Publish 73

Announcement

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! 27 Oct 2011 12:10:46 EST

Deployment History

October 27, 2011 - Announced and released to Test Center shard.
October 28, 2011 - Clean Up Britannia, Arenas and New High Resolution Terrain Art added.
November 1, 2011 - Christmas Gifts and 14th year Veteran Rewards added, released to Origin shard.
November 3, 2011 - Update 1 added.
November 17, 2011 - Released to all shards.

Publish Notes

Shame Upgrade

Dungeon Shame has been revised. The monsters have been revised to be a little bit more challenging and scaled in difficulty for new-to-veteran players. The shame loot system has been revised so you should notice less items with throw-away intensity values on properties, and an overall improvement in the loot generated.

First and second levels will provide a good training ground for journeyman to adept skill levels while level 3 should provide a little more of a challenge. On the first 3 levels there will be a renowned monster that can be spawned at a key point in the dungeon by summoning from an altar to give you a taste of the monster difficulty at the next level.

All the monsters within the dungeon have a chance to drop dungeon crystals which can be used to spawn the renowned of each level. In certain areas there will also be a chance when killing creatures for a renowned version of those creatures to be spawned. Similar to a paragon but not as friendly.

Level 5: The monsters on level 5 are a bit heavier and harder hitting than the other levels.

Overview of Shame's purpose

All new MOBs to thrill and kill!
Each level more devastating than the last!
MOB corpses possibly contain Shame Dungeon Crystals
Shame Dungeon Crystals may be consumed to increase player's Shame Dungeon Points... or used for whatever.
Shame Dungeon Points spent on altars in the first three levels of Shame.
These altars spawn new, tenacious Elite MOBs.
Collect all three, if you dare!
Cave Troll Wall Guardians
You've got to pay the Troll Toll if you want to get in the bowels of Shame.
The price... death.
Can you clear Shame in just an apron? Few have tried, none have succeeded.

Bard Mastery Adjustments

PvM Damage is now a chance to interrupt based on damage amount
Upkeep Cost Reduced for all abilities.
Mana Cost reduced from 1 for every 2 targets to 1 for every 5 targets
Base Upkeep Cost Reduced by 1
- INSPIRE 4
- INVIGORATE 5
- PRESERVANCE 5
- RESILIENCE 4
- TRIBULATION 10
- DESPAIR 12

Inspire:
- Bonus Damage Modifier: 1 – 15% To ALL Damage
Resilience:
- Regeneration Increased from 1- 11 to 1-22
Preservance:
- Damage Reduction/Defense Chance Bonus Increased from 1-22 to 1-30
Despair:
- Damage Type now selectable through context menu on spellbook.

Spellbooks without the context menu can be fixed by casting the despair spell once

Alchemy/Enhancement Potions

Alchemy will now provide a similar functionality to enhance potions as magic resist does to base resistances.
Combined Enhanced Potions Effect will remain as Alchemy / 3.3 + Enhace Potions = (30 + 75)
Minimum Enhance potions effect = Alchemy / 2.0 ( 0-50%)

EC Terrain Texture Updates

Some terrain types in the EC client have been updated for scaling and to improve overall detail.

Shame Itemization Upgrade

Coupled with the revamp of Dungeon Shame, Publish 73 introduces a new random magic item generation system. This new system will only create items for monster kills in Shame, and for the lost-and-found items for the Honesty virtue. Loot drops elsewhere in the game world are unaffected, though the plan will be to eventually convert loot drops throughout Sosaria to use this new system.

The new loot generator creates an exciting array of new possibilities:

Some magic item properties will now appear on types of items they have not been seen on before.
Many magic items will have negative properties, such as Cursed, Cannot be Repaired, Brittle, and Unlucky. These items will receive more power than standard items to compensate for their disadvantages.
Some items will be generated with item properties designed to fit a theme and work together. These items will be named.
Luck will play a significant role in loot generation with this system.

Here are the details:

Any item generated by this new system will have a line near the bottom of its tooltip:
- Minor Magic Item
- Lesser Magic Item
- Greater Magic Item
- Major Magic Item
- Lesser Artifact (this is approximately equivalent to an item Imbued to the max)
- Greater Artifact
- Major Artifact
- Legendary Artifact
The strength of an item generated depends partially on the strength and toughness of the creature killed.
There is a very small chance that a loot drop will be a very powerful item.
- This can happen with weak creatures, but is extremely rare
- This is more likely to happen with stronger creatures
- Luck significantly increases the chance of this happening
Item Strength has these effects on loot generation:
- Weak named items will tend to have fewer than 5 properties, leaving open slots for Imbuing
- Weak random items will generally have 5 item properties at low values
- Stronger items will tend to have 5 item properties
- Extremely powerful items will sometimes have more than 5 item properties
- Weak items tend to not be named, and to have random item properties
- Stronger items have a better chance of being generated as Named Items
- Weaker items have smaller chances of being generated with Disadvantages
- Stronger items have a much greater chance of being generated with Disadvantages
Many item properties generated by this system have more coarse granularity of values:
- For example, Luck only appears in increments of 10
- For example, Skill bonuses only appear in increments of 5
Disadvantages:
- These appear on items randomly.
- More powerful items tend to receive more disadvantages
- Each disadvantage grants the item significantly more power
- The disadvantages are:
  - Unlucky
    - Item shows “Luck -100” in tooltip
    - Item cannot have Luck and Unlucky at the same time
    - Provides a small boost to overall item power
  - Brittle
    - Item is 25 durability. Cannot use Powder of Fortification
    - Item cannot have Brittle and Durability at the same time
    - Provides a moderate boost to item power
  - Cannot Be Repaired
    - Item cannot be repaired by any means. Cannot use PoF
    - Provides a high boost to item power
  - Cursed
    - Item cannot be insured or blessed
    - Provides an extreme boost to item power
- Items that are free of disadvantages can be generated
  - Powerful items are very rarely “clean”
  - Weaker items are frequently “clean”
- Luck has no influence on the frequency of item Disadvantage generation
Item Generation
- Creatures are assigned a difficulty rating
- When the creature is killed, its Difficulty Rating and the killers’ Luck factor into loot generation
  - More difficult creatures generate more items
  - Each item receives a Base Item Property Budget
  - Each item receive s a Bonus Item Property Budget
  - The Bonus property budget may be added multiple times
  - The higher the killer’s Luck, the higher the chance of multiple Bonus Budget
- After the item budget is determined:
  - The higher the Budget, the more Disadvantage Rolls are made for the item
  - Each Disadvantage Roll has a chance of adding a new Disadvantage
  - Each Disadvantage adds a fixed bonus to the item’s Budget
- Once the final Budget is known:
  - The higher the Budget, the greater the chance of generating Named Items
  - The higher the Budget, the more Item Properties will be added
- Finally, the Budget is spent to add Item Properties to the item
Named Items
- There are 12 “packages” of Item Properties.
- Each Package contains a group of properties fitting a purpose or a theme
- Each package is associated with a Name Prefix
- Each package is associated with a Name Suffix
- Items can be generated as:
  - Unnamed (random properties)
  - Prefix Only (some properties from one package, some random)
  - Suffix Only (some properties from one package, some random)
  - Prefix and Suffix (some properties from one package, some from a different package)

The Name Prefixes and Suffixes

Prefix: Mighty	Suffix: of Vitality	Theme: Strength and Hit Point-related
Prefix: Mystic	Suffix: of Sorcery	Theme: Intelligence and mana-related
Prefix: Animaged	Suffix: of Haste	Theme: Dex, Stamina, and Speed
Prefix: Arcane	Suffix: of Wizardry	Theme: Spell casting modifiers
Prefix: Exquisite	Suffix: of Quality	Theme: Item Quality / Durability
Prefix: Vampiric	Suffix: of the Vampire	Theme: Leeches and Drains
Prefix: Invigorating	Suffix: of Restoration	Theme: Regeneration (incl. damage eaters)
Prefix: Fortified	Suffix: of Defense	Theme: Damage avoidance
Prefix: Auspicious	Suffix: of Fortune	Theme: Luck
Prefix: Charmed	Suffix: of Alchemy	Theme: Enhance Potions (incl. Balanced)
Prefix: Vicious	Suffix: of Slaughter	Theme: Dealing Damage (incl. Slayers)
Prefix: Towering	Suffix: of Aegis	Theme: Mitigating damage taken (incl. resists)

Example Items

The Ring is free of disadvantages. The Bracelet is Cursed, which boosts its Item Property strength up to “Greater Magic Item”.

Clean up Britiannia

Added 4 new pigments - Polished Bronze, Glossy Blue, Black and Green and Deep Violet – 1 charge 250,000 points. We will be changing this out each month so stock up while you can

Arenas

Arenas Go Live

The arenas located throughout the lands will go live with this publish. The arenas are located in the Lost Lands (both facets), Haven, and Ocllo. The following additions and changes have been made after the public testing done on the arenas test shard:

Match hosts may now choose to allow or disallow Field Spells
Match hosts now choose to allow or disallow potions, or to allow only non-healing potions
A bug that caused some summoned creatures to attack their owner in an arena match has been fixed

Moving forward, we will continue to accept feedback and use it to make further improvements to the arenas. In an future publish, look for the addition of a wagering system.

New High Resolution Terrain Art

As I am sure most of you have noticed the difference in the terrain in the Enhanced Client. Just letting everyone know this is just the first of many more to come. Next publish we will be updating the Wall tile art, I think everyone will really appreciate the new look. Below are a few pictures of what is coming:

We are looking foward to getting your feedback!

Your UO Team

Christmas Gifts

Customizable Welcome Mats (2 styles)
Vocal Santa Statue
Customizable House type signs
Scroll of Transcendence Book

Veteran Reward Items

This year for the 14th year we have added the following in celebration:

Group Bracelet of Binding – This item allows you to bind with 10 people at once. Handy for those times when part of your group is lost or has issues with running into trees and being left behind.
Seed Box – This box will identify all seeds put into the box, it will hold and organize up to 500 seeds.
Shard Shields – We have added this as the 14th year vet reward. These are new art that represence a specific shard. The shield will give you a character transfer token once a month to the shard it represence. The token is account bound, so they can not be traded or sold. If you have a shield in your house and the house decays the shield will disappear.
Sheep Statue – This statue is a resource giver, it will give you 10 pieces of a random hide or wool. This caps at 100 resources so make sure you collect your items.

Bug Fixes

Then a pitcher is filled from a barrel it will no longer have 5 counts of water it will now have 40.
Fixed the issue with TC1 not linking to Ter Mur when wiped
Bird and Bovine slayers should now be factored in imbuing and insurance
You can no longer dye toggled quest items
Thunderstorm spell should now show the correct effect
Bladeweave will no longer function on non bleedable creatures
Removed Double strike from the list of bladeweave attack options
Added extra weight to liquor barrels which contains liquor.
Even if players are on 2 or more NPE skill gain quests and complete one of them, the buff icon no longer disappear.
Hired NPCs no longer vanish randomly.
Fix a bug that players couldn’t re-fill a pot of eggnog.

Updates

Update 1

The following changes were made to Publish 73 on November 3, 2011 while it was still only available on the Origin shard:

Loot fix in Shame that was causing player items to be reformatted.
You can now drag and drop items into the SOT Book and Seed boxes
Corrected an issue with obtaining the Seed box in the Veteran Reward System
Summoned pets will no longer attack each other
Fixed an issue with the respawn timer on the Cave Troll in Shame