[NEWS] FoF: It's Hot!

[Larisa]

FoF: It's Hot!
Jeremy Dalberg
13 Jun 2008 18:37:29
Check out news about the Dark Fathers, mysterious strangers, and the effects of seawater on certain kinds of parchment.

"Why are the Doom bosses and Dark Fathers teleporting back to their rooms?"

There are two parts to this answer - a missed patch note and a bug. First of all, I apologize for the missed patch note - it was a misunderstanding on my part, and I didn't mean to cause panic and confusion. The note is as follows:

- Doom mobs can no longer be kited out of the spawning rooms

The second part is actually a bug - the change was not intended to affect the Dark Fathers, just the lesser bosses. We've got a fix for that sent to QA and hope to see it in the next publish.

--

"Where are the "mysterious strangers" in the Anti-Virtue dungeons?"

The time is not yet ripe for the veil to be lifted - they should start to reveal themselves next week.

--

"Why can I turn in some treasure maps but not others to the Spring Cleaning collector?"

This one was mystifying us for a while, but we finally pinned it down. Old-school players might remember that a while back, you could occasionally fish up (regular, landlocked) treasure maps. Turns out that those particular maps are slightly different on the back end and the difference is preventing the NPC from recognizing them. We have a fix in the works, but QA hasn't gotten a look at it yet so I can't promise a publish date for sure - it's kind of a weird one.

(Incidentally, this issue is probably why certain maps aren't recognized when trying to make the Tattered Wall Map, too. Soaking in seawater does funny things to them, I guess...)

--

WARNING: House Resizing

There is a known issue with house resizing at the moment - if you have items in a moving crate and resize your house, the moving crate goes "poof!" with all the items in it. We will have a fix for this in the next publish, but in the meantime, make sure you've emptied your moving crate!

Also, something to keep in mind - your ability to place your house will be dependant on the *current* house placement rules. It's possible that some older houses were placed under a less-restrictive set of rules, and if the house is demolished, the original square footage (tileage?) will no longer be available according to the current rules. A buffer zone is required of five tiles north and south, and one tile east and west. Be careful!

--

Playguide Updates:

Just a couple of updates this week, as I continue backwards through time and publishes, bringing me to exactly three years ago:

http://guide.uo.com/miscellaneous_5.html Vendors-Added a note about all characters on an account being able to customize vendors

http://guide.uo.com/boat_0.html Launching and Boarding your ship-Added the ability to rename a ship key

Animal Taming-Added information about the auto-stable feature
Necromancy-Added the 15% PvP SDI cap on Wither
Spellweaving-Added the 20 skill point range required for Arcane Circle

--

What's To Come:

We're hard at work on Publish 54, which is still a few weeks out from Test Center. In the meantime, you should see more of the rumored strangers in the Anti-Virtue dungeons sometime next week, and their appearance will lead to great and terrible events...

--

Town Hall News:

Look at our http://town.uo.com/luncheon.html Schedule to find out when we'll be near you. Remember to RSVP so we don't run out of chips and dip! Also, be aware that while the San Diego Town Hall is over Comic-Con weekend, you do not need a Comic-Con badge to get in - although if you want one you better hurry cus they seem to be selling out!

--

Fansite News:

Whispering Rose is having a birthday!
The first anniversary of Whispering Rose Radio has arrived!

Thank You WRR fans, supporters and listeners!!
We at WRR have enjoyed bringing you great music, free xshard events and live chat for a whole year now! Not to mention many of us getting to meet the public at the EA/Mythic town hall meetings held across the states. Our DJ's are some of the best around and enjoy broadcasting for YOU..the community of Sosaria. We are looking forward to many more years of entertaining and great fun!

Here is a list of WRR events that will be happening around Sosaria this weekend:

Friday June 13th: Join TorAnn, Dr. Lil and PantherBabe for Shard Chatter (every Friday) at 7pm PST - 10pm EST. Come hear the latest UO news and voice your opinions about the goings on in UO! Also they end their show weekly with "you know you have been playing UO to long when...". There has been some funny ones so send those in. (ICQ numbers can be found on the wwrad.com radio website)

~~~~~~~~

Saturday June 14th: Tune in to hear the Brush LimpPaw show weekly at 2pm PST, 5pm EST. Alot of time and effort is put into this 1 hour show by our own Norman Bates/Groucho.

~~~~~~~~

Saturday June 14th: Due to it being "anniversary weekend", Deal or No Deal UO Style will be bumping the giveaway amount to 50 mil instead of the normal 10 mil! Not only that but there will be a total of 5 - 50 mil books in the playing field. That's 5 chances to win 50 mil with all gold awarded on the shard of choice by WRR. The game will be held at our Lake Superior studio at the North exit inside of Luna starting at 3pm PST - 6pm EST. If you don't have a char on Lake Superior, create one..hand in a book with name/shard and a bit about your UO life (in case Howie SandManDel reads it). The event will be broadcasted LIVE on the radio.

~~~~~~~~

Sunday June 15th: Tune in to hear the "Tazz & Keg's Underground" radio show on WRR. This is also a weekly broadcast at 7pm PST - 10pm EST. Due to it being "anniversary weekend", this Sunday there will be a HUGE event on the Baja shard with close to 100 mil in prizes and gold given away. All gold and prizes will be transferred to the shard of choice. You can find out more about the event at http://www.undergroundknight.com/

~~~~~~~~

Just a side note: As some of you may already know, Lady Luna Rossa of SAGE (Pacific) is leaving our realm after several great years of playing UO. She has surely been an asset to the Lands of Sosaria and will be terribly missed by many. There will be a "Going Away Party" scheduled in her honor on June 23rd @ 7pm PST - 10pm EST to be held at the Whispering Rose Radio Ballroom (Pacific shard - The old Pacific Auction House). More on this next week.


Remember, folks, if you're doing something UO-related, in- or out-of-game, send an email to jdalberg AT ea DOT com and let me know about it! (Please put "FoF" somewhere in the subject so I put it in the right place!) Thanks!

--

Have a good weekend, folks.


- Jeremy

 

[K'torr]

I take it it's now 3 on Friday.

 

[Joyous2K]

I take it it's now 3 on Friday.

K'torr, who knows? Who knows what the hell is going on anymore? Vote for Nader or Paul!

 

[kelmo]

Larissa, you are getting the hang of it again. I hope when things settle, the Stratics reporters get some love. Thanks hon, for all you do.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

I take it it's now 3 on Friday.

3 questions. 1 playguide update notice. (The convention at this point is that those count.) 1 warning.

3+1+1=5.

Would you rather have them phrase the last 2 as questions, which they could easily have done? Would that make you more comfortable?

-Galen's player

 

[silent]

Larisa no offense to you since you don't write these but these FoF are nothing but regurgitated crap anymore. Most of what was stated was already known and was just stating the obvious. Let's just rename this to the "Oh crap it's Friday and I have to try and satisfy the masses with BS" post. Sorry to be so negative but after 10 years we deserve more than this crap.

 

[Azureal]

3 questions answered, 1 of which was recently answered by Jeremy in a different post (about the DF).

1 of which revolves around the Mysterious strangers turning up sometime soon. Blech. Next week? Maybe the week after?

And 1 about some 100point maps that cant be turned in? Jesus, lame.

The last time I quit UO, the one thing I continued to watch out for were the FoF, it was a semi-reasonable way to watch for changes. The current trends in the last few weeks have been something of a let down.

Feb29 - 4 Qs
Mar07 - 4 Qs
Mar14 - 5 Qs
Mar21 - 4 Qs
Mar28 - 4 Qs
Apr12 - 5 Qs
Apr18 - 4 Qs
May02 - 3 Qs
May09 - 3 Qs
May16 - 2 Qs (WTF!)
May23 - 1 Q (Um, seriously, WTF???)
May30 - 5 Qs (Perhaps to make up for the week before?)
Jun06 - 3 Qs
Jun13 - 3 Qs

So, 50 questions over a 14 week period, equaling roughly 3.57 questions per week. One of the weeks had only one questions becasue Jeremy posted the turn in list rewards point values. Thanks for that, but Im sure there were questions that didnt involve the turn in that could have been answered along with copying and pasting a table into the document.

Good enough? Discuss.

 

[K'torr]

3 questions. 1 playguide update notice. (The convention at this point is that those count.) 1 warning.

3+1+1=5.

Would you rather have them phrase the last 2 as questions, which they could easily have done? Would that make you more comfortable?

-Galen's player

Perhaps.

 

[Raina]

I was thinking it was more along the lines of 2 bug reports we shoulda been told about sooner, and 1 'coming soon, cant tell you nothing (again)'

I don't know that you can count answering one of the FOF with a good sentence of 'not telling' as actually Answering the question.

I thought the FoF was supposed to be EA's way to provide real information to the community, and enhancing the bond with the community by taking some of the more difficult / long standing questions that have been bugging people and giving solid answers.

Apparently it's just meant to be more fluff, kinda like the notes from the producer of the day. *shrugs*

~Rai

 

[Azureal]

3 questions. 1 playguide update notice. (The convention at this point is that those count.) 1 warning.

3+1+1=5.

Would you rather have them phrase the last 2 as questions, which they could easily have done? Would that make you more comfortable?

-Galen's player

Dont be rude. Go back and have a look at old Five on Fridays. There were Five questions, plus Playguide Updates, plus Guides, plus Notcies, plus Warnings. FoFs used to be FULL of important info, and questions posed by players, answered by Devs.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

The FIve on Fridays have been a mix in terms of information, sometimes useful, sometimes less so, sometimes only useful to certain sections of the player base.

This weeks wasn't too bad IMO. There are a few questions I'd love to see addressed, but I know that they won't be, so I accept it as it is... it's a nice little blurb at the end of the week that may or may not have something of value.

Beyond FoF, I find myself in a weird place in UO. Dark Moonglow is closed, so I don't really have a good spot to test out the new suit and jewelry, the Vanguards are "meh" IMO, and nothing else is really happening.

I'm convinced based on my own parsing of what the devs have been saying (and "not saying") that UO is going to change and likely on a bigger level than it did with AOS. The turn-ins are one way to get people to dump old items in preparation for the "new systems", the resource gathering changes (including bags of sending), new methods of spawns and a LOT of unlisted abilities on new items. The only problem is that I wish we know what the changes were going to end up being and when we were getting them. But that is all "hush hush" for now.

I REALLY would like to see more work done on KR, but in the meantime, a LOT of KR Players may find a good batch of fixes in a few player UI mods to tide them over for now (and I'm still on the lookout for more things that we players can mod and improve in the KR client).

Still, I've come to take FoF for what it is... a little blurb of info for the week.

 

[MaryForUo]

FoF: It's Hot? lol
great job dev!

 

[AesSedai]

re: FoF: It's Hot!

Aye its been really hot lately. When's summer? I'm scared.

The first four were all quite the hot items in discussion over the past week and I always appreciate any uo.com updates.
Then the what's to come information is always fun to mull over.
Town Hall news - good.
Fansite news - good stuff.
Email UO related stuff - good reminder.

Maybe you'll have less complaints next time if you start it off with, "6?7?8?9?0?" and then get on with the weekly segment.

So I'm seeing a mix of hot and good, which ain't bad.
As for summer: grr, it's already too hot.

 

[Melina Havelock]

FoF: It's Hot!

A real scorcher!!!

Shouldn't that housing bug have a thread of it's own as a public notice?? Seems that is a BIT more important than those mysterious strangers who have yet to appear. (They must have fallen down the mousehole in search of the cocoa trees.)

 

[SilentFoxXy]

Why are we shouting at the moon??, The man in the moon is deaf after all.....

 

[Sheridan]

Why are we shouting at the moon??, The man in the moon is deaf after all.....

Why are you guys shouting at Jeremy at all? You do understand that it's not up to her to answer the questions... right? All she does is take the questions to the various members of the dev team and ask for answers. If they don't give them to her or are unable to answer them right away, that's not her fault.

Talk about overkill on the messenger.

 

[Beerman72]

Why are you guys shouting at Jeremy at all? You do understand that it's not up to her to answer the questions... right? All she does is take the questions to the various members of the dev team and ask for answers. If they don't give them to her or are unable to answer them right away, that's not her fault.

Talk about overkill on the messenger.

Sometimes the messenger has to take a bit of fire to make sure the message gets safely to the reader. When the message doesnt make it at all, the messenger can expect ALOT of fire.

I dont think Jeremy deserves all the fire though; I think the devs. should catch slack for not catching the error the first time, the second time, or perhaps even the third.

 

[Azureal]

Why are you guys shouting at Jeremy at all? You do understand that it's not up to her to answer the questions... right? All she does is take the questions to the various members of the dev team and ask for answers. If they don't give them to her or are unable to answer them right away, that's not her fault.

Talk about overkill on the messenger.

Such is the life of someone in a Public Relations role within a massive company. Its not like "shooting the messenger" is something new. And this isnt the first time a stink has been kicked up about the FoF not really living up to its namesake. Jeremy is probably a very smart person, she would have to pre-empt the feelings of a 10+ year old fanbase that has come to expect more.

And really, over the period of a week, with all the various questions there are from players, the efforts lately have been pretty slim in getting a decent set of answers, the numbers are a few posts up.

 

[Piotr]

I'm surprised no one has commented this:

"Why are the Doom bosses and Dark Fathers teleporting back to their rooms?"

There are two parts to this answer - a missed patch note and a bug. First of all, I apologize for the missed patch note - it was a misunderstanding on my part, and I didn't mean to cause panic and confusion. The note is as follows:

- Doom mobs can no longer be kited out of the spawning rooms

The second part is actually a bug - the change was not intended to affect the Dark Fathers, just the lesser bosses. We've got a fix for that sent to QA and hope to see it in the next publish.

How the heck do you "kite" the lesser bosses out of the spawning room; the doors are locked!!!

So what was point again?

 

[Shelleybean]

Hmmm I'm glad to see the Doom issue was in the FOF. I didn't realize the Doom bosses were being lured out of the rooms. I'm not sure how that is even done because the doors are locked until the last boss is killed.

 

[Raina]

Why are you guys shouting at Jeremy at all? You do understand that it's not up to her to answer the questions... right? All she does is take the questions to the various members of the dev team and ask for answers. If they don't give them to her or are unable to answer them right away, that's not her fault.

Talk about overkill on the messenger.

Well I don't think anyone was really gettin on Jeremy exactly, just the quality of the FoF, which is her responsibility.

Besides, I'm pretty sure it's Jeremy that is supposed to get these questions, get them answered by the appropriate internal team, and report back to the community. 'could be wrong though *Grins*

~Rai

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

I'm surprised no one has commented this:



How the heck do you "kite" the lesser bosses out of the spawning room; the doors are locked!!!

So what was point again?

*sighs*

What I think she's talking about is this.....

Since Doom was made (no, I am not soft-pedaling how long this bug has existed), you have been able to pull the nasty trick of having someone stand on the door tile to a room, while that door is opened.

When that room goes active, if someone's standing on the door tile, the door remains open, and the critters can be lured out into the main room.

This caused many bad times.

What probably happened was that in finding the workaround for the event-stopping "underground spawn" bug, which of course was also basically the same as the new "teleport" ability to prevent people from dragging spawn to safe locations, the team was like: "Hey, this could work for that old Doom doors thing too!!" and tossed the code in.

-Galen's player

 

[Larisa]

Larissa, you are getting the hang of it again. I hope when things settle, the Stratics reporters get some love. Thanks hon, for all you do.

Aww thanks Kelmo, it hasn't been easy let me tell you. Posting one way here and another to Stratics main is ARGH! Twice as much work but for you guys, anything!

I think soon we'll have a way to post directly here from Drupal so *crosses fingers* THAT will be nice...having to post everything twice is

But as usual I just keep on keepin on

 

[Piotr]

*sighs*

What I think she's talking about is this.....

Since Doom was made (no, I am not soft-pedaling how long this bug has existed), you have been able to pull the nasty trick of having someone stand on the door tile to a room, while that door is opened.

When that room goes active, if someone's standing on the door tile, the door remains open, and the critters can be lured out into the main room.

This caused many bad times.

What probably happened was that in finding the workaround for the event-stopping "underground spawn" bug, which of course was also basically the same as the new "teleport" ability to prevent people from dragging spawn to safe locations, the team was like: "Hey, this could work for that old Doom doors thing too!!" and tossed the code in.

-Galen's player

I haven't spend years in Doom, but I've spend enough time down there to have recieved a few arties (one before the drop rate changed) and I've NEVER seen this (ab)use of the doors.

I can imagine people soloing Doom would use this trick so they can ress themselves for free, using a 2nd account.

The rooms are big enough to drag one mob to an empty area and kill it.

I've soloed the first 4 rooms with my mage once - yes, it took some time - and I didn't have any problems separating the mobs.

 

[The_Dude_]

Ive been in doom a cpl times since this change. I have never seen anyone pull them out of the rooms to kill them. Seriously what is the pnt? The crap about the 2nd account for resing makes no sense. As if you die u can run out the doors on the outside there the spawn cant go and res yourself then go back in when your ready.

Id also like to know why the crap rubberbands when you are literally a tile or 2 away from where it spawned. Makes no sense. Not a screen away or anything just a tile or two it will rubber band back to where it spawned. This includes DFs as well as the room bosses.

In all the time ive been in doom ive never seen ppl leading the room bosses out of the rooms, but its apparent that this was gamechanging and had to be fixed.

Just wish that speedhacks, scripting, client mods, and the peacemaking bugs were as gamechanging as this doom crap so maybe it would get fixed.

 

[christy1221]

I didn't even know you could lure them out.

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

Maybe it was an intended 'sploit fix, maybe we'll never know which, maybe we'll be able to guess ...

I remember one complaint regarding "luring" something in doom, just hasn't rung a BELL as to which ...
Then again ... though it sounds mighty specific:
"Doom mobs can no longer be kited out of the spawning rooms"

Kinda hard to be sure which mobs or which rooms ... rooms could mean spawn points ...
since that is where "everyone" went back too and was lured from ...

Just saying ... since ALL of them started acting the same ...
Kinda hard to Single Out one mob ... that mayhave been THE target ...

 

[Piotr]

Well, wouldn't it have been easier to make the rooms smaller then - e.g. 10x10 tiles ?!?

 

[Fran Fury]

The only luring I ever remember seeing or hearing about, concerned the room with Nix. People would go to log out and thanks to another change..people would lure the df to the hall and all the spawn could follow down the hall and kill people in the room waiting to log or the pets etc.

I have never heard of anyone taking any of the lesser mobs out of their rooms. Why would they anyways?

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Dont be rude. Go back and have a look at old Five on Fridays. There were Five questions, plus Playguide Updates, plus Guides, plus Notcies, plus Warnings. FoFs used to be FULL of important info, and questions posed by players, answered by Devs.

I have (looked).

Some were, some weren't.

Some had more than 5 questions. Some had 4 questions and an update. Some had 5 questions PLUS the additional material.

Frankly as long as it's 5 items and some of those are substantive I'm ok with it.

-Galen's player

 

[AesSedai]

Dont be rude. Go back and have a look at old Five on Fridays. There were Five questions, plus Playguide Updates, plus Guides, plus Notcies, plus Warnings. FoFs used to be FULL of important info, and questions posed by players, answered by Devs.

I have (looked).

Some were, some weren't.

Some had more than 5 questions. Some had 4 questions and an update. Some had 5 questions PLUS the additional material.

Frankly as long as it's 5 items and some of those are substantive I'm ok with it.

-Galen's player

- Interestingly enough the first four statements this Friday were subjects brought up, questioned about, and important to some players. Answered by the Devs too. Some might even go so far as to say this week's FoF segment was FULL of important information. Granted the fourth wasn't put in the form of a question but all-the-same they gave us information about something that concerned some of the playerbase.

 

[AesSedai]

WARNING: House Resizing
...
Also, something to keep in mind - your ability to place your house will be dependant on the *current* house placement rules. It's possible that some older houses were placed under a less-restrictive set of rules, and if the house is demolished, the original square footage (tileage?) will no longer be available according to the current rules. A buffer zone is required of five tiles north and south, and one tile east and west. Be careful!

- As well, check to see if your house is currently Properly placed (house sign info. will tell you).
You may have properly placed it but sometimes the way other people place their homes after yours is established can alter the 'proper' placement of your home.

Meaning: You will not be able to place the same size home if you drop one while it says it is improperly placed.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

I haven't spend years in Doom, but I've spend enough time down there to have recieved a few arties (one before the drop rate changed) and I've NEVER seen this (ab)use of the doors.

Well, count yourself lucky then.

On LS in the early days of Doom it used to happen all the time.

People would rush into the rooms....Most of us were ignorant of what was to come.

Then they would lure the spawn outside and trap us in the room. Sometimes we had to wait for newcomers to come by and kill the spawn out in the main room before we could leave the room!

-Galen's player

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

- Interestingly enough the first four statements this Friday were subjects brought up, questioned about, and important to some players. Answered by the Devs too. Some might even go so far as to say this week's FoF segment was FULL of important information. Granted the fourth wasn't put in the form of a question but all-the-same they gave us information about something that concerned some of the playerbase.

I guess to some of us it's like that game show where you have to phrase your answer in the form of a question?

Now granted, the Fives on Friday have always varied a lot in terms of their usefulness.

This was actually a pretty good week.

-Galen's player

 

[Joyous2K]

- Interestingly enough the first four statements this Friday were subjects brought up, questioned about, and important to some players. Answered by the Devs too. Some might even go so far as to say this week's FoF segment was FULL of important information. Granted the fourth wasn't put in the form of a question but all-the-same they gave us information about something that concerned some of the playerbase.

I think they felt obligated to address these things because all of these are bugs that they unleashed on UO last week.

I'm starting to figure out the pattern now....

next 3 weeks will be hype for pub 54:
1)implementation of a newer darker shadowier evil,
2)the warsidhe (a tameable black cu sidhe with more hp and smoke out its butt)
3)a new hand in for the beehives and dragons heads and newer darker shields,
and finally what everyone has wanted,
4)the ability to elevate your house! You can now raise your house onto stilts in swampy areas!

Then four weeks from now will be the chaos that pub 54 causes

and, full circle, week five will have a FOF that says...
1) don't use the house elevator because it is bugged
2) Warsidhes aren't bonding right, hmmm?
3) The new dark evil is coming, but we can't figure out why it is inaccessible. Our devs are handling this.
4) Pub 55 is coming in a few weeks
5) Visit the Trinsic Library and RP Fanatics sites here! Have a nice week.