From the UO.com Update/FYi Page:

All Shards to be Published Oct 13 2006 3:18AM GMT (PST +08:00)
On Friday, October 13, 2006, during each shard’s maintenance time, we will be deploying a publish world wide.

The update will contain the following changes:

* Fixed an issue that was causing the account age to not display properly in the character profile
* New live event content

This publish should not cause any additional downtime.

This is the same Publish that Origin received earlier today.

From the UO.com Update Center:

On Thursday, October 12, 2006 at approximately 7:30PM PDT ( October 13 - 2:30AM GMT), we will deploy client patch 5.0.5a.

Details for the patch are as follows:

* Updated the tool-tip for two ToT item properties to reflect recent changes
* New crystal and shadow house tile art
* New crystal and shadow housing furniture
* New token art for crystal and shadow furniture, and Heritage Collection
* New art for the Heritage Collection selection menu
* Updated art for Heritage Collection furniture
* Client updates to support this week’s live events
* Localization updates
* Bumped version to “5.0.5a”

If patched correctly, your current version will display 5.0.5a 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.

Looks like we are getting close to the 9th Anniversary Collection release, as a lot of the updates are geared for that. Interesting to see what “client updates to support this week’s live events” turn out to be….

As well from the UO newsletter, we get to welcome back a designer from years past - they are moving from the Past UO Developers to the Current UO Developers pages here at UOCodex.

Design team welcomes back Leurocian

The design team seems to be getting bigger all the time. In fact, just this week a familiar face took up residence in UO dev team bullpen, Patrick “Leurocian” Malott. Along with design lead Nick “DragonHead” Corea, senior designer Tim “MrTact” Keating, invasion architect Tim “Draconi” Cotten and builder of worlds Mike “Czarzane” Flinchum, this band of merry men are busy designing Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn and adding to each and every live publish. And there’s more to come! Two more designers are on the way to help with the slate of projects we have planned. If you listen close, you can almost hear the hum of all those imaginations at work.

Developers Mentioned (Our UO Developer Pages):
- Patrick “Leurocian” Malott
- Nick “DragonHead” Corea
- Tim “MrTact” Keating
- Tim “Draconi” Cotten
- Mike “Czarzane” Flinchum

Before now, we had not seen mention of Nick “DragonHead” Corea - he comes from EA, having worked on several of the Jane’s Combat Simulations, as well as some of the James Bond/007 Titles as a level designer and artist, and with a tie to Origin/EA - he worked on Wing Commander III. Leurocian was a designer on Samurai Empire and Mondain’s Legacy.

This is great news indeed - this reaffirms my belief that 2007 will be one of the biggest years UO has had since its launch.

As well from the UO newsletter: Live events about to get more serious

If you’ve been following the Live Event series, you’ve probably helped fight off an invasion, discovered mysterious pieces of black rock, and discovered Inu the Crone’s secret. As we move closer to the launch of Kingdom Reborn, more serious events will begin to occur, and small occurrences will begin ripples that will eventually grow to tidal waves. The world is soon to change forever, and it will be the citizens of Britannia who bring about a new age. To keep up to date on the in-game events, check out www.uo.com every Friday evening.

I want to jump in here for a second and say that out of all of my years going back to 1997, this year, putting aside the news of Kingdom Reborn (which deserves its own commentary), has been one of the most interesting, enjoyable, and “fulfilling” years I’ve had in UO - I felt that things were different back around March, and that the devs had a much firmer hand on the tiller, so to speak, than in past years, and so far, my feeling was right - one of the dev team members mentioned that UO was at times in a “maintenance mode” (in years past), and from about March of this year, it didn’t feel like that at all.

Everybody on the dev team has clearly been doing a lot, but I want to, once again, single out Draconi - this has been one of the most coherent story arcs we’ve seen, and is by now the longest running (and we still have a long ways to go before finishing it :woop: ). All too often in the past, the story arcs felt like they were simply there to provide a background for the expansions - that somebody came up with the expansion, and then drew up a story arc to fit with that. Not so, this time around. It feels like Draconi has worked to try and incorporate both Ultima and Ultima Online history a lot more deeply into the story arc. Quite a few times in the past, we’d have a story arc that revolved around an expansion or an event, and then it would very abruptly, and you wanted more. Well, we are getting it.

There’s more to this, and I’ll explain in a few minutes.

This week’s Five on Friday has been posted at UO.com

All Five on Friday questions organized by category here at UOCodex.com

1. How long will Treasures of Tokuno II last?

Aaron “Darkscribe” Cohen, Producer: We’re planning to leave it active for one more week. We’ve made a few changes we think you’ll like.

2. When will Siege and Mugen players get to exchange character transfer and advanced character tokens for something else?

Aaron “Darkscribe” Cohen, Producer: We’re planning to have this in for Publish 43, and will give players the option to turn in these items for ublessed 7th Anniversary items.

3. What is the robed figure in the Ankh room doing?

Aaron “Darkscribe” Cohen, Producer: It seems to be some entity attempting to enter our world, yet still unable to do so. The figure appears more often when several people are around, but always flickers back into the ether. Several of our citizens have already come to their own conclusions and drug up old books and legends, but whether or not this is truly the “Time Lord,” as some have rumored, remains to be seen.

4. Do you plan to do something about the colored shrouds that seem to be everywhere?

Aaron “Darkscribe” Cohen, Producer: We’re getting close to implementing a solution for these shrouds. Stay tuned.

5. Will I be able to dye the curtains that are apart of the heritage collection? And will I be able to get to the roof of my castle with the new ladder?

Aaron “Darkscribe” Cohen, Producer: Yes you will be able to do both. For other questions you might have, please check the FAQ here.

Darkscribe mentioned last week:

Happy birthday to us! Ultima Online is nine years old, nine history-filled years. This game has defied expectations, pioneered new ideas, and built one of the most devoted, passionate communities in the MMORPG universe. To celebrate, a character from the Ultima single-player games will be making her first true visit to the worlds within the shards. That event begins October 6th (PDT). If you are a fan of Britannian history, you are in for a treat.

According to the UO Update/FYI page, it’s being delayed one week:

A slight change in plans Oct 6 2006 2:49AM GMT (PST +08:00)
The anniversary event we had planned for October 6th just isn’t going to be ready in time. There is a new system involved, and it turned out to be trickier than we had thought. The mysterious “she” that we mentioned will instead make her debut on October 13th, PST.

In the meantime, Treasures Of Tokuno Part II will continue for another week, and will have a few changes in store for this week.

Five on Friday has been posted on UO.com

For all previous Five on Fridays, organized by topic, please see the master list here at UOCodex.com

1. It’s great that the Treasures of Tokuno event is back. Do you have plans to do other events like this, but with new rewards?

Aaron “Darkscribe” Cohen, Producer:
Yes. There are a few variations that we are talking over and will experiment with. We’d like to make a system that isn’t just about combat, but also involves other disciplines like crafting, fishing, mining or others. That would bring players together with different interests and abilities and give them a reason to work together. We’re working on something along those lines and will roll it out when ready. I can’t give a timeline at the moment, but we like the idea a lot.

2. I love the 9th Anniversary stuff! Will we get to see any of this on the Test Shard?
(more…)

Confirming what was said earlier, there is, in fact a revival of the Treasures of Tokuno (2).

According to an Imperial Decree (UO.com - Britannia News Network):

Imperial Decree
Imperial Press Sep 28 2006 8:27PM

Be it known that on this day the Empire declares a state of readiness throughout the Isles of Tokuno. It is acknowledged that recent events in the kingdom of Britannia and its associated territories cause due concern to the Empress and Her people. In order to ensure the common defense the Empress declares the following:

1. The city of Zento shall be immediately fortified
Guards shall be posted at all points of entry to the city, including the moongate. However, travel to and from the city shall not be hindered at this time.

2. The Imperial Castle shall remain concealed
Travel to the island of the Imperial Seat, save for members of the Court, is restricted.

3. The Imperial Treasury shall be restored
The treasures of the Empire, lost on sunken ships after a raid upon Zento, are critical to the wealth and thus the defense of the Isles. The Imperial Minister of Trade shall continue rewarding those who seek these treasures with various artifacts and gifts of appreciation.

Let it be also known that the Empire has confirmed reports that yet more treasure from the sunken ships has since washed up on the shores of our islands. The monsters of our land appear to be attracted once more to that which rightfully belongs to the Empress, and all are urged to assist in a renewed recovery effort.

As it is spoken so it is written, as it is written so it is law.

Treasures of Tokuno (UO.com).

All shards will receive the same publish that Origin and Pacific have already received tomorrow, during their normal maintenance times, according to the UO.com Update/FYI Page:

On Friday, September 29, 2006, we will be deploying a publish to all shards during their respective maintenance times.

The update will contain the following changes:

* Shard stability fix
* Live event content

We expect this publish to cause no additional downtime.

Currently the Treasures of Tokuno program is once again running on Pacific and Origin with the possibility that it will be running on all other shards after their maintenance periods tomorrow.

This thread at Stratics would indicated that people are picking up minor artifacts once again. It appears to have slipped in with the recent Origin publish. Trevelyan who first posted about it, noted that while on other shards you can still claim the major pigments, you cannot do so on Origin (you can get all of the other major artifacts). Over on this thread, Experimental reports that it’s shown up on Pacific as well (after the Pacific publish today.

Swords of Prosperity, Wind’s Edge, the Horselord, Kasa of the Raj-in, Tome of Lost Knowledge, Sword of the Stampede, Darkened Sky, Rune Beetle Carapace, and Stormgrip are all reported as available rewards for turning in minor artifacts, with no dyes available.

I don’t think it’s a mistake - it would seem strange that the dyes were the only major not available - if it was a mistake, you would think it would be all or nothing.

It could very well be that the dyes are going to be one of the special/unannounced (so far) gifts that comes with the 9th Anniversary (i.e. available as an item selection).

For more information, please see the Treasures of Tokuno FAQ