Future of UO

Publish 70 on TC1, Classic Client 7.0.13, Enhanced Client 4.0.13

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Update: March 31, 2011:
* UO Publish 70 notes – Worldwide Release (April 1, 2011)
* UO Publish 70 notes – Origin

As of now (3pm Eastern, 2pm Central), most of the shards are down and will be for a little bit.

Yes, it’s that time once again, Ladies and Gentleman, when another Publish is being prepped and pushed out. Now it’s only going to be active on Test Center 1 for now, with a backup of Great Lakes in place. Because of the client updates (mentioned a few days ago), all servers must be brought down and restarted. The Classic Client is being patched to version 7.0.13, and the Enhanced Client to version 4.0.13:

Publish 70.0 will be available on Test Center 1 after 4pm today. You can find the publish notes as well as the notes for the Classic Client 7.0.13 and the Enhanced Client 4.0.13 below. This client patch is mandatory, please make sure that you get it! Be aware that this patch is larger than usual, as we are pushing the last set of missing animation files.

We encourage you to check out what’s new and thank you for your feedback.

The main things of interest is that once the shards are back up, we can test out the New Magincia lottery system for the 22 plots per shard that are located in New Magincia. There appears to be a little work being done on the New Player Experience, but it’s probably related more to veterans starting new characters. You can now select where you want to start rather than just New Haven, although New Haven is the default for Young players.

Full Publish 70 notes:

Magincia Plot Lotto
* There are 22 lots each in both Trammel and Felucca. The island is divided up by North and South end. The North end is the area towards the beach area and these plots are 10K per ticket and you are allowed to buy one ticket per account per plot. The South end is towards the bank and these are 2K a ticket and there are no ticket purchase limits.

Magincia Planting System
* 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.

Abyss Quest and Monsters
* Added a new quest in the Abyss, this quest will start with Xeninfor the Security Advisor and he can be found in the Royal Palace. We have also added a few new mobs to challenge your fighting talents.

Bug Fixes
* Veteran Reward Statues such as the Efreet, Harrower, Therathan Matriarch and the Fire Ant can now be turned off an on.
* The issue with fish that are fished up by a non High Seas entitled account not having resources was fixed.
* You can now fish up the new fish in Shame level 4 with the correct entitlement.
* You should now be able to obtain the Magic Key for the Puzzle Room.
* Faction Traps were removed from Magincia
* Players having a false reading of having a ship placed should be fixed
* Magic Reflection: A Murderer using magic reflect will be flagged criminal if they reflect the paralyze spell back onto a blue character
* Detect hidden will once again detect everyone. Detect hidden will apply out of hide timer to detected players that are freely aggressable.
* Splintering weapons do not lose max durability allowing them to proc infinity without destroying the weapon
* Players cannot parry when wielding a throwing weapon and a shield.
* Players who were stuck in a state where they were unable to place a new ship will once again be able to place ships.
* Magincia is no longer part of the Factions system.
* Scalis Eels will now last a maximum of 2 minutes
* Both facings of the kabuto can be dyed with the Metallic dye tub.

Enhanced Client – Starting Locations
* Players can now pick what part of the world you would like for your character to begin. You will have the option to start in New Haven if you wish. Young players can start where ever they like but the default will still be New Haven.

Enhanced Client – Bug Fixes
* Trading an item from one using the Enhanced client to another will carry over the item’s position in the old backpack to the new backpack has been fixed.

Classic Client – Starting Locations
* Players can now pick what part of the world you would like for your character to begin. You will have the option to start in New Haven if you wish. Young players can start where ever they like but the default will still be New Haven.

Publish 70 Test Delayed One Day, Blue Crystal Owners Happy

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So the plan was to roll out the Publish 70/New Magincia to the Test Center tomorrow, using a backup of Great Lakes. That’s been pushed out a day to Thursday, March 17, 2011, however blue crystal owners rejoice, they will be used in the growth and rebuilding of New Magincia. The reason given for the one-day delay is due to some internal testing. The clients will need to be patched, and this will involve a restart and update of all shards on Thursday at 3pm Eastern, 2pm Central. They should be back online within a few hours. Full details:

While the preparation for the launch of Pub 70 to the test center is in full swing, our internal testing on the changes to Magincia require one more day of review. Pub 70 will be available on Test Center this Thursday, March 17.

The client patch for Pub70 requires a server restart. Therefore on Thursday, beginning at 3:00 pm EDT we will bring down all shards. We expect all shards to be back online no later than 5:00 pm EDT.

As an additional note, we have added a purpose for the blue crystals so many players have asked about. They will have a use in the growth of Magincia.

There may have been an additional comment about starting new characters and where their starting location would be, which was tied to the client/shard updates, but it has been removed.

Read: UO Herald

Publish 70, New Magincia Lottery, on Test Center this Wednesday.

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Update: The test has been pushed back to Thursday, however a use for blue crystals is being implemented. Calvin Crowner, the producer of UO, has posted this late bit of breaking news. Ultima Online Publish 70, which should go a long ways towards wrapping up the Magincia storyline, is going to be loaded onto the Test Center this coming Wednesday, March 16, 2011, with a backup of Great Lakes. We will be able to see how the lottery system for New Magincia is going to fully work (more on New Magincia). The period of testing will be extended due to the recent tragedies that have happened and are still happening in Japan, so that hopefully when it is finally published to the production shards, more Japanese players will be able to participate. Given how large of the UO player population is Japanese, I wondered how EA would be handling this. I’ve seen other companies such as Sony suspending billing for people in affected areas.

We will be bringing build 70 to the test center on Wednesday March 16th. As always, we ask that you participate in this test phase and give us your feedback.

However, in light of the events in Japan we will be extending the Test Center phase of this publication. Publish 70 is the end of the live event and the new beginning of Magincia and we want all players to have a chance to participate; and we recognize that there may be many members of our Japanese community who may be unable to participate at this time.

So here is our current release plan for build 70: Test Center Deployment: 03/16. Our expectation is that we will publish to Origin in around 2 weeks. Of course, as events change, we will keep all of the community updated.

We will be putting a back up of Great Lakes on Test Center 1. We hope this encourages you to log in and discover for yourself how the lotto system on Magincia works. In addition to the house plot lotto please enjoy the new system of planting seeds and watching your plants group in the open land of Magincia.

Thank you for your understanding. We are looking forward to getting your feedback and please join us when we say that the hearts and thoughts of our team go out to our Japanese friends.

Read: UO Herald

Ultima Online Publish 69.7 and Client 7.0.12.1 and 4.0.12.2

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Rowland Cox made this announcement earlier today on UOHerald.com about Publish 69.7 as well as the client updates. This publish and the client updates revolve around the rebuilding of Magincia and possibly the upcoming mini booster pack.

It is our pleasure to announce the release of Publish 69.7 to all shards along with the Classic Client Update 7.0.12.1 and Enhanced Client Update 4.0.12.1.

The notes for this update are below, thank you and have fun!

Publish 69.7
* Updates for final live event

Client – Classic and Enhanced
* Cliloc updates

UOJ Note: It’s Enhanced Client 4.0.12.2.

For a little more about the Classic Client updates as well as what Publish 69.7 is moving towards, read Next Booster Pack = Magincia, Plus the Magincia Bazaar. Some of it is also covered in the Breakdown of Last Nights UO Video House of Commons.

Some of the EC files that were updated that I noticed:
* LocalizedStrings.uop
* UOSA.exe

Patches in total were listed as 8481KB by the Patcher.

Let’s Play the Speculation Game About the Graphics

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I may not be able to contribute a lot to the site for the next several days, but I can still post from my phone. Please excuse typos or a lack of shift key usage. Deck can fix those.

This is commentary, not news. Actually it’s speculation to be precise, but if you are after news, skip over this. Just so you know, my track record with UO speculation is about 50%, less if you ask my friends.

Hopefully Deckard will add appropriate links after I post this, but here goes. Tonight, somebody with UO posted on Facebook that the graphics document is written (link). This is their plan for whatever you want to call the graphics upgrade or the higher resolution or enhanced artwork. Details are supposed to be released soon.

The other night during the video panel, they had to discuss whether or not to discuss the artwork. They even muted the audio on us and went to a UO logo screen.

Last week, Cal made a very cryptic reference to a lot happening between January 3rd and now (link). Deckard can provide the date/links, but you can search for January 3rd and probably hit it. It was a very cryptic reference that implied that major things involved UO were happening. I don’t think our archives are back online just yet, but prior to January 3rd, it seemed they had a pretty clear plan for UO moving forward, and it didn’t seem to include a graphics update. By now most of us had expected the next booster to be announced, since that would match their schedule. Cal also made a reference to pr adding game footage, and that played out really weird as far as where the footage came from and whether it was stock EA footage.

Last week, we also get the dev video diary (link). It was butchered, and I’m being kind. There was something like 5 seconds devoted to the upgraded graphics and Supreem’s comments before and after his brief mention of the upgraded graphics were edited out.

From the video HOC (link) they were clearly no where close to talking about the new player experience.

But they have the graphics plan finished.

I’m going to say that what held up the dev video diary and what led to the mysterious butchering of the dev video diary was also what Cal cryptically referred to as happening between January 3rd and now, which is the graphics upgrade and its discussion.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the dev video diary was delayed for so long and then within a week of it being released, they announce they have the graphics plan finished, nor was it a coincidence that they actually had to discuss whether to talk more about the graphics at the HOC.

It also makes complete sense to have the graphics upgrade in place before the new player experience is ready.