Ultima Online Patch Notes for 12/16/1997

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Ultima Online Patch Notes for 12/16/1997

These are the official patch notes from the original release of Ultima Online. These patch notes were found at [1].

Client changes

• Some coloring issues with the transparency circle related to ghosthood and hued objects were fixed.
• The interaction between the transluccency bubble and popped foliage was fixed.
• Target highlighting for the criminal flag is now in place. You won't ever see a blue highlight on someone with the criminal flag.
• We have added the capability to have target highlighting for any action, so it will start to manifest for spells, skills, etc, that may affect notoriety. These additions will be gradual and will appear over time.
• You can't get "stuck" on text anymore, as it does not register the mouse right-click on it.
• Options menu
  • There is now a completely new options menu graphic.
  • There are now toggles for your footsteps sounds, for the bubble of transparency, and for the notoroety query popup window.
  • The "Call GM" button has been changed to read "Help" instead, to better reflect what it actually does.

Skills

• The "training exploit" is now fixed.
• Fletching is now difficulty based--of course, it's a very simple task. All it is is attaching arrows to shafts. :) So the success rate at 0 skill is around 50%, and at around 40% success is almost guaranteed. Bowyering was already difficulty based.
• Provoking guards once again carries an extra notoriety penalty.
• Player made traps
  • A tinker can now use his tools on ingots, and get three new choices on the menu.
    • explosion traps require a purple potion
    • dart traps require a crossbow bolt
    • poison traps require a green potion
  • Once you make a trap, you are prompted as to the object to put it on. You can only trap unlocked objects that are not in their home locations (meaning, owned by the game--chests and doors in towns are examples of objects at their home locations.)
  • The trap will go off if someone attempts to use the object while it is unlocked.
  • If the object is locked, the trap will not go off when someone tries to use the item (they get the "it's locked" message). But it becomes very difficult to pick the lock unless the thief has a good Detect Hidden skill. If the thief has both skills at a good level, he may succeed at both unlocking the item and also disarming the trap.
  • If you manage to pick a trapped lock without detecting the trap, the trap will go off when the item is used.
  • Using the right key on the trapped object will unlock the object and the trap will not go off.
• Armslore
  • The full range of armslore messages should now be reported.
  • It now reports "brand-new" if an item has not been damaged.
  • This now works on items in a shopkeeper's sell window. So does item identification.
• Crafting
  • Wooden shields are now made by carpentry.
  • We think the cause of unwanted anvil creation is fixed.
  • The lack of ore in the mountains should be improved. Please note that it is quite possible to "mine out" a region! If you want a reliable supply of ore, you may have to start up a business ferrying it from an island, or from a little-visited mountain range.
  • Scissors now update how many yards of cloth are left.
  • Flax should be spinnable now.
  • Birds will provide many more feathers now
• Herding
  • You can no longer herd tame animals.
  • Herding is now difficulty based. You will only improve from tackling increasingly tougher animals to herd. The scale of difficulty is similar to that for animal taming.
• Stealing
  • Stealing now works with pack animals.
  • Targeted stealing no longer works with locked containers.
  • You explicitly cannot steal from shopkeeper inventories.
  • It now obeys line of sight.
  • You can once again snoop into containers within containers, though naturally the difficulty becomes greater the deeper you go.

Combat

• A tweak was done to the way random values were rolled for weapon damages. As a result, weapons should be doing slightly higher damage, on average, but also with wider ranges. This will also result in higher prices for weapons.
• Creatures will no longer go after a new opponent if they are already in combat. They also choose combatants based on proximity.
• The price calculations for weapons and armor now better accounts for speed, damage, and AR. The value now takes into account the coverage the item provides, which should give a better indication by price of the actual utility of the item. This means that the range of weapon and armor costs was extended at the upper end, with plate now costing more than chain.
• Many monsters were not doing enough damage to get through armor, so the amount of damage armor absorbs overall was reduced. The result was that armor does not protect as much in combat as it used to, and a fully armored fighter should expect to be considerably more at risk than before.
• Archery
  • Arrows now inflict the damage one second after the arrow is lanuched, instead of when the attack is launched.
  • If an arrow misses, there is a good chance that it will be left on the ground just past the target.
  • If an arrow hits, there is a (lesser) chance that it will be stuck in the corpse. This doesn't work with players, who automatcally break arrow shafts that hit them. ;)
• Melee damage now occurs after the swing animation, instead of before.
• Standard weapon combat was slowed slightly.
• Equipping a weapon in combat will restart your weapon swing.

Magic

• A bug with magic reflect and hiding was fixed.
• Invisibility now also affects notoriety when cast on folks with low notoriety.
• Friendly humans in town (shopkeepers, etc) do not take damage from spells in town now.
• Inscribe has been fixed up, which should remove the duplicate spells in spellbook problem.
• A problem with incognito interacting with the notoriety loss from aiding bad people was fixed.
• Field spells now check for the location of the field for calling guards, and don't check spell resistance.
• Area effect damage spells (chain lightning, meteor storm, and earthquake) now do less damage the farther from the center of the effect the victim is.
• Archprotect has been fixed from messing up AR.
• Magic resistance is now difficulty based--it only improves if you resist tougher spells--based on spell damage and spell level.
• Nondamaging spells (including damaging spells in justice regions) no longer increase magic resistance, though they do check against it.
• Gate travel moongates now take pets with you. Note that recall does not!
• You cannot ride while polymoprhed, and polymorphing automatically dismounts you.
• Gate travel will not work if something is blocking the old marked location.
• Spell damage against non-players has been doubled.
• Reagents have been made cheaper.
• Health and mana above a player's normal maximum will wear off very quickly.
• Casters of fire field, paralyzation field, and poison field are now flagged criminal for the duration of the field.
• Damage from standing in a fire field (as opposed to walking into it) has been reduced, to help those who land in them when they step out of dungeons.
• Players are exempt from notoriety decrease for beneficial spellcasting on their pets, if their pets happen to be bad things.
• Incognito cannot be cast on virtue guards.
• Summoning now tries to find a valid nearby location. They can only be summoned into a house or ship if the caster is in the house or on the ship.

Creatures

• Vendors (you can now hire NPCs to run your shop)
  • Tavernkeepers now sell "a contract for employment."
  • Use this contract near a house you own to create a vendor.
  • Vendors must be paid: they cost 100 coins per day, plus 1% of the value of everything they've got. This is withdrawn from they gold they hold for their employer.
  • If a vendor runs out of gold, he will destroy the gold he's holding and kill himself, leaving all the goods he's got on the corpse.
  • Vendors answer to their name, "vendor" and "shopkeeper"
  • Employers can give items to their vendors, and are prompted for an asking price and a description.
  • Employers and customers alike can open up the containers in a vendor.
  • Employers can freely take items from a vendor.
  • Employers can give containers full of items to vendors, and set a price on the container as a whole.
  • Customers can buy items from a vendor using gold they have on their person or in the bank.
  • Customers can use appraise and identify on items a vendor sells.
  • Customers can open items in a vendor's inventory if they are for sale.
  • You can shove through vendors.
  • You cannot steal from a vendor.
  • Vendors have the gold given to them from purchases, and employers may of course collect it (though they shouldn't collecy all of it, as noted above)
• There's a new orc mage now. Also an orc lord.
• Rumor has it that the orc fort is becoming more populated...
• A bug was fixed whereby giving a pet an order, then cancelling it, then giving a fresh order sometimes resulted in the execution of the first order.
• Pack animals
  • Looking at what a pack animal carries will not check snooping for the owner, but will for everyone else.
  • You can no longer put items in pack animals that do not belong to you.
  • They should be identified properly now when looked at or listed in a shop window.

Ships and houses

• The decay timer on ships and houses now resets only when the door or plank is used by the owner. The owner gets a message when this occurs.
• The tillerman and the house sign now display the current decay state of the ship or house.
• You can now double-click the tillerman to enter the name for a ship. You will be prompted in the lower left corner of your screen.
• Looking at the tillerman will now give the name of the ship.
• The name of ship now appears on the claim ticket when it is drydocked.
• The tillerman no longer tells stories if no one is on the boat.

Ghosts

• Ghosts now automatically leave combat mode when resurrected.
• You are now frozen after the yes/no resurrection window comes up.

Map

• Serpent's Hold, Minoc, Magincia, Moonglow, and Ocllo have all gained banks.
• It will no longer be possible to build houses in Wind.
• More monsters will appear in Wind.
• A portion of Wind is now a justice region.
• It will no longer be possible to build houses in dungeons.

Quests

• Escort and prisoner quest NPCs will no longer have generic human behaviors, so they should be a lot less distracted and talkative.
• Escort quests now raise notoriety when completed.
• Escortees and prisoners clean themselves up after the quest ends now.
• Anytime an escortee or prisoner hears the voice of their leader, they will refollow you.
• Some bugs were fixed which made them delete themselves after being spoken to.
• Murder quests are going away.

Miscellaneous

• Banks now have a strict weight limit for items other than gold, set at 1000 stones. Gold is exempt from any weight limit. This should not cause any problems to the existing bank accounts.
• Guards should now be called correctly if there was no victim to the crime.