Artisan Festival Strategies for Low-Population Servers

[Tina Small]

I barely participated last year in the artisan festival because it seemed like there was no point to it if you played on a small shard. However, I would like to try again this year, since the most recent publish notes say that the points requirement has been reduced for the last two tiers.

So what I'm wondering is which BODs are best to turn in for the festival? Large BODs? Small BODs that have been bribed up to their highest possible value? Tons of small BODs that use cheap materials and can only be bribed up for quantity or quality?

Also, the publish notes say that the festival will start in Yew and loop backwards through the loyalty cities. However, it looks like a city has to have at least 1 million gold in its treasury to have the festival. What happens if the next city in line has too little gold in its treasury? Does the festival just not happen for a couple of days or does it move on to the next loyalty city in reverse alphabetical order?

When the tree is finished in a city and its time to claim rewards, do you get to choose your reward or is it given to your character randomly? I can't remember from last year.

Thanks.

 

[Keith of Sonoma]

Don't bother with small BOD's. Large are the way to go.

 

[Uriah Heep]

And its given randomly..you cant pick. Other than the character you donate with. Evil chars got diff things than positive chars, iirc.

 

[Tina Small]

Don't bother with small BOD's. Large are the way to go.

So it's a wasted effort to do something like 20 exceptional valorite or 20 exceptional frostwood small BODs?

 

[ShriNayne]

I think that Fame or Karma had some bearing on what you got last year, but I'm not 100% sure, some items seemed to be more rare than others.
Most of the people I saw taking part were doing Large BODs, but some people obviously will have a lot more BODs than others. I just put in whatever I had, I'm not a big fan of BODs, I only collected them in November for the Festival.
That's a good question about Cities not having enough gold, maybe @Kyronix or @Bleak can answer that for us?

 

[Keith of Sonoma]

So it's a wasted effort to do something like 20 exceptional valorite or 20 exceptional frostwood small BODs?

Yep.

 

[Amber Witch]

Here's a link to the wiki on the Artisan Festival: Artisan Festival – Ultima Online
My understanding is that the points awarded to the tree is based on the banking value as when turning in to an NPC. 2% for smalls and 20% for large.

It doesn't state anything about the time between a city with not enough funds and the next city that has funds.

 

[Uriah Heep]

One thing the smalls are good for tho, when the tree is maxxed, every char that turns in ANYTHING gets a reward (last year, still waiting to see if the same applies this year). So you can scatter those smalls out amongst all your chars when the tree is grown, and all of them get a gift. And on non-home shards, if the tree gets maxxed, just get a cheap inscription bod from a scribwe and buy the scrolls to put in it. Can get gifts everywhere.

 

[Shandara]

I am waiting with baited breath for the festival to be activated on TC1! Great Lakes has my personal guarantee that each tree will be advanced all the way. But it would be nice to know exactly how many points are needed so I can move the rest off to other shards. Tina, which shard(s) are you interested in having the trees advanced to the maximum?

 

[Lady Kyo]

I did all small BODs last year. Between evil alignments and good karma. The gifts were random and some characters didn't even get a gift. I ended up getting ALL the gifts available so I don't think the size (small or large) of the BOD mattered.

 

[Tina Small]

It is unfortunate that they left in the requirement that the tree has to be maxed out to guarantee getting a reward. I think there will still be some small shards that are going to really struggle with this and anyone who does participate on those shards where the trees aren't maxed out will be left with a bad taste in their mouth when they find out that they wasted BODs and resources.

 

[Lord Arm]

to be honest, atl is the one worth doing, they should have np completing all town trees..a few others shards may be able to do it too but many will complete one or two, if any. if tree is complete all will get gift. if not completed, few will get gift. less populated shards may feel they are semi screwed but that's the way it is. there will be a lot of gifts that will be given out and will probably not be worth much. I know theres some new drops. I wonder if they will add some rare drops. have fun

 

[Tina Small]

I am waiting with baited breath for the festival to be activated on TC1! Great Lakes has my personal guarantee that each tree will be advanced all the way. But it would be nice to know exactly how many points are needed so I can move the rest off to other shards. Tina, which shard(s) are you interested in having the trees advanced to the maximum?

Well, most of the time anymore I'm playing on Sonoma, Balhae, and Arirang, and now and then on Origin and Lake Austin. Not too worried about Sonoma or Lake Austin for the festival, but I have my doubts as to whether or not Origin, Balhae, and Arirang are going to be worth messing with, especially later in December.

 

[Shandara]

OK Tina, Lake Austin I have a transfer shield for, so I may be sending BODs over there, stay tuned. Lord Arm, Atlantic is not a safe bet. They did not advance all their trees last year. Shame! I think only three shards did but besides Great Lakes I don't remember which ones. Siege had a couple of trees advanced all the way too.

 

[Larisa]

I will be testing this as much as I can when it hits TC1...because last year I had several people TRANSFER filled BOD's to me on Origin and we only managed to get a full-grown tree once...was NOT worth my time and resources...hopefully they scaled it well enough this year but will be testing and I hope others will be too

 

[Poo]

last year i did it on ATL, GL and Siege.
i handed in 1 small BOD and got a gift on every character i had turn one in.

i didnt even bother with the smaller shards - my home shard as im not a BOD person.
i sent home a full set of the gifts once the event was done.

my plan was to do the same thing again this year.

 

[Dot_Warner]

If a city doesn't have the available funds to do the festival, it is skipped and the next city immediately starts. There is no delay.

 

[Uriah Heep]

If a city doesn't have the available funds to do the festival, it is skipped and the next city immediately starts. There is no delay.

Thats what I thought too, but I couldn't find any documentation...

 

[Amber Witch]

We are going to give it our best on Baja. If anyone wants to come on over and help a small shard of good folk we'd certainly would appreciate it.

 

[Capt. Lucky]

Should be scaled by population as the previous system was a joke. I'm not even going to bother with it unless I hear of some shard besides Atlantic pulling it off.

 

[Uriah Heep]

legends will make it this year...
=)

 

[Keith of Sonoma]

I did all small BODs last year. Between evil alignments and good karma. The gifts were random and some characters didn't even get a gift. I ended up getting ALL the gifts available so I don't think the size (small or large) of the BOD mattered.

It matters A LOT with respect to advancing the tree.

 

[Tina Small]

I will be testing this as much as I can when it hits TC1...because last year I had several people TRANSFER filled BOD's to me on Origin and we only managed to get a full-grown tree once...was NOT worth my time and resources...hopefully they scaled it well enough this year but will be testing and I hope others will be too

Any idea when it will be available to test on TC1?

 

[MalagAste]

Should be scaled by population as the previous system was a joke. I'm not even going to bother with it unless I hear of some shard besides Atlantic pulling it off.

GLs (Thanks to Shandara and many others) managed to advance every one of their trees last year... and I expect we'll do the same this year... many have been preparing to do so for awhile now.

Atlantic failed to advance all their trees last year.

 

[Uriah Heep]

It matters A LOT with respect to advancing the tree.

Right larges to advance the tree, smalls for the off-characters to get their rewards.

 

[Larisa]

Any idea when it will be available to test on TC1?

No clue but I would hope soon seeing as it's already Mid-November...2 weeks until Dec. 1st when it should go live....we need at LEAST a week of testing....preferably more...as of right now we have 13 days until Dec. 1st.....

 

[MalagAste]

No clue but I would hope soon seeing as it's already Mid-November...2 weeks until Dec. 1st when it should go live....we need at LEAST a week of testing....preferably more...as of right now we have 13 days until Dec. 1st.....

Really want to test that Jewelry box as well...

 

[Pawain]

Really want to test that Jewelry box as well...

Already planning on filling the saved house space.

 

[Basara]

Yep.

I wouldn't be so sure.

What the issue appears to be is that the point system works similar to fame from BODs, if not actually using the fame numbers. This is from comments made last year about the system.

Fame for BODs is calculated (point value/50) rounded down, then squared.

This means that NORMAL BASE MATERIAL smalls are probably worth 0 points if 10 or 15 count, 1 if 20 count.

An exceptional base metal small is worth 4 or 9 fame for a tailor small, 16 or 25 fame for the others (when exceptional)

Similarly, colored smalls for tailor, smith, tinker, carpentry, and fletcher would be worth at least 4, 9, 16, or 25 normal, or more depending on the base material. And exceptionals being 2 or 4 steps higher.

For comparison, using smith Ringmail BODs.
Fame / BOD type
0 / small iron 10-15 normal
1 / small iron 20 normal
16 / small iron 10-15 exceptional
25 / small iron 20 exceptional

16 / large iron 10-15 normal
25 / large iron 20 normal
64 / large iron 10-15 exceptional
81 / large iron 20 exceptional

16 / small DC 10-15 normal
25 / small DC 20 normal
64 / small DC 10-15 exceptional
81 / small DC 20 exceptional

16 / large DC 10-15 normal
25 / large DC 20 normal
64 / large DC 10-15 exceptional
81 / large DC 20 exceptional

It would be nice to know if there was an additional bonus for larges.

 

[Naitch]

another thing that would help is if people would drop bods ( no matter how small they are ) on the tree BEFORE it hits the last stage. I know it don't seem like a big difference but anything will help the tree grow.

 

[Lady Kyo]

Sadly, if what I see are in fact the same gifts rewards from 2016 (only 4 new "named" items added to each (statue, pillow and ,lantern) and the gifts are in fact the same as 2016, then in my minds eye, I have to ask what's the point of doing them for 2017? I have a garden shed load of them from 2016.

I can't see making the effort to bust my rear end to do all these BODs again if @Mesanna @Bleak and @Kyronix can't make the effort to NOT recycle past years gift. Wouldn't it be nice if the Dev Team actually used their initative and imagination to create something NEW for their faithful paying players for Christmas or is that really just too much to ask for?

 

[ShriNayne]

On Europa we only managed one full tree and we are not the least populated shard by a long way, I wish they had gone with a single tree in one place to be fed BODs throughout December and 'growing' a stage at regular intervals until Christmas Eve. That way we all could be concentrating on one tree and not spreading BODs around, people all see one particular city as 'theirs' and tend to do more for that one, which often results in lots of half-grown trees!

 

[MoxZinnia]

The biggest issue I had with last year was the growth stages of the tree. Because the points needed to grow the tree doubled every stage, reaching the next to last stage meant that you were only halfway there. I wasted a lot of BODs pointlessly trying to get that last stage, and so did a lot of other people. Finally I decided that if the tree didn't make it to the next to last stage by the first day, there was no point putting more BODs into it. There needs to be growth stages after the halfway points stage.

 

[Pawain]

Sadly, if what I see are in fact the same gifts rewards from 2016 (only 4 new "named" items added to each (statue, pillow and ,lantern) and the gifts are in fact the same as 2016, then in my minds eye, I have to ask what's the point of doing them for 2017? I have a garden shed load of them from 2016.

So, you just have one pillow, one statue and 1 lantern from last year? Since the rest are the same, why collect a bunch of them.

I think most of us are fine with the 3 styles with four new emblems each year.

That way we all could be concentrating on one tree and not spreading BODs around,

We got the first tree finished on LS. So, we thought we could do it every time. I think we only got 1 more.

I doubt you could organize everybody to concentrate on one tree. There are some that do not use chat or hang out in Luna. Plus, many want to "win" every time.

 

[MalagAste]

Sadly, if what I see are in fact the same gifts rewards from 2016 (only 4 new "named" items added to each (statue, pillow and ,lantern) and the gifts are in fact the same as 2016, then in my minds eye, I have to ask what's the point of doing them for 2017? I have a garden shed load of them from 2016.

I can't see making the effort to bust my rear end to do all these BODs again if @Mesanna @Bleak and @Kyronix can't make the effort to NOT recycle past years gift. Wouldn't it be nice if the Dev Team actually used their initative and imagination to create something NEW for their faithful paying players for Christmas or is that really just too much to ask for?

The "gifts" are the same but different.. still the lantern, pillow, wooden statue and banner... but they changed which is which... with the virtue/anti-virtue stuff... so new updated art... completely new set.

I'm just hoping that they use ONLY the new stuff and don't put the RNG to the new and old because then getting the new with me and how the RNG hates my guts even with as many accounts and characters and tree's that GLs is likely to finish I probably won't be able to get a full set of the new.

 

[HippoRedux]

I'll be doing a ton of small cook BODs on ATL and GL and then send the festival rewards home to Legends.

 

[Lady Kyo]

So, you just have one pillow, one statue and 1 lantern from last year? Since the rest are the same, why collect a bunch of them.

I think most of us are fine with the 3 styles with four new emblems each year.




.

Then I MUST be the rare exception that finds the repetitive recycling of the years before gifts and non-imagination of the Devs to be an insult to us. Ok same four gifts: lantern pillow, painting and statue...Yea, new "names" but not styles (they look the same but if you are ok with this, hey who am I to say otherwise). I have probably 2-3 of each gift from last year that I cant unload because the market is saturated with them. I ended up transferring half the collection from 2016 to my home on Catskills.


My luck, as mentioned, about is the RNG would give me a repeat of all the ones I already have.

 

[Larisa]

Then I MUST be the rare exception that finds the repetitive recycling of the years before gifts and non-imagination of the Devs to be an insult to us. Ok same four gifts: lantern pillow, painting and statue...Yea, new "names" but not styles (they look the same but if you are ok with this, hey who am I to say otherwise). I have probably 2-3 of each gift from last year that I cant unload because the market is saturated with them. I ended up transferring half the collection from 2016 to my home on Catskills.


My luck, as mentioned, about is the RNG would give me a repeat of all the ones I already have.

They actually don't look the same....well the statue's don't anyway...and different designs on the rest...and updated graphics on the pillows

 

[Pawain]

My luck, as mentioned, about is the RNG would give me a repeat of all the ones I already have.

Do we know last years will be mixed in? from what i read, the rewards for this year will have new emblems.

 

[skittles1337]

Sadly, if what I see are in fact the same gifts rewards from 2016 (only 4 new "named" items added to each (statue, pillow and ,lantern) and the gifts are in fact the same as 2016, then in my minds eye, I have to ask what's the point of doing them for 2017? I have a garden shed load of them from 2016.

I can't see making the effort to bust my rear end to do all these BODs again if @Mesanna @Bleak and @Kyronix can't make the effort to NOT recycle past years gift. Wouldn't it be nice if the Dev Team actually used their initative and imagination to create something NEW for their faithful paying players for Christmas or is that really just too much to ask for?

This is exactly why I don't understand how they can justify charging 12.99 a month, this game just isn't worth that value anymore. You honestly get recycled or half finished crap to play. Same price as it was 10 years ago with 1/10 the staff and 1/5 the content lol.

 

[Lady Kyo]

Do we know last years will be mixed in? from what i read, the rewards for this year will have new emblems.

Taken from the UO page itself. I would say, yes, they are being recycled. But we can keep telling ourselves they are " new and improved" and maybe we will believe it like they want us to and forget they are the same.
"
Rewards are vice and virtue themed holiday items including,

• 2016 Honor, Sacrifice, Hythloth, and Destard themed paper lanterns. 2017 Scales, Crook, Coin, Sceptre (top row shows unlit lanterns, lower rows lit lanterns)
  
  
  
  
  • Can be turned on an off by double clicking, function as a light source
• 2016 Compassion, Honesty, Wrong, and Shame. 2017 Swords, Ankh, Mask, Axe themed throw pillows
  
• 2016: Valor, Spirituality, Despise, and Deceit themed wood sculptures. 2017 Sculptures Chalice, Tear Drop, Moon, Skull
  
  
  
• Animated, can be turned on and off by double clicking

• • 2016 Justice, Humility, Covetous, and Pride. 2017 Heart, Hand, Broken Shield, Unbalanced Scales themed paintings
    

 

[Tanager]

For the lower population shards, I would like to suggest something.

An un-maxed tree gives a percentage of rewards based on how many different characters turned in bods. Each tier has a higher percent. I don't know the actual numbers, but for example, let's say it's 10% for the lowest level tree. 100 characters turned in a bod - ANY bod - so the tree gives out 10 gifts in an RNG lotto influenced by banked point value. (These numbers are just for easy math, probably not real stats). This percent increases with each tier the tree reaches, until at max level everyone gets a gift no matter how small the bod.

So if you KNOW the tree is not going to max out, the best way is to have as many different characters turn in bods as possible. If 1000 characters turn one in, then the tree would give 100 random gifts to exchange amongst the shard instead of only 10. The RNG favors the folks with large bods turned in but in any case there is a greater total of gifts generated on the shard so at least they could be traded.

.1 scribe is enough to get a scribe small bod, and at that level all items it might ask for can be bought from NPC.

Good luck everyone, and happy BODing!

 

[Tina Small]

How much negative karma does a character need to have to get the Vice-themed rewards?

 

[Chrille]

-1 is enough negative karma

 

[Pawain]

How much negative karma does a character need to have to get the Vice-themed rewards?

I killed a cat on the way to the tree.

 

[Cinderella]

How much negative karma does a character need to have to get the Vice-themed rewards?

you just need to kill one thing that will give negative karma, before opening your reward
you can actually claim the reward with positive karma but kill something before you open it and get the negative item

 

[MalagAste]

Or cast a necro spell...

 

[Drakelord]

If a city doesn't have the available funds to do the festival, it is skipped and the next city immediately starts. There is no delay.

so if below 2million no festival?

 

[Tina Small]

so if below 2million no festival?

The publish notes say a city must have "at least 1,000,000 gp" to kick off the event.

 

[Tina Small]

So is this the first artisan festival location this year? (This was taken on Atlantic a few minutes ago.)