| June 2, 2001 | Bugfixes, Advisors |
Krum about upcoming bug fixes:
I’ve compiled a list of bug fixes that my team and I have been working on that are currently being tested for the next publish. Some of these fixes might not be terribly popular, but they’re necessary as we move forward. We’ve also fixed a significant number of bugs for the publish after this one; I’ll post that list sometime after that publish has been feature frozen.
Keep in mind that although some of these fixes may seem inconsequential to some other problems that may be perceived as more significant, the goal of my team is to fix as many bugs as possible in a given amount of time.
Also, this is not a comprehensive list. There are other fixes not mentioned, but they likely do not impact game play.
Client changes – most of these should already be patched:
Server changes – scheduled for the next major publish:
Advisor program
Many people think its hard to understand how EA first let all Counselors go and now introduces the same position back with (probably) unskilled foreign (and cheap) workers. The announcement from FYI:
EA has arranged with a small group of international customer support representatives to aid in handling game-related customer support, as well as other tasks, for EA.com. As of Friday, June 1st, they will be spending some time addressing Ultima Online customer concerns on the Chesapeake and Atlantic shards from 5:00 pm to 1:00 am EDT as advisors, appearing in peach-colored robes. Please keep in mind that Advisors will only address game play issues. This is an experimental program, and we will post updates when and if the program is to be expanded.
| January 13, 2001 | Seers |
Calandryll about Seer Applications
We cannot open the seer application at this time due to issues that I can't really talk about here. So for now, no, we are not looking for seers. :(
| January 8, 2001 | Factions, |
LadyMOI on the problems of the reward system
Well, that is not entirely accurate. For sometime we struggled to ensure that all accounts that are old enough do receive the appropriate awards.
How certain account 'events' have been recorded in the past creates issues... and we also transferred from one billing system to another about a year and a couple of months ago, which gives us two slightly different methodologies to contend with. Several factors have conspired to make it extremely difficult to make rock solid certain we're gauging your account age correctly, for the benefit of the veterans.
Everyone working on this system, from billing to dev, agrees to err on the players side in all possible cases. We'd much rather let some folks with only 10 months of play time get a 1 year veteran reward than to have a chance of a 36 month veteran only get 2 year rewards.
-LadyMOI
| January 7, 2001 | Holiday Tickets, Rewards |
FYI: Holiday Ticket Distribution Deactivation
The distribution of holiday tickets will be disabled on all shards following their Monday, January 8th scheduled maintenance period (local server time). This change will not affect existing holiday tickets or holiday trees. We will post a schedule for the deactivation of holiday trees at a future date.
FYI: Publish Update - Veteran Rewards
We are currently targeting to release the Veteran Rewards to accounts aged 36 months or older on the Sonoma shard on Monday, January 8th. The rewards will be activated following the shard’s return from regularly scheduled maintenance.
We will monitor the Sonoma shard for any issues that may arise. We are tentatively scheduling to release Veteran Rewards to accounts 12- and 24-months of age or older (in addition to the 36-month accounts) following regularly scheduled maintenance on Wednesday, January 10th. A release schedule for the remaining shards will be available on Friday, January 12th.
Veteran rewards are given out based on account age, not characters, so please remember that if you are not a regular Sonoma player, and choose to accept a veteran reward on the Sonoma shard, you will not be able to transfer this award to your regular shard, and you will have debited your overall reward choices.
More information regarding specific details of the various types of rewards, and qualifications for getting those rewards, can be found in Testing for Next Update.
| October 22nd, 2000 | Factions, |
FYI: Client Patch 2.0.3 Oct 19 2000
We have released client patch 2.0.3 to address a client crash involving logging out and logging back in quickly, before the first character has timed out.
Lake Superior Faction Test Oct 18 2000
In the evening of Wednesday, October 18th (CDT), we will be bringing the various test shards internal and restoring a recent backup of the Lake Superior shard to a test server. This server will be updated with the latest faction system code and will be available to the public as “LS Factions”. We hope you’ll take the opportunity to stop by, explore the faction system, and join in the testing!
The latest information on the faction system is available in Genral Testing (http://update.uo.com/general.html).
(Currently there are Izumo Test and Test Factions 2)
Counselors Wanted: Siege Perilous Oct 17 2000
The Ultima Online Counselor corps is currently accepting applications for Counselors on the Siege Perilous shard. We are looking for patient, enthusiastic UO players with a strong knowledge of both the game, and the unique experience of the Siege Perilous shard. For this reason, we prefer applicants have experience playing on Siege Perilous. If you are interested in joining the Ultima Online Counselor corps and are 21 years of age or older, please click here for additional details. (http://town.uo.com/counselor.html)
From Adrick on Young players and Factions:
Young players will not be allowed into factions, if they are in a guild when the guild joins they will be removed from the guild. Since only faction members can grab a sigil and it requires 80 stealing to steal it (which would remove the young status in itself) we wont have to worry about a young (invulnerable) player stealing sigil.
This is from Calandryll about Name Change Deeds:
I've responded to this before, but my last post has probably scrolled off by now.
Right now, name change deeds are not on the schedule. There are a number of reasons for this, among them being: they are not a priority, there are numerous issues we would have to resolve before implementing them, and we are not even sure implementing them would be a good idea even if those issues were addressed.
Some of the issues are:
...just to name a few.
So to give a quick answer, we have no immediate plans to implement name change deeds and it is possible that we may not implement them at all if we are unable to satisfactorily resolve all of the issues related to them. For now, they are indefinitely on hold while we work on systems that are of a much higher priority.
There apparently is a chance of 1/100 to 1/150 of an efreet having demon bone armour. Calandryll had to say this:
The reason they spawn so infrequently is to make them more valualbe. If we made them spawn 1 out of every 20 or so, the item would lose some of its luster.
Calandryll on the effect of blessed weapons (with bless deed from the reward system) on PvP:
Just as a quick FYI, we are discussing the affects of blessed weapons in PvP based on everyone's feedback. If w decide to make a change, I will let you know. For now though, no changes to report...we are still discussing it.
From Melantus on connection problems, the Seer program and Factions publish date:
We answer a lot of player questions here, and some we do not. I think it's good to let players discuss an issue without me interfering. Also at times I do not have an answer. However I do try to find answers on many things. On the lag issue, you mentioned above.net . We do try to contact the various internet providers when there is a problem. While we do not own Above.net , we do try to let them know when there are problems. I'll look into this some more and see what information I can pass along. The Seer program is still there and will get even better as Eidolon and Augur work to improve the program. I don't have any news on it currently, but expect to see more about it in the future. Factions is code complete and is in final QA testing right now. We dont want to give a date it will be out of testing, because Factions is a huge complex system. We want to be able to test it completely, and how long that will take isn't known exactly. We expect a few weeks.
Melantus on white and ice blue dye:
Part of what I mentioned on the Discussions board was that while we want to add new things to UO, we do not want new things to become "tacky". Certainly we could add things that were ice fiend color, for example. But would that fit in with the rest of the UO theme? The ice white and ice blue colors when on clothing not only look bad on certain clothing or items when in the paperdoll, but they do not fit with the general theme of UO. I'm sure quite a few players would say to put it in, but we feel that this time that those colors on clothing would not work well with the atmosphere we want to have within UO.
Melantus on leather dye:
We still haven't decided if the leather dye will be on the 2 year or 3 year level. When we have more information on that, it will get posted to the boards here. We are taking all of the feedback on it and passing it along :)
Melantus answers a question to implement a possibility to choose the displayed profession title:
It's not swept under the rug, we just haven't had a chance to take a closer look at that yet. Hopefully in the future we will be able to. This was asked at our Q and A session at the Texas Renaissance Faire a couple fo weeks ago. We like the idea, but we just haven't had a chance to look at it yet.
Melantus answered to questions about the new rewards:
These are some of the things I am checking on for the players currently:
We are taking these questions into consideration and as soon as I hear more I will let you know.
| October 16th, 2000 | Stablemasters, Rares |
FYI: Client Patch 2.0.2a Oct 16 2000
We are currently releasing client patch 2.0.2a. This client will include:
Default desktop support – The client will automatically open up commonly used windows (such as paper doll, radar, backpacks) for new characters in the event there is no default desktop file configured. This will generally affect only new accounts.
Repositioning off-screen windows - In the event that an in-game window (such as your backpack) is open, but offscreen, attempting to re-open the window will cause it to move onscreen.
If you have any difficulty receiving this patch, please check the following:
Check the “Patch” directory within your Ultima Online directory (the default location is C:\\Program Files\Ultima Online\Patch). This directory should be empty. Any files in this directory should be deleted.
If you are unable to connect to the patch server at all, and are using an original (Non-T2A) version of Ultima Online, you may need to update your verinfo file. For details on updating this file, please see the information posted at http://support.uo.com/tech_6.html.
Run a virus scan on your computer.
If after trying the above, you are still experiencing difficulty patching the Ultima Online client, please contact Technical Support at tech@uo.com.
Stablemaster Changes Jul 27 2000 (Still IN TESTING but in final stage)
The number of pets a character can place on a stable master will be based upon an average of three (3) skills: Taming, Veterinary, and Animal Lore.
If the total of these 3 skills (Taming plus Veterinary plus Animal Lore) is between 160 and 199.9, then 3 pets may be stabled.
If the skill total is between 200 and 239.9, then 4 pets may be stabled.
If the total of these three skills is at or above 240, then 5 pets may be stabled.
Note that the total amount of pets that may be stabled is effective for the entire shard. Thus for example, if you choose to stable 5 pets in Britain, you may not stable pets anywhere else on that shard with that character.
Posts from boards.uo.com:
This was an answer from Melantus about a player complaining about unusual disconnects especially in the Moonglow Encyclopedia Magica mage shop:
"I will pass this along to the Dev Team for them to check into this. Thanks for the info."
This is a new post from Melantus about Rares:
"Earlier on another UO fan bulletin board, the discussion of rares came up. The original thread started from someone who heard from a friend that their open book rare had been deleted by a GM. I responded with this:
I asked one of the Lead Gamemasters about this. There isn't a policy to delete every obtainable item such as an open book. I hadn't heard of this either, but checked to be sure. Certain items do cause problems when used by a player, and thus are not meant to be owned. Other items like the 2 story statues are not meant to be an item that players possess. They are meant to be naturally heavy (like a piece of wall) but there have been some problems with getting them to be heavy and remain that way. The items such as the fruit basket, open book, whip, and herbs are ok for players to have. If I hear of a change in this policy, I will post it on the UO Boards. However as of this writing I haven't even heard a mention about such. The subject of rares is a very interesting one. Through the talks I have had with the players, I believe there is a lot more potential here then what UO currently has. Rares within UO are a good thing, but they must be defined. Surely if players are able to take wall pieces and other scenery from certain areas, then there is a problem. We make mistakes sometimes, and just because something can be picked up doesn't mean it's now a legitimate item. We will continue to discuss rares with the players and get a lot of feedback on it, because I think this is an area that players should have a lot of input on.
I will continue to look into the situation if possible. But as I said in my reply on the other fan site, the Lead GM's had not heard of this."
And:
"Quote: "Why aren't the creative energies being spent on coming up with ways to make these buyable or craftable by players so we can further enjoy the game? "
This is what I am interested in getting feedback for from the players. I believe Rares are a great aspect of UO. I also believe there is a lot of potential for them to become more then the snatch-and-grab at server start that they are now (in many ways but not all). The players are concerned over their rares, and rightly so. I'm sure there are some items out there that players simply should not have, but the thing is how do players know which is which. While some players have items they know are "illegal" because they know all about the item's origins, someone who purchased a rare might not know as much about it. I'll help to define this more tomorrow and discuss it with players."
| October 12th, 2000 | Veteran Rewards |
Update: UO Veteran Rewards Oct 11 2000
Over the past several weeks, we have been paying close attention to player feedback regarding the UO Veteran Rewards. While we are pleased that everyone has shown such enthusiasm over the rewards program, we have also noted many concerns regarding the uniqueness of the rewards for each level of game time. In light of these concerns, we have decided to return the Veteran Rewards program to development status while we determine, and add, additional rewards to the program.
All of the current reward options listed in In Development will remain as options, but we will be adding a minimum of one new item to each reward level.
While these new items are being designed and tested, we will be focusing our testing efforts toward bringing the Faction System online.
We apologize for delaying the UO Veteran Rewards program at this late date. However, as the program was designed specifically to reward our long-term players, we feel that it would be unacceptable to offer rewards that aren’t pleasing to our players. We will update you with additional information regarding the UO Veteran Rewards program in the future.
Melantus had to say about this:
"Requests for neon hair dye and bless deeds really had nothing to do with it. The main responses we saw were that the clothing items were not really worth a point of the veteran reward system. Pretty much every response we have seen says that the clothing offered is not impressive, since players can get "newbiefied" clothing, dye it almost the same color (close enough), and replace these items if they get destroyed easily. Not many really care about the +2 AR. It's worth a second look, and it wont be too long before Factions are done from testing and we can then address the veteran rewards. I would rather see us take a little extra time on something and get it right, then to put out a reward system that has entire sections that are somewhat unpopular."
And:
"As I said to MrMilk in an email today, the reason we delayed the veteran rewards was that it needed a second look. We could have done that second look, if Factions wasn't already lined up for QA testing and needing our attention (plus a few other things that cannot be paused). We will have time to look at it soon, once Factions is done with it's testing. That won't take as long as some might think, but we do want to be thorough about it.
Back to why we paused the rewards: What did you think about the clothes? They were a big part of the reward system...so did you like the clothes? Were you going to use your points for statues, one of the tubs, or the clothes? From what we heard from many players (not all certainly, but some) was that the clothes needed a change of some type. Some players pointed out how "newbie" clothes and resurrection robes could be dyed and never left the player. They weren't indestructable, but are easily replaceable. They don't have a special name like the veteran reward clothing, but I didn't hear anyone saying that mattered to them.
And then there are statues. I like them as a gift, but what do they mean as a -veteran- gift. Can you display them as you walk around town? Can you wear them to show your veteran status? Many players like them as a veteran gift, and many do not. Maybe no changes will be made, but it's obvious to me that a second look needed to be done before release. Not after, because at that point everyone has spent their points (or many, anyway). So we add a new reward, after the points are spent...that would not be good.
Notice how I haven't mentioned feedback about bless deeds. I also didn't mention anyone who already owned a statue. While there were complaints from players about this part of the scenario, they were not the main reasons. They certainly aren't the reason the rewards are delayed. The real reason is that it simply needs a second look before release. We want to deliver a great reward system for the veterans, not something that could have been better or gets added to later after points are spent.
MrMilk has participated in these boards here, and I would be sorry to see him go. I hope that this post helps to shed some light on the issue of the reward delays.
And as a side note, some players like the clothing, the tubs, the statues, and everything about the rewards. We like for players to be given choices. Our current suggestion means more choices for the players. Using the player feedback, we can improve what needs improving."
LATEST UPDATE: Vendor Customization Update Oct 11 2000
The vendor customization changes listed in Testing for Next Update have been published to all shards on Wednesday, October 11th.
How to use Vendor Customization:
Double-clicking a vendor you own will now bring up a window offering two options: "Customize" and "See Goods". Selecting “See Goods” will display the contents of the vendor backpack. Selecting the “Customize” option will open a menu system through which you may customize your vendor. Customization options will include:
Clothing Style (for shirts, hats, pants, etc.)
Hair Style and Facial Hair (if any)
Hand Held Items (such as fishing poles or spellbooks)
Clothing Color
If you are not the owner of the vendor, double-clicking it will open the vendor’s backpack.
Certain elements of the vendor customization publish have been temporarily disabled. The ability to change vendor names and greetings has been placed on hold until we are secure in our methods of tracking any misuse of these features. Additionally, the ability to change vendor gender has been disabled.
IN CONCEPT: Siege Perilous Changes Oct 12 2000
Gameplay aspects of Siege Perilous will be revised or updated to provide help make Siege a bit more accessible.
We are interested in hearing your opinions and feedback regarding these changes to the Siege Perilous shard. Please send us your comments via email to inconcept@uo.com.
COMMENTS FROM THE TEAM:
Comments from Sage
I have written a few Comments from the Team in the past, but many people still do not know who I am, or what I hope to accomplish in the role of Lead Designer. I would like to go over what some of my beliefs are, and reveal a little about myself.
As a designer I feel strongly about discovery. While I want every player to understand their world, I don't want to reveal everything about the game. I don’t like changing important rules and things players need to know, but I believe the landscape should be littered with new discoveries. I feel it is important that fresh things be put into the game, and I believe that sometimes it is the “little things” that make the game rewarding and encourage social interaction. This is not to say that major systems should be ignored, certainly Ultima Online has its share of new “systems” with factions, veteran rewards, and a few things I won’t discuss yet, but we want to keep the world full of new and exciting things on an ongoing basis. Sometimes small things work better, such as glacial staves, monster nets, gargoyle’s pick-axe and slayer weapons. Have all the opposing forces on slayer weapons been discovered yet?
Just as I don't want to confuse people by making major rule changes without properly giving them the information, it is important that the game reacts as people expect. Therefore I feel it is in the best interests of the game that we focus much of our efforts on addressing bug fixes and correcting balance issues. We are committed to removing long-standing issues in the game while introducing as few new issues as humanly possible. For the game to continue to grow, it must have a stable foundation and feel like it has clear rules. Ultima Online needs this continuity.
I also believe in rewarding good behavior whenever possible, and that means defining good behavior. I feel it is very important for people to come away with a good feeling about their play experience and how they played. I also believe that the rewards you accumulate should be visible. These rewards should come from your peers as well as the game. In fact, I believe that peer rewards may hold more value to many players than in-game accolades.
Now, we come to a question not so much about my beliefs, but about two things that have been discussed in the past, necromancy and alchemy. Often I have people write in to ask about the status of these two items. I would like to state, for the record, that the current team has no intention of putting in necromancy or adding significantly to the extant alchemy skill. When looking at these objectives, we do not believe that these are the most important things that we as a team should be concentrating on. We have to look at what we can add to Britannia to make it the best experience possible, and these simply were not high on our list.
This brings me to the question of where the team wants to go in the future, if not there. I am always hesitant to discuss future plans, as I understand how difficult it can be to deliver on expectations. It is very important that the concentration of our efforts lie in the areas that are important to all of our players, or certainly the majority. We want to continue to build upon this world, and make it more interesting and better for everybody, and that means we have to be responsive to your feedback. We hope to continue concentrating on these efforts through Melantus and co. I honestly believe that the next few months will be the most exciting months ever in UO history, and I hope to see you at the World Faire.
Sage
Lead Designer, Ultima Online
Posts from boards.uo.com:
Designer Hanse posted on why Daemons don't spawn in Hytloth levels 3 and 4:
"Thank you for your information on this issue. We double-checked the dungeon and found no hellhounds and daemons spawning improperly. No time frame available for when this will be fixed. In the meantime, step on up to level 2 hythloth for taking them out. :("
Hanse posted about Stablemaster Changes:
"Stablemasters are currently being tested on Test Center. If you are interested in seeing/testing changes to the stablemaster, please visit Test Center. More information on the new stablemasters is posted at http://update.uo.com/design_225.html. The skill values listed are not base skill values. They include your stat modifications."
The Stablemaster changes mentioned are:
The number of pets a character can place on a stable master will be based upon an average of three (3) skills: Taming, Veterinary, and Animal Lore.
If the total of these 3 skills (Taming plus Veterinary plus Animal Lore) is between 160 and 199.9, then 3 pets may be stabled.
If the skill total is between 200 and 239.9, then 4 pets may be stabled.
If the total of these three skills is at or above 240, then 5 pets may be stabled.
Note that the total amount of pets that may be stabled is effective for the entire shard. Thus for example, if you choose to stable 5 pets in Britain, you may not stable pets anywhere else on that shard with that character.
Hanse posted additional information about these changes:
"More information...
The new system benefits over the current system:
The list does not stop there, but those are the top six I could pull out at the drop of a hat."
He gave a reason for the maximum limit of 5 stabled animals:
"The limit must take into consideration how many players will be on a subserver with stabled pets in a worse case scenario.
Currently, a subserver may have 10 stablemasters (some have slightly more). Figure in the limitation of 100 pets per stablemaster. That comes out to be 1000 pets maximum on that subserver.
Now, if a subserver has 400 players online, each player having a combined total of 240 points in taming, vet, and animal lore (which allows 5 pets to be stabled), 2000 pets could be stabled online (under the new system). This is acceptable, but way over the current limit. Raising the limit any higher could cause adverse issues on a subserver.
Realistically, there will not be that many creatures stabled on a subserver online. The chance that there could be must be factored in. Now you know the main reason why we were reluctant to raise the limit from 3 to 5. Our polling of skills players use from multiple servers reinforce our decision to use the limitation of five as acceptable for everyone to enjoy Ultima Online."
"Our plans for the new system encompass the maximum amount of NPC's on a subserver.
The combined effect would be a slower subserver (obvious technical details to deduce...more objects...more horsepower needed :), but it would not be noticable to players with good or bad connections. Obviously, the worst case scenario is very hard to approach. As stated before, a low percentage of players on an average shard have enough skills to stable 5 pets. We can't predict the future, so we must consider as many possibilities players could tend towards.
Individually, you do not experience more lag with the new system. Even with the worse case scenario, it is not a factor (unless you raise the limit). The benefits of the new system definitely outweigh the current system for players. You will see more predictability and experience less frustration, when stabling and unstabling your pets.
Hitching posts were considered with the new system. They are not considered with the current system. No plans have been made to implement them yet, though."
Krum responded to the known problem about Meditation being interrupted by poison:
"Q: What's the status of the meditation problem where spells like poison and explode stop your meditation? The problem is the following: when you cast poison on another player or monster, and then try to meditate, your trance is interrupted every time the poison does damage. If you try to hide or use the invisibility spell, you are also revealed every time the poison hits. Explosion has the same problem, although its not as annoying. When you cast explosion and immediately meditate, your med is going to stop as soon as the explosion goes off."
"Yup that was about a month ago. If we had the resources to test fixes for all the bugs, I would have fixed them all already. :-) (j/k) In any case I now know what the problem is, but please don't expect a fix in production for it in the short-term."
Krum about the (invulnerable) tag on vendors:
"The invulnerable tag is slated to be removed from everything. You might notice on Test Center that invulnerable mobiles are hued yellow. The plan is that we'll remove the tag completely and you'll identify invlunerables by the color of their name."
Krum about the role of Intelligence in the Meditation skill:
"The regen rate for mana is slower if your int is lower. This is "as designed". If the exact rate isn't "as designed" I can't say right off, but this is the first I've heard about it. As for the second, are you sure that it slows down after about 15 seconds? I checked the code and it doesn't look like that could be happening. I'm not saying that it isn't; I'm just saying this is how it appears."
He also had to say about "Spawn Blocking":
"A fix is in the works. We've reviewed the code and know exactly how to resolve the issue permanently, but we're waiting on other items in test to pass before implementing it."
A response by Melantus on the "legality" of rare items:
"Any item that is gained through an exploit would be illegal. Items that can be taken at server startup are ok, with a few exceptions. The tall statues are not ok for players to have, because they can cause certain problems within the game. They are meant to be "heavy" but for some reason sometimes they aren't. If the server ever noticed the item and for some reason made it "heavy", then there could be problems.
Ropes gained from boat docks are gained through an exploit, and thus are not like the regular rares that spawn at server start (like fruit basket).
Things that are a part of events, or part of a new addition to UO are not meant to be taken. For example, if part of the tents from the Trinsic invasions were able to be taken then they would be illegal. While it's true that we should have made sure the items could not be taken, sometimes mistakes do happen. It doesn't mean the items are legal just because of an error when it was built. If it's heavy, then it wasn't meant to be taken. If you ever set that item on the ground then you won't be able to pick it back up. That is a clue as to it being "illegal".
We don't mind players going to the "star room", unless there is abuse of this (gating people there that do not want to go there, or get stuck there).
All of this is one reason we should take a look at rares. Rares are great and fun to hunt down, but were never really intended to be a part of UO. however they are a part of it now, and a big part of it. I have received a lot of ideas about rares and this should help us when we take a look at them. I'm betting that there is a potential for a lot of fun with rares, more fun then now."
Melantus on OSI response to things discussed on the UO Profession (Focus) Forums:
"For a while now we have let the focus forums go on their own, to allow for players to discuss the various skills and trades there uninterrupted.
Soon we will be using those forums as the "meeting rooms" to discuss the various skills and trades. Player input and feedback will be collected from those rooms. I want to be able to have a "top five" for each one of those forums, if anyone here asked for it. The top five would be the most talked about issues or biggest concerns for that forum. We would also get quotes from players and various comments. So if the Dev Team asked me "What are tamers concerned over these days" I would have that information ready. Right now I pass along information, and the Dev Team reads the boards when they can, but this will give us a chance to look across all the things being talked about."
Melantus on "Daemon Bone Armour":
"This is legitimate."
A good advice by Melantus, that also applies to us when we get asked why a "friend" was banned:
"We can't comment on specific player suspensions. However I do get somewhat troubled when I see "My friend said they got banned when they didn't do anything". Remember that you are speaking for someone else, going by information that only they have told you. There could be a lot more to the story that you are not being told, or are not aware of. Basically the best course of action is to let the matter remain between OSI and the suspended player."
| October 11th, 2000 | Secure Town Chests |
From FYI:
Publish Update, October 9 Secure Town & Dungeon Chests
We will be publishing changes to town and dungeon chests to remove the “secure” status on them. This will not affect secure status of player owned containers in player houses. The changes will go onto the Atlantic Shard initially. The publish will be active on the Atlantic shard following its maintenance period, barring any unforeseen circumstances.
We will monitor the Atlantic shard for any issues that may arise, and will publish to all remaining shards as soon as possible.
Seeking UO Companions
We are currently seeking enthusiastic and outgoing UO players to participate in the UO Companion program.
The Companion program teams experienced UO players with new players just starting out in Britannia. Companions use their regular play characters to interact with “young” players, giving them advice and instruction on exploring Britannia. Additionally, Companions will spend time helping ‘young’ players learn about Ultima Online in the town of Haven. Companions should have a strong knowledge of Ultima Online, a strong desire to teach others, and must be 18 years of age or older. We are accepting companion applicants from all shards, but are particularly interested in those willing to volunteer as companions on the AOL Legends shard. For more information and to fill out an application, please click here.
Krum posted this about rewards on Test Center:
Note about picking up vet rewards on Test Center:
I've noticed that many players have wondered if they pick veteran rewards on Test Center, if they will apply to the rewards on production shards.
I can tell you that you can get all the rewards you can on a test shard and it will *not* effect the rewards you can get on a production shard. Also, you should not be able to get rewards on any volunteer shard.
and
Re: Are you still working on age determination code?
It should be working. If it is not, you should e-mail uoreward@uo.com. It will be checked out by a group in our account support department, and I will be able to fix some of the unexpected cases.
Melantus on Reward Clothing:
Information regarding the veteran reward clothing
I understand that some players have stated they do not like the clothing. However we do not have any plans to change the veteran rewards. The clothes will still be named different then a regular robe or cloak. Technically they are colors that players cannot dye themselves. However some colors that can be picked on a dye tub are similar enough to appear like those colors. Fortunately for those that do not wish to have the clothing, there are other options to choose from in the menus.
Calandryll on whether Order/Chaos could be turned on on Trammel:
It's not necessarily a question of not wanting to turn it back on, however, it is not as simple as flipping a switch. It's something we have to discuss and right now, its not considered a priority compared to other systems and fixes.
And the final one, by Calandryll:
I can answer that one easily
"Does OSI believe that UO still has a future?"
Yes we do. :)