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.

UO Publish 73 – Test Center, Client Patches 4.0.19 and 7.0.19

Courtesy of the UO Herald, and it is massive. It also includes the first of the high resolution artwork updates for the Enhanced Client.

Summary/Opinion
I made a pretty strong statement yesterday about 3 things to start fixing Ultima Online and I still stand by those things. They are not things covered by any single publish. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about, I’m hear to talk about Publish 73, and from reading through it, is very comprehensive and has things for old and newer players alike. I don’t have an opinion yet on the artwork – once I try it out tonight, I will. The Dungeon Shame improvements are, I hope, the first of more upgrades/revisions of existing dungeons. The Shame Itemization Upgrade is interesting and will take a lot of time to study, but it shows an awareness of the confusion that new players have.

Shame Upgrade
Dungeon Shame has been revised. The monsters have been revised to be a little bit more challenging and scaled in difficulty for new-to-veteran players. The shame loot system has been revised so you should notice less items with throw-away intensity values on properties, and an overall improvement in the loot generated.

First and second levels will provide a good training ground for journeyman to adept skill levels while level 3 should provide a little more of a challenge. On the first 3 levels there will be a renowned monster that can be spawned at a key point in the dungeon by summoning from an altar to give you a taste of the monster difficulty at the next level.

All the monsters within the dungeon have a chance to drop dungeon crystals which can be used to spawn the renowned of each level. In certain areas there will also be a chance when killing creatures for a renowned version of those creatures to be spawned. Similar to a paragon but not as friendly.

Level 5: The monsters on level 5 are a bit heavier and harder hitting than the other levels.

Overview of Shame’s purpose

Read more

Arena Combat System in Testing for UO

Better late than never! A while back it was announced that there would be an arena combat system coming to UO in some form. It was obviously delayed due to the many bigger things happening this year, but it’s happening, and it’s in testing on the TC Arena Test:

There’s a new Test Center in town: TC Arena Test. This is a special rule set shard for testing a new Arena Combat system.

When an arena match starts, the participants have a short time to enter the red moongate that takes you into the arena. Players will have their movement restricted within the area until the match starts. Gladiators who die in an arena match will be transported outside of the arena and resurrected immediately. Once you die in a match, you cannot re-enter that match!

Full Story with directions and screenshots: UO Herald

Keep in mind that to transfer characters, you login with that character, find a safe spot to logout, but don’t logout – open the help menu and select Character Copy.

I only played with it for a few minutes, but looks good so far. I’d recommend you all try it out, even if you’re not a PvPer.

Compassion Dyes, Vet Rewards, and Publish 72

It’s been nearly a week since I last posted, and a few things have happened. Nothing too major – the UO team is still working through Publish 72.

From the UO Herald, Vet rewards are back online (but nothing new just yet) on Origin.

* Publish 72 bugfixes on Test Center

* Mannequin can no longer be placed outside of a home.
* Increased the point value for the Item bless deed
* Changed the name of the item bless deed to bless deed to preserve the rare factor of the original one.
* The Cornucopia will now give points as it should.
* Removed the cooking bonus from the full Fisherman’s set.
* Fixed an exploit with placing Clean up Britannia items in the trash can.

Please note: If you put female gargoyle cloth armor onto a male gargoyle you cannot remove it via the paperdoll. You can remove it by changing the race/gender. This is a classic client bug that will be fixed in the future.

And last but not least, The “Compassion” dyes were pushed out last week:

As announced in a previous news the compassion dyes will be patched into the game this evening. If your character is more than 30 days old and not on a trial account, you will see the dyes in your pack after maintenance.

Some complained about the dyes being only one per shard per account, but it increased the amount of interaction among players as they traded for them, and that’s not all bad is it?

Clean Up Britannia Program 2011

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.