High Seas

Publish 70 Patch Notes for Origin

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The UO devs have been busy working on Publish 70 on the Test Center for the past week, and so some changes have been made as Publish 70 is pushed out to Origin.

I’m only going to list the changes over the Publish 70 notes (linked above):

Magincia Planting System (Changes = bold)

Players are able to plant seeds in grassy areas around Magincia by using a hoe. The players will have to maintain the upkeep of the seeds to keep them healthy. Only the owner of the seed can take care of the plant . The plant will be tagged with the owners name and the date he/she planted it. Players will be able to dig up the plants after they have matured and they will continue to keep the player’s name, the date planted and the date harvested. Players can use the blue crystals to magically advance the growth of a plant in Magincia. You will be able to find 2 Gardeners that will see the hoes needed to plant seeds in Magincia.

Bug Fixes

* The reward weight of the lobsters and crabs has been adjusted
* You can now have your parrots on your Brit Ship without losing it when you move
* You can now place one tile soul forges on your Brit Ship
* Moongate name was changed from Magincia to New Magincia.
* Cleansing Winds will not heal after removing Mortal Wound any longer.

Enhanced Client – 2D Paperdoll mode

* In the enhanced client you can switch to the classic paperdoll for viewing. The option is found under the legacy tab in the settings window.

Read: UO Herald

Have $12.95? You Too Can Have a Britannian Ship

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Have you visited UOGameCodes.com today? If so, you’ve seen the updates that have a lot of people talking. For $12.95, you can now purchase the Britannian Ship, provided you own the High Seas expansion booster pack.

As long as the money is being put back into UO, I don’t have a problem with it. I think it may even drive some people to purchase the High Seas booster pack since it is required to own and operate this ship and I know plenty of people who were interested in the Britannian ship, but who didn’t have the High Seas booster pack. People like me. I think the High Seas booster pack is great – as many have pointed out, there are plenty of areas of Sosaria that are not being utilized, and anything that helps change that is good.

Am I buying one? You bet. I don’t have the in-game gold required, nor do I have the time to accumulate the gold or points required. I definitely wasn’t going to pay $75 to a third party for the in-game gold – I don’t believe in buying gold. Now there are people plopping down the $13 and selling these in-game, which is driving the in-game price down and is probably really screwing with the gold market. I think that’s great – there are people who may not have the cash nor desire to pay the cash out-of-game to UOGameCodes.com, however this way they can get it at a more reasonable price.

Now some are upset, but I vaguely recall somebody on the dev team mentioning that it might show up in the UOGameCodes.com store. I think this was in response to a question about it’s cost – something like 150 million in gold/10 million points through the Britain Library. That really did put it out of reach to many UO players. I would be surprised if I had 15 million gold across all of my accounts, and I know I’m not alone amongst long-time players who are not rolling in gold.

I’m okay with this, because for all intents and purposes, this is a vanity purchase. If it were a game-changing purchase, I would have to argue against it. I don’t want the UOGameCodes.com store becoming a store that deals in items that can really change the game for a player – I’ve seen this in so-called “Free-to-Play” games and it leaves one with a bad feeling about the game. The majority of UOGameCodes.com items are vanity or decoration-related. There are some that are very useful, however they don’t quite cross the line into becoming necessary to play the game.

The Britannian Ship can be purchased one of two ways, and there are optional accessories:
* The ship by itself – $12.95 US.
* The Captain’s Bundle – $17.95 which includes the ship, a Captain’s Wheel, and the two dye sets (see below)
* Weathered Ship Colors – $5.95 Paint Dyes (3 charges, darker hues) (included with Captain’s Bundle and the Ship Dye Pack)
* Duo/Two-Tone Paint Dyes – $5.95 (3 charges, more “pristine”) (included with the Captain’s Bundle and the Ship Dye Pack)
* Ship Dye Pack – $9.95 (includes the weathered and dual-tone paint dye sets)

If you purchased everything separately, you’re talking about nearly $25 and without the Captain’s Wheel. Players might grumble about prices in the UOGameCodes.com store, but I think the Captain’s Bundle is a pretty good deal. Obviously this will help sell High Seas booster packs as well, and you can’t ignore it when you put it in context.

Are people who contributed to the Britain Library angry? I’m sure they are, although, as I said, I vaguely recall hearing this would show up in the UOGameCodes.com store. I don’t think anybody expected it to be so cheap. I have to admit, I’m really surprised. I can see the issues some have with it being too cheap, especially those who will take it and sell it in-game. It comes down to what EA wanted out of it and what they thought players would pay.

Buying High Seas plus the Captain’s Bundle at the same time, you are up to $33 or so.

I don’t think it was as much of a gold sink as some thought it was – the few people I know who went through the trouble of obtaining one, went and farmed monsters to buy it. They didn’t have 150 million gold sitting in bank boxes doing nothing. They farmed for the items/gold necessary to obtain one, and that works against it being a gold sink.

My only problem with it, is that you can’t place the Captain’s Wheel on the ship, only in a house. Not sure what to say about that.

But I can toss a small forge on it and go boat mining like nobody’s business – the hold maxes out at 28,000 for the weight. At least I hope you can boat mine from it. If not, there’s always the rowboat, right? That kind of defeats the purpose I suppose.

If you want to read more about the Britannian Ship and see a nice high-resolution image of it (the icon you see with the $$$ is a very small version of it), see the UO Guide

A Breakdown of Last Night’s UO Video House of Commons

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Update #2: Stratics has posted 40 minutes or so of the video. Part one is here at YouTube and you can follow through the other parts from there. They had problems with another 15-20 minutes or so. If they cannot recover that video, I’ll post the missing bit. My audio got out of sync though at some point, but I do have it all.

Update: I’ve had a lot of people ask me about posting a video, and yes, I could do it. It would be very easy – I would just have to split it into 10-minute segments for YouTube, and that would take me a good 5-10 minutes. I’m not interested in doing that since an official copy will probably be posted at some point, plus I don’t think all that much is gained from it at this point. They really jumped around on topics and it’s better to read the transcripts, or even better to read the summary below. What I might be willing to do is add on to the summary below, where each item was addressed in the transcript or how far into the video it was. If needed, I will post the video, but I’m sure they’ll make it available. I’m flying solo right now – the other person helping is out of town for the next week, and I probably spent a few hours on the transcript. I’ve got some other things to do on the site first.

I saw some criticism that it focused too much on items that people were getting or wanting to get in the short term rather than looking at UO in the long term. I don’t believe that is a fair criticism. If you look at everything thing that was actually said, when it’s grouped together, the criticism that it was focused on items starts to dry up. Certainly many people were asking about items, that was plain enough to see, but much of the actual discussion was tied to future plans, game mechanics, and other things that weren’t item-based.

I think we got a good glimpse of the bigger picture, it’s just that it was parceled out in small pieces. It’s very hard to see what a painting is when you are only seeing it in small pieces. What I decided to do, after spending a lot of time putting together a transcript, is bring you the bigger picture. I should have done this instead of a transcript, but I was half-way through the transcript before really deciding to do it.

What I have done is group all dev answers into their topics. I’ve included some specific quotes on certain issues, but all of the references below are tied directly to what was said, and are not speculation. They are not necessarily in order of reference within the transcripts.

If you’d like to read the full transcripts yourself, here they are:
* UO Video House of Commons Transcript, part 1
* UO Video House of Commons Transcript, part 2
* UO Video House of Commons Transcript, part 3
* UO Video House of Commons Transcript, part 4

March of 2011 / Publish 70
* Will see the restoration of Magincia
* Will see Publish 70 (tied to Magincia)
* More quest(s) and mobs for Abyss

Artwork – High Resolution / Enhanced Artwork
* Not going to be 100% pushed out at once
* Will be pushed out “in pieces”
* Cal: “One so you guys can see progress, and then two so that it actually looks like it’s planned, and then three, so we don’t miss anything.”
* When asked whether it would be new or higher resolution artwork, the devs had the audio and video muted/turned off while discussing it, and then responded that they will release more information in the future, and that it’s too early now.

Booster Packs
* Cal: “When you see the new items, you’ll probably see the new booster at the same time. ”
* May see “soon”
* Mesanna: “Okay, it’s not going to be a full-blown booster though.”

BOD Rewards / Gold (Bulk Order Deed)
* No clear answer on whether it’s being looked at.

Character Copy
* Vital to testing PVP Arena
* Will allow players to fully copy a character from their home shard to the Test Center, rather than building a new character on the TC. Will allow that character to remain on the original shard.
* Will only work with Test Centers
* Cannot be used to clone characters on live shards
* Maybe available before the end of March

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March 1, 2011 UO Video House of Commons Transcript Part 4

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This is part four of four, of the transcripts from last night’s Video House of Commons.

Other parts of the transcripts (four parts in total):
* Part 1 of the Transcript
* Part 2 of the Transcript
* Part 3 of the Transcript

As previously mentioned, I apologize in advance for any errors. If you notice any errors, please contact us and we’ll correct them as soon as possible. This transcript is taken from a video I recorded. It is hard to convey when they are talking over each other or when they seem excited or unsure of whether to answer something or to continue, so I would recommend you watch the video and judge for yourself if you have the time.

UOJournal.com Notes
(?) or *unintelligible* means I couldn’t quite understand it and maybe guessing.
* Cal = Calvin Crowner, UO Producer
* Mesanna = Bonnie Armstrong, UO Associate Producer, head of EMs
* Supreem = Derek Brinkman, UO Lead Engineer

Off Camera: Umm..the BOD rewards and gold amounts have long remained the same since AOS, could we have a quick update and new items to choose from, menu-style(?) and maybe a 10% increase in gold for (?)
Cal: I like that..(?) I just like..why don’t you just go ahead and add that on top of it
Off Camera: Well you know, when you’re talking to the developers…
Cal: Exactly
Off Camera: Might as well ask for everything
Cal: Can I get fries and whipped cream
Mesanna: Can I get fries with that
Cal: Exactly
Cal: I want a BOD with fries please.
Supreem: Noted
Cal: Bulk Order Fries
Mesanna: *laughs*
Cal: Do you want to table that one
Mesanna: Ummm…
Cal: You can table it
Mesanna: *nodding her head* yeah I don’t want to answer that one
Cal: Yeah you don’t want to answer that.
Cal: Bonnie is pleading the fifth. Go ahead

Off Camera: Uhh, have you ever thought of combining shards into one, for exactly Europa and
Cal: Yeah, yeah, we’ve thought about it
Supreem: It’s a big challenge…you know games like Warhammer Online which are very dependent on player populations, they have no choice but to merge servers because in order for that game to be fun, they need lots of players in the world. If you ask some of our UO players that are on a tiny shard do they want to move, they’ll probably say no. They like their small community, they like their friends, umm..you know, if you wanted to, you could get a character transfer and go to a more populated shard. Players don’t do it because they like their small communities. It’s very difficult to come up with a solution for that in our game because we have houses all over the world. Um…
Cal: And what he means by that is that like literally across the planet with different people (?) and different shards.
Supreem: There is a possibility of doing something similar to what Camelot (Dark Age of Camelot) does, which is, it’s called clustering where you take areas of the world and share them between servers. A lot of technology goes into doing something like that and it would be a major undertaking for us. We would basically have to neglect the game for a while to make that happen, which to us is just not worth it right now.
Cal: Right
Supreem: If our players like their small communities, they can stay there. If they want to go to a bigger shard, they can transfer.
Cal: Also the other side of that is how do you determine which ones you do, right, because the thing that we’ve learned about our community is not only is it vocal, but it’s dedicated and it’s been around a long time, so having to tell someone you know of 12 or 13 years, oh by the way we’re moving your stuff, that’s a really difficult, and I think honestly an unfair decision to have to ask somebody to do.

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Publish 69 – Released World Wide Tomorrow

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Publish 69 will be released onto all shards tomorrow morning during the normal shard maintenance windows.

It contains, among other things, a number of holiday-related items that need to be claimed before January 25th. Also Thanksgiving Turkeys are being turned off.

Full Publish 69 Details

* Thanksgiving Turkeys will be turned off

Each character will be able selected one of the following items:
* Antique Rocking Horse
* Christmas Tree
* Angel Decoration
* Holiday Fireflies (blinking wall decoration)

Vet Rewards:
* 1st year Dungeon teleporter
* 5th Year Metal Dye Tub
* 10th Year Choice of 3 Oval rugs. The skull and cross bones will give 1 random Treasure chest map each week, The Rose Rug will give one random seed each week, and the Dolphin will give one random MIB each week. (After the first of the year we will be putting out a change to these rugs, we will be adding a gump to pick the direction and adding a smaller size. You will be able to pick between the current size 7×7 or a 3×5)
* 13th year a new rideable Armored Boura.

Virtuebane Town Invasion
* Be aware that Virtuebane will be looking for any weakness. Town criers will give warning when the towns are about to be invaded.

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