A Comment on the Decay of Town / City Loyalty

There is a heated Stratics thread.

Just to give an all-too-brief background (and it’s way too brief because my spare time is devoted to another UO project), as part of the ongoing story arc, you need to acquire city or town loyalty.

For a full explanation of city loyalty, see the UO Herald page or the loyalty part of The Awakening at UO Guide.

Current Rewards
Is it useful? Besides trying to engage the players and give them a geographical sense of belonging, the current reward is a spiffy looking city banner that you can display in your house showing your allegiance to whatever town/city you prefer (UO Guide – City Banners).

The thinking is that it will be importan0t later on down the road leading up to the anniversary in September, and the hints we’ve received indicate that town loyalty will play a part, but for now it’s the banner. I certainly don’t think that the loyalty ratings are only for the banners.

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I Didn’t Go AWOL and There’s Stuff Happening

I didn’t go AWOL. I have a certain amount of time I can devote to UO-related website stuff, and right now that time is devoted to a website that is not UOJournal.com.

But there are things happening, big things. Here are a few of those things.

A new third party program has been approved for UO! It’s been a while.

Ultima Mapper

Ultima Mapper is the new mapping application for Ultima Online Classic and Enhanced clients that allows users to share the entire experience, rather than just their whereabouts.

UO gets its 1,623rd mention on Massive – Do you Miss Player Written Books in MMOS:

Ancient sandboxes like Ultima Online and modern classics like EverQuest II give players the ability to write their own books, which then populate player-run libraries, serve as tavern menus, explain quests, and mark the memory of friends who left the game. Later games, however, have sadly passed over the mechanic.

Another edition of The Yew Times, a break from the normal UO news.

The Awakening – Act II, Part 2 – A continuation of the ongoing story arc.

People who hare having patch issues, read this

And finally, Patch 75! There is so much going on, you just need to read it yourself.

City Loyalty Ratings – Explained!

Kai Schober has posted an in-depth explanation of city loyalty ratings. It’s been a hot topic among a lot of UO players since it went live recently.

Basically a character is rated by every participating city, based on whether the city likes, hates, or doesn’t care about them. The values/numbers for these ratings are not displayed to characters/players. The explanation posted on the Herald takes you through the different tiers of being hated or being liked/respected. You can become loved or hated by actions you take based on the live events going on – dealing with rioters, etc.

The notes at the bottom of the document help clear up a few questions I and others had:

* It is possible to shift a city’s favor slowly over time, but this is much more difficult for those with checkered pasts
* Negative deeds are worth more hate than positive deeds are worth love
* Negative deeds are remembered longer than positive ones
* While the world is in chaos, all cities distrust each other. This is why trying to be devoted to multiple cities will just earn neutral ratings from all. However, this will not always be the case…

The implication is that there is a potential for cities to unify in some way, or at least allow characters to be loyal/devoted to more than one city. It also confirms something I thought – that it’s a lot harder to move up the positive side of the loyalty ratings than it is to drop. This makes sense, and actually ties into the virtue system in a way. Evil always takes the easy way, that kind of thing.

Read the full document: Entire article at UO Herald

Publish 74 is Out and About

Publish 74 is out and about on the production shards, yay! If you want to read the full list of changes, check the UO Herald.

I’m just going to give a brief rundown.

Valentine’s Day is nearly upon us. We’re getting cupid statues and cupid arrows. You can tag your true love or the object of your stalking, I mean desire, with these arrows.

A major live arc/storyline is starting up. We’ve been getting hints for a while now – the town loyalty, the rioters. It starts in February is set to run through at least September, and involves both the main UO team and the EM team, and is meant to lead to the 15th Anniversary.

Bulk Order Deeds (BODs) are getting a makeover. NPCs will now cache up to 3 BODs a day for players. All BODs are limited to obtaining a new one every six hours, regardless of crafting skill. You can now bribe NPCs that give out BODs to get even better BODs. I’m not sure what to think of it, since I see both sides to argument – that it was a pain in the butt to obtain certain types of BODs, but on the other hand, I can see the bribery prices going sky high, putting certain BODs still out of the reach of a lot of players. It’s a gold sink, and it will definitely lighten some peoples’ bank boxes.

I’m not going to talk about the Runic Re-Forging – you really need to read the UO Herald publish post about it. It’s interesting, but not something I have time to check out and comment about.

Continuing in the series of dungeon revamps that started last year, Wrong has been revamped! Very happy about this. The New Loot Generator applies to Wrong. The mobs are tougher, there are escort missions to gain Compassion rapidly. The Prison of Nightmares has been added – you’ll have to try this one for yourself. New stealables have been introduced for the thieves out there.

Clean Up Britannia has gained 4 new dyes. I’m glad to see Clean Up Britannia continuing, and hope it’s permanent.

Looting rights distribution has been changed, and healers are included equally, assuming they act as they should.

Some Bard changes were made – I don’t have an active bard character so can’t really comment on those.

Finally, there are a lot of bug fixes. Again, read the UO Herald post for more information – too many to list here.

The Classic Client was updated to version 7.0.23 and the Enhanced Client to 4.0.23.

Overall thoughts
A lot of work has went into Publish 74, and at the same time it seems to have come together fairly rapidly. It’s a good sign, and there is clearly a lot of work being done to rework current systems, in addition to the dungeons. The numerous bug fixes are also a good sign.

Would like to have seen information about the high resolution artwork update to the Enhanced Client.

Publish 73 on Origin, Veteran Rewards Added

Publish 73 has been pushed out to Origin, with additional changes and additions, including Christmas Gifts and new Veteran Reward Items

We’ll push Publish 73.0 to Origin today, Tuesday 1st at 5:00 pm EDT.

Here are are the additional changes:

Publish 73.0.0

Christmas Gifts
* Customizable Welcome Mats (2 styles)
* Vocal Santa Statue
* Customizable House type signs
* Scroll of Transcendence Book

Veteran Reward Items

This year for the 14th year we have added the following in celebration:
* Group Bracelet of Binding – This item allows you to bind with 10 people at once. Handy for those times when part of your group is lost or has issues with running into trees and being left behind.
* Seed Box – This box will identify all seeds put into the box, it will hold and organize up to 500 seeds.
* Shard Shields – We have added this as the 14th year vet reward. These are new art that represence a specific shard. The shield will give you a character transfer token once a month to the shard it represence. The token is account bound, so they can not be traded or sold. If you have a shield in your house and the house decays the shield will disappear.
* Sheep Statue – This statue is a resource giver, it will give you 10 pieces of a random hide or wool. This caps at 100 resources so make sure you collect your items.

Classic Client 7.0.19
* Trial accounts can only join the Help Channel

Enhanced Client 4.0.19
* Trial accounts can only join the Help Channel

Source: UO Herald

Thoughts
They probably worked on Halloween and Christmas items at the same time, which makes sense. Frees them up to focus on other items (high resolution artwork upgrades). The vet rewards – the Seed Box, Shard (transfer) Shields, are very nice. Both of these will be well-received I believe. Now begins the waiting game for Pub 74 and the high resolution wall tile upgrades.

And the new Producer’s Letter from Jeff Skalski is still tied up in red tape.

Additional Reading:
* Additional notes for Publish 73, preview of Publish 74
* Publish 73