July 2003

Publish 20, now on Test
Posted July 31, 2003 - 3:06 PM PDT by Adam Ant

Looks like there already working on another round of changes for the upcoming Publish 20.

Here's what's in Pub20 so far:

• Players will no longer die in Ultima Online.
  We've been analyzing your feedback on item insurance and EasyLoot™ and have decided to take the next logical step. We're removing death from Ultima Online!
  Clearly death is painful and we here at Origin don't think a game should be painful. Therefore, starting with Publish 20, all players will be able to receive a Player Blessing. Player Blessing will keep a player alive by not allowing a player's hit points to go below 1 HP. (We were able to reuse the Earth Quake logic to accomplish this.)
   
• Damage dealt by Blessed Players will be proportional to their HP.
  In order to simulate death in Ultima Online, we will be changing the way in which damage dealt by a near death player is calculated. Damage will the based in part on Euler's formula: e^(i pi) = -1
  In other words, exp(ln(x)) = x for all positive x. Moreover,
  If x is positive, then x^y = exp(y ln(x)). Because of this, the natural extension of exponentiation to complex exponents, seems to be to define exp(z) = 1 + z/1! + z^2/2! + z^3/3! + ...
   
• New magic items will be made available to all players.
  Because rings and bracelets already make up the bulk of magic items in UO, we'll be introducing a new magic garment to be worn on your feet. A slipper to be precise.
  Magic Slipper use will restore lost hit points, mana and stamina to 100%. Also, these slippers can be used to teleport you home should you become stuck, lost, or just simply lazy.
  Slipper usage is simple; just click the heels together three times while speaking the Words Of Power:
  "There's no place like home,  there's no place like home, there's no place like home."
   
• New 'death sounds'.
  Many players have complained that the 'death sounds' your hear when a player dies, or the cries of anguish your hear when a player is hit, are just too upsetting. We're therefore replacing these "Arg!" and "Ugh!" sounds with much softer "coo" and "ahh" sounds. Our designers were able to meld the sounds of children laughing with the coo of a dove to bring you these thrilling sound effects.
  New info: The developers are now convinced that the new sounds will only be of marginal use since player death is being abolished. We'll move ahead with the publish anyway, and work on a patch for this issue in Publish 21.
   
• Vegetables will now have attributes similar to that of weapons and armor.
  Vegetables will now have many of the attributes that weapons and armor now have like resistances and skill bonuses. You will be able to, for example, eat an Über carrot of Undead Slaying that also increases (or decreases) your various resistances.
  Once again, and to keep things simple, we'll be using Euler's formula for calculating these bonuses.
   
• Changes to the Stealth skill.
  We realized that doubling the number of steps that you can take while stealthing in Publish 19 is over powered, and that Adam Ant may actually be able to kill someone again, so we're making the following modification: Any player stealthing beyond 10 steps will have a 30% chance of tripping over their own boot laces. Tripping over one's own boot laces will not only cause the stealther to reveal himself, but will also cause a small amount of damage.
  The damage caused by tripping is based in part on Euler's formula where m=DEX.
  (Hint: there may be a rutabaga grown only in trammel that will increase your dexterity and thus lessen your chance of tripping.)
   
• Changes to criminal status.
  1. Hiding while a criminal will cause you to become poisoned
  2. Running while a criminal will cause you to loose stamina at an increased rate and you will also have a 30% chance of becoming poisoned.
  3. Casting spells while a criminal will have undesirable side effects. These side effects include some percentage of damage being reflected on the caster. This damage is based in part on the Armor your are wearing, weapon you have equipped, and any vegetables you may have eaten recently.
  4. Recalling is now enabled for criminals, but all recall destinations with be the Balron room in Despise.
   
• Shields for everyone.
  We've noticed how Mages that don't have parry skill are benefiting from simply carrying a shield to boost resistances. Out of fairness to the rest of the player base, we've decided that all character classes may now carry shields! Merchants will receive a special bonus when selling items to an NPC proportionate to the shields resistances. The theory is that a shield that is high in Fire Resist will garner a higher merchant bonus because; well, quite frankly, fire is scary stuff and the NPC will respect this and give you more money.
  We believe this fits nicely with Ultima Online History.
  Other character classes will see similar benefits.
   
• Pirating
  We've never much liked pirates, mostly because they kill the defenseless unattended macroers.
  We're therefore making it so that none of the field spells can be cast onto a boat. We've heard rumors how these field spells can reveal ore sitting on a boat's deck (invisible due to a bug we've never been able to figured out) thus giving the Pirate an opportunity to steal it.
  By not fixing the invisible ore issue and by disabling field spells, we will make mining safe once again and leave the miners to do what they do best... macro unattended.

*sigh* Yeah, I'm joking; but last night I was killed while treasure hunting and when I returned to get my stuff off my corpse it was gone!! OMG! I thought. I then looked and saw all my stuff in my backpack! HUH? I'm also totally dressed, armed and ready to go!! What the hell???

Turns out it's this new EasyLoot crap. Am I the only one that thinks this is a terrible idea?
I want death to hurt damn it! As it stands now, I don't loose anything worthwhile because it's all insured.
Now I don't even need to bend over to pick it up and then dress. Just touch your corpse and Presto! you're ready to go!
This idea stinks.

I had a signature for a long while on the UO boards, it read: Life is only as sweet as death is painful.
The only comment I ever got from someone on my sig was from some moron that thought it was some sort of  Pro PK statement.
What's wrong with everyone? Don't you all realize that when the sting is taken from death in UO that life will have no meaning?

I know I'm in the minority, but I hate item insurance, easy loot, and all the stupid-ass attributes on everything these days. God, I long for the day when I could open a corpse and say: "Nice! A vanq!"

Oh well, trying to explain to people that the game should have pain is like whistling up a rope.
The sad thing is that most will never realize how damaging it is to remove the sting from death. Players will simply grow bored and move on.

GUL Team Fights! 07/26/03
Posted July 20, 2003 - 8:20 PM PDT by smerx

Dosen't seem like we're having weeklies anymore, so we'll make it up to you this week! :}

It's 2v2 this Saturday, July 26th.
1st place = 1 million gp for your team.

You want it?
We got it!
Come get it.

[ More information ]

GUL Pit Fights! 07/05/03
Posted July 2, 2003 - 10:19 AM PDT by smerx

This week's pit fight will be a 1v1 single elimination!
(Saturday, July 5th)

Prizes:
1st place - 250k
2nd place - 100k
3rd place - 50k

[ Rules and information ]

Peacemaking nerfed on test center
Posted July 2, 2003 - 9:44 AM PDT by Jade

*sigh*

I can just picture the people at OSI sitting back in their meeting room singing a chorus of "Oops, I did it again".

What did they do? Well, they listened to a few very vocal crybabies and nerfed the hell out of a template. The target this time is the peacemaking skill.

Read the rest here.

*edit: Mr Tact is now saying that this is a bug and will be fixed.

Mass Bans
Posted July 1, 2003 - 12:55 PM PDT by Jade

Yesterday OSI made a big p.r. announcement about how they're tough on exploiters.

*cough* bullshit *cough*

It was titled (I swear I'm not kidding you here)
Keeping UO Clean of Exploits.

Anyway yes, about 100 people were banned and OSI tells us they are absolutely sure all are guilty and that there will no longer be an opportunity to appeal bans.


Read the rest here!

Markee Dragon and TradeSpot team up to offer brokering services from both sites!
Posted July 1, 2003 - 10:54 AM PDT by Jade

News from Markee Dragon:

MarkeeDragon Brokers and TradeSpot are proud to announce that we are working together for UO Brokering. It's been a long time in the works and just today it has been announced on the TradeSpot site about the changes.

One of our long time MD Brokers "Kahn" is the new lead administrator of TradeSpot. Together with him the MD Brokers are offering the same great services we have always been. We have just expanded to bring all of our services to TradeSpot members as well.

At TradeSpot you will find a new auctioning system in place to give you ebay style bidding on items offered for sale. This will produce some excellent buys and could also be very good for the sellers as well when they have a very hot item to offer.

The MD Brokers have also teamed up to help moderate the TradeSpot shard forums. Kahn has had many improvements made to the system that offer improved functionality and moderation.

So visit us for all of your UO buying, selling and brokering needs.

Kahn
TradeSpot

Markee Dragon
MarkeeDragon Brokers