UO Live Access Patch Update Aug 23 1999 7:12PM CST
We are targeting Wednesday, August 25th for the UO Live Access Patch. In order to give us the best chance for a smooth patch, we will be proceeding with it in the following manner:
After the U.S. Shards finish their daily maintenance, we will keep those shards down.
At approximately 7am CST we will start manually bringing down all of the other shards.
We expect all of the shards to be down by approximately 10am CST. After that, the patcher will be accessible even while the shards are not. If you wish to download the patch at this time, you will be able to do so. However, you will not be able to connect to any of the shards.
The Great Lakes Shard will be initialized for a quick round of Internal-Only testing.
After we are satisfied with the results, we will open Great Lakes to the public and announce the opening on Shard Issues.
We expect Great Lakes to open by approximately 2pm CST.
While Great Lakes is running, we will be watching it very carefully for any issues.
Once we feel confident there are no known issues regarding the Great Lakes Shard, we will convert and open the remaining shards. The shards will reopen sequentially until all shards have returned to service. We will keep you updated as the process continues.

http://uobitch.drtwister.com/blair.html

Possible Locked Chest bug?
Friday, August 20, 1999 - 8:11 AM - Tolkien
Keep in mind that this bug is unconfirmed. This email was sent to me in regards to the Sir Michael house looting post I made. Could someone please confirm this? I think what this email is trying to say is, the spell unlock can open any locked down locked chest in a house.

I don't know if people don't know this but I have found it out and maybe you should tell others. Any lockable box locked down inside a house can be opened by the magic unlock spell, box or chest. Again, I'm not sure if you know this or other UO players but from his post I can tell that he didn't. I just wonder how many other players are playing under this false sense of security?

Quoted from an interview with Richard Garriott:

"We have 130,000 subscribers of Ultima Online now and we're gaining about 500 per week and have been as long as we've been operating the service."

You can read the whole interview at Desslock's RPG News: Ultima IX: Ascension

Something I found that I just couldn't pass up! ;)



Image is property of Brimstone, Minds Eye Graphics

Reactive Armor Disabled Aug 18 1999 8:11PM CST
In order to address an issue with the Reactive Armor spell we have disabled it until we are able to look into it more thoroughly. We will update you again once we re-activate the spell.

East Coast Maintenance
From Calandryll,
On Tuesday, August 17th, at approximately 8am EST, we will be doing some maintenance on our East Coast site that may cause a brief interruption of service.

While we do not expect the shards to go down, there is a slight risk that you may get disconnected during this time. We expect this disconnection to last no more than 30 minutes. Therefore, it is a good idea to log out or to remain in a safe location during this maintenance. We will update you if any issues should arise from this maintenance

Accessibility Update Feature List Aug 16 1999 7:53PM CST
General Update Features
For additional information go to http://beta.owo.com.

Interface Changes and Options
Client Arrow
There is now an arrow that can be used to point players to a specific location.
New targeting features
Last Target - This command can be bound to a key through the options menu. This allows you to select the last object you had targeted with a single key-press.
Target Self - This command can be bound to a key through the options menu. This allows you to target yourself with a single key-press.
New macro options
Arm/Disarm - This command can be bound to both the left and right hand. It allows you to arm or disarm item with a single key stroke.
Next Target - Lets you bind a key to cycle through every mobile object on the screen.
Delay Macro Item - Delays macro execution for a specified amount of tenths of seconds.
Wait for Target cursor - Delays macro execution until a target cursor appears on the client.
Attack Last Target - Automatically begins a melee attack on your last target.
Smart ESC key - The "close all" option has been unbound from ESC and moved to a macro.
General Interface changes
Current target highlighting - All targeted players/creatures are now highlighted with a graphic that represents:
Current Damage
The target's reputation (by hue)
The Status Bar is now hued by reputation
Double-clicking a status bar now behaves as if the player had double-clicked the target.
Targeting a status bar behaves as if the character had been targeted.
"Always show names" - This feature shows the names of objects as they come on to your screen. It defaults to being on, but can be toggled off in the options menu.
Skill/Stat Advancement Notification - The client will now notify you in the system message area when you gain skills or stats. These can be toggled on/off in the options menu.
Ultima Messenger
This new system allows players to send messages to each other both in-game and via the owo.com website. For more information, visit http://beta.owo.com/messenger.htm. This system is currently experiencing a few issues and may not be included in the final update.

Bug Fixes
Gold will return to the bank if the trade window is cancelled and the player backpack is full.
If gold is stacked and would result in a pile greater than 60k, a new stack will be created rather than the excess gold being lost.
Various other bug fixes.
Accessing the game
There is new art throughout the login and character creation screens. A framed picture of a castle has two input boxes, one for account name and one for password. There is also a radio box for saving your password.
Along the left hand side are several new buttons:
My UO - This button is disabled, but will be used later.
Account - This opens your web browser to the Ultima Online
Account Registration and Upkeep page.
Mail - This feature is disabled, but will be used later.
Movie - This displays the intro movie.
Credits - This displays the names of the hard working people on Ultima Online.
Help - This opens your web browser to the support.owo.com web page.
The Quit button in the upper right-hand corner allows you to exit Ultima Online.
At the bottom right is an arrow outlined in green and pointing right. Select this arrow to go to the next screen.

Shard Selection
Last Shard Shortcut - The name of the last shard you played on will appear by the globe button.

To enter a shard you can either double left-click on the selected shard, click on the GLOBE button, or left click on the shard and click the green arrow.

There is now a red arrow pointing left at the bottom right of the screen. This allows you to return to the previous menu.

New Character Creation

Skill selection
There are three available selections when creating a new character:
Adventurer
Merchant
Advanced
The old character templates have been revamped into what we now call "Professions". Each profession starts with different skills and equipment. Selecting advanced will allow you to choose your skills manually.

Adventurer (Symbol: Jousting Knight)

Archer (Symbol: bow and arrow)
Archer (Symbol: bow and arrow)
Bard (Symbol: lute)
Field medic (Symbol: ankh)
Ranger (Symbol: head with feathered hat)
Magician (Symbol: wizard's hat)
Battlefield Mage (Symbol: phoenix)
Pure Mage (Symbol: wizard's hat)
Warlock (Symbol: flaming sword)
Warrior (Symbol: helm)
Bard (Symbol: lute)
Mace Fighter (Symbol: arm with mace)
Fencer (Symbol: fencer in lunge)
Swordsman (Symbol: crossed swords)
Merchant (Symbol: stack of coins)

Craftsman (Symbol: saw)
Blacksmith (Symbol: anvil)
Carpenter (Symbol: saw)
Tailor (Symbol: scissors)
Tinker (Symbol: gears)
Tradesman (Symbol: scale)
Animal Tamer (Symbol: horse)
Fisherman (Symbol: fish)
Prospector (Symbol: pack mule)
Sorcerer (Symbol: wizard's hat)

After you have chosen your skills, left clicking the green arrow will bring you to the Character Customization screen.

Character Customization
The Character Customization screen has a revised interface including list boxes for hair and color selections. You can also select the color of your shirt and pants. Select the green arrow to move to the city selection screen.

City Selection Screen
The City Selection Screen has been changed from a list to a world map to give players a better idea of where they want to start. Left clicking on a city name will present a written description of that city's features. New players will only be presented with 4 cities (Britain, Moonglow, Minoc, and Trinsic) unless they choose the ADVANCED path for character creation.

New Player Features
A "New Player" is defined as any character that is created by an account with less than 40 hours of play time and that:
Has less than 450 skill points
Has less than 150 stat points
Has not had their new player status removed by a GM.
New Player Quests
New players can receive quests based on their chosen skills. The purpose of these quests is to give new players information about their skills and to encourage them to explore their starting city.

New Player Protection
New players cannot be damaged by other players and vice versa. This includes melee, magic, and indirect attacks (like summoned creatures).
Monsters that would normally be actively hostile to a player will not attack new players. The player will receive a message indicating that the monster is hostile.
New players will be teleported to a healer when they die. They will retain their belongings.
New players cannot loot a monster they did not kill for two minutes after the creature died.
Other players cannot loot a monster killed by a New Player.
New players cannot steal from other players or NPCs.
Companion System
Player volunteers called "Companions" are available for new players. When a player from a new account logs on for the first time, a Companion will be paged to welcome them.

New Player Matchmaking
New players receive a "ticket". If two new players double click on each other's ticket, they receive a list of prizes that each may receive.

Install Changes
There is now a slide show during the install featuring screenshots from Ultima Online.

From: SunSword
Date: August 10, 1999 at 6:35 pm

Subject: RE: Sunsword, I know you're busy


So there are 2 major ideas I'm considering for skill control.


1) Gump interface point and click thingy
2) In game interaction skillmaster thingy


They both have the similar results. The first simply brings up a skill menu that let's you select a few things:


A) lock - makes you skill stay where it is (you only get a few of these (3-5)
B) raise - indicates that you wish to continue working on this skill
C) drop - indicates that this skill should begin to decline and should always be on the short list for skill decay.


The second works something like this:


Skills at 0 do not raise.
You can go to a Skillmaster to control whether you want your skill to raise, drop, or stay in a particular range.


For example, say your swordsmanship is 85. You can continue to raise that skill until you get to 89.9. Once it hits this number, it will cease to raise no matter what. If you go to the Skillmaster, you can (through whatever requirements) indicate that you are ready to move on. The Skillmaster will give you .1 and your new title, and now your skill will go up until you reach the maximum number for that title.


Did that make any sense? I just slapped it up here from my musings. Either way, I'd like to get title control in there too.

UO Live Access Sign-Up Closed
From Calandryll, on FYI
UO Live Access Sign-up Closed
We currently have all of the slots filled and the Sign-up for the beta test is now closed. We’d like to thank everyone for their enthusiasm with this process. We hope, even if you didn’t get into this beta, that you will try again for future testing projects. We look forward to reviewing all of the feedback from our testers and would like to thank them in advance for all of their efforts.


Thanks!

UO Live Access Patch Update
from Calandryll:
As the beta-testing for the UO Live Access patch started on August 6th, the target date of August 10th for patch will have to be moved. We are currently working to collect and analyze the feedback from the beta testers and QA, as well as fix the issues that exist in the code. As soon as we have all the necessary information, we will make an update with the new target for the patch on the UO website.

Thanks!


4:41 PM MST

Testing Set To Begin Aug 4 1999 6:39PM CST
We will soon begin a new round of Open Live testing on the Ultima Online Access Update. We will be limiting the number of Outside Live Testers, and registration will be on a first come, first serve basis. We will activate the registration page on Thursday, August 5, 1999 at approximately 11AM Central Time. This registration page is on a secure server. It will ask you for your UO ID and password. You should feel confident in the security of this page. We have taken precautions to ensure that your password is not accessible to outside sources. We understand your hesitance to provide a password, but we want to assure you that this site was created by Origin, exists at Origin, and is used solely for the purposes of registering you to gain access to Test Center.

Once we have reached approximately 2000 registered users, the site will discontinue accepting new applications. The actual update download page will activate shortly thereafter, when Test Center goes live. This should occur by Monday, August 9, 1999 but may occur sooner. These times and dates are subject to change; however, we shall make every effort not to deviate from this schedule.

At some point during the Open Live process we may reduce the number of Live Testers, or discontinue access to the test for a number of people to facilitate our needs. Testers may also have access blocked to the test site if we feel that they are in any way detrimental to our testing process.

An exciting new element we will be using is a "Web Based Bug Tracking Program", henceforth known as BugTrax2000. This will allow all of the participants to enter bugs directly into our official database. Although we don’t foresee any problems, we still must reinforce the fact that anyone abusing the database will be removed from the Live test and access to BugTrax2000 will be removed. BugTrax2000 will be constantly monitored to prevent abuse.

The requirements that potential public Beta Testers should be aware of include:
1. You must be a current registered UO customer. We’ll be using your current registration information.
2. You should realize that you are testing an unfinished beta. Some things will be broken, the server may go down at random times and so on. If these types of things will annoy you, I would respectfully suggest that you continue playing on a public shard.
3. We will have specific events that require as many of the Beta testers on the shard at one time as possible. We will make these times as convenient possible for our Outside Beta Testers.
IMPORTANT: The Live test client will only work on the single Live test server (the Test Center Shard)-not on the public shards. However, Open Live Testers will be able to continue playing their normal characters on the public shards by using their original client.

There is a public news site dedicated to the Live test. This site will have current news and links to the BugTrax and Live Download site as well as other useful information http://beta.owo.com/

We look forward to working with you in the future. We wish to express our very sincere thanks for your involvement in the UO community.

UBB Smithing Contest on Catskills
Got this
Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

The United Blacksmiths of Britannia is proud to announce a contest to rival all others. "The Best Smith of Catskills." This contest shall be open to Grandmaster blacksmiths that belong to a guild. Each guild must provide a single smith to represent them in the contest. Only one entrant per guild will be accepted. The contest shall be convened at the UBB Tavern and Supply on Fire Island. (171o 50' N, 116o 48'W) Gates will be provided from the Blacksmith Forge just north of Lord British's Castle. The contest shall last from 12 noon Eastern until 6 PM on Saturday, August 14th. Entrants may not wear any armor of any kind, nor may they bring any armor in their packs. Ingots will be provided for the entrants to use. A person will check each entrant to ensure that these guidelines are met. Contestants will attempt to make the best possible plate armor (does not include Bascinet or Female Plate) while using the least number of ingots.

Prizes are to include 5 Messages in a Bottle, 20,000 gold, and 5,000 ingots.

--
Nudd.

Item Wear and Tear on Siege Perilous Aug 2 1999 10:33AM CST

We have modified the wear and tear on hatchets, scissors and bladed items on Siege Perilous. As of today, you will now find that these items last a bit longer than they previously did.

Reporting Murderers and Death Aug 1 1999 8:38PM CST

There is an issue involving being killed by a player and not being able to report them. We looked into this and found that "innocents" are able to report their "aggressors" for murdering them, but not always right away. Under certain circumstances, "innocents" do not get the bounty message immediately after choosing to play as a ghost, or resurrecting on the spot. The players that are "innocents" when killed, but cannot report, may have to wait until the next day before they receive the option to place a bounty.

New UO Market Broker! All welcome Aspen
Type: Site update

Heya all. In the coming weeks we will be trying to add in more Brokers, due to the amount of Brokering Requests we have been recieving, our goal is get about 4 or 5 Brokers actively doing their thing, and then we will split up the Shards, and make Brokering be a form.
So welcome in Aspen, her email and ICQ# are already Posted on the side menu under 'Contact Us', and you should always check there for proper Staff and who to contact for Brokering.

Reminder, we are not accepting any requests to become UO Market Staff, or Brokers, this job is by our invitation only, and is a lengthy process even when recommended by fellow Staff. Thanks!

The BEST way to get a Brokering is to send email to all three Brokers.

All new Brokers are NOT official until their names are posted under 'Contact Us', and are announced on our News page, otherwise, they are fakes, and not to be trusted.

-- ChuckTigre
1:45 pm EST

ChuckTigre is NOT a Broker, nor Brokering!
Type: Site update

I am no longer a Broker. I have taken my ICQ# off of the website. My name is not listed on the Brokering FAQ, and I simply do not handle them at all anymore. If you have sent me emails asking for Brokering, this i probably why you haven't gotten a response... I am now forwarding all email regarding Brokering to a random Broker, and only one. So, if you want to get the BEST response for a Brokering, I would suggest instead of emailing me, you send an email to all THREE Zamboni, Aspen, and Vix.

Also, beware, there are many impersonators of me. How do you know? Because I am not Brokering! ALWAYS SEND EMAIL TO THE BROKER FIRST, DO NOT JUST ICQ US. We will tell you right from ICQ to email us first. With all the info: Password, Buyer/Seller's email + ICQ, final price/house type, several different times/days when you will both be online to do the brokering, etc.
Thank you.

-- ChuckTigre

August 01, 1999
Release of Fluffy the PK Chicken III
From Greybeard
First there was Fluffy the PK Chicken, then the chaos continued with Fluffy II. Now UOEVIL is proud to present:

Fluffy III – Killing is my business, and business is good!

That’s right, take control of UO’s most notorious player killing poultry and lay waste to Newbies, Miners, and KewL DooDz at your leisure. This action packed arcade hit comes complete with:

3 new spells

New easier to navigate map

2 new weapon types including explosion potions and a rocket launcher

Lord British chained to a pole

And much much, much more!

The official premiere of Fluffy III will be exclusively at UOEVIL on Saturday July 31st at midnight EST so be sure to download your copy and let the feathers fly!

Greybeard
http://www.wtfman.com/uoevil

Its out! Grab it at UOEVIL

August 02, 1999
Catskills: Mage Tower Training Session
From Maud'dib...
The Citizens of Sietch Tabr are sponsering an open training session for warriors, mages and craftsmen at the Moonglow Mage Tower on Catskills on Friday, August 6th at 7PM eastern time. You must provide dagger, butcher knife, or wand if you want to spar.

If you come you must follow the Mage Tower rules of no killing, stealing, or looting. If you do not follow the rules you will be banned. The Mage Tower is west of Moonglow on the water. ICQ me for directions or a gate. ICQ-35991353