice of one of three mini-monster statues
  • Zombie
  • Cow
  • Llama
• Any of the 12 – 23 or 23 – 35 month rewards listed above.

It is important to note that characters on an account with less than the appropriate amount of time will not be able to use these items. For instance, if another player gave you a golden cloak, but your account is 20 months old, you would not be able to wear it until your account reached 24 months.

Players who fit into one or more of these categories will have the option to receive their rewards when they log into the game after attaining a reward level. Rewards are given on a “per account” basis, but may be divided among characters on an account. It is very important to make sure you have the correct character logged on before choosing a reward. Game Masters and other OSI personnel will not be able to transfer rewards from one character to another. For example, a player who has a 24 month old account may choose to accept two rewards with a character on one shard, and may choose the remaining reward with a different character. The option to collect rewards will appear each time you log in to the game until you have chosen the total awards for which you are eligible. You will be given the option to collect any rewards for which your account is eligible upon release of the program, regardless of account anniversary date. Thus, for example, if your account is 23 months old, you will be eligible for the 12-month rewards on the day the program is released, and will be eligible for your 24-month rewards as soon as your account reaches 24-months.

If you make a rewards program selection during a final backup or before a server crash, the system may not have adequate time to save your choice. When the shard returns to service, it may take a few minutes for the server to recognize that you have not gotten your reward. The system will account for this however, and after a few minutes you will be able to select a reward.

Vendor Changes

Vendor Fee/Rent

• Vendors will now need to be paid every 8 hours (real time).
• The vendor fee will be calculated as: (combined value of all objects on vendor (either their true value or the value set by the player, whichever is higher)/500) + 20
• If the vendor’s owner is a murderer, the rent will be calculated as: rent = rent * number of owner’s murder counts
• If a vendor is on Siege Perilous, the rent is multiplied by three (this is cumulative with the above values).
• Thus, if you have no murder counts, are not playing on Siege Perilous, and you have 0 items on the vendor, your rent is 20 gp per 8 hours of real time.
• If your vendor holds items valued at 1000 gold, the fee is (1000/500)+20, which equals 22 gold per 8 hours of real time.
• If a player has not paid the vendor fee, or rent, the vendor will take the rent fee out of the money it has earned from sales. If the rent has not been paid and there is no money left from sales, the vendor will destroy itself, along with any goods on the vendor at that time.

Vendor Restocking Changes

• Reagent shopkeepers will no longer disconnect players when they restock.
• All NPC shopkeepers will restock their inventory randomly, although the average number of times a vendor restocks over a certain period of time has not changed. This has the side effect of making it no longer possible to predict when a shopkeeper will restock, and shopkeepers in the same area will no longer restock at the same time.
• The rate at which vendors increase and decrease their inventories has been modified to increase their inventory faster and decrease their inventory slower.

Gump Changes

Vendor Buy/Sell menus have been localized and changed from a simple speech trigger to a larger gump that gives more information and causes the information to not scroll off the screen as it did previously.

Information included will now be:

• Amount of days (in UO time) that the vendor will work for current gold on hand.
  • This includes the vendor’s account and gold held for the player.
  • This message is not displayed if there is not sufficient gold in either of the vendor’s accounts. In these cases, an alternate message is displayed: “Gold needed for one more day: XX(amount needed)”
• Gold held for the player is displayed.
• Gold held in the vendor’s account is displayed.
• Vendor fee is displayed.

Skill Modification Changes

Skill modification has been corrected. An example before the correction:

• Player A had 50.0 “real” archery before any stat modification.
• Stat modification on a skill of 50 adjusted the skill to be 50.9, which could be viewed by the player in their skill window (without “show real” checked).
• Player A then equipped a magical bow granting +20 to archery. The +20 was calculated as being added to the 50.0 (the real skill number) for a total of 70.
• Stat modifiers were then applied and calculated on the modified number of 70, instead of the original 50, for a result of 70.5 (as a skill becomes higher, stat modification has less of an effect).
• Thus, instead of 70.9 it showed as 70.5.

This change causes the applied bonus from the weapon or armor to be added after all modifications are calculated, thus enabling the player to see 50.9 + 20 (from the magic bow) as 70.9 and not 70.5 as before the change. Note that the above numbers are just an example of how the change will function for all items that have skill modifiers.

GM Rating Tool

Once every 10 days, players will be given the option to rate the service they receive from a Game Master. The rating choices that will be available are: “Excellent”, “Good”, “Average”, “Poor”, and “Bad”. There will also be options to cancel the rating or to report that there was no response received from a Game Master.

The responses will be kept in a database and tallied weekly, monthly, and quarterly, allowing us to effectively monitor our staff and the service that our players are receiving.

Miscellaneous Updates and Bug Fixes

Changes to the Third Dawn Zoom-in Feature

The Third Dawn zoom-in feature will receive the following changes:

• Update range will automatically be changed in relation to the screen size and zoom factor. For example, if you zoom in really close to your character, your update range will be reduced to a small amount around your character since the other areas are no longer visible.
• Objects that are out of range will appear as “greyed out” in color. This will assist players with being able to better drop and pick up objects at the various zoom-in degrees.

Murder Count Display Added

The ability for players to check their own short and long term murder counts has been added to the game. By saying, “I must consider my sins”, you will get a text response in the lower left corner of your screen that will show your Short Term Murders, Long Term Murders, and Ping Pongs (the number of times your character has gone from blue to red, based on your short term murder counts).

Spell Changes

• The lightning spell effect in Third Dawn will now appear during each use.
• Bladespirits and Energy Vortex spells have been adjusted to be less processor intensive. This gives a server-side performance increase.
• Bladespirits no longer display a paperdoll when double-clicked.

Speech Localization

• Text information for Anatomy, Arms Lore, and Evaluate Intelligence have been processed for localization.
• Ship Tillermen will now understand their voice commands in all supported languages.

Various Bug Fixes

• A bug with house owners being unable to remove co-owners from the house access has been fixed. Previously only the co-owner at the top of the list could be removed.
• Players with “Young” status will now properly receive their invitation to Haven.
• A sound effect problem with ghosts, specters, and wraiths has been fixed.
• Problems with the statue enable/disable buttons have been fixed.
• A problem with the guildmaster title grant option has been fixed. Guildmasters will no longer appear in the list for granting titles to other members.
• Players who are not poisoned will no longer get the “cure” animation and sound effect when trying to drink a cure potion.
• Problems with the Magic Answer Ball have been fixed.
• Ilshenar creatures of “good” alignment will properly highlight to positive karma players in the same manner other “good” creatures do, with the blue highlight. Players with negative karma will still attract the creature’s aggression, which will then cause the good creature to become grey and attackable to the negative karma player.

Updates

Update 1

On July 27, 2001, the following was published:

• A new distributed backup system for server fixes, publishes, and maintenance.

Update 1

On August 15, 2001, the following was published:

• A fix that addresses certain crashing issues involving containers.