From UO.com, we have a new Five on Friday. Previous Five-on-Fridays can be found categorized here. This one mostly concerns the Halloween events currently going on, although a mention of Stealth in Publish 43 is made!

1. Will we receive any free gifts to celebrate 9th Anniversary?

Anne “Silvani” Pitkin, Assistant Producer of Pain and Pestilence: We will be giving out one random piece of either crystal or shadow furniture per character soon. We want everyone to experience some of the great pieces that come along with the 9th Anniversary collection.

2. What is the deal with the Evil Twin?

Patrick “Leurocian” Malott, Dastardly Designer of Death: Ah, yes. The Evil Twin. Nasty trick that. Evil Twins are dark manifestations that reside from a world ‘outside’ our own. They essentially have all of the traits, skills, and abilities of brave adventurers. It is rumored that the recent experimentation with Blackrock has weakened the fabric of reality and has caused a planar rift between our world and theirs.

3. How many different pumpkins are there? How rare are the black ones?

Tim “Draconi” Cotten, Wild Eyed Designer of Doom: The Jack o’ Lanterns are a special treat (or trick?) which burst into flames if you smash one on the ground! Just double click it and target it like you would an explosion potion.

Now for the black pumpkins: there is a very rare chance (1 in 90) that a Jack o’ Lantern will become hued black, and when used like a normal Jack o’ Lantern cause a much more devastating explosion.

Be careful though, these rare Jack o’ Lanterns act just like a Conflagration potion.

4. Will there be any further changes made to stealth in or after Pub43?

John “Wilki” Wilkinson, Community Coordinator of Coffin Filling: There won’t be any further changes to stealth in Pub43, however we’re planning to monitor the changes and adjust them if necessary.

5. What is going on at the graveyards?

Conrad the Soldier: Ne’er seen the like in all me years. A man fool enough to step more ‘an six feet into a graveyard is a dead man indeed, mark me words! ‘Tis as though the gates of Doom herself ‘ave opened up in our cursed cemeteries, and those awful stories we tell children went and came true. Well, I don’t have much to say - the mages went off to go find out what’s happening, but they haven’t sent any word beyond some sort of gobbledygook about “portals” and “dimensions” and whatnot. The thing is, and I don’t understand it meself, is that they only seem to appear at night!

Fah! All I know is that my blade’ll dispatch these horrors as well it does anything. Just keep out of our way, and don’t dare try and steal our spoils! I’ve seen some strange things on these corpses, and we mean to make back some gold for our troubles at the least.

From the FYI/Update Center at UO.com, we have a new client patch, version 5.0.6a:

On Friday, October 27, 2006 at approximately 6:30PM PDT ( October 28 - 1:30AM GMT), we will deploy client patch 5.0.6a.

The first time your client is patched after this update, your patcher will need to be updated as well. When this occurs, you will see the patcher appear twice. Simply click the OK button both times and your client will be up to date.

If patched correctly, your current version will display 5.0.6a for both clients. If you have any difficulty receiving this patch, please check the following:

Check the “Patch” directory within your Ultima Online directory (the default location is C:\Program Files\EA Games\Ultima Online\Patch). This directory should be empty. Any files in this directory should be deleted.

Run a virus scan on your computer. Undetected viruses may cause conflicts with patching Ultima Online. For information on up-to-date virus detection software, please visit http://www.mcafee.com/myapps/vso/default.asp.

If after trying the above, you are still experiencing difficulty patching the Ultima Online client, please visit this web page.

New runes are on on UO.com:

Translation: HAPPY HALLOWEEN

If you’d like to translate them yourself, see the runic libraries listed here.

This ties into something that you can participate in-game. We won’t say anything else in order not to spoil things, but we will say this weekend is a weekend you should definitely login and spend some time in UO.

Yes, you read that right, a 100,000,000 Prize Gold Event on Lake Superior. This is just a reminder that tomorrow will be a big day on LS. From DENNAR’s post on Stratics.com:

Saturday October 28, 2006 at 8pm EST the Conclave of Barons is proud to host the first ever Conclave event.

The hostess for this event will be Circe the Baroness of Umbra. She has planned an evening of Tricks and Treats for all who attend.

The Last Monster Standing contest. Entrants will go to a protected arena in Felucca where they must polymorph into a monster and participate in a Battle Royal. The last monster standing will win 6,000,000 gold. There will be a second and third prize of 3,000,000 and 1,000,000.

Also being held in the Felucca arena will be a poisoned pie eating contest. The prizes for this will be 6,000,000 for first and 3,000,000 and 1,000,000 for second and third. People wishing to enter this contest need to come hungry. Entrants will be snooped for potions, petals, and daids.

A scavenger hunt will lead people all around to gather the required items that Circe has decided she wants. She will reward people with gold. 6,000,000 for the fastest and 3,000,000 and 1,000,000 for the slightly slower second and third place finishers.

There will be a naked Chaos Run where contestants will search out 10 1,000,000 gold checks, among other items.

In the Felucca Arena there will also be the Frantic Frenzy. Participants will enter the arena, while naked and unarmed, where several frenzied ostards will have been released and dash for another 10 1,000,000 gold checks, among other items.

The main event will be the Costume Contest. The first prize of this event will be 25,000,000 gold. Second place will get 15,000,000 and third will receive 10,000,000 gold. Judges will not be from the Lake Superior Shard.

Trick or Treat bags will be given out all during the events. Some will be treats and some will be tricks. There will be a weapon engraver, available all night engraving for free. We will have a scribe making polymorph scrolls for free so people can see what life is like as a monster.

Get your costume ready, tell your friends, make a char on LS and come and join the fun. This is set to be a record breaking event. We wish everyone a grand time.

Respectfully,
The Conclave of Barons

Finally tonight, again, from the update center at UO.com, Client 5.0.5c:

On Thursday, October 26, 2006 at approximately 7:00PM PDT ( October 26 - 2:00AM GMT), we will deploy client patch 5.0.5c.

Details for the patch are as follows:

* Added Crystal and Shadow stairs for 9th to the 9th Anniversary housing tile sets
* Modified Shadow arches so that they can now be passed through
* Crystal/Shadow housing tiles now display their name when clicked on
* Fixed Heritage trees that had an issue with their foliage disappearing
* The Heritage wall torch can now be raised and lowered with the house deco tool
* Updated text and localization
* Bump version to “5.0.5c”

If patched correctly, your current version will display 5.0.5c for both clients. If you have any difficulty receiving this patch, please check the following:

Check the “Patch” directory within your Ultima Online directory (the default location is C:\Program Files\EA Games\Ultima Online\Patch). This directory should be empty. Any files in this directory should be deleted.

Run a virus scan on your computer. Undetected viruses may cause conflicts with patching Ultima Online. For information on up-to-date virus detection software, please visit http://www.mcafee.com/myapps/vso/default.asp.

If after trying the above, you are still experiencing difficulty patching the Ultima Online client, please visit this web page

From the Update/FYI Center at UO.com, all shards will be getting the Publish 43 update. For many, this will be friday morning.

World Wide Publish Schedule - Publish 43 Oct 27 2006 1:58AM GMT (PST +08:00)
During the evening of Thursday, October 26, 2006 PDT we will begin deploying Publish 43 to all shards during their next respective maintenance times.

For the Publish 43 change list, please click here.

We expect no additional downtime due to this publish.

Publish 43 Information

From the Update/FYI page at UO.com

On Thursday, October 26, 2006 at approximately 7:00PM PDT (October 27 - 2:00AM GMT), we will be deploying a Publish 43 update to the Origin shard.

The update will contain the following changes:

* New Live Event content
* Black pumpkins now have a chance of spawning with any Dev name
* The 9th Anniversary Shadow Fire Pit now opens and closes
* The Globe of Sosaria now animates

For the complete Publish 43 change list, please click here.

We expect the Origin shard to remain offline for approximately one hour.

More Publish 43 Information.

From the Update Center at UO.com:

Character Transfer Disabled Oct 27 2006 1:32AM GMT (PST +08:00)
The Character Transfer service has been disabled for maintenance. We estimate that it will return to service within 24 hours, however that is subject to change. Keep an eye out on uo.com for additional updates.

It’s that time again for the UO Week-in-Review, the sixth time we’ve done this in a row. As always, you can access the previous WiR’s here. For the most part, much of the past week has been focused on either Publish 43 or the 9th Anniversary Collection, which makes sense - we are only about a week away from the 9th Anniversary release (and Pub 43 does support the 9th Anniversary Collection).

General Game News:
Oct 18 (We): Client Patch 5.0.5b
Oct 18 (We): Origin Receives Publish 43
Oct 18 (We): Publish 43 - Official Information
Oct 19 (Th): Napa Valley to be Published
Oct 20 (Fr): Five on Friday for October 20, 2006
Oct 23 (Mo): Atlantic and Origin to Receive Publish 43/Update

In-Game Fiction:
Oct 18 (We): Imperial Proclamation
Oct 20 (Fr): Britannia Rejoices
Oct 20 (Fr): New Runes on UO.com

Ultima Online: 9th Anniversary Collection:
Oct 18 (We): Australia and 9th Anniversary Collection
Oct 18 (We): Amazon.UO taking pre-orders for 9th Anniversary Collection

From the Update Center/FYI at UO.com, it looks like Atlantic and Origin received Publish 43 this evening.

On Monday, October 23, 2006 at approximately 5:00PM PDT (October 24 – 12:00AM GMT), we will be deploying Publish 43 to the Atlantic and Origin shards.

For the Publish 43 change list, please click here.

The update will contain the following changes:

* Fixed an exploit that allowed players to bypass the skill timer
* Base Damage in the Animal Lore gump will no longer clip double digit numbers
* The Time Lord will no longer offer to train players in Arms Lore or Blacksmithing

We expect the Atlantic and Origin shards to remain offline for approximately one hour. Please note that character transfers will be turned off on these two shards until after Publish 43 has gone world wide.