Publish 15

The following is a list of changes deployed as Publish 15 on January 9, 2002.

Housing and Lockdown Updates

Selecting YES on the gump to clear you as a co-owner of a house will now remove your co-owner status, allowing proper house transfers.
Fixed an issue concerning flawed tile art while placing a house.
Trading a house to a player who is co-owned to a house will be a two-step process. The receiver will first have to select YES to remove his co-owner status and then the other party will need to initiate the trade again, at which time it will complete normally.
The house co-owner clear confirm gump spacing has been fixed.
An issue allowing house add-ons to be chopped through an exploit has been fixed.
Locked-down eggs and Easter eggs are no longer able to be used.
You will now be able to use runebooks within bookcases or locked down containers.
Co-owners of player houses are now able to dye locked-down furniture within the house they co-own.
Issues involving certain characters being unable to release, secure, or lock-down items within their own houses has been addressed.
The text on the house sign gump when using the 3D client has been changed to black text, instead of yellow, for easier reading.
All houses will continue to be automatically refreshed — except condemned houses. Condemned houses will begin to decay.

Guild System Updates

An issue involving canceling choosing new fealty in the guild menu has been addressed.
Guildmasters that resign from their guild using the statement “I resign from my guild” will now receive a resignation confirmation. Also, the player who becomes guildmaster, as well as all online guild members, will now receive a statement announcing the new guildmaster.
Several spelling errors in guild messaging have been fixed.
A typo in the declare war function on guildstones has been corrected.

Map-Specific Updates

Liches now spawn properly at (757, 1400, 0).
Numerous bad ocean tiles have been cleaned up.
NPC Waiters will no longer spawn on the roof of the Great Horns Tavern in Magincia.
When you single-click the teleporter in the Moonglow mage shop for a newbie quest you will now see “a magical teleporter” instead of “lookAtText: a magical teleporter.”
Players will be able to insta-log from the first floor of the Sweet Dreams Inn in Britain while using the 3D client.

NPC and Shopkeepers Updates

All methods of killing shopkeepers in Felucca will now give a murder count (ie using pets, provoking).
The vendor info and status is now on a gump instead of a bark.
Shopkeepers will now buy up to 250 individual items or up to 500 items total, whichever comes first.
The barkeeps now work through context menus.
An issue involving the displaying of the barkeep tip message on the barkeep menu has been fixed.
‘Buy’ is now part of context menus on faction horse breeders and hairstylists.
The cancel button on the hairstylist gump will now cancel the selection and not charge you 50k.
Guards no longer have training menus.
Real estate brokers will be the only NPC interested in house deeds — all others will return them to the person who owns it.
NPC Bankers and NPC Minters are the only NPCs which will accept checks.

Pet and Hireling Updates

A loophole allowing transferring of pets while flagged grey has been fixed.
It will no longer be possible to stable a pet using the last object macro.
Fixed the message when you try to stable an object in your backpack — it now says “you can’t stable that” instead of “please dismount first.”
Animal lore now correctly reports how many owners an animal has had.
The message involving feathers in animal lore has been corrected.
If you used your animal lore skill on a tamed eagle, eventually you’d get a random bark saying: “you lock it.” You should no longer be receiving that erroneous message.
Healing a frost spider will now raise vet skill instead of anatomy.
You will no longer be able to tame dynamically spawned monsters — such as Unicorns in an evil in the can region. You will still be able to tame the normally spawned Unicorns.
You will no longer have to pay upkeep to keep your pet refreshed while stabled.
Non faction players will no longer be able to tame faction war horses.
Pack animals are now tamable via context menus.
Players that command their pets using context menus will appear as if they had spoken the command phrase(s).
All pets store bought or tamed and released will now properly be re-tamable.
It’s no longer possible to transfer a pet to a ghost.
Players who mount an ethereal horse will no longer be spammed three times with “You get on your horse.”
An issue causing pets & hirelings to visually disappear (although only visually — they actually remained in the game at the place last seen) when approaching a server boundary has been addressed.
You will no longer be able to hire NPC hirelings and have them guard other NPCs.
An issue involving hirelings performing “grey” activities without their “owner” going grey has been fixed.

Skill Changes and Updates

An issue disallowing the use of leather which was cut up from leather items has been addressed.
The text displayed when selecting the type of metal on the crafting gump will no longer be garbled.
When crafting items a check of the backpack is made — if it’s full (either item or weight-wise), you will not be able to craft the item.
Both the crafting tools and the crafting resources must now be in one's backpack when crafting a given item. (You will no longer be able to use crafting tools in the bank box.)
Crafting now breaks the necessary concentration for meditation.
All crafting menus have the make last button.
Oilcloths will now be created with the correct variables, and the bug to convert them back into yellow pieces of cloth has been fixed.
Female plate is now properly identified on the crafting gump.
Your backpack no longer closes if you use the materials menu.
Tinkers will no longer be able to make bugged lanterns. Graphics issue were preventing them from lighting correctly.
The “I honor thee” command will no longer disrupt peacemaking.
Maker's Mark for instruments should now go back to being based on your Carpentry skill instead of your Musicianship skill.
The Carpentry menu now has the correct spelling for “Trinsic-style chair.”
An issue with incorrect messages when using Anatomy on targets with low STR and DEX has been fixed.
Players who successfully use their hiding skill while under the effects of an invisibility spell will no longer be revealed when the invisibility timer expires.
Players will no longer lose mana when attempting to inscribe a scroll they don’t have the proper materials for.
Fixed an issue where the Inscription menu remained “active” after clicking “OK,” disallowing further use of that skill for a time.
Characters will no longer lose mana when they fail to make a scroll.
Fixed an issue with the phrase that appears when a cooking tool breaks.
You will now get the correct amount of dough from mixing flour and water.
When starting a tailor character you will begin with a pair of scissors.
The cap and tall straw hat are now included in the tailor items menu for tailors.
You will now be able to make potions directly into a potion keg.
Potion kegs will now display the correct contents when single-clicked (ex. the keg will say “a keg of greater poison” versus “a keg of green potions”).
Blacksmith repair difficulty has been fixed — the more damaged a weapon is, the more difficult it will be to repair it.
If you have a blacksmith tool equipped, you must use that tool while smithing. Otherwise, you can use the tools from your pack as normal.
An issue involving mining at inappropriate distances from the target has been fixed.
An issue involving the ability to smith items without the proper tools has been addressed.
Gargoyle shopkeepers will now give and accept bulk orders.
Added small platemail bulk order deeds.
Male plate tunics are now being given as a Bulk Order Deed (whereas before it was only female plate armor).
Blacksmith repair contracts will now work in the gargoyle city region.
Resmelting metal items now checks for an anvil and forge in the proximity.
It will now be possible to repair and resmelt all metal shields, arms, and armor.
The word “Dull” has been changed to “Dull Copper” on the blacksmith menu.

Faction Updates

Faction scrolls now stack properly.
Faction shopkeepers and guards will now correctly be dismissible by a targeting cursor.
Faction vendors should no longer block players movement.
Faction stones will no longer open up the “join this faction” gump window for anyone who has already joined that faction.
Several issues with faction voting windows have been fixed. They will now come up & display appropriately.
A faction town income price modifier issue has been corrected.
An issue involving faction town stones not always recognizing their faction ownership has been fixed.
Factioneers who leave their faction while on the leadership candidate list will be properly removed from the respective candidate list at that time, and the election system timetable will be adjusted accordingly.
Factioneers of rank 5 or lower will not be able to campaign for faction leadership.
Faction titles will no longer display while in Trammel.
An issue involving faction characters getting stuck if they quit their faction while in their stronghold has been fixed.
An issue allowing characters to Gate Travel while holding a faction sigil has been fixed.

Spell Updates

Fixed an issue where you’d get a message saying that you were disturbed while casting the Incognito spell, but you’d still be able to cast the spell if your skill was high enough.
Fixed an issue where an avatar would turn north when casting certain spells.
Telekinesis no longer works on boat decks.
The Firefield spell will no longer be precastable outside of town and targetable in town.

Miscellaneous Localization/Text Changes

An issue where certain containers were not displaying their weight properly has been fixed.
The listed values when a character is overloaded were reversed-they now display as “Carrying stones/Max stones.”
Legacy naval chests and shipwreck chests now display the correct text.
Pitchers of liquid will no longer just say: “Container. It is full.” Single-clicking the pitcher will now display the contents.
Links will now show up and work correctly in the help gump.
Special drinks will now correctly display their look at text — mostly covers holiday items.
The mongbat tutorial text will no longer mysteriously disappear.
An issue with overlapping text boxes in the new player tutorial has been fixed.
The gump that pops up when you are leaving the tutorial to go to Haven will now remain on the screen until closed.
The proper localized look at text will now appear over magic teleporters.
When canceling a help request the word request is now spelled correctly.
The wording when locking and unlocking a door has been made consistent.
Kite shields will now display if they are dyeable or not.
A text display issue with trapped chests has been corrected.
Female plate is now correctly identified if it is exceptional.
Text will now display correctly on magical items that are blessed using the Item Bless deed.

Miscellaneous

Runebooks now only require 8 blank scrolls to make instead of the previous 10.
Double-clicking a bank check in your bankbox will now cash it in.
Camping now is on a 10 second timer — if a player camps and waits more than ten seconds, the gump will close and the player remains in the world. (This is to prevent insta-logging in combat.)
You can now use a furniture dye tub if you are the owner and the tub is in your backpack.
Recall scrolls will now stack properly.
The woodsman house has been removed from the list of possible escort destinations because it was confusing — there aren’t any woodsman in the game.
Players on Siege shards who aren’t part of the new good/evil system will no longer be able to hue items.
Special case doors now play the correct sounds when opened and closed.
Candles will no longer disappear when used in your hand.
Ghosts will no longer be able to open their backpacks using context menus.
The mongbat tutorial gump will no longer close when entering combat, as well the death gump will not vanish if the player leaves the area toward the exit moongate and comes back.
If a character has his Karma locked it will no longer be possible for others to “honor” them.
None of the decorative bolts of cloth in tailor shops will disappear or give odd messages when double-clicked.
An issue regarding making & collecting bounties has been addressed.
All magical items should now be able to be repaired as normal.
If you choose a Vet Reward from the menu and then cancel your choice, you will be put directly into the game instead of being presented with the Vet Rewards menu again.
An issue involving grey thieves being able to steal and use moongates has been fixed. (Such thieves must wait until they return to blue before using a moongate.)
An issue involving incorrect altering of stats through the used of certain Blessed items and spell combinations has been fixed.
Oil cloths should no longer disappear once you use them on your weapon.
You are no longer able to get more than one stone table from one deed.

Updates

Update 1

On January 16, 2002, the following was published:

Updates to facilitate Week 1 of Scenario 3: Blackthorn's Damnation

The Virtue of Sacrifice

Sacrifice is part of a philosophy within Ultima Online known as the Virtues, and is one of eight pursuits within the upcoming Virtue system.

The Virtue of Sacrifice has been described as:

“The courage to give of oneself in the name of love.”

Pursuit of Sacrifice will be designed to allow players to interact with “monsters” in a manner other than one of combat.

Sacrifice & Redemption: Characters that attain a level of Fame will be able to “sacrifice” their Fame in order to defeat certain monsters.

Upon encountering a related, “redeemable” monster, players will be able to sacrifice their Fame to defeat the monster in the following manner:
- Open up the Virtue gump.
- Double-click the Sacrifice (teardrop) symbol
- Target the monster
The following is a list of monsters which may be redeemed with the sacrifice of one’s Fame:
- Lich
- Enslaved Gargoyle
- Gargoyle Enforcer
- (Regular) Demon
- Succubus
- Evil Mage
You cannot target a redeemable monster if:
- It has already taken more than 15% of its maximum hit points in damage.
- You cannot see it (you must have line-of-sight).
- You are invisible.
- You are dead.
Attempts to sacrifice Fame to anything other than the redeemable monsters will have no effect.
Once a monster is redeemed, the following will occur:
- The character’s Fame is set to “zero.”
- The monster disappears in a cloud of particles
- The character will gain a certain amount in Sacrifice, depending on how much Fame was lost in the redemption—the greater the Fame loss, the more Sacrifice is gained.
- A given character can sacrifice his Fame only once per 24 hour period.

Virtuous Title & Abilities: When a character has achieved any number of Sacrifice points, he is considered to have achieved a certain step on the path of Sacrifice.

When a player moves his cursor over the Sacrifice symbol, a title will be displayed, indicating the step currently achieved in Sacrifice for that character.
- First step: Seeker of Sacrifice
- Second step: Follower of Sacrifice
- Third step: Knight of Sacrifice
Players who progress any number of steps on the path of Sacrifice, but do not continue to actively pursue it, may discover that this Virtuous title reduces in steps over time.
Gaining steps in Sacrifice will grant a character the ability to resurrect himself a number of times each week, equal to the steps achieved in Sacrifice. Players will be able to access this ability by clicking the Sacrifice symbol on their own Virtue gump.
- First step: Self-resurrect one time per week
- Second step: Self-resurrect two times per week
- Third step: Self-resurrect three times per week
There will be certain notable benefits & caveats of self-resurrecting:
- Players will be able to instantly resurrect their characters which have achieved any number of steps on this path of Virtue.
- Self-resurrecting characters will not suffer any stat or skill loss normally associated with “insta-resurrection.” However, effects such as Murderer-based stat-loss, Faction-based stat-loss, etc., will still apply.
- Self-resurrected characters will only have 1 Hit Point and 1 Mana Point upon resurrection, just as if he was resurrected by a healer, friend, or shrine.
- Characters which self-resurrect will instantly recover all the items they had on their corpse, except for any items which have been looted or decayed.
  - Self-resurrecting characters will not be able to recover items in this way if they move across a server boundary into another server region. Characters in this situation will receive a notice to his effect before allowing such a self-resurrection.
- Characters will not be able to self-resurrect:
  - …within a “multi-object” (a house, boat, etc.).
  - …within a faction stronghold
  - …while flagged as a criminal or aggressor

Update 2

On January 22, 2002, the following was published:

Updates to facilitate Week 2 of Scenario 3: Blackthorn's Damnation

Update 3

On February 7, 2002, the following was published:

Updates to facilitate Week 3 of Scenario 3: Blackthorn's Damnation

Changes To The New Player Experience

The "Directed Experiences" referred to below are the step-by-step instructions and quests available to new players who choose one of the character creation templates.

Directed Experience and Young Player Changes:

New players in the directed experience will be given an "enchanted sextant”, which will give the cardinal direction to the nearest moongate, as well as the cardinal direction to the nearest city bank (except in the case of Cove, which has no bank - in this case the player is pointed to the city gates).
Young players can no longer enter the tutorial during the First Login mongbat quest.
The exit location of the tutorial has been changed to place the young player in Uzeraan’s mansion.
Several tweaks have been made to the Mage, Blacksmith and Warrior directed experience quests, including the addition of paths on the map to more easily show destinations.
Altered the land and map for Haven
Renamed the buildings in Haven so that each building or shop’s function is clear.
A reminder has been added to remind New Players in the directed experience quests to leave war mode.
Starting equipment has been adjusted for new Mages, Warriors, Blacksmiths and Tailors.
Young players can sell non-stackable goods they've purchased from shopkeepers for 100% of their purchase price
Young players will receive a gump explaining death to them when they die for the first time.
Context-help has been activated, which will cause the in-game help menu to be triggered by certain events that occur in the game
A young player will not get their karma locked. If they wish to lock their karma to gain only negative karma, they will have to wait until they are no longer young or else renounce their young player status.

General Changes

Veteran players are now allowed in certain areas of Haven.
NPC potions will no longer display the color of the potions, but will instead describe the potions’ effect.
You can no longer receive criminal flagging (be flagged grey) in consensual PvP rule set areas (Trammel and Ilshenar on regular shards).
Stealing now gives double the normal karma loss in consensual PvP rule set areas.

Update 4

On February 9, 2002, the following was published:

Signs will now be erected along the coasts near popular mining areas, warning all ship captains to not block valuable resources by leaving their vessels unattended in these areas.
NPC bankers no longer accept checks

Update 5

On February 22, 2002, the following was published:

Previously, players with slower connections could be killed after traveling through a moongate before their computer ever caught up with them and they were able to defend themselves. Players will now be hidden when coming out of a moongate, meaning that they will not become visible until their computer has finished loading, and they are able to move.
Hirelings will now cost 8K in return for their services.
Fixed an issue involving pack horses and BODs.
Corrected a gating/recall issue with the Minax stronghold.
Holiday trees will be disabled. All holiday trees currently in the world should return to deed form. Only the owner of the house that the deed is in, or the person who placed the tree, will be able to pick up the deed.
The holiday gift gump will be disabled. Any remaining holiday tickets will still be useable, but no more will be given out.

Update 6

On March 27, 2002, the following was published:

A recent exploit involving the turning pets into a temporary "statue in a bag" (a smaller version of the original pet, including the "[tame]" tag overhead) has been resolved.

Update 7

On April 18, 2002, the following was published:

Updates to facilitate Week 1 of Scenario 4: Plague of Despair

Update 8

On April 16, 2002, the following was published:

Two house transfer issues were recently resolved: a recently-reported bug which disallowed house transfers on the Baja shard has been fixed and a house trading exploit has been fixed on all shards worldwide.
A bug/exploit that indirectly allowed the faction sigils to disappear on occasion has been fixed.

Update 9

On April 25, 2002, the following was published:

Updates to facilitate Week 2 of Scenario 4: Plague of Despair

Update 10

On May 1, 2002, the following was published:

Updates to facilitate Week 3 of Scenario 4: Plague of Despair

Update 11

On May 8, 2002, the following was published:

Updates to facilitate Week 4 of Scenario 4: Plague of Despair

Update 12

On May 15, 2002, the following was published:

Updates to facilitate Week 5 of Scenario 4: Plague of Despair

Update 13

On May 22, 2002, the following was published:

Updates to facilitate Week 6 of Scenario 4: Plague of Despair

Update 14

On May 31, 2002, the following was published:

Players can no longer polymorph while mounted. This ability was causing a number of graphical errors and made players very hard to target.
When players receive a party invitation, their loot status now defaults to "off".

Update 15

On June 12, 2002, the following was published:

A recent crafting-based exploit that allowed rapid skill gains through the use of multiple crafting tools has been resolved.

Update 16

On June 20, 2002, the following was published:

Barkeeps & Vendors: An exploit facilitated by a third-party program that allowed players to change the hues of items held by barkeeps & vendors, and to affect the wearable of other players’ barkeeps & vendors, has been eliminated.
Plant double-growth: An issue where extended maintenance could cause double growth of locked-down plants on the next scheduled maintenance has been resolved.