Publish 16 – The Virtue of Justice

UO Team 23 Jul 2002 00:00:00 EST

Justice is part of a philosophy within Ultima Online known as the Virtues, and is one of eight pursuits within the upcoming Virtue System.

The Virtue of Justice has been described thusly:

“Justice is the truth of what is right and wrong in human action and the love of what is right.”

Players will be able to pursue the Virtue of Justice by killing murderers (red-hued player-characters).

Gaining Justice:

• Characters will be able to gain a certain number of points in the Justice Virtue by killing murderer characters (red-hued player-characters).
  • Safeguards will be in place that will prevent exploitaton of this system. Details on these safeguards will not be disclosed.

Virtuous Title & Abilities: When a character has achieved any number of Justice points, he is considered to have achieved a certain step on the path of Justice.

• When a player moves his cursor over the Justice symbol, a title will be displayed, indicating the step currently achieved in Justice for that character.
  • First step: Seeker of Justice
  • Second step: Follower of Justice
  • Third step: Knight of Justice
• Players who progress any number of steps on the path of Justice, but do not continue to actively pursue it, may discover that this Virtuous title reduces in steps over time.
• Gaining steps in Justice will grant a character the ability to protect any number of characters which are non-criminals/non-murderers.
  • A character must have achieved at least the first step in Justice in order to be able to offer protection to another character.

• Players may activate their Justice Virtue ability by double-clicking the Justice icon on the Virtue window, then targeting an innocent character.
  • A player may only offer their protection while the target innocent character is within a non-consensual Player-versus-player (PvP) ruleset area (i.e. the Felucca facet). However, moving into a consensual PvP ruleset area (i.e. the Trammel or Ilshenar facets) will not break the protection relationship.
    • If the target character is already protected or in a consensual PvP ruleset area, the Justice player will receive a system message stating “You cannot protect that innocent right now.”
      • The target of the protection offer will not be disturbed in any way (they will not receive any message or window).
      • This condition will not count against the player’s 1 offer per 15-minute limit.
      • If the Justice player is inside their 1 offer per 15-minute limit, they will receive a message stating “You must wait a while before offering your protection again.”
  • Players that are offered protection will be given a special request notice: “{Player-one} is offering you protection. Do you accept the offer from this pursuer of Justice?”
    • The target innocent may decline protection by selecting “no” on the request window. If the target innocent declines protection from a pursuer of Justice, then that Justice character may not request to protect any innocent again for at least 15 minutes.
  • Although a character may protect any number of innocents, an innocent may only have one protector at any given time.
  • At any time, a protected player may break the protection relationship by selecting a context menu option on their own character labeled “Cancel Protective Relationship.”
    • Upon cancellation, both players that were in the protective relationship will receive the message, “The protective relationship between {Player-one} and {Player-two} has been ended.”
  • The protective relationship will be broken should either character log out.

• The benefits of Justice-based protection are only in effect while both characters are within the same non-consensual PvP ruleset area.
  • Whenever a protected character receives one a “scroll of power” as a reward for killing a champion of evil (the “boss monster” from a dynamic spawn area), the protector will also have a chance to receive an exact copy of that same scroll of power.
    • Each step gained in Justice will progressively grant the character a greater chance to receive scrolls of power in this manner.
      • First step: 60% chance
      • Second step: 80% chance
      • Third step: 100% chance
    • The protector must be on the same server as the protected character in order to have the possibility of receiving a scroll of power in such a manner. For example, no benefits are in effect while the protector is in the dungeon server and the protected character is in the Lost Lands.
    • Protectors that receive scrolls of power in this manner will receive a notification: “You have been rewarded for your dedication to Justice!”