Some news.
1. Posted on FYI section of uo.com - Publish 32 Coming to Origin.
<blockquote>We will be deploying Publish 32 to the Origin Shard today at approximately 10:30AM PDT (5:30PM GMT).
For a complete list of updates and changes in Publish 32, visit the
Update Center.</blockquote>
2. A little note on Publish 32
here :
<blockquote><<Several of the roof tiles default to black in the UO Radar. >>
This is fixed in pub 32 client, new radar map upgrade included it.</blockquote>
3. On the Vanq. Power and Mystic weapons in the Despise Invasion, Leurocian said
HERE :
<blockquote>Just to pass on some information in regards to power, vanquishing, and mystic weapons, I did inform MrTact that I would like to see these enhanceable in some sort of way (e.g., perhaps allowing them via crafting to get an additional item property or to be able to enhance one existing item property, etc.). My usual disclaimer applies...no promises for this. I am no longer on the Live Team, but MrTact did note my suggestion.</blockquote>
4. News about UO from Seattle Gathering.
There has been quite a lot of useful information about UO given by the Devs at the Seattle Gathering. This includes the following :
(A) Kurgan's thread
HERE, which includes this :
<blockquote>New expansion, dealing with Mondain. <-- Secret Project Maybe...
Maybe big changes for house's
Lady Lu hinted a little bit about storage changes. We will find out more after the next meeting. Look for this info on uo.com around June.</blockquote>
(B) Stickied Thread on UHall - "
Tidbits From Seattle", which includes the following bit :
<blockquote>Things to note:
- "There are no plans for a 3D update at this time"
- T-Map Books seem likely
- There were some good ideas thrown around about insurance price based on item value
- It seems like crafting will be revamped soon
- *Possibility* of the Counselor program returning
- Maybe a dungeon revamp
- It seems that Tamers make millions of gold quite regularly
- The girls that work at UO ARE cute
- They know how crowded EM events can get and they are trying to come up with ways to alleviate the problem
- There is a new expansion comming in the fall that will "change the history of Sosaria... FOREVER" (Binky read his lines so well)
- They gave no information on the expansion. Literally it was like "We are making an expansion and we aren't telling you anything... YAY!!!" But more info will come at the next event in Washington DC (June)
- The intro video to UO may certainly have something to do with the expansion.
They showed it to us... (and it was laggy
) Remember... Mondain, Shards of Sosaria? I know it's been awhile...</blockquote>
(C) Report from Poppy (Sonoma Shard)
HERE :
<blockquote>One of our Sonoma Shard Reporters, Poppy, graciously wrote this report on the recent Town Hall Meeting in Seattle...
I was fortunate to be able to attend the Seattle UO Town Meeting April 28th.
I tried to get into the 7:00 p.m. session, but by the time I got to the front of the line, it was full! It worked out fine, though – just as I was being denied entry, three UO friends walked up. We went and had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory – which meant we had yummy desserts to smuggle into the second session!
Lady Liu, GM Silvani, Fertbert, Binki and Wilki had all made the trip from California to meet with us in Seattle. The meeting was very casual and consisted mostly of questions from players and the team’s answers.
I tried to take notes on what questions were asked, but I know I missed a few – things moved pretty fast! Here are some highlights:
(i) There was some discussion of content geared towards the solo player. I hope we’ll be seeing more of this!
(ii) A player brought up the apparent imbalance between mages and non-magic-using fighters. Fertbert said that “it usually takes a year for players to figure out new skills”. So get to work, folks!
(iii) There was some discussion of balancing PvP, and the team indicated that they are looking at re-evaluating/rebalancing PvP.
(iv) Applause greeted a player’s suggestion that we should be able to log out to the character/shard selection screen, instead of having to go to the main login screen each time. Fertbert said there are technical reasons that it is done that way, but that it will be re-evaluated.
(v) The team reiterated that regular shards and Test Center do NOT share housing. So if you have a house already on a regular shard and you want to build one on TC, it should not condemn your regular house. If it does, page a GM right away.
(vi) OSI owned houses may be cleared or deleted. Since many of them are from banned accounts, they will not be allowed to just decay and drop their items, nor will the houses with the items in them be given away.
(vii) There was some discussion of stamina problems with ethereal mounts.
(viii) Hmm… I see a note here about invisible walls? I don’t remember exactly where those invisible walls are, but Fertbert knows and is having it investigated.
(ix) Fertbert informed us that the infrastructure has been added so that the team can add persistant party bars in the future. Yay!
(x) Fertbert said that they are looking at not getting skill gain if you do zero damage – this will affect people who train with golems, apparently. (I don’t go near golems, they scare me. So I’m not sure on the details, there.)
(xi) Cheers for the suggestion of insurable quivers, so that when an archer dies, he still has arrows in his pack, along with his insured bow.
(xii) Blocking with candelabras was declared legal by Silvani, as long as there is a path through the candelabra forest, and as long as the presence of the candelabras does not cause lag.
(xiii) Lady Liu stated that there are no plans to provide upgrade codes for SE.
(xiv) A player asked if there were plans to change the fact that the older Taskmasters do an extra five points of damage. Fertbert’s response was “It’s a rare! Keep it and show it off!” I took that as a no.
(xv) Someone asked if Mana Leech would be changed to leech mana from player characters. Fertbert responded that it is already designed to do that, and encouraged players to put in a bug report if they are experiencing problems with this.
(xvi) When a player commented that he couldn’t have the word “assassination” in a guild title, the team informed us that they are working on a word filter that would allow exceptions to the anti-profanity rules. Much cheering!
(xvii) A player asked why enhancement fails so frequently. Fertbert’s response: “We wanted you to break items.” I didn’t get the impression that they were planning to change that.
After the question and answer session was over, several fun prizes were raffled off: a UOSE t-shirt, a 7th Anniversary hoodie, a first edition UO pewter dragon, and a year of free game time. Alas, I did not win anything, but congratulations to the folks who did!
As the end of the session, it was announced that we will be receiving a new expansion that will “change the history of Sosaria”. The opening movie of Mondain shattering the Gem was shown, so the expansion must relate to that in some way, but details were frustratingly sketchy! The only information we were given was:
* A return of the redeemers, a lost tribe or a missing element
* Corruption will threaten the land, twisting all that is good
* Mondain’s legacy will be full revealed, soon…
Keep an ear out for more information!
Many thanks to Lady Liu, GM Silvani, Fertbert, Binki and Wilki for a fun evening!
Thank you Poppy for writing this, sounds like you had a wonderful time!</blockquote>
5. If anyone's interested to read Hanse's comments about UO (Hanse was a dev for UO until recently), you may want to see this thread
HERE, which includes this bit :
<blockquote>OMG! I love UO. I played WoW and I'm back. I've played every single freaking MMO out.
Okay, I'm biased. I love UO due to more reasons than: "Hey, I made some stuff in the game."
My expectancy on the game? Simple.
It's up to whoever is working on the game. They have the power of extending it or killing it.
I have no say on that area. I was a small part of a great game. I still want to play it. PvP me sometime on Lake Superior.
</blockquote>