[News] Publish 69 - World Wide Release 12/16/10

[Sevin0oo0]

Looks like T-maps just got More random, was just in wisp cave, ilsh, killed 2 paragon wisps. Out of the chests came 2 devious maps, one in ter mur, the other in Fel. I flushed cart so it really doesn't matter to me any more. this was on LS.

 

[Petra Fyde]

Paragon chests have been giving random facet maps since the treasure hunt changes went in. It's documented on the page Treasure Map Quests

 

[N49ATV]

I have to agree, the detect change is BS. You should be able to detect anyone in Fel, or on siege, mugen, as all facets have fel rulesets.

Should be able to detect blue thiefs that you bump into. Should be able to detect blues you wanna kill (weather your blue, red, orange, or grey)

I like no auto rehide, but gotta let everyone detect everyone. In fel anyways

 

[Skrag]

So where are these invasions and stuff? Hello, EA? Anyone wanna comment?

 

[Luke Carjacker]

Yeah, I totally agree that the changes to detect are messed up. I would say best solution is to allow everyone to detect everyone, but if a blue detects someone it will be considered an aggressive act and he will turn gray. That seems to make the most sense and be most in line with what people expect should happen. When the natural reaction of people is "what the hell is going on", like when they simply fail to detect at all after the bump into something, then there's obviously something wrong.

From a competitive balance issue, I think making detect an aggressive act makes the most sense as well. It's utilizing a skill to neutralize the effectiveness of someone else's skill (hiding, stealth). It should be considered aggressive - I mean, you're not detecting someone to pat them on the back right? You're detecting them so you can kill them, or expose them to spawn that will kill them. That's an aggressive act.

 

[N49ATV]

From a competitive balance issue, I think making detect an aggressive act makes the most sense as well. It's utilizing a skill to neutralize the effectiveness of someone else's skill (hiding, stealth). It should be considered aggressive - I mean, you're not detecting someone to pat them on the back right? You're detecting them so you can kill them, or expose them to spawn that will kill them. That's an aggressive act.

I dont see it this way at all. If a thief sneaks up on me, and I detect them, why and i aggressive? Not all detects are aggressive acts. And if you detect me, whats stopping the system from seeing that as an attack, and thus able to be counted when you do nada.

And thiefs wouldnt be able to detect a hidden, without risk of being booted for a count

 

[Tina Small]

From a competitive balance issue, I think making detect an aggressive act makes the most sense as well. It's utilizing a skill to neutralize the effectiveness of someone else's skill (hiding, stealth). It should be considered aggressive - I mean, you're not detecting someone to pat them on the back right? You're detecting them so you can kill them, or expose them to spawn that will kill them. That's an aggressive act.

By this logic, using hiding and stealthing should also be considered aggressive acts because you're trying to neutralize skills someone else wants to use to kill your character.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

By this logic, using hiding and stealthing should also be considered aggressive acts because you're trying to neutralize skills someone else wants to use to kill your character.

That logic does not entirely make sense....I mean you are not actually negating a skill directly the same way Detect is.

 

[Luke Carjacker]

I dont see it this way at all. If a thief sneaks up on me, and I detect them, why and i aggressive? Not all detects are aggressive acts. And if you detect me, whats stopping the system from seeing that as an attack, and thus able to be counted when you do nada.

And thiefs wouldnt be able to detect a hidden, without risk of being booted for a count

Actually, if you detect and reveal a thief, it is aggressive toward the thief. They want to be hidden and you're using a skill to counteract what they are trying to do. Now, whether they are tying to be hidden so they don't get attacked by monsters, or if they are trying to make a move to peek into your pack, or sneaking next to you to death strike you, that's unknown. Look, I don't play a thief and have never even trained stealing, but the fact is they want to be hidden and if you do something that prevents them from being hidden, that's an aggressive act towards them.

Whether it should lead to a murder count, I guess I'm not sure; but if you cast a poison field that reveals someone, or if you throw a conflag that reveals someone, you could end up with a count. You're saying a thief is being aggressive first by being hidden in the first place. I think I can get on board with that, so the detector doesn't go gray to everyone and can't get a count, but is treated as a hostile to the stealther. I think that makes sense. Also, actual thieves cannot report murders anyways if they are in the thieves guild.

I almost think of detect as being similar to purge magic. Someone wants to be in protection or stone form (or magic reflect now), or whatever. You cast purge magic on them to remove that spell from them. Now, purge doesn't do any damage to them, so you haven't actually harmed them...but they want their spell to be in effect and you're removing it, and that's clearly an aggressive move.

 

[G.v.P]

Likewise, invising another person can be viewed as "harassment," even if you mean well. Lot of duality on those non-aggros. Well, actually, guess invis is considered bene. Nm ;P

 

[Tina Small]

That logic does not entirely make sense....I mean you are not actually negating a skill directly the same way Detect is.

Whatever. I really don't care any more. I have six faction thieves on various shards that were just made obsolete because I'm not going to turn them red.

They have 100 Remove Trap skill, 100 Tracking, 100 Detect Hidden, 100 Hiding, 90 Stealthing, 80 Stealing, 50 Lockpicking, and the rest in Magery. I think it's absolutely stupid for me to have to kill defenseless characters on another of my accounts just to make those faction characters red so they can now detect an enemy's blue faction character spying in our base. I don't want to have murderous red characters, because my characters weren't built to do any kind of killing and especially because my guild usually joins TB or, occasionally, CoM.

Oh well. This was pretty much the last nail in the coffin for me with regards to participating in factions. I don't care about killing someone else's characters. Don't have the reflexes or competitiveness for it. Just cared about the sigils and finding the stealthers so my guildmates could kill them.

I guess it's no big deal. I'm just one person and probably very much in the minority regarding how I view this change. I'm sure there's gotta be some compelling reason for the change and in the end it will turn out to be good for the overall health of the game. One person who barely plays any more thinking it's pretty dumb is definitely not enough to back it out of production now. It apparently is a change that made sense to Bleak and company so who am I to question it.

 

[Lore Denin (GL)]

Just to voice my agreement with Poo and Tina as the dectect hidden changes will impact factions.

Blue faction spies - yes this is a real issue and if factions can not longer detect them you have put people at a huge disadvantage. They will be able to do things like block, work the TB gate, drop items that will block as well as pass on info with no way to be detected unless you are employing a red detector or red fielder which would then attack flag to non spying, non alliance faction members which always causes drama.

I play a Paladin so my only option would be to 1) flag on my horse to go criminal, 2) drop a conflag on the hidden spy, attempt to kill him before he runs and hides again, and take counts if I succeed.

I think that is great if you are in SL or Minax but what type of crediability does that give the Murderous Commanding Lord of the True Britannians.

Add in it helps any type of scripters further exploit the game.

Another question... How does this effect a home owners auto detect within his home?? Are you telling me I can no longer reveal people that have stealthed into my house if they are blue?? I better be careful if I unlock anything??

Lore's Player

 

[Kas Althume]

Another question... How does this effect a home owners auto detect within his home?? Are you telling me I can no longer reveal people that have stealthed into my house if they are blue?? I better be careful if I unlock anything??

I just attacked some critter and hid in my shack (so it doesnt autolog). Then i logged the home owner and used detect hidden. My evil tailor popped up just fine. (siege)
Working as intended inside homes. Both characters were blue.

 

[Tina Small]

Another question... How does this effect a home owners auto detect within his home?? Are you telling me I can no longer reveal people that have stealthed into my house if they are blue?? I better be careful if I unlock anything??

Lore's Player

I was able to check this out on Test Center a week or so ago and found that using detect hidden inside your house (even in Trammel) still seems to work the same as always with one small exception: The revealed character can no longer immediately rehide. I didn't time it exactly, but the delay to rehide seemed to be about 5 or 6 seconds for a character with 0 hiding and 0 magery. I believe the delay to be able to hide again is intended to be even shorter than that based on the revealed character's magery / hiding skills but don't know what the formula is.

On Test, I was able to use the house owner to reveal a blue character that had no explicit access while hiding in a house set to public; a blue character that had anyone or friend or co-owner access while the house was set to private; and a guildmate with co-owner access while the house was set to private. A friend or co-owner of the house was also still able to reveal the owner of the house.

I did not have time that day to test revealing guild and alliance mates in Trammel while outside of a house. I assume that is no longer possible.

 

[MalagAste]

Thanks so much for listening when I said we really needed to TEST the holiday stuff, guys. Really. I mean, its not like the angel is too far to the right to fit on top of Christmas trees EXACTLY LIKE I SAID IT WOULD BE. Or that the floating blinking lights feel incredibly disconnected EXACTLY LIKE I SAID THEY WOULD. Or even that the rocking horse's perspective isn't quite right EXACTLY LIKE I WAS WORRIED IT WAS.

Unfortunately Crysta... I don't think they care... seems to me the Art department for UO needs fired... and they need to hire folk who can actually do art in both clients. What's worse is they STILL haven't fixed Garlands from before and they place on the FLOOR in the EC... yes that's where I want my garlands... yeah. So I'm going to assume that putting blinky lights on them is not going to be possible either... That's nice.

They didn't listen about the co-owners either... there aren't enough co-owner slots on a house to make any difference with co-ownership... Yeah I can be co-owned to 10 houses..... BOO!!!!!! I can only have a few co-owners per house.... EPIC FAIL!

And another huge BOO to lack of forethought by the DEV's in that the angels are all the same color. No cool color variety ...... no "rare" colors to collect.... nada.

Sad isn't it?

 

[Skrag]

Just to voice my agreement with Poo and Tina as the dectect hidden changes will impact factions.

OMFG, Lore Denin still plays this game? I gotta derail this thread and say hello. I was Thorgrim in Ankh of Unity back... like... ten years ago. With you and Messenger and Maximus and Shadarious Hawk and Olga and all them. And that Heavens Ascending tower near Skara Brae before whatshisface got rid of it. You placed my first house and then transferred it to me because I didn't know what to do and we needed to be fast lest the spot get ninja'd.

Hi!

 

[N49ATV]

Yes but if someone is snooping your pack, as seen by a guildie etc, and you reveal them, why would it be aggressive? Or when a stealther comes into a spawn, and is a call man, as to when to raid. Its known that some guilds use blue spotters. I dont think revealing should be treated aggressive, if someone is sneaking around outside my house, in the front in the public street etc, am I a criminal if I walk over and ask them, wtf they are doing?

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

Whatever. I really don't care any more. I have six faction thieves on various shards that were just made obsolete because I'm not going to turn them red.

They have 100 Remove Trap skill, 100 Tracking, 100 Detect Hidden, 100 Hiding, 90 Stealthing, 80 Stealing, 50 Lockpicking, and the rest in Magery. I think it's absolutely stupid for me to have to kill defenseless characters on another of my accounts just to make those faction characters red so they can now detect an enemy's blue faction character spying in our base. I don't want to have murderous red characters, because my characters weren't built to do any kind of killing and especially because my guild usually joins TB or, occasionally, CoM.

Oh well. This was pretty much the last nail in the coffin for me with regards to participating in factions. I don't care about killing someone else's characters. Don't have the reflexes or competitiveness for it. Just cared about the sigils and finding the stealthers so my guildmates could kill them.

I guess it's no big deal. I'm just one person and probably very much in the minority regarding how I view this change. I'm sure there's gotta be some compelling reason for the change and in the end it will turn out to be good for the overall health of the game. One person who barely plays any more thinking it's pretty dumb is definitely not enough to back it out of production now. It apparently is a change that made sense to Bleak and company so who am I to question it.

Well to be fair, I did not say I agree with the change, just the logic of your previous statement. On a side note why are you trying to reveal non-orange players on your orange character? I would assume you are revealing in bases....or you would be revealing red characters. I am not entirely for this change as I said will just make my faction revealer red, not like it bothers me to much, except only way to kill is holy light....But again I do not really see a reason to reveal blue players on it so don't matter.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

Yes but if someone is snooping your pack, as seen by a guildie etc, and you reveal them, why would it be aggressive? Or when a stealther comes into a spawn, and is a call man, as to when to raid. Its known that some guilds use blue spotters. I dont think revealing should be treated aggressive, if someone is sneaking around outside my house, in the front in the public street etc, am I a criminal if I walk over and ask them, wtf they are doing?

Thieves "should" be revealable by anyone, since they can be agroed by anyone. As for the blue spotters thing, if you were going to kill this person you would be red, so it would not be difficult to track for them and then red's kill.

Don't understand why they made this change but in every case I can think of, it shouldn't make a difference.

 

[Lore Denin (GL)]

Just to voice my agreement with Poo and Tina as the dectect hidden changes will impact factions.

OMFG, Lore Denin still plays this game? I gotta derail this thread and say hello. I was Thorgrim in Ankh of Unity back... like... ten years ago. With you and Messenger and Maximus and Shadarious Hawk and Olga and all them. And that Heavens Ascending tower near Skara Brae before whatshisface got rid of it. You placed my first house and then transferred it to me because I didn't know what to do and we needed to be fast lest the spot get ninja'd.

Hi!

Hi Thorgrim! Consider it derailed!

It is great to see you are still travel the lands. My time playing is limited these days but I try to pop in when I have time. Messenger, Maximus, Olga and Shardarious are all long gone from these lands as are most of the old Ankh members. Destiny has recently returned but I am not sure you two would have crossed paths...

The mission of the Ankh of Unity remains, to complete the Timelord's Quest of uniting the shards of the multiverse to protect the True Universe which we are merely a reflection...

I remember that day we placed your first home and recall your Philosphy fit Blackthorn's views of personal freedom and choice. But though our philosophies disagreed, It was important that all views be represented in the Ankh and so you were a Philospher of Chaos within the ranks of Order...

I am still on Great Lakes but preparing to move to Origin to complete that quest. Here is a link to the White Stag if your interested in poorly written fan fiction and an update on what we are doing these days

Kingdom of Lore

PS: I have lost all humility and started naming Kingdom's after myself

 

[Tina Small]

Well to be fair, I did not say I agree with the change, just the logic of your previous statement. On a side note why are you trying to reveal non-orange players on your orange character? I would assume you are revealing in bases....or you would be revealing red characters. I am not entirely for this change as I said will just make my faction revealer red, not like it bothers me to much, except only way to kill is holy light....But again I do not really see a reason to reveal blue players on it so don't matter.

Uh, I guess both Lore Denin, Poo and I weren't clear enough.

Anyone who has actually been involved in factions on a shard where more than one faction is active has certainly run into the situation where the enemy uses a second account to put a character into an opposing faction for the purpose of spying on and/or harassing the other faction. For example, say I belong to TB and SL is also active on the shard. It's not at all unusual for someone whose main faction is SL to put a character in TB (and vice versa) for the purpose of placing TB's traps in locations that are difficult to find, raising the portcullis during a defense, stam-blocking defenders or inconveniently dropping obstacles during a defense, recalling in with a stronghold rune and killing other "blue" characters during a defense,and just in general being a nuisance to other members of the same faction. In this case, there are definitely BLUE characters INSIDE a faction base that you want to put out of action. You know by their actions or because they flat out tell you that they are there to cause you trouble. With this change, it becomes impossible to reveal these characters unless the detector is red, or as Lore indicated, perhaps if the detector has somehow flagged.

I'll never forget when our guild made new characters on Legends to put into factions a few years back. We joined Minax because TB was already "occupied." First time there were sigils in play, we went to Brit and what did we find? Our Minax traps all placed inside one of the town walls (we didn't have runes to get down there, as we were new to the shard) and outside the Brit stronghold there were 45 traps lined up: 15 TB traps, 15 SL traps, and 15 CoM traps. I made some nice silver that day yanking out traps and immediately started working on a second trap remover to put into TB to be able to lift Minax traps the next time "TB" wasted them inside the walls. And whenever we saw unknown blue Minax characters, you can be damn sure they were "kill on sight." It isn't essential to use traps, but once in a while yes, they would be nice to have and killing the traitor who's placing them where you can't reach them just makes sense, especially after you've looked up the character and see that it's got GM tinkering skill.

As I mentioned before, I've got zero interest in artificially turning my detectors red for the purpose of being able to detect blue faction spies. My detectors are supporting characters that steal sigils, track and reveal stealthers, and remove traps. They have almost no offensive or defensive capabilities (other than being able to hide and stealth). And to boot, most of my faction characters like this belong to TB.

I don't have any problem with the fact that people are able to create spy/traitor characters, either. It definitely adds to the fun and challenge in factions. But this change just feels like someone implemented it without thinking it through and probably just because someone whined about being revealed by a guildmate and wants to play in "easy mode." Yeah, it is sometimes a pain to have to coordinate with your mates to make sure you don't detect them in a tense situation, but that's the thinking and teamwork part of factions that I always used to love. This change eliminates a lot of the thinking and teamwork. It also makes it difficult or impossible to deal with stealther spies/traitors in your faction unless you happen to have a red detector or mage, which seem kinda out of place in at least some of the factions. (Some people don't think reds should even be allowed in any of the factions.) It's also a bit unsettling to think that we now have a skill that requires in some cases that your character must be a criminal before the skill can even be used, instead of making your character a criminal after you actually use the skill.

I hope this makes sense and I apologize that it's so long. Just want to make sure you understand what some of us have been trying to say. I'm pretty sure you've mentioned in the past that you've participated in factions, so I'm finding it a bit hard to believe that you've never run into this situation. It's not really that unusual to run into "spies"/"traitors" in factions and even developers who don't actually ever play UO should be able to grasp the concept.