A new Five on Friday has been posted:

“The Boiling Cauldron from the Heritage Collection was a container when it was displayed on Origin - now it’s not. What happened?”

The Origin display house had unfinished versions of the display items, and the cauldron was not intended to be a container. However, many people have requested that it be made into one, and it’s relatively simple to do. But if we make it a container, it will require you to empty it out and re-deed it before you can customize your house (like the aquarium, elven containers, etc), so making it a container has some drawbacks. We’re happy to go either way with this one, so we’re asking your opinion - visit the poll on Stratics’s forums here and vote!

“AAAAH! I still don’t have my Veteran Rewards! My account age is STILL stuck!”

We’ve found the problem and we believe that we’ve corrected it - but the fix is not instant, and so you may see some account age weirdness over the next two weeks as all your characters get updated. Be patient just a little while longer, and you should be at the correct account age by 11/27/06 if not before.

As with all dates/times/weather reports, this is subject to change depending on our testing. This is our best guess given the information that we have at this time. Frankly, Sanya got a little too excited and jumped the gun when she gave the Stratics posters a date. But the programmer who gave her the information was just So Dreamy, she got distracted and didn’t wait for the test run to finish out.

“Does the 9th Anniversary Collection include a sixth character slot?”

This was not explicitly stated on the 9th Anniversary page - sorry for any confusion. Upgrading to 9th Anniversary will entitle your account to a sixth character slot.

“When Age of Shadows was launched, we were told that the ban on placing Keeps and Castles was temporary. That was a long time ago - when can we place those house types in Malas?”

Quite frankly, I searched uo.com six ways to Sunday and couldn’t find this ban listed specifically anywhere, so we had to look at the problem from the beginning. The purpose of the ban originally was, we assumed, to allow more players to place houses in Malas, rather than allow fewer players to place bigger houses. This still seems like a good idea, particularly because we are expecting new players to join the fun this spring with Kingdom Reborn. Also, people who were around for the launch of AoS searched their minds and hard drives, and found only evidence that Malas was intended to be mostly free of the large edifices. In fact, the only large houses in the area are promotional in nature.

So, for the foreseeable future, we’re going to keep the housing rules on Malas as they have been: “Castles and keeps, which occupy large plots of land, cannot be built on Malas in order to make room for more housing slots, ensuring that all citizens of Sosaria have a fair chance at home ownership.” This does not, of course, preclude us from changing our minds if at some point it makes sense to.

“This Halloween stuff is fun, but when are we going to get back to the storyline? I want to see Ricardo get what’s coming to him!”

Patience, patience. The wheel of justice grinds slow but exceedingly fine.

There’s your Five on Friday! Also, to follow up on the question about German ordering information that we posted last week, check out Sanya’s post about it here. Have a good weekend - I’m off to go hunt for the pumpkin with my name on it!

- Jeremy

Jeremy Dalberg’s first Five on Friday as the new UO Community Coordinator.

November 3, 2006

1. “What’s the Shard of the Dead stuff? Why should I bother to log on?”

Oh, man, the Shard of the Dead has some crazy cool stuff - Vampire Wars, mazes, monsters, zombies… too much, in fact, to go into detail on here, so I got all the devs to give up the goods on their projects. Check it out here. There sure are some twisted minds on this team.

2. “The 9th Anniversary page says “Ordering information for Germany is coming soon!” What does “soon” mean? I want my Anniversary tokens!”

We’ve been pursuing this one all week, internally - the short answer is still “soon” but since that’s not only useless but annoying, here’s the long answer: Germany has some regulatory processes that video games must go through before being put on the shelves. Until the 9th Anniversary package makes it through that process, we won’t have retail information to put up. We’ll keep on this one, and post updates regularly on Stratics.

3. “These Halloween monsters are too hard!” or, conversely, “These Halloween monsters are too easy!”

So, to clear up the confusion: The Halloween graveyard spawns are NOT normal undead. They will vary in difficulty - here’s the full explanation from Draconi:
“The spawn will increase its difficulty if it’s beaten too quickly by players. If the next round is beyond the players’ abilities, it will continually tone down until it finds a good spot.
The balance to this is that there’s more than one graveyard to be fighting in; so if you can’t handle one, try looking for another that’s been ignored for a while and has a more decayed difficulty.” .

4. “MrTact said that he’d put Hit Chance Increase back on shields, but he hasn’t! What’s up with that?”
In the interest of strict honesty, I’d like to quote the whole House of Commons section about HCI:

Sprite - *Dolgorath[ATL]* Has there been any discussion among the devs about the HCI on Shields issue? Are there any plans to bring it back or remove it from existing, non-artifact shields? This causes a significant pvp inbalance between people who have the extra HCI and people who don’t.

MrTact - I wouldn’t say we’ve discussed it, though we are aware of it.
MrTact - Right now I think the way HCI and Hit Lower XXX are implemented is a little overpowering. That’s something I was ruminating about this morning, in fact.
MrTact - So A) That imbalance should be mitigated in the rebalance
MrTact - and B) Unless someone gives me a good reason why that property was removed from shields, I see no reason not to put it back.
MrTact - So, there you go . . . I have foolishly committed myself.

Right now the “good reason” is that we have not yet mitigated the imbalance, so for the moment, HCI will not be added back on to shields. That could, of course, change in the future - but the overall game balance remains the most important concern.

5. “Are there any plans to revamp the Doom artifact drop system?”

With the different looting rights systems on Treasures of Tokuno and the Grim Reaper, this question has come up. Leurocian has some ideas: “There are plans to revamp the Doom Artifact system to make it similar to Treasure of Tokuno. The tentative idea is that each player character participating against a gauntlet boss or the Dark Father will accumulate artifact reward points. The more artifact reward points a player character accumulates the more likely an artifact will spawn in his/her backpack. Player characters who score higher on the Top Attacker list will earn more points. However, everyone in the Top Attackers list that stays the entire duration of the combat (even if slain) will still earn points. This way, everyone who participates will eventually be awarded an artifact. As far as when this system will be implemented, this is still to be determined. No promises.”

That’s it for my first Five on Friday, folks - it’s been quite a week! Oh, and by the way - hurry up and grab those coins, because Sherry the Mouse has almost finished driving off the rats…

— Jeremy

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/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.

New runes are on on UO.com:

Translation: PATHS CINDER IF KNIGHTS TIP

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

The Britannia News Network has word of something that should of interest to many: Ricardo will be going on trial very soon.

Britannia Rejoices
Zilo the Scribe Oct 18 2006 5:12PM

The infamous Ricardo, recently captured and secured in the Trinsic jail, shall be brought to trial within a fortnight. Officials plan to move the villain, under heavy guard, to the Court of Truth. Citizens are to be assured, that while Ricardo is known as something of an escape artist, he will find himself outmatched against his new bindings.

Using a specially designed carriage, the Paladins of Trinsic will test their new transport to its limits on this maiden voyage. The mobile cell, crafted of thick oak, and plated with steel, bristles with weapons. The carriage can hold up to 15 occupants, but for its inaugural run, the only unwilling passenger on the manifest is Ricardo.

Seemingly clairvoyant, the good Sheriff of Trinsic, addressed our concerns about Ricardo’s upcoming trip. The mobile prison that shall house him, is not only inescapable, but highly resistant to damage, and fireproof as well. Ricardo has earned a dubious reputation throughout the underworld for his uncanny ability to escape incarceration. The virtuous Paladins of Trinsic seemed inspired by this challenge, and rose valiantly to meet it.

While this reporter passes no judgment on the accused, I feel it is my obligation to express heartfelt gratitude towards our magnanimous legal system. A system championed with heroes like Casca. A system which eternally strives to keep us safe and secure from our lesser brethren.

Citizens make way for this titan of singular purpose. Clear the roads for this juggernaut of justice. Trust in our judicial champions to bring this scoundrel, and all those like him, down low.

This week’s Five on Friday is online at UO.com

A categorized listing of all previous Five on Friday questions can be found here.

October 20, 2006

1. Are you going to make any changes to the Bushido ability Evasion in Publish 43?

John “Wilki” Wilkinson, Community Coordinator: Yes, the following changes will be made in Publish 43:

* Evasion duration will scale with your Bushido skill. Range is 3-6 second duration, with a 2 second bonus if your bushido is above GM and both tactics and anatomy are GM or better
* Evasion parry modifier will scale with your Bushido skill. Range is 16-40%, with a 10% bonus if your bushido is above GM and both tactics and anatomy are GM or better

For more information about Evasion changes and other changes in Publish 43 please check here.

2. I missed out on getting one of those special coins from the Castle rat invasion. Will I have another chance at these?

Sherry the Mouse: *squeak* I think the rats have gone back down into the sewers…

3. Whenever I use stealth, I seem to be passively revealed by other players almost every time. Are there any plans to change that?

John “Wilki” Wilkinson, Community Coordinator: Yes, we’ve made some significant changes to passive detect in Publish 43. We have adjusted passive and targeted detect hidden for both players and monsters so stealthers aren’t as easy to detect. For more information about Stealth changes and other changes in Publish 43 please check here.

4. Are we going to have another Shard of the Dead?

Anne “Silvani” Pitkin, Assistant Producer: We are indeed! Shard of the Dead II will be a wonderfully frightening experience on Halloween. This test shard will be full of spooky fun, with some new surprises. There will be crazy Dev Team appearances and other various forms of insanity.

5. Are we doing anything for Halloween on production shards?

Anne “Silvani” Pitkin, Assistant Producer: Yes, besides Shard of the Dead II, we’ll also have some scary surprises in store for regular shards! The Festival of Fright will be a game wide event on all shards. There will be some special treats given out during this time, however be wary of your local graveyards! This event will last one to two weeks.

From the Update Center at UO.com:

On Thursday, October 19, 2006 at approximately 7:00PM PDT (3:00AM GMT), we will be deploying a publish to the Napa Valley shard.

The update will contain the following changes:

* Turning off Treasures of Tokuno
* Live events update

The remaining shards will have the world wide publish deployed at their normal shard maintenance time tonight.

Bummer about the Treasures of Tokuno being turned off, but here’s hoping they (or something similar) will be turned back on in the future. As for the “live events update”…..

If anybody is wondering why Napa Valley and not Origin, it’s probably because Origin is testing Publish 43.