October 2011

Additional Content of Publish 73 on Test Center Submitted by UO_Herald on October 28, 2011 at 6:22 PM CDT Originally posted 28 Oct 2011 16:31:50 EST by Kai Schober on the UO Herald: Here are the promised additions to the Publish Notes of version 73.0: To read the full article on the forums, click HERE.

Shard of the Dead: Dungeon Deathmatch Edition Submitted by UO_Herald on October 28, 2011 at 6:13 PM CDT Originally posted 28 Oct 2011 15:21:34 EST by Kai Schober on the UO Herald: We are proud to announce our annual Shard of the Dead. This year, we’ve started with a clean slate to bring you an all new toe-to-toe slugfest. We’ve swept the elementals out of Dungeon Shame and replaced them with some gruesome and hellish beasts along with some exciting loot. Here’s how it works: You may create a character on the Shard of the Dead, or copy a character from your regular shard. No matter which option you choose, you will arrive without any items, money, or pets on a platform where you must choose to join a team. Enter either the Order Gate or the Chaos Gate, and you will be transported to a safe haven for your team. Here, you must obtain some gear and supplies, in order to prepare to enter the Infernal Battlegrounds. Lucky for you, the dungeon floors are literally strewn with powerful magic items. All you have to do is survive long enough to grab some and put them on. You may sell items you don’t want to get precious gold to buy basic supplies. Picking up new skills is incredibly fast. There are items that grant stat boosts as well. Once you accumulate enough to fight the monsters in the dungeon, you will find they drop still more powerful loot, along with gold and items that allow you to summon strong pets. Be careful, though! All your equipment is cursed. If you die, you must start naked again in your team’s base. If you can gather a group of friends, have a go at the Disciple of Lucifer. He’s extremely tough, but his loot is very worthwhile. One of his treasures is a deed to bless a single item, making it just a little bit easier to start over. Every few minutes, a gate in each team’s base will open, taking all who dare to go to the Infernal Battlegrounds. Here, Order and Chaos engage in a struggle to capture each others’ bases, and to hunt down and slay The Butcher. Fighting in these battles offers opportunities for still greater rewards, including the Supreem Headless Bomb and the Flask of Invulnerability, along with your pick of the cursed items picked from the corpses of your slain enemies. Scoreboards in each team’s base show battle records, and players’ mouseover tooltips show their PvP stats. So come on down to Shard of the Dead and join us in the slaughterfest! [Discuss This Article]

Treasure Hunt - A New Challenger Has Risen! Submitted by UO_Herald on October 28, 2011 at 6:10 PM CDT Originally posted 28 Oct 2011 11:45:48 EST by Kai Schober on the UO Herald: Having defeated Sonoma in the last Cross Shard Treasure Hunting Challenge, the Blue Beetles of Catskills knew they would have to defend their title soon enough. What wasn’t known was just who they would be defending it against. We now have an answer as the shard of Napa Valley has delivered the following challenge to Catskills: The ages pass and a new power rises from the Myst of the Mountains deep in the Napa Valley! A new voice cries out to be recognized and make their stand! We are Napa Valley and we throw down the gauntlet in a test of wits and stamina of the Cross Shard Treasure Hunt Challenge against Catskills. The Treasure Hunters of Napa Valley boldly stand to take possession of the trophy and bring it Home where it belongs! In accordance with the rules of competition, the Champions respond: Challengers of Napa Valley, Bold words to suggest our trophy belongs with you! Perhaps the Myst of the Mountains has clouded your vision, or the wine of your vineyards impaired your minds; For if you saw clearly the monumental task that lay before you, you would not speak in such confidence! The Blue Beetles will bewilder you with their speed, bedevil you with their skill, and beguile you with their good looks. Make no mistake – our bravado is well earned. We respect your desire to Challenge, however. Therefor in keeping with the rules of the competition, we accept - and look forward to proving once again that the true “home” for the title is with Catskills. - Shard Catskills ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ DATE: Tuesday, November 8th, 2011 TIME: 6:30pm Pacific, 9:30pm Eastern PLACE: The Chessboard in Nujel’m, Test Center [Discuss This Article]

Publish 73 Comes to Test Center Submitted by UO_Herald on October 27, 2011 at 10:48 PM CDT Originally posted 27 Oct 2011 12:10:46 EST by Kai Schober on the UO Herald: Greetings, Publish 73 comes to Test Center this afternoon, along with the Enhance Client Patch 4.0.19 and the Classic Client Patch 7.0.19. Here are the notes for your reading pleasure, thanks! To read the full article on the forums, click HERE.

Closed Accounts Submitted by UO_Herald on October 21, 2011 at 4:11 PM CDT Originally posted 21 Oct 2011 11:00:03 EST by Rowland Cox on the UO Herald: Greetings, A small number of UO accounts were unintentionally closed this week. The accounts have been re-instated and we have reached out to those affected. Thanks for your patience The UO Team Text of original message, now removed: Email About Automatic Renewal Issues Originally posted October 21, 2011 on the UO Herald: Greetings, Last week a change in the EA account center accidently de-activated the automatic subscription renewal for several UO accounts. Yesterday we e-mailed all effected persons and have re-activate the automatic renewal for those accounts. If you have encountered related issues with your account, please check your inbox. We apologize for the inconvenience. [Discuss This Article]

Limited Services For EU and Oceania Shards During Maintenance - 10/19 Submitted by UO_Herald on October 18, 2011 at 5:51 PM CDT Originally posted 18 Oct 2011 15:41:11 EST by Kai Schober on the UO Herald: Update 10:10 am EDT: The services and login for all shards are back to normal. Greetings, We will perform a network maintenance tomorrow, Wednesday 10/19, beginning at 8 am EDT (2 pm CEST). During the maintenance promotional codes and veteran rewards will be unavailable and login to the EU and Oceania shards will not be possible. However, all shards will stay online and open to players, which means that you can continue to play if you enter the shards before the beginning of the maintenace. At this time we anticipate that all services will be back to normal no later than 1:00 pm EDT (7 pm CEST). Thank you for your support. [Discuss This Article]

Connection Issues to Our Oceanian Shard Submitted by UO_Herald on October 17, 2011 at 6:30 PM CDT Originally posted 15 Oct 2011 09:54:51 EST by Kai Schober on the UO Herald: Update: The connectivity to our Oceanic center has been restored. We have received reports of connection issues currently impacting our Oceanian community. These issues are being investigated and we will inform you when they are solved. Thank you for your support. [Discuss This Article]

GDC Hall of Fame Submitted by UO_Herald on October 14, 2011 at 7:22 PM CDT Originally posted 14 Oct 2011 17:36:38 EST by Dave Crooks on the UO Herald: Congratulations to EverQuest for winning this year's GDC Hall of Fame award, it joins inaugural winner Ultima Online in this revered category http://www.gdconlineawards.com/. Check out UO's acceptance video from last year here: [Discuss This Article]

NewTest Center - Arena Test Submitted by UO_Herald on October 13, 2011 at 12:59 PM CDT Originally posted 13 Oct 2011 11:08:17 EST by Kai Schober on the UO Herald: There’s a new Test Center in town: TC Arena Test. This is a special rule set shard for testing a new Arena Combat system. Here are the basics: This is a temporary test shard, but it does not have the usual Test Center features. You receive no extra equipment and cannot set your skills and attributes. If you wish to participate in the arena fights, we recommend you copy a character from a live shard to TC Arena Test. Make sure to bring some extra gold and supplies. Instructions for how to copy a character can be found here. The map is limited to a block of four arenas surrounded by the void. No other part of the game map even exists on this shard. So, make sure to load your character up with all unusual supplies you will need before copying that character to TC Arena Test. We provide a basic set of merchants, including a banker and stablemaster. All amenities are found at the north edge of the map. That area also contains a set of crafting add-ons and an Arcane Circle. Also, the northern section of the map is an insta-log region – listen for the background music changes. Faction artifacts may be brought along and used. The Factions system is disabled here, but Faction items can be used without restriction or limit. The map is Trammel ruleset. Fighting is allowed through the Arena Matches. You may create guilds for sparring, but we request that you keep guild fighting away from the arenas and the northern section of the map. If you copy a murderer to TC Arena Test, all murder counts will be wiped from the copied character. In front of each Arena is a bright red Arena Stone. Double-click this stone to access the Arena Matches and Leaderboards. To read the full article on the forums, click HERE.

Consolidating Master Accounts Submitted by UO_Herald on October 11, 2011 at 4:12 PM CDT Originally posted 10 Oct 2011 17:31:42 EST by Kai Schober on the UO Herald: Those players who want to consolidate all their accounts under one email address can now call 650-628-1001 or email support@ultimaonline.com and get this done through billing support. You should clearly request that the support merges your master accounts through the system so everyone understands what you want done. If you ever want an account unlinked you can get this done through the billing support at the above phone number, too. The UO team [Discuss This Article]

Maintenance of All Shards - 10/10 Submitted by UO_Herald on October 11, 2011 at 4:10 PM CDT Originally posted 10 Oct 2011 14:57:36 EST by Kai Schober on the UO Herald: Greetings, We will bring down all shards at 3:00 pm EDT today for a short maintenance. This will fix issues with the Clean Up Britannia event. At this time we anticipate the shards to be back online no later than 5:00 pm EDT. [Discuss This Article]