Five on Friday Answers

[Pawain]

They are on the UO Discord, but for those who dont use it:


Five on Friday - August 8th, 2025
Welcome to this week’s Five on Friday, where the Ultima Online development team answers select player-submitted questions from the community. Topics this week include: • Dispelling Food Buff Myths • Focused Mage Viability • New Legacy Seasons • Server Line Removal • Party Loot Myths


Food Buff Myth
Question Does eating food do anything? There is a persistent rumor that eating ordinary food affects various commonplace skill based checks in game. Can you confirm whether or not that's true, and if so, what sorts of activities does it affect?
Answer Parallax: This has been a long-standing UO urban legend! Eating food will restore stamina based on how full the food makes you, but other than that the only other thing food affects is your character's ability to eat more food! We've often talked about making your food level more relevant to character stats. Never know what might happen.


PvP Focused Mage Viability
Question Focused mages need to be look at reverting. Any chance this could be on the table for the PvP love? Focused mages are too squishy in PvP and the Spell Damage Increase cap doesn't offer enough incentive to drop parry. Back in the day (pre-2015), you could play a pure mage with a 30% SDI cap (40% with GM Inscription) and hit hard, but after Publish 71, they slashed it to 25% (35% total). Then, Publish 97 made Parry break focus status if it’s over 30.0. So, you’re stuck choosing between a 5% extra SDI (25% vs. 20%) or Parry’s 35% block chance. Without Parry, you’re a sitting duck in group fights, it’s the reason everyone’s running Parry mages or hybrid dexer-mage builds to survive.
Answer Kyronix: A PvP publish is on our radar for 2026—this is the type of feedback we love to hear when scoping out what to address in that publish. We look forward to continued discussion on PvP topics and a more focused conversation as we move into the later part of this year.


New Legacy Season Timing
Question New Legacy will be ending soon with the Shattering. When will it end and when will the new season start?
Answer: Parallax: Our next publish to New Legacy is slated for later this month. That will begin the event that will ultimately lead to the shattering. The process of transferring off will begin this fall, and the new season is slated for next year.

Server Line Removal
Question Are we going to delete server lines? They shouldn't exist in the game anymore.
Answer Bleak: This is baked into the fundamental architecture of the production shards and can't be changed.


Party Loot Myths
Question To party or not? Many people feel being in a party lowers their drop odds. As a bard who counts on buffing and healing this is bad. Can you dispel this myth?
Answer Parallax: Generally speaking, being in a party won't impact your drop rates on encounters that use the top-contributor drop mechanic, where damage taken, damage dealt, and damage healed are factored into the drop chance.

 

[Deimos]

I always remember when I first played the game, everyone would stuff themselves silly with food before doing the old 8x8? skill gaining thing on a boat, because it boosted skill gains.
Always thought that was nonsense and so it was.

 

[Larisa]

Funny thing is, on a mage...if I fizzle CONSTANTLY, I always create food and I'm ALWAYS extremely hungry. Once I eat, I can cast no problem. EVERY TIME...

So for me? Not a myth! Every character I have....on my archer...if I keep wiffing, I eat...then I don't wiff...why? I don't know!

 

[Pawain]

Funny thing is, on a mage...if I fizzle CONSTANTLY, I always create food and I'm ALWAYS extremely hungry. Once I eat, I can cast no problem. EVERY TIME...

So for me? Not a myth! Every character I have....on my archer...if I keep wiffing, I eat...then I don't wiff...why? I don't know!

Placebo effect.

Don't substitute sugar pills for your heart meds and try it in RL.

 

[old gypsy]

Funny thing is, on a mage...if I fizzle CONSTANTLY, I always create food and I'm ALWAYS extremely hungry. Once I eat, I can cast no problem. EVERY TIME...

So for me? Not a myth! Every character I have....on my archer...if I keep wiffing, I eat...then I don't wiff...why? I don't know!

When I started a new account over a year ago, I did all my skill-building the hard way. I believe eating helped, just as I believe it helped my characters years ago on my original account. I'm biased, of course, since my favorite (and main) character has always been my cook who, sadly, can't even give her products away these days. I don't think eating should be essential, but it should provide a little boost at times.

 

[Larisa]

Placebo effect.

Don't substitute sugar pills for your heart meds and try it in RL.

Nope, happened again last night. I tried sending someone a gate 6 times...fizzle fizzle fizzle fizzle fizzle fizzle...6 times in a row!

Created food, fish steak...ate it....you are extremely hungry....made more food, ate it until I was full, cast gate the first try.

Happens ALL the time lol.

 

[Keven2002]

Nope, happened again last night. I tried sending someone a gate 6 times...fizzle fizzle fizzle fizzle fizzle fizzle...6 times in a row!

Created food, fish steak...ate it....you are extremely hungry....made more food, ate it until I was full, cast gate the first try.

Happens ALL the time lol.

**shames you for fizzling a mere level 7 spell with all the +magery items available to get you 115+ to never fizzle**

 

[Pawain]

Nope, happened again last night. I tried sending someone a gate 6 times...fizzle fizzle fizzle fizzle fizzle fizzle...6 times in a row!

Created food, fish steak...ate it....you are extremely hungry....made more food, ate it until I was full, cast gate the first try.

Happens ALL the time lol.

Did you prove that by casting 5 consecutive gates after that?

 

[Larisa]

Did you prove that by casting 5 consecutive gates after that?

Actually...I did lol. Didn't fail one time.

Go figure!

 

[Pawain]

And they still believe in Nessy after the original photo taker said it was a model he made near the shore in the ripples.

 

[James [W^H]]

And they still believe in Nessy after the original photo taker said it was a model he made near the shore in the ripples.

Of course we still believe Nessy is real and still alive. All that proved was that the photo was faked. And just to clear things up while we’re at it, Big Foot is real also. I applaud everyone that still believes eating in game does help.

 

[Picus of Napa]

This game is so old one never knows what could be fact or fiction.

Eating once every decade or two can't hurt the chances of casting a spell, right?

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

Of course we still believe Nessy is real and still alive. All that proved was that the photo was faked. And just to clear things up while we’re at it, Big Foot is real also. I applaud everyone that still believes eating in game does help.

Sasquatch has a mountain of evidence behind it's existence. We know from fossils that a creature exactly like it existed in Asia, Gigantopithecus. Native Americans have stories and even petroglyphs of them dating back thousands of years, and age-old stories of them exist all throughout Eurasia as well. There's video/picture evidence of them, with the digitally enhanced versions of the first-generation copies of the Patterson-Gimlin footage being stunning in the detail they show, including muscle definition, and even an injury (hernia?) in the right vastus lateralis quad. There's hair samples that defy classification of any known species. There's also a gargantuan amount of footprint casts of them, with entire tracks of footprints showing movement in the foot, dermal ridging, and a mid-tarsal break (which most humans don't have, and which science didn't even know about the mid-tarsal break when many of these casts were taken).
One of the leading experts, Dr. Jeff Meldrum (PhD Anthropology and Anatomy) believes there's about 2,000 Sasquatch in North America, primarily on the West Coast.

 

[James [W^H]]

Skamania County, Washington, has a law on the books making it illegal to kill a Bigfoot (or Sasquatch).
Ordinance No. 6901: In 1969, officials in Skamania County passed an ordinance to protect Sasquatch, or what they called "Bigfoot.

 

[Spartan]

Of course we still believe Nessy is real and still alive. All that proved was that the photo was faked. And just to clear things up while we’re at it, Big Foot is real also. I applaud everyone that still believes eating in game does help.

Then there's "Champ" in Lake Champlain. Link here. This photo was taken by a visiting woman with her 2 kids. It has been authenticated in that it is NOT faked, Photoshopped or modified in any way. Like Nessie, this is a rare sight.

 

[Pawain]

August 22nd. They are also placed here: Five on Friday Answers

Question A while back, a change was made whereby the co-owner status applied to all characters on the account and not just the one officially on the list. While this has been great, the number of co-owners you are allowed to have is still inadequate for many. Is there any possibility of increasing the number of co-owners allowed on a house?

Answer Kyronix: There is likely some wiggle room for us to bump up the number of allowable co-owners. However, we would need to fully examine this change, considering housing is involved, we tend to be extra careful!


New Legacy Antiquities
Question What colors do the antiquities come in on New Legacy? Are there any fun things about the antiquities we don't know yet?

Answer Parallax: Antiquities come in 22 common hues and 1 rare hue, making for a total of 23 possible colors to collect! As for fun things with antiquities; when I was originally implementing the system, I toyed with the idea that you could “rent” the display area of the Vesper Museum with a "generous donation" of gold, and have your own personal collection displayed for 24 hours. In this version, all antiquities on display would be ones your House discovered. This didn’t make it into Season 1, but it's something we could look at adding in Season 2 if there’s enough interest!


Vendor Search Improvements
Question After the new Classic client update, could we sick Bleak on vendor search to make it faster and more reliable, and add some QOL buttons to the gump? IE: Powerscrolls, Alacrity, Transcendence, Recipes?

Answer: Bleak: We already have some performance upgrades in the works for vendor search, including hardware improvements. Once those are in place, we’ll look at adding quality-of-life options to the vendor search interface, such as quick buttons for Powerscrolls, Alacrity, Transcendence, and Recipes.


Necromancy Spells
Question Why can we attempt Necromancy spells such as Strangle even though we are below the minimum skill? Also, Evil Omen doesn’t seem to do anything despite its description.

Answer Parallax: Evil Omen increases the potency of the next attack the target receives. It either applies a 25% boost to the next source of damage, or a 50% reduction to the effectiveness of the Resisting Spells skill if the attack is a non-damaging debuff. Importantly, the effect isn't limited to just the caster’s follow-up attack; it applies to the next attack from anyone, which can sometimes make it seem like it didn’t work. For example, if you cast Evil Omen intending to follow with Flamestrike, but another player attacks the target first, their attack will benefit from Evil Omen and consume the effect before your spell hits.


Auction Safe Container Restrictions
Question What is the theory behind not allowing containers to be sold on auction safes? As title reads, can you help us understand why containers cannot be sold on auction safes? Is this due to in-game coding mechanics? Is there another balance or game concerning issue the developers have considered here?

Answer Bleak: This was a design decision made when the system was first implemented. The main concern was how certain containers function in the game and the potential conflicts that could arise from combining them with the auction safe system. I also remember the team jokingly referring to the idea as "Storage Wars" at the time.

 

[flappy6]

Funny thing is, on a mage...if I fizzle CONSTANTLY, I always create food and I'm ALWAYS extremely hungry. Once I eat, I can cast no problem. EVERY TIME...

So for me? Not a myth! Every character I have....on my archer...if I keep wiffing, I eat...then I don't wiff...why? I don't know!

True

 

[Pawain]

Strangle Damage Scaling Mechanics
Question The Strangle skill says that its damage increases over time. Yet, it doesn’t. At least not with full stamina. Supposedly, the damage increases as stamina of the victim decreases. Is this calculated with each tic, or only the onset of the strangle effect?

Answer Parallax: Strangle recalculates its damage with every tick, not just at the time of casting. The damage scales based on the percentage of stamina the target currently has, ranging from 100% base damage at full stamina to 300% base damage when the target is completely out of stamina. Because this scaling is percentage-based, high-stamina targets may not show noticeable damage increases right away. For example:

• Removing 10 stamina from a target with 20 total stamina = 50% remaining → significant increase.,
• Removing 10 stamina from a target with 200 total stamina = 95% remaining → very minor impact.,

There's also a small random variance in the base damage applied each tick, and Strangle deals Poison damage, so the target's Poison Resist can further reduce the final output.


Non-Transferable New Legacy Items
Question What is the philosophy behind some things not being able to be transferred off of New Legacy such as the named armor sets and the Ossidrial pet?

Answer Parallax: New Legacy gives us a chance to explore fresh design ideas without being locked into 28 years of legacy balance. But that legacy still matters when we decide what can transfer off the shard. Items like armor, weapons, jewelry, and other stat-based equipment use a completely different generation system exclusive to New Legacy. They aren’t compatible with existing systems on production shards, so to avoid issues and balance concerns, items with stats won’t transfer. As for Ossidrial, it’s a special case. It’s the only Skeletal Dragon that can be fully tamed and controlled by Animal Tamers. On production shards, Skeletal Dragons are only controllable using Command Undead from the Necromancer Mastery. Letting Ossidrial transfer would undermine that playstyle, so we've kept it exclusive to NL. We’ve always said some pets will transfer, and Ossidrial is currently the only one blocked.


Seasonal Content Design Inspiration
Question When designing for Seasonal Content on NL where do your inspiration come from?

Answer: Parallax: Honestly, everywhere! Seasonal content gives us a chance to experiment and try wild ideas (within reason). A great example is the Riftbreaker Construct, who became a meme with his ability to wipe an entire screen. His attack is easy to counter (stack and stand still!), but devastating if ignored. This ability was an attempt to see how well players could respond to specific strategies regarding encounters and abilities. This worked quite well and we saw Riftbreaker make an appearance in The Rifted Crown event on Production shards. Honestly, this is one of my favorite abilities I've designed... well, until you see some of the stuff coming in the Fractured Veil event... evil grin.
Inspiration for content really does come from everywhere though. Movies, TV shows, books, dreams, random thoughts, you name it! And there are the times you see something another game did and you think "Cool! How could we do that UO-style?". Finding new ways to break the mold in a 28-year old game is a fun challenge!


EJs, Books, and Red Leaves on NL
Question Currently EJs cannot interact with lockdowns, which cuts a large group of players out from reading books in player libraries. Could this be changed? Also, currently on NL there are no red leaves to seal books. Could these be added so books can be written and shared like on production?

Answer Kyronix: We can definitely add red leaves to New Legacy—and that will be coming in Season 2. As for Endless Journey accounts interacting with lockdowns: housing and all that goes with it is considered a premium feature in Ultima Online, and we chose to keep it that way when designing the EJ restrictions.


Candy Cane Mace Reforging
Question Could you may be fix it so the candy cane mace weapon can be reforge in to the elem colors?

Answer Parallax: Yes, we can look into allowing the Candied Staff to be reforged.


My input:
Can those canes come with splintering! Cane warrior.