UO NEWS AND WHIRLED REPORT - THE LATE EDITION [Author: Arcadian Del Sol]
Page One: Spelling OOoOoO just got a whole lot easier.
I have to be honest with you here. There are SO MANY CHANGES COMING SO FAST, that I honestly am worried I might accidentally report something ludicrous like first circle spells getting a substantial increase in damage and higher level spells become far less expensive to cast. waitadamnminute… that IS what they’re doing. Sample the following from Our Lady of Updates, the lovely Cynthe:
Spell Changes
Several spells will have their power increased, particularly low-circle spells. Spells such as Magic Arrow, Fireball, and Lightning Bolt will do noticeably more damage then before. The energy bolt, explosion, and flamestrike spells will be given a small damage increase. In addition, some spells will have lower reagent cost(note: until players receive a client patch these changes will not be visible in the spellbook).
The Harm Spell
The “Harm” spell will have its damage scaled based upon the caster’s distance to the target. The closer the caster is to the target, the more damage it deals.
Pardon me while I shake my head and make brblde-brblde-brblde sounds. Mages are getting stronger. Well that’s just great. Why not just up and make lumberjacking and anatomy do substantially more damage while we’re at it.
…the maximum damage bonus for anatomy will be increased to 30% upon reaching 100.0 skill (the damage bonus will still be 20% for players with less then 100.0 anatomy skill.
and…
Lumberjack Damage Bonus
The lumberjack skill will now add a damage bonus to axe weapons using the same formula as described for the anatomy damage bonus. The bonus is 20% of the lumberjack skill until 99.9 skill and 30% for 100 skill.
And if that fails to upset your concepts of “delicate balance” in UO combat, toss a pinch of this action into the big update stew:
Players will no longer be required to equip their spellbooks while casting. They may continue to do so if they so choose (holding a spellbook will not prevent you from casting a spell). Players will be able to gain wrestling and/or tactics skill while holding a spellbook if the appropriate skill is marked to go “up”.
See, I told you I might get a little confused and be prone to hysterical confusions and insane assumptions. Lets’ just move on to page two before they decide to give grandmaster tailors a 30% damage bonus.
Page Two: Love Publish Number Twelve
The Publish that Shall Not Be named has been named Publish Number Twelve. This is super secret double-agent crypto-masked gyro-doodle code-speak for “Veteran Rewards Update”. The reason that they are not calling it “Veteran Rewards Update” is because the code is being installed in a state of dormancy. This does not mean it is attending college. Possibly borrowing from the WW2Online anti-Gear code, this update is being installed but not “turned on.” Kinda like that mysterious “fun code” in Anarchy Online. Here’s a sampling of green text to hush the AO fanbois looking for something to point at and shout “MADE UP” (something the Shadowbane fanbois used to do, but have sadly taken a backseat to the “AOvicates”)…
Once all shards are running Publish 12, and we are confident that the veteran rewards system is functioning properly, we will begin to activate veteran rewards systematically on pre-determined shards. Please note that this means that players will not be able to choose rewards immediately once the publish is received.
So there. On to page Three…
Page Three: UO:3.5th Dawn coming soon
Ultima Online: Third Dawn is slated for a laundry list of updates that read like a “to do” list for Tugsoft, developers and distributors of Ultima Online Assist (UOA). Dilate your peepers on this little hunter paste…
1) An toggle has been added to the “Interface” subcategory of the options gump that lets players use the old-fashioned style container gumps instead of the new versions.
2) Sound effects play when you open and close container gumps.
3) Shopping gumps should now be much, much faster.
4) A zoom slider has been added to the quick menu.
5) NPCs should no longer continue to walk in place after they’ve stopped moving.
6) Players can now turn off object handles under the “Interface” subcategory in the options gump.
7) Object handles now stack in a certain order – more commonly needed items tend to be on top. For example, handles for corpses stack above all others.
8) Object handles are now color coded re: red/blue/grey for mobiles depending on notoriety, other objects have gold handles.
9) Speech and All-Names are now clickable for targeting, use, and attacking.
10) The player can now disable having the paperdoll model animate.
11) An issue whereby health bars would not update has been resolved.
12) Objects dropped in a container should now show up at exactly the location they were dropped at.
13) A problem where players would not be able to pick up objects has been resolved. This should also resolve problems players have had looting their corpse.
14) Skills are alphabetically sorted for players using languages in the ASCII character set.
15) Skill lock toggles will no longer go awry when a skill is moved from one group to another.
16) Command macros should now save properly.
17) The location of speech text over players’ heads has been adjusted.
18) This patch also includes several fixes to resolve numerous other bugs and crashes reported by players.
If you ask me, sounds like the beta might be over. Oh wait a second, what’s this I forgot one?
19) MAKE IT SO PLAYERS DONT LOOK LIKE HOMELESS ALCOHOLICS
Sorry – I made that one up, but if you ask me, it should be on that list somewhere. Page Four, please.
Page Four: The Savage Frontier
And now…ORCS IN THE NEWS…
Remember those nasty Orcs waging war on our towns. It appears there is a reason for it. Pictured top right on this report is the Savage, a curious breed of orc* featuring more tattoos than a Red Hot Chili Peppers video (For those of you with any level of taste in music, allow me to translate – they have “a lot” of them). Savages have been spotted this very evening on Oceania and are expected to reveal themselves on other shards any moment now. They are hell bent on driving the orcs from their forts, thus the orcs have opted to pack bags and head to the big cities. jeepers creepers. I could really use a nice kitty picture right about now.
* Late update: It has been discovered that these tattooed Savages are not orcs, but are in fact, humans. Word is that KoC is attempting to recruit them.
Page Four Redux: And now your moment of zen.
Oh NOOO. Not another patch day!!