Old News: September 1999

09/27/99 06:22 AM CDT ·· ^top

Next Patch: In Development: Detailed Skill Controls
Calandryll just sent this in:



This was just updated to In Development:

Skill Management
In an effort to give you more control over what skills your characters have, below is the current plan for stat and skill management. This new system will give you a simple and straightforward method for customizing your characters.

Interface

The skill menu will be changed in the following ways:

A toggle button will be added at the top of the menu. This toggle button will change the state of the menu so that it will show or hide your character's unmodified skill numbers. This will allow you to see what your actual skill level is, unmodified from stats.
A toggle button will be added next to each skill. This toggle button will have three states: "up", "down", and "stop". Skills marked "up" will rise normally and will never go down. Skills marked "down" will be candidates for atrophy. Skills marked "stop" will not no go up or down, regardless of how often they are used.
A field will be added to the bottom of the skill menu that lists the character's unmodified skill total. This will allow you to see how close you are to the skill cap (700).
FAQ
Q: "What happens if I'm at the skill cap and all my skills are all marked 'up' "
A: "None of your skills will change."

Q: "What happens if I'm at the skill cap and the only skills marked 'down' are at 0.0?"
A: "None of your skills will change."

Q: "What happens if I mark all my skills 'down' ?"
A: "None of your skills will change, because they only atrophy when another skill raises."

Q: "If I mark all my skills 'down' except for one, will that skill go up faster?"
A: "No."

Q: "Will I gain stats when I use a skill marked 'down' ?"
A: "No."

Q: "Will I gain stats when I use a skill marked 'stop' ?"
A: "No."


Thanks Calandryll!

 

Hear ye! Hear ye!

To celebrate the 300th year anniversary of the defeat of Mondain and to commemorate the creation of the Shards, Lord British has decreed that each citizen of Britannia shall receive gifts from the coffers of his castle.

After the shards come back from their next maintenance, upon logging into the world you will receive a specially colored bag. These items will be available for a limited time, so after October 4th you will not be able to get them any longer. Once a character receives a bag, you will not be able to get another on when logging in that character.

Inside the bag will be the following items:
A magic crystal ball that can answer questions! Ask a question and then double click the crystal ball. The magical orb can respond with a multitude of answers such as "aye", "nay", "very doubtful", or "‘Tis most certain". In all, there are over 20 different responses! The crystal ball is "blessed" and therefore, cannot be looted or stolen.
A commemorative coin. This special silver coin can be flipped by double clicking on it. It will return either Ankhs (Heads) or Serpents (Tails). The coin is "blessed".
A bottle of Jaana’s Hangover Cure. For those of you who party late into the night, this elixir can lessen the effects of alcohol. The bottle is "blessed".
A fireworks wand. Double clicking this wand will shoot off a colorful firework. Using your wand in combination with a few friends can produce quite the fireworks show! The wand is "blessed".
Players may also get a Commemorative Plate by visiting a Counselor Guildhall. These plates are also "blessed".

It is important to note that the bag containing these items is not "blessed". The bag, and anything in the bag, can be stolen and looted, even if "blessed" items are inside. Therefore, we recommend that you remove these items from the bag as soon as possible to avoid losing them.

We encourage everyone to join us in celebrating this monumental anniversary. We're glad to have you with us!

 

Well, well, well. UO2 has hit the primetime. Not that it will be shipping anytime soon(coming in 2000 is what the website proclaims)but it has none the less stirred up a ruckus.

Crossroads has lots of good info and all the major UO sites are spawning UO2 discussion areas at the least.

So lets see the basics behind UO2:

-No ability to transfer characters or ANYTHING from UO to UO2.

-UO is NOT going to be shutdown. None of the servers from UO will go to support UO2 and there are 2 separate development teams.

-UO2 went into development in September of 1998

-Launch date is not set but predicted to be 12-18 months.

-Jynkst posted a link on the UO2 Discussion boards at COB to some screen shots of Ultima Ascension to give an idea of how the 3D will be done even though they claim it will NOT be based on the Ascension engine. Ascension Screens

Here are some websites that have info you might like to see:

-=www.uo2.com
-=FAQ aimed at current UO Players.
-=COB UO2 Discussion Board
-=Lum has some good info and an interview with Tyrant.
-=UO2 Section at Stratics

If you visit the UO2 website and take time to let the movie load you see this guy go walking by..."What the heck is that?!?!?!" IMG No Longer Exists

Coming Soon for Ultima Online: The Next 6 Months
Origin is incredibly excited to be able to announce to you the latest plans for Ultima Online. Over the next 6 months, we will be expanding and improving UO. As features become ready, they will be rolled out to the existing playerbase in regularly scheduled updates.

We’ve detailed an assortment of our plans below, and will be providing extensive information on each as they are implemented over the next six months.


Land Expansion
While the specific details of these lands are still being formalized, they will undoubtedly bring new opportunities for housing and adventuring.

Options for PvP
The addition of this land will allow us to geographically separate play styles within UO, meaning we can create areas for engaging, adventuring experiences without the element of player versus player combat. There will, of course, still be plenty of room for player versus player combat. In fact, PvP will be expanded and improved in the future.

Party System
A party system is being designed to allow group adventuring. We plan to allow you to easily share profits and resources with your party while hunting.

Improved Monster AI
We will be upgrading monsters with an improved AI to enable them to react to players in new ways, in addition to making them more challenging to defeat overall.

Increased Veteran Player Volunteer Programs
We expect to have over 3,000 trained Counselors, Companions and Seers in place by February 2000 to support and enhance the world of UO. Interesting in joining us? Visit our Counselor Application area for details.


In addition to these upgrades, we’ve planned a variety of other smaller improvements and systems for UO and will release details on these as they are finalized.

For your information, the following is the official corporate press release:


ORIGIN Announces Plans for Exciting New Features in Ultima Online
The richest, most compelling virtual world on the Internet is about to get even better


AUSTIN, Texas, September, 22, 1999-ORIGIN Systems™, the creator of online worlds, is taking its successful Ultima™ Online (UO) franchise to new heights. New features currently under development will dramatically improve gameplay and increase service quality for the thousands of people worldwide who live and play in UO’s fantasy world. The ambitious development schedule over the next six months will deliver constant feature upgrades to current UO players and provide easier access for those just getting started.

The feature upgrades under development will make Ultima Online a better place to live. Additional land mass will provide more opportunity for players to become home owners in UO. The additional land will also allow for the geographical separation of play styles in UO-areas for improved player versus player (PvP) combat and areas for compelling adventures without the element of PvP. This will allow dedicated role-players, beginners and peace-loving players an environment separate from the sometime hostile world of the old Ultima Online.

The future upgrades will make UO more fun to explore. A new party system will provide players with a vehicle that facilitates group adventuring, including group communication, movement, combat, resource sharing and profit sharing. Improved monster AI will dramatically increase the excitement of player vs. monster encounters.

Finally, the new additions will make it easier to get started in UO. New training areas are being created in Ultima Online where thousands of experienced UO players will help new players get their feet on the ground and have fun. More than 3,400 trained volunteers are expected to be on board by spring 2000, helping people enjoy the world of Ultima Online.

The new features announcement comes as UO, celebrating its second anniversary this month, enjoys unprecedented growth and popularity. Currently UO has more than 134,000 active players, each one paying $9.95 a month to participate. The global network infrastructure now exists on 17 server sets located on three different continents. UO still attracts thousands of new users each month. People are playing in every one of the world’s time zones and represent more than 50 countries. In recent months Ultima Online has been featured in Fortune magazine, The New York Times Magazine, the Boston Globe and on CNBC. And the UO web site, http://www.uo.com, gets two million unique user sessions each month.

ORIGIN Systems develops and publishes state-of-the-art entertainment software. To date, the company has released more than 60 titles, including the award-winning Ultima, Wing Commander™, Privateer™ and Crusader series of games. ORIGIN™ is based in Austin, Texas and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: ERTS). More information on ORIGIN products can be found on the Internet at http://www.origin.ea.com.


# # #


Electronic Arts, ORIGIN Systems, ORIGIN, Ultima, Britannia, Wing Commander and Privateer, are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

In a recent article the New York Times pointed out something a lot of Ultima Onliners overlook. That the exchange rate from real world US dollars to UO Gold is higher than many currencies around the world! As of 9/16/99 the Italian Lira, Indonesian Rupiah, Lebanon Pound, Romanian Leu, Korean (South) Won, Turkish Lira, and Zambian Kwacha were all worth LESS than UO Gold according to Currency Exchange Rates listed at Rubicon.com.

Something that just makes you think.

(Pasted below is the entirety of the article from the New York Times on the Web)

THE WAY WE LIVE NOW
THE NEW ECONOMY
Money for Nothing
A new breed of Internet profiteers is spinning virtual gold into hard currency. By JOHN COOK




Fixer-upper w/moat: The real market for imaginary property in Ultima is booming.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


enjamin Schriefer and Michael Gmeinwieser make money the new-fashioned way: they sell stuff that doesn't exist. And their customers, who pay them in cold, hard cash, don't mind one bit.

The entrepreneurs deal in property that can be used only in the virtual environment of Ultima Online, a medieval-themed Internet game that's similar to Dungeons and Dragons. In the two years since the game was released, it has attracted more than 130,000 players, who compete by amassing wealth, forging alliances and slaying the occasional dragon. But as the game gets more popular, its supply of gold and real estate becomes scarce.


Gmeinwieser, who works as a contractor near Baltimore, found Ultima boring to play but got interested when he discovered that people sold their Ultima possessions through the Internet auction site Ebay. With the help of Schriefer, a friend, he went into business, offering real money for on-line property and reselling it at a profit, both through Ebay and their own Web site. They found a large market, from players who were happy not to have to earn their own gold or search the congested landscape for a suitable place to build a castle. "We buy millions of gold pieces at a time at discount rates," says Schriefer, "and resell them at 800 to 1,000 pieces to the dollar." That makes Ultima gold more valuable than the Italian lira, which last month was going for about 2,000 to the dollar.

In the first six weeks of business, Schriefer and Gmeinwieser sold 20 million gold pieces and 10 houses, with a profit margin of roughly 30 percent. They estimate that they now have a dozen competitors with whom they often trade to maintain inventory. In a single day last month, 76 Ultima Online-related auctions closed on Ebay, with $6,734 changing hands. Entire accounts, including the identity of a character and all his or her possessions, have gone for as much as $3,000.

Like any investment, Ultima gold is subject to market fluctuations. Origin Systems, the Austin, Tex., company that owns the game, occasionally adjusts the gold supply, in part to give newcomers a chance to compete against experienced players. Origin officials are fascinated by the way the game's currency has spilled over into the real world, but they don't keep tabs on the exchange rates. "I like to resist temptation," says Jason Bell, who runs the game, "given that I can create as much gold as I want." Not all of Origin's staff is so scrupulous -- according to the Internet magazine Gamespot, one employee was fired for selling gold on Ebay. (Origin will say only that an employee was let go for breach of trust.) Among players, the secondary market for gold can cause problems, too: Brock Basnett, a data-center operator from Morton, Ill., reports that he lent a friend 300,000 gold pieces to get started with, only to have her sell the gold on Ebay to buy a computer.

Economists say that while the Ultima gold market is unusual, the trading of virtual goods has a long history. Rafael Tenorio, an economics professor at DePaul University, likens the practice to the sale of certificates of indulgency by the Catholic Church during the Renaissance. "These certificates had specified durations of as long as a million years, and were sometimes chopped up into shorter durations and resold on secondary markets all over Europe," says Tenorio. "Can you imagine how much money a few people would be willing to pay for these on Ebay nowadays?"

 

Cal sends word that Whats New was updated with this,
We will be publishing an update to the shards on Wednesday, September 22nd. This is the first publish that the current Development Team, led by SunSword, Toad, and Runesabre, has worked on from start to finish and we are very excited about implementing these features.

The publish will progress in the following manner:
The North American Shards will be kept down after their daily maintenance.
At approximately 8am CDT, the Europa Shard will be updated with the publish. While shard will remain up during this time, after it finishes its current back-up it will be brought down.
Approximately one hour after the Shard goes down, the Europa Shard will be brought up internally with new changes. We will perform a quick check on the Shard before we make it available and will monitor the shard for any issues.
Once we are satisfied with the results, the Drachenfels Shard and all of the North America Shards will be updated and brought back up. We expect to have all of the shards back up by approximately 12pm CDT.
The Arirang and the Japanese Shards will also be held down after their daily maintenance. When they return from their maintenance, they will also have the changes.
The publish will include all of the features and fixes listed In Testing. Note that some of the information listed in In Testing has changed slightly. Once we update all of the other shards, we will move this information into Latest Game Updates.

 

In Testing on Test Center Sep 17 1999 11:37AM CST
The following features and fixes are currently being tested on the Test Center Shard:

Smelting
Armor and weapons can be smelted back into ingots.
Items you wish to smelt must be in your back-pack.
Smelting will be tied to the mining skill. The higher your skill in mining, the more ingots you will get back.
The more wear and tear on an item, the less ingots it will return.
Items purchased from an NPC will yield only one ingot when smelted.
Smelted magic items will yield regular ingots.
Smelting special metals will yield ingots of that color.
“Newbie” weapons cannot be smelted.
To smelt an item:
Double-click a smithing tool, such as a hammer.
The smithing window will open and contain a forge.
Double-clicking the forge will bring up a targeting cursor.
Clicking armor or a weapon that is in your backpack will smelt that item.
You will receive a number of ingots depending on the item itself, its wear and tear, and your mining skill.


Unraveling
Clothing and leather armor can be cut back into cloth and leather respectively.
Use scissors on clothing or leather armor to get the cloth or leather.
The amount of cloth or leather yielded is tied to the tailoring skill. The higher your skill in tailoring, the more cloth/leather you will get.
Items you wish to unravel must be in your backpack.
“Newbie” items and death robes cannot be unraveled.


Pets
Pets will only guard the following:
The owner
The corpse of the owner
Items in the house of the owner
Other pets of the owner
An issue with transferring pets in town has been resolved.
The "drop" command has been reactivated.

Chaos/Order
After changing the guild type from Chaos, Order or Neutral, guilds must wait seven days for the declaration to take affect. If you change the declaration during those 7 days, the counter will reset.


Houses and Containers
The interior door for Patio Houses will be lockable.
When the owner of the house uses either of the patio doors for the first time, they will be given the option to make the interior door lockable.
Selecting “yes” will result in the door becoming an interior lockable door as other interior doors. You will also receive a separate key for that door.
Selecting “no” will result in the door acting in exactly the same manner as it does now. You will need your house key to lock and unlock the door. To make this door an interior lockable door at a later date, the owner will have to change the locks of the house.
Items placed in an armoire will no longer disappear.

The following features and fixes are currently being tested on the Test Center Shard:

Smelting
Armor and weapons can be smelted back into ingots.
Items you wish to smelt must be in your back-pack.
Smelting will be tied to the mining skill. The higher your skill in mining, the more ingots you will get back.
The more wear and tear on an item, the less ingots it will return.

To smelt an item:
Double-click a smithing tool, such as a hammer.
The smithing window will open and contain a forge.
Double-clicking the forge will bring up a targeting cursor.
Clicking armor or a weapon that is in your backpack will smelt that item.
You will receive a number of ingots depending on the item itself, its wear and tear, and your mining skill.

Unraveling
Clothing and leather armor can be made back into cloth and leather respectively.
Use scissors on clothing or leather armor to get the cloth or leather.
The amount of cloth or leather yielded is tied to the tailoring skill. The higher your skill in tailoring, the more cloth/leather you will get.
Items you wish to unravel must be in your backpack.
“Newbie” items and death robes cannot be unraveled.

Pets
Pets will only guard the following:
The owner.
The corpse of the owner.
Items in the house of the owner.
Other pets of the owner.
An issue with transferring pets in town has been resolved.

Chaos/Order
After changing the guild type from Chaos, Order or Neutral, guilds must wait seven days for the declaration to take affect. If you change the declaration during those 7 days, the counter will reset.

Houses and Containers
The interior door for Patio Houses will be lockable.
Items placed in an armoire will no longer disappear.

 

The Guardians of Light are sponsoring an Artisans Bazaar

The Bazaar will be held Sept 25 1999 starting at 2:00 pm est There will be many activities including free repairs (bring your armor in a bag) Free scribing (bring reagents and scrolls) and free poisoning (bring your weapon and poison) There will be a gm alchemist on hand with potions as well as a tamer with dragons for sale We will have magic weapons, poisoned weapons, gm made armor and weapons and unique items for sale.

Compete in our fishing contest. First prize is a small boat deed, Second prize a treasure map and third prize 2000gp

We hope to see you there

We are also kicking off project clean up Brittania. So if you have an items stored away in your house that you don't use come on down and sell them or give them away to someone else

Remember gates leaving from britain, trinsic vesper and minoc at 1:55 sharp until 2:15 Just look for the gol member in the purple cape

To participate contact HighPriestess at 15267684

11:06 AM MST

 

Saw this when reading the site. Thought you might like to see it.

 

You can go Here to see who is who.
Also I discovered this emblem...wonder what shard it is for???

 

 

Saw this when reading the site. Thought you might like to see it.

 

The following items are In Development. Details on these features will be given when they are placed In Testing:

A system to inform players when the server maintenance back-up will result in their current play-time not saving.

Changes to the backups to significantly reduce raw backup data size. This will improve servers performance with faster restart times, faster backup times and less load on the server when players cross server boundaries.

The client ghosting issue is under analysis to determine an appropriate resolution.

Armor and weapons can be smelted back into ingots.

Clothing can be made back into cloth.

Leather items can be made back into leather.

Pets will be able to fetch and drop items again.

Pets will only guard the following:
The owner
The corpse of the owner
Items in the house of the owner
Other pets of the owner

A fix for transferring pets in town.

After changing the guild type from Chaos, Order or Neutral, guilds will have to wait 24 hours before they can change the declaration.

The interior door for Patio Houses will be lockable.

A fix for NPCs Vendors who are not going back to their shops.

Items placed in an armoire will no longer disappear.

 

Strange cases of death

Today a group of fisher`s found a female corpse near the Trinsic docks of Trinsic. Strange to say is that the body was crashed and evry muscle on his body was gone. This is the third corpse which has been found in such a condition, we can`t say what exactly happend to them.

A few people are talking about Monster´s and Deamon`s, but all we can say is that those victims died a horrific death.
Its possible that we will find more corpse`s in the future, we need to find the case for this deadly illness as soon as possible.

Monk`s of the Empath Abbey and Scholar`s of Moonglow started to examinat the victims and try to find hints for this mysterious illness.

Befor we didn`t find the releaser of this strange illness, we please evryone in Trinsic and sorroundings to stay at home and take care of any stranger`s.

Arden Silver



Hopefully the cause and cure will be solved before more are hurt!

By Lord Rutger Dag
Dear friend of Trinsic,
Apparently, even a week of peace is too long for that band of rogues that call themselves "The Sosarian Socialist Party." And aye, I know there will be those dear friends who will say, "I told thee so Rutger, thou art a sentimental fool. They cannot be trusted, nay, no, not ever."
But I say thee, that every man must be given a chance. And we have indeed given that chance not once, but many, many times. From our first encounter with this rogue band, to the present day, our associations have only given us grief. They are murderous, villainous scoundrels, whatever their supporters may say. I believe our acceptance of peace these few days ago, and their subsequent disruptions of it, forevermore prove who stands with justice, and who does not.

Therefore, let us once again band together, to drive these villianous men from us. Let us stand, brother with brother, within the Town of Honor, and show them what united men of virtue may accomplish.

If thou disagree with this action, we ask thee to stay out of Trinsic for thy own sake. If thou agree, then do join together with us. It grieves me to no end, that it must come to blows once more. But even worse are those who judge us for defending ourselves, without fully understanding the merits of our cause.

The end result is this: The socialists are not welcome in Trinsic. Let us make war upon them to drive them out. In addition to them, men who made war upon us on the socialist side, will too be drive out. These men include Ronan and Swiftwind, who have committed violent acts against those of us least able to defend ourselves. Keep in mind, that I have in the past considered both of these men to be my friends. The betrayal of trust is felt keenly, and I do not make this decision lightly.

The last word is this: To those who have committed crimes against Trinsic...aiding us in this cause, coupled with a repentant heart, will be enough to grant thee a pardon. Let it be known thou stand with us, and I shall see to it thou art granted this pardon. This does not protect thee against civil suits, but will insure the town of Trinsic does not imprison thee.

Thine in Honor,
Lord General Rutger Dag



Rebels of Lord British can never be trusted...
-Patience 3:01 PM MST

 

Update on the Illness in Trisnic
Was informed of this recently
Some very interesting information`s about this deadly illness arrived us today.
This mysterious illness killed 3 persons in the last week, the corpse`s has been found in a horrific status near the Trinsic Slums and the docks.
During the last day`s a couple of monk`s and scholar`s examinated the corpse`s of the three victims, and found some amazing hints.
They located a tinge of silver serpent liquid in there body`s and there numb muscle`s.

All they can say is that this poison has been used as drug, in the first time you feel powerfull and agile like a Gargoyle, you can work without slumber or a brake.
After some time you feel pain in all your muscle`s and beginn to feel sleepy, now your body need more of this drug to stay awake and agile.
After one more week you start to become ill and you have to vomit evrytime you had a meal.
A few days later you are to weak to walk, eat or even drink ... a few hours later you will die.

So someone mixed this liquid and sold it as drug to those people, we please evryone to take care of this deadly drug, it possible that a big smuggle`r group transport all those drugs to Trinsic.
It`s nearly sure that many more people use this drug, if you have friends who maybe use this drug, inform the next healer or a guard, we have to stop this quickly or we have more victims soon.

I am sure we will find the alchemist who made them and let the law deceid what will happen to this monster.

Arden Silver



Thanks!
-Patience 3:00 PM MST

 

Boat Warning
Monday, September 13, 1999 - 10:05 AM - Dr.TwisTer
Make sure you refresh your boats.



When the new boat key feature came into UO (the one where you can recall off of the key and be placed inside the boat) I tried it out. It worked fine, but I never got the "You're boat, its content and age has been refreshed" message. Taking an extra step to assure that my boat was being refreshed, I went ahead and entered my boat the old fashion way to try to make that message pop up, and when I did, no refresh message came. I assumed at that point that the message did not come up because I had in fact refreshed it by recalling on to the key. (Just like when you dont get a house refresh message if you just refreshed it) Over the course of time, I still had a suspicion in the back of my mind that the boat was not being refreshed by recalling off of the key, so I still entered it the dumb way every once in a while, never getting a refresh message. (I even had to deal with jerks who were opening and closing my unlocked plank, preventing me from re-locking it)

Now, weeks later, I find my boat gone. I call a counselor, and SRC Wysp shows up. I ask him why my boat is gone and he tells me someone stole it and dry docked it. I ask him about the refresh thing and then he says the only way to refresh a boat is to use a key on the plank. Utterly lame... I really don't think they ever warned players that recalling off of keys does not refresh a boat. Whatever problem they have with it not telling me my boat has been refreshed (making me think it has been refreshed) even if I go out of my way to use a key on the plank doesn't help either.

This little set back makes me happy that today is my last day of UO...

 

----- Original Message -----
From: Marx, Keath L 7075
Sent: Thursday, September 09, 1999 3:08 PM
Subject: Ohhhh and another thing...


Is it true what I hear about dropping your mail bag on someone in the game to give them the ability to communicate with you gives them your ACCOUNT NAME????

If so I strenuously object to this and will NOT use this system. Not trying to be a hot head, but I have seen too many people get hacked to take any other stance. Any piece of information you give to a hacker is a widening of the crack to let him/her in. I know we don't need to add more data to the system but why not assign an alias to each account that works only for mail? That way anyone can have that piece of info and it does them no good aside from sending you an in game message.

I just hate giving anyone out to get me ANY advantage that I can avoid giving them. I have installed a Firewall package on both my home PC's just to make it that much harder.

Thanks for listening.


-----Original Message-----
From: SunSword
Sent: Friday, September 10, 1999 1:08 PM
To: madmax at techcom.net
Subject: Re: Ohhhh and another thing...

No, it doesn't give your account name. It gives the account number, but that's useless (and easy to find anyway). Seriously, it's useless.

--
SunSword
Lead Designer, Ultima Online

Please include all previous communications when you reply via email.

Calandryll posted the following to a messageboard in response to some player concerns over the Illegal Placement of houses announcement:

"First let me make it clear that we will not delete any house without notification first. Owners will have an opportunity to redeed their home. As the communication says, "There will be additional announcements prior to any house being deleted." We will also be releasing more information about this in the future.

What is posted on FYI is more of a "fair warning" post than anything else. We are not planning on doing this tomorrow, next week, or even two weeks from now. There will be a good amount of notice before we do anything. Most importantly those people who have used bugs/exploits to place a house have now been warned...redeed it or in the future it'll be gone.

Second, these houses are placed illegally. We are not going to leave them there simply because someone sold it to someone else. They are illegal. The post on FYI should also serve as a warning to anyone in the market for a house. If you buy an illegally placed house, eventually, you will be asked to redeed it."

Additionally he had this to add:

"We can tell the difference between a house placed before the houseing rules were in place and those that were placed after. :)"

UO House of Commons Chat, September 9th Sep 8 1999 5:16PM CST
The next UO House of Commons Open House chat between the players and creators of UO is scheduled for tomorrow Thursday September 9, at 7 PM CT (5 PM PT, 8 PM ET).

The chat will be available to you at #uohoc on Stratics IRC, on one of four networked servers:
irc.stratics.dhp.com, port 6667
stratics.sanman.com, port 6667
stratics.frws.com, port 6667
intworks.stratics.com, port 6667
This week's topic is "General Discussion". Feel free to ask questions related to the current status and future developments of Ultima Online.

If you are new to IRC, please visit Stratics IRC for an online tutorial and instructions for connecting to Stratics’ IRC server. If you wish to use your browser to join the conference you can use the Java IRCclient.

It has come to our attention that there are a number of houses placed on the shards that do not adhere to the House Placement Rules listed in the Play Guide. Until the underlying issues in the game's placement permissions are resolved, it will not be our policy to delete these houses.

However, we do plan on addressing these issues in the near future, and once they are resolved, houses that do not adhere to the House Placement Rules may become subject to deletion. We encourage the owners of these houses to redeed them as soon as possible to avoid losing their house. There will be additional announcements prior to any house being deleted.

For more information on housing and house placement, visit the Housing Section in the Play Guide.

 

After the servers come back from tomorrow’s daily maintenance they will be updated with the following temporary change to the Gate Spell:
After going through a gate cast by a player, there will be a random delay of 3 to 10 seconds before you can go though that gate again, or through any other gate.
We will also be patching the client on Thursday, September 9th at approximately 7:00am CDT. At this time players will lose connection to the shards, although the shards themselves will remain running. In order to protect your character from any consequences associated with this disconnection, it is important to log out in a safe place before 7:00am CDT.

After approximately 30 minutes, we expect that the patch will be in place. At approximately 7:30am CDT, you should be able to return to the game. However, before you can log back into the shards, you will have to reload the UO client in order to receive this latest patch. Without it, you cannot enter Britannia.

This client patch will address the following issues:
The abnormal amount of connection losses that some players have been experiencing lately.
A client crash in connection with the Ultima Messenger.

Mini-Update to all Shards
From Calandryll - New to shard issues:

The following will be in effect after the Shards come back from their daily maintenance:

If you give an item to an NPC that he will not accept, the NPC will try to return the item to your backpack. However, if having that item in your pack would overload your character, the item will be deleted

 

An organized group of exploiters were discovered yesterday on Siege Perilous. After investigating the situation all persons involved have been banned from all of their accounts and their possessions deleted on all shards. Guild members and associates of these persons have also had their accounts suspended during the on-going investigation of this exploit. Any of these people found to have been involved in this exploit will also have all of their accounts banned and possessions deleted.

 

We have seen the reports from players concerning a recent increase in lag and disconnects. We understand that this can be a source of frustration for our players and would like to suggest a couple of quick steps you can take that may help deal with these issues.

Adding the line “EnableMessenger=off” to your uo.cfg file may help reduce some of the lag you are experiencing. The uo.cfg file can be found in your UO directory. Open the file and add “EnableMessenger=off” anywhere in the file. Save the file and close the window. You must restart Ultima Online in order for the change to take effect.

Disabling the UO “Incoming Names” feature may also reduce some of the lag. You can do this through the Options Menu from your paperdoll or by holding down the Alt and the '"O" key at the same time.

While these methods may help reduce some of the lag, we are also continuing our own efforts to deal with it. As we develop solutions, we will update you on the website. You can also get more information on how to reduce lag at http://support.owo.com/tech_0.html.

Twenty-two exploiter accounts were banned over the weekend and their possessions were deleted. Another sixteen accounts that were temporarily suspended during the investigation have had their access restored. Some of the causes of the exploits have been fixed, but work continues to ensure that these exploits can no longer occur.

There are several things we believe are important for all players to know. First, we are grateful to the players who first reported the exploiters and to those players who sent in information after it was reported to help find and fix the problem. Those of you who have not yet received responses to your weekend emails will hear from us no later than Thursday, September 9th

Second, we want to apologize to all our players for this disruption. Working on this exploit both reduced our level of service to the players and delayed our future development efforts. The use of this exploit not only violated the terms of service but also unbalanced the game, giving the exploiters an unfair advantage. Additionally, the exploit affected most shards and was a major source of server lag throughout the last month.

Third, we promise that any person or group involved in exploiting bugs in Ultima Online will be removed permanently from the game. OSI is committed to maintaining a level playing field for all Ultima Online players.

Finally, we have heard your feedback this weekend and our top priorities now are to work on the reported client disconnection problems, server lag and slow backups/timewarps. This is not a complete list as there are several other bugs that will be attacked in parallel during this effort. As previously mentioned, this will delay some of the features we had planned to add in upcoming weeks, but we feel it is important to fix these known problems before adding new features.

Thank you for your continued support of Ultima Online.

Gordon Walton
VP Online Services
Origin Systems, Inc.

The Guardians of Light are proud to sponsor the Serpents Hold Artisans Bazaar

Date: Sept 25, 1999
Time: Two O'clock est
Place: Serpents Hold

Please come and celebrate the artisans of Britannia with us.
There will be free drinks for all
Poisoned weapons for sale and free poisonings (bring your own poison)
GM made potions for sale
Free scribing (bring your own scrolls and regs)
Black cloth for sale, Magic weapons
Fishing contest 1st prize a boat deed
Free Repairs by a GM Smith (bring your own armor in a bag)

If you are interested in selling your wares please contact HighPriestess at 15267684

This is a very important announcement. Please be advised that we will be deleting accounts that have been inactive for 3 months or more (i.e.: accounts that have not paid for service for 3 months or longer) on Tuesday, September 7th.

Once these accounts are deleted, it will not be possible to retrieve characters or items associated with them. If you or any of your friends have an inactive account, now would be an excellent time to reactivate before your old characters are purged. The world of Ultima Online continues to expand and be refined. We would love to have you back in the game.

Characters on active accounts will not be affected by this purge.