Sneak Peek

[Lord Nabin]

The UO communtity as a whole complains about X. When they do so inevitably some/most come here to talk about how goofed X is. The Dev Team sees it, adresses it, realays the info back to the ones they saw complaining about it... who then head in game and tells friend of their and so on and so on. At least the communication is getting better from the team {as Jeff said it would}. Sorry, but it just seems to me nothing they do is good enough these days.

Keep up the good work guys/gals .... ALOT of us really appreciate it but it ain't blind!

I totally agree nothing ever seems good enough! Heck yeah we appreciate all the hard work of the Devs!

 

[Lord Nabin]

The UO communtity as a whole complains about X. When they do so inevitably some/most come here to talk about how goofed X is. The Dev Team sees it, adresses it, realays the info back to the ones they saw complaining about it... who then head in game and tells friend of their and so on and so on. At least the communication is getting better from the team {as Jeff said it would}. Sorry, but it just seems to me nothing they do is good enough these days.

Keep up the good work guys/gals .... ALOT of us really appreciate it but it ain't blind!

I could not agree with this more.

Thanks Dev team for listening and responding to the real issues and complaints that provide excellent solutions!

I know you work hard and with little thanks. Being a player since Ultima 1!

You are what keeps this alive!

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

Yeah, silly me for wanting the entire community to benefit from such an announcement, or the estimation of the Dev's responsiveness to increase outside the self-important Stratics clique.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

Like the title said, Sneak Peek, just a little "leak" in front of the official Herald statement release, it was her personal post, I say thanks for hangin' out with us.

 

[AirmidCecht]

Let's try to stay on topic of Mesanna's post please

 

[NuSair]

I would hands down pay for extra storage like that. not to mention the fun in the basement I well the alcolytes could have

I'd want to see what Flutter does to her/in her basement.

 

[Lord Nabin]

I'd want to see what Flutter does to her/in her basement.

I will give you that one.

It would be a classic webcam opportunity

 

[Raptor85]

· Faction armor distribution - Faction Armor will now cost silver and we removed faction rank restrictions for wearing faction artifacts

A shame, with everyone not wearing rank 10 artys PVP was becoming fun on siege again, looks like shard pvp is about to fully die again and everyone runs back to ATL...no real interest in farming 80k silver per suit to keep myself equipped....

 

[ShadowTrauma]

Thanks for letting us in on a little "sneak peak", always refreshing to hear from devs in general. Looking forward to what else may be in our future and doing some testing.

 

[Poo]

ahh double post!

 

[Goodmann]

So there killing regular artifact is what there saying, no pro v con to wearing faction gear in trammel??? If your in faction you should be an OJ anywhere simple as that

 

[Frarc]

Happy Friday Everyone,

I wanted to touch base with you guys and let you know what is going on and what you can look forward to in a couple of weeks on TC1. I also want to let you know that early next week we will be putting out a few fixes during a maintenance cycle.

Early next week we will be publishing the following fixes:

· Point decay (city and virtue)
· Siege Perilous Covetous Level 3 spawn

In approx 2 weeks we will be putting the following on TC1, I hope you guys have time to go check out the changes and give us your feedback.

· Faction armor distribution - Faction Armor will now cost silver and we removed faction rank restrictions for wearing faction artifacts
· Faction point system distribution – Points will now be distributed to multiple faction members when participating in killing faction enemies via healing and direct damage.
· Three (3) new ways to gain City loyality.
· A new craftable improved version of the communication crystals.

And last but not least, I know there has been a lot of buzz about the land where Blackthorns castle was, but I can assure you guys it is not a prime location for housing. MINE!!

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYONE!

Looking forward to that.

 

[jskalski]

· Point decay (city and virtue)
· Siege Perilous Covetous Level 3 spawn

Someones been reading posts on UHall I see...

From time to time.

 

[NuSair]

Then please tell me y'all found a way to limit/prevent trammies from running around in faction gear.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

· A new craftable improved version of the communication crystals.
Is it weird that I'm really excited about this?

Next logical step is adding video, like the ultimate ghost cam. drop some off in a dungeon and watch the action while Luna sitting.

 

[AirmidCecht]

From time to time.

Hey Gyphon! How's it going? Any news from your travels to EA? Hrmmm?

 

[Lord Frodo]

Then please tell me y'all found a way to limit/prevent trammies from running around in faction gear.

Why shouldn't they be able to, when they were doing it before they wiped all the Faction points.

 

[Madrid]

What needs to happen is the Dev Team needs to install a Kotex dispenser in Felucca. I'm going to go ahead and generalize regarding some of the posts above...

These friggin' guys (PvPers and Fellucan's-see posts above) cry 10x more than the trammelites do about not having this and wanting that. Who cares if Trammies wear faction artifacts in Trammel?

If all the Feluccans (PvPers) cared about was PvPing in Felucca then who the hell cares what equipment players who prefer to play on the Trammel are wearing? Especially when it has no effect on you...

All that's going to happen is they have access to content that you now already have access to. The term envy and covetousness are two of the terms that come to mind when I see PvP'ers in uproar about the possibility of Trammelites wearing faction items.

Riddle me this...Riddle me that: "If these Fellucans/PvPers are such tough guys why do they cry so damn much?"

Perhaps making faction artifacts available to all will create more of a level playing field and promote more PvP? Do the Feluccans ever look at it that way....Hell No. Feluccans want to be special and have access to content not available to the majority of the playerbase which has been the status quo now for all too long (i.e.Powerscrolls). Felucan's are like a 3 year old babies cryin' about what the other kid has.

Neither facet should have anything the other facet does not that's the bottom line. For some odd reason players who consider themselves primarily PvPers/Feluccan's feel they are entitled to something more or special and Trammelites shouldn't have access to it. We hear it and see it in posts time and time again. Just because someone chooses a certain playstyle doesn't make it any more valuable or qualitative than the playstyle another player chooses.

The most falicious argument in the history of Ultima Online is that Feluccans don't have access to trammel content. No one in all of UO has 6-7 characters that are all RED. Maybe one or two nutjobs do...

Feluccans have just as much access to Trammel and have Bards, Sampires, Tamers etc that roam the trammel facets and do PvM they just also happen to have characters that PvP. The difference is the trammelites don't want anything to do with Felucca because of the anti-social and sociopathic behavior that goes on their the majority of the time.

I'm glad to see the Devs making whatever content they produce available to all players and not to players who prefer one facet over another.

Now turn on those Powerscrolls in Trammel!

 

[Raptor85]

Now turn on those Powerscrolls in Trammel!

Only if they first mirror 5 other facets in Fel as well. No? I can create a new character to play there?....well..then you can create another character to come to Fel to get power scrolls then...or just come yourself, there's no magic game mechanic keeping YOUR character from coming to fel.

 

[Raptor85]

Way to stay on the ball... only a month or 4 late? (continues not playing)

yeah, the only people that will appease are those that whined about losing free rank 10 artifact use....and they're for the most part already gone out of factions. For those of us who came BACK and started pvping on OSI shards again when the change was implemented it'll pretty much drive us elsewhere again, If i wanted to pvm I'd be blue, I don't want stone on taming and hang out in the demon room with a CU for 8 hours per suit, there's a lot more of us fighting now than there were before as everyone only having rank1 items and imbued gear and treating the rank 4-10 stuff as a temp bonus until you fall from the lead is making the fights a lot more fun, and there's actually reasons to fight over punkte and faction bases again...

 

[Viper09]

The UO communtity as a whole complains about X. When they do so inevitably some/most come here to talk about how goofed X is. The Dev Team sees it, adresses it, realays the info back to the ones they saw complaining about it... who then head in game and tells friend of their and so on and so on. At least the communication is getting better from the team {as Jeff said it would}. Sorry, but it just seems to me nothing they do is good enough these days.

Keep up the good work guys/gals .... ALOT of us really appreciate it but it ain't blind!

I second that.

 

[Madrid]

Only if they first mirror 5 other facets in Fel as well. No? I can create a new character to play there?

Yeah Mirroring all shards would be fine with me. It's really the way it should have been done from the beginning with all content being available to all players on every facet.

From the Devs Team perspective I'm not sure why they'd want to Mirror the other facets when everyone knows damn well they're gong to be deserted. You know it and I know it.

What really should happen in PvP is the turning on of Order/Chaos. It was a great and simple system and the Dev was a knumbskull who did away with it.

....well..then you can create another character to come to Fel to get power scrolls then...or just come yourself, there's no magic game mechanic keeping YOUR character from coming to fel.

As far as getting powerscrolls yeah I've farmed to my hearts content on a shard that is absolutely secluded and then I transfer them over to my home shard or a shard I know they will sell on. So yeah I just came by myself to a deserted Felucca Shard and there was no magic game mechanic that stopped me from farming power scrolls in perpetuity.

Bottom line is I got my powerscrolls and made many of millions selling powerscrolls. I'm not happy about having to transfer over to a secluded shard in order to do it but that's what I did and will do if the Dev Team continues to add content to one facet and not make it available to another.

 

[Sauteed Onion]

Well seeing as how this is getting ate with some tram vs. fel discussions, I'll toss in an idea that will benefit both trammel and fel players.
Give us a bag or belt item that let's us put our spellbooks in them! I'm a mage, and just like alot of people carry multiple weapons I carry multiple books.. sometimes I die, and those books just SCATTER all over the meowin place. Make these bags or belt items insureable or blessable, and their function is so that your books stay in them if you die, just like arrows do in quivers.. Or give us the option to make our spell books blessed or not, and if we choose to insure them to keep them from flopping all over that would help too (if the belt/bag/sash idea isn't feasible).

 

[Flutter]

I'd want to see what Flutter does to her/in her basement.

You couldn't handle it.

 

[Flutter]

I have a question about "faction armor will now cost silver"
Faction armor costs silver already... so.. ?

As far as the other attempts at fixes for the faction system, I wish this had come before everyone quit. Sadly without even a whisper of a change in the wind a lot of very good pvpers quit already. *sigh*

 

[Picus of Napa]

What needs to happen is the Dev Team needs to install a Kotex dispenser in Felucca. I'm going to go ahead and generalize regarding some of the posts above...

These friggin' guys (PvPers and Fellucan's-see posts above) cry 10x more than the trammelites do about not having this and wanting that. Who cares if Trammies wear faction artifacts in Trammel?

If all the Feluccans (PvPers) cared about was PvPing in Felucca then who the hell cares what equipment players who prefer to play on the Trammel are wearing? Especially when it has no effect on you...

The real reason that anyone who plays in factions cares about arties in tram is because under it all those chars who are using the stuff should provide another potential person to ingage in faction fighting in the first place. That char joined factions and should not be reaping the rewards from joining unless they join the part of the game which is semi non-consentual pvp. Clearly these chars are more targeted towards the PvM aspect of the game so the downside of using this guy over a straight PvP type is the chance that some random other faction player finds you and a fight ensues. You win or lose, more fun if you kill the guy or annoyance and dismay if you lose.

 

[Petra Fyde]

Can we postbone the hijacking of the thread into the usual 'bash whoever plays the facet you don't' flamefest till the change goes on test center?

I'm curious about the communications crystal idea. I remember with a smile a certain Europa PK, Senji, who had a house near Yew Lich with vendors and a communication crystal picking up when anyone said 'vendor buy'. Which roughly translated to 'recall home there's a victim on your doorstep'

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

I'm curious about the communications crystal idea. I remember with a smile a certain Europa PK, Senji, who had a house near Yew Lich with vendors and a communication crystal picking up when anyone said 'vendor buy'. Which roughly translated to 'recall home there's a victim on your doorstep'

Now that is a creative individual there. Gold from the purchase, gold from the kill, and whatever was on the vendor was probably uninsured - so gold on the resell

 

[Raptor85]

Now that is a creative individual there. Gold from the purchase, gold from the kill, and whatever was on the vendor was probably uninsured - so gold on the resell

if people were buying stuff out there and had to use "vendor buy" to do so there's a higher than not chance that this was WELL before insurance.

I'm curious as well though, my circle of com crystals in my house could use an upgrade

 

[Redxpanda]

Can we please take a look at what is going on with melee and/or remove the magical *whiff* armor from monsters. I can't believe this has not been looked into yet. A warrior at 120 weapon skill and 30 HCI should not miss Earth Elementals and Mud Pies 3-4 times in a row.

 

[Madrid]

Petra I'm not trying to highjack or change the topic of this thread. There wouldn't be any of these damn Trammel vs. Felucca threads if all content was available to all players regardless of facet that's pretty much the point I'm advocating. Leveling the playing field is a step in the right direction and I'm all for it but there are players crying about it calling "foul" and it's hard to stay quiet about it.

Also It should be noted players risk life and limb when farming silver in Felucca in order to obtain faction items. I farm the silver in Felucca and therefore I should be able to wear the artifacts wherever I please as I took the 'risk' and there was an oppurtunity for "semi non-consenual" PvP (See Post #77) whatever that means? Semi non-consensual is that an oxymoron? I'm trying to think and put in in another context....semi-non-consensual sex....hmm. No I think it's either consensual or non-consensual. The fact that players are forced to Felucca to obtain certain content is a seperate issues entirely.

All the hardcore PvP'ers needs to do is keep an eye on the places where silver can be farmed (Don't worry I'll be farming on a secluded shard and transferring it over in bulk to sell to the masses).

.

 

[Picus of Napa]

You spend 30 minutes in fel farming silver and then you can use the faction arties for the rest of the game without actually ever playing in factions? How is the right? In theory you could dodge the faction fight but using the stuff till the servers stop running. The fighting should should cross into tram if you joined factions and it boggles my mind why this wasn't part of the game the date faction arties went in, that was a dev mistake and has lead us to this silly discussion.

 

[AirmidCecht]

The whole point of the post was to give a heads up on what to expect on TC1 next week

So, TC1 = TEST Center eh?

I know any hot topic is going to be met with heated opinions but stop and think before you post. Why is Mesanna giving a sneak peek?

Players have been wanting communication. There ya go.

Players have been complaining about the current faction system. There ya go.

Players have "communication" crystal enhancements coming? Coincidence? Who knows, but there ya go.

Have your discussions and debate, but more importantly ask questions and give constructive input so you get more communication in return.

I can't imagine anyone saying 'Talk to us more! Oh, but I'm sorry, its too late, we're already gone.' Acknowledge that the dev team needs constructive input on what is or is not working and understand that is it just one element in a mixture of things to test.

There have been more than few stating that frustration was building. Do you want to shut down and turn the cold shoulder or continue to build on what we enjoy?

No one wants the player base to diminish. Not anyone who enjoys UO and certainly not the UO team who want us to enjoy it and succeed. Start from there and let them talk with you without fear of over aggressive anger. They don't need to be shielded from the truth as 'some' might suggest, but I wouldn't hold a discussion with anyone shouting at me when a simple sit down over coffee (or ale) would suffice.

 

[Fig_The_Ancient]

And last but not least, I know there has been a lot of buzz about the land where Blackthorns castle was, but I can assure you guys it is not a prime location for housing. MINE!!

Does that include the lizard caves and lake underneath the castle?

 

[Petra Fyde]

lizard caves and lake? I don't know anything about those, are they shard specific?

 

[BeaIank]

· Three (3) new ways to gain City loyality.

Please, please tell me that at least two of the new ways will be worth as many points as arresting rioters and won't involve killing anything or any sort of violence, but will do with helping the poor and the city itself, pretty pretty please with sugar on top.
If that's the case, I will happily grind my way towards venerated on my cities of choice with a big grin on my face.

I never understood why feeding or giving gold to the poor was worth so few loyalty points.

 

[FrejaSP]

· Siege Perilous Covetous Level 3 spawn
Thanks

· Faction armor distribution - Faction Armor will now cost silver and we removed faction rank restrictions for wearing faction artifacts
· Faction point system distribution – Points will now be distributed to multiple faction members when participating in killing faction enemies via healing and direct damage.
I'm worried about this two. Siege had been getting more players the last months and the last thing we need is more faction items on Siege.
To make Siege alive, we can't let faction have advance in PvP. There is alot PvP between faction and nonfaction. It's not fair, that faction can loot and use non factions victims items but non factions can't use a factions players items if he loot it.
Many reds are both faction and red. They join faction to get more fights, that's fine but not if they join it to get advance in PvP vs non faction.
Be careful what you do to Siege, you may kill the shard. Not all want to be forced to be in faction.

· A new craftable improved version of the communication crystals.
Look forward to this, I miss the old version of communication crystals, I remember running with one in my backpack linked to one in my guildhouse. I also remember it being able to translate OooOoOO
Sure the chats we have now did help but there may still be need for the crystals, special at player events.
Maybe also as a kind of doorbell, so if anyone at your home and you have a crystal in your backpack linket to it, a guest could call you.

 

[Tina Small]

· A new craftable improved version of the communication crystals.

It would be very cool if this was referring to a component that is part of a new in-game mail system or a vendor search system. However, I will be beyond irritated if that is what these are and crafting them requires using materials that are difficult to obtain and therefore the crystals and whatever communication system they support end up only being available to a limited number of players. Of if you can only use them if you own a house on a shard and can lock them down.

If this item is going to be something that most players will want, I hope the dev team would consider just adding them to the items you can buy from jeweler NPCs. Too many shards have become literal ghost towns where it's impossible to find player-run vendors selling crafted items.

 

[NuSair]

Why shouldn't they be able to, when they were doing it before they wiped all the Faction points.

There are still some trammies who do it. There were so many bots with points on Atlantic and the ability to share/farm points. While not as many currently, there are still a few running around.

If they remove the point requirement and just make it cost silver, they will all be back and even more now, I fear.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

So, TC1 = TEST Center eh?

That's been used for years now, and there may be more than one, some even have suffix, such as "TC9 Pub42"

~welcome to UO

 

[NuSair]

You couldn't handle it.

heh, and just how do you know that?

 

[Tina Small]

There are still some trammies who do it. There were so many bots with points on Atlantic and the ability to share/farm points. While not as many currently, there are still a few running around.

If they remove the point requirement and just make it cost silver, they will all be back and even more now, I fear.

Maybe this change will also make faction elections a more interesting and dangerous process, since the Commanding Lord can determine if anyone even gets silver from kills, removing traps, etc. I know you already needed to use silver to buy the items, but maybe the prices will change too.

 

[Tina Small]

· Three (3) new ways to gain City loyality.

Maybe after all that rioting, the towns are going to start looking even shabbier around the edges and craftsmen will be able to gain loyalty by running around and repairing items in the towns or you will be able to donate crafting materials.

 

[Larisa]

That would be great!

Frankly I am down for whatever Mesanna and the Dev's have in mind.

Did She say Think Mine? *off to get my miner ready*

LOL no she said:

And last but not least, I know there has been a lot of buzz about the land where Blackthorns castle was, but I can assure you guys it is not a prime location for housing. MINE!!

Meaning that the area is hers.....not anyone elses.....maybe a Dark Queen Castle will go up in it's place....Sosaria's new ruler?? Mesanna takes the throne...*shudders*

Thanks for the update Lady!

 

[NuSair]

Petra I'm not trying to highjack or change the topic of this thread. There wouldn't be any of these damn Trammel vs. Felucca threads if all content was available to all players regardless of facet that's pretty much the point I'm advocating. Leveling the playing field is a step in the right direction and I'm all for it but there are players crying about it calling "foul" and it's hard to stay quiet about it.

Also It should be noted players risk life and limb when farming silver in Felucca in order to obtain faction items. I farm the silver in Felucca and therefore I should be able to wear the artifacts wherever I please as I took the 'risk' and there was an oppurtunity for "semi non-consenual" PvP (See Post #77) whatever that means? Semi non-consensual is that an oxymoron? I'm trying to think and put in in another context....semi-non-consensual sex....hmm. No I think it's either consensual or non-consensual. The fact that players are forced to Felucca to obtain certain content is a seperate issues entirely.

All the hardcore PvP'ers needs to do is keep an eye on the places where silver can be farmed (Don't worry I'll be farming on a secluded shard and transferring it over in bulk to sell to the masses).

.

Risk life and what??? On Atlantic I continuously ran into people afk farming silver. Mostly in Hyloth. There is no more risk in farming silver than there is farming any other resource .

As for making the sides equal... why? Players make a choice, you CHOOSE to be red. Players know a head of time what the restrictions that come with that play choice. That was supposed to be part of the reason not to do it. As much as all the enticements they have added to fel to get people to go there. (that being said, i am completely against the double resources in trammel... actually against it in general).

And it should be noted that I am a trammy- I rarely pvp and I am completely against the lameness of people who don't honestly participate in factions wearing faction gear.

 

[NuSair]

Too many shards have become literal ghost towns where it's impossible to find player-run vendors selling crafted items.

For YEARS my wife and I ran vendor shops with all kinds of basic crafted stuff (all kinds of furniture, scrolls, house add ons, ect) to the point where even just the base 60 gold per day they were losing money on vendor fees. And we decided that it wasn't worth the time or effort anymore to do it.

 

[NuSair]

Why shouldn't they be able to, when they were doing it before they wiped all the Faction points.

And I didn't like it then. And I said so more than a few times to various members of the dev team or head guys.

It's about taking something that is supposed to be for a specific purpose and not paying the price/cost of using it.

To have a player who never participates in factions, doesn't have to deal with the stat loss in death and doesn't have to worry about getting attacked by an opposing faction in Tram, YET getting the bonus/advantage of using faction armor? Really? That's complete and utter BS. Why bother putting the time and effort into getting a Crimson Cincture or buying one from another player when you can just get one from an NPC that's BETTER and there is absolutely NO RISK involved.

That is why.

 

[Salivern_Diago]

Thank you for the sneak peek Mesanna!

Now everyone is bemoaning about the faction arties without giving much thought to it. I would say its pretty obvious that the Devs are not as silly to just give anyone with silver a beefed up artefact and I would have thought that the players here would realise that. What I expect to happen is that Faction Arties will be limited in some way... either brittle/cursed or unrepairable which would give the incentive to farm silver regularly for those who wear the armour. There could be other limitation too, but who knows.. its a sneek peek so no-one other than the Dev's know what going to happen.. so why moan and complain about something that you have no idea on what its going to be yet?

Personally I think its great that Mesanna is giving us a little titbit of info about the forthcoming updates and UO hasnt seen this level of recent updates/corrections for years. For me UO is going forward and becoming great again!!

Keep it up devs!!

 

[FrejaSP]

I'm curious about the communications crystal idea. I remember with a smile a certain Europa PK, Senji, who had a house near Yew Lich with vendors and a communication crystal picking up when anyone said 'vendor buy'. Which roughly translated to 'recall home there's a victim on your doorstep'

LOL to funny

 

[Heimi]

Not everyone wants to put their Trammel guilds into Factions, or leave their Trammel guilds just to get the artifacts. Have people already forgotten how ridiculously easy it was to use Faction artifacts on non-PVP characters before the change? You just got a friend or paid someone with billions of points to let you kill them once and you were set for life. On some shards you didn't even need to kill anyone, depending which Faction you joined. No doubt it's true that PVPers are the best customers for high-end items, but in my opinion the market will just go back to what it was before the point change, i.e. before the demand for arties like M&S glasses and Crimson Cinctures increased 1000% because of people who couldn't maintain rank. I assume also that the silver price of Faction arties will be increased to reflect the rank removal, which makes them slightly harder to obtain, but we'll have to wait and see - it's going to TC1, and the devs have been getting slightly better about tweaking things before they roll out onto real shards so that may not be implemented yet.