On April Fools' day: "In Testing" notes from 1999

[Varka]

http://www.wtfman.com/oldjov/oldnews/sept99news.htm

In Testing
This was published to In Testing today :

• The begging skills should be fully functional again. In fact, you will be able to use it on other players.
• Gold will no longer be lost when collecting it from vendors who have large amounts. Instead vendors will give use the gold to buy boats and women, and retire to the palace in Nujel'M.
• Dyes and dye tubs will always make everything turn black. They will be usable on clothing, armor, hair, skin, horses, grass, trees, rocks and other players.
• Mining without room in your backpack will destroy your backpack.
• Items that fall out of decayed player corpses will now be contained in a locked, trapped chest.
• Bankers will no longer deal with players. This will put a damper on one particular thief tactic in banks. In fact, it should largely curtail all of the activity at banks.
• The radius you can detect hidden in will now increase based on your skill, up to almost the full Shard for a grandmaster.
• Hiding will cause you to become poisoned.
• Spellcasting creatures and NPCs will now cast Reactive Armor on Energy Vortexes and then Provoke them to attack you.
• It will no longer be possible to gate.
• Looting while hidden will result in becoming poisoned.
• A problem with the formula used in the healing skill will be fixed. The result is that the healing skill will cause you to become poisoned.
• Killing cows will no longer lower karma. However, pigs cast flamestrike. Both animals are now poisonous.
• The "combat auto-move" bug will be fixed. You will now be unable to move while in combat.
• The problem whereby people of karma tier -4 could not deal with shopkeepers will be fixed. However, shopkeepers will be poisonous.
• Ordering a pet or hireling to become friends with inanimate objects will not be possible. In fact, there will be no more friends in the game at all. It's a dog-eat-dog world.
• Oh, and Dogs are now poisonous.
• Ressurrection while the resurrection menu is up will be completely impossible. This should finally fix all those ghost house-break-in exploit.
• The "You are already casting" bug will be fixed by purchasing UO Assist.
• Taste Id and Animal Lore are still useless skills. Can you believe they are even on the skill list? What the hell were we thinking?
• Provocation will no longer flag anyone criminal, because everyone will already be flagged criminal all the time anyway.
• Any use of the herding skill will result in immediate death.
• The problem with beggars talking to you from miles away will be fixed. Beggars will now teleport to your location to keep up
• Resurrectors will now die.
• Murder counts will atrophy at the rate of 1 per minute.

 

[Mithrandir Stormcrow]

LMAO

 

[CorwinWE2]

I think that may have been written by Dundee of the UO News Group, Lake Superior, and SW:G fame. He passed away, and his site is down, and it's been cross-posted numerous times since so I can't confirm if it was him or maybe even someone like Magnus who used to post a ton of hilarious stuff on the news group back in the day. Some have credited to to "Sie Ming" but he may have just x-posted it.

Anyway, what made it so funny at the time was that it was actually based on UO release notes. A good parody always contains elements of the truth. Think about that, when reading it.

 

[GarthGrey]

Ordering a pet or hireling to become friends with inanimate objects will not be possible. In fact, there will be no more friends in the game at all. It's a dog-eat-dog world.

This was my favorite, and I still remember it vividly. You could have a dog guard a door, someone opened the door and turned grey, crowd beat down ensued. Good times, well, except for the victim.