Publish 20

New Systems

Vendor Improvements: There are a number of changes in the works for the player-vendor system, and with these changes we hope to accomplish two primary goals: 1) improve vendor functionality and allow players better control over their vendors; and 2) maintain the number of vended objects in the world at reasonable levels.
House Runestones: In order to facilitate safer traveling for those visiting vendor shops, an in-house rune marking system is being developed to allow players to Recall off of hued house runestones without fear of ending up in some dangerous dungeon.
Bulletin Boards: As part of the Vendor Improvement changes, a special message board will be available to all house owners that will allow closer communication with friends, neighbors, guildmates, customers, and even rivals.

All marked runes will now have the target facet added to their names (ex. "Sannio’s Secret Spawn [Felucca]"). All of the new house runes will have "[House]" added after the facet name (ex. "Kerowyn’s Klubhouse [Malas] [House]"). (See House Runestones for more information on these new items.)
The house sign menu messages have been updated to accommodate the new vendor changes.
A bug that allowed more than two barkeeps per house has been fixed.
Corrected an incorrect message that appeared when placing an object in a locked down container while no longer in the house.
You can now place house add-ons onto bamboo floors in customizable houses. It should also be easier to place them near staircases.
NPC bankers, minters, and gargoyle innkeepers will now sell vendor and barkeep contracts (and the new vendor rental contracts).
Vendors now have a single account that holds money given to them by their owner as well as funds from sales. The owner may add to this account when the vendor has less than 1,000,000 gp.
Fixed a bug that allowed containers and books to exist in a vendor’s inventory without having a set price or vended description. (This does not include spellbooks or special containers like game boards.)
The house moving crate will now automatically vanish when it is emptied.

An incorrect response when attempting to craft cloth items while leather materials are selected has been fixed.
A bug that allowed collecting logs from bridges and wooden floors has been fixed.
Personal Bless Deeds can no longer be used on items that change their object type upon use, such as torches, candles, etc.
Fire horns can no longer damage targets on the other side of doors and walls.
An issue that was creating invisible walls (particularly on the Baja shard) has been resolved.
Undead slayer weapons should once again spawn as loot.
Items you are dragging will no longer fall to the ground when you die if there is room for them in your backpack.

Missing your target while attempting to tame it will now allow for an immediate re-try instead of waiting for the skill timer to expire.
Fixed a bug that allowed looting of player corpses in certain locations of Trammel.
War maces now have a chance to appear as magical loot.
Characters will no longer be ejected from their boats when using Holy Light.
Bows will no longer spawn as loot with the "Use Best Weapon Skill" property, since this property doesn't work with bows.(Legacy bows that already have this property will be fixed in a future publish.)
An issue that was preventing stat gains from some skills has been fixed. All skills that allowed some kind of stat gain pre-AoS should now allow you to gain in any stat.

It will no longer be possible to dismount a faction guard and tame his horse.
An issue with the Minax CL being unable to set the faction's tithe rate on Chesapeake has been resolved.

A bug that allowed inappropriately high Dexterity gains during the blacksmith quest has been fixed.
Fixed an issue that allowed too many columns of flame to appear in an area near the "City of the Dead" in the Lost Lands.
Green thorns can no longer be buried in Malas. (Solen lairs exist only in Trammel and Felucca).
An overabundance of lanterns are no longer spawning in a new character creation area.

A client-crashing bug related to moving through too many items has been fixed.
A Night Sight issue that made the game screen go completely black has been resolved.
An issue with the 3D client that would sometimes cause worn items to appear black has been fixed.
As of Publish 20, any newly created in-game HTML encoded text will no longer be rendered as HTML. The < and > symbols will be instead appear as ( and ), respectively.

On October 14, 2003, the following was published:

6th Anniversary Gifts:
- A decorative cake: The cake will have a label that reads "Happy 6th Anniversary."
- A fireworks wand: Double-click this wand to launch a non-damaging sparkle effect!
- A specially hued and labeled bell: The hue is based on your Reputation, and the label reads "Happy 6th Anniversary from [a random UO Live Team member's name].”
Several issues have been addressed, including player-vendor issues and a BOD system issue.

On October 21, 2003, the following was published:

On November 4, 2003, the following was published:

A system message will now be displayed when a spectator enters a game of Mahjong as a player.
A fix was added that will remedy a problem with Mahjong boards being inoperable.
Fixed an issue that prevented players from being able to purchase Bulk Order Deeds from a Bulk Order Deed book if all their gold was stored in bank check form.
Fixed an issue with legacy vendors that were packed up during the Publish 20 conversion that caused their inventory expiration timer to be reset every server maintenance. Unclaimed inventory left on vendor house signs will now be able to properly time out and be dumped into the house moving crate for the house owner to claim. Note that this only applies to vendors on a house sign due to the Publish 20 conversion, not due to ordinary rental contract expiration.

On November 13, 2003, the following was published: