September 2000

Dungeon Change testing results from Test Center
Posted September 12, 2000 - 12:28 PM PDT by Nieves

...(edited) stolen from the Ultima list:

Picked this up off of dev board. No more lich lord campers! (Silver serpents being probably the third hardest naturally spawning thing to combat in the open)

Lets see...

Shame has some nice additions, including dull copper ore elementals mixed in with the earthies, sea serpents and krakens in the water, blue robed mages in the towers, elder gazers on levels four and five and acid elementals (light green blood elementals) on the bottom as well. The spawn is huge now as well. Level two used to have that one air on it, now it has about 15 of them.

Wrong has been entirely taken over by brigands. No more large humanoids, just red NPCs...including mages. The bottom level has blue NPCs on it, I assume as prisoners...

Destard has a huge spawn now...drakes everywhere on the first level. The ancient wyrm is stil alone on the third level, but the second level is really cool now. There is a blue mage spawn, as well as two daemons. The coolest addtion though is the shadow wyrm! It's a shadowy dragon (looks the same style as the revenant does, transparent grey outline). There were two of them flying around...

Despise has all the humaniods that Wrong used to have. The top level is all lizardmen, and the second level has ettins mixed in with a scattering of earth elementals. The bottom level has ettins, trolls, ogres, and ogre lords...which is to say at least half a dozen ogre lords walking around.

Hythloth is a massive gargoyle spawn now. There were litterally 150 of them in the dungeon. Two rooms full on level one, level two has them in numbers as well as two spawns of two daemons. Level three has the balron and a half a dozen daemons, as well as the ubiquitous gargolyes. Level four has gargoyles and an additional balron in the meeting hall room.

Covetous has more headlesses than you can shake a stick at. They are all over levels one and two, in huge numbers I may add. Elder gazers have been addded to level two as well as multiple water elementals. The lich room now has two or three liches in it at a time.

Deceit is not changed very much on the whole. The water elemental was not there on level one anymore, but there were a few mummys wandering around. The lich spawns have been tripled, so now there are three per room. The lich lord rom will be very interesting though...it now has a lich lord, two liches, and two silver serpents! :)

Ice has been changed as well, with a few new creatures added. There is not frost ooze (ice slime) and blue ratmen are wandering around. The orcs have been replaced by ratmen, and the orc fort has yellow ratmen inside, although I have no idea what their special property is. Ice snakes are gone and so are frost spiders. There was still only a single white wyrm but he was in an entirely differnet part of the dungeon. There was also an ice fiend outside of their lair.

Fire has also been revamped. There are now efreet everywhere inside. Liches are in the graveyard with bone magi, and there is a lich lord spawn inside as well on level 2. There is also a single daemon spawn. The rest of the place is still full of hell hounds, but lava snakes and lava serpents have been added.

The Terathan Keep had a lot of ophidians in the balron room, but that was the only change I saw there.

Wind was unchanged as of yet. [ <--Good news for all you Lich Protectors.]

Overall, the spawns are huge now. Everything is there in huge numbers, although a lot of that is probably a symptom of it being a test shard. Some things (like the gargoyles, headlesses, and drakes) are in numbers so huge that they are obviously out of whack (I had over two dozen drakes on my screen at one pint near the entrance to level two Destard). Regardless though, the spawn will be larger for one significant reason: THERE IS NO MORE VERMIN. Rats and slimes and all the other useless creatures are all gone! With the exception of the frost ooze and the little fire snakes, there was nothing but real monsters.

Go and run a ghost around the dungeons of test center and see for
yourself...it's pretty neat. :)

No more vermin. New dungeons. New spawns. No more fucking vermin. Its as close to a miracle as I think I will ever see. Where the hell did I put my re-activation number?

- Jinx

Hmmm..Silver Serpents in the Lich Lord room. Monsters causing you to lose stamina and effectively blocking you. Something to remember when hunting in those locales.

Sounds like there is no more Lich Camping for folks. ESPECIALLY in the Lich Lord room. Silver Serpents? Ech! With more liches, that means teams of Lich Hunters will be making their rounds and makes for bad news for the lone protectors of the Lich (a-la Adam). Might see more GuL folks having to team up just to do their self-appointed jobs. I feel bad for the lone hunters (like myself) and Adam. I will bring you more (personal experience) information as soon as I get my access reinstated at home.

Hasta.

Something of interest to GuL members.
Posted September 12, 2000 - 6:29 AM PDT by Nieves

This was just added to General Testing:
Changes To Dungeons
The methods of spawning within dungeons have been improved to allow for better distribution of creatures within the dungeons and to give the dungeons a more thematic cohesion. The overall number of creatures will not change significantly, however their placement within a given dungeon area may be different from what is currently active. Players may also see some new types of monsters that will help to build upon a theme. These creatures will have similar overall strengths as other creatures in the area, but may have different or unique characteristics.

I wonder what kinds of baddies will show up in Wind now...?

Hasta.

Lum Da Mad is BACK!
Posted September 11, 2000 - 8:09 AM PDT by Nieves

Lum the Mad has been testing Factions without saying publicly about him reactivating his account. He also has been testing the new dungeon in T2A. Tell him Welcome Back for me. [I keep telling folks you can't let the "addiction" go...it keeps you coming back.]

The new Dungeon looks like alot of fun. Check it out on Test Center.

Adam posted his opinion on the Revenant monster introduced. It spawns when someone PKs another in the Khaldun Dungeon. Personally, I have been calling for something like this for over a year. It makes it interesting for PKs to consider when "hunting". He's right that it does hurt the solo "Guardian" or "hunter". He's also right in that ganker-A would just lure the monster away while ganker-B loots. As we all know, certain people that play in UO have a way of "exploiting" whatever they can. For every "solution" there is always someone that is not satisfied.

OSI can't resolve all problems unfortunately. I think they are trying and that is what matters. Personally, I give the Dev team 3.5 PvMer stars out of 5. They don't get the last 1.5 because it's all old art with different colors. Bring on the new graphics!!!

If they keep the Revenant to the Khaldun Dungeon then it might be ok for Adam and his pals to continue protecting the Liches in the other Dungeons. My only question is this: Will Adam change his "residence" in Wind to meet this most Venerable of Liches in Khaldun and offer his services there?? Or, maybe make one night a week a GUL night of Khaldun Liche Protecting....

Hasta.

The good and bad of Dungeon Khaldun.
Posted September 9, 2000 - 10:55 PM PDT by Adam Ant

It seems as though Origin Systems is giving us a brand new dungeon to explore. This is good.
If you want to see it firsthand, you can check it out on Test Center and Test Factions.

I was however a little surprised at the addition of these special features:
One of the special features was a real disappointment, can you guess which one?

1. There are new monsters in this dungeon. Many of them will act differently than existing monsters.
2. The dungeon has some secret passages and rooms. Finding them will not be easy.
3. Some spells and aspects of skills will not work in this dungeon. These include:
3a. The Mark spell.
3b. The Resurrection spell.
3c. The Healing skill when attempting to resurrect (healing and curing will work however).
4. Killing another player will sometimes bring unexpected repercussions upon the murderer.

Hrmm, Were you able to spot the feature that disturbs me?
It’s the “Killing another player will sometimes bring unexpected repercussions upon the murderer.”
Come on Origin, was that really necessary? I mean if the unexpected repercussion was double loot, then hooray! But I imagine you are thinking more along the lines of spawning a Poison Elemental next to the murderer, and that ain’t too cool.

Look, there’s Trammel already. Why not cut the evil of Sosaria a little slack once in a while?
Here’s why I don’t like the idea: It encourages gang banging and grief type actions and leaves the lone assassins and Guardians out in the cold. It encourages gang banging by making a lone PK impossible (if you get a monster dropped on your head before you can even loot.) But for the gang bangers, no problem. They will simply lead the monster away with banger-A, while banger-B loots. (Heh, maybe the designers plan on spawning a monster for random items looted from the corpse, like with treasure chests.)

I say NO the Trammelization of Dungeon Khaldun.

This Idea Rates:

--Adam Ant

Bringing Trammel to Felucca, one dungeon at a time.

Ultimate Extremity Cut Off.
Posted September 7, 2000 - 11:25 AM PDT by Nieves

This is a warning. From what I understand people are getting Banned for even LINKING the web site that is re-releasing (this a word?) UOExtreme in it's newest encarnation. It would fall under posting bugs/exploits or software that exploits Ultima Online and falls under the rules of bannable offenses.

If you remember, UOE was ban bait for the GMs. If you are even considering using it, I would ask you to reconsider and not do so until (if ever) it's approved by OSI.

UOAssist does a great job of providing "additional tools" that enchance and even help game play. Not too mention it's OSI approved. I am told by dedicated PvPers that without UOAssist, you will not do well in duels.

Do anything and everything you can to avoid getting banned if you truly care about continuing to play with that particular account in UO. Otherwise deal with the consequences and move on.

Hasta

No Murder Counts?
Posted September 7, 2000 - 9:57 AM PDT by Nieves

I read on Lum's that Murder Counts have been reduced and/or eliminated. I don't know exactly how this affected "red" status nor how it may have affected Counts as a whole.

Anyone got any information on this? If you do, email me.

I am going to do my own little investigating to see what in the holy paladin is going on.

Hasta.

Roleplayers suck.
Posted September 6, 2000 - 1:48 PM PDT by Nieves

If you don't believe me, ask this guy. And tell him how you feel about it.

In other news...

Central Servers Router Maintenance Update
On Thursday, September 7th, from 1:00 AM until 3:00 AM CDT, our Internet Service Provider will be performing maintenance upgrades on routers located in the Austin center. Customers on the central shards, including Lake Superior, Great Lakes, Siege Perilous, Volunteer Shard, and Test Center may experience increased latency or connectivity issues during this time period.

That means you guys that play all night will actually get some sleep.

Good ol' Lum posted an interesting article. Um...someone please tell me these guys aren't serious.

The economy system of Project Entropia is unique and subject to patent application. The cash to be handled in Project Entropia is real and convertible to any major currency of the real world. As MindArk has solved the issue of handling money in the virtual world and to transfer money from the virtual to the real world, they are able to offer access to the new universe at no cost.

Now I can understand why Lum's head blew up.

Hasta and goodnight.

Guardians of Undead Lords
Posted September 3, 2000 - 10:22 PM PDT by Adam Ant

As many of you know, a guild was founded to help defend the lich against all those fame-sucking heathens that would do them harm. Well, the guild has not only started to grow, but it has also started to branch out to other shards. Currently GUL is up on Napa, Sonoma and Europa. Catskills will be up shortly and there is some interest on Lake Superior as well.

I receive maybe a dozen emails a day asking about; Adam’s next Adventure, Angel Island and how to join GUL. Sure, I get lots of email from PK’s that wouldn’t be caught dead role playing, but you must believe me what I say, a large percentage of the email is from people who claim to hate PK’s, yet like what it is that we, the Guardians, stand for.

Doc Holiday just sent in this email. I think more than anything this email articulates what it is I am trying to do with this game. I am trying to show Origin Systems that evil is a good thing and indeed healthy for the game.

Anyway, here is what Doc Holiday had to say:

I would like to join GUL for several reasons. For RP purposes considering this Guilds has a cause which it always attends to. To have fun, plain and simple, UO is fun but I have wanted to taste battle for a while now because I have been on Trammel and seek bigger and better things. Plus this guild seems to be full of 1st class players unlike other guilds and really has a purpose to why this guild was ever put together. I would like to offer my services in the protection of liches even though I have hunted them before. But this is a new start and I believe I can be of good use. The thrill of PvP also intrigues me towards GUL also with the chance to meet Adam Ant himself, a player I have wanted to meet whose stories intrigue and capture the imagination of all who have read his tales. This is what UO is all about.

Thanks for your time and hope I might be able to aid in your cause.
Doc Holiday

Doc Holiday, you come to Felucca and join with us.
Aye, we do have a purpose and we will bring a meaning to the game, far beyond that of bashing orcs on the head for a carrot and 200 gold pieces. For we are the Guardians of Undead Lords and have sworn our lives to return the Wizards of old to their rightful place as supreme rulers of these lands.

--Adam Ant

My name is Nieves
Posted September 1, 2000 - 11:23 AM PDT by Nieves

Just thought I would say hello and introduce myself.

Some of you may know me from my posts at UOPowergamers. I have been an avid Ultima Online gamer since ~May 20, 1999. I enjoy the game immensely and still hold a passion for it.

After months of reading about other players time in the game on sites such as UOPG and Adam Ant, Redrum put out an all call for Reporters on UOPG. He emailed me and asked if I wanted a shot. Of course I took it. Since then I have written many (sometimes too many) articles concerning my (mis)adventures in game, news, game tips, and various other topics. Since then, the rest has been history.

Recently, Adam Ant invited me to be a news reporter for his site and, after taking 2 seconds to think about it, I accepted.

My goal here at Adam Ant is to bring you the hottest news (I hope as it occurs) on Ultima Online and the gaming community in general. I have NOT quit UOPowergamers. I am merely expanding my writing base. I will try my best not to make this a rant platform for me. I will stick to news and commentary directly related to such. I hope you enjoy it as much as I think I will.

Anyway, enough of my rantings.

And now, the journey begins...

A reader of UOPG named ProQuo put a VERY good post about the use of Glacial staves in the UOPG forum. From what I understand, you could use them while hidden and not be revealed. The implications of this are just plain incredible given that these staves can inflict approx. 50 points of damage. Two mages can remain hidden, both of you use the staff on a person (ie-Lich Hunter) and you drop the person with the use of one charge each. Cheap, easy, and effective.

Who says Mages no longer have good weapons at their disposal?

Hasta...and good night.

Testing for next update
Posted September 1, 2000 - 8:53 AM PDT by Adam Ant

Well, I was browsing the "Testing for next update" page over at the Origin web site and found this little gem:
Human NPC’s in Wind will be able to call for guards if witnessing a criminal action or if noticing a murderer.

Now I don’t want to sound paranoid, but I’m trying to imagine how and why this change got into the product. I mean why not all NPC’s near all towns? Are the NPC’s around Wind somehow special? Hrmm?

Okay, here are the Anti-Adam / Anti-Stealth booby traps I have found about Wind.
About a year ago (I have a long memory) some nasty GM placed a reveal tile about 10 steps into Wind. Now, I don’t know if there is actually such a thing as a ‘Reveal Tile’ per se, but all of sudden I could not stealth past one particular tile without becoming reveled.

Well, being the proud assassin I am, I called a GM and received a counselor (yes, this was before the infinite queues of today.) The counselor didn’t really know anything, but I demonstrated the problem and she contacted a GM. I remember the counselor then saying: “Okay, now try it.” I then tried it - and it was fixed. Hrmm? Methinks the GM knew what was wrong and how to fix it.

Was it placed there intentionally? I may never know.

Also about a year ago I noticed that Drakes, Daemons and Dragons would now target me while I stealth!
This was really bad because if they happened to bump you, or you brush against them, you will auto-attack, and well, this is bad.
Lately this has changed too. Within the last few weeks or so, at least Drakes and maybe Daemons pseudo-attack you while stealthing!! (And no, I’m not kidding.)
I was in Covetous stealthing about when a Drake locked on me (I saw the blue bar appear on the Drake.)
I thought, heh, I will just stay out of his way and leave this area. Ha! Easier said than done. For as soon as I took one step, I saw the drake stop, turn and approach me!!
I started stealthing as fast as my little feet would carry me when the drake changed direction again and ran right into me triggering the auto-attack response! Well, I was able to run away, but geez!
Last night I was in Wind and a Daemon targeted me, but then immediately started approaching.

What’s going on here? Why is it that these monsters can target a stealth when none others can?
And why is it that all the sudden they also seem to approach the stealthing individual?

Any other stealths out there care to verify my findings?

--Adam Ant

Am I just paranoid?

The hokey-pokey Patch
Posted September 1, 2000 - 7:57 AM PDT by Adam Ant

You put the right patch in,
You put the right patch out,
You put the right patch in,
And then you…

...And then you recall it because it will require a significant number of UO subscribers to perform system upgrades, i.e., DirectX 7 and possibly upgraded Audio drivers.

The patch recall of a couple days ago points out the difficulties software subscription services are having.
I imagine one of two things happened over at Origin Systems to bring about such a botched release.
Either their projected numbers of mandatory upgrades was flawed (best case) or there was a serious breakdown in process.

Fortunately, Origin has a very nice Auto-Patcher that stepped in to bail them out of a potentially disastrous situation. Now I don’t claim to know the actual number of subscribers that were adversely affected, but if UO has 200,000 subscribers, and just 10% were affected, then you have 20,000 unhappy customers, which are responsible for $200,000 per month in recurring revenue. That’s some serious scratch!

You can bet that while we were watching the un-patch process on our computers, heads were rolling over at Origin.

I think we can all agree that patching has to be a painless process that leaves users with a feeling that their game was just improved.

--Adam Ant

Thoughts?