Thanks to Techarin, we already have 3 additional MP3 songs in our new Techarin's MP3 Music Hall Section - Wind, Trinsic, and Lord British's Castle. As always, all three pieces are beautifully done and will make great additions to your library of MP3 Ultima Online music. Make sure to check the section out for all the details.

Also, just an FYI from Techarin for the long time fans - These are not the same MP3s that were released earlier this year. So if you have downloaded UO Music from Techarin before, be sure to download these new ones!

There's a couple things in this thread I'd like to address. First, Jehosaphet is right in that we are profit-driven, and that without profit, there is no game. But calling those who are upset about the advanced character program "whiners" isn't the answer either.

I am a game player myself, and I have accounts open for 3 different MMOGs right now, including UO. I know how I feel about my characters, and I understand the frustrations I've seen from a lot of people here. There's nothing wrong with expressing those frustrations, and that doesn't make someone a "whiner."

We put a lot of thought into this program before it launched - a LOT of thought. We knew that some players would have issues with it. But over the last several years, many players have asked for something like this. Players have wanted a way to catch up to their friends, to create new characters without having to retrain the basic skills, to start on a new shard without having to start over completely. We have already received many, many requests for the service from people who are excited about this.

I can already hear a few of your responses. "But we asked for a character transfer between shards, not this!"

We want to provide a way to transfer between shards. We've been looking at the possibility for over a year - long before it was brought up at the FanFest. The problem is that moving a character from one shard to another essentially requires that our Support group manually recreate everything about that character, which is EXTREMELY time-consuming. Moreso than you'd think. And in order to make it an automated process, we need development time - and that's something we don't have a lot of, with scenarios going on, constant emergency fixes for crashes, network issues and exploits, and Age of Shadows development. But the Advanced Character program is different - by creating set templates for Support to use, we can do it much more quickly - and it provides much of the same effect by allowing players to start on a new shard without having to start back down at the bottom.

So the two biggest issues seem to be these:

1) Many feel that it lessens the feeling of achievement of having a veteran character. But actually, there's not much difference between a new player having a character built by us vs. having a character bought on ebay. In fact, characters bought on ebay often have rares or status symbols attached to them, in the form of veteran rewards or other items - so you could have a brand new player with not only a 7XGM character, but riding on an ethereal ethy as well. This has been possible for years. Advanced characters will not be grandmaster status, and will not include these kinds of items or status symbols, so in effect, they should have less of an impact on the feeling of achievement than ebay sales have.

2) Players are concerned that this will prevent new players from learning the game properly. This is a valid concern, and it's been discussed here at length. Ultimately, the potential has also been there from ebay sales as well. Again, a brand new player could buy an advanced character through an auction, and find themselves well past the learning curve of the game with little idea of how to play. The advanced character templates were specifically designed to not put a new account holder past the point of being a "young" player - so through this system, new players could purchase the advanced templates, but still be considered "young," and still be eligible to go through all the new player tutorials and take advantage of Haven - which will provide somewhat more help than the method of buying one through an auction.

As for us wanting money... well... yes. It's true. We want UO to continue to grow, and we want to be able to continue expanding the game. We want to be able to hire more programmers to do extra projects that players have been asking for, such as finding time to create shard-to-shard character transfers, or creating a better patch message to get information to our players more effectively. We want to be able to open new shards, and continue to upgrade our hardware, and add new functionality to the interface, and improve the art. But those things take money. We haven't raised the cost of UO once in five years, and our costs have not gone down. By creating services that offer players a choice on whether or not they want to spend more, we can get more revenue without having to raise the cost of UO across the bar - and that's good for everyone involved.

I hope that's helped to explain a bit - and we are most definitely reading the feedback (when we can get onto the boards, that is - they're really slow from all the traffic!).

For the first time in years, Age of Shadows will bring completely new combat tactics to Ultima Online in the form of weapon special moves. Warriors will gain the ability to tap their Mana to perform devastating maneuvers with their weapons that can have a variety of unusual side-effects. Each weapon type in the game (i.e.: long sword, spear, etc) will have a unique combination of a primary and a secondary special move. Warriors who have reached Expert (70) skill level will be able to execute a weapon's primary special move. Once he or she has reached Master (90) status in a weapon skill, the fighter may execute the secondary special move while wielding weapons of that skill — making them twice as deadly!

A new icon on the paperdoll will open a book that details each special move available to the warrior, based on his or her skill level and equipped weapon. Much like the icons in a spellbook, these can be dragged from the book into the game window and double-clicked to activate the special move, as well as configured in macros for one-key activation. When activated, the special move icon highlights red, indicating the character is ready to perform the move. At the next opportunity, the special move is performed, and the icon returns to its un-highlighted state.

The Mana Cost of each special move can be reduced if the warrior's skills are high enough. Add up the skill points for Swords, Mace Fighting, Fencing, Archery, Parrying, Lumberjacking, Stealth and Poisoning. If the total lies between 200 and 299, subtract 5 from the Mana Cost. If the total is 300 or more, subtract 10 from the Mana Cost.

Some items have a property called "reduced mana cost". These items also reduce the Mana Cost of these Special Moves.

There are 13 special combat moves in total. Each different type of weapon in the game has a different combination of primary and secondary special moves, making each weapon truly unique!

We are very pleased to announce the ten winners of our Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming Survey! Each of these winners will receive an all expense paid trip to beautiful San Francisco to see a MMOG premiere launch event on August 21st and 22nd of 2003. This event is being hosted by a top developer/publisher and it will make headlines everywhere!

Our winners (in no particular order):

• Sean, from Washington, DC (The Syndicate)
• Eric, from Sunnyvale, CA (Cavalier)
• Joel, from Carlton, MN (Shadow Clan)
• Ralph, from Charleston, SC (The Claw of Nagafen)
• Bruce, from Lodi, NJ (SWG Oracle)
• Nathan, from North Reading, MA (Guardians of Azeroth)
• Janet, from Reno, NV (Black Knights)
• Jeremy, from Salt Lake City, UT (Veritas)
• James, from Woodlands, TX (Knights of the Golden Dragon)
• Nelson, from Kelowna, British Columbia (House of Durin)

We would like to thank all of those who took the time to complete the survey. There are many wonderful guild and fan sites out there and while we could not award the prizes to everyone, it was an excellent turn out.

Once again, we wish to congratulate these winners and we hope they enjoy the premiere; it should be a great couple of days!

Former Ultima Online player? Get $100!

Are you a former Ultima Online subscriber? Do you live in the San Jose or San Francisco areas? Do you want a $100? All you have to do is tell the Origin team what they should do with the next Ultima Online project!

Origin, through a contracted research firm, will be conducting focus groups Feb. 4 and 5 in Sunnyvale, CA (near San Francisco and San Jose). There will be six groups, with 10 to 12 people in each.

The groups, about 90 minutes each, will discuss what they like and don't like about UO. They will also be asked to comment on new ideas.

Participants will be paid $100, and they will have to sign a legally binding non-disclosure agreement. That means they won't be allowed to discuss anything they see or hear during the group sessions.

The groups for current players are filled, but former players are still being recruited.

If you are interested in participating, call Nichols Research at 1-408-773-8200, ext 2020 or email erecruiting@nicholsresearch.com. Mention "Project #C3032" when you contact them.

It's important that we get current AND former players, so if you've stopped playing UO, please contact us anyway.

Mythica fans last week were faced with a pre-release MMO fan’s worst nightmare, project cancellation. This is the third major project to be cancelled since Ultima Online 2 and I am sure in the coming weeks the uproar in the community will be very similar. But there is need for concern, not only for Mythica fans, but for any follower of the genre.

The simple fact of the matter is that within just over five years this industry has experienced hyper-growth on levels that far out-flank any other sector of online computer entertainment. The major players in the industry post huge revenues on subscriptions every single year and all of a sudden the hobby based MUD community has become the corporate playing field of the Massively Multiplayer game.

With the entrance of corporate dollars comes the corporate control over the big titles. The titles that are three years away but have a following of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of loyal fans. There are many titles in the works, encompassing millions of dollars in potential income - and the companies know this. But there is a dark realization that is now being considered, just when does it end? When does the genre hit the ceiling and all that ends up happening is companies resort to passing around subscriptions with no real growth. This is a question that is haunting corporations who have potential products laid before senior management, just how long can it continue? When does the opportunity cost grow larger than any potential earning?

Thanks to Stratics for its editorial discussing the problems faced by the licensed massively multiplayer game. The author points out: "Star Wars, The Matrix, Middle Earth - these are just some of the pre-existing worlds that are making the MMOG leap", and goes on to lament: "One of the problems is that you have to create an entire believable, explorable world. This is hard enough as it is, but then you have to cater to pre-existing notions of that world. Fans are your main target group here, and they have that world all locked up tight in their heads. Prepare for Foaming-at-the-Forum disease, my illustrious developers, prepare well." We've previously covered other aspects of this dilemma, but do licenses bring excessive expectations to a persistent world where everyone wants to be the hero?

Here's how we pronounce some things here in the office:

Trammel: "TRAM ehl"
Felucca: "fehl LOO kah"
Skara Brae: "SKA rah BRAY"
Destard: most people say "dehs TARD" but it probably should be "DEHS tard," since it's derivative of "DAS tard" (as in "dastardly")
Bardiche: "bahr DEESH"
Papua: "pahp WA" (although some do say "pah POO ah")
Nujel'm: either "noo JEL um" or "NOO jhel OM" (pronounce "jh" like the "si" in "vision")
Minoc: "MIHN ik"
Jhelom: either "jel OM" or "jhel OM"
Trinsic: "trin SICK"
reagents: "ree AY jents"
Ilshenar: "IL shehn AR"
Ophidian: "OH fih DIAN"
Yew: "YOO"
Aegis: "AY jihs"
Malas: "MAL as"
Terathan: "ter AH than"
Covetous: "cuh VEH tuhs"
Ocllo: "OK yo"
Shamino: "SHA mi NO"



=========
Keith "Sannio" Quinn
Community Relations
Ultima Online (www.uo.com)
Origin Systems

A huge thanks to Jane, Torgak, and Darren for helping us set this Hildebrant Wallpaper up. As the original Artwork of Ultima Online from the very beginning (it is the artwork found on the first release of Ultima Online back in 1997), this is a must have for every die-hard Ultima fan.

1024x768 in JPG Format (203k)
800x600 in BMP Format (469k)
800x600 in JPG Format (134k)

For future reference, you can find this Wallpaper in the Wallpaper Section of our Tools & Downloads Menu (right-hand side). Enjoy!