September 30, 2004

Site Overhaul

First off, thank you to all the readers who have been using my humble site for the past almost 4 years now. Your good words have encouraged me to continue to grow it and this has also been a great learning experience for me as well. When I created this site, it was my first venture ever in html. Needless to say, this site is quite old in its coding and nowhere near as l33t as many other sites out there cuz I'm a newb! *bends head down in shame*

But as newbish as I may be, I am working on an improved version of the UOTH site that should go live at the same time as the launch of UO:SE. No, it won't be the latest technology but it will be a lot more user friendly than this one. So don't have a stroke in the first week of November when you see the site looking completely different.

That said, I would like to have all skill training guides updated.  I would like a PvP 101 guide.  So if you have any more up to date info to share, if you wish to share tips regarding decorations, crafting, hunting, etc. please send me a PM or email at sakkarah@uotreasurehunters.com . I will also be accepting screenshots of your l33t house designs which you can send at the same email addy. PLEASE do not send bmps. Make your pictures jpgs. or gifs. There is no reason for your pic to exceed 250k so please don't send me 1 meg pictures.

Thanks in advance!

UO:SE Map Revealed!

As you can see, there really isn't that much new housing land available so the people who were fearing an even bigger drop in the value of real estate, you can start breathing again, it won't be the case. While I cannot go into too much details due to the NDA agreement, I can however say that the difficulty of each island is proportional to its size. The smallest having the easier lesser spawn and the biggest having the nastiest spawn.

The Big Patch

If you have a slow connection, I hope you have at least one copy of the 7th anniversary CD so that you can spare yourself countless hours of patch downloads...

Avoid the Big Patch
Upgrade your current version of Ultima Online by installing Age of Shadows or 7th Anniversary Edition in order to avoid patches of up to 150MB. These necessary patches will be deployed mid October in preparation for the launch of Ultima Online Samurai Empire on November 2nd.

The older your version of Ultima Online is, the bigger the patch will be, so if you are using a dial-up connection and running Ultima Online Third Dawn, expect to spend upwards of 8 hours downloading the support patch unless you act preemptively and upgrade your installation now.

This patch will be roughly 30MB for those of you running the latest version of Ultima Online and will be released in mid-October.

3D Art Changes for Older Clients
Along with this upcoming patch, we will be migrating all 3D Client users to the most current version of the 3D Client. This client will display the art in a different manner than the older clients and some of you may notice a difference. The purpose for this migration is to streamline the development process and minimize the impact of supporting multiple versions of the 3D client.

Thank you for your support and understanding.

Soulstones

You know you want one. If you don't get one, you know you will be kicking yourself forever. No, EA isn't paying me to post this, but if you're reading this site, then you're a UO junky like the rest of us and once the stones are no longer available, you will be crying rivers, upon rivers, upon rivers of tears unless you are a training freak. You can ONLY get the stones if you pre-order the game. Yes, brokers will sell the codes for UO gold if you can't afford them with rl cash, but you want to reserve yours asap if you can afford it. The stones are account specific, which means if you have more than 1 account, you cannot use the stone between those accounts. You will need to get yourself a new code for your ther account.

Soulstones give you the power to change your character without losing your work!

When you pre-order Ultima Online Samurai Empire from a participating retailer, you'll get a Soulstone, an amazing in-game device that gives you the power to store skill points or to move skill points from one character to another.

A Soulstone gives you a great deal of flexibility in managing your characters' abilities without losing the skill points you worked so hard to get!

Pre-order Samurai Empire from these fine online stores:

• Electronics Boutique
• Gamestop

Also, look for Amazon and Outpost.com to join the list of participating retailers soon.

Note to European players: The Soulstone will be available to you. We are making arrangements with retailers now and will announce them soon. Thanks for your patience!

The 7th Anniversary Gifts

Yes, it's a little confusing but it's in fact really simple. If you didn't receive one for all your accounts even now, then you need to head over to the account management page and make sure you click yes to letting EA inform you of promotions and other similar stuff otherwise you WON'T get your code. So make sure you get this done before October 24th or you will be sol.

The following was posted to FYI : Happy 7th Anniversary!

If you are an active player and opted-in to receive email, then you should have already received your 7th Anniversary Gift code. For a description of the gifts, go to www.uo.com/gifts .

Happy 7th Anniversary!
If you are an active player and opted-in to receive email, then you should have already received your 7th Anniversary Gift code. For a description of the gifts, go to www.uo.com/gifts.

However, if you have multiple accounts registered with the same email address and are opted-in for email, then you probably only received one code. We apologize for the delay. The rest of the gifts codes due to you will be mailed by 9-28-04.

Also, if you are an active player and did not receive a gift code, it's probably because you did not opt-in for email. Email is the only way we can send you the gift code. If you opt-in for email before 10-24, we will do another gift code mailing after that date. That mailing will ONLY be for players who opt in for email between 9-24 and 10-24. We‘re sorry for any inconvenience. To opt-in for email:

1. Go to https://www.ultima-registration.com/
2. Then click on “edit account”
3. Then log in with your account name and password.
4. Then click “edit member info.”
5. Then click the box that says “Contact me about EA products, news and events.”
6. Then click “Okay”
7. That's it! You'll now receive email from Ultima Online.

Thank you for your patience.

September 14, 2004

UO:SE Counselor Scam!

Please, please, please, please people, don't fall for this crap. Thank God, the guy in question smelled the scam and bailed but some other people could have fallen for it. Please remember that EA/OSI will NEVER EVER ask you for your password. Whenever you are needed to enter your password for anything, they will give you a link sending you to the official UO.com page and it will be a secured page (ie that starts with https:) please notice the s at the end of http. If you have any suspicions, don't go through with it. Inquire about the validity on such email on forums such as Stratics, better safe than sorry.

Comment: Has anyone been asked to sign up as some kind of UO Samurai Empire helper? I was asked by 2 other players today. I am nearly positive they did not know each other actually, so thought it was legit. I asked one of them where they got the information and the mentioned that it was somewhere in stratics. I thought i would send an email (which contained the words "samuraiempire") and see what happens.

I proceeded to do this and complete a general questionaire regarding my interest in become a "Counselor" as the app requested. Sent the general questionaire back and then receive another email. The second questionaire was very suspicious. It asked me for information regarding my name, address, ISP, method of payment, and finally my account name and passwords. Needless for me to say, that questionaire was not sent back. I just hope i havent exposed myself to some type of scammer.

I just wanted to know if anyone else has heard about this. I sure hope no one gets lured in, because it definately does not look legit.

Wilki: This is NOT from EA!

At no time would we ask for your password.

If anyone has seen this "application", please send it to me at wilki@uo.com , along with any other information that you might have.

Thanks.

And, another comment posted on the FYI :

Please protect your account information. No OSI representative will ever ask you for your account password. Anyone who requests such information should be reported to the in-game support staff immediately by way of the “Help” option. As always, this is posted as a daily reminder on the UO Patch Message. This is for your protection.

Thank you again,
Ultima Online
Player Relations

Vet Rewards Unavailable

There a problem with them atm so don't freak if you are unable to collect them. They should be available again tomorrow. From th FYI :

The Veteran Rewards Server is currently unavailable and will be down until approximately Thursday, September 16th 2004.

We will keep you posted of any changes to the service as they occur.

Details of Publish 27

An updated list of all the changes being introduced with Publish 27. As you can guess, it's way too extensive to be able to post it all here, but do take the time to read it. I've been uber busy killing paragons and having a blast at it, even though the little creeps are speedhackers!! I just can't wait to dig some level 6 maps tonight *does the happy dance*.

Read it all on the FYI .

Bards and Paragons

It is currently impossible to provoke paragons. I would definitely like to be able to have a chance at at least area peacing them. Those creatures are serious speedhackers. They come after you with a vengeance. Seeing how they auto-target as soon as they spawn, you often don't have a chance to realize it's a paragon before they chewed your entire leg off! While as a Legendary Peacer/Bard I would like to be able to provoke Paragons, I can see how that could become a problem. But they are thinking about potentially allowing area peace and I think that would be a fair compromise.

Question: Will there also be a cap on things like the Dark Fathers? Can't provoke or peace the, but perhaps a chance to discord them?

Leurocian: Yes the hard cap on all creatures will be 160.

I do have a question for my fellow bards.

Some (not all) of the big boss types had nopeacemaking flags. I believe the only reason this was done was to prevent area peacemaking (which currently has no difficulty check).

I'm proposing to remove the nopeacemaking flag from these types of creatures, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not because of area peacemaking.

I think I've covered the provocation and discordance issues with the new cap and scaling of discordance. But I'm not sure about area peacemaking and these types of creatures.

and…

So should I treat peacemaking the same as I'm proposing to treat provocation?

i.e., all the champions of evil, doom bosses, and any paragon creature with a bard difficulty > 160.0 before the barding cap, will possess a nopeacemaking flag.

and…

Removing the nobard flag has now made those critters bardable with area peacemaking, unless they also had nopeacemaking set as well. So what I probably need to do is a similar solution for peacemaking like I did for provocation.

That will keep current peacemaking behavior in tact, and will allow possibly peacemaking a paragon that has less than a 160.0 barding difficulty before the cap.

and…

Question: So, does the chance of successfully area peacemaking a monster depend on monster barding difficulty OR does area peacemaking automatically peacemake all aggressive creatures in the area?

Leurocian: I think you see my dilemma now. noBard and noPeacemaking flags were put on the Doom Bosses only for the purpose of stopping area peacemaking. Their difficulty was too high for targeted peacemaking and discordance.

To answer your question, area peacemaking is not difficulty based, and this is the heart of the issue. But then we'd have to come up with some visual way to show when something was area calmed and when it wasn't area calmed.

I'll have to ponder on this for a while.

Minor Artifacts...

With Publish 27 going live today, everyone and their brother is trying to gank Paragons in the hope of a minor artifact. No worries, the people with better connection and loot scripters will not have the upper hand in this one...

Question: …do the new minor arties drop in your pack ala Doom, or are they in the chest?

Answer: Drop in your pack.

Only exception is the one guaranteed minor artifact that is in level 6 treasure chests.

In this thread he talks about the chance a paragon has of spawning a chest.
Question: Or does it mean only monsters that can spawn Tmaps has a 10% of spawning a Treasure chest?

and...

Leurocian: This is correct. The Strong Mongbat is the only exception. It can spawn a chest, but doesn't normally spawn treasuremaps.

and...

Over here Leurocian gives the chances of getting a minor artifact off of a mongbat paragon.
Comment: I got the staff of power off a mongbat...

Leurocian: Boy did you win the lottery getting that off a mongbat! The chance to get an arty from a mongbat is 1 in several thousand.

The New Guild System

It is DA BOMB! And was way overdue! Many things will remain similar but a bunch of cool new features that were originally meant for UXO (RIP) will be added to UO and I for one I'm really looking forward to it. As GM of a large Fel guild, it will make my life A LOT easier. Being able to have someone other than the GM guild people, being able to have official alliances with guilds, that will totally rock! It's also awesome to be able to set secured specifically for the guildies without making them accessible to the first visitor, not to mention the search function. My God, everytime a guildie asks me to change his title I want to kill someoen. Currently, any stone with over 150 names only displays a partial list of members so you can someone seach for hours before you find the name you seek, argh!. There is a lot to read so I'm not going to post it here, but if you are part of a guild or intend to start/join one, you want to read the guild system.

Some clarifications.

Ranks (Warlord, Member, etc) are *not shown* anywhere other than in the Guild Roster. Guild Titles, like we have now, are still customizable, and appear publically as before above your character if you so choose.
Guildstones will no longer be needed.
Current guilds are automatically transfered to the new system. You won't have to reform them.
You can have more than two guilds in an alliance.
The Guild house permission is in addition to the friend, co-owner, etc permissions. They also apply to teleporters, door and anything else that has a permission setting in a house. I will add that to the guide on Monday. (Oops!)
Things I will check on:

Guild name restrictions (why only 20?) and how current guild names will convert.
What happens to current guildstones (do they go away, or just become decorations?)
What happens when a guild wants to join an alliance that is already at war.
Faction guilds allied with non-faction guilds (possible or not?)

Since guildstones are no longer needed, what will happen to existing ones?

Wilki: Just to be clear, nobody has said they are going to be removed from the game. As I mentioned yesterday, I will check into this on Monday and see what we're planning to do.

speedman: When we first started doing the guild redesign for Samurai Empire, we took into account that existing guilds would like to hold on to their guildstone and that it has become a cornerstone to some guildhouses. We haven't forgotten this. Look for more information later as the plan hasn't been officially released yet.

speedman
Ultima Online: Samurai Empire Client/Server Programmer
Electronic Arts

And the verdict is positive!!

Comment: Now that we have heard about this new guild system and no decision on our old guildstones has been made, Should EA save the guildstones!

Wilki: Yes, we should!

And we will ;-)

Banning over IP

Rumors, rumors more rumors. This one would not have been a pleasant one if proven true considering many households have routers. It is possible to have more than one client connecting from a single IP without actually using a certain proggy that shall remain nameless nor dual-clienting .

Comment: I have been hearing rumors that people are now being ban for running multiple clients from the same IP address.

Wilki The rumors are not true.

Vendor Exploit

If you've been using that trick to save you from paying the normal fees on your vendor, you want to stop this asap. They are cracking down on players using the exploit and if you get caught, they will not only suspend your account, they will also delete all the content of your vendor. Considering people using that exploit usually do it because the items they're selling are of very high value (hence make them pay vey high fees) you really don't want to lose that stuff to safe a few thousand GPs, but more importantly, saving virtual money really isn't worth losing your account over... From the FYI:

It has come to our attention that some players have been blatantly abusing the vendor system. These players are making an attempt to bypass the rental costs associated with vendors, and are also using vendors for extra storage in a way that was not originally intended by our designers.

In an effort to provide a fair and enjoyable gaming experience, action must be taken. With that said, any and all “exploited” vendors found will have their goods permanently deleted upon discovery. In addition, accounts which are associated with these vendors will be actioned accordingly.

Thank you for your patience as we address these issues to ensure the best gaming experience possible.

Platinum
Customer Service Manager
EA Customer Support

and...

The following are a few points I would like to clarify on this policy:

First thing, this policy is not being put in place immediately. The reasoning for this is because we wanted to give player's advance notice before taking a harsher stance. Our original policy is still in place and the GMs will still action these in the same manner they were before. The harsher policy will be effective in the very near future. I will not be providing you all the exact hour, day or week when this will happen simply because I do not want those exploiting to know how much longer they can get away with it before their items will be lost. This will not affect your ability to report this issue because we do have an existing policy in place right now. All exploiters must take this seriously and correct their vendors immediately to avoid any loss. The GMs in game will begin the new policy at the moment we have instructed them to do so. I am hoping that those of you that are frustrated by this decision will understand that it was made based on what we felt was best for this situation.

Second, a situation where players put BoDs in a BoD book on their vendor and do not price them was brought up as well. This will not be actioned simply because it is not an exploit. The other issues mentioned are in fact exploits and the BoD books were specifically designed to work in this manner.

Third, a situation similar to the ones outlined in the new policy was brought up to me today. I am not prepared to give specifics on it however this issue will be looked into further tomorrow and addressed based on the information that is discovered.

Lastly, if you page into the queue to report a situation like this you will most likely get a message from the GMs stating that they will investigate the situation. I ask you to please accept this response and let them do their job. Due to our privacy policy they are not allowed to discuss with you any action that may or may not be taken. Because we are deleting player's items we must make certain it is warranted. This may mean that a more indepth investigation is necessary to ensure the proper action is taken. Basically, if you do not see immediate action taken it does not mean nothing is being done. If you truly feel the GMs handled a situation incorrectly then please use the "In-Game GM Incident Review" form located at http://support.uo.com .

I want to thank you all for your support of this issue and your patience while we sort all of this out. I will post more updates on this as they become necessary. And... Question: I'd be interested to know what exactly is meant however by "associated accounts". For example, if one was running a mall and rented vendor spots out to other people, and one of these people abused one of these exploits and was caught, would the owner of said shop be considered an "associated account"?

Platinum: The vendor owner that is exploiting is the only person we are taking action against.

September 7 , 2004

Char Transfer Update

Sorry folks, it's still down. But hopefully it will be fixed by the end of the week. Keep your fingers crossed. From the FYI:

We are continuing the debugging and upgrade of the Character Transfer service. We want to ensure that the service is functioning properly before we reactivate it. The ETA for the return of the Character Transfer service is Friday, September 10th. We will keep you updated with any further changes and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

Virtue of Honor

Finally a new Virtue being added. I must say I have mixed feelings about the way this one works. It clearly favors dexer templates or at least characters with high parry/wrestle and nerfs tamers/bards. There is nothing dishonorable in fighting with your pets or being a bard or a range attacker (such as mages and archers). Mind you, all the above templates CAN gain Honor, it will just be harder for them. That's my issue with it. Then again, if you think about Justice, it is much easier for tamers and bards to gain, so I guess it is somewhat of a fair trade.

The Honor Virtue
Embrace the virtue of Honor this winter when Samurai Empire is launched and become the most honorable Ninja or Samurai in the land.

Details below appear here :

Honor is the courage to defend and uphold the truth, and derives from Truth and Courage. The mantra associated with Honor is Summ.

Virtuous Ability: Embrace Honor

The reward for following the path of Honor is the ability to move peacefully among aggressive monsters, as well as a damage bonus to melee combat.

You can activate Embrace Honor by double-clicking the Honor icon on the Virtue gump, and then targeting yourself. Activating this ability will cause all monsters to ignore you for a limited amount of time. The duration you embrace your Honor increases as you achieve higher levels on the path of Honor.

If you are in combat when you embrace your Honor, any opponents already aggressive towards you will not be affected.

Gaining Honor:

You can gain Honor by engaging in honorable combat with monsters or NPCs. You can do this by double-clicking the Honor icon on the Virtue gump and targeting an appropriate opponent. You will face your opponent, bow to them, and speak the words, “I honor you.”

You then must defeat your opponent in an honorable fashion.

Honorable combat is defined as:

• Allowing your opponent to damage you first.
• Engaging in one-on-one combat.
• Not using ranged weapons, unless you stay in the same spot where you honored your opponent, or you only damage your opponent while adjacent to them.
• Not allowing your pets or summoned creatures to help you during the battle.
• Avoiding the use of poison.

To engage an opponent in honorable combat, your opponent:

• Must be one that you can perform negative actions upon.
• Must be at full health.
• Must not already be honored by a nearby player.
• Must be close to you, in your line-of-sight, and have a clear path to you.

The amount of Honor you gain from defeating your opponent is determined by how closely you followed the above guidelines for honorable combat, as well as your opponent's level of fame.

Virtuous Titles : Each virtue has three steps on the path to enlightenment, each more difficult to attain than the last. Upon reaching each step, you will be given a new Virtue title, which is displayed when you mouse over the Virtue's associated symbol (in this case, the Chalice of Honor) in the Virtue Gump.

Disputed GM Responses

If you've ever paged a GM, you more than likely had occasions where you were more than displeased with the decision, action or (lack thereof) taken by the GM. You are to email the source of your discontent and it will be reviewed by Senior GM. Some people say it does nothing, sometimes you're right, it won't make a difference usually because the GM's response was in accordance with guidelines, even though you may not agree with those guidelines. Some more such issues were brought up and escalated to the big boss who replied as follows:

In regards to factions and blocking areas there have been no changes to the policy since I posted "Faction Vendor Policy Update" on the Announcements and Reminders section of the boards. From what I see here my GMs were following the policy by deleting the vendors in that area.

In regards to the issue with the boat placed next to the bridge, we do not have a specific documented policy against this. I will bring up this issue at the policy meeting we have today to make sure everyone is on the same page with that. Otherwise I really feel the correct response was given in this instance as well.

Any inconsistency in the responses given by GMs should be directed to the GM Reviews option on the http://support.uo.com site. My Senior and Lead GMs are qualified to address these emails and it is their responsibility to do so. If you have submitted an email using that option and not received a response then please email me the incident number that was assigned. I will be happy to look into that situation to make certain everyone is doing their jobs.

Thanks,

Platinum
Customer Service Manager
EA Customer Support

Latest Patch Bug and OSI Spyware

Some people have been having problems with their client since the latest patch because it's trying to detect certain drives and doesn't always find it on your PC, depending on the configuration.

Comment: Causes a drive not ready error for a drive A. No such drive exists on my system. However clicking continue seems to clear the error. Just a heads up!
Fertbert: That's probably the new DVD-ROM drive detection code that we added to the Client Metrics system. It didn't do that on any of our machines, my appologies. I'll try to figure out some way to reproduce that behavior so that I can fix it. I should ask:

If you're seeing the problem, what type of floppy drive do you have?
- not sure, it's integrated into my desktop computer
- not sure, it's integrated into my notebook computer
- definitely a normal internal floppy drive
- an external USB floppy drive
- other

Also, what other removable media drives do you have?

and...

Question: Just FMI...what's the DVD-ROM detection for? Why does UO need to detect my drive when it doesn't need the media in to run?
Fertbert: Collecting data so that we can plan better for the future of UO. Same reason why we collect the other data you can see in the metrics.txt file in your client directory.

From this, people realized OSI was performing some data mining on our PCs and naturally, that sent a few people flipping. I'm not overly fond of data miners, but I also think people shouldn't give in to paranoia, it's not like EA is trying to hack you. However, I believe the customers should have the option to refuse to have their PCs scanned if they so choose.

Comment: I'm not getting any errors, but I'm not liking the fact OSI can now scan my PC or whatever it is the DVD-ROM update does. I don't use any illegal programs so I have nothing to worry about, but I just feel.. uncomfortable, for some odd reason.

Wilki: Actually, we've been collecting anonymous hardware information and client version information for awhile now. Today's patch just added a check to see if a DVD drive is installed in your system. As Fertbert said, we collect this information so that we can better make decisions regarding UO's development.

You can see what information we're collecting by looking at the metrics.txt file that is located in your UO installation directory.

For example, this is the metrics.txt file from the system I'm currently writing this post from:

Instance Id: 1093983020
OS Version: 5.1.2600
CPU Manufacturer: 2
CPU Family: 6
CPU Model: 7
CPU Clock Speed: 598MHz
CPU Quantity: 1
Physical Memory: 384MB
Desktop Resolution and Color Depth: 1152x864x32
DirectX Version: 9.0
Video Card Description: NVIDIA RIVA TNT (Microsoft Corporation)
Video Card Vendor Id: 4318
Video Card Device Id: 32
Video Card Memory: 16MB
Distribution: 8
Client Running: 2
Clients Installed: 6
Partial Install: no
Language Preference: enu
DVD-ROM drive: yes

I know Fertbert posted a nice summary of what we collect, but I think the Stratics post purge a couple weeks ago removed it temporarily.

Wilki
UO Online Community Rep

August 30, 2004

Char Transfer Unavailable

It has been over a week now and right now looks like it will be yet a few more days or more before the character xshard service is active again. So please be patient. If you bought a xshard code, make sure you have written a paper copy of the code and kept it safely so you don't lose it. From the FYI :

Upcoming EM Events...

Starting this week, we should be getting at least one weekly mini-event which storyline will be slowly building up to the introduction of the Samuai Empire. With my usual luck, I will probably miss most of them, but keep your eyes peeled and your ears opened for them. You might want to say hello to the town criers not to miss out on anything. From the FYI :

So when is Pub 27 TC?

It should be sometime this week. I for one will be definitely spending some mojo testing time over there.

Pub27 probably won't hit a test center until at least mid next-week... we will need to finish QAing the client and patch it out before we made a public test center available. Right now both the live and QA teams are pretty busy with helping prepare for the Samurai Empire beta, so we're not making particularly rapid progress on getting the pub 27 client through QA. Helping to ensure that the Samurai Empire launch goes as smoothly as possible is the Live Team's number one priority.

Fertbert
Ultima Online Live Team Lead

and...

Comment: Sea Horse's publish 27 Yes or No? Dev answer pls? Maybe hehe?

Fertbert : Not even a chance they'll be in Pub 27. If we do add the sea horses to the game, at this point I can't foresee that happening before Pub 30 at the earliest.

About Luck...

This is actually old news and has not been changed. But it never hurts to refresh people's memory...

Question: [When calculating luck] Does poison killing something count as a last hit…

Answer: I just asked Mr. Tact, and he informed me that it is the highest top attacker's luck that is applied for loot generation. Highest top attacker =most damage dealer.

Leurocian
Designer

A boost to bards?

I would definitely like to see something be done to give bards even a glimmer of a chance at either peacing or barding uber creatures. It's annoying to be a 120 bard and get the "you have no chance of provoking this creature" message.

Leurocian: This is an interesting suggestion. I've been trying to think of a way to improve bard success vs. stuff that has an astronomical barding difficulty. But at the same time, I don't want to see bards overpowered.

So my question to all of you is this...

Vs. something like a Champion of Evil, Doom Boss, Paragon Balron, etc., what should the highest chance of success be for a bard to Peace it, Discord it, and Provoke it? I realize the provocation question is harder to answer because of how barding difficulty is averaged between the two targets.

Now before you answer the above question, consider this...

The problem with even allowing discordance a 10% chance of success vs. such 'super creatures' is that it would completely debilitate them by 20% reduction @ GM discordance and 28% @ Legendary discordance.

With targeted peacemaking, this isn't an issue, because a 10% chance to peace something is not very reliable since critters break out of peacemaking faster now. However, area peacemaking works without a difficulty check, so peacemaking is still useful in the right situations.

Provocation isn't so much an issue because vs. super creatures, it's more of a distraction tactic. Super creatures tend to kill lesser critters fairly quickly. Provocation, however, is a nice tactic vs. the Bone Daemon (i.e., provoke patchwork skeletons onto the Bone Daemon).

I've considered the possibility of capping barding difficulty or applying bonuses for having multiple bard skills or special musicial instruments, but I'm not sure I like those ideas either. They don't address the above, unless of course we come up with some sort of calculation that scales the effectiveness of discordance so that it doesn't always debuff a creature by 20% @ GM or 28% @ Legendary vs. super creatures. But then this would be interpreted as a barding nerf by some of the community members, and that is not the goal.

Keep discussing. I'll be lurking.

Leurocian
Designer

Misc. Q&A Session with Leurocian

Various topic covered. The soulstone part being probably the one I was the most curious about.

In this thread Leurocian discusses minor artifacts.

Comment: OMG!!! You got straight to the point on that... and I definantly agree! It might be a really nice item... but who the heck would want to use it with a name like that... people would be snickering at them.
Leurocian: Captain Quacklebush is the name of one of the characters in the old SOS messages before localization removed such messages. That's the reason I named the item after him...to give something back to the fishing community who misses such messages.

and...

Comment: The dread pirates hat is a HUGE DISSAPOINTMENT, I mean c'mon, archery and fencing? Pirates are swords btw, they use cutlasses and scimitars, also, whats up with the luck ,80 is pointless & pirates don't need luck, they have skill? Mine would be:
10 tactics
10 str
5 hci
15 phy
15 fire
all resits default

Leurocian: The dread pirate hat was an item primarily for fishermen. Most combat oriented fishermen seem to have either archery or fencing as weapon skills. Not all mind you, but quite a few. The item was not meant to be overpowering. Just useful for fisherman or treasure seekers. The dread pirate hat could be used in combination with Captain Quacklebush's cutlass - since it has UBWS to get around the swords requirement.

Your idea would make the hat more useful for PvP, but it doesn't seem to have the flavor I was looking for...for this particular item. However, we could always make more minor artifacts in the future.

This has been a fun project because it has allowed us to see what types of items you like and dislike. This has been some very interesting information from color, to power level, to type of item, etc.

It is impossible to please everyone with these items, but the goal is to introduce some newer features to the game to make it fun overall.

I do appreciate everyone's feedback, and I want you all to know that a lot of the feedback was implemented...even at the last minute.

and...

Comment: Now we want Paragons on test!
Failing that, give us a bag of these minor artis on test... see if any are drastically overpowering

Leurocian: When the Pub 27 Test Center goes public, there will be a bag of minor artifacts in there as well as 10 message in a bottles that will always become ancient SOS scrolls when opened.

Over here in this thread Leurocian commented on why Paragon corpse will not have double the hides when cut up.

Comment: I wonder if they'll give extra leather
Leurocian: We thought about doing that, but I didn't want to take away from the double resources in Felucca.

Also, in this thread Leurocian replied to a few questions/comments regarding soulstones.

Question: If you use a Soul Stone to take 120 Skill points from someone in say Archery, can you transfer that to a new character and not have to use another 120 scroll or must you use the 120 scroll before tranferring.
Leurocian: The other character would need to have a 120 cap in order to absorb the skill points.

and...

Question: That 24 hour timer...is it per soulstone or per character? If I wanted to, say, swap out fencing and archery for swords and parry...would it still take me two days to do it if I used two seperate soulstones?
Leurocian: Per soulstone.

and...

Question: Only question I would have would be : If we had a cap of 700 and had 100 points each of seven skills and a soulstone with 100 points of a skill we wanted to have which of the following would be a way to get that skill (can choose more than one):
A) Lower a skill you didnt want to 0 then pull the skill from the stone(obvious I know but wanted to be complete)

B) Have a second empty soulstone and transfer a skill into that and then transfer the skill you wanted in.

C) The soulstone has the ability to both absorb and expel a skill at the same time so that a second 'placeholder' empty soulstone is not needed.

Leurocian: All three of your options are valid. There will be a 'flush' option for the soulstone that will allow you to empty the soulstone of all skill points stored inside it.

Q&A on Paragon creatures

A gazillion questions being answered. I still don't know how he manages to both answer all those questions and do all the work he's doing. Kudos Leurocian...

Answer: The chance for a paragon to spawn an artifact for each individual top attacker is scaled based on the paragon's adjusted fame level. So balrons, ancient wyrms, etc. will have a lot higher chance to spawn a minor artifact than blood elementals, daemons, earth elementals, mongbats, etc. Of course, it would statistically take a lot of paragon mongbats to get a minor artifact, but it is possible

Question: Say you are attacking dragons with Enemy of One and a dragon(paragon) spawns, will the enemy of one still apply to the dragon(paragon)?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Will the color of the chest be random or will it be colored based on the monster or level?

Answer: Random.

Question: Here is another thought... since there are, even tho they will be modified, Champion spawns in illsenhar... can, or will paragons spawn During a champion spawn? if so that would increase the difficulty & Fun of champ spawns. :>

Answer: Yes. Paragons can spawn during an Ilshenar Champion Spawn, but a Champion of Evil will never spawn as a paragon. Question: Leurocian, will there be a chance that a Paragon creature will spawn as part of a t-map guardian spawn?

Answer: No because paragons only spawn in Ilshenar and treasure maps are for Trammel and Felucca only.

and...

In this thread Leurocian replied to comments and questions on boglings.

Comment: I did not wish to say but if that is what is needed it was the boglings in Haven. yep, them. Those givers of boggy artifacts... ha!

To whomever did this, please also say when the new toys will come via email codes so I can get them and lose a few uneeded accounts.

Leurocian: To my knowledge, there have been no changes to the spawning of boglings in Haven.

and...

Comment: or is it any bog thing can spawn boglings and 5% [edit: was thinking 1/20 and 5% at once so wrote.. 20%..] of those boglings will be paragons..
Leurocian: This should be the correct answer.

Question: oh.. and can bog things eat paragon boglings?

Leurocian: I believe so yes.

Over in this thread Leurocian discussed an error message players are receiving with golems, juka bows and arcane gems.

Comment: Publish 26 messed up Juka Bows, golem messages, plants, some stealable artifacts and who knows what else
Leurocian: I corrected the golem error messages. This should be fixed for publish 27. I'll note the other error messages as well and look into them when I can.

Comment: Theres also a TID string error when recharging Arcane Clothes with Arcane Gems. Just listing this one so you know about it. =]

Leurocian: I appreciate the heads up! Thank you.

and...

Question: Anyone know if NPC humans will have paragon counterparts

Answer: Yes on brigands, no on wandering healers.

 

August 24, 2004

Cliloc Entry Numbers

Are increasingly being used in game. Currently, it's not bannable, unless you use it to scam people, but if people continue to abuse it, it just might become bannable. Unfortunately, it usually takes a handful of people to get something nerfed for the masses.

From my perspective it is exploitive to use this to get a name that you couldn't just enter letter-by-letter due to length or content restrictions placed upon such names.

If the GMs were willing to ban for this, I would have encouraged them to do so, however GMs aren't banning simply for the use of this technique (assuming no third party program was used to accomplish this), but if you use this to try to scam people you will be banned .

I'm encouraging the GMs to ban people who use this to disrupt other peoples' gameplay (covering their screen in text, creating lag, etc.) This is one of those places where it's easy to get into a grey area, so I recommend avoiding this altogether.

Please feel encouraged not to do this... this is not an intended use of the game mechanics; it will go away someday and anything named in this manner is going to get a very boring default name.

Fertbert
Live Team Lead

Samurai Powers Revealed

Well we know at last what to expect of our samurais. That should help people decide whether or not to rework their templates to accommodate the new skills. Thank God for the 6th character slot!! On a side note, people shouldn't freak out about the Honorable Execution ability. They have said many times that it's not a one-hit kill attack. It's a finishing attack. So in theory, if your opponent is at full health and you use that attack he won't die but you will suffer the consequences of him not dying.

Paragon Monsters' Color

Well, just to make extra sure we don't miss them, they will have a special hue. I actually like that color. It's not as hard on the eyes as blaze...

Question: So do these minor artifacts on treasure chests basically take away any chance of regular artifacts on T chests and SoS in Tram and Powerscrolls in Fel? Or is that still being discussed?
Also will Paragon monsters be hued a different colour? or maybe have red names?(kinda like Evil Mages or Excutioners)

Leurocian: We've decided to hue them a gold like color as well as give them the job name of (Paragon).

Minor Artifacts List

Leurocian posted the official list of minor artifacts that will become available as of Publish 27.

A lesser artifact is basically an item where its theme is visible through its name, hue, and properties, but isn't necessarily the best of the best. Therefore, these items should very rarely exceed the maximum intensities and should very rarely have multiple maximum intensities.

Minor Artifacts will have a chance of spawning in each attacker's backpack after a paragon creature or a leviathan is slain. This chance is computed and scaled based upon its fame level. Furthermore, the luck value of each attacker will also influence his/her chance to acquire a minor artifact.

Here are the minor artifacts that will appear for Publish 27.

Polar Bear Mask Bear Mask Cold Resist 21 Physical Resist 15 Night Sight Hit Point Regen. 2 Self Repair 3	Luna Lance Lance Chivalry 10 Damage Increase 35% Strength 5 Swing Speed Inc. 20% Poison Resist 5	Captain Quacklebush's Cutlass Cutlass Use Best Weapon Damage Increase 50% Hit Chance Increase 10% Dexterity Bonus 5	Night's Kiss Dagger Hit Slayer: Repond Hit Life Leech 30% Damage Increase 35% Swing Speed Increase 25% Damage Physical 50% Poison 50%
Arctic Death Dealer War Mace Hit Harm 33% Hit Lower Attack 40% Damage Increase 40% Cold Resist 10% Swing Speed Inc. 20% 50% Physical /50% Cold	Enchanted Titan Leg Bone Short Spear Hit Lightning 25% Hit Lower Defense 40% Damage Increase 20% Hit Chance Increase 10% Physical Resist 15%	Nox Ranger's Heavy Crossbow Heavy Crossbow Damage Increase 20% Spell Channeling (no - FC) Hit Stamina Leech 20% Swing Speed Increase 30% Poison Resist 10% 50% Physical / 50% Poison	Blaze of Death Halberd Hit Fireball 50% Hit Fire Area 50% Damage Increase 35% Swing Speed Increase 25% Fire Resist 10% 50% Physical / 50% Fire Lower Requirements 100%
Violet Courage Female Plate Armor Luck 95 Defense Chance Inc. 15% Physical Resist 14% Fire Resist 12% Cold Resist 12% Poison Resist 8% Energy Resist 9% Mage Armor Lower Require. 100%	Cavorting Club Club Self Repair 3 Damage Increase 35% Swing Speed Increase 25% Poison Resist 8 Energy Resist 8 Fire Resist 8 Cold Resist 8	Burglar's Bandana Bandana Stealing 10 Stealth 10 Snooping 10 Dexterity Bonus 5 Physical Resist 10 Fire Resist 5 Cold Resist 7 Poison Resist 10 Energy Resist 10	Orcish Visage Orc Helm Strength 10 Stamina Increase 5 Self Repair 3 Physical Resist 8 Fire Resist 5 All other resists default
Iolo's Lute Lute Undead Slayer Demon Slayer Charges (1600) Candelabra of Souls A Candelabra	Gwenno's Harp Harp Repond Slayer Reptile Slayer Charges (1600) Gold Bricks Stack of Gold Bricks	Bow of the Juka King Bow Reptile Slayer Hit Chance Increase 15% Damage Increase 40% Phillip's Wooden Steed Wooden Horse	Dread Pirate Hat Tricorne Hat Fencing 5 Archery 10 Dexterity Bonus 8 Luck 80 All resists default
Alchemist's Bauble Bracelet Magery 10 Enhance Potions 30% Lower Reagent Cost 20% Poison Resist 10%	Gloves of the Pugilist Leather Gloves Wrestling 10 Damage Increase 15% Dexterity Bonus 8 Physical Resist 18 All other resists default	Staff of Power Blackstaff Spell Channeling (no - FC) Spell Damage Increase 5% Faster Casting Recovery 2 Lower Mana Cost 5	Shield of Invulnerability Order Shield Defense Chance Increase 15% Spell Channeling (no - FC) Reflect Physical Damage 10% Physical Resist +8% Lower Requirements 100%
Ship Model of the H.M.S. Cape A Minature Ship Model		The Admiral's Hearty Rum A Bottle of Rum

Related to Minor Artifacts (Ancient SOS and Fabled Fishing Nets)

There is a 1 in 40 chance that any message in a bottle becomes 'an ancient SOS' instead of 'a waterstained sos' when opened. Essentially, 'an ancient SOS' is a level 4 treasure chest that will always contain a new type of special fishing net called 'a fabled fishing net'. When 'a fabled fishing net' is used deep in the sea, it will spawn a new sea creature called a leviathan. Like other special fishing nets, various sea creatures will also spawn, but in greater number. For comparative purposes, leviathans are equivalent to a paragon blood elemental in difficulty. Like with paragon creatures, possible minor artifact items may be rewarded to player characters who battle and defeat these legendary creatures. Along with typical loot, a leviathan always carries two kinds of ropes and a message in a bottle. It also has a 25% chance to carry a level 5 treasure map.

Tweaking on Minor Artifacts

Here's your chance to have your voice heard concerning the artifacts. Speak up now while it still matters, or don't moan later when the time has come and gone.

1. I'm considering to remove the hit area effects from the artifacts. Is this what you would like to see? If so, what would you like to see for attributes in its place for each of the four minor artifacts? Please keep suggestions concise and on par with the current minor artifacts.

#2. Which items do you feel should be rehued or not hued at all?

Thanks,

Leurocian
Designer

Q&A on the Minor Artifacts

Some tweaking has been done to the Minor Artifacts and quite a few more questions have been answered...

The End Result for "Hit Area" on Minor Artifacts

I'll add lower requirements for the hally and then I'm done.

So to recap.

I removed all hit area effects except the hally and replaced properties with the following.

1. Arctic Death Dealer has 50% physical / 50% cold, and hit lower attack 40%.

2. Nox Ranger's Heavy Crossbow has 50% physical / 50% poison, and hit stamina leech 20%.

3. Blaze of Death has 50% physical / 50% fire. Lower requirements 100%.

4. Enchanted Titan Leg Bone has 40% hit lower defense.

That should do it. Thanks everyone for the feedback!

and...

Question: One quick question - will the fabled fishing net and ancient sos be white?

Leurocian: Yes.

Comment: You have a point but this isnt real life, the Dev team cant please everyone with a new idea, there will always be nay sayers.

Leurocian: This appears to be very true. But I do try extra hard to please everyone!

Comment: I think the neon helps to tell your rare weapon from a not so rare one.

Leurocian: It's a tough call on what color should be what. Some players like the brighter neon colors, others don't. What's wonderful about this thread is we're getting input on what y'all like and dislike and what you'd like to see in the future. So keep posting, and we'll be lurking.

Comment: Expically if serpents do make it into the reptile slayer group.

Leurocian: I did that today. Sea Serpents and Deep Sea Serpents have been added to both the snake and reptile slayer groups. Publish 27 should contain this update.

Question: Woot!! I guess kraken and the leviathan aren't effected by slayers eh?

Leurocian: Nope.

Comment: I thought you said these minor artifacts would obey the current item property limitations(not that I am complaining mind you, I like them just the way they are).

Leurocian: We decided to loosen that restriction a little bit to make the items more interesting and useful.

Comment: I did that today. Sea Serpents and Deep Sea Serpents have been added to both the snake and reptile slayer groups. Publish 27 should contain this update.
Amazing. Thank you.

Leurocian Thank you for the suggestion.

Comment: Hmm they could be a bit better... And they still wouldn't really come close to arti level. The area weapons are pretty much useless in real PvP... They're much more of a risk than not. I'd switch that for another property.
For PvM I suppose they're alright...

I do like the items that increase skills though, that's good. Thieves will appreciate the bandana hopefully, +30 skill points is great.

I think that on the major paragorns though (AW's) that there should be a chance to drop a doom artifact.

Leurocian: How can we tweak the hit area effects to make them more useful for pvp? Oaks and I talked about this the other day.

Question: By the way, since Paragons have a 5% (thereabouts of spawning) after killing the "normal" monsters, is it possible to have 2 or more paragons spawn in the same area at the same time or is there some sort of limit ?

Leurocian: Yes.

Cmment: I like it. Serpents and krakens havn't been dificult for some of us for some time. But that aside, if i read it right, everyone that attacks it gets a chance at an artifact correct? So if you can't handle it on your own, get togther your guild, or some friends (fishers are very friendly folk, so can't say you can't find some to fish with) and all get togther to kill it. That could result in more then one artifact collected.
Course i could have read that wrong, but i think it's a check each, not over all.

Leurocian: You read correctly.

Comment: When it says each attacker has a chance of getting a artifact in thier pack, does this mean if 10 people attack the paragon monster, all 10 of those people can each get a artifact at the same time? If so that will be ALOT better then the gauntlet where its 1 artifact givin to a random person.

Leurocian: Yes, but for all 10 to get an artifact at the same time is highly unlikely.

Question: Would I be correct in guessing that since you solicited our ideas for new minor artifacts, you will indeed be introducing more at some point?

Leurocian: With time permitting, yes.

Question: What I particularly have in mind: there are places in the depths of some dungeons (like the Wisp dungeon) where you can spend an entire evening without seeing anyone else. Can paragons spawn there as well?

Leurocian: Yes.

The Siege Poll

A lot of Siege players were fairly upset about having the poll opened to everyone, including non-SP players. I can understand their frustration. I mean, why would outsiders have a voice in how their shard is run right? Well, it's really not that simple. EA is a business and needs to justify maintaining servers and putting resources towards said servers. Their purpose is to attract more people to Siege, not just cater to the handful that currently inhabit it. Binky makes a very clear analogy that should help put things in perspective for many. Doesn't mean they have to like the fact that others are consulted, but at least, they should understand better why they have to run the poll the way they currently are.

And as for the two incidents you quote below, please look at the amount of time between posts. When Fertbert did his in-game polling and I gave Pyrite his findings in a PM, to the time I replied and posted the second post, almost one full week had passed. I had also been communicating and posting about Siege in general and this opened up peoples eyes to the fact that we were looking at making some changes. During that time we received a flood of feedback from all the various sources I mentioned below (email, PMs, other fan sites, and even stratics) with a wide range of opinions on how to proceed (none of which were “EA”).

Most notably, there were three groups of opinions:
1. People who don't want the 7AE items blessed
2. People who want everyone to get another PBD
3. People who want to remove blessed items all together

Another miscommunication is that when I posted "...over 300 players. That's over half of the total unique players on all of Siege", that was the unique players that were logged into Siege while Fertbert was doing his research, not the entire player base. There are quite a few more people than that on Siege, but still only a fraction of the number of unique players on a regular shard (unique accounts, not characters).

After reading the boards and going through the hundreds of emails and PM’s I received concerning SP I met with the team and we have revised the survey several times in order to accommodate and offer possible solutions that encompass the wide range of feedback yet will hopefully appeal to everyone to some extent no matter which option is chosen as well as solutions that would work best with the developer schedules.

The final issue I would like to address is the reason we are allowing everyone to vote on the survey rather than limiting it to just current Siege players.

Aside from the reasoning I have already given, this is the best analogy I could come up with.

(this situation is purely hypothetical) Let’s say coke’s new flavor, Coke with Lime, has been on the market for six months.

Let’s also assume that sales of Coke with Lime are only 3% of Cokes total sales and they have a goal to make it 10% of their business. The final assumption you have to make is that 60% of Coke drinkers have tried Coke with Lime and stopped buying it for some reason.

Now, Coke wants to change Coke with Lime to attract more people to drink it. If they do a taste test and only ask the 3% of the people who already drink Coke with Lime, sure they will get some feedback and make some small adjustments that might attract a very small amount of new drinkers, but those 3% are already drinking it for a reason. They like something about it and small changes, like a little less lime, would keep them buying it.

Now having said that, they have no feedback from the 97% of the rest of their business, much less the 57% of people who have tried it in the past and did not continue buying it, so what is to entice those players back? Nothing, really.

Now, if Coke gets feedback from their target group, they can make flavor adjustments that will still make it Coke with Lime, but be more palatable to a larger group of drinkers, getting closer to that 10% goal.

It is still going to be Coke with Lime, and not Classic Coke, it’s just going to appeal to a larger audience.

And that is basically where we are. We defiantly want current Siege players feedback and it does carry more weight, but we also need to get input from non-Siege players as well to help populate the shard a bit more and make some changes that will appeal to everyone. And no, this does not mean we want to turn it into a normal rule-set shard, we just need to make some changes.

So there you have it. Rather than rush through this and make rash, knee-jerk decisions, we are taking a more cautions approach to making any changes to Siege.

Binky
Online Community Manager

and...

Question: Thanks for clearing up the player base confusion, Binky. But still - how do you count us? How will you know if we get more players?

Binky: We look at people who play exclusively on SP and M as well as character activity over the prior 30-day period.

August 23, 2004

GenCon Meetup 2004

Stratics has made a special section dedicated to the GenCon 2004 Meetup. Lots of cool pics and sweet info about the upcoming expansion. Well worth taking the time to browse.

Thanks to our very own Lady Beth, UO Stratics has plenty of details to share with all of you in regard to this last weekend's GenCon 2004 Event (we've also included links to other thorough reports). If you haven't seen it in our Community News already, then make sure to check our our GenCon 2004 Meetup Section for all the info (also found in our left-hand menu under the Expansions Menu).

Joshua Rowan
UO Stratics Managing Editor

Publish 27: Oh My Lord!!

I've just died and gone to Heaven!! Leurocian, where the heck had you been all my UO life? Leurocian and Ferbert are without a doubt the best Dev duo I have seen in this game. They've not only made the game fun again but so many awesome new changes being brought to the game as well. I cannot remember the last time I have been this excited at the thought of hunting monsters again. Currently, aside from Champ Spawns, most creatures usually put me to sleep. The new buffed loot has given me an incentive to hunt them again, but the upcoming changes are actually going to make them FUN to hunt!!

Leurocian has been bouncing ideas off of me for the last 2 weeks, and I gotta tell you that EA has a gem in him. Not only does he has fabulous ideas, but he listens to suggestions and implements them daily.

The biggest concerns raised, he's addressed nicely. It doesn't diminish Doom, it doesn't diminish champ spawn pvp, it doesn't require treasure hunters to retool their characters, and adds a Level 6 treasure map! Here are the details; these are slated for Publish 27 and most of the coding is done already:

Paragon Creatures in Ilshenar

A small percentage of Ilshenar monsters will spawn as a Paragon of its kind (not including Champions of Evil). Paragons will be faster, smarter, harder to kill.

When a Paragon dies, there is a chance that its corpse will contain a special treasure chest. These treasure chests will be collectable and come in different hues. These chests will be locked and trapped. These chests will always possess a treasure map one level higher than that monster will normally carry. For instance, Earth elemental paragon treasure chests will carry level 2 treasure maps, and Ancient wyrm paragons will carry Level 6 treasure maps. Killing a paragon also gives a small chance of a minor artifact in the top attacker's backpacks. Luck will be a factor in getting these artifacts.

Level 6 Treasure Maps

Level 6 treasure chests will spawn ancient wyrms, balrons, blood elementals, poison elementals, and titans. Level 6 treasure chests will always possess one minor artifact. Level 6 maps require GM Cartography and GM Lockpicking to open.

Minor Artifacts

Here's a listing of the minor artifacts. The actual stats of each minor artifact hasn't been released yet:

• Polar Bear Mask: Bear Hat (white)
• Luna Lance (white)
• Captain Quacklebush's Cutlass (red)
• Night's Kiss (black dagger)
• Ship Model of the H.M.S. Cape
• The Admiral's Hearty Rum
• Candelabra of Souls
• Iolo's Lute (white)
• Gwenno's Harp (white)
• Arctic Death Dealer (War Mace)
• Enchanted Titan Leg Bone (Short Spear)
• Nox Ranger's Heavy Crossbow (green)
• Blaze of Death (blaze halberd)
• Violet Courage (purple Female Plate Armor)
• Cavorting Club (dark green)
• Burglar's Bandana (dark gray)
• Dread Pirate Hat (black Tricorne Hat)
• Phillip's Wooden Steed
• Gold Bricks
• Alchemist's Bauble (bracelet, reverse blaze)
• Bow of the Juka King dark green)

Ancient SOS and Fabled Fishing Nets

There is a chance that any message in a bottle becomes ‘an ancient SOS' instead of ‘a waterstained sos' when opened.

Essentially, "an ancient SOS" is a level 4 treasure chest that will always contain a new type of special fishing net called "a fabled fishing net".

When "a fabled fishing net" is used deep in the sea, it will spawn a new sea creature called a leviathan. Like other special fishing nets, various sea creatures will also spawn, but in greater number. For comparative purposes, leviathans are equivalent to a paragon blood elemental in difficulty.

Like with paragon creatures, possible minor artifact items may be rewarded to player characters who battle and defeat these legendary creatures. Along with typical loot, a leviathan always carries two kinds of ropes, a message in a bottle, and a chance for a level 5 treasure map.

Dizzy
UO Moderator

You can read more about this here.

and...

More on the Paragon creatures

Balrons, Ancient Wyrms and Dark Fathers put you to sleep? You can't get a spawn together without getting so badly crashed that you never get to see the champion spawn, let alone fight him? Here is something that should give veteran hunters plenty to chew on.

Whenever a creature in Ilshenar spawns, it is granted the following enhancements:

1. Adds (Paragon) as the creature's job title.
2. Removes all taming variables so a paragon creature cannot be tamed
3. Adds daemon target switching AI script to creature
4. Increases poison hit strength by one if it has a poison attack (no greater than level 5)
5. Multiplies creature's maximum hit points by 5
6. Increases strength by 5%, intelligence and dexterity by 20%
7. Increases all skills by 20%
8. Modifies hit point, mana, and stamina base regeneration scaled on the difficulty of the creature. The more difficult the creature, the more regeneration it has.
9. Modifies speed of creature
10. Slightly increases natural weapon class
11. Bumps up -or decreases if negative- fame and karma of creature by 40% (doesn't bump up karma if karma is0)
12. Will possess extra loot scaled based on its fame level
13. % chance that a paragon will spawn with a treasure chest

• If it doesn't normally possess a chance to spawn treasure maps, then it doesn't spawn a treasure chest
  
• There are no guardians with these treasure chests
  
• Each chest will come in four different chest types, 11 different hues including the default hue, 8 colored ingot hues, Luna bank chest hue (white), and Umbra bank chest hue (black), and will possess the description of ‘recovered from (paragon)' For example, recovered from a dragon (paragon).
  
• These chests will contain 20% of the loot normally found in current treasure chests of the appropriate difficulty level and will always possess a treasure map one level higher than the difficulty level of the chest
  
• Unless otherwise stated, these treasure chests will function as current treasure chests (i.e., they'll be appropriately locked and trapped)
  
• Level 6 treasure chests will spawn ancient wyrms, balrons, blood elementals, poison elementals, and titans. They will always possess one minor artifact

Leurocian
Designer

and...

Question: Will the t-chests be something you can put in your pack while they are full?

Leurocian: Yes.

Question: Okay, here is a question I don't think anyone has asked Leuro. How will we know it's a paragon creature? Will they be some special color? Or will we not know until we're dead, our pets are dead, everyone around us is dead, etc. *chuckle*

Leurocian: When you mouse over a creature, it will reveal its job tag.

Example:

a dragon
(paragon)

Question: Don't all paragons also have a chance to spawn a minor artifact when you kill them?
Just asking in case you left that out.

Leurocian: Yep. All paragons have a chance to spawn a minor artifact, but not all of them spawn chests.

Question: And this is going to start happening when?

Leurocian: Publish 27.

Question: What if we aren't using the mouse over feature? ie, I'm using the single click at the moment. Does this mean I'm going to have to click on every single monster just to find out if it's a paragon?

Leurocian: Ideally, I would like to see allnames show the job title for NPCs. I'll see if I can charm Fertbert into doing that. No promises of course.

Question: awesome! thanks

also, are paragons going to be noticeable when you approach them? as in, players show guild titles when approaching, so paragons will do the same?

Leurocian: This is also what I meant by allnames. Hopefully, Fertbert can do this. I'll find out Monday.

Question: Ok so what this chance of a creature becoming paragon????
20%?
10%?
5%?
1%?
1/1000000%??

it'd be cool if it was somewhere around 5% so you can see them regularly while hunting

Leurocian: It is roughly 5%

Question: Will resists on the paragons be bumped?

Leurocian: No.

Q&A on Artifacts, Tmaps and Fishing

Sheesh, these guys sure have been busy. Makes you wonder how they can squeeze in the time to also answer all our questions and get their work done. Whoever hired them needs a promotion and Leurocian & Fertbert both deserve a raise.

Question: The "something is preventing you to dig up the chest" message... It pops up on ends, even when there's nothing in the way... Is there a small chance you could look into it? Like, pretty please with sugar on top?

Leurocian: I'll look at it, but no promises for publish 27.

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Question: I don't think I saw this answered anywhere yet, so here goes...
These "Paragon Creatures", will it be possible to tell that you've met one before it hits you and you're saying 'OoOoOOOOooo'? Like will they be be hued differently, have a different colored name or will they be named 'a paragon mongbat'?

Leurocian: It will have the job title of (Paragon). So when you mouse over the creature it would say for example : a dragon (Paragon).

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Question: If I were to have a number of SOS Bottles already fished up BEFORE the Ancient SOSs are introduced, then pop them afterwards, will there be a chance for Ancients or will this only apply to bottles fished up AFTER P27 goes live?

Leurocian: Absolutely. Any unopened message in a bottles may contain 'an ancient SOS' instead of 'a waterstained SOS'.

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Question: What kind of barding difficulty will be put on these Paragon monsters?
Same as the original creature? More? If so, how much more?

Leurocian: Considerably more since paragon creatures have about 5 times the hit points of their non paragon counter part.

To put it in more perspective, a paragon blood elemental will have around a 168 barding difficulty. It will be barely bardable with really high levels of musicianship, peacemaking, and discordance. However, balrons, ancient wyrms and the like are probably not going to be bardable with a difficulty level in the 200s, unless provoked onto significantly lesser critters.

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Question: What creatures will spawn level 6 maps

Leurocian: Any creature that can normally spawn a level 5 treasure map now, but only such creatures that are also found in Ilshenar (Blood Elementals, Ancient Wyrms, Balrons, etc.).

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Question: that brings the issue that there are no shadow wyrms or ancient liches in Ilshenar...can we please get some of these guys to spawn somewhere in Ilsh to balance?

Leurocian: As we implement the advanced spawner (for those of you who have heard us mention this before), there are tentative plans to make some spawn areas more interesting. One of the ways to do this, of course, is to have creatures spawn somewhere where they normally don't spawn. Shadow Wyrms somewhere other than level 2 destard is a good potential example of this.

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Question: What exactly are considered Minor Artifacts? & what level are they? Are Minor Artifacts the stealable Deco Artifacts in Doom? or would they also be made of Armor, & Weapon Artifacts? or will the Minor Artifacts be of completely new design?
I know its alot of questions, but good ones.

Leurocian: We're still finalizing the stats for the minor artifacts we will present with publish 27. Various fansites as well as Stratics have already presented a lot of the names of the artifacts so far. Some are decor, quite a few are new weapons, armor, etc. They are all completely new design. None are currently from Doom.

Question: Would you please consider adding some shadow wyrms and maybe also ancient liches in Ilshenar? (these also provide level 5 maps). That will help reducing number of overcrowded areas (Ilshenar blood elemantals...)

Leurocian: Definitely being considered, especially shadow wyrms.

Question: Do you have any plans for balancing stealable artifact spawns with those from Doom Bosses? Inquisitor's Resolution is a highly valued mage artifact, and only one goes out on each shard every 37 days. Contrast this with the spawning of other mage artifacts...

Leurocian: Not immediately. However, if Fertbert wants us to modify artifact distribution in Doom sometime in the future, perhaps that would be the time we can look into issues such as this then.

Question: A larger question (on my mind) is what can I expect from a level 6 t-map?

Leurocian: 6000 gp, lots of items, same intensity level as level 5, but will always have one minor artifact in the chest. Minor artifacts are both decor and combat oriented. They are not Doom artifact caliber, but hopefully you will find at least some of them useful and desirable.

Question: Will these spawn higher level monsters and have better loot than a level 5 or is it basically just a level 5 with a minor artifact in it.

Leurocian: They will possibly spawn ancient wyrms, balrons, blood elementals, poison elementals, and titans.

Question: Also, what exactly counts as a minor artifact? Are we talking about skull candles or does this include lamp posts and other items. Does this include guantlet artifacts that are rarity of 10?

Leurocian: See my previous answer in this thread.

Question: Also, off the topic, do you ever plan on fixing the looting system in the guantlet or is it going to continue to be a script looters paradise where you can only get artifacts if you are one of the 16 top damagers on the Dark Father. Doesnt this reward people that can hide at the Dark Father spawn spot and wait for the Dark Fathers to spawn and just kill them (kind of the same way people used to wait for the champions at champ spawns to pop and get a few hits off to get a scroll and run like hell)? And, on the topic of champ spawns...do you ever plan on making these anything other than guild pvp spots where the guild that can gank the best gets all the scrolls, does the harrower and gets rich while the average player has no choice but to play extortionist prices for scrolls?

Leurocian: Fertbert and I answered similar questions such as this at GenCon. Yes, there are plans to curb script looting and the like. I cannot say however when we will do this, but it is something we are actively discussing.

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Question: Are their any plans to make lockpicking and cartography go to 120 now and do you have to have higher lockpicking and cartography to work a level 6 treasure map? GOD I HOPE NOT!

Leurocian: Absolutely no plans to requirement power scrolls for level 6 chests. 100 lockpicking and 100 cartography are the level 6 requirements. With the rarity of acquiring the level 6 maps as well as the higher level spawn, we didn't feel requiring power scrolls would be necessary or wanted by the playerbase at this time. Treasure Hunter templates are pretty cramped as is.

I had many long discussions with Dizzy from TCB about this. I felt it was essential to research and discuss this type of thing with the players 'in the know' about this. I had many discussions with Admiral Ruffie about the fishing enhancements for publish 27 as well.

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Question:Leurocian, when do you expect to have the paragon monsters etc. up on Test Sosaria for testing??? Inquiring minds want to know!

Leurocian: This week. Maybe even as early as Monday or Tuesday. I have some tweaks I want to do related to all this first thing Monday morning.

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Question: With the new treasure chests would you and the team consider a message such as "You must defeat the guardians of this chest before looting it." Meaning someone cannot lead off their balron and or ancient wyrm etc then loot their chest?

Leurocian: It's certainly something to consider. Not sure if I'll get to doing this sort of thing before publish 27. It may or may not be necessary, but certainly something to consider.

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Question: Is the initial spawn on an L6 going to be completely random, the way it is now? I think it would be better (if possible) if you would make it so that at least 2 balron/AW class monsters make the initial spawn.

Leurocian: Yes, completely random. You're right that sometimes the spawn may not contain a balron or ancient wyrm. But what about the times were there are 4 ancient wyrm/balron combinations? I'll probably leave it like it is currently, for now, but I will keep in mind what you've suggested.

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Comment: I do!
Make sure you call me whne you find one
There will also be some suprt-blood elementals and super PE which should be very "killable"

Leurocian: Yes. Poison Elementals and Titans also have the possibility of possessing a paragon chest that contains a level 6 treasure map. Both of these spawn in Ilshenar as well.

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Comment: So a paragon monster spawns. You get a low level arti (1) You get a level 6 map which has another paragon monster in when you dig the chest up, possibly, with another arti (2) and another map. You have an arti in the chest (3)

Leurocian: Level 6 maps do not have paragon creatures.

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Question: Will it be any diffrenses in felucca maps than in tram maps?

Leurocian: No.

Question: Will it be random felucca or tram or can i chose?

Leurocian: Random.

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Question: Can this be at least be considered instead of the luck suit with high resist which right now is extremely hard to acquire? Any comments on this Leurocian?

Leurocian: Certainly we can consider this. When we're ready to tackle the Doom artifact distribution, I'll keep this in mind.

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Question: I was wandering how difficult Paragon monsters would be to 'summon'.

Leurocian: On average, 1 in 20. Some a little more frequent.

Question: Is it something like everytime a monster is killed in ish, there will be a chance for the Paragon of that type to spawn?

Leurocian: Yes.

Question: Like... could i take a few of my buddies to kill some bloods in ish, would we be able to fight it's paragon in a reasonable amount of time? In other words, would it take 5 minutes to spawn one or an hour?

Leurocian: Probably, reasonable amount of time. It's relative to the group and the group's power level. How long would it take your group to kill roughly 20 blood elementals?

Comment: MO they should spawn commonly enough to warrent a group being there. As of now... they're arn't many bards/tames that can't solo bloods and AWW's. It would be pretty redundant for a group of 5 people or more to camp a spawn for hours at a time.

Leurocian: I suspect they will spawn quite frequently and all over Ilshenar.

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Question: as a fisher trying the levithan do we need luck armor to have chance for the new artys ? ...i hope not because the levithan will be tough to fight yes?
Leurocian: Luck will improve the chance, but it's certainly not a requirement. Remember that the fabled fishing nets can be used by other player characters, not just fishermen.

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Comment: Are the Paragon versions the same as the original, just with more hit points? Will they also be a differnt hue then the original, or will it just be that [Paragon] tag? Something like a purple mongbat Paragon and a redish/purple blood elm lol.
Leurocian: Look for a thread by Lady Malynn reporting paragon information.

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Question: Would it be possible to allow planting green thorns in Ilshenar again, but disallow planting in sand/desert/beach?
Leurocian: I shudder at the thought of paragon vorpal bunnies! heh. I'll keep it in mind. I have a pretty full plate at the moment.

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Question: Someone up above mentioned that meer eternals didn't spawn maps. Funny - I could have swore I've gotten a couple maps from them...can anyone confirm?
Leurocian: I've made a note to look into this on Monday as well.

So where are the EMs?

We haven't had any EM events in forever. Even longer for us poor saps on Atlantic because our EM had resigned due to rl issues (WE MISS YOU NIKA!!). But there is light at the end of the tunnel.

We have been between arcs for the last few weeks so there has not been much activity at all but never fear, the new arc is right around the corner and events will be starting back up again.

Glamdring
Event Moderator

Now if they can only tell us how things are progressing with the EM recruiting...

The loot changes

People, don't be so greedy. We currently have awesome loot. So much in fact the runic kits prices should be plu metting soon. Not to mention the SWEEEET!! changes to t-maps among other things with Publish 27. But I will admit that the extra skill required for t-hunters would warrant bonified loot.

Comment: if anything i feel that fishing t hunters should have gotten a bigger boost than regular land based t hunters...simply because its more work to go fish one up then dig one up...

Leurocian: Hopefully treasure hunters and fisherman will be happy with Publish 27. And for those of you who want a greater challenge and possibly some nifty rewards, I welcome you to Ilshenar in Publish 27. More soon...

Comment: But, the important thing is that now folks are all over spawns again. And wait until next Publish, when Leurocian works his magic on making spawns more challenging. PvM might become both rewarding and fun again! Now wouldn't that be a kick??

Leurocian: Indeed.

Comment: Right now for a melee character to even obtain a modicum of Luck (without using artifacts or special issue items), we have to deal with resists averaging UNDER 40. Right now my best Luck suit gives little added protection over the resists I get from the Resisting Spells skill.

Luck is only usable in upper end PvM by bards and tamers.

Will this be addressed in some way?

Leurocian: I'll certainly note your concern and go over it with Fertbert

So where is that Siege survey?

Should be made available sometime today... at least in theory...

Hello all, I wanted to give you an update on where we are with the survey. We have revised the survey a bit further and are just about ready to launch it. However, with the key members of the Live team and myself attending the GenCon player gathering (which we will be leaving for in the early morning) we have decided to hold off on pushing the survey live until Monday, August 23rd.

The reason for this is we want to monitor the survey and these boards, PMs, and emails in a timely manner and being out of the office and away from the internet (oh the horror) will prevent that.

As I have said before, we are working towards a solution for issues on both of the shard types (not the same solution) and your feedback is very important to us.

Binky
Online Community Manager

 

August 17, 2004

Soulstones: OMG OMG OMG!!

Woot!! *does the happy dance*

I had all but lost hope of ever seeing those babies introduced, but wooters!! here they are at long last

Here is the page with all of the details that have been released to date. They kind of jumped the gun on releasing this info, that's why it wasn't posted on our site first.

www.uo.com/soulstone.html

Pre-Order Ultima Online Samurai Empire and Get Your Soulstone!

Soulstones give you the power to change your character without losing your work!

A Soulstone allows you to store extra skill points in a specific skill or move skill points from one character to another. This gives you a great deal of flexibility in managing your characters' abilities without losing the skill points you worked so hard to get!

Make sure the retailer you pre-order from is a participating retailer. Ask a sales representative at the store, or make sure the online store mentions the promotion.

We will announce a complete list of participating retailers on September 2nd.

FAQ

How do I get my Soulstones?

When you go to the store to pick up the box you pre-ordered, you will be given a coupon with a 20-digit code on it. (Make sure the store is participating in the promotion before pre-ordering the game.)

Or, if you ordered from an online retailer, you will receive the coupon in the same shipment as your Samurai Empire game. (Make sure the promotion is mentioned on the Samurai Empire order page before ordering.)

Once you have the coupon, enter the 20-digit code into the in-game promotion system and the Soulstone will appear in your in-game bank box.

Can I have more than one Soulstone?

Yes. You get one for each box you pre-order.

How can I use a Soulstone? If you have a character that you want to be a pure warrior, but he has a bunch of Magery skill points, you can move those Magery skill points to another character you own.

Or, if you have a character you'd like be a blacksmith one day and a warrior the next, store your blacksmith skill points in one Soulstone and your swordsmanship skill points in another Soulstone. Change your character back and forth when you wish. (Except during battle. Soulstones cannot be used during battle.)

Can I give a Soulstone to a friend?

No. Soulstones are account specific. You can pass your Soulstones from one character you own to another, but you cannot give one to a friend.

Can Soulstones be used during battle?

No. You will not be able to use them in the