Last night the servers for Warhammer Online opened for the preview weekend. What a blast it was with literally hundreds of people running around the newbie zone doing quests and getting in to RvR. Hats off to Mythic in that not once did I experience a problem where there were to many players and not enough quest NPC or MOB's. What really made my night was I made about 6 levels purely through PvP by playing the scenarios.

Six of my guild mates and I spent a good a couple of hours doing scenarios and leveling. It was the most fun I have had in an MMO doing the starter levels. I now see how someone could completely level just doing PvP. The other good thing was the scenarios were a blast and a couple of hours slide past before I even knew it. Add in the fact that the public quests are also available and if you want you can do the traditional quests, you have a number of paths you can take to leveling. In fact I have made level 10 and have a crap load of traditional quests that I haven't even bothered getting around to doing.

The enjoyment of being able to get into PvP from level one was simply brillant. In Age of Conan (AOC) you can start PvPing from about level 4 as thats the level you are when you reach the other players in the game. However the PvP is pointless in that killing someone does nothing but give you bragging rights. The other problem is the higher level characters tend to sit around the starting area and have there fun ganking people 10 levels below them.

Yesterday I mentioned that we are looking like we will get three servers down under. Well I logged in this morning to see if the beta was open again and I noticed that the server names from yesterday have been changed. Good news is we definitely look like having three servers on launch.



Also those that are not in the closed beta, but have been accepted to the preview weekend can now patch there client. I tested this with my preview account and it authenticated and patched the client.

Cheers
Shane

Mythic have stated they are going to release three server types on launch of Warhammer. Those type are Core, Open RvR and Core RP. So speculation has been what sort of server type would we get down under. Well I think I have the answer.

ALL THREE!!!!!
You heard it here first
Cheers
Shane

Man does Mythic know how to make CGI videos.

Check this out: http://mythicmktg.fileburst.com/war/us/home/flash/WAR_cinematic_08.html

Also for those that want to know about quests, maps and all the other things that make up Warhammer, www.wardb.com looks to be a great resource.

Cheers
Shane

I managed to get use of a friends closed beta account for Warhammer Online and I have to say my first 6 hours in game have been very impressive. Which I wouldn’t expect anything less, considering Age of Conan for the first twenty levels was content rich and provided a great gaming experience. I mean if you cant get the first twenty levels right, your game is doomed from the onset.

The NDA for Warhammer Online has been lifted as Mythic prepare to launch there next RVR focused MMO. I stated previously that I was not going to play Warhammer, well I have relented as the guild I joined have all moved from AOC and are starting in War.

One thing I can say is the design documents I have read and the way the game is focused around Realm versus Realm this game is certainly shaping up to be an excellent time sink. Mythic have a lot of experience with RvR in Dark Age of Camelot and therefore should have learned a lot to whats required to make the experience fun and addictive. So for your viewing pleasure I am posting some screen shots of my first romp in War.

Expect more to come over the next couple of weeks as I use the beta period to try all of the characters I can so as to know what I want as a main when the game launches.

Well AOC has been fun. However Funcom missed the mark releasing a PvP centric game that had no point to its PvP. Funcom still struggles to implement its PvP patch. War appears to have the Realm v Realm element well designed and implemented. Which is the benefit of being the company that pioneered alot of the first gen RvR. As much as I cursed the game in my last post, Im going were the friends/guild is going and thats WAR

I just watched this video which is beta footage of Warhammer Online. You can't be serious EA/Mythic, I mean really. Tell me this is not a WOW clone graphically. In fact when I was watching the video I got the impression this was what WOW 1 looked like and the version of WOW that got over 7 million users is WOW 2.

Combat in the footage is absolutely abysmal and the cartoon environment looks already out dated against WOW. I can't believe you are serious and am dumbfounded that Mark Jacobs would even be associated with this project. It is safe to say I wont be bothering with Warhammer Online, which pleases me, as EA has had by gaming dollar for the last 10 years with UO. UO unfortunately is more fondly remembered for being at its best not long after it launched and has been on a down hill slide ever since.

Good luck to those that give it a go, remember its EA and they are fucking hopeless at running MMO's.

I know, this is getting a little bit obsessive in that I keep posting decapitation shots. Ok this is the last one, unless I get a better one. Here is the money shot as I call it, my sword cutting through the neck and taking the head off, the massive amounts of blood and the then the corpse without arms and a head. Even notice the shield laying next to the corpse.

Here is an additional screeny for today as I managed to capture my fine axe taking the head of a victim. You may notice she no longer has any arms either, they came off before the head

Today's screen shots are of the guild I am in and us raiding some of the dungeon instances. One thing I have to say I am really impressed with is the implementation of horses in AOC. They handle like you would think a horse will and they provide a travel boost that is well worth the gold investment.

My character hit level 57 last night and is still powering along. For the casual gamer AOC is friendly from a leveling perspective. Some levels can be a grind if you don't have a guild or your not interested in pick up groups to complete the group quests that are available as you level. If you dont mind grouping or are in a guild then leveling can be a breeze. The only issue in leveling to fast is that at 80 there's not a lot to do currently. Funcom are fleshing out the upper end of the game and therefore those that have powerleveled can either level another character or on the PVP servers go and grief lower levels than them.

Personally I am enjoying the game and think by the time I hit 80, Funcom will have addressed some of the concerns. The game is still only two months old since release. Yet if you read the Funcom forums you can get a glimpse into the truly mentally challenged in life. The general forum has at least 30 percent of posts complaining Funcom have removed boobies and the ability for more hard core adult themes. It really is a sad reflection when that's your biggest complaint.

This weeks screen shots capture the "M" rating in Age of Conan. The first couple of shots are of people being decapitated by my axe. The fatalities sequences in AOC are very entertaining. I have one where I cut the victims arms off and then their head.

The last three screen shots are of myself and two guild mates as we did a 6-8man instance with the three of us. Also considering I was apprenticed up for this little killing spree, it was a good effort as we managed to kill all three bosses.

I am currently in the process of switching hosting providers due to the extreme lack of professionalism with my old provider. As you may have noticed the site was down for three days. The response I got from the hosting provider was these things are complex and therefore take time to resolve. Well if you can't keep a web server up and think that its a complex task then maybe you should not be in the hosting business.

So those looking for hosting, my advice is stay away from these guys as they are flat out spelling the words web hosting let alone provide it five nines.

The podcasts are currently still being moved and therefore if you click a link to listen to a podcast, it will error. This will be resolved over the next 24 hours.

Cheers
Shane

When I started AOC I thought the game client was excellent and I couldn’t understand all the problems people kept complaining about. Now that Im in my mid 50’s I have an appreciation of the problems people are complaining about. So for the last week or so my client experience has deteriorated to the point I can understand why the less technically savvy would quit the game in disgust.

Until I was finally forced to deal with the issue, my client was crashing nearly hourly. If I zoned more than five times, it would crash or I would restart the client so it didn’t crash. However speaking in guild chat a few of the guys mentioned this wasn’t their experience and that they only have the occasional crash and the odd memory allocation crash.

The other big problem was and is the cause to my previous post was that after a crash the bloody client could decide it needed to download anywhere from 1 meg to 1 gig of files. This can happen extremely randomly and is the source of much angst and gnashing of teeth. However there is a solution and those prepared to take the time the majority of problems I have found can be resolved.

Today I was playing AOC happily enough. I logged off to do some other things and when I returned I get an error with the client loading. The fix for that error is this:

Not much of an update today as I spent the weekend in Noosa and away from a PC, so I didn't get any AOC in since last Friday morning.

Siege PVP in AOC is a big part of the end game and heres another video showing the potential of this. I suggest you click the download button just under the video and copy it locally for better quality.

http://files.filefront.com/Vae+Victus+2nd+Siegempg/;10869271;/fileinfo.html

Funcom are also putting up a test server and it looks like reducing there patching policy from 2 a week to who knows what. They didn't patch last night when they normally do and they have not said when the next patch is.

I see alot of complaints starting to build up with alot of players making level 80 and not having a lot to do. It sucks when you power level through the game and then wonder why theres nothing left to do. I gather Funcom are madly working on content for the end of the level curve due to the fact that leveling is not that hard even for none power gamers. Shit even Im level 43 and I've been playing for about 3 weeks.

Anyway, time for work, expect more updates this week as I try and hit the upper levels so that I can participate in guild raids and PVP events.

As the title suggests in todays screen shot update we have some boobies and lots of blood and gore. Nothing like playing an "M" rated game. I also managed to hit level 40 last night before the server update, which allowed me to purchase a horse. Level 40 puts me halfway to the end game which is the reason I'm am playing. For siege PVP and generally PVP battles over zones.

Looks like Funcom patched in some bugs with last nights updates as the servers went down at 9pm last night our time and they are currently still down 08:30am the next day. They are the joys you get when you play a MMORPG that is less than 6 months old. I have also noticed some more annoying bugs that are starting to show up as I progress through the levels. One very annoying bug is when you try and sell things on the auction house, they don't sell so you decide to sell them to a vendor just to make some coin anyway. Well vendors wont buy things that have been on the auction house. Its like the vendors are snubbing your business for not selling to them first. My understanding is that king Conan has sent word to the merchants union that they better fix the issue or it will be off with their heads.

Anyway heres the screen shots for today.

Part of enjoying Age of Conan is playing with friends. So I recently joined a guild called The Kelly Gang which was a little ironic considering when Oceania came up I started a guild on that shard called The Kelly Gang. Anyway one of the features of Age of Conan is the apprentice capabilities. What this allows is you to adventure with friends that are several levels above you.

One person takes you on as an apprentice and you get a temp level boost to one level below your master. This is a stats boost only which means you earn experience at the rate the group earns at and you don't draw all the agro. Other games give an XP penalty when you try and power level with higher level players, AOC actually have addressed this issue and even made it fun.

So todays screen shots are of me being power leveled with two members of my new found guild mates. Notice in a couple of them I'm level 36 and then I'm level 50.

The series of screen shots are from Age of Conan found in the guild I have joined. I have permission to use them here as they are in the private forum for the guild.

In my last post I mentioned I was making some mods to the site so that I could post screen shots without having to load a new page. I had some issues with Firefox and they have since been fixed.
So my plan is to try and do daily updates with at least some screen shots of what is a stunning looking game. I recently changed my video options to max out the video settings and I switched to a AOC UI Mod called Mirage.

The second part of the new update is being able to group images together and view them like a gallery. So these next couple should work in this fashion.

While the AOC servers are down and being patched, I decided to update the code behind this site and make a quick modification.

Heres a good video I saw on the potential of the end game for AOC.

http://www.afraidyet.net/forums/showthread.php?t=46388

So far I have to say I am enjoying AOC a lot and think it has some real potential. The down side is I saw how Funcom handled Anarchy Online and that leaves a shadow over this game for the long haul.

In the meantime I am having a blast. I'm playing on a free for all PVP server which is the way I like it. Sure you get your share of wankers that can't compete with players at there own level and need to be a cyber bull. However the worlds big enough that if you encounter one of these digital fools you can either get help, leave the area and do some other quests or just stand there and offer no insults or challenge, there tiny brains eventually get bored and they will seek someone who bites and sends them tells complaining.

The PvP in AOC has a lot of potential and if you see this video you can appreciate that button mashing has an art form and its more than hit combo and wait. Those that say its purely button mashing truly have no clue and most likely return to UO as the only game they ever where any good at.

So the day has dawned and I have closed my accounts for the last time. UO on Oceania is dieing a slow and painful death and I no longer wish to be a part of it.

I maybe moving to the US next year to work for Cisco in San Francisco and if that pans out I may reopen my accounts. However I have started playing Age of Conan on a PVP free for all server and am loving it so far.

I have been ganked a number of times and truly feel like the old days of UO when reds used to hang out just on the edges of town and gank anyone that stepped outside. Funcom have some issues to sort out, however Ill make another post soon about my take on the game so far.

I am on holidays and shall return to posting again shortly. However something happened today that compelled me to post. I was cleaning out my Keep when I found a bag of 110 scrolls that I didnt need. Instead of throwing them out I decided to give them away at Luna bank.

All I asked was those that helped themselves only take what they needed. As you can see from this next screen shot that policy was working well. 

Of course what was I thinking. Along came a person from a guild I can only assume has a low standard of hiring as this person after being asked to only take what they needed proceeded to collect all the scrolls for themselves.

The guild this person is a member of is POC. I had a little more respect for them until this incident and now have them as KOS should I see them in Fel. Which I havent seen any of them in Fel in the last 2 months so its very unlikely I will get to show them the disrespect they showed me.

Anyway, my next podcast wont be for a couple weeks as Im on holidays until Saturday when I fly to Bangkok for work for a week. After I return ill get a podcast out and it will focus around Petrify's new guild One United World.

Cheers
Shane

If your shard is like the one I play on, PvP is on the decline. There dosent appear to be much coming from EA in getting people to come back to UO, so on our shard some of the hardcore PvPers have decided to take it upon themselves to try and inject some life into this dead horse called PvP.

To do that these guys have broken away from their current guild OPK and started a new guild One United World (OUW). This guild is for anyone that wants to learn to PvP, Spawn and survive the Felucca facite.

Now these guys are well know for not really giving a care for what anyone else outside their guild thinks. They have been know to grief the players they are now trying to attract and they have been know to scam people as well. As stated by one of them, PvP is dying and really the only option is to try and introduce more people to PvP. So these guys want to recant their old ways and start a guild that anyone can join and hopefully benefit from.

Many people have knocked the idea and said its purely a ruse for them to get some slaves to spawn for them. Well thats not likely, getting scrolls on our shard is not exactly a challenge especially when one of them completed another Rats solo that day.

Me I believe that they are on the right track and all I have got to loose from getting in and trying to help them is some time. Seeing as I see the benefit should these guys be on the level that I think my time is worth the investment for what it could achieve. So far so good.

We even had our first outting last night with the first four memebers of the guild. We even managed to beat OPK back 3 times before one member had to log and eventually we surrended the champ to OPK. So if your on the Oceania shard and want to try your hand at PvP, then give OUW a shot as this guild is for you.

For those that are interested in some easy insurance money, keep an eye out for these two chars of mine: Frogskin (Blue) and FrozenYoghurt (Red).

Cheers
Shane

In PvP battles anyone can ress anyone else and they are back into it within seconds.

Heres my fix for it:

It should be that every time you die in a PvP battle (which would have to be a time period or location), it takes more people to ress you.

So die once, any person can res you.
Die twice, two people have to res you
Die three times, three people have to res you.
Die ... you get the idea. Cap it at 5 or 6 maybe.

This answers all angles for requirements and puts the onus of the guild to keep each other alive.

A moment of brilliance I must say

Cheers
Shane

Posted on Stratics UHall: Draconi_EA

Helloooooo everybody!

Winterland is up and running, and more and more activities are coming online every day.

Here's what's happening right now:

* Britain decorated for the season! Snow, party favors, and more!
* Paint stations: Use any hue from 0 to 2000
* Pet Bonding and Spellweaving Gates
* Giant Holiday Tree: The decorations keep piling up!
* Wishlist: Leave three wishes behind as a memory of the shard. (Some, especially the selfless ones, may be answered!)
* Dance Floor with Live Band: A result of one of the wishes, a live band is playing some of Britannia's favorite songs.
* Tunnel of Love: Another wish, try " *kissing*" under the mistletoe for a stat reward
* Decorated the Winery for the U.Hall Party: The party is on the 20th, and the Winery's halls have been decked out There's an ice sculpture, speaker's stage, chairs, table decorations, spa, and functioning restrooms. There's a gate near the Holiday Tree in Britain
* UO Devs in the Pillory: A few of the people responsible for UO chained up in front of cannons, waiting for their just desserts. You can find this north of the Winery at Empath Abbey

More to come! Including Snowball Wars, a Fair... - stay tuned!

Activities Guide

Paint Stations
* Double click, target item, type in the hue you want
* 0: Bleach - returns to natural color
* 1: Pure black
* 1150, 1153: White, Bright White
* 1152: Glacial
* 1154 - 1179: Fun neons
* 1180's: Crazy...

Wishlist
* Double click, and type in a wish! It may or may not come true.
* Three wishes

Dance Floor with Live Band
* Turn on Music in the Options
* Walk onto the dance floor, wait for the band to rotate into the next song (may be a minute or two before you get caught in the rhythm.
* Popular favorite: Selim's Bar

Mistletoe
* Stand under the mistletoe, with someone else within one tile
* Say "*kiss*" or "*kisses*" or anything that starts with "kiss"
* You'll glow a bit and see a message at the bottom part of your screen, and get a 150 base stat change to either Strength, Dexterity, or Intelligence
* You can only be the kisser once in a while (cooldown period)

Restrooms
* Walk inside the stall, sit down, wait for a little bit
* Drops food satiety in half
* Requires several hours before another attempt

Edited by Draconi_EA (12/17/07 12:08 PM)

Well it is time for another excellent podcast coming from UOPODCASTING.COM if I do say so myself.

In this podcast I have a small rant about EA and there disrespect to the UO community when it comes to this years Christmas gifts, or should I say last years gifts. Then I get onto another interview from one of our shards most notorious PvP guilds OPK. In this interview I speak to Petrify about a new guild he is starting with Draconius in an attempt to spark interest in PvP on our small shard as well as help those that have wanted to learn the thrill of defending a champ spawn and walking away with the scrolls and insurance money of the raiders.

So dont be shy, tune in your listening ears and listen another stella Ultima Online Podcast coming to you from the Gold Coast Australia.

Cheers
Shane

Opps did I say 2006, well you certainly would have thought it was if you play UO. Every year EA gives Christmas gifts to those active accounts that are 30 days or older when the gifts are given out. Well not this year, EA having laid off half or more of the development staff due to redundancies and the moving of the development studio to a location the other developers did want to move too has left the 10 year tradition as a joke this year.

Every year for 10 years EA has at least made an attempt to give something different and new  to its subscribers, but as another sign things are not all well at UO HQ, this year was an exact rehash of last years gifts except with the date changed to suit the year.

Image inside.

Posted at Stratics UHall: Draconi_EA

Current number of Rift Guardians by shard and facet.
Shard name: Felucca / Trammel

Atlantic: Success / Success
Catskills: Success / Success
Chesapeake: Success / Success
Great Lakes: Defeat / Success
Lake Superior: Success / Success
Legends: Defeat / Success
Siege Perilous: Defeat

Baja: Success / Success
Lake Austin: Defeat / Success
Napa Valley: Success / Success
Origin: Success / Success
Pacific: Success / Success
Sonoma: Success / Success

Oceania: Success / Success

Asuka: Success / Success
Hokuto: Success / Success
Izumo: Success / Success
Mizuho: Success / Success
Mugen: Success / Success
Sakura: Success / Success
Wakoku: Success / Success
Yamato: Success / Success

Formosa: Defeat / Success
Arirang: Success / Success
Balhae: Defeat / Success

Drachenfels: Success / Success
Europa: Success / Success

Posted at Stratics UHall: Draconi_EA

In response to: You see: a damaged moongate 
                     The magic of this gate is too chaotic, and cannot be dispelled 
                     (Tram and Fel ... mag gate on " saved " shards ) 
                     random landings... without a selection gump

Draconi_EA: One destination is not normal

Posted at Stratics UHall: Draconi_EA

In response to: Hehe, yes indeed!! I happened to go to the Magincia Trammel Gate on Oceania, and met the fellow! Obviously he was just relaxing and , I believe, distracted for a good while as well!

Anyway, his attention did return to UO in due course, and upon seeing me there, he hastily put a robe on, exclaiming "How Embarrassing!"

He decided that I had to die, and began a 5 second countdown, that oddly enough according to my journal, I actually counted down myself! Of course the inevitable happened at Zero, and I was blown to oblivion.
Draconi himself had disappeared, I ran off seeking a healer, was ressed then I returned to find not Draconi, but Andrew the Servant.
Andrew told me to forget about that other guy, and when I explained that the whole thing had cost me a good amount of insurance, he transported me to that weird place!!

I was going to try to negotiate with Andrew, you know, some sort of deal to keep the embarrassing photos of Draconi off the forum..I'd keep quiet on it for some sort of...err...bribe!! But he disappeared as well, so meh... Draconi, where's ya pants!!

Darocni: ...

            How embarassing.

Posted at Stratics UHall: Draconi_EA

In response to: Im guessing we can use ''rubble'' and other ''building materials'' like ''wood and ingots'' etc etc.......as trade-in for points towards the cities rebuild and points for your own contribution!!!

Kinda guessing the prize for rebuilding the city, will be with luck, another chance of a Rift pillars, etc,

Draconi_EA: Um, that would be a little fast, wouldn't it?
                  *distracts with a holiday shard*

Post at Stratics UHall: Draconi_EA

Current number of Rift Guardians by shard and facet.
Shard name: Felucca / Trammel

Atlantic: Success / Success
Catskills: 8 / Success
Chesapeake: Success / Success
Great Lakes: 8 / Success
Lake Superior: Success / Success
Legends: 5 / Success
Siege Perilous: 7

Baja: Success / Success
Lake Austin: 4 / Success
Napa Valley: 5 / Success
Origin: 6 / Success
Pacific: Success / Success
Sonoma: 8 / Success

Oceania: 6 / Success

Asuka: Success / Success
Hokuto: Success / Success
Izumo: Success / Success
Mizuho: Success / Success
Mugen: Success / Success
Sakura: Success / Success
Wakoku: Success / Success
Yamato: Success / Success

Formosa: 8 / Success
Arirang: 8 / Success
Balhae: 4 / Success

Drachenfels: Success / Success
Europa: 8 / Success

Once again another fine production is coming your way in Corp Por Show #23.

In this podcast I have a small rant before we move onto an interview with one of Oceania's notorious serial killers from the guild OPK. Stumpy a UO Stratics moderator gives us his take on UO and how he played the game from IDOC hunter to mass murder with one of Oceania's most hated guilds.

Corp Por Show #23

Check it out and hey, dont be shy leave a comment if you liked, hated or didnt bother listening to the show.

Cheers
Shane

Post at UOHerald by: Jeremy Dalberg

Greetings All,

I’m Robert Mull, the new Community Relations Director for EA Mythic.  I oversee the work our team of Community Coordinators do for Warhammer Online (James Nichols), Dark Age of Camelot (Missy Hatch and Joanne Laroche) and Ultima Online (Jeremy Dalberg).  They are a great team and I am lucky to have inherited them.

As a gamer who got his start in MMOs with the Ultima Online beta, being allowed to support the same community that made that game so enjoyable to me is a real pleasure and I feel like I have come full circle.  Since then a decade has passed and I have played countless MMOs.  A few of these became part of my daily routine for years as I worked to found guilds, build cities, run player-events, engage in pvp conflicts, roleplay, and be an active member of the gaming community.  While the games have changed over the years, the real draw for me has always been the people.  A strong well-supported community makes good games great.

Prior to coming to EA Mythic, I worked at Wizards of the Coast supporting brands such as Avalon Hill, Axis & Allies, Dreamblade, Duel Masters and other products.  I learned many lessons there that I have brought with me to EA Mythic, but first and foremost is that you have to be honest and open with your community.

In the coming months you will be hearing much more from me.  I want to continue and extend the reputation EA Mythic has built for integrity, honesty and quality in community and customer support. Our job here is to be the voice of the community inside EA Mythic and the voice of the people working hard at EA Mythic to the community.  The Community Relations team is a feedback loop and our goal is making the community better, day by day.  I, for one, take that job very seriously and enjoy it immensely.

I look forward to talking to you all on the boards and at Road Trips, conventions and other public events.

Bob

So recently EA changed the drop rates in Doom so now even the most casual of players can get involved and even score an arty or two. However the whiners appear to be out in full force bitching about how archer templates dominate in Doom and should 16 or more of them show up its unfair and dose not allow anyone else to get a chance to get an artefact. Which as you can see from this thread, that not everyone agrees and even a debate started on whether archers are the best template for dealing damage.
 
I never ceases to amaze me how players of this game find something so moronic to whinge about, especially when if they really wanted they could create an archer template and go to Doom and join the crowd. But no, they would prefer to whinge and hope to effect change by getting EA to nurf archers. Which would only lead to another thread about another template needing nurfing. In this day and age of Soul Stones are people still too lazy to train up characters? Worse case you could use and advanced character token and start your archery skill at 85. If you took him to the invasion it wouldn’t take very long at all to get him to whatever skill level you wanted.

If you have been living under a rock or in Buc Dens then you may not be aware that Magincia has been levelled and is currently under full invasion from some hell bent on destruction demons. Various members of the Sosaria militia have been trying to defend the town and those hapless souls that live on the lonely island. However the invasion seems to have kicked into another gear with the corrupted moongate now being guarded by some super demons that summon some of the most vile creates from the depths of hell itself to defend them.

Post at Stratics UHall: Draconi_EA

Invasion Finale

The invasion has reached it's final stage. An octet of Rift Guardians have appeared in front of the much smaller, energetic moongate. They defend themselves with barrages of magic and can summon Daemon Berserkers when threatened.

They are surrounded in part by barrier flames that can only be removed by creative use of spellwords.

Meanwhile, my humblest apologies for the delay. This should have occurred automatically already, and I'm now enabling them manually, shard by shard. This should take approximately another 15 minutes. Do not worry, I have not been hit by a truck (that happened last year), and the show will go on!

Due to the delay, the event finale will be extended until Friday. If the Rift Guardians are not defeated by then, that shard/facet's Magincia is lost.

Oh, and hey! It turns out I'm staying with UO after all 

I took my second jaunt over to Doom last night and within 20 minutes I had my second Doom artefact. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw an Ornament of the Magician sitting in my pack. I would have to say I have spent a collective 2 hours in Doom for a collective 2 artefacts.

I would like to introduce Farscape from the Oceania UO community who has agreed to help me keep the site updated and fresh. Farscape is a long time verteran of UO.

So no more relying on me to keep the site updated, Im sure between the Fink, Farscape and myself we can keep the content flowing.

I have another interview lined up for later this week, so stayed tuned.

Cheers
Shane

Better late than never. Another stella production from UOPOCASTING.COM if I do say so myself. This show is a long one as it is the interview with Fink I have mentioned a couple times.

So sit back, plug in and listen to what Master Fink has to say :-P

Corp Por Show #22

Cheers
Shane

Apparantly the invasion which has the demons completely leveling the town of Magincia on nearly all shards and both facets as not yet being over. Suppoedly the Demons still have one trick left in the bag and therefore the worse has yet to happen. I'm not sure what could be worse for the poor town folk of Magincia when the citizens are Sosoria have been seen leading the ticking time bombs into town to blow it up.

So be very very afraid the worse is yet to come.

Cheers
Shane

So knowing that EA was going to fix the Doom artefact distribution system I decided it was time to revisit Doom and try my hand at the new system. However the first hurdle was the acquisition of a golden skull that allows you to summon the ferry man, who spends most of his time hanging out in Moonglow Trammel. Now when Doom first launched you could purchase a golden skull off a local merchant who had more time on his hands than was healthy, but as the novelty of Doom wore off the skull market dried up.

So I found myself in a position of having to actually god forbid play the game as it was intended. So knowing where the best spot was to get bones in Doom so you can summon the Bone Demon which will hand out the your ticket for passage with the ferry man I loaded up my archer and headed off. Well I discovered a gold faucet that EA must have forgotten was turned on full throttle and blasting out loot faster than one could reasonable loot without the aid of some unnamed software. I literally was killing guardians faster than I could loot them and within 10 minutes had the 1000 bones I required to summon that ridiculously boring to kill bone demon.

I would like to introduce Fink from the Oceania UO community who has agreed to help me keep the site updated and fresh. Fink is a long time verteran of UO and a moderator of the Stratics forums.

So no more relying on me to keep the site updated, Im sure between the two of us we can keep the content flowing.

Sorry for the pause in transmission over the last 2 days, I went to the IBM Chirstmas party on Thursday night and got home Friday morning at 5am. I had the Cisco Christmas party last night and got home at 2am. Needless to say the heads not feeling to good and also the reason for the pause in transmission.

However tonight I will be recording the interview I have lined up with Fink and UOPODCASTING.COM is back in full swing.

Cheers
Shane

As the title suggests I have managed to publish another podcast and all in the same week. WOW thats alot of content :-P

This weeks show:

1. Site Update and House Keeping.
1. The Fink Interview has been delayed
2. Videos and my plans for the site
3. Contributors are being sort
2. Cathat farewells UO
3. Publishes, bugs and EA's general incompetence
1. The sudden rush to deploy a publish
2. The posting of critical and easy to find bugs and yet still  a publish
3. Doom artefacts and making them easier to get is a good thing
4. Begging Changes
5. Blood Oath fix
4. Told You So
1. This ones for all the people that said I was wrong about when UO would close down
5. Shopping System
1. The problems with shopping in UO today
2. Explanation of how to improve the system
3. Explain how taking what's good from other games is smart
4. Other side benefits to this proposal
6. Item Decay and how items must die.
1. Reflect on some of Mr Tacts original ideas for item decay
2. Propose a solution to item decay
3. Give purpose crafters and building community for crafters
4. How the obtaining of resources can benefit those that find them
5. Maybe EA gets item decay with the recent cursed arties
6. Is EA assaulting scripting slowly through the BOS charge increase

Cheers
Shane

Posted at UOHerald:
Jeremy Dalberg
27 Nov 2007 16:52:10

DO NOT store ingots in your salvage bag while smelting items - there is a possiblity you will lose the stack of ingots.  This will be fixed shortly.

(Storing cloth in the salvage bag will simply get it cut into bandages, so... don't do that if you don't want bandages.)

Posted at UOHerald:
Jeremy Dalberg
27 Nov 2007 15:31:48 EST

UPDATED 11/27 12:30:  One more note:

- On Siege Perilous rulesets, all items of clothing that have higher than normal resists - including artifacts, museum pieces, and randomly-generated items with bonus resists or magic properties - will not be able to be blessed with a Clothing Bless Deed.  All currently blessed items will become unblessed, and the CBD will be placed in the players' backpack

There were a number of changes that didn't get listed on last night's server publish - all the notes below the cut are in addition to the previously posted notes:

Posted at UOHerald:

All Servers to be Published
Jeremy Dalberg
26 Nov 2007 17:29:57 EST
All servers will be published with the following during their next available maintenance:

 Added the Salvage Bag: 

•  The Salvage Bag is the core of the enhanced recycling system. Players store items in the bag like any other container, but when a recycle command occurs, they target the bag to handle all the items at once.

• Layout:
  
  
  
  • a blue leather bag labeled "A Salvage Bag"
    
  • Available on Provisioners for a nominal (~1000gp) fee
      
  Read more ...

Posted at Stratics UHall: Leurocian

In response to:  So, I havent tested the changes myself yet, but several of my friends from Japan who play on Japanese shards have recieved 3-4 artifacts an hour each in doom.

Now I know that Japanese pvm playstyle is much different from American pvm playstyle, as it is much more efficient and effective, but was the drop intended to be this high?

Leurocian:  Hello there,

The general intent is if a group of 5 players adventure through the entire Doom gauntlet at various luck values, each one of them would hopefully receive an artifact by their 4-5th run. It could be a little sooner than that. It could be later.

Now if this feels like players are receiving artifacts too frequently, we can easily adjust this frequency. We will continue to monitor your feedback for the next day or so and see what you all think.

Thanks everyone!

Posted at Stratics UHall: CatHat.

 This will be my last week as a member of the UO Dev Team.

At Dec 1st , I cast myself back into the spinning time vortex of game development. Where and when I shall materialize – who can say. Much like a Sci-Fi sequel or an Elvis sighting – you can bet I’ll pop up around somewhere not too far away.

As you all know UO’s Team is moving to VA, but being a territorial little creature and native of sunny California, I’ve opted to stay here.

I have done some more experimenting with how I can encode the video and keep the quality as best I can. So this link leads to the same video with some additional edits and a different method of encoding the video.

The quality is not as good as the first video and the ability to go full screen goes away with this method of encoding the video. However its three times smaller than the first attempt. So please check out the two videos (dont forget to let them finish loading before playing them) and leave comments in the comments section on what you think. Comments dont require you to even register.

1. Click here for High Quality big download video preview.
2. Click here for Medium Quality smaller download video preview.

I will fix the interface up so that you dont get the option to play the video before its downloaded.

Cheers
Shane

I was listening to podcast 11 and the ideas that Mr Tact had tabled in regards to items decaying and how to make crafters viable. He had some good ideas on how to implement a life span for items without overly pissing of those people that have uber items and don’t want to loose those items. In a nutshell he suggested that items would be able to be repaired, however every time they are repaired they cost more to repair. The idea being that eventually its cheaper to get a new item than repair it.

Now the first thing that comes to mind is that building a decent PvP suit costs a boat load of gold and to have those items decay to the point they don’t exist or cost ridiculous amounts to repair will have the PvP community up in arms. But you know what it would even the playing field a little in that once those uber items had decayed and made it super expensive to repair then peoples PvP suits would start to balance out. Main reason being is that people wouldn’t use those l33t items in normal field battles and may only use them for dueling and other such occasions.

So a feature I mentioned in the latest podcast (20) was I was going to bring videos to the site. Seeing as screen capture technology has gotten to the point that capturing a playing session in UO is relatively easy I thought I would check it out.

So on the menu to the right or clicking this link will take you to a test capture I made last night. Now please provide feedback in the comments for this news post so I can tune the experience. This first video has not been optimised or trimmed for size and is fat and raw. Going forward I will tunes these video alot more.

The opportunities to add content through the site are numerous and I have a series of vidoes I will make should this experiment be well received.

Cheers
Shane

P.S. Update, you need to wait for the page to load as the experience is crap otherwise. I will write some code tonight to hide the video until the page is loaded.

P.P.S You can tell the page is loaded when it says DONE in the bottom left corner of the status bar.

Posted at RPGValut: Ultima Online Memories

RPGVault which started as UO Vault pays tribute to Ultima Online, the Grand Daddy of MMORPG.

Cheers
Shane

I really don’t know why EA put Artefact level 12 on Vorpal Blades and Pyros Staves if they had every intention of handing them out like candy. Other Artefacts have lower levels and are extremely rare to come by, yet these latest editions are level 12 and can be found lying on the ground.

Void Demons in the Magincia invasion have been upgraded and now hand Vorpal Blades out like candy :)

Well it was interesting Googleing UO as I found some interesting links.

Heres one that predicts the demise of UO in 2004

For you old PvPers heres a blast from the past.

Any one read Italian, I think this is a free shard.

Your not anyone or anything until your in Wikipedia.

Dont like what EA are doing, then there is always an alternative to getting your UO fix.

You think KR is crap, well have a look at were its come from.

Some old time fan sites are slowly dieing off.

Do you remember Lum The Mad, well heres Lums home now.

Remember the Designer Dragon.

A walk down memory lane would be complete with a link to ImaNewbie.

Cheers
Shane

A number of people have asked me some questions about the improvement I suggested could be made to shopping in UO. If you have read it, go here and return back here for an update.

So the idea was that due too the gazillion items for sale on each shard that EA should introduce a trade vendor into each city. The trade vendor would provide the ability for you to see all of the items for sale on player run vendors. Now this could be through an interface that categorises all items and when you first speak to the vendor the UI shows you a list of catagories. You then drill down on the category to see the items for sale in that category. Possible it has sub categories to help minimise list size. Also the vendor could provide a search featrure to find the item you want quicker.

Now once you found the item you want to purchase you buy from the trade vendor a rune to the players shop. You recall to the shop and buy the item from the vendor. Now some idiots thought this idea was copying World of Warcraft and immediately dismissed the idea. Well for those fuck knuckles this idea doesnt rip anything off from WoW other than having a vendor that can show you all the items for sale on your shard. It’s not an auction process, it doesn’t magically deliver the item to you and for you idiots that think it’s a rip off of WOW. I think Dark Age of Camelot introduced the centralised auction theme first.

One of the feature of the new 3D client in Ultima Online is the ability to reskin the UI with a look and feel that the user would like. Over the last week or so I have put a bit of time into discovering the various resources available to someone that might want to hack the UI.

So in the spirit of sharing here is the list of resouces I found on skining UO's UI:

• UO Stratics Kingdom Reborn Forum
• Spellweave.com
• UO Skins
• UO Guide

If anyone else has any other good resouces on the subject then leave a comment and Ill update the list.

Well as the title suggests I have released a new podcast. This being the first podcast in nearly two years I have a fair bit to cover, fortunately for you I dont try and cover everything in this first episode for 2007.

Things covered in this show are:

1. Introduction and what's been happening in my absence.
2. I discuss the EA Mythic merger and potential impacts to UO.
3. Told you so. I glance back at some of the predictions I made in previous podcasts.
4. Kingdom Reborn or is it Kingdom Stillborn.
5. SA and the will we see it.
6. Time for UO2 or UOX or whatever it was called.

You can click the title of the show on the right and stream the show to your PC, or you can right click the show title and Save As and download the show or you can click the RSS symbol beside any of the shows, copy the URL into iTunes and have iTunes download the show.

Cheers
Shane

Light Demon getting ready to explode.

Posted By Wilki_EA at Stratics UHall.

As I mentioned in a previous FoF thread, I've made some changes to the BOD system. They're not huge, but it should make things a little more rewarding.

1. Corrected a small error that gave skilled smith's a 45% base chance to get a colored BOD instead of the intended 50% chance.
   
2. GM Smiths still get a 10% bonus chance for a colored BOD (60% total).
   
3. Elder Smiths get a 20% bonus chance for a colored BOD (70% total).
   
4. Legendary Smiths get a 40% bonus chance for a colored BOD (90% total).
   
5. The chances of getting a valorite BOD (once you've passed the colored BOD test), have been raised substantially.
   
6. There is also a short delay (5 seconds) between turning in multiple filled BODs.
   
7. Colored footwear large bods should now be offered.
   
8. All runic tools have had their intensity ranges changed as follows:
   Blacksmithing:
   • Dull Copper: 40 - 100
     
   • Shadow: 45 - 100%
     
   • Copper: 50 - 100%
     
   • Bronze: 55 - 100%
     
   • Gold: 60 - 100%
     
   • Agapite: 65 - 100%
     
   • Verite: 70 - 100%
     
   • Valorite: 85 - 100%
   Tailoring:
   • Spined: 40 - 100%
     
   • Horned: 45 - 100%
     
   • Barbed: 50 -100%

This won't make it into the very next publish, but should be in the one after that.

And to those who celebrate it, have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Edit: Added a few fixes to the end of the list, and changed the delay to 5 seconds.

Edited by Wilki_EA (11/20/07 06:19 PM)

Posted By Draconi_EA at at: Stratics UHall.

Hey, quick note for everyone who enjoys the Luxury Doom Shopping scene:

The secret passage in the Doom Gauntlet has been accidentally paved over. Whoever the Dark Fathers paid to do it, we owe them a good thrashing! In the meantime, there are now teleporters (invisible) set on either side of the wall so you can still use it.

Just walk towards the wall and you'll pass through.

 

Posted to uoherald.com:

2D Client vers. 6.0.5.0
Jeremy Dalberg
20 Nov 2007 18:13:42

At 3:15PM PST (11:15PM GMT) on Tuesday, November 20, the 2D client will be updated to version 6.0.5.0. Notes after the jump:

Added decoration in many areas, including the Doom Gauntlet and Serpent's Hold

Updated clilocs

Posted to uoherald.com:

Black Screen In KR?
Jeremy Dalberg
20 Nov 2007 21:20:20

If your KR client is set to start in full screen, you may see a completely black screen with an error about a software renderer. We're working on the fix for this, but in the meantime, use the following workaround to get into windowed mode:

Go into "My Documents", "EA Games", "Ultima Online", "User Data" and open the usersettings.xml file in a text editor.

In the first line under "Graphics", change fullscreen="true" to fullscreen="false", then save the file.

That should get you going until we can patch out a fix. (Also, the no sound issue? That'll get fixed shortly as well!)

Posted to uoherald.com:

Jeremy Dalberg
20 Nov 2007 18:13:22

At 3:15PM PST (11:15PM GMT) on Tuesday, November 20, the Kingdom Reborn client will be updated to version 2.48.0.3. Notes after the jump:

New Features:

Legacy Art Mode - enable this in Options: User Settings: Graphics, then restart the client to enable

Fully Moddable UI

Substantial number of client optimizations - should run much smoother now

Improved the guild UI

Added legacy container art - enable this in Options: User Settings: Graphics (no restart needed for this one)

Fixed a number of windows that weren't updating properly, including party window, pet window, draggable health bars, and more

The item properties "blessed" "blessed for playername" and "insured for playername" are

now colored blue for increased visibility

Macros" and "Actions" are two separate items on the main menu

Improved the layout of the veteran rewards window

Improved the animal lore window

Polished spellbook window

Polished char creation window

Improved npc vendor window

Empty slots on the paperdoll now have a tooltip telling you what goes in it

Removed the "add by ID" option in the friends list (since there's no way to find an ID, it was not usable)

Improved the art and functionality of the party window

Added a line to specify what the target is in the tooltip for a hotbar slot

Chat Improvements:

Read more ...

Have you tried shopping in UO for a specific item? It’s a bloody nightmare and one of the most frustrating activities that one can undertake whilst playing the game. Having spent some time playing other MMORPG’s lately all of them had least one thing in common and that was you could go to a single vendor and see all of the player sold goods in one place. They are commonly referred to as Auction houses.

Now I appreciate Auction houses in UO could ruin some of the immersion in the game. So I make the following proposal. How about UO has a centralised trading vendor who is aware of every item that’s for sale on player run vendors and should you want to buy an item then this vendor sells you a rune to that vendors store. This way if you want to find a specific item you can go to the one place to see if it’s for sale and then if you decide you want to purchase it, you get a rune to the store location.

This will also have the effect of lowering the cost of real estate as the primary reason for owning a house in Luna is so your vendors are exposed to the most possible foot traffic as possible. Well with my proposed system, then you could have your vendors set up in you house out in the middle of no where and they would still be found. Now a true market economy can happen as people will be able to see the going price for an item and either under cut the competition or raise the price if they wish.

Also players benefit as they don’t have to spend countless hours searching for that specific item they want.

Refine this proposal by placing your comments below and lets see if we can get the system changed for the better good.

Cheers
Shane

EA has spent a lot of the subscription money they have received over the last 10 years trying to refresh UO with a 3D client. The challenge they have is the games technology was developed long before 3D games were considered viable due to the client side requirements, ie: needing a decent 3D graphics card and processor. However technology has marched on and now days even the entry level PC has a decent 3D capable graphics card in it. So at the 10 year mark, a lot of time and money has been spent by EA trying to bring a 3D client to market that is widely accepted and played.

The issue I have is that after lets say conservatively speaking 6 years of development and two completely new 3D clients that EA might get the hint and realise that it is an exercise in futility. The reason I say that, is the 3D clients have never been widely accepted, this is based on, we wouldn’t have KR if the first attempt was humming along and the subscriber numbers showed that the majority logged in on a daily bases with the 3D client over the 2D client. So my guess is that the majority didn’t play the 3D client as their primary choice and therefore EA decided to scrap the last 3D client and start again. I also assume they started again with the intention of improving some of the technology as they went.

Some people are their own worst enemy. Having recently come back from a 2 year break I thought I would try and create a viable PvP template and go and play with the misfits. Well I hadn’t been in Felucca five minutes before I am getting abused by some members of OPK. Which is kewl by me as that’s the level of maturity I expect from OPK. But I had to laugh when I see OPK members whinging on the Stratics Oceania forum how no one comes and plays in Felucca.

The debate raged about who ruined PvP and so forth. As far as I am concerned I expect the less mature people to haunt Felucca and therefore pretty much ignore the taunts. I do find it interesting that as soon as some OPK members see a new guy in Felucca they proceed to annihilate them and then res kill them. They certainly are not endearing their play style on others. I mean if you’re the only kiddies playing in the sand pit, wouldn’t you at least be nice to any new kids for a while to try and at least let them get a feel for how things work.

The more things change the more they stay the same. After having a two year break from UO I thought I would come back and have another crack at playing the old crack game itself. As it would appear EA haven’t learned a dam thing over the last 10 years. Didn’t EA try a 3D client and it failed miserably and now they are at it again with KR. The Magincia Invasion is full of bugs in that monsters after 10 bloody years still spawn below ground and therefore part of the key too the invasion is pushing the monsters back. No bloody luck when the dam things are stuck below ground or inside of building structures and you cant target them.

The shoddiness doesn’t end there, the latest wave to hit was supposed to have Void Demons and Light Demons showing off their special abilities as they try and destroy Magincia. Well the Void Demons were struck with the bat of EA incompetence in programming and actually have no power or special ability, thus rendering them useless to their minion mates. Which had the poor soulless souls actually been tested would have allowed the diligent defenders of Magincia score the much sort after Artefacts these guys are meant to be carrying.

Welcome to UOPODCASTING.COM. If you have visited in the last couple of months and noticed the site was broken then welcome back. I will fix this site up in the near future, however in the mean time here are the old podcasts.