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