From UO.com, good news (especially in light of the fact we are probably picking up new users, what with the release of the 9th Anniversary Collection and everything):

More Than 400 Dupers Banned, Tens of Thousands of Items Deleted

After a month-long investigation and a thorough review of all involved, we:

• banned more than 400 accounts,
• deleted more than 100,000 illegally duplicated items, and
• deleted more than one trillion in gold.

More importantly, the bugs that allowed this particular kind of illegal duplication have been fixed. Also, duping and exploit prevention/detection systems have been in place for some time now - systems that help us to identify and eliminate cheaters.

We take all forms of cheating extremely seriously, especially cheats that affect the in game economy and devalue the hard work of honest players. We will never stop investigating and solving these issues, and appreciate very much those of you who contribute to the fight against cheating. We’ve had to keep these developments quiet until we completed our investigations, but we are very proud to be able to make this announcement today.

PunkBuster On Hold

After a lot of research and development, we’ve come to the conclusion that for now, it would be better for us to focus on internal fixes and security improvements instead of trying to install PunkBuster. The integration of PunkBuster into the Ultima Online client is being indefinitely postponed, until we can do justice to the marriage of the two products.

We enjoyed working with the team from Even Balance, and hope to do so in the future. We do have the same goals, after all: Ensuring fair play is one of our highest priorities.

Please know that we are working to make systems within the Kingdom Reborn client extremely tough on cheaters. We’ve made cheat prevention, and other in-game measures, a top (and ongoing) priority for our coding team.

It’s nice that they are working hard on the Kingdom Reborn client, as far as security, from the very beginning. It helps that UO is one of the oldest MMORPGs around and so they’ve probably seen a little bit of everything.

The October 13, 2006 edition of the Five on Friday has been posted on UO.com.

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

1. From looking at the new screenshots, it looks like we be getting horse blankets, saddles, and horse armor. Is this true?

Andrew “Ando” Woodruff, Assistant Producer: While this is certainly a possibility, the horses shown in the new screenshots are faction horses. The color of the horse is wearing represents the faction it belongs to.

2. Will you please extend Treasures of Tokuno II a bit longer?

Aaron “Darkscribe” Cohen, Producer: Since so many of you have asked nicely… YES!

3. I see that Leurocian is back! What is he working on?

Patrick “Leurocian” Malott, Designer: I’ve been working on additions and bug fixes for the heritage items such as adding fruit on the apple and peach fruit trees and allowing the curtains to open and close. I’m also working on design documents for UO: Kingdom Reborn as well as collaborating with our other designers on resolving ‘hot topic’ issues such as Evasion balancing.

4. We’re finding some new kinds of coins on the rats invading Castle British, what do they do?

Tim “Draconi” Cotten, Designer: Actually, they’re really *old* coins, from before Britannia switched to the simple gold piece system that we all know today. It looks like the rats managed to get into an old vault beneath the castle, because these have never been seen in the history of UO! They’re rather nice for coin flipping though. (Double click when they’re outside of a container, works when locked down as well).

Be careful though, I’ve seen quite a few merchants who are more than willing to accept them as legal tender. If you need to buy something, make sure you tuck these rare coins safely away first!

5. Who is Sherry the Mouse? What does she do?

Tim “Draconi” Cotten, Designer: You can read all about Sherry here: http://www.uo.com/sherrythemouse.html

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.

More from today’s Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn FAQ:

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Main UO: Kingdom Reborn Screenshots Archive at UOCodex.com

At UO.com/uokr/, guess what, a UO: Kingdom Reborn FAQ has appeared!

The UO team is hard at work re-building Sosaria and soon much more will be revealed. For now, we want to answer some of the most asked questions and give you yet another glimpse of what’s to come. We’ll be adding to this FAQ regularly so keep an eye on www.uo.com for updates.

Q: What is Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn? Just a new client or more?

A: We are re-drawing the graphics and building a new user interface that will be easier-to-use for players new and old. (At the same time, we’re working to give long time players UI options that will let them play almost exactly the way they play now.)

We are also adding new content that you’d find in most other UO expansion packs, such as a new player race, new features, a new dungeon and other surprises.

We will be polishing and improving some areas of UO game play, but the core sets of rules, systems and content will remain intact.

The idea is to give current, former, and new players a vibrant, thriving world that looks and plays like it’s new, that also takes advantage of Ultima Online’s nine years of features, content and culture.

Q: Will there be a beta? If so, when? How long will it be?

A: Yes, we will have a public beta test. Dates will be announced on www.uo.com.

Q: Is the new client 2d or 3d?

A: Yes! In a way, it is both. It’s a 3D engine that will look and play like a 2D engine, except for some special effects, lighting and other small details.

Our goal was to preserve the look and feel of Ultima Online, while also providing the benefits of a modern graphics engine.

Q: Will we be able to rotate or otherwise change the camera angle?

A: To preserve the charm and feel of Ultima Online, we’re re-building the world with highly detailed 2D tiles. This allows us to have the visual detail we want, but does prevent us from creating a rotating camera.

Q: Will the new special effects be scalable? If I have a fast computer, can I enable more cool effects to make the game look better?

A: There will be some effects that will be scalable according to what 3D card you have. However, our goal is to give players with low system spec machine a visually vibrant and inviting game.

Q: Will we still be able to play with the old 2D or 3D client after Kingdom Reborn launches?

A: Yes, we will continue to support the older clients after the launch of Kingdom Reborn. However, the long term plan is to support a single client for the game.

Q: Can we see new screenshots?

A: Sure. Here are three!

Wow! They are further along than we expected.

We’ll have the screenshots in the next post.

From UO.com

A proud legacy, a bright future

From the pen of Darkscribe…

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.

Also, you might have noticed the announcement of the 9th Anniversary Collection. We’ve tried to make available just about every bit of art we could for housing decor, some of it nine years old and yet never available in the game. The official website for the 9th Anniversary Collection is here.

Looking back on nine years is fun, and humbling, but looking forward is what has us truly excited. Ultima Online is on the cusp of a new age, and we’re glad you’re with us.

See you in Sosaria,

Aaron “Darkscribe” Cohen, UO Producer

Since last week’s Week in Review (Sep 11 - 18) was well received, we are going to continue this series, and we are going to keep the same format - brief, one-line descriptions of each major news story from the previous week. One small change will be, it will cover from tuesdays through mondays, with each previous week’s summary being posted monday night or tuesday morning.

In-Game Fiction:
- Friday (Sep 22) - Elven Prosecutor Assigned to Ricardo’s Trial!
- Friday (Sep 22) - New Runes on UO.com
- Friday (Sep 22) - InuWiki moves to InuWiki.com

Game Updates:
- Wednesday (Sep 20) - Ultima Online 9th Anniversary doing fairly well at Amazon in pre-orders, despite few details having leaked out.
- Wednesday (Sep 20) - Wilki answered 50 questions
- Thursday (Sep 21) - Client Patch 5.0.4e (Login/Splash screens updated)
- Friday (Sep 22) - Five on Friday for September 22 - 9th Anniversary, Kingdom Reborn, Vamp Form, Talon Bites, Blackrock

Miscellaneous:
- Thursday (Sep 21) - Sosarian Tales is alive once more
- Friday (Sep 22) - PayByCash Custumors - Billing changes
- Monday (Sep 25) - Sosarian Voices Returns, Plus Show #30

Site News:
- Wednesday (Sep 20) - Searchable/Organized “Five on Friday” Finished

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

For previous Five on Fridays - see the full list here.

1. When will the 9th Anniversary Collection site be going up so we can all start getting our pre-orders made and find out concreate information about what is in the box?

Aaron “Darkscribe” Cohen, Producer: Next week! You should also see several of the online retailers post new information next week as well.

2. When will we see some more teaser content for Kingdom Reborn?

Aaron “Darkscribe” Cohen, Producer: I hate using this word, because I know the UO fans hear it far too often, but the answer is soon. The marketing and community plans are coming together quickly, and momentum will soon begin to build.
(more…)

Lost in the shuffle of everything that went on over the weekend with the new scenario and the like, Wilki took the time saturday to answer 50 questions in a post at Stratics.

Some of the highlights:
- PunkBuster is close (could it be related to the Test Center coming down?)
- Factions will be the current form of PvP for the time being.
- Ninja forms/Deathstrike will be balanced
- A Halloween event is planned
- A new status bar/status bar choices will be in the Kingdom Reborn client

Full list of questions/answers:
(more…)

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

1. Did the 30 day timer for house decay go into effect on August first or was it postponed for publishes and the current story arc?
Aaron “Darkscribe” Cohen, Producer: The 30 day timer has not gone into effect yet. Our goal is to put more housing slots into the hands of active players, and doing that effectively involves more than just the decay limit. We’re sorry for the delay. As soon as we have an update, we will announce on www.uo.com.

2. Will there be any released products in between 9th ann and UOKR?
Aaron “Darkscribe” Cohen, Producer: No. But plenty will happen between those two releases.

3. When can we expect Punkbuster?
Aaron “Darkscribe” Cohen, Producer: We are working hard to launch the public beta in September, taking care of some remaining polish issues. We don’t want to launch even the beta version until we feel it’s ready. As soon as we have a beta launch date, we will announce on www.uo.com.

4. Is there a chance of a Halloween shard again this year?
Draconi: Count Draconula: Vat a velcome question! Ve suppose it all depends on you… do you veally vish to be our victims for a fortnight vonce more?

5. Can you explain the recent leech changes?
John@EA “Wilki”, Community Coordinator: The old method used your leech % as a chance for the effect to fire each time you swing. Each time the effect fired, you would get 40% of the post-resist damage inflicted back as mana, or 30% back as hit points.

The new method uses the leech % as the top end of a range. The amount of that 40% of mana (or 30% of life) that actually gets delivered is randomly determined — from 0 to your leech %. This amount is added every time an attack hits.

The resulting effect is that the amount leeched over time will be less — from a little bit less, for slower weapons, down to about half for fast ones. However, because it will deliver smaller amounts continuously, hopefully it will not feel like the ability has been nerfed dramatically.