Wow, old 1997 patch notes for UO shows some features were implemented way earlier that I thought!

[Harlequin]

Which of you old timers still remember that the UO main page was originally www.owo.com and not www.uo.com?


Spent an hour trying to search for some info on the old pages, but figured that could wait and I should be playing UO instead! Being entirely evil, I shall now try to distract some of you from competing with me in the events.


Pretty cool - the patch notes back from Sept 97 to Feb 98 shows that some of the game improvements were implemented way before UO's first birthday:
http://web.archive.org/web/19980214050827/http://www.owo.com/help/tech/new/pat_main.html


Oh, and here's an old pic of the physical servers' locations:
http://web.archive.org/web/19980214051038/http://www.owo.com/help/tech/serv/mas_main.html


Take your time!


And here's a link to the list of other even older patches (prior to Feb 98):
http://web.archive.org/web/19980214052531/http://www.owo.com/help/tech/new/oldpatch.html

 

[DJAd]

I found this on the old site. Make a great avatar.

 

[funkymonkey]

Guildstones - we need them back.

 

[Voodoo Bad Mojo]

Oh, and here's an old pic of the physical servers' locations:
http://web.archive.org/web/19980214051038/http://www.owo.com/help/tech/serv/mas_main.html

that map is bloody strange.
ive always just imagined that GL and LS where up by the..... well up by the Great Lakes.

and why is Lake Austin on a different down time then GL and LS if they are at the same place?

strangeness.

 

[Flutter]

that map is bloody strange.
ive always just imagined that GL and LS where up by the..... well up by the Great Lakes.

and why is Lake Austin on a different down time then GL and LS if they are at the same place?

strangeness.

I've never seen that map either, at least I don't remember it if I did. I found it strange GL and LS were in texas.
Also, does anyone remember when AOL Legends was born? It wasn't that long into the game was it?

 

[Flutter]

Oh and.. Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

• The magic ritual for summoning creatures will now take longer.

 

[DevilsOwn]

Also, does anyone remember when AOL Legends was born? It wasn't that long into the game was it?

spring of 2000..... and they gave us a month of free game play (the citizens of Legends of Kesmai) to try it out (personally I hated this new world, wanted Kes back)

 

[Harlequin]

Oh and.. Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Because my friend showed a GM how he could do machine gun fireballs...

I doubt he's the only one that complained though...

Hence the start of the current casting animation.

 

[Harlequin]

• Female plate mail is now actually plate mail and requires ingots to make. Its stats have also been altered as well to better reflect its coverage of the equipment slots (not the body, it's still a competitive choicei for full body armor).

Hah! Made enough gold before this change by crafting female plate from leather to get my tower.

• Pack animals should display correctly in the shop window.

This update was Feb 98. That means pack horses were already implemented earlier than 5 months into the game!
Prior to that, I used my horse to "fetch" crates laden with ore.

• Banks will become available in Jhelom, Skara Brae, Minoc.

Ohh, this brings back memories, some cities do not have banks. Second bank at Trinisic and Brit were also added a couple of months after UO's release.

Buc's didn't have a bank either then.

• An in-game guild system will allow players to form guilds, recruit members, set guild names and abbreviations (abbreviations to show with their name), and eventually wage war between guilds.

I still have my original guildstone!



Here's a link to the list of other even older patches (prior to Feb 98):
http://web.archive.org/web/19980214052531/http://www.owo.com/help/tech/new/oldpatch.html

 

[Picus of Napa]

No more XYZ Picus named chars after that patch. Sadly I fondly recall seeing 3 or 4 guys all named that way, takes you way back.

Wow, that really brings me back. Yep, spent some good time in jail for this one... oops!

• The resurrect spell will have a very small range--you must be standing next to the ghost to resurrect them. This is because of the number of house break-in tactics involving resurrection via tricky lines of sight.

This happened to me more than once as did the old lost house key "event"

 

[FrejaSP]

I always loved the old play guide , special the part about interacting

 

[Cogniac]

Oh and.. Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

• The magic ritual for summoning creatures will now take longer.

Because at the time, there was no such concept as control slots, thus the casting time was the only limiting factor on the number of summoned creatures with which you could lag spam people.

I, too, believe that reverting Summon Creature back to the standard 5th circle casting time is long overdue now that we have control slots as a hard upper limit.

 

[Harlequin]

Because at the time, there was no such concept as control slots, thus the casting time was the only limiting factor on the number of summoned creatures with which you could lag spam people.

I, too, believe that reverting Summon Creature back to the standard 5th circle casting time is long overdue now that we have control slots as a hard upper limit.

Ohhh, I totally misread what Flutter quoted and thought that was the patch that introduced the casting delay for any spell casting.

Summon Creature was also used for house break-ins and accessing certain un-reachable areas.

I agree, there shouldn't be any reason to keep that extended casting time for Summon Creature now.

 

[Pawain]

Well now I know why LS was the server I chose. The servers were in Garriot's castle in Austin. LOL

I still have a few characters on other shards that only have their stats in the 20s from starting in the early days.

Standing around the banks, watching a gate open for people to go in to die was a fun way to pass time. I would go in after the first ones and hide nearby to watch the carnage and redistribute the items from bodies.

 

[Uvtha]

Because at the time, there was no such concept as control slots, thus the casting time was the only limiting factor on the number of summoned creatures with which you could lag spam people.

I, too, believe that reverting Summon Creature back to the standard 5th circle casting time is long overdue now that we have control slots as a hard upper limit.

Man... my friend started macroing from like... month two or something, and was one of the first GM mages on LS. He absolutly destroyed people with summoned demons. People wouldn't event know what was going on before they were just dead. Luckily he was an anti-pk.

Similarly some time in 98 I was one of the first people of LS to tame a dragon. Back then they would attack anything that walked on screen, even when tamed. I inadvertently killed like 50 people that day, as one dragon fireball was enough to kill most people.

Good times.

 

[The Zog historian]

Ohh, this brings back memories, some cities do not have banks. Second bank at Trinisic and Brit were also added a couple of months after UO's release.

Buc's didn't have a bank either then.

I think it was later 1999, maybe 2000, that all NPCs were made invulnerable, and it became practical to put a banker in Buc's. There were the, ahem, constant slaughters over sandals, which would have been amusing were it not for the problem of GMs having to replace the NPCs manually.

For a short time in 1998, Sonoma's player town Oasis had a banker, I think so Fight Night participants could bank securely and not have to risk items outside. However, the NPC wasn't invulnerable and didn't last long. And in case anyone wonders, it was not I that killed him. In fact, I was glad to see it for the sake of my red and my friends' reds. It was the first time I confirmed that, contrary to rumors, a bank box did not get wiped upon turning red under Reputation.

 

[MalagAste]

I miss when your pet would "fetch" and "guard" when it guarded objects... And doors.

 

[The Zog historian]

I miss when your pet would "fetch" and "guard" when it guarded objects... And doors.

Until we got the January 1999 housing changes, guarding doors was essential so a homeowner and friends didn't have to take counts on intruders. The problem was that some would leave a backpack or pile of gold on the ground in town, then have a pet (any pet would do) guard it.

 

[MalagAste]

Until we got the January 1999 housing changes, guarding doors was essential so a homeowner and friends didn't have to take counts on intruders. The problem was that some would leave a backpack or pile of gold on the ground in town, then have a pet (any pet would do) guard it.

Used to have mine guard such things..... doors at the Healers... that was always fun..... LOL

 

[Speranza]

There is now a limit of 2 vendors per house.

HA! That didn't last!

 

[Endal]

Comic SANS!!!!

 

[Harlequin]

1/29/98

• Tags, like [frozen] and [invulnerable] will now appear over those who are affected in those ways.

This was already added back in Jan 98?

• All field spells now flag the caster as criminal for the duration of the field.

I remember learning about this after getting flagged when someone walked into my Fire Field

• Runes marked under houses will no longer work.

Can't remember if this was the break in exploit where we can page GMs to put a small block of stone under houses' entrance steps.

• You will no longer be able to recall while overloaded. This is because of three reasons. First, it was being abused by those who used recall as a way to travel between dungeons and the like, whilst too encumbered to move--particularly playerkillers. Second, it was a common way of cleaning a house that was broken into. Lastly, recalling across server boundaries whilst overloaded with large amounts of items made for slower crossing of the boundary, and thus server load and lag.

This was already added back in Jan 98?

• A new UO.CFG option has been added which lets you set whether or not you wish to have pathfinding available. If it is turned off, then double-right-clicking will do nothing.

Much needed. I kept triggering pathfinding at the wrong times.

• Container capacity has been reduced by weight, and there is now also a container capacity limit based on number of items. If your container is full, you will just get a message saying you cannot put anything else in it. The maximum number of items in a container is now 400. A stack of items counts as only one item. Everything in nested containers does count! We realize that this change will require a change in the play style of many players, but it is necessary to provide you with better server performance. Our target is to eventually reduce to 100 items over the next few weeks. The weight limit is now 500 stones instead of 1000.

It was 400 at 1 time!
...
...
It was unlimited before that!
...
Recall took at least 10 secs or more to transfer your character to a different subserver!

• Daemons are now more aggressive.

Mobs (including dragons and daemons) did not aggro until you attacked them.
You can walk with impunity past them into the deepest levels of the dungeons if you don't get killed by other players first.

 

[Uvtha]

I think it was later 1999, maybe 2000, that all NPCs were made invulnerable, and it became practical to put a banker in Buc's. There were the, ahem, constant slaughters over sandals, which would have been amusing were it not for the problem of GMs having to replace the NPCs manually.

For a short time in 1998, Sonoma's player town Oasis had a banker, I think so Fight Night participants could bank securely and not have to risk items outside. However, the NPC wasn't invulnerable and didn't last long. And in case anyone wonders, it was not I that killed him. In fact, I was glad to see it for the sake of my red and my friends' reds. It was the first time I confirmed that, contrary to rumors, a bank box did not get wiped upon turning red under Reputation.

Oh man... I remember luring npcs out of town for unique colored sandals and clothes. One of my LS characters is still wearing a blessed pair of once npc innkeeper owned deep green short pants that were of a hue you couldn't get normally.

 

[THP]

I ALWAYS rember when i started. and the time it took to kll the liardmen then the ettin then the ogres,,,,crazy i remebr looking at the uo book that came with the game.. it listed all the creautres n the game..it was a mini book in itself..... i even ticked them off when i killed them..silly but true... i woud love a hunters book in the game

 

[Basara]

that map is bloody strange.
ive always just imagined that GL and LS where up by the..... well up by the Great Lakes.

and why is Lake Austin on a different down time then GL and LS if they are at the same place?

strangeness.

Because by early 2002 GL & LS had been moved to the east coast servers, and the LA server was never IN Texas to start with, at least by the time it reached the public.

I went through all the old patch/publish notes from uo.com a few years ago, and the last references to the Central server farm was either in 4Q 2001 or 1Q 2002, and by the time LA was live, GL & LS were being referred to as Eastern servers.