Event Moderators Strike Back!

Latest announcement is that EM program is making a return. I am very excited about this.

Is it just me or last few months have seen a slew of very exciting changes regarding UO?

Myth: Carebears ruined Ultima Online

It is a notion fairly common amongst the PvP community; one dark day filled with ill-omens all the care-bears banded together and used their heart power to create the lands known as Trammel. That day marks the beginning of the decline of Ultima Online for many players - and I am inclined to agree with that to some degree.

However, after reading some of the whines on Uhall regarding the faction changes from some of the "PvPers", I am more inclined to think that PvP in Ultima Online, and thereby the fate of Felucca, has become what it has because of them, rather than the care bears.

One of the funniest (worst) ideas I have read so far goes along the lines of making faction players not able to attack non-faction players. Huh? Really? So some of these so-called Feluccans want to destroy the most fundamental part of Felucca -can attack anyone you want anywhere- and create a mini-Trammel for themselves IN FELUCCA! Am I missing something here?

Pub 56 - Three Thumbs up!!

I was shockingly pleased to see the depth of the content in pub 56. Obviously, I don't know how well it will work in the end but right now it seems very promising. We literally have a brand new system that can rival champion spawns being implemented into the game. We have had some forgettable expansions (SE) with less quality content than this patch.

I think that one of the keys to the success of this system is how well they control the value of SILVER. If it retains a decent value then people will keep participating in the invasions on Trammel facet too. They can expand on it and have invasion monsters drop more resources that can be used to craft more faction related consumables to keep the circle going.

Here's hoping to a successful pub 56! Cheers!

Nails/Of The Rings collection duped?

I had refrained from speculating on this till now but it seems increasingly likely that the entire collection formerly owned by Nails Warstein has been duped. Lot of unique items belonging to that collection (new owner: Of The Rings @ Great Lakes) are surfacing in multiple copies. If true, then it is a huge blow considering this collection is the largest of its type in Ultima Online.

Annoying ICQ spammers

I would just like to tell my "friend" Dragkris to STOP SPAMMING ME WITH YOUR WORTHLESS TRASH - hmm maybe I should stop being lazy and put him on ignore. Now there is an idea!

[09:40] Dragkiris: 50 Val Runic Hammers 300m 25 Val Runic Hammers 200m & 25 Heartwood Fletching Kits 150m & 50 Verite Runic Hammers 225m & 40 Xfer Tokens 200m & Event Items Prices Vary From Shrouds To LT Sash!! Thanks Alot!!


[Added later]

A funny continuation of this story that I stumbled into at stratics. Apparently it is a scam? I really liked it when the guy wrote,

"I am only sending people to him. I did not personally endorse him"

Pitiful.

Seer Fair '08

Last week I made a post about the on going seer fair on Izumo. Actually my rather nosy guildmate Athelas informed me of the Izumo fair.. This weekend the fair seems to have moved on to Hokuto and I was lucky enough to catch it. Here are some of the Hokuto pictures,


I took a gate from Luna...






There are three colors -
two in the tubs and one in the bascinet.


















I guess the companions
on Hokuto like Blue!
















Taking the other gates randomly
to see what else is going on.

No idea what this is







I decide to ask a friendly looking chap
(after a few bows, ofcourse)








Alas!



















































Oh look a stage.
Actually a companion popped up on-stage a split second afterwards but I was too startled to take a screenshot.






Thats it! I think I have the shots from Izumo fair on my work computer. Will upload them if I find them.

Bye bye Scrappers?

This post is about something that most people probably don't care of. Recent patch saw spell books being made disarmable. The change was effectively meant to make scrappers' useless in PvP (as disarm is not an issue in PvM). Why useless? Because scrappers mostly gives mods that a PvP'er would need to be sure that they can depend on 100% of the time. As a mage you can't afford to have downtime on Faster Casting or LRC mod when fighting another player!! By making them disarmable no one will use them again in PvP.

Now, I have not done any PvP in a really really realllly long time but I have not heard anything about an overpowering wrestling mage template. So, I was quite surprised to hear about this change. I am guessing the triple skill mod books might have been the issue.

This does not particularly affect me except for the part where I loved crafting the damn books. It was the last high-end crafting venue left in Ultima Online for me as I refuse to burn (duped/scripted) runics. However, scrappers were never a big money maker even before this change and now it will be that much harder to sell the books that I craft. Maybe I will go back to my early crafting roots and start up a potions business :)

I suppose I will just wait and see what SA brings in means of crafting to be able to jump back into it. Speaking of which, I am super excited about the slew of announcements they made regarding SA in the past town hall meeting! It is nice to hear solid plans regarding the future of the franchise.