Ultima Online Patch Notes for 02/12/1998

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Ultima Online Patch Notes for 02/12/1998

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

Note that some items from the Test Center were not published with this update.

• The use of the TAB key in combat has become configurable. The UO.CFG option

HoldTabForCombat=(yes|on|no|off)

lets you choose which way it will operate. If the option is set to yes or on, then holding down the TAB key will keep you in combat mode, and releasing the key will return you to peace mode. If the option is off, then the TAB key will work exactly like a combat mode macro toggle: hit it once to enter combat mode, hit it again to exit.

• Your current target will remain highlighted in combat even if you move the mouse off.
• The resurrect spell will have a very small range--you must be standing next to the ghost to resurrect them. This is because of the number of house break-in tactics involving resurrection via tricky lines of sight.
• Recall changes in dungeons:
  • You can freely recall in and out of dungeons on the first level.
  • On the second level of dungeons, you can recall out with no problems, but gating in becomes difficult because of the mass of stone and earth preventing you from forming a clear mental picture of the destination.
  • Deeper into the dungeons, recall does not function at all.
• Stablemasters and animal trainers should be restocking now.
• A general pass on balancing weapons has been done to ensure that there is no "best weapon" in the game, and that each of the three weapons proficiencies is a competitive choice depending on your stats and tactics. Note that this only affects new weapons, not existing ones.
• An in-game guild system will allow players to form guilds, recruit members, set guild names and abbreviations (abbreviations to show with their name), and eventually wage war between guilds.
  • Deeds are sold at provisioners. Use the deed to place the stone.
    • You must be in a house or a boat.
    • There cannot be an existing guildstone there.
    • You cannot be in a guild already
    • You have to own the house or boat.
    • You will be prompted for a guild name. This name cannot conflict with any existing guild name.
    • A guildstone will appear where you were standing. It will have the name you specified.
    • The first person to use the stone will become the guildmaster.
  • Using the guildstone: double-click it. If you are not a member, you will be told you cannot use it. If you are an accepted candidate, you will automatically join the guild and be allowed in as a full member.
  • When you use the guildstone as a member, a menu will appear:
    • Recruit lets you sponsor someone for membership.
      • They can't be a member anywhere else
      • They have to be with you when you sponsor them
      • Only a dozen or so candidates can be on the list at a time
    • View roster lets you see current membership, 20 to a page.
    • View charter lets you see the clan's description and also launch to their website. Both of these must be entered by the GM.
    • Declare fealty lets you set who you are loyal to. The default is yourself. The person with the most people loyal (directly or indirectly) is automatically the leader of the guild.
    • Toggle abbreviation toggles whether or not people see the guild abbreviation above your name when they look at you. If there is no guild abbreviation, they see the full guild name.
    • Resign removes you from the guild. If resigning would leave the guild with no members, the guildstone vanishes and the guild is disbanded.
    • View candidates lets you see the list of people that are currently sponsored to the guild.
    • If you are the guild's leader, you also get one more option, access guildmaster functions, which opens another menu.
  • The guild leader menu:
    • Set guild name lets you change the guild name--if it matches an existing guild's name, it won't be allowed
    • Set guild abbreviation works similarly.
    • Set guild charter lets you enter a small amount of text for the guild's charter statement, and also enter a website. The default website is http://www.ultimaonline.com
    • Dismiss member lets you kick out a current member.
    • Declare war is currently inactive, and says so on the menu.
    • Accept candidate moves someone from the candidates list to the accepted list.
    • Refuse candidate removes someone from the candidates list.
    • Set guildmaster title lets you change it from "Guildmaster" to whatever you want. It will be reflected on all menus and in any messages that include the title.
    • Grant title will let you give a title to another guildmember.
    • Return to main menu returns to the main menu
  • Changes in guild name or abbreviation, membership standing, leader-granted title, or guilds being disbanded will notify all online members, and offline members will be notified when they log in. In addition, name changes and disbandings will also notify all online guilded players regardless of guild.
  • After selecting any option, you hit the CONTINUE button. The CANCEL button will exit you from the guildstone menu at any moment.
• We're expanding and extending the creature AI to make the simulated ecology both more visible and more fun.
• The tillerman now accepts the order "one <direction>" and "direction <one>" for more precise movement.
• All targeted spells now have ranges.
• Text wrapping in books should be fixed.
• Combat highlighting with people on horses should work properly.
• Snooping now has a skill delay.
• Female plate mail is now actually plate mail and requires ingots to make. Its stats have also been altered as well to better reflect its coverage of the equipment slots (not the body, it's still a competitive choicei for full body armor).
• Pack animals should display correctly in the shop window.
• Various optimizations were done to the server to increase performance.
• Banks will become available in Jhelom, Skara Brae, Minoc.
• Dungeons will be becoming darker.
• Music in dungeons should be better.
• A problem with magic items that modify stats and skills not returning your stats and skills to their original values should be fixed.
• Problems with items decaying in houses should be fixed. Note that if you stole items to furnish your house with, they will still decay!
• Vendors now die if the house they are associated with decays.
• There is now a limit of 2 vendors per house.
• The incognito spell will return, changed to instead alter your physical appearance and apparent name.
• Having both a chaos shield and a silver serpent shield will not be possible anymore; equipping one will automatically delete the other from your inventory or bankbox.
• The magic ritual for summoning creatures will now take longer.
• Looking at containers will tell you how much weight they are holding, and how many items are within.
• Gold in the bank will not count towards weight no matter how deeply nested in other containers it is.
• The messages for containers at capacity will be made clearer.
• You won't be able to use spinning wheels through walls.
• A bug in training when the cost was under 10gp was fixed.
• Using a bedroll in a campsite will now pop up a yes/no confirmation window for logging out.
• Various problems with unusable gates were fixed, and messages when failing to gate or recall were made clearer.
• House costs have been drastically increased.
• The radar view will reflect ambient light level, and thus will be darkened at night and in dungeons.