Holiday News – Page 2 – UOJournal.com

UO’s 14th Birthday or Anniversary

July 9, 2016September 25, 2011 by Deckard

Today is UO’s 14th Birthday, or Anniversary if you prefer. Either way, it’s been 14 years. By the way, yesterday was UO Forums 9th Anniversary

Last week I started a series celebrating that, and tomorrow I’m picking up where I left off, and by the way, this series will continue into October:
* UO: The Charter Edition
* UO Between 1997 and 1998
* UO: The Second Age
* Remember Enchantress Emily?

Jeff Skalski, Producer of the Ultima Franchise, had this to say:

Just over 14 yrs ago the world was introduced 2 the term MMORPG. Much respect 2 Origin 4 opening up this space & happy 14th anniversary

Now I could write a bunch of lofty sentences about the impact of UO on the gaming world, or refer you to the discussions going on at UO Forums and UO.Stratics.com, but I think instead we should all join in on the huge celebration happening on the two official UO websites:

* UO Herald
* Ultima Online official Facebook page

Prepare to spend a lot of time on those two pages reading statements from EA and BioWare celebrating UO’s history as well as hearing from the BioWare Mythic community team. From the statements and posts on those two websites, you’ll get a good sense of the respect that UO earned over the years.

UO’s 14th Anniversary: Remember Enchantress Emily?

September 6, 2015September 20, 2011 by Deckard

UO.com actually still has her around, with the following advertisement:

Hail Former Citizen of Britannia!
I bring you greetings from Lord British. Return to Britannia and see for yourself the brave new world emerging there.
You’ll be surprised at how much as changed!
I hope to see you there…
Enchantress Emily

New Safe World equal to the size of the original Britannia where player vs. player combat is consensual
A Safe “Haven”, a city restricted to new players where over 2000 volunteers are available to answer questions and provide guidance.
Expanded Housing Areas with double the amount of land mass available for housing, where the dream of being the master of your own castle can become a reality.
Live Events – thousands of special events where players determine outcomes; shaping the destiny of the world.
My UO – your own personal web page offering your character graphics and information, event updates, and exclusive membership benefits.

And a German version
and Japanese!
and Korean!

Why am I talking about her? She was kind of an iconic image. She wasn’t on all boxes, in fact, not very many at all – I know there was an insert for the US/Canada releases that puts her in the “O” of the UO Logo:

But in many places it was a plain box, such as the French release:

Ultima Online: Renaissance - French Release

When I post my review of UO: Renaissance, I’ll explain the insert thing – the cover folds out and has pictures of real people and their UO avatars/alter-egos.

There was a lot going on, and the whole “enchantress” motif was carried over into some of the in-game fiction, with this article from the Britannia News Network:

It was a peaceful day at Yew Abbey, with not a breath of wind. Brother Ambrose and a small band of monks prayed and meditated in the Ankh chapel in Yew Abbey, preparing for their pilgrimage to the Shrine of Justice. Suddenly the door of the chapel was flung open and a group of adventurers entered. “Brother Ambrose, beware!” they warned. “We just found out that Vilendra, the Emerald Enchantress, plans to ambush your whole party of monks.”

Vilendra was obviously a very vile Enchantress, unlike our Emily.

This was a very exciting time for UO – the player population had grown to over 150,000. In an effort to communicate with, and encourage the UO community, in May of 2000 the UO.com forums were launched and you had a lot of very passionate people all of the sudden talking to one another on UO.com and interacting with developers and UO’s community staff. I’m watching the Star Wars: The Old Republic official forums and seeing some very passionate people as well.

Now if you want to know why this has its own topic, well this was the smaller of the four articles I wrote about UO:R, and I just thought it was kind of interesting because of the symbolism involved. Let us not forget that UO still carried the Mature rating at that time, but that the Enchantress Emily image was not present on all boxes. What was very noticeable about all boxes is that they had a “lighter” or white design, in most cases white with a globe of Sosaria behind the UO logo, emphasizing the virtual world aspects of UO. When you look at the previous expansion of UO, The Second Age: you see a darker design:

Ultima Online: The Second Age (Box Front)

Talk about your symbolism. We move on from evil being inflicted upon the world and a dark box, to a light or white box, with a globe/map of sorts as the background, and along with that we received Trammel, where the non-PvPers were able to do their thing in peace. Inside the front cover, you can read brief biographiess of real-life players and their in-game characters, stressing the communal aspects of UO. It was an attempt to really drive home the fact that you’re not playing with mere computer characters, but that behind those characters there were people from around the world. Incredibly symbolic when you start to look at it in that light. Whoever designed the box art for Renaissance deserved an award for that. They got it right.

As for my other articles, I’m working on them now, but they are big and I’m trimming them down. One is a review of UO:R and what it came with, the other is a look at the agonies and joys of the Trammel land rush.

UO’s 14th Anniversary: The Second Age – Delucia in the Papua

September 19, 2011September 18, 2011 by Deckard

Yesterday we covered the launch of Ultima Online and today we are continuing on with the quest of looking back at all of the expansions and major events of Ultima Online, as we head towards the 14th Anniversary. That brings us to The Second Age. The Second Age rolled into UO in October of 1998, but a lot happened between the original release of Ultima Online and T2A. I’ve included some specific highlights in this previous post if you’re curious. It must be noted that not long after T2A launched, UO would grow to reach 100,000 players. These were pretty heady times for UO.

Note: Click on images for larger versions or visit the entire flickr set of T2A

So how was it being sold? With a similar message as the original UO, but adding in all of the accolades it had received (Game of the Year type of stuff), as well as emphasizing the social aspects. It also emphasized things that had been added since the original UO launch – guilds and vendors.

From the back of the box:

Ultima Online: The Second Age - Back of the Box

Thousands of Players
Potentially thousands of players online day and night from around the world, each character as indivdiual as the person who created it. A vibrant player community, hundreds of websites, hundreds of guilds to join. Are you with us?

A Persistent World
Your actions have a real, lasting impact on this fully simulated world. Regular and ongoing automatic updates to the game snure that it remains fresh and exciting.

Endless Possibilities
Ultima Online offers an unprecedented degree of freedom for you to seek out your own destiny. Craft weapons, tame wild animals, build a house, run a shop, quest for treasure, delve into dungeons – true role-playing where your only limitation is your imagination.

The Second Age
Ultima Online truly enters a new age, with over a year of gameplay refining, increased land mass, new creatures, towns, and terrain, enhanced interface, extended chat features, new in-game language translation, and a new tutorial.

The Best-Selling Role-playing series of all time has revolutionized online gaming again with Ultima Online: The Second Age. Interact with thousands of players simultaneously in this breakthrough Internet fantasy world. Get online and immerse yourself in the adventure of a lifetime..

Inside the flap/cover of the box, you got a very nice display showing some of what was going on. If you don’t look at this and grin, then you have no soul:

Click for a large/readable version

As the first expansion, what did T2A bring? Quite a bit:
* The Lost Lands, a new land for us to explore, with jungles (also new)
* Delucia and Papua
* Better chat features
* New dungeons
* New Monsters
* New language translation for players in-game
* New tutorial
* The Big Window Client

Now “Quite a bit” is very subjective obviously. If you were doing the upgrade price, it was a steal.

What was in the box?
Note: This is for the full version of the US retail box
* The game on a CD
* Ultima Online: The Second Age Install Guide
* Ultima Onilne: The Second Age Reference Guide
* Ultima Online The Second Age Playguide
* Reversible map – one side was Britannia, one was the Lost Lands
* EULA

Ultima Online: The Second Age - Everything

So what about the contents of the box? If you purchased the upgrade, you didn’t get the box, you just got a CD and the guides/documentation – pretty good for I think it was $7 or $8. I picked up a copy of the retail box for another account, which is what I’ve scanned. Looking back at the original UO boxes, retail or charter, the install guide for T2a was actually expanded to explain in more detail the in-game support. The Reference Guide was shortened, most likely because of the Playguide. The Playguide. Simply amazing, probably 150-200 pages, very hefty. Two steps forward, one step back – the map was paper and reversible – one side was the Lost Lands, one was Britannia:

Click for a huge version of the map

As much as I liked the cloth maps, I don’t have as much of a problem as these were pretty detailed, more detail than you get with cloth, as you can see from my scans above.

Cleaning up Britannia, One Cake at a Time

September 4, 2011 by Deckard

. UO Pub 72 is in testing on the Test Center, and the Clean Up Britannia program is one of the additions that is being heavily tested. I’ve already posted some of the rewards available for turning in items.

UOGuide has a very comprehensive guide to Clean Up Britannia 2011, assembled by UOGuide.com users Gemmie and Cogniac. It’ll show you how many points are available for items that can be turned in. There are a lot of older items that you can turn in for points to apply to new things, such as archery buttes, armor, virtue tiles, and some new house deco items.

Highlights and their reward points include:
* Red Crystallized Essence 25,000 points
* Blue Crystallized Essence 25,000
* 120 Powerscroll 2,500
* A Tattered, Ingeniously Drawn Treasure Map – 1000
* Berserker’s Scythe 10,000
* 300th Anniversary Ball “Ask and thou” 15,000
* Janna’s Hangover Remedy 15,000
* Christmas Statues of Dawn, Katrina etc etc 12,500

Yes, the infamous crystallized essence is worth a lot, the most of any of the turn-in items.

At the bottom of the guide, there is a list of rewards as well. I expect that some of the values and items will change between now and when the publish is pushed out to the prodo shards.

Clean Up Britannia Program 2011

September 1, 2011 by Deckard

By the way, it’s snowing on the test center, while I was checking things in the Classic Client, I should fire up the EC as well. On with the post, as a brief follow-up to the UO Pub 72 details, here are some of the items I directly saw available from the Cleanup Officer:

1,000 Points – Robes
* Humans and Elves are our friends
* Gargoyles are our friends
* We are pirates
* Follower of Bane
* Queen Dawn Forever

5,000 Points
* Lily Pad (decor – housing) (see picture at the top right)
* Lily Pads (decor – housing)
* Nocturne Earrings (Night Sight)

10,000 Points
* Sherry the Mouse Statue
* Chaos Tile Deed
* Honesty Virtue Tile Deed
* Compassion ”
* Justice ”
* Valor ”
* Spirituality ”
* Honor ”
* Humility ”
* Sacrifice

15,000 Points
* Yucca (plant)
* Table Lamp
* Bamboo (plant)

20,000 Points
* Horse Barding
* Scroll of Alacrity
* Snake Skin Boots (poison resist 2%)
* Boots of the Lava Lizard (fire resist 2%)
* Boots of the Ice Wyrm (cold resist 2%)
* Boots of the Crystal Hydra (Energy Resist 2%)
* Boots of the Thrasher (physical resist 2%)

50,000 Points
* Sophisticaed Elven Tapestry
* Ornate Elven Tapestry
* Chest of Drawers
* Footed Chest of Drawers
* Dragon Head
* Nest with Eggs

75,000 Points
* Giant Toad Costume
* Zombie Costume
* Fire Pit

80,000 Points
* Beehive
* Archery Butte

More 10,000 Point Items (armor/clothing)
* Knight’s Close Helm (Replica)
* Knight’s Norse Helm (Replica)
* Knight’s Plate Helm (Replica)
* And a whole lot more armor/clothing

150,000 Points
* Etoile Bleue (Luck 150, Faster casting and recovery 1)
* Novo Bleue (same as

Plus:
* Bunch of Gargoyle Fishing items at 50,000
* Plus Bestial Armor set for Gargoyles

And finally, an item bless dead for 50,000 points. This one will cause controversy.

I have a feeling there are still items yet to be added and that the points will be moved up or down in value. Yes, some of those items are new, including some of the deco items, while others are from the 2008 cleanup. It doesn’t bother me either way. I did have a stranglehold on the archery butte supply on Lake Superior (up to 11 now), but that’s okay, hopefully it will inspire others to create archery ranges.

Pinco has graciously put up a video showing off the Mannequin and Virtue Tapestries from the Anniversary gifts:

And if anybody is curious about the Honest Virtue mini-quests, the Lost and Found boxes are already in place, as you can see in the image to the right.