Currently, houses are falling all over the UO world. Why? A few months ago, in the fall, EA changed the way we manage our accounts. Accounts set to automatically renew were reset to not. The new system is confusing and hard to understand, mostly because of poor design of the new site. They also don’t tell you when you enter you account name, you also have to include “_uo” so the system makes the connection. The better part of the new system is that you can manage all your accounts under one page rather then log in and out several times. Quite frankly, in my 11 years, I’ve never had problems with the old system. Helping friends fix things or trading accounts... very simple, very easy. This new system? Some things are just better left alone.
Sometime after the new system was set in place, the accounts that fell out of automatic renewal still had their houses attached to the accounts even if the users were not logging in. The house ageing system was frozen, however I’m not sure if anyone really knew about it at the time. Some players I know of still have interest in playing UO, keeping their accounts and houses active... yet they are away on long-lasting work or away from home serving in the military. Without even a mass E-Mail sent by EA, they would have no clue of these issues. Very bad customer relations! Plus, even when this issue popped up for us very active players, calling the support line didn’t help fix things at all. It took hours and/or help by other friends who had figured it out. So, suddenly, as the holidays came, it was announced house decay would be turned back on.
Could this whole ordeal cost our strained player community valuable membership? The IDOC looters making out like bandits are a very small minority. Less active players may never want to pick up the peaces and return to the game. EA sees no need to advertise UO at any retail shops in the USA. How does our community attract new players? The number one way is word of mouth by us, the players. Otherwise, UO gets a “shout out” by small articles that very few people actually see who aren't already very much into gaming. The wondering shopper looking over the games on the retail shelf never sees UO, plus now... the trend leaning to game cards, EA does have a Game Card... void of any image of UO. The cost of a game card is nothing vs. putting a game box together, yet a simple plastic card costs nearly nothing and could show new players the way into a world that so many of us have enjoyed for years.
In closing... for those still quite actively playing, if you play on a fuller shard, bigger new houses await! As usual, if anyone needs vendor space... PM me. The good ole Red & Purple isn't going anyplace.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Sunday, November 20, 2011
West Brit Bank Travel Warning!
The 2009 Thanksgiving “Giant Turkey” spawn is back… and far nastier then ever. This spawn normally in the woodlands, and jungles… all over Tram and Fel (I’m sure)… however, grievers are leading them to the WBB so they can “share” in the adventure of killing them. Because of the massive area attack, revealing, and gross amount of damage the turkey causes… no one is safe to even look away from the screen for even a second. It should also be noted guards are not responding to calls and leading monsters out of their spawn area is a violation of the rules of conduct. Are the GMs responding to calls? Anyone’s guess, but odds are no… so don’t travel to this bank lightly until the spawn ends.
The new publish also went live the same day. Shame dungeon has been “modified”. This used to be a wonderful dungeon for intermediate skilled characters to hunt and gather supplies. Now level one is packed with pockets of monsters that switch targets and overwhelm pets. The new loot system, however publicized, seems very worthless. In all honesty, I really think they made a mistake. Dungeon Wrong is far less used and had it's spawn modified 2 times before. One adding the Juka and then years later, removing the Juka and replacing them with the old spawn. As far as I know… no one uses this dungeon anymore. I will suggest to you dungeon fans to check out Shame for yourself, just be aware. Passages will be blocked until you kill the guard monster and some monsters will easily overwhelm you where you wouldn’t think.
Also in the publish (72), a few new vet rewards were added to a couple years. Most existing, Year 4… a new seed sorting box. This looks like a wooden table with a divided top, like you would see at a garden center. Placing seeds on the box will ID them and sort them inside the gump so you can organize and store them. Unfortunately, it only holds 500 seeds, however… it will cut down on mysterious single seeds from the ant seed quest, particular seeds, and those pesky seeds that some plants make several piles of the same exact seed. You wont have to worry about growing endless amounts of poppy dust! The staffer that designed this, art and all, did a wonderful job… and this idea is very overdue. This and the raised beds, gardeners are finally seeing a little love.
Counting down to our Christmas gifts… there is still no hint of graphics. Good news is that all the items offered are NEW, not copies of last year like the staff did with the anniversary tickets, many of the clean-up items, and the Thanksgiving spawn. What I’m most anxious to see is what this “customizable House Type Sign” is and looks like. A few of us have been talking about it, and it ‘COULD BE’ like wall plagues you see on some city buildings. Perfect for mounting next to doors in our houses to add information for visitors. “Rune Library and Dye Tubs”… and “Private Entrance, use other door” as an example. Or above house to house vet teleporters. That would be wonderful seeing the only other way to add information to those is to lock a book down on top of the pad. As soon as we find out… I’ll post an update.
The new publish also went live the same day. Shame dungeon has been “modified”. This used to be a wonderful dungeon for intermediate skilled characters to hunt and gather supplies. Now level one is packed with pockets of monsters that switch targets and overwhelm pets. The new loot system, however publicized, seems very worthless. In all honesty, I really think they made a mistake. Dungeon Wrong is far less used and had it's spawn modified 2 times before. One adding the Juka and then years later, removing the Juka and replacing them with the old spawn. As far as I know… no one uses this dungeon anymore. I will suggest to you dungeon fans to check out Shame for yourself, just be aware. Passages will be blocked until you kill the guard monster and some monsters will easily overwhelm you where you wouldn’t think.
Also in the publish (72), a few new vet rewards were added to a couple years. Most existing, Year 4… a new seed sorting box. This looks like a wooden table with a divided top, like you would see at a garden center. Placing seeds on the box will ID them and sort them inside the gump so you can organize and store them. Unfortunately, it only holds 500 seeds, however… it will cut down on mysterious single seeds from the ant seed quest, particular seeds, and those pesky seeds that some plants make several piles of the same exact seed. You wont have to worry about growing endless amounts of poppy dust! The staffer that designed this, art and all, did a wonderful job… and this idea is very overdue. This and the raised beds, gardeners are finally seeing a little love.
Counting down to our Christmas gifts… there is still no hint of graphics. Good news is that all the items offered are NEW, not copies of last year like the staff did with the anniversary tickets, many of the clean-up items, and the Thanksgiving spawn. What I’m most anxious to see is what this “customizable House Type Sign” is and looks like. A few of us have been talking about it, and it ‘COULD BE’ like wall plagues you see on some city buildings. Perfect for mounting next to doors in our houses to add information for visitors. “Rune Library and Dye Tubs”… and “Private Entrance, use other door” as an example. Or above house to house vet teleporters. That would be wonderful seeing the only other way to add information to those is to lock a book down on top of the pad. As soon as we find out… I’ll post an update.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Sorry for the delay in updating the news… but real life, who needs it? hehe.
Just this past month or so, we FINALLY got Spring Cleaning 2011!!!
About time!! The program was included with the start of the Halloween festivities for 2011. New to the lands are “Pumpkin Monsters”, that first show themselves as being last year’s jack-o-lanterns. Dusty was nearly killed by this surprise attack the first time. You go to pick the Jack up… and it wont budge. It turns into a large pumpkin, that’s resting… that is, in fact, the pumpkin monster. It's very nasty, but really cool in graphics. There are two designs, one is a daemon face with orange fire and the other is a clown face with blue fire. These are 2 of the 3 masks that may spawn as your reward. Daemon, Clown, or Plague masks. These masks are only for decoration! Nothing more. They are named for all our wonderful staff… that includes the designers, game-masters, and event moderators. And let me tell you all, this list is massive. Some people are collecting full sets, the same name on each of the 3 masks… or looking for people they know from the game. Goodness knows if this was our own names, it would be worse then last year. Never found a Frany Flame’s jack.
Spring Cleaning wise… the list of trade in items is massive. Even more then last time. What’s changed from last time is that you gain points by throwing these items in trash bins. I prefer using bins at the public banks, so the results are quick… at home, you wait forever. You can also single click on the bin and get the option to evaluate the item in question. Also a change from last year, many of the items like shipwrecked goods, stealables… their worth is a lot less. It takes a lot more to get the points you want. But… if you wish to throw your gold away, you have that option as well. Gems, leather, ingots… all at extremely unfair values are on the list. There are many items you can get right now that will give small point values that don’t have to be old gift items… but the older the gift item… the more points, so check those old containers well. Also beware that the published list has changed in the last 4 weeks, to some degree. Consistency… now that’s the challenge.
As we were waiting for this publish, we had a little 10th anniversary event for the good ole Red & Purple. A 30 million gold give-away, presented as a scavenger hunt… of sorts. A book or “golden ticket” representing each of the single million checks was joined by 20 books that were called “stinker tickets”. Each of the 50 books were hidden all over the cities of Tram. Thanks to EM Bennu, who provided not 1, but 2 moongates so everyone could find the mall and location of the event easier. Also thanks to Moon Star and Alesia, who helped place the books. So much preparation… so many people turned out… and an explosion of searchers found all but 1 of the books in no time flat. 1 golden ticket was never recovered… or found by someone not understanding the directions, thus it was never turned in. A fast paced success, however I would have loved to have more to the event.
Last item for now… We are thinking about doing a Christmas event for this year. The reason we could not do it last year was we couldn’t find enough helpers to pull the event off, unlike these Santa events of years past. With the success of the 10th year Anniversary… I would like to explore if it's possible to bring together a few different groups, establishments… and have a more public sponsored event. This could very well include better prizes, without aide of our game staff… as normal. I’ve already put the word out and we will see what response we get. For now, it's just an idea… we will see come the end of November if there’s enough potential. I just can't help stress that this very simple event is far harder to manage then visitors see when they come. So, I hope to have some news... yes or no, soon enough.
About time!! The program was included with the start of the Halloween festivities for 2011. New to the lands are “Pumpkin Monsters”, that first show themselves as being last year’s jack-o-lanterns. Dusty was nearly killed by this surprise attack the first time. You go to pick the Jack up… and it wont budge. It turns into a large pumpkin, that’s resting… that is, in fact, the pumpkin monster. It's very nasty, but really cool in graphics. There are two designs, one is a daemon face with orange fire and the other is a clown face with blue fire. These are 2 of the 3 masks that may spawn as your reward. Daemon, Clown, or Plague masks. These masks are only for decoration! Nothing more. They are named for all our wonderful staff… that includes the designers, game-masters, and event moderators. And let me tell you all, this list is massive. Some people are collecting full sets, the same name on each of the 3 masks… or looking for people they know from the game. Goodness knows if this was our own names, it would be worse then last year. Never found a Frany Flame’s jack.
Spring Cleaning wise… the list of trade in items is massive. Even more then last time. What’s changed from last time is that you gain points by throwing these items in trash bins. I prefer using bins at the public banks, so the results are quick… at home, you wait forever. You can also single click on the bin and get the option to evaluate the item in question. Also a change from last year, many of the items like shipwrecked goods, stealables… their worth is a lot less. It takes a lot more to get the points you want. But… if you wish to throw your gold away, you have that option as well. Gems, leather, ingots… all at extremely unfair values are on the list. There are many items you can get right now that will give small point values that don’t have to be old gift items… but the older the gift item… the more points, so check those old containers well. Also beware that the published list has changed in the last 4 weeks, to some degree. Consistency… now that’s the challenge.
As we were waiting for this publish, we had a little 10th anniversary event for the good ole Red & Purple. A 30 million gold give-away, presented as a scavenger hunt… of sorts. A book or “golden ticket” representing each of the single million checks was joined by 20 books that were called “stinker tickets”. Each of the 50 books were hidden all over the cities of Tram. Thanks to EM Bennu, who provided not 1, but 2 moongates so everyone could find the mall and location of the event easier. Also thanks to Moon Star and Alesia, who helped place the books. So much preparation… so many people turned out… and an explosion of searchers found all but 1 of the books in no time flat. 1 golden ticket was never recovered… or found by someone not understanding the directions, thus it was never turned in. A fast paced success, however I would have loved to have more to the event.
Last item for now… We are thinking about doing a Christmas event for this year. The reason we could not do it last year was we couldn’t find enough helpers to pull the event off, unlike these Santa events of years past. With the success of the 10th year Anniversary… I would like to explore if it's possible to bring together a few different groups, establishments… and have a more public sponsored event. This could very well include better prizes, without aide of our game staff… as normal. I’ve already put the word out and we will see what response we get. For now, it's just an idea… we will see come the end of November if there’s enough potential. I just can't help stress that this very simple event is far harder to manage then visitors see when they come. So, I hope to have some news... yes or no, soon enough.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Heads up… an unwanted gift of BUGS by UO staff.
“Account Center Migration”… staff changes the way we interact with our account management, basically breaking the system with the old adage “If it ain’t broke…” UO isn't trying hard enough. Players may be getting bogus warnings to accounts being closed do to missing details. The Mini Mall’s account was hit with this error and there is no way to enter account management the best I can find, yet there is nothing wrong with the account itself. This all started Friday, August 12 as we lost the entire evening’s playtime… as the game didn’t come back on until Saturday morning, where it was taken down yet again for several hours. One can only ask.. “Do they ever test things before putting them in play?”
Frankly, I think the only reason why major updates are put into place last thing Friday is so staff can get some guaranteed overtime. It really paid out this time!
Also, there are some extra bugs that must be revolving around this “Account Center Migration” that you may notice in game:
Recall Runes (marked for houses) seam to be missing their string ID name, thus displaying an effort default vs. being named properly.
Recall Runes marked for Tram houses seam to be blaze colored now. Was this intentional? The difference between the light blue Tram runes and the Tokuno also being light blue never made sense to me when Fel house runes are dark red, and the gargoyle land (Ter Mur) house runes are dark green. Blaze is an improvement, but they are a little bold.
New Ship Runes… when set inside a runebook, that “suddenly” go bad, will CHANGE the color of the runebook to the default color AND change the very name of the item to “recall rune”.
There is said to be a fix to these new ship runes that habitually go bad. Easy enough… unload the ship’s hold, then drydock the ship, replace. It's that easy. I don’t know if it's true or not as the runebook color change bug was reported on a ship I know that was recently reset and yet the same thing happened.
Easily… there could be MORE bugs in play and I have no clue if and when they will be fixed, however… if you are seeing anything abnormal, odds are it's part of the same package of problems we got as a gift for Summer 2011. Still… keep your chin up! We may still get that spring cleaning 2011 they swore they’d give us sometime this year. :-)
Frankly, I think the only reason why major updates are put into place last thing Friday is so staff can get some guaranteed overtime. It really paid out this time!
Also, there are some extra bugs that must be revolving around this “Account Center Migration” that you may notice in game:
Recall Runes (marked for houses) seam to be missing their string ID name, thus displaying an effort default vs. being named properly.
Recall Runes marked for Tram houses seam to be blaze colored now. Was this intentional? The difference between the light blue Tram runes and the Tokuno also being light blue never made sense to me when Fel house runes are dark red, and the gargoyle land (Ter Mur) house runes are dark green. Blaze is an improvement, but they are a little bold.
New Ship Runes… when set inside a runebook, that “suddenly” go bad, will CHANGE the color of the runebook to the default color AND change the very name of the item to “recall rune”.
There is said to be a fix to these new ship runes that habitually go bad. Easy enough… unload the ship’s hold, then drydock the ship, replace. It's that easy. I don’t know if it's true or not as the runebook color change bug was reported on a ship I know that was recently reset and yet the same thing happened.
Easily… there could be MORE bugs in play and I have no clue if and when they will be fixed, however… if you are seeing anything abnormal, odds are it's part of the same package of problems we got as a gift for Summer 2011. Still… keep your chin up! We may still get that spring cleaning 2011 they swore they’d give us sometime this year. :-)
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Is the game staff avoiding Spring Cleaning 2011?
Sometime in the early spring, the game staff makes mention of a new Spring Cleaning 2011 coming our way, ears perk up… a feeling of excitement fills the air. For those who remember a couple years ago, the Spring Cleaning program was extremely popular and gave us some amazing décor items. Items like the bee hive, the virtue tiles, the horse barring (armor), bamboo, Yucca tree, fire pit, nest with eggs, and many other goodies including 3 kicking armor sets. Hands down… one of the best events we’ve seen in the last few years that EVERYONE could participate in.
Soon after this news is broken, pictures are posted on uo.com showing such interesting things such as a new Distillery… we start thinking Spring Cleaning is sure on it's way. Epic disappointment and even the feeling of betrayal comes when these “hints” are only to show that the staff will be selling 2 tiny booster packs. The Gothic and Rustic collections, 10$ a throw or 15$ for the pack. Both are not worth the money, but this shows the lack of regard the staff has for the loyal paying customers. This also included new sales areas, known as vendor booths, that sit around New Magincia, another gold-sink. This is all about greed and not about customer service.
When spring is clearly on it's way out… another disappointing blow comes when game staff chooses to publish a story arch supporting the SA lands and NOT the Spring Cleaning. Spring Cleaning will have to wait for Summer. Again, players are outraged. “Why leak what they have no intention on doing?” The questions are posted.
July 1… a small production note is published on uo.com that clearly shows yet more avoidance to the Spring Cleaning 2011 issue. “After July… players can look forward to…” So, what does that mean? August? September? December? The staff has chosen yet again to take other areas into priority, including High Seas content… that has very low interest. Spring Cleaning, however now has angered the population, SHOULD be their priority. Are they listening at all? Well, they really should be. This isn’t just about honoring their word… but this would make a lot of people happy. EVERYONE, once again… not just the few that have the mad fighting skills. Everyone can enjoy some cool new goodies for their house, more kicking armor and weapons… and as the name tells… clean up a lot of junk clogging people’s house and server space.
Soon after this news is broken, pictures are posted on uo.com showing such interesting things such as a new Distillery… we start thinking Spring Cleaning is sure on it's way. Epic disappointment and even the feeling of betrayal comes when these “hints” are only to show that the staff will be selling 2 tiny booster packs. The Gothic and Rustic collections, 10$ a throw or 15$ for the pack. Both are not worth the money, but this shows the lack of regard the staff has for the loyal paying customers. This also included new sales areas, known as vendor booths, that sit around New Magincia, another gold-sink. This is all about greed and not about customer service.
When spring is clearly on it's way out… another disappointing blow comes when game staff chooses to publish a story arch supporting the SA lands and NOT the Spring Cleaning. Spring Cleaning will have to wait for Summer. Again, players are outraged. “Why leak what they have no intention on doing?” The questions are posted.
July 1… a small production note is published on uo.com that clearly shows yet more avoidance to the Spring Cleaning 2011 issue. “After July… players can look forward to…” So, what does that mean? August? September? December? The staff has chosen yet again to take other areas into priority, including High Seas content… that has very low interest. Spring Cleaning, however now has angered the population, SHOULD be their priority. Are they listening at all? Well, they really should be. This isn’t just about honoring their word… but this would make a lot of people happy. EVERYONE, once again… not just the few that have the mad fighting skills. Everyone can enjoy some cool new goodies for their house, more kicking armor and weapons… and as the name tells… clean up a lot of junk clogging people’s house and server space.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Maginica Lotto is over… what’s the cost?
Total gold sunk into the “gold sink” (Atlantic Tram only) 9,512,114,000… just in the 2k unlimited lots. Estimated, 11 million per 10k lot.
Records:
10 lots, 2k unlimited:
Lot C1 – 1,091,105 tickets sold, (2,182,210,000 gold spent!!!)
12 lots, 10k 1 ticket per account:
Lot C3 – 1191 tickets sold, (11,910,000 gold)
Amazing figures! Did it actually effect the excess amount of gold on our shard? I don’t think so… and not at all. 9.5 billion sounds like a lot of game-money, but it's still just a drop in the bucket. It's not so much what you can produce “farming” gold… it's those who can get the hard-core loot who get the savings away from the rest of us. To really solve the excessive gold problem in UO, the staff would need to make a full change to monster loot and exchange old money for new. Maybe 10k old for 1 new. That would greatly correct the problem.
No surprise… Maginica is seeing very greedy people trying to sell these lots for massive profits. One buyer of a 10k lot told me she paid out 400 million… for what cost the seller 10k. Amazing! Even after a week or so… there is no actual community springing up from this new house area. It could in the future… or it could just be another house area. I’m hoping we see some malls and other community based houses. The staff also made mention on Friday that the fenced in areas may see new NPC houses and other areas like a fair ground.
Again, I would like to say the Red & Purple Mini Mall or any other mall property will NOT be moving to Maginica. If one of our mall friends wished to place a house in the city, the community may see a Red & Purple “flag” but that’s about it. Helping… not moving. We are very proud to be part of the recognized player town system and hope to see a town transporter system for our shard sometime soon.
Records:
10 lots, 2k unlimited:
Lot C1 – 1,091,105 tickets sold, (2,182,210,000 gold spent!!!)
12 lots, 10k 1 ticket per account:
Lot C3 – 1191 tickets sold, (11,910,000 gold)
Amazing figures! Did it actually effect the excess amount of gold on our shard? I don’t think so… and not at all. 9.5 billion sounds like a lot of game-money, but it's still just a drop in the bucket. It's not so much what you can produce “farming” gold… it's those who can get the hard-core loot who get the savings away from the rest of us. To really solve the excessive gold problem in UO, the staff would need to make a full change to monster loot and exchange old money for new. Maybe 10k old for 1 new. That would greatly correct the problem.
No surprise… Maginica is seeing very greedy people trying to sell these lots for massive profits. One buyer of a 10k lot told me she paid out 400 million… for what cost the seller 10k. Amazing! Even after a week or so… there is no actual community springing up from this new house area. It could in the future… or it could just be another house area. I’m hoping we see some malls and other community based houses. The staff also made mention on Friday that the fenced in areas may see new NPC houses and other areas like a fair ground.
Again, I would like to say the Red & Purple Mini Mall or any other mall property will NOT be moving to Maginica. If one of our mall friends wished to place a house in the city, the community may see a Red & Purple “flag” but that’s about it. Helping… not moving. We are very proud to be part of the recognized player town system and hope to see a town transporter system for our shard sometime soon.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Who was that masked girl? Super-Heroes on Atlantic?
For some unknown reason… there have been sightings of this small line of super-heroes that have been appearing by Luna and West Brit Bank on the Atlantic shard. They don’t seam to be advertising or promoting anything… when approached by passer-bys… they may respond, but otherwise say nothing.
Very smartly dressed to mimic Superman, The Green Lantern, The Flash, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Batman and Robin… and Hit-Girl. Hit-Girl? It may not be known by many… however, a good run from the north gate of Luna… almost directly north, you will run into a large (18x18) big-box custom house called "Hall of Heroes"... owned by "ARCHON The GREAT". At one time, this once mall was lined on 2 sides by smart dressed super-hero vendors! Right now, as this story is published, the vendors are all gone. Is this user connected to that once mall? Or did they just see the smart costumes and just copy them? Hit-Girl… is a party crasher!
ME! They may be from DC… I’m from my favorite comic book movie “Kick-Ass” that came out early 2010. I couldn’t resist! Saturday April 2… I just wanted to see what was going on and these guys stood in line for the better part of Saturday. Almost to shard down. I was the last one standing. Unlike the others… my girl actually has skills. hehe
I will find a proper place for a new Hit-Girl vendor, dressed in my cute custom outfit that was never in “Hall of Heroes”… but the question remains… what’s the deal with the line?
Very smartly dressed to mimic Superman, The Green Lantern, The Flash, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Batman and Robin… and Hit-Girl. Hit-Girl? It may not be known by many… however, a good run from the north gate of Luna… almost directly north, you will run into a large (18x18) big-box custom house called "Hall of Heroes"... owned by "ARCHON The GREAT". At one time, this once mall was lined on 2 sides by smart dressed super-hero vendors! Right now, as this story is published, the vendors are all gone. Is this user connected to that once mall? Or did they just see the smart costumes and just copy them? Hit-Girl… is a party crasher!
ME! They may be from DC… I’m from my favorite comic book movie “Kick-Ass” that came out early 2010. I couldn’t resist! Saturday April 2… I just wanted to see what was going on and these guys stood in line for the better part of Saturday. Almost to shard down. I was the last one standing. Unlike the others… my girl actually has skills. hehe
I will find a proper place for a new Hit-Girl vendor, dressed in my cute custom outfit that was never in “Hall of Heroes”… but the question remains… what’s the deal with the line?
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