[UO Herald] Publish 70.04 Available on Test Center 1 Today

[UO News]

Greetings,

Publish 70.4 will be available on Test Center 1 today. You can find the publish notes below.

At 4:00 pm EDT all servers will be brought offline, we anticipate the shards to be back online by 6:00 pm EDT.

We encourage you to check out what's new and thank you for your feedback.



Publish 70.4

Please join us on TC1 for a preview of our newest Theme Packs that can be purchased later this month.



Rustic Theme Pack

• Topiaries – goblin and llama – Entitled players can use clippers on a hedge and get the choice of a topiary
• Rustic Bench- Craftable
• Raised Garden Bed – a maintenance free garden bed to place your seeds in and walk away. No potions or daily care needed. There will be a reward giver set up in New Haven so you can get this item.
• Distillery – Craftable - Have a drink or two and tell us what you think.
• Board and Batten wall tiles – Housing Customization tool
• Access to the Encampment System – Commodity Broker or Pet Broker - Additional documents will be posted to explain this feature

Gothic Theme Pack

• Gargoyle Statues - Craftable
• Ritual Table - Craftable
• Chest of Sending – You can send anything in your house to the bank if the chest is locked down . There will be a reward giver set up in New Haven so you can get this item.
• Advanced Training Dummy – Craftable - Will train your weapon skills to 60.
• Gothic Wall Tiles – House customization tool
• Access to the Encampment System – Commodity Broker or Pet Broker - Additional documents will be posted to explain this feature

More...

 

[Symma]

Meh, was hoping to see some testing starting for Spring Cleaning.

 

[Eyes of Origin]

ugh does this mean both sets wont be able to be purchased together???
would be nice to know a head of time if they are seperate or not

 

[Eyes of Origin]

Meh, was hoping to see some testing starting for Spring Cleaning.

this too

 

[JC the Builder]

Did they ever say that all this stuff they were working on was going to have to be purchased? I just can't believe they are doing this. Are all content updates going to have to be bought now on?

When can I buy the Arena and Faction update?

 

[lucitus]

Please dont limit the access to the new broker systems, this is bad for the ingame economy. Item sets for sale are okay, also the chest, but this feature should be free for all.

 

[T-Hunt]

When will UO become F2P ?
Its heading that way now that you have to purchase updates...

 

[JC the Builder]

Why make it free to play when you can charge a subscription and for all the content!

 

[Demonous]

more items that u have to pay cash for... no thanks, every way that EA can think of to make money they'll sure do it

 

[Pinco]

Greetings,
We encourage you to check out what's new and thank you for your feedback.

actually there is nothing new

 

[Kayhynn]

I am under the impression, from seeing the theme packs listed individually on your account options, that they would be purchased seperately.

Question is, how much will they run. Or will this be an "anniversary" gift of sorts.

Charging people for a theme pack upgrade to access to the systems mention for commodity and pet broker just is wrong.

 

[Picus at the office]

Wow, what a nifty bunch of useless dev team work. Thanks for fixing the issues guys....

 

[olduofan]

Honestly spring cleaning would have been a lot more appealing to me....

Hope this doesn't cost a lot and hope they make the chest work as a bank box in your house other wise no point in having it imo

 

[Eyes of Origin]

Like I've said before, I dont mind paying for the boosters, but if they are being sold seperately, they better be damn cheap =/

And I agree, the pet broker thing shouldnt have to be purchased.

 

[Charin]

Honestly spring cleaning would have been a lot more appealing to me....

Hope this doesn't cost a lot and hope they make the chest work as a bank box in your house other wise no point in having it imo

From what they said its like a bag of sending with unlimited charges... locked down inside your house only....

 

[anvira]

Only issue with this is you have 6 accounts, x2 for each account at probably (just speculating)a miniumum of $5 per upgrade...

$60 bucks for more uselss features....kinda gripes me, but meh

 

[Tina Small]

I'm withholding judgment until I find out a few more things such as (1) cost for each theme pack; (2) how the encampment system is going to work and whether or not accounts that haven't been upgraded with either theme pack can purchase items through the encampment system (i.e., you just need the upgrade to actually put stuff on a vendor or into the system for sale); (3) what content/fixes are planned for the next several publishes; and (4) whether there is going to be a reduction in the regular subscription rates (seems doubtful, especially if they just had a sale a few months ago on 6-month game time codes).

I am not at all happy about the raised garden bed item because of the impact it is going to have on the alchemist profession and gardening in general. I fear that releasing this item is going to eventually cause a number of people who have specialized in those aspects of UO to see a big drop in demand for the things they produce and some of them will quit as a result unless EA comes up with some additional uses for alchemy and other gardening activities that require more time/dedication than the raised gardening beds promise to require.

I wonder what other time and resource-saving goodies the team has up their sleeve and what they expect people who benefit from them to do in UO with their new-found extra time and gold.

*Puts on tin-foil hat.*

I wonder if the dev team has plans to start requiring you to carry reagents for spell casting and maybe also eliminate the faction reg vendors. If so, they might figure that would put too much demand on the regular reg vendors and they need to knock gardeners out of the picture as reg users.

 

[Lynk]

You're not going to charge me $12.99 per month per account and then charge me extra for crap like this.

Either its F2P or you charge me monthly.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

Wait, people are surprised that we will have to pay extra for such pathetic content (that yes, should be free)? Seriously?

If you haven't realized that EA was out to screw you by now...

 

[jbfortune]

We'll probably be charged for bug fixes next.

"Don't want your items to disappear? Tired of lagging and your sever going down? Buy the new UO Booster"

 

[puni666]

Where are the parts that effect game play? I'm not testing something you're going to charge me for unless it's a full expansion or you make some progress on your endless beta version of this game. Add content not crap thx.

 

[Picus at the office]

None of this content, much like the last booster, has any content which I find worthy. I find it sad that this is the best crap that the Dev team can come out with. Like others have said just make it F2P or give us real content, fix the issues and do a better job or soon enough the team will be out of a job and we will all be on the free shards...what a complete screw up that would be.

 

[Moonstar]

I am dissapointed but not surprised.
So the ones marked as craftable.. I am guessing you have to have the content pack to be able to craft them or use them?
Did i get kicked out of my server for 2 hours because of this? I don't appreciate paying to play and then not being able to play so they can add content that i wouldnt even get to use w/o paying extra for?
What about Spring cleaning? or a fix for that house security problem? I really hope there is something more to this lock out.

 

[Tanivar]

Considering it's only been 6 months since we were shafted with High Seas at $15 a shaft, they are being really out of touch with reality if they think people are going to buy anything sight unseen from them.

We heard the rave advertising from them about High Seas, then saw the reality of High Seas over the months following it's release. I'm going to wait until the new sucker packages been out a few months before I even consider buying one.

Still regret not having done that with High Seas.

 

[whiterabbit]

Dey steals dis idea of theme parks from the pitmuck goblins !!! wees make usins own park/palyground months ago.

Ozog

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

The backlash against these crap boosters could have been almost completely eliminated it the Dev Team bothered to leave their ivory tower and mingle with the p(l)ayers. Simply having real conversations with us instead of the crap posts they generally make would go a looooooong way toward ameliorating the growing dissent and bad feelings.


Hell, bothering to have a focus group might be a good idea too. There was one for a while, notsomuch anymore.


This game needs leadership with the balls to step up to the plate and communicate, not hide behind secrecy and childishness.

 

[Storm]

F2p sucks I have tried playing a few of them evony,dnd etc and you will end up paying way way more if you want to do anything worth a crud in the game ultima goes f2p like these others are and That will be it for me for sure !

 

[Viquire]

All shards were up except TC just a second ago. hmmmmmm

 

[Metalstorm]

The raised garden bed has me intrigued.

I have lost at least 90% of every plant I started due to not being able to log in often enough to properly care for them (which is fitting since in the real world, in my family of green thumbs, I'm the lone black thumb when it comes to plant life. Even cactus shudder before me).
So that alone might be worth it to me.

The still also has me intrigued due to when I was a little boy listening to my Grandma telling me wonderful stories about how she would distract the cops while Grandpa and his boys would make the rounds back in the prohibition days. Her generation had all the fun

 

[Lord Gareth]

Better have updated house foundations that we have waited years for or I'm not buying!







I will.....I will prolly break down and do one account...whatever

 

[puni666]

p(l)ayers

 

[MedeaDF]

@Version no.:
What now? 70.04 or 70.4? (j/k)

@Raised Garden Bed:
Is it one seed per bed? Or 10 seeds or even more? Or do you have to have some of them locked down in your house? Is that even possible? Getting the items through a reward giver sounds to me like 1 item/character, right? Can I use a garden bed even if I don't have the new theme pack/booster?

Same questions for craftables - I would have to have the pack/booster, right, but can I use the item without the pack/booster?

@Encampment System:
Wow, if this is gonna be "you have to buy it"-stuff, hrmm...

@Housing tiles in general:
Please DEVs, check the actual tiles we already have, and do us a favour and make those sets really complete! Some of them are complete, but most of them aren't, unfortunately - and I'm talking about the roofs too. Thank you for listening!

 

[Lord Gareth]

Rustic Theme Pack


Gothic Theme Pack


Both have different items listed below them so probably going to separate but if they think I am going to pay anywhere near the price I did for "High Seas" they should put a Help Wanted sign in the Market Team window.

 

[Remo_Williams]

Not sure i like the raised garden addition. If your doing gardening for the potential of actually paying expenses by selling resources then this is a screwjob. If your doing it just for fun well i guess maybe you still can but it just seems wierd.

 

[wee papa smurf]

Personally i dont mind paying for booster packs or whatever, anything to help the cause

 

[Storm]

What a few of us do that have multi accounts is close one count for a month and pay for it then activate the account the next month .. so no extra cost . just saying what i do

 

[Lord Gareth]

Changed my mind I'm buying 5
​

Ritual Table - Craftable
Gargoyle Statues - Craftable

 

[Hell's Ironworks]

LOL all these posts make me laugh.

One Nice buster pack ever 6 months that cost ~ £7 and your moaning.....? Its like £1 extra a month for a whole load of new contents, Would you prefer EA put the price up every month by £1 in accordance with inflation and the recession??????

Plus im pretty sure this server down for EVERY shard is to address the issue with shard transfer bug that they have obviously just found due to them suspending xfer untill its fixed after reports of a problem from players for the last week. You should be happy they found the falt, took the servers down and are now fixing it.

Why you all moan so much is beyond me, if your that fed up with EA F&$K OFF and quit, 90% of us will still be here playing and paying the 3 pence a day for more contents.... If you cant afford 5cent a day for that you really should be paying the rent on your trailor or you medical insurance than playing a game.... HAHA You snooze you looze, get a damn job.

/Signed OUT

Thunderz

Why all this ******baggery?

Peeps are pissed off ( with reason ) because it really seems like all the devs have been working on these past months are things that have to be purchased , instead of fixing bugs , adding content , updating quests...

And btw i would gladly pay 1 buck a month more if it meant they would stop charging me for content. It would feel much less like a scam.

 

[Pinco]

Why all this ******baggery?

Peeps are pissed off ( with reason ) because it really seems like all the devs have been working on these past months are things that have to be purchased , instead of fixing bugs , adding content , updating quests...

And btw i would gladly pay 1 buck a month more if it meant they would stop charging me for content. It would feel much less like a scam.

like the last hoc shown, people WANTS more item for sale...

however I think that adding contents is useless since everything they can add became old in few days maybe a week... they should improve the existing content in order to make it more random, add more unexpected things...
for example I'd really like to see an endless champion that became harder and harder

 

[nynyve]

"So," she says snippily--"Not only do we have to pay for the still, but we need to have a thief to make it or use it? If you expect us to pay extra for this, then it should be useable without special skills."

I don't mind paying for a still, but then needing a thief is a little much. And please people who object to this comment, please do not equate carpentry, smithing, and tinkering with the thief skill.

I could have sworn that our subscription was paying for basics like access to the vendor system and new items from time to time. it seems that I have been misinformed.

Yes I play Farmville--and no I don't spend any money on it.

You want me to pay--give me a marble bench, some top quality magic items, and more attractive items instead of yet another set of gray and brown set of house tiles. And let me buy just what I want, not what you folks think I should have.

But on the other hand we really should have expected EA to want to cash in on the hottest Internet phenomenon--"MICRO TRANSACTIONS!!!" AKA Cash Cow!

However watching the inevitable bugs that will ensue as people try to buy these bundles from UO Game Codes should be educational.

And for the record I am not against micro transactions. I would probably have paid for the still if I could have used it without a thief, the planter, and possibly the bench. But I won't because I am now being charged an extra fee to access what I think should be a basic service. Ironically, I think that if done properly, micro transactions could give UO a boost.

However if I am wrong, I will apologize and eat the crow now.

 

[Apetul]

Meh, was hoping to see some testing starting for Spring Cleaning.

this too

this!

 

[Hell's Ironworks]

like the last hoc shown, people WANTS more item for sale...

Im sure they do. But i, like 99% of the rest of the player base wasent there.

If they want some real feedback thay can just implement a pop up poll upon logging in like i have seen in other games.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

like the last hoc shown, people WANTS more item for sale...

Really?

So the presence of a small amount of people asking about purchasable items somehow equates to "Please, all of your players are just dieing to give you more money for access to in-game systems?"

I mean, no offense...

No, screw that... to offend... Charging for access to the pet vendor system and the commodity vendor system is cheap. Splitting them into two different "boosters" so that you HAVE to buy both in order to access both is beyond cheap. It's ******baggery.

I can't wait to see what price tag they're going to put on these sorry excuses for keeping UO afloat.

I've so much more venom to spit about this, but you know, I just don't care about UO that much anymore. There's little reason to. Clearly the developers no longer do, and that's about all there is to say about it.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

@Housing tiles in general:
Please DEVs, check the actual tiles we already have, and do us a favour and make those sets really complete! Some of them are complete, but most of them aren't, unfortunately - and I'm talking about the roofs too. Thank you for listening!

They will absolutely, positively, beyond almost no shadow of a doubt EVER getting around to doing this.

They've had people ask them to do this for so long it's not even funny. They've had them ask people for fixes that would make the SA artwork a bit cleaner (take a look at the various gargish staircases in SA with all their goofy dangling bits for an example), and yet, while half a dozen people right here in the forums could take the five, ten minutes it would take per piece of artwork to fix the errors in them, apparently the "art team" can't find the time to fix these issues.

Of course, that is because apparently Mythic must outsource all of the major artwork and then greenlight and pay for the craptastic errors they get back.

I don't even know what Grimm Omen's job on the "art team" is anymore, but it surely has nothing to do with quality, art, responsibility, or anything even remotely related to those three words.

 

[Tina Small]

Charging for access to the pet vendor system and the commodity vendor system is cheap. Splitting them into two different "boosters" so that you HAVE to buy both in order to access both is beyond cheap. It's ******baggery.

Has anyone confirmed yet that you only have access to one type of vendor with each pack, i.e., in order to access both types of brokers you have to buy BOTH packs?

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Goodie Goodie Goodie

When is the random adventure and exploration packet coming out. Or maybe I should just redecorate, brew, and grow a flower. FUN FUN FUN.

ARGH.

 

[5% Luck]

I do enjoy fishing but I did not pick up high seas.

That said I do enjoy gardening and I will be picking up the "gardening pack"

See with these types of upgrades its a choice. It wont limit you soo much as to tend the game unplayable. Heck I still fish for pearls. But no alchemy gardening that is something....

 

[RaDian FlGith]

Has anyone confirmed yet that you only have access to one type of vendor with each pack, i.e., in order to access both types of brokers you have to buy BOTH packs?

Confirmed, no... but if the "Encampment System" (and, by the way, what the hell kind of name is that anyway? Under what bloody ****ing definition of the word "encampment" does "someone standing around selling wares" pop up?) doesn't require a choice between the two vendor types, they have a really bad way of describing it by using the word "OR" in their description of two different boosters with access to the same system that appears to have a choice by way of the word "OR."

But then, now that I'm reflecting, they seldom have anyone working that can post patch notes that don't look like they were translated directly from their Japanese master copy.

And on further reflection, perhaps they're calling it the "Encampment System" because in order to use it, you'll have to have Legendary Camping, thus, finally, 14 years later, providing a "useful" feature to the camping skill.

I'd say I was being sarcastic, but this is the Dark Age of Ultima, so I'm probably not nearly as far off base with my sarcasm as I am instead providing ideas for future "micro mini booster expansions."

 

[RaDian FlGith]

But no alchemy gardening that is something....

I am curious as to whether that special vendor will sell you multiple copies of the gardening bed, or if it's a "go pick up your one-time only gardening bed" that you get only one of.

And... that sort of irks me too...

Why not make the stupid thing a craftable so as to encourage some level of player interaction to sort of replace the destruction of a certain level of player interaction?

Then again... I digress... I'm wondering stuff about a game whose developers are so off base that they're playing basketball with a hockey puck and calling themselves the Chicago Cubs.

 

[Pinco]

ahahahah
the most hated stealable item that needs to make the distillery is the copper wire